Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/24/24

Episode Date: April 24, 2024

Biden pins Florida 6-week abortion ban on Trump

I think everybody has made their own assessment of President Trump's character. And so far as I know, you don't pay someone one hundred and thirty thousand dollars not to have sex with you. He described the Dobbs decision as a miracle. Maybe it's coming from that Bible he's trying to sell. Whoa. I almost wanted to buy one to see what the hell's in it. Republican Senator Mitt Romney and President Biden, Willie, making jokes about Donald Trump. There was a lot to go around yesterday.

Mitt Romney. Wow. Bring it home, Willie. Yeah, Mitt Romney going in on there. Obviously, he's no love lost between those two men. Mitt Romney on his way out of the Senate, no punches anymore. Expect to hear more of that through the campaign. Absolutely. And it's a good point. You don't just pay one hundred and thirty thousand dollars for nothing. That's for sure. We'll have expert legal analysis on yesterday's testimony in the hush money trial and the gag order against Trump straight ahead.

President Biden's joke came while he was campaigning in Florida on the issue of reproductive rights and women's health care, blaming Trump for overturning Roe and these extreme abortion laws. We'll show you more of the president's speech. Quite a flex going down to Florida while Trump was stuck in court in New York City. And on Capitol Hill, a top Republican admits that it is Trump's fault that border security has not passed. We knew that. But to hear this Republican say it really brings it home. And Willie, I had the news on all day yesterday and I heard the word pecker one more time. I thought I was going to lose my mind. But he was the lead story, pecker. David Pecker. We should be clear. David Pecker, the first witness in the New York case. Yes, the hush money draft. Yes. All right. So good morning, everybody. Welcome to Morning Joe.

It's Wednesday, April 24th. Along with Willie and me, we have member of the New York Times editorial board, Mara Gay, and deputy managing editor for politics at Politico, Sam Stein is with us. And Willie, our top story has to do with, of course, David Pecker. Yes, I think you're enjoying saying his name. I'm picking up on a theme this morning. Testimony in Donald Trump's hush money criminal trial is scheduled to resume tomorrow after several key developments in court yesterday. They have the day off today. First, Judge Juan Mershon held a hearing at the start of today's Tuesday's proceeding to determine whether the former president had violated his gag order.

Prosecutors argued Trump had done so at least 10 times and won him held in contempt. They have asked the judge to fine him $1,000 for each violation. Trump's defense team argued their client has not violated the order, but was merely reposting opinions of others on social media and was, quote, being careful about complying with the order. But the judge expressed extreme frustration with that argument, telling Trump attorney Todd Blanch he is, quote, losing all credibility with the court. Later outside the courtroom, Trump told reporters any violation of the gag order in articles he reposts to social media is unintentional. Somebody writes an article. If I read every one of these articles intentional. So he says, So I put an article in and then somebody's name is mentioned somewhere deep in the article and I end up in violation of the gag order. So he says he's innocently reposting things that do, in fact, violate the gag order, attacking

witnesses and others. Judge Mershon has not yet issued an immediate ruling on whether or not that was a violation of the gag order. All 10 of them, as the prosecution alleges. Let's bring in former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin and former U.S. attorney and MSNBC contributor Barbara McQuaid. Good morning to you both. Lisa, I'll start with you. Clearly, Judge Mershon yesterday, very frustrated, had enough of the argument from the defense team that Donald Trump doesn't mean to be posting these things, that somehow he's not posting the whole article, so it's not as bad.

Where do you see this heading? I see this heading, Willie, toward a finding of contempt. The question is on how many of these 10 posts and with what remedy? At this point, the DA's office was very clear. They are not seeking any term in jail for Trump. And of course, that's one of two alternatives under the criminal contempt statute here in New York. So expect to see a written opinion from Judge Mershon and the next couple of days that talks about the addition to these offensive posts, Trump has talked about the gag order and many other posts, including a video that he posted to Truth Social fairly recently. And their point was Trump knows exactly what he can and can't do under the gag order. If he didn't, he wouldn't be complaining about the strictures of it. He also has posted rampantly about the judge, about the district attorney,

about the process as a whole in ways that he understands full well. Do not flout the gag order. And so, again, expect to see a written opinion from Judge Mershon in the next couple of days that finds Donald Trump anywhere from, I would imagine, $5,000 to $10,000 and also orders him to take the offensive posts down with a warning the next violation will result in something far worse. Barbara, you do get the sense that the former president is testing this judge. Is he really going to hold me in contempt for violating the gag order every time he complains about it? He then goes outside to that bank of cameras and violates the gag order. So let's say it is in the next couple of days this ruling comes down and it's $5,000 or $8,000 or however many counts of

violation of the gag order the judge deems that Donald Trump has committed. Is that a step towards something else after that? I mean, I'm not sure $7,000 is going to deter Donald Trump. Yes, I think that most judges like to use progressive discipline. That is, you know, your first violation will get you one fine. A subsequent violation might get you a higher fine. And then ultimately, of course, this judge has the power to jail Donald Trump for even up to 30 days. It does seem that Donald Trump is almost trying to bait the judge here. He wants to perhaps demonstrate to his supporters that he is above the law and he can get away with anything he wants to. But on the other hand, you're sort of damned if you do, damned if you

don't. If you do jail Donald Trump, then doesn't that just fulfill his prophecy that this has all just been a witch hunt to try to curtail his election efforts and interfere with the election. But I think if I were Judge Mershon, I would follow the advice of Janet Reno, who once said, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. And when you find yourself in that situation, the best thing to do is to do the right thing. And any other litigant who found themselves in that circumstance, who repeatedly violated a gag order order would find themselves jailed. And so I think that ultimately that is the risk that Donald Trump faces. Well, we'll see. And following the gag order hearing, testimony

resumed with David Pecker returning to the witness stand for a second day. He's the former CEO of American Media Incorporated, which is the parent company of the National Enquirer. Pecker revealed he was present at Trump's 2015 campaign announcement at Trump Tower and said former Trump attorney Michael Cohen told him he should be there. Two months later, the three men then had a meeting. That's when prosecutors alleged the election scheme was hatched. Specifically, Pecker told Trump and Cohen he would be their, quote, eyes and ears on stories that could be damaging to Trump. Additionally, he told them he would run positive stories about Trump and run negative stories about his opponents. The articles included stories about then Trump rivals and now allies, Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Ben Carson. Pecker said Cohen would call and say, we would like you to run an article on a specific target.

The Inquirer would then embellish it from there. When asked who the we was that Cohen referred to, Pecker said he understood it to mean Cohen and Trump. So Barbara, I'll start with you and then Lisa. Can you go back to what is the law that prosecutors are trying to prove that Trump broke? Or what is the crime that Trump committed that he's sitting there in court for? And how does Pecker's testimony

help corroborate that in any way? Well, of course, the law here is falsification of business records to conceal the commission of another crime. And I think what the prosecutors have done that is very helpful here is to start with the crime and then talk about the falsification of the business records as the cover up, because that's really what it was and that's why it matters. So here the crime is a statute under New York law 17-152 that makes it a crime to conspire to promote or prevent the election of any candidate to office by unlawful means. And the unlawful means here is campaign expenditures without an intent to report them.

And so Michael Cohen paid $130,000. The National Enquirer paid $30,000 to the doorman and $120,000 to Karen McDougal. It's those payments that make this illegal. So the moment that money changes hands, the crime is committed. And in fact, it's enough that they falsify these with the intent to do that. But they've also got that evidence of illegal campaign expenditures and that plan, that conspiracy to violate that statute. Seventeen dash one fifty two occurred on that day in August of 2015, and it extended all the way through the election and beyond throughout this cover up. So, Lisa, I'm curious about I know this is sort of

looking at sort of the exterior things, but in the courtroom, just the demeanor of Trump and just watching this closely from home, seeing him coming into court from the beginning, I feel like I don't want to overstate it, but he seems very subdued. It seems his colorful personality has almost turned gray, if I could. And I just wonder if it's the walking in and having to sit down, cameras in his face, arch enemies in the courtroom every day. Is it getting to him or is it the case itself that's bothering him? All of it. What are you seeing in the courtroom play out? I mean, you think about David Pecker sitting there and everybody asking David Pecker or talking on the air about questions about what David Pecker knows.

I'm thinking it's possible that David Pecker has a few more secrets about Donald Trump than the ones that are being discussed. I think you're absolutely right, Mika. I expect David Pecker to be on the stand through the end of the week. I think the prosecution still has at least several more hours of direct testimony with David Pecker. What makes me say that? Well, first of all, we left off yesterday with the beginning of the Karen McDougal settlement.

And that means we have to talk through that story, the Stormy Daniels settlement and the inquirer's involvement in that. But also, as you mentioned, through 2017, when we know that David Packer saw Trump at least twice, where he was thanked by Trump for his contributions to the election. So there's a lot of ground chronologically still to cover. And as you noted, a lot of conversations still to testify to. David Pecker testified yesterday to at least two conversations directly with Donald Trump. That August 2015 meeting that Trump and Cohen invited him to.

And when he got to, asked him, essentially, what can you do for us in relation to the campaign? What can you personally do? What can the inquirer do? And that's how David Pecker came up with I'll be your eyes and ears. He also talked about a conversation on the phone with Donald Trump when Karen McDougal surfaced, when Trump solicited his advice and basically said, Michael has told me about Karen. What do you think? But we know from David Pecker's beginning testimony that he talked to Trump once he became a candidate, at least once a week by phone, and says he saw him in person once a month. What's particularly notable about that is Pecker says he

saw and talked to Trump more after he became a candidate than he did before. I don't know about you, but usually when people run for president of the United States and become a major party nominee, they have a whole lot less time for the other people in their life as they're blanketing the country for their campaigns. So I think we have a lot more to hear from David Hecker in the days to come. Absolutely. Mara Gay, I'm just thinking about the checkbook journalism that was really laid out in full display in the courtroom. And I'm trying to think of what the jurors were thinking. I mean, definitely when I was growing up, I'm not sure you're a little younger. I just go into the grocery store with my mom. There was the National Enquirer and there were crazy pictures of famous people, you know, crazy stories. And I just wonder,

is the is the theme here that the Enquirer could move the meter on on the way people think? Do people see it as journalism? Is this surprising to the jury or do they see it as a joke like most of us in this world do? Or is it somewhere in the middle? You know, it's I'm glad you brought that up, Mika, because one of the most disturbing parts as a journalist of this case to me is even, I mean, David Pecker's description is checkbook journalism. I wouldn't call it journalism at all, in fact. But, you know, generally you don't pay for stories. We don't do that. That's just not how journalists operate when they're ethical and news organizations don't operate that way. But the thing about the National Enquirer is, number one, it's a throwback. I mean, I think that there are anybody under the age of 25 is saying, what, who, when,

what are you even talking about? But I do think it really feeds into, you know, what you're talking about, which is you used to sit at the grocery store right before you checked out and you'd say, oh, gee, I wonder if that's true. And that is kind of a hallmark of what Donald Trump does and those around him he instructs them to do, which is just to introduce doubt, to plant a seed of whether it's a conspiracy or a lie and allow it to blossom kind of naturally. And so that seems to be what he was doing by using David Packer. And I guess I just wonder, Lisa, I wonder if you couldanche said in his opening, is perfectly lawful. It's called democracy. The problem with that is that, of course, yes, in isolation, non-disclosure agreements are lawful. But to put them to a purpose that this has been put to, in other words,

to influence an election by not reporting in kind or actual campaign contributions, essentially, is not lawful. And so I think their best defense is to distance Donald Trump from the cover up. And that's where the DA's own evidence seems weakest, at least in terms of direct evidence. They have a ton of direct evidence about the formation of the conspiracy and Donald Trump's knowledge and intent to carry out those payments through Michael Cohen and through David Pecker. What's harder to establish, and I think you saw this in listening closely to the DA's opening statement, is when it comes to how it was papered over. Yes, Donald Trump signed some checks. Can

they show, on the other hand, that Donald Trump knew exactly what he was paying Michael Cohen for and understood that without relying entirely on Michael Cohen? That remains a little bit to be seen. That's the part of the case that I'm most looking forward to. It will be far more dull than all the salacious aspects of checkbook journalism and Karen McDougal and Stormy Daniels. But it's the most important part of the case because that's the crime, as Barb noted, that they have to prove. They have to prove that he falsified business records or caused other people to do it with intent. Yeah, to connect those dots, although most of us believe that's exactly what happened. They have to prove that. So, Sam, it was yesterday a bit

like reliving the 2016 campaign. We were talking about Ted Cruz's father being involved somehow in the JFK assassination. There was the headline in the National Enquirer during that campaign that Dr. Ben Carson had left a sponge inside someone's brain during surgery that the National Enquirer put out there. And to Mika's question tomorrow, whether it's all a joke, well, of course it is. We all laughed at those headlines when we were kids at the grocery store. But Donald Trump picked up on them and it almost didn't matter anymore where they came from. He'd throw it out there at a rally in his audience and say, oh, yeah, I did. I heard that. So there is some element of reliving all this, which is part of what the Biden campaign is hoping through all these cases,

that people will be reminded of how exhausting and how full of lies the Biden campaign is hoping through all these cases, that people will be reminded of how exhausting and how full of lies the Trump years, the Trump campaign and the Trump presidency were. Yeah. First of all, I'm surprised Mara would slander the publication's good name. They've broken a fair number of alien love child stories that panned out. And I just think you should apologize. Secondly, does Mika have a clause in her contract where if she mentions David Pecker a certain number of times, like a bonus kicks in? It's like getting a little crazy. It's all I heard yesterday. Like Woody Woodpecker. It's all I'm hearing this morning. All right. Well, all right. I thought it was funny.

Back. It is funny. Back on script. To Willie's point, yeah. I mean, look, the meta story here is that you have Biden on the trail. He's talking about abortion. He's campaigning. He's doing sort of the nuts and bolts of politics. He's very conventional. And then you have Trump in a courtroom. First of all, he's distracted.

He can't do the things that he needs to do on a campaign. But he's also embroiled in literal tabloid controversy of his own making. And so, yeah, that contrast obviously is something that the Biden campaign welcomes. I will just say we were talking about the defense here, and I would ask this of Barbara, too. I actually think the defense is fairly easy here, right, which is that this man, David Pecker, ran the National Enquirer, which literally made up stories and peddled lies.

Why should we believe that he's telling the truth now? And same with Michael Cohen, honestly. He has admitted that in prior iterations when he was working for Trump, he lied. Why should we believe anything he has to say now? That to me, Barbara, seems like a very powerful defense to say these people are admitted liars. They were in this industry of disinformation. You should not believe what they have to say. What would the

prosecution do with that? Sure. And that comes up in many criminal cases. You know, oftentimes a prosecutor needs to use as a witness somebody who was a criminal associate of the defendant. And, you know, the common statement is to say in closing argument, look, I didn't choose these witnesses. The defendant did by associating himself with us very closely. And that's how they know all of these things that happened. But the key, of course, is to find corroborating evidence so that the jury doesn't have to take their word for it, to find other witnesses who do have credibility to be able to testify about it.

And that's where I think we're going to hear from people like Hope Hicks and other people who worked for the Trump organization. We're going to see documents in the forms of checks and ledgers. And we're going to hear that recording between Michael Cohen and Donald Trump, where he talks about setting up essential consultants and some of the other payments. So that's the way you rehabilitate a witness who is going to be beat up on cross-examination. You can see it coming for David Pecker, for sure. It's coming from Michael Cohen. And if she testifies, it'll definitely be coming for Stormy Daniels as well. But it happens in many cases. And very often that corroboration is enough to rehabilitate those witnesses. All right. Former U.S. attorney Barbara McQuaid and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin.

Thank you both very much for your coverage and analysis this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe, the Senate passed the ninety five billion dollar foreign aid package last night. We'll show you what leaders from both sides of the aisle are saying about the critical funding for Ukraine. Plus, the latest from Columbia University amid heated protests on campus in response to the Israel-Gaza war. We'll look at how the FBI is getting involved to prevent violence. Also this morning, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is our guest. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 60 seconds.

President Biden was on the campaign trail yesterday in Donald Trump's home state. The president gave a speech on reproductive rights one week before Florida's six-week abortion ban goes into effect. Six weeks. He blamed Trump for the repeal of Roe v. Wade and extreme abortion laws across the country. For 50 years, the court ruled that there was a fundamental constitutional right to privacy. But two years ago, that was taken away. Let's be real clear. There's one person responsible for this nightmare,

and he's acknowledging and he brags about it, Donald Trump. Well, you know, now Trump says the law is, quote, working the way it's supposed to. Trump goes on to say individual state laws are working, his words, brilliantly. Brilliantly. It's a six-week ban in Florida. It's really brilliant, isn't it? Even before women know they're pregnant.

Is that brilliant? He says it's up to the states. And this is all about states' rights. But he's wrong. The Supreme Court was wrong. It should be a constitutional right in the federal constitution, a federal right. And it shouldn't matter where in America you live. It's about, this isn't about state rights, it's about women's rights.

Joining us now, Washington Bureau Chief at USA Today, Susan Page. She's the author of a new biography entitled The Rule Breaker, The Life and Times of Barbara Walters. And we'll get to that in just a moment. I can't wait, Susan. Congratulations on the book. I just want to ask about Joe Biden in Florida. First, just the flex of that. Donald Trump is stuck in a New York City courtroom, a grimy courtroom, talking about his relationship with head of the National Enquirer, David Pecker, and stories that they tried to move along to try and defame people or at least get people to think badly of them and stories they might have tried to hide so that Trump doesn't look bad. I mean, the whole thing's just gross. It's seedy. It's unseemly. And it might be even a little surprising to people as to how that all works.

And there you have Joe Biden in a state that's going to be pretty hard to flip blue. But perhaps a six week ban could give the Biden campaign a fighting chance. Can you talk about that ban and how it's not just reproductive rights and choice, but it's also we're going to see the health of women in Florida severely impacted by a ban like this? Well, we know that women overwhelmingly in this country think that is an unreasonable limitation on access to abortion. And that's true of Republican women, too. So, you know, it's hard to imagine that Democrats actually carry Florida in November, but it's not hard to imagine that women in Georgia and North Carolina and Arizona and elsewhere were listening to the president yesterday and nodding their heads in agreement when he talks about that Florida ban, Mika. And Mara, what do you make of Joe Biden in Florida, especially his comments on reproductive

freedom? Well, I think, first of all, it is a flex and it's a reminder to Donald Trump. It's essentially Joe Biden saying to Donald Trump, you can't escape this. You did this. You built this, to use another campaign slogan. And I think that Donald Trump, you can't escape this. You did this. You built this, to use another campaign slogan. And I think that Donald Trump has been extremely mealy-mouthed. You know, he's talked out of both sides of his mouth, said that the Dobbs ruling is working as it should. Other times he's said certain states have gone too far. Ultimately, women in America and voters in America know exactly who it is that put the Supreme Court justices in place who, you know, ultimately struck down Roe versus Wade. And I think it's going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for the Republican Party and Donald Trump to escape

that responsibility. But the thing that Biden is capitalizing on is that women across America and not just women are extremely motivated by this issue. So the more that Joe Biden can keep this in the news, it's not just about Florida. It's about people in Michigan who are looking at this and saying, oh yeah, that's right. I'm very angry. This is a hugely motivating issue. We saw referendums in that state in Michigan. We saw referendums in Kansas over the past few years. This is not a red state, blue state issue. Americans are furious over this. And Joe Biden is reminding them exactly why. And Sam, as Mika says, even the Biden campaign concedes Florida might be a long shot, but it's worth going there. Like Mara just said,

to our broadcast to the country, to Florida broadcast, to the country, to Florida, but to the country, this is what Donald Trump has wrought. And Donald Trump has been tied in knots on this issue, coming out and saying, well, I guess it's a state's right. What I really meant was let's send this back to the states. Joe Biden goes to Florida and says, here's what happens when you send it back to the states. Kamala Harris goes to Arizona, says, here's what's happened when you sent it back to the states, a law dating back to 1864. So they are going to hammer this point all the way through November. Oh, totally. And let me just add to Amar's say, which is that, you know, this is not something that is going to go away. And it's not just because Joe Biden will go to Florida or Kamala Harris will go to Arizona and say, hey, look what's happening in your states.

It's because there's going to be actual important news breaks on this issue. So in Arizona, for instance, the legislature has to or will likely consider law to overturn the state Supreme Court ban of abortion, that 1864 law. Today at the Supreme Court, there is the first hearing for a challenge of a law in Idaho that prohibits emergency abortions and emergency medical situations. That decision will likely be held before the election. There's a number of other decisions, a number of other initiatives that will take place before November, not to mention the ballot initiatives that will take place on Election Day. So this isn't like one of these things where Joe Biden has to manufacture it into existence. It's clearly going to be one of the top three election issues from now until November. And

there's going to be multiple inflection points where we will talk about it because of something big happening legislatively or in the court system. Well, this is an issue and this is the kind of health care that doesn't do politics. Republican and Democrats in Florida, women who need health care are going to find themselves in a bind, to say the least, whether they are pregnant or not, whether they need a DNC or a termination or not. Maybe they have fibroids. Maybe they're going through some menopausal symptoms. There will be procedures they can't get thanks to Donald Trump. So, yes, this is on Trump. And in Florida, you can, you know, between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, you've got a team there that really made a landscape for women that is downright dangerous.

And Republican women and the men who love them are going to find themselves having to leave the state just to get basic health care. Thanks to Donald Trump. So, Susan, let's talk about your new book. It focuses on the life and times of legendary broadcast journalist Barbara Walters. Back in 1980, Walters was granted a relatively rare interview with Richard Nixon following his resignation from the presidency years earlier. At the very end of their nearly hour-long talk, Walters asked Nixon this. In just a few seconds, we have left now, and there's almost just time for yes or no. Are you sorry you didn't burn the tapes?

You know, interestingly enough, everybody in Europe that I talked to said, why didn't you burn the tapes? And the answer is, I probably should have. But mainly, I shouldn't have even installed them because Johnson system was there. I had it taken out and I shouldn't have ever put them in the first place. But if you had it to do all over again, you'd burn them. Yes, I think so, because they were private conversations subject to misinterpretation,

as we have all seen. Wow. Susan Page, talk about the book, that moment and some other captivating revelations about really the trailblazer for us all. You know, such a such a classic Barbara Walters question in eight words. She managed to put a former president on the spot and admit to an incredibly news-breaking acknowledgement that he wished he had burned the tapes. And, you know, that's the kind of question that she would have worked on for weeks and weeks beforehand, trying to figure out exactly how to ask it that wouldn't give Nixon an exit door to dodge. You know, Mika, the thing that struck me about Barbara Walters is she became

incredibly famous, all this acclaim, lots of money. And I think it's easy to forget how hard it was for her to get there and how no woman had ever gotten there before. And the price she paid, you know, it's not that we have a perfectly level playing field now, but things are a whole lot different for women in broadcasting, women in journalism than it was for Barbara Walters. And a lot of that credit goes to Barbara Walters. Yes, for sure. You know, Susan, you kind of led me to my question, which is I'm thinking back to when Barbara Walters, I think it was in the early 1960s, got a job as a researcher on The Today Show. And then when she they decided she was good enough to be on the air, they called her, I think, the Today Girl.

You can correct me if I'm wrong, because it was certainly a boys club. And can you just speak for a generation who knows her name and has seen her face and watches old clips and understands that she's famous and a significant figure, just how important she was as a role model, as an example, not just for women, I would suggest, but for all of us in this business. You know, she didn't have a model. No woman had done what she proposed to do, and she didn't have much of a mentor either. She was out there on her own. It was a pretty lonely quest, and she just pushed her way ahead into a field that was not ready to welcome her. You know, when she got to be on The Today Show and participate in interviews with Frank McGee,

who was the host of The Today Show then, Frank McGee set a rule, a stated rule, that she could not speak until he had asked the first three questions. Now, can you imagine that? Whoa. And yet she took that. I mean, in a way, she took lemons and made lemonade because she then began to set up her own interviews outside the studio so that she could ask the first question and the second question and all the questions in the interview. That's amazing. The new book is entitled The Rule Breaker, The Life and Times of Barbara Walter. Susan Page, thank you so much for coming on this morning and congratulations on the book. Amazing.

Thank you. And coming up, another labor union is set to endorse President Biden today. We're going to be joined by the group's leader who says Donald Trump broke the promises he made while in the White House to them. Plus, the Senate just passed a package of foreign aid bills, which includes critical funding for Ukraine. And minority leader Mitch McConnell is blaming two people for the long delay in getting it approved. We'll play for you his comments on that. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. It's 39 past the hour. Cloudy day in Washington, D.C.

At a White House meeting in January of 2017, the head of North America's building trades unions praised then President Donald Trump for committing to improve the lives of labor workers. We just had probably the most incredible meeting of our careers with the president and the vice president and the senior staff when the president laid out his plans about how he's going to handle trade, how he's going to invest in our infrastructure, and how he's going to level the playing field for construction workers and all Americans across this country. And then took the time to take everyone into the Oval Office and show them the seat of power in the world. The respect that the president of the United States just showed us, and when he shows it to us, he shows it to 3 million of our members in the United States, was nothing short of incredible. Well, that was then, and this is now, and it's one thing to say something. it's another thing to do it. Fast forward to today, where the NABTU is endorsing President Joe Biden's 2024 campaign and launching a nationwide effort to keep Trump from ever returning to the White House. In a statement and an accompanying video, the group's president, Sean McGarvey, says Trump broke those promises he made to union leaders when he first took office.

You are promising America tonight you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody. Except for day one. Donald Trump, he's not a good man. He's not a good person. He does not care about anybody in this world except Donald Trump. That's it. That's all. Now he's looking to get in that position again to exert revenge on people. I go all the way back to the 80s with Donald Trump and him trying to, you know, get his mug on page six of the New York Post. The only difference between the Donald Trump of the 80s and the Donald Trump of today is

he feels totally free to let his dark side out. And his dark side is very, very dark and very, very dangerous for this country. We can't let our democracy that we've worked for and we've cherished just disintegrate with the wrong leader at the wrong time. I can tell you that he personally committed to me that he was going to get our pensions fixed. He understood who was affected by these pensions. He assured me, I'm the President of the United States, I'll just call Mitch, I'll tell him

to put it in the bill. Is everybody going to love me? Everybody loves me, right? Is everybody going to love me? Yes, Mr. President, you fixed the pension, everybody's going to love me? Everybody loves me, right? Is everybody going to love me? Yes, Mr. President, you fix the pension. Everybody's going to love you. That was wasted breath. There was lots of other things put in that bill. There was tax cuts put in that bill for rich people. Donald Trump promised infrastructure every year. Infrastructure is the easiest of all. Donald Trump was not interested in any of the policy that actually goes along

with being president of the United States. Trump was interested in the pomp and circumstance, the plane, the helicopter. It's all about him. Donald Trump is incapable of running anything, let alone the most powerful country in the history of the world. And God help us if he gets anywhere near that White House in the future. Ah, and Sean McGarvey joins us now. Thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. That was a pretty powerful video and a real turnaround from when you first endorsed former President Trump or at least listened to him and

hoped that his promises would come true. What do you say to hardworking Americans who don't have time to clue in on every detail of every trial he's involved with or every promise he made, who support Trump almost blindly, but they connect with him, even members of your union. What do you say to them about who this man is? Well, quite honestly, we're not going to waste a lot of time talking to every American that supports Donald Trump, and we're not going to waste a lot of time with some of our members that support Donald Trump because we're not going to change their minds. What we're going to concentrate on is the 10 to 15 percent of our members who we can have a conversation with and explain to them the facts, give them the projects

that they're actually working on, the way they're feeding their family today, you know, how that project came about. It came about through three monumental pieces of legislation after he saved our pensions that are now creating the biggest infrastructure boom this country has ever seen. We call it the infrastructure generation that Joe Biden's creating. And in our opinion, it's the only time in history we can compare it to is when the GIs came back from saving the world from tyranny in World War II and came back to build the middle class in their own lives after they saved the world. That's kind of the scale that we're at right now with the most pro-union president that this country, pro-worker president that this country has ever seen. So that's the conversations that we're having. We'll have one on one. We'll have them in the key states.

And we've got months and months. We've already started and we're already we're already laying out the facts and we see the results. Sean, good morning. It's Willie Geist. And we're looking at this list of other unions that have endorsed the president, you are not alone in your support for him and the messes that you put out there. As you say in that ad, it became a punch line through the Trump years that it was infrastructure week, that he was about to get to infrastructure, that he was going to spend that trillion dollars he promised you. He was going to spend on infrastructure, which never came. And then you get to November of 2021. President Biden is in the White House, a $1. trillion dollar bipartisan infrastructure bill that went out the door. And that money, you can see the signs all over the country.

So when you say that Joe Biden is the most pro union, pro worker president in history, that is a huge claim. What makes you say that? Well, we can say that by not only the pieces of legislation that he passed by but the language that's in the legislation that assures that those jobs will be good middle-class family sustaining jobs from the manufacturing jobs that we're rebuilding in this country via the chips and science act to the construction jobs where we have the prerequisite labor standards involved in those jobs via the regulatory work that's been done following up what was passed in the legislation. So we know that these are going to be good middle class family sustaining jobs. And my members are going to have

many, many of those jobs. MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle joins the table now and he has the next question. Mike. Sean, that was a pretty good definitive outline of Donald Trump that you had in that spot that we just watched. You clearly know the members of your unions, the building and trades unions around the country. But tell me, what's your instinct? Why do so many of the union members that you represent still seem to have a cultural hold on Donald Trump, still seem to want to vote for him? What is the deal with them? Well, I think, quite honestly, that my membership reflects the country.

So that base of support that Donald Trump has, that 25 or 30 percent of people that would stay with him for whatever reason are going to stay with him. And that, quite honestly, to us in our history, doesn't matter to a winning or losing candidate. What matters is the 15 percent of people that are persuadable, that are open to hearing the facts and making up their own mind with them and their family around their kitchen table and saying, you know what, our lives have definitively changed for the better because of the work that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have done. And we're going to change our mind in how we vote this time. Forget about all the baggage, all the rhetoric, all the threats. And also, you know, a lot of our members are patriots and they do not like the way that this president, ex-president, is talking about what he's going to do if he's elected to another term.

You know, we're we're believe it or not, we're capitalists and we're patriots. OK, and we want what's best for this country and not just for the building trades, for the whole of the country. And we know that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have led us out of the wilderness through the pandemic, created unbelievable opportunity like we haven't seen since World War Two. And it's affecting the pocketbooks of our members, families at their kitchen tables. And they're going to make a different decision now. We'll stick with the pocketbooks as an issue, though. What do they what what do you fear most or what do you hope for most? And what do your members think is the biggest priority for voting for Joe Biden? It's jobs and rising wages, quite honestly, and control of some of the costs that are associated with being a family in the United States. So we have negotiated our greatest increases

in the last couple of years under Joe Biden. We've seen some of the biggest contracts negotiated with the most generous settlements that we've seen in decades and decades. If you take UPS or the UAW, the same thing's happening around our bargaining tables. They see themselves moving forward economically now. And to back it up, it doesn't matter how much money you make in your collective bargaining agreement if you don't have a job, because you're not going to make anything. But the jobs are so abundant that, you know, today, quite honestly, when the president is done, we'll give him a pair of boots, a pair of customized work boots, because we've got so much work. He's created so many jobs in this country that when we get a little short, we might call 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and say, Mr. President, we need you for

a couple of days on an infrastructure project to help us out because we're a little short with people. He might join you out there, Sean. You know that. So you came out and endorsed President Biden, then candidate Biden in October of 2020, just a few weeks before the election. This time you're doing it more than six months out, leaving no doubt to your members about who you support and who's done the better for you between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The question is now, OK, you've made this statement. What does it look like practically? What does it look like on the ground in a state like Pennsylvania or Michigan or Wisconsin to have your union supporting Joe Biden? Are you going to be knocking on doors?

You're going to be spending money. What are the next six months look like? We'll probably spend tens of millions of dollars in three states. We will have an army of people that are members of our unions that will talk to other members of our unions at church, on job sites, at Little League, and just lay out the facts. Look, how you vote is a personal, individual thing. We just want to make sure our people are armed with the right information on who did what and when and who promised what and never delivered, okay? Once we give our members the information, they're very articulate, very smart people.

They'll make the right decision. They just need the information. We will provide the information in one on one, small groups, union meetings where we gather across the battleground states. And eventually, as we're seeing already through some of the work that we've already done in the field, you know, we're changing hearts and minds. And they're going, my God, I had no idea that the project I'm working on was created by the bipartisan infrastructure bill. You know, I'm working overtime, taking the family on a great night out Saturday night because of the money I'm making. We've had great increases in our collective bargaining. Look, I'll tell you another thing. I don't think it's an accident, OK, the great work of the UAW in winning a watershed election in Tennessee that the most

powerful man in the world, OK, the president of the United States for the past three and a half years has talked about unions, unions, unions and people having their ability, OK, to stake their claim for what they're worth. He's given people, workers in this country, confidence that they're worth it and they should demand it. And I see great things and huge work organizing wins that we've had and ones that are common. And it's based on the support of the president of the United States. He's making a huge difference. One other thing I will say quickly

that I say a lot is the only person we can compare him to is FDR. And the difference between FDR and Joe Biden was at this point was FDR was a patrician. He did great things for working people in this country, but he wasn't interested in spending time with them. Joe Biden is just as comfortable in a cafeteria in a manufacturing facility, eating with workers or on a in a shanty on a construction site. When it's five degrees, turning a bucket upside down, splitting a ham sandwich and BSing with the guys and girls on their lunch break. That's the difference. And our people feel it. He's probably more comfortable there. NABTU President Sean McGarvey, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning and making the case. Really appreciate it. Sam Stein, I was just thinking of the video we just saw of President Biden, I believe,

on the line with union workers. I believe he's the first president who's done that. He's gotten a lot of endorsements in the past few weeks from unions across the country. He's visiting swing states. He's visiting Florida. I mean, part of campaigning is being there and delivering the results and then owning your accomplishments. And that's what Joe Biden is doing day by day, slowly but surely, while Donald Trump sits in a courtroom. Do you think this could make the difference, especially with the contrast at hand? Yeah, I mean, I think everything helps on the margins. And I do think, to Sean's point, I mean, the image of him on the line at the UAW plant in Michigan, it was indeed the first time a president has ever done that. And it was historic. And Sean's right, too, about the

historic nature of the Volkswagen plant unionization that happened in Tennessee last week. I mean, these things don't happen in a vacuum. They happen because of changing economic conditions. They happen because of the implicit support of the president. And, you know, he, for better or worse, earned the endorsements that he's getting. And that will matter on the margins. I will say what stood out to me in the interview and in the ad that the Building Trades Union is airing was that the first thing that they focused on in that ad was not the legislation that Biden has passed. It was on the temperament of Trump and the threat that he poses. And Sean mentioned that in his interview. He said, look, this is a threat to democracy. And I'm sure that's deliberate.

I think, you know, they know that it's not just that the pensions are shored up and that wages may be rising again. It's that temperamentally they want someone different in the White House. And I wonder how persuasive that is to union voters across the country.