Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/30/24

Episode Date: April 30, 2024

Protesters take over Columbia University building hours after school starts suspending student demonstrators

If you like puppies, you're not going to like Christine Noem. Because in her new book, Noem admitted to killing her dog. Now, I know that sounds terrible. Look, I know it sounds terrible. But it's much worse. Cricket ruined the hunt, going out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life. But who among us hasn't seen a dog running through the fields,

not a care in the world, and thought, you deserve to die? When you're trying to win over voters, I'm not sure being the bad guy in a John Wick movie is the best way to go. This is a crazy person. I have to say, I'm afraid of what she might do when she finds out how many chickens her favorite president has killed.

All right. The Kristi Noem story providing the late night shows with plenty of material. Even conservative media has turned on the Republican governor of South Dakota, now dismissing her as a serious contender for Donald Trump's running mate. We're going to play that reaction for you. There was a lot of it. People just don't get it. I don't think anyone really understands how you kill a puppy.

Anywho, also this morning, former President Trump will be back in court today for his criminal hush money trial. We'll have a preview of what to expect on that. Also new this morning, Fox News facing a another threat of litigation almost a year after the network agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to Dominion voting systems. And this this challenge coming from Hunter Biden. Yeah, he is, I guess, considering a lawsuit. They made an announcement about it yesterday. We'll tell you the very latest.

Well, OAN had to settle Willie with Michael Cohen for lying about him. It's almost as if people like Rudy Giuliani and that InfoWars guy and all these other people are learning that, well, defamation laws still have bite in America. You can't just make up stuff about other people and just run it on your network. Yeah, there's a cost to it. OAN had to retract a story about Michael Cohen. We know that almost a billion dollars, that settlement that came down against Fox News, perhaps left a mark and that they will now be dealing with another lawsuit from Hunter Biden. Who knows what the number will be there? But yeah, there are consequences to spewing false information out into the atmosphere. And it's good to see some people now starting to hold news organizations that just make stuff up in the interest of politics to defame people or

being held accountable. Well, make stuff up and then refuse of politics to defame people are being held accountable. Well, make stuff up and then refuse to retract. And when it's brought to their attention that they were wrong. I mean, we'll see what happens in the Hunter Biden's case. But we've seen time and time again, Rudy Giuliani still going around, I think, lying about, you know, conspiracy theories and everything else. It's just goes on and on. But it's pretty crazy. You look at, again, all of the false information. And again, like we've said, it's almost as if gravity's returned.

Speaking of gravity returning, gravity returning, I hear, Willie, to Madison Square Garden. And in fact, like... Where is it going with this? No, where I'm going is you got the Knicks, you got the Rangers, you got, you know, it had been floating in the stratosphere of irrelevance since about 1971. Looks like things are about to get crazy. George, that Joe, that was unfair. It was 1973 that we last won a title. He almost called you his son.

I called you my son because I was about to tell you that George Geist and I were at that last game, game two at the Garden when Dante DiVincenzo hit that three and the place was physically shaking, Madison Square Garden. It was unlike any experience I've had at any game anywhere. So Knicks up 3-1. Richard Haas and I were just talking, need to close it out tonight. Don't leave that door open. The Sixers go back home.

They win game six, then it's this high-stakes game seven. So hoping the Knicks can close it out tonight, and I fully expect the guard to be at its very best. All right. Along with Joe Willey and me, we have the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass. He's the author of the weekly newsletter Home and Away, available on Substack and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, is with us as well this morning. And we begin this morning with the growing unrest at Columbia University. Overnight, people protesting Israel's war against Hamas occupied a campus building, the same one students took over in the 1960s. The building is just a few hundred feet away from the Gaza encampment site. And now the university is urging people to avoid coming to

campus today if they can. The protests escalated just hours after the university began suspending students who refused to leave the encampment. The tents have been up for nearly two weeks, and the university wants to clear it before graduation. On May 15th, the protesters held a press conference yesterday afternoon, saying the university has not made significant concessions to their main demand. The group wants Colombia to divest from companies with links to Israel. The students also claim Colombia has stopped negotiations. As a result,

they say they will, quote, not be moved unless by force. Meanwhile, protests escalating at other college campuses as well. The University of Texas protesters clashing with police there, resulting in dozens of arrests. Video shows officers in riot gear dragging, carrying out demonstrators. The university says at least 40 people were taken into custody yesterday for trespassing and disorderly conduct. Many of them were not affiliated with the school, a phenomenon we're seeing at many of these campuses. Meanwhile, at the University of Utah, police were called to disperse a crowd of protesters. The university says 17 people were arrested last night. One officer was injured. A hatchet was confiscated there. The number of arrests at campuses across the nation now approaching 1,000. Let's bring in

the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt. Eugene Robinson also writing about this visited the campus of George Washington University yesterday. So, Gene, I want to get your impression first of what you saw. GW been one of the flash points in these college campus protests over the last two weeks. What did you see in your reporting yesterday? Well, I got there at a pretty quiet moment. The night before had been a very loud moment. On Sunday night, the protesters had essentially, there was a small encampment on the university yard. The authorities had surrounded it with barricades. They actually had asked the D.C. police to clear that small encampment on Friday night, and the D.C. Metropolitan Police said,

no, we don't think that's a great idea. So they didn't do it. So it was still there. And then on Sunday night, the students had torn down the barricades and rushed in and put up a whole bunch more tents. So it was a larger encampment, but it was very quiet when I was there, actually, in the morning. Some of the protesters were asleep. Some were sitting outside of their tents, apparently cramming for finals. And so when I was there, there wasn't any chanting. There wasn't any any shouting. There haven't been the kinds of conflictive sort of encounters at George Washington that we've seen at some of the other universities. And so the administration is trying to figure out what to do.

But but it's a you know, it's a stalemate as it is on. I think there are protests at more than 50 campuses around the country right now. You know, Gene, I think it may be the only time in your life you struck a Nixonian pose that morning. You remember the story of Nixon wanting to go out and understand the anti-war protesters. So he got there so early in the morning wearing his dress shoes

that they were still asleep at the Lincoln Memorial and Nixon tried to talk to him about USC football. It really didn't connect with the kids that way. What do you think? I'm curious what your thoughts are. I had a lot of nice, wonderful, well-intentioned people that watch this show, love this show, write me yesterday. And I wrote a lot of them back, called one or two back, saying, you know, the Vietnam War was a bad war, Joe. And you were talking. And this Gaza thing, we understand the kids and what they're doing.

I understand, obviously, the protest to an unjust war. And we've, of course, been bitterly critical of Netanyahu's response in Gaza. So we understand all of that. I'm just curious what your thoughts are on, and we're going to talk to Jonathan Greenblatt in one moment, but how you balance that with not just outside agitators, but also a rising sense of anti-Semitism on college campuses and social life. And I will tell you, I know I know firsthand from friends and family members that Jews are being pushed to the side socially.

And and that that woke white girls and boys coming from elite families are telling their friends that they can't hang out with Jewish friends. And I could go on. I've been I've and maybe one of the reasons I was as engaged as I was yesterday is I've been hearing about this now for three, four, five, six months where Jewish students don't feel safe on college campuses. And this isn't a bubble wrap or snowflake moment. This is people talking about genocide, screaming at them as they try to go toable. It is awful. And it is going to wreck, to destroy the movement and prevent any sort of chance of them achieving any of their aims. And I'll get to the aims in a minute. But it's crazy, and it has to stop. And again, when I happened to be there, I didn't witness it. There hasn't been that much at George Washington of that sort of thing. But then again, not every protest is alike. And I know, I've seen some of the video and some of the scenes and some of the audio from Columbia and from some of these other protestors.

And it's horrible. It's atrocious. And, you know, anti-Semitism, if anti-Semitism is going to be a central element of this movement, then it deserves to fail, and it will fail. But what I saw and what I think we're seeing in polls that have been taken and this and that is something of a generational shift in overall sort of attitudes and impressions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And we've seen polls showing that younger adults, 30 and under, are much more sympathetic to the Palestinians than older groups.

And perhaps they are less aware of history. They seem to be very confused about how and why the state of Israel was founded and this and that. But this is real. I mean, this is being shown in poll after poll. And these kids grow up. And so so I think it's something that we ought to pay attention to in sort of that macro lens. You know, Willie, the thing is, and I'm certainly not saying this of all the student protesters that are out there and certainly not children of Palestinian families who have lost loved ones through the years in this war, in this conflict. I will say, though, among again, and I've spoken with some of them, I want to be careful, but among these white, woke, pampered, elitist, I'm not supposed to use that word. Let's say children from

wealthy families that decide, as Dr. Brzezinski said so many years ago, that they're going to play radical for a weekend and then go home to mommy and daddy's mansion. There's a complete ignorance about the complexities of this issue. Now, of course, if you listen to the show, you would understand many of the complexities of this issue, because we have been really tough on Israeli officials that come on this show. We have asked why they've continued to allow illegal settlements in the West Bank over the decade, why they have continued to fight against a two-state solution for peace, why they have done what they've done in Gaza, why they have continued to fight against a two state solution for peace, why they have done what they've done in Gaza, why they did with Hamas, why Netanyahu was Hamas's

ally leading up to October 7th. So it's very complicated. That's lost, though, in a lot of those things. And when you start talking about even West Bank settlements with a lot of these students, their eyes glaze over. Because that's not in the TikTok video. Again, I'm not saying this about all the students, but I will tell you, I'm an Oslo Accord where Bill Clinton had gotten together and they were giving 97 percent of the West Bank to the Palestinians and the other three percent they were going to make up with Israeli land. And they had figured out, you know, a capital in East and they sit there with their eyes glazed. Just have no idea what happened in this peace process, what happened through the years. They just they see something on TikTok and they're like Israel bad and Hamas good. And they go out and they start shouting at Jews. Yeah. And you don't even have to go that deep. You can ask, what does it mean to chant from the

river to the sea? And they don't know. And then when you tell them what it is, and we've seen this from reporters asking some of them, not again, not all of them. Some of them have a deep understanding of this. They don't understand that that means the elimination of the state of Israel and the people who live within that state. So I've been having a lot of these same conversations as you, Joe. So if you watch our show, you know how critical we've been of Netanyahu, of the prosecution of the war that we grieve and mourn for children and women who have been killed in this war, that are starving in this war. It's a terrible, terrible thing. But that does not give kids on college campuses license to chant from the river to the sea

and to say that Jewish kids should not exist in some cases, at Columbia, for example. So, Jonathan, from your point of view at the ADL, what are you hearing? I mean, you've brought us a great look at the Jewish experience since October 7th. But right now, in the midst of these protests, what is it like to be a Jewish student on the campus of not just Columbia, the University of Texas? There are a whole bunch of schools. It's the right question, Willie. You know, I was at UCLA on Sunday. I was at USC on Friday talking to Jewish students. I was at Columbia last week.

And let me tell you, I don't know exactly what Eugene saw at GW in terms of these tents, but I've talked to students from all these universities, and they don't feel afraid. They are with good reason, right? And, I mean, as mentioned in the opening here, you had someone with a hatchet at University of Utah. You had students with hammers who broke into the building at Columbia last night. You had someone with a sword at UCLA on Sunday. This isn't normal. People showing up fully concealing their faces like they're ISIS fighters.

That isn't normal. And I heard from kids again and again and again. They are leaving campus. They are moving out of their dorms because they are worried at Columbia. Of course, President Shafiq, she had to close classes. I don't know if people realize this. Classes are over at Columbia. They all went remote because the administration was so afraid of these people. I see these videos. I see these images of mass protesters breaking into buildings, barricading them with furniture. And look, I'm reminded of January the 6th. That's what this looks like to me. I mean, we talk at ADL about right wing extremists, about masked proud boys showing up at school board meetings, about oath keepers wearing masks. I look at this and this is what I see. And let's be clear about one thing.

The students who are doing this, the groups behind it, SJP, Palestinian Youth Movement, their response to President Shafiq's offer last night was we Columbia will burn. I mean, these students, we shouldn't treat them like children when they're hardened activists. Well, they're adults. And yeah, go ahead. So I was just going to say this is one half about the student. It's also about these authorities and the lack of them. Why is why are these school administrators, why are they abdicating their responsibility to this degree? And this affects students. It affects outsiders. It affects teachers with tenure. The last I checked, tenure is supposed to give you intellectual protection so you can say things in classrooms.

It doesn't, it seems to me, give you the ability to break the law with with impunity. And I just don't understand what's, and you see also the difference on the campuses between what's happening on some, Chicago and Florida, as opposed to what's happening at Columbia and others. There's an enormous gap in the principle and backbone we're seeing here. Well, Richard, to your point, I think that's where we've all, that's the place we've all been sitting in watching this, going, what the hell is going on? What are these universities doing? Why aren't they doing something? And I'll echo the horror that this does look like January 6th. What a terrible example for our students. At the same time, these are young adults. And the question is, why do you

choose to learn about the complexities of other situations around the world? But this one, you want to set up an encampment. This one, you want to scare people. This one, you want to come to the edge of violence or even go to violence. Not the edge. This one, you risk your future and your education for? See, I think these college students obviously are missing the part where they need to see what's going on across the country with these protests, that it's now in the realm of violence. It's in the realm of hatred, whether some are peaceful or not. They need to watch the news

and look at all the different arguments and be adults or start learning to be adults and set up discussions and debates across college campuses or their colleges or universities are going to have no choice but to expel them and ruin their future, the impact they want to have on the community, society and the world at some point. But let's then go to the hard part of this. What is the solution for college university presidents and deans who want to maintain control but also preserve free speech? What are solutions? Let's talk about solutions. It's very simple. First of all, you enforce the rules of your college campuses. There is a concept. But you know that at this point

that would be hard to do. No, actually, what? I'm just saying, you go out there and you start arresting people. Yeah, you do. You either follow the law or you don't follow the law. There's a concept in the First Amendment. No, if you, I will say,

I understand over the last 24 hours what the Columbia administration has been trying to do. They've been trying to bring this to a peaceful resolution. And what happened? People got hammers and they broke into buildings at that point. That's a crime at that point. That's a crime. They should all be arrested and they shouldn't be suspended.

They should be expelled from school here here uh but but but this is virtue signaling of the worst order for for for again white woke kids that have no idea what they're talking about here no idea other than what they've seen on tick tock again there's a huge gulf in my mind between children of palestinian families who have who have been a part of this tragedy and this suffering over the decades. And so I am not one to be able to sit in judgment of them, but I can sit in judgment of school administrators. What do you do? What do you do in a situation like this? You stop the law breaking. You make your campus safe for everyone, for everyone, for everyone. You don't allow these protesters to take the campus over themselves and say, this is our viewpoint. We are going to scream. We are going to set up encampments. We are going to dominate this debate. So you only

hear our side. And the louder we scream, the more self-righteous we feel. That's what they're doing. The idea of colleges, Willie, the last time I checked for at least when there still were liberal, you know, the sort of the liberal tradition of learning at places like Columbia, you actually have discussions. You actually pursue the truth, not your truth, not the truth you're feeling. You try to pursue the truth, what the truth is. And if you can't get to the truth in a place like Israel, then then what you do is you talk through it and you try to work towards peace. You try to work towards a two state solution. Now, people say and I've heard this from students on college campuses.

Oh, you can't even bring up a two state solutionstate solution because they say that's a Zionist conspiracy. Peace for the Palestinians is a Zionist conspiracy? Take these pictures down. I want to talk to Willie. Willie, who's learning? Who's learning by these images that we saw? Who's learning more about the Middle East? Who's learning about the illegal settlements on the West Bank set up by Netanyahu? Who's talked through a discussion with, let's say, Jewish students to say, you understand your government's been

illegally setting up settlements in the West Bank, making a two-state solution next to impossible while cynically aligning with Hamas, because you want to undermine the people who don't want to wipe Israel off the map, because they're the biggest enemies of a two-state solution. So maybe that's why they were working together to divide people in Israel, to divide people in Gaza, to divide people in the West Bank, and and divide people on college campuses. And then you ask the question, OK, so we understand there are people who are enemies of peace here. What do we do to outthink them? What do we do to outmaneuver them? How do we move toward peace? Because that's what this should all be about. Not virtue signaling or screaming or breaking into buildings. But for that to happen, people that run universities can't allow anarchists to take over buildings,

to use hammers to break into buildings. Now, people say, oh, you can't. Yeah, you can enforce the law. You can enforce the law and then you can start classes again and then you can begin teaching students, like having discussions with students, talking about the horrific, horrific complexities that have surrounded this argument, this debate since 1948. And then maybe you learn something. We kind of think that's what colleges are about, not getting hammers and breaking into and occupying buildings at Columbia University. Joe, your analysis is sophisticated, thoughtful, and more than an inch deep. So it's just not going to work. I'm afraid it was too thoughtful there.

But but I will I will say for all these images we've seen and been discussing, those conversations are happening. I can speak for my own school, Vanderbilt. We had the chancellor on last week. You guys have talked a lot about Dartmouth where they're having these discussions. They're bringing in an Israeli ambassador and another somebody, the head of the Palestinian Authority, and they're explaining their sides and they're having a civil debate and no one has a hammer and no one's yelling. They're giving people places on campuses to protest.

And then in the case of Vanderbilt anyway, when they stormed into a building and broke a window and pushed a security guard aside and sat there for a day. The students were suspended. They looked individually at all their cases and they expelled a handful of them. So that's we've given you all these outlets, Jonathan. We've given you places to have these conversations, which is what college is supposed to be. You don't have to pick a side. Just listen to the debate. Totally. And it's but I mean, do you think any of the people in that building at

Columbia right now actually want to have that conversation? Look, President Shafiq needs to, you know, deliver consequences, not make concessions. Chancellor Diermeier at Vandy is an example of just a leader with moral clarity. That's your alma mater. My alma mater is Northwestern. President Michael Schill actually gave it gave into the protesters yesterday at Northwestern, inexplicably, literally making a series of concessions to them after they did the same thing. And I think we need to keep in mind, these demonstrators are ruining it for everyone. They are holding hostage kids' graduation, commencements, just the final exams period. So it's not just a Jewish problem. It's everyone's

problem. And Jonathan, Jonathan, these kids that are going to miss their college graduation because of these these people, these these people that are occupying buildings and making the campus unsafe for the same ones that missed their high school graduations because of covid. Again, the selfishness. I just it's it's extraordinary that that they they have to shut down campuses when in fact there are ways for them to get their message across. Of course there are. And keep in mind the numbers, the numbers. Columbia has 30,000 students. You know how many are in this encampment, Joe? It's like 200. So we're talking about seven tenths of 1%.

Same kind of numbers at Northwestern or all these schools. This is a fringe between literally like six tenths and 1% of all of the students. And I would say one other point that's really important. You know, not all Jews look like me. There are plenty of Jews from the students. And I would say one other point that's really important. You know, not all Jews look like me. There are plenty of Jews from the Middle East at USC on Friday. I heard from an Iranian Jewish student whose parents fled the Islamic revolution, who's basically been told you can't be part of the Middle East North African group because you're Jewish. He is more from the Middle East than many, if not most of these people. He grew up hearing Farsi in his home as his first language. But you know what? To these kids, because he's Jewish, you know, he's not part of

the crowd. That is racism, plain and simple. And so, look, much like you were talking about, about Hamas earlier, and I'm sure Richard will talk about it in a bit. Israel keeps offering them concessions, making offers on hostages, and they refuse. And these demonstrators, these activists, they get offered concessions by the universities. And look at what's happening at Columbia right there. They simply refuse to accept because it seems like their goal isn't to come to some conclusion. It's about what's better for the Palestinians. It's just to reject Israel, to reject their Jewish peers. Again, that's racism and it's wrong.

Well, and Jonathan O'Meara, there was a Columbia student that was quoted and that was UCLA. I believe there's a Columbia student that was quoted in The New York Times yesterday who said, I support a ceasefire. I really wanted to go in, and I wanted to be with the people that were protesting for a ceasefire. But basically, it wasn't about a ceasefire. It was about the end of Israel. And because I support Israel, they told me the existence of Israel, not what Israel is doing, the very existence of Israel, because I supported the existence of the war in Gaza, they told me that because I was I didn't want Israel to be eliminated from the face of the earth. I was not allowed to be part of their protests. Yeah, we had Mayor Eric Adams in New York City on yesterday who said it was a mix of student protesters as well as outside agitators. And he was clear to say most of the students peaceful. They were there on campus as the outside agitators who are causing most of the trouble in hurling the violent rhetoric.

And we're not sure who yet has occupied this building, Hamilton Hall, the main academic building in Columbia. It's also the site of the major Vietnam War protests of the 1960s. We should also note Columbia University has put out an alert this morning telling students and personnel to stay off campus today because of what's happening there at Hamilton. And certainly there's a place for peaceful protest. There shouldn't be any anti-Semitism, any anti-Arab Muslim. Jonathan, this is your college. Jonathan, who allows this? Who allows students to take over? Again, this is not I tell you, this happened at Vanderbilt or University of Alabama, it would be over. It would be at Alabama. My God, it'd be over in five minutes. Like who allows students to to break in

illegally into buildings and occupy buildings? Well, we I mean, Columbia does is we should know Columbia is proud of its history of protests. You know, that's part of who Columbia is. That said, of course, it seems like the administration has made clear this has crossed any number of lines. Note to self, keep kids away from Columbia. You're saying it's part of Columbia's storied history to allow people to go in and illegally break into buildings? To protest peacefully. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. They're proud of illegally breaking into buildings and taking over president's offices in the 1960s. And you would think if that hung over them for 50 years, they would have been better prepared than than this.

And certainly they were not. And students and alumni and parents alike are upset as to how this has been handled. And certainly they're moving. They hope to move to a quick resolution. We don't know yet whether the NYPD might be involved or not. Mayor Adams yesterday has said Colombia had not asked for that. We will see if that changes in the hours ahead. It's obviously a developing story. Now, Richard, I do want to get to you what Jonathan just brought up a minute ago, which is the ongoing state of these hostage negotiations. We heard of Secretary of State Blinken was in Saudi Arabia yesterday. He said Israel had made a generous offer that we're simply waiting on

Hamas. Also, U.S. officials tell me they feel like there's a very narrow window here to get something done. There's concern that Hamas, frankly, just doesn't have that many hostages left to give back, at least those that meet the criteria of this deal. And also Prime Minister Netanyahu and his aides keep saying a Rafah invasion is coming. The U.S. wants to get this deal done before that. Those are exactly the pieces, Jonathan. You've got a two-phase negotiation that's being discussed, a hostage for prisoner exchange in phase one, then a limited but unclear how long duration pause, and certainly in major military operations,

possibly a complete ceasefire. But yes, the Israelis still want to move against Rafah, where you have the preponderance of Hamas fighters, as well as probably half the Gazan population. The administration is trying to work this hostage for prisoner swap, get it ceasefire. If they can't, the fallback of the administration is saying, OK, we don't particularly want you to go into Rafah, but if you're going to go in, do it in a measured, calibrated way. Use force in a much more discriminating way

than you've used for the preponderance of the last six, seven months. So there's lots of negotiations going on with Hamas, with Israel, almost on various contingencies. That's where we stand. And my guess is this will become clear in the next couple of days. Here we are essentially coming up at the seven month point of this. But let me say one last thing. However, this works itself out over the next couple of days and weeks, you're still going to have some of the same fundamental questions. Who's going to govern Gaza? Who's going to occupy it? What about the Palestinians on the West Bank? Where do we go

from here? Is there a political dimension to Israeli policy? Joe was talking about settlements a minute ago. What about settler violence? What about Israel's willingness to stop expropriating land? Are the Palestinians, the Palestinian Authority, willing and able to step up to be a partner for peace? So all of these issues are going to come back once we see what happens over the next few days. All right. Jonathan Greenblatt, to close, I just want to start where we began, which is on the campus of Columbia University. You have students, you have outside agitators, and you have a lot of people who don't know what they're talking about. So within the realm of that, what should Columbia do? If you could tell them right now how to handle this,

what's the solution? I would say President Shafiq, like, listen to the people around you, not to the radical fringe. President Shafiq, number one, none of us support the use of excessive force, but coordinate with law enforcement and get those protesters out of those buildings and retake the campus for all your students once and for all, number one. Number two, no concessions to terrorists. These kids are telling you they, quote, want to burn Columbia down like Chancellor Diermeier, who Willie mentioned before. Suspend and expel the kids who are trying to destroy the institution. And number three, President Shafiq, no masking on campus.

Kids who conceal their identities, as Jonathan said, many of them are outside agitators, professional protesters. They are going in there and they are destroying Columbia University for the, you know, to the detriment of everyone. Your Jewish students need you. All your students need you. The broader Columbia community needs you. So President Shafiq, again, get in the law enforcement consequences, not concessions and no more masking, whether it's KKK or Proud Boys or SJP. CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt. Jonathan, thanks for being here this morning. Guys, as we head to break here, just a quick statement last night from the University of Florida, which says it patiently allowed students to protest for many days, warned them that eventually they'd be trespassing. They arrested a handful of students and sent out this statement, quote,

this is not complicated. The University of Florida is not a daycare and we do not treat protesters like children. They knew the rules. They broke the rules. And now they will face the consequences. That's from the University of Florida. Makes a lot of sense. Still ahead on morning, Joe, we'll talk about what to expect when Donald Trump's criminal hush money trial resumes in a Manhattan courtroom in just a few hours from now. Plus, Hunter Biden puts Fox News on notice. What we're learning about a plan to sue the cable network for its coverage of the president's son. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 60 seconds. Live look at Capitol Hill on a beautiful morning in Washington, D.C. It's 39 past the hour. More

than 50 U.S. mayors are in Washington this week to discuss efforts to combat homelessness at the federal level. Joining us now, Democratic Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles. She's the chair of the U.S. Conference of Mayors Task Force on Homelessness and Republican Mayor David Holt of Oklahoma City. So, Mayor Bass, let me begin with you. Thank you all both so much for being with us. You know, over the past few years, I've spoken with mayors of major cities, mainly across the Northeast and some of the West Coast, and ask, why can't you take care of the homelessness problem? Why does it keep spreading? And they always would allude to these lower court rulings that didn't give them the authority to take care of the homeless crisis in their own towns. It looks like the Supreme Court is going to give that power back to the mayors, back to local officials to take to have a holistic approach the way that works best in their own communities.

Is that good news for you? Well, I don't think that it's helpful, frankly. It's not just a matter of what tools you need to move people off the street. It's about getting people housed. And so my concern about what the Supreme Court can do is that it could essentially usher in a wave of people being ticketed like they were in the city, 200, $300 tickets for being on the street. What does that solve? We need to get people housed off the street into housing. And one thing that we've certainly been able to do in L.A. is it is to see people are not refusing to be housed. They don't want to be on the street. And so I think giving cities the power to arrest people or to ticket people does not solve the problem. Well, it doesn't solve the problem, Mayor Holt, but is it at least a good first step for you to be able to have more control of your situation?

Well, as a general rule, of course, mayors want local control. But as Mayor Bass said, I mean, you are not going to arrest or incarcerate or ticket your way out of a homelessness issue. And that's that's one of the toughest things to accept when you deal with this very intractable problem is you've got to bring wraparound services. People have come into homelessness a thousand different ways. You kind of have to have a thousand different options to get them out of it. So I would say it's a lot more complicated than that because, you know, it's easy to clear an encampment and move people on. But if you're not getting them into housing and then getting them the support, you know, the job training, the substance abuse, the mental health services that they need, they're not going to stay off the street. Mayor Bass, Los Angeles has had a long running problem with homelessness and people on the street.

It's get wrong and elsewhere. So this certainly didn't start with your administration, but you're in the hot seat now. What sort of measurable progress have you made? Can you make in the foreseeable future to get people off the street and to get them housed? Well, first of all, we absolutely have to have a comprehensive solution because we can get people off the street and then more come on the street. But we have to develop a system of long-term interim housing while we are building. And we're doing exactly that. So I've signed executive directives that fast-track building. You know, Los Angeles over the years

has become extremely expensive to live in. So we have to address the supply of housing. We have to have a place for people to go while housing is being built and the wraparound services that Mayor Holt talked about. If we do not address this in a comprehensive manner, we're not going to succeed. And just to be clear, in Los Angeles, we're talking about in the city, we're talking about 46,000 people who are unhoused. And so we can make a measurable difference, but we have to operate from several different perspectives. And that's why we're here in D.C. right now. We're trying to address a problem with veterans being unhoused.

Veterans should not have to choose between their benefits and housing. So that's the specific issue that over 40 mayors are here addressing on the Hill today. Mayor Holt, good morning. As you know and you mentioned, so much of this gets back to mental health and mental illness of people on the streets and circumstances that have brought him there. So how do you get better than we are now at the root cause of homelessness, or at least one of the most prominent. Right. And I should give a lot of credit to the organization that Mayor Bass and I are a part of, because that's a high point of emphasis this year, in addition to homelessness, is mental health. I mean, we just have to invest in it at every level. You know, what caused a lot of what we see today, it's not the only cause, but, you know, 50, 60 years ago, this country made a

decision for all the right reasons to kind of close the institutions. The problem was that really wasn't replaced with anything. And so today, the streets and our jails and prisons have really replaced what was once the mental health institutions of this country. Local level, state level, federal level, everybody's got to make new investments in this issue. And you're right. I mean, it's not the only thing. There's like I said, there's a thousand different ways that people enter homelessness. But mental health is obviously a major contributor. And we as a society just have not invested in that enough. We have to do more. Appreciate both of your focus on this issue. Mayor Bass, before we let you go, I want to ask you

about the scenes we're seeing. And we were just discussing at the top of our show at both UCLA and USC, these campus protests over the war in Gaza. How do you think the schools have handled them? Well, I think the schools have had both schools have handled them the best that they can. But I will tell you that right now, both USC and UCLA are peaceful. I know that the administration is talking to the protesters and trying to come to a peaceful resolution. So I feel good that we will get there. All right. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt.

Thank you both very much for coming on this morning. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. And coming up, we'll go over what to expect later this morning when Donald Trump's criminal trial resumes in lower Manhattan. Morning, Joe. We'll be right back. This morning, Donald Trump's criminal trial will resume in a New York City courtroom today. Banker Gary Farrow is set to return to the witness stand for more questioning specifically about his handling of Michael Cohen's account at the time of the alleged hush money payment that was made to Stormy Daniels back in 2016. That payment was part of an agreement to keep Daniels from going public and about an alleged affair with

Trump. Trump has denied any sexual encounter with the adult film actress. After the payment became public, Daniels' lawyer at the time, Michael Avenatti, provided NBC News with an email from an assistant to Farrow confirming the transfer. Cohen had used his Trump organization email address in the communication, but said at the time company funds were not used. Joining us now, former U.S. attorney and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance. Joyce, what will we be looking for or what will you be looking for today in this testimony? What connections is the prosecution trying to make? Right. So the prosecution is at the point in this case where they're setting the stage for Michael Cohen's testimony still to come, building credibility for Cohen, who's going to be a very difficult witness by establishing the events he will testify to, that they occurred, that the banker

can confirm the nature of payments and along those lines. But also the government now has to begin proving the essentials of its case because the core of this indictment are the false business records, the 11 invoices, the 12 entries in ledgers and the 11 checks and check stubs that form the core of the false financial entries that the government has to convince the jury beyond a reasonable doubt were made as part of a scheme to commit other crimes. And so pretty soon we'll see them go through the technical process of putting each of those items into evidence and in front of the jury. So we've got a lot more to talk about with this, with you, Joyce. In just a few hours, obviously, court is going to resume. We also want to ask you about when the judge is going to rule on the gag order situation. So stand by if you could. Also coming up, we're going to talk with

Joyce Vance about Hunter Biden's possible lawsuit against Fox News. We'll be right back. Yeah, this morning it was 78 in Muggy and by this afternoon it was 81 and sunny. The weather basically went from this to this. Eighty one. Eighty one. Seventy eight and muggy. Welcome back. We continue our conversation with Joyce Vance about the former President Donald Trump's criminal trial taking place in New York City. It's due to start in just a few hours. Of course, the former president has to be there and sit through this.

And right now, a banker is on the stand and choice. Beyond that, we're waiting for word on the gag order that the judge put in place, especially because Donald Trump was just spouting off about people. And one of the reasons for it, correct me if I'm wrong, is for safety, for safety of the individuals involved with this trial, witnesses, members of the jury, whoever. And I know there still might be another hearing. So this is the part where I think I'm being an impatient observer. But a gag order that's put in place for people's safety to me when it's very clear it was broken, I don't understand why it's taking so long to rule on it. Can you explain? Well, I have the same feelings that you do, Mika, as an observer. Usually when there's a gag order violation, you expect a judge to act quickly because judges have the obligation to protect the integrity of the trial process. And a big part of that is protecting

the safety of jurors and witnesses, something that judges take very seriously. We don't know for certain why the judge is moving so slowly. He now has the third set of allegations of violations of the gag order to consider in yet another hearing this week. It's possible that he may have decided that his best way of controlling Donald Trump is to hold the threat of incarceration. He can put Trump in jail for up to 30 days for a violation. And he may believe that by holding that over Trump's head for as long as possible, he ensures continued good behavior. Trump has toned it down in about the last week. Interesting. So far right media outlet OAN issued a retraction and apology to former Trump attorney Michael Cohen after publishing an article falsely claiming Cohen had been having an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels since 2006 and that he cooked up the hush money scheme to extort the Trump organization before the 2016 election. OAN published the story last month using a single unverified post on the social media site X as its source. That post claimed

Daniel's former attorney, Michael Avenatti, was the source for the false allegation. Cohen hired a defamation attorney who approached OAN about the report, prompting the outlet to actually contact Avenatti, who denied making the allegations. Daniels also denied the claim in a post on social media. In the settlement with Cohen, no money was exchanged, but OAN was forced to remove the article and issue a retraction and an apology that reads in part, quote, these statements were false. OAN regrets their publication. To be clear, no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels were having an affair and no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen cooked up the scheme to extort the Trump organization before the 2016 election, adding OAN apologizes to Mr. Cohen for any harm the publication may have caused. So, Samika, we obviously have the Hunter Biden suing Fox, possibly story.

It's the top of the hour. What do you think? What do you think about stories like this? And just one example after another of lies spread by people on the Trump right coming back to actually cost them money. Yeah. Or in this case, just embarrassment. I just I'm confused about Fox News, given that they already had to pay seven hundred and eighty seven million dollars for lies. They still have smart Matic.

I don't know why they continue to beat the drum on Hunter Biden in ways that were that were potentially irresponsible. It appears lawyers for Hunter Biden think so. And now they possibly might be moving forward with a lawsuit. Along with Joyce Vance, we have Claire McCaskill coming up. And at the top of the hour, Hunter Biden is our top story this hour. Willie. Yeah, that was a seven hundred eighty seven million dollar judgment against Fox from Dominion just one year ago. And now lawyers for Hunter Biden say they are planning to sue Fox News imminently over unfounded claims made about Hunter Biden on the air. In a letter sent to the network last week obtained by NBC News, Biden's attorneys notified Fox of the impending lawsuit.

They write it arises from the network's, quote, subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden. The letter focuses heavily on a six part special that aired on Fox's streaming service in 2021. In it, the network presented a mock trial for what it might look like if Hunter Biden were charged with being a foreign agent or with bribery, neither of which he's been charged with. Biden's lawyers also say they plan to sue over Fox's decision to show nude photos of Hunter on the air, which he says were stolen. Fox has not responded to a request for comment. So what kind of case do you see here potentially for Hunter Biden against Fox News, Joyce? Well, what the core of the charges they're alleging would look like would be a defamation lawsuit with maybe some subsidiary torts like presenting Hunter Biden in a false light. You know, Willie, we've all watched our country be locked in this battle with disinformation,

and it looks increasingly like defamation lawsuits are one of the most important tools in the arsenal for pushing back. Before you can file a lawsuit for defamation as a plaintiff, you have to demand a retraction. You have to give the potential defendant the opportunity to say that they were wrong. And so Hunter Biden is asking Fox to retract. And the question is whether Fox will have the appetite to fight another lengthy, costly, expensive battle. They've already lost, as you pointed out, in the Dominion voting machine case. And they're facing a two point seven billion dollar lawsuit from Smartmatic later this year.

You know, former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance, thank you so much for your insight this morning. Joining us now, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle, NBC News and MSNBC political analyst, former U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill. She and Jen Baumary are co-hosts of the MSNBC podcast How to Win 2024 and co-founder and CEO of Axios, Jim Vande Hei. His new book entitled Just the Good Stuff is out today. We'll get to that in just a moment. So on the Hunter Biden issue, do you think Fox will have because I think they're demanding that Sean Hannity, Jesse Waters, Maria Bartiromo and others apologize. Do you think they'll they'll do that? Or do you think they're going to once again go double down, double down and possibly face a pretty large verdict?

Because you look at what's happened in the Republican committee and they've just spread one lie after another lie after another lie about Hunter Biden. And it's blown up in their face politically. You know, I think that box lawyers will have to look at what exactly they're accusing them of and whether it merits defamation. And also as it pertains to the nude photos of Hunter Biden when he was going through a drug addiction and other very difficult mental health challenges in his life, something that he's written about,