Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/5/23

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

Trump criminally charged in New York City

On a basis that every single pundit and legal analyst said, there is no case, there's no case. 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. He knew there was no case. It is a felony to falsify business records with intent to defraud. Everybody said this is not really an indictment, there's nothing here. These are felony crimes in New York State. My lawyers came to me and they said There's nothing here. These are felony crimes in New York State. My lawyers came to me and they said, there's nothing here. The defendant repeatedly made false statements. They're not even saying what you did. He also caused others to make false

statements. Charging a former president of the United States for the first time in history. Everyone stands equal before the law. Donald Trump and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg held two very different news conferences following yesterday's historic arraignment of a former president. We'll go through what we learned about the indictment and what's next for the case in just a moment. Meanwhile, the former president's allies in Congress are doing what they can to appease him and his base. We'll show you the warning House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had for the DA. Also ahead, we'll go through the two big races

that were decided by voters yesterday as Wisconsin Supreme Court is going to a liberal majority for the first time in 15 years. We talked about this yesterday. That is such a massive story. I know we're all looking at the Trump indictment right now. This will have a much bigger impact, likely in years to come, in the most important swing state. And it once again shows that for whatever reason, Democrats are able to mobilize

their base much better than Republicans. And once again, as Dave Wasserman said, it points to abortion and Roe being overturned. So also this morning, Chicago's mayoral race, where the winner has a message for the 270,000 people who did not vote for him. We'll play for you those comments. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, April 5th. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, attorney and contributing columnist for The Washington Post, George Conway, NBC News national affairs analyst and co-host of Showtime's The Circus, John Heilman,

and former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg. He's an NBC News legal analyst. A great group this morning on a very big day after Donald Trump's indictment. It's a massive day. Let's just go talk to smart people and see what they think. Chuck Rosenberg, what's your take? If you want to start with smart people, Joe, I wouldn't start with me. So here's my take. There's a lot in the indictment that didn't surprise me. We had been hearing for a long time that it would be related to the hush money payments and

therefore false entries on the books and records of the Trump organization. But there was some really fascinating detail in the accompanying statement of facts that the prosecutors filed yesterday, which shows a couple of things. One, their theory for elevating those false records and those false entries into felonies, violations of election law, both state and federal, and a hint, a whiff of a plot or a plan to violate state tax law. You also see the centrality not just of Michael Cohen to the scheme, but also of David Pecker. And it's clear to me from reading the statement of facts—and I assume the prosecutors can prove or think they can prove everything in that statement of facts that accompanied the indictment—that Mr. Pecker, who essentially publishes the National Enquirer and was responsible

for the catch-and-kill stories, is a really important witness because he had private conversations with Trump and those conversations involved or included the details of how these hush money payments were going to be made and what they were for. And what they were for was to protect Mr. Trump in the upcoming election. And so some things were expected, right? The felonies related to the false entries in the bookkeeping. But the centrality of Mr. Pecker, I think, puts a new gloss on this. And it's something I'm going to watch carefully going forward. So, George Conway, I am a child, a product of the 80s. So I must say, after this indictment came out, I thought about two pop cultural moments. One, where's the beef as far as the felony goes?

And the second was, well, the second one was, see, I'm a child of the 80s. I forgot what it was because the 80s, it just kind of blurred past. Oh, big. This ain't big. I don't get it. I don't get it. What's different from what we've been hearing all along? And the Wall Street Journal editorial page says, for this to be a felony, Bragg needs a second crime. What is it? Bragg kind of said yesterday,

we're not sure what the second crime are. I don't have to even tell you what the second crime is. And so I talked to a lot of lawyers yesterday and none of them Republicans, none of them Trump supporters and all of them saying this this is a little thin. What were your thoughts? Well, I I disagree in the following sense. They don't really have to specify this early in the case, which three which of the three possible theories of liability could bump this up from a misdemeanor to a felony. But secondly, and I do think there are very interesting factual issues that were raised by the statement of facts, but I don't see what the big deal is, why people are hand-wringing so much about whether or not this is a misdemeanor or a felony.

There's no question it was a crime under New York state laws. No question it was, at the very minimum, a misdemeanor because these books and records of the Trump organization were false in that they did not reflect that the $130,000 was as as hush money to a porn star. And it wasn't. And the rest of the money was paid to cover up to Michael Cohen to cover up the fact that they were paying hush money to a porn star. And so it's illegal in New York state to falsify business records. It's that simple. OK, so if it's a misdemeanor, it's just a misdemeanor. He can make that argument. But the fact of the matter is, there's really no dispute that he committed a violation of law. So is there a statute of limitations question, though, if it's just a misdemeanor? I thought he had to prove it was a felony to bump it up to a felony

to get around the statute of limitations issue. Well, I mean, yes, there is an issue with the statute of limitations. But at the same time, though, I mean, he's still going to be able to have the opportunity to prove that it is a felony. And there are, you know, there are different, he has these theories that could bump it up. And I don't, I'm not sure why at this point people are worried about whether or not the charges were severe enough to justify an indictment. I mean, I don't, this is a man who does not deserve any, any breaks on any laws in any ways. I mean, he's he's absolutely you know, he's given everything his his entire history. He's not the person you want to give a break to. And he's he's

he's the world's biggest scofflaw at this point. So if you look at the timeline here, just for our viewers to understand how this is going to play out, the next hearing is not until December. Prosecution has asked for a trial in January of 2024. Of course, that would fall right as primary and caucus season is beginning as Donald Trump runs for reelection. That may complicate things. But Chuck Rosenberg, we got the indictment. We got to look inside these 34 counts. And then later, the district attorney, Alvin Bragg, came out and gave that press conference, released a statement of facts, which kind of gave more of a narrative story of the case he hopes to lay out. Can you explain to our audience what the distinction is there between the indictment itself and the statement of facts?

Because there were things in the statement of facts, of course, that were not in the indictment. That's right. So this is a little bit of a quirky procedure that I did not use or see in federal court. But apparently it's rather common and straightforward in state court in New York. Here's what happened, Willie. The indictment is a bare bones recitation of the statutes, the charges that Mr. Trump allegedly violated. And I think George did a great job explaining that even if it's just misdemeanors, it's a violation of New York state law, plain and simple. But it doesn't include a lot of detail. When we add detail, for instance, in a federal indictment, we sometimes call it a speaking indictment. It's not just the bare bones, but it's sort of the meat on the bones. It's how the crime was committed, who committed the crime, how the money flowed, things that people said to effectuate the crime, all of the

detail. And what the prosecutor in New York did was poured all of that detail into the accompanying document you just described, a statement of facts. It's a roadmap, if you will. It explains to people who care enough to read both documents how the government intends to prove the allegations that are laid out in the indictment. So as a roadmap, if the government, if the district attorney can actually adduce all of that stuff in court, it's a reasonably clear path to conviction. Now, it doesn't mean that the case won't be challenged legally and factually by Mr. Trump's attorneys and pretrial motions and argued, you know, in the coming months. But that roadmap, that statement of facts tells us exactly how they intend to prove the case they alleged in the indictment. And you can use it that way. Read it and you'll understand the theory of the prosecution's

case. The judge presiding over former President Trump's case is warning against any statements or social media posts that could incite supporters. Since news broke that Trump would be indicted, Trump has repeatedly posted on his social media site about the case, calling Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg a, quote, degenerate psychopath, asking his followers to protest and warning of potential death and destruction resulting from the charges against him. Prosecutors raised these comments to Judge Juan Merchan in a bid to get an order that would prevent Trump from posting documents from the case on social media. The judge did not rule on that request, but did advise Trump to refrain from making statements that are likely to incite violence or civil unrest and asked him to avoid rhetoric that could jeopardize the rule of law. Just hours after the presiding judge advised Trump to refrain from that rhetoric that could inflame or incite civil unrest, the former president went on an extended tirade while addressing his supporters at Mar-a-Lago. Trump attacked the judge, calling him a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife. He called District Attorney Alvin Bragg a criminal who

should be prosecuted or at the very least resign. Trump also went after special counsel Jack Smith, calling him a lunatic and a bomb thrower who is threatening people every single day through his representatives and their threatening jail terms. And the former president called New York Attorney General Letitia James a racist in reverse. Lovely. And instead of responding to that, I just, George Conway, want to ask a little bit more about the point you were making. You were saying we don't know what bumps this up to a felony. I think, you know, from my perspective, we're looking at this as a potential crime that was committed. No matter what the crime, no matter how big, how serious the crime is, Trump has done a great job of desensitizing the public, telling people he would be arrested when he wasn't going to be arrested,

drumming up 24-hour coverage so that by the time it happens, everyone's already heard everything. And we've been hearing about this case for years. Alvin Bragg said that there is more evidence. He didn't have to share exactly what that was. But my question to you is no one is saying Trump didn't do this. I mean, I don't even hear Trump saying that. So again, the public politically desensitized to just how unseemly it might be for a president to pay off a porn star in order to influence the election or keep his wife from finding out about it. Who knows what his intent was? But could there be a possibility of a secondary indictment? Or what are the potentials that could play out here if a crime indeed was committed?

Well, I mean, he is very much capable of talking himself into more trouble. I mean, we've seen this from the very beginning of his presidential career, when he basically took an investigation about whether or not the Russians tried to interfere with the 2016 election and made that investigation essentially all about him and his desire and attempts to obstruct that investigation. I mean, remember, there was a several hundred page report issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and one half of it was devoted to Trump's efforts to derail the investigation. He is perfectly capable of committing crimes, felonies, to avoid nothing, which was probably what he had done before he started trying to obstruct the Mueller investigation.

He certainly probably is willing to try to commit crimes to avoid being convicted of a misdemeanor. It's just that he just doesn't know when to stop. Yeah, and speaking of not knowing when to stop, John Heilman, I thought it was fascinating. Yesterday, every Democrat, and again, it will get mad at me. I thought it was fascinating. Yesterday, every Democrat, and again, it will get mad at me. I'm good with it. Every Democrat I talked to, every lawyer, every DA, I was making calls throughout the afternoon. They were all disappointed by Bragg's, by the actual indictment itself. They were all disappointed by the charging papers and what we're saying. So, you know, advantage Trump, disadvantage like DeSantis and the entire Republican field. If Donald Trump was sane, if he were rational, he would have said, I'm going to go to bed with the wind.

But as we all know, Donald Trump can't keep his mouth shut. He goes out. I will just say he messes the bed in a stupendous way last night. He could have used that speech to say, yeah, you know what? They treated me bad. They did this, that, the other, just like what happens to you when they treat you bad doing A, B, C, the systems rigged again. Instead, it was it was it was all these personal grievances. He went all over the place, scattershot. And by the end of the speech, Ron DeSantis had to be feeling great, going, well,

he's always going to be him. Because by the end, you're like, yeah, that guy, that guy will never be president again. He took this advantage that a lot of people thought he had and completely blew it with that crazy display last night at Mar-a-Lago. Yeah, I don't know, Joe, whether he completely blew it in the sense that all of the things we heard last night from him have been things that we've heard before. And they're all things that have, for whatever, if you believe that Trump's power resides in his ability to continue to have the loyalty of the MAGA base, and that that's a large enough chunk of the party to make him the frontrunner, the favorite, maybe ultimately the nominee of the party. I'm not sure he did anything to alienate any of those voters last night.

I do think if you're someone running against Trump and you're making a case to the other part of the party, which is to say to the other part of the party, which is to say, to the establishment part of the party, the never-Trumpers, the maybe-Trumpers, anybody who's looking for a reason to leave Trump, you've got an object lesson of, like, this is what you're going to get, folks, if we stick with Donald Trump. You're going to get this, even the day that the judge told him to watch it, to simmer down, to not say these inflammatory things, to not attack this DA, to not attack the courts, to not attack the justice system. Don't go down the path you've been on. Admonished him in the court, told him that there might be consequences. He went out and did exactly the same thing. And so, if I'm Ron DeSantis and I'm trying to appeal to

the Karl Rove's of the world, the Karl Rove donors of the world, the Club for Growth people, all those people. You have this very strong thing. This guy is not never going to learn. But most people, I think, know that. I do think that I think most of those people already know that. But if you're able to kind of reinforce the notion that what dangerous Trump is, if he becomes the nominee of the party as a potential loser. I think the main thing it's setting up, though, is this incredible coming clash between this judge and Donald Trump, where, you know, everybody has to realize now the next time we're going to see anything about this case is December. OK, we're going to be right on the brink of the Republicans starting to vote in the early part of 2024. They're going to walk in in the months leading up to that hearing. Donald Trump's going to be doing this over and over and over again. How long will the judge tolerate it? We know that any judge is going to say he's a former president. He's the leading candidate

running for the nomination of one of the parties. I'm going to give him a wide berth. I can't shut that man down and throw him in jail just for defending himself. But I also can't have him inciting violence out there. So what's the moment between now and then where this judge finally, the judge we saw yesterday finally says, starts to try to limit Trump's speech in the ways that Roger Stone saw his speech limited? When does that moment come? How fast does it come? And how tough is this judge? How far does Trump have to go? Those are the large political questions, because Donald Trump, with a contempt citation, Donald Trump could be thrown in jail if he violated a gag order. Those are all the coming questions, I think, and they're going to hang large over our politics

and over the Republican nomination fight when we get to the back part of the year. Well, you know, the line was drawn yesterday, and it was crossed. It was crossed repeatedly, even while the judge was immediately saying that to him. Donald Trump's boys were sending out pictures of the judge's daughter and sending that all over the Internet. Obviously, we all know that's to intimidate her and to get threats to rise up against. So we've seen this is how Trump world works. We've seen it time and again. I've seen it personally. So they knew exactly what they were doing. But then on top of that, you go go go one statement after another, attacking the judge,

attacking his wife, attacking the children, attacking all the other prosecutors, attacking the DA, saying things that would lead to, again, the possibility of violence, of threats. I guarantee you all those people are facing an increase of security problems this morning. And they knew exactly what they were doing. I would say the line's already been crossed. And any judge, I just got to say, we're all talking about no man is above the law. And, you know, these Trump people are saying, oh, well, they're doing things that Donald Trump would never do to anybody. That is such a lie. They've given him such a wide berth already. Any judge, if any, if any defendant I took into any court in Pensacola, Florida, or in state or federal court there, had done

one-tenth of this, the judge would have already brought the hammer down. And he would say, do it again. I'm going to find you in contempt of court. And you're going to be staying in the Escambia County jail tonight. Do you understand? And if you don't understand, counsel, do you want to explain to your client one more false move? You're going to jail tonight and then I'll let you out of jail. But if you do it again, I'm going to send you to jail for a week. That would happen in any case anywhere in America. So this whole thing about how somehow Donald Trump's being treated worse than everybody else.

I wish I could say what that was. I will just say that is rank horse manure. It's just pure garbage. And Willie, let's just talk really quickly about the impact of Donald Trump's speech last night. Donald Trump has this speech, again, a lot of legal analysts think, oh, he's got the advantage, the political advantage at least,

because these documents weren't as strong as everybody thought they were going to be. He goes out and he gives that speech. What states does he have to win to be president? Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. What was going on during that speech. There was a landslide victory for Democrats, for liberals, for the left in the most important. And we said it yesterday. And I would have come on the show this morning if the conservative had won. I would have said this is really great news for Republicans, great news for Trump, bad news for Democrats. Instead, just like Kansas in 2022, this was a massive win for Democrats.

Another loss for Donald Trump. So the craziness in the courtroom in Mar-a-Lago is connected to the Democrats' massive win, historic win in Wisconsin. And again, these two things, they don't go together. Donald Trump is unelectable in Wisconsin. And last night, basically telling a judge to go to hell, attacking his daughter, attacking his wife, attacking him, attacking the D.A., doing all of this. Yeah, the MAGA people are still going to be there. But the independents, 62 percent of which think he needs to be indicted. Whoop. That's going to be 63 percent,

then 65 percent, then 70 percent. Yesterday was what could have been a better day for Donald Trump was a horrible day for him politically. Horrible. You know, on your first point about threatening the judge and talking about the jury and everything else, if you are a mobster in lower Manhattan, if you're John Gotti or Sammy the Bull Gravano and you start threatening judges, you go to jail. That's just the way it works. It's just the way the system works. So he shouldn't get a pass on that either. But your larger point is such an important one. We're going to dig into the Wisconsin story in just a minute. It's not just the fact that the liberal judge now winning that election and progressives controlling the Supreme Court in Pennsylvania has impacts on abortion and gerrymandering and security of elections, by the way, the next presidential election. going to be here. The erosion of Republican support in counties where they have been dominant, where Mitt Romney was winning by 30 points down to single digits or in the teens and in some cases. So there's no question that the spectacle that we saw last night at Mar-a-Lago and we've seen

for seven years is having an impact on the way people vote in those important counties that decide elections. And Jonathan, letire, back to last night, just a little bit. So, yes, there are many. And we both probably talked to some people, Democrats, attorneys who said this is a little thin on Donald Trump. I'm not sure if there's a conviction in there. But one one one put it to me this way on to Georgia, effectively, where there is so much more ahead for Donald Trump. And this really is just the tip of the iceberg. So what is your sense of the concern inside, the genuine concern about all of this inside the Trump campaign?

Inside the Trump campaign, they were thrilled with how yesterday went. With yesterday. With yesterday. And let's be clear about that. They, and we heard this from people on both sides of the aisle that thought there would be a little more. We've been, there've been speculation last week or two

that there was some unknown stuff coming in this indictment. There's a belief that Bragg had more up his sleeve. And maybe that'll still come. There could be a superseding indictment in the months ahead. So we have to watch for that. But at least yesterday, people felt it was a little underwhelming. And we saw that Trump, certainly, we knew this would happen. They're whipping up supporters about this thing in Manhattan. And it was a sparsely attended protest outside the courthouse. I was down there, went by it yesterday. But it is, they're fundraising. They've raised a lot of money. They think that this will be very helpful in the Republican primary. And he's dominating the newscape, as he often does. But there's a

lot more to come. And the political dynamic is such where, you know, George Conway, we know that, like, Wisconsin's a great example here, that this is another moment where Republicans who have tethered themselves to Trump have taken a loss in a key battleground state. But New York is as it's the opening act. There are other cases coming. Georgia matter in potentially a matter of weeks. And then, of course, special counsel Jack Smith, who Trump oddly now suggests maybe that's not his real name. That's one of his new talking points. He did that last night. He's practically using an alias that, you know, he's got both the documents and January 6th. This is all on the horizon. That can't be good for Trump or Republicans as we head to next year. It's going to only get worse. I mean, the walls are closing in on this man. And if you if you

think, well, maybe this wasn't a felony that was charged yesterday. There were no felonies charged yesterday. It's like, OK, well, we got felonies coming. I mean, we've seen the news about what what Smith is investigating, that his own people, that Trump's own people, you know, have basically documented how Trump may have looked at these documents after they were requested by NARA and by the Justice Department and then may move them around. I mean, you know, he's probably, I mean, if half of what we know, what we've learned about that case is true, he's dead to rights. And that's, those are felonies under the Espionage Act. So it's only going to get worse for him. And and I think it's going to continue to help him among the Republican base. And yes, they can. I guess they can say at Mar-a-Lago they can say, oh, this is great.

Look at this is great. Look at the money coming in. But absolutely. It's basically you're taking the Republican Party and you're going to boil it down to a group of people that most people can't stand. And that would include, you know, this is the party. This really is becoming the party of Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene and Gates and all these people and Boebert. We're just like, what are these people doing? And also the whole thing about Trump is the whole grievance mentality, which he loves. You know, as a crazy narcissist, he loves just playing with these grievances and he loves using them to connect to the Republican base. It's like most people don't care about his problems. They care about other things.

They care about what the people who showed up in Wisconsin cared about last night. Whether it's abortion or whether it's redistricting or whether it's about just their lives generally, they don't want to hear about Donald Trump's grievances. And they don't want to hear, they don't want to vote for a party that's all about Donald Trump's grievances. And this is why they keep losing. And we've gone through the years that they've lost. Let's add 2023 to that, because, again, this Wisconsin court election, judicial election, it's hard to overstate how important it is. I will also say, as as a marker, it is so much like Kansas in 2022, where you had an off year, off Election Day election. And the Democrats just so out mobilized Republicans that happened again here in 2023. So it's really striking.

I do want to just add also, the documents case, this is not speculation, the documents case just keeps getting worse every single day for Donald Trump. When you have a judge that's actually piercing the attorney-client privilege because it's quote, likely that a crime was committed in that interaction, that speaks volumes. Jack Smith has people on the inside that are talking about Donald Trump,

about him browsing through documents after they had lied and said that they'd returned the documents. All of this adds up because of that case, the Georgia case. I mean, that happened two and a half years ago. I'm not exactly sure what they're waiting for in Fulton County. I don't know. Maybe until after the next election. It's it's baffling to me. Two and a half years and still, you know, they have a grand jury. Somebody goes around, talks a little bit and no movement in Georgia. It's really just baffling. But this case yesterday,

though, you know, you and I talked a lot about this last night. I thought that that it wasn't as strong as I think a lot of people thought it was going to be. Certainly wasn't wasn't as strong as Jack Smith. What what what he's got going in the documents case. My God, I would not want to be on that guy's planet in the Star Wars show without that. What did you think, though? You were you believe it's very strong. I mean, I think there's two things going on. There's the story of Donald Trump and his presidency, which we've been covering for how many years now? Too long. And yesterday was a really big moment. He was arraigned.

He is a criminal defendant. But even more, it was a big moment for President Donald Trump, who had to walk out of the car alone, into the courthouse alone. Weird, awkward moment with the Secret Service during what would be his processing and then arraignment. And that drive to the courthouse wasn't fun for him. the Secret Service during what would be his processing and then arraignment. And that drive to the courthouse wasn't fun for him. It might have been fun leaving Mar-a-Lago with a bunch of guys with Trump flags lining the streets. But in New York City, Marjorie Taylor Greene tried to have a Trump rally and was drowned out.

And what he saw when he was driving to that courthouse was lines of people holding out their phones, trying to look in the car and signs that said no man is above the law. And finally, and other things that I can't say on the air. And that probably was a grim drive for him. I'm just ascertaining at this point. Walking in there, the reporting is he walked down the aisle slowly and sat down. And we all saw that picture of him sitting in the courtroom looking absolutely grim, stone-faced and exhausted. And for the first time possibly in his life, Donald Trump heard and was presented with some accountability,

not just possible crimes that he committed, the 34 felony counts against him, but he was presented with his behavior before a judge, threatening the lives of American citizens, threatening death and destruction, threatening World War III. He was not allowed to really speak back in any strong way. He was presented with what he has done, what he has said and what it could mean to this case. And yes, some people may not see this case as big as perhaps the January 6th investigation, the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation, the Georgia case. But in a way, this case, this smaller case bookends what could be an incredible legal journey for Donald Trump, an incredible journey through accountability. And Chuck Rosenberg, it's starting and ending with sleazy deals.

But what other legal experiences like this might Trump be facing in the coming months? Right. And Mika, by the way, I think that's a really good recapitulation of what's going on. I don't think of this New York case as either weak or trivial. Think about the first thing that George Conway said this morning. The core of this case is strong. The core of this case concerns 34 false entries in the business records of the Trump Organization. And so maybe folks are disappointed that there wasn't something else and that something else wasn't enormous, but the core of this case is strong. And so to your immediate question, Mika, there is a lot of legal criminal jeopardy for Mr. Trump. I agree that the Mar-a-Lago case could be very impactful, and not necessarily the mishandling of classified documents,

although that remains a possibility, but the obstruction of that investigation. Remember, when the FBI executed its search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, one of the predicate offenses mentioned in the affidavit for the warrant was obstruction of the investigation. Incredibly important fact. So it's not entirely new to the FBI. It's not entirely new to us. But you can see precisely where they're going. You know, it may sound cliched, Mika, because we say it's always the cover-up. But you know what? It's always the cover-up. And in this case, it was a cover-up of the investigation into the mishandling of the documents. So I don't know what's going to happen in Georgia, nor do I know precisely what Jack Smith, if in fact that's his real name, is going

to do. But it's a really important part of the investigation, and that's something that we all should watch closely. Former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg, thank you very much for being on this morning. A lot more to talk about. And still ahead on Morning Joe, Donald Trump did have one small legal win yesterday. Stormy Daniels will have to pay his legal fees from a defamation case she brought. We'll show you how Fox News reacted to that. Plus, liberals have won control. And this could be the big story of the morning of Wisconsin Supreme Court in a consequential and closely watched race. We'll get a live report from that battleground state. Also ahead, we'll be joined by the U.S. ambassador to NATO

on the heels of Finland joining the Western alliance. You're watching Morning Joe. We will be right back. Up for it. In a circumstance like this, I would be able to concede to a worthy opponent. But I do not have a worthy opponent to which I can concede. This was the most deeply deceitful, dishonorable, despicable campaign

I have ever seen run for the courts. It was truly beneath contempt. You see, is that you see kids? I thought that was a candidate. Yeah, it is. So here's the deal. If you want to have a future in politics or elected office, when you lose, I know what you've seen over the past five, six, seven years, but when you lose, you are gracious.

That actually, first of all, you should be gracious regardless of how ugly the race was because it's not beanbag as they say it's hardball and if you're gonna step into a boxing ring well as I told my family for years expect your head to get knocked off of you that's the profession that you choose and elections can be awfully tough. But when it's over, it's over and you graciously concede regardless. You find something to be gracious about and then you move on. And as David Maraniss wrote in the Bill Clinton book after he lost his race for governor and the next morning he was out shaking hands and people said the poor guy doesn't even realize he's lost. And somebody laughed in the campaign office said, oh, no, you don't understand. He's already running for the next election. I've seen this time and time

and time again. The people who are gracious, even after losing a really tough, personal, bitter race, those are the people you see in public service for the rest of their lives because they understand it's not about the last election they just lost. It's about the one that's coming up in two or four years. But Willie, right there, I mean, I don't I hope that Dan Kelly felt good about himself after that speech because nobody else felt good about him. And again, I don't think he felt by the way, by the way, I understand how personal this stuff can be. You know, when I campaigned a lot of really personal false attacks. But you know what? You just smile and you keep on.

You walk through it because that happens in politics sometimes. But man, you don't end. I've had friends that have ended that way and they never get elected again. Their career's over. Yeah. He went on to say Wisconsin voted for what he called the rule of Janet. But that's their choice to make, he said. That's former Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly. That was his concession speech last night. And it was Janet Protusewicz who defeated the conservative in the most expensive state Supreme Court race in American history, giving liberals control of Wisconsin's high court for the first time in 15 years. The victory will allow the court's new liberal majority to likely determine the future of a number of pivotal issues,

including abortion and gerrymandered legislative maps. Let's go live to Milwaukee, and where we find NBC News correspondent Shaquille Brewster. Shaq, a long, expensive race with the progressive winning. What does it mean for Wisconsin? Well, it means a lot for Wisconsin. And I was actually told that last night there was no concession call from Dan Kelly to Janet Protusewitz. That's according to the Protusewitz campaign. And that's not only an extension of the vicious,

nasty campaign that you saw for the past couple of months here in Wisconsin, but it's also a reflection of the stakes in this race. This is a court that has been at the center of some truly controversial rulings just in the past couple of years. This court struck down COVID restrictions just months into the pandemic. It eliminated drop boxes after the 2020 election. And it also is a court that sided with Republican gerrymandered maps, maps that experts call the most gerrymandered in the country. It sided with those Republican maps for legislative and state seats. So this is a court that has been animating the Democratic base.

And for the liberals to be able to take over the court for the first time in 15 years, it's a seismic shift. I want you to listen to a little bit of what we heard from the candidates. Too many have tried to overturn the will of the people. Today's results show that Wisconsinites believe in democracy and the democratic process. My opponent is a serial liar. She's disregarded judicial ethics. She's demeaned the judiciary with her behavior. And this is the future that we have to look forward to in Wisconsin.

And this is a race that I mentioned was extremely contentious. You know, the issue that was talked about the most when I talked to voters at polling locations across the state was the issue of abortion. You saw it in the campaign ads. This is, of course, a state where abortion is nearly completely banned after the overturning of Roe because of an 1849 abortion ban on the books. That is likely to come before this newly liberal majority court. And that's something that voters were celebrating even at the watch party last night. Janet Perota-Sawyer, she ran a unique campaign. She said while she wouldn't prejudge any case

that would come before the court, she said she wanted Wisconsin voters to know her values. And one of those values being that she believed in a woman's right to choose. That is a sense of why you have that outrage from Dan Kelly and many conservatives in this race. They believe she politicized this race for Democrats. They say it was clear that if Dan Kelly won this election, then there would be no hope for women in the state

of Wisconsin. Guys, big day in Wisconsin. NBC's Shaquille Brewster in Milwaukee for a shack. Thanks so much. And Joe, back to the point you made earlier, there are these counties around Milwaukee that decide who wins statewide, whether it's in a Supreme Court race inside the state or a presidential race, let's say in 2024. And again, massive erosion of Republican voters in some of them stayed home, perhaps, but pro to say, which made a lot made up a lot of ground just over the last couple of years. But really, if you look over the scope of a decade, places where I said Mitt Romney won by 30 points, she came pretty close to winning, losing by five points only in one of those counties. Yeah, exactly. And by the way, we keep hearing this self-righteousness from this conservative candidate.

His his ads against her were extraordinarily nasty. They were tough going both ways. So don't whine if you if you go into the boxing match and you're throwing haymakers, you know, for months. Don't whine when when it lands on you. I want to follow up, though, John, with what Willie said. Again, all eyes are on the D.A. in Manhattan or on Donald Trump. I get it. But something much bigger happened last night in Wisconsin. And it's part of a trend and it is a trend that is growing. I think we're going to find the overturning of Roe v. Wade to be a singular moment in 21st century politics and that it has shifted the dynamic in a dramatic way from Kansas to Wisconsin to Michigan, you name it. but just think about this. Donald Trump won in 2016 because he was able to crack that blue wall that Democrats had in the Electoral College in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

And a lot of people were considering that to be white working class paradise for Republican candidates. They were going to they were going to keep winning up there. But since Roe has been overturned, think about it. Michigan. Democrats took over the entire state. They took over the entire state, not even close. Listen, I talked to Democrats a month beforehand. They were hoping they could pick up a couple of seats here, a couple of seats there in Michigan. I said, well, what about Pennsylvania? We have no chance of winning of winning any legislature, the assembly or anything in Pennsylvania. They made massive gains. They won one of the chambers.

They won the governorship there. They won the governorship in Michigan. They won the governorship there. They won the governorship in Michigan. They won the governorship in Wisconsin. And now they have done what I think out of all of those things is the most important thing for for looking through American democracy and and and actual the legitimacy of of Democratic elections, they've taken back the Supreme Court there that's approved the most gerrymandered districts in America. And because of it, we can be sure that it's going to be a lot harder to steal elections in Wisconsin. I mean, yeah, look, I mean, if you step back to what you were talking about a second ago and obviously yesterday in the courtroom and those findings of the facts that the D.A. laid out, it was like a tour back to the 2016 election and sort of talking about the secret history of what people didn't some people, most people did not know

were going on the deals between Pecker and Trump and suppressing stories and all that stuff. So, 2016 is very much on all of our minds right now, I think. And your point is the right point here. It's, you know, the blue wall crumbled. Donald Trump knocked it down in that cycle, largely because of his strength with rural and white working class voters in those kind of paradigmatic states, with the three you mentioned, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. And what's happened since then has been gradually Democrats finding a way back towards competitiveness in those places. Obviously, Joe Biden winning all three of those states in 2020 is what made him president, along with the narrow victories that he had in Georgia and Arizona. And then this thing that you're pointing to is really staggering, right? And you can't say it enough. Gretchen

Whitmer was supposed to be toast in Michigan year out. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and she not only got reelected, but all three of those women at the Attorney General, Secretary of State's level, they all got elected and they all campaigned on almost nothing but abortion rights. They put abortion rights at the center of the Michigan race in 2022, made it a referendum, essentially, on what the court had done. And Michigan is now under total Democratic control in a way it hasn't been really ever in modern history. Pennsylvania is another example, not just at the governor's level. Why is John Fetterman? Why did John Fetterman win that race?

Well, there are a lot of things wrong with Dr. Oz, and there are a lot of problems at the Senate level. But again, the white working class vote that went for John Fetterman. Why? Part of the reason. This white working class vote, it turns out, is very animated by the issue of abortion in a way that some people would have said a few years ago, well, they're all economic voters, or they're culture voters, and they're culturally conservative. It turned out they're maybe culturally conservative about, like, woke language, but they're not culturally conservative when it comes to abortion rights for their daughters.

And that's what the story of the Wisconsin election last night. Now, last night, too, if the blue wall is rebuilt now and potentially stronger in some ways because of things that Trump has done, the way the Republican Party has drifted, the election denial, all of that. And then the bulwark against Republicans in those states is going to turn out to be the question, the long running question of abortion rights. Man, woe, woe, woe, woe betide the Republican presidential nominee, whether it's Donald Trump or anyone else, if that's going to be the case where Democrats are going to dominate those three states, because that has also implications around the country. If you're strong in those three states, you're going to be strong in a lot, a lot of swing states. Listen, if Democrats win those three states, it is hard for a Republican to find their way to 270. And you look at a couple of

things that are happening here, Willie, that just speak very poorly for the future of the Republican Party. We've already talked about Donald Trump last night, the juxtaposition of Donald Trump's speech and the results in Wisconsin. Again, Trump getting more extreme, more radical, moving further away in tone, in temperament, in language, in everything. The guy that said he wanted to terminate the Constitution and who threatens judges, family members, brings them out and attacks them. And then you actually have Marjorie Taylor Greene up in New York City as the face of the Republican Party. You have Marjorie Taylor Greene. You have all the other extremists in the House. That's the face of the Republican Party. Those are the people that

get out there along with Donald Trump the most. That's not doing him any favors in these states that are starting to rebuild that blue wall against Republicans because of Donald Trump the most. That's not doing him any favors in these states that are starting to rebuild that blue wall against Republicans because of Donald Trump. This is all because of Donald Trump. I'm not saying that a reasonable, rational Republican couldn't go in tomorrow and win those states. They could. Donald Trump can't. Just can't. And finally, Republicans, you just wonder who in the Republican Party in Wisconsin thought, you know, we're going to be able to win this supporting an abortion law that was put on the books in Wisconsin when Zachary Taylor was president in 1849. This is like a parody of the Republican Party. They still don't understand how devastating the overturning of a 49 year right for women has been to their electoral prospects. And it's it's kind of like when we talk about gun safety and we say, well, the majority of members of the NRA support this,

the majority of Republicans. But it's the same here where you have a lot of Republicans who have identified as pro-life their whole life suddenly looking and going, no, I don't want my daughter to be arrested for trying to go to another state. I don't want to elect somebody that says a 14 year old girl getting raped by your uncle is a perfect example of why we need to pass tougher abortion laws. Florida just did it at six weeks. You don't even know. Many don't even know if they're pregnant at six weeks. At six weeks. Good luck explaining that, Ron DeSantis, when you get outside of the state of Florida. It's just and their extremism on gun laws, on abortion laws. It's all catching up with them, Willie.

In these states, they have to win. And you'd think they'd learn. They've had enough cycles, as you've laid out many times on this show, to say, oh, that didn't work. Oh, that continues not to work. But in many cases, they seem to be boring and deeper, led by Donald Trump and some of the other characters you described there. George, as you look at the implications of Wisconsin last night,

specifically for abortion, for gerrymandering, also, by the way, as I say, for presidential elections, this guy, Dan Kelly, who was running, according to testimony from the former Republican state chairman to the House Select Committee, Kelly participated in this idea of fake electors in 2020 to try to snatch Wisconsin back. He was right at the middle of that. So how important is this race and a significant double digit race as we sit here this morning, this win for a liberal justice? And what does it tell you beyond Wisconsin? Well, yeah, I think what you're saying is exactly right. I mean, the Republican Party is boiling itself down to appeal to a very small segment of the electorate. And that's not going to cut it in a presidential election. And it's not going to cut it in American politics generally,

particularly with the changing demographics of the country. We talk about Florida. As Florida ages, it's not going to be quite the same as it is today. And as people move from other places to Texas, for example, Texas isn't going to be the same. The Republicans have to figure out a new way. I mean, if the Republican Party is to survive, it's got to basically back up a little and try to figure out what appeals to 60 percent of the population instead of 30 percent of the population. And it's not really capable of doing that anymore because it's inward looking. The Republican Party is inward looking. It refuses to look at itself in the mirror, refuses to look at Donald Trump clearly, and they refuse to, you know, they need to surrender to reality and try to figure out how to win elections. But instead,

they're wedded to appealing to a small group of people to win those primaries and then, you know, for the grift that follows. All right, George Conway and John Howman, thank you both very much.