Morning Joe - Morning Joe 5/1/23

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

The suspect in a Texas mass shooting vanishes, and authorities have 'zero leads'

This dinner is one of the two great traditions in Washington. The other one is underestimating me and Kamala. We got to get Tucker back on the air, Mr. President, because right now there's millions of Americans that don't even know why they hate you. A couple of jokes from Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner. We're going to have a lot more moments for you, including President Biden's nod to a popular meme. Also ahead, Donald Trump praises a January 6th rioter who has said members of Congress who certified the 2020 election should be executed.

Plus, an international trip for Ron DeSantis just didn't generate the headlines he was hoping for. In fact, most of the headlines, well, especially out of Britain, were terrible. We'll have new reporting on that. And we're going to dig into the breaking financial news this morning, the third failure of an American bank since March, and who's coming in to save the day. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, May the 1st. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Jonathan, we have much to talk to you about in the Boston sports world. Also, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kay.

The founder of the conservative website The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes, and columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. First of all, Jonathan, I just have to ask, what happened to the Bruins? Just truly devastating. The Stanley Cup playoffs are so fantastic, but they're so tough. And the Bruins, who just had a record-setting regular season, the most wins, most points by any NHL team ever, then had a 3-1 series lead here against the eight-seeded Panthers, and they're done. They lost three in a row.

They blew a game last night. They were up a goal with less than a minute to play. Florida tied it, forced overtime, and they won it in the extra period. Hockey is such a fast, intense sport. But having home ice, home field advantage, doesn't matter that much. And the Panthers were simply better. The Bruins got shaky and tight. And what had been a magical season came to a sudden crashing halt.

I feel like we can hear about talking sports. I don't know anything about hockey, but I do know this. All year I've been hearing that the Boston Bruins were just absolutely dominating. And I'd hear the Red Sox announcers talk about how great they were every night. So quite a shot going out as far as the Red Sox go. With no apologies to Mike Barnicle, I will say they are 500 and fabulous. They're the most exciting 500 team I've seen. David Ignace is going from sports to war.

How about that for a segue? But we'll watch the sports. Thank you for that fade out. So I want to just ask, a lot of things seem to be moving right now in the Ukraine-Russian war. You, of course, had the massive drone strike in Crimea. You have the spring offensive coming up. I heard Republicans absolutely fretting. I say Republicans. Trump is absolutely fretting on another news channel about how she

may write in and save the day and bring peace to the region. How horrible peace to the region in their eyes if the Russians use as as a way to back out. And then, of course, the Vatican word is that the Vatican is starting to consider secret talks and trying to bring peace to the region. What what's what's the state of play right now in Ukraine and Russia? Joe, the simplest way I can put it is is preparation of the battlefield for what's ahead. And that implies also the diplomatic activity on the sidelines. You're seeing with Ukrainian attacks, the attack on the fuel depot in Crimea, other movements that they're making, either feints or beginnings of the offensive that's coming. Ukraine's got a lot riding on its ability to move Russian forces back, to use the armored vehicles,

the additional weapons that we and the Europeans have been giving them to actually change these lines over the next few months. Russians are going to fight back with everything they have. It's really telling to me, Joe, that the Russian winter offensive, which was focused on just one little place at the edge of Donetsk, has failed to make more than a few hundred yards, typically, in a week. It's just a sign that even when the Russians are so focused that they don't achieve the breakthroughs they want. But anybody who tells you they know exactly what's coming from the Ukrainians, I think is either either living with their commander or lying. And I think my only my only concern is with growing desire for peace.

The Ukrainians are going to have to make significant progress for the world to say, OK, well, let's sign up for another year of this after the offensive happens. Now, we will see a lot riding on the spring offensive, no doubt. And finally, before we get to our news, Charlie, I just I've got to bring this up. And we've talked about it before, but it's just it's still astounding to me. Meek and I were flipping through channels the other night. We came across a certain news channel, a certain channel. And there was a former Republican speaker there. I won't give names. I don't want to make this too personal. But his first name was Newt. And he kept going on and on about how weak and terrible the United States was, how how we are

China's lapdog, basically. And we're being led around by China. And we're so pathetic that it is it follows up on what I've been talking about. And I know what you've been talking about. It's just astounding how anti-American these people are, how they run down the United States of America and say how weak and how pathetic and how terrible the United States of America is when I can tell you in going around the world, talking to world leaders. Nobody's going, oh, we wish you guys would lead. They're saying, yeah, you're being too aggressive in Asia. You're setting up too many bases. You're being too confrontational with China. You're being too aggressive in the Middle East. You're being too aggressive in Europe. I mean, all of the all of the complaints

about the United States across the globe are that we're too powerful, that our military is too powerful, that our dollars too powerful, that our economy is too powerful, that we're running over even our allies, that we're stronger than we've ever been. That's what our friends and enemies are saying. And yet you listen to these Republicans, these Trump Republicans, they just tear down the United States of America all the time. And if they want to do it, it's a free country. They are, of course, the people that said America, love it or leave it in the 60s and 70s. So that's a bit ironic, I guess, or hypocritical, whichever one. But I just, I guess, say, Charlie, what's the end game for them? Do they really think Americans are going to vote for a political movement that hates on America

and America's military every day? Apparently they do. So let's let's let's let's go there. Remember, it was within the last year that Ted Cruz was putting out Internet memes comparing the weak American military with the manly, macho Russian military. Remember all that? You know, why can't we be more like the Russians? And, of course, leaving Nudist side for a moment, maybe if we could just leave him aside and leave him there. But think about what the leading Republican candidate for president does every time that he is asked about the world situation. He talks about how weak America is, how much he disdains our allies and how much he admires the authoritarian leaders of the rest of the Western civilization is not China. It's not Russia. But the United States of America that has fed and freed more people than any other country in the history of this planet is somehow the gravest threat.

This, again, hating on America. I don't see the end game here politically. Well, and this is the extraordinary thing about it. And you and I have been watching this for many, many years. So Republicans saying the Democrats are weak, that's kind of old. But what we're seeing necessarily any better than Vladimir Putin. We kill people as well, that we are not necessarily a force for good in the world. And it is this admiration of our enemies that I think is almost without precedent. No, it's not almost without precedent. It is without precedent. I think in American political history, coming from the right, especially, and you have to

go back to the 1930s, perhaps. But it is weird. So you not only have them invested in this idea that we are weak and that our enemies are strong, but that somehow our enemies are what was Donald Trump's phrase? They were top shelf. They are the most brilliant people in the world, unlike our own leaders. And again, this is extraordinary. So the question is whether or not voters are going to see through this, the contempt and the disdain, not just for America, but for American values, because America in order for America to be great, we actually have to project these democratic values. And those are under siege as well. So, you know, it is it is an extraordinary it is an extraordinary

circumstance. And the rest of the world has to be watching the clock and wondering, you know, it is it is an extraordinary it is an extraordinary circumstance. And the rest of the world has to be watching the clock and wondering, you know, when Joe Biden said America's back and he was asked for how long that question still is hanging out there. You know, Katty, I'm I've started because of a friend. I've started really digging into World War One history, which is fascinating because in the United States we focus much more on World War Two, obviously, than World War One. But it is there are just so many books. You go back and you look through the history of it, especially what happened between the assassination to the outbreak of war. I have no doubt that 50 years from now, 75 years from now, people are going to be trying to figure out what caused Vladimir Putin to make the decision that he made. This leading to the complete collapse of the Russian military will lead to the complete collapse of the Russian economy, has put Russia in a position where they will forever have a smaller GDP than the state of Texas.

Think about that. A smaller GDP than the state of Texas. And yet Donald Trump calls Vladimir Putin's invasion brilliant, savvy, brilliant, unbelievable. And that shows you just how twisted his view is of of reality and how desperate he is to praise these tyrants. And in the process, Vladimir Putin has managed to double Russia's border with NATO as well, with the accession of Finland into NATO, too. So it didn't seem like a great strategic win for him. One more book, if you haven't read it, if you're reading on those first World War books, if you haven't read Sleepwalking, I think it's a really good book to read at this particular moment.

It's about the years that led into World War One. And I've had an alarming number of conversations about whether we really are headed for World War Three at the moment. And I think it's a kind of it's worth revisiting that. You're right. That's the moment in history to revisit at the moment. And that's actually the book I'm in the middle of. And I was told you have to read this book first. It's extraordinary. Yeah, it's a good one.

I wish it. We're going to get to other news. And I wish I was not doing this news on a beautiful spring morning, Monday, May the 1st. But here we are again in the United States. There is a manhunt underway in Texas for a suspect accused of killing five of his neighbors, including a nine-year-old boy, in a rural area outside Houston. Investigators say the gunman was angry that the neighbors asked him to stop shooting his

assault-style rifle in his yard late Friday night because it was keeping an infant awake. Minutes later, he went into the neighbor's home and fired as many as 15 rounds. The San Jacinto County Sheriff says all of the victims were shot in the head, including two women who were in the bedroom trying to shield young children. On Saturday, searchers found the suspect's rifle, cell phone and some of his clothing before scent-tracking dogs lost his trail. But the sheriff says the suspect might still be armed and with a handgun. Right now, local, state and federal authorities are searching for the gunman, but they say they have zero leads as to where he could be. They hope an $80,000 reward will bring

in tips that lead to his arrest. Here we are, Lamia, Monday morning. Here we are again. This story is so grim. He was shooting his rifle and all they said is, dude, we have a baby that's trying to sleep. Please give us a break and stop doing your practice in the yard. Let's think about the last few weeks here in America where we have had people shot to death because they knocked on the wrong door. We have had people shot to death because they pulled in to the wrong driveway. We have had people shot to death because they knocked on the wrong door. We have had people shot to death because they pulled into the wrong driveway. We have had people shot to death because they accidentally stepped into the wrong car. And now we've had people shot to death because they asked a neighbor to stop shooting his assault rifle in the middle of the night

because it was keeping their baby up. That is where we are in the United States of America. And the governor of the state of Texas, the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, he contributed $50,000 of that $80,000 reward. But while announcing that reward, he seemed to find the need to describe the victims of the shooting as illegal immigrants. We're not sure what the immigration status of the victims has to do with it. And we'll also note that at least one of them was a permanent resident of the United States. Charlie Sykes, the governor, went out of his way to say that the suspect appears to be an illegal immigrant.

But he also found the need to say that the victims, five victims, were also illegal immigrants to the United States. Talk to us about where the Republican Party stands right now on the issues, the twin issues of guns and immigration. Well, that's an extraordinary moment that he felt the need to to do that. This was this was this this cried out for a little bit of compassion for some leadership. Of course, we got neither of those. Look, the Republican Party is as as paralyzed itself. It is it allowed itself to be held hostage to the NRA, to the most extreme voices. This is not new. But, you know, what's amazing is how deeply invested they are in the narrative that an armed society is a polite society,

that the Second Amendment is about a well-regulated militia, that more guns means less crime. Well, think about the last week. Think about all those stories, Jonathan, that you just told, what we are seeing in this country. We are seeing a country overrun by guns, in which people distrust one another, they fear one another, and in which we continue to have our quote-unquote thought leaders who are ginning up that kind of dislike and disdain for one another. So we're having shootouts in parking lots, shooting at shootouts in people's driveways, on people's porches. And I would like to say that some of this is going to shock the conscience of the nation.

But I'm afraid the conscience of the nation or at least the Republican Party has been numbed for too long about all of this. Yeah. And David, it is, I mean, first of all, it's just, I can't ever remember any leader in the United States trying to somehow mitigate the pain of an eight-year-old, nine-year-old being shot in the head and other people being shot by identifying their status, the feeling, the need to say, oh, well, these were illegal immigrants. They got shot and killed. That's the first thing. Again, there's just such a callousness to it, just like sending illegal immigrants up to Washington, D.C. on Christmas Eve and putting them outside of the Naval Observatory as they freeze outside when they get off the bus. But again, on the gun issue, too, again, just complete callousness. A cheerleader goes into the wrong car. She gets shot.

A young woman drives into the wrong driveway. She gets shot in the back trying to leave that driveway. We've seen it time and again. A young man knocks on a door, look at the wrong door, looking for his twin brothers. He gets shot twice. This is this is a country out of control in gun violence. It is. You can't look at the headlines and not feel precisely that. And the question for me, Joe, is when people say we can't live like this anymore, we just can't do it and begin to break all the political certainty is you can't challenge the gun lobby. There's nothing that can be done at the federal level.

And you have a kind of rebellion against the way we're living now. The callousness that is demonstrated by the incidents we're talking about, this sense that this is a problem that can't be fixed. It goes on year after year. The numbers, every week we get up waiting to hear about a new shooting. One of my children is a teacher, seeing her have to deal with preparations for mass shootings at her school, which every school in America has to do now. This is simply not a way to live. It's not viable. What the break point is, what it looks like, I can't say. Any problem like this, Joe,

I always think a good leader would be defined by the ability to break through this sense of blockage and speak to the country about what everybody feels. We can't live this way anymore. But you don't see that person yet. Yeah. And Charlie Sykes, it just seems like a matter of time when you have 90 percent of Americans supporting universal background checks. You have at least 75 percent of Americans supporting red flag laws nationwide. You've got an overwhelming majority of Americans supporting one gun safety law after another. And that includes Republicans. That includes gun owners. And as David said, it's not like these

tragedies are going to slow down. Republicans know they're going to continue. They're going to continue in schools. They're going to continue in churches. They're going to continue in synagogues. They're going to continue in country music festivals. They're going to continue in middle America. They're going to continue on the coast. This is this is inevitable. The question is, you know, to paraphrase John Kerry, who who is going to be the last school child to have to die because Republicans in state legislatures and in Congress won't step up and do what they know they have to do and what the American people want them to do. And yet, Joe, we have members of Congress who show up wearing AR-15 pins.

We have members of Congress who put out Christmas cards where they're posing with their family with weapons of mass destruction in schools. Look, I have to tell you, going back to 2012, if what happened in Newtown, Connecticut did not break the country, did not shock the country into action, I don't know what would. I mean, I still remember my reaction to that. I remember the debate that took place and how tragically we went back into this doom loop. So the question is, what will it take? How many school shootings? Well, how many school shootings have we had? How many weeks have we started off with this conversation? And this is what happens when you have a paralysis.

You know, David made a very, very good point. At some point, we is there some leader out there, someone from either party who can stand up and look the American people in the eye and say, you know, we cannot continue to live like this. There have been a lot of people trying, but but maybe that message can't be delivered anymore. Maybe this is the American carnage that we have. We've chosen. But the political indifference is breathtaking. Actually, I don't know whether I don't know whether my microphone was on. But when you read that tweet from Governor Abbott, I actually sort of blurted out what because I hadn't seen that before, that he had felt the need to say these were five illegal immigrants. Think about the mentality, the insensitivity rather than talking about this family that was caring

for their children, a nine-year-old boy, instead of the basic humanity, he felt the need to label them in the most divisive way that he can, because we know what the politics of Greg Abbott are. We know what the politics of Texas Republicans are when it comes to the gun issue and to immigration. So for him to connect the dots there takes just one more data point of the cruelty, the brutality. I mean, I'm not telling you anything when I say that for many of these politicians, the cruelty is the point and that he felt the need to insert that line into that particular moment just reminds us of that. It is a sad, sad moment for our country. A tragic moment out of Texas, also sad for American democracy when you actually have a

governor of one of the larger states in America feeling the need to be hateful and to be callous after a mother tries to shield her nine-year-old child, both are shot in the head. And instead of even a hope and prayers tweet, he feels like he has to stamp a label on the dead body's illegal immigrant. Just think about the mindset of that. Just think about the mindset of that. A guy who probably runs around, you know, maybe he's part of this Christian nationalist movement. But what would Jesus do? You know, you don't have to be a Bible scholar to know not that.

What a dreadful, shameful thing from the governor that that from a state that brought us Uvalde. And you do see, as Charlie said, you saw what happened in Sandy Hook. It just shattered the country. And yet in Congress, they did nothing. Representatives, including Republican representatives in Connecticut, did something. You can go through Parkland. There was movement on guns in Florida after that tragedy. But then, yeah, Uvalde. Uvalde got some Republicans in Congress to do something. But not enough. The carnage continues. Little children continue to get slaughtered by weapons designed for war.

And still, the Republican Party does nothing. Ahead, we have another major bank failure in the United States. First, Republic Bank's been overtaken by federal regulators and will be sold to J.P. Morgan. We'll talk about those developments and what it means for the U.S. economy and your deposits in banks. Plus, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis meets with business leaders in the U.K. Talk about underwhelming the crowd. Also ahead, more of the best jokes

from the White House Correspondents' Dinner. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. If you could see it, then you'd understand. morning, Joe. We'll be right back. Well, the truth is, we really have a record to be proud of. Vaccinated the nation, transformed the economy, earn historic legislative victories and midterm results, but the job isn't finished. I mean, it is finished for Tucker Carlson. It's great that cable news networks are here tonight. MSNBC owned by NBC Universal. Fox News owned by Dominion Voting System.

But to Tucker's staff, I want you to know that I know what you're feeling. I work at The Daily Show, so I, too, have been blindsided by the sudden departure of the host of a fake news program. Goodness gracious. A lot of jokes at Fox News. I've got to say, judging by the cutaways, they took it all in a very good spirit. A lot of smiles, a lot of laughter there. So, David Ignatius, I just keep looking at the latest person to spill U.S. secrets. And the airman I'm reading here, we had the airman. You look back at violent comments and chat groups. He was suspended from high school after discussing Molotov cocktails and other weapons. He didn't hide the incident, a military official said.

And you've written about how how we need to stop these intelligent leaks. It keeps happening. And every time it does, we ask the same thing. How in the world did the person who leaked these documents, when we take a closer look at their life, how in the world did they get a security clearance? And more importantly, how did they keep a security clearance? So, Joe, this is one of the mysteries of our national life. We've been talking about another mass shootings problem that doesn't seem soluble. These continuing hemorrhages of classified information is another. I've been looking into this the last few weeks, and what I found is, first, it's important that the alleged person who did this,

Eramin Tajera, was a systems administrator, which gives you unusual powers to cruise over wide ranges of data, not the usual controls in a similar way. Edward Snowden had a history of being a systems administrator in the past, in effect. What I've come to is to think that the controls need to be built not into the people overseeing the system who fail again and again, but into the system itself, a system that enforces the need to know through software. You simply can't operate, you can't get documents without leaving a clear trail, without establishing your permissions to be looking at that document. I think in the end, technology here can help us solve a problem that human

beings seem unable to. But the final thing, Joe, I'd note, as I asked people in our government to explain this to me, they kept saying, we're still looking at this. We really don't know, even now, two weeks later, exactly how this young man was able to get this many documents and range over such a wide area of subjects. So that's one sign that just how hard a puzzle this is to solve. Still a lot of questions. Yeah. Yeah. Let's move on with the news. Some news, Katie, really quickly. I'm so sorry. I just front page of The Wall Street Journal today.

And I know it's been going around this weekend, but The Wall Street Journal got a hold of Jeffrey Epstein's private calendar. And we have everybody in that calendar from bank presidents, Goldman Sachs lawyers, CIA directors. You go down the list. This guy, even after even after he was charged with with being a pedophile in Florida and was in house arrest. This guy kept meeting with some of the most powerful people in not only the United States government, but in banking and in other areas as well. Yeah, I found that list amazing. Bill Burns, what, you know, what's what why does he need to meet with Jeffrey Epstein? Did this guy have critical information that he needed to pass? Anyway, the list of people, the high profile nature of that list of people was pretty stunning. A lot of news this week, breaking news overnight. Another American bank has failed. Just this morning, financial regulators in California seized First Republic Bank after it lost $100 billion in deposits just in March. It marks the second largest bank to fail in

American history. The Fed struck a deal to sell most of the bank's operations to JPMorgan Chase. According to The Wall Street Journal, the move heads off a chaotic collapse that threatened to reignite the recent banking crisis. We'll get a live report from the Nasdaq that's coming up on Morning Joe. Also, new reaction is pouring in after former President Donald Trump embraced a January the 6th defendant at a diner during a campaign stop in New Hampshire last week. Trump called the woman, quote, terrific. She was identified as Mickey Larson Olson, a QAnon supporter who says she considers Trump the real president. She served prison time for her actions during the Capitol attack, and she says she wants former Vice President Mike Pence executed for treason.

Here's how the moment played out Thursday in Manchester. We love Trump! We love Trump! Thank you, sir. That's not a candidate being ambushed. He goes out of his way to look for her. NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hilliard actually interviewed the same woman last September when she called for the execution of members of Congress who certified the 2020 election. Those were domestic terrorists inside our Capitol, and I'm going to prove it on my trial. Who are the domestic terrorists? Our Congress, our Congress that's been stealing elections for a very long time. Our country's been under admiralty law since 1871. What should the punishment for

those members of Congress be? Execution for being traitors. That's what our constitution demands. Our constitution demands that traitors in our nation are executed. And that's what should happen to each and every person that hijacked the voice of we the people. Is that something that you see actually happening? Yes. Does she believe it? Is it a show? What's with the outfit?

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Neither did a Pence spokesperson. Lamia, former Republican congressman, by the way, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, did respond to her posting this tweet, quoting, Trump is embracing a January 6th defendant who called for the execution of members of Congress to elected Republicans who have endorsed him. You are endorsing his conduct on January 6th and every day since. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. We know that quote, Lamia, but we do. And we so often embracing Trump.

Yeah. And so often it falls to the likes of Liz Cheney is one of the lone Republican voices to speak out against something like this. And what did that get her? A 40 point primary loss last year and losing her congressional seat. And there had been some chatter in the aftermath when this video emerged. Oh, is this bad advance work? How could Trump's people have let her get near him? He sought her out. This was this. He was delighted to see her. That's a message he deliberately sent. Let's recall, of course, Charlie Sykes, that this is someone who has appeared with a choir of convicts of January 6th convicts. And they sing and he appears with them. So this is not something he's running from. He is embracing it. And it is part of a further

effort to normalize January 6th in the Republican discourse from Donald Trump and, frankly, most other Republicans. Even if they're not embracing it, they're certainly just keeping their mouth shut. Yeah, there's no question about it that she's a little bit on the fringe. But this is not a one-off, Jonathan, as you are pointing out. He went down to Waco, Texas and stood with his hand on his heart while they played the anthem from January 6th, well, the rioters. Look, this is something that Donald Trump has made no secret of, that he wants to rewrite the history of January 6th, that he wants to associate with them. He regards them as great patriots. He said repeatedly or

implied repeatedly that he would, in fact, pardon them all if he got back into power. And, you know, what is extraordinary about Liz Cheney's comment, as you point out, is how rare and unusual it is that here we are allegedly in the midst of a presidential campaign. Right. There are other Republicans who are running. How many other Republicans said this is unacceptable? This sends the wrong message. We are talking about people who are calling for the execution of members of Congress who, in fact, are called for the death penalty for Mike Pence. This should be low hanging fruit. This should not be difficult. This is not a morally wrenching decision for Republicans to say, no, we know we'll go with you this far,

but we're not going to go this far as you have gone. But again, to underline the fact this is not a one off. Donald Trump has been aggressively embracing the people who attacked, invaded the Capitol. And I think that people need to understand that that is not simply an historical fact, that he's also signaling that that he supported the coup last time and that he might support future actions again, particularly as someone who has called for mass protests if and when he is indicted. So this is this is a very incendiary situation. Well, and you have mainstream Republicans who are considered mainstream in 2023. Charlie, they're rushing to endorse Donald Trump. They're rushing to Mar-a-Lago, despite the fact that this guy is a presidential candidate, has a convict

choir of rioters actually singing and he's saluting them. The fact that he continues to pander to these rioters. They're called political prisoners by Donald Trump and his Republican Party. And and you even go back to before and during January the 6th. It's Donald Trump that told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by. It's Donald Trump that after his lawyer said, no, you have no case here. He ran and tweeted, I think in the middle of the night, come to Washington January the 6th. It's going to be wild. Right. He said that. And then on January the 6th, and we found this out by questioning of people who work for Donald Trump, everybody in the

White House wanted him to call down and stop the riots, his children, his lawyers, his workers. I remember Pat Cipollone was asked who in the White House did not want him to call. And Cipollone said nobody. Everybody wanted him to call to stop the riots. What was Donald Trump doing for two, three hours? Staring at the violence and actually rewinding to the most violent parts

of police officers. And again, these are Republicans that are rushing to endorse this guy at Mar-a-Lago. Trump watching and taking delight with police officers getting their brains bashed in by American flags. And these Republicans rush to endorse him now, Charlie? I mean, you talk about a sickness. People keep saying, oh, it's not fascist. It's this.

It's that. I just I don't know. I don't know how how how tightly do we define fascism in 2023 when you have actually an attempt to overthrow a government through violence and the continued glorification of that violence and the continued glorification of those people who tried to overthrow the federal government so much, though, so that he's turned these rioters. He's turned these insurrectionists into political heroes who now have a convict choir that he salutes. Yeah, for all of the millions of Americans who think that they've taken crazy pills this morning, you're not the crazy ones. You know, this actually happened. We saw this with our own eyes,

and he continues to embrace it. You know, what you're also describing is what's been happening over the last week. This incredible, once again, the recapitulation of the Republican Party to Donald Trump. It is May 1st. And yet one Republican leader after another is basically saying, no, wait, we got this. We're going to go back into a hostage situation with Donald Trump. You have Steve Daines, the head of the National Republican Senate Committee,

preemptively endorsing Donald Trump. They're not even going through the motions of opposing him or embracing an alternative. It is amazing the muscle memory of political cowardice in the Republican Party that Ron DeSantis has a few bad weeks and they've been horrible. They've been absolutely horrendous. Rather than saying, well, is there anybody else? What you're seeing is they're falling into line. So, you know, even as you lay out all the things that Donald Trump is doing, the parallel to that is the Republican Party is saying, yeah, we're OK with that. We're going to do this again. You know, despite all the losing, despite the crazy, despite the fascism, despite the insurrection, we're going to do this again. And by the way, the people that are doing it, so many of them think, oh, we're owning the libs. Joe and Charlie, who are actually conservatives, they're freaking out. We're not freaking out. What you don't understand is,

Republicans, we know how this story ends, OK? You don't have to be Dr. Strange, like sitting and going through 14 million different possible endings. We know how this ends. It ends with you losing, with Republicans losing, with Donald Trump losing. So if you think that Democrats are somehow owned by you continuing to glorify a guy who glorifies American violence and the beating up of cops with American flags, you're not reading the room right. You lost in 2017. You lost in 2018. You lost in 2019. You lost in 2020. You lost in 2021. You lost in 2022. You lost in 2023 from Kansas to Wisconsin. It keeps getting worse. So you're only owning yourself. But if you want to put your hand on the stove, that's your call. Enjoy it. Charlie Sykes, thank you so much. And yeah, they're not the crazy ones. People watching, not the crazy ones. It's the Republicans that keep making themselves lose elections.

Coming up, week two of the trial in the civil rape lawsuit against Donald Trump kicks off later today in New York City. Things don't seem to be going very well for Mr. Trump. We're going to have the latest in that case, plus how the former president's comments on social media could open him up to even more potential legal liability. His lawyers nervous. Morning Joe will be right back. Six forty eight on the East Coast. Time now for a look at the morning papers. We begin in Illinois, where the Beacon News reports a federal judge is blocking the state from enforcing a ban on assault weapons. Democrats passed the measure in response to a deadly mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade last year. But several groups filed a lawsuit against it.

And on Friday, a judge ruled the law causes irreparable harm by denying people the ability to, quote, exercise their right to self-defense in the manner they choose. It comes, of course, just days after another federal judge rejected a request to block the law. I mean, states are trying to take measures to implement sensible gun laws, and then courts are coming back and saying, no, these people have a right to defend themselves. But, Katty, of course, the United States Supreme Court's already ruled in Heller that Americans have a right to a handgun, maybe a shotgun inside their house to defend themselves. And after that, outside the home, it's really up to the individual states. And you look at states like every time somebody says, oh, this is such a violation against Second Amendment rights.

I go to the Connecticut law or a California law that's pretty sweeping and expansive. And are even some of the some of the Florida laws after Parkland and say the Supreme Court hasn't reversed those. So those those are the law of those states. And the Constitution, again, on Second Amendment rights remains fairly limited. So this is a decision that maybe the judge wants the Supreme Court to listen to it. But if they do, they'll overturn it and they'll defer to the states. Yeah. In Ohio, meanwhile, the Dayton Daily News has a front page feature on the nationwide shortage of ADHD medication. The shortage began last year. Officials say the demand for treatments increased after telehealth regulations were relaxed during the pandemic to allow doctors to prescribe medication. Drug manufacturers also blame the DEA's production limits. Now,

some lawmakers are calling on the agency to come up with a federal response to fix the shortage. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports Georgia's National Guard is targeting teen smartphones as part of a recruitment effort. The military force is using geolocation technology to reach smartphones within a mile of 67 Metro Atlanta high schools. Officials are targeting those users' social media platforms and hope to hit at least 3.5 million ad views by September 30th. But the technology doesn't discriminate by age. So younger kids in elementary and middle schools, yep, they could also be targeted by the ads as well. And finally, the Post standard leads with the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority's decision to pull out of Twitter. The agency typically posts delays and alerts on the social media site.

But last week, officials learned its access to the application programming interface was suspended without warning. Twitter asked the agency to pay $50,000 a month to use that program. Officials say paying that money isn't the best use of its resources. So don't look to Twitter if you think that your subway ride is going to be late this morning. Coming up, the June cover story of The Atlantic magazine makes the case for the total liberation of Ukraine. Editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg and staff writer Anne Applebaum join us with a look inside the new issue. Morning Joe will be right back. Lawyers for Donald Trump are asking the court to grant a mistrial in the battery and defamation lawsuit against him.

E. Jean Carroll alleges that Donald Trump raped her in the 1990s in a New York City department store, then called her a liar when she went public. Now his lawyers want a mistrial, attacking the court, saying the rulings have been unfair and prejudicial. The motion comes as Carroll is set to take the witness stand again this morning. She sparred last week with Trump's attorneys, who tried to argue that she made up claims to promote her book sales. The former president, meanwhile, has continued to trash the trial on social media, leading the judge to admonish him, saying that he could, quote,

be tampering with a new source of potential liability. Let's bring in right now criminal defense attorney and former Watergate prosecutor, John Sale, and also former U.S. attorney and MSNBC legal analyst, Joyce Vance. Thank you both for being with us again. So, John, this is what I don't understand. And again, I don't understand this just from back when I was just a simple country lawyer. You got Donald Trump trashing the Manhattan D.A. in that case, trashing the judge, going after the judge's children. In this case, you have Donald Trump once again using social media to attack the judge, to attack the case. Where I come from, and maybe this just happens in northwest Florida, you don't trash the judge. You don't trash the trials.

You don't question the integrity of the court. You'll get sanctioned by the court. And and this one I keep waiting for, John, the court will issue a gag order. Why won't any of these courts do this? Good morning, Joe. Well, I'm also from Florida and I I always when someone says I'm just a good old country lawyer, I know that they can run circles around people with the fancy Ivy League degrees that I have. So I take you quite seriously in your comments. I think the reason, though, you raise a very good question. The reason is that how can you enforce a contempt order? You issue a gag order and former President Trump is just going to thumb his nose at it. And I think that'll just energize him. So what does a judge do? I mean, you issue a gag order

and how do you enforce it? If it was against anyone else, you, me or anybody, it would ultimately be through a contempt. Well, what are you going to do? Are you going to put Donald Trump in Rikers Island together with his Secret Service agents? Are you going to fine him? If you fine him, it'll make him more of a martyr. The PAC he has will pay the fine, and he'll raise more money as a result of that. So I think the real question is, what do you do about it, and how do you stop him? And when you know, when I was listening to you earlier, Joe, you were talking about the path he's going down. He's going to lose in 2024. I'm concerned not about 2024. I'm concerned about his social posts, death and destruction, suspend the Constitution. We have to do something. We have to speak up against that, not 2024,

now. Otherwise, we're going to have riots in the streets. We're going to have things like we just saw in New Hampshire. And we all, Democrat, Republican, progressive, conservative, we all have to denounce the violence. We have to denounce the calls for attacking the victim. And I don't understand why that's not happening. And I think we don't have to you have one voice and we have to say that's not tolerable. And that's otherwise we're all falling down on our duties as people, as citizens and as people who believe in the Constitution. And if I had I was asked to represent, be joint the Trump team as a lawyer and I turned that down. But the very constitution that he

called to suspend, I would have fought as vigorously as I could to use that constitution to protect him and to remind people he's presumed innocent. And that's the constitution he's trashing. So, and John, I certainly understand some of the challenges. I agree with you completely on that. And thank you for saying it. I understand some of the problems a judge is going to have enforcing the contempt order. Do you really send a president to Rikers Island? So let's remove Donald Trump from this from this fact pattern. And let's just say it were it was one of your clients, any one of your clients throughout your entire career, if any one of your clients throughout your entire career continued trashing the judge,

continued trashing the judge's family, made them targets, in any other case, what would the judge do? The judge would call them in, would admonish them, would issue a gag order, would issue a rule to so cause to hold them in contempt. And if he violated it, he would throw us behind right in prison. But no one's above the law. And my experience in Watergate, I mean, I can genuinely say I've lived through that to prove

that. But presidents, former presidents are different. I mean, I was visiting New York. I practice in Miami, but I was visiting New York, have a lot of work here. When former President Trump was arraigned in the Manhattan DA's court, all you had to do was look around and see how the city was tied up, how his motorcade brought him to court, how he didn't have to be put in handcuffs. Well, I've had a number of prominent clients who, when they were either arrested or surrendered, they had to be put in handcuffs. So he's already being treated very specially. So former presidents are treated differently. So the answer to your question, Joe, is my clients would have been put in jail. But I don't see that that can happen to the former president. And I've spoken to some friends who are federal judges,

and I've said to them, in confidential conversations, I said, hypothetically, what would you do? How could you enforce that? And they've all said, frankly, I just don't know.