Morning Joe - Morning Joe 5/16/23

Episode Date: May 16, 2023

Special counsel issues report criticizing FBI for launching Trump-Russia investigation

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, May 16th. Ahead this hour, the latest developments from Ukraine following new Russian missile attacks overnight. The strikes come as the Ukrainian president is touring Europe looking to restock his army's arsenal. Plus, the Durham report was supposed to vindicate Donald Trump of his alleged ties to Russia. But now that it's finally out, after four years, there's not much in it that we didn't already know. We're going to go through the findings just ahead. We'll also have an update on the debt ceiling talks ahead of another high stakes meeting today at the White House. Also today, just ahead now, Arnold Schwarzenegger joins us live from Austria,

where some of the world's top climate activists and leaders are meeting right now, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News. Katty Kay is with us and columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. So great group to have. Great to be back. And a lot going on, Joe. Well, I mean, a lot going on and a lot not going on. If you read John Durham's report. I mean, this guy was the longest serving special counsel, four years. And the report offers us no new charges,

no new revelations, not even new suggested rules for the FBI. I mean, they were so horrible. He didn't even suggest any new rules. He also had investigations into political matters that he ended up offering no advice on, just more bad writing and more bush league posturing to Trumpers. And really, he actually relitigated cases that he lost in front of the juries that he faced over the last four years. Not any convictions.

It's another sad, pathetic attempt to make suckers. And we remember this because we showed their headlines. He wanted to make suckers of pro-Trump cable news hosts and right wing newspapers that already get burned peddling his lies before. And what was his goal? His goal was to trash premier law enforcement organizations in America and attack the men and women who serve every day at the Department of Justice. The only good news is at least his four-year taxpayer-funded boondoggle that was funded by working Americans, paying him to walk through the fevered swamps of Trumpism is over. And Durham has nothing but a tarnished reputation to show for it. But it underlines again the fact, And Willie, if you listen to what people are saying about this report on the Trump right, it underlines the fact that, well, they just they hate the FBI.

They've turned the premier law enforcement organization into a political punching bag that they say they want to defund. They want to defund the people that protect us from terrorists, that protect us from gangs, that protect us from the people who are actively trying to kill us every day. It's just it's it's absolutely crazy. And this whole report, what was it to do? It was to trash the FBI. It was to investigate the investigators that went on longer than the underlying investigation. Four years, millions and millions of dollars and nothing to show for it. But some really bad, humiliating headlines for pro-Trump newspapers. Yeah, nearly twice as long as the Mueller investigation. Four years almost to the day, almost seven million dollars spent for this 306 page report. And let's remember, in 2019, the Department

of Justice, under Donald Trump, the IG there launched its own investigation and said, yes, there were flaws in the way the FBI went about this, but the investigation itself was, in fact, justified. The FBI made changes after that. So when this report came out yesterday, the FBI said, yeah, we know all that. Everything you put in this report is out there. And that's why we made these changes a couple of years ago. So, yes, it is sort of a rehashing. I guess John Durham had to produce something after spending four years on this. But it turns out not to be much of anything, really. NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delaney has been following this from the beginning. So, Ken, as you sort of turn through the pages, 306 of them of this, what did you see inside?

Any new revelations, any bombshells to your reading? Willie, there were some new information, really only meaningful for those of us who are following every little twist and turn of this. But the thing that was most remarkable to me about this report is that John Durham did not even actually come out and say that the FBI should not have opened that investigation after George Papadopoulos, the Trump aide, told an Australian diplomat that the Russians had offered to help the Clinton campaign. He didn't even go as far as he did when that Justice Department IG report was released

that you mentioned. At that time, if you recall, Durham issued a remarkable public statement. Shocking to those of us who cover the Justice Department. Prosecutors don't do this. He issued a public statement saying he disagreed with the IG's conclusion that the investigation was justified. But he seemed to have walked back that conclusion because I didn't see it anywhere explicitly in this report. Now, he does criticize a lot of the ways that the FBI handled this evidence. But really importantly, he doesn't find evidence of political bias, even though there were obviously FBI agents like Pete Strzok, who did express bias against Trump. He doesn't find that

any of the key decisions were motivated by political bias. He doesn't find corruption. He doesn't find the crime of the century. You know, it was really weak sauce after a $6 million four-year investigation, leaving a lot of questions behind. Durham died. And so, Ken, the Senate Intelligence Committee also launched its own investigation. The chairman at the time, Mark Warner, came out with a statement yesterday, said we look through all this. We spent years looking at it, millions of documents.

At the end of the day, I know it's a big question and it's a lot to comb through. What is the general feeling about the way the Mueller investigation, the way the investigation into possible collusion or at least corruption between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia during the 2016 campaign. What was there? Is there a there there? Well, there's what's there and there's what sort of intel officials, you know, think as they go to sleep at night, what might be there. But what's provable, what Mueller found and what that Senate report

that you mentioned really expanded on was that there was a number, dozens and dozens of contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russians that the Senate, the bipartisan Senate report said, posed a counterintelligence threat to the United States. That Senate report essentially said the Trump campaign left itself wide open to manipulation by a Russian regime that was interfering in the election and that was trying to help Trump win. And what's remarkable about that, that was a bipartisan report. Republicans signed on to that. Now they're all trashing the FBI. And it's not just the pro-Trump side of the party.

It's everybody. It's all Republicans that I've seen, you know, criticizing the FBI here. But what that report found was that they were more than justified. They had to have looked into this because it was a threat to the United States. There was a foreign government was trying to manipulate the election. It was trying to help one side win. And now when you go sort of into the realm of what Mueller couldn't prove, but what some intelligence officials suspect, they they just put the dots together, which is that here you had, you know, a Trump campaign that was open to Russian assistance, was hoping that the Russians would use those Hillary Clinton emails to the Trump campaign's advantage, a series of suspicious meetings between Trump

campaign officials and Russians. And then, you know, a campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who is meeting with a Russian person we now know is a Russian intelligence asset. So a lot of smoke there. And they never were able to prove that there was any formal arrangement between Donald Trump and the Russians. And then meanwhile, you had Donald Trump saying really nice things about Vladimir Putin and publicly asking the Russians to find Hillary Clinton's email. So, you know, what what that all adds up to is, you know, up for anyone to decide, I guess. Well, and Jonathan O'Meara, Republicans, it's crazy. It's really sad to see political amnesia overtake an entire party. These are the same Republicans that that doodly went along with it when the Republican Senate Intel Committee issued a report saying,

everybody listen, because this is what Marco Rubio's Senate Intel Committee stated, the Republicans, that Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign caused a direct counterintelligence threat to the United States of America. Let me say it again. Marco Rubio and the Senate Intel Committee concluded, first of all, that the FBI had ample cause for concern in 2016 and also said, I will say it again. These are the words of Marco Rubio and Republicans on the Senate Intel Committee. They said that Donald Trump's 2016 campaign caused a direct counterintelligence threat to the United States of America. And now, because they're under the sway of a reality TV show host, they think that we don't have books or internets or video that shows them saying this. They did. And Jonathan, to just say Russian hoax, Russian hoax, when they're saying,

Republicans are saying this is a direct threat, a counterintelligence threat to the United States of America. I mean, maybe their dwindling base will believe them, but the rest of Americans will say, man, why are you guys trashing the FBI when you said they were trying to investigate a direct counterintelligence threat to the United States of America? You just laid out the reality, Joe, but for so many Republicans, they don't care about the reality. The reality doesn't matter. Yes, maybe that means the Republicans wrote it. They ran the committee. They wrote it. They ran the committee. But so many of them took victory laps yesterday after this report came out as we just went through it. You know, there is no there there. There is no there there. Yes, there were some criticisms of the FBI, but for the whole, the probe was deemed warranted. There are no new arrests and so on, as Ken just

detailed. But we heard from so many, Senator Lee, Senator Graham, so many Republicans, you know, carrying Donald Trump's water again and suggesting that this is proof. The Durham evidence was, the Durham probe was worth it. This is evidence that the fix was in. The FBI was biased. It was trying, agents from within the government were trying to take down Donald Trump, which again, flies in reality to what the conclusions of their fellow Republicans made a few years ago. But this is another moment where, yes, maybe Republicans are being out of touch and extreme and out of line

for what most Americans care about. I think that's clear. But it's also another moment where Donald Trump's hold over the party is so evident because Trump has been yelling literally for years about this Durham probe night after night, after rally, after rally, saying this was going to bring down for years, bring down the government. This was going to be vindication for him. And even though it did not end up being that, he's still clinging to that refrain on truth, social, other places that Republicans are happy to sing along for four years, four years of nothing. And now we have Durham publishing another dud. We have Durham actually trying to relitigate cases in this report that juries unanimously rejected.

It's unbelievable. And you're right. Some of them are taking victory laps, proving Ron DeSantis correct that this is a party addicted to losing. Jonathan, this would be like us taking a victory lap after the Boston Red Sox lost their fourth game in a row last night in our last place. We Red Sox fans, you don't see us taking victory laps around Fenway Park. Now, we want to fire everybody when we lose. Republicans don't think that way. They think, oh, we humiliated ourselves. We spent four years of taxpayers money with nothing.

And we we humiliated pro-Trump newspapers publishing false, false headlines. It's true. Hillary tapped Donald Trump's campaign. It's all lies. And the Republicans said it was a direct counterintelligence threat. Nothing new here. But again, at least Durham will stop wasting taxpayers money. So David Ignatius, I think Ken Delaney and it's very telling, you know, Ken walks through the report, talks about it soberly, unlike me. God bless him. That's why we have him. But the key point here is that the FBI looked at this and they're like, yeah, well, yeah, we we saw some of these problems years ago and we've already corrected them because we learned an awful lot in 2016. While we were investigating a case that Marco Rubio and his Republican colleagues on the Intel Committee said posed a direct threat, a U.S. counterintelligence threat. So what's your takeaway from from this report? So, Joe, first, I really like your analogy of the Republican Party to suffering the curse of the Red Sox laboring under this terrible shadow. So my view of this is a little different in that I would say at the end of the Durham report, these four long years, it shows that the system worked.

In the end, a serious prosecutor, very experienced, did not find evidence that backed up the extreme charges that Trump people have been throwing around. Yeah, there's language in his report criticizing the FBI, and some of that I think is probably warranted. The FBI did make mistakes. The Justice Department IG said that. That's generally accepted. But Durham did not find evidence of some kind of fundamental breakdown in law enforcement that would disqualify the whole probe. So my takeaway would be this is like a non-prosecution decision.

Durham, in the end, didn't have it. He said so, used some sharp language. But, you know, four years at least, I think, should wash some of these conspiracy theories out of the system. All right. You know, David's also very sober. That's why we have him on. But we think right now, because we need to move along, NBC's Ken Delaney for his sober and respectful approach to this investigation. Now to a new push for solutions this morning on the ongoing battle

to reverse the harmful effects of climate change. Some of the world's top climate activists and leaders are meeting in Vienna right now for the Austrian World Summit. It's an annual conference aimed at promoting new ideas to combat the climate crisis. And it's part of the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative created by former California Governor the Schwarzenegger Climate Initiative created by former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. He just wrapped up his keynote address at this year's conference a short time ago, and he joins us now. Mr. Schwarzenegger, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. We'd like to hear what you're hoping to accomplish in this conference. And also, if you could talk about climate change in its relation to the war in Ukraine and what people need to know.

Well, first of all, let me say thank you very much for having me. And we are just in the middle of this conference right now. It started this morning. And, you know, like you said, I gave the keynote speech here. And it's always wonderful to bring everyone of the environmental movement together here from all over the world and to talk about the kind of things that we can do to move the agenda forward and to get off fossil fuels. And the whole theme today, my theme of the speech was that we got to go and speed up the process of getting things built. thousands and thousands of projects that are being held up in America and that are held up here in Europe, which is, you know, kind of bureaucracy and lawsuits and papers and studies and all this kind of stuff. All the crap that really holds things up for years and years and years.

So it takes four or five years to get a green project built, like solar. It sometimes takes up to 10 years in Europe to get windmills built. So the only way we can really replace fossil fuels, which is a killer, which kills 7 million people a year, is with renewable energy or nuclear energy, one or the other. But the bottom line is that we got to go and speed up the building process because in America, we have 2,000 gigawatts, 2,000 gigawatts of energy, clean energy, waiting to be built, except it needs the permits. And so just to show you how much energy this is, we use daily around 1,200 gigawatts in America. So here we're talking about 2,000 gigawatts that are ready to be built, but we need to permit. So in Europe, they have the same problem. In America, we have the problem.

So what I'm saying is the new environmentalism should all be about let's build and let's be aggressive about moving forward so we can replace fossil fuels. Governor, it's great to have you on the show this morning since you are there with some of the leaders from around the world on climate change, the future of energy. What are some of the exciting ideas that you're hearing at the conference as you sit there today? There's so much going on in the world. It's clear where everything is headed. There are obviously some lobbies and some interest groups that are trying to slow down that progress for their own reasons. But what are you hearing there that gives you hope, gives you promise that we're headed in the right direction? Well, I think that it gives me hope that we will move forward with the building process

and with the permitting process. As a matter of fact, as you know, that President Biden right now is talking to the Republican Congress about that and negotiating about that in order to speed up that process. So I think there's some really good things happening here at the EU. In Europe, they already moved forward and they already changed and reformed the process. So they're speeding up the process. So I think that people are hearing this in emergency loud and clear because we are in an emergency. And an emergency means that you can't always just get everything perfect, but you can go and move forward.

And that's exactly what I'm stressing to do. I call for new environmentalism. We understand that the old environmentalists and the environmentalism kind of was afraid of building because it meant more pollution and more death and stuff like that. But this is the new environmentalism where we have the technology now.

And we know that, for instance, that solar and wind is much cheaper now than coal. So let's go and replace coal with those kind of elements, with this kind of energy. That's what I'm trying to do. But when it comes to technology in general, Joe, I think that it's really exciting when you see that in 2005, when we had the car show in Los Angeles when I was governor,

we had one electric car. Now we have in the latest car show, we had over 50 electric cars. So now every company, every car company in the world is building electric cars and hydrogen cars. So the technology is now changing really fast. There's all kinds of great things that are happening when it comes to technology. So if we fail with this whole thing, it's not going to be a failure of technology and of innovation. It's going to be a failure of our inaction. Mr. Schwarzenegger, there seem to be climate conferences almost every week at the moment.

Of course, there's the big UN one, the COP one. What is your gathering in Vienna adding to the equation? What do you bring to the table that perhaps others are not able to do? How can you move the political needle? Because it is a political needle, not a technological needle, as you've pointed out. What can you do that others can't? It's a communication needle. It's actually not a political needle. It's a communication needle. As long as we talk about climate change, which most of the conferences do,

and by the way, I have to say, it's great to have all those conferences all over the world. It's no different than when we had, when we promoted the fitness movement in the 70s. The more we talked about fitness and the more we talked about weight training and about cross training and all of those things, the more people got involved. And now, of course, exactly what I predicted then,

that there will be eventually more, you know, grocery stores and supermarkets, I mean, more gym grocery stores and supermarkets, I mean, more gymnasiums than supermarkets. That's exactly what has happened. It's all because we promoted it and we talked about it for years. The same is with this. We just have to talk about it.

We have to have as many conferences, write as much about it, do speeches and on and on and on. But the difference between our event is very simple. We talk about things that most people are afraid to talk about. We talk about the things that the mistakes that are being made within the environmental movement, like, for instance, communication. When people talk about climate change, it doesn't really mean anything to anybody. You have to talk about what causes climate change. It's pollution. So let's talk about pollution. Everyone understands pollution. Everyone understands when you about pollution. Everyone understands pollution.

Everyone understands when you say there's health threats there. Like when I was governor of California, we talked about pollution and how many kids have asthma in the Central Valley in California. And that really connected with the people. Climate change didn't connect with the people. Pollution connected with the people. The threat of getting sick, their kids getting sick, them dying because of pollution. That's what connected. And that's how we were able to move and pass so many great environmental laws in California. So we want to do this worldwide.

We want to let people know, try to communicate a little different. Try to include in your dialogue pollution and about, you know, fossil fuels. Now that kills people rather than just talk about climate, climate, climate, climate, climate, climate, climate. And everyone talks about climate. No one knows what the hell that is. So we've got to communicate the right way. That's the most important thing. Any product that you have, you have to communicate to the people and you have to promote it and market it the right way. Governor, this is David Ignatius in Washington. You're there in Austria, literally almost next door. A frightful war is going on in Ukraine.

This last night, there was terrible bombing in the city. I'm just wondering what you, as a European at the start of your life, feel as you're watching this going on. What thoughts you'd send to the Ukrainian people? What thoughts you'd send to the Ukrainian people? What thoughts you'd send to Russia? Well, we had the mayor, Mayor Klitschko from Ukraine, I mean, from Kiev. He was on our show that day and he was part of our

environmental conference. And it's really sad to hear his stories. And it's really sad when you just turn on the news, you turn on the news and you just listen to those kind of sad stories. How a's really sad when you just turn on the news, you turn on the news and you just listen to those kind of sad stories. How, you know, a country that was attacked, unprovoked, and, you know, and it just has this unbelievable effect and how many people have to die. And then

sad stories, not only Ukrainian people have to die, but Russian people have to die. And they don't even know what the hell is happening there. So it's just sad. And I hope that someone amongst the leadership in the world comes up with a solution to have them both sit down instead of negotiating and talk and come to this kind of a peace agreement. Arnold Schwarzenegger,

thank you very, very much for coming on the show this morning. We look forward to hearing more about the conference. We appreciate it. And David Ignatius, thank you as well. Let me, could I, David, if you don't mind, I would love to hear you talk about the, oh,

are we closing out the block? Is that what Alex keeps yelling in my ear about? Really? Okay. I thought you were talking about the Yankees game last night. So, David, really quickly, talking about Ukraine, Where are we right now? We're hearing, obviously, China getting more involved in possibly trying to bring the two sides together. You have Germany, you have Italy, you have NATO powers ramping up their support in a strong way for the Ukrainians. You have reports of Russia

starting to get pushed back even before the spring offensive. Of course, the Wagner Group leader reportedly willing to give up locations of Russian troops. A lot of things moving right now. I'm wondering if you see any trend lines that suggest we may be moving towards some serious negotiations in the next few months. So, Joe, I think we're on the eve of what will be the decisive months in this war. And the first thing that we should all focus on is Ukraine's coming counteroffensive. They've prepared for this now for almost a year. We have given them the equipment to be able at last to maneuver, to push, to punch through Russian lines along this long front. They showed incredible bravery in Bakhmut, standing up against a World War I-style

assault for month after month. So the Ukrainians are ready to move any day now. We'll see the beginning of this counteroffensive. What I hear from the White House and the State Department is a hope that if the Ukrainians can make significant gains, we may then be in a season where diplomacy may become possible. The Chinese in their meetings last week with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan agreed that Russian setbacks, Ukrainian gains would put this in a much more dangerous position from their standpoint. And the Ukrainians are now talking to Chinese peace emissaries who are visiting Kyiv to discuss the way a negotiation might proceed. They're making clear they don't want to

have territorial concessions. They don't want to give up the ground they fought so hard for. But I think we should first watch for the battlefield, see what that tells us, see if the Ukrainians can gain enough. And then I do think there's a real movement supported by both the United States and China and our European allies to see if diplomacy can work. All right, David Ignatius, thank you very much. And still ahead on Morning Joe, science Ron DeSantis is on the verge of launching his presidential campaign. His political operation is officially moved out of party headquarters in Tallahassee. While the Florida governor is highlighting the Republican losing streak while Donald Trump was in office. You know, he's lost a lot.

Would you like me to tell you all the years Donald Trump's lost? Actually, Ron DeSantis has taken on that. Oh, really? Yeah, he's. I don't have to talk about it. He does the list just like you do. Okay. Plus, Trump doubles down on comments.

Well, you know, he lost a lot of elections. That is. We can get to that later. In a row. Understood. Wow. Plus, Trump doubles down on comments encouraging Republicans to default on the national debt. We'll have the latest on negotiations ahead of today's meeting between President Biden and congressional leaders at the White House.

You're watching Morning Joe. We will be right back. Look at that beautiful sunrise over Washington, D.C. It is 33 past the hour and it appears Ron DeSantis is inching closer to launching a presidential campaign. A Republican Party official confirmed to NBC News the Florida governor's political operation is officially moving out of the party headquarters in Tallahassee. Trucks were seen outside the building yesterday. This move is expected to cost more than $5,000. If DeSantis' office spends that much money, they must file a report within 15 days officially declaring his candidacy. So we could be upon it. Meanwhile,

DeSantis is ramping up his attacks against Donald Trump. During a press conference yesterday, the Florida governor brought up the Republican Party's losing streak while Trump was in office. Well, I look at the last however many election cycles, 2018, we lost the House, we lost the Senate, 2020, Biden becomes president, or no, excuse me, we lost the Senate in 2020, Biden becomes president, and has done a huge amount of damage, very unpopular in 2022, and we were supposed to have this big red wave, and other than like Florida and Iowa, I didn't see a red wave across this country. And so I think the party has developed a culture of losing. I think that there's not accountability. And I think in Florida, we really showed what it takes to not just win, win big and then deliver

big. OK, he doesn't do it as well as you, but that's OK. He does it. Thank you, dear. No, I mean, you just got the list. And I mean, actually, you're very just please don't do it again. OK, it's so hard, but he kind of keeps getting waivers off. But the bottom line is it's a losing streak and he hopes to break it. Willie, they've just lost so much. I mean, this is it seems to me this is a good tag for DeSantis. He does need to punch it up when he starts campaigning, talking about, hey, I hate losing. I don't I don't want to. It's a culture of losing in the Republican Party.

Donald Trump lost. You punch it up. But that's actually a really good message, because I think most Republicans, most Republicans would would prefer winning, too. And I won't go through the list. Thank you. To losing like that. You know, go ahead. 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23. And some massive losses, a massive loss in 23 in Wisconsin, a massive loss in Kansas in 22, a massive loss in Kentucky in 22 on abortion. And then, of course, a massive loss, even Florida. I mean, even governorships across the deep south in Kentucky and Louisiana in those off years, like, yeah, they're losing the big races, but they're losing the smaller races, too, because, again, Trumpism does not scale. In fact, it pushes people away.

I keep having it. I know it's anecdotal, but I just keep talking to Republicans, keep talking to them. And, you know, I used to my anecdotal evidence was always, well, you know, they don't care what he does. They're going to vote for him anyway. Not that way anymore. Over the past three, four months, it's broken dramatically away from him. And again, people aren't saying it to me to make me feel good because they're the same ones who said they're voting for a guy who accused me of murder because of regulations. So, I mean, so these people talk straight. And what they're saying now is he's going to lose.

He has too much going on. He's got too many cases going on. He's too crazy on social media. They just want thank him for his service. But they want him in the rearview mirror. This is a potent message that Ron DeSantis could push. Joe, I think you're absolutely right. And especially I would submit after that CNN town hall last week where even Republicans, independents, we talked about even Republicans go, oh, not again, not again. So the question now, the open question is, what's the alternative? And maybe it is Ron DeSantis. This is happening, by the way. The moving trucks are in Tallahassee. Governor DeSantis, the press secretary, quit yesterday, stepped down, I should say, to say moving on to pursue other opportunities to continue

to drive Governor DeSantis's messages across the country. So you can read into that what you will. So Ron DeSantis is getting in the race. I guess the question, Jonathan Lemire, is, is the culture of losing argument potent enough in a Republican primary to win? Can he beat Donald Trump with that? Reminding voters, look at the record under Donald Trump. We keep losing. We want power. We want to change the country and our vision.

We need power to do that. And Donald Trump has cost us that, and he'll do it again in 2024. Will that be enough? There are those in the Republican Party that are, do want to turn the page on Donald Trump, who say electability has always been Governor Sanders' best argument. And that's why they've been so dismayed that he has fought culture after culture, whether it's against Disney and the abortion restrictions and so on, that they feel like that's hurting that argument.

They feel like he is, when he does that, he is pitching himself to a smaller slice of the electorate. Because what you just heard there from the governor is a fairly clever way to attack Trump's record without attacking Trump the person. And that is what so many of these Republicans have struggled with, is how do you distance yourself from Trump without either A, drawing his wrath, or B, alienating his voters. And by doing it this way, we are not taking on Trump personally, but simply saying, look, under his leadership, we've taken all these losses, losses we shouldn't have suffered. That might be a sort of clever way to do it. that show DeSantis fares much better than Trump in head-to-head matchups against Biden, including in some states, Joe, that really haven't been on the map for Republicans in a long time,

things like Virginia and Colorado. So there's a lot here we don't know yet about DeSantis. He'll need to be vetted on a national stage. Yes, he had a good weekend in Iowa, but his pseudo-campaign has been off to a shaky start. But he may have stumbled onto something that has a shot of working. It is so early. It is so early. Let me once again say that in July of 2007, when they were even further along in the presidential process than they are right, than we are right now, people were writing John McCain's obituaries in newspapers, political obituaries, saying there's no way he could win the Republican primary. He came back and won the Republican primary.

Katie Kay, though, you know, Willie brought up the town hall meeting the other night, CNN. I'm that's another thing I'm hearing from Republicans. And they're saying specifically, I'm not voting for that man. And we've been talking about women, the decision makers in the suburbs of Atlanta, the suburbs of Philly, the suburbs of Detroit, the suburbs of Milwaukee. And what did they see during the town hall meeting? responsible, actually, for taking away of the half century of their own rights over their own bodies to make their own medical decisions. They saw him mocking and ridiculing a woman that a jury unanimously declared a woman who was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump. And that night, he mocked her. And that night he once again went

back and said, maybe it's not a bad thing that stars like me have been able to sexually assault women for millions of years, for millions of years, which of course we'll let him talk to his favorite scientists there. But, but again, the support keeps getting smaller because he keeps going out of his way, offending the very people that he needs to bring back on his side if he wants to win. Yeah, which is exactly why Ron DeSantis has those big Amwot truck trucks outside his office today, because despite the fact that he's down in the polls, he knows, just like everybody else does, that Donald Trump has a whole host of weaknesses. And since we're doing a trip down memory lane, I was just looking at the polls

actually between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in December of 2007, and Hillary Clinton was 20 points ahead of Barack Obama. So the fact that DeSantis is way behind in the polls at the moment clearly is not going to deter him from launching his presidential campaign, as that truck outside his office seems to suggest. Donald Trump has exactly the vulnerabilities that you've played out, and that CNN audience was a self-selected, very small audience inside one town hall in New Hampshire and did not reflect the reaction of millions of Americans around the country. And I know at the time it felt like we

were all getting sucked back into the kind of Trump era of 2016 to 2020. But I think there were and that room felt like it was very endorsing of that period. But right around the country, there are plenty of Americans who voted for Donald Trump. I've spoken, you've spoken to them. I've spoken to lots of people who voted for Donald Trump, not once, but twice, but said, OK, enough, I'm exhausted. It's too tiring. There's too much chaos. There's too much having to defend him. So at the moment, he looks like he's the Republican nominee. But, you know, at the end of 2007, Hillary Clinton looked like she was the Democratic nominee, too. And things can change. It's still early.

All right. Coming up, a pair of towering home runs make history at Fenway Park last night. But not for the Red Sox. And you don't see us taking victory laps around Fenway because, well, we're not Trump Republicans. Plus, the Blue Jays' broadcasters appear to accuse Aaron Judge of cheating. We'll explain what the Yankee captain was doing at the plate that had the team raising some questions. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. It's a beautiful live picture from the top of our building on a Wednesday morning. What do we think today? It's Tuesday. It's Tuesday morning.

Fantastic. You got a one out of seven chance. It's Tuesday, 647. Some news here in New York City. Back page of the New York Post. A glancing blow talking about Aaron Judge. Here's what we're talking about. During the Yankees Blue Jays game last night in Toronto, Blue Jays broadcasters insinuated that the Yankee captain Aaron Judge might be cheating as the star slugger notched his third multi-home run game of the year in a 7-4 win last night here's how it played out all right buck so you and i looked at each other at the same moment right when we saw this three pitches ago watch what he's looking at what is that where's he looking you don't want to go you know throwing allegations around without knowing, but... No. I mean, you know what?

I have had guys look back when I was catching, and you obviously could see it. And he couldn't see the catcher with the way he was looking right there. Yeah, just did it again. And he pummeled it. He hit it a country mile for his second home run of the night. We don't want to make any suggestions, but we're going to go ahead and talk about it for a very long time. The announcer speculating Judge was peeking into the Yankee dugout

between pitches to look for signals. Asked about it after the game, Judge explained he was distracted by teammates still shouting at the home plate umpire over manager Aaron Boone's ejection just moments earlier during that same at bat. Yeah, I was kind of a lot of chirping from our dugout, which I really didn't like in the situation where it's a 6-0 game. And I know Boone got tossed. Like, I was trying to save Boone by calling timeout. Like, hey, hold up here. Like, let was trying to save Booney by calling timeout. Like, hey, hold up here. Like, let me work here.

So I was kind of trying to see who was chirping in the dugout. So it's 6-0. Like, let's – Booney got tossed. Let's go to work now. So, Joe, I have another theory about why Judge may have hit that home run. He's one of the greatest hitters ever to stride the earth. And I don't know if the announcer saw, but last year he hit 62 home runs. So sometimes he's going to stare down a meatball and smash it out of the Rogers Center.

So you're saying it wasn't the fault of Judge Daring at the dugout. It's the fact that this guy served up the meatiest, fattest, plumpest meatball down the center of the plate to the greatest home run hitter in the game today. Is that what we're saying, Willie? It was a tasty one. It was right down the pipe. Look at this. Say how would you rock your meatball?

I like it right down the plate, man. Boom! And there it is. I mean, come on. There's no way he was looking for something. How could you see it in that short amount of time? Impossible. Did you hear the announcers going,

I'm not saying, but maybe. Come on. I mean, yeah, look at the pitcher. I mean, if there's a conspiracy theory, the pitcher's getting paid off by the Yankees to throw meatballs all night. So, of course, for a completely I'm joking about the pitcher. I'm sure he's a good man.

Yes. Good, good, good, good mama. And as Bear Bryant would say, good mama, good daddy. Good, good, good guy. But but for for for a completely different view here, why don't we go to Mr. Negative, Jonathan Lemire. Jonathan, I'm sure you think that after last night's episode that Aaron Judge should be suspended from the game indefinitely. Yeah, the evidence is clear. He's rampantly cheating and he should be banned from the game. Put an asterisk on the home run last year. vacate their wins, go back, vacate some Yankee championships that he had nothing to do with. Yeah, I think it's pretty clear that we've stumbled onto these Blue Jays announcers to their credit, much like John Durham, have stumbled onto a conspiracy theory here that has rotted away the very soul of the game that we all love.

Counterpoint. So that's my take. The fevered swamps of the game that we all love. Counterpoint. So that's my take. The Fevered Swamps of Yawkey Way. Well, speaking of, as we mentioned, some history. Yeah. Made it to Fenway Park last night. It's amazing. I hope Bonnacle's not watching.

Seattle Mariners, I can't even say it, switched over to Cal Raleigh, became the first catcher to hum from both sides of the plate in the 112-year history of Fenway. The Mariners beat the Red Sox 10-1, which, you know, that 9-1 loss to the Cardinals the night before is not looking quite as bad. It's not 10-1. So this is, I've got to to say though, I'm not even going

to you, Lemire. I'm going to Willie. You know, I always say this is a marathon, right, Willie? Yeah. Lupica is rapid texting last night. You would have thought they were the Oakland A's and that it was like they were like three and forty eight. Just a week ago when we swept the Blue Jays, suddenly this was the greatest team of all time. And Heinblum was was, you know, they were going to place a crown on him and march him through the streets of Boston. So we've lost four games in a row. The baseball gods give it. The baseball gods take it away. And I mean it. This is when teams are trying to figure out what the rotation's going to look

like the second half of the season. This is when teams are trying to figure out who has what it takes to excel in Major League Baseball and who doesn't. It is still early. And, you know, the whining, it's got to stop, Willie. It's got to stop. We're a quarter of a way through the season, a quarter of a way through the season. I'll say again, that division, the AL East, is so good that the Red Sox were in last place by a game and a half. The Yankees have climbed out of the cellar for now. It could change in the next few days.

The Red Sox would be in second place in a bunch of divisions across baseball. They got a winning record. It's just a tough climb, man. I mean, the Rays are on pace, and they'll have their ups and downs, too. But for a historic season, they are so good. I got a chance to watch them play on Saturday at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees came back and won. But, man, they're just a really good team without anybody making $40 million a year on that roster.

They pitch, they hit, they field. And the Orioles, you've got to give credit to the Orioles. They've got, I think, the third best record in baseball. They're having a great season. Same constraints on their payroll and everything else. So it's a tough, it's a funny thing to say. The Yankees and Red Sox are going to have a tough time getting out of the basement to catch the Rays and the Orioles.

But here we are. Yeah.