Morning Joe - Morning Joe 5/20/25

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

Following call with Putin, Trump pushes for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine

Trump tries to dominate everyone in the mold of rulers like Turkey's president Erdogan. Here's Erdogan greeting French president Macron. Take a look at how Erdogan tries to win the handshake. What is happening? Stephen Colbert's take on that odd moment between Presidents Macron and Erdogan last week. Meanwhile, President Trump is trying to project strength after his long phone call with Vladimir Putin yesterday. It didn't produce any significant breakthroughs in bringing peace to Eastern Europe.

NBC News Chief International correspondent Kier Simmons will join us with more insight on that conversation. Also ahead we'll bring you the latest on the communication issues plaguing Newark Airport after yet another brief outage with a control tower. How is this possible? Let's go through the charges a Democratic congresswoman from New Jersey is facing following an incident earlier this month at an ICE facility. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, May 20th.

With us we have the co-host of our fourth hour, contributing writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, and writer at large for the New York Times, Elizabeth Buehmiller is with us this morning. A lot to cover, Joe, and yes, congratulations, your Red Sox won last night. Something new every day. Doesn't happen. Doesn't happen a lot. The bullpen actually held up. So great news. We're going to be talking, Mika, of course, off the top of the show about the two-hour phone call

that President Trump had with Vladimir Putin. And not a lot of movement towards a ceasefire. The president said afterwards that there was, there were some positive steps forward. But there is no doubt the biggest problem right now is that Vladimir Putin doesn't want peace, doesn't want a ceasefire. And as Marco Rubio said a month or two ago,

he said, we're going to know very soon who's responsible for the continued war. Over that last month, month and a half of Vladimir Putin has made certain the world knows it is on him. He does not want peace. He doesn't want a ceasefire. He doesn't want anything to do with the end of this war. President Trump held this hours-long phone call with Vladimir Putin yesterday, and Trump

posted on social media afterwards that he believed the call went very well and called for direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine toward a ceasefire and an end to the war. Trump wrote those terms will now be negotiated directly between the two countries themselves. Putin for his part was quoted as telling Russian media the phone call was very informative and very open. Later in the day in the Oval Office, President Trump spoke to reporters about the call. Mr. President, on Ukraine and on your call today that you had with President Putin, you said last week that you thought nothing was going to happen, no advances would be made

until you and Putin got together. Do you still feel that way? I think something's going to happen. It's a very big egos involved, I tell you, big egos involved, but I think something's going to happen. And if it doesn't, I'd just back away and they're going to have to keep going. Again, this was a European situation. It should have remained a European situation. But I did say it's time.

You got to stop this thing. And I believe he wants to stop. Look, I would be, I think, very able to tell whether or not he wanted to or what. I thought there was a very good chance, like a 50-50 chance, that he would say, I want to take the whole thing. I didn't know what he was going to say. And then they have a different kind of a problem. But I believe he wants to stop.

You mentioned that you believe Putin wants peace, but he just attacked Ukraine yesterday. So what makes you think that he wants peace? Well, he's in a war. Nobody said don't. They're fighting. They're attacking. They're attacking each other. And people are dying all the time.

He's in a war. He's fighting a war. Nobody said he was going to stop. I think, is it terrible? Yeah, it's terrible. I do. I think it word. Nobody said he was going to stop. I think, is it terrible? Yeah, it's terrible. I do. I think it's terrible. President Trump spoke on on one with Ukrainian President Zelensky prior to his call with

Putin and again afterwards in a conference call with other NATO leaders. In a briefing yesterday, Zelensky acknowledged Trump's call for direct negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. However, he said Ukraine is still considering another high-level round of talks between American, Russian and European officials. And Joe, I think that the lead out of all of that was President Trump hinting that if it continues, he'll back away and they'll keep going. That's a far cry from him saying he could end this in a day.

Well, I think several things came out of it. The first thing that came out of it was that he said it was positive talks are going to continue. He thinks the two should get together and talk more specifically. Also said that he thought that Vladimir Putin did want peace, but the war, of course, still going on. And the question is, of course, whether in fact that is the case or not. And if he does want peace, Vladimir Putin will not want peace out of the goodness of his heart.

He'll want peace because, first of all, there's the economic drain with this, not only this war and sanctions, also the price of oil plunging the way it has He may and and of course the casualties that just keep piling up I I suspect he even knows that continuing this war in the same manner that it's been fought over the past two years It's just not not possible for either side. But again, right now the negotiations continue. To talk about that, let's bring in NBC News Chief International correspondent Keir Simmons

from Dubai, also retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurdling. His military career spans more than three decades of service, including as a commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and the 7th Army. Keir, let's begin with you. What can you tell us about the call yesterday and Russia's response? Well, Joe, just to underscore what you've been saying, here's the point. President Putin does want the war to stop on his terms.

That's what he said again and again. He walked out of that call yesterday, went straight in front of the cameras, Russian state media and said it again. We want our core interests to be addressed. The root causes he calls it. By that he means he doesn't want Ukraine any closer to Europe. He doesn't want Ukraine. He wants Ukraine to be mostly neutral. All those things that we've heard again and again, that call that President Trump had with President Putin did not change that. President Trump says that he is, that he may back away. He's already backing away. He was said just days ago that the only way to solve this was a face to face meeting between him and President Putin. Now, apparently, that isn't going to happen for some time while there

are direct talks between Russia and Ukraine. President Zelensky and the Europeans are very, very worried about the particular question. What does backing away mean by President Trump? Does that backing away mean that he just leaves the negotiations to Russia and Ukraine? Does backing away mean that he withdraws again intelligence support for Ukraine, this kind of security support that the Europeans just can't provide? Now, this is a very fast moving, complicated picture. There are lots of things happening. There's a bill in Congress that Secretary of State Rubio said over the weekend that

the White House is not able to prevent the progress of that would really enforce tougher sanctions and more sanctions on the Russians. The White House approved the moving of Patriot missile defense systems to Ukraine just in the past few weeks. So what President Trump says and what's actually happening just like in his first term are not necessarily the same. And in some ways we're seeing a repeat of that first time. The bromance is back on. What the Russians said about the call was that President Putin began by congratulating President Trump on the birth of his grandchild, that they

called each other by their first names, that they didn't want the call to end, the two presidents wanted to just keep going. So all very friendly, but no prize. Friends with no benefits, if you like. And that is a repeat, frankly, of what the Russians think happened in the first term, which was that they seem to have a great relationship between their presidents, but didn't get any kind of resolution in the relationship with the United States. So we are no further forward.

President Putin has not shifted. Despite Steve Wittkopf saying over the weekend that the force of President Trump's personality would shift the logjam was his words. That didn't happen on the call yesterday. I think the historians may look back on this moment and say this was the moment that the US did begin to step back. It's interesting to hear Steve Witkoff talk. He will say, well, it's a really complicated war.

It's very difficult to solve, you think? You know, it's very similar to what he says about Gaza. It's really complicated. It's really hard to stop that war, even though that was his role. There are still hostages being held. And now, of course, Steve Witkoff is moving on to negotiate the Iran deal. So there are, I think we're clearer at this stage, honestly, when you look past the rhetoric about where things stand. I think the war continues, that there's no sign of a ceasefire. And both the Russians and Ukrainians will continue to work to try to get what they want from the White House,

while certainly the Russians and to some extent the Ukrainians believe they can still gain if the conflict continues. Because the Russians think they're winning, even though there's not a doubt about that when you actually look at the battlefield. And the Ukrainians think that over time the Russians will begin to struggle to supply more troops to the military, more recruits to the military. So far they're really able to still funnel the troops to the military. But that may not be the case in years to come. It's going to take some time though. It's bitterly disappointing honestly for anyone who would hope to see peace in Ukraine.

Friends without benefits. Many things have been said of the Putin-Trump relationship. Kyr, you added one to the top of the list. Friends without benefits. Kyr Simmons, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. In general, that is the case, isn't it? For all that Donald Trump said about Vladimir Putin, for the Helsinki press conference, for all of that, the sanctions that were leveled by the Republican Senate and House during his first term in the Democratic House were actually fierce. I'm curious what your thoughts are because when I hear people say Putin doesn't want the war to end and he's going to keep fighting, oil is down around 60 a barrel. His military has just been absolutely

savaged. He's having to bring in North Koreans as basically a cannon fodder. You could go down the list. You tell me, is Vladimir Putin in a position where he can continue fighting this war at this pace for the next year or two? I don't believe so, Joe. And here's what I say. First of all, I wrote down friends without benefits, too. That's a classic line. What I'd say is we just need to bring it back to the reasons why nations go to war and why they fight.

And it's because of strategic objectives. Putin has an overarching strategy for Ukraine, Europe, NATO, and the US. And I disagree with Kyrgyz a little bit on that. He's not looking to use Ukraine as a boundary. He's looking to subsume Ukraine. Putin has his view of history, which has been repeated in all of his lies, and it reinforces that strategy. But now, excuse me, in negotiation, because he knows Trump's shortcomings, he has a different

communication strategy. He'll just flatter and bait. Now, Zelensky also has strategic objectives. He wants to defend his nation's sovereignty, its territorial integrity, get his people back that have been kidnapped, literally thousands, and see Putin held accountable for all these actions. Now, President Trump comes into this with a strategy of just to win. He wants to claim a victory, no matter the outcome for either Putin or Zelensky. He'll

lean toward Putin because he wants to be friends with him and he doesn't like Zelensky, but he wants to reinforce himself as the ultimate dealmaker. And just like you all have been talking about on Morning Joe for the last week, just like trade and tariff deals are difficult, what I'd suggest from a warfighting perspective, peace deals are even more difficult. You don't solve them, you don't negotiate in one phone call and expect both sides to give up their strategic objectives, especially when they have given the risk and reward analysis of putting men and women in combat, killing literally thousands, to either maintain their territorial integrity like Ukraine wants to

do or take over another country, which is what Putin wants to do. This isn't a real negotiation, it's theater. And so far it's advantaged Russia, as we've seen in the readout from both countries yesterday, due to Trump's dislike of Zelensky and wanting to have that victory, whether it's for a Nobel Peace Prize or just to prove that he can be the art of the deal guy again. Yeah and John, you did hear it in the president's comments talking about this is a European war, it should stay in Europe. One of the things that we really were able to glean off the signal chat that was leaked was the fact that there was contempt for inside the administration for the United States having

to bail Europe out again and again and again. That's the attitude inside of the White House. But talk about the balance they're having. You do, of course, have Donald Trump and many of his top lieutenants saying, hey, the United States can't keep bailing Europe out. They need to do it themselves. That's one side. On the other side, you have Republicans like Chairman McCaul, Turner, others who, and a hell of a lot of Republicans in the Senate, who have been fierce defenders of Ukraine. And you have Lindsey Graham issuing

a warning that I'm sure resonates with President Trump. If you think Afghanistan was bad for Joe Biden, just wait until you see a retreat of Ukraine and Russian forces on TV as they take over Kiev. That would be a nightmare. And Graham, one of the co-sponsors of the legislation to impose tough new sanctions on Russia as well as secondary sanctions. And we know President Trump, a few weeks ago, after he met with Zelensky at the Pope's funeral in Rome, also gave voice to the possibility of sanctions.

But yesterday, backed off a little bit. Didn't rule them out, but said, no, it's not time yet. I want to have more ability for negotiations. But there's no question yesterday's call achieved nothing. The two parties were already talking. They met last week in Turkey. It wasn't like question yesterday's call achieved nothing. The two parties were already talking. They met last week in Turkey. It wasn't like the yesterday's call suddenly is leading

to a new round of investigations. So a new round of conversations. So that's already happening. Secondly, we have President Trump suggest that if a deal can't get done soon, yes, he would step away from it. We know President Trump is consistent. He wants this war to end.

It's proved much more difficult than he expected. I have talked to say he's frustrated, but instead of at least so far injecting himself to say, look, a deal has to get done. I'm gonna broker it. Now he's leaning the other way. Say, I'm gonna step out of it. You guys figure it out,

suggesting the Vatican could be the venue instead. And it's also telling that yesterday, no stick, all carrot. His post about this conversation with Putin talked about how the trade deals the US and Russia could strike down the road would be beneficial to both countries. Hey, let's get this war done. Then we can start talking trade. That's what I'm told what he wants. He's still leery to use sanctions.

So General, I'm curious to your assessment as to just how we know Putin has, the arguments been made, that Putin feels like time is on his side. And we know that he has lost a lot of manpower in this. Men killed or wounded, a lot of equipment as well. That said, Russia's economy, totally on a war footing. As best you know, how much longer could Russia go here in terms of equipment and soldiers? That's a real tough question, Jonathan. What I'd say is Russia has continued to fight during

times when I thought they should have given up. But they continue to get their allies, Iran, North Korea, China, to provide support in different ways. In some cases, manpower. But truthfully, they have lost so many on the battlefield that Putin's willingness to continue to put in these meat grinder attacks during the time that Ukraine is adapting and setting up some systems like the potential for arms manufacturing within Ukraine, tethered drones with net warfare, the ability to overcome electronic devices on the battlefront. Ukraine is doing very well, even though it has suffered incredibly.

And what's important, there was a poll last night that shows Zelensky has 73 percent support by his population, which is higher than it's ever been. So there's still that continuum between the army of Ukraine trusts its leaders, the people trust the army, they don't want to be put under Putin's thumb because most European nations who have had that happen to him before realize how bad it is. They will continue to fight, whereas you say the risk benefits for Putin are not quite as good.

He's losing literally tens of thousands of men, his economy's in the toilet, he's not getting the kind of fuel resources that he's wanting. And if the United States impose the sanctions that we have considered against Putin, and if European nations do the same thing, it could put more stress on him and he's got to find a way out of this. And the way out is not to say, hey, I'm going to take over those five provinces within Ukraine and we'll call it a day and term it another frozen conflict. He has done that so many times in Europe, in Moldova, in Norgana Karabakh, in Georgia, that another frozen conflict inside Ukraine would just

be the start of an eventual different conflict, a different phase of a campaign in the years ahead. All right. Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurdling, thank you so much. And as always, we all thank you for your service to our country. Greatly appreciate that. Thanks, Joe. Appreciate it.

All right. Thank you. Mika, you know, it's interesting. The fact that the general is talking about how the Ukrainians are adapting and they're able to respond to new different threats certainly doesn't hint at or suggest, it shows the United States is still very much involved from over the past several years. It has been U.S. intelligence, it's been U.S. know-how, it's been U.S. technology that has kept them fighting, you know, head-to-head with the Russians.

And that is continuing right now. As the general said, if these sanctions get through the Senate and the House and are signed eventually by the president against Russia, that certainly would send a very strong message about where the United States government is. Absolutely. And it's been rocky, but Zelensky has adapted to Trump's leadership style. And Elizabeth Buhmiller, if you could talk a little bit about the situation. Not only Zelensky is in, but also Democrats.

If America continues to drag this out or back away from this. Right. Well, but I just want to say what struck me watching Trump yesterday was just how much Putin is still playing him. I mean, Trump went into this, these negotiations, this phone call demanding an immediate ceasefire. He didn't get it. And what he got was what Putin's position was just continuing negotiations with Ukraine and cast that as a victory somehow.

So it's once again Trump trying to win the next five minutes. And he is a very, very long way from an immediate ceasefire and an immediate end to the war that he predicted would happen on day one. And I think Democrats have a rough time here too because they have been big supporters of Zelensky from day one. But again, the war is not that popular in the United States anymore. And it's really at a stalemate. And it's hard for them to support Zelensky right now, given that this has dragged on

so, so long, and there is really a weariness, I think, about it. But again, Trump has moved away from that disastrous Oval Office encounter with Zelensky that looks so terrible for our allies and so terrible for, you know, it was a disaster for the Europeans looked at it. All right, we're going to follow this. We have a lot more news to cover this morning. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll take a look at how the deadly storms sweeping across the country are highlighting concerns about President Trump's recent cuts to the National Weather Service.

Plus, we're learning new details about what may have caused a Mexican naval ship to crash into the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday. Morning Joe is back in 90 seconds. is back in 90 seconds. Storms have left a path of destruction across parts of the U.S. At least 28 people are dead after severe storms swept across Missouri, Kentucky and Virginia. And today the threat continues with millions of Americans bracing for possible tornadoes, damaging hail and flooding rains. The severe weather is highlighting concerns about the Trump administration's recent cuts to the National Weather Service, leaving many offices understaffed at this critical time.

For instance, in Kentucky, one weather service office no longer has overnight staffing because of a shortage of meteorologists due to doge cuts. More than 500 Weather Service employees were either dismissed, retired, or accepted offers to leave amid the Trump administration cuts. In an effort to fill the gaps, Weather Service officials are offering transfers to meteorologists to fill staffing vacancies.

This is one example, Joe, of life-saving services that are no longer because of these cuts. And again, we don't know about the impact for this last storm. We do know, though, from what you've read and of some reports, the National Weather Service was undermanned at a time when they actually needed more workers in there. We're gonna talk about Newark in a minute. It's the same thing about just random cuts

to the FAA and to others. And we see in this Elizabeth, again, Elon Musk's grand idea of cutting like a CEO. He actually didn't cut like most CEOs I've talked to or most CEOs I know, it was indiscriminate. And so you had to call nuclear workers, safety workers back, you had to call air traffic controllers back, but I can tell you as somebody that's lived in Florida for the majority of his life, as we get into hurricane

season, reports are that Musk's cuts have stopped people from being able to repair for the next hurricane season. When you look at FEMA and the fact that FEMA was actually held up as a campaign stunt last year and actually made people in North Carolina trust FEMA less, could go down the list, the National Weather Service. It seems to me that Russell Vought and others who said they wanted to slash the federal government and wanted to traumatize federal workers, they got their wish. I'm not sure that America is going to be happy in many cases about what's going to come of

that because as many of the cuts were just so indiscriminate. Well, like, Elon Musk cut, demanded cuts of 600 people from the 4,000 strong weather service. That's a lot of people. And that, and this is a result, there are reports that some, over a hundred stations will not have overnight forecasters, which is extremely dangerous. And again, as you said, we're heading into weather season. What's striking about this is, this is not one of the most expensive parts of the federal government.

And once again, this is what he went after to make a point, to frighten people. And yet it had very little effect on the bottom line. And there's so many cases now where you see that they claim that they saved all this money in effect. The money was already spent. So, so much of the accounting was off as well. Anyway, and it's very alarming to people who live in areas

where there are hurricanes and tornadoes. And it's very concerning. All right, the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating yet another brief communications outage at the facility that handles flights in and out of Newark International Airport. Officials say the Philadelphia control tower that manages air traffic lost radio frequencies for about two seconds yesterday morning. Still, all aircraft remained safely separated. Newark Airport has been dealing with a string of communication outages since April 28th,

when controllers lost track of incoming planes, causing dozens of flight diversions. I just, Joe may not fly into Newark and who would at this point? I'm sorry, who would? It is every day. It feels like there's some sort of terrifying piece of news. And why, I mean, we're at four outages now. Four random outages. One was a rusted coil. What's next? What are gonna be the reasons for it? They don't know, they don't know where this is coming from. We had an incident in the Denver Airport as well, but Newark remains the hub of all this. And it's certainly becoming not just a basically, frankly, almost an emergency situation,

but a political embarrassment for this White House and this Trump administration who, you know, the Secretary of State and Secretary Duffy has vowed to get ahead of this. He's vowed to have updated modern equipment, replace what's in there, the aging gear that's been there for decades. OK, but that's going to take a while. Of course. Why would you want planes coming into Newark right now if you run this? Would you take that chance?

I mean, it's the third biggest airport. It's one of the biggest airports in the country. They can't just shut it down. But certainly, Joe, there's real concerns right now about pastors going in and out of there and that we do you know we have no here in the New York region. It is served by other airports, but it's it's the airspace is incredibly crowded and we're having even really hit Memorial days this weekend

that the summer travel season is about to start and if you used to have issues. There's going to be a and if Newark continues to have issues, there's gonna be a ripple effect up and down the East Coast and beyond. Yeah, I mean, we can ask the question, why were you flying to Newark? Are you a Matrix fan, by the way, John? Okay. Yeah.

The first one was by far the best of those movies, but yeah, I like those movies. Well, I love Matrix revolutions, too. I especially loved at the end, where Smith hits Mr. Anderson and he goes, why, why, why Mr. Anderson? Why do you insist? You know you can't, you know?

And I think for travelers that continue to fly into Newark, Neo speaks for all of us because I choose to. It's exciting, come on. No, Joe, I will not. I will not. I keep going into Newark, man. I mean, you know, it's a lot.

There aren't a lot of people in the airport. The United area is going into, yeah, so much easier there. So I'll tell you where I've flown into though, Elizabeth, for probably landed at Reagan National, probably more than any airport in my life. I've spent my life flying in and out of there and every time, even in the best of circumstances, when you land at Reagan, it feels like you're

landing on an aircraft carrier. And I say this as somebody who's comfortable flying. And again, I'd spend a hell of a lot of the time in the air. It's that last turn. It's precarious, even in the best of circumstances. But I'm curious, Elizabeth, what you're hearing about the fact that, again, we've had since the tragedy in January, we've had one military aircraft after another continue to come into the airspace around that airport.

Do you have any insight? Do you have any understanding on why it has been so hard for them to keep helicopters and military helicopters and jets out of the approach path at Reagan National? I do not have any insight other than that I know that there are a number of people in Washington who are avoiding flying into Reagan these days for that very reason. It was always a little dicey flying in there anyway, just because as you say, the way the landing happens very quickly, you're over the water, then all of a sudden you land. But none of us knew until recently how dicey it actually was.

All I can tell you is the Pentagon is right across the Potomac, and it's right there and there are training flights all around, and they just obviously make mistakes and get into the airspace. It is not pleasant thinking about it and, you know, Dallas is not that far away. It's not that much harder to fly into, although of course Reagan's very convenient. Dallas is rough. Okay. Although, of course, Reagan's very convenient. Oh, this is rough. OK. No, but it is very convenient, just like LaGuardia is very convenient. And again, LaGuardia is right there throwing it down,

because these are airports that shouldn't be where they are. But look at Mika. She's getting there, but she doesn't like flying. But whether you're looking at Reagan or LaGuardia, they are not there for safety purposes. They are there for convenience purposes, and they really are just built on top in the middle of a city.

But that's why it's so important, Meek, and I know members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have complained about this. At national, it is so important that they coordinate with the Pentagon. And yeah, okay, great. There are Navy, There are army and Navy helo pilots, I guess, probably mainly army pilots that are practicing up and down

that river. Well, great. Don't do it in the flight path of one of the busiest airports in America. It doesn't seem that hard to me. All right, writer at large for The New York Times, Elizabeth Buhmiller, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. We appreciate it. And coming up, we're gonna dig into the charges a Democratic Congresswoman is now facing

following an incident outside an immigration detention center in New Jersey. Morning, Joe, we'll be right back. It's almost 40 past the hour. The Justice Department has charged a Democratic congresswoman from New Jersey with assaulting federal agents during a clash earlier this month outside of an immigration detention center in Newark. Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba made the announcement on social

media yesterday accusing Congresswoman LaMonica McIver of, quote, assaulting, impeding, and interfering with law enforcement. In response, McIver called the charges purely political and said she looks forward to, quote, the truth being laid out clearly in court. McIver was one of three Democratic members of the New Jersey Congressional delegation present at the Newark ICE facility on May 9. The three have maintained they were on site to inspect the facility in their capacity as lawmakers conducting federal oversight.

Meanwhile, Habba said her office has dropped trespassing charges against the mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka. He was arrested on May 9th while at the same Newark Ice facility with his Democratic colleagues. Baraka said he was glad the charges were dismissed, adding that he expected McIver to be vindicated. Let's bring in the president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton, and the co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan K. Parties, out today with a new memoir entitled Yet Here I Am, Lessons from a Black Man's Search for Home. And we'll talk about the new book.

Congratulations in just a moment. That's wonderful. So I've seen a lot of the different angles of this revile on social media and obviously, we'll have to see what plays out in court, but it appears that the members of the delegation believe they had a right to enter the facility and inspect it and they were kept out. And that's when the scuffling began. What are you hearing about this about especially what this woman the charges she's facing MacIver and what happened? I'm hearing that they welcomed the day in court to prove what happened. I thought it was very interesting that they charged the congresswoman McIver and dropped the

charges against the mayor over the same scuffle. What did you arrest the mayor for in the first place if McIver was the one you're saying did the assaulting? You can't have it both ways. It seems like a major glaring contradiction to say all right the mayor didn't do anything wrong, but she did but we didn't arrest her at the site We arrested him. So why did you arrest him then and then why did it take you a week to come back and arrest her? I think they were trying had a right to be in there. I think that according to what I Know they were members of Congress that had federal oversight and a mayor So these were members of Congress that had federal oversight and a mayor that's dealing with a facility in his city trying to find out what's going on in that facility.

He'd been there several days. So the question is, did they have the right to stop them from inspecting and seeing what's going on? And I think that they may end up with a court hearing that they do not want to have because how are they going to explain how they barred or tried to bar three members of Congress from seeing people that were under federal custody. So Jonathan, this is not the only high profile matter right now involving Department of Justice and elected officials.

DOJ says it's opening an investigation into the city of Chicago after comments from its mayor Brandon Johnson. While speaking at a church on Sunday, the mayor highlighted the prominent black officials in his administration. The assistant attorney general for the civil rights division announced yesterday that its investigation will try to determine

whether the mayor's office has engaged in a pattern or practice of racial discrimination. You have a look of disbelief on your face. And certainly, this is now, there's certainly been criticism growing that DOJ is sort of deliberately looking for these high profile provocative investigations into elected officials, namely Democrats.

Right, sort of, no, they are. This is exactly what they're doing. I'm sorry, I had to, I was like, wait, is this the onion? No, this is real life. This is exactly what they're doing. I'm sorry, I had to, I was like, wait, is this the onion? No, this is real life. This is exactly what they're doing. And let's keep in mind why they're doing this. We talk about it all the time. You guys talk about it all the time. It's for intimidation.

It's to intimidate the president's critics into staying silent. And when you see ridiculous things like that in Chicago, folks can't help but rise up and speak out. People beyond rev, like people who would normally not get involved in situations like this, the mayor of Chicago is showing the people of Chicago that he has a government that looks like their city.

That's all he's doing. And what's also equally offensive about why they're opening this investigation, what, so because these officials are black, they are not qualified to be in those positions? And that is criminal. I mean, to act like it's, to make sure that everyone has representation is a threat to everyone. I talked to some ministers in Chicago last night that are not socially involved, that are outraged at this.

I mean, what are you saying? He's not saying that we did this to expense of others. He's showing pride. If I said, look at the amount of women we have at a certain place, is that something that I should be investigated for? This is absurd. We'll see what happens. Let's turn to your book. Yet Here I Am. Is this your official

pub day? Yes, today is the official pub day. Thank you. Thank you. Tell us what inspired you to write the book at this time in your life. Well, quite honestly, a publisher reached out to me and said, have you ever thought about writing a book? That would do it. Right. But I had actually gotten started in 2017 when I had all these stories in my head about my childhood,

and particularly the summers I spent in North Carolina. I went from New Jersey, went to Catholic school in Newark, New Jersey when I was a kid. But then during the summers, I went down south to Severn, North Carolina with my grandparents where my grandmother was a Jehovah's Witness. And going witnessing on those back country roads with my grandmother is where I learned, started learning about race and our country and religion. And so they stuck with me.

And so one day I just sat down, I gotta get these stories out of my head. And then it led me to write down other stories that from my childhood, from adolescence, from my adult life, and it's become this book. And then the lessons that I learned along the way. You know, I've known you for decades now, though you're younger. More than 30 years, Ralph. And one of the things that I've respected and then admired about you is that you were willing

to take on racism, but also homophobia in the black community. Do you deal with that in the book, and how do you explain where you got the courage to stand up to both, which was not comfortable things to do? Well, I mean I don't get into specific things of you know battling those I mean I'd spent a lot of time talking about race in this book where I Meant I talk about how in all instances, you know, I can be too black

Not black enough and in some instances, especially when I was growing up, there were a lot of people who didn't want me to be black at all. And I write about how growing up in a predominantly white town, where there is this unspoken agreement, where as long as I don't talk about the fact that I'm black, they won't.

They wouldn't have to acknowledge it. And it's all about making white people comfortable with black presence. And so in writing this book, I want people to, through my story, understand in like a small way what African Americans go through at all ages. Joe. Yeah, and talk about your personal lessons, the lessons that

impacted you the most growing up, knocking on doors with your grandmom, walking, walking through the town, going door to door. I mean, again, it's so, it's so different than your life in New Jersey. And I guess going back and forth gave you a better perspective than most on not only race, but also on yourself. So what's a lesson that you would like somebody to take from the book? Well, the number one thing that I learned going,

witnessing with my grandmother in the South was humility. That the people we went to see were desperately poor. But we weren't that far behind, even though my grandmother looked a little better. She had a nice wig and a sack dress and her faux pearls. But she always made it clear to me that, you know, we don't get it twisted. We are not far removed. But, you know, there are two lessons that I picked up on as I wrote the book.

The number one lesson is, whenever anyone asks you what you want, tell them. And that was when I came here to 30 Rock to visit my uncle McKinley, who you remember, we had him on just days before his 40 41st anniversary at NBC was about to retire. And I'm sitting in front of this woman and scale Tarian, a 17 year old kid who wanted to be a news commentator, and asked

her if she worked here. And she yes and she then asked me what do you want to be and I said well first I want to be Moscow correspondent then I want to go to I'm trying to decide between the White House and London if I go to London I want to do the White House and then I want to come back to New York to be anchor of the Today Show and my uncle comes back and she I say thank you and she says wait a minute and she writes down the name of Kay Bradley her phone number rips it off and says, here, get yourself an internship on the Today Show. That was here in this building 40 years ago.

So, so many stories like that. And then one more lesson is everything we do in life is an audition. We just don't know what for yet. And so when I was at the post trying to figure out what am I doing and doing podcasts and doing live events and writing my columns, it all seemed disparate. Like they didn't connect until I got the call

from MSNBC saying, we'd like for you to audition for what was AMJOY and then became The Sunday Show. But I use all the skills that I learned doing all what I thought were disparate things, weave them together into getting a show and being your colleagues. The new book, yet here I am, Lessons from a Black Man's Search for Home. It's on sale now. Author

and co-host of MSNBC's The Weeknd, Jonathan Capehart. Thank you and congratulations. And Jonathan will be back with us later in the week for more on the memoir. Congratulations. Great. Thank you, Meekam. And still ahead, we'll take a closer look at J.D. Vance's rise to power. The Atlantic's George Packer argues the vice president could have brought the country together, but instead took a divisive path. He'll join us to explain that ahead on Morning Joe. And as before the top of the hour, there are new details this morning regarding the deadly crash involving a Mexican naval ship in New York City over the weekend.

In a briefing yesterday, the NTSB revealed that less than a minute before the vessel struck the Brooklyn Bridge, a radio call went out asking for help from any additional tugboats in the area, followed by other requests for assistance. Investigators also say the ship accelerated suddenly in the wrong direction before impact. It's unclear what caused the craft to pick up speed. Two Mexican naval cadets were killed and nearly two dozen others were injured in the incident. Officials say it could take up to two years, Jonathan, to complete the investigation. It's just crazy. It is. It's still there. The boat is still docked along the East River there. You can see it, the the masts shattered. Yeah.