Morning Joe - Morning Joe 5/26/23

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Oath Keepers founder gets 18 years in prison

One of Trump's great advantages is he talks at a level where third, fourth and fifth grade educations can say, oh, yeah, I get that. I understand it. And in fact, Trump has now made the Republican Party the party of working Americans in a way that probably hasn't been true for almost 100 years. Yeah, because in 100 years, there hasn't been a politician that said, you know, I think I'm going to try to make this a third graders can understand what I'm talking about and talk on that level. Really? Well, that was Newt Gingrich actually encouraging Ron DeSantis to get on the level of third graders.

I'm not joking. You know, kind of like Donald Trump does. Wonder what he means. This is a tough hurricane, one of the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water. Rarely have we had an experience like it, and it certainly is not good. Oh, my God. One of the wettest we've had. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. Hope you've had a good week. It is Friday, Friday, May 26. Let's bring in with us the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Also the host of Inside with Jen Psaki. Jen Psaki, she's a former White House press secretary. Also Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, who is enthralled by the meteorology report from Donald Trump, and also the host of the podcast On Brand with Donny Deutsch, Donny Deutsch,

and also columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. Well, what a day of news yesterday is the most high profile defendant in the January 6th investigation was sentenced to 18 years in prison. You heard that right. 18 years in prison. The stiffest penalty handed out so far and what's become one of the biggest criminal probes in U.S. history. NBC News justice correspondent Ken Delaney and has more. One of the key figures behind the January 6th attack on the Capitol, facing the toughest sentence in more than a thousand prosecutions. Stuart Rhodes, the founder and leader of a far-right group called the Oath Keepers,

was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of seditious conspiracy, using violence to prevent the government from carrying out its lawful duties. Rhodes was not physically present at the Capitol during the January 6th attack, using violence to prevent the government from carrying out its lawful duties. Rhodes was not physically present at the Capitol during the January 6th attack, but Judge Amit Mehta said he conspired with others to help make it happen and to take up arms and foment revolution. A former Army paratrooper who graduated from Yale Law School, Rhodes wore an orange prison jumpsuit during the dramatic court hearing. He showed no remorse, defiantly telling the judge that he considered himself a political prisoner.

Judge Mehta responding to Rhodes, you, sir, present an ongoing threat, an apparel to this country, to the republic, and the very fabric of our democracy. Rhodes' lawyers promised an appeal. Well, I think that this case was all about the weaponization of speech by the Department of Justice. And I think that essentially they have used Stuart Rhodes' words against him. Prosecutors say Rhodes spent weeks after the election plotting to use violence to keep President Trump in power. The judge applied a so-called terrorism enhancement to Rhodes' sentence, the first time that has happened in a January 6th case. It's a very significant sentence, and it sends a very, I think, important message of deterrence. Yeah, it really does send an important message of deterrence,

something that Republicans used to support. That was NBC's Ken Delaney with the report. And as we told you yesterday, the writer who's photographed with his feet on a desk of then Speaker Nancy Pelosi's during the insurrection has been sentenced to four and a half years in prison as well. And Florida governor and 2024 hopeful Ron DeSantis promises if elected president, he, like Donald Trump, would consider pardoning some of the convicts who rioted on charges related to January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. You made the comments on a radio show.

Take a listen. The DOJ and FBI have been weaponized. We see that. We see it in a variety of contexts. Some of what you mentioned, some of it is the FBI going after weaponized. We see that. We see it in a variety of contexts. Some of what you mentioned, some of it is the FBI going after parents, going to school board meetings. Some of it's how they treat a pro-life demonstrator, how they don't go after people that are attacking pro-lifers. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to do on day one, I will have folks that

will get together and look at all these cases who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons. Now, some of these cases, some people may have a technical violation of the law, but if there are three other people who did the same thing, but just in a context like BLM, and they don't get prosecuted at all, that is uneven application of justice. I mean, he's not really that stupid. Maybe he's talking like a third grader. We're talking about people who tried to overthrow American democracy, and Ron knows that.

He knows that. And yet he's playing that game. Recall how Donald Trump also responded to a question about pardons for January 6th rioters in a recent CNN town hall meeting. My question to you is, will you pardon the January 6th rioters who were convicted of federal offenses? I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control. What they've done to these people, they've persecuted these people. And yeah, my answer is I am most likely, if I get in, I will most likely, I would say

it will be a large portion of them. It's unbelievable. Law and order. The party of law and order. That's what they always tell us. Is it law and order for the poor? Is it law and order for the dispossessed? Is it law and order for for for what? Everybody but rioters who try to overthrow the federal government to keep a Republican in the White House after he lost. You know, the people they're talking about pardoning, I mean, DeSantis and Trump are people like Stuart Rhodes, who said they won't fear us until we come with rifles in our hands.

And Stuart Rhodes wrote a message ahead of January 6th saying that after the attack, there was a recording that was played in court during his trial where he said, oh, I'm a political prisoner. And Trump's saying he's a political prisoner. And DeSantis is saying, oh, they're all political prisoners. Oh, it's that it's the FBI and the DOJ's fault. Don't you understand? It's their fault. No, it's Stuart Rose's fault. After, after January 6th, after the cops had the hell beaten out of them with American flags, he said his only regret was we should have brought rifles. Let me tell you something. About 400 rioters have already received sentences for their crimes, for their violent, vile acts committed on January the 6th.

They're anti-American. They're treasonous acts. 200 have been incarcerated for that writing, for the beating of cops. Support the blue? Not quite, not even close. For Donald Trump and his rioters, it was beat the hell out of the cops. And yes, they were planning to overthrow American democracy. It's called sedition. Law enforcement still seeking 350 criminals who committed violent acts at the Capitol. And that search goes on. And trust me, the rioters will be found and they will be brought to justice, too. You know, Trump and DeSantis praise these rioters that you're looking at. They praise the seditionists. They praise the convicts. And they send a very clear, very loud message to others who try to overthrow the federal government

while beating the hell out of cops with American flags that our troops have proudly marched into battle for over two centuries. They say storm government buildings, destroy American democracy. That's OK. Stand back and stand by. Let me tell you something. The rotted corpse of what once was the Republican Party, it just keeps lurching forward zombie-like. And it will follow Donald Trump into whatever gutter he takes them on this eight-year march toward fascism. Not almost fascism. Not something quite like fascism. But fascism itself. And to think, the Republican Party I grew up in and the conservatives that,

well, they claim to be conservatives, they once talked about being the party of law and order, and they argued that criminal penalties did not just punish the violators like Stuart Rhodes, but also discouraged other people from committing those same violent crimes. But no more Ron DeSantis, no more Donald Trump. Wow. If you think that's going to win swing voters in the suburbs, you've got another thing coming. And the only thing I can say is thank God for the judicial branch. And let me say that again, because I say it a lot. Thank God for the judicial branch. The only one of the three branches that stayed true to Madison's promise of checks and balances across our great republic's government. Federal judges, both conservative and liberal alike, did not mindlessly follow Donald Trump. And that's why the rule of law still reigns supreme

in America and why justice keeps getting done in courthouses across America every day. And hey, guess what? If you're out there, if you committed crimes, if you committed violent acts on January 6th, they're coming to get you and bring you in, not as a political prisoner, but as somebody who defiled the United States Capitol and tried to shred the Constitution of the United States. And know this, justice will be served. And David Ignatius, I look at Stuart Rhodes's conviction yesterday, 18 years. I don't think it's enough, but that's what they got for him, 18 years. And what message does that send to all the other people out there that listen to idiots on podcasts or on websites that are saying, let's overthrow the federal government, because I've heard this for 30 years from wing nuts on the far reaches of parties.

Donald Trump tried to bring it mainstream. And a lot of people are sitting in jail for a very long time because of it. Joe, the words of Judge Ahmed Mehta, who was the judge in the Stuart Rhodes case, ring in my mind. They should ring in everybody's. You, sir, are an ongoing threat and a peril to this country. And then he gave him that 18 year sentence. He insisted that there is no crime worse that he could hear here than seditious conspiracy. It is a message, as you've been saying, that this judge, and I think you're right, the court system in general, will not tolerate the kind of behavior that we saw on January 6th. But I thought this judge was especially direct, blunt in calling Stuart Rhodes what he is, which is a person who wants to overturn

the system of government we have in this country. I'm glad he was so specific. Now we've got to see whether justice can finish these prosecutions, can keep going, and indeed will approach the person who it is argued launched the January 6th riot in the first place, and that's former President Trump. The other thing that struck me here, I think, is there's been so much criticism from Democrats. A lot of it may be warranted about the pace of the Department of Justice as it relates to the prosecution of Trump. People want something to happen out there, but they strategically went after these rioters, went after these insurrectionists first. They did that purposefully

for that deterrence impact that we heard Mary McCord talk about earlier in the show. And that's interesting, too, because to some degree at this point, what they set out to do is working, at least to date. We saw that in the wake of the Trump indictment, where there was not thousands of people gathering, ready to take down government buildings. Let's hope that continues. But this is a moment where I think the Department of Justice and their strategy does, you know, warrant some, you know, support and I guess applause to some degree. I wanted to ask you, Eugene, just about kind of how you think out there politically, Democrats,

progressives, the base of the Democratic Party that are frustrated and have been that nothing has happened to Donald Trump are digesting the sentencing of Rhodes and the fact that finally something is happening, but it's not quite Trump. How do you think that's playing out there? Well, 18 years is a significant prison sentence, and I think it got everybody's attention. And I think people see it as heartening that these crimes that were committed on January 6th are being taken seriously. You know, a lot of people, you know, know people who were or know what people were convicted of what we now think of as relatively minor drug offenses who got long prison terms like that. And I think it says something really positive about the judicial branch, as Joe said, and about the Justice Department that, no, this is being taken seriously, that Stuart Rhodes years in prison and that this very systematic, drawn out prosecution of the rioters and this

attempt to round them all up and identify them and bring them to justice continues and will continue. And yes, the big question is, does it go up the ladder to the person who inspired and summoned the rioters and sent them off to the Capitol? And that would be former President Trump. And that's a question for Special Counsel Jack Smith and for Attorney General Merrick Garland. And we'll see. We'll find out the answer. And Jonathan LeMire, you wrote the book on the big lie. You wrote the book on January the 6th. You have one person being convicted after another. And as they're about to be sentenced, they say, hey, I didn't do it because of me.

I did it because Donald Trump. I was following Donald Trump. He's the one who told us to be there. He tweeted it out a month before, said, come on January the 6th. And of course, Trump said, it'll be wild. Trump's the one who told the rioters stand back and stand by, told white nationalists during the presidential debates, stand back and stand by. And in the most recent appearance on CNN at the town hall meeting, what did he say? He called January 6th a beautiful day and said that those people that beat the hell out of cops

with the American flag were there with love in their hearts. You talk about somebody like Stuart Rhodes who doesn't have an. Capitol has absolutely no regret for whatsoever. And I am just wondering, how do you send hundreds of people to jail for following the orders of Donald Trump? And Donald Trump doesn't also get sent to jail for a seditious conspiracy. Since memo to everybody a couple of months ago who said nobody was getting charged with that. Since they are, in fact, getting charged for exactly what they did, taking part in a conspiracy to commit sedition against our republic. Stuart Rhodes compared himself to Nelson Mandela, and he said his only regret was that they didn't bring rifles. Other members of the Oath Keepers did express some remorse.

They received slightly lighter sentences. 18 years is a lot, and we will see if it's a deterrence. And now we all do wait, as this is the largest investigation in DOJ FBI's history. It has been slow at times, but it has been steady. And we have seen conviction after conviction after conviction moving up the ladder. And we know the special counsel, Jack Smith, who is a lot of this plate right now, also talking about Mar-a-Lago documents, which we'll get into more in the latest in that probe, but certainly is looking at January 6th and whether they can prove that this indeed,

that violence that we keep seeing here, that violence was inspired by Donald Trump and Donald Trump himself. And Donnie, Donald Trump, though, hasn't walked away from him at all. He has suggested that he will pardon the vast majority of those who rioted that day. He has appeared with convicts, January 6th convicts, who have formed a chorus. And Donald Trump has used that music for his rallies. Now we have Governor DeSantis launching his bid and suggesting he would issue pardons as well. How do you see this playing out in terms of the politics of it, in terms of the future of

it, in terms of the Republican Party, where it's two, two leading contenders to the presidency, both say, hey, what those guys did on January 6th, we'll let them walk. I want to go to DeSantis first, because we know what Trump's going to do. What would happen if, God forbid, Ron DeSantis came out and said, you know what, I'm a law and order candidate, and I don't believe in the overthrowing of this government. Donald Trump does, I don't. Would he lose the complete base, or would the Republican Party go, we have the same person in charge? That's such a plausible thing to do. Yet he's new coke. He's just following Trump. And you're not going to get there by not zigging while Trump is zigging. That's number one. Number two, if the Republicans lose law and

order and they, what do they have? I mean, that's the cornerstone. That's the cornerstone of who they are. And I could not wait to cut commercials together using that footage and superimposing on that either DeSantis, Trump saying, pardon this. That is going to be so powerful. We have not. This could be obviously the first presidential election with what I'm going to call the material, the footage, the proof points to use all that footage that we've been you've been looking at for the last two or three minutes. And to me, if you don't have that and you are a Republican, oh, by the way, if you're DeSantis, you're losing business also with Disney. So, you know, they keep they keep chipping at the pillars, the cornerstones of Republican Party used to be. But once again, this is going to come back to bite them. And I particularly in the case of DeSantis, why are you just being New Coke versus Coke? It doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, again, the party of law and order, please, party of law and order. If you're black, that's what the Republicans believe, but not party of law and order for

white dudes that went to Yale and then tried to lead a seditious conspiracy against the United States government. They want to pardon him. It's unbelievable. Now, let's go to new reporting that two of Donald Trump's Moralago employees were moving boxes of papers the day before a visit by FBI agents and a prosecutor. They were there to retrieve classified documents in response to a subpoena. That timing now being viewed as suspicious and an indication of possible obstruction. For more, let's bring in Deputy National Editor at

The Washington Post, Philip Rucker. He edited the new reporting for The Post. Philip, what in the world was going on there? Well, Joe, this happened in June of 2022 when President Trump had received already a subpoena for those classified materials. On June 2nd, he had two of his employees, one of them his valet, the other a longtime worker at Mar-a-Lago, move a number of boxes of papers on the property. Later that day, his lawyer, Trump's lawyer, contacted the Justice Department and said, it's okay now for you guys to come retrieve those documents in response to the subpoena. The next day on June 3rd is when a prosecutor

and the FBI showed up at Mar-a-Lago to retrieve the documents, but the boxes that have been moved, of course, were not retrieved. You fast forward two months, and that's when the FBI did their raid in August at Mar-a-Lago. Hey, Phil, it's Jonathan. I'm not even a country lawyer like Joe, but this sure seems like this could be added to making the case of obstruction, trying to move documents around ahead of that search. So walk us through like the legal possibilities here and also the timing,

because there's been a lot of chatter recently that Jack Smith's winding down this probe and we may get a charge decision sooner than later. Well, the activity at the grand jury has has slowed down. That means a lot of witnesses, a lot of Trump employees, advisers, et cetera, have already been before the grand jury for questioning some of them multiple times. And we've seen that activity slow down, which is an indication that the special counsel's investigation into the classified documents is nearing its conclusion, or at the very least is in its final stages. We don't have a ton of visibility into what Jack Smith is thinking about doing. But our understanding is that the charges he's considering include obstruction of justice,

as well as mishandling of classified documents. The new details that The Washington Post reported this week show that there's a broader timeline here of possible obstruction. The key period for Smith is between after Trump receiving the subpoena, which is the sort of lawful direction to him that he cannot have these documents and needs to return them to the government, and the August raid by the FBI and what sort of acts Trump and those around him were doing to potentially cover up what they had, to withhold some of those documents to try to evade

investigators. And so the new reporting we have about the two workers moving those boxes the day before the FBI showed up is really significant and I think could factor in heavily in Smith's decision about whether to file obstruction of justice charges. Phil, this is your colleague, David Ignatius. Just wondering if you have any better sense now of what Trump's motive was in holding onto these documents, and then why he was so concerned about his retention of them that, according to the latest information we're getting, he was instructing people to move them out of the way of a potential search. What's at the bottom of this case as you look at it?

Well, there are a couple of ways that we have indications of his motive, both the public comments that Trump has made the last several months in interviews and at his rallies talking about the documents, and also what we've learned through our reporting at The Washington Post about the investigation. Trump has said many times that he believes these documents were his property, that they were his documents, they were papers given to him, they were gifts given to him in some cases. That, of course, is not true. Legally, these are the property of the U.S. government. That's why the National Archives sought them as soon as he left the White House. That's why this became a protracted dispute between Trump and the government. They are the property of the government, but Trump thought otherwise.

And then the other thing that we've learned is that investigators have determined that there's not necessarily a financial motive here. You might think, well, gee, maybe Trump wanted to sell the information that was in these classified documents. So far in this investigation, according to our reporting, there's no indication that there was some sort of financial play here, that he was selling this information. Rather, it was to feed his ego. He wanted to hold on to them. included a detail that's pretty interesting, which is that Trump had some of these classified documents out in the open in his office and would sometimes show them to people who were visiting him at Mar-a-Lago. All right. The Washington Post, Phil Rucker,

thank you so much. Greatly appreciate it. And Jonathan O'Meara, by the way, I want you to know we've gotten through the first block without talking about the Boston Celtics. We will talk about them the next block. Of course, down 3-0. Now it's 3-2. Curt Schilling pitching in game six. So things seem to be breaking the Red Sox way. Are you thinking it's 2004 all over again? The presence of A-Rod and Jeter at the game the other day started this.

And, yes, I mean, we're daring to dream. We'll talk about it later. We should not talk, though, about the 2023 Red Sox, whose offense has completely fallen off a cliff in the last week. 140 games left. Take a deep breath. It's a long marathon. Still out on Morning Joe.

The latest on the dead ceiling. There are new reports this morning. The White House and top Republicans are surprise, surprise, inching closer to a deal. Who could have seen that coming other than people that have been in Washington for 30 years? Plus, a new look at fundraising numbers for Ron DeSantis on the hills of that crazy presidential announcement. And a major shakeup within CPAC as a top leader resigns. We're going to bring in the reporter who broke that story and talks about a, quote, cancer that is growing on CPAC. Morning, Joe. It is 631, Friday morning, Memorial Day weekend.

And we have a shot here of Orlando, of course. You see everybody on the road. You know what they're doing. They're going to Universal right now. They can't stay away. It's going to be a big weekend at Universal Studios in Orlando. Okay, and Disney as well, and SeaWorld and all the other places. But I hope you are getting ready to have a great Memorial Day weekend.

I certainly hope it's better than, well, Memorial Day weekend for some leaders of CPAC. More shocking news out of CPAC this morning. The treasurer of that organization has resigned, citing financial mystery surrounding Chairman Matt Schlapp. In his resignation letter, Bob Beaupre raised concerns over how CPAC is funding Schlapp's legal defense against a lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault against a male aide. Beaupre also detailed several financial discrepancies, writing, quote, a cancer has been metastasizing within the organization for years.

Let's bring in right now the political reporter who wrote the New York Magazine article about these allegations. Ben Jacobs. Ben, man, a lot to sort through here. Forgive me if it doesn't sound like I've already heard this story before. Like this is this is Wayne LaPierre stuff like at the NRA. It seems like the NRA and CPAC just can't keep their books straight. But this is connected to, I think, perhaps a bigger scandal in CPAC that the board appears to be, I don't know, trying to cover up or trying to defend. Well, I think I think that's right, Joe, that the board is made up of match lapse friends at this point. It's a handpick board and they're they're all on his team and all working all, you know, fed information by him that determines what decisions they're making.

And at this point, Babu Prey has sort of broken away. He sent this letter, which ended up getting leaked out by the board in order to raise these concerns. And it's a sign that at this point that even the folks who are his friends are now having real concerns over the management at CPAC and what is going on and how broken this institution has become. So, Ben, let's channel Newt Gingrich and talk about this in a way that third graders could understand it. Can you break it down in case people don't know the ugliness that's been going on in CPAC for quite some time? Where did this begin with accusations against Matt Schlapp? And and what specifically is the treasurer accusing the board of doing?

Well, this has some of its root causes and allegations against Schlapp that while campaigning for Herschel Walker in twenty twenty two, he downed a significant portion of significant the he's alleged to have drank a lot of alcohol and then groped a male staffer who was driving him back. And this has sort of set off a chain of events. And there's questions now whether CPAC is paying for his legal defense. The treasurer says that they advanced him $50,000 when the allegations initially had. And keep in mind, the treasurer thinks Schlapp's innocent of this. And then that Schlapp had mysteriously raised $250,000 more that had gone to his legal defense.

There are also allegations of financial mismanagement, that there's massive staff turnover, that this is an organization over the past three years that's churned through employees at a pretty remarkable pace. And generally, that the books aren't straight, that as The Washington Post reported earlier, that just last year, Schlapp started paying himself a salary that previously he had done this, you know, without a salary, that it was a significant six-figure salary to supplement his everyday job as a lobbyist. Wow. You know, Donnie, let's talk really quickly. I mean, the conservative brand has been so tarnished. I talk about the NRA. You know, Donnie, let's let's talk really quickly. I mean, the conservative brand has been so tarnished. I talk about the NRA. You could also talk about obviously Donald Trump, there's just this cloud that hangs over it. But, man, I always talk about how Republicans have become like, you know, the Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. Donald Trump's become the Jim and Tammy Faye Baker of American politics,

squeezing every last dime out of out of retirees and other people that they can sucker. And then they never follow through on what they say they're going to do, whether it's for legal defense funds or something else. But, you know, we get the parallels. I mean, you got Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. You got Oral Roberts. You got Jimmy Swagger. You got the Catholic Church. You got the Southern Baptist Church, all of these scandals. And now it seems it's just moving over to the conservative movement. One scandal after another scandal, one indictment after another indictment. I mean, I don't know how the conservative brand is not just absolutely tarnished for decades to

come. What is the conservative brand right now? If you said, what do they stand for? Basically, it's hate, it's grievance, it's anger, it's breaking of laws. It is, you know, what do they stand for? Basically, it's hate. Nothing. It's grievance. It's anger. It's breaking of laws. It is, you know, if you, the Republicans should have a loop and the loop should play to them. Who is it that brought conservative movement and really made it relevant to Americans? Ronald Reagan. And they are anti-Ronald Reagan. Everything that Reagan stood for, decency and really taking conservatism and putting

it, making it relevant to the majority of Americans. And the conservative movement now is just stuck. It's stuck and it stands for nothing from a policy point of view except anger, hatred, and just complete, complete chaos. And as you said, I don't see it coming back anytime soon. When you have the newbies in the party, when you have Ron DeSantis playing the same exact tune, nobody is getting it right. They've fallen. They can't get up. So, Ben, what's next for CPAC? Is there a sense here that that schlap is a hold on power is in jeopardy? I mean, as you say, it's mostly run by his friends. You know, it's certainly the CPAC conference this year was was diminished, smaller. Despite Trump's return, it was smaller and seemed to matter less than years before.

How do you see this playing out going forward? I think there's a couple of scenarios. In one case that this continues as is and CPAC continues to diminish. As you pointed out, it was much more of a Trump show that traditionally CPAC is all encompassing of the conservative movement. But the conference this year was sort of a narrower slice of people. I mean, one thing that was telling that people used to be physically banned from the conference were now speakers on the main stage. The other scenario is whether Schlapp steps down voluntarily.

It's unlikely from my understanding that the board is going to involuntarily deal with this. You know, that CPAC still is lingering strength because of its brand, but it's also seen a lot of competition from Turning Point USA and from other conservative conferences. But it's a question at this point whether CPAC fades away and becomes the RC Cola of conservative conferences, sort of something that's a landmark of the best. Let me just say I love R.C. Kola.

Ben Jacobs, thank you so much. Great. Appreciate you being here. Now to Russia. Man, some crazy stuff going on there. Russia's Wagner mercenary group now is saying it's going to abandon Bakhmut. It's going to turn it over to Russia's armed forces, who they say can't hold the city. The group's leader says Russia should not expect any more help from his forces in the city, which has seen some lose the war in Ukraine and face a revolution similar to that of a 1917. Let's bring in back in David Ignatius. David, I don't know, maybe I'm over reading this, but I'm not so sure I am. You have his leader of the Wagner group constantly berating Putin's inner inner circle, berating his military, by extension, berating Putin himself. He goes in and, you know, they lose maybe 100000 mercenaries going in to hold down Bakhmut. And then he decides to abandon it, knowing that the Russian army is not going to be able to hold it in the spring offensive.

So this is a guy that's talking about revolution. He's talking about how there's chaos in Russia, talking about how badly things are going, how Russia can lose. It's almost as if he's trying to prove that himself by his retreat. Joe, it's a bizarre situation. You have these taunts from essentially an oligarch who's formed his own militia. Prigozhin used to be very close to Putin. You have a kind of disarray in the Russian military operation, the likes of which I've never seen in a major conflict, the head of this militia denouncing the defense minister, the military leadership saying he's not getting enough weapons. He did all the fighting. Here's the most interesting thing to me.

We have not heard a word from Vladimir Putin about this. As Prokofiev rants and taunts, the leader stays in the Kremlin aloof and silent. Is that a deliberate strategy by Putin to stay above it all? Is it a sign that he is increasingly losing control? We simply don't know. But the conversations I'm having with Russia analysts go to this mystery of Putin's passivity in this moment. What's going on? And that's the subject I'm going to try and do some reporting on today. David, I'm going to be really interested in that reporting because my question is, how does Prokofiev say this stuff and stay on Putin's good side? How does he continue to live, frankly, by attacking Putin and everything

he's doing and the way he's doing it in this manner? It just doesn't seem to make sense unless Prokofiev is angling for Putin's job. I mean, this seems to be a very serious split. But I'm curious as to what your hunch is or what your feeling is. Well, it's it, Gene, it's no more than a hunch. But my sense has been for some years that Putin, like many leaders of authoritarian countries, I think of countries like like Syria or Iran, likes to have competing intelligence services and operatives under him. They're all jockeying for power. No single one of them becomes strong enough to challenge the leader. Prokofiev is checked by the defense minister, Shoigu, in this case. Other leaders exert similar influence. You've got all these centers of power under the leader,

each negating the other's ability to challenge the leader. The problem is that Putin is fighting a war. And as Prokhorin said, this war was supposed to demilitarize Ukraine. That was Russia's objective. Rather than demilitarizing it, Ukraine is now becoming a military superpower in the center of Europe. As Prokhorin said, Russia has achieved the opposite of what it intended. So, you know, whether Putin can put Prokhorin back in the box is, again, one of the questions that we need to ask. If he doesn't, Prokhorin is going to challenge him as president. David, I wanted to ask you just about Bakhmut because we've heard just so much about Bakhmut. There's been so much reporting about it.

So much of it is leveled right now, unfortunately, because of this war. Why is it so significant? Is it significant? And when you mentioned the spring offensive, what do you think is the next step in that? What should we all be watching for? So, Jen, one of the mysteries to U.S. commanders for months has been why the Ukrainians were devoting so much of their blood and treasure to defending Bakhmut, which is a modestly strategic point. It controls access to Donetsk, one of the areas that has been bitterly contested. But was it worth the cost that they were paying? Zelensky and the Ukrainians said, basically, we need to hold Russian forces there while we prepare the broader offensive that we think is just about to start now this week.

What will that look like? Well, we have some early signs that the Ukrainians have been very aggressive in going after Russian logistics, Russian command and control. We don't read much about it, but they're trying to restrict Russia's ability to move around the battlefield as this offensive begins. As Ukraine punches through this very long front, over a thousand kilometers, punches through at various points, will the Russians be able to respond and react? Ukrainians hope that they will be able to push through the land corridor that connects Russia to Crimea and put the real prize for Putin, which is Crimea,

at risk. If that happens, we'll be in a very, very different situation. But I think we're just now this week getting to the point where that offensive, long-awaited offensive, is finally beginning. And to further David's point, administration officials now, though, still wondered why Ukraine spent so much time in Bakhmut. They do think they were successful in just bogging down so much of Russia's forces there and exhausting their weapons and such, where they feel like they will be less able to defend the upcoming spring counteroffensive. And the officials I've talked to, Joe, are growing more bullish about Ukraine's chances here. They still think Ukraine, they still think Crimea is probably too far. That can't happen now. But they think that Ukraine can make real progress in the south and east and at minimum go into potential negotiations, potential negotiations.

Zelensky has to make that call, but they'd be able to do so at a much more position of strength. Well, and people are looking at this, you know, as maybe a victory that the Russians can put in the books is a win. But boy, a victory with horrific costs, over 100,000 casualties. Some people are estimating they were held down, they were bogged down while the Ukrainians were getting ready for the spring offensive. And so it seems to me, especially when you see the Wagner group

now talking about retreating and turning it over to a group of Russian divisions that aren't going to be able to hold it, it's, again, sort of the worst case scenario for the Russians, I think. I just wanted to bring up, Gene, you know, you you remember like David, you remember what Russia was like in 90, 91, 92, 93. There was political anarchy. There was social anarchy. There was military anarchy. I've days ago, he said, we need to become basically more of a totalitarian state and Russia needs to be North Korea over the next three to four years. So for all of those people out there, and listen, I'm not nominating Vladimir Putin for a Nobel Peace Prize anytime soon. I'm just saying

it can always get worse. Maybe that's a conservative in me. It can always get worse. But you look at this guy who may be angling to take Vladimir Putin's place. His vision for Russia is not a greater Russia. It's North Korea. Yeah. Yeah. It's North Korea. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, it's North Korea. I mean, look, there are no indications that I know of so far of 1917-style unrest within Russia, right? That's not happening. sort of parallel is that in 1917, Russia, of course, was bogged down in a war, just sort of feeding soldiers into that mill. It sort of started with the army and the navy, and sort of the next thing you knew, there was a revolution.

Now, I don't think that's about to happen in Russia, but it does. We should remember that really, really bad things can happen really quickly in Russia. And so you never know when we're at one of those kind of tipping points. And yes, things could get worse. And here we've been showing you quotes about the 1917 revolution, where when the first the soldiers rise up and then their loved ones follow. And the other quote we showed Gene was again, where he said, we need to close the borders and we need to make Russia more like North Korea. Not there. It is is. Not a great future for the Russians or, I would say, for anybody in Europe. So if you don't think things can get worse, well, you haven't been

studying Russia very long. Still ahead, our next guest has written a timely and definitive book on China's authoritarian leader. We're going to talk about how Xi's vision for Beijing could impact the rest of the world, how it's already impacting the rest of the world. Morning Joe, coming right back. Beautiful shot of the White House at 653. Friday, the start of Memorial Day weekend. I don't know what your Memorial Day weekend plans are, but inside there, a lot of people trying to figure out how to take care of the debt ceiling crisis. Looks like they're getting closer every day. Back in March, Chinese President Xi became the country's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, securing a president, breaking a third

term in charge. Xi was first elected as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012 and became China's seventh president in less than a year later. With us now, staff reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Chun Han Wong. He has covered China for the Journal since 2014. And he's the author of the new book,

Party of One, The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's superpower future. Thanks so much for being with us. I greatly appreciate it. Talk about how President Xi has stepped in and really asserted authority over the government in China in a way that nobody could have foreseen when he first started moving toward power. Yes, so I think one way to look at how this happened when Xi Jinping first came to power in 2012, he was sort of an unknown quantity. Back then, the joke was that his wife, who was a popular PLA folk singer,

was actually more famous than he was. And he's sort of, you know, like his career from his rise, you know, from the 1980s as a junior official up to the top levels of the party, he hadn't made sort of a big name for himself. He was sort of seen as like, you know, capable, but at the same time, not particularly outstanding. But by the time he came to power, he started to change that, you know, he really came to grips with, you know, the tools that he had in his hand. And one of the things he really did after he took control was to use the Communist Party's anti-corruption agency, the CCDI, which I write about in my book. And he used that as a way to consolidate control. He sent, you know, anti-corruption inspectors to basically clear out all sorts of corruption, abuse of power.

At the time, there was a view that corruption was an existential threat to the party. So there was, I think, a genuine attempt to deal with this problem. But at the same time, there was a sense that Xi Jinping was actually using this as a way to consolidate control. He wanted to make the bureaucracy afraid of him, and therefore that was a way for him to consolidate power and implement his policies, you know, from a very top-down approach. So we just saw some footage there of President Xi standing with President Putin, and there's been an awful lot of tea leaf reading here in Washington about how the war in Ukraine is

impacting President Xi's thinking as it relates to his own desires, Taiwan and other places in the region. So you've been covering him for a long time. What's your best assessment of that? I think in terms of Taiwan, I think it's not a secret that Xi Jinping definitely cares about this issue, perhaps more than some of his recent predecessors have done. You know, he famously said in 2013 to a visiting former Taiwanese vice president that, you know, that the Taiwan issue cannot be handed down from generation to generation,

which suggests there's a sense of urgency in trying to resolve this problem, although he has not specifically set a timeline. Some people have suggested 2027, 2035, 2050. I don't think we could necessarily pin this down to a specific time frame, but we do know that Xi Jinping has spent a lot of time and expense to modernize the PLA. The Chinese military has been a great focus of his since he took power. He spent a lot of time and energy telling people that I want to make this a first-rate fighting force.

And by all accounts, they have made significant progress in that sense. But as Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrated, you could spend a lot of money to modernize the fighting force. But at the same time, when it finally has to deliver the goods on the battlefield, it might not actually be able to do the job. So that might actually play into Xi Jinping's calculations in terms of whether the PLA, which he has spent the past 10 years modernizing, is actually capable of delivering perhaps the sacred mission, as the Communist Party themselves describe it, reclaiming Taiwan as part of the motherland. Although the Communist Party has actually never governed Taiwan, this is actually something they hold to be fundamental to their view of what it takes to make China great again, to realize the China dream. I think in terms of what Xi Jinping might be thinking going forward,

it's hard to say, but I think he's made very clear in his engagement with American leaders that Taiwan is a non-negotiable issue. They must deliver. The Americans cannot push China on this issue. And if push comes to shove, China will be forced to make a response. John, this is David Ignatius in Washington. You have explained well Xi's skill at consolidating power. But I want to ask you whether you see any evidence that in the last few years he's stumbled on some key accounts in managing the economy, in some of his dealings with some party officials. Do you see any evidence that the Xi magic, if you will, in politics has begun to fade some?

I think the most recent example that you might be referring to is how he unwinded zero COVID. As you know, zero COVID was China's approach to dealing with the pandemic, basically very strict lockdowns, you know, rapid response, mass testing, you lock down entire neighborhoods in short notice once you detect, you know, a mini outbreak in that area. And that was unwound at quite significant cost. You know, in November, we saw outbursts of anger against the government for imposing such a strict policy. And within days, you know, the government started to unwind it, even though there was, you know, understanding that this would have significant consequences in terms of public health.

The Chinese population at the time, you know, vaccination rates among the elderly was rather low. And there was a, you know, it was well understood that this, if it were to roll back zero COVID rapidly, it would have significant consequences in terms of, you terms of widespread outbreaks and potentially high death toll among the elderly. But, you know, it was still carried through. And I think that example sort of demonstrated this difficulty for Xi when he basically considered this much power. When everyone below you is sort of trying to answer to you, kind of second guess what you want. When you insert instructions on certain policy goals, people below you sort of try to deliver more than you might expect.

This has led to sort of an extra enthusiastic implementation of policy, which then the government realizes they've gone too far, they have to roll back. And I think Zero-COVID was an example of this, sort of lurching back and forth between different directions on key policies. All right. The new book is Party of One, The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future. Chan Han Wong, thank you so much for being with us. We greatly appreciate it. And best wishes on the book launch. And David Ignatius, as always, thank you as well. Let's bring to the conversation now the president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton, also Pulitzer Prize winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin,

along with Jonathan Lemire, Donnie Deutsch, Jen, and Eugene Robinson. So top story this morning, the founder of the far-right group, the Oath Keepers, has been sentenced to 18 years in federal prison. That, of course, following his conviction for seditious conspiracy in connection with the January 6th insurrection. Stuart Rhodes called himself a, quote, political prisoner in a courtroom speech before the sentencing yesterday. The judge didn't buy it for a second rightfully and said he believes the only crime he committed was opposing those who are, quote, destroying our country. The judge countered those comments, saying Rhodes presented a, quote, ongoing threat and a peril to this country and to the republic and to the very fabric of this democracy. He also let Rhodes know he was there not as a political prisoner, but as someone who broke the law. 18 years is the longest sentence for any January 6th defendant

so far. Also yesterday, fellow Oathkeeper member Kelly Meggs was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Now, Meggs apologized to his family for the pain that he's caused. The judge said he did not pose the same continuing threat as Rhodes, justifying his shorter sentence. Two additional Oath Keepers convicted of obstruction of an official proceeding and aiding abetting will be sentenced later today. And of course, the man who was was caught in Pelosi's office and putting his feet up on the desk and and and running it throughout the Capitol, sentenced, as we reported yesterday, four and a half years in prison. So. We've seen what Donald Trump said, which is let's glorify the convicts. Let's praise the people who

beat the hell out of cops at the Capitol on January the 6th. He wants to pardon them all. What about Ron DeSantis? Well, he said if elected president, he would consider pardoning some of the people convicted on charges related to January 6th insurrection at the Capitol. Similarly, following the lead of the man he needs to catch in the polls, Donald Trump. Here's how Trump responded to a question about pardons for January 6th rioters and insurrectionists during that recent CNN town hall meeting, followed by what DeSantis said on a radio show yesterday. My question to you is, will you pardon the January 6th rioters who were convicted of federal offenses? I am inclined to pardon many of them. I can say for every single one, because a couple of them, probably they got out of control.

What they've done to these people, they've persecuted these people. And yeah, my answer is, I am most likely likely if I get in, I will most likely I would say it will be a large portion of them. The DOJ and FBI have been weaponized. We see that we see it in a variety of contexts. Some of what you mentioned, some of it is the FBI going after parents going to school board meetings. Some of it's how they treat a pro-life demonstrator, how they don't go after people that are attacking pro-lifers. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to do on day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting,

and we will be aggressive at issuing pardons. Now, some of these cases, some people may have a technical violation of the law. But if there are three other people who did the same thing, but just in a context like BLM, and they don't get prosecuted at all, that is uneven application of justice. So, Zidane, you know, when we look at political campaigns, the main idea is to present a contrast. And so for suburban women, for swing voters, for independents that are going to decide next year's elections in the suburbs of Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Phoenix. They have the right, the far right, constantly talking about these DAs who won't prosecute people who break in and steal clothes from department stores, right? And that obviously, that upsets a lot of people. They don't like seeing their cities go to hell. And a lot of people believe quality of life in their cities have gone straight to hell.

So what do you do? You contrast that, right, with somebody who talks about deterrence, somebody who talks about being tough on crime. But how can you do that when one of the most grievous crimes committed in the United States this century, other than September 11th, happened? And you've got the two top Republican candidates saying, yeah, you know what we're going to do? We're going to let these writers go. And by the way, by the way, the question that was asked of Trump was not, what are you going to do for those people that were just touring the grounds on January 6th? The specific question was, are you going to pardon the rioters, the rioters?

And Donald Trump said yes. And then DeSantis follows behind trying to play catch up with Donald Trump said yes. And then DeSantis follows behind, trying to play catch up with Donald Trump instead of providing these this contrast that Americans desperately want. As I said earlier, the DeSantis thing just stuns me. You're 30 or 40 points down and you're just going to be a weaker version of an extremist candidate and with no contrast whatsoever. I mean, if you're a new product and you're coming to market, you can't get people to switch from an old product until you offer them something different, something new, something fresh. Can you imagine if all of a sudden, I know I'm kind of drifting off topic, a young kid comes in and says, you know what, I'm a conservative, but here's what I believe. I believe in law and order. And you know what?

I believe that the violent rioters should be held accountable, just like any other criminal in this country. Would they lose the Republican Party or would they reinvigorate the Republican Party? They would. They would not. They would. This is what people want. No, there's a fringe, an extreme fringe, not the entire base, extreme fringe. But do you think that the average Republican voter, when I'm going to talk about Democrats, don't think that these people should be held accountable. They see it with their eyes. And it's stunning the lack of just the ability to read a room and understand what a country wants is beyond comprehension. Well, and they whine, they bitch and whine for years saying, oh, there weren't enough prosecutions of the rioters during the BLM marches. And so their answer is to not prosecute people that tried to take down the United States government.

It is sheer insanity. If you think that maybe the Justice Department should have done a better job in 2020, the answer is not to do a lousy job in 2023. It's to actually do better. But I don't know. So, Doris, you remember 1968, the chaos that happened in 1968. People like my parents in the suburbs of Atlanta who were Democrats who became Republicans after the rioting, after the chaos, after the anarchy that they just couldn't process. This wasn't the America that they grew up in. This wasn't

FDR's America. My mom voted for JFK. This wasn't JFK's America. And what I heard growing up was deterrence, deterrence, deterrence, right? So I looked up deterrence this morning, just did a quick Google check. And this is what I got. Deterrence is a theory that criminal penalties do not just punish violators like Stuart Rhodes, but also discourage other people from committing similar offenses. Many people point to the need to deter criminal actions after high profile incidents in which an offender is seen to have received too light a sentence. Well, you know, as I keep saying with no apologies, I'm still a conservative. I still believe that. And yet you have Donald Trump telling white nationalists to stand back and stand by. You have Donald Trump like saluting convicts that beat the hell out of cops with American flags. You have Donald Trump actually,

actually paying tribute. I can't even believe this. What if George McGovern had done this to a convict choir, a convict? George McGovern would have been like like sent sent to Guam for the rest of the 72 campaign. Like Republicans would have freaked out. And yet here they are saying, oh, you know what? The DOJ, they're just too tough. They're too tough. We're going all of these people you see right here scaling the walls of the Capitol, all the people committing sedition against the United States, all of the rioters. We're going to pardon them to send message, of course,

to other rioters in the future, Doris. That's what it'll do.