Morning Joe - Morning Joe 5/5/23

Episode Date: May 5, 2023

Four Proud Boys members found guilty of seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 trial

Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence? Give me a name. Give me a white supremacist and white supremacist and right. Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. The Proud Boys celebrated that shout out from then President Trump during a debate in 2020. Months later, members of that group would be heavily involved in the violence on January 6th. And now they are facing serious prison time for their actions. We'll have much more on yesterday's guilty verdicts in just a moment. Meanwhile, in New York, jurors in Donald Trump's civil rape trial heard more of

his video deposition yesterday. We'll take you through some of that testimony. Also ahead, more ethics issues for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. This doesn't stop. It's not good. It keeps on coming. And I'm not sure what the consequence is here, but it looks really bad. There is new reporting that Clarence Thomas's wife was paid nearly $80,000 by a nonprofit that had a case before the high court. And part of payments to her come with instruction from Leonard Leo not to tell anybody she's getting the money. That seems problematic. We'll talk about it. Plus, a big legal win for Ed Sheeran. The singer cleared in a copyright lawsuit filed by the family of an iconic singer. We'll explain that case. Good morning and welcome to a very busy morning, Joe. It is Friday, if you can believe it. May 5th

with us here in Washington. We have columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius, former White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield, looking very refreshed and just I don't know, something's different. Something's a little different, a little different, a little hanging out with my kids. So great to have you here. We can't wait to talk to you about everything. Also with us, NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delanian and former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg. He's an NBC News legal analyst. And in New York, the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire is with us. Jonathan Lemire. Mike Barnicle hasn't shown his face this morning. Skepticism against the Red Sox, not in vogue these days. The Sox, incredibly hot.

He just couldn't face it, Joe. He couldn't face that we have been right, that this Sox team is one that's worth supporting. Here's your stat for you. The Red Sox last year beat the Toronto Blue Jays three times all season. They were 3-16 against them. This week, they beat them four straight times. A sweep at home. The Sox bats are alive.

Yoshida's hot. Jared Duran is hot. You're a new favorite player, I know. And the Red Sox, Devers hit a home run. The Sox just hit the ball all over Fenway yesterday. Now a remarkable five games over.500, defying and exceeding our expectations. Exactly. Every single day. And David, though it may not be as important as what the Sox did last night at Fenway.

Breaking news just an hour or so ago. We hear the Wagner group. I'm being sarcastic. This is big news. They are retreating from Bakhmut. More anger, more dissension, more deaths for the Russians. This is a very terrible start to what may be a grueling campaign for the Russians. Just at the moment that probably the decisive Ukrainian counteroffensive is about to begin, we had a debacle with the Russian forces beyond anything that I've seen in this whole botched story of the invasion. Yevgeny Pogosin, this oligarch friend of Putin's who's been running the Wagner militia,

had a tirade on Russian television in which he points to the bodies of his dead fighters and calls out the Russian defense minister. And He's been doing this for a while now, but not not like that. Like he looks at the the bodies, he says the blood is still warm. And then he says, this is on you back in Moscow and your fancy clubs. You know, with your children who are living it up. And he essentially threatens to withdraw his fighters, which have been paying the butcher's bill, to be brutally frank, in this Bakhmut fight, dying by the thousands.

He says, we'll pull them out by next Thursday if we don't get more ammunition. I know you're not a criminologist, but what's going on here? I mean, for somebody like Putin, who usually controls the message as well as he does, is this part of the leaked documents we saw this past week where the Russian propagandists needed to start preparing Russians for losses coming up over the next few months? I don't have a conspiratorial view. I think this is Putin's unwieldy system where he's had he's had these princes fighting against each other, all the different intelligence and military militia chiefs all

going at them. I think that's breaking down. And I think the king sits isolated in the Kremlin while the princes feud. Prigozhin is clearly a person who has further political ambitions. If I were Putin, I'd watch my back in particular with regards to the pregosh. Yeah. And if he probably shouldn't get in any buildings above the third, I don't think so. I think that maybe maybe bring back, you know, we're going to talk about the monarchy, bring back a taster before he has a little dinner. If pregosh was a caterer, I wouldn't eat at that restaurant. We would not have that hamburger. Speaking of kings, let's go to London right now

where our BBC News special correspondent, Katty Kaye, is there. Tomorrow, of course, King Charles III is going to be officially crowned the King of the United Kingdom. And you know how much Mika loves the royals. I don't like them. They're okay. I don't like them. They're OK. I don't like that.

They're OK. No, I like them. But Katty set the scene for us. This is amazing. First of all, there's sunshine. That's the first amazing thing about today. Yeah. And then tomorrow, I wish you guys were here.

That would have been great. We were all here together for the funeral. It was so, I don't know if you can call a funeral fun, but we saw all the pomp and circumstance. We are going to see that on overdrive tomorrow. I'm right outside Westminster Abbey. I have the best view in the house. Kings and queens have been crowned in this abbey since 1066, since William the Conqueror. I know you love your history, Joe. Isn't that amazing? The first ever crowning of a king or queen in the United Kingdom, 973. Arabic numerals hadn't been invented then.

Paris was not the capital of France. The Crusades had not happened. That's what this is all about. This ceremony tomorrow, because, of course, Charles became king the moment his mother died. This ceremony is all about history. It's all about regalia. It's all about the grandeur of monarchy.

And it's a sacred occasion. For King Charles. This really is. It's the day he's been waiting for his entire 74 years. That moment where they put the crown on his head, he is anointed with the holy oils, which come from Greece and outside Jerusalem. I mean, this is the kind of detail of this ceremony that you could barely make up.

He gets anointed with those holy oils. He is proclaimed king. The congregation shouts, God save the king. Britons around the country have been invited to join in that cheer. And at that moment, he really is. So he's been king for years since his mother died or since mother died in September. But that's the moment really when I think it sinks in for the British public, when we see him wearing the crown that we've been used to seeing Elizabeth wearing. First coronation, of course, in Britain since 1953. Wow. And of course, the eyes of the world on King Charles, the eyes of the Daily Mail on the Duke of Oprah. Harry's coming over. Are they going to make him wear a paper bag

as he walks in a procession like those old New Orleans Saints, ain'ts, paper bags? I don't think quite sackcloth and ashes, but something similar from the British public, which, of course, not enamored of Prince Harry anymore. He's going to skedaddle straight back to California after the service. He's not even staying for the dinner, which takes place afterwards. It is Archie's birthday tomorrow, Archie's fourth birthday.

And apparently with the time difference and the flights, he can just get back in 8 p.m. in time into home in order to have the birthday. Maybe it's convenient that that's the way it's falling. But, you know, whether he's going to be anywhere close to William, whether we're going to see any interaction between them, the focus is going to be on King Charles, on the woman who will go in as Queen Consort Camilla and come out as Queen Camilla, and on William, who is the heir to the throne. And this is a slimmed down British monarchy.

It's fascinating. The approval ratings of all the royals have gone up except for Harry, which has plummeted since the book, and Meghan as well. So it's going to be interesting to see what that reaction is going to be. But thank you, Katty. We'll be getting back to you. Let's go. Let's go to news. What happened?

We'll get to our top stories here at home. After months in the courtroom, a jury has convicted five members of the far right group, the Proud Boys, of serious felonies related to the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Here is Ken Delaney's report. Take a look. Prosecutors called them the key instigators of the January 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol. American citizens are storming the Capitol. After a three-month trial, a jury has found five members of the notorious extremist group the Proud Boys guilty of most of the charges against them.

Four of the five defendants, including the group's former leader, Enrique Terrio, were convicted of seditious conspiracy, a Civil War-era law making it a crime to violently resist the authority of the U.S. government. Four were convicted of trying to obstruct the certification of President Biden's electoral college victory. And all five were convicted of interfering with the duties of members of Congress, many of whom found themselves running for their lives on January 6th. Today's verdict makes clear that the Justice Department will do everything in its power to defend the American people and American democracy. The evidence coming in some cases from the defendants' own mouths.

January 6th will be a day in infamy. The significance of the verdict in this case definitely goes not only to these defendants, but to others as well in other investigations. Prosecutors have not established that the Capitol attack was planned in advance, but told jurors the defendants set out that day to act as Donald Trump's army, trying to illegally keep the former president in power. Proud boys, stand back and stand by. Citing that infamous comment during a 2020 presidential debate,

defense attorneys blamed Trump, asserting their commander in chief sold them a lie. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore. Stand back, stand by and get convicted of a seditious conspiracy and face up to 20 years in jail. Ken, it's so fascinating. We're looking at one after another, after another, get get charged, tried, sent to jail. And sometimes it's hard for us because we just we hear all the chattering from Republicans who are glorifying these convicts and people who are beating the hell out of cops. I was at the 80th anniversary, an event on the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. And a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor spoke to the crowd

and then spoke to me after. And he said, we're watching. We were watching on January the 6th. And when you won, we won. And I said, what do you mean when we won? He said, you're bringing them to justice. We didn't do that here in the 30s. And we paid the ultimate price for it. The whole world is watching this. And yesterday

was a huge win for people who don't believe in mob rule in this country. Joe, that's a great reminder. I'm glad you mentioned that. You know, there was some angst when the jury in this case took seven days to deliberate. And then we learned it was a partial verdict. And there was some concern about that Proud Boys chief, Enrique Tarrio, who wasn't actually present. Were they going to get the conviction? They did get the conviction. Four of the five convicted of seditious conspiracy. And this is now the third jury that has convicted senior members of that insurrection of seditious conspiracy, which tells us what? That this was not just a riot, an unruly crowd that broke into spontaneous violence.

There was planned violence here. Now, prosecutors haven't established that there was a plan to attack the Capitol in advance. But what they said was that the Proud Boys were acting as Donald Trump's army, that they came that day to try to keep Donald Trump in power. They were going to use whatever violence they deemed necessary. We all know it could have been a lot worse. There were people with weapons in that crowd. Things could have gone very. It was pretty bad. Yeah, as it was, it was pretty terrible. And, you know, it was interesting that Merrick Garland decided it was kind of a late

decision to make an appearance at the Justice Department and to say that he promised that he was going to bring these people to justice. And that's exactly what the Justice Department has been doing in the biggest investigation in their 153 year history. Chuck, we we've been hearing the criticisms of Merrick Garland from the beginning. He's not going fast enough. He's not going aggressively enough. You look at the people that have been rolled up, sent to jail. You look at the deliberate process that he's gone through. He's getting convictions on charges that are extraordinarily difficult to prove, extraordinarily rare, even charged in the United States. And one after another, after another, he is bringing these these insurrectionists, these thugs to justice, isn't he? Well, he is. And first, Joe, if I had a choice between being

effective or being fast. Right. I take effective. Yeah. Second, to your point, these are rare charges. I have two reactions to that. One, thank goodness. Right. We're not prosecuting over our history, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people for seditious conspiracies. It's an extraordinarily rare charge, extremely serious charge. But two, thank goodness it worked here, because to Ken's point, to your point, the world is watching. Now, I don't generally believe in a thing called general deterrence. I don't know that if we prosecute Mika for robbing a bank, somebody else won't rob a bank because of it. That's the theory of general deterrence. But here I think it pertains. When you prosecute more than a thousand people for their role in this insurrection, that message gets out. And so we bring serious charges. We take our time doing it. We do it effectively. They win convictions in front of a jury,

by the way, by proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a difficult standard. And I think the word gets out. And that's important. So do these convictions and others have any connection to the Jack Smith probe? Well, yes and no. Broadly speaking, Jack Smith is looking at the role of more senior people in instigating the insurrection, perhaps even profiting off of it. And of course, he has a second line of work involving classified documents that were found at Mar-a-Lago and perhaps attempts to obstruct their discovery. So yes, there's a connection. But this work that the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office is doing is extraordinarily important. And so back to the very first point, thank goodness they're taking their time because they're getting it right.

So, Kate, it's interesting following up on what Chuck said about the deterrence factor. There's also the factor that you're taking thousands of the most radical anti-American, anti-government insurrectionists off the streets. I remember before Trump's indictment, Lawrence O'Donnell was saying, you know, he was kept fielding the question, are we going to have something like we had on January the 6th? And he said no, because the people most likely to do that are sitting in jail right now. The people most likely to, again, riot, try to commit an insurrection against the United States, strike back against the rule of law. They're already facing justice. How important is that? Critically important. But I think the other point that Chuck made that is so salient here is, you know, these aren't charges we see all the time. It's a reminder

of how dangerous Donald Trump is. Right. I mean, this is a reminder of the fact that this is somebody who can incite this kind of violence, this kind of fervor. You know, we saw it. You've played the clip from the debate in 2020. I mean, he made this a central piece of his campaign, motivating the white nationalist movement and firing them up and, you know, whistling these dog whistles from the debate stage. So I think that's an important thing to remember, too, that his role here is unique. It is and it is incredibly frightening. And so, yes, this this verdict, incredibly important, taking these people off the street,

showing again, as you've all said, you know, showing the world that in America we don't tolerate this, that, you know, our democracy, that our freedom is sacrosanct and is a core value and is something that we will we will fight for is critically important. But I think we should also not lose sight of the role that Donald Trump played in inciting this. And, you know, this is somebody who's seeking to return to the White House. And that's something that we can't ever let our guard down on. Yeah. And Jonathan Lemire, you obviously wrote the book on January 6th on the big lie that led to January the 6th. So many of these defendants are saying I did it for one reason. I was following Donald Trump's directions. I was following Donald Trump's orders. He told us to be there. He told us this needed to be done. We've heard one defendant after another, after another cite the Nuremberg defense. I was only following the orders of Donald Trump.

Yeah, and that is it begs. There's a dramatic pause there, Mayor. You've got to let me do my dramatic pause they said here let's try it again hold on all right cut edit this yeah edit this we'll take care of it we'll take it fix and post up hold on a second oh god all citing donald trump it begs the question that's what i was say. How do you indict everybody for seditious conspiracy and leave the main conspirator who is running it from the top, bringing them to Washington, telling them to charge the Capitol? How do you not end up charging him at the end of the day? Yeah, that is the key question. That is the question looming over not just criminal proceedings, but frankly, our entire democracy, because as was just noted, it's not just that Donald Trump are still living with the impact of his big lie.

And so far, he nothing has to is standing in his way to reclaiming the White House legally. We know, of course, that he's already been indicted once. There are other investigations still going. And can we have there's some developments in the Mar-a-Lago case. We're going to get to a little bit later. But right now, talk to us. I know Chuck's mentioned that there may be a link here. Certainly, it's Jack Smith, the special counsel, is eyeing the January 6th as part of his investigation. But it's a sprawling probe. It could take a really long time.

So give us an update as to who else beyond the Proud Boys may be facing charges here. Who else might face seditious conspiracy charges? And also, do we think now that this could be part of the case against Donald Trump? Well, there's a couple of issues that link the two, Jonathan. For one thing, look, prosecutors have not established, at least in public, any direct evidence that Donald Trump intended for these people to attack the Capitol. They haven't shown us that evidence. They've shown us that his words incited these people in their own words. They've said that. But now you have a number of witnesses facing decades, potential witnesses facing decades in prison

that the Justice Department has a lot of leverage over right now. And if any of them know anything along those lines and can help prove a link there, it's a great opportunity for Jack Smith. But it's also, these investigations are two sides of the same coin. They both, both this insurrection and these Proud Boys and the conspiracy that Jack Smith is investigating had the same purpose, which was to stop the congressional certification of those electoral votes on January 6th. So, you know, people talk about it as the white collar version and the blue collar version of this effort here. And there may be other links

that that Smith is looking at in terms of future cases. These are the big ones that we're aware of with seditious conspiracy. But every week there are new and shocking arrests. Just last week, a former FBI supervisor was arrested and charged with being present at the Capitol and hurling epithets at Capitol Police, calling them Nazis and Gestapo. This was somebody who worked in a counterterrorism role in the New York field office of the FBI. Just unbelievable. David. So, Chuck, you did a beautiful job a moment ago of talking about this relentless, inexorable prosecution.

I said earlier that I never would have imagined mild-mannered Merrick Garland as Inspector Javert in the famous musical. But he has been. I'm just curious where you think this might still go. As Joe said, we have this figure, I'll call him the unindicted co-conspirator, to use the Watergate term, who sits atop this. Garland has shown that he is willing to go harder and farther than people might have imagined. What do you see as coming next, surprises down the road? Remember, David, that unindicted co-conspirator was individual one in a southern district of New York indictment charging Michael Cohen. That said, this is a case where you take Merrick Garland at his word. He said he was going to follow the facts.

That's precisely what they've done. He said he was going to hold people responsible who committed crimes on January 6th and in connection with that. And that's what he's done. I think there's an important point here that folks often miss. The Department of Justice, by design, has an extraordinarily thin political layer. Overwhelmingly, the men and women who are bringing these cases in the U.S. Attorney's Office and investigating these cases for the FBI overwhelmingly are career prosecutors and investigators. This is what

they do, and they're good at it. Now, Garland deserves the credit when they do it well, and he deserves the blame when they do it poorly. But there is an inexorable march toward justice here because career prosecutors and agents are following facts. To Ken's point, there's a lot of witnesses out there. You know, I know this not as a criminal, but as a former prosecutor, committing crimes and getting away with it is extraordinarily difficult. As an example, you know, the ongoing investigation at Mar-a-Lago regarding the documents and perhaps the movement of the documents, the obstruction of the investigation. There's a lot of people who know stuff about that. You ask those people questions and you follow the facts. So we're going to be following these stories throughout

the show this morning, but there's still so much to get to. Still ahead on Morning Joe with the Supreme Court already facing scrutiny for ethics issues. We are following new reporting this morning about questionable payments made to Justice Clarence Thomas's wife, Ginny Thomas, plus a look at how former President Trump is returning to some of the themes of his successful 2016 bid and stepping away from the word Republican. Also had much more on the historic coronation of King Charles III tomorrow in Britain. We'll be joined by British ambassador to the United States, Karen Pierce, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan. And a programming note tonight at a special time, 10 p.m. Eastern, Stephanie Ruhle sits down with President Joe Biden for an exclusive interview, his first since announcing his reelection bid.

She'll ask him about the campaign, the current debt ceiling crisis and more. Watch a special two hour edition of the 11th hour with Stephanie Ruhle tonight, beginning at 10 o'clock Eastern on MSNBC. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Just about half past the hour, live look at the White House. A shot of the White House. Jonathan LeBure, of course, when people look at the White House, they go, hey, isn't that in the city that's the home of the Washington Nationals? And Chuck Rosenberg reminded me, that is their name, right?

I always say the Senators. Is that what they think, really? I always say the senators. Is that what they think? Really? I say the senators and the Redskins. I am like, no, it's 1974. But you know who I'm talking about. But they should have renamed them to senators. I mean, come on.

But anyway, the Washington Nationals, we went to sleep on them. I know our socks swept the Blue Jays after going 3-16 against them last year. But Chuck tells me, Chuck, they won three out of four against the Chicago Cubs, who are hot. Took three out of four from the Cubs. A walk-off win on the bottom of the ninth home run by Alex Call yesterday. There you go. Patrick Corbin was brilliant, which hasn't happened a lot recently. And it really, it sort of, it stuck a stick in the spoke of the news at NBC because Ken Delaney was working on an important package and called Chuck and said, Hey, Chuck, we need your voice. And Chuck said, I'm not leaving the game.

All true. Oh, my gosh. He chose wisely. That's good stuff. Okay, well, we're going to talk now about the new reporting on payments to the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Citing documents, it reviewed The Washington Post reports that conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo paid Ginny Thomas tens of thousands of dollars for consulting work, but gave specific instructions that her name be left off the paperwork. According to the Post, in January of 2012, Leo instructed GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway to bill a non-profit group he

advises and use that money to pay Thomas. The same year, the nonprofit, the Judicial Education Project, filed a brief to the Supreme Court challenging a landmark civil rights law aimed at protecting minority voters. NBC News has not seen the documents or independently confirmed this reporting. In a statement to The Post, Leo addressed his instructions for the paperwork, writing, quote, knowing how disrespectful, malicious and gossipy people can be. I have always tried to protect the privacy of Justice Thomas and Ginny.

Wait, Leonard. Just let that sit. When you're sending money to a Supreme Court justice or a family member of the Supreme Court justice, it's gossipy for Americans. No, that money's being funneled. And this is a guy who now what? It's got one point five billion dollars to funnel around. Ken, listen, I've got to say at some point, you know, I've always admired the fact that John Roberts is an institutionalist, even when I didn't agree with his rulings on both sides. But I always respected the fact that he was institutionalist. But that label only applies to him for so long if he allows this to continue

in his court without coming out. I mean, because at the end of the day, either the Supreme Court is going to issue a new set of ethics rules and guidelines or another branch of government are. The United States Congress has the power and the authority to do it. And you just wonder if the chief justice is going to keep sitting back and letting all of this information come out, most of it against Clarence Thomas, that hurts the court. And this story, I think, has a different character than some of the others, because this is a direct payment and an effort to conceal a payment.

This isn't about luxury travel, which is bad enough. You know, I mean, trying to conceal a payment, right, giving instructions, conceal this payment to a justice's wife. Well, it flies in the face also of these disclosure documents that, you know, I didn't really understand how to do them. I didn't think I could do them or whatever the excuse is. You know, now now it appears that there was an effort to make sure things weren't seen. Is that fair? Yeah. And as a report, people have known for years or suspected that Supreme Court justices were taking trips that weren't disclosed. There

was actually an effort that I'm aware of in the Senate Judiciary Committee to try to track that by going to the marshals who protect the justices and try to try to get records. But they were unsuccessful. They couldn't penetrate the veil of secrecy. And now good journalists have done that. And I think it's important that we're learning. And by the way, we're going to hear B.S. from from the usual defenders of Clarence Thompson. Oh, they're just picking on him because he's a conservative and they hate black conservatives. This challenges the blah, blah, blah, all of this other nonsense.

If we were reporting on a story this morning, that Chuck Schumer's wife got paid tens of thousands of dollars and that there had been a direction from the biggest lobbyists in the Democratic Party to keep the payments quiet. We'd be saying the same thing here today. And that is a pure rank nonsense that the Wall Street Journal editorial page, National Review, all these other people have been spewing about how, oh, they're just picking on. No, this is obvious. This is obvious as Clarence Thomas going through everything that he and his wife are going through in the middle of January the 6th and not stepping aside on a case where he became the lone dissenter when he had a real interest in that case itself. It just keeps piling up. It does. I mean, assertion after assertion, I want to say fact after fact, but we're still investigating this trips for Thomas

payments for school tuitions for people who are related to him, payments to his wife. You get the sense that Thomas and others on the court see themselves as victims. You know, people are out there to get us and think that they get to live by different rules. Oh, they definitely live by different rules. By the way, I knew guys I served with in Congress who got a golf trip to Ireland paid for by Jack Abramov and went to jail, went to jail. Bob Nye went to jail for that. There were several others who went to jail and these guys are whining about how they're victims. No, Jonathan O'Meara, they're not victims. They're on the Supreme Court of the United States of America, nine of the most powerful people in the world.

They just apparently don't think that the rules that apply to members of Congress apply to them. And you know who's not happy about that? Members of Congress. Yeah, the Senate Judiciary Committee, of course, convened just this week to try to get a code of ethics put in place for the Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts declined to attend, and those efforts have been utterly stymied. And there's been some reporting about a gift, a favor given to Justice Gorsuch. But most of this surrounds Clarence Thomas, of course, the Harlan Crow reporting from earlier this week. Even just yesterday, we had pro-Republican reporter on the show here talking about tuition payments being

paid for the child who the Thomases were raising as their son. But it's also worth spending a moment just really emphasizing who Ginny Thomas is here. It's a hugely important figure on the right for a number of years. And it was indeed it was her text messages to Mark Meadows that were so key. She was urging him in the wake of the 2020 election to keep fighting to try to overturn the Democratic process. We're we're showing a few of them now here talking about how media reporters should be arrested, detained for ballot fraud. People should be going to Gitmo. She said, if you go back to that last one, Ginny Thomas saying that the Biden crime family should be on barges, criminal barges

off of Gitmo. This is talk about the radicalism and the extremism, which, by the way, had an impact on Clarence Thomas and the way he ruled in a case involving January the 6th. How can it not? Biden crime family. This is stuff right off of Breitbart and the extreme right wings. Here she is saying help this great president stand firm, Mark. The majority knows Biden and the left is attempting the greatest heist of our history. Another message is she suggests that Donald Trump was divinely inspired to be there to lead the republic. So, Kate, so talk, I mean, this is all seemingly linked. And also in those messages, Jenny Thomas talks about how she discussed this all with her,

quote, best friend, who reporting later reveals, of course, is her husband, Clarence Thomas. So just tell us about the role that she plays and why this is so disturbing that someone so close to a justice espousing those sort of radical, dangerous views. Her husband is receiving she and her husband are receiving gifts and payments from some of the most influential people on the right who have business in front of the Supreme Court. Yeah, well, right. I mean, it's it's appalling, frankly. It is appalling. And if you look at the role that Justice Thomas has in deciding some of these cases,

I mean, if you look at the Post story this morning about the Leonard Leo money, the case that was in front of Justice Thomas following that payoff, essentially, was Shelby, was the Voting Rights Act case. So, I mean, these Shelby, was the Voting Rights Act case. So, I mean, this influence and this attempt to hide influence has a massive and real-life impact on things that matter to people. I mean, we're talking about protecting your right to vote. We're talking about somebody who sits on

the court and makes a decision about whether people who have historically been disenfranchised in this country are going to continue to have access to the ballot box. So I think we should not lose sight of that, too, that the underlying case that we're talking about this morning, you know, is the Voting Rights Act case. And, you know, the other thing, Joe, you mentioned Bob May. I mean, the Republicans also lost the House in 2006 in part because of the Abramoff scandal and because people were paid off. So, you know, Americans have shown that this is not, you know, this is not behavior that they support when, you know, when people have the opportunity to vote and to say, you know, this is not what I want from an elected official or, you know, obviously someone in the judiciary who's outside of, you know, someone on the Supreme Court is outside of facing political ramifications. But, you know, this is part of why people are losing faith in institutions, have lost faith in institutions. It's incredibly, incredibly damaging. Well, I'll tell you, we Republicans took control of the House for the first time in 40 years because of the check writing scandal.

Remember that Dan Ross and Galsky busted in that check writing scandal for a lot less than this, a lot, a lot less than all of this. And again, I only say that to say for the snowflakes on the Supreme court and the snowflakes on, on the Trump, right. Who, who are, are, are such victim, victim. I heard Jenny, I said, Jenny Thomas writing, but what a victim she is. One of the most powerful families on the planet embracing victimhood while she's talking about sending the duly elected president and his family to a crime barge off of Gitmo. And then she acts like she's a victim. It is so grotesque. It is so out of line. It is so un-American, the things that she has said,

the things that she has done. The fact that people on the mainstream, supposed mainstream right, continue to defend this atrocious behavior. It's unbelievable. It's part of our problem. And let's just, well, let's just peel this back one more layer, peel back the onion one more layer. Listen, I'm all for people getting involved in politics, raise money, influence elections. Do what you want to do. All right. I'm I'm not one of these people who think you have to, you know, question every every donation. People are free to do what they want to every donation. People are free to do what they want to do. Leonard Leo, free to do what he wants to do. But Americans need to know who Leonard Leo is. They've heard the name. They need to know he is responsible for the right of women to choose

being taken away for the first time in a half century. That's his right. That's his life goal. He did it. It's again, it's a free country, right? He's got one point five billion dollars now, something like one point five billion dollars now that that somebody gave to him. And the radicalism of the court that is now a radicalism of his view of what justice should be is going to be accelerated tenfold now with that money. And we're seeing how he spreads that money around in this case in a way that causes a lot of concerns. Shouldn't we know more about who Leonard Leo is and how he has changed America? So 10-year-old girls who are raped in Ohio have to flee the state because they may not be able to get abortions in their own home states. Right. So we should have more robust disclosure

rules. But, you know, I think there's a point missing from some of the discussion. We talk a lot about what the technical rules require, you know, what must the justices disclose. But what that misses, Joe, dramatic pause, is there's a perception issue. We've lost confidence in all of our institutions, in academia, in the courts, in Congress, in the presidency, in corporate America. And so you have to be worried about two things, whether or not something is fair, just, appropriate, proper, rule-abiding, and whether it's perceived that way. And so when we keep talking about what the rules require, we ought to also ask ourselves,

what is the perception? And you mentioned earlier that Chief Justice Roberts, who I often disagree with but admire, is an institutionalist. If you're really truly an institutionalist, you would care deeply about the perception of the institution. So whatever the rules actually require, the perception is deeply damaged right now. And that's a problem for all of us. And Mika, the Supreme Court's perception based on polling, lower now than any time. Well, just take it to Clarence Thomas. Let's just look at this.

And I know that the technicalities here, like maybe he didn't understand how to write a disclosure document, but he does extreme details on cases. This makes no sense. OK, flies in the face of logic. But a Republican donor gives him hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of vacations over decades. OK, not one mistake, just a lifestyle that is provided to him by a Republican donor. His mother lives for free because of a Republican donor. His son or adopted son has tuition payment. This is what we know. Then we find out Leonard Leo is sending money that's like covered up to Ginny Thomas, his wife, who, of course, we just went over those text messages. The perception is he's compromised. The perception is he is owned. And

that's a very clear perception. And by the way, he may not care about it again. He may not care about it because how he was treated and his his nomination fight, which we've read time and again, they continue to carry those scars. He may not care about it, but even if he doesn't give a damn about what Americans think about the United States Supreme Court, shouldn't the chief justice? Yeah. Again, to the extent that he is an institutionalist, very much so. And make it to that list that you just cited. If there's nothing wrong with any of that, then disclose it. If there's nothing to hide, then don't hide it. I mean, I'm not certain that technical rules were broken. I'm not an expert on the technical rules. I am certain that there's a perception that rules were broken. And that is just as damaging, right? If

you have to be fair and perceived as fair, if you're only fair and not perceived that way, it's a problem. And if you're unfair, it's a problem. If you have nothing to hide, don't hide it. And Ken Delaney and Chuck Rosenberg, thank you both very much for being on this morning. A lot more to talk about ahead coming up. the United States has sent its clearest signal yet that the Biden administration wants to restore a broader dialogue with China. We'll get a live report from Beijing, plus the British ambassador to the U.S. Karen Pierce is standing by. She joins us next on Morning Joe.

All right. All right. All right. Look at that rain. Rain. Whoever would have imagined that in London? Silver rain was falling down upon the very grounds of London, down in Swanbrook, saying, Katty, your BBC documentary titled Europe's Royals Revealed explores while the monarchy is relevant and what King Charles can learn from Europe's other royal families. I'm sorry I'm so distracted

by the rain. What is it? What is like rain at night? King's Delight? How's it go? I don't know. Something like that. Maybe one of the lessons for the documentary should have been that they should hold the coronation in the Mediterranean where you were going to get sunshine. Look, this was really interesting. What I wanted to figure out is why monarchy, this ancient tradition, is relevant in the 21st century. Let's take a quick look.

It seems there's something about having a king or a queen that works rather well. You can't walk past that line. Okay, then you'll shoot me? Yeah. I think I want to live here. I can't quite believe I'm about to meet the grandson of King Zog. It is my duty to do good in life. Hoorah! Hoorah!

Not too shabby. Everything you do that's a first is very much going out of the box that you're put in. It's like a kind of gathering of the clan. If you don't have a throne, however much you play act at it, isn't that all it is? It's a sort of a show. I can curtsy and talk at the same time. Your Highness, tell me how you would like me to address you.

You know, Your Highness or Princess or just Martha, I don't mind. What does it mean for you then to not have a throne? I grew up in exile. I couldn't go in my country. Even in the unlikely form of a self-appointed deposed king with hair flying around. Do I look like a princess? I mean, I clearly do not look like a princess. It's pouring with rain. I had great fun.

But really, it was about what does King Charles need to do to make his reign a success? How does he approach the press? How does he deal with those members of the royal family that are, let's say, a little bit tricky? You can find it, by the way, my bosses will kill me if I don't say this, on BBC Select, on Amazon Prime and Apple Plus TV. It was it's a it's an interesting question. Why do people still seem to love monarchies? Well, you know, I love it.

This looks great. Mika has always been a bit of a skeptic when it comes to the royals. I love it. I've been a lot. But she's very patient. I, of course, all in on the crown, all of you name it. I've always been on this stuff. It is fascinating, though, looking at Charles through the years, sort of tortured relationship

within the family and outside the family, seeing that he's responded quite well after Pingate at the very beginning, responded quite well. And I've been really surprised looking at clips, watching how engaging he is with people. If somebody's been waiting for him for two or three hours, he'll run up. How are you doing? And he'll shake their hands. How long have you been here? They'll say two hours and be like, oh, my God, you should know that's just too long for me, especially. But he's had actually he's had the light touch in a lot of ways. He and, of course, William and Kate, extremely popular with the British public right now. Yeah, I mean, those Northern European royals

have approval ratings in the 80s, which most politicians would die for, even among young people. And the reason they have it is because they are not seen as aloof, because they're not shut behind big walls, because they do interact with their populations. They're called the bicycle monarchies.

And I think that King Charles is going to move the British monarchy a little bit more into that model. Charles is going to move the British monarchy a little bit more into that model. He's going to make it more accessible, more at one with the people, to the extent that you ever can be if you're a king or a queen. And I think he has to. I think in order to survive, monarchies have to be more approachable. And that's why their populations will support him. And also, you know, you have to give King Charles credit. He was derided for being an environmentalist way before talking about climate change was fashionable or popular or the thing to do. He was kind of mocked for talking to plants.

Well, look who was on the right side of history, who's stuck by his beliefs. It was King Charles, who is beyond Jill Biden? Who is the most senior American who's going to be in Westminster Abbey tomorrow? It's John Kerry, the climate czar. And he's here for a reason. He's here because King Charles recognizes the work he does. And he knows King Charles because they've worked on the same subject for years. So I think that the British public is giving him credit for sticking to his beliefs and actually being ahead of the times. All right. Katty, I can't wait to see her documentary.

This is amazing. And good luck with the rain. Joining us now here on set, we have the British ambassador to the U.S., Karen Pierce. This is quite a historic moment, as Katty points out. Absolutely. Hasn't happened for 70 years in the UK. Go ahead. I was just curious. We see what's happening right now in the coming offensive against Russia. We see, obviously, the United States and Britain and NATO allies have held firm. How much should we continue supporting

Ukraine? Is Britain behind Ukraine all the way? Oh, to the hilt. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made that clear. We're going to carry on supporting Ukraine. We're going to make sure they have the defensive weapons that they need. And we are going to be guided by them on the future trajectory of the war. It's for them to decide when they want negotiations. But NATO, the G7, President Biden, everybody is four square behind Ukraine. Ambassador, it's always struck me as odd that we're a country that found its birth in rebelling against the British monarch. But Americans have developed a real passion for the monarchy. We feel we know every intimate detail of Charles' life by watching the crown.

I'm just curious. Some parts of his life that we didn't want to know. Well, there's more detail than anyone would have wanted revealed about their life. I just want to ask you about your own thoughts about the monarchy. Charles wants to be a modern king, but there's a way in which the monarchy ties Britain and its people to the past. It is about that sense of being anchored. How do you think this is going to play with the British people? The monarchy is getting a little less popular than it has been. What do you see

for the future of this king? I think the overwhelming majority of people still want the monarchy to continue. But you're absolutely right, David. The king has spoken about a more modern monarchy. As Cathy was saying, he's very keen on the theme of accessibility, of getting out there. He and the queen have a very good sense of humour, very good at connecting with people. He does a lot of work for young people. He has a charity, the Prince's Trust, which helps young people start businesses, get on in life. He puts a lot of emphasis on apprenticeships. And I think he's going to deepen that aspect. I think the other thing

that's really noticeable about him is how he wants to bring all communities in Britain together. You'll see at the end of the coronation an opportunity for non-Christian faiths to come together and churches that are not the Church of England. And that's incredibly important to him, along with environmentalism. I think that's one of the things that's really guided him. So it is the top of the hour. We're talking to the British ambassador to the U.S. In a moment, Bob Woodward of The Washington Post will be joining us. But for now, the conversation continues.

We're a day away. Is it a day away from the coronation? Yes, we are. You're going to be getting up very early tomorrow morning, aren't you? Are we invited? Of course you're invited. And Kate and David as well. We're going to have a breakfast screening live at the British Embassy.

Wait, that sounds like fun. You're very welcome to come. And then after that, it's Embassy Open Day. So we will have an exhibition outside the embassy. And we'll have flags and things. And people are welcome, if they live in D.C., to stop by, grab a flag, grab a piece of shortbread and other British delicacies and hopefully enjoy the day of embassies being open to the public. How exciting. There you go. Ambassador Pierce, we obviously we're all struggling through tough economic times and Britain's been especially hit.

What is what is the outlook for the British economy? What can be done to help revive it? Well, as you say, cost of living is very high at the moment in the UK. Inflation is high, but we have overcome the problems of last September. We had a very good budget from our chancellor, who's like the Treasury Secretary. We are now getting the economy back on track, getting inflation down, dealing with fuel supplies, and crucially, putting the economy on the right trajectory for jobs and growth. So the outlook is good?

The outlook's very good. I think the underlying fundamentals about the British economy are very sound. You have the city of London, you have a free enterprise approach, you have a well-trained workforce. All those things are going to continue. One of the prime minister's big focuses at the moment is economic security. He hopes to be over talking to President Biden about that later in summer. OK, well, I just wonder, Ambassador. So, you know, I know young people in particular have some seem to have more hesitation about the monarchy. Is there something that the king intends to do? Does he have in does he have outreach to younger people? Do you have plans? Could you speak a little bit about how he continues to engage younger people in Britain as they move forward into the future of the monarchy and what he intends to do?

He's been very good about opening up events at the palace, as have William and Kate. William and Kate undertake a huge number of trips around the U.K. They were traveling by tube, by metro yesterday. They went to a pub in Soho. They're very good with their charities. Kate does a lot of work on early child development. William shares many of his father's interests in climate and the environment. He has the Earthshot Prize. I think if you'd seen William and Kate in Boston at the Kennedy Library for the Earthshot

Prize last November, the place was full of young people. And the people outside cheering for them were primarily young people. So I think that accessibility, that connection with the public is being passed down from one generation to the next. Ambassador Karen Pierce, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. And thank you for the invitation. Oh, we're very excited. Very excited.