Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/10/24

Episode Date: June 10, 2024

President Biden concludes visit to France

Jill and I wanted to come and pay our respects. And it matters a lot. Everybody was so worried yesterday about you. And they never mentioned me. I'm up here sledding like a dog. There's no quit in America. None. None.

There's no quit in America. Secret Service said we have to make sure everyone's safe. I said, what about me? Oh, we never thought of that. The best way to avoid these kinds of battles in the future is to stay strong with our allies. Do not break. Do not break. You feel the breeze? Because I don't want anybody going on me. We need every voter. I don't care about you. I just want you to vote. I don't care.

President Biden wraps up a visit to France honoring the World War II veterans there, while Donald Trump campaigns in Las Vegas post-conviction. We'll have more on that split screen from over the weekend. Meanwhile, today, Donald Trump is reportedly set to have an interview with a probation officer. We'll explain what that means for the upcoming sentencing for his criminal conviction, plus the dramatic rescue by Israeli forces of four hostages from Hamas captivity. We'll go over what we're learning about that operation, the emotional reunions that took place afterwards, and the potential impact on the remaining hostages and the overall war in Gaza. Some incredible scenes on both sides. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, June 10th. With us,

we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News. Katty Kaye is with us and President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, is here. And we will be joined later by historian John Meacham. But first, President Biden is back in the U.S. this morning after a busy week in France that focused on reaffirming America's commitment to its allies and commemorating 80 years since D-Day. Yesterday, the president and first lady capped their trip to a visit to the Ayn Marn American Cemetery. It's the resting place of nearly 2,300 war dead, with over a thousand names of the missing inscribed on the interior wall of its chapel.

The location saw heavy fighting nearby during World War II, with the chapel itself still bearing a hole caused by an artillery shell, which was left as a reminder of what took place there. The president finished his trip to France by paying his respects to the fallen. Afterwards, he spoke to reporters about the sacrifices those troops made and the importance of standing by allies. They stopped the Germans. They stopped the Germans. And the idea that we're able to avoid being engaged in major battles in Europe is just not realistic. That's why it's so important that we continue to have the alliances we have. Continue to beef up those alliances.

Continue to keep NATO strong. Continue to do what we've been able to do since the end of World War II. And so I just wanted them, Jill and I, wanted to come and pay our respects. More Marines were lost here than any battle until the middle of World War II. The idea that I'd come to Normandy and not make this short trip here to pay tribute. And it's the same story. Think about it. America showed up. America showed up to stop the Germans. America showed up to make sure that they did not prevail. And America showed knowledge that the best way to avoid these kinds of battles in the future is to stay strong with our allies.

Do not break. Do not break. So while President Biden was saluting our veterans over the weekend, attending dinners with important allies and doing a speech on the world stage, Donald Trump was delivering a campaign speech in Vegas in sweltering heat yesterday, Trump dealt with teleprompter issues throughout the afternoon, causing him to go off script. He just came up. Are the teleprompters not working?

Not even a little bit. Great job. And then I don't pay the company that does it, right? And then I end up with a story Trump doesn't pay. I don't pay contractors that do a s*** And that's a job. That's a job. This is the worst border in the history of the world. There's never been, no third world country has a border like that. And no third, I'll tell you what, and I hope the military, I hope the military revolts at the voting booth.

I went to a boat company in South Carolina. The boat, I said, how is it? He said, it's a problem, sir. They want us to make all electric boats. So I said, let me ask you a question. And he said, nobody ever asked this question. And it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT. Very smart.

He goes, I say, what would happen if the boat sank from its weight? And you're in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery. And the battery is now underwater. And there's a shark that's approximately 10 yards over there. By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that? A lot of shark. I watched some guys justifying it today.

Well, they weren't really that angry. They bit off the young lady's leg because of the fact that they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was. These people are crazy. He said there's no problem with sharks. They just didn't really understand a young woman swimming now really got decimated and other people too. A lot of shark attacks. So I said, so there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards. a young woman swimming now really got decimated and other people did a lot of shark attacks. So I said, so there's a shark 10 yards away from the boat,

10 yards or here. Do I get electrocuted? If the boat is sinking, water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted? Or do I jump over by the shark

and not get electrocuted? Because I will tell you, he didn't know the answer. He said, you know, nobody's ever asked me that question. I said, I think it's a good question. I think there's a lot of electric current coming through that water. But you know what I'd do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted? I'll take electrocution every single time.

I'm not getting near the shark. So we're going to end that. We're going to end it for boats. Some would call that completely unfit to deal with the challenges as the leader of the free world, just completely unfit. Let's bring in the Rogers chair and the American presidency at Vanderbilt University, Pulitzer Prize winning presidential historian John Meacham, not trying to be flipped, not trying to be funny. That was just disturbing and kind of crazy talk of a guy who did not know what to say when his prompter failed compared to President Biden. Biden, like his policies or not, John Meacham explained the split screen that America that is America's choice today.

It's very clear. I mean, there's not a lot of mystery here. We have a president who is trying to maintain and strengthen a post-World War II order that, for all of its imperfections has prevailed in a largely peaceable way since those men took the beaches at Normandy and went to Berlin, prevailed in the Pacific. President Truman, in a surprising turn, most people didn't know who he was when he became president in April of 1945, grows in the job in a remarkable way, establishes NATO, establishes the Marshall Plan. And here's a branding question. Harry Truman told George Marshall reportedly that if he called it the Truman Plan, nobody would support it. So they should call it the Marshall Plan. There was a kind of humility there, a kind of a sense that you had to put the good of the country above your personal good. And if anybody has any doubts about this, I don't quite know what else to tell them except to do what you just did and show that we have a choice here between a president who thinks about the American people first and a former president who thinks largely, if not entirely, about himself.

So that's Katty Kay. Kind of the concern here in the United States is there is so much material to work with over the weekend between these two choices. One on the right who promises to be a dictator, who promises to exact retribution on anybody who made him angry or held him accountable. And one on the left who, again, you may not agree with his policies and his legislation, even though he has accomplished more than most modern, if not all modern American presidents. He endorses democracy. He agrees with democracy. He wants to preserve our democracy. There's the choice. We've heard it a million times. And yet, Katty, and I have to say it because a lot of people are influenced by what they watch on Fox News. And I watch the Sunday shows.

And there's all this material. There's this craven speech in Nevada in the sweltering heat where he flippantly talks about a woman who lost her leg in a shark attack, and he makes it fodder for his speech. Let's not even begin with the J6 hostages. He calls them hostages at a time, actually, where there are hostages being held in one of the two major wars that President Biden is dealing with. Israeli hostages, some of them Americans, who are being tortured and truly held captive. But he wants to say the people who defecated on the Capitol, broke in, broke windows, ran through the halls, talked about killing Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence, those people who are being held accountable for their crimes by courts through the law. He wants to call them hostages.

It's sick. It's depraved. I don't need to say some say it is. It is depraved. And yet on Fox News, I watched a segment about whether or not Trump would be a dictator. And after running a number of soundbites of people concerned about things he has said, because he promises to do things that are like acts committed by a dictator or even says he will be one. And then some person on the right who says there's no proof he ever said it, he didn't say it. Then a soundbite of Sean Hannity asking him, would you be a dictator? And Trump not answering the question. And then the host saying there it's settled. He's not going to be a dictator. We'll be right back. I have to say it because so many people are influenced by what they watch on Fox News. And they are not giving a clear picture. Yet moving forward,

is it not clear, the picture? Am I crazy? Because I have eyes and I see one person who doesn't seem at all sane, who loves dictators and wants to be one, and another who's getting a little older, but quite frankly, doing quite well on the world stage under pretty tough circumstances, answering questions on his own with no teleprompter and sounding just fine. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, look, this weekend was exactly what the Biden team won. And by the way, congratulations on getting a balanced news diet. I think it is in this tribal polarized world. It actually is probably beneficial for everybody to get some

kind of balanced news diet so that we start knowing what other people are hearing when it comes to the news context. But I think you're right. It gives us it's very easy if we all just only watch one source of news or the source of news that falls with our own political beliefs, that is when you might get taken by surprise in an election when you don't win it. And you think, my God, but I was hearing all of this stuff. And that applies both to liberals and conservatives. So it really is a public service announcement. Make sure that you get a balanced news diet. But this is what the Biden campaign wants. They want more of what we saw this weekend, all of that material that you're talking about, that we played those clips from.

And yeah, it is sort of tempting to laugh at the meandering nature of I don't even know what that was. Was that some kind of woke pro shark attack, critique, critique? I don't even know really what that was or why it crept into the speech. But it's what the Biden campaign feels in a way that the race has been frozen during the course of the trial, right? It was put on pause almost because Donald Trump was tied up in a courtroom. Now Donald Trump will be back and the Biden campaign sees this as advantageous to them because the American public will see this. Now it'd be interesting to see how those clips about the shark, about especially that line about I don't care about you. I just want your vote. How that is played on news outlets that are sympathetic to Donald Trump. Does it get any

airtime? And if it does, no, is it just, you know, is it just kind of dismissed as, well, that's the kind of thing he says, you mustn't take him too seriously. It's hard to know what breaks through in this in this incredibly siloed news world that we all live in. It is very hard to know what breaks through. But the Biden team thinks the best chance they have is making this a referendum on Donald Trump. So the more Donald Trump is out there, the more he is saying things that they think the choice becomes more stark. Yeah, I heard from some senior Biden advisers in recent days. They do think the events of the last week, the trip to France did break through, but they're honest about it. The eyes of the world's media was going to be on the president

because he was part of the D-Day 80th anniversary. So we had the global stage. He had the spotlight and it was carried here in the U.S. That's going to be hard to recreate in the day-to-day of domestic politics. So the president does head to the G7 later this week. So there'll be another spotlight there. And certainly it was an implicit contrast they created this week. I wrote about it as well. Biden never mentioned Trump's name, but he didn't have to. He talked about alliances. We know that Trump wants to undermine American alliances. He talked about the need to stand with Ukraine. We know Trump often sides with Russia. And then even yesterday, he visited that World War One cemetery where we played those remarks. That's the same cemetery

that Donald Trump, when he was president, skipped a visit there because it was raining. So, Richard Haass, there was that contrast as a backdrop to the president's visit to France. But there was another, these European Parliament elections. And we have seen the far right make real gains kind of across the board. The centrists will still be in charge, but the far right really picked up steam there. So, talk, give us your analysis here. There seems to be some bigger just headwinds here of anti-incumbency and the far right on the march. Let me say two things. One is exactly that. And what we're seeing in Europe is the cumulative effects of high immigration and low economic

growth. European economy has really been disappointing now for years. And you're right. The bottom line is strong anti-incumbency. And that's my second point. You look at President Biden's talk at the 80th anniversary, and he's representing and talking to a traditional world. If you will, the victory in World War Two and everything since the, quote unquote, post post World War Two order. What's happening, though, in this country, and we saw it in the Ukraine vote and all that, are beginning to see people move away from that, don't understand it, they don't study it, they don't support it. And Donald Trump, in many ways, represents that. You've got the contrast between alliance first and America first. And what we're also seeing, and this is a really

worrisome development over the weekend, is the erosion of the Atlantic world on the other side of the Atlantic. You're seeing the far right in France. You're seeing it in Germany. And along with the rejection of immigration and low economic growth, what we're also seeing is the rejection in many ways of the Atlantic alliance. And people aren't so worried about Russia. We're seeing the parallelism there. And I would think for Joe Biden and company, this is a warning in two ways. Politically, it shows the tenor of the times. This is a very hard moment to be an incumbent. We're seeing that all over the world. We saw it recently in India in certain ways with the

surprise there. We saw it in South Africa with the results there. And second of all, we're seeing the rejection of a traditional foreign policy. And that ought to worry all of us. Well, let's get to the big news over the weekend. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in Cairo right now as he continues to push President Biden's proposal for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. There's been no firm response from Hamas about whether they will accept the terms of the three-phase proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza. Blinken will visit Egypt, Israel, Jordan and Qatar. This marks the secretary's eighth trip to the Middle East since Hamas attacked Israel

on October 7th. And the new visit comes after Israeli forces rescued four hostages from Hamas captivity. On Saturday, troops found Noah Argamani, Al-Mogh, Meir John, Andrei Kozlov and Shlomi Ziv. The operation in central Gaza took place during the day in a dense urban environment. Under fire, forces raided two apartment buildings about 200 yards apart. The IDF says the hostages were being guarded by armed captors. Noah Arghamani was in an apartment alone while the three male hostages were together. On the ground, troops conducted heavy shelling to provide protection for the forces rescuing the hostages.

One Israeli police commando was killed in the raid. According to Gaza health officials, more than 270 Palestinians, 270, died during Saturday's operation. It's not known how many of those were militants? All four of the rescued hostages had been kidnapped during that Nova music festival on October 7th. According to Israeli officials, the hostages were found in good medical condition. They were taken to an Israeli hospital for evaluation where they were reunited with their families. 26-year-old Noah Argamani had appeared in a series of videos. The first was filmed by her attackers on October 7th. You might remember she was seen being forced onto a motorcycle with her boyfriend, whose whereabouts are still not known.

Noah also appeared in other Hamas-released videos. When she was reunited with her family on Saturday, Noah celebrated her father's birthday. Yet her mother is currently undergoing treatment for terminal brain cancer. 27-year-old Andre Kozlov was working at a security guard at the festival when he was kidnapped. He had just immigrated to Israel just a year and a half earlier. Shlomi Ziv is 41 years old. He had gone to the festival with two friends who, according to local media, were both killed. Shlomi and his wife live in a farming community in northern Israel. And 21-year-old Almog Meir John had finished his army service three months before he was kidnapped. He was supposed to start a job at a tech company after the music festival. His father died of a heart

attack just a day before Almog's rescue. His relatives expressed their gratitude to see him again. Thank you for bringing my son to me, to us. I'm so excited that I could hug him today. We met a guy which we love and we know is safe and sound. He's been in the Hamas captivity for the last eight months, and we think that he's okay. We'll see it in the next few days, but it's okay. Yesterday, all his friends came and it was a big party for him. All he wants is a cigarette and friends. We have to remember that we have another 120 hostages more that we have to bring back home. Maybe in our private circle, family circle, it's over.

But nationally, it's not over yet. And we have a lot of things to do. Joining us now from Israel, NBC News international correspondent Raf Sanchez. Raf, what's the latest? So, Mika, within an hour of those four hostages being rescued in the heart of central Gaza, they were flown by helicopter to this Israeli hospital. Those three male hostages are still here. Doctors say that despite eight months in captivity,

that they are in generally good health and good condition. They have a very long road ahead of them, as does Noah Arghamani. But the scene here is generally one of happiness. Now, a U.S. official tells NBC News that American intelligence helped Israel locate those four hostages and set the stage for that dramatic daylight rescue. The IDF says at 11 a.m. local time on Saturday, special forces simultaneously stormed two apartments in central Gaza, about 200 yards apart. Those three male hostages held in one of those apartments and Noah Arghamani held in the other. The code word that the special forces gave when they had the hostages in their hands was, we have the diamonds, we have the

diamonds. But they were not immediately at safety. The Israeli military says that one of the vehicles carrying the three male hostages actually broke down during an intense firefight in central Gaza. Those hostages had to be transferred under fire to another vehicle before they could be taken to a helicopter and flown here back to the safety of the greater Tel Aviv area. Now, you mentioned, Mika, people around the world will recognize Noah Arghamani, the young woman whose screams of terror were some of the first images of October 7th as she was carried on that motorcycle into Gaza. We have been speaking to her family and to her friends since the very, very beginning of this war.

Take a look. A helicopter waiting for Noah on the beach in northern Gaza, ready to fly her home to safety and into the embrace of her father, Yakov, celebrating his birthday with one arm around his only child, the other over one of her rescuers. We first met Yakov on October 8th, his world crumbling 24 hours after his daughter's kidnapping. Tonight he tells us, I'm feeling wonderful. Noah's friends at her side.

She's amazing. She's strong. She's laughing and smiling. What was the first thing you said to her? Just a big hug and so glad that she's here. Now, Mika, you mentioned that the joy that Noah's family is feeling today is tinged with sadness. Her mother is dying of cancer. And it has been her mother Leora's wish, her dying wish for these last eight months, to see her daughter one more time.

That was a wish that was fulfilled on Saturday night when Noah went from this hospital to another hospital in Tel Aviv, where her mother is now in her final days. And I should say that while there are celebrations here in Israel, there is searing, searing grief inside of Gaza today. The health ministry there says at least 270 people were killed by Israeli fire during that raid. They say at least 60 of them were children. Our team in Gaza has seen hospital emergency rooms just absolutely overrun with the dead and dying, just completely, completely heartbreaking scenes inside of Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas deliberately holds the hostages

inside of crowded civilian areas and that they called in targeted airstrikes to cover the retreat of the commandos. But it is clear a very large number of innocent people lost their lives inside of Gaza in the course of this rescue. Just finally, Mika, one day after this rescue, which has united Israel, we are seeing politics back once again. Israel's war cabinet last night breaking apart. Benny Gantz, the centrist opposition leader who joins the government after October 7th resigns last night. He accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of playing politics with the war. He says that there needs to be fresh elections. Netanyahu is giving no indication

he's going to agree to those elections. And the fact that the centrists have left the Israeli government means that there are fewer moderates at this point to balance out the far right ministers who sit around Benjamin Netanyahu's cabinet table. And those far right ministers are deeply, deeply opposed to the ceasefire deal that President Biden laid out the other week. Oh, boy. NBC's Raf Sanchez live from Israel. Thank you very much. Let's go straight to Richard Haass on this, given the picture that Raf just painted for us from the emotional reunions to the sadness around them, quite frankly, and also the unbelievable loss on the other side in order to rescue these hostages. What's the domino effect here? Retribution? What about the fate

of the other hostages, the remaining hostages? And pull back to politics, if you could. Benny Gantz stepping down from the war cabinet. What does it mean? Well, several things, Mika. Look, what happened was in the narrow sense. Let me emphasize the word narrow. A wonderful thing. The idea that the four hostages were rescued. The first obligation of any government, think about it, is to protect its citizens. And that's what the Israeli government here did. But and there's three big buts. One is this is not scalable. This is not a recipe or a formula for getting back the more than 100 hostages who are still there. It just simply isn't.

The intelligence, the military things are too difficult. If you're going to get the hostages back, it's going to be diplomatic, not military. Second of all, it was very costly. Obviously, more than 200 Palestinians killed. You lost the Israeli commander. In some ways, echoes of the Entebbe raid, where Bibi Netanyahu's brother who led the raid, that's what you had here in certain ways. Some interesting historical echoes.

Third, and I think this is the most sobering point, this changed nothing. And by that, I mean all the basic questions of what happens after, who's going to govern Gaza, what's going to happen between Israelis and Palestinians. None of those was affected. And that's what these resignations of Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkow tell us, is that there's still a fundamental split within Israel about where this is going. What is the relation? OK, you can use military force to degrade Hamas, but then what? There's still no consensus on then what. And on Hamas aside, you don't see a willingness to agree to the kinds of ideas that President Biden's putting putting out there.

So this is a temporary moment. But quite honestly, none of the underlying conditions that have haunted Gaza over the last eight months are changed. So we're still where we were, quite honestly, the day before this hostage rescue. John Meacham, let me take to you the framework that Richard just so well laid out here. There was this, of course, deep moment of euphoria and such relief to see those hostages reunited with their families. And we shouldn't look past that. We're all so pleased. But it didn't change anything. There is suffering in Gaza. Netanyahu, his grip on power seems deeply threatened at the moment, but we also aren't sure what would come next. What is your just sort of big picture analysis of where things stand and where we go from here? It's the most intractably tragic geopolitical situation, I think. And

Richard can fact check me on this, certainly of the last century and maybe longer. I think that as Americans, as those who have historic and familial ties to the region, what we should want is an American president, an American Congress, an American public that has patience, that understands the immense complexities and doesn't judge this by the quick minute to minute chyron conflict driven in terms of dialogue standards that we judge everything else by. If this were easy, someone else would have fixed it a long time ago. in terms of dialogue standards that we judge everything else by. If this were easy, someone else would have fixed it a long time ago. You know, President Obama used to say, if any problem I got from the hit my desk was clearly too hard because somebody else would have fixed it and then told me how brilliant

they were to have fixed it. And I think that's what this is. And so I my own view, I go back to this again and again, is we have a very clear choice in the country. Is it a perfect choice? No, because we live in a world that's fallen. But do you want just think about it. Do you want the man talking about sharks dealing with this or do you want someone who's spent his life trying to understand it? And I think we're facing a test of citizenship here. I really, really do. Richard's written a great book on citizenship and the habits we have to have and the habit we have to have, I think, is patience and proportion and a maturity about even if we disagree with this diplomatic maneuver or that policy or that

tax rate, the American experiment is in many ways hanging in the balance here. And I wish this were overstated. I wish this were somehow just part of the political entertainment complex. But it's not. And we saw that this weekend and we're going to see it again and again and again. And we're all going to face a big test. I don't think President Biden's on trial here. I think we are. A lot more still ahead on Morning Joe.

Donald Trump has a pre-sentencing interview with a probation officer today following his hush money conviction. We'll talk about what we can expect from that. Plus, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg agrees to testify before Congress about Trump's trial, but sets his own timeline. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be back in 90 seconds. Pretty shot of New York City at 33 past the hour. Welcome back to Morning Joe. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg will testify before the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee in connection to former President Trump's criminal hush money trial and conviction.

Bragg responded to a request from Trump ally and Judiciary Committee Chairman Congressman Jim Jordan on Friday, saying he's willing to testify, but not before Trump's sentencing date, which is scheduled for next month. Jordan had originally requested a hearing this week. Bragg's response counters that date, saying court proceedings are not over in the case. The DA's letter also asked to speak to the committee about the, quote, scope of the proposed testimony. Meanwhile, former President Trump is scheduled to sit down for a virtual interview later today with a New York City probation officer. That's according to three sources familiar with the matter. It's part of a mandatory step ahead of his July 11th sentencing following Trump's

conviction last month on 34 felony counts in his hush money trial. Trump will reportedly call in for the interview from Mar-a-Lago with his lead attorney, Todd Blanche, by his side. Once the process is finished, the probation officer will deliver a report to Judge Mershon, who will use it when determining Trump's sentence next month. Interesting. One of the things they always keep in mind is whether or not a convicted criminal has remorse. Joining us now, former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin and former U.S. attorney and an MSNBC contributor, Barbara McQuaid. She's the author of the book Attack From Within. How disinformation is sabotaging America. Also with us is special

correspondent at Vanity Fair and the host of the Fast Politics podcast, Molly Jong Fast. She's an MSNBC political analyst and we'll get to her powerful piece about the Hunter Biden trial in just a moment. Lisa, with all your time in the courtroom, I want to start with you about this hearing today. Is this as simple as every American who's convicted of a felony, a convicted felon, I guess, ultimately on sentencing day, have to go through a meeting like what President Trump is going through today? Can you lay it out for us? And do you think that he will express remorse? And would that matter to the judge?

Well, let's start, Mika, at the back half. Will he express remorse? I think the answer has to be no. This is a person who continues to say that the trial was rigged, that the judge is corrupt and that there was no crime, including that there was no crime even specified by the DA. You and I know that not to be true. So I don't expect to hear any statement of contrition or remorse from former President Trump. And that is a factor that will go into this pre-sentence investigation report by the New York City Department of Corrections and Probation. That having been said, this is a process that all criminal defendants go through prior to their sentencing. Donald Trump is no exception. What makes this unusual is that the

interview is happening virtually, but the regulations here provide for virtual interviews and circumstances like this, where, for example, courtesy to the court and all of the precautions that would need to be taken for him to come and visit the Department of Probations, all of those things would really be unnecessary and costly for New York City, which has already incurred the cost of this trial. That's why the interview is happening virtually. It's also unusual for an attorney to be present. But as you know, Judge Mershon gave Todd Blanch his express permission to be present with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago when the interview was held later today. So, Lisa, let's get you in on a sort of an odd development that happened during the case. On Friday, the judge, Mershon, sent a letter to both parties in the trial alerting them to a Facebook post that had been made at the end of May.

Allegedly, it says, I'll read it. My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted. Thank you, folks, for all your hard work. Now, that post has since been deleted. We should also note that NBC News has not identified the poster or the validity of the claim. So we don't even know if this is really, if it's real. But that has not stopped the Trump and his allies from seizing upon it, suggesting the fix was in, it wasn't a fair trial, They'll be part of their appeal, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So walk us through what do we know about this and could it actually have any kind of impact? So let's start with could it have any impact? If it were real, there are provisions where you can move to set aside the verdict under New York law. The only remedy for that where conduct or juror misconduct is concerned is to

have a new trial. And what you have to show is that the juror misconduct or communications would have had a substantial impact or even could have had a substantial impact on the outcome of the trial. But let's move backward from there for a second, Jonathan, to what we actually know about this situation. There's no question in my mind that Judge Mershon made this information publicly available because he knew that once he notified the parties, if he didn't control that public access, somebody else was going to. Based on screenshots that were taken of this poster's comments, and I should note, they made this comment more than once. It seems dubious that this person is related to a juror, much less that the person is really having any information related to the jury at all.

In fact, the person's bio says that they are a professional expletive poster, that they take a lot of joy in trying to mix things up online, so to speak. That hasn't stopped the Trump campaign from shouting mistrial, as former President Trump did on one of his Truth Social posts. Do I expect that they will try and delay proceedings by demanding an investigation into who this person is

and whether any of the jurors had conduct with this person? Absolutely. Do I expect that it will succeed? Absolutely not. And that's why I said on Friday when this information became available, if this person actually knows a juror, this is unbelievably bad. If this person is just trying to create mischief, that's even worse because they will have succeeded

in derailing some of these proceedings without knowing anything at all, without having any legitimate impact on the process and just trying to throw a bomb metaphorically into the process that has to continue and play out. So I want to ask Barbara McQuaid about that bomb. And I'm going to take kind of a circuitous route, Barbara, if I could. And earlier in the show, I talked about watching Fox News and watching a segment that was all about whether or not Donald Trump would be a dictator. And here's what the left has to say. And they ran soundbites of people making very legitimate arguments, quoting Donald Trump about wanting to be a dictator or to have dictator like tendencies or behavior. Then the host runs Trump's response to the question where he does not answer it at all. He just talks over it and talks about other things.

And then the host absolutely decides that that's both sides right there. You heard both sides when you didn't hear Trump respond to the question at all. And then the host talks to the panel and the panel agrees that he's not going to be a dictator and that he never said it. And then they go to break. And so now having said that, that's a daily ritual on a network that paid $787 million for lying about Dominion. But still, it's a daily ritual to sort of, I would say at best mislead or just terribly cover the issues. Um, and then you have this story. If you could talk a little bit about what you learned, putting together your book about what's happening out there when it comes to truth, facts, respect for, um, the viewer, when you are covering the news and delivering important information to people

from a position of influence. Yes. Well, when it comes to Fox News, for example, we know based on that defamation lawsuit that the hosts and the executives admitted in documents that they didn't believe for one minute some of the things that they were airing about the Dominion voting systems and the allegations that they had somehow flipped votes from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. But they did it because it was good for ratings. And so some are out there because it's a profit motive. Some are out there because it's a political motive. And some are out there because it's a career motive. But saying things that are not true to go along with the con.

You know, there's some people who hear false claims and believe them to be true. Those people are victims of disinformation. But there are others who know better and who will say things and push things just to advance this agenda. This idea of dictator for a day or revenge prosecution is problematic because of the effect it has on people. It normalizes this idea that the law is really just one more political tool that political actors use against their rivals. It erodes respect for the rule of law. And I worry that ultimately it leads to vigilante violence, because if people don't trust the courts or law enforcement to carry out the law in a fair and balanced way, that is what opens the floodgates to people taking the law into their own hands,

just as we saw on January 6th. Barbara, it's so interesting that you're thinking and looking at this because somebody actually just last week from the UK was asking me, how is it that Donald Trump can stand outside the courtroom and say the system was rigged, this was a sham trial, it was a corrupt judge? I mean, how did the kind of the, what he was suggesting was that in the UK, you wouldn't be allowed to say that because it's a danger, therefore, to the system itself, that it isn't a form of incitement to violence. But I guess here it's a free speech issue. We've also seen the former president say that he was, you know, that there was this huge raid in Mar-a-Lago and that they came in kind of guns blazing, as it were, suggesting

that, again, that's, you know, the way that they went into Mar-a-Lago was exactly as they should have gone into Mar-a-Lago, the FBI. What is the danger of when he says things like that? And why is he allowed to say things like that? Right. Well, first, let's talk about why he's allowed to say things like that. I believe he is someone like others who actually exploits our First Amendment to free speech. He knows where the lines are. He goes right up to them.

Sometimes he tiptoes over them. But mostly he includes a few throwaway lines to try to keep within the boundaries. Here in the United States, we have a cherished First Amendment right to free speech, even ugly speech, even sometimes dangerous speech. And the Supreme Court has placed the bar on what becomes criminal or prohibited speech really quite high. And that bar is from a case called Brandenburg versus Ohio, a KKK speech where somebody gave one of these very fiery speeches. But the court there held that speech may only be prohibited in that dangerous situation where there is an intent to cause imminent lawless action and a likelihood of causing that result. Now, I think there's an

argument that that bar was crossed on January 6th. But when Donald Trump says these things at the courthouse, it may be planting ideas in people's minds, but it's probably not rising to that level of imminent lawless action. But what does it do? What is the outcome of that? It does have an effect, as you just mentioned, especially let's take that example of Mar-a-Lago. Donald Trump falsely claimed not only that the FBI came in with guns blazing, but they planted false evidence in his home. Of course, he's now said he had every right to keep those documents. So consistency has never been his forte. But in response to that, there was a man in Ohio who posted online, it's time for all good patriots to take action against the FBI. He went to the FBI office in Cincinnati with an assault weapon and was chased away and later killed that day in a standoff with police.

And so when these things are said, it may not be it may be that many people roll their eyes. Some people may believe it, but there are people out there who will take that as a call to action. And we know that based on past experience. And so it is incredibly reckless simply to utter these phrases. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuaid, thank you very much. Her new book is entitled Attack from Within. How disinformation is sabotaging America. And coming up, day six of Hunter Biden's federal gun trial resumes in the Delaware courtroom this morning. We're going to talk about how this could backfire on the prosecution. And also Molly Jung fasts amazing piece on this very personal piece as she covers the trial of Hunter Biden. We gun trial resumes in a Delaware courtroom later this morning. On Friday, the prosecution rested its case and the defense called its first witnesses,

including the owner of the gun shop and the employee who handled Hunter Biden's background check. Hunter Biden's daughter, Naomi Biden, also took the stand, telling the court she was nervous. When asked about her father's drug use, she said, I knew that he was struggling with addiction, her voice trembling at one point when she recalled that, after my uncle died, things got bad, a reference to Hunter's older brother, Beau Biden. Hunter was seen wiping

away tears as Naomi told the court how her father appeared to have taken control of his drug use in the months before. Prosecutors say he lied on a government background check form. After the defense finishes calling its final witness, the prosecution will decide whether to put on a rebuttal case. Hunter Biden is accused of illegally purchasing a handgun and lying about his use of drugs on a federal form. He has pleaded not guilty. Elisa, I just want to turn to you about what's ahead in this trial. And I think it's fair to say here on Morning Joe, you will not hear this is a weaponized justice department. Joe Biden has said publicly he will not be pardoning his son.

And everybody here is covering the law as it progresses. And even members of Hunter Biden's family are respectful in the courtroom and not claiming that this is some sort of witch hunt. With that disclaimer, what's next? Today, Abby Lowell, who is Hunter Biden's defense attorney, owes the court a final decision about whether or not they have a final witness. And that final witness would be Hunter Biden. They were going to call the president's brother, James Biden, on Friday. They decided not to and finished the day, as you noted, with Naomi Biden, Hunter's eldest daughter. My guess today is that we won't hear from Hunter Biden, that the defense will rest. And then the judge will turn to two major things. One is, when will closing arguments be? Will they

be today or will they be tomorrow? And the second question is, what will the jury instructions look like? We learned from our own Gary Grumbach of NBC News that yesterday Hunter Biden's lawyer said, hey, judge, there are some things about your jury instructions as they're currently drafted that we have a problem with, including how you describe the theory of our defense case. So expect that outside the presence of the jury, they'll spend some time on that today. My guess would be that closing arguments will be tomorrow, along with jury instructions, and then the jury will be able to deliberate. We could have a verdict as early as tomorrow or Wednesday, Mika. So, Molly, Trumpers and Republicans actually holding office in Congress. They love this story. They love going after Hunter. They

actually screamed at him nasty things when he walked into a hearing room acting like eighth graders. I mean, really badly, poorly behaved eighth graders. And that they love to sort of go after Hunter and equivocate with this versus Donald Trump's trial. Your latest opinion piece is really interesting to me because I saw this the last time around with Joe Biden. People don't like it when you go after his remaining son. They like Joe Biden overall. They think he's a nice guy. And going after the remaining son didn't seem to fare well for those who were trying to do it. But you write this, Republicans going after Hunter Biden for his addiction are playing a dangerous game.

And in it, you write in part this. Fox News, the five co-hosts, Jeanine Pirro, reportedly complained about eight jurors who have someone in their family who's had a drug or alcohol addiction problem or someone who died from alcohol or addiction. So they picked a jury who is sympathetic. And herein lies the problem with the ongoing Republican attack on Biden. Seating jurors who have experiences with addiction to various degrees does not make a jury sympathetic. It makes it informed. Addiction is a disease. People who struggle with addiction are sick, not bad. Republicans going after Hunter Biden for his addiction in this way is a dangerous game. More people than you think are affected by alcoholism and addiction and shaming the family of the addict is neither productive nor grounded in any basis of efficacy. And Molly, if you could talk a little bit that I have, is the same disease that,

you know, almost 20 percent of the country has. And, you know, Republicans do love to talk about like fentanyl coming over the border. Like there's a reason that these that, you know, drugs are a problem in this country. And it's largely because of addiction. So this is another part of that. I think Republicans have have really actually not had a lot of success using Hunter Biden to sully Joe Biden. But they have tried at one of the sort of moments in the debate where Biden ended up really show, you know, being that Biden that that voters really like was when he talked about his son's addiction. And he said, you know, he struggled with addiction. He's made it through and that he's incredibly proud of his son for that. And look, I came forward partially because I wanted

to destigmatize this. And I feel like, you know, a lot of time for a long time, alcoholism and addiction was this terrible secret we didn't talk about. I feel like for me, because I've been sober since I was a teenager, I have this ability to talk about it in a way that's a little bit removed from the disease. And so I always try to say that I have suffered from this disease and I continue to suffer from it. And when I saw that text that that Hunter sent to his then girlfriend and he said, you know, I'm an addict and I'll always be an addict. That is the way we're sort of taught to think about addiction is that we'll always have this disease, whether or not we're given the reprieve of being sober. Yeah, no, it's very generous of you to share. I'm curious, John, the position that President Biden is in here. And by the way, I know that you work with him at times.

But personally, I want to talk to you personally about this, because Americans know that he lost a baby and his wife decades ago in a car accident. Americans know that he lost his son, Beau, to a brain tumor. Americans know the family has struggled and he still steps up and serves. I'm just curious, how is this fervent desire to hurt Hunter? And I'm not talking about in court. He's got to go to court. He's got to show up and he's got to face the music. I'm talking about the people going crazy about Hunter, whether it's Jeanine Pirro or Republicans in Congress or the Trump campaign. How does this hurt Joe Biden, except for personally? Oh, I think it's I think it's simply a person.

Not simply. I think it's a personal cost. Politically, I don't think anyone. Yeah. I mean, and the tone in which I appreciate the tone in which you ask the question and that Molly speaking. I hate beginning a sentence about this topic with politically comma. But I'll do it right because it transcends that politically. No, I don't think so. Anyone who I don't think so. Yeah. Anyone is going to vote against President Biden because of his son's struggles is not what I would call a swing voter. Right. I mean, it just doesn't track. I think the more serious thing is that Hunter Biden is the last survivor of that car crash at Christmas 1972. And everyone, I mean, 20 percent.

I mean, I don't know a family, including my own, that's not affected by addiction. And the accountability, as you rightly point out, the machinery of accountability. And guess what? The rule of law is applying here. The president of the United States has removed himself from this explicitly, consistently, honorably, and lets the rule of law unfold. This is what we call practicing what you preach. And that's what President Biden has done. And I know I'm a father, you're a mother. I mean, just put yourself for a nanosecond in the position of a parent of a child going through what Hunter's going through. And I think you would see that it's difficult, complicated, painful. But as you say, it is remarkable to me that the president continues to press forward and do the work of the American people after a life of remarkable

personal tragedy. Joe Biden's life, if you think about it biographically, is full of unexpected events, both for the good and for the bad. Right. I mean, he didn't expect to run for the Senate at 20 at 29 and then the accident. He didn't expect to become vice president and did didn't expect to run in 2020 and did. And it's a it's a it's a family story. And I think what we all have to do, and I really appreciate the way, Mika, predictably you're talking about it, is understand proportionately and actually be human

about these struggles and wish them all the best. Yeah. Historian John Meacham, thank you very much. And Molly John Fast will be reading your incredible new piece online now for MSNBC. Thank you so much for coming on this morning and sharing.