Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/13/23

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Trump to appear in court Tuesday

I am convinced that if he goes back to the White House, that the next four years will all be about him just settling scores. And he has shown himself, and I think most is particularly in his post-presidency, to be completely self-centered, completely self-consumed, and doesn't give a damn about the American people in my view. Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is the loudest voice against Donald Trump so far in the 2024 Republican race. It comes as the former president is set to be arraigned this afternoon. What is

this? What are we, the millennial falcon here? Well, no. Cool. Huh? Nothing wrong. Chewbacca. Chewbacca. I don't think our viewers can see what was going on and I was covering perfectly. So here we are. You were covering perfectly, which is see what was going on, and I was covering perfectly. So here we are. You were covering perfectly, which is why. Everything was going just fine. You've got to take the fun away from not telling people that, like, one minute before. Well, actually, one second. Did you see the lights go out on Lemire?

Lights go out. I think that was on purpose. Was it a matter of lighting at the end? Were you supposed to pay the electrical bill? Alex did that. We rotate who does the bills. I also asked for something dramatic because I wanted to have, you know, sort of a

1950s or Morrow vibe. Spotlight on you, everywhere else. Then it started up and it sounded like when they were doing fun. When Hans was hammering the Millennial Falcon, trying to get it flying again. By the way, that's how I fix everything.

As you can see, Joe and Willie are back together again, along with Katty, Ravel, Jonathan Lemire, and me. And there goes the intros. The former President Trump is set to be arraigned this afternoon on multiple federal charges for his handling of classified materials. We have legal experts standing by to break down what we can expect from the hearing and what could come next. We'll also take a look at new reporting on the former president's struggles to find legal representation fit for the very serious charges he is facing.

Rev, this is bad. And for as a New Yorker that understands this, it's funny. I was on the plane coming up and a guy said, I know, you know, Donald well worked with him. And we found out pretty soon that if you do business with a guy, he just doesn't pay his bills. He starts by suing you. Then he's just like, I'm going to get 50%. And that's always worked. It didn't work with this guy because they had a very big steel construction company. They said, we'll just wait you out and sue you. And so eventually they get paid. But everybody else, everybody in New York knows that's how we always worked. But here with lawyers, it's catching up with him. First of all, he doesn't pay his bills in a lot of cases, according to lawyers.

Secondly, well, he doesn't listen to them. And take a look at the arraignment. And nobody wants to go into federal court with somebody trashing the federal court. The indictment. No, he first of all, he can't be lawyered or coached. So let's forget that. He's going to be his own worst enemy there. But I think it's sad for the country.

But it was inevitable for Donald Trump. Those of us that knew him knew that Donald Trump does not believe the rules apply to him. He was a small guy in a big chair. You know, it reminds me of the adage that you can put a crown on a clown, but it doesn't make him a king. He's going to make the domain a circus. And that's what has happened. He's not a clown, but he certainly has not risen to being president or presidential. And because he brought those bad habits and traits with him, he is now being criminally tried.

And I think probably will be convicted. You know who who who is a clown, Willie? who actually don't even think or won't even admit to taking nuclear secrets and hoarding them and taking some of the most secure things. According to people in the Trump administration who worked, you know, around national security, saying this is worse than any of us could have ever expected, which means that Republicans and capital people like Lindsey Graham, they understand that, too. But all they can do is say, well, what about Hillary? Right. By the way, just just for the record here, the Obama State Department looked at Hillary and that and said, well, no, she didn't do anything overt and deliberate that that hurts national security. The Obama Justice Department did the same. Oh, wait a second. The Trump Justice Department had four years. Let me say that again.

They had four years to bring charges and they never did. The State Department had four years to write a scathing rebuke of Hillary Clinton. Never did. They could have charged her over four years if she had done something that broke the law. They didn't do that. And yet these clowns come in with this, you know, but what about Hillary? What about the Corvette? What about whatever? Again, Biden and Mike Pence returned the documents. This guy steals nuclear secrets and lies about it. Nuclear secrets, war plans. There is no comparison.

We'll say it a million times between what Donald Trump is alleged to have done, what Mike Pence did, what Joe Biden did and even what Hillary Clinton did. And yet you have people like Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Again, these aren't the backbench bomb throwers that you'd expect here. This is the Speaker of the House who I don't think he believes any of this, but if he does believe it and he doesn't think what he saw in that indictment is a big deal, then we ought to wonder if he should have access to classified information. If he thinks anybody should be able to pass everything around. If they think, Jonathan Lemire, that they should be able to get nuclear secrets,

somebody can take it home and it's okay. If Lindsey Graham thinks that Donald Trump having nuclear secrets and has the most important classified documents on America's weaknesses, on war plans, and that's cool. Seriously, these people are unfit to serve and certainly unfit to have any classified information. All they're doing, they think they're owning the libs. They think they're defending Donald Trump. All they're doing is condemning themselves for Americans to say,

we can't trust these clowns. Yeah, there's a chorus of voices over the last couple of days saying just how stunning and serious the level of documents that were found were, worse than people possibly could have imagined. These are America's most sacred secrets, secrets that endanger, that could endanger the lives of operatives, that could endanger the lives of alliances with foreign entities who have put people in harm's way for the United States. And we have heard a few Republican voices, Chris Christie being one, who sharply criticized what has happened here. Nikki Haley, interestingly, turned her tentative voice and went from defending Trump yesterday, criticizing Trump. But right now,

there are few and far between. And we still wait to hear from the likes of, now that the arraignment is coming, Governor DeSantis, Vice President Pence, even Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. So Speaker McCarthy sort of glibly said yesterday there was a lock on that bathroom door at Mar-a-Lago. This is again, this is the Speaker of the House of the United States yesterday. What about those pictures? Was that a good look for the former president to have boxes in a bathroom? I don't know. Is it a good picture to have boxes in a garage that opens up all the time? A bathroom door locks. So, look,

I don't want people to take these documents away, the vice president, Pence, but as a senator, you'd have to steal the documents. You know what concerns me is you have these,

a lot of these documents behind a Corvette in a garage with the door. It's like you're fighting with an idiot idiot there's no need to fight with an idiot that's just the dumbest argument Willie it's insanity it is shameful it's shame to say bathroom doors lock from the inside so you'd have to be in there with the documents maybe flushing them down the toilet I mean I don't know but the more you saying caddy the more important point is that's true.

Yes. The more important point is this is again, this is the speaker of the House. This isn't some random podcaster or talk show host who's trying to defend Donald Trump. This is coming from the speaker of the House saying what I saw in those pictures, what I read in that indictment. Yeah, not so bad. It's kind of like what Joe Biden did, having some documents that he returned when he was confronted with it, did not obstruct returning them that were in a garage somewhere. Yeah. And you can only think that Kevin McCarthy is so desperately concerned about his members, his voters, that he's having to say this because there seems to be some distinction between Republicans like Bill Barr who don't have to account to voters and those

who do have to account to voters in terms of what they're saying. Although Nikki Haley was interesting yesterday because she is trying to win over voters. And, you know, you read what she said. This is, you know, this puts all our military men and women in danger. This is reckless. And then she raises again the possibility of a third indictment. So she's from somebody who obviously who knows national security from her time at the United Nations. It would be very hard for her to be as glib, perhaps, as Kevin McCarthy is doing with secrets of this kind. I mean, it does remind me of when the raid first happened and we heard from people from the CIA members talking to them saying, this is potentially really bad. When you look at what's actually in there, it's much worse than people thought at the time.

Worse than they expected. It's worse than they expected in terms of national security. So as I mentioned, Katty's with us for the duration, but Katty's got a book out today. Your timing is horrible. Terrible. There we go. The power code. I don't know.

Abuse of power. There you go. Maybe it's time to remake power. Maybe it is good timing, but Katty and Claire are at it again with the Confidence Code series. And this is the power code. We'll be talking about it in the 7 o'clock hour. Claire. The new afterword digs in to all of the legal machinations. No, it's so important to the value. You're going to want to read it. David Ignatius is with us as well this morning. So just pointing that out as we

launch into our first story backwards, as we always do. So former President Donald Trump is just hours away from his first scheduled court appearance as a federal criminal defendant. The former president is set to appear in a Miami courtroom at three o'clock Eastern time to be arraigned on a 37 count federal criminal indictment for his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House. This makes him the first ever former president to be charged with a federal crime. A source tells NBC News Trump flew from New Jersey to South Florida yesterday with attorney Todd Blanche, who will represent him at today's hearing. But it is not clear who else might also represent Trump at the hearing, if anyone.

Blanche is a New York-based lawyer, typically a local attorney who is admitted to practice in the Southern District of Florida, would have to be present in the court in order for the arraignment to take place. But a source tells NBC News judges are usually open to allowing a lawyer who is not admitted in the district to appear on behalf of the defendant. Magistrate Judge Jonathan Goodman will preside over today's court appearance. Trump appointed Judge Aileen Cannon, who was randomly assigned to the case from among four judges in the West Palm Beach division, will not be present today. In any case, Trump's appearance today will consist of being processed and fingerprinted. It is not clear if a mugshot will be taken.

Judge Goodman will set bond and conditions of pretrial release, which could include Trump having to surrender his passport. One likely condition of bond will include a provision that Trump not commit a federal, state or local crime during his period of release. Setting the bar high for Donald Trump, I see. Yeah. If the arraignment does occur, Trump will verbally enter his plea, which he said will be not guilty. No cameras will be allowed inside the courtroom. And once the hearing is over, Trump is expected to fly back to Bedminster, New Jersey, where he will give public remarks about the case. And I wonder, and we can ask our legal experts about this, but if perhaps the judge might give him some parameters on any remarks he might make. We'll see. Maybe not early. Maybe after there's a reason.

Let's say after he gives them a reason. A couple of hours in. Yeah, exactly. But David Ignatius, I wanted to circle back to you again and talk about how disheartening it is that you have somebody who's third in line to the presidency. And I don't want to just focus on Kevin McCarthy because there's so many other Republicans who are bad actors right now. But I swear, I mean, we keep being shocked, but not surprised. I'm going to say in this case, I actually am shocked and somewhat surprised that somebody in McCarthy's position, Republican or Democrat, would scoff and dismiss nuclear secrets being stolen from a secure location and documents spread out not only in bathrooms and showers, but also in bar rooms and ballrooms with access. I mean,

these documents, again, people in the Trump administration I've talked to, these are like, so many of these documents are extraordinarily sensitive. They're shocked, not only that Donald Trump had them, but just apoplectic at how they were stored. Some of America's most important secrets stored the way they were in a country club. And again, I'm stammering a little bit here because I find it hard to believe that any grown up like Kevin McCarthy, third in line, would be talking like a five yearold in a playground fight. It's just insanity.

So, Joe, I think what's beginning today is a test for the Republican Party. Obviously, it's a test for our legal system. But the facts in this case, as they've been gathered by the special prosecutor, are extraordinary. You just go through page after page of this indictment and you think they couldn't have gotten that specific evidence. And yes, they do. The evidence they have, for example, from one of Donald Trump's former lawyers is just extraordinary as he recounts what Trump asked him to do. I have a copy of the indictment that I brought along. I was rereading it and the words are just they leap off the page. If they don't leap off the page for Speaker McCarthy,

there is something wrong. He's been running scared from the MAGA Republican right since he became Speaker. We've all watched that. This is a moment in which he and every other Republican are really going to have to think, do I want to go over the waterfall with Donald Trump and with the facts in this case? I think, as you've often said, Joe, this is a test for the party. The more they attach themselves to this ex-president, to this set of facts, the worse it's going to be for them. And do they want to go over the waterfall to defend a guy. It's a great parallel that stole state secrets. I know. Lied about as you read it, lied about stealing state secrets, had his his aid hide state

secrets when they were coming back to get those state secrets and continued lying about it. It's all on tape. They've got him. Yeah, he's busted. There's nowhere to go. And Kevin McCarthy is still going. No, no, no, no. I mean, it's so childlike. Dumb. You listen to him. It's like nobody believes him. He doesn't even believe himself. So what is worth defending a guy that has stolen state secrets, lied about it and obstructed justice when they tried to get it back? Absolutely. Makes you wonder. Let's bring in former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance.

She's an MSNBC legal analyst, attorney Bradley Moss. He specializes in cases relating to national security and congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimini. And I think, Bradley, if we could start with you, what stood out in this indictment to you as a real potential threat to our national security? Or what items, plural? Sure. So the 31 documents that were referenced in this indictment are no small thing. Put aside the classification markings on them. We're talking about details on nuclear weaponry, both our own and that of foreign countries.

We're talking about war plans, you know, defensive capabilities. If there's an attack on the United States and intelligence on how military operations would take place overseas. These are some of the crown jewels of what the intelligence community gathers, what the Defense Department compiles over the course of a presidency, what they use to advise the policymakers and decision makers on how to proceed forward. And it's just sitting around in the basement. It's sitting in the bathroom behind the shower curtain. This kind of information is not supposed to be out of a secure location. And Donald Trump's getting his comeuppance today in a way I don't think he ever expected. So, Joyce Vance, we've been talking about the problem Donald Trump's having finding an attorney

to stick by his side through this. And part of that is because, as Chris Christie said at the town hall last night, it's just indefensible. If you read the indictment, it's indefensible. When you look at everything that's in there, former Attorney General Bill Barr used the word toast. He said, I read the indictment. The guy's toast. That's Barr talking about Donald Trump. As you read through this, how serious, how damning are these charges?

So the charges are extraordinarily serious in and of themselves, but it's the factual detail that DOJ provides in this speaking indictment that really tells the story of just how much jeopardy the former president faces. When you think about people who have declined to condemn the former president's conduct, who do not see a difference between Joe Biden and Mike Pence and Donald Trump. It's because they don't want to see the difference because it's in plain writing for everyone to see at this point. The level of obstruction is just out of bounds.

You know, prosecutors encounter obstruction in cases where people try to keep their wrongdoing from coming to light. And that's always an indication that they knew that what they did was wrong. The focus here, I think, the pictures that you all have shown helps us appreciate the severity of these charges. And there's one photo in particular that we haven't talked a lot about, but it's that photo in a storage area of a box with the lid off, documents strewn all over the floor, and you can clearly see the classified cover on one of the documents. And you look at that and you think, what is the story behind that photo? A classified document, you know, as someone who handled classified documents, it almost gives me hives to think about that happening.

It's just something that we're trained against for the obvious reason that this is exposed at a country club for anyone who chose to walk in. And by the way, many legal experts have pointed out in the last couple of days what we saw in the indictment might just be half of the evidence or even less than the prosecutors are sitting on right now as they head to trial here. So, Jackie Alomany, let's talk about Donald Trump's legal team. Is there an actual problem here today that maybe there won't be somebody who can represent him in court? Is there any jeopardy of this proceeding not happening today? And then secondly, who is going to defend him?

Who's left with all the people who've departed his side? Yeah, Willie, it's a good question. There aren't going to be any issues today. We were told late last night that Christopher Kais, a veteran Florida litigator who actually signed on to Trump's legal team last year and very wisely got an upfront multimillion dollar retainer right off the bat before he was alienated and actually pushed off of the Mar-a-Lago documents case, is going to be appearing with Todd Blanch, who has taken the helm of Trump's defense team. So they're going to be appearing with Donald Trump today, along with Waltine Nauta, his body man, who was also charged in that 49-page indictment and is listed as one of Donald Trump's co-conspirators. But going forward, the Trump team is still searching for a lawyer.

We reported last night that yesterday afternoon after Trump landed in Florida, he had a number of interviews with prospective lawyers, although several prominent Florida lawyers have already turned down an offer to represent the former president for myriad reasons. The two things that we keep hearing is, number one, Trump doesn't pay his lawyers there. He has a sort of pretty well-known track record of that. And then also because he's someone who regularly eschews legal advice and then at times puts his own lawyers in legal jeopardy. Look at Evan Corcoran most recently, who actually was a witness in this case. Attorney one list referenced extensively in the indictment.

Who the Trump team is going to settle on is still unclear, but we do know at least one name, Ben Cuney, a well-known Florida attorney who himself was actually indicted in 2008 for money laundering charges, which were dismissed a year later. So, Joyce, Mika just noted the reporting on the condition of a bond is that Trump not commit any other crime. But what if he's charged with a crime? I'm thinking Fulton County, Georgia. What if that investigation comes down in the months ahead? Could that impact what happens here? The impact of this very standard provision in a bond is that if you violate the conditions of your bond, you can be taken into custody. But this is applying to crimes that the former president commits after this bond is issued.

Fulton County, could it enter a judge's calculus here? Might it change whether or not there's release? I think it's very unlikely to alter whatever decision is made today in court. But notably, if the former president were found, say, to have ongoing retention of additional classified documents that hadn't been turned over, that might well ring the bell for new and additional crimes. Bradley, just walk through what the weaknesses, potential weaknesses might be in the prosecution's case. If you are the prosecution here, what are the things that you might be concerned about? Sure. So the biggest issue, we saw this a lot in the indictment, is the question of how much of Evan Corcoran's testimony and the notes, the stuff that was

detailed explicitly in the indictment, how much of that gets admitted at trial? There was an initial ruling in this, you know, grand jury phase where Judge Howell out in D.C. allowed him to order him to testify, ordered him to turn over those notes under the crime fraud exception to attorney client privilege. But now that the indictment has been brought, now that there could be a potential trial in South Florida, the Trump team could move, raise a whole new argument about admissibility and privilege to have that excluded to prevent the government from using it. Now, while I have no reason to believe in Judge Cannon would change, you know, that assessment from Judge Howell's ruling from several months ago, that is a wild card. If the Trump team is able to get some or all of that testimony and those notes kicked out, that would cripple the government's

case because that was such a key part of the obstruction element. And that was such a key underpinning of this indictment. But again, if she gets that kicked out, it goes up to the 11th Circuit and then the Supreme Court, right? Correct. The government, it would come out in pretrial motions. The government would immediately appeal. It would delay everything. And The 11th Circuit would most likely reverse. Yeah, they're going to reverse it. Yeah, exactly. All right. Attorney Bradley Moss, former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance and The Washington Post's Jackie Alimany, thank you all very much for your insights this morning. We have much more on what to expect in Donald Trump's federal arraignment today in federal court, including the heightened security in Miami amid possible protests and threats of violence,

plus the 2024 GOP candidates defending and attacking Trump over his latest indictment. And the one who appears to be in the middle. We'll tell you who that is. Also ahead, an update on the explosion that collapsed a section of I-95 in Philadelphia. Much more on that story and history in the Mile High City. We'll have the highlights from the Denver Nuggets NBA championship victory. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Beautiful shot of the sunrise in Washington, D.C. It is just about half past the hour. Republican presidential candidate, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, spoke about the Trump indictment in a CNN town hall last night. It is a very tight, very detailed, evidence-laden indictment.

And the conduct in there is awful. I mean, put aside taking the documents in the first place. But then when you start getting asked, Anderson, in May of 21, nicely, with a letter from the archivist saying, could you please give them back? And you ignore it, ignore it, ignore it. Then they come with a grand jury subpoena. And then, according to the indictment, you tell your lawyers, tell them we don't have anything. Even though you have dozens and dozens of boxes of material. That's obstruction of justice if it's true. This is vanity run amok, Anderson.

Run amok. Ego run amok. And he is now going to put this country through this when we didn't have to go through it. I did this for seven years in New Jersey. We did 130 political corruption prosecutions without a loss. What I could tell you for sure I know about that indictment is there's probably about a third of the evidence they actually have is in that indictment. There's a lot more. There will guarantee be a lot more. When you're a prosecutor, you never put every card on the table before the trial.

And so there's going to be a lot more. Don't be fooled. There's a lot more information to come when they go to trial. Specifically, I think there are going to be a lot of witnesses who actually worked for Donald Trump who are now going to be testifying against him. You know him very well. Why do you think he

did it? I mean, he couldn't he cannot live with the fact that he lost to Joe Biden. He can't live with it. And look, I watch the way Joe Biden's performing. I'd be pretty bummed out, too, if I'd lost to Joe Biden. But the fact is he did. And he wants to continue to pretend he's president. He wants the trappings of the presidency around him. And I think one of those trappings is these documents. And we're in a situation where there are people in my own party who are blaming DOJ. How about blame him? He did it. He hasn't won a damn thing since 2016. Three-time loser. 2018, we lost the House. 2020, we lost the White House. We lost the United States Senate a couple of weeks later in

2021. And in 2022, we lost two more governorships, another Senate seat, and barely took the House of Representatives when Joe Biden had the most incompetent first two years I've ever seen in my life. Loser, loser, loser. Oh, wow. When you do that, it's good, but that was pretty effective. He laid it out there and then came in at the end with loser, loser, loser. See, I'm just a poor country lawyer. He's a prosecutor from the big city.

He named them all those laws. It's true. The guy has lost. But then he's a big city prosecutor. I'm just, I'm a little counting loss. But then that makes Kevin McCarthy so confusing. This guy loses for you, and you come up with the most pathetic defense. It is really strange. But Willie, we're talking about how good Chris Christie actually was last night. The prosecutor and Chris Christie, we're not even talking about the content.

We're just talking about his argument, how he delivered the argument. He laid him low. He was excellent last night. He was very clear in his criticism of Donald Trump. He said, this stuff is indefensible, guys. We can pretend it's not. And he's talking to fellow Republicans like Kevin McCarthy, whose bite we just played. Read the indictment. He says it's indefensible. Stop blaming everybody else. Stop talking about everything being weaponized. Blame a guy who took nuclear secrets, who took military plans and stuffed them in a shower at Mar-a-Lago and allegedly was waving them around to some people. So the question will be, does it matter? Is there a lane for Chris Christie in this race? Are there enough Republicans who are fed up with Donald Trump? As John pointed out,

there weren't any applause for any of those lines he was delivering. He was telling the truth and doing it effectively. But there wasn't a big rousing ovation like Donald Trump got at his. I'm not sure how this town hall was set up, but at least the truth actually got in the front door. Yeah, that's right. Of a Republican event and got through the front door. We must say David Ignatius by a very skilled prosecutor. Now, people are talking about Chris Christie's lane as he have a lane to victory. I don't even know if that's what he's focused on right now. It appears that he's not just for the hell of it. It appears that he's interested in prosecuting the case against a man he believes has destroyed his Republican Party and now is doing things with these documents

that could destroy the national security of the United States of America. There's also, Joe, this amazing Shakespearean drama of Chris Christie, who prosecuted Jared Kushner's father and then was exiled from the from the Trump inner circle, just canned at the last minute from what he thought would be a significant role. And he's having his his say now. I thought he had some incredibly acute observations last night. One that really struck me was the phrase vanity run amok. And as I say, I've been looking at the indictment itself. I'm just going to read you one brief section in which Trump's former lawyer, Evan McCormick, says that Trump told him, I don't want anybody looking.

I don't want anybody looking through my boxes. I really don't. I don't want you looking through my boxes. It's that sense that the presidency, the documents, these secrets that that that millions of Americans in uniform and in our intelligence services have worked so hard together. They're mine. And that's that's the thing that to me in this indictment, that's that's so appalling. And I think Christie just nailed it. And I hope Republicans will see it. Do they really want to defend this? They want to go to the wall to defend the things that are in this document. You think about Willie, Chris Christie. You think about others that are starting to speak out a little bit here, a little bit there. You think about the family that has scattered from the members of the family that have scattered. Again, it's not happening as

fast as perhaps some would like. But bit by bit, piece by piece, look where Donald Trump is in 2023 compared to where he was in 2016. He's just more and more isolated. The family went everywhere together in 2016, no matter where it was, hard to get there. And you look at the people that were willing to work for him in 2016 that are nowhere to be seen now. And my gosh, the harshest attacks have come from people like Barr. And by the way, we were watching Fox last night just to see what they were doing at six o'clock. It's pretty down the middle, at least at six. Hey, we didn't see the rest of it.

Just stay off my Twitter or you can go on there. It's such a mess now, by the way, Twitter. I don't get it. I used to just... It's confusing. I could scroll through it in five minutes. Right. And really get a sense of And I knew what the news was. And I can't do it now.

I don't even look at it. It's just this. It's ads. It's chaos. It's this stuff I don't want to see. Garbage. And I'm not saying that. I don't care if, like, I don't care who's running it. Maybe they'll fix it. It's not directed at Elon Musk. I'm just saying it's an absolute mess. I now, let me say this to all my progressive friends, I now just go to Drudge. After the New York Times or Washington Post, whatever.

But as far as the quick fix, what's going on? What's the buzzy stuff? You go to Drudge. Then I go to all the newspapers that used to be Twitter. And I just scroll it. And in five minutes, I knew the world. It's so weird now. It's cartoon-esque.

You can't do it now. And I have no idea how I got onto Twitter there. But I was thinking, oh, Fox. OK, back to you. So last night, it was pretty straight down the middle, at least at 6 o'clock. And, you know, they played the quotes of Barr, which was just searing. And then they had Brent Hugh on. Brent Hugh was like, OK, listen, basically says, you know, OK, so maybe they should have done something different with Hillary.

Maybe they should do something different somewhere else. OK, that's fine. You can believe that. And Brett. So we're saying this also, Brett Baer, at the same time, deeply offended and worried about what Donald Trump has done here with national security secrets. That's exactly what Chris Christie said last night. He said, I think James Comey blew it with Hillary Clinton. That deserved more prosecution that it got. OK, put that to the side.

That was seven, eight years ago now. Just read the indictment. He turned to the crowd, said, I'm just please read the indictment. This is nuclear secrets. This is military planning. And again, I understand our audience doesn't love everything Chris Christie stands for his policy positions. We've said a million times that, yes, he was along for the ride.

He endorsed Donald Trump in 2016, gave him credibility, worked for him right up through debate prep in 2020. We get all that. But there is someone in the race now who's at least saying, in this case, the obvious, what should be the easy but is not so easy, it turns out, for most Republicans to say, this is bad. This is very bad. It appears Nikki Haley has read the indictment. She's now also criticizing the former president. On Friday, before the indictment was unsealed, the former U.N. ambassador tweeted in support of Trump, writing, quote,

This is not how justice should be pursued in our country. The American people are exhausted by the prosecutorial overreach, double standards and vendetta politics. But then yesterday on Fox News, Nikki Haley condemned Trump. If this indictment is true, if what it says is actually the case, President Trump was incredibly reckless with our national security. More than that, I'm a military spouse. My husband's about to deploy this weekend. This puts all of our military men and women in danger if you are going to talk about what

our military is capable of or how we would go about invading or doing something with one of our enemies. And if that's the case, it's reckless's reckless. It's frustrating and it causes problems. And, you know, we're looking now this is the second indictment. We're looking at possibly a third indictment coming in with Georgia. So I'm just looking at what you said there for Trump. Another person who worked for Trump, U.N. ambassador. That's what that's all you ask for in a leader. Yeah, they can change their mind. Right. She saw it and she said if and it's never too late, if this is true, this is incredibly reckless, incredibly damning. And

she has a very personal reason for being concerned about it because her husband's in the military. And I think by her making it about her personal feelings with her husband, it brings us back in the corner of where we ought to be. The most disturbing thing to me about what Speaker McCarthy says is he asks us, though, if there was a lock, I don't care if it was a bolted lock on the door, that the documents had a right to be in the bathroom. They have moved this whole thing to, like, Donald Trump had the right to have in the bathroom. They have moved this whole thing to like Donald Trump had the right to have the documents.

Didn't matter whether it was the lock on the door. Here's the thing, right? Like, we keep forgetting this. I talk about it all the time. When I would go up and I would get Intel documents, you know, I'd see some documents. I'd be on, I'd have a hearing of the Armed Services Committee. They'd say, you need to go upstairs,

get in the SCIF, you need to go upstairs, get in the SCIF. You need to sit. You sit in there. They do everything, but they, like, hose you down. Maybe they just hosed me down. Maybe it was just me. I don't know. But you go through all these steps.

You have a phone. You put the phone here. You go and you sit down. And I will tell you, I wasn't intimidated, like, being around presidents and prime ministers and everybody else in little small rooms. It didn't faze me at all. I always knew. Like, I put my hand up here.

I was nervous in there because the consequences were so great. If you screwed up, I've said it here on this show before, I had briefings on North Korea in 1998 that I still won't talk about today. I'm sure it's totally fine to talk, but everybody's just trained. If they come in to say, this is like top safety, this is, this is classified information. This is you. You cannot repeat this to anybody. Here I am 30 years later, almost 30 years later, that sticks with you. Kevin McCarthy's the same way. Kevin McCarthy's not going in and stealing documents. Kevin McCarthy's not taking documents out to California

and throwing them in the bathroom at a surfer friend's house. He's just not doing it. They know better. You don't do this. And if you had taken any of those documents to your congressional office at the time, it doesn't matter whether you had a lock on the door or not. They were not supposed to be out of the place that you were told to keep them. And by the way, everybody's attacking the FBI. We all know you slip a document here.

You go even to your congressional office. We get taken out. Johnny Law dogs there. You got the FBI and a big dog coming in and sniffing your room for documents or whatever. But we all knew that McCarthy knows that he would never take it from the skiff, even to his speaker's office without authorization or the FBI would come calling. And now they're trashing the FBI for doing to Donald Trump what they would do to them for much less. Absolutely. And I think that's the outrage of their defense, if you want to call it a defense. And I think that Nikki Haley, who I don't agree on most things, was right to finally say, wait a minute, I'm going to take

a change of mind here, which is fine. And I think Chris Christie, who I don't agree with on many things, was was excellent last night. I mean, I think that he did what the Republican Party needs to do. Let's have some standards return. Exactly. Let's have some standards. By the way, the question for Kevin McCarthy, excuse me, is that just ask him, would you take out documents from a skiff to your office and put them in your drawer? Would you put them in your coat pocket and take them home? And when you were asked to return them, would you not give them back? Just ask him that. But what they're doing is will be correct. Not answering the questions. Well, they answer the question. Well, what do you think about Joe Biden's Corvette is what he said. And then Lindsey Graham was was. Well, the Republicans are very concerned.

And we the Republicans want to know. He always talks like he talks about the Republicans. Lindsey knows that Donald, his golf partner, has committed a multitude of crimes. Lindsey deals with this stuff on the Armed Services Committee. He knows better. But listen to what they say. They never, and this is what Brett Hume brought up last night on Fox, they never

say he didn't commit these crimes. They never say he's an innocent man. No Billy Joel singing out there. They never say it. That's because he's guilty. He's guilty in all these counts. They know he's guilty in all these counts. So they do the James Carville, look at the bird over there. Look at the bird over there. Even, even Lindsey Graham, that emotional interview with George Stephanopoulos the other day, conceded that Trump shouldn't have taken the documents. He did. He did say that there's no defending the idea that he had them in his possession.

But it is the whataboutism. It's the look over there. As you've been detailing, it's it's for most Republicans, this simply blind loyalty. And it shows, again, the grip that Trump still has in the party. But what is interesting, Chris Christie, we sort of knew this was coming. Christie has fashioned his entire campaign. It's probably not going anywhere, but he's fashioned his entire campaign as a Trump critic. Nikki Haley has not done that. And this is she put a human face on it.

But is she emblematic? Is this the first turn, the first sign that some of the other candidates might do the same? The answer is quite possibly no. Oh, come on. Will Tim Scott tell the truth? It's about Scott. It's about Pence. It's about DeSantis. Are they going to do the same? So far, Scott and Pence are not. No, they're not. They are still defending him. And if you look at the polling, I mean, this is the latest Reuters poll that shows what 81 percent of Republicans think that this is a politically motivated witch hunt against a process against Donald Trump. What they are doing, what Kevin McCarthy is doing and all of the other Republican leaders are doing is having an impact on the Republican Party, because what you've got a Trump base of 30 percent that are going to be loyal to him, whatever. But 81 percent of

Republicans believe that this is politically motivated. So every time they talk about Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, even Mike Pence, they are doing what they are having an impact on voters. And the reason they don't want to talk about this, to your point, Chuck Grassley was asked about it. He said, I'm not a legal expert. I can't speak to that. He knows better.

But he has a lot to say. Senator John Kennedy was chasing it. I don't want to, he said, if y'all want to talk about LSU being in the College World Series, we can talk about that. They're having a great season. I don't want to. He said, if you all want to talk about LSU being in the College World Series, we can talk about that. They're having a great season. I don't want to talk about the Trump thing. The reason they can't say anything is because this is cut through with the public in a way. There's the picture. There are the photographs of the documents in a bathroom, in the ballroom.

Donald Trump, he said what he said on the record about, yeah, I took what I took. What are you going to do? I have every right to do it under the Presidential Records Act. That's not true, as we've outlined. So people know there's no as Chris Christie said last night, it is indefensible. There is no defense. Therefore, they're not trying to defend. They've got the pictures. They've got the tape where he's saying, well, I could have declassified this if I were still president, but I'm not.

So I can't declassify it. So we've got a problem here. And his aide laughs. Yeah, it's it's it's indefensible. And so we'll see what happens. But again, I'm just wondering, is Tim Scott is Tim Scott going to keep acting like this isn't a big deal? I don't know. Is Mike Pence, you know, so wait, what are you saying? So Mike Pence steps forward on January the 6th and does the right thing, but he won't do the right thing when it comes to calling out somebody

that stole nuclear secrets, stole nuclear secrets, and then lied about having them. You might expect Mike Pence to be more in the Mitt Romney line, right? He comes from a similar kind of background as Mitt Romney, but he's not managing to do it. And after this

arraignment, what happens? We have continuing some stories about it, but until the trial, I guess they're all just hoping that they can get away with that. But it's only going to get worse. As Chris Christie said, it's going to get worse. There's only more evidence that's going to come out. We need Dan Quayle to save the Republic again.

We do. Okay, coming up, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuaid explains why this whataboutism in the classified documents case is so dangerous. That's straight ahead on Morning Joe. Live picture of New York City, about seven minutes before the top of the hour on a Tuesday morning. Yeah, great. Rev, some big news, surprising news to a lot of us out of the city here. The police commissioner, Commissioner Sewell, only a year and a half into the job, stepping down. What's going on here? I don't know the inside. I know she did a very good job in terms of reshaping some things and was getting some things done.

But I have not talked to the mayor yesterday. I was out of town. But she stepped down. I think that many of us that saw her kind of turning things in a in a better way than had been done in the last several years. It was sad to see a go. But I think knowing Mayor Adams, he will have his choice of a good commissioner to replace that he chose on the first place. Some people say, yeah, he's a he's a micromanager. Heard that yesterday afternoon. And so maybe he micromanaged a little too much some people are like let me do my job and i apparently based on the reports that's that's what she's saying i will say about new york we over the past four or five days we've been going around and man it is it is seems to be pre-covid new york and oh yeah uh haven't been down to the subway yet. But everything else seems, I say,

almost back to normal. You still go into Duane Reade and you want to tic-tac. There's no tic-tac. It's locked up. There are three different plastic containers. It's like when, you know. Rev said a few months ago on the show, free my toothpaste. And he's right about that. Come on, man. It's not just the toothpaste. You want like a pack of gum and you've got to hit the button and have somebody come over. It's a terrible sign of the times because there is so much some of that retail theft that's still going on.

Subway still has some problems. People go down there. You can sort of a sense of your head on a swivel. But you're right. The city's coming back. The buildings here in Midtown are not occupied the way they were. That's a huge structural change that probably isn't going to come back post-COVID. But it's a beautiful time of year here. Tourists are back.

It is. It's bustling. Cities, buses, tourists are there. Traffic's back. Traffic is bad. Traffic. Worst of all, stay out of cars, caddy, walk or subway. You get a sense that those of us that are New Yorkers, that the energy is back. Yeah. But I still want you to unlock my tooth.

OK, I will say also, again, get us here really quickly. Willie touched on commercial space, so much commercial space being up. I mean, this is a crisis. Yeah. It's like it really doesn't add up. Wait, you're going to have all of these commercial tenants defaulting. And where does that go to? That goes to the banks. How big is that going to be? Don't know.

Really quickly, before we leave, David Ignatius, let's go from from commercial space problems in Manhattan to a war, a very, very hot war in Europe. Before we let you go, give us the very latest, what you're hearing at least about the Ukrainian counteroffensive and Russia's response to it. Joe, what I'm hearing is basically cautious assessments. The Ukrainian counteroffensive has begun. They've made modest progress. They've announced openly that they've taken four relatively small villages in the southeast, in the Donetsk area. It's believed that this offensive is going to try through multiple axes to push south, to break the so-called land bridge that connects Russia with Crimea. That's the strategic goal. But that could take many weeks. The Russians are dug in. The defenses are very

difficult. This will be costly for Ukraine. But I think initially the judgment would be this is off to a careful start. It's been planned meticulously. People are writing this will be the biggest military battle in Europe since World War Two, one that really gets underway. We're not there yet. So let's stay tuned for something that could be quite extraordinary. David Ignatius and Reverend Al Sharpton, thank you both for being on this morning.