Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/14/23

Episode Date: June 14, 2023

Trump pleads not guilty in federal classified documents case

This is the most important government job on the planet. We're about to turn over the conservative movement to a person that has no ideas of any substance on the important issues, the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual. What was the damage? Was this stolen and sold to the Iranians, sold to the Saudis, given over to the Russians? That allegation is not made in that indictment. No one's made that allegation. So at the end of the day, we have to weigh the damage of the indictment versus the damage of the allegations is proven true. And it's just not even a fair way. Senator Marco Rubio's evolution on Donald Trump's access to and handling of classified documents. Yeah, I agree. It's not even a close

call. You weigh whether you believe, as the 11th Circuit said, that the foundational principle of this country, that no man is above the law. And you balance that against whatever Marco was saying we should balance it against. you will notice you will notice of all of the noise out there of all the ground noise nobody is saying he is innocent nobody is saying he did not commit the crimes that will put him in jail like for over a hundred years if convicted on all things. I can't think of one person who has said this man did not do it. So what they say is, well, what about Hillary? And I mean... But they had a long time

to do that. We had a smart lawyer here. Should we do the intro? I'm just a simple... I don't really know the way you do things sequentially or whatever, but I will tell you this, Willie. What is so fascinating is. We've got a great group.

Oh, do we really? Yeah. What's so fascinating is they don't say he's innocent. No. They all basically say he's guilty, but what about Hillary, right? Yep. Two tears of justice, right? First of all, yes, the Obama administration under James Comey twice closed the case.

That's Obama. What about Donald Trump? What about Donald Trump's Justice Department? It's not like they weren't talking about it. They were talking about convicting or bringing charges against Hillary, a special counsel against Hillary. In 2016, while he was running, he talked about it. Said after he got elected, nah.

2017, he brought it up again. They came to the conclusion no you can't in 2018 brought it up again there's not a case there time and time again they looked into it it wasn't like donald trump said oh you know what i'm gonna be cool now that i'm in the white house he raged on in 2017 he raged on in 2018 they He raged on in 2018. They looked at it. His legal counsel said there's nothing there. So when these people say two tiers of justice and you're going after Donald Trump, they need to turn the mirror back on themselves because it was the Trump DOJ that said no charges should be brought against Hillary for the same reason that Comey said it at the end.

Comey's exact words, no reasonable prosecutor would ever bring charges with the facts of this case. Yeah. And the three year Justice Department investigation into Hillary Clinton's email server, which concluded in 2019, found, quote, no deliberate mishandling of classified information, nothing systemic. Was she subpoenaed? Did she scurry away with her server running into the woods with it? Was she subpoenaed? She testified. She actually met with the FBI. She gave information. And to your point, the president, President Trump asked Barr to look into this. So it's not even just say it's Comey. This is Comey and Barr. So, you know, that if there was anything there that was sort of intentional, she would have been charged. And by the way, there is also another attorney general time, a fellow named Jeff Sessions from Alabama. Oh, right. Wasn't going to cut Hillary Clinton with Hillary in his slack.

And they concluded they concluded the IG. There was evidence, if anything, there was evidence of a conscious effort to avoid sending classified information by writing around the most sensitive material. This is what the inspector general said. As then FBI director James Comey put it, no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. And looking back at our investigation to mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.

This is against Hillary. Then Trump's people came in. Sessions was the attorney general. Trump raged, indicted her, bring a special counsel. Lock her up. Lock her up. They were told again, no, there's nothing there, Mr. President. There's nothing there. He talked to his White House counsel, Don McGahn, said, no, we can't. There's not a crime there. Why do I bring all this up? Because there's a big, big, giant white shark, great white, a legal great white circling Donald Trump and now the entire Republican Party.

And if this is all they have, they're going to need a bigger boat because this is not going to do it. Here's the additional thing I ask everyone around the table. At the peak of the right wing anti-Hillary crusade around the emails, right? Can anybody here specify, remember what it was that the most dramatic piece of classified material that she was supposed to have mishandled was. Nope, nobody can. By the way, they can't even, they remember they were trying to figure out, wait, is that

C? What does that stand for? They couldn't even figure out. They get the classified markings wrong. Yes. And so you had Trump always talking about the volume. There's 30,000 emails that we can't account for. But there was no, there was never anything where never anything where, even in the fever swamps, they never said anything

like, hey, you know what Hillary did, which is up in Chappaqua? She shared with somebody the American plan for an invasion of Iran. Or nuclear secrets. Or nuclear secrets. Even in their most crazed conspiracy-addled minds, they couldn't come up with anything like what has been detailed, anything close, anything in the same universe, let alone zip code of what's detailed in this indictment. And so, you know, if you put the whole Hillary Clinton, you just have to put the whole Hillary Clinton aside. Of course, the Republican arguments about

it are ridiculous. And I will say consistent when he was when he was impeached the first time, they said the same thing, which was no one defended him in the first impeachment. No one defended him in the second impeachment. No one has defended him in any time he's been hauled in front of any kind of judicial proceeding. Everybody just plays the game of deflection. They know he's guilty as charged.

Why are we starting the show this way? Well, first of all, because I'm a non-linear type of guy. But this actually blows up. This blows up every argument that little Marco and everybody else puts out there. A lot of TV hosts. And TV hosts blows it out of the water because when they say unequal application of justice, they're attacking Donald Trump and his DOJ and Jeff Sessions and Barr.

The reason Speaker McCarthy, when asked again yesterday, jumps from what do you make of the indictment to Hillary Clinton bleached her email server back in the day is because the step in between there would be to defend what Donald Trump did. And it's indefensible. It's impossible. It's just indefensible. So when you see those photographs, when you see all the charges that are made in that document, there's no way to go out and say, well, I think we can say that maybe there's a way out of this for him. Marco Rubio, by the way, who's now shrugging at all of this and saying, yeah, what are you going to do? It wasn't so bad. He's the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee in the Senate. He's the leading Republican on intelligence. Does he really believe this isn't a big deal? And if he does, we ought to look into that. You know, we we got problems. We got real problems with people are supposed to be protecting America's secrets where they say they don't give a damn about America's secrets in so many words

that they care about a failed reality TV show host and a cult leader more than they actually care about security. And George Conway, let me bring in here right here. George, this is a crazy thing. Marco Rubio, when he was running the Intel department, I mean, when he was running the Intel committee, the Senate Intel committee, he and the other Republicans who were in the majority said Donald Trump's 2016 campaign caused a direct counterintelligence threat to the national security, a grave threat to the national security of the United States of America. Now Marco's going, what? What?

I see not that this, I mean, he's a clown now. He's turned himself into a clown. From Donald Trump saying we can't trust him with nuclear codes, that's 2016, little Marco, to saying Donald Trump caused a grave counterintelligence threat to America's national security, to now, what? See no evil, hear no evil, do no evil. No, it's absolutely ridiculous. And it makes no sense in particular because this unequal justice argument elides the fact

that Trump wasn't charged with simply having these materials. He wasn't charged with simply taking them out of the White House. He was charged with doing all the things that, you know, leaving apart the differences between the kind of information that was in Hillary's emails and the kind of information that was in Trump's boxes, they simply, Trump was engaged in obstruction in a way that Hillary did not. And it's just a huge difference. And among many others. And the fact that Rubio can say these things just shows that he is completely unprincipled and shameless and getting worse, if anything. Well, you add the Speaker of the House to that. And again, you said Hillary didn't do it. You know who else said Hillary didn't do it? Don McGahn, Trump's White House legal counsel, Jeff Sessions, Trump's first attorney general,

the Trump administration, the Trump State Department. Again, again, I was very disappointed in the Trump administration and now apparently so too are a lot of Trumpers for the unequal application of the law. Here's on the Daily News. Hoard, conceal, obstruct, lie. Well, that just about sums it up. And the official paper of record for Morning Joe. Just for the record, unlike our counterparts, we actually covered the Hillary Clinton. A rain on his parade.

That's not bad. That's not bad. It's not bad. Rappy birthday. Today is Donald Trump's 77th birthday. Rappy birthday is like the best birthday. Yeah. Yeah. And you're right. We're very critical. We were very critical. Just ask our progressive followers every day on Twitter. We were very critical of Hillary Clinton during that time for things she should have done, things we didn't think she did do. So I guess, though, again, this is all, Willie, it's all one way, right? We report on both sides.

They report. Some of the more extreme people just report on, you know, what serves them well. They're for law and order unless it has to do with Donald Trump. Blind loyalty to Donald Trump has led Republicans to do some wild things. But now to be in a place where leading Republicans, where the Speaker of the House are saying, what are you going to do? You say two nuclear secrets and war planning with Iran. Stick him in a shower at your beach club.

It happens. What are you going to do? You can lock the bathroom door. And as Mika explained to poor dumb Kevin, yeah, you lock it from inside. Right. So maybe you're sitting in there, sitting in there and reading.

I'll tell you the other thing about the fact that none of them will defend him. It's kind of a real-time futures market about what they expect to happen in this case. Because the thing that they're all afraid of, you know, as well as anybody, what are you afraid of when you're an elected Republican is what are the ads going to be? What am I going to get tarred with later? You can't defend him, not just because it's indefensible, but you don't want to defend him

because you think there's a pretty good chance he's going to get convicted. And you don't want to be on record defending the obviously criminal behavior of someone who is likely to be, in fact, convicted. Let's talk about this because this is actually why I know people say, what's he thinking? Did he not sleep? But this is actually why I'm bringing all of this up, because there is such a weakness in their argument, not just legally, but also politically. I think you're going to start seeing more and more people peel off. Doing the Nikki Haley move.

Well, the Nikki Haley move, Tim Scott now peeled off. We'll get to that in a minute. You're getting a peel off one at a time because at the end of the day, they know this is their opening sort of flurry, right? What about Hillary? What about Hillary? What about boom? What about boom? I mean, at some point, they're going to get tired of getting punched in the face and then they're going to have to go. No, Moss. OK. Nuclear secrets still in them. Bad. Bad thing. That's where they're going to end up. And you see I think you may see one or two peel away every day. Well, what we saw yesterday was a lot of vintage Donald Trump where he went into his indictment in federal court in Miami and he had the 37 counts read to him.

He was slumped over, you know, punching his shoulders, folding his arms, grim faced. He was released without bond. They did not take away his passport. There's no travel restrictions. He was told not to have contact with witnesses in the case. And of course, his co-defendant, Mr. Nauda, was with him after working with him as he went to a Cuban restaurant and people there saying, I'm happy birthday. I guess there's some sort of connection he feels, he says, with the Cuban community. Not so sure about that, but continuing to desensitize the American public on the truth, he then spoke in the evening and kind of admitted again to what he did.

Take a look. Whatever documents the president decides to take with him, he has the right to do so. It's an absolute right. This is the law. I hadn't had a chance to go through all the boxes. It's a long, tedious job. It takes a long time. The other picture that was so vile, you remember that one? It was angry and corrupt. It was the photo staged by the FBI. And those that raided Mar-a-Lago, they were putting documents all over the floor.

Oh, my Lord. So now he's framed, Andrew Weissman. I know you want to talk about this, but also if you could talk about E. Jean Carroll and why that's important as well, because she also was holding him accountable. Also how he just, again, admitted. Again.

He admitted to it again. Again. I did it. You're charged with illegal possession and you give a speech where you say, this is why I possess them. Right. That is actually a confession,

not a defense. Can that be used in court? Absolutely. Those statements are admissible. Everything that's coming out of his mouth is admissible under the rules of evidence. Do you think anyone's told him that? Yeah, I do. I think even his counsel du jour has definitely told him that that's the penalty.

So you might be doing this for political reasons, but it's going to hurt you in terms of the court. Yeah. So two things happened yesterday outside of Miami, which were so interesting. One, Jack Smith is continuing his case in D.C., which two fake electors were going into the grand jury. I thought that was just fascinating that, you know, he's operating shows tenacity and speed. Right. Because you have Jack Smith in Miami, but his team is still going forward on the Jeremy Six case. And Lewis Kaplan, a very respected judge who oversaw the civil case by Eugene Carroll, made a really good, important ruling, which has allowed her to bring an amended civil case, which basically said, you have continued to defame me because, again, Donald Trump

continued to speak after the verdict in the civil case and basically saying, I need more punitive damages. You know what punitive damages are for? They're there to deter someone from continuing to defame her. So that could cost him? A fortune. So the first verdict had about $250,000. Good thing he's a millionaire, you know?

Yeah, exactly. Okay, that's amazing. George Conway, as you listen again to that speech, and that's about as much as we're going to play from that last night because he just made a speech full of lies, is a confession. And we've heard him do that at the CNN town hall where he said, I took what I took. And his only defense is that it was legal under the Presidential Records Act, which, as we've detailed maybe a thousand times on the show, is absolutely untrue. And he knows that it's not what the Presidential Records Act says. So where if you're on his legal team, sorry for that hypothetical for you. But if you were, where do you go with this case? Honestly, where do you go? What's the defense of this?

I don't know. I mean, I'd love to I'd love to be his lawyer, actually. I'd like to say, hey, you know, hire me. I'd get a I'd ask for a five million dollar retainer. And the first thing I'd tell him to do is I'd say plead out and then you fire me and I'd ask for a $5 million retainer. And the first thing I'd tell him to do is I'd say, plead out. And then you fire me, and I'd keep my $5 million. But I don't know what, I don't, there is no defense. He just, they have not articulated offense. And as you say, he's been, he is incriminating himself almost every day, every time he opens his mouth. And he's only just digging himself a bigger and bigger hole. On the E.G. Carroll thing,

I think it's very interesting. That case is actually probably going to go to another trial in the fall. And another thing that's interesting about it is that, remember, the case that was tried was the sexual assault case, but also it was a second defamation case.

Yeah, it was a second defamation case. Yeah, it is a second defamation case of the defamation from 2022. And she got three million dollars in damages for that defamation. The defamation in this other case isn't just what happened at the town hall a couple, a few weeks ago, but it's the original defamation in 2019 when he was president, he had the bully pulpit and nobody knew anything about Jean Carroll until, you know, he started lying about her. And so the damages from that case should be much, much greater, not even including the punitives that she'll be entitled to for the fact that he is continuing to lie about her. That damage should be much greater in that case. And it's also going to be another distraction for him in the fall while he should be looking. Exactly.

He's probably still going to be looking for counsel who can represent him in Florida. Right. Well, you know, George, I know you were you were joking about the doing a plea deal for him. But any any respectful attorney, I mean, any attorney that looked at the evidence would sit him down. Anybody would sit him down and say, listen, I know you think the judge is going to do your bidding just like you thought the Supreme Court justices were going to do your bidding. They're not. At the end of the day, she doesn't want to be humiliated again. You're going to face justice here. And if they get you even on one count, you're in prison for the rest of

your life, for the rest of your life. Let me talk to the prosecutor. Let's figure out a plea deal here. I know it's not perfect. I know you may have to back down, but you have one other choice, and that is going to jail for the rest of your life. I can strike that deal now. I can't do it six months from now. I can do it now, though. Any lawyer that I know that has half a brain would have that conversation with the client. Yeah. And it's not that hard. I mean, well, it is a hard conversation to have with Donald Trump. But the fact of the matter is, it's just all you have to do is look at what does what does the government need to prove to go 37 for 37 on this indictment? It is that he had the documents. Well, there is no. He he knew he had the documents. Check. He he he was asked for the documents back by the government. Check. He didn't give the documents back when he was asked for them.

And had they had to come to seize them? Check. And then he was moving them around to hide them. Check. And he lied. He caused people to lie to the government. There's one more. Which of these facts?

Right. Which of these facts is he going to dispute? And the answer is he can't dispute any of them. Well, the problem is they've got him on tape. Sure. But on intent, they've got him talking to his aides on everything. They have him. So so that's why I say he really needs to plea if he wants to stay out of jail for the rest of his life. And you two, civil country lawyer and non-civil, non-country lawyer, can check my logic on this. But I think you would have the prosecutor here.

A plea deal would obviously include Trump pleading guilty, right? And once he pleaded guilty, he could no longer be president of the United States again. And he would be taken out of that. I think that would be a political compromise, except for the far left. Many people think Trump should be in an orange jumpsuit and want to see him. And sure, yes, accountability is important. I think many people in the country would accept a plea deal that involved Trump pleading guilty to some felony charges, saying he would keep him out of prison and it would keep him out of the White House forever.

I think there'd be a pretty broad consensus in the Democratic part of the country. That was a deal people would live with. There'd be some letdown. OK, he's not going to jail, but he's never going to be back in the White House again. That would be a very quickly, broadly accepted deal by most of the country. I mean, Andrew, that's happened before with public officials, right? Where they play and say, here's the deal. You do the deal. You're not in. You can't you can't be in office, elected office again. So it's the latter. That's that's unusual.

Yeah. So there's no question that the right legal move is to plead if you want to avoid jail time. I mean, he unless something strange happens, he's getting convicted. This is an incredibly strong case. If you want to avoid jail, there's precedent for if he pleads, he can get a deal like General Petraeus had, where he avoided jail. The part about staying out of office is one which is more unusual. I mean, this is Spiro Agnew. So look, he could throw that. If he's trying to say, I'll go, I will do this. Is that the deal Agnew had? Yep, exactly. And Jonathan Lemire and Andrew Sh you should weigh in on this too. One thing that Trump and his legal team may be counting on is Judge Cannon, that he believes that she will be friendly to him. Maybe

she doesn't let some of the evidence in. Maybe she kicks the can down the road till after the election. I think that's the one thing. It's a hell of a legal strategy, but they're counting on the judge being favorable to them. Yeah, she's the real wild card here. And there's no doubt that she delivered a lot of favorable rulings early in this process or in the early stages of this investigation. Though, of course, as we've been noting on the show, an appeals court reversed a lot of that. And she was rather humiliated. So the question is, is she going to take those bullets again for him?

Some in the Trump circle that I talked to think that she will. They hope that she will. At minimum, they hope that there are procedural moves that can be done to really delay the start of this trial, to push it beyond the election, to get it passed. The gamble being that Trump could win and therefore be president and he can't be charged and could pardon. All the things they're trying to sort out. I mean, certainly no one I've talked to in the Trump world is talking about a plea deal right now. That's not their strategy he's going to fight. Of course, it remains, you know, the last card they could play if they do come to their senses about the facts of the case.

It's just been outlined by our lawyers here on the show. But right now, that's not their instinct. And certainly, we don't need to play more of it. But it was more whataboutism and bluster and fight last night from Trump at his speech in Bedminster, New Jersey after the arraignment. And now it'll be the ripple effects throughout the rest of the party. Twenty twenty four candidates, lawmakers like very few, at least so far, willing to stand up to him again. All the bluster, all the whataboutism that doesn't keep you out of jail. Right. And right now, I would say to my client, Andrew, and I would, I'd say to anybody that I cared for,

listen, right now, you have one thing going for you. Only one thing. You've got a crazy judge, right, who humiliated herself before the 11th Circuit. And maybe the feds, maybe the feds are thinking it may take them a year and a half to put you in jail for life instead of six months. This is your only window. The second she makes her first ruling and she goes with Jack Smith instead of you, people will understand

that this runaway judge is not going to be humiliated again by the 11th Circuit and you lose all negotiating power. Do that. I know he won't do this. I'm just saying with ninety nine point nine percent, ninety nine point nine percent of defendants who found themselves in this position, it's a deal to jump on in a second. Absolutely. So the thing that she, that Judge Cannon has to worry about is if she repeats what she did during the investigation and she issues another crazy ruling, this is the risk to her. She gets taken off the case by the circuit. So in the conversation with Donald Trump, it's like, look, if you are counting on another crazy ruling from her, you're going to lose her there. The government's going to appeal. And the risk is they say, you know what? It's going to be sent back to a different. Now, listen, normally.

Here's my question. Yeah. If I could just follow up on this and then I would love to hear what you have to say. Yeah. I have a question. Normally, Andrew, explain this would not happen. But first of all, this is the most high profile case they've ever had, first of all. And secondly, as we've said here before, the language in that 11th circuit, again, a very conservative Federalist Society infused circuit. But also, again, as I've said, knowing people I know there are nonsense. Be very scared of them. Right. They may be conservative, but they follow the rule of law and they're really tough about that. They accused her of undermining the foundational basis of our republic. They accused her of creating a special exception that would lay

waste to the American belief that no man is above the law. It was that they accused her of doing violence to the most basic notions of separation of powers. This was language that was not only intended to humiliate. This is like language and say, don't ever, ever think about doing this again. And true in this case. I mean, this isn't like I'm going to criticize you because in another case, you've done these terrible things, which by the way, it's humiliating enough. That's in this very case. That's what they said. And I thought to your point, saying that her ruling saying that because he's the former president, he's entitled to extra weight. Right.

I mean, they just went absolutely bonkers on saying that is not the rule of law. That's not what happens in this country. So the point is, John, that while they wouldn't normally take a judge off of a case for an errant ruling here or there. Sure. She's been so wide of the mark and seem to be so, so embarrassingly in the tank for Trump. But if there's another ruling like that, this would be well within the realm of possibilities of them saying, OK, to remove her enough. We're not going to give you a third strike. You're off the case. But that makes sense to me. This is my non-lawyers question to the lawyers, the assembled lawyers here. There are rulings. Judges make rulings. There are rulings and there are rulings. And some of the rulings they make are about things like the pace of the

case. How does how when when Trump's lawyers do what Jonathan just suggested, which I think we all understand is they're going to try to delay this as much as possible, try to get it past Election Day. And then in Trump's mind, he wins the election and then he can make the whole thing go away. Are the kinds of rulings where she could not be making substantive rulings, but really just about procedural rulings about the pace of the case? Could she make those kinds of rulings coming to his assistance, his aid tacitly. And those are not really overturnable because they're really about kind of the way that the pace of the case and the amount of the delaying tactics she accepts. Is that a concern? Yeah. No, the concern is that she does this dance where she does the sort of delay, but I'm going to try and do it

and couch it in language that's not reversible. But there are going to be motions that defense makes in front of her about prosecutorial misconduct, about striking evidence. In other words, it's going to be hard for her to hew to that line. I mean, she's going to be asked to do things where if she there's a really good chance she's going to just repeat the same kind of nonsense that she did the first time. That, I think, is the government's best chance for removing her from the case. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe. There is a lot. We're going to take a look at some of the latest reaction from Republicans on Capitol Hill following Donald Trump's arraignment yesterday in federal court, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's continued whataboutism. Plus, what 2024 White House hopeful Nikki Haley is now saying

about a possible pardon for the former president. Also ahead, Russia increases its missile and aerial strikes as Ukraine makes limited gains in an early counteroffensive. We'll have the very latest on the fighting overseas. You're watching Morning Joe. We will be right back. the crash years. There's no other show like it around here. Do the documents belong to Trump? Which documents? The documents that the classified documents. I can't tell you, but if they're classified, it should be back. And I don't believe the classified documents that President Biden has all the way back to the Senate. No,

they don't belong to him either. And I don't believe the classified documents that President Biden has all the way back to the Senate. No, they don't belong to him either. And I don't believe that Hillary Clinton, when she had the server and bought the new software to bleach it all, had the right to do that either. You know, extraordinarily dumb. I don't like to say that about anybody. But that is just extraordinarily stupid stuff to say on all accounts. But he knows that. I mean, he knows that's extraordinary.

This is a guy that, again, he sees classified documents. I guess I said he was third in line. I guess he's second in line. Yeah, Willie. He's second in line. And he's saying that he knows, first of all, the difference between Biden and Mike Pence. They called up. So we have some documents.

Come get them. And Donald Trump, who lied time and time again. Was subpoenaed, hid them, made it clear he understood what the process was to declassify a document, lied about that, continues to say what he did. And what was in there was quite damning and dangerous for the United States of America. And Alex, can you put up those quotes again about for Mike Kevin that we can read from Mike Kevin about Hillary Clinton and and what was said about Hillary Clinton? Because if he's if he's angry at anybody, he should be angry. Yeah, he can be angry at James Comey, which would be weird because James Comey gave the election basically to Hillary.

I mean, to gave the election to Donald Trump 10 days beforehand. But it was Donald Trump's DOJ that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton as well. They concluded there was no evidence. This is this is about the Hillary Clinton indictment. But they concluded there's no evidence of emails intentionally deleted by former Secretary Clinton's lawyers to conceal the presence of classified information on former Secretary Clinton server. That's the IG of the State Department. If anything, I was a state of justice, justice, justice. I'm sorry. Yeah, even better. If anything, there was, quote, evidence of a conscious effort to avoid sending classified information by writing around the most sensitive material Horowitz concluded. So what the inspector general of the Justice Department said after the Obama Justice Department decided not to prosecute and the Trump Justice Department decided not to prosecute is that unlike Donald Trump, who threw stuff in toilets, nuclear secrets here, bathrooms and ballrooms right by where they're playing poker and everything else. They said it. Unlike that. Hillary Clinton went out of her way not to discuss any classified

information on the emails, but none of that matters to a certain group of people. It's Mad Libs. It's bleached server,, Chappaqua, all the words. We're just giving the truth. Yeah, the truth will win out. Exactly. It will eventually. It will. And we've heard how many times we heard in the last few years that Republicans privately, and we hear it, are tired of Donald Trump. They'd love some opportunity to walk away from him. Here's a chance. If January 6th didn't do it for you, maybe taking nuclear secrets and war plans to your beach club would be an opportunity. And unfortunately for most Republicans, they haven't taken that chance. Joining us now with more reaction from the House congressional

reporter for The Hill, Michael Schnell. So, Michael, good to see you this morning. Speaker McCarthy set the tone there. What documents playing glib, pretending he doesn't know what the reporters are talking about and then going right to Hillary. Is that sort of the consensus view, at least publicly up on the Hill? The short answer when we're talking about House Republicans is yes. We have seen this argument from McCarthy trickle down to rank and file members, close allies of former President Trump, the majority of them saying that this is a weaponization of the Department of Justice, also calling on pointing to Hillary Clinton probes, pointing to the classified documents case that President

Biden is currently the subject of. Of course, though, as you guys have noted, there are significant differences between those two cases, specifically the obstruction portion. But listen, Kevin McCarthy has said that this is weaponization of the DOJ, and he's vowing to hold the department accountable. He said last week that he's spoken with Congressman Jim Jordan and James Comer. They are top chairmen of the House Judiciary Committee and House Oversight Committee about ways to hold this weaponization accountable. So I think it's very likely that we will see some action against the DOJ, against perhaps Jack Smith in the coming weeks.

But there's one interesting dynamic when you talk about congressional reaction to this indictment on Capitol Hill from Republicans. House Republicans have largely been defending the former president, running to his side. But that's not the case among the top Republicans in the Senate. We saw yesterday Mitch McConnell, Senate minority leader, would not comment on the indictment. He said that he's not going to comment on the presidential candidates in the Republican primary. And we saw two of his top deputies essentially say that these are serious allegations and it's not looking good for the former president. So in some House Republicans standing firmly by Kevin McCarthy, but interestingly enough, breaking with Senate GOP in terms of not defending President Trump.

So there's also Republicans in the House and also television hosts with their foghorns going on and on and on, not just about Hillary Clinton and not doing the proper follow up and talking about what we've talked about here, that there was follow up in the Trump White House. And they decided not to prosecute. Yeah. And they decided not to prosecute. But now the other sort of look at the bird, look at the bird is the Biden crime family. So what is the investigation there? What is the there there on that? Yeah, the Biden crime family investigation that has been a significant priority of Republicans on the House Oversight Committee. And they had a pretty significant development last week on Thursday, which was the day that former President Trump had announced that he had been indicted.

Members of the Oversight Committee had gained access to an FBI document known as an FD-1023 document that they said alleged a bribery scheme that President Biden was involved with. House Republicans had been, A, pushing for access to this document. And then once the chairman and ranking member of that panel received access, they further pushed for all members of the committee to retain to receive access. And when that happened on Thursday, members went to the the sensitive facility in the Capitol to view sensitive documentation. Hours later, former President Trump announced that he had been indicted. And we very quickly saw a number of those oversight Republicans and even others note that the day that they say that

they proved that President Biden was involved in a bribery scheme, these are still, though, I will note, unconfirmed allegations in the FD 2023 document. They are just information that has been retained from a source. They said that the same day that we exposed this and we received access to this was the same day that the DOJ indicted former President Trump. So, again, another way that Republicans are sort of saying that this is a weaponized DOJ and an institution that is politicized against Republicans. All right. Congressional reporter for The Hill, Michael Schnell. Thank you so much.

Again, it's all misinformation. It's all lying. It's all smoke and mirrors. George Conway last night, I just saw this again. I try not to talk about other networks, but when Fox News has a headline that says wannabe dictator speaks to the White House after having his political rival arrested, supported from It's reported from Oliver Darcy and other people. It sent that to me. When that happens, you see you see exactly why why the propaganda that they're pushing nonstop is having an impact on people whose whose worldview is just that. that ever tried to have their opponent arrested was Donald Trump two weeks before the election when he was yelling at Barr,

telling him to arrest Joe Biden and Joe Biden's family. But again, that's what's so bizarre about this. No chyrons like that went up there, but you go through a process where, again, nuclear secrets. They can't defend Donald Trump. Can't defend him. So they put up garbage like this. Yeah. I mean, you would think that Fox News would have seven hundred and eighty seven and a half million reasons not to do something like put that

chyron up. But are another two billion reasons. Yeah. No, exactly. I mean, that's true. They have got they're not out of the woods yet on that. It's just an amazing thing. It just shows you the sort of the feedback loop that we have between a public, a segment of the public that absolutely refuses to engage in any linear thought and refuses to engage with facts. Will not, you know, you could hand these people a copy of the indictment and tell them, hey, it's a good read. It's not very long. And they will just say, oh, it's just garbage without reading it. I mean, these congressmen like, I think, Speaker McCarthy, you know, were basically trashing the indictment before they had read a single word of it. And that's what Fox News is catering to there. It's just, you know, we just throw up these words, we throw up the word salad, we just, you know, refer to our enemies as our enemies and call

people communists and socialists the way Trump and Marxists, the way Trump is doing more and more, and just skip the idea that we have to learn about, you know, we live in an alternative reality and it's our alternative universe. And it's just it's just too much. Do you know what happens when you're in politics? Do you live in alternative reality? You lose in 2017. You lose in 2018. You lose in 2019.

You lose in 2020. You lose in 2021. You lose in 2022. You lose in 2023. And yes, wait for it. Wait for it. Wait for it. You lose in 2024. That's the thing. That's his get out of jail. This is so self-defeating. This is what I will never understand, Willie. It is so self-defeating. And this whole idea that you're going to punish DOJ,

that members of the Republican Party in the House are going to punish the DOJ for protecting America's nuclear secrets. That's a bad look. And you know what? I think there's about 13 or 14 Republicans who won in Biden districts that are not going to go back and try to win a reelection in those Biden districts by saying, yes, I'd punish the DOJ for protecting America's nuclear secrets. And this is so to the public, to the voting public, this is so clear, unlike some of the other cases that Donald Trump has mired in, maybe even a Manhattan indictment that you don't understand the details of. Here are pictures of boxes in the bathroom at Mar-a-Lago,

boxes of classified documents that are illegal for anyone, including a former president of the United States, to take home. By the way, with Manhattan, we were all saying, wait, what? Is this all you got? And that's all you got. We said it there. But here, nuclear secrets, toilets. Yeah, like it speaks for itself.

You don't have to be Andrew Weissman to understand that this is very bad. This is bad. And this is very bad. This is bad. And this is very illegal. Was he going to flush them? And that it carries jail time. I'm asking. So, Andrew, before we let you go, because you've been here, I think, for 72 straight hours, we're just wheeling you around to different sets.

Get the IV. Weekend at Andrew's. Where does this go now? Okay, Donald Trump has been arraigned. Here we are. We know who the judge is. It's Judge Cannon. What do the next few months look like? Well, I think all eyes actually should be on the

January 6th case. I think that's people are going to be looking at Fannie Willis, the Georgia January 6th case and Jack Smith's January 6th case. So, you know, Fannie Willis is imposed a sort of self-imposed deadline of some sometime in August that she will make a decision. I wouldn't be surprised if Jack Smith is operating under a similar deadline. Hence the reason we saw incredible tenacity yesterday where he is in court in Miami and his people are also in the grand jury in D.C. So that to me suggests he is definitely walking and chewing gum and doing his job. So I think that's sort of the key thing to look at. And then obviously Judge Cannon, as we've been talking about, is the wild card. And the one point I just make about to continue on the Hillary point

is every time I hear Hillary, I ask myself, why are you not saying the same thing about Mike Pence? So this is the Department of Justice that dismissed and said we are not going forward on Mike Pence. Is that weaponization? And then when they're saying she should have been prosecuted, are they saying Mike Pence should have been prosecuted? The reason they're not doing it with either of them is because there was no intent. There was no obstruction. That's not criminal. So every time you hear Hillary ask herself, why are they not saying the same thing? And again, and where we began, they talked about possibly indicting

Hillary in the Trump administration, a special counsel time and time again, they came back and said, no, no case. No, can't do it. No, nothing there. And so again, it's just, it's just, yeah. And her wife's table at this table is awesome because it's like, so like, there's so much logic and so many, like, just something kind of clear, right. And I tend to like do rational thinking that goes from here to that. This is completely divorced from the actual reality. It's like how I know Andrew's not a politics. He's like, well, if you're saying this, then you would have to say this is like, yes, that's a hundred percent correct. And in the political context, at least this has been played out. But I would recommend me. I mean, I would

suggest me that if you look at the election results since 2017, no dead serious. Yeah. People catastrophize. Yes. They say this is horrible. Can you believe what happened in Charlotte? America's not the same. We completely then we're going to hell how many times do i hear we're going to hell in a handbasket and then suddenly after charlotte uh you see charlottesville you see lines of women mainly standing in the rain for hours not moving to send a point in the virginia, to send a point in the Virginia governor's race in 2018, the same thing in 2019. You have Southern governors, Democrats in Louisiana and Kentucky that are elected in the reddest of red states because people are sending

a strong message about all the things that are happening with Donald Trump in 2020 the same, in 2021 the same. Look at Kansas. Look at Kentucky. Look at Wisconsin. Look at Kansas. On the extremism there. I'm telling you, this too, this too, I think faster than even those things, Willie, going to sink in. Because, again, Americans, maybe, you know, they're not following E. Jean Carroll.

They're not following the Manhattan thing. But you have somebody start screwing with America's nuclear secrets, to start screwing with war plans against Iran, start screwing against our most sensitive secrets and being reckless about it. I was talking about the 0.01%. I think we're getting to the 5% there. Yeah, this is very, very easy to understand. It's right in front of your eyes.

And as you always say, the margins are so thin on these. Is there an independent voter watching this play out and going, you know, I tilt toward Donald Trump on stealing nuclear secrets? Yeah. All right. Andrew Weissman, George Conway, thank you both very much for being on this morning. We really appreciate it. And coming up on Morning Joe, a Republican senator and Trump

ally is threatening to block Justice Department nominees in retaliation for the former president's federal indictment. Plus, Mike Pence addresses the allegations against his former running mate. We'll show you what he had to say moments after Trump's arraignment. That's all straight ahead on Morning Joe. I judge my world at night. To a place in the past we've been passed out of. A few minutes before the top of the hour, an update now on the war in Ukraine. Russian forces launched cruise missiles toward the port city of Odessa overnight, damaging homes, a warehouse and several small businesses. Searchers have been looking for possible survivors under the rubble.

Russia also struck an area of southern Ukraine yesterday that was retaken by Ukrainian forces earlier in the week. A spokesman for Ukraine says one of the towns was reduced to ruins. The New York Times reports Ukraine has made progress in at least two different locations throughout southern Ukraine in recent days, but has yet to totally breach the Russian defense. Reuters is reporting that it has independently verified Ukraine's capture of another town in the Donetsk region. Meanwhile, President Biden met with NATO's secretary general at the White House yesterday. It comes as NATO is holding the largest air deployment exercise in its history in Germany. The drills began on Monday and will run until June 23rd. The two leaders discussed the war in Europe and Finland's admission into the alliance.

And a read front page of The New York Times. Cormac McCarthy passed away yesterday. The formidable and reclusive writer who who wrote All the Pretty Horses, of course, The Road and and so many other classics. No Country for Old Men, of course, the one for old men. But, you know, you I mean, The Road, I remember being particularly moved by it. Just incredible writing, a kind of combination of, I mean, a singular voice, an enormous figure in American, modern American literature, and a guy whose all of his work, like, hangs together. This dark, stark, almost apocalyptic kind of vision anchored to this really profound moral sense and like that and that the morality in that that kind of shines through and all these very dark visions in his pieces uh is what made him uh something more than just a great wordsmith

but a really important artist in american life all right