Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/15/23

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Trump rejected settlement plan in docs case proposed by attorney: WaPo

So, as you know, I can't talk about particulars of this or any other ongoing criminal matter. As I said when I appointed Mr. Smith, I did so because it underscores the Justice Department's commitment to both independence and accountability. Mr. Smith is a veteran career prosecutor. He has assembled a group of experienced and talented prosecutors and agents who share his commitment to integrity and rule of law. Any questions about this matter will have to be answered by their filings in court. Attorney General Merrick Garland with some brief words yesterday for the first time since Donald Trump's federal indictment. Is it just me or Willie? Are we starting to see again, not a complete breaking of ice, but

sort of more thawing of ice. Mike Pence, day one. This is horrible. Mike Pence, not day two. It's bad, but I'm going to pardon him. Day three. Too early to talk about pardons. Because, you know, the news came out, and I'm sure Mike Pence saw on Drudge, the New Jersey nightmare. The possibility, Andrew Weissman talking about the worst crimes possibly committed were actually in Bedminster. And so that shoe still may drop because that's disseminating. So everybody else may be freaked out about a judge that only has 14 days experience who, again, humiliated herself for Donald Trump.

I don't think Jack Smith's too disseminating. I don't think he's that worried because he still has the most serious charges possibly in the New Jersey federal court. Yeah. Andrew Weissman is going to join us in just a little while to talk us through this. But that is the idea that's out there that possibly maybe because of concerns about Judge Cannon, this could go to New Jersey, where, as you say, a lot of this stuff took place in Bedminster at Donald Trump's club up there. But you're right. Mike Pence yesterday, he said, it's too early to prejudge. I'm not talking about. He was pressed.

He's like, I'm not talking about pardons. I'm not talking about anything else. Donald Trump gets his day in court. And he went on to say, just like Joe Biden's family, maybe he gets their day in court. In other words, don't prejudge things. We heard that from Merrick Garland. It's almost it's become so disoriented in the last eight years or so. This is what it's supposed to be like, where the attorney general says this is not political.

I appointed a special counsel and he's handling it. And by the way, Rep, is that asking too much? Is that asking too much to just say Donald Trump's innocent until proven guilty? He'll get his day in court. Let's see what happens. Joe Hunter Biden, innocent until proven guilty. He'll get to stay in court. Let's see what happens. Joe Hunter Biden, innocent until proven guilty. Let's see what happens. Let's let all this play out in court. Absolutely. That's the correct way you would think that they would try and proceed. And given the gravity of the charges, if you're running for president, you don't minimize it. We're talking about espionage. We're talking about secrets that could have jeopardized the security of the country and members of the military.

So the way they first came out of the gate on this showed anything less, a lot less than what you would expect. A one that wants to be the command in chief of the country. And now I think they're throwing back because I think it is very clear that another shoe may drop in New Jersey. And I think they don't want it to drop on their head. No, no, no. The birthday boy. So also with us this morning, the host of way too early White House peer chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire and former White House press secretary, now an MSNBC host. Jen Psaki is with us and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance. She's an MSNBC legal analyst and congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post. Jackie Alimany joins us as well. And Jackie, what a report. I can't. This one, this one actually, it tells you

everything you need to know about former President Donald Trump. I mean, you know, the jig is just never up. It's never up. Really, really. You should have listened to Kenny Rogers. Yeah. You got to know when to hold them. Nope. No one to walk away. No one to run. Right. Yeah. All right, Jackie. And you're also I'm going to start singing in the Washington Post. It reveals one of former President Trump's new attorneys proposed last fall that Trump's team could try to negotiate a settlement with the Justice Department in the classified documents case. But the paper reports Trump was having none of it. Attorney Christopher Kyes reportedly wanted to quietly approach DOJ to see if he could arrange a settlement that would avoid charges and include the return of all documents. But the former president was not interested in listening to the plan. So Kyes never approached prosecutors. That's according to three people briefed on the

matter. They say Trump instead took the advice of Tom Fitton, the head of the conservative group Judicial Watch, and others who told him he could legally keep the documents and should fight the DOJ. Not good. This is Jackie. This is, Donald Trump and his boxes that he doesn't want anyone else to have. Is it possible the DOJ would have considered such a deal? That is a very good question, Mika, even though this was a brainstorm from Christopher Keis, the attorney who appeared with Donald Trump earlier this week, who was shortly sidelined after this proposal was made and after he sort of felt out some players about potentially reaching out to the Department of Justice.

But it seems unlikely that the Justice Department would have agreed to even issue—coming to some sort of agreement with Trump's team, especially even in that time period. They already knew that the president, the former president, was in possession of classified materials that were highly classified, top secret and contained things regarding nuclear codes and again, highly sensitive, top secret documents related to the military. But as we report, the former president was never interested in taking a deal. He's always claimed that these were his papers, that all of the boxes contained newspaper clippings, just papers that he had picked up along the way. Obviously, we've seen that not to be true as over 100 classified documents

ultimately were outstanding when the Justice Department executed their search warrant. But the former president does continue to seem to take Tom Fitton's advice. He was at a dinner with Trump this week, the night before his arraignment. They had stakes at BLT Prime at the Doral Miami on Monday night. We did speak with Fitton for this piece, who did not really confirm or deny that he provided the former president with legal advice, but did say that he does speak with Trump quite often and does provide him with advice, generally speaking, and referenced this Clinton socks case, a 2009 reference to these tapes that Taylor Branch had of Bill Clinton that really have nothing to do with classified documents.

Yeah, you know, you know, Willie, and again, this is a thing where Donald Trump has spent the last 50 years sort of playing the tabloid game, pushing off the New York Post, Daily News, all this other stuff, insulting opponents, insulting Rosie O'Donnell. And so and it's all been a swirl for him. He always stays like five minutes ahead of the creditors, five minutes ahead of the judges. But again, there's no better evidence that he doesn't well i think maybe he does now but he didn't understand what he was stepping into what arena he was stepping into right this is a gladiator without you know a really good gladiator with i mean he's he's in the ring. And this is, again, literally his life, possibly behind bars. And he's talking to some Yahoo who, again, people in the fevered swamps love listening to him.

But he's talking to this guy for advice about, like, is Tom Fenton going to stay in jail with him for the rest of his life if he gets charged? No. He's going to be, you know, typing and going on to the next sucker. That's what I just again. His options, you look at Jersey, his options are running out. I mean, it seems to me a plea deal for him is if they'll even play with him at this point, if the judge Mandor will even play with him at this point. I don't think he will. It's always been a game to Donald Trump, as you say, for 40 years. It's been a game. Who's up? Who's down? Oh, I got the. I mean, we've lived through it where he goes after you and then he sees you somewhere, pats you on the back. I was tough on you. You were tough on me. And that's it.

Jack Smith doesn't take the pat on the back. No, this is deadly serious. And this could be a prison sentence for Donald Trump. Joe mentioned the new piece from Andrew Weissman and Ryan Goodman, legal analysts and frequent guests on our show, explains how former President Trump could potentially face additional charges in the classified documents case in New Jersey. They describe in The Atlantic how Trump took classified records from Mar-a-Lago to Bedminster, New Jersey, where he showed some of the contents to other people. Andrew and Ryan write, quote, The legal uncertainties that surround bringing charges in Florida for dissemination of national

security secrets in Bedminster leaves open the possibility that charges might be brought in New Jersey, a backup plan of sorts for Smith. If Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge assigned to the case, were to seek to pocket veto the charges before her by, say, scheduling the trial for after the 2024 presidential election, the special counsel would be able to sidestep her tactic by proceeding with charges in New Jersey. In fact, the Miami indictment conspicuously excludes many facts surrounding Trump's actions in Bedminster. What boxes were taken there? What they contained? How they were kept at the golf club? The Ami indictment conspicuously excludes many facts surrounding Trump's actions in Bedminster.

What boxes were taken there? What they contained? How they were kept at the golf club? The silence suggests there might be more to come from the famously hard charging Smith and his team of prosecutors who put together an otherwise highly detailed 49 page indictment. Joyce Vance, a new twist here put forward by Andrew Weissman and Ryan Goodman. What do you make of that idea? Well, 10 days ago, we weren't really talking about an indictment in Florida. That makes it clear to us that Jack Smith is very capable of staying quite quiet about what his next plans are. And something that struck many of us the minute we read this indictment was that they seemed to walk right up to the precipice with these Bedminster allegations. There are two instances where the former president appears to have shown classified material to other people. It's not entirely clear that he actually had the documents with him.

And so there are some factual sort of needles that would need to be threaded here. But it was very interesting that they didn't do anything additional with those allegations. And that's led to speculation that there could be an additional case brewing in New Jersey. Lots of procedural issues to be resolved. If there are two cases like that, there might be some possibility that the former president could try to consolidate them and face trial only in Florida. But this is a very intriguing sort of piece that Ryan has written along with Andrew. And it suggests that DOJ is not out of moves here. Yeah. And Jen Psaki, we've heard from the very beginning from all sides that the prosecutor never shows everything up front, that they're going to have more. And here we have the possibility of a New Jersey nightmare for Trump,

possibly the most serious charges being moved far away from Florida. Again, we didn't even know 10 days ago he was going to bring something in Florida. But again, he's he seems to me he's got quite a few options. Yeah, I mean, it's such an important reminder, Joe, that we only know a sliver, right? Even with all of this excellent reporting that's been going on around these different cases and the potential for indictments for months, even years now, we only know a sliver and the Department of Justice, the special counsel on his team, they know much more. So that's why this is such an interesting thing to watch. One of the other things that Andrew Weissman said in one of his many, many appearances this week that I thought was fascinating is that

when Trump spoke the other night after his arraignment, he essentially, again, kind of admitted to everything he has done, right? He essentially confessed in those remarks. That is also potentially admissible in court. As he goes out there in campaigns and he's admitting to, I took the documents, he's not saying he didn't. He's saying he was allowed to. That is also information that Jack Smith and his team continues to look at. Interesting because it's happening in a week where in the E. Jean Carroll case, a judge ruled that because of what he said at the CNN town hall, that could be, you know, that's admissible in court.

So all of this is fascinating to watch. Who knows what Jack Smith, all of the documents and files he has and his team has, and we probably will not know for a while. Yeah, I mean, you look at all of the legal challenges, Jonathan, we are coming at him. I know right wing Trump snowflakes get very triggered when you start talking about walls closing. And but you look at all of the things that are coming toward Donald Trump. I don't know if they would call this like Sunday in the park.

I don't know. But most people would feel a bit constrained when you have, again, all of these counts against you in Florida. One of those counts puts you in jail for life. You've got the possibility of even more serious charges being brought in federal court in New York. You've got a judge saying that he can now be hit for punitive damages. Also, in the E. Jean Carroll case, going for more defamation. And chances are good that if if a jury finds for E. Jean Carroll, it'll be expensive. I mean, it's going to be very expensive this time on punitive charges the second time around. You've got Georgia that's still coming up. You've got the Georgia prosecutor saying she is not going to be delayed by anything that the feds are doing.

And that's coming up most likely within the month. So his legal dance card going to be extraordinarily full. Yeah, we can add potentially January 6th to that as well. It is an overwhelming amount, one that would just be crushing for any individual, particularly one who's also trying to launch a presidential campaign. And the toll this is going to take on him and his team is extraordinary and just now beginning. And Joe, you and I have talked about how they were pretty rattled a few weeks ago when they realized that this was coming, the indictment was coming on the documents case. They felt like the

day itself, this typical Trump bravado, right? Like he showed up at the Cuban restaurant. He gave his defiant speech in New Jersey. They raised a lot of money and they did, at least so far. I know we'll talk about later. The polling suggests this hasn't really dented his support among GOP voters just yet. But this is yet another shoe to drop. And I will say, last night and this morning, texting a few people in Trump's orbit about this idea about New Jersey, dead silence. And that has not been the case of them earlier this week. So

this is something that seems like it's potentially taking them surprised, too, were Jack Smith deciding to go down this road. But it is an extraordinary amount, and it is only escalating for the former president. We've been watching President Trump, you know, with people and his speech at Bedminster and going to the restaurant, the Cuban restaurant and people singing and praying with him. He's maintained his usual bravado in public. You know, the people that know him. Yeah, I've heard it. And I know Rebs talked about this and we'll talk about it some more after the story.

But people that know him know he's whistling past the graveyard. Yeah, this is like this is This is a guy who's scared. I see something different. Yeah. He's really scared, and he should be. You'd be dumb not to be scared out of your mind. One of his former White House chiefs of staff says that behind the scenes, the former president is terrified about his legal situation.

In an interview with The Washington Post, John Kelly used an expletive to describe just how scared his ex-boss is. We don't like to swear on this show, but I'm going to put it in quotes. He said, quote. No, no, no. If Aristotle says it, OK. Aristotle does not say it. He did say it.

Do you want me to quote it again? No, I really. Now you're just. For me, please don't. OK. John Kelly said he's scared. Shitless. But I won't say that. He said't. Okay. John Kelly said he's scared. Shitless. But I won't say that.

He said it. You're in trouble. He said it. Good luck today. I will not have that. I'm a journalist. No, you're not. I've got to report what's in the news.

I will not have that. So, excuse me, please. He added that Trump, quote, gives the appearance that he doesn't care by doing things like visiting a restaurant immediately after being charged on Tuesday. That opinion was backed up by another former White House staffer, press secretary Stephanie Grisham, who told The Post, quote, it's part public relations, part babysitting. He wants people to see the cheering crowds so they don't think anything is wrong. I think that has been Trump's play every step of the way. He also lies about sort of the adulation he gets. You remember when

he was inaugurated, he immediately had this issue about crowd size. I mean, he really needs the feedback. And when the feedback isn't there, he pretends it's there. If his crowd is small, he has the cameras come in to make it look bigger, make 50 people look like 500 people by bringing the cameras in. Everybody knows how that's possible when you're shooting events with audiences and stuff. You can have

a certain amount of people in there. He has small crowds often. He needs, though, the adulation. You look at the Miami crowd. He was telling people, come to Miami. It was like, you know. That was like a smattering of people. A couple of hound dogs.

People in costumes. That was it. Some people in costumes. Some people. It was thin. Thought that it was a Miami Dolphins, you know. And now the mayor of Miami. Summer event.

A beat tour. Yeah. Exactly. And another play there, going to a restaurant. They were going to get a picture and everything. So it looks crowded. But, you know, you almost got a sense in Manhattan and down here that he was expecting some, like, January 6th crowd to turn out.

It just didn't turn out. No. People don't want to get arrested. Yeah, because they saw how that turned out. Go to jail. Put your feet up on a desk, go to jail for five years. No, thank you. But, you know, again, you know, you know, Donald, like we've known Donald for a long time. Pre-president, it is a lot of bravado. He plays the strong man that's always to that degree, that's always to shield insecurities. And and so now here he is. I think the general, who obviously knows him very well, too, has a read on the guy. He's he's and rightly I mean, he's scared out of his mind,

rightly, because, again, one charge sends him to jail for life. I think that those of us that have dealt with him, known him pro and con, knows the general is dead right here. Here's a guy who's used to manipulating, maneuvering, knows who to call to get around certain corners. There's no one to call now. And he's sitting there with no options, but having to face this. And he's never been in that position. Now, we're talking about federal charges. And for his defense to be that I had the right, which is absolutely against the law, he's asking a jury to overturn the law, which the jury can't do. The jury is going to have to say this is the law. This is how they'll be charged. And he's already admitted that this is what I did, which breaks the law.

How do you get around that? Yeah. And then for you, you know, I lead marches and protests to call a protest and predict the masses are coming and 50 people show up, one clown in a prison uniform is enough to make you go to a Cuban restaurant and order whatever the hottest drink is in the joint. I still want to know who paid the bill, Willie. That's not definitely because it wasn't Trump. By the way, John Kelly's quote to The Washington Post finishes this way, which is a point we've made many times for the first time in his life. Talking about Donald Trump. It looks like he's being held accountable up until this point. It's like I'm not going to pay you. Take me to court. He's never been held accountable before. And now he's meeting his match. And also, like January 6th, the close circle of aides and confidants that surround former President Trump could be his biggest weakness in this documents case. The New York Times points out, quote, with Trump under federal indictment and with people who currently are used to work for him seen as potential prosecution witnesses, the pressure

on those around him has only increased. Times continues, as was the case with the House Select Committee's investigation last year into Trump's efforts to retain power after his election loss. Much of the evidence in the documents inquiry has come from people in Trump's inner circle, underscoring the costs and limits of loyalty to him. Chief among the possible witnesses mentioned in the indictment is Molly Michael, Trump's former assistant, who worked for him in the White House

and then went on to work at Mar-a-Lago. That's according to two people familiar with the matter. She is known as Trump Employee 2 in the indictment and told prosecutors Trump himself had packed and looked through the boxes, contrary to what Trump's lawyers claim. So Jackie Alimany, the name Cassidy Hutchinson springs to mind. Most people in America had never heard of her until last summer when she went and testified and kind of blew open the entire story of what happened on January 6th. And it makes it difficult for others to call this a witch hunt. People were racing to Trump's defense when the hunt is coming from inside the house.

Yeah. And it's not just Molly Michael. I mean, there are obviously a number of other figures that could potentially testify here. And yes, Molly Michael did have a firsthand view. We've known really for over a year now that she was intimately involved with a lot of the logistics around these boxes, though, a handful of individuals who have cooperated with the investigation, and one of whom is actually a target and a co-conspirator and co-defendant, Walt Nada, who are still in Trump's employ. And Trump has been — and the rest of his staff have been rallying around Nada in hopes that he does not turn on the former president, as obviously, just like Mali, he, too, has a lot of information that was detailed in that 49-page indictment.

But there is a reason why Judge Goodman asked that Trump not speak with the witnesses in the case going forward, which is something that any good defense attorney would recommend that their client do. Of course, there was a special condition granted on Tuesday, since these are the people that his lawyer, Todd Blanch, argued keep the president's life moving. But it was a pretty surreal scene and sort of a split screen, Molly versus Walt Nada, to see Walt accompanying the president all throughout the week and sort of toggling between the co-conspirator and Trump's body man. Yeah, it's amazing.

That was the guy's life is on the line, like literally on the line as far as, you know, whether he's going to be spending time in federal jail for a very long time for, you know, extraordinary documents. I mean, remove this from Donald Trump. If this were not Donald Trump, if this were not the figure that we've been following for eight years, you know, Trump, there'd be no doubt Trump and his aide would be going to jail for for decades, for absolute decades. And I suspect that's where this could end up if they don't strike a deal at the end. But, Joyce, fans, here's one more example. And I certainly hope, I think people like Cassidy Hutchinson figured it out in time, but I hope people figure it out in time that we're close to Trump,

that this is not like going on a podcast and lying for Donald Trump. This is not like, you know, writing talking points to own the libs for Donald Trump. They have stepped into an arena where their their freedom is on the line and they're playing with people who don't play. I mean, let's let's let's show that picture if we have a T.J. of of Jack Smith on the drudge shot. And look at this guy. He is a consummate professional. And it's just again, they may think it's still a game and they can talk to Tom Fenton. These are serious charges. And they can go on podcasts, but he looks like a nice guy. Actually, no, he doesn't. He looks up. They're not playing around. And I wonder if maybe because they got Mueller when Mueller was slowing down and it was easier to run circles around Mueller.

I wonder if maybe they made a mistake with Jack Smith by underestimating him. You know, Jack Smith is playing for keeps. He was the head of DOJ's public integrity section for many years. And in a role like that, you both learn from the cases that are successes and you learn from the cases that are problem cases and you evolve with those experiences and you come out the strong prosecutor that we see here. Smith is no doubt playing for keeps. And that may come as a surprise because Donald Trump really, when you look at his trajectory in court, he has to be the luckiest litigant of all time, up to and including the draw of Judge Eileen Cannon for the case in Florida.

But DOJ has something more important that it rests its practices on here. It will look to precedent and it will look at how previous cases have been handled. And to your point, Joe, that no one walks away at this point. The statutory maximum charges here are very long. The sort of time in prison anyone who ends up as a defendant is looking at is serious. In practice, DOJ has sometimes offered more lenient sentences in order to protect the nation's secrets. That's the difficult balancing act that prosecutors have to engage in here. But let me tell you, no one walks away without jail time once they've had a federal search warrant executed and top secret classified material is recovered.

And there's an interesting case involving a low level military employee in Hawaii. She takes a posting in the in the Pacific, a transfer posting, and at some point she removes documents that are secret and that are confidential, not top secret, takes them back to her hotel room where she keeps them in an unsecured fashion and happens to have a dinner party where a couple of foreign nationals are present. And it goes on from there. She transports those materials. She doesn't put them in a classified pouch, takes them back to her office. It's not clear that she has any badwill here. It's not clear that any of those documents leaked. This is a relatively low level person. And she is prosecuted in the district of

Hawaii and ends up being sentenced to three months in prison last year. That sentence may not sound particularly impressive. What is impressive is the certainty, the swiftness of punishment in that case. DOJ takes these matters very seriously. Top secret information is information that if it's released to unfortunate hands would do serious damage, grave damage to national security. That's what's driving this whole case. Yeah. I mean, there's a political circus, obviously, around this from from Trump Republicans and Trump supporters.

Were this anybody else, this would be an open and shut case and they would just be talking about a plea deal. By the way, to your point, Forbes reporting that Mar-a-Lago sought 380 foreign workers during the time that Trump had access to classified documents and they were just lying around Mar-a-Lago. They sought 380. To Joyce's point, you have to just wonder there have been lots of different ways in which process hasn't been followed here. He didn't have to turn over his passport. He didn't do a mugshot. And the amount of time that they have given him compared to the case that Joyce just put out there and others, it's worrisome when you think about what was revealed. I mean, I think we all were shocked when we actually read the indictment and saw what Donald Trump had taken for himself. Yeah.

Thinking they were his, saying they were his, knowing that they weren't and knowing that there was a process and seeing what happens to others in similar cases, but much lower down on the totem pole when it comes to the classification of the documents even. My God. I mean, this this they have done. They have rolled out the red carpet for him. And he has still held firm. I guarantee you there are stolen documents. There are a lot of people, perhaps maybe even the woman that Joyce is talking about. A lot of people have been charged in the past.

And they're wondering why why they gave Donald Trump special treatment. This is like a year. Will you please return your documents? Please. We're going to be patient. We will be visiting you to come get them. Please return. And he kept lying to them.

And he calls it a raid. No, again, they gave him special treatment and he was too stupid, too stupid when they opened the door to walk through it. Former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance, thank you. And The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany, thank you both very much for being on this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe, the judge handling Trump's classified documents, Aileen Cannon. The case is coming under new scrutiny for having little criminal trial experience. We're going to bring in one of the reporters on that piece. Plus, new polling showing Donald Trump's support among Republicans is standing strong,

despite his mounting legal troubles. We're breaking down those new numbers. Also ahead, first it was Trump, then Ron DeSantis. And now another Florida man may be throwing in his hat for the 2024 race for the White House. And House conservatives renew a battle over benefits for seniors. Some members of the party are looking to raise the retirement age to collect Social Security. They're talking about privatizing Medicare. There you go. You're watching Morning Joe.

We'll be right back. Smart move. Know when to run. You never count your money. you go well you're watching morning joe we'll be right back when the deal is done you got to know when to hold them, when you fold up. When you fold up. So we were talking. Pretty shot of the White House. We were talking, obviously, about Donald Trump and the problems he has. Republicans are going to get hurt by trying to defend him. That's a smart movement.

Then we were talking about how Republicans are talking about Social Security. Yeah, they want to raise it. Raising the age, like 175 or whatever. What else? Privatizing Medicare. They want guns. Lots of them. A lot of guns, a lot of guns with no gun safety legislation, even legislation that 90 percent of Americans support.

They want that. This is a winning platform. At least they have the abortion issue going for them, right? No. Nearly a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a new poll shows a record number of Americans support legalizing early term abortions. In the latest Gallup survey, 69 percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in the first three months of a pregnancy. That is up two percent from the previous high of 67 percent, which was set last May after the

Dobbs decision was leaked. And it's not just Democrats who say abortion should be legal in the first trimester. Seventy four percent of independents, 47 percent of Republicans also agree. Nearly nearly 50 percent of Republicans. And Jen, this is a question that a lot of people from the Wall Street Journal editorial page to Ann Coulter keep asking Republicans. Like, when are you going to get like get get like straight on on abortion? You know, look at Kansas. Look at Kentucky. Look at what happened in Wisconsin. These states are Republicans should be winning. They're getting crushed in now on the issue of abortion. And, you know, in that Wisconsin case, they kept an 1849 law, a total ban on abortion on the books.

It's it's again, it's just it's just political malpractice. I mean, it turns out women don't like their rights being taken away. Go figure. So that's what we're seeing here. But, you know, I think, Joe, what is interesting in terms of the politics of abortion is what's happening in the Republican primary. Right. You have a number of these candidates who can't quite figure out where they are, where they want to be. Don't want many of them don't want to commit to an abortion ban. They haven't they're unwilling to give the number of weeks. And for a long time, as you well know, the issue of abortion and where you were on the issue of choice was pretty uniform.

Right. In the Republican Party and what you would say, say, in a platform or on a campaign event that has changed. So the Republican primary debates about this and where candidates are, whether it's Scott or Haley or others, is an indication of how the politics of this country and where the public is are impacting political leaders and how they're running for office. And you have Ron DeSantis, who is viewed, Jonathan Lemire, as the perhaps the alternative to Donald Trump, should everything with his legal troubles go sideways here, who not long ago signed into law a six week abortion ban, which may serve him well in a primary potentially. But boy, that's serve him well in a primary potentially, but boy, that's trouble in a general election.

Yeah, it sure seems that way. Poll after poll after poll suggests just how unpopular these super restrictive abortion bans are. And Democrats, look, they point to it as one of, of course, the most definitive, deciding, important issues of the 2022 midterms. And they don't see that changing for 2024. With so many states taking on new abortion legislation, with so much energy around the issue,

and obviously so many women really unhappy about where the Republicans landed, that's going to be something that's going to potentially tip the scales again. And we talk a lot about the show, about those independent swing voters who are going to decide next year's election, those of which Trump is already struggling. Republicans already struggling. The abortion issue certainly could be the defining one for suburban women to send them back to the Democrats for another cycle. And this is what you don't really see in a lot of Biden polling. You just don't really see people going, oh, you know, I'm just not excited. This guy's too old. Come on. I'm not not not excited.

And then you get close. It's like 2022. And then you get closer and closer to the election. There's going to be a red wave. There's going to be a red wave. Everybody's saying then people go in and vote. And they're like, hold on a second. These people are making 10 year old babies, 10 year old girls flee their states after being raped.

They're talking about having the state force 14-year-old girls to have a state-sanctioned forced pregnancy, forced birth, if their uncle rapes them. And suddenly, they're not quite so concerned about Joe Biden'siden's energy levels they're like all right well things are getting done i can't turn it over to these kooks no they want 10 year old girls who were raped to have to flee their states and who want to privatize medicare and increase the age of social security and and support a guy who steals nuclear secrets. No question about it. And I think that's what even some of the allies, Wall Street Journal editorial board and others are saying, wait a minute here, you are going to wake up people that would just normally stay in a snooze level and go along with you. And that's what's happening. When you look at what they're doing with abortion and ignoring all of the data, they're saying, according to polling, that it's the other way.

When you look at the fact that you're dealing with the economy, you just talked about inflation and your runner up, if if Donald Trump is toppled, is a guy that picks on the biggest employer in his state and gets in a fight with Mickey Mouse that would cost jobs. People are going to start saying, wait a minute, from the economy to abortion, even if I offensively don't want to go with the Democrats and Biden, I must defensively go with them because I've got to protect my daughter and I've got to protect my economic standing. So I think by offensive defense, it puts Biden Harris in a very good position. So coming up with signs of easing inflation,

the Fed halts its streak of 10 straight rate hikes. Well, you know what that means, right? And what does it mean? Somebody's gone over to the big board. Oh, yes. Ratner wall, we call it. The big wall. It's the wall. Okay. But the pause might only be temporary. Steve Ratner joins us with charts. Look at the kids. Next on Morning Joe. Wow.

Beautiful shot of the Capitol as we are 46 past the hour. Welcome back to Morning Joe. A new report reveals conservatives in the House are looking to cut who's eligible for social security benefits. Bloomberg reports the 176 member House Republican study committee has proposed raising the retirement age to collect social Security to 69. The current retirement age for full benefits is 66 and rising gradually to 67. Bloomberg points out the same group abandoned a proposal from last year that would have increased the Medicare retirement age, but they're now seeking to further privatize the program. For the first time in more than a year, the Federal Reserve voted to skip raising interest rates at its most recent meeting.

The central bank is pressing pause to see whether the stiff rate hikes already imposed can get inflation down to the Fed's 2 percent target. Joining us now with charts, it is supposed to be Steve Ratner. OK, you need to come back. You know, the thing is, I was going to have Steve do this, but I remembered that I took Econ 101 at the University of Alabama. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. And even though I was reading Sports Illustrated in the last row in the class, and I think

if I remember, I got a C minus in the class. I do remember. Yeah. I don't know if you remember this, Mika. Yeah. I did. I did debate on the Charlie Rose show. That was nuts. A do remember. Yeah. I don't know if you remember this, Mika. Yeah, I did. I did debate on the Charlie Rose show. That was not a Nobel Prize winning economist. And I've never seen

you sweat more before. And he said, I won the debate. Right. Yeah. But here's the thing. I think I want it more on style than substance, because I remember when Krugman started talking about quantitative easing and how that would help the economy, Charlie asked me what I thought. And I said, water slides are fun. So the Fed pauses a hike. Oh, no. First thing you're going to see, this is a red line. I got to this red squiggly line, first of all, because red, you know, it pulls us in. It attracts even it gets me focused. And I'm now going to turn it over to Steve Rettner. He's going to do the rest of this. Out. Joe, you're doing so great.

I'd love you to finish up for me. Steve, we actually want to know what's going on, please. Your ass, too. Let's talk about the Fed. Oh, my God. Just get your chair over here. You know, it's fine. I'm going to get you. Paul Krugman, Joe.

It's time to sit. This will wake up the kids. Come on, kids. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Steve. You can go, baby. Where are we going? Steve, let Thank you. Thank you. All right, Steve. Oh, God. You can go, baby.

Where are we going? Steve, let's start with your first chart. Oh, Steve, the first one. Fed pauses the hype, signals more what? Well, you see, there's a lot of red squiggles, there's blue squiggles, there's more blue squiggles, and I don't know. Oh, yeah, right. Okay.

Anyway, so the Fed increased interest rates, 10th consecutive meeting that it's done that. I don't think it ever did that before. And you can see the pace of increases compared to all the other previous tightening cycles for the last 40 years. This has been the steepest, the fastest, because we obviously know that we have an inflation problem. We have to deal with it. So what did the Fed also say yesterday? As you said, Mikan, you used both the words skip and pause. And it was interesting because Jay Powell also used the word skip. And then he corrected himself and said pause

because he didn't want to commit himself to another interest rate increase. But in fact, the Fed did raise its projections for interest rates for this year from 5 percent to 5.5 percent at the end of the year, implying two more increases this year. And that's because the Fed also said yesterday the economy has been a two more increases this year. And that's because the Fed also said yesterday the economy has been a bit stronger than we thought. They raised their forecast for economic growth to one percent this year. Not a huge number, but a positive number. And they raised their unemployment rate, lowered their unemployment rate and slightly raised their inflation rate. And then going out, you can see they raised their interest rate forecast for the rest of the year.

This is the market. The market is slightly more optimistic than the Fed. It thinks the rate will actually end the year at 5% and then continue to decline from there. So that's the outlook for interest rates at the moment. So, Steve, let's talk about what's been happening. It has been easing. But again, everybody extraordinarily cautious, even you with your chart. And Willie, what did you call that wall? That's the green monster

of cable news yes it's an iconic wall yes exactly you know we seriously the next time he comes i'm serious you can pitch or i can pitch but before he comes out we got to play some wiffle ball so uh even on your spin away uh even on the Monster, you talk about it's slowly easing. Nobody's ready to say inflation's over, are they? Nobody's ready to say that. But by the way, I think this has to be the biggest wall in the business, right? Nobody else has a wall. No, you've got it.

It's all yours. You own it. My friends at CNBC must be very, very jealous. But anyway, so yeah, look, inflation is the key to this, obviously. The Fed does not want to raise rates more than it has to, and it's watching inflation very carefully. We did have some decent news on inflation a couple of days ago, which showed inflation continuing to come down. This is what we call headline, the overall inflation rate. And you can see we went up the mountain, and we're coming back down the mountain.

And that's really good news. We're all the way back to where we were in the early part of 2021. And so that's the positive side. What the Fed likes to look at is something called core services, meaning the real heart of the economy. When you take out food, you take out energy, you take out a lot of stuff that moves around. What is the core doing? And that's because it's driven by labor costs, which we'll get to. And core of the news isn't quite as good. It's a little bit squigglier. We went up, we've come down, but we're sitting here at above 4 percent. And that is obviously a good ways away from the Fed's 2 percent target. And so the Fed still has a fair amount of work to do. Well, you know, and obviously this economy has just been extraordinarily resilient, especially when it comes to jobs, when it comes to wages.

What's that looking like? What's your third chart tell us? That's really the point, Joe. The economy really has motored on in a way that I don't think many of us expected it would continue to do. And so what the Fed is watching really and what is going to drive this inflation are really two things. One is going to be wages, as we talked about. Look, normally we want wages to go up. We obviously want workers to earn more. We want them to have better lives. But if it creates inflation, it's counterproductive because then their purchasing power goes away. So wages were sitting back down here through most of 2015 and so on at a very appropriate level for 2% inflation. But then, of course, during COVID, post-COVID, with the employment surge, with all the spending

and with the inflation, wage rates jumped up to over 5.5%. They've started to come down, but they're still above 5%. And they really need to get back down here in order for us to have that 2% inflation that the Fed is so targeted on. The other thing that's been keeping inflation reasonably high is companies pricing. Companies in this kind of a strong economy have a lot of pricing power. They're able to pass these costs through, which also contributes to prices. And so you see what's happened to corporate profits. Corporate profits took off post the pandemic. Interestingly enough, three trillion dollars of corporate profits. Even if you adjust for inflation, corporate profits are still

bouncing around a kind of record level. And because of, again, the strength of the economy, companies have the ability to pass the cost through. And that also helps keep the inflation rate down. So we need to see a bit more competition on the pricing side. All right. And, you know, Steve, it's very interesting. You said talk twice about a strong economy. And obviously, Republicans are talking about how weak the economy is. You look at the direction of the country, you look at consumer confidence, and it's more of a muddled picture. And yet the most recent poll I saw where Americans were asked, are you are you doing better than you were a year ago? And do you think you're doing well financially? About 75 percent of Americans say yes. So there seems to be a disconnect between

what Americans are feeling and what we're seeing in some of these other numbers. Yeah, I think the disconnect a bit, Joe, is that, as we talked about, I think it was last week, Americans do feel pretty good about their own situation today. They still do, by a substantial, I think, majority, say they're better off than they were a year ago. But when you ask them about the future, they start to get pessimistic. They are worried about the future, and they are not as optimistic about that. And, of course, that's also because the Fed still has work to do, and the notion of a recession is not out of the future. And they are not as optimistic about that. And of course, that's also because the Fed still has work to do. And the notion of a recession is not out of the picture. But as we sit here today, the economy motors on producing three hundred and sixty five thousand jobs last month,

unemployment rate of three point seven percent, still still the best economy in the developed world. Now, it's crazy. Steve Ratner, thank you so much. Thank you, Steve. I mean, obviously, the insights are unbelievable. And as Steve said himself, nobody has a bigger wall. OK, not even at CNBC. Not even at CNBC. Oh, that's it. So what? What?

Can I speak? Yeah, no, you're just saying Steve is a great over the shoulder shot. Steve Ratner, good cinematography. There you go. Jen Psaki, thanks for being on. Bye, Steve. Yeah, no. You've just seen Steve. It's just a great over-the-shoulder shot of Steve Rathard. It's good cinematography. There he goes. Look at this. Jen Psaki, thanks for being on. Thank you, Steve. Bye, Steve.

We're going to be reading your new piece for MSNBC.com entitled, Trump Wants to Turn His Indictment into Reality TV. And that could backfire. Give us a sense of what you're talking about here. Well, I think, Mika, we've all seen Trump's aggressive PR strategy. And as a number of guests have said this morning, that's how he's been kind of rolling through his life. That doesn't work in a courtroom. And we've seen that, that what he says publicly could be admissible in court. But there's also kind of a contrast here, Mika, between what he's doing and what the Biden team is doing. And you making the assumption that Trump dominating

all the oxygen means he's going to win didn't play out in 2020. So the Biden team is betting against that as well or betting for that as well. So I talk about that all in the piece. All right, Jen Psaki, thank you very much.