Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/20/23

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Trump defends keeping classified documents

Jeff understands that the job of attorney general is to serve and protect the people of the United States. And that is exactly what he will do and do better than anybody else can. Jeff Sessions was a disaster as attorney general, should have never been attorney general, is not qualified. He's not mentally qualified to be attorney general. We hope Bill Barr is going to be as good as we think because Bill is a good, he's a great gentleman, a great man. And by the way, when Bill Barr, who's, you know, a coward, Bill Barr was a coward. Bill Barr didn't do what he was supposed to do. I fired him and he has great hatred. In his new role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Milley will serve as my top military advisor. I have absolute confidence that he will fulfill his duty with the same

brilliance and fortitude he has shown throughout his long and very distinguished career. Milley, frankly, was incompetent. The last one I'd want to attack with as my leader would be Milley. John Kelly will do a fantastic job. General Kelly has been a star, done an incredible job thus far, respected by everybody. A great, great American. I know John Kelly. He was with me, didn't do a good job, had no temperament. And ultimately he was petered out. He got he was exhausted. This man was totally exhausted. He wasn't even able to function. I am confident that Jay has the wisdom and leadership to guide our economy through any challenges that our great economy may face. And, you know, I had my own situation with Powell and I beat the hell out of him. I was not a big fan of Powell.

I was wrecked. He was recommended by some people. I didn't like him. A brief look back at Donald Trump claiming to have hired the best people only to trash them after they left his administration. It's something he was pressed on last night in a wide ranging and contentious interview with Fox News, during which the former president offered new and at times incoherent reasons for why he kept classified materials at Mar-a-Lago. Incoherent, according to Fox News analysts. It was an incredible interview with Brett Meyer. An incoherent response.

Also ahead, we'll go live to Beijing for the latest on the U.S.-China relations following Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Plus, rescuers in the Atlantic are racing against time in the search for a submersible, a mini submarine that went missing while diving to the wreckage of the Titanic. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, June 20th. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early and White House Peer Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department's Elise Jordan. The president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass. And Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post and MSNBC political analyst Eugene Robinson. Gene, we can't just let those quotes go by.

I mean, here you have Donald Trump saying of Jeff Sessions that he's better than anybody else, better equipped, better qualified. After he got a hold of him, Trump said he's never cut out for the job. And he said the same thing about Barr, that he's going to do a great job. And then he said he was a coward. Milley, I love this. He had absolute confidence in Milley. And he talked about how through his career, his brilliance was recognized by everybody, including Trump. So before he went to work for Donald Trump, there was unanimous unanimous consent. The General Milley was brilliant. And Trump talked about his brilliance. Suddenly, after working for Donald Trump for a few short years, he became incompetent.

Kelly, General Kelly, a star respected by everyone. But after he worked for Donald Trump for a year, year and a half, he was barely able to function. What does he do? I mean, here is again, here is a guy and I guess you do wonder this almost cult like following of Donald Trump. You wonder why people can't see the obvious. And here's Chris Christie, who, by the way, said, hey, Joe, going to help you out yesterday on Twitter. He said, you know, and he went through a list. But on Mark Milley before he's a great gentleman, a great patriot, a great soldier after a blanking idiot. Yeah. Pathetic. And yeah.

And here's Powell on Jerome Powell before he's strong, he's committed and he's smart. After he asks of Jay Powell, who's our bigger enemy? Jay Powell or Chairman Xi? Oh, my. So Donald Trump appoints somebody to the Fed that he believes is a bigger enemy to the United States of America than the head of communist China. Yeah. Again, who would vote for a man like that? Well, right. Two things from that series of clips. First, you watch them, and it just struck me.

Like, this guy was president of the United States. Amazing. I mean, how in the world did that happen, that this awful person became president of the United States? Unbelievable. And the second thing is, what do all of those officials that he turned on have in common? They all told him no. At various points, they all reached a point where, no, I'm not going to do that. We're not going to do that. You can't push me into doing that. And as a result, he, you know, he savages them and attacks them and they're idiots and they're stupid. But who was surprised? This is what Donald Trump has done

his entire life. This is who he is. And, you know, we we had him for four years as president. Let us please not do that again. It's just stunning. I mean, there's so many there's so many good, good examples of that. His terrible judgment are actually his terrible leadership. I mean, you look at General Milley, he goes from saying that he's just the best. He's the Samples of that. His terrible judgment are actually his terrible leadership. I mean, you look at General Milley. He goes from saying that he's just the best. He's the best since George Patton. And then at the end, the most overrated general ever of Rex Tillerson talks about his brilliance. And he ends up calling him an idiot. We could go on and on and on. But, you know, Jonathan LeMire, what's so interesting is last night we're going to show some clips from an interview that even Fox News analysts said Trump was incoherent in. And we're going to show that interview. But he says, well, yeah, but you know,

but for every one of those people who happen to be the leaders, the people that run, he said, there are 10 people who loved me, who said I was great and we did all of these wonderful things. And by the way, he's sounding like a leftist. He goes, look what we did to the economy. Look like, you know, Donald Trump now actually believes that it's not business owners, small business owners, entrepreneurs, creators, inventors who build the economy. He thinks he builds the economy. Yeah. You know, why? Why doesn't he go to Turkey or China to talk like that? That's not how things work here in the United States. And conservatives used to think that way. But think about at the very end on January the 6th, he claims everybody was around him. No, everybody abandoned him. Most of the competent people had

left the White House, as you know, because you wrote the book on January 6th. His family members had abandoned him because he was so crazy. His his bar had left, checked out stop the riots, stop the riots. All the testimony against Donald Trump in all of these cases are from Trump employees. So him saying that, oh, there are 10 people who love me for everyone. No, everybody around him either hated him, thought he was a traitor or thought his actions on January the 6th were unforgivable. Yeah, the interview last night, incoherent and as we'll get into, maybe incriminating from from Donald Trump. But it's a great point on January 6th. By the end, he was isolated and alone. People

forget there was a major covid outbreak in the West Wing a few weeks before then. So a lot of the senior staff who hadn't already resigned, at minimum, they were working from home. They weren't there because people had gotten sick or they were quarantining. So it was really Trump and chief of staff Mark Meadows was there. Ivanka Trump still in the building. Only a few others. And Trump holed up in the private study he has off of the Oval Office. There's like a dining room there where he had set up a bank of televisions and loved to show off the super TiVo to his guests, which was probably his proudest thing he had while in office. And that's where he watched the riots on January 6th.

That's where he rewound the footage so he could watch again some of the more violent moments. This is according to people who witnessed some of this and seemed to be cheering on the supporters. And he certainly didn't lift a finger to stop them until he was finally persuaded to do so by his aides. But this is loyalty for Donald Trump is a one-way street. He demands it. He doesn't give it in return. We saw him, as you just detailed, flip flop on all those senior staffers, all those cabinet members. And that's why, in part, so many of them are so happy to testify against him right now. The people who are closest to him see it. The 10 people who claim to love him. Well, they're probably the same people who have tears in their eyes and call him, sir, every time they see him backstage. So this interview was even more than incoherent and possibly incriminating.

You could really see a difference here. When he sat down with Brett Beyer, one-on-one, the lights on him actually being held to account on his questions, as opposed to the town hall that he did earlier where he had the audience with him and he did his shtick and he felt like he had a command of the situation. You see something different here in his face and in his eyes as well, because this interview did not go well for him. Donald Trump doing what most criminal defense attorneys would advise their client against doing, speaking publicly about the charges against them. In an interview on Fox News, the former president defended himself in the classified documents case. And in one of his

claims, Trump cited a New York Times article insisting the only way the National Archives and Records Administration could get the documents back from him would have been to essentially beg for them. It is unclear to which specific article he's referring to. Take a look. I have every right to have those boxes. This is purely a Presidential Records Act. This is not a criminal thing. In fact, the New York Times, of all, had a story just the other day that the only way NARA could ever get this stuff, this back,

would be, please, please, please, could we have it back? And they asked for it. Because they have no... They did ask for it. No. And they said, can you give the documents back? And we were talking. And then they said they went to DOJ to subpoena you to get them back.

Which they've never done before. Why not just hand them over then? Because I had boxes. I want to go through the boxes and get all my personal things out. I don't want to hand that over to Nara yet. And I was very busy, as you've sort of seen. Yeah. But according to the indictment, you then tell this aide to move to other locations after telling your lawyers to say you'd fully complied with the subpoena when you hadn't. But before I send boxes over, I have to take all of my things out. These boxes were interspersed with all sorts of things.

Golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes. There were many things. I would say much, much more. Not that I know of, but not that I know of. But everything was declassified. According to the indictment, you were here at Bedminster on July 21st, 2021, after you're no longer president. And you were recorded saying that you had a document detailing a plan of attack on another country that was prepared by the U.S. military for you when you

were president. The Iran attack plan. You remember that? Ready? You were recorded in a document. I had lots of paper. I had copies of newspaper articles. I had copies of magazines. This is specifically a quote. You're quoting on the recording saying the document was secret, adding that you could have declassified it while you were president. But, quote, now I can't. You know this is still secret, highly confidential. And the indictment cites the recording and the testimony from people in the room saying you showed it to people there that day.

So you say on this tape that you can't declassify it, so why have it? When I said that I couldn't declassify it now, that's because I wasn't president. I never made any bones about that. When I'm not president, I can't declassify it. And that's what you said. You didn't declassify it. I said no, no. I said I couldn't declassify it.

But that wasn't a document. Brett, there was no document. That was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about Iran and other things. And it may have been held up or may not. But that was not a document. I didn't have a document per se. There was nothing to declassify. These were newspaper stories, magazine stories and articles. You know, first of all, all, let's be very clear. The transcript of what Donald Trump said to an aide was I have this document, basically, and I could have declassified it when I was president, but I can't declassify it now. So that's a shame that I can't. So he's not talking about newspaper articles.

He just kept bouncing back and forth. And later he equivocated on that, just like he did in the defamation trial. And by the way, he had golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes. Really? And then Brett Baier, to his credit, goes, Iran war plans. Because Trump would say, I don't know if you picked that up, but he goes, I had golf shirts, clothing, pants, shoes, and breath. It was. Brett interrupts and goes, Iran war plans?

Yeah. Yeah. It was a good interview with Brett Bear. So to just put that into perspective, Trump bounced between defenses there, sometimes saying the documents had been declassified, sometimes saying there were no documents at all. Maybe there were some. He also went from saying, yeah, they're not and that he couldn't declassify them, admitting he can't declassify documents when he's not president. He said government officials could have asked for the documents back, which they did since May of 2021. And Trump said he was too busy to separate

the classified material from his golf shirts while allegedly ordering a staffer to move boxes to other locations. After the interview aired, Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume said Trump's defense would not hold up in a court of law. Watch. His answers on the matters of the law seem to me to be, to Burge on, incoherent. He seemed to be saying that the documents were really his and that he didn't give them back when he was requested to do so and when they were subpoenaed because, you know, he wasn't ready to because he hadn't sorted them

and separated the classified information or whatever from his golf shirts or whatever he was saying. It was not altogether clear what he was saying. But he seemed to believe that the documents were his, that he had declassified them, evidence to the contrary. And and and therefore he you know, he could do whatever he wanted with them, which I don't think it's going to hold up in court. Yeah, none of that's going to hold up in court. And Brits's absolutely right. Elise, it was incoherent and I must say incoherent, incriminating and stupid.

And I say that by saying Donald Trump actually wants people to believe that in his transcript, he's looking at a document telling an aide, I can't declassify this now. I could have declassified it when I was president of the United States, but I can't now. And then later in the interview, why? Why in 2022? He lost the election in 2020. In 2022, why did he hide the documents because he had golf shirts, clothing, pants and shoes inside cases with nuclear, nuclear information, war plans against Iran and some of America's greatest vulnerabilities all in there with Moralago golf shirts. Packing up my trunk in Afghanistan one time, I just these documents from the skiff just found their way in with all of my ruby clothing. And, you know, just casually, you know, it happens all the time. This is beyond bizarre. I think we're just hammering in on all these eyes here. Incompetent, just completely irrational and out of touch with reality, but also just plain idiotic. I mean, this is gotten to the point of he's talking in circles.

I don't know why he's talking. First of all, he has no reason to be going out and doing these interviews and incriminating himself. But the whole episode is just so idiotic because it could have all been avoided. He got a pass. He was said he was told you can give these documents back, yet he wouldn't do it. And so he's trying to go up against Biden and create this narrative that Biden is out of it. He's old and that he's incompetent when what is he doing with his own counter narrative? Yeah. And, you know, Richard, The Washington Post broke a story about, again, what we've been saying all along, the great irony when, you know, Trumpers say, oh, there there's this double standard from the Justice Department. As The Washington Post showed yesterday in their investigation. There is a double standard.

And there's one standard that every government official is held to who would immediately be, you know, arrested. And then there's a standard that they held Donald Trump to drag their feet for over a year. And the FBI dragging their feet, not even wanting to get these documents on nuclear secrets, not even wanting to go in to see all the boxes that he had. And Donald Trump saying, oh, well, it's just worse for me. This has never happened before. And of course, it never happened before, because, again, he lost in 2020. In 2021, he's still lying. In 2022, he's still lying about having some of the most sensitive secrets an ex-president could have. Look, Joe, I think you're being a little bit unfair here. All of us who've been late to tee off, you know, we're rushing to the golf course. You grab a shirt, you grab a war plan. It's hard. I just think you really got to put this in perspective. And by the way, just just of all people would know this. But, you know, Richard, this is really I mean, this is important that you are talking about this and making light of it because you actually handled America's most closely held secrets. You understand to a much greater degree than I understand,

but I understand other people who've served in the government, whether in the White House or the Armed Services Committee or the Intel Committee, understand. Like Marco Rubio, for instance, understands better than anybody that this was a grave, grave lack of judgment, which is criminal. Some would say it's a criminal act, actually. Let me just say, Richard, would be criminal for anybody else who did this. Well, that's the point. What you see here is the Justice Department, the FBI, and everyone essentially went the extra mile and then the extra mile went the extra mile and then

the extra mile after the extra mile not to bring charges to basically say, look, I know, know everyone. I know that everyone's equal under the law, but we're also realists here. You're the former president of the United States who knows what you're going to be doing again. Please give the documents back because we don't want to do something that's going to open us up to charges of being politicized or weaponizing justice. And essentially what Donald Trump didn't do was let them, they basically gave him all this rope and he wouldn't use it. So either he's really, really, really, really sabotaging himself, whatever word you want to use there, or he decided that this would be useful politically. But they went out of their way not to press charges at a pace that he could have arguably said he was too busy. Come on. Here was a guy. I don't know how many rounds he's played,

Joe, since he was president. But my guess is he could have squeezed in a little bit of time for a document search. So something doesn't add up here. Right. And everybody around him says he knew what were in those boxes. They call them his beautiful mind boxes that he was he was obsessed with them. He knew what was in the boxes. And again, he held those boxes. It just I know people understand this. I just want to say for the supporters of Donald Trump that are watching this show and you're out there. Any member of Congress from Ted Cruz to Bernie Sanders that got briefed and took three documents, not all of these boxes, not thousands, but took three classified documents, would get a call the next day from the FBI or that show up in their offices. It would be immediate. I was talking to a CIA analyst over the weekend who said if he mishandled one document, even though he was a career CIA guy, he would lose his job that day. Might not get arrested for one, but they would be there knocking on his door the next day.

They give Trump years, year and a half, and he keeps ignoring them. And now he keeps going on TV. Why don't we bring in Barbara McQuaid? She's, of course, former U.S. attorney. Barbara, we've sort of summarized Donald Trump's interview with Brett Baier last night as incoherent, incriminating and idiotic on so many levels. Talk about how he keeps putting himself one step closer to jail every time he does one of these rambling interviews. Yeah. You know, any lawyer would tell him to just stop talking about this matter, but he can't help himself. I think he thinks that by getting out there, he can just explain it all away. But this interview did a very good job of pinning him down because I think one of the things he admitted to is that he kept them even after he knew he needed to return them because he needed

time to review them. When he was asked about why he moved them around, he essentially admitted to obstruction of justice and said the reason he did it was that he needed to go through them. I mean, imagine if you got, you know, tax day comes and goes and you said you didn't fire taxes because you're very busy. It just doesn't fly under the law. These are our nation's most sensitive secrets. It's like holding nuclear material. Every second you have it, you're exposing people to risk.

There is a risk that these could end up in the wrong hands. And so every day that goes by puts our nation at risk. So I think that this evidence, this recording is very likely to be played before a jury at trial. Yeah. So, Barbara, let's just press a little further there. What stood out to you last night in terms of what could be, frankly, admissible at a trial? It almost feels like Trump borderline confessing to what he's being charged with. Like how devastating is this potentially for his defense? I think it's very powerful evidence because I think the hardest thing to prove in most cases,

but especially a case like this, is willfulness. For most crimes, ignorance of the law is no defense. But for certain crimes, including mishandling classified information, there's an additional level of willfulness that is proving that what you did was illegal and that you knew it was illegal. And so that little clip where Donald Trump explains about his understanding of he can no longer declassify documents after he leaves the White House says that he understands what

it means to handle classified documents. He knows that these are regulated by certain laws. And so for him to say at trial, if there were to be some defense that the government has failed to prove the requisite intent, they'll just play this tape. And I think a jury will find beyond a reasonable doubt that he absolutely knew what he was doing was illegal. So and Gene, the government has Trump coming and going on this issue as far as intent goes and as far as knowledge of the law, because, yes, they have him on tape saying, you know, as a former president, I can't declassify this material. I can't declassify this document have had somebody that had briefed him. And they have more evidence from more staff members that Donald Trump knew exactly what was required to declassify a document.

And unlike what he said on Sean Hannity and what he said on other shows, he can't just wish it in his mind and make it go away. The classification document. Yeah, he knew that. I mean, it seems to me that hell for a defense lawyer is a place where you have Donald Trump as a client for all eternity, right? Because he goes on television with Brett Baier and repeatedly incriminates himself on count after count after count. And so my question to Barbara Quaid is, what do you do? Say you're one of his defense lawyers, and you've watched that interview, which you surely advised him not to give, and he gave it anyhow.

And you listened to what he said and how he basically confessed to a series of crimes. What do you do? How do you try to repair that damage? And is it time to talk to your client about some sort of plea arrangement? Well, number one, you consider resigning, I suppose, because you have a client who won't listen to you, which is every lawyer's nightmare. I think maybe you dissected for him and explained to him in very gory detail exactly how harmful that was. These are the elements of the offense. This is what the government will have to prove at trial. When you say these things, this is evidence that they will play in court.

Perhaps that is one way. You know, a guilty plea, Eugene, is so interesting here. I think any normal defendant, any normal lawyer would absolutely be talking about a plea. But I can't imagine the government is going to agree to the kind of conditions that Donald Trump would want in exchange. They're going to want prison time because anybody else would get prison time. Or they're going to want, which the Justice Department permits, an agreement not to seek higher office. He's just not going to agree to those kinds of things. But maybe as we get closer to the date and he realizes that serious prison time is at stake, those things may look a little more attractive than they do now.

Don't know how he couldn't realize that right now. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuaid. Thank you very much. Also, her podcast. I love it. Come on. Come on. It's amazing. Still ahead on Morning Joe, NBC's Janice McEfrayer joins us live from Beijing following her interview

with Anthony Blinken amid the first trip to China by a U.S. secretary of state in five years. Plus, we'll dig into a new report of a failed plot by the Kremlin to kill an informant for the U.S. government who was living in Florida. Also ahead, Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu is our guest. He's here to talk about his new bill to regulate artificial intelligence. And coming up, we have some more disturbing footage from Donald Trump's interview with Brett Baird on Fox News talking about foreign policy. We'll have that after the break. What do you make of the Biden administration policy to Saudi Arabia?

I think it's terrible. We've lost Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, they're friends of mine. They're great people. The crown prince and the king, I got along with them incredibly good. They would do anything. They are great, great people. The crown prince and the king, I got along with them incredibly good. They would do anything. They are great, great people. I will follow. Welcome back.

34 past the hour. Five people are missing 13,000 feet under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. A 21-foot submersible named Titan lost contact while exploring the Titanic wreckage early Sunday morning. Now, the U.S. Coast Guard in Boston is spearheading the search 900 miles east of Cape Cod. Among the missing is British billionaire Hamish Harding, who flew to space on one of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin rockets last year. Harding holds several Guinness World Records, including the longest time spent in the deepest part of the ocean on a single dive. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the group has about three days worth of oxygen. What a terrible, terrible story. We have more now from former President Trump's interview last night on Fox News. He was asked

about some big international affairs items, and he seemed to focus his answers on how much he says he's liked by certain foreign leaders. What do you make of the Biden administration policy to Saudi Arabia? I think it's terrible. We've lost Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, they're friends of mine. They're great people. The crown prince and the king, I got along with them incredibly well. They would do anything.

They are great, great people. With Putin, I have a very good relationship. I mean, I haven't spoken to him in a long while, but I had a very strong relationship with Putin. But was he wrong to invade Ukraine? He wouldn't have done it if it were me. But it was the wrong move. He did that after I left. I thought he might do it.

Look, I talked to him. I said, if you do it, there's going to be hell to pay. It's going to be a catastrophe. Don't do it. He said, no, no, no, you won't do that. I told him I was going to do something. He said, no, no, no, you will not do that. I said, I will, Vladimir, I will do it. I'm going to do it. He said, no, no, no, you won't do that. I told him I was going to do something. He said, no, no, no, you will not do that. I said, I will, Vladimir, I will do it.

I'm going to do it. But you believe Ukraine is a separate country from Russia? Yeah, it's a separate country, but at one point it wasn't a separate country. Should Putin have Crimea? And Putin liked it that way better. Is that part of the deal? Should Putin get Crimea? Is that what you—

Well, right now, I don't talk about those deals because it really would impede a negotiation. I would have a deal done in 24 hours from the time we started. Well, I mean, of course, his deal would be to hand Ukraine over to Russia. But Richard Haass, the stupidity, the lunacy here is really frightening. Again, we have to keep reminding ourselves this guy was once commander in chief of the United States of America. And it's very funny. Let's start with the Saudis. They're friends of mine. They're great, great people. They would do anything. I mean, yeah, they would give two billion dollars to family members. And also, if you remember when he was running for president, he said he loved the Saudis because they spent hundreds of millions of dollars on his toys. And I just I just want to say I'm making no

connections, but I think investigators and others would be fools not to at least ask these questions. Who would be the most interested? Who would have the greatest need, other than the United States, to have U.S. intelligence, highly classified intelligence, on war plans against Iran? Who more than Saudi Arabia on the entire planet? That would certainly be worth exploring, shall we say. But can I say that the degree of personalization or narcissism, it's almost like it's a different school of foreign policy, usually of debates between realists and idealists or whatever. This is an entirely different school. And whether it was with the leader of North Korea,

the love letters, or President Xi of China, or Vladimir Putin, or the king and crown prince of Saudi Arabia, the idea that personal relationships and his relationship would somehow deliver these countries to us. On his watch with Saudi Arabia, the Iranians attacked Saudi Arabia. The United States did nothing despite his great personal relationship, which is one of the reasons the Saudis grew so alienated. Saudis were doing what they were doing in Yemen, despite us telling them not to. Now, I'm not saying it's going to work, Joe, but the United States and Saudi Arabia are actually negotiating potentially a really intimate relationship where we would offer certain types of security assurances and they would move towards peace with Israel. So it's not as though we've, quote unquote, lost

Saudi Arabia. And the stuff about Russia and Ukraine is in the preposterous department. The idea that he could just pick up the phone and deliver Vladimir Putin in peace within 24 hours is just this side are preposterous. Well, and suggesting that the Ukrainians would somehow stop fighting after being attacked, invaded is also insanity. What he would do is, of course, what he wanted to do the first time, and that is blow to pieces the NATO alliance. And so the Europeans would continue helping. Others would continue helping. And Donald Trump would would have the United States go it alone and do everything he could.

Everything he could to to to allow Vladimir Putin to have. What did he said? Putin liked it that way better when Ukraine was part of Russia. Let's just Richard, I want to talk to you about his closest allies, the people he loves the most, the people he says he loves the most and the leaders that he says love him the most. It's never from any Democratic country. As you said, it used to be President Xi. He said so many positive things about President Xi, including early on in the pandemic that America, on behalf of America, he thanks him because he's being so transparent on COVID. But Vladimir Putin, of course, his love for Vladimir Putin. You know, we we saw it here in December of 2015 and in a heated exchange with him, his love for the North Korean tyrant, one of the one of

the most bloodthirsty tyrants on the globe, Saudi Arabia. They're they're very they're great, great people. Let me tell you something. There are Americans, including myself, who believe that we have to have a relationship with Saudi Arabia. But that doesn't mean we call those who chopped up a Washington Post reporter in a thousand pieces and murdered him because they didn't like what he was saying. We don't call them great, great people. And yet, what is it about Donald Trump that it sees authoritarians that he most closely identifies with and that he loves and who he claims loves them? Well, I guess I have two reactions to that. One is I think your question was more rhetorical than that. Obviously, there's almost a certain sympathy or empathy with the authoritarian leaders.

Donald Trump, as we've seen, has authoritarian tendencies himself. Indeed, if he were reelected, I think there's a real question about how illiberal American democracy would be common. That's a serious issue. The other thing, Joe, I'd actually cut him some slack if, and it's a big if, which he never met, he actually could have delivered. It would have been one thing if all those love letters with the leader of North Korea resulted in any, any constraints on North Korea's nuclear or missile programs. But they did not. Or with China, or with Russia, or with Saudi Arabia. If in any case, he showed that his personal relationships could actually influence their behavior in a way

that was more constructive and more consistent with American interests. The problem with Mr. Trump's foreign policy is it failed to do that. You had all the personalization without any results. So again, to me, it was, it just didn't, it just didn't, the bottom line is it didn't produce. So at least he is offering a bit of a preview of what a second term foreign policy would look like. And certainly the war in Ukraine is not going to end in 24 hours, but it does seem like he would dramatically cut, entirely cut USA to Ukraine. He very well may blow up NATO. He would side with authoritarians around the globe.

And that's why it's interviews like this is why Vladimir Putin looks at the battle of war in Ukraine saying this hasn't gone anywhere near like I thought it would. But if I stay the course, if I try to run out the clock, I might get a friend back in the White House. Well, 24 hours he's going to negotiate with Vladimir Putin and he had four years and couldn't build a wall. This just comes back to something

that Mika and Joe were saying the other day. The only thing that explains Donald Trump in basically every instance is money. And I'm looking at the front page of The New York Times. Trump ties money and politics into a deal that the Saudis, a government associated real estate group, brought him into this deal in Oman. He's made at least five million already. This was right before he announced twenty twenty four. So there's money in it with these dictators, with authoritarians. They throw money at a problem. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, got a sweetheart investment, even though he's a very unproved investor of upwards of, I think, $2 billion that he hasn't

even been able to execute yet just because the Saudis are hedging and they think that Trump might come back. So I think that when we look at all of this, it just follow the money. And that's the answer. So coming up, there's more ways. Always. Absolutely. The money. More to show you from Donald Trump's revealing interview with Fox News, including his refusal to give up the big lie. And we'll look at new reporting on the Justice Department's resistance to opening an investigation into Trump's role in the January 6th riot at the Capitol. You know, you know how. I mean, justice is supposed to be blind.

I know it's not. It's just not. And I've got to say, I defend the FBI. I know it's political, but for a year again, they gave Donald Trump preferential treatment. of websites run by Chinese religious cults because of all of the ground noise from freaks, insurrectionists and weirdos. They didn't do their job for over a year. For over a year, they were scared to prove that in America, no man is above the law. So they dragged their feet. Morning Joe is coming right back.

Say to that female independent suburban voter who feels that way to win her back. First of all, I won in 2020 by a lot. OK, let's get that straight. I won in 2020. You know that if you look at all of the tapes, if you look at everything that you want to look at, you take a look at Truth to Vote, where they have people stuffing the ballot boxes on tapes, or let's go to recent. Mr. President, that was all looked into.

Well, wait a minute. Let's go to recent. FBI Twitter. Let's go to recent. The 51 agents. All corrupt stuff, Brett. Understand about the 100 Biden, all fair things. No, but that's cheating on the election.

But that's cheating on the election. You lost the 2020 election. Brett, you take a look at all of the stuffed ballots. You take a look at all of the things, including things like the 51 intelligence agents. There were recounts in all of the swing states. There was not significant widespread fraud. We're trying to get recounts, real recounts. There were investigations of widespread corruption. There was not a sense of that.

There were lawsuits, more than 50 of them, by your lawyers, some in front of judges that you appointed. Look at Wisconsin. That came out with no evidence. Wisconsin has practically admitted it was rigged. Other states are doing the same right now, and it's continuing. There have been reviews of every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states, and they found fewer than 475 cases.

You know why? Because they didn't look at the right things. Okay, are you going to be— They were counting ballots, not the authenticity of the ballot. The ballots were fake ballots. You had—this was a very rigged election. Are you going to go—this is how you're going to tell that independent suburban woman voter to vote for you? No, no, no. We're off to winning an election, and I think we're winning very well. I got a poll just recently. I have it here. I'd show you.

No, no, no. I know. And I watched the numbers. But I've shown you every poll. I showed you. We were leading by tremendous numbers. You know polls change. And we're leading with women, huh? You know polls change. I mean, they changed in 2016 to your favor. I thought I was doing well from the beginning, but, you know.

But they changed the polls. Wow. This, that was an incredible interview. Yeah, I mean, Gene Robinson, I just, he didn't look well. I mean, for that suburban voter that Brett kept talking about, he looked like a rambling, raging old man. He looked really bad. And, you know, the thing is, the thing is that that if he is to win, and this is what we keep saying on the show, he's got to win back the suburban voters in Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Milwaukee, Phoenix. Nothing he did there. Nothing he did there is going to do anything but drive them further away. That is just really, really disturbing stuff.

Yeah, it's disturbing. And it was kind of pathetic in a way. I mean, he was just insisting on this fantasy that everybody knows is a fantasy. And good on Brett for calling him on it repeatedly with facts. And those are facts that everybody knows. Recounts in every swing state, judges that he appointed looked at the lawsuits and dismissed them because there was nothing there. I mean, everybody knows that now.

Everybody knows that he lost the election, except apparently him. He obviously knows it, too. But this idea that he can never acknowledge the reality that he lost the election. I don't see how he thinks that keeping up that fiction is a winning formula for him, because it's certainly not going to get those independent voters back. No, not at all. And John Fulmire, you wrote the book on the big lie. Donald Trump still wallowing in the big lie, despite the fact that Fox News, in the form of Brett Baier, just deboned him, deboned all of all of his arguments, talked about the federal judges that found there was no widespread voter fraud. The Supreme Court found no widespread voter fraud. And as he said, recounts in every swing state, multiple recounts. And again,

Brett's telling him this and he just looks dazed and confused. Yeah. And most of those recounts produced more votes for Joe Biden, not Donald Trump. And it is interesting here. And credit to Brett Baier for the interview. And if we do, we should note it's a media story here, too. The Fox News being tough here with Trump, of course, perhaps we should say impacted because of the seven hundred eighty seven million dollars they were forced to pay Dominion and there was more litigation coming. So that's probably why they're being a little more careful with what they say and not letting Trump just run roughshod. But that's just it. Trump is used to running roughshod. He's used to getting

the friendly audience, either in the form of a rally crowd or a supportive town hall crowd, as we saw in New Hampshire last month, or an interviewer who doesn't push him. And it was clear as he got counterpunched here, he didn't really have a good answer. So maybe that's a preview, just maybe, for what some Republican candidates could be doing come debate season. Like, could this be Chris Christie? Could this be, maybe it's even Governor Ron DeSantis, whoever it might be, taking it to him. And at least right now, it doesn't seem like Trump has a good response. So to your point, Jonathan Lemire, my question for you, Joe, is in the primary, we were talking about this yesterday, when you think about primary candidates

who are up against candidates who believe that the insurrection and Donald Trump won the election, whether it's Donald Trump himself, couldn't primary candidates like Chris Christie, like the others, say, listen, you don't have to believe the media. You don't have to believe me. Believe Donald Trump. Believe his words. And then pick three things. I've picked three. He's not a patriot. He said on national television that he would take dirt on a political rival from a foreign

leader. He said that. Those are his words. He's a misogynist. Think of what he said about what he's done with Stormy Daniels. OK, nobody denies that that happened. He says that a woman where he was found liable of sexual abuse was not his type and then tells her attorney to her face, you're not my type. This is what this man does. His words again. And then finally say it. He's a criminal.

It's not what the DOJ is saying about the documents. It's what he's saying that this classified information, nuclear, nuclear information, war plans, he's saying those are hits. Those belong to the American people. I plan to follow the law. I plan to respect women. I plan to respect democratic values. Couldn't that work in a primary against Trump? Aren't people tired of him? But use his words instead of everybody else's.

I think the other stuff you talked about, which is deeply disturbing, led to his impeachment, but acquittal eventually in the Senate. I think that's what under the bridge for most Republicans, that's what under the bridge. Well, choose anything.

Well, what you say is you keep it as simple as possible. He stole nuclear secrets. This guy stole nuclear secrets. He admitted he stole nuclear secrets. And you hammer him on that. And talk about the defense, the national security things that he stole. You stay on it. But the key is, I've always said this. If you're going after Donald Trump or if you're going after any bully or if you're going after any incumbent or somebody who's ahead, you can't go halfway. Right. I always I always said in Congress, they never stop you.

They never stop you if you're going 90 miles an hour. The fact is, most of these people running against Trump have been going 12 miles an hour on a scooter that's putting down the street. No, you have to do what it looks like Chris Christie is about to do. Yeah. Go 90 miles an hour. Go after him hard. Drive the train. A fax straight, straight to him. And you have to keep hammering on this stuff because if you're Mike Pence and you go halfway,'re gonna lose if you're Nikki Haley you go halfway you're gonna lose if you're Tim Scott you go halfway you're gonna lose unless you're all running for vice president for Donald Trump but he'll never forgive you for being 90% loyal to him so even that's a losing proposition so you go 90 miles an hour

and you go at him hard or you don't run the race. All right. I just need to really quickly. I'm so sorry. Richard, really quickly. We know the FBI is political. I mean, we know the CIA is political. They're human beings in the FBI and the CIA.

They're political. But there is a new Washington Post report that's deeply disturbing that the Department of Justice continued to drag their feet. The FBI continued to drag their feet on investigating Donald Trump. Wouldn't even say his name like he was Baltimore on the investigation into the January 6th riots. The FBI, very reluctant to go after these documents, these nuclear secrets, very reluctant, very scared to do so. And again, we know the FBI is political. They're political on both sides. But you look at the Republicans, they've played the ref so well over the past couple of years. They've had they have the Justice Department, the FBIth of July in 76 in 2016. I mean, Comey coming out and actually saying that nobody would indict Hillary Clinton under these circumstances.

And then in the first of its kind interview by somebody running the FBI, indicted her politically and attacked her politically. And then, of course, 10 days before the race, even Donald Trump admitted this is how he won. Comey writes this letter, the clumsiest, most reckless letter I think we've ever seen 10 days before the election. And so, yeah, it's political on both sides. And yet you have the FBI and the Justice Department afraid to go after nuclear secrets, afraid to go after the most classified defense documents, afraid to even mention Donald Trump's name internally in relation to the January 6th investigation.

Somebody over there has to grow a spine. And the irony of this, Joe, is if you listen to Republicans on the Hill, they're basically claiming that the Justice Department, Merrick Garland, are politicizing their departments and it's selective prosecution. That's the thing, Richard. They've been playing the refs and the refs have been stupid enough to listen to insurrectionists, weirdos, freaks and cult members who were the Ralphs who were screaming and shouting at him. And that's just so unprecedented. They have to be careful. At the end of the day, out of everything Donald, as bad as the documents are, and I hear you, Joe, it is bad. All of us who have spent our careers dealing with classified material. January 6th, Donald Trump was a direct participant in trying to undermine American democracy. That is about as fundamental as we get. And the idea that we still haven't seen any legal consequences of that,

that to me is the single greatest act of our mission here. That is ultimately the most serious thing Donald Trump tried to do to the United States of America. Well, for anybody that's ever handled a single classified document and understands what the consequences would be if they mishandled a single document. Yeah, it's really shocking, including the people who are sucking up to Donald Trump still. Marco Rubio knows what would happen if he took a box of classified documents home. His career would be over in a day. Eugene Robinson, this this investigative article, extraordinary investigative article was in The Washington Post, your paper. We'll give you a final word. No, it's it's I just urge everybody to read this this. It's, you know, it's a long read, but it's absolutely worth it.

And it is stunning the degree to which they treated Donald Trump with kid gloves and did not. You know, this idea, this false idea that Joe Biden and Merrick Garland were, you know, raring to go after their political opponent, Donald Trump, could not be further from the truth. In fact, the FBI and Justice was absolutely reluctant, unwilling to pursue what seemed to most of us like obvious, serious, historic crimes that were committed by this man, Donald Trump, and finally essentially got dragged into it. Yeah. And this is what this is what Trump Republicans have done. It's the fire hose of falsehoods. Sane, rational people take it for what it is. It's disheartening.

The people inside the FBI and the Justice Department were scared of their own shadow because insurrectionists, weirdos, freaks, Trump cult members were spewing lies nonstop. Again, spewing lies and actually claiming the FBI had a vendetta against Donald Trump in 2016 when the FBI elected Donald Trump in 2016. So again, I'm not shocked that the FBI is political, that the New York office was all in for Donald Trump. I'm not shocked because human beings run those offices just like CIA. Human beings are in the CIA and there are political leaks. There have been for as long as these agencies existed. It just happens.

But it's their job to play it straight, to play it as straight as they possibly can. And when you're afraid to even mention Donald Trump's name internally, based on a riot that he started to overthrow American democracy, somebody needs to be talking this morning about what the hell happened. So, and why they were treating Trump like Voldemort and not even mentioning his name while sending working class Americans who were part of Donald Trump's conspiracy to jail. Do they deserve to be in jail? Yeah. You beat the you beat the hell out of cops. You deserve to be in jail. But the guy that got you there, as they said in front of judges, I was here because I was following Donald Trump's orders. That guy, it's all right to investigate him. And you can even mention his name. You won't melt. Yeah, he did say, go down there, go there. I'll meet you there.

It's going to be Richard's point as we get to four minutes past the top of the hour. It's it appears January 6th might be the worst thing that he's done to this country. I guess we could only hope. But you have to the worst thing that he's done to this country. I guess we could only hope. But you have to keep in mind that he had nuclear secrets. He had war plans. He had boxes and boxes of documents. And he knew the government wanted them back.

He knew the FBI wanted them back. He knew the DOJ wanted those documents returned. The National Archives wanted those documents returned. The National Archives wanted those documents returned. It turns out these documents were highly classified and really important and super sensitive. And he knew they wanted them back. The question I have is, what did he do with them in the time that he had them? Because they took so long. By the way, we still don't know that. We know that Donald Trump's making a lot of money from Saudi Arabia. I think somebody probably needs to investigate that. We know that he had it for a very long time.

We don't know what he did with it. I do know this, though. Again, going back to your question about what should Donald Trump's opponents do. Yeah. They should say four words. I'd put it on a bumper sticker. I'd put it behind me when I spoke in a Republican primary. He stole nuclear secrets.

OK. He stole nuclear secrets. Believe his words. I mean, they don't believe it. Trump supporters don't believe anybody. He admitted it. But do you believe Donald Trump is the question you need to ask them? Because if they don't believe anybody, including Donald Trump, what exactly do you support?