Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/21/23

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

85 percent of non-GOP voters say Trump should end his campaign

So you haven't made your definitive decision on the primary? No, I haven't. But I do say, why would I allow a hostile network, Fox? You know, pretty hostile. Why would I allow? You get a fair shake. Okay. But I mean, this is a fair interview, but it's hostile.

It's on the hostile side. I wouldn't say it's a puff piece, but that's okay. Hey, Brett, why would I allow a hostile network and then allow people that are polling at zero? They're polling at zero, many of these guys, one of them is zero with an arrow left. I think that's a mistake. In other words, a zero that's less than zero. But look, Nikki is very low. They're all very low. So why would I allow people at one and two percent and zero percent to be hitting me with questions all night? You know, I don't think it's fair. All right. That was former President Donald Trump's noncommittal answer on debating the other Republican candidates because of their polling numbers. When new data shows his own are starting to slip amid his federal indictment and the possibility of another indictment for January 6th coming this summer.

I mean, the numbers are starting to slip. And you look at the people outside the hardcore Republican base, Republicans and even independents leaning Republican, you get outside of that to swing voters, to independents, to everybody else. Something like 85% of those voters think he needs to drop out of the race right now. We'll have more on that ahead. Also ahead, we're learning more about the plea deal for Hunter Biden, as there is some dispute this morning on whether the Justice Department's investigation into the president's son is finished or not. developments from deep in the Atlantic Ocean. Canadian aircraft detected underwater noises in the search for the missing Titanic tourist submersible. We'll have the latest. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, June 21st. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early,

White House Bear Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. NBC News national affairs analyst John Heilman and host. He's host of an executive producer of Showtime's The Circus and White House editor for Politico. Sam Stein is with us this morning. Let's talk about that new polling, which shows Donald Trump is losing some support among Republican primary voters. In the latest CNN survey, 47 percent of registered Republican and Republican-leaning independents say Trump is their choice to lead the 2024 ticket. That is down six percent from a poll taken last month, but still 21 points higher than Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is in second place. Former Vice President Mike Pence and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley round out the top four with no other candidate polling above 5%.

The poll also shows Trump's favorability rating has fallen 10 points among Republicans since last last month from 77 percent to 67 percent. Additionally, 27 percent now say they have an unfavorable view of the former president compared to 18 percent in May. Among all Americans, 59 percent say Trump should end his 2024 campaign now that he has been federally charged. That number is much higher at 85 percent among non-Republican voters. And finally, 55 percent of Americans say the former president broke the law with his mishandling of classified documents, while another 30 percent say his actions were unethical but not illegal. And I want to know who those people are, because Trump himself says he broke the law. Like he's saying it with his words and they still can't get there, which is hard to understand. So let's go through these numbers, pretty devastating numbers for Donald Trump.

And, you know, maybe he ends up winning everything. Who knows? So we've got a long way to go. But John Heilman, I've been saying for some time, with people discounting DeSantis and the entire Republican field, we have a long way to go. At this point, when this show first started in 2007, people were talking about Hillary Clinton running against Rudy Giuliani. Long way to go.

At this point in 1979, Jimmy Carter was losing to Ted Kennedy, getting about one third of the Democratic vote to Ted Kennedy's two third the Democratic vote. Long way to go. But let's just go through these numbers for a second. Less than 50 percent of Republicans now, according to this poll, support Donald Trump in the primary. This is a guy, obviously, former president of the United States, less than 50 percent. One third of Republicans now say one out of three Republicans say they have an unfavorable view of Donald Trump. Six and 10 Americans say about six and 10 Americans say he should get out of the race right now. And when we talk about, well, 55 percent of all Americans say

he broke the law. But but but but but when we take out the hardcore GOP base, we look at Democrats, independents, swing voters, the people who are going to decide this election, 85 percent of Americans say he should get out of the race right now. And what I what the question that this bags is, what in the hell are Republican voters thinking that want to actually win the White House back in 2024? Well, Joe, what are they thinking? I think a large and growing number of them are thinking, how do we get out of this? And I think, you know, this is the connection between these two sets of polling. You really have to think of them as different things, as you and I talk about all the time. You know, you've got this nomination fight, then you've got the nomination fight, then you've

got the general election. We are all familiar with Donald Trump's vulnerabilities as a general election candidate. Those are growing. And they have now, apparently, we're starting to see some connection between the two. They're separate, but they're connected. You now have some substantial, not yet a majority of Republican voters, but a substantial number of them, who are the thing that people saw before the raid at Mar-a-Lago back last year, people who were getting Trump fatigue, who were saying, you know, he's a loser. Give him a gold watch. Let's figure out some way to tell this man he did make America great again and send him off to a happy retirement. I'm talking about how a number of Republican voters looked at him. And they've rallied around him ever since then.

And now it seems like they're starting to see some signs in this Republican nomination fight where the older the prior dynamic is kicking in and Republicans who want to win. Not again, not all of them. The base is still incredibly loyal to Trump. It's still, I'll say again, the most powerful force in in our politics is the loyalty and the intensity of people who love Trump. That's enough to make him formidable in any GOP nomination fight. But the numbers are starting to show some signs of wear and some signs of cracking around his support in the party. And that's creating some openings for some of his rivals. Well, and Sam Stein, two numbers here that if I were Trump, I would be very concerned about. I mean, if I were Trump, I'd be much more concerned about spending the rest of my life in jail. But politically, and I'm serious about that, politically to two numbers. And that is. A majority of Republicans do not want Donald Trump to be their nominee.

He's he's he's under the 50 percent mark for people who say they'll support him. That's a majority of Republicans don't want him as their nominee and a majority of Americans, 55 percent, say the guy committed crimes. Those two numbers are very hard to get around if you're Donald Trump. Because what we're going to see most likely is we're going to see New Jersey indictments coming. We're going to see Georgia indictments coming. We're going to probably see the January 6th indictments coming, and they're just going to stack on top of each other. Yeah. So, you know, we've been there's two things that can be true here. One is we've been down this road before where in the wake of an immediate scandal involving Trump, we see a dip in his

poll numbers, including among Republicans. This happened, for instance, after the Access Hollywood tape. This happened, for instance, after the Access Hollywood tape. This happened, for instance, after the impeachments. This happened, for instance, after January 6th. And then, inevitably, it ticks back up over time. So that's true. The second thing that can be true is that this could be a very unique circumstance for all the reasons that you just pointed to, which is this legal trouble that he finds himself in, by definition, is not going away. He still has to go to trial. There will still be days where he's in court, where evidence is being presented against him.

And it's not even the extent of his legal troubles that we know about. There are two, at least two cases in which we can see subsequent indictments. So this has, the issue here is not simply that he's being hurt by this indictment. It's that this is a continuous news cycle that could keep these poll numbers down and trending downward for him. You know, still, even with all this, as you know, I mean, a 21-point lead nationally over Ron DeSantis. And yes, the majority of Republicans maybe don't want to see him nominee, but you just need to win state delegates in the Republican primary. You need to be the one who wins the state in order to get all the delegates. And we've been down this road

before in 2016. And that's the bind that Republicans are in right now is that they may not like the guy, they may want to get rid of the guy, but enough of them may just be fine with it that they're bound to the man. Sam makes a really good point there about how this is not a story that's going to go away. There's not only just more indictments likely on the horizon from all the reporting that we know, but that there are going to be court dates. There are going to be appearances. This is not something he can just shrug off. Now, can Trump, as he has done before, able to use that as a rallying point for Republicans? Possibly. But it also could be,

Joe and Mika, this is the moment where that Republicans who like Trump, who have voted for him once, probably twice before, but really just want to win. And they feel like, hey, this is something that even if they feel like these are witch hunts, even if they feel like these are unfair prosecutions, they have to look at this and go, this is not going to help him next year. Those independent swing voters, suburban women, the voters that actually decide elections, none of these indictments are going to help Trump's case with them. They're simply not. So if it's not Trump, who is it? I mean, we are seeing this poll.

It should be noted, no rise there for DeSantis whatsoever. Not yet. The launch there has not gone particularly well. Penson and Haley are both up a smidge, just a smidge. Now, we're a long way off. There's time for those numbers to grow. But at least so far, even as Trump is showing a little wobble, there doesn't seem to be anyone else really seizing the moment. Well, here's what could make the wobble worse. A number of well-known conservatives are expressing surprise and shock over former President Donald Trump's primetime interview on Fox News this week, in which he doubled down on his handling

of nuclear secrets after leaving the White House. During the interview, Trump defended himself against the federal indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith, spelling out 37 counts against Trump with a trial date now set for August 14th. Conservative radio host and blogger Eric Erickson tweeted, quote, Guys, Trump admitted on TV tonight he withheld documents from the grand jury. Game over legally. What an idiot. Talk show host Ed Morrissey tweeted, the first rule of federal indictment club is

you don't talk about your case. The second rule of federal indictment club is really don't do this. Trump just admitted obstruction on national television. Frequent legal commentator for Fox News Jonathan Turley tweeted Brett Baier conducted an extraordinary interview with Donald Trump, who discussed the criminal allegations in detail. Statements of this kind are generally admissible at trial. And here's what former New Jersey governor and current Republican presidential candidate, Chris Christie, had to say. The problem for Donald Trump in all of this is his own conduct.

He's his own worst enemy. None of this would have happened to him or to the country if he had just returned the documents. It appears to me last night, as a former prosecutor, that he admitted obstruction of justice on the air last night to Brett Baier. I can tell you this. His lawyers this morning are jumping out of whatever window they're near. Quick to you. Yeah. And that's the thing. You

can't say it's a witch hunt when you admit to doing it. Well, when you admit to doing it. And also, you know, this is the thing we are looking at. Eric Eric, Eric Erickson, Ed Morrissey, Jonathan Turley, Andy McCarthy, the National Review. You've got a group of conservative commentators who have either a lot of people that are hearing for the first time. Donald Trump is guilty. Donald Trump is admitted to obstruction of justice. Donald Trump is toast, said one. Donald Trump, Andy McCarthy said Donald Trump has no defense in this case. And then he just made it worse. And every time it's crazy, John. I mean, we all we all know he has no discipline.

But every time he goes on the air, he he moves himself one step closer to prison. Yeah, not good. I mean, if he hadn't done this consistently, really, since the FBI showed up in Mar-a-Lago, this is a consistent pattern of his. He more or less has been, to Mika's point earlier, he continues to maintain the things that he's admitting to are not illegal. This is where the cognitive dissonance comes in for Trump. He basically sort of has this view somehow, contrary to everybody else who's ever read the statutes involved or understands the law, that essentially if you're president, you can do what you want.

I was kind of like if a star, you can do anything. If you're president, you can do anything. You can do transubstantiation of the documents. If you think that they're declassified in your head, they become declassified and they basically are his, his boxes, his documents. You know, the normal rules don't apply to him. This is how he thinks. But from a legal standpoint, devastating. And again, your point, Joe, conservative lawyers who have stood up for Trump in almost every instance are now looking at him and saying, dude, you're just, you are digging this hole so deep that you, with all the help in the world, you're not going to be able to get out of it legally.

I will say that politically, you know, if you want to make the counter case, the counter case is 2016, a split Republican field. You don't need 50 percent. To Sam Stein's point, you don't need 50 percent to win a winner-take-all Republican primary. Donald Trump rarely won 50% back in 2016 until the very end of Republican primaries. A split Republican field, the Trump base looks at all of these talking heads and says, they're rhinos. They think Fox News is now liberal. They've dismissed it all. And can Trump continue to win? Can Trump win a Republican nomination fight with a split field and a hardcore 40% of the Republican Party? I'm not saying he'll be able to maintain that. Maybe it'll all dissolve over the next few months.

But that's a winnable race still for Donald Trump if he can keep his 40% who laugh at the Ed Morrissey's and Eric Erickson's and Jonathan Turley's of the world. They just say, we're with Trump no matter what. You can win a Republican nomination fight. Trump proved that in 2016. He did it exactly that way. Right. But Sam Stein, we're talking about something really bigger than a Republican primary contest. When we're talking about Donald Trump's pending case and his freedom are whether an ex-president is going to jail because what he does may hold a minority of Republicans together supporting him. But he's not only proving as, again, Eric Erickson, Ed Morrissey, Jonathan Turley, Andy McCarthy, Bill Barr, you name it,

Chris Christie, you go down the list. He's not only proving that he committed the actions, he's on tape proving the intent of why he's doing this. This case. It's open and shut. The only thing Trump can hope for is jury nullification. This case, if you just look at Trump's own words, as far as said, as all these other conservatives have said, open and shut case against him. Well, no, you're wrong. There's a statute that says you don't have to comply with the subpoena if your documents are intermingled with golf shoes. And Trump knew that. Oh, that is. And that's why he held a document.

So all these legal commentators need to go back to school and study the law. No, it's pretty damning that he. Yes. I thought you were a lawyer, Joe. No, this is this is classic Trump. Right. He speaks and causes more trouble for himself. And it's almost like a kind of like fake it till you make it type of attitude about the law. Eventually, it will catch up to you. I will disagree with one thing. I don't think the only endgame here is jury nullification. I think it is an endgame.

I think the other endgame is to just draw it out until you're elected. Again, fake it till you make it and then give yourself a pardon. That's an endgame is to just draw it out until you're elected. Again, fake it until you make it and then give yourself a pardon. That's an endgame. Yeah. And we're talking about this as if it's some form of political strategy, which I think in and of itself really does underscore the sort of craziness, the seriousness of the times that we are in, in which we could very well, in fact, will likely have a leading presidential candidate, one of two people in line for the presidency, who could go to jail.

And it's really sort of a race between the justice system and our politics to see which one comes first. That's nuts. Yeah. And John of the Mirror, there's the political defense, because Donald Trump seems to have no defense legally. The political defense seems to be the James Carville. Look over there. Look over there. Look at the bird. Look at the bird. And whether it's Hillary Clinton, which, of course, Donald Trump's Justice Department refused to prosecute her for four years in a row because they said there was nothing to prosecute her over. Donald Trump's Justice Department, by the way. And now it's moved on to Hunter Biden. And I saw I saw on way too early. I saw your Tim Scott clip. And we're going to talk about this a lot more in the next segment. But I saw your Tim's Tim Scott clip where he's thanking God

for Chuck Grassley, a guy who mumbled a guy who mumbled on television. Yeah, well, we you know, when suggesting that there's nothing in the tapes or the documents, he says, well, we don't care whether he did anything wrong or not. You talk about a witch hunt. That is like where a guy goes, we're going after him and it doesn't matter whether he did anything wrong or not. And then you've got Comer where the Wall Street Journal editorial page says, a lot of smoke, no fire. And that's what, again, it was one after another, after another of these investigations, a lot of smoke, no fire.

And yet this is what they're saying, what they're doing in hopes of distracting, distracting from an ex-president stealing nuclear secrets. An ex-president stealing nuclear secrets who also could be facing several more indictments before the summer is out. Yes, Senator Scott also thanked, he thanked God for Congressman Com, too, who admitted that the point of the investigation was to bring President Biden's poll numbers down, who then admitted they lost track of the whistleblower and other witnesses who probably may not have even existed or certainly not any credible had any credible story to tell. But it is it's purely a distraction. It's a what about isism at the highest level here to try to point to the Hunter Biden case, which we're going to talk about in just a few minutes, and try to use that to shift focus away from what's happening to Donald Trump, the two-tier

system of justice. We're going to hear that nonstop for weeks and months ahead here. And it's a distraction, but it's also potentially a dangerous one because Senator Scott in that clip say if he says he were to be elected president, he would launch an investigation from the White House, seemingly from the Department of Justice. So no line between White House and DOJ and a Scott administration to investigate President Biden and his family. So we right now, it's a threat here. It is a threat. We're in a new place where we have already one candidate, Donald. Yeah. He's literally promising, as Mika said, as she was watching the clip. Tim Scott is is literally saying, I promise to weapon if elected.

Yes. To weaponize the Justice Department. And I'm going to be the one doing it. Yep. That it is. He's put he said it right out there with the Republicans are accusing the Biden administration of doing the weaponization of government during it or that they thought the deep state did against Trump when he was in office. He's flat out saying he'll do it. That is a dangerous, dangerous promise there. And we have right now Donald Trump, of course, already under investigation. Now you have Republicans saying they'll do the same.

They're flat out saying it to Biden and his family. It's a distraction, but it's a scary one and we shouldn't lose sight of it. Yes, it is. Still ahead on Morning Joe. Speaker Kevin McCarthy is calling Hunter Biden's plea deal a sweetheart deal, but it was approved by a Trump appointed judge. We'll show you the moment he was pressed on that. Plus, Donald Trump.

What did he say? We'll show you. Plus, Donald Trump wants the death penalty for drug dealers, but fails to realize it would apply to a woman that he pardoned. We'll play you that exchange. Wait, does he want her out or does he want her executed? I don't think he knows. I'm really confused.

We'll play you that exchange from his interview with Fox News, and we'll get a live report from Beijing on China's reaction to President Biden calling Xi Jinping a dictator. You're watching Morning Joe. We will be right back. We cannot be the city on the hill if we are not first a nation of law and justice. We can't be the city on the hill. We cannot fulfill our destination, our destiny as an America if we do not have the lady of justice wearing a blindfold. We all have to be treated equally under the eyes and the laws of our country. And when the Bidens get away with that, we need to thank God for Senator Grassley and Congressman Comer for doing their jobs.

But I can tell you, if they can't finish their investigation, President Tim Scott will finish it. 28 past the hour overnight, we learned of a new development in the missing Titanic submersible, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. A Canadian military aircraft, quote, detected underwater noises in the search area late last night, indicating that the vessel may be nearby. The Coast Guard did not specify the nature of the noises, but search efforts are now relocating closer to the area where they were heard. However, the time for rescue efforts is running out, as it's estimated the vessel has less than 25 hours of oxygen left for the five passengers who left to tour the Titanic's wreckage on Sunday morning. We're going to get a live in-depth report from NBC's Tom Costello in the next hour of Morning Joe.

Jonathan O'Meara, I mean, the Times articles this morning and last night, just devastating on OceanGate. One expert after another told the owner that this was a dangerous, dangerous vessel, that they needed to go through safety regulations, they needed to be certified. And the owner refused time and time again. Headlines here, OceanGate, the company that operates the vessel, was warned of potentially catastrophic problems. And let me say, as the Times pointed out, those warnings were, quote, unanimous from experts. Somebody else said, you drop like a stone for two and a half hours, said a passenger on a prior trip to the Titanic. Reckless doesn't quite seem to match up and describe the scale of irresponsibility here by the owner.

There's been reporting that a former employee raised concerns. He was dismissed for doing so. There's been questions raised about the quality of the equipment and the parts that the submersible is composed of. And it can't be said enough, just the risk. That is so deep, where the water pressure is so intense and the temperatures are so cold that even the smallest of failures, and engineers have been talking about this and posting about it, the smallest of failures, and engineers have been talking about this and posting about it, the smallest of failures would lead to basically instant death for everyone on board because you're so deep down there by the Titanic. So we obviously are hoping for a miracle

here. But as Mika just noted, the clock is really running out in terms of the oxygen supply. We don't know the status of any LSO that equipment, whether it's got power. What's the temperature like? What do they have in terms of other supplies? You know, it is the sounds. Maybe that is a clue. Maybe that targeting the search will lead to success. But it is dire time.

And certainly, Joe, to your point, there will be lots of questions raised about what went wrong here. And as we said, next hour, we'll get a full in-depth report from NBC's Tom Costello on this developing story. We're learning new details about the plea deal reached between the Department of Justice prosecutors and Hunter Biden. President Biden's son will plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and avoid prosecution on a separate felony gun possession charge, allowing him to avoid any prison time. Two sources familiar with the agreement tell NBC News the deal includes a provision in which the U.S. attorney has agreed to recommend probation for the tax violations. Legal experts say the federal gun charge is a rarely used statute that makes it illegal for someone addicted to drugs to possess a weapon. This is the first time the Justice Department has brought charges against a child of a sitting president. The charges against Hunter Biden are the result of a five-year investigation

by federal prosecutors, FBI agents, and IRS officials. The investigation was led by the U.S. attorney for Delaware, David Weiss. Who was he appointed by? He was appointed by former President Donald Trump. Wait, most U.S. attorneys are moved on after a new president comes into office. Are you saying that Joe Biden kept this Trump appointee in Delaware? Yes, this man was appointed by Donald Trump and then permitted by President Biden to remain in office in order to continue the probe. Highly unusual.

Talk about full transparency. An attorney for Hunter Biden issued a statement to NBC News reading in part, quote, with the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the United States attorney's office for the District of Delaware. It is my understanding that the five year investigation into Hunter is resolved. However, Weiss's office stated yesterday that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved. However, Weiss's office stated yesterday that the investigation is ongoing. So before we continue, John Heilman, and before we hear the total stupidity by Republicans just lying through their teeth about crimes and the Biden crime family. Most people, most legal experts I talk to here actually have a very dialectical response to this and a very dialectical analysis.

They say if his last name were not Biden, these charges would have never been brought. That said. At the same time. At the same time. At the same time. If his last name was not Biden, the plea deal would not have been as generous. And by the way, this is the same plea deal they basically offered Hunter,

or that Hunter's people offered the feds 18 months ago. And based on my reporting. So it's very interesting. Feds wouldn't have brought this charge against somebody whose last name was not Biden. At the same time, a lot of legal analysts think the feds deal may have been more generous because his last name was Biden. It's an analysis I've heard, Joe. And God knows there are moments when often we, over the course of the last few years,

since Donald Trump came into office and subsequently we've all, those of us who are not lawyers, even simple country lawyers like yourself have had to pretend to be lawyers or do legal analysis. This is one where I've heard the wide variety of things from a wide variety of lawyers. It's obviously a whole, in the non-ideological bar, people have difference of opinion about the nature of this plea deal. It's certainly the case, the first part of that dialectical is something that one hears all the time, which is that no aspect of this case was likely to have been brought, let alone pursued to this to this degree if it weren't for the fact that Hunter Biden was named Biden. And again, I think that you can't be said enough times when you listen to people like Kevin McCarthy and others talking about the the two tier system of justice and the double standard. You just want to say, here's this Trump-appointed prosecutor who was kept in office by Joe Biden,

something that Donald Trump would never have done in the similar circumstance. Can you imagine an Obama-appointed prosecutor looking into one of the Trump kids if Trump won the presidency and Trump said, you know what, for both matters of both substance and perception, I'm going to leave this Obama appointed prosecutor in to look at Don Jr. because I just want to make sure that everyone has full faith in the legal system and it not being politicized. It's like a hallucinatory fantasy that could ever happen. And yet that's what Joe Biden did. And now all of these same Republicans who want to take this up, who want to figure out some way to pivot away from Donald Trump's legal woes.

They focus on this and say, oh, my God, two tier standard of justice. He got a sweetheart deal. And you're like, guys, I mean, you're just you just sound like morons when you say these things. You can say a lot of things about that, but not that. Add to that, Heilman, just putting it out there, Ivanka and Jared worked in the White House. They worked for Donald Trump. Billions have come in from Saudi. There's so many questions. We're going to talk about kids?

Do we even want to talk about kids? You know, the thing is, if these same Republicans had been complaining when Ivanka got, I think it was trademarks in China. She got licenses in China to sell. She traveled around the country campaigning. When she got license. It's true. Let me finish the sentence. She got licenses in China to sell her goods around the same time Donald Trump was

meeting with President Xi. And Jared, a guy I've communicated with an awful lot, two billion dollars from the Saudis. Two billion dollars. And again, I mean, it's a lot of money. We haven't said much about it here. A lot of money. And I'm just saying, if Republicans, if Republicans are going to say this about Hunter Biden, then where's the other side of this? When they start talking about illegal influence peddling,

because Sam Stein, well, first, here's how Republicans humiliated themselves yesterday. They were very angry at the plea, calling this a, quote, sweetheart deal from the Justice Department. That includes House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who was pressed by a reporter on the fact that it was a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney who made the charging decision. Take a listen. It continues to show the two-tier system in America. If you are the president's leading political opponent, the DOJ tries to literally put you in jail and give you prison time. If you are the president's son, you get a sweetheart deal. Mr. Speaker, this is a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney that was held over into this administration. Why won't you accept a thorough investigation and to just accept it on its merits, given

the person who investigated? It was a thorough investigation. So why would you accept it? I'm asking you. But I'm asking you. So you believe it's a thorough investigation? I'm asking you. He can't, of course, he can't answer this question.

Earlier this month, that attorney, David Weiss, sent a letter to Republican Congress from Jim Jordan, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. In it, Weiss wrote that he'd been granted, quote, granted ultimate authority

over the Hunter Biden case by Attorney General Merrick Garland. That included, as Weiss put it, responsibility for deciding when, where and whether to file charges against the president's son. by Attorney General Merrick Garland. That included, as Weiss put it, responsibility for deciding when, where, and whether to file charges against the president's son. So Sam Stein, again, for people that don't understand this,

don't understand how it works, as John said, it is remarkable that Joe Biden allowed this guy to hold over, something Donald Trump would never do. It's also remarkable. I mean, Tim Scott saying in front of that audience that Lady Justice must be blindfolded. I'm sitting there thinking, you know, we must treat people the same. These are the same people that overwhelmingly support Donald Trump being able to steal nuclear secrets and want to defund the FBI because the FBI went to retrieve some of the most important, sensitive, classified documents the U.S.

government has. And they're lecturing? Tim Scott is lecturing us, lecturing the 85 percent of Americans who think Donald Trump should even run for office because he stole nuclear secrets. Yeah, I mean, so I think it's helpful to understand where the Republicans are coming from, but to understand what they've been saying about Hunter Biden and what they've been investigating about Hunter Biden, because they're conflating a couple of things here. For about a year and a half now, Republicans on the Hill have been insisting that Hunter Biden's private business dealings were secretly an attempt for him to enrich his father. Now, Hunter Biden was not investigated by David Weiss for those business dealings. He was investigated for tax avoidance and the illegal owning of a firearm. And for those allegations, he was, you know, he pled guilty in what I think ostensibly,

if you ask any legal expert, was a fair resolution to that case. But House Republicans aren't talking about that. They're talking about an entirely different set of issues that they want to conflate into one big scandal. So that's why you have Kevin McCarthy and others coming out saying, how could they let him off? Well, they let him off because the crimes that they were looking at, the allegations they were looking into, were not what the Republicans wanted to look into. I think the bigger issue, though, here is you have a situation in which congressional Republicans are saying we need justice, blind justice. There cannot be a two-tiered system. And you have leading presidential candidates, Donald Trump and now Tim Scott,

and to a degree Ron DeSantis, taking a stance that says the executive branch oversees the Justice Department and therefore can instruct the Justice Department to explicitly investigate the president's enemies, his opponents and so on and so forth. Donald Trump has said he wants to appoint a special counsel to investigate Joe Biden. Tim Scott alluded strongly to doing the same in that clip that we saw. They are not themselves advocating for blind justice, but they want blind justice applied in this case. Well, the interesting thing is, again,

none of them protested two weeks before the 2020 presidential election when Donald Trump ordered his attorney general to arrest Joe Biden and Joe Biden's family. Nothing ever happened like that before in American history, where a sitting president is behind in the polls and he orders his attorney general to arrest his opponent and his opponent's family. And Jonathan Amir can't underline it enough, can't underline it enough. So Wall Street Journal's opinion page said a lot of smoke here, no fire. We keep hearing about audio tapes and then we hear there's nothing on audio tapes. Comer keeps, I mean, it is. And unfortunately, unfortunately, this term has been overused way too much. Maybe we've even overused it here.

But this is straight out of Joe McCarthy's playbook. This is McCarthyism where you throw one unsubstantiated charge after another, after another up against the wall and we can tick through every one. And people who have been harshly critical of the media's response to this even admit admit when pressed, there are no crimes here. Could there have been unethical behavior? Sure. Should Hunter Biden have flown on Air Force Two when he was going over to China to make a business deal? No. Unethical behavior.

You can have a debate about that and then compare that to what Donald Trump did, compare that to what other presidents did. But again, nobody's come forward with a crime. It is all smoke, no fire and a hell of a lot of McCarthyism here. Yeah. And to your point, there are members of the Biden inner circle, some of the president's close advisors who do acknowledge, yes, Hunter Biden made some very poor decisions in recent years, but he has not been charged criminally. There's been nothing has been found to be illegal with those poor decisions. And he did plead guilty to this matter, to the taxes.

But to Sam's point, this isn't going anywhere, though, because these are unsubstantial allegations in many ways disconnected from reality. The Republicans have seized on them and they prime their audience now for years. This started in 2020. They prime their audience in years that Hunter Biden is the linchpin of the Biden crime family. And there's all these allegations unsubstantiated about corruption and the like. And they feel like they need to deliver. And the House committee. So what they're saying is a crack addict, a guy who's been a crack addict, is the mastermind behind this incredible international crime ring that somehow goes all

the way to the Oval Office. And they've been investigating him for years. They can't. And I've asked. They can't off the record. They can't on the record. They can't name one crime that was committed. They say, oh, we think the FBI might have a tape. Oh, we might have something over here. And whether it's Grassley having to say, I don't care whether he's guilty or not. I don't care whether he's done anything wrong or not. Basically, we're still going to conduct this McCarthyite investigation. Or whether it's Comer coming up time and time and time again, empty. I mean, it's it's a joke. Show us the crime. What's the crime? We'll report the crime here every morning.

Yeah, it's pure politics. And they are suggesting the two masterminds are someone, as you say, Hunter Biden, who has admitted that he's a substance abuse problem or Joe Biden, who Republicans paint as being daft and unable to walk across the stage. So, though, that's that's the charges here. Lost his mind. And he's exactly this crime syndicate. So but it's still they're going to they're going to seize on this. They're going to they're going to stay with it. And we're going to be living with this hundred miles of smoke for years to come. We should also just note by reporting about the response inside the White House, obviously real relief from President Biden and his family that this matter is behind him. And senior Biden advisers have always been far more worried about the personal toll this has taken on the president, more so than any political one, as even as they acknowledge, of course, the politics are going to be with us. And we did hear from the president very briefly yesterday out in California saying simply that he was proud of his son.

So let's bring in congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany and Justice Department reporter for The New York Times, Katie Benner. Jackie, you have two pieces out this morning. The first one looks at the GOP whistleblowers on the Biden family and who they are. Yeah, Mika, we were trying to sort of just give our readers a lay of the land in terms of all of these accusations that Republicans have been hurling at the Biden family. We were sort of prepared for this kind of response, regardless of whatever charges David Weiss ended up pursuing against Hunter or whether or not there was going to be a plea deal. I think initially we had sort of figured that the rallying cry would largely be that, you know, the attorney general sort of missed the boat

and was not able to actually cut to the substance of these alleged pay for plays. We're now seeing this message of a sweetheart deal, there being two tiers of justice. But I think as this goes on, we're going to continue to see people like Jim Jordan and James Comer try to continue to muddy the waters despite having no proof or any anything substantiated connecting Joe Biden to sort of any legal activity. Nevertheless, there are a host of whistleblowers, people whom Democrats are accusing of exploiting this whistleblower status who continue to claim to have dirt on the Bidens. You know, Katie, we said before that some legal experts I've been talking to offered

sort of a dialectical analysis that if his last name wasn't Biden, the charges would never have been brought. But also that last name of Biden may have provided him a better deal than a lot of other people would get. But reading your story and looking at your reporting, the entire Hunter Biden episode requires dialectical thinking, because as you say, it doesn't give either side the narrative they want. Absolutely. I mean, when you look at this investigation, it took five years. It began multiple attorneys general ago. And it's something

that was also started in multiple districts across the country, finally consolidated in Delaware. Every single possible lead was run down by this U.S. attorney who, as you have pointed out several times, was appointed under Donald Trump's administration. And that included a national security investigation, possible FARA violations, possible money laundering violations, a close look at his dealings with countries like China. And even though we can all agree that some of this behavior doesn't seem right, it doesn't seem moral, that doesn't necessarily mean that it rises to the level of a criminal act. It doesn't violate a federal statute. And so in the end, what Weiss found after turning over all of these rocks are the charges that we

see here today, ones that reporters have been anticipating for a while. Hey, Katie, it's Heilman here. And I have a very clear and straightforward question, which is there seems to be some, we had Hunter Biden's lawyer yesterday said that he didn't anticipate that this is the end. He didn't anticipate further charges. He wouldn't have made this deal if he thought there was any chance there'd be further charges coming. What does your reporting say about whether he's on solid ground there? Is there some chance that this thing could still result in further charges down the line? Or is this really, at least with this prosecutor, is this a done matter? Well, you know, it's somewhat boilerplate for U.S. attorneys and their press releases to say that this is an ongoing investigation.

And an ongoing investigation does not necessarily mean that it's an ongoing investigation just of Hunter Biden. Keep in mind, like I had mentioned before, it's a five-year investigation that had so many tentacles, it's possible that some of these are still being wrapped up and that they might be about other people in Hunter Biden's orbit. Hey, Jackie, it's Sam Stein here. You know, there's two ways to read this from the vantage point of House Republicans. One is they're furious, right? The two-tier justice system that they're bemoaning has come to fruition.

The other one, though, is that this might open up some avenues for them. They had been deprived potentially of evidence or documents that they wanted to gather on Hunter Biden because of this ongoing DOJ investigation. What's your read on whether this accelerates their investigations, frustrates them? And what's the next year look like with respect to those investigations? Yes, Sam, that's a really good point. And in terms of the momentum of when these charges are arriving, unfortunately, it is coming at a time where Congress is largely focused on getting out of town and taking their summer recess. So I actually think we're going to see Republicans sort of recalibrate and redirect their investigative

focus. But I think going forward, they could focus on this one whistleblower in particular who has been largely credible, especially in comparison to the other whistleblowers that the House Republicans have touted so far. And this is someone named Gary Shapley, who has been fairly public so far about his claims. He was someone who worked in the IRS and was a supervisory agent of the IRS side of the Hunter Biden investigation. He testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in a closed door hearing with Republicans and Democrats. We have not yet seen the results of that interview or any additional claims made by Shapley. But the fact that this investigation is now on its way to

apparently closing means that Shapley could potentially speak further and maybe go public, either before Congress or in some other venue, to continue to air some of what he viewed as unethical and practices that were not in line with how normal investigations would would go. But I think that there are a number of other targets like potentially going after finally impeaching Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that the GOP is now eyeing going forward. Justice Department reporter for The New York Times, Katie Benner, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. And congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany, thank you as well. And coming up on Morning Joe,

President Biden escalates tensions with China by calling President Xi Jinping a dictator. NBC's Janice McEfrayer joins us live from Beijing with China's response to that. We'll be right back. Good thing Lincoln got that appointment. Hey, welcome back to Morning Joe. It is 6.57. A beautiful look at the White House this morning.

And I don't know, maybe some aides inside that White House asking why after we finally got a meeting with President Xi, Joe Biden would call him a dictator. It happens. The next day. I guess we shouldn't ask how the meeting went. Okay. China. They're responding.

China is responding tomorrow, this morning, after President Biden yesterday called the Chinese president a dictator. Biden was addressing a crowd at a fundraiser in California and talking about the spy balloon incident from February when NBC News reports he said, quote, the reason why Xi Jinping got very upset in terms of when I shot down that balloon with two boxcars full of spy equipment is he didn't know it was there. He added that's a great embarrassment for dictators when they didn't know what happened. All right. Let's bring it right now. NBC News 4 correspondent Janice Mackey-Frayer, live from Beijing. And Janice, I'm sure you're going to be able to explain to us this morning why the president of the United States called President Xi a dictator just hours after we finally got that meeting between Anthony Blinken and President Xi. It's the difference a day makes in this world and in the very complicated U.S.-China relationship. Chinese officials are outraged.

They are incensed. I can't recall a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here that was so sharply worded. They are using words like extremely absurd, irresponsible, provocative, and a violation of political dignity. What's curious, though, is that none of this is resonating on Chinese social media because the word dictator is not one that's typically allowed past the censors. So what we have seen, though, is a spike in the hashtag topic Biden's son pleads guilty that has emerged on Chinese social media this afternoon as a reaction of the mood. There is a lot of concern for where this leaves the diplomatic mission by Secretary Blinken.

It happened literally 24 hours later after I sat down with Secretary Blinken, after he had met with Xi Jinping, and he felt like relations were in a better place, that they were at least stabilized so that they could push forward on other issues and try to make some progress. This is also going to create some discussion there in the U.S. among critics of the White House who had said that the Biden administration appeared to be delaying decisions like export bans or COVID origins intel in order to keep the visit on track, to not have it go off the rails. That was something that I put to Secretary Blinken when I spoke with him on what he would say to those critics. Here's what he said. What do you say to critics who argue that you pulled punches and made tradeoffs like delaying export controls or COVID origins intel in order to keep this trip on track?

I say that's quite simply wrong. We don't pull any punches. And I certainly didn't pull any punches with our with our Chinese counterparts. I think if you look at the actions that we've taken, it's hard to make that case. And in fact, if you listen to our Chinese counterparts, they're saying exactly the opposite, complaining about many of the actions that we've taken because it's necessary to advance our national interest. But it would be totally irresponsible not to engage with China. If we're not engaging, it makes it that much more difficult to make sure that the competition we're in doesn't veer into conflict. could be just as interesting because the visit by Secretary Blinken was seen here among Chinese officials as the necessary one to get to the ones they really want to see, the Commerce Secretary, the Treasury Secretary. They are expected to visit here in the next weeks. These are the people who

can hold the substantive discussions on the economy. They are the gatekeepers on export bans, on restrictions on technology. These are the sort of measures that China is looking at to try to shore up its economy, with so much evidence pointing to the fact that it's slowing down. So whether it will be just more words exchanged over the next 24 hours, as always, remains to be seen. So, Janice, this is obviously an extraordinarily complicated relationship. But the one thing that you that I think most international observers understand is whether they like each other or not, both sides need each other. And whether China likes what Joe Biden said, even though it's causing a lot of confusion even here in the United States,

that he would say the day after Blinken's visit. The fact is China's economy is sputtering. Over 20% of young Chinese are out of work. They just haven't had the bounce back ever after covid that everybody was expecting. And as we've talked about before, they they greet American businessmen and women as almost as long lost friends. The red carpets rolled out because they desperately need Western investment. Talk about that. Well, you could see it in the comparison of the treatment between Secretary Blinken and, let's say, Bill Gates, who was here last Friday. When Secretary

Blinken arrived at the airport, he was greeted by the U.S. ambassador and a fairly high-ranking Chinese official. But there was no carpet. There was no pageantry. The meetings that he had with his Chinese counterparts over the next couple of days weren't very warm. If you look at the readouts, the words were actually quite harsh. And Secretary Blinken, for all intents and purposes, sat there and took it. His request to have the defense lines of communication restored was rejected by Chinese officials

because the U.S. still has sanctions on China's defense minister. Then it wasn't until an hour before the meeting actually happened with Xi Jinping that anybody knew the meeting was going to happen with Xi Jinping. So there was this sense that maybe either side, both sides were waiting to see how things went before there was the agreement that he would sit down with Xi Jinping for 35 minutes. Xi Jinping at the head of the table, Secretary Blinken off to the side at a reasonable distance, the chair a little bit lower. You contrast that with the treatment for Bill Gates, who was here last Friday. It was a fireside chat with Xi Jinping in an ornate wooden chair with a beautiful background. And there was a warmth there that just didn Jinping in an ornate wooden chair with a beautiful background.

And there was a warmth there that just didn't exist with the secretary of state. It shows that the diplomatic piece and the economic piece are two entirely different things here. Chinese officials really need to shore up the economy. There is every indication that the growth that has defined modern China over decades is slowing down and there are no quick fixes or pages from the old playbook to try to get it back. So they are looking for some relief. They're looking for foreign investment at a time when they're also intensifying some of the laws and the scrutiny for foreign businesses here. So it's a very, very tricky position for Chinese officials on how they play the diplomatic part of the U.S. relationship because they so badly need the economic one.

Great context. Thank you, NBC's Janice Mackey-Frayer, for your reporting. Thank you very much.