Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/3/24

Episode Date: June 3, 2024

Trump in 2016 said a president under felony indictment would create a 'constitutional crisis'

Folks, folks, folks, she shouldn't be allowed to run. There's virtually no doubt that FBI Director Comey and the great, great special agents of the FBI will be able to collect more than enough evidence to garner indictments against Hillary Clinton and her inner circle, despite her efforts to disparage them and to discredit them. If she were to win this election, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and ultimately a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt. Wow. It would grind government to a halt. Well, that was then candidate Donald Trump just three days before the 2016 election, saying a president under felony indictment would grind the government to a halt and create a constitutional crisis. He got the premise right, just the players wrong,

as he is now the first former U.S. president and candidate to be convicted of a crime. I mean, this is what he said. She should not be able to run. It would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis if someone with a felony was running for president and got elected, it would grind government to a halt. Also taking note that at that time, Donald Trump actually didn't despise the FBI and hate the FBI. He actually loved the FBI because it's all situational, just like he loves this country in a situational way, just

like too many of his supporters only love this country if Donald Trump is president of the United States. And if Donald Trump's not the president of the United States, they turn on the men and the women of the FBI. They turn on America. They turn on American democracy. They say this country is horrible. It's all very situational. Not the way I was raised. I love this country. Don't turn flags upside down. If my candidate doesn't win, I don't lie for four years and say my candidate really won elections. It's just it's crazy.

But she would be unable to she should not be able to run an unprecedented constitutional crisis. The country would grind to a halt. I mean, so the question, Mika, is really here. Again, it's never about Trump. No. It's about. How's it going on your phone? I was getting your coffee hot.

Oh, you want it hot? You want it hot. OK. I was letting them know hot. Oh, you want it hot? You want it hot. Okay. I was letting them know. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. That's very kind of you.

You're welcome. Someone's got to do it. You must have thought I was lagging here and I wasn't awake enough. But it's not Donald Trump that we're surprised by. It's the people that continue to follow a guy who is so clearly a hypocrite, who's so clearly a situational, who goes from saying he loves the FBI to hating the FBI, who goes from saying America is the worst country in the world to saying America is great again. And then when he loses saying he didn't lose and America is a terrible country again. And then when he loses, saying he didn't lose and America is a terrible country again.

You know, his family calls this country a shithole country. America, the greatest country, the greatest country on the face of the earth. By just about every measure. I mean, I believe that. I love America and I love America. I love America. I don't see it through the prism of who's sitting in the White House on whether this is a great country or not. It's a great country. Sometimes I think some presidents are better than others. But, my God, it's staggering that Donald Trump supporters that's convinced themselves they hate America because Donald Trump says he hates America because America is is weak. And they they rag on the military all the time.

They say it's weak and work. It's we've got the most powerful military in the world. They rag on our economy, saying our economy is terrible. Some saying, oh, it's going toward a depression. We have the strongest economy in the world. Relative to the rest of the world, there's not a close second. America is more powerful today than it has been in a very long time relative to the rest of the world. That's just the reality of it. Despite what you think of Joe Biden. But I think the thing that's most troubling and scary and frightening about this and deadly serious is the Republican Party and the RNC. That part of this

equation is where we don't know how this ends. It's sad. And it's sad. Primarily for the Republican Party, because they're going to lose again. And after all these years of losing from 2017 through 2023, Jonathan Lemire, you think they would have learned by now. I'm dead serious here. You think they would have, you know, there, you know, occasionally some people will get on other shows and say, oh, they're always attacking the Republican. I'm here. I've been trying. I've been on a mission of mercy since 2016, trying to save the Republican Party from themselves. Deeply generous. They haven't listened and they've lost. They didn't listen in 2017 and they lost.

They didn't listen in 2018 and they lost. They didn't listen in 2019 and they lost. 2020, they lost. 21, they lost. 22, 23, they lost. And so they always think they're so clever. They always think they're so clever. They always think they're so tough. All they are. They're the 1962 New York Mets. And at some point, somebody needs to wake up and go, hey, guys, we suck at this.

This game of politics. We need a new manager. Think of the moments that Republicans could have cut Donald Trump loose. They could have parted ways with him. Right after the November 2020 election, they chose not to. Right after January 6th and that subsequent impeachment trial, when it did seem like he was at his low watermark, they chose not to. During the January 6th committee hearings, when all that was resurfaced for national consumption, they chose not to. After the 2022 midterms, when Trump's candidates, particularly for the Senate, lost, where Donald Trump lost, and people were questioning whether he should even run again, and he rushed his campaign announcement, and there was a sense he was doing so to try to

avoid prosecution, that it wasn't actually being anything good for the party. They could have done it then. They chose not to. And now during the primary process, they could have gone another direction. Trump refused to even debate his rivals. Republicans chose not to. E.G. and Carroll. And now this, a moment where there's a criminal conviction. And not only are Republicans not cutting Donald Trump loose, they're wrapping themselves even tighter to his yet again. And there is no sense that that's going to change between now and November. And we are seeing, as we'll get into this morning, some early polls that suggest modest but real movement away from Trump after this conviction. Their warning signs are there for these Republicans and they're ignoring them.

That's that's that's the thing, Mika, is maybe Marco Rubio thinks attacking juries plays well with his base. I'm not so sure. I mean, the I think most Americans respect other Americans that sit for six weeks, do a good job. Even Trump's own attorney said the jury was serious. They did a good job, you know, but paid attention. They paid attention. And he did not find fault with them at all. He said that they they paid attention and did their job. But you get Marco Rubio and other Republicans who, again, because they want Donald Trump to notice them, attack an institution like America's jury system and then compares the United States of America, the USA, compares us, us to Castro's communist Cuba. Yeah. What's happened to Marco Rubio?

Where is he? Because that's that is so deeply unsettling, not for us, for him, for the Republican Party, for the people who vote for him, for the people who vote for this Republican Party, because you're losing when you talk this way, when you attack the rule of law, when you attack the FBI, when you attack jurors, maybe you get $25 in fundraising, like, you know, blitzes, but you lose independent voters. You lose swing voters in Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Pennsylvania, and you lose elections.

And they keep doing this, and they keep losing elections. And I just, again, I wonder how long can they keep going off the cliff for this guy? You know, at some point, people who are cluing into this election, which historically starts to happen in the months and days before an election, they're going to see all these Republicans saying this is the Biden Justice Department. They're going to see all these Republicans saying this is the Biden Justice Department. They're going to be parroting Trump, who says it's Biden, it's Biden. Well, Hunter Biden is going to court.

So Biden must be the worst co-opter of the Justice Department on earth if this is the Biden Justice Department, which we all know there's no evidence of that in this New York criminal trial where Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts, 34 across the board from beginning to end. Every single count was guilty. That's resounding. So, you know, good luck with that argument. It only lasts until people start reading.

Well, yeah, or if they look at what Peter Alexander said yesterday when a member of the United States Senate tried it on him. Here's Peter. But let me just clarify a couple of things for our audience right now. As you know, well, this was a state case. Donald Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York. He was convicted by a jury of 12 New Yorkers beyond a reasonable doubt. They didn't seek this responsibility. Joe Biden, as you know, had nothing to do with this case, Senator. In fact, the Manhattan D.A.'s

investigation, this case began in 2018 when Joe Biden wasn't even the party's, the Democratic Party's presidential nominee. When you talk about what Joe Biden's Department of Justice has done, Joe Biden's Department of Justice is also right now prosecuting cases against Democrats, Robert Menendez, the Democrat of New Jersey, Henry Cuellar, the Democratic representative from Texas, and Hunter Biden. The case against Hunter Biden on those gun charges begins tomorrow. Let me ask you about what we've heard from former President Trump. At the first official event of this reelection campaign, Donald Trump proclaimed, I am your retribution. He talks about seeking revenge against his political enemies and says he will appoint a special prosecutor to, in his words, go after Joe Biden and his family. If it's so objectionable for the justice system to be,

as you say, weaponized against Donald Trump, why is it acceptable for Donald Trump to campaign on weaponizing the DOJ against Joe Biden? Well, of course, there is no answer to that. And by the way, you could go back to 2020, two weeks before the election. I keep bringing this up. Republicans, for some reason, aren't bothered by it. But two weeks before the election in 2020, Donald Trump went to Barr, his attorney general, and ordered him to arrest Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and the Biden family. Ordered two weeks before the election. He ordered the arrest of his political opponent and Barr refused to do it. One of the reasons why he left. Let's bring in also with us this morning, member of the New York Times editorial board, Mara Gay, and also deputy editor of politics for Politico, Sam Stein, and also U.S. national editor at the Financial Times, Ed Luce.

Mara, I thought Peter laid it out pretty darn well. Here you have, of course, the Biden Justice Department actually going after Joe Biden's son and Democratic members of Congress, but not going after Donald Trump in New York, because that case, that investigation began in 2018, 2018. And again, as Peter points out, all this MAGA BS about Joe Biden orchestrating this always overlooks the fact that, well, we've got a system, unfortunately for poor Marco, that the communists in Cuba don't have. We have a grand jury system. A grand jury found probable cause. A jury of 12 New Yorkers, 12 of his peers, unanimously found him guilty on 34 counts. And yet they continue. Yeah, go ahead. It's absolute nonsense. It must be an extraordinarily broad

conspiracy because in order to be real, it would have to involve members of the jury who we know were simply just, you know, teachers from Harlem. It would have to involve all kinds of people for a series of years across a series of states that are really invested in, you know, overturning our democracy. It's just, it's not actually, it's laughable. It's not serious. It reminds me actually of the exchange between Brad Raffensperger and Donald Trump that we know about, because it's just, it's impossible for any impartial, serious observer to believe that it would be a Republican secretary of state that would be interested in stealing an election from Donald Trump. All of this just requires us to suspend belief. And it is preying upon a series of disinformation campaigns that

unfortunately Trump's base has been consuming now for years. And I think the thing to focus on, I think, in the months ahead is that the more the Republican Party continues to wrap itself up with Trump and Trumpism, the more anybody who is not in that base is going to be extremely motivated to show up at the polls. Because in some ways, I think this election is going to be decided by, not by Trump's base. We know what they will do in some ways, but actually by everybody else, not just Democrats, independents and Republicans across the country who are looking at this and are extremely concerned that if Donald Trump does return to office, that this may be a presidency

that looks, he may be more like a king in some ways. And I have a colleague who wrote about that today. I mean, there are serious concerns about whether there are going to be checks on power for a president who sees the presidency now as a retribution opportunity. So I actually think that the more this goes on, the more the rest of America, and that is a majority, is going to be motivated to show up at the polls. And that helps Joe Biden because the real issue for Democrats is how to motivate people to get to the polls. It's not what they feel about Donald Trump. So this can really only help to keep Donald Trump out of the White House, I believe. I totally agree. And we're going to show you a poll the ABC did that along with Ipsos, which

points that fact out, Mika, in one second. I do want to go to Ed Luce, though. And Ed, I was I was not watching because I do my best not to watch live Donald Trump. Oh, yeah. I will go back and then I'll look at it later or read about it. And are any people that are going to just spew lies for as long as he did. But I started getting texts from people on the Biden campaign that I know. And they were like, thank God. Trial's over. This is the moment we've been waiting for. Stay up there, Donald.

Keep talking, Donald. This is, again, the idea, the idea that the Biden campaign or Joe Biden wanted Donald Trump locked down for six weeks, not going out, not sounding crazy, not sounding actually a lot crazier than he did even four or five years ago, completely takes the wrong view of what's going here. The Biden campaign loved what they saw on Friday because they know what people on the inside of the Trump campaign know. Trump is getting even crazier, even when I say crazier, I mean, angrier, more unmoored from from reality. And the one thing he he has completely stopped doing is asking, hey, what do you think of this or what do you think of that? He's just he's completely raging and on his own. Yeah, I mean, I take the same sort of steps as you do, Joe, to protect my mental health. I try not to watch too much of this live.

This is the one, of course, where he calls the judge, Judge Merchant, the devil, and then many other many other things. You know, his sentencing hearing is July the 11th, just four days before we're all going to be in Milwaukee for the RNC convention. I don't know what Judge Merchant's going to sentence him to, whether it's going to be, you know, some community service cleaning toilets at the Port Authority or picking up trash in the park. But we can, I think, probably safely bet that Donald Trump that week in Milwaukee is going to be in the same kind of frame of mind that we saw last Friday when you took those precautions for your mental health not to watch it. I have to say one thing. You mentioned Rubio's comparison of the New York trial to the Cuban justice system. An even more frequently cited comparison by Republicans,

by many Republican senators, by the Federalist Society and others last Friday was between the New York court and the Moscow show trials, the Soviet show trials of the 1930s. These were trials where the defendant had confessions extracted from by torture, heard before Stalin appointed judges with no juries, let alone juries that have been selected partly by the defense, which resulted in prescripted sentences that then resulted in their execution. The level of ignorance to compare this system to what happened in Stalin's Russia is quite remarkable. And I think the fact that people like Putin

and Orban of Hungary were repeating those talking points on Friday and saying this is a rigged trial, this is a corrupt, shows the corruption of America, proves that point. It's an extraordinary level of ignorance and insult to the intelligence of Americans when people say this. Well, you can. Ignorance is actually that's the kindest. That's that's the kindest accusation, depending on who you're talking about, if they actually know what went on during those show trials. So just horrifying show trials that absolutely laid siege to the Soviet Union in the mid to late 30s and actually ended up with Stalin killing most of his effective generals and allowing Hitler to come in and almost take the country. It shows such an extraordinary ignorance or cynicism that that that Mika it it's once again, it's slander against the United States of America.

This is a party that does not love America. When you compare American the American judicial system to Stalin's judicial system, the Castro's judicial system, and you know you are lying, you know you are defaming the United States of America, you know, you have put party over country and you're not going to win swing voters. Well, Republicans and hosts of Fox News, they're doing it to keep their job. They're not doing it for the truth or for facts or for news. They're doing it to keep the jobs. We've been told that.

You can also see it plain as day. Well, we have been told that. New polling from ABC News and Ipsos is giving us our first snapshot at how independent voters feel about last week's verdict. Although 45% say the verdict was politically motivated,

more than half of all independents, 52 percent, believe the jury reached the right conclusion and think it should end Donald Trump's 2024 campaign. Those numbers are even higher among with voters with unfavorable opinions of both Trump and President Joe Biden, those so-called double haters among that group. Sixty five percent say the verdict was correct and 67 percent say it should end Trump's bid for the White House. So they agree with Donald Trump. How we came in on the show here. Yeah. So so, Sam Stein, we're looking at this double haters. Everybody's talking about the double haters, people that don't like Biden, people that don't like Trump. It's actually if you dig into that, they are, of course,

pollsters say they're the most important group. If you dig into it, you know, you actually get a lot of hated, a lot of animosity towards Donald Trump. And with Joe Biden, it's like, yeah, he's too old. I just I just he's all right. He's a good guy. Too old. Don't want him in there. So double haters actually is a bit of a misnomer.

But but they always seem to break overwhelmingly Biden's way. And here we see it again. Sixty seven percent of this undecided group that's going to determine the outcome of the election think that the convictions should end Donald Trump's campaign. What say you, Mr. Stein? Well, I think it's an alarming number if you're Donald Trump, obviously. You can't afford to bleed that type of support anywhere. But that block in particular, you need to break to you specifically, right? I mean, he's going to win his voters.

We know that. What he really needs in this election is those people who are on the fence, maybe a little bit wary of Joe Biden, breaking all the way his way. That said, I'm going to hold my judgments for polls that are not snapshot polls. That's right after the verdict. People may be reacting to the news. We're also five months out, as Jonathan pointed out rightfully at the top of this, we have a lengthy history of people circling back towards Trump after egregious, seemingly crippling political moments. January 6th top among them. So let's wait and see and be sober about these poll numbers. I will say, look, it obviously doesn't benefit Donald Trump to have 34 guilty counts against him. It's not something that any candidate would want.

I think he's trying to turn it into some sort of political favor. I don't think it's ignorance that other Republicans are comparing it to the show trials of the Stalin era. I think they know exactly what they're doing. They're not ignorant of it. They're trying to discredit the justice system because that's the card that they have to play here. The question, Joe, that you raised is, will the public, or at least will a good portion of the public look at that and say, you know what, I'm all for it? Or will they say, you know what, our foundational system of government and the rule of law is too important? And it was telling to me that when Joe Biden came out and offered his first remarks on the trial last week, he did not go after the substance of the verdict.

No one expected him to do that. What he did is he got really heated about the efforts by Republicans to undermine faith in the rule of law. And I think that's where he wants to point his anger. And that's the case he wants to make heading into the election. Yeah, and the politics of this are going to be so fascinating because, yes, there's polling that shows

that there is a percentage of Republicans who won't vote for Trump. At least they say they won't vote for Trump now that he's a convicted felon. But we're seeing the vast majority of the GOP in a frenzy and repeating Trump talking points, really trying to create an echo chamber about how unfair this verdict was. Now, let's see what Democrats do. We knew the president. That was the right thing to do, most people believe, his first remarks simply about we need to respect the process. But now what do fellow Democrats do? What does the campaign do? Eventually, what does the president himself do in terms of driving home this conviction as example of why Donald Trump is not fit for office? So now let's turn to the legal part of this and bring in former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Lisa, I hope we've had a chance to catch your breath

after such a frenzied stretch. We are a couple of days out from the verdict now. Any sort of additional reactions now that you've had time to sit with this as to how it went down and give us your latest thoughts as to what the prosecution may seek in terms of penalty. Let's start there. I think that the prosecution, notwithstanding Donald Trump's efforts to say that the people won't stand for his serving any jail time, I would be very surprised that the Manhattan DA's office doesn't seek some form of jail time here. And the reason is for two reasons, John. One is the severity of the conduct. We're talking about 34 counts,

each of which could be punished by up to four years. Of course, they're not going to seek four years for each of these counts. Rather, they'd ask for some sort of concurrent sentence where they're all grouped together. But it's hard for me to imagine that given the multiplicity of counts here, they're not going to seek some jail time. The other major factor, however, is the lack of remorse shown by the defendant. Not only do we have a defendant who's already been found in criminal contempt 10 times, but he continues to say things about the verdict, about the process, about participants in the process who are covered by the gag order in theoretical violations of that

gag order that haven't been brought to Justice Marchand's attention. That could be a part of any sentencing procedure. When he goes out and says, for example, that this is all a Biden administration led cabal because one of the prosecutors here happened to have served in the Biden Department of Justice. That's the only connection at all that they can draw. That is a person who shows no remorse, a person who says the process is rigged, that the judge is corrupt, that the district attorney didn't want to bring this case, but only did so under political pressure. That is a person who doesn't believe that they did anything wrong, as he continues to say. And I expect that to play a major factor in his sentencing. You know, Lisa, one of the questions that I've had is, obviously, we have no precedent for a former sitting president to be convicted of a felony on 34 counts.

At the same time, if you're the judge, Judge Merchan must be thinking, OK, you know, I have to look at precedent in terms of sentencing. What is fair? And so is there are there high profile cases that you think he may be looking at? Are there, you know, other examples that we can look to to say, well, this might be what it looks like? I mean, what would be fair? There's no precedent. We're just kind of running blind here. Judge Mershon is a person who historically has not been particularly lenient with white collar defenders. It is also not the case, despite what Trump and his allies continue to say, that falsification of business records as a felony

is not a traditionally prosecuted crime in Manhattan. In fact, it gets prosecuted all the time. What might be novel here is the combination of falsification of business records and an election law conspiracy under state law. It's New York election law 17152. That's the crime that Trump says, nobody had any idea what I was being accused of. That's not true at all. But again, if you're looking historically at have people committed falsification of business records that get bumped up to a felony because there is an underlying crime that they either intended to commit or conceal. That happens all the time in Manhattan. And Justice Marchand will take that into consideration.

All right. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Thank you very much. We'll see you again soon. And still ahead on Morning Joe, President Biden announces a new ceasefire proposal to end the war in Gaza. We'll go over the terms and explain why Israel is pushing back against Biden's description of the deal, plus history made in Mexico with the election of its first female president. We'll go live to Mexico City for more on the country's new leader. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. Come back. Thirty three past the hour. A senior Israeli official tells NBC News President Biden's

description of the latest ceasefire proposal is, quote, not accurate. The official specifically disputed that Israel had agreed to fully withdraw its troops from Gaza, a clause that's in the second phase of the proposal. The comment comes as far right members of the Israeli government have voiced their opposition to the proposal. President Biden announced the framework on Friday, describing it as a, quote, durable end to the conflict. The three-phased plan begins with a six-week truce and the return of women, children, and other vulnerable hostages in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Israeli troops would also withdraw from populated areas of Gaza.

The second phase would see a permanent end to the war, as well as the release of the remaining hostages. The third phase outlines a three to five year period of reconstructing Gaza and the establishment of a non-Hamas Palestinian government. Hamas has responded positively to the proposal so far. Joining us now, columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. And David, President Biden seems to be quite out front on this. What do you make of the Israeli response? So I think President Biden is trying to force

Prime Minister Netanyahu to make a choice. In a way, there are two Bibi Netanyahu's. There's the person who's the head of the war cabinet. And that person, from everything I know, signed off on the consensus of Israeli military leaders that the vision that President Biden laid out on Friday about a way to end this war is correct. There's another prime minister, Netanyahu, who's the head of the governing coalition, which has some extreme right wing members who knows that if he presses forward with Biden's deal, his coalition will fall. Already two key members have said, one named Ben-Gavir said accepting this deal would be absolute defeat for Israel. Another just said he would immediately quit the government. So Netanyahu's government will fall if he takes the deal. If he doesn't take the deal,

there's every likelihood that he'll be replaced because he's not popular in Israel. And we are heading toward a scenario where elections become increasingly likely. So what Biden has done is try to force the issue, make Netanyahu choose, make the Israeli people choose between a credible path to winding this war down, bringing the hostages home, which Israelis feel so passionately about, and continuing with Netanyahu's fundamentally disorganized approach to this war. He still doesn't really have a plan for what we call the day after. He just keeps talking about needing to fight and fight until we have absolute victory, which our CIA, which Israeli military intelligence

generally thinks is an impossible goal. Well, and again, he's as you said, he's being pulled in two different directions. He can listen to the military. He can listen to his security advisors or he can listen to extreme right in his coalition. Either way he goes, politically at least, he's out. Right, David? So Netanyahu is the ultimate survivor. I've been covering it much of my life, and I never want to bet that he's not going to find a way for political survival. There are proposals that Yair Lapid, who's a centrist, might come in. And if the extreme right-wing people defect from Netanyahu's governing coalition, Lapid might find a way for him to get enough mandates to continue to govern. But I think that the fundamental question that Biden is putting to Israel is one that simply can't be escaped.

What is it that they see as the end of this war that's been so costly for Israel, so devastating to the country's morale? How's that going to end? And I continue to think that they have a real friend in Biden who's still trying to embrace Israel and say, let us help you find a way out of this. Biden still appears to be very popular in Israel. And despite his the problems he's had with Netanyahu, who is who's obviously Netanyahu is obviously very unpopular there. I am curious, though, in your visits,

in your your your communication with your sources, where are the Israeli people right now? I know maybe a month or two ago, people were talking about Netanyahu's policy being off the market, and yet the Israeli people were with him as far as taking the war to Hamas. Now, I really think the brilliance of the Biden proposal is that that he's had Hamas basically agree thus far to a future where they're not running Gaza. And if that's not victory, I don't know what is.

Do the Israeli people, will the Israeli people see it that way, that the release of hostages, the the expulsion of Hamas from any governing any governing role in Gaza and three to five year rebuilding of that area? So, Joe, the release of the hostages will bring a sense of joy and relief in Israel. It will be overwhelming and will change the situation. But I think the strongest card that Netanyahu has is that he's saying to Israelis, we should fight on till victory. We're Israel. We're tough. We don't let terrorists stream across our border on October 7 and murder our people without exacting the ultimate revenge and vindication. And that's popular in Israel.

I have Israeli friends one stop by the other night to warn. Netanyahu, with the average Israeli who feels traumatized by what happened October 7 is becoming more popular, not less. This person said to me, make Israel great again. That's that's that's Bibi's line. Bring back our sense of strength. Sound familiar? Keep me out of jail. Well, keep me out of jail. There are a lot of parallels here that we could cite. But make Israel great again. A country that's traumatized, that feels it's been reversed. And we know from our American experience that the appeal of that kind of populism can be strong. What's needed is a firm vision of an alternative path to end the war, bring the hostages home, and give Israel security. And if somebody,

the Defense Minister Galat, the former Army Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, other members of the War Cabinet can provide that, you know, you can have a strong general who says to a traumatized Israel, here's a way forward with our best ally in the United States that will make us all secure. That's going to be the most powerful factor, I think. Well, Jonathan Meir, you can make Israel great again by not having a prime minister who knew where all of Hamas's illegal funds were in 2018. And he and Donald Trump did nothing about it. You could get a prime minister in Israel that didn't go to Qatar and say, hey, keep funding to the Hamas terrorist billions of dollars. Keep that pipeline of cash and supplies going to Hamas, which Bibi Netanyahu did. We can go on and on.

Hamas existed and Hamas was able to attack on October the 7th because Bibi Netanyahu built their war machine and they don't deny it anymore. They don't deny it. They only say, oh, well, let's talk about that after the war. But make Israel great again? How about getting a prime minister that doesn't go to Doha and say, hey, we want you to fund a terrorist organization whose very existence is focused on the slaughter of Jews and the elimination of the state of Israel, because that's Bibi Netanyahu. He's the one who put Israel in this position on October the 7th. So make Israel great again. Yeah. Yeah. Make Israel great again. Get competent leaders have to. Yeah. Man, make Israel great again. Get competent leaders that aren't run around by a cabinet of extremists. Yeah, you've underscored the flaw with this comparison here.

Trump, for all his flaws in 2015, 2016, when he introduced make America great again, he was an outsider. Prime Minister Netanyahu was in power the morning of October 7th. He's no outsider, certainly. Ed Luce, let's get you in on this to get your analysis on this maneuver here by President Biden, seemingly to try to box Bibi Netanyahu in. And what do you think Netanyahu's choice will be? It's his priorities. What are they?

Is it to end this war or to stay in power? I think David Ignatius is absolutely spot on on this. There are two Netanyahu's. There's the one who leads the war cabinet, which sees the logic of this three phase plan that Biden laid out. And then there's a Netanyahu who heads this coalition that includes extreme right wing Jewish supremacist parties. Unfortunately, wherever it's wherever in Netanyahu's career, there's been a choice between doing the statesman like thing and doing the thing that would save his own skin. He's always gone for that second Netanyahu, the one that would save his own skin.

I guess that the hope is that by forcing this issue last Friday, what Biden will do is accelerate the departure from Netanyahu's coalition of the moderates, people like Benny Gantz, that will then lead to a general election that would replace Netanyahu and, I guess, result in the resumption of the criminal trials against him, by the way, which is why I have absolutely no doubt that Netanyahu will do anything, sacrifice anything, including Israel's interests, in order for that not to happen, to stop that general election from taking place. That seems pretty obvious. U.S. national editor at The Financial Times, Ed Luce. Thank you very much. And The Washington Post, David Ignatius. Thank you both for coming on this. Look at the institutions. I know they're just institutions themselves. They know their stuff. OK, I think we need to get statues of them around Morning Joe headquarters. Okay. Yes. All right. We could do that. Thanks, guys.

Coming up, Caitlin Clark is getting the rookie treatment from some opponents in the WNBA, highlighted by a hard foul over the weekend. Look at that. We'll discuss that and much more with the great Pablo Torre. Oh, he's the best. On Morning Joe. Just about 10 minutes before the top of the hour, history was made overnight in Mexico's presidential election. Claudia Scheinbaum is now set to become Mexico's first female president.

She will also be the first Mexican president of Jewish heritage. Early results show Scheinbaum, a climate scientist and former mayor of Mexico City, winning in a landslide, grabbing nearly 60 percent of the vote. Scheinbaum campaigned on a promise to cement the legacy of outgoing president and her longtime mentor, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. Her opponent, Xochitl Galvez, conceded defeat after taking only about 30 percent of the vote. So more history, history here, a lot of history made here. At first, a woman elected in Mexico, also the first Jewish person in one of the world's, as the New York Times describes Mexico, one of the world's largest predominantly Catholic countries. So still cartel violence there, which hasn't been curbed. Also, some undermining of democratic institutions at the same time. A lot of a lot of Mexicans lifted out of poverty over the past four years. Yeah, I mean, she's also a climate scientist. She's very interesting figure. You know, what's what's going to be interesting is that Mexico is not only focused right now on cartel violence, which has been an

ongoing concern, of course, but actually also on building infrastructure, which was a major issue, I know, in this campaign, just as a close observer of it. And, you know, it's also a country that is dealing with a lot of the same border control issues that the United States is. And so it will be kind of interesting to see what the president-elect does on that front as well. There is, you know, some anger among the Mexican public, too, about, you know, having a migrant crisis that it is also experiencing. It's not only the United States that's experiencing that migrant crisis. And, of course, we always wanted to get a close look at how that could be destabilizing democracies, not just here in the United States, but elsewhere.

This is an election that sadly was beset as well. Just at the local level, there was political violence. And I think we don't want to miss that. So this is a really critical time, not just for the United States and its democracy, but for democracies around the world. And I think that this is a moment of hope. But but this this really is something to watch there as well. Yes. All right. Other news, a legal disciplinary board says Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred. The recommendation from the D.C. Board of Professional Responsibility cites Giuliani's work in Pennsylvania following the 2020 election in which he sought to have the state's election results thrown out in favor of his former client, Donald Trump.

Now the case heads to the D.C. Court of Appeals, which will decide whether Giuliani will be disbarred. A spokesperson for the former New York City mayor blamed the findings in the report on partisan Democrats. And Sam Stein, if only it were that easy for Rudy Giuliani, I mean, facing bankruptcy, continued disbarment, proceedings going on against him. The news keeps getting worse for Rudy. Yeah, I mean, I'm not sure his legal practice in D.C. was that big or that people were eager to hire him in this city. But it's a humiliation, frankly. And, you know, Rudy obviously is a controversial figure. He was a controversial figure as mayor. I'm not going to sweep that aside. But I think it's fair and objective to say that this is a remarkable, shocking fall from

grace for a man who in the aftermath of 9-11 was on Time magazine as America's mayor. I mean, just the litany of things that have happened over the past five years. That's just an inglorious final chapter. And it makes you wonder about the path not taken for him. Hey, Sam, let me ask you really quickly, what are you working on this week at Politico? What are you looking at? I mean, every week seems like a crazy week, guys, but this week really is a wild week.

We have the Hunter trial starting today, and that's happening as the president is set to give an executive action on the border addressing that migrant crisis that we just referenced. And that's happening right before the president heads to France for a ceremonial trip for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, all with the backdrop of the fallout from Trump's verdict. It's just a wild, wild week in D.C. as they tend to be. We'll be watching. Sam, thank you so much. We, Sam. Coming up, we're covering a lot of ground. Thank you. In the sports world.

First, Roger Bennett joins us to explain the major match in the Champions League. And Pablo Torre is in studio with more about that incredible start to Juan Soto's season with the New York Yankees. We'll be right back. Stand here, we stand tall. We can move beyond these walls. The best things in life come in twos. Two scoops of ice cream, two thumbs up. And now, buy any phone when you switch to consumer cellular and get two months of service free. That's right, two months free. All with fast, reliable nationwide coverage.

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Come on. Come on. It's the top of the hour. if it's almost the top of the hour yeah that means it's time for nbc sports soccer analyst and founder of men and blazers no media network it's really not just a media network it's an empire way off time that roger bennett runs that's why we're gonna have him at the top of the hour roger roger meekert dortmund dortmund was was playing great the first half they they just blanketed real but wait is roger yawning don't you know no I'm reliving the game. It's like a horror movie trope. You don't go down to the beautiful spot late at night when it's misty. Just bad things happen.

You'll see what I mean. The club football season saves his best to last. The Champions League final, a game that casts a planet-wide eclipse across the globe for 90 minutes. London's Wembley, top dog against underdog Real Madrid, the gold standard of the tournament, seeking their 15th win all time against German dreamers Dortmund. Real Madrid are what Saban's Alabama were.

Dortmund more a bit like the Mets, and the match opened with electric energy and wonder. Dortmund made a fist of it. Adeyemi had the best chance of the first half, but his decision making at Alan Dershowitz levels Real Madrid they've got a magical alchemical

aura in the champions they just find a way to win when playing badly 5 foot 7 Spanish hair Hobbit Carvajal leaps in front of a 6 foot 2 giant flicks a ball home and 7 minutes later 20 year old English king Jude Bellingham rolls the ball to Vinicius Junior

who proves he's the best Vinny since Chase, best Junior since Soprano. 2-0 Madrid. Football's a cruel game, Joe, unless you're a Real Madrid fan. Stop me if you've heard this one before. They play poorly but win the Champions League again, 15th all-time,

six in the last 11 years. These are incredible numbers. It's like a magical aura. In American sports, I don't know anything like it other than Joey Chestnut in that Nathan hot dog eating thing. It's just a magical transcendence. That's what I think when I see the beautiful game and see Real flying through the air winning another championship.

My mind goes straight to Joey Chestnut. But, you know, you are so right. It's just like the Liverpool match when they beat Liverpool in the Champions League final. They didn't play that well. It's a game Liverpool could have easily won. But they always, like Patrick Mahomes in Super Bowls, they always figure out a way to win.

Spanish Mahomes, Joe, it is transcendent. It is magical. At the end of the day, in football, we're all just cheering for spreadsheets. Mika, the season has ended, and it starts in about two weeks' time. Two weeks. It's just going to stay the same thing. Okay, make the turn. And in those two weeks, we're going to go see Liverpool play.

I think they play in Philadelphia. They're playing all over the place. We're going to see a lot of football. Courage. Roger Bennett. Hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm holding Roger to something. Roger, we're going to Liverpool next year, and we're going to watch the Derby.

We're going to watch Liverpool and Everton. You pick the location. But I'm pinning you down now. We need to do it. I know. I will be there. And Mika, always. This has been, I think, my 14th year on the show.

Still pretending she hates it. I just want the world to know just how secretly she adores the game of football in real life. It's just one of the few differences between screen Mika and real Mika. Oh, OK. I love it so much, I think you both should go, definitely. Please. Okay, let's turn to Pablo Torre finds out. Pablo Torre on

Metalark Media ESPN's Pablo Torre. My gosh, you have a lot of titles. He does have a lot of titles. I want an invite. Roger Bennett just got invited on a European Grand Tour by Joe Scarborough. I'm just here at the table waiting to talk about my Yankees, you know. Feel a little left out. Unfortunately, heartbreak at Fenway yesterday as we blew a 3-0 lead against the Tigers.

Meek was very nice. It was tied. Very polite to stay with me through extra innings watching that. But no problems, though, for the Yankees or Juan Soto. I mean, we see so many of these free agents that are just busts. Not Juan Soto, man. He's incredible. Yeah, I mean, Juan Soto,

I've been banging the Juan Soto drum to you guys for a while now. The fun part for me, Joe, as I contemplate, what is the Venn diagram between me and Rudy Giuliani? It is rooting for Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. So Aaron Judge, who's sitting behind him, the guy is also an MVP candidate. So if you're not aware of what the Yankees are doing, it feels like my childhood again, which is to say that I get to look down at the standing somewhere and see Joe and John's Red Sox pathetically near the bottom somewhere. I don't know, third place, whatever.

It's all the same. But meanwhile, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto are the Bash brothers. Aaron Judge is leading the AL in homers, walks, doubles, OPS slugging. And Juan Soto, of course, is the guy who I have celebrated as the dude who we should pay all of the money in the world to. And now we've got two of those guys. And a pitching staff show. The best pitching staff in the American League.

This is so exciting. Louis, Louis, heel. Oh, my God. Keep going. Yeah, it's all just a feast of nostalgia for me. What is so great about this, look at this. Look at this as standings. Jonathan Lemire, do you know what is so great about this, look at this. Look at this, the standings, Jonathan Lemire. Do you know what's so exciting about this? Yes, Lemire there. I'll tell you

what's so exciting about this. They're going to win 112 games. The Dodgers will win 111 games, and they will both be out in the divisional series while we'll keep going with our wild card team. The little engine that could. I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. Jonathan O'Meara, we've seen this before. The Yankees, maybe they have a great season.

The Dodgers have a great season. They're going to get bounced out. And then more tears and less gloating from our own Pablo Torre. Why do we have him on? Why are we doing this? This is so much Yankee gloating this morning. It is deeply insufferable. Yeah, you're right, Joe.

Our Red Sox split a series of the Tigers this weekend when they should have won three out of four, to be sure. But Pablo's right. I mean, the Yankees are playing great right now. I hate to be the one to bring this up, but they're doing it all without Garrett Cole, their ace, who could be back in about a month's time. But to be fair, since 2009, part of the Yankee

tradition is falling short in October. So that is something that they still have to deal with. Although you mentioned the Dodgers, Joe. I'm more excited. Yankees-Dodgers play each other, I believe, next weekend. So that will be a lot of fun to see two teams that were perennially heading home before the 1st of November.

I think we can say hopefully perennially. Perennially. Perennially. Remember when Rudy Giuliani was a normal person who got to see championships won. That's what I remember. Yeah.iani was a normal person who got to see championships won. That's what I remember. Yeah. He was never that normal. You know, we're way past the top of the hour, but this is too fun to stop right now.

I have a question for Pablo. I want to show you. This is WNBA rookie phenom Caitlin Clark taking a hard foul from Chicago Skyguard Kennedy Carter during a game on Saturday. Take a look. They've redoubled off to Carter during a game on Saturday. Take a look. Mavry doubled off to Carter. Her jumper is good. Kennedy Carter now with 12 points off the bench. And then the lay from Boston as the officials are going to take a look

at what just transpired between Carter and Clark. So after it was initially ruled a common foul, the league upgraded it to a flagrant yesterday, because Carter showing no remorse on social media following the game. Carter wrote, quote, besides three points shooting, what does Clark bring to the table? She added in another post, I'd rather that you hate me than love me. And I mean that on my dead aunt. And she's not the only member of her team facing backlash. I'll tell you what, that's what you want to do when you want to get the Pepsi endorsements. One of Clark's former college rivals, Angel Reese, who was seen cheering on the hard foul

from the sideline, has since been fined $1,000 for skipping out on interviews with the media following Saturday's game. Come on. This is Bill Lamb beer type. It's the Jordan rules. Mika, this is how they treat you when you're a rookie who also is a superstar. When you are a Goliath who feels like a David, when you are in pro wrestling terms, a heel and a face, a villain and a hero. And this is on many, many levels, the perfect story because everybody has something to be mad about. And a lot

of the anger is not just the clip that we are seeing now and the social media chatter. It's from everybody on levels of race and hype and culture war. So the question I had, guys, entering this WNBA season was, how could Kaitlyn Clark in the pros possibly replicate, in terms of ratings, in terms of buzz, the secret special formula we saw in college where she set records, right? The most watched basketball game in ESPN history was her Iowa team making that run in the tournament. And the way you do it is by getting everybody varying degrees of mad. And this is the perfect sports story because it has all of that culture war in it, as well as sports. She is struggling. She had three points last night against the Liberty in that loss. is the perfect sports story because it has all of that culture war in it as well as sports she is

struggling she had three points last night against the liberty in that loss before then beat the chicago sky against her old rival angel reese this is the liberty game she had this one lone three-pointer that's what you saw from caitlyn clark but at the same time as she struggled she has had a really good season 17 and 6 and 5 i think so everybody it's rashomon everybody it's an inkblot test you see caitlin clark what do you see some people see hype other people see the truth yeah you know the thing is i see someone getting assaulted we can talk about we're not gonna raise we can talk about socio-e whatever. At the end of the day, there's also a good bit of just like jealousy. Here's a woman that came out of college, and she does State Farm commercials.

Who knows how much he gets paid? And all of these other endorsements. So she's made more money before she played her first game than most of the women out there who have been struggling in the WNBA year after year after year. So there's going to be resentment, whoever that player is, right? Totally. I mean, some of this is just haters going to hate. There is an element of that. I hate to say it that way, but it's true. And of course, as a woman who did attend middle school myself and high school and college thereafter, sometimes women can be terrible to one another, which is not something that we enjoy seeing.

But I did watch this and it felt really icky. It's not why I love watching the league. But I did wonder, and I'm hoping maybe Pablo can answer this for us, how much of this is in the environment. We're talking about culture, race, class. But how much of this is about the fact that all of these players are extraordinarily underpaid compared to the amount of joy and buzz that they have now earned in American culture? Yeah, I think there's a lot of,

there are so many people in this league who have been ignored forever, who are now getting a chance because the spotlight is shown upon Caitlin Clark to do something in that refracted glow. And for Kennedy Carter and for lots of people who don't fit the, look, Kennedy Carter is not a star. She's closer to an enforcer

is what we've learned about her in the last weekend. And some people want to say, we are a tough league. Like, the NBA, you guys complain about softness over there. The WNBA has a history of beef. And in this case, Joe and Mika, it's totally true. The refs missed it. It was a flagrant foul. She probably should have been ejected.

She was not. This is something where it went too far. But in terms of the juice it gives you, John, this is why people are going to be watching because they're going to see, wait a minute, is America's sweetheart going to be beaten up? Is she going to overcome that? That story is an irresistible soap opera now on top of a legitimate sports story. Well, it is undeniable as what a cheap shot that was. Pablo, you mentioned the NBA. That league made the curious decision to take two months off before the finals started. But they finally are.

They do begin on Thursday. Briefly. Yeah. Here we go. Mavericks, Celtics. Mavericks had the best player in the series. Luka Doncic. Celtics have been the best team record wise all year long.

My heart, of course, lies with America's team, the Boston Celtics. But give us your quick analysis. Yeah, we have a Luka, Doncic, Kyrie Irving pairing that is stable and thriving. And I think I first talked to you guys because of Kyrie Irving when he was unhinged and doing all sorts of stuff that was indefensible. And all I want to say about Kyrie Irving in this short time is that he has been, from a PR perspective, acting, acting beautifully. On the basketball court, he's been incredible next to Luka. Off the court, he has said nothing. He has been seemingly quite stable.

And that combination, to me, they have the two best players on the court. The Celtics are really, really good. But John's already fixing up his face like he wants to fight me now because what? America's team? What? You think that the Celtics have all of the answers for a duo? To me, that's more talented than any two players. You think Tatum and Brown are not going to choke, I guess. I think Tatum is better than Kyrie. And I also think, Joe, that Kyrie Irving has a bit of a history in Boston, and since he quit on the Celtics a few years ago, he has not played well in that arena. That crowd

is going to be eager to see him. I do think it's a long series, but I'm going to pick Celts in seven. You know, Pablo, and I've said this, I just haven't followed the NBA much. It seems like, you know, guys kind of walk down the court

and shoot it from 40 feet and it swishes and then they walk back. I don't know what it is about this. I don't know what it is about this playoff. I have been completely locked in. And it's exciting because, guys, I had no idea. This shows you how ignorant I am of basketball. I had no idea how great Luka was. Oh, yeah.

The guy is just beyond extraordinary. And I think the Mavs just may pull it off. Yes. He's a basketball genius. Luka Doncic is a 6'10 Slovenian basketball genius who is the closest thing to LeBron James since LeBron James. And me and Joe Scarborough, it sounds like, are going on a road trip to Dallas.

You might get on that parade at this point. Forget Liverpool. We're going to Dallas. All right. The host of Pablo Torre finds out on Metal Arts Media, ESPN's Pablo Torre. Thank you very much for being on this morning. We hope to see you really soon.