Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/6/22

Episode Date: July 6, 2022

Highland Park parade shooting suspect charged with 7 counts of first-degree murder

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, July 6th. Good to have you all with Joe and me this morning. We've got a lot to get to. The death toll rises in the July 4th massacre in Highland Park. Oh, good to have Willie here. Of course, it's not Monday. What is it, guys? Wednesday? No, no. You see, here's the thing, honey. Willie's been here. He's the man. We just stumbled in off the street. All right. So Willie's been here this week. I look at it every day. It feels like Monday. That's terrible. I understand. It does. I doubt it does. But we have so much to get to.

And this incredibly tragic news out of Highland Park, Illinois, as we learn more about the victims. A toddler is without both of his parents this morning after reportedly being rescued from beneath his father's body. is formally charged and due in court today as new information about his past raises questions about how he was able to legally purchase firearms and new developments in the criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia as Senator Lindsey Graham and Donald Trump's former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, get hit with subpoenas. And the date has been set for the next hearing into the January 6th attack on the Capitol. We'll have the latest on all of that. But first, Willie, so much, so much tragedy over the July 4th weekend.

Yeah, and we've got new details this morning, Mika. The suspect in the July 4th massacre in Highland Park, Illinois, at a Fourth of July parade has been charged with seven counts of first degree murder now after a seventh person died yesterday. The Lake County state's attorney says more charges are expected to come. Investigators also are learning more about the alleged shooter and how long he'd been planning the attack and many of the warning signs, the red flags that went up before he carried out his attack on a Fourth of July parade. NBC's Tom Yamas has more. Investigators revealing the terror and chaos caused by that mass shooting in a Chicago suburb was weeks in the making. The alleged gunman even devising an elaborate escape plan.

It was just chaos. Everybody was running. The horror began shortly after 10 a.m. during Highland Park's 4th of July parade. And when I ran back, there was the bodies on the ground. There was a little boy being carried away. Authorities say the gunman disguised himself as a woman, climbing a fire escape ladder to the roof of a local business. He then took an AR-15 style rifle and fired down more than 70 rounds at innocent parade goers, including children. Listen to this video posted on social media. You can hear a pause as he apparently aims for different groups along the parade route. Police say seven are now dead, at least 38 injured.

I can see the shooter on the rooftop. I can see flashes from the muzzle coming in our actual direction. David Salik was watching the parade with his wife and eight-year-old son. He said, we're in the dead zone. He was firing in your direction? Yes. Salik says he threw his son and wife behind a steel park bench to get them out of the line of fire. Just steps from him, two people were shot.

Today, realizing just inches separated his family from life or death. I don't want to think about that. As survivors were left in shock, authorities were tracking down the shooter. Eight hours later, they located a person of interest, identifying him as 21-year-old Robert Cremo III. During the attack, Cremo was dressed in women's clothing, and investigators do believe he did this to conceal his facial tattoos and his identity and help him during the escape with the other people who were fleeing the chaos. Police say he then walked to his mother's house and borrowed her car, driving to Wisconsin, then coming back to Illinois.

A resident spotted him in that car and called 911. Police taking him down, the car towed to the police station. A senior law enforcement official telling NBC News he purchased multiple weapons, including the high-powered rifle from the shooting, legally. He left that weapon at the scene. The ATF expedited a trace of it, connecting them to the suspect. The alleged shooter also appears to have a significant digital trail. NBC News has reviewed a YouTube page confirmed by law enforcement to be associated with Cremo.

Performing as a rapper known as Awake, his recent music videos include tributes to mass murder. Police revealing three years ago they responded to a threat at Cremo's home. A family member reported that Cremo said he was going to kill everyone and Cremo had a collection of knives. The police removed 16 knives, a dagger and a sword from Cremo's home. Those that grew up with him describe him as an outcast who was troubled. He had been interested in rifles and weapons. Gracie Sklamberg went to school with the alleged shooter. I could not see him doing that. I think that I have gone to school for 13 years with somebody

that's capable of mass murder. Makes no sense to me. Tom Yamas reporting there. So, guys, this is a young man who just under three years ago, as Tom said in the piece, his family called police to the house because he said he was going to, quote, kill everyone. Their police seized swords and knives, a bunch of them, more than a dozen of those, but didn't press charges there. So that's why a red flag law did not kick into effect when he went to buy his AR-15, when he went to buy his guns. There were no formal charges against him. And so there was

no red flag and there was no sufficient reason to prevent him from getting the ID that he needs in the state of Illinois to own guns. Well, we just have to do better as a country. We we've we've taken the first step on bipartisan legislation for, you know, it's not gun control. It's not even gun safety, really. It's public safety. And this morning, The Washington Post is writing about the need to really start seriously considering a ban against weapons of war, the type of which passed in 1994. But these weapons of war are turning our churches into killing fields, turning our children, our toddler schools and our young children's schools into killing fields, turning country music concerts into killing fields and turning 4th of July parades into

killing fields. There's just no justification for it. There's no justification for it as far as it's hiding. There's no justification for these weapons of war when it comes to even protecting your house. I mean, without getting into too many too many details, a shotgun will do that about as good as anything. So the proliferation of these weapons of war continue. And again, even if you weren't for a ban of weapons of war or military style weapons, whatever you want to call them. Let's just say weapons designed to kill humans in a war. Yeah. In the past, you have to look at what's happened in this country over the past decade. You need to look what has happened from Sandy Hook to Evaldi to Chicago. It just continues. This is going to continue. You said it after Evaldi, to Chicago. It just continues. This is going to continue. You said it after Evaldi, Mika.

This is not going to stop. It's not going to. 90% of Americans want expanded background checks, universal background checks. Two-thirds of Americans want a ban on military-style weapons. It is time for a small portion of Americans in Congress. It is time for them to stop from at least having a sensible, sane, rational debate about this. One doctor at the scene was trying to treat the victims and he described the wounds as evisceration wounds. So while a shotgun could protect your home, Joe, it's not going to

as more and more assault weapons get out into the country. There are already so many out that one of the issues that needs to be dealt with over the next year or so, if anybody wants to be serious about that, is how to get those, how to get the toothpaste back in the tube. Is it gun buybacks? How do you get those off the street? Because those guns are not just single bullets that make a hole. They are bullets that blow up bodies. And again, the purpose of them, Willie, the purpose of those weapons are to kill human beings. They're not to shoot deer.

They're not to defend your home. I can tell you they're far more unwieldy than a shotgun or a handgun inside your home, in the confines of your home. And again, you don't have to be that good of an aim with a shotgun to stop somebody from coming through your front door. I'm sorry to go into the great details of this, but we need to because people lie all the time saying, oh, we need military style weapons to defend our house. Maybe if you live in Fort Knox. But other than that, it really, again, it's it's it's it's so unnecessary. And the cost of this society is overwhelming. And what do we do about it we

start the discussion mika talked about gun buybacks that's great you can talk about gun buybacks see if those are effective but you look at the second amendment okay there's been a debate for 200 years about what the second amendment means a well-regulated militia. OK, well, that's fine. If you say all Americans have a right to keep and bear arms, well, well-regulated. Willie, these weapons, all weapons are not created the same as we know. That's been the reality of the gun debate for years. Automatic assault weapons have been illegal for quite some time. These military style weapons, though, that are extraordinarily effective selling them in killing human beings and selling them to 18 year olds. They need to be regulated. We need to make sure that only law abiding Americans, sane, rational Americans can get this. And we have to make it a lot harder to buy these AR-15s and these military style weapons.

So we make sure that law abiding Americans have. Yeah. And remember some of the defenses we heard from United States senators after Uvalde that AR-15s are necessary to shoot varmints or to shoot feral pigs. And we've talked about this a lot, Joe. We respect the Second Amendment. But there is a question to be put to the defenders of the AR-15 being sold to anyone who wants one. And that is, would you trade the remote possibility that you need the AR-15 someday in your life to defend your house for the lives of the kids in a classroom in Uvalde, Texas, or for the lives of the people watching the Fourth of July parade, or for the lives of the 86-year-old woman who was shopping for groceries in Buffalo who was mowed down?

It's an open question, and it's something that people have to answer. And as you said, a home can be defended with a handgun, a Glock very well. A home can be defended with a shotgun very well. But as we know, this has been looked at as a slippery slope. And if you ban an AR-15, if you ban a semi-automatic rifle, the argument goes from the NRA and others, they're coming for the rest of your guns, too. And pretty soon they're taking them all away. That's not true, of course, but that's the argument that has prevailed. Let's learn more about. Go ahead, Joe.

I was just going to say it's not true at all. So the United States Supreme Court, people may not like its ruling last week, week or two. But the Second Amendment, the constitutional protection of the Second Amendment allows Americans to have handguns and shotguns in their homes to protect their homes. And now it allows people to carry outside their home. The Constitution, the Second Amendment, even as interpreted by this very conservative Supreme Court, does not extend to AR-15s. Let me say that again. The Constitution of the United States, the second amendment to that Constitution, the right to keep and bear arms, the U.S. Supreme Court, this conservative U.S. Supreme Court says it does not extend to military style weapons. So any gun organization

that says it does, they're lying to scare you. They're lying to make you paranoid. They're lying to take your money. And that's the gun side of it. And then there's all the things that came beforehand in almost every one of these shootings, guys, where we find it was a young man, a disaffected young man who left a trail behind of evidence online about sort of fantasizing about killings like this, fantasizing about violence, interventions from police in the house. In this case, there were no charges pressed, so there was no red flag. But there are always signs. And we're learning more today about the shooter. Let's bring in NBC News investigations correspondent Tom Winter. Tom,

good morning again. A lot of new information since we spoke last yesterday morning. What else do we know about what happened on the 4th of July and what else do we know about this shooter? Well, the details as far as the timeline are coming into a better scope here this morning, Willie. And on top of that, we're also getting more information as far as what was known about this individual prior to a shot being fired. And as we heard there in Tom Yamas's piece from police that in 2019, they received two calls, one from a concerned family member. When they went to the house, they found 16 knives, a dagger and a sword. Not exactly normal home furnishings. So when you look at this person, you look at a series of incidents that happen. And all of these things that you're looking at on screen occurred after the January 1st red flag law went into effect in the state of Illinois.

Now, that doesn't continue to knives and swords and daggers, but it does continue into areas where somebody may own a gun. So you wonder, given the amount of social media posts this individual made just in the last year, let alone back to 2020, let alone back to 2019, if there was a point where somebody should have picked up the phone. And a family member can do this. You do not need to be a member of law enforcement to file in many of these red flag laws. And each state has their own kind of name for them. But for instance, in New York, and we went into this in detail after the shooting in Buffalo, in other states, you don't have to be a member of law enforcement to petition the court for one of these type of rulings where they can go in and seize lawfully somebody's weapons who might be a threat to themselves or others. And when you

look at some of the video imaging that was posted, not just a couple of days or a week, but we're talking about months before this incident ever happened, it's very clear this individual had violent intents for others. It's very clear this individual had violent intents even for himself. And so when was the point where somebody was going to pick up the phone here and either call law enforcement or petition the court. It's not something where he would have been notified that somebody was doing this. It's an ex parte movement within the court system, meaning that they don't have to tell the other side. So if I was going to file this against Jonathan Lemire, for instance, I would not have to go in and somebody wouldn't

tell him and we wouldn't all show up at court at the same date. It would just be something that would be done. They would get the guns and then, OK, we can figure this out later. The other side can petition and say something's wrong and it carries the penalties of perjury if I was just to do it just to just to mess with somebody. So I think that's an important thing to keep in mind as we start to learn about these these incidents. There's so many different ways it can be made more careful to get these guns, Tom. I mean, you know, this won't be popular, but why can't those signs that police saw be red flags is one question. Why can't there be somewhat of a process before you can purchase a firearm like this? Maybe similar to what someone in the military has to go through.

They can't just fire their weapon the minute they get it handed to them. But in this case, I guess the father helped sign the permit. That's interesting to me. And that that comes down to a lot of different decisions on the part of a parent. But should should a father be able to sign a permit to give a kid a weapon of war? Well, I think back to Newtown and Adam Lanza, in particular, military style clothing, and played all these video games and had all these diaries and journals that talked about shootings and about death. So there are parental steps here that are undoubtedly missed sometimes that might be putting it charitably. But that's some of the information that we learned yesterday. I think today it'll

be interesting to see what we get out of the court paperwork when he makes his appearance in court to get to the ultimate question here of motive. Not that it's going to make a lot of sense to the rest of us, but it would be helpful to know, again, more information to try to understand how we get to this point and how perhaps we can prevent it. All right. NBC's Tom Winter, thank you very much for getting up early this morning. And we are learning a lot more about the victims. Six of the seven killed have been identified. Stephen Strauss was the father of two and a grandfather of four. At 88 years old, he still took the train to Chicago every day to work at his brokerage firm. His niece, Cynthia Strauss, described him as kind and gentle with a huge intelligence and humor and wit. Husband and wife, Irina and Kevin McCarthy, were both killed in the shooting. They brought their two-year-old son, Aiden, to the parade.

He was left alone after they died. A good Samaritan found him underneath his father's body covered with blood. After postings on the internet and in the news, he was identified and returned to his grandparents. Aiden was not physically injured. A GoFundMe page was set up for him and has nearly $2 million in it so far. And the little boy keeps asking if his parents are going to come back. NBC's Lester Holt has more on the victims and the survivors. They call it a suburb, but Highland Park really feels like a small town, now shaken to its core when those gunshots rang out.

When did you first realize something was wrong? Well, the first thing that happened were there were sounds of firecrackers and that caught our attention. And then the next thing we know, there were bullets coming at us. I met Susie and Dean Zielinski. It became very chaotic, pandemonium. My husband and our friend took off towards the back of the courtyard. At that point, you became separated? Yes. Right of nowhere separated, but yeah.

Susie scrambled under a bench. Did you see people who were hit or who needed help? There was a man who was face down and he was white. He looked like he had no blood and I was pretty sure he was deceased. Then she says a man appeared with a two-year-old child. And he said, can you take my child, baby, can you take her? And I said, yeah, sure, give her to me. And then I took her and I put her in between me and the cement base of the bench. He didn't know whether he'd see you again. No. He said, I have to go find my wife.

So he disappeared. He then returned saying his wife had been shot and needed to go to the hospital. We exchanged phone numbers and he said, would you mind please taking her home with you? Which is what we did. Can you imagine, you're a parent, can you imagine the process of having to give your child to a stranger out of those circumstances. He was so brave. What a gut-wrenching call. He went back into the thick of it, not knowing what's going on. To help his wife.

Who was shot through the leg. They would reunite with him later. They say his wife is doing okay. I also met 89-year-old Arnie Kamen. All of a sudden we get this noise. It sounded like fireworks. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Who was sitting on the curb with his family in the line of fire. He'd been shot and is now recovering. These things happen with great regularity in this country, as you know.

Did you ever think it could visit Highland Park? No, I did not think it would come to Highland Park. But it did, and this close-knit community is reeling. Seven lives stolen, including Jackie Sondheim, remembered for her kindness and warmth, working as a preschool teacher at her synagogue. She had a husband and daughter. Nicholas Toledo was there with his son and nephew, watching the parade from his wheelchair when he was shot and killed. Stephen Strauss was 88, his niece posting on Facebook, no one should die this way. And I met the family of Katie Goldstein. I have been talking to people on the phone today, and I can't believe how many best friends Katie has. How many people have said she was my best friend.

Her husband Craig and their daughter Cassie, heartbroken and overwhelmed with grief. Cassie was at the parade standing right next to her mom. I looked up and I saw the shooter shooting down at the kids and I told her that it was a shooter and that she had to run. So I started running with her and we were next to each other and he shot her in the chest and she fell down and I knew she was dead. So I just told her that I loved her but I couldn't stop because he was still shooting everyone next to me. She says when the shooting stopped, she rushed over, but her mom had already passed. What's the memory that you want to share with us about your mom?

I want to share how she was before she died. She was waving to the floats. Every float that went by, she waved to them. And... She was having fun. Yep. She was just a good mom. And I got 22 years with her. And I got to have 22 years with the best mom in the world. Unspeakable horrors. Years from now, I can't even imagine what will be written about this time. And about a small, paranoid group of people who believe they need weapons of war to fend off the government. That's why the paranoids say they need these,

or to prepare for the apocalypse. It's not to defend their homes. It's not to defend their businesses. These weapons of war were designed to kill human beings and you see what happens there what what's happened it's been happening now for 10 15 years where america's streets are turned into killing fields amer America's churches turned into killing fields. America's schools where we send our babies turned into killing fields. They are unspeakable horrors. And the tragedies, these tragedies that keep coming at us and are not going to stop until Congress gets serious. They're avoidable.

That's the greatest tragedy of all. People that went out to watch that 4th of July parade should have been able to go home that night. Had hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries, laugh around tables and then go outside and watch fireworks. They should have been able to do that. But they couldn't do that. For the same reason that the children in Uvalde that were slaughtered by an AR-15 weren't able to spend this Fourth of July or this summer vacation with their parents for the same reason,

that you have children from Parkland who would be finishing up, some of them would be finishing up their first year of college and coming home, celebrating summer vacation, talking excitedly about what happened their first year in college, enjoying Fourth of July fireworks and preparing for their next year. And what about the children from Sandy Hook? What about the country music fans in Las Vegas gunned down, their lives extinguished? What about, my gosh, we have to go way back for this, don't we?

What about people that went to see a movie in Aurora? Gunned down. It's so unnecessary. These guns, they are not protected by the Second Amendment. The conservative, some would say the ultra conservative United States Supreme Court doesn't even go that far. But these tragedies that you saw, they're horrors that none of us can imagine. And there are tragedies that are so avoidable. Congress has to do something. We'll be right back. About 630 in the morning at the White House, a live picture on this Wednesday morning,

investigators in Georgia yesterday sent subpoenas to Senator Lindsey Graham and other key members of former President Donald Trump's legal team, including Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman. The Fulton County special grand jury also subpoenaed other lawyers, all of whom worked with Trump as he contested the 2020 election results. That special grand jury was impaneled this year to assist the investigation of Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis into whether there were any coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections in Georgia. Among the incidents Willis has said she's looking into, a November 2020 phone call Senator Graham made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Raffensperger has said Graham pressed him about whether he had the power to reject certain absentee ballots, which Raffensperger interpreted as a suggestion to toss out legally cast votes.

Graham denied that's what he was trying to do, calling the allegation ridiculous. With us, we've got White House Bureau Chief at Politico and the host of way too early Jonathan Lemire. So, John, Rudy Giuliani, we should add as well, actually testified and spoke to the Georgia state legislature a number of times around this, just peddling these debunked false claims about voter fraud in the state of Georgia. The D.A. in that state, the D.A. in Fulton County, they've got a lot to work with here. Lesson learned. Don't call Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger because you're going to get in trouble if you do. There's been so much focus, of course, on the call that

former President Trump made to the Georgia Secretary of State, asking him to find the specific number of votes needed to flip the results in that state to give him the victory as opposed to Joe Biden. But now this call, which we didn't know existed in the past, has come under intense scrutiny here that Graham, you know, calling Raffensperger, suggesting that, hey, you should perhaps not count some of these ballots, which officials there in Georgia interpreted to mean casting out some of these votes that were legally cast, which, of course, is a real problem. And Giuliani, Willie, as you mentioned, is someone who was traveled up and down the state of Georgia, particularly there in Fulton County, and pushing

the president, the former president's big lie. There have been all along some analysts who have believed that perhaps the greatest legal peril to Trump was this case out of Georgia, which has been methodically, quietly, slowly moving along behind the scenes, even as, of course, the nation has been captivated by the January 6th hearings, which we should note have now scheduled another hearing. Next week will be another moment for that committee to convene. And to this point, every one of those hearings has delivered with new evidence, new testimony, compelling narratives, all aimed at the Department of Justice and itself may be providing some criminal charges at some point. You know, Willie, it is it is so fascinating, the outsized influence that Georgia has had.

I, you know, not to be too melodramatic, but let's go full Meacham here. In early September 1864, General Sherman marches into Atlanta. Union troops are in trouble. Sherman takes the city of Atlanta, marches to the sea, and his campaign in Georgia

ends up being the Confederacy's own Waterloo. It also, of course, helps reelect Abraham Lincoln, And his campaign in Georgia ends up being the Confederacy's own Waterloo. It also, of course, helps reelect Abraham Lincoln, who probably wouldn't have been reelected if he didn't do that. But Georgia may be proving to be Donald Trump's Waterloo as well. You think about the fact that he lost his campaign there. Think about the fact that when he went in, he actually lost Republicans, their Senate majority. Ask any Republican senators that sitting right now and they'll privately at least tell you that they'd be in the majority. But for Donald Trump blubbering and sweating his way through Georgia and getting two Democrats elected in special elections. You look at his this veneer of inevitability forever shattered in the Republican Party when the two people that he hated the most, the two people

he declared war on the most, Brian Kemp, who he said he'd support Stacey Abrams over Brian Kemp and Brad Raffersberger, both of them just completely crushed his handpicked opponents. And now you got a DA that's looking into his attempts to rig the election, to rig the recount, to rig the vote count, to rig with Lindsey Graham. The secretary of state says to to rig the mail in votes to throw in to throw out mail in votes. Georgia. I mean, we always talk about Tim Russert in 2000 going Florida, Florida, Florida for Donald Trump. Looks like Georgia, Georgia, Georgia may end up being his Waterloo. First of all, Joe, you never go full Meacham. You know better than that.

You just can't pull it off. Only you can do that. But you're right. And his handpicked candidate, Donald Trump's handpicked candidate in the Senate race, Herschel Walker, is trailing in the polls behind Senator Warnock right now. Privately, Many Republicans, including Mitch McConnell, would have liked to see somebody else. But this was a local legend in the state of Georgia, Herschel Walker, who was anointed by Donald Trump because

he played for him when he was when he owned the New Jersey Generals in 1984 and five. So we'll see how that race turns out. But there's some frustration about that, too. If they lose a seat, they think they can win there. But you're right, Joe, you don't have to be Columbo exactly to figure out what happened in the state of Georgia, because so much of it, as Jonathan said, is on tape. You know, Raffensperger recorded the phone call with Donald Trump where he told him to go find the votes. Rudy Giuliani's testimony that was open testimony in front of the state legislature where he's just pushing these debunked claims. Senator Lindsey Graham on the phone call asking Raffensperger if there's anything he can do to throw out the votes. I mean, it's all there on tape. It's all out in the open. So as I said before, the Fulton County D.A. has an awful lot to work with here. We've got a lot more ahead on the January 6th investigation, including whether former White House counsel Pat Cipollone will appear for a deposition today before the House Select Committee.

Plus, the White House weighs in on Brittany Griner's letter to President Biden in which she pleads with him for help. We'll be joined by Reverend Al Sharpton, who is calling on the administration to arrange a visit to the WNBA star jailed and on trial in Russia. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Forty two past the hour, the White House is responding to an emotional plea by WNBA star Brittany Griner to bring her home. Griner has been jailed in Russia since she was arrested at an airport in Moscow back in February. NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell has more on the growing pressure on President Biden to intervene. In Brittany Griner's emotional handwritten letter from her Russian jail cell, the WNBA Star Center pleads with President Biden to bring her home, writing,

As I sit here in a Russian prison, alone with my thoughts and without the protection of my wife, family, friends, Olympic jersey, or any accomplishments. I'm terrified I might be here forever. Greiner's wife, Sherelle, reacting to Brittany's fear. It breaks my heart when I hear her say that because BG is probably the strongest person that I know, so she doesn't say words like that lightly. The two-time Olympic gold medalist has been jailed for four and a half months after Russian authorities say they found vape cartridges with cannabis oil in her luggage.

She faces a 10-year sentence if convicted of drug smuggling, and 99 percent of those tried in Russian courts are convicted. Greiner appealing to President Biden, writing, please don't forget about me and the other American detainees. Please do all you can to bring us home. The White House says the president read her letter and it's top of mind. He takes this to heart. Greiner's wife says she's disheartened she hasn't heard from the president. Russian state media says the Kremlin wants Victor Boot, a Russian arms dealer, jailed in the U.S.

Would you recommend that the president come up with a trade? Compared to what? Ten more years of Victor Boot in jail versus those three Americans staying in jail for a decade. I would take that. I would take that trade. Greiner's trial resumes Thursday. Joining us now, the host of MSNBC's Politic Nation's president of the National Action Network, Reverend Al Sharpton, who is calling on the Biden administration to immediately arrange a prayer visit to Brittany Griner in prison. So, Reverend

Al, tell us more about what you would like to see. Well, what we'd like to see is Brittany be given what anyone would be allowed, and that is a clergy visit. I talked to Sherelle, her wife. She did my radio show. I talked yesterday to Brittany's father. And they're very concerned about her health, about her feeling, as she said in the letter to President Biden, in a very, very, very precarious condition. And they're concerned about how she has not been given a priority in terms of this being released by this White House. See, we must remember that just a few months ago, there was a swap made where a American military man, Reed, was given his freedom.

And the White House arranged that swap while Britney was in jail. She could have been part of that swap with Russia then. So I think that the family has rightfully started raising the level of profile on this. I've been talking to them for weeks and I certainly want to engage whatever I could to heighten the attention. There's been a letter by some very prominent black women in today's Washington Post. We can't sit by and watch this person just sit there and in a 99 percent rate of convictions face 10 years in jail. And as one of the coaches said, is it because she's black and gay and a woman? If this was LeBron James, would we be allowing him to sit there four and a half months and swap other people and not make him part of whatever arrangement with Russia. So it's my intention to be in Russia next week.

And I hope the White House will help to make it possible for me to do a clergy visit, to let her know of the support and to let her know that her family and everyone is concerned about her and to pray with her and to bring some ministers with me. That's amazing. Well, and Rev, it's important, obviously, for spiritual comfort, but also how important is it that a clergy member like yourself and others get a chance to be there, see her with your own eyes, be able to figure out if she she's being treated, if he's if she's being mistreated over

there and and well, to deliver a message to her and also to have a message delivered back to President Biden. How important is that? It's very important because the only way we will know whether or not she is very well treated or even reasonably treated is to see it with our own eyes and to be able to assure a family of that and to bring a direct message back to this president from her and to hear from her. And you must remember, as a wife has told me, she's in a prison where most of the people can't even talk English. She can't even communicate with the people that run the prison. She's in a Russian jail. And for people to act like four and a half months for her to be in that kind of isolation under those conditions, a phone call that was supposed to be arranged with a wife

didn't happen. I mean, this is atrocious at best. We don't even know if she's even remotely guilty of what they're saying. Is she being used as some political tool for Putin? We don't know, which is why we want to go. We want to do it as clergy people. Yeah, it seems obvious that she's being used as a political tool. Jonathan Lemire and she's not alone. There are other Americans that have been over there for quite some time. Would the Biden White House be open to making a prison exchange, a prisoner exchange? Yeah. Brittany Griner, certainly victim of terrible timing, too. She was arrested at the Moscow airport just a few days before Moscow invaded Ukraine. The White House, you know, has there's been they've been sensitive to the criticism of this. As the Rev noted, family and others have really ramped up their pressure campaign here. You know, for months, there was very little talk about Brittany Greiner's situation. Yesterday,

Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, received a bunch of questions. She was peppered with questions about it. She noted that the president had read the letter, but there were some in the immediate aftermath of the briefing yesterday who said, well, there should be more force here. There should be more fire. Why is the White House not doing more to demand that she's out? But, Joe, you're right. She's not alone. There are other Americans who are being held in Russia as well. There was that one exchange about two months ago. At this point, White House not ruled out that there would be other discussions here. And they say that there can be two months ago. At this point, White House not ruled out that there would be other discussions here that that and they say that there can be two separate channels. You can have a discussion with

Russia about a prisoner swap separate, of course, from the ongoing situation with the war. That's how the last one pulled off. It could again. But I'm told there's nothing imminent either. Yeah. And again, we're at war. Obviously, Russia at least is at war with Ukraine. Vladimir Putin is committing war crimes by the day. So yeah, it's going to be extraordinarily difficult to sit there. He's not going to do anything, absolutely nothing that he thinks the United States wants to be done. But Mika, maybe he will. Maybe he will do that prisoner swap that the ambassador, Ambassador McFaul, was talking about. It certainly seems it certainly seems like it's time to start actively engaging. Hopefully Reverend Sharpton

and other clergy members can go over there. But, you know, they're Americans that have been over there for a long time. They need to come home. There's a hot war in Ukraine. And so it's not as easy to navigate. Extremely tragic. We'll continue to follow this. Reverend Al Sharpton, we definitely want to hear more of what you hear from the White House very soon. Thank you very much for being on and still ahead.

We'll go live to suburban Chicago for the very latest on the investigation into the July 4th shooting massacre. What we're learning about the suspected shooters previous encounters with law enforcement will also be joined by the mayor of that grieving community in Highland Park. And Senator Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois will be our guest as well. And I'm going to also I'm going to talk to Jonathan Lemire about what's going on in Georgia with the D.A. It looks it looks like things are getting really serious there, not just for Donald Trump, but for Rudy Giuliani and possibly Lindsey Graham. We'll be right back.