Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/7/23

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

Walt Nauta pleads not guilty in classified docs case

I think, Jake, he could not and still cannot to this day deal with the fact that he's the only person outside the state of Delaware to ever lose to Joe Biden. And he wants to pretend he's still president. He wanted to continue to pretend he was president and show these things to people and say, look what I still have. Look what I still know. Presidential candidate Chris Christie with his thoughts on why Donald Trump kept may kept, those classified documents at his Florida golf result. It comes as the former president's co-defendant in the case makes his first appearance in court. Meanwhile, in the race for the 2024 Republican nomination,

Donald Trump is bringing in a good deal of cash, but there are questions about where all that money is going. We'll look into it. Also ahead, more on the story we've been following all week. The cocaine found at the White House. We're learning more about where exactly it was discovered and who had access to that area. Plus, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen kicks off high level meetings in China with criticism of how Beijing treats American companies. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, July 7th. I'm Willie Geist. Joe and Mika off this morning with us, the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau

Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, former White House Director of Communications to President Obama, Jen Palmieri, and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. Good morning to you all. We will dive right in with former President Trump's personal aide and co-defendant Walt Nauta. He's been arraigned on six federal charges in the classified documents case. He pleaded not guilty to all counts in federal court in Florida yesterday. This was the third attempt to arraign Nauta, who was finally able to hire a Florida-based attorney, which then allowed the proceeding to take place. The hearing lasted only about five minutes, with Nauta's attorney entering the not guilty plea on his client's behalf.

Nauta is accused of acting as Trump's co-conspirator and helping him to hide top secret national security files from investigators after Trump left the White House. The charges against him include conspiracy to obstruct justice, withholding a document or record, and making false statements. Nauta faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charge against him. Let's bring in former U.S. attorney, MSNBC contributor Barbara McQuaid. Barbara, it's good to see you this morning.

So, well, at least they finally got Walt Nauta arraigned on the third attempt. He found an attorney who could represent him inside the state of Florida. So what is his place in all of this? An alleged co-conspirator with Donald Trump. How significant a figure is he in the documents case? Willie, I think it's certainly fair to say that he is a lesser player than Donald Trump, who abused his position as president, allegedly, to take these boxes and willfully retain them. But Walt Nauta is a very instrumental figure here. We learned earlier this week in that less redacted version of the affidavit some more detail about his role. One of the things that was striking to me is we know from the indictment that he was interviewed in May

and said, I don't know anything about any boxes. Sorry, wish I could help you. And it turns out when the government got the video of the recordings of the movement of those boxes, it was the day before he was interviewed that he was seen moving those boxes in and out of a storage room. And so his lies are very clear there. In addition, he moves boxes, according to the video, out of that that storage room moves some back into the storage room but not all of them and then he is seen escorting trump's lawyer into the room to do that review of documents clearly knowing that it didn't contain all of the documents and so i think his uh his role here is significant and his his exposure is also potentially many years in prison. Barb, he, Walt Nauta, is incredibly loyal to Donald Trump. As a matter of fact, we still see

him out staffing Donald Trump as a personal aide. The judge has instructed the two not to discuss the case. We'll leave it to our viewers to decide if they think Donald Trump can exercise that level of restraint. Do you believe there's any possibility of Walt Nauta finding a deal here or is he going to fight this on the instructions of Donald Trump? Yeah, you never know. But I've had defendants that you are absolutely certain had said, I will never, ever take a deal, you know, come to you with their hat in their hand asking for a deal as the trial date approaches. So it's always a possibility. But I think his best option for a deal has come and gone. If he wanted to cooperate, he had the opportunity to provide value before the government amassed all of this other evidence

from other sources a year ago, six months ago. I think his ability to cooperate now has been greatly diminished. I'm sure if he came forward and said, I'd like a plea deal, the government would listen because he might have more information that he can shed light on. So it's always a possibility. But I think as every day goes by, his value diminishes. So, Barbara, this was, of course, the third attempt to actually arraign Mr. Nauta because he hadn't retained legal counsel that could work there in Florida until yesterday. And that had led some to suspect, well, that's a delay tactic. That's just the first of many, perhaps, that the Trump side is going to utilize.

So I want to get your take on that. Going forward here, we know this is a complicated case. We know the classified materials are involved. That inherently is going to slow things down. How do you see this playing out? Do you think this case will start in that December trial date that it currently has? I don't know about the December trial date. That might be a little bit ambitious. I think we'll learn a little more next week when the parties go in to visit with the court for a SEPA conference.

That's the Classified Information Procedures Act. They're going to have to work through how they're going to deal with discovery and motions and trial handling these classified documents. And I think based on that, we're going to get a better sense of what a more realistic trial date looks like. I think it's absolutely feasible that we could have a trial early 2024. But I imagine Donald Trump's strategy will be to delay it past the election. Prosecutors are getting threats around this case as well, Barb. The Washington Post reports some of the prosecutors involved in this classified documents case against former President Trump are facing harassment threats online and elsewhere. It's according to extremism experts and a government official familiar with the matter talking to the Post. The FBI says it is working with partner agencies to assess and respond to the threats

as the classified documents case moves forward. DOJ officials have also responded by trying to keep the names of prosecutors and agents working on the Trump cases from becoming public in official documents, congressional hearings, and even in less formal conversations about the case. Two officials tell the Post, federal agencies have not observed a general increase in threats against law enforcement overall in the weeks since Trump was indicted. That is a major contrast from a surge of reported violent rhetoric against FBI agents in the days following the search of Mar-a-Lago last August.

So, Barb, as a former prosecutor yourself, how common is this stuff? How seriously do you take it? And obviously, this all comes from the top. Donald Trump calling into question everything about this case, saying it's a witch hunt, painting himself as a martyr. How did you as a prosecutor handle this and how does DOJ handle it now? This is not normal. From time to time, prosecutors do get death threats. It may be based on someone that they're prosecuting. But I think we've reached a whole different era when we're sort of crowdsourcing these sort of threats. Anytime former President Donald Trump says these things about witch hunts and hoaxes, calling for the defunding of DOJ, there is the

risk that someone out there is going to hear that and take matters into their own hands and go after these line career prosecutors. I've had threats. Others have had threats. The way it's usually handled is the U.S. Marshal Service can provide protection, sometimes including 24-7 protection. But it's very resource intensive. The prosecutors have better things to do than to be checking in with their security detail. And, you know, they have lives. They have children. They have errands to do in their personal lives. And so this is a whole new day that if prosecutors have to think twice about whether they can just do their job safely. And of course, we saw these kind of threats to secretaries of state, attorneys general in the states where the election was in dispute and Donald Trump was pushing his law about them, his rule, his lies. Former U.S. Attorney

Barbara McQuaid. Barbara, thanks so much. Always great to have your insights. Despite those recent indictments or better, perhaps because of them, former President Trump has nearly doubled now his campaign fundraising. According to campaign officials, Trump brought in more than $35 million in the second quarter. That's compared to the first three months of this year, when he raised nearly $19 million. It's not clear exactly how much of this money actually is going to the campaign and how much is going to his PAC Save America, which has been helping to fund Trump's legal bills. According to recent fundraising solicitations, at least 10 percent of donations have been going to the PAC. So, Eugene Robinson, this is in line with what we've seen in the polls that Donald Trump has surged because of the indictments against him,

because of this picture he has painted of himself as a martyr and that he needs your money, he says, to his supporters to fight them to pay his legal bills, despite the fact he claims to be a billionaire. He's got people like Senator Lindsey Graham weeping on television, asking Trump supporters to send money to pay the legal bills of a billionaire. This is how he does business. But the larger point is he's surging in the polls and raising more money because of the indictments against him. Yeah. I mean, when you look at the money and where it's going, you do have to remember, always watch for the grift when it comes to Trump. And so I would just assume right up front that a lot of the money that people are giving, that thinking that it's going to campaign will really go go to the legal defense or somehow go to Trump. But that aside, sure, his base has rallied behind him. And these indictments in terms of fundraising have been a boon to the former president. You know, this is the counterintuitive,

crazy way that Trump and MAGA work. And so, this is going to be really something for somebody like Ron DeSantis to try to overcome. You're going to need a lot of money if you're going to knock off

Donald Trump in the primaries. DeSantis does have a decent amount of money. He's got a lot left over from you're going to knock off Donald Trump in the primaries. DeSantis does have a decent amount of money. He's got a lot left over from his gubernatorial campaign the last time. But he's not raising it quite the clip that Trump is. And it's just another indicator of how Trump really is ahead for the Republican presidential nomination. So here are those numbers following Donald Trump's disclosure of fundraising. The DeSantis campaign announced the Florida governor raised $20 million in the first six weeks of his presidential campaign. His super PAC, Never Back Down, it's called, also has raised $130 million. But more than $80 million of that is leftover money from his

gubernatorial reelection campaign. Meanwhile, in an interview on Fox News, DeSantis was asked about his poll numbers, which have fallen in some surveys since his campaign launch. Here's what he said. If you look at the people like the corporate media, who are they going after? Who do they not want to be the nominee? They're going after me. Who's the president of Mexico attacking because he knows we'll be strong on the border and hold him accountable in the

cartels? He's going after me. So I think if you look at all these people that are responsible for a lot of the ills in our society, they're targeting me as the person they don't want to see as the candidate. We've got a huge amount of support to be able to take the case to the people. We really haven't started that yet. We're in the process of building out a great organization, and I think we're going to be on the ground in all these early states. It is three yards in a cloud of dust type situation. Jen Palmieri, as you reminded us yesterday, is still very early going in this campaign.

Governor DeSantis is right about that. But he has had some time here to introduce himself. And at least within the Republican primary, many voters have said, and in fact, Donald Trump's support has increased over the last few weeks. He's doing a great job being the runner up. Right. I mean, and it says if his campaign is designed not to beat Trump, but to be the heir to Trump. And that's not, you know, I guess his assumption being that at some point the indictments become too much, that people, that Republican voters get concerned that Trump can't get elected and he's there to inherit the Trump base. But that is not how you win a—that's not how you win a presidential primary. And he's not—he's weirdly running to the right of Trump.

I mean, we saw the bizarre, homophobic video that he did a week ago attacking Trump, saying, you know, Trump has vulnerabilities and you could, as a Republican candidate, DeSantis could be running a strong campaign against Trump based on him not being electable. But instead, he's attacking him from the right and saying that, you know, he's not doing enough to restrict LGBT rights. That is not what the MAGA base is going to go for. And he raised $20 million. That is a big number.

So we should not discount that. Can he keep that up? I mean, Trump seems to have the ability to keep that money going, playing the victim. And I'm just not sure that DeSantis is going to be able to hit like a big number like that in the next quarter. So Jen, we've, you know, you've talked to voters, I've talked to voters who, a lot of them like Trump, they like DeSantis, some of them say, well, I want Trump to run now to your heir apparent point, but DeSantis, maybe he's our 28 guy. I think it's interesting that Trump on Truth Social has started saying, well, DeSantis is even damaging himself, his 28 chances

for what he's doing. It's such a good troll on Trump's part. You're like, oh, this is really hurting him in 28. I don't know. DeSantis is doing himself some harm here. The guy has undeniable trolling skills. I think we can all agree on that. But let's talk about it, though. Yes, DeSantis is raising money, but his polls are going the wrong direction.

Well, again, note, it's early enough. He can turn that around. But it's so clear there's a lane there. There's an opening for someone else to jump forward here and try to become that Trump alternative. Are you seeing any movement? Is there any momentum within the party, even if it's not registering among voters just yet, as to who that next Republican, the next person up might be? No. I mean, there is Christie. Christie, Chris Christie has a wee bit of momentum behind him. His he is he's taking Trump on. He's taking Trump on and where he's really vulnerable in terms of him being able to win an election. That is having a small impact because there are Republican voters that that are very open to that argument.

I've heard people say, you know, Tim Scott sort of interesting to, or I've heard people say in Iowa, Nikki Haley is interesting to me. But is there anyone that there's no one who's putting all the pieces together? There's no one who's making the electability argument the way that Chris Christie is doing with an argument on with a with a policy argument behind it and and and saying, I'm fighting for you. You know, the I've Chris Christie came closest to that when he said last week, I heard him say, you know, he's not for he's for himself. He is no longer for you. That Chris Christie is the imperfect messenger for that. And I just don't you know, it's like it's still early and a lot could happen and all of that. And it may be that the next round of indictments is the straw that makes the camel's

back. And people say, wow, it's just too much. He can't beat Biden. But every indication we have thus far is there's no candidate that's putting it all together in a way that could be a serious rival to Trump. And these indictments just are not hurting him. They're sort of coalescing more support behind him. Yeah, they're just deepening his support with his core followers. And there's no sign that that's going to change with whatever indictment comes next. We've got an update on a story we brought you yesterday. Former Vice President Mike Pence was pressed by a voter in Iowa earlier this week about his decision to certify the 2020 election results back on January the 6th, 2021. Here again is that exchange.

If it wasn't for your vote, we would not have Joe Biden in the White House. That was a constitutional right that you had to send those votes back to the states. States conduct our elections. You never want to let Washington, D.C. run elections. The Constitution affords no authority for the Vice President or anyone else to reject votes or return votes to the states. Never been done before, should never be done in the future. I'm sorry, ma'am, but that's actually what the Constitution says. President Trump was wrong about my authority that day, and he's still wrong. A little difficult to hear that exchange, but as we discussed yesterday,

Vice President Pence there rebutting the argument that he had the power on January 6th to overturn the results of the election, and as the woman put it there, the voter sent it back to the state. So on Morning Joe yesterday, our panel questioned whether Pence's answer would do anything to change the mind of a voter like the one he was speaking to there. Well, now we have our answer. It becomes very difficult to figure out how do you convince them otherwise. So the facts are what they are. Pence was very forthright, but did he actually convince her? Right. And that's the challenge, of course. What do you think after hearing Mr. Pence's answer?

I believe he's a good man. I love the fact that he is strengthened by his faith. But I really do feel like he altered history. Would you consider supporting Mr. Pence after listening to him today? I would consider it, but he has that one hiccup. He has that one strike against him, Eugene Robinson. That seems to be the sense of the voter there, the woman in Sioux City, Iowa, who sat and listened to Vice President Pence patiently explain why he did not have the power to do what she suggests he had to do. But it speaks to the power of everything voters like her and supporters of Donald Trump and people who watch certain news networks and listen to certain podcasts and read certain websites have been told that he let them down that day, that Donald Trump has told them that it was, in fact, Mike Pence's fault that Joe Biden is president. Yeah. The interesting thing is that it's almost not just a matter of fact for that voter. It's a matter of faith. And it's like trying to to change someone's faith,

trying to to convince her of something that, you know, she just simply does not believe at her core. And that is an enormous challenge. This, you know, you can call the Trump following cult-like. I've called it cult-like. It is unquestioning and unwilling in many cases, in the case of many voters, unwilling to listen to any evidence to the contrary, evidence contrary to the to the thesis that Donald Trump is the savior of America. And and how do you how do you combat that? None of the Republican hopefuls seems to have an answer. Jonathan Lemire, we've seen this before in covering Donald Trump and his supporters. We've seen it in our own lives, where you have to patiently say to someone, no, the voting machines were not controlled by a

satellite in Italy or by thermometers that Chinese government officials had tapped into. But that seems to be beside the point, doesn't it? That they take it as an article of faith that the election was stolen from them and that anybody who participated in keeping Donald Trump from being reelected is against them, including Mike Pence, who was a heartbeat away from being president and stood by Donald Trump's side for all four of those years right up to the end. This moment encapsulates where the Republican Party is right now in 2023, that Donald Trump's grip on the party, he's brainwashed so many of Republican voters that they choose to believe their own set of facts, that Vice President Pence

can look that woman in the eye and explain very reasonably, very patiently, very kindly, but very forthrightly that I didn't have the power to do that. The Constitution does not let me do it. And she simply wouldn't believe him and will hold it against him and likely will withhold her vote for him because of it. And Jen Palmieri, it is every so often we're in this every day. So it's easy to lose sight sometimes of the big picture. You know, I'll just I don't want to get in the habit of quoting myself, but I'll say like I wrote the book entitled The Big Lie. But the final sentences are the final sentences of the book are the idea that the big lie is dogma now for the Republican Party. It's who they are. It is who they are. Either they actually firmly believe it or at least they pay lip service to it.

And it shapes everything they do. And it is clearly going to shape this year's election, too. It's a big lie that started with a lie back in 2015 that, you know, may be a good a good bookend. So the to the line from your book, I remember we remember the escalator when Trump came down that day in June of 2015, announced for president, and he said, talked about immigrants coming in, about Mexican immigrants coming in.

He's like, they're rapists, they're murderers, and some, I suspect, are good people. I heard that and I thought, wow, what a craven political thing to say to do that kind of, you know, gross race baiting. And I spoke with a Republican strategist later at the end of the election from another campaign, not Trump, and said that they realized in retrospect that they lost the primary on that

day because what they heard from a lot of voters was, wow, Donald Trump was willing to tell the hard truth about something. He was willing to say that some of these immigrants are coming over are rapists and murderers. No one else has the courage to do that. And if he's willing to say that, that's on my mind, too. I'm going to hang in there with him for anything. And it's like that started to create a relationship with his base where they think, you know, and I hear this parroted back to me all the time. He says what I think, that they're going to find a way to make whatever fact out there in the real universe that doesn't comport with what they believe. They're going to find a way to believe what they want to believe based on what Trump tells them because that connection they feel to him is so strong. That moment is what these other Republicans running

against Donald Trump are up against, that kind of loyalty, that kind of faith in him. Still ahead this morning on Morning Joe, tensions continue to rise between Russia and the United States in the skies over Syria. We'll explain what's happening now. And Russian President Vladimir Putin wants a seat at the table when it comes to Internet oversight on a global level. The Washington Post's David Ignatius joins us with his new reporting on that when we come back on Morning Joe. The United States military says Russian jets targeted U.S. military aircraft flying over Syria two days in a row this week. Defense officials say yesterday Russian planes flew close to American drones near northwest Syria and dropped flares in front of them around 930 a.m. local time.

On Wednesday, military officials say three American Reaper drones were conducting a mission against Islamic State targets in Syria when three Russian fighter jets began to harass them. The latest provocations come after Russian jets flew over an American base in Syria nearly every day in March. Joining us now, columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. David, good morning. A lot to discuss with you. Let's start right there, though. What is Russia up to exactly here? Admiral Stavridis was on with us yesterday in the previous provocation when those fighter jets were chasing American drones over Syria and just said this doesn't end well for them if they really want to engage with the United States military. The United States is doing everything it can to avoid a confrontation in the skies there. But what is Vladimir Putin doing with these chasing, effectively, American aircraft with his fighter

jets? Well, I see this as a kind of jousting. The two countries are not in direct military conflict, but there's some pushback going on, especially on the Russian side. In Syria, as in many parts of the world, the U.S. and Russia had evolved a system of deconfliction. I've been present in Syria with U.S. forces where U.S. commanders would get on the phone, in effect, to their Russian liaison officers and say, we've got drones going in the air over such a place in Syria, make them aware if there were incidents, ask the Russians to pull back. Generally, those deconfliction measures work pretty well. The last several years, certainly since the Ukraine war began, that's begun to fray. There's more tension. We've seen the last two days to an unusual extent. The disaster is if an American drone is shot down, is forced

to land, if there's a collision with a Russian jet. We saw that kind of behavior over the Black Sea several months ago. That was genuinely dangerous. But this is what countries do in times of tension. They punch and counterpunch to show that they're there and they get closer and closer to the edge of a real confrontation that would put them in an entirely different, really dangerous space. So, David, speaking of Russia, of course, its invasion of Ukraine will be front and center next week when President Biden heads overseas, a week-long stay in Europe with the NATO summit in Vilnius being its centerpiece.

We have heard from the Ukrainians that they're really pushing their own bid to join NATO. Finland is in. Sweden, not yet, but we believe soon once Turkey acquiesces. But now Ukraine's making a real push and some of the Eastern European members of NATO are backing it. What's your read in terms of diplomats you speak to on both sides of the Atlantic as to where that can go, whether it's for this summit in Vilnius or perhaps next NATO summit next summer in Washington? So I think, John, it's for the future.

The basic rule for NATO, understandably enough, is that if you've got a current border conflict going on with Russia, you're not a candidate for membership. NATO doesn't want to buy into a new member and then immediately go to war. That's not the deal. So in one sense, that's incentive for Ukraine, if it wants to be a NATO member, to come to a satisfactory negotiated settlement of the conflict. There is pressure from the Baltic states, from Poland, to move more quickly. I think the administration has thought carefully about this and decided, no, not yet, and is pushing back. The question that I think officials are really haunted by is how do we give Ukraine guarantees and protection for its security going into next year if it's not in NATO? What is the alternative way

that we make Ukraine strong enough that there'll be some real pushback for Russia? People are still struggling with that. I haven't heard a good answer yet. David, your latest piece in The Washington Post also deals with Russia. It's titled Russia hasn't stopped maneuvering for a role in Internet oversight. What exactly does Vladimir Putin want to do? What does he want his role to be? Well, strange as this sounds, Willie, the country that has been meddling in U.S. and European elections wants to take a leading role in writing rules of the road for safe behavior in cyberspace and the Internet. And they do this every few months. I'm writing about a new instance that just came to light

in my reporting, where they presented a proposal to the International Telecommunications Union, which is one of these obscure bureaucratic bodies that the U.N. has that oversees this world of Internet and the rules. And they've introduced a proposal saying the Internet is fragmented and we need the U.N. to step in and do more regulation. It's part of a Russian claim that the United States and the West really own the Internet, and it's not fair, and we should have international control.

The idea that the United Nations would police the Internet, to me, is a nightmare. You just look at how the U.N. operates, the bureaucracy, the slow-moving pace of decision, the idea that they control the most dynamic sector of the global

economy seems like a very bad idea. But that's what the Russians are proposing. And so, David, is there a chance that they get that role? I mean, would the UN, would the world community allow that to happen? So oddly to me, Secretary General Antonio Guterres has embraced a part of the Russian idea, arguing that we do need some sort of collective rules. The State Department is pushing back. I'm told that we're working hard with our partners to modify any attempt to make rules that would really slow and politicize control of the Internet. The strange thing

is that the Russian claim is that the Internet is now fragmented, that there are blockages in the Internet. Well, if there's a blockage, it's the controls that Russia and China impose that prevent their citizens from using the Internet. It's not a this is not a conspiracy by the West. Far from it. But this is the sort of thing that gets battled out often in obscure forums. I tried to write about this morning because I think it's important to expose it so people know what's going on. See the Russians doing this. They hope quietly in private where they have some leverage and get enough pressure to stop them. We'll keep an eye on that story. You mentioned China, David. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen now is criticizing the Chinese government's treatment of American

companies and stressing the importance of improving communication between the United States and China. This as the secretary meets with senior Chinese officials for informal talks on the U.S. and Chinese economies. Speaking with a group of business leaders in Beijing, Secretary Yellen defended U.S. controls on technology exports, saying they are necessary for national security. Yellen's concerns reflect continuing tension between the two countries. After arriving in Beijing yesterday, Secretary Yellen tweeted the two nations are seeking, quote, a healthy economic competition that benefits American workers and firms and to collaborate on global challenges. Fascinating to watch the diplomacy here, Eugene Robinson, as we saw last week,

Secretary Antony Blinken sort of echoing the comment by President Joe Biden that President Xi is a dictator. He was on our show, Secretary Blinken, last week. We asked him if he shared that view, and he said the president of the United States speaks for his administration, speaks for all of us. So, yes, there has been this outreach. Yes, there have been these visits from Secretary Blinken, from Secretary Yellen, but also some strong words to go with them. Yeah, there have been. And so I imagine in Beijing, they're asking themselves, well, if the U.S. is playing good cop, bad cop with us, where's the good cop? Because Janet Yellen goes to Beijing and there is really pretty harshly critical of China and the way it treats U.S. companies. It is fascinating. And so my question for David Ignatius is, are these steps, this yell and visit, the Lincoln meetings, is this actually improving our relationship with China? channel for communication that might lead to a meeting between President Biden and President Xi?

Is it real or is it going nowhere? Well, Gina, the famous response of Joanne Lai, a question about the future, it's too soon to tell. In this case, I think that we can expect that there'll be this process of gradual warming. Xi wants to come to the United States in November for this meeting of the APEC summit. I think he won't allow major disruptions. The Yellen visit is a really interesting test of what Blinken and his visit and Jake Sullivan and his meeting in Vienna were trying to put together. They wanted to add cooperation on issues of mutual interest to the relation, a very contentious relationship. And Yellen's trying to figure out, is there a kind of running rate between the U.S. and China on economic issues that benefits both sides?

Yellen has said more clearly than anybody in the administration, decoupling of the two economies is a bad idea. It's a bad idea for both. It's bad for the global economy. She's got to figure out, given that, what are the rules? And I think that's part of the sparring that you were referring to earlier in her meeting today, where she was talking about how difficult conditions are for U.S. businesses. The Chinese really want continued trade and commerce between the two countries, and they need it given their economic problems. They've got to figure out better rules of the road that leave U.S. companies feeling that they're not going to be harassed, they're going to be protected.

But generally, the answer to your question is yes, I do think we're on the path now to somewhat greater cooperation, some reduction in tensions between the U.S. and China. Columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius, walking us through the world this morning. David, thanks so much. We always appreciate it. Coming up here, the far right Freedom Caucus takes action against Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for her heated exchange on the House floor with another member. We'll let you know what's going on here.

And a little later, we're taking a look at a new NBC documentary focused on the atomic bomb and the scientists who built it. That story and much more when we come back on Morning Joe. Since I took office, we've seen over 60 domestic manufacturing announcements all across the solar supply chain. One of the biggest is in Dalton, Georgia. You may find it hard to believe, but that's Marjorie Taylor Greene's district. I'll be there for the groundbreaking. President Biden in South Carolina yesterday touting some of his economic achievements while name checking Republicans who voted against his infrastructure bill, but whose districts will benefit from it. Speaking of Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie

Taylor Greene, she may have been kicked out of the far-right House Freedom Caucus. The caucus voted two weeks ago on Greene's membership, and an NBC News source familiar with those deliberations says the vote to oust her was overwhelming. Discontent with Greene among the members had been growing since she backed Kevin McCarthy's bid for House Speaker. But it reportedly was this altercation with Colorado Congresswoman Lauren Boebert last month that put members over the edge. The vote to kick her out was two days later. Despite this, Greene still has not officially been removed from the Freedom Caucus. That's because Caucus Chairman Scott Perry could not

schedule a meeting with her, despite numerous attempts before and after the vote to oust her. NBC News reports in an interview Thursday night, a House Freedom Caucus board member said Perry had made a number of attempts to reach Greene and her staff before and after the vote to oust her. Quote, I suspect because she knew she was being dismissed from the Freedom Caucus and a little bit like someone refusing service from a legal standpoint. If I'm not served, then maybe it doesn't take effect. Greene's team refuted that claim in a statement and called out the member for remaining anonymous in a statement she wrote. I serve Northwest Georgia first and serve no group in Washington. So a lot to pick through there, Jen Palmieri. You've talked not so long ago on

the surface with Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman there. Obviously, she is her own brand. She is her own thing. She's right about that when she says she doesn't belong to a group. What is the significance of this, if there is any? I mean, first of all, we should clock this moment that Marjorie Taylor Greene has been kicked out of the House Freedom Caucus. And, you know, they did say in that story, they said that part of the problem was the altercation she had with Lauren Boebert, which, by the way, was a fight over who gets to file impeachment articles against Joe Biden, who gets to do that first. Right. Right. So note that.

But also, but it wasn't just that. They said, you know, Andy Biggs from the House Freedom Caucus said it was, you know, that her role in the debt limit fight with House Freedom Caucus was unhappy. They thought that that deal was too moderate. Also, her backing of Speaker McCarthy early on in January when there was 15 ballots to try to to find a speaker that, you know, he he lumped all of that together, which which which sort of computes come it comes out as she's to establishment for us. OK, so that's a moment to that's a moment to consider. And then having spent I spent a week in her district, I've spent

time with her on a few occasions and she, the house freedom caucus is not marginalizing Marjorie Taylor green, you know, just as when she lost her committee assignments, um, under democratic Congress, she will you find a way to use this moment to her advantage. And, you know, as I said earlier, talking about the sort of connection, human connection that Trump has with his base, Marjorie Taylor Greene has that with the MAGA base. There's no one in the House Freedom Caucus that raises more money for Republican candidates than Marjorie Taylor Greene. I'm certain of that. And she has because she bled for the cause. She was she was kicked out of her committee assignments by Democrats. And that that helped her form a connection with the MAGA base that the House Freedom Caucus is not

going to be able to touch. And then she has done a pretty good job at playing this inside game with McCarthy. And, you know, it's another statement of where we are with the House Republican caucus that she's playing a role as a as a as a as a leader within figuring out a way to do that within McCarthy's world, the establishment. Also, the whole play of you can't fire me if I won't take a meeting with you. That feels a very like George Costanza Seinfeld. I'm pretty sure he did that. But the, you know, Willie, it is, though, beyond Marjorie Taylor Greene, who, of course, you know, as Jen says, will remain a force in the Republican Party, who in this highlights this fracture that she's not conservative enough. But I also want to go back to how we opened this with

President Biden calling out that groundbreaking. This is something that the White House is really trying to lean into. They did a little bit early on in his term. And now this year, when there's not going to be new legislation passed, rather sort of touting the victories that they've already accomplished. He's going to these districts and talking about Republicans, calling out Republicans who are taking credit for things, for projects in their districts that they didn't vote for. They frankly opposed. They didn't cast their ballots for the infrastructure bill. And it's one thing to do at MTG's deep red district and Congressman Wilson's deep red South Carolina district yesterday. But the White House is also going to be doing this in, I'm told, by aides there in these battleground districts, these SWIN districts for Republicans who won seats in districts that Biden

captured in 2020. And that right there, that the White House believes could be a real pressure point and could potentially help them try in their efforts to get back the House in 2020. Let's remember, they only need to pick up a handful of seats in a few of those battlegrounds that could do it. Yeah, it's an important point. We're going to talk much more about this at the top of the hour, just a few minutes. And there's a reason Republicans are taking credit for some of this stuff they voted against against because it's popular. Their people like that there's money coming in to their districts. We've got some new polling

this morning that shows most Americans think Donald Trump's federal trial should take place well before the 2024 general election. The latest survey from Politico magazine and Ipsos, 62 percent of Americans say the former president should be tried before next November's contest. And a slightly smaller majority says the trial should even be held before the Republican primaries begin early next year. Join us now, former federal prosecutor Ankush Kadori. He's a contributing writer for Political Magazine. Ankush, good morning. It's good to see you. You were you right here that there were a number of surprises in this new poll. What else stood out to you beyond the headline, that top line number we just read? Well, I certainly found that number to be the most interesting, including because it

has some practical relevance to the proceeding here. As I noted in the piece, the right to a speedy trial is not just a right for the defendant. It's a right that belongs to the public as well. So the public's interest in this subject, I think, ought to be relevant. The most surprising figures to me, though, were on what impact the pending charges, including the pending federal charges, have on people's preferences for Trump. And in particular, there's obviously been a pretty robust narrative on the part of Trump and his allies, indicating that the indictments are helping him, they're, you know, improving the intensity of his support, and certainly that we've seen his standing improve over time in the polls of GOP primary voters. But a lot has happened over that same period, and the numbers on specifically this question

of how do these charges influence your vote seem to suggest that among GOP primary voters or Republicans that it might be a wash, that about half people say the charges don't have an effect, about a quarter say it actually improves our view of Trump or our likelihood of supporting him, and a roughly comparable number say it decreases their likelihood to support Trump. And so I thought that was a very interesting figure that maybe adds some color to a narrative that I think has been lacking a little bit of data. Ankush, what about other voters, though? I mean, I think this is typical for Donald Trump, that this sort of, when he seems to

be under attack, that cements Republicans more to him. But does it detach independents? Does it detach other voters who might, you know, who might question, say, a federal conviction on felony charges? It does. And not only do the pending charges adversely affect him among people who identify as independents, but not surprisingly, if there were a conviction, that would also even further deplete his support among that group. And I share your view. I mean, a lot of the narrative

around this area, even when Trump was in office, he used to just tout his poll numbers among Republicans. But of course, what is actually interesting is how the public across the whole entire voter or American public base actually thinks about him. And I don't think, of course, what is actually interesting is how the public across the whole entire voter or American public base actually thinks about him. And I don't think, you know, just looking at these numbers and looking at history, we learned from 2020 that he cannot win a national election with only Republicans, right? He needs some significant proportion of independents to pull over. And these numbers suggest that, at least to me, that how they influence independents, the pending

charges and a potential conviction, could eventually actually turn an election against him. And by the way, this may just be the first of many cases he's facing as he rolls through a 2024 presidential campaign. Fascinating numbers. Former federal prosecutor, contributing writer for Politico magazine, Ankur Khodori. Thank you very much for being here today.