Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/14/23

Episode Date: August 14, 2023

Trump already testing new protective order against him

President Trump, did you intend to overturn the 2020 election? You know the answer to this one. Is there any chance you take a plea deal in Georgia? We did nothing wrong. We don't ever take a plea deal. We don't take plea deals. It's a wise guy question. Are you a teacher? I'm just a wise guy. We don't take plea deals because I did nothing wrong.

It's called election interference. Donald Trump, I guess, giving NBC's Vaugh Von Hilliard a new nickname over the weekend in Iowa, the former president answering questions about the 2020 election and whether or not he would take a plea deal. It comes as a Georgia prosecutor will begin presenting her case to a grand jury this week, setting up a fourth possible indictment for the former president. Speaking of Iowa, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis did not have a great time there this weekend. He was heckled several times by Trump supporters and trolled by the former president's campaign. Also ahead, a special counsel is appointed in the DOJ's investigation of Hunter Biden.

We'll explain that new development, plus an update on the catastrophic Maui wildfire, which is now the deadliest in modern history. Joe, the scenes out of Maui are just staggering. Yeah, what a tragedy, unspeakable tragedy. And it seems to have been a perfect storm with fire starting two places, the winds blowing and whipping around. A lot of people saying they should have turned off the electricity. But, you know, the response from officials, that's how they were keeping the water pumps going. It really was, again, just a perfect storm, a disaster of just unspeakable proportions for the people there. And we're going to be covering that, obviously, across the four hours. Also, a lot going on in politics this past weekend, almost a bar fight between the DeSantis and Trump people at one point, which actually started.

It's crazy. I think first time, Jonathan, we're in the history of politics that a bar fight started when one side said, you know, you know, you you lost the campaign. And then it heated up from there when the DeSantis people said that to the Trump people. But, you know, you've been in the position of Vaughn Hilliard getting shouted down by the president of the United States here, the former president of the United States, calling him a wise guy for suggesting what every attorney, criminal attorney I've talked to has said Donald Trump needs to do, and that is do a plea deal. He's boxed in. He's boxed in because he has so many charges against him.

As as his own supporters have said, one conviction on one of those 77, 78 charges basically amounts to a life sentence. So, yes, if he if he's not talking about a possible plea deal right now, he's not a wise guy at all. In fact, he's quite dumb. He can't BS his way out of this, which is, of course, what he's done since 74, 75. It's almost like he's thinking he's fighting against the New York Post in 1977. This is so much different and it is so deeper. And he's not going to be able to BS his way out of this. Yeah. First of all, Mr. Wiseguy, not a terribly unflattering nickname as far as these things go.

Trump has called me a sleazebag. He's deemed that I simply don't have what it takes. I mean, he's no shortage of insults from Donald Trump headed my way. And I know everyone else in this show has gotten them, too. But you make a good point. This is Donald Trump throughout most of his life. He's just used bravado and bluffing and just flat out lying to escape trouble. He, as a New York real estate developer, he became a celebrity. He became wealthy. He got a TV show. And then, of course, ventured into politics and became

president. And after hitting, of course, administration, dogged by scandal after scandal, he suffered very few consequences until, of course, he lost the election and then he was impeached twice. But even then, he returned to his gilded life. He is still lives in Mar-a-Lago. He lives in Bedminster. He is someone who is still in demand at political rallies. He's still famous and rich. All of those things. But this time, the consequences are different. And it's important to have this conversation with these charges in Georgia looming because he's facing these federal cases. And look, his bank shot strategy here to win is to be elected and then to make those go away, to self-pardon or to tell his attorney general to squash those investigations. He can't do that in Georgia. And there may be it's a state case. He can't pardon himself.

And he is now his usual tactics aren't going to work. And he is simply unable to adjust facing potentially a contempt charge in federal case in D.C. because he keeps posting about the judge and about witnesses. Right. And he is someone who is for the first time may actually face consequences that will change his life. Well, and it really does seem as if he doesn't get it because, again, he's he's going after the judge as it as if in the D.C. case, as if he wants to be brought up on contempt charges. And again, he he has won in politics by disrupting, by being the great disruptor. I got it. He ran against a bunch of people in 16 that had no clue how to respond to that.

They were whenever they were on the debate stage, they were on in Donald Trump's domain. He owned the stage. He knew how to work the cameras. He knew how to work the crowds. It's something, Mika, that you and I saw in our years knowing him beforehand. He knew how to do that. Federal court is so completely different. And if he's thinking that he can abuse the judge, he can start riots, he can make a mockery of that process, this federal judge is not going to allow that to happen. And in fact, no federal judge would allow that to happen. We look at what other

than the one that he has in South Florida. We look at the very conservative 11th Circuit. No nonsense, all business on those appeals coming up from Cannon. You look at the United States Supreme Court, the Donald Trump's is my Supreme Court on every one of these issues, these challenges. They're no nonsense. They reject Trump's statements. It's going to happen again. And as Jonathan brings up, we've got a Georgia indictment most likely looming, according to news reports on Tuesday or Wednesday.

We're going to be talking to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Greg Blustein in a minute about that. But when that comes up, even even him getting elected president of the United States, if he still thinks he has a chance of that doesn't help in Georgia. He can't pardon himself for his state conviction, which, again, the evidence there is pretty damning, pretty overwhelming. So, again, right now, let's go back to what Trump was talking about with with Von Hilliard, calling him a wise guy. If he's not thinking about a plea deal, he's living on another planet because he is in such great legal jeopardy. And as papers are reporting this weekend, and of course, it makes sense. You've got four or five indictments coming your way.

Plus all of these civil charges that he's running out of money. Well, we'll talk to Vaughn next hour. I will say one reason why he may not be thinking of a plea deal or wanting to consider that is this is a man who has faced 77 years of his life of no consequences, of always being able to skirt the law, skirt the rules, skirt the boundaries, skirt the foundational ethics of something. He's found a way to get around everything that he has put in his path, that he has chosen to do, whether it be corrupt or a crime. We'll see. But it's definitely heating up because he is not backing off. Along with Jonathan Lemire, Joe and me, we have former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department's Elise Jordan,

founder of the conservative website The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes and former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg. And as we were just mentioning, as he awaits possible charges in Georgia, which could happen this week, Trump is already testing the limits of a new protective order put in place in the federal election interference case against him. This is the one, of course, playing out in Washington, D.C. Now, in court on Friday, Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that going forward, Trump's lawyers must review any notes he takes while looking at sensitive materials to make sure he is not copying down personal information about witnesses. She also prohibited him from having a phone out while reviewing those materials for the same reason. Prosecutors requested the order after Trump started attacking potential witnesses, special counsel Jack Smith, and even the judge herself on social media. On Friday, Judge Chutkan warned the former president's lawyers that, quote, while he has a First

Amendment right to free speech, that right is not absolute. She added that the more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case, the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly. Listen to those words. Despite Trump's lawyers insisting that he would, quote, scrupulously abide by the conditions of his release, it didn't take long for the former president to seemingly start breaking the rules on social media last night. In addition to calling Jack Smith a deranged lowlife prosecutor, the former president went after the judge herself, sharing a post with her photo and a caption falsely claiming that she, quote, openly admitted she's running election interference against Trump. Later on, he wrote that she was, quote, very biased and unfair and that she obviously wanted him behind bars.

Last night, attorney Neil Katyal posted, quote, It would not surprise me if Judge Chutkan called a hearing with Trump's presence, given his new remarks. And Joe, I mean, isn't he pushing this? Wouldn't it be in his best interest to push this to the limit? No, it's not in his best interest to push it. In some ways, I think it does. Here's the thing. We are all so accustomed to Donald Trump saying outrageous things and getting away with it. Just like we were accustomed to that guy that was lying about Sandy Hook parents saying really outrageous things about everybody. And then you got a billion dollar settlement. Tucker Carlson on Fox News saying the most outrageous things about everybody on and off camera.

And we're like, oh, I guess you just get away with that now. No, we didn't. Because why? Because the great leveling wind is the judicial system. It's it's the third branch of government. Donald Trump, again, thinks that he's fighting a fight against the New York Post in 1977. He thinks he's fighting against Marco Rubio in the 2016 primary election. He thinks he's fighting against clueless people like you and me on news that they can set up as, you know, set up straw men and knock them down. I guarantee you, you can say what you want about a lowly country lawyer that happens to fall off a turnip truck outside of 30 Rock and get a TV show for a couple of years. You cannot do that to a federal judge, especially a federal judge who is unanimously selected by the United States Senate. I think a 98 to nothing confirmation and perhaps one of the most respected judges in that district. So I want to bring in Chuck here. And you may disagree with me, Chuck,

but where I come from, you say you start lying about federal judges and posting their pictures. By the way, where I come from, some bad things have happened in Alabama to federal judges in the past. They've been blown up when they've tried to open packages in their home, federal judges have. And federal judges don't take these sort of accusations and threats lightly. So I'm curious what may lie ahead for Mr. Trump. And given your years of experience in the federal court, what would happen to any other criminal defendant that that behaved this way and thumbed his nose at a federal judge's ruling? Well, first, let me tell you what lies ahead for Mr. Trump. And the road we're on is obviously bumpy and messy, but the road we're on leads to a federal courthouse and a trial and a jury where Mr. Trump does not control the rules or the venue. That's where it

leads. And whether he, you know, it's fine if he pleads guilty, but from the perspective of a prosecutor, it's also fine if he doesn't. You know, I probably tried 50 or 60 federal criminal cases because 50 or 60, some defendants didn't want to plead guilty. Fine. OK, so be it. We get paid either way. We go to trial. So even though it's going to be ugly and messy, and even though he's going to push the limits,

he's going to end up in a federal courtroom in trial pursuant to the rules of law and evidence that he doesn't control. That's where this goes. Now, the hard thing for the judge, really for everyone who cares about the fair administration of justice between now and then, is that it's going to be hard to keep this guy sort of in line. We get that. The judge understands that there are gradiated, graduated punishments that she can impose. She can order a gag rule. She can hold him in contempt. If it gets really bad, by the way, federal prosecutors have a solution. Remember, they superseded charges in the Southern District of Florida. If he's going after witnesses,

harassing, intimidating them, they can charge him with that, too, and supersede the indictment in Washington, D.C. One way or the other, Joe, this leads to a federal courtroom and a venue he does not control. At the same time, Chuck, I just want to know if any other defendant had behaved this way, what would be happening to them right now? Because I feel like Trump will push this to the limit, knowing his past behavior, his pattern in every other situation he's been in in his life, even in legal situations. We saw him in the defamation lawsuit. He is unstoppable in terms of his relentless abuse of the truth and the rules. And I just wonder, again, back to my initial question, anyone else, any other defendant who has done what he has done

over the weekend, would they be treated differently? Yeah, you know, so it's hard to compare him to every other defendant because I have never seen any other defendant, Mika, who behaves the way he does. I mean, he's a he's a violent, narcissistic man. Many defendants, most defendants, overwhelmingly so, abide by court orders. But again, the judge has tools in her tool belt to address this. Now, she has to be careful. The man's running for president, whether we like it or not. He's running for president and he's entitled to his First Amendment political speech as any other candidate would be. And I don't think she wants to step on that. But there will be orders that he might violate. If he does, my guess is that he will

be treated like any other defendant who violates the order. There will be sanctions. Again, she could impose a gag order. She can hold him in civil contempt. She can seek criminal contempt. And the Department of Justice can supersede if he actually breaks additional laws. So, yeah, in the end, Mika, and I believe this, I may be completely wrong, but I believe this. He will be treated like any other defendant. And, you know, Charlie Sykes, you know, a federal judge or two yourself. Feel free to answer any of those previous questions that I passed to Chuck. But also, as Chuck says, he's going to end up in federal court.

And if you if you listen to the judge's instructions in their last hearing, it's going to be sooner rather than later, because the more he acts this way, she says, the greater the requirement to speed up the process. So suddenly we're looking at a January trial. If there's a conviction of February, you know, possibly conviction by February. I can't imagine the appeals court dragging things out too long. And then most appeals courts always defer back to the trial judge. You know, he could be facing the music by spring. I mean, to Chuck's point, I mean, you know, none of this is normal and we shouldn't pretend that it's normal. But this is really an amazing stress test for the American judicial system, because Donald Trump is daring the judge. He is baiting the judge. You know, to Mika's point, it is if he is goading to see how far he can he can push this because maybe he wants to be a martyr.

But what I think is interesting will be to watch how she responds to all of this. And I'd be interested in getting Chuck's views on whether or not the judge, short of actually finding him in contempt of court, can call him in and his lawyers into her courtroom and say, Mr. Trump, I would like you to explain now what you mean by these statements. Ask him point by point. Explain what you mean. Articulate it. Now, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not sure how the Fifth Amendment applies to this.

But during a hearing like this, does she have the ability to say, would you explain, you and your lawyers explain why you should not be held in contempt? Or short of that, say, you know, let's walk through this tweet or this bleat. You know, what were you saying? What are you implying here? Does she have the ability to do that? Is that possible? You know, Charlie, great question.

So I think she can certainly call that hearing. She can summon Mr. Trump call that hearing. She can summon Mr. Trump and his lawyers. She can put the questions to the lawyers. She can put it to Mr. Trump. There might be a Fifth Amendment issue with him answering some of those questions, and his lawyers may intervene. But I've found that when federal judges get really, really, really mad, they often don't want to hear from the parties. They want to tell the parties something. In this case, knock it off, because the next thing that happens is contempt. And the thing that happens after that, and by the way, this is always a possibility, is that if you don't follow

my orders, Charlie, I revoke your bail. Bail is an act of grace. It's granted to people who obey court orders. It permits you to stay out of prison pending trial. That's an act of grace. It's granted to people who obey court orders. It permits you to stay out of prison, pending trial. That's an act of grace. If he continues to disobey the judge, to push the judge, to flout her orders, that can be revoked. And at least, of course, this act of grace is bestowed upon someone who's currently running for president. And even if Donald Trump, as we detail at the top of the show, is headstrong and feels like he can say what he wants and suffers no consequences, you'd think there'd be at least some lawyer in his ear saying to him, you know, Mr. Trump, like this could get you in jail. But he's relentless. And he has a series of posts last

night about the judge, about the case. He put up her picture. Certainly to this point in the GOP primary, it's worked for him to play the victim, to allege a deep state conspiracy against him. He's trying that card again here now. But this is really, really risky, isn't it? Well, you look back at Donald Trump during 2016, and there would be various points. I mean, granted, they were fleeting. But I think in August or so of the election, as it neared against Hillary Clinton, he modulated his behavior just a teensy little bit and saw an accompanying rise in the polls. And so he does have the ability to control himself a teensy little bit if he wants to. But clearly, he doesn't see any political advantage to that or even any legal risk, really, just given the way he's behaving. What I still find perplexing is that with this whole plethora, I mean, just a grab bag of charges against him,

no GOP primary candidates are really using it at all. You look at Iowa and, you know, you get from Ron DeSantis a very tepid, oh, he lost the election. And that's about as extreme as it's going when they have so much material and they could say, listen, too much baggage with this guy. It's just not good. Look at something else. But instead, you see how Donald Trump has been able to completely annihilate Ron DeSantis by this stage because he really is just trying to be a repackaged Trump, just like all of the other, most of the other candidates except Chris Christie. Well, this week, after more than two

years of investigating District Attorney Fannie Willis, will begin presenting her election interference case before a grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia. A majority of that grand jury will have to sign off on an indictment for Willis's team to press charges against former President Trump and or his allies. At least two witnesses that were subpoenaed by the DA's office have confirmed their scheduled dates to appear. Former Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan tweeted on Saturday that he was scheduled to testify tomorrow. Journalist George Chidi also confirmed his Tuesday slot in an interview with NBC News. Former Georgia State Senator Jen Jordan and former state representative Bea Wynn are also confirmed to have received subpoenas.

D.A. Willis has said she will announce any potential charging decisions by September 1st. Let's bring in political reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Greg Blustein. He's also an NBC News contributor. Greg, great to have you on. We had heard all along that this time frame was the Georgia time frame for a potential indictment. The fact that the folks that I just named are testifying this week, does it indicate that we're still perhaps some time away from possible charges, if any? No. I mean, to us, at least, it indicates that these could be as early as Tuesday. I mean, we've had we've kind of known for a while that this would be the week where the grand jury could be meeting to determine whether or not there could be charges against the former president and his allies. Now we know on the record that Jeff Duncan,

the former lieutenant governor, and George Chidi, the independent journalist, are both testifying Tuesday. So we think the timeline looks as early as Tuesday. It might not be Tuesday, but as early as Tuesday, we could hear an announcement from the Fulton County District Attorney about these charges. Hey, Greg, so walk us through some of the possible charges that Donald Trump could face there and whether this particular investigation, unlike some of the others, may expand beyond Trump and others may also get indicted. Yeah, well, this is an investigation that could very well expand and is believed to expand beyond Donald Trump to his inner circle, to members of the fake elector group in Georgia, to others who tried to overturn his election

results. And the biggest charge we're looking at potentially is RICO charges. Fannie Willis, the district attorney here in Fulton County, is an expert on RICO charges. She's used them successfully in Atlanta public school cheating case. These are expansive charges that have been used not just against organized crime, but street gangs. She's pursuing charges involving rap groups right now in Atlanta that could involve RICO charges, and they could also be used against Donald Trump. She has employed experts in RICO charges, too, to help this investigation. And look, that's, again, why we're looking at charges beyond Donald Trump. About 20 or so folks, 20 or so people involved in the effort to undermine Joe Biden's victory here in Georgia

have received criminal target letters. Eight of them, at least eight of them, they're fake electors, have agreed to immunity deals. But that leaves another dozen or so on the table. All right. With all that, former New Jersey governor and 2024 White House hopeful Chris Christie offered his take on a possible fourth indictment of former President Trump. Let me remind the viewers out there, if he's indicted in Atlanta this week, as we're anticipating that he will be, we will have the front runner for the Republican nomination for president out on bail in four different jurisdictions, New York, Miami, Washington and Atlanta. What I think Republican voters have to ask themselves is two things. First, is is he really the guy under indictment in four different cases, given the conduct that he committed?

Someone who can beat Joe Biden or any other Democrat in November 2024? And when are we going to stop pretending that this is normal? Yeah, that's the question I ask every day. And I assume you do, too, as well, Chuck. But in terms of Georgia, from what we know so far and the names of the people that we just looked at who are still testifying, those who have received immunity deals. What can we read from that in terms of what the charges might be against Trump if there is a possible indictment, which appears likely? And also, just tagging on the end here, if the judge in D.C. or Georgia decides to revoke his bail,

how complicated is that with the Secret Service? Yeah, second question first, Mika. Complicated. I mean, I think there are ways to do it. I think logistically for the Secret Service, which protects Mr. Trump, it becomes very complicated. She could also revoke his bail and put him under house arrest, which would be a little bit worse for him and a little bit easier for the Secret Service. On the first question, you know, based on the excellent reporting of Greg and his colleagues, you know, it looks like RICO charges are quite possible. What makes that so interesting is that it lets a prosecutor go broad, like conspiracy charges. It lets a prosecutor sweep in lots and lots of conduct. You know, Congress created a federal RICO statute in 1970. Georgia was one of about three dozen states that

modeled its state RICO statute on the federal RICO statute. Georgia passed its statute in 1980. But Georgia went broad. Georgia added more predicate acts that could be swept into a RICO charge than many other states and even more than the feds. And so what you might see out of Georgia, if reporting is accurate, and it often is, are charges brought predicated on RICO. But the acts would involve false statements, forgeries. In other words, much of the conduct related to the slates of fake electors that were used in numerous states, but including in Georgia. So it's a great tool for prosecutors. It allows them to sweep sort of more broadly than their federal counterparts. So a very interesting thing to watch. The other interesting thing, Mika, is what will the designated enterprise be? As Greg mentioned, your enterprise can be Atlanta teachers.

It can be biker gangs. It could be drug cartels. In this case, the criminal enterprise could well be the Trump campaign. Now, and you once again, what do we hear about coming out of Georgia, just like out of D.C., fake electors? It's a fraudulent scheme to actually take people's right to vote away from them. People who voted and had the appropriate electors going to Washington, D.C., Donald Trump and all the people that we've heard about in the D.C. case decided to defraud not only those voters, but but but the United States Congress

and present fake electors. It's what Mike Pence refused to do. But again, a fraudulent scheme has nothing to do with the First Amendment. You don't have a First Amendment right to get on the phone and steal people's identity. Like if your grandmother's identity is stolen by some group that has a scam fraudulent scheme, they're going to run into the court talking about they have a First Amendment right to call your grandma and steal her money. No, you can't call grandma, steal the money, hide behind the First Amendment anymore than you can get together with some really stupid people and come up with this fake elector scheme and try to defraud voters. It just doesn't happen. Jonathan O'Meara, I know you have the next question, but I'm just you know, we haven't talked baseball today.

So here's a great opportunity to talk baseball. I'm looking at all the places where Donald Trump is indicted. Chris Christie's talking about it in New York, in Miami, in D.C., in Atlanta. I mean, come on. You got the Braves, you got your Mets, you got your Marlins, you got the Nationals, who the Red Sox desperately need to sweep over the next three days. Donald Trump has been indicted in every city where there is a National League East team, except Philadelphia. Keep your eyes on the Phillies. They're probably next. City of brotherly love. His investigations are ramping up as we speak. Hey, there's the

American league East standings. Joe, you'll see that we're in fourth place. 11 games out, but two up on the Yankees. But if the national league East standings were to come up right now or in a moment, you would see that four of those five cities indeed have Donald Trump is facing criminal charges. Maybe he'll visit some ballparks shuttling from courthouse to courthouse sometime next spring. So. So, Greg, let's talk, though, about the city you care about, the Braves, who also, by the way, best team in baseball, demolished the Braves this weekend, including a 21-3 score yesterday. Over the Mets. Over the lowly, lowly, lowly New York Mets. But give us just a lay of the land there.

We've talked about the proceedings, but talk to us about the security prep and what law enforcement is doing there as the eyes of the world, as they have been in these other National League East cities in months ahead, months before, the eyes of the world are on Atlanta this week. Yeah, Fannie Willis world are on Atlanta this week. Yeah, Fannie Willis has made preparations for this for literally months right now. The courthouse has been surrounded by barricades for several days. Many staffers have been working virtually from home since last week. There's all sorts of security precautions. Roads are being closed. All sorts of unnamed security precautions as well, because Bonnie Willis and her staff is receiving all sorts of threats, not just from Donald Trump and the allegations he's made, the false allegations he's made, but also some of his supporters.

And so it is a high security cordon in downtown Atlanta right now. There's going to be tons of media camped out outside the courthouse and they'll be watching for anyone walking in and out of that courthouse in case there's other witnesses we have not yet reported who are walking into that to be subpoenaed all right uh thanks so much political reporter for the atlanta journal constitution greg blustein uh hopefully uh we'll be talking to you again very soon um so um charlie and and elise just really, I want to get your final thoughts this block over what Chris Christie just said. You've got the Republican frontrunner with four indictments against him in Miami, in Atlanta, possibly D.C. and up in New York. And

this is who the Republicans still steadfastly clinging to. And yes, clinging to too desperately when they have a lot of other choices out there. Well, first of all, can I point out that if Donald Trump does come to Milwaukee next week, he could actually pick up a Milwaukee board game. Milwaukee boards were leading the NL West. You forgot to mention that. But I mean, look at Donald Trump's resume right now. You have. Go ahead. I'm sorry. The three and a half games ahead of the Cubs, which is a big deal here. That is a big. So look at Donald Trump's resume.

You know, a federal jury has found him liable for sexual assault. He's facing charges for fraud, conspiracy, obstruction, now racketeering. He has been charged with violating the Espionage Act. And the Republican field cannot figure out how to run against him. Rhonda Sanders cannot figure out, gee, what issues could I possibly use to beat him? Which tells you a lot about the other candidates, but it also tells you a lot about the state of the Republican base right now, that in fact, his numbers have gone up every time that he has been indicted. And I don't necessarily think that that will change after the Florida, I'm sorry, after the Georgia charges come down.

But it is this extraordinary, extraordinary and abnormal moment when someone facing that many charges that are that serious really is continuing to dominate the Republican Party. And they continue to want to buy this ticket into 2024. So this is not normal and it's not rational. You know, Charlie nails it when he talks about how every other candidate is just cowering down to Donald Trump. And it just reminds you so much of 2016 in the primary when every so many candidates thought that Donald Trump would just poof, go away one day. And he never did. And Donald Trump is still leading. And, you know, he's neck and neck with Donald, with Biden in national polling. And by our electoral college system, that means that if we had the election today, he would probably win. Okay. Former U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg, thank you very much. And thanks

for that thought, Elise. As we continue here on Morning Joe, still ahead, Republican presidential candidate took their campaigns to the Iowa State Fair over the weekend. We'll go live to Des Moines for a recap, including the not so warm welcome for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Plus, Republicans once clamoring for a special counsel to investigate. Hunter Biden are crying a foul now that one has been appointed. We'll explain why they got exactly what they wanted. Also ahead, a look at the devastation this morning in Hawaii as nearly 100 lives have been lost in what is now the deadliest wildfire in modern American history.

We'll get a live report from Maui. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Forty past the hour, the wildfires that broke out on the island of Maui are confirmed to be the deadliest in the United States in more than 100 years. As FEMA and the governor surveyed the damage, search teams continue to scour the ruins of the decimated community. NBC News national correspondent Tom Yamas has the latest. This is what it looked and felt like escaping the Lahaina wildfire. Oh, no, no, guys guys, no we have to leave. This new video showing the sheer panic as a family stuck in a line of cars had minutes to escape before the flames engulfed the road out.

This is a disaster. That drive through hell is how Rafa Ochoa and his family made it out alive. I knew it was bad. And it was moving fast. And it was moving fast, really fast. It got to our homes within seconds. With the fast-moving fire closing in on his home, Ochoa heroically grabbed both his kids and his friends' children. Their parents were at work and scrambled everyone out. Did you hear any alarms? Did you get any kind of warning? No alarms, no warning, nothing. No sign, nothing that we had to evacuate. Not even police rolling by telling us to evacuate or anything. The desperation of those chilling moments now turning to anger.

Where were you guys to try and get us out, evacuate us? No, we're mad. We're mad. No, we didn't just lose our homes. We lost our town, lost history, you know? Our kids are traumatized. You guys messed up real bad. Hawaii emergency officials have said sirens on the island weren't activated during the fire, though other alerts by phone and broadcast were. Having seen that storm, we have doubts that much could have been done with a fiery, fast-moving fire like that. The scale of the devastating loss now unprecedented in modern times. The deadliest wildfire in the U.S. in more than 100 years, claiming at least 93 lives.

Just so you know, 3%. That's what's been searched with the dogs, 3%. When we pick up the remains and they fall apart, and so when you have 200 people running through the scene yesterday, I don't know how much more you want me to describe it. That's what you're stepping on. As FEMA and the governor survey the damage, search teams with cadaver dogs that just arrived to Maui now scouring the ruins of historic Lahaina again.

Are you saying we're just at the beginning of this disaster? So for the first few days, we had done searches in the streets and the cars that were in the area. But we couldn't enter any structures. My police officers, they're trained to go chase bad guys, respond to robberies, take reports, but they're not trained to go enter smoldering structures to go look for human remains. Questions are also mounting over the cause of the blaze, which is still under investigation, with FBI evidence recovery teams now on scene. And a new class action lawsuit alleges the destruction could have been avoided

if the utility company had de-energized its power lines ahead of the high wind weather. In a statement, Hawaiian Electric saying the utility doesn't comment on pending litigation, adding in part that high wind protocols were followed and that at this early stage, no cause for the fire has been determined. This is Joel and Adela. For hundreds of families, the focus remains their missing loved ones and now a demand for answers. We're not leaving. None of us are leaving. We're going to rebuild our town and we're going to make it better. Coming up, another revealing look at America's education systems and the connections between elite colleges and wealthy students. We'll

discuss the role that family income and legacy status play in admissions. Steve Ratner is standing by with charts. Morning Joe, We'll be right back. Come on, Q. come on Q wow you know Mika yes we were sitting talking as we were going to break with that incredible shot of Washington, D.C. that TJ dialed up, whether that solo from The Wall was my favorite, another brick in the wall.

I said, no, I think Jimmy Page's and the break and A Whole Lotta Love might be. And boom, they dial it up. Jimmy Page. It's beautiful. With the White House. Oh, there we go. We've got DC now. Just about. Mika, what's your favorite solo in rock history, Mika?

My favorite what? No. Guitar solo. I mean, my favorite guitar solo? I mean, my favorite guitar solo. I mean, I don't I don't know. You're a Lindsay Buckingham fan. Yeah. Go your own way. I don't know. Van Halen eruption. Boom. Look at this. Look at this. Lemire. Wait, wait. Somebody said that in your ear. Who gave her that?

I'm not that stupid. Why did I actually think you knew that? Oh, my God. You should walk around with an earpiece. We all should and just get help. An eruption. I was like, I didn't even. She knew who Van Halen was.

Lemire, your favorite solo? No, TJ didn't help me with that at all. That didn't even know who Van Halen was. Lamere, your favorite solo? No, TJ didn't help me with that at all. That wasn't even subtle. That was how obvious it was that was filmed there. Not even subtle. I'm partially the edge. The edge is my favorite guitarist. I love the intro to Where the Streets Have No Name would probably be mine.

But that one just now, the whole set here in New York, we were all rocking out to the whole lot of love there. That's a great call, too. It is an amazing moment in Jimmy Page's amazing career. Elyse, do you have a favorite rock solo or country solo? Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robert Johnson, if we can talk blues a little bit. Oh, yeah. Those are good.

Yeah. Those are good. You may be the winner there, Elise. That I actually like. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Pick your Lindsay song.

He's amazing. Yeah. All right. So let's move on now. A recent study is reinforcing the longstanding perception and reality that children from wealthy families are more likely to be admitted to elite schools than the average applicant. This after the Supreme Court banned the use of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. The research by three prominent economists shows that Ivy League schools, one in six students, has parents in the top one percent.

Joining us now, former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. So, Ratner, walk us through this, because there's three categories you're looking at in terms of schools. Sure, Mika. Yeah, look, it's an interesting study. And obviously, parents are getting now ready to apply to schools again. We just had that Supreme Court decision about affirmative action. So let's look at how rich people and some other people fare at these at these schools. So let's compare here three groups, as you said, of schools. And this little dotted line down here are what they call flagship public schools, places like University of Virginia, University of Michigan, high quality, Berkeley, high quality public schools, places like University of Virginia, University of Michigan, Berkeley

high-quality public schools, and you can see that your chances of getting admitted, regardless of your income, are roughly about the same, all the way down from the bottom to the very top. If you apply to what's called an Ivy Plus, an Ivy kind of quality school, your chances remain roughly the same until you get up here to the top 1%, the top 0.1%, and then suddenly your chances will go up 1.3 times the average, 2.2 times the average. But now let's talk about what happens if you're a legacy, if you've got a parent or a close relative who went to one of these schools, and what happens to your chances of getting admitted.

At every single income level, your chances are substantially higher from three times. But at the very top of the income level, your chances go up to five times and 8.3 times as likely to get admitted if you're a legacy and you have high income at these schools. Now, something that people also don't really appreciate is that rich people actually can get better recommendations out of high school. So if you look at academic ratings in high school, regardless of your income, roughly the same. If you look at your non-academic ratings coming out of high school, the richest people have a much higher chance, one and a half times the chance of getting a high recommendation for their non-academic activities, one and a half times of getting a

better guidance counselor recommendation, one and a half times, 1.3 times of getting a better teacher recommendation. You know, Steve, it's very interesting looking at this, and it's not really surprising on many fronts. I will say the last thing that you showed about ratings, you know, we know the academic advisors. We've all dealt with academic advisors. We've all dealt with guidance counselors and teachers. There certainly is no there's no part of that where, you know, parents are going in and say, hey, we're rich, write something nice for my kid or da da da. The thing I found coming from a family, you know, grew up across the deep south and everything. The thing that shocked me was, you know, when it was time to take the SAT, my mom said, hey, you've got the SAT tomorrow. I said, OK. She gave me a couple of pencils and I went and took the SAT and that was it. Just I mean, most middle class Americans, it's not it's not the blood sport that it is.

And in like elite, a lot of elite communities where, you know, you know, I've read that kids like five, six, seven years old. It's just it's absolutely crazy. And they start prepping for the SAT at these bizarrely early ages. It seems to me a lot of this just has to do with communities and I guess wealthier communities where they just know how to work the process. They know how to gain the process. What what does that how does that play into it? Well, Joe, let me actually go to my third chart for a second, and then we can come back to the second chart if you want. So if you look at what you're referring to here, in a sense, is sort of the pipeline. One of the problems of getting more kids into these elite schools is that they simply don't even take the test. If you look down here,

all the way up to the 70th percentile, the 70 percent of incomes fewer than half of kids coming out of high school actually take the SATs and they don't score particularly well for a lot of the reasons you were alluding to in terms of preparation these are kids with scores of less than a thousand on their SATs and you can see there are majority of the kids of lower income when you get up to the higher income, this is the top 0.1%. Again, the top 1%. You can see that a higher percentage take the test, 89%, 88%. And their scores, this is the 1400 level, which is a level that'll help you get into an elite school, goes up to 20%. So there is a big pipeline problem. One of the things people talk about

to solve this problem is to eliminate legacy preferences at these universities, eliminate preferences for certain what are called elite sports like sailing and squash. If you did that, what these researchers found is that, in fact, the percentage of kids coming from the top would only go down from 42% to 33%. 33% of the kids at these schools would still come from the top 5%. So this whole question of how you get more kids from diverse backgrounds into schools is actually very complicated. But let me just show you my last chart because it's kind of interesting, which is that it actually, there's been work, this study actually helps show that it may not make that much difference where you go to school. And what they did was they compared kids who got accepted both at Ivy League

schools and at these very prestigious public schools. And they looked at the ones who chose to go to the public universities versus the Ivy schools. And yeah, if you go to an Ivy school, your chances of getting into the top 1% of income go up, your chances of going to an elite graduate school go up, and your chances of getting employed by an elite law firm or investment bank go up. But your income actually isn't all that different. Whether you went to an elite public school and also went to an Ivy Plus, accepted it both, you can see you end up, 79% end up in this percentile, 81% there is about a $3,000 income difference between the two. So it's really quite interesting how college admissions factor into results in life.

Yeah, it often doesn't. Though I've got to say, Jonathan Lemire, as a University of Alabama graduate, some of my best employees have had Ivy League degrees. So I don't want to knock the Ivy League too much here about outcomes because some of my best workers, some of my best workers have, you know, they're very good also with a roll tide chance. So that seems like the only appropriate answer here, roll tide. Yeah, roll tide is the only answer always. But go ahead. I'm sorry, didn't mean to interrupt. No, no, that's fine, Joe. Obviously it is. So Steve, you have a bonus chart actually today. And there's been a lot of talk in recent weeks about Hunter Biden and how was he trying to raise money off of his father's

name and influence. And we should again note that Hunter Biden never worked in the White House. You know who did? Jared Kushner. Jared Kushner worked in the White House. And you've got a chart there that details the sources of his money. I'll let you explain it. But it should be noted here that Kushner also, his background in real estate, not exactly as a hedge fund magnate or a peace broker in the Middle East. So you're right, Jonathan. Jared Kushner did work in the White House. He worked very hard. It's becoming a little less clear what he actually worked hard at, because after he left the White House, he went out and raised $3.1 billion, that's billion with a B, for a private equity fund. And as you pointed out, he's not a private equity guy. He's a real estate guy. So where did this money come from? Some of it we know from filing. Some of it we know from press reports. What we

know for a fact is he raised the $3.1 billion. What we also know for a fact is that only about $30 million of it actually came from investors in the United States. All the rest of it is foreign money. And of that foreign money, $2 billion of it came from the Saudis. And not only did it come from the Saudis, but the Public Investment Fund, which is the Saudi sovereign wealth fund from which this money came. The board of it voted against giving the money to Jared and they were overruled by MBS, who said, give him the two billion dollars. I've been in this business 40 years. I have never seen someone get two billion dollars out of three billion, get two thirds of their money from a single investor, usually a single investor, might be a few percent of the fund, might be 5%, occasionally 10%. Never seen this. Another 200 million, we believe, came from Qatar. Another 200 million, we believe, came from the UAE.

And then the 625 million that came from foreign investors that we don't even know who they are. So what was Jared Kushner doing in the White House? And by the way, as a fun fact, on January 6th, the famous January 6th, Jared Kushner was in the Middle East. Steve, I heard from a prominent Middle East investor a couple weeks ago that there's not much out there on how Jared has actually been able to execute his funding. He's got all this money, but like you and Jonathan said, his background is not in private equity. And I've seen only one

news report of a small European investment. He's sitting on all this money. Are the Saudis investing with him just to hedge their bets politically in case Trump comes back into office. At least those are your words, not mine. But it's certainly a reasonable speculation. Yeah, we haven't seen a lot of him do a lot with this money. He has hired some people. I do know that. I think you mentioned to me during the break that you'd seen one investment that I hadn't even seen.

I've seen nothing else about what he's actually done with the money. It is normal to invest this money over a period of several years. So I don't think we can draw a firm conclusion yet. But again, we're going back to a guy who's a real estate guy and frankly, not a particularly good one at that, who suddenly got $3 billion trying to do private equity deals, competing against people who've been in the business a long time. And I wouldn't, if I were the Saudis, count on making a lot of money from this anytime soon. So Steve, we want to, as a last question, look at the graph there in that really little tiny sliver at the top, which is just 1%, 1% of the money raised is from United States investors. Just based on your experience, how unusual is that? It's extraordinary,

Jonathan. I've also never seen that as well. All of us in the private equity business obviously go outside the U.S. for money. The Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds have a lot of money. Many private equity funds get money from them. But again, it might be 10, 20 percent, maybe 30 percent of a total fund. I've never seen it be 99 percent of a fund like this. U.S. private equity firms still raise the vast bulk of their money from U.S. investors. This is extraordinary, unprecedented. I've never seen anything like it. You know, just as a final...

Steve Rautner, thank you. Go ahead, Elise. I was going to say, as a final point, in the education charts, the most equitable category was making money. You didn't necessarily have to be from an Ivy League. And then in this, you look at where American investors are going, not to Jared Kushner's fund. That is a lot to think about, Steve. Thank you so much. Thanks for bringing that all to light.

And welcome back to Morning Joe. It's just past the top of the second hour on this Monday, August 14th. Jonathan Lemire, Elise Jordan, Charlie Sykes, all still with us as several of the Republicans running for president made appearances at the Iowa State Fair over the weekend. But Donald Trump's brief visit to Des Moines seemed to grab the most attention. The former president was there for less than two hours, arriving with about a dozen U.S. House members from Florida in a not-so-subtle dig at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis,

who was also there. Trump spent a short time talking to the crowd, repeating his lie about the 2020 election being stolen. You know, we did great in 2016. We won. We did much better. I hate to say this. We did much better in 2020. The election was rigged. So we'll be back. We have not taken any chances. We're way up in the polls in Iowa and all over the country, up by over 50 points. That's a lot. But we don't want to take any chances. We'll be back. Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis received a mixed welcome at the state fair. He was heckled by Trump supporters throughout the day, including his appearance with Iowa's governor, Kim Reynolds. You know what? You know what?

We're in Iowa, and in Iowa, we're Iowa nice. So let's give everybody the opportunity to hear our candidates. While DeSantis was speaking at that event, the Trump campaign trolled him, paying for a plane to fly overhead with a banner that read, Be Likeable, Ron. Another headline out of Iowa, the Iowa State Fair this week, Vivek Ramaswamy rapping to Eminem's Lose Yourself. The song was played after his fair side chat with the Iowa governor and Ramaswamy went with it. Please stop. Wrapping several bars of the Oscar winning song. Let's, yeah, yeah.

In the words of Gene Wilder and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, please don't stop. Let's bring in NBC News correspondent Vaughn Hilliard. He's in Fulton. He's in Fulton County He's in Georgia right now after covering politics in Iowa over the weekend. Vaughn, let's start with ladies for campaign. But I we don't want to talk about V-vax wrapping. We'll just leave that to the side. I do, though, you know, we talk on the show all the time about gravity returning, right? That that Donald Trump has has completely shattered a lot of political Iowa, that sort of seems like a self-owned in Iowa.

That seems like one of those things where people look back if Ron DeSantis can actually find his footing and go, yeah, a lot of Iowa voters. They just, you know, that may have won Trump a moment with with people from New York doing stories about it. But it actually that ain't Iowa. Nice. I'm curious what your thoughts were as you saw these people going around being abusive through throughout the Iowa affair and a state that prides itself at being nice. Right. I think, Joe, you're absolutely right. If Donald Trump were to not win this Iowa caucus, we'd have to look back to his relationship with Kim Reynolds and essentially throwing her off the cliff for the mere fact that she isn't endorsing him. Governors have a longstanding tradition of not endorsing in competitive Republican primaries. But, you know, for Donald Trump, the last nine years, there has been no instance of,

outside of losing the 2020 election, a political consequence of throwing fellow Republicans off the cliff. Usually it's those Republicans, Jeff Flake, Bob Corker, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Tom Rice, who are the ones who ultimately get the boots. So for him, he's really putting his own political capital on the line. And Kim Reynolds is in his line of fire, suggesting that he doesn't near. And when you see those images at the Iowa State Fair, there are hundreds, thousands of people swarming Donald Trump. The presence of Donald Trump is powerful in an event like that. The motorcade, which I was riding in, it came into the state fairgrounds and it suddenly shut it down for the 85 minutes that he was on the ground. Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley,

Vivek Ramaswamy's rapping, none of them have any impact like that. Ramaswamy was far and away not invited to the main grand stage, you know, to actually speak beyond that presentation. I want to let you hear from Donald Trump himself, because this, I think it's important that we take into context here. This visit of his took place just 24 hours after that hearing in which the judge in Washington, D.C. told him to not create a carnival-like atmosphere around the proceedings awaiting him as part of this criminal trial stemming from the federal charges that he faces. And of course, this was just before he faces a potential fourth

indictment in Fulton County. I had the chance to ask the former president a few questions. Take a listen. You know the answer to that. Again, that was Donald Trump's response to my question of, did you intend to overturn the 2020 election? Of course, that and his intentions are at the heart of his federal charges and potentially his state charges here pending as soon as tomorrow here out of Fulton County, Georgia. Joe. So so long from everything you saw on the ground, all the energy, obviously, around Donald Trump. Talk about DeSantis. This is a guy who desperately trying to find his footing. He still has, what, six months, five months to go before the caucus.

So, you know, the old saying goes, a week is a lifetime in politics. And we've seen time and time again since we've started doing this show. People moving quickly the last week in the polls. I'm curious, what did you pick up from DeSantis from the energy around there? Now, I was talking to one county chairman who was actually a county chair for Ted Cruz eight years ago. He's now a county chair for Ron DeSantis. And he insisted to me that the robust operation that Ted Cruz had put in place for that surprise Iowa caucus victory eight years ago is in place for Ron DeSantis. And the question here is, does Ron DeSantis, does he have the personality? Does

he have the Iowa charisma to win support across these 99 counties like Ted Cruz ultimately was able to do? I'll remind folks that in October of 2015, Ted Cruz was just at 6%. So Ron DeSantis is already working from a better position here. Ron DeSantis, he has the backing. He has the financial backing here. But does he have what it takes to eclipse? I'm not sure. What I can tell you here, Joe, is that at least Ron DeSantis is trying. He had more than a dozen events over the last 72 hours across Iowa, Besides the hours that he spent with his family at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, Ron DeSantis is putting in the work that it would take to make a true run at winning the caucus. Of course, if Donald Trump, I've talked

to a great number of Republicans in Iowa, New Hampshire, if Donald Trump wins Iowa caucus, it's hard to see how Ron DeSantis or anybody else has any viability here moving forward. But in a place like Iowa, Ron DeSantis and the efforts of having 99 county chairs and actually putting in that effort could reap benefits. Ted Cruz was down by about 10 percentage points to Ted Cruz in Iowa polls just before the Iowa caucus eight years ago here. So as long as Ron DeSantis can get himself within fighting range, he's got a shot. But right now, when you look at those crowds that Donald Trump was pulling in, I just still have a hard time reckoning with the idea that Donald Trump is not the odds on favorite to pull off a caucus victory by the sheer amount of vast support

that he has across the state right now. Well, he certainly does seem to be odds on favor. But with your several caveats that I may add, if I may add Mike Huckabee to that, another caveat, there are a lot of people polling terribly in August, the year before the caucus who ended up winning, going away. So we still have a long way to go here. NBC's Vaughn Hilliard. Thank you so much. State fair is usually the state fair, Joe. It's right. The informal kickoff for the Republican

primary. But in so many ways, this thing started so much earlier that it seems like we're late in the game. And I don't know, to your point, we may just be getting started right now. We just may be. All right. Thank you so much, Vaughn. Wise guy, Vaughn Hilliard. Thank you so much. He's got to get his get his new nickname.