Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/16/23

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

Trump and co-defendants have until August 25 for booking

I do think that the work in my office and other parts of the Justice Department has changed the definition of the problem of crime in America. We're going to have to attack it as a business, not just as individual crime. We have followed up with civil RICO cases. There will be some point in the future in which we will really destroy the power of the mafia. This is a ridiculous application of the racketeering statute. There's probably no one that knows it better than I do. Probably some that know it as well as the first one to use it in white colloquium. But in major cases like the Boesky case and the Milken case, this is not meant for election disputes. I mean, this is ridiculous what she's doing. Actually, it's sort of fascinating, a perfect circle. This is, of course, what Elton John would sing about in The Lion King.

This is the circle of life. Live by the sword, die by the sword. To say it because Rudy, who was once celebrated for his really, really aggressive use of RICO laws, is now indicted under RICO laws. Yes, he's accused, along with Donald Trump and 17 others, of trying to overturn Georgia's 2020 election results. And that's his reaction. He's kind of excited about it. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, August 16th, kind of halfway through the week. And what kind of excited about it. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, August 16th, kind of halfway through the week. And what a week it has been. I'm so glad you said that because Jonathan O'Meara wanted to talk about the Red Sox. What a week it's been. They're going to end up, you know, last place. The Yankees, of course, are still going to come back. Secretariat

going down the home stretch of the Derby and winning it in record time. That's what will happen with the Yankees. But for now, Jonathan Lear, we went like six out of eight, five out of seven. Three of them against Pensacola Catholic High School's JV team. That really doesn't matter. A win's a win, right? Red Sox doing their best to get our hopes up again before dashing them, Joe. This is their M.O.

I was there last night. Their Sox are in town here in Washington. They beat the Nats 5-4, playing okay, but, yes, playing a series of JV squads on their schedule right now. The story as you see it, certainly the Yankees' recent struggles, but you and I know better. They're playing possum. This is the long con.

They are. We've seen this before. They're about to turn on the Jets. We'll see them at the ticker tape parade down the Canyon of Heroes early November. We certainly will. Rip Van Steinbrenner will wake up from his deep, long slumber. Break our hearts yet. Yet again. I'm sure they'll have like Bucky Dent leading the parade, waving. Everybody said we've seen it before. We'll see it again. Well, what we're about to cover today, we have never seen before since like a week or two ago or a month ago or perhaps in the spring with this former president getting indicted two, three, four times. Let's talk to Jonathan Lemire.

He, of course, is White House Bureau Chief of Politico. Author of The Big Lie. Author of The Big Lie. Yes. He wrote about this. He, of course, is White House bureau chief at Politico, author of The Big Lie. Author of The Big Lie. Yes. He wrote about this. He's watching. This is like serious. He's watching what he wrote about play out in real life. Also, former White House director of communications under President Obama, Jennifer Palmieri, joins us this morning. And chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, Peter Baker is with us, professor at Princeton University, Eddie Claude Jr., and former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg is back with us. We've got a lot of questions for Chuck this morning. The clock is now ticking on

the 10-day window that former President Trump and his 18 co-defendants have to voluntarily turn themselves in. Can you imagine this? No, it's really Peter Baker actually wrote a great article talking about how what once was just unthinkable is now becoming, well, Tuesday. It's actually Wednesday. So, Peter, I'm old enough. I don't think you are, but I'm old enough. And several people on the show are old enough. We remember exactly where we were on August the 9th, 1974. I was driving in my grandmom's Dodge Dart into a, I think it's Drip Mall in upstate New York and Horseheads, New York. And the news came on radio talking about Richard Nixon resigning from the

White House. It was massive. I have no doubt that that history will record these four indictments as as spectacularly out of the ordinary and and perhaps for better or worse, to be monumental events in American history, especially constitutional history. But you're right, though. Right now we're in the middle of the storm. And these these these shocks just keep coming. But like like Trump, shocking, but not surprising. Yeah, no, exactly. That's my first memory, too. Actually, my first political memory is my dad holding up the paper which said the giant block letters. Nixon resigns and talking about what that meant for the country. And you're right.

We are in a historic moment now. We often don't think about it when we are living history, but we are living history. And this has great consequence for the country. We don't know where it's going to go. But you're right. There's a certain surreal quality to the idea that, yeah, another week, another indictment. Here we go again. It's sort of lost some of the novelty or shock value.

We should be shocked. It's shocking to see a president charged with a crime. Certainly, assuming if you think he's guilty, it's shocking. If you think he's being unfairly charged, that's shocking in its own way, of course. But here we've got 91 felony charges, four different jurisdictions, four different cases. And that's four trials that are coming up in the next year, let's say, assuming the dates get set. Plus, by the way, let's not forget, he's got a few other civil trials coming up as well. So this is going to be a professional defendant at a time when he's trying to get back into the White House.

And it's just there's no roadmap for this. There's nothing to compare it to. Nothing to compare it to. And, you know, it's very interesting, Jonathan O'Meara. I'm starting to see from people who have steadfastly defended Donald Trump all along. And of course, they've done that. If they're not pro-Trump, they're anti-anti-Trump. But you're now actually seeing some columnist, Stephen of the New York Post, saying, hey, come on, come on. Yes, this is all the Democrats' fault. Yes, this is this. Yeah, they'll go through and they'll attack prosecutors. But, you know, somebody like Dan McLaughlin will say, come on, come on, Republicans, don't fall for this again. Democrats put up like 50 Republican candidates last year that denied elections and Republicans

that were suckers. They fell for it. And every one of them lost in all of the big races. Don't do it again. And then at the end, he concedes like I'm seeing more and more people concede. Prosecutors aren't perfect, but Trump brought this on himself for the most part. There really does seem to be sort of that reality sinking in, even among the most steadfast, hardy anti anti Trumpers. Yeah, that does seem to be breaking through a little bit. There was a telling moment on on Fox yesterday where Neil Cavuto asked his pro Trump guest. Really? You think all of these are, you know, all of these cases are biased? All of these cases are politically motivated? Really? All of them? And it just defies logic. There's so much here. There's so much. And Donald Trump is now staring at a 2024 where he's

going to be hurtling and shuttling between courtroom to rally date. And there is a sense, as much as he has whipped up his core base of supporters, and he has, like his base is with him and they're not going anywhere. They believe everything he's saying. That other polling suggests, though Trump is way ahead of the field, but there's some of that support is a little bit soft and that there's a fear among some Republicans that Trump, even if they like Trump, even if they think he is being railroaded somewhat, they just think it's too much. They're fatigued. But more than that, the baggage will prevent him from winning again. And that's what I hear from Republicans here in Washington.

Even those who are publicly for Trump, privately they're concerned they're heading for a repeat of 2022, where if Trump's at the top of the ticket, he's going to bring the rest of the party down with him. It's going to hurt them with independent, with swing voters as they try to win back the Senate, as they try to hold on the House, particularly in seats that President Biden won last time around, that they think that this will be another election where Trump is going to be a net negative for the party. And as much as it's helping in the primaries right now, it is hard to make the case that this is going to that those voters are going to break his way next year as the criminal allegations just continue to pile up. And as the White House tells you and as you've reported, they understand the White House understands that Georgia is a swing state earlier than they ever expected for one

reason. And his name is Donald Trump. And you look at these indictments and you also look at Georgia. There is a Republican civil war, political civil war going on in Georgia. Yesterday, you had the governor of Georgia immediately after Donald Trump said, I'm going to hold a press conference to show how Georgia was rigged and the voting was rigged. Immediately afterwards, Brian Kemp tweeted out that it's not true. He said this. Go ahead, Miki, tell us. The 2020 election in Georgia was not stolen. For nearly three years now, anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward under oath and prove anything in a court of law. Our elections in Georgia are secure, accessible and fair and will continue to be as long as I am governor. The future of our country is at stake in 2024 and that must be

our focus. And then, of course, Brad Raffensperger said the most basic principles of a strong democracy are accountability and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. You either have it or you don't. And if you look, those are two those are the two most powerful Republican leaders in the state of Georgia. I heard somebody mistakenly say they barely squeaked by in 2022 for election. No, they won in a landslide and they won in a landslide in the Republican primary. And so, Jennifer Palmieri, you have and you know this and I know this. I think Kemp's tweet going after Donald Trump's BS claims was so shocking when it came out as quickly as it came out, the timing of when it came out, because he didn't have to do it. He didn't have to do it then.

I would say 99 percent of politicians would have sat back and said, it's Trump. Let's just let it play out a little bit. No, he went out of his way. The governor, the Republican governor of Georgia, where this case is going to be tried, went out of his way to say Donald Trump's lying. And the secretary of state said, this guy, he doesn't respect the Constitution of the United States. You either respect it or you don't. I thought it was extraordinarily telling. And it talks about that divide now among Republicans. And I must say, when I talked to Greg Blustein yesterday, I said, boy, it must be, you know, it must be really heated down there.

And why are they doing this in Fulton County? They should do it in another district. And Greg said, well, that's where the crimes took place in Fulton County. But this isn't just a Democratic thing in Georgia. There are a lot of Republicans that are incredibly angry at what Donald Trump did in 2020 and how he keeps losing the Senate for Georgia Republicans. You know, I watched the show yesterday and you had a great colloquy. Can you have a colloquy between three people? I'm not sure. But you and John Meacham and John, is that right? I was in terms of two person thing. You're the former Congress, you know, but between you and Heilman and John Meacham about Republicans and why they

won't why they won't have the courage to to push back and why they continue to accept Trump or pick their moments when they are willing to take him on. And, you know, Georgia is just such an interesting case because Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger show that you can do this. I can't think of Doug Ducey, the former governor of Arizona. He did this to some degree. He stood up to Trump, famously refused to take his phone call as he was certifying Arizona's votes. But not in the way that Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger really defended Georgia, really took on Trump. And like you said, they won. They won big.

And the Republicans, huge, huge, huge in the GOP. And, you know, Kelly Loeffler, who was briefly a senator from Georgia, ran for ran for election in 2020. David Perdue, who was senator from Georgia, he primaried Brian Kemp. They all back Trump. They all lost. The other Republicans who, you know, backed up Trump on his claims that he lost the 2020, that he won the 2020 election, they're now indicted. But Raffensperger and Kemp show that there is a way to do this if you do it with integrity. And, you know, these two, as much as progressives laud them for what they have done to protect democracy, they're conservative Republicans. So they still win and they still

win in these in these primaries. But it shows there is a way to stand up to Trump within his own party. All right. We want to get to Chuck Rosenberg on this next part of it. Mark Meadows is seeking to move his Fulton County election case to federal court. Donald Trump's former chief of staff was indicted with him and 17 others on charges of attempting to overturn Trump's election loss in Georgia. Meadows faces two counts in the 41 count indictment, including Georgia's RICO violations and solicitation of violation of oath by a public officer. In a 14-page filing, Meadows' attorneys defended his actions, writing that he was merely acting in his official capacity as Trump's chief of staff. His attorneys detailed arrangements for

organizing Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on Trump's behalf, visiting a state government building and setting up a phone call as among his duties. Meadows petition to move the case to federal court could result in a more favorable jury pool made up of conservative residents. And it would almost certainly mean no cameras would be allowed in the courtroom. However, Fannie Willis's office would still likely prosecute the case. Trump is also expected to mount a similar effort. So, Chuck Rosenberg, last night, I'm trying to listen to music. I'm trying to unwind.

Uh-huh. You know, it's like, you can't watch the news. You can't be on, like, 24 hours a day. I like to watch the news. She does, 24 hours a day. I like to watch the news. She does 24 hours a day. I like to know what everyone is saying. I'm listening to music and she, Mika starts peppering me with questions about removing this from state court, federal court.

I was like, sweetie, I said, I'm listening to music right now. Like, let's just, let's just, let's just enjoy this moment. Who makes that decision? Yeah, exactly. And so, you know what she says to me, Chuck? She goes, well, if you won't answer me, I'll just ask Chuck. I did say that. She did say that. And then I checked the rundown. And thank God you were on at the top of six. So I can ask you, who makes this decision and what are the variables involved? Good questions, Mika. And Joe, we all have crosses to bear.

Mine is that Jonathan earlier referred to my Washington Nationals as a JV team. I'm not bitter. I'm going to push through it. So, Mika. Okay. Okay. Here's the answer. There is a provision in federal code, Title 28 of the United States Code, that permits a federal officer, and Mark Meadows was a federal officer when he served as Mr. Trump's chief of staff, to seek to remove a state criminal case to federal court. But there's a catch, as there often is. And the catch here is that for the case to be removed, for a federal officer under indictment in a state court to successfully bring a petition to move it to federal court, you had to have been acting within the scope of your official duty. I don't

think you can make an argument that trying to overturn a fair and free election through illegal means is within the scope of your duties. So that is the gauntlet that Mr. Meadows is going to need to run. And anyone else who wants to make a similar motion, I fully expect Mr. Trump to do the same thing. But they're going to have to convince a federal judge that committing a crime, seeking to overturn a fair and free election to thwart the peaceful transition of power was within the scope of their official duties. So there is a real motion. There is a real code. There is a real provision that under the right circumstances allows for this. But I think they have a very tough road to travel to make that argument stick here. So procedurally, Chuck, it would go to a federal district judge in Georgia, then be appealed to the 11th Circuit, then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Would that be the procedure for this? Yeah, I mean, generally, the Supreme Court isn't, of course, required to take any appeal except under certain enumerated circumstances. But yes, that's generally the path. You go to a federal judge, you ask him or her to remove the case. I expect they'll say no, because you weren't acting within the scope of your official duty. You know where you see this from time to time? There might be an agent involved shooting, and the agent was acting fully within the scope of her official duties. She was doing her job.

She was applying the deadly force policy of her federal agency. But some local district attorney charges or wants to charge that agent in state court, she'll petition a federal judge to have her case removed to federal court. That petition is granted. That's sort of the normal set of facts under which you might see this. But where you are committing an underlying crime, very hard to argue that you're acting within the scope of your official duty. Right. And Eddie Glaude, we've seen this time and again, where Donald Trump has tried to get the Supreme Court to weigh in on on on his behalf on different issues. And time and time again, first of all, with the election, his phony election fraud claims, they threw every one of those out.

But also when he was claiming presidential privilege and Pence was claiming presidential privilege, Supreme Court would have none of that. So, you know, it seems to me that if Donald Trump is still looking for the Roberts court to help him out, he's barking up the wrong tree because they are conservative with a small C in this case. They're just not going to get involved unless they have to. So so what does this look like? What does this look like in Georgia, especially? Well, I think you're absolutely right in this regard, Joe. I mean, I think part of this, I mean, as a strategy, it makes sense. And there's a kind of underlying strategy as well. How do we string this out? How do we delay, delay, delay until we get to the election and pass the election? And I think at the end of the day, that's the end game. Let's get to the ballot box. Let's see if we win. And then maybe we can gum up

matters until then. But I think you're absolutely right. He's lost how many times in court? And I don't suspect to expect him to win again, given given what we've experienced up to now. OK, yeah. So meanwhile, two of Trump's challengers in the 2024 Republican primary were asked yesterday about the latest indictment for the former president. They're now doing an inordinate amount of resources to try to shoehorn this contest over the 2020 election into a RICO statute, which was really designed to be able to go after organized crime, not necessarily to go after political activity. And so I think it's an example of this criminalization of politics. I don't think that this is something that's good for the country.

We all heard that phone call with the former president, then president at the time, where he said, just find me the requisite number of votes that I would need. Doesn't that feel anti-American? Doesn't that feel like not what a president should do? What we should continue to say, as I see it, which is that we see the legal system being weaponized against political opponents that is un-American and unacceptable. At the end of the day, we need a better system than that.

And I frankly hope to be the president of the United States where we have an opportunity to restore confidence and integrity in all of our departments of justice. But that phone call, you heard it, right? Yes, but we've just brought different conclusions. And that's fine. You would do that as president. You would look at the amount of votes. You know, he doesn't want to answer the question. He doesn't want to answer the question. He doesn't want to answer the question. You can't.

If you're willing, if you're willing to sit back and excuse somebody trying to steal an election, calling a Republican secretary of state who says he was trying to get me to throw out votes. That's what a Republican secretary of state said and a Republican governor said. And then you sit there and you claim, oh, they're politicizing the process, they're weaponizing the process. You're not fit to be president of the United States. That's just really it's really disgusting. And, you know, I like Tim Scott and I think he's a really talented, talented guy. I really and people ask me, who could be who do you think could win the nomination? If Trump and DeSantis falls, I go, Tim Scott, Tim Scott makes it.

Not if he does that. Not if he does that. Jim Palmieri, it's so maddening. They keep talking about the weaponization, the weaponization of the Justice Department. Donald Trump steals nuclear secrets. He lies to the to try to destroy video surveillance tape that shows him moving those documents around with top secret classified military secrets about nuclear weapons attacks against Iran, America's weaknesses. And they go, oh, he's he's just he's just trying to politicize the process. He tries to steal votes from millions of Americans by setting up fraudulent electors to replace electors who actually represent the millions of people that did vote in those seven swing states. And they go, oh, it's a they keep pointing. At that. Ghastly, dangerous Merritt Garland. Are you kidding me? Merritt Garland.

And they keep looking right past the guy who stole nuclear secrets, allegedly, the guy who stole military secrets. I'll still say allegedly, even though they've got him dead to right on that. All of these things. And it's like serious. When are you going to when are you going to be funny? When are you going to get serious about running for president of the United States and telling the truth about the guy you're running against? It's like it feels like I mean, what you see happening in Iowa, it feels like a fantasy football league, right? Like you can make your arguments that you're making. You might even win Iowa.

Somebody might even beat Donald Trump in Iowa. But it has no bearing on what's actually happening, the stakes of how democracy is actually under threat, and probably also little bearing on who ultimately is going to become president of the United States. You know, it really struck me when DeSantis said, RICO was created to go after organized crime. Yes. Yes, it was. And that's why it's being used here,

because it was an organized crime that Trump and his allies committed. And, you know, you see Rudy Giuliani talking about the same thing. You see the disdain that they have for what Trump did, because Rudy Giuliani said, well, this isn't supposed to be used. RICO is not supposed to be used for election disputes as if, you know, as if what happened wasn't just trying to thwart the sort of fundamental principle of what the American Republic stands for. The sort of callousness with which Republicans have treated this issue. I feel it is, you know, alongside the history that's being made with the indictments,

we're going to look back on those words and words like what Tim Scott, who otherwise seems to be a very honorable, very, you know, as you all said, really talented politician, will be marked in history as, you know, if we saw this happen in another country, we saw another leader being from, you know, this is Berlusconi ish. Right. Going through these kinds of these kinds of trials and politicians continuing to back up the person who so clearly violated this fundamental precept of the of the republic, you know, what would we what would we think of that country? Yeah, I mean, Jonathan Lemire from from stealing and they all know he did it. They all say it off camera.

They all say it off camera. They know he stole nuclear secrets and will tell you that off camera. And they know he tried to steal an election. And a lot of them, like Tim Scott, actually had to run for their lives and hunker down because the mob that Donald Trump sent their way could have killed them. Could have killed them. But for the work of some capital cops, there's some senators who probably would have been killed by these riots. So they know the truth. And yet they lie about somebody stealing nuclear secrets and trying to steal American democracy from them, from them, from us. It's just again, it's there's no looking past that.

No, there are lies in these bad faith attacks, the the what about isms trying to say about, well, the two tiered system of justice, Biden's DOJ and of course, the Hunter Biden matter, which they latch on to each and every day as their go to talking point instead of confronting Donald Trump, the man they're trying to beat in these primaries. They're simply not doing it. Exactly. Not even because they're criticizing his behavior, because they apparently decided that would alienate too many of his voters,

but even to make the electability argument. They're not even doing that to say, hey, he can't win. And into our earlier conversation, yeah, there are those close to President Biden who think that if any other Republican emerges as the GOP nominee, the president probably can't win Georgia this time around. Georgia is not quite there yet for Democrats. But if it's Trump, they like their chances. So, Peter Baker, this is a moment Republicans, they are refusing to go after Trump, but they've got an opportunity, a big one. Next week, first Republican debate. They're going

to have a lot of eyeballs on that. We don't know yet if Trump's going to show up. There's some speculation that he'll actually to have he'll arrange to have turn himself into Georgia prosecutors on Wednesday to upstage that debate. I certainly wouldn't put it past him considering his flair for the dramatic and trying to seek attention. So but give us your latest reporting as to whether Trump might make an appearance in the debate. But more than that, if the Republicans are going to at any point, Chris Christie aside, change tactics and use that moment or any other to finally start taking him on. Yeah, I'm trying to remember the lesson in political science class where they said that good counterprogramming to a debate with your opponents is to turn yourself in on felony charges. I miss that day in class, obviously.

I don't know. That's a pretty new one for me. But you're right. Yeah, it's a really fascinating convergence of these events, right, where you're going to have the one guy who is the dominant figure, the dominant voice in the party who is dealing with this felony. The latest felony counts against him. At the same time, all of the others who would desperately like to get attention are going to be on stage and don't know whether he'll be there or not. I think he would like to keep us in suspense right up to the last minute if he can. It's hard to imagine, you know, him, you know, that there would be a stage that he wouldn't want to be on. Right. Because he's just he just loves to be on the stage.

And yet, of course, as he himself has said, politically, you can make the argument stupid for him to show up because none of these people right now seem to be a threat to him. Why elevate them by giving him a chance to go after him? So whether they have him directly or not, whether he's on stage personally or not, they're going to have to talk about him. And so far, you're right. We haven't seen anybody other than Chris Christie, Asa Hutchinson and Will Hurd really be very critical. Now, Mike Pence is hedging a little bit more into that these days, of course, is the guy who himself was the target of the hang Mike Pence mob sicked on him by by President Trump. He's been a little bit more vocal lately, but even so, there are limits to how far he's willing to go. And he, too, has criticized some of these indictments and prosecutions.

So it's going to be a really interesting moment. Peter, thank you, Chuck. I just want to ask you moving forward, not only in this next nine days as we wait to see how these co-defendants will turn themselves in in Fulton County, but back to the D.C. case. We know that Donald Trump, at least he has said on his social media, that he wants to have a news conference, I think Monday at 11 or something. And he's already blasting these trials, blasting the people involved in them and continuing to push election lies. Is there anything that you're watching for in terms of how the judge, especially in the D.C. case, may have to feel like she has to act? She may. It's a great question, Mika. So I understand that Mr. Trump has an irrefutable report for all of us to read and to adore. That aside, because it really doesn't have any evidentiary meaning, it has no evidentiary value,

the judge has a really tough path to walk. I mean, her main job is to ensure the integrity of the judicial process, to make sure that both sides, not just the defendant, not just the government, but that both sides get a fair trial, because both are entitled to a fair trial. She's going to give Mr. Trump some rope. He's going to be permitted to talk about the election and that it was stolen, that this is a fraud, and that the Democrats are targeting him and it's a witch hunt. All of that is protected political speech. It's fair game. Have at it. What she's not going to permit him to do, and there's a number of different ways she can enforce it, is to attack witnesses, to tamper with evidence, to do things to impede the efficiency and fairness of the courts. That's where she starts to put the hammer down. And there are ways to do it.

So she can issue a gag order. It's not something she's done yet, and it's probably not something she wants to do, but she can issue it. Let's say she does, and Mr. Trump doesn't abide it. She can find him in contempt. There's civil contempt, and there's criminal contempt. And there are penalties that attach to both of those things. Let's say that doesn't work.

The prosecutors have a tool. They have their own arrow in their quiver. We saw the indictment in the Southern District of Florida, the federal indictment concerning documents at Mar-a-Lago, was superseded with additional counts of obstruction of justice. New additional counts charging Mr. Trump for trying to have security footage destroyed. If he tampers with witnesses, if he goes after witnesses, you might well see a superseding indictment in the District of Columbia. That's a separate, standalone federal crime. So he's entitled to speak. But there are certain things,

as the judge said, he's not entitled to speak about. He's like any other defendant. And if he goes over the line and he's inclined to do that, there are a series of measures she can take and that prosecutors can take to get him back on the right side of that line. Really interesting stuff. Really hard for a judge to do this. It is quite literally unprecedented. I think Judge Chutkin is up to the task. And Chuck, finally, I just want to underline something that you said yesterday. Every day we are called or people reaching out or we see it ourselves, these attacks against the rule of law, these attacks against these cases, against the prosecutors, against the judges.

And people are asking, well, what does it mean? He's going to get away with it. I just I want to underline again that. We're just in a completely different we're on a completely different stage at this point. And what politicians say, what pundits say, what pollsters may tell you about what Americans think about this, what podcasters say, what cable news just doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. The only thing that matters, it's kind of like, you know, when when a team goes on the football field, the only thing that matters, it's kind of like, you know, when a team goes on the football field, the only thing that matters is what happens on that football field for those 60 minutes. Press conferences, people can talk, but talk is cheap. Can you once again explain, Donald Trump can say whatever he wants to say. At the end of the day, he's going to be judged inside that

courtroom, inside that jury box, and nobody's going to be judged inside that courtroom, inside that jury box, and nobody's going to be there to help him but his lawyers. Yeah, that's exactly right, Joe. So right to your analogy, in baseball and football, it's what happens between the lines. Lots of people talk about lots of things before the game starts. Half of them are right and half of them are wrong. But what matters is what happens between the lines. Here, the lines are the well of a courtroom, really four courtrooms. And what I think I mentioned the other day is that there are people whose opinions matter. And it's really the 48 jurors, 12 in each of four different courtrooms that are going to render a verdict in these cases

about Mr. Trump and his co-defendants. By the way, what I really worry about, not so much the attacks on prosecutors. I was a prosecutor. I've been attacked. It's okay. You know, it kind of rolls off your back. I've never been a judge, but judges have been attacked. I imagine they know how to handle it. What I really, truly worry about are attacks on witnesses and something we haven't discussed, attacks on co-defendants. Remember, Mr. Trump said, if you come after me, I'm coming after you. Interestingly, you haven't seen any co-defendants split off yet.

You haven't seen anyone plead guilty yet. You haven't seen anyone agree to cooperate yet. When you indict 19 people, that normally happens. And maybe it's a signal not just to the judges and prosecutors the way we've traditionally interpreted it, but to his co-defendants. You stay in line or I come after you. That's deeply dangerous. There will be verdicts at the end of the day. They will be rendered in court by jurors, ordinary citizens drawn from the community. Those are the opinions that matter. We will hear those opinions one day. Chuck Rosenberg, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Thanks for being on again. Worth the wait, huh? Yes, it was. Yeah. We'll get some answers. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is our guest this morning. We'll get his reaction

to Donald Trump's newest indictment, this one out of Georgia. Plus, we're learning more about the evidence collected by the special counsel in the federal election interference case and the, quote, momentous steps taken by Twitter to protect Donald Trump. Also ahead, one of Hunter Biden's attorneys has stepped down, but will still play a part in the federal case against the president's son. He's going to actually testify for the president's son. And we'll have the latest on the devastating Maui wildfires, the growing death toll and the search for survivors. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. They address that devastating wildfires, some of which are still burning in Hawaii. They've claimed the lives of 99 people so far, and they haven't cleaned things up yet. The deadliest wildfire

more than 100 years. The whole city destroyed. Generations of Native Hawaiian history turned into ruin. I've spoken to Governor Josh Green multiple times and reassured him the state will have everything it needs from the federal government. It's painstaking work. It takes time. It's nerve wracking. Most of the debris can't be removed until it's done. My wife, Jill, and I are going to travel to Hawaii as soon as we can. That's what I've been talking to the governor about. I don't want to get in the way. I've been to too many disaster areas, but I want to go make sure we got everything they need. That was President Biden yesterday in Wisconsin, speaking about the Maui wildfires, where more than 100 people are now confirmed to be dead. The Red Cross says more than 4000 people

are packed into nearly a dozen shelters in the wake of the destruction. Yesterday, Maui County began to identify those who died and we're learning more about the harrowing stories of citizens trying to flee the fire or protect family members. Hawaii's governor says the wildfires are likely the worst natural disaster in the history of the state. And in some other news this morning, a key attorney for Hunter Biden will no longer represent him. The New York Times reports attorney Christopher Clark stepped down yesterday after revealing he intends to testify as a witness on behalf of the president's son. Federal court rules in Delaware prohibit Clark from being a witness advocate. Clark represented Hunter Biden in plea negotiations to end a five-year Justice Department investigation into tax and gun offenses. But a judge delayed that deal. Plea talks then

broke down, meaning the case would likely have to go to trial. We'll continue to follow this story. And overseas, North Korea has confirmed publicly for the first time that U.S. Army soldier Travis King crossed into its territory. A statement from the state-run Korean Central News Agency claimed King had expressed his willingness to seek refugee status in North Korea. U.S. defense officials have said that King willfully and without authorization crossed into North Korea in July while taking a civilian tour of the demilitarized zone.

And coming up, one of Donald Trump's, oh, Donald Trump's fourth indictment now looms over the first Republican debate next week. Will the GOP frontrunner show up despite his mounting legal trouble? We'll explain straight ahead on Morning Joe. When it's up a point like that and she talks about words that I said 11 years ago, I think it's disgraceful. And I think she should be ashamed of herself if you want to know the truth. Oh, my God. That's Donald Trump deflecting from his own troubles at a presidential debate in October 2016. Just two days after the Access Hollywood tape was made public. Seems so long ago. As Donald Trump, as John Heilman always says about Donald Trump,

it is always confession or projection. Our next guest is looking at how Trump's current troubles are weighing over the Republicans' first presidential debate, now just days away. The piece by senior columnist Matt Lewis is entitled Showing Up to the GOP Debate Would Be the Ultimate Trump Flex. And it reads in part this, for a normal politician, one indictment would be enough cause to go into hiding and avoid interrogation by a debate

moderator and attacks by ambitious fellow Pauls. But remember, Trump is not a normal politician. And just as there is precedent for Trump to skip a primary debate, there is also precedent for him to exploit a political debate in an effort to move past a damaging scandal by saying outrageous things and steamrolling his opponents. Case in point, Trump turned out to be incredibly lucky that a presidential debate occurred on October 9th, 2016, just two days after the Access Hollywood story broke. Now it's likely that whoever leaked the Access Hollywood video thought they were delivering the coup de grace by virtue of their impeccable timing. But it had the exact opposite effect. The debate, ironically, helped draw attention away from the scandal, which had previously dominated the news cycles.

No normal person could have pulled this off. But instead of being ashamed or contrite, Trump went on offense against Hillary Clinton. And the Daily Beast's Matt Lewis joins us now. Matt, we have Eddie Glaude Jr. with us, and he has the first question. Matt, I had an opportunity to read your article, and it's really insightful. But here we are in this moment, 2023. Do you think if he gets on that stage, will it be the same Donald Trump? I understand what you say he could do,

but with Chris Christie focusing on him as opposed to Rubio and others, would you think it would be as effective? Could he bring the same show at this stage in his political career, as it were? Well, I do think Chris Christie is kind of the X factor. And I'm curious to see if Donald Trump is afraid of Chris Christie, so afraid of Chris Christie that he doesn't show up, that he uses excuses such as I'm not going to sign the pledge, the RNC's pledge, or whether Donald Trump is just an egomaniac who craves attention, who loves attention, and who now feels that he has a bigger chip on his shoulder, has to unburden himself and play the victim again, that he shows up in Milwaukee. And I think I'm leaning toward the latter. He may not fully appreciate the danger that Chris Christie specifically poses. And look, I think there's another logical argument for why Trump might want to show up. We've already seen that the Republicans are, you know, loathe to criticize him. And in fact, they're supporting him and these indictments. But there is an opening, I think, for someone like a Ron DeSantis, for example,

to say, look, Donald Trump is the victim of Democrats who are trying to criminalize the political process. But let's be honest, he has these foreign indictments. There's no way he's going to be able to run an effective campaign next year in the general election, having to appear in court in Florida and New York and Atlanta and all that. If Donald Trump shows up, and I think the biggest flex would be to turn himself in, you know, to surrender himself and then go to the debate. I think Donald Trump shows, look, I can walk and chew gum at the same time. And so I think if you add that in and just his compulsive need for attention, I think he shows. So, Jonathan Lemire, I'm going to take the other side of it. I do think he's scared of Chris Christie. He saw what Chris Christie did to Marco Rubio when Chris

Christie went into a bait with one thing in mind. He knows Chris Christie put Jared Kushner's father in jail for a very long time. He knows he's a prosecutor who's ruthless and knows how to push his case. And he also knows that his secret sauce in 2016 was being the disruptor. Right. Shaking Hillary Clinton up on the debate stage, shaking the Marcos and everybody else up on the debate stage. That gig, that's like eight years old, right? That's Elvis in 77 now. And I think Chris Christie's got his number and he knows like Donald Trump is the gut instinct. Obviously, his political gut instinct is second to none. Like he sees it coming. And so I just don't I think he's scared to death of Chris Christie and will not have the guts to go or the nerve to go on stage with Chris

Christie anywhere. A person in Trump's orbit a few days ago told me when, you know, the decision is not yet made if Trump is going to go to this debate. He said, well, an argument to not go would be that, well, then Chris Christie trains his sights on Ron DeSantis and maybe finishes him off. They're well aware of Christie's strength in the debate stage. We should also know Chris Christie has not yet qualified for the second Republican debate. So if Trump wants to sit this one out, maybe he could show up on a debate stage a few weeks later and not have to deal with Christie. Matt Lewis, you know, I was there in 2016 for that debate. And when Donald Trump showed up 48

hours after the Access Hollywood tape with a number of women who had accused the Clintons of inappropriate conduct in the years past, it was stunning. He changed the news cycle. You documented it. He was able to get steady himself. But he also had some help back then. The conservative media clearly at that point, you know, has been with him and has been with him ever since.

I'm curious as to how you view them now, because so many of the outlets, Fox News included, seem to be flirting, had flirted with other candidates. You know, do you sense now that they're fully back on Trump? Are they keeping their options open? Because that conservative ecosystem has been so vital to his rise. Yeah, I think they are largely with him. There's a temptation, there's a danger, I think, that they could leave him. And maybe that's another reason that Trump would want to show up at the debate. Look, if he's logical, he might not show up at the debate, right?

You could argue Trump could say, look, I'm up by 40 points. Let's let everyone attack Ron DeSantis instead of me. I just think he's guided more by things like fear and the craving of attention. And the more he feels that his back is against the wall, and it doesn't have to be politically, it could be legally. I think that will drive him to to turn up and to I think he has fun at these debates and maybe he should be afraid of Chris Christie. I'm not sure that he actually has that in him. Well, it also depends on, you know, exactly how they carry out the debate. There's going to be eight candidates on stage.

Is it going to be an actual debate or is it going to be framed in a way where Trump can own the narrative and talk, talk over people, talk through timelines? And it isn't a debate. It could be a great opportunity for him, given the way he likes to operate. I disagree. I think he'll show up. I also think if he tries to say, oh, I won't go because of the loyalty pledge, that's sort of Trump saying, I don't think I'm going to be the nominee. So I'm not sure that's going to fly. I think ultimately he ends up showing up. We'll see what happens.

Senior columnist for The Daily Beast, Matt Lewis, thank you for joining us. His piece is online now.