Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/29/22

Episode Date: August 29, 2022

Judge signals support for special master to review some Trump records FBI seized

A live look from Kennedy Space Center this morning as NASA prepares to take a key step in a long-awaited return to the moon with a test flight of its most powerful rocket yet. The Artemis 1 mission is expected to launch in just a few hours from now, depending on the weather, and we will carry it live. We are also following this morning the major national security concerns from Donald Trump's reckless handling of classified documents. Were U.S. intelligence sources and operatives compromised? We'll look at that, Plus the investigation into possible obstruction. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, August 29th. It's pretty much the end of summer.

There is new reaction this morning after a heavily redacted copy of the FBI affidavit used to justify the search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home was unsealed on Friday. The 36-page affidavit revealed details of the federal government's efforts to recover classified documents, including top-secret information that Trump is alleged to have illegally taken from the White House at the end of his presidency. The affidavit states that in mid-May, FBI agents conducted a preliminary review of the contents of 15 boxes Trump returned to the National Archives from his Florida property in January and, quote, identified documents with classification markings markings in 14 of the 15 boxes. It states that agents found 184 unique documents that had classification markings. 25 documents were marked as top secret. 67 documents were marked as confidential and 92 were marked secret. According to the affidavit, agents saw markings denoting various control systems

designed to protect various types of sensitive information. They included markings that designate intelligence gathered by, quote, clandestine human sources, such as a report by a CIA officer or someone who works for the Defense Intelligence Agency. As for the redactions, they were primarily found in the section providing probable cause for the search, which is about 20 pages long. One almost completely blacked out section is titled There is probable cause to to Believe that Documents Containing Classified National Defense Information and Presidential Records Remains at the Premises. A federal judge has indicated she will appoint a special master to review the materials seized from Mar-a-Lago by

federal agents. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed by Trump in 2020, issued a two-page order on Saturday despite not yet hearing arguments from the Justice Department. The judge gave federal officials until tomorrow to provide the court with a more detailed list of items the FBI had removed from the Florida estate. But the ruling left unclear how a special master would operate and who might qualify to take on such a role in a case involving classified national security secrets and a former president. Meanwhile, National Intelligence Director Avril Haines announced her office will conduct a damage assessment related to Trump's handling of top secret documents. Writing in a letter to lawmakers on Friday, Haynes said her office will, quote, lead an intelligence community assessment of the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents. House Oversight Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney

and House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff had asked for a security damage assessment in the days following the FBI search. A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence also confirmed on Saturday that the, quote, assessment we are leading is consistent with the bipartisan request from the Senate Intelligence Committee. So let's bring in NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delanian, presidential historian and Rogers chair in the American presidency at Vanderbilt University, John Meacham, and the host of Way Too Early and White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, also with us, the co-founder of Axios, Mike Allen. Good to have you all on this Monday morning.

So, Ken, we're getting an Intel damage assessment from Intel officials, a possible special master to review the documents and to look at the process as it's moving along. A lot of procedural steps are starting to be taken to assess just how damaging this is to national security. What can you tell us? Good morning, Joe. So, yeah, a lot of interesting developments over the weekend with this judge in Florida signaling her preliminary intent to appoint a special master in this case and demanding that the Justice Department provide a more detailed inventory. And of course, she was appointed by President Trump.

And a lot of people are very spun up about this. I think we should wait and see on that because, first of all, they've been reviewing these documents the Justice Department has for three weeks with their own filter team, an independent team designed to weed out things they shouldn't see, like documents covered by attorney-client privilege. So we don't know exactly what this judge is going to order at the end of the day. She may be satisfied after she sees what the DOJ files that they've followed all the procedures here. And people are talking about, you know, a special master and do they need security clearance? The goal of the

special master would be to take out privileged documents. Presumably nothing that's highly classified is also privileged. There's no attorney client privilege in a CIA human source report that Trump has at Mar-a-Lago. So again, I think, you know, we should wait and see on that. Look, the big takeaways from this document being unsealed was to me, one, the FBI is talking to a significant number of civilian witnesses. And that's those names are blacked out. But that's how they got probable cause. Not one informant or key witness, a significant number whose identities need to be protected. Two, they believe they were going to find evidence of obstruction of justice at Mar-a-Lago. That was new. And then three, the incredibly highly classified nature of some of these documents, things that normally would never be outside of the originating agency

like the CIA, let alone a secure vault. Things that could compromise sources and methods, could get people killed. Those are the kind of markings, you know, human control system, meaning possibly a report by a CIA officer about his his or her interview with an overseas spy sitting in Donald Trump's golf club at Mar-a-Lago. Just stunning, stunning developments, guys. It really is. I mean, you and you look at look at look at what we're talking about here. As Mika said, one hundred and eighty four classified markings on documents, 25 documents marked top secret, 25, 67 marked confidential, 92 marked secret. deviancy down for Donald Trump, regardless of whether it's his dealings in the 2016 campaign with Russia, dealings that actually a Republican Senate Intel Committee said caused grave counterintelligence risks, or whether you take these documents. You know, there are a lot of Republican senators and members of Congress and former members

of Congress. I know this Congress and former members of Congress. I know this is a former member of Congress. But if we had mishandled documents, if we'd taken one document, one top secret document, let alone 25 or 10 documents with classified markings, the FBI would be at our house the next day. And all of these senators and all of these members of Congress that are suggesting that our our newspaper editorialists who are suggesting that somehow this is much ado about nothing, they would all be in jail. They would all be in jail. I know because of the briefings I got when when I was in the Armed Services Committee and and the warnings that we got. And yet here you have Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina saying in an interview yesterday, not not that what Donald Trump did was OK. Well, this is the last defense. He didn't didn't do something that would have Lindsay thrown in jail in a day.

But now this threat of violence, if you if you hold and this is where isn't this where it ends, really, for the Republicans? The Joe Biden said the MAGA Trumpists, the semi-fascists. I don't know where the word semi came from. But isn't this where it ends, where they say, if you hold our people to account, if it's really true that in America, no man is above the law, well, well, then there's going to be violence. Because Donald Trump is above the law. Lindsey suggests if Donald Trump is indicted for taking 25 top secret documents, 67 confidential documents, 92 secret documents and taking them from the White House and refusing to give them back to the federal government, despite them trying to work with him patiently. If he is indicted for doing something that would have members of Congress thrown in jail immediately,

well, there may be riots out there. There may be violence. That's Lindsey's warning. Take a look. Most Republicans, including me, believes when it comes to Trump, there is no law. It's all about getting him. If they try to prosecute President Trump for mishandling classified information after Hillary Clinton set up a server in her basement, they literally will be riots in the street. I worry about our country. Riots in the street. So there's a threat of violence. And of course, so Lindsey at least admitted the truth that when it comes to Donald Trump, he and other Republicans believe, quote, there is no law. Now, on ABC News, retiring Republican Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri brought up Hillary Clinton's emails. Was it right for the president to take these government documents,

which he's supposed to turn over to the National Archives, down to Mar-a-Lago? You should be very careful with classified documents. I've had access to documents like that for a long time. I'm incredibly careful. I was wondering as I was listening to that discussion if the same things were said when Secretary Clinton had documents, when Director Comey had documents. Yeah, the same things were said. What do you think we've been catching hell for for like five years? Yeah, the same things were said. The New York

Times wrote about it for a year and a half. Michael Schmidt still probably can't go into a bar on the Upper West Side without people yelling at him for reporting for a year and a half. Michael Schmidt still probably can't go into a bar on the Upper West Side without people yelling at him for reporting for a year and a half in The New York Times about Hillary's emails. We talked about it. We said she needed to be straightforward. Where have you been, Roy Blunt? Oh, wait a second. You were wallowing in it. You were basking in it. Republicans were basking in it. They loved it. They loved the FBI. When James Comey, 10 days before the election, sent a letter that they knew that Donald Trump knew would throw the election his way. I mean, the obvious, Joe, is that Hillary Clinton's emails? Yes. We asked a lot of questions, a lot of questions. But there's a far cry between her emails and the documents we're talking about that were

removed in boxes and taken to a country club. You're talking about a false equivalency, a false moral equivalency here with Donald Trump. Let me just say it. I don't know if you're just waking up right now, but 184 classified markings on documents that Donald Trump took out of the White House improperly, most likely illegally. 25 documents marked top secret, 67 confidential documents, 92 documents marked secret. And yet, knowing all of this, we know this to be the case. The Wall Street editorial board, Wall Street Journal editorial board,

asked of the Mar-a-Lago affidavit, is that all there is? Now, I quote the Wall Street Journal editorial board a lot because I like a lot of things that they write. I know most people that watch the show do not. But man, on Russia, on this, they are this. This is talk about defining deviancy down. This is what the Wall Street Journal editorial page wrote. A federal judge on Friday released a heavily redacted version of the FBI affidavit used to justify the search of Donald Trump's Moralago home. And we can't help but wonder, is that it? Is that it? Did you really just ask that question?

This is why agents descended on a former president's residence like they would a mob boss. Oh, I don't know. Or like they would if somebody took 184 documents with classified markings on them, Wall Street Journal editorial page. If you're going to indict a former president, you better have him dead to rights on something bigger than mishandling documents. What? What the?

John Beachum? I know you are a coolly detached Episcopalian. Maybe it's just the Southern Baptist blood running through my veins right now. But is that is OK? Let's be serious. Is that all there is? And I not only heard that and you read that. Donald Trump's former acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, who actually is working for a news operation, says, so if a classified documents from Mar-a-Lago turn out to be crossfire hurricane, the 2016 Russia hoax. He said those words, Russia hoax. And they exonerate Trump. What happens next? Well, I responded, if you are any member of Congress and taken half of those government documents after leaving office, you would already be in jail. But you know that. And the Russia hoax, really? The Republican Senate

Intel Committee said Trump's 2016 campaign caused, quote, and this is Marco's committee, by the way, a grave counter intelligence threat. John Meacham, despite our tone this morning, despite my tone this morning, this is so damn serious because here you have the Wall Street Journal editorial page. I know it has a conservative bent, but it's it's written a lot of great editorials on January 6th. It's called Trump out for for lying about the stolen election. But here you have the Wall Street Journal asking, is this it? When you're talking about a president seizing top secret documents from the White House and refusing to return them. You've got here this machinery of reflexive and perpetual partisan defense that has gone into overdrive as ever. And it's not even defense. It's now affirmatively bad for the constitutional experiment to reflexively and blindly defend anything your side does, does not make you a constitutional actor in the way we're supposed to be. It makes you a partisan warrior in what is going to vary, you know, if Senator Graham said it,

in what can become a kind of state of nature. Right. And so we haven't talked about Thomas Hobbes yet this morning. So let's do that. I want Mika to perk up. I'm here for it. Hobbes wrote a hugely important book about the state of nature is the war of all against all. That the point of civilization, the point of the rule of law, the point of understanding in the rest of the tradition, understanding that we have rights and responsibilities to each other, that that way we move above just constant perpetual conflict. The journal editorial, Lindsey Graham's riots comments, all of that is part of this now instinctive cult of personality. The chief personality, it has been decided, can do no wrong. So therefore,

any criticism of any factually based assertion about him has to be wrong or evil. It can't just possibly be true. We can't. They can't at it as you know what the facts say this. Maybe that leads me to a place I don't want to be. But guess what? That's what life in a republic is supposed to be. Facts can lead you to a place you don't want to go. And that's what makes America at its best a marvelous place, because it enables us to actually use our minds and not just our muscles and our guts. And right now, the Trump factor in the United States of America is about muscle and gut and power. Yeah, you know, Mika, if any member of Congress, if any ambassador, if any member of the intelligence agency had taken this, this many documents out, you know, like I said, they would be in jail.

We saw with two former CIA directors the mere mishandling of classified documents, nothing on this scale. And, you know, they they they face consequences. We saw Sandy Berger, former NSA director, face consequences for this. But when you hear Lindsey Graham saying you can't hold Donald Trump to the same standards that we hold other. You hear Lindsey Graham saying you can't hold Donald Trump to the same standards that we hold other, but you can't even, why you can't even go back and retrieve the documents that he won't return. Yeah. He's above the law. If you try to, to, to hold him to the same standard that we would hold former CIA directors that we form hold former national security agent directors that that we would hold members of Congress or the Senate to. Well, there will be violence in the

street and the Wall Street Journal and Mick Mulvaney asking, is this all there is? Do I need to go over the one hundred and eighty four classified markings on documents, the twenty five top secret documents, twenty top, the highest classification, the 67 documents marked confidential. Like with Hillary's emails, I know people were looking, that's a C. Does that stand for classified? I don't know. But let's talk about it for another year. The 92 documents marked secret. This is not a close call. And what the Wall Street Journal editorial page is saying is. In Trump's America, Trump is above the law because for anybody else, that same editorial board would be demanding that they immediately get sent to prison. Well, the New York Times

editorial board had a piece that really laid it out. It was the board itself writing that actually Donald Trump is not above the law, not at all, not even because he's a former president. And that in this case, yes, yes, there may be more violence. There already has been violence. Many argue because of this president instigated by this president promulgated by this president. And there will be more if he is held to account whether to hold him to account. Jonathan Lemire, the New York Times editorial board argues that in order for our democracy to survive, he has to be because our democracy has been put in peril. And there are not just there's there's several crimes here that could have been committed. If you look at what's not redacted in so far, this affidavit, including obstruction.

Yeah, it's seemingly every development we learn makes what more damaging what Trump took with him. And we're working in a slow motion wheels of justice to eventually decision from DOJ whether to indict or not. There's no sense that will be any time soon. But I wanted to revisit, first of all, the idea that intelligence gathered by clandestine human sources was part of what was found there. This is the most top secret, sensitive and dangerous material the U.S. government has. This would be the identity of spies, of their handlers, of people who are in doing the most patriotic duty overseas, putting their own lives at risk and potentially that all being cavalierly held in an unsecure room

in Mar-a-Lago. And now, Ken Delaney, we hear from Senator Lindsey Graham talking about violence in the streets. Well, we already had violence in the streets. We had violence at the U.S. Capitol fueled by Trump and his supporters, the belief that things were unfair and they were going to fight back. And it seems like he is lighting a match to that again. Talk to us a little bit, if you will, about the ongoing threats that law enforcement agents themselves have faced, FBI field offices, Cincinnati, other places, but also what those intel officers are fearful of what could happen as Republicans are stirring up this talk of violence. It's a great question, Jonathan. Look, my U.S. law enforcement sources

say they have never seen a threat environment more dangerous to federal agents than the one that they are seeing right now. We know about the attack on the FBI Cincinnati field office. There was another one that didn't get a lot of attention last week, a man jumped a fence outside a Chicago FBI office and was throwing rocks. OK, so so that and that may have been a disturbed person quickly whisked away by police. But it just shows you the extent of the of the threat environment out there. And that look, and there was an intelligence report from DHS and the FBI to this effect that that they are under siege to FBI agents who were named in the original warrant that was disclosed and that some media organizations published with their names. They were subject to death threats. So it is absolutely absolutely the case that that, you know, the federal government is very concerned about this and tracking this. And they link it directly to this search and to the rhetoric from Republican politicians and to a U.S. senator from Florida who compared the FBI to the Gestapo. Absolutely, Jonathan, it's a huge concern.

NBC's Ken Delaney, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate your reporting as always. Mike Allen, following up on that, it is interesting that there were some reports after the redacted affidavit was put out that some of the the most inflammatory, reckless members of Congress who in the past had had written things about the FBI and the search and Donald Trump, went on to other subjects. Yes. It's almost as if the Republican Party has sent out sort of an order saying, stop calling the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They can stop. I was members of the House and the Senate have done. Stop calling them communists. Stop Republicans saying that you want to defund the FBI, an operation that obviously takes care of kidnappings, that of course tries to stop domestic terrorism and foreign terrorism every single day that chases down drug cartels that keeps us safe. It seems as if some Republicans, at least, have figured out

that they probably need to stop putting FBI agents' lives in danger by calling them Nazis. Well, Joe, that's a great point. And going back weeks on the show, you've been talking about how Republicans are on the wrong side of law and order and the opposite side that they have been for decades. And so that's one part of it. The threat environment that Ken was talking about, incredible story on the front page of the Sunday Washington Post that now, in addition to federal agents and the IRS, now threats against the National Archives, the keeper of the Declaration of Independence. So that for sure is part of it. But Joe, there's a second reality here. As I talk to people close to the president, former President Trump over the weekend. They are queasy about the facts now that are coming out.

People have defended him, reflexively defended him all these many years. Suddenly, there's a lot of concern about the facts. And one of the biggest things, Joe, is just the volume that you've been highlighting in that graphic. You think about the person in the bar test. They look at the number of boxes, the number of documents. And Joe, I can tell you that there's some short term within the Republican Party political bump maybe for Donald Trump. But the long term really looks bad. You talk to people who know how the Justice Department works, how DOJ operates. Look at this. They knew that he had documents. They asked for them back. There's a lot of sign in these documents that he was not forthcoming about them, to say the least. And that's kind

of textbook of how DOJ operates. Very difficult to prosecute someone for sedition. But what we're seeing here, much less complex, much more what DOJ does. Right. And of course, the wheels of justice do turn slowly. You look at the investigation into the last Democratic nominee for governor in the state of Florida, who almost beat Ron DeSantis in 2018. He was just indicted by the feds a couple of weeks ago in a six year investigation. So, yeah, the feds often take their time. I don't know that that's going to be the case here. But, John Meacham, I want to go back. We've been talking about the violence that and the threats that the men and women of the FBI are enduring right now, that the National Archives

head is is is in fear of right now. You know, Joe Biden talked about MAGA Trumpists, MAGA Republicans, the most extreme Trump supporters being almost anti-fascist. And there were people that were offended by it. Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire. Oh, he owes an apology to all Republicans. Well, first of all, he didn't say all Republicans were semi-fascists. He talked about the extreme MAGA Republicans. But I just, again, I'm, maybe I'm a little, little fuzzy on what exactly fascism is. But if you have threats of violence, if you make threats of violence saying, hold our leader to the same standards that you hold everybody else's leaders to. And there will be violence in the streets. The threats of violence, it's out there.

Acts of violence we saw on January 6th. Donald Trump calling. Calling people to Washington saying it was going to be wild. We know that's what the January 6th committee has shown us. He was calling people there to do exactly what they did and the use of violence to achieve political ends, which is exactly what was going on on January the 6th. Donald Trump and the mob wanted to stop the counting of the electoral votes on January 6th, a constitutionally mandated act that Congress is is supposed to do every four years.

It's you. You then take all of Trump's fascist rhetoric during campaigns, talking about beating the hell out of them, carry them out, carrying protesters out on a stretcher, beat them up. I'll pay for your legal defense. Telling cops, bang criminals heads on the top of what he called paddy wagons. It's again, praising a member of Congress for beating up a reporter who asked a question about health care reform. I must say, actually, for the most extreme saying semi-fascist leads me only to the question. What semi about that? It's full on fascism. Well, the president speaks for the president in the full disclosure mode. As you know, President Biden's my friend. I help him when I can.

And so everything I'm about to say should be seen in that context. He was calling it as he saw it. He under I think he speaks for himself, but what else would one take away from the last five years, six years or so of American politics? designs on or have been brought along on a kind of tide to undo the constitutional conversation in favor of their own vision of power. That's what this is. And What what, you know, fascism, autocracy, dictatorial trends, you know, we, a party founded in the mid-1850s to oppose the spread of slavery to the territories. That party has been hijacked, and there's lots of debate about that, but it is now a vehicle for this autocratic personality who overrides the rule of law, who explicitly would prefer to be in power as opposed to following constitutional principle. And an extraordinary number of Americans have proven willing to support him. The great question for the future of the country is how big is that number?

How big is that number? And so my question is, I think this is a moral crisis as much as it is a legal one. Joe, you and I know endless numbers of Republicans who are all over this, right? Some are all in with Trump. Some are embarrassed about it. Some will say they aren't all in when they talk to us, but really are. You know, there are all these gradations of this. But but but but at the end of the day, are they willing to do something? And maybe it comes down to just voting, right? Maybe no poll shows it. Maybe it just it's going to end up being in that voting season where they say enough.

Problem is, you've probably got I don't know if it's 40 percent. I don't know what the number is. You've got a lot of true believers and then you have their opportunistic enablers. And a lot of the opportunistic enablers are the people we've been talking about this morning. And that's the moral crisis. Right. If you're putting your own position, your own fundraising, your own reelection above the constitutional experiment, then you then what are we talking about here? We're not talking about American democracy as give and take. We're talking about it only as take. Yeah. And, you know, I agree with you that the historical question is, what is that number right now? I will say just judging from the fact that most of my friends and family members

are supporters of Donald Trump or have been supporters of Donald Trump in the past, I think that dropped a good bit after January the 6th. Not 40% or 50%, not as much as we think. But you know what? 10% there, 15 percent there. Obviously, as more information comes out here, as Mike Allen said, more people quietly going, my God, this has gotten worse than we've expected. I have I have noticed that what may have been 45 percent is 40 percent. I think it may be 35 percent. Maybe those are the true believers,

maybe even 30 percent. Most people I talk to now say they want Trumpism without Trump. They want Ron DeSantis. But we'll we'll see how that goes. I think electorally, I don't think I know that electorally, Donald Trump has caused Republicans to lose in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. He'll cause them to underperform in 2022, most likely would cause them to lose in 2024. It is a losing proposition. But the question is, what do we do with 35 percent of the country that believe riots are acceptable, that believe that Donald Trump did nothing wrong on January the 6th by calling people to Washington and having them riot? And the belief that Donald Trump can take whatever top secret documents out of out of the White House that he wants and that he is above the law. What do we do with with those 35 percent of Americans? Of course, the answer is we do our best to try to move them back to believing in the basic tenets of this constitutional republic. And I think that's a generational effort on all of our parts.

Presidential historian John Meacham, thank you so much. The latest episode of his podcast, Reflections of History, and it's an extraordinary podcast. It's available now. He actually, every day for five, six minutes, he gives you great insight into an important historical moment that happened on this day. It's perfect for this moment. Yeah, and perfect for this moment. So thank you, John, for being with us. Co-founder of Axios, Mike Allen.

Thank you as well for coming on this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe, President Biden mocks one of former President Trump's excuses for taking top secret documents. Tomorrow, Lago will show you those remarks, plus a live report from war-torn Ukraine. Amid escalating fears of a nuclear accident, more shelling near Europe's largest nuclear plant have UN officials heading to the area today. Also this morning, after months of gloomy predictions, Democrats are voicing growing confidence

about this year's midterms. We'll have new reporting on the party's narrow path to keeping the House this November and a new era of space exploration could kick off today. We are counting down to this morning's Artemis rocket launch. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. You pass the hour, new shelling near a nuclear plant in Ukraine over the weekend have officials on high alert this morning. Last week, the plant, which is Europe's largest nuclear facility, was cut off from Ukraine's power grid, causing a massive power outage and prompting international fears of a potential radiation disaster. This week, inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog are expected to visit the Russian-occupied plant. Joining us from Odessa, Ukraine, NBC News foreign correspondent Megan Fitzgerald with more.

Megan, what's the latest? Well, Mika, we are expecting to see those inspectors inside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant by the end of this week, the latest. You know, once they're there, what we expect them to do is to look at everything from the structural integrity of this plant, to paying close attention to the damage that's been done because of the fighting, even assess those workers that are inside the facility. Of course, Ukrainian officials are saying that it's Ukrainians that are inside working at gunpoint under the Russians because, of course, they control this nuclear facility. But look, this is a critical mission that leaders across the world have been calling on for weeks now because, of course, the concern is that increased shelling in the area could contribute to a nuclear meltdown where we are seeing radioactive

material seeping out of that plant and really just disseminating across the continent. So Ukrainian officials this weekend saying, look, they're not taking any chances. They have distributed already these iodine pills to people in the area out of an abundance of caution, telling them not to take it yet, but that they are monitoring the levels in the area. Should they need to take it, they will let them know. But this, of course, all coming as shelling continues in and around the Zaporozhye nuclear plant. We know over the weekend the Russians are saying that the Ukrainians hit the plant. The Ukrainians are saying it's the Russians. All of this coming as we saw a huge potential disaster last week when that fire, because of

shelling, broke out right near the plant, knocking it off the power grid, causing the plant to run off of these backup diesel fuel running generators. And the big question here is just how much diesel fuel the Russians have in their pile there at the facility. No one really knows. And that is why this is creating such a concern globally and certainly domestically here in Ukraine. So all eyes are going to be watching as these inspectors make their way into that facility by the end of the week. Mika. All right. NBC's Megan Fitzgerald reporting for us from Odessa, Ukraine. Thank you very much. And coming up, a lawmaker on the January 6th committee teases the theme of next month's new hearings. Here's a hint. Follow the money. Also ahead, President Biden is seeing a bump in his approval ratings as Republicans seem to be losing ground in House races.

We'll dig into the new polling, plus a bad sign for the Trump-backed U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona. A major PAC is pulling millions in ad money for Blake Masters. It's not looking really great out there for him. Sending it to the Midwest. Oh, yeah, but you know where they're not sending it. Yeah. To Dr. Ives.

I mean, where do you send that money? Do you send it to Pennsylvania? Do you send it to Jersey? Do you send it to Turkey? I mean, there's so many. How about Hollywood? You know, maybe he's still kissing his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. You just don't.

He's got eight houses. Where exactly would you spend money if you're Dr. Oz? Maybe a P.O. Box in Pennsylvania? I don't know. Maybe he does. Up next, we're going to go live to Kennedy Space Center as NASA is preparing to send

its most powerful rocket ever on a six-week mission around the moon. Beautiful. Morning Joe. I knew we would get to the moon one of these years. In just a moment. I can't stand this indecision. Married with a black guy. Go ahead, Mr. President. This is Houston out.

Hello, Neil and Buzz. I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House. And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you've done. For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives. That was then President Nixon speaking on the phone with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin as they walked the lunar surface in 1969. A few years later, NASA's 1972 Apollo 17 would be the last time astronauts would land on the moon. Now, after more than 50 years, NASA is ready to return with the scheduled launch

of its Artemis 1 rocket this morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Once launched, the rocket and capsule, which has no crew on board, will spend six weeks orbiting the moon before returning to Earth. If the test flight goes well, the next step is putting astronauts in orbit around the moon in 2024 before attempting a landing in 2025. Joining us now from the Kennedy Space Center is NBC News correspondent Jake Ward. Jake, is the weather cooperating this morning? Good morning, Mika. Certainly the weather at this point is extraordinarily beautiful. I'm here from California and I still can't get over what it looks like to be in Florida at the break of dawn. An extraordinarily beautiful, clear day. The trouble,

of course, is getting this system, one of the most powerful, certainly the most powerful, one of the most technologically complex systems ever to leave Earth's gravity. Getting it ready for launch, that's another matter. Now, just to talk for a second about the purpose of this mission, because you can so quickly get bogged down in whether it will go at this particular moment, I just want to touch on how extraordinary it is to go. I mean, on the one hand, NASA and the whole spaceflight enterprise has changed immensely. I mean, once upon a time, this facility, the Kennedy Space Center, was an entirely government-only, top-secret facility. Today, when you drive in, it's got launch pads and buildings operated, and in some cases, even owned by private companies.

Nearly 1,000 private contractors went into building this particular rocket. And when we speak to the researchers about what it is to go to the moon and why we want to send humans there. Their ambitions are really quite startling. Have a listen to the chief scientist in charge of what we would find out upon the moon when we land humans there. Have a listen. Humans are just much better field geologists than robots are. We really, we can think faster, we can react faster, we can absorb what's going on around us better. We can also do more complicated things in terms of sampling. We're digging trenches and taking drill cores and making sure we get really the right samples back and not

just random samples back, right? So, you know, in Apollo, we went to six places, but they were all kind of in the same part of the moon, the sort of central near side of the moon. And now with Artemis, you know, we're going to go and explore an entirely new part of the moon. We're going to go to the South Pole, some of the oldest rocks of the moon. We've got this water and volatiles that we think we can explore there as well. So there's some really some new stuff. So what is so amazing about the possibility of going to the South Pole is that idea of perhaps getting down there and looking at water in there. At this point, what we are waiting on for the launch today is the combination of hydrogen and oxygen in the various tanks on board the spacecraft for them to be ready to go. You have to remember H2O, water, hydrogen, oxygen could in fact be a fuel source for onward flight from the moon.

So the ambitions here are enormous. And if, as you mentioned, this one gets off the ground today, then we wind up with the possibility of another launch in 2024 with people aboard it and then 2025 actual boots on the moon. Now, those are the big picture amazing things here. Let's talk about the earthly matters of whether it's going to go off today. At this point, NASA sources are telling NBC News that the 8.33 a.m. scheduled launch is probably not going to happen. It is slipping because the pre-flight checklist is so complicated and because they're falling behind. Weather has been difficult up until now.

There's been a lot of complicated issues. Currently, they're having some trouble getting hydrogen to flow properly through the third of four engines on board. But there is hope in that there is a two-hour window. 8.33 to 10.33 is that window. The bad news, of course, Mika, weather is forecast to get worse over the course of that window. If it doesn't fly today, it could fly Friday,

but weather's supposed to be bad then. And if not Friday, then Monday, in which case the forecast also has bad weather. So it's not looking great for a launch right now, but certainly the ambitions here, I don't know, for some reason they stick with me, even though we are, of course, going to be disappointed if it doesn't go up today. All right. NBC's Jake Ward will be

watching the weather and you. Thank you very much. And still ahead, we have the latest developments related to the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago, including what the agency found back in May that accelerated efforts to get more boxes of documents from the former president's home. Morning Joe is coming right back.