Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/8/23

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Judge in classified docs case questions prosecutors about use of two grand juries

I tell you, remarkable achievements led by, and this is not hyperbole, the legendary Dusty Baker. Worst part was I remember rooting for him as a kid and I was older than he was. Dusty, it wasn't easy. People counted you out saying you're past your prime. Hell, I know something about that. President Biden was cracking jokes with defending World Series champions at the White House yesterday. That looked fun. We do have a lot to get to this morning. We're going to have a very confused judge in Fort Pierce. Oh, my gosh.

She was shocked, shocked that you could have two grand juries going on at the same time. It's not a good sign. When did she go to law school? Oh, boy. There's a lot of questions about her. Not a good sign. We're going to go through the flurry of legal filings late yesterday in the 2020 election case that has the judge summoning both sides to a Washington, D.C. courtroom. This is a different judge, a different case. Plus, action around the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta. Different case. Sparking speculation that another indictment, another one, could be coming very soon for the former president.

Also ahead, we'll explain how the fight for abortion rights in Ohio could hang on what happens in today's special election there. And later this hour, presidential candidate and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will be our guest this morning. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, August 8th. What's important about this day? I think it might be somebody's birthday. Might be somebody might be 20 today. It's birthday. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House bear chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass.

So erudite. He's because he's emeritus. He is emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass. So erudite. He really is. Because he's emeritus. He is emeritus. All right. Washington Post opinion editor and writer Alexi McCammon joins us. And former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg is back. And NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delanian. And we also pulled over founder of the conservative website, The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes, from way too early this morning. Yeah, I want to talk to Charlie one second. But Ken, we have a confused judge in South Florida,

which, of course, I find it hard to believe that a judge could be confused, that you could have two grand juries going at the same time. Just some baffling decisions coming out of a judge who has already been excoriated by the 11th Circuit in previous cases for being out of her depth. Can you can you explain what happened with those Fort Pierce filings? Well, in her latest order, Judge Cannon is essentially, well, first of all, she granted the government's request to have a hearing on whether Walt Nauta's lawyer, Stanley Woodward, has a conflict of interest that needs to be explored because he's representing not only Walt Nauta, but other witnesses in the

case that he may have to cross-examine. So she granted that. In the process of doing that, though, she denied the special counsel's effort to file part of something under seal, saying he didn't justify that. And then she questioned why he was using two grand juries to continue to investigate whether there had been obstruction of justice in this case. Now, you know, there are some rules about continuing to investigate a case with a grand jury after it's been indicted. You basically have to be investigating pursuant to a separate indictment. Chuck Rosenberg can speak more to that. So it's not it's not it's not a nutty notion that she would question that. But it did seem like she was a little bit surprised that there were two grand juries in the case when the prosecution

had already laid that out in previous filings, Joe. Yeah, it seemed to be bad faith. And speaking of bad faith, the judge in the E. Jean Carroll case, where the judge said Mr. Trump raped E. Jean Carroll. A lot of updates here. Yeah, not pleased. So a federal judge has dismissed Donald Trump's countersuit against writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump sued Carroll in June, alleging she defamed him by continuing to say the former president raped her, even though in May a jury found Trump only liable for sexual abuse. Yesterday, a judge ruled against Trump's argument, explaining that while the jury did not find that Trump raped Carol according to New York penal law's narrow definition, her allegation of rape is not defamation because the words common

and more widely understood definition is broader. The judge also denied Trump's claim of presidential immunity, saying he waited too long to raise that defense. The countersuit is in response to a separate defamation lawsuit filed over comments Trump made about Carroll, both while he was in office and the day after a jury found him liable for sexual abuse. That civil trial is set to begin in January. Trump's lawyers say they plan to appeal the judge's ruling. What are the chances, though, he says something again and again and again, defaming her? Chances are good. Chances are good. We keep getting sued. Charlie Sykes, though, you know, this morning, Gerard Baker in The Wall Street Journal wrote a column that you were, I think

you were referencing earlier, where he said, you know, Republicans really have to make a choice here. They can continue their year of magical thinking or they can keep defending Donald Trump and in so doing forever alter the rule of law in America. Very true about that. Let's say the same thing about my brothers and sisters that I grew up with in the evangelical church. They are now fiercely fighting for and backing a rapist, according to a judge who said, by the common definition of the term, Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll. That's in the court of law. That's not in, again, the pages of some left-wing journal.

And these are the same people who all collapsed on their fainting couch because Bill Clinton had a relationship with an intern back when he was in the White House and said he was unfit to be president of the United States. A judge has said Donald Trump is a rapist. And yet they line up right behind him, just like these Republicans who are all law and order and rule of law continue to line up against a guy. And they're doing it in a way that's eviscerating or they're attempting to eviscerate the rule of law, the Justice Department, the FBI in the process. Yeah, I think where we've come since 2015, think what's happened to the American conservative movement, think what's happened to our political culture. You know, it's easy to dismiss, you know, Donald Trump as this narcissistic clown, but it is hard to understate the impact that he's had on this, on our political standards. And to your point, look, you are seeing a full out attack, not just on on the culture of facts, which we had back in 2016,

but now on all of the institutions of our constitutional republic. There's a great piece in the in the Washington Post that talks about how all the other Republican candidates are going after the courts, the system of law, the deep state, sowing distrust in any institution that might challenge or hold someone like Donald Trump accountable. And the willingness to accept lies, I think, has been established over the last few years. But but think about the moment we're in right now. Donald Trump is he you mentioned, you know, about the moment we're in right now. Donald Trump is you mentioned, you know, what's going to happen in the future. It is it is a rock is rock solid, certain that Donald Trump will continue to make the threats, will continue to make the insults. Everything

that's happening now will get worse. And the Republican Party and the evangelical church will go along with it. And to your larger point, this has long term importance. Things like this, when they are broken, they are hard to put back together. And what Baker says in The Wall Street Journal piece, Reverend Al, is if Republicans continue this line of thinking, if they continue their their support for Donald Trump, they needn't fool themselves. A second Trump administration would destroy the Department of Justice, would destroy the FBI, would destroy the federal government's rule of law, would destroy judicial independence. It would destroy the third branch of America's government. It would rip to shreds Madisonian democracy.

They need to understand what they're doing, and perhaps they do. I'm just trying to figure out what is so important about this former reality TV host that they're willing to literally throw away Madisonian democracy to defend him. That is what really has has has troubled me, is that it's clear that you can have political debate. Those of us consider on the left, those on the right. But when you see what is going on now, I think The New York Times is a story about it this morning where you have the actual institutions of government that would be totally altered by the politics of today, particularly if Trump were to win. I mean, are these people really saying that's what they want to advocate? The absolute destruction of the Justice Department as we know it and all of the institutional law pillars as we know it,

because that's where they're going. They are undermining the very principles that the country was founded on, and that is democracy as opposed to autocracy. And I think that is one thing to be caught up in the heat of a campaign is another thing to say that I want to completely overall how we govern and what we stand for as a nation. And that is the line they have began to cross in the politics of some of those that are running in the Republican primaries. And for what? And for what? To lose again. I know. To lose again. I know they're looking at polls. No, he loses. He loses every single year. And he has since 2017. So they're willing to throw out the rule of law. They're willing to just ignore all of this to nominate a guy who's going to lose again. Well, and they're also willing just to throw out common decency.

If you look at what Trump has completely admitted to doing and what he considers normal and the way he has behaved toward people, especially women, hush money payments to a porn star for an affair, telling the attorney of E. Jean Carroll who a judge says he raped

and he was liable of sexual abuse, mocks her in the debate defames her again he's being sued again tells her attorney you're not my type can't even identify her and one of his wives i'm just saying common decency is this who you want forget all this criminal stuff that's going on. If you can't get your head around it, if you really, really think if you really think it's a witch hunt, you really deep inside think that that's that's you that you have to work with and look in the mirror. That's your choice. But do you want this person running our country, making choices, representing us?

That's a deeply disturbing thing. They have actually convinced themselves that it's a witch hunt. They have a guy who stole nuclear secrets. They have a guy that stole, you know, all of these other things. And again, well, why didn't Hillary Clinton? Why wasn't Hillary Clinton ever arrested? It was Donald Trump's Justice Department. I know facts don't matter to so many, but it was Donald Trump's Justice Department in 2017 that told Donald Trump there's nothing there. There's no crime. 2018, the same thing. There's nothing there. There's no crime. Trump kept going back to him. They just Donald Trump's Justice Department. Of the people he appointed, Jeff Sessions, the people he appointed, there's no crime there. So when Donald Trump steals nuclear secrets, you can't go, yeah,

but Hillary Clinton, no, you can't. When Donald Trump steals secret war plans to invade Iran, you can't go, oh, but Hunter Biden. No, you can't do that. But that's what they're doing. And they know it's a lie. They really do. They know it's a lie. They know the game they're playing. Right. And and and yet they all facing themselves in the party. They always say, oh, well, even even in these op eds and editorials where they actually take on Trump, they go, oh, yeah, but the Democrats. Oh, yeah, but Hillary Clinton. Oh, yeah, but Hunter Biden. They can ever just say it's wrong that he stole nuclear secrets and no president or former president has ever done that in American history. It's wrong that he tried to overthrow a presidential election and no president. No, you can't. Yeah, but Hunter Biden, when we're talking about stealing a presidential election and yet you do that.

You you you do nothing but degrade yourself daily. See those things that you write, those things that you say they're with you forever on this, you're choosing a failed reality TV host and a failed politician over America's rule of law, over the judiciary, over Madisonian democracy. And it's just the further we get away from this moment, the more horrific it's going to look. A second ruling from that federal judge, Chuck, allows testimony from that civil case, including Donald Trump's deposition, to be given to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for potential use in the Stormy Daniels case. Trump is facing 34

felony counts related to a hush money payment he allegedly made to the adult film actress to cover up an affair. He has pleaded not guilty. What does this mean? How does this change things, Chuck? Yeah, it's an interesting ruling, Mika, but not terribly surprising. I mean, what a defendant says can be adduced against him in trial. It's an admission. Now, people may wonder why something he said in one trial can be used in another trial, but it really doesn't matter where you say it or how you say it, just that you said it. Because it was done in a deposition in a civil case, prosecutors in Manhattan had to ask for it. They applied for it. They said, Judge,

since Mr. Trump said these things in your case, can we use them in our case? It does. It's more evidence. They can use it if they want. They can choose to ignore it if they want. But it's there for them if they believe they need it. And my sense is that it will be helpful to them in proving their case beyond a reasonable doubt to a unanimous jury in Manhattan. So let's talk about the hearing or the proceedings last night in D.C., Chuck, and I'll start with you. Trump's lawyers, once again, talking about the First Amendment. It's such a bad, just forgive me for my editorial here, but it's such a bad faith argument. And everybody in the Republican establishment now that is saying, oh, well, yes, I don't like Trump, but they're attacking him for

First Amendment. He set up false electors and in setting up false electors, his goal was and we have all the testimony for people who work for Donald Trump to take away the votes of people who voted in seven American states for president, wanted to take away their votes and replace electors that represented them with fake electors. It was a it was a conspiracy. It was a lie. That's what he's being charged for. But talk about the protective order and the back and forth that last night you read. What's it mean? Yeah, so what's a protective order? Let's just start with that, Joe, for some context.

I mean, ostensibly, it's used to protect information. But really, at the heart of it, we're protecting two other things, people and process. These, by the way, are utterly routine in criminal cases. I don't think I ever prosecuted a case where I didn't have a discovery order and a protective order. And by the way, I never had an issue with it. And the folks on the other side abided it, and it helped to streamline the process. That's a key thing to understand here. Mr. Trump's attorneys don't want to help streamline the process. They want to argue

against everything and anything. So why not start with the protective order? All the government is seeking here is the knowledge that if they turn over stuff, which they must, to the defense as part of discovery, that that information, right, the processes and people that underlie that information will be protected as the case builds to trial. Why do you want to protect that stuff? Well, some of it is sensitive. Some witnesses told the truth, some didn't. There's personally identifiable information in the discovery that will be provided to the defense. You want to protect that too. This is really not a hard call, but if you look at it through the prism of what the

defense attorneys are trying to do, all they are trying to do, Joe, is disrupt. And by the way, it seems to be working. Normally, protective orders and discovery orders are signed by both parties and submitted to the judge, you know, perhaps on the day of arraignment, if not soon thereafter. And what's actually going on here is the defense attorneys have bought themselves a few days and another hearing to contest something that is normally never contested, because typically both sides, both parties have an interest in protecting information and protecting the process and protecting the people. That's only true on one side in this case. So, Ken, I spoke to some folks in Trump camp yesterday, and they pretty clearly admit that they're trying to delay things. They see the South Florida matter, the classified documents

case is moving along slowly. They seemingly got an assist from that judge yesterday. But in Washington, that judge wants to seemingly move things along and move things along quickly. So they're trying to slow things down. They also, of course, argue that Donald Trump is not just a defendant. He's running for president. He needs to be able to make political arguments. The First Amendment stuff that we've covered so extensively on this show, bad faith or no. So give us your analysis as to what happened yesterday. But more than that, what should we expect between now and that deadline at the end of the week on this matter? Well, Jonathan, I agree with Chuck, and I'll add to what he said in terms of the delay. It looks like they bought themselves a weak delay here.

And it was really interesting because what the special counsel last night asked the judge to do was simply to rule, just to impose the protective order that they believe should have been imposed. And as Chuck said, it's generally non-controversial in 99.9% of cases. But the judge didn't do that. This judge, who does want to move the case along, it's very clear, scheduled a hearing for Friday. So that's more delay and more litigation and more lawyer time over something that really shouldn't be controversial. And it was really interesting to read the special counsel's rebuttal last night of Trump's lawyers' attempt to craft a narrow protective order. What they basically said is, look, what Donald Trump wants to do is try

this case in the media. He wants to take all this secret discovery that we're handing over, including very sensitive information, subpoenaed phone records, witness interviews, transcripts, and he wants to be able to make some of that public. And they even pointed to the full Ginsburg appearance by John Lauro, one of Trump's lawyers on the Sunday shows, and said, you know, they hinted, and they're right about this, that technically, if you read the local criminal rules in Washington, D.C., you're not really supposed to go on television and talk about the evidence in a case. But that's exactly what he did. And they were saying, Judge, this is only the beginning. This is exactly what these guys want to do. So don't let them do it. Just impose our order. And she didn't do that. She may ultimately do

that, but she scheduled a hearing so they can argue about it. And that's exactly what the Trump lawyers want. They want to delay this. They're making these arguments that Donald Trump has a First Amendment right to make public evidence that the special counsel has gathered in their two year investigation. The special counsel saying that's ridiculous. That's not what this is for. Discovery is for the trial. It's not to air out in the news media. line as to whether all these attacks that Donald Trump is making against the prosecutor, against the judge, against witnesses, how whether ultimately those can be tolerated or whether the judge at some point will have to try to regulate them, even though Donald Trump's running for president. And that's really difficult.

The way the way another judge in Washington did with Roger Stone. Remember, there was a gag order against Roger Stone after he put a target on a photo of a judge. We're going to come to that point, I predict, at some moment in this case. But it's again, it's going to it's a devilish problem for a federal judge dealing with a defendant who is running for president. Right. Or dealing with a defendant where the common understanding of the system and of fairness is that no man is above the law. At some point, that's going to have to come to bear. NBC's Candelanian and former U.S. attorney Chuck Rosenberg, thank you both very much for being on this morning. And we are now in the second week of Fulton County, Georgia, District Attorney Fannie Willis's indictment decision window.

Remember that? She said around the first two weeks of August. Security around the courthouse has increased, and so has the number of people who have received subpoenas to testify before a grand jury as part of the DA's presentation to seek indictments. NBC News can now confirm at least four more people received subpoenas, among them former Lieutenant Governor Jeff Duncan. And as we await final indictment decisions, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that it's likely we'll see racketeering charges against the former president of the United States, Alexi McCammond. As we cover all of this, what stands out to you,

especially with a fourth indictment looming? Well, to your point, Mika, I mean, I think it's really revealing about what voters, but especially Republican primary voters, want in not just their nominee, but in the future president. It's someone who is facing this tangled web of legal threats and folks around him who are now being called as witnesses, who have served as his lawyers and aides and assistants. We're seeing the way that he is trying to claim that he just sexually abused someone, but didn't rape someone, as if that's somehow better. And I think that as we see polls show that Republican voters continue to want someone like Trump, it doesn't mean that it'll make it easier for him to win a general. So as much as his team might want to continue to delay and gum up this process,

it's not going to help him necessarily in the long run. And the other thing that I think is really important for the Republican Party is that there are folks running for office right now who have to answer for Trump's legal situations. I'm thinking of someone like the attorney general in Kentucky, Cameron, who is running for governor. At the first debate, he was asked about whether he was still proud to have Donald Trump's endorsement after the situation with Stormy Daniels came out. And that's just one example of the number of Republicans who will have to keep answering

not just for Trump's behavior, but for the legality or potential criminality involved in what he is doing as this campaign goes on in this year and through 2024. Richard Haass, let's just go down the list of our former party members who have to when they're standing on stage. Are you proud and do you still support? Are you proud of Donald Trump's endorsement and you still support him despite the fact he was he was found liable of sexual assault in New York? And the judge said what he actually did was the commonly used term would be rape, that he raped E. his own people testifying against him for stealing nuclear secrets, for stealing secrets about invading Iran, stealing secrets about America's weaknesses militarily, that he's accused for having a conspiracy scheme to set up fake electors and defraud the United States government and take away the rights of millions of Americans in seven states to vote and to rig the election?

I mean, they're having to ask these questions. And I don't know about you, but one thing that is really I found really disturbing over the past week or so is establishment Republicans that claim to be anti-Trump say, well, I'm anti-Trump. But this latest indictment is on stealing the election. They're just going after him for the First Amendment. And why aren't they going after a hundred? These people know better. They know better, Richard. And it really I will say it is it's I have I have despaired over the fact that people that I've known my entire life, adult life are now playing stupid, pretending this is about the First Americans who support a guy that steals nuclear secrets and tries to rig elections? That's the reason none of us should be sanguine about the future of American democracy. Three years off from the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

One of our two major parties essentially no longer believes in institutions. It's essentially put put the emphasis on a person and on causes rather than on principles or institutions. That's that's something the founders never anticipated. Can I correct you, Richard? You said you said on a person and on causes. There's no cause. Donald Trump. There's no cause for Donald Trump. It's all about Donald Trump. It's his personal. That's what's so crazy about this is it's not even about causes. It's all about this one person and this cult.

Right. Don't disagree. Again, it's an angry populist movement. Trump is quite clever, quite brilliant in some ways at reading what everyone is feeling angry about. That's the politics of grievance. So they're prepared to tear down the temple. You don't hear Mr. Trump, you don't hear other people talk about what they would really put in its place. You went through all the agencies. They would tear down Injustice and the rest. They'd also tear down the Energy Department. That's become another battlefield, if you will.

They would strip away all the funding the United States does in renewable energy. Again, there's a kind of, again, tear down the temple. We know what we're against. We're not going to do anything that the elitist, that the establishment wants. So this has become a truly destructive movement. And if it ever were to succeed, I mean, you are confident that he would fail. I hope you're right. But if it were to be the opposite, if these people were to gain power again, then I really do think that only the second time in American

history, we would put our collective fate at risk. Well, you know, it is it is the risk. It is the risk that he might succeed, whether it's the one percent or 10 percent or 35 percent or 45 percent risk. The consequences of losing any candidate, losing to Donald Trump and him becoming the next president, catastrophic for American democracy. If you believe what Donald Trump says, if you believe what Donald Trump says, that not not what others say, what Donald Trump says and what just about everybody that ever worked for him in the first term says. Because most of the people who worked for him in the first term that he selected, that he appointed, say he's not fit to be president of the United States. If you believe them, if you believe Trumpers, if you believe the Trumpers in the indictment, a second Trump term would be devastating to American democracy. And here we are, Charlie Sykes, I will admit that even after

Donald Trump got elected, I thought I thought America would come to its census. I thought Republicans, my former party, would come to its census. I remember Steve Bannon proudly bragging that he was a Leninist. And as a Leninist, he wanted to tear down government, tear down all the institutions that lifted us up, tear down all the institutions that created the American century, tear down all the institutions that created the American century, tear down all the institutions that fed and freed more people than any other country in the history of mankind. That's what he wanted to do. And I was like, whatever. That's where we are right now. You have Republican candidates saying they're going to abolish the FBI, defund it and abolish it. They're going to tear down the Justice Department. They're going to tear down institutions. They're going to tear

down universities. They're going to do all the things that we conservatives supposedly feared during the 1960s from the radicals on the far left. They're they're actually closer to doing it than the hippies ever were. And, you know, this is not Trump derangement syndrome. This is what they are saying that they want to do. This is what they have made it very clear. This is Steve Bannon's agenda right now. I think that's a very interesting point when he said, you know, I want to burn it all down, tear it all down. Well, what are Republicans all around the country running on? And I don't think that it's too alarmist to say that this would be the end of the Department of Justice's independence and that would be just part of it, because,

you know, it's always difficult and dangerous to believe anything that Donald Trump says. But I actually do think that I believe when Donald Trump says that he intends to do this, when he says, I am your retribution, he means that doesn't accomplish everything, but he will try and think what that would be like. The Trump 2.0 would be exponentially worse than Trump 1.0. You would not have many of the adults in the room that stop the worst abuses. And I think this is one of those moments where we need to take him at his word and the rest of his party at his word, because we're at a point now where it's not just Steve Bannon who is ranting, you know, ranting at the moon. He has brought much of the

Republican Party itself along with it. The base wants this. And there's no indication that the Republican establishment would be a check against him if he tried to do this in a second term. Zero. They're along for the ride, Charlie. That's the thing. Again, since since the latest indictment, the number of people that had claimed to be anti-Trump all along are saying, well, I'm anti-Trump. But this latest set of indictments, while why they're just indicting him for the First Amendment, which, again, you can say what you want to say, Charlie, but let's be very clear to our friends in the Republican establishment that keep trying to lie to the American people and anyone that they're communicating with. Setting up a conspiracy to have fake electors steal the votes away from millions of millions of millions of Americans in the seven key states like Wisconsin, like, you know, other states. Charlie, that's not the First Amendment. That's a conspiracy. No, and they're willing to, you know, to put on the cloak, you know, looking like it's about principle. It's not about principle. It was a it was a conspiracy to overturn the election.

And I think that we do need to go back to specifically what we're talking about. They wanted to and members of Congress went along with this. The Texas attorney general went along with it. They would have taken all of the votes of folks like me in the state of Wisconsin and just fraudulently thrown them out. Just said we're not going to count them in Georgia, in Pennsylvania, in places like in another swing in another swing state. And and so to say that somehow this is this is about the First Amendment misses fundamentally. And I think this is this is the the dishonesty of the anti anti Trump wing of the party, which is they will say that they recognize what a threat he poses to American democracy. But when push comes to shove, they will defend him and they will come up with

these disingenuous rationalizations, these talking. And every time and you know what's going to happen, they will rail against him until it's obvious that he is the nominee. And then they will do what they did back in 2016 and 20 in 2020. They will rally around him. This will be not just Donald Trump's political party. It will be the Steve Bannon political party that aims to tear down, burn down all of these institutions, all of these bulwarks of our constitutional system. You know, I have a lot of people over the past week saying, you know, once again, oh, we need to understand them. We need to understand. We need to talk to them and understand about this First Amendment. We need to understand why they think the DOJ is.

No, we don't. I'm the first that I've been telling you we need to understand what's driving Trumpism. But I understand completely when they start lying about the First Amendment. I understand. You know, it's the First Amendment now, which is a lie. Before it was Hunter Biden's laptop, which was a lie. You go down the list. They create false equivalencies. Maybe, as we've said, if Hunter Biden did something wrong with his laptop or a wiffle ball bat, he should go to jail.

We're totally cool with that. But to do some moral equivalency between Hunter Biden's laptop instilling nuclear secrets, Hunter Biden's laptop instilling all the votes from Wisconsin, Hunter Biden's laptop instilling all the votes from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, from millions and millions and millions of Americans. Don't play that false equivalency game with me or with Reverend Al. Reverend Al, final word here. I think the final word is that we have got to be committed to the basic institutions that make this country what it is. We can debate it.

We can argue our various political views. But there's some things that should be immovable, and that is protecting the democratic process and the law and the law. Let us not get away from that. Charlie Sykes, thank you so much for being on this morning. And The Washington Post's Alexi McCammon, what are you looking at today? I'm following all this legal drama, of course. And any more news from Governor DeSantis, thanks to the great Dasha Burns. Oh, yes, we're going to have that still ahead on Morning Joe. More on the new polling that shows Donald Trump's latest indictment has had little impact on support from Republican voters. Chris Matthews will join us with his take on the new numbers.

Plus, as Alexi mentioned, after repeatedly dodging the question, 2024 White House hopeful Ron DeSantis acknowledges Trump's 2020 election loss. But it came with a caveat. We'll play what he had to say in an NBC News exclusive interview. And someone who's working to see Trump lose again, former New Jersey governor and presidential candidate Chris Christie, is our guest in a few minutes. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back.

I'm concerned that in the second term, he will be off the hook. There'll be no way of controlling him. And he will also surround himself with yes, yes men. If you're gonna, if you're gonna stay I just gotta, I just gotta know I can't have it, I can't have it any other way I swear she's destined for the screen Closest thing to Michelle Fafel The 1-0 Swing and a drive.

Sucked down the line. And that ball's gone. And the Red Sox win the game. It's a walk-off grand slam by Pablo Reyes. It lifted the Red Sox over the Royals last night. Two pitches before the big hit, the Royals manager was ejected for arguing a check swing call on a 3-2 pitch with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. So instead of an inning-ending strikeout by Urias,

the bases were loaded for Reyes, whose walk-off home run gave the Red Sox a 6-2 win. Jonathan Lemire, yeah, whatever. I mean, I'm just late. Hold on. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, he's I mean, I'm just late. Hold on. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, he's got a reason to argue about that one. So I'm not talking about this team post trade deadline. You know, they had a shot last year. They did nothing at the trade deadline and their team collapsed.

And and it's happened again post trade deadline. We do absolutely nothing. Heim bloom does absolutely nothing again this year when we desperately need pitching. We desperately need so many things does nothing. And guess what? Same exact thing happens. We go,

we, we take a skid. So I will let you go ahead, make your perfunctory remarks about how great we are in the yellow uniforms and how bad the Yankees are. Go ahead. Well, I'll start with also the negative. I mean, it is inexcusable they came out of the trading deadline without any pitching help. Right now, through a five-man rotation, twice, two out of five, we're using openers, relievers.

They don't have a major league roster, major league caliber pitching staff. Two out of five. We're using openers, relievers. They don't have a major league roster, major league caliber pitching staff. They simply don't. Yes, there are some good news. That was a fun walk-off win last night. They caught a break on that third strike, to be sure. And they are remarkable 22-4 in recent years in those yellow City Connect jerseys. I certainly have warmed to them. But the Red Sox are going nowhere. And Richard Haas, not to rub it in, but neither are your Yankees. The Sox have now passed you guys by a half game in the standings. We're both in trouble.

We're both falling out of the wild card race. And yesterday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone, well, he took issue as well with a call, getting ejected on a third strike call. You'll see it there. I'll just note in the K zone, it is a strike. But Boone comes out, gives it to the umpire, Laz Diaz, and in fact, as we'll see here, even acts out the strike call with a pretty good impression of the umpire. Richard, take it away.

Have you thrown in the towel like Joe and I have on the Red Sox? Alas, Jonathan, alas, I have. This is just too painful. Aaron Boone has basically lost control of the team. I think the Yankees have essentially given up this year. So many dugout issues, people not running out hits, the alcoholism issue, and so forth. This has now become one of the worst teams that money can buy. And it's just painful to see. It's not even a process of rebuilding. That'd be one thing I

could take that. This is more just the process of collapsing. And it's just very hard to watch. Well, you know, it is it is fascinating. And I'm not rubbing it in, Richard, at all. I'm really not. But the Yankees have gone the opposite way of Moneyball in the 21st century. Well, actually, since the mid-70s. They have one World Series to show for it this century, and it just keeps getting worse and worse. And I think we're all starting to understand that unless you're in a desperate position like the Red Sox, where every one of your pitchers, it seems, has gotten hurt.

Unless you have to fill those gaps for a run, you build the farm team from the ground up, or you don't win World Series. You can't go out and spend tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars on players and expect to win World Series. Unless, of course, you're Boston, we take Otani. But Richard, from the bottom up, right? The core has to be from the bottom up. You can add the odd veteran or something to complement that. That's how the best teams and really every sport do it. You look at the best basketball teams, you build it up through the draft, through the core, and then you add a few positions and so forth. The Yankees have just don't, they don't seem to have the patience. They used to have the best farm system and now they have one of the worst.

What has gone wrong with this team, with the leaders? I actually think you need an overhaul manager, front office. It's just not working. It is miserable. I've got to admit, you look at that lineup and, you know, three quarters of the guys, you're like, come on, they're not Yankees. And I say that even as a Red Sox fan looking that some of those guys just, most of them just aren't up to the standard of wearing the pinstripes. By the way, while we stay in the ALEs, because we know everybody across America just wants to talk about one division in baseball, there's some controversy around the feel-good team of the year.

That, of course, is the Baltimore Orioles' perennial last-place finishers. But the controversy is not on the field. It's in the broadcast booth. Play-by-play announcer Kevin Brown has reportedly been removed from MASN broadcasts after he made a reference to the O's losing record against Tampa Bay at Tropicana Field in previous years. Here are some of the comments in question from a pre-game broadcast last month that got him booted. This has been maybe the toughest ballpark to play in,

but the Orioles have a chance to do something special today. They've already clinched at least a split in the series, winning two of the first three, and they can pick up a series win behind Tyler Wells today. It's been a minute. The Orioles split a two-gamer with the Rays in June. They had lost their last 15 series here at Tropicana Field. According to the website, awful announcing and the athletic, Oriole ownership took issue with the analysis.

It's not analysis. It's just the plain facts. The Orioles sucked at the trop. Everybody knows it. But they actually took issue with him telling the truth, and Brown hasn't

been on an Orioles broadcast since then. Those are disputing that Brown was suspended at all. But really, Jonathan O'Meara, this is just, it's absolutely ridiculous. No, and the reporting shows that that stat that he read, again, it's not analysis. It's simply a statistic, was A, in the Orioles media guide that every reporter at the game was handed. And B, as we just showed, it was in a graphic.

The broadcast on Masson put it up. He was simply reading what was handed. And B, as we just showed, it was in a graphic. The broadcast on Masson put it up. He was simply reading what was there. Orioles have been a great story this year, but we should note the fan base there has been pretty unhappy with ownership, the Angelos family, for quite some time. And this certainly looks like a moment where they're being entirely too thin-skinned. And it's a distraction from what has been a wonderful story to this point. Yeah, boy. And boy, you talk about a farm system. Jack tells me they have something like eight of the top 100 prospects coming up. So the O's, man, they're built for the long term.

Hopefully they'll put this behind them. Up next, presidential candidate and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie joins Morning Joe. We'll discuss his surprise trip to Ukraine last week and his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as the latest on his campaign for the White House. Morning Joe will be right back. What is the purpose of the U.S. military? I'll tell you what it is. It is to protect Americans on American soil, first and foremost, not to aimlessly fight some random war that's arguably a repayment for and Republican presidents and Reagan and Eisenhower and everybody who fought to keep Europe free from Russian aggression, rise from their graves. That was a candidate for the presidency on the Republican side, Vivek Ramaswamy, facelessly suggesting over the weekend that the United States' aid for Ukraine is repayment for an alleged bribe between members of the Biden family and the Ukrainian energy. Yeah, that's that's why that's why all the European countries suffered this past winter because they wanted to help Hunter Biden.

Seriously, the fevered swamps are now like they're wading into their necks. Let's bring in Republican presidential candidate, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, just came back from Ukraine where he met with President Zelensky. Hey, Chris, governor, whatever I'm supposed to call you. So I've spoken with Vivac early on. Nice guy. Seems to be a really smart guy. And we talked about him coming on the show early on. Maybe maybe I'll have him on the show. But his statements keep getting more bizarre. By the day. He talks about defunding the FBI. He says stupid stuff like this. And and, you know, it's more I think it's a reflection on him, of course. But it's also it's a reflection on just how crazy a lot of these Republican candidates think they have to be to win the votes of the base.

Like what's going on out there when he's having he's having to say this? And by the way, for the record, there's a guy that I don't think voted Republican until 2020. And he wrote in his book that Donald Trump behaved abhorrently after January the 6th. That's all changed in a couple of years. Well, good morning, Joe and Mika. Good to see you. And look, I don't I don't take the stuff that he says seriously. You know, the fact is, this is a very, very ambitious guy who is basically playing the role so far in this race is, you know, Donald Trump's wingman. And, you know, that's his call. I don't think that governor isn't he hearing that from the

audience? You and I both know we've seen politicians that basically instead of telling people what they need to hear, they're basically a mirror of the audience. He wouldn't be saying that unless he was hearing it. Right. Well, I'm sure he's hearing it certainly from some elements of the party, but I don't think it's a majority of the party. It certainly not has not been my experience. I'm heading up to New Hampshire later today. I could tell you the last time I was up there a couple of weeks ago, we we heard a lot of support. Two thirds of the audience that I had was very supportive of my position on Ukraine, which is that we haven't done enough. And that while I think that President Biden has certainly done better than President Trump and President Trump did better than President Obama on this, we still have more to go.

And having gone over there now, Joe and Mika, and watched for myself what the folks in Ukraine are going through, what they've already gone through. The idea that this is something that America does not have a vital interest in, to me, is just absurd. Not only because we should be standing up against a barbaric Russian administration that is doing things like the gouging of eyes, the cutting off of ears of men in Ukraine before they tie their hands behind their back and shoot them in the back of the head and then go into those homes where they just taken these men out of and rape the women. Nearly 20,000 children have been kidnapped from Ukraine, brought to Russia to be separated from their families, programmed to be anti-Ukrainian and to work for the Russian Federation. I met with some of those parents, guys, and I could tell you as a dad, it's unimaginable to me that your child would be yanked away from you. You don't know

whether they're dead or alive, whether they're being cared for or abused. These are the things that Vladimir Putin is imposing upon Ukraine. And this is the guy that Donald Trump says is brilliant and a great leader. Well, that's brilliant leadership. You can keep it. It isn't that. I mean, yeah, it's barbarism. He's also a guy that set back his own country, probably a generation exposed his military as being extraordinarily weak. So so make the argument, if you will, about why the United States needs to continue supporting Ukraine. And you talked about the human rights element of it. But geopolitically, what does the world look like if the United States and Europe, NATO, let Vladimir Putin just take over a sovereign country that we actually had treaties with,

saying would protect their territorial integrity? What happens? And then what happens next in Taiwan? And then what happens next in the Middle East with Iran? What happens if we send a message to the world, hey, we're going to let the worst regimes on the planet invade countries next door to them? Well, you started to answer the question for me. I'll finish the answer. Russia, Ukraine is the undercard. It's the undercard. Because the Chinese who are funding the Russian aggression against Ukraine are watching.

And if we cut and run on Ukraine, the next fight is going to be in Taiwan. And there, it's not going to be us just supplying weapons. It's going to be American men and women who are going to be sent three quarters of the way around the world to fight there. And they're going to have to fight there not only to protect the freedom of Taiwan, but for those who don't care about that, be practical. Two-thirds of the world's semiconductors are produced in Taiwan. Everything that runs our cell phones, our computers, our automobiles, and just about every other element of American life now will be controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. I don't think that's a place that we want to be in for a practical economic or technological perspective.

And when you look at what's happening here, then go to the Middle East. The Iranians are obviously coordinating with the Russians and the Chinese to provide more sophisticated weaponry to the Russians. And the folks in the Middle East, whether it's the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Qataris, are all going to look at this and say, it's not worth it to be friends with the United States anymore. We might as well cut the best deal we can with the Chinese, because when things get tough, Americans run the other way. One of the points of my campaign, guys, is that America has never been great by being small. And right now, in elements of my party and in the elements in some elements of the Democratic

Party, we are arguing over what I consider to be small issues. They're not unimportant, but they're small. The big issues that we have to deal with, and one of them is American leadership around the world. Those issues are what makes America bigger, stronger, richer, freer. And every time, going all the way back to 1776, the Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War, ending in the Reagan era, when we had presidents who said, we're going to make some sacrifices and we're going to go big. We always came out on top. We had a country after the revolution. We had a united country free of slavery after the Civil War. We protected a free Europe and a free rest of the world that became the leader of the world after World War II.

And Reagan, in nine years, took down the Berlin Wall and in 10 years eliminated the Soviet Union from the face of the earth. That's the kind of thing we should be doing. And the Ukraine fight, Joe, is the undercard. If we do it right, there won't be another fight. I completely agree. If we do it wrong. I completely agree. Not going to be good. And if Biden had not worked with Republican allies, strong Republican allies in the Senate, especially, and with strong allies in NATO to do this, then, of course, you would have some of the same people

saying the reason Taiwan was invaded by China was because the United States didn't defend Ukraine. So, yeah, they're being hypocrites. It's almost like when you hear Governor Christie say that we need to focus on big things instead of some of these small distractions. It's almost like he's saying America's standing in the world. America's role in the world is more important than Bud Light or Mickey Mouse. Yeah. Or woke, whatever that means for Republicans who just use the word randomly up and down in elections. I think the Yankees are woke. I just said it. They're definitely so woke. You just throw it around any way you like.

Chris, do you I mean, it's sort of the leading, but I want to get to where how we got here in the three indictments against him, the ongoing legal suits, the potential fourth indictment coming his way. Is it your belief that Donald Trump probably committed a crime or two? Oh, yeah. He certainly committed crimes in the classified documents case. I believe the keeping of those documents was a crime and the obstruction was clearly a crime. You know, and now the superseding indictment where they were, he was ordering folks allegedly to delete the surveillance cameras. You know, it reminded me of like what maybe Abbott and Costello meets the Corleones would have looked like. You know, all of a sudden now you're sending Fredo, Walton out asa is Fredo, down there to eliminate the server. I mean, this is both criminal and completely stupid, which is the combination that Donald

Trump is bringing to the country, is the combination of criminality and abject stupidity, both in terms of his comments and in terms of his actions. And now when you look at the January 6th stuff, look, you know, you guys know, I did this work for seven years at the fifth largest office in the country, in New Jersey. And it's an aggressive indictment, the January 6th indictment. I think there are more legal issues raised in the January 6th indictment than in the classified documents indictment, which I think is a pretty clean, clear, and not really assailable from a legal perspective. There are going to be some interesting legal judgments to make in the

January 6th case. But my point to folks in our party is, yes, we should care about those things. And the judges should make these decisions and decide what's legal and what isn't for the prosecutors to be doing. But the bigger question for us is the underlying conduct. Whether you believe what Donald Trump did on January 6th was criminal or not, it was immoral. He invited these people to Washington, D.C., telling them it was going to be wild. He then lied to them in front of him that day, saying that the election had been stolen when it hadn't, and lied to them and said it was all up to Mike Pence, and Mike Pence could reverse this if he wanted to, if he had the courage to. Then he told them to march up to Capitol Hill and that he would march with them.

Now, you guys have known him for almost as long as I have. And you know that if there was a risk that Donald Trump was going to break a fingernail, he wasn't going up to Capitol Hill. And so he went back into the safety of the White House, sent these people up there to try to intimidate Mike Pence and members of Congress into not doing their job and certifying the election. And then to me, the capper was even worse. He sat in that dining room off the Oval Office, eating his well-done hamburger and watching on TV as people laid waste to the United States Capitol. And he did nothing, despite even members of his own family urging him to get out there on TV and put an end to it. I don't know, guys, if that makes

you criminally responsible, but I know it makes you morally responsible. And is that the kind of person we want sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office? I'm running because the answer to that is no, absolutely not. That's a great question, and I agree. My follow-up question, and it's meant with a real curiosity, from having served in the White House, from covering it, we're all sort of watching what has happened to our country. How do you think we got here? What was it about him and the way he worked it in the White House from your perspective, that gets us to a point where right now it's almost standing out that we can have an honest conversation about January 6th and the fact that this man probably committed multiple crimes. And yet you talk to Republican leaders, you talk to Kevin McCarthy, and it's honestly like a Jordan Klepper clip.

It's honestly like you're talking to someone who's like, well, but yeah, but, you know, Hillary Clinton did that. Like what has happened that actually there are so many Republicans that you have to go talk to people in New Hampshire and in other places that Trump won. And you have to almost beg them to be reasonable and to remember like what a moral compass looks like. What happened? And by the way, Governor, let me just add Mika, though she didn't say it in the question. Mika believes this didn't start with Donald Trump, that this is like a 25 year progression. But I want to know what made it fast forward. Yeah. What accelerated? Yeah. Look, I think it is important to note that a lot of folks have felt over time, over the last number of administrations, that they've been ignored and left out and and and

mistreated. And so there was an anger in the country that Donald Trump tapped into in 2016 that was the creation of both parties. And we need to acknowledge that and understand that when things went sideways in Iraq under George W. Bush, there were people who were very angry, upset, and felt disenfranchised by that. When Barack Obama said, you know, if you can, if you like your doctor, you can keep him. If you like your health plan, you can keep him. And that turned out to be untrue. That made people even more cynical towards their government. And then Donald Trump raised that cynicism to an entirely new level during his presidency. And now Joe Biden, by promising the country when he was running, that he was going to be a moderate who was going to govern from the middle and bring people together. And a lot of people, a lot of Republicans who

were discontent with Trump and a lot of independents who had voted for Trump in 2016, went ahead and took a chance on Biden. And they're now disillusioned. And the polls show that, that they're disillusioned with President Biden. So first, I think it's important to note that there are a number of people who contributed mightily to this problem, in addition to Donald Trump. The problem with Donald Trump is that he knows no sense of history, has no intellectual curiosity, and doesn't care whether he puts himself before the country at every turn. So when he sits now, Mika, and says, well, I'm getting indicted for you, it is so patently absurd, not only because all the contact he's getting indicted for were things he didn't have to do and he chose himself to do,

had nothing to do with protecting the American people. How are the American people benefited by him keeping boxes of classified documents in Mar-a-Lago? That was there. And you guys know this. He was there just for him to continue to pretend he was president and show off for people who were on the back patio at Mar-a-Lago by showing them things he shouldn't have been showing them. And so he's not putting America first. That's the great irony of this campaign is Donald Trump saying he's going to put America first.

He has not put America first. He's put Donald Trump first. And I do believe, you know, there was a poll that just came out this weekend in New Hampshire, which has Donald Trump now down to 34 percent in New Hampshire. Now, rather than say it's at 13, I'm at 11. So we're still behind him. But he's down 14 points from where he was. And when you think about it, guys, that means that two thirds of the Republicans polled in New Hampshire are against Donald Trump, the incumbent president who, you know, for practical purposes, he's the incumbent in the

Republican Party. Two thirds are against him. So I do not share the skepticism and the fatalism that everybody else does. I believe his conduct will make a difference. Yeah. If I can interrupt here just to say and pass it to Reverend Al there, I've seen quite a few polls, Reverend Al, that had Governor Christie in double digits in New Hampshire. It is early, but there are a lot of people that have been running for president for quite some time that have been more high profile than Governor Christie before his launch that are still at two or three percent. So we still have a race in New Hampshire. I think I think he's right.

I think we still have a race. And, you know, that's better than anybody. Presidential campaign. Very fluid. Very fluid. Let me ask you a two part question, Governor. You and I may disagree on many, if not most issues, but we always respected the institutions of government and what the country said it stood for, even if we didn't believe it lived up to it. When you see a sitting president undermine an election, which is undermining American democracy, I mean, no president in the history of this country ever did that. I mean, the founding fathers fought a revolution against Great Britain, not against the United States. He's telling the vice president to undermine the very tenets of what the country was founded for, democracy. How do you reconcile

that members of your party and some of your opponents refuse to attack a man who's trying to undermine what the country stands for? It's un-American, aside from being criminal and immoral. It's un-American in terms of the concept. Secondly, how do we deal with the question of race in your party, of reaching out to people in the black community and other communities that feel isolated when you have a candidate trying to erase black history in florida uh the people that are against affirmative action less known reparations where you as governor you and i debated disagree but you never were disagreeable i'm getting ready to eulogize lieutenant governor oliver who was a firm democrat but got along with you yeah You came and sat at Whitney Houston's funeral, the great pop star,

and people got concerned. He's sitting there with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. You never were disagreeable, even though you and I would fight. Both of us accused as being loudmouths on both sides. I don't know where they got that. I didn't mean either. But how do you deal with race and how do you deal with the undermining of American institutions? Let's start with your first part. That was the breaking point for me, Al. Election night, 2020, when I was on ABC doing commentary and when Donald Trump came out at two thirty in the morning and said the election had been stolen, when I knew that he

had absolutely no factual basis to make that judgment, and it was just all ego, the thing that affected me the most was, here's a man, President of the United States, standing behind the seal of the President in the East Room of the White House, telling the American people the election had been stolen, when he knew that could not be supported at that moment. And people are going to watch that, as you know and believe, well, the President must know something that I don't know. And that disease still exists today, that so many people in my party believe the election was stolen. I cannot reconcile, nor am I trying to reconcile, either what he did or what others in my party are doing now, but not speaking out against it, because I don't think leaders interpret polls or follow them out. I think they change them. And so my campaign is

about going out there and telling the truth and saying to people like, look, it didn't happen. Okay. It didn't happen. His ego was damaged and he couldn't deal with the fact that he's the only person outside the state of Delaware to have ever lost to Joe Biden. I can understand that must be like a killing thing to you because Joe Biden ran for president three times and lost all three times. But the truth is the truth. And when you put yourself out there as a candidate, you got to be willing to accept the result, whether you like it or not. And he wouldn't. And not only did he not accept it, but he damaged the country in the process of not accepting it. On the issue of race, as you know, New Jersey is the most ethnically diverse state in America, both in terms of race and in terms of ethnicities in our state.

And as the governor, I was proud to be the governor of a state like that where I wanted to campaign and work in places where Republicans normally didn't. You know, you mentioned Cory Booker as well. Booker and I worked incredibly closely. And he's mayor of Newark to try to reform schools there and to reform the police department, which needed help. We did the same thing in Camden when we fired the entire police department in the city, as you know, that was the most dangerous city in America, and yet 95 percent of color. And we fired the entire police department because we said, you're incompetent. And what's happened in the 10 years since then now? Murder rate in Camden, which was the most dangerous city in America, is down 75%. And when the George Floyd incident occurred, there was no violence in the city of Camden. In fact, the protest march was led by a pastor

of the largest Baptist church in Camden and by the Polish-American white police chief, together marching against what happened to George Floyd. What I did as governor was to say, I don't care what your color is. I care what your ideas are. And as you know, as you mentioned, when you and I disagreed, I disagreed with you because you're an African-American. I disagreed with you because I thought you were wrong. And you did the same with me.

And that's why I went. And you put some of my friends in jail. But but we'll be done. Hey, look, because only because they deserved it now. They earned it. And, you know, that's why when I ran for reelection, I got 29 percent of the African-American vote. And for a Republican, that's rarefied air. And people would ask me why. And I said, because I listen to folks. And even when I disagree with them, they know I respect them. Ron DeSantis and what's going on in Florida, saying that there's some benefit to slavery. Look, if I have to choose between in my party on this issue, signing with Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump or with Tim Scott and Byron Donalds, I'll take Tim Scott and Byron Donalds. I think they understand the history of slavery and what it was a hell of a lot better than those two guys do and better

than I do. And I'd rather listen to Tim. And Tim's not, as you know, Tim's not an inflammatory guy. And for Tim to speak out as clearly as he did against this tells me how offensive it is for me historically, but more importantly to Tim, Byron, and members of the African-American community, how offensive it is morally to be saying these things. So I think you just have to tell the truth. And look, are there going to be some people in my party who don't support me for that reason? Absolutely.

But I'm not looking to play to their weaknesses. I'm looking to play to America's strength.