Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/1/22

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

Judge set to rule on Trump request for special master

they say themselves in these papers that they filed that this is under the Presidential Records Act. So what they did was to try and criminalize Donald Trump, as they always do. They found these three mundane statutes, espionage and the two others, obstruction, and they're trying to claim that there was some sort of criminal activity. A Trump attorney spins a new defense for the former president that espionage and obstruction are only minor offenses. We'll have the new developments overnight from Trump's legal team and go live to the courthouse where today's hearing over a special master will take place. Meanwhile, Trump continues to undercut his own excuses for why he had classified documents at his Florida club and home. Remember when Trump's allies accused the FBI of planting evidence? Well, now Trump admits the documents were stored in cartons. Remember when Trump's lawyer told the Justice Department that classified material had

been returned? Well, investigators found more, lots more. Remember when Trump's team insisted the documents were safely secured? Well, his lawyer now admits the former president frequently had guests in an office where highly classified papers were found in his desk. And once again, he does not deny having them. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, September 1st. Can you believe it? No, no, I can't believe it. Just like nobody can believe any of the excuses that have all been been thrown away. I love yesterday, Willie. His only argument is, again, not saying why he had the documents, not saying why he didn't return the documents, not saying why he lied to the FBI when they were asking for the documents

and they were moving them. Instead, he goes, oh, oh, it's all a setup. They took those out of the cartons that I stole from the White House and they threw all the papers on the floor. Well, of course we know that everybody knows that it's like the guy is desperate and has absolutely no explanation for any of this that has happened. It's why he's in such deep legal trouble right now. Spinning, spinning, spinning. I'm confused, too. I thought the FBI planted all that stuff at Mar-a-Lago, but now he's saying they're in his cartons that were there,

and the FBI took them out. Also, Mika pointed out, we have to go back to that opening comment from Trump's attorney calling espionage and obstruction of justice, quote, mundane offenses. They got him on these technicalities. Espionage and obstruction of justice, quote, mundane offenses. They got him on these technicalities, espionage and obstruction of justice. But to the point Joe was just making, Donald Trump did seem to counter three of his own arguments that he'd been making when he posted on social media that the documents were, quote, sloppily thrown on the floor and that agents, quote, took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet. This, of course, goes against his previous arguments that the documents may have been

planted, that they were properly stored under lock and key. It also contradicts the sworn letter that everything had been returned to the government. His attorneys promised that. Charlie Savage of The New York Times noted this. Trump is so mad about the optics, people may not understand it was the FBI that spread out the files from Box 2A to take a standard evidence photo that he's ignoring the legal implications of coming very close to acknowledging that he knew he had them in his office. He's just spinning wildly at this point, Joe, trying to grasp onto whatever comes across his desk, because as you point out,

there is no good excuse to have top secret documents at your country club. Well, again, we're just going to keep repeating it on the show. And until somebody comes out, until Donald Trump or Rudy Giuliani or a Trump lawyer, new lawyer, some supporter, new lawyers, old lawyers, any lawyers come out and explain why Donald Trump improperly took government documents, top secret documents, classified documents from the White House and took him out of the White House, a government facility. And, you know, it's interesting. Yesterday, Mika, a Fox News host who I think, again, in good faith was saying, well, let's talk about Donald Trump's documents, something along those lines. And Karl Rove, lifelong Republican, cut her off and said, said, wait a second, let's be really clear about one thing. None of those documents are Donald

Trump's documents. I work in the White House. None of those documents are Donald Trump's documents. You cannot take, as Karl Rove said, again, Republican strategist forever. You cannot take one document out of the White House or a government building if it's the government's document. And so there's absolutely no reason why he would have box after box after box of these documents and then lie to the National Archives and the FBI is saying, oh, we've returned all the documents when you come close to doing that. Well, and there's also questions about Trump's lawyers who certified certain documents were there and not there. And then they've been those certifications have been ruled completely false. So there'll be questions because one wonders and you don't want to get in

front of it. But those who know Trump well can can safely predict that there is a chance he will blame someone else. Well, and if their lawyers who signed documents ended up being false and they had knowledge of that. Yeah, they're in big trouble. Yeah. You don't lie to the FBI. You don't lie to the DOJ without some legal consequences following. Joining us now from outside the courthouse in West Palm Beach, Florida, NBC News correspondent Von Hilliard. Also with us, NBC News justice

and intelligence correspondent Ken Delanian and the host of Way Too Early, the author of The Big Lie, White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. Vaughn, we'll start with you. Bring us up to date on where everything stands in terms of what was seized, seen and reported out of Mar-a-Lago. Right. So here at the Southern District of Florida, Judge Cannon, she's a Trump appointed district district judge who was appointed by the former president just weeks after the 2020 election. She will be the one hearing the special master hearing this afternoon. You saw 48 hours ago in which the Department of Justice laid out over the course of 40 pages its case for the unnecessary move to appoint a special master to go through the trove of documents that were acquired there on August 8th. Why? Well, the DOJ says that they've already done this here. The Trump team, they want a special master in order to go through the records that were seized to determine what was attorney them in which the investigators will not take their, put their eyes on. But this is a situation here. You guys mentioned it was the Trump statement last night in which he directly said and acknowledged that,

in fact, those very documents were taken out of his office there, but out of cartons, in his words. Just two months earlier, though, on June 3rd, Christina Bobb, who was officially the custodian of his records, signed on his behalf, said under oath in a sworn affidavit that all appropriate documents had been surrendered to the Department of Justice. Of course, when you're looking at that filing from 48 hours ago, the Department of Justice says that they had acquired more than double the number of classified documents than had been turned over two months previous as part of that June 3rd setup meeting between Trump you know, the Department of Justice is laying out and the need to not have a special master, but instead to be able to move this case promptly along. The Department of Justice is citing the concerns around national security here,

saying that there are potential sources of important national security information that could be in danger. And that is why the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is currently reviewing these very documents that were seized by the FBI here. And I think almost in a way, Alina Haba, she is a Trump attorney, not working on this specific case, yet is appearing last night on Fox News, on Sean Hannity. And I think that she almost maybe unintentionally, but acknowledged the importance in the potential access that visitors to Mar-a-Lago had to these very documents. Take a listen last night talking to Sean Hannity. Did the FBI do that or was that the way that room looked before they went in there? Do you have any any firsthand knowledge? Yeah, I'm sure you've

seen the press today. I do have firsthand knowledge, as you know. I have been down there. I'm down there frequently. I have never seen that. I have never, ever seen that. That is not the way his office looks. Anybody that knows President Trump's office, he has guests frequently there. It is it's just a joke. They literally must have gone in and taken out documents they wanted or cover letters as it is and put it about so that the public believes that this is top secret documents that were on his floor. It's ridiculous. I can tell you personally, it's ridiculous. I've never seen that. That is Vaughn. That is one of the dumbest things. That's one of the dumbest things. Vaughn, that's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard in my life. Can we I mean, there is literally an FBI exhibit that says to a anybody that's ever seen one episode of Law and Order knows they get evidence.

They put it out. They take pictures of the evidence on the floor. Everybody knows that. Is this I'm sorry. I know you're a reporter. You can't say this. I just asked the rhetorical question. Is this really what Trump's defenders have been reduced to? And she says, I guess, frequently visit that very office. Great. Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, the idea, though, that people saw this picture thinking

that Donald Trump left those on the floor. Of course, nobody thought that at all. Again, they're desperately trying to find anything to defend. But you're right, though. While making this stupid assertion that the FBI wanted people to think that's where he left them, which nobody thought that. She also, of course, admitted that people went into this room frequently where there were top secret documents stored. And there's a question there that has been put out ultimately, if you're talking about Christina Bob, Trump's lawyer, the custodian of those records there.

To what extent did she actually know whether the documents had been surrendered or not? You know, but that's where Alina Haba, the other attorney here, who's actually working on the New York attorney general's case. So it's not quite clear what she actually knows about the documents related to the search warrant execution related to the National Archives documents that they wanted to secure. in that New York attorney general's case, guys, she actually signed another sworn affidavit in which she said that she went through closets, through dresser drawers, through the office desk, everything to look for relevant documents related to that Trump organization case with the New York attorney general's office, which suggests that she would have come into contact

as an independent citizen, separate from this case, would have come into contact as an independent citizen, separate from this case, would have come into contact with these classified documents, which again, hits at the very heart of the question here, who had access to these documents? If Alina Haba, a lawyer working on a whole separate case, had access to them, and we now know that guests frequently visited his offices, who exactly, who had access to these documents? And we still don't have the answer as to what these documents even pertained at this time. All right. NBC's Vaughn Hilliard in West Palm Beach, Florida. Vaughn, thanks so much. So, Ken Delaney, I'll let you respond. Just that stunning, pathetic argument that they threw these documents all over the floor. Donald

Trump made that argument yesterday. The FBI haphazardly threw these documents all over to make it look like I stored them there. No, that's an evidence photo. We won't insult our very smart viewers by explaining that to them. They know better. But also yesterday, part of the argument that filing from Trump's lawyers was on privacy, that Donald Trump had a right to privacy and that the FBI couldn't come in and take documents effectively that belonged to him in his private home. Of course, the documents effectively that belong to him in his private home. Of course, the documents don't belong to him. We can explain that again. Is there anything in this new filing from the Trump attorneys that says to you maybe there will be a special master?

Maybe the Justice Department will take another look at how they're reviewing these documents. In the filing, no. But I mean, I think it's very possible there will be a special master. The Justice Department, after arguing that there shouldn't be one in the last set of arguments, said, and by the way, Judge, if you grant one, here are some conditions we'd like you to impose. And in fact, the Trump team agreed with some of those conditions. But the Trump team, importantly, wants the special master to look at this issue of executive privilege rather than just attorney-client privilege, which would really complicate things and which most legal experts say does not

exist here. Because as the Justice Department said, there's no claim of executive privilege when you're giving these documents to the executive branch. That's never been asserted. And also, as we learned in the Watergate case with Richard Nixon, a criminal investigation always trumps executive privilege, at least according to the Supreme Court. But one I thought one of the most interesting things about this blustery Trump legal argument document that was filed last night. And by the way, one of the lawyers on that case, James Trustee, was the former head of the Justice Department's organized crime section. So no slouch. But this this this document was rather bizarre on a lot of levels. But one thing that it did try to say is that the Justice Department is seeking to criminalize what these lawyers characterized as a routine dispute between a president and the archives over presidential records.

And and said at one point, of course, there's classified documents, their presidential records. That's inherent in the idea of presidential records. Well, that's really interesting because, as you guys know, Donald Trump has been arguing on Truth Social and his allies have been arguing that he declassified all these documents. That argument now seems to have gone away. They did not make that in this document last night. They're not arguing that these, as far as I can tell,

that these documents were declassified, which is huge because if they're acknowledging that they were classified, whatever they say, when Trump was the former president, he no longer had access to classified documents, period, end of story. There was no skiff, no special room in Mar-a-Lago where those documents could have been stored. And as you guys said, they were not his documents. They were the property of the United States of America. Yeah. And nothing routine about this, Mika. Just ask two former CIA directors, ask a war hero, ask the head of the National Security Agency how routine it is when you mishandle classified documents and how ironic, of course, everything is, of course, for the

president who went around chanting, lock her up because of classified documents on Hillary Clinton's laptop, that Donald Trump said the reason why he couldn't have David Petraeus be his secretary of state was because he mishandled classified documents and the other generals that he had already hired for his administration. Donald Trump said they wouldn't work with him because the offense was so extreme. So it shows you again, the hypocrisy. And also, let's just underline again, the fact that Donald Trump and his lawyers are reduced to such a pathetic non-defense defense saying suggesting the FBI came in and put the evidence on the office and messed up his office and took pictures. So we would think that's, you know, that's how he left it. I just just for Donald Trump to know when he sees murder scenes on television and there's yellow tape there, nobody thinks the yellow tape around the body to show where the body was, was left by the murderer.

That's what the police and the FBI do when they show up. OK, so there's an overarching problem here. Stupid, actually. And, you know, the responsibility for the DOJ is if top secret classified documents were mishandled and removed from the government, from the White House, from the very safe locations that they are stored. There is a responsibility really for our for our allies, for for even the message that is sent to our foes, that there has to be consequences if something like this had been done. And right now, there's no denial that President Trump took something that was not his, that belongs to the U.S. government, that does not belong to him. Nobody's denying it. And all the arguments are kind of like one would perhaps surmise a way to muddle it, a way to sort of look at something else, look here, look there.

And there are basic questions, just basic questions that remain and really stand out here. And Fox and Friends co-host Steve Doocy had this line of questioning yesterday for the governor of South Dakota. Take a look. Ultimately, it comes down to why did he have all that secret stuff at Mar-a-Lago? You know, I know his team has said that they declassified it, but that's news to the agencies that those documents belong to. And he had he had apparently three classified documents in his desk. And then the stuff, as Brian detailed on the floor, it shows five yellow folders marked top secret and another one with that says secret SCI, which means sensitive compartmentalized information. Those are the biggest secrets in the world. Why would he and apparently the president,

former president, went through him in January. Why wouldn't he say, oh, you know what? I really need to turn that back over. Why do you have all that stuff at Mar-a-Lago? Well, that's why I think it's important that this is transparent and that we do have someone who's outside of the DOJ looking at this and talking to people. What what is this information? We don't know what was in there. We don't know that. I think President Trump declassified all this information. Let's find out really what the process is, what is right, what's precedent that other presidents have followed and make sure that this is done correctly. Governor, I don't think any president has ever carted off that many documents to

their house after they left the presidency. None have. And if they had had here's the thing they would have been arrested the DOJ would have gone after him and and again there you hear Mika there you hear once again the argument oh I think he declassified it no as Ken pointed out they come up with a thousand different excuses that actually confirm he has each excuse confirms that the last excuse was a lie. And they keep building excuse upon excuse upon excuse that actually knocks the foundation under the previous lies that they've told. Each excuse, Joe, confirms he he never says I didn't have these. I didn't do this. He only confirms that he has them, and he took them. But here's his biggest problem, and I want to show another clip, but let me go to Ken Delaney first on this,

because Ken actually, unlike me, Ken actually knows what he's talking about when we talk about the law. I should have paid closer attention in law school. Mika just said that he's never said that he didn't have the documents. He did, though, tell the FBI and the DOJ he didn't have any more documents. And at the end of the day, and Charlie Savage has been writing about this. I know you've been talking about it as well secrets, whether it's secrets about Emmanuel Macron's love life, whatever it is. OK, we'll find out on another day. We have no idea. But we do know right now, today, according to DOJ filings, that he obstructed justice. He lied to the DOJ and said that they had turned everything back.

And when they came back, they found in this extraordinary filing you've been talking about twice as many documents that were classified that he had turned over. They found him at Moralaga. Yeah, Joe, that's 100 percent right, Even though you have been correctly pointing out that anyone else who took classified documents home would by now probably be under the jail. And we have plenty of examples of that in the intelligence community over the years. The real issue here, it's clear the Justice Department was treating Trump differently. It's a bottom line. I mean, that is clear from the record. They gave him every opportunity that they would not have afforded a regular citizen. And we can argue about whether that was a good thing or bad thing. It's a fact. They first asked nicely. Then they served grand jury subpoenas. this massive scandal is erupting is because the Justice Department felt they were lied to. And as you know, look, as a reporter, if I'm lied to by a government official, I'm not going to

forget that. And that is going to become my top priority is to ferret out what happened, why the lie, get to the bottom of it. FBI agents and prosecutors are the same way. When they feel lied to in an investigation, that almost becomes more important than the underlying crime. It's a corruption of our system of justice. We rely on people to comply with grand jury subpoenas, and the law requires them to. And in this case, as we know, the Justice Department said they believed that there was an obstruction here, that they were misled. They haven't pointed the finger directly at Donald Trump, but who else could have done it unless we're unless we're to believe that one of his lawyers decided on their own to lie to the DOJ? In my experience, that's not how this works.

I mean, lawyers, you know, they know they're putting their license on the line when they sign an affidavit saying that something is true. And it's very likely, by the way, that the lawyer who signed that is now a witness in this case and can no longer represent Donald Trump. But so this is absolutely the crux of it now. It's not just a case about classified documents. It's a case about lying and about obstruction of justice. And that makes it, I think, a much harder decision for the Justice Department down the road as to whether they indict this case. Because you can make an argument that, look, the president was once entitled to these documents. He made some mistakes. He mishandled. Maybe we shouldn't charge him. But once you've proved that somebody lied to the DOJ, how do you walk away from that?

Yeah. And we've heard from all the reporting that Donald Trump believed that these documents were his. They belong to me. And that privacy argument we heard even last night from his attorneys. Well, Karl Rove was talking about that last night on Fox News. Here's what he said. That's its own situation that the DOJ is investigating and the Trump side has their lawyers and their feelings about what what was rightfully his and able to take. But it's just interesting. Let's be clear. Let's be clear on this. None of these government documents are his to have taken. I agree with the deputy director who said that a lot of the former president's problems are of his own creation. You can, under the presidential records act of 1978, you cannot take original documents out of

the white house with you when you leave the white house, whether you're the president of the United States or any of his aides. No, you know, that's, it's foreboding under the law. Now there are no criminal penalties for violating it, but why the former president packed up to, you know, 20, nearly 30 some odd boxes of material when he had no right to do so. And that's what the government asserts, incidentally, in this filing. They say he the president, former president, asked for the return of the documents because, as he said in his filing, they were created during his administration and the response of the government, excuse me, the response of the government and their filing was that's evidence that they aren't his. If they were if they were developed in the White House during his time of presidency under the Presidential Records Act,

they belong to the government, not to him. Well, there it is, Joe. I mean, this is so clear cut that there are people who have defended Trump a lot in the last several years who just can't do it on this because it's so plain that he cannot have those documents in his house. And we showed Steve Doocy earlier. He was not only in the clip we showed, but explaining to his co-host yesterday, you just can't have top secret documents in the top drawer of your desk at Mar-a-Lago. So this is breaking through in places where some other stories about Donald Trump have not. I mean, everybody knows it. Everybody knows he can't have those documents. And Jonathan Lemire, you know, you've spent a lot of time covering Donald Trump. You've written a book about him. You've written the book on on the big lie. Meek and I obviously knew him for a decade before before

he was even ran for office. And it would be easy for people who knew Trump to say, well, you know, the guy's just so arrogant and he's just so self-centered that he thinks if he created these documents inside the White House, then he could take them home. And so I guess that would be an argument, but for the fact, and I keep going back to this point, that I know Trump's lawyers understand it's his biggest legal challenge now, except for the fact that if that had been it, he could have he could have had that fight, said, yes, I have all of these documents. They're mine. I created it. I disagree with a law that I signed. I disagreed with a law that that I signed and made made actually penalties even tougher for people who mishandle classified documents, which is a side note, we don't even talk about enough. But for the fact that the FBI and the DOJ said, after they got some documents back, after begging him to return the documents for months,

is that it? Are those other documents you have? And Trump and his lawyers said, yeah, that's all we have. That's all we have. And so then they have people inside the joint at Moralago telling the FBI that they were being lied to by Donald Trump. They go in and they find twice as many classified documents. They find them inside more than the amount they had originally had returned. And so you can't even put this off to Donald Trump's arrogance, saying he thought the documents were his, because you have the lie that he had returned all the documents. And of course, that has obstruction of justice. It just screams obstruction of justice. And that,

at the end of the day, is his biggest legal challenge. Yeah. And it's not just that Trump signed a bill to make the penalties tougher for people mishandling classified information. Let's recall, of course, that the entire 2016 campaign was about that with Trump denouncing Hillary Clinton's efforts at doing the same. I mean, you're right in that Trump's arrogance could have been, frankly, a possible plausible defense for part of this. Those of us who have spent time with Trump, who have covered Trump, all who spent time at his properties know that he is a pack rat, that he covers, he grabs souvenirs. He likes to put things up on the wall, sometimes even fake magazine covers, that he likes to show off to guests. I've said on the show before, I was part of a group of reporters that he at one point

brought into the Oval Office and was showing off the Kim Jong-un letters, documents that we should not have been seeing, ones the National Archives has retrieved, and that the problem he's now in are the shifting explanations and the shifting lies. The fact that he and his attorney, some who are going to have to recuse themselves from the case because they're themselves could be in legal trouble, have not been able to get their stories straight because the approach that he used as president in terms of just throwing things up against the wall, various excuses, various explanations, hoping one would fix, that might work in a political context. You might get one or two of those to break through on Fox News, in the conservative media, and be amplified to muddy the waters. That doesn't work

in the legal context. In fact, that only makes it more damaging. As an example, he, for a while, they were saying he had declassified everything. Well, we just saw the picture put out by the DOJ, that evidence photo, those documents displayed on the carpets with the cover letters saying top secret or classified, if he had declassified them, that would have been marked on the cover. It would now say declassified. That stamp would have been there. Of course, we're not seeing any of that. So it is his lies and shifting stories that have previously got him out of political trouble. This time has only increased his legal jeopardy. Yeah. And more confirmation. You know, Willie, we've shown a clip of Karl Rove. We've shown a clip of Steve Doocy just clearly saying what he's he's done is improper. I talked about earlier this week,

Ben Shapiro and and and Brit Hume telling Republicans, if you want to win the election, you need to put Donald Trump in your rearview mirror. We have Andrew McCarthy this this morning, obviously a fierce Trump defender on legal issues, talking about how this is a serious obstruction case for the reasons that I just pointed out, that would not be difficult to prove. And suggesting that in the New York Post, suggesting that the DOJ, if not a slam dunk, pretty close to having a slam dunk case of obstruction that they could easily prove against Donald Trump now. And in The Washington Times, another very conservative publication is is the headline.

Why Donald Trump will soon be indicted. And it's by Andrew Napolitano. It gives me no joy to write this piece. Even a cursory review of the redacted version of the affidavit submitted in support of the government's application reveals that he will soon be indicted by a federal grand jury for three crimes, removing and concealing national defense information and giving NDI to those not legally entitled to possess it and obstruction of justice by failing to return NDI to those who are legally entitled to possess it and obstruction of justice by failing to return NDI to those who are legally entitled to retrieve it, which, again, just if you're keeping score at home, that's Fox News, The New York Post and The Washington Times, three of the fiercest pro-Trump media outlets, all publishing pieces are talking about how Donald Trump, first of all, had no right to have these documents.

And secondly, that he's going to be indicted for obstruction at the very least. Well, because this is undeniable, that photograph we've been showing is a crime scene, effectively. And just based on what the Justice Department has pushed out into public, what we know publicly leads a lot of people to wonder how Merrick Garland could not indict the former president. And I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. I know we're going to talk about this, Joe. But speaking of those publications, The Wall Street Journal just crossed with a new poll that perhaps shows the heavy implications of this politically on Donald Trump. We're seeing big numbers up for Joe Biden, widening his margin and a potential head to head with Donald Trump and independents swinging massively toward Democrats right now. NBC's Ken Delaney. Thank you very much for coming on this morning with your insight. We appreciate it. And coming up, President Biden will deliver a major primetime address tonight on the battle for the soul of America. We'll tell you what to we can expect to hear.

Plus, Democrats pick up a seat in the House defeating Sarah Palin in a special election. Democrats don't usually win in Alaska. This is a weird one. How the Republicans attempt at a comeback turned into an upset for the Democrats. I still, I still, I will admit, I still don't understand the ranked voting stuff. Very convoluted. And later this morning, we will speak with the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, amid the ongoing water crisis there.

We'll ask when the capital city can expect reliable water again. Also, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will be our guest this morning amid Ukraine's counteroffensive to regain the Russian-occupied South. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. 639 now in the morning in the great city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with just over two months under until November's midterm elections. A new survey shows a major momentum shift for Democrats. Just crossing this morning, the latest Wall Street Journal poll shows 47 percent of registered voters say if the election were held today, they would vote for the Democratic candidate. That's compared to 44 percent who would vote Republican. A big swing for March when Republicans held a five point lead over Democrats. A big part of that shift comes from a change among independent voters who now favor Democratic candidates by 3 percent back in March, that lead was 12 percent for Republicans, a 15 percent swing since just March.

And when asked about a potential rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in 2024, voters say they prefer the current president 50 percent to 44 percent in March. The two were tied. Joe. Also in this poll, Joe Biden's approval number is up to 45 percent. This is a new Wall Street Journal poll that just crossed this morning. Yeah. And there are a lot of different reasons, I suppose, this is happening. You can look at the January 6th hearings. But on top of that, though, you just have to keep going back to the fact that Roe was overturned. Yeah, it's a half century guarantee of privacy rights for women where women would make decisions about their bodies, about their pregnancy, about their lives. Now you have state legislators, men, old men in state legislatures who are making those decisions for the most part. And we Americans don't do well

with having a right to privacy taken away after a half century. That has to be a big part of it. We've talked about the extremism on guns. We've talked about the extremism of violent rhetoric. You're going to look at Lindsey Graham talking about Republican riots, that Republicans are going to riot in the streets if they don't get their way. If the law is applied to Donald Trump, Donald Trump also, of course, pushing that narrative as well. And also, I say this at the end because I'm going to go back to what Ben Shapiro said earlier this week when he said Republicans should move away from Donald Trump. These days, there's negative partisanship. People don't vote for the most part for legislation that is passed. They vote against a candidate. They vote against the party. And right now,

Mika, you're looking at a lot of independents who have shifted dramatically. I'm sure you're looking a lot of suburban voters. Younger voters in this poll have moved very quickly. I will say in that case, there's no doubt there's no denying this. John De La Volpe has said this, and I think the numbers back it up. Actually, the student loan forgiveness. I think that has helped Joe Biden an awful lot with younger voters where he had just been getting absolutely hammered. So whether you think that's a good idea or not for Joe Biden and the Democrats, politically, a very good idea. But again, long way to go. But if these numbers hold over the next couple of months, then it's less likely that you're going to have that massive red wave that we were all expecting six months ago and that the Republicans should be

enjoying. Yeah. And the the the women, the votes of women, I think will will absolutely resonate in the midterms across the board. Joining us now, White House correspondent for Reuters, Jeff Mason. And Jeff, if I'm correct, tonight's address to the nation is a White House event. And if so, what exactly will the president be focusing on? What will he not be focusing on? Yes, Mickey, you're spot on about that. It is a White House event. He's going to focus on restoring the soul of America. I think despite the fact that it is an official event, you could also view it as the kickoff to President Biden's reemergence on the campaign trail ahead of the midterms.

The topic of the soul of America is one that has been a common theme for him up through the 2020 election. He kicked he started talking about that in an Atlantic op ed right after the Charlottesville riots. This is something that is near and dear to the president's heart. And it's and it's an opportunity for him to sort of frame the narrative ahead of the midterm elections about what Democrats are doing, what Republicans are doing and his pledge to to uphold democracy and use that as something as a contrasting theme for what he views as the other party and the former president are doing. Hey, Jeff, it's Jonathan. Because it's an official White House event, you're right. It seems like unlikely that he'll mention Donald Trump by name or get into the phenomenon that are the dark Brandon memes that have heartened White House

staff in recent weeks. But talk to us, though, about more on those contrasts. I mean, yes, tonight's theme is the soul of America, which we have heard this president use quite a bit before. But there are specific topics here where he and his aides have really gone out of their way to say, look, the GOP doesn't speak for the common American. That's on abortion rights. That's on guns and others. Tell us more about how they try to frame this going into the stretch run. Well, and you just mentioned abortion rights, as Mika did earlier as well. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, mentioned that from the podium yesterday. While trying to be careful not to get too deep into politics as a government spokesperson, she mentioned that as an example of rights being taken away and tying that theme into restoring the soul of America.

So I think you've got multiple topics, Jonathan, from from that to the string of successes that the president has had legislatively on gun control, on climate change. theme of democracy and pointing or painting the Democratic Party as supporters of democracy and the Republican Party and particularly the quote unquote MAGA extremists as not. And you saw him do that earlier this week when specifically tying the Democratic support for efforts to reduce gun violence and saying that you can't be in favor of the police while also defending what happened on January 6th. All of those are of a piece. And I think you'll see that sort of summed up tonight in the president's remarks. All right. White House correspondent for Reuters, Jeff Mason, thank you very, very much. We'll be watching the president's address to the nation tonight. Up next, we go live to Ukraine as inspectors are forced to delay their trip to Europe's largest nuclear power plant

after increased shelling makes the trip too dangerous. Ukraine's former president, Petro Poroshenko, joins us on that and how the state of the counteroffensive stands right now when Morning Joe returns. It's 10 minutes before the top of the hour. International inspectors are inching their way toward that threatened nuclear plant in Ukraine. Local reports say shelling erupted in the area today, delaying their arrival and prompting the emergency shutdown of a reactor. Intense clashes with Russian forces have triggered widespread concerns about a potential meltdown. It comes as Ukrainian forces mount their counteroffensive in the south. Russia claims to have shot down several of Ukraine's helicopters.

Joining us now, the former president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko. Thank you very much for being on with us once again, sir. If you could give us an update on how the Ukrainian forces are doing, especially in the south. First of all, thank you very much indeed for the invitation. And now the main events happening in the south of Ukraine and Krasnoye region, where we concentrated the biggest group of the brigade. This is the paratroopers, motorized artillery brigade. This is the paratroopers, motorized, artillery brigade, and everything starts to be possible because of our partnership with NATO and with the U.S. All the brigade is equipped

with the modern NATO artillery, have enough ammunition, and the combination of the efforts of the partners and bravery of Ukrainian soldiers is giving up a unique opportunity which we don't have before. Also, all Ukrainians, including myself, doing a lot to help our military to provide and support the counter-offensive. And only me and my team supply almost 100 trucks toward Howitz and Kannon, the 11th Armed Personnel Carrier. And this is just the demonstration that everyone here in Ukraine now is a soldier. And we have only the beginning of the operation.

This is just an artillery shelling and a few villages was taken by Ukrainian forces. But the main events it's still ahead and we're keeping fingers crossed for the success of Ukraine. And at the same time we're keeping in ruin the Russian plan to capture Donetsk region, to capture Donbass. And we are just returned from Slavyansk and Kramatorsk, meeting with the people, meeting with the soldiers. And I want to assure you that we do not, we are not going to give any

tiny new piece of Ukrainian soil to Russians. Not giving an inch for sure. And what about the possibility of taking back land that was annexed by Russia that was taken back in 2014? How much of a possibility is it to really gain ground in former Ukrainian territory? And if you could talk a little bit about the strength and the resolve or lack thereof in Russian forces. I just want to assure you that this has definitely happened. And I just want to remind you that when I was a president and commander, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Ukrainian Armed Forces, we released two-thirds of the occupied Donbas, including the Slavyansk, Kramatorsk, Lysychansk,

Severodonetsk, Mariupol. And now the Ukrainian soldiers, this pool of enthusiasm and the new opportunity we receive with the HIMARS, with the new artillery. And we definitely expect that on the new meeting, and it seems to me it will be in a few days in Rammstein, we also expected that the new decision about the training Ukrainian soldiers, about the jet fighter, about the anti-aircraft missiles. And we will restore fully the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Please don't have any doubt, because it's extremely important to stop Putin in Ukraine,

not allow him to go to Europe and not allow to pay the whole democratic world the bigger price than Ukraine now pay against Russian aggression. President Poroshenko, the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Association, says it cannot get access yet to Europe's largest nuclear power plant that sits in Ukraine that is controlled by Russia right now. Ukrainians have said that's because Russians are shelling that site. How concerned are you about a potential catastrophe around that nuclear power plant that could impact not just Ukraine, but all of Europe? First of all, this is absolutely what we expected from Перш за все, це абсолютно те, що ми сподівалися від російських. Путін додав нуклеарний тероризм. Це лангвіч Путіна, це лангвіч нуклеарного блакмейла. Putin is the language of strength. I was among the first who appeared in the Chernobyl nuclear power station immediately, hours after the Russians fleeted from Chernobyl.

And I meet with the heroic crew who stay there under Russian occupation, providing the nuclear security of Europe. And absolutely the same situation now in Ergodar, in Zaporizhia. And I just want to remind you that this is 10 times more powerful than Chernobyl station. And this is not dangerous only for Ukraine, only for part of Russia, but this is dangerous for the whole world. And that's why Ukrainian soldiers now try to do their best to minimize this risk. And I want to say that this is extremely impressive, the heroic steps of the delegation of IAEA, which, despite of the Russian shelling, despite of the immediate danger for their life, continue to do their works. And I

want to attract attention of the United Nations, and definitely we should have this question in the agenda of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and not throw possibility of the international peacekeepers, based on the Security Council of the United Nations decision, who can guarantee the nuclear security of Europe, nuclear security of the world. This is one of the possible ways how we can provide that. Former President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, thank you very much for being on this morning. Thanks a lot.