Morning Joe - Morning Joe 9/13/22

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

Justice Department has issued dozens of subpoenas in the last week related to Trump and the Capitol riot

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe is a live picture of the United States Capitol on Tuesday, September 13th. A lot to get to this morning, including the legal pressure intensifying again on former President Donald Trump. The Justice Department has issued dozens of subpoenas to associates and former aides as a grand jury investigates efforts to overturn the 2020 election. We will dig into that report in The New York Times. Also, more scrutiny on Trump's post-election fundraising. And as the right accuses the Biden administration of weaponizing the Justice Department, there is a new firsthand account of the Trump administration's urging of prosecutors to go after the then president's political opponents.

We will speak with Jeffrey Berman, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, out with an anticipated new book today. We also are following the major counteroffensive from Ukraine as forces continue to regain territory recently controlled by Russia. And King Charles III is on the move this morning. This is a live picture of his motorcade driving to the Edinburgh airport. He will fly then to Northern Ireland to meet with leaders and to receive condolences while mourners in London prepare for the arrival of the Queen's coffin to that city this afternoon. With us, we've got a columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius, and the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief at Politico,

author of the bestseller, The Big Lie, Jonathan Lemire. Good morning to you all. So, Joe, a busy day, this new report out of The New York Times that we'll dig into about new subpoenas issued to a wide range of people in Donald Trump's orbit around the effort to overturn the 2020 election. Right. You know, at first glance, surprising. But then after you think about it, not so much. There is a reason, of course, why we have all of these investigations moving forward. And whether it's the records investigation or whether it's around January the 6th or whether it's on Georgia's because Donald Trump obviously broke the law time and again. And you even have the most hard right lawyer saying what Attorney General Barr is now saying,

which is, did he break the law? Yes, of course he broke the law. Are the papers his papers? No, they're not his papers. Should he be arrested? Well, that's where the debate, uh, that's where the debate stands. So, uh, and yet, yet another, uh, far right legal analyst, uh, came out and said the same thing. So again, it's, it, you see the news and you sort of draw a breath, but at the same time, it's not so surprising. One person after another person after another person every day is facing justice for being

part of a mob that tried to overturn a presidential election. And the person that they all credit for getting them there, the person who inspired them to do that, the person who was the head of that conspiracy to commit sedition against the United States, well, he's living in his country club in Florida. At some point, justice is served. And at some point, Americans can be assured that no man, no woman is above the law. And of course, as you say, even William Barr, Trump's former attorney general, among those saying the Justice Department, it appears, has enough to indict. The question for him and others is, should they?

So here's what we know this morning. New information about the widening criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. NBC News now has confirmed that about 40 subpoenas were issued over the past week to people associated with former President Trump. According to The New York Times, which first reported the news, former Trump adviser Dan Scavino is among those subpoenaed. His attorney has declined to comment. A lawyer to former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Carrick confirmed to NBC News that Carrick was among those subpoenaed. Carrick reportedly was hired by Trump's legal team to investigate fraud in the 2020 election.

According to his lawyer, Carrick initially had offered to grant an interview voluntarily. A source tells NBC News former Trump adviser Boris Epstein was one of two people to have their phones seized. Epstein has been tied to the scheme to replace Biden electors with fake Trump electors. Former President Trump was spotted at his golf course in northern Virginia yesterday. Wearing that red Make America Great Again hat, Trump was seen with a group of about 8 to 12 people, including his son Eric. The former president making an unexpected arrival at Dulles Airport in Virginia on Sunday. Amid speculation the Justice Department could charge him with crimes. Trump posted on social media yesterday he was just working

during the rare post-presidential trip to the D.C. area. Let's bring in Justice Department reporter for The New York Times, Katie Benner, and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuaid. Good morning to you both. Katie, I'll start with you and this report in The Times that you contributed to. We laid out some of the names of this wide range of about 40 people around Donald Trump who did receive subpoenas from the Justice Department. So what who all are we talking about beyond some of the names we laid out and why this rush in recent days? So on the timing, I think that one of the reasons why the Justice Department

put out this sort of blast of subpoenas, requests for information, and took a couple of phones last week is because they are bumping up against the two months before the election, a period where the Justice Department really does not want to do a lot of over-investigative steps. Instead, what they tend to do is they try to analyze information they already have, or they try to subpoena companies like phone companies or tech companies for records, things that would not tip off to the public what it is they're investigating or what it is they're looking at so close to a very sensitive political cycle. And then in terms of who the Justice Department was looking at, they were really trying to get information from anybody who has acquaintance with or worked on or knows anything about a couple of the different

investigative threads they're already looking at, including the plan to to put forth an alternative or fake slate of electors in key swing states. And Barbara, I would take it. It's not great news for you whenever the Department of Justice sees the cell phones from your aides. What does that tell you about, first of all, where they're going with this investigation and how aggressive they are, how how how possibly close they are to charging the president? Yeah, Joe, you see that the circles are closing in on the highest levels of government here, close aides to the former president. And as I read these subpoenas, it seems to me that we are seeing kind of the fake elector scheme meeting the seditious conspirators scheme. And so what they're really looking for is, I think, a commonality at the top to connect these two threads together. And if you can make that connection, then you could put

Donald Trump right at the center of a conspiracy. He asked about phone seizing telephones. It says to me that they've looked at phone records that they're able to get from the phone company, but there may be encrypted phone messages that they can only get from the phones themselves. These tend to be the ones that are done in secret, the ones that might be the most sensitive. And so getting the phones, you know, it's where we are our most candid, our text messages, our list of people that we've made phone calls to. And so those can be very useful to tying those threads together. And text messages can really be a gold mine. As we saw in the January 6th hearings, it's where people speak candidly. It's where admissions come in. And so I think that it can be a veritable goldmine. Jonathan Lemire, you wrote the bestselling book on this attempted coup by the Trump administration, people around Donald Trump

to overturn the 2020 election. What jumped out at you about this report among the names we saw in there? I guess some of the suspects we would anticipate seeing there. But what else did you see in this new report? Yeah, it does just go show the breadth of this probe and therefore the breadth of the conspiracy to try to overturn that election. Boris Epstein, you know, is sort of basically the legal point person for Trump informally for some time now as he's struggled to retain significant lawyers and in his post presidency. Bernie Kerik, of course, we know was in the room at both the Willard Hotel, which is the command center across the street from the White House in the weeks after the 2020 election, as well as having time in the Oval Office. He was one of those who was able to

kind of freely come and go and was in conversations about seizing voting machines. He was in the room when Michael Flynn suggested that the military should be put on the nation's streets because of a, quote, rigged election. That, of course, none of that true, but just goes to show here that this probe is only widening. And Katie, I wanted to get you on this. We've had a conversation a lot that when there every time there seems to be a new DOJ step and there seems to be more momentum, we sort of run into that theory that 60 or so days out before an election, the DOJ wouldn't do something that could be perceived as political. We know Trump's name is not on the ballot, but we also know he is the leader of the Republican Party. It'd be political.

How what is your sense of it? People you talk to? And I know no decision has been made, but is that informal guideline front of mind for DOJ? Or is that something that if they feel like they need to go now, they will? The guideline is very front of mind, particularly vis-a-vis these investigations, because they are so sensitive. I would say that last week was probably the outside of what people would consider the period before the election. But also keep in mind, I don't think that we have any indication that the Justice Department is anywhere near charging anybody close to the former president or even the former president himself with the crimes around January 6th in particular. Keep in mind, if what they did last week is get, you know, if they subpoenaed information from 40 people,

that's information that the department and its investigators now have to comb through, look at, read and try to cross examine and try to cross reference. This is going to take a long time. So I wouldn't say that we're really close to charges. I wouldn't expect any charges before the election anyway because of this guideline. But even without an election, I would say that there's probably more than two months of work to do. Yeah. And David Ignatius, I had mentioned at the top of the show that we have yet more conservative lawyers coming out saying that Donald Trump clearly violated the law. Former George W. Bush, Jared Justice Department employee John Yoo, who helped write the memo used to justify interrogation techniques after September 11th, the so-called torture memo says that Trump's actions concerning the classified documents he took to Mar-a-Lago

were clearly against the law. Speaking to the National Conservatism Conference, he said this, Trump is not allowed to have the records and to keep them. He could get copies, but he can't keep them away from the archives. That's settled. It is not whether Trump violated the law. He did. It is not whether the government had legal grounds to search to get a search warrant. It does. The question really whether he could be charged is what's at stake. And he continued, the real issue, I think, for people on both sides should recognize is this. Is it a good use of prosecutorial discretion of judgment to charge him, you said. So my view has been if you're going to go after a president for the first time in American history for violating a law, I think it should be something much more important than this.

Like, for example, being involved with the January 6th conspiracy. David Ignatius, I think many would agree with John Yoo there that the January 6th conspiracy, the possibility of being part of of a conspiracy to commit sedition would be as bad of a crime as a president, a former president could commit. But the question is, again, what will Merrick Garland, what will the Department of Justice do? You look at all of this activity and my gosh, it wasn't that long ago that people were saying Merrick Garland just didn't have the stomach to hold Donald Trump accountable. I don't think anybody's saying that now. They're not. Merrick Garland has been slow, careful, steady, but unblinking. He keeps moving forward. He does exactly what he told us a year ago he would, which is to make this case systematically as a good prosecutor does to

start at lower levels, to get information, use that information to get additional information. I find in my reporting that the number of Republicans around Trump who are now willing to talk about him, about what happened, is just growing in a startling way. I want to ask Barbara McQuaid, who's a real legal expert, a question. As we think about what the Justice Department might actually charge Donald Trump with on these two fronts, the documents case at Mar-a-Lago and then the January 6th conspiracy case, I'm curious about how you see justice framing a criminal charge that they might bring. What would be the predicates that they need to be convinced of to go ahead and bring those cases? Obviously, they're very different cases, but just speak briefly to

what a good prosecutor, what an attorney general would need to have to go forward. Well, I think, David, in both cases, what you need is direct evidence of the knowledge and intent of Donald Trump. And I don't think it's an either or. You could charge him with both, though I think John Yoo makes a good point. If you charge him first in the documents case, does it cause a distraction for the January 6th case, which is by far the more significant case? But you don't have to pick one. You can charge both. And in many ways, you might have to. But I think what you would need in the documents case is evidence that Donald Trump himself knew what was happening and directed

others. And I think many of his out-of-court statements after the search warrant was executed tend to show that he did. You know, he has not denied it. He has, you know, used all kinds of arguments like the evidence was planted and I declass denied it. He has used all kinds of arguments like the evidence was planted and I declassified it. Not that, my gosh, I didn't know they were there. I'm so sorry. Let's get those back. So I think, but they still would need to show his direct evidence. And I think they can get there, but that's why additional investigation is necessary. In the January 6th case, I think as they're narrowing in on what happened at the Willard Hotel on January 5th and talking to all of those witnesses around them, I think they have the ability to determine Donald Trump's intent with regard to seditious conspiracy.

Did he know that the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys were going to attack the Capitol and they were going to use physical force to try to stop the certification of that vote. I think that if they can establish those facts or that they were going to use false electors to create a subterfuge so that Mike Pence could use that as a pretext for stopping the vote, if they can prove either of those things, I think they can charge that case. And it's there for the finding, if they can find it, with these witnesses that they're talking to. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuaid, New York Times Justice Department reporter Katie Benner again, some 40 subpoenas and two search warrants issued by the Justice Department in just the last week or so. Thank you both so much for being with us to discuss it this morning. The royal family continues to tour the United Kingdom during the period of mourning for Queen

Elizabeth II. Today, King Charles and the Queen Consort will travel from Scotland to Northern Ireland, where he will address the parliament there. The king also will attend a service in the capital of Belfast. The Queen's coffin will remain in Edinburgh until it is flown to London this afternoon. President Biden yesterday delivered remarks on his administration's Cancer Moonshot Initiative, which aims to slash the cancer death rate by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years. The president named longtime science adviser Renee Weggerson as the first director of a new federal agency established to drive biomedical research.

Biden's remarks came on the 60th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's famous moonshot speech. President Kennedy set a goal to win the space race against Russia and advance science and technology for all of humanity. And when he set that goal, he established a national purpose that could rally the American people in a common cause. And I believe we can usher in the same unwillingness to postpone the same national purpose that will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills to end cancer as we know it, and even cure cancers once and for all. Twitter's former head of cybersecurity will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee today after filing a whistleblower complaint about the company earlier this summer.

Peter Zatko is expected to sit before lawmakers for about three hours this morning for a hearing on data security at risk. In July, Zatko alleged members of Twitter's board of directors misled the public and government agencies about the strength of the company's security. Before leaving Twitter in January, Zatko says the company suffered significant security breaches so regularly, reports should have been filed with government agencies about once a week. Twitter has defended itself from those claims, painting Zatko as a disgruntled former employee who was fired for his, quote,

ineffective leadership and poor performance. We'll hear more from him today. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Ukraine continues to make strategic gains in the ongoing war against Russia. Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko will join us to weigh in on a counteroffensive that has shocked the Russians. Plus, the House Select Committee investigating January 6th, likely to hold another public hearing later this month. Now, we will talk to committee member Congressman Adam Kinzinger about that. Also this morning, with less than two months to go now until Election Day, new polling shows Ohio Senate race is neck and neck. Democratic Senate candidate Congressman Tim Ryan joins our conversation next when Morning Joe comes right back. I don't need to fight. To prove I'm right.

I don't need to be. They say you can know a person by their enemies. Well, here comes their bulls**t dads. That's from the people who push bad trade deals with China. I vote against them every single time. And that's from the people who sell out Ohio workers. I vote against them, too. Ohio workers need a tax cut. And here come the culture wars. I'm not that guy. I'm Tim Ryan, and I approve this message. Still got it.

New ad from Ohio's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate, Congressman Tim Ryan, responding to some of the outside groups that are spending millions of dollars to support his Republican opponent, J.D. Vance. So much of Vance's money has just poured in from Silicon Valley over the past year. A new USA Today Suffolk University poll shows Vance Trell and Congressman Ryan by one point. That's within the poll's margin of error, but shows just how competitive this race is in a state that Donald Trump won pretty easily two times. We've got Congressman Tim Ryan with us now. Talk about those people. Nice, nice scene. You've got the Jason Sudeikis car cam working for you today.

We thank you for coming to us, even though you're in the middle of campaigning. I know. Talk about really quickly those people that that have funded his campaign, that funded him in the primary. The Silicon Valley Titans that he said he loved and the area that he said he loved until he decided to become a politician. Yeah. So, you know, Peter Thiel obviously gave him 15 million dollars for the primary guy. The guy got two donors, Joe. Peter Thiel gave him 15 million in the primary. And then Mitch McConnell came in with 30 million dollars. All of this money that Mitch McConnell got are this very people who offshored the jobs in Ohio, who made money off of NAFTA and all of these big trade deals that really led to the disinvestment, the job loss, the heartache, the opiate addiction here in Ohio. That's the money that Mitch McConnell's using to try to buy the Senate seat here in Ohio. And we have two hundred fifty thousand low dollar donors.

People can go to Tim Burrow, H.com to help us out. But we got low dollar donors trying to combat this thing. And we're winning, you know, by a point or two here or there. But I think we're going to win it because he's so disconnected. You guys ran the piece about the Ohio State game. The guy is a complete fraud, started an opiate charity. Who starts a fake opiate charity to prey on people in Ohio? J.D. Vance does. Yeah. So talk about it. There's a question. Where is J.D. Vance? He's not doesn't seem to be really campaigning that much. Do you get a sense that I'm serious? Listen, I you know, I know I'll just talk. Me and you talk politician to politician, former House member to House former House member.

You know, people would always ask me, how do you do that? How do you knock on people's doors all day? How do you go in and talk to them, have dinner with them? I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I considered it an honor when people would let me in their homes to talk about what mattered the most to them. I know you're the same way, but this guy that you're running against, he doesn't seem to even like this. And by the way, it's not just just media people telling this top Republican donors are saying he's the worst candidate they've ever seen in his life. He hates being out there. He shouts at people in meetings. What what's his deal, man? What's his what's his deal? I'm not going to lay him down on the couch here and analyze him. I'm not

exactly sure. All I know is that there's one primary value that we have in Ohio. You know, whether you're rich or poor, you're middle class, you better be out there grinding. You know, in Ohio, we value hard work more than anything else. You know, some people are smarter than others, but but everybody is expected to work hard. And those are the values. That's how we were raised in Ohio. And it's a complete slap in the face. The dude took the whole summer off. I mean, who doesn't want to take the whole summer off? Everybody does. Single moms with a couple of kids. You're working. I travel the state. I meet factory workers working six, seven days a week, busting their rear ends for their kids, for their family. And you got someone running for the Senate here who took the entire summer off, who wants to do rewarded. We just need the resources necessary to keep that.

You saw the ad. My guys at Left Hook are doing a great job with our ads. And we're getting out there and people don't like him. We just got to keep the heat on him. But I just don't think he likes people. I think he wants to be called senator one day. You've done this long enough, Joe. You know, there's some people who want to get in there and grind it and help people.

And there's some people that just want the title. And he's just a guy that wants the title. And he's a fraud. Congressman, to your point about how people feel about you and feel about him, J.D. Vance in the state of Ohio, there's that part of that poll that we show that has you effectively tied gets into favorability. You are forty six favorable, twenty six unfavorable. He's 42 favorable, 43. So you're plus 17 in that unfavorable. So I guess that leads me to a question of your message to Republicans in the state of Ohio. There are people who say, well, Ohio's gone red now, right? They went plus seven or eight or whatever it was for Donald Trump.

What is your message to Ohio Republicans in this general election who may look at J.D. Vance and say, I don't like the way he's running the campaign. Maybe I don't like the guy and are giving you a look. Well, I would say one, I'm one of the most bipartisan members of Congress. The last two Congresses, I've been in the top 10 percent of most bipartisan. I want to work across the aisle. Look, the Democrats aren't right on everything. And I'm willing to sit down and have conversations about how we can move out of this age of stupidity and into an age of reconciliation and reform. How do we fix all of these broken systems? Some of those answers will come from Republicans, not not the extremists that we're dealing with every single day. We've got to kill and confront that movement. But, you know, working with normal mainstream Republicans, I think that's going to be

really, really important because we have to reform these systems. And I will tell them, too, like we got to get the government out of our business. I'm all in on that. You see the Dobbs decision. You see, you know, in Florida where they're trying to punish businesses. J.D. Vance is all in on that, punishing businesses because they don't necessarily have the business culture that these ideologues want them to have, like, you know, government overreach into the private lives of our citizens, like with the Dobbs decision, getting rid of birth control, talking about nullifying marriages like that is way too much government in our business. And I'm down with that. And I think it's important for us also to dominate the industries of the future. That means

infrastructure. That means research. And, you know, we have to talk about the fact that just spending money, just spending money does not solve problems. We have broken systems. So we've got to fix these systems. I think that's going to be an era of reform that I would love to lead and be a part of. And I think it's important for this country as we come out of the pandemic. So I'm saying exhausted majority Democrats, Republicans and independents against the extremists leading an era of reform and reconciliation so we can heal this country and move into the future. And again, I don't have a billion dollar donor here to fund me. I need the low dollar people who can go to Tim for a wage dot com and chip in a couple of bucks and help us put this put this extremist movement to bed so we can move on with being Americans again. Hey, two quick questions. And we've got we actually have some other stories we have to go to.

But one of them has to do with growing concerns about a police shortage. I have asked Democrats on this show before about defunding the police, and everyone that comes on is against defunding the police, though some are not as supportive of our men and women in law enforcement as a voter. I personally would want them to be, some Democrats. And so I want to ask you the question about law enforcement. Of course, you've got crazy, extreme Republicans in the House calling for the defunding of the FBI. understand, do you understand as a Democrat that people are leaving law enforcement because they don't think that elected officials have their back, that they will see what the 5 percent do, the 3 percent do, the 1 percent do. They get picked up on cell phones and repeated on TV a thousand times. But the 99 percent who were kissing their kids on the forehead goodnight, hugging their wives or their husbands goodbye and

going off and risking their lives at night, protecting us, that those people just don't feel like politicians have their back anymore. So they're quitting. Do you understand that? Do you understand that crisis? And do you understand that law enforcement officers across America need all of our support? A thousand percent, Joe. And that's one of the frustrating things you saw. One of the TVs in the ad had that, you know, defund the police on the screen when I threw the football at it,

because we want to be very, very clear. That's that's that doesn't make any sense. That's crazy. People need help, especially with what's going on in some of our cities. They want to pick up the phone and call someone to come help them with a really, really bad situation. And those people in those jobs are, as you said, they have kids, they have spouses. It's a dangerous job. I did a ride along a month or two back just outside of Dayton. And any time you pull somebody over at night, like it's scary. You never know, especially in Ohio, when you can have everybody can have a gun in their car.

We need more cops. We need better paid cops and we need to get rid of bad cops. I think that's a pretty simple thing that 95 percent of Americans would agree with. If you've done something wrong, if you're doing something wrong, you should be out and prosecuted. But I have cops in my district, Joe. They make 14 bucks an hour to start. I mean, it's crazy. I mean, so we've got and that's why we put money into the rescue package for state and local governments so that they could beef up, you know, some of the law enforcement on the ground. That's why I brought back almost a half five hundred million dollars

to Ohio to fund cops and technology and the equipment they would need, because you have to make sure that these communities are safe. And again, J.D. Vance, he wants to abolish the ATF, which helps these cops solve crimes and prevent drug and gun crimes. He wants nothing to do with the FBI. He's running around with Marjorie Taylor Greene and these other people who want to punish FBI agents who keep us safe. It's crazy. And that's what I mean when I say exhausted majority,

Democrats, Republicans, independents bring back some freaking sanity to the country so that we can move forward and out compete China. It's got to be it's got to be a united effort. Congressman, I know you're hearing a lot on the campaign trail about immigration linked to the opioid crisis that you've been talking about for a long time in the state of Ohio. Two million. There will be two million arrests at the border this year, shattering a record. A couple of days ago, I meet the press. Vice President Kamala Harris said, quote, We have a secure border.

Do you agree with her? No, I mean, I think we've got still way too much fentanyl coming into the country. It starts in China, goes to Mexico. You know, I know the efforts are there. They're trying, but we're not anywhere close to where we need to be on the border. I disagree with what's going on with the Title 42 right now, too. I think it's important that we figure that out before we make things easier. We need comprehensive immigration reform. We've got to have an orderly process on how we come in.

But I have a resolution that says we need to designate fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction so that we can marshal all of the federal resources, have a whole of government approach to keeping this junk out of our out of our communities. And Ohio is still suffering from that. Then again, you know, J.D. Vance started a fake opiate charity where he brought in Big Pharma to be the mouthpiece for his charity that was blaming the addicts that that that Purdue Pharma got people hooked on these opiates. I mean, who does that? So this is a big issue that I've been working on. We've got but we've got to have a whole of government approach, designate fentanyl as weapon of mass destruction, increase border patrols, and keep this junk out and make sure we know who's in the country. And I think that's, again,

that's something that I think 90% of Americans would agree on, but we've got to do a lot more. So I don't necessarily agree with that comment. Congressman, I know you got to fire up the car and hit the trail. One last question. Where do you figure you'll be around seven o'clock Saturday night when Ohio state plays Toledo. Not at the Donald Trump rally. I can promise you that. Well, JD Vance's campaign says he, those great programs, when they kick off, he will be checking the score frequently. He's taking some criticism for holding that rally in the Ohio state game. These campaigns are great, Willie, because they, they, you have these,

Joe knows this, you have these moments that reveal candidates. And that was the moment when, you know, this guy has nothing to do with Ohio. He just doesn't get it. And that's obvious. And Willie, was it a bad sign that he said he'd be listening and following the score because his favorite football team

has always been the Ohio State Nittany Lions? Might not be a football guy. because his favorite football team has always been the Ohio State Nittany Lions. Might not be a football guy. By the way, we're not hiding Congressman Tim Ryan. It's just that his video is frozen as he sits in the car and gets moving. But at least we had his audio. We're grateful for that.

Thanks for checking in with us this morning. Ohio's Democratic nominee for the United States Senate, Congressman Tim Ryan. Congressman, thanks again. It is time now for a look at the morning papers. We will start in Delaware, where Joe was just talking about this. The News Journal reports police forces are facing severe staffing shortages. New figures reveal, on average, departments have one officer for every 370 residents. In one county, departments have one officer for more than 500 residents.

In Illinois, the Beacon News reports children's hospitals in that state are seeing a surge of kids with respiratory illnesses. Some hospitals are treating about 50 percent more children than usual every day, a spike usually that does not happen until winter. The surge posing a particular challenge for hospitals due to staffing shortages. Maryland's the Capitol leads with the latest on the state's gubernatorial election. New data shows Democratic nominee Wes Moore has received nearly four times as much in donations from Governor Larry Hogan's former supporters as Republican nominee Dan Cox. In the latest reporting period, Moore raised nearly $2 million. Cox reported just under $200,000. And in the state of Maine, the Portland Press-Herald has an item on an environmental agency that is urging customers not to purchase lobster. The agency recently added

U.S. lobster to a red list of seafood to avoid due to the way it's harvested and the possibility of harming the environment. The call has sparked backlash against national food retailers that have stopped offering lobster after the list's release. Senator Angus King of Maine, very fired up about this. He'll join us later this morning to weigh in on this. We'll also talk to him about what's going on on Capitol Hill, Joe. Yeah, it's an absolutely ridiculous classification. And some talk that somehow these these lobstermen and women are harming whales. And again, they're talking about absolutely ravaging a way of life. And it's a bizarre classification. And we're going to be talking again. We'll be talking to the senator on this and many other things coming up. We can also

have a look at the must read opinion pages. Plus, we're going to dig into the claims from a former U.S. attorney that former President Trump directed prosecutors in the Justice Department to go after his political enemies. What a surprise. You know what? I'll give an example. When he told the attorney general two weeks before the election that he should arrest his opponent and his opponent's family. Like, what are these people whining about now? Donald Trump commits crimes in broad daylight and they're accusing the Biden administration of politicizing the DOJ. What a joke. Morning Joe, be right back. My picture of the White House at six forty four in the morning, Ukrainian forces continue their rapid push in the northeast of the country,

taking back more territory and driving Russian troops into a chaotic and hasty retreat. In his nightly address last night, President Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had taken back more than 2000 square miles of land that had been under Russian control just this month. NBC News has not been able to independently verify that exact figure, though a spokesman for the Ukrainian military says Russian soldiers were surrendering en masse as, quote, they understand the hopelessness of their situation. The mood was jubilant across the country as the Ukrainian flag was raised over newly liberated territories. Ukrainian special operations forces yesterday released video of what they say their troops, video showing their

troops ambushing a Russian vehicle. According to the video caption, the unit spotted the vehicle while on patrol and the ambush was, quote, arranged quickly and successfully. David Ignatius, your latest piece in The Washington Post is titled How Ukraine's Offensive Changes the Equation for Putin and Zelensky. In it, you write this, quote, Zelensky has refused to negotiate from weakness. Now, after seven punishing months, he is in a position of strength. Talking to his exuberant country, he speaks of liberating all of Ukraine's territory. But he must know that is unrealistic for now. And the moment might be approaching when Zelensky from his newly dominant position

opens a door to diplomacy. Even if the Russians scorned his gesture, it would reinforce the image that Zelensky has the upper hand. So, David, let's start with the assessment of what's happened really just in the last few days or in weeks or so, which is that they've gone on this offensive, this counteroffensive, have the Ukrainians and really pushed back the Russian military into the east all the way to the Russian border in some cases. How are they doing it? Willie, they're doing it through meticulous planning. I wrote this morning that Ukraine and the Ukrainian military are rewriting the history of the 21st century. I mean it. They initially attacked in the south, trying to relieve pressure on the Black Sea areas

and moving toward Kherson, a port city in the south. Russians got preoccupied with that. And then the Ukrainians, with great finesse, moved hard in the northeast towards the city of Kharkiv, which the Russians had taken that area in the beginning days of the war and had almost forgotten about it. And all of a sudden, an enormous Ukrainian advance moved in that area. Russians were taken by surprise, began a kind of pell-mell retreat and the Ukrainians moved across substantial amounts of territory that President Zelensky's claim on Sunday night that it's 2,000 square miles that's been occupied is extraordinary. But that's similar to the figures that I'm hearing. The two things I think, Willie, that are crucial about this. First, this encourages Ukrainians

and their supporters in Europe and America to believe that this war can have a successful conclusion, that Ukraine can take back its territory. Second, it presents President Vladimir Putin and Russia with a very difficult choice. This special military operation, as he likes to call it, is obviously visibly not going well. Russians watch television. They see these reversals. So Putin either has to define victory downward. He has to find some way to to reduce his ambitions in Ukraine, or he has to figure out a way to escalate and punch back harder. And that's the thing I think that's concerning officials in the Biden administration. What are the ways that Putin increasingly backed against the wall might strike back to try to regain some advantage in a war where he really has lost the initiative? But it's been an extraordinary week for people who watch the Ukrainians fight so bravely.

This just been something remarkable to see the courage and determination and now the success on the ground. Well, David, this has been really just been a colossal historic miscalculation by Putin. Now we hear Russian Europeans announcing that they figured out a way to get through the winter effectively without Russian imports. So exports. So, David, the question is, how is there a negotiated settlement? Vladimir Putin's not going to just say, I made this historic gamble and lost and and crushed Russia's economy. As you said, he's got other options. So the question is, how do both sides get to the table when Ukraine has an upper hand is does that go through China is it China that she finally gives Putin the message uh hey

listen we we need to wind this down and and let's let's negotiate with the Ukrainians and the Americans to end this war Joe the the answer is we just don't know yet. And I think it's premature to talk about negotiations at a time when Ukraine is moving forward still aggressively on the battlefield. Who might be a possible mediator? The U.N. secretary general has had some surprising success in negotiating deals to get Ukrainian grain out of ports in the Black Sea, that's that's a possibility. We just don't don't know yet. I think this war is going to go into next year before we see any real break in Russia's willingness to consider negotiations. But I do think that that this is now a point where Ukraine has the upper hand. Ukraine didn't want to negotiate in previous months because they felt they were on their back foot.

They don't want to negotiate from weakness. Now they're in a position of strength. And I think they look all the stronger, if they say, as the Biden administration does. In the end, we need to have a negotiated settlement to this war, one in which Ukraine regains its territory, regains its sovereignty. But as you suggest, it's hard to see that moment absent some additional changes on the battlefield. So, Willie, I wrote last week on the eve of this breakthrough for the Ukraine's counteroffensive, the Biden administration was feeling bullish

about where things were, and the success that Ukraine has had has even caught them by surprise. Though they do caution there's a long way to go. They do suspect this war has months and months to go. But they made a key point here. This success here gives not just a victory for the Ukrainians to rally around, but their allies.

And Europe, though, has made progress addressing the gas shortages it could face this fall, could still be a cold, dark winter in Europe and in the United States as well, as the administration plans to ask for more money for Ukraine. They want to be able to keep Republicans in line. There have only been a few lone dissenting voices for people saying, hey, why are we spending so much in Kyiv? Why are we not doing that here at home? They were fearful, though, that if this war had really turned into a difficult slog, those number of voices would grow. Administration officials I speak to now think that this Ukraine victory here, this pushback is going to keep them silent and they

feel like they'll be able to keep this bipartisan coalition here at home and with European allies abroad. And while those critical voices inside Russia, by the way, tend to be quiet, they're getting a little bit louder around Vladimir Putin as this goes badly for him. David Ignatius will be reading your piece in The Washington Post today. Thanks so much, David. Still ahead, NBC's Ken Delaney joins us to break down the slate of subpoenas issued by the Justice Department related to Donald Trump and the attack on the United States Capitol. Plus, we'll be joined by a member of the January 6th Select Committee, Congressman Adam Kinzinger. We also are watching out for key new inflation data, how that might influence the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates next week. Morning Joe's coming right back. Wow, that's a beautiful sunrise just before the top of the hour in Washington.

Big night at the Emmys last night. If you didn't stay up late, you missed Succession and Ted Lasso winning the top awards at last night's 74th annual Emmys. Succession winning for Best Drama Series, and Ted Lasso taking home the award for Best Comedy. The White Lotus and Squid Game also both were favorites, winning several awards. Squid Game made history with the star of the series, Lee Jung-Jai, winning Best Actor, becoming the first person from a foreign language show to win that leading award. Abbott Elementary had a big night as well, Joe. But Ted Lasso, Sudeikis winning as well, cleaning up a bunch of awards last night.

Ted Lasso, obviously, we've talked about how much we love it here. But for you and me, Willie, for you and me, a special mention to Nathan Lane, who won an award for Only Murders, which just incredible. Second season, somehow even better than the first season. And Severance, a lot of nominations didn't win. But I've got to say, when you look what Ben Stiller and Adam Scott and Britt Lauer, what they've done with that show. Have you seen any of us? I confess I haven't. But all I've heard are good things.

And it's in my queue waiting to be watched, along with about 100 other shows that I need to see. But I hear incredible things about it. It's one of the it's one of those things that I like, for instance, the offer. I tell everybody, oh, you've got to see the offer. You love it because the Godfather thing about severance Severance, it's a little out there, but I absolutely loved it. And most people that tell me watch Severance end up loving it. But wow. I mean, Ben Stiller has come up with something pretty extraordinary. So yeah. And the White the white lotus to a big year for that show. Just a dark and bizarre and an excellent show. And they won a bunch of awards last night, too. We're going to have much more and dig into some incredible moments to some historic moments at the Emmys coming up in our fourth hour.

But up next year, we'll have the latest reporting on dozens of new subpoenas related to the January 6 investigation. Also ahead, some progress in the legal fight over the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago. The DOJ and Trump's attorneys appear to be close now to agreeing on a list of potential special masters in that case. Morning Joe's coming right back.