Morning Joe - President Trump really was on the ballot, says the WSJ editorial board

Episode Date: November 6, 2025

President Trump really was on the ballot, says the WSJ editorial board Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Every election brings us new and interesting characters. And the breakout stars last night were Virginia governor-elect Abigail Spanberger and her 10-year-old daughter, Catherine. To my daughters, Claire, Charlotte, and Catherine, I'm so proud of you. Every single day, I am lucky to be your mother. And, Catherine, you did not clean your room today as you promised me. I'm working on it. She's working on it. If I was working on it, we wouldn't have won this election, okay?

Mom, you're embarrassing me in front of your constituents. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, November 6th, and there is a lot of analysis. A lot. Still coming out of Tuesday's elections and what the results really mean for both parties. For Democrats, the issue of a lot of. affordability really seem to have resonated with voters. Meanwhile, the reaction from Republican leaders ranges from nothing to see here to there's a lot of work to do before next year's

midterms. Looming over all of that is the longest government shutdown in history as Senate Republicans continue to face pressure from President Trump to take the nuclear option to end it. We're going to dig into all of that. Plus, we'll take you through yesterday's high stakes. Court hearing on President Trump's tariffs. Big news out of that as well. Also, the judge overseeing the federal case against former FBI Director James Comey called out prosecutors at a hearing yesterday, slamming them for indicting first and investigating later. Kind of the worst thing you could say, actually, along with Joe Willie and me. We have the... I'm a simple, I'm a simple, I'm a simple country lawyer, and I don't know these strange ways of your, your courtrooms,

your flashy, shiny courtrooms. But I do know if a federal judge says, it looks like a prosecutor, you actually decided to indict verse and investigate later. Right. Usually not a very good sign, Willie. And you know what, it's also not a good sign. What? We had this little rat scare yesterday at 30 Rock.

Wasn't really a rat. It wasn't. It's okay. Wasn't like a wharf rat, the type of warfrette. You see down at like the fish house in Pensacola, one of those warf rats. But she thought she saw a rat. I did. And, yeah, that's what she thought.

It was Barnacle just throwing something. But T.J., go to the floor and show Mika's actually packing up at 30 Rock. She's like, she doesn't, she's ready to get out of there. She just, it's like, it's like, I just put some things in my purse. So like, I took this off the wall. Isn't this cute? Come on, Lemmeer. That's a cute picture.

I have to have that. And then while I was at it, I found a weekly planner. I think that'll be good. Always important. I'm going to take that. We need one of those. And then, you know, for Joe. He did breakfast all over.

But, yeah, I just got a few other things, too. I was in the makeup room. But yeah, bye-bye, 30 Rock. Why not? I've got to bring the planner, and I'm going to take a few more pictures on the wall before I leave. You got to have a planner before you go to the palace. But Willie, anyway, you need to talk about the rat scare yesterday at 30 Rock. What did the stones say in respectable or in shattered?

Don't mind the morph rats at 30 Rock. But there are no rats there. Yeah, something. never mind the maggot happy birthday everybody uh so but anyway the um a lot of meek is moving out there will be here's my segue republican governors moving out uh our governors moving out of of their mansions in virginia i actually i had a call with steve bannon last night uh and interviewing him for the newsletter to see what his take was The tea.

The tea. And he, you know, his take is sort of like Carl Rove's take and Newt Gingrich's take, which is we've got a lot of work to do. Democrats figured out how to run on affordability. Democrats figured out how to win on populist issues. And we were running traditional campaigns straight out of 1990, you know, old Republican-style campaigns, which is, We're going to cut taxes, and we're going to fight against the state government. And what Bannon said about Spanberger and Cheryl was, they went straight to people's pocketbooks. They went straight to their dinner tables, and they talked about affordability, they talked about higher electric bills, and he said, that's why it wasn't even a close fight.

And he thinks that this election, and the Democrats sort of adapting and adjusting, and whether it's in New York or, Virginia or up in New Jersey. He says it's going to be, you know, the future is going to be right-wing populism versus left-wing populism. And Democrats, he thinks, have a lot of reasons to, you know, to follow up on some of those successes. First of all, I like that we're just straight up having a fire sale at 30 Rock. Grab stuff off the walls, whatever you can get your hands on. Before we close the doors on MSNBC, I think a week from Friday is the last. last day before we moved over to the palace, which I was visited yesterday, and it's very nice. It would be a nice move for it.

It's great. So lovely. But yeah, you're absolutely right. We talked about this yesterday, and it sounds like Steve Bannon understands this well, which is staying away for Democrats from all of these social issues that dog them a year ago and have dogged them for the last couple of years and just saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's talk about what's really important, the fact that you can't afford to buy groceries, that you can't buy a house until you're 40 years old in this country, all the things that.

that are so true in this country right now. And so Abigail Spanberger, Mikey Sherrill, Mamdani in New York City, are those skills, are those messages transferable? Democrats seem to think so now as they move ahead a year from now to the midterm elections. You mentioned Joe, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

He too is warning Republicans. They have a major problem now after Tuesday's election results. In an interview at the New York Times, Gingrich said he believes President Trump is right about his absence on the campaign trail, meaning voters stayed home, a challenge Gingrich says the party has to confront. Gingrich told the Times, quote, Republicans need to confront that we had a bad night and that it

didn't have to be a bad night. You can't just shrug your shoulders and say, gee, if only we could run Donald Trump every time, because you can't do it. When you talk about 26 and 28, Republicans have to find a way to motivate the base Trump voter to come out and vote. Joe, this is something you were talking about yesterday. Donald Trump on the top of the ballot, Republicans do very, very well. When he's not on the ballot, history shows us they don't. I mean, they just don't. I mean, and, you know, Jonathan Lemire, let's just look at the scorecard. Donald Trump is on the ballot in 2016, Republicans do well. He's off in 2017. They lose. Often 2018, they lose. Often 2019, they lose. off in 2020 or on in 2020 he loses they lose often 21 they lose often 22 they lose often 23 they lose he's on in 24 they win

often 25 they lose it's something that i've said forever and we'll talk to chris matthews maybe you can take it to chris matthews after this republicans thought because ronald regan won 49 states that they were going to always win 49 states they learned very quickly bill clinton taught them very quickly. Not the case. The same thing with Barack Obama. Everybody thought, oh, if anybody that was around Barack Obama thought that magic was going to somehow, you know, brush off on them. No, no, that was about Barack Obama. It wasn't about any new, you know, a new group of voters, rising ascendancy, of voters. No, it wasn't about that. It was about Barack Obama's political. skills and him being able to have a liberal message and a liberal voting record, but also

reach out to people in the middle of the country. Donald Trump, he's taking a political party, the Republican Party, always said it. And Bannon said it in my interview with him last night. Traditional Republican campaigns will get you 38, 39, 40%. They just will. We're going to cut your taxes. we're going to cut your regulations, we're going to, you know, cut government. You're 38%, 39%. The question's always, how do Republicans get over the top? Reagan knew how to do it, and Donald Trump knows how to do it. These Republicans still haven't figured it out, and I will tell you what, you can call

Tuesday night, whatever you want to call it, but politically, it was just an absolute landslide. I mean, you had, you know, people thinking New Jersey was going to be one or two points. It ended up being like, what, a dozen plus points. Like Mikey Cheryl and Abigail Spamberger just completely blew away their competition politically by double digits. Nobody saw that coming. Yeah, there are two things that play here. First, one thing Donald Trump is very good at is turning out low propensity voters or voters who have never before cast their ballots. That is such a hard thing to do in politics. Trump very skilled at that.

And that's been a concern in Republican circles for a while, is once Trump is off stage, will they be able to get those voters to come out again in non-Trump years? And I think last night is evidence. They have reason to worry about that. Also, last night shouldn't have been a surprise, and it wasn't to some close to Trump.

Excuse me. They can read the polls. They know he's underwater on the economy. They know that his signature issues like immigration, most Americans don't approve of those either. We had a, the White House political director gave an interview last night, acknowledged Republicans got beat on the issue of affordability. So Chris Matthews, the part, the question now is ahead of the midterms, can Republicans adjust? Can they, as Steve Bannon said, as others have said, do they change their message somewhat? Focus on pocketbook issues.

focus on affordability. Because Trump himself, at the very least, is not suggesting that. He is saying, let's go harder on the issues that got me here. He's saying, let's go harder on immigration. And he's acknowledging that the government shutdown is an issue for Republicans, that they took the worst of it. He said that in his meeting with Republican senators yesterday. But a solution is to blow up the filibuster.

That's what he wants to do. It's just extreme methods, these same extreme methods that voters on Tuesday seem to reject. Yeah, I think the idea of giving me more power, which is what ending the filibuster is all about. It allows Trump to rule the country by ruling his own Republican caucus, which he's been very good at. And the idea that it takes a straight majority vote in the U.S. Senate to pass every appropriations bill that comes along gives him enormous power right now. And the people can see that. And I look at Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey. similar to what's happening in New York City. It's affordability. If you live in that area

around New York, if you're a young person with a young family and you're trying to provide for them and build a house or find an apartment that's big enough for a couple kids, you're not barely a big friend of the status quo. And, you know, this guy, Madani, is the new kid on the block. He's fresh. As they used to say about John Lindsay 50 years ago, when he ran for mayor, He's fresh and everybody else is tired. He's fresh. He's new. He's hopeful.

He can do things. Mikey Cheryl looks the same way. She was fabulous the other night when she won. She just looks to me like the new kid. She's going to make things happen. And I think he's talking structural change, which is scary. Boy, that's a phrase I haven't heard from the 60s. Structural change.

That means something to do with wealth, something to do with who's calling the shots. And that's the new mayor of New York. So there are going to be some challenges ahead. and he better be there when the snow falls because winter's coming. And one thing we've learned about mayors, be there on the job, telling people what happened on the street corner, right on the curb, be standing there when there's a fire or there's snowfall. You be there and do the job. And all this talk about Israel is nonsense.

The less he says about Israel and the rest, the less he talks about world politics and intifadas, the better. The more he does the job, the better for him. So the Wall Street Journal editorial board argues in a new piece, Trump really was on the ballot, and it reads in part, quote, President Trump on Wednesday blamed Tuesday's Republican election defeats on the government shutdown and the fact that he wasn't on the ballot. If he really believes this, the GOP is heading for bigger problems in 2026, Mr. Trump was on the ballot, not literally, but nonetheless, as the main motivating force behind a. dominating democratic turnout. The electorate gave Mr. Trump another term because he pledged to lower prices and raise real incomes. But his economic record is mixed at best. Meantime, he pursues polarizing distractions from his mandate, such as ordering the National Guard

into cities that don't want it for lobbying and lobbying for indictments of his political opponents. The 2025 election was a warning from voters. If Republicans don't adapt, the GOP is sure to lose its House majority, and the Senate could be in play, too. The editors of the National Review echo that sentiment in a new piece entitled, A Big Democratic Night. It reads in part, President Trump attributed the tough night, in part, to his not being on the ballot. That clearly, an element of the problem, other Republicans can't turn out his voters the way he can. But Trump left out the other part of the equation, which is that the unrelenting Democratic message linking every Republican on the ballot to him clearly worked. And the vote share of winsome Earl Sears and Jack Chitterelli about matched Trump's low 40s approval ratings in their states.

All things being equal, these are bad signs for next year's congressional midterms. No amount of gerrymandering will be able to withstand this kind of Democratic. surge if it materializes again in a year's time. And Steve Ratner, I mean, in a way, is it fair to say people were really feeling the effect of some of the things that has come out of this Trump administration or they're about to and they know it's coming, whether it's health care prices rising, affordability, housing, groceries, everything is worse. And they know Republicans are in power, there's a shutdown. Trump repeatedly over the past decades has said if there's a shutdown, it's the president's fault. I don't know how they can separate the reality that people are

feeling right now to the president who's in charge. No, that's exactly right, Mika. And so the election was about affordability. And with good reason, it is a much tougher time for most Americans. And I'm going to talk a bit more about this later. We have this kind of case-shaped recovery where people at the top are doing well. People at the bottom are not doing well. And there's no jobs for young people. And the job market has weakened. And inflation, you know, Trump likes to create this alternate reality that isn't reality. And so on 60 minutes, when he was asked about inflation, he said, there is no inflation. Well, there's 3% inflation. And people know that. And in fact, people feel even more inflation because some of the things they buy a lot of, certain kinds of groceries, things like that,

have gone up by more than the average amount of inflation. And so it's a huge problem. And And what's also interesting is that the Republicans have no real solution to it. If you look at their policies, they essentially make it worse, not better, in terms of the tax cuts for the rich and cutting the health care subsidies and so on and so forth. So I don't see how it gets better for the Republicans a year from now. And Joe, we haven't even mentioned the impact, I think it's almost becoming something many people can agree on on both sides, maybe not all, of the ice rates. Yeah. Listen, I have noticed over the past week or so, the Pope, the American Pope, speaking out repeatedly about the importance of Catholics, if they are good Catholics, to go out and to welcome the foreigner. You know, citing the good Samaritan verses in Luke.

explaining who your neighbor is. The Pope says we will be judged by how we welcome foreigners. And you have now the archbishops in Chicago and Washington across the country delivering powerful messages. The Pope even at one point suggesting it's hard to call yourself pro-life if you support such horrific treatment of those who are alive. Our neighbors, as Jesus would say, are neighbors, the foreigner. That's what Jesus said.

So if you have a problem with that, don't even take it up with the Pope. If you're claiming to be a Christian, take it up with Jesus. Because that's what he says. And so, yes, this is, as we see the church get more and more involved in the protecting of the dignity of human beings, of God's children. You are going to see this become a more difficult political issue. Yes, even for Republicans who have turned a blind eye to everything that Jesus said in the New Testament about welcoming foreigners, being kind to the least among us. It's just, again, this is something the Pope has started talking.

talking about something he's not going to stop talking about. And Chris Matthews, that's going to be very powerful. I'm going to say also this election, if, if it, I mean, every time Trump, Trump, I was talking about Trump. Let's just take Donald Trump out of this. If this were you and me talking in 1995, 96, if we were talking in 2005, 2006, if we were talking in 2015, 2016, or now, And I told you, Chris, hear the numbers. You tell me whether the party in power or out of power is going to win. You have a right track, wrong track, where only a third of Americans think we're on the right track. Almost two-thirds of Americans say this country is on the wrong track.

We have a president with record high disapprovals for him sitting at 63 percent, according to the latest CNN poll, and the government's in one of its longest shutdowns ever. it's going to take the Congressional Budget Office says maybe 1% off of our GDP this coming quarter. It's that really hard to figure out whether the president is Reagan, Clinton, Obama, or Trump, who's going to win that election and who's not? Look, this affordability argument is a new term, by the way. It's not called inflation. It's called affordability.

It's about being able to get by. It's about having a young family in many cases. cases and trying to find a place to live. And I look at what Trump has been doing. If you look at his policy, Steve can register this, but GDP, the big spending bill, the big beautiful bill, rose the amount of pressure on prices. And we're going to have more pressure down the road with his tariffs. He's still pushing for them. The courts may be fighting him, but he's still pushing for higher tariffs, which means more taxes. And he still wants to weaken the Fed. He wants to get lower interest rates. Everything he's doing is causing inflation. Everything he's doing is driving up the

affordability challenge to incumbents. And that's going to hurt every incumbent. And so if he's going to play defense in 26 and 28, he's got a problem. Yeah. And you know, Willie, there's a disconnect from political reality. We talked about it with Joe Biden, where, you know, Nancy Pelosi had to go in and say, no, no, no, your polls aren't what you say they are. Donald Trump, of course, is going around saying, I have the best polls ever. You can find four, five, six poll services out over the past week or two that say just the opposite. But that's really harmless. That's, I mean, that's, it's not harmless for Republicans. I mean, it'll hurt Republicans. But as far as for voters going, when you start talking about how, hey, there's no inflation, this is the strongest

economy ever, everything's going great. All the things that Donald Trump has always done, He believes that's the way you do it. That's sort of the real estate, you know, investor and salesman in him. And that's what you do. But the problem is, and this is what Barack Obama always struggled with. He never wanted to, every time he said the economy's looking up, he goes, but I understand there are people with problems out there. Americans don't want you to want to hear the president,

especially while he's building a ballroom and giving $20 to $40 billion. to Argentina. They don't want to hear the president saying how great the economy's going if they're struggling. They don't care how much the MAG 7 is shooting up in stock prices if they're having trouble paying their grocery bills, their electric bills, and their rent. And that's where way too many working Americans are right now. President Trump always, since before he was president, has been great at creating a narrative, repeat something enough until it kind of becomes true somehow in many people's minds. But you can't convince people who are going out living their lives and can't get the groceries they need or afford their rent, that things are going well

with a narrative dictated down from the White House. It's in the numbers we showed yesterday, all this polling, that CNN poll of a couple of days ago that had the president's approval rating at 37 percent that number was interesting, but more interesting perhaps was that more than 70 percent of people in this country think were headed in the wrong direction and that the economy is the reason for it and that many of the policies, including these tariffs, despite what Donald Trump says, which is you people and you companies just don't understand how tariffs work. They actually are good for you. Meanwhile, people are saying, no, actually, I can't afford my groceries and my rent. So you can't tell people that they're not living the way

they feel every day. And I think we saw some of that at the polling places two nights ago. All right. Still ahead on morning, Joe. The Supreme Court heard arguments. yesterday over President Trump's sweeping tariffs. We'll talk about what the justices said and what it could mean for the president's economic agenda. And a reminder to sign up for our newly relaunched newsletter. It's called The Tea Spilled by Morning Joe. Scan the QR code on your screen or go to MSNBC.com slash the tea spilled by Morning Joe. And we will be right back.

Just got to get a few more things. dealings with but the vehicle is in position of taxes on on Americans. And that has always been the core power of Congress. So to have the president's foreign affairs power, Trump, that basic power for Congress seems to me to kind of at least neutralize between the two powers, the executive power and the legislative power. Let me say two things in response to that.

First, the notion that the taxes are all born by Americas and are not born by foreign producers whose goods are imported is empirically, there's no basis for that in the record. It's actually a mix. Well, who pays the tariffs? If a tariff is imposed on automobiles, who pays them? Typically, there'd be a, regardless of who the importer of record is, there'd be a contract that would go along the sort of line of transfer that would allocate the tariff.

Chief Justice John Roberts yesterday pressing the U.S. Solicitor General on the president's use of emergency powers to issue those sweeping global tariffs and asking who ultimately pays for the tariffs. The administration is arguing a 1977, law. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act gives the president the authority to impose tariffs unilaterally during declared emergencies without congressional approval. But over nearly three hours of oral arguments yesterday, both liberal and conservative justices appeared doubtful, skeptical at times, noting the law, which does not explicitly mention the word tariffs,

has never before been used in this way. Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked, quote, can you point to any other place in the code or any time in history where the phrase regulate importation, which are the words used in the statute, has been used to confer tariff imposing authority? And Justice Neil Gorsuch wondered if the court rules with Trump, what would prevent Congress from just abdicating all responsibility to regulate foreign commerce or, for that matter, declare war to the president? So, Joe, there are a couple things of play here. Do tariffs even fall under this law that the administration is using to use the tariffs.

But then the bigger question, we heard this raised by almost all of the judges, judges mostly by Chief Justice Roberts is, what about Congress? Tariffs and taxes fall in the hands of that branch, not the executive branch. If we rule in your favor, this would alter the way effectively the two branches of government work. Yeah, it was fascinating, listening to the justices and where they were going with this. I think even people like Alito were saying, well, the president can impose tariffs, but possibly not through this vehicle. Possibly he's going to need another vehicle to do that. So he's doing it improperly now.

I'm not saying that's how we'll rule, but that certainly seemed to be the implication. You are exactly right on Chief Justice Roberts talking, you know, pressing who pays these tariffs. Americans pay these tariffs, of course. And so the Chief Justice pushed him there and also was very mindful of Congress's Article I. Or he also talked about balancing that with the president's power to conduct foreign policy. But again, he's claiming an emergency based on baseball game commercials, which is, of course, absolutely ridiculous. Let's bring in MSNBC senior legal reporter and former litigator Lisa Rubin. I got to say, Lisa, the most.

remarkable part of that hearing was when Amy Coney Barrett had the solicitor general on the line and he kept trying to pull away and she kept reeling him in and he kept trying to pull away he kept pull away she just she was tenacious and finally just as so to my or I think in an act of mercy, said, just answer her question. You're not answering her question. We all know you can't answer her question. Just admit it, basically, is what Justice Sotomayor was saying. But, you know, Amy County Barrett wheelie yesterday was the one driving home the point that the statute does not fit the remedy that the administration is using it for. Absolutely true. And Joe, you know, pity the person who comes on the other side of Amy Coney Barrett, who is precise, pragmatic, and the mother of seven children.

So if anybody is well prepared for that kind of questioning, I would venture a guess it's Amy Coney Barrett. And you're right to say that she was completely fixated on the plain text of the statute. The argument that the administration is relying upon is that the words regulate importations somehow include the power to impose tariffs. But of course, not only is the word tariff not present, as Willie just mentioned, there is nothing in the string of verbs there, as Justice Kagan mentioned, that gets to where John Sauer, the Solicitor General, wants to see the argument go. There's nothing in all of the things that the president can do under this Emergency Powers Act that has anything to do with raising revenue, much less imposing taxes or duties. And that's where you get to the question of the larger constitutional issues about whose responsibilities really are these. And Justice Gorsuch is the one who was, like Justice Roberts, really focused on the question of even if Congress, let's say, for the sake of argument, wants to delegate those powers to the president, is that a line we should draw for them? Should we police their constitutional authority for them?

because if you're going to decide that they have delegated that authority in this statute, despite the lack of plain language, can they ever get that authority back? He was sort of asking John Sauer, wouldn't they have to have a veto-proof majority, essentially, to redo an interpretation of this law? If we decide that the president can tariff under this law and Congress decides that's not what we intended at all, don't they have to survive through a veto-proof majority to get that change? And John Sauer really struggled with that as well. Yeah, I'm curious, I didn't, the portions of the hearing I talked about, the portions I didn't

talk here as much about were lines of questions about the administration's really specious use of the word emergency, of the term emergency. This is a president who is claiming that when he gets pissed off while he's watching the World Series because there's a commercial about Ronald Reagan that that constitutes an emergency in the next day he can jack up tariffs on Canada. This is a president who can get angry because his political ally who tried to overthrow an election in Brazil is actually being tried. And so he gets angry at judges down there and then jacks up tariffs to 50%. That's his emergency. It has nothing to do with anything that's in this statute. I'm curious, did they press

the Solicitor General on that point? Not so hard, Justice Kagan mentioned it at one point. And I think the reason they didn't mention it, despite its appeal to just common sense, right, is that there's an easier way out of this. Justice Barrett is sort of known on the court right now for being the person who seeks a solution that as many people as possible can glum on to, and that solves a problem before the court and as few steps as possible with as few repercussions as possible, really deciding the issue squarely before her and nothing more. And right now, I think the easiest way to resolve this dispute is on that plain language of what does it mean to regulate importation. If the authority that the president is seeking is nowhere in the statute

to begin with, Joe, then you don't even have to have that conversation about whether or not there is an emergency, much less a conversation about how much deference is the president owed when he alone has authority under a statute to decide whether there's that emergency? So, Steve, justices express some skepticism, but we don't know how they're ruled, not yet. But let's say, for the sake of argument, they do say the president does not have the authority to impose these tariffs. They have to go away. What we've heard from Trump blustering, well, that will crush the American economy, if that's the case. Can you tell us what will actually happen? Well, it's going to be a big mess. First of all, we don't know how

they're going to rule, but the prediction markets for what it's worth think there's over an 80% chance that the president's going to lose. So then you come to two, at least two and maybe more implications for us. One is the tariffs have been bringing in a significant amount of revenue, $200 billion in the government fiscal year that just ended, projected $300 billion in the fiscal year that just started. And so maybe nobody cares about the deficit, but that is revenue. The second question is, what do you do? Does the court order that these money be refunded? you'd think that if money was taken illegally from companies or individuals, they should get it back. But unwinding that and figuring out who gets what money, you can't even begin to imagine what that does.

The third thing that is going to be an unbelievable mess is that Trump went off and did all these trade deals using these tariffs as his bargaining ship with the Europeans, with whomever. And so all those other countries are going to say, well, wait a minute, if you don't even have the authority to use the weapon that you were using to get us to do this deal, then we're out of here. and no more deal, and you get to go start all over again. There's nothing that business hates more than uncertainty, and business has now been planning around a set of tariffs in terms of moving some production back here, doing this, that, and the other thing, and now that I'm going to have to figure out what to do next, and it could be weeks or months before we even know what this decision is.

And so he has basically taken the ball and kind of thrown in the grandstand, and there will be significant economic consequences of all of it. So Chris Matthews, given the message that you would think Republicans in Congress would have received this week, do they have a role in this? Do they perhaps act in a way that they haven't before on this and other issues, given the message that it appears they're getting from the American citizens? You know, in a very time that people are rallying against no kings in this country, we don't need a king. we got rid of that 250 years ago and we're celebrating that next year. No kings.

And then Trump is trying to become king. If you look at this attempt to grab the authority over tariffs from the U.S. Congress, that is a king move. He wants to be the power man to decide on all taxes involving imports. He's clearly up to that. And he also is doing it with the filibuster. Everything Trump is doing is to grab more power

and to become a king. All right. The judge over, go ahead, John. Well, I was just going to talk about the judge that's overseeing the case against James Comey, called out the prosecutor in a big way yesterday. So he was concerned how the Eastern District of Virginia was actually handling evidence in the case in order prosecutors to hand over scores of evidence to the defense today. That's going to be big because they're going to get to see the beginning of this very, very ugly prosecution. That decision came. This company's lawyers argue they were still not able to review information that was collected from past FBI investigations.

Another fumble by the prosecution. The trial schedule began on January 5th, but company's teams filed several motions to dismiss. He also, the judge, magistrate also voiced concerns with the prosecution. The associate in the press reported that he told the lawyers the procedural posture of this case. is highly unusual. It seems the Justice Department decided to indict first and investigate later. Lisa, let's say that again. The judge overseeing this case said, you all decided to indict first and investigate later. I've never heard that. I've just never heard that in all my years of either being in court or following court or reading law cases.

I mean, it was a brutal, brutal takedown of the prosecution yesterday by this magistrate judge. Yes, and now the prosecution has until 5 p.m. today, Joe, to hand over all of the grand jury transcripts and materials from the investigation, as well as other evidence that was collected in prior FBI investigations that they are now trying to import into this case. to James Comey's defense. That itself is a big, whoa, moment in this case. So we're not going to lose sight of that. I'll also mention to you that next Thursday is a huge day in this case.

It's the day on which James Comey and Tish James's lawyers will come together to argue that Lindsay Halligan's unlawful appointment as U.S. attorney invalidates both of their indictments. They will be arguing that motion, which has been consolidated together. in Alexandria a week from today, and I will be there covering it for our network and can't wait to share with you. What happens? And Lisa, really quickly, Lisa also, though, again, explain the importance of Comey's team getting all of that evidence that they base the prosecution on and why that's going to be so damning most likely for Lindsay Halligan, for the Justice Department, for everyone involved in this sham proceeding.

Well, Jim Comey's team, one of the things that they've said has gone on here is that there was potential misconduct before the grand jury. So to the extent that they get all the grand jury transcripts and the materials that were collected during the investigation, this is going to empower them to substantiate that even further by seeing what exactly Lindsay Halligan said, what exactly she showed to the grand jury, and then make a motion potentially to dismiss on,

that basis as well. If I'm Jim Comey's team, this is just yet another card that I have to potentially make this whole thing go away before we even get to the merits of the case against him, Joe. All right. We'll be watching this. MSNBC senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin, thank you so much for coming on this morning. And Steve Ratner and Chris Matthews, thank you both as well. Always good to see you. Coming up, while the Trump administration continues to order military strikes on boats accused of trafficking drugs in the Eastern Pacific, our next guest argues the U.S. may conquer the Americas, but lose the world. We'll dig into that.

Straight ahead on Morning Joe. Going to war against Venezuela. I doubt it. I don't think so, but they've been treating us very badly, not only in drugs. They've dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country that we didn't want. people from prisons. They emptied their prisons into our country. 49 past the hour, President Trump talking about the possibility of war with Venezuela as his administration increases America's military presence near the country.

This, as the Department of Defense ramps up military strikes on boats in international waters alleged to be carrying narcotics in the United States, alleged being the key word here. A new opinion piece for Bloomberg says the strikes are part of a wider push by the administration to focus on asserting United States dominance over our Western Hemisphere Neighbors, the author of that piece. Hal Brands joins us now. He's a Bloomberg opinion columnist and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. And in the piece entitled, The U.S. may conquer the Americas but lose the world. How you write in part, quote, U.S. presidents have long pledged to prioritize the Western Hemisphere to put the America's first, so to speak. Donald Trump is doing it today.

The world waits to see if Trump will strike Venezuela as the Pentagon masses, planes, and warships in the Caribbean. But coercing Nicholas Maduro's autocratic anti-U.S. regime is merely part of a larger campaign to reassert America's hemispheric hegemony. The campaign is rooted in history and sound strategic logic. It's also fraught with unanswered questions and serious risks. Hal, tell us more about that. And I mean, is one of the first risks, the fact that we don't know exactly who's on these boats? That's one risk. And there's certainly a risk as well that what we're seeing is a pretty sweeping assertion of executive power over matters like not just migratory policy, but war and peace as well. And so one of the challenges with the administration's military

campaign in the Caribbean and now in the eastern Pacific is that it has been very cagey about what legal authorities it is using to target the suspected narco traffickers and has really refused to provide much transparency on this issue to the Congress, let alone the public at large. So, Hal, I think most Americans watch this going about their lives and they hear about another boat blown up with alleged narco-terrorists or drug dealers, these small ships. And when think about the world and potential threats to America, they think about China, they think about Russia, not necessarily Venezuela. So you get at this in your piece. But what is the president up to? What is this administration up to with this focus on Venezuela? I think there are probably

three things going on here. One is that drug imports do pose a meaningful threat to the United States. There are tens of thousands of Americans who are killed each year due to the consumption of narcotics that come in large part from South America. And so this is a real tangible threat to American security. I think the second thing, though, is that Trump really likes the politics of this. This is sort of the tough guy foreign policy where he is killing suspected drug traffickers and drug dealers that plays very well with his base, and it really wrongfuts his opponents who seem to be arguing on behalf of criminals. The third thing is that he is trying to squeeze Nicolas Maduro, the dictator of Venezuela, out of power. That's sort of the unstated

rationale behind this buildup of military power in the Caribbean. I'm not sure that it's going to work, but I think that's the ultimate goal of this coercive campaign. Yeah, that's the loud voice Secretary of State Rubio pushing for that. So Hal, let's say the president takes the next step. There's still some real skepticism that he would deploy ground troops to Venezuela. He's been very reluctant to do that in any circumstance. But if he authorizes strikes, not just on boats, but on mainland, on the Venezuela homeland, what would that look like? Could that, would that drive Maduro out? What sort of potential chaos could ensue? There are a couple of different options. You could try limited, discrete airstrikes against airstrips or other targets that can be plausibly

linked to the narcotics trade. And the president could say that this is just an expansion of the counter-narcotics strike campaign, but the goal would be to sort of freak the Venezuelan military out and see if perhaps they'll get rid of Maduro for the United States. You could also undertake a bigger bombing campaign that would involve going after the mechanisms of the Venezuelan government's control, military intelligence, the counterintelligence apparatus, some of the units around Maduro, perhaps Maduro himself. The challenge with both of these things is that it's not clear that an air campaign alone will be sufficient to get the Maduro government out of power. And even if it does, there's no guarantee that what follows will be something better

rather than something worse. We'd like to see the Venezuelan opposition come into power, but it's just as likely that you would get a hardline regime led by some of the folks beneath Maduro today. The new piece is online now for Bloomberg, senior fellow for the American Enterprise Institute. How Brands, it's always good to see you, and thank you so much for coming on the show this morning.