Morning Joe - 'Republicans keep making things worse for themselves': Joe reacts to Hillary Clinton's deposition

Episode Date: February 27, 2026

'Republicans keep making things worse for themselves': Joe reacts to Hillary Clinton's deposition To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I don't know how many times I had to say. I did not know Jeffrey Hepstein. I never went to his island. I never went to his homes. I never went to his offices. So it's on the record numerous times. It then got at the end quite unusual because I started being asked about UFOs. And a series of questions about PizzaGate, one of the most vile,

bogus conspiracy theories that was propagated on the internet that was serving as the basis of a member's questions to me. And it got quite unusual, just a little unusual there at the end. Well, I mean, the whole thing, we knew how this was going to go. It's like when I was a kid, my dad would say, when we lived in Meridian, hey, the globe troters are coming. Jackson, Mississippi. So we get out, we'll take the drive over from reading to Jackson. That's nice. We knew how it was going to end. Right. You knew James Comer against Hillary Clinton. This wasn't going to go well. I mean, there were reports, Mika, and they're unconfirmed on X, but, you know, the one smart person on Commerce Committee,

when not even a person, Arnold the Pig, his chief legal counsel, was seen leaving Chappaqua like 10 minutes before the deposition started, say, I want no part of this shit. This is, this. This is going to go bad. And as always, Willie, Arnold the Pig, the best legal mind on the JOP team like there. No doubt about it. He was the smartest in Green Acres. And obviously, the smartest with Comer, because Hillary Clinton yesterday, man, Hillary Clinton, by all accounts, just, I mean, owned the place. Yeah.

Yeah, Arnold the Pig was smart. Left out the back door. He was on the sawmill before the questioning was even over. to his swanky hotel in Midtown. Yeah. I mean, it's just an absolute clown show that she's called in having nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein, as she just said there, never even met the man that perhaps she could shed some light on her husband who is going to be deposed today.

That's the time to ask those questions. And then because they had nowhere to go, started asking her about Pizza Gate and UFOs. Just an utter waste of time. There are real questions today for President Clinton, but to drag. Secretary Clinton in yesterday for six hours of questioning ended, as you said, exactly how most people thought it would end in embarrassment for the committee. Well, and all it did, Mika, was it opened up questions, which Hillary Clinton, you open the door, Hillary's going to walk through it. Wait, wait a second, you're asking me.

Exactly. But you're not asking the President of the United States that has these charges. You have Hillary Clinton doing that instead of somebody on social. social media, asking the questions that Washington's asking, asking why the Department of Justice is covering up, why the president has mentioned so many times. And the same thing's going to happen today. Bill Clinton's going to come in and he's going to say, wait a say, okay, so I was president 25 years ago and you've got a guy right now that you're covering up for. So why are you asking a president who was around 25 years ago, but not the one in office now that's mentioned more than me and that has a really serious charge level against him right now. Again,

the Republicans, they asked for this. The Republicans keep making things worse for themselves. I wish the Republicans would listen to me and stop putting their hands on the hot stope. They can not help it. It was something. Also ahead, the Omani Foreign Minister is headed to Washington to meet with Vice President J.D. Vance today in an effort to stave off war with Iran. We'll dig into whether the meeting signals a potential breakthrough on the horizon. And later, Mayor Zoran Mamdani seems to have cracked the code for dealing with President Trump. Fake news articles. It works. Yeah, mock up a flattering newspaper headline and emerge from the White House with a pair of unexpected victories. I mean,

Willie, come on. Look at that. I mean, it's ingenuity, baby. It's ingenuity. He makes up, which, you know, some have said that Donald Trump from time to time would make up Time magazine covers with his face on it, who among us hasn't. And so here got a daily news mock up. And Donald Trump said, sure, we'll release who you want to release. We'll give you whatever money you want. Just because you need money, I got it. for you, Zohan. Yeah, pretty good.

Even in these early stages of his time in office, the mayor understands immediately that flattery will get you everywhere with this president. And we're going to get into the story, but it was perhaps that newspaper headline and that flattery that led to the release of a Columbia University college student who was taken from her university-owned apartment yesterday morning by ICE agents. Yeah, we'll talk more about that. That's an incredible story.

Apparently lied to get in there. I mean, come on. Yeah. flattery, but never bending. I mean, I think some Republicans still don't get it. They're all flattery, and then they cower. Along with Joe Willie and me, we have the co-host of our 9 a.m. hour. Staff writer at the Atlantic, Jennifer Lemire.

Also smarter than Arnold P. No cap. He's awesome. White House correspondent for Bloomberg. Jeff Mason is with us and columnist and associate editor at the Washington Post. David Ignatius joins us as well. Let's get right to it this morning. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denied ever meeting. abstain or no.

Wait, wait a second. You mean she never met him? She doesn't. And never met him, but they're deposing her instead of all of these people in the Trump administration that- For six hours. Spent time. In a closed-door deposition. But they, no transparency.

They did have, to have to break the rules, leak pictures to guys that get paid by Russia. Right. And also ask about UFOs. Gates. So they had a lot of stuff to do. They had a lot of stuff to do. They had a lot of stuff to do. They broke even more trust with that. Okay. So the Republican-led committee subpoenaed Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, to appear in its investigation into the convicted sex offender. The pair battled for months with committee chair James Comer,

calling the subpoenas invalid and politically motivated. The meeting quickly became contentious after Clinton stopped the session after learning Republican Congresswoman Lauren Bobert of Colorado leaked an image from inside the room. Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson immediately posted the image on social media. Clinton expressed her frustration with the leak during a press conference noting that she requested her testimony be made public. And that request was denied only for a committee member to make a private photo of the event

public anyway. Clinton spoke with reporters following the deposition. Do you believe this was a fair hearing and do you still want to testify publicly even though you'd be this deposition? Well, I'm not going to do it again. You know, they had a chance to do it in public and I wish they had done it in public. I thought it was very repetitive. I thought that they asked literally the same questions over and over again. If they are going to fulfill their responsibilities to literally investigate the investigations, which is what they originally said was the scope of their work, I think they could have spent the day more productively. Well, and she also spoke at length. I don't know. Do we have the clip where she's, Alex,

where she's talking about where they really should be focused, whether the current president, the current administration? Do you have that clip? Okay, it's coming up. So Bill Clinton will be to pose today. David Ignatius, those questions, again, the questions asked that Hillary Clinton asked yesterday, they opened the door to it. She's like, wait a second, I've never even met the guy. You've got a guy sitting in the Oval Office that's mentions there tens of thousands of times. And there's a really serious charge right now that the DOJ apparently is trying to cover up. Why do you have me here instead of Donald Trump? Why do you have me here instead of Howard Ludnik? Why do you have me here instead of Howard Ludnik? Why do you have me? here instead of the actual members of the Epstein class who are running our country right now. It was a strange opening to this phase of the investigation to, in effect, demonstrate that it's not serious in going after the people who actually can answer the questions the public has intensely, passionately.

Watching Democratic members of the committee on TV last night after the hearing, you just see their frustration. They want to ask questions. They're prepared to ask some tough questions today of Bill Clinton. But they kept insisting, how can it be that people like Howard Lutnik, people like President Trump himself, who have a lot of knowledge about what Jeffrey Epstein did, have not so far been brought before this investigation. What kind of investigation is this, to put it one way.

Let's bring in Senior Capitol Hill reporter host of way too early, Ali Vitale. She was up there in Chappaquin, New York. yesterday covering Hillary Clinton's deposition. We'll be back there today to cover the testimony of former President Clinton. So, Allie, there's so much to go through here. First of all, the fact that Republicans even were there, we'll remind our viewers that last week they couldn't be bothered to attend the deposition of Les Wexner, the billionaire, who most definitely had a year's long relationship funding, Jeffrey Epstein. They couldn't show up for that one, but they all made it to Chappaqua, Lauren Bobert, the congressman, taking a photo from inside

the deposition against the rules, releasing it to a podcaster who then publicized it. What was your takeaway from being up there, first of all, and hearing from Secretary Clinton afterward? Well, look, any excuse to go back home to Westchester County for me, but at the same time, I don't think I anticipated, Willie, that this hearing, when a source told me that they were talking about UFOs and PizzaGate, I actually had to double check, really? Is that actually how they're spending their time here? because it felt so blatantly political. And I felt like the politics were very much

on display yesterday with Secretary Clinton. I think the dynamics are very different today when you consider the fact that former President Clinton actually does have valid questions to answer. And my understanding of what was said in that deposition, and I do think we're going to get the transcript in the video, according to Comer, who has been releasing them within 24 hours of so

of these depositions happening. My understanding is that even as Clinton went in the room and said, I never knew Jeffrey Epstein, I never went to the island and never flew on the plane. Her answer when she was asked about that by Republican members of the committee was, you have to ask my husband. And so now the committee will get that chance. And so the dynamics are quite different.

And I think some of the things that he's going to be pressed on include how funding for the Clinton Global Initiative came to be. Hillary Clinton, of course, was a senator during that point. So again, walled off from what was happening there. And I think that that means the dynamics today are quite different. but I also think that the events of the last two days really do open the door for Democrats to cry more loudly about the need to call President Trump in front of the committee. Comber and Republicans keep pivoting to this idea that Trump answers questions about this regularly in the media, despite the fact that when he gets questions about this, he typically just lashes out at reporters for asking them and doesn't truly engage with the substance. And yet, I think there is this clamoring to get Trump.

And I will also say, I asked Chairman Comer, in the spirit of nonpartisanship, as he keeps saying, do you want to talk to the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnik? And he actually said to me yesterday, that's probably likely, which is a notable and different response than I've gotten in the past. And it was note just yesterday, there had been a photograph of Lutnik on Epstein on with Jeffrey Epstein and others that had appeared in the DOJ material suddenly pulled down yesterday, raising all sorts of questions there. But that was noteworthy, that it was the first time that it seemed like this committee

was interested in probing into Trump's orbit, though perhaps not the president himself. And Joe Mika, I mean, yes, to Allie's point, President Clinton, we'll face some questions today, although I'm certain while he does so, legitimate questions, he'll also redirect and say, well, I was president many, many years ago, decades ago. There should be someone else in the office right now who be focused to concern. And Secretary Clinton made those points yesterday. I just want to read a little bit from her opening statement, which was released. The secretary wrote this, said this.

You have compelled me to testify, fully aware, that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation in order to destroy. distract attention from President Trump's actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers. The Secretary added, guys, you have made little effort to call the people who show up most prominently in the Epstein files. And that right there is the heart of it. And of course, it is James Comer and the Republicans that cause this to happen. to give somebody with Hillary Clinton's name, her authority, her platform to speak about this. And I think Donald Trump understood this, which she said, I'm uncomfortable with this. I like both of them.

And so she said yesterday after, again, after the charade, it would get to the bottom of reports that DOJ withheld FBI interviews in which a survivor accuses President Trump of heinous crimes, Hillary Clinton. and said. She also called for Trump to be quizzed under oath and said, if this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein's trafficking crimes, it would not rely on those press gaggles, as you were saying, and instead go to the tens of thousands of documents, Jonathan Lemire, the tens of thousands of documents that contain the name of Donald Trump and other people that work in the Trump administration now, not in 1990s. 7, 8, 9, 2000, but now in 2026, which they continue to ignore. And like you said, they're yanking

down any information about Donald Trump that they think is uncomfortable. This Howard Lutnik picture, again, the Justice Department yanking that earlier picture of Lutnik down, they're doing it over and over again. They continue, Pam Bondi and the Justice Department continue to allow the names of rich and powerful men who write the most heinous things about young girls, young women to be redacted? This, the investigation should not be about people that were in office 25 years ago. It should be about the Epstein class that is running American government and that's also running American business, American education, are all the other elites out there like that one that they're covering up for.

Why do they keep covering up? That's what Hillary Clinton has. Why the cover up? That's the question. After they have the Clintons, that's a question that will remain. Because the Clintons were in office

before the Royal Tenin bombs even came out. The Clintons were in office before Tom Brady, I think. Won his first Super Bowl. The Clintons were in office in the before times. We are in the now times.

and they don't want to actually find out about the Epstein class that's running the country today. Yeah, I mean, Tom Brady won so many Super Bowls. It's hard to keep track. But you're right. Clinton was already out of office before he got his first. We just showed the picture there, actually a moment ago, of Epstein on the island. Lutnik is there as well. That's the picture that has been pulled down.

There it is right there. But, you know, it is hard to imagine, in fact, that the Department of Justice would not have an even-handed investigation of this matter, as we noted yesterday, that there is a lot. yesterday that there is a Pyeong-Young-style banner with President Trump's photo on it hanging from DOJ headquarters in Washington. We know, though, that he's been a little leery of this process. And Jeff, what Chairman Comer has done here has opened the door, open the door for some very uncomfortable questions to be asked in a similar deposition down the road to a Secretary Lutnik, perhaps even to a President Trump, let's say the Democrats take control of the

House come this fall. But I think if, you know, we'll see what happens today. But if this was meant to be a statement to distract from what's happened with President Trump and his team and Epstein, it seems to be like other efforts earlier this year, only backfiring for Republicans. How many times? Yeah. As President Trump said to reporters when we ask him about this issue, it's time for America to move on. There's nothing in there. I'm exonerated. It's time to move on. at a time when the White House wants President Trump to be talking about the economy, on a day when he's going to Texas to talk about the economy, at a time in the year when the midterm elections are just a few months away and his poll numbers are down,

what does the White House want him and Republicans to be talking about? Not Jeffrey Epstein. What are they doing? They're talking about Jeffrey Epstein, and they're giving a platform to somebody who knows how to play them. And Secretary Clinton did that yesterday. Did they think she wasn't going to come out and talk afterwards? Did they think that she wasn't going to put out her talking point? or her opening remarks on social media beforehand,

that she knows how to do this. She's good at this. Yeah, she's been around the block. And she's raising all those questions, which are, as you rightly said, exactly the questions that President Trump wants to move on from. And the focus is turning to him.

And the focus is turning to him because his fellow members, his fellow Republican Party members are leading it there. And some of those Republicans, Allie, are now beginning to speak out because they see what we've been talking about for a long time that this just isn't going away. Republican senators calling for more transparency from Attorney General Pam Bondi. After reports this week, the Department of Justice will withheld dozens of pages

of documents from the Epstein files that include an assault allegation against Donald Trump, something Hillary Clinton reminded the committee of yesterday. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana told the Hill, the DOJ needs to, quote, release the documents. This is a lot, release the documents. is not going to go away until there is full disclosure. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said, when we pass a law that says all documents need to be put out, it seems to me all documents need to be put out. Again, these are all Republicans. Senator Susan Collins of Maine said the missing files goes against the spirit of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, saying, quote, I don't know what the circumstances are and whether there's legitimate reason for

redactions or withholding since he's currently in office talking about the president. but that would seem to be contrary with the intent of the law. That's Susan Collins. Senator Tom Tillis, another Republican of North Carolina, said he had not read the reporting, but, quote, if it's in fact true, it is concerning. There's nowhere to hide on this, Ali Vitale. That's why you're seeing even Republicans now saying, hey, Pam Bondi, follow the law, put it all out there, let these chips fall where they may.

Our own supporters, the people who vote for us, they want answers on this, too. calling for them for years. Do you think at some point the dam breaks and the Department of Justice actually does what it's required to do by law and put everything out there? I'm not sure. Look, the problem with this law that passed almost unanimously, so Republicans are having a law that they themselves voted for be defied, which is partly why they're saying this. The enforcement mechanism was always going to be the problem.

And other than saying in public pressure forums that the AG and the DOJ need to do more. It's not clear what they can do to enforce it. Except that, as multiple Democratic House members, Mika, have reminded me, there is a subpoena that's still hanging out there from the Oversight Committee to Pam Bondi that Democratic members feel she's not in compliance with, as they were enforcing the possible contempt for the Clintons for defying a subpoena. Multiple Democratic members were saying, okay, but can't we also and shouldn't we also be enforcing a subpoena for the Attorney General trying to bring her to heal into compliance with what the committee needs? That's still a thread that's hanging out there that I'm watching

to see if ultimately anything comes of, especially as now Republican senators are adding fuel to the fire around Bondi. Well, yeah, and when you have the chairman of the judiciary and other Republicans saying they need to get out, they need to get out, and I will tell you one of the reasons they need to get out, and it's very basic, if it's not released, all right, any great trial lawyer will tell you that you let the jury know the information, you give them the bad news up front. if there's something hanging out there, as one great lawyer, trial lawyer told me, if you give the jury opportunity to think the worst, they will think the worst of your client.

So right now, think about it. Right now, there are news stories all over talking about how a young woman, a minor, maybe as young as 13, 14, 15, has talked to the FBI repeatedly about the president of the United States many years ago when she was 13 or 14 doing terrible things to her. Now, if that is not true, you want to get that out.

Even if it is true, it has to get out because since the information is out there, A cover-up only makes the jury, in this case, voters, think the absolute worse. Right. So this is why, again, what the Justice Department has been doing has been so stupid. It's been so self-defeating. And it has only kept this story alive. I swear we've been talking about this for nine months now.

I keep talking about they are doing damage to Donald Trump's reputation because they have so badly mishandled this. Whatever happens, the information needs to get out because people already know about the allegations. They know about the FBI investigations. They know about the FBI interviews. So this information has to get out, not just for the sake of the young woman at the time, not for the sake of getting to the bottom of this, but politically for the president to get it out there. It gets too late. Because if it doesn't get out there, again, people will assume that everything they hear is true. It's just too much.

Because it's being covered up by the DOJ. The Republicans have lost all credibility on redactions after re-traumatizing countless victims by releasing unredacted countless pictures and information about these women while covering up the men and holding back the information on Donald Trump. The damage is done. This has been botched. Bondi style. I mean, it is bad. It has been botched terribly. And there are a lot of Republicans and people in the White House who wonder why a lot of these people still have their jobs. It's a good question. But again, the information is getting out there. Nine months ago,

they should have gotten ahead of it. They didn't listen to us. And things just get worse by the day. MS now, Senior Capitol Hill reporter and host of way too early, Ali Battali. Thank you very much for your coverage. We appreciate it. And still ahead on morning, Joe, we'll get a preview of President Trump's trip to Texas today. Ahead of that states, closely watched GOP Senate primary. This has one top Republican voices concerns about Democrats possibly flipping the seat, plus the latest in the fight over Warner Brothers' discovery as Netflix walks away from a proposed.

D. And as we go to break a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Acuweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika's looking tranquil for your Friday, your exclusive ACWather forecast. How about Sunshine, Portland, Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, a little bit of fog, Interstate 81 in western Virginia. Sunshine in Chicago, 63 degrees today. Rain moving away from Atlanta this morning. We'll have some sun this afternoon,

some showers in Charleston, a thunderstorm in Tampa, 82 degrees for a high in Dallas. As far as delays early today in Atlanta, other than that, your getaway Friday is looking good. To make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the acuity weather app. You know, Mika, it's interesting that it was on this day in 1968 during a news broadcast, that Walter Cronkite, who was considered the most trusted man in America, broke from his usual objectivity to predict that the Vietnam War could only end in a protracted stalemate. Protracted stalemate. And what a day for us to be talking about the possibility.

And I'm not drawing parallels. I'm just saying when you go in to a country and you start a war, you never know how things are going to be on the other end. and that's always, it's a good moment to look back at all the times the United States has been humbled when it went in thinking that it was going to have a quick and easy military operation. They're rarely quick. They're never easy. No. In direct talks between the United States and Iran ended yesterday without the two sides reaching a deal. On social media, Iran's foreign minister called the discussions, quote, the most intense so far, adding that Iran will, quote, continue to engage in a more detailed manner on matters that are essential to any deal. Oman's foreign minister who mediated the talks posted online afterwards, saying,

lower-level, technical talks will now take place next week in Vienna, Austria. Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance is scheduled to meet with Oman's foreign minister in Washington, D.C. today. Vance told the Washington Post yesterday that, while he does not know if President Trump, will ultimately carry out strikes against Iran. There is, quote, no chance any action would result in a years-long drawn-out conflict. So David Ignatius, you have reporting from the talks that a few others have. Why don't you tell us what you know? So, Joe, today is going to be a big day for President Trump.

He's going to get a briefing from his negotiating team, his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and his friend and special envoy, Steve Whitkoff, who were in Geneva yesterday. And it's my understanding from sources close to negotiations that they will describe to him a package that has emerged from the talks. Not everything is locked down, but here are the basic elements. First, the three main Iranian nuclear facilities at Natanz, Fordo, and Isfahan would be closed. They basically were destroyed in the bombing campaign last June. President Trump describes it as being obliterated.

I don't know whether that's a precise term, but they were hit hard, and they would in some way be locked down under this deal. They would be subject to inspection from the IAEA and would be, let's just say, closed. The second basic element of this deal is that you highly enriched uranium, in Iran that was enriched earlier near bomb grade level, would the U.S. had asked for it to be taken out of the country. The Iranians have made a counterproposal that it be downblended, that is to say, go from 60% enrichment down to 5%

as it's blended with other material. And that seems to be something that the U.S. side might accept. And then the third on the key question of enrichment, The Iranians came to the talks with a proposal for what's described as a very, very low level of enrichment, perhaps as low as what you'd need for a medical program isotopes. I'm not sure that really meets President Trump's demand for no enrichment. There are proposals for civilian enrichment consortia that would involve other countries in the region that would share enriched material. the Iranians seem willing to consider that as a possibility.

So there's a package that Trump will have to think about. I'm told that there is a lot of feeling in the White House that the only reason the Iranians are negotiating in this fairly forward-leading way is that they're so weak. And the key issues for the U.S. side, principally Iranian missiles, which threaten Israel, as we saw during the 12-day war, Israel was pounded by Iranian missiles,

don't seem to be touched by the elements of the deal that I just described. So sources say to me, the military option is not imminent. We shouldn't expect that to happen today or tomorrow, but it's not off the table yet. And that President Trump is going to, have to think, having put this enormous armada, this huge force in the region, does he have

enough from Iran that he can say the threat of an Iranian nuclear program is over and it's time to withdraw this military force? Or does he want to push for more, perhaps with limited military strikes initially? People close to these talks say they don't know themselves where President Trump will come out. It's still to be decided. But today's a big day when they sit down and think about exactly what's on the table. And David, as you know very well, President Trump often just needs something, anything he can say he won, declare victory and move on to the next story. But in this case, as you say, also he's put two carrier strike groups off the coast to there, at least in the region. He has said publicly in his true social posts in the last few days that the magic words that they need to hear on the American side from Iran is that, that we have,

we will not pursue a nuclear weapon. Do you believe that through these negotiations as they continue into Vienna next week, that something short of that, some combination of the terms you just laid out, would actually be acceptable and would be enough for the president to declare victory and move on? So, well, in a sense that those secret words, we will not build a nuclear weapon or easy for Iran to say, because that's always been their position. They always have claimed that their nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Nobody has believed that, but that's been their constant position. If the IAEA is back inspecting in Iran in a systematic way, and you have the provisions that I was just describing,

you could have some more confidence that any move to get back in the nuclear game would be detected and that the U.S. or Israel could quickly act upon it. So yes, President Trump could say that our goal, the United States, Israel, everybody in the region, our goal has been satisfied to pull the force back while this regime remains in power and oppresses, kills thousands of Iranians in the streets, is going to be hard for this president. To me, Joe, we've talked about this in the past. this is a regime that is on a one-way street down. And the question is how the United States most wisely facilitates a transition to the kind of regime that Iranians, by their actions in the streets, have shown again and again they want. And I don't think there's an answer to that yet, but I'm sure that's also one of the things

I'll be talking about today. Well, there's not an answer to that quite yet, but if you look, there actually seems to be Perhaps an evolving Trump doctrine. If you look what's happened in Venezuela, there were strikes there, but instead of regime change, kept the existing regime in place, but demanded changes. Reporting out of the New York Times this morning that the Trump administration is considering doing the same thing with Cuba, not overthrowing the government, but pushing, pressuring in every way, economically, militarily, for them to move more towards a more free, more open, more capitalistic society. So perhaps that's what they're thinking about in Iran as well, talking about evolution

instead of an overnight revolution that ended so disastrously in Iraq with the debatification of course. But Mika, we'll wait and see. Obviously, right now, there are a lot of signs that a military strike may still be imminent. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem is saying, again, all non-essential Americans there should leave Jerusalem. That's something that you only hear when military strikes are coming. It would be quite unusual to get that sort of message from the embassy. in Jerusalem unless they were fairly certain that a war was coming or that they wanted to send that message to the Iranians. Right. David Ignatius, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. We'll be following

this. And coming up, we're digging into the new reporting on President Trump, being urged to declare a national emergency as a way to get increased power over voting. We'll talk about the legality of that as Trump continues to test his executive authority over elections. Morning Joe is coming right back. Sun coming up over Coney Island in New York City, 645 on this Friday morning. There is new reporting this morning from the Washington Post on behind the scenes efforts to unlock presidential power over elections. Power the Constitution assigns to states and Congress. According to the Post, pro-Trump activists are circulating a draft executive order alleging Chinese interference in the 2020 election, of which there is no evidence.

according to the intelligence agencies, and using that false premise as a basis to propose a national emergency to expand presidential power over voting, such as banning mail-in ballots and voting machines. The Post reports measures in the proposed order include requiring hand-marked and hand-counted ballots, as well as re-registration ahead of the midterms with proof of citizenship. Let's bring into the conversation. one of the lawyers who stopped the president's last election-related executive order in court, the co-founder of the contrarian on Substack and executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund, Norm, good morning.

It's great to have you here. So you have called this idea, quote, unconstitutional and insane. So effectively, it is what I laid out, which is you claim that there was Chinese influence in the 2020 election. The intelligence agencies have said there was not. And therefore, declare an emergency over this. election, thereby unlocking all this presidential power to change the way the vote is counted, to change the way that people vote. If you can just walk through some of the dangers of this and why you say it's insane. Thanks, Willie. And what's really going on here is Donald Trump

and his allies are terrified of the blue tsunami that is gathering with Democrats having won or outperformed by double digits in about 247 of 277 races over the past year. And so they're trying to make it more difficult for people to vote. There was no Chinese hacking of the 2020 election. 2021 intelligence community assessment found that. The Chinese were ready to do it, but they didn't. Donald Trump has no emergency powers over elections, Willie, just as the Supreme Court struck down his supposed emergency powers over tariffs,

he has even less here. And both in Congress and with this executive order, has been circulating for some time. Donald Trump has threatened he would take executive action. The goal is to set up barriers to voting. It would make it more difficult for people who have changed their name because they got married for students, for those who don't have passports or other documentation. And Willie, the worst part of all this, these hurdles that are being erected needlessly is that no one votes illegally in our country. Studies over and over again, including by the conservative Trump-supporting Heritage Foundation, have found that there are so

few incidents of this that over the past, over a two-decade period, there were just a couple of dozen out of tens and tens of millions of votes. So we went to court at Democracy Defenders Fund and Democracy Defenders Action to stop the last EO. The judge said Donald Trump has no constitutional power over elections. She blocked his prior attempt to interfere. If he tries this, we will be in court in the blink of an eye. So will our allies and partners. So will the state AGs.

It's going nowhere. Voters are going to get to vote in November. Amir, thinking about the false allegation of Chinese influence on the 2020 election reminded, remember the cyber ninjas, the self-appointed election auditors who went to Arizona and looked, I'm not making this up, for traces of bamboo in the ballots, because in their minds, that would mean they'd been shipped in from China. Yeah, what was the Chinese or the Italians? I think they had spy satellites, the Venezuelans.

Of course, the conspiracies go on and on. So, Norm, some of this obviously is far. fetch, but the danger is real to those who want free and fair elections. Speak to us about how this time around, we know in 2020, there were some guardrails, a roadblock, some obstacles to what Donald Trump wanted to do. Like Attorney General Barr said no. There's no evidence of voter fraud. We had some state officials in key places like Georgia say, no, we're not going to go along with this. But this time, he's brought a lot of the fringe conspiracy theorists into the fold here who are working in various parts of the administration. So it seems like this is a testing

move here to try to figure out what levers to pull. It is true that he has removed some of the internal checks that affected the 2020 campaign. But remember that in 2020, those of us on the outside. I was on the other side of Donald Trump in many of those 63 cases representing governors and AG, secretaries of state, pro bono, and we stopped him. And at democracy defenders fund and action alone over the past year, we have 264 legal cases and matters. We've stopped them in court again and again. And this democracy movement, this coalition, is ready to go to court again, both civil society groups like mine, but also the state AGs. If he tries this, it will fail. There's no constitutional or factual basis for it.

It's not going to work. The voters will be able to vote. We're ready for whatever Donald Trump may try. Executive Chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund, Norm Eisen, thank you very much for coming on the show. morning. We appreciate it.