Morning Joe - Trump administration nears $500M rescue deal for Spirit Airlines

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Trump administration nears $500M rescue deal for Spirit Airlines 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.

According to reports, the Trump administration is close to a $500 million bailout to save Spirit Airlines. Yeah. The CEO of Spirit was like, with $500 million, our planes could have two wings again. Amazing. You'll know Trump owns Spirit Airlines when they have a list of everyone who flew on the plane but won't release it. That's late night's take on a potential rescue deal for Spirit Airlines. Another example of the Trump administration. wanting to socialize a stake in private companies in America. Also, how are we going to go through the legal challenges to Virginia's redistricting referendum?

After a judge temporarily blocked a measure that voters actually approved Tuesday night, which is probably why that will be overturned. Plus, the New York Times investigative reporter Michael Schmidt joins us. Get this. His latest piece digs into FBI director Cash Patel, possibly using the agency to investigate a journalist who reports. on his girlfriend. Good morning. Welcome to morning, Joe.

It's Thursday, April 23rd. Willie, a lot to talk about there. And Michael is coming up in about 30 minutes to talk about that. But first, I love all these people that were running around, like, you know, throughout 24, saying if you elected Democrat instead of Donald Trump, he's going to get you into a war in Iran. He's not going to pay attention to the cost of the grocery stores. and they get the gas pump, and those Democrats, they're socialists. They will take over.

Socialism is actually taking over private industry. It's what Clement Attlee did in Great Britain before Margaret Thatcher reversed it. Now we're going the opposite direction with the Trump administration socializing parts of our industry. Eric Erickson saying, this is a socialism. you said you were voting against, and yet here we are, Willie. And it happens time and again. We talked about this several months ago with Intel. We're going to take a stake in this.

We're going to get a cut of it. Donald Trump's seeing these companies as business partners of the United States government. I think the generous term would be state capitalism, but socialism may fit a little better. And as you say, just falls into the long list of things that, well, Republicans, conservatives, certainly. Donald Trump himself said would never happen if you elected this president and the opposite of Democrats. And now here we are with this laundry list of you said it going into wars, inflation. How about the end of the Ukraine war on the first day of his administration? The list goes on and on.

But certainly this violates a central tenet of conservatism. I'll be interested to see if we hear any Republican members speak out against it. I won't hold my breath. Yeah, I mean, here are private companies that the Trump administration, this Republican administration, has taken part ownership in. The state, state socialism, Intel, MP materials, trilogy medals, lithium Americas, Vulcan elements, re-element technologies, Westinghouse, U.S. still, David French, jump in here. we have David French with us, David, this is the socialism. We were warned about. If you elect Democrats, they're such socialists.

Of course, a lot of idiots who say that don't even understand what socialism means. It means what it meant in Great Britain after World War II when Clement Attlee and the Labor Party started taking over parts of Britain's industry. And it wasn't until Margaret Thatcher in the late 1970s came along and privatized it. it again, the Great Britain started doing better. Well, and we're doing this for Spirit Airlines, Joe. I mean, there's a reason why this thing is struggling. It's, I never thought we'd end up with Spirit Airlines is what the National Airline now,

since we own it. It's absurd. Now, look, Joe, we're seeing this on front after front after front. I mean, just as said, war in Iran, that was supposed to be what Kamala Harris was going to bring. Well, it's Donald Trump. Socialism. That was supposed to be what Kamala Harris was. was going to bring. Well, it's Donald Trump. But I will tell you, there is just a sense now that things are

changing, that things are shifting, that the once untouchable Donald Trump is now, he's very, he's very open to criticism. I mean, he's not open, but now it is it is opening up. It is opening up in MAGA to criticize him. It is opening up to be dissatisfied with some of these things. It's not that the base is cracking apart and crumbling is that the cracks just are starting to appear. You can see it. And I don't think, well, I think that MAGA is realizing that it's in a bit of a death spiral politically right now. And then Senator Ted Cruz spoke out about this yesterday online too, saying this is a bad idea. Don't buy a government stake in Spirit Airlines. Also with us, is sporting the co-host of our 9 a.m. Our staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire,

and MS now senior national security reporter David Rode. Good group to talk about our top story, uncertainty surrounding now the path forward for the United States and Iran as a fragile ceasefire remains in place, but the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz continues. Iran fired yesterday on three ships in that crucial waterway and seized two of them. It's according to the country's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which said it was escorting the captured vessels to Iran.

The White House, however, downplaying the law. latest escalation with press secretary Caroline Levitt telling Fox News, President Trump does not view the move as a violation of the ceasefire because, quote, these were not U.S. ships. These were not Israeli ships. The United States military, meanwhile, maintaining its blockade of Iranian ports, turning around 31 vessels so far, that's according to U.S. Central Command. The Speaker of Iran's parliament said yesterday, a complete ceasefire doesn't make sense if that blockade remains in place, adding, reopening the waterway is possible, impossible amid such a

flagrant breach, as they put it, of that truce. But the White House standing by the blockade, as the stalemate in the strait continues to present a hurdle to peace talks, President Trump telling Fox News yesterday there is no time pressure on coming to a deal with Iran, Joe. Yeah, you know, Jonathan Lemire, not to belabor a point here, But everybody knew from 1979-4 that if you went into Iran, the strait was a problem. I mean, you could just, even looking at military theory through the years, you could have looked at Clausewitz, Washington, Brzezinski, who actually said, you can't go into Iran because if you go into Iran, they'll close off the Strait of Hormuz. They can't beat us militarily. but you're playing with fire because of that. He said that decades ago. And then you have the United States

assembling into Iran, instead of listening to some of the smartest people not only around now, but also throughout history on military strategy, he listened to Pete Heggzith, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Lindsey Graham. I mean, really, that's a triumvirate. that's really why we're here, as far as the people in his ears saying, this is something that needs to be done. And we have reports that there were many close to him, many military leaders saying, don't listen to these guys, don't believe these guys. They're making this sound easier than it actually is.

And yet here we are. I mean, we are right now. We are in a bit of a quagmire, as it pertain, to the straight because the Iranians know they can play hardball. And so here we are. Again, I just want to circle back. Yesterday, we showed a poll that had Donald Trump at 33 percent. They were showing the same poll on Fox News. They were showing the same poll across the other. There's a reason for this. It's because we're in a war that people like J.D. Vance and everybody else, it's now turning against Donald Trump, said Kamala Harris would get us into that.

war. Donald Trump's gotten us there. And you look at, again, the socialization of possibly of Spirit Airlines and all of these Westinghouse, Intel, U.S. steel. It's just simply remarkable that this is coming from a so-called conservative administration. Nothing conservative about this administration. There is nothing conservative about this Republican Party, not if you believe in conservatism the way it's been defined for well over 200 years. And yet here we are in Iran. We can't get out until the straight is opened. And Iran is in no, no mood. No mood to open the straight on our conditions. Nothing conservative about this government. And this is also what happens when you surround yourself with people who simply tell you yes. I think back to the remarkable story by Jonathan Swan

and Maggie Harriman in the New York Times a few weeks ago, detailing how the decision was made to go to war. And even those aides who later tell reporters they had private reservations about what was going to happen, no one told Trump that. You know, yes, Dan Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff outlined this could happen, this could happen. But no, no advocacy was made. And that's not necessarily his job, but no one else there did either. And, you know, Vance said that he had some reservations, but also made clear, hey, boss, it's your decision. We'll just do it. And this was a rushed war, and it was short-sighted. They thought it was going to be over in days, a couple weeks at most. And now it is, no doubt, a bit of a quagmire. And we have Iran now also knows that the Strait of Hormuz,

which is this theoretical, tactical advantage they've had, as you say, Joe, Americans have been warning about for decades. Well, they now know it works. They know that they can increase incredible economic pain on the United States and the rest of the world by shutting that key waterway. And yesterday, the Pentagon briefed Congress that it could take six months or so for the mines to be cleared from the strait. So even when hostilities do end, it may not be easy for ships to go through that waterway for another six months, which means we're going to have this economic pain for a while. And David Rhodes, this comes, of course. The U.S. is insisting this naval blockade stay in place.

We should note, and we'll get into this a little later. The Secretary of the Navy just got fired yesterday while there's a Navy blockade of that region. But Iran's saying, well, we're not going to reopen the strait. We're not going to help you get through it if that blockade or not. remains in place. There's no sense of negotiations. We don't know when yet. Trump may lift the ceasefire if he does. We're in a holding pattern, and the longer it's stuck, the higher prices are going to rise. So, Sudeep Reddy, MS now's Washington Bureau Chief asked Julia Jester and I to look at this yesterday. It's sort of a test of which side can take the most economic pain. Will cutting off all of Iran's

ports, you know, cause them to blink or will blockading the Strait of Hormuz? So Julian and I talked to seven experts yesterday, six said Iran can endure more economic pain, partly because they're not a democracy, and frankly, they're not answerable to that, to their population. That's a terrible thing. It's a terrible regime in many ways. But they've lived with sanctions now, some form of sanctions for decades, brutal sanctions, partly under Obama and then under Trump in his first term, so they grow their own food. And also, they border five countries so they can trade with other countries. But the sense is that, again, the strategy, the first strategy of the war, which was bombed them, and they'll just capitulate, has proven wrong. And now this one, which has blockade

them, it sounds like, according to these experts, that strategy the Trump administration won't work either. If the straight-ohr-moos remains closed through the end of April, the shortages, not just high prices, but the shortages of fuel and of gas that exist in some parts of Asia and some parts of the world could hit the U.S. And that's a whole different. ballgame economically and politically for the Trump administration. Meanwhile, as John just mentioned, Navy Secretary John Phelan was fired yesterday. The Wall Street Journal reports Defense Secretary Pete Hagsiff dismissed Phelan in a phone call just minutes before posting on social media, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions,

and after Phelan had spent the day on Capitol Hill talking to lawmakers about the Navy's budget requests. According to the paper, Pentagon officials told congressional aides, Hegseth fired Phelan because he and deputy defense secretary, Steve Feinberg, felt the Navy secretary was not moving quickly enough on President Trump's shipbuilding priorities. The journal reports Phelan's close relationship with President Trump was a cause of tension with Hegseth and Feinberg and that Hegseth was upset when Phelan pitched the idea for a modern battleship directly to the president last fall, bypassing the defense secretary. Hung Cow, the Navy Undersecretary, a former Senate candidate, is now serving as acting Navy secretary.

The latest firing comes just two weeks after Hegzeth ousted the Army's chief of staff, General Randy George. Hegseth has fired dozens of top generals, admirals, other defense leaders since taking office last year. So David French, Mr. Phelan, first of all, was just a huge donor to President Trump's campaign in 2024 and was given this position because of that. But that to the side, it again appears to be Defense Secretary Pete Hegsus feelings that he was upset that Phelan had a close relationship with the president and gone around him on some of the decisions cost him his job here. Yeah, you know, what we're seeing is an enormous amount of instability now at the top of the military. As Hegseth is going through and cleaning house, often firing generals with zero explanation, no real understanding, at least from the outside looking in. why this is happening. He's doing it during a time of war. So there's, it's very clear you've got some sort of purge going on in the Pentagon. It is very far from clear that this purge is related

at all to the sort of the underlying merits of the leadership of the generals and admirals and others who've been fired. This is a, this is a dangerous thing, really, creating this kind of instability, creating a perception that you've got a lot of ideological and just pure, raw, political in fighting at the top of the Pentagon. This is where the Pentagon is the place where politics is supposed to be really truly left at the edge on the outside of the building because these people are the warriors

who are defending our country through administration after administration, after administration. And I'm very worried that what this instability is going to do over the long term. You know, I'm curious, Jonathan Amir, the president has now sort of broken that this Second Amendment ban on getting rid of people. We just saw the third person in

his cabinet fired. Pete Hegseth's name had been mentioned at the end of next year. They might be trying to move him along. What strikes me is Donald Trump has to know that Pete Hegzeth has looked erratic at running the Pentagon, for God's sake. He's looked erratic. He's looked extraordinarily immature. He's looked paranoid. It's a very bad look for the administration.

It's even a very bad look when Donald Trump is standing next to Pete Huggs at press conferences. It diminishes if you have the President of the United States, commander in chief, and you have General Kane, and then you have this childlike, erratic, paranoid carnival barker in the middle of the two of these people. I mean, the Iranians have to take great comfort in seeing Pete Heggzeth behind a microphone. So I'm just curious. Have you heard any more talk? about the administration moving this person along that's caused so much damage inside the Pentagon

and who has not been liked by those close to the president from the very beginning, from the transition, because he lied continually to Susie Wiles and everybody else in the transition. Yeah, a few things here. First of all, that point is exactly right. Susie Wiles and others in Trump's orbit have been deeply skeptical of Hague Seth since the transition because he wasn't honest about some of the stuff in his background that then came out during public vetting. They thought that was a real own goal, if you will. In the first year of this second term, Trump did have that no-scalps policy that they bandied about proudly, that there wasn't going to be the turnover like it was in his first term.

That has now changed. We've had three cabinet members go. And there are rumors that more could follow. Those that I hear most of all who are on the thinnest ice include Tulsi Gabbard, include Cash Patel, and do include Pete Hegeseth, but the Hegseth one always comes with a caveat that even Trump, who was, yes, very mindful of optics, of course, wouldn't want to fire his defense secretary during a war. Now, I think that when this conflict resolves itself, now that's an open question as to when that will happen, that could be, Heg Seth's, you know, sort of starts being

steered towards the door. But Trump, I am told, still likes Heg Seth in terms of his performance on TV. He likes those very combative news conferences that we have. seen at the Pentagon a number of times now, including when he calls the press Pharisees a few days ago. You know, and Heggs that. He likes that. He likes that. And Hegseth, but you're right. He looks at, you know, Hegseth looks like an idiot for leaders across the world. They look at him as a joke. That weakens Donald Trump. Just like I was saying time and time again, that Christy Knoem would hurt Donald Trump's approval ratings on immigration. I said it repeatedly.

You can go back and pull the tape. I said it repeatedly that if he kept Kristy Knoem, she would hurt his numbers on immigration. And it has. Pete Higgsith, I'm saying it now. Pete Higgsith in that position is hurting Donald Trump on foreign policy issues, on this war, on the confidence that the Americans have in the commander-in-chief. I just don't understand. It's not hard to see that on TV.

But job number one for a Trump cabinet official is to fight for the president on television. At least so far, Trump is okay with how Hague says is doing this. But you're right about the culture of the Pentagon, too. I mean, not only has, I'm told by people who have been there for decades, it's a building now rife with paranoia, uncertainty, because there's been so many purges. Your top people, highly respected officers have been pushed out. We've had now the Secretary of the Army and the Secretary of the Navy head out. I mean, there is an extraordinary amount of uncertainty there at the worst possible time,

Willie. Of course, as the DOD is still trying to prosecute this war with Iran. So there are certainly Republicans, I am told, who would like to see Heggseth be shown the door, but I don't think that's imminent. We'll see. Still ahead on Morning Joe, a judge in Virginia blocks the new redistricting effort passed by voters in the state this week. We'll run through that new decision. and what President Trump is saying about that vote.

Plus, the New York Times says one of its reporters was investigated by the FBI after publishing a piece on FBI director Cash Patel's girlfriend. Investigated reporter Michael Schmidt joins us straight ahead with new details. And as we go to break a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Acuethers, Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking out there? Well, it looks great across the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic. today, your exclusive ACU weather forecast does show a couple of showers from Portland to Bangor, but in Boston and New York City, clouds will break for some sunshine.

79 in Pittsburgh today, where they're getting ready for the NFL draft that begins tonight. Chicago 82. Severe weather across the southern plains and in the Oklahoma late tonight in Oklahoma City. Dallas stays dry and we're still dealing with drought conditions across the southeast. No travel delays on the East Coast today. To help you make the best decisions that be more in the know, download the Accuather App today. What a beautiful view of the Empire State Building in New York City at almost 6.30 in the morning. Spring is upon us, Willie.

And, you know, I don't think Lemire knows this about us, but every spring we grab, we get an old copy of poor Richard's almanac, Lamere. And Willie Nile will take it up and will go. We go to our favorite park, sunlit park and yonkers, and we'll sit there and just for an afternoon, not a long time, but just forever, we will share our favorite passages from the almanac. You know, Willies is early to bed, early rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. We have another friend that goes with us who says those who would give up liberty for temporary safety. neither temporary safety or liberty. And mine, of course, is April baseball doesn't matter. It's something that Benjamin Franklin said. He's so brilliant that somehow, even before the game was invented, he understood that baseball in April does not matter. That said, Willie,

I'm starting to put an asterisk by that because I think what we have been seeing at Fenway Park, the last two nights, really. does matter. We may not be looking through a glass darkly anymore at the future of Red Sox baseball. We may just be staring right into the face of one of our ugliest seasons since 2012. What say you, Willie? Well, we'll see. And I do always enjoy those afternoons. You bring the blanket. I get the Wicker picnic basket and we just kind of get into

the poor Richards. And it's not weird at all. I want to promise our viewers. It's not weird at all. Nothing strange. Nothing strange. So last night, the Yankees won four to one. Rosario hit that three-run, home run. Would have been a shutout. Yankees gave up a bad run in the ninth inning, but they shut him out four-nothing the night before. You're right, it is April, but you're also right.

The Red Sox don't look great, offensively, I would say. Max Fried pitched for the Yankees last night. Granted, he's a Cy Young-level pitcher, eight shutout innings, nine strikeouts, three hits. But he definitely was made to look like Sandy Kofax by the Red Sox. lineup, Jonathan Lemire. So what is your level of panic as a Red Sox fan? I know the panic level is always on high with a Red Sox fan, but how about right now? It is, after all, only April 23rd. The panic level is high and fans are deeply frustrated. I largely agree that April baseball only

matters so much. This would be an exception. This Red Sox team, let's just say it, they're pathetic. They're lifeless at the plate. And yes, Max Fried is a Sayon caliber pitcher. The heel, though, the night before, after the game, admitted, I had nothing. My velocity was down. I couldn't throw anything. Yeah, he still shut out the Red Sox and held them to four hits. Yordon Alvarez, the wonderful Astros slugger, he has 11 home runs so far on the season. The Red Sox's entire team has 12. Every move that Craig Breslo made this offseason hasn't worked.

Some of them still will, no doubt. Some of these players will work out just fine. But you can't win a division in April, Joe, but you can kind of lose it. And there's just no signs of hope right now. That's the hardest part, is that we can't point to silver linings and say, well, that's still working or that very, very little is. And I think the other thing is, and Joe, you and I know this, like, the frustration of the fan base is extraordinarily high. It has been since the Moogie Betts trade in 2020. Yes. It has been since the Moogie bets trade in 2020. The ownership group has not consistently spent, and there's already,

even though it's not even May 1st, rumblings of, like, major changes coming. It's a mess. What major changes? What major changes are you going to make? They've been blaming general managers. They've been blaming baseball, head of baseball operation since 2018. We have been selling since 2018. Look at the lineup that we have sold since 2018. I mean, this is a, I'm sorry, are we really going to blame Breslo after blaming Hein Bloom, after blaming. Dumbrowski after blaming everybody? I mean, how many off-season, how many trade deadlines have we gone past Lamere where the Red Sox fans have been disappointed? You know, how many assurances have we got and, hey, we're going to play for first play? No, they're just not. Look at this offseason. It was the most pathetic yet. It's almost like there's this feeling in the front office. Well, we've won four-world series.

our job here, check. Let's start spending money on Liverpool. Well, that's not really working either now, is it? No, no, no. The Red Sox, they're the crown jewel of that ownership group. They need to start acting like it. This is, you can't keep putting it on Craig Breslow. You can't keep putting it on the pointy-headed Yale graduates with their faces in computers. Oh, I mean, at some point, you've got to say, is the ownership group willing to invest to keep up with the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers or not? And if not, please just say it. Cut prices, you know, let it look like Atlanta, Fulton County Stadium in 1976. And we'll just be done with this.

But to continue saying you're going to compete for the championship when you don't act, I mean, Lamere, am I wrong? Look at what's happened since this team since 2018. Yeah, since 2018, the Red Sox stopped acting like a heavyweight, right? Like, they still spend more money than some teams, of course. But they've stopped trying to compete with the Dodgers. I think we're kind of at, I'm sorry, aren't we kind at the middle of the pack? Weren't we kind at the middle of the pack last year?

I think we're 12th in spending, 12. So yeah, no, it's it. And there's no reason of that. They print money. Fenway Park is full every night, although that will start to change at some point. And I think, look, this is where I know it's April, but it's a Yankees Red Sox series that in New England, my family's up there, says it no buzz. And it's not just because the Bruins and Celtics are in the playoffs. It's because people, team, the fans are already out on this team.

And we'd love to be proven wrong. We'd love for them to turn around. But right now they're out. I'll just say this. Like, as a stat, they played the Yankees last night. The New York Yankees. Max Fried is on the mound. As much as a game in late April can be, it's a sort of a must-win game, or at least show some fight.

The Red Sox started five plays. last night who were hitting under 200. Five. Like, that's not really a major league lineup. And look, I know the Yankees have some flaws, too, but they're taking care of business. And they're going to get the big guys are hitting. They have a superstar in the center of the lineup.

And Aaron Judge, we don't have that. And, you know, you're going to get reinforcements when more pitching comes back. And the socks suddenly, you know, already five games out. And it doesn't look and get better anytime soon. And Cam Schlittler is pitching tonight for the Yankees. He's, of course, the kid from Walpole, lifelong Red Sox fan who has tormented them over the last season or so. Good news, guys, though, you're not the New York Mets, though they did win last night.

The Mets beat the Twins three to two at City Field, snapping their 12-game losing streak. Our congratulations to Mets fans everywhere. All right, let's turn back to the news. Let's bring an investigative reporter for the New York Times. Michael Schmidt, he has some extraordinary new reporting that the FBI investigated a New York Times journalist last month, who had reported back in February that FB. FBI director Cash Patel used bureau personnel for his girlfriend, Alexis Wilkins, providing her with government security and transportation, use of the plane at taxpayer expense that's including for

personal outings. So Michael, walk us through what you've found here. This is one of the fears of this administration's retribution campaign that it would go after, not just political opponents, but journalists that they believe had made them look bad. What did you find? Yeah, so reporters, sometimes can find themselves caught up in leak investigations where the government wants to figure out who their sources are. And the government, you will go in and subpoena the reporter in a pretty extraordinary case earlier this year. The government went in and executed a search warrant at a reporter's home to try and figure out what their sources work. In this instance, the FBI looked at whether a reporter for the New York Times in simply doing what is widely considered

routine reporting question asking, protected by the first Amendment, whether that action was stalking and whether that there was stalking that was going on towards the director's girlfriend. We learned that in the days after the Times wrote this story in late February, the FBI interviewed Cash Patel's girlfriend. The FBI went and queried its databases to see what information it had on the New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson. And then FBI agents determined that they believe there was enough there to move forward with what's called a preliminary investigation, an investigation into whether the New York Times reporter had broken federal stalking laws, whether they, you know, simply through the reporting on the story. And there was, you know, nothing that the Times reporter that had done that went beyond what we do every day as journalists out there reaching out to people. who often we don't know, but are trying to get information from,

in a story that's trying to understand how Cash Patel was using the FBI, you know, whether he was using it for personal reasons that went beyond how different department heads and agency heads and leaders in the government use it. And, you know, the FBI has denied the story. They said it was false. They said that the questions that had come up about Elizabeth Williams, were in connection with a threat that had been made against the director's girlfriend by someone out of Boston in a case that did end up with an arrest. But when we, you know, after that pushback, we had actually gone back and done more reporting to learn about really how specifically this was focused on a, you know, my colleague, Elizabeth Williamson, and how the investigative work was.

was looking at criminal questions on what's, you know, as I was saying before, but it's important to understand. Widely accepted normal journalism, journalism that we had thought in the media was protected by the First Amendment. So, Michael, to explain this a little bit, first of all, the original piece was not disputed by the FBI that Cash Patel's girlfriend was received a full-time SWAT protective detail and had used government tax. taxpayer-funded transportation that Cash Patel had used the same to go see her at certain events. What they're disputing is, I guess that Ms. Wilkins, his girlfriend, said she felt harassed during the investigative process, the investigative journalism process. And so that the FBI was just looking into those claims that she was being harassed, but that the Department of Justice never pursued that as a case. Does that sound right?

Sort of. I'm not sure the statement was quite that clear. But you know, they were trying to push back on it and trying to make it look like it had been part of something that was different. And even with the FBI, as it currently is in the sort of different relationship that they've had with the truth, we did go back and do more work after they initially pushed back. And, you know, we were able to, you know, sort of understand better just how much the FBI was focused on this New York Times reporter. The FBI was able to, you know, the FBI has a lot of information in its own files that it's accumulated over the years and look through those files to see what they had about this New York Times reporter. The FBI agents on the case believed that there was enough evidence to move forward with investigating two different laws that they thought had been broken in connection with what they thought was this stalking. Justice Department officials learned about what the FBI was doing and thought it was, really outside the norm.

They thought that the Justice suburban officials thought that it was retaliatory and they did not think that there was a legal basis to move forward. But the FBI itself did think that there was enough to continue to investigate and to look at this reporter.

And the issue that you I mean obviously there's still there's a lot of issues with that. But when Cash Patel has had several things come out about how he has used the FBI as sort of a, you know, for personal reasons. And this, you know, raised those similar questions. Yeah.

All right. The new piece. Very important. Investigative reporting by Michael Schmidt. It's in the New York Times right now. Make sure you give it a read. David French, I want to, I just, and I want to get to David Road after this, but, you know, when I see such sheer transparent stupidity and such a bumbling abuse of power. I really, really just want to go up to Capitol Hill

and talk to Republicans and say, don't you understand what I've been telling you for a year and a half that if you have Republicans abusing power like this against their political enemies, against reporters they don't like, maybe it's at the New York Times now, maybe it'll be at Fox News or Newsmax in a left-wing Democratic administration, or if you're concerned about a Republican president saying openly to the attorney general, arrest my political. enemies, then why want a left-wing president look at that abuse of power and that bumbling and say, I'm going to do the same thing. If you have Brendan Carr, who by the way, he's going to be a guest for Paramount at the White House Correspondent Center. Imagine lucky draw there, I guess.

Maybe they just did it by lottery. But if you have Brendan Carr saying, I'm going to stifle the voices of comedians that upset this Republican administration. Do they not think a left-wing progressive? Are some egomaniac billionaire tech monopolist that somehow gets into the White House isn't going to use the same methods? Except they'll be a lot smarter. There'll be a lot more. It'll be a lot more dangerous. Like, how many times does this have to play out for them to understand that their silence actually ends up not only damaging democracy, but it ends up hurting the Republican Party in the long term. There is no doubt about this. I've been in Washington and around Washington long enough. Democrats will see turnabout as fair play. I just wonder when are they going to

wake up and start criticizing this in a way that puts pressure on the administration to stop this nonsense. Well, I mean, I think the answer is really easy. They're not going to wake up until the Republican primary voter wakes up. Let's just be honest here. All of these members in Congress, they know the primary threat to their career if they're a Republican is still defying Donald Trump. And so they're not going to wake up until the Republican Party primary voter wakes up. At the end of the day, this is ultimately on the Republican Party primary voter. And, you know, what we're seeing here is, Joe, it's just an enormous amount of pride and hubris. If you go back to November of 2024, there was this sense, and going from November to December and then into 2025, that they had destroyed the left, that there was this permanent vibe shift, that everything was changing, that the normal pendulum of American politics had just swung away.

from the left permanently. And so the amount of arrogance that we saw, the amount of brazen corruption, as if there will never be any accountability, as if there will never be a change in control, as you say, is just extraordinary. And honestly, honestly, I do not think it has sunk in to the MAGA part of the Republican Party. It isn't such a bubble. I do not think it has sunk in the extent of their political peril right now. And so they're continuing to operate in all of this pride and hubris with no foundation for it in American public opinion. And I expect you're going to see some pretty severe Democratic accountability coming soon. And when it comes, Republicans will wonder where it came from.

Well, it came from their own pride and arrogance. David Rode, this is an extraordinarily troubling development. It comes on the heels of a Washington Post reporter having her home-rated devices seized as part of an investigation there. we now have, as Michael Schmidt just outlined for us, and a New York Times reporter being investigated. I mean, this is exactly what so many people were worried about. When the president, Trump was reelected and promised retribution, and we know he has made attacks on the media a centerpiece of his political career.

And now he is, in a way he didn't in the first term, he and his team seem to be targeting journalists in a new way, a way that, frankly, let's just call it as un-American. It's a strategy. It's about, and it just reminds me of, and I wrote a book about this several years ago, but just this concentration of power, the abuse of the FBI and Hoover. Hoover created a list of 12,000 Americans. Some of them were writers and journalists. Some of them were actors. Some of them were, you know, university professors who were deemed as subversive and a threat to the country and the extraordinary powers of the FBI. And there were all these checks set up after the Hoover scandals and then also after the Nixon. scandals and Watergate, all of that is being wiped away by this administration. And one of the groups, Hoover went after was the John Birch Society. It's not just liberals that, and so when you have this secrecy, this concentration of power, this hubris, and a lot, it's, again, it's in the president himself, abuses happen. So yes, we're targets,

but I think many, many other Americans, this is unchecked and it's really alarming. And as Michael Schmidt reports, Elizabeth Wilkins, that New York Times reporter was interviewed by the FBI. They searched federal databases on her and investigated whether she violated stalking laws ultimately deciding that she had not. But the message was clearly sent. Coming up this morning, Ali Vitale will join us with her exclusive interview. A former vice president, Mike Pence, some fascinating stuff in there. We'll hear what he's saying about the war in Iran, Donald Trump's fight with the Pope, and much more. That's coming up next on Morning Joe. I think the most important thing right now is that the president make it clear that we intend to finish the job.

But what does that even entail, right? I feel like the administration's been murky on what the actual goals of this are. Well, there's an old saying that one doesn't make peace with one's enemy. One makes peace with one's defeated enemy. And the posture that I see from the Iranians doesn't suggest they feel defeated right now. I think they largely are. All right. That was former vice president, Mike Pence, weighing in on the Warner-on. It was one of the many topics he discussed in an interview with MS now senior Capitol Hill reporter.

Ali Vitaleen Ali joins us now. Man, Ellie, a fascinating interview. What more did you learn from the former vice president? Yeah, Joe, I was really interested to hear the former vice president weigh in on a number of different issues currently facing President Trump and an administration that Pence was for four years a large part of. But one of the things that I asked him, as someone who's covered Pence for a decade and heard him say on the campaign trail hundreds of times that he is a Christian, conservative, and Republican in that order, I asked him directly about President Trump's ongoing feud with

the Pope, which seems to have died down, at least briefly. But then, of course, those AI images, specifically that one that the president posted, that depicted him as a Jesus-like figure, this is what the former by President Mike Pence told me about that. Well, I found the language and the image is offensive. I think the president was right to take one image down. And his ongoing argument with Pope Leo, I think has abated to a degree. And I welcome that.

I think the Pope has every right to express himself in a manner that he believes is consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ. and the president has every right to express his view and his agenda for the American people. And I think if I was advising him as I did every day for four and a half years, I'd say, let the Pope be the Pope and you'd be the President. Have you called him on this or anything else, speaking of advising him? I have not. The president and I was able to congratulate the president on his election, and congratulations.

the first lady, but we don't talk as often as we used to, but I get the distinct impression he still listens to us and watches what we do. Now Pence says he has that belief, guys, because of the role that Pence has always played in the conservative movement as a stalwart there. That was another part of our conversation that we'll bring to you guys for next week. But I think fascinating to watch Pence there respond to the way the president has talked about the Pope, the images that he's posted online, it's a marked difference from the way that people like Speaker Mike Johnson and even Vice President J.D. Vance have reacted to those moments.

Yeah, it is, Allie. And speaking of J.D. Vance, I know you talk to Vice President Pence about the current Vice President and the relationship or perhaps I should say the lack thereof between the two. The lack thereof between the two. And we aired a portion of the interview on my show this morning about the fact that they've actually never spoken, which I think might be shocking. and I even said to the former vice president at one point, you've never spoken to the only other person who knows what it's like to be Donald Trump's vice president. And yet Pence had criticism for J.D. Vance, really through the lens of Vance espousing an isolationist view of how America should comport itself on the world stage. And it was in that window of global dynamics and the role that the U.S.

plays right now that I thought this exchange that I had with Pence was really fascinating. We were talking about Iran, yes, as we showed at the top of the show, but also, So the way that the U.S. is positioned as a leader on the world stage right now, listen to that part of our conversation. It's interesting that you bring up the role of American leadership on the world stage because the German chancellor back in February, and this is a quote from him, said the United States's claim to leadership has been challenged and possibly lost. He was citing comments at that point from the vice president and others in the Trump administration during the Munich Security Conference. Do you understand, based on some of the actions from the Trump administration and key figures within it, why that's the president? Well, I certainly do. I mean, look, I've visited, as you know, Allie, I've visited Ukraine twice since the initiation

of hostilities. I think the military in Ukraine, President Zelensky, have responded with courage and innovation against the overwhelming force of the Russian military. And I truly do believe free nations in the world need to continue to give Ukraine what they need to defeat and repel that Russian invasion. Is America giving that right now through the Trump administration? I think that's an open question. I was disappointed to hear my successor recently boasting about the fact that we had ended support for Ukraine.

So once again, there, a criticism along an ideological and substantive lane from the former vice president to the current vice president, Joe. But I mean, this show has been bar none on talking about the ways that the U.S. lack of clarity in the Trump administration around Ukraine has ripple effects throughout Europe and the global community. And I think Pence is really directly seizing on that, both in our interview, but then also in the interview pieces to come, where he talks about the ways that the Republican Party could go one of two ways right now. And you and I have talked about this as well through an isolationist wing espoused by some people like J.D. Vance, or through the more neo-conservative traditional view of America as a leader

on the global stage, which is something that Pence says he thinks that they can get back and that Republicans will return to. All right, MS now, senior Capitol Hill reporter and the host of way too early. Ali Vitale, thank you so much. Great interview, and we can't wait to hear the rest of it. David French, listening to Mike Pence, I'm struck. You know, everybody likes to sort of try to define whether somebody is an American firster or whether they're neocons or what they are.

I just remember growing up in a conservative household. I mean, my dad was a cold warrior. My family, we were cold warriors. We believed, like Ronald Reagan believed, that you pushed the boundaries of freedom in Europe as far east as you could. And a victory over the Soviet Union, the collapse of the Berlin Wall,

the welcoming of these Warsaw Pact countries that had been enslaved by the Soviet Union and Joseph Stalin since 1945, that was something that we celebrated, that we were joyful about. Conservatives were joyful about it. Republicans were joyful about it. And now, I mean, this is, again, I just, it's clearly, you know, it's people come up to you and say, oh, I liked you when you were conservative. You've got to laugh. You are the conservative one. They're the ones that are the very ones that are proud, J.D. Vance, that we're not supporting

the freedom fighters against Russian invaders, against Russian hordes against Russian bombs. Like, this is such a trashing, not just of Reagan's legacy, but the legacy of the last 60, 70 years. of conservatism. And Mike Pence represents that. I remember the first term, Donald Trump, would say something that would, you know, make you scratch your head. It sounded pro-Pooten. And then Mike Pence would go over to Europe. And he would say, yes, we still support freedom in Europe. We still want to push back on autocracy and let freedom reign in Western, Central, and Eastern Europe. But that is sadly missing from this administration with people like Mike Pence out. You know, I, Joe, that's very well said.

And I'm utterly stumped by the idea that this reversal on Russia, where now it is the Republican Party that is the weaker party in the United States system on opposing Russian aggression, that I'm stumped by any argument that this is in our national interests. How is it in our national interest to be proud to cut off aid to Ukraine? How is it in our national interest to lavish this attention on Russia in the ongoing whatever the left of abuse process in Ukraine, where we consistently leaving Ukraine out of the loop, out of the conversation? How is this an American national interest? It is one of the most remarkable 180s that I've ever seen, Joe. I mean, this is a thing for me that it was foundational to my membership in the Republican Party back in those years as I saw the Republicans as more clear-eyed about the danger. of in that time Soviet aggression. I never imagine you'd have a time where the Democratic Party was more clear-eyed about Russian aggression. But here we are, and people bandy about words like conservative,

there is nothing. This is a theme of the show, nothing conservative, actually conservative, about this Republican Party. David French, thank you, as always. David's latest piece for the Times is titled, I missed the part about the divine right of presidents. That piece is a now.