Morning Joe - Trump's Gaza peace plan wins global support as world awaits Hamas response

Episode Date: September 30, 2025

Trump's Gaza peace plan wins global support as world awaits Hamas response Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, to prepare for the shutdown of the government, they just released this message. Take a look at this. Without a new spending deal by 1159 p.m. on September 30th, the United States federal government will immediately shut down. Non-essential personnel will be furloughed and many government functions will cease operations. At that point, all Americans will be invited to visit Spirit Halloween at the Capitol, the nation's largest Spirit Halloween, featuring costumes like Jackalanturn businessman, adult Harry Potter, your Aunt Phyllis, and a life-sized Labou.

See you there. Chuck Schumer, your aunt's filling. Okay. Wow. The tonight shows take on the looming government shutdown. We'll bring you the latest and where things stand right now. What? I have a lot to do here.

Come on. We have a lot to do. This is Rivalry Week. As the kids know, Willie Geist and I. A rivalry week. First, Willie, with the big one tonight. Tonight. And I love the subtlety of the Daily News.

Oh, yeah. I'll just have my... Boston, the New York Times, I mean, the New York Post, rivalry, renewal. What do they get on the back? We got on the back of the post, Rise Up, called the All-Rise, Aaron Judge, call. So, Yankees, Red Sox, three-game series, wild card starts tonight in the Bronx, three games to remind people all in New York. They play like a regular season series.

Yeah. Best two out of three. We've got our best pitcher going. You've got your best pitcher going, arguably to the very best in baseball. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be fun. It's going to be wild in the Bronx. And then the rivalry week continues even after the wild card game, as all the kids know at home right now, and that is Saturday.

Tuscaloosa. T-Town, college game day is going down. Are they really? Game day is going to be in Tuscalo coming off Alabama's huge win in Athens over Georgia Saturday night. The Vanderbill Commodores, 5-0. The 5-0 Commodores led by Clark Lee, our coach and our coach. quarterback Diego Pavia. Alabama looking to avenge that massive upset of Vanderbilt over Alabama.

One year ago. You got a good coach. He's great. And I didn't stay up last night, but I can report without knowing what the score is that the Jets probably lost. That's right. Yeah. Did it just do you even have to turn on the game to know that? I woke up and confirmed that they lost.

They fall to 0 and 4. Dolphins beat them. The other game was terrible. He didn't miss anything. Okay. But I've got to say the worst. Good news of time. The worst team in New York, still the Mets.

Oh, come on. You know, they're investing, and I, you know, Cohen, you're glad he's investing. But I'll tell you, one thing we're learning up in Boston, a good farm system, cures a thousand ills. Yeah, they spend all the money you could possibly spend. They got an owner who opens the checkbook. They got the best free agent on the market, paid him almost a billion dollars, and did not make the playoffs. Yeah, there you go. Okay. Along with Joe, Willie, and Me, we have U.S. Special Correspondent for BBC News and the host of the rest of politics podcast, Katty Kay.

And Katty wants to talk about the wild card, too. She big baseball fan, I can tell. I mean, she could, but she's, yeah. Columnist and Associated Editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius is with us. And New York Times opinion columnist David French joins us. A lot to get to in the news. President Trump has unveiled a new 20-point peace plan for Gaza after his White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The proposal calls for an immediate ceasefire. The return of all hostages within 72 hours and a phased Israeli withdrawal. Hamas members who lay down their arms would be granted amnesty or safe passage. A new Board of Peace led by Trump

and including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair would oversee Gaza's transition backed by an international to provide security. Trump says most parties have agreed but warned that if Hamas rejects the deal, Israel would have full U.S. support to continue its military campaign. But I hope that we're going to have a deal for peace. And if Hamas rejects the deal, which is always possible, they're the only one left. Everyone else has accepted it. But I have a feeling that we're going to have a positive answer. But if not, as you know, Baby, you'd have our full backing to do what you would have to do. Everyone understands that the ultimate result must be the elimination of any danger posed in the region, and the danger is caused by Hamas.

So, David, this isn't really so much of a negotiation as a surrender by Hamas. And if you're Hamas and can get out alive? Well, that may not be such a bad deal at this point of the war either. Tell me your thoughts on this deal, your thoughts on European and Arab countries lining up behind it saying that Hamas should say yes. So, Joe, first, this is basically a surrendered deal. I watched one of those go down in Beirut after the 1982 Israeli invasion. And Yasser Arfot, Then the head of the PLO was told, get out of Beirut, and you can have amnesty, and he did. And he went on to fight other battles, but from an exile location. That may happen here.

I think the pressure on Hamas from Palestinians to accept the deal and see an end of this war is going to be considerable. What I found striking about the presentation yesterday by President Trump was that this is a detailed plan at last. for the day after the war ends. For more than a year, we've been talking here on the show about the absence of day after planning, of planning for a transition when the guns finally fall silent. It's finally here on paper. And it's a fairly well-fashioned plan.

There's a Board of Peace, a kind of showy-sounding body that will be headed by President Trump, but will probably really be run by Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister. But under that, there'll be a group of Palestinian technocrats. I'm told that the names of most of those people have already been selected and vetted. There'll be an international stabilization force to help create a new Palestinian police that can create security

so people aren't killing themselves, chasing after food. And the countries that will be involved in that have also already been selected. Italy, Indonesia, Azerbaijan, or among the countries that will be involved. involved. There's a transitional process to reform the Palestinian Authority, which has responsibility for the West Bank, but doesn't exercise it very much or very well. And it's hard to know how that will work out. But in theory, if the PA reforms, it will move into the process of governance in Gaza eventually. A final point about this is that when you read the fine text, You can see that Israel is not committing to fully withdraw militarily from Gaza for any foreseeable future.

There will be a buffer zone around Gaza that will have Israeli military forces that can go back in when they feel it's necessary. But finally, Trump's ability to get everybody except Hamas on the same page, Israel, all the key Arab countries, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, Jordan, Gutter. together supporting this plan and to back off his earlier demand that all Palestinians have to leave Gaza. That's a significant move. And, you know, as I wrote this morning, if this goes through, it is a foundation for the broader Arab-Israeli peace that the whole world would like to see. And just for domestic audiences here in America, you know, Willie, obviously Donald Trump is a divisive figure. He's probably, you know, depending on where you, what poll you read. He's got a prove rating anywhere from 39% to 45, maybe 46%, but very divisive. The one thing that's

important for people that are watching this and saying, well, what, Donald Trump, the head of any board or whatever, just to understand is, and David, David's reporting is the same. I'm sure Cadiz is the same. Arab leaders? like dealing with Donald Trump. They say he understands us, we understand him, and they're ready for this to come to an end. So if somebody's out there sitting going, oh, wait, this guy is saying, you know,

I alone can bring peace to the region. Usually when he says, I alone, just cut it off, don't listen, because what he's going to say after that, it's probably not going to be completely accurate. in this case, other than Hamas, he is the one person that the Arab countries are willing to get behind and do things with. And his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has been involved in these negotiations as well, they trust him and have a great relationship with Jared as well. Yes, they do. He's been at the center of this. So, Caddy Kay, you look at the conditions listed in this

20-point plan. It's got a lot, as someone told me last night, a lot to like in there. It depends on Hamas now, which has not obviously been a rational actor in negotiations. They're a terrorist group agreeing to it. They say they want a ceasefire. They say they want Israeli troops to withdraw in exchange for hostages. Well, here it is, albeit a phased withdrawal, as David said, of Israeli troops. Is there any expectation from this collection of nations, this collection of bodies have gotten behind this, that Hamas actually will sit at the table this time and listen? And there's a couple of things, Willie.

There's some specifics on the number of Palestinians who are serving life sentences in Israeli prisons who are to be released 250. That number doesn't seem to have been taken from random. So that makes you think have there been, you know, back channel negotiations around this that actually have got some kind of sign off preemptively from Hamas. The fact that Hamas leaders could be allowed to leave could also give some of them pause for thinking that this is worth doing. But there are still questions about this deal, right? And the main one is, what does the president mean and what does Netanyahu mean when they say that if Hamas does not sign on to this, then Israel can do what it needs to do, do the maximum, go as far as it needs to go with American backing for that position. And it's not clear exactly what that would mean in the long run for Israel. Does that inevitably lead to some kind of permanent occupation of the Gaza Strip?

and how would Israel carry it out? I think the timing of this is so interesting in the context of the polls that are coming out showing how much support Israel as a country and the Israeli government is losing amongst Americans, particularly amongst young Americans. There is very little patience now for Israel in this country, which is why this kind of a deal needs to be done sooner

rather than later for BB Netanyahu in order to have American support, because it's cratering, particularly. It was actually declining before the attacks of October the 7th, but since October the 7th and the new polling this week shows that it really has cratered, particularly amongst young Americans. And let me say this slowly for people that didn't hear it the first hundred times I said this. Benjamin Netanyahu and his insistence on continuing this war after his military leaders

and his intel leaders said there was no need to continue. continue this war, along with the horrific scenes that we have seen, coming out of Gaza, coming out of the area, post-October the 7th, as two years after that, has really driven a wedge in support for Israel in America. Now, listen, as a lifetime supporter of Israel, I understand, most of the worlds always seem to be lined up against Israel, especially in the United Nations. But people who support Israel's long-term health and viability need to pay closer attention to these polls because the polls that Katty just mentioned, Mika, they're extraordinarily bad for Israel. And that does matter. It matters for support because Israel gets most of its support from the United States.

They're from the New York Times and Santa College. and they were conducted last week and released yesterday, which show American attitudes toward Israel's war in Gaza have changed drastically since it began nearly two years ago. Just over 1,300 registered voters were pulled between Monday and Saturday of last week. The margin of error is 3.2%. 51% said they are either strongly or somewhat opposed

to the United States providing additional economic and military support to Israel. Now, I mean, look at that. That's a majority of people oppose, oppose military or economic support to Israel. That has never happened in my lifetime. 58% said Israel should stop its military campaign in order to protect against civilian casualties, even if not all Israeli hostages, have been released. Even more said, Israel should stop its military campaign in order to protect against civilian. casualties, even if Hamas has not been fully eliminated. That's 59% to 27%.

And 62% said Israel is not taking enough precautions to avoid civilian casualties. And on top of that, Willie, more people than not believe Israel is intentionally targeting civilians. The numbers, I read them, and I knew, and we'd all heard that Israeli support and the United States was slipping, but I was even shocked. by just how bad the Netanyahu government support has fallen. And with Netanyahu, Israel. And among young voters in the United States, especially, 70%, 70%, 70% of young American voters

say we should stop giving military aid to Israel. David Ignatius also, we should just point out as a contrast where it was two years ago in the aftermath of those tax. It was 47% of Americans supporting Israel, only 20% supporting Palestinians. that now has flipped and those two numbers are equal at this point. So with all that data in mind, David French, actually, let me go to you. What do you think drove this moment, this 20-point plan? Was it sort of an urgency to see that support slipping here in America?

Well, you know, I think it's a couple things. One is it's way past time to have that day after plan out there, to have a day after plan backed by a multinational agreement. This should have been done a long time ago. The second thing, though, is, look, at the bottom line is Hamas has got a decision point. We know Hamas does not care for Palestinian lives. We know that Hamas uses the deaths of innocent Palestinians to advance its own cause. We're about to find out if Hamas cares about its own lives at all.

And so the key, the carrot here for Hamas is you simply get to live. You get to go somewhere else and that calling back to the earlier resolution with the PLO in the 1980s, I think is the right kind of comparison. So do they care enough about their own lives here? Or is this truly, fully, and completely a death cult? And we're about to find out. And I do think the other thing that's important about this is when you have international agreement and Hamas is the sole party that says no, that is at least in the short to medium term, going to grant Israel. a new permission structure. But it's against the backdrop, a short-term to medium-term maybe permission structure for Israel to continue the military campaign against the backdrop of

a long-term threat to Israel's national security if American support for Israel is undermined for the foreseeable future. That's something that Israel has to think about because Israel is a very powerful country for its size, but it will never be an independent military power in the way that we are, and they do need us. They do need our support. So those numbers are ominous from a long-term perspective, and Israel should be working urgently to reverse them. David, I often talk about our common background as evangelicals growing up in the South and supporters of Israel. I mean, it's just a given. And it was just a given that most Americans instinctively supported Israel. Looking at these numbers, it's just a given. It's just a given. It's

just absolutely staggering. This is something that, again, over the course of five decades of my life following this, I've never seen Israel support drop to a low point. Would you have ever imagined we would get to a point that, and I know it's just the accumulation of the bombing and the images coming out of Gaza and the war continuing a year after Netanyahu is told by his generals and his intel officers, hey, there are no more war. aims to achieve. We need to stop this. Could you have ever imagined a majority of Americans, and as Willie underlined, especially young Americans, opposing any military or economic aid to Israel, unimaginable what the last two years have done for Israel's standing here in America?

Well, you know, the thing, you hit the nail on the head, Joe, and you talked about younger people. This is something that you're seeing divisions on the right. amongst younger people as well as the left. And that's the new thing. So to see, you know, we've always seen some degree of partisan split on Israel in recent history. Republicans have been generally more supportive, though both sides have been very supportive of Israel overall. But you did see that emerging partisan split. But the thing is, if you're looking, again, if you're Israel and looking down the road, actually amongst younger voters, including younger evangelicals, I have seen much more division about Israel.

Israel, even within the right, even within the Republican Party. And so this is something, if you're Israeli military planners, part of your eye has to be on your biggest patron, your biggest supporter, the one that is going to help sustain the existence of your country for the indefinite future. That's where part of your focus has to be. So I do think part of this deal is to say, look, Israel isn't as isolated as you think. Look, there are Americas with them. You have Tony Blair coming in potentially to assist.

You've got multinational support for a particular plan. And if Hamas rejects it, like I said, it gives Israel that little extra freedom of action, perhaps. But it still has to look at the long term. What can it do to address that declining American popular support? That's an urgent issue. All right. A lot still to get to. Still ahead on morning, Joe.

We're going to look at whether a compromise is possible today to avoid a government shutdown also ahead. New details on two Marine veterans, each accused of carrying out separate mass shootings in Michigan and North Carolina. And we'll preview the unusual meeting today of hundreds of military generals called by Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth with very few details. And a reminder that the Morning Joe podcast is available each weekday featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen. Wherever you get your podcasts, you're watching Morning Joe, we'll be right back. 22 past the hour.

Take a look at the Capitol. The sun has yet to come up over Washington so much at stake there right now. So much at stake at Yankee's stadium tonight. as well. We've got people around the table. Joining us now. The co-host of our fourth hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lamere. Very nervous. MSNBC contributor. We have a heart monitor

on him just like they had at the Writers. On the 558. I don't want to see that. We can get a chance to talk about the writer's up with you. Mike, everyone's going to talk about how much they love you. What do you mean? Mike Barnacle Week? It's Mike Marnicle Week. It is. Oh, thank you.

On my Instagram. We're doing a, why we love Mike. Why is Mike. Why is Mike Greeneck. Mike's already talked about himself, if you can believe it. Okay. The host of... He's more of a TikTok guy.

Oh, Mike's on TikTok? He's a big TikTok guy. Snap. Okay. The host of way too early MSNBC senior Capitol Hill correspondent, Allie Battali, joins us as well. So the United States government will shut down when the clock ticks from midnight to 12.01 a.m. overnight tonight, unless President Trump and leaders on Capitol Hill can reach an 11th hour

agreement. Trump and the top four leaders in Congress met privately yesterday, but failed to reach a compromise. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say they reiterated their focus on advancing health care policy goals. Democrats are fighting to protect the health care of the American people, and we are not going to support a partisan Republican spending bill that continues to gut the health care of everyday Americans. And when we talked to him about the other issues, he was not aware that Americans would pay so many Americans, tens of millions of Americans would pay huge increases in their health care

in their health care bills because of the ACA expiring in December. And he was not aware that the real effect of that starts October 1st, not December 31st. So it seemed from his body language and some of the things he said that he was not aware of the ramifications of the detritus, the bad, bad implications on health care for Americans. Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, are blaming Democrats with Vice President J.D. Vance predicting a shutdown. This is purely and simply hostage-taking on behalf of the Democrats. The Republicans are united. House Republicans, Senate Republicans, President Trump, the House has passed a clean funding resolution to fund the government until November the 21st. It's clean, it is bipartisan, and it is short-term.

But it gives us enough time to finish the appropriations process, which is the way we should be funding the government. We have disagreements about tax policy, but you don't shut that government down. We have disagreements about health care policy, but you don't shut the government down. You don't use your policy disagreements as leverage to not pay our troops, to not have essential services of government to actually function. You don't say the fact that you disagree about a particular tax provision is an excuse for shutting down to the people's government and all the essential services that come along with it. So I'm easily confused, as everybody knows.

But I'm confused. I mean, he was the guy who said that Donald Trump might be America's Hitler, and then he changed. He's a guy that said, God expects more from us than to vote for Donald Trump, J.D. did. And then he changed. And Mika, didn't he say, like, not so long ago that this is exactly when you use your leverage to try to get the other party to change when the other party? did change when the other party's in the white didn't he say i don't know am i dreaming is this like is this like a dream from dallas where it's the next season i don't know yeah you could be we could take a look okay let's do that's do yeah man why why why shouldn't we be trying to force this

government shutdown fight to get something out of it that's good for the american people like why have a government if it's not a functioning government. What a shock. What a shock. A year ago. That's just it. Oh, I thought that might be a decade ago. Thirty years ago or something. Oh, wait, he is pretty young. That was just last year. That was last year. Well, it's very interesting. You know, you never know what's going to happen here.

You really don't. Donald Trump can decide what he wants to decide. I will say, actually going through a government shutdown. You know, everybody on the floor would all gather, well, you know, people will understand that Bill Clinton and would sit there. And finally, like it occurred to me, I go, nobody's paying attention to this. When the government shut down, they're going to blame Republicans. They always blame Republicans. And sure enough, the government was shut down. Bill Clinton broke us politically, got reelected.

It worked in his favor. When there was a shutdown, I guess, what, 2011? Same thing happened. They didn't blame Barack Obama, even though Republicans. were like, I don't blame Barack Obama. They never did. They don't do that. I know John. I've known John Thune for a long time. Love John Thune. People like working, like

in Middle America aren't going. Well, you know, they passed a clean CR. It's clean. Nobody, no, they get, what? The friend goes, what? What is that? Is that what they tell me? Connie Reeves. What does

CR stand for? So that's the problem is Republicans own the White House, Republicans own the Senate, Republicans own the House. They have a lot of power. Republicans own the Supreme Court. People in Middle America, when they see government shutdown, like, wait a second, we put Republicans charge of everything, and they can't even run a government. I'm not, this is not wishcasting.

This is like 30 years of experience. Republicans always get blamed for government shutdowns, especially. Especially when you have the monopoly of power in Washington, D.C. Yeah, the nation is not gripped by clean CR talk. There's a short-term memory here issue for the Republicans. And this White House, there were actually three government shutdowns during Trump's first term. Two of them were very brief. But one extended 30-odd days, the longest we've ever had.

All three, particularly the long one, where Trump took the hit. His poll numbers fell. He did. But they've convinced themselves that they can win the messaging on this one. And we see them, we heard, you know, they're talking about immigration. Do you think they're doing that because Democrats were so weak last time and folded so quickly? I think there is a sense of that, yes. They feel like there's a swagger coming from this White House.

They feel like the Democrats have proven to be not up to the challenge so far this year. There's been inadequate opposition and they feel like they can bully them into what they want. And they can use the same talking points they used during last year's election on immigration, trying to claim it's illegal is getting health, illegal migrants getting health care. We're seeing some transgender talk again. And last night, the president, after this meeting, yielded nothing with Schumer and Jeffries. The president put on social media a deep, fake, highly offensive video with racist discussions and fake language from Schumer and Jeffries that clearly is nothing you do if you're trying to reach across the aisle to get an 11th hour deal. So they're really, they're dug in here.

They're probably going to say they're going to win the messaging here around the shutdown. and barring something unforeseen, we're going that way. Yeah, it showed that that negotiation was a charade for the White House. They walked outside and tweeted or truth-socialed an AI video that had Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer outside of the Portico there. All fake. And it was all fake, everything they were saying. So, Allie, you've been following this closely for a long time.

A lot of people have seen this slow motion train coming for months that we were hurtling toward this shutdown. But to cut through what we heard, the partisan stuff from both sides. there. What is this shutdown really about? What are they fighting over? What they're essentially fighting over is, A, just basic keeping the government open, but B, Democrats laying out this litmus test on health care. And I think there's actually a deeper irony here because one of the things that Democrats have laid out that they want is shoring up Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire. And once they do, people's premiums are going to spike. If they were

to deal with this, that would actually help Republicans and Democrats, in the upcoming midterm elections. And so that is sort of the open and ironic secret about this. I think what Republican sources have said to me on the Hill is that it's a question of timing and when they feel comfortable doing a negotiation on those health care subsidies. But I still remain convinced that that is the off ramp. There was also some talk yesterday among sources of mine that Schumer was trying to feel out his caucus on if they would agree to some kind of very short-term spending agreement,

five days, seven days, ten days, just to get them over the hump and not let the government shut down while they continue to negotiate on other things. That idea was pretty much dead in the water as soon as it started. And Schumer himself was very forceful in saying, no, I wouldn't support that kind of idea. But it does only underscore the idea that we are likely heading for a government shutdown. And I think what Republicans did yesterday, there's one thing that I think helped them, which is having that meeting. I think they ran the risk of after Trump canceled on Democrats last week, handing Democrats the talking point of saying, well, they won't even meet with us. But then on the other hand, Speaker Mike Johnson is keeping his Republican House members at home. They're

not even in Washington right now. There's some consternation that I've heard from my sources about that strategy. Some Republicans say it would be better if we were in Washington doing what Democrats are doing, which is saying we're here, we're ready to work. We want to keep the government open. But it does seem like Johnson, by doing that, is forcing their posture that they either get on board with the clean CR that the House passed or the government shuts down, which is why the government's likely going to shut down? Well, and why is Johnson keeping him away? Well, we heard, first of all, he's keeping him away because he doesn't want to vote on Epstein, especially since a Democrat has now been, is waiting to be sworn in. That's number one.

But number two, think about all of the Republicans that won in Joe Biden's districts, that Biden also won. And think about the impact of slashing health care, like slashing, you know, whether they get it through the Affordable Care Act, slashing it from Medicaid, which impacts their parents, which impacts their children,

which impacts their families, impacts their health care. And that happening, so Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg and other billionaires and the richest people on Earth can get massive tax. tax cuts. Of course, you're going to keep people away from Washington, D.C. and swing districts

because they want this compromise because, I don't know, they'd rather get reelected than lose. And also, think about how the Republicans have prepared the field for a government shut down. I mean, they have, for nine months now, since they were, since they took office in January, they've laid off a lot of people in various agencies. They've gone after, thinned out enormous numbers of people from various agencies. And David French, I'm just wondering what you think out there in the country. I mean, nobody's walking around talking about CRs and everything like that today. But they are aware that the government is getting thinner and thinner and thinner each and every day.

Well, I also think there's just a sense of here we go again. I mean, how many times are we going to walk through this? And I don't think voters sit there in paris. Okay, this time it's different. This time, person X and Y are responsible for it. I think there's a weariness, a resignation here is what we're dealing with for this shutdown. And also, I think that a couple of these, the big beautiful bill and this dispute, are showing that I think many Republicans are not quite grasping how much their coalition is changing. Medicaid cuts were impacting a lot of this new, more working class Republican coalition subsidies in Obamacare.

You have to ask, how much will that, how much will increase health care costs with problems with subsidies impact this new Republican working class coalition? So there are some tweaks here, some small minor tweaks, but I think the overall sensation is here we go again. But with one interesting difference, one interesting difference is this time you might have an administration who uses whatever legal wiggle room it can possibly find or not find just raw power. and try to use the shutdown as a pretext for even more drastic cuts to government employment, more drastic changes in government agencies, using the ambiguity and the chaos surrounding this to maximum effect. And I'm not sure that everyone has thought that through quite enough yet. All right, Ali Vitale, thank you very much for staying on with us. And coming up on morning, Joe, as of now, TikTok is back. It's great.

But you don't have to go back. Little Red Book is amazing, too, folks. China's internet culture and memes are just better than America's. We're going to introduce you to this man from China, who has become a sensation on social media with his spot-on impression of President Trump. That is straight ahead on MorningJap. Live look at Washington, D.C. at 42 past the hour. DJ on Chopper 4 today.

DC? Not D.C. No, he's in New York. I'm just wondering if we're going to fly that chunk. Yeah, man, he's good. He's going to hang out. Yeah, it's a camera. Pretty amazing, really.

Rewack the tapes and get it gets inverted. Yeah, let's do it. David French, your latest opinion piece for the New York Times is entitled, Make No Mistake About Where We Are. And in it, you write in part this. Quote, there are times when I miss practicing law, because right now there are few more important posts for defending the rule of law and the integrity of the American system of justice than on James Comey's defense team.

You continue, it's important. to discuss the details of the case, but we cannot forget the context. The Department of Justice is prosecuting a former director of the FBI, and it's doing so not because there is clear evidence of a crime, but because there is clear evidence that the president wants revenge. Trump's retribution isn't just inflicting grave injustice on its innocent victims. It's hollowing the Justice Department. As decent people resigned, They're replaced with people eager or at least willing to participate in Trump's partisan inquisition. When you put it all together, there can be no doubt.

Trump's attack on American justice has taken its next and most ominous turn. And David, of course, as we've been saying, you're not just hearing this from the left. You're hearing this from the Wall Street Journal editorial page. You're hearing this from the National Review. You're hearing this from Fox News as Andy McCarthy. You're hearing this from some of the most conservative legal voices out here because this is a slam dunk. This is so easy. Whether you're like Comey or not, it's like free speech.

Free speeches protect all speech, even offensive speech. Here, the rule of laws to protect those that we may not even agree with or like. Yeah, I think one of the things that you saw happen last week is that a lot of people on the right were waiting to see the indict. waiting to see, was there any there there that they could really circle the wagons around and defend? And I got to say that indictment landed like a thud. It had very few details. It left people to speculate as to what was happening. And the speculation led down a couple of avenues where it appears that there's no there there. There's still no real evidence disclosed to the public. All of the evidence that we've seen in public cuts against prosecuting Comey.

all of the evidence of what happened behind the scenes with the DOJ career prosecutors recommending against prosecuting Comey, according to reports. And then you have Trump's public threats. I mean, this is something that if we had received word that this had happened behind closed doors and other administrations, it would have been a grade A potentially administration ending kind of scandal. Trump just does it out in public. Wait, wait, David, let's just stop and underline that. That would have been.

An administration ending scandal. I remember back in 93, George Stephanopoulos, and I forget who else was in the room, they actually spoke to somebody in the FBI about a press release. It was a scandal for a month in Washington, D.C. Here, you're exactly right. If a document had been leaked that Donald Trump was ordering legal hits on his political enemies, that, again, in any other administration would have led to impeachment for a Republican or a Democrat. Yeah, and instead, Trump puts it on truth social, and the response is, oh, wow, look how

transparent he is. Yes, he's transparently corrupt. He's absolutely transparent. He's transparently corrupt. And so you have this direct message. I fired the previous guy, an endorsement of the new person, completely inexperienced in this area of law, by the way, walks in, kind of sort of bumbles through the indictment, and then the indictment's published, and what's there? It's vague allegations, not clearly connected to any specific incident. They're obviously trying to refer to a specific incident, but very little information. Well, and as Andy McCarthy says with Fox News, the allegations contradict each other.

They don't, there's not even, even there's just even on the, the pleadings, themselves, they don't really clearly put a charge forward. I don't, I mean, how quickly does get dismissed? Well, that's a very good question. I mean, there's going to be more evidence maybe that emerges, almost certainly that emerges. And we'll see it's, it's not easy to dismiss an indictment. That is not something that just happens all the time. But this one is so facially insufficient unless the government is coming forward with something concrete. Let's not forget this grand jury returned to no bill, no indictment on one of the three counts that was sought. And the other two, it was pretty narrow. And that's not the norm. You know, there's this old

statement that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich that is very easy to get these indictments. They obviously struggled to get these indictments here. And so it's very hard to see where there's no they're there. And when there's no there, either the judge or a jury should make quick work of this. And if I'm arguing this case, one of the first things I'm going to put up on a screen for a judge or a jury is Donald Trump's posts on truth social, saying this is not a real prosecution. This is a political prosecution. Trump's undermining the case even as he's making it happen. And a reminder, the career prosecutors in that U.S. Attorney's Office all recommended charges not be brought after looking at the evidence themselves.

But here it is. Some other news today, President Trump says he will attend Defense Secretary Pete Heggis' unprecedented meeting with hundreds of military generals today. Trump telling NBC News on Sunday it will be a very nice meeting talking about how the U.S. is doing militarily. Last week, Secretary Hegseth summoned hundreds of U.S. military leaders stationed around the world for today's gathering at the Quantico Marine Corps base in Virginia.

David Ignatius, what do we expect this meeting is, actually about, and how is it going over among military leaders around the world? So it's still a bit of a mystery, and that's one reason it's going over badly. The senior officers have remained confused right up to today about exactly what the purpose. But as best we can guess, first it'll be to bring everybody together, to get all the generals and admirals on the same page as it were. They'll listen to Secretary Hegss's priorities. They may get a speech from President Trump.

My fear is that by implication, if not written oath, this is going to amount to an attempt by Heg Seth and Trump to get all of our uniformed military leaders following the commander and chief's path towards his national security agenda as a, as a man. opposed to or in addition to the oath that they've all sworn to the Constitution. There ought to be a big difference between the two, swearing an oath to the Constitution and swearing, in effect, an oath to the sitting president. But I think that that may be blurred here. When we think about the speeches that Trump made at West Point and at Fort Bragg, they were like campaign rally speeches. The images of soldiers and officers nodding, sometimes cheering, very political

statements by President Trump upset a lot of senior military leaders. So there's a lot of trepidation about this meeting. It's also a concern that Hegeseth may be pushing the military toward a quite different strategy, pulling back from traditional commitments in Europe and even in Asia to focus more on this hemisphere and even on homeland issues as they deploy troops to Los Angeles, to Oregon. There's a concern that this is a new set of priorities for the military, that people feel abandoned commitments that matter to us and matter to our allies. Yeah, echoing David's point, first of all, there is that concern. This is more of a pledging loyalty to the president rather than the Constitution.

But the defense priorities that Heggseth is expected to lay out, at least in part today, we are told, will involve pulling back from Europe in quite a bit at a moment, of course, where the Ukraine war continues to rage, focusing more on the homeland, as David, as David said. And there's been some real fault lines within the military about this. even Chief of Staff Dan Cain has expressed real reservations in the direction that Hegseth wants to take the Pentagon. And then lastly, we should just note the extraordinary, and many generals have said this privately, security risk that this meeting does present, that 800 of our top officers and the commander chief and secretary of defense all at one place at one time, as someone put to me over the weekend, it's simply not worth the risk to have a pep talk.

The Washington Post, David Ignatius, thank you very much. We'll be watching this as it's going to be happening on our watch during morning. Morning Joe this morning. A New York Times opinion columnist, David French, thank you as well. His latest piece is available to read online now and still ahead on Morning Joe. We'll take a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning, including the end of a service that you probably didn't even know was still around. We'll tell you what it is. Ahead on Morning Joe.

Liberties are rallying to his cause saying this is a First Amendment assault being carried out by the FCC, Brendan Carr, and by the president of the United States himself. And to that, you say? Well, there are two things. First of all, I'd like them to tell me exactly what Brendan Carr did to have Jimmy Kimmel taken off the air because, number one, he is currently on the air. And to the extent that he isn't in certain in certain stations, it's because he's not funny and because his ratings aren't there. very good. I have some good news for you, Jay Dogg. We're back on all the stations.

Every home, every bar, every strip of, and every prison in America. You know, you've mentioned it before. It's crazy. You've got a vice president, he's basically troller in chief. Yeah. And by the way, you know, we don't, we hardly ever say somebody is lying, somebody is not telling the truth. So many of his statements just demand it because they are so false. You know, like his, you know, his claim a couple weeks ago, everybody knows there's more violence on the left politically. Then it's just, it's everybody knows that's a lie. 75% of violence, political violence over the past 20 years has come. You know, it comes from the right. If you're talking about domestic terrorism, and that's like Cato, the Koch brothers, their studies show that C-S-I-S shows that. But there's one statement after another statement that's just detached from reality.

And I don't know. Do you think somebody told him be troller-in-chief? That's why we want you there. And the people he, like, gets into a fight with on X. on social media or sometimes just random people or like substack authors you know he we've all you know it's a Washington joke about the lack of responsibilities the office of the vice presidency but jd vans clearly has a lot of time on his hands because he is his number one job description appears to be whether doing interviews or particularly on social media not only pushing forth you know false

statements but just picking fights and i'm i've been told that he sees that you know social media obviously worked part of don't trump's rise he sees that could be a similar path for him as he is jockeying with others as the for the maga mantle to be trump's heir apparent but it is striking how how much time vance seems to have to just to do to exactly to tweet to tweet he seems to be on his phone all hours the day and you know in that case there's another great example willie where he says he says well what did brindon cord do or say he didn't do no he said we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way the day Kimmel was pulled off the air. And he said that before Brendan, you know, Brendan Carr said it, and then ABC suddenly

decides they have to move. Again, this is like, it's all there, it's all on video, it's all really easy to trace the timeline, unless you're really hoping to connect with the lowest of low information voters, because the info is all there. The lesson he's learned back when he was anti-Trump when he was a never-trumper saying he would be America's Hitler and all that. When Trump succeeded and won it became president, the lesson J.D. Vance learned was to be combative, to be a troller, to cry libs or whatever he wants to say. And so immediately, even as the vice president of United States goes to that place of division, what's the thing I could say that's the most confrontational, including on these horrific tragedies that we've seen just over the last

couple of weeks, rushing to assign blame, rushing to make a larger point that is not based in fact, right, before even know anything about the shooter, rushing to say, see, there they go again, and often he's wrong about it. And here he's last week assigning blame again, just immediately before the investigation's even moving forward. Take a look. But if you look at the political violence in our country over the last couple of months, the last couple of years, it is not a both side's problem. It is primarily on one side of the political aisle. So if we are going to truly go after the political violence in this country, we need the Democratic leadership of Washington, D.C. to look in the mirror. So, so, so here he, he blames Democrats for madmen shooting

things up. Blames Democrats falsely says it's the Democrats' fault. One thing he did get right, he said it's predominantly on one side of the aisle, or one side. And it's the fore right. Cato, again, the Koch brothers. Cato said it's predominantly right wing. CSIS, predominantly right wing. Every study has shown that this century, You've got Islamic radicalism, but 391 murders on the right since 1975, 65 on the left.

It's just not even a close call. And sadly, and tragically, it's continued this week. And you see no Democratic leaders coming out trying to blame Donald Trump. What's that? On here, you're looking at three decades of political violence. Yellow is far-right-wing extremism, violence, and the green is the left. And yet we've seen shootings over the past several days. And Democrats haven't rushed out trying to blame the administration or trying to blame people on the far right.

It's just ghoulish that you have these unspeakable tragedies, and then you have the White House, J.D. Vance, you have Donald Trump, you have Stephen Miller, you have every, it seems like every four-right podcaster, they all go out and they all say, this is all the Democrats' fault. And yet, when it's on the other side and in some right-wing extremist, dead silence, you don't even hear anything. And most of the people in that closed-off information bubble don't even know about it. It's just sad. It's tragic. And we have seen, I mean, even in a very high-profile incident in the last couple of weeks, the rush, whether it's the FBI director or the vice president, to color the narrative in the, you know, about. a shooting by putting out information false or not, but like flooding the zone with, hey, when it looks like the suspect might be, quote, left wing. But yet we have had in recent days

a number of shootings that do not appear that, where there's some of the, and we're going to get into some of the details in a second here, where it seems like some of the individuals, you know, at least in their social media accounts, might even be more conservative in their politics. Nothing. Nothing at all from the White House. Just silence. Just hoping it will go way. And I think, more importantly, nothing from Democratic leaders are democratic politicians blaming Republicans. Because, of course, that would be unbelievably reckless and irresponsible to do. And it used to be the golden standard, Mika, was simply let the investigation play out. The facts will come as they come as a host of this rush to judgment.

Exactly. The lurching to blame is really what's disturbing here, because as investigations like this bear out, You learn a lot of things about these people. You can't jump to make one conclusion unless you're trying to score political points and hurt people.