Morning Joe - Withdrawal, escalation or both? What Trump could announce during Wednesday address

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Withdrawal, escalation or both? What Trump could announce during Wednesday address 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.

We have had regime change. Now, regime change was not one of the things I had as a goal. I had one goal. They will have no nuclear weapon. And that goal has been attained. They will not have nuclear weapons. But we're finishing the job. And I think within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer, to do the job.

But we want to knock out every single thing there. If they come to the table, that'll be good. But it doesn't matter whether they come or not. We've set them back. it'll take 15 to 20 years for them to rebuild what we've done to them. You know, it's very interesting me, the president talking about putting us back on the time frame where he was, I think originally.

But we started talking about ground troops going in and a lot of other complications. That two to three weeks sounds like the four to six weeks he started with. And obviously yesterday, the markets rallied in a pretty strong way, a pretty strong reaction to the belief that this war is not going to be dragging on into May or June. Let's hope, I think. It's hard to know what to hope for with this. President Trump yesterday suggesting mission accomplished with the Iran war telling reporters the United States could withdraw in the next two to three weeks. We'll bring you the latest on what's happening in the Middle East and just a moment. Meanwhile, the president says he will attend this morning's Supreme Court hearing on his executive order. challenging, earthright citizenship.

He can really just say in the Oval Office, Willie, and just read the 14th Amendment. If you just read the 14th Amendment, and say, oh, wait, wait, I'm asking them to change an amendment to the Constitution of the United States in a case that was decided pretty overwhelmingly

in the 1800s. Yes, yeah, 1898, if I'm remembering correctly, that was decided back then. And he's going, he says, he's going, it's on his schedule. He'll be there, the President of the United States. in the Supreme Court, inside that chamber, I guess staring down some of the people that he appointed to be on the Supreme Court and trying to impact the way they decide in this case. But this will be a test among many other things also of the extent of presidential authority.

And perhaps, again, here, the Supreme Court may want to make some kind of commentary on that, that this, Mr. President, staring us down, this is the line. Doesn't work. Yeah, it might be. Well, I'm going to have expert legal analysis on that case. And it comes after a slew of legal losses yesterday for President Trump and his administration on multiple high-profile cases, including his prized White House ballroom project. Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. Should we tell them, Joe? It's, you know, it's the big announcement.

Like, we've been wanting to tell people this for a long time. We're going, we're breaking clays in Edgefield County? No. What? What's a sound? That was an all-timer, Joe.

That's an all-timer. No, seriously, should we? Go ahead. All right, it's April Thursday. All right, along with Joe. No, no, no, no.

Don't you do that? Don't you go to Edgefield County, Willie, right, clay's? Like, Senator Graham? Only after I'm photographed holding a bubble gum alone

at Disneyland as a 70-year-old man. That's the only time I do that when I break clay. Those bubble guns are fun, though. Oh, my God. Why do you do that? Breaking clay.

Yeah, I mean, this is, you know, perhaps we're a proponent of a invasion of another country, and then, you know, you ignore some of your constituents' concerns, and you break clay in Edgemere County. In fact, like that, perhaps. Perhaps in an outfield, an outfit just like that, one might say it doesn't get much better than that, per Senator Graham. No, that's a real man. That's a real man. That is a real.

Yeah, okay, joining. We've got a lot of stories that are very distracting today. We have a lot of distracting stories where we're going to stay focused. Co-host of the rest is politics podcast. The BBC's Caddy Kay is with us. And columnist and associate editor at the Washington Post, David Ignatius, thank you both. We've needed you a lot these days. Let's get to our top story.

President Trump is set to deliver an address to the nation tonight for what the White House says will be a, quote, important update on Iran. This comes as the president yesterday provided a new timeline for when the United States military offensive there may widen down. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, President Trump said U.S. forces could leave Iran in two or three weeks with or without a deal. He once again insisted, without providing details, that regime change has been achieved. He also claimed he attained his goal of dealing with Iran's nuclear program. And the president again lashed out at U.S. allies, shifting responsibility to them to deal with the now-closed straight of Hormuz. I think that the people understand it. We'll be leaving very soon.

and if France or some other country once again oil or gas they'll go up through the strait and the hormone straight they'll go right up there and they'll be able to fend for themselves

look probably the straight a guy can take a mine drop it in the water and say oh it's unsafe it's not like you're taking out an army or you're taking out a country or you can drop it or you can take a machine gun from the shore and shoot a little few bovats on a ship or maybe an over-the-shoulder,

missile, small missiles, that's not for us. That'll be for France. That'll be for whoever's using the strait. But I think when we leave, probably that's all cleared up. You know, you know, David Ignatius. No, I don't think so. You know, David,

it's so hard to tell exactly what's going on, and that's the way the president wants it. A lot of misdirection trying to figure out, is he really, I mean, are we really? really talking about two to three weeks? Is the president trying to sue the markets? Is the president trying to get Iran to drop its defenses? The United States continues moving assets to the region that would suggest a ground invasion is coming. There's no reason to move some of the forces there that have been moved there unless we expect a ground invasion. So I'm not saying that's

going to happen. I'm just saying anybody that's listening to what the president says in the White House would be instructed to go back and see what he was saying the Friday before the attack the following weekend. What do you make of all of it? So we'll see tonight, Joe, how the president puts it together. But based on what we're looking at, we're seeing a combination of continuing military force, continuing operations in Iran to take out the remaining targets, and a kind of diplomacy that President Trump keeps talking about direct negotiations with Iran, but there's no evidence that they're really direct in any sense other than directly handing people messages through intermediaries. What was striking about his comments yesterday was it was close to declaring victory.

I've won. We've achieved regime change. We've achieved our nuclear goals. Both of those claims are pretty suspect. But I think most of the most of the same. important saying we don't require a deal at a negotiating table and basically we're going to leave to others the question of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. That's the part that's really, I think, going to be difficult for President Trump and the rest of the world. The rest of the world does need to step up and take responsibility. But the idea that that's for you to worry about, that the United States started a war that led

to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and then we walk away and say, that's your problem, France and China. not ours. That will rub people the wrong way. Suzanne Maloney, a senior person at the Brookings Institution, Mika, described that as unbelievably irresponsible, that walking away from the straight of her moves, leaving it closed. And I think a lot of other people will react that way. But the stock markets, financial markets, obviously are delighted that the thought that this war, which was getting more and more painful for the world economy, may be

ending, and there'll be a lot of people around the world for understandable reasons. We'll be happy to see an end of hostilities. As I think Joe and Mika about the question we always ask, what does the day after look like? The day after looks like revolutionary hardline figures in charge in Iran, and no success by the United States in really deflecting the course of that regime. The regime will still assert control of the straight of war. So it'll be at very best an ambiguous ending to this very painful conflict. Well, many people would also suggest, David, that if they control the straits after the war,

which they didn't control before the war, then it'll actually be a victory for Iran. Again, not militarily, but geopolitically and economically. You know, I love to get your response to what Alex Younger, talked about. told the economist, of course, the longest serving, MI6 chief. He said, Iran's in a civilizational war, a war of existence. We're in a war of choice. And just it, you could also apply that to Ukraine versus Russia. Does that not explain in part why Iran has planned ahead, spread out their assets,

understood this day was coming, and was more prepared for it, more resilient than most Western analysts thought. I think that's one of the takeaways of the war for me is that Iran planned better, dispersed its forces better, survived our best shot better. Let's not forget that President Trump thought not entirely without reason that he'd come in and give him a real punch in the nose in the first days of this war, heavy, heavy bombardment, and that they'd capitulate. That's what he'd seen in Venezuela.

That's what his life experience tells him. happens. And in this case, it didn't. And the Iranians held tough. The ones who survived are going to be tougher, more hard line. Take a look at the person who President Trump seems to be designated as the new regime, the Speaker of Parliament, Muhammad Bukar Kalibov. This is a man who joined the Revolutionary Guard at 18. He's really never known anything. But the IRGC and its toughness, its resistance. So the The idea that this is a bright new future with reformers, which was some of what the president was suggesting yesterday, that just doesn't fit reality. So, John, we can obviously view this new two-week timeline with great skepticism. He always says it's two weeks. He said that last week and the week before, and they said maybe a couple more days or maybe another week.

So kind of put that to the side. But what he declared yesterday is David said that regime change has been achieved. Remember, he said that the morning after the invasion, regime change. We're going to get these people out. Clearly, there has not been regime change, just slightly different people on the top, that the nuclear program has been set back 15 or 20 years. That's a new announcement from the President of the United States. He did declare it had been obliterated last June, so maybe it happened then.

And then this idea of walking away with no deal as well and saying, look, Europe, it's up to you. We kind of crippled their military a little bit. away their ability to strike at you, perhaps, although they're still doing it, obviously, is Iran, and saying the Strait of Hormuz, maybe we didn't calculate that well, but we're leaving, leaving in place for Iran that weapon of theirs, which now they have seen how powerful it is, that if they can shut that down, they can control a lot around the world. So first of all, our friends at Axios yesterday noted that since this war began a month ago, President Trump 12 different times has said, oh, it's about to end, 12 times, that he's offered

shifting timelines. He has declared victory several times already. And then, of course, the war, the war continues. And, you know, the White House is playing close to the vest. What we'll hear from the president tonight, nine o'clock, the networks have given him time to address the nation. Some of this is, AIDS around him have said, one thing you did poorly, they didn't sell the war to begin with, right? They didn't make the case of the American people or to our allies. So maybe retroactively, this is his attempt to explain to the U.S. why we did this. It's also possible that he'll announce the beginning of some sort of withdrawal, some sort of escalation or even both, because as David Ignatius has been writing, he's been doing that,

where he's sort of climbing down at the same time ramping up the strikes. And let's be clear, even as he's saying this war's about to be over, more military assets are arriving in the region as we speak. They are in place. And for the first time, if he were to give the okay for a ground operation, whether it be to Karg Island or perhaps to try to find the uranium, now the assets are in place to do so. So this isn't about talk anymore. He could give the green light to make happen. And caddy, that, of course, would be a market escalation. And I think that, you know, there are people in Trump's orbit and in his inner circle and certainly in the political operations who think this would be a terrible idea, that the American people do not want to see boots on the

ground. That said, if we leave and the Strait of Hormuz is still closed, let's be clear, that is a defeat for the United States. We've lost. And the economic pressure that is behind Trump wanting to ramp this war down? Well, that pressure would persist. So a lot of this simply isn't adding up. Yeah, I mean, the president will obviously try to paint it as a win. He'll say we've decimated their missile production capacity, which is true. That really has been damaged.

And that Iran is weaker than it was before February the 28th when America went in. But I think I've been trying to reach out to economists and oil experts and people around the world and in the UAE to find out what would happen if America pulled out. And it's pretty unclear. I mean, it would seem that Iran would be left with this ability to charge a toll, which would have some impact on the price of oil for consumers around the world, but not very much. It would be a cent on the gallon or something like that.

But they would have the ability to have an on and off switch and an ability to reshut the straits if they wanted to, and they still have the ability to strike their neighbors and key energy facilities in the Persian Gulf. And that's, you know, something that they would want to do if they felt they were going to be attacked again in six months time as they started to rebuild their missile supplies. All of that, very unsettling to the UAE, which now says they want to make sure that actually this job gets finished. And it's why you have the Wall Street Journal this morning in their editorial board saying it's too, having started this, it's too dangerous to leave the straits. It's too dangerous to the world economy.

We've realized that oil is traded on a global basis. that's why American consumers are feeling it. As Asian countries are starting to reduce their production and scale back because of the energy costs, that is something that's going to be felt by American consumers too. So there has to be some kind of global solution to the straits. It can't be left to the whim of the Iranians opening and shutting it every time they feel under threat.

Right. And you bring up such a great point. And I wish people would just stop showing their ignorance by saying, oh, the United States doesn't need oil from the rest of the world, drill baby drill, is if that's going to take care of the fact that oil is traded on a global market.

So it doesn't matter how much we drill here. If the straits are closed, people are going to be paying $4 per gallon, and it's going to be, it's going to be extraordinarily difficult. So we'll see what happens there. Willie, though, I will say, if the president were to leave in two to three weeks, it seems two, there may be two big takeaways

for the president. One, he'll say, mission accomplished because, well, Iran's military has been degraded, a great deal. But number two, he will leave with yet another excuse that, and he's been building, he's been setting up straw men against NATO and knocking them down now for about a decade. He will come up with another built-in excuse to get rid of the alliance that Vladimir Putin fears the most. NATO. Yeah. And he's saying that, Joe, explicitly this morning, telegraph just posted a new interview this morning in which President Trump says he is strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO after it failed to join his war in Iran. He said,

quote, I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they were a paper tiger and Putin knows that too, by the way. Well, note, back in 2024, President Biden signed a law that prevents any U.S. president from unilaterally withdrawing the United States from NATO without congressional approval. perhaps Jonathan Lemire seeing this very moment coming from President Trump. Yeah, President Trump, of course, nearly, he wanted to pull the U.S. out of NATO in his first term. I was there at the Brussels headquarters of NATO in 2018, a few days before his Helsinki summit with Putin. And Trump was so angry that European members weren't paying their dues that he tried to pull out. He was talked out of it then, but has for years railed against NATO.

And of course, now is upset. He feels they didn't come to their aid at the Strait of Hormuz. First of all, you're right. There's a law against. He can't just withdraw. also NATO is a treaty, so therefore the big act of Congress. However, there are things he could do here to really dramatically weaken NATO. And my colleague and I at the Atlantic wrote about this last week. One thing that European leaders are fearful of is that he could withdraw U.S. troops from the region.

So yes, technically, we'd be in NATO, but if we don't have service members at our bases, well, that sort of defeats the purpose. And Russia could look at the continent as a much more inviting target. He also could slash funding to NATO. So even if he can't truly withdraw, there are things he could do to really weaken the alliance. And that would be literally Vladimir Putin's life work would be to weaken that alliance, which was built as a bulwark against Russian aggression. Yeah. And David Ignatius, in the moment, is about the war in Iran. The president starts a war and then he's mad at our allies for not joining the war. That's not how NATO works. That's a different conversation, perhaps. But you have Spain and Italy saying you can't use our airspace to fly over

for your war. That has angered the president as well. But this is a, uh, a, deep-seated dislike, let's just put it, that president has for some reason for NATO. And as John said, this truly is, this is the dream of Vladimir Putin. He found a president who's willing to turn its back on NATO and he can continue to roll into Ukraine and perhaps further. So, Willie, if the president follows through on this talk and really pulls the U.S. back from NATO, that will be the event that will define this moment. The NATO alliance is absolutely central to U.S. security and to how the world works.

Europeans that I talk to already feel that they're on their own. They see a very threatening Russia at their borders. They see the United States increasingly uninterested in working with them. And they're thinking they're going to have to beef up their militaries. They're going to have to change the way they look at conflict. many European leaders say to me, we think we're already at war with Russia, and we know we have to rely on ourselves. So it's going to be a different future. We say that often with Donald Trump, but nothing could be more different than this,

than the effective unwinding of NATO, something that I think of Mika's dad, the decades that he fought to build that up, the way he saw it as crucial to defeating the Soviet Union, And here, you know, almost on a whim, it sometimes seems Donald Trump is saying, that's it. I've had it. It's hard to imagine. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to imagine. You look through the years from 1947 on, all of the people across the West in the United States and Great Britain, all of our allies across NATO, how much they worked to push back Russian aggression, to push back. the Soviet Union to liberate 100 million people in Eastern Europe. They did that. And now, David, you look and see, the president is clearly lining up on the side of Vladimir Putin.

And we could talk about NATO. What is bad for NATO is Vladimir is good for Vladimir Putin? Donald Trump knows that. Marco Rubio knows that. But also, yesterday, we had Michael Weiss on, I believe, after you got off the show. And Michael Weiss had the reporting. And then, had recorded conversations of Hungary and Russia colluding with each other, trying to do anything desperately to help Orbán survive. Of course, we heard the reports over the past couple of weeks also that Russia was talking about the possibility of faking an assassination before the presidential election to help Orban. And so you have all of this colloquy. I'd love for people to call this a Russia hoax as well.

Yeah, it's no no hoax. This is happening. And so you have this very bizarre thing that would have been unimaginable to Dr. Brzynski and people who served this country honorably for decades to see Vladimir Putin, Sergey Lavrov, Marco Rubio, and Donald Trump all desperately working to try to hold up a political career who works day and night to undermine Western democracy and to help Vladimir Putin. That, of course, is Orban, who has an election coming up. And right now, both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are freaking out that Orban, this illiberal thug, might actually lose.

So, Joe, I think one of the things that lies ahead, taking Trump at his word, is that Europe is going to have to work more closely with key Asian countries, including China, to reopen the strait and establish a new order there working with Iran, the U.S. having pulled back, that has some pluses. I'm glad to see the Europeans involved in their economic security. They should be helping to reopen the strait. President Trump has been right about that. But if they do it on their own without the United States as the leader of that coalition, It's a very different world. It's hard to imagine an arrangement for the security of oil transit out of the Strait of Hormuz that basically doesn't involve the U.S.

That's been at the center of our foreign policy since before I was born. And if it's really going out the window, that's a different world. Hello, Republicans. Still ahead on morning, Joe. We'll dig into the series of— Well, I think that should be more like— Wake up Republicans. We understand you—

Watch this last 20 minutes. need to suck up to the President of the United States. We understand that. But why don't you just, maybe take a break from shooting clays and Edgefield County and actually be a patriot and push back on the president supporting an illiberal thug who's helping Vladimir Putin, push back on this talk about NATO, push back on a president who is trying to undermine. And he's doing it openly. He's trying to undermine the alliance. that took down the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin hates that. He said that was one of the greatest

tragedies of the 20th century. Others would say taking down a regime that imprisoned an entire continent actually was a good thing. They would also say having NATO there, so Vladimir Putin doesn't continue his war in Ukraine and then go into Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, You can just keep taking them off. You can't turn away from this. Yeah, yeah. All right. I mean, Republicans wake up.

We're going to speak up now. We're going to dig into the series of new legal setbacks for President Trump, ranging from the administration's attempt to control the media, to the civil lawsuits, seeking to hold him accountable for the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Plus, we'll go over what to expect today at the Supreme Court, where justices will consider, arguments in a case that could determine the future of birthright citizenship in the United States. Also, we'll look at the executive order. The president signed yesterday seeking federal control of mail-in voting. Hold on, let me check my notes here. Yeah, that's unconstitutional, too.

It's a move to states' promise to immediately challenge in court. As we go to break, a quick look at The travelers forecast this morning from Acqueweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Amika, we're watching a cold front dropping south across the northeast today. Look at the temperature difference. Your Acquette exclusive forecast, 44, Buffalo, 78, New York City. New York City, Philadelphia, Harrisburg toward Washington, D.C. Some thunderstorms this afternoon and some minor delays.

Just a couple of showers in Boston. Spotty thunderstorms in the southeast. Watch for severe thunderstorms late today from Oklahoma City, Dallas. Travel delays lingering problems in LaGuardia and watch out for delays this afternoon in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Accuether app today. Good for live picture of the White House, Washington Monument, 631 in the morning. President Trump has signed a sweeping executive order attempting to change rules for mail-in voting.

The order requires the Department of Homeland Security to create a database of U.S. citizens who eligible to vote, which the U.S. Postal Service then would use to send out absentee balance. Those ballots would be mailed in envelopes with special codes only to voters approved through the DHS managed system. Additionally, the order directs the Attorney General to, quote, prioritize the investigation and prosecution of election entities that distribute mail-in ballots to voters deemed ineligible and directs federal government to withhold funding from states that refuse to comply. The order already facing immediate legal challenges from several states, arguing it violates the Constitution's assignment of election authority to states and Congress and clearly not to the president.

President Trump often has criticized mail-in voting as cheating. Despite little evidence of that, he also recently cast his own mail ballot for the special election in Florida. The president spoke about this new order yesterday. The cheating on mail-in-voting is legendary. horrible what's gone on. And it's very clearly covered very, very clearly. So I think this will help a lot with elections. I don't know how it can be challenged. I'll probably challenge it. You may find a rogue judge. You get a lot of rogue judges, very bad, bad people, very bad judges.

But that's the only way that can be changed. And hopefully, well, we don't appeal if it is, but I don't see how anybody can challenge it. see how they can challenge it. And remember, it's about voter integrity. Joe, everyone will challenge it and do so very easily because they'll slide a copy of the Constitution across the table. Yeah, he says it with a straight face, which is extraordinary. You know, he's holding, you know, a busted straight or whatever or flush or whatever. It's such a preposterous position. He knows it's unconstitutional, right? He knows it's unconstitutional, just like he knows that he can't change the 14th Amendment with the stroke of a pin. I mean,

if presidents could do that, we would have had presidents changing the Constitution left and right. But here, it is so preposterous because he knows it's unconstitutional. And he does it anyway. And then act shocked. And he goes, oh, judges, bad, bad people. Like, he's going to go. to the Supreme Court today, and he's going to glare at the justices that he appointed my justices, over something that he knows is unconstitutional. And then he's going to be shocked and stunned and, oh, they're bad, bad people. Maybe you say, maybe you say they're bad people four times, then the justices were so, oh, no, he's mad at me, and I better not follow the Constitution. It's crazy. But you know, Caddy Kay, I mean, what he's doing here, whether it's trying

to seize ballots in Georgia and doing all of these things he knows are wildly unconstitutional and hoping that he'll be able to intimidate judges. That's not working right now, by the way. He's merely setting up his argument. I mean, this guy is a New York real estate guy. He's merely setting up his argument for why he's. He wasn't able to build the biggest and greatest tower in the world or whatever. But in this case, why he's going to lose? Because he's already said he knows he's going to lose. Presidents and midterm elections usually lose.

The Republicans' numbers are horrible. They do horribly when he's not on the ballot. So he's setting this all up. So after he loses, he can say, look, they rigged the election. How dare the Supreme Court allow other Americans to do what Melania and I did in voting in all more elections. I'm still loving the idea of the Supreme Court justice is there sitting there trembling because they're such little wilting flowers. I mean, they're, they're sensitive souls. And if they're sitting there and the president is glowering at them, I think it could change

the way they rule. I mean, I really do. I think that they would sit there. No. So, I mean, it's, it's ridiculous. It's the spectacle with Donald Trump. It's the spectacle of him showing up. That's what he wants. And I haven't, even conservatives I've spoken to have said, this is a terrible idea. You don't want the national, you don't want the federal government involved in elections at this level because one day, guess what, there will be Democrats in control of the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, and they will be the ones who will say, okay, we want to run these elections our way, especially, David, when you think that you've had the firewall between the Department of Justice and the White House has been eroded in the way that

it has been. And maybe the next president will come in and put that firewall back up again, but we don't know. But when you've got the Department of Justice basically being the Trump family law firm, it feels like a little bit at the moment, you know, you get Democrats in, they may use it the same way. So even conservatives are saying to me, this, I like the idea of identification for voting. A lot of other countries do it. But the idea of federalizing and giving power to federal government over state elections is a

terrible idea. They have been, he has been on course to federalize elections to change the fundamentals of the system, at least since he began this second term. He has said, if we can change the rules, we won't lose for 90 years. He said that some months ago. This is very much a political play on his part. I think he does hope it will lock in Republican control, and it's going to lead to some big legal battles. If you look at the number of things that he's trying to do now that are paused, were stopped altogether by federal district courts. It's really, it's extraordinary, and it's setting up,

I think we heard a bit yesterday, this clash between the president and what he will claim is a judiciary that's out of control and violating his wishes, and then he'll press that to his followers and try to organize them against the judiciary. That's a really scary vision of the future if this continues. Well, that's exactly. what he's doing. He's trying to get his followers to not blame him, not blame the Republicans,

but to blame justice is for doing their jobs. And I've said from the very beginning, if a president wants to go in and try to expand Article 2 powers, that's up to a president to try to do that. But when the Supreme Court pushes back, when lower courts push back, you can't be shocked and stunned and deeply saddened because he's trying to expand Article 2 powers in an unprecedented ended away me. And the courts are just saying, no, you've stepped over the line here, here, here, here. So when people say things like, oh, well, look at the number of executive orders that were overturned during the Biden or the Obama or the Bush admitted. Well, they're comparing apples and oranges. They didn't try to fundamentally rewrite the Constitution of the United States through executive orders.

When they did step over the line, when George W. Bush did step over the line on trying to create military tribunals, the Supreme Court said, no. No, you can't say we're in a time of war and you can create military tribunals. That's not going to work with us. Same thing with Barack Obama, with DACA. The court said, no, you can't do that. You have to go through Congress to make changes that. It's sweeping.

When Joe Biden tried to forgive student debt, the same thing happened. You know, conservatives, oh, he's just as unlawful as Donald Trump right after January the 6th. and then the court simply reversed it, which was my point all along. Well, if he does something that's unconstitutional, that's why you have the Supreme Court. Here you have Donald Trump doing a thousand different things that push out at the boundaries, not only the Constitution, but of basic laws, like tearing down the East Wing. And so courts are going to look at that, and they're going to look at the law, and they can say, you know, you stepped over the line here,

and you're going to have to go about it the way the law says you're going to have to go about it. The president can act shocked. His supporters can act shocked. That's just, that's called Madisonian democracy. Get used to it. It will help sustain us for another 250 years. The Washington Post, David

Ignatius, thank you very much for coming on this morning. His latest piece is available to read online right now. And still ahead on Morning Joe will read from a new piece in the New York Times titled The People Trump Pardoned are on a crime spree.

What a surprise. Why the editorial board Who could have seen that coming? People that beat the hell out of cops Would then, when pardoned, go out and commit more crimes. Why the editorial board says The pardons have, quote,

undermined public order. Morning Joe. You don't pardon people that beat the hell out of cops, but that's exactly what happened here. Morning Joe will be right back. And which justices will you be listening for most closely?

I love a few of them. I don't like some others. and you know you say what you want but you'd have the ones that were appointed by Barack Hussein Obama and Biden I don't care how good your cases you can have the greatest case ever

they're going to rule against you they always do and it's not supposed to be that way now the Republicans tend to be very different they want to show how honorable they are so a man can appoint them

and they can rule against him it's so proud of it we're so proud we ruled against Trump. We're so proud. We're above it. There are those that say that's wonderful, and there are those that say they're so stupid. They're so stupid when they rule against me, but so wonderful when they don't. President Trump yesterday in the Oval Office after announcing he will attend the oral arguments this morning at the Supreme Court for his executive order challenging birthright citizenship. Join us now, former U.S. attorney, former senior FBI official, Chuck Rosenberg. Also with us, Norm Eisen. He's the executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund.

And from 2019 to 2020, served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee for the impeachment trial of President Trump. It's also co-founder of the contrarian unsubstack. Gentlemen, good morning. So glad to have you both here. Chuck, I'll start with you. You'll be outside the chamber. I know this morning covering this for us. Just if you can set the stage a little bit for people who are just kind of tuning in to what the stakes are. in this case. Stakes are high. Let me back up a little bit, if I may, Willie, and I'll give you some history. No, it's early for history, but here we go. Yeah, so in 1857, the Supreme Court decided what turned out to be one of its most repulsive decisions, Dred Scott. Dred Scott stood for the

proposition that black people never were and never could be citizens of the United States, a truly repulsive decision. In 1868, we enacted the 14th Amendment, primarily to address the Dred Scott decision, primarily to make sure that black people could be and always would be citizens if born in the United States. What's at issue now, what will be argued later this morning in the Supreme Court,

clause one of the 14th Amendment, the so-called birthright citizenship clause. The question is, whether or not somebody who was born or naturalized in the U.S. and this is the key phrase and subject to the jurisdiction of the United States is in fact a United States citizen. There's old Supreme Court law on that question. It will be tested today and the question going forward of course is whether somebody born in this country perhaps to an undocumented parent will continue to enjoy the privileges of citizenship. So big question, big

big argument in the Supreme Court, Willie. So, Norm, your organization, Democracy Defenders, co-counsel to the ACLU in this case, challenging Donald Trump's use of the executive order here and defending the 14th Amendment. This is not the first time that a case like this around birthright citizenship has been argued before the Supreme Court. What is the case you all will be making today? We'll make the case that since the fact, founding of the United States, it's been understood that the children of migrants born here are citizens. That's an ancient tradition in Anglo-American law. It was reaffirmed in the 14th Amendment.

There's no real serious question about that. And that was confirmed, Willie, in 1898 in the Wong Kim R.K. So this has been good Supreme Court law for over a century. Congress has passed a statute reaffirming this. And until the farcical intellectual gyrations of Donald Trump, where he doesn't follow the law, he thinks the law should follow him, nobody seriously questioned that the children of migrants born in this country were citizens of the country. Donald Trump doesn't get to choose which babies born here are citizens. The Constitution and the 14th Amendment make that choice. I'll be in court with the legal team today. And I'm looking forward to Donald Trump hearing directly from a majority of the justices on the Supreme Court bench that,

these arguments he's making, like so many of his other attacks on the rule of law, fly in the face of the Constitution and our laws. Chuck, one of the points that the president likes to raise is that this is an anomaly in the United States. Most other countries, most Western democracies, do not have birthright citizenship. I don't think that makes any difference in terms of what the Supreme Court justice is going to feel about this case or think about this case. Would you expect there to be a nine to say?

ruling on this because critics of the president say this is such a clear breach of the constitution that anything short of a nine to zero ruling would be something of almost of a loss for liberal principles. So two responses, Katty. First, roughly 30, maybe 32, 33 countries have an analogous birthright citizenship clause in their law, their constitution, primarily in the Western Hemisphere, so North, South, and Central America. But you're quite right. Many other democracies do not. But that's not determinative.

And I know you understand that. I mean, our laws, our Constitution will inform the judgment of the court today. Do I expect it to be nine zero? I don't. When the Wong Kim Arc case was decided in 1898, the one that Norm had referred to, that was a six to two decision with one judge, one justice abstaining. There's always been some contest around the words, you know, subject to the jurisdiction thereof and what does it mean. Unanimity would be nice.

I don't fully expect it, but I think norm is right. We have a common understanding of what the 14th Amendment is and does. We do have a Supreme Court case that is almost entirely on point, and we have Congress in 1952 enacting a statute that echoed the words of the 14th Amendment and guaranteeing this right of state. citizenship. Will it be unanimous, though, Katty? Not so many things are these days. All right. So there were a slew of rulings against the president yesterday in federal courts. A judge ordered an immediate halt to the construction of President Trump's 90,000 square foot White House ballroom. The judge ruling that the president lacks the authority to fund the $400 million project through private donations, adding that Trump has no.

no statutory power for a project of this scale without congressional approval. Let's think these one at a time really quickly. And just Chuck, you know, it's a sort of thing where Donald Trump decides one day to tear down the east wing of the White House. And Americans go, can a president just tear up the White House and rebuild it by himself? And, of course, the answer is clearly no. but we do have a legal process. It took a while for the courts to do this. But talk about this and how it's an example.

Again, as I say, Donald Trump pushing out at the boundaries of his Article 2 powers. And the courts, now it seems, have finally caught up to all of that. You know, there was a project 2025. There wasn't a project 26 because the courts seem to be running project 2026, which is, a constitutional correction, an illegal correction of all the abuses that occurred in 2025. Yeah, Joe, so there has been over time, last half century, if I may, an accretion of power in the executive. At the same time, we see Congress seating its power over and over and over again. Congress failing to act as a check on the president,

whether it's in terms of funding, whether it's in terms of war-making, whether it's in terms of war-making, authority, right? Congress has ceded the field to the president. So if you want to check a president, I'm not just talking about Mr. Trump here, but if you want to check a president, the place you go is to court, right? It was interesting to me, for instance, that President Trump simply ordered that TSA workers be paid. I'm all for paying TSA workers, but normally, as you know, as a former member of Congress, that's done in a different way. And so to the extent that Congress is not doing anything. And I mean that strictly in a bipartisan way. It's not surprising me, not surprising to me that presidents and Mr. Trump is a great example of this, continue to do

more and more through executive order and on their own signature and on their own word.