doesn't look like his role is under threat because i don't know who they'd replace him with. >> there are more challenges ahead, let's be clear. there's also government shutdown deadlines looming. there's a lot on this speaker's plate. semafor's morgan chalfan, thank you for joining us this morning. we appreciate it. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. and this is a day that a lot of people look forward to, something they remember for a lifetime. what they shouldn't have to remember is the threat of gun violence marring a day like this, injuring them and their families. this morning, i was actually thinking about bringing my child, as many people in kansas city did. i don't want us to have to in our country, for every big event, think about a concern of being shot. >> a uniquely american problem. another mass shooting, this time at the super bowl celebration for the kansas city chiefs. we'll bring you the latest on

this tragedy. plus, we'll explain the cryptic statement on a national security threat from republican congressman mike turner of ohio that created chaos and confusion on capitol hill. also ahead, we'll preview a busy 48 hours for donald trump's various legal issues. there are two hearings today, including a criminal case you may have forgotten about. good morning. welcome to "morning joe" on this busy thursday, february 15th. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay. and deputy managing editor for politics at "politico," sam stein is with us this morning, as well. good to have you. >> willie, we have tom winter here and will be talking about the tragedy in kansas city. really quickly, though, the

reverberations from that huge democratic win on long island a couple of nights ago still being felt in washington. here, the head editorial in the "wall street journal" talks about the fact that the republicans' border cynicism is what handed democrats a seat. border cynicism costs the gop. you're actually in a unique position, where republicans who think that the border issue is going to be supporting them, only this republican party could screw that up so badly that they turn the border issue into a plus for democrats. as "the wall street journal" says, democrat tom suozzi backed a border deal and took a house seat because of it. whereas, his opponent opposed one. i guess they think -- i guess these republicans, maybe they're

so stupid, the extreme maga house republicans, they think all the voters are stupid and they don't know what's out there. as "the wall street journal" editorial page said today, the democrats supported the bill. the democrat campaigned on the bill, and the democrat picked up a house seat that republicans won by eight points just a year and a half ago. >> yeah, and even speaker johnson yesterday didn't look like he believed his own spin while he was talking about this race, saying, it snowed, this and that, completely ignoring what the "journal" and you point to this morning, and we've been talking about here, which is voters are really smart as they see through nonsense. they see through spin. they want the crisis at the border fixed. they know there was a proposal to get it fixed, worked on for months in the senate led by a republican, and speaker johnson and house republicans turned their backs on it to keep the issue alive. people are smart. i agree, joe, i've been thinking

about it. what contempt do you have for the intelligence of your own voters when you're lying to them saying, no one is giving us anything to do on the border. we want border reform. they watch the news. they have phones. they have eyes. they know there was a deal in the senate. mike johnson yesterday, very, very desperately trying to spin what was a significant loss for his party in many, many ways, not just in terms of losing that one vote in the house, but as perhaps a canary in the coal mine for what is coming in the fall. he wasn't terribly convincing in his spin. >> no. look at this, here he is spinning. >> the result last night is not something, in my view, that democrats should celebrate too much. think about what happened there. they spent about $15 million to win a seat that president biden won by eight points. they won it by less than eight points. their candidate ran like a republican. he sounded like a republican talking about the border and immigration, because everybody knows that's the top issue that is on the hearts and minds of

everybody. you know, there was a weather event that affected turnout. there are a lot of factors there. that is in no way a bellwether of what is going to happen this fall. >> you know, it snowed on democratic voters. >> blaming the weather now. >> as well as republican voters. basically, what he is saying there is, republicans don't have enough money, republicans don't know how to organize when it snows, and republicans don't know how to run on the right issues. sam stein, doesn't sound like a great vote of confidence. he sounds -- i mean, that approach suggests that the candidates are just as confused as mike johnson is. i think i saw a "politico" story the past day or two, that a lot of republicans are just saying he's winging it. this is just kind of chaos around here. >> joe, you don't understand, it was strategically targeted snow, down to the district level, knowing the voter locations. >> yeah. >> no, weird spin. yeah, it does feel like, look,

there's been a string of these defeats. obviously, you can't say one special election is going to tell you everything about the political climate, but this isn't just one special election. i mean, on the same night, there was a statehouse election in pennsylvania. we saw, obviously, a string of other special elections, the 2023 elections. all these down ballot races -- not all of them but almost all of them, have really broken in the democratic favor, especially since the dobbs decision. now, in this case, the border bill obviously played a big role. but, you know, if you were the republicans, you came out of this over the past two years, year and a half, and you looked at the totality of the results, you'd say, okay, we need to sort of course correct in some significant way, but that's not what is happening on the hill. if anything, they're saying, we need to continue doing what we're doing and dismiss this as isolated incidents. there is no introspection from leadership. they're tying themselves closer to trump, who is the one saying to kill the border deal because i want the issue in play.

>> once again, whoever saw this coming? donald trump cost republicans another election. it was donald trump's cynicism "the wall street journal" talks about once again that costs republicans elections. joe, why are you being so mean? i'm not. i'm trying to help. i am here, right? i am here. i'm trying to fix your house. it is structurally unsound, and you won't let me do it. so you keep losing. katty, i noticed another thing, though, out of this whole election, and it's one of the reasons, when everybody is doing their bedwetting in february, looking at, you know, a

university poll where i'm not sure where the university is, but some poll, oh, my god, biden is down by five points. the world is over. here's another example, and sam brought it up. since dobbs, it seems like every election has gone this way. the polls may show a close race. in this case, the last poll showed the democrat up by one point. ended up winning by eight points. we've seen it time and time again since dobbs, that democrats, for some reason, underperform in polls. on election day, when people go out to vote, those people who are going out for abortion rights, for women's health care, you name it, and it's not just women as we've talked about before, it was a lot of men. when they go out, they vote on that issue, and it makes a huge

difference. it did here again. it wasn't a one-point victory. it was an eight-point victory. >> obviously, the poll that caused the most nighttime incontinence was "the new york times" was from last november, donald trump was ahead. a reasonable, respectable poll, one assumes. but you look at the special elections, and we don't know how much you can translate a special election into an election year election, when the president's name is actually on the tick e. there's some debate about that. it's not just new york, not just virginia, not just new jersey, not just pennsylvania. throw florida in there, as well. you've had a string of states where republicans have lost, who should have been in a position to win, who have lost to a democrat. that is the hope that the white house has. they say, look, when it actually comes to people voting, forget the polls, look how people vote. people are voting for democrats, particularly since dobbs. throw in an economy that seems to be improving and consumer

sentiments that seem to be getting more confident, and that's why the white house is thinking that it's in a stronger position certainly than it seemed to be thinking. i think the panic that that "new york times" poll caused last october has receded somewhat. there is more confidence in the white house at the moment payoff because of these things. we want to move to the deadly gun violence during the kansas city chiefs' super bowl celebration. one person was killed, and at least 21 other people were injured. many of them are children, in yesterday's gun violence during that celebration. this morning, the sister of lisa lopez galvan confirmed to nbc news she was shot and killed. she was the mother of two. a deejay at a kansas city radio station, who posted a tribute to her online, calling the shooting a senseless act that has taken a beautiful person from her community and from her family.

nbc news investigations correspondent tom winter has the very latest. what do you know? >> investigators are trying to determine why this happened yesterday. according to our reporting and go from a number of state and federal law enforcement officials who have been briefed mika, that there is some sort of an international or national terrorist plot or national security concern. i know people are going to hear that and look at the scenes we're looking at right now and saying, how could that not be terrifying? but it doesn't appear this was motivated by specific ideology or a hate crime. now, the question is, how did this all happen? i think it is interesting that we haven't heard any of the names of the people that are in custody. one of the reasons that that could be, according to eyewitness testimony into what people have told us yesterday and in the course of reporting on this is some of the individuals may be under the age of 18. of course, that raises challenges when it comes to charging those people, raises

challenges when it comes to naming individuals. they'll have to make some decisions, and missouri law is unique in this, making decisions as to whether or not to potentially charge individuals as adults if, in fact, they are juveniles. that's something that we'll be following as the day progresses, exactly how this happened. did these people know each other prior to the shooting? did they -- was this a dispute that arose during the course of the celebration yesterday, or was it not connected at all? obviously, it's near union station, so you don't have to attended the event yesterday to have been there. in totality, it's another event where it has been marred by gun violence. it's been another event where it's been marred by really a horrifying scene. the individuals shot, the kids, they'll never think of an event like that the same. this was also an event where you had 800 members of law enforcement, according to the kansas city police department, themselves and members of state police. i think it is a situation where

we see a heavily secured event where, yet, still something happened. >> lisa lopez-galvan was killed yesterday, confirmed by her sister to us at nbc. she was one of 22 victims. 12 victims were sent to children's mercy hospital. if you're looking for some kind of silver lining, the hospital came out late yesterday afternoon and said all 12 of the victims there are likely to survive and recover fully, which we take as a little bit of good news here. is it fair to say, tom, then that, according to law enforcement you've talked to, this was not some kind of a targeted attack on the parade, but more likely a dispute between people who possibly were at the parade? >> that's what it sounds like at this point. whether or not these folks have a history with law enforcement or whether it was something that arose out of the fact that, you know, you have a celebration, alcohol, you have people in tight spaces, did something grow out of that? that's a little bit unclear at this point. then the age of the individuals who may have been involved,

again, is another bit of a question here this morning. it does not appear, to your point, willie, that this was a situation where somebody came there yesterday to attack chiefs fans or people in kansas city as part of some specific plot. there's no indication of that, at least at this juncture in the investigation. >> what is more american than a super bowl parade, and, yet, what is more american than a mass shooting? i mean, that is where we are right now. >> yup. >> we did hear from a number of the chiefs' players yesterday. some took to social media, some spoke out in interviews. their thoughts and prayers are for their city there. horrified by what happened. some reports of players comforting children who were scared by the chaos. >> right. >> can you tell us a little more about how this all went down yesterday? there was a report of onlookers, bystanders, who may have tackled one of the assailants. just remind us also, what are the gun laws in missouri? >> right. that's an easy question to answer. the gun laws there are pretty loose as far as gun laws go. the idea of carrying a weapon in

public says places is certainly not prohibited. you can carry concealed weapons in a number of different places, and there's no -- i don't think there was a prohibition on having a weapon there yesterday. people were looking at the point, was there magnetometers? it is near public places where people are going to be coming and going that have nothing to do with the celebration yesterday. it would have been difficult to enforce a perimeter on that scale, just having covered so many of these events before. of course, you have a parade which made, certainly, any security checks even more of a challenge. that's the first thing. as far as how all this went down yesterday, you know, i think the whole event time was 10 or 12 minutes. to your point, you saw people being tackled. we're not showing that video at this point because we're not sure whether or not the individuals were involved. somebody could say, oh, there's the shooter, they're running over there, and they run after them, or could have been involved in a dispute. we want to be cautious of who

we're showing in handcuffs. police would rather put somebody in handcuffs for 5, 10 minutes, make sure they're not involved in the shooting, rather than let somebody go who they have to look for later. a little caution on that, though police did acknowledge, to your point, jonathan, that there were people that. >> reporter:chased and there was a pursuit. overnight, we saw the fbi and kansas city police urging people to send in the videos and images they have. from the boston marathon bombing, it was the images that were sent in from people's cameras that they kept rolling after the incident, that were found on the ground, or cell phone video that helped make the case. at some point, you want to make a prosecution here. >> claire mccaskill comes on this show and often talks about how the radicalism in missouri's gun laws are causing more deaths. that's obvious. you look at it and see it. also, crime has gone down across

the country. i think it's remained stubbornly high in kansas city, as far as shootings go. tom, i wanted to ask you, on that front, do the police think that this could possibly be gang related activity? has that come up? >> it's a little too soon to say. all those type of things could be looked at. how many of these injured children, are they teenagers, if, in fact, it was a dispute between teenagers, and could the individuals have been part of the dispute or spending time with their friends? doesn't make it any less horrible or horrific for them, of course. >> right. >> or were these kids that were innocent bystanders that were hit as a result of the shooting? it's too soon to say. >> they don't know. >> crime has come down, joe, certainly across the country, certainly in the violent crime homicide shooting category, but it's still a continual thing. if you have a 5% or 10% reduction, you know this, you still have 90% of the violence

you had before. >> right. >> i get overnight reports from police departments all up and town the east coast. i'm looking at philadelphia's right now literally at my fingertips. couple shootings there last night, a homicide, as well. the violence is still pervasive, and it is still something that is still part of our culture with these incidents. i can't think of the last time we've gone, you know, without a holiday or a parade or some sort of a large gathering over a period of months where we haven't had something come up. it doesn't happen all the time, but it is something that we are now seeing more and more, these type of events. >> we really are. this time,mika, it could be more of a random mass shooting rather than ones planned by people who have serious psychological problems or are trying to make a political point. in this case -- or doing it as

their last act before suicide. in this case, this looks like it may be more crime, random crime. but, yeah, tom is right. crime has gone down. it's gone down a good bit in many places, but it's still stubbornly high in kansas city. as we know, it's still stubbornly high in washington, d.c. it's washington that is absolutely ridiculous. the fact that you have a city council -- and you can take this to the new york city council, the washington city council, city councils on the west coast. >> san francisco. >> they live in another world. they really do live in another world than where most of their voters are, in that they continue to pass legislation that gets in the way of police officers doing their job. crime rates skyrocket, and then people are standing around asking why. in new york city, you've got eric adams, of course, an ex-cop, who is trying to pass --

have legislation passed through the city council to make new yorkers safer. just not doing it. that's happening at the city level across america. especially in a place like washington, d.c., i just don't understand why. >> nbc news investigations correspondent tom winter, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. coming up in one minute, special counsel jack smith urges the supreme court to reject donald trump's bid to further delay his federal election trial. we'll go over smith's urgent argument. as well as the two other legal proceedings happening today, this morning, involving the former president. plus, what we're learning about russia's pursuit of a space-based nuclear weapon that is raising national security concerns in washington. >> what a bizarre day yesterday. >> that was a lot. >> in washington, you had the house intel committee jump out and -- >> blurt that.

>> blurt some things out the day before they were going to have a briefing with everybody at the white house. >> we'll have that coming up. "morning joe" is back in 60 seconds. 0 seconds. only sleep number smart beds let you each choose your individual firmness and comfort. your sleep number setting. and actively cools and warms up to 13 degrees on either side. now, save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add any base. ends presidents day. only at sleep number. >> woman: why did we choose safelite? we were loading our suv when... crack! safelite came right to us, and we could see exactly when they'd arrive with a replacement we could trust.

that's service the way we want it. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ beautiful shot of new york city. >> look at that. >> look at those purple skies. >> i don't know how t.j. dials those up. >> all right. 21 past the hour. >> look how pretty that is. >> special counsel jack smith is urging the supreme court to reject former president donald trump's efforts to delay his criminal trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election results. the special counsel filed his response last night, six days ahead of the deadline issued by the high court. the former president wants more time to litigate his claim that the federal indictment against him should be dismissed on the grounds of presidential immunity. >> i don't think so. >> as part of the filings, smith stated trump's bid to put on hold a supreme court ruling that rejected his immunity claim

fails to meet the necessary requirements for the supreme court to intervene. smith also stated that if the high court is inclined to grant trump's request, it should immediately take the case up and issue a ruling, quote, as promptly as possible, so the trial can move forward. trump's lawyers contend presidents should have total immunity for official acts as president, and trump's actions in questioning the 2020 election results were part of his official duties. that includes, i guess, inciting insurrections and whatever else, willie. >> let's bring in former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. good morning. jack smith had almost another week to file this request. he said, no, i'm ready now. let's get this. stop the nonsense, effectively, is what he's saying, and let's get the trial moving. supreme court receptive to this, do you think? >> i think they will be receptive to the overall argument. whether they're receptive to

some form of a stay is a different question. i think jack smith really put the lie to many of trump's arguments in this brief. one of the things i thought was most persuasive about it is them basically calling trump on his canards. saying, look, nobody believes presidents have total immunity. nixon himself didn't believe it. they actually cite to a brief that nixon filed in the united states versus nixon case, where nixon says, "of course, after leaving office, a former president can be prosecuted." they cite to doj policy. they even cite to justice kavanaugh, who in the trump versus vance decision, a precursor to some proceedings later today, essentially said, nobody is above the law, of course including a president. >> the argument from the other side, from trump's attorneys, is let's litigate this out, this question of immimmunity. the d.c. federal appeals court ruled on it, but let's let it move through before we start the trial. jack smith is saying, no, let's

start now with oral arguments. do you think we'll get this moving anytime soon, the trial? >> let's go back for a second. jack smith isn't saying, let's start now with oral arguments. his first preference is they don't grant a stay, and, therefore, the case goes back to chutkan and start the pretrial statements. in the alternative, he is saying, let's do it expeditiously, have oral argument in march. i don't think trump's attempts to portray what has happened so far as overly rushed or as novel as he says it is will succeed with this court, but, of course, this is a court that has surprised us time and time before. it could surprise us again. >> lisa, this is a deeply busy week on the trump legal front. >> oh, is it? >> you're well aware of it. including the hearing today in new york city on the criminal case that i think has been overlooked by many, the hush money case. it's not received the headlines. to be fair, there's a lot of analysis, they think it is the weakest case against trump.

now, it seems like it might be the first to go forth. tell us what we'll hear today and also whether you think the late march trial date will stick, which at this point probably puts it first on the list. >> it is probable it sticks. in large part, the judge can go forward on march 25th, considerable that as of right now, there is no other trial that can be tried in that window of time. because judge chutkan's case has been on hold since december 7th and she has committed in writing to giving trump a full seven months for pretrial preparations, all this period of time we've been on hold, that's not going to count. i think the judge feels like he can try the case before him in a window of time that's not going to incur on anybody else's calendar. what are we going to see today? merchan will rule on trump's motions to dismiss, and most

believe it'll move ahead to scheduling, jury selection, and the like. my guess is when i emerge from the courthouse today, and i will be in the courtroom, that i will have a top line of a trial date to report. >> let's hop down the legal docket to atlanta. 9:30 this morning, a hearing in the fulton county election interference case, but not really about donald trump. it's about fani willis and allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, trying to get her off the case. what are we going to see today. >> if the proceedings in new york are largely predictable today, what is going to happen in the courtroom that judge mcafee presides over will feel like a telenovela. it'll be when the affair began between fani willis and nathan wade. it's important because in determining whether there was a conflict of interest, financial or otherwise, it matters whether the affair was happening before fani willis appointed her old friend, nathan wade, to be a special prosecutor as of november of 2021. first witness today will be a

man named terrence bradley. he was nathan wade's business partner and his first divorce attorney. he can't violate the attorney/client privilege as of when he started to represent nathan wade, but he can talk about what he knew about the relationship between willis and wade before the attorney/client relationship began. depending on what bradley says on the stand, we may also hear from witnesses including fani willis and nathan wade. judge mcafee said he will consider whether or not the testimony subpoenas to them are valid after he hears what bradley had to say first. >> we're going to be carrying that live as it happens. one other case, lisa, tomorrow, it appears we may hear from judge engoron in the fraud trial, the massive fraud trial. donald trump has already been found liable of ripping people off. this is more like the penalties and figuring out the level of intent here.

how much do we know that we might see an actual judgment this week? >> i think we're going to, mika. i think we'll see a written opinion from judge engoron tomorrow. to john's point that people have overlooked the manhattan d.a.'s criminal case, i would argue that people ignore the impact of the civil cases on donald trump. this might be the thing that really punches him in the gut, more even than the prospect of time in prison and being convicted. you've got $370 million on the line, as well as prospective lifetime bans of serving as an officer or director in new york as well as participation in the real estate industry. if you think donald trump can simply take his assets, pick them up, and move them to a florida corporation, there are already injunctions in place that prevent him from moving significant assets, whether cash or buildings, golf courses and the like, to other legal entities. he's really stuck right now.

tomorrow, it may become much, much worse for him. >> all right. former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent, lisa rubin, we'll be keeping you very busy and seeing you again soon. thank you very much. >> thanks, mika. coming up, donald trump is doubling down on the nato story that is, frankly, hard to believe. >> the one where he lies and says, a guy from a, a, a big country said, sir. there, you know it's a lie. >> you're 100% right. he is trying to deflect from the joe biden is old story because he knows that bounces to him. >> yeah. >> clip after clip after clip after clip after clip of him slurring his words and saying ridiculous things. so he doubles down on ridiculous so it makes headlines. >> he still believes barack obama is president. he says it. >> there is that. we're going to play -- >> it happens, he gets confused. >> -- the new comments. also, what speaker mike johnson had to say yesterday when he was again pressed on taking up the senate's foreign

aid bill. are these republicans? i'm confused. >> no, certainly not reagan republicans. >> what are they? >> man, i will tell you, there's a republican -- >> maga minions. >> there is a republican senator that spoke out yesterday. i just loved hearing, loved hearing what he said. >> okay, we'll have it. >> we'll tell you what it was. also, more from "the wall street journal" editorial page when we come back. when migraine strikes, you're faced with a choice. accept the trade offs of treating? or push through the pain and symptoms? with ubrelvy, there's another option. one dose quickly stops migraine in its tracks. treat it anytime, anywhere without worrying where you are or if it's too late. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. allergic reactions to ubrelvy can happen. most common side effects were nausea and sleepiness. migraine pain relief starts with you. ask about ubrelvy. learn how abbvie could help you save.

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♪ i see how far our legacy can♪go. ♪ 34 past the hour. a beautiful shot of capitol hill this morning. purple skies in washington, too. >> gorgeous. it is gorgeous. crazy afternoon yesterday on the hill. >> what happened? >> willie, you get flooded with emails like i do. a lot of young kids watch this show, and i got an email from a

mom in soselito. >> catches the early bus. >> he loves the show. >> i think i'm going to use the bell. >> little johnny in sausalito, texas. >> texas. >> said they wanted more of the "wall street journal" editorial page. little johnny in sausalito, texas. >> it is for you, kiddo. >> this goes back to the shocking win, eight-point win. supposed to be a toss-up. "the wall street journal" editorial page writes, mr. trump strolled in late tuesday night to shoot the wounded. he blamed the defeat on ms. pilip got endorsing him for president and causing the maga vote to stay home. but, "the wall street journal" editorial page says, the republican candidate did not criticize mr. trump and ran on

his anti-immigration and anti-crime agenda. maybe swing suburban voters don't like the maga gop. voters know mr. mayorkas' impeachment won't do a lick of good at the border. watching the gop house, they see nothing but grand standing, internal fighting, and an inability to put together a majority for anything but gestures. mr. souazzi exploited the record. to their benefit, "the wall street journal" editorial page has been warning about this for weeks now, stop posing on the bill. it is going to cost you elections. it did. >> they keep posing on the bill.

when we were in new hampshire watching nikki haley, her line was, don't come trying to me when we lose in november. i'm telling you right now, donald trump will cause all of us to lose in november. now, she likely won't win the nomination. there aren't enough people, i guess, in the party listening to her warning, but how many more signs do you need? to hear mike johnson, the speaker yesterday, try to explain what happened on tuesday night in new york, throwing it to weather and anything but his own performance, anything but the fealty to donald trump, just shows you that they're not going to change. they've got their heads down and are going to continue to do whatever donald trump tells them to do. >> they're not doing what is in the best interest of their house caucus. they're not doing what is in the best interest of the republican party. they're not doing what is in the best interest at the southern border. they're not doing what is in the best interest of america. they're not. this is so unique to this time and place, because i have seen

speakers, and they, you know, they fight for their members. they fight for the majority. they fight to make sure they're going to be there next time. they're not doing it this time because there's this little guy, mika, who runs around and just wants to be -- as liz cheney said, he just wants to be close to donald trump. >> oh, okay. >> close to donald trump -- >> and losing. >> -- and a guy who is running his caucus over the side of the cliff. this morning, the white house and top officials on capitol hill are looking to reassure the american public there is no need for panic after house intelligence committee chair, congressman mike turner, sounded the alarm about a serious national security threat facing the u.s. at the time his cryptic message urged president biden to declassify intelligence on an unnamed threat. the move caused lawmakers by surprise and sent journalists

scrambling around the halls of congress, trying to figure out what he was talking about. later on, sources told nbc news turner's warning was referring to russia's efforts to target u.s. satellites in space. u.s. officials stressed while the danger is significant, the threat is not imminent. national security adviser jake sullivan sought to downplay concerns, telling reporters he was already set to brief turner and the gang of eight house members on this issue later today. >> i'm a built surprised congressman turner came out publicly today in advance of a meeting on the books for me to sit alongside him and our intelligence and defense officials. i'm confident that president biden, in the decisions he is taking, is going to ensure the security of the american people going forward. i will stand here at this podium and assert that, look you in the eye with confidence, that we believe that we can and will and are protecting the national security of the united states and the american people. >> sam, this was -- man, there

was a bizarre -- it wasn't sort of -- it was a bizarre outburst that got the whole intel community scratching their heads going, what is he doing? the white house was about to brief the gang of eight. they were about to talk about it. then he made a jump. some people are suggesting he did it to help funding for ukraine. he is a supporter of ukraine. most others, like jake sullivan, scratching their heads. do you have any reporting? what exactly was going on? >> i mean, so, in theory, i was very supportive of him coming out because i want more information, obviously, but, yes, head scratching. head-scratching decision. you don't ever see something like this happen, someone obliquely referring to a real threat, setting off real panic, honestly, and confusion. i mean, in our newsroom, we were scrambling to figure out what the actual specifics of this were. you know, what we found was what other outlets found, that it was related to a space program that the russians are either

launching or have launched that would involve potentially -- again, i'm using my words carefully here -- potentially nuclear capabilities in outer space, targeting u.s. satellites. officials told us publicly that it was not an imminent threat but a potentially grave threat. that's about the extent of what we know. i want to stress, this is an extremely bizarre way for stuff to come out. usually, the gang of eight is airtight in terms of what they talk about and with respect to intelligence. obviously, this is coming not just in the debate around, you know, ukraine funding. it is coming in the shadow of donald trump and his comments on nato. it is coming amid debates over fisa court and gathering intelligence. we are trying to piece together what the motivations were for congressman turner, who, you know, has a decent reputation around this stuff. this was just a little out of character and, frankly, a little bizarre. >> john, to sam's point, i heard

from a couple people in the intel community yesterday who were surprised, number one, the violation of protocol and order, but surprised because it was mike turner, a welcome, sane, serious voice in this house republican caucus, kind of just popping off in a tweet, this thing that sent everybody scrambling. again, as we heard from jake sullivan, ahead of a meeting today that he already had scheduled. >> right. it was on the books. sort of an exasperated, bemused jake sullivan, confused as to why the congressman did that. yet another moment of, shall we say, another moment where a republican in the house not covering themselves in glory in the last week or two. odd thing. to sam's point, it set off real panic. there was real concern yesterday when this happened. katty, as joe eluded, there was this idea that this may be some sort of three-dimensional chess move to sort of rally support for the ukraine bill. saying, look, russia is a threat. it's not just ukraine, which

some americans people is a distant war, but this could be in the skies above, targeting american satellites if, indeed, that is what it is, this sort of nuclear space program. do you think that had success? it seemed everyone was reques requesting to downplay it. what is the possibility of the aid bill getting a vote? >> there is reporting that senator rubio had heard about this a while ago and, of course, didn't say anything. he is a gang of eight. it is odd that senator turner decided to. the thing is february 9th, there was an aircraft with a hidden payload. was there something nuclear in there that america doesn't have defenses against that could attack america's satellite capabilities? you don't need a nuclear weapon in space to attack. you can do it with something less. the whole thing is to gin up this idea that russia is a threat everywhere.

meanwhile, american officials, i think, and the white house need to make a better case for why they need to carry on funding ukraine more directly. that's the case they haven't made successfully. at the moment, we have the senate bill but no prospect of the house, it looks like. you have republican support in the senate, clearly, for funding ukraine. some republican support like turner in the house for funding ukraine, but not enough, it looks like, at the moment for it to get through anytime soon. meanwhile, this has been weeks now that ukrainians are waiting. my understanding is the pentagon can shuffle stuff around and keep the ukrainian supply to some extent. they need the big bill to fill the stopgap when the shuffling around capability runs out. >> it is really important. remember, mike turner is the guy who supports the ukraine funding. >> right. >> i mean, it's the same thing with mccaul. again, just to underline this, jonathan lemire, just as there

was huge support for the ukraine bill in the senate, most observers say if it could get on the floor, the bill would pass overwhelmingly, just like it did in the senate. most republicans support this. it's just the extreme, crazy maga right that is going, you know, to try to destroy sort of ronald reagan's view of defense. >> i think that was the sense, joe. in recent days, the vibe from the house is that this is less of a sure thing to pass, even if it were to get a vote. we had congressman mende on "way too early," and he spoke to republicans who he thought would stand for the bill. they seem to be wavering. this is potentially more pressure from donald trump. at this point, it'd be a toss-up, whether this bill would pass or not. unfortunately, it is likely to be moot because the speaker made it clear, time and time again, that he's not bringing it even

up for a vote unless he gets more border security, which, of course, they tried to do a week ago, and it was dead on arrival and so on. right now, ukraine aid is far, far from a sure thing. >> yeah. >> let's be very clear here. people say, oh, there is nothing between vladimir putin and donald trump. oh, it's a russia hoax. oh, there's no whatever. you have right now, right now, you have donald trump working as hard as he can to help vladimir putin defeat ukraine. donald trump is lobbying republican lawmakers to undercut ukraine, who has been invaded. of course, he's still angry about the fact that he tried to get zelenskyy to dish up dirt on joe biden. remember that? we'll give you your weapons if you dish up dirt on joe biden. >> openly admitted to it.

>> openly admitted to it. called it a perfect phone call, that he used the power of the presidency and, actually, american weapons as leverage over a foreign president in danger of being invaded. saying, you can get these weapons to defend yourself against russia, but you have to dig up dirt on joe biden first. this same guy is now calling around to house republicans, pressuring them to help put nmsz. there's no other way to put it. this is a zero sum game. if those weapons go to ukraine, then putin doesn't go to kyiv. if those weapons don't go to ukraine, vladimir putin not only going to kyiv, the message is sent to china. xi goes into taiwan. then vladimir putin's next country to invade, maybe it's

poland, who knows? anything is possible because of donald trump's fealty to that man. it is so, so dangerous. the question is, will republicans in the house allow vladimir putin to win? >> is that what they want? that would be number two in a week, passing on closing the border and then passing on peace in the world. this will be their brand. >> yeah. >> every step of the way. >> and they'll pay for it. coming up -- >> they will pay for it politically. "wall street journal" warned them. we've warned them. they're now down, as "the new york times" lead says, "and then there were two." >> yeah. >> they've got a two-vote margin in the house. they're going to keep losing if they keep kowtowing to donald trump and vladimir putin. donald trump and an open border. as house republican leadership continues to block sending aid to ukraine, one of our next guests is asking, will

ukraine survive? we'll talk to richard haass about the new concerns on the battlefield, as russia's unprovoked war enters its third year. "morning joe" will be right back. thanks to skyrizi i'm playing with clearer skin. 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. with skyrizi, nothing on my skin means everything! ♪ nothing is everything ♪ ask your dermatologist about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save.

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welcome back to "morning joe." when i first started running for office, it was about the federal debt. >> do the bell. >> you want to do that? >> i said when i was in congress, that's why i didn't do it. when i was in congress -- [ bell ringing ] >> okay. >> when i ran, i was concerned about the debt and deficits, and that i thought washington was being too reckless. at that time, the national debt was $4 trillion. we're well into the 30s now. in large part, mainly because of

republican administrations. balanced the budget four years in a row, and then republicans took control of washington and deficits exploded, the debt exploded, and it continued. then donald trump got elected, exploded faster than at any time, even before the pandemic. so it's a real threat to america's future. while a lot of washington's focus has been on the recent foreign aid package, few are talking about years of budget deficits that are made worse by federal spending that was during the covid-19 pandemic. it's taken u.s. national debt to historic levels, threatening the future of the economic growth and also of our economy. let's bring in former treasury official, "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. we've been talking about this for years, just like we were warning about inflation for years. there were certain people, well, let's say it, a lot of

progressive, a lot of liberal economists who said, oh, inflation is never going to happen. oh, we can keep paying them, keep spending too much money. well, here we are with the debt. when the debt crashes, you know, the implications are so horrible that it is not something a fed chairman can fix in a year. take us through the situation because you've been on the forefront of this, as well, warning americans for some time. >> well, there's no question, joe, the debt -- excuse me -- mcmullen, when he was head of the joint chiefs, said the debt and deficit was one of our greatest national security problems because it threatens even things like our defense. let's take a look at things you were talking about over here. you mentioned when you were a congressman. when you were congressman back during the clinton years, you can see deficits were extremely mild, like a quarter of a trillion dollars. $250 billion here. famously, of course, bill

clinton left the country, with left from congress, with a surplus. george bush turned the surplus back into a deficit. you may remember, dick cheney's famous comment, deficits don't matter. reagan proved that, didn't really care about the deficit. cut taxes twice. obama had the financial crisis, in fairness, but then he worked the debt down, down, down. democrat president, positive fiscal policy. another democratic president with positive fiscal policy. in between, you had a couple republicans. even before covid, under trump, the deficit was getting larger and larger. then, of course, covid, which is nobody's fault, had to be dealt with, but it came after deficits already rising. biden had to deal with most of the covid expenses. he got the deficit down a bit, but now we're still looking at deficits of $2 trillion as far as the eye can see. i'll show you worse numbers in a second. back here, we thought these

kinds of deficits were scary, and now we have these kinds of deficits. what does it mean for the debt? the debt is almost $35 trillion at the moment. it's gone up from $10 trillion. in 1980, the u.s. debt was $1 trillion. from 1980 to today, we've added $33 trillion to the debt. we've taken the ratio of the debt to gdp -- which is an important measure of how much debt do you have in relation to size of your economy -- from the 40% range, which is considered healthy, to the 100% range, which is considered unhealthy. >> all right. what else do we have, steve? what else are we looking at today? >> what else we're looking at is the fact that we have done -- we have been kind of oblivious to the fact that the situation only gets worse. one way to illustrate that is to take a look at the congressional budget office and how they have forecast ten-year debt numbers.

i'm not here to bang on the congressional budget office. i'm here to bang on congress, which keeps changing policies in a way that adds to the debt. 2014, the congressional budget office thought that in 2023, our deficit would be $1 trillion. in reality, it's $1.5 trillion. they do these projections every year. i've picked out a few to make the chart clearer. you can see that every time they have projected the ten-year deficit numbers, it's gotten higher and higher. this one, which is the one they did this year, is really scary. why does this line do this? because of higher interest costs on the debt we just talked about and because of paying for medicare for people who are getting elderly. we're an aging society, and medicare and social security bills are going to go up. so you take that and say, what does that mean for the debt? not surprisingly, the same kind of scenario. back in 2014, we thought we'd

have modestly rising debt ratios but not hugely rising ones. 2017, it's worse. 2022, projections get worse. look out here, in this latest projection that they just did, they're looking at debt to deficit ratios of over 110%, getting closer to 120%. >> steve, let's move to the third chart, the debt to gdp growth. how does that look right now, and why is that an important stat to look at? >> people will say, what's the big deal? we're paying our debt. interest rates remain relatively low. why are we worrying about this? we're america. we're the greatest, safest creditor in the world. okay, fine. but there are still big risks. one risk i picked out is interest rate risk. all those projections i showed you assume that interest rates remain benign, 4%, less than 4%. a little over later. what happens if that's wrong? what's if interest rates actually go up faster?

here we are, 120% level in 2035 we'll hit. if interest rates go up 1% more than the cbo is assuming, the ratio goes to 148%. if interest rates go up by 2.5% more than the cbo is assuming, it goes to 174%. if you go out to 250, the numbers get even more dramatic. in 250, if interest rates are 2.5% higher than what the cbo projections, nothing else changes in policies, our debt to gdp ratio goes to 303%. when you have a lot of debt, you're at risk to higher interest rates. lastly -- >> and -- >> lastly -- >> i was just going to say -- -- the research -- talk about how catastrophic it'd be for the economy. >> the u.s. not paying its debt is catastrophic for the world. the intermediate step, where we were borrowing so much money that the credit markets basically keep raising interest rates can throw an economy into

a recession and create all kinds of economic shocks for countries that have too much debt. not just us but other countries around the world. by the way, it squeezes out other spending. if you have to pay that much interest, you have to cut a lot of other stuff, including potentially medicare and social security, to keep the whole thing from getting out of control. before you get to a crisis, a high debt load is bad for an economy. so what this last chart shows you, it takes all these little pink dots, which are economies, and it compares the amount of public debt they have to how fast they're growing. so if you basically are at, say -- and this is all averages and things, of course, not just -- >> right. >> say you're at 100% debt to gdp, 2ish % is maybe the growth rate. if you get here with over 200% gdp, you may not be growing at all. if you have less debt, you're

growing more. there is a well-established relationship between the debt you have and how much your economy is likely to grow. >> thank you so much, steve. we'll be talking more in a minute with the executive director of the libertarian institute. we're at the top of the hour. obviously, the shooting in kansas city yesterday is something, of course, mika, just an absolute tragedy. another celebration marred by gunfire, unfortunately. far too much of an american phenomenon these days. we had claire talk about the risks in missouri because gun laws continue to be radicalized. we have that. we have other stories, also. we've been talking this morning about "the wall street journal" editorial age, talking about how the republican party cynicism on the border cost them the election.

it was supposed to be split. republicans won this seat by eight points two years ago and lost by eight points two nights ago. as "the new york times" says, and then there were two. as "the wall street journal" says, it is going to get worse. said, maybe, just maybe, swing suburban voters don't like the maga gop. voters know mr. mayorkas' impeachment won't do a lick of good at the border. watching the gop house, they see nothing but grand standing, internal fighting, and an inability to put together a majority for anything but gestures. willie, it just keeps getting worse. they are literally abandoning our israeli allies. they're abandoning our ukrainian allies. >> the west. >> basically west, our nato allies, actually. this is a kick in the feet to

nato. more importantly, it's a punch in the gut to the united states credibility. then on top of that, they're sending a message to the communist chinese. go ahead, invade taiwan. house republicans won't be there to support taiwan. they won't get taiwan the funding that's in the bill, and we haven't even talked about the southern border. wide open. new york voters on long island knew the other night that there was a solution to an open border, and that was the bipartisan bill that the republicans drafted. one of the most conservative republicans drafted in the united states senate. donald trump and the republicans said, leave the border open. as "the wall street journal" says, they're nothing but a house republican caucus that's interested in empty gestures. >> the stories are connected. the foreign aid we're talking about, funding for ukraine,

israel, taiwan, allies, humanitarian aid to the gaza strip, is not being passed through the house because the house says, first, you have to do something on the border. something was done about the border, as we said many times, last week, but they didn't take that up. here we are. you're right, if you go back, joe, to yesterday's "wall street journal" editorial page, they wrote an open letter to speaker mike johnson, saying, this is a moment for deciding. this is a moment for choosing. this is a moment for history. if you don't pass foreign aid at least to ukraine and to israel, history will judge you unlikely. "the journal" said, this will be a signal to countries around the world, that the united states doesn't step in to help its allies. this is a big moment, not just in the house of representatives but for the country, and we wait to see what to choice will be. >> and for the world. these maga republicans in the house are listening to one man

instead of doing duty to the country. donald trump is standing against nato allies less than a week after encouraging russia to attack nato members who don't, quote, pay their bills. last night in the south carolina rally, trump again recounted a conversation he claims to have had as president. >> but he didn't. >> where he told a fellow world leader that the united states would not protect them if they were attacked. >> when i came in, i didn't make a speech. i looked at the numbers. i said, these numbers are terrible. nobody is paying their bills. one of the heads of the country said, does that mean if we don't pay the bills, you're not going to protect us? i said, that's exactly what it means, exactly. i'm not going to protect you. >> what a clown. i'm not going to protect you? it's not about you, buddy. jonathan lemire and katty kay are still with us. president of the national action network and host of "politics nation," reverend al sharpton.

also, president emeritus to the council on foreign relations, richard haass. richard, the remarks are preposterous, and the message they send, again, it's a punch in the gut to america's credibility around the world. this is because of one man, donald trump, who republicans, for some reason, still cling to, even though he loses election after election for them. and a couple of maga republicans in the house. there you have it. our reputation soiled across the globe, between with nato allies. my god, what message does this send to the communist chinese? >> this is a one-two punch. the combination of what congress refuses to do because of the house republicans and the speaker, and then donald trump's comments. it is truly corrosive. i don't know the word to use, for every alliance which depends upon reliability and dependence

on us. the message to foes, whether it is iran, china, north korea, obviously to putin and russia, it basically tells them that time is on their side. history is breaking their way finally. it's the worst of all words, joe. it strengthens our enemies and undermines the confidence of our friends. most of our friends don't have short-term alternatives to us. that is an important point. maybe over time, they could become somewhat more self-reliant. in the short term, this means they're going to be much more vulnerable to the military efforts of others, say ukraine against russia. the tide is already beginning to turn. then they're going to have to make some really difficult decisions. do they appease or accommodate a more powerful neighbor? they won't have alternatives to the united states, and we'll ultimately pay the price, which donald trump seems to totally misunderstand. he seems to think all these

relationships, it's only about america giving. he seems totally unable or unwilling to understand all we've benefitted the last 75 years from the way the world has operated. >> republican senators showing their frustration, ones who did vote for the foreign aid. but republican senator schmidt of missouri, who is 48, shared his frusatio frustrations on x. quote, nearly every republican senator under the age of 55 voted no on this america last bill. he added, things are changing, just not fast enough. then, republican senator kevin cramer of north dakota, who is 63, fired back, writing, youthful naivety is bliss, the wisdom of age may save the west. reagan may be dead, but his doctrine saved the world during less dangerous times. what do you think, richard? >> makes the case that we ought to start thinking about making history mandatory in our schools. the idea that somebody could say these things, to be so, not

blissfully ignorant but blatantly ignorant. we're immune from consequences? if the united states pulls back from the world, they don't think consequences will happen. sooner or later, if bad things happen out there, they'll come here. we're not immune. again, there's so much evidence that this isolationism, which is what it is, call it what it is, it is isolationism, that the idea we can insulate ourselves from it is just beyond naive. it's dangerous. you wait for people to stand up and call it out. again, the idea that this is happening in the republican party, i mean, joe and i went through this, for so many decades. the republican party almost defined itself, in ways, against a democratic party that was unwilling to do things in the world, whether it was reagan or president bush, whatever. to see the republican party in a couple of years do such a 180 on international responsibility is

quite stunning. >> well, and you can look at the individual members that have done this. it really is, katty kay, to hear, you know, a republican talk about -- i mean, it sounds like charles lindbergh. i mean, maybe he was trying to sound a hopeful, you know, signal, but all he did was scare the hell out of me and a lot of people. senator cramer, i think, speaks for most of the people in the house. i think -- i mean, in the senate, and a lot of people in the house. actually, most americans, for god sake. he said, we're not just talking about america on the line here. we're talking about saving the west. saving the west. probably something they don't teach much about in schools anymore. but he talked about ronald

reagan. it was reagan and thatcher, pope john paul ii, and it was a group of others, mika's dad, obviously, and cold ware yours warriors that teamed up with people across the west and brought down the wall. now, i don't know, maybe they're too young to remember what it was like when there was a soviet union, but, my god, no fear. donald trump embraces the ex-kgb agent, em praises the leader of communistbraces the leader of china. it is bizarre how things have changed. you have people who are isolationists and want to support authoritarians. >> maybe they don't need to be old enough to remember the cold war but remember 9/11 and what happened after that day. the day when the world came and knocked so brutally at america's door. it was the world that rallied.

the only time that article 5 of nato has ever been invoked was when other countries came to america's defense and came to america's aid when america needed it most. so just remember that. but i think rich is right, we're entering a weird, new world order ushered in by populism a decade ago and around the world. it's not just here in the united states. you see it in parts of europe, too, in latin america, as well. one of the defining characteristics of that populism is nationalism. it's economic nationalism. it is economic nationalism. christian nationalism. you put the stew together, and you have what you're looking at in the united states and america that, under maga, wants to turn away from the rest of the world. but we learned on 9/11, that the not an option. you may want to turn away from the world.

the world is not turning away from you. it'll knock at your door again, and that's when you need your allies. >> richard was talking about reckless stupidity. at the south carolina rally, donald trump started to propose giving countries foreign aid as a loan, before losing his drain of thought and drifting into a story about golf of. >> loan them the money. if they can make it, they pay us back. if they can't make it, don't have to pay us back. loan the money, a formal loan. why should you hand it over to them? do it as a form of a loan. i do that with athletes. if they can't -- like a professional golfer, who i think is good. they don't have a lot of money but have talent. i did it with a number of people. here's the deal, what i want to do, professional golfer, play golf. i play very nice. did you see the horrible picture of me with the stomach out to here? so what i do, i'm putting up a picture of me actually, what i actually look like hitting a

ball, smashing the freaking ball. you'll see me quite -- i wouldn't say slim, but not bad. but the ball does go far. i'd say about nine times further than biden can hit it. nine times. >> yeah. >> so there you go. >> actually not that good. he picks it up and puts the ball in the hole. >> yeah, we played with him before. reverend al, he's talking about national security. wandered into this story about golf. then wandered into a story about his fat elvis picture, fat elvis playing golf, and said he has another picture where he doesn't, well, where he says he doesn't look so bad. so this is the meandering, wandering mind of a man who, right now, is encouraging the

house gop to betray our ally and help vladimir putin. and republicans, you know, things have gotten so much worse. at least when he was president, republicans stood up and actually fought to push back on vladimir putin. no more. >> well, we watch in that speech, and i'm being kind to call it a speech, him go from loaning money to countries that can't pay their debt to how he loaned money to athletes who no one can find out who they are, to him denying that he was fat albert at one point, that he has a slim photo that we can't find. then he goes back to foreign affairs. they wonder how old and out of touch joe biden is? just look at those four minutes. >> thank you. >> you would start saying, is

this guy capable of being president? i mean, to compare loaning money to countries that maybe need some foreign aid, to you loaning money to unnamed, probably non-existent athletes is not somebody you'd want sitting in the oval office. >> it goes without saying, john, nothing in that story is true. the conversation with the foreign leader. didn't loan money to a pga player. famously don't need money. >> forgive the waistline. >> joe and mika get this, what was at the heart, he wanted to correct the record about a picture living somewhere in his head. that's all that was about. >> that's always the explanation. >> the more serious point to you and richard is about how we treat our allies. do you have to pay protection money now? if you don't pay what donald trump deems appropriate, will he let russian tanks roll into your

country? >> the only thing real about the speech was the applause from the audience when he talked about, hey, we shouldn't give the money away. it should be a loan. there is a sense here, and, richard, get your take, and peter baker wrote about this in "the new york times" today, about how america -- at least the maga republicans, they don't view the world the same way the republicans of old used to. they don't think it should be the united states' responsibility to come to the aid of necessarily anybody else. we're seeing that play out in congress right now. we're not going to follow through on our commitment, potentially, to ukraine. we're seeing this with trump threatening to blow up nato, at least extort the other members to enrich itself, and then we have putin saying he'd prefer joe biden to be president rath rather than mr. trump, but we know that's not true. >> very deft there. what he is saying is one thing,

but the idea that, politically, he has a base for which it is working is worrisome. and we're going to go to the polls in november. and this is going to be an election where the difference between joe biden, donald trump, in terms of foreign policy, not to mention democracy, is about as black and white as you can get. i don't think for most americans, when they go to the polls, that'll be uppermost in their minds. they'll have other issues. i'm worried about the disconnect. when people vote, they're not voting on the basis of who is the more responsible commander in chief, but the implications of this election for the world and for american interest in the world will be truly profound. it'll be historic. we are at something of a turning point, potentially, and that makes me uneasy. somehow, these issues have not entered enough the political mainstream, or american voters haven't internalized them. i'm worried about the disconnect, how people are going to vote, what will motivate the vote. biden is too old, this or that

or the issue. and the foreign policy effects of the election. that disconnect is worrisome. >> johnson said in his press conference yesterday the house, quote, wouldn't be forced into action by the senate. but just last week, speaker johnson blamed the senate for the house inaction on a border security bill. >> we'll address that and see what the senate does. we spend time on the house side waiting for the senate's action, and it is frustrating sometimes but that's how the process plays out. we are not going to be forced into action by the senate who, in the latest product they sent us over, does not have one word in the bill about america's border. not one word about security. we have to address this seriously. we have to actually solve the problems and not just take political posturing as has happened in some of these other corners. >> oh, my god! >> joe, those are -- >> are you kidding me? >> seven days apart. to your point earlier in the

show, you get the sense he and house republicans hope people aren't paying attention, that they're not following what is going on in the news. >> they're banking on it. >> he said the opposite thing one week prior. >> how stupid does he think voters are? it's like he thinks that -- he thinks he has this superpower. it's like when babies cover their eyes, they think they're invisible. where's johnny? they open their eyes and start laughing. that's mike johnson! he thinks no one is watching. it's crazy. he thinks he can make himself invisible. i've been talking about "the wall street journal" editorial page all along. again, we keep bringing this up, folks, because they're the conservative voice and have been, of america for quite some time. voters know mr. mayorkas' impeachment won't do a lick of

good to the border. watching the gop house and those two clips, those two idiotic clips proved it. "wall street journal" says, watching the gop house, voters see nothing but grandstanding, internal fighting, and an inability to put together a majority for anything but gestures. willie, we've said the trump party is all about gesturing. they talk about the border, the border, the border. they get a solution. they say, we don't want it. we don't want it. now, they're saying, oh, we're not going to vote for this because there's not a word in it with the border. because they made them take the border language out! >> it is incredible. i'm reading through the punch bowl news, our friends put out this great a.m. newsletter, and they list the recent failures, within the last week, of this speaker, this caucus. they pause to write, this is the most chaotic, inefficient, and

ineffective majority we've seen in decades of covering congress. that's from a lot of reporters with a lot of experience talking about this congress right now. let's bring in congressional reporter for "the hill," mychael schnell. good morning. always good to see you. where does this stand? from one day to the next, it's hard to keep track of where speaker johnson is on this, other than donald trump has told him not to let this, any of this, the border security, financial aid, come through because it hurts his re-election hopes. so where does it stand? is it dead in the house? >> willie, good morning. yeah, so lawmakers right now are scrambling for a plan b, to try to get this foreign aid over the finish line. plan a, of course, would have been just putting the senate bill, which got a wide bipartisan vote in the upper chamber, just bringing that to the floor for an up and down vote which would likely pass with wide bipartisan majorities. as you showed right there, speaker johnson throwing cold

water on the senate proposal, essentially saying he's not going to bring it to the floor for a vote. lawmakers are saysaying, what happens next? kyiv needs money. needs these supplies. as the war reaches the two-year mark, we're looking for a plan b. one is this procedural gambit, the discharge petition. essentially, that means if you have at least half of the chamber in support of forcing a bill to the house floor, you can circumvent leadership. 213 democrats are supportive of this. they need five republicans to sign on. it'll be a heavy lift, but i spoke to one republican yesterday, greg murphy, a republican from north carolina, who told me he's, quote, debating signing a discharge petition, which is a good sign for the ukraine supporters in both parties. second thing to keep an eye on,

willie, an obscure package being worked on right now by moderate lawmakers. brian fitzpatrick, don bacon, moderate republicans, they're working on a framework they think will be bipartisan, that will have aid for ukraine, taiwan, israel, and it'll have border security provisions in there, as well. >> we'd like you to weigh in on something joe and i were talking about earlier in the show. there's a sense as to whether or not, even if the speaker were to bring this bill to the floor, and, of course, he is saying it's not, but whether or not it'd pass. what i picked up in recent days, there seems to be a shift, skepticism that republicans would be on board. a congressman earlier on the show today voiced that, as well. if this were to happen, what would the whip count be? >> it'd likely pass, jonathan. again, you have a lot of support for ukraine. unanimous support for ukraine in the democratic caucus. you may lose some votes because some progressives may not want to support this foreign aid package in protest of sending aid to israel without conditions

as a protest of the humanitarian deaths in gaza. by and large, democrats have been supportive of ukraine aid. a large swath of the republican conference has been supportive of ukraine aid, as well. remember, there was a vote last year on $300 million in ukraine aid as part of the pentagon appropriations bill. more republicans voted against that than for it, but it was almost evenly split. you have at least 50% of the republican conference supportive of ukraine aid. this is the argument a lot of democratic lawmakers are making. particularly hakeem jeffries when asked about the bipartisan alternative plan being worked on by fitzpatrick and bacon, he said, we need to put the senate bill on the floor. he said, this would get north of 300 votes on the house floor. lawmakers are bullish about its chances on the floor if it could get there. >> it needs to get there. congressional reporter for "the hill," mychael schnell. thank you. if it gets to the floor, it'll

pass. we're going to go to kansas city in a minute, get a live report on the very latest, but let's circle back really quickly to what we were talking about at the end of last hour. that is debt. i want to bring in executive director of the libertarian policy institute. nick, i know i'm just lobbing a really fat softball down the middle of the plate, and the bat is about this big, as a guy connected with the libertarian party, but, you know, those numbers from steve rattner, you know, i've been warning about this since 1994. i never even imagined that congress would be this irresponsible. when i left congress, it was a balanced budget. can you believe that? we had $155 billion surplus. 4 to $4.5 trillion debt. now, we're over $44 trillion. the economic implications are horrible. people don't want to talk about

it, but the storm is coming. we're standing on the beach, and we're doing nothing. the biggest problem is there's not a small government party out there. the only time republicans care about even talking about deficits is when there's a democrat in the white house. they just keep spending and it gets worse when republicans run washington. >> yeah, i didn't realize $30 trillion had been added just during my lifetime to the national debt. in a world economy, when you're at the front of the pack, you have a lot of space. we have the biggest economy in the world. we have a lot of space to do things that other economies can't. but that depends on the leadership of our country dealing with the problems and not allowing debt to go to these astronomical levels. unless we want to turn into argentina, we need a congress that can put spending and

actually increase growth, remove some of these barriers to economic growth because that's really what gets rid of deficits. the surplus you had, that came about because of the combination of spending cuts and economic growth. this congress right now isn't doing anything, right? they passed maybe 30 bills, a tenth of what a congress normally does. johnson is going to send people back to their districts for a district work period. american voters really need to talk to their congressperson and say, "i want the congress to deal with this bill that came out of the senate. i want you to get it around mike johnson. he is a moron. just shove the discharge petition through. get it to the vote. do the job we elected you to do and we pay you to do." don't just go on tv and hem and haw. actually do some legislation. get some spending cuts. do something for the american

people or you'll be gone in november. >> when you look at what presidents added, you had with george w. bush and barack obama at the end of that, you, of course, had 9/11 at the beginning of bush and, at the end, the financial crisis that bush and obama dealt with. then you look at donald trump. donald trump added $8.2 trillion in four years. $8.2 trillion. that's the guy, nick, and when people who actually give a damn about the future of our economy, that's guy supposedly running as the, quote, conservative. his numbers were setting records even before covid. >> you know, i believe in looking at reality. the reality is, if you go back to every president in my

lifetime, republicans are the biggest spenders. democrats don't spend as much money. democrats actually pay for the things they want to do at a greater level than republicans. republicans put us into debt. this current republican party wants us to step back from the world stage. they don't want us to be the leader. that's going to make us into britain, at best, where you're a shell of your former self, or even worse, we're going to go on an argentina path. donald trump is going to create a crisis that only he can fix, and there's going to be draconian changes to our economy. the bond markets depend on leadership from the biggest country in the world. they depend on us fixing our debt problem before it was a big problem. there is a sign that we're not going to do it, that our congress isn't willing to do it, our president isn't willing to do it. you'll find those interest rate rises that rattner was talking about, those are going to hit

and it is going to go fast. and it's going to be bad. >> executive director of the libertarian policy institute, thank you very much for being on this morning. willie? let's turn back to the shooting yesterday during the chiefs' super bowl celebration in kansas city. one person was killed, at least 21 others injured. several of those injuries are life threatening. it happened after the team's parade through downtown kansas city. joining us now, nbc news correspondent jesse kirsch. good morning. you were there covering what we thought would be a day of celebration, the chiefs' super bowl parade, that turned into a tragedy. what more are you hearing this morning? >> reporter: willie, everything was wrapping up. imagine any other large event, sporting event. it could have been a football game where people knew things were over and were trickling out. that's what we were seeing, by and large. at the same time, we started noticing people over here were running away from the stage area. at the same time, what appeared to be police officers were

rushing in. that's when we knew that something appeared to have gone terribly wrong here. according to three law enforcement officials briefed on the case, this does not appear to be terrorism related at this point. we still don't know why, what was supposed to be a giant party, turned violent. it only took moments for a city full of super bowl joy to be overcome with grief. >> we became part of a statistic of too many americans. those who have experienced a mass shooting. >> reporter: wednesday was supposed to be a party. schools closed with almost a million people expected downtown to celebrate the back-to-back super bowl champion kansas city chiefs. >> kansas city, let me hear you one time! >> reporter: right after the parade and rally, officials say someone started shooting. [ gunshots ]. >> reporter: video obtained by tmz sports appears to show the moments gunfire erupted. some in the crowd flee as police

rushed in. at least one person was killed, identified overnight as local radio deejay lisa lopez-galvan. more than 20 wounded. some seriously. among those hurt, at least 11 children, ranging from 6 to 15 years old. >> something that was supposed to be so joyful just turned so quickly, and you can see some strollers out here. >> reporter: some of the team's star players taking to social media. patrick mahomes writing, "praying for kansas city." travis kelce said he was heartbroken. as the chaos unfolded, chiefs player trey smith said he was rushed to the train stationed and barricaded in a closet with teammates and others. >> i'm infuriated and frustrated. it was supposed to be celebration for the city. >> reporter: three people were detained as the investigation continues. in this footage, parade-goers tackling a possible suspect. >> we tackled him.

>> reporter: alyssa said her father, paul, was one who tackled. she filmed as the police arrived. >> i'm never bringing my kids to another place like this. too many people, too many children for them to spray guns like that. >> reporter: the mayor speaking out. >> what you saw happened is why people talk about guns a lot. we had over 800 law officers there. i think that's something that parents, regular people living each day, have to decide what we wish to do about it. >> reporter: in a statement, president biden writing in part, "what are we waiting for? what else do we need to see?apa" back to the video that shows people tackling a possible suspect, authorities are looking into whether that is, in fact, whether that's what is on camera there.

>> jesse kirsch, thanks so much. rev, we were talking to tom winter last hour who is doing deep reporting with law enforcement sources, suggesting this was not a targeting act of terrorism. it looks to police like it was a dispute between people who were at the parade or perhaps just in the area. started shooting at each other and bystanders were caught in the mix. boy, the fact remains, to go from the jubilation of patrick mahomes, travis kelce firing up the crowd on the podium, a million people in the streets, kansas city on its biggest day of the year, to instantly panic and terror, it's awful. >> and to really see the bigger picture here, we are normalizing people using guns. whether it is a super bowl celebration, a concert in las vegas, whether it's a club in florida, whether it's a synagogue or a church in south carolina. the fact that we cannot see that

the congress will do anything about guns, whatever this ends up being the cause or the motive or why this happened, it comes down to people had guns. why are we not dealing with some level of gun responsibility and gun reform in this country? i think this brings it home, even before we get the details of how it played out this time. >> john, you add another tragedy to the list. oh, it can happen in a first grade classroom. oh, it can happen in a church or synagogue or movie theater or a grocery store in buffalo. now, a super bowl celebration? the list grows. >> there is no place that is safe. there is no place beyond the reach of a gun. it is an american problem, a uniquely american problem, one that is only getting worse. this is a moment to bring up, donald trump a few days ago appeared at the nra convention

and proudly boasted not a thing was done about guns while he was in office. he said it repeatedly to cheers in the crowd. certainly, i think we expect more of the same were he to win again. >> he'd roll back some of the actions that president biden has taken. >> no doubt. >> richard, the world, we know, sort of looks at this american crisis, this horrible american phenomenon, with almost confusion, why we let it continue when it doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. >> we spent the last half hour talking about what was going on with the aid bills and trump's comments. our friends, particularly in europe, look at us and go, we don't identify with you. we don't understand that, how you could allow this to happen in a society. for so long, willie, we were a model as a democracy and as a country, that people wanted to emulate. they see things like this, and it's just the opposite. they don't want to emulate it.

they get very uneasy about dependence on us. this is awful enough as a human story. the idea that a parent can say, i can't bring my kid to a public gathering, how depressing. it's a human story. it is a social or, you know, story about the united states. again, the whole world is watching. it just increases the gap between us and our friends around the world. it has awful consequences. >> lisa lopez-galvan, a deejay at a local radio station, was killed. a mother of two in her 40s. 21 other people hurt at the chiefs' super bowl parade. up next, special counsel jack smith asking the supreme court to move quickly in donald trump's immunity case. we'll break down smith's argument and what happens next when "morning joe" returns. s i . so i hired body doubles to help me out. splurgy tina loves a hotel near rodeo drive.

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reject donald trump's effort to delay his criminal trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election results. the special counsel filed last night, six days ahead of the deadline issued by the supreme court. trump's bid to put on hold a supreme court ruling that rejected his immunity claim fails to meet the necessary requirements for the supreme court to intervene, he says. joining us now, legal analyst andrew wiseman. let's start there. there's a lot going on today. even this morning in court. in this case, in terms of immunity, is the issue that if this is delayed, it goes beyond the election and, therefore, the results are moot, or what is jack smith's warning at this point to the courts? >> sure. so this is the case that involves the d.c. federal case involving january 6th and

related acts. basically, the argument that donald trump has made and lost at the trial level and in the court of appeals is that he should be immune from criminal prosecution, that a president should be able to, as one of the appellate judges said, actually order s.e.a.l. team six to kill people and he cannot be prosecuted unless he is immunized. that, obviously, has been rejected, and jack smith in his paper says, you know, in quite sort of, i think, appropriately apocalyptic terms, the crimes charge here strike at the heart of our democracy, and says if there is anything to this idea of absolute immunity, it would not apply in the case where you're seeking, and i'm going to quote, where the charges are where the president sought to overturn an election and thwart

the peaceful transfer of power to his successor. he says that's the last place to recognize a novel form of absolute immunity. it's really shocking, that this claim is even being made. >> right. >> finally, jack smith points out that if you do not sort of deny this now, or hear it on an extremely expedited basis, you're going to thwart the public's right to a speedy and fair trial. so it's a very powerful brief. i think, by the way, one technical thing, the reason he got his brief in today is that the court typically hears these kinds of things internally on fridays. so by getting these papers in last night, i think that jack smith is hoping that the court will decide what it wants to do this friday. we could be hearing something very soon from the court. >> also, we'll be hearing

possibly from judge engoron on friday, so that could be a busy day. that's tomorrow. given the gravity of what jack smith is talking about in this brief, do you expect the supreme court to respond quickly? >> yes, absolutely. you know, it's not clear -- the thing no one really knows is whether they're going to take it and decide it on an expedited basis, which could have the effect of, obviously, delaying the trial in the district court, which has been on hold for basically almost up to three months so far because of these appeals. or whether the other option is to just say, you know what? this is a frivolous argument. it doesn't meet the legal standards for a stay and we're not going to hear it. in which case we could be hearing that judge chutkan has given the green light to go forward. that'll involve pretrial motions, et cetera, but that would mean that certainly by the

end of may, beginning of june, she could have a trial. that's the earlier we could expect the federal trial to go forward. >> andrew, we have -- we're not only waiting on judge engoron's decision, which could come tomorrow, according to some reports, but there's a hearing hush money case? can you give us the status of that? could that be the one that receives an outcome the quickest? >> well, there's a lot of balls in the air. we just talked about the federal trial and when that's going to get back on track. there's a hearing in the georgia case today. then, mika, as you said, there are two things going on in new york. there's a criminal case that's having a hearing today, and we're waiting for judge engoron in the civil fraud case. so former president trump is certainly -- he has a lot of

legal issues he's been wrestling with. i do expect with respect to the hearing today, with respect to the criminal case, the manhattan state court criminal case, which is the so-called hush money case or, as alvin bragg terms it, an election fraud case. remember, it was hush money to keep information from the public in advance of the 2016 election. i do expect that we're going to hear about a trial date today. there is a at least scheduled a march 25th trial date. the judge in that case, the state case, has been trying to make sure that that state case doesn't interfere with the judge chutkan federal that he's willing to go second, that he's not going to schedule in a way that thwarts the trial, but that federal case is now on hold with no idea of when it's going to go forward.

i do think that there's a very, very strong chance that there will be a schedule from the judge today so that we could end up with that case being the first to go. remember by the way, mika, that was the first case that was indicted. >> yep. >> so that would be in some ways quite fair for that to be the first case that goes to trial, and remember, the other is that this is a case that is not subject to a federal pardon, meaning that if donald trump were to win the presidency again, he could not get rid of this conviction if he is convicted. >> wow. a lot going on today. we'll be covering it all live right here on msnbc. nbc news legal analyst, andrew weissmann, thank you as always. so this morning, france announced it plans to sign a bilateral security agreement with ukraine. the leaders of the two countries will sign the deal when they meet in paris tomorrow. it is modeled after the agreement ukraine recently

signed with the uk. joining us now, the french ambassador to the united states, laurent billie. mr. ambassador, thank you so much for joining us this morning. tell us why this bilateral agreement is so important, especially given the politics here in the united states which seems a little dicey for ukraine. hopefully republicans will get through it. >> well, thanks for having me, mika. as you say, it's a very important message that we are sending today, you know, a message of unwavering support to ukraine, and i have to say that we have to make the fact right. europe is really behind ukraine. outside of the united states, we have been spending already almost $100 billion in support of ukraine, and we are bringing $50 billion a new package, 50 billion euro, new package. it's also true that we need u.s.

leadership because we can't match the support from the u.s., and so that's the reason that we really need the supplemental to support ukraine, and we have to never forget that one war fighting on the front line and the suffering, fighting for values are ukrainian soldiers and people. >> thank you for that point because whilst there does still seem to be broad support across europe for giving assistance to ukraine including the security arrangement that you, france is signing, and also another military package that's just gone through the eu, why do you think it is that the argument has not managed to win over americans that ukraine is the one doing the fighting in a way that benefits americans? less than 5% americans gdp. it's ukrainian soldiers dying. not a single american soldier has died. i realize there's a geographic difference, but why is that argument working in europe, but it doesn't seem to be working here in the united states do you

think? >> i think there is a lot of wrong ideas on things. it's one we have to create, it's a reason we have to mention the numbers which are important, but it's also right that europe as we build an idea of reconciliation, and we have been living in peace, but the invasion of ukraine is really the challenge of a century. it's a challenge to a rule-based international order, and after two years, we have been ramping up our different industry. we have been moving at a speed we never did before, and i think it's probably very quick for a lot of observers to realize that these two last years have changed the way europe is viewing israel as an ally of the united states, as a real partner.

a partner to also provide security to u.s. citizens. >> mr. ambassador, it's richard haass here. i noticed that there were meetings going on between your foreign minister, i think, and his counterparts from germany and poland. given mr. trump's comments, given what's happened with ukraine, are we on the verge of potentially something historic here? as a conventional force, would they be willing to play a larger role to make its nuclear weapons essentially available to defend all of europe where europeans will come together to really fashion a national defense? and doubts about the united states, could they be spurring historical change in how europe thinks about its own security? >> i think with history, we are stronger together, and for 75 years, nato has been bringing

peace to the continent or continents, and also has been the rule-based international order, and that is what is challenged by the invasion of ukraine by this. we have to be at the same time, real partners, and when france is advocating for strategy, it's also to provide to the u.s. a real partner, not a silent partner, but a partner whose capabilities, and i think it's -- it's really reinforcing, but we are not talking to something aside. we are looking for something which will bring us together with much more security. >> the french ambassador to the united states, laurent bili, thank you very much for being on the show. >> thanks for having me again. >> we appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," confusion on capitol hill after a top republican lawmaker warns about a new threat from russia without providing any

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and this is a day that a lot of people look forward to, something they remember for a lifetime, and what they shouldn't have to remember is the threat of gun violence marring a day like this injuring them and their families. this morning, i was actually thinking about bringing my child, as many people in kansas city did, and i don't want us to have to in our country, for every big event, think about the concern of being shot. >> a uniquely american problem, another mass shooting. this time at the super bowl celebration for the kansas city chiefs. we'll bring you the latest on this tragedy. plus, we'll explain the cryptic statement on a national security threat from republican

congressman mike turner of ohio that created chaos and confusion on capitol hill. also ahead, we'll preview a busy 48 hours for donald trump's various legal issues. there are two hearings today, including a criminal case you may have forgotten about. so good morning, and welcome to "morning joe" on this busy thursday, february 15th. with us, we have the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire, u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay, and deputy managing editor for politics at politico, sam stein is with us this morning as well. good to have you. >> willie, we're going to be talking -- we have tom winter here, and we're going to be talking about the tragedy in kansas city. real quickly though, the reverberations from that democratic win on long island a couple of nights ago, still being felt in washington, and

here the editorial in "the wall street journal" talks about the fact that the republicans' border cynicism is what handed democrats a seat. border cynicism cost the gop, and they talk about how how you're actually in a unique position where republicans who think that the border issue was going to be supporting them, republic -- only this republican party could screw that up so badly that they actually turned the border issue into a plus for democrats, and as the wall streel journal says, the democrat backed the border deal and took a house seat because of it whereas his opponent opposed one, and you know, i guess they think -- i guess these republicans -- maybe they're so stupid the house, the extreme maga house republicans, they think all the voters are stupid and they don't know what's out there, but as "the wall street

journal" editorial page today said, the democrats supported the bill. the democrat campaigned on the bill, and the democrat picked up a house seat that republicans won by eight points just a year and a half ago. >> yeah, and even speaker johnson yesterday didn't look like he believed his own spin while he was talking about this race saying, it snowed and this and that, completely ignoring what "the journal," and what you were talking about this morning which is that voters are really smart as they see through nonsense. they see through spin, and they want the crisis at the border fixed, and they know that there was a proposal to get that fixed, worked on for months in the senate led by a republican, and that speaker johnson and house republicans have turned their backs on that to keep that alive. people are smart and i have been thinking about that, like, what contempt do you have for the intelligence of your own voters when you're lying to them saying, no one's given us anything to do on the border.

we want border reform. they watch the news. they have phones. they have eyes. they know there was a deal in the senate, and mike johnson yesterday very, very desperately trying to spin what was a significant loss for his party in many, many ways not just in terms of losing that one vote in the house, but as perhaps a canary in the coal mine for what's coming in the fall. it wasn't terribly convincing in this spin. >> no. look at this. here he is spinning. >> the result last night is not something in my view democrats should celebrate too much. think about what happened there. they spent about $15 million to win a seat that president biden won by eight points. they won it by less than eight points. their candidate ran like a republican. he sounded like a republican talking about the border because that's the top concern on the hearts and minds of everybody. there was a weather event that affected turnout. that is in no way a bellwether of what's going to happen this

small. >> it snowed and democrats -- democratic voters as much as -- >> blame it on the weather now. >> basically what he's saying there is republicans don't have enough money. republicans don't know how to organize when it snows, and republicans don't know how to run on the right issues. sam stein, that doesn't actually sound like a great vote of confidence, and he sounds, i mean, that approach suggests that the candidate's just as confused as mike johnson is, and i think i saw a politico story over the past day or two that a lot of republicans are just saying, he's winging it. that it's kind of chaos around here. >> you don't understand. it was strategically targeted snow down to the district level. >> yes. >> knowing the voter locations. yeah, no. weird spin, and yeah. it does feel like -- look. there's been a string of these defeats. obviously you can't say one special election is going to tell you everything about the political climate, but this isn't just one special election. i mean, on the same night, there

was a statehouse election in pennsylvania. we saw obviously, a string of other special elections t 2023 elections. all these down ballot races -- not all of them, but almost all of them have really broken in the democratic favor especially since the dobbs decision. >> yeah. >> now in this case, the border bill obviously played a bigger role, but if you were the republicans, you came out of the this over the past year stwa and a half, you would say, we need to course correct in some significant way. that's not what's happening on the hill right now. they're saying we need to continue doing what we're doing. they dismiss these things as isolated incidents. there's no introspection from leadership here. if anything, they're tying themselves closer to trump who was the one who said, let's kill this border deal because i want the issue in play. >> yeah, and it once again, whoever saw this coming?

donald trump cost republicans another election. it was donald trump's cynicism. "the wall street journal" talks about it once again, that cost republicans elections. they say, joe, why are you being so mean to republicans? i'm not. i'm trying to help. i am here, right? i am here. i am, like, the -- i'm trying to fix your house. it is structurally unsound, and you won't let me do it, so you keep losing. katty, i noticed another thing though. out of this whole election, and it's one of the reasons when everybody is, like, doing their bedwetting in february. they're looking at, you know, a university poll. i'm not sure exactly where that university is, but they're looking at a poll and sayings oh my god. biden is down by five points. the world is over.

here's another example, and sam really brought it up. since dobbs, it seems like every election has gone this way. the polls may show a close race, and this -- in this case, the last poll showed the democratic up by one point, ended up winning by eight points. we've seen it time and time again since dobbs that democrats for some reason, underperform in polls and on -- on election day, when people go out to vote, those people are going out for abortion rights, for women's health care. you name it, and it's not just women as we've talked about before. it's a lot of men, when they go out, they vote on that issue, and it makes a huge difference, and it did here again. it wasn't a one-point victory. it was an eight-point victory. >> yeah, and obviously the poll

that caused the most nighttime incontinence was the last october which had donald trump ahead, and that was a, you know, a respectable, reasonable poll one assumes, but you look at all the special elections, and we don't know how much you can translate a special election into an election year election when the president's name is actually on the ticket. there's some debate about that, but it's not just new york. it's not just virginia. it's not just new jersey. it's not just pennsylvania. throw florida in there as well, and you have had a string of states where republicans have lost who should have been in a position to win, have lost the a democrat, and that is the hope that the white house has. they say that when it actually comes to people forgetting the polls, but look at how people vote. people are voting for democrats particularly since dobbs. throw in an economy that seems to be improving and sentiments from consumers that are getting more confident, and that's why the white house thinks it's in a

stronger position than we seem to be thinking. the panic caused last october has ceded. there is more confidence in the white house at the moment because of these things. coming up, we'll go live to kansas city on the heels of yesterday's shooting at the chiefs' super bowl parade. what we're learning about the victims and a potential motive. "morning joe" is back in a moment. l motive "morning joe" is back in a moment when moderate to severe ulcerative colitis takes you off course. put it in check with rinvoq, a once-daily pill. when i wanted to see results fast, rinvoq delivered rapid symptom relief

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we want to move to the deadly gun violence during the kansas city chiefs' super bowl celebration. one person was killed, and at least 21 other people were injured. many of them are children, and yesterday's gun violence during that celebration. this morning, the sister of lisa lopez-galvan confirmed to nbc news she was the one who was shot and killed. lopez-galvan was the mother of two, and a deejay at a kansas city radio station which posted a tribute to her online calling the shooting a senseless act

that has taken a beautiful person from her community and from her family. let's bring in -- go ahead. let's bring in nbc news investigation correspondent tim winter with the very latest on this. tom, what do you know? >> right. so right now investigators are trying to determine exactly why this happened yesterday according to our reporting and from a number of state and federal law enforcement officials that have been briefed on this. there is no indication here, mika, that there is some international or national terrorist plot or national security concern. people will look at that and look at the scenes we're looking at, but they say, how can that not be terrifying? this doesn't seem to be motivated by an ideology. there are people in custody. according to that eyewitness testimony, and what people have told us yesterday in the course of reporting on this, is that some of the individuals may be under the age of 18, and of

course, that raises challenges when it comes to charging those people. it raises challenges when it comes to naming individuals, and so they're going to have to make some decisions in missouri law. it's unique in this as to whether or not potentially charge them as individuals if, in fact, they are juveniles. that's something we'll be following as the day progresses, exactly how this happened. did these people know each other prior to the shooting? was this a dispute that arose during the course of the celebration yesterday or was it not connected to it at all? obviously it's near union station, so you don't have to have attended this event yesterday to have been there, but when you look at it in its totality, it's another one that has been marred by gun violence. it's been another event that has been marred by really a horrifying scene. the individuals who have been shot, the kids that were shot, they will never think of an event like that the same, and so this was also an event where you

had 800 members of the law enforcement according to the kansas city police department. themselves, and members of the state police. so i think it's a situation where we see a heavily secured event where yet still something happened. >> so lisa lopez-galvan was killed yesterday, confirmed by her sister yesterday to msnbc. she was 1 of 22 victims. 12 victims were sent to mercy hospital. the hospital came out late yesterday afternoon and said all 12 of the victims there are likely to survive and recover fully which we take as a little bit of good news here. is it fair to say, tom, that according to law enforcement you've talked to, this was not some kind of a targeted attack on the parade, but more likely a dispute between people who possibly were at the parade? >> that's what it sound like at this point, and so whether or not these people have a history with law enforcement or whether it was something that arose out of the fact, you know, that you've got a celebration, alcohol, and people in tight spaces.

did something grow out of that? that's a little bit unclear at this point, and then the age of the individuals who may have been involved, again, that's another bit of a question here this morning, but it does not appear to your point, willie, that this was a situation where somebody came there yesterday to attack chiefs fans or people in kansas city as part of some specific plot. there's no indication of that, at least at this juncture of the investigation. >> what is more american than a super bowl parade, and yet what is more american than a mass shooting? i mean, that is where we are right now. >> yep. >> we did hear from a number of the chiefs players yesterday. some took to social media. some spoke out in interviews. their thoughts and prayers are there for their city there, horrified by what happened. some players comforting children who were scared by the chaos. >> right. >> just tell us more about what we -- how this all went down yesterday. i know there's also a report of onlookers and bystanders who may have tackled one of the assailants, and just remind us also what are the gun laws in missouri? >> right. so that's an easy question to answer. the gun laws there are pretty

loose as far as gun laws go. so the idea of carrying a weapon in public places, it's certainly not prohibited. you can carry concealed weapons in a number of different places, and there's no -- i don't think there would have been a prohibition on having a weapon there yesterday. folks have looked at -- on that point, where there are magnetometers close to that event? it's near a transit hub. it's near a bunch of public places where people will be coming and going that have nothing to do with the celebration yesterday. it would have been difficult to enforce a perimeter on that scale just having covered so many of these events before, and of course, you have a parade which makes certainly any sort of security checks even more of a challenge. so that's the first thing. as far as how all this went down yesterday, you know, i think the whole event time was 10 or 12 minutes. to your point, you saw people being tackled. we're not showing that video at this point because we're not sure whether or not those individuals were actually involved. somebody could say, that's the

shooter and they could have been involved in the dispute. we want to be cautious about who we're showing in handcuffs here, and police would rather put somebody in handcuffs for 5 or 10 minutes and make sure they're not involved than have to look for them later. police did acknowledge to your point, jonathan, that they were people that were chased after, that there was a pursuit at some point, so it is possible that to those individuals can be involved. it's a big reason why we saw overnight the fbi and the kansas city police department really urging folks to send in as many videos as you have, and from the boston marathon bombing, it was the types of images that were sent in pr people's cameras, that they kept rolling after the incident that were found on ground or cell phone video that really helped make that case. at some point, you'll want to make a prosecution here. >> so, and by the way, claire mccaskill comes on this show and often talks about how the radicalism in missouri's gun laws are causing more deaths,

and that's obvious when you look at and it you see it's happened. also crime has gone down across the country. i think it remains stubbornly high in kansas city as far as shootings go, but tom, i wanted to ask you on that front, do the police think that this could possibly be gang-related activity? has that come up? >> i think it's just a little too soon too say. i think those could be looked at, and all those injured people. if this was a dispute between teenagers, could these individuals have been part of that dispute or have been spending time with their friends? it doesn't make it any less horrible or horrific for them, of course. >> right. >> right. >> or were these kids innocent bystanders as a result of this shooting? >> right. >> it's too soon to say. >> they don't know. >> crime is -- it has come down certainly across the country, certainly in the violent crime homicide shooting category, but it's still a continual thing.

i think if you have a 5% or 10% reduction, you know this. you still have 90% of the violence you had before. >> right. >> i get reports from police departments all up and down the east coast. i'm looking at philadelphia, and a couple of shootings there. a homicide as well. so the violence is still pervasive and it's something that is touched on early. it's part of our culture with these incidents, and i can't think of the last time we've gone, you know, without a holiday or a parade or some sort of a large gathering over a period of months where we haven't had something come up. it doesn't happen all the time, but it is something that we are now seeing more and more at these type of events. coming up just about an hour from now, donald trump's hush money hearing is expected to get under way. we'll get a live report from outside the manhattan courthouse when "morning joe" comes right back. tan courthouse when "morning joe" comes right back

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time to litigate his claim that the federal indictment against him should be dismissed on the grounds of -- >> yeah, no. >> -- presidential immunity. >> i don't think so. >> as part of his filings, smith stated trump's bid to put on hold an appeals court ruling because of an immunity claim, fails to meet the necessary requirements for the court to intervene. smith also stated that if the high court is inclined to grant trump's request, it should immediately take the case up and issue a ruling, quote, as promptly as possible so the trial can move forward.

trump's lawyers contend presidents should have total immunity for official access president, and that trump's actions in questioning the 2020 election results were part of his official duties. that's including, i guess, inciting insurrections and whatever else, clear i. >> let's bring in lisa rubin. they had another week and jack smith said, no, i'm ready now. let's stop the nonsense and get this trial moving. is the supreme court receptive to this, do you think? >> i think they will be receptive to the overall argument. whether they're receptive to a stay is a different question. i think jack smith really put the lie to many of trump's arguments in this brief. one of the ones i thought was most persuasive was calling trump on his kennards and

saying, look. nobody believes presidents have total immunity. nixon didn't believe it. they cite to something that nixon files and he says, of course, after leaving office, a former president can be prosecuted. they cite the doj policy and to justice kavanaugh who in the trump versus vance decision, proceedings relating to later today, saying, nobody is above the law, including a president. >> the argument from the other side, from trump's attorneys is, let's litigate this out, this question of immunity. the d.c. federal appeals court has ruled on it, but let's rule through before we start this trial. jack smith is saying, no. let's start now with oral arguments. do you think we'll get this thing moving any time soon, the trial. >> let's go back. his first preference is they don't grant a stay, and therefore the case goes back to chutkan, and we can start the pretrial proceedings. in the alternative, he's saying if you are inclined to hear the

case, let's do this expeditiously, and we'll have oral argument in march. i don't think that trump's attempts to portray what has happened so far is overly rushed or as novel as he says it is. i don't think it will succeed with this court, but of course, this is a court that has surprised us time and time before. >> this is a busy week. >> oh, is it. >> yeah. you're well aware of it, including here in new york city. this is a case that has been overlooked my many, the hush money one, and i think that's the weakest case against trump, but now it seems like it might be the first to go forth. tell us what we're going to hear today, and also whether you think that that late march trial date will stick, which at this point, probably does put it first on the list. >> i think it's probable that it sticks, in large part because the judge can go forward on march 25th, comfortable that as

of right now, there is no other trial that can be tried in that window of time, and because judge chutkan's case has been on hold since december 7th and she has committed to giving trump a full seven months for preparations. that time we have been on hold is not going to count. i think the judge feels like he can try the case before him in a window of time that won't incur on anybody else's calendar. what else will we see? the judge will rule on trump's motions to dismiss the indictment against him in this case. most people believe that he will not accept those motions to dismiss and that will move ahead to considerations of scheduling and jury selection and the like. my guess is that when i emerge from that courthouse today, and i will be there in the courtroom, that i will have a topline of a trial date to report. >> let's hop down the legal docket to atlanta. 9:30 this morning, a hearing in the fulton county election interference case, but not

really about donald trump here, about fani willis and prosecution misconduct. trying to get her off the case. what do you think? >> i think the proceedings in new york are largely predictable today. what's going to happen is judge scott mcafee presides over, it's going to feel like a telenovella. it's all about when that affair began and that's important because determining whether there's a conflict of interest in terms of finances or otherwise, it matters whether that affair was happening before fani willis appointed her old friend, nathan wade to be a special prosecutor as of november of 2021. first witness today will be a man named terrence bradley. he was nathan wade's business partner and first divorce attorney. he can't violate the attorney/client privilege as to when he started to represent him, but he can talk about what he knew about the relationship willis and wade before that attorney/client relationship

began. so depending on what terrence bradley says on the stand today, we may also hear from witnesses including fani willis and nathan wade. judge mcafee said he will consider whether the testimonials will matter today. >> one other case, lisa. tomorrow, it appears we may hear from john angoran in the fraud trial, of course. trump has been found liable of ripping people off. this is more like the penalties and figuring out the level of intent here. how much do we know that we might see an actual judgment this week? >> i think we're going to, mika, and we'll see a written opinion tomorrow, and to john's point that people have overlooked the manhattan d.a.'s criminal case,

i would argue people ignore the civil impacts on donald trump. this might be the thing that really punches him in the gut more even than the prospect of time in prison and being convicted. you've got $370 million on the line as well as prospective lifetime bans on serving as an officer or director in new york and participation in the real estate industry, and if you think donald trump can simply take his assets, pick them up, and move them to a florida corporation, there are already injunctions in place that prevent him from moving significant assets, whether cash or buildings, golf courses, and the like to other legal entities. he's really stuck right now, and tomorrow it may become much, much worse for him. coming up, a republican congressman sounds the alarm about a new national security threat from russia. what the white house is saying about that concern. "morning joe" will be right back. concern "morning joe" will be right back

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so this morning, the white house and top officials on capitol hill are looking to reassure the american public that there is no need for panic after republican house intelligence committee chair congressman mike turner sounded the alarm about a serious national security threat facing the u.s. at the time his cryptic message urged president biden to declassify intelligence on an unnamed threat. the move caught many lawmakers by surprise and sent journalists scrambling around the halls of congress trying to figure out what he was talking about. later on, sources told nbc news that turner's morning was referring to russia's efforts to target u.s. satellites in space. u.s. officials stressed that

while the danger is significant, the threat is not imminent. national security adviser jake sullivan sought to downplay concerns, saying he was set to brief turner and the gang of eight house members on this issue later today. >> i'm a bit surprised that congressman turner came out publicly today in advance of a meeting to sit alongside him and our defense professionals. i'm confident that president biden and the steps he is taking will keep americans safe, and i assert that and look you in the eye with confidence that we believe that we can and will and are protecting the national security of the united states and the american people. >> sam, this was -- man. this was a bizarre -- it wasn't sort of -- it was a bizarre outburst that got the whole intel community scratching their heads going, what's he doing? because the white house was about to brief the gang of eight. they were about to talk about

it, and then he made a jump. some people are suggesting he did it, to help funding for ukraine. he is a supporter of ukraine, but most others like jake sullivan just scratching this heads. do you have any reporting? what exactly what is going on? >> i mean, so the report -- in theory, i was very supportive of him coming out because i want more information, obviously. >> right. >> head-scratching decision. you don't ever see something like this happen, someone sort of obliquely referring to a real threat, setting off panic and confusion. in our news room, we were scrambling to figure out what the actual specific of this were. what we found was what other outlets found which is saying it's related to a space program that the russians are either launching or have launched that would involve potentially gsh again, i'm using my words here. nuclear capabilities in outer space regarding our satellites. officials told us publicly that

it was not an imminent threat, but a potentially grave threat, and that's the extent of what we know. that's an extremely bizarre way. usually the gang of eight is airtight in what they talk about in respect to intelligence. this is coming in not just the debate about ukraine funding. it's coming in the shadow of donald trump and his comments on nato. it's coming amid debates over gathering intelligence. so we are trying to piece together what the motivations were for congressman turner who, you know, has a decent reputation around this stuff, but this was just a little bit out of character and frankly a little bit bizarre. >> john, to sam's point, i heard from a couple of people in the intel community yesterday who were surprised yesterday number one at the violation of protocol and regular order, and also mike turner who they view as a sane,

serious, responsible voice in this republican caucus kind of just popping off in a tweet, this thing that sent everybody scrambling. this is ahead of today that he had scheduled. >> it was on the books, and in an exasperated and bemused jamie sullivan, as to why the congressman did that. it was a moment of -- it was a moment where a republican in the house, not exactly covering themselves in glory. it was an odd thing. it set off real panic. there was real concern yesterday when this happened. so katty, as joe alluded, there was this idea that this -- maybe this is some sort of three-dimensional chess move to rally support for the ukraine bill saying, look. russia's such a threat. it's not just ukraine, but rather this could be in the skies above targeting american satellites if that is what it is, the nuclear space program. do you think that that had any success? it seemed like everyone was so

quick to downplay it and talk to us a little bit more about what you're hearing and the possibility of that aid getting a vote. >> senator rubio had heard about this a while ago, and of course, he didn't say anything. he was a member of the gang of eight. congressman turner decided to -- i mean, the implication would be that russia sent out this aircraft on february the 9th. it had a hidden payload. we don't know what it was. was there something nuclear in there, that america doesn't have defenses against, that could then attack america's own capabilities? you don't need a nuclear weapon. you could do that with something much less. it's to gin up this idea that russia is a threat everywhere, and moon while american -- i think officials in the white house need to make a better case for why they need to carry on funding ukraine more directly, and that's the case that's been -- they haven't really made successfully. so at the moment, we have the senate bill, but we just don't have any prospect of the house.

it looks like coming up. you've got republican support in the senate, for funding ukraine. you've go got some republican support in the house, like mike turner, but not enough at the moment for it to get through any time soon. this is unique. ukrainians waiting. my understanding is the pentagon can shuffle some stuff around. they can keep the ukrainians supplied to some extent, but they need that big bill when the shuffling around capability runs out. >> and it is really important. mike turner is a guy who supports the ukraine funding. >> right. >> i mean, it's the same thing. it's the same thing with mccaul and, again, just to underline this, jonathan lemire, just as there was huge support for the ukraine bill in the senate, most observers say, if it could get on the floor, the bill would pass overwhelmingly just like it did in the senate because most

republicans support this. it's just the extreme, crazy, maga right that is goings, you know, that's trying to destroy sort of ronald reagan's view of defense. >> yeah. i think that was the sense, joe, but actually in recent days, the vibe from the house is this is less of a sure thing to pass even if it were to get a vote. we had congressman mendy of california, and he relayed he spoke to a number of republicans, those he thought would stand for this bill, and they seem to be wavering. we think it's pressure from donald trump. it's likely to be moot because the speaker has made it clear time and time again he's not bringing it up even up for a vote unless he gets more on border security which they tried do a week ago and it was dead on arrival and so on. right now, ukraine aid is far, far, far from a sure thing. coming up, actor kingsley benadeer is standing by with

look at his new film. we'll talk about what it's like to bring the reggae icon to the big screen. "morning joe" is back in a moment. big screen "morning joe" is back in a moment sleep more deeply. and wake up rejuvenated. purple mattresses exclusive gelflex grid draws away heat relieves pressure and instantly adapts. sleep better. live purple. right now save up to $800 off mattress sets during purple's president's day sale. visit purple.com or a store near you.

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♪♪ ♪♪ you know, you're a superstar. >> i'm a superstar. >> you can't separate the music and the message. >> you need to stop. >>. ♪♪ on december 3rd, 1976, would

be assassins invaded bob marley's home and attempted to take the lives of the singer and his wife. >> don't worry about that. >> that was part of the trailer for the new movie "bob marley one love" which chronicles the life of the iconic musician, beginning with the attempt to assassinate him in 1976. with us is kingsley benedier. you prepared for this role while playing basketball ken? i don't know how that works. explain. >> a little bit. the family gave me the job and i had three months on barbie. i just wanted to get working

because there's so much to learn with bob, guitar, i don't sing, i don't dance. i did some redemption song in patois. >> you've played a lot of great roles. what draws you to bob marley? >> bob obviously is a dream role. it's so rich. there's so much to him. really, to be clear, it's my understanding that the family were involved. once i spent time with them and understood what their intention was, it just made sense to me to go on the journey with them. there was no way i could say no. they wanted to explore their dad at this time on a human level

and to try and capture a little bit of his essence. never to do imitation or a mimicry. trying to find bob's vulnerability in this moment after he nearly lost his life, after rita nearly lost her life, after the band nearly died, bob came and creates this masterpiece in a matter of months. so for me, it was like out of that trauma came this masterpiece. it was this outpouring from bob. for me, it was an exploration of internal safety, inner peace. it is for me to investigate with his friends and family where he was at with peace in himself. i think that's universal. we're all on our own journey to

find safety and peace. >> in the documentary where you play bob, we know bob is this iconic figure. and iconic figures are still human beings. i was very close with james brown. i knew james brown the person. as you sought to play bob marley, what did you have to deal with to find what made bob marley bob, who became this iconic figure? and part of it was his spiritual journey and the whole rastafarian. tell us about bob the person. >> i don't know if we've got time to tell you how i got there. it involved his family and his

friends and spending a lot of time talking and listening to them. it was about listening to them talking about the private bob. really i go back to the idea of safety. bob was a kid who grew up in the ghetto. he came from the country, but he grew up in the streets and he hung around with real dudes and he saw real pain, violence. when you've grown up in that way, for me, bob found safety in his guitar and music. he found safety in god, and he found safety in football. those guys didn't have therapy. they found it in the ways they could. once i understood that about bob, what god meant to him, that really in music he was in service. it wasn't about him. he was trying to spread the word of his majesty through his music. bob saw the injustices of black

people specifically all around the world, and he sung about those things. he was a true artist. what he achieved in that ten-year period from '68 to '81 is just astonishing. >> let's take a look at another scene, this one taking place in the recording studio for marley's hit song "jammin '" ♪. ♪♪

♪ life is worth much more than gold ♪ ♪ we're jamming in the name of the lord ♪ ♪ we're jamming, jamming ♪ >> you were just talking about how you tried to discover the spirit of the man. there were also the mechanics of getting ready for the part. you lost 40 pounds for the screen test, didn't understand the language and also didn't sing or play guitar. you were singing along to that clip right now, and very well. how did you get yourself ready physically for a demanding role?

>> i was like this is what i've got. this is how many hours are in the day and i just started. i opened up youtube and started doing some chords. when my hands got tired, i'd watch him. rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. a lot of technical work. yeah, the same for any role really. no one put a gun to my head and said you've got to play bob marley. i chose to do it. all i know is what i'm watching when i'm watching bob on stage is truly something out of this world. i want to understand what that is. i want to go on the investigation with the family and find out who he was as a human being. i had so many coaches on this job. i had dance coaches, language specialists.

like, everyone was involved. even ziggy and bob's best friend who was with bob when he was creating "exodus," he was in the room writing down the lyrics as bob was composing "exodus." and he was in the room with me every day onset. i felt like it was an energy thing. i just wanted the family to know i was doing it from scratch. >> the new movie "bob marley one love" is in theaters now. kingsley ben-adir congratulations on the movie. it's exactly the top of the hour. we'll roll right into the fourth hour of "morning joe" now. we are following two major legal hearings this morning.

one is in new york city, where donald trump arrived at the courthouse just moments ago. that case centers on allegations he covered up hush money payments to an adult film star. the other is in atlanta where fulton county d.a. fani willis is expected to testify at an evidentiary hearing regarding misconduct allegations levelled against her. we'll go live to both courthouses ahead and get expert legal analysis. >> perhaps the biggest legal story that could come out today is the ruling in that fraud case in new york, where you're looking at upwards to $350 million in fines. donald trump has already been found liable for fraud. >> right. he's found to be a fraud. it's just how much he will pay that could come down today, expected at the latest tomorrow

on friday. >> so the implications of that -- we're talking about the criminal cases, but he knows that he exaggerated his net worth. he's already been found liable for fraud. a $350 million fine for that and his businesses shut down in new york state, for him, that would be a devastating economic blow. >> of the 83.3 million he lost in his defamation suit when e. jean carroll went after him again for defaming her when he refused to stop. first, we begin with the latest on yesterday's mass shooting in kansas city. one person was killed and at least 21 others injured. it happened after the team

paraded in downtown kansas city. a popular radio deejay was shot and killed. ellison barber has more. >> reporter: this morning lisa lopez glavin is described as somebody who was full of life and a community staple in so many ways. she died here at the scene. in a statement released by the radio station she worked at, they wrote in part, quote, it is with sadness and a broken heart that we let our community know that lisa lopez galvin lost her life in the shooting at the kansas chiefs rally. our hearts and prayers are with her family. 22 people were shot shortly after this parade ended. so far they have confirmed one

fatality. the kansas city fire chief says when they initially arrived at the scene, their paramedics determined that at least eight of the victims had what he described as immediately life-threatening injuries. we know among the people who have been shot, some of them were children, at least nine for children. a spokesperson for the children's hospital here, mercy, they tell nbc news they were treating 12 different patients, 11 of them children between the ages of 6 and 15. nine of the 12 had been shot. all are expected to recover. police say they have three suspects in custody. they're describing those individuals as detained and under investigation. they have not released their names or ages. when pressed by reporters at a press conference yesterday for more information about the weapons used here, the exact

timeline, the kansas city police chief said all of that is information they are still gathering. they say they did recover one firearm at the scene. they are describing this as the very early stages of the investigation, saying they're on the ground collecting physical evidence, interviewing victims, witnesses and also collecting a massive amount of digital evidence. they still want more from people who are here or took a photo or video as they try to piece together what happened. law enforcement officials say initially they believed this was criminal in nature, and they do not believe there was terrorism. one thing i keep thinking about is hearing at that first press conference yesterday the police chief of kansas city saying this is not kansas city. but as we look around the scene this morning, this is something that is so familiar in the united states of america.

there's massive amounts of debate about why there's so much gun violence in this country, and a lot of that has to do with politics. but the numbers do not lie. this is part of who we are as americans. so far this year, according to the gun violence archive, there have been 49 mass shootings in this country. they have been tracking those since 2014. there have been over 4700 mass shootings in america alone. >> thank you for your reporting this morning. >> on guns, that is who we are as a nation right now, sadly, but that's a choice. there's been a proliferation of dangerous weapons. we don't know what kind were used yesterday, but we've seen this proliferation of guns.

actually, as far as shootings go, it's gotten twice as bad with guns since sandy hook, which was supposed to be the breaking point when sanity returned to this debate. it still hasn't returned to the debate. listen, 90% of americans support background checks. about 80% support red flag laws. there are so many people that are fighting against these radical gun laws that are trying to make it easier for crazy people to get guns, for people under 21 to get guns, even people under 18. they want a proliferation of these guns all over the place. it's led to a far more deadly situation in places like kansas city, especially in places like washington, d.c., the west coast. we have to have a return to some

sane gun safety laws. >> i think this will be one of the key election issues, this along abortion, along with immigration, which are issues now democrats own over the republicans. if you want progress on these three issues, you can't vote republican in any election. >> you look at the "wall street journal" editorial page again, the voice of conservatism in america for decades now. they have been warning republicans, you are ceding the issue of the southern border to democrats. you are doing what, quite frankly, most people would think would have been impossible, but only this house republican party, the extremists that are running it, they're the only people that could be so stupid as to actually turn the border

issue over to democrats. the "wall street journal" article blames donald trump and says trump's trying to blame the republican who lost, but the "wall street journal" says she didn't criticize trump. she ran on his agenda. maybe swing suburban voters don't like the maga gop. maybe they don't. maybe they haven't for a very long time. voters know the impeachment of mayorkas won't do a lick of good at the border. watching the gop house, they see nothing but grandstanding, internal fighting and an inability to put together a majority for anything but gestures. mike johnson, we're looking at you. the border is wide open right now. we've had a crisis there since

donald trump became president. of course when obama and biden were in the white house, illegal border crossings hit a 50-year low. the crisis at the border since donald trump became president has gotten worse. you actually have a republican conservative james lankford along with joe biden saying we've got a deal to close the southern border. >> we gave you what you wanted. >> but border cynicism costs the gop. democrat tom suozzi backs a border deal and takes a house seat because of it. >> joining is jen psaki and doug brinkley. jonathan lemire is still with us. what else would he be? >> he's here. >> he's always here.

>> stay right in that chair. don't you go anywhere. >> it's a scene out of "almost famous." lester bangs says of course i'm here. republicans lost in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. but this andy carney story says and then there were two. they still don't get it. >> they might be more inclined to take advise from you than me. they're cannibalizing themselves essentially here. on the border, this was an issue in the suozzi race. there was a terrible candidate on the republican side. tom suozzi dove into the issue.

he didn't run away from it. but it wasn't an issue the republicans could effectively message on, because they destroyed their own bill. the other place where they're cannibalizing themselves is on the tactics of politics. remember, donald trump and other maga supporters have basically thrown doubt into the effectiveness of early voting and voting by mail. this was a race on tuesday where there was low turnout because of a snowstorm. the republicans would have helped if they had been supporters and advocates of early voting. they're not going to take my advice, but their strategy is not one that would make sense to anybody who has worked in politics. >> yeah. i don't get the logic at all. >> for me in my age and before donald trump, it was

republicans. we would stack up absentee ballots. it was so important to my campaign at the core, i would get on the phone. i would get the numbers of people who were overseas, especially serving, and i would pick up the phone and i would call them. get your ballot in, get your vote in. i had everybody on my campaign doing that. we wanted early voting, because that first wave would come in and give us a buffer that nobody could ever catch up to. >> donald trump is making the calls to his maga munchkins in the house. doug brinkley, a historian, it's perfect timing to have you on. i am sure you have many historical precedents for this that you can draw to the educate us as to what the hell is going on in washington. >> actually, no. >> they are cannibalizing

themselves politically, aren't they, doug? >> they are. the republican strategy at this point seems to just try to encourage third parties, you know, have somebody come in with no labels, because their base isn't big enough. trump has just that one margin. he doesn't have extra voters to find. his strategy is to biden bash about age and other issues and try to just make biden not popular. that's the only strategy. but when donald trump is pushing the border, border, border and he's the puppetier of today's republican congress. i think it puts donald trump as

a shrinking figure even though the polls might show otherwise. >> beyond that border deal, donald trump also standing by his recent threats against america's nato allies. less than a week after he encouraged russia to attack nato members who don't, quote, pay their bills, last night in a south carolina rally trump again recounted a conversation he claims to have had as president where he supposedly told a fellow world leader that the united states would not protect them if they were attacked. >> when i came in, i didn't make a speech. i looked at the numbers. i said these numbers are terrible. nobody's paying their bills. one of the heads of the country stood up and said, does that mean if we don't pay our bills, you're not going to protect us? i said that's exactly what it means. >> first of all, that conversation wasn't real. what is real is the applause from the crowd who cheered along

and also the threat behind it. donald trump suggesting that he gives the green light to russia. how destabilizing is this? >> unbelievably destabilizing. i thought the worst quote from trump was when he said he'd be a dictator and he was echoing hitler in different speeches. i thought you can't get worse than that. but what he said about nato is reprehensible. nato is the foundation of america's national security, harry truman's brainchild. the atlantic alliance is so seminal to what the united states is. we expanded nato during the clinton years. it's the biggest thing we have going for us in international affairs. here's trump teasing he will

back russia if they attack a nato country, and somebody wants to put trump back in the white house? that makes him look like a patsy for putin. that's what hillary clinton said a long time ago about him being putin's puppet. that nato comment is exactly right. >> this is, again, another self-defeating gesture by donald trump, by these republicans. the overwhelming majority of people in the senate want to support israel, want to support ukraine, don't want to turn ukraine central europe over to putin. you have trump and mike johnson, who will do whatever he tells him to do. but most americans don't want to turn central europe over to putin. they want america to defend their allies.

>> that's totally true. i'm also old enough to remember when many republicans in the party, lindsey graham, who's still in the senate, and others were saying that russia was a huge threat and we needed to stand up for global norms. what happened? they're all silent this week. this is nerdy truth, but everybody needs to understand this. this call for nato allies to pay more started under obama in 2014. it didn't start under trump. there are now more allies paying their fair share, 2% or more under biden than they were under trump. nobody pays dues, which is how he described it. this is about countries paying 2% of their gdp toward defense, which they all, by the way, should pay. the only time article v what triggered was to help this united states after 9/11. there's lots of things here that

are completely not factual, no surprise. but i also think this is all about who we are and what our values are as a country. they should be and have been historically for democrats and republicans defending democracies, fighting against autocracies, fighting against efforts to take away the sovereign land of a country. >> when donald trump says something that crazy, it's an opportunity for joe biden to educate the country, to educate american voters on the work he has been doing to unify nato, to strengthen nato, to shore up nato and to make the world safer. >> it really is so stark. you go back to 1945, republicans and democrats have worked

together since '47 to build what started with harry truman. harry truman, as you know, worked with republicans, even taft, the isolationist, supported much of what harry truman did in '47. we built this post-war structure that has done nothing but help us and keep western democracy free. talk about joe biden and what he's done over the past three years and compare that to where we would be with the radicalism of donald trump where we go from having the strongest nato alliance ever to -- i don't know, to what? >> nato is the seminal core of u.s. foreign policy. it works and it spreads

democracy and it keeps us together, not just militarily, but culturally, educationally. they used to call it a big weight across the atlantic. so we live the lifestyle we do today due to nato security. dwight eisenhower before he was president was head of nato. jfk was trying to help portugal with its colonies and their liberation, but would have had to give up the azores and portugal. nato is first. trump came in playing this guy that all you owe me money to the nato countries. it was a shakedown of european countries. it made for colorful tv.

the speech he made of saying in the "new york post," nukes in space, u.s. intelligence reveals putin's terrifying plan. the thought that russia is trying to put nuclear weapons in space to blow up american satellites, ronald reagan would have gone ballistic just russia for even thinking of doing such a thing. and here trump in an age where russia is getting ready to put nuclear weapons into space is saying, oh, putin's not so bad, and i'll back him if he attacks lithuania. it makes him unfit for command. yet, the republican party -- and i blame people like lindsey graham who know better, but is afraid to break with trump for all the reasons we've talked about.

they're lining up behind him, and they're going to own that kind of anti-nato rhetoric throughout the rest of this election year. >> thank you very much for coming on. coming up on "morning joe," we'll go live to the courthouse in both lower manhattan and atlanta ahead of two big hearings this morning involving former president trump. as we go to break, a programming note. iowa basketball star caitlin clark needs just eight points to break the ncaa women's division i scoring record. she'll have a shot at history tonight when the hawkeyes host the michigan wolverines at 7:30 eastern on peacock. i told myself i was ok

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the last time i appeared before congress, i came to protect mr. trump. today, i am here to tell the truth about mr. trump. mr. trump is a conman. he asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair and to lie about it to his wife, which i did. >> all right. donald trump's former lawyer and fixer michael cohen testifying to congress in 2019 about a hush money payment he was allegedly ordered to coordinate back in 2016 on behalf of then-candidate trump. >> right before the election. >> that testimony played a key role in kickstarting a new york state criminal probe into the former president where he was eventually charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. now, five years after cohen

appeared before congress, trump will be in court today for a key hearing on the upcoming trial. he just arrived moments ago. this, of course, is the stormy daniels case. joining us now from outside the courthouse in lower manhattan is msnbc host and reporter yasmin vossoughian. >> reporter: i want to give you the lay of the land. i'm outside the courthouse now in downtown manhattan. we have cameras trained outside of the courtroom there. that's where the former president is speaking now. i'm going to be looking down at my phone as i speak to you just to kind of let you know we had one of our producers inside the courtroom giving us a play by play of what's happening inside the courtroom. i know d.a. alvin bragg is in the courtroom right now.

let's talk quickly about the motions the judge is going to be deciding on today. that is a motion to dismiss filed by the former president of the united states. the argument being made here is he sees this as being political, that alvin bragg is going after him because he sees this as a political fight. they're also pursuing the statute of limitations, arguing too much time has past. they're also arguing this is about the president's personal finances. there's 34 counts being levelled against him. my sources, a lot of legal experts are saying the judge is not going to accept this. the date we're looking at, march 25, it's pretty astounding.

a lot of folks are surprised this is the case that is going to be going first, it seems. whether or not it's march 25th, it's looking like that date is going to go forward. let me say one more thing here. we have to remember, this is a criminal case. the former president is inside a primary race right now for reelection as president of the united states. he is going to have to be here every single day. he is required to be here every single day. this is also a class e felony. if he is found guilty, he could serve up to four years in prison. and because it's a state prosecution, he cannot pardon himself if he is reelected president of the united states. >> what are the chances this all proceeds before the election? can we carefully or not so

carefully predict donald trump will put every delay possible into this proceeding? >> reporter: i think we've seen it with every single case so far. these are all delay tactics in which the former president and his attorneys have tried and failed at doing so far. it's working a little bit when it comes to jack smith. the predictions on the jack smith case are now looking like more of a may date on that. you're looking at florida, d.c. and new york. then we have judge engoron down the street. we're going to get a decision from him tomorrow, possibly $370 million in judgment, the president no longer being able to practice as a real estate tycoon here in new york city. the likelihood of this case going forward is highly likely, according to the sources i've been speaking to. this trial could last over a

month. then we could be looking down the barrel of the jack smith case in d.c. happening as well. that's one of the reasons, the former president didn't have to be here today, despite the fact he's going to have to be here for the actual trial, this is voluntary. these are campaign stops for president. >> let's bring in blayne alexander live in front of the courthouse in atlanta, where moments ago a hearing began there to determine if fulton county district attorney fani willis will be able to stay on the election interference case. what's the latest there? >> reporter: good morning to you. this really is a pivotal moment in the georgia case. court just got under way about

two minutes ago. i've been calling this the rubber hits the road moment. we're all familiar with the allegations that one of trump's codefendants is alleging that d.a. fani willis is financially benefitting from a personal relationship with special prosecutor nathan wade. but up until this point, we've seen this play out in a flurry of filings and motions back and forth. today is the day the judge is going to actually hear evidence in this case. the judge will decide whether or not fani willis says on this case and proceeds as plans or if there is grounds for her to be disqualified. we know that at least one witness is expected to take the stand. terrance bradley is a former law partner of nathan wade. we expect him to take the stand. it's important to point out that fani willis and nathan wade have both been subpoenaed as well as members of her staff.

fani willis has been trying to make those subpoenas go away. the judge said he's not going to decide on that just yet. he wants to listen to the hearing and then decide. the judge set aside two days before this, so we do not expect him to rule from the bench on this. >> let's bring in former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst joyce vance. >> you look at the two cases today that we're looking at, one in georgia where the prosecutor pushed off the case, and then in

manhattan, the case many legal experts consider to be the weakest case brought against donald trump. do you agree that the manhattan case may be the weakest and one that many legal experts believe should not have been brought against donald trump? >> let me start with manhattan. i don't think weak is the right word. weak in my mind describes the state of the evidence. i think it's probably the least serious case. you could have a very serious case, a homicide, and have weak evidence. you could have a less serious case like the one brought against mr. trump in manhattan and have strong evidence. so i'm a little surprised that's called weak, when i actually think of it as less serious. nevertheless, they're felonies. he's been charged with 34 of them, and they have serious consequences, including possible

incarceration. in terms of the atlanta case, mr. trump and 18 others charged with numerous felonies and to falsify business records and documents connected to the election. very serious hearings over today and tomorrow to determine whether or not the district attorney fani willis can remain in charge to have case. there are allegations that she has a conflict of interest. by the way, i think the judge in the georgia case is doing exactly what he ought to do, make a determination about whether or not there is a conflict and whether or not she can stay on the case. >> so joyce vance, do you agree? before you answer, i'll just say that both politically and personally i think this is one

of three cases that really get donald trump's goat. there's e. jean carroll, of course, who just embarrassed him up and down several times, two trials at least, and he owes her $83 million. it's a woman holding him accountable and costing him a lot of money. there's the fraud trial, which hundreds of millions of dollars might be the judgment and against letitia james, a woman, someone he has defamed and threatened in many ways with his language, again, holding him accountable. and now we're dealing with sex with a porn star and campaign finance laws being broken. it seems to me that this is personally and politically embarrassing for donald trump. do you agree with chuck that it's actually a serious evidence against the former president even though perhaps weaker

compared to election interference? >> i agree with both you and with chuck. i think you're dead on the money when you say donald trump operates in a universe where people aren't supposed to hold him accountable, and most importantly women aren't supposed to hold him accountable. in some sense, it's encouraging to watch all of these cases move forward. what's happening in atlanta today, as chuck says, is critically important. the judge will create a record. he will get all of the evidence, whatever it is, about this alleged conflict on the record and then he'll decide whether fani willis will continue with the case. as of now, it doesn't look like there's a conflict of interest under georgia law, which would require some financial incentive, for instance, if you

have a prosecutor who's only paid if they get a conviction. that's a conflict of interest under georgia law. where i differ from chuck is i have a more robust view of the manhattan case. i think in many ways this is a very serious matter. it's the origin story of donald trump's efforts to interfere with elections. here on the eve of the election in 2016 with the "access hollywood" tape released and people hearing trump's communities about his ability to manhandle women. he wants to make sure the american public doesn't hear he had a relationship with a porn star. >> the judge says at this point, i can inform you we are moving

ahead, jury selection for march 25th. trump's attorney called it an injustice. we heard from donald trump before going to the courthouse suggesting that his team would try to delay this if indeed it was scheduled for march. what are some other options? do you think they are going to be able to push this case beyond that march 25th date. >> that march 25th date may be a firm date in the court's mind. all i can say is this, things happen. we've seen that so far in the last year, unexpected motions, for example, in fulton county can delay a case unexpectedly. even though the attorneys think that is the date of trial going forward, something may come up. that also implies that it seems very probable that the motion to dismiss is going to be denied. no surprise there. this is the kind of motion that a trial court will always deny, but the defendant is really not making it for the trial court

because judges hate to take cases away from prosecutors. instead, the record has been made, and some of these creative theories made by the defense will eventually go up on appeal if there is a conviction. whether or not they'll survive on appeal, the selective prosecution is always a loser. i've try cases where the prosecution sat on the case for decades. it has never worked even to my knowledge. very rare for preindictment delay to result in throwing the case out. but you preserve that record for appeal and maybe you have a shot if you get convicted once you go up to the appellate division. >> we're going to go to the georgia hearing in one minute.

first, dave aronberg, you are a prosecutor and right now you're looking at a split screen, one in new york and one in georgia. i'm curious what are your thoughts today? what are you looking for today? >> joe, i think it's important that the new york trial moves ahead. i think that's an important revelation that this thing is going forward. there are only two cases that have a chance to go to trial before the election, this one and washington, d.c. it is the fourth of the four cases when it comes to the strength of the case. doesn't mean it's a weak case, but it is not an easy case for prosecutors. it's only a misdemeanor to falsify business records. it rises to a felony once the misdemeanor is used to conceal another crime. what is that other crime? the indictment doesn't say. alvin bragg has insinuated it's a federal election crime, it's election interference trump

tried to accomplish. then the question is, can the state boost federal law on campaign finance allegations? this is uncharted territory. trump apparently directed michael cohen to delay paying stormy daniels until after the election, because he wanted to avoid paying it altogether, because then it wouldn't matter if she went public. that shows his intent to interfere with the election. the stakes are raised in georgia, fani willis said the relationship started after he came aboard as a special prosecutor. if the defense can show otherwise, it shows that they mislead the court. >> let's see what's going on here in atlanta. this is the hearing to see if fani willis stays on the case. let's listen in.

>> i think that is a reasonable request, but not the state's business. [indiscernible] i want to alert the court that was the representation that the witness preferred not to -- [indiscernible] >> sure. i think the latest i'd seen was that mr. partridge was going to be able to join by zoom. >> i didn't know that he had affirmed that. perhaps that was an e-mail this morning that i missed. >> i don't know either. >> is mr. partridge here? >> we'll find out. >> we're looking at office

chairs from office depot and comparing the quality. no. we actually had a potential witness get up and leave. we're right now going over procedures. of course, they're debating over witnesses, which ones are going to be testifying today. >> the question is if district attorney fani willis will be able to stay on this case due to her relationship with the prosecutor she put on the case. the question they're looking at is whether or not she financially benefitted in any way, if there were any types of rules or regulations or laws broken here that would cause for a change to be made in this case. >> well, dave aronberg brought up a moment ago, joyce vance, if in fact they did lie under oath about when their relationship began, then they both will

likely be removed from the case, right? >> well, they certainly have a duty of candor to the court. it would be extraordinary to have two prosecutors lying to the judge and he'd be entitled to take the action that he saw fit. of course, one intermediate step here might be recusing nathan wade, the prosecutor that fani willis brought in from private practice and who she apparently has a relationship, having wade step aside from the case and permitting willis to continue. the people of georgia, the people of fulton county are entitled to have someone they elected to office conduct their affairs. so removing an elected prosecutor from a case would be a really extreme step in many ways. >> i'm wondering your thoughts on this. if, in fact, they were lying about when their relationship

began, do you think the judge will remove her from the trial? >> reporter: i think that's the least that would happen. the timeline is critical because, if fani willis appointed wade when they were having a relationship, the defense has a strong argument that this was something that was a plum given to somebody she was having a relationship with. further, if they've deceived the court about when that relationship began, i think that's a huge deal to represent to the court. again it's the coverup that makes it worse than the underlying conduct. dave aronberg will tell you in every state criminal courthouse in america, people are dating. judges are dating cops, cops are dating public defenders. some of it's in the open, a lot of it's secret. that's not what this motion is about. this isn't a motion to dismiss because the prosecutors may have had a personal relationship. it's a motion to dismiss because

if she appointed the special prosecutor and was essentially getting what could be a kickback in terms of he got paid and the money got paid back to fani willis, then you might have the appearance of impropriety. those are the magic words here. judge mcavee has already made reference to those magic words. it's not whether they did something that was misconduct. it's instead whether it created the appearance of impropriety because that's the standard by which attorneys are judged. that is the standard that safeguards the legal profession and causes the public to keep its trust in causes the public its trust in us. so look not for whether or not there was an actual relationship or whether there was actual misconduct, judge mcavee is going to be looking for whether

there is the appearance of impropriety. if they deceive the court about that relationship, that will bolster the argument there's the appearance of impropriety. the state has countered hey, even if there was a relationship, when they went on trips, everybody paid duchl. they looked at the bull. they pulled out their money, and no matter where they were, traveling abroad, they always paid for their own way. that seems like a little bit of stretch to me. maybe it will end up being completely true that every time they're at a chili's they look at the receipt, divvy it up right down the middle and the state funds are not going from the state to wade and then back to fani willis. maybe that's the case. but if they've made that assertion and that also ends up not being true, that too will be a problem for fani willis and wade. i think that if there is a strong appearance of impropriety here there's a very strong likelihood that both wade and fani willis will be disqualified. and it's willis that really

matters. if wade gets disqualified, someone else can step in. in fact, that's been the subject of a lot of this litigation. in a very twilight zone moment the defense essentially argued that wade didn't have sufficient experience and you have this moment where the defense is essentially arguing, hey, the state should have gotten a better qualified prosecutor to prosecute us, and of course this was pointed out in the papers. that's a non-issue. wade's lack of qualifications or alleged lack of qualifications as judge mcavee put it, if you've got a heartbeat and a bar card, you're qualified to be a prosecutor as far as this motion goes. but again, go back to the appearance of impropriety. it's what the judge is going to be looking for. it's the standard against which this conduct is judged. >> dave aronberg, expand on that, what do you expect if, in fact, we do find out that there was impropriety or an appearance

of impropriety, especially in the appointing of this prosecutor? >> yeah, if they lied to the court, then i do agree with danny. i think that's the least of the problems of being bounced from the case. i think this hearing is going to turn on two things, joe. first, did fani willis and wade begin their relationship before or after wade's hiring. they say after and that matters a lot. what qualifies as a personal relationship to begin with. that's important too. that's where this judge is going to have to delve into awkward minutia about their relationship. was it one encounter beforehand, it's going to get a little weird and perhaps a little ugly. i'm looking for something that's going to be fairly salacious here, which is why you don't see that fani willis and wade want to comply with the subpoena and testify. they're trying to block it and

understandably so. >> it's a bit of a mess there in that atlanta courtroom. they're calling witnesses to get in voice mails. zooms aren't working. joyce, though, i want to shift back to new york, which we know is now, at least for now, full speed ahead, march 25th jury selection. let's say that date holds or moves only a little. what sort of time line are we looking at here? how long could a trial like this last, and you know, when certainly march 25th is just a couple of weeks after super tuesday, so it comes as the backdrop of political campaign. how long is donald trump going to be in court, and when might we get a verdict even? >> yeah, i mean, it's a great question, jonathan, because jury selection in state court tends to take a little bit longer than it does in federal court. federal judges are very efficient. i think the jury selection process could take a week, perhaps it could even take more. we saw in the e. jean carroll

case, they were civil, the judge had no trouble in seating a jury that committed to being fair to donald trump. no reason to believe that that won't happen here, and then the manhattan d.a.'s office has suggested that their case could take a week or two. it's not a complicated case. it's sort of a straight line. there's some legal issues and there's certainly this underlying legal issue that dave alluded to about whether the charges are misdemeanors or felonies, but that's been briefed, and even the federal judge, you'll recall that earlier there was an effort to move this case from state court to federal judge, and the federal judge who heard that motion weighed in and suggested, no, it's possible that federal charges and federal election interference charges could convert these charges into felonies. so complicated issues but not a complicated case, and there could be a verdict perhaps by the end of april. that would put us on time lime

if the supreme court returns the case in front of judge chutkan to her in an expedited fashion, we could actually see both of those cases worked through before the election takes place. >> certainly a lot of people hope that is the case, danny. let's get your case on the new york, the time line, yes, but also your analysis of the case itself. you know, we've discussed and seems to be a consensus that it's perhaps the least strong, least serious of all the criminal charges that trump faces, but is it still enough to get a conviction? >> former d.a. mark pomerantz who was a private attorney who joined the d.a.'s team to investigate this case, wrote an entire book, very good book where he called this the zombie case. it meant that this theory of liability, this theory of criminality, it was batted around, it was killed, it was revived, killed again, then resurrected, and it ambled on to now this incarnation, which is based on at minimum, a creative

theory of responsibility. joyce just touched on that briefly. it's the idea that this offense, this additional crime that boosts this to a class e felony is based on a new idea about crimes. it's based on we're not really sure because the d.a. hasn't identified the specific crime. it could be a federal crime. it could be a new york election law crime, and the defense argued, at least in their motion to dismiss, that none of these crimes qualified. now, who's right? we don't know, but it might be yet another issue on appeal if trump is convicted in new york. so do i think you can get a conviction? keep in mind, you're going to get a manhattan jury. you're going to get a jury in a county that voted overwhelmingly for biden. now, does that matter? does that disqualify you as a juror? no, but if you're picking places to have a trial and you're donald trump, you want to be in staten island, you don't want to be in manhattan in new york county, even though biden voters can get on this jury. it's not disqualifying.

>> so joe, mika, i think it's also worth taking a moment to take a step back and really take in what we're seeing here. this is a former president of the united states and leading presidential candidate again with a split screen here, two criminal proceedings pertaining to his future, both politically and personally. he has been -- he is now a march 25th trial date has been set to set a jury pool, and tomorrow we expect we'll get a verdict in a civil fraud case that could potentially almost bankrupt him and prevent him from every doing business in new york city again. >> mika, they found a witness. >> they found a witness. they have been waiting for terrance bradley, the former divorce attorney for nathan wade, who is on the prosecutor team chosen by fani willis, and it was revealed that nathan wade and fani willis had a lationshi are beginning now to determine

whether or not there was any impropriety. >> attorney/client privilege before we get on the stand. >> why does that need to be on camera? >> well, there's statements that could be made -- that could be prejudicial, recovered or not. >> so at the time a question is asked that you think implicates some of those statements object and i'll handle it. >> thank you, judge. >> on behalf of mr. bradley, i apologize, this is not our proceeding, but it might be helpful to have a brief side bar as opposed to something in chambers, at least so we can let the court know rather than having to restate it repeatedly. >> and judge, i have carefully crafted my question to avoid any privileged information, but if they think i'm invading that i welcome an objection and i'm happy to address it. >> let's see how it goes, and again, mr. bradley i'll ask if you can just give a pause in between each question to allow

counsel the opportunity to object before answering. >> thank you, judge. was the witness sworn or do i need to swear the witness. >> good morning, mr. bradley, how are you? >> good morning. >> not happy to be hear, i'm assuming? >> i am not. >> okay. i understand, thank you for being here. >> wasn't my choice. >> right. >> you were subpoenaed to come and testify in this case? >> i was. >> but you and i have spoken previously about relevant fcts surrounding mr. wade. >> no, we have not. >> we have not texted about those facts? >> through a third party, you were given some information. you and i shared texts. our texts were more so about my health, more so about if i was okay with whawa g