help biden this fall? >> i think that she was very clever to build this big speech and fox ews and others picked it up when they may not have. so i think that she will have an impact. but i don't know if she will drop out immediately and endorse trump as some other candidates have done. that doesn't seem her style. but she could definitely be a bit of a power player if she decides to hold on to her endorsement until the very last moment. >> it is maybe a little telling the last couple days she's backed off a bit from previous pledge to support trump and now saying not necessarily. good stuff this morning. grace, thank you. and thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. it is unacceptable to navalny with trump. navalny sacrificed life.

donald trump tried to sacrifice mike pence's life to kill democracy. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, february 21, and we have a lot to get to including former president trump continuing to compare his legal woes to the persecution of alexei navalny. >> it is beyond grotesque. a guy who has been accused by a judge of rape, a guy who has been accused -- or been found liable for sexual assault by a jury. >> massive fraud. >> massive fraud. hundreds of millions of dollars defrauding creditors. and the thing is, i just got to say really quickly, the thing is, nobody is questioning whether donald trump stole papers from the white house. whether he stole nuclear secret, whether he -- >> or had sex with a porn star and paid her off. no one is questioning it. >> illegally right before an election.

nobody is even questioning that. and that guy is comparing himself to alexei navalny. >> it is grotesque. and he continues to refuse to criticize vladimir putin on top of all of that. >> not a surprise at all. >> we'll have his latest comments just as the biden white house prepares new major sanctions against the kremlin following navalny's death. plus we're getting new details about the former fbi informant accused of lying about hunter and joe biden's dealings in ukraine. we'll tell you where u.s. prosecutors say he got his dirt on the bidens and his new lies that could impact the 2024 elections. nbc's tom winter is standing by with new reporting. >> you'll be shocked. but you won't be surprised. >> i think that is part of the plan. and also ahead nikki haley won't kiss the ring and she's

not dropping out of the race. we'll play for you what she had to say about donald trump yesterday in south carolina. fair to say she is not kicking sideways anymore. >> no, she is not. >> she's staying in and i think it is smart actually. >> it really is smart. willie, we'll be talking about what has been happening in russia, what has been happening more importantly in the united states. donald trump, mike johnson, defending a man who continues kidnapping. and that is what it really is. it is not arresting. continues to kidnap americans. here is a picture of yet another american they have kidnapped and now throwing in jail like they did navalny. you see even gershovich once again denied. it is straight out kidnapping. they are thugs. donald trump, mike johnson keeps

defending this tyrant who killed navalny, this tyrant who invaded georgia in 2008, this tyrant who invaded crimea in 2014, this tyrant who invaded ukraine a couple years ago. this tyrant that has continued to kill any political opponents or journalists or everyone people on foreign soil who he considers his rivals. this is who donald trump and mike johnson continue to defend. it is sickening. and i will go back -- circle back to what mika says. it is unamerican. >> unamerican and members of senate by the way who now have taken to praising vladimir putin as well. and the longer we go without this aid package getting through congress, happier vladimir putin is. just real simple. they are taking back downs in eastern ukraine they didn't think that they would be able to take back because ukraine is running out of ammunition. and last night at that town

hall, i know we'll play more of it in a little bit, donald trump talking on fox news would not condemn vladimir putin. which raises the question, we can ask it every day, what is going on there? it should be very easy. he briefly said alexei navalny was praise and then pivoted to saying he was the alexei navalny of america. he has it backwards. navalny was a krit critic of vladimir putin and donald trump is the opposite of that. >> and we go back to 2015 on this show, we thought it was bizarre, first time that we had heard and other people had heard donald trump so fearful of crossing vladimir putin, refusing to say that it was wrong for him to kill political opponents, to kill journalists

or any rivals. he says yeah, america does it too. that sort of lie, that sort of lie this donald trump -- you know, you used to have republicans apologize for donald trump and then pass tough sanctions against vladimir putin. now this old tired aging reality tv host has not only taken over the party, but has actually completely destroyed, completely obliterated any trace of ronald reagan's republican party that stood for freedom, that stood for fighting russian tyranny, that stood for the liberation of millions of souls in eastern europe and central europe. now donald trump shockingly, and ronald reagan's old party, now teaming up an alliance with donald trump and vladimir putin. >> yeah, and we're learning more details speaking of russia, joe,

about russian links to the fbi informant charged with lying to the agency about president biden and his son hunter. at a detention hearing it in federal court in las vegas, prosecutors revealed that some of the false informational lex ander smirnov fed to the fbi including a story about hunter biden came from officials associated with russian intelligence. and prosecutors allege the 43-year-old is actively peddling new lies that could impact elections in november. despite the revelations the judge found the government failed to make its case that smirnov should be detained until trial and ordered him released under conditions that include gps monitoring. smirnov has been a key source for congressional republicans and their impeachment inquiry into president biden. let's bring in tom winter and also with us jonathan lemire and

also katty kay. good morning to you all. tom, i'll start with you. you've been digging into the new filing we've learned from the fbi that this guy alexander smirnov who is charged with lying to the fbi, he of course had been the cornerstone, the star witness for this impeachment investigation into joe biden, turns out he made it all up. now there is a new twist. what more do we know? >> a whole lot of new information here and it is really important to pay attention a crucial game time line. something smirnov clearly did not do. he appeared in court late yesterday, sarah fitzpatrick was there wearing a yellow jump suit saying detainee on the back and he was there are some members of his family who were speaking in russian. i think when you look at this in the totality of what was in the detention memo, which was extraordinary, i mean, prosecutors use these to really put the hammer down and show a bit about what type of evidence they will bring forward. when you look at the filing

yesterday, they went really deep and unclassifying information, information unclassified on valentine's day when smirnoff ig oig, deep into his background, that he was a ten year plus source for the fbi, he had a handler that he talked to nearly every day which is a lot by the way for somebody who is a confidential human source, somebody who had been run out of the seattle field office, assigned to an agent who works in the criminal squad there. and the key line from this, and we'll show a portion of the document that was filed yesterday, is that it says during his custodial interview on february 14th, so it occurs after smirnov is in handcuffs, he admitted that officials associated with russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about business person one who we've publicly identified is hunter biden. so he told the fbi after he is in handcuffs, yes, i did this and it came from individuals associated with russian intelligence. there is additional information that is contained in this document. you read some of the quotes.

but it shows that overall he lied about a series of meetings in 2015 and 2016, phone calls in 2016 and 2017, and he didn't pay attention to what he already told the fbi. so there is information that they write up in a report called a 1023 report, and that is just a summary of the conversation that they had with the guy. there is nothing in there that says whether or not they determined what he said was true or it made sense. but the 1023 is an interesting part of this. because it speaks to the congressional component. if you remember, there was a big fight in congress about whether or not a 1023 from a confidential human source about the bidens should be released from the fbi. that happens in the spring of last year. at some point it is released. and there is further discussions about this is what the bidens were up to, there is even information about what hunter biden was up to at a hotel in

ukraine. hunter biden has never been there. so it raises questions as to whether or not the russians took a look at the fact that information they are feeding this guy can go direct to congress. and they are smart enough to realize, hey, we don't even need to try to push it through the fbi, we can just tell this guy whatever, and information will go in the report and then it might just find its way to congress. and there is no legal vetting here. there is nothing here that says whether or not what this guy said was true or not. >> and reminder this all stems from the investigation of special counsel david david weiss, someone not friendly to the bidens. is the fbi suggesting in this filing in some way what it appears to be, which is that the russian government, russian intelligence, feeding the source that they know has a direct line a crucial game fbi bad information to damage the bidens as we enter an election year? >> so i think that is where

yesterday's detention memo really went a step further than the indictment. they said that he was meeting with russian officials and people are looking through that and saying sure seems like that could be code for russian intelligence officials. but they flat out said -- they didn't name the individual but put in a lot of details. and he says, and they write in their memo, that it was after he was arrested that he admitted that these individuals who are associated with russian intelligence were involved in passing a story to business person one which is hunter biden. another thing i'd say is this this individual according to some of the things that are in the indictment had a background, at least had associates within russian organized crime. we think in this country of the mob's on one side and government on the other, and there has been some crossover, but to understand russia is to understand that russian organized crime is completely interwoven with the way their system works.

from the intelligence side of things, business side of things, politics side of things, they are a huge part of the oil that greases the machine of vladimir putin and the current russian state. and so for this person to have those, i'd be curious to know more about what he knows about russian organized crime and how that could have been involved in all of this. >> cats itykatty kay, i was tala high level official who attended the munich security conference and reporting back to me is that foreign leaders are looking at the united states with fear and trepidation as they watch trump and russian interference really infiltrate our politics and russian crime, infiltrating our legal system to the point where they are extremely worried -- >> wasn't the phrase freaked out? >> freaked out was the phrase. but also why don't americans see what they see so clearly. >> freaked out might be mild about how many are feeling.

and to pick up on tom's reporting, there is an extraordinary report in the economist this week from the royal united services institute in london showing just how much more effective russian spying has become even in the last few months gearing up for the 2024 election and the kinds of things that they are doing are exactly what tom is reporting about. but if we could have russian intelligence services feeding any kind of information they want to willing recipients on capitol hill in the republican party is extraordinary. you know, just a few weeks ago, there was jim jordan saying smirnov -- what did he call him? the most corroborating evidence they had in their impeachment case against hunter biden. and yet where is the kind of backlash from the republicans now after this indictment saying oh, you know what, we don't really have a case because he is a russian stooge. we're not hearing any of that.

so americans have to wise up to what the russians are doing. it is easy to say, well, they failed over kyiv, they failed on a whole bunch of other things, they didn't do well at the beginning of the war in ukraine. but actually they are learning. they have learned militarily and they have certainly learned on the intelligence side and measures need to be very aware of exactly this kind of misinformation. and what does this do now a crucial game republicans, that is what i wonder. did james comer say you know what, maybe this information isn't so good after all? >> if i was able to know exactly what congress would did, i don't think if i'd be sitting here. i might be on a yacht somewhere predicting congressional investigations. i do think it is important for people to know this has been going on for a long time with this person. specifically it was spoken about by then attorney general bill barr back in 2020 when they set up an intake center for what he said was information coming in from ukraine that might be related to the bidens. he said that the information had

to be, quote, carefully scrutinized, there are a lot of agendas in ukraine, a lot of cross currents and we can't take anything received from ukraine at face value. he noted this is true for all information that comes to the department of justice relating to ukraine including anything that mr. giuliani might provide because of course at that time giuliani was trying to put forward information he says he received relevant a crucial game bidens from that part of the world. so i think that it is something that this case will be something that we'll closely watch. >> all right. tom winter, thank you so much. you know, it is just shocking. here we see what russia is doing to ukraine. the invasion of a free country, of a sovereign country continues. you go a crucial game front page of the "wall street journal," you see americans kidnapped.

evan staring from his jail cell in to the courtroom trying to be freed. a journalist. a journalist for the "wall street journal" arrested for reporting on the war. you have -- and just shocking, you have russian security services deciding, hey, we can just send unfiltered crap straight to congress. we don't even have to worry about it. filtered by intel services as we heard the report earlier, it is just shocking. and why is that? becauses hate joe biden more than they fear vladimir putin. it is really sick. trump once again and republicans

being played once again by vladimir putin. we can thank you for this bell. >> why, what are you doing? >> every time a bell rings, putin has donald trump on a string. >> well, hold on a second. we'll do four hours of hitting that bell. >> of course jonathan lemire you saw it in it's a wonderful life. made us all cry. is that what she said? >> i don't want to hear that for four hours. >> yeah, sort of an unexpected twist at the end of an otherwise feel good movie. >> putin has republicans on a string. and you are like, you know, they did that in like 1946, 1947? i'm sure they are thinking who is this putin guy. but anyway, think about though -- i got to say this. think about the fact that vladimir putin understands that

republicans are so stupid now in the house, even with the help of their legal council, arnold the pig from green acres, that republicans are so stupid in the house, they can feed russian disinformation straight into the veins of the united states congress. straight in. and because they hate them so much. and then you have idiots running around talking about how they have got this disinformation that will bring down joe biden. like they depended on russian disinformation, they dependsed on an international fugitive illegally selling iranian oil to communist china, illegally selling our -- and all of this to try to take down joe biden and none of it is hitting. and we've been saying this for months. keeps making them look worse.

>> yeah, republicans and donald trump want to win more than they care about their country. that is what it seems like. we can trace it back to 2015, 2016, trump's appearance on the show praising putin, his call russia are you listening, begging them to hack into hillary clinton's emails. it was that very day wikileaks started posting them. we know his performance as president helsinki included and even in the last 10 days he's urnged russia to invade nato countries and compared himself to alexei navalny. but it is also republicans doing his bidding. yes, there are still some good republicans in congress particularly in the senate who stand up to putin, who are still cold warriors in a way, who follow the tradition of a ronald reagan and george h.w. bush and their approach to russia, trying to get a funding package for ukraine through, but there are just enough, handful in the senate and more in the house, who are these useful idiots who are willing do putin's bidding.

who will take anything from an asset with russian ties, ties to russian officials, they will take this unfiltered stuff and say let's make a case out of it, let's bring down the bidens. they don't care how they win, they just want to win. they will do every dirty trick. you do not accept aid from foreign countries. you do not let them meddle in our elections. and i think it is pretty clear that there are some republicans who hope that they will be help again trying to beat joe biden from russia and elsewhere come november. >> and everyone stand by. we'll be back in just one minute. we'll go live to south carolina. john heilemann is there and we'll have the latest on donald trump comparing himself again to alexei navalny in front of a town hall. we'll have the latest on all of that from south carolina after a short break. that from south carolina after a short break.

21 past the hour. putting in to context now the kind of regime russian regime

that donald trump refuses to condemn, we're talking about this now, joe mentioned at the top of the show the american ballerina who is now in russian custody after authorities there detained her on suspicion of treason which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. >> it is another kidnapping. another kidnapping by vladimir putin of an american. >> russian officials say the los angeles resident with dual russian-american citizenship was detained for raising funds, $51.80 to be specific, to support ukraine in its defense against russia. russia says carolina spent the money on medicine, equipment and ammunition to help ukraine. the white house said it was working to secure access but it has not yet been granted. we will continue to follow that story. it comes of course as a russian

court has decided to keep "wall street journal" reporter evan gershovich in custody. gershovich was arrested on espionage charges last march while on a reporting trip there, he and the "journal" have denied the allegations and the u.s. government has declared him to be wrongfully detained. yesterday moscow city court rejected an appeal filed by his lawyers to release gershovich from his pretrial detention. now the reporter will remain behind bars until the end of march. the state department says while it is disappointed in the ruling, it is not surprised by the outcome. >> and paul whelan still sits in the russian gulag. his family waiting for him to be returned home. >> and donald trump continues to make the death of alexei navalny about himself. >> but not about the man who killed him.

not about vladimir putin. he refuses still to condemn vladimir putin. >> who poisoned him once and it didn't work. finally he killed him. in a town hall that aired on fox new last night, he was asked about the money he owes after massive fraud in new york state and he said it was a form of navalny. trump did call the opposition leader very brave while answering a separate question, but again, failed to condemn russian president vladimir putin who most believe to be behind navalny's death. take a look. >> even if you appeal, you got to put up escrow money. that is a lot of dough. >> it is a form of navalny. it is a form of communism or fascism. navalny is a very sad situation. he is very brave, a very brave

guy. takes horrible thing. but it is happening in our country. we are turning in to a communist country in many ways. if you look at it, i'm the leading candidate, i got -- never heard of being indicted before. >> such a lie. >> disgusting. >> it is such a lie on every single level. a form of navalny, communism, a guy that lies to banks and creditors, a guy that lies to everybody about his property holdings? that would get any of us thrown in jail. that would get you thrown in jail if you did that. or that would get you, if not thrown in jail, that would get you fined. and so he has been doing this for decades. people in manhattan have been saying he has been doing this for decades.

so finally if there is a form of sort of putinism in america, which is funny, he didn't bring up vladimir putin, but he always gets away with it. he is rolo tomasi if you saw l.a. con begin sthal. he is the guy who always gets away with it. maybe that is what this run for the presidency is. we said it in 2019. i said it in 2019. i said if donald trump loses, he's going to run again and he's going to run again if for no other reason to avoid all the criminal actions that will be coming against him. the ones that we saw even before

january 6. i just -- are the people in that crowd, and i think we have to start asking this of our fellow americans, are the people in that crowd really stupid enough to believe that if justice finally comes to one shyster that that somehow condemns america and makes it a, quote, communist nation, when actually american capitalism is stronger today than ever before? >> i don't want to believe that. >> i'll say that again. american capitalism is stronger than ever before. we're crushing chinese communist. i know there are really stupid people in congress saying communist -- they three word around having absolutely no idea what it means, no idea what marxism means. anybody they are opposed to is either a pedophile or a marxist. that shows you again how bankrupt intellectually, how bankrupt philosophically, how

bankrupt spiritually the republican party is. no attack our military and say it is weak when the men and women in uniform are stronger now than anytime since the end of world war ii. an american capitalism blowing away not only our allies but also all of our rivals. i just got to keep saying it. donald trump -- donald trump if he loves russia so much, he should move there. if he move there had, he'd hate it. tucker carlson, why don't you move there if you love russia? if it is the land of paradise -- i mean, these are the lies. this is the bs we used to hear from soviet leaders. coming a crucial game united states and talking on larry king about what a worker's paradise -- go a crucial game worker's paradise. has a lower gdp than the state of texas.

california, the place everybody says is the worst place, so horrible, california communist state -- california has the fourth largest gdp in the world, in the world. in the world. in the world. i want to bring in heilman in a second, but i want to go to katty kay. when you have these idiot republicans talking about how weak america's military is, how weak america's economy is, how americans are communists, i think of my limited time going across the world talking to leaders in the middle east, talking to the leaders in europe, talking to leaders around the world, i will tell you,off the past several years, i've not had one say you know what the problem is with america? you all are too weak. no. what they say is you are trouncing us economically, you are trouncing us militarily and we don't appreciate it. they say it in different words sometimes. much harsher, i can't even repeat what one leader of a

major european country said to me about what the united states was doing to them, but it was colorful and it was about our strong economy. we're rolling over the rest of the world. and instead of celebrating america's strength, republicans are attacking it. >> yeah, look, you and i have had this conversation many times. look at the state of the u.s. economy at the moment compared to all other industrialized economies in the world and it is not just the state of communist california that is doing so well, it is the united states at large. growth is higher, inflation is low, unemployment is lower. in global terms this is a rocketship. you read it, i read it too. jared baker's article about the state of russia and the state of united states, saying how absurd it is to compare russia to the united states at the moment. he makes a very funny comment at the beginning in a spoof saying yeah, that is because there are so many immigrants queuing oig

up to get into russia in the moment. at least they don't have a an immigration problem because millions are not trying to get there. where do they want to send their kids to university? here in the united states. where do they want to worwork? rear in the united states. you may not like joe biden if you are a republican, you may not like the expansion of the government, you may not like the "inflation reduction act," you may not like the spending occurring this administration if you are a fiscal conservative, you may have concerns about it, but to say that joe biden locks up his political enemies or if you are a journalist you get thrown into jail if you report critical things of this administration or that there is any -- that justice department is warp one way or the other. there is clearly no comparison. >> it is insanity. and even if you are a small government conservative, you can't be rooting for donald trump to come in because donald trump in four years raised the

national debt more than any other president. >> a lot of republican presidents -- >> more than any president in american history, everyone two term democratic presidents didn't raise the national debt more than donald trump did in one four year term. >> if you are a republican voter looking at the republicans in congress right now, they are the ones holding up aid to ukraine. >> and israel. >> to ward off russian aggression. you'd think that that could help ward off russian aggression while donald trump is russian aggression in the form of useful idiot. >> and you have money going to israel to help them in their fight against hamas, you have money going to gaza, money going to ukraine to help in their fight against russia. and you've got money going taiwan to help in their fight against communist china. and it is the house republicans that are standing -- it is mike johnson who is standing in the way of us helping our allies in

ukraine, in israel, and taiwan. >> he could be a hero if he wanted. but that is not what they do there. let's bring in john heilemann who has been reporting from south carolina all this week and in the leadup a crucial game primary there. so nikki haley is not kicking sideways anymore. she's going directly at trump, but is it breaking through? >> well, morning, guys. i think she's not kicking sideways, that is right, yesterday she did a speech that her campaign called attention to, a big update on the state of the race and they said she is not getting out of this race. not only does she not get out of the race but she made pretty clear, even further than she's gone before, saying she won't get out after saturday's primary where she's widely expected to get crushed.

she won't just go on and stay in the race until super tuesday. she said that she would stay in the race until all the votes had been cast. that was news. she also broke down a little bit and lost her -- let her emotions come through talking about her husband who is on deployment toward the end of her speech, she got weepy and yet i think it is fair to say as former governor of the state, former popular governor of the state who is all over the state just -- she's been barn storming the state all week and she'll continual the way through friday night. donald trump flew in yesterday and did this town hall and then flew right out again and yet not a poll that doesn't have donald trump ahead of nikki haley between 30 and 40 points. so i'm with you on everything you've said the last half hour, all the things that donald trump represents, all of the rot at the core of the republican

party, but donald trump is the republican party right now and you can see it on display here in a way you didn't see it in new hampshire with an open primary. this is a pure republican primary in a big red state and donald trump is crushing nikki haley almost without any effort. >> and the primary on saturday as mika said, nikki haley no longer kicking sideways to use a phrase she had been using for a long time, she's going right of a donald trump. here are some of her remarks in greenville yesterday. >> it is not normal to spend $50 million in campaign contributions on personal court cases. it is not normal to threaten people who back your opponent. and it is not normal to call on russia to invade nato countries. donald trump has done all of that. and more. in just the past month. he's gotten more unstable and unhinged. he spends more time in courtrooms than he does on the campaign trail.

he refuses to debate. he is completely distracted. and everything is about him. he is so obsessed with his own demons from the past, he can't focus on delivering a future americans deserve. i'm not afraid to say the hard truths out loud. i feel no need to kiss the ring. i have into fear of trump's retribution. i'm not looking for anything from him. my own political future of is zero concern. i wish michael was here today. and i wish our children and i could see him tonight. but we can't. he is serving on the other side of the world. where conflict is the norm.

where terrorists hide among the innocent, where iran's 2ris proxies are now attacking american troops. and this is michael's second deployment. it was hard for us to say good-bye to him the first time. >> that is governor haley talking about her husband michael who serves in the south carolina army national guard. of course donald trump has asked that some of his -- where is the husband, where is the husband, suggesting who knows what. where is he? serving abroad, something donald trump couldn't contemplate doing. so the points governor haley said about donald trump and state of the race are factually true. and in the same political world, in the same party, that would have some impact. but as you say the margin is huge even in her own state going into saturday. so if nikki haley does in fact lose, what is the future here? we know she'll campaign in super tuesday states coming up here, she's promised to stay in at least until then.

what is the strategy in the haley campaign? >> like i said, it was kind of striking she really went further yesterday and said -- seemed to suggest that she was going to stay in the race all the way until the very end. and i think there is something in that in the sense that she is, we know, that candidates don't drop out because they are losing, they drop out because they run out of money. that is the truism of all politics. and i think nikki haley has discovered so far at least that there is a core of donors that wants to have her in this race everyone if she gets beat. who knows how long it will last, but so far there is a core of donors who look at donald trump's future and what will happen to him potentially in the court cases going forward, other possible things that might unfold in this unpredictable climate and say it would be good to have nikki haley still in this race, still in fighting and a lot of these are winner take all states. so dump will get himself a

crucial game magic number of delegates probably by the second or third week of march. but she is now suggesting some he -- i think she wants to stick around and part of the thinking, not totally crazy, that something could befall donald trump particularly on the legal front that might change the state of the race, that might create an opening for her. and i'll say one other thing, that we play rightly the clips of haley going head on defense donald trump. she's amped up the correctness and fierceness of her critiques against him, but she hits joe biden just as hard. and there is a part of her that seems to be saying hey, 75% of the country doesn't want this race. and she makes a very -- she makes a case -- she made a case yesterday that if you were listening to it in the abstract you would say hey, this woman sounds like a third party candidate, like an independent trying to get ready potentially

to putters in a position where she might be someone that someone like no labels might decide to look at down the line. >> i've learn along the way talking about politics especially with you over the course of the decade that you will take someone when they decide to come around whenever they decide to come around and nikki haley has come around. she's a good candidate. she's great on stage. and she's saying what needs to be said about donald trump and every day she says a little more. and i hope she stays in this race. i hope she hangs in there no matter what happens in south carolina. republican voters need a viable option. an american candidate. not a russian idiot. that is what they have in donald trump. they need someone like nikki haley to hang in there, to give them an option that they could actually support. and a real race for the presidency.

an american race. >> there are a lot of main street republican, a lot of reagan republicans, a lot of -- well, just good old fashioned small government strong military republicans that want an option. so why would nikki haley stay in the race? jonathan lemire, one, there is a war of attrition. keep going, you never know what will happen with donald trump. one case after another piles up against him. a war of attrition. and if you were nikki haley, i would go a crucial game convention. i would lose 30 contests in a row, but keep picking up whatever delegates i could pick up and i'd be the last woman standing as she has said and i would stay there to the end. why? because anything can happen as we've said. also, i must say, she's getting better. she's not getting worse.

she's getting better out there on the campaign trail. >> she's speaking authentically now. >> and not just because she's going after donald trump, but that frees her up and gives her credit and ability to go after joe biden and both parties. and finally, after donald trump loses, whether in the primary or after he loses in the general election again, at that point who is the last person standing? who is the person that warned republicans you can do what you want to do, but if pick that guy, you are going to lose. suddenly you have a situation. after ford lost to carter, he was the guy two crazy and radical to win and he put himself in position where

everybody looked to him for 1980. and it worked. same thing with nikki haley. if donald trump is the nominee, you will lose again in the fall. nikki haley has said it and she's right. after that loss, nikki haley can say to republicans i warned you. but i'm here. and let's win in '28. so why the hell should she drop out of this race before the convention. >> there has always a benefit to being the last alternative. and there is a republican tradition of sort of nominating the next person up, if you will, the next cycle. and i think that's right, to heilman's point, and you know i don't like to agree with him on much, but candidates say in if they have the money to do so and it looks like she'll have the money to do so. there is enough of the never trump wallet out there that will keep funding her. she's gotten better it has caught the attention of

republicans and democrats. she can keep pointing to polls who suggest that she would beat president biden if they were to be the november match-up. she fairs much better against biden than trump does. and of course there is the wild card that something could change trump's trajectory. we know one court case happening next month and yes the polls suggest that damage from a court case maybe wouldn't hurt trump much, maybe around the margins and that frankly could be enough in november, but we also don't know, we've never seen this before, a presidential candidate sitting in court day after day after day. he is scheduled to do so in new york in march. still a chance he will have to do so in the federal election case in washington later this year. we'll have to see how the american public responds to that. and of course seemingly by the day trump proves himself less and less qualified for the position by the things he says about nato, putin, navalny and the rest. so if you are haley, you stay in. certainly the biden camp is grateful that she is. all right. and our thanks to john heilemann in south carolina for being on

this morning. and coming up on "morning joe," a supreme court decision on donald trump's ballot eligibility in colorado could come as early as this morning. we'll talk to former u.s. attorney chuck rosenberg about the potential outcome of that case and in terms of how and when the high court might rule on the former president's immunity claim. plus what if trump can't afford to pay that $354 million civil fraud penalty he owes to new york state and what about e. jean carroll's $83.3 million? we'll tell you what attorney general latitia james is planning. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ng "morning joe" is back in a moment lowering bad cholesterol can be hard, even with a statin. diets and exercise add to the struggle. today, it's possible to go from struggle to cholesterol success with leqvio. with a statin, leqvio is proven to lower bad cholesterol by 50% and keep it low with 2 doses a year. common side effects were injection site reaction,

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lot of trouble. >> first of all i didn't have to hand them over. second of all i would have done that. we were talking and then all of a sudden they raided mar-a-lago. >> so, again -- >> he did have to hand them over. >> who would the audience really is too stupid to believe that? i don't ask that being derogatory of anybody in the audience. i don't think anybody in the audience is stupid enough to believe that because if -- >> we know the host knows. >> well, yeah, of course she shows. that's why she asked the question because she knows. that's why she asked him, why didn't you hand them over? i did. he said i was working with them. he kept lying to the fbi, willie, we know this, i know you know that. he went to his own people who are now testifying against him and told them to destroy the evidence. >> flood the pool. >> to flood the -- all of that. >> oh, my gosh.

>> we know that. trump -- my question to you is -- enough to believe anything that donald trump just said there. >> be willful at this point, because he seems to always say, well -- the truth is out there. -- donald trump knows he has a receptive audience, he can throw terms out there saying joe biden had his under the corvette in the garage. i had a lock on my door, leaving out the larger story of obstruction, the volume of documents, he did take documents under the presidential records act, have to hand over those

documents, there was no raid. it was a lawful fbi search which took place after trump repeatedly defied a subpoena to return the classified materials he took, and stashed them at his beach club. let's bring in former u.s. attorney chuck rosenberg, an msnbc contributor. chuck, a lot to talk to you about, but let's start right there. i guess it's worth repeats the facts of this case. donald trump says he had every right to hold onto those documents, to what -- you say what? >> he did not, willie, to your point, those records belonged to the united states government. he was asked for them and didn't return them. he was subpoenaed for them and didn't return them. and so the fbi, working through the u.s. attorney's office, went to a federal judge and got a court authorized search warrant, permitting them to go to mar-a-lago, and take the documents. and by the way, what did they find at mar-a-lago? classified documents which mr. trump said he didn't have. so, to your other point, all of this information is out there. it's easy to find.

you can read the search warrant affidavit. this was all done pursuant to law. the way it ought to be done. >> so where is this case, chuck? there's so much -- i mean, just thinking the viewer out there, trying to sort through. all this stuff in new york, the federal election interference case which seems to be taking precedent. what about this documents case? where are we in the process? >> there's still a trial date for this documents case in the southern district of florida, for judge aileen cannon, that's set for may. that could slide. right now they are holding hearings in florida to figure out how to present classified information in a courtroom setting through something called the classified information procedures act, it's a mouthful. but it is a procedure so that information that's highly sensitive can be redacted, or sanitized, before it's put into a courtroom and before a jury. they're working through that. i've handled cases with that type of information.

it's not complex, but it can be cumbersome. so it's possible, willie, that that trial date slides but right now the mar-a-lago documents case is still scheduled for trial in may in federal court. >> looking at the supreme court now, chuck, i want to ask you about the colorado ballot question in a in a moment. we could get a ruling today. it's a black box, could be another day. but more importantly that immunity question which hangs over all of -- how quickly will the supreme court hear argument, if they do, another trial, in this case in federal court in the district of columbia, could

further slide into the summer and even the fall. if the supreme court doesn't hear the absolute immunity question, if they let the underlying decision stand, then two things happen. one, he doesn't have absolute immunity, and two, he goes to trial, and maybe 2a, he goes to trial sooner rather than later, probably before the election. i'm still somewhat bullish on that, but if the supreme court takes the case, if they hear argument on absolute immunity, all bets are off on timing. >> fair to say you'd be surprised if the supreme court granted trump immunity in these cases? >> i'm surprised by less and less these days, willie. i don't think they ought to. i think you have a very good appellate decision from the court below. i don't imagine that mr. trump can win this, nor should he. i hope they don't take the case because i think we need to move forward with a trial. >> let's talk about that colorado ballot question, supreme court seems skeptical of the idea during oral arguments

that the state could remove donald trump for the ballot. what do you expect to hear from the court on that question? >> they did seem skeptical. i listened to the argument, it was on february 9th. it doesn't seem to me that there are anywhere near enough votes to uphold the colorado supreme court decision and to create a procedure, a mechanism, to remove mr. trump from the ballot in various states. i imagine it's going to be a rather lopsided victory for mr. trump, that the supreme court will overturn the colorado supreme court. again, the question is timing, when does that happen? i expect it will be relatively soon, but an interesting thing, willie, how will the decision look? how will the justices align? will they reach the same conclusion? but for different reasons. so, you might have multiple opinions, but again, based on the argument it seemed there was not a lot of interest in sustaining, affirming the colorado supreme court's disqualification of mr. trump.

>> okay, i promise we're going to quiz you on about every case surrounding donald trump. let's move to georgia now. >> sure. >> that dramatic testimony yesterday -- excuse me, last week ben d.a. willis raised her hand and said i want to -- sat for one day and sparred with the defense attorneys there. that part of this hearing is about her relationship with nathan wade who was appointed to prosecute this trial. with that question, do you see her being disqualified potentially? then we can talk about the larger case, what it means for donald trump. >> there's two ways to look at the disqualification of a prosecutor, of ms. willis in this case, one is, does she have an actual conflict, a financial conflict? i don't think the defense attorneys have shown -- proven

that. >> in terms of disclosing their relationship, or maybe not appointing nathan wade as the prosecutor. >> yeah, so nothing against mr. wade, i don't mean this personally, but he has no experience, none, zero, willie, in handling felony cases. and suddenly he's asked to help shepherd one of the most important felony cases in the country. that seems crazy to me. it would be like asking me to do open heart surgery. i'm a nice enough guy but i'm not the least bit qualified.

you wouldn't want me doing that. as well, it is a well-known tactic in big cases to go after prosecutors. they have to be pristine. they have to be right down the middle. if they're not, willie, they make themselves targets for things like we just saw, calling into question the financial relationship, calling into question the romantic entanglement. yeah, i was surprised to see mr. wade asked to help shepherd the case. i don't think he's qualified to do so. i understand why they might have wanted him, but i would never have put someone like mr. wade in charge of the case like this. >> and just pulling back, however this is settled out in the prosecutor's office there's still a strong case against donald trump who is on tape asking for votes to be flipped in his favor in the state of georgia. former u.s. attorney chuck rosenberg, thank you for covering all that ground for us. great to see you. still ahead, is donald trump trying to stake out a new position on abortion ahead of the presidential election? vanity fair's molly jong fast

joins us to talk about the former president's stance on what has been a losing political issue for republicans and why molly says trump can't run away from roe. we're back in just one minute.

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you automatically have fraud. >> there's mail-in voting and you won huge. >> that's right. if you have it you're going to have fraud. >> but you won. >> because you don't have any -- when you go into a voting place like you go into one in a properly-run state, they look at you, they give you your voter id, all sorts of -- it would be very hard to cheat in a mass scale. when you send out millions -- like california, they sent out 36 million ballots, they don't have a voting booth in the whole place and then millions of ballots come back, nobody knows where they're going to come from. >> what are you going to do about the it? >> the way you win is by swamping them. the way you win is by swamping them. >> former president trump last night on fox news repeating his false claims about mail-in voting, among many other things. >> false claims that actually hurt republicans. >> right. >> so keep on keeping on. >> keep clapping. >> keep on keeping on if you're

going to hurt extreme maga republicans, keep on clapping at the stupidity. keep on losing. you've lost seven years in a row. >> definitely don't follow up. >> because extreme maga stupidity. so extremists, keep extreming, and you're going to keep losing elections. one day, who knows, maybe the republican party will look a little closer to the republican party that i was hoping i was in, that -- >> or -- >> that likes balanced budgets, likes a strong military. >> that's not these guys. >> likes pushing back on russia. >> oh, no, that's not these guys. >> likes pushing back on communist china. >> this is the russia party. >> likes protecting taiwan. >> that's not who they are. >> on and on and on, these are all the things that donald trump and the extreme maga republicans keep doing, and plus this mail-in voting thing, go ahead, give the advantage to people who aren't maga extremists, go ahead, keep saying it, please,

please, democracy may even survive another few years. >> all right, jonathan lemire, caddie cay still with us, and special correspondent at haven't fair and host of the fast politics podcast molly jong fast, she is an msnbc political analyst. and ceo of the messina group, jim messina who served as white house chief of staff to president obama and ran his 2012 reelection campaign. >> jim messina, start with you, i've said this before on this show, but just in case somebody out there just fell off of a turnip truck, dusted themselves off, ran inside and turned on "morning joe," and this is the first time they've ever seen it, when i was running four times for congress, when i was running the first thing i focused on as a republican, as a small government conservative, absentee votes, mail-in votes, i've said it here on the show, i would get the list of absentee

voters across the world, especially those serving. i'd pick up the phone, i'd call them, i'd ask for their vote. we worked absentee votes like crazy. i'll tell you why. every night, first things that would be counted in florida would have a massive lead over democrats and i would sit there and say, how long is the democratic party going to be so stupid about absentee votes, mail-in voting, how long are they going to keep giving us this advantage? and now you have donald trump, doing just the opposite, helping democrats win election after election. the latest, in a snowstorm, on long island a couple weeks ago. >> joe, you're exactly right. long island is the best example. the damage donald trump is doing, telling his voters not to absentee, not to do early voting, the turnout numbers in long island were ridiculous.

there's a snowstorm, suddenly they can't get there. because they don't have those votes banked those voters are not going to be able to vote in election after election, democrats have overperformed by 9.9% in the past two years in special elections across america, in part, because republican turnout has been so weak, and also because democratic turnout, especially swing women that molly's been talking about for a very long time, are so angry about roe. you combine both of those things and the republican party is getting killed in these local elections because they're following donald trump off this maga cliff. >> jim, can you just take a step back and talk big picture very early? the state of the race here. you hear it all the time, panic, panic from democrats. we're losing the base. biden's too old, et cetera, et cetera. that's all the noise. but in the background they're setting records for fund-raising, the biden campaign, democrats are winning in places like new york 3, they're winning on the issue of abortion, the economy is strong,

what is your message to those panicking democrats this morning? >> just stop panicking and organize, just stop calling me. like it's okay. it's going to be a close election. it's going to be done in six or seven states. if you play poker, willie, and you look at our cards versus trump's cards you way rather have our cards here, an incumbent with a great track record, an economy that's getting better by the day. voters are starting to feel it, slowly, but starting to feel it, issues like abortion that really amping up voter turnout. don't look at the polls, look at the elections, democrats are winning everywhere, over and over, in weird places like kansas, you know, other places where we don't typically win, we're winning these elections, we've got to continue to do it, and make sure we have a very good turnout operation, and the biden campaign has a whole ton of money to start building that, after this report they did yesterday, numbers democrats

have never seen in fund-raising. >> so molly, your latest piece is entitled donald trump can't run away from roe, and in it you write, quote, while suburban voters tend to support reproductive freedom, the maga base won't be satiated until there's a federal ban and donald trump, who appointed the three conservative justices, who overturned roe v. wade, apparently thinks he can thread the needle. molly then writes about the democrat winning the new york special election last week and she says surely trump sees the writing on the wall when it comes to abortion, which is why sources close to him floated that seemingly more palatable 16-week ban idea, the very next day, however, the times published something closer to what trump's real abortion agenda would be, reporting that the former president's allies and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a

national ban. we know abortion is a loser for republicans, but if they're able to talk their way around it that could mean another trump administration and the end of reproductive freedom in this country. it could mean the beginning of an fda that is dictated by religious beliefs and not scientific ones. the only thing i'd say, molly, is i think women who are very concerned about their rights being taken away and their access to health care, which is what this is really about, abortion is not just terminating a late-term pregnancy. it is health care, it's life-saving health care, and i think that these voters, women, the men who love them, their sons, their brothers, so women and men are very well read in on what happened, and they're angry. and i don't think they're going to fall for it again. >> no. i don't think so either, but it is an interesting pivot for trump. and when i saw it in the "new

york times" i was like, this is the -- you know, 16 weeks is the number that has been polled to be -- if you're going to try to say it's not a ban. that's a number that seems to be sold very well. i thought it was a really -- it was really interesting to see him do that and then the next day, to have architect of sb-8, the guy who really did overturn roe, say to the "new york times" let's not -- you know, we have the comstock act so we don't even need a federal ban because we can, you know, overturn the fda approval of -- so you can get it by mail. there is this dystopian group, if they get the chance, to do things to science and health care that we can't even fathom. >> i looked at a democratic focus group last night while it was going on, it was so fascinating on so many front seat but you talked about the

issues that these democrats and independents that lean democratic thought were going to help joe biden and democrats win, and every one of them mentioned abortion, and democracy, or abortion and the economy, or abortion -- you just go down the line and the list, and that's what these democrats and focus group are saying, and also talking about president biden's hopes for a second term, of course hinging on keeping the support of these independents and democrats who backed him in the 2020 campaign, that's the group of voters that were featured in a new focus group run by mark halprin and wide world of news, take a look, fascinating stuff here. >> how do you think he's doing so far? >> well, i don't think he's doing well. i think, though, what you're hearing is you're hearing the people closest to him, the people that work with him, they all keep talking about how --

how well -- how lucid he is and how he's so sharp and how he's on it but we're not seeing that. that's what we need to see. it's up to them to prove to us that everything's okay. >> i agree. even if he's slow or not as articulate as he was, i think he's still able to make great decisions, he's got surrounding himself with wonderful advisers, and i have every faith. >> i think his mental acuity is fine. i think it has more to do with his physical appearance, and i think when you listen to the cadence of his words and slow down, but a lot of that is natural aging, he's 81. >> if joe biden -- if you were with joe biden and he said, tracy, i'm going to step down and not run what would you say to talk him out of it? >> i would say if you do that, then camilla's running, and she will run. >> raise your hand that the vice

president would lose to donald trump, you're confident she would lose. four of you say yes, you're confident. and are the other three of you confident she would win? >> no. >> you just don't know. >> raise your hand that if you think joe biden did step aside, as a lot of people are urging him to do, that she would be the nominee, raise your hand if you think she would be the nominee if he stepped aside? all right, two of you think. all right, let's go around, joe biden steps down, and you can pick the democratic nominee amongst people constitutionally eligible, who would you pick as the strongest person to beat donald trump? not as the best president, but the person you have the greatest confidence could beat donald trump. >> andy beshear. >> ashley? >> gavin newsom. >> judy? >> i totally don't believe in gavin newsom. i would do pritzker or bashir, yeah. >> crazy. >> michelle obama.

>> i know you said that -- i know you said that for a purpose. >> i would say newsom, or i'm excited for shapiro down the road at some point. >> shapiro, yeah. >> that's a good one. >> josh shapiro. >> yeah. >> lori. >> gretchen whitmer or amy klobuchar, gretchen whitmer would beat his ass. >> my choice has always been admiral mccraven, but i don't know that he has a chance. i think josh shapiro, i would say, after that. >> he's too young. >> okay. >> too young. >> or mayor pete. i love mayor pete. >> mayor pete would never win. >> no, he's too young. >> not yet. >> i like that, he's -- >> it's gone off the rails. >> too old, too young, what exactly. this was fascinating on a number of -- the kamala harris conversation was really interesting, it's one we should have. but i want to point out the one voter talking about joe biden not being as articulate as he

was before, joe biden was never articulate, okay, he has a stutter and he's like a real guy and he's always talked that way. maybe a little slower. >> right. >> but so what? and i think also when he gets pissed off, the stutter kicks in a little bit. that's what i've noticed. interesting assessment because i don't think joe biden is this flourishing, you know, speech maker of the world, although he does a great job and he gets the job done. >> right. >> but he has always been connective, like a real guy, like he could sit at the vfw at the bar with anybody, that's his appeal. >> what andy card once said about george w. bush, elites made fun of him for stumbling around, but working voters, i appealed to them, he wasn't too slick. they felt like he was one of them. by the way if you're sitting there and you wonder about the laughter when michelle obama's name came up, it's an ongoing thing with a lot of focus

groups, everybody wants michelle obama to run and mark halperin keeps saying, as do a lot of others, that's never going to happen. she didn't even want barack obama to run for state senator, so she's -- she ain't getting in politics anytime soon. >> done. >> joe messina. i'd love to get your insights on what the first voter said, but just your overall insights on what these democrats said, so many fascinating things about josh shapiro. >> a great bench. >> andy beshear, gretchen whitmer. the first woman said behind the scenes, i'd like to see more of that. identify spent a good amount of time talking to joe biden one on one on the phone throughout the prosecute presidency. i can tell you he's more together on foreign policy if you sit and talk to him than anybody else i've talked to. >> is he supposed to to do cart

wheels? what do you -- >> no, no, no. >> what do you want him to do? >> there is a -- there's a wide gulf between what he's doing now and doing cart wheels. >> what? >> so jim, i actually agree with her sentiment, the biden i see, the biden i know can run laps around donald trump. the question is, how do you get that biden out so other americans can see him instead of a gaffe at an angry six-minute press conference? >> yeah, joe, i totally agree. and the campaign and the white house agree as well. that's what campaigns are, they're opportunities to get the candidate out there, to get him in situations where the american public can make the judgments you're talking about. and it's one of the things, if you think about the free moments you have in a presidential campaign to make your case directly to the american voters, really two free moments, the state of the union, and the democratic national convention speech and so the state of the union coming up on march 7th is

another really important moment for him to both make his case to the american public about what he's doing and where he's going to take them, and to draw the straight contrast with the republicans in the house, and in the maga movement, about what they want to do. and like the house is doing everything they can to help joe biden right now, by literally doing nothing. and biden now needs to go out there and campaign to the american people, we're 251 days before the election. we'll have lots of opportunities to see the president, and i totally agree with you, when they see him, when they see him interact with voters, when they see him in the town halls, their moment, they will look at the -- themselves and say this is the guy who we can trust for the next four years and that will be a really important moment for these voters who want to see that. >> molly, we heard a lot in that focus group, number one, about a deep bench for the democrats, go down that list of governors, add in wes moore, gavin newsom, it's an incredible list but that's for another time. joe biden is the candidate here, it seems to be listening to

those voters and just talking to people casually, it's a question of style over substance, they cringe a little when they see the president, and say he looks old. if you look at what he's accomplished shouldn't that matter more than how you think he appears on television? and by the way, in contrast to the alternative of what could come if he's elected. >> one of the things trump had going for him in 2016 was that he was famous but he had no voting record, so he could say i was a democrat. i'm from new york. i'm not this zealot. he overturned roe. he was the architect of that. it's very good news for joe biden. what i would say is, you know, i watch c-span, so i see that. but i see biden out there all the time. the problem is, that biden doesn't -- normal biden doesn't get coverage the way that biden gaffes get coverage and so like last week he was traveling, he

was doing press conferences, i heard him, you know, do questions and answers, and he was fine. is he -- a gifted orator? no. has he ever been a gifted orator? no. does he need to be a gifted orator. last night trump said that he got navalny. he got navalny. the man destroys the english language. >> jonathan lemire, you know, what i thought was so interesting from that focus group and halperin has really built something with those things, you learn so much listening to them, it's bits and pieces of conversations i'm hearing from people across the country all put together in one, but at the same time is there any doubt that those folks, lemire, are not still voting for biden? so they have concerns but they're not voting for trump. >> yeah, those folks are going to vote for biden or they're not going to vote at all. it seems like that group of people would vote, indeed, for president biden this november,

even if they weren't particularly excited about it. but there is a base issue for the democrats right now. we're a long way from the election. we should certainly preface everything we say with that, but there are concerns and the biden campaign is well aware of them, young voters, progressive voters, voters of color, many turned off by president biden's support of israel and the war in gaza. you know, others, frustrated by the -- his -- the fact that they weren't able to fulfill a campaign promise on something like student loans, that's held up by the courts, not because the president and his team didn't do their best to get that done. there is a lingering sort of, you know, dissatisfaction with the president among certain voter groups, and there is a concern, and to jim's point, there's a concern about his age, every poll points that out. donald trump only a couple years younger, even more prone to saying things that he shouldn't from the stand. from the podium. but these are things they have to tackle, but at the end of the

day they believe when it's a binary choice come november, even democrats who are very lukewarm on joe biden or maybe don't like him at all will come out to vote for him because it's a vote against trump or a vote for abortion rights, they think they'll come home but they worry about a possible third party candidate disrupting that. >> said off camera, sometimes on camera, is about kamala harris, we saw the focus group, halperin's question to the group about kamala harris, what's your reaction to their response? >> that it's not really important. two things, i want to go back to jonathan's point for a second. i get really frustrated when i hear people say democrats have a base problem, base challenge, look at every election since donald trump has become president, in 2016, seven years in a row. look at just this year, look at virginia elections, look at new york elections, we have turnout that the polls continue to miss because of the enthusiasm of the voters that molly was just talking about. so i just get really frustrated

when people start panicking about our base turnout, and yet after election after election we have bigger democratic turnout. on the kamala harris issue, you know, i was part of the group that picked joe biden for barack obama, i looked at the republicans when they picked ryan for romney, and over the course of the last 50 years in presidential elections, the vice president pick makes .8% of a difference in the entire national ticket. it just is not a big deal, and, in fact, i don't think she gets enough credit for the work she's doing on campuses, for the work she's doing on the abortion issue, going after it. we don't see that, it's not covered nationally, but in the battleground states she's out there swinging, right down to florida after that and had a big fight with desantis in a brave and interesting way. so i think we need to kind of put aside the politics, and just look at what actually moves voters here. >> well, caddie, i'm curious

your thoughts, you hear so much chatter about kamala harris, yet i remember year after year, election after election, seeing this vice president is going to help here, not going to help there. i think everybody's stuck in, you know, maybe the first book they read was the making of the president 1960, and they're stuck on that whole, hey lyndon johnson can bring us taxes. you know, help jfk get elected. i haven't seen that. as he said it makes .8% of a difference, we heard about dan quayle, going to sully george bush, bush wins in a landslide in '88. i'm just curious, your thoughts on considers kansas, and is this problem a .8% problem for joe biden or bigger? >> the last time i can remember a vice president candidate making a difference was john mccain and he picked sarah palin, she pulled down his numbers, and by then, of course, the relationship had totally

fallen apart. i get the point about the 0.8%. i wonder if it's different when you have both of the candidates, both donald trump and joe biden as old as they are, and therefore the opposition can cast this as actually an election campaign that would put the vice president into office potentially because of the age of the president. i mean, that is where kamala harris could make more than a 0.8% negative difference to the biden campaign if the republicans decided to push that and there were enough people who didn't want kamala harris to be president, but the chances are it's pretty slim. i do think the white house still has to deal with the age issue. they don't like it, they don't like people talking about. they've tried various strategies, joking about it, joking about it on tiktok and joking about their tiktoks that they've made, and maybe that's the way to deal with it, but just saying, though, this is, you know, voters get -- as we saw, in mark halperin's survey, voters are raising this as an

issue for them. >> special correspondent at vanity fair molly jong-fast and ceo of the messina group, jim messina, thank you both for a great conversation. >> jim, i hope the phone calls dissipate a little bit. they really -- you know -- >> don't worry. >> what's going on? >> i always joke and spent my entire -- in both parties, it's going to be all right. it's democrats now that you're saying, it's going to be okay. >> it's going to be okay, that's right. >> all right, still ahead on "morning joe," we'll get a live report from war-torn ukraine as the biden administration prepares to announce new sanctions against russia. nbc's richard engel is standing by for us there. plus, the republican party's grip in one battleground state may be coming to an end. we'll explain the changes being made in wisconsin, and what it could mean for november. also ahead, we'll play for you jon stewart's takedown of

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i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. welcome back, 32 past the hour, we discussed last hour how a court in musko has denied the release of journalist evan gershkovich, russia has now detained another american, this time a ballerina from los angeles who holds dual citizenship with russia. joining us from ukraine's donetsk region, richard engel, what more do we know about all of this? >> reporter: so, russia is

appearing very confident right now despite international condemnations and expected new sanctions. russia's accused of just in recent days of assassinating alexei navalny, now arresting an american dual national, and intensifying its military campaign here in ukraine. this morning, another american citizen is in custody in russia, a 33-year-old ballerina who lived in los angeles is a russian-american dual national, she was detained on suspicion of treason for allegedly donating money to support ukraine. the white house now issuing a warning to all americans in russia. >> if you're a u.s. citizen, including a dual national, residing in or traveling in russia, you ought to leave right now. >> reporter: russia's federal security service released this video apparently showing

carolina being led into a courtroom where a judge denied her bail. >> she is not safe there, and if we do not help her so she will spend the rest of her life in jail. >> reporter: as the u.s. works to respond president biden says he will bring new sanctions against russia after the death of vladimir putin's most outspoken critic alexei navalny. >> i told you we'd be announcing sanctions on russia. we'll have a major package announced on friday. >> reporter: but russia is already under sanctions, which so far have had little impact as russia is shielded by china, continues to sell oil internationally and is resupplied with weapons by iran and north korea. the u.s. says the sanctions are also designed to hold russia accountable for the war in ukraine where russian troops are flattening villages across the east as they advance. russia launched new attacks overnight as ukrainian defenders are stalled as they await weapons and ammunition blocked

by congress. russia drove ukrainian forces from the city of avdiivka last weekend. as the russians advanced, ukrainian troops broke rank into chaos. a spokesman this morning said some ukrainians were captured or went missing. the biden administration isn't acting alone when it comes to sanctions. the eu, just this morning, announced new sanctions on nearly 200 russian individuals and entities accused of helping moscow procure weapons, and kidnap ukrainian children, and the uk announced new sanctions on six officials from that penal colony in siberia, where alexei navalny died last week. >> oh, nbc's richard engel reporting from ukraine, thank you very much for that report. >> and these are the people that mike johnson and donald trump keep protecting.

>> he's -- >> they are standing between the aid that the ukrainians so desperately need to stop their towns from being destroyed. to stop their children from being kidnapped. stop their women from being raped, this is perilous. you know, we quoted yesterday mark lavine who doesn't agree with us much but he said this isn't theoretical. this isn't some theoretical discussion, at some ivy league campus that we're having here, this is not only a matter of life and death for the ukrainians, for those of us who still believe in the greatness of the west, this is battle for what we're supposed to believe in, and in western democracies, freedom, liberty, and of course the united states of america and our nato allies protecting sovereign nations from russian

aggression, from communist chinese aggression, all the things that mike johnson and donald trump are holding up, whether it's the defense of taiwan, the defense of ukraine, or the support of israel, and the aid to gaza. >> coming up from the fall of kabul to the rise of kyiv, our next guest has an inside account of the successes and failures of president biden's foreign policy team, and its fight to restore america's standing on the world stage after donald trump. but first, jon stewart was back on the daily show this week where he picked apart the recent attempt by tucker carlson to whitewash vladimir putin's war crimes in ukraine, and his long standing efforts to repress his own people. take a look. >> professor, tell me, what is step one in delivering world

class fealty to power? >> here's why we're doing it, first, because it's our job, we're in journalism. >> lie about what your job is. >> we're in journalism, our duty is to inform people. >> lie about what your duty is. >> americans have a right to know all they can about a war they're implicated in, freedom of speech is our birthright. we were born with the right to stay what we believe. >> oh [ bleep ], kudos sensei, that was deep, i have much to learn. disguise your deception and capitulation to power as noble and moral, and based in freedom, yes, master. just out of curiosity, as a student, when you're sitting there interviewing putin and you

don't plan to challenge his utter bull [ bleep ], but you don't really want to be that obvious what do you do with your face? oh, i see. okay, so it's not really a straight face as much as you try to convey a mixture of what appears to be shame, arousal, and i'm going to say irregularity. for instance, like you're constipated while [ bleep ] to a sears catalog. now, obviously tucker's strategy is going to work when there's some ambiguity into what putin says, but what if putin starts saying world war i was hitler's fault. that's going to be hard. >> world war i the territory was

transported to ukraine, and instead of dancing a city of -- hitler asked them to give it amicably but they refused. >> of course. >> of course. you know, it's so hard to do when your face says what the [ bleep ], and your mouth says of course, it's a -- so hard to hold -- how do you -- all right. >> we thought it would be interesting to take a look at a contemporary modern day 2024 russian grocery store. >> go on. >> all right. here we go. so i guess you put in ten rubles here and you get it back when you put the cart back so it's free but there's an incentive to return it and not just bring it to your homeless encampment.

>> i know i've said this before, you're such a [ bleep ]. now, i didn't realize -- really, truly, i didn't realize america's homeless problem was caused entirely by easy access to grocery carts. >> i had all my stuff at my house, but just put it on wheels, it's so much easier. >> this is the grocery cart escalator. this is designed, i'm figuring this out now, where the wheels don't move, they lock on the grocery cart escalator, look ma, no hands. >> okay, forrest. an escalator for the grocery cart, and the doors open automatically. oh, mother russia. could you drive home the purpose

of your deception on this trip in the most cynical way possible, please? >> we didn't pay any attention to cost, just putting in the cart what we would actually eat over a week, and we all came out around $400, about $400. it was $104 u.s. here, and coming to a russian grocery store, the heart of evil, and seeing what things cost and how people live, it will radicalize you against our leaders. that's how i feel anyway, radicalized. >> radicalized. and it will radicalize you unless you understand basic economics. see, $104 for groceries, sounds like a great bargain, unless you realize, russians earn less than $200 a week. but that's the kind of context that a -- what did you call yourself earlier? a journalist would have provided. but here's the reality, you [ bleep ] know all this because you aren't as dumb as your face

would have us believe. the question is, why, why is tucker doing this? here's why. it's because the old civilizational battle with communism versus capitalism, that's what drove the world since world war ii, russia was the enemy then, but now they think the battle is woke versus unwoke, and in that fight putin is an ally to the right. he's their friend. unfortunately, he is also a brutal and ruthless dictator. so now they have to make americans a little more comfortable with that. i mean, liberty is nice, but have you seen russia's shopping carts? ve to settle for never stepping foot on this trail again. i became great at making excuses. but i have people who count on me so i talked to my cardiologist. i said there must be more we can do for my symptoms. he told me about a medication called camzyos. he said camzyos works by targeting

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the world once again, not to meet yesterday's challenges, but today's and tomorrow's challenges. and we'll lead, not merely by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. >> three years ago one of the principal stated goals of the incoming in biden administration was not only to heal political divisions here in the united states, but to restore america's reputation abroad. that's the subject of the new book entitled "the internationalists the fight to restore american foreign policy after trump" and the book's author alex ward joins us now, he is a national security reporter at politico. >> alex, thank you so much for being with us, fascinating

topic. what is the thesis of your book? what did you find in writing it? >> the thesis of the book was that the biden administration did everything it could in their minds to save the world, they really felt that donald trump had ruined not only america, but global relations, and they came in with a theory to repair american foreign policy as we know it. the interesting finding is that in order to do so they actually adopted certain elements of trumpism in terms of keeping let's say the trade war or putting export controls on china, on talking about a foreign policy for the middle class, meaning that basically anything they do around the world has to show tangible real benefits to everyday americans. and so in order to save america they had to do a little bit of the thing they tried to save america from, and it was a fascinating topic, and all of it really permeated through the first israel-hamas war in 2021 of the biden administration, you also have, of course, the fall of afghanistan and the defense of ukraine, all of that was a learning process, all of that was using all of these new

tenets they learned once they came into office. >> what have they done best, and what's been their greatest success, and what's been their greatest failure? >> i mean, in their minds they would say the defense of ukraine was a massive success. even though putin did in the end invade ukraine they would say, look, we rallied the world to ukraine's cause, we gave it the weapons it needed to defend itself, we sanctioned russia and hurt its economy. we have boosted the morale of the ukrainian people and of nato, we've helped expand nato at this time, that was a great win. now, the biden administration wouldn't necessarily call afghanistan a failure, but many people would and they wouldn't call it a failure because they still got around call it a fail because they got 120,000 people out, and there were horrible conditions outside the airport, and biden's team when they look

at the bigger strategic picture, they would say it's better for the united states to be out of afghanistan at this point, because isn't it better we are not spending time and resources, blood and treasure in a war we couldn't win over 20 years. >> congrats on the book. i encourage everybody to pick up a copy. let's circle back to ukraine. if congress and the republicans in congress don't send forth of the aid ukraine needs, and give us your assessment if congress falls short here, and would would that look like for the foreign policy to look like in the future if our friends can't count on us? >> in this case the house has a

chance to break a key element of biden's policy. everything i heard was gloom and doom. they are concerned about america's staying power. this led to some european officials and american officials to wonder, and there were questions why they did not pump ukraine beforehand with stuff. >> but alex, though, the fear, though, again from the security conference was that donald trump might get elected, that mike

johnson might win the day in congress. >> o oh, that was certainly par of it, too. j.d. vance was there saying, look, we shouldn't pass this bill. it makes no sense. that was, of course, a big issue as well. there was also genuine concern about the house. i heard two europe officials saying something along the lines that they noticed biden will no longer defend ukraine as long as it takes, and he said a month or so ago as long as we can. all the u.s. officials in munich were clear that we would try and help ukraine, and we are telling european allies this bill will eventually pass the house but

when they don't know. >> biden, sullivan, blinken running foreign policy in the white house. what are the upsides and what are the down sides of having a small group that has known each other for so long? >> the upsides is there has not been that much infighting or back stabbing in the press, and we like leaks but none of that has leaked, and if you really believe the mission is that massive you are not going to fight each other in public. the drawbacks, some critics would say, a lot of people from sullivan to blinken, et cetera, grew up in the same foreign policy circles and the biden/obama orbit, and there might not be as much diverse opinion that there might need to be today. >> the new book is entitled "the

internationalists: the fight to restore democracy after trump." thank you very much for coming on the show. congratulations on the book. >> there's a remarkable reporting in this book about during afghanistan and during the afghanistan convey, and there's a passionate need to keep troops in afghanistan. and then up next, why trump keeps comparing his legal troubles to the death of alexei navalny. why he still refuses to condemn vladimir putin. plus, hours from now the armor who loaded the gun in the fatal shooting on the set of

"rust" going to trial. "morning joe" will be right back.

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it's unacceptable to compare navalny with trump. navalny sacrificed his life for democracy, and donald trump tried to sacrifice mike pence's life to kill democracy. >> good morning to "morning joe." it's wednesday, february 21st. we have a lot to get to this morning, including former president trump continuing to compare his legal woes to the

persecution of alexei navalny. >> it's beyond grotesque. a guy that has been accused by a judge of rape -- or been found liable for sexual assault by a jury. >> massive fraud. >> massive fraud. hundreds of millions of dollars -- >> 91 criminal counts. >> yeah. and the thing is, and i have to say really quickly, the thing is, nobody is questioning whether donald trump stole papers from the white house, whether he stole nuclear -- >> or had sex with a born star and paid her off. >> and right before an election. nobody is even questioning that. that guy is comparing himself to alexei navalny. >> it's grotesque. >> it's grotesque. and his latest comments just as the biden white house prepares

new sanctions against the kremlin following navalny's death. and then we will tell you where u.s. prosecutors say the ex-fbi informant got his information. >> you will be shocked but not surprised. >> i think that's part of the plan is to overrun people with misinformation. and nikki haley, she's staying in and i think it's smart, actually. >> willie, we are going to be talking a good bit about what has been happening in russia.

what has been happening, more importantly, in the united states. donald trump, mike johnson, defending a man who continues kidnapping. that's what it really is. it's not arresting. continues to kidnap americans. here's a picture of yet another american they have kidnapped. now they are throwing her in jail like navalny. you see evan gershkovich once again denied -- it's straight out kidnapping. they're thugs. donald trump, mike johnson, keeps defending this tyrant who killed navalny, this tyrant that invaded georgia, invaded ukraine a couple years ago, this tyrant

that continues to kill people on foreign soil, tries to kill people on foreign soil, who he considers his rifle rival, and s un-american. >> un-american, and they are members of the senate, by the way, now taking to praising vladimir putin as well, and the longer we go without the aid package getting through congress, the happier vladimir putin is because ukraine is running out of ammunition. last night, joe, at that town hall, and i know we will play more of it in a little bit, donald trump talking on fox news would not condemn vladimir putin, which raises the question, we will ask it every day, what is going on there? he briefly said alexei navalny is brave, and then pivoted to

saying he is the alexei navalny of america. it's the opposite. >> willie, we go back to 2015 on this show, and we thought at the time it was so bizarre, and it was the first time, it was the first time that we had heard and other people had heard donald trump so fearful of crossing vladimir putin, refusing to say it was wrong for him to kill political opponents, and to kill journalists and any rivals, and he says, yeah, america does it, too. that sort of lie -- that sort of lie -- you know, republicans used to apologize for trump and then pass sanctions on vladimir

putin, and now trump has completely obliterated any prays of ronald reagan's republican party that stood for freedom, and stood for fighting russian tyranny, and stood for defending the souls in eastern europe, and now donald trump shockingly, and ronald reagan's old party teaming up with trump and vladimir putin. >> yeah, and talking about the russian links to the fbi informant lying about joe biden and his son, hunter. some of the false information he fed to the fbi including a story

about hunter biden came from the associates with russian intelligence, and he's actively peddling new lies that could impact the elections in november. smirnoff has been a key source for congressional republicans and their impeachment inquiry into president biden. with us, the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire, and correspondent for bb news, katty kay. this guy, alexander smirnoff, he had been the cornerstone, the star witness for this impeachment investigation into

joe biden, and turns out he made it all up. now there's a new twist to the story. what more do we know about his connections to russia? >> there's a whole lot of information here, and something smirnoff did not do, and this is important, he did not appear in court, and he was there with members of his family speaking in russian, and when you look at the detention memo, and prosecutors use this to put the hammer down and show a little bit about what type of evidence they will bring forward, and when you look at the filing yesterday they went really deep on unclassifying information, and they went deep into his background, that he was a ten-year plus source for the fbi, and he had a handler he talked to, quote, nearly every day, which is a lot for a

confidential human force, and somebody who was run out of the seattle office, and the key line from this, and we will show a portion of the document filed yesterday, he said during his custodial interview, he admitted that officials associated with russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about person number one we identified as hunter biden, and he said, yes, i did this and there's additional information that is contained in the document. you read some of the quotes, willie. it shows overall he lied about a series of meetings in 2015 and 2016, and phones in 2016 and 2017. there's information they write up, and it's called a 1023 report, and that's a conversation they had with the

guy. there's nothing in there if they determined anything he said was true or if it made sense. if you remember, there was a big fight in congress about whether or not a 1023 about a confidential source should be released, and that happened in the spring of last year. this is ongoing. at some point it's released, then he speaks with the fbi again on multiple occasions. as you said, there's further discussions about this is what the bidens were up to and what hunter biden was up to at a hotel in ukraine, and prosecutors say the problem is hunter has never been there, and the information from this guy can go directly to congress, and they are smart enough to know we don't need to push it through the fbi, and they can tell this

guy whatever, it can go in a report and it will find its way to congress, and there's no vetting here. >> a reminder to our viewers, and this all stems from the investigation of special counsel david weiss, a trump appointed investigator. is the fbi suggesting in the filing in somewhat it appears to be, which is that the russian government, the russian intelligence feeding this source that they know has a direct line to fbi, feeding him bad information as we enter the election year. >> well, they said they were meeting with russian officials, and that could be code for russian intelligence officials, and they didn't name the individuals but put in a lot of details, and he's meeting with

them and he says and they write in their memo, and it was after he was arrested that these individuals associated with the russian intelligence were involved in passing a business story on hunter biden. that's a key part of this. another thing i would say, this individual, according to some of the things in the indictment, had a background or associates within associated crime. we think about it like the mob is on one side and the government on the other, and there has been crossover, and to understand that russia organized crime is completely interwoven from the intelligence side of things, and business side of things, and the politics side of things, and they are part of the oil that greases the machine for vladimir putin, and i would be curious what he knows about russian organized crime and how that could have been involved in all of this.

>> katty kay, i was speaking with a high official that recovered the conference, and reported back to me is foreign leaders are looking back to the united states with fear and trepidation as they watch trump and russians infiltrating our legal system to where -- >> wasn't the phrase freaked out? >> yeah, freaked out, so why don't americans see what they see so clearly? >> i think freaked out may be mild on what people are feeling. there's an extraordinary report from the royal united services institution, london showing how much more effective russian spying has become in the last few months gearing up for the 2024 election, and the kinds of things they are doing is exactly

what tom is reporting about. but the threat to american democracy, if we can really have russian intelligence services feeding unfiltered -- any kind of information they want to willing recipients on capitol hill in the republican party is extraordinary. weeks ago jim jordan was calling smirnoff the most corroborating testimony they have in the case against hunter biden, and where is the backlash from the republicans now after the indictment saying, you know, we don't have a case because this guy is a russian stooge, and you are not hearing that, especially from comer. actually, they are learning, they learned militarily and have learned on the intelligence side.

americans need to be very aware of exactly this kind of misinformation. what does it do now to the republicans? that's what i wonder, now, does james comer say maybe this information is not so good after all. >> if i was able to know what congress would do, i don't know if i would be sitting here, i would be looking somewhere at correcting the investigations. this was spoken about attorney general bill barr when they set up an intake center for what he said was information coming in from ukraine that might be related to the bidens. he said the information had to be carefully scrutinized. there are a lot of agendas in ukraine and a lot of cross currents and we can't take anything we receive from ukraine at face value, and he was referring to the department of justice relating to ukraine including anything mr. giuliani

might provide, because at that time giuliani was trying to put forward he said he received relative to the bidens from that part of the world. this case is something we will closely watch. >> all right, nbc news investigations correspondent, tom winter. thank you so much. it's shocking. here we see what russia is doing to ukraine, the invasion of a free country, of a sovereign country continues. you go to the front page of the "wall street journal," you see americans kidnapped, one masked, evan staring from his jail cell into the courtroom trying to be freed. a journalist. a journalist for "the wall street journal" arrested for reporting on the war. you have -- it's just shocking.

you have russian security services deciding, hey, we can just send unfiltered crap straight to congress, straight -- we don't have to worry about it. it doesn't have to be filtered by intel services, as we heard the report earlier. it's shocking. why is that? it's because republicans hate joe biden more than they fear vladimir putin. it is really sick. it's really sick. and trump, once again, and republicans being played once again, by vladimir putin. thank you for this bell -- >> why? what are you doing? >> every time a bell rings, putin as donald trump on a string. >> hold on a second. we will do four hours of hitting that bell.

>> "it's a wonderful life," that was said at the end to jimmy stewart and made us all cry. is that what she said -- >> yeah, it was an unexpected twist of an otherwise feel-good movie, yes. >> putin has republicans on the string, and they did that in 1946, and they are thinking, who is this putin guy? i don't know. anyway, think about the fact that vladimir putin understands that republicans are so stupid now in the house, and even with the help of their legal counsel, arnold the pig from "green acres," they can feed russian disinformation straight into the veins of the united states

congress, straight in, because they hate them so much. then you have idiots running around and talking about they have this information that will bring down joe biden. they depended on russian disinformation, and they depended on an international fugitive illegally selling iranian oil to communist china, illegally selling arms, and all of this to try and take down joe biden, and we have been saying this for months, everything keeps making them look worse. >> yeah, these republicans and donald trump want to win more than they care about their country. that's what it seems like. we can trace it back to 2015-2016, trump's appearance on the show praising vladimir putin, and russian, are you listening, begging him to get

into emails, and he's comparing himself now to navalny. yes, there are still some republicans who follow the tradition of a ronald reagan and george h.w. bush and their approach to russia who are trying to get a funding package for ukraine through, but there are just enough, a handful in the senate and more in the house who are the useful idiots who are willing to do putin's bidding, who will take anything, an asset with ties to russian officials and say, hey, let's make a case out of it and bring down the bidens. they don't care how they win, they just want to win, including every dirty trick. you do not accept aid from foreign countries, and i think

it's pretty clear there are some republicans they are getting help from russia. coming up, nikki haley vowing to stay in the race no matter what. that's next on "morning joe."

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treason, which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. >> it's another kidnapping by vladimir putin of another american. >> a los angeles resident with dual russian american citizenship. she is accused of withdrawing $50 to support ukraine. we will continue to follow that story. it comes, of course, as a russian court has decided to keep "wall street journal" reporter, evan gershkovich, in custody. evan gershkovich was arrested last march while on a reporting

trip there, and the u.s. government has determined him to be wrongfully detained. there was an appeal filed by his lawyers to release him from his pretrial detention, and now he will remain behind bars until the end of march. >> paul whelan still sits in a russian ghoulog, and his family still waiting for him to come home. >> president trump refuses still to condemn vladimir putin. >> who poisoned him once and it didn't work, and finally he killed him. in a recorded town hall that

aired on fox news last night, trump was asked about the money he owes for massive fraud in new york state, and he said that it was like navalny. take a look. >> even if you appeal you have to put up escrow money. that's a lot of dough. >> it's a form of navalny, and it's a form of communism or fascism. navalny is a sad situation, and he's very brave, but it's happening in our country, too. it's happening in our country for many ways. i never heard of being indicted before.

>> it's such a lie. >> disgusting. >> it's such a lie on every single level. a form of navalny? communism, a guy that lies to banks and creditors, a guy that lies to everybody about his property holdings? that would get any of us thrown in jail. that would get you thrown in jail if you did that. that would get you, if not thrown in jail, that would get you fined. so he has been doing this for decades. people in manhattan has been saying he's been doing this for decades. finally, if there is a form of sort of putinism in america, which is so funny, he didn't say putinism, he didn't bring up vladimir putin. i think the most un-american

thing that has happened to donald trump through the decades is, he always gets away with it. if you saw "la confidential," he's the guy that always gets away with it. maybe he will get away with it again. we know that's what the run for the presidency is. we saw it in 2019, and i said if donald trump loses he will run again, and he will run again for no other reason but to avoid all of the criminal actions that are going to be coming against him. the ones we saw even before january 6th. communism -- i just wonder, the people in that crowd and we have to ask this of our fellow americans, are the people in the crowd really stupid enough to

believe that if justice finally comes to one scister? american capitalism is stronger than ever before. we are crushing chinese communism. i know there are stupid people in congress, and they throw that word around having no idea what that word means, and everybody they refer to is a pedophile or marxist, and that shows you how intellectually bankrupt the republican party is they attack our military, and they say it's weak and pathetic, when they are

stronger now than any other time since world war ii, and american capitalism blowing away not only our allies but also all of our rivals. i have to keep saying it, if donald trump loves russia so much he would move there. if he moved there, he would hate it. tucker carlson, if you love it so much, move there. this is the bs we used to hear from the soviet leaders coming to the united states and talking on "larry king," talking about it as a workers paradise. it has a lower gdp than the state of texas. california, people say it's the worse place -- it's so horrible. california, a communist state. california has the fourth largest gdp in the world, in the

world, in the world. i want to go to katty, when you hear these people talk about how weak the economy is and how americans are communist, i think about my limited time going across the world and talking to the leaders in the middle east and in europe and around the world, i will tell you over the past several years, i have not had one say, you know what the problem is, you all are too week. they say you are trouncing us economically and militarily, and we don't appreciate it. they say it in different words, much harsher, i can't even repeat, it's colorful. it was about our strong economy. we are rolling over the rest of the world, and instead of celebrating america's strength,

republicans are attacking it. >> yeah, i mean, look, you and i have had this conversation many times, joe. look at the state of the u.s. economy compared to all the other industrialized economies of the world, and it's not just the state of california doing so well, but it's the united states at large. growth is higher and inflation is lower, and unemployment is lower. in global terms, this is a rocket ship. you read it and i read it, too. a funny comment in a spoof, yeah, as least russia does not have an immigration department. where do people want to come into the country to work, where do they want to send their kids to college, here in the united

states. joe biden -- you may not like joe biden if you are a republican, you may not like the expansion of government or the chips act, or the spending that has gone on during this administration, and if you are a fiscal conservative you may have concerns about it, but to say that if you are a journalist you get thrown into jail if you report on critical things of the administration, or if you say the justice department is warped one way or the other, it's ridiculous and there's clearly no comparison. coming up, john hailman is standing by and will weigh in on all of this straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪ ♪

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let's bring in nbc news national affairs analyst, john heilemann, and he has been covering south carolina this week and everything leading up to the primary. nikki haley is not kicking sideways anymore, and she's going after donald trump but is it breaking through? >> well -- morning, guys. she's not kicking sideways, mika, that's right. she did a speech yesterday, and they said she's not getting out of the race. not only did she not get out of the race, she went further before saying she's not just going to go on and stay in the race until super tuesday. she said yesterday she will stay

in the race until all the votes have been casts, all the way until the end. that was news. she also broke down a little bit and lost her -- let her emotions come through and talked about her husband who is on deployment, she got weepy, and as former governor of the state, a former popular governor of the state, and she was all over the state, she's been barnstorming the state and will continue, and donald trump flew in yesterday and did the town hall with laura ingram and did flew out. i am with you everything you said about all the things donald trump represents, the rot of the core of the republican party, but donald trump is the

republican party, and you can see it in south carolina. this is a pure republican primary in a big red state and donald trump is crushing nikki haley, almost without any effort. >> the primary is on saturday, as mika said, nikki haley is no longer kicking sideways. she's going right at donald trump. >> it's not normal to spend $50 million in campaign contributions on personal court cases. it's not normal to threaten people who back your opponent, and it's not normal to call on russia to invade nato countries. donald trump has done all of that and more in just the past month. he has gotten more unstable and unhinged. he spends more time in courtrooms than he does on the campaign trail. he refused to debate. he's completely distracted.

everything is about him. he's so obsessed with his own demons from the past he can't focus on delivering a future americans deserve. i'm not afraid to say the hard truths out loud. i feel no need to kiss the ring. i have no fear of trump's retributions. i have nothing from him, and i wish michael was here today -- and i wish our children and i could see him tonight, but we can't. he's serving on the other side of the world, where conflict is the norm, where terrorists hide among the instant, where iran's

terrorists proxies are now attacking american troops. this is michael's second deployment. it was hard for us to say good-bye to him the first time. >> john, that's governor haley talking about her husband, michael, who serves in the south carolina army national guard. donald trump has asked where's the husband, suggesting who knows what? we won't go into that. but where is he? serving abroad, something donald trump wouldn't contemplate doing. everything she said about donald trump and the state of the race are factually true, and in the same party that would have impact, and the margin is huge even in her home state going into saturday, so if nikki haley does lose, what is the future? she has promised to stay in at least until super tuesday, and so what is the strategy from the

nikki haley campaign? >> it was striking. she went further yesterday and seemed to suggest she would stay in the race until the very end. i think there's something in that in the sense that she is, as we know, candidates don't drop out because they are losing, and they drop out because they run out of money, and i think nikki haley has discovered so far, at least, there's a core of donors that wants to have her in the race. who knows how long this will last, but so far there is a core of donors that look at donald trump's future, and everything that can unfold, and they say it's good to have nikki haley in the race, and it's a winner take all number of states. and donald trump will get through his delegates through

the third week of march, and she is suggesting she wants to stick around. i think part of the thinking is something -- it's not totally crazy, wishful thinking that something could befall donald trump. rightly we play the clips of haley going straight on against donald trump, and she hits joe biden just as hard as donald trump in the same speeches. she did that yesterday, and there's a part of her that seems to be saying, hey, she said it directly yesterday, 75% of the country doesn't want this race, and she makes a case -- she made a case yesterday that if you were listening to it, in the abstract you would say this woman sounds like a third party candidate, a independent candidate potentially getting herself in a position where

somebody with no labels would like to look at. coming up, we could see a ruling in the case as early as today concerning kick trump off the ballot in a state. that's coming up on "morning joe." joe. saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right? rsv is out there. for those 60 years and older protect against rsv with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. i chose arexvy. rsv? make it arexvy.

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i don't think anybody in the audience is stupid enough to believe that because if -- >> we know the host knows. >> well, yeah, of course she knows, that's why she asked the question, because she knows. so that's why she asked him, well, why didn't you land them over? and he said i was working with them. he kept lying to the fbi, willie. we know this -- i know you know that. he went to his own people who are now testifying against him and told them to destroy the evidence. >> flood the pool. >> to flood the -- all of that. >> oh, my god. >> we know that. trump knows that. laura knows that, which is why she was asking the question. my question to you is who is such a low-information voter? who is ignorant enough? who is stupid enough to believe anything that donald trump just said there? who? i can't believe anybody is that stupid.

>> well, it has to be willful at this point because the excuse always was, well, they are not hearing the facts from their media silos, they're getting bad information. the truth is out there, if you are actually interested in it, it's really not that hard to find. you can go to google, for example, read any newspaper you want to read. the facts have been out there for many, many months now. so that's willful to take that. and donald trump knows that he has a receptive audience. he can just repeat the talking points, throw terms out there, say but joe biden had his under the corvette in the garage, i had a lock on my door, leaving out the larger story of obstruction and the volume of documents and the intent to take the documents. he did under the presidential records act have to hand over those documents. there was no raid, it was a lawful fbi search which took place after trump repeatedly defied a subpoena to return the classified materials he took and stashed them at his beach club. let's bring in former u.s. attorney chuck rosenberg, he is an msnbc contributor. chuck, a lot to talk to you about, but let's start right there. i guess it's worth repeating the

facts of this case, donald trump says he had every right to hold on to those documents, to what -- you say what? >> no, he did not, willie, to your point. those records belonged to the united states government. he was asked for them and didn't return them. he was subpoenaed for them and didn't return them. and so the fbi working through the u.s. attorneys office went to a federal judge and got a court-authorized search warrant permitting them to go to mar-a-lago and take the documents. by the way, what did they find at mar-a-lago? classified documents, which mr. trump said he didn't have. so to your other point, all of this information is out there, it's easy to find, you can read the search warrant affidavit. this was all done pursuant to law, the way it ought to be done. >> so where is this case, chuck? there's so much -- i mean, just think of the viewer out there trying to sort through, we have all this stuff in new york, there's the federal election interference case which seems to

be taking precedence, where are we in the documents case? >> there is still a trial date in the southern district of florida with judge aileen cannon. that date could slide. they are figuring out how to provide classified information in a courtroom setting through something called the classified information procedures act. it's a mouthful, but it is a procedure so that information that's highly sensitive can be redacted or sanitized before it's put into a courtroom and before a jury. they're working through that. i've handled cases with that type of information, it's not complex, but it can be cumbersome. so it's possible, willie, that that trial date slides, but right now the mar-a-lago documents case is still scheduled for trial in may in federal court. >> looking at the supreme court now, chuck, i want to ask you about the colorado ballot question in just a moment. we could get a ruling today, we don't really know, it's a black

box, could be another day, but more importantly that immunity question which hangs over all of these cases. what do we know about that? >> really important question, willie. so about two weeks ago there was an argument in an appellate court in the district of columbia on whether or not a president, in this case mr. trump, is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution. i don't think there is any way he ultimately wins that case. the question is how quickly does he lose it? will the supreme court hear argument? if they do, another trial, in this case in federal court in the district of columbia, could further slide into the summer and even the fall. if the supreme court doesn't hear the absolute immunity question, if they let the underlying decision stand, then two things happen, one, he doesn't have absolute immunity and, two, he goes to trial, and maybe 2-a, he goes to trial sooner rather than later,

probably before the election. i will still somewhat bullish on that. if the supreme court takes the case, if they hear argument on absolute immunity, all bets are off on timing. coming up, chris matthews is standing by. he joins our political round table at the top of the hour when "morning joe" comes right back. back shhh... [ achoo ] [ flatulence ]

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according to the website the sneakers are bold, gold and tough, just like president trump, and leathery, they forgot leathery. the shoes are also super limited, just like our former president, and let me tell you something, if i wanted to buy an ugly pair of shoes from a mentally unstable racist, i will get a pair of yeezys, at least they look kind of cool. in the interest of equal time i should mention that president biden also just released his own line of sneakers and they're pretty -- they're pretty darn

sweet. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east and we have a lot to get to this hour including the so-called informant who accused joe biden and his son hunter of accepting bribes may have ties to russia. we will go over the new court documents that were filed yesterday. but we begin with donald trump's latest attempt to equate the death of russian opposition leader alexei navalny to his own legal cases. that as a defiant nikki haley says she's not going anywhere. nbc news correspondent garrett haake has the latest. >> i refuse to quit. >> reporter: with south carolina's republican primary looming, nikki haley is vowing to fight on, even if she loses to former president donald trump on saturday. >> i'm not going anywhere.

i'm campaigning every day until the last person votes. >> reporter: the former u.n. ambassador is running 28 points behind mr. trump in her home state, according to a new poll of likely south carolina voters. despite the former president's dominance, haley says mr. trump is the only candidate president biden can defeat. pointing to unnamed republicans who, she says, publicly embrace mr. trump even as they privately dread him. >> i feel no need to kiss the ring. i have no fear of trump's retribution. >> reporter: haley growing emotional, speaking about her husband michael, a national guard officer deployed in africa and a recent target of mr. trump's mockery. >> what happened to her husband? where is he? he's gone. >> i wish michael was here today. and i wish our children and i could see him tonight, but we can't. >> reporter: the former president on fox news overnight attacking haley.

>> she's down by 30, 35 points and everybody knows her, you're not supposed to lose your home state, shouldn't happen anyway and she's losing it big. i mean, really -- i said bigly. i don't think she knows how to get out, actually. >> reporter: both haley and president biden have assailed mr. trump for his refusal to condemn vladimir putin after the death of kremlin critic alexei navalny in russian cuss deechlt the former president is, again, invoking navalny's death to score political points, alluding to his own legal problems. >> even if you appeal, you've got to put up escrow money, that's -- it's a lot of dough. >> it is a form of navalny, it is a form of communism or fascism. navalny, it was a very sad situation, it's a horrible thing, but it's happening in our country, too. we are turning into a communist country in many ways. >> reporter: asked whether he would rather face trump or haley in the general election, president biden brushing off the

question. >> oh, i don't care. >> nbc's garrett haake reporting. joining the conversation we have former msnbc host and contributor to washington monthly, chris matthews and white house correspondent for "politico" and co-author of "the playbook" eugene daniels, jonathan lemire is back with us as well, he's white house bureau chief at "politico" and the host of "way too early." chris matthews, my question to you is should nikki haley stay in the game until the bitter end? >> i think as long as they can get money. money is the name of the game here. i think ken langone the anti-trumpers are still available, the chris christie crowd. she might not do as well as she hoped to do this saturday. i don't think she's going to do better than she did in new hampshire. i think it's going to be tough, but i think she's probably going to get close to 40, which is fighting. i think she's fighting it right now and i think she ought to stick in it. i think she's the last non-trump

candidate standing. >> eugene daniels, you were in south carolina. give us a sense of what you saw on the ground there. >> yeah, and i'm headed back tomorrow. you know, what you're seeing is that -- is that it is a completely different state than it was when nikki haley was the governor of that state, right? the trumpism of the republican party is alive and well there, right? i'm driving around the community that my parents grew up in and i'm seeing humongous trump signs, not one nikki haley sign. it shows his dominance there, right? you talked to people who have worked for nikki haley and as i have over the last few weeks in south carolina, they say that she is not a woman and we've seen this, who is going to quit, that her tenacity is to the extreme and more importantly for them, for those people who want to see her have a political future, that that could also possibly be her downfall here and thinking about what does it look like post 2024 for her in

this republican party? i think the hope that she is having and that people in south carolina who want to see her continue, whether they be voters or operatives, is that there needs to be some kind of opposition to donald trump. she keeps talking about this country not doing coronations, but also, and more importantly, they are hoping that something might happen, right? there's all these legal cases against donald trump. so there's still a little bit of hope, a glimmer of hope that something may happen and he can't be the nominee and she wants to be that person who can pick up the ball if it's dropped. >> so, chris, it is at times to be surprised by something that donald trump says, but yet over the last couple days he basically compared himself to alexei navalny, not just because he has been persecuted, he believes, by the state. he suggests that like navalny he is a sort of martyr for the cause, if you will. he even went as far to say so

about the civil fraud verdict rendered in the last few days that will cost him $350 million or so. just give us your sense on this, just where donald trump is and why would people respond to such a nonsensical comparison like that? >> you know, i think he's starting to realize that he doesn't know much history, let's face it, but he must be aware of the fact that the old soviet union, like the old nazi party in germany, was a tyranny and people like hitler, stalin and their successes could knock off people and get rid of people like navalny. this is what the old communist world was about. that's what they do over there, if you don't like your opponent you get rid of them, you knock them off. this is what we all remember. i remember when stalin died in grade school and the nuns came out and announced that stalin had died and we should pray. i had no idea what we were praying for except we're happy he's gone. he is the worst of them. he killed 20 million people. but this is what they do, these

tyrants. look at those soldiers as putin comes into his office there with their heads back -- cocked back like that, how weird that is? how weird that dedication s i guess you will call it. i think trump knows this. this is why he lied about something he is the new navalny, you know, the idea that when fascism comes to america it will be called anti-farkism. i think he knows in his dimwitted way that he cannot be on the side of this stalinist regime that can knock out people like navalny. navalny's wife is out there as a leader of this organization now, she's going to fight. i think he has a glimmer that he's on the wrong side of this. also on the abortion thing, i want to talk to mika, i have to tell you, motor vehicle i can't, this is interesting how he's fading away from this 16-week ban here. >> oh, please. >> because the big question to ask about him is, okay, buddy, what's the consequence?

what's the punish. ? you said you want to see some punishment for women. what will be your plan to punish women who disobey this 16-week ban? i think he's getting a little nervous about the craziness of the abortion ban, i think he's afraid of it. i think he's afraid of coming out for putin against navalny. this is the first time he's actually shown some at least conceptual problem, a reality of his problem, which is he's lying. he's lying. the communists are not the good guy, this post stalinist world of russia is not the good guys. the idea that subway over there that tucker carlson is bragging about, that doesn't make them the good guys. it's crazy. and i just wish some of the older people, older than him, older than biden who remember the cold war, remember who the good guys and the bad guys were, just say it. why doesn't somebody stand up to him in south carolina and say, you're wrong, the soviet union and what's come since then with putin is the bad guys. they're the bad -- they are the

true evil ones and they've got to stand up. i hope people will get behind nikki haley, people with money, and get behind her and really fight for this and say this is not the republican party. most just ronald reagan, but going all the way back to harry truman. this was a bipartisan fight with the soviets. it's unbelievable that they are out there kissing the butt of vladimir putin. it's un -- not the ring, but the butt. they're really acting like this and it's awful. >> he's created monster in the republican party. it is the russian party at this point at the rate it's going. while we are at it, we're learning new details about russian links to the fbi inform plant charged with lying to the agency about president joe biden and his son hunter biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. at a hearing in federal court in las vegas yesterday prosecutors revealed in a filing that some of the false information that alexander smirnoff fed to the

fbi including a story about hunter biden came from officials associated with russian intelligence. what's more, prosecutors allege the 43-year-old is, quote, actively peddling new lies that could impact u.s. elections after meeting with russian intelligence officials in november. the judge did order smirnoff be released under conditions that include gps monitoring. he has been a key source for congressional republicans and their impeachment inquiry into biden administrationen. >> and we talked about this earlier, that's so remarkable is the russians figured out that they didn't have to pass their disinformation through intel agencies or get through any sifers. comer's committee, they will take anybody, they will take international fugitives to lie

about biden, which they did, they took an international fugitive to lie about joe and hunter biden and then we find out where is he? well, he is an international fugitive, he is on the run because, you know, he is helping the communist chinese, he's funneling iranian oil to the communist chinese. he is illegally trading arms. and now you have somebody who got caught lying, spreading russian disinformation and, again, going straight from putin's -- >> yes. >> -- propaganda minnesota right -- machine right to comer and comer takes it without questioning. that tells you how sick -- how sick the attitude is there where they actually hate democratic opponents more than they hate vladimir putin. which, again, the fact -- the fact that the house republican party has gotten to that point

is -- >> unbelievably useful idiot, comer. joining us nous nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles. are we hearing new from house republicans who had used smirnoff's lies? >> reporter: at this point it doesn't appear in any way, shape or form to have slowed down the republican effort to try to impeach president joe biden. in fact, in the next hour or so they're going to hear from his brother, james biden, as they try to continue to find this allusive evidence that connects either his brother's business dealings or his son's business dealings directly to joe biden as a public official and that he used his powers as a public official to influence these business dealings. to put into context how important this indictment is of alexander mere nof and how it fits into the narrative that republicans have been peddling for the past six months, i was outside the scif, the secure

location here on capitol hill where after a very controversial set of decision-making by the republican impeachment managers, they decided to make that fbi tip sheet, that document that alleged there was a source who knew that joe biden was being bribed in his role as a public official to help hunter biden's business dealings, they made that sheet, that tip sheet, available for members of congress to review. this was something the fbi was very much opposed to, they view these fbi tip sheets as basically just one piece of an investigation, they're never used as evidence in criminal prosecution because they have to be confirmed as specific pieces of evidence and the claims that are made on these tip sheets need to be backup associated with them, but one by one these republican members left that scif and came to our cameras and told us that this was the smoking gun that they had been looking for. >> right. >> reporter: that this was enough to begin the process of impeaching the president. there were some that called for articles of impeachment to be

drawn up that day. at that time democrats and justice officials and legal experts outside of government warned us over and over again that these tip sheets cannot be used as specific pieces of evidence, and here now we have the special prosecutor, david weiss, who is a trump appointee, whose mission right now is to convict hunter biden, the president's son, who is determined that this tip sheet is not only not solid evidence but actually could be part of a russian scheme to spread disinformation in this country. it really just pulls from the bottom of the foundation by which republicans have built this claim about connections between the hunter biden business dealings and joe biden himself and then whatever other nefarious actors that they've claimed. they're going to bring james biden in today, they have hunter biden here next week. they're going to try to get them to claim something that they've been looking for, but at this

point as we've said a million times the hard evidence just isn't there, yet the impeachment process continues. >> something you will get on another network is that the arresting of smirnov is biden's justice department being weaponized. it continues down a path which is why when the special prosecuor came out with their colorful report on president joe biden and the documents, he came to the conclusion that it did not need to go forward. >> right. >> correct? >> right. >> that's all you need. but reading his details, it was all meant to trigger people to say special prosecutors are not good, it's the justice department. they're trying to muddle everything. the bottom line is this smirnov guy has been undermined. end of story. there is no weaponization of the justice department here at play. >> no. no. hey, nbc's ryan nobles, thank

you so much. and what we learned, again, as ryan said, from the trump-appointed special prosecutor here, looking into hunter biden, what we found out was smirnov couldn't keep his stories straight. he just kept lying to him and his stories started to conflict. again, you add all of this up and this is such a scam and comer keeps -- and that committee, they keep humiliating themselves. when is the republican party going to recognize, again, all they do is hurt themselves when they spread these lies. and russian disinformation. >> exactly. also in that fox news town hall trump essentially admitted to killing the bipartisan border security bill in congress because it would have, quote, made it much better for the opposing side, biden. >> why were you against the house -- against the senate border deal, the bipartisan border --

>> well, they allow 5,000 people a week. number one that, but it also made it -- it made it much better for the opposing side. i don't know if you've heard this but i came up with this one, migrant crime. there's crime, there's violent crime, there's migrant crime. we have a new category of crime it's called migrant crime and it's going to be worse than any other form of crime. >> yeah, actually, so many things about that are wrong. so many things about that are a lie. i mean, first of all, one stat after another shows that what he says, migrant crime worse than all other crimes, one stat after another says that's not true. of course there's individual examples, terrible examples, like we saw in new york, but overall if facts matter, if numbers and that matter, if data matters, what he said there is a lie. saying that the bill let's in 5,000 migrants a week, that's a

lie. chris matthews, you worked in the house and it's just extraordinary that you have the president of the united states that talks about migrant crime. let's say it's the worst thing in the world. let's take his lie and just for argument sake say, okay, donald, we will accept your lie that you believe migrant crime is the worst crime in the world. so what does donald trump do? he admits at the same time he's going to allow, quote, migrant crime, which is the worst crime as he says, to continue for another year. he's going to allow fentanyl to continue to flood across the border for another year. he's going to allow americans to die because of fentanyl for another year. he's going to allow, you know, they say spies from other countries, chinese spies from other countries are coming across the southern border. he is going to allow that for another year and he admits that he's going to allow all of this

to happen because he says, quote, it's good for the other side. so he's going to kill the bill because he doesn't want james lankford, a conservative republican, to work with democrats on a problem that he says is the worst problem in america. kind of hard to sort through that, chris, isn't it? >> well, the thing is that the republicans and trump will still benefit from the border issue. if they cut a deal and they really squeeze the democrats and get them to do something they don't want to do, which is get really tough on the asylum issue and narrow of definition of what it is and really separate the wheat from the chaff and let the right people in and keep the wrong people out, he still will have the border issue. he's clearly anti-immigrant and clearly that's a good issue for him. so even if he cut a deal like this, it doesn't make any sense. he's got the problem, the american people have the problem and he still would have won the fight. it's an issue. the border works for the republicans, it's a fact. like inflation, it just does.

people don't like prices, they're going to vote republican. so i think he really was -- i don't understand this. again, i'm going back to the house republicans. i know they have a narrow -- very narrow advantage there holding the majority, but there's some good things they could be doing here. they could be doing something about the border like the senate did. they can do this. it's doable and they don't want to do it. they're afraid of taking him on on putin and i don't understand what an anti-communist party like the republican party has always been, why they can't be anti-putin. what is it? putin puts people away, he invades other countries, he is like hitler that way, first it's munich, it's amazing we just had the meeting in munich, munich 1938 they took chez slovakia, 1939 they took poland, 1940 they took france. one country at a time, right now it's trying to take ukraine's freedom away from it. this is good republican

ideology. where are the republicans? don't they have to go back to their people and say i know you love trump, but here is what i believe. here is what i believe. we've got to stop communism, we have to stop this guy putin because he acts like a communist. he is a tyrant. why don't we do something about him? he says he likes navalny because he's being treated like navalny. he wouldn't even mention putin last night. by the way, i think laura ingraham knew everything right last night. i've had suspicions they're smarter than they act on television, those people at fox. they all know what's going on. they know what we know. we don't have secret information. trump is wrong. he's dead wrong. they know that. >> so certainly from the white house perspective we've heard from president biden deem what donald trump has said about russia and potentially invading nato nations and getting in the way of ukraine aid, he's deemed that unamerican. eugene, let's talk about the border which chris was discussing. give us your latest sense as to the white house's plan here both, one torques blame

republicans for what's happening at the border because it was the gop that killed the bill that would have imposed pretty tough measures and also, two, what can the white house do about it on its own? as much as they're hoping congress step up, if they can't are there executive orders that can be explored? >> that first question, there is a feeling within both the biden white house and the biden campaign that this is sort of a gift to them. we saw how they tried to work with republicans to figure out how do we -- you know, going further than many liberals and their party wanted them to go on the border, on asylum especially, and so now they are able to go around the country for the entire year and play donald trump's own words saying that basically he killed it because it would help the other side, being democrats. and the thing that they can also say and will also continue to say is that it is not very likely if donald trump were to win that there's going to be some kind of bipartisan deal because it will need to be

bipartisan in the senate to get through the senate that would do the things that donald trump -- people like donald trump want to do when it comes to the border. something that's hard line, some things that passed in the house already earlier this year. that's not going to pass a senate that has either a slim majority one way or the other. it's going to need ten more extra votes. and on the executive orders, that's a conversation they're always having, it's possible that something is coming, but they are still kind of wading through whether or not this gets a vote. it's not going to get a vote in the house it seems at this point, but this is a white house that holds things close to the chest until it seems like it is dead for sure. >> eugene daniels and chris matthews, thank you both very much for coming on this morning. we appreciate it. and coming up on "morning joe," donald trump is on the hook for over $350 million in civil fraud penalties. we will tell you what new york's attorney general plans to do if he can't afford the fine.

plus, we will go live to the supreme court where justices could rule on trump's ballot eligibility in colorado as early as today. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back.

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it is half past the hour, a live look at new york city where new york attorney general letitia james says she is prepared to take more action if donald trump cannot afford to pay the penalty imposed on him in the state's civil fraud case. trump and his companies were ordered to pay nearly $355 million, plus another $100 million in a pre-judgment -- in pre-judgment interest after a judge ruled he inflated his net worth in order to get more

favorable loans. now the state's attorney general tells abc news she will go back to court if she has to. >> if he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek, you know, judgment enforcement mechanisms in court and we will ask the judge to seize his assets. >> oh, you mean like take his stuff? >> yeah. >> like just go in there and take his stuff? like walk out with furniture and stuff? reminds me of the scene from "feud." >> great series, by the way. i don't think there's many people who believe he has the money. >> so they will take his stuff. >> -- to pay the fraud -- yeah. to pay that back, to also pay e. jean carroll. >> fascinating. >> you're close to half a billion dollars. >> see a tanning bed get brought out. >> we will see exactly what happens. meanwhile, at the top of the hour we expect the supreme court

to release opinions and among them could be the colorado case on whether the state can remove donald trump from its primary ballot. the high court is also still reviewing an appeal from the former president regarding presidential immunity. joining us from outside the supreme court is nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian. >> ken, my question is on this colorado case, is it going to be 9-0, 8-1, 7-2? obviously you had both liberal and conservative justices deeply skeptical of the colorado decision. what are you hearing? >> reporter: yeah, that's right, joe. almost surprisingly so the unanimity we heard during the arguments a couple weeks ago. i remember the moment when justice elena kagan liberal justice first spoke and asked the lawyer for the plaintiffs, so how do you justify the idea that one state will decide for the rest of the nation whether somebody can be on a

presidential ballot? and that was sort of when the air went out of the balloon for the folks who were hoping that this would keep donald trump off the ballot in colorado and perhaps elsewhere. i think you're right, i think we will see an overwhelming decision, whether we see it today or not is an open question, but the justices made clear that they are skeptical about the idea that the 14th amendment can keep donald trump off the ballot on the grounds that he committed insurrection, in part because they were pointing to history and saying that the 14th amendment was actually meant to take power away from the states, particularly confederate monuments states. so they were skeptical that it could be now used to keep -- for a state to keep a presidential candidate off a ballot and then have implications nationwide. >> ken, fascinating decision yesterday from the supreme court on the front page of the "new york times" talking about that virginia school that actually had a race-conscious admissions process. it seems the court is saying to

schools, at least from my reading of this, you can't say that you're using race in admissions policies, but you can have an overall admissions approach that takes race into consideration, if not directly, indirectly. what's your read? >> reporter: i think that's exactly right, joe. this was a case about an elite sort of a magnet high school in fairfax county, in suburb.washington, d.c. where they changed their admission policies to try to get more disadvantaged students, students of color into the school, and a group of asian-american parents sued and said that that was discriminatory against asian-americans and asians. the circuit court ruled against them and said, no, that in fact this admissions policy could stand and the supreme court declined to hear the case and they don't say exactly why, although thomas and alito strongly dissented and said that

they should have heard the case. the appeals court ruling essentially said because they are not explicitly using race, they can use other markers like english as a first language or coming from a disadvantaged background to try to create a more diverse student body. that's important because less than a year ago the supreme court essentially knocked out race-conscious admission policies in the harvard case nationwide and that's really put a lot of things up in the air, colleges and secondary schools are trying to figure out how they can achieve diversity without taking race into account. this case sort of lays out markers about how you could do that. >> right. and they focused on -- said we are not looking at race, we are looking at socioeconomic factors, we are looking at a variety of things, but, again, it does seem that the supreme court right now is basically saying don't say it, just do it, and do it in a way that's subtle. ken, before we let you go, i'm curious what are you looking at in the coming week -- coming weeks, months, over the horizon?

what should we be looking -- what should we know about what the supreme court is deliberating over right now? >> well, you've got a really important gun case that we may or may not see today, the question of whether a person who is convicted of domestic violence can be prohibited from possessing a firearm, and that's important because in the bruin case as you recall the supreme court said all gun regulation has to have an analog and history, something the founders would have understood and recognized. that's got courts around the country in confusion about which gun laws are still appropriate, including can a felon possess a firearm. in this case it's about someone convicted of domestic violence. it seemed that the justices were prepared to allow that to remain in place. they all seem to suggest that somebody convicted of domestic violence is a dangerous person that shouldn't have a firearm. if it doesn't go that way it would be a hugely significant blow to gun regulations because

thousands and thousands of people each year are prevented from buying a gun because of a domestic violence conviction. >> nbc's ken dilanian reports for us from outside the supreme court. thank you very much. we appreciate it. control of wisconsin's legislature has now become more competitive after years of republican domination. on monday democratic governor of wisconsin tony evers signed into law new legislative maps that could drastically alter the state's balance of power which has been under republican control for more than a decade. democrats hailed the signing as a huge victory in the swing state after spending years fighting to overturn republican-drawn maps. the new maps will replace the ones that were widely seen as the most gerrymandered in the nation. the tide turned when liberal justice janet potosewicz joined the state's supreme court last year. a day after she was sworn in

progressive groups filed a lawsuit challenging the map with her arguing they were rigged. under the new maps which will be used during the november election democrats are likely to gain seats in both the state assembly and state senate. according to the milwaukee journal sentinel, the maps outline an almost even split between democratic and republican-leaning districts, 45 are democratic, 46 are republican leaning and 8 are likely to be a toss-up. >> so, jonathan lemire, we quote the "wall street journal" editorial page a good bit. they're actually very critical of this decision and i must say it's good that they had to write it down instead of say it into a camera because it would have been hard for them to keep a straight face about the most rigged maps in america. you have republicans winning two-thirds of the seats in these

rigged gerrymandered districts, despite the fact this is a state that is 50/50, republican/democrat. evers actually signed the most pro-republican of the four maps he could have signed into law. that's the one that he accepted, trying to be as fair as possible and, again, yes, it splits the state legislature down the middle. so this is -- this is something republicans in wisconsin have been getting away with just political -- i don't know what you want to call it, larceny. they have stolen seats over the vast decade with the most rigged, gerrymandered districts in america. >> democrats and republicans alike agreed that wisconsin is probably the most 50/50 state in the nation and we know it's going to be a fiercely contested battleground again this november which is why the previous maps and, therefore, the resulting huge republican advantage never made any sense.

this was -- and republicans knew that, which is why when that judge was elected, they made immediate efforts to try to get her out of there, to try to impeach her and work around her. they did everything they could to preserve those old maps. i saw voting rights advocates suggest this is a win for democrats but more than that it was a win for democracy. >> and, by the way, when that judicial seat was up, mika, and we were covering it, everybody knew the stakes. everybody knew what was going to happen, everybody knew that these rigged gerrymandered maps would go if the liberal justice got elected and she won easily. she won easily in wisconsin because even wisconsin voters knew with that on the ballot and with the republicans warning them that that was going to be on the ballot, overwhelming number of wisconsin voters in a swing state split down to the

middle said we've had enough of the rigged process, we've had enough of the gerrymandered maps and they voted for her and she won easily. coming up, jury selection is set to begin for the trial of hannah gutierrez-reed, that's the armorer who handed alec baldwin a loaded gun on the set of the movie "rust." we will have a report on the charges the jury will consider and the evidence the prosecution plans to present. "morning joe" will be right back. s to present "morning joe" will be right back

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ask your doctor about breztri. democrats agree. vision changes, or eye pain occur. conservative republican steve garvey is the wrong choice for the senate. ...our republican opponent here on this stage has voted for donald trump twice. mr. garvey, you voted for him twice... as your own man, what is your decision? garvey is wrong for california. but garvey's surging in the polls. fox news says garvey would be a boost to republican control of the senate. stop garvey. adam schiff for senate.

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lass has the details. >> reporter: more than two years after the fatal shooting on the set of "rust" the film's armor more than na gutierrez-reed will face criminal charges in court. the case centers on how a live round of ammunition found its way on to the film's set and into a prop gun used by alec baldwin, the bullet killing halyna hutchins and wounding joel souza. reed is charged with involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence for allegedly handing off a bag of cocaine to a friend after the shooting. she faces up to three years in prison if convicted on both counts. reed's attorney jason bowls speaking to savannah in 2021. >> everything she saw she's heartbroken and she just is devastated by what's happened. >> reporter: bowls now writing in a statement ms. gutierrez-reed is ready for her day in court and looks forward to the full truth finally coming out. she is not guilty of the crimes charged against her.

hutchinson's widower matthew telling hoda in 2022. >> every individual who touches a firearm has a responsibility for gun safety. >> reporter: alec baldwin, the star and producer of the film is set to stand trial at some point as well. last month a grand jury indicted baldwin on one count of involuntary manslaughter after a previous set of charges were dropped. his attorney saying after he was charged, we look forward to our da i in court. baldwin has repeatedly maintained he did not pull the trigger, but prosecutors aren't buying it. >> i didn't pull the trigger. someone is responsible for what happened and i can't say who that is, but i know it's not me. >> reporter: in a report commissioned by prosecutors over the summer, a forensics expert found the gun had not been modified and baldwin would have had to have pulled the trigger. as for gutierrez-reed it's unclear what evidence will be presented in court. but a source says video obtained exclusively by nbc news in november could be played for the jury. prosecutors are also expected to introduce text messages they say

show gutierrez-reed was using alcohol and drugs after work, including the night before the fatal shooting. theone armorer the first member of the "rust" crew to stand trial for a tragedy that has changed the film industry. >> nbc's chloe ma lass with that report. coming up on "morning joe," our next guest dispels some of the myths surrounding covid-19 and shares the lessons he says we learned from dealing with the virus. dr. paul off ett shares his insights and why the fight against covid is now a permanent one. we will be right back. d is now t one. we will be right back. int of sae system helps you sell at every stage of your business. with fast and secure payment. card readers you can rely on. and one place to manage it all. whatever the stage, businesses that grow grow with shopify. hi, i'm jason. i've lost 228 pounds on golo. ♪

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i said there must be more we can do for my symptoms. he told me about a medication called camzyos. he said camzyos works by targeting what's causing my obstructive hcm. so he prescribed it and i'm really glad he did. camzyos is used to treat adults with symptomatic obstructive hcm. camzyos may improve your symptoms and your ability to be active. camzyos may cause serious side effects, including heart failure that can lead to death. a risk that's increased if you develop a serious infection or irregular heartbeat or when taking certain other medicines. so do not stop, start or change medicines or the dose without telling your healthcare provider. you must have echocardiograms before and during treatment. seek help if you experience new or worsening symptoms of heart failure. because of this risk, camzyos is only available through a restricted program. before taking camzyos, tell your doctor about all of your medical conditions, including current or planned pregnancy. today with camzyos, i don't lose my breath as often. my symptoms have improved, helping me go from expecting less to experiencing more. my name is mike. and this is my camzyos moment.

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. welcome back to "morning joe" dramatic changes may be coming to the federal government's covid isolation

guidelines. the cdc is now considering a new protocol which would allow those with covid to leave quarantine after 24 hours fever free. that's a departure from the recommended five-day isolation period which has been in place since 2021. the potential shift in policy comes as medical experts estimate that over 97% of the u.s. population has now acquired some form of immunity to covid through either acquiring the virus, vaccination or both. joining us now, dr. paul offit, the director of the vaccine education center at the children's hospital of philadelphia as well as author of the new book "tell me when it's over," an insider's guide to deciphering covid myths and navigating our post-pandemic world. so good to see you this morning. congratulations on the book. let's start right there, your analysis on these potential shift in cdc guidelines and just larger, what that tells us about

where we are in our ongoing struggle with covid. >> i think the cdc made the right move. the infection works in two parts. the first part virus replication. the virus reproducing itself is key. and the second part is when your immune response takes over. when your immune response takes over, virus replication decreases. and as your immune response increases, it's your immune response that creates condition. if you've had one day of not having fever, what that tells you is that your immune response is abating, it's lessening, and therefore you're much less likely to shed virus. i think it makes more sense to do that, to tag it to the individual symptoms rather than pick an arbitrary length of time, such as five days, ten days, 14 days. that tags things to the metric system or the lunar month, which makes little sense. this makes it more individual for the sufferer and that makes

more sense. >> doctor, a lot of people who have been -- whether they're been anti-vaccine or just wanted to keep their heads in the sand and attack anybody that talked about covid being more than a flu have looked at all the things that haveappened, all the changes and recommendations that have been made since the outbreak of covid and say, see, they have no idea what they're doing. of course it's an active virus unlike any that we've seen. so tell me looking three, three and a half years back, what have we learned? >> right, so, i think frankly this was an amazing story in two ways. you have this unusual virus, it has unusual clinical characteristics, unusual buy logic characteristics. we isolated and sequenced that virus in january of 2020. 11 months later we'd done two large clinical trials using a technology that had never been used to make a vaccine before

that was a remarkably effective vaccine. and then within the next seven months or so we vaccinated 70% of the united states population. again, an amazing accomplishment. i do think as a medical or scientific achievement it was the greatest thing in my lifetime and my lifetime includes the development of a polio vaccine. then we hit a wall. 30% of the u.s. population refused to be vaccinated. they believe that the vaccine was dangerous. they didn't think that the disease was that bad, and as a consequence, 300,000 people unnecessarily lost their lives. why? i mean, how did we lose trust of the public, lose trust in the fda or the cdc, and how can we get it back? >> yeah. let me ask you about the origin of the virus. i've talked to a lot of different people who originally said there's no way it started in a lab. there still seems to be some question about that with even medical professionals i talk to

quietly who are still suggesting that maybe it did start in the lab because this is unlike any virus. it seems to morph. you know, it used to be -- you could get a sars vaccine and the smart cells would work, you know, up to a decade or so. we learned with this virus that you need to get vaccinated and boosted regularly because this vaccine is always learning, always morphing, always causing new challenges. >> right, this was not a lab leak. i don't think this is a scientific controversy. you have the sars 1, for example, it raised its head in 2002. that was an animal to human spillover to china. mers also an animal to human spillover event. all the early cases centered in the western section of the hunan wholesale seafood market. when you looked at the genetic analysis of that one particular area where there were dozens of species that were sold illegally

that could then catch and transmit sars korks v 2 to humans, all the genetic evidence was there that sars-cov-2 was there. it was remarkable to me that two-thirds of the american public still believes this could be a lab leak, but all the scientific evidence shows the opposite is true. also, remember, there has never been a virus that was created in a laboratory that caused a pandemic. as carl sagan says, extraordinary claims should be backed by extraordinarily evidence. this is an extraordinary claim backed by no evidence. >> i have actually been waiting -- i've been waiting for this book to be written where somebody takes a look back and asks what have we learned, what did we get right, what did we get wrong and what can we do better in the future. you've written the pook, i can't wait to read it. it's entitled "tell me when it's over: an insider's guide to navigaing our post-pandemic

world," thank you so much, doctor, for being with us. >> thank you. that does it for us this morning, thank you for being with us. we greatly appreciate it. nbc's going to have coverage of today's expected supreme court decisions in two minutes. s expet decisions in two minutes msnbc's of today's expected supreme court decisions in two minutes. of today's expected supreme court decisions in two minutes ♪♪ we have great benefits from principal. so i know i'm taken care of. and not just me. but the ones who matter most to me. ♪♪ only unitedhealthcare medicare advantage plans but the ones who matter come with the ucard - one simple member card that opens doors where it matters for you. what if we need to see a doctor away from home? ucard gets you in with medicare advantage's largest national provider network. how 'bout using it at the pharmacy? yes - your ucard is all you need. huh - that's easy! can it help keep my smile looking good? yep! use your ucard at the dentist. say cheese!

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