for haley. this ivf answer is going to have a splashback on the primary a affect the race. most delegates will be assigned at a party convention. because of who has been showing up for michigan party conventions, both because of the party's internal dissension and the split, those are conservative, pro-maga activists. she's going to campaign a little in michigan, but she's going to focus on super tuesday states, even in the 72 hours she gets before that primary. >> yeah, she's going to need to -- she's said she's in the race through at least super tuesday and we'll see after that. dave weigle, thank you for being with us. thank you to you for getting up "way too early" on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. it is what it is. it doesn't change the fundamental facts. there are four fundamental facts that hunter biden gets put on the board of burisma.

he's not qualified. he gets paid millions a year. >> those are not true. >> the four things i said are absolutely true. >> oh, my lord. republicans leading the impeachment inquiry into president biden seem to be, once again, detached from reality. that was jim jordan doubling down on false claims despite his key witness admitting that some of his information came from russian intelligence officials. >> russian intelligence officials. >> we'll go through the new developments in that case. meanwhile, donald trump -- >> hold on. hold on. >> there he is. >> i still can't get over it. >> useful idiot. >> willie, russia has got to be thinking, like, is arnold the pig really not whispering in comer's ears at his chief legal counsel, "hey, you better be careful because you guys might be taking russian disinformation

straight into the united states congress"? >> talk about an easy mark. we thought donald trump was an easy mark for the russians, and he is, but how about this congress? they're just directly feeding false information into the american political system. these guys on this committee, jim jordan and james comer, they don't have the character or whatever you want to call it to just walk away, to cut your losses and say, you know what? this thing is trumped up. our sources, our star witnesses all turn out to be frauds and liars and russian agents potentially. maybe we should just walk away. but they dig in deeper and say things like, the facts haven't changed, when, fundamentally, again, the facts have changed. >> the facts have changed. jonathan lemire, we can go back one claim after another claim after another claim, proven wrong. how many times has comer made a fool of himself? you remember what grassley was saying, "oh, doesn't matter whether he is guilty or not." they want the hunt despite the

fact they're chasing ghosts. >> yeah, i've lost track of the number of times republicans have said the quiet part out loud and said, "yeah, we're doing this for political purposes. we're doing this to hurt president biden ahead of his re-election bid, even if there are no facts that support the accusation." they keep saying, "we sure hope we're going to find something," and they haven't yet. this is the latest embarrassment to this impeachment inquiry, but we played sound all morning, that the reporters are asking republicans, saying, well, the very thesis, the foundation of your case has fallen apart because of this informant taking information from russian intelligence officers, and they dispute that. they won't do it. i'll just note this, we know that white house staffers, we reported this morning, received subpoena letters this week saying you have to come and testify, you know, for this impeachment inquiry. one staffer told me he received a letter and, 90 minutes later, received a second that said, "hey, disregard the first.

use this one instead." he said, what is the difference between the two? all the references to smirnov in the first letter had been stripped out, and now they were going forward without it. that's their acknowledgment. the republicans know it's falling apart. >> wow. >> again, congress allowing, like willie said, russian disinformation to come straight into the united states congress. their an easy, easy mark for russian disinformation. and while we're on the topic, mika, of people who are suckers for russia -- >> oh, the biggest. donald trump standing by his comments about abandoning article 5 of the nato agreement. >> encouraging russia to attack. >> we'll play for you what he said. it comes as the eu just approved a new sanctions package against russia ahead of new actions expected tomorrow from the biden administration. of course, in response to the death of aleei navalny. also with us, editor for politics at "politico," sam

stein joins us this morning. good to have you, sam. let's get to the top story, though. maybe he's running out of cash or maybe people don't want to give him money. who would want to be involved in with? >> there was a "financial times" story yesterday that showed donald trump's contributors dropped $200,000. if you look at this point in the cycle four years ago with where he is right now, he has lost already 200,000 donors. >> do they not want to pay his legal bills? they don't trust he won't use the money for legal bills? there's a lot of legal bills. >> i think there is the understanding that if they're giving him money, they're not giving him money to help whatever he says, help make america great again. they're giving him money because of the fact a judge said he

raped a woman, and he has to pay her about $90 million. >> $83.3 million for defamation, sexual assault. >> because his own lawyer decided she didn't want a jury trial, and so they had a judge trial in a fraud case. donald trump was found guilty of what he's done for years. >> then there's the civil fraud trial. oh, my gosh. that's like bankrupting. >> that's what i'm saying. so you have all this money, so people are going, wait a second, am i giving to him? am i giving to, like, jim and tammy faye bakker, like some scam to pay this guy's bills? what you're seeing is, again, the number of his contributors going down. there is also natural attrition. there are a lot of people i know that voted for trump twice. we talk about it all the time. after january 6th, after the craziness of the past couple years, after saying that he's going to assassinate his political rivals if he wants to. and nobody can do anything about

it. after he's saying he'll execute american generals, american war heroes, because they're not sufficiently loyal to him. all of this stuff adds up. at some point, there's an exhaustion factor that sets in, and i think we're seeing it in donald trump's money. >> well, he's burning through his donors' funds with his super pac spending far more in january than it brought in. as "the daily beast" reports, it was used for one purpose, to pay lawyers. the campaign itself was also underwater. it raises $8.8 million while spending over $11 million. nikki haley, meanwhile, flashed a sign of strength with her campaign reporting $11.5 million in receipts last month. it is the first ever fundraising period where haley's campaign outraised donald trump's. >> let's stop there for one minute. >> yeah, stop right there. let's repeat it.

>> nikki haley outraised donald trump last month in fundraising. >> after all his efforts to try to undermine her and spread gossip about her husband. she seems to be plugging along there. she's going to hang in there and be the last woman standing, depending on what happens. it's probably a good gamble. >> we have more to talk about in this story, but i want to stop for a second and go to sam stein. sam, feel free to talk about, if you want to talk about trump having less donors than before. 200,000 less. if you have any theories on that. but i just want to stop for a second and look at the fact that the month that donald trump threatened republicans, and, man, that reverberated. people don't understand. that reverberated around the republican party. karl rove talking about it this morning in a "wall street journal" op-ed. it reverberated. donald trump saying, basically,

"i'm going to crush you if you give nikki haley any money." what did that do? it caused nikki haley's donations to rise. sam, talk about the fact, nikki haley outraised donald trump last month. >> that is pretty surprising. we expected trump to raise a ton of money. he has the largest fan base in republican politics, ask not just any fan base, but the rabid base that rallies behind him. theories as to why he's done worse than she has the last month. you hit on the main one. you know, the money, people are nervous the money is going to be going to non-political functions. obviously, the legal stuff. you know, obviously, the polls show him doing well compared to biden, but if you followed his campaign in new hampshire and elsewhere, you can tell, it's not as enthusiastic a run as

four years ago or eight years ago. you remember the arena in manchester, right? 2016, it was sold out, right? >> man, crazy. >> the entire thing. i went again this cycle. they had a huge curtain to cut off about a quarter of the arena, and they didn't have the top sections. no one was allowed to sit there. i thought to myself, you know, the enthusiasm is not quite the same, and i think that hurts trump on the donor level, too. he has been so reliant on small dollar donations in a way that other republicans can't. i don't think, to be care, any of this translates necessarily into the primary polls being affected. i think haley is not going to win in south carolina. there's very few opportunities for her to win any state, frankly. delegate math doesn't add up. but what it does do is, you know, to the degree she wants to continue running and continue losing these states, she can do it. campaigns don't end. they run out of cash.

her campaign is not running out of cash. she can continue the operation and be a thorn in his side, i don't know to what end, but that's what the money dynamic does to the race. >> willie, there are a lot of politicians that would love to be in nikki haley's position right now. i'm sure she's looking at it as a war of attrition. donald trump has so much in front of him. we don't know what's going to happen over the next two, three, four months between now and the convention. anything can happen on the republican side with all of these trials, all these judgments, all these financial woes. anything can happen. you look at nikki haley and the fact that she outraised trump last month, and then look at trump. this is something people love to talk about. oh, well, you know, biden's base isn't as excited as they should be. i'm sure if you look at the last seven years, just look at data, look at history, they'll get

there. with donald trump, the stoies we don't hear are the stories sam just said. that is arenas half full. venue sizes being shrunk and reduced, far below where he was in 2016. he still has his die-hards, no doubt about that. he still has a movement, no doubt about that. but the movement has shrunk, and we haven't seen that as much in reporting as we have focused on, hey, what's the base think about joe biden? right now, look at -- >> remember his crowd size situation in the first campaign? they were huge crowds. i don't see those pictures. >> i'll tell you what freaks trump out even more is the fact that his small donors, which just absolutely are critical in campaigns, small donors have dropped by 200,000 people.

200,000 donors from this part of the campaign to four years ago. >> that is a staggering number from "the financial times," out with a report. the second half of 2019, donald trump had 740,000 donors. in the second half of 2023, so four years later, ahead of an election year, he had 516,000 donors. contrary to that, joe biden has -- his number of donors has gone up a bunch from four years ago at this time. you're right, donald trump is asking his voters, asking his base to fund this self-proclaimed billionaire's legal bills. that's what the money goes to. it looks like a lot of people are saying, that's not what i'm in this for. i don't want to give my money so you can pay off all these, more than half a billion dollars now, rulings for defamation and fraud. on the other side of it, president biden's campaign raised $42 million last month,

giving him $130 million in cash on hand. that's the most ever for a democratic presidential candidate at this point in the election cycle. quite a contrast there, jonathan lemire. we had jim messina yesterday trying to speak to progressives, speak to democrats, speak to biden supporters and say, just calm down. while there's all this noise on the background, we're raising tons of money. we've got this. at least on the money, joe biden is doing pretty well against donald trump here. >> no question there. president biden enjoys more than a $30 million advantage in terms of cash on hand, his campaign versus what trump has. the president is on the west coast right now, in fact. couple fundraisers yesterday, as we'll get to, he made strong remarks about both donald trump and vladimir putin, and he has another one today. that is the message from democrats. look, we're building a war chest. this will be a $2 billion campaign. we'll have the money we need to

target voters in a way that's never been done before. they recognize they need to motivate voters to come out. this is not a race that americans are particularly excited about, a trump/biden rematch, but democrats' theory of the case is when it becomes a binary choice, voters will come out. the worries about enthuiasm will dissipate, and there will be enough people who look at donald trump and say, we can't go back to that. even if they're not excited about president biden, they'll still vote for him. now, the third party candidates do pose a bit of a problem. we'll get into polling later that suggests that they hurt biden far more than trump. right now, democrats, despite what has been a pretty tough sledding the last few months in terms of stories and polling for president biden, they feel pretty good about where they are. they think they can see trump issues with this fundraising and his first court case just around the bend. >> all right. federal prosecutors are asking a judge in los angeles to review the decision to release a

former fbi informant with links to russian intelligence. >> why would you release him? >> i don't know. >> why would you release him? >> why does everything with donald trump go back to vladimir putin? >> the guy has "flight risk" written on his forehead. >> it's about russia. anyhow, charged with lying to the fbi about hunter and joe biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. the move comes after a federal judge ordered alexander smirnov to be released during a detention hearing in las vegas on tuesday but with restrictions, including gps monitoring and surrendering his passports. special counsel david weiss's team is asking the federal court in california to keep smirnov in detention because the california court will ultimately oversee the trial process. prosecutors call 43-year-old smirnov a serious flight risk and point to his extensive foreign contacts, which include

someone in charge of a group whose job it is to carry out foreign assassinations. >> yeah, i don't think -- >> that's not good, by the way. >> -- you want to release him on his own. >> smirnov implicated in a lie about hunter biden. >> that republicans in congress swallowed up, good job. >> smirnov's lies present a current danger of election interference. the judge has not yet responded, and an additional court date has not yet been set. smirnov has been key to the house republicans' impeachment inquiry into president biden, and republican house judiciary chair jim jordan insisted yesterday that smirnov's indictment for lying to the fbi does not change anything. >> wait, wait, so, mika, hold on a second. >> yeah. >> so they've got a russian -- basically, an informant that's spewing russian disinformation. >> yeah. >> they say, oh, no, it's fine,

right? >> doesn't change anything. >> then there is another key witness that they were freaking out, going, oh, he disappeared. where did he go? well, he is an international fugitive. >> doesn't change anything. >> he illegally smuggled iranian oil to the chinese. he illegally sold arms. like, this guy, again, still talk about a flight risk, he's still flying right now. >> listen -- >> and look at all the people, comer, arnold the pig, and all the other people on the committee, and barn yard animals, look what they're doing right now. they're still holding on. >> holding on tight. >> despite the fact they're, bam, keep getting -- boom, getting hit in the face. >> here's house oversight committee ranking member, the democrat jamie raskin, who says

they just need to drop it. >> please. >> i was hopeful that chairman comer would be announcing today the end of the whole impeachment investigation. it's been a wild goose chase built on conspiracy theory and lies from the beginning, and now we know that russian intelligence operatives were behind creating the propaganda and disinformation at the very foundation of this investigation. so i think it's time for chairman comer and the republicans to fold up the circus tent and get back to work for the american people. >> it's amazing. a congressional investigation built on russian propaganda, lies, and international fugitives. great job, guys. >> let's bring in congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post," jackie alemany. and nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian. welcome to you both. >> jackie, what next? i mean, this comer committee. this is me talking, not you as a reporter, but the way it looks to me is this comer committee

has humiliated itself time and time and time again. now, we find ourselves in a position where they just open their arms wide and accepted russian disinformation and propaganda to come into the united states congress. >> that's exactly right, joe. to be very clear, i mean, the impeachment inquiry into biden was never quite alive in the house, at least as compared to the impeachment of mayorkas. but there's always been skepticism and an inability for james comer and jim jordan to convince their skeptical colleagues that they'd been able to unearth anything. these accusations that comer and jordan have leveled for the course of a year, really, have never fully panned out. the basis of this investigation, even before this whole debate over the confidential human source materialized, that james

comer and jordan, in that clip you showed at the top of the show, have claimed is true, has never been true. this is this idea that biden fired ukrainian prosecutor victor schocken because he was looking into burisma. "the washington post," "new york times," mainstream outlets reported over and over again there's been no such proof to show that he was investigating burisma in any way, and biden's decision to fire him was related to him investigating burisma. this confidential human informant blowing up in a really spectacular fashion, on the heels of a number of other missteps that house gop investigators have committed at this point is, i think, just a very public version and view into the double deal and go the back speak that republicans have been engaging in when it comes to presenting these pieces of evidence. even at the time last year, i

was on this show, we were talking about how comer and chuck grassley were engaged in pure political theater and using process of the house to elevate what they knew to be unsubstantiated claims. what we reported at the time were claims that the fbi and the doj, under bill barr, during the trump administration, had looked into, found not to be supported by the facts, and subsequently closed the investigation into this guy. now, you know, i think that that indictment couldn't make it clearer, again, that this foundational piece of evidence has been fabricated. i do want to note, as well, that smirnov is very clearly thought to be by the justice department a liar and a very untrustworthy confidential human source. he claims to have had contacts with russian intelligence, but at this point in time, we don't actually know or have further corroboration that he has actually had those contacts with

high-level russian intelligence. >> ken, the revolution of a russian-linked informant comes nearly four years after many in the american intelligence committee warned moscow was behind many of the allegations being leveled at the biden family. in a 2020 letter, 51 former u.s. intel officials expressed concern about the source of a much-discussed story on the right, hunter biden's laptop. as a refresher, three weeks before the last presidential election, "the new york post" ran a cover story based on information provided by donald trump's personal attorney at the time, rudy giuliani. the story centered around a laptop repairman who came into possession of emails allegedly showing corruption by then candidate joe biden. what we didn't know at the time, since has been alleged now by the justice department, is that both giuliani and suspected informal alexander smirnov, the man we're talking about here, had contacts in the same circle of russian intelligence agents. ken, you've been looking into the details of this story.

what else can you tell us? >> willie, those 51 former intelligence officials, they paid a steep price for signing that letter. the house republicans conduct an investigation. they brought some of them in to testify under oath. the republicans said this was election interference. this was a bogus attempt to suppress a legitimate story. as it turns out, they were right. not in the sense -- they said the laptop was part of a russian information operation or had the hallmarks of a russian information operation. they didn't say the contents of the laptop were made up, and we know they weren't. many have been corroborated. what they said was they were suspicious about why that story was emerging in the middle of an election campaign, and whether russian intelligence was flogging it or was somehow amplifying it. now, they've been proven correct in the sense that we know now that russian intelligence, at least according to the statements of this infoinforman

bolstered by the indictment, were feeding them false investigation. the allegation this informant made that was false, remember, was that joe biden and hunter biden took a $5 million bribe. that was always a specious allegation. joe biden answered it by saying, where is the money? he released the tax returns, unlike donald trump. nonetheless, that allegation was seized upon by house republicans, and it was used to fuel this impeachment effort. by the way, it's not just congressional republicans that have some questions to answer here. it's the fbi and the justice department. although they concluded that there was no evidence to support the bribery allegation, they also said that this confidential human source was a trusted informant. they relied on him for more than ten years. only now are they saying, oh, he's a liar. we're indicting him for lying. they need to explain that. who was duped within the fbi here by someone who may have been a plant by russian intelligence? that's very important. because that information infected our political system.

>> yeah. >> but back to the 1 intelligence officials. obviously, what they were doing was trying to help joe biden. they've acknowledged that. they were democrats. i knew it at the time. you could see it by who was signing the letter. but the point they were making in the letter holds up over time, which is that the russians were trying to flog a story that joe biden and his son were corrupt. >> ken, to your point, congressman ken buck, republican of colorado, was on cnn last night. made a stunning allegation, saying that jim comer and jim jordan both knew this guy was a fraud. they both knew that smirnov was a shady guy, but they proceeded with their investigation anyway. he's saying that as a republican who serves with them and has some insight into that question. are you hearing anything more about that in terms of republicans knowing that this entire case was shaky and that people upon whom they were relying upon to make the case was perhaps -- maybe they didn't know they were russian agents but the information was bad, just to have something to push

out into the atmosphere, a fog machine of disinformation about joe biden? >> well, willie, i always thought that was clear. leaving aside the question of whether this informant was a russian intelligence plant, it was clear that his information wasn't true. as jackie said, the fbi and the justice department under bill barr investigated it out of the western district of pennsylvania and was unable to corroborate that bribery allegation or any allegations of corruption against joe biden. it was pretty clear that this republican effort was a cynical effort from the beginning. to hear ken buck say that underscores what a lot of people already believe. what's really at issue here is when did the fbi, when did the justice department, when did congress start to under that this informant not only was maybe unreliable but was actually, you know, a fabulous, made up all kinds of things, and was also talking to russian intelligence? that's a big deal, a momentous

development. >> all the twisting and turning, wherever the disinformation leads you, lands on fox news. the lone liberal co-host of fox news, the show "the five" -- >> wait a second. harold, i don't know -- willie, if you agree with both sides, you're not liberal, right? harold, like, is just an agreer, right? >> no. >> i agree with your side. >> he very smartly brings in his side by being kind to both sides. do not mistake that. >> i'm not mistaking anything. what do you think of our friend harold? >> i agree with everything harold said. i agree with everything you said. i agree with everything mika said. by the way, i saw harold last night. >> what harold does, he goes, i respect what you say. i respect what you say. but here's what i think. anyhow, there is another democratic strategy that comes on. her name is jessica tarlov. she had this take yesterday about these latest revelations.

>> i don't know why jim comer and jim jordan thought that perhaps it was going to be joe biden's brother that brought him down, but this is the path they've chosen to take. honestly, i'm surprised that they have this high of a threshold for humiliation. every witness that they have called has decimated their argument, from archer to marvin young. then we have the guy behind the holy grail document, the 1023, alexander smirnov, who found that he lied, right, about the charges, the $5 million that went to both of them. then it gets even better. not only did he lie, he was lying because the russians were feeding him the disinformation. it's so embarrassing. i think jamie raskin was spot on when he said that this impeachment inquiry really ended

yesterday when he found out that we have a russian asset that was foundational to this impeachment inquiry. and jim comer and jim jordan should maybe try doing something for their constituents and let this go, because it's going nowhere. >> i mean, sam stein, i think it goes on. the show must go on. >> right. >> the smartest person on the committee comes from green acres. >> stop. >> he's a pig. >> it's all about russia, though. >> arnold the pig. >> it's a russian pig. >> who also speaks russian, thank god, so, like, he can debrief the informants when they come in. arnold the pig is smarter than you think he is. >> snorts in russian. >> in russian. but they do, sam, they have, and you and i, we've been looking at these congress people for a long time now, they do have been extraordinarily high threshold for humiliation. because time and time again, they make claims and are

embarrassed. you know, they go on fox news. "okay, this is it." comer, "i sure hope so." you just keep going down the line. now, again, have we reached the bottom here finally? like, russian informants are providing the foundation of these bogus inquiries? when does it stop? >> well, did arnold the pig -- is russian his native language, or did he study it at school? how did he get the fluency, you think? >> he studied it. he went to appalachian state. they have a very good russian studies program. >> very good russian studies program, yeah. >> for barn yard animals, great stuff. and alabama, got his masters at alabama. >> exactly. >> i knew him. go ahead. >> we could keep going with that, yeah. you know, it's funny. if you talk to republicans -- >> it's funny because it's true. >> it's true. if you talk to republicans on the hill privately, and some

publicly, they will say this has been an embarrassment. comer has not led the most professional or, you know, covered in glory process, let's put it that way. but, to your point, what is the off-ramp, right? that's the issue. you know, on the one hand, you could pack it all up and suffer humiliations and say, we didn't do it. that's embarrassing, obviously. you wasted all this time. you basically have to confirm to the american public that you didn't find anything worth impeaching, and that's that. the other hand, you try to keep going and find something and wait and wait and wait and, eventually, hold some sort of vote or potentially kick it to after the election. it looks like that's what they're going to do, just to save face. but it doesn't change the fact that, you know, the series of developments recently is a humiliation. jessica on fox was absolutely right. when it's discovered that one of your primary informants is a russian asset, there's not

really any good way to spin it, other than do what jim jordan said, that can facts haven't changed when, in fact, they have. this is not a great process for republicans. it's an embarrassment. you know, at some point, they have to tell their constituents, we failed to find the goods. they just aren't ready to do that yet. >> humiliation and embarrassment, well said there, sam. they're forging forward. jackie, hunter biden scheduled to appear next week, and the president's brother, james biden, was on the hill yesterday. tell us what we know about what went on behind the closed doors in that hearing. >> yeah, as jessica noted, james biden was, again, a flop, in line with the rest of the witnesses that comer and jordan have billed as potentially star witnesses where we're going the to deliver the smoking gun. james biden, who testified for around, i think, seven to eight hours yesterday before republican and democratic investigators, provided no

there-there. his biggest piece of evidence, so-called evidence, that he had to attest to and explain was this $200,000 loan that republicans had delivered after obtaining it through subpoenas as proof that he was paying joe biden, his brother, in exchange for sort of enriching the family through foreign business dealings. he explained that this loan, repayment to joe biden, was the result of joe biden loaning his brother money because he had episodic income and needed it to keep up with family expenses and payments. he needed to continue to pay for his children's tuition. he said that he, in his consulting business, you know, he wasn't consistently making as much money as needed to sort of maintain his lifestyle, and that this loan was amongst several loans that he was getting from financial institutions, friends, and other private citizens, and that this was simply a loan repayment.

you know, my colleague reviewed 2,000 pages worth of transcripts of all of these witnesses that investigators have talked to behind closed doors for transcribed interviews, and there has been no there-there, you know, across the board. essentially what they found is, yes, there have been some informal meetings amongst business associates of hunter biden and others that joe biden has met with, and, again, in informal settings. it might be worthy looking into whether joe biden knew the people, but he claims he didn't know them, and there is nothing to show he was directly involved and the family is involved in a peddling operation. >> "the washington post" east jackie alemany and ken dilanian, thank you for being on this

morning. ahead on "morning joe," the european union approved new sanctions against russia, and the united states is expected to do the same tomorrow. we'll talk with congressman jim himes, the ranking member of the house intelligence committee, about the efforts to put new pressure on vladimir putin. plus, there is new fallout after an alabama court ruled that frozen embryos can be considered children under state law. also, i mean, huge implications about that, mia. >> people who are trying to have babies through ivf are stopped in their tracks. we'll talk about the larger implications of that. we have a quinnipiac poll out yesterday showing joe biden up by four points. i'm hearing "green acres" in the background. that's pretty funny. we need to get arnold on the show as a guest. um -- all right.

also, donald trump, kind of hard to say this straight, but donald trump threatening western democracy again in our nato alliance. >> yeah. >> that will be coming up. he doubled down on it. we'll show you a clip of that. and pretty harsh reaction from the right. please, cue "green acres." new york is where i'd rather stay. i get allergic smelling hay. switch to shopify and sell smarter at every stage of your business. take full control of your brand with your own custom store. scale faster with tools that let you manage every sale from every channel. and sell more with the best converting checkout on the planet. a lot more. take your business to the

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matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire what worries me more, and not just tucker, that's a sympathy, but they're curating sympathy in america, which is

very, very dangerous. they're developing people who want to see nato reduced or nato not adhered to. obviously, formerpushing this l well. what i very much worry about is, they're helping curate a line of thought, a school of thought that is isolationist, pro-putin, pro-russia, pro-tyranny at the end of the day, and it is extremely dangerous for all democracies but us, ourselves, as a democracy. >> former republican house speaker paul ryan is an interview yesterday with "the washington post." you heard ryan mention tucker carlson, who as part of his propaganda mission to russia, was amazed by decades old shopping cart technology at a grocery store. so, too, was our director, t.j., who doesn't get out much. take a look. here he is in new jersey. >> all right. there we go. so i guess you put in 10 rubles here, and you get it back when

you put the cart back. so it's free, but there is an incentive to return it and not just bring it to your homeless encampment. okay. >> wow. it's amazing. i'm at a shop rite in sussex. they have these nifty coin things here. it's coin incredible. it really is. look. look. you go like this, and it's a quarter. it's amazing. now, the cart won't end up in some encampment anywhere here in beautiful sussex county, new jersey. wow. >> oh, my god. >> communist sympathizer. t.j. >> did the shop rite in sussex learn that from russia? >> i mean, it could be, willie, could it be that tucker hasn't

been to the grocery store in a couple decades? >> boom. >> could be that. the other thing that mystified the shopper in russia was the elevator for the cart, when you have multiple stories. they got them all over the place in new york city. go to the bed bath & beyond on broadway. they're everywhere. >> wow. >> the other exciting thing in sussex county, the average per capita income is not $7,000 a year, so your money goes a longer way here in the united states. when you do go grocery shopping, it might cost a little more than $100. >> right. >> you don't actually, t.j., you don't -- well, t.j., maybe you do because, you know, we don't pay you that much, but most people in sussex county don't have to pay half of their salary for groceries, right? >> exactly. >> yeah. >> t.j.? >> that is true. of course they don't. >> he's busy doing his job. >> i was amazed. i was amazed by the coin and the grocery cart. it was unbelievable.

[ laughter ] >> i like that t.j. is doing comedy bits now. >> it's amazing. >> that's what i do. four hours isn't enough. i go shopping, and then i decide to contribute to the show. >> it's amazing. >> it really is. you know what t.j. said to me when he sent it on text? >> what? >> why can't america do this? why is it only russia that can do this? >> they're so much better. >> i said, t.j., you're in jersey. he was like, oh, yeah, right. >> well done. >> in fairness, t.j. lives so far from work, he is almost in russia. that's a story for another time. >> that's a different day. >> you can see it from his window. >> he can. he takes his little horse, samuel, and goes -- he lives in pennsylvania. >> i know, i know. >> yeah. >> willie, go ahead. let's get back to those controversial comments, controversial to put it mildly, from donald trump. we're hearing more of them now, about protecting america's european allies. as fears grow about russia's expansionist ambitions beyond

ukraine, trump is standing by his recent threat not to defend fellow nato members from attacks if he is re-elected. here's what he said in a clip first a aired on fox news yesterday from the tape from the previous day. >> you're slammed from your old adversaries about your nato comments. does this mean you're not going to defend nato countries if they haven't made their 2-point whatever percent? >> sort of, yeah, it does. we have 28 countries. we have 28 countries. they were taking advantage tremendously. look, the european nations, i happen to be a long time ago, my grandparents came from a place called europe, so i love it, but they're very smart and they took advantage. they've taken advantage of us on trade and on nato. what happened, what i did, i told them, if you don't pay up, i'm not going to defend you. they said, i can't believe it. nobody ever said that. the question was asked by the head of a large country, a

meeting of 28 countries, sir, does it mean if we won't pay -- >> i don't want to hear this stupid story again. he is lying. everybody, everybody, republicans understand it, conservatives understand it, everybody understands it except for maybe some stupid people in the audience clapping, or just willfully ignorant people clapping in the audience, will willie. it's been said a billion times. i don't think he's so stupid he doesn't know this, there are no dues for nato. there are no dues. by the way, a lot of these countries that he's trashing are countries that sent young men and women to fight with us in afghanistan and in iraq, who paid the ultimate sacrifice. you know, this guy trashes

australia. australia has fought with us in every single war over the 20th and 21st century. >> he has bone spurs so he couldn't serve. his feet didn't work very well. >> also, he talks about -- when he starts talking about, oh, they're taking advantage of us, consumers duck. as "the wall street journal" will tell you in the editorial page, what donald trump is talking about is a 10% tax. willie, he is talking about tariffs. he's got it wrong.

pro capitalist, "wall street journal" opinion page says that, willie. yet, the stupidity continues. as paul ryan says, he is convincing people in his own party that they need to be the party of putin and tariffs. which, again, as "the wall street journal" says, he's purr posing a 10% tax on consumers. it's madness. it's not conservative. >> the reason he keeps digging deeper into the position on nato, for example, is he hears the applause in the room. he hears those applause at rallies, on certain podcasts. here's the good news for the country and for everyone watching today. there was a poll out yesterday, this poll we'll talk more about later in terms of the presidential race. only about 20% of americans see any reality, see anything valid in the position that we should step away from our nato allies

unless they pay their dues. the fact is, this is a narrow position he is casting to, a narrow group of americans who share this view. turns out, americans think alliances are good, and they appreciate that, like you said, after 9/11, nato countries rallied to our defense. they think we should be together as we have been since the end of world war ii with western europe, unlike donald trump. he can keep saying this and keep digging this hole deeper, but it is a very, very narrow lane he's driving in on this issue. >> yeah, you know, you talked about this q poll, and it's so interesting. i don't know why the media does what the media does, but a poll will come out that will show joe biden down by 87 points. everybody will start jumping out of windows, and that's all people will talk about for weeks. this has been happening now for months, right? then another poll will come out that's just as legit, just as

highly rated, says joe biden is tied or ahead. it's like a tree falling in a forest where no one is there. here's the q poll from yesterday. you're exactly right. for people that freak out, you know, we don't know. is it 49% and 45%? 46%, 45%? it's too early to tell. jonathan lemire, willie really did drill down on the important part of this. when you go to the issues, like ukraine and whether we should abandon our european allies, donald trump is talking to a small subset of people. when he talks about these mass

deportation camps, donald trump is talking to the 20%. when he gets extreme and he defends vladimir putin, he is talking to the 20%. all of this adds up over time, jonathan lemire. >> it absolutely does. he's talking to a small subset of even republicans. most republicans, including those on capitol hill, right here, support ukraine and want to help our ally there stand up to vladimir putin. but there is a small but powerful group of, in the gop, doing donald trump's bidding and saying no. right now, they're in leadership in the house. yes, it will get trump applause lines at these self-selective audiences that he appears before. we saw what happened in philadelphia at the sneaker convention over the weekend. a rare, hostile crowd, and he was booed and didn't know what to do. he only appears in front of his true fans. so these are things that will hurt him. this is what democrats and the biden administration campaign have said all along.

trump has staked out these radical positions on things like immigration, things like standing up to putin, or, you know, abortion. >> abortion. >> ivf ruling in alabama we're going to speak about in a few minutes that's going to have blowback for republicans there. most americans simply don't agree with them. as they start paying attention as the year goes on, because right now, most americans are not doing this day-to-day, in part because they're not in love with this choice. once they realize it's biden or trump, they pay attention, and they listen to trump, they'll want no part of that. that's always been the biden theory of the case, to win the independents. >> willie, looks like a good theory of the case. i mean, you again look at the fact that most americans don't want this matchup. they just don't. most americans didn't think they were going to get this matchup. they're doing a lot of different things right now, right? i mean, they're busy working. they're busy keeping their kids focused in school until spring break to give them a rest.

they're busy doing a lot of things. look at barnicle. he is setting up his fantasy baseball team. >> he's over there working on it now. >> great. >> unfortunately, he can call the gms of most baseball teams, and they will give him -- seriously. >> it's a lot. >> he talks to theo. needs help on his fantasy baseball teams. it's not fair. did i call that? >> okay. >> did i call that? that's not what all americans are doing, but americans are busy right now, willie. they're not focused on this race. as they do focus and it's clearer, a lot of young americans will be going, joe biden is too old. donald trump, eh, he's kind of

funny sometimes. you'll have younger americans go, wait a second. this is a guy that went around terminating roe v. wade. this is a guy whose actions led to little 10-year-old girls who were raped in ohio having to flee the state so they didn't have to have a forced pregnancy of the rapist's baby. now, it's gone to south carolina. let's see if donald trump will come out -- or alabama. let's see if donald trump will come out and criticize the alabama supreme court. >> the supreme court. >> alabama supreme court. again, all of this has come from donald trump's radicalism, saying i will terminate roe v. wade. i'm the one who killed roe v. wade. hey, you can thank me, donald trump said. people tried to do this for 50 years, and only i could do it. only i could force 10-year-old

girls to flee the state of ohio after being raped by an illegal immigrant, so they didn't have to carry the baby as a 10-year-old child. and this is what -- as the election comes into focus, i think the biden campaign has a pretty damn good reason to feel confident americans will make the right decision. >> donald trump is scrambling on the issue. reporting this week thinking maybe we should have a 16-week abortion ban. he knows it is a problem for him. he knows it is on tape, taking credit for the end of re versus wade and that may not be a popular position. i'd add in, as we're talking about younger voters, just yesterday, the biden administration canceled tons, let's put it that way, more than $1 billion of student loan debt. that'll be popular. you can agree or disagree with that, but it'll be popular with younger voters. joe and mika, people are normal. they're not like up. they don't wake up in the

darkness of morning and think about this stuff and study every poll and every data point. they'll get through summer. they'll come back in the fall and really start to evaluate this. one last point, as we talk about this poll, you were talking about nikki haley earlier. if you look at the q poll matchup again, she beat joe biden head-to-head. that, i think, is part of her theory of the case. she has the money to stay in the race. she says, i'm the one who can win this. donald trump is going to lead republicans down a path of destruction. stick with me. she's going to hang around as long as she can. coming up on "morning joe," as donald trump continues to bash nato, president joe biden is set to announce new sanctions against russia in response to the death of opposition leader alexei navalny. we'll have that after the break. steve rattner has charts. wake up the kids. ♪ ain't that america

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russia is a gas station masquerading as a country. it is corruption. it is a nation that is really only dependent upon oil and gas for their economy. economic sanctions are appropriate. get military assistance to ukrainians, at least so they can defend themselves. >> wow. >> that was the late senator, john mccain, back in 2014, with an eye on vladimir putin's economy and his intentions for ukraine. >> i wonder -- well, i don't wonder. i actually know, willie, because i spoke with john mccain in the last year of his life. i was going to say, i wonder what he'd say about lindsey graham. you know, we had a conversation, and he rolled his eyes.

he said, lindsey is so excited about playing golf with the president. he's like half gone already. well, you know, he's fully gone now. i don't think even senator mccain would ever, ever have imagined that lindsey graham would go from supporting ukraine's fight against vladimir putin to following donald trump. there are people inside the senate, republicans inside the senate, outraged at lindsey's flip-flopping and the fact that he actually voted against -- and if lindsey had voted with them, there would have been at least half of the republicans or maybe a majority of the republicans in the senate voting for this ukrainian aid package. but he voted against it. and to think that guy once called himself john mccain's

friend and saw mccain as a mentor for him. man, it's justridiculous. it'd make senator mccain really sad. >> yeah, senator graham always, you know, fancied himself a defense hawk, right? he was the guy that was going to stand in the breach, help democracy survive, and push russia back. he talked like that until donald trump told him not to. it goes back to what we talk about all the time. is there anything these republicans will not do for donald trump if he asks them, if he tells them? you can say no once in a while and maintain your relationship. you still get invited to mar-a-lago to play golf. you can still hang out in the cabanas and have fun down there. maybe if he gets re-elected, he'll put you in his cabinet, which i suspect senator graham is up to, or just being close to power is the goal. but, man, you have to stand for something. donald trump has stripped away whatever principle there was, if

it was ever there, he's stripped it from so many republicans. >> i've known lindsey since 1994. we came in together in congress. you know, mika, a lot that he does does not surprise me because -- yeah, there you go. his finger is always in the wind. he always tries to find a sponsor, and he follows his sponsor, whoever that may be. it went from being john mccain to donald trump. i will say, even this surprised me, him abandoning ukraine in its most critical moment. its nationhood is at risk. its liberty at risk. its freedom is at risk. lindsey graham has made trips over there. he knows ukrainian children are being kidnapped. he knows innocent civilians are being killed. he knows that vladimir putin -- he knows this! he's talked about it throughout

his career. he knows vladimir putin will not stop at ukraine. after ukraine, it's latvia. it's lithuania. it's estonia. it's poland. lindsey knows this. yet, washes his hands of it. washes his hands of it and betrays not only the ukrainian people, but he betrays nato. he betrays western democracy. and he betrays the whole idea of the west. the whole idea of the west. vladimir putin, communists across north korea, imolas in iran, which they hate and are at war with every day. it is a battle.

it's always been a battle. right now, lindsey graham is siding with the enemy. he is siding not with the west, but he is siding with vladimir putin. and with communist china. >> so are many house republicans. >> with communist north korea. because lindsey voted no to supporting israel, to supporting ukraine. he voted no to supporting taiwan. oh, my god, the message that sends to communist leaders across the world who want to destroy us, it's just shocking. jonathan lemire is still with us. joining the conversation, we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. nbc news and political analyst, former u.s. senator claire mccaskill. she and jen palmieri are co-hosts of the msnbc podcast, how to win 2024. and host of the podcast "on

brand with donny deutsch," donny deutsch is with us, as well. >> claire, you know, i was just talking about lindsey. i served with him in the house starting in '94. you served with him in the u.s. senate. you know, lindsey is lindsey. you know, we know he kind of goes with the wind, but i think, you tell me if you don't feel like me, i mean, i'm sure you're even surprised that he has betrayed ukraine, betrayed israel, and betrayed taiwan, all because donald trump told him to. >> yeah, i sat across from lindsey on the armed services committee for 12 years. if somebody would have told me during the 12 years that there would come a time that lindsey graham would vote against essential aid to ukraine to stop putin and vote against aid to israel and vote against aid to taiwan, i would say, "well, i would bet whatever money you have that that will never

happen." i had no idea he had this character flaw. i had no idea that he was this really, frankly, disturbed in terms of needing approval from someone that has more power than he has. it's just frightening to me that he would do this. now, if you look at the list of people who voted no, from the new supposed star katie britt, who is supposed to be a mcconnell ally and was hand-picked by what i would consider the traditional republican party, and you look at tim scott, look at jd vance. what you see is a list of people who want to be vice president. they all voted no. they all voted for the new republican party that is pro-putin and pro-making consumers in america pay more for their tvs and washers and dryers and many other things, because of a trade policy that does nothing but punish americans who buy things. by making prices go higher.

so it is just mind-bending to me that lindsey graham has become this, but this is who he is and we should recognize it. >> donny deutsch, we're showing pictures of donald trump with vladimir putin. of course, going back to the lemire press conference, nobody will ever forget, i think, as long as donald trump is in politics. when donald trump, look at him. >> my god. >> he was just submissive to vladimir putin. so much so, when our own jonathan lemire asked, "hey, to you trust vladimir putin more or your own intel chiefs that you appointed?" he was like, "ah, i trust put putin more." you know, this is shocking, but i still believe, i still believe in america, that siding with vladimir putin over ukraine, over the west, over western democracy, over freedom, i still

believe that has consequences with the american voters. i still believe that americans believe that we are a city shining brightly on the hill for all the world to see. and like ronald reagan, that we, we are the torch of freedom that is spread across the world. i believe it. >> joe, i believe it, too. >> i think most americans believe it, donny. i do not believe that americans will support a guy and put him back in the white house who betrays ukraine, who betrays ukraine, who betrays taiwan, and who betrays freedom fighters across the globe. i don't believe it. >> donald trump betrays pretty much every issue where the american people are. i mean, it starts with putin and our role in the world. it starts with protecting ukraine. starts with protecting israel. it also goes to protecting a woman's right to choose for her

body. it goes to protecting against immigration, against our borders. it goes for protecting against democracy. you know, there's a right track/wrong track issue in polls all the time. there is a right side/wrong side. what's stunning, is beyond his own personal liabilities, on the issues, he's wrong on everything. two things are going to happen, and you touched on this in the previous hour, as we get closer to the election. number one, we're going to see more and more of donald trump. to me, if i had my way, there would be a town hall meeting every single night so the light shines brighter on trump. as you talked about, it is a binary choice, trump or biden. we'll go with biden. as the light gets shined on the issues, he and the republicans are on the wrong side of just about every issue that matters to americans. that's what wins or loses elections. >> mike, we were talking about how donald trump is narrow casting when he talks about abandoning nato allies and making them pay up. very unpopular minority opinion according to this new poll we've

been talking about this morning. so, too, is this senate position on ukraine. americans believe it is important to help ukraine in this fight. they don't want to see russia win. they're digging deeper and deeper in fealty to donald trump into these positions that are not popular in this country. >> yeah, led partially by people like lindsey graham. >> yeah. >> as joe and mika pointed out, a sad, spineless figure that we thought we knew but we don't really know. and to joe's point that he just raised about people in this country, what they believe in, they believe in the country, first of all. i'm wondering, yesterday, the former guy, d.j. trump, here's what he said in the town hall meeting, "we have a country that's dying. we have a country that's failing, a failing nation. we have a nation in decline. we are a nation in decline." my question is, to the people out there watching, to the people who go to work every day, who raise their children and pay their taxes, why is it that this

new republican party, so many of them, people like donald trump, people like lindsey graham, why do they hate america? >> it's a great question. it's one i've been asking for some time. >> really good question. >> why do they hate america? why does donald trump hate america? why does donald trump say america -- forget about the hating. why does he lie about america? >> it is nancy pelosi's question. >> why does he always lie about america and tear down america? he says we're a nation in decline? please, please. try telling that to allies. they will laugh, like a bitter laugh, because they look at the united states economy and they're jealous. they're jealous because our economy is stronger than any economy in the world. we've had people coming on this show since 2007 saying china was going to overtake us.

their economy would be -- no, it's just not happened. as i said in 2007 and 2008 and people pushed back on me, it's still not going to happen. the u.s. economy has a $25 trillion gdp. that's how big our economy is every year. china is at about $17 billion. europe, the eu that donald trump hates so much, about $22 billion, $23 billion gdp. together, it's a $50 billion economic machine. russia, $1.4 billion. almost 50 times the size, our economies combined, of russia's. it's more than double of china's. our economy is strong.

our numbers are better than anybody else's numbers. are there pockets that need to be improved? are groceries still too expensive? yeah, groceries are still too expensive. americans are paying about 11% of their paycheck for groceries. that's about what they paid in the '90s. but, you know, it's got to get better. overall, you look at jobs. you look at gdp. you look at every trend. we are doing better, not only than our allies, we're doing better than the people who consider the united states our enemies. our military, they lie about our military. i served on the armed services committee in the house. i know you served on the armed services committee in the senate, claire. you've seen how great our men and women in uniform are. they are, god, they're the best of the best. you look at every rating from

around the world, rating militaries. the united states military stronger than it's ever been relative to the rest of the world since 1945. there's not a close second. in fact, in the latest ranking i saw, russia was second. russia's military is collapsing. russia was second to the u.s. military. yet, donald trump lies about america's greatness. donald trump lies about america's men and women in uniform. donald trump lies about what small business owners and entrepreneurs and the geniuses of silicon valley, the geniuses on mainstream usa, what they're all doing, what they've done to rebuild our economy after covid. the lies. i don't understand it, claire. why do they bash america so

much? >> yeah, you know, the irony is, if you travel around the world, which i'm fortunate enough to have a chance to do several times a year, you know what the rest of the world sees right now? they see america with the strongest economy. they see america with the most advanced technology. america's universities still the brightest light on the horizon in terms of academics and research. they see american companies still exceeding in terms of their global reach. but you know what they look down their nose at? at donald trump being a leader. what everyone says when you travel, well, you wouldn't elect him again, would you? hasn't the country learned? you wouldn't ever give this guy power again, would you? tell us that he's not going to be re-elected. please, tell us you've learned your lesson. so the only blemish on the great country of america worldwide is, in fact, donald trump.

can i make a suggestion? i move that every newspaper in america quits doing any fact-checks on joe biden until they fact-check donald trump every morning on the front page. it is ridiculous that "the new york times" fact-checked joe biden on something. i mean, he vomits lies, trump vomits lies. every day, over and over and over again. >> literally. >> it is just ridiculous that "the new york times" is doing a fact-check on biden while they let trump -- while they're numb to the torrent of lies coming out of trump's mouth. >> and that's the thing, mika. >> i have no problem with a fact-check on this white house, but they need to do the same thing. >> this is what fascists do. fascists lie so much. >> firehose of falsehoods. >> russia's firehose of falsehoods. like fascists, they lie so much, people get exhausted. by the way, i'd love every main street media outlet to look and

ask the question, why does trump trash america? why does he say we're a nation in decline when we have the strongest economy in the world? why does he say we're a nation in decline when we have the strongest military machine. ♪ in the world? why does he say we're in decline when we have the greatest universities in the world? despite problems with the universities that i hope are getting fixed. but the greatest universities in the world, people send their children from across the world, even people who consider america their enemies send their children here to be educated in america. we've got the best doctors, the best medical treatment in the world. why do people send their loved ones to america when their very lives are on the line? you know what? we had savannah on the show the other day, and she talked about a bible verse that meant

something to her so much. about quit looking inward. quit looking inward. quit obsessing on yourself. look to the hills. that was the bible verse she said. she read it, and it got her off the floor. it got her moving forward when the admonition that we stop looking at ourselves and we look to the hills. we look to god. let me tell you something. ronald reagan was right. the world looks to america. we are that city shining brightly on the hill. yes, yes, we have flaws. we have flaws. you know what else we have? we have a greatness the rest of the world sees. that's why people want to come here. they're not trying to get into china. they're not trying to get into russia. they're not trying to get into north korea. they're coming to america. there's a reason. donald trump doesn't get it. >> well, he trashes america every answer, takes you on a road back to russia.

some point, connect the dots. >> like tucker carlson. it's like tucker carlson talking about how great russia is. >> that was crazy. >> live in russia. you don't have to live here. >> try looking around america first. president biden is expected to announce a new sanctions package tomorrow aimed at holding russian president vladimir putin accountable for the death of one of his most outspoken critics, alexei navalny. national security adviser jake sullivan said the sanctions would target different elements of the russian defense industrial base and parts of the russian economy that power its war machine and continued aggression. joining us now with a look at how the russian economy is doing amid the ongoing war is former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. how is it doing? because you would think at this point that it would be breaking down a bit. >> but it's not.

>> are you finding otherwise, steve? >> yeah, no, it's not, mika. sanctions are an important part of waging war against any adversary or any of our opponents, but we have to be realistic about what they've accomplished. in the case of russia, unfortunately, they haven't accomplished much. let's look at the russian economy since the war started. if you look at real gdp, over the last two years, you can see the russian economy actually grew by 1.8%. that's more than most of the countries in europe. as joe has been pointing out, far less than the u.s. still the shining city on the hill. actually, a tiny bit less than italy. essentially above all the rest of these countries. in contrast, ukraine down 24% in the size of its economy. that's been reflected in the stock market. when the war started, i think we all thought, including myself, that this would be tough for the russian economy. stock market dropped 25% in the first week. ended up down 40% by the end of 2022. now, it's up 47% from where it was before all this started.

the russian economy is still doing well. >> steve, part of the reason for that is, of course, oil, the exporting of oil. i was staggered to read in your information here that oil exports are back to where they were in 2021 before this war started, despite all of these sanctions, because other countries have stepped in to help russia here. >> you did my chart for me, willie. >> sorry. i stole it. >> that's okay. that is what is going on. i should also mention, additional oil, defense spending helped the russian economy. they have more than doubled their defense spending, and that juices the economy. but to willie's point, you can see russian oil state revenues and where they were before the war. we had this price spike. this is price, not selling more oil but just price when the war started. oil prices have remained relatively strong. russian oil revenue is actually still above where it was before the war started. as willie said, the sanctions

have not had any impact on russia's oil exports. they're almost exactly the same as what they were before the war started. but you can see a big shift in fact mix. you can see europe and the u.s. have virtually eliminated russian oil imports. that's been picked up by three countries. turkey to a smaller extent, india big, and china big. india, 1800% more oil from russia than ever. these sanctions have not had any effect on russia's oil exports and, therefore, on its revenues. >> steve, why india on the nece? why are they stepping in to help as they're killing civilians to wage a war? >> it is necessity. they don't kill much about killing civilians in ukraine by the war. they don't have that much oil. they have to import it. they, frankly, made a commercial decision that it was better for india to get oil from russia at slightly lower prices than to do

without. >> let's get to the third chart which is the conversation we've been having for months now, which is american aid to ukraine and why it is essential here. >> yeah. i just showed you a little bit of why it is so essential, because we have to give ukraine the support it needs. russia isn't going anywhere. they're increasing the military expenditures a lot more in the coming year, and so this war going to go on for a while. what's really stunning is actually americans may think it is a bad use of money, but it is a tiny use of our money relative to all these other countries. if you look at european countries, we're 31st among the group in terms of how much aid we've provided as a percent of our gdp. even if we do this package, we'd still be below all these countries in how much aid we provide as a share of our gdp. one thing that doesn't get much attention is that roughly 64% of every dollar we spend on ukrainian aid comes back to us buying military equipment from us. again, it's not like we're handing the money over and never seeing it again. it is helping our industries and

creating jobs back in america as it is spent here. there is another idea floating around. it's not probably going to happen soon or maybe ever, but this $380 billion of frozen russian assets in the west, a very large portion in belgium, simply a coincidence. there is a custodian bank there that holds these assets. there's $380 billion in frozen assets people are talking about using to at least rebuild ukraine after the war, if not before that. there is a bill in front of congress right now that the biden administration is supporting to take our $6 billion, only a small amount but it is important symbolism, take our $6 billion and use that. we'll see where all this goes as this all unfolds. >> steve, just to put a fine point on all three of your charts, is it fair to say, despite the fact the united states and europe have thrown the book at russia in the last couple years in terms of sanctions, they just haven't had that big of an impact in the long run? >> willie, that's totally fair to say.

look, sanctions historically have not worked that well. again, they're an important part of saying to the world, we mean business, but if you look at cuba, north korea, go back a while and look at south africa, all these places we tried to k 60 years later, no real effect on bringing them to heal. >> really important stuff, as always. steve rattner, thanks for bringing the charts. we appreciate it. jonathan lemire, tomorrow, we'll hear about new sanctions from the biden administration against russia. their effectiveness as steve pointed out notwithstanding, what do we expect? >> my colleagues and i have brand-new reporting on this. mostly, the president has said the consequences for russia after alexei navalny died would be devastating. but what they're going to announce tomorrow will probably fall a little short of that. it'll be a sizable package of sanctions, to be clear, but most of these were actually already in the works tied to the

two-year anniversary of russia's invasion of ukraine. that is saturday. they've tried to add to it in the recent days, navalny's death last week, add a few more pieces to it. sanctions are too complicated to create in a week. this package has largely already preexisted his death of a few days ago. it is going to try to hammer the russian economy more, though, as steve points out. it's been relatively sanction proof. it is trying to close loopholes. they'll try to potentially lean on other countries, as steve mentioned, to stop buying oil and gas from russia, but that's not part of this package here. while they do hope these sanctions hurt putin's war machine, they'll be directly aimed at things that help his military. at the same time, they recognize the biggest thing that could happen is passing this ukraine package. that's how they will really stand up to putin. there's a limit to what the white house can do with sanctions. this really needs to be congress giving aid to ukraine right now, especially as momentum on the

battlefield tends to shift, joe and mika. >> absolutely. coming up on "morning joe," ahead of the two-year anniversary of russia's invasion, poland's foreign minister will join the conversation to weigh in on the concern of nato allies that the u.s. could abandon ukraine. plus, a court ruling out of alabama could have major implications for families and fertility clinics across the country. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ got a dream they've come to share coming to america ♪ ♪ they're coming to america they're coming to america ♪

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♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." live look at the white house as is sun comes up over washington. it is 32 past the hour. "wall street journal" opinion columnist daniel heninger has a piece, "trump owes americans some answers on foreign policy." he writes in part this, "the people of ukraine await a thumbs up or down on their fate from mr. trump. so which will it be, mr. trump? let ukraine defend itself, or let it go? we're not there yet, but we've been at this decisional crossroads before. that would be the munich agreement of 1938. putin's actions and justifications evoke hitler's in the 1930s. in 1938, hitler annexed austria, an independent state, declaring it a political unification. months later, in the munich

agreement, british prime minister neville chamberlain, attempting to avoid war, conceded that hitler could occupy the german-speaking territories of czechoslovakia in return for promising no further territorial expansion. mr. trump may yet instruct house and senate republicans to end support for ukraine. that would be a historic redefinition of u.s. leadership in the world of aggressors. if so, mr. trump has an obligation to tell american voters why 2024 won't be another 1938." will we relive history? joining us now, poland's foreign minister, formerly the nation's minister of national defense. it is great to have you on the show, mr. foreign minister. given what's happening in congress, i'm embarrassed, personally, for my country. what has been the impact of the

debate over aid to ukraine here in the u.s.? >> actually, a lot of damage to america's credibility has already been done. this package has been debated for months. what this -- rather, the tail failure to pass it, even when the commander in chief wants to pass something, wants to help his allies, he may not be able to do so because this is what is happening. that puts the exposed allies, such as my country, which borders on both russia and ukraine, in a precarious position. this is being followed in scandinavia and the far east. if this persists, if countries conclude that america cannot come to help them, even when its president wants to, countries will start hedging. countries will have second

thoughts, and this won't increase american influence around the world. >> mr. foreign minister, can you speak to the practical impact of this long delay in american aid to ukraine? europe has stepped up. we've seen individual nations giving money. just this week even. there are some in this country who say europe has this covered. we don't need to be giving our money. we have our problems here at home, et cetera, et cetera. what has changed on the battlefield, and what will continue to change if the american money does not arrive? >> well, we are the collective west, encouraging ukrainians to go on the offensive, but we lacked with the deliveries. as a result, the russians reinforced the front line and the offensive stalled. now, the russians are on the offensive. they have just taken out avdiivka. europe has done what it can. we have passed 50 billion euros worth of package to keep the ukrainian state running, for the civil servants to be paid, the

pensions to be paid, and for the infrastructure to function. of course, you cannot win a war with pensions. you need weapons. european countries and european union as a whole are giving ukraine what we can. of course, the american package is mostly arms. arms manufactured in the united states that ukraine desperately needs to protect its cities. talking about affecters for anti-aircraft missiles and the long-range that can hit the ammunition depots and so on. this is why the american package is so important, because it is mostly arms. arms as well as, as was rightly said in your introduction, being manufactured in the united states. we're restarting our economy, putting it on a crisis footing, but we are not quite there yet. >> is there real concern, another point that has been made, putin, if he sees the west

go wobbly with the ukraine question, will not stop at ukraine? in other words, he may seek to move west in europe. is there real concern of that in poland and other countries along russian borders? >> yes, there is. that he will do to ukraine what he did to donbas, the province which he partly conquered already ten years ago. namely, he might use the -- both the industrial and human resources of what he captures to then roll on further. >> right. >> he talks about -- and he and his former president threaten not just with nukes but with the minoriies that are supposedly in trouble. for example, in latvia, so they're thinking about it. he would not stop, he'd occupy a small part of a nato country

just to show he can. >> september of 1939 seems as if it is right over your shoulder. >> this is how we think about it in central europe, yes, and we should not repeat the mistakes of that time. which was in munich, to trust a dictator's word, his piece of paper rather than call him to account. >> so with all of this going on, and with the daily destruction of ukraine continuing hour by hour, how do you see this war ending? >> if the american package gets voted through, ukraine will get the means to hold the line. if ukraine holds the line, eventually, the russian economy will suffer. they've already spent half of their national reserve budget. they are not superhuman. they have shortages and difficulties, too. >> former defense minister, what was your reaction when donald

trump came out a week or two ago and said, basically, if certain countries don't pay up, go ahead, putin, march in. go invade these countries? >> well, he, of course, was right even before. nato member states should pay according to their own pledges, at least 2% of gdp. poland has been spending 2% the last years, and now we give the army 3%. we're going to 4%. if we need to, we'll double it. we will fight and resist putin, whatever comes. the point is, nato, an alliance, is not a contract with your neighborhood property protection company. >> right. >> article 5 has only been invoked once for an attack in this city after 9/11. poland sent a brigade, first to

iraq and another one to afghanistan, for a decade. we didn't send an invoice to the united states because it is an alliance. that kind of rhetoric is unhelpful. >> yeah, it is so important to underline that. nato stepped up for the united states in our hour of need. we've been talking this morning about how disorienting it has been to watch some republicans who, for a generation now, have been defense hawks -- talk about senator lindsey graham, but he's not alone in this -- who supported ukraine through the years when at john mccain's side, and now completely flipping at the instruction of donald trump. you worked with a lot of these people over the years. you've been at this a while. have you been shocked by this 180 degree turn? >> i was disappointed not to see lindsey at the munich security conference where he, you know, was a guest. but i appeal to the house of representatives. i appeal personally to speaker michael johnson to please put

this package to a vote. the people of ukraine desperately need it. europe desperately needs it. if ukraine is allowed to be conquered, the price of deterring putin will only rise. we need this package right now. >> the voice of one of america's strongest allies, poland, making that request to the united states congress. polish foreign minister, sikorski, thank you for being here this morning. we appreciate it. coming up, the governors association is launching a multimillion dollar effort to appoint more judges at the state level. we'll talk to the chair of the organization, minnesota governor tim walz about that effort when "morning joe" comes right back.

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46 past the hour. days after the alabama supreme court ruled that frozen embryos are children, the state says it is suspending its in vitro

fertilization treatments. senior legal correspondent laura jarrett has the very latest. >> reporter: this morning, outcry in alabama. the state's largest hospital stopping all ivf procedures, fearing a lawsuit after a controversial court ruling has patients angry and confused. >> my rage knows no bounds. >> reporter: the university of alabama at birmingham announcing it's pausing all ivf treatments, saying it's saddened as it evaluates the potential that our patients and physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care. abbie crane, a patient at uab, has frozen embryos she wanted to use soon. >> i don't know what's next. i don't know if i need to be calling an out of state doctor. not knowing is scary. >> reporter: that uncertainty the result of an unprecedented ruling from the alabama supreme court last week, finding people can be sued for destroying frozen embryos. the court concluding embryos on

ice are no different than babies in the womb. fertility clinics and doctors across alabama now in legal jeopardy as frozen embryos with genetic abnormalities are routinely discarded as part of ivf before impliation, part of a process to help patients avoid miscarriages and other complications. now, a hot button issue. nikki haley working to clear up her position after these comments to nbc's ali vitali. >> those are babies. >> through ivf? >> i had artificial insemination, that's how i had my son. when you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that's a life. >> reporter: haley saying overnight -- >> i didn't say i agreed with the alabama ruling. our goal is to always do what the parents want with their embryo. it is theirs. >> reporter: while back in birmingham, couples now feeling the effects. unable to carry a child because

of a rare blood disorder, megan cole had planned to use a surrogate with an embryo implantation scheduled for this friday. >> my husband and i want a child desperately, but now we have this pathway forward with ivf, it was surrogacy. for it to be taken away potentially in alabama is devastating for families who, you know, all they want is a child. >> reporter: but overnight, cole learned her birmingham fertility clinic canceled the appointment. >> oh, my god. laura jarrett with that report. claire mccaskill, where do we begin? >> yeah, just unbelievable. you know, you think about it, mika, what's really bizarre about this is this extremism is supposedly in the name of bringing life into the world. the irony that what they're doing is going down a road that's going to deny tens upon

thousands of parents the opportunity to have a child. i have a nephew, and he and his wife have been going through multiple rounds of ivf. they desperately want a child. the common sense reaction to this decision is that there will no longer be an opportunity for women in alabama, within the state of alabama, to have in vitro fertilization. nikki haley couldn't have her son in alabama. the idea that she would not say -- i mean, when she said she had a son by ivf, what happens to the other embryos? >> right. >> as a matter of standard care, they can't just fertilize one embryo. that is not the medical procedure. so it is, you know, and pills,

they're coming after pills. we have a huge case in front of the supreme court next month about people being able to terminate their pregnancy with medicine. they're not going to stop. these extremists are not going to stop. it's not going to stop unless the voters stop it. >> yeah, and nikki haley has some explaining to do and this issue hits home for me. i have people in my family who have used this, and it's going to hit home for many americans, willie geist. the political ramifications of the overturning of roe, it's not just the old-fashioned version narrative of an abortion that the old republican -- craggily old republican men put out there. it's health. it's life. it's everybody about our health care system promoting quality of life, new life, and saving life. that's what abortion health care is, and every single day we see what these old republican men

have done to literally what was the law of the land. >> ivf is a miracle of life, of life. ivf is a miracle of science that allows families that couldn't have children to have children, to grow their families, to be happy, to have the thing they always wanted and dream of and if you read the opinion of the chief justice in this case. this is the alabama supreme court chief justice. human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of the holy god who views the destruction of his image of a front to himself, even before birth, all humans bear the image of god and they cannot do this without effacing his glory. i don't hear anything legal in there. this is the party for life and families and they want to deprive families of having children they cannot have. ivf is a miracle of science that

brings life into the world. >> this latest ruling in alabama on ivf and embryos and the overturning of roe v. wade i believe is going to cost republicans the election. women are going to decide the fate of this country. women like you, mika, like you, claire, are not going to stand by this. i believe it's going to trump -- i hate to use that word, all other issues, and this is one insane example of them not understanding the will of the country, the needs of the country, and understanding women. women will save us. >> democrats are focusing on the importance of state judiciaries this election cycle. obviously it has a big impact as you just saw. the democratic governor's association has created a $5 million fund called the power to appoint. it's aimed at reminding voters that governors have the power to select judges who will uphold the rule of the law. this year's fund is focused on

gubernatorial races in two key battleground states, new hampshire and north carolina, and joining us now, a democratic governor of minnesota, tim wallace. he's the chair of the democratic governor's association. thank you so much for coming on this morning. i'm assuming this ruling will drive the message home, exactly the message of the power to appoint. >> well, exactly. thank you for the segue, mika, to you and claire. you're exactly right. this is what this is about. when you have judges with outrageous decisions like we saw in alabama, and look. every guest who comes on here, my wife gwen and i are going to add our voice to this. thank goodness to the reproductive care we were able to get at mayo clinic, that we have two beautiful children because of it. this stems from the responsibility of governors to be able to appoint judges, not democratic judges, but judges who follow the rule of law. if you had a democratic governor in alabama, we wouldn't be having this decision. we would be allowing people as

you said, mika, to access health care as they should without interference from government. so we as the democratic governors' association are reminding people that in minnesota, i will have appointed 4 of the 7 supreme court justices, people who will work with the rule of law and that will impact because minnesota is an island of reproductive access in states around us that have chosen not to go that way. so it is the absolute, and i echo what your panel said, is this is going to be one of the major issues as it should be. this is the most basic freedom issue to make your own bodily autonomy choices and democratic governors are there to defend it. >> it's more than choices of your own body, but to have options for access to health. >> yes. >> we're seeing across the country, women in unbelievably life-threatening, precarious situations because doctors now in certain areas are not allowed to perform abortions,

terminations, d and cs, and the traveling to get there is not as -- >> that's right. >> -- it's not as easy. so what else can state governors do to help women in these situations? >> well, i think in minnesota, the first thing we did last year after gaining the majorities in the house and senate is i signed into law the proactive protecting reproductions act, and we worked with our nonprofits across the board to make sure, look. you're in this health care situation. mika, you're right. it's life or death and now you have to travel to south dakota or north dakota. literally we moved the clinic from fargo to moorehead, mb --minnesota, and it's the difference between life and death within 100 meters. it's voices like gretchen whitmer making sure this is front and center because this supreme court decision that you were speaking about is going to be catastropic if it rules the

way it is. we're stressing at the democratic governors' association, build up the firewalls in states. build up the ability to push back on this. make sure we're appointing judges, who push back, and we're in danger of all of us becoming alabama. donald trump has made it very clear the direction he's going. so for those out there wondering where they're going to vote, talk to your wives. talk to your daughters. talk to your physicians. >> yeah. >> that's all i can say. >> yeah. >> governor, this effort by the democratic governors' association to find and appoint more judges who adhere to the rule of law. what happens when judges are elected, and how many states have judges who are elected? >> i believe 25 that we can -- we have the power to appoint, but what you see is when you get a democratic governor who uses the platform to educate stroex -- folks, we saw the election of a judge who uses the rule of

law, and lo and behold, we got rid of gerrymandering because of that work. one of the things that we can do, if you are not directly appointing, this is an education campaign, to understand that this -- look. when i ran for governor, i theoretically understood we would be judges and i understand the lasting impact i will make on minnesota is putting in jurors who follow the rule of law, who are respected and who make decisions based on precedence, science, and the best decisions they can make. so i think one of the things is this campaign will do too, in states that can't appoint, we will do education campaigns and talk to them about how this is going to impact them. >> chair of the democratic governors association, minnesota governor tim walz. thank you very much for what you are doing, and thanks for being on the show this morning. we appreciate it. >> thanks, mika. all right. still ahead, an update on the 2024 money race. we'll show you how nikki haley and president biden are doing as

donald trump burns through campaign cash. plus, house republicans are still defending their impeachment inquiry into president biden even after their key witness admitted to using information from russian intelligence officials. that's all straight ahead on "morning joe." we're back in two minutes. ead on "morning joe." we're back in two minutes. but a treatment can be. keytruda is known to treat cancer. fda-approved for 16 types of cancer, including certain early-stage and advanced cancers. one of those cancers is early-stage non—small cell lung cancer. keytruda may be used with certain chemotherapies before surgery when you have early-stage lung cancer, which can be removed by surgery, and then continued alone after surgery to help prevent your lung cancer from coming back. keytruda can cause your immune system to attack healthy parts of your body during or after treatment. this may be severe and lead to death. see your doctor right away if you have cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, diarrhea, severe stomach pain,

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it is what it is, so, it doesn't change the fundamental

facts. there are four fundamental facts that hunter biden gets put on the board of burisma. he's not qualified and he gets put on that board and gets paid a million dollars a year. >> it doesn't change the facts. it does change the facts. they are not true. >> the four things i just said, they're absolutely true. >> oh my lord. republicans leading the impeachment inquiry into president biden seem to be, once again, detached from reality. that was jim jordan doubling down on false claims despite his key witness admitting that some of his information came from russian intelligence officials. >> russian? >> russian. >> russian intelligence officials. >> we'll go through the news in that case. >> hold on. hold on. i still can't get over it, willie -- >> an idiot. >> -- that russia has got to be thinking, like, is arnold the pig really not whispering in

comer's ears as his chief legal counsel? hey, you better be careful because you guys might be taking russian disinformation straight into the united states congress. >> talk about an easy mark. we thought donald trump was an easy mark for the russians and he is, but how about these republicans? they're directly feeding false information into the american political system, and these guys in this committee, jamie jordan and james comer, they don't have the character or whatever you want to call it to just walk away, to cut your losses and say, you know what? this thing is trumped up. our sources, our star witnesses all turned out to be frauds and liars and russian agents potentially. maybe we should just walk away, but they dig in deeper and say things like, the facts haven't changed when fundamentally, again, the facts have changed. >> the facts have changed and jonathan lemire, we can go back one claim after another claim after another claim, proven wrong. how many times has comer made a

fool of himself? you remember what grassley was saying. doesn't matter whether he's guilty or not. they just -- they want the hunt despite the fact they're chasing ghosts. >> yeah. i've lost track a number of times. republicans have said the quiet part out loud and said, yeah, we're doing this for political purposes and doing this to hurt president biden ahead of his election bid even if their no facts that support that accusation. they keep saying, well, we sure hope we're going to find something, and they haven't yet, and this is the latest embarrassment into this impeachment inquiry. we played sound all morning that reporters are asking republicans saying, well, the very thesis, the foundation of your case has now fallen apart because of this informant taking information from russian intelligence officers and they dispute that and they won't do it. i want to note this. white house staffers we reported this morning received subpoena letters on -- this week saying you have to come in and testify

for this impeachment inquiry. one staffer told me he received a letter and then 90 minutes later received a second and the second says, disregard the first. use this one instead. he looked at them and said, what's the difference? all the references to smirnoff had been stripped out. that's their acknowledgment republicans know it's fallen apart. >> wow. >> again, congress allowing like willie said, russian disinformation to come into the united states congress. they are an easy, easy mark for russian disinformation, and while we're on the topic, mika, of people who were suckers for russia -- >> oh, the biggest, donald trump standing by his comments about abandoning article 5 of the nato agreement. >> and encouraging russia to -- attack. >> we'll play for what you he said. it comes as the eu just approved a new sanctions package against russia ahead of new actions expected tomorrow from the biden administration, of course, in response to the death of alexei

navalny. also with us, deputy managing editor for politics at politico, sam stein joins us this morning. good to have you, sam. let's get to our top story though. i think he's running out of cash or maybe people don't want to give him money, like, who would want to get involved with this? >> it's interesting there's a "financial times" story yesterday that showed that donald trump's -- the number of contributors -- >> yeah. >> -- have dropped $200,000. if you look at this point in the cycle four years ago with where he is right now, he has lost already 200,000 donors. >> do you think they don't want to pay his legal bills? they don't trust he won't use it for his legal bills? it's a lot of legal bills. >> i think there is the understanding that if they're giving him money, they're not giving him money to help whatever he says, help make america great again.

they're giving him money because of the fact that a judge said he raped a woman and he's going to have to pay her about $90 million. >> $83.3 million for defamation, sexual assault. >> because his own lawyer decided she didn't want a jury trial and so they had a judge trial in a fraud case, and donald trump was found guilty of what he's done for years. >> and then there's the civil fraud trial. oh my gosh. that's, like, bankrupting. >> that's what i'm saying. you have this money and people are going, wait a second. am i giving to him? am i giving to, like, jimmy and tammy baker like some ptl-type scam to help pay this guy's bills and what you are seeing is again, the number of his contributors going down. i think there's also just natural attrition. there are a lot of people that i know that voted for trump twice. we talk about it all the time. after january the 6th, after the craziness of the past couple of years, after saying that he's

going to assassinate his political rivals if he wants to and nobody can do anything about it. after he's saying he's going to execute american generals, american war heroes because they're not sufficiently loyal to him, all of this stuff adds up. >> mm-hmm. >> and at some point, there's an exhaustion factor that sets in, and i think we're seeing it in donald trump's money. >> well, he's burning through his donors' funds, with his superpac spending far more in january than it brought in. as "the daily beast" reports, nearly $3 million of the overall spending was used for one purpose, to pay lawyers. the campaign itself was also underwater. it raised about $8.8 million while spending over $11 million. nikki haley meanwhile, flashed with a sign of strength with her campaign reporting $11.5 million in receipts last month. it is the first ever fund-raising period where

haley's campaign outraised donald trump's. >> let's stop there for one minute. >> yeah. stop right there. let's repeat it. >> nikki haley outraised donald trump last month in fund-raising. >> after all of his efforts the try and undermine her and spread gossip about her husband and also, she seems to be just plugging along there. she's going to hang in there and be the last woman standing depending on what happens. >> yeah. >> it's probably a good gamble. >> you know, we have a lot more to talk about in this story, but i want to stop for one second and go to sam stein, and sam, feel free to talk about if you want to talk about trump having less donors than before, 200,000 less. if you have any theories on that, but i want to stop for a second and look at the fact that the month that donald trump threatened republicans, and man, that reverberated. people are saying, that reverberated around the

republican party. carl rogue's talking about it this morning in a "wall street journal" op-ed. it reverberated. donald trump saying, basically, i'm going to crush you if you give nikki haley any money. what did that do? it caused nikki haley's donations to rise, and sam, talk about the fact -- that fact. nikki haley outraised donald trump last month. >> yeah. that's pretty surprising, i think, you know, we all expected donald trump to raise a ton of money. obviously he has the largest fan base in republican politics, and not just, you know, any fan base, but this rabid fan base that rallies behind him. theories as to why he has done worse than she has in this latest month, you know, i think you guys hit on the main one which is, you know, the money. people are, you know, nervous that the money will be going to nonpolitical functions. obviously the legal stuff, but, you know, it's weird because obviously the polls show him doing well relative to biden,

but if you are on the ground, he filed his campaign in new hampshire and elsewhere, you can tell this is not as enthusiastic a run as four years ago or eight years ago. you guys remember that arena many manchester, right? >> oh yeah. >> it was sold out. >> yeah. >> to the rafters, the entire thing. i went again this cycle. they had a huge curtain to cut off about a quarter of the arena, and they didn't have the top sections. no one was allowed to sit there. the enthusiasm is not quite the same and i think that hurts trump on the donor level too because he has been so reliant on small dollar donations in a way that other republicans can't. just to be clear, i don't think any of this translates necessarily into the primary polls being affected. i think haley is not going to win in south carolina. there's very few opportunities for her to win any state, but what it does do, is, you know, to the degree she wants to continue running and continue

losing these states, she can do it because campaigns don't end. they run out of cash and her campaign is not running out of cash. she can sustain an operation. she can just sit there and be a thorn in his side. i don't know to what end, but that's what the money dynamic does to this race. >> i'll tell you what, willie. there are a lot of politicians who would love to be in nicky haley's position right now. donald trump has so much in front of him and we don't know what's going to happen over the next two, three, four months between now and the convention. anything can happen on the republican side with all of these trials, with all of these judgments, with all of his financial woes. anything can happen, but you look at -- you look at nikki haley and the fact that she outraised trump last month, and then look at trump, and this is something people -- people love to talk about. oh, well, you know, biden's base

isn't as excited as they should be. i'm pretty sure if you look at the last seven years, just look at data, look at history, they'll get there, but with donald trump, the stories we don't hear are the stories that sam just said, and that is arenas half full, venue sizes being shrunk and reduced far below where he was in 2016. he has his diehards. there is no doubt about that. he has a movement, no doubt about that, but that movement has shrunk, and we haven't really seen that as much in reporting as we have focused on, hey. what's the base think about joe biden? but right now, i mean, you look at the fact -- >> remember his crowd size situation in the first campaign? he had huge crowds. >> they were just massive. >> i don't see those pictures anymore. >> i tell you what freaks trump out even more is the fact that his small donors, which is just

absolutely critical in campaigns, small donors have dropped by 200,000 people. 200,000 donors from this part of the campaign to about four years ago. >> that's a staggering number you reported from "the final times." trump had 240,000 donors and four years later, he had 516,000 donors. contrary to that, joe biden has -- his number of donors have gone up a bunch since four years ago at this time. so yeah. you're right. donald trump is asking his voters, asking his base to fund this self-proclaimed billionaire, to fund his legal bills. that's what the money goes to, and it looks like a lot of people are saying, that's not really what i'm in this for. i don't want to give my money so you can pay off all of these -- more than half a billion dollars

if you add it up, rulings for defamation and fraud. on the other side of it, president biden's re-election campaign raised $42 million last month giving him $130 million in cash on hand. that's the most ever for a democratic presidential candidate at this point in the election cycle. so quite a contrast there, jonathan lemire, and we had jim yesterday trying to speak to progressives, speak to democrats, speak to biden supporters saying, just calm down. while there's all this noise on the background, we're raising tons of money. we've got this, but at least on the money, joe biden is doing pretty well against donald trump here. >> no question. he enjoys more than a $30 million advantage in cash on hand. the president has been focusing on fund-raising in recent weeks. he's on the west coast, and the fundraisers yesterday which as we will get to, he made pretty strong remarks both about donald trump and vladimir putin and he has another one today. so that is the message from

democrats, and look. we're building a war chest. this is going to be a $2 billion campaign. we have the money we need to target voters in a by that's never been done. they need to motivate voters to come out. poll after poll suggests this is not a race americans are particularly excited about, the trump/biden rematch, but the democrats' theory is when this becomes a binary choice, voters will turn out. the worries of enthusiasm will dissipate and there will be enough people out there who simply look at donald trump and say, we can't go back to that, and even if they're not excited about president biden, they still will vote for him. the candidates pose a bit of a problem. it hurts biden far more than trump, but right now democrats despite what has been a tough sledding, they feel pretty good about where they are and they think they can see trump issues here with his fund-raising and his first court case just around

the bend. >> all right. federal prosecutors are asking a judge in los angeles to review the decision to release a former fbi informant with links to russian intelligence. >> what are they releasing? why would they release him? the guy has flight risk written on his forehead. >> they go after hunter and joe biden and it's about russia. anyhow, this is during the 2020 presidential campaign. the move comes after a federal judge ordered alexander smirnoff to be released on tuesday, but with several restrictions including gps monitoring and surrendering his passports. special counsel david weiss' team is asking the federal team in california to keep snirnoff in detention because the california court will oversee the trial process. prosecutors call 43-year-old

smirnoff a serious flight risk and point to his extensive foreign contacts which include someone in charge of a group whose job it is to carry out foreign assassinations. that's not good. >> i don't want to release him on his own cognizance. >> and he was implicated in a lie about hunter biden. >> that republicans in congress swallowed up. >> yes, they did. >> russian disinformation. >> whole. prosecutors also contend smirnoff's lies present a current danger of election interference. the judge has not yet responded, and an additional court date has not yet been set. smirnoff has been key to the house republicans' impeachment inquiry into president biden, and republican house judiciary chair jim jordan insisted yesterday that smirnoff's indictment for lying to the fbi does not change anything. >> so mika, hold on a second. they've got a russian --

basically an informant that's spewing russian disinformation. >> yeah. >> that's fine. >> yeah. doesn't change anything. >> then there's another key witness that they were freaking out going, oh, no he disappeared. where did he go? he's an international fugitive. >> it doesn't change anything. >> he smuggled -- illegally smuggled oil to the communist chinese. he illegally sold arms like, this guy again, still talking about a flight risk, he's still flying right now, and look at all the people, comer, and arnold the pig and all the other people on that committee, the barnyard animals, look at what they're doing right now. they're still holding on. >> they're holding on tight. >> despite the fact they keep, boom, getting, boom. they keep -- boom, getting hit in the face. >> jim jordan was trying to

explain this, but it would make your teeth hurt. here's house oversight ranking member jamie raskin that says they just need to drop it. just drop it. >> please. >> i was hopeful that chairman comer would be announcing today the end of the whole impeachment information. it's been a wild goose chase built on conspiracy theory and lies from the beginning, and now we know that russian intelligence operatives were behind creating the propaganda and disinformation at the very foundation of this investigation. so i think it's time for chairman comer and the republicans to fold up the circus tent and we should get back to work for the american people. >> that's amazing that you would -- >> oh my gosh. >> a congressional investigation built on russian propaganda and lies and built on international fugitives. great job, guys. >> we have jackie alemany, and ken dilanian. >> jackie, jackie, what next? i mean, this comer committee and

this is me talking, not you as a reporter. this is me talking, but the way it looks to me is this comer committee has humiliated itself time and time and time again, and now they find themselves in a position where they open their arms and invite russian propaganda and disinformation to come into the united states congress. >> that's exactly right, joe, and to be very clear, the impeachment inquiry into biden was never quite alive in the house, at least as compared to the impeachment of alejandro mayorkas. there's always been skepticism and an inability for comer and jordan to convince their skeptical colleague that is there was a there there, that they had been able to unearth anything. these accusations that comer and jordan have leveled for the course of a year really have never fully panned out, but the basis of this investigation,

even before this whole debate over the 10-23 confidential source materialized, that comer and jordan in that clip you showed have claimed is true, has never been true. this is this idea that biden fired ukrainian prosecutor victor shokin because he was looking into burisma. the washington times has reported over and over again there's no report that he was investigating or interested in burisma in any way, and that his firing was related to him investigating burisma. this confidential human informant blowing up in a really spectacular fashion on the heels of a number of other missteps that house gop investigators have committed at this point is i think, just a very public version and view into the double

dealing and the backspeak that republicans have been engaging in when it comes to these pieces of evidence. even at the time this year, i was on this show and we were talking about how comer and chuck grassley were engaged in pure political theater and really using process of the house to elevate what they knew to be unsubstantiated claims and what we reported at the time were claims that the fbi and the doj under bill barr under the trump administration had looked into, not to be supported by the facts and they subsequently closed the investigation into this guy, but now, you know, i think that that indictment couldn't make it clearer that this again foundational piece of evidence is -- has been fabricated, but i do want to note as well that smirnoff is very clearly thought to be by the justice department a liar and a very untrustworthy confidential human source, and that he claims to have that

contact with russian intelligence, but at this point in time we don't actually know or have further corroboration that he has actually had those contacts with high-level russian intelligence. >> so can the revelation of a russian-linked informant here that comes after four years after many in the intelligence committee warn moscow was behind the intelligence levied at the biden family? they expressed concern about the source of a much discussed story on the right, hunter biden's laptop. as a refresher, three weeks before the last presidential election, the "new york post" ran a cover story based on information from donald trump's personal lawyer at the time, rudy giuliani. it centered around a laptop repairman who came across emails showing corruption by then-candidate joe biden. what we didn't know at the time which has been alleged by the justice department is both giuliani and suspected informant

alexander smirnoff, had contacts with similar russian agents. ken, what can you tell us? >> they paid a steep price for signing that letter. the white house conducted an investigation. they brought some of them in to testify under oath. the republicans said, this was election interference. this was a bogus attempt to suppress a legitimate story. they were right, not in the sense -- they said the laptop was part of an information operation or had the hallmarks of a russian information operation. they didn't say they were made up, and we know they weren't. many of them have been corroborated. what they said was they were suspicious about why that story was emerging in the middle of an election campaign, and whether russian intelligence was flogging it or was somehow amplifying it. now they have been proven correct in the sense that we now

know that russian intelligence, at least according to the statements of this informant, bolstered somewhat by this indictment were feeding him information, false information, and let's be clear. the allegation that this informant made that was false, remember, was that joe biden and hunter biden took a $5 million bribe. that was always a specious allegation. joe biden answered it by saying, where's the money? he released his tax returns after all unlike donald trump. that allegation was seized upon by house republicans and it was used to fuel this impeachment effort, and by the way it's not just congressional republicans that have some questions to answer here. it's the fbi and the justice department. although they concluded that there was no evidence to support the bribery allegation, they also said that this confidential human source was a trusted informant. they relied on him for more than ten years, and only now are they saying, oh, he's a liar and we're indicting him for lying. they need to explain that. who was duped within the fbi here by someone who may have

been a plant by russian intelligence? that's very important because that investigation infected our political system. but back to the 51 intelligence officials, i mean, obviously what they were doing was trying to help joe biden. they've acknowledged that. they were democrats. i knew it at the time. you could see it by who was signing the letter, but the point they were making in that letter holds up over time which is that the russians were trying to flog a story that joe biden and his son were corrupt. coming up, one of the best takedowns of the house gop's flailing impeachment effort came from a surprise source. we'll show you that notable moment on fox news yesterday when "morning joe" comes right back. rday when "morning joe" comes right back

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a lot of this constant twisting and turning wherever the disinformation leads you lands on fox news. the lone liberal co-host of fox news, the show "the five" -- >> wait a second. harold. willie, if you agree with both sides, you're not liberal, right? harold's, like, he's just an agreer, right? >> no. >> i agree with your side. >> he very smartly brings in his side by being kind to both sides. do not mistake that. willie? >> what do you think about our friend, harold? what is he? >> i agree with everything harold said. you agree with everything you said and you agree with everything mika said right there. >> yeah, no. see, what harold does, he says, i respect what you say and i respect what you say, but here's what i think. anyway, there's another

democratic strategist that comes on. she had this take yesterday about the latest revelations. >> i don't know why comer and jim jordan thought it would be joe biden's brother that brought him down, but this is the path they've chosen to take, and honestly i'm surprised that they have this high of a threshold for humiliation. every witness that they have called has decimated their argument from devin archer to marvin young, and then we have the guy behind the holy grail document, the 1023 alexander smirnoff who's found that he lied, right? about the charges, the $5 million that went to both of them and then it gets even better. not only did he lie, he was lying because the russians were feeding him the disinformation.

it's so embarrassing. i think jamie raskin was spot on when he said that this impeachment inquiry really ended yesterday when we found out that we have a russian asset that was foundational to this impeachment inquiry, and jim comer and jim jordan should maybe try doing something for their constituents and let this go because it's going nowhere. >> well, i mean, sam stein, i think it goes on. the show must go on. >> right. >> i mean, the smartest person on the committee comes from green acres, and he's a pig. >> it's always about russia though. it's a russian pig. >> who also speaks russian, thank god to, like, he can debrief the informants when they come in. like, arnold the pig is a lot smarter than you think he is. >> and snorts -- >> yeah, in russian. they have, sam, and you and i, we have been looking at these congresspeople for a long time now. they do have an extraordinarily

high threshold for humiliation because time and time again, they make claims and are embarrass. they two on fox news. comer, i sure hope so, and you just keep going down the line, and now again, have we reached the bottom here finally, that, like, russian informants are providing the foundation of all these bogus inquiries? when does it stop? >> well, did arnold the pig -- is russian his native language or did he study it at school in how did he get the fluency do you think? >> he studied it at appalachian state. they have a very good russian studies program. >> very good russian studies program. >> for barnyard animals. and alabama, got his masters at alabama. go ahead. >> we can keep going with that, yeah. you know, it's funny, if you talk to republicans --

>> it's funny because it's true. >> it's true. if you talk to republicans on the hill privately and some publicly, they will say this has been an embarrassment and that comer has not led the most professional or, you know, covered in glory process. let's put it that way, but to your point, what is the off ramp, right? i think that's the issue, is that on the one hand, you could pack it all up and suffer your humiliations and say we didn't do it. that's embarrassing. obviously you wasted all this time and you have to confirm to the american public you didn't find anything worth impeaching and that's that. the other end, you try to keep going and wait and wait and wait, and hold some sort of vote and kick in until after the election. it looks like that's what they're going to do just to save face, but it doesn't change the fact that this series of developments is a humiliation, and jessica on fox was

absolutely right. when it's discovered that one of your primary informants is a russian asset, there's not really any good way to spin it other than to do what jim jordan did, and say the facts haven't changed when, in fact, they have. this is not a great process for republicans. it's an embarrassment, and, you know, at some point they have to tell their constituents we failed to find the goods. they just aren't ready to do that yet. coming up, how will new sanctions impact the russian economy? steve ratner -- >> he'll wake up the kids. >> he'll run through them when "morning joe" comes right back. n "morning joe" comes right back

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let's get back to those controversial comments from donald trump. we're hearing more of them now from european aallies. as fears grow, trump is standing by its recent threat not to defend nato members from attacks if he's re-elected. here's what he said in a clip that first aired on fox news yesterday from that town hall the previous day. >> you're getting slammed from some of your old adversaries about your nato comments. does this mean you're not going to defend nato countries? >> yeah. sort of it does. we have -- we have 28 countries. we have 28 countries, and they were taking advantage tremendously. the european nations, i happened to be -- a long time ago, my grandparents came from a place called europe. so i love it, but they are very smart and they took advantage.

they've taken advantage of us on trade and they've taken advantage of us on nato, and what happened, what i did is i told them, if you don't pay up, i'm not going to defend you and they said, i can't believe it. no one else ever said that, and the question was asked by the head of a country. a very strong question. sir, does that mean that if we don't pay, you will not defend us from russia or whoever? >> mika, i don't want to hear this stupid lie again. i don't want to hear the stupid story again and again, he's lying. everybody -- everybody, republicans understand it. conservatives understand it. everybody understands it except for maybe some stupid people in the audience clapping, are just willfully ignorant people in the audience clapping, but it's been said a billion times, willie. it's been said a billion times and donald trump -- i don't think he's so stupid that he doesn't know this. there are no dues for nato. there are no dues, and by the

way, a lot of these countries that he's trashing are countries that sent young men and women to fight with us in afghanistan and in iraq who paid the ultimate sacrifice. you know, this guy trashes australia -- australia has fought with us in every single war over the 20th and 21st century. >> he couldn't serve. >> he had bone spur. >> his feet didn't work very well. >> he talks about -- when he starts talking about, oh, they're taking advantage of us, consumers duck because as "the wall street journal" will tell and you the editorial page will tell you, what donald trump is talking about is a 10% tax. willie, he's talking about tariffs again and he's so stupid, he's so ignorant when he talks about tariffs because he's got it wrong. it doesn't come from other countries. it comes from consumers in

wisconsin. it comes from consumers -- it's a tax on consumers in michigan. it's a tax on consumers in pennsylvania. it's a tax on consumers in georgia. it's a tax on consumers in arizona. it's a tax on consumers in nevada, and the conservative procapitalist "wall street journal" page says this, and this stupidity continues and as paul ryan says, he's convincing people in his own party that they need to be the party of putin and tariffs, which again, as "the wall street journal" says, he's proposing a 10% tax on consumers. it's madness, and it's not conservative. >> the reason he keeps digging deeper into this position on nato for example is because he hears those applause in the room. he hears those applause in rallies. he hears those on certain podcasts and here's the good

news for everyone watching. there was a poll out and we'll talk about this later in terms of the presidential race. only about 20% of americans see any reality, see anything valid in the position that we should step away from our nato allies unless they pay their dues. so the point is this is the very narrow position that he's casting to. it's a very narrow group of americans who share this view. it turns out americans think alliances are good and they appreciate that, like, you said after 9/11, nato countries rallied to our defense. they think we should be together as we have been since the end of world war ii with western europe, unlike donald trump. so he can keep saying this, and he can keep digging this hole deeper, but it's a very, very narrow lane he's driving in on this issue. coming up, senator john fetterman is standing by and we'll talk about his support of president biden's re-election campaign when "morning joe" comes right back. ction campaign when "morning joe" comes right back

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president biden is expected to announce a new sanctions package tomorrow aimed at holding russian president vladimir putin accountable for the death of one of his most outspoken critics, alexei navalny. national security advisor jake sullivan said the sanctions would target the russian defense industrial base and parts of the russian economy that power its war machine and continued aggression. joining us now with a look at how the russian economy is doing amid the ongoing war is former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner. how is it doing? you would think at this point it would be breaking down a bit. are you finding otherwise, steve? >> no, it's not, mika. sanctions are an important part of waging war against any adversary or opponent. but we have to be realistic

about what they've accomplished. in the case of russia, unfortunately they haven't accomplished that much. let's take a look at the russian economy since the war started. if you look at gdp, you can see the russian economy grew by 1.8%. that's far less than the u.s., a tiny bit less than italy, but essentially above all the rest of these countries. in contrast, ukraine down 24%. that's been reflected in the stock market. when the war started, we all thought this would be tough for the russian economy. stock market up 24%, but then down 40% by the end of 2022, but now it's up 47% from when this all started. the russian economy is doing well. >> part of that from the exporting of oil.

i was staggered to read that oil exports are kind of back to where they were in 2021 before this war started despite all these sanctions, because other countries have stepped in to help russia here. >> you did my chart for me, willie. that is what's going on. i should also mentiondefense spending has helped the russian economy. you can see russian oil state revenues and where they were before the war. we have this price spike when the war started. then oil prices have remained relatively strong. russian oil revenue above where it was since the war started. the sanctions have not had any impact on russia's oil exports. they're almost exactly the same as what they were before the war started. you can see a big shift in the mix. you ca and the u.s.

have virtually eliminated russian oil imports, but that's been picked up by three countries, turkey to a smaller extent, india big and china big. >> why india? is it out of necessity? >> it's basically necessity. they obviously don't care that much about killing civilians in ukraine by the war. they don't have that much oil. they have to import it. they made a commercial decision it was better for india to get oil from russia at slightly lower prices. >> let's move to your third chart, which gets to the conversation of american aid to ukraine and why it's so essential here. >> i just showed you a little bit of why it's so essential, because we have to give ukraine

the support it needs, because russia isn't going anywhere. they're actually increasing the military expenditures a lot more in the coming year. what's stunning is americans may think this is a bad use of money, but it is a tiny use of our money relative to all these other countries. if you look at european countries, we are 31st among that group in terms of how much aid we've provided as a percent of our gdp. even if we do this package, we'd still be below all these countries in terms of how much aid we give in relation to our gdp. almost every dollar we give them comes back to us in terms of buying military equipment. it's creating jobs back in america as it's spent here. there's another idea that's floating around that's probably

not going to happen. but this $380 billion of frozen russian assets in the u.s. in belgium there's a bank there that holds a lot of these assets. but these frozen assets people are talking about using to rebuild ukraine after the war, if not before that. there's a bill in front of congress right now that the biden administration is supporting to take our $6 billion and use that. >> just to put a fine point on all three of your charts, is it fair to say that despite the united states and europe throwing the back at russia in terms of sanctions, it just hasn't had an impact. >> that's fair, but sanctions historically have not worked that way. if you look at cuba and north korea and go back and look at

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biden is the only american that ever beat trump in an election, the only one, the only one. biden is one tough mother. >> democratic center john fetterman of pennsylvania stumping for president biden last week in nevada. senator fetterman will be our guest in just a few moments right here on "morning joe." welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe."

it's 6 a.m. on the west coast, 9 a.m. in the east. jonathan lemire, mike barnicle still with us. joining the conversation, we have reverend al sharpton. we'll start this hour with federal prosecutors asking a judge in los angeles to review the decision to release a former fbi informant with links to russian intelligence who is charged with lying to the fbi about hunter and joe biden during the 2020 presidential campaign. a federal judge in las vegas on tuesday ruled alexander smirnov should not be held pending trial, though imposed several restrictions like gps monitoring and surrendering his passport. but a federal court in california will ultimately oversee the trial process. special counsel david weiss's

team is asking to keep smirnov in detention. he is considered a flight risk with extensive foreign contacts, including someone whose job it is to carry out foreign assassinations and whom smirnov implicated in a lie about hunter biden. prosecutors contend smirnov's lies present a current danger of election interference. the judge has not yet responded, and an additional court date has not yet been set. smirnov has been key to the house republicans' impeachment inquiry into president biden. house republican chair jim jordan insisted smirnov's indictment for lying to the fbi doesn't change anything in terms of their probe. >> not only does that not change anything when you look at comer's committee, they've got a

guy peddling russian disinformation going straight to congress. they go, doesn't matter. their other star witness, an international fugitive, a guy who illegally smuggles iranian oil to communist china. doesn't matter. they just keep going. they keep making fools of themselves. >> republican congressman ken buck, who serves on the house judiciary committee said yesterday that both jordan and oversight committee share james comer were warned the former fib informant's allegations against the bidens were not critical. >> we were warned at the time that we received the document outlining this witness' testimony, we were warned the credibility of this statement was not known. and yet my colleagues went out and talked to the public about how this was credible and how it

was damning and how it proved at the time vice president biden's complicity in receiving bribes. it appears to absolutely be false and to really undercut the nature of the charges. we've always been looking for a link between what hunter biden received in terms of money and joe biden's activities or joe biden receiving money. this clearly is not a credible link at this point. >> there's a republican who said the people running the committee knew this guy could be a liar, knew this guy could be peddling disinformation, knew he wasn't a credible witness. what do they do? they go out to america and say, oh, we've got a star witness here, a star witness who happens to be peddling russian disinformation. it's really unbelievable.

not only do they have a guy who got caught lying and is now being indicted and pedalled russian disinformation, again, we have that other international fugitive that was the other star witness of theirs. i don't know where he is, he disappeared. well, he disappeared because he's an international fugitive on the run for illegal weapons trading, illegal smuggling of iranian oil to communist china. as the commentator on fox news said yesterday, they have an extraordinarily high level of shamelessness. they can't be humiliated. they just keep going, humiliating themselves day after day after day. >> totally incapable of shame. former kgb agent vladimir putin

can't believe his luck when he has a congress so receptive to this garbage he can just pass along to an intermediary direct to this committee lies about joe biden and his family, suggesting joe biden got $5 million in bribes, which he did not get. let's not let this committee or the news outlets run away from it. that was a star witness, just like the last star witness you mentioned who's now an international fugitive. they hung their hat on the testimony of a guy they knew was making it all up and perhaps was a direct agent of russian intelligence services. right from moscow into house chambers is the way this has been going. they're still going to pursue this despite everything they've tried to bring up about the president of the united states has blown up in their faces. meanwhile, as former president trump continues to say he would abandon nato allies and calls into question whether he

would support ukraine, president biden says he will announce a new sanctions package tomorrow aimed at holding russian president vladimir putin accountable for the death of alexei navalny. that would follow the new round of sanctions the european union just approved. european allies are looking to see if mike johnson will bring up the bill with aid to ukraine. at the munich security conference last week, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy spoke about the strength of the alliance. >> there was a smith that europe is too week to defend itself. instead, europe has become a global force, overcoming dependence on russia.

>> let's bring in ranking member of the house intelligence committee, democratic congressman jim himes of connecticut. congressman himes was in munich last weekend and met personally with president zelenskyy. what did you hear from president zelenskyy about the urgency of this aid package, which as you know all too well has been held up in the house of representatives? >> absolutely. we heard zelenskyy and his people say this is a turning point in the war. if we are cut off from u.s. aid, we will slowly lose this war. he gave example after example. no surprise there. what was a surprise was the

juxtaposition of an example of precisely how murderous vladimir putin is with his widow addressing munich and then coming to meet with us. the fortitude was unbelievable. but the demonstration of putin's murderousness along with the sheer hypocrisy of my republican colleagues who listened to zelenskyy and said, oh, we're going to work so hard to get this done. then you say to them are you willing to find a discharge petition? well, that would create all sorts of problems for me in my primary. then you have jd vance pretending as though providing aid to ukraine, that somehow that is not affordable to the united states. you know, $60 billion being more or less a rounding error in our annual defense bill. it was a really hard couple of

days. >> congressman, ukraine has its back against the wall. there are $300 billion in russian reserves held in western financial institutions. what about seizing those assets and spending that money in ukraine? >> well, i think that will ultimately be the answer. that conversation came up a lot. it's a little hard for americans to go to munich with the danes emptying out their artillery inventories and the eu stepping up, it's hard to look the europeans in the eye and say, you guys are holding that money, hand it over. where the europeans are right now, they have decided they can

pay the interest on that money of about 4 or $5 billion a year to the ukrainians, but they're not there yet with respect to turning over the principle. i think that will be the answer. but the argument europeans make is this is a fight between countries that believe in the rule of law and vladimir putin, who observes no law. you know who doesn't have any credibility at that table? the country that can't seem to get out of its own way and provide a tiny amount of aid that would make all the difference to the ukrainians. >> steve ratner was on earlier today. we were talking about aid to ukraine, how much we spend, how much european countries spend. you have donald trump lying talking about how they're not doing their share. steve ratner pointed out a couple of fascinating facts. when it comes to percentage of

our gdp, the united states' funding for ukraine is 0.3%. that ranks us number 31 in terms of how big are the supplies we're giving to the ukrainians. for jd vance to say, no, we need to spend the money here in the u.s., well, that's a lie too. as ratner says, about two-thirds of that $61 billion goes to u.s. companies, goes to u.s. suppliers, two-thirds!

so, again, their lies fall flat, whether it's donald trump lying about other countries not doing their part or our senators and house members, republicans lying about the fact that this was a giveaway to europe. it's just not. >> you're absolutely right about that. on a relative basis, we're pretty squishy compared to the europeans, compared to the size of our economy, compared to per capita donations. the other thing i've been dealing with is this argument that every republican says that we need to secure our border and until we secure our border first we shouldn't be worried about the ukrainian border. this whole idea that we can't do both at once -- we are a country that runs a medicare program, a medicaid program, a space program, helping the taiwanese, yet the republicans have decided

there's a tradeoff between helping ukraine and helping the border. yeah, let's fix the border. what if we came up with a senate bill that got strong bipartisan support that mitch mcconnell would say was the best deal they were going to get, better than the deal they would get if donald trump was president. what if we did that? oh, wait, we did do that a couple of weeks ago and the speaker of the house and donald trump said we're not going to do that. why? because they would much rather run on chaos at the border than solve the problem at the border. >> donald trump admitted just that. he said blame it on me. he admitted this, i don't want the border problem fixed. let the fentanyl come over for the next year, let illegal immigrants come over for the next year. trump said i don't want it fixed

because they may get some credit for it. >> jim himes of connecticut, thank you. they're already campaigning on the lie that biden didn't fix the border when he could have, but republicans wouldn't let him. >> you look at what jim lankford said, one of the most conservative republicans in the senate, when he got to the floor. it was incredible. he said people that hadn't even read the bill said they were going to try to destroy him if he put this bill on the floor. he said they've actually kept true to their word. they're trying to destroy me. that's what jim lankford said. >> they've had two opportunities to be republicans, and they passed on them so far. the second one is actually aid to ukraine.

new polling shows the likely 2024 presidential rematch between joe biden and donald trump remains tight. a new quinnipiac university survey has biden up four points nationally among registered voters. that's within the poll's margin of error, and essentially unchanged from a survey taken last month. another poll has trump with one point, also within the margin of error. joining us from pennsylvania, democratic senator john fete fete. good to have you on the show this morning. a lot of questions for you about what the biden campaign can do moving forward. i think one of the big ones is, how do they approach the constant disinformation from republicans, who right now blame the biden administration for not closing the border? >> well, closing the border, you know, i think the president has been very clear that he has to

act about that. i fully support that as well too. now the republicans are never going to have a deal now, because they don't want that because it's too valuable to have it as a weapon. i think now it also could be helpful to just bring hr2 onto the table and almost challenge them to say, here we go, are we willing to go this far? because we do need to make sure this border needs to be secure. >> we have reverend al sharpton with us, senator. he has the next question. >> senator, one of the things i've watched as you began campaigning for biden is dealing with the fact that there's misinformation and a lot of noise on the right, but you've also said you're not going to let people just answer with noise on the so-called left,

that you're going to try to do what you think is right for the american people. talk about that a little that we do not need to counter balance misinformation and noise things that are being demonstrated by the zealots on the right. >> well, the republicans are shameless, and they've always been that way. i don't know why anybody acts surprised now that they have any kind of shame at all. they are willing to lie. vance just pointed out that he's lying about the ukrainian aid. it's very clear that all of that aid is going right to american companies that produce these kind of munitions as well too.

they're willing to carry any water for trump. i'm not sure where this fetish for russia came from, but i'm old enough to remember when it used to be the evil empire. now you have a part of the republican party that are willing to stand with him and they're actually embracing him as well too. it's truly astonishing that you are willing to let ukraine fail. it's absolutely astonishing. they assassinate critics, and they now have been empowered to act that way. i don't know why we don't lean in and deliver for ukraine, israel and taiwan. >> senator, good morning. just want to get a sense from you on the ground in pennsylvania, a state that obviously will be pivotal to the presidential election. what's your sense of the feeling on the ground there? we have economic data that shows

a very strong economy, but a lot of people in our country aren't feeling that right now. what do you think will tilt this election one way or the other in your pivotal state come fall? >> it's going to be close. i've always predicted that it was going to be really close back in 2016. the polls predicted that clinton was going to walk in pennsylvania. i knew that wasn't going to happen. same thing in 2020 too. biden had maybe five points back in 2020. that's the same thing that's going to be in 2024 as well too. i do fundamentally believe that biden is going to carry that as well. i'm proud to campaign for him, just the way i was proud to campaign with him in 2020 too. people were saying i'm not popular enough to be seen with him. i'm proud to be seen with him any time. he's been an incredible president. >> we just had an amusing zoom

filter moment there, it looks like. good to see you this morning. there were some concerns about president biden's popularity with core pieces of the democratic base, including progressives, young people. what does his message need to be for him to make sure they come out for him this november and don't opt to stay home to find a third-party candidate? >> i think the president has done an incredible job by any metric. the president has been incredibly strong. if you are talking about young progressives, literally yesterday he was cancelling more student debt. now you have in alabama embryos being called beings. this election is always about two very stark choices. that's the kind of thing i talked about in reno too. it's like we have a major choice

in america in what we want to be for the next four years. joe biden has done an incredibly tough job. i can't imagine why trump is competitive, but he is. he can't be cancelled now by anybody at this point. now there's only one person now that can beat trump, and that's joe biden. he's the only person in america that actually has beaten trump in an election. >> what is the most important issue facing your constituents in pennsylvania? what do you hear the most from them as we move into this incredibly important election? what's the issue that you keep hearing about? >> i think the most important

issue is what do we want for this state and this nation? it's going to be very competitive. the president is going to win here in pennsylvania. i've always believed that whoever wins pennsylvania is going to be the next president. this is going to be difficult. we all have to lean in on that. we also have to having all kinds of democrats criticizing the president too publicly. i don't understand why. i don't know what it's in it for you to do that, whether you're just chasing clout or you want to make it in the news. if you're not willing to support the president, you might as well get your maga hat, because you now are helping trump. >> democratic senator john fetterman of pennsylvania, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. we really appreciate it. >> and congratulations. >> i think someone texted him

congratulations and it made that confetti thing happen. i want that to happen to me. >> i liked it a lot. mike barnicle, you're old enough to remember this. i think willie's too young to remember. if you're not, i apologize. from our friend who runs super 70s sports, come on. here's the quote. herb brooks on this day in 1980, and he says to his team before he goes up against soviets that could have beaten most of our

nhl teams. >> they did. >> this is what he said to the college kids that night in the locker room. if we play them ten times, they might win nine, but not this game, not tonight. tonight we skate with them. tonight we shut them down, because we can. tonight we are the greatest hockey team in the world! usa! >> i'm going to literally cry. >> i'm telling you, for people who weren't alive at that time, scores were announced on airplanes as they were flying across america. people broke out weeping in

tears. mike, it is hard to explain what this meant to america on this day in 1980. why don't you try? >> joe, reliving that moment right now as you spoke about it and spoke to it brought almost a tear to my eye, no kidding. >> it did for me. >> lake placid, new york, the olympics. if the captain of that team were here with us today on set and he began to recount the speech that herb brooks gave that night, you would cry. herb brooks basically said something that all americans should remember today, because it was about america. you might be running down the country. you might feel bad about what happened to you specifically. let me tell you, not today, not

now. this is the greatest country in the world in that night in that rink in new york, they were the greatest hockey team ever assembled and they won. >> ever. >> you weren't alive to remember it. watch "miracle" the movie. kurt russell's best performance. even in the summer time to go into that rink and hear that audio brings tears to your eyes. >> and rev and jonathan lemire, that call by al michaels, oh my god, oh my god! do you believe in miracles? do you believe in miracles? it was amazing, rev, wasn't it?

>> amazing probably doesn't give it its just due as a word. i think even those that weren't hockey fans were celebrating that night. i remember it well. i'm slightly older than willie, so i remember. >> i was alive, for the record. i just don't remember. >> it really united the country across all lines. everybody kind of felt it, but really what drove it home is the speech he gave. you're talking about inspiring people. >> arguably the most important moment in sports history. it transcended sports. it was a moment of national pride. this rag tag bunch of american college kids defeating the evil empire and the professional soviet team. they had just lost to them in an

exhibition game two weeks prior something like 10-0. then to turn around and win that game, i've seen the footage more times than i can count. it always will bring a smile. >> amazing. >> if we played them ten times, they might win nine, but not this game. i'm not crying. you're crying. >> i know. we need the confetti. okay. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin will be joining us to talk about what goldman sachs has labeled the most important stock on planet earth.

plus, if you're waking up with no cell phone service this morning, you are not alone. we'll have an update on the nationwide outage. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. we'll be right back. only at vanguard you're more than just an investor you're an owner. that means your priorities are ours too. our retirement tools and advice can help you leave a legacy for the ones you love. that's the value of ownership.

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traffic has come to a complete stop thanks to the president of the united states, who is here to raise money. the traffic is slower than, well, this. easy, just real careful, no need to rush, steady as we go, steady, just a few more steps until we get you in that car.

okay. all right. great. he made it. i mean, is there anything more heart stopping than watching him walk downstairs? makes me feel like i'm in the movie "a quiet place." welcome back. shares of u.s. chip giant nvidia jumped this morning in pre-market trade after the company posted huge fourth quarter earnings in a boost fuelled by excitement over artificial intelligence. >> let's bring in andrew ross sorkin. we saw a similar excitement with bitcoin. this is the real deal. this is the future. i thought it was remarkable yesterday as wall street and the whole financial world just held their breath to see what the earnings from this one company would be. boy, it was blockbuster, wasn't it? >> it was remarkable, revenue up

265%. this has become the most important stock in potentially one of the most important companies in the world, closing in now on $2 trillion. they make the chips that power ai. the software companies can't get enough of them. they're on order all around the world and they can't make them fast enough. that's what's propelling this company. this company made about $27 billion in total in 2023. in 2025, they're expecting to make $25 billion in one quarter. that's how big this company has become. it started back in 1993. it's about a 30-year-old company. it has become the crown jewel of the ai world. everybody is betting that this company with chatgpt and google and everybody else layered on

top of it is going to create huge productivity gains in our economy. that is the fundamental question. what do those productivity gains really look like? and when people talk about productivity, what does that mean for employment? we'll see. >> a ton of focus on this company, and it really does show just how big of a role ai is going to play. that's something, of course, that governments across the world are grappling with. this isn't "oppenheimer" where you saw how the united states government got their arms quickly around the new destructive technology, atomic energy. this ain't it. it's so dispersed and so spread out. the dangers as well as the blessings of ai are too

dispersed, it seems, to regulate effectively. >> experts equally excited and terrified as to what ai could bring for us all. i think many people see how washington has failed to regulate social media and doesn't have much faith that they can do this, but it is a huge test and one the biden administration is working on as we speak. >> andrew, tell us what in the world is going on with -- >> the outage. >> i'm getting texts from friends saying hey, don't call me. we can text you on wifi. but there's a massive outage for cell towers. what's going on? >> if you're an at&t customer this morning 100,000 people reporting an outage. it does appear the network is back up. some people were trying to call each other over wifi and the

like. didn't affect people on verizon or t-mobile. we'll be getting a report, i'm sure, from at&t as to how this happened. people talk about wired phones at home. we've all moved to wireless. it's just another example of how important it is to make sure the infrastructure works. the good news is it's not frequently where we're having these reports, but of course when they go down, if it were to happen on a wider scale, you could see the problem pretty quick. >> do you have a hard line at home? >> i still do, but attached to my cable provider. >> that's a problem. i do too. i want like ma bell to come and run the wire in. i want a hard line that's not attached, but you just can't get it. >> the only person who calls my phone, though, is my mother. who calls you on this phone

number? >> i give it to my kids and say in case -- >> i do. >> mika does. my kids in case everything goes down. of course tj to call mika. but, yeah, i do. it's for days like today when it goes down. with kids, we just have to stay in touch, right? >> we'll all be having hard lines and starlink backups in the future. we'll be using satellites. >> andrew ross sorkin, thank you so much. mike barnicle, do you have a hard line still? >> i do, yes. it's the same number as my cell phone number.

>> reverend al? >> i do not have a hard line. i had the misfortune of being one of the ones that had a failed effort this morning to deal with my cell phone for a minute. i didn't know what happened. i thought i was being invaded by the right wing. >> no, not at all. after what you said about progressives imprisoning us with their idea, i think it may be the left wing today, rev. jonathan lemire, hard line? >> no, no longer. i did until a few years ago. i was also hit with the cell phone outage today, wondering if the russians are going after us for the sanctions package tomorrow. >> i have one. i know it's there, but i haven't used it in years. you don't want to go too deep into my hopes we return to an agrarian society, my

anti-technology views. but i do like the idea of having a hard line in case everything goes down. >> yeah. a flip phone and one of those green phones in the kitchen with the long line where you can walk around. >> do you go rotary? that's the real test? >> i actually have one in maine my parents left there. >> it drove me crazy. >> that's enough. >> it's a riot. i know the number by heart. >> do we need to go to break? >> i'm just saying i know the number of the hartford police department. >> we'll be right back. >> we'll be right back i love. oh thanks!

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welcome back. the mother of deceased opposition leader alexei navalny is facing pushback from putin's government in trying to claim her son's body. initially she was turned away on saturday when she travelled to the morgue where his body was allegedly taken. afterwards she filed a lawsuit in russian court asking officials to release the body. however, the russian court ruled to not even take up the lawsuit for consideration until march 4th. until then, russian officials told navalny's mother his body will undergo chemical investigation. let's be clear. the longer they hold the body, it allows any chemical that was in it to disappear. they're probably buying time. who knows? let's bring in someone who

might. he spent the last decade covering alexei navalny. his new book is entitled "the dissident, alexei navalny, profile of a political prisoner." i'd like to begin, of course, of what your thoughts were and what your thoughts are now in light of his death. >> sadly, it's now an obituary of a political prisoner, right? first thought for many people was that this was predictable. navalny himself predicted this was a possibility. it's not okay, a man to be killed because he wanted democracy and freedom for his country. it's just amazing that we normalize this and say, well, he was poking the bear with a sharp stick, taking on putin, taking on all the corruption in russia. but that's something that journalists and advocated do all

the time in free democratic countries. he's paid for that now with his life. >> i want to ask you about yulia stepping in. first, what are you hearing from the contacts and sources you've spoken to for this book about the reverberations in russia to the news of his death or murder? >> you described an almost kafka-esque crusade that his mother is onto get his body back. now the body won't be released for two weeks at least. there are some indications that depending on what might have happened to him, there could still be traces even after two weeks. could still be traces even after two weeks' time. we know his team is investigating this right now, but sadly, as we know in this really repressive wartime

context in russia, the russian political opposition is either exiled, jailed, or like navalny, dead. so within russia, it certainly sent a chill among those who are still in prison. vladimir car mu sa, columnist for "the washington post," ilya one of navalny's closest associates, there are quite a few others and there's a realization that their lives are very much in danger, that they aren't safe but also looking outside the country, much of the opposition operating in exile, and we've just seen a russian defector killed apparently in spain. putin's reach goes much further than his own borders. >> david, let's talk about vladimir putin for a moment. this is someone who wasn't that long ago seemed like maybe his grip on power had weakened somewhat. prigozhin got within a couple hundred miles of moscow, and navalny was rallying his supporters from are prison. that's changed right now. now he's got momentum on the

battlefield too. what do you think these next few years look like for russia without navalny? >> this is a very dangerous time not just for europe but for the west. prigozhin, of course, is dead. one time known as putin's chef. let's not make too many comparisons between someone who was the product of the putin system and navalny who spent his life crusading against him. putin three is feeling emboldened. he's out flying a military bomber potentially today. there's no question we live in a very dangerous age, right, when a columnist for "the washington post" can go into a consulate in istanbul and get carved up and american presidents are shaking hands with the leader who apparently ordered that killing. you see more and more brazen acts taking place every day. >> so with that, i wonder about alexei navalny's wife yulia and what your thoughts are on how she moves forward in his name.

>> so a russian journalist who acted as a kind of political god mother to navalny would often say, and she tweeted about this this week, navalny as a politician wasn't one person. he was two, alexei and yulia. in many ways this is a natural step given that she has been his closest confidant and adviser editing everything he wrote, and he was a prolific blogger, social media maven, really helping to craft his image. there's no question this is just the most awful fears of hers and her family being realized. she put out a post today of her and her daughter darya saying they're supporting each other. she has announced she's going to step up and take the baton, take up the cause against putin for freedom in russia. we are already seeing some concern on the part of the kremlin. they're trying already to smear her. i'm not going to repeat the kinds of things they're starting to say. clearly there is an initial effort to raise doubts about her. she's in a very different position operating from outside

the country. navalny never wanted to be a dissident in exile. he made that decision bravely to go back some say senselessly to go back and fight putin. yulia appears to be ready to take up that cause and continue in his quest. >> the book is "the dissident: alexei navalny, profile of a political prisoner." thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. willie. a new msnbc podcast is examining the question how different would america look today if descendants of slaves were compensated a long time ago. it's entitled "into america presents: uncounted millions, the power of reparations." it's great to see you. congratulations on this. if you didn't know about it, we didn't know about it. i don't think anybody really knew this story. it is an extraordinary story that tells us so much about the history of the country. we don't to want give away too

much. it kind of unfolds like a dramatic thriller in many ways. what are the broad outlines of the story and this frankly stroke of genius that the main character deployed here? >> willie, i'm not even being hyperbolic when i say it really is the greatest story never told. we've been having this conversation about reparations even before the civil war was won, right? we hear the failed promise of 40 acres and a mule. lincoln favored sending black people to haiti or liberia. there was a time in 1862 when the federal government paid reparations. it paid reparations for white enslavers, for all the property they would lose in freeing their enslaved. they were paid. we're talking about the most powerful, wealthy men in america at that time. the sitting clerk of the upreme court got compensated. this would set up generations of power, white power establishing that caste system in washington, d.c., but on that list also appears a black man named gabriel coakley, and this is

where our story really begins. this is a free black man, a successful oysterman in his community who beginning in the 1850s started buying his people's freedom, which is already against all the odds stacked against him, and he finds a loophole. he never registered his family as free people, so by the letter of the law because slavery was still legal, they were his slaves and he ended up getting compensated. that's the beginning of the story. we're dropping today episode two of five. it is an extraordinary story that begs the question what could have been. this set up generations of his family to be doctors, lawyers, deans of college, even a winner of the national medal of freedom. what if all black people would have been made whole after slavery. >> tremaine, i listened to the podcast and you did "politics nation" with me, and the thing that i think people don't get is how personal this is to a lot of black americans. when a reporter dug up my family tree and i went down to

edgefield, south carolina, and actually visited where my great grandfather was a slave, it gave me a new meaning. i've been an activist all my life, we're talking about our blood, and for this guy to be able to in many ways play the system of slavery and slave masters getting some kind of funds is an amazing story, particularly for those of us that have the bloodline of those that were enslaved. >> we're the only people urged to get over the deepest trauma historically we've ever experienced. there was a moment talking to this family and reviewing the petition document, certainly it was a legal play, but there's a moment where you have to list the -- your human property by name, by complexion, by their temperament in trade, and realizing that certainly he is taking what's owed them, but he had to list their family members, his wife, his sister, his six children as property,

light, light skin, good temperament, a good nurse. it's heartbreaking. >> as his property. >> as his property. and they were living as free. he was not a slave owner. it was deeply personal for this family certainly but also for us. a lot of us don't have the benefit of being able to research and find, you know, the intricacies of our families' lives, but deeply personal indeed. >> gabriel coakley's innate genius leads to him getting reparations. the reparations he shares with his family and his family descendants. the reparations, money, money brings a certain amount of freedom. >> that's right. >> freedom of education. what impact did it have long-term on his family going down the line? >> a tremendous impact. when he got this money, 90% of african americans were still enslaved in this country. this happened a year before the emancipation proclamation. he was the cofounder of st. awe gus tus church, a pillar of the community. they had a strawberry festival

on the white house lawn where they raised $1,200, which would be the equivalent of $150,000 to start a school for black children. he bought two properties on what is now the campus of george washington university, sold one of those, bought another home in foggy bottom. we're talking about access to education. they go on to be deans of colleges including howard university. some of their relatives would own property that they would give to lincoln university, the first hbcu. this only changing the family's trajectory, but black americans trajectory. >> we've had reparations in this country, it's just that they went to the slave holders. not to the slaves themselves. >> that itself is mind blowing to a lot of people. we gave reparations to white enslavers. >> the first two episodes, the power of reparations available now wherever you get your podcast. it is a must listen. incredible story. just the tip of the iceberg

here, there's so much more. trymaine lee, congratulations. great to see you. i'm leaving through esquire magazine, what do i see but a profile of the reverend al sharpton, amazing. look at this, look at the shot, all of it. >> i love it. >> i have to give credit to rachel nord linger, who for 25 years has handled communications for us. >> rachel is so good. >> rachel is great. she said this reporter wants to do a profile. he wants to travel with you, and i didn't want to do it. he went to funerals with me, my ra rallies. even went town to edgefield, south carolina, where my great grandfather was a slave, and he wrote 12 pages. he gives the good and the bad. he talks about how i worked with coretta scott king and how i know mike barnicle. he told it all. i give rachel credit. it's a great story. 12 pages. >> the redemption of al sharpton it's titled, mika.

>> oh, that's