thinking they've addressed some of the age issues head on. hitting a bunch of battleground states. next week, heading out west. one of the best reporters on the beat, white house reporter for "politico," adam, thank you for joining us this morning. thanks for getting up "way too early" with us on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. mr. president, i'm curious what it's like for you, your life. you know, no one has gone through what you've gone through. nobody in human history has really. i know you have supporters, friends, family. they say it's lonely at the top. i'm curious, is it ever lonely for you? i mean, no one can fully relate to what you've been through and what you're going through. are you ever lonely? >> so i was -- over the years, i love history. i study history. i was told that andrew jackson as a president was treated the absolute worst. he was lambasted. i heard abraham lincoln was

second, but he was in a thing called the civil war. you can understand that. andrew jackson was really, really treated badly. in fact, his wife died during the process. a lot of people said she died because of the way they were treated. i mean, she was heartbroken and broken in so many other ways. i heard that for years. and i look now, even last night i was saying it. i said, andrew jackson or anybody else, when you think of the fake things, nobody has been treated like trump in terms of badly. >> no, that's true. that's true. that's definitely true. there is some truth to that, willie geist. it's hard for me not to also look at the person asking the questions. i mean, are you kidding me? these networks floating trump's

lies. i'm not going to make fun of it or anything, but it is creating a whole level of lies that people are swallowing whole because they think that's news. they think those are facts. that's the part that's sad. i mean, it's pathetic that donald trump parallels himself to abraham lincoln and anybody else, but it is more pathetic and truly pathetic that our democracy is on the line. because if that guy becomes president, look at his last house guest. that's our country. >> yeah, i mean, that's pure north korean state media, that kind of interview. why are you treated so badly? why are you so great? why are people so mean to you? also, another thing happened to abraham lincoln that former president trump didn't get to, assessing who was treated worse in terms of -- >> leave that right there. >> yeah. >> leave that right there, yeah. >> to your more serious point, it's a good one, which is, there are all kinds of media outlets friendly to donald trump whose audiences are receiving that message, the one you saw.

they're not receiving messages about his stolen documents. they're not receiving messages about his attempts to overturn the election in 2020, all the legal trouble in front of him we're about to talk about. they're hearing that. you have a -- not a majority of the country but a large swath of the country that is taking what you just saw there as news. >> exactly. there's a lot going on, actually, with donald trump that they might want to consider, but they'll probably never hear about it, at least in terms of facts. along with willie and me, we have host of "way too early," jonathan lemire. former aide to the bush white house and state departments, elise jordan. big day for trump's legal issues. former president trump is expected to be in court today for a hearing in the federal classified documents case against him. in fort pierce, florida, u.s. district judge aileen cannon is set to hear arguments on two of trump's motions to dismiss the

charges against him. the first argues he was allowed to store classified documents in unlocked rooms at his club under the presidential records act. this, he claims, was all good. the second motion claims the main statute used to form charges against the former president is unconstitutionally vague. in that interview yesterday with the right-wing network newsmax, trump defended his actions. >> i took them very legally, and i wasn't hiding them. we had boxes on the front -- a lot of the boxes had clothing, we're moving out, okay, unfortunately. we're moving out of the white house. i had the right to do it, in my opinion and my lawyers' opinion and everything else. >> let's bring in former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. good morning. apologies for putting this to you again because we've addressed this a thousand times. the presidential records act, does it cover what donald trump

did? >> it does not cover what donald trump did. willie, there is a definition in the presidential records act for what could count as personal and what is presidential. donald trump's argument is effectively, it's presidential if i classified it as such in my mind. everything in my mind was personal before i -- sorry, personal if i say so in my mind. everything in my mind that i took with me was personal, therefore, there can be no criminal prosecution against me. >> right. again, apologies for making you answer that question for the 1,000th time but we'll keep doing it as long as donald trump makes that argument. more broadly speaking, this classified documents case, where are we? we're hearing about judge canon and delays, delays. where are we in the progress of bringing this to trial? >> a couple weeks ago, judge canon had a hearing where she took argument from both sides, when the case should be tried. she has yet to issue a scheduling order setting a trial date. in the meantime, she's hearing argument today on two motions to

digs miss. dismiss. i'm not a betting person, probably would make a miserable one, but the fact she set oral arguments on two motions to dismiss makes me think maybe she thinks she can get rid of this case without setting a trial date. that is frightening, given the gravity of the charges here and the evidence that supports those charges. >> what's going to be the state's defense then? what will we hear from them today if they try to counter what judge canon -- your theory, may be looking to make it go away. what is their argument going to be? >> first, the presidential records act doesn't support the interpretation and almost the perversion that donald trump is trying to give to it. that the presidential records act would hold that any number of the things donald trump took with him are inherently presidential and should have gone to the national archives. there was a process to follow. the people in the white house surrounding donald trump were well aware of the process and in communication with the national archives before he left the white house, let alone after it

was brought to his attention, we're missing stuff. the kim jong-un letter, the letter barack obama left for you. that kicked off a cat and house game with the national archives, then the fbi was chasing after trump to collect all the things he took. as you well know, he was not honest with them at any step of the process. he deluded his lawyers by having the boxes moved in this bizarre three-card monte he was playing with his legal team. i don't think it'll hold up. in terms of the unconstitutional vagueness of the statute here, he is talking about the willful retention of national defense documents. he says, among other things, that the phrase national defense is unconstitutionally vague. he says that the unauthorized retention is another aspect of what is unconstitutionally vague here.

we know this has been used to prosecute lesser stature people. >> recently, a national guardsman in massachusetts, i believe he got 21 years. 21 years in prison because of what he did, which, granted, was pretty egregregious. at the same time, it shows the classification system is totally broken. how can, with a straight face, and nothing will happen to donald trump when what he did was equally egregious in terms of the crimes of these other low-ranking, very low-ranking soldiers and defense contractor? >> elise, we see that all around us, right? we see that in the federal election interference case, too. 950 people have been sentenced and convicted for crimes associated with january 6th when the instigator in chief remains free from trial right now. it is no different here.

donald trump is immune to arguments that other people are doing time for the same things he has done and, in many cases, he has done worse. >> lisa, i'm curious. i understand this is the reality, the process, the judge we have in this case. but if trump is not held accountable for taking classified documents into his club, into his home, in boxes, claiming they're his, getting his workers to be involved in what is a crime, what is the precedent that will set, if somehow he skates from this? >> it is a terrible precedent, mika, which is why people like me are socon certainconcerned a rule of law and its survival in the post trump and during trump era. the notion that a former

president can escape to their private residence with hundreds of hundreds of documents that affect the national defense, lie about it, enlist maintenance workers and valets in the crime, expect them to take the fall, and walk away scot-free, and then, potentially, get elected to the office again, that's unfathomable. >> not just take the documents but obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. >> correct. >> all the attempts to have those recovered, as well. >> i'm struck by the clip you played of greg kelly interviewing him, nobody has been treated worse than trump. no one has treated us worse than trump has treated us. >> he is skating on this. he'll be in court in florida today trying to get this dismissed. just north of there in georgia, the judge in the georgia election interference case has dismissed some of the charges against former president trump and his co-defendants. judge scott mcafee dropped six

counts, three applying directly to donald trump, who still faces ten felony counts in that case alone. the six counts focused on accusations trump and his co-defendants asked public officials to violate their oaths of office. the judge found the language in the indictment too generic and did not specify which part of which oath of which constitution, state or federal, trump and his co-defendants had been accused of asking georgia officials to violate. in that ruling, judge mcafee writes, "these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crime but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission. they don't give the defense enough time to prepare. end quote. the judge left the door open for prosecutors to reindict on these dropped charges. judge mcafee expected to rule tomorrow on whether d.a. fani

willis should be disqualified from the case. lisa, let's talk about what this is and what it is not. it is a splashy headline. counts dropped against donald trump in georgia. seems what the judge is saying is, you didn't explain these well enough. what are you accusing them of? what did the oath of a constitution violation, what do you think they did? >> they can re-file and reindict or appeal the ruling. what judge mcafee pointed out himself, he said in the federal system, you file a motion for a bill of particulars. you ask for greater specificity and detail. if the court says you deserve it, you get it. we move on. we move to trial. georgia law doesn't allow for that. he's saying, i'm constrained here. i wish i had the same powers the federal court does, but this isn't the case in georgia, therefore, i'll give you an extra six months from this order to reindict on these six counts,

should you choose to. that having been said, this is not the big deal and the huge victory lap that the trump campaign and steve sato are making it out to be. here is why. first, the rico count remains. that's a count that for all defendants could lead to 5 to 20 years in prison time if convicted. more importantly, that rico count is alleged through a series of what are called overt acts. these are the things people do in furtherance of a conspiracy. rico is a conspiracy. he's saying, look, you might not have alleged with sufficient specificity what aspects of the oath you were trying to get these other georgia elected officials to violate, but you can consider each of these episodes as overt acts in furtherance of the rico charge here. meaning, it comes into the trial still. we can still talk about the raffensperger call as proof of the rico charge. we can still talk about the call that, for example, trump made to now deceased georgia speaker,

imploring him, you appoint the fake electors. all those things for these six counts are still a part of the case. what they are not is separate, independent charges with which these people can be convicted. >> fair to say, these were poorly assembled or poorly argued. we'll give you another chance to make your case because i don't know what you're arguing, is what he's saying. >> poorly pled is how lawyers would describe it. you did not put together a charging instrument in the form of the indictment that gives these people enough notice to prepare for trial. it is a violation of their due process rights as a result. again, big picture here, rico charge remains. not a single defendant here got off without remaining charges against them. trump still has ten. even mark meadows has the rico count, having got rid of the other one against him. and this is all still evidence in the case. it can be used to prove the conspiracy. >> mika, the 91 felony charges

against donald trump becomes 88 felony charges against donald trump. could go back to being 91. >> right. that's where i want to ask lisa, are there other -- for those who aren't completely reading into this, how did this come about? was there a motion to drop? is there a possibility other charges randomly, seemingly, could be dropped throughout this process? does this delay the trial in any way? what is the timing of the trial as it appears now, and if and when it starts, does trump have to appear? does the timing look like it'll happen before the election? a lot of questions. >> you guys give very good pop quiz. i'll try to address those all. mika, this came about because trump and others of his co-defendants moved to dismiss these specific counts. it is called a special demur in georgia which they filed. they have a number of other motions to dismiss, aspects of the indictment or the indictment as a whole. for whatever reason, this is the

one judge mcafee dealt with this week. what to read into it and how it'll affect the trial remains to be unseen. but you can consider this, like, an element of judicial housekeeping. if you are preparing for the next stage of pretrial proceedings, you want to move the case along irrespective of who will be in charge, fani willis or someone else, you want to call the indictment. if there is a time to narrow the charges, now is it before we move into a phase where you're going to expect other defendants to perhaps plead out, or you're going to bring this closer to a trial date than we are now. it was an interesting choice that judge mcafee did this before ruling on the fani willis motion. on one hand, he might want to do this before he hands it back to her, as embarrassing as the proceedings were. on the other hand, he might be trying to call the indictment before he says to the prosecuting counsel of georgia, your turn. find a prosecutor who is equipped to handle this indictment. >> on the point, judge mcafee gave himself tomorrow, a

self-imposed deadline, to decide whether or not fani willis will be disqualified. >> we thought this was coming, the fani willis decision. instead, it was the surprise move to dismiss the counts, at least temporarily. lisa, you laid it out, what the document may be foreshadowing. if you had to hazard a guess, what do you think will happen? >> well, i want to take this document out of it because i don't think this really impacts his decision on that. it's a hard, hard call, john. i think judge mcafee is struggling with what the right legal test is. if an appearance of impropriety is enough to disqualify fani willis, based on georgia case law, he'll say the appearance of impropriety is there. on the other hand, i don't think we saw the proof that she and nathan wade financially benefitted from his involvement in the case. this is a woman who makes more than $200,000 a year. the amount of money in their vacationing, as lavish as it seems to be normal american, is

not enough to justify the sort of bizarre, concocted schemes the defendants advanced. on top of that, it is still a he said/he said, right? we don't have any clear indication of who is telling truth, and the phone records don't change that, even if mcafee lets them in. it could go either way. i think this is going to end up being a blemish on fani willis' history no matter how it turns out. stay tuned, also, to see if they face disciplinary proceedings from the state bar based on accusations that they weren't telling the truth, even if she holds on to the case. >> all right. msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin, thank you very much. >> a-plus on the quiz. >> yes, a-plus. >> aced it. >> for sure. passed. >> thanks. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll get to the fight over tiktok. some top lawmakers argue it's not about banning the app, it's about national security. we'll be joined by a house democrat who co-sponsored the bill that passed yesterday.

plus, we're taking a look at president biden's swing through the midwest as he works to shore up the blue wall ahead of november. and hunter biden says he won't return to capitol hill next week for a public hearing in the impeachment inquiry against his father, president biden. what his lawyers are saying about the, quote, carnival sideshow. you're watching "morning joe." we're back in 60 seconds.

welcome back. the attorney for hunter biden says the president's son will not testify next week in a public hearing for the house oversight committee. biden's lawye sent a letter declining the request, calling the hearing a, quote, carnival sideshow. howell added he'd consider testifying if the panel also included relatives of former

president trump. >> the letter was dismissed by comer, saying he expects hunter along with his business associates. so far, they've come up with, a, nothing. b, nothing. c, nothing. if you looked at donald trump's family members, you'd be able to see they have benefitted in many ways that seem inappropriate, perhaps as inappropriate as some of the relationships that hunter had that ultimately added up to no law breaking. i don't know, $2 billion from saudi arabia, it seems kind of unseemly. maybe it's okay. >> it's completely unseemly. >> are you kidding me? these people are crazy. >> why doesn't hunter just come back and do it publicly and have it air in the court of public

opinion? he was fighting for public testimony, i believe, a couple months ago. i think he'd benefit from that, frankly, just for more clown show to be shown to the public. he'll come across as likable and someone paying his penance for his addiction and trying to move on. i question the decision not to show up and do it and submit to what will be definitely unpleasant and uncomfortable, but ultimately gets more of his side of the story out there to the public. >> it was a surprising decision since, by all accounts, hunter biden got the best of the closed door hearing, the private hearing a few weeks ago. republicans came out of it sort of embarrassed and baffled by the lack of questioning and the fact that james comer, the chair, didn't even take a single question. hunter biden and his team felt good about the strategy.

they've been pushing back on republicans. now, he has trials looming in california on the gun and tax charges. that trial scheduled to start in june. that may be part of his thinking here. certainly, you know, people close to him say he does not want to be a distraction for his father's re-election campaign. mika, it is an aboutface because hunter biden and his team had been the ones pushing for the public hearing. republicans saying they want him to show up anyway. >> all right. we'll be following that. still ahead, steve rattner is standing by with new charts, fact-checking some of donald trump's biggest attacks on president biden. "morning joe" is back in a moment. j.p. morgan wealth management knows it's easy

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still dark over the united states capitol at 6:27in the morning. the appropriations bill must be passed ahead of the supplemental that would provide aid to ukraine. speaker johnson made the claim yesterday. he also said the delay was because the white house was slow-walking questions to his answers on ukraine. >> in the sequence of events, it was important for us to not put the supplemental in front of the appropriations bills because it would affect probably the vote tally, ultimately, on the approps. we had to get our government funded. i made two requests of the president and his cabinet in the situation room within hours of my being handed the gavel. october 26th, i talked to jake sullivan. i spoke within a couple days to

the secretary of state, secretary of defense, the president himself. i said, there are a couple things we need on ukraine, these answers to these key questions. what is the end game? what is the strategy? how do we have accountability over the funds we've sent? are we sending the right weapons systems? as you know the history of this, it took them not weeks but months to provide some of the answers. we still don't have all of them, though they've done more lately. the process has drug out not because of the house but, in my view, because of the white house being unwilling or unable to provide the necessary answers for us to process that sooner. >> jonathan lemire, the claim now from the speaker is the foot dragging from the house on ukraine aid that has been condemned widely across the west. we've heard from european leaders putting pressure, this week, polish leaders. ukrainian leaders putting pressure on speaker johnson to get the aid, saying they're holding it up. he is claiming it is the white house. >> that's not true. we the fact-check that.

johnson said publicly and says privately, look, i support getting some aid there. he hasn't had the ability to follow through and get enough republicans on board. there is the block on the far right who oppose the aid, and that's the block that ousted kevin mccarthy and threatened to oust him. he is being very mindful of that. he is yet to move forward. we have the discharge petitions that are in the house right now. there is a democratic one circulating, a republican one circulating. those are possibilities but long shots as to whether or not that can circumvent and get the aid done. ukraine had recent success with drone strikes within russia itself, but on the battlefield, they're running out of ammunition. we reported yesterday about the pentagon able to scrape together savings they found. they'll have a small package head there. that'll help. but it is a drop in the bucket compared to what the biden national security package would be. >> elise, the pentagon is having to find these ad hoc pots of money. >> funny how they can do that over at the pentagon.

yes, they have that unique ability in american government to dip in. i mean, ukraine is going to collapse without continued united states funding. it's not like germany and the europeans are going to step up enough, you know, if this really does not come through. it's really their last go, too, at a good, solid chunk of funding before financially donald trump gets re-elected. the stakes are pretty high here, and i do not see how those renascent republicans in the house come along. it doesn't seem like they're budging, only hardening in their position. it is the position of donald trump right now. no one is going to deviate from donald trump in the republican party. >> that's the other piece. it's a matter of eight months or so if donald trump is re-elected, putin gets exactly what he wants. it's all the time he needs. in the house yesterday, a bill that could ban tiktok unless its chinese parent company divests itself of the

app in the u.s. passed. now, it faces a tougher fight in the senate. savannah sellers has more. >> reporter: the bill needed two-thirds of the house to pass, and it got that easily. >> the yays are 352. the nays are 65. >> reporter: now, it goes to the senate where it will likely face a tougher road. if signed into law, it'd give chinese parent company bytedance just six months to divest tiktok or face the possibility of a ban on the app. the legislation prompted by national security concerns, including fears the chinese government could access americans' personal data and feed them content that would influence their views. >> our intention is for tiktok to continue to operate but not under the control of the chinese communist party. >> reporter: 50 democrats and 15 republicans voted no. >> it's an overly broad bill that i don't think would stand first amendment scrutiny. >> it is opening pandora's box, and i'm opposed to this bill. >> reporter: aligning with former president trump, who once

tried to ban tiktok but now says he's against that. tiktok fighting back hard, even flying creators to washington. >> hello, this is my son. >> reporter: jason lynnton shares his life as a dad with his 13 million followers. what would it mean for you and your family if tiktok were to be banned in the u.s.? >> it'd be devastating. being able to just launch out a positive message would be completely stopped. >> i wish it was a bad dream but it's not. >> reporter: jt layborn uses tiktok to promote his clothing company. could this impact how people vote? >> absolutely. >> reporter: tiktok says it has 170 million users in the u.s. according to an nbc news poll, 22% of voters use the app once a day or more. the potential political fallout with those young voters not lost on some senators. >> cutting out a large group of young voters is not the best known strategy for re-election.

>> reporter: republican mike gallagher, the bill's sponsor, says that's not a good enough reason to ignore a looming national security threat. >> i don't think courting the cliques of 17-year-olds should take precedence over allowing our foreign adversary to dominate what is the primary news source for americans under the age of 30. >> reporter: tiktok says his ceo was on the hill but it is unclear if he met with lawmakers. they maintain they're not owned or controlled by the chinese government. >> this legislation, if signed into law, will lead to a ban of tiktok in the united states. >> savannah sellers reporting there. part of what strikes you here, elise, the vote. this was not a small group of extremistings. this was a vote of 352-65 to pass this through the house on a very, obviously, bipartisan basis. but there are holdouts. a lot of the progressive caucus says this goes too far, had questions about free speech and other things. we'll see how it does in the senate. what's your view of this? >> it is really disappointing

that so many elected officials are willing to take such a draconian stance against free speech. it is a really broad bill. define what is the limiting mechanism here and how it's not going to extend and creep into other liberties of americans. it also just, you know, anytime the national security state is so adamant that something must be done for the safety of americans, maybe we should probe into that and make them explain exactly what the limitations are going to be that are going to be set and what the precedent that is going to be going forward, so that more of our rights aren't curtailed. >> this will be a closer call in the senate, john. you hear leader schumer kind of having it both ways in his public comments, figuring out where his caucus really is on this question. >> certainly, the idea would be this divestment, but i don't know how possible that is. tiktok aggressively lobbying against this, pushing users to pressure senators and the rest. president biden said he'd sign

it though the biden campaign jumped on tiktok. that's where a lot of voters are, particularly the younger voters they need to reach. >> politically, it is so stupid. >> you know, they trotted out the national security concerns. we heard donald trump flip-flop on this. when he was president, his administration moved on the way to banning it. didn't follow through but he was hawkish on it. now, he's suggesting to support it because the chance for votes and the investor who can give money. >> donald trump had probably little to do with that. >> that, too. >> now, he sees the wind. he is very good at seeing where the wind of public opinion is going, and that's why he is suddenly pro-tiktok. i'm sure there's a financial reason involved, too. but he is very good at sensing the mood of the public. >> also very good at being pushed around by rich guys on the patio of mar-a-lago. >> true. >> we'll talk more about this in the next hour.

we'll be join bid the co-sponsor of the tiktok ledge slar, representative raja rish kishnamoorthi on what to do if this becomes law. moorthi on whaf this becomes law minute ule. go to safelite.com. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ here's to getting better with age.

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although it's not official until the conventions this summer, a biden/trump rematch is on the horizon for november. nbc news projects both men won enough delegates to officially lead their parties in the fight for the white house this fall. as the race heats up, trump has been sticking to familiar attack lines about president biden. joining us now with a fact-check is former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. he's got it all in charts. we'll start, steve, with the issue of crime. take a look. >> we are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed, skp where crime is rampant and out

of control like never, ever before. >> the carnage line, he's always going with the carnage, steve. is it true? >> well, no. crime is not out of control like it's ever been before. in fact, crime is actually continuing to drop under president biden. let's take a look at violent crime. this is per 100,000 people in relationship to the size of our population. you can see that violent crime, since 2020, has dropped by 15%. 339 violent crimes per 100,000 people. it's below any place it was during the trump administration, and it's had this huge drop in 2023. the same is basically true of property crime. you can see here, this is people robbing homes and things of that like. down 7%. 1,830 per 100,000 people. this is a complete fiction, that crime is up under the biden administration. >> yeah. at the same time, there are different areas of the country

experiencing different things and a mixture of crime and homelessness is very personal to people in their neighborhoods. again, you can't deny the data and the trends that we're seeing. there's also donald trump's false claims when it comes to president biden's energy policy. listen to this. >> on day one of our new administration, we will end biden's nation-wrecking war on american energy. he's wrecking the energy. >> okay. steve rattner, again, what are the facts? >> yeah, wrecking the energy business. we have had record energy production under the biden administration. this combines nuclear, fossil fuels, and renewables. you can see here that we have never had energy production this high. the other thing that he says is that he is going to make us energy independent again. the fact s we are energy independent. we've been energy independent now for five years. in fact, our energy exports,

mostly oil but also some national gas, hit a record last year. in fact, america has -- we produce more oil than any country in the world has ever produced in history. >> yeah, and he talks a lot about the economy and how it was better under him. also attempting to rewrite history on the deficit and debt. listen to donald trump. >> we were going to pay off debt. we were going to reduce taxes further. we gave you the biggest tax cut in the history of our country, bigger than the ronald reagan tax cut. >> wow. the actual numbers show something very different, right, steve? >> yeah, he did give us a big tax cut, that part is true. >> yeah. >> what it did, it increased the deficit. when he says we were on track to pay off the debt, look what happened to the deficit, even before covid. even before covid, because of his tax cut, the deficit was going up, up, and then covid

hit. under biden, he's brought it down. under the new, proposed budget, he'd bring it down further. because of the deficit, when he talks about how he was going to pay off the debt during his first term, he added more debt than any other president in history. some was covid. $3.6 trillion. but there was also $5 trillion of debt that had nothing to do with covid. trump signed a series of spending bills that increased our spending by over $2.5 trillion. the idea that he was a president that was going to attack the deficit and debt problem is actually completely false. >> steve, when president biden put out this week his projected budget, there was a lot of pearl clutching from republicans about adding to the deficit when they were silent, for the most part, as donald trump added $8 trillion to the deficit. the chart directly behind you on the war on energy, the one you talked about a minute ago, donald trump has been posting drill, baby, drill, quite a bit lately.

is it fair to say that sounds more of an endorsement of what joe biden is doing right now? >> yeah, the drill, baby, drill, stuff i find astonishing. record energy production is gotten by drilling. we need to transition away from fossil fuels, but for now, we need them. the idea that biden has been anti-energy or somehow curtailed our drilling is completely belied by the fact we are producing record amounts of oil and natural gas. >> "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner, thank you. the only problem i see here, and this is not a joke, is that we could do our entire four-hour show fact-checking everything donald trump says, and we would not even scratch the surface. that's the problem that we're confronting in this election and for this country moving forward. steve, thank you. coming up, pablo torre joins the table to discuss the top headlines in sports. plus, we'll get his take on a former nfl mvp being floated

as a possible vp pick. okay. that's next on "morning joe."

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well, it is still dark out, but if you look closely at 6:50 in the morning, you can see the concord making its way up the hudson river here in new york city where it is going to arrive to be on display at the intrepid once again. take my word for it. let's turn to sports. major league baseball opening day just two weeks away. major, major injury concern for us new york yankees fans surrounding our ace. the team has shut down gerrit cole with no official timetable for his return. the cy young underwent an mri earlier this week after reporting discomfort and since visited a specialist in los angeles who recommended further testing. yikes. the yankees hoping to have cole

back sometime in may or early june. jonathan lemire, please suppress your glee for a moment. >> for real. >> this is one of the best pitchers in baseball. i'm a yankee fan. you're a red sox fan. we understand that. this is not good good. they say a month or two, but that seems like the beginning of something. >> we don't root for injuries, willie. did i pull that off? >> the face was straight. >> no, this is. cole, we were talking just this week, because there were major free agent pitchers, blake snell, wanting the long-term deals. no starting pitcher should get that because pitchers get hurt. cole seemed to be the exception to the rule. he's been worth every penny. one of the best pitchers in baseball. won the cy young last year. this is a concern. the tone around it changed. a day or two, they thought it'd be a month, which is a big deal but the yankees could survive that. now, lump of cole on the back of

"the new york post." this surgeon is the best in the business, performs a lot of tommy john surgeries. we don't know it is coming here, but it is worrisome for cole this year and going forward. seems his arm is an issue. do the yankees try to sign a free agent pitcher to make up for cole if he misses time? it'd come with a major luxury tax penalty. $60 million or more. >> as we talked about, those guys want seven-year deals. you can't do that. gerrit cole has been awesome for the yankees. he was a bright spot last year. let's hope he is okay. let's bring in, you've seen him in the wide shot -- >> chuckling over here. >> thank you for the laugh. >> collective misfortune. i'm a yankee partisan, too. i don't like when people say, the surgeon is really good. that's not helping me right now. >> we don't want a surgeon in the conversation. >> no thanks. >> pablo torre, you know that by now. good to see you. let's look ahead a little bit to the yankee season. juan soto, protecting judge in the lineup, the lineup looks good but you were counting on having cole at the top of the

rotation, obviously. >> willie, let's be honest, there is a binary sort of dynamic to how we should feel about the season. last season was the worst season in my lifetime. worst season in 30 years of rooting for the yankees. granted, i've only known roses and the canyon of euros. they didn't make the playoffs, 82 and 80. this is an all-in dynamic so you win or misery. i laughed to john, in his face, about how the red sox will finish last in the a.l. east for the third straight year. >> careful now. >> i now deserve this, i suppose, cosmically. look, juan soto, aaron judge makes me feel great. it does. it's just that i like the yankees. it's not my money, man. why are we not spending more $300 million contracts on these guys? i'd like them to shore up the lineup, please. >> this generation of steinbrenners seems less willing to open the check book to play

for players. >> disappointing. >> we're destined for last. >> i'm hoping for the best on cole. the lineup is tough. we'll keep us in it. staying within the pages of "the new york post," robert f. kennedy says he'll announce his vice presidential pick on march 26th at an event in oakland. why are we telling you this in a sports segment? a source tells nbc news the independent presidential candidate offered the slot to an individual, and that individual has accepted the offer. earlier this week -- >> oh boy. >> -- kennedy jr. confirmed to "the new york times" new york jets quarterback aaron rodgers and former minnesota governor jesse "the body" ventura were on his short list. this can't be real, right? he's floating these names for fun. is aaron rodgers, who is an active member of the new york jets, fully expected to return this season, would he be on the campaign trail during the week and playing football on sundays? >> i -- i just want to attack

this from the perspective of a jet fan. i have a lot of takes about just what this means. why is rfk cornering the market on 9/1 conspiracies, the sandy hook demos. the story is aaron rodgers happens to be a guy who told cnn, pamela brown, the whole thing was a conspiracy. that was the reporting. i say all of this to say, if i'm a jet fan, how do i feel? even beyond the human horror of what that means, that conspiracy in specific, like, is that still a line we can't cross? we'll find out, i guess. i think about football. after all of that, i think about, this is the guy who said we need to eliminate off-field distractions. aaron rodgers is the human being that had those words exit his mouth. now, to be the first athlete in history to mount a presidential, vice president campaign is just

one of those on the nose things that you would laugh at if you also didn't worry about what it says about, i don't know, democracy and ourselves. >> kennedy and rodgers, of course, corresponded over their vaccine skepticism, denialism. cnn highlights the conspiracy theory, allegedly shared by aaron rodgers, about the sandy hook elementary school shooting not being real. this is alex jones stuff. it is disgusting, appalling. pamela brown, a reporter behind the piece, said she was introduced to rodgers covering the kentucky derby in 2013. upon hearing she was a journalist with cnn, rodgers immediately attacked the news media for covering up important stories, he said. according to the report, rodgers brought up the sandy hook shooting, claiming it was a government inside job and the media was intentionally ignoring it. brown recalls rodgers asking her if she thought it was off that

there were men in black in the woods by the school -- we're not going to get into this stuff. rodgers, through an agent, declined to comment to cnn in response to this. cnn had a second source on this. he's been saying this to a whole bunch of people. it is arguably the most disgusting conspiracy theory in all of the qanon, alex jones world that has descended on this country the last decade or so. john, the question for me is, at this point, if you are the new york jets, aaron rodgers is a broken down 40-year-old who won one super bowl a decade and a half ago. same number of super bowls as jeff hostetler and nick foles. is it worth it to have this guy? you have an awful lot of nets fans in newtown, connecticut, i promise. >> aaron rodgers, his play was slipping at his time in green bay. he played four plays last year before he was injured, suffered an achilles tendon injury. we don't know how he'll bounce back. that's just the football context. it is the most loathsome conspiracy theory out there.

if he believes it, he is a loathsome human being. we know from his former teammates who have told people he'd float 9/11 conspiracy theories, too, maybe the second worst conspiracy theory in american society, pablo. i don't see how the new york jets can employ this guy. if this is real, let him go be robert f. kennedy jr.'s running mate. they'll lose in embarrassing fashion. don't let him play for your team again. >> this guy doesn't care about football anymore. can i say that? it should be insulting for aaron rodgers to hear someone say that about him, but every indication is he wants to talk about and complain about and be victimized by and become a messianic figure because of alleged cancellation. why? is it us, aaron, or is it you? for aaron rodgers, the answer is never aaron rodgers is the problem, despite all the people around who are voting in the other direction. >> by the way, the sandy hook families have suffered more than a decade because of that conspiracy theory, been harassed. >> insane. >> they've had to move. not disclose where their children are buried. it's the most horrific thing. if aaron rodgers is really

talking about this, i don't know how the jets keep him. you have tyrod taylor, let him be the quarterback. pablo, great to see you. we'll get back to the new developments with donald trump's legal trouble, including the hearing in florida of his handling of classified documents. we're back in 90 seconds. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can i make my side softer? i like my side firmer. sleep number does that. the queen sleep number c4 smart bed is only $1,599, save $300. shop now at sleepnumber.com

my predecessor and allies in congress, including your senator

ron johnson. [ booing ] well, he voted against the infrastructure law that funds this project. they want to undo everything i talked about. my predecessor talked about infrastructure every week for four years. he didn't get a single thing done, not one. ron johnson and every republican in congress voted against the inflation reduction act which is helping fund these projects, and he wants to appeal it. >> biden's message to supporters in wisconsin as he looks to gain more support in midwest swing states. >> willie, we talked about wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania being the states that really, if biden sweeps those, it's almost impossible for donald trump to get to 270. and wisconsin has been sort of the latter day florida, florida, florida, florida. it's the one that is the closest. it's the tightest. this year, not only does the biden team feel better about wisconsin, a lot of political observers are saying this is a

state that's actually looking custom-made for joe biden in 2024. this one actually may be a bit less difficult for him to win this year. >> yeah, we'll see. i mean, there's no mystery to what the next eight months mean. it means joe biden or donald trump has to win those states. it's that simple. you've got to win michigan. you have to win wisconsin. you have to win pennsylvania. that's the group. that's where the focus will be and should be. john heilemann just sat down. as well as former alabama senator doug jones. great to have you both here. that's why we're seeing, john, the focus from the biden campaign. yes, they're in georgia, campaigning elsewhere, but they know where this will be won and lost. >> it is no coincidence, you know, aaron rodgers out of wisconsin. as soon as he left wisconsin, the state started looking better for joe biden. that's the whole thing. >> okay. sure. >> i wanted to get on the aaron rodgers thing a little bit there. >> you could. >> that is actually -- i mean, let me try to guide you

somewhere else here. let's talk about money. joe biden breaking all records as far as fundraising goes. i talked to a prominent democratic fundraiser a week ago who told me for the first time in decades, instead of calling saying, "hey, we're going to have a fundraiser. i know this is a tough time but" -- every single person she called, picked up the phone, and the response was uniform. >> how can i help? >> thank god you called. i've been waiting for you to call. so much is on the line. how can i help? that feeds into, on the democratic side, on the biden side, record-breaking numbers. on the trump side, we saw the numbers have collapsed this year for individual donors. you also have larger donors saying either he is too extreme or he's already spent billions of dollars on legal bilbills, i don't want to pay him to pay his lawyers. so you look at states like

wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania. i mean, they're basically individual senate races. they're going to be microtargeting those states. if you've got billions of dollars to do it, you can do it. if you have a couple hundred million to spread around the country like donald trump, it's going to end up being a really big uphill climb for him. >> for sure, joe. on both sides, there's something to say here. one of which is, you know, if you're in the biden campaign and you think about what your challenges are between now and november, you know, there is the challenge of trying to get democratic base voters to turn out who lost enthusiasm for joe biden. we know who those groups are. young voters, african-american voters, latino voters. the biden argument is, when the race comes into focus, those people will come home. the voters will come home. the fundraising number is like a leading indicator of that. the place where the focus on the race, the people who are fully aware and have been for months, that donald trump is going to be

the nominee of the republican party, which he now is the de facto nominee, as we pointed out, he has the delegates, that's been clear to the donor community. people at the big dollar level and the small dollar level. those are the people focused on politics. they know donald trump is going to be the nominee, now is the nominee effectively, and they are already champing at the bit to get money into the biden campaign. they realize what the stakes of the election are. if you're the biden campaign, you're propagating the theory that once it's clear the voters will come home. it's the leading indicator, once democrats really look at this race, voters will go in the same direction the donors have. on the trump side, you know, you can say a lot of things about republican donors, but one thing you can't say is that they're idiots. if you are a large dollar republican donor, you look at donald trump's financial circumstances, what's going on at the rnc, the way in which his legal peril is impacting the

financial peril, and you say, i'm not sure that my money in this campaign is going to be used for what it's supposed to be for. you know, there's all kinds of speculation about what is going to happen to dollars that go into donald trump's coffers at this point. if you're sitting there, you're kind of on the line, a lot of the donors don't like donald trump anyway. they'd rather have seen some other republican on the ticket because they're more electable. there's a lot of uncertainty there. that is not going to help donald trump in the fundraising war against joe biden. >> i think, joe and mika, you know, this is a two-day swing here, michigan and wisconsin. we know it is two-thirds of the blue wall that donald trump cracked in 2016, joe biden restored in 2020 for democrats. this campaign going to be fought on lofty ideas like democracy. these two days, it's about things like infrastructure. it's about things like social security. it's about things like everyday improvements in the lives of the people there. we'll hear from the president today about his support for

labor unions there in michigan. that also are among the battle lines where this campaign going to be fought. the biden campaign feels it is a winning argument, particularly in those states. >> elise, we're not exaggerating to say when donald trump goes to these states, he seems to be more out there, more unmoored, more accusatory, more angry, more violent in his attacks, more un-american in his support for vladimir putin. you have all of this crazy and dangerous stuff going on at the same time in his speeches, and then biden goes and talks about infrastructure. he talks about, you know, obamacare. he talks about insulin, $35 now instead of a couple thousand dollars because of pharmaceutical greed. i mean, that's -- and i know a lo of people that talk politics and pundits don't think that stuff adds up. i can tell you, as somebody on

the campaign trail, and i've done it four times, if you do out there and do it and you keep hammering the facts while they're attacking you, people eventually, they listen to the facts. they don't listen to the craziness and the ground noise. >> you look at the importance that the biden campaign has put in wisconsin. they really are trying to step up there. they have their campaign state headquarters in milwaukee now, trying to juice enthusiasm among black voters in milwaukee who haven't been turning out really since obama was on the ballot. and you see he is talking about infrastructure. he is going into areas and making that a focus. he is trying to get back some enthusiasm there among voters he needs to win. the question with trump's fundraising, though, is donald trump going to be able to be on the airwaves in the summer, in the fall? is he going to be massively outspent by joe biden like he was last go-around?

that really was such an advantage for joe biden. it's going -- it remains to be seen if trump can get back to a level where he can compete. >> former senator doug jones, i'd love to bring you into this and ask, what is the key to winning pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, and cutting through the fire hose of falsehoods that come from the trump campaign every single day? >> mika, i think there is a combination. what the president is doing now is absolutely a key. i mean, we've been trying to get the message out about what this administration has done over the last three years and what they intend to do over the next four years. i think that's really important. that's where the rubber meets the road. write it home. conversations with folks about the infrastructure, about broadband, about health care, you name it, that's what this administration has been doing. i also think this, i also think that you cannot overlook the third party candidacies of folks

that might siphon anti-trump vote. they have to look and make sure they explain and educate the electorate in those states, that this is a winner take all. the electoral college doesn't give leeway on things like this, and it is winner take all. if votes are siphoned away from joe biden, it'll only help donald trump. it is an important factor, especially in the key states if the third parties get on the ballot. because they cannot win. there is no way on god's green earth a third party candidate or independent candidate can get 270 electoral votes. it is a throw away vote. >> all right. former president donald trump is expected to be in court today for a hearing in the federal classified documents case against him. in fort pierce, florida, a u.s. district judge, aileen cannon, is set to hear arguments on two of trump's motions to dismiss the charges against him. the first argues trump was

allowed to store classified documents just like this. unlocked rooms at his club under the presidential records act. >> yeah, that's -- >> he claims this was okay, right by the potty. >> not okay. we'll see if the judge, who i guess desperately wants to be appointed something else by donald trump, will make the mistake she did before and then get absolutely excuriated by the 11th circuit. she can rule what she rules, but no court will uphold a preposterous argument. >> the main statute used to form charges against the former president is unconstitutionally vague. in an interview yesterday with the right-wing network newsmax, trump defended his actions. >> i took them very legally, and i wasn't hiding them. we had boxes on the front. a lot of the boxes had clothing.

we're moving out, unfortunately, from the white house. i had the right to do it in my opinion and my lawyers' opinion and everything else. >> thatfantastic. >> just not true, what he said. let's bring in attorney george conway. george, so let's just say that donald trump accidentally packed his shirts, golf shoes, and some classified documents and took it down, discovered it, and then said, "hey, i've got these things. you guys need to have them back." no hard, no foul. they would have come to get them. they would have taken them back. in fact, that's exactly what happened in joe biden's case. here, doesn't matter what he says on newsmax or fox. here, he had the documents. he knew he had the documents. he lied to the fbi about the documents. they tried negotiating to get the documents back.

he gave some of them back. in fact, he had his lawyers actually sign affidavits swearing the documents were back. ended up, they were lying. he kept more documents. he then tried to get his i.t. guy to destroy the evidence. the i.t. guy refused. he then asked someone else to flood the i.t. room with water from the swimming pool. that guy refused, as well. they are now testifying against donald trump. for all the idiots out there or let me say, not idiots, all those who have been brainwashed and are in donald trump's personality cult, immune to facilities and what's right and what's wrong in this situation, clarify for them, if you will, george, the difference between those two scenarios. >> i think you just did. what trump is arguing is, as you say, absolutely preposterous.

i mean, he is arguing, first of all, the records belong to him under the presidential records act. literally, the presidential records act starts by saying precisely the opposite. official papers of the president belong to the united states of america, and the president can have certain rights to look at those papers after the fact but they have to go through the national archives. none of that, you know, has anything to do even with the classification. the classification issue is something that doesn't affect the fact that he took these documents and then squirrelled them around. there's no argument that this is somehow unconstitutionally vague. i mean, he obstructed justice. there's no question about that. people go to jail for that all the time. there's no question that these materials contain national defense information. even if he could pull the magnificent routine with an envelope to the head and say, "these are declassified," they'd

still be national defense information under the espionage act. each of those counts subjects him to a potential of ten years in jail. there are dozens of counts. >> yeah. >> yeah? >> george, most telling here is, again, donald trump has done so many things throughout the process just to undermine, to gut every one of his arguments. the whole argument of, well, i could declassify these if i want to, of course, undermined by his statement to his campaign manager when he was showing her top secret invasion plans of iran. saying, this is classified material. if i were still president, i could declassify it, then i'd have no problem showing everybody in the room this. but i'm not president anymore, so i can't declassify these materials. again, even that claim is a bogus claim. he can't be carnack the magician. he can't be trump the all powerful ex-president.

he broke the law. he knows he broke the law. he admitted he broke the law. >> that's absolutely right. it is an open and shut case with all the witnesses against him talking about how -- telling the prosecutors and the grand jury about how he hid the documents and lied about the documents, had his lawyers lie about the documents, tried to destroy the evidence, so on and so forth. as you mentioned, i mean, it's all -- that's just devastating evidence. it's not a complicated case. yes, there is sensitive national security information in those documents, but the precise content doesn't matter. that's the reason why this case isn't that complicated. there isn't some kind of -- it just is like a drug bust case. you basically -- he had the drugs, the documents, people saw him with the documents. he hit the documents. you know, the evidence was in his office and in his bathroom and in his ballroom at his own private resort. it's just -- this case should be

going to trial right now, frankly, were it not for the bizarre actions of this district judge at the very beginning who tried to hamstring the justice department's investigation and the grand jury investigation and had to get slapped down by the u.s. court of appeals in georgia twice. if it weren't for that, and if it weren't for other delays, i mean, this case -- any other judge, i think, would have had this case tried or ready to be tried as of now. >> senator jones, you were the u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama for four years. >> right. >> if you had this evidence in front of you as a prosecutor, which as george laid out, it's there. there are pictures of it. documents are there. no one is denying that. what they're claiming is he had the right to do it. the presidential records act explicitly says he doesn't have the right to do that. then there is the obstruction piece. we've heard from multiple witnesses, including another one this week, about the lengths donald trump went to to conceal this, to get people to come around and help him hide this stuff from the national archives until the fbi had to issue a

subpoena and come in and get the documents. as a prosecutor, you like the evidence you have in this case? [ laughter ] >> absolutely. that was such a softball question. the facts, the law, everything is on the prosecutor's side. i agree with george, this case should have already been tried. this is -- you know, there is a speedy trial. there's all sorts of things that could have gotten this case to trial. what donald trump is doing right now is purely political. he is speaking to his political base. he's not speaking to that court. he is trying to delay these processes, thinking he will get elected president again. he is shoring up his base every time he makes a statement like that. i am surprised a little bit that the lawyers can in good faith put those arguments in front of the court. they just are absurd on their face, in my view. i think george explained it really well. >> joe, before we end the block, i kind of have a palate

cleanser. >> fantastic. >> you know charlie rose talking to people and going, how do you do -- >> what you do? >> -- what you do? >> exactly. i couldn't do that. i tried it. >> this is another version of that. >> yeah? >> i'd call it a palate cleanser, except it might wretch. take a look. >> yikes. >> mr. president, i'm very curious about what it is like for you, your life, you know? no one has gone through what you've gone through. nobody in human history has really -- and i know you have supporters, friends, family -- they say it is lonely at the top. i'm actually curious, is it ever lonely for you? i mean, no one can fully relate to what you've been through and what you're going through. are you ever lonely? >> so i was -- over the years, i love history. i study history. i was always told andrew jackson as a president was treated the absolute worst. he was really lambasted. and i heard abraham lincoln was second, but he was in a thing called the civil war. you can understand that.

but andrew jackson was really, really treated badly. in fact, his wife died during the process. i mean, a lot of people say she died because of the way they were treated. i mean, she was heartbroken and broken in so many other ways. i heard that for years. i look now, even last night i was saying it, and i said, i don't care. andrew jackson or anybody else, nobody has -- when you think of the fake things, nobody has been treated like trump in terms of badly. >> yeah. >> is that it? yeah, that's it. well, willie, listen. >> yeah, i don't think that was a palate cleanser. >> yeah. >> let's sort through that. mr. president, you've been treated worse than anybody in history. >> aw. >> let's start with a couple. jesus christ was crucified. >> oh. >> little worse.

joan of arc burned at the stake. that's two we can notch above there. >> martin luther king. >> abe lincoln assassinated. martin luther king assassinated. bobby kennedy assassinated. jfk assassinated. that's a little worse. black americans, let's see, did anything happen to them? yes. ripped from their country. ripped from their homes. put in chains. dragged across enslaved ships to america where they were slaves from 1619 until 1860 -- that's a little worse, yeah. i think that's worse than what donald trump is going through. let's see, i don't know. willie, no one in human history, mr. president, has gone through more than you have gone through. willie, where do i begin?

>> i don't know. >> where do i begin, as the song goes? >> started with jesus christ. i mean -- >> these sad, sad people who are so freakish to try to elevate this -- you know, he plays like a strongman. >> plays the victim. >> he is such a poor, pathetic, weak, snowflake. he's a snowflake. i want dr. evil to start talking about his father and how all the things his father did to him. and donald trump will next take that on board. >> oh. >> the accused chestnuts of being lazy. but it's just so insane, willie, that he is -- here, you have this billionaire, was president of the united states, and he's just such a victim.

he's so weak. everybody is picking on him. everybody is trying to play right into the victimhood. listen, we republicans used to -- i mean, when i was a republican, we were like, you know what? don't be the victim. don't be weak. you know, the pull yourself up by your bootstraps type nonsense, that's what republicans used to be about. personal responsibility. now, it is all victimhood. look what they've done to me. they're such babies. >> it's what they used to accuse democrats and progressives of being, right, victims and whiners and all that. >> snowflakes. >> such whiners. >> at this point, it is donald trump's rational for re-election. he says it out loud at rallies. i'm being indicted for you. i'm honored to be indicted for you on all these counts. so you saw it. i mean, joe, we talk about this all the time, whether it is lindsey graham or now like the guy doing the interview

yesterday, how do you look yourself in the mirror after that? you sit across from donald trump and fluff him, talk about why are they so mean to you, sir? how do you get through it? honest to god, i don't know how you'd look your children in the eye after doing that, even catch a glimpse of yourgs in the mirror while you were shaving. i guess they're beyond humiliation because they like the power. >> fluff 'em. >> john heilemann, and i'm serious, talk about how victimhood, vicvictimhood, the thing republicans used to despise, saying they were a party of victims, talk about how republicans have become the victims, a party of resentment. look at what the black person did to me. oh, look what that 14-year-old trans volleyball player could do. she could bring down the entire

western civilization. >> stop. >> it's all of these preposterous things that they come up with so they can be the victims. so the white majority, like evangelicals, people who are in the majority in every respect are victimized because a 14-year-old trans volleyball player in butte, montana, wants to play on the varsity volleyball team. i'm making that particular one up, but it is really that crazy. it's like the governor of utah when he vetoed one of these pieces of legislation, anti-trans legislation. he said, um, you know, there are only three trans athletes in our entire state. you people are burning the

entire state down over this. maybe we can sit around the table and talk and figure this out. it's just like the southern border. they don't want to sit down and figure it out. they want the issue so they can go on these news shows and talk about how their way of life is being trampled on by those mean elites. >> right. so, first of all, mika offered a palate cleanser earlier and then she played that interview for us. it wasn't a palate cleanser. then willie talking about someone fluffing donald trump. i really need a palate cleanser now. that's the worst thing i've heard ever. >> okay. >> joe, this is the story of donald trump and the story of what has happened, as you say, to the modern contemorary republican party. the party has become a party of grievance. there's been a realignment in terms of what the constituent

parts are of the republican party. it is increasingly this kind of -- and this realignment is reshaping american politics. it's become the downscale party, the less educated party, the more economically strained part of the electorate, and that is -- there is a large number of voters. this is what made donald trump president in 2016. it is what, despite his failure in 2020, it's what turned out 8 million more voters in 2020 than in 2016, the case of seething grievance. make america great again is about grievance, white grievance, but it's about, we have lost our country. someone has taken the country away. we've not gotten what we are entitled to. now, a strongman will get it back for us. so much is ludicrous about that argument, but that is the political power of donald trump. it rests on grievance. he is a kind of ludicrously almost kind of parody of a

snowflake at this point. but he does embody and becomes the kind of thing upon which a lot of voters project their sense of grievance. they see donald trump as a persecuted figure. they feel persecuted themselves. they are the losers. others are the winners. please make us the winners again and stop those people from being the winners. that has been his political power. that is largely what the republican party is all about now. i will say, in conclusion, i've been to a lot of donald trump rallies in 2016, 2020, and this cycle. there's always these songs he plays, right? you've been to enough rallies to know. he gets in trouble sometimes with the artists for playing them. artists say, "don't play my song," which i would do, certainly. the song that really would be the trump theme song at this point, and linda ronstadt would demand he stop, but it'd be the perfect trump theme song. >> poor, poor, pitiful me. >> when she says, no, he can go

back to playing the qanon song under his rallies. senator, let me ask you about, you won election in the reddest of red states as a democrat. extraordinary feat. >> he never whined. he never complained. i haven't heard doug jones complain once. >> you know alabama voters because of the state where you lift and have for so long. we were looking yesterday and discussing it, donald trump's win in georgia two nights ago. >> right. >> he won big, yes, but there were 90,000 republican votes cast not for donald trump. 75,000 or so more nikki haley. ron desantis got votes. chris christie got a couple thousand. i guess the question is, republicans in birmingham, republicans in mobile, suburbs like that, are they thinking twic about donald trump? if they are, where are they going to go? >> that's the issue. they certainly are in those areas, in those suburbs. the rural areas of alabama and

the south, not so much. you still see the trump flags. you still see the bumper stickers and everything else trump. but i think in the suburbs, in the business community, they're concerned. they see a lot of republican policies that they like, but at the same time, they see someone unhinged. they see things that give them a lot of pause. you have a new generation of republican business leaders in alabama and elsewhere, and they are torn right now. they see some things that they like, but at the same time, they have been so conditioned to be republicans and not to waiver from that, it is difficult to get them to move, much less speak against somebody. you don't see that happening a lot. i think the suburban voters, those typical middle of the road voters, they're going to have a hard time. in a state like alabama, it's not going to matter. in georgia, i think the president can be -- president biden can still win georgia again, even though most people are writing that off, because of

the anti-trump vote in the republican primary. i think he is a weaker candidate that most people think. i really believe donald trump is a much weaker candidate that folks know about and think about, because they see the rallies and the strongman. if you look and start dissecting the vote, that is where the rubber meets the road. >> yeah. i'll tell you what, mika, not only georgia, i agree, georgia is still in play because of the suburbs that i think will break for biden, but north carolina. >> yeah. >> because their extreme governor, that's a state that went for donald trump by 1.5 points. it's only become more urban the last four years. and you have a gubernatorial candidate completely unhinged, who could take one or two points from the entire party. >> for sure. i have a couple questions before we go, randomly chosen for george conway. >> palace cleanser? >> no. i don't know if george is prepared for this question.

>> okay. >> we're going to be watching the documents trial as it unfolds, but back to the civil cases. donald trump hosted, i guess he had to put the money down to do his appeal for the e. jean carroll case. he defamed her again, and they're considering suing again. my question to you is, since he is a candidate, are there federal elections requirements, or because it is a civil lawsuit, is there any public information rules where we could know where he got the money that he used to post the bond? >> yeah, i don't think so. for example, i think that's one of the reasons why e. jean carroll did not challenge the bond. all her concern is, will the bond be paid and will it be paid promptly after trump loses his appeals. >> right. >> they changed the terms of the bond to make it pay out more quickly. she's satisfied.

there's really no basis in that litigation to look at the bond. maybe it might be different for the new york state litigation because it is going to be a much larger bond. it is going to be interesting to see whether or not he can get that one, also. the thing to remember about all this, i did the math last night, this man is accruing interest on those judgments, the three judgments, two to jean carroll for $88 million, one to the state of new york for, i guess, $464 million or something like that. i calculated the interest last night. it's $17 per second. per second. it's just -- these are staggering amounts. i just don't know whether he's going to be able to come up with the second bond. we'll see. >> but if he puts the money down, doesn't the interest stop? can someone pay it for him?

>> no. no, no. the interest does not stop. >> oh, my gosh. >> the interest does not stop. the interest keeps going, post-judgment interest, until the judgment is finally paid. whether or not he bonds the judgment or not and takes an appeal. >> wow. >> it is $17 per second from now until the time that the plaintiffs get to collect the judgment. >> that's staggering. >> as to whether somebody can pay it off, i mean, you know, there would be legal -- i think somebody could out of the goodness of their heart, if you want to call it goodness. could pay off this half a billion dollar amount. it probably would be income to donald trump. you have to pay taxes on it. it'd be quite a mess. i don't think that republican -- you know, he is taking over the republican national committee and firing half the staff and moving it down to florida. i don't think they're going to raise much money for this organization that is essentially

being decimated in an election year, which is just absolutely crazy. i mean, that's -- i don't know where he goes from here. maybe he'll get the pond. maybe somebody is putting up the money for it. i don't know. >> okay. conservative attorney george conway, that's staggering. $17 a second. $17 just went by. former u.s. senator doug jones of alabama. nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann. thank you, all, very much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll be joined by democratic congressman raja krishnamoorthi who co-sponsored the tiktok bill that passed in the house yesterday. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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20 minutes before the top of the hour. the house yesterday took a major step toward potentially banning tiktok over national security concerns. nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent garrett haake reports. >> reporter: for social media giant tiktok, an uncertain future this morning as the bill calling for the company to split from its chinese parent company or be shut down now heads to the senate. the u.s. house on wednesday in a rare and overwhelmingly bipartisan vote passing the measure that requires bytedance, the parent company, to sell the app within six months. republican mike gallagher wrote the bill. what do you say to people who fundamentally don't understand why the app where they watch silly dance videos and a national security threat? >> the possible for dangerous

propaganda is too immense to allow an adversary to have this control over what is increasingly becoming the dominant news platform in america. >> reporter: lawmakers and national security experts have long been concerned with bytedance's ties to the communist chinese party, which many believe can and does store data from american users. partly because of a national security law that requires chinese companies to share data and other information with the government. >> the reason that is valuable to the chinese communist party is it begins to allow them to know how to influence americans. >> reporter: in its annual threat assessment, the u.s. intelligence community says china used tiktok in the 2022 midterms, warning it could do it again in the fall's presidential election. tiktok repeatedly denied any connections to the chinese government, with the company's ceo responding to the house vote late wednesday. >> we will continue to do all we can, including exercising our legal rights, to protect this amazing platform. >> reporter: just 65 house members, mostly democrats,

opposed the bill. >> it is an overly broad bill that i don't think would stand first amendment scrutiny. the other issue is that there are a lot of people who make their livelihoods on this. >> reporter: increasing jt. >> it's how i feed my wife and three children. >> reporter: even those who suggest a divestment see a double-edged sword in an election year. 20% of american voters use tiktok at least once a day. >> cutting out a large group of young voters is not the best known strategy for re-election. >> nbc's garrett haake reporting on that. joining us now is one of the democrats who co-authored the tiktok bill. congressman raja krishnamoorthi of illinois. he's on the house select committee on china. >> congressman, thank you for being with us. what message do you think was sent to the communist chinese party? why was it important that message got sent? >> i think the message was, look, the american people enjoy

tiktok, and we in congress want the platform to continue to operate. but we want bytedance to divest its vast majority of ownership in tiktok. this was not a ban. it was a divestment bill. it's really not about tiktok, it's about bytedance. just so your viewers know, bytedance is a chinese company that has 100% ownership of tiktok. the editor in chief of bytedance is the secretary of the chinese communist party cell embedded at the highest rankings of diet bytedance to make sure all products, including tiktok, adhere to, quote, correct political direction. so that is why we are asking for the divestment of tiktok. >> well, i mean, they push propaganda. posts that sow confusion in the united states and undermine america's interests somehow go viral. but if you, let's say, decide to

post anything on uighurs or hong kong or other issues, about human rights, suddenly, those won't go viral. in fact, they won't see the light of day. i'm wondering, from what you've heard from senate colleagues, do you have hope that they will do the right thing and stop allowing the communist chinese party to spy on americans, to push propaganda on americans, and use algorithms to impact our elections negatively? >> yes. we've had many conversations. obviously, we want to respect the process that leader schumer has for taking up this bill, but i think there's a lot of interest. i've got to say, what tiktok did last week and in its lobbying campaigns have really backfired and caused more people to support our bill, including in both chambers. just as an example, on the morning of the vote in the house

energy and commerce committee to take up this bill, tiktok sent out a push notification and pop-up on millions of users' phones using geolocation data of minor children to get them to call their members of congress in order to continue accessing content on tiktok. these minor children flooded our offices with phone calls and asked questions like, "what's a congressman? what is congress?" one person impersonated a member of congress' son to get his tiktok back. this type of influence campaign is exactly what this bill was intended to address and what got people so upset about tiktok. >> congressman, good morning. for all the valid criticisms you make of tiktok, and we've all seen them all, we're aware of them, what do you make of the argument about the first amendment we're hearing from your progressive colleagues who voted against this bill, though

it passed overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis, that this will not pass scrutiny, this could be a 9-0 vote in the supreme court if it makes it up that high on first amendment grounds? >> i take their concerns seriously. about half the progressive caucus ended up voting for this bill. the reason why is simple. they know there's no first amendment right to espionage or first amendment right to harm our national security. the first amendment covers speech, not conduct. certainly not anybody's right, including the chinese communist party's, to somehow use the platform to do harm to americans. so i think that is why working with the biden administration, we came up with language that was not a ban but, rather, a divestment to ensure that we address the legitimate furst amendment rights and concerns of users while, at the same time, addressing national security concerns. >> congressman, to that point,

we've certainly heard the opposition suggest it's not just being dubious of the national security concerns, raising awareness about the first amendment, but also saying this is unprecedented. feeling like this is a step the congress has never taken before. what is your response to that, they feel this could be the beginning of a slippery slope? >> this is not without precedent. that is incorrect. the lgbtq app, grinder, was owned by a chinese company. once it became clear the chinese communist party had access to sensitive data about lgbtq members of the u.s. government and military, they were forced to divest. they did so quickly because the app was very valuable, much like tiktok, and there was no disruption to users. that's what we'd expect in this case, as well. >> all right. democratic congressman raja krishnamoorthi of illinois, we'll continue this conversation. lots of debate around itment we appreciate you coming on this

morning. thank you. >> thank you. while tiktok's fate may be decided by congress, it's just one app in a sea of them that goes largely unregulated by the government. joining us now is frank mccourt, the founder and executive chairman of project liberty, whose mission is to give greater rights and control when it comes to the internet. his book is titled, "our biggest fight, reclaiming liberty, humanity, and dignity in the digital age." great to have you here. a successful businessman running a big company. owned the los angeles dodgers for a time. you've really made this your issue. let's just explain for our viewers as we begin here what you view as this fight. what are we up against here? >> yeah. i wrote our biggest fight to shed light on a project we started, project liberty, which is really to reimagine how the internet works. and to reclaim our, not just our data, but what i'd call our personhood in the digital age, and regain control of it from the machines of big tech. i mean, we talk endlessly about

the harms of the internet today. it's time we focused on what is fundamentally wrong and fix it. that's what this project is all about. >> you've committed half a billion dollars through project liberty to this fight. how do you attack something that seems so difficult to get your arms around, that is, in fact, unregulated? these apps that are so popular, that despite the harms they cause, that young people, in particular, are addicted to, where do you begin? >> yeah, it is interesting, this conversation about tiktok. of course, it is unique because it is a national security issue. however, all of these platforms, all these apps you basically a type of a take our data, scrape it, aggregate it, and apply algorithms. it's unhealthy, right? we talk about the first amendment issue and fourth amendment, which is search and seizure. why on earth would we be

allowing all our data to be owned and controlled by any third party? we need to fix how the internet works so rather it be all about devices and data, we put individuals in charge of their data, and so this project is really highlighting the fact that this is an infrastructure problem, and we can fix it. if we fix the engineering, put you and i in charge of our data, then we have a new evolved internet where the new apps are involved in clicking on our use of data. we get to control our privacy and data. >> how would that work as a practical question? it feels like the genie's out of the bottle. we've already given up so much over the last decade, 20 years, whatever it's been. every time you sign up for something, you give up a piece of yourself. how does this go down the road? >> stop giving pieces of yourself mindlessly and

endlessly to these platforms? i'm a third-generation builder and much of it is infrastructure, including internet systems. we need to, you know, this is just a -- just technology. it's designed and engineered in a certain way. right now it prioritizes machines, devices, and links data. why not link people? why not put us in charge of our data? we can be in charge of all the things on the internet, and rather than be in this endless cycle about the debates and the harms, like, how are we going to put out that fire? why on earth are we giving out our data? if i were to say, i'm going to deliver your mail for free, other than being suspicious, i would say, tell me that deal. i'll put cameras in every room of your house, and i'll open your mail and read it and your relationships is mine, and i'll read your 13-year-old daughter's

diary, and if she's concerned about her weight, i've got some stuff to sell her. i'm going to actually profit from a 13-year-old's vulnerability. it's ridiculous. it's -- we need to start thinking about this as -- it's our data, and start focusing on the fourth amendment and a little less on the first amendment. >> frank, the stories about the impact on children and teenagers are especially horrifying, the mental health issues that come from using this technology. what could be done in the near term? what is the most feasible policy solution to protect children and young adults as they're maturing and using this technology? >> we now know the harms and especially the harms to children. this is fact. the ceos of these companies are not fixing it. our politicians are not fixing it. so what we need to do is take matter into our own hands, and we can fix this, and i think that's two things. one as i mention, fix the

technology, but project liberty is not even really a tech project. it's a social project, a civic project. we need to talk about this issue. we need to talk about this at the kitchen table. we need to talk about this on the sidelines of the soccer -- our kids' soccer matches. we need to talk about it after church and go into schools and say, what's being done about this? this is a crisis. the harm is not only to kids. the harm is also to democracy. we're not even governable anymore. it's because this very technology that i'm talking about is polarizing us. it's designed to do that. so if we fix it, take control of our data rather than be controlled, then we can begin to solve the problem. >> as the old saying goes -- >> 100%. >> -- if you are not paying for a product, you are the product. i want to read you the lead editorial in "the wall street journal" today. just one part of it that speaks to how blindly we are all flying and we don't understand how our society, how our political system is being hacked sometimes

by people who consider themselves america's enemy. the hitch in taking over tiktok may be that tiktok's algorithms are controlled by bytedance engineers in china who answer to the chinese communist party. the chinese communist party placed export restrictions on its algorithms. tiktok's u.s. operations may be sold, but not the key technology that powers the app the "south china morning post" reported. so here we see, it's the algorithms. the algorithms that the chinese communist party wants to hold, and the alalgorithms, and i'm n comparing xi to zuckerberg, but it's still the algorithms that zuckerberg says, it's far too complicated to explain to you anyway, and we go down the list. we are flying blind on how these companies are manipulating our

children, manipulating us, manipulating our democracy. >> yeah. well, that's the problem, joe. we have -- the reason i cite thomas payne in the book and he was really kind of the inspiration, is, you know, in 1775, before this great country was started, he put a very simple choice forward to his -- his fellow settlers in what was not even the 13 colonies and he said something. look. you have a choice. do you want to continue to be a subject of a monarch or do you want to be a citizen? and a citizen comes with rights, human rights, and property rights and so forth, and thankfully our people chose citizenship, and this great country was created. we're at a similar moment right now and this is a point i make in the book. we have become subjects in this digital age. our data, and please don't think

of it as data. it's who we are. everything about us is now digitized. so in this age, our personhood is now owned by someone else. joe, you don't own you. you know? i don't own me. we're owned by these platforms. we need to fix that and be digital citizens, not digital subjects, and then we can begin to look at how democracy works in a digital age, but in the meantime, if we have technology that is manipulating us and causing our democratic process, our political process to be totally polarized, dysfunctional, and paralyzed, we're just not going to get anywhere. it's -- we're spinning our wheels, and so let's fix the tech, but let's this time not leave it to just the technologists. let's bring it to the social sciences and the parents. everybody has a viewpoint on this, and we now know how powerful this internet is, and how dependent we are. let's redesign it so it works

for us and not by machines. i'll conclude by saying we are still a device. we are not a person. we are an ip address and we're being dragged into a future we don't want by machines, by tech. let's change that. >> it sounds like a perfect situation where you have airliners that were forced to give passengers their own bill of rights. >> right. >> it seems to me that -- read this book, talk to your members of congress. it seems that we need a bill of rights, an online bill of rights where we say, if you want us -- if you want us as a customer, these are the things that you have to do, and i think you lay it out beautifully, frank. >> joe, i would actually say, we want -- we need our technology to actually fulfill -- protect our rights, the rights we have now, and fulfill our policy objectives. we don't need a separate set of

rights. we've got great rights. it's just these big tech platforms are just running roughshod over them. we kind of fell asleep on this, and didn't realize how valuable our data was. we have been connected to the internet 24/7. . >> the new book is entitled "our biggest fight." frank mccourt, thank you very much. >> thanks, frank. >> we really appreciate it. >> you're welcome. thank you. coming up, hunter biden will not return to capitol hill for public testimony to the house oversight committee, but says there's one condition that could change his mind. we'll tell you what it is. plus, we will fact check donald trump's false claims about president biden and the economy. also ahead, we'll hear from republican senator katie britt about the backlash over her state of the union rebuttal. we're back in two minutes. state of the union rebuttal. we're back in two minutes.

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mr. president, i'm very curious about what it's like for you in your life. you know, you're -- no one's gone through what you've gone through. nobody in human history has really -- and i know you have supporters, friends, family, they say it's lonely at the top, and i'm actually curious. is it ever lonely for you? i mean, no one can fully relate to what you have been through, and what you are going through. are you ever lonely? >> so i was -- over the years, i love history. i study history, and i was always told that andrew jackson as a president was treated the absolute worst. he was just really lambasted, and i heard abraham lincoln was second, but he was in i think, the civil war, so you can understand that, but andrew jackson was really, really treated badly. in fact, his wife died during the process. a lot of people say she died because of the way they were treated. i mean, she was heartbroken and broken in so many other ways, and i heard that for years, and

i look now, even last night i was saying it. i said, there's no -- i don't care. andrew jackson or anybody else. nobody has -- when you think of the fake things, nobody's been treated like trump in terms of badly. >> no, that's true. that's true. that's definitely true. there is some truth to that, willie geist. it's hard for me not to also look at the person asking the questions. i mean, are you kidding me? i mean, these networks that are networking trump's lies and i'm going to keep it serious. i'm not going to make fun of people or whatever, but it is creating a whole level of lies that people are swallowing whole because they think that's news. they think those are facts, and that's the part that's sad. i mean, it's pathetic that donald trump parallels himself to abraham lincoln and anybody else, but it's more pathetic and

truly pathetic that our democracy is on the line because if that guy becomes president, look at his last house guest, and that's our country. >> yeah. i mean, that's pure north korean state media, that kind of interview. why are you treated so badly? why are you so great? why are people so mean to you? also, another thing happened to abraham lincoln that former president trump didn't get to, in terms of treated badly. >> we'll leave that right there. >> we'll leave that there, but to your more serious point, it's a good one which is there are all kinds of media outlets friendly to trump whose audiences are receiving that message, the one you saw. they're not receiving messages about his stolen documents. they're not receiving messages about his attempts to overturn the election in 2020, all the legal trouble in front of him that we're about to talk about. they're hearing that, and so you have a -- not a majority of the country, but a large swath of the country that is taking what you just saw there as news. >> right.

exactly. and there's a lot going on, actually with donald trump that they might want to consider, but they'll probably never hear about, or at least in terms of facts. along with willie and me, we have the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire, former aide to the george w. bush white house, elise jordan, and big day for trump's legal issues. former president trump is expected to be in court today for a hearing in the federal classified documents case against him. in fort pierce, florida, u.s. district judge aileen cannon is set to hear two motions to dismiss on the motions against him. it was the way he stored classified documents at his club under the confidential records act. he claims this was all good. the second motion claims the main statute used to charge

against the former president is unconstitutionally vague. in that interview yesterday with the right-wing network newsmax, trump defended his actions. >> i took them very legally, and i wasn't hiding them. we had boxes on the front of the -- and a lot of those boxes had clothing. we're moving out. unfortunately, we're moving out of the white house. i had the right to do it in my opinion and the lawyers' opinion and everything else. >> let's bring in lisa rubin. lisa, good morning. apologies for putting this to you again because we've addressed this a thousand times. the presidential records act. >> yes. >> does it cover what donald trump did? >> it does not cover what donald trump did. willie, there's a definition in the presidential records act for what could count as personal and what is presidential. donald trump's argument is effectively, it's presidential if i classified it as such in my mind, and everything in my mind was personal before i -- i'm

sorry. it's personal if i say it so in my mind, and everything i took with me was personal, therefore can be no criminal prosecution against me. >> i apologize for making you answer that question for the thousandth time, but we'll keep doing it as long as he makes that argument. more broadly speaking in the classified documents case, where are we? we're hearing about the young -- judge, and delays and delays and where are we in the progress of bringing this to trial? >> judge cannon had a hearing when she took arguments from both sides. she has yet to issue a scheduling order setting a trial date and in the meantime, she's hearing argument today on two motions to dismiss. i'm not a betting person. i would probably make a miserable one, but the fact that she hasn't set a trial date and yet has set oral arguments on two motions to dismiss makes me think maybe she could get rid of this case entirely without having to set a trial date, and that really is a frightening prospect, i think given the gravity of the charges here, and

the evidence that supports those charges. >> what's going to be the state's defense then? what will we hear from them if we hear judge cannon try to make the whole thing go away? >> the presidential records act doesn't support the interpretation and also the perversion that donald trump is trying to give to it, that the presidential records act would hold that any number of the things donald trump took with him are inherently presidential. they should have gone to the national archives. there was a process to follow, that the people in the white house surrounding donald trump were well aware of that process and in communication with the national archives before he left the white house let alone in a new process that started afterwards when the national archives brought to their attention. hey, we're missing a bunch of stuff. that includes the kim jong-un letter, the letter barack obama left for you, et cetera, and that kicked off a process of the cat and mouse game with the national archives and the department of the fbi were chasing after trump to collect

all the things he took, and as you well know, he was not honest with them at any step of this process. he, in fact, diluted his own lawyers, and suckered them into it by having the boxes moved in this bizarre three-card monty that he was playing with his own legal team. i don't think that will hold up. in terms of the unconstitutional vagueness of the statute here, he's talking about the willful retention of national defense to wants. he says among other things, that the phrase national defense is unconstitutionally vague. he says that the unauthorized retention is another aspect of what's unconstitutionally vague here. we all know this statute has been used to prosecute many other people of lesser stature in this country who have never made such an argument, let alone had a court sustain it. >> that's what i wanted to ask you about because, you know, you've recently -- a national guardsman in massachusetts. >> yes. >> i believe he got 21 years. 21 years in prison, yes, because of what he did, which granted

was pretty egregious, but at the same time, shows that the classification system is completely broken. how can with a straight face, and nothing will happen to donald trump when what he did was equally egregious in terms of the crimes of these other low-ranking -- very low-ranking soldiers and defense contractor? >> we see that all around us, and in the federal election case too where 950 people have been sentenced and convicted for crimes associated with january 6th when the instigator in chief remains free from trial right now. it's no different right here. other people are doing time for the same things he has done, and in many cases, he has done worse. >> so lisa, i'm curious. i understand this is -- this is the reality. this is the process. this is the judge that we have

in this case, but if trump is not held accountable for taking classified documents into his possession to his club and leaving him in open boxes, claiming they're his, getting his workers to be involved in what is ostensibly a crime. what's the precedent that that will set if somehow he skates from this? >> i think it's a terrible precedent, mika, which is why people like me are so concerned about the rule of law, and its survival in the post-trump and during trump era. the notion that a former president can escape to their private residence with boxes upon boxes of hundreds of classified documents or document that is otherwise affect the national defense, lie about it, and list maintenance workers and valets in that crime -- >> oh my god. >> -- expect them to take the

fall and walk away scot-free, and potentially get elected again. that's unfathomable. >> and obstruct the attempts to have those recovered. >> i'm struck by the clip you played. no one's been treated worse than trump. i would flip that around. no one has treated us worse than trump has treated us. >> we'll see if that continues. he'll be in court in florida today trying to get this dismissed. meanwhile just north of there in georgia, the judge in the georgia election interference case has dismissed some of the charges against former president trump and his co-defendants. judge scott mcafee dropped six counts in the case, three of which applied directly to donald trump who still faces ten felony counts in that case alone. the six counts focused on accusations trump and his codefendants asked public officials to violate their oaths of office, but the judge found the language too generic and did not specify which oath were

state or federal, trump had been accused of asking georgia federal officials to violate. in that ruling, judge mcafee quis, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crimes, but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission. adding, they do not give the defendants enough information to prepare their defenses intelligently, end quote. trump's attorney in the case praised the ruling. the judge left the door open for prosecutors to re-indict on these dropped charges. judge mcafee also expected to issue a ruling by the end of the week tomorrow on why fulton county d.a. fani willis should be disqualified from the case. lisa, let's talk about what this is, and what it is not because it's a splashy headline. counts dropped against donald trump in georgia. >> yep. >> it seems what the judge is saying, is you didn't explain these well enough. what exactly -- what are you accusing them of? what oath of the constitution did they violate if you think

they did, and giving them a chance to re-file and indict again. >> that's right. they can re-file and re-indict or appeal the ruling. i want to point something out to you that judge mcafee pointed out himself. he said, in the federal system the way this works itself out is you file for a motion of a bill of particulars and you ask for greater specificity and detail, and if the court says you get it, we move onto trial. georgia doesn't allow for that, and he's basically saying, i'm constrained here. right? i wish i had the same powers that a federal court does, but this isn't the case in georgia, so i'll give you an extra six months from this order to reindict on these six counts should you choose to. that having been said, this is not the big deal and the huge victory lap that the trump campaign is making it out to be, and here is why. first of all, the rico count remains, and that could lead to

10 to 25 years in prison, and that rico count is alleged through a series of what are called overacts. these are the things people do in furtherance of a conspiracy, and rico is a conspiracy, and he's saying, look. you may not have alleged with sufficient specificity what aspects of the oath you were trying to get these georgia officials to violate, but you can consider each of these episodes as overacts in furtherance of the rico charge here meaning it comes into the trial still. we can still talk about the raffensperger call as proof of the rico call, and the call that trump made for example, now to deceased georgia speaker david rawlsdon. for all these things, all of these counts, they're still a part of the case. they're not separate, independent charges with which these people can be convicted. >> is it fair to say that these -- what the judge is saying to the d.a. to fani willis and her office is, these were -- i don't know if poorly

assembled or poorly argued. we're giving you another chance to make your case because i don't even know what you're arguing. >> they're poorly pled is what they're arguing. you did not put together a charging indictment something that gives these people enough to prepare for trial. again, big picture, not a single defendant got off without remaining charges against them. trump still has ten. even mark meadows has the rico count even getting rid of the other against him, and this is all still evidence in the case, and can be used to prove the conspiracy. >> so mika, for now, the 91 felony charges against donald trump becomes 88 felony charges against donald trump, but could as lisa said, go back to being 91. >> right. so that's where i want to ask lisa about -- are there any other -- how did this, for those who aren't completely reading into this, how did this come about? was there a motion to drop? is there a possibility other

charges randomly -- seemingly could be dropped throughout this process? does this delay the trial in any way? and what is the timing of the trial as it appears now, and if and when it starts, does trump have to appear, and does the timing look like it will happen before the election? a lot of questions. >> you guys give a very good pop quiz. i'll try to address those all. mika, this came about because trump and others of his codefendants moved to dismiss these specific counts. it's called a special demer, and that's the motion they filed. they have a number of other motions to dismiss asking them as a whole. this is the one judge mcafee dealt with this week. what to read into that, and how it will affect the trial still remain to be unseen, but you can consider this judicial housekeeping. you want to move a case along, and irspective of who will be in charge, whether that's fani

willis or someone else, and you want to call the indictment if there is a time to narrow the charges. now is it, before we move into a phase where you're going to expect other defendants to plead out or you'll bring this closer to a trial date than we are now. i thought it was an interesting choice that judge mcafee did this before rule on the fani willis motion. on one hand, it might tell you he wants to do this before handing this back to her. he also might be saying, your turn. find a prosecutor who is equipped to handle this indictment. >> on that point, judge mcafee gave himself tomorrow, a self-imposed deadline to decide whether or not fani willis will be disqualified from this case. he says he's ready, so we expect it tomorrow. >> we heard news from georgia yesterday. we thought this was coming. instead it was the surprising move to dismiss these counts, at least temporarily. you laid out what the document may be foreshadowing. if you had to hazard a guess, what do you think will happen?

>> well, i want to take this document out of it because i don't think this really impacts his decision on that. it's a hard, hard call, john. i think judge mcafee is struggling with what the right legal test is. if there's enough impropriety to disqualify fani willis, he'll say that appearance of impropriety is there. on the other hand, i don't think we saw the incontrovertible proof that she and nathan wade benefitted from his involvement in the case. she makes $200,000 a year, and the amount of money is as lavish as it seems to the normal american, is simply not enough to justify the sort of bizarre, concocted scheme that the defendants advanced, and on top of that, it's still a he said/he said, right? we don't have any clear indication of who is telling the truth and the phone records don't change any of that even if mcafee lets them in. so i think it could go either way.

i think this is going to end up being a blemish on fani willis' history no matter how it turns out. stay tuned also to see if they face disciplinary proceedings from the state bar based on accusations that they weren't telling the truth even if she holds onto the case. coming up, donald trump continues to make outlandish claims about the economy. hm. if only there was someone who could chart this out like the real numbers. steve rattner is here to do just that just ahead on "morning joe." "morning joe. kayak. no way. why would i use kayak to compare hundreds of travel sites at once? kayak. i like to do things myself. i do my own searching. it isn't efficient. use kayak. i can't trust anything else to do the job right. aaaaaaaahhhh!

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welcome back. the attorney for hunter biden says the president's son will not testify next week in the public hearing for the house oversight committee. biden's lawyer abby lowell sent a letter to committee chair james comer declining the request, and calling the hearing a, quote, carnival sideshow.

lowell added his client would consider testifying before the committee if the panel also included relatives of former president trump. comer responded with a statement dismissing the letter and writing that he still expects hunter biden to appear along with three of hunter's former business associates. elise jordan, let me get this straight. so far they've come up with a, nothing, b, nothing, c, nothing, and if you did look at donald trump's family members, you would be able to see that they have benefitted in many ways that seem inappropriate perhaps as inappropriate as some of the relationships that hunter had, that ultimately added up to no lawbreaking, but i don't know. $2 billion from saudi arabia, it just seems kind of -- it seems unseemly. i could be wrong. i mean, maybe it's okay. >> it's completely unseemly.

>> are you kidding me? these people are crazy. i just wonder why doesn't hunter just come back and do it publicly? >> just have it air in the court of public opinion because he was fighting for a public testimony i believe just a couple of months ago, and i think he would benefit from that frankly, just for more clown show to be shown to the public, and then, you know, he'll come across as likable and as someone who's just, you know, paying his penance for his addiction and trying to move beyond. i really question the decision not to just show up and do it and submit to what will be definitely unpleasant and uncomfortable, but ultimately gets more of his side of the story out there to the public. >> a bit of a surprising decision since by all accounts, hunter biden got the best of the closed-door hearing, the private hearing a few weeks ago. republicans came out of it sort of embarrassed and baffled by the lack of questioning and the fact that james comer, the

chair, didn't even take a single question, and hunter biden and his team felt really good about how it went, and their whole strategy for recent months has been aggressive and pushing back on republicans. he does have trial hearings in california on the gun and tax charges. that tried scheduled to start in june. that may be part of his thinking here, and certainly those close to him saying he doesn't want to be a distraction for his father's re-election. republicans saying they want him to show up anyway. >> house speaker mike johnson says the appropriations bills to fund the government must be passed ahead of the national security supplemental that would provide aid to ukraine. he made those comments yesterday at the gop conference. he also again claimed the delay was because the white house was slow-walking answers to his questions on ukraine. >> in the sequence of events, it was important for us to not put

the supplemental in front of the appropriations bills because it would affect probably the vote tally ultimately on the appropriations and we had to get our government funded. i made a request to the president and his cabinet in the situation room literally within hours of my being handed the gavel. the morning of october 26th, i went there and talked to jake sullivan. i spoke within a couple of days to the secretary of state and secretary of defense, the president himself, and i said, there's a couple of things we need on ukraine. we need these answers to these key questions. what's the end game? what's the strategy? how do we have accountability over the funds? are we sending the right weapons systems? all those things. as y'all know the history of this, it took them not weeks, but months to provide some of those answers. we still don't have all of them. they've done more lately. that process has been -- it's drug out not because of the house, but because, in my view, because of the white house being unwilling or unable to provide the necessary answers for us to process that sooner. >> so jonathan lemire, the claim here from the speaker now is

that the foot-dragging from the house on ukraine aid that's dn condemned widely across the west. we've heard from european leaders, and from polish leaders and ukrainian leaders putting pressure on mike johnson, that it's the white house's fault, that they're the ones holding that up, something the white house obviously deny. >> we can fact check that. that's not true. the white house has been urgently pushing for this aid to get to ukraine. he says this publicly, but privately he says, i support getting aid there, but he doesn't have the ability to follow through and get enough republicans on board. they're off course. the block on the far-right that oppose aid ousted kevin mccarthy. he's being very mindful of that, and he has yet to move forward. we have these discharge petitions and there's a democratic one and republican one circulating. those are possibilities, but long shots as to whether that will be able to circumvent johnson and get this aid done.

there have been drone strikes within russia itself, but on the battlefield, they're running out of ammunition. we've reported yesterday about the pentagon able to scrape together savings they found, and it will send a package, and it will help, but it's a drop in the bucket compared to what the national security package would be. >> it's this money. >> the pentagon, yes, they have that unique ability in american government to, you know, dip in, but yes. i mean, ukraine is going to collapse without continued united states funding. it's not like germany and the europeans are going to step up enough, you know, if this really does not come through, but it's really their last go too at a good, solid chunk of funding before potentially donald trump gets re-elected. so the stakes are pretty high here, and i do not see how those reticent republicans in the house come along. it does not seem like they're budging, and they're only

hardening in their position as it -- it is the position of donald trump right now, and no one is going to deviate from donald trump and the republican party. >> that's the other piece of this. it's only a matter of eight months or so if donald trump is re-elected. putin gets exactly what he wants. that's all the time he needs. meanwhile in the house yesterday, a new bill that could ban tiktok unless its chinese parent company divests itself in the app. now it faces a tougher fight in the senate. savannah sellers has more. >> reporter: the bill needed two-thirds of the house to pass and it got that easily. >> the yeas are 352. the nays are 65. >> now it goes to the senate where it will likely face a tougher road. if signed into law, it would give chinese parent company bytedance six months to divest tiktok or face the possibility of a ban on the app. the legislation prompted by national security concerns including fears the chinese government could access

americans' personal data and feed them content that would influence their views. >> our intention is for tiktok to continue to operate, but not under the control of the chinese communist party. >> reporter: 50 democrats and 15 republicans voted no. >> it's an overly broad bill that i don't think would stand first amendment scrutiny. >> it's opening pandora's box and i'm opposed to this bill. >> aligning with former president trump who once tried to ban tiktok, but now says he's against that. tiktok fighting back hard, even flying creators to washington. >> hello. this is my son. >> reporter: jason lenton shares his life as a dad with his 13 million followers. >> what would it mean for you and your family if tiktok were banned in the u.s.? >> it would be devastating. being able to launch out a positive message would be stopped. >> i wish it was a bad dream, but it's not. ♪♪ >> reporter: j.t. layborn uses

tiktok to promote his company. >> there will be people who will not be re-elected because of the way they choose to vote on this ban. >> reporter: there are 170 million users in the u.s. 22% of the voters say they use the app once a day or more. it's not lost on some senators. >> coming out of a large group of voters is not a strategy for re-election. >> one of the bill's sponsors says that's not a good enough reason to ignore a looming national security threat. >> i don't think courting the clicks of 17-year-olds should take precedent over allowing our foremost foreign adversary to dominate what is becoming the primary news source for americans under the age of 30. >> reporter: tiktok's ceo was on the hill, but it's unclear if he met with lawmakers. the company maintains it is not owned or controlled by the chinese government. >> this legislation will lead to a ban of tiktok in the united

states. >> savannah sellers there. what strikes you here is the vote. this was not some small group of extremists. this was a vote of 352 to 65 on a bipartisan basis, but there are holdouts. a lot of the progressive caucuses, this goes too far. they had questions about free speech and other things, and we'll see how it does in the senate, but what's your -- what's your view of this? >> it's really disappointing that so many elected officials are willing to take such a draconian stance against free speech. it's a broad bill. define what exactly is the limiting mechanism here and how it's not going to extend and creep into other liberties of americans. it also just, you know, any time the national security state is so adamant that something must be done for the safety of americans, maybe we should probe into that and make them explain exactly what the limitations are going to be that are going to be set, and what the precedent that

is going to be going forward so that more of our rights aren't curtailed. >> this will be a closer call in the senate. you hear leader schumer having it both ways trying to figure out where his caucus really is on this question. >> the question would be this divestment, but i don't know how possible this is. tiktok is lobbying against this, and asking people to petition senators, and the biden said he'll sign this, but the biden campaign just jumped on tiktok. >> politically it's so stupid. >> it is, you know, they have thought of the national security concerns. we've heard donald trump of course, flip-flop on this when he was president. his demonstration moved on the way to banning it, but he was hawkish on it, and now he's suggesting he would like to support it because of the chance to win votes and the donor of who could give him money as an investor. >> the wheels might have been turning during the trump administration, but donald trump had probably very little to do

with that. politically now he sees the wins. he's very good at seeing where the wind of public opinion is going, and that's why he's suddenly become pro-tiktok. i'm sure there's some financial reason involved too, but he's very good at sensing the mood of the public. >> he's also very good at being pushed around by rich guys on the patio of mar-a-lago who are investors in tiktok. coming up, donald trump is expected to attend a hearing today in the criminal case involving his handing of classified documents including nuclear secrets taken to his beach club. we'll go live to the florida courthouse when "morning joe" comes right back. lorida courthouse when "morning joe" comes right back

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although it's not official until the conventions this summer, a biden/trump rematch is on the horizon for november. nbc news projects both men won enough delegates to lead their parties in the fight for the white house this fall, and as the race heats up, trump has been sticking to familiar attack

lines about president biden. joining us now with a fact check is former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. he's got it all in charts. we'll start, steve, with the issue of crime. take a look. >> we are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed, and where crime is rampant and out of control like never, ever before. >> the carnage line. he's always going with the carnage, steve. is it true? >> well, no. crime is not out of control like it's ever been before. in fact, crime is actually continuing to drop under president biden. so let's take a look at violent crime. this is per 100,000 people in relationship to our size of our population and you can see violent crime since 2020 has dropped by 15%. 339 violent crimes per 100,000 people. it's below any place it was during the trump administration, and it's had this huge drop in 2023. the same is basically true of

property crime. you can see here, this is -- this is people robbing homes and things of that like, down 7%. 1,830 her 100,000 people. this is complete fiction that crime is up under the biden administration. >> yeah, and at the same time, there are different areas of the country experiencing different things and a mixture of crime and homelessness is very personal to people in their neighborhoods, but again, you can't deny the data and the trends that we're seeing. there's also donald trump's false claims. when it comes to president biden's energy policy, listen to this. >> on day one of our new administration, we will end biden's nation-wrecking war on american energy. he's wrecking the energy area. >> okay. steve rattner, again, what are the facts? >> wrecking the energy business. so we have had record energy production under the biden

administration. this combines nuclear, fossil fuels, and renewables, and you can see here that we have never had energy production this high, and then the other thing that he says is that he's going to make us energy independent again. the fact is we are energy independent. we have been energy independent now for five years, and, in fact, our energy exports, mostly oil, but also some natural gas, hit a record last year. so, in fact, america has -- we produced more oil than any country in the world has ever produced in history. >> yeah, and he talks a lot about the economy and how it was better under him, and also attempting to rewrite history on the deficit and debt. listen to donald trump. >> we were going to pay off debt. we were going to -- we were going to reduce taxes further. we gave you the biggest tax cut since the ronald reagan administration. >> the numbers show something

very different. right, steve? >> he did give us a big tax cut. that part is true, but what it did is it increased the deficit. when he says we were on track to pay off the debt, look what happened to the deficit even before covid. even before covid, because of his tax cut, the deficit was going up, up, up, and then of course, covid hit, and under biden, he's actually brought it down and under his new proposed budget, he would bring it down further, and because of that huge deficit, and he talks about also he was going to pay off the debt during his first term, he, in fact, added more debt than any other president in history. some of it, yes, was covid. $3.6 trillion, but there was also $5 trillion of debt that had nothing to do with covid, and trump signed a whole series of spending bills that increased our spending by over $2.5 trillion. so the idea that he was a president that was going to attack the deficit and debt problem is actually completely false. >> and steve, when president biden put out this week, his projected budget, there was a

lot of pearl-clutching from republicans about adding to the deficit when they were completely silent for the most part as donald trump added $8 trillion to the deficit. the chart directly behind you on the war on energy, the one you talked about a minute ago, donald trump has been posting drill, baby, drill, quite a bit lately. is it fair to say that sounds more of an endorsement to what joe biden is doing right now? there this drill, baby, drill stuff i find astonishing because obviously you only get record energy production by drilling and we have been drilling. obviously there are concerns about fossil fuels. we need to transition away from them, but for now we need them, and the idea that biden has been anti-energy or curtailed our drilling is blinded by the fact that we have record amounts of oil and natural gas. coming up, we'll go to the white house as president biden continues his campaign swing through key battlegrounds today. eugene daniels has the latest when "morning joe" comes right

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major league baseball opening day just two weeks away. major, major injury concerns for yankees fans surrounding our ace. the team has shut down gerrit cole with no official timetable for his return after reporting discomfort in his elbow. he since has visited a specialist in los angeles, who recommended further testing. the yankees hoping to have him back in the rotation sometime by may or early june. he's one of the best pitchers in baseball. this is not good news. they say a month or two months. >> we don't root for injuries,

willie. >> we were talking just this week, because there are a couple free agent pitchers out there who want long deals. cole seemed to be the exception to the rule. he's been a workhorse. he signed a deal with the yankees. he's worth every penny. this is a concern. the tone around it has changed a little bit. for a day or two they thought maybe it would be a month, which is still a big deal, but the yankees could survive that. now you see "lump of cole" on the post. but this l.a. surgeon is one of the best in the business that performs a lot of tommy john surgeries. do the yankees try to sign one of those free agent pitchers to make up for cole? it would come with a major

luxury tax, $60 million or more. >> gerrit cole has been awesome for the yankees. let's hope he's okay. >> i don't like it when people say, don't worry, the surgeon is really good. that's not helping me right now. >> pablo, good to see you. let's look ahead to the yankees season. juan soto protecting judge in that line-up, going 2-3 somewhere in there. the line-up looks good, but we were counting on having cole at the top of the rotation. >> there's a binary sort of dynamic to how we should feel about this season. last season was the worst season in 30 years of rooting for the yankees. they didn't make the playoffs.

this season, it's an all-in sort of dynamic. the binary is you win this thing or it's misery. gerrit cole being out after i laughed about how the red sox are going to finish last in the a.l. east for the third straight year. i now deserve this, i suppose, cosmically. juan soto and aaron judge makes me feel great. why are we not spending more $300 million on contracts on these guys? i'd like them to shore up the line-up. >> gerrit cole, injury or not, the red sox are still going to finish fifth. don't worry about that. >> that line-up is tough. staying within the pages of the "new york post," robert f. kennedy says he will announce his vice presidential pick on

march 26th. a source tells nbc news the independent presidential candidate has offered the slot to an individual, and that individual has accepted the offer. earlier this week, kennedy junior confirmed to the "new york times" new york jets quarterback aaron rodgers and former minnesota governor jessie ventura were on the short list. aaron rodgers is an active member of the new york jets. will he be on the campaign trail during the week and playing football on sunday? >> as a jet fan, why is rfk cornering the market on 9/11 con

conspiracies? aaron rodgers told cnn that whole thing is a conspiracy. that was the reporting. if i'm a jets fan, how do i feel? even beyond the human horror of what that means, that conspiracy specifically, is that still a line we can't cross? we'll find out, i guess. this is the guy who said we need to eliminate off-field distractions. aaron rodgers is the same human being who had those words exit his mouth. now to be the first athlete in history to mount a vice presidential campaign is just one of those on the nose things that you would laugh at the you didn't worry about what it says about democracy. from border invasions to nuclear threats, vladimir putin has never stopped fighting the cold war. a new series on netflix tracks the decades-long conflict.

we'll have a preview straight ahead on "morning joe." straigh ahead on "morning joe. rsv is out there. for those 60 years and older protect against rsv with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. i chose arexvy. rsv? make it arexvy.

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they did a poll, and half the people who used tiktok say they do believe it poses a threat to national security, but they still use it. what the hell, right? half the country supports a national security threat for president. might as well dance. i don't think we fully understand how crazy these kids are going to go if they kill tiktok. for teenagers, losing tiktok is a bigger deal than losing your virginity. i'm not kidding. this is like taking away all their imaginary friends at once. you know what kids used to do for tiktok? drugs. >> this is not an attempt to ban tiktok. it's an attempt to make tiktok better, tic-tac-toe, a winner. >> that's how you explain it to the young people. >> nancy tic-tac-toe, a

winner. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. president biden is set to campaign today in michigan, one of the battleground states where he defeated donald trump in 2020. trump, meanwhile, is set to attend a hearing today in his classified documents criminal trial in florida. nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander has the latest. >> reporter: this morning with the general election off to the races, president biden will campaign in michigan, while former president trump returns to court in florida as part of his classified documents case. >> i took them legally. i wasn't hiding them. >> reporter: mr. trump praising the georgia judge after he

dismissed 60 counts. >> i just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes. >> reporter: the judge found those counts lacked sufficient detail, but that prosecutors could refile them. mr. trump has pleaded not guilty. president biden is hitting his second midwest battleground in two days, first michigan, then wisconsin. the president emphasizing his bipartisan success investing in america's infrastructure. >> my predecessor talked about infrastructure week for four years. he didn't get a single thing done. >> reporter: one key challenge, stubborn inflation. in milwaukee, these business owners have felt pressure from rising costs, but support president biden's views on

social issues like reproductive rights. >> i said i do feel a lot of the issues that he touches on are not just meant for today, but for future generations that he's not even going to see. >> reporter: another business owner's politics are on display at his auto body shop. >> i want our national security back. i want our tax money to stay here. >> the former president is expected to be in court today in the classified documents case against him. let's bring in joyce vance. joyce, what are trump's lawyers arguing? >> so the arguments on the docket today are that somehow trump's possession and retention of classified information is forgiven, because he classified or reclassified the documents as

his personal records under the presidential records act. he's also making an argument that the laws are unconstitutionally vague. that's a fascinating argument, particularly since trump was briefed on how he was required to handle these materials by lawyers in the white house counsel's office while he was in office and before he left the presidency. so arguing that he didn't understand what conduct could have been criminal under this law is a nonstarter. neither of these motions are due to be granted. >> there's been a bunch of legal moves. i want to ask about the one in georgia, where some of the cases seem to have been thrown out, at least temporarily. the trump campaign is painting that as a win for donald trump. presumably, if they did the paperwork again and filed better pleas, then we could be back up

to 91 cases against donald trump, is that correct? >> this is such an important question, because what happened yesterday in fulton county is sort of a hyper-technical inside baseball sort of thing. they said some of the charges weren't specific enough. the judge agreed, which is why he dismissed those counts. he said there's just not enough information the way this indictment is drafted for the defendants to understand what they're alleged to have violated, because supposedly these defendants solicited georgia officials to violate their oaths of office. so there's a little bit of concern when those oaths cover everything in the georgia and united states constitutions. the judge said if we were in federal court, the prosecution could just come back and explain what laws they're talking about, but in georgia we have this

different procedure. so he dismissed those. the prosecution is free to go back to the grand jury and get new charges. these same charges are covered in the rico count, which is still standing. >> on the georgia case, this announcement yesterday came as a bit of a surprise. we've been anticipating the judge will make a decision soon about d.a. fani willis and whether or not she'll be disqualified. what could happen? >> we're coming up on spring break in fulton county. judges like to get their calendars cleaned up before they take off for spring break. i'm married to a state court judge. i've watched this happen over time. i think that's what we're seeing here. this issue about fani willis'

disqualification is an interesting one. she only gets disqualified if she has a conflict of interest. the evidence presented does not establish that. the judge seems to be flirting with creating a little bit of new law and saying the standard should focus on whether or not there's the appearance of impropriety if she continues on the case. if he's willing to create new law, he may well remove her. >> joyce vance, thank you. we'll be going live to the courthouse a little bit later on in this house as the hearing begins in the classified documents trial. so the republican national committee is closing all of its community centers it established for minority outreach nationwide and laying off their staff, two source tell the "new york times." the paper reports the centers, which were based in several states, including california, new york, north carolina and texas, were part of a years'

long effort to encourage blacks, latino, asian and native american voters to join the party. >> what we're seeing here is exactly what vaughn hillyard was talking about a couple of days ago. there's a growing concern in the trump camp that they just don't have the money to do the basics to run a campaign. vaughn was even talking about those speeches that donald trump loves to give at those rallies. they run at about $400,000 each. they're going to have to make some tough decisions on how many rallies he's going to be able to do. these centers that were supposed to pull black and hispanic voters over to support trump and the rnc, now these are getting shuttered. it has to be part of a bigger economic cash crunch that we're going to see donald trump facing throughout this entire campaign. >> we know the trump campaign has been talking big about their efforts to win over black

voters. this can't help that. donald trump has been dynamite at raising money in small-dollar donations. that has not been quite as good this time around. and what money he does raise is going to his legal fees. that deprives other republicans of that cash. we know the democrats are swimming in money. they're opening 40 offices in milwaukee alone. there is this sense the president's re-election campaign is setting records. one thing that's not close is the cash advantage that biden is going to have. do you think that will be enough to bury donald trump? >> well, it was in 2020. i mean not being on the air waves at the end of the campaign

really hurt donald trump in a tight election with joe biden. joe biden was able to outspend trump 2-1. he had millions more in ads on the airwaves. i do think trump can benefit from a lean organization in some sense. it's what he did in 2016. he does fine small and lean and not being seen as part and parcel to big donors. by the end of the campaign, post convention, he's going to need to be on the airwaves. as president biden tours the midwest in an attempt to shore up support there, a union has a new ad out endoring him. >> in michigan, we have a lot of hunters in the woods. many of these people support joe biden. people have an opportunity to

work and put food on the table. that's through president biden's infrastructure dollars. >> he's bringing manufacturing back to the midwest. >> roads, bridges, everything's getting rebuilt. >> everything's just booming. >> that is a strong ad. let's bring in white house correspondent for politico eugene daniels. >> if you watched that and just focused on the guys in there, most people would probably look at the men and think this isn't a biden ad. these aren't typically the kind of voters people tie to joe biden. you see those guys in camo, going hunting, they're talking about the chips act. that's not what people normally think about as democrats.

this campaign is going to be focusing on a really diverse coalition, bringing in a bunch of different people like they did in 2020. it's also part of a series of ads focusing on union members, their families and really targeted to those three important states, michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania. these three guys in the video they focused on are going to be part of the group that meets with president biden today in saginaw, michigan. this is another example of this biden campaign leaning into the president and regular people. there was a father and his kids about student loans a while back. the president was at their house. this is kind of the same thing, showing people that they want to show this president as someone who is fighting for regular people and that this election is going to come down to that.

president biden today in michigan, his are going to be pushing that contrast. the campaign says they'll be hitting trump on his comments about being open to cutting medicare and social security, something that the president has openly negotiated in states of the union with house republicans about. now the leader of their party has been saying he's open to doing that. these ads and this kind of tenor is going to continue as we head into november. >> eugene danieldaniels, thank very much. >> there are certain states that may be a bit more of a stretch this year, possibly even georgia. there are some concerns about

georgia, maybe some concerns about arizona. those are going to be a little tougher this year. you look at biden in those ads, a guy from scranton, you're talking about the upper midwest, that's where joe biden looks most natural and most at home. >> i agree. arizona particularly is the one that seems to have trended more red in the last four years. georgia is bound to be very close again. it could swing into the trump column this time around. the biden campaign focusing on those rust belt states. wisconsin looks very strong for them. the democratic party has kept the offices open. michigan, because of the gaza war, recently has had a lot more

attention. this kind of ad could help in michigan. the rust belt is where, if he can hold them, he has the reelection. coming up on "morning joe," new reporting on the misleading story about sex trafficking that republican senator katie britt told in her state of the union response. it turns out that anecdote has been part of her ongoing repertoire. plus in the wake of the house bill that would force tiktok to divest from its chinese parent company, this morning there's a new potential buyer. andrew ross sorkin will tell us who it is, next. ross sorkin wi o it is, next. here's to getting better with age. here's to beating these two every thursday.

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republican senator katie britt of alabama says she was reassured by mike johnson that her rebuttal to the state of the

union address would be fine. she has had a week of backlash of criticism over her misleading story about a sex trafficking victim. she sat down with senator ted cruz on his podcast. >> the funny thing is, he's like, don't worry. people are going to tell you horror stories about all these things that happen, and people's careers being blown up over it. he's like it will be fine. >> the thing that was the coolest is you're played by scarlett johansson. >> i mean, how awesome is that? >> katie, scarlett johansson is hot. snl has come after me a bunch of times. they don't ever have tom cruise play me. how come you get a gorgeous movie star? >> they're so funny. britt went onto add that her

crime was putting too much passion and heart and soul into her speech. senator britt has told her misleading anecdote about sex trafficking at least five separate times, in preferences and cable news interviews over the last year to criticize the biden administration's border policies. >> she knows exactly what she's doing. politicians will do this. >> very trumpy. >> i don't think to this degree, but politicians will do this. they will tell stories. they will exaggerate. she blurred a lot of things together. after she's caught red handed trying to make something that happened during the bush administration, trying to attach that to joe biden and to say how could this happen in america. i'm a big believer in this case they screwed up.

forgive me, i won't do it again. but we do have a much bigger problem in the u.s. people would be fine with that. i don't think she can do that, though. >> i agree. her defense was odd, wasn't it? she said, oh well, i was never trying to criticize the biden administration, but she was giving the response to president biden's state of the union address in an election year in which joe biden is running against donald trump and immigration is a huge issue. why would you be criticizing anything other than joe biden's policies at that particular moment? now the news that is coming out that she's used that story several times, it's hard to believe she didn't know that a that was a story from back in the bush administration. congress has such low approval ratings at the moment in part

because people don't feel they're getting the truth from congress. how refreshing is it when a politician actually has the courage to say i messed up? i think that wins a huge amount with voters. >> you have to actually care to say that. a lot of these republicans, this is trump's bench. this is the next generation of trump republicans, who not only lie for a living, but they don't care who they're hurting or the fact that they're lying. >> we talked about meeting a couple of members. again, good people, seemed like they were getting into politics, public service for the right reason. and then elise stefanik just randomly and weirdly decided to

go from being this main street republican to just a total trump/maga freak. if you knew her before that decision, you would understand what a loss that is not only to the republican party, but to the country, because she really could have made a big difference. katie britt, when i spoke to her during the sec championship game, same impression. she seemed to be -- and people after they saw me talking to her, came up and said, hey, i know you're a conservative, joe, and she's one of us. she's like pre-trump republican. she's like a reagan republican. she's one of the good ones. i was like that is just absolutely awesome. so when i saw her speech, i was like, you know, i felt sorry for her actually. she was just thrown out there. i didn't judge her for that.

we're all human. you just keep going. this story, she needs to own up to it. she's not donald trump, and she can be so much more. just say, hey, i screwed up, i'm sorry, let's move on. is there any room for that in trump's party? >> not in donald trump's party. you see how someone like katie britt, who i had heard from other people in politics, yes, she is a serious person. she was the chief of staff to a senator. that's a very rigorous job. it takes a lot of knowledge about policy and politics. part of the problem with her presentation is she actually is, quote, a normie, but trying to be trumpian. it's unauthentic.

it just doesn't work. now she's gone down this path and it's hard to extract yourself once you go there. as a former speech writer, i cannot believe such a major address would not have had basic fact checking. whoever works for her and hadn't figured out that anecdote was factually incorrect is very embarrassing. it's bad staff work, and it shows a lack of judgment. >> i don't think they care. >> whoever was coaching her, senator, be yourself. >> speaker johnson, it's fine. >> be yourself, senator. that's all she had to do. when she's herself, when not trying to be overly dramatic, you know, it works

extraordinarily well for her. so you have that, and then you have just the lie or the very strong suggestion that somehow this multiple raping happened in joe biden's america and her anguished cry that she couldn't believe this was happening in our country. she didn't say this was happening under george w. bush. instead, she left the impression that it was biden. >> it was in mexico. >> and it was in mexico! >> misleading is an understatement, guys. >> okay. that was lie. >> the woman lied flat out. now she's doubling down. >> just clean it up and move on. it's not that hard. >> first, on the delivery, she

gave interviews right before the speech and she comes off as completely normal, and you can see the appeal. it was so overly coached and overly dramatic, it was truly dreadful. you're right that she could have just simply owned the mistake. maybe that would have helped. instead, we have republicans souring on her performance, thinking it might take her off the vice president short list. she was simply doing what is rule number one in maga world, never, ever, ever apologize, never admit you're wrong no matter what mistake you've made. the house yesterday overwhelmingly passed a bill that would lead to a ban of tiktok in the united states. lawmakers in favor of the legislation say its goal is

solely to divest the popular social media platform from its chinese parent company. opponents say it's a form of censorship. moments ago, former treasury secretary steve mnuchin revealed this. >> this story gets stranger by the moment. tell us about it, andrew. >> a real turn of events. we saw yesterday the house deciding to effectively force what they would describe as the divestment of tiktok. some say it's a full-on ban, because realistically, the chinese government may not allow the sale of tiktok to a u.s. buyer. and that it has to be done in six months may make it

impossible to find a buyer and make it all work. this morning, in what turned out to be a breaking news moment, the former secretary of the treasury telling us he is prepared to put together a group and is, in fact, already in the process of trying to put a group together, trying to become a white knight, if you will, and believes strongly he can actually work with the chinese government and that they would accept him as a potential buyer. we will see what happens now, but this is invariably going to be even more politicized than it was just 24 hours ago. we still are waiting on the senate. that will be the next step in all this anyway. the house's bill is going to sit there. it's unclear whether the senate is going to take this up. then it's a question of is it really a national security threat or not?

we'll see. >> and the answer to that is yes, according to me. >> strange bedfellows are remarkable, because of course former president trump has said that he didn't want to ban tiktok, even though he was the one with the treasury secretary who tried to ban it. >> because a billionaire came into mar-a-lago and told him not to. it's pretty simple. >> when we spoke to former president trump on monday, i asked him directly about whether the billionaire had asked him. he clearly said no. he said we had no conversation about this whatsoever. his view is if you get rid of tiktok, it's going to make facebook more powerful. he says facebook is the enemy of

the people. >> he came on your show, and he lied. this is the "wall street journal" editorial page talking about the problem with an american like the former secretary buying it. the communist chinese party placed export restrictions on its algorithms. tiktok's u.s. operations can be sold, but not the key technology that powers the app, the south china morning post reported. the chinese want to keep controlling the algorithms, because they want to be able to impact our election with disinformation. they want to be able to send disinformation when the israel/hamas conflict comes up. they want to send disinformation to our children.

they want to shape american popular culture. why wouldn't democrats and everybody in the united states senate want to get the communist chinese party out of america's business? >> i don't know the answer to that. we'll see what happens. i think part of what's happening here is there is such an inflow of phone calls to senators and representatives around the country saying please don't let tiktok die. i think that is putting a bit of a hamper on what may happen next. >> it doesn't have to die. all they're saying is we can keep tiktok going, but communist chinese party, you're not going to control the algorithms. an american company has to control the algorithms so you

don't data mine what journalists are saying who write negative things about you. >> the practical issue is this, if the chinese government says we're not going to sell you this at all or they can say we'll sell you a shell of whatever tiktok is and you have to build your own algorithms, it's unclear whether that is doable or whether that mines in practice if it dies. you have six months. you're going to get the data or all of the users, but you're not going to get the algorithm. you effectively have to build an algorithm while the plane is in the air, if you will. there are technological folks who seem to think that is a tall order and the app would have to go through some kind of period where it wouldn't work or not have all the functionality and

people then migrant to other apps. you get back to the issue that maybe folks just decide they're going to use instagram or youtube shorts. >> this is not hard. >> andrew ross sorkin, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," a new documentary examines the relationship between the u.s. and russia, analyzing key events from the cold war through russia's invasion of ukraine two years ago. the director of the series joins us next on "morning joe." e seris us next on "morning joe. my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis held me back... now with skyrizi, i'm all in with clearer skin.

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in the summer of 1980, the national security advisor brzezinski, who worked for president carter, got the call at home in the middle of the night. it was brzezinski's military assistant colonel odom. he said we got an alert there are 200 soviet missiles headed towards the united states. brzezinski says, well, get better confirmation. odom calls him back and says, i was mistaken. it's not 200. it's like 2,000. in later years, brzezinski said he chose not to wake up his wife. washington would be gone in a matter of minutes. he thought she was better off dying in her sleep. he gets ready to wake up the president of the united states and say, you have a choice to

make. and just before he does that, he gets another call from his military advisor saying it's a false alarm. >> wow. >> it was remarkable hearing your father talk about that story. >> you can hear a pin drop. >> he was talking about being downstairs. he said his wife and his children were upstairs and he just sat there knowing that the end was going to come in the next ten, 15 minutes. he was just sitting downstairs in the dark letting it happen. i said, well, what will you advise the president? he said, well, if they were going to get us, then there's no way we were going to allow those s.o.b.s to get away with it. we're going to do the same to them. >> when i would tell that story, i used to get sort of tortured

inside. i was 14. so that would have meant my brothers were 16 and 17 maybe. we were so terrible. we had no idea what kind of stress he was under. i just wish i could have been a little nicer. i was a horror show. >> can you imagine that? everybody has a bad day. you don't want to tell your kids about the bad day. >> that happened in the middle of the night. >> that was a bad night. hey, dad, how did you sleep last night? >> no. we probably were fighting, my brothers and i, the next morning while he was trying to process what happened the night before. that was a clip from the new netflix docu-series entitled "turning point, the bomb and the cold war." the nine-part series gives an inside account of the tense and sometimes precarious u.s. and soviet relations from the manhattan project and the advent of the nuclear bomb to the

rising tensions between america and russia since the end of the cold war and through vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine. just yesterday putin said in an interview that russia was ready for nuclear war with the west if the conflict escalated to that point. the emmy-nominated director and executive producer of the series brian nappenberger joins us now. it's incredible. i feel like everybody needs to watch this to understand what's happening today. >> brian, what's so fascinating is it's not just what we grew up in, not just what we experienced going through the cold war, but as you point out, it's important because it helps us better understand what we're going through right now. >> yeah. that definitely hit home with us when we started this.

we were two or three months into creating this series when putin invaded ukraine. we were just glued to the television. that was a very dramatic moment. tanks were rolling into kyiv, and there was an assassination attempt on zelenskyy's life. putin famously said that the breakup of the soviet union was the worst geopolitical tragedy in history. putin's version was riddled with errors. it became immediately apparent we were telling a modern story of what was happening in ukraine and using that to go back and tell this broader history of the cold war and harrowing moments like we just saw. >> talk about having a bad night, joe is right. can you unpack that a little bit more for us. you're saying everything you're seeing in ukraine is kind of an echo of the cold war period.

spell that out a little bit more for us. >> putin is famously a child of the cold war. he was a kgb agent in dresden before the berlin wall fell. there's a famous line he says in the book that was written about him with an extended interview where he talks about calling moscow. this was when protests were gathering, the fall of the berlin wall was imminent. people were taking to the streets. he remembers calling moscow and trying to look for direction. he wants to use force against these protesters. the famous line is, moscow was silent. he sort of vowed not to be silent again. if you look at him and his history particularly through the '90s and the conditions that set the stage for his coming on the world stage, it's very consistent. he often talks about old soviet borders, even borders of the russian empire in a kind of

nostalgic way. certainly ukraine has been mixed up with that right from the very beginning as soon as he becomes leader. he uses a lot of cold war tactics. we see a lot of misinformation, disinformation, nuclear saber rattling. we are still very much feeling the tensions of the cold war. >> we have new reporting in the last week or so that u.s. officials were concerned putin would use a tactical nuke on the battlefield in ukraine about a year ago. there was also the cuban missile crisis. how close do we come? >> the clip that you just saw is just unbelievable. that could have been the end of the world. i mean, you really have to stop and think that could have been it. once those missiles are launched, that decision had been made, you don't get to call them

back really. i guess even more frightening than that scene is, it's not isolated. there's lots of scenes like that. by 1983, there are so many misunderstandings, mistakes, human error. of course, the rhetoric is so amplified at that point. reagan called the soviet union the evil empire. by 1983 there were armed nuclear weapons. you have the shooting down of the korean airliner. a lot of people in hindsight look at 1983 as maybe the most dangerous year in all of human history. we go through the cuban missile crisis too. some of that played out in public. we didn't know about this stuff until much later. it's pretty disturbing.

>> what was it like interviewing survivors, japanese survivors of the bombing of hiroshima? >> for me, that was the most emotional part. i've done a lot of documentaries. i think some of the most emotional interviews i've ever done. i didn't realize how many people still had memories of that day. we talked to one person whose brother had seen the actual bomb come out. the skies were clear. there were no other airplanes in the sky. he saw the bomber come down. going through those days and what happened, it's incredibly moving. we've forgotten how dangerous independence are. with the collapse of the soviet union, it sort of receded in our

mind. nuclear weapons are still with us. it's something we have to take very seriously. trump did the treaty lapse. we're at a point now where in the next two years or so for the first time in 50 years we won't have any treaties that govern the deployment of nuclear weapons. >> highly recommend that you see all nine episodes of "turning point, the bomb and the cold war," streaming right now on netflix. thank you so much for producer, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. and for this work. thank you. >> thank you very much. thanks. >> all right. take care. coming up, a key hearing on donald trump's classified documents case is set to begin just moments from now. we'll go live to the courthouse in fort pierce, florida, next, in two minutes. in two minutes

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we're just moments away from a key hearing in the documents case against former president trump. joining us now, nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian who is outside the courthouse in fort pierce, florida. ken, what can we expect today? >> reporter: good morning. we can expect donald trump in the courtroom as he was for the last procedural hearing in this case, and his lawyers are going to argue two of his many motions to dismiss these charges or most of them, on what are really some extraordinary grounds. one he's saying that the presidential records act meant that president trump could take any document he wanted out of the white house and deem that personal, and no one can question it. that's his essential argument under the presidential records act. of course jack smith's office says that's ridiculous, that suggests that the president is above the law, and that the

presidential act is a civil law that has nothing to do with the criminal laws under which president trump has been prosecuted. they're saying once he wasn't president anymore, he had no right to collect and keep classified documents let alone hide them from investigators and obstruct justice. the second point his attorneys are making is the espionage act under which most of the charges were brought is unconstitutionally vague. it's a 1917 law. it is vague. but this argument has been tried many times in the past and failed, and in fact, most of the classified documents prosecutions that have been brought in recent years under theiespoonage act, most recently jack teixiera who pled guilty. most experts think this was a long shot. but the judge is expected to hear arguments all day on these matters and she has entertained some rather esoteric arguments from the trump side before. we'll have to see exactly what she does. >> nbc news justice and

intelligence correspondent ken dilanian, thank you so much. good luck there. let's bring in criminal defense attorney and former watergate prosecutor john sell. thank you so much for being with us. what do you expect to hear from these hearings today, and does donald trump have a chance to have this case dismissed? >> oh, i think he has zero chance of having the case dismissed. the presidential records act was passed after watergate which i had a small part in prosecuting. it basically said the records belong to the american people, they do not belong to the president once he leaves office, and it's absurd to think that he could take nuclear secrets and bring them back to mar-a-lago and stall them in the -- store them in the basement and the ballroom. and the second argument about the statute being vague, there are a member of people who are serving, have served prison terms, trump has argued that this law applies to traitors and people like that. that's -- could, but it's been

used countless times against people who take records and retain them, and that's what he's charged with -- unlawfully retaining record that aren't -- don't even have to be classified. both of his arguments are going to fail. i think judge cannon is going to do the right thing. >> all right. john, you believe it's not going to be dismissed, but do you think there's a chance that whether it's today's proceeding plays a role or not, further delays could occur in this trial which would push it beyond election day? >> delays occur in every trial. and in fairness, every criminal defense lawyer including me, whenever we make motions, delays come with it. so the answer is yes. i think that this case will not be tried before the election. and i think that the trump team saying they're ready in august, what they're just trying to do is to be able to say to judge chutkan we can't go to trial, we have a case against judge cannon and play off one another. >> former watergate prosecutor

john sale, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. we'll be watching this and covering it live all day. >> it's going to be fascinating to see how she rules today. >> yeah. >> considering, again -- >> what ken pointed out. >> kent put in a nice way. >> yeah. >> she's had some esoteric rulings in the past. >> anna cabrera picks up the coverage of the hearing after a final break. eak. (vo) in the next 30 seconds, 250 couples will need to make room for a nursery. (man) ah ha! (vo) 26 people will go all-in. (woman) yes! (vo) this family will get two bathrooms. and finally, one vacationer will say... (man) yeah, woo, i'm going to live here... (vo) but as the euphoria subsides, the realization hits... (man) i've got to sell the house. (all) [screams] (vo) don't worry, just sell and buy in one move

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