for it is it can move quickly, can maneuver, be agile. when you have a one-vote majority, you can't do much of anything. you need the minority to pass anything you want. that's been the case really all congress. so whether it is ukraine or anything that happens for the rest of the time, hakeem jeffries is incredibly powerful. it's really hard for johnson to walk into a house republican conference meeting and come up with a plan and pitch it to his members when he knows no matter what we're talking about, there aren't going to be 218 votes in that room. it's a terrible position to be a speaker in. the speaker relies on having a majority of his own party, and this is a situation where he can't count on that. >> brendan buck, terrific analysis, as always. thank you for joining us this morning. thanks for getting up "way too early" with us on this tuesday morning. we'll continue to have live coverage of the baltimore bridge collapse. "morning joe" starts right now. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, march 26th.

we're going to begin with that breaking news out of baltimore this morning. the francis scott key bridge, part of interstate 695, partially collapsed overnight. it happened when a large cargo ship struck the bridge. the vessel was leaving baltimore for sri lanka. the local coast guard received word of an impact at 1:27 a.m. eastern time this morning. the port of baltimore is one of the nation's largest shipping hubs. according to "the associated press," emergency responders are searching for at least seven people believed to be in the water. "the washington post" reporting now they are looking for up to 20 people. those numbers unclear at this point. it is too early to know exactly how many people overall were affected. the baltimore fire department called the collapse a developing mass casualty event. we're hearing from transportation secretary pete buttigieg. he tweeted moments ago he has

spoken with maryland's governor and baltimore's mayor to offer the department's support following the incident. we'll be going live to the scene. of course, this, again, happening at 1:30 in the morning. the video that shows the actual moment when this large container ship hit the bridge, you can see it right there, it is a direct hit, causing, look, the entire bridge to collapse on one side. it raises a lot of questions as to what was going on on that cargo ship and what happened in those moments, which will be, of course, the focus of a massive investigation that the feds are getting involved in, as well. >> horrifying moment, willie. this announcement coming from governor moore on the statement of the collapse of the francis scott key bridge. my office is in close communication with the u.s. transportation secretary pete buttigieg. i've declared a state of emergency here in maryland.

we are working with an interagency team to quickly deploy federal resources from the biden administration. we're thankful for the brave men and women carrying out efforts to rescue those, and we pray for everyone's safety. it's a bridge that anybody who has driven up and down the east coast corridor is keenly aware of. a privilege that really is a lifeline for baltimore residents and people across the east coast. >> it is. 695, a bypass around baltimore, but a major thoroughfare. this video is breathtaking. every time you see it, it stops you in your tracks. a major ship of almost 1,000 feet hits one of those stanchions. it's a long bridge for those who haven't traveled across it. as mika said, a critical port to the united states, but a major roadway. right now, the concern is over

people in the water. first, the baltimore fire department said seven people were missing, that they were looking for, perhaps those working on the bridge. now, as mika said, some reports say it could be as many as 20. a major search and rescue operation under way right now. nbc's ryan nobles has arrived on the scene. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: willie, good morning. we are expecting a briefing from first responders and officials here at the base of the francis scott key bridge at 7:00 a.m. eastern time. that's where we're expecting to get an update of the scale of the devastation. right now, it is difficult to really just take in just how big this tragedy is because we are still under the cover of night. as the sun rises, we'll get a much better sense of just how much damage there is and how much work there will be when this recovery begins in earnest. right now, the number one concern for first responders and the people on the scene is

helping those people that may have been on this bridge when it went down. as you rightly point out, it happened at 1:30 this morning. we do know that there was a crew of construction workers that were on the bridge at the time. in fact, my colleague, julia jester, caught up with a group of family members who had stationed near a convenient store near the bridge, looking for answers. they were searching and trying to figure out what happened to their loved ones. they had not gotten any communication add to what had happened to them. they basically went to the store just so that they could get as close to the bridge as possible but have yet to learn anything about the status of their loved ones. as you have also pointed out, the governor, wes moore, declaring a state of emergency as it relates to this tragedy. i think it is also important to point out just what kind of chaos this could potentially cause this region. this is a main artery that's around the city of baltimore, a mile and a half span, that thousands and thousands of cars

drive over every single day. as i was driving up from the washington, d.c., area, you could already see signs posted along the highways, warning trooif drivers to stay away from this area, to find alternate routes to get around this bridge that's no longer passable. it'll be a lengthy recovery, a long time to rebuild this bridge. as you've shown over and over again, almost the entire bridge appears to collapse after this cargo ship hammers into the base of the ship -- or of the bridge, i should say. it'll require a massive rebuilding effort in order to get this bridge back up and running. again, the number one concern right now is the potential loss of life. the effort to recover the people that may have been on the bridge at the time. just to give you an idea of what it's like here right now, it is very cold. we are in the high 30s right now, between 35 and 39 degrees.

the water temperature is going to be somewhere in the 40 degree range, maybe 45 to 48 degrees. it would be very difficult for someone to survive in conditions like that for a lengthy period of time. that's why you saw first responders rush to the scene as quickly as possible. one of the other things we're noticing right now, in addition to the police cars and first responder vehicles that are coming in and out of this area, is that there are a number of helicopters that are circling over the bridge, and that area right now looking down onto the scene, trying to see whatever they can. but, you know, i have to say, it is basically pitch black right noy. it is hard to see anything because it is so dark. they certainly have had to be waiting for the sun to rise in order to be able to see exactly just what they're dealing with right now. but there is, by any measure, this is a serious tragedy and something that's going to take quite a bit of time to recover from. >> incredibly difficult rescue

operation under the cover of darkness. as you say, every minute counts with the temperatures in that water. very early hours here, ryan. i know it's just been over 4 1/2 hours since this incident took place. is there any sense from people you've talked to once you got there as to what might have happened? this is routine. ships come in and out of there, even ships of that size, constantly, all day, every day, often, you know, escorted out by tugboats. they pass under the bridge. they have for many, many years. do we have any idea of what may have happened here? >> reporter: no. there aren't many answers as it relates to that right now, willie, because the complete focus has been on the search and rescue effort. but this is one of the busiest ports in the world, so you would think that this is something that ships of this size come in and out of this port on a regular basis. something had to have gone catastrophically wrong for something like this to happen, no doubt about that. >> nbc's ryan nobles, we'll be checking back in with you.

we appreciate your coverage. of course, as anything develops with this breaking story, we will come right back live to reporting from baltimore. along with joe, willie, and me, we have the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire. associate editor of "the washington post," eugene robinson. and president emeritus on the council of foreign relations, richard haass. we have a busy news day. we'll be talking about israel and the united states right now. tensions about as high as they've been in decades between those two countries. also, of course, yesterday, a massive day in court for donald trump. he got a bit of good news. he got some bad news as far as he was concerned. we'll get to that in a minute, too. first, some swing state polls that show what i think

most of us know, actually, that the president of the united states and his performance in the state of the union address was going to impact americans and undercut this lie that he somehow was a doddering old man who couldn't complete a sentence. this lie that the republicans continued to push actually now appears to be backfiring. >> let's briefly check in on that. this is new general election polling showing a neck in neck battle for swing states between joe biden and donald trump. in the latest bloomberg morning consult poll, trump and president biden are tied at 45% in michigan and pennsylvania and in wisconsin, biden leads by a single point, which is within the margin of error, so an uptick. >> an uptick. let's keep those three states up there because there are other spring state polls taken. biden is down two in nevada, further behind in other states. trump is maintaining his lead in the state of georgia.

gene robinson, though, as you look at these numbers, these are the three states that matter. if joe biden wins these three states, donald trump is -- that is the so-called blue wall that everyone talked about in 2012 that would never be broken, until donald trump did it four years later. but you look in michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin. those numbers breaking biden's way. >> yeah. >> i suspect -- you know, we talked about how confident the biden team has been all along when everybody else has been ready to panic and run for the hills. right now at least, this poll suggests that, you know, these voters and these polls suggest that maybe they know what they're talking about. >> maybe the biden political team actually is pretty good at politics. there must be a giant sigh of relief and, you know, certainly

lots of welcoming noises inside the white house this morning about those polls. as you said, those are states that president biden has to carry. polls in michigan especially and in pennsylvania were -- had been scary for the white house for a while. but they were quite confident. the political team was quite confident that things would turn around, that democrats would come home to president biden. now, we're still in march. there's a long time to go. with the needle moving in what they would see as the right direction, i think there will be some smiles about this in the white house, along, obviously, with deep concern about what's happening in baltimore. it is a busy news day, as you said. >> it is a busy news day. willie, you know, it's so interesting.

we've talked about this since 2015. donald trump always runs against people who stand there stiff and take it. he's a disruptor on the campaign trail. when he disrupts, people say, oh, he shouldn't be mean. the biden campaign, i saw when donald trump was bragging about another one of his club trophies where i suppose if you are a member, you have to let donald trump win, because he wins all of his club championships. he was bragging. joe biden mockingly goes, you know, "nice job, donald," or something like that. yesterday after donald trump came out ranting and raving, claiming that he was jesus and all this other stuff, as drudge put it, this is what they said. i guarantee donald trump is not used to the incoming he's facing. quote, "donald trump is weak and

desperate, both as a man and a candidate for president. he spent the weekend golfing, the morning comparing himself to jesus, and the afternoon lying about having money that he definitely doesn't have. his campaign can't raise money, he is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club, and every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda. america deserves better than a feeble, confused, and tired donald trump." i must say, on that last part, there have been people who have irritated, and count me as one of them, that there are countless stories about joe biden after the herr report, being old and feeble. you're a young man, but things a lot of us can't remember in a five-hour deposition when we have to be asked about it. yet, it is joe biden campaigning

day by day by day, going to event after event after event. it is donald trump who has been holed up in his country club and holed up in other places, holding only one event. that's an event he held for a senate candidate because they don't have the money right now to put on a lot of these events. >> yeah. i mean, the criticism of joe biden was he was the basement candidate. that was in 2020. this is the beach club candidate in donald trump. he is running a presidential campaign from mar-a-lago. he is doing the occasional rally where he flies in for an hour and flies pack to mar-a-lago. sometimes for another candidate, but it always becomes about him and his persecution. you weren't exaggerating when you mentioned jesus. he affirmatively reposted something from one of his supporters yesterday that suggested he, in fact, was a christlike figure, taking the arrows for the people. but he's walking into a lot of this. we can play tape almost every

day, including yesterday when he was speaking at 40 wall street about the decision to have his bond changed. it is objectively incoherent. if you watch the full clip, even a rally, i'm not sure this is the fight he wants to have, joe biden being a doddering old man. clearly, as you read in the tweet, the biden campaign is happy to have this fight, too, jonathan lemire. there has been, it appears at least, in recent weeks, a shift in posture from the biden campaign, being much more aggressive, especially on this issue of age and mental fitness for the job. >> the president himself has gotten far more aggress i in taking it to trump. his new favorite joke joe biden has been trotting out is he talks about the efforts to relief student loan. a man approaches him on the street and says, i need all this money. and biden says, "well, sorry, donald, i can't help you." we've seen a rapid response grow, and they're taking chances

every opportunity they get. this is changes the biden aides thought were coming. the first mission of the state of the union was to reassure nervous democrats. to show them, look, the president is up for the job. he can deliver a strong performance. clearly, that happened. a lot of the whispers that biden should step aside, that's vanished. there's much more confidence in the party that he is up for this fight. then they thought, well, let's accompany that with a two-week blitz of campaign travel. he's been to basically every swing state while donald trump, to joe's point, held one event. they had to pull down another, one scheduled for arizona. they didn't have the money to pay for it. that is a concern for trump world. the biden team has a massive cash advantage. >> jojonathan? >> yes? >> did you just say donald trump -- you have reporting that donald trump had to cancel an event, the only event he's had,

would have had on his own in a long time, they didn't have the money to run the event? >> it was an event that was not publicized yet. it hadn't been officially announced but they were planning an arizona event they had to pull down because they couldn't afford it. they didn't want to use their resources there. it was not that it had been advertised yet, but, still, this was something they wanted to do and couldn't. they didn't because they decided to use resources elsewhere. >> have you ever heard of a political campaign that didn't have the money to run political rallies? >> let's recall, there are some in the trump world that feel like -- let's remember, trump had a cash disadvantage in 2020, as well, and had to go dark for a few weeks that fall. they had to pull down advertising. they think that was one of the differences of why they lost. they had to go dark for a stretch in september and early october while biden and his team were advertising nonstop. that is going to happen again this time around. it is very clear that the democrats are going to have a major fundraising advantage. in fact, president biden is appearing in new york city later this week with former presidents

obama and clinton in what they hope will be the biggest single fundraiser to date, padding that advantage. we're seeing reflection there in the polls. georgia, democrats tell me, remain a concern. they feel georgia may be out of reach this time around, joe and mika, but they feel other states are in play. particularly the blue wall where they're seeing movement, even in a state like michigan where that i had trouble because of the gaza conflict. >> yeah, they'll have some problems at least in georgia and arizona, two strong republican-leaning states that went democratic in 2020. concerns there. nevada, of course, though, i always say when people predict nevada is going to go to republicans by two points in presidential races, i always talk about, somehow, democrats, you know, if it is within two points, that is going to the democrats. they seem to pull it out because of organization. make no mistake, put the three states up again, dan. those three states, and we'll

talk about this later, this is the election right here. these are the three states that determine who the next president of the united states is going to be. if joe biden wins those three states, he is the next president. >> we're going to return back to these polls and have the bloomberg reporter on to talk about them more a little later. we're also going to go back to the scene in baltimore of the key bridge collapse. there's a massive rescue operation under way right now. i just got word from the white house official that they are closely monitoring the collision of a shipping vessel with the francis scott key bridge in baltimore. the u.s. coast guard conducting a search. senior white house officials are in touch with the governor and the mayor to offer any federal assistance they need. there is no indication of any nefarious attempt. that is the statement from the white house on this breaking news story happening in baltimore. a massive thoroughfare, a bridge outside the port of baltimore, has completely collapsed into

the water. some reports indicate up to 20 people could be in the water. right now, the focus is on preserving life, but it is more than three hours since the collapse. the water is cold, and the ability to survive goes down as every moment goes by. we will, of course, come back to you if there is any new information on this breaking story out of baltimore. now, to foreign news. the united nations security council passed a resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire in gaza. 14 countries voted in favor of the measure yesterday, but the u.s. abstained. officials say while they support a cease-fire as part of a hostage release deal, the message does not have language that condemns hamas. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu criticized the biden administration's decision, accusing the u.s. of retreating from a principled position. in protest, netanyahu announced he will no longer send a

delegation to washington to discuss israeli's looming offensive in rafah. senior israeli officials were supposed to meet with the biden administration later this week as the white house has raised concerns about launching a major military operation in the southern gaza city. the biden administration says yesterday's vote does not reflect a change in america's policy and that the resolution does not stop israel from going after hamas. >> richard, take us through the events of the united nations and beyond yesterday. >> joe, the previous resolution the united states introduced four, five days ago was veted by china and russia. it did criticize hamas, and they didn't want to let the united states off the hook. this time, united states abstained on the resolution. three resolutions we've vetoed since october 7th. this is the first one that's passed in the u.n. security council with the u.n. abstaining. it calls for an immediate

cease-fire. it does call, by the way, for the release of all hostages. there's a big emphasis on getting aid into gaza. the cease-fire calls for, by the way, joe, simply two more weeks. it gets through to april 9th, to the end of the holy month of ramadan. it's consistent with the u.s. position, that there ought to be an open-ended cease-fire. >> richard, let me ask you a question. it'll sound naive, but why in the world would the united nations not allow a line in, the security council not allow a line in that condemned hamas for the brutality that they not only showed on october 7th but that they've been showing in gaza since 2005/2006? >> because it reflects the politics and bias of the u.n. all the focus right now is

critical of israel, of what's going on. what's going on in gaza. that's simply a political -- a truly unattractive, unfortunate political fact. the question is, should we have vetoed this resolution because of that absence? i think the administration made the call, a right call, that that's a symbolic issue. it doesn't have anything that's actionable as a result. i'll be honest, joe, what is interesting is less the textual content of the resolutions. over the last 76 years, the united states and israel have had their moments of friction, shall we say. you may remember reagan, his phone call over what was going on in lebanon, where i worked for george bush, the father. we had all sorts of frictions then about soviet jews and the subsidies, bringing them into the occupied territories.

but every one of those israeli prime ministers, his goal was to calm things down. he recognized the united states is the most important partner for israel. what this reminds me of is different. it goes back to 1956. the united states under eisenhower had a confrontational relationship with israel over israel's participation with britain and france in the invasion of egypt after the nationalization by nasser of the suez canal. you literally have to go back to 1956 for a confrontational moment in u.s./israeli relations. what this tells me is israel now has a prime minister, let's put aside the fact that many of us think what he is doing is ill-advised, that we have a prime minister who seems to be politically thinking that his prospects will improve not by managing israel's most important relationship but by upending it.

by saying he is the only force that stands between israel and american pressure. that is something qualitatively different. >> richard, netanyahu has pulled back this delegation that was supposed to travel to the united states. we should point out, defense secretary austin is still going to meet today with the israeli defense minister. as you say, there's obviously some major friction here. i guess the question is, what's the way forward in this relationship as it pertains to the war in gaza? we heard admiral kirby yesterday saying we haven't changed our policy. we always said there had to be a temporary cease-fire as part of the hostage deal, to get the hostages out. we haven't changed. i think the white house feels like netanyahu, to your point, is just making a public show of this. >> bill burns has been in qatar. we're still trying to negotiate a prisoner release, the hostage release, and a temporary cease-fire, longer than the one called for in this resolution. that hasn't changed. the real question, willie, is if

the israelis go ahead with the rafah military offensive. if so, what does it look like? how much care to avoid civilian casualties? if it is big, if there's more civilian casualties, this bad situation between the united states and israel and between israel and the rest of the world simply gets worse. >> all right. we're going to continue on this and other stories, but, mika, we have our first press conference. police are briefing reporters on the bridge collapse in baltimore. let's listen in. >> -- were responding, they began to receive numerous calls indicating multiple people in the water. at some point during that change of events of calls, we began to receive indications that a ship may have struck the key bridge. we got further information through multiple calls that the key bridge, portions of the key bridge, had actually collapsed. 0150 hours, our first unit

arrived on scene and reported a complete collapse of the key bridge. we were also given information at that time that there were likely multiple people on the bridge at the time of the collapse, and that, as a result, multiple people were in the water. we were able to remove two people from the water. one individual refused service and transport. that person was not injured. however, there was another individual that's been transported to a trauma center that is in very serious condition. at this time, we have multiple air assets as well as from the baltimore police department, as well as multiple marine assets from around the region, including baltimore city, baltimore county, as well as multiple local and state police agencies, national resources,

police, special ops unit is in here, maryland state police is here. we have multiple resources. we are still very much in an active search and rescue posture at this point. we will continue to be for some time. we have a large area that we have to search. this includes on the surface of the water, sub surface, as well as on the deck of the ship itself. we believe at this point we may be looking for -- we may be looking for upwards of seven individuals. that's the latest information we have. however, what i will say is, the information that i'm giving you right now is what we know right now. this is a very large incident. it involves a very large footprint. multiple agencies are operating,

therefore, information is subject to change as we get more intel and as our crews work through the morning. over the next 8 to 12 hours, you can continue to see our air and maritime assets functioning out on the water and in the air above. we need to do damage assessment of the ship itself before we can board that ship. we need to continue our sub surface search, which is include different sonar capabilities. we have underwater uavs we're working with. throughout the night, we've also been working with infrared technology, both from the air and on the water's surface. i'll wrap up here by saying this continues to be a search and rescue operation. it continues to be a very dynamic operation. multiple local, state, and federal resources involved.

with that, i'm going to turn it over to our mayor, mayor brandon scott. >> thank you. thank you, chief. everyone, this is an unthinkable tragedy. we have to first and foremost pray for all of those who are impacted, those families. i pray for our first responders and thank them, all of them, working together, city, state, local, to make sure that we are working through this tragedy. this is an ongoing, active search we are having right now. we are going to continue, as you heard from the chief, throughout as long as we have to be doing that. we will do it. but we have to be thinking about the families and people impacted. folks who we have to try to find and save. this is what our focus should be on right now. we're going to work in partnership with every part of government to do everything we can to get us through to the other side of this tragedy.

with that, i'll turn it over to the county executive. >> thank you, mayor scott. i think we all awoke this morning to an unspeakable tragedy. as the mayor indicated, we know there will be families and individuals impacted by this, regardless of what happens the rest of the way out. i'd echo the mayor in lifting up prayers for those impacted. i also ask our residents pray for our first responders. you know, they have been on scene since very early in the morning. not only conducting initial search and rescue operations and planning for additional ones as the sun comes up and, you know, the work they do cannot be understated. i want to just thank them for all they are doing and will do in the hours and days ahead. we know we have a long road ahead, not just in the search and rescue but in the fallout following this. we appropriately have our attention on the search and rescue efforts currently. just here alongside our partners

in the city to say they have our full support. just as we want to thank our state partners for the resources they've offered up as well as the federal partners who already reached out. the mayor and i talked to the governor. we've heard from the secretary of transportation. collectively, we thank everyone for their thoughts and well wishes. again, this is a very active situation, and we want to just thank the chief and our teams for all the great work they're doing. with that, i'll turn things back over to the chief. >> thank you. we'll do some q&a right now. we'll go around and have everyone present a question. >> chief, can you tell us where the crew of the ship is? you said two people were rescued. who made the first 911 call? there were reports there was a crew on the deck of the ship working at that point. can you confirm any of that? >> the latest information we have on the crew of the ship is that they are still on board the

ship. there's been comms between the ship crew and the coast guard. as part of the overall operation, we communicate with the coast guard with the ships. >> who made the first 911 call? >> i don't know who made that call yet. >> were there other workers on the deck of the ship or the deck of the -- or the bridge? we heard that information. can you confirm that? >> we're told there were workers on the bridge. we'll work to confirm and get that information. >> how many cars were on the ship, last question, or on the deck of the bridge at the time of collapse? >> our sonar detected vehicles submerged in the water. i don't have count of that yet. >> you mentioned upwards of seven individuals being searched for, but there's upward of 20.

how many people actually fell in the water? how many might we be looking to rescue? can you give an idea of the vehicles? >> i don't know how many vehicles yet. i know we have detected the presence of vehicles. as far as the number between the 7 and 20, that's been a dynamic count throughout the morning. just given the fact that we haven't yet nailed that number down. we believe at least seven are involved in that. at least seven at this point. >> that fell into the water? >> yes, ma'am. >> i know you said the crew was accounted for by the coast guard on deck. do we know if any of the crew members were part of the seven people that may have been in the water? >> we do not. >> [ inaudible question ].

>> we'll be guided by our dive teams. we will determine what the temperature of the water is. the other issue that we have out there is this water is current influenced, so we think the tide is coming back in. that adds a bit of a challenge to us, also. we can certainly dive in these conditions, but we have to take a lot of factors into play. the fact there may be trauma involved. they have been in the water an extended period of time. also remember, we're battling darkness. you know, it's quite possible that we may have somebody there that we've not seen yet. as they work closer to the debris field, you know, they'll obviously make those determinations. we're going to rely on the experts which are our dive masters that are here, our dive team, to tell us when they believe we've reached that non-survivability point. >> thank you. >> chief, is there any indication what was on the ship? was it led in by tugboats?

anything that, early on, can -- >> we don't have information with regard to the investigation. i would refer that to law enforcement. my focus since 1:40 this morning has been that rescue operation. >> there's been no indication of an emergency dispatch coming from the ship beforehand? >> i have no information about that, ma'am. >> have you been able to talk to the pilot, the american pilot on that bridge? >> the pilot on the vessel? >> yeah. >> we have not talked to the pilot on the vessel. the rescue personnel, the rescue operation, we have not interacted. >> back over here. >> can you tell us. [ inaudible ]. >> yeah, i don't have age and gender on either. one patient refused service. really, they weren't injured. the second patient, however, was seriously injured and is at an

area trauma center. >> are you including them in the seven, at least seven people? >> we don't know yet if they're part of the seven. >> okay. >> the patient is injured severely enough that we have not been able to debrief that patient. >> the seven number, did that come from cars going down? or is that from the sonar? >> no, that was the initial information that we got as we were arriving on the scene, that number. that number, again, as i said earlier, has fluctuated, right? that seven has been a consistent number. >> how many agencies are here assisting? >> wow. >> a dozen. >> yeah, dozens. locally, fire department wise, howard county is here, hartford was here, pg was here, anarundul, baltimore city. a lot of the agencies are here

by virtue of the fact they may have specialized equipment we need during an incident like this. we're bringing in the equipment specific to the operation right now. even law enforcement agencies have a lot of the same marine ops equipment as we do. given the incident is so big, we try to force multiply and bring as many resources in as we can so that we can really blanket a large area for a search. >> [ inaudible question ]. >> we haven't been able to confirm we have an active fuel spill from the vessel. we've had odors of diesel fuel. the maryland department of the environment is here, as well as the coast guard, so they would take leads on that, as well. we hope as the sun comes up with the air assets that are up to get a much better picture. if we do have a fuel spill, what the impact has been so far. >> all right. first responders in baltimore still very much in the middle of

this ongoing disaster and bridge collapse after a cargo ship hit the francis scott key bridge around 1:30 this morning. the bridge then collapsed. we've been collapsing to james wallace, the fire chief in baltimore, and other city officials. we did get some new information. it was about 1:50 this morning when they ascertained the bridge officially collapsed and that there were multiple people in the water. they started getting calls at 1:30, multiple calls, 911 calls to rescue people in the water. when they got to the scene, they were able to rescue a person who was not injured, another person has been sent to a trauma center with severe injuries. we know the crew is still on board the ship, and they are still very much in search and rescue mode using air and maritime crews, sonar devices, infrared technology to search above the water and under the

water. they're also looking on the ship, as well. the scene has a large footprint, as this bridge was the main thoroughfare, really, for commerce that doesn't want to go through the tunnels in baltimore but along the port of baltimore. that is a major shipping hub for the east coast. again, that is now completely shut off, and that'll create another set of massive problems that officials will have to deal with later. right now, even four, five hours after this horrendous tragedy, they are still holding on to hope, looking for life. but as every moment goes by, the concept that a person could live in those matters diminishes. as you can see, the shipping containers are another issue. some of them are stuck to the bridge, dangling off the bridge. there are so many moving parts here. of course, we will be hearing back from city officials throughout the day. they say they'll be checking back in. >> willie, a lot of people may be asking, how in the world could this happen?

how unusual is this? the fact is, unfortunately, it's happened quite often. for anybody from the state of florida, they'll remember, if they're old enough, what happened on may 9th, 1980, when a freighter struck tampa's sunshine skyway bridge. that tragedy killed 35 people. six cars, a truck, a greyhound bus fell 150 people into the water in 2002 on the arkansas river. the i-40 bridge collapsed, barges collided with a bridge, killed 14. in china a few months ago, a barge hit a bridge, killing several people there. unfortunately, this has happened before. it seems inexplicable, why it would happen. obviously, a lot of investigators on the scene right now. the answers will be coming in the coming days and weeks ahead. >> the fire chief said, we don't have an explanation yet for this. we're trying to get people out of the water as fast as we can.

the crew, he said, still on that ship with a lot of questions to answer. as the light begins to come up, we're 15 minutes away from full sunrise, but we have enough light now to see here. a breathtaking scene of a massive ship of almost 1,000 feet, fully loaded with cars there, that rammed into the francis scott key bridge that has been there since 1977. chief wallace there in baltimore said, he called it a complete collapse of the key bridge, certainly sections of it anyway are completely in the water. one other thing that was chilling, he said our sonar detected vehicles in the water. >> yes. >> indicating that there were cars even at that late hour, 1:30, 1:45 in the morning, passing over that bridge that have gone into the water now. when he says we have upwards of seven people we're looking for, it might be the low end. they don't know who is in the car, how many people are in the cars. as mika pointed out, we're five hours along here in very cold

water here in late march. even with the sun coming up, it's a very difficult rescue. just these pictures now as light comes up are stunning and so tragic to witness something that is, yes, there are incidents, but relatively routine, as we've been saying all morning. this is one of the busiest ports in america. the big ships come in and out of there all day, every day. about 1:30 in the morning, this one hit the bridge, collapsed, and now we're waiting to see how many people may have died and how many hopefully can still be rescued. >> willie, when you talk about the number of vehicles that so far have been detected by sonar, one explanation may be that there were reports of construction happening on the bridge. there might have been multiple workers on that bridge at the time of the collapse, also slowing traffic, putting multiple vehicles on the bridge. again, we're waiting for confirmation on these details. these are reports that are coming in to us.

ryan nobles live for us earlier met with people gathering at a nearby store, waiting for people who they knew were on the bridge. that leads to some deduction that the construction worker angle on this could be a real issue. there might have been people working on that bridge as it collapsed. this is a massive disaster and will have ripple effects across the coast. this is an economic thoroughfare up and town the east coast, a major one, over a bridge right near the port of baltimore. as bad as it can get, raising a lot of questions. the white house put out a statement saying they're reaching out and offering all the assistance they can to state and local officials. also pointing out at the end of their statement that nothing nefarious appears to be the reason for this. i will add at this point, we just don't know. the crew is still on the ship.

that will be a very, very key part of this, to see what the status of the crew is, what the status of the captain is, and if something happened on the ship. what caused this mass casualty event as officials in baltimore are calling it? of course, the bridge is completely out of service indefinitely. >> we're going to be continuing this, mika, throughout the morning, obviously, and throughout the day. >> go back to the scene, yeah. >> as more details come forward. still ahead on "morning joe," donald trump gets a break in his civil fraud case. a panel of appellate judges granting the former president a reduced bond and more time to come up with the cash. meanwhile, a trial date has been set in the former president's hush money case. we'll go over the legal developments straight ahead on "morning joe." we'll be right back. like your workplace benefits and retirement savings. voya provides tools that help you make the right investment and benefit choices. so you can reach today's financial goals

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live picture of the sun coming up over washington at 6:50 in the morning. we'll get back to the latest on the bridge collapse in baltimore in a moment. want to talk about some legal news and what now, i guess, amounts to a legal victory for donald trump. the former president now has ten days to post a $175 million bond in his civil fraud case. that 11th hour ruling came yesterday from a panel of new york state appellate court judges. they reducd the bond from $464 million, didn't explain why exactly. this comes despite donald trump's claiming on social media on friday he almost had the cash he needed. two people with knowledge of the former president's fnances told "the new york times" he should be able to pay the new bond amount, though doing so will effectively drain much of trump's cash. he'll have to put up about $200 million in cash and another investments as collateral to a business willing to cover the bond. letitia james writing in part,

"donald trump is still facing accountability for his staggering fraud. the court has already found that he engaged in years of fraud to falsely inflate his net worth and unjustly enrich himself, his family, and his organization." joining us now, legal correspondent lisa rubin. correspondent tom winter. and former federal prosecutor andrew weissmann. good morning to you all. lisa, donald trump was claiming victory yesterday. it was a huge reduction of the original number, almost half a billion dollars. it is still $175 million bond. is this a win for him legally? >> i think it is a win for him, but it shouldn't be considered something that will be easy for him to do. as you noted in "the new york times" piece, he's still going to have to fork over almost $200 million in cash or collateral. he said yesterday at a press conference that nbc news was present at that he intended to put up the collateral solely as cash. later in the day, willie, he

also said he'd like to fund his own campaign, but for the fact they don't want me to take my money out. people think he was referring to both tish james and judge engoron. count on this bond being a way that donald trump communicates to his supporters that the bond itself is a form of election interference. he would do this with his money but for the fact that he has to put up this $200 million to satisfy a judgment he still thinks is invalid. >> predictably, donald trump railing against letitia james outside of 40 wall street. when he talks about the cases against him, he always adds a link to donate, to help pay for his legal bills. what is your sense of why this bail was knocked down, the bond, excuse me, knocked down so significantly? again, it is almost $200 million, no small amount, but why was it knocked down so far? >> there's two schools of legal thought. one is perhaps the appellate court is signaling they have some issues with the total discouragement there, the over $450 million that judge engoron

put forward. that could be number one, so they're kind of signaling here, hey, we don't maybe believe it should be that high. on the other hand, excuse me, it is perhaps the best option because if you're going to move forward and donald trump says, you know what? i'm not going to pay any bond here, you really put the courts and ag in a tough position. it'll be difficult for them to be able to enforce this. you'll put liens on properties, yet the properties have debt instruments on them. so the ability to actually enforce that is going to be a bit of a challenge. it is probably one of the reasons why the former president is having such a hard time being able to put those things up as collateral. he doesn't necessarily own them. they're owned by the banks. i think that's a big challenge here. perhaps the appellate court is looking and saying, you know what? half a loaf is better than none. that's column two. ultimately, they didn't provide a specific reason in their order yesterday. we just know that, based on the schedule of it, as lisa pointed out yesterday, look, these preefs and all the filings are going to have to be in in time for the fall.

that means by the time this is argued and decided upon, it might be a little bit less than a year from now. >> andrew weissmann, in layman's legal terms, what is the $175 million bond, ten days to come up with it, what does that mean to the trial, to this case? >> that's a great question. i think people can be sort of in the weeds too much about what's going on. there still is a judgment against donald trump for the $450 million. this is just a question of how much he has to put up to make sure that the money is there if he loses the appeal. so, yes, of course, it is a win for him in terms of what he has to put up now, but he ultimately may be paying $450 million. there are two notable parts of the ruling that i think need to be flagged. one is, normally, the appellate process in new york can take

nine months for someone to even file their briefs. it is a very slow process. that was significantly shortened by the court. they said, if you want this reduced bond, you have to file essentially in july. that is something that's really significant for people who practice in new york, that they are saying, you have to move this up if you want to take advantage of this. we're not going to have the risk of your dissipating assets for months and months and months while the appeal goes forward. the second thing they did, they said that both of the monitors that have been appointed by judge engoron, he said there needs to be not one but two monitors overseeing the trump assets and organization, are going to be in place. that has not stayed pending the appeal. there will be two separate and independent people overseeing the trump organization to make sure that there's no, to put it

in legal terms, funny business going on. >> that's the civil fraud case that we're talking about. attorney general letitia james. now, let's look at the criminal trial facing donald trump. the hush money case scheduled to go to trial april 15th, the start date. in a manhattan courtroom yesterday, the judge overseeing the case scoffed at the defense's ongoing fight to delay the case or throw it out completely because of a recent document dump by new york prosecutors. at the end of the 70-minute hearing, the judge determined the district attorney's office had given trump's lawyers a reasonable amount of time to examine all of the newly disclosed evidence. trump's team is vowing to appeal the new trial date. >> we very much believe that starting this trial in april or at any point before the election is completely unfair to president trump. it is completely unfair to the american people who are evaluating who they want to be

the next president. we're going to continue to fight. >> i don't know that you're going to have the trial. i don't know how you can have a trial like this in the middle of an election, a presidential election. >> lisa, that's the political argument outside the courtroom. let's go back inside the courtroom where judge marchant -- merchan was seeing through this tactic to delay, delay, delay. >> he was beyond irritated and piqued by the strategy. he said to todd blanche, one of the president's lawyers, look, you are a former prosecutor. how many years did you spend in the southern district? he admitted, 13. paralegal for four, prosecutor for nine. he said, you know how this works. if documents should have been brought to your attention, at any point in time between last may when you were first given documents by the d.a.'s office, in january when you issued a subpoena or request to the southern district, you could have either called the d.a.,

called the southern district, brought to anybody's attention this was out there. why didn't you do that? the excuses that todd blanche gave were really lacking as far as judge merchan found them. he said, we couldn't do it because we were already going through the 11 million pages of discovery we had. we couldn't do it because we were doing this, doing that. the truth of the matter is, willie, todd blanche is overextended. he represents former president trump in three criminal cases. they have lots of high-paid counsel directing the strategy and not enough what i'd call worker bees, people like i used to be, staffing cases by looking through pages upon pages of discovery and understanding what you need for your defense. that's not going to cut the mustard for a delay here. >> it is easy to get lost in the day-to-day machinations of this. we shouldn't lose perspective of history here. donald trump is going to become the first former president to face criminal charges in court, andrew weissmann.

the date in history under a month away. let's get your perspective in terms of, we heard the trump lawyers saying they'll appeal. will we think the april 15th date will stick? if it does, about how long do you think a trial like this could last? >> on the date sticking, you know, no one ever likes to be in the prediction business, but i will tell you, the chances of this trial getting moved because of some appellate court saying that it should not do forward on the 15th are zero. this case is going to go forward. the record that was sent yesterday by the judge, where he heard from both parties, i think as lisa put it, the judge created a really strong record. he almost went as far as to say that he found bad faith, which is code in the legal terms for you're lying to me. he really excoriated the trump

team in terms of their submissions and their claims, saying that they have zero evidence for their faiths of bad faith or prosecutorial misconduct. rejected all of that and found that the d.a. had actually gone way beyond what he was required to do under the law in this case. and so this is an example of the d.a. actually bending over backwards in this case to make sure that there is a fair trial. this case is going to go forward. the trial, i know it is scheduled to be about a month or two, but i would say keep your eye on the prosecution trying to make this, you know, slim to win, going very, very quickly. that's what they did in the trump organization trial which they won about a year and a half ago. i would think it is going to be a very quick trial. >> all right. msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin, thank you very much. former federal prosecutor andrew

weissmann, thank you, as well. tom winter, if you could stay with us. at the top of the hour now, we're going to turn to the breaking news out of baltimore this morning. the francis scott key bridge, part of interstate 695 and right at the port of baltimore, partially collapsed overnight. it happened when a large cargo ship struck the bridge. the vessel was leaving baltimore for sri lanka. we're now learning authorities are looking for upwards of seven people. at least two people were removed from the water. one who was in serious condition this morning. officials say that sonar detected multiple vehicles submerged in the water. at the time, they were battling darkness as they continued their search, adding that it'd be a long road ahead. let's go to nbc news correspondent ryan nobles live at the scene. what more can you tell us? >> reporter: mika, we're getting a much clearer picture of

exactly what's happening in baltimore from the last time we spoke at 6:00. the sun is starting to rise. if you can look behind me, our photographer jim long will give you a better view of this. just beyond that sign where you see the arrow pointing, you can actually see part of the span of the bridge that has collapsed in the distance here. just to give you an idea of what this would normally look like, as you're driving up this entrance to the francis scott key bridge on a normal day, you'd be able to see the bridge in the distance clear as day. you'd be able to see cars heading up the ramp, onto the bridge. that's obviously now all completely gone from the skyline. all that is left is kind of the spans of the bridge knocked over and kind of toppled into the water. that's what we can see from our vantage point. we can have also seen from aerial photographers and from

helicopters that are above the scene just how expansive this tragedy is. this is a bridge that is a mile and a half long, a main artery through this part of the country that feeds thousands and thousands of commuters in the baltimore and washington, d.c., area. it's now been completely shut down. this happened at around 1:30 this morning. i'm sure you've seen the video many times now. this container ship slamming into the bottom of the bridge and then the bridge completely collapsing. it's led to a frantic search and rescue effort here by first responders and officials in baltimore city and others. they really don't know the scale of how many people have been impacted. the police chief in a press conference about 45 minutes ago described it as a dynamic situation. they just don't know how many people they are looking for. we do know there was a construction crew working on the

bridge at the time of the collapse and some of those construction workers fell into the water. in fact, my colleague, julia jester, talked to family members of those construction workers who were frantically standing by at a convenient store at the base of the bridge, looking for answers. they were not being told exactly what happened to their loved ones. so far, the fire chief has said they've only been able to rescue two people. one of those individuals was taken to a nearby hospital. the other refused treatment and was okay. but they just don't know how many other people could potentially be in the water, in part because all of this happened in the middle of the night. when i first arrived here around 4:30, 4:45 this morning, it was pitch black. there was a full moon, but you could hardly see anything. when you take that into account, and the fact you're dealing with water, the idea that you could see and find people that were struggling to survive in a

situation like this, you can understand how difficult that is. the other complicating factor to all of this is the weather. it is now starting to be a very nice morning here in baltimore, but it is cold. the temperature somewhere in the 30s overnight. there is a whipping wind, a wind chill that just adds to the complications there. the water itself was in the 40 degree range. that means chances of survival in a period of time in water like that is not very long. at this point, though, the first responders, the officials here saying they are still very much in a search and rescue effort as they do everything they can to rescue the people that were part of this tragedy here in baltimore. joe and mika, back to you. >> ryan, i'll take it. now, we're coming up on nearly six hours since the impact of that ship into the bridge, into that cold water, as well. as you say, we don't know how many people are in the water. ryan nobles live in baltimore. ryan, we'll be back to you. thanks so much. tom winter, you've covered a lot

of these search and rescue operations. >> sure. >> this happened in the dead of night, 1:30 in the morning. darkness, obviously. helicopters overhead with searchlights and all that, but incredibly difficult operation to find, especially when we don't know how many people are in the water, to make the rescues. the fire chief said they pulled two people out of the uninjured was taken to the hospital. we don't know if cars were traveling over the bridge, but the chief said sonar detected vehicles underwater. >> a big part of this is going to be the use of dogs. the human body actually off gases, so dogs can detect bodies underwater. that might be helpful from a recovery standpoint. obviously, at this point, everybody is holding out hope for something here, but given the water temperature, the outside temperature that ryan referenced, this is probably not going to have at will of good

outcomes for those that were on the bridge. this goes back farther. i sped this up. it is a containerized shipping vessel. at best, it is probably be moving 11 knots and probably not even that fast, moving out past this channel. when you speed it up, it makes a hard right-hand turn. was there a mechanical issue? in a prior life, i was involved in shipping a lot of cargo via containerized freight. the companies moving cargo on the vessel, the mediterranean shipping company, i can recognize by their containers. it's confirmed they have cargo on board the vessel. you have a crew of 22 on there of indian decent. according to the company that operates the vessel, they're all accounted for. sometimes they're owned and sometimes they're leased. this is something they'll take a look at. there should be data on board that ship. i can say given the weather, but

even if there was incredible fog, it was very difficult to see this bridge with the human eye. the radar capabilities of the vessel -- and you see the bridge up toward the front. that was a design change for these 10,000 plus teu vessels back 10, 15 years ago -- they'd clearly be able to see the bridge electronically. a lot of questions here. >> i was going to ask you, based on your close working knowledge of these container ships, what are some of the possibilities for a cargo ship to take a sharp turn at the last minute and run into the span of a bridge? >> yeah, so they'll look at its approach to the bridge. there is -- it's not quite as detailed as what you would see with an airline as far as a radar return, but the ships broadcast information. they'll be able to see the path, and there should be information

on board the ship. that'll be something the coast guard can do. the fbi is there, but they haven't sent any indication at this point that there's anything nefarious. you see the angle of the ship, how it is pivoted into the bridge. is that the result of the way it hit the bridge or was that the direction of travel? all that will be part of the investigation. it is too soon to say, and it is too soon to say exactly what happened here. it was a clear night. the ships are complete with all sorts of navigational packages. they have the ability to chart plot this. this is not a foreign waterway. this is a major port in the united states. this is something that i think will have a lot of people's attention as to how this got to this point. the shipping company says there were two pilots on board the vessel, but i don't know if those were local pilots. sometimes these ships will pick up a local pilot who knows these waters, knows the current at this time of day, given whatever the tides might be doing and whatever the wind is. this is what you can expect. they have that local knowledge. i don't know if the shipping company is referring to local

pilots or they had two people at the helm who were captaining this vessel at the time it ran into this bridge. again, all of that will be part of the investigation. don't want to speculate to the cause, but those are the things they'll be looking at. >> nbc news investigations correspondent tom winter, thank you. we'll stay on this. we're following local news affiliates on the ground in baltimore. we have crews on the ground, as well. then, of course, the ripple effect, the economic impact of this being, of course, right at the port of baltimore and a massive thoroughfare for traffic going up the east coast. this is a big and developing story. we'll come back to it as new information develops. let's turn now to new general election polling showing a neck-in-neck battle for swing states between joe biden and donald trump. in the latest bloomberg/morning consult poll, trump and president biden are tied at 45%

in michigan, pennsylvania, and wisconsin. biden leads there by a single point, which is within the margin of error. >> other states like georgia, donald trump has a bigger lead. nevada is still close, within two points. these are the three states we talk about all the time because these are the three states that will determine whether joe biden is re-elected or not or whether donald trump is president of the united states. these are also the three swing states that have caused the most panic among democrats over the past six to nine months. swing state polls came out showing joe biden significantly behind. that certainly tightened up since the state of the union address. let's find out why by bringing in laura davison. mike barnicle is with us, as well. laura, so tell us, what has caused the tightening in the polls when you dig into it? >> really, three things have happened in the past couple weeks that are a reflection of this. one is joe biden has spent a lot of time in these states.

he's been both campaigning, as well as on official business as president, so this is likely a reflection of the time and effort he's spent courting auto workers and talking about infrastructure and economic achievements. two, we've seen the race crystallize. trump and biden clinched their party's respective nominations, so voters have a two-way race between biden and trump. three, this poll also went into the field right after the state of the union address, which was largely seen as a win for biden. coming out strong and positive. in this poll, there was an uptick in the people who saw positive news about biden. >> laura, these numbers are fascinating. joe talks about trend lines in politics, how are things moving? after the state of the union, clearly, that was viewed by most people, especially among democrats, as reassuring. joe biden was up to the job. we sort of answered those questions for shaky democrats, but movement like this means more than democrats. do we have a sense of how

independents are feeling about the president? >> that's where the question is. you see rfk jr. getting 9% of the vote in some of these states. voters who were supportive of haley are breaking more than 50% for trump. biden still needs to do more to win over some of the independents to be able to clinch the nomination. this poll shows he is still down in swing states. trump with 47%, bide within 43%. he needs to make several more leaps to surpass trump in those areas. >> laura, you mentioned rfk jr. he is set to announce his vice presidential pick later today. his campaign has said. we have seen president biden close the gap in the three states to make up the blue wall, and michigan is one that has a lot of discussion in recent months because there had been polls that showed his support slipping in the wake of the war in gaza and the arab-american and muslim population turning against him. what does the poll tell us as to

why the numbers reversed? now, he is in a dead heat. in three states, he can't win the white house without them. >> interesting things here. one, you still see the economy as the number one issue for voters, but that's really slipped. other issues have become more important. immigration is solidly the number two option. then there's a lot of other things that have people, you know, interested. things like abortion are becoming more important. this is, you know, as we've seen the economic situation both get better in the data as well as people are feeling better about the economy, they're feeling more positive toward biden. they still trust trump more on the economy, but biden is picking up gains there. >> mike, this is what the wite house, the biden campaign has been preaching since, you know, all the pearl clutching polling the past several months with democrats. we need another candidate, he is too old. just wait. let the race settle out. we're months and months away from election day. let me give the state of the union. let people watch donald trump on

trial for an entire political campaign. just be patient. doesn't mean they're happy yet. these are toss-up races at this point in the states he has to win, but the biden campaign perhaps has more patience than its voters do. >> you eluded to a couple of really important factors. one is, it is march 26th. it's very early. people really haven't focused on the election. the other, laura, and i'd like to ask you about this, is the x factor in this. there has been continued exposure to donald trump on tv over the last two, three weeks. excuse me. i'm losing my voice there for a second. there has been continued exposure to donald trump. the more exposure that donald trump has on tv, the attack that they've continually made, the republicans continue to make against joe biden, is pretty much universally combined to one word, old. he is old. yet, you see donald trump on tv night after night at these rallies where he is practically incoherent. it might have, do you think,

more and more voters, potential voters, saying, hmm, what about the other guy, though? >> this is really the biden campaign's, you know, key message. for months, they've been saying, look, once people realize that trump is going to be the republican nominee, they will start to feel more favorably about biden. we see that also reflected in the poll in that, you know, donald trump supporters, they're voting for trump, not necessarily against biden. on the biden side, you know, there's still a majority of his supporters who are saying they want to affirmatively vote for biden. more so are saying their vote is a vote against trump. you see this mismatch in enthusiasm, but the biden allies would say, look, whether they're voting against trump or for biden, it's the same in the end. we want to capitalize on the energy where there's feefr and distrust. we don't -- democrats don't want another donald trump administration. >> mika, when you have donald trump talking about how old biden is, when you have news

networks spending the day suggesting he can't complete a center. when hur comes out with a report and the ramblings that have nothing to do with the issue at hand, you set expectations extraordinarily low. then joe biden goes there, exceeds all expectations, as he's done throughout his political career. what happens? people go, wait a second, he's not too old. donald trump, look at any one of his speeches, his press conferences. they're rambling. they're incoherent. one sentence doesn't connect with the next. that, over time, has an impact. we're starting to see it here. you'll continue seeing it and also continue seeing it because joe biden is actually out campaigning aggressively right now. donald trump is holed up in a beach club. >> dealing with court issues and putting out reports to the american people about how he won

a golf tournament. >> right. >> which we both know exactly how that happened. calling himself christ. there are all sorts of different things that are creating, i think, the understated way to put it a contrast. >> yes. >> laura davison of bloomberg, thank you for joining us this morning. as the latest polling between president biden and donald trump show the close races in several swing states, another barometer, money raising, shows it is not much of a contest at all. if you're looking just at that. joining us now, former treasury official, "morning joe" economic analyst, steve rattner. what can you tell us? >> i can tell you we have the february fundraising numbers in. very good news for joe biden and not such good news for donald trump. let's take a look at the scoreboard. what you can see in february is

that president biden plus the democratic national committee together raised a total of $53 million versus only $31 million for the republicans. 60% more money raised in february for the democrats versus the republicans. that continues a trend that has been going on throughout this cycle of joe biden outraising, substantially outraising donald trump. $248 million raised so far by the biden campaign and the dnc versus just $92 million by trump and his affiliated committees. i'm sorry. in terms of spending, you can see biden is spending less. biden spent $92 million so far versus $125 million for trump. spending less and raising more than trump, not a good recipe for the trump campaign. >> as you move to the second

chart, it explains perhaps why. a lot of that money that donald trump is, in fact, raising is going to his legal fees. >> yeah, that's a little-known fact that should be a better-known fact so donors know what's happening to their money. first, the disparity in cash on hand, democrats have $155 million in cash on hand. republicans just $48 million. i heard you talking earlier about trump perhaps cancelling a rally because he didn't have the money. you can see his money actually went down for a good while. it's just ticked up very, very slightly here. the raising more, spending less has a lot to do with it. willie, as you said, legal fees have something to do with it, too. trump has a committee called the trump 47 committee which does all of the joint fundraising between trump and the rnc. what is not well-known, and you can look all through the fine print and really won't understand this, is how it works. the first $6,600 that somebody

gives goes to the trump campaign, what we used to call hard money. it is primary technically in general but $6,600. the next $5,000 that someone gives goes to the save america pac. that pac has been shuttling its money over into trump's legal fees. i think it is about $47 million last i looked that actually is being paid for his legal fees. if you give $10,000, a lot of your money is going to end up in trump's legal fees. after that, money goes to the rnc and the state committees. this is pretty well hidden in anything you can find in the trump documents. >> fascinating. so important, as you say, for people to know. that's where your money is going. you think you're supportingtryio support donald trump from staying out of jail. he has fewer donors this time of the campaign as he did four years ago. they don't want their money

going to legal fees. trump is ahead of small donors. what's the spread there, steve? >> this is interesting. this is something the biden campaign, i'm sure, is focused on and is thinking about. it is a change in what has been happening before. if you look at small donors, people who give $200 or less, the biden campaign is significantly lagging the trump campaign in this one category. that is very different than what happened in 2020 in the cycle. this is the full cycle for 2020, where the biden campaign substantially outraised trump among small donors. there is a shift, and it may reflect the enormous passion of trump's base and some of the issues biden may be having with his small donors. but on the big donor side, it's the opposite. on the big donor side, interestingly, biden has crushed trump. the people who are financially better off, able to give more, are not enthusiastic about

trump. biden outraised trump in the last cycle among this group, as well, but not by the margin he is outraising him now. >> hold that thought for one minute. we want to dip into a press conference now being delivered by transportation officials, the coast guard, around the bridge collapse. if you're just waking up, the key bridge in baltimore after a shipping -- a large ship hit the privilege and caused a collapse. >> any questions at this time? >> what role is the fbi playing in the investigation at this time? >> fbi has basically been seeing if there was any terrorism connection, which there is not. >> what are they looking for? >> no confirmed fatalities. >> anyone recovered from the water alive? >> that's still -- the rescue mission is active. >> do we have any sense of what happened to the cargo ship? there was some reports it suffered major power outages just before it crashed. >> too early in the investigation.

>> the pilot operating the ship, was it a port authorized pilot or the captain of the ship? >> pilots move ships in and out of the port of baltimore. >> what is happening to the ships waiting, the backup at this point? how are you navigating that? >> basically, we're communicating with them. they obviously understand the situation. we'll deal with the logistics later. >> has the crew been evacuated from the ship? has the coast guard made contact with the pilot on the ship? >> that's all being done right now. i don't know the exact details of where they all are. obviously, we're contacting them. >> is this being investigated as suspicious? >> any type of incident like this, the fbi would be engaged just to make sure. that's what they did. >> do we have a better idea how many vehicles are in the water? >> can you just -- any idea of how this could happen? >> too earl. >> i this bridge should not have collapsed like this. >> too early in the investigation. >> do you know how deep the water is there in sort of this

area where it happened, the conditions? >> approximately 50 feet. 50 feet. >> how many people are you looking for right now? >> -- the rescue, how many were pulled from the water? how many are we still searching for? >> that's what we are doing. we're basically searching for everyone that was potentially on the bridge. as you can imagine, it's the middle of the night, you know, what type of traffic was there. how many workers were there? they obviously come to a project but other workers show up sometimes. that's what we're investigating right now. >> is this unprecedented? has anything like this ever happened. >> not in baltimore. >> sir, can you talk more about the workers on the bridge, what was going on, and how many vehicles you think might actually be in the water? >> there were -- they were basically doing concrete duct repair. we don't know the number of the vehicles. >> do we know who they work for? >> i don't have that offhand. >> how long will the port be closed? >> too early to determine. >> looking for seven people? >> a number of people.

that's the one number we've had, but, obviously, we're going to -- we're researching to see what anyone else was on the bridge. >> can you speak to the challenges, the freezing water, the current, the darkness this morning, while searching for individuals? >> all of the above, to be frank. you know, it's a very, very tough situation. 1:00 a.m. in the morning. very little information at that time. it happened instantaneously, as you've seen. >> what can you tell family members who might be watching about any hope we'll recover survivors. >> we have set up a facility for any family members. we have mental health professionals there, as well. we're dealing with that. >> are you ruling out any kind of intentional motive? >> we don't see anything that relates to that at this time. it is an open information. nothing points to that in any direction. >> first calls come in directly

from the ship? who were the first ones to make the 911 calls? >> i don't have that information. >> do you have any indication whether the ship lost power? >> it's too early. >> just for clarification -- >> i'm sorry. >> last question, please. >> the port flows, except for trucks moving transport out. >> right, right. okay. we'll be back shortly about 9:30. i'm sorry? >> took about five years to construct it, right? any idea what we can expect moving forward? >> too early. obviously, we reached out to a number of engineering companies. obviously, we have a long road in front of us to get to that point, okay? thank you so much. >> thank you. >> all right. we're just getting the latest from transportation officials on this massive disaster unfolding right now in the city of baltimore. a cargo ship crashed into the key bridge that's at the port of baltimore. a major thoroughfare of 695 going up the east coast.

obviously, right now, the search and rescue that is under way trying to ascertain how many casualties they're dealing with. they do have one trauma patient in the hospital and one person who survived and was pulled out of the water. they're dealing with the task at hand, which is trying to preserve life and to find anybody who may have perished in the unbelievable, when you look at the video that is from the baltimore livestream of the highway. you can see the cargo ship actually striking the bridge and the bridge snapping into pieces and draping over the cargo ship. an unbelievable scene over the waters in baltimore. again, this is a vital thoroughfare along the port of baltimore, willie. a major shipping hub for the east coast. this will have economic reverberations, as well, in the weeks and months to come as they try and, number one, determine

what happened here, which could take time within itself, but also what to do with all the different ways that economy travels through this area, whether by ship, into the port, shipping containers. there are cargo ships right now with shipping containers on board waiting to leave the port of baltimore with no ability to do so. obviously, the traffic who travels up and down the east coast, willie. >> yeah. just looking at the pictures with the sun fully up now, we came on the air under the cover of darkness. we'd seen the video of the ship hitting the bridge, but now you see the size. it's a ship of nearly 1,000 feet beginning its long journey to sri lanka, filled with vehicles, plowing into one of the stanchions of that bridge and causing it to collapse. the chief of police, excuse me, the fire chief told us earlier that two people had been removed from the water. as you said, one in serious condition, one uninjured. the fact of the matter, mike

barnicle, they don't know how many people are still in the water. we're fully six hours after the impact there. a cold morning, late march in baltimore, the water very cold. they believe seven was the number they had, but the truth is, they don't know. we heard again from the department of transportation. there were construction workers on the bridge. how many workers were on the bridge? were there cars traveling over the bridge at time of impact? how many people were in the cars? truth is, they don't know yet. >> they don't know more than they do know, absolutely right. the number of cars on the bridge traveling, that's a mystery. this is a personal disaster for many families involved, all the first responders' families. steve, it is also an economic and geographic disaster. is there any way now, even though it is quite early, obviously very early in the disaster, to measure the economic impact? that is a major north-south thoroughfare. >> we can't measure it, mike. principally, we don't know how long it'll take to get the bridge back in service. what we do know is the port of maryland, which now is

inaccessible because of the collapse of the bridge, is the largest port in maryland. interestingly, it is the port that imports the single largest number of our cars that come from overseas. 843,000 of them last year passed through the port of baltimore. that is obviously not going to happen. it is a major port for a lot of commodities, cocoa, sugar, things like that. we'll see how long it takes to fix the bridge. my guess is you'll see some noticeable economic impact, but it shouldn't be a major disruption for the country. we have other ways around this problem. >> steve, certainly, white house officials said to this point, they don't believe anything nefarious was at play here. this coming days after a terrorist attack in moscow. that doesn't seem to be the case here, thankfully, but still a major disaster. think of the traffic up and down the east coast. what sort of impact could that

have? you know, it is hard in the early hours to determine, but the ripple effect that could have for the entire mid-atlantic. >> sure. it's obviously going to have an effect for people trying to go up and down the east coast on route 95. there are ways around it but it is time consuming. it'll slow deliveries, trucks, cars. it's a significant factor, but, again, the thing we don't know the answer to which will be key to this is how long will it take to fix that bridge? the one that collapsed in pennsylvania, they fixed in an extraordinarily short amount of time. we'll see if they can do it again here. >> meantime, this is a human tragedy, as ryan nobles reported from the scene a short time ago. there are families of the construction workers who were working on the bridge, making concrete repairs, waiting at a convenient store at one end of the bridge, hoping for a miracle, hoping for some good news. we will stay on this story. steve rattner, thanks so much for being here. still ahead this hour on "morning joe," we will continue to follow those new developments

on the collapse of the key bridge in baltimore. crews searching for anyone who might be in the water now six hours after the massive cargo ship made impact. also ahead, new york governor kathy hochul will be our guest. we'll talk to her about the supreme court hearing later this morning on a popular abortion drug. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ab nucala fr fewer asthma attacks. nucala is a once-monthly add-on injection for severe eosinophilic asthma. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing. infections that can cause shingles have occurred. don't stop steroids unless told by your doctor. tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. may cause headache, injection site reactions, back pain, and fatigue. ask an asthma specialist if nucala is right for you. look - i'm not a young guy. that's no secret. bbut here's the deal —. i understand how to get things done for the american people. i led the country through the covid crisis. today we have the strongest economy in the world.

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later this morning, the supreme court will hear oral arguments regarding the abortion medication mifepristone in a case nearly a year in the making. the court's ruling could have drastic consequences to those seeking an abortion, even in states still allowing it post roe, causing several governors across the country to stockpile medications in efforts to safeguard women's access to reproductive health care. one of the governors, kathy hochul, democrat of new york.

also with us, co-host of "the weekend," symone sanders townsend. we'll get to the mifepristone story in a moment and what else is happening with that. first, i want to ask about the bridge collapse in baltimore. have you had any contact with state officials in maryland? just your reaction. >> yes. i reached out to the governor of maryland, wes moore, who is a good friend, and offered any assistance from the state of new york. he expressed his gratitude. i said, we're sending our prayers to everyone involved. think of the vulnerability of construction workers. we do everything we can in our states to protect these workers, but an incident like this puts them in such harm's way. for the families and all the individuals affected and the long-term effect, you know, the new york harbor stands ready to assist in any way we can continue the flow of commerce so it is not disrupted. we have over 66 bridges in our harbor area, so we know the vulnerability of what can happen when one is down.

we're there to help the people of maryland. i offered this to the governor a short time agee. >> appreciate that. we're following this story and will bring new developments. there's concern about the construction workers who were on the bridge at the time of the collapse.showing the collapse happened in dramatic fashion, and there was literally seconds before much of the bridge was submerged. again, this is baltimore harbor right now, live. and this is the moment in which the cargo ship slammed into part of the bridge. you can see the construction area there, all of it just completely going down into the water. we know of one person who is in the hospital, and there's now a search for others. vehicles submerged in the water. again, those construction workers. governor hochul, i want to continue about the supreme court oral arguments that we're hearing today about the abortion medication mifepristone.

what can you tell us about what drugs new york might be stockpiling to protect a woman's ability to choose to use a type of drug like this in the case she might need it? >> well, i'll tell you this, last year after this time when we first received word that not only was dobbs taken away from women, the dobbs decision taking away the women's right to have a surgical abortion, many women turned to the alternative. in fact, two-thirds of all abortions in the united states are by medication abortion. so, of course, these extremists now go after this. what we did in new york a year ago was to start stockpiling 150,000 doses of medication abortion so it is available. we also protect our doctors because our doctors are protected by a shield law. if they want to prescribe to women in other states, we will protect them if they use

telehealth services. we want women's access to reproductive freedom to not be hampered. the hypocrisy of the judges, and if the supreme court doesn't overturn the decision of an unmedically trained judge in texas, we need to understand that this is not just going to affect the red states. this is something that i will not be able to stop. i can have all the freedoms we want for surgical abortions in the state of new york, and we do and will protect them, but if they outlaw the most commonly used form, you know, this prescription approved by the fda, a trusted source that has been approving medications and prescriptions for dozens and dozens of years, that i can't offer this in our state. i've stockpiled, but think of the effect it'll have all across america on women. this is a bridge too far, speaking of bridges today. >> yeah. governor, you get it. symone, you get it. i get it. on "morning mika," we were

talking about the state senator who needed an abortion because she had a fetal abnormality that would cause a miscarriage. it seems as more vivid and more clear as the need for abortion medication and abortion procedures becomes, it just seems like those who are in power making decisions like this, they seem to become dumber. i mean, how -- what more do -- does one need to say to explain that this is part of a health care choice that women need in order to live, survive, not have trauma, not have mental health issues, and also not have perhaps a fetus that goes to term and then dies, is suffering? >> mika, that's why the stories i believe are so important. state senator birch in arizona

went to the floor to tell her story and essentially educate her colleagues because she said there are many people that didn't really realize, her colleagues, realize how a woman's body worked or why one would need an abortion. if you look at the map that's on the screen right now, folks, the abortion restrictions and the bans cover most of this country. goff knorr hochul, when we're having this conversation and looking at this map, it is states like new york state that are not just protecting abortion access, health care access for the folks who live in new york. also, for people that decide to travel in. talk about -- i know there was a bill at the top of the year that was passed by the new york state legislature that also protected, guarded against some of these travel bans that other states have put in place to restrict access for folks who potentially travel to new york to receive health care services that are an abortion.

>> new york state is a safe harbor. this is what i announced right after the dobbs decision. announced $35 million to beef up the services in new york, knowing we'd be the place for freedom refugees. these are women seeking freedom of their own body. we're going to continue supporting them. but as i mentioned, it is one thing to provide abortion services, but if they outlaw the distribution of mifepristone as a result of the supreme court decision, which we'll hear about in june, if they go that far, then what options do i have? i have 150,000 doses stockpiled, but it should not come to this. we are becoming now a state of haves and have nots. some states have freedom, some don't, based on your governor. if the supreme court listens to this judge in amarillo, texas, of all places, to dictate to all of us that our freedoms that we fought for for decades and decades are gone, i'm going to

tell you this, don't underestimate the rage of women in this country. they will march. they will take to the streets. they will protect. there will be electoral consequences because donald trump appointed 243 federal judges, of which one of them this judge in texas was, and the supreme court. there will be a rebellion against this oppression of women in this country in this next election, and republicans are going to suffer the consequences of what they've done. >> we will hear those oral arguments coming up in a couple of hours. we'll hear those live here on msnbc. taking a step even further back, this would be quite a precedent, to say that a regional judge, a state judge, could override the authority of the fda on any drug now. pick your list of drugs. new york governor hochul, we appreciate your time. symone, on a different topic, we've been talking this morning about some of the swing state polls coming out of bloomberg and morning consult,

where the president has pulled even in the states he has to win, as you know well. michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania. >> the big three. >> yeah. nevada, by the way, we can add in, as well. we've also been talking about how the campaign is getting much more aggressive with donald trump, saying if you want to have a fight about mental fitness, let's have that fight. let's watch the clips of you rambling incoherently at almost every one of your public events. what is your sense now, several months out, of the state of things right now and how the biden campaign should be feeling? >> look, i think they do feel as -- my sense is they do feel like an underdog a little bit. frankly, when i advised campaigns, that is the best place for the candidate and the campaign to be. if you're too comfortable, it's been my thought you're not willing to do the work necessary. you're not scrappy if you're too comfortable. these are uncomfortable people that feel like lots of folks have counted the president out before. they're counting him out

currently. they are willing to do the work to demonstrate, look, just watch joe biden. what i heard them say is we have our finger on the pulse of what people are feeling across the country. now, i'm looking at the infrastructure. what does it look like? what are the campaign infrastructures? you saw the president over the last two weeks go to different states. he was in wisconsin. he was in michigan. opening up offices. that is the key thing. offices all across the state. offices mean organizing, knocking on doors, direct voter-to-voter contact, getting his message out. television ads are great. radio ads are fine. nothing replaces people-to-people contact and the candidate being in the state. >> symone, the big three, that's probably where this election will be won or loss. but the biden campaign is looking at other states, too. the polls reflect a tougher climate in georgia and arizona. there's one possible pickup, north carolina. a state connected to our

previous conversation where abortion rights will be on the ballot this fall. also a state where republicans nominated a conspiracy theorist and holocaust denier to be the gubernatorial candidate. >> i think democrats across the country, not north carolina democrats but national democrats, fumbled the ball with the ability to elect former state supreme court justice beasley in the midterm elections to a senate seat. she won statewide before. a supreme court justice in north carolina is elected, not appointed. she would have been the first black woman from north carolina. i believe she's made upwards of 11 trips in the last couple of months, vice president harris. >> president is going there today. >> he was there 2 1/2 weeks ago. the interesting part about north carolina is, they are not just going when they go, hitting

charlotte or the college towns like a durham, right? they're going to tar heel, north carolina, a tiny town. the president went there previously, about two, three weeks ago, and talked about expanding internet access to a place like tar heel. they had dial-up until the administration stepped in. now, everybody in tar heel talked about -- a veteran said his grandkids come over, and they can do their homework. they can go to church virtually. these are small things some of us take for granted. in rural places across the cou issue. so those economic bread and butter issues, in addition to abortion, frankly, because abortion is an economic issue, making a decision about when and have you have a family, a health care issue because the doctor says your baby is not viable and you could die if you don't have this abortion. i don't believe you should be

able to get one. these are so the of the things you will hear on the campaign trail. north carolina is in play. lastly, the big three, all those three they need, you need an arizona and a georgia or a georgia and a north carolina or a north carolina and arizona. you know what i'm sayin'? you can't lose georgia, lose arizona, win north carolina and joe biden is president. to win that election, he had to win everywhere he won. not getting georgia, not getting arizona, we would not be talking about a president joe biden right now. i believe that national strategists understand that and understand the math is very difficult. and so north carolina is needed. >> it's needed. mike, as simone says, the spot is out there campaigning, going to be there today. for the accusations of infirmity of president biden, donald trump is running a campaign for the men's grill at mar-a-lago. >> yeah, he won the senior

championship. >> two titles. >> congratulations. >> good job. >> he's got that. he is appearing in courtrooms across the nation week after week after week. the numbers we put up show 45, 45, basically tied. that's the result of what she was talking. the president of the united states joe biden being out there, being seeing him, oh, okay, fine, i know how old he is. he is pretty sharp. he knows what he is doing. they consider the weight of what he is carrying when he goes to a small town in north carolina. he is coming in with the gaza war going on, the ukrainian war, the economy burping trying to figure out where we're going and where we're going to be headed. that's that people want to know. where are you going to take us? joe biden tells you where he wants to take the country. donald trump tells you when he is going court next. >> as we heard a little bit earlier in the show. the polling takes into account the state of the union address. that's when the polling began and people were assured, many

democrats, by his performance. symone sanders, great to have you. saturday, sunday mornings, 8:00 eastern, the weekend right here on msnbc. and coming up here, we still are following the latest developments in baltimore. a search and rescue effort still underway following that bridge collapse, a massive cargo ship flowing in at 1:30 in the morning at one of the stanchions causing the collapse of that bridge. law enforcement, search and rescue teams looking for at seven people. construction crews on the bridge at that time. live to the scene for the very latest. plus, frustration continuing now between president biden israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. we'll take you into the white house decision to allow the u.n. to pass a ceasefire resolution. and israel's ponce he is that's ahead on "morning joe." "

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our sonar has detected the presence of vehicles submerged in the water. i don't have a count yet. as far as the number between the seven and 20. that's a dynamic count throughout the morning. just given the fact that we haven't yet nailed that number down, we do believe that at least seven are involved if that, at least seven. one patient refused service, really they weren't injured. the second patien however, was injured and is at a trauma center. >> we are following the latest developments of the cargo ship that crashed into the key bridge in baltimore, basically stopping traffic in and out of baltimore harbor and up and down route 695. a major thoroughfare in many different directions. the white house, white house officials tell me they are closely monitoring the collision of this shipping vessel. and are in touch with the

leaders of the rescue efforts. the president has been briefed. the ongoing search and rescue efforts will continue and the president will continue to get regular briefings on this massive disaster in baltimore. there is also one story that is of particular interest to those on the scene. workers on the bridge, construction crews on the bridge doing concrete deck repair on the bridge, and that was the part of the bridge that collapsed after it was struck by a cargo ship. so certain concern there for the lives of those who were on the bridge at the time. there are also reports that sonar has detected vehicles underwater. so, of course, the search and rescue effort is desperate. it's been many hours since this happened at 1:30 in the morning eastern time to try to preserve whatever life might be possible in this disaster. we'll bring you a live report from the scene straight ahead on "morning joe."

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frigid waters. this after a large cargo ship struck the francis scott key bridge overnight around 1:30 a.m. the vessel was leaving baltimore for sri lanka. shorts say they are looking for upwards of seven people, noting that number could change. two people were rescued with one in serious condition. officials add that sonar has detected multiple vehicles submerged in the chile waters.

maryland governor declared a state of emergency. we are learning president biden has been briefed and will continue to get updates throughout the morning. let's go right to the scene. nbc news correspondent ryan nobles joins us. ryan, what more can you tell us as the sun now has risen over baltimore? >> reporter: yeah, and mika, i'm struck as we've been here several hours this morning and you take a look behind me at what in bridge looks like right now and you think about what this bridge must be like on a busy commuter day with thousands and thousands of cars going across this bridge back and forth, a mile and a half span right into the city of baltimore. and even though this is going to be an immense tragedy on every level, the fact that it happened 1:30 in the morning and the difference if it happened right now at perhaps the busiest time of the morning commute in many

ways the scale of this trajectory would have been larger. this is still a search and rescue effort. the law enforcement officials that we have been talking to all morning long say that they are working as hard as they can to try to locate the victims of this tragedy. part of what they're dealing with is they don't know how many people they are looking for. this happened at 1:30 in the morning. we do know that there was a construction crew that was working on the bridge at the time. at this point law enforcement is still trying to figure out how many, if any, cars were on the bridge at 1:30 in the morning and how they would be able to owe locate them because this all happened in the dark of night. when i got here at 4:45 this morning it was pitch black. you couldn't see anything. so they really needed the sun to rise to get an idea of just the scale of this accident and just what it was going to take in order to locate those victims and rescue them.

of course, this is complicated by the weather. remains a cold morning here in baltimore. still hovering around the 40 degree range. the water temperature is hovering in the 45 to 48-degree range. there is just not not a significant amount of time someone could survive in water that temperature. that, of course, is complicating all of this. of course, then there are the emerging questions about why this happened. this is a massive container ship that was leaving the baltimore harbor en route to sri lanka. it just appears to verge completely off course without any sort of explanation. we know that the white house, as you have rightly pointed out, has been briefed. they are saying they don't believe something nefarious happened here, they don't think this was a terrorist attack. just something went wrong with that ship. that's going to be a big part of this investigation to figure out why that happened. then why the bridge collapsed,

what appears to be so easily after this collision with this container ship. the entire bridge, a significant portion of the bridge just collapsing into the river. so that search and rescue situation continues. we are expecting a briefing at 9:30 eastern time. it's expected that the governor, wes moore, will be a part of that briefing. he, of course, declared a state of emergency as they are looking to get federal assist owns to deal with this. we know that the baltimore city fire department is actively involved in this and rescue crews around this regional doing everything they can to try to locate those victims. they are, obviously, looking from above, helicopters, airplanes, looking down, and then they also have crews that are in the water, dive teams in the water as well as rescuers that are on the surface of the water as well doing this massive search to try to figure out whether or not they can locate any victims and rescue them. that's the latest from the scene. we will continue to update you

as the information just keeps coming in, new it seems by the minute as this tragedy continues to unfold. >> we now are six and a half hours after the impact of that cargo ship on the bridge. those people have been in the water for six and a half hours. very cold waters. obviously, we came on the air when it was still dark out. we are now under the sunlight, getting a view of the full scope of this tragedy. how much of the bridge came down, how big that ship is, nearly 1,000 feet long. as you say, the immediate concern, of course, is finding the victims, the construction workers who were on the bridge, of course. there will be an investigation though into why this happened. one of the things that many people, experts have been looking at this morning is that video in the middle of the night. just after 1:30. it appears the ship may -- we haven't confirmed this at nbc, may have been having mechanical issues. in the minutes before the vessel hit the bridge, the lights

appear to turn on and off several times, flickering. that's at about 1:25 a.m., just two minutes before the ship made impact with the bridge. ryan, are you hearing anything else about that? >> reporter: no. the law enforcement officials and the officials that we have heard from this morning haven't specifically gone into detail about what exactly went wrong with the ship other than to rule out that it was some sort of purposeful event, that someone purposely took the ship and careened it into the bridge. they've been very specific in their belief this was some sort of a problem with the ship, be it mechanical or something else. you're right. there has been a lot of talk, particularly on social media, about people kind of diagnosing what they can tell from the video, and it does -- you do see the lights flicker on the ship at one point and then it just appears as though the ship loses

control. it's worth pointing out that the baltimore harbor is one of the busiest harbors this the entire world. it's not uncommon for ships of this size to come in and out of the port with relative ease. this happens every single day and people don't think much about it. so something had to have gone catastrophically wrong with the ship in order for it to to be in a situation where it would hammer into a bridge like this. it's also important to point thought that this is a massive ship. if something is going wrong and you lose control of a ship like this, it is very difficult to get that control back. if you have before just in a regular boat, turning a boat is a very, very different process, and you, you know, extend that out to the scale of a massive ship like this. it would be almost impossible to prevent something like this from happening. that investigation will be ongoing, as the recovery here.

keep in mind, a major artery of traffic through this region that will be gone for the foreseeable future. >> we are wondering about those who may be in the water. can you describe what the rescue operations look like? are there boats? are there divers? is there any sign of concerned family members? hours earlier there were relatives of construction workers swung by the scene. are they still there? are other people who have a missing loved one, have they also come by? >> reporter: yeah why, the question about the rescue operation, there has been a constant stream of helicopters and airplanes above us. we see them at points hovering just, you know, kind of stopping over the area as they kind of look from above to see if they can recognize anything. we do know that there are boats going up and down the river right now trying to locate people, and the fire chief told us that they have people physically in the water, divers in the water looking for people

as well as unmanned devices and, you know, water craft inside the water that have sonar devices and things along those likes pinging in the water to try to see if they can locate anybody that could be in the water at that time. in terms of the victims, yes, we spoke to a group of family members concerned about their family members. we have been in contact with the construction company who did confirm to us that they do have -- that they did have workers on the bridge at that time but couldn't provide any other information. so those concerns continue and extend to those family members as everyone right now still just looking for answers. >> nbc's ryan nobles live in baltimore, thank you. we will stay on this developing story. the third hour of "morning joe" continues right now. along with joe, willie, and me, white house bureau chief at politico jonathan lemire, editor

of the "washington post" eugene washington and richard haass joins us on a busy news day. >> a busy news day. we are going to be talking about what's happening between israel and the united states right now. tensions about as high as they have been in decades between those two countries. also, of course, yesterday a massive day in court for donald trump. he got a bit of good news. he got some bad news as far as he was concerned. we will get to that in a minute, too. first, some swing state polls that show what i think most of us expected, that actually the president of the united states and his performance in the state of the union address was going to impact americans and undercut this lie that he somehow was an old man that couldn't complete a sentence. this lie that the republicans continue to push actually

appears to be backfiring. >> this is general election polling showing a neck-and-neck battle for swing states between joe biden and donald trump. in the latest bloomberg morning consult poll, they are tied at 45%. in michigan and pennsylvania and in wisconsin, biden leads by a single point, which is within the margin of error. so an uptick. >> yeah, an uptick. let's keep the three states up there because there are other swing state polls taken, biden still, he is down two in nevada, a little bit further behind in other states. trump is maintaining his lead in the state of georgia. gene robinson, as you look at the numbers, these are the three tats that matter if joe biden wins these three states, donald trump is -- that is the so-called blue wall that everyone talked about in 2012 would never be broken until donald trump did it 40 years

later. mishs, pennsylvania, wisconsin, those numbers breaking biden's way. and i suspect, you know, we talked about how confident the biden team has been all along when everybody else has been ready to panic and run for the hills. right now at least, this poll suggests that these voters and these polls suggest that maybe they know what they're talking about. >> maybe they do. maybe the biden political team actually is pretty good at politics. there must be a giant sigh of relief and, you know, certainly lots of welcoming noises from inside the white house this morning about those polls. as you said, those are states that president biden has to carry. polls in michigan especially, and in pennsylvania, had been

scary for white house for a while. but they were quite confident, the political team was quite confident that things would turn around, that democrats would come home to president biden as time went on, and so now we're still in march. there is still a long time to go. but with the needle moving in what they would see as the right direction, i think there will be some, you know, some smiles about this in the white house along, obviously, with deep concern about what's happening in baltimore. it's a busy news day, as you said. >> it is a busy news day. willie, you know it's so interesting. we talked about this since 2015, that donald trump always runs against people who stand there stiff and take it. you know, he is a disruptor on the campaign trail. when he disrupts, people sit back and say, he shouldn't be

mean. the biden campaign, i mean, i saw a couple days ago when donald trump was bragging about another one of his club trophies, where i suppose if you are a member you have to let donald trump win, because he wins all of his club championships. joe biden just mockingly goes, nice job, donald, something like that. but yesterday, after donald trump came out and was ranting and raving and claiming he was jesus and all this other stuff, but this is what they said. and i guarantee you, donald trump is not used to the incoming that he is facing every day. quote, donald trump has weakened us as a man and candidate for president. he spent the weekend golfing. the morning comparing himself to jesus. the afternoon lying about having money that he definitely doesn't have. his campaign can't raise money. he is uninterested in campaigning outside his country club.

every time he opens his mouth, he pushes moderate and suburban voters away with his dangerous agenda. america deserves better than a feeble, confused, and tired donald trump. i must say, on that last part, there have been people who have been irritated and count me as one of them, that there are countless stories about joe biden after the report being old and feeble, poor man, he can't remember, the things that i can't remember. the things that you -- you know. i won't say you. you're a young man. the things a lot of us can't remember in a five-hour deposition, we have to be asked about it. yet, it's joe biden campaigning day by day, going to event after event. it's donald trump who has been holed up in his country club and other places only holding one event, and that's an event that he held for a senate candidate

because they don't have the money right now to put on a lot of these events. >> yeah. the criticism of joe biden was that he was the basement candidate. that was from the trump campaign in 2020. this is the beach club candidate in donald trump. running presidential campaign from mar-a-lago. doing the occasional rally, flies in for a hour and flies back to mar-a-lago. ostensibly about another campaign. you weren't exaggerated when you mentioned jesus. he reposted something from a supporter yesterday saying he was a christ-like figure taking the arrows for people. we can play tape every day, including yesterday, speaking at 40 wall street about the decision to have his bond changed. it truly is objectively incoherent. if you watch the full clip, i am not sure this is a fight he wants to have talking about joe

biden being an old man. clearly, the biden campaign is happy to have fight, too. so it appears at least in recent weeks there has been a shift in posture from the biden campaign being much more aggressive, especially on this issue of age and mental fitness for the job. >> yeah, the president himself has gotten far more aggressive in taking it to trump. his favorite joke that pope benedict has been trotting out at fundraisers and the like, efforts to relieve student debt. a man approached him on the street, said, i owe all this money, sorry, donald, i can't help you. the response team has grown and they are taking it to trump every chance they get. the numbers are what the aides, biden's aides thought were coming the mission of the state of the union was to reassure nervous democrats, the president is up for the job, can deliver a strong performance. that happened. a lot of the whispers that biden should step aside, all vanished.

much more confidence in the party that he is up for this fight. then they thought we will accompany that with a two-week blitz of campaign travel. he has been to every single swing state while donald trump has held one event and theld to pull down one scheduled for arizona because they didn't have the money to pay for it. that is a real concern for trump world is that president biden and his team have a massive, massive cash advantage and the president has a major fundraiser -- >> john? >> yes? >> did you just say donald trump -- you have reporting that donald trump had to cancel an event, the only event he's had, would have had on his own, in a long time, he had to pull it down because they didn't have the money to run event? >> it was an event not publicized yesterday. they were planning an arizona event they had to pull down pause they didn't want to use the resources there. it was not that --

>> wow. >> not advertised yet. still, they wanted to do it and couldn't, didn't, because they didn'ted to use the resources everywhere. >> ever hear of a political campaign that didn't have the money to run political rallies? >> remember, trump had a cash disadvantage in 2020 and had to go dark for a few weeks that fall, they had to pull down advertising and they think that there is -- some in trump world think that is why they lost, they had to go dark for a stretch in september, early october, while biden and his team were advertising non-stop. that will happen again. it's clear that the democrats will have a major fundraising advantage. in fact, president biden is appearing in new york city later this week with former presidents obama and clinton in what they hope is the biggest single fundraiser to date to pad that advantage. we are seeing reflection in the polls. georgia democrats remain a concern. they feel like georgia may be out of roach this time around. but this they feel like other states in play in particular

that blul wall, even michigan, they have had trouble because of the gaza conflict. coming up, israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu is reacting to the united nations passage of a ceasefire resolution. we'll take a look at that and what the white house is saying about its decision to abstain from the vote. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

. the united nations security council passed a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in gaza. 14 countries voted in favor of the measure yesterday, but the u.s. abstained. officials say while they support a ceasefire as part of a hostage release deal, the measure does not have language that condemns hamas. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu then criticized the biden administration's decision, accusing the u.s. of retreating from the principled position.

in protest, netanyahu announced he will no longer send a delegation to washington to discuss israel's looming offensive in rafah. senior israeli officials were supposed to meet with the biden administration later this week as the white house raised concerns about launching a major military operation in the southern gaza city. the biden administration says yesterday's vote does not eflekt a change in america's policy and that the resolution does not stop israel from going after hamas. >> richard, take us through the events at the united nations and beyond yesterday. >> yeah, joe. the previous resolution, the united states introduced four, five days ago, vetoed by russia and china largely because it criticized hamas and they didn't want to let the united states off the hook. this time the united states abstained on the resolution. if you recall, three resolutions we vetoed since october 7th.

this is the first one that passed the u.n. security council with the u.s. abstaining. it calls for an immediate ceasefire. it does, you know, open up -- does call for the release of all of the hostages. there is a big emphasis on getting aid into gaza. and the ceasefire calls for, by the way, two more weeks. it gets you through, i think, to april 9th. to the end of the holy month of ramadan. so it's totally consistent with the u.s. position since october 7th that there ought not be a complete or open ended ceasefire. >> so, richard, let me ask you question. i know it will sound naive b but why in the world would the united nations not allowed -- not allow a line in that condemned hamas for the brutality that they not only showed on october 7th, but that they are been showing in gaza since 2005-2006.

>> it reflects the politics and bias of the u.n. all the focus right now is critical of israel, of what's going on. what's going on in gaza. so that simply is a political -- a truly unattractive, unfortunate, political fact. the question is, should we have vetoed this reservation because of that? i think the administration made the call, i think the right call, that's a symbolic issue. doesn't have anything that's actionable as a result. but i'll be honest, joe. what's really interesting to me is lex the textual analysis of these resolutions than the israeli response. and if i can, i'll pivot to that. over the last 76 years, the united states and israel have had their moments of friction, shall you say. you may remember reagan, his phone call over what was going on in lebanon where i worked for george bush the father, we had

all sorts of frictions then about soviet jews and the subsidies, bringing them into the occupied ter toes. every one of those prime ministers, his goal was to calm things down. the united states is the most partner for israel. and what this reminds me of is something very different. goes become to 1956. the united states under eisenhower had a really confrontational relationship with israel over israel's participation with britain and france in the invasion of egypt after the nationalization by nassar of the suez canal. you have to back to 1956 for such a confrontational moment in u.s./israeli relations. israel has a prime minister, put aside the fact many of us think what he is doing is ill-advised, we have a prime minister who seems to be politically thinking that his prospects are improved not by managing israel's most

important relationship, but by up ending, saying he is the only force standing between israel and american pressure. of that is something qualitatively different. >> richard, netanyahu pulled back this delegation that was supposed to travel to the united states. defense secretary austin is still going to meet today with the israel defense minister. as you say, there is, obviously, some major friction here. so i guess the question is, what's the way forward in this relationship as it pertains to the war in gaza? we heard admiral kirby saying yesterday we haven't changed the policy, we always said had to be a temporary ceasefire to get the hostages out. we haven't changed. i had think the white house feels like netanyahu, to your point, is making a public show of this. >> absolutely. and the united states is still -- bill burns has been in qatar, still trying to negotiate a prisoner release, hostage release, a temporary ceasefire.

that hasn't changed. i think the question, willie, is whether the israelis go ahead with the rafah military offensive. if so, what does it look like? how big is it? how much care do they take to avoid civilian casualties? if it's big, if there are a lot more civilian casualties, this bad situation between the united states and israel and between israel and the rest of the world simply gets worse. coming up, in a major win for former president trump, a new york appeals court slashes the bond he owes in his civil fraud case. that and the latest in trump's hush-money trial. "morning joe" is coming right back. right back

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judges. that they reduced the bond from $364 million. this comes despite donald trump claiming on social media he almost had the cash he needed. two people with knowledge of the president's finances told "the new york times" he should be able to pay the bond amount, but it will drain much of trump's cash. we will have about $200 million in cash and other investments as collateral to cover that bond. negotiate attorney general letitia james says he is still facing accountability for his fraud. he engaged in years of fraud to falsely inflate his net worth

and enrich himself and his family and organization. joining us former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin, nbc news investigations correspondent tom wint, and nbc news legal analyst and former federal prosecutor andrew weissmann. a huge redirection of theage number, almost half a billion dollars. it's still $175 million. is this a win for him legally? >> i think it is a win for him, but it shouldn't be considered something that will be easy for him to do. as you noted, he is going to have to work over almost $200 million in cash or collateral. he said yesterday at a press conference that he intended to put up the collateral solely as cash. and then later in the day he also said that he would like to fund his own campaign, but for the fact that they don't want me to take my money out. people think he was referring to

letitia james. count on this bond a way that donald trump communicates to his supporters that the bond is a form of election interference, that he would do this with his money but for the fact that he has to put up this $200 million to satisfy a judgment he still thinks is invalid. >> and railing against letitia james yesterday outside 40 wall street. when he talks about these cases against him, he always adds a link to donate to help pay for his legal bills. so what is your sense of why this bail was knocked down, this bond knocked down so significantly? almost $200 million. >> i think there are two schools of legal thought. one is perhaps the appellate court is signaling they have some issues with the total disgorgement, over $450 million. that could be number one. they are signaling we don't believe it should be that high.

on the other hand, it's perhaps the best option because if you are going to move forward and donald trump says i am not going to pay any bond here, you put the courts and the a.g. in a tough position. it will be difficult for them to be able to enforce. you put leans on properties, yet properties have debt instruments on them. so the ability to actually enforce that is going to be a challenge. probably why the former president is having a hard time putting those things up as collateral, he doesn't necessarily own them, they are owned by the banks. so that's a big challenge here and perhaps the appellate court is saying half a loaf is better than none. that's column two. ultimately, they didn't provide a specific reason in the order yesterday. we know based on the schedule, look, these briefs and all the filings have to be in, in time for the fall. that means by the time this is argued and decided upon, it might be a little bit less than a year from now. >> andrew weissmann, in layman's

legal terms here, what does the $175 million bond, what does that mean to the trial, to this case? >> so that's a great question because i think people can be sort of in the weeds too much about what's going on. there is still a judgment against donald trump for the $450 million. this is just a question of how much he has to put up to make sure that the money is there if he loses the appeal. so, yes, of course, it is a win for him in terms of what he has to put up now, but he ultimately may be paying $450 million, and there are two notable parts of the ruling that i think need to be flagged. one is, normally the appellate process in new york can take nine months for someone to even file their briefs. it is a very slow process. that was significantly shortened

by the court. they said, if you want this reduced bond, you have to file essentially in july. that is something that's really significant for people who practice in new york, that they are saying you are to move this up if you want to take advantage of this. we are not going to have the risk of your dissipating assets for months and months and months while this appeal goes forward. second thing they did is they said that both of the monitors that have been appointed by the judge, he said there needs to be not one, but two monitors overseeing the trump assets and organization, are going to be in place. that is not stayed pending the appeal. so there are going to be two separate and independent people overseeing the trump organization to make sure that there is no -- to put it in legal terms, funny business going on. >> so that's the civil fraud case that we're talking about

with attorney general letitia james. now let's look at the criminal trial facing donald trump. his hush money case. now scheduled to go to trial in three weeks, april 15 is the start date. yesterday the judge overseeing that case scoffed at the defense's ongoing fight to delay the case or throw it out completely because of a recent document dump by new york prosecutors. at the end of the hearing, the judge determined the district attorney's office gave trump's lawyers a reasonable amount of time to examine all of the newly disclosed evidence. trump's team is filing to appeal that new trial date. >> we very much believe that starting this trial in april or even starting this trial at any point before the election is completely unfair to president trump. it's completely unfair to the american people who are evaluating who they want to be the next president. and we're going to continue to fight. >> i don't know that you can have the trial.

i don't know how you can have a trial like this in the middle of an election, a presidential election. >> so, lisa, that's the political argument outside the courtroom. let's go back inside the. the judge was inoid with the defense and seeing through the strategy to delay, delay, delaw. >> yeah, weighs incredibly annoyed. i would say more than annoyed. beyond irritated and the reason is because he said to todd blanche, one of the president's lawyers here, you are a former prosecutor. how many years did you spend in the southern district? he had to admit 13. a paralegal for four. prosecutor for nine. he said, you know how this works. if you throughout there were documents that should have been brought to your attention between last may when you were given documents by the d.a.'s office and january when you issued a subpoena or a request to the southern district, you could have called the college admission d.a., called the southern district.

why didn't you do that? the excuses were lacking as far as the judge found them. he said we couldn't do it because we were going through the 11 million pages of discovery we had, we couldn't do it because we were doing this, we were doing that. the truth of the matter is, willie, todd blanche is overextended. he respects former president trump in three criminal cases. they have lots of high-paid counsel directing the strategy in these cases and not enough what i would call worker bees, people like i used to be, staffing cases by looking through pages upon pages of discovery and understanding what you need for your defense. that is not going to cut the mustard for a delay here. >> easy to get lost in this. we shouldn't lose the perspective in history what's happening here. donald trump is about to become the first former president to face criminal charges in court. that date has now been set for april 15. that moment in history under a month away. so let's get your perspective here in terms of we heard the trump people going -- lawyers saying they are going to appeal. do we think that april 15 date

stick, and if it does, about how long do you think a trial like this could last? >> on the date sticking, no one likes to be in the prediction business. but i will tell you the chances of this trial getting moved because of some appellate court saying that it should not go forward on the 15th are zero. this case is going to go forward. the record that was set yesterday by the judge where he heard from both parties, i think as lisa put it, the judge created a really strong record that he almost went as far to say he found bad faith. that is code in the legal terms for you're lying to me. he really excoriated the trump team in terms of their submissions and claims saying they have zero evidence for their claims of bad faith, for

prosecutorial misconduct, and rejected all of that and found that the d.a had gone way beyond what he was required to do under the law in this case. and so this is an example of the d.a. actually bending over backwards in this case to make sure that there is a fair trial. so this case is going to go forward. the trial, i know it's scheduled to be about a month or two, but i would say keep your eye on the prosecution trying to make this, you know, slim to win. going very, very quickly. that's what they did in the trump organization trial, which they won about a year and a half ago. so i would think it's going to be a very quick trial. coming up, we will dig deeper into the swing state polling on the 2024 presidential race. the polling from bloomberg, we will he have that when "morning joe" comes back.

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these are the three states we talk about all the time, because they will determine whether joe biden is reelected or not or whether donald trump is president of the united states. these are also the three swing states that have caused the most panic among democrats over the last six to nine months as swing state polls came out finding joe biden significantly behind. that certainly tightened up after the state of the union.

tell us what has caused the tightening in the polls. >> three things have happened in the past couple weeks. joe biden has spent a lot of time in these states, both campaigning and on official business as president. this is likely a reflection of the time and effort he spent courting auto workers. we've seen trump and biden clench their respective party's nominations. this is a two-way race between biden and trump. three, this poll was right after the state of the union address, which was largely seen as a win for biden. you saw an uptick in the number of people who said they saw positive news about biden. >> these numbers are fascinating. joe always talks about trend lines in politics.

we sort of answered those questions for shaky democrats. do we have a sense for how independents are feeling right now about the president? >> you still see rfk junior getting about 9% of the vote in some of these states. voters that were police forcely for haley are breaking 90% for trump. while he's made a significant jump, he needs to make several more leaps to surpass trump in those areas. >> rfk junior is set to announce his vice presidential pick later today. we've seen president biden close the gap in those three states. michigan is one that has had a lot of discussion in recent months, because there had been

polls that showed his support slipping in the wake of the war in gaza and the muslim population there turning against him. now he is in a dead heat in three states that frankly he can't win the white house without. >> a couple interesting things here. you still see the economy as the number one issue for voters, but that's slipped. immigration is solidly the number two option. other things like abortion are becoming more important. as we've seen the economic situation get better and people are feeling more positive towards biden. they still trust trump more on the economy, but biden is picking up gains there. >> this is what the biden campaign has been preaching since the pearl-clutching polling over the last several

months, he's too old. just wait, just wait. we're months and months from election day. let people watch trump on trial for an entire political campaign. just be patient. these are tossup races at this point but the biden campaign perhaps has more patience than voters do. >> you alluded to a couple of important factors. one is it's march 26th, very early. the other is the "x" factor in this is continued exposure to donald trump on tv over the last two or three weeks. there's been continued exposure to donald trump. the more exposure donald trump has on tv, the attack republicans continually make against joe biden is pretty much

universally combined to one word, old. you see donald trump on tv night after night at these rallies where he's practically incoherent. it might have more potential voters saying, hmm, what about the other guy, though? >> this is the biden campaign's key message. once people realize that trump is going to be the republican nominee, people will start to feel more favorably about biden. donald trump supporters are voting for trump, not necessarily against biden. on the biden side, a majority of his voters want to affirmatively vote for biden, but more so say their vote is a vote against trump. biden allies would say whether they're voting against trump or for biden, that's all the same in the end. we want to capitalize on the energy of fear and distrust and

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welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. we have the latest on the massive bridge collapse in baltimore. we'll have a live report from the scene in just a moment. we're expecting to get an update from maryland governor wes moore. also ahead, two key developments in a pair of donald trump's court cases, including an april trial date.

and one hour from now, the supreme court is set to hear arguments that could restrict access to a widely used abortion pill. we'll have a preview for you on that. we start this hour with the developing disaster in baltimore. if you're just waking up on the west coast, search and rescue efforts are still under way hours after a ship slammed into the key bridge in baltimore harbor around the port of baltimore. that happened around 1:30 eastern time this morning. a massive cargo ship headed for sri lanka hit a pillar, causing the bridge to come crashing down. authorities say construction workers were on the bridge at the time and as many as seven people are missing. crews were able to pull two people from the water early this morning, one in serious condition and taken to the hospital. let's go to ryan noble.

>> reporter: any minute now we're expecting to hear from maryland's governor wes moore, who's holding a press conference. we know he has been at the scene meeting with first responders, getting a sense of what the recovery effort is going to look like. we're expecting to hear from the first responders themselves to give us an idea of the status of the search and rescue effort, which is in the eighth hour now since this bridge collapse at 1:30 this morning. this is a very difficult process. the biggest problem these rescue crews are dealing with is they don't know how many people they are looking for. they have said that number is dynamic, that they believe there could be as many as seven people in the water. they have rescued two people. we know there was a construction crew working on the bridge at the time that it collapsed.

there's also the possibility there were cars on the bridge when the bridge collapsed. there's also the possibility that there may have been other people on the bridge that we don't know about. because this bridge collapsed in the dark of night, it was very difficult to try to determine whether or not there were people in the water and where those people were. this has been a massive effort. there have been aircraft, helicopters, planes flying over head all morning long, hoping to spot someone from the air. they've had boats searching, dive teams inside the water using sonar to locate people or cars that may have ended up in the water as a result of this collapse. the search and rescue effort continues. they're also beginning the

process of trying to figure out what went wrong. we know this was a massive container ship leaving the baltimore harbor. it may have been a mechanical problem, pilot error. we have video that shows the container ship going wildly off course and making a direct impact into the base of this bridge and then the bridge collapsing in literally seconds after the impact from this ship. that ship is still in the river right now. all the crew that were on the ship have been rescued and safely taken off of the ship. we're told there are not even any injuries for any of the people that were on board the ship. but rescue crews are trying to determine whether or not it was safe for them to get on board the ship to begin that investigation. finally, there's the impact on this region writ large. this is a major traffic artery. thousands and thousands of people go up and down this

bridge on a daily basis. i-695 is a very, very important highway in the baltimore/washington, d.c. region. it's now going to be shut off, and that is going to have major impacts throughout the region for an indefinite amount of time. it is going to take quite a bit of effort to rebuild the bridge or some up with some other solution. this is a massive, massive effort that's taking place here in baltimore. it's really just at its early stages. we'll continue to update you as we get more information. >> ryan, you've been on with us reporting so well since the pre-dawn houhours. as the sun rose, we began to see the full scope of the devastation here and the tragedy and the size of the ship, nearly

1,000 feet long, transporting all those vehicles to sri lanka on a trip that was going to take almost a month to get there. experts are watched the video from minutes before that cargo ship hit the bridge as the lights flickering on and off. this is now a search and rescue mission, thinking about people first. you mention the construction workers on that bridge doing concrete work in the overnight hours. i know you told us some of their family members were waiting at a convenience store. do we know anything about that part of the story, how many construction workers might have been up there, what kind of work they were doing? >> reporter: all we've been able to figure out at this point outside of what family members told us in the hours after the aftermath of this incident is

that the construction company connected to the work being done on the bridge has confirmed they did have crews working on the bridge. at this point, they couldn't confirm how many people were working on the bridge at that time and what the status of those people were that were working on the bridge. that is part of what they're trying to figure out and why this whole process has been so difficult just to try and figure out how many people could have been impacted by this. that is what investigators are trying to determine right now. that is really the human part of this. my colleague julia jester, who saw and talked to these family members, said they were desperate. they didn't know what to do, so they just drove and got as close to the bridge as they possibly could and were just asking anyone who was nearby for answers as to how they might be able to locate their loved ones. at that stage of the morning there was really no one here to

answer those questions. since that happened, there's been a tremendous first responder response here. we have the highest-ranking officials in maryland, in baltimore and surrounding counties here to respond to this as well. we're starting to see an outpouring support from neighboring states. virginia's governor glenn youngkin saying virginia offers their resources. governor ron desantis in florida saying if there's any resources they could provide to help, they plan to do it. then there's the federal response. president biden has been briefed on this, that he has offered the federal government and transportation secretary pete buttigieg doing the same. the white house has specifically said their initial reading of this is there was nothing nefarious about what happened here, that this was just a tragic accident.

that would rule out terrorism or any purposeful act that led to what we saw play out here this morning. there are so many unanswered questions. it's going to take quite a bit of time to figure out. one question people probably have this morning when they watch that video is how quickly the bridge went down. that is a massive ship, a thousand feet long, a tremendous amount of weight and power to smash into the bottom of the bridge. you have to think these bridges are constructed to withstand something as powerful as that, and that bridge went down very quickly. that's part of what's going to be included in this investigation to figure out why the bridge went down as quickly as it did given this impact. >> you're right. it went down in a matter of seconds. we're getting word that secretary buttigieg is on his

way to the scene and he'll be there very shortly. we heard from the fire chief of baltimore saying sonar has detected vehicles in the water. the fact of the matter is even coming up on 7 1/2, 8 hours later they just don't know how many people are in the water. >> it's going to take time to sort that out. we've been hearing there are helicopters and votes on the scene, divers in the water. this is a tricky rescue and were cold temperatures, water only about 30 degrees or so. give us a sense what it will be like regionally in terms of not just traffic on the bridge, but snarling the port, one of the

busiest in the country with a number of ships stuck in the harbor unable to get out. >> reporter: i think that is going to be the lingering impact that is going to take months for this area to recover from. the baltimore harbor is one of the busiest in the world. it's the number one port in terms of the export and import of automobiles in and out of the united states. that was what was on this ship now. so from that perspective, it's going to have a huge impact on the region. from a traffic standpoint, the region is notoriously known for its traffic snarls. it is very difficult to get around this area. if you take out a huge section of how people get back and forth, how they get over the river to get in and out of

baltimore, once that's taken out of the equation, that's going to put so much pressure on the traffic patterns around the rest of the area. i know when i was coming in early this morning, there were already signs warning drivers to stay away from the francis key scott bridge and find alternate routes. the impact of this is something that we are not going to know for quite some time because this is all still is fresh and is an accident that's really beyond comprehension when you consider the scale and the ripple effects across the entire region. >> in the meantime in the here and now, still looking for people who may be in that water. ryan nobles, thank you so much. again, two people pulled out of the water, according to

authorities there, one unharmed, one in serious condition in the trauma unit in the hospital. they don't know how many more people they may be looking for in the water. >> we're waiting to hear from the governor. we'll turn to key developments in two of donald trump's court cases. the judge overseeing his hush money case has set an april 15th trial date. meanwhile, an appeals court reduces the bond in his civil fraud case to $175 million. garrett haake has the latest. >> reporter: this morning, donald trump now has a trial date in the new york city hush money case he long fought to see delayed or dismissed outright. >> this is election interference. that's all it is, election interference. it's a disgrace. >> reporter: the judge setting an april 15th trial date for trump in what would be the first criminal trial of a president in history. trump lashing out, baselessly

blaming president biden for his new york state prosecution on 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to hush money payments to stormy daniels. >> i don't know how you can have a trial like this in the middle of a presidential election. this is a biden trial. these are all biden trials. >> reporter: a new york appeals court judge was handing him a victory in another case, cutting the bond owed by the former president by more than half to $175 million as he appeals the nearly half billion dollar civil fraud judgment against him. >> i respect the appellate division for substantially reducing that ridiculous amount of money. >> reporter: trump saying he'll have the cash within the new ten-day deadline. >> are you going to start putting money into your campaign? >> first of all, it's none of your business, frankly. i might do that.

>> reporter: the trump campaign using the appeals court ruling to fund raise, texting supporters, quote, huge victory, but now is not the time to celebrate. >> joining us now, susan craig. she won a pulitzer prize for her 18-month investigation into trump's finances. we'll talk about that bond. let's talk about the fact that a former president of the united states now has a criminal trial date set for april 15th in the stormy daniels case. what's the significance there? >> it's the first. it doesn't look like at this point it's going to be moved. you're looking now at a candidate, the presumptive nominee who will be spending

those key days not campaigning but in a courtroom every day. they're sort of trying to make lemonade out of that and saying, you know, campaign stop and trying to make the best of it, but it's not good for him. >> what's your sense of the peril he faces in that case? the bond is in a civil case. the stormy daniels case is a criminal trial. >> we don't know where a jury is going to hand on it. there's the potential there could be incarceration at the end of it. maybe not, though. this is the least serious in terms of time he could face in terms of criminal charges, but it's not a good look for him. >> i think his hard-core base will buy his argument this is a

witch hunt. but there are independents and swing voters. there are polls that show president biden picking up momentum in a few states. we don't know how they're going to view a presidential candidate sitting in a courtroom. >> i hear a lot that it's not going to sway the base. i'm not sure a lot will. let's put that aside. i think all of these proceedings going on, be they criminal or civil, they're sort of like wallpaper. you keep putting a layer over it and you just wonder when independents and people who aren't die-hard trump supporters are going to say, okay, enough. this is starting to feel like when he was in the white house and there was already a fatigue. that's setting in. people have forgotten what that was like every day. i think we're starting to remember it again, every day the drum beat of this.

it may not sway his hard core base, but it may sway other people who are like, okay, enough. >> in terms of getting the money for the bond, paying these rising legal fees, interest, here's a look at donald trump saying it really doesn't matter where he gets the money, even if it's foreign money. >> now that the bond's been reduced, are you going to start putting money into your campaign? >> yes. first of all, it's none of your business, frankly. i might do that. i have the option. >> -- foreign government to pay the bond or -- >> no. i think you'd be allowed to possibly. i don't know. >> it could happen maybe, i don't know. he's also openly admitted he would take dirt on his political rival from a foreign government. there are no rules for trump,

but are there rules in our system as to whether this money comes from, or can anybody pay his fines. >> i think there are rules in terms of potential taxation on it, if it's a gift. there's rules around that. he could go to numerous sources for this or he could draw on his own cash reserves for it. we saw him do that in the case of the e. jean carroll case. we don't know where this is coming from. i sense we will learn in the coming days when he posts it, because there are a lot of rules around this now with a monitor in place. i suspect we'll have some transparency into where the money comes from. >> susan craig, thank you. coming up on "morning joe," we'll continue to follow the latest out of baltimore, now under a state of emergency

following the catastrophic collapse of a bridge along a major interstate overnight. plus, israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is criticizing the united states as it allowed the u.n. security council to pass a resolution yesterday calling for an immediate cease-fire in the gaza strip. immediate cease-fire in the gaza strip. [coughing] copd hasn't been pretty. it's tough to breathe and tough to keep wondering if this is as good as it gets. but trelegy has shown me that there's still beauty and breath to be had.

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the united nations security council adopted a resolution that calls for an immediate cease-fire in gaza for the remainder of ramadan. 14 countries voted in favor of that measure yesterday, but the united states abstained. the resolution also calls for the immediate release of all hostages and the lifting of all barriers to the provision of humanitarian assistance. joining me is raf sanchez. it's good to see you.

this has caused quite a rift between the white house and tel aviv. >> reporter: quite a rift between the white house and the israeli government, that's right. prime minister benjamin netanyahu making clear he is furious that the united states did not use its power to veto this resolution to stop it from going through. in response, he cancelled a visit to washington by two senior israeli officials. this was a visit specifically requested by president biden when the two leaders spoke last week. the meeting was designed to iron out pretty substantial differences between the u.s. and israel on israeli plans to attack the city of rafah in southern gaza. prime minister netanyahu accusing the biden administration of backtracking on its previous position. while this resolution does call for a cease-fire and the mediate and unconditional release of hostages, it does not explicitly

link the two of them, which is what the israelis wanted to see. john kirby pushing back on that accusation yesterday, saying the prime minister is unnecessarily injecting tension into the u.s./israel relationship. >> a couple of points that need to be stated. number one, it's a nonbinding resolution. there's no impact at all on israel and israel's ability to continue to go after hamas. number two, as i said in my opening statement, it does not represent a change at all in our policy. it's very consistent with everything we've been saying we want to get done. we get to decide what our policy is. the prime minister's office seems to be implicating that we somehow changed here. we haven't. we get to decide what our policy is. it seems like the prime

minister's office is choosing to create a perception of daylight here when they don't need to do that. again, no change in our policy. >> reporter: the white house calling this resolution nonbinding. not totally clear what they mean by that. unsecurity council resolutions are binding in the sense that they represent international law. israel says it will fight on in gaza. hamas is saying that while it welcomes the resolution, it is not committing to immediately and unconditionally releasing the hostages as the resolution calls for. at this point, the best hope of relief for hostages and the palestinian civilians on the brink of famine in gaza appears to be those ongoing cease-fire

negotiations happening right now in qatar. it is not clear there is any breakthrough coming any time soon. >> raf sanchez, thank you so much. still ahead here, we are following the bridge collapse in baltimore as crews search for at least seven people believed to be missing in those waters. plus, the supreme court will begin to hear oral arguments over a popular abortion drug. n g

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medication mifepristone. the biden administration and the medication's manufacturer are pushing to reverse a lower court's decision that would make it harder to obtain the drug. the lower court said the food and drug administration failed to follow the procedures needed to loosen its regulations concerning the medication. should the supreme court rule with the lower court, it would likely cut off prescriptions for the pill via telehealth and mail services. neal katyal is with us. he has argued 50 cases before the supreme court. adrian elrod is also with us. we're also covering the

catastrophic bridge collapse after it was hit by a cargo ship at 1:30 eastern time this morning. we are waiting for the governor of maryland to do a news conference. there are people still missing. it affects commerce and the economy. this is a major thoroughfare up the eastern seaboard. we will be interrupting when the governor takes to the microphones. having said that, what is happening at the supreme court? >> reporter: the supreme court is hearing the most substantial case since roe was overturned. the justices are deciding whether or not to maintain access to mifepristone. the fda originally approved this medication several decades ago,

but it has expanded access making it available by telehealth and mail. the fda has a long process for approving drugs, but anti-abortion groups soon after roe v wade was overturned sued the fda in an effort to restrict access to this medication. 63% of women, 6 out of 10 abortions that happen in this country happen through medication abortion. we're talking about thousands of women whose access to this pill would be affected if the supreme court were to rule against the fda here. there are a number of drug companies that have written friend of the court briefs to the supreme court because they're very worried if the fda loses this case, that not just mifepristone will be impacted but its authority to regulate

drugs will be impacted. one other thing is there is the politics. i've covered the supreme court. this is one of the biggest crowds. it really underscores what's at stake. >> neal katyal, is there a way to foresee how they may decide on this, or are there details you might need to explain to us? >> i think this result is easy to foresee. my law partner is going to argue the case very shortly in the supreme court. the reason i think this is an easy case is this drug has been around since the year 2000. it is so extensively studied. one of the concepts in the law

is you've got to have a concrete injury to yourself to bring the case. the theory for why they can challenge is it patients might take the drug and have side effects like headaches and the like. that would mean every doctor could challenge basically any drug, because every drug has side effects like headaches. i can't imagine the same supreme court that overturned roe and gave us the dobbs decision -- i can't imagine they're going to say this kind of challenge is okay. i think they're going to look at it less as an abortion case, more as a pharmaceutical case and close the door on a challenge like this. that may have any number of election benefits for the republican party as well. i think there are a bunch of

different consequences to the decision, but i would be very surprised that the challengers could survive the hearing today and let their lawsuit stand. >> let's talk about the politics here. we don't know how this is going to play out just yet, but certainly we know since the dobbs decision, democrats have basically won every significant election. abortion rights have played a huge part of almost all of them, including in some deep red states. forecast the fact that we're talking rabbit abortion rights again, putting that front and center on the national discourse. that has to be something that the biden campaign is going to make part of their message as we head towards november. >> you're exactly right. the biden campaign is going to make it clear as well as their surrogates that the fact that the court is even looking at this case is a direct consequence of the fact that

donald trump put three pro life supreme court justices on the supreme court. that is why we're in this situation to begin with. obviously trump is trying to back pedal and say i support a 15-week abortion ban, which is wrong and we're not going to let him get away with this. this court should reject this case. this drug is stibl available in states that still allow abortion. it's crazy that we are in this situation. that is a direct consequence of donald trump knowingly and consciously and proactively putting three pro-life justices on the supreme court. we're not going to forget that trump is responsible for this. you look at states like kansas,

ohio, red states, purple stats, that directly made it clear that we support women's reproductive health and we're going to make that very clear. if you look at states like north carolina. florida looks likely to have abortion on ballot access. this is an issue that's going to play very effectively in this election for democrats. >> yamiche, if you could describe the scene when you send -- ended your report, you said there was quite a crowd there. >> reporter: you have hundreds

of protesters here. some of them are anti-abortion protesters who hope that access to this pill gets taken away. but you also have people pushing for abortion access and hoping the fda will continue in its quest to have this abortion pill be widely accessible. it's men, women, all sorts of people in the crowd here. there are even some streets that are closed here that are usually open. i've seen voting rights cases and others come before the supreme court, but this is a very different scene. it tells you the level of enthusiasm and interest when it comes to this issue and whether or not the pill is going to continue to be accessible. >> it really feels the democrats and especially women and also the men who love them are making

abortion rights a life issue, a matter of life and death for the woman involved. >> yeah. you and i both knew what the consequences would be if roe was overturned. it's not just teenagers getting pregnant and having abortions. we're talking about women trying to start or expand families having a matter of life and death when it comes to what's happening in their bodies. republicans like to say these are unintended consequences, but we all knew this was going to happen. doctors can't do anything to help you if you have a pregnancy that's putting you in danger, because they're afraid they're going to be arrested or lose

their ability to practice medicine. these are the consequences we knew were going to happen. you had planned parenthood and medical officials across the country making it clear this is exactly what would happen if roe was overturned, and here we are today. they can't win in the court of public opinion. they have to go to the supreme court because it's not going to win in the court of public opinion. i hope the supreme court does reject this today. the fact that we're even in this place speaks volumes on whether republicans stand about whether a woman should make decisions for her own body. >> we'll have live coverage of these oral arguments at the top

of the hour. preview what exactly we'll hear. >> the court has allocated 60 minutes to the argument. that's usually a half hour per side. the court throws hard questions at both sides. this is going to go a lot longer than an hour. there are three advocates. first, a religious rights advocate who is married to senator josh hawley. she is a serious lawyer who clerked for justice roberts. she's going to argue this drug should not have had the expansions in 2016 and later that allowed the drug to be given over the mail and not just by doctors and nurse practitioners. she's going to say the doctors she represents are worried about

such side effects. we're going to hear from my partner who's going to say that's wrong, that you can't open the floodgates to these types of lawsuits. in a world in which roe has been overturned and many states are imposing restriction after restriction, it's a drug like this that is the only mechanism for many of these women. i expect we'll hear that argument towards the back half of the oral arguments did. i think they'll have tough questions for both sides, but i don't think it's close. it's not just the three justices on the supreme court appointed by trump, it's the lower court

judges. the religious right group that filed this lawsuit, shopped and filled it in a district in texas with a very pro-life trump judge and then it went to the fifth circuit with a bunch of trump judges there. they made the impossible possible with challenges to this drug and here we are. >> there were cases yesterday against former president trum that had major developments. i want to ask you specifically about the hush money trial which has been given a start date of april 15th. what happens on that day? is that jury selection? i'm asking specifically for the trump team, which now has a record for delays, to create delays in this case. >> yesterday was like legal

frogger or something for donald trump. first he gets a reprieve on the bond. it's not 460 million that he owes. now it's 175 million. and he has ten extra days, because it was due yesterday. then the trial on the hush money for stormy daniels was set for april 15th. it was supposed to start yesterday, but there were some delays. the jumg said, no more delays, april 15th. that means jury selection will begin on april 15th. that jury selection can take as long as a couple weeks. this is a very high-profile trial. that doesn't mean a fair trial is impocket. in big cases there's ways to team with that by individual questioning of potential jurors. when i did the george floyd

murder, i think it took us a week to seat that jury in minneapolis. same thing here. trial date starting april 15th. judge can try and file some sort of appeal of that trial date. i don't think that will succeed and he will have to start that trial on april 15th. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll have continuing coverage of the bridge collapse in baltimore. governor wes moore is meeting with first responders right now. we'll bring the press conference to you live when it begins. "morning joe" is coming right back. t begins "morning joe" is coming right back so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,

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we're going to go live to a press conference with maryland governor wes moore about the massive search operation under way right now in the wake of a bridge collapse in baltimore. the key bridge was struck by a cargo ship at 1:30 in the morning and it caused a major part of the bridge to snap and plunge into the water. here is governor wes moore. >> to our first responders, i'm in awe of you. i'm in awe of your courage. i'm in awe of your strength. i'm in awe of everything that you do for each and every one of us. you saw a crisis, and you said what can i do to help. and our response teams are doing everything in our power to rescue and recover the victims of this collapse literally as we speak. people who as we speak are out there are divers, air assets, people who right now are working to save lives and are doing it

because the state asked. and we will update the public as the work continues. to our partners inside and outside of government, i know this has been a long night. we started coordinating immediately after the key bridge collapse. we have been standing together every step of the way, from our county leadership to our city leadership to our state leadership to our federal leadership. and i'm grateful to call each and every one of you not just colleagues, but i'm grateful to call you friends. and to the people of baltimore, and each and every one of the 6.3 marylanders who call our state home, i recognize that many of us are hurting right now. i recognize that many of us are scared right now. and so i want to be very clear about where everything stands. we are still investigating what

happened, but we are quickly gathering details. the preliminary investigation points to an accident. we haven't seen any credible evidence of a terrorist attack. our administration is working closely with leaders from all levels of government and society to respond to this crisis and not but just by addressing the immediate aftermath, but also by building a state that is more resilient and a state that is more safe. that is our pledge. and that's our commitment. and we're going to keep that commitment. and lastly, to the victims of this tragedy and their loved ones, all of our hearts are broken. we feel your loss, we're thinking of you, and we will always be thinking of you. we pray for the construction workers who were on the key bridge and we pray for everyone who has been touched by this

tragedy and their families and all of their loved ones. but, maryland, we will get through this. because that is the maryland spirit, and that's what maryland is made of. we are maryland tough, and we are baltimore strong. so in the face of heart break, we come together, we embrace one another, and we come back stronger. that's what we have always done. that's what we will continue to do. and that's what we're going to get done together and we're going to pray for baltimore. and i would like to turn this over to senator van hollen, who has done a remarkable job in our delegation in providing support. thank you, senator. >> thank you, governor. as the governor said, we come together, we come together in baltimore, we come together in

maryland. first of all, our hearts go out to all those who were on the bridge and their loved ones. we pray for them. our gratitude goes out to the first responders, who as we speak are out there continuing to conduct search and rescue operations. i want to thank the governor, the local mayor, county executive, all the people gathered here as part of team baltimore and team maryland. and the federal government is with them as a partner. the coast guard as we speak is also part of this mission. coast guard cutters, coast guard aviation assets. i spoke twice today with secretary of transportation pete buttigieg. pete buttigieg has pledged that they will do everything they can to very quickly release emergency response funds for this important project. the national highway

transportation administration -- administrator is on his way to baltimore if he's not here already. they will be releasing those early funds once all the parties are fully engaged. second, the national transportation safety board, i talked to the chair this morning, she and her team will be conducting an investigation of what happened. and, finally, the army corps of engineer naval assets for looking below the surface and clearing, all of this is going to be part of the effort. the governor is leading team maryland, the mayor and the county executive, of course, team baltimore, but i'm just here to say together with ben cardin, senator cardin, and congressman mfume and others, the federal government is your partner in this effort. thank you, and again to the

people of our state and this great city, we're with you, we will get through this together. thank you. >> good morning again. paul wiedefeld, secretary of transportation. a few updates since our meeting this morning. the crew that was out there working was basically repairing potholes, so you understand that had nothing to do with a structural issue at all with the facility. at this time, one person has been rescued. and so far, and our efforts continue in terms of that. engineers are on site right now determining both the structural issues, obviously the debris field and we'll start to work that, but we'll work hand and hand with the ntsb before we take any further action in that area. with that, i do want to introduce the fbi for a few comments as well. >> hello. my name is bill