district attorney cyrus vance convened a special grand jury to decide whether to bring criminal charges against former president donald trump. other executives at his company, or the company itself. according to the post, a move indicates after a more than two-year investigation with a lengthy legal battle for trump's tax returns, vance believes he may have found evidence of a crime somewhere in the trump organization. the panel will sit for three days a week for the next six months longer than a traditional new york grand jury assignment. people familiar with the matter told the paper. these sources say democratic prosecutors, investigators are scrutinizing trump's business practices before he was president, including whether the value of specific properties in the trump organization's real estate portfolio were manipulated in a way that defrauded banks and insurance

companies and if any tax benefits were obtained illegally through unscrupulous asset valuation. they're also looking into untaxed compensation to the company's chief financial officer, allen weisselberg, who investigators are trying to pressure into cooperating against his boss "the post" previously reported. a lawyer for weisselberg, excuse me, declined to comment, but former president trump issued a lengthy statement last night calling the grand jury, quote, a continuation of the greatest witch hunt in american history. swa confirming it's happening. the trump organization denying it's going. david also with us former u.s. attorney barbara mcquaid and professor at law at georgetown university, paul butler, is with us. >> david, thank you for being with us and for bringing this

reporting to us. what else can you tell us about this story? >> well, we don't know who the target of the investigation. we don't know who they're going to present indictments against. this shows us this has moved to a different phase after spending more than two years gathering evidence, they're at the phase where the d.a. wants to go in front of a grand jury and present that evidence, marshalling that evidence towards proving probable cause for a crime. they have six months to do it. but that's where they think they are. that to us was a very surprising and notable development. >> any idea why this one is six months long, why that grand jury is little longer than most grand juries? >> we're told when you're dealing with white collar cases, fraud cases, public corruption cases where there's lots of moving cases, they will hear more evidence than an actual jury in a courtroom would. you want people to come back and hear all the pieces. i imagine in this case they're going to hear from appraisers,

accountants, taxing authorities, all kinds of people. you remember there's different pieces of this. every piece is sort of complicated. they're going to hear from a lot of folks making a lot of complicated cases one after another. >> david, more than anybody else in journalism, you have completely immersed yourself in all things trump as it pertains to financing, both before he was in the white house and while he was in the white house. what do you suspect? and of course, i've made it very clear to my audience that i absolutely, you know, i loathe the fact that for the past five years -- there's a leak and everybody immediately thinks somebody is going to jail. i ask this question not presupposing that donald trump is going to even be indicted but i'm just asking you as somebody who knows this material better than anybody else on the journalism, where do you suspect investigators are going to be

looking where have they been looking based on your reporting and what do you think is at issue for vance and his team to decide whether a charge is brought or not? question know from subpoenas we reviewed and other public filings the d.a. is interested in the new york attorney general is interested in, transactions where trump valued his assets quite high in order to impress lenders and think he's a good credit risk and devalue those perhaps too much in order to save on his taxes to get tax breaks from conservation easements and 100 million plus debt forgiven and questions about whether he paid the proper income on that forgiven debt. but you have to remember there's a whole universe out there of evidence we haven't seen yet which is from tax returns. no one before cy vance had gotten ahold of that much information from trump's finances. little bit of tax returns

prepared by donald trump's folks, a lot of problems. there could be a lot more problems in those millions of pages. the key for -- >> david -- >> go ahead. i'm sorry. >> the key if they're going to go after donald trump personally is prove intent. this is a complicated case. trump i'm sure will say i relied on my lawyers, relied on my accountants they have to find documents, statements that trump knew what he was doing and did it any way. >> there's one piece of property i don't think most of us are familiar with that keeps coming up north of the city. talk about that property and why this always comes up in these stories and investigations into donald trump's financing. >> i spent a lot of time covering the trump organizations. this is called seven springs, the biggest state up in west chester county, new york, used to be owned by the people who owned "the washington post" years ago. and huge estate.

trump hasn't gone there for years and years and years. i've been told it's been used to store old furniture. he got an easement. i have the right to but i'm not going to develop this into houses. i want a tax break and got a $21 million tax break. the problem was he didn't have the permissions to build those houses and might never have gotten them. he fought them for years. the question is did he lie to taxing authorities? did he exaggerate the value that there was in that land in order to get that giant tax break. that's one of the properties under scrutiny by both the attorney general and the d.a. >> he bought that place in 1995 for 7.5 million appraised for $56.5 million. >> okay. >> barbara mcquaid, put on your prosecutor's hat here far moment and take a step back for our viewers and explain what it takes for a prosecutor to convene and impanel a grand jury. it would appear cy vance

believes there was a crime committed to underline what joe said, we don't know who, if it was donald trump or someone else in his orbit, but what would it take to seat a grand jury in this case? >> well, a grand jury has both a charging function and an investigative function. so as long as cy vance believes he has credible allegations that a crime may have been committed, that would be a sufficient basis to convene those grand jury. but i think it's a significant step because we've long known that cy vance has documents. so he is now likely completed his review of those documents. if there were nothing there, nothing to suggest to him that a crime has been committed, there would be no need to convene this grand jury. the fact that he has says to me that he has found sufficient evidence in those documents to believe he should take that next step. and in new york, it's necessary to present all of the evidence before a grand jury. it's not enough to rely on hearsay the way it is in federal court. so they need to hear from enough

witnesses to be convinced that there's probable cause that a crime has occurred. that could take some time. we talked about the six months to see the documents and to hear from the witnesses. but it also performs that investigative function. so it could be necessary to put people before the grand jury to compel their testimony. either with a subpoena or witnesses reluctant to work out deals with them, some cooperation deal where they'll get a recommendation of leniency in exchange for coming in and testifying. all of those things are likely to occur in the next six months. >> paul butler, what's a reasonable expectation in terms of a timeline. we know these grand juries sit and hear evidence for other cases as well. they're not just seated strictly to hear the evidence into the trump organization. what might we expect here? when may we hear there are charges? what could we learn soon? >> grand juries are secret. there's no real way of knowing, willie, except that this grand

jury has been in panel for six months, but that could be extended. so, early in an investigation, grand juries, as barbara said, subpoena evidence. now it sounds like this is at the stage where the district attorney believes there's probable cause to charge some thing, like the trump organization, or someone with a crime. and with corporate crimes, people at the top insulate themselves so the middle managers get blamed. the interesting thing about the trump organization is reportedly all of the decision making was consolidated at the top. with donald trump sr., donald trump jr., erica, ivanka and allen weisselberg. and so those are the people who the grand jurors will be focussed on. they probably won't hear from any of them, but other witnesses and documents will try to tell their story. >> professor butler, you study

michael cohen's description of how trump operates, he often doesn't say much but he indicates in somewhat of an unspoken language as to what his middle managers should do and then they end up shouldering a lot of problems. explain as if you're explaining to your students what will happen in this grand jury and how weisselberg could be a focus of the investigation or could be useful against former president donald trump. >> so, the prosecutors will use the grand jury to tell a story. and they'll tell a lot more evidence than would be admissible if this were a regular trial. and in the grand jury, you don't have to present any of the defense. so, it will be both a pro-prosecution story but also one designed to see if this case goes to trial and we charge the trump organization, we charge

individuals, then is that an airtight case? because mika, you don't charge the organization of the former president and you certainly don't charge the former president or his family members with a crime unless it's a slam dunk. unless you know you can win. >> yeah. barbara, i was just going to say, i've talked not only to legal people around new york but also a lot of political people for the past six months to a year when there was talk of donald trump possibly being tried by new york state or by vance. and their conclusion was the same thing as paul's, which is, yeah. we're probably never going to see the president on the stand. you just don't put a former president on the stand unless you have an open and a shut case. >> that's right. and i think that it's unlikely they'll call donald trump himself to testify before the grand jury. sometimes that happens when it's necessary to give that person a

fair chance to tell their side of the story. but as we saw in the mueller investigation, donald trump is not someone who is eager to answer questions under oath. so, that seems unlikely. but to paul's point about the certainty of a conviction when you charge somebody like a donald trump, it is -- you know, you don't want to think that anybody is held to a higher standard or above the law. when you charge somebody who is a politically powerful person, we know from the past they'll make all kinds of accusations this is a politically motivated witch hunt or the like so i think that causes humans, it's human nature, to want to make sure that all their ducks are in a row, maybe to a level of scrutiny that is not ordinary in other cases. >> so david, where does this story go now? what are you looking at? >> our focus will be on allen weisselberg, the cfo to the trump organization, the person who saw basically every transaction large and small that trump made. if he's someone who knows the

finances probably better than trump's accountant,s, somebody the d.a. is focussed on in part he can tell you what trump's intent was, why? what did he know at the time he was doing it? we know they're trying to flip allen weisselberg and know they're investigating allen weisselberg. i'm interested to see does he become a target? does he become a witness? we may know that over the next few weeks. >> "the washington post" david fahrenthold, thank you for your reporting. thanks for being on this morning. former u.s. attorney, barbara mcquaid. thank you as well. new developments surrounding the legislation to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the january 6th attack of the capitol. ten republicans will need to back the house-passed resolution to get past the filibuster, and republican senator lisa murkowski became the first republican to announce her support. senator mitt romney reiterated his support yesterday. if change is requested by susan

collins are included in the final legislation, those requested revisions only slightly differ from the democrat's outline. senator collins wants to change the way the committee would select staff. collins thinks the committee chair and vice chair should hire staffers together rather than chair hiring staff in consultation with the vice chair. the change would give slightly more power to the republican-appointed vice chair. the bangor daily news democrats used language directly drawn from the bill that created a commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks which collins has said should be a model. meanwhile, two of the democratic holdouts on abolishing the filibuster senators joe manchin and kristen cinema released a rare joint statement urging their republican colleagues to, quote, work with us. adding that the commission is a, quote, critical step to ensuring our nation never has to endure an attack at the hands of our

country men again. but senate minority leader mitch mcconnell, is still not on board. >> i think this is a purely political exercise that adds nothing to the sum total of information. it doesn't allow anyone to get away with anything. all of these aspects of it are being dealt with in one way or another already. >> so, willie, one person who strongly disagrees with that and has let mitch mcconnell know that based on my reporting, senator joe manchin, who has told several republicans that he wants to work with them. he is bending over backwards to negotiate with them, bending over backwards to make sure there's bipartisanship and joe manchin's opinion based on several sources is, okay, we can debate the outlines of an infrastructure bill. i get that. we can debate the outlines of a

police reform bill. different people have different views. we can debate covid relief, but for joe manchin, he believes this is about poll -- he believes this is not about politics, this is about america. this is about the country. this is about protecting what is most sacred. and i just don't know. based on what i'm hearing joe manchin expects republicans to meet him halfway and not block this 9/11-style commission. >> there's no question about it. and he doesn't want to go to the nuclear option and get rid of the filibuster. he wants to talk this out and get 60 total votes for this, which would mean he needs 10 republicans on board. you have to ask, joe, what are republicans afraid of? if you look inside the proposal, inside the plan, the commission calls for a ten-person panel, split evenly between the parties.

they're talking about this being politically driven and political stunt but you'll have half of the panel representing their point of view. jonah goldberg has a new column for the l.a. times titled why the gop is terrified of january 6 commission. jonah writes this -- quote, it's amazing how easily republicans can see how the rhetoric of blm activists can create a permission structure for violence but become utterly blind to the same point when it comes to violence at the seat of our government. there are many legitimate arguments against the special commission to study january 6th. congress has the power to investigate already and is doing so. many democrats surely want to use the commission to score partisan points. there are hundreds of criminal cases under way and congress should be reluctant to muck with them. he goes on, the problem with all of such arguments, though, often made in good faith by conservative writers, is that they have nothing to do with why elected republicans don't want a commission. it's all pretext, designed to distract from the fact that most of the gop is terrified of

contradicting the false narratives still being peddled by trump and embraced by his core supporters. it's absolutely true that his supporters are mostly peaceful, but that misses the point entirely and deliberately, joe. that's jonah goldberg writing in the "l.a. times". >> great points from jonah, as usual. there are areas that still can be negotiated, susan collins as her local newspaper said is concerned about staffing. good reason at the beginning. you know, this commission at the beginning the proposal was seven democrats, four republicans. all democratic staff. and we said on this show there was no reason why republicans should support a commission that was that slanted. now it's down the middle. now you also have again negotiations on the staffing. i think again people should set

this up the way the 9/11 commission was set up, talk a little more about staffing. there can be negotiations here, but right now mika, it just seemed that the answer is no, no, no from republicans and the reason why, as jonah points out, is because they're terrified of actually having not all of them, but a good number of them are terrified of having facts come out that will cross what donald trump has said about the election. and right now they're like kevin mccarthy. when they have to tell the truth, they'll get in front of microphones and say, yes, of course joe biden is the president. i'm going to see him now. but then when they're away from the cameras, they're sort of playing this cat and mouse game. >> it's exhausting. i mean, i know you need to go to paul butler, but my question for you politically, for these republicans or people who want to be republicans that are not, you know, weighed down by this

corrupt, ridiculous clown of a former president, i mean, don't you want to have a party that doesn't have him on your back all the time? forcing you to make corrupt decisions? forcing you to lie? if you're kevin mccarthy or congressman from a trump district, don't you want this commission to let the record show that many americans were misled by this corrupt man, that these are good people who were misled and that the record could get trump off their back and let them become the republican party again? what am i missing? it might be a little hard but wouldn't a commission allow them to free themselves of this sort of hideous paul that trump has cast on their party and ruined their party and forced it away from its core principles? why wouldn't they want this? >> they don't. vast majority of them at least publicly don't as lindsey graham

has said. the republican party believes there is no moving forward and no winning without donald trump. lindsey believes that. and the majority -- vast majority of republicans in the house believe that. that's why they kicked out liz cheney from leadership. that's just not where they are right now. and, the last thing they want is a 9/11 style commission that's going to get to the bottom of the truth. paul, it's unfortunate for any political party when they're that frightened by the truth. again, we're just going to assume that there are good-faith differences in this january 6th bill. at least i assume that because i know with legislation, there's always room to negotiate. but, what i see from republican leadership in the senate and the house is a predisposition to say no to anything that moves forward. they're not even trying to

negotiate. that's being left up to susan collins. >> that's right, joe. and this isn't about politics. this is about history. this is about an official narrative on one of the worst days in the history of our democracy. the legal responses to january 6th have mainly already occurred. the impeachment, the second impeachment of donald trump, and the now over 200 prosecutions of people who were involved in the attack. what the september -- i started to say september 11th commission because we've learned so much from that about how to protect our country. and this commission could have the same result. you wonder what is it that the republicans are afraid of? there's still important questions about not so much their complicity in the attack, but what they knew, who they

knew about what was going to go down at the capitol that day. >> yeah. professor in law georgetown university, paul butler. thank you very much for being on this morning. those are the questions. there are a lot of questions. still ahead on -- >> so many questions what went down that day, give us the timeline. somebody has to sort through this. give us an expansive timeline. what happened at the pentagon? what really happened? why didn't they send the national guard any sooner than they did? i know we had quick testimony on the hill and stone walling. let's get to the bottom of it. what did kevin mccarthy really say to donald trump? a lot of people around him, a lot of republican members a lot of staff, have heard that he yelled at donald trump. some heard him actually yelling at donald trump, saying things on the phone that now he's denying or that he just won't speak of. did he beg donald trump, did the

majority leader, former majority leader, or minority leader of the republican party really beg for help? really beg for help? did he really say when donald trump said, oh no, no. those aren't my people. those are antifa. did he really swear at the president of the united states like people around him say he did? and say, these are your people that are here, mr. president. and you can call them off. we need you to call them off. and did the president refuse? how long did it take him to refuse? did he really know that mike pence was up on -- giving his speech? did he really know that pence was still in the building when he tweeted out something about mike pence? there's so many -- >> joe, he promised the crowd -- >> there's so many things that we need filled in by a timeline that i can't imagine why anybody wouldn't want to know all the facts of what happened on that terrible, terrible day. >> he promised the crowd, you know, go there and i'll be

there, too. he gave them incentive to rush the capitol, saying that he would join them in their fight. of course he didn't because that's his game. but even more so this was planned. this was planned for this day. there were emails going around. there were messages being sent out on social media to join the president on the stage to save america. this was all built, this planned event. look at him. >> right. >> planned around the big lie. have you ever seen anything like this? >> well, no, of course none of us have. and willie, i do think that -- and i really do believe this, i believe republicans of good faith and democrats of good faith, independents, i think all americans who were staring at the tv set in horror and were asking the same question that colin powell was asking which was where the hell are the police? what the hell is going on? why aren't they sending re-enforcements in? >> it was so frightening.

>> to stop these people from desecrating the united states capitol. >> killing people with american flags. >> i think most -- i find it hard to believe that the overwhelming majority of americans don't want to know what happened that day, what went wrong. and why we need a january 6th commission to get to the bottom of this. who could be against that? don't they want to know the facts behind this? >> well, some don't. i think the truth is that some don't. we cannot accept that this is being held up over staffing issues, which is what senator susan collins said, surely, surely we can overcome some staffing issues to look into one of the most traumatic events in recent american history. but you made the point about the politics of crossing donald trump. it is right now it remains a political death sentence in the republican party to cross donald trump. all these members of congress know that. and then on the other hand, there's the criminal aspect of

this for the simple fact that many of the people who serve in that body may be accomplices to that crime whether directly or indirectly. indirectly meaning feeding into this lie, rallying people to get to the capitol on january 6th. there are an awful lot of people sitting up in that capitol building this morning who do not want a clear-eyed look into what happened on that day and what led up to it because it wouldn't look so good for them if they were accomplices to it. >> seems to me for republican senators in washington this is a chance to get your party back. go for the commission. still ahead on "morning joe," president biden will hold his first face-to-face meeting with russian president vladimir putin next month. but one republican senator is calling that move weak. plus, belarus hijacked a plane and set a disturbing precedent. we'll talk about the fallout and the potential repercussions if belarus gets away with it, with

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♪♪ 32 past the hour. the father of the belorussian dissident journalist who was arrested after belorussian authorities forced a plane he was on to turn around mid flight is speaking out about that so-called 29-second confession video released of his son on monday. protosevich's father says his son's nose is likely broken due to its shape. he also says that his face has a lot of powder on it and there is visible bruises on his forehead. in the short video, the

26-year-old appears to admit to organizing mass protests while saying that he's being treated correctly. similar confession video of protosevich's girlfriend has also been filmed by belorussian authority. she says she was on that same diverted flight and that she posted information about police officers online. president biden is expected to discuss this incident, which many view was the hijacking of a commercial flight to arrest protosevich when he meets next month with russian president vladimir putin. putin is a close ally of alexander lukashenko. new this morning, president lukashenko is defending his country's actions in diverting that plane, carrying a dissident journalist and arresting him. in his first comment since the incident on sunday, lukashenko said he acted in a, quote, lawful way and was protecting

people in line with international rules. he also took issue with the european union's ban on belarus for using its air space and airports as well as potential economic sanctions. he says the eu is part of a hybrid war against his country. our ill. wishers outside and inside the country have changed their methods of attacking the state. lukashenko said. that's why they switched from organizing riots to trying to strangle us. lukashenko denied that a fighter jet was forced -- forced the ryan airplane to land as an absolute lie and defended his action to divert the flight as a necessary response to the bomb threat. willie? >> let's talk about this now with staff writer at the atlantic magazine, author of the book "twilight of democracy, seductive lure of authoritarianism" anne applebaum.

other regimes will hijack planes too. authoritarian states no longer feel the need to respect passports, borders, diplomatic customs or now the rules of air traffic control. dictators are more prepared to arrest or murder political dissidents anywhere no matter what foreign laws or bureaucratic procedures might theoretically protect them. sometimes this puts pressure on other countries to help them. other times they kidnap people unassisted. the price they have to pay as a result in sanctions or in bad relations with the outside world clearly no longer bothers them. anne, that's exactly what we saw yesterday or two days ago. brazen isn't the word to use. to hijack a commercial airliner to visit land and pull a journalist off of it. what do you see in this move from lukashenko and belarus? and how does it show us what's happening around the world? >> so, i think, yes, this is an escalation of something that

some are calling transnational repression. it's think of the russian murders and attempted murders of russian dissidents in london, think of chinese kidnaps of chinese nationals and people of chinese origin from other parts of asia. think of the murder of the journalist khashoggi and the saudi consulate in istanbul. this is showing increasingly autocrats people able to and empowered to reach across borders to capture, murder, assassinate and intimidate their own citizens or sometimes the citizens of other countries. also think about what this means for air traffic control. i mean, we think of air traffic control as really one of the few areas in which all of us rely on its neutrality. it's apolitical nature. anybody landing anywhere has assume that the air traffic controllers don't want anything from them except for their plane

to land safely. this is a case when air traffic control was used to send a false message to an airline to convince it to land in a city that it wasn't intending to go to possibly endanger the lives of other passengers, other europeans and obviously to kidnap a journalist who was on the plane. this is -- this sends a terrible message to other dictators who may look to use other air traffic controls in other country or other neutral pieces of law enforcement and safety enforcement to try and get their way. and the reaction to this has been very strong so far, but i hope it will grow in strength over the next few days. >> and anne, you conclude your atlantic article this way, it sends a message to dissident exile communities you are not safe. you are never safe. not even if you live in a democracy, not even if you have political asylum, not even if you are sitting on a commercial

plane thousands of feet above the ground. given what you've said, given what you've written, it seems to me -- and i felt this way since this news broke -- that somehow sanctions are simply not enough in this case. >> no. i'm worried that sanctions aren't enough either, although i should say the speed with which the belorussian national airline has been sanctioned, the speed with which other countries said they won't fly there has been impressive. what i would like to see happen and this is true in the case of belarus as well as russia, is for european, american, other democratic leaders to begin thinking a lot more deeply about the ways in which our financial systems, our banks, enabled these kinds of regimes to survive. you know, lukashenko keeps his money somewhere. putin keeps his money somewhere.

stopping and incidentally it's not -- the way in which these dictators often come to power is through the use of money laundering and through the use of western banks and tax havens. so it's not an irrelevant problem. finding ways to stop that process, finding ways to cut them off from their source of power i think over time that would make a much bigger difference than these reactive sanctions. we need a much longer term strategy towards autocracies particularly given that the autocracies clearly are now working together. putin and lukashenko work together. the chinese and the iranians work together. we need a joined up strategy among democracies now, too. >> so, anne, ben sasse is criticizing joe biden for getting together vladimir putin. i must say there's a part of the

old cold war in me that understands that. i was mad when billy graham went to the soviet union. but ben sasse said we're rewarding putin with a summit, his puppet lukashenko hijacked a plane to get protosevich. we're treating him, his treasured in order stream 2 pipeline and legitimizing his actions with a summit. this is weak. so i've said before, you know, in the past i certainly with the soviets skeptical of any meeting. i, of course, maybe i'm older and maybe i'm just weaker, too, but i want biden to sit down with xi. i want biden to sit down with putin. i want biden to sit down with autocrats across the world. and i want to let him know that there's a new administration in d.c. and there are lines that cannot be crossed anymore.

>> so, in the cold war era that you and i both remember, it was possible for democratic leaders to meet with the leaders of the soviet union. and we did so from a position of strength. we did so -- americans did so -- american presidents as the leaders of nato, as the head of the democratic camp. we did so with an arsenal of real weapons behind us as well as proper apparatus of democracy promotion. we had language behind us. we had ideas behind us, and we were able to meet with people and make our points forcefully at the time. so, i don't think -- i think fetishizing meetings makes no sense. but having -- but having a concrete strategy for the meeting, just having the meeting gets us nowhere. what's the point of the meeting? what ideas are we trying to get across? are we going to cut off putin and his oligarchs from western

banks and western money laundering operations? if we're really going to do that as not just as the united states but as the leader of the democratic camp, then i think a meeting is fine. but it has to be as part of a broader strategy. and so far i haven't quite seen that strategy yet. >> so, do you agree with senator sasse that it's too early for president biden to meet with vladimir putin? >> as i said, it depends on what he's going to do with the meeting and what he's going to say. it depends what message he's transmitting. i don't think the meeting itself is the problem. the question is whether there is a -- is whether -- why he's meeting and what the point is. too often these international meetings become kind of gab fests or moments when we wave flags or say slogans. this can't be that kind of meeting. this has to be the clear message has to be delivered. >> and so let's assume that there is going to be a clear

message sent about american values, about democratic values and we've seen so far that joe biden doesn't mince words as it pertains to vladimir putin. he's used some really clear language that has surprised some so far. so i just wonder, anne, first of all politically i feel like if he doesn't have a meeting he'll be criticized for not having a meeting. if he goes in there and is able to communicate effectively the difference between right and wrong and what he expects, could that have a positive outcome rather than sitting back and just sort of letting all this play out across russia and its friends? >> well, as long as it's accompanied by concrete actions. as long as it's accompanied by, for example, an american/european set of decisions about ending russian money laundering. as long as it's accompanied by conservative effort to make sure that russian oligarchs are not

able to buy properties through shell companies all across europe and the united states. as long as those things are happening, as long as we are doing something concrete, then i don't mind them having a meeting. but it's not just about language. it's also about what we do. and it's also about -- it's about other spheres as well. do we have a plan yet for understanding the roots of and targeting the sourcesed of russian disinformation, not only in the u.s. but all across europe? do we have a plan for and a strategy for dealing with the russian funding of extremist political parties and movements in europe as well? are we working with our european allies to end those kinds of projects? you know, when we have done those things and when we are seen to be doing things, then i don't think it's a problem to talk to the russians. >> case people are wondering how vladimir putin thinks about how

he thinks about the hijacking he's invited lukashenko to the black sea for drinks. they'll see each other. obviously these authoritarians push the boundaries and wait to see how the world reacts to them. we'll see what the white house does here. but vladimir putin hasn't responded much when he's been pushed by the united states. he continues to meddle in elections, he continues to support people like lukashenko. so what does it mean as a practical question to get tough with vladimir putin and thereby people like lukashenko as well? >> well, as i've said, i would go to the source of their power and the source of their power is the money they've stolen, laundered and reinvested in their own countries. remember, all of these -- we talk about lukashenko and putin and the kremlin and so on. those are short hands. in fact, these -- there's more than one person running belarus and more than one person running

russia. there's a consortium of people and they all have interests and they all have money invested around the world. these are proper oligarchies. these are countries that are run by a consortia of very wealthy people. and so, identifying all of them, targeting all of them, making sure that none of them are able to get their money, none of them are able to behave as they have done in the past, this is the way to ensure that they feel an actual impact from the sanctions and that they begin even at the highest levels in their country to question whether this is really the way to go. we know already that there are senior russians and there are senior belorussians who don't like the direction their countries are heading in and we should make sure that they -- that they also feel the impact of western sanctions and of western investigation. >> staff writer at "atlantic" magazine, anne applebaum, thank

you very much for your insight this morning. appreciate it. coming up, new reports that a bipartisan group of senators is quietly working on a backup infrastructure plan in case current negotiations stall. we'll dig into that new reporting straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪♪

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♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." 51 past the hour as infrastructure structure negotiations between the white house and senate republicans continue, "the washington post" reports a small bipartisan group of senators is working on a package of its own. senator mitt romney said yesterday the group has come to a pretty close consensus on key elements that focus largely on traditional infrastructure like roads, bridges, trains and

broadband internet. meanwhile, both the white house and senate republicans insist talks are still on going. a group of gop lawmakers plans to present its latest counteroffer to the biden administration tomorrow. speaking to reporters yesterday, republican senator roger wicker called the latest republican plan a very good offer and that it will be close to $1 trillion. joining us now white house editor for politico, sam stein. sam, how close are they to actually having something that could turn into a law? >> not close at all. there are still very wide slots of disagreement on policy, size of the bill, how quickly negotiations should go. even this new bipartisan committee on the hill, the contours of what they're discussing are vastly different than what biden said he will

accept. reports say they will look to user fees to pay for their proposal. hike of gas tax, making electric vehicles subject to that same similar tax. that's something that violates biden's pledge to not raise taxes on people earning under $400,000 a year. it's hard to imagine that he would simply drop that corner stone of his campaign tax policy just for this one instance to get a deal. in fact, that's a signal they will not do that. on the republican counteroffer, they say they're going to come up to a billion dollars, the question is, will they use unused covid relief funds? what past couple months ago they used that money to fund infrastructure, that's a non-starter for the white house just in the same vain the republicans say, look, the white house said they came down $500 billion from their offer, in fact, they diverted and shifted a lot of that money to other legislative initiatives. that's not a concession. that's just money counting. the two sides are really at this

point still feeling each other out. it's hard to imagine they can bridge these divides in the next couple weeks. they're going to try because for purposes of optics and who knows what happens, you got to give it an effort, but i do think a lot of what this is all about is biden trying to convince not republicans but skeptical democrats that he put in a good faith effort to good a bipartisan negotiation so if it does come down it to, he can turn to them and say look, i tried. now we need to go the route of reconciliation so we can do it with only democratic support in the senate. >> sam, as you know, democrats i talked to and democrats you talked to i'm sure have felt from the beginning, look, republicans are not going to go along with a tax hike. they said that explicitly. why are we wasting our time with these negotiations. they're going to draw this out and never going to raise taxes as you say. now this next proposal wants to pull from covid relief funds from the previous legislation, non-starter for democrats and for the white house. so, is this at the end of the day going to end up where it was at the beginning with democrats only voting on a party line to

push it through in reconciliation? >> if you're a betting man and i know that you are -- >> yes. >> i would say yes put money on that outcome. i think the odds are pretty strong at this point that's the rout they end up taking. there is one other route that has not been explored and probably won't be explored but that is to simply deficit finance this thing. don't include a full slate of pay-fors. maybe raise revenue here and there and do tax enforcement at the irs, but if the complications are they don't want user fees raised and republicans don't want taxes raised, no one on the hill is considering that and the white house is genuinely, generally ruled that out. so, yeah, i think at this point you have to imagine that you are looking at a democratic-only approach in a couple weeks if not month's time. >> boy, let's hope that's not the case.

i say let's hope that's not the case because it has been too long since washington has worked together, since republicans and democrats have put aside their tribal differences and actually made congress work the way it was supposed to work. i mean, you look from 2010 to 2020, almost everything that's passed through has passed through on partisan votes. one side can blame the other. i guess if we really wanted to we could back to robert boric's nomination to the supreme court. maybe you go back to watergate. i don't know where it starts. but hopefully it ends here. hopefully -- i mean -- >> this is one issue where, isn't it not hard to agree that we could, you know, we could perhaps catch up on infrastructure with some other countries? >> i think so. and again, are there differences between the two sides? yes. there have always been

differences between republicans and democrats. often really significant differences. that's why they sit down and they keep negotiating. my gosh, can you imagine if we could get an infrastructure bill, if we could get a police reform bill, if we could get a one sixth commission bipartisan agreement? that would change the way americans think about congress. it really would. democrats, the progressives aren't going to be happy with everything. the insurrectionists parties not going to be happy with everything. but republicans, mainstream republicans will like it. democrats, mainstream democrats will like it. and i think at the end of the day that helps them back in their home districts. that helps them back in their home states. they can say, look, i can work with the other side to get things done for you. >> right. >> that's a strong message. still ahead, a new

front-runner catapults into the head of the pack to be new york city's new mayor. andrew yang falls to third place. we'll talk to brooklyn borough president eric adams. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪♪ ck ♪ cal: our confident forever plan is possible with a cfp® professional. a cfp® professional can help you build a complete financial plan. visit letsmakeaplan.org to find your cfp® professional. ♪♪

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♪♪ i'm looking back and looking forward to getting back to new york, joe. live look at times square, top of the hour. >> we are atop of willie, as you know, in our apartment atop of 30 rock. >> no. >> top of the rock. that's where we've been for the entire -- there we are. we're in the clouds. >> nope, nope. >> right, willie? right? >> yep. >> so when mika says back to new york, what she's saying -- >> we are coming back to new york. >> we want to get -- go back to

schenectady, new york. we haven't been out of the city much. look at that. willie, are you a matrix fan? >> sure. >> yeah. this is when they go above the clouds. >> see the sun for a second? it's beautiful and then crash and everybody dies. if you haven't seen matrix, you should. >> you got that studio apartment up on the top of 30 rock with the murphy bed when you walk in, you pull it out of the wall and it's got a hot plate. it's classic first apartment new york living. it's tight but the views are fantastic. >> yeah. >> but i get a red phone on the wall. i pick it up. it goes to otb. i can make my bets. they fire me to, you know. yeah. it's a pretty good life. i'm not going to lie. we're just above the clouds. >> in all reality, we're coming back to new york very soon. we're so excited to see our staff and to see the news room and to be on the set. we're looking forward to it. we really are. we can sit next to each other.

>> that will be great. >> okay. >> looking forward to that. >> politico sam stein still with us. >> can i wear my sweater? >> if you could dress up when we go to new york. look how nice mike barnicle looks this morning. always so handsome. >> thank you. >> there's sam, too. he looks good. >> thank you. >> let's start with more good news in the fight against the coronavirus. 50% of adults in the u.s. are now fully vaccinated. nearly 130 million americans have fully completed their vaccine regimen since the rollout started in december. according to the latest data from the cdc, nearly 5 million adolescents have received at least one dose since the fda gave the pfizer vaccine emergency use authorization. so, willie, we're getting there. >> yeah. meanwhile more good news for kids and their families. pharmaceutical company moderna announced its covid-19 vaccine produces the same protective immune response in teenagers as it does in adults. the company said it plans to

submit the data to the food and drug administration for review as early as next week. more than 3,700 adolescents between the age of 12 and 17 took part in the company's clinical trial. so joe, you put that together, moderna if they get emergency use authorization with what we've already had from pfizer for the last several weeks, it looks like great news for schools being opened fully in the fall. >> yeah. >> yeah. great news for schools being opened fully in the fall. they should -- again, we'll just keep saying this over and over again, dr. fauci said several months ago, they should all be open. dr. gottlieb have said the same thing. >> we're getting there. >> these vaccines are a lot of help of parents who want to send their kids to summer camp and want to make sure their kids are safe at summer camp. mike, it's all act getting to that number, that herd immunity number, 75% or so. i know i've got some friends that are like, wait, why do you want kids to get vaccines when it's unlikely that they're going to get it? again, the whole idea is you

want to get as close to 75%, 80% herd immunity as you can. what's interesting to me, mike, is people are using arguments against this vaccine, acting as if this is the first time americans have ever been vaccinated. and you say, you know, your children, before they go to school, they've got to get about four or five vaccines and don't let them in school. yes, they do. all 50 states. and you can go down the list. and very, very, very unlikely that children are going to get many of the diseases that they're vaccinated for. but they're getting vaccinated because they want to stamp out the disease once and for all and it's all about numbers. >> yeah. it's all about numbers. it's also about something else, as with everything in this

country, there are the anti-vaxers. there's always an anti-this or an anti-that in this country. that's part of who we are. but also part of who we are -- and i would submit it's a grossly underreported story at this point in time given everything that's going on in our politics, but the idea as willie just mentioned that pfizer might be able to provide vaccine for children as young as 2 this fall, i just saw that the other day in the paper. so, the expanding universe of people who have been vaccinated, i would submit again is nothing less than a miracle. a year ago look where we were a year ago. deupon dent, depressed, convinced that we were going to be inherently and perhaps for many, many years led to live indoors away from the virus, but now here we are on the verge of these increasing, increasing steps in progress. once the schools reopen this september, you know, it's going

to be a whole new world opening up again for people who have been shuttered and left apart from their employment, led sheltered lives in the sense. the vaccine has done all of that for us. and we should talk about it more in pride and in reality. all right. we're going to move now to the new washington post reporting that manhattan district attorney cyrus vance has convened a special grand jury to decide whether to bring criminal charges against former president donald trump. other executives at his company, or the company itself. sources say prosecutors and investigators are scrutinizing trump's business practices before he was president, including whether the value of specific properties in the trump organization's real estate portfolio were manipulated in a way that defrauded banks and insurance companies and if any tax benefits were obtained illegally through unscrupulous

asset valuation. the trump organization has denied any wrong doing. joining us now, business reporter at "the washington post," jonathan o'connell who contributed to the post reporting and former u.s. attorney now an nbc news law enforcement analyst, chuck rosenburg. jonathan, in terms of the scope of what we know so far about this grand jury, what or who might they be looking at in terms of charges that could potentially be brought forward? explain the details in terms of trying to gather the evidence whether it be around trump or maybe someone close to trump. >> sure. the d.a. made clear this is a pretty wide-ranging inquiry into many different practices of trump's business. we have the eight years of trump's tax returns now after a very long fight to get them that began while trump was still president. there's sort of two categories of interest that we sort of know about right now.

one is a as you mentioned the way that trump valuuates his properties. if you say to the people who assess your real estate and the tax appraisers that it's worth a very low number, then go to banks and insurance companies say it's worth a high number or a different number, you do that in a way where you knowingly are violating tax laws, that's problematic. and we do not know whether trump did that or not or whether anybody at his company did that but we know that the investigators are interested in that. the other thing that they have shown some evidence of their inquiry is around the trump's chief financial officer allen weisselberg, this is somebody who is extremely close with mr. trump and his family. he's been involved in the company for many, many years. he's described by michael cohen and others as somebody who intimately knows every detail of every financial transaction that the company does. so the investigators are looking very closely at mr. weisselberg

also but we don't know to what end. are they hoping to charge president trump with a crime directly, hoping to charge allen weisselberg or charge the company with a crime also if they bring charges at all which so far they have not. >> chuck, as jonathan says, we don't know much about what's going on inside that grand jury room. grand juries for good reason are kind of black boxes. but based on what you've heard and what you've read in this washington post piece, we don't know who the target is. we don't know if there are alleged crimes against donald trump. we don't know if it's allen weisselberg, the trump organization, someone in the orbit. but based on what you've seen, what you know and what cy vance the manhattan district attorney has been looking into, what are the possibilities here? >> sure. lots of possibilities, willie. i think jonathan summed it up nicely. tax fraud, bank fraud are all on the table. they could charge individuals. they could charge an organization. they could charge some people and then others later as they amass evidence. the important thing to remember is that at least in this case the grand jury is probably not

new. the way prosecutors obtain evidence is by issuing subpoenas in the name of a grand jury. and so that's been going on for some time, i imagine. for instance, if we wanted your bank records, willie, not that i want your bank records, and i was a prosecutor, we would issue a grand jury subpoena to your bank in order to get them. what's different now is that they are likely going to start using the grand jury to do what we call lock in testimony. let me give you an example. if for some instance the color of the light mattered at an intersection and you say it as green, willie. and you told an fbi agent it was green and we put you in the grand jury and you said it was green. that's all well and good. but fast forward to trial where perhaps you're nervous or scared or someone got to you and got you to change your story and when you're asked the color of the light you say it's red. that's not the truth. that's not what you saw. that's not what it was. a prosecutor could use your grand jury testimony, the light

was green, i saw it was green as substantive evidence at the trial that the light was green. that's why the grand jury is so very important here. you can lock in testimony. and i imagine that they are now using the grand jury not just to get records like we discussed a moment ago but also to lock down testimony. >> hey, jonathan, i have a question for you and then, chuck, i have a question for you. jonathan, for you, from your reporting is there any indication that trump's children who are obviously intimately involved in the trump organization, have faced some legal susceptibility here, that they're being targeted in any way or form. then chuck, for you, would this grand news of grand jury and/or trump's on going legal problems compel him in a way to continue or get back into electoral politics to the degree that he might believe it inoculates himself legally, that it can

protect him? or is this because it's a state matter irrelevant to the discussion? >> the basic answer regarding trump's grown children is we don't know. however, latitia james, the new york attorney general working on bringing a case against the trumps has made clear that he is particularly interested in one real estate deal, the seven springs like a tax season, conservation he met, the seven springs estate that the trumps own. if you look at her court filings on that she specifically points to some of eric trump's actions in regard to the tax break they got there. is that enough to say that eric trump is in trouble? no. she looked very closely at it. eric trump was running that project for the trump organization. the trump family historically would take charge of one project, ivanka take charge of another project and when they get close to something they work together. do we know directly if there's any evidence against the trump

children, we do not. >> sam, you asked a really interesting question. the fact that he's under investigation compel mr. trump to get back into politics? well, as a sitting president you can't be charged federally. that's policy not law. but there's nothing that would preclude a state from charging a sitting president, at least by policy. now, a sitting president could raise all sorts of constitutional and legal objections to being prosecuted while in office. but that seems like a pretty flimsy read to run on. please vote for me so i don't get charged with a crime in new york state. >> jonathan o'connell, thank you so much for being with us. we really appreciate it. hey, chuck, can i just ask you a general question that we've been talking about here for the past month or so, over the past five years we have seen one leak from another from whether it's the

fbi or whether it's state attorney generals or from whatever sources that have basically, you know, suggested jared kushner was going to jail, don jr. was going to jail, donald trump was going to jail, you know, matt gaetz probably been a thousand headlines that had matt gaetz and the word sex trafficking in the same headline. what happens if he's not convicted of sex trafficking, exactly where do you go to expunge those thousands of headlines. hillary clinton supporters will tell you for a year and a half there were people inside the fbi that were leaking about her emails, then leaking act the clinton foundation, leaking that she was going to be going to jail, 56% of americans thought she should have been indicted based on all of those leaks. so, chuck, at what point -- so now we have this. it's a story. i know we got -- >> he's responded to it, president trump. >> he has responded to it,

president trump. he's confirming that that investigation is under way. but as a prosecutor, how much does it disturb you that we just keep doing this? that people inside of agencies keep doing it. they did it to karl rove. i always said every friday i think it was the summer of 2007 i would get a call, hey, you need to get back to the office. karl rove is going to be indicted today. never came. right. everybody said karl rove was going to be indicted and that hung over his head for some time. how do we do this better? and it's not just the fbi, the cia does it when they want to go to war or when they don't want to go to war or when they want to get this politician or they don't want to get that politician. how do we do a better job of sorting through this? >> joe, it's a great question and it's not an easy answer. my experience leaks come from all sorts of places. sometimes inside the government. sometimes from defense attorneys outside the government.

but willie alluded to this earlier and it's a point worth stressing. the reason grand juries operate in secret, to your point, joe, there's nowhere to go to get your reputation back once it's been publicly discussed that you're a criminal and you're under investigation whether or not you've been charged. we do investigations in secret to protect people who we are investigating but ultimately not charging. and if we do charge, of course, they can answer in open court. so as a prosecutor i deplore the leaks, it's unfair, unethical and can also undermine my case if people get a heads up about what i'm doing or who i'm talking to or what evidence i'm seeking, evidence can disappear, witnesses can change stories. and so whether you're talking about it from a practical, legal, moral or ethical standpoint, these leaks are deeply, deeply unfair and unsettling. i'll also say this, there's a

really interesting side debate in federal law enforcement and media about whether law enforcement ought to prosecute leaks. sometimes to prosecute leaks we need to get records from journalists, not journalists who are targets of the investigation but journalists who spoke to the leaker. the leaker is the person who is under investigation. the leaker is the one who either violated grand jury secrecy rules or disclosed classified information. so, i would say this and i would say it kindly and respectfully the media can't have it both ways. they can't always report on leaks and then object when leaks are being investigated. >> indeed. >> former u.s. attorney chuck rosenberg, thank you very much for coming on this morning. coming up, does president biden legitimize vladimir putin by meeting with him face to face? one of our next guests thinks so and says a high-level summit will only make the russian leader's behavior get worse. we're going to talk to garry

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so you know vladimir putin. you think he's a killer? >> uh-huh, i do. >> what price must he pay. >> the price he's going to pay you'll see shortly. he had a long talk, he and i. i know him relatively well. and the conversation started off i said, i know you and you know me. if i establish this occurred, then be prepared. >> you said you know he doesn't have a soul. >> i did say that to him, yes. and his response was we understand one another. >> that was president biden back in march. he will be able to deliver that message directly to russian president vladimir putin next month. the two leaders will meet in geneva on june 16th, the white house announced yesterday. the meeting comes at a time when the relationship between the two world powers has grown tense. even more so, president biden imposed new sanctions on russia

last month for interference in u.s. elections. and the hacking of american tech company solar winds. this was after biden called putin a killer. the russian president responded to the sanctions at an annual address in april where he warned the west against crossing what he called russia's redline. joining us now chairman of the renewed democracy initiative, former world chess champion garry kasparov. good to see you. you are against this meeting. you say it offers vladimir putin too much. it puts him on the stage with the world's great power. why specifically do you think joe biden should not hold this meeting with putin? >> because america has nothing to gain out of this meeting. and the only value is for putin, face to face meeting with joe biden, the leader of the free world, proves that putin is still the big boss. that's the message that putin desperately needs to send to his cronies and henchmen because

after biden called him a killer, and that's a very strong statement that you just aired, putin's reputation was shattered. dictator needs to demonstrate to his country and to the rest of the world he's the aura of invincebility. there's nothing america can gain out of this meeting. we can see that putin keeps raising stakes and making statements that he would continue increasing this tension with the free world and we will continue this hybrid war. so far, everything putin did from an exization of crimea and many other crimes, backing assad and use of chemical weapons in syria, shutting down the airliner in 2014 and backing belorussian dictator lukashenko

landing a european flight in minsk and kidnapping an opposition journalist, it's all went unpunished and the meeting in geneva will confirm to putin if he keeps raising the stakes, america and europe will always follow the cost. >> garry, what is it about vladimir putin that american presidents underestimate. look during his presidency, george w. bush seen as a hawk on most fronts said he looked into his eyes and saw his soul. mitt romney was mocked roundly by barack obama by identifying russia as our major geopolitical threat. donald trump obviously deferred to vladimir putin in helsinki and just about every other chance he got. even saying he trusted the exkgb agent more than he trusted our

intel community at that helsinki press conference. what is it about putin that our presidents always seem to underestimate, to get wrong? >> i would not bring them all together. trump is a separate story and i don't want to waste time talking about trump's strange relations to putin. it's very different from other u.s. presidents. you mentioned george w. bush, but what he said happened in 2001. while he was dead wrong on evaluating putin, he had very little data yet to rely on. >> right, right, right. but in 2008, though, vladimir putin invaded georgia. he invieded a country while bush was president. he invaded ukraine while barack obama was president. again it's so easy for me to sit in the cheap seats in 2021 and judge all these presidents. i understand they were trying to find common ground with him and yet it seems to me with can look

back and look at those examples as warnings for the future. >> absolutely. absolutely. and in 2021 you made this very important point. and if we had any doubts in 2001, i didn't but bush could have. if in 2008 you could find some excuses for war against georgia. i didn't. but after annexing crimea. look at belarus, lukashenko would never have done that without putin's backing. so now offering putin a meeting with no agenda is nothing to discuss, and also you mentioned sanctions. but at the same time, america basically gave a green light, too. putting europe at russia's mercy for gas supply because i understand biden didn't want to spoil the relations with

germany, his policies probably to rebuild relations with european allies, but it's happening at the cost of ukraine and eastern european allies that are very, very concerned about putin's growing strengths and his bellicose policies. >> mike barnicle is with us and has a question for you, garry. >> so, garry, i don't think anyone listening to you would quibble or take any issue with any of the litany of autocratic outrages that belong to vladimir putin that the world has witnessed, but in this case, this meeting is going to take place on june 16th between president biden and president putin. sit not going to be the first time that president putin is going to meet a president of the united states who arguably has more diplomatic experience and diplomatic knowledge of who he's confronting in putin than any of the prior three american presidents combined. joe biden has been around a long

time. he is a tough guy. isn't it about time that a sitting president of the united states looked eyeball to eyeball with vladimir putin and said basically, stop. enough is enough. >> yeah. it's very nice to say stop. he already called him a killer. he doesn't need a meeting, a high-level summit with vladimir putin, with russian dictator, by the way, not president, to confirm it. there's nothing that america will gain out of this meeting. no matter what biden says, putin doesn't care. dictators do not care about words. they care about actions. so far you look at the actions and they're way, way, way behind the words. it's time to walk the walk. biden did the talk. and this meeting will not add much to putin's knowledge of america. it will just convince him if he keeps pushing, so he'll get whatever he wants.

>> so, garry, let's change the subject pretty dramatically, so we -- mika and i saw the queen's gambit, loved it. inspired me to get my youngest son to the chess board. and teach him to play a little bit. so we go back and forth. i understand you are a consultant and actually you had been offered a role there but didn't do it. >> yes. >> decided not to take that role. i'm just curious, what -- if i want to teach my children to play chess more effectively, what do i do? >> oh. you introduce them to the game. that's already the first step. and the rest depends whether they have interest becoming not professional chess players but more involved with the game. and so many options now -- >> i just want them to be able to beat their dad and love the game and don't you have somebody

told me you have -- you actually have a program, don't you? >> no. i just launched kasparov chess, the platform. it's a french-american project. it's the french giant vivendi and st. louis-backed. so i believe that this will offer unique opportunities to study chess, to become part of this global chess community. and it's also based very much on the idea to entertain. educational should be entertaining. and i think that it's no matter how strong you are, no matter what experience you have in chess, you'll find an opportunity to enjoy and be educated on kasparovchess.com. >> very cool. >> so kasparovchess.com. let me ask you a historical question. it seems to me as i read through history, a lot of great leaders

were obsessed with chess. a lot of geopolitical titans -- mika's father absolutely loved chess. we have a big picture. i want to send it to you. a big picture of dr. brzezinski playing chess at camp david. and they were trying to sort of break the tension. and the prime minister of israel comes up and looks at the chess set and goes chess, i haven't played this in years. >> 40 years. >> 40 years. they start playing and the middle of the third game his wife has the poor timing of coming up, i'm so glad you're playing chess. he plays it everyday. and loves it. [ laughter ]. >> but talk about, if you will, just what is it about chess that helps people think more critically and why a lot of leaders, world leaders, played

chess in the past. >> i cannot reveal the secret of the game of chess and its popularity that survived centuries, you know, in a few words. but it seems to me that it's never leaving attraction. today when we have other temptations online, so chess has been steadily gaining ground. you mentioned political leaders. i can say that in so many hollywood movies the way to show the power of the intellect of a character, you know, was to bring a chess board. humphry bogart in cass blanca. one of the james bond antagonist bronson from russia, john wayne playing chess. so it seems to me that chess has this aura of -- it's combination of intellect and psychology that

attracts people. and i'm so grateful for the success of this series the queen's gambit because it's also served as well by destroying the myth about chess being a danger to mental stability of kids and now many parents recognize that contrary to this popular myth, which was unfortunately powered by bobby fisher and great books like chess novel, chess would help to overcome the traits of the character. we saw how beth harmon succeeded in fighting back against dependence on drugs and alcohol. >> the new interactive chess platform is at kasparovchess.com. gary kasparov, thank you. so fascinating. chess is the secret to life and strategy. >> according to your dad. >> oh my god. we all had to play chess with him, and he would just cream -- he was so good at it.

>> yeah. it was a little different in my house, willie. we played ping-pong in mississippi. >> that's the chess game by the way the israeli prime minister at camp david. >> that's an awesome picture. >> i love this picture. look at my dad. he's like, what. wait a minute. >> he's all business there, mika. this is not a fun game of chess. >> yeah. >> no. it's a living hell to play chess with my dad. no. same with tennis, by the way. >> willie, in those ping-pong matches when i was 6, 7 years old, ford fountains apartment in mississippi, my dad would beat us, 21-4. no mercy. george f., he was a lefty. you saw him starting to slam and it was like frazier coming at you with a left hook. >> you moved on. you began playing beer pong a few years later. keep growing. it's all about growth. >> it is all about growth. just like garry said -- >> i'm so triggered right now. coming up, another senate republican expressed his support for a commission to investigate

the january 6th capitol riot. but it appears democrats still have more convincing to do. plus a look at where police reform legislation stands after the family of george floyd met with lawmakers and the president yesterday. "morning joe" is coming right back. >> what's beer pong?

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so, a question. will we see bipartisanship on a number of fronts in washington? ten republicans will need to back the house-passed january 6th commission to get past the filibuster. and republican senator lisa murkowski yesterday became the first republican to announce her support. meanwhile, democratic senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema are pleading with republicans to, quote, work with us on infrastructure while negotiations between the white

house and senate republicans appear to have stalled in recent days. a small bipartisan group of senators is reportedly working on a new package. and on the issue of police reform, senator cory booker said key lawmakers involved in police reform negotiations have made meaningful progress. joining us now host of "way too early" kasie hunt and moderator of "washington week" on pbs, yamiche alcindor and msnbc contributor. kasie, i'll start with you, when they say they're close, do they really mean they're close? what does close mean? are we going to get to bipartisanship on any of these efforts? >> well, mika, there is a pretty different landscape for each one. i'll start with police reform because, of course, we saw those emotional moments with george floyd's daughter at the white house giving the president biden

a hug. it does seem like that is still on track, that it's -- the delay is not a question of things falling apart. it's more that they are optimistic enough about actually getting there that they want some more time to try and work it out. there are still some land mines to navigate. but i think that is something that we may still see progress on. the other things that we're talking about i think are broadly big picture falling back into a lot of the same patterns that we've seen all the way along. infrastructure, we were pretty optimistic about it a week ago, but now you have negotiations on top of negotiations. senator joe manchin is talking with mitt romney and others. it's all becoming very confusing, which usually doesn't bode very well for the overall project. i also think you're really seeing a lot more pressure coming from democratic activists and the left to get a move on. we've -- these negotiations have

gone on now, we're heading into memorial day. that was the deadline. now they're talking about july. democrat activists are looking at the clock and saying we may only get one year to do the things we want to do and there's other things that are incredibly important like voting rights in particular is what they point to. and the january 6th commission is layering on top of that. if republicans aren't even willing to vote to investigate an attack on their own house, many say, what will they negotiate with democrats on? there's new accusations republicans are just trying to stall everything to prevent democrats from getting anything done, mika. >> so, yamiche, anyone who has known joe biden over the years as a senator, a vice president or has covered him would tell you he would prefer to go the way of bipartisanship, he would like to get some republicans on board, he had the oval office meeting, he tried outreach but from the beginning of the process he's known he may have to go alone with just democrats on this bill. at what point, to kasie's point, does he pull the trigger, i hear

you democrats in the senate, i hear you progressives, we can't sit around and wait anymore and have these oval office meetings that go nowhere with republicans. it's time to move with reconciliation. >> well, that is the question really hovering over all of these negotiations. what is the deadline, the real deadline, that democrats and president biden really have in their minds before they start going it alone. you already have senate majority leader chuck schumer and bernie sanders talking to the senate parol min tear yan, talking about reconciliation and senator joe manchin has been a thorn in talking to sources the thorn in the side of democrat's side in the senate. we need to try to continue to negotiate as best we can. we have these splintering groups negotiating, joe manchin being in this group with kirstin cinema. you have those supposed to reporting shows give a deal to

the white house or an offer to the white house that's about $1 trillion. the big question is what are the details. is it new spending or old spending. all of this, though, comes as president biden made very clear, his two redlines were one, not doing anything and, two, raising taxes on americans who make less than $400,000. so this really does become a question of the president leading here. white house officials tell me that he is still very much interested in a bipartisan deal but they also understand, especially coming from the obama years that taking too long on something will anger the democratic activists and could waste time, precious time, that democrats might have. >> kasie, it's sam stein here. i want to jump back to the january 6th commission, which apparently is going to get a vote either this week or next week in the senate. it's quite likely given mcconnell's comments that he doesn't believe that this is a political commission that it's being used politically by democrats quite likely this will

be the first republican filibuster of the biden era. i'm wondering on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being completely fine with something, 10 being utter discomfort, where do -- where is the senate republican caucus on the idea that this might be their very first filibuster? >> honestly, sam, i don't really think that it's something that they're focussed on in the slightest. forgive me, i've screwed up which way your scale is supposed to go, but it's not -- i don't think a consideration. they say, they think, we'll take the heat for this now. fine. it means we won't have to take the heat for it later. now, this has been the way they've approached former president trump for years now. say, well, we'll just put it off. you remember that now infamous quote from the blind republican in the washington post shortly after the election saying, well, what's the harm in indulging him for a little while.

let him have his fights about the election. and now, of course, a few months after that the capitol was stormed by a violent mob of trump supporters. it turns out there is a cost to doing this, but republicans are trying to say, well, we don't want to be talking about that when the mid term elections come up. we want to put this aside. it really seems to me there's at this point not really a chance that they're going to change their minds. i think the question, and this is why i found the statement, the joint statement, from joe manchin and kyrsten sinema to be so interesting is that it may put more pressure on democrats to move and actually get rid of the filibuster. this plea that they are making is unusual and interesting to me in this regard. manchin has been absolutely redline in the sand no way, no how am i changing the filibuster, but this is a pretty unexpected in many ways case. right after the attack, everyone seemed to be relatively on the same page a commission was needed. you've now got senators collins, murkowski and romney saying,

yeah, we need to do this. so that actually i think may put some more pressure on democrats, especially from the left who are going to look at this and say, republicans really aren't even going to work with you on that? come on now. >> yeah. and manchin said as recently as yesterday, absolutely not to getting rid of the filibuster. mike barnicle has a question for you, a yamiche. mike? >> no matter what we talk about, no matter what issue is raised whether it's the january 6th commission, infrastructure willie just mentioned, how to pay for infrastructure, which has been mentioned all day and everyday. then end game all you hear is joe manchin, joe manchin, joe manchin but isn't the real impediment to any of this happening mitch mcconnell? >> well, it's an important question, mike. it really is this idea that joe -- that it's this idea that senator man chin -- i'm sorry. it's this idea that mitch mcconnell, the senate minority leader is still in some ways

acting like the majority leader that he is wielding this veto power. this idea you can't get 60 votes in the senate that mitch mcconnell will come out essentially and make a big deal about it. will oppose it very vocally, will use it as an ax to grind against democrats. i should say joe manchin, though, is still someone to watch, especially kyrsten sinema as well. these are democrats who are in some ways really wielding power in washington, wielding power in the way that democrats can move forward. there's this democratic majority in the senate. but when you look really closely, joe manchin and kyrsten sinema are at the center of anything they want to do. that being said, of course mitch mcconnell and his ability to both condemn president trump but also not back this commission. his double speak, his ability to kind of wield power in this way and whip votes and make sure that his -- that the democrats -- i should say the democrats really have a problem here and that republicans follow suit, he is continuing to have a

lot of power. it is a good question. i think mitch mcconnell is still someone who is having so much influence over what happens in the senate and what goes through the senate. >> all right. yamiche alcindor and kasie hunt, thank you both very much for your report ogen the show this you for your reporting on the show this morning. one of our next guests is the top lawyer from the administration and the justice department is making a mistake by keeping secret memo of donald trump and neil joins ahead to explain on "morning joe."

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plus, for a limited time, ask how to get a $500 prepaid ca 54 past the hour. live look at the white house. president biden has tapped former deputy secretary of state tom nides to be the u.s. ambassador to israel. white house officials tell this to nbc news.

administration official says nides has already been offered the position, however it's unclear when the white house is exactly planning on announcing the nomination. news of his selection comes as secretary of state anthony blinken is traveling to israel and the west bank amid the recent conflict in the middle east. and for the first time in history, the civil rights division of the department of justice will be led by a black woman. the senate confirmed kristen clarke as the assistant attorney general for civil rights in a tight 51-48 vote. senator susan collins of maine was the only republican to vote in favor of clarke. clarke previously led the civil rights bureau at the new york attorney general's office. she was sworn in to lead the division by vice president harris yesterday on the anniversary of george floyd's murder. that's an amazing picture. coming up, the criminal

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>> yes. >> was that done with the president's knowledge or direction? >> everything was done with the knowledge and at the direction of mr. trump. >> do you think we need to review his financial statements and his tax returns in order to compare them? >> yes and you'd find it at the trump org. >> quote, you'll find it at the trump org. former attorney michael cohen laying out a road map that investigators investigating the former president now appear to be following. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday may 26th. "the washington post" reported late yesterday that manhattan district attorney has convened a special grand jury to decide whether to bring criminal charges against former president donald trump, other executives at his company or the company itself. according to "the post" the move indicates that after a more than two-year investigation with a

lengthy legal battle for trump's tax returns, vance believes he may have found evidence of a crime somewhere in the trump organization. the panel will sit for three days a week for the next six months longer than a traditional new york jury assignment. people familiar with the matter told the paper. these sources say that democratic prosecutors, investigators are scrutinizing trump's business practices before he was president, including whether the value of specific properties in the trump organization's real estate portfolio were manipulated in a way that defrauded banks and insurance companies and if any tax benefits were obtained illegally through unscrupulous asset valuation. they're also looking into untaxed compensation to the company's chief financial officer, alan.

a lawyer for weiselberg declined to comment but former president trump issued a lengthy statement last night calling the grand jury, quote, a continuation of the greatest witch-hunt in american history. somewhat confirming that it's happening. the trump organization has denied any wrongdoing. let's bring in one of the reporters behind this story, investigative reporter for "washington post" david farenthal and professor at law at georgetown university paul butler is with us. >> david, thank you for being with us and bringing this reporting to us. what else can you tell us about this story? >> well, we don't really know exactly who the target of this investigation is. we know the trump organization is the target, we don't know who they're going to present against indictments against. this is moved to a different phase after spending more than two years gathering evidence, at

the phase where the d.a. wants to go in front of a grand jury and marshalling that evidence towards proven probable cause and they have a long time do it, they have six months to do it and that's where they think they are and surprising and notable development. >> any idea why this one is six months long? why this grand jury is longer than most grand juries? >> we're told that when you're dealing with fraud cases and public corruption cases and lots of moving pieces you want a grand jury long enough to sit and hear all of that. probably hear more evidence than jury in a courtroom would. you want people to come back and hear all the pieces. i imagine in this case they'll hear from appraisers, accountants and all kinds of people. there's different pieces to this and every piece of it is complicated. they'll hear from a lot of folks making complicated cases one after the other. >> david, more than anybody else

in journalism you have completely immersed yourself in all things trump as it pertained to financing both before he was in the white house and while he was in the white house. what do you suspect and, of course, i have made it very clear to my audience that i absolutely, you know, i loathe the fact that for the past five years, there's a leak and everybody immediately thinks somebody is going to jail. i ask this question not presupposing that donald trump is going to be indicted but somebody who knows this material better than anybody else in journalism, where do you suspect investigators are going to be looking. where have they been looking based on your reporting and what do you believe is at issue for vance and his team to decide whether a charge is brought or not? >> well, we know from other public filings and from subpoenas we reviewed that the d.a. is interested at least in

the same transactions that the new york attorney general has been talking about. transactions where he valued quite high so people would think he is a good credit risk and devalue to save on his taxes and one case he got $100 million plus for debt forgiven and questions whether he paid the proper income tax. there is a whole universe of evidence we haven't seen yet which is from trump's tax gottet much information about trump's finances. there were a lot of problems in the little bit that i've seen. so a lot more problems in the millions of pages. the key for the d.a. is that they're going to go after -- >> i'm sorry. go ahead. >> the key if they're going to go after donald trump personally is prove intent. the isis a complicated case and trump is going to say i relied on my lawyers or my accountants

and find statements and witnesses and documents and show that trump knew what he was doing and did it anyway. >> one piece of property that keeps coming up north of the city. talk about that property and why that seems to always come up in these stories and investigations into donald trump's're right. i spent a lot of time covering the trump administration called seven springs a big estate up in westchester, new york. used to be owned by the people who own "washington post" years ago. trump hasn't gone there for years and years and years. it's used to store old furniture. but it's gotten trump in a lot of trouble because in 2015, trump got what's called a conversation easement on that property. i am not going to develop this into houses and i want a tax break and he got a $21 million tax break. the problem was, he didn't have

the permissions to build those houses and he had not got on the permissions he wanted. the question is, did he lie to taxing authorities? did he exaggerate the value there was in that land in order to get the giant tax break? that is one of the properties under scrutiny by the attorney general and the d.a. >> he bought that place, joe, in 1995 for $7.5 million and appraised for $56.5 million. >> oh, wow, okay. >> barbara mcquaid, put on your prosecutor's hat for a moment and take a step back for our viewers and explain what it takes for a prosecutor to convene and impanel a grand jury. it would appear he believes there was a crime committed to underlie what joe said, we don't know if it's donald trump or someone else in his orbit. what would it take to seat a grand jury in this case? >> well, a grand jury has both a charging function and an investigative function. so as long as vance believes he has credible allegations that a

crime may have been committed, that's a sufficient basis to convene this grand jury. but i think it's a significant step because we've long known that vance has documents. he has now likely completed his review of those documents. if there was nothing there and nothing to suggest a crime was committed, no need to convene this grand jury. the fact that he has says to me that he has found sufficient evidence in those documents to believe he should take that next step. in new york it's necessary to present all of the evidence before a grand jury. it's not enough to rely on hearsay the way it is in federal court. they need to hear from enough witnesses to be convinced that there's probably cause that a crime has occurred. that could take some time when we talk about the six months to see the documents and hear from the witnesses. but it also performs that investigative function. so it could be necessary to put people before the grand jury to compel their testimony. either with the subpoena or for

witnesses who may be reluctant to work out deals with them. some cooperation deal where they'll get a recommendation of leniency in exchange for coming in and testifying. all of those things are likely to occur in the next six months. >> paul butler, what's a reasonable expectation in terms of a timeline here. we know these grand juries sit and they hear evidence for other cases, as well. they're not seated to hear just the evidence into the trump organization, what might we expect here? when will we hear there are charges and what will we learn soon? >> grand juries are secret. there's no real way of knowing, willie, exact that this grand jury has been impaneled for six months but that could be extended. at early investigation grand jury, as barbara said, subpoena evidence. now it sounds like this is at the stage where the district attorney believes there's probable cause to charge some

thing like the trump organization or someone with a crime. and with corporate crimes people insulate themselves so the middle managers get blamed. the interesting thing about the trump organization is reportedly all the decisionmaking was consolidated at the top with donald trump senior, donald trump jr., ivanka and those are the people who the grand jurors will be focused on. >> professor butler, if you studied michael cohen's description of how trump operates, he often doesn't say much, but he indicates in somewhat of an unspoken language to what his middle manager should do and end up shouldering a lot of the problems. explain as if you're explaining to your students, what will happen in this grand jury and

how weisselberg could be a focus of the investigation or useful against former president donald trump. >> so, the prosecutors will use the grand jury to tell a story and they'll have a lot more evidence than would be admissible if this were a regular trial and in the grand jury, you don't have to present any of the defense. so, it will be both pro-prosecution story but also one designed to see if this case goes to trial and we charge the trump organization, we charge individuals and then is that an air tight case? because, mika, you don't charge the organization of the former president and you certainly don't charge the former president or his family members with the crime unless it's a slam dunk. unless you know you can win. still ahead, why the gop is

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to protect every device on it— all backed by a dedicated team, 24/7. every day in business is a big day. we'll keep you ready for what's next. comcast business powering possibilities. there are some new developments surrounding the legislation to investigate the january 6th attack of the capitol. ten republicans will need to back the house-passed resolution to get past the filibuster and republican senator lisa murkowski yesterday became the first republican to announce her support. senator mitt romney reiterated his support yesterday. if changes requested by susan collins are included in the final legislation, those requested revisions only slightly differ from the democrats outline. senator collins wants to change the way the committee would

select staff. collins thinks the committee chair and vice chair should hire staffers together rather than hiring staff in consultation with the vice chair. the change would give slightly more power to the republican appointed vice chair and the gangor daily news used language directly drawn from the bill that created a commission to investigate the 9/11 attacks, which collins has said should be a model. meanwhile, two of the democratic hold outs on abolishing the filibuster senators joe manchin and kkysten sinema adding it isa critical step ensuring our nation never has to endure an attack at the hands of our countrymen again. but senator mitch mcconnell is still not on board. >> i think this is a political

exercise that adds nuthing to the sum total of information. it doesn't allow anyone to get away with anything. all the aspects are being dealt with in one way or another already. >> so, willie, one person who strongly disagrees with that and has let mitch mcconnell know that. based on my reporting is senator joe manchin who has told several republicans that he wants to work with him. he is bending over backwards to negotiate with him. bending over backwards to make sure there is bipartisanship and joe manchin's opinion based on several sources is, okay, we can debate the outen al outlines of infrastructure bill. i get that. debate the outlines of police reform bill. different people have different views. we can debate covid relief. but for joe manchin, he believes

this is about, he believes this is not about politics, this is about america. this is about the country. this is about protecting what is most sacred. and i just, i don't know. based on what i'm hearing, joe manchin expects republicans to meet him half way and not block this 9/11-style commission. >> no question about it and he doesn't want to go to the nuclear option and get rid of the filibuster. he wants to talk this out and get 60 total votes for this, which would mean he needs ten republicans on board. you have to ask, joe, what are republicans afraid of. if you look inside the proposal and inside this plan, the commission calls for a ten-person panel split evenly between the parties. so, they're talking about this being politically driven and a political stunt but you're going to have half the panel representing their point of view. jonah goldberg has a new column for "l.a. times" why the gop is

terrified of the january 6th commission. jonah writes this, quote, it's amazing how easily the republicans can see how the rhetoric of blm activists can create a permission structure for violence but become utterly blind at the same time when it comes to the seat of the government. there are many legitimate arguments against the special commission to study january 6th. congress has the power to investigate already and is doing so. many democrats want to use the commission to score partisan points. hundreds of criminal cases under way and congress should be reluctant to muck with them. he goes on, the problem with all of such arguments, though, often made in good faith by conservative writers, is they have nothing to do with why elected republicans don't want a commission. all pretext designed to distract from the fact that most of the gop is terrified of contradicting the false narrative still being pedaled by trump and embraced by his core supporters. it's absolutely true his supporters are mostly peaceful, but that misses the point

entirely and deliberately, joe. that's jonah goldberg writing in "l.a. times." >> great points from jonah, as usual. there are areas that can still be negotiated. susan collins as her local newspaper said, is concerned about staffing. good reason at the beginning. you know, this commission at the beginning the proposal was seven democrats, four republicans. all democratic staff. and we said on this show there was no reason why republicans should support a commission that was that slanted. now it's down the middle. now you also have, again, negotiations on the staffing. i think, again, people should set this up the way the 9/11 commission was set up. talk a little bit more about staffing. there could be negotiations here but right now, mika, it just

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as infrastructure negotiations between the white house and senate republicans continue, "the washington post" reports a small bipartisan group of senators is working on a package of its own. senator mitt romney said yesterday the group has come to a pretty close consensus on key elements that focus largely on traditional infrastructure like roads, bridges, trains and

broadband internet. meanwhile, both the white house and senate republicans insist talks are still ongoing. a group of gop lawmakers plans to present its latest counteroffer to the biden administration tomorrow. speaking to reporters yesterday, republican senator roger wicker called the latest republican plan a very good offer and that it will be close to $1 trillion. joining us now white house editor for politico sam stein. sam, how close are they to actually having something that could turn into a law? >> not close. at all. there are still very wide slots of disagreement on policy, size of the bill, how quickly negotiation should go. even this new bipartisan committee on the hill. for instance, the reports say they will look to user fees to

pay for the proposal. user fees could be in the form on hike of gas tax and making electric vehicles same to that similar tax and that is something that violates to not raise taxes on people earning less than $400,000 a year. it is hard to imagine that he would drop that cornerstone of his campaign tax policy just for this one instance to get a deal. in fact, the white house is signaling they will not do that. on the republican counteroffer they will come up to $1 billion. the question is, will they use unused covid relief funds. what passed a couple months ago and use that money to fund infrastructure. that is a nonstarter for the white house just in the same vain, the white house said it came down $500 billion from their offer and, in fact, diverted and shifted a lot of money to other legislaive initiatives. that's not a concession just funding accounting. the two sides at this point are

still feeling each other out and they're going to try to bridge these divides for purposes of optics and who knows what happens, you have to give it an effort. i think a lot about what this is about biden trying to convince not republicans but skeptical democrats that he put in the good faith effort to get a bipartisan negotiation so that it if it does come down to it, he can turn to them and say, look, we tried and go to reconciliation so we can do it with only democratic support in the senate. "new york times" says our next guest is gaining steam in the race to run the mayor's largest city. eric adams joins the conversation next on "morning joe."

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welcome back to "morning joe." 8:33 on the east coast. the united states hit another major milestone in the fight against covid. 50% of all adults are now fully vaccinated and still a major push to get shots in arms with some states getting very creative, that includes ohio which is announcing the first winner of its million dollar vaccine lottery tonight. nbc news correspondent morgan radford joins us live from columbus, ohio. hey, morgan. >> hey, there, willie. good morning. that's right. some lucky winner is going to see their fortune change tonight, willie. that winner is going to be announced at 7:39 p.m. simply put when i spoke to governor dewine he said this vaccination incentive lottery program is working. already 5 million ohioans have been vaccinated and already 3 million have entered that brand-new lottery. the truth is, willie, just one

of several incentives across the country to get people fully and completely vaccinated. this morning, good news and hope ahead of the first holiday weekend of the summer. covid infections down to levels not seen since last june and the u.s. hitting a major milestone tuesday with half of all adults now fully vaccinated. as states push to get shots in arms for the rest, for more than $2.7 million ohio residents, their covid vaccinations aren't just their ticket to immunity, but maybe a million dollars. what do you think about the vaximillion here in ohio? >> it's pretty cool. >> reporter: for people who have gotten at least their first dose. for those under 18, they could win a full scholarship to any ohio state college or university. did the ohio lottery play a role

at all in your decision to come get vaccinations? >> extra motivation. >> reporter: state lawmakers say it's a waste of taxpayer money and the governor says it's working. >> we increased the number of people getting vaccinated by 45%. we have seen the most increase in vaccinations is those 16 and 17 year olds. 94% increase among that age group. so, that's very exciting. >> reporter: ohio is one of many states and companies offering incentives to boost vaccinations. delaware becoming the latest state to announce a vaccine lottery and in west virginia people 16 to 35 can get $1,000 savings bonds. a chance to win free flights and it appears to be paying off as the u.s. hits that 50% vaccinated milestone for adults. moderna also announcing its vaccine is 100% effective in kids ages 12 to 17. if authorized for use, it would

be the second vaccine available to younger americans. another step towards getting the country back on its feet. so this is just the first of five weekly drawings. when i asked the governor why he chose this particular incentive structure as opposed to say free beers or free city bike rides like you're seeing in other states, he is trying to focus on the people who are feeling a little overwhelmed and little scared who are right there in the middle and he says he needs something that is big or something bigger at stake than even just their health to get them finally, fully vaccinated, willie. >> it's catching on. they're giving scratch-off tickets and broadway tickets, concert tickets. morgan radford, it's working. thanks so much. mika. back now to the new "washington post" report that we've been talking about this morning that new york prosecutors have convened a special grand jury to hear evidence against the trump

organization. former president trump is calling it a continuation of the greatest witch-hunt in american history. joining us now former acting u.s. solicitor general and now msnbc legal contributor neal katyal and justice reporter for "new york times" katie benner. msnbc contributor, as well. neal, talk about exactly what the grand jury is looking at as far as we know and given that trump has responded it is somewhat confirming this is happening but taking place three days a week for six months looking at what? >> it's early, but i think it's a potential sign that it looks like donald trump is moving on from the presidency to his next turn on tv which is as a defendant. and no president, no former president has ever been charged with a crime. we don't know that that's what the grand jury is investigating

now. we know they're investigating the trump organization and within it and donald trump headed that organization and an indictment of donald trump would close the list of donald trump's long list of presidential firsts being impeached two times and starting an insurrection. this grand jury is meeting a few times a week to bring witnesses in and investigative tools and prosecutors don't start them unless they have serious evidence, particularly if you're talking about the possibility of an investigation against the former president. and they operate in secret. so, you go in alone if you've been called to the grand jury. you don't even get to bring your lawyer in there and that's very significant because it's really a tool against the mob which would pay lawyers and then tell them what to say. here if you're a witness, if you're a cooperating witness perhaps allen weisselberg or a member of his family or something like that you go in

and tell the truth without the fear that the higher ups in the organization will find out what you said. so, ultimately, they have the power to investigate on their own. >> so, katie, just as a refresher for our viewers, when we're looking at the trump organization, who are the major players who are going to be investigated here most likely? >> well, the major player that we know is allen weisselberg who basically ran all the finances for the trump organization. keep in mind one of the thing we know prosecutors aric looing at are whether or not the trump organization misvalued its assets to make gains in some places and in order to pay lower taxes. so, if they're looking at financial, something like allen weisselberg would be essential and whether any executives to represent the misvalue of the

trump organization properties and that could include donald trump's children and donald trump himself. allen weisselberg is a key witness and someone they would want to get to flip. >> katie, can you give us some background on how successful it is in other cases when a person running the company point to the cfo and tries to blame them. like, for instance, is it possible that allen weisselberg could be the fall guy here for donald trump? >> it is possible that allen weisselberg, if the case could end with allen and the prosecutor could not find compelling evidence that anybody beyond weisselberg and if he refuses to cooperate, the case could stop with him. keep in mind the jailtime could come with certain financial crimes and a lot of pressure on him. a man in his 70s and incentives to not go to jail and spend the last few years of your life there and we don't know what they have in terms of documents

and other records that show he is not the only person to know. >> neal katyal, mike barnicle has a question for you. mike. >> neal, could you explain the differences between a federal grand jury and in this case a new york grand jury and the grand jury is it an existing grand jury or a new grand jury impanelled. do we know that? >> it looks like they impaneled or empowered a grand jury with this new set of questions. they've dedicated a significant amount of time, three days per week to just investigating the trump organization. that's got to make donald trump nervous. he's never worked three days a week. so, you know, a serious focus on this. and i do want to return to something joe said a moment ago because it's really important. there's a possibility this case could end with allen weisselberg and weisselberg has to know that a classic prisoner's dilemma.

even if you don't want to rat on your co-conspirator, you know if you don't rat the other person is likely to have a deal and throw it against you. what it means is it is weisselberg and trump and everybody knows that donald trump is the most disloyal of the bunch and weisselberg has to fear even if he is a loyal, cooperative guy normally, if he doesn't turn over the evidence that the prosecutors are seeing or seeking, trump may turn on him. so, that's the law enforcement game that is going on right now. known as flipping and it generally works. >> another story you're focused on, neal, the department of justice is fighting to release a 2019 legal memo that details former bill barr's reasons for not charging former president trump with obstruction of justice following the mueller investigation.

earlier this month, d.c. judge amy berman jackson order the memo be released after a freedom of information act lawsuit. she determined that barr was disingenuous about the process to clear trump and your latest piece from "new york times" is entitled the public deserves to see this legal memo about donald trump. so, if you could tell us more about why the public should see this and do you think the memo will change anything about the outcome of the mueller report? >> so, first off, i don't think we should miss the big picture here which is that the justice department is coming back. yesterday kristen clarke was just confirmed capping off the appointments and these are people of good judgment and not political hacks and honest decision making is coming back and the career star at doj is reinvigorated. having said that on this one this decision is really

disappointing. they authorized an appeal of judge amy jackson's decision that she is one of the most well -respected judges in the country and really this is the people's memo. this is a memo that everyone should be able to see because as judge jackson says it basically points to a bill barr cover up. and the one thing you can't say about this biden justice department decision is that it was political. i mean, this is 180 degrees the opposite of something that bill barr would do. but my problem with it is it wasn't transparent and at a unique time when the american people need transparency. so, look, you know, this decision ordinarily would be made by the solicitor general, i served in that role. i would have appealed it because generally we don't like judges to order prosecutors to disclose what's in their files in terms of advice. obviously, have to turn over exicalpatory evidence and that's

what you generally keep within. because of this such an extraordinary cover up, that's why i think it needs to be there. i don't know if it will make a difference in a legal case against trump or barr or anyone else, but i think the american people deserve it regardless. >> katie, i guess quite a few people observing this may have been surprised that the garland doj is trying to protect delib rapg erations inside the barr doj. is it about a precedent, what they would consider a bad precedent that doj internal deliberations could be made public years from now? >> absolutely. what they're doing is preserving the interest of the department overall. they don't see this as protecting bill barr and the trump justice department, they see this as protecting the justice department overall. if you look at the story "new york times" published yesterday, we have some reporting under what is in the redactions in the document. you saw the head of the office of legal counsel and officials

from the deputy attorney general office going through point by point the instances in which robert mueller and his team thought obstruction of justice may have been committed. they go through each element and they look at what the mueller team found and they come to their own conclusions. in each case, they decide they would not be able to bring any of those instances before a jury and win. the overarching argument for all those cases is they weren't able to find a time when a president or a high-ranking official like donald trump was accused of such crimes. and had been charged by the federal government and the justice department and the justice department had won and stood up upon appeal. they felt trying to do so in and of itself would be novel. that's not when you want to do something novel in law. doing something as high profile as charging the president of the united states with a crime. but saying that he committed a crime felt like going out on a limb given the fact that they

haven't found other legal precedent. >> all right, neal katyal and katie benner, thank you very much for your insight this morning. some news just confirmed over the last hour. former senator john warner has died. the centrist republican was first elected to the u.s. senate from virginia in 1978. and went on to serve five terms before retiring in 2008. a veteran of world war ii and korea. he also served as navy secretary and was considered among washington's most influential military experts. john warner died yesterday of heart failure at home in alexandria with his wife and daughter at his side. he was 94 years old. >> obviously, mika, a good friend of your family and good friend of your father's. in 2019 he received the brzezinski prize.

my gosh, it was a wonderful event and everybody said that he, just such a strong bipartisan voice in foreign policy. he made a real difference. >> yeah, my parents had some wonderful times with him. up next, a new poll finds crime to be the top issue for new yorkers ahead of next month's mayoral primary. we'll talk to eric adams now a frontrunner in the race for mayor. we're back in 90 seconds. so get relief fast. only tylenol rapid release gels have laser-drilled holes. they release medicine fast for fast pain relief. tylenol rapid release gels.

i have an important official announcement. this is a very serious one, get this out. a message to trey young on behalf of the people of new york city and anyone who cares about actually playing basketball the right way, stop hunting for fouls, trey.

i want to quote steve nash, he says quote, unquote, that's not basketball. trey, trey, that hawk's not going to fly in new york city. come on, play the game the right way and see if you can win. i think the knicks are going to teach you a lesson. >> new york mayor bill de blasio wearing a knicks cap. he's talking about trae young who lit it up with the knicks the other night. mayor de blasio did the same for the new york nets. as for those running for next mayor, former commission for the sanitation department, kathryn garcia now leading the democratic primary 21% in a statistical tie with eric adams at 20%.

andrew yang in third place at 16%. garcia has shown the most momentum gaining 16 points since early march. over the same period of time, adams has held steady while adams has seen the highest drop. crime remains the top issue with new york city voters followed closely by housing and eric adams, candidate for new york city mayor joins us now. it's great to have you on the show. the sitting mayor of new york city on the subject of sports is blasphemously a red sox fan. i want to be clear, do you cheer for new york city teams? >> without a doubt. i have grown up with the nets and the knicks, and so i'm new york teams all the way. >> okay. so let's talk about people who don't know you. you have made a push here to the top of the polls in this race, the primary is just a couple of weeks away. for 22 years, you were a new

york city police officer, even during your time as a police officer you pushed for reform from inside the department and sometimes a thorn in the side of leadership in the nypd. >> how are you looking at crime and how are you looking at the police department. >> i was beat badly by police officers at 15, but what many people don't know is that same time i lost a close friend of mine, henry through gun violence and gang violence in south jamaica, queens. so i know we must have justice and we deserve the safety that we need and that's a unique place that we're in right now. we need a mayor that understands as we push for reform we must also punish for safe streets in the city and we're want going to prosper if we're not a safe place. >> how do you find that balance,

mr. adams, between the role of the police department? you came into the nypd in the 1980s at the height of the crack epidemic. you've seen new york city at its low point in terms of crime. where is the balance in terms of recognizing that many new york verse had with new york city police officers and the challenges of rising crime right now. >> that's a great question because this is a question that we must answer all over the country. we are witnessing what's happening in chicago. we're witnessing what's happening in parts of atlanta. it is about rebuilding trust and changing the ecosystem of public safety. what i discovered back in the days when i was a police officer is that we determined or defined public safety only with? police departments and that's not true. we need to look at mental health professionals and teams. the police play a role in public safety, but not the only role and this is our opportunity as a

country and a city to redefine that ecosystem and give everyone their proper role in that ecosystem. >> eric, over here. so many people outside of new york city, they just assumed that democratic voters are way to the left, and i always tell them the story when i was in congress in '97 i was flying up to new york city. i had one of the top democratic fund raisers sitting next to me and she was tearing me into shreds for the whole hour flight. i was a right-wing fascist, and i was terrible and you republicans this and you republicans that, and when we landed i said i guess you're voting, and she said are you kidding me? i'm voting for rudy. even the most progressive democrats, they want to be safe when they're in new york city. explain that and explain again that balancing act that you have

to -- that you have to go through as a candidate for mayor? >> you know, i don't consider it a balancing act. i consider it being authentic when people were talking about disbanding police departments i refused to jump on the bumper sticker and the slogans. i know that 3-year-old children should not be shot in times square. that is going to hurt our tourism. i know that we should not have individuals shoved on a subway system. that is going to hurt our economic recovery, and so it's about just being consistent in the message that we could have the safety of or police departments and carry out the jobs with the justis that we deserve and that's why we have stop and frisk in the city and testified in federal court. i know that no matter if i am in an economically challenging community or a high income

earning community, everyone wants to be safe and that is what i'm going to do. make sure the city is safe and that we will be a place of growth with economic recovery with new businesses here, and we will end inequalities. they feed the crime problem we have in the city and we can end those inequalities. you know, i say this all of the time. our cities across america, you cover politics and our cities are dysfunctional and we are creating a crisis every day. i witnessed that as a police officer, state senator and we can turn it around. we will have an amazing city within one year of every administration. >> mike barnacle is with us. >> policing is a huge issue from coast to coast in this country, the behavior of police, and the sometimes criminal behavior of police, but new york city is kind of different from every

place else. it's the biggest city and sometimes it's been the safest city in america, but what do you do right now about the morale of the new york police department which i suspect is probably at an all-time low and what do you do about two cops and a cruiser that get called for a domestic disturbance at 10:30 at night and they come up to the scene and there are 15 people outside that 16 all of them with cell phone cameras and they decide to take a pass on stopping. what do you do about morale in the department? >> and that's a great question, and it really -- it's what i have been stating for quite some time to rebuild that trust. day one after being elected to mayor, we're going go around to every precinct and sit down and put together a group of police officers and have the conversation. i'm your mayor.

what you feel, i felt, i've been there. i rode the subway system as a transit cop. i know how it feels to have someone spit at you. i know how it feels to be assaulted. i know how it feels to be afraid. let me tell you something else. i also know how it feels to be arrested on the floor of the precinct and kick you in the groin and you are urinating blood for a week. we have betrayed americans by the way we are policed by numerical minority. where our failure lie is that we did not rid our departments from those who were not suitable to wear that dwruchl across this country, and what i'm going promise my officers is that i'm going to allow you to do your job, and i will protect you when you do your job, but if you are abusive in my city you are going to be out of the department, not in four years as in what happened with pantaleo. you will be out within 90 days

and we will lift up the standard and the expectation of our officers and we will make sure they have the tools to keep our city safe. >> all right. new york city mayoral candidate borough president eric adams. before we go. a quick congratulations. >> go red sox. >> to our willie geist. he's done so well. our boy has grown up. >> he's been nominated for a daytime emmy award. >> i'm serious. >> outstanding morning show. look at our boy! >> he was knee high to a breast, and he's got a future in front of him. seriously, congratulations. we'll stuff the ballot box. >> thank you. good company, our buddies across the street on the "today" show are on the list, too. like this show, it's small and puts on a great show every day. thanks so much. >> that does it for us this morning. >> it's a conspiracy. peter alexander. >> we love you. >> you're great.