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tv   Morning Joe  MSNBC  August 31, 2022 3:00am-6:00am PDT

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but even so, it's looking like these investigations aren't doing a lot for him. and it's an interesting split screen we're seeing in pennsylvania right now. >> in recent years august has been traditionally troublesome for presidents, biden, trump, and this august. thanks for all of you for getting up "way too early" on this wednesday morning. a jam-packed "morning joe" starts right now. >> let me say this to my maga republican friends in congress, don't tell me to support law enforcement if you won't condemn what happened on the 6th. don't tell me. can't do it. for god's sake, whose side are you on? whose side are you on?
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now, it's sickening to see the new attacks on the fbi. threatening life of law enforcement agents and their families. for simply carrying out the law and doing their job. look, i want to say this clear as i can, there's no place in this country no place for endangering the lives of law enforcement. no place. none. never, period. i'm opposed to defunding the police and also opposed to defunding the fbi. >> president biden condemning the attacks on the fbi after the remarks which came just hours before we got stunning new details overnight about why the justice department felt it had no choice but to seize classified documents from the
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president's florida estate and club. including evidence that some of the documents were likely moved and hidden. we'll have the many new revelations from the late night court filing. also this hour, remembering mikhail gorbachev, the final leader of the soviet union. a reformer who lifted the iron curtain and helped to end the cold war. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." that is wednesday, august 31st. along with joe, willie and me we have the host of "way too early" and white house bureau chief at politico author of "the big lie" jonathan lemire. president of the national action network and host of politics nation reverend al sharpton. and washington bureau chief for "usa today" susan paige. and in light of the new revelations, joe, that happened through the goa -- doj late last night, president biden's remarks
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seem to be really cutting through. >> well, they really do. it's always fascinating, by the way, this is one of those mornings i would just absolutely love to hear your father's take on mikhail gorbachev. i knew obviously he knew and dealt with him. we do have david ignatius, a good friend of your dad's that is on here also. amiral stavridis also here. as well as things turning around in ukraine. >> yeah. >> it's pretty extraordinary. but, you know, willie, there's a time in a game, a basketball game, you can just see it on the court happening. football game. soccer. and in politics. i've always noticed it in politics. i'm sure you have, too. where a momentum shifts in a very significant way.
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and, again, we're still -- we're still a long way off until the election. i'm not saying that republicans aren't going to have a historic year. they should. but last night was joe biden and the democratic party off their heels for the first time, i think, since 2020. and actually leaning in. going on the offensive. telling republicans, joe biden saying, not only am i not for defunding the police, i'm not for defunding the fbi. and the words that will break through to independents who are looking at this maga republican party. and understanding they're so disconnected from the most basic of american values when it comes to patriotism. whether it's january 6th or threatening the lives of law enforcement officers and their
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families, for just carrying out a lawful search. that question that just rings in the ears of so many americans, for god's sake, whose side are you on. and it's interesting, he addressed -- he addressed he's words, not to republicans across the nation. not to super maga republicans across the nation, but to those in congress, to republican leaders. you know, it used to be that somebody would say something on the left, or the right, that would be a crack pot statement. and everybody rushing, going, oh, my god, look at what all democrats are saying. oh, my god, look at what republicans are saying and it would be some insignificant figure. joe biden is now telling the truth that americans are starting to understand that this extremism, this is coming actually from leaders.
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this is coming from republican members of congress who are calling law enforcement officers the gestapo. who are calling law enforcement officers communists. republican leaders and leaders calling officers moles who want to devour you. defund the fbi? no. defund police? absolutely not. and at the same time, joe biden is giving a speech to main street america. to main street pennsylvania. about backing the fbi and backing law enforcement officers. and just how crazy the republican party's done and doing. what's donald trump doing? he is circulating qanon conspiracy theories on social media. qanon conspiracy theories on the
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same day joe biden is saying bring it in republicans. you all are being extremists, come on. this is -- >> a turning point. >> this is a turning point. and all of those people who have been lying about the doj and fbi on this search. we're going to get to the news in a second. that's going to change as well. it's funny, alex courson, our e.p. before said he had read a tweet yesterday and said the news was so bad last night that somebody had tweeted out, all right, pay attention, because now we're going to hear about hunter biden's laptop or caravans coming in from mexico. and sure enough, on cue, here we go, "new york post" talking about those caravans that for some reason only come up every two years around election time. >> oh, my, come on.
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>> and by the way, john heilemann called me the morning -- remember when trump people -- literally, every two years around election time or when donald trump is in trouble, every two years. you could write that story every day every two years. because there's chaos on the southern border. and we've been saying it here. but, you know, willie, it's just like, you know, john heilemann called me up the morning that the word got around that trump people said, hey, you know what, be quiet, this stuff is a little worse than we expected at mar-a-lago, don't get to out front there. suddenly, this irs lie that morning. you see what they're doing now, they're spreading lies about the irs agents going around with automatic weapons shooting people in middle america. because they've got to change the subject. that's what's happening before our eyes. and you see it right there on the "post" you'll see it all
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over right wing media today. >> joe, i'm going to quote you for months now, freaks weird doughs and insurrectionists, you've been advising democrats talking about republicans. this is who they are, this is what they're doing and the president effectively was saying that yesterday in different terms, perhaps. that's what he was saying. he was like tapping into something that is really out there. and his boost in the polls is coming from independents who are watching what's happening in the country and saying, no, it's not okay. it's extreme to defend an attempted coup of an american presidential election. no it's not okay to force a 14-year-old girl to have her rapist's baby. no, it's not okay to take boxes and boxes of classified documents to a country club and lie about them and not turn them over when asked that is extreme. so that is why you're going the conspiracy theories and as the president pointed out last night, it's coming from the top, it's not just coming from qanon which you're right. president trump is directly
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amplifying qanon messages, not even subtexts or innuendo, he's just amplifying them. it's coming from senators, it's coming from chuck grassley talking about irs agents with ar-15s kicking down the doors of small business owners. it's coming from lindsey graham saying there's going to be violence on the streets if you do anything around these classified documents. so it seems, jonathan lemire that joe biden maybe we'll see more of it tomorrow night in that prime time speech. he is stepping into this place right now where a lot of americans are -- things seem like they're going off the rails on one side of the aisle. >> thinking of different places, a split screen between these two men. donald trump headlines going worse with the doj at mar-a-lago. scrambling to try to defend that work, in this case, distract, try to deflect, talk about something else. they see the polls, candidates, number of states in trouble. and ability to flip the house. then you have president biden who is basically on a roll.
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democrats have momentum, a win at their back. a series of legislative wins. some bipartisan, some democrats. and there's just a new energy. white house aides that i spoke to said the place is revitalized. democrats love where they are. and they're painting republicans as being out of touch with america with a number of issues. abortion, guns, now, yesterday, we heard him say in defense of police and law enforcement. republicans aren't doing that either. tomorrow night is really the kickoff, democrats say, to the midterms stretch run. and will talk about how americans values and democracy. the stakes are big for this president. and democrats feel like this is the moment where they make the case for the american people that the republican party does not represent the american values. >> well, and donald trump's republican party doesn't represent a hell of a lot of republicans. right? they're going along for the
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ride. i understand that, please. i mean, don't tweet at me. i mean, i hear it. but, rev, jonathan just talked about guns and abortion. there used to be a very clear line on that debate. now republicans are waking up to see that they've got a party that is electing candidates in primary contests that are bragging about making a 14-year-old girl who is raped by her uncle having a forced birth in the state of michigan. that's the republican nominee for governor there. we have a 10-year-old girl being raped in ohio, and having to flee the state before authorities there compel her to have a forced birth. and not even let her parents or preacher or mental health counselors or doctors have any say at all. it's just a forced birth.
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and on guns, 18 year olds with mental problems, able to walk in and buy weapons of war and gun down little children. now, these are issues that a lot of republicans -- a lot of nra members actually, if you talk about universal background checks or some of these other things they opposed. yet the republican party takes even more extreme position. there are pro-life people, i know you've heard from them, too, so many pro-life people that i've talked to this summer since dobbs say, yeah, i consider myself pro-life but, no, no, this is so extreme, what this republican party is doing. then you have willie talking about americans, swing voters, independents, suburban republicans going, okay, wait a second, why is my party defending a coup attempt against the united states government, stopping a peaceful transition. why is my government actually
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cheering on people who beat the hell out of cops on that day. why is that okay for them? and then, of course, the 10-year-old girl, donald trump and now this is the latest, the republican party, it's crazy, the republican party has put themselves in a position where they have to defend a former president stealing boxes of classified information. by the way, they don't have to do this. they just are. and they can't stop themselves, it's what ben shapiro and brit humor and everybody else is starting to talk about now. they don't have to defend them, but they are going down with the ship. >> i think that that is why what president biden did yesterday was so important. because all of what you said is clear to most americans. they just needed someone to bring it together and say what
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he said. what has happened to us? i thought it was a brilliant delivery from him. and as much as i on him and will continue to be about police reform, to make them the defund the fbi flips this whole thing obtaining everybody else to defund the police disagree with them, they're the ones about that law and order. they're the ones that have brought this kind of lowering the standards of the presidency. the way he laid it out yesterday i thought was absolutely what was needed. because it was something that everyone knows, from democrats to independents to real republicans, but it needed to be articulated. and it was from the largest bully pulpit in the world. and that was the president of the united states in a way saying, wait a minute, look at who we are becoming.
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we can't let him make us like that. and the danger of donald trump by normalizing how you outlined it, joe, he is beginning to normalize it, where we're acting like this is all right. i think we got a very much needed wake-up call from biden yesterday that this is not who we are and who we want to be. >> and that is the backdrop now, susan paige, i'm going to have you help me frame out what happened overnight. pretty staggering new revelations from the justice department's investigation into former president donald trump. several major headlines emerging from the doj's midnight filing in response to trump's request for an independent review of the materials known as a special master, following the search of mar-a-lago on august 8th. the doj argues that appointing a special master, quote, is unnecessary, and would significantly harm important governmental interests including national security interests. the doj points out government
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review teams have already finished their work. and a third party reviewing the documents would only impede its ongoing criminal investigation. the 36-page filing also revealing the justice department sought a search warrant for mar-a-lago after obtaining evidence that highly classified documents were likely moved. and hidden. and that trump's representatives had falsely claimed all sensitive material had already been returned. the doj filing states, quote, the government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation. it goes on to state, quote, three classified documents that were not located in boxes, but rather were located in the desks in the 45 office were also
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seized. the doj also included a picture of the documents seized during the fbi search of the former president's florida estate. several of which are clearly marked top secret. in all, the filings are more than 100 unique classified documents were seized. and some of the documents were so sensitive, fbi agents and doj attorneys needed additional security clearances to review them. the doj filing reveals the fbi recovered twice as many classified documents than what was turned over by the trump team, casting doubt over their claim that there had been a diligent search following the grand jury subpoena in may. go ahead, jon. >> and i would say this is just amazing, and mika, top secret documents moved after the doj
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asked for them to be returned. >> not good. >> hidden, concealed. look at that. top secret, sci -- the most secret documents that the government has, the highest classified rating right there. at mar-a-lago. and this is -- it appears, because the doj wasn't going to release this. but, you know, the court, a trump-appointed judge, pushed for this. and it seems that every -- everything is breaking against donald trump. there just -- he can defend himself. but bottom line is, mika, if you take top secret documents out of a government facility and then you lie to the department of justice about them. you have your people moving top secret documents out before a search comes, you tell them
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you've given them everything and you haven't. this isn't just donald trump who could be facing serious consequences. his lawyers and other people handling those documents. other people representing to the fbi and the doj that they've given back all of the documents. well, hiding them at mar-a-lago, according to these pleadings, that means quite a few people now in trouble for only obstruction charges. >> so, susan paige from what we know so far from this, your thoughts. >> so, this is story telling by legal filing. you know, legal filings do not always give us this kind of detail. they're not always written in accessible language. they don't always include a picture that tells a story. >> yikes. >> this is clearly the doj playing hard ball with donald trump and his legal team. if they hadn't filed their own suited in this case, the doj
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might not have had time to respond. the time line with the documents they found contrasting that with the assurances that they received from the trump team, this really undermines many of the basic arguments that former president trump and his people have been making about what was behind the need to get a warrant and to do a search on their own not to trust the trump team to turn over the documents they had promised to turn over and were obliged to do so. >> let's get more on this from nbc news julia ansley, and msnbc analyst danny cevallos. julia, i'll start with you, it's not what the team took back to mar-a-lago. it's that they lied about it. and according to the filing obstructed the justice department's access to the
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documents. and the attorney christina bobb have been so uncooperative to lead agents to expect that the trump team might be obstructing the investigation. what stood out to you as you read this last night? >> that's right, willie. this is the most significant rebuttal we've seen from the justice department to the trump team. i think we're learning more from this than we ever did from the warrant or the affidavit that we were waiting for last week. now, we're learning this is not just a matter of the president taking back records that should have been stored in the national archives. in fact, they go as so specific to say that in a footnote that this is a matter of taking classified document where is they should not be and obstruction. and they talk about how they believe that some documents were taken from a storage room. that they were first today, look, here's everything. the trump lawyer signed it. handing everything over. then they get significant information that there was still more left behind.
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they were told anything left behind would be in a storage room. that's also what the trump legal team said, they didn't need to go all over the premises. they said just alone in that storage room there were 76 documents with classified markings on it. but it went beyond the storage room. as mika points out it was in the 45 office. that mock oval office that former president trump has created there at mar-a-lago. so they were able to show that these documents had been moved clearly, they believe, pointing to the obstruction of the investigation. also, the attorneys claiming they had handed everything over when they had not. the other thing outstanding to me, just the overwhelming amount of cooperation they had from witnesses inside of mar-a-lago that were able to provide all of this evidence that led to this search in the first place. you're seeing a lot of people cooperating. and one last thing, on witnesses, it seems that some of these documents in the possession of the former president could have outed human
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intelligence. americans working as spies, as cia agents. as human informants around the world. not just americans, but other internationals who we have cooperating with us in very dangerous parts of the world. if they're outed that could put their lives at stake and the national security of the united states at stake. that is why this is so serious. and that is why the justice department made this lengthy rebuttal. they asked for more pages just to go through the arguments. now, we're learning more of that here. i would encourage everyone to take a look for themselves as pictures really do tell a story. >> yeah, they're striking. danny i know that donald trump doesn't exactly have the dream team of lawyers with him. the more they file, a special independent review of documents, the more the justice department puts out in public of potentially crimes that they've committed. now, we're seeing the documents, now we're seeing in 36 pages of efforts of obstruction by the trump legal team. so it seems to me that donald
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trump and his team keeps opening things up to more exposure than they ask for. >> when doj asked for additional pages to respond in the filing i was surprised i didn't understand it. because i thought there's a 20-page limit. you don't normally ask for more pages until it's really important. in this case, doj had already won. they had the filter team and let's face it the filter team is also the doj. they had time to review everything. why ask for additional pages why even oppose the appointment of a special master how could it hurt doj at this point? well, i understand. two major reasons, number one, doj wanted to put out its definitive piece on the bad behavior of the trump team returning the documents. part two, doj wanted to make it clear, we weren't kidding these documents are really, really top secret. see exhibit "a," the picture you're looking at where they're almost comically marked "top
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secret" on the cover. you can't make a mistake about the documents. that is the reason to put out the argument against a special master that, look, these documents are so secret we couldn't even review them without getting clearance. so the special master could compromise things even more and delay the investigation. owe doj putting out a strong argument. one thing i want to asked, watch the pace where doj argues about standing. standing is a constitutional argument. it's not sexy. but it's quietly the reason that courts love to dismiss cases including the supreme court. it asks the constitutional question is this even any of your beeswax to begin with? the argument is, look, trump is no longer the president. he doesn't have any interest in these documents. he's essentially a private citizen saying, hey, i own these government documents and i want them back. not a strong argument. a lot of people are going to run right over that argument in the government's brief but it is quietly the government's most powerful argument for this judge
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to dismiss this case entirely. >> so, julia, if we can bring the doj photograph up again, you can weigh in on the doj's carpet choices but note offscreen, there's a picture of a "time" magazine cover which is the ultimate trump tableau. we're supposed to have a hearing tomorrow. there's the trump cover. tomorrow, about the special master. how do we think this revelation from overnight could lead to that? and what might a special master help or hurt trump's cause? >> well, the other thing we also have between now and that hearing is a filing from the trump legal team that's expected by 8:00 p.m. tonight. that will be another document we're looking into. how do they defend themselves against this very lengthy, as danny pointed out the lengthy rebuttal how the trump team tried to posit the reason for
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the special master. that they were the victims of this giant sweep that included so many of trump's personal documents that to have been privileged. how will they defend that? and we'll look at that tonight and how are they going to have the hearing tomorrow before a trump-appointed judge she had said she had the preliminary intent to grant a request for a special master. how will she now oversee the hearing. what arguments will we hear? and will they go ahead and make her decision early. and we may even find out tomorrow how she will weigh in on this. now after reading this, you realize just how much this could delay the process or impede the process if a special master is appointed. one thing they point out as well is that when the 15 boxes that were originally handed over from mar-a-lago came into the possession of the justice department, and later to the national archives, there was no argument about attorney/client privilege there. and they think really there's very little that former president trump needs back. that this is really just a claim being made to try to slow things
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down and kind of blur and confuse the american people about what's really going on here. these are very sensitive documents that should be in the hands of the justice department. and not in the hands of a special master. and not back at mar-a-lago, where they can be stuffed into a drawer. in a private club or residence. >> and there's no confusion about that. and donald trump, the former president doesn't even deny that he had the documents. nbc's julia ansley and danny cevallos, thank you very much. >> joe, it really feels like the doj is almost saying, i just want to stay right in the space where we are with what we know, you know what, you give us no choice but to show you more about what we have. and every time we learn more, it appears to box the former president in. and what is the former president doing? he's posting on his little social media, his own personal social media engine that he created qanon stuff. >> yeah, well, you know, there's
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a reason why people close to trump started warning republicans when they were getting out there and calling the fbi the gestapo. and calling them communists. calling them wolves. >> saying they're going to come after you next. >> they're going to come after you next. there's a reason why trump is warning the republicans quietly, hey, this is worse than you think you need to be quiet and back up. course, they started conspiracy theories about killer irs agents. they're now talking about caravans. they'll talk about hunter biden's laptop. and quote qanon conspiracy theories because, rev, the news doesn't get any better for the former president. those trump allies were right. this is bad stuff. trump's lawyers make a move, get
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a special master involved. the doj is, hey, do we really have to do this? and they put all of this out. and you see that actually the story is even worse than what we first heard about them concealing documents, moving them from storage spaces when they thought the search was coming. and having, i think, keeping about half of the documents, if i read it right. keeping like half of the documents that were requested. and lying to the fbi. lying to the doj. this gets no better. if trump had any defense, he sure as hell wouldn't be churning out qanon conspiracy theories while these pleadings were going on. he'd be talking about this case. but there is no defense. >> well, for those of us that have known donald trump and
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fought with him and against him for years, clearly if donald trump thought he had any defense, he'd be out there very loud and very boisterous, trying to bring that forward. clearly, the fact that he's going to these other theories and not addressing it is a concession by him. but i think the underlying thing that is undermining him with a lot of americans that were still trying to give him the benefit of the doubt is he projected himself as the one that was going to preserve in this country exactly what it now clearly is showing that he is not. don't forget, he started his political career questioning the birth of a sitting president, barack obama. bertherism, that this guy is not real. and that they were the party of law and order. and that they were going to make america great again. how do you go from making america great again to defund
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the fbi? how do you go to make america great again, to saying you're going to have top secret documents at your residence and act like they were your personal property? he's undermined his own theme. and hypocrisy is glaring. and i think president biden did a great job clearly bringing that to the american people. you can't be a fraud. and that's what donald trump has become to even those that are giving him the benefit of the doubt. >> you know, willie, i'm going to do a harold ford move here, i agree with what mika said, and i agree with what danny said. in this respect, danny brings up a great point, what's the standing here? these aren't his documents. why does he even have standing to suggest that he can keep these documents? the documents belong to the united states government. which leads to what mika said
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which is donald trump's never given any excuse for having top secret documents. he said, i've needed because of this. i've needed because of that. rudy giuliani, kevin mccarthy, newt gingrich, all of the extremists calling the fbi fascists, calling them communists, caulk them the gestapo. not one has stepped forward with an explanation of why a former president would illegally take top secret documents from a government facility to his home. not once. there is no reason. there is no reason. >> no, there's no defense for it. even just based on the publicly available information, we know what happened here. we'll see what the justice department does with it. but not only were there documents taken, classified documents taken to a country
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club, but they lied and the national archives tried for more than a year to get the documents back. they had to put pressure on it. we're going to call congress. we're going to escalate this. and finally, they got some of them back. what we saw from the filing overnight. there's even more obstruction from the trump lawyers saying we're not giving them back. all of the people defending donald trump it's worth pointing out they're the same ones literally chanting for hillary clinton to be put in prison because she had a private server at her home with emails. hypocrisy, there it is there, but hillary clinton in prison, and uhh, donald trump, no basis. >> and saying republicans will cause chaos in the streets. i'm not saying that. >> is that what republicans are?
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>> that's one of the most senior republican senators saying, if donald trump is held to the same standard that lindsey would be held to or even a member of congress be held to, we republicans are going to riot in the street. we republicans are going to commit acts of violence. really? okay. so, lindsey, thank you, for admitting what you think of your party members. >> reverend al sharpton, thank you very much for being on this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe," the latest from ukraine, as ukraine inspectors head over to a russian-held power plant and the growing concerns of a nuclear accident. plus, former soviet leader mikhail gorbachev credited with ending the cold war has died at the age of 91, david ignatius,
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add stavridis will weigh in. and the democrat john fetterman is accusing the oz campaign of mocking his recovery from a stroke. >> that's quite a political move. >> we'll be right back. >> no one expects politics to be a patty-cake. sometimes as mean as hell. but the idea you turn on the television and see senior members of congress saying if such and such happens, there will be blood in the street. where the hell are we?
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if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the soviet union and eastern europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. mr. gorbachev, open this gate. >> mr. gorbachev, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. . >> an extraordinary moment in june of 1987, when ronald reagan went to the wall, of course.
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few imagined at the time that would ever happen. mikhail gorbachev, though, ended up being the final leader of the soviet union. and along with ronald reagan oversaw the end of the cold war. he, of course, died at the age of 91. nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell has details. >> reporter: mikhail gorbachev, the communist leader whose brief six-year reign transformed the map and the world. the first soviet leader was a larger vision for his country, and was willing to hold a summit with ronald reagan the american president who called the soviet union an evil empire. little did gorbachev know he would preside over that empire. years later saying we could and should save the soviet union but we lost politically. the two met in reykjavik, iceland, in december 1987,
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partly of the influence of nancy reagan on her husband they were at the white house signing a treaty. the same year gorbachev gave an interview to nbc's tom brokaw. the two were walking arm in arm in red square. and later gorbachev let the berlin wall come down without sending in russian tanks for which he would be the nobel peace prize. americans were strung with the ideas of glass cow and opening with economic structuring and his very modern wife. back home his colleagues tried to overyou turn him in a three-day coup and fail gorbachev returned to find boris yeltsin in charge and soon resigned. he was said to avoid a bloody war in a country saturated with nuclear weapons. the mikhail gorbachev a man who changed the world but could not
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keep his own country from falling apart. >> david ignatius and admiral stavridis, washington bureau chief for "usa today" susan page still with us as well. admiral, if i'm not mistarngs a mistaken, a tear in your eye or a child up your spine as you watched reagan there. >> talk about enormous courage and integrity by mikhail gorbachev. really a remarkable moment. you know, willie at home, i have a strand of barbed wire from the old wall. and every time i walk by it i think i'm walking by freedom. it hasn't turned out perhaps the way we wanted to. in fact, yesterday, someone said to me breathlessly, a russian leader has died. and i thought putin. turns out, nope, gorbachev. you know, this is russia, they
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could the cosmic dice. one time you get ivan the terrible, then peter the great. then stalin, then a gorbachev. an those dice have landed again on vladimir putin. and the world is poorer for it. and we should miss mikhail gorbachev, working in collaboration with ronald reagan. >> he really did, working in concert, i remember after reykjavik, commentators were so shocked that reagan walked away. without making a deal. but reagan knew what he was doing, it's fascinating through many on the left credit mikhail gorbachev ending the cold war, acting as if ronald reagan had nothing to do with it. on the right giving all credit
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to ronald reagan acting as if mikhail gorbachev was not necessary to expedite this. but in reality, they did work in concert. they were partners in history, weren't they? >> they were partners. and unlikely partnership to be sure. and mikhail gorbachev was a miracle to use the words of george r. kenon, and gorbachev was in a party where he had come up from the party. he was a soviet man. and he began to see, as he moved toward the peak of power in the 1980s that this was a system that was corrupt. it was inefficient. it was broken. and so he thought he could reform it. and it turned out to be a terrible mistake because the system was so rotten from within, that the more change he made, and this reminded us the
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words glosmos, openness, the more he tried to do that the more the system crumbled. and over this time, he was being overwhelmed by more radical forces who wanted to sweep soviet communism away. it ended so quickly. i find, joe, a great poignancy, and now we've seen the door slammed closed again with the despotic leader in vladimir putin. putin has done something in ukraine that even the worst of the soviet dictators wouldn't have contemplated. it's really a tragic finale to the story of gorbachev. almost an accidental reformer who started a process that once
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it began simply couldn't be stopped. >> an accidental reformer that ben applebaum said not many people had it in their power to change the world as much as mikhail gorbachev did even if he didn't start out wanting to do so. and, of course, so right, admiral, much like zelenskyy. i'm sure when he was an actor, he never foresaw the future that he would find himself in the middle of it. the history that he would find himself in the middle of. but i do find it fascinating, david talking about how this evil empire. and yes, reagan was right, it was an evil empire. they killed tens of millions of their own people. i don't think many people understand the scale of evil. that was the soviet union. but they stilled tens of
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millions of their own people. and yesterday, when gorbachev tried to reform that system, it was corrupt. it collapsed from within. and you talk about history rhyming, you look right now at putin's russia. and they tried to invade a country and take it over in three days. and we see it is rotten to the core militarily, economically, culturally. you know, this guy putin who wanted to undo mikhail gorbachev's work actually is presiding over a corrupt regime that is just like the soviet union before it rotting from within. >> yeah, you think about putin's own words, that's the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the collapse of the soviet union. i would argue potentially the greatest tragedy was the
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ascension to power of vladimir putin. and you say, joe, correctly, under stalin in particular, russians killed millions of their own. unfortunately, that's what's happening in ukraine. and putin wants to have it both ways. wants to say ukraine isn't really a nation. they're really part of us, they're part of our body. and yet, we see the terrible war crimes. the attacks on civilians. all of the awful events that have unfolded here. and, you know, you think of how gorbachev must feel or felt, until a few days ago, watching all of this unfold. finally, you know, our great statesman henry kissinger's new book "leadership" looks at a number of different figures over the last 40 or 50 or 60 years. he did a profile of mikhail gorbachev. i think today, we need to hear from henry kissinger to
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understand how to put him in a context. but i'm with david ignatius and our previous conversation, joe, this is the passing of a remarkable figure in history. a poignant figure i think is the right term. some tragedy mixed in with it but i think as mikhail gorbachev looks down on from us the pearly gates, let's hope that he sees the good that he did not being completely undone in this dark period with vladimir putin. >> it is a dark time. susan page, your thoughts on the legacy of mikhail gorbachev? >> it's really an example how an individual leader can make a difference. there was nothing inevitable about the course that gorbachev took. he made a huge difference in just about six years in power. but he needed a partner. a partner in margaret thatcher.
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he had a partner with ronald reagan. we shouldn't forget how much resistance there was within reagan's own ranks with engaging with this soviet leader. there was a lot of suspicion whether to trust mikhail gorbachev. and as it was mentioned in her piece, nancy reagan was one of the trusted advisers. i think her role should not be overlooked here. and just one more thing, george h.w. bush managed to land a plane with the dissolution of the soviet union, with the end of the cold war. that was a treacherous period and he handled with enormous deftness. i'd be curious to hear what my partner david ignatius has to say with the series of gorbachev
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that has enabled him to do the legacy that he's left. david? >> so, if i can respond to that, susan, i do think that george h.w. bush was a master at playing out the end game with the soviet union was crumbling. all of the weakness that gorbachev had seen coming down around him. but to keep that debris from causing enormous damage. to see the change all the way through that without it erupting was an amazing achievement done by baker, done by his national security adviser, baker, his secretary of state, and then bush himself. i just want to note, thinking of something that joe said in 1983, i went to the soviet union, i went to moscow. gorbachev was then a rising pot that jay of the kjb chairman. i went to see a disa sent
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outside of moscow. somebody who lost everything. this person turned to me in this cold study and said -- reagan had just given the evil empire speech. he turned to me how can it be in your country which is so rich and we thought had forgotten about us that you have a president that still calls us by our true name, who calls us the evil empire. how this happened, what a miracle. i never looked at reagan the same way after that. that's how his words were heard in moscow by people who desperately wanted change. you have a president who has told the truth about us. i think in that, it was central to the story. >> and gorbachev brought about that change. and he had contempt, although he didn't express it publicly for what will vladimir putin is doing, attempting to undo all of his work. i do want to ask you, admiral, talking about in the previous segment about classified
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documents and what's found at mar-a-lago. you had insights what might happen to you if you're even found with a single classified document in your home. >> and here, i'm kind of speaking to all of the military people who are handling classified documents every single day. when i was supreme allied commander of nato, every day at 10:00, i young captain would show up with a binder full of that sci/tk, top secret. and literally, both of our hands were locked on that binder as he passed from himself to me. if either one of us had torn out a few pages, hey, i'm going to look at this a little later, whatever. they would have come, discovered that and taken us away in handcuffs. me, the four star admiral. him, the young captain or the sergeant who did the same thing. so, however this all turns out at mar-a-lago, my insight is there are people protecting classified material every day. and they are watching what happens here.
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and the next time someone mishandles classified documents, they might say, oh, gosh, someone else got away with this. but i assure you that's a bad lesson. >> you're talking about one document. you're not obstructing, you don't have any bad intent. something completely going on at mar-a-lago. admiral james stavridis, david ignatius and susan page, thank you for being here. mika. wow, a lot going on. coming up, former president trump spent yesterday posting online like a paranoid conspiracy theorist. we'll take through his disturbing promotion of a fringe movement. meanwhile, president biden laid out more priorities for his party after the midterms and he's vowing to take action on an issue that many americans support. "morning joe" is coming right back. ot empty. it's a storm that crashes, and consumes,
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let me ask you about qanon, it is this theory that democrats a satanic pedophile and sewer save vavier of that, can you disavow qanon in its entirety. >> i knowing in about qanon. >> i just -- >> you told me, but what you told me doesn't necessarily make it true. i hate to say a that. i know they're very much against pedophilia, they fight is very hard. >> but even if you -- >> i'll tell you what i do know about, i know about antifa, and i know about the radical left. i know how violent they are and how vicious they are burning down cities run by democrats. >> republican senator ben sasse said, quote, qanon is nuts and
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real leaders call conspiracy theory. why not just say it's crazy and not true? >> i just don't know about qanon. >> you do know. >> no, i don't know. i don't know. >> you don't know. as we start our second hour. >> he's done that. time and time again. >> yeah. that's what they do. >> i don't know. i don't remember. it's unbelievable. of course, he knows about it. >> that was one month before the 2020 election, refusing to denounce qanon. yesterday, the former president shared dozens of qanon-inspired posts on his social media platform. it was his most direct show of support so far. but the extreme fringe movements. just a reminder of what qanon is. it is a conspiracy theory built around an anonymous account. "the new york times" describes it this way. millions of qanon followers
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believe that an match they're cabal of sex-trafficking, satan-worshipping liberals is controlling the government and that donald trump is leading the fight against it. newsguard, a media watch doing that monitors misinformation found that trump who has nearly 4 million followers on truth social, has promoted 30 different qanon accounts for a total of 65 posts since joining the site in april. those do not include yesterday's posting spree which happened at the same time the doj was getting ready to release this staggering new information. joining us now nbc news senior reporter ben collins on, first of all, the former president, an what he was saying yesterday. >> yeah. so he was, i would say, on one, on truth social. he was very -- he was aflame.
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there were 60 posts yesterday on truth social which makes up a lot of what's going 0 there been, frankly. it's hard to find other content when donald trump's on there on q contests. he had many qanon accounts one of which says the enemy is not in russia, he words the word enemy over the eyes of kamala harris. and he posted about the storm, and qanon war, one day donald trump led by a secret military is going to go and execute, publicly execute, what hillary clinton and joe biden and barack obama, they'll view it as it crimes against children which they believe is happening in these like underground tunnels. this is something he was trying to reactivate. qanon was dying. qanon was a thing that did not make sense anymore. even with their own mythology who is not the president is
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becoming clearer and clearer all time, but yesterday he he tweeted -- i'm sorry, retruthed that donald trump is not the president and trying to reactivate that the top response to that post was a post that said wipe them out, sir. >> yeah, jonathan lemire, donald trump saying i don't know anything about qanon. i don't know what qanon is. i have no idea reminds me of what he said about david duke, to jake tapper in 2016. he said, i don't know anything about david duke. and yet 1991, he told larry king, i hate what he represents. in 2000, he said he wouldn't be a member of the reform party because david duke was a member. and david duke was a klansman. and he pretends he doesn't know. same thing with qanon. he knows exactly what qanon is.
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and he's spreading this hate-filled conspiracy theory. and you said, the split screen, remarkable, joe biden is talking about extremism among donald trump maga supporters in congress. and donald trump at the same time is spreading conspiracy theories. dangerous conspiracy theories. >> yeah, donald trump is making joe biden's case for him by the day. you're right to invoke david duke, we had a similar dance donald trump about the proud boys and didn't embrace them and then didn't fully push them away because he knows they support him as the qanon followers do. it was a panic yesterday, and one that we see this barrage of posts coming just hours before the doj release. perhaps more bad news was coming and he was trying to rally his supporters. these are not just conspiracy
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theories. these led to violence. someone took shots at a washington, d.c. pizza place because they were convinced children were hostage in the basement. and i also think we should note the timing of this, the truth social post barrage yesterday came one day after on that same site, trump amplified lindsey graham's call about violence, suggesting that if trump were indicted, that republicans would take to the streets and there would be violence. and i think these two things should be seen as tandem here. we should be very concerned and law enforcement, i imagine would be as well. >> to that point, ben collins, the term is the storm. and people on qanon, as you pointed out in your reporting are waiting effectively from a command from donald trump. they want him to say something pretty specific on truth social or wherever they're watching his moves. what would that mean if he said the thing that they want him to say, in what way does that
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activate that? >> sure. the storm is activated. is this so stupid, i can't believe i'm saying this -- the storm is activated in their eyes. >> it's my fault. >> my fellow americans the storm is upon us. this is just deep q lore. and to that, that means, he's going to somehow activate the national guard to go in and arrest all of it. this has obviously evolved since he lost the presidency. they believe maybe that's a call to arms for people to pick up arms, maybe the proud boys or oath keepers people generally in his space. that's generally what they believe. i want to say, too, you know, the capitol rioters were led by people who were qanon people. joe jansen wearing the q shirt. he's the guy that pushed back eugene goodman, the man who wong the congressional medal of honor for basically saving the day on january 6th. he now knows what he says now,
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pack of lies, qanon is a pack of lies. he tried to say that at least to get his sentence reduced. while k has qanon has dithered and the movements preying upon people in the days after january 6. really, the days after joe biden took office. this morphs largely into a violent extremist movement that is trying to protect the president from getting arrested. if the threat lingers over the head of merrick garland that the second this man is indicted, there will be riots in the streets like lindsey graham said. there are several layers to that right? there are people who are earnestly concerned because they like the president. but then there are militias and extremist groups ready to go. view that as a call to arms. view that as the activation of
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the storm. so it has that dual-prong purpose you can say that on tv if you're lindsey graham and get away with it in polite circles but you also know what you're dog whistling to which is the extremists. >> ben collins, thank you for your reporting and insight. and while trump was amplifying that dangerous conspiracy theory, the justice department was preparing its latest response into its investigation into the former president. several major headlines are emerging from the doj's midnight filing in response to donald trump's request for an independent review of all of the materials known as a special master, following the search of mar-a-lago on august 8th. the doj argues that appointing a special master, quote, is unnecessary. and would significantly harm important governmental interests including national security interests. the doj points out government review teams have already
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finished their work. and a third party reviewing the documents would only impede its ongoing criminal investigation. the 36-page filing also reveals the justice department's sought a search warrant from mar-a-lago. after obtaining evidence that highly classified documents were likely moved and hidden. and that trump's representatives had falsely claimed all sensitive material had already been returned. the doj filing states, quote, the government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room. and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation. it goes on to state, quote, three classified documents that were not located in boxes, but, rather, were located in the desks in the, quote, 45 office, were also seized. the doj also included a picture
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of the documents seized during the fbi's search of the former president's florida estate. several of which are clearly marked top secret. in all, the filings says, more than 100 unique classified documents were seized. and some of the documents were so sensitive, fbi agents and doj attorneys needed additional security clearances to even review them. the doj filing reveals the fbi recovered twice as many classified documents than what was turned over by the trump team, casting doubt over their claim that there had been a diligent search following the grand jury subpoena in may. let's bring in former u.s. senator now and now nbc news and msnbc analyst claire mccaskill.
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executive editor of the recount, john heilemann. hugo lowell. and professor at princeton university, eddie glaude, jr. joe, there's so much here this morning, that obviously was revealed by midnight last night. the papers found in, it appears, the 45 office desk, i don't know if that's donald trump's office. 45 office. is what it's called. but these papers are clearly highly sensitive. and the revelations overnight are quite stunning. >> i don't know, maybe 45 office, it's tiki bar at mar-a-lago, i don't know. >> yikes. >> the thing that we keep circle be back to that you brought up, donald trump have has no explanation for it. >> he doesn't deny it. >> rudy giuliani has no explanation for why the
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documents, the top secret documents that the government holds were taken from the government and taken to mar-a-lago. newt gingrich calling them wolves wanting to devour americans doesn't have any defense. there is no explanation, there is no defense, at least legally. and legally, john heilemann, it seems to me that every day for donald trump, they think they're going to do something with this special master. a plea to have a special master. and then they force the doj's hand. he says, okay, well, here. you want some evidence why we can't do that? and i'm just reminded when julia yaffey says in her blog, tomorrow will be worse, when it comes to donald trump's legal woes, it seems he doesn't really have many moves left.
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tomorrow will be worse. perhaps that's why he and lindsey graham are talking about republican riots in the street. republican violence in the street. again, their words, not mine. their words, not mine. this is not -- this is not antifa. this is lindsey graham saying if donald trump is held accountable for breaking the law, republicans, his supporters will riot in the street. so that's what we're left with. because they sure as well don't seem to have any explanation for why he took these top secret documents. >> yes. several things, i think, on this. the first is, you know, joe, to your point, i mean, the first weekend after the mar-a-lago search and seizure operation, it was reported in "the new york times" that trump had reached out to merrick garland and said something along the lines of, you know, he wanted to try to cool things down.
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trying to calm things in the country because the country was really on fire. and there were people who read that as a veiled threat. and i looked at it and thought, maybe that could be a veiled threat. and now it seems obvious that it was the precursor to -- it was a veiled threat and precursor for laying down the groundwork of what are explicit threats in something almost incomprehensible with lindsey graham and something that he said. it seems like they don't have any legal moves left. i'm not a lawyer, but the lawyer i talked to said this situation is going to get worse for them. what that leads to, really in the end, it's still the question of what merrick garland is going to do, is he going to indict donald trump. there was some discussion among prosecutors, no maybe if he got the classified documents back, it will have served its purpose. they will no longer be at rick. maybe he won't go through with
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it. what will we've seen now, having crossed the rubicon and having sent the fbi agents down there to do that search and seizure. having come back and now know how many documents were there. how long trump resisted. how high the level was. and now doj here laying it on the floor and putting the photographs out, they're not just spiking the ball on all of trump's legal team bad legal interpretations and maneuvers, but they're implicitly, or explicitly kind of single-handedly tipping their hand, too. i don't understand a world in which merrick garland could not indict donald trump. i think that's where we're heading. the trump people know it, donald trump knows it it's causing the panic, the behavior of a guy who seems like he's had bad bathtub
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mesculine and lost his head. that's becoming inevitable and that's part of what's driving his degree of freakout and the platform he uses. isn't that just a qanon platform, truth social, is that what they call it? >> i don't know what that is any more than i know what bad bathtub mesculine is. >> come over saturday afternoon, i have a barbecue, i can make you familiar with that. >> no, no. i'm very good with sweet tea. no, i'm telling you, i've cut the amount of sugar that is poured into the sweet tea jug in half. >> yeah, there's too much caffeine for you. >> and i'm trying to cut it down to a quarter, right? so that's how dangerous i live with foreign substances. so, willie, we earlier had
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admiral stavridis rightly say, if donald trump gets away with stealing documents from government facilities that are supposed to be only held and seen in government facilities, what precedent does that set, for the handling -- everybody else is handling the documents every day. and admiral stavridis talking about you get the briefings of books with top secret documents if he even tore -- he's so right, if i tore something out, i want to take a closer look at this at home, i would get a knock on my apartment door in washington, d.c. and be cuffed. like even one document. so, you got that president. and then you got the president on obstruction of justice. so how does merrick garland, how does the doj, how do the
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government lawyers say, you know what, we're just going to let this one slide because the doj asked the former president to return top secret documents. to return classified documents. to return secret documents. and he only gave us like half back. and they've got -- they've got them concealing the documents. they've got them hiding the documents. they've got them moving the documents to other rooms to obstruct justice. so, i've always been against the prosecution of past administrations, because i think it would set a dangerous precedent. but i'm afraid we're at a point now where not doing a thing would set a far greater precedent, far more dangerous in the future. >> and with every new filing with the department of justice they've revealed more and more of what they have. and it appears more and more
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likely that they are prepared, perhaps, to indict the former president on what we've seen publicly. we don't even know privately as they're building their case. claire mccaskill, perhaps the reason we haven't a good explanation for what the president and his team did is because there isn't an explanation. they were caught red-handed. joe's right, admiral stavridis came in and sat down with jon and i, and said, i'm here to talk about gorbachev, but he said, do you know what would happen if i had a single document, they'd throw me in handcuffs. doesn't mean i didn't mean to do it. 36 pages. the justice department certainly has a whole lot on this former president. >> yeah. let's take a walk down, a nostalgic walk down memory lane
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and the defenses of donald trump. first, the fbi planted it. well, that's long gone. or all they had to do is ask, i'd give them back -- eh, that's gone. or other people packed the boxes he didn't know what's in there -- well, obviously, that's not true. so what's left? there's nothing left in terms of a defense, all the ones they've tried to float out there have been exploded, usually, by their own candidness. this is what the former president is doing, this is what the lieliar in chief who used t hang out in the oval office wants to do. he wants to delay and fire up the crazies. he tried in earnest yesterday to try to fire up the crazies. to reassure him, they're going to have to take up the cause for
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them. and the special master stuff is just a delay. so in his little pea brain, he thinks he's going to declare for president and the crazies will save him. and merrick garland has different ideas. >> in the reporting last night, in talking to a bunch of team, the bottom line, the new filing, 36 pages from the doj, directly point by point, contradicts as claire said the boxes and why they're there. >> right, no explanation for the extraordinary efforts that the justice department had to go through to retrieve the documents. the only thing they have to address, the photographs, to point out they aren't so bad. that's as good as they got, frankly but the obstruction i think is problematic for them. i think they acknowledge that. i mean, if you look at the filing itself if with the special, i think that predicates the cause that lawyers felt they
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had legal exposure and feel if we can get the attorney/client privileged documents pulled out of that evidence cache, then maybe we may cover other own backsides. i think that's the interest. >> so, you know, when you look, again, joe, i think it's worth framing and you said it a few times, but it's worth it, trump has not denied having these documents. and he's not denied the ongoing conversation with the archives that ultimately did not end well. and ended up in the hands of the doj. doesn't deny having these documents. >> and no explanation on why he has it. nobody has offered an explanation. they've called the fbi wolves. they've called them the guest gestapo, they're talking about law enforcement officers, defunding the fbi. not one of those people that are attacking and threatening the lives of our men and women, and
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the federal bureau of investigation have offered any explanation as to why he has those documents. what's the defense? >> right. >> apparently there is some, because now he's just spewing out conspiracy theories and he and lindsey graham are talking about republicans going into the streets and rioting if he's held to account the same way lindsey graham would be if lindsay stole documents. >> and there are worries for the country on two really big levels. number one, with republicans threatening violence, if this former president is held accountable and it is found that he broke the law. on any level. republicans threatening violence. with that, we've seen what that looks like on january 6th. we've seen what that looks like. and that's frightening. and the second is, it's important not to get in front of the story. it's important to stay right
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where we are. but when one asks what he might have been doing with these classified documents, when one thinks about the possibilities, it's chilling. it's chilling what he might have been doing with our national security secrets. with human interests. >> i mean -- >> we don't know. we don't know. >> i mean, this is chilling, the possibilities. we don't know. but what was revealed late last night seems to box the former president in, that he had something. that belongs to the country, not to him. that he had something that he wasn't supposed to have. we know that so far. meanwhile, joe biden is really going strong. and getting fired up. in the very important state of pennsylvania talking about the very counter to what this whole thing has done to the republican
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party with their coming after the fbi. they're coming after law enforcement. they've just completely turned and twisted into pretzels, into defense, of the former president. joe biden in pennsylvania talking about law and order and democratic values. take a listen. >> you hear some of my friends on the other team talking about political violence and how it's necessary. think about this now. did any of you think you're as old as i am, you'd ever be in an election where we talk about it's appropriate to use force, political violence in america? that's never appropriate. never. period. never. never. never. no one should be encouraged to use political violence. none whatsoever. and, look, you know, if we're in a situation where to this day, the maga republicans in congress
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defend the mob that stormed the capitol on january 6th. defend them. but now it's sickening to see the new attacks on the fbi, threatened life of law enforcement agents and their families. for simply carrying out the law and doing their job. look. i want to say this clear as i can, there's no place in this country, no place for endangering the lives of law enforcement. no place. none. never. period. i'm opposed to defunding the police. and also opposed to defunding the fbi. >> yeah. eddie glaude, again, it's so striking, here you have a president who is speaking out against members of congress. republican members of congress, calling law enforcement officers the
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republican thought leaders, former speakers, calling them wolves. saying the fbi wants to devour americans and talking about members -- republicans talking about defunding the fbi. along with, well, all their other extremist policies right now. whether you're talking about 10-year-old girls who were raped who have to flee a state because they're afraid of republican legislature and governor are going to compel them to have a forced birth of their rapist's baby. you have got, you know, the republican candidate for governor in michigan saying a perfect example of why she supports no exceptions is a 14-year-old girl getting raped by her uncle and she said that
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girl needs to be forced, needs to be compelled by the state to have a baby. of the rapist without talking to her parents. her parents having no say. or the preacher having no say. or the health care provider having no say. the 14-year-old's doctor having no say. you add to that weapons of war that 18-year-old people who are mentally deranged can walk in, get and run down little kids in school while police officers are helpless outside. and this is the republican party that joe biden is contrasting himself with. and it's, i've got to say, when i first got into politics, i had a guy who was a political adviser for somebody else saying, politics is all about contrast. it's all about what are you, what is your opponent. it's all about contrast. find those contrasts, drive them
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home. you know, i'd love to say joe biden was a genius at this stuff or that democrats were a genius at this stuff. i don't know, i think the republicans are just making their jobs way too easy for them. because while joe biden is talking about defending law enforcement officers, donald trump is tweeting out comments about republican violence. if the rule of law is enforced. >> well, joe, i think you're absolutely right on a number of different levels. i think it's important what president biden did yesterday and that is to really aggressively describe the difference. you know when we think about what merrick garland faces. he faces a tragic choice. the choice is whether or not we're committed to rule of law or we open ourselves up to political violence. what president biden did, at least for me, show us the nature of choice we face. the choice is very clear, either you're committed to democracy or
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you're not. either you're committed to a party that is in some way advocating for everyday folks. and committed to the basic norms of democracy or committed to those who aren't. there's no in between. and i can disagree with president biden on questions of law and order. i think that's backward looking language. that's language tied to entitlement and joe, we will disagree with that stuff. and the context is so important that it emphasizes the nature and morals that we face as americans. the choice is clear, either you're for democracy or you're not, that's what president biden seems to suggest there. >> claire, this is a posture that a lot of democrats and want joe biden to take. he's stepping into a moment where joe just laid it out. the country is watching extreme, extreme positions being mainstreamed in the republican
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party. independents saying wait a minute, i don't believe that. swaying his way and amplifying that and using that megaphone heading into the midterms. >> joe biden knows in his bones that this is not a far right or a far left country. he knows that the majority of americans reject extremism. and now that has become the main meat and potatoes of the republican party. extremism. and he is going to, i hope, ride this horse hard, all the way to november and beyond. because as long as republican leaders are not standing up, and not rejecting the calls to defund the fbi, the attacks being called for on the irs agents, the extreme laws that are being passed in republican legislatures across the country taking away from freedoms that many americans took for granted. as long as those leaders, as long as the leaders in washington are not rejecting this, they're going to get what
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they deserve. because extremism is on the ballot in november. and donald trump has put it there. >> and, claire, eddie, what you both just laid out the basic theme of the president's prime time address tomorrow in philadelphia. saying this is okay for the republicans, party of extremism who cannot even count on defending the nation's democracy. and hugo, whether or not biden will call trump by name, something he's loathe to do. and we know he won't talk about specifics what happened in mar-a-lago. try to keep that bright line between what's happening. and what do we anticipate happening next in terms of the time line here? we're talking yesterday, we know yesterday a special master decision coming tomorrow. and give us a sketch of what the next two weeks look like. there is this anticipation that merrick garland has a great decision to make.
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will he do do it before election day, right? >> i think that's the assumption by now. i think the case is so turbulent at this case, anything could happen. with the time line, today, we're expecting the response from trump's lawyers to the doj motion yesterday. that will be really interesting. i mean, doj 40-page response, it's going to be incredible to see what they come up. if they can defend any of the things they put in there. they certainly couldn't when i was speaking to them last night. thursday, we have the hearing in west palm beach with the judge there that's going to rule on whether any special master. and then i think the trump legal team has a little bit of introspection to do. they've got three lawyers here. jim trusty, and eddie corcoran involved in the june 3 event in mar-a-lago, that they didn't turn back all of the materials and then christina bobb on the in-house legal team who actually signed that document. those three people could
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potentially become co-defendants in this investigation if doj decides that they substantially md lead. or attempted to mislead the justice department at which point they could no longer serve on the president's legal team. and then trump has a huge problem, he's got two gaping holes on his legal team he has to fill in potentially the most perilous litigation he's faced to the day. >> john heilemann, we could go on all day. but claire mccaskill just said, republican leaders if they don't call out the crazy talk, they're responsible for it well, we've reached the stage now where it is some of the most senior members of the republican party that are actually engaging in the craziest of talk. but one of the most senior members of the republican caucus and the senate ran with the
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conspiracy theory saying irs agents were going to go to iowa, kick down doors of middle class americans with ar-15s and shoot them. kill them. you heard that, of course, on another cable network, too. that irs agents are going to kill -- >> right. >> -- going to kill middle class americans. you've got lindsey graham, another senior senator, talking about republican riots in the street. we've talked about the 10-year-old girl. we talked about the 14-year-old girl that, again, the people that republicans are electing, let me look at some of these other things. it's really crazy. the january 6th riots. mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy refuse to have a bipartisan bicameral investigation into riots that were met to overturn american
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democracy. what, they didn't care about riots? and yet, we have lindsey graham saying if you actually enforce the law, republicans are going to riot. these are the republican leaders. you've got the head of the republican party. if you look at anything that is actually amplifying these calls for violence if he's held to account like any other american would be in his position. >> you just said a thing, joe, about the trump legal team having a moment for introspection. i would say that moment, you would think, was also at hand for a lot of the members of the republican party, as they see what's been going on especially in the last couple of weeks. as it turns out the trump legal team and the republican party have as much respect for introspection as my dog does for calculus. it's not like a quality in great
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supply. think about this in that the week after the raid -- not the raid, i apologize, totally legal search and seizure by the fbi, raid is the wrong word. after it happened, joe, the first real wave was in the fever swamps of right wing media. it had not yet crept into lindsey graham's words. it hadn't crept into senator grassley, the person you're talking about from iowa, it's mostly the right wingnuts say these kind of things. what would the cost be from mitt romney in that week to stand up and say, these attacks, conservatives on law enforcement, on the fbi, the use of the words sstasi, and gestapos, nazis, all of that stuff, that would have been easy for mitt romney to take that position. i don't mean to pick on mitt
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romney but he's often the only reasonable person in republican party in recent years but he didn't stand up and say it. now he has to go out and attack lindsey graham. republicans whatever the reasonable ones remaining have backed themselves in a corner. instead of stepping away from the lit fuse of this bomb, they all keep rushing towards it. and i say, you know, for the umpteenth time, you know, when they're ready and if there comes a moment where political violence spreads, there are going to be a lot of people with blood on their hands. this display in the last three weeks has been even by the base standards of a donald trump gop has been shocking a shocking thing to see the republican party say those things. say what they say and the others stand by quietly and not say a word. it's hard to shock me, but i'm shocked.
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>> mika pled, pled with people talking irresponsibly and pled with them, pled with them, please stop stirring hatred, you're going to have blood on your hands, i believe it was that day or the next day that you had someone trying to kill a lot of fbi agents in ohio. >> yes. >> tragically, he was the one who died, i believe, in these conspiracy theories. i don't wonder, claire, really quickly, though, we're talking about republicans an oblivious team, oblivious as to how badly donald trump is leading them astray politically. let's just forget about morally, politically. there has been a weakening over the last week or so. the poll numbers, internal poll numbers coming in are pretty
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devastate for a lot of the republican candidates. and i'm wondering whether that is starting to wake some of these politicians up who are trying to figure out how to start distancing themselves from donald trump. you're certainly seeing it from ben shapiro who is telling republicans, yeah, you can keep following this guy if you want to keep losing elections. brit hume, now telling republican, this guy motivates democrats. he turns out independents. he costs elections for republicans. i wonder if any event will that get the republicans before this midterm election, or are they all in? >> it appears they're all in. they're all still hiding under their desks hoping it will go away. by the way, we've seen a few republicans actually trying to change their positions quietly.
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nbc is the one who caught blake masters trying to scrub his website to take away the positions he was proud of in the primaries, which is all abortions are illegal because conception is the moment a life begins. and now, he's trying to back that truck up. and say, oh, no, oh, no, i'm more exceptions. i'm only for making it illegal in extreme circumstances. so some of that is going on but i've got to take a minute here to try to do a little damage on my friend lindsey graham. i think the thing that is most disingenuous about what lindsey graham is doing, is that he is a military prosecutor. he understands how you apply the facts to the law. and for him to conflate what happened around the investigation around hillary clinton's emails which, by the way, cost her the presidency, the fbi's investigation, the supposed organization that's in the tank for the democrats, actually, by the way they
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handled that investigation, announcing another investigation into emails two weeks before the election cost her the election. so, the fbi was not her best friend. it was definitely on the trail, looking at everything she'd done, to equate the facts around that, to what this guy has done with compromising human life, and hiding top secret documents and obstructing the discovery of top secret documents in his home, this is a whole different plane of stuff. and for lindsey graham to say, and john cornyn did the same thing, saying oh, if they went after lindsey graham for miss panelling documents, lindsey graham knows it and shame on
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him. >> and the conspiracy theory with the irs, plainly no better. they know this is terrible if they'd done anything remotely like this they'd be in handcuffs as admiral stavridis said. to move this back to the segment three hours with ben collins talking about qanon, there are people out there in this country waiting for activated. they hear the calls from chuck grassley. they hear a call from lindsey graham. say this is war, time to fight back. and now donald trump is participating in that fight, retweeting or retruthing these -- i don't -- what the term -- i just made that up. but amplifying qanon, it might be cheap to the politicians who know better but it's real to the country. >> often in american politics, we think melodramatically, by that, we have clear and good examples of good and evil. this is the evil character.
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if we could only banish the evil character, we would all be good. we'd be absolved of our sins. and we need to see the back of donald trump's head and everything will be fine. but we slouch and that complicity has brought us to this moment now. >> john heilemann, claire mccaskill, thank you both for being very much this morning and "the guardian's" hugo lowell, thank you for reporting. still ahead on "morning joe," the new lawyer who just joined the trump team and the revelations but who is footing the legal bill and why that's significant. and up next, 200,000 people are without water this morning. we'll go live to mississippi for the latest on the growing disaster there. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. when modere ulcerative colitis persists... put it in check with rinvoq,
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jackson, mississippi, remains in a state of emergency this morning. the city's water system has been shut down due to massive flooding there, leaving 200,000 people without clean water. officials say it may take weeks to start up against. nbc news correspondent quad vin nag gas has more from mississippi. guar, how is it looking? >> reporter: willie, good morning. we're outside the water plant, this is the plant that failed and triggered the emergency when the flooding came. the people here have been dealing with issues for a long time. there's a boil water notice in place for over a month. so the city has been trying to make repairs at this plant, but they say they need more resources. now, under the current emergency, the state has come in with their experts to try and figure out what they can do to restore reliable running water to the people of jackson. this morning, in jackson,
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mississippi, residents are already lining up for limited supplies of water. the governor declaring a new state of emergency, calling in the national guard for help to distribute water to 180,000 people. >> this is not a situation that's going to be solved immediately. and it's not going to be involved overnight. >> reporter: if you're lucky enough to get water from the tap, it has to be boiled. depris young said her kids have no water. forcing the kids to have virtual learning this week and showering at a friend's house. >> we've had to boil water to cook, wash dishes, pretty much to brush our teeth. it's been hectic. >> reporter: football hall of famer deion sanders now coaching at jackson state university say his players and other students' fears need to be supported. >> the city of jackson, we don't have water, so, right now, we're
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operating in crisis mode. >> reporter: and for many more residents, the wait for water could be long. what's your message for people who had to leave empty-handed today? >> we do have water in the system. we're putting it in the city's distribution system. and over the next 24 to 36 hour, we will seek significant numbers of the truckloads of clean water. >> reporter: as officials do what they can, friends and family are relying on each other. stephanie greedler spent $90 on this one grocery run to make sure her elderly parent has water. >> it is a complete shame that this is not a new thing. water challenges have been there for years. >> reporter: and that's how difficult it has been for the residents here. now, with these additional resources, they do expect more water to be available for the people in the city today, while the federal government is now
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saying president biden accepting this emergency declaration. now fema and they will be communicating to bring in more resources for the state and city to work together and fix the issues at the water plant. willie. >> nbc's guad venegas in mississippi. eddie, you were down there jackson, pointing out what the woman in the piece said, this is not because of the rains. this is not a new problem. this is years in the making. >> yeah, this is infrastructure. i was just in there for the festival. they gave us bottles. this is before the rains happened. >> before the rains. >> this is before the rains happened. thing could be president biden's flip, he has to respond, he passed the infrastructure bill. this is case number one. let's address this 200,000 people without water in 100 degree heat index weather. this is a natural emergency.
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>> and these boil water advisories have been going on for years and years. it's a problem systemic and going on too long. we'll see what the president has to say about it. still ahead, new details and photos revealed in the new doj filing in the search of mar-a-lago, including how classified documents were reportedly moved and hidden. plus, we'll reflect on the life of the final leader of the soviet union, mib kale gorbachev who died at the age of 91. we also remember princess diana, 25 years to the day after she died in a car crash in paris. we'll be right back. twelve irre. the most epic sandwich roster ever created. ♪♪ it's subway's biggest refresh yet! we believe our military heroes ♪♪ deserve a company who will fight for them
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>> if you're on the side of a mob, the side of the police, you can't be pro-law enforcement and pro-insurrection. you can't be a party of law and order and call the people who
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attacked the police on january 6th patriots. you can't do it! >> president biden accusing what he calls maga republicans siding with january 6th insurrectionists over law enforcement in a speech from battle ground pennsylvania yesterday. plus, the late night court filing from the justice department that included a photo of some of the top secret documents seized from mar-a-lago three weeks ago. after donald trump's legal team told investigators all sensitive material had been returned. >> yeah. boy. >> and that is -- whew, there's a lot that happened overnight, joe, putting it in perspective. >> yeah. there really is an awful lot going on. willie, we were talking about campaigns are about contrast. you can say that about political parties as well. a democratic party that spent the last year and a half similarly lost fighting each
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other in front of cameras, press conferences saying one side is not doing enough. and the other side not doing too much. and a lot of americans wondered where the leadership is. now, we have actually a contrast this summer, joe biden showing it last night in the most striking of terms. we've actually got a party that is threatening riots in the street. we've got a water that's trying to gin their base up to commit violence against irs agents talking about ar-15s, going to the front doors, kicking down front doors, shooting people. as joe biden said, you can't be for law enforcement if you don't defense law enforcement, that's getting the hell beaten out of them on january 6. i know there's this debate that's been raging over whether or not police officers were killed as a result of january 6th or died as a result of january 6th. you talk to the family members, and they will tell you, yes, yes, january 6th is what caused their loved ones in uniform to
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die. and, now, of course, we take it to the fbi agents as joe biden said, fbi agents and their families now being threatened. and it is republicans calling the fbi and law enforcement officers the gestapo. calling them wolves. saying they're coming to get them. that they want to eat american. it's really bizarre. and lindsey graham talking about republican riots in the streets. donald trump amplifying that on his social media platform. and that's what joe biden is asking. what the hell is going on out there with these people? >> yeah. he's stepping into this moment where even for many republicans, as you've said, joe, and certainly for independents and democrats, this stuff is very, very extreme. when you talk about abortion of 14-year-old girls being made to deliver the babies of their rapists. when you talk about defending an attempted coup against the
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united states government around the 2020 election. and then again now, with these documents that were taken from the white house into mar-a-lago, what we're learning last night is great pains, great efforts were taken by the trump team to conceal the documents. you had attorneys for donald trump saying that the justice department being hostile. wouldn't give them back. so that forced them to get this warrant to go into mar-a-lago. those are extreme positions. and that's where president biden is putting his finger right now, tomorrow night in a prime time speech, he'll do the same. the justice department last night made its case for why a federal judge should reject president trump's call for a third party to review that sense of material. nbc news' correspondent peter alexander has the overnight details. >> reporter: this morning, the justice department revealing explosive new information into the ongoing criminal investigation into the highly classified documents seized from president trump's mar-a-lago residence. in a late night court filing, the doj contends top secret
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documents were likely concealed and moved around in an effort to obstruction its investigation. adding that mr. trump's representatives falsely claimed under oath that all of the materials had been returned. the filing also includes the striking new photo showing documents with classified markings laid out on the carpet that says it was taken from, quote, 45 office. >> those cover sheets are on the top of all classified records. and so it's pretty obvious to anybody, even somebody perhaps who didn't do their homework or read the materials presented to him when he was president that this stuff is classified and has to be treated in a certain way. >> reporter: the filing discloses some of the classified documents recovered during the fbi's search earlier this month were found in a desk in the former president's personal office. >> so the idea that he didn't know he was holding 0 ton classified information. and they were sitting in his desk in his office, not just in the storage room, it's very hard to make the argument. >> reporter: the government noting that in a matter of hours, the fbi recovered twice
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as many documents with classification markings as the, quote, diligent search the former president's team had vehicle weeks to perform. some of the recovered materials so sensitive that fbi agents and justice department attorneys needed additional security clearances just to review them. in all, more than 100 classified documents were seized. the 36-page filing lays out 9 doj's opposition that mr. trump's legal request for an independent set of eyes to reviewed the documents seized. the justice department says appointing a so-called superb master is unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests including national security interests. before last night's disclosure, mr. trump spent the day posting a barrage of qanon content and other conspiracy theories on his social media platform. meanwhile, president biden has slammed republicans for criticizing the fbi in recent weeks. >> dmrz no place in this country, no place, for
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endangering the lives of law enforcement. know place. >> nbc's peter alexander reporting there, let's bring in pulitzer prize winning journalist and washington correspondent for "the new york times," charlie savage. charlie, good morning. a pretty striking filing laid out so much of what the justice department says it knows about what it believes the former president and his team did but you point out in 84 piece, i'm reading here, prosecutors unmistakenly focused on the possibility that mr. trump and those around him took criminal steps to obstruct their investigation. but department officials are not expected to file charges imminently if they ever do. why is that, based on what we know even publicly? looks like there's plenty of ground for that. >> i agree that most of what would be needed to establish several crimes here, including obstruction, unauthorized retention of national security information.
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and perhaps a crime that wasn't listed in the search warrant we saw a couple weeks ago which is defying a subpoena. defying a lawful, you know, court order, appear to have been established here if they want to take that extraordinary step. i think they've described their investigation as ongoing, not complete. and i think they are still needing to fill in some final blanks that they do want to proceed here with charges. though nothing requires it, they could have just retrieved the documents and been satisfied with it but that investigation is ongoing. they do need to, i believe, get more information about what conversations happened between mr. trump and his circle including the lawyers here who are interacting with the government who performed the search of these documents and told the government that they were turning over everything. when as this filing makes clear, that was not true. did the lawyers know it wasn't true? did they mislead trump? did trump mislead them? that question remains at least in terms of publicly available
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evidence an unanswered question that any prosecutor would want to understand before proceeding with charges. >> charlie, it's jonathan, there's certainly been much talk about what is the espionage act. you in previous conversations have focused on obstruction. it seems like everything we learned yesterday adds weight to that possible charge, right? not only did the lawyers potentially whether they did knowingly or not, misrepresented everything, claiming they had given back the documents and that was not the case but it looks like documents were hidden where else on the property beyond where agents were looking. that all seems to build a pretty strong case. no? >> yes. obstruction, as a separate charge from the classified information, or the national defense information, espionage act that has sucked up most of the conversation since this search happened. obstruction is a separate crime. to prove it, prosecutors wore
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need to show that someone knowingly concealed the document for the purpose of obstructing an official investigation. the justice department investigation clearly counts as that. and i think the national archives' efforts to retrieve the documents that did not belong to mr. trump would be that intentionally unlawfully impeded here. so this is suggesting that the videotape that they were able to subpoena from the surveillance cameras at mar-a-lago, not state installed but the mar-a-lago own system, showing after they sent a subpoena in may to the trump team to turn over any other classified documents or documents marked classifies that were still improperly there. before a lawyer went in to search for what documents existed, apparently someone went into the storage room where a lot of them were being held and removed boxes. and those boxes were not returned before the lawyer went
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in and gathered up materials to hand over to the justice department. and, of course, they did not search anywhere else in mar-a-lago. and then they find all of these documents, twice as many documents, marked as classified in the search were discovered than what the trump team had turned over in early june. and swearing that that was everything is there was, in response to the subpoena. that really looks bad for someone in trump's circle. or maybe multiple people. >> yeah. so, charlie, we've been talking here, we understand that federal investigations take a very little. we talked about andrew gillum, the guy who is the democrat, gubernatorial candidate almost beat ron desantis in '18, he just got indicted after a six-year investigation. so, these things do take time. i do wonder, though, when you said that doesn't mean any
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arrest of his -- or indictment is imminent. if it ever happened. i do wonder how, though, would the doj, if in fact what we're seeing in the pleadings. if what we're hearing is true. if what we're reading is true. and if the doj proves their case, how in the world could they're not be obstruction charges against someone who is -- has no executive privilege to do this. has no right to do this. and is breaking the law, you said, unlawfully impeding an investigation. well, that's just obstruction. so how could merrick garland not bring charges if that's in fact what is proven. >> well, i'll interpret that as a rhetorical question rather than one you want me to answer directly, joe. but i will say it is interesting here, that i do think it's harder for the justice
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department to back down, now that it's revealed these things in such sort of alarmist tones in public. in this court filing and in previous ones. and the reason that it's saying these things in public is because trump and his team have provoked them into doing so. they filed this lawsuit asking for a special master weeks after it could have made any difference anyway, because the justice department has already had time to look at everything. so what is the point? they made the claims about executive privilege even though they already tried to use executive privilege, we now know, to block the fbi from seeing the initial 15 documents that the national archives was able to get out of mar-a-lago in january. that effort failed in part because you can't use executive privilege to prevent a chunk of the executive branch from doing its job. executive privilege is about preventing outsiders or the public from learning confidential executive branch
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things. so they're throwing these arguments up. they're trying to put sand in the gears or create a basis for public relations reasons, for political reasons, to portray the search as uninjured. and the biden administration out of control, as opposed to law enforcement trying to get back classified documents that should not have been there. but because the trump administration -- the trump team is doing that, it's pushing doj more and more to say publicly what was going on here, why they were alarmed. why they need to get the documents back. and i think that is going to make it harder for the justice department not to decide as a matter of policy discretion to go forward with charging somebody here otherwise it looks like they're ignoring a blatant violation of rule of law. >> washington correspondent for "the new york times." charlie savage, thank you very much. meanwhile as donald trump continues to hint at another presidential 81, contributor for the atlantic, jonathan roush is
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taking a look at what a second trump term might look like. jonathan joins us now. let's lead from some of your argument. when you outline how maga trump supporters could derail democracy by emulating the prime minister of hungary, victor orban, first, install todayies in key positions. second, intimidate the career bureaucracy. third, co-opt the armed forces. fourth, bring law enforcement to heel. even more intimidating to the president's opponents is securing full control at long last over the justice department, fifth, weaponize the pardon in trump's first term officials stood up to many of his illegal and unethical demands because they feared legal jeopardy. the president has a fix for that too. sixth, the final blow, defy order courts.
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and so after four years, america has crossed freedom house's line from free to partly free. the president's powers are determined by what will he can get away with. he's term-limited but the maga movement has entrenched itself. and trump has demonstrated in the united states what orban proved in hungary, the public will accept authoritarianism, provided it is of creeping variety. we should not be afraid to go against the spirit of the age and build anill-liberal political state system. orban declared in 2014, trump and his followers openly plan to emulate orban, we can't say we weren't warned. some of them echo the freddie? >> all of them do but the last.
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the justice department to heel and all of the other things that he either did do or attempted to do in his first term it's not like any of this is obscure or unknown. >> jonathan, there were some guard rails in place. in the first administration, thank goodness, there were some experienced hands both in the military and working around thinking of general kelly as his chief of staff and others who trialed at least to push back somewhat, and prevent some of donald trump's worst instincts. the great fear as you point out in your piece is that all of those people will be gone. and it will be absolutely the freak show and the former host of obscure television shows and people who defended him publicly. sketchy lawyers who will be installed in high positions and those guard rails such that they were in the last administration of his will be gone completely. >> well, that's exactly right. and we need to remember that toward the end of his term, especially after the election, he set about putting in place
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political toadies in the justice department. he could have succeeded in that given time. he was defeated by resignation threats and the block ran out. but that tells us clearly what he would do, at the beginning of his second, defying and putting in committees of national security apparatus and doj. >> jonathan, you it's interesting, you talk about toadies in the justice department. a great column asking what in the world do we do with position of attorney general moving forward, after we look at what barr did, surroundinged moeller report. you know, we always, of course, prosecutions and investigations have to move forward in the executive branch. and barr was somebody who worked
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overtime to whitewash the worst parts of the mueller reporter. characterized it in the right way, in a final report that barr steps in and decides on his own that donald trump didn't commit any crimes it just isn't what happened. mueller in fact said in his investigation, he wasn't cleared of charges, he just can't charge him. i'm curious, what do we do with a situation like that? what have we learned about barr as mishandling at the attorney general's office? >> remember, barr was a very respectable former attorney general. although he did, indeed, i think plausibly protect trump from the mueller investigation, in the rest of doj conduct, he mostly laid by the book. in a second book, what's likely to happen, trump would not repeat the mistake of pointing
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an attorney general who would go by the book. he'd just appoint someone like the pillow guy. then the senate, either because it's in democratic hands or because this is a step too far even for the republican might not confirm that person and trump would say, okay, i'll just make them acting attorney general. he did that in his first term, too. he's got all kinds of ways to do this. it is, if you've got a president whose got four years and is determined to with the justice department, i don't think we can stop that. >> so, jonathan, you know here in the piece that, of course, were trump to be elected again, they would face -- never have to face, he would never have to face voters again and therefore would not be answerable to them. or really anyone else. and you have the nightmare scenario that he would defy court orders and congress in the hands of the democrats and would be banking on the supreme court to back him up.
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we all know, he has appointed three of the sitting justices. what is in your estimation the likelihood that the supreme court, chief justice roberts still a topic, would go along with some of this in this scenario you have brought up? >> i think they would go along with not very much of it, trump enunciating in the mar-a-lago documents is clearly able to function outside of law. he'd have a hard time corrupting the court but at the end of the day defying court orders. that's a bridge he did not cross in the first term. i think he would in his second. his behavior clearly shows he's defiant. once he's done that, we're no longer a republican democracy, the rule of law is finished. the courts do not have their own police. they do not have their own law enforcement if a president simply defies them as andrew jackson did, very famously, there's not that much we can do.
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>> wow, contributing writer for the atlantic, jonathan raush, thank you for coming on about your piece. still ahead on "morning joe," an emboldened president biden sets the tone for democrats with just two months to go. hakeem jeffries will be our guest. plus, we'll introduce you to the newest lawyer to join the trump team. and up next, we'll remember a man who helped to tear down the iron curtain, mikhail gorbachev who passed away yesterday at the age of 91. and as we go to break, nasa has announced its new window to attempt to launch the artemis 1 lunar mission. the debut of nasa's mega rocket was set for monday but was called off due to an engine
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issue, now nasa is launching up 2:17 p.m. eastern time. crews plan to start cooling the engines earlier in the countdown to diagnose any potential problems sooner. if the flight is called off saturday due to weather, nasa officials say they could try again on monday, labor day. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. time. it's life's most precious commodity, especially when you have metastatic breast cancer. when your time is threatened, it's hard to invest in your future. until now. kisqali is helping women live longer than ever before when taken with an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant... in hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer. kisqali is a pill that's proven to delay disease progression. kisqali can cause lung problems, or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms,
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general secretary gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the soviet union and eastern europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. mr. gorbachev, open this gate.
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>> mr. gorbachev, mr. gorbachev, tear down this wall. >> an extraordinary moment in june of 1987, when ronald reagan went to the wall, of course. few imagined at the time that would ever happen. mikhail gorbachev, though, ended up being the final leader of the soviet union. and along with ronald reagan oversaw the end of the cold war. he, of course, died at the age of 91. nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell has details. >> reporter: mikhail gorbachev, the communist leader whose brief six-year reign transformed the
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map of europe and the world. the first soviet leader was a larger vision for his country, and was willing to hold a summit with ronald reagan the american president who called the soviet union an evil empire. little did gorbachev know he would preside over the end of that empire. years later saying we could and should save the soviet union but we lost politically. the two men clashed famously at their next meeting in reykjavik, iceland, but in december 1987, partly of the influence of nancy reagan on her husband they were at the white house signing a treaty. the same year gorbachev gave an interview to nbc's tom brokaw. and by the next year a return summit in moscow. the two were walking arm in arm in red square. and later gorbachev let the berlin wall come down without sending in russian tanks for which he won the nobel peace prize in 1990.
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americans were charmed by this ideas of soviet leader with ideas of glasmos and opening with economic structuring and his very modern wife. back home his colleagues tried to overturn him in a three-day coup and failed. gorbachev returned to find boris yeltsin in charge and soon resigned. he was said to avoid a bloody war in a country saturated with nuclear weapons. mikhail gorbachev, the man who changed the world but could not save his own country from falling apart. >> andrea mitchell reporting there. joining us columnist for "the washington post" david ignatius and former nato supreme allied commander james stavridis, washington bureau chief for "usa today" susan page still with us as well. good morning to you all. admiral, if i'm not mistaken, maybe a tear in your eye or chill up your spine, at least as you watched president reagan back in 1987.
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>> you talk about perfect timing and delivery by ronald reagan, but talk about enormous integrity by mikhail gorbachev. really a remarkable moment. you know, willie, at home, i have a strand of barbed wire from the old wall. and every time i walk by it i think i'm walking by freedom. it hasn't turned out perhaps the way we wanted to. in fact, yesterday, someone said to me breathlessly, a russian leader has died. and i thought putin. turns out, nope, gorbachev. you know, this is russia, they roll the cossack dice. one time you get ivan the terrible, then peter the great. then stalin, then a gorbachev. and those dice have landed again on vladimir putin and the world is poorer for it. and we should miss mikhail gorbachev who had his flaws but delivered so much to this nation, working in concert with
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the great american president ronald reagan. >> he really did, working in concert, david ignatius, i remember after reykjavik, commentators were so shocked that reagan walked away. without doing the deem. ended up reagan knew what he was doing, it was fascinating, though, through the years, you've had many in america on the left credit mikhail gorbachev ending the cold war, acting as if ronald reagan had nothing to do with it. on the right giving all credit to ronald reagan acting as if mikhail gorbachev was not necessary to expedite this. but in reality, they did work in concert. they were partners in history, weren't they? >> they were partners. an unlikely partnership to be sure. and mikhail gorbachev was a miracle to use the words of
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george r. kenon, and gorbachev was a product of the soviet system. he was in a party where he was from. he'd come up from the party. he was a soviet man. and he began to see, as he moved toward the peak of power in the 1980s that this was a system that was corrupt. it was inefficient. it was broken. and so he thought he could reform it. and it turned out to be a terrible mistake because the system was so rotten from within, that the more change he made and andrea mitchell reminds us the words, glosmos, openness, the more he tried to do that, the more the system crumbled. and so by the end of this time, he was being overwhelmed by more radical forces who wanted to sweep soviet communism away. it ended so quickly. i find, joe, a great poignancy, in thinking about this man who
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with reagan's help, swung the door of this monstrous soviet regime open. and now we've seen that door slammed closed again with the despotic leader in vladimir putin. putin has done something in ukraine that even the worst of the soviet dictators wouldn't have contemplated. it's really a tragic finale to the story of gorbachev. almost an accidental reformer who started a process that once it began simply couldn't be stopped. >> we're going to sneak in a quick break. up next, we'll talk to susan page about the life of mikhail gorbachev. plus more on mar-a-lago and what admiral stavridis says would have happened to him, if he took classified documents home, even just one, like the ex-president did. "morning joe" is coming right back.
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♪♪ susan page, your thoughts on the legacy of mikhail gorbachev. >> it's really an example how an individual leader makes the difference. there was nothing inevitable about the course that gorbachev took. he made a huge difference in just about six years in power. but he needed a partner. a partner in margaret thatcher. he had a partner with ronald reagan. i was covering the reagan white house. we shouldn't forget how much resistance there was within reagan's own ranks to engaging with this soviet leader. there was a lot of suspicion whether to trust mikhail gorbachev.
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and as andrea mitchell mentioned in her piece, nancy reagan played a big roll in countering some of the most trusted hawkish advisers. i think her role should not be overlooked here. and just one more thing, george h.w. bush managed to land a plane with the dissolution of the soviet union, with the end of the cold war. that was a treacherous period and he handled it with enormous deftness. i'd be curious, in fact, to hear what my friend david ignatius has to say about this, with a series of partners saying gorbachev that was so important that has enabled him to do the legacy that he's left. david? >> so, if i can respond to that, susan, i do think that george h.w. bush was a master at playing out the end game with
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the soviet union was crumbling. all of the weakness that gorbachev had seen coming down around him. but to keep that debris from causing enormous damage. to see the change all the way through that without it erupting was an amazing achievement done by baker, done by his national security adviser, baker, his secretary of state, and then bush himself. i just want to note, thinking of something that joe said in 1983, i went to the soviet union, i went to moscow. gorbachev was then a rising protege of the kjb chairman. i went to see a dissident outside of moscow. somebody who lost everything. this person turned to me in this cold study and said -- reagan had just given the evil empire speech. he turned to me how can it your country which is so rich and we thought had forgotten
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about us that you have a president who still calls us by our true name, who calls us the evil empire. how this happened, what a miracle. i never looked at reagan the same way after that. that's how his words were heard in moscow by people who desperately wanted change. you have a president who has told the truth about us. i think in that century, it was central to the story. >> and gorbachev brought about that change. and he had admirable contempt, although he didn't express it publicly, for what vladimir putin is doing, attempting to undo all of his work. i do want to ask you, admiral, talking about in the previous segment about classified documents and what's found at mar-a-lago. you had insights what might happen to you if you're even found with a single classified document in your home. >> and here, i'm kind of speaking to all of the military people who are handling classified documents every single day. when i was supreme allied commander of nato, every day at
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10:00, a young captain would show up with a binder full of that sci/tk, top secret. and literally, both of our hands were locked on that binder as he passed from himself to me. you know, if either one of us had torn out a few pages, hey, i'm going to look at this a little later, whatever, they would have come, discovered that and taken us away in handcuffs. me, the four star admiral. him, the young captain or the sergeant who did the same thing. so, however this all turns out at mar-a-lago, my insight is there are people protecting classified material every day. and they are watching what happens here. and the next time someone mishandles classified documents, they might say, oh, gosh, someone else got away with this. but i assure you that's a bad lesson. >> you're talking about one document. you're not obstructing, you don't have any bad intent.
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something completely going on at mar-a-lago. retireded admiral james stavridis, "washington post's" david ignatius, and susan page, great conversation. thank you for being here. good to see you. mika. coming up, remembering princess diana 25 years after her death. we'll talk about her legacy and how the royal family has changed over the past quarter century. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ♪ breeze driftin' on by... ♪ if you've been playing down your copd,... ♪ it's a new dawn, it's a new day,... ♪ ...it's time to make a stand. start a new day with trelegy. ♪...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ no once-daily copd medicine... has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy helps people breathe easier and improves lung function. it also helps prevent future flare-ups.
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let me ask you about qanon. it is this theory that democrats are say satanic pedophile group and you are the savior of that. now, can you once and for all state that is completely not true? and deny qanon in its entirety? >> i do know about qanon -- >> i just told you.
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>> you told me but what you told me doesn't necessarily make it fact. i hate to say that. i know nothing about it. i do know they are very much against pedophilia, they fight it very hard. >> they call it a satanic -- >> i will tell you what i know about, i know about antifa and the radical left and how violent they are, how vicious they are, and burning down cities run by democrats. >> republican ben sasse said, quote, qanon is nuts and real leaders call it conspiracy theory. why don't you just say? >> i don't know about qanon. >> you do know. >> i don't know. no i don't know. i don't know. >> it's unbelievable. of course, he knows all about qanon. >> that was one month before the 2020 election, refusing to denounce qanon. yesterday, the former president shared dozens of qanon inspired posts on his social media
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platform. it was his most direct show of support so far. but the extreme fringe movement is just a reminder of what qanon is. it is a conspiracy theory built around an anonymous account. "the new york times" describes it this way. millions of qanon followers believe that an imaginary cabal of sex-trafficking, satan-worshipping liberals is controlling the government, and that donald trump is leading the fight against it. newsguard, a media watchdog that monitoring misinformation. found that trump has more than 4 million followers on truth social has promoted 30 different qanon accounts for a total of 65 posts since joining the site in april. those numbers do not include yesterday's posting spree which happened at the same time the doj was getting ready to release
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this staggering new information. joining us now, nbc news senior reporter ben collins. on, first of all, the former president and what he was saying yesterday. >> yes. so, he was i would so he was i would say on one yesterday on truth social. he was aflame. there were 60 posts yesterday on truth social, which makes up a lot of what's going on there, frankly. it's very hard to find others on there. he retweeted many qanon accounts, one of which posted a meme that said the enemy is not in russia putting "the enemy" over the eyes of kamala harris. he posted something about the storm. the storm in qanon lure is that one day donald trump led by a secret military is going to go and publicly execute people like hillary clinton, joe biden,
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barack obama, all these people viewed as the deep state for all their crimes against children, which they believe are happening in these underground tunnels. this is something he's trying to reactivate. qanon was dying. qanon was a thing that did not make sense anymore. it was becoming clearer over time. yesterday he re-truthed a post on truth social that had joe biden holding a sign that said "donald trump is still the president." so he is trying to reactivate these people and it's working. the top response to that post was simply a post that said "wipe them out, sir." >> that clip of donald trump saying i don't know anything about qanon reminds me of what he said about david duke to jake tapper in 2016.
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oh, i don't know anything about david duke, yet in 1991 he told larry king, i hate what he represented. in 2000 he said he wouldn't be a member of the reform party because david duke was a member and david duke was a klansman. he knows exactly what qanon is and he is spreading this hate-filled conspiracy theory. the split screen remarkable, joe biden is talking about extremism among donald trump maga supporters in congress, and donald trump at the same time is spreading conspiracy theories, dangerous conspiracy theories. >> donald trump is making joe biden's case for him by the day. you're right about david duke. we had a similar dance from donald trump about the proud boys and other hate groups where he said he didn't know what they were and then embraced them because he knows they support
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him as he knows these qanon followers do. it felt like a panic yesterday. now we see this barrage of posts coming just hours before the doj release. it felt perhaps the former president knew some bad news was coming and he's trying to rally his supporters. these conspiracy theories have led to violence. someone took shots at a washington, d.c. pizza place because they were convinced children were being held hostage in the basement. we should note the timing of this, that the truth social post barrage yesterday came one day after on that same site trump amplified lindsey graham's call about violence, suggesting that if trump were indicted, that republicans would take to the streets and there would be violence. i think these two things should be seen as tandem here. we're very concerned and law enforcement i imagine would be as well. coming, the chairman of the
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house democratic caucus, congressman hakeem jeffries is standing by. he joins the conversation just ahead on "morning joe." onversatt ahead on "morning joe. time. it's life's most precious commodity, especially when you have metastatic breast cancer. when your time is threatened, it's hard to invest in your future. until now. kisqali is helping women live longer than ever before when taken with an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant... in hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer. kisqali is a pill that's proven to delay disease progression. kisqali can cause lung problems, or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems,
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let me say this to my maga republican friends in congress. don't tell me you support law enforcement if you won't condemn what happened on the 6th. don't tell me. can't do it. for god's sake, whose side are you on? whose side are you on? >> it is just about the top of the hour now, the fourth hour of
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"morning joe." that was president biden in pennsylvania yesterday framing the democratic party as the party of law and order. just hours later, the justice department filed a midnight document saying classified documents at donald trump's mar-a-lago estate were, quote, likely concealed and removed as part of an effort to obstruct the investigation to retrieve them. it is the big story this morning. we're going to have the very latest. we're also following events very closely in ukraine, where this morning ukrainians are launching fresh artillery strikes in their counter offensive against russia. plus, the world is remembering mikhail gorbachev, the last leader of the soviet union, who played a key role in literally changing the course of world history. willie. >> let's start as we hit the top of the hour here with the
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revelations from the justice department's investigation into former president trump. we're learning new details from an overnight doj filing in response to trump's request for an independent review of the materials that would be known as a special master following the search of mar-a-lago earlier this month. the doj argues appointing a special master, quote, is unnecessary and would significantly harm important governmental interests including national security interests. the doj points out government review teams have already finished their work and a third party reviewing the documents only would impede the ongoing criminal investigation. the filing also reveals the justice department brought a search warrant for mar-a-lago after obtaining evidence that highly classified documents were likely moved and hidden and that trump's representatives had falsely claimed all sensitive material had already been returned. quote, the government also