pack? >> so he's got a couple folks from larry hogan's team, brian kemp's team, that are helping him with the pac, trying to focus not just on iowa, first and foremost, of course, but they're trying to rebrand him and reintroduce him to the american people as mike pence, not as former vice president to donald trump mike pence. that is an incredible tall task, especially when donald trump is running and the contrast will always be inherent. they'll have to do a hot of work to be able to make that contrast, if pence is unwilling to even say anything negative or critical about donald trump to separate the two. >> of course, pence has lost the support of so many trump backers because of his criticism about january 6th and what he did that day. alexi, thanks. great to see you this morning. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪♪

good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, may 16th. ahead this hour, the latest developments from ukraine following new russian missile attacks overnight. the strikes come as the ukrainian president is touring europe, looking to restock his army's arsenal. plus, the durham report was supposed to vindicate donald trump of his alleged ties to russia, but now that it's finally out after four years, there's not much in it that we didn't already know. we're going to go through the findings just ahead. we'll also have an update on the debt ceiling talks ahead of a high-stakes meeting at the white house. also today, just ahead now, arnold schwarzenegger joins us live from austria, where some of the world's top climate activists and leaders are meeting right now. along with joe, willie and me, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire.

special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay is with us. and columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. great group to have. great to be back. >> fantastic, yeah. >> a lot going on, joe. >> well, i mean, a lot going on. a lot not going on. if you read john durham's report, mika. >> oh, well. >> he was the longest serving special counsel, four years, and the report offers us no new charges, no new revelations, not even new suggested rules for the fbi. i mean, they were so horrible, he didn't even suggest any new rules. he also had investigations into political matters that he ended up offering no advice on. just more bad writing and bush league posturing to trumpers. he relitigated cases that he lost in front of juries he faced

in the last four years. not any convictions. it's another sad, pathetic attempt to make suckers -- and we remember this because we showed their headlines. he wanted to make suckers of pro-trump news hosts and right-wing newspapers that already got burned pedaling his lies before. what was his goal? his goal was to trash premier law enforcement organizations in america and attack the men and women who serve every day at the department of justice. the only good news is at least his four-year taxpayer funded boondoggle, that was funded by working americans, paying him to walk through the fevered swamps of trumpism is over. durham has nothing but a tarnished reputation to show for it. but it underlines, again, the fact, and willie, if you listen to what people are saying about

this report on the trump right, it underlines the fact that, well, they hate the fbi. they've turned the premier law enforcement organization into a political punching bag that they say they want to defund. they want to defund the people that protect us from terrorists, protect us from gangs, that protect us from the people who are actively trying to kill us every day. it's just absolutely crazy. and this whole report, what was it to do? it was to trash the fbi. it was to investigate the investigators. it went on longer than the underlying investigation. four years, millions and millions of dollars, and nothing to show for it but some really bad, humiliating headlines for pro trump newspapers. >> yeah. nearly twice as long as the mueller investigation. four years almost to the day, almost $7 million spent for this 306-page report. let's remember, in 2019, the

department of justice under donald trump, the ig there launched his own investigation and said, yes, there were flaws in the way the fbi went about this, but the investigation itself was, in fact, justified. the fbi made changes after that. when this report came out yesterday, the fbi said, yeah, we know all that. everything you put in this report is out there, and that's why we made these changes a couple of years ago. yes, it is sort of a rehashing. i guess john durham had to produce something after spending four years on this. it turns out not to be much of anything, really. nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian has been following this from the beginning. so, ken, as you sort of turn through the pages, 306 of them, of this, what did you see inside? any new revelations? any bombshells to your reading? >> willie, there was some new information, really only meaningful for us who are following every little twist and turn of this. but the thing that was most remarkable to me about this

report is that john durham did not even actually come out and say that the fbi should not have opened that investigation after george papadopoulos, the trump aid, told an australian diplomat the russians had offered to help the clinton campaign. he didn't even go as far as he did when the justice department ig report was released that you mentioned. at that time, durham issued a shocking, public statement. prosecutors don't do this. he issued a public statement saying he disagreed with the ig's conclusion that the investigation was justified. but he seemed to have walked back that conclusion because i didn't see it anywhere explicitly in this report. now, he criticizes a lot of the ways the fbi handles this evidence, but really importantly, he doesn't find evidence of political bias, even though there were. obviously, pete strzok, who expressed bias against trump, he didn't find the key decisions were motivated by bias.

he doesn't find corruption. he doesn't find the crime of the century. you know, it was really weak sauce after a $6 million, four-year investigation, leaving a lot of questions behind. >> durham dud. >> so, ken, the senate intelligence committee also launched its own investigation. the chairman at the time, mike warner, came out with a statement yesterday, said, we looked through all this, spent years looking through millions of documents. at the end of the day, i know it's a big question and a lot to comb through, what is the general feeling about the way the mueller investigation, the way the investigation into possible collusion, or at least corruption between donald trump's campaign and russia during the 2016 campaign, what was there? is there a there there? >> well, there's what's there, and there's what sort of intel officials, you know, think as they go to sleep at night, what might be there. what is provable, what mueller found and what that senate report that you mentioned really

expanded on was that there was a number, dozens and dozens of contacts between trump campaign officials and russians. the bipartisan senate report says it posed a counterintelligence threat to the united states. the senate report essentially said the trump campaign left itself wide open to manipulation by a russian regime that was interfering in the election and was trying to help trump win. what's remarkable about that, it was a bipartisan report. republicans signed onto that. now, they're all trashing the fbi. it's not just the pro trump side of the party, it's everybody. it's all republicans that i've seen, you know, criticizing the fbi here. what that report found was that they were more than justified. they had to have looked into this because it was a threat to the united states. there was a foreign government that was trying to manipulate the election. it was trying to help one side win. now, when you go sort of into the realm of what mueller couldn't prove but what some intelligence officials suspect,

they just put the dots together. here, you had, you know, a trump campaign that was open to russian assistance, was hoping that the russians would use those hillary clinton emails to the trump campaign's advantage, a series of suspicious meetings between trump campaign officials and russians. then, you know, a campaign manager, paul manafort, who was meeting with the russian, a person we know as a russian intelligence asset. a lot of smoke there, and they were never able to prove there was any formal arrangement between donald trump and the russians. meanwhile, you had donald trump saying really nice things about vladimir putin and publicly asking the russians to find hillary clinton's emails. you know, what that all adds up to is, you know, up for anyone to decide, i guess. >> jonathan lemire, republicans, it's crazy, it's really sad to see political amnesia overtake an entire party. these are the same republicans

that dutifully went along with the republican senate intel committee. it issued a report saying, everybody, listen. this is what marco rubio's senate intel committee stated, the republicans. that donald trump's 2016 presidential campaign caused a direct counterintelligence threat to the united states of america. let me say it again. marco rubio and the senate intel committee concluded, first of all, that the fbi had ample cause for concern in 2016, and also said -- i will say it again -- these are the words of marco rubio and republicans on the senate intel committee. they said that donald trump's

2016 campaign caused a direct counterintelligence threat to the united states of america. now, because they're under the sway of a reality tv show host, they think that we don't have books or internets or video that shows them saying this. they did. jonathan, to just say russian hoax, russian hoax, when they're saying, republicans are saying, this is a direct threat, a counterintelligence threat to the united states of america, i mean, maybe their dwindling base will believe them. the rest of americans will say, "man, why are you guys trashing the fbi when you've said they were trying to investigate a direct counterintelligence threat to the united states of america?" >> you just laid out the

reality, joe, but for so many republicans, they don't care about the reality. the reality doesn't matter. yes, maybe that -- >> but the republicans wrote that! >> i know. >> the republicans wrote it! >> they wrote it. >> they ran the committee! >> they wrote it. they ran the committee. but so many of them took victory laps yesterday after this report came out. as we went through it, there is no there there. there is no there there. yes, there was some criticism of the fbi, but for the whole, the probe was deemed warranted. no new arrests and so on, as ken detailed. we heard from so many. senator lee, senator graham, so many republicans carrying donald trump's water again, suggesting that this is proof that the durham probe was worth it. the fix was in. the fbi was biased. agents from within the government were trying to take down donald trump, which, again, flies against the reality of what their fellow republicans same a few years ago. yes, maybe republicans are being out of touch and extreme and out

of line for what most americans care about, i think that's clear, but it's another moment where donald trump's hold over the party is so evident. trump has been yelling literally for years about this durham probe, night after night, rally after rally, saying this was going to bring down -- >> for years. >> for years, bring down the government. this was going to be vindication for him. even though it did not end up being that, he's still clinging to that refrain on truth social. republicans are happy to sing along. >> that's just -- >> four years. four years of nothing. now, we have durham publishing another dud. we have durham actually trying to relitigate cases in this report that juries unanimously rejected. it's unbelievable. some are taking victory laps, moving ron desantis right that this is a party addicted to losing. this would be like us taking a victory lap after the boston red sox lost their fourth game in a

row last night. >> we know better than that. >> last place. >> oh, my gosh. >> we red sox fans, you don't see us taking victory laps around fenway park. we want to fire everybody when we lose. republicans don't think that way. they think, oh, we humiliated ourselves. we spent four years of taxpayer's money. we humiliated newspapers publishing false headlines. it's true, hillary tapped donald trump's campaign. it's all lies. the republicans said it was a direct counterintelligence threat. nothing new here. again, at least durham will stop wasting taxpayers' money. david ignatius, i think ken dilanian, it's very telling, you know, ken walks through the report, talks about it soberly, unlike me. god bless him. that's why we have him. but the key point here is that the fbi looked at this, and they're like, yeah, well, yeah,

we saw some of these problems years ago. we've already directed them. we learned an awful lot in 2016 while we were investigating a case that marco rubio and his colleagues on the intel committee said posed a direct threat, a u.s. counterintelligence threat. what's your takeaway from this report? >> so, joe, first, i really like your analogy of the republican party to suffering the curse of the red sox, laboring under this terrible shadow. so my view of this is a little different. i would say, at the end of the durham report, these four long years, it shows that the system worked. in the end, a serious prosecutor, very experienced, did not find evidence that backed up the extreme charges

that trump people have been throwing around. yeah, there's language in his report criticizing the fbi, and some of that is probably warranted. the fbi did make mistakes. the justice department ig said that. it's generally accepted. but durham did not find evidence of some kind of fundamental breakdown in law enforcement that would disqualify the whole probe. my takeaway would be, this is like a non-prosecution decision. durham in the end didn't have it. he said it. used some sharp language, but, you know, four years at least i think should wash some of these conspiracy theories out of the system. >> all right. david is also very sober. it's why we have him on. we need to move along. we thank ken dilanian for his sober and respectful approach to this investigation. >> all right. now to a new push for solutions this morning on the ongoing

battle to reverse the harmful effects of climate change. some of the world's top climate activists and leaders are meeting in vienna right now for the austrian world summit. it's an annual conference aimed at promoting new ideas to combat the climate crisis. it's part of a schwarzenegger climate initiative, created by former california governor arnold schwarzenegger. he just wrapped up his keynote address at this year's conference a short time ago, and he joins us now. mr. schwarzenegger, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. we'd like to hear what you are hoping to accompany in this conference. also, if you could talk about climate change in its relation to the war in ukraine and what people need to know. >> first of all, let me say thank you very much for having me. we are just in the middle of this conference right now. it started this morning.

like you said, i gave the keynote speech here. it is always wonderful to bring everyone in the environmental movement here together, from all over the world, and talk about what we can do to move the chains forward and get off fossil fuels. the theme today, my theme of the speech was we have to speed up the process of getting things built. i'm not just talking about any infrastructure, highways, freeways, tunnels, bridges, all that kind of stuff. i'm talking about green projects, infrastructure that has to do with energy. there is thousands and thousands of projects that are being held up in america, held up in europe. you know, bureaucracy, lawsuits, papers, studies, all this kind of stuff, all the crap that holds things up for years and years and years. it takes four, five years to get a green project built, solar, something can take up to ten years in europe, you know,

windmills built. the only way we can really replace fossil fuels, which is a killer, which kills 7 million people a year, is with renewable energy. or nuclear energy, one or the other. the bottom line is, we have to go and speed up the building process because in america, we have 2,000 gigabytes of clean energy waiting to be built, except it needs the permits. just to show you how many energy this is, we use daily around 1,200 gigawatts in america. you're talking about 2,000 gigawatts ready to be built, that we need to permit. europe has the same problem. america has that problem. the new environmentalism should be about, let's build and be about moving forward so we can replace fossil fuels. >> governor, great to have you on the show this morning. since you are there with the leaders from around the world on climate change, the future of energy, what are some of the exciting ideas that you're

hearing at the conference as you sit there today? there's so much going on in the world. it's clear where everything is headed. there are obviously some lobbies and interest groups that are trying to slow down that progress for their own reasons. but what are you hearing there that gives you hope, gives you promise that we're headed in the right direction? >> it gives me hope we will move forward with the process, with the permitting process. president biden right now is talking to the republican congress about that and negotiating about that to speed up the process. there's really good things happening at the eu. in europe, they've already moved forward and changed and reformed the process, so they're speeding up the process. i think people are hearing this as an emergency, loud and clear. we are in an emergency. an emergency means you can't always get everything perfect, but you can go and move forward. that's what i'm stressing to do.

we have called for new environmentalism. we understand the old environmentalists kind of was afraid of building because it meant more pollution and more death, stuff like that. this is the new environmentalism. we have the technology now. we know that, for instance, solar and wind is much cheaper now than coal. let's go and replace coal with those elements, with this energy. that's what i'm trying to do. when it coms to technology in general, joe, i think it is really exciting when you see that in 2005, when we had the car show in los angeles when i was governor, we had one electric car. now, we have the latest car show, we had over 50 electric cars. now, every company, every car company in the world is building electric cars and hydrogen cars, so the technology is changing really fast. there's great things that are happening when it comes to technology. if we fail, it's not going to be a failure of technology and innovation. it'll be a failure of our

inaction. >> mr. schwarzenegger, there seems to be climate conferences every week at the moment. there's the u.n. one, the cop one. that is your gathering in vienna adding to the equation? what do you bring to the table that perhaps others aren't able to do? it is a political needle, not a technological needle, as you pointed out. what can you do that others can't? >> it's a communication needle. it's not a political needle. it's a communication needle. as long as we talk about climate change, which most of the conferences do. by the way, i have to say, it's great to have all these conferences all over the world. no difference than when we promoted the fitness movement in the '70s. the more we talked about fitness, weight training, cross training, more people got involved. now, exactly what i predicted then, there would be eventually more, you know, grocery stores and supermarkets -- i mean, more

gymnasiums than supermarkets, that's exactly what has happened. it's all because, you know, we promoted it and talked about it for years. the same is with this. we have to talk about it. we have to have as many conferences, write as much about it, do speeches and on and on and on. but the difference with our epresent is very simple. we talk about things that most people are afraid to talk about. we talk about the things, the mistakes being made within the environmental movement. for instance, communication. people talk about climate change. it doesn't mean anything to anybody. you have to talk about what causes climate change. it's pollution. let's talk about pollution. everyone understands pollution. everyone understands the health threats. when i was governor of california, we talked about pollution and how many kids have asthma in the central valley in california. that really connected to the people. climate change didn't connect to the people. the threat of the kids getting sick, them dying because of

pollution, that's what connected. that's how we were able to move and pass so many great environmental laws in california. we want to let people know, try to communicate different. include pollution and fossil fuels, how it kills people, rather than just talking about climate, climate, climate. everyone talks about climate, but no one knows what the hell it is. any product you have, to be to communicate to the people, promote it and market it the right way. >> governor, this is david ignatius in washington. you're there in austria. literally almost next door, a frightful war is going on in ukraine. this last night, there was terrible bombing in the city. just wondering what you as a european at the start of your life feel as you are watching this going on, what thoughts you'd send to the ukrainian people, and what thoughts you'd

send to russia? >> well, mayor klitschko from kyiv, he was on our show today. he was part of our environmental conference. it's really sad to hear his story. you turn on the news, and you listen to the sad stories. how, you know, a country that was attacked unprovoked and, you know, has this unbelievable effect, and how many people have to die. not only ukrainian people have to die, but russian people have to die. they don't even know what is happening. it's sad. i hope that someone amongst the leadership in the world comes up with a solution to have them both sit down and start negotiating, talk, and come to a peace agreement. >> arnold schwarzenegger, thank you very, very much for coming on the show this morning. we look forward to hearing more about the conference. we appreciate it.

david ignatius, as much. >> david, if you don't mind -- >> i was going to close out the block. >> oh, are we closing the block? >> yeah, we go to break. >> is that what alex is yelling in my ear about? really, okay. i thought he was talking about the yankees game last knights. david, quickly, talking about ukraine, where are we right now? we're hearing, obviously, china getting more involved in possibly trying to bring the two sides together. you have germany. you have italy. you have nato powers ramping up their support in a strong way for the ukrainians. you have reports of russia starting to get pushed back even before the spring offensive. of course, the wagner group leader reportedly willing to give up locations of russian troops. a lot of things moving right now. i'm wondering if you see any trend lines that suggest we may

be moving toward on serious negotiations in the next few months. >> joe, we're on the eve of what will be the decisive months in this war. the first thing we should all focus on is ukraine's coming counteroffensive. they repaired for this now almost a year. we've given them the equipment to punch through, at last, the front. they've shown incredible bravery in bakhmut, standing up against a world war i style assault for month after month. the ukrainians are ready to move. any day now, we'll see the beginning of this counteroffensive. what i hear from the white house and state department is the hope that if the ukrainians can make significant gains, we may then be in a season where diplomacy may become possible. the chinese in their meetings last week with national security

adviser jake sullivan agreed that rug setbacks, ukrainian gains, would put this in a much more dangerous standpoint from their position. the ukrainians are talking to chinese peace emissaries who are visiting kyiv to discuss the way a negotiation might proceed. they're making clear they don't want to have territory concessions. they don't want to give up the group they fought so hard for. but we should first watch for the battlefield, see what that tells us, see if the ukrainians can gain enough, and then i do think there's a real movement supported by the united states, china, our allies, to see if diplomacy can work. >> david ignatius, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," signs ron desantis is on the verge of launching his presidential campaign. his political operation is officially moved out of party headquarters in tallahassee.

while the florida governor is highlighting the republican losing streak while donald trump was in office -- >> you know, he's lost a lot. want me to tell you about that? >> ron desantis does the list, just like you do. >> okay. he lost a lot of elections. >> we can get to that later. >> in a row. >> understood. >> wow. plus, trump doubles down on comments encouraging republicans to default on the national debt. we'll have the latest on negotiations ahead of today's meeting between president biden and congressional leaders at the white house. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. (water splashing) hey, dad... hum... what's the ocean like? ♪

are there animals living underwater? ♪ is the ocean warm? yeah, it can be very warm. ♪ you were made to remember some days forever. we were made to help you find the best way there. ♪

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look at that beautiful sunrise over washington, d.c. it is 33 past the hour. it appears ron desantis is inching closer to launching a presidential campaign. a republican party official confirmed to nbc news the florida governor's political operation is officially moving out of the party headquarters in tallahassee. trucks were seen outside the building yesterday. this move is expected to cost more than $5,000. if desantis' office spends that much money, they must file a report within 15 days, officially declaring his candidacy. we could be upon it. meanwhile, desantis is ramping up his attacks against donald trump. during a press conference yesterday, the florida governor brought up the republican party's losing streak while trump was in office. >> i look at the last however many election cycles, 2018, we lost the house.

we lost the senate. 2020, biden becomes president. excuse me, we lost the senate in 2020. biden becomes president and has done a huge amount of damage. very unpopular in 2022. we were supposed to have this big red wave. other than florida and iowa, i didn't see a red wave across this country. the party has developed a culture of losing. i think there's not accountability. i think in florida, we really showed what it takes to not just win, win big and then deliver big. >> okay. he doesn't do it as well as you, but that's okay. he does it. >> thank you, dear. >> no, i mean, you have the list. actually, just please don't do it again, okay? >> it's so hard. >> it keeps wavering off. bottom line, it's a losing streak, and he hopes to break it. >> willie, they've lost so much. it seems to me this is a good

tack for desantis. he needs to punch it up when he starts campaigning, talking about, "hey, i hate losing. i don't want to -- it's a culture of losing in the republican party. donald trump lost." punch it up. that's actually a really good message. >> yeah. >> i think most republicans, most republicans, would prefer winning to -- and i won't go through the list -- >> thank you. >> -- to losing. >> go ahead, joe. >> '17, '18, '19, '20, '21, '222 -- '22, '23. a massive loss in wisconsin, a massive launch in kentucky in '22 on abortion. then, of course, a massive loss, even governorships across kentucky and louisiana in the off years. they're losing the big races and the smaller races, too, because,

again, trumpism does not scale. in fact, it pushes people away. i keep having -- and i know it's anecdotal, but i just keep talking to republicans. i keep talking to them. you know, i used to -- my anecdotal evidence was always, you know, they don't care what he does. they'll vote for him anyway. not that way anymore. the past three, four months, it's broken dramatically away from him. again, people aren't saying it to me to make me feel good because they're the same ones who said they'll vote for a guy who accused me of murder because of regulations. i mean, so these people talk straight. what they're saying now is, he's going to lose. he has too much going on. he's got too many cases going on. he's too crazy on social media. they just want to thank him for his service, but they want him in the rear-view mirror. this is a potent message ron

desantis can push. >> you're right. especially after the cnn town hall last week. >> yes. >> even republicans, independents, even republicans go, ugh, not again. not again. the open question now is, what's the alternative? maybe it is ron desantis. this is happening, by the way, the moving trucks are in tallahassee. governor desantis' press secretary quit yesterday, stepped down, i should say, to say, moving on to pursue other opportunities to continue to drive governor desantis' messages across the country. read into that what you will. ron desantis is getting into the race. the question, jonathan lemire, is, is the culture of losing argument potent enough in a republican primary to win? can he beat donald trump with that, reminding voters, look at the record under donald trump? we keep losing. we want power. we want to change the country. we need power to do that, and donald trump has cost us that. he'll do it again in 2024. will that be enough? >> there are those in the republican party that are -- do

want to turn the page on donald trump, who say electability has always been governor desantis' best argument. that why they've been so dismayed he has fought culture war after culture war, whether it's against disney, the abortion restrictions and so on. they feel like that's hurting the argument. they feel like he is -- when he does that, he is pitching himself to a smaller slice of the electorate. because what you just heard there from the governor is a fairly clever way to attack trump's record without attacking trump the person. that's what so many of these republicans struggled with. how do you distance yourself from trump without, a, drawing his wrath, or, b, alienating his voters? by doing it this way, we're not taking on trump personally, but simply saying, look, under his leadership, we've taken losses that we shouldn't have suffered. that might be a clever way to do it. we spent time on the show yesterday talking about the state polls that shows desantis fairs much better than trump in

head-to-head matchups against biden, incluing in some states, joe, that haven't been on the map for republicans in a long time. things like virginia and colorado. there's a lot here we don't know yet about desantis. he will need to be vetted on a national stage. yes, he had a good weekend in iowa, but his pseudo campaign has been off to a shaky start. he may have stumbled onto something that has a shot of working. >> it is so early. so early. let me once again say that in july of 2007, when they were even further along in the presidential process than they are right -- than we are right now, people were writing john mccain's obituaries in newspapers, political o obituaries, saying he couldn't win a primary. he came back and won the primary. willie brought up the town hall meeting, katty, the other night, cnn. that's another thing i'm hearing from republicans. they're saying specifically, i'm

not voting for that man. we've been talking about women, the decision makers in the suburbs of atlanta, the suburbs of philly, the suburbs of detroit, of milwaukee. what did they see during the town hall meeting? they saw a man responsible, actually, for taking away of the half century of their own rights over their own bodies to make their own medical decisions. they saw him mocking and ridiculing a woman that a jury unanimously declared, a woman who was sexually assaulted by donald trump. that night, he mocked her. that night, he once again went back and said, maybe it's not a bad thing that stars like me have been able to sexually assault women. >> yeah, he was held liable of sexual abuse. >> for millions of years, which, of course, we'll let him talk to.

but, again, the support keeps getting smaller because he keeps going out of his way, offending the very people that he needs to bring back on his side if he wants to win. >> yeah. which is exactly why ron desantis has those big trucks outside his office today. despite the fact he is down in the polls, he knows, just like everybody else does, that donald trump has a host of weaknesses. since we're doing a trip down memory lane, i was looking up the polls between barack obama and hillary clinton in december of 2007. hillary clinton was 20 points ahead of barack obama. so the fact that desantis is way behind in the polls at the moment clearly is not going to deter him from launching his presidential campaign, as that truck outside his office seems to suggest. donald trump has exactly the vulnerabilities that you've played out, and that cnn audience was a self-selected, very small audience inside one

town hall in new hampshire, and did not reflect the reaction of millions of americans around the country. i know at the time, it felt like we were all getting sucked back into the kind of trump era of 2016 to 2020, but i think -- and that room felt like it was very endorsing of that period. but right around the country, there are plenty of americans who voted for donald trump. i've spoken, you've spoken to them. i've spoken to lots of people who voted for donald trump not once but twice and said, okay, enough. i'm exhausted. it's too tiring. there's so much chaos. too much having to defend him. at the moment, he looks like he is the republican nominee, but, you know, the end of 2007, hillary clinton looked like she was the democratic nominee, too. things can change. it's still early. >> that's true. coming up, a pair of towering home runs make history at fenway park last night. not for the red sox. >> you don't see us taking victory laps around fenway because, well, we're not trump

republicans. plus, the bluejays broadcasters appear to accuse aaron judge of cheating. we'll explain what the yankee captain was doing at the plate that had the team raising some questions. "morning joe" will be right back. ♪♪ allergies don't have to be scary. (screaming) defeat allergy headaches fast with new flonase headache and allergy relief! two pills relieve allergy headache pain? and the congestion that causes it! flonase headache and allergy relief. psst! psst! all good! mass general brigham -- when you need some of the brightest minds in medicine. this is a leading healthcare system with five nationally ranked hospitals, including two world-renowned academic medical centers. in boston, where biotech innovates daily and our doctors teach at harvard medical school and the physicians doing the world-changing research are the ones providing care.

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it's a beautiful live picture from the top of our building on a wednesday morning. what do we think today is? tuesday, it is tuesday morning. fantastic. one out of seven chance. tuesday, 6:47. some news here in new york city. back page of "the new york post," a glancing blow, talking about aaron judge. during the yankees and bluejays game in toronto, bluejays broadcasters insinuated aaron

judge might be cheating, as the star slugger notched his third multi-home run game in the year, in a 7-4 win. >> buck, you and i looked at each other at the same moment, right when we saw this three pitches ago. >> watch what he is looking at. >> what is that? >> where is he looking? >> you don't want to throw allegations around without knowing, but -- >> nah. you know what? i have had guys look back when i was catching, and you obviously could see it. he couldn't see the catcher with the way he was looking right there. >> just did it again. and he pummelled it. he hit it a country mile for his second home run of the night. >> we don't want to make any suggestions, but we're going to talk about it for a very long time. the announcer speculaing judge was peeking into the dugout during pitches to look for signals. asked after the game, judge explained he was distracted by teammates shouting at the home

plate umpire over manager aaron boone's ejection moments earlier during the same at-bat. >> i was kind of -- there was a lot of chirping from our dugout, which i really didn't like in the situation where it's a 6-0 game. i know boone got tossed. i was trying to save him by calling time-out, like, hey, hold up here. let me work here. i was kind of trying to see who was chirping in the dugout. it's 6-0. let's -- booney got tossed. let's go to work. >> i have another theory about why judge may have hit the home run. he is one of the greatest hitters ever to stride the earth. i don't know if the announcers saw, but last year, he hit 62 home runs. sometimes he is going to stare down a ball and smash it out of the rogers center. >> you're saying it wasn't the fault of judge staring at the dugout. it's the fact that this guy served up the meatiest, fattest,

plumpest meatball down the center of the plate to the greatest home run hitter in the game today? is that what we're saying, willie? >> it was a tasty one right down the pike. >> look at this. how would you like your meatball? right down the plate, ma'am. boom! >> there is no way he was looking for signs. how could you see it in that short amount of time? impossible. >> announcers going, hey, i'm not saying, but maybe i am. come on. i mean, you know, look at the pitcher. if there is a conspiracy theory, the pitcher is getting paid off by the yankees to throw meatballs all night. of course, for a complete -- i'm joking about the pitcher. sure he is a good man. >> good man. >> good mama, good daddy, good guy. for a completely different view here, why don't we go to

mr. negative, jonathan lemire. jonathan, i'm sure -- >> oh, god. >> -- you think after last night's episode, that aaron judge should be suspended from the game indefinitely. >> yeah, the evidence is clear. he'scheating and should be banned from the game. asterisk on the home run last year. vacate the wins, vacate yankees championships he had nothing to do with. yeah, it's clear we've stumbled onto these bluejays announcers, to their credit, much like john durham, have stumbled onto a conspiracy theory here that has rotted away the very soul of the game we all love. >> counterpoint. >> that's my take. >> the fevered swamps. >> might be his next book. >> well, speaking of -- >> yeah. >> as we mentioned, some history made at fenway park last night. >> amazing. >> i hope barnicle isn't

watching. mariners' cal raleigh, the first catcher to homer from both sides of the plate in the history of fenway. the mariners beat the red sox, 10-1, which, you know, that 9-1 loss to the cardinals the night before is not looking quite as bad. it's not 10-1. so this is -- i got to say, though, i'm not even going to you, lemire. i'm going to willie. i always say, this is a marathon, right, willie? >> yeah. >> lupica is rapid texting last night. you would have thought they were the oakland a's and they were, like, 3-48. just a week ago when we swept the bluejays, suddenly, this was the greatest team of all time. chaim bloom was, you know, they were going to place a crown on him and march him through the streets of boston. so we've lost four games in a

row. the baseball gods giveth. the baseball gods taketh away. this is when teams are figuring out what the rotation will look like the second half of the season. this is when teams are trying to figure out who has what it takes to excel in major league baseball and who doesn't. it is still early. you know, the whining, it's got to stop, willie. it's got to stop. >> we're a quarter of a way through the season, a quarter of the way through the season. i'll say again, that division, the a.l. east, is so good, the red sox, who was in last place by a game and a half, the yankees climbed out of the cellar for now, could change, the red sox would be in second place in a bunch of divisions across baseball. they have a winning record. it's a tough climb, man. the rays are on pace, and they'll have ups and downs, too, but for a historic season. they're so good. i got a chance to watch them play saturday at yankee stadium. yankees came back and won, but they're a really good team without anyone making $40 million a year on the roster.

they pitch, hit and field. the orioles, give credit to the orioles. they have the third best record in baseball. they're having a great season. same constraints on their payroll and everything else. it's a tough -- funny thing to say, the yankees and red sox will have a tough time getting out of the basement to catch the rays and the orioles, but here we are. >> yeah. still ahead, we'll have a look at some of the stories making headlines in the morning papers. plus, we'll dig into this headline from "the new york times," "how to raise $89 million in small donations and make it disappear." >> you talk about a fleeing -- >> yeah. >> -- of cops and servicemen and women. this is really -- it's just criminal. >> it's an investigation that highlights a major flaw in the regulation of political non-profits. that is straight ahead on "morning joe." your heart is the beat of life.

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few minutes before the top of the hour. live look at capitol hill. a beautiful day in washington. it's time now for a look at the morning papers. "the state" reports the u.s. supreme court will review south carolina's congressional map for racial bias. in january, a lower court unanimously ruled one district was intentionally redrawn to reduce the number of democrat-leaning black voters in an effort to get more republican candidates elected. republican lawmakers, however, argue race was not considered when they redrew the district. the case will likely be argued in the fall and decided next year. in pennsylvania, "the citizens voice" leads with mail-in voting becoming a hot topic for the state's supreme court candidates. two rival republicans have expressed concerns about the law.

one suggested elections are too secretive and promise to review mail-in voting if it comes to the high court. the other candidate has promised to throw the law out. pennsylvania is holding its primary election today. "the ithaca journal" reports state agencies paid workers a record amount of overtime. nearly $1.4 billion was paid for overtime last year. that's almost a 50% increase from 2021. officials say the number of people leaving state jobs outpacedduing the workforce. state police had the highest overtime pay rate, averaging more than $85 an hour. and in florida, "the bradenton harold" has a feature on prosecutors dropping the remaining fraud charges against former tallahassee mayor andrew gilliam. earlier this month, gilliam was acquitted of lying to the fbi,

but the jury couldn't reach a verdict on the other charges he was facing, including conspiracy and wire fraud. the 2018 democratic nominee for florida governor was accused of diverting tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions for personal use. he denied the allegation. now, with the rest of his charges being dismissed, his case comes to an end. willie? we're just past the top of the hour, just after 7:00 ant east coast. president biden and vice president harris will meet with congressional leadership today to discuss the debt ceiling. biden expected to leave for the g7 summit tomorrow that will keep him out of washington just over a week. "the washington post" reports republican leadership rejected a list of proposals created by the white house last week to reduce the deficit, according to three people familiar with the matter. speaker mccarthy commented on the talks yesterday. >> look, if we were sitting in the room that we were today and

it was february, i'd feel good about it. we just had our secretary say june 1st, we could run out of money. we only have so many days left. so, no, i don't think we're in a good place. i know we're not. >> jonathan lemire, not exactly a lot of optimism expressed by speaker mccarthy. it's been a week since they last met at the white house with president biden. another tuesday meeting today. any reason to think today's meeting will go differently? are things in a better place at all than they were a week ago? >> some progress has been made, willie, on the staff level. over the last few days, there was teams from the hill and the white house that met repeatedly. some broad discussions and trying to separate the two things, debt ceiling and budget. also, some agreement from the white house about some possible spending cuts. president biden himself raised eyebrows over the weekend when he suggested federal aid programs like food stamps and cash aid for families could be on the table, which triggered blow back from the left.

white house is saying, we're not going to touch those. we shall see. no one anticipates there being a breakthrough today. even though the clock is ticking and the deadline is approaching, it's a couple weeks. congress tends to push these things off until the absolute last moment when a deal is broke. everyone will see the tenor of this meeting, the principals meeting at 3:00 this afternoon at the white house. it got contentious last time. if that were to happen again, that could be setting off alarm bells on the markets and other matters. lastly, the president is slated to leave tomorrow for this trip to asia, willie, as you said. but white house aides are putting up contingency plans. the departure could be pushed back a day, or even if he goes to the g7, if the crisis looms, he may perhaps skip the second part of it, which is meant to be australia. they're trying to be nimble as deadlines approach. >> we'll watch what happens today. after four years of investigators the fbi's investigation into possible

collusion between the trump 2016 campaign and russia, special counsel john durham released his findings yesterday. a 300-page report. in it, durham, first appointed by then attorney general william barr in 2019, accuses the bureau of acting negligently but did not reveal any bombshells. as many republicans had long claimed he would. durham found no evidence the justice department and the fbi conspired in a deep state plot to investigate trump's ties to russia in 2016. in addition, durham did in the recommend any wholesale changes at the fbi. the special counsel also appears to relitigate two of the cases he lost that went to trial, in which he brought criminal charges. the durham report has been contradicted by two other reports, including one released in 2020 by the republican-led senate intelligence committee.

the committee's report, as well as one from a justice department watchdog, found the fbi's investigation has some flaws but was warranted, and said the trump campaign posed a counterintelligence risk to the u.s. by opening itself to foreign influence. >> let's bring in right now washington correspondent for "the new york times," michael schmidt. michael, this is a four year investigation, investigating the investigators. this is a guy that got humiliated time is and time again. trump newspapers and trump tv networks got hmiliated by following a lot of sort of the breadcrumbs he sprinkled around. time and time again, he had nothing to show for it. now, there seems to be an argument that the republicans want to defund the fbi because they even launched this investigation. i want to go back and just underline what mika just said there. this is from 2020 after marco rubio's senate intelligence

committee put out their report. the report's language is often stark, describing trump's campaign to russian outreach as a, quote, grave counterintelligence threat. let me say that again. describing trump campaign chairman paul manafort's outreach to russia as a grave counterintelligence threat that made the campaigns susceptible to, quote, malign russian influence. this was marco rubio and other members of the republican senate committee, the intel committee, saying this. yet, the conclusions that are drawn here, again, it seems to be a complete dud. once again, another dud by john durham. >> you raise an interesting point there at the end about the senate intelligence committee report that was put out by marco rubio. that was among the most damning

documents that came out about trump's ties to russia. it had been put out by rbio, who was in charge of the committee at the time. i've never really understood the durham investigation. to me, it seemed like a way of the justice department trying to buy off trump and tell him that they were doing something to look into these allegations that had come up throughout his administration, about what had gone wrong inside the russia investigation. it always seemed to me like that type of inquiry, that type of look at how the fbi, you know, proceeded would be done by an inspector general, to sort of look and say, okay, we did a massive, really important, politically charged investigation. here's what we did right, and here's what we did wrong. and i think what really hurt

durham in the end is the fact that he brought these two cases to court against these two individuals in connection with the dossier and lost. and we talk a lot these days about what it means for a prosecutor to lose or the potential for a prosecutor to lose. in the case of durham, we saw what that meant. because it really took a lot of the air out of his investigation. it allowed those who had been critical and skeptical of the investigation to look at it and say, well, what was this really all about? when he went to trial and had to air his evidence, it didn't really -- it didn't really hold up in a way that certainly lived up to the expectations that trump had set for the durham investigation. he had trumpeted this thing, talked about it publicly and privately and really was banking

on it as helping him win re-election, all the way back in 2020. >> michael, we should also underline that the justice department in 2019, the inspector general michael horowitz, launched its own investigation and found that, yes, there were flaws in the way the fbi did its investigation, but ultimately, that the investigation was warranted. so the fbi made changes. they said that yesterday in response. they said, yes, mr. durham, we know all of this. we took this into account several years ago, and we've made changes into what we're doing here. at the end of the day, for people watching who are trying to remember everything that got us here over the last, what, seven years or something like that, what is the takeaway? what is the end result of all of this? what do we know about collusion or alleged collusion between the trump campaign and the russians? >> i think what we know is that the trump campaign invited this help from the russians. we know from our own eyes and from watching that donald trump

asked russia to help him. he did that very publicly. in doing so, brought a lot of these questions on himself. you know, people will say, oh, you know, the media did this, the fbi did this or such, but it was donald trump on the campaign stump that asked russia, you know, if you're listening, to try to help find hillary clinton's emails. and i always go back to that moment because if you were the fbi in 2016 or you were an average american watching this or you were a member of the media, it was hard to look at the fact that he had invited that help along with the fact that russia was actively attacking the american democracy. sort of say, well, what's really going on here? so it required people -- you know, people said, "well, what's the real answer?" a lot of people and a lot of

different ways, they went out to try to answer that question. there were different things that were going on. trump was trying to do a deal in russia at the time through michael cohen. trump's son, don jr., meets with the russians during the campaign about dirt they said they had on hillary clinton. you ultimately have the first national security adviser of trump lying to the fbi about his contacts with the russians, then going to court to plead guilty to that. so there were a lot of different things that came out in this period of time that were curious, in that as an average citizen, were difficult to look at and say, "okay, i can accept that on face value." >> washington correspondent for "the new york times," michael schmidt, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. so a new investigation by "the new york times" highlights

a network of nonprofits, conservative operatives and organizations, that manipulated robo software to milk americans out of millions of dollars. they were told the money would help fight for our officers or to support campaigns for those who protect our nation's citizens. the paper reveals that only 1% of the nearly $90 million raised by these groups actually went to campaigns at all. joining us now, one of the investigative reporters behind the report. >> david, 1% of $89 million. is that legal? are people going to be sent to jail for this? >> well, look, this is one of the most amazing parts of this, is that the law that governs these groups is so loose, there's so little restriction on this, and the policemen on these people is the irs. we think of it as a scary

regulator, but for nonprofits, it's a hands-off authority. the groups say they were examined by the irs and found to have a perfect score. the irs won't confirm that, but it shows the laxity of regulation and enforcement in this area. >> so they scammed police officers. they scammed people who protect our nation. they raise $90 million in effect and only spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaigns. i thought that's what steve bannon got convicted for and what people should be investigating donald trump for, for his scam on, you know, stop the steal, where he raised hundreds of millions of dollars and it didn't go to, you know, stop a -- quote, stopping the steal legal cases. >> well, so this is the -- the numbers are staggering. they raised $89 million since 2014. they spent only about 1% of it in any way that might have helped any candidate. the point of these organizations was to help candidates.

they told people when they called people and asked them for 30 bucks, we'll help people who help be police. as you said, only 1% of the money went to anything that could have helped a policemen. the little spending they did came in the year the irs started looking into them. yeah, most of this organization took in the money, promised people they'd help the police, and they spent it on more fundraising, keeping the operation going, or $3 million almost went to insiders, people behind these organizations. >> we're clearly all in the wrong business. we should be setting up fundraising and calling people up and saying, "can you donate to this cause," and pocketing the money. americans will be astonished to realize this is legal. talk about the three people this money went back to. almost $3 million went to republican operatives in wisconsin. also, put this in the context of, does this happen a lot?

are people -- is this a uniquely republican phenomenon or democratic fundraising groups doing the same thing? millions of americans being scammed every day by these calls? >> sadly, this does happen a lot. there's been a number of cases the justice department charged as scam packs. operations where people are saying they're raising money, sometimes just for a cause or saying, "i'm raising money for bernie sanders or donald trump." they take the money, and then instead of spending it on politics, they pay themselves, use it to pay fundraisers. they pull it out of politics instead. the crazy thing i learned is that the campaign finance system is not built to police that. it's built on the assumption that if you're raising money for politics, you want to spend it on politics. if you take it and remove it from politics, give it to yourself or pull it out, the system is not built to stop that. doj has been working to catch up. every case they find, you say, wow, it illuminates the huge world out there that may be happening and nobody is stopping.

>> david, the story you lay out in your stunning piece is a case of fraud, pretty clear and plain. what happens from here? do you expect prosecutors to take up this case? >> well, we're looking at that. we are trying to figure out if there is any interest by prosecutors in this case. like i said, the sort of enforcement -- the only real enforcement has come from doj, bringing cases against an alleged scam pack. if it was going to be action, it'd be from the justice department. we haven't found that yet, but we're looking to see if it'll happen. also, just looking to see what happens with these groups. are there people -- are people turned away from them now they know? are they shunned by vendors? it'll take a while to know that. there are so many groups like this, it is possible they continue on and keep raising money. >> investigative reporter for "the new york times," david farenthold, thank you for your reporting and coming on this morning. ahead on "morning joe," the head of the artificial intelligence platform chat gpt

will answer questions on capitol hill today, as lawmakers look to better understand the risks posed by the rapidly advancing technology. we'll get a preview on that. plus, the showdown in north carolina between the state's democratic governor and republican-led legislature over a bill that would dramatically cut abortion access. north carolina governor roy cooper joins us next. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. and new adventures you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. although uncommon, up to 1 in 5 survivors of meningitis will have long term consequences. now as you're thinking about all the vaccines your teen might need make sure you ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. [♪♪]

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22 past the hour. today, the republican led north carolina legislature is preparing to vote to override a veto of its abortion ban. the statehouse speaker's chief of staff tweeted out the timing for the vote yesterday. the ban prohibits abortions after 12 weeks with some exceptions for rape, incest or to save the mother's life.

democratic governor roy cooper vetoed the legislation, but republicans hold a slim super majority in the house and could override his decision. republicans achieved that super majority just last month when then democratic representative tricia cotham switched parties and voted in favor of the abortion ban. republicans will likely need every single member of their party to vote to override the veto, something that's not necessarily assured. governor cooper joins us now. first of all, governor, do you think republicans will be able to override your veto? >> well, they certainly intend to. but we know that a number of republicans promised their constituents that they would protect women's reproductive freedom. we've been pushing this last week to get people in their district, people they may know, like ministers and doctors and

friends, to tell them to keep their promise, and have the courage to stand up to the republican leadership. they only have a one vote super majority in the house and a one vote super majority in the senate. all we need is one republican to stand up in either chamber to stop this bad ban in north carolina. >> i mean, do you have any? i mean, what happens if they get the numbers? >> well, obviously, we would have a disastrous abortion ban come into effect in north carolina. we would do everything we could through the courts, through rule making, to try to blunt the damage. but this legislation was billed as a reasonable compromise, and it's not. it cuts off medication abortion at ten weeks. it creates obstacle courses for women, having to be in person three times to be able to obtain medication abortion. and this hurts many women who

live in rural areas, who are poor, who work hourly jobs, who are already mothers. we already have become an access point in the south for many women because of the restricted bans passed in other states. this has created waiting lists. we know that with this compressed time period, with the cost that it takes a woman to be able to get there and the time, this is going to effectively ban abortions for many women in north carolina, even inside of 12 weeks. this is not -- >> absolutely. >> -- the kind of thing we need. right-wing politicians should not be in the exam room with women and their doctors. we need to leave the medicine to doctors and the decisions to women. in north carolina, we have been able to protect women's reproductive freedom for four years, because i've been able to veto all of the bad bills.

we've had enough democrats to sustain these vetoes. for the first time now, because of this party switch and because of the last elections, we are facing a super majority in north carolina by one vote. let's just hope that party politics doesn't rule the day here, and let's hope that one of these republicans will decide to do the right thing, do what they know is right. this legislation was kept under lock and key, was introduced in the middle of the night, was passed 43 hours later with no amendments allowed, with no public input. how is that a reasonable compromise? it's obviously not. it only took 42 hours to turn the clock back 50 years, and it's frustrating for people in north carolina. it's not what we want. >> i want to ask you about that party switch you mentioned. we mentioned the lawmaker that gave north carolina republicans a super majority. this is representative tricia

cotham. she was a democrat and just switched parties. long before her switch, here she is in 2015 talking about her own past abortion. take a look. >> the time-sensitive medical process, procedures, that i had to endure began immediately. and it was awful. and it didn't work. this decision was up to me, my husband, my doctor and my god. it was not up to any of you in this chamber. >> so that woman who made the case for her own health care and her own abortion voted in favor of this ban? she has become a republican and

voted in favor of this ban. what happened? >> well, and that same access would be denied to many women in north carolina. in fact, earlier in the year, she was one of all of the democrats who sponsored legislation to codify roe v. wade. i don't know what happened. she talked about wanting more freedom of thought. well, now, it's time to have that freedom of thought. this is obviously something that she has cared about for a long time. what i'm hoping is that she will stand up to her new party, just like she stood up to her old one, and do the right thing. do what her constituents want. this is a largely blue democratic district, and you need to keep your portions. that also goes for other republicans. this legislation was meant as a

disguise. they call it a reasonable 12-week ban in order to protect all these republicans who promised to protect reproductive freedom. in fact, when you get into the details of the bill, with all of the burdens and restrictions and hoops that women have to jump through, that doctors have to jump through, that clinics have to jump through, we know that this is going to operate as an effective ban for many women in our state. it's not right. these politicians should not be making these decisions. these decisions should be left to women. in north carolina, we're going to fight and continue to fight for women. we will never, ever back down when it comes to women's health. >> governor, polls suggest that 57% of north carolinians either want to keep the existing 20-week limit or want access to abortion extended.

how do you account for the fact that the republican legislature seems to be so out of step with what voters in your state want? >> technologically diabolical super gerrymandering. north carolina probably has some of the worst gerrymandered drik districts in the country. therefore, i can be elected statewide, but you see a super majority legislature in our state. in fact, when our state supreme court last year said that these partisan gerrymanderers were in violation of the constitution and they had to redraw the maps, they ended up being seven republicans and seven democrats we sent to washington. now, the republican supreme court turned that on its head, and they're busy redistricting legislative seats as well as congressional seats. i fear we're going to see super

gerrymandered districts across the board. we need independent redistricting commissions. i've promised many times that if democrats ever get control, we're going to institute independent commissions. there's no perfect way to draw districts, but this is not the right way to do it because it clearly does not reflect what the people of north carolina think on this issue and many others. we're having a battle over public education right now in our state. they're trying to chose public education with private school vouchers for millionaires and cutting taxes. it goes on and on. it's frustrating. we're going to fight every single day in the state. we have one of the best states in the country. we're the number one state in the country for business. we believe that we're going to continue to work to do the best that we can to protect women's health in our state. >> democratic governor roy cooper of north carolina, thank you very much. we'll be watching. coming up, we're going to

have the latest on an intense overnight missile attack by russian forces in ukraine. plus, the latest subtle sign that florida governor ron desantis is getting ready to launch a presidential campaign. we'll tell you what that is. but first, we're going to be joined by andy cohen. he is here to talk about his new book entitled "daddy diaries: the year i grew up." "morning joe" is coming right back. age is just a number, and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health versus 16 grams in ensure® high protein. boost® high protein. now available in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. learn more at boost.com/tv (psst psst) ahhhh... with flonase, allergies don't have to be scary spraying flonase daily gives you long-lasting, non-drowsy relief. (psst psst)

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are you still struggling with your bra? it's time for you to try knix. makers of the world's comfiest wireless bras. for revolutionary support without underwires, and in sizes up to h-cup. find your new favorite bra today at knix.com i saw michael jackson naked. >> okay, i'm listening. >> yes. well, he came and visited me when we were shooting on "golden pond." i had a cottage on the lake. it was a beautiful, moonlit night. >> you said, let's skinny-dip. >> no, he did. >> he did? >> yeah. >> wow. >> i think because he knew that he was going to die young and that i would talk about him

being naked. >> wow. last question -- >> he was skinny. >> he was skinny. >> yeah. >> okay. >> only andy gets information like that out of people. that is, of course, jane fonda playing plead the fifth on bravo's "watch what happens live" with our friend, andy cohen. he's the author of the new book, soon to be a best seller, titled "the daddy diaries: the year i grew up." good to see you. >> can i pick a bone with you? >> what'd i do? >> you used to be able to get a bagel or something around here. green room, it looks like you're closed for business. >> it's sparse. >> are you having guests here? >> can we get him something? >> i'm fine now. >> is it too late? >> i'll get it on the way home. >> did we get you the coffee? >> i got it on my way here. you used to have coffee here, too. >> we used to put out pastries. >> little -- it's 7:40 in the morning. >> noted. andy cohen is making us better right now. >> can the folks at waystar set

me up. >> somebody run upstairs and get him a bagel. what kind? >> i'm fine. >> great to see you. >> great to see you. >> i never heard about that, michael jackson skinny-dipping. >> i heard nuances, but jane was on it last night. the ladies from "book club" came, and they were drinking the spritz. >> that's what happens in the clubhouse. >> it is. >> yeah. >> you have been so nice to invite me on many, many, many times over the last 10 or 12 years. i was on, i think, last year. rachel from "housewives of new jersey," which i love. >> yes. >> usually, you hang out after the show, and andy would be there. i found myself doing tequila shots after the show with rachel and her husband, john, looking around, saying, "where is andy?" andy has to get home to the kids. >> yes. >> that's the new andy. >> that is the new andy. it's a whole new me. in the book, i mean, it's a year

in my life. it was inspired by the andy warhol diaries. i published two others. >> trilogy. >> this is different because i'm a single father of two. with all the name dropping and all the hilarity and backstage stuff and pop culture, there is raising two kids. i now, yes, i have to race home to be with them after the show. it's not all fun and games anymore, willie. >> as you write in the book, though, it's not just that you have to, it is something that happens to all of us as parents. this homing beacon turns on, where you want to get back there. >> i want to, yes. >> you want to be there. ben is 4. lucy turned 1. >> exactly. >> congratulations. >> thank you very much. >> how are you doing it? how are you managing it? >> day by day. >> backstage, you said, we both have two kids, except i'm doing this on my own. you have help. >> right. >> you're a single parent. >> yes. >> what's it been like for you. >> it's been a lot. it's been the most gratifying

thing that has ever happened to me. i feel more grounded than ever. there's the last thing in the book, anderson stiffs me after new year's eve. cnn wouldn't let us drink. >> right. >> we get off the air, and i am so ready to drink, like, mainline tequila. he's like, i'm going to go home. here i am, home on new year's eve, and i realized, this is the only place i need to be. i'm all good. priorities totally shifted, and it is a beautiful thing. later in life, to be reframed, how beautiful. >> you do write in the book, and it's great, as all these books are, and you're so honest. you say, it is a little bit lonely, if you are being honest. not to be with your kids, you love that, but there's a loneliness to it you've never felt before because you are such a social animal. >> yes. i'm also kind of masking my feelings a lot of times. i'm feeling everything right now, wow. >> tell me about whatever the lonely moments are. >> look, any parent can relate to that feeling of, it's some

ungodly hour of the morning, and you're having a fight with a three-nager about that you cut their toast wrong. you're like, is anyone else -- what is happening to me? but, yeah. >> there are moments. >> there are moments. >> we all have it. >> yes. >> we all have it. you're also -- you write about the moment you brought lucy home. >> yes. >> in the book, you say, there were two parties that night. like, great parties that you would have, in your past, been like, i've got to go. i'm going to find a sitter. you realized when you got lucy home, you had ben, you were like, this is where i want to be right now. >> exactly. i have to say, you know, having a second child, it further grounded me, obviously, to my home, but also it just feels -- there's no greater satisfaction than if i take them both out for ice cream or something. >> yeah. >> it feels so cool to be with both of them and to watch them together. he's kind of half the time

trying to kill her and half the time trying to hug her, but she has learned how to push him away, which is an incredible thing. >> right. it's sort of like, put on the blinders and do his thing. >> it's how mika is with joe. she's learned to push him away. >> oh, she learned that a long time ago. >> right, mika? >> yeah, i did. but look, it is really -- it's like herding cats. you talk about the year you grew up, or was it the moment you grew up? i'm obsessed with your instagram and your relationship with these two little ones. it's so beautiful. i'm obsessed with your daughter. she's so cute. i can't even stand it. andy. >> thank you, mika. >> i know. so, like, what was it, a transformation that was immediate, or did it take a few steps? >> well, i think, you know, the funny thing is, when i had one -- when i had one, i felt --

i felt a mastery over the situation. but when you bring a second one in -- >> yeah. >> -- all chaos ensues. >> uh-huh, yeah. >> i felt like i had it. i was like, i know where he is at all times. >> look at her. >> now, i feel like if i just spent three hours with him, oh, my god, i've spent not nearly enough time with her. >> right. >> it's a battle also of time at all times, which i know people can relate to. >> at this stage, i remember this because i was working as well with a 1-year-old and 3-year-old, you don't know what to do when. literally, that's the constant in your life, right? >> yes. would you characterize willie as the 1-year-old and joe as the 3-year-old, or where does that -- >> she might flip that. let's see what she says. >> you know what? i'll just leave it right there. i think maybe they're both -- they're actually great. >> aw. >> i'm leaving it there. >> she's pleading the fifth. >> yes, she is. >> literally pleading the fifth. >> you said something i think in

"people" a couple days ago which was so sweet. ben came to you and said, "daddy, i think we should have another daddy here." not saying replace you, but let's bring in an additional daddy. >> bring in another daddy, yes. >> what'd you take out of that? >> well, i thought it was interest. i mean, i think his gaydar is great. i was like, wow, this kid knows what is happening here. >> hilarious. >> he's not thinking i'm bringing a woman home. i thought that was -- >> i didn't think of it that way. >> i thought it was brilliant. he's got -- you know, he and wyatt cooper are buddies, so he sees other gay parents. i was -- i thought it was great. yeah. >> you mention anderson. you guys are kind of going -- anderson cooper for people watching at home -- you guys are sort of having this experience together, sharing notes and the joy. >> it's incredible. i'm waiting for his son to be a three-nager. it's not the terrible twos, it's the terrible threes. >> without question. >> i'm waiting for anderson to be tortured in the way i was

last year. >> it's coming. >> yes. >> andy, we have something for you. >> what do you got? >> we ran up to the ninth floor. >> yeah? >> what kind? >> this is nice. >> is it toasted? >> is there -- oh, guys -- something to put on it? >> no, andy, that's it. >> how does he attack that? it's not cut. all right. andy, we apologize. you deserve better. >> this is fine. i'll take this home with me. >> the book is "the daddy diary s: the year i grew up." >> oh, arnold schwarzenegger is on here? >> close yourouth wn you're talking. >> major. >> close your mouth. >> it's okay, sweetie. what we're learning about the violent attack at the office of a u.s. congressman, carried out by a man wielding a baseball bat. plus, three killed, six

injured in new mexico by a teenage gunman roaming the streets while shooting at random. we'll have the latest on the police investigation. "morning joe" will be right back.

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more on the attack and on more attack. >> someone has been struck with a bat. >> reporter: this morning police are trying to determine why a man entered democratic congressman conley's virginia office and attacked two staffers with a bat.

the same man police believe is seen in this footage chasing another woman nearby just minutes earlier. authorities say the suspect then showed up at the office looking for the lawmaker. and when he learned the lawmaker wasn't there he hit two of connolly's staffers. >> one of the staffers injured she's an intern and today was her first day. >> reporter: treated and released at a local hospital. >> you could absolutely tell that the people inside were scared. they were hiding. >> reporter: federal investigators searching the home of 49-year-old suspect who has a history of run-ins with police. in 2022 court documents show he was charged with assaulting and attempting to disarm an officer in a mental health crisis. the charges were later dropped when he complied with treatment and also filed a $29 million

handwritten lawsuit against the cia last year claiming he had been wrongfully imprisoned and alleging he was quote brutally tortured from the fourth dimension. attacks have skyrocketed. just last month capitol police chief telling lawmakers the number of threats had increased 400% over the last 6 years. >> i worry about the normalization of violence in politics. i have a strong and resilient staff. they won't be deterred. >> terrifying for the people inside that office. nbc's ryan nobles reporting there. in new mexico a 18-year-old gunman shot and killed three people and injured six others. erin mclaughlin has details.

>> about 50 shottings. >> reporter: gun fire monday morning. >> eyes on the suspect. he's walking south wearing all black. automatic weapon. >> reporter: police say a suspect roamed an area up to a quarter of a mile firing at least three different weapons. >> at this point it appears to be purely random. at least six houses and three cars shot in the course of the event as the suspect randomly fired at whatever entered his head to shoot at. >> reporter: three killed and six injured including two police officers in stable condition why the 18-year-old suspect before being shot and killed by police. the governor and mayor praising law enforcement saying it took five minutes to stop the shooter saying it likely saved several

lives. this woman was home with her baby daughter hearing the shots. >> pop, pop, pop. i freaked out because i knew then that it was gunshots and grabbed my daughter. we barricaded in between the washer and dryer. >> reporter: the window and wall pierced by bullets. five democratic lawmakers from new mexico saying in part today is a painful reminder that we must do more. we are committed to fight for sensible gun safety measures to keep new mexicans safe. any shooting with at least four victims. this morning another community in the u.s. left reeling. >> it is heart breaking for the victims. absolutely heart breaking for the victims who were just going about the every day life. >> nbc's erin mclaughlin with

that report. we'll preview the hearing on chantgpt. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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when i look at the last however many election cycles, 2018 we lost the house, the senate. 2020, biden becomes president. excuse me. we lost the senate in 2020. biden becomes president and has done a huge amount of damage. very unpopular in 2022 and supposed to have a big red and other than florida and iowa i didn't see a red wave so i think the party has a culture of losing. no accountability. in florida we showed what it takes to not just win, win big

and then deliver big. >> you know why he talks about them developing a culture of losing? >> why? >> because that's all they do is lose. >> there's losing that happened there. >> 2017. >> i know. >> what did they do? >> they lost. >> 2018? >> lost again. >> what about 2019? there were some southern races for governor in places like louisiana and kentucky, surely they won those. >> no. >> they lost those? >> okay. >> 2020 they won because i remember watching networks and talking about the invasion of illegal immigrants with leprosy. >> scary. >> they won in 2020, right? >> no. >> they lost? >> they did. it is okay. >> after a president wins, his first midterm is really awful. >> traditionally very, very tough for the party in power. >> there will be a red wave in

2022. republicans surely won big in 2022? >> no. one time that it was different. >> this is the time where actually joe biden did better than any other president fdr. in 2023 when things are really going bad they certainly did well in that hugely important wisconsin judges' race. right? for the supreme court. that was massive. always neck and neck. 200 votes here. 128 votes there. >> no. >> they lost again? >> that's what ron desantis was trying to do. he was throwing some shade at donald trump's election record. >> just keeps losing? >> keep losing. >> they won in kansas? >> yes. >> republicans did? >> no. >> they lost by 20 points?

>> yeah. >> so wait. so you are saying -- i got to write this down and start using this. >> please make it stop, willie. >> republicans lost in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020. republicans lost in 2021. i got to catch my breath. republicans lost -- like keeping score for the boston red sox. k, k, k. strikeout, children. lost again in 2022 and 2023 in wisconsin. that is a culture of losing. donald trump is sort of the reverse to politics to what john wooden was to college basketball. >> he won ten of those titles at ucla? governor desantis is running for president. the moving trucks are out. gone to the headquarters. the press secretary says he's

moved on. continuing to drive the mess and of governor desantis's message to the country. that argument inside a primary where you have to take on donald trump obviously and trailing him significantly at this moment, is it enough to say he is a loser? he is the reason if you ask mitch mcconnell that republicans don't control the senate. because donald trump brought them walker and oz and masters and the cast of people that lost in states they should have won. do you have to go at donald trump and say he led an attempted coup against the united states. we'll see if this is enough to convince primary voters. >> lemire, you walk into the

garden, right? and you see the banners up around the garden of the celtics wins. right? >> yeah. >> all the titles and everything. where do you think donald trump keeps seven by my count seven banners for losing since he is again sort of the john wooden of losing in american politics? do the banners going into mar-a-lago, is it like 2017, yeah, lost that one. 2018, yeah, i lost that one, too. do you think he has the banners at mar-a-lago? >> he lies about them. >> do they have them at the rnc since running the rnc. listen. that's a hell of a losing streak. seven in a row. republicans used to only let you lose one election and then you would be fired.

she's lost seven. that is breath taking. i am curious. where do they put the ban irs for losing? >> i think evenly split between mar-a-lago and bedminster. 17 championship banners at the garden. but you made a good point here. >> i did? >> yeah. i'm noting it. it's relatively rare. this is the argument against trump that we thought republicans would make right after the 2022 midterms. there's a sense that trump that was down and the allies turning on him and launching the campaign was extremely low energy and not raising much money and a real sense to be

when the party turned the back and then oddly they came back to him. the polls went up in the gop with the indictment in new york. desantis made a decision to stay largely focused on florida. allowing trump to fill the space. so on, so on. trump is back on top of the polls but desantis seems to be reaching for the electability argument again. republicans say he should point to the polls. he has his own extreme policies to defend on the campaign trail and not been nationally vetted yet but some say that this is the way to get by trump. the resume is not there. the losses have piled up. time for something new. >> you know, a lot of republicans, they are tired of the infighting.

a lot of back and forth there. you try to pull it back. don't make it quite so personal. he has lost -- >> it is true. >> right? >> trump just says he didn't. >> lose? >> goes opinion a major network. >> most persons would say this and people supported trump moving away from him. there's a shock but actually there are republicans who want to win elections and not just try to own the libs. the weird thing is jonathan brings up a great point which he does every morning. see how gracious i am? >> pretty rare. >> not for you. every morning. great point that donald trump

got stronger because the base likes when he gets indicted for felonies for paying hush money to porn stars. his base likes when juries find unanimously that he committed sexual assault against a woman. >> liable for sexual abuse and defamation. >> goes to a town hall meeting and defames her again, mocks and ridicules her and his audience laughs. >> lies about the election. he says he didn't lose. >> again, i guess podcasters and certain networks this is a good cottage industry to get people upset enough and listen and watch and everything but for most voters, just maybe it is not 20% that leave. it is half a percent here, there

in the suburbs of atlanta, maybe another half percent in the suburbs of philly. maybe 1% in the suburbs of detroit, milwaukee. pretty soon you lose .2%, .5% every year. over seven years that adds up. and that's what we saw yesterday in the polls we showed you from public opinion strategy. not taken sides. in this possible primary campaign that shows donald trump getting absolutely trounced by joe biden in states like virginia, new mexico and colorado. in other swing states that are purple but more blue than red. ron desantis in each one of those states is really

competitive. trump will lose by 12 points where desantis is in the margin of error for the states and in i think if he can push it hard that's desantis's strongest point. i can win. this guy can't. let's win for once. >> we shall see getting closer, inches toward announcing the presidential candidacy. now turning to ukraine, president volodymyr zelenskyy finishes his tour of europe. nbc news foreign correspondent molly hunter has the latest. >> reporter: overnight a massive wave of russian attacks. the biggest in weeks. the air force said russia targeted kyiv with at least missiles and the air defense systems shooting down the most

advanced including six hype sonic kinzhal missiles, nine cruise mifrl, three land-based missiles and all destroyed. calling it another unbelievable skezs adding thank you to the office service members and the partner states who invested in securing the skies over ukraine and europe. this comes on the heels of fresh investment from allies. president zelenskyy speaking on the way home after his successful european tour but zelenskyy's priority remains jets and increased support from the u.s.

down south, just off the front line, ukraine is training troops as fast as they can. we expect the counter offensive to start and ready this soldier says. ready another soldier adds to finally end this war. these last four days in the bitterly contested town controlled by the russian wagner group seen the first gains for ukraines in months. momentum the ukrainians hope that will drive the comes offensive. >> nbc's molly hunter with that report. what do you make of the state of the war at this point? >> look. there's attacks on kyiv brutal for the residents. as we kind of look at this strategy and whether the west is going to hold together and the americans support ukraine dependent on how much gains they make it is just worth

remembering what it must be at night lying in bed and the missiles into the buildings into a country invaded by an aggressor and that just keeps happening for the ukrainians. it is important for zelenskyy on the tour of europe shoringing up support and there is a sense in europe and the u.s. where ukraine is kind of on the timetable as donald trump laid out the other night that they need to show that they can have success. break the land bridge between crimea and russia so the russians can't get supplies to crimea and demonstrate they can have victories and shore up western support into the next year. it is a big task for zelenskyy. potentially the rest of the war and the support depends on it.

>> all right. the ceo of the company behind chatgpt will testify before congress today, a senate judiciary subcommittee will discuss the overnight of artificial intelligence to understand the risks posed by the technology. this as officials attempt to crack down on the spread of misinformation and ensure privacy. joining us is former cia officer, a security and intelligence analyst and professor of psychology and behavioral economics at duke university, he is the author of the book titled "the honest truth about dishonesty." >> thank you. dan, you know, it seems many in the media and politics for past eight years trying to figure out how to push back on

disinformation. when i go to washington i talk to democrats on both sides of pennsylvania avenue that have been dumbfounded as to how to respond to the fire hose of falsehoods and now with ai the pace is only quickening. so what's the answer? what is the truth about disinformation and how do we fight it? >> so i think we do need to understand the problem. and if we think about what you said earlier about trump in a particular case when trump was running for elections we were all surprised by how many things he was saying that were not truth. at the time it looked like he was saying the things that were not truth. democrats were outraged. republicans didn't seem to care so much. i looked into it and what i found was that republicans

wanted a leader that would lie. not a liar but they wanted somebody who would show loyalty to the team. they wanted a dirty player to get the agenda up. when trump won this was a very ideological election. people on the left wanted things. people on the right wanted things. basically the people who were trump supporter said i know the guy is unethical but he is getting to power and make sure that the agenda is being carried over and ends justify the means. it is fine to be slightly to shade things because we have things that are -- later maybe we'll go back to the truth. but this is more important. >> mark -- i'm sorry. i'm sorry. didn't mean to interpret. finish up. >> things have been much more

ideological. if you look at the republicans who still say that trump won the most recent election some say it really not believing it but if i say something so extreme that is not true then i'm signaling my loyalty to the group. i'm really part of this. >> so mark, talk about the dangers here of this information or disinformation particularly coming to ai. we have seen the deepfakes out there that i would say like 90% of the way there. you can usually tell but the technology is improving quickly. who knows where they can depict say a political rival saying or doing that could be very, very damaging and used for great

harm. what is your level of concern at that era sooner than expected? >> sure. with ai we are at a place where there is tremendous positives that can come from this. think about the national intelligence and security spheres. they can help us with logistics to talk about maintenance of systems. you think about the collection of data to analyze imagery from across the world. there's the negatives. deepfakes is something to worry about internationally and at home. what is if china and russia and the disinformation campaigns use ai inside this country and what happens inside the united states? huge concern. i think back to the time at cia

battling russian disinformation particularly in europe and the mantra we had was the truth will be the superpower. you have to have a war room mentally whether it's a police call campaign in the united states battling disinformation over the u.s. intelligence community battling the russians and the chinese. you have to push out the truth in realtime. that takes time, effort and money. without that we'll lose and something of huge concern. you will see in congress people talking about this it. committees are looking at the positive and negatives. big issue there. >> dan, mark is talking about battling misinformation but you have research on what individuals can do. it seems terrifying. the potential impact. seems sort of almost i think out

of people's control. you suggest there are ways to combat misinformation on an individual level. >> yeah. i think the individual level is most frightening one. imagine a technology that identify your informational needs. identify the psychological state and say what information will give you comfort and false information? like designing a virus to fit the cognitive system in the best way. by the way, fake news can always be more interesting than the real news. the moment you have the kree yeah tyty to do whatever you want. so what are the mechanisms? one is called prebunking. where the idea is when people consume fake news, it is already too late. the moment we have consumed it we have a hard time separating

truth or fact and we can then deteriorate. part of the collective structure it is hard to change it so think about prebunking. how do we educate people in advance to be more concerned, worried? test things more deeply. not spread it. if people spread information without thinking it creates -- popping online it puts my reputation on that information and it becomes more logical. that's one. second thing is one of the main reasons if you think about what's happening in american politics if you think the chase after fake information a lot of it comes out of stress. you know? when the world seems that the world is not going very well, i'm feeling hard done by we all look for somebody else to blame. we don't want to say it is my

fault. we want to find somebody else to blame. and therefore we look for that. so things like inequality. things like lower level of education. think about uncertainty in trust. that is fertile ground to go after fake news and then we have the internet information bubble. right? the social factors are basically what seals fake news. you go and become friends with people who believe the same beliefs that you do. you turn off the world outside of that and then it's very hard to change people after that. >> you know, mark, it is extraordinary. the educated people. we talk about it all the time. with advanced degrees that will

spread the craziest conspiracy theories they know to be false. they know them to be false. they're people to go on a chinese religious cult's website to read the favorite conspiracy theories. when you tell them you realize it is a chinese religious cult website putting out to reach americans and try to be left wing and not as sticky as shifting to a right wing conspiracy. when you tell educated people with advanced degrees that they still lap it up and they share this information when they don't believe it. they know it's not true. but it appeals to their preexisting prejudices. that is pretty damning and

difficult habit to break when democracy such as ours depend on the truth and shared truths. >> you are right. we share some mutual friends who have some kind of political beliefs that i think have shifted. i was at a high school baseball game a couple nights ago and sat down with a good friend who's really smart. is a military officer. he looked at me and said, really tough about the biden crime family. i said what are you talking about? he said there's smoke there. i said you can't really believe this. this is before the famous red october incident with representative comer but i thought about that afterwards and i chose that day to get in a heated argument about it. i pushed back. people do live in information

bubble and got to push back against nonsense. maybe you'll get through to people one way or the other. i want to throw something out there. we saw yesterday jon durham with the report which is of course getting a huge amount of attention but talking to good friends of mine they are absolutely convinced that the fbi is the deep state. that somehow the russians did no wrong. how do you combat that? the truth. i look back to 1992. there was an individual who was a kgb officer who defected to the uk with six trunk loads of information that exposed russian intelligence. that has to come back one day going back to the durham investigation. what will tell us the truth? maybe that's how we get to the

bottom of what happened but without that you have the discussions across the political aisle that are futile. fight back with the truth to make progress. >> willie, what's so unbelievable is if you look at the facts in every newspaper in 2016, you have republicans, trumpers talking about, oh, they favor the fbi -- favored hillary clinton. no. the fbi elected donald trump. you had the day after. i think july 5th, 2016, comey decides not to bring charges but does something no fbi director ever does. holds a press conference and indicts her politically. nobody does that. bring the charges or drop it. he decided not to.

then ten days before the election he putts out a letter that could have been written in a million different ways but he writes it the most damning to hillary clinton's prospects. talking to people around trump at that time they tell you they didn't have a chance to win but for that letter. that the fbi getting involved again attacking hillary clinton was their lifeline and trump himself said after the election, they could have had the next but because of that letter, because of everything that fell the way it did i won on that day. yet republicans are saying the fbi was somehow biassed against donald trump? you look and see. they were biassed. they were biassed against hillary clinton and cost her the

election. >> ask people in the trump and clinton campaign. they believe that was decisive. but i guess the larger point is it's the playbook and donald trump prepared the supporters for this which is anything bad about me is a witch hunt. don't believe what you see on january 6 and read. or sometimes on fox news. if it is bad about me it is part of a witch hunt, an indictment in manhattan, a jury finding him liable for sexual assault. he is the victim and they fold this in with that, as well. >> katty, they attack one american institution after

another that holds up american democracy. mark milley didn't go along with donald trump. trump's plan to overthrow the federal government. he sent a message out the day after trump held the bible upside down and milley told the troops, we have actually one job. that's not to defend politicians but the constitution of the united states. and i messed up. please accept my apology. so suddenly republicans hate the military. they trash the military. they talk about how they would rather have the russian than american military. trash the fbi. premier law enforcement agency because the fbi investigated trump as they investigated hillary. you don't hear democrats tearing

down institution. it is the reverse of the '60s. same thing with the justice department, with education. anybody that crosses donald trump is evil and is un-american. it is really -- it is crazy. again, i'm not kahs to to fizing here. i feel sorry for the republicans. >> it is damaging. >> losing elections because of it. >> yeah. you might think there's an ideological bias. this was a deliberate intention to weaken the institutions. it is more simple. donald trump saw the organs of government as his. my doj, my generals, my intelligence community. there to serve him and actually it was the reason that he was

critical is that they didn't serve him. anything that they did to thwart him and was seen as a criticism of him then traitors to the cause of upholding donald trump. it was the personalization of government and then attacking me and defacto they are a problem of government. >> this is a fascinating conversation. thank you both very much. please come back. check out mark's new weekly spy podcast. first episode is available to stream right now. >> and he will not be talking about the boston red sox. >> no. >> start winning. more on the durham report. a four-year investigation of the trump russia probe that revealed nothing new. >> nothing. dud. latest on the debt ceiling

negotiations as president biden prepares to host leaders today. and the conversation with arnold schwarzenegger. he is in austria this morning. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪breeze driftin' on by...♪ ♪...you know how i feel.♪ you don't have to take... [coughing] ...copd sitting down. ♪it's a new dawn,...♪ ♪...it's a new day,♪ it's time to make a stand. ♪and i'm feelin' good.♪ start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd... ...medicine has the power to treat copd... ...in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler,... ...trelegy makes breathing easier for a full 24 hours, improves lung function, and helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler... ...for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis.

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california governor arnold schwarzenegger. he wrapped up the keynote address a short time ago and he joins us now. thank you so much for being on the show this morning. we would like to hear what you

hope to accomplish in this conference. and also, if you could talk about climate change in its relation to the war in ukraine and what people need to know. >> well, first of all, thank you very much for having me and we are in the middle of the conference. it started this morning. i gave the keynote speech and always wonderful to bring everyone of the environmental movement together from all over the world to talk about the things to do to move the change forward and to get off fossil fuels and the theme today of the speech was to speed up the process of getting things built. not just any kind of infrastructure. highways, freeways, tunnels, bridges but the green projects. infrastructure that has to do with energy because there's thousands and thousands of projects that are being held up

in america and europe which is through kind of bureaucracy and lawsuits and papers and studies and this kind of stuff, the crap that holds things up to get a green project built like solar. sometimes up to ten years in europe more windmills built. the only way to replace fossil fuels which is a killer, killing 7 million people a year, with renewable energy. we got to speed up the building process because in america we have 2,000 giga watts of clean energy waiting to be built except it needs the permits. we use daily around 1,200

gigawatts. we need the permits. in europe the same problem. what i'm saying is the new environmentalism should be to be aggressive to move forward. >> there with the leaders on climate change, the future of energy, what are the exciting ideas you are hearing? so much going on in the world. there are some lobbies and interest groups trying to slow down the progress. what are you hearing there to give you hope and promise that we're headed in the right direction? >> i think it gives me hope to move forward with the building process. some effort as you know that president biden is talking to the republican congress about that in negotiations in order to speed up the process so i there's good things happening in

at the eu. in europe they moved forward to reform the process. i think that people are hearing this in emergency loud and clear in an energy. and an emergency means you can't get everything perfect but move forward. that's what i stress to do. called for new environmentalism. it was afraid of building with more pollution and death. but this is the new environmentalism where we have the technology now and we know that solar and wind is cheaper than coal. let's replace it with the energy. that's what i'm trying to do. with technology in general it is exciting to see in 2005 with the car show in los angeles when i was governor we had one electric car. now the latest car show over 50.

every company in the world is building electric cars and hydrogen cars so the technology is changing fast. great things are happening with technology. if we fail it is not going to be a failure of technology and innovation but our inaction. >> that is david in washington. you are there in austria. literally almost next door. frightful war in ukraine. last night terrible bombing in the city. just wondering what you as a european at the start of your life feel as you see this going on. what thoughts you send to the ukrainian people and russia. >> we have the mayor from ukraine. from kyiv. he was on the show today and

part of the environmental conference. it is really sad to hear his stories and when you turn on the news and listen to the sad stories, a country that was attacked unprovoked and to just has an unbelievable affect how many people have to die and ukrainian and russian people have to die. it is just sad and i hope that someone comes up with a solution to have them both sit down and negotiate and talk and come to a peace agreement. >> arnold schwarzenegger, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. the road to surrender. a new book on the agonizing decision to use nuclear weapons against japan in world war ii.

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coming up, a next guest has a pair of bilines on the durham probe. she joins us with the latest reporting when "morning joe" comes right back. identical twins bethany and stephanie both struggled with cpap for their sleep apnea. but stephanie got inspire, an implanted device that works inside the body. there's no reason to keep struggling. inspire. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com.

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the activist she is today. she was also a speaker at this year's forbes know your value 30/50 summit. she was amazing. she joins us for this discussion. maggie mcgrath and huma abedin are here. aurora, congratulations on the book. you share some incredible moments in life, including some very painful ones, a rocky relationship with your mom, sexual abuse, even a brief stint in jail, all of which made you realize you needed to find greater purpose in life. what was it like to put those thoughts to paper? >> oh my gosh, it's always so challenging. i think especially these days we spend so much time trying to perfect this image that we have of ourselves to the public. i think social media is really responsible for that too.

i think what i really wanted to do in writing this book was take some of that costume of identity off and display who i truly am. it took 38 years to love myself exactly as i am. i think i've become successful for my flaws as much as my strengths. >> maggie. >> aurora, in your book and at the summit you spoke to us about the 15% pledge, which you founded to revolutionize anti-racism in retail. more than 29 global corporations have signed on. can you talk about the pledge and the inspiration behind it. >> in the wake of mr. floyd's murder, i was called to do

something that was going to have a lasting impact. i asked major retailers to note that 15% of the population was black and they should put 15% of their shelf space with black owned businesses. it really took off overnight. it's super exciting. while we've had 29 of the biggest companies commit, there's still a bunch of retailers across the country we would love to see take the 15% pledge. we want to create as much impact as possible. >> huma, take it away. >> i loved our conversation at the brooklyn museum last week. i was particularly struck by all the young women who turned up to spoert you you have made a name

for yourself as a woman who isn't afraid to challenge the status quo. how did you find the strength to forgive the people who hurt you? >> thouch. showing up authentically to really know we're making a difference, that's what i've been doing with my fashion brand working with artisans across the world. it's been about highlighting and uplifting black-owned brands across the country.

it was about taking her message. i think as a signer is to make women feel like the best version of myself. really with this book i'm hoping to inspire women to feel confident to show up and be authentically themselves and not wasting the life we have because the world tells us we need to shrink. >> as you know, black women are the fastest growing group of entrepreneurs in america. everything about your book can help explain this growth. how do you think initiative like the 15% pledge can play a role in this? >> well, i think there's a quote that people say all the time, which is that talent is distributed equally, but opportunity and access are not. i think when we actually look at

that across the country, we realize it's actually just holding us back to not allow some of the most talented and brilliant minds and entrepreneurs to reach their full potential. i think with the 15% pledge, that's what we're asking corporations to commit to. i think my argument is i completely agree and up until now we actually haven't been giving opportunities to the best businesses. we've just been looking at a very small eye line. what i'm urging major retailers to do is open things up more broadly and start supporting small business in america in a much bigger capacity and make sure people that have been historically exploited have an opportunity as well. >> aurora james, thank you so

much for coming on the show this morning. we also have many honorees from forbes and know your value's 50 over 50 list. we're currently looking for the next class of women to be on our 2023 50 over 50 list. there are only a few weeks left to get your nominations in. tell our viewers how they can get their nominations in. this includes nominating yourself if you want. >> absolutely. we are looking for stories of resilience and reinvention over the age of 50. maybe you've worked for someone else for decades, but in your 60s you start your own company in your own name. maybe you've become the first female ceo at your institution at 50, 60, 70. maybe you decide to run for political office for the first

time. head to forbes.com to nominate. you have until june 1st. we are reviewing nominations on a rolling basis, so the sooner the better. >> we have this incredible luncheon in new york city where we honor the winners. head over to forbes.com for more. thank you very much. coming up, wall street hasn't given up hope that congress will reach a deal on the debt. the markets were up yesterday, but for how long can that optimism continue? andrew ross sorkin is just ahead. andrew ross sorkin is just ahead.

it is the top of the fourth hour of "morning joe." four years later we finally have the full report on john durham. >> what did we find out? >> it has taken four years. >> yes, but i'm sure we found out a lot. >> so much money. >> i'm really excited to see what we found out. >> i have it all right here. >> the longest special counsel investigation. let's bring somebody in here. i'm so excited about this.

jonathan lemire. >> they track these things for a living. >> the longest special counsel investigation in american history -- >> i'm on the edge of my seat! >> so complete, mind you, that the investigation of the investigators actually lasted twice as long as the investigation itself. now, mind you, he lost every case he tried. >> yeah. >> juries just dismissed it out of hand. the conspiracy theories while walking through the fevered swamps of trumpism, well, ended in probably career-ending reputational damage. but other than that, it was a hell of a ride, lemire. it was a hell of a ride.

>> this was so hyped. it can't be overstated to the audience, who maybe didn't follow this as much. but in conservative circles the durham report was going to be the be all and end all. trump talked about it nightly from the rally stage. his allies amplified it on social media or fox news, saying this was going to be definitive proof that the government was trying to bring down donald trump. this was it. hopes were riding on it for a very, very, very long time. it came out yesterday. yes, had some mild rebukes of the fbi, suggested changes the fbi had already made, but certainly was a nothing burger compared to what trump and his allies had hoped. >> not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. poor john durham, he just kept going. we're going to review this later.

it's so important. poor john. he actually had a great reputation before william barr asked him to be a hatchet man and destroy the fbi. if you're working for the fbi right now or you have a family member working for the fbi who risks their lives to keep americans safe, we thank you and we want you to know the majority of americans don't go along with this blind hatred of the premier law enforcement agency in america just because donald trump actually was investigate ed and just because he kind of stole some classified documents. then he lied to the fbi and the justice department about it. i know barr wanted to trash the fbi, durham wanted to trash the fbi. republicans are still talking about defunding the fbi, you know, the premier law enforcement agency that protects

you and your families from terrorists, the premier law enforcement agency that protects you and your family from drug runners, from gangs, from people that would bilk you out of your retirement. all of those people who workday in and day out to keep you and your family safe, this is who the republicans in the house want to defund. this is who barr wanted to destroy. this is who durham tried to destroy, and he struck out. lemire, i said the guy doesn't have a future. maybe he can play for the red sox. this might be his season. strike him out, maybe put him in the bullpen. four years, millions of dollars, a record long investigation and

he has nothing to show for it. >> you're right. durham still has the remarkable facial hair. this is going to be a disappointment for those on the right who were cheering him on. durham had a pretty sterling reputation prior to this here in washington. people thought he was the real deal and a serious figure. people think that less now. the amount of time and money wasted on this led to nothing at all. some republicans are taking victory laps. my phone is melting from the truth social posts from donald trump. that's being repeated by some of his allies on the hill. but this isn't going to change

anything. >> comer and durham, maybe they can start a law firm. he lost another informant? i mean, come on. also ahead, this was supposed to be the headlines of our shoe. a preview from what we're likely to hear from the ceo of chatgpt. north carolina is the latest battleground for abortion rights. the state's democratic governor tells us what's next for a restrictive bill that he just vetoed. president biden and kevin mccarthy are set to meet this afternoon to discuss a way to break the log jam on the debt ceiling as treasury secretary janet yellen said the u.s. is prepared to exhaust all options

to keep paying the country's bills as early as june 1st. let's bring in ali vitali. >> reporter: the good news is that janet yellen isn't changing the date that everyone here on capitol hill is working towards. beyond that, there's not much tangible good news to report, especially when we're hearing different things about the mood of these negotiations depending on who we talk to. president biden on the one hand saying he is routinely optimistic as a person and optimistic about where these talks are and setting these principal players up for their own meeting later this afternoon. then i saw house speaker kevin mccarthy multiple times yesterday. he's sounding pretty dour about what he sees as the state of these negotiations. while both of these views can be right, because at some point we hope they get to a deal, it's notable to track where speaker

kevin mccarthy is in this, easy specially because we've seen mitch mcconnell throw in behind mccarthy. watch what he told me. >> it really concerns me the timeline of where we were. unfortunately the president waited 97 days. he's got big issues to get to. we've got to get through the house and the senate. there's definitely not enough progress. >> reporter: he's saying there's not enough progress. the way these things tend to work, it can be a lot of noes and a lot of bad news until there's good news. no one i've talked to says out of today's meeting at the white house they expect everything to come up roses, but there is hope that there can be something that looks productive to the american

public that allows president biden to go on this overseas trip, continue to have conversations and come back and tie this up neatly with a bow. mccarthy told me yesterday he wants to see a deal come together in time for this weekend. he says that's what they need in order to put this thing together for the house and senate to vote on it. the white house is on a different timeline, which is just an underscoring of the fact that both parties are looking at this in completely different ways despite the fact the points of consensus on the table haven't changed much. it's things like permit reform, clawing back unspent money. >> thank you. we are going to turn back to the report now from special counsel john durham, which failed to provide any evidence of a deep state plot against trump. >> earlier this morning you said

to jonathan lemire, hey, keep your mouth shut when you're talking. >> no. that was andy cohen. he was eating a bagel. >> keep your mouth shut when you're talking. >> no. he's eating. >> how do you talk with your mouth shut? >> what's going on here? for andy cohen, just when he has a bagel. okay. nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken delanian has the details on the durham report. >> reporter: this morning, the investigation that followed a political firestorm around the 2016 election -- >> a horrible, horrible, disgusting witch hunt. >> reporter: finally wrapping up ahead of the next one. republicans saying it exposed serious wrongdoing by the fbi. >> the fbi has a lot of work to do. >> reporter: while democrats call it a rehash that didn't live up to its billing. >> they investigated the

investigators by durham revealed little to nothing. >> reporter: mr. trump on his truth social website saying the american public was scammed, but the report, though highly critical of the fbi, did not back up mr. trump's claims he was framed by a corrupt deep state conspiracy. >> i think it's the political crime of the century. >> reporter: in fact, special counsel john durham did not find corruption or even actions motivated by politics. durham was tapped by trump's attorney general bill barr to look into whether fbi officials abused their powers when they opened an investigation in 2016 looking into allegations the trump campaign had colluded with the russian government. that eventually led to the appointment of special counsel robert mueller who in the end did not find a conspiracy between trump and the kremlin. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> reporter: although mueller

did find a trump campaign eager to accept help from russians. durham's report criticized what he called serious deficient mistakes by the fbi. adding, the bureau was much more cautious and skeptical about allegations against the clinton campaign, all potential fodder for trump as he mounts another campaign for president. >> i just have to say, again, that is wrenching the facts out of their proper context. jonathan lemire, everybody was part of it for two years during the hillary clinton campaign. the fbi was linking stories left and right about hillary's e-mails, left and right. it was the fbi that planted those stories nonstop and kept

that narrative going, talking about how horrible it was and how dangerous it was. and we followed along because it was coming from the fbi. and it was the fbi director that marched out after hillary clinton was cleared, after she was cleared! and he marched out, i believe it was on july 5th, 2016, and he couldn't indict her under the law, so he held a preference. never done before. he held a press conference indicting her politically. she actually did nothing wrong. now, let me give a speech and tell you how terrible she is. it's unbelievable. we've talked about it before. even trump's people know, even trump knows he would have never

been elected president of the united states if comey hadn't written that letter the way he did ten days before hand. he wrote it in a way that kept open the possibility that hillary did all of these horrible things, instead of just saying -- we've talked about this a million times. an fbi director like mueller would have written it far more carefully, far more cautiously. but time and time again they leaked information. they leaked information, the fbi did, about the clinton foundation. again, every time hillary was starting to get any progress campaigning, the fbi leaked, leaked, leaked, leaked. and durham is continuing this lie -- and it's a lie -- that donald trump and the right push that the fbi was biassed during that campaign against trump?

please. the great overwhelming amount of evidence which you can find by doing a basic lexus nexus search, you will find four, five, six times as many stories based on fbi leaks over the two-year period leading up to the 2016 campaign as you find stories on donald trump. it may be ten or 20 times as many stories. it's not even close. the fbi leaked like a sieve to try to destroy hillary clinton's campaign. they just did. now, listen, am i going to say let's defund the fbi? no. this has happened since the fbi and intel agencies started. unfortunately, it's just a reality. for them to come back and say,

oh, they were so biassed towards hillary clinton completely ignores history and the context of the time and ignores the facts that are there if they only cared to search for the truth. >> it is well documented that the new york field office of the fbi was the source of many of these leaks, some followed through rudy giuliani, who was very tight with agents there from his time as mayor. of course giuliani was a senior advisor to the trump campaign in 2016. then there were the two very public things fbi director comey did. the press conference where he said clinton would not face charges, but yet proceeded to indict her politically. i was there. donald trump was going to have a rally in manchester, new hampshire. he was well down in the polls.

news broke about that comey letter. you could feel in an instant things change. trump delayed his arrival. the crowd started to buzz. i was hearing from trump campaign aides texting on the way to the venue, we're still alive, we've got a chance. and he showed up and took a victory lap. i have not heard a trump crowd that loud that whole year because they knew the campaign had life breathed into it. he knew he had a chance. that's because of what the fbi director did that day. >> the fbi saved his campaign. >> let's bring in betsy woodruff swan, andrew weissman and charlie savage. >> charlie, you wrote the story in the times today talking about how the durham campaign came up short. of course, there are trumpers that disagree.

the durham investigation. there are trumpers who say just the opposite. what did you find after reading the report? >> well, the report contained no major new revelations that caps this four-year meandering investigation highlighted by two fails prosecutions by largely reciting the same material where it was true that had been previously uncovered in 2019 by the justice department's independent inspector general. then it repeated a lot of the insinuations that hillary clinton was to blame for the fact that trump came under suspicion for collusion in 2016 that mr. durham had floated when bringing two cases against outsiders involved in efforts to raise suspicions about trump and russia, both of which ended in acquittals. we didn't really learn anything

from this report that wasn't already in the public sphere. that did not stop trump and his acolytes from claiming victory. they all said this was a deep state conspiracy theory to take out trump. notably, durham did not even accuse the fbi of political bias. he stopped short of that. he sort of lost his nerve. he accused them of confirmation bias, which got him headlines for the word bias, but it was the weakest thing he could have said. >> betsy, i'm reading some reporting here. to the disappointment of many republicans, the report doesn't incriminate hillary clinton and doesn't show the political crime of the century, as trump predicted it would. but isn't the win here for trump

or for trump republicans that they got to lie and lie and lie repeatedly about this and kind of get this disinformation into the national stratosphere into the conversation? >> there's no doubt that the existence of the durham probe and the existence of durham's report without question will give trump and his allies another source of conversation topics as they try to relitigate what happened not just in the 2020 election, but also the 2016 election. that said, in the very opening of this report, there's a paragraph that almost reads like it's directed at trump himself, where durham writes that just because there are activities that seem unethical or just because there are campaign tactics that appear to be shady or just because people exhibit horribly bad judgment, durham says it doesn't actually mean it's a crime.

he explains here's why i'm not prosecuting people with crimes of the century. here's why i came up far short of what so many of the expectations had been. it reads like an introductory law class. just because we don't like it, doesn't mean it's illegal. he includes what may be a bit of an explanation for why he had those two very high profile defeats at trial. he says juries are sometimes essentially unpredictable and in these politically fraught probes, sometimes jurors have trouble extricating their own political views from the decisions they have to make despite our best efforts to pick a nice jury pool. it's durham basically signaling, hey, the jurors ultimately got me lost on this one. at one point in the entire investigation that captured it in just a moment is the only

guilty plea that durham secured was from a former fbi employee called kevin klein smith. klein smith did not do any jail time. his law license was only suspended for a year. think about the extraordinary gap that exists between that extremely small consequence for one person versus the promises that trump and his political allies had been making about the durham probe for the last four years. it's just an extraordinary gap. and, no, this document and many documents like this will have something for everyone. there will be portions of the document trump and his allies will be talking about, no surprise there whatsoever. when it comes down to it, what they promised versus what they got, there's just a chasm. >> a massive chasm. a four-year investigation and

durham blamed the jury. acting like durham didn't have anything to do with picking who was on the jury. same thing with e. jean carroll, where the jury unanimously found trump liable for sexual abuse. his lawyers helped pick the jury. >> a jury of his peers. >> andrew, my god. i don't know even where to begin with this. a four-year meandering investigation, two failed prosecutions. i heard you talk about it yesterday. incredibly bad form going after juries that unanimously acquitted these defendants.

and durham having the bad form of trying to relitigate the cases in this report that two juries of american citizens already rejected. >> it is really worth people remembering that means that 24 jurors unanimously found that these were not proven in two separate districts, in washington, d.c. and in virginia. john durham says in this report, it's not me, it's 24 jurors where i was not able to convince a single juror. if he had convinced a single juror, he would have had a hung jury, not an acquittal. the idea that he's saying all of them, with no evidence, all of them were just acting politically, it's such poor form. then he has the audacity to say it's the fbi that shows poor

judgment and the fbi wasn't keeping with appropriate policies when you really have john durham doing a form of what, joe, you said mr. comey did, which is, he's taking this opportunity in spite of finding no criminal case, he has taken this opportunity to give his opinion about fbi policies. well, that's not his remit. that's nothing he as a federal prosecutor knows anything about. he has not worked at the fbi. he is not conversant with fbi policies. it's something that the doj inspector general has already looked at and rejected. this is, as jonathan said, a big nothing burger. as a friend of mine says, it's all hat, no cattle. >> some people might say another

dud. the durham report is another dud. as we talk about bad form, we saw what merrick garland did yesterday, let this garbage report be released with little comment, just said, okay, barr made you special prosecutor four years ago. merrick garland let the process play out through the two failed prosecutions where 24 americans said not guilty, not guilty unanimously. and then just let it be released. compare that to what barr did. i would call it lying after the mueller report, just outright lying. other people might call it misrepresentation. but completely twisting and distorting the facts of the mueller report so he could frame it for the news media and talked

about putting your hand on the scale of justice, that's exactly what he did. then let durham launch this investigation into the investigators that went twice as long, four years, as the underlying investigation. >> it's also worth remembering that bill barr participated in the durham investigation. so the whole point of having a special counsel is because the department of justice says it would be inappropriate and unwarranted for us at the department of justice to do the investigation so we're appointing somebody as a special counsel, which means that you're supposed to be sort of hands off in terms of deference and let them do their job. that was not bill barr. there's not a word of that in the durham report. there's no taking to task his very cozy relationship that the "new york times" has reported

between bill barr and john durham. in fact, bill barr and john durham went to italy to investigate what turned out, according to the "new york times," to be allegations about donald trump, of his wrongdoing. none of that is in the report. so you really have this concern about this just not being an even handed, dispassionate report. for all of the criticisms people have made about merrick garland, he let the process play out and let him do his job for ill or not. it speaks pretty well for what's going to happen with respect to jack smith, because merrick garland has basically had a road map here of saying, you know what, i let john durham do his job. and i suspect it means he's going to let jack smith do his job and fully support whatever recommendations he makes with respect to the two ongoing

criminal cases involving donald trump. >> does the release of this report bring to a close this very lengthy chapter of this particular saga? or are some elements of what durham released yesterday potentially going to be seized upon by republicans in the house and their committee on weaponizing the government or whatever other investigative body or effort they may put forth? >> i think we are almost done arguing about the 2016 election. >> oh my god. >> jim jordan, the chairman of the judiciary committee, a close trump ally, has said he's going to bring durham in next week to testify about his report. so that hearing may be the final gasp for one more news cycle to be squeezed out of it. then we can go back to arguing about the 2020 election. >> where does this go from here? >> i think that's right. the durham hearing, no question,

is going to be very interesting, in part because he'll be fielding questions from both sides. then i think it will finally stop being 2017 for the justice department press corps. that's something to look forward to. this is a bit tangential but i think it matters themematically. increasingly we're hearing house republicans raise their tenor about trying to defund or even shut down atf. the fact that that rhetoric is coming at a moment when gun violence in this country is just metastasizing as a threat once again shows that throughout the federal law enforcement community, not just the fbi, but this other key component of the justice department, many of these house republicans see

political value to themselves in going after those agencies. so even though we're reaching what's very close to the close of the relitigation of the investigation into trump and 2017, what we expect to continue is this sustained republican effort to go after law enforcement broadly as a group on the federal level. >> thank you all very much. the ceo behind chat gpt will be testifying before a senate subcommittee today as lawmakers figure out how to regulate the fast-evolving technology as artificial intelligence becomes more incorporated into our lives andrew ross sorkin sat down with nadella for a conversation about

what the future could look like with this technology. >> it's already there at scale, every news feed, every social media feed search. they're all on ai. if anything, you have black boxes. i describe them as the auto pilot era. it's an interesting way of moving from the auto pilot era of ai to the copilot era of ai. it's moving fast where humans are more in control. first of all, humans are in the loop versus being out of the loop. it's a design choice which we have made. i feel it's more important for us to capitalize on this technology and its promise on human agency and economic productivity. >> andrew joins us now. humans get more.

i will say it's very interesting. it's kind of like wall street woke up to ai over the past couple weeks, right? you look at google stock. it's exploding. i read yesterday that the founders of google increased their net worth by like 80 gazillion dollars. stocks are exploding. this is the hot commodity on wall street. >> i think there's been a sea change literally in the last couple of months. what chat gpt has done is so radical in terms of its ability to write, frankly. bill gates said he saw a demo of it last year and he said in my whole career this is the second time compared to the 80s where this is that important.

i put in chat gpt can you write a smart op-ed on why and how congress can eradicate the debt limit. it wrote what could be published in the "new york times" an hour from now and it was brilliant. that is the promise of it on one side but also the peril. i've got kids. you've got kids. how this works with education and of course the guardrails around it, which is what the discussion in washington is going to be about today. >> what is andrew ross sorkin's specialty? >> i don't know. >> author who covers finance and business news.

there you go. >> i'm doing it to you now, joe. joe scarborough is a seasoned television host, former u.s. congressman, expertise primarily in law, politics and media. it's got the whole thing. that's just scratching the surface of all of this. >> right. >> i was just saying it is absolutely fascinating what's happened. i want people who are watching that are skeptical about this, i was always skeptical about bitcoin. i never understood it. i said it on the show. i read books and articles about it. it made about as much sense to me as credit default swaps. this is the future. >> this is different. >> people need to understand this is the real thing.

it's extraordinary. i don't think it's a frightening leap right now. i think it's as much of a leap as when we first had google and you could type search terms in and get responses. >> i'm going to say it's bigger than that. i think it's going to impact jobs in a very meaningful way, the ability to write these things as quickly as they can be done is a real thing. this is what i think you're going to hear in washington today is what kind of guardrails are on these ai systems. it is going to be possible very soon with some of these systems to say, look, here is my world view, maybe i'm a democrat, maybe i'm a maga lover and this is the prism with which i see the world. everything i write from now on, i want you to write through that prism. if you said to it you're a racist, currently the system

will not there then write racist things, thank god. but that's microsoft and alphabet doing it that way. there are now all of these smaller ai systems that are not run by the big companies that can do all sorts of crazy things. how do you even begin to monitor that, control it? some of these things called hallucinating where they will literally start writing crazy things. if you ask the engineers why it's doing that, they say it's hallucinating, because they don't understand exactly what's happening. >> i want to touch on an article in the "wall street journal" today. the headline is "the world's biggest economies cautiously open their doors to more foreign workers." it's not companies that have normally done it. it's countries that have usually been far more protective,

germany, japan allowing high skilled workers and lower skilled workers in, even countries with a strong populist history are allowing immigrants in because they understand they need the workers and the workforce. in the united states, here we are dragging our feet. this is not being political. i always quote ronald reagan all the time talking about this. republicans in the past pretrump have talked about this. we need highly skilled workers. >> 100%, amen. >> we need entry level skilled workers. we need them all. the fact that congress can't come together and do that for small business owners, for small family restaurant owners, for hardware store owners, for people on main street usa, it's a real disgrace. >> amen. it's been an issue we've talked about for many years now.

why there can't even be a discrete piece of immigration law. part of it is let's do some massive grand immigration plan. that may not be in the cards. on a small slice of trying to find highly educated folks and especially those who go to school in the united states, you think to yourself when you get a diploma, staple a green card to that. all the companies that end up sending people out of the country -- companies like meta and facebook built big offices up in canada. why? because they literally send people who have gone to school in the united states. they say they want you to work for us, but you can't work here, you're going to go over there. it's diabolical. >> catch more tonight at 10:30 p.m. on nbc news now. it's also available to stream on peacock.

coming up on "morning joe" with russia's aggression in ukraine raising the threat of nuclear conflict to its highest level in decades, a new book delves into the decision to drop atomic bombs on japan during world war ii. evan thomas joins us. tomhomas s (psst psst) ahhhh... with flonase, allergies don't have to be scary. spray flonase sensimist daily for non-drowsy, long lasting relief in a scent-free, gentle mist. (psst psst) flonase. all good.

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a short time ago an american airplane dropped one bomb on hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. that bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of tnt. the japanese began the war from the air at pearl harbor. they have been repaid manyfold. and the end is not yet. with this bomb, we have now add add new and revolutionary

increase in destruction to supplement the growing power of our armed forces. in their present form, these bombs are now in production and even more powerful forms are in development. it is an atomic bomb. it is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. >> that's president harry truman on august 6th, 1945, announcing that america had dropped a nuclear bomb on the japanese city of hiroshima. some of the main people involved in that decision are now the subject of a new book titled "road to surrender, three men and the countdown to the end of world war ii." with us now, the book's author, former washington bureau chief at newsweek, evan thomas. it's fascinating. you talk about the three men who were central to this decision. the guy we just saw speaking, not really one of them.

fdr kept him in the dark. >> amazingly, the president didn't tell the vice president that he had an atom bomb. truman was ultimately the decider, but much of the decision was done by other men. i was fascinated. what was it like for these men who had to do this terrible thing? so i began reading diaries. i read the diary of our secretary of war. he referred to the bomb by the code name but in his diary he also called it the terrible, the awful, the diabolicaldiabolical. on the morning he showed harry truman the photographs of what hiroshima looked like after the bomb, which is just ashes, henry stiffson had a heart attack. i don't think that was a coincidence. they agonized over this.

the problem was the japanese were just not surrendering. i started reading diaries on the other side of how the japanese were reacting. three days after they dropped the hiroshima bomb, the supreme war council in japan is meeting. they get word that another hiroshima sized bomb has just dropped on nagasaki. what happens? the war minister there says, well, wouldn't it be beautiful for the whole country to die like flowers? he compared japan to a shattered jewel. they just were not going to give up. >> they weren't going to give up. it's interesting about truman, focusing on his decision. what i found when i was studying and writing about truman was he was surrounded by great men, george marshall and others.

he followed their advice for the most part, other than israel. he had great thinkers around him and he followed their advice. that's sort of what happened here too, isn't it? >> it is. on the night that truman gave the order to bomb hiroshima, he wrote in his diary, he wrote, i have instructed the secretary of war and he agrees with me that we are going to bomb a purely military target, that the bomb will be aimed at soldiers and sailors, not women and children. well, that just wasn't true. the end point in hiroshima was a bridge in the middle of the city. they did kill 10,000 soldiers, but they instantly killed 60,000 civilians, including many women and children. what is he thinking? there's an element of denial in

all of this and people just not wanting to look at what they're actually doing. i understand it. i can imagine the pressure on them. but we like to think men or women sit in a room today and clearly work out what's going to happen. it just doesn't work that way. when they're making these kind of decisions, it's hard, because they know they're up against an enemy that just won't quit. >> it was a hellish decision and kill sod many civilians, killed so many children, killed so many mothers, so many people. and yet here we are all these years later. most historians, along with al, have concluded that it actually saved so many lives, countless asian lives especially. we're not exactly sure. we heard this is going to save a million u.s. troops from going into that all-out invasion. we're not really sure of that.

but we are certain that so many more asians would have died, japanese would have died if they had not dropped the bomb and forced japan to surrender then before an all-out assault and invasion on the island. >> they had to choose between horrible things, you know. if they don't drop these bombs, we would have to invade. we would have to invade. that could kill up to a million americans. there was debate amongst the services. the navy did not want to participate in the invasion because of kamikazes, 2,000 kamikazes at okinawa. the japanese had 7,000 kamikazes in caves waiting for us along with a million troops. you can see why we didn't want to invade. probably in the end we wouldn't have. instead we would have starved japan. we would have strangled and starved them. the bombs perversely, this is perverse, saved millions of

japanese people and as you mentioned, millions of asians. the japanese were brutally occupying asia, 250,000 people were dying every month. by ending the war, finally the american ships came in and brought them food. you know, these things are always clearer in retrospect. but at the time, it -- it wasn't clear what was going to happen. of course they don't know. oppenheimer, the guy who designed the bomb, said, well, you know, it might kill 20,000 people. well, it killed 70,000 people. 70,000 instantly. it killed another 70,000 slowly, dying to -- dying from radiation poisoning. nagasaki, fortunately the bomb missed, it was a mission that was screwed up. the plane missed its initial target, was running out of gas, dropped his bomb a mile off target and interesting, one of the characters i wrote about,

the general overseeing the bombing of japan, he was glad that the nagasaki bomb was off target. why? because it didn't kill as many people. it killed a mere 35,000 instead of 70,000. spots wrote in his own diary, this has never been revealed before, a private diary, he was against the bomb. this is the guy who is ordered to drop it because as he had always been against dropping it, he said i was opposed there too. if it is going to save lives, okay. he went to -- he never quite recovered from it. his daughter's granddaughter told me he couldn't sleep. he would slowly moan. he would confess later that he was guilty about the bomb. of course he did but he had to do it. >> the title of the book is called "the road to surrender: three men and the

countdown to the end of world war ii." thank you very much. coming up on "morning joe," we will be joined by chasten buttigieg. he has a new book out called "i have something to tell you." we'll be right back. "i have something to tell you." we'll be right back. shingles. the rash can feel like an intense burning sensation and last for weeks. it can make your workday feel impossible. the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you. 50 years or older? ask your doctor about shingles. millions have made the switch from the big three 50 years or older? to the best kept secret in wireless: xfinity mobile. that means millions are saving hundreds a year with the fastest mobile service. and now, get the best price for two lines of unlimited. just $30 per line.

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i have something to tell you by chasten buttigieg is the young adult adaptation of his "new york times" best-selling memoir. in the book, buttigieg opens up about growing up gay in a small midwestern town while encouraging young readers not only to be seen, but to be active in seeking acceptance and representation. and chasten joins us now. it is great to see you again. i really appreciate your writing this book for so many reasons. it will help so many young people. but for you, how did it help you to put it all into words?

>> yeah, well, one, it was great to see the senior pictures of there. wow. you know, i wanted to write -- >> fantastic. >> i wanted to write the book i wish i would have had in eighth grade. we did not talk about gay people growing up in conservative rural northern michigan. i thought for a long time i was the only one. so now that i've gotten to grow up and become this person and have this platform, i wanted to turn around and write the book i wish i could have read in middle school that would have helped me understand that there is nothing wrong with me, that i didn't have to be defined by the opinions of other people in my community or even my peers, that i could lean into the things that make me different, and this book is also for parents and teachers. this book is about how i could have benefited from as a young person from a simple conversation, a ten-second conversation with my parents that i would have known that they loved me unconditionally and i could have focused on being a kid, rather than fearing that once i came out, if they ever found out the secret i would lose everything.

>> hmm. so hard. and you say the book is for parents as well, for greater understanding for them. and maybe even can be used as a tool in the communication process. i'm curious, what about those who -- whose parents aren't so accepting? what is your advice? >> well, the first thing i want to say right now, just in case any young people see this is that there are millions of people out here who love you for exactly who you are, who will support you, who have your back and, who are fighting day in and day out to make this country safer and more inclusive and a more accepting one. i know what it is like to feel like you're the only person to wonder if it truly gets better when people say it gets better, to wonder if that is actually going to happen. this book is a way to tell you it does. it only gets better if other people are committed to making it better. it is not only hopefully a comfort for young people, but

also a call to action for parents and teachers to let people know they need to be supportive. i include a lot of discussion questions and prompts in the back of the book. hopefully that's helpful for family and teachers as well. >> do you want to tell us about grandma wanda and sort of your conversation with her? >> one of the biggest messages of this book is that people can come around. people can progress. and, you know, i was terrified after i came out that -- everyone told me don't tell grandma, it will kill her. i was so sad that i could lose this person that i loved so much. when i came out to her, she grabbed my arm and said, i know, chasten and i love you just the same. that story of evolution in my family is what saved my life. when i ran away from home, my parents and my family called me back home. they didn't know anything about raising a young gay person, but they knew they loved me more

than anything else in the world. there is a rainbow at the end of the story, pun intended. they focused on love and family above everything else. and i hope that this book will help other families and other parents as well as young people and, you know, i'm launching a really big book tour right now so folks can visit chastenwrites.com. i hope i see you around the country so we can have this conversation and call more allies into this fight. >> chasten buttigieg, thank you very much. young adults version of his book "i have something to tell you" is out now. and that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. hello. thank you so much for joining us. it is 10:00 eastern. i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. we are just hours away from a high stakes meeting between the president and