i think they're optimistic that dean phillips will not challenge the president, but it's prompting unwanted conversations in the democratic caucus. >> in a race that's expected to be close, that or a third-party challenge like cornell west even taking a few votes would all matter. great stuff as always from white house reporter from "the washington post" tyler page. thank you for joining us. thank you for getting up "way too early" with us this friday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. i resigned on d december 14th because i thought at that point the state votes were certified and that was the end of the legal frost right. >> and i also didn't like the way he was spouting the big lie. i thought that was irresponsible. he took it much further than even i expected or anyone expected, and during this time, he was being told by lawyers in the white house that if he kept on doing this, he would spend the rest of his life tangling with the criminal justice process. and that's exactly what's

happened. he shouldn't be surprised and no one else should be surprised. >> he shouldn't be surprised, nobody else should be surprised, anybody that has followed this story at all, unless they're reading about it on, i don't know, websites run by chinese cults, would know that. everybody around donald trump warned him at the time, if you do this, if you keep moving forward, you are going to be fighting the law for the rest of your life. that was former attorney general bill barr, knowing something about that, making it clear that donald trump has nobody to blame but himself for his many legal troubles because he was warned all along that all of this could happen. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." i want to jump right in here. it's friday, august 18th. we've got the host of "way too early" white house bureau chief jonathan lemire, former white house press secretary under president biden, now a host, jen psaki and former white house

press secretary under president obama robert gibbs. mika has the morning off. she's at an undisclosed location somewhere in the south of france. >> nice. >> not so, but people always believe it. jonathan lemire, this is -- you look at all of the january 6th testimony from the hearings, every trump lawyer, every trump lawyer that donald trump hired, said you can't do this. mr. president, if you do this, this is going to be problematic. all the way through, he was warned, all the way through he knew he was making moves that were illegal. instead of listening to trained lawyers, he decided that he would listen to political operatives in south florida who were plotting and scheming this before the election was over. instead of listening to his

attorney general, he didn't give him the answer he wanted, he would listen to roger stone. most famously, it's all going to come out in the january 6th trials, he kept pushing his lawyers, what can we do? they all said, mr. president, you're going to have to leave office on january 20th. there's nothing else you can do. we're sorry. it's over. donald trump, as you know, because you wrote the book about this, that's when he starts plotting the january 6th riots. he goes back to his private residence, and he tweets, come on january 6th. it will be wild. so it began. and there's a guy on the inside who said, we warned him every step of the way. he just wouldn't listen. >> yeah. president trump at the time chose not to listen to his

attorney general, bill barr, or his white house counsel and chose to listen to sydney powell and rudy giuliani and their like, and as each of their options failed in the days after the election, they methodically moved to the next. there was the date when the states were certified in mid-december, electoral college were counted. they thought that would be a day to throw up roadblocks that didn't work. they talked about voting machine investigations. at one moment briefly considering martial law. all of this fell apart and they finally settled on this scheme for fake lectors which is what john eastman role and the key role vice president pence would have to play on january 6th. trump summoned the crowds with that tweet, which is a talking point in the conservative media, people would come there that day and as we know, mike pence, with an assist from dan quayle, chose not to carry out trump's wishes. this is going to play into his defense, he's making the argument, trump, and his attorneys, he truthfully

believed he had won, and he was doing everything he could to find what he believed was the fair outcome. that is contrary to what we know, he was told repeatedly by the authorities in not just his white house but in the states he hadn't won, that's not going to be an argument that that defense is going to work, even if as bill barr points out, even if trump believes it, it doesn't give him the right to act illegally to carry out that outcome. >> i can walk past an airport and go the private jet there, that gulfstream, that's mine. that's mine. and then, what, does that mean that because i think it's mine, which it's not -- because i think it's mine, i can then steal it or start plotting to steal it? no. and this is what barr says about donald trump trying to steal the elections.

>> so it was a calculated and deceitful plan to remain in office by nullifying and negating certified, legal votes. >> the fact that he didn't drop things could lead some to believe and his people who defend him say, that he genuinely did feel he was robbed and this was the good fight and the proper fight? >> well, even if he did, and i am dubious about that, even if he believed that, that doesn't mean you can use illegal means to rectify it. if you think the bank is unfairly keeping your money, there are many things you can do to get it back. you can't go and rob the bank. >> no. exactly. and like a calculated and deceitful plan to rob people of their votes. jen, we need to talk about the donald trump here, but we also need to sort of open up the aperture a bit and understand that this is anti-democratic trying to rob people of their votes, as bill barr said, but

this is now become the accepted norm in donald trump's republican party. you look at tennessee. you don't like what two black legislators are saying, doesn't matter that people elected them, you kick them out. right? >> right. >> it's the same thing in florida. you don't like how prosecutors are acting, even though they're doing exactly what voters were promised when they ran for office, ron desantis, just kicks them out of office. he's really -- he makes an anti-democratic move. we don't care what the voters said. you even look at ohio recently. they had a rule, a rule for referendums. it was 50%. an abortion issue comes up, they want to turn night -- turn it into 60%. you go back and look all the way back to bill clinton, i think democrats, let's see, democrats

won the popular vote in '92, '96, 2000, 2008, 2016, 2020. you know this whole one-man, one vote thing, one-woman, one vote thing, that never works for republicans, and it's almost like they figured it out. whether it's january 6th or tennessee or ohio or florida, they're doing everything they can now to stay in power by pushing voters aside. as barr said, by robbing voters of their vote. >> right. i mean, look, joe, one of the fundamental problems, if you take a step back from all of the developments of the legal trials and tribulations of donald trump, is that the republican party has moved in a direction that's out of touch with the american electorate. you gave a number of examples there. but if any party, political

party, is trying to make it harder and more difficult to vote, which is something we've seen the republican party do in a number of states across the country over the last couple years, it's because they don't want more people to go out there and voice their view and voice who they want to support. that means fundamentally, you're scared of more people being out there voting because they're going to vote for your opponent. the ohio example you gave is such a good one, and unfortunately, there's a number of other cases in states across the country where there have been efforts to make it harder for people in red states and purple states and lavender, whatever states, color states they are, to express their support for abortion rights and the ability of women to make choices about their own health care because there's a fear that women will do exactly that, that men will do exactly that, because those positions are popular in the country. even as we're working through, navigating, litigating, explaining every detail of trump's legal issues, the challenge here is that the

positions that the core candidates and leaders of the republican party have on issues people care about, whether it's access to voting, choices about your own health care, all of these crazy, cultural debates about gay marriage, first of all gay marriage is the law of the land, it's out of touch with the public and that is a core problem for the party. >> it's massive party and you have these extreme positions on abortion and i always use wisconsin as an example because there's a state that's probably, i think along with georgia, the greatest toss up state. it's the state that everybody is battling over and so they have an abortion law from 1849 that's a total ban and they think they have a shot of winning the most important supreme court election it there in probably decades. no. they're wildly out of touch. then they say, let's stop people from voting or let's change the

rules. that's short sighted. that is not the long play. they're going to keep losing. the combination of supporting donald trump with his four felonies and supporting the most restrictive abortion laws possible, i mean, and now, being seen as people that even are trying to restrict, you know, morning after pill, it's all, again, all going to add up very badly for them. i've got to say, after the manhattan prosecution, robert gibbs, after the manhattan indictment, i had a lot of lawyers, democrats and republicans, saying i don't get it. even after january the 6th, a couple weeks ago, they're saying, i think it's -- you know, it's okay, but it's going to be harder for jack smith to prove that. now, after georgia, i've got to say, some of the smartest lawyers i know, people i've

worked with, some of the most well-known lawyers in the country who tried a ton of cases, they're saying basically what barr -- bill barr is now saying, which is, this guy is going to jail. take a look at barr. >> i think the federal cases are legitimate. at the end of the day, at the core of this thing, he engaged in the case of the documents, outrageous behavior where anyone would be prosecuted. i don't know of any attorney general who could walk away from it. he's not being prosecuted for having the documents. he's being prosecuted for obstruction, to egregious instances are alleged. i think that's a very simple case and that should be tried. if the judge is anywhere competent, that could be concluded before the summer. and the other case, after the election, he n my opinion, he did cross the line. it wasn't just rough and tumble politics. he crossed the line. >> and he actually says trump could be convicted by this time

next summer. he doesn't think trump is going to go to jail. doesn't really explain why a guy convicted for stealing nuclear secrets wouldn't go to jail. we can talk about that later, but just look ahead, you have this georgia, this sprawling georgia case, you have january 6th which i think is going to move pretty quickly and the documents case, all of that happening between now and most likely donald trump's convention, except the georgia cases because it's so sprawling, but you have at least two federal cases and very real possibility of donald trump convicted in the january 6th case and the documents case, even before the convention. he'll be a convicted felon. please, robert, walk us through that. what in the hell does that look like? >> well, i think what it looks like, having that calendar on the screen, you've got somebody who may well be the leading

candidate for the republican nomination who is going to spend the better part of january through maybe mid june inside of a courtroom and not outside on the campaign trail. i can only imagine that most valuable job in the trump campaign may be the scheduler who has to figure out how he's in a courtroom in the daytime and how they get him to iowa and new hampshire or south carolina or nevada in the evening to campaign. i think it's going to be an extraordinary thing to watch. you see the prosecutors, jack smith wants to start in january in one of the cases. the late spring documents case which, as the attorney general seems to be pretty -- pretty open and shut case, you now have georgia who wants to go in march. even as trump now wants to push these into 2026. it's going to be an amazingly complicated time period. i think it's -- we're clearly in

unprecedented waters. we've never had a president that has been indicted. we're now into four indictments and have two indictments just in august. to say this is unchartered waters is really a dramatic understatement. but i think there's no doubt that you're going to have the leading candidate for the republican nomination presumably spending more money on lawyers than his campaign over the course of the next six months. >> yeah. predicting conviction by next summer, bill barr, his attorney general, who was really his roy cohn, until it was obvious he was going to try to steal the election. jonathan lemire, we've been saying over the past several days that donald trump has had a game plan since the mid-70s, and that game plan, i think maggie haberman said this before, is to survive the next five minutes, the next ten minutes.

his fights have been against "the new york post," his fights have been against the daily news, "the new york times," been against tabloid culture, fought rosie o'donnell, fought all of these people where he would throw out outrageous claims, people would be shocked, same thing with "the apprentice." he would get good ratings, and didn't matter he was lying all along. he survived that. we've been talking about certainly since georgia, how we've now moved from sort of, you know, trump world, where you can just shoot b.s. all the time and have the firehose of falsehoods and get away with it because it's good press for him. he's always one step ahead of the tabloids. that's ended, and i think we got a great indication of that yesterday when you and i were talking about the fact that donald trump was going to have

this massive press conference we were told to show how georgia was rigged against him. i said to john sell yesterday, this is great news if you want donald trump to go to jail. all he's going to do is continue admitting things, that the prosecutors are going to love to listen to. sure enough, what happens? he cancels, doesn't he? >> he does. because right now, donald trump, anything he says is admissible in court. and as we were discussing yesterday, just hours after trump was named as a co-defendant in that sprawling fulton county, georgia, election interference, he promised to release a, quote, large, complex, detailed but irrefutable report on the presidential election fraud which took place in georgia. trump promised to release the report at a major news conference this coming monday, the 21st, at his bedminster, new jersey, golf club, and claimed

it would cause all charges against him to be dropped and it would be a complete exoneration. >> that sounds dramatic, jonathan. >> i say. one wonders why he waited 2 1/2 years to release this information that would have, on rated him and given hit the state of georgia. it was coming monday. well, joe, it's not. yesterday trump took to his truth social page to say that we won't be seeing that report, it won't be released to the public, but instead his lawyers would prefer to use it in the legal filings and, therefore, the news conference was no longer necessary. abc news reported yesterday that trump's lawyers actively urged him to call office event. other advisors did too, arguing continued claims of election fraud could hurt his case. nbc news has not confirmed that report. jen psaki, this is something, first of all, there's a theory here that donald trump, as we know, has trouble retaining good counsel, partially because he

doesn't pay them and some of them end up testifying against him. his lawyers signaled we're going to quit if you do this because you're going to make our lives harder. his advisors were doing the same, you can say, if you get there and say the wrong thing it's going to put you in more legal jeopardy. >> presumably they've been telling him for months now, right. >> he finally listened. >> he's gone out there and said things that could be used in court and we may see jack smith and others use in court as the trials begin, as he's done rallies over the last few months. as you touched on there, we don't entirely know, but a lot of the smart theorizing in had my view here is, one, he's gone through more lawyers than anyone can imagine, he has not been clearly paying, there's been a range of reports on this, people who have been his legal counsel, people who have been politically advising him even. he owes a lot of people a lot of money. there's an interesting component, lisa ruben wrote

about this actually, in one of the recent federal court hearings that john laura was participating in when he asked in the discovery phase for discovery for all these documents to be provided to lawyers who are not paid by the campaign. volunteer lawyers essentially. >> he can't pay them or won't pay them. it seems like he's having a bit of trouble holding on to counsel here. this does seem to be one of the first times that we know of where he has potentially listed on to legal counsel on what is inadvisable for him by canceling this rally, which probably wasn't easy. he never likes to look weak. that does seem to be the most likely theory at this point. >> yeah. it makes sense. it really does. irrefutable. they're going to drop -- wait. i'm not going to hold that press conference after all. robert, i'm going to veer off the road for a second but promise i will get back on the main path in a second. i always read about like winston churchhill how he just drank all

the time, there was always alcohol in his body in everything. i'm not much of a drinker. i can't do it. the few times i've tried, you know, i just can't do it. it always -- i've said to mika, life is hard enough. i don't know how people do this. like, getting up, going to work. like i can't do it. it's hard enough as it is. well, this reminds me of donald trump's campaign people, and i want to compare them to you as a campaign person. running for the presidency, handling all the incoming, is hard enough as it is. i know -- i know, you know, you guys in 200 -- 2007, 2008, you had a touch challenges coming at you and you were blessed with a remarkable political candidate. it's hard enough as it is. can you imagine trying to do this with a candidate that has

four indictments against him and who keeps speaking out against his own interests every day? i can't imagine it. >> no. i can't imagine it either. it is hard enough, as you said, on even the best days, to get everybody rowing in the same direction. to have to manage the candidate in a totally separate way, to have to probably have lawyers in almost every discussion you're having, particularly around planning, but look, this has been going on around donald trump -- he loves, it appears, just the sheer chaos of all of this. you know, i once asked sean spicer right before he went into the white house, you know, do you have any idea that those tweets are coming? do you -- does he share those tweets before he hits send? do you see any of it? he said no. i wake you up, open my phone and read them just like you do. you know, that's just a tweet. imagine now you're talking about

something that puts him in potential legal jeopardy. if you watch this, is this a realization by donald trump that he is in much more significant trouble than he's ever led on to the fact. look, joe, if i had accused you of half of the it -- the stuff that donald trump has done, you would be rushing to a courthouse tomorrow to clear your name, not waiting until 2026. >> that's the point, isn't it, robert? if you or i were accused of something we didn't do and we had a presidential election ahead of time, i would be telling my lawyers, get me to court as quickly as possible. i'm going to bury these people in court. then i'm going to bury them on the campaign trail. he's doing the exact opposite. he actually -- he's been accused of stealing nuclear secrets, accused of stealing plans to -- war plans on invading iran, he's been accused of trying to steal

american democracy and saying, oh, let's just let that hover out there. let's not find out whether i was guilty or not until a year or two after the election. i mean, that's not how an innocent person acts. it's a great point. on your point about talking to sean spicer, i remember i was driving around one early saturday morning, i think it was march of 2017, going to get coffee on a saturday morning, and trump's tweet comes across and says your former boss, barack obama, had tapped his phones at trump tower. i immediately called reince prevent and asked indelicately, what the blank is going on? he was like, what do you mean? you need to read twitter. he looks at twitter and like, oh -- i'll call you back.

they never knew about the most outrageous stuff. he used to be worse on the weekends because jared wasn't around supposedly to call him down. i don't see how he gets from here to there running a political campaign because even his biggest defenders on fox news have said legally, of the let's say 90 indictments, if he's convicted on one of them, like he could go 89-1, but that one conviction, that's a life sentence. how do you run for president with life in jail staring at you? >> well, one certainly hypothesis is you run because you feel that's the only way you can get out of those 90 counts, that somehow you can go 90-0 if you get elected president and ask your new attorney general to get rid of some of these cases.

if you buy time and get the justice department to write memos you can't be tried while you're in office. there's been, you know, supporters of the former president have said as much, that he's running essentially to stay out of jail. and you wonder if that isn't the huge focus in this race. if you look at the sec reports, the amount of spending on lawyers from the pac and campaign, it would certainly lead you to believe that there's a dual track focus on keeping him out of jail an keeping him probably out of a courtroom as long as they can to get him back, in their case, to the white house to get rid of some of these cases. >> and what a political nightmare for republican candidates in the house and the senate, the rnc, that wants to get money from fund-raisers that have donald trump siphoning off hundreds of millions of dollars

from republican contributors and not sending it out to advertise, but instead, having it all go to lawyers because of his four felonies. by the way, you heard here in 2019, us saying if donald trump lost, he would run for re-election again. and he would do it for the reason robert just said four years later, which is, to avoid prison. still ahead on "morning joe," president biden is going to send a clear message to china and north korea today when he hosts the leaders of japan and south korea, the summit aimed at boosting military cooperation between america and our asian allies. we're going to get a live report from beijing. and white house national security counsel spokesman john kirby will be live with us from the summit at camp david. we'll be joined by the legal counsel for hunter biden to discuss the, quote, lies and fantasies about the biden family that's constantly being pushed by republicans in congress.

2024 presidential candidate chris christie will be our guest. we'll try to get him to speak his mind and get a couple of things off of his chest. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be 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 ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪

bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ - you like that bone? i got a great price on it. - did you see my tail when that chewy box showed up? - oh, i saw it. - my tail goes bonkers for treats at great prices. sorry about the vase. - [announcer] save more on what they love with everyday great prices at chewy.

and there he is. chaz. the rec league's self-crowned pickleball king. do you just bow down? no you de-thrown the king. pedialyte. 3x the electrolytes. president biden will host his first camp david summit of his presidency today. i can't listen to that song without thinking about the ends of royal tennen balm. what a incredible movie. let's get back to news. the summit is going to bring together the leaders of both south korea and japan to announce new steps forward in defensive cooperation, this as joe biden, might say, is a big blanking deal. the meeting reportedly will not end with a nato-style defensive

pack but all three nations are expected to publicly affirm for the first time their security is linked. let's bring in foreign correspondent janis mackey frayer, live from beijing. janis, i'm going to speak just as an american, i've watched presidents in our country talk about linked to asia for 2025 years now, it seems to be happening, and for myself, not speaking for you or anybody else, i think it's a good thing that we're building a security apparatus there and bringing all of these nations together. i want you to talk about what a dramatic step forward that is, but if you could, let us know the level of concern that this is raising with china. while i'm glad the president is doing this, i also know we have to have good relations with china. how complicated do these actions make that?

>> well, it's not insignificant that president biden is using camp david to have this meeting, to host the leaders of south korea and japan. this is the first trilateral of its kind. these are two countries with an uneasy history, but they also share these looming security challenges with north korea and china. in that sense, president biden is trying to draw in his asian allies and create unity among them. the administration says that it's looking for security arrangements as well as cooperation on the economy and technology. they're going to talk about things like sharing north korea missile data as well as setting up a crisis hotline for the leaders because the security of these three countries are interlinked and not just rhetorically, but in actual military operations and the threats are very real.

the ukraine war has leaders in this part of the world looking at their security. there is the assertive behavior of china in the taiwan strait. there are growing signs of military cooperation between russia and north korea. china is looking at this meeting about to happen, of course, critically. they've been using state media to characterize it as a mini nato-style alliance, so there is bound to be some further reaction. there's also one other challenge that's facing these three leaders in this important summit, it's their own domestic political environments. prime minister kishida and president yoon face opposition at home. they have to deal with the fact that china is their largest trading partner, so they could see some blowback in terms of

soft sanctions, and they have security advisors warning them that there is no guarantee this level of cooperation with the u.s. is going to sustain itself after the 2024 election. so it's why we see president biden really trying to lock in these allies. we can expect a major security agreement as well as these agreements on economic issues in particular semiconductors and supply chains. >> and we keep reading about stagnating chinese economy. i'm wondering how important is it for chinese leaders to move forward and reconnect with western allies? do you see that, again, as sort of a two-step process, where they're, obviously, going to be pushing back on some of the military cooperation around them, but also trying to get

their trading alliances a little bit stronger post-covid? >> well, you see china moving in a lot of different directions right now, trying to, of course, shore up their strategic alliances with russia, with north korea, with iran, and other players. they're trying to shore up economic ties and trade deals with different countries in europe and also trying to walk the tight rope on relations with the u.s. the economy is in really sad shape here. all of the economic data that has been released is pointing to slower growth, even deflation. that's the economic data that they're choosing to reveal. there have been a number of indicators that have been quietly dropped over several months. earlier this week they announced they're going to suspend issuing youth unemployment data. it had already reached a record high in 21.3%.

not reporting it anymore seems to indicate they don't expect it to go down any time soon. and there are a lot of other factors at play too. even in the youth unemployment numbers a lot of young people are under employed. by chinese metrics if you work one hour a week you're considered employed. so there is the sense that that youth unemployment number could be closer to 50%. so you combine that with weaker consumer spending. there's a bit of a chill in foreign investment with the new security laws and counter espionage laws that they've had come into play here. raids on some firms. so it's a very tricky landscape that china is trying to navigate right now in trying to kick-start its economic growth with property developers filing for bankruptcy protection in the u.s. >> wow. >> and, of course, very strained relations between the two

countries. >> all right. nbc's janis mackey frayer as always, thank you so much. live in beijing. we greatly appreciate it. coming up next hour we're going to be talking to white house national security spokesman john kirby about today's summit. jonathan lemire, it really is striking, is it not, and i don't think we pay enough attention to this, it is striking how we've been hearing -- i must say we at "morning joe" are skeptical for time -- that china had this roaring economy that was going to overtake us, that was going to crush us. i'm older. it's the same thing i heard about japan in 1987, '88, '89, '90, my response then was whatever, let them have 30 rock and pebble beach. we'll be fine. sure enough, they then went to this lost decade. i will say for americans we don't want china economially to go into a lost decade, because

whether republicans and democrats like it or not, our economies are so connected, that a lost decade in china economically would have a negative impact on our economy. you listen to janis, the news is all bad economically for china. the fact that youth unemployment is at 21.3%, or at least it was until they stopped reporting the data, and that includes people working, if they only work one hour a week, this sounds like a country that is in real economic -- in dire straits. >> all of the economic indicators are bad right now out of china across the board. it is still, obviously, trying to find its footing after the covid outbreak and the pandemic swept through the nation and the growth has really slowed. to your point about the biden administration pivoting to asia, the war in ukraine still remains front of mind, but they have

been able to do that. the senior officials i've talked to say what's going to happen later today, right now, perhaps somewhat overlooked story line, but going to be remembered as one of this president's crowning foreign policy achievements, the way he has helped bring has to nations japan and korea, rivals for a long time together here, and he had, as one aide put it to me, help from kim jong-un and xi jinping along the way because those threats have forced an urgency among these nations to come up with a security agreement and bolster american influence in the pacific and they made progress with islands off the philippines in recent weeks as well. a lot of momentum for the u.s. they believe the chinese economy is slowing. the one note of concern as i send it back to you here, is there is a slight concern xi jinping seeing everything go poorly he will look to bolster his standing, grip on power, resorting to chinese nationalism. does that mean a play on taiwan at some point? that makes this alliance with

japan and korea that much more important. >> it does. you are right. joe biden, i'm not sure how it's going to play out in next year's election, don't know how it's going to play out in approval ratings between now and then, but historians are going to look at what he helped do with a nato alliance, expanding it to sweden and, again, with a lot of help from our rivals, in this case vladimir putin, but expanding it to sweden an finland, getting 800 new miles of border with russia in the nato pact, that's extraordinary. equally extraordinary, like you said, bringing south korea, japan, the philippines, australia, all together and this sort of pacific nato, whether they want to call it a pacific nato or not, that's exactly what it is. that's, again, what presidents have been promising for 20 years. joe biden has done it.

historians will mark that down and remember it. it is significant. coming on up "morning joe," we'll take a look at donald trump's standing among evangelical christians, how he's divided some congregations and how he's also kept a lot of evangelicals on his side despite everything he's done. what it means for 2024. "morning joe" will be right back. trelegy for copd. ♪birds flyin' high, you know how i feel.♪ ♪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. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating,... ...vision changes, or eye pain occur. take a stand, and start a new day with trelegy. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy... ...and save at trelegy.com. moderate to severe eczema still disrupts my skin. despite treatment it disrupts my skin with itch. it disrupts my skin with rash. but now, i can disrupt eczema with rinvoq. rinvoq is not a steroid, topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day. many taking rinvoq saw clear or almost-clear skin while some saw up to 100% clear skin. and, they felt dramatic and fast itch relief some as early as 2 days.

that's rinvoq relief. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal, cancers including lymphoma and skin cancer, death, heart attack, stroke, and tears in the stomach or intestines occurred. people 50 and older with at least one heart disease risk factor have higher risks. don't take if allergic to rinvoq, as serious reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. disrupt the itch and rash of eczema. talk to your doctor about rinvoq. learn how abbvie can help you save. 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 subway's now slicing their meats fresh. that's why subway's proffered by this champ. and this future champ. and if we proffer it, we know you'll proffer it too. he's cocky for a nineteen year old.

wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. it's to die for. and it's all right here. streaming was never this easy, you know. this is the way. you really went all out didn't you? um, it's called commitment. could you turn down the volume? here, you can try. get way more into what your into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network.

jesus christ inspires us to love one another. >> i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shouldn't somebody and i wouldn't lose any voters. >> with hearts full of generosity and grace. >> why do i have to ask for forgiveness if you're not making mistakes. >> scripture teaches us the lord is close to the broken hearted. >> you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato knock the crap out of them.

>> i cherish women and i will be great on women's health issues. >> when you're a star they let you do it you can do whatever you want. grab them by the [ bleep ]. >> my favorite book is the bible and second is "the art of the deal". >> 2 corinthians 3:17 that's the whole ball game. >> you can do anything, grab them by the [ bleep ], you can do anything. >> historically that's true with stars. not always, but largely true. unfortunately or fortunately. >> i just don't know what to say. i guess i will go to corinthians to find out. donald trump's words and actions not exactly lining up with the church's teachings. let's bring in russell moore, editor in chief of "christianity today"" and leads its public theology project in these crazy times and author of a book

"losing our religion, an altar call for evangelical america." i have to go to one of those clips that still eight years later fascinates me, that members of our tribe, i'll just say, evangelicals generally, we both grew up in the southern baptist church, but that they would sell their political souls, i'll just say their political souls, i'll be nice this morning, to a guy who says, i don't need to be forgiven by god. i don't need to ask god for forgiveness. anybody that has been in sunday school for five minutes or whose parents have them going to training union growing up after sunday night church or wednesday supper and then you -- you name it, you're there for five minutes, you know, we're all sinners and we're all saved by

grace and if you ask you will receive. and if you don't think you need that grace, just keep walking because that's -- that's the first requirement. it's so so elemental, russell, yet you and i still have people coming up to us thinking we're heretics because we're not following this guy. >> well, that's the -- that's the sadness of the entire thing. i think there are a lot of people who would say with the asking for forgiveness, well, we don't necessarily need a christian president. and of course that's true. but the same people would say we need somebody with character. and then of course we've seen everything that we have seen over the past eight or nine years, and i -- my big fear is that we're at the point right now where it's not even a point of controversy for most people. most people who would ordinarily

argue about this have either made peace with it or stopped talking to people who would disagree with them. and that's one of the reasons why i really don't think 2024 is going to be a repeat of what we saw in 2016 and 2020. it's just numbness, and i think that says something really bad about american life and about church life, too. >> you know, it's interesting. we -- you and i again and i always stumble around when i'm talking about this because it's such a shock to see people that i grew up with and that i literally was in church with four nights a week just wonder -- i had one of them come up to me when i was at my mom's funeral at first baptist church in pensacola, and my mom's casket was 3 feet behind me and she came up lecturing me about donald trump and saying how could you as a christian -- and

i cut her off. i won't say her name, but i said i will pray for you when i go home because you are last and you need jesus more than you've ever needed jesus before in your life. and i turned around and shook other people's hands. that's the cultish level it's gotten to, again, for people we grew up with. i want you to give some good news, too. you and beth moore, not relate, you had an event about your book a week or two ago and so many people came up to you, evangelicals came up and go thank goodness you all have here, i thought i was alone. >> yeah, the number one comment i get is i thought i was crazy. and i see a lot of that especially with evangelical women. there are a lot of evangelical women deeply concerned about

some of the things that have been passed over and waved away over the past several years and that we keep seeing repeatedly and ongoingly. and it's not just about the trump phenomenon but other things as well but related things, uses of power within horrific ways within the church and outside the church. there are a lot of people who feel homeless. they feel as though they don't fit into a neat category when it comes to their political party or their church tradition. i actually think that's a good thing. i think we've been too closely tied to those identities, and it's kept us from seeing the fact that christianity really is about being different, about walking in step with the kingdom of god, not with any set of party or denominational bosses. and if that's the beginning of something new, then i welcome it. >> robert gibbs. >> yeah, let me ask you one question. you talk a little here about

politic. who do you see on the republican side or on the democratic side that evangelicals are interested in in politics. who if not donald trump who in 2024 and beyond do you see as having an intrey into these voters? >> i hear almost no evangelical christians talking about the primary election yet at all. they'll talk about people in various sides of the donald trump indictments, but i don't hear much talk at all about support for various candidates. i just don't think most of them have tuned into that yet. now, that would be different, of course, in iowa because they're being courted right now. but i don't think that's the case in the rest of the country. >> well, that's what i wanted to actually ask you right there uzis the idea of iowa because we know former vice president mike pence in particular is trying to win over this group of

evangelicals, and i think he stapds as a fascinating case study. he's someone a man of deep faith, who makes it center, his political identity. and yet so many die hard republicans including evangelicals is deemed as a traitor because he betrayed donald trump because of -- these republicans wanted him to abandon his duty to the constitution. >> yeah, and that's what was so disturbing to me about watching a film from the iowa state fair, people screaming at vice president pence you're not a christian. i mean people got all kinds of views about mike pence, but the idea he's nut a christian is ridiculous. and you ask why, and it's because he stood up for the constitution and wouldn't undo our entire democracy. well, if that's the definition of what it means to be a christian, we're in a very dark place. and so i think -- i think mike pence has a lot of work to do of

course in a republican primary the way that it is right now, but i'm glad that he stood by his principles on january 6th and that he started to talk about that quite a bit right now. >> russell, let's talk about young christians. you know, in '94 when i ran i noticed when i would go to christian schools, i would go to churches, younger christians would be like their parents talking about cultural issues. cultural issues a lot of people are talking about today. by 2000 i noticed when they would come into my office in washington to get jobs, a lot of them were like wearing burkenstocks. they were talking about hunger, aids in africa. the emphasis was -- and it was such a marked change in six years. it's what i call matthew 25 christians, what we know as

matthew 25 christians, you know, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, helping the poor, bringing hope to the hopeless. and that was the focus, and there was a real energy. i remember at katrina, hurricane katrina going to mississippi and louisiana and not seeing the government over there. there were a lot of young evangelicals that were on the front lines immediately. i wonder is all of this causing a crisis in faith for younger christians, all this fighting, this trumpism? because we're hearing about the emptying out of churches. what's the impact of this on those christians? >> well, even the word evangelical in almost every case someone who will push back and say i don't like the word evangelical, let's not use it. that's almost always someone the most committed evangelical, but

they see it being captured by political commendations they don't support. and often people who will say, yeah, an evangelical are people who haven't been to church since the first bush administration but who identify with politics. well, that's not an even trade. and i think right now we have a lot of people who are hurt, who are disillusioned. and my response to that is to say let's not pretend we don't have a crisis. let's address the crisis but let's not yield to cynicism. let's instead create and form something new. and i see a lot of signs of life there, but it's going to be a really important next four or five years to see whether or not we get there, and i think that's true frankly not just with young evangelicals. i'm starting to see that also with a lot of older evangelicals who are saying there has to be a better way than this. >> you know the problem is even the term evangelical has become

a cultural marker more than anything else, nothing to do with faith. it's now a cultural marker like christian nationalism. the new book is titled "losing our religion, an alter call for evangelical america." russell moore, thank you very much. and robert gibbs, thank you as well. i'd love to say war eagle, i just don't have it in me yet, so good luck. >> you can do it. >> i don't think i can, but anyway we'll get you back some time soon once the season starts. and still ahead donald trump continues to imply he's going to skip next week's republican presidential debate, but a prominent republican strategist makes the argument that it is in trump's best interest to be on that stage in milwaukee. we'll have those comments for you and talk about it next on "morning joe." we're back in one minute. xt on "morning joe." we're back in one minute that's my boy. ♪

stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

we've now got and depend on what poll you look at a pluralality or majority of republicans who say if he's convict of something in one of these federal suits, in one of these four lawsuits, four indictments, excuse me, they're not going to vote for him. he's got to find ways to assuage those growing concerns and the best way to do it is show up on august 23rd and september 27th.

>> that is republican political strategist karl rove making the case donald trump should be in next week's gop primary debate. but a social media post from the former president last night suggested he won't be there. let's bring into the conversation nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann. john, wasn't it always donald trump who accused people of being weak and scared if they didn't go to debates? >> yeah, i think that was him. it's also donald trump you'll recall was the one who understood the power of ubiquity at a time when no one thought he could be the republican nominee let alone president, that the way in which he made his case for himself was just by turning up for anything, anyone would have him he'd go. i believe he missed one debate -- one controversial debate where trump was not stage in the 2016 race.

it would have been inconceivable in a preindictment donald trump he would not be on the debate stage on the first night with a giant audience watching. things have changed in a million ways and this is one of them. >> and jen psaki, let's you and i talk. i'll talk as a poor country lawyer, a dumb country lawyer and you can talk to us as a great political strategist. i can tell you as a lawyer i'd be telling my client if it were donald trump stay off that stage. you'll be goaded. you'll make admission that are against interests that will be used against you. i would suspect as a political strategist tat if you had a candidate that far ahead you'd also tell them stay off the stage,ith? >> yes, you'd say why would you do it? there's no reason if you're sitting as a political strategist on trump's team that you'd advise him to go on that debate stage. he's multiple digits ahead in

most polls. we can all argue how strong that support is. it's been strong for some time. the diem naices in the race could certainly change. but at this point in time if he sits on that debate stage he's the target of everybody's attack. and if at this stage if you're a political strategist all the objectives here are about getting earned media and attention. he does not need to go on the debate stage to do that. there are rumors we'll see what he does that he's even considering turning himself in that day or the following day to dominate. that is crazy that's the discussion we're having right now, but that would certainly overtake coverage of the debate. >> to jen's point that is being actively considered by trump advisers that maybe it's georgia on wednesday instead to take away attention from what happens that night in milwaukee. but speaking of that debate a memo posted online by pro-ron desantis super pac governor of florida, that memo outlined a

strategy for the governor's appearance at next week's gop presidential primary debate. the two-page memo which was dated tuesday urges desantis to defend trump and to, quote, take a sledgehammer to vivek ramaswamy by calling him fake vivek or vivek the fake. trumpian nicknames there. the document written by leaders of a pro-desantis super pac. >> he can't do that. >> he can't do that. it would be a poor imitation of the original i suppose. and what a remarkable leak, by the way, this appeared online. let's get into more of it. the document also advises desantis to defend trump when chris christie attacks him, to attack president biden three to five times, and to give a positive vision for the country, you know, at least two or three times. in response a desantis campaign communications director tells nbc news the memo was not an

official campaign document and they were not aware of it. joe, that defies belief a little bit. it seems, frankly, it was posted as a way to skirt these regulations about coordinations between super pacs and campaigns which have gotten blurrier by the day. the nicknames for ramaswamy, the effort to defend donald trump -- to defend trump the man he's trying to beat if trump were to come under attack on the debate stage. >> yeah, what suggests to me john heilemann is what desantis thinks, what most lawyers i talk to think and that is that donald trump is going to be convicted by the time this all plays out, so maybe he stops going head to head with donald trump and waits for -- waits for him to be thrown into jail or something. but some of this is outrageous.

i mean ron desantis is if capable of throwing around trump like barbs and also attack the media three to five times, it's sad and pathetic. >> i mean, i have so much to say about this, joe. we have commented on this show and other forums for the last few months about how bad ron desantis' campaign has been, right? that's the kind of collective judgment and i think rightly so. terrible campaign. turns out if this is -- if this is actually the real view of the super pac that's supporting ron desantis it turns out unlike some campaigns where the super pac is clever, this turns out for desantis the guys in the super pac are no better than the guys in the campaign in terms of trying to figure out how to crack the code on donald trump. i agree with you in one sense.

there's two possible answers to what this -- the thinking behind this might be. one of them is trump is inevitably getting convicted, so we're not going have to worry about actually coming up with a strategy to get past him, or there's a sigh of resignation where people are like, you know, we have come at donald trump in every way we can imagine, and that shows very limited imagination. but we've gone after donald trump. we've tiptoed around him. we don't think coming directly at him is going to work. you know what? we give up. ron desantis doesn't have a real way of dealing with trump. the core strategic question for every republican nominee seeker of the nomination, to me it's just like, hey, let's go beat -- let's go kind of kick the crap out of someone who's below us in the polls because we don't know what to do with the guy who's so far above us in the polls. that is not a recipe for winning the republican nomination. >> yeah, and also you have to play to strengths.

and i know jen psaki's a big fan i'm sure. >> i am a bangles fan, joe. >> okay, so you know if you have a big lumbering lineman, if you have a fast lineman you run a 4-3 on defense. you suit your defense to the skill of the players you have. and presidential candidates, politicians just like that, you look at every politician. what are they good at? what are they not good at? and you try to play to that, and at the same time you have to contrast with the people that you're running against. it's all about contrast especially if you're trying to take down like donald trump or somebody who's way ahead of you. i just -- i want to ask you what does ron desantis do because he

has had a failed, miserable launch of his campaign. what is his strength? there has to be a strength. is it just head down blocking and tackling? and then contrast. when does he move past this stupid, tired, woke argument that even republicans are tired of and actually talk about issues that matter to republicans? >> yes, well just to continue the football analogy here he's neither the size of a linebacker nor the arm of a quarterback, joe. we don't know what his super strengthens are, right? if you look at this moment and i think it's important for people to remember about this memo jeff row who wrote this memo or running the super pac he is the strategist. he's the david axelrod or robert gibbs i guess of the desantis world. and he is running the super pac. and this is the line he's studying desantis says about

trump. trump isn't here, so let's just leave him alone. he's too weak to defend himself here. we're all running against him. one, that is not even a good line for a debate i think we can all agree, but his entire argument which isn't even -- it's kind of laughable in the truthfulness of it because it's not truthful that trump is weak. he's not weak in the republican primary. he may be for other reasons, but he's multiple digits ahead of desantis. to your point clearhy the advice, the david axelrod of the desantis campaign is advising him to basically pretend trump is weak and not attack him, and that tells you a lot about the issues with their strategy and why it's -- part of why it's not working right now. >> it just doesn't work. and like you said it's not true. politically he's stronger than he's ever been. and jonathan, it seems to me you don't go trump is weak.

you ask the question, why isn't he here? i thought this was the 800-pound gorilla. this was the great donald who said he was the greatest ever, he was the retribution. he didn't even show up. we've got an empty chair. retribution now is an empty chair? what am i supposed to do? carry that chair around? what's he scared of? if we're so bad, if we're the seven dwarves, what is the great donald scared of? it seems to me it's a better approach. he won't do it, i don't think he's capable of doing it, but as "the wall street journal" said somebody's got to do it because they've got to start culling the field. >> right, and if trump is also proclaiming himself the greatest debater ever, why is he not here? and if trump does try to upstage the debate by going to georgia that day make that point too.

and you're even if you're republican with a nod to trump's fans saying it's not fair, but you make the point he can't win, he's had four criminal offenses, four trials on the horizon, he's not electable and you go from there. desantis doesn't seem he's going to make that pivot at all. "the wall street journal" editorial board has a new piece called culling the republican herd. and in it they write this, it's not too soon to think about how to narrow the gop field to give former president trump a challenge that the party and the country deserve. the man from mar-a-lago wants a divided field with a half dozen candidates splitting single or low double digit support. that's what happened in 2016 when mr. trump rode pluralities to the gop nomination. the potential for a repeat next year is clear based on it polls from early states. republicans deserve a real nominating contest, not a third

trump coronation, and that means narrowing the field early. meanwhile, former attorney general bill barr doesn't think that trump will ultimately be the party's 2024 nominee. >> i actually think he's not going to be the nominee whether or not he is convicted. i think over time as people actually focus on the decision, they will see that he's the sort of the one person who could lose to biden. >> actually right now he's the one person who's the most competitive so far of all the candidates against joe biden. in other words, joe biden still wins, but with donald trump it's closer than some of the cases. it's weird. not in all polls. >> i think it's somewhat early and a lot of these other candidates aren't as well-known as donald trump. and i think when push comes to shove it'll be clear there are other candidates who can win decisively. >> let's bring in right now

ahead of a town hall in miami republican presidential candidate former new jersey governor chris christie. governor, thank you for being with us. is donald trump scared of you? >> apparently, yes. that's all we can conclude. he apparently is very scared of me because it doesn't look like he's going to show up on wednesday, and i don't think given the memo i read he's scared of ron desantis. >> yeah, and donald trump it's always about -- you and have known him for a very long time. he's always about this show of strength. always in a very play -- does the macho thing, a lot of symbolism just talk about how strong and vital and powerful he is. and yet again i find it -- i can't imagine this as a politician. he's scared to show up on stage and debate you, and i do think -- and ought of other people agree i do think it's

specifically about you. he saw what you did to marco rubio in 2016, and i guess he thinks you can do it to him. >> joe, look, if what he were saying were true, which is that he's got this great record as president and that he's so far ahead, why wouldn't you come onto the stage and take a victory lap and just laugh at everybody else on the stage? and you're right this is a guy who plays macho man at rallies. you know, only people our age, joe, understand what that song is let alone what he thinks it means to him, right? so all i can say is this. if he believes he should be the nominee, if he believes that he's got such great record. if he believes he's the best person to go against joe biden, then show up on wednesday night and stop being such a coward. >> there's so much

overcompensating but again afraid to even though up to debate. i wonder, governor, ron desantis' memo, the memo from the super pac said he needed to go after vivek the fake. a lot of emphasis on vivek who from what i've seen is up to his neck -- very really talented guy. i talked to him on the phone early in the campaign, but he seems he trots out one conspiracy theory after another conspiracy theory. i'll be honest with you for somebody young and talented i don't understand why he's doing that. can you help me understand better why he seems to be interested in trotting out all of these conspiracy theories and even asked whether neil armstrong landed and walked on the moon, he said, well, i have no evidence to suggest he did not. so for now, yes.

>> no, look, i can't explain it to tell you the truth. i really can't. maybe he'll explain it to us on wednesday night. i think the bigger question is, joe, if you're ron desantis and you've been the leading contender for months and months and months now, why that's what you're focused on. and why is your strategy to defend donald trump? i mean, look, joe, the guy's going to be -- by the time we get on the stage wednesday it's possible trump could be out on bail in four different jurisdictions -- new york, florida, washington, d.c., and atlanta. i mean, i don't think that's a calling card for a strong front-runner for president of the united states to be out on bail. i mean, what should the first question be for bret baer. can you review for the voters your restriction releases, what

you can and can't do while released from custody? >> oh, my god. >> and yet we've got desantis focusing on vivek and saying he wants to defend that. i don't want to defend that, joe. i want to be on that stage to say to the voters and the republican party let's stop normalizing this conduct. this is not normal. and whether you believe that these prosecutions are fair or unfair, strip that away for a second. is this conduct the kind of conduct -- because thee doesn't deny the conduct. is this conduct the kind of conduct you want for a president of the united states? and i don't think it is. >> governor christie, this is jen psaki. i wanted to ask you to put your legal hat on here, which i know you do on a regular basis, because trump's lawyers have requested now to move the date of the trials or one of the trials i should say until 2026.

and they made the creative argument they need years to go through discovery of all these documents. what do you thinkf their proposed time line and tell us a little bit about how that process typically works and how much time you think they might need? >> i'm actually surprised they didn't ask for a trial date six months after his death certificate was signed. you know, i've got to tell you the truth i don't get it. you don't need that much time at all. and the fact that is i think this judge will probably settle in on some time the summer of 2024. i think if you give them anywhere from 10 months to 12 months, that that is more than enough time to get ready for a single defendant case. now, granted there are lots of documents, but that's the nature of today's criminal practice. there's always going to be lots of documents with the existence of e-mail and text messages and whatsapp and all the rest of that stuff, so there will be a lot of paper. but the fact is you also have

tools like electronic searching through these documents you've never had before. and it's not like they're sitting there and rustling through ten rooms full of paper. it's all electronic and they can get through it. i don't think a january trial date was ever realistic in this. i think that probably is too tight. i would think anywhere from april to july, somewhere in that time frame would be fair to the defendant. and also remember the public has an interest in speedy trial also. their desire is to get this thing resolve asked the public has a right to have answers in the case as well. that speedy trial runs both ways. >> governor, john heilemann is with us. with a slight delay, he has a question for us. >> sure. >> governor, we're going to talk about the law here and not strictly about politics. i want to frame this question for you in a slightly different way among these cases that the

former president is facing. which is you had some experience as prosecutor as everyone knows and someone who i think a lot of people would say knows your way around cases of this kind not just in terms of how they play out but in terms of their relative strength. we now know the president has been indicted on at least four different cases. if you had to run one of them, if you had to be in charge as prosecutor of one of them the strongest case you could most obviously win, which one would it be? >> it would be the classified documents case, john, for two reasons because it is extraordinarily clear law that you're not allowed to take classified documents out of the white house after you're president. and secondly, the obstruction is so clear. you can prove the obstruction of justice through the notes of his own lawyer. so -- and video from his own surveillance cameras. that's pretty good stuff. and then lastly on that case, you have an audiotape rather of

him showing classified documents to people who are not cleared to do it. so those three things, that's the case that if i were to look at the four i pick which one i want today try personally, give me that classified documents case. and i'll say one other thing, john, i wouldn't have charged the documents. i would just charge the obstruction, and then you would have had all this stuff about who's going to get cleared to see classified documents and how you're going to clear the jury and the rest of it. this is such a clear obstruction of justice case that that would have been sufficient, and that's a case they probably could have tried, you know, late this winter if they'd charged it just that way, and i think jack myth made a strategic error in charging all that he did. but factually and legally it is still the strongest case. >> governor christie, jonathan lemire here. i wanted to ask you about the georgia case. many have pointed out this one, of course, is different. it's a state case. it's not a federal like the

classified documents case. it's not federal like jack smith's january 6th investigation. therefore, were donald trump to be elected president again he wouldn't be able to self-pardon. he wouldn't be able to tell his attorney general to cease and desist the matter. but you deemed that case, the georgia case this week you deemed it unnecessary. so with all that in mind can you explain why you think that. >> yeah, because it's not a prosecutor's job to figure out if someone if convicted could ultimately be pardoned by a political authority. that's not your job. your job is to investigate a case, to look at the facts, and then to look at whether or not there are prosecutions anyplace else and make the decision whether to charge or not. i have no problem with fani willis charging all the other defendants that she charged because jack smith chose not to charge those people. but he did charge donald trump for essentially the same conduct

that on the federal side that he's now charged with on the state side. and i don't think that she didn't need to do that. and if there was real cooperation between the prosecuting authorities, they would have decided which person's going to take the donald trump case, which person's going to take the case against the others, divide it up that way and move forward. and that would have been more efficient justice and i think perceived as a fairer way to approach it. when you do it the way she did it, it makes people think you're trying to gain the pardon authority. and it's simply, jonathan, not our job as a prosecutor to try to game the constitutional political authority. that's not our job. >> governor, i'm just curious. just on a personal level i know that when i was running for office four times if somebody had accused me of something i was not guilty of, i would have been rushing to the courthouse. i would be telling my lawyer get your you know what together, get

it together, line it up, and tell the judge i want to be in there next blanking week. i want this trial to go as fast as possible because i'm going to bury the prosecution, and then i'm going to take the document, i'm going to campaign on it, and i'm going to talk about the lies told against me. the last thing i would ever do is say let's just let this hangover the campaign, let's maybe get to it two years from now. i'm just saying on a human level as a politician donald trump saying he wants to delay this for two years after the election, it doesn't sound like a guy who thinks he's innocent, does it? >> no, it doesn't. and because -- and that's why i was saying earlier, joe, he really hasn't denied any of the conduct charged here. he just quibbles with how it's being characterized as a violation of the law. and as we know donald trump's

understanding of the law is completely self-serving. and so he decides that he doesn't want to get charged with something, therefore, what they're doing is deranged or partisan or any of these things. look, the fact is -- and i thought one of the more interesting things bill barr did say last night in the interview that he gave was that he was being told, he meaning donald trump was being told by barr, other members of the justice department, and by white house counsel pat cipollone that if he continued to do these things in the post-election period regarding interfering with the election results, that he was going to be involved with the criminal justice system for the rest of his life. now, that's a problem for donald trump in another way. he can't claim ignorance here. he can't claim he didn't know that he was treading on or over the line because his own lawyers in his own justice department and his own white house counsel were telling him you need to stop this, sir.

because what's going to happen here is you're going to wind up in criminal are problems. he should have listened to his lawyers back then. and now what he should be doing is trying to cut the best plea deal that he can or otherwise he's going to be exposed to real criminal consequences over the course of the next year to two. >> final question, governor, why do you want to be president of the united states? >> joe, because i want our country to going back to doing big thing. we've become so small in the way we divide ourselves, pit ourselves get each other, small in the issues we argue about. we've got big things to deal with, entitlement programs, big issues to deal with on getting our economy back where inflation is manageable for people. big thing tuesday do around the world in terms of standing up to authoritarian dak dictators like putin and xi and big issues to

deal with when a third of our kids don't read at grade level in this country. we need to radically change our educational system. and when you look at every key moment, joe, in our nation's history when we've been confronted with huge problems like this, we've elected big leaders like washington, lincoln, fdr, ronald reagan, who went in and whether you followed them on the way in. on the way out, you looked at them and said because they sacrificed that our country was bigger, stronger, richer and freer when they were done. that's the kind of president i'm going to be and that's why i'm running. >> and i have to say this just because of the presidents you named of course george washington father of the country. abraham lincoln talked about america as the last hope for a dying world. you had fdr saying the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. ronald reagan constantly telling

us i believe that america's greatest days truly do lie ahead. those are presidents that were transformative because they were hopeful. we don't see that enough now, governor, do we? we don't see people being hopeful enough anymore. >> no. we have a bunch of people running for president many of whom are running because they're cynical. many of whom running because they see a moment of opportunity where they might take advantage to give themselves power. i can tell you i'm running because i believe what reagan believed, that this country when challenged by a leader who knows how to challenge their citizens, that this country will rise to even greater heights. and i wouldn't change the hand of cards that america has for china at all on any level if we do what we need to do in terms of challenging each other to be

the best that we can be. i absolutely believe in an america that's going to be greater tomorrow than yesterday but only if we stop electing leaders who are either incompetent to do that or unwilling because of their narcissism to be able to do it. >> couldn't agree more. bet against america, you always lose. former new jersey governor and republican presidential candidate chris christie, thank you so much for being with us. and still ahead on "morning joe," we're going to go live to camp david where president biden is hosting the leaders of japan and south korea today. plus a republican led house oversight committee escalates its investigation into hunter biden. now they want documents from joe biden's time as vice president. but the head of the panel says it might implicate the president and his son's business dealings in ukraine, the fishing expedition goes on despite the fact they keep getting their finger caught in the hook. we'll speak with the legal counsel for hundredor biden about the probe, which chairman james comer himself has signaled

is politically motivated. and as we go to break we'd like to mention that former first lady roslyn carter turning 96 today. she'll celebrate her birthday quietly with husband jimmy carter and other family members in georgia. according to the carter center she plans to eat cupcakes and peanut butter ice cream and will release a few butterflies into her garden. and i can just tell you on a personal level that the bruzinskies just could not love the carters more. they've just have all said she is an extraordinary woman. the carter center announced two months ago rosalynn was diagnosed with dementia and former president carter continues to receive hospice

care as our prayers continue to be with them. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." ng joe." my cpa told me i wouldn't qualify for the erc tax refund, so i called innovation refunds. their team of independent tax attorneys will work with your cpa to determine if your company is eligible. [whip sound] take the first step to see if your small business qualifies. if you have heart disease and are on a statin, lowering cholesterol can be hard. diets and exercise add to the struggle. today, it's possible to go from struggle

to cholesterol success with leqvio. with a statin, leqvio is proven to lower bad cholesterol by over 50% and keep it low with two doses a year. common side effects were injection site reaction, joint pain, urinary tract infection, diarrhea, chest cold, pain in legs or arms, and shortness of breath. ask your doctor about twice-yearly leqvio. lower. longer. leqvio. ♪ struggling with the highs and lows of bipolar 1? ask about vraylar. because you are greater than your bipolar 1,

and you can help take control of your symptoms - with vraylar. some medicines only treat the lows or highs. vraylar treats depressive, acute manic, and mixed episodes of bipolar 1 in adults. proven, full-spectrum relief for all bipolar 1 symptoms. and in vraylar clinical studies, most saw no substantial impact on weight. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor about unusual changes in behavior or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. report fever, stiff muscles or confusion which may mean a life-threatening reaction, or uncontrollable muscle movements which may be permanent. high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death, weight gain and high cholesterol may occur. movement dysfunction and restlessness are common side effects. sleepiness and stomach issues are also common. side effects may not appear for several weeks. ask about vraylar and learn how abbvie could help you save. i need it cool at night. you trying to icebbvie me out of the bed? baby, only on game nights. you know you are retired right? am i?

ya! save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add a base. shop now only at sleep number. permission to dig in? granted. breyers carbsmart is so rich, so creamy, it tastes totally off-limits. but with only 4 grams of net carbs in every delicious serving, you've got the green light. better starts with breyers.

a judge in delaware says misdemeanor tax charges against hunter biden the decision had been expected following last month's failed plea agreement between federal prosecutors and the president's son. special counsel david weiss is expected to file the charges or bring new ones against hunter biden in california or washington, d.c. with us now counsel to hunter biden, attorney abbey lowell. thank you for being with us. we were about to get a deal. suddenly it blows apart. why? >> if you were in court or you read the reports, the principle issue as you can see and hear is a misunderstanding or agreement

to the two sides as what the deal covered to possibilities. the first possibility is that the prosecutors who wrote it, it's their document, didn't understand what they were writing, and therefore weren't sure why it would be that we would want a firm commitment that this was the end of the investigation. the second possibility is that they actually did know but misstated to us that they had an agreement. or the third is that they hoped nobody would understand and that it wouldn't be revealed that that's what they intended and then they kind of dissembled in the courtroom. i can help you answer the three possibilities with the following question. what group of competent attorneys on the defense side would allow their client to plead to a misdemeanor on a monday knowing the government could prosecute their client on a wednesday for a felony. it would never happen. >> so did the prosecutors act in bad faith, and if they did, why?

>> i can give you the three theoretical possibilities. i can tell you that defense attorneys wouldn't do what they think happened, so now you have to decide. but i don't know what they did, but i do know there's only three possibilities. >> yeah, so chairman conally keeps going after hunter biden and he keeps embarrassing himself time and again. i won't go low all the missteps he's made. have you all considered having hunter biden testify in congress before that committee? >> i think that's premature. but i think you pointed out before your break and you said now, you have to have a serious congressional proceeding in order to consider having somebody like your client come. and there's been nothing serious about this set of proceedings. this is a set of republican chair people who have done the least the following. they basically started by admitting that the whole point of their proceeding was to use his phrase move the political

needle. since then they said the reason the united states is helping ukraine is because the bribes that occurred between the two. then they said the reason the titan submarine news was suppressed was to cover up for the deal announced for hunter. marjorie taylor greene used an oversight hearing in order to show naked photos of our client. comer has basically been bragging to use the phrase who shoved the plea bargain up the you know what of the justice department. and whistle-blower they said it turns out he's missing and he's a fuge ffb and he's involved in obstruction and being a foreign agent. with that list of the nings these members of congress have done, until they show they have a serious in10th and have a proper legislative purpose, no one would go before them. >> with wouldn't just add a little meat on the bone the foreign agent, also tried to

smuggle iranian oil illegally to the chinese communist party. so they have a rich cast of characters. i'm curious they're obsessed with connecting joe biden with some of these business deals. is devon archer correct joe biden got on the phone with hunter biden and these business associates overseas? >> i think the better answer to that question is everybody i think now knows president biden speaks to his children and grandchildren frequently, almost every day in some cases. and i don't think it's unusual whether it's at a family gathering or perhaps when hunter was at a business meeting that that would happen. and there was any conversation as is mr. archer's point it was like chitchat friendly, like how's the weather. it had nothing to do -- look, one of the things congress has done with all their staff and all their power and all their gavels is try to make a connection between the president and any business dealing of a

private person called his son. they haven't been able to do that. and back to your other point, one thing people should understand if they are paying attention and i hope they are, that in terms of the investigation add the justice department what gets lost is the twoling two things. first, this is a republican started investigation run by a republican u.s. attorney who had five years to look at every transaction that could possibly occur and at the end of that decided that the only two proper charges would be a failure to file, misdemeanor and when hunter possessed a gun for five day that was never loaded. for five years to turn for any wrongdoing. when they came to that conclusion that was after hunter had already paid his taxes two years before the events occurred this last year, and that gets lost in the wash as well. >> how many -- how many people actually get charged and

convicted for these misdemeanor tax charges? would that have happened if his last name were something other than biden? >> well, here's the statistics that i think you're raising, which is the following. there are millions, literally millions of americans who file their taxes late or don't file them at all, and they don't get charged with criminal offenses. they often get the opportunity to fix it by paying a fine and paying interest. there have been those who have said hunter biden has been given a favorable deal by the prosecutors. it is very likely that if his name wasn't biden it could have come out different. but i want to say that when it was brought to his attention and it was away to resolve the issues, hunter was very willing to accept responsibility for the mistake he made in late filing. it doesn't cover the fact that so, so many other people would do that and don't get charged criminally, but that doesn't undermine his desire to both put

this behind him and accept proper responsibility. for those who would say, oh, this was some sort of sweetheart deal, they should really look at the statistics and see how he was charged when others would not be. >> we've been talking this past week jared kushner ended up getting about $3 billion for his fund. only 1% of that from american investors, most of it coming from saudi arabia. unprecedented, and of course, we're even drawing connection to the fact he worked in the white house and that's one of the reasons he got that money, perhaps the only reason he got that money. $7 million ain't $3 billion, and at the same time i think americans are asking what did hunter biden think he was getting that $7 billion for? why would he be getting paid so much money? >> all right, well, stop with

your $7 million and talk about how many years that hunter has been in business and what happened in each of those specific years when you say it that way people think someone just sent him a check for $7 million on april 1st -- >> but help me out here again, and i'm glad you're here to break this down. obviously jared raised his $3 billion very quickly. we have numbers being thrown around. the the $7 million is not what comer is saying. comer has numbers much higher. i guess "the washington post" reported it was $7 million. what's the $7 million over and how many countries did it come from? >> first of all, it's much more complicated than to say it comes from countries. there are joint ventures between american entities and in one or two occasions a potential foreign entity to create the possibility of jobs and energy in the united states. that's too complicated to try to explain, but i can answer the question that you asked in the following way. over the time that he was in

business, this is, again, something that people ought to pay attention to. hunter biden went to georgetown university, went to yale law school, was on the board of directorsf a bank, was on it board of directors of amtrak, was someone who worked in an international law firm. people seem to forget this is not the person out there having people write checks for no reason. he's a capable, educated, experienced person. now, if congress wants to start saying, wait, does he get opportunities because his last name is biden, they should look to themselves. senator joe manchin's wife is on a commission in west virginia where congress had provided an enormous amount of funds. there is congress person boebert who has a spouse that works in the consulting business. if you start dissecting people who have the ability to use their connections and their name in order to get an opportunity, then, okay, but then what's good for the goose, good for the gander, congress should look at

their own. people have been doing this for a millennia. the most important point is that it's not impaurm and not illegal. and the thing that's different and you just said it again is that hunter biden has never been in a family business like the trump kids, and he's never acted an advisor to the president in the white house using both of these to then conduct business. that's a fundamental difference that also ought to be remembered. >> well, and you talk about members of congress. just go back through recent american history with presidents and members of their family. you and i may not think it's right, that doesn't necessarily make it illegal. counsel for hunter biden abbe lowell, thank you so much. did i miss anything, anything that needs to be added? >> i think the last thing to say is you started your segment by pointing out that the judge the to do what he did in delaware which was to dismiss the two

misdemeanor tax charges the late filing for what we call there's no venue. but i think what people then who leave this segment today ought to remember is that if the special counsel were to do anything now other than refile those same tax misdemeanors in a jurisdiction that has venue, then people should ask themselves the following question. after five years and all the things that were investigated, if anything changes in what happens next, then people should ask if has to be something other than the facts or the law that has been infecting the process at this point. >> all right, abbe lowell, thank you so much. appreciate you being here. jonathan lemire, i've got to give the right credit, the trump right credit. they have played the refs masterfully on this, constantly saying hunter biden, hunter biden, hunter biden.

and we've talked about hunter biden. we've said if hunter is guilty -- and i've met him once or twice. i don't know him personally but i feel about him that i'd feel about you or a member of my family. they did something illegal, well, it would be sad, but, you know, go to jail. i think it was biretta like don't do the crime if you can't do the time. so there's been this idea that somehow the media is personally invested in protecting hunter biden when the fact is, again, time and time again these investigators just keep making fools of themselves. i'm trying to sort through this, and i did talk about money that hunter got from countries. it was a very enact on my part from like burisma, an energy entity in ukraine, also some chinese companies, and again $7 million over -- over a good deal

of time. but i keep -- i keep sorting through it. i'm not exactly sure what new crimes you're going to find, but i got to say at this point it's still -- i'm still looking for and i don't -- as far as that justifies the continuation, i know there's some crimes he pled to, but the additional crimes and also somehow the relevancy to bringing hunter biden up every time donald trump is found, you know, indicted for stealing nuclear secrets or indicted for stealing war plans or indicted for trying to steal the election. it's just -- i just gotta say, it's mind-boggling, the false moral equivalency, the false legal equivalency. mind-boggling. >> to the best of my knowledge, i haven't committed any crimes

yet. >> thank god. >> there's things we don't know here. we should be clear, during the plea deal breakdown, there was talk that the deal was in parts scuttled by the judge because it provided immunity for other investigations. the government sort of acknowledged they are looking into other matters in belief it is the far act, hunter biden lobbying for a foreign country. that could be the business dealings they're looking at. >> would that be lobbying for a foreign country without being a registeredagiant. >> that is the belief, but we have no idea if those charges will come, as abbe lowell pointed out, they have been looking at this for five years and haven't brought those charges wret. whether or not those charges do come, to your larger point, this is about the republicans trying to create the ultimate what aboutism between their standard bearer, donald trump, who has been indicted four times.

a former president whose name is on the ballot again, running for president again, versus the son of a president, hunter biden, who is a private citizen, who does not work in the white house and is not running for office. and the degree of offenses are not comparable in scale, scope, or number. >> and also, politically, jen psaki, it's baked in. at this point, you know, people know that hunter biden has been extraordinarily troubled. a crack addict, extraordinarily troubled. and so -- >> he wrote a book about it. >> yeah, and he's written about it. if let's say he's charged with being a foreign agent without registering. that will be a crime. there will be no political impact to that at the end of the day. hunter may spend some time in jail and it will break joe biden's heart, but the political impact, that's already baked in. what republicans are desperate to find is that connection

between these business deals and joe biden, and that seems to be the part of this story where comer and other republicans keep embarrassing themselves. >> that's right, and i think, yes, of course, they would love that specific detail, but i think what they're desperately trying to create is this sense of false equivalency. everybody is corrupt, everybody has done crimes. don't even worry about it. as jonathan just very articulately outlined, the scope and level of the crimes or the potential crimes is so vastly different. i mean, it's worth repeating. the former president kept nuclear secrets, refused to return them, and showed them to who knows who, and also tried to overturn the outcome of an election and the will of the people. that's not the same as someone not serving in government doing

things he shouldn't have done, not the same at all. but this false equivalency muddies the waters. it creates confusion. it makes -- to me, the most concerning quotes i see for democrats, i will say, in articles are when people in the country say things like, nobody should be targeted. there's corruption everywhere in washington. that false equivalency working is a problem, right? and one that should be watched out for, but one we should of course continue calling out because of that. >> all right. and president biden is going to be hosting his first camp david summit of his presidency today and bringing together leaders of south korea and japan. that's an important meeting and he's going to announce new steps forward in defensive cooperation. let's bring in right now live from camp david, security counsel coordinator for strategic communications at the white house, retired admiral

john kirby. to quote your boss without doing the full quote, this is a big darn deal. talk about it. >> it is a big deal. first time that these three countries have met in a summit, certainly first time at camp david. it's really the work of 2 1/2 years of effort by president biden and the team here at the white house to forge closer relationships with both countries. obviously, we're treaty allies, close partners, but also to encourage them to improve their bilateral relationships and there has been an awful lot of political and moral courage by president yun and the prime minister to do that. they have tried to move past the troubled history between their two countries because there's a lot of shared interest and concerns in the region, look for ways to improve their cooperation. today is an opportunity to explore avenues, to make that deeper, better going forward.

>> for americans not familiar with that history, so much of it goes back to world war ii and the atrocities committed by the japanese against the koreans in world war ii. it's taking courage, especially from the south korean leader, to do that. but this is part of a much bigger story, i was talking to janis mackey frayer earlier, just about this pivot to asia that presidents have been promising to do for 20 years but nobody has done it. we now have south korea, japan, the philippines, guam, of course, again, getting more engaged. all the way down to australia, obviously, the nuclear sub deal there. we're not going to call it a pacific nato. nobody wants to call it nato for the pacific. but we are really creating a new security structure, a muscular security structure around china. what is the scale, what is the

scope of the cooperation? >> well, what we have done since the beginning of the administration is really try to shore up and revitalize our vast network of alliances and partnerships throughout the indo-pacific region. the first two leaders that president biden welcomed to the white house shortly after taking office were the leaders of south korea and japan, the first trip that secretary blinken and secretary austin over at the defense department took, and they took it together, south korea and japan. you mentioned some of the other things we're doing in the pacific, the deal helping australia get nuclear powers submarines, working on what we call the quad, the pacific quad, four nations that get together to continually talk about opportunities there. five of our seven treaty alliances are in the pacific region. a lot of people don't realize that. and president biden has really worked hard to shore up those alliances and partnerships, some of them had been lapsed by the previous administration. he really reinvigorated that and made them stronger. it's not about containing china.

i know that's what the prc likes to say. it's about dealing with a wide set of threats and challenges and quite frankly opportunities in that part of the world, and that's what the meeting today is all about. really about advancing that vision. >> admiral kirby, good morning. you mentioned china, but the other sort of outside factor shadowing this gathering of course, the threat looming by north korea, of great concern to both japan and korea. south korea. talk to us a little bit about how that's going to shape the conversations today. >> no question, jonathan, that security realm is going to be a part of the discussion today. you're going to see some announcements at the end of the day right here behind me to really institutionalize and to make sustainable the kind of long term defense cooperation commitments and trilateral cooperation we can have on the military front. that's precisely because there are real threats in the

indo-pacific. we talked about china a little bit, but north korea looms large. it looms large not just for the south koreans and the korean peninsula, although it does, it looms large throughout the region. so many of these ballistic missile launches are heading right over the sea of japan, so the japanese are feeling this acute threat very, very closely. it is a program that kim jong-un continues to try to improve, so we have operated and exercised together in a trilateral way to boost our capabilities, and i think you're going to see that continue, and you're going to see the leaders today commit to additional training events and exercises to allow us to continue to make sure we're ready for those threats. i will say this, we still maintain that we're willing to sit down without preconditions with the regime in pyongyang to diplomatic denuclearize the korean peninsula. what president biden has done is

really make sure we have other options available to us, should there not be a diplomatic solution to this very, very real threat. >> before i let you go, admiral, last night "washington post" had breaking news that u.s. intelligence said that ukraine is going to fail to meet some of its goals in its counteroffensive. what can you tell us about that? >> well, obviously, i'm going to be careful not to talk about intelligence assessments. we're watching as closely as we're can. the ukraines will be the first to tell you they're not going as far or as fast as they can go. they have run into the buzz saw, the russian defense, mine fields in place for months, and they're getting fired at. so they're struggling. we're going do everything we can to make sure they have what they need to be successful. all that said, it's not a stalemate, not a frozen conflict. though they aren't making as much progress as they would

like, they are making progress every day. they're moving on various lines of advance. we'll see how they reapportion resources and maybe prioritize one or two of those lines of advance, but they are making progress, and again, we're going to do everything we can to help them. >> all right, retired rear admiral john kirby, thank you so much. greaty appreciate you being with us today. all right, coming up, the death toll in maui still rising. more than 100 lives have been lost. crews keep searching for survivors. we're going to have an update on the recovery efforts and more about the emergency official who's now resigning following the mounting criticism. the third hour of "morning joe" starts right now. >> i resigned on december 14th because i thought at that point the state votes were certified and that was the end of the legal process. and i also didn't like the way he was spouting the big lie. i thought that was irresponsible. but he took it much further than

even i expected or anyone expected, and during this time, he was being told by lawyers in the white house if he kept on going, doing this, he would spend the rest of his life tangling with the criminal justice process. and that's exactly what's happened. he shouldn't be surprised and no one else should be surprised. >> he shouldn't be surprised. nobody else should be surprised. anybody that has followed this story at all, unless they're reading about it on, i don't know, websites run by chinese cults, would know that. that everybody around donald trump warned him at the time, if you do this, if you keep moving forward, you are going to be fighting the law for the rest of your life. that was former attorney general bill barr, knowing something about that. making it clear that donald trump, nobody to blame but himself for his many legal troubles because he was warned all along that all of this could happen. good morning.

welcome to "morning joe." i want to jump right here in. it's friday, august 18th. we have the host of way too early white house bureau chief at politico jonathan lemire, former white house press secretary under joe biden, jen psaki, and former press secretary under president obama, robert gibbs. mika has the morning off. she's at an undisclosed location somewhere in the south of france. not so, but people always believe it. jonathan lemire, you look at all of the january 6th testimony from the hearings. every trump lawyer, every trump lawyer that donald trump hired said you can't do this. if you do this, this is going to be problematic. all the way through, he was warned. all the way through, he knew that he was making moves that were illegal. and instead of listening to

trained lawyers, he decided that he would listen to political operatives in south florida who were actually plotting and scheming this before the election was over. so instead of listening to his attorney general, who didn't give him the answer he wanted, he had to listen to roger stone. in the i think most famously, and it's all going to come out in the january 6th trials, he kept pushing his lawyers, what can we do, what can we do? they all said, mr. president, you're going to have to leave office on january 20th. there's nothing else you can do. we're sorry. it's over. donald trump, as you know, because you wrote the book about this, that's when he starts plotting the january 6th riots. he goes back to his private residence, and he tweets, come on january 6th.

it will be wild. so it began. there's a guy on the inside who said, we warned him every step of the way. he just wouldn't listen. >> yeah, president trump at the time chose not to listen to attorney general bill barr or his white house counsel. he chose to listen to sidney powell and rudy giuliani and their like, and as each of their options failed in the days after the election, they methodically moved to the nest, the date when the states were certified in mid-december, they thought that could be a day they could throw up road blocks. that didn't work. they talked about voting machine investigations, one moment briefly considering martial law. all of this fell apart and they finally settled on this scheme for fake electors, the key role vice president pence was going to have to play on january 6th, trump summoned the crowds with that tweet, which was a talking point in the conservative media,

that people would come there that day, and mike pence with an assist from dan quayle, chose not to carry out trump's wishes. this is going to play into this defense here because he's making the argument, trump, and his attorneys, that he truthfully believed he had won. and that he was simply doing everything he could to find what he believed was the fair outcome. but that is of course contrary to what we know, which is what he was told repeatedly by the authorities in not just his white house but in the states that he hadn't won. that's not going to be an argument that that defense is going to work, and even if, as bill barr points out, even if trump did believe it, that doesn't give him the right to act illegally to carry out that outcome. >> it's stupid. i could walk past an airport and go, hey, that private jet there, that gulfstream, that's mine. that's mine. and then what, does that mean that because i think it's mine, which it's not, i'm in the kia

van, because i think it's mine, i can then steal it? or start plotting to steal it? no. and this is what barr says, not about the kia van, this is what barr says about donald trump trying to steal elections. >> so it was a calculated and deceitful plan to remain in office by nullifying and negating certified legal votes. >> the fact he didn't drop things could lead some to believe and his people who defend him say that he genuinely dead feel he was robbed and this was the good fight and the proper fight. >> even if he did, and i'm dubious about that. even if he believed that, that doesn't mean you can use illegal means to rectify it. if you think the bank is unfairly keeping your money, you can't go and rob the bank. >> no. exactly. and like a calculated and defeatful plan to rob people of their votes. jen, we need to talk about

donald trump here, but we also need to sort of open up the aperture a bit and understand that this is anti-democratic, trying to rob people of their votes, as bill barr said. but this has now become the accepted norm in donald trump's republican party. you look at tennessee, you don't like what two black legislators are saying. doesn't matter the people elected them. you kick them out. >> right. >> it's the same thing in florida. you don't like how prosecutors are acting even though they're doing exactly what voters were promised when they ran for office. ron desantis just kicks them out of office. he's really -- he makes an anti-democratic move, we don't care what the voters said. you even look at ohio recently. they had a rule. a rule for referendums.

it was 50%. an abortion issue comes up, they want to turn it into 60%. you know, the thing, you go back and look all the way back to bill clinton. i think democrats -- let's see, democrats won the popular vote in '92, '96, 2000, 2008, 2016, 2020. you know, this whole one man one vote thing, one woman one vote thing. that never works for republicans. and it's almost like they figured it out. because whether it's january 6th or tennessee or ohio or florida, you're doing everything they can now to stay in power by pushing voters aside, and as barr said, by robbing voters of their vote. >> right. i mean, look, joe, one of the fundamental problems, if you take a step back from all the

developments of the legal trials and tribulations of donald trump, is that the republican party has moved in a direction that's out of touch with the american electorate. you gave a number of examples there. but if any party, a political party, is trying to make it harder and more difficult to vote, which is something we have seen the republican party do in a number of states across the country over the last couple years, it's because they don't want more people to go out there and voice their view and syswho they want to support. that means fundamentally, you're scared of more people being out there voting because they're going to vote for your opponent. the ohio example you gave is such a good one, and there's a number of other cases in states across the country where they have been efforts to make it harder for people in red states and purple states and lavender, whatever color states they are, to express their support for abortion rights. and the ability of women to make choices about their own health care. because there's a fear that

women will do exactly that, that men will do exactly that, because those positions are popular in the country. so even as we're working through navigating, litigating, explaining every detail of trump's legal issues, the challenge here is that the positions that the core candidates and leaders of the republican party have on issues people care about, whether it's access to voting, choices about your own health care, all of these crazy whack-a-doo cultural debates about gay marriage, it's out of touch with the public, and that is a core problem for the party. >> it's a massive party, and you have these extreme positions on abortion. i always use wisconsin as an example because there's a state that's probably i think along with georgia, the greatest toss-up state. it's the state that everybody is battling over. and so they have an abortion law from 1849 that's a total ban.

and they think they have a shot of winning the most important supreme court election there in probably decades. they're wildly out of touch. they say, okay, let's stop the people from voting, or let's change the rules. that's short sighted. that is not the long play, and they're going to keep losing. the combination of supporting donald trump with his four felonies and supporting the most restrictive abortion laws possible, i mean, and now being seen as people are trying to restrict morning after pill, it's all, again, all going to add up very badly for them. and i have got to say, after the manhattan prosecution, robert gibbs, after the manhattan indictment, i had a lot of lawyers, democrats and republicans, saying i don't get it. even after january 6th, a couple weeks ago, they were saying i

think it's okay, but it's going to be harder for jack smith to prove that. now, after georgia, i'm going to say some of the smartest lawyers i know, people i have worked with, some of the most well known lawyers in the country who tried a ton of cases, they're saying basically what barr, bill barr is now saying. which is this guy is going to jail. take a look at barr. >> i think the federal cases are legitimate. at the end of the day at the core of this thing, he engaged in a case of the documents, in outrageous behavior where anyone would be prosecuted. i don't know any attorney general who could walk away from it. he's not being prosecuted for having the documents. i think that's a very simple case and that should be tried, if the judge is anywhere competent, that can be concluded

before the summer. and the other case, after the election, he, in my opinion, he did cross the line. it wasn't just rough and tumble politics, he crossed the line. >> he actually says trump could be convicted by this time next summer. he doesn't think trump's going to go to jail. doesn't really explain why a guy convicted for stealing nuclear secrets wouldn't go to jail. we can talk about that later. but just look ahead for us if you will. you have this georgia case, this sprawling georgia case. you have january 6th, which i think actually is going to move pretty quickly, and the documents case. all of that happening between now and most likely donald trump's convention, except for the georgia cases because it's so sprawling. you have at least two federal cases and a very real possibility of donald trump being convicted in the january 6th case and the documents case, even before the convention. so he'll be a convicted felon.

please, robert, walk us through that. what in the hell does that look like? >> well, i think what it looks like, and you see that calendar up on the screen, is you have got somebody who may well be the leading candidate for the republican nomination who is going to spend the better part of january through mid-june inside of a courtroom and not outside on the campaign trail. i can only imagine that the most valuable job in the trump campaign may well be the scheduler, who has to figure out how he's in a courtroom in the daytime and how they get him to iowa, new hampshire, south carolina, or nevada in the evening to campaign. i think it's going to be an extraordinary thing to watch. you see the prosecutors, jack smith, who wants to start in january in one of the cases. the late spring documents case, which as the attorney general said, seems to be a pretty open

and shut case. you now have georgia who wants to go in march. even as trump now wants to push these into 2026. it's going to be an amazing complicated time period. i think we're clearly in unprecedented waters. we never had a president that has been indicted. we're now into four indictments. we now have two indictments just in august. so to say this is unchartered waters is really a dramatic understatement. but i think there's no doubt that you're going to have the leading candidate for the republican nomination presumably spending more money on lawyers than his campaign over the course of the next six months. >> coming up, after doubting a report about the 2020 election in georgia, former president trump's plans to release that information. so interesting. we'll have reporting on that. before we go to break, let's go to a check of the forecast with meteorologist angie lassman.

what's going on? >> i'll tell you. a hurricane that potentially will have some impacts down the line to the west coast. we'll talk about what's going on, but look at los angeles, looks great now, but we could be talking about significant and substantial flooding for folks there here in the coming days. we have hurricane hilary right now category 4, this is a pacific hurricane. it has winds up to 145 miles per hour and just off the coast of mexico. here's where it goes over the next couple days. we'll continue to see it working up the coast of mexico, impacting folks in the baja, california, peninsula, but look what happens by the time it gets just offshore near the mexico/california border. moves on shore as a tropical storm likely and over the border for california here, and bringing with it substantial amounts of rain. it sticks around for parts of the desert southwest, and dumps a whole lot of rain. we have upwards of 5 to 8 inches expected for widespread areas, up to 10 inches expected in other spots. on the other side of the country, a line of thunderstorms working through the northeast.

that will be out of here by the time the second half of the day sticks around and we'll see nicer conditions setting up for the weekend. if you live in the south, it continues to be hot and humid. triple digits with plenty of records expected across parts of the gulf coast, texas, but look what happens farther north. we see that high expand and leave us with really uncomfortable conditions across much of the plains and the midwest through the weekend. "morning joe" will be back after this break.

permission to dig in? granted. breyers carbsmart is so rich, so creamy, it tastes totally off-limits. but with only 4 grams of net carbs in every delicious serving, you've got the green light. better starts with breyers. i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi. the green light. ♪ things are looking up ♪ ♪ i've got symptom relief ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements at 4 weeks. skyrizi is the first and only il-23 inhibitor for crohn's that can deliver both clinical remission and endoscopic improvement. the majority of people on skyrizi

achieved long lasting remission at 1 year. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. ask your gastroenterologist how you can take control of your crohn's with skyrizi. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save.

at bombas, we make the comfiest socks, underwear, and t-shirts that feel good, and most of all, do good. because when you purchase one, we donate one to those in need. visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first purchase. bombas. ♪ chevy silverado has what it takes to do it all. with up to 13 camera views. and the z71 off-road package. ♪ you ok? yeah. any truck can help you make a living. this one helps you build a life. chevy silverado.

jonathan lemire, we have been saying over the past

several days that -- that donald trump has had a game plan since the mid-'70s. and that game plan, and i think maggie haberman said this before, it's to survive five minutes. the next five minutes, the next ten minutes. and his fights have been against the new york post, his fights have been against the daily news, have been against "the new york times." been against tabloid culture, he's fought rosie o'donnell, he's fought all of these people where he would just throw out outrageous claims, people would be shocked. same thing with the apprentice. he would get good ratings. and it didn't matter he was lying all loon. he survived that. we have been talking about certainly since georgia how we have now moved from sort of, you know, trump world where you can just shoot bs all the time, you

can have the fire hose of falsehoods, and get away with it, because it's good press for him. he's always one step ahead of the tabloids. that's ended. and i think we got a great indication of that yesterday when you and i were talking about the fact that donald trump was going to have this massive press conference, we were told, to show how georgia was rigged against him. i said to john sell yesterday, this is great news if you want donald trump to go to jail because all he's going to do is continue admitting things, that the prosecutors are going to love to listen to. sure enough, what happens? he cancels, doesn't he? >> he does, because right now, it's a fire hose of falsehoods, but anything he says is admissible in court. as we were discussing yesterday, just hours after trump was named as a co-defendant in that sprawling fulton county, georgia, election interference,

he promised to release a, quote, large, complex, detailed, but irrefutable report on the presidential election fraud that took place in georgia. trump promised to release the report at a major press conference this coming monday at his bedminster, new jersey, golf club, and he claimed it would cause all charges against him to be dropped and it would be a complete exoneration. >> that sounds dramatic, jonathan. >> say. one wonders why he waited 2 1/2 years to release this information that would have exonerated him and given him the state of georgia, but it was coming monday. well, joe, it's not. yesterday, trump took to his truth social page to say that we won't be seeing that report. it won't be released to the public. but instead, his lawyers would prefer to use it in legal filings. therefore, the news conference was no longer necessary. abc news reported yesterday that trump's lawyers actively urged

him to call off the event. other advisers did too, arguing that continued claims of election fraud could hurt his case. nbc news has not confirmed that report. jen psaki, but this is something first of all, there's a theory here that donald trump as we know, has trouble retaining good counsel, partially because he doesn't pay them and some end up testifying against him. his lawyers had signaled to him, hey, we're going to quit if you do this because you're going to make our lives harder and his advisers were doing the same, saying look, you can say, if you get up there and say the wrong thing, it's just going to put you in more and more legal jeopardy. >> which presumably, they have been telling him for months now, right? >> finally listened. >> he's gone out there andicides things that could be used in court, and we may see jack smith and others use in court as the trials begin, as he's done rallies over the last few month. yes, as you touched on there, we don't entirely know, but a lot of the smart theorizing in my

view, is one, he's gone through more lawyers than anyone can imagine. he's clearly not been paying. there's been a range of reports on this, people who have been his legal counsel, people who have been politically advising him even. he owes a lot of people a lot of money. there was a really interesting component. lisa reuben wrote about this in one of the recent federal court hearings that john laura was participating in where he asked for in the discovery phase, for discovery for all these documents to be provided to lawyers who are not paid by the campaign. so volunteer lawyers essentially, because either he can't pay them or he won't pay them. yes, it seems like he's having a bit of trouble holding on to counsel here. this does seem to be one of the first times that we know of where he has potentially listened to legal counsel on what is inadvisable for him by canceling this rally which probably wasn't easy because he never likes to look weak. that does seem to be the most

likely theory at this point. >> it makes sense, it really does. irrefutable. they're going to drop -- wait, i'm not going to hold that press conference after all. robert, i'm going to veer off the road for a second but i promise i'll get back on the main path in a second. i always read about winston churchill, how he drank all the time. there was always alcohol in his body and everything. i'm not much of a drinker, i can't do it, and the few times i tried, i just can't do it. i have said to mika before, you know, life's hard enough. i don't know how people do this. like, getting up, going to work. i can't do it, it's hard enough as it is. well, this reminds me of donald trump's campaign people. i want to compare them to you as a campaign person. running for the presidency, handling all the incoming is hard enough as it is. i know, i know you guys in 2007,

2008, you had a ton of challenges coming at you, and you were blessed with a remarkable political candidate, but it's hard enough as it is. can you imagine trying to do this with a candidate that has four indictments against him, and who keeps speaking out against his own interests every day? i can't imagine it. >> no, i can't imagine it either. i mean, it is hard enough as you said on even the best days to get everybody rolling in the same direction. to have to manage the candidate in a totally separate way, to have to probably have lawyers in almost every discussion that you're having, particularly around planning, but look, this has been going on around donald trump. he loves, it appears, just the sheer chaos of all this. i once asked sean spicer right before he went into the white house, you know, do you have any

idea that those tweets are coming? does he share those tweets before he hits send? do you see any of it? he said no, i wake up open my phone, and read them zus like you do. and you know, that's just a tweet. imagine now you're talking about something that puts him in potential legal jeopardy. i wonder, if you watch this, is this a realization by donald trump that he's in much more significant trouble than he's ever let on to the fact. and look, joe, if i had accused you of half the stuff that donald trump had done, you would be rushing to a courthouse tomorrow to try to clear your name. >> exactly. >> not waiting until 2026. >> and that's the point, isn't it, robert? that if you or i were accused of something we didn't do, and we had a presidential election ahead of time, i would be telling my lawyers, get me to court as quickly as possible. i'm going to bury these people

in court. then i'm going to bury them on the campaign trail. he's doing the exact opposite. he actually, he's been accused of stealing nuclear secrets, accused of stealing plans to -- war plans on invading iran. he's been accused of trying to steal american democracy, and he's saying oh, let's let that hover out there, let's not find out whether i was guilty or not until a year or two after the election. i mean, that's not how an innocent person acts. it's a great point. by the way, on your point about talking to sean spicer, i remember i was driving around one early saturday morning, i think it was march of 2017, going to get coffee on a saturday morning. and trump's tweet comes across. it says your former boss, barack obama, had tapped his phones at trump tower. i immediately called reince

priebus and asked indelicately, reince, what the blank is going on? and he was like, what do you mean? what do you mean? i said, you need to read twitter. he looks at twitter, like oh, i'll call you back. so no, they never knew about the most outrageous stuff. and remember, it used to be worse on the weekends because jared wasn't around, supposedly, to calm him down. again, robert, i don't see how he gets from here to there as far as running a political campaign, because even as his biggest defenders on fox news have said legally of the let's say 90 indictments, if he's convicted on one of them, like, he could go 89-1, but that one conviction, that's a life sentence. how do you run effectively for president with life in jail staring at you?

>> well, one certainly hypothesis is you run because you feel like that's the only way you can get out of those 90 counts. that somehow, you can go 90-0 if you get elected president and ask your new attorney general to get rid of some of these cases. if you buy time and get the justice department to write memos that you can't be tried while in office. there's certainly been supporters of the former president have said as much, that he's running essentially to stay out of jail. and you wonder if that isn't the huge focus in this race. again, if you look at the fec reports, the amount of spending on lawyers from the pac, from the campaign, it would certainly lead you to believe that there's a dual track focus on keeping him out of jail and keeping him probably out of a courtroom as long as they can to get him back

in their case to the white house to get rid of some of these cases. coming up, a live report from the white house as president biden prepares to host his first ever trilateral summit with japan and south korea at camp david today. a big deal. "morning joe" coming right back.

♪ limu emu & doug ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ at the alzheimer's association walk to end alzheimer's, only pay for what you need. this is why we walk. ♪ they're why we walk. ♪

we walk in the alzheimer's association walk to end alzhiemer's because we're getting closer to beating this disease. join us. stop right there! this week, get the denny's super slam starting at $7.99. hungry for all your breakfast favorites? when you want america's biggest breakfast starting at $7.99... at denny's, it's diner time. now open really late.

president biden is going to host his first camp david summit of his presidency today. and he's going to bring together the leaders of south korea and japan. they're going to be announcing new steps forward in defensive cooperation in the pacific. a big deal. the meeting reportedly will not end with a nato style defensive pact, but they're expected to publicly affirm for the first time their security is linked.

let's bring in janis mackey frayer. i'm going to speak just as an american. i watched presidents in our country talk about, you know, their pivot to asia for about 20, 25 years now. it seems to be happening. i will just say again, for myself, not speaking for you or anybody else, i think it's a good thing that we're building a security apparatus there and bringing all of these nations together. i want you to talk about what a dramatic step forward that is, but also if you could, let us know the level of concern that this is raising with china, because while i'm glad the president is doing this, i also know we have to have good relations with china. how complicated do these actions make that? >> reporter: well, it's not insignificant that president biden is using camp david to

have this meeting, to host the leaders of south korea and japan. this is the first trilateral of its kind. these are two countries with an uneasy history, but they also share these very looming security challenges with north korea and china. so in that sense, president biden is trying to draw in his asian allies and create unity among them. the administration says that it's looking for security arrangements as well as cooperation on the economy and technology. they're going to talk about things like sharing north korea missile data as well as setting up a crisis hotline for the leaders, because the security of these three countries are interlinked and not just rhetorically but in actual military operations. and the threats are very real. the ukraine war has leaders in this part of the world looking at their security. there is the assertive behavior of china in the taiwan strait.

north korea has tested a solid fuel icbm, something they haven't done before, and there are signs of military cooperation between russia and north korea. china is looking at this meeting about to happen, of course, critically. they have been using state media to characterize it as a mini nato style alliance, so there's bound to be some further reaction. there's also one other challenge that's facing these three leaders in this important summit. it's their own domestic political environments. prime minister cusheeda and president yun both face some opposition at home for their own reconciliation efforts. they have to deal with the fact china is their largest trading partner so they could see some blow back in terms of soft sanctions. and they have security advisers warning them that there is no guarantee that this level of cooperation with the u.s. is

going to sustain itself after the 2024 election. so it's why we see president biden really trying to lock in these allies. we can expect a major security agreement as well as these agreements on economic issues, in particular semi-conductors and supply chains. >> and we keep reading, janice, about stagnating chinese economy. i'm wondering how important is it for chinese leaders to move forward and reconnect with western allies? do you see that, again, as a sort of a two-step process where they're obviously going to be pushing back on some of the military cooperation around them but also trying to get their trading alliances a little stronger post covid? >> reporter: well, you see china

moving in a lot of different directions right now, trying to, of course, shore up their strategic alliances with russia, with north korea, with iran. and other players. they're trying to shore up economic ties and trade deals with different countries in europe, and also trying to walk the tightrope on relations with the u.s. the economy is in really sad shape here. all of the economic data that has been released is pointing to slower growth, even deflation. that's the economic data that they're choosing to reveal. there have been a number of indicators that have been quietly dropped over several months, and earlier this week, they announced they're going to suspend issuing youth unemployment data. it had already reached a record high of 21.3%. not reporting it anymore seems to indicate they don't expect it to go down anytime soon, and there are a lot of other factors at play, too, even in the youth

unemployment numbers, a lot of young people are underemployed, by chinese metrics if you work one hour a week, you're considered employed. there's a sense that youth unemployment number could be closer to 50%. so you combine that with weaker consumer spending, there's a bit of a chill in foreign investment with the new security laws and counter espionage laws they have come into play here, raids on some firms. so it's a very tricky landscape that china is trying to navigate right now in trying to kick start its economic growth with property developers filing for bankruptcy protection in the u.s. and of course very strained relations between the two countries. coming up, one of our next guests says donald trump's push to move the georgia indictment case to federal court could turn the law upside down and must be

rejected. we'll speak with donald ayer, who served as deputy attorney general under president george h.w. bush. he joins "morning joe" next. choosing a treatment for your chronic migraine - 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more - can be overwhelming. so, ask your doctor about botox®. botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they even start. it's the #1 prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment. so far, more than 5 million botox® treatments have been given to over eight hundred and fifty thousand chronic migraine patients. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions and medications, including

botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. in a survey, 92% of current users said they wish they'd talked to their doctor and started botox® sooner. so, ask your doctor if botox® is right for you. learn how abbvie could help you save on botox®. he snores like an angry rhino. you've never heard an angry rhino. baby i hear one every night... every night. okay. i'll work on that. save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add a base. shop now only at sleep number.

rsv is in for a surprise. meet arexvy. ( ♪♪ ) the first fda-approved rsv vaccine. arexvy is used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. rsv can severely affect the lungs and lower airways. arexvy is proven to be over 82% effective in preventing lower respiratory disease from rsv and over 94% effective in those with these health conditions. ( ♪♪ ) arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems

may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. rsv can be serious. talk to your doctor or pharmacist about arexvy today. rsv? make it arexvy.

love one another. >> i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldn't lose any voters. >> with hearts full of generosity and grace. >> why do i have to ask for forgiveness if you're not making mistakes. >> you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them. >> i cherish women. and i will be great on women's health issues. >> when you're a star, they let you do it. they can let you do anything. grab them by the [ bleep ]. >> my favorite book is the bible. my second favorite book is the

art of the deal, and it's not close. i was only kidding. you can get the baby out of here. >> two corinthians. that's the whole ball game. >> you can do anything, grab them by the [ bleep ]. you can do anything. >> historically, that's true with stars. not always, but largelygame. >> you said you can do whatever you want. >> with stars, it's largely true, fortunately or unfortunately. >> i just don't know what to say. i guess i will go to two corinthians to find out. donald trump's words and actions not exactly lining up with the church's teachings. russell is the author of the new book" losing our religion. i have to go to one of those clips that still eight years

later fascinated me that members of our tribe, evangelicals generally, that they would sell their political souls. i'll be nice this morning. sell their political souls to a guy who says i don't need to be forgiven, i don't need to ask a god for forgiveness. anybody that has been in sunday school for five minutes or whose parents had them go to training union growing up after sunday night church or wednesday supper. you're there for five minutes and you know we're all sinners and we're all saved by grace, and if you ask, you will receive. if you don't think you need that grace, just keep walking.

that's the first requirement. it's so elemental, russell. yet, you and i still have people coming up to us thinking we're heretics because we're not following this guy. >> well, that's the sadness of the entire thing. i think there are a lot of people who would say with asking for forgiveness, we don't necessarily need a christian president. of course, that's true. but those same people would say we need somebody with character. and then we've everything we have seen over the past eight or nine years. my big fear is we're at the point right now where it's not even a point of controversy for most people. most people who would ordinarily argue about this have either made peace with it or have just stopped talking to people who would disagree with them. that's one of the reasons i

really don't think 2024 is going to be a repeat of what we saw in 2016 and 2020. it's just numbness. i think that says something really bad about american life and church life too. >> you know, it's interesting. i always stumble around when i'm talking about this because it's such a shock to see people that i grew up with and i was literally in church with four nights a week. i had one of them come up to me at my mom's funeral at first baptist church in pensacola and my mom's casket was three feet behind me, and she came up lecturing me about donald trump, saying how could you as a christian -- i cut her off. i said i want you to know i'm going to pray for you tonight, because you are lost and you need jesus more than you've ever

needed jesus before in your life. and then i turned around and shook other people's hands. that's the cultish level it's gotten to, again, for people we grew up with. you and beth moore, not related, you had an event about your book a week or two ago. you said so many evangelicals came up to you and go, thank goodness you all are here, i thought i was alone. >> yeah. i mean, the number one comment that i get is, i thought i was crazy. i see a lot of that, especially with evangelical women. there are a lot of evangelical women who are deeply concerned about some of the things that have been passed over and waved away over the past several years and that we keep seeing repeatedly and ongoingly. it's not just about the trump phenomenon, but other things as well, but related things, uses

of power in horrific ways inside and outside the church. there are a lot of people who feel homeless. they feel as though they don't fit into a neat category when it comes to their political party or their church tradition. i actually think that's a good thing. i think we've been too closely tied to those identities, and it's kept us from seeing that christianity is really about being different, about walking in step with the kingdom of god, not with any party or denominational bosses. if that's the beginning of something new, then i welcome it. >> robert gibbs. >> let me ask you one question. you talk a little bit here about politics. who do you see on the republican side or on the democratic side that evangelicals are interested in in politics?

who in 2024, if not donald trump, do you see as having an entree into these voters? >> well, i hear almost no evangelical christians talking about the primary election yet at all. there will be talk about people on various sides of the donald trump indictments, but i don't hear much talk at all about support for various candidates. i just don't think most of them have tuned into that yet. now, that would be different, of course, in iowa, because they're being courted right now. but i don't think that's the case in the rest of the country. still ahead, donald trump's legal team proposes a new date for his federal election interference case. it's more than two years after prosecutors want to get things under way. good luck with that. war y. good luck with that.

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 how can you sleep on such a firm setting? now gab, mine is almoston® bakthe same as yours.r. almost is just another word for not as good as mine. save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add a base. shop now only at sleep number. your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

trelegy for copd. ♪birds flyin' high, you know how i feel.♪ ♪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. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating,... ...vision changes, or eye pain occur. take a stand, and start a new day with trelegy. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy... ...and save at trelegy.com. i need it cool at night. you trying to ice me out of the bed? ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy... baby, only on game nights. you know you are retired right? am i? ya! save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add a base.

shop now only at sleep number. by the time we get on the stage wednesday, it's possible that trump could be out on bail in four different jurisdictions,

new york, florida, you know, washington, d.c. and atlanta. i mean, i don't think that's a calling card for a strong frontrunner for president of the united states to be out on bail. what should the first question be? could you review for the voters your restriction releases, what you can and can't do while being released from custody? >> that's republican presidential candidate chris christie earlier on "morning joe" taking a jab at donald trump for his mounting legal troubles. but it's still not clear if the former president is going to even show up for wednesday's debate in milwaukee. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. we have jonathan lemire, jen psaki and john heilemann back with us. we begin this hour with today's historic summit at camp david, where president biden is going to be hosting the leaders of south korea and japan. let's bring in chief white house

correspondent kristin welker. big day for the president, big day for america and its allies, especially around china. what's on the agenda for today? >> reporter: hugely significant, joe, you're absolutely right about that. president biden is hosting the first foreign leader summit at camp david since taking office and the first time these three leaders will be together. on the agenda really is this show of force against a rising china and also against north korea and its recent provocations, including concerns that russia is aiding north korea in its nuclear missile program. a senior administration official underscoring the significance of the location, camp david. let me read you what this person said. quote, i think there's a recognition that the venue is reserved for only the most important and significant such

meetings. this official site of the peace talks between israel and the palestinian delegations under former president clinton as well as critical talks at the end of world war ii, the location really aimed at underscoring the weight and significance of this moment, joe. and of course it does come against the backdrop of these long-held tensions between south korea and japan. both countries have been inching towards putting those aside. this summit is really the most critical moment in that evolution. there will be joint press conference a little bit later on today. we're going to hear from all of these leaders. we do anticipate they'll be announcing some joint military exercises and better communication as well. >> as you pointed out before, this is the first time that south korea, japan and the united states have all come together to say that their

security interests are shared. again, so much of that has to do with tensions still between the two countries because of world war ii. but you take this significant statement today added to us having a nuclear sub deal with australia, guam, basically flexing its military muscles. our security agreement with the philippines. you really are starting to see -- perhaps we don't call it nato of the pacific, but you're starting to see some pretty powerful allies come together as a counter balance to china's aggression. >> reporter: absolutely, joe. you have people referring to it, quite frankly, in the context of nato. you're basically seeing this pivot to the asia-pacific region. all of those critical moments and decisions that you laid out, and it's notable you started this hour talking about the gop debate that's coming up. part of what president biden is

trying to do is really contrast himself with his predecessor and basically saying, look, these relationships, these critical bonds are what will make the difference in terms of counter balancing a rising china in terms of dealing with north korea and its growing nuclear threat. that's at the heart of so much of this. i anticipate it's going to be front and center not only today at camp david, but this pivot to the asia-pacific region i think is going to be front and center throughout the 2024 campaign as well. >> nbc's kristen welker, thank you so much for your reporting. we greatly appreciate it. jonathan lemire, i'd love for you to talk about that as well as news that came out yesterday that donald trump's legal team is proposing a trial date in, i don't know, like 2034 or something. it's crazy. >> yeah. first on the summit at camp david, to underscore kristin's

excellent report there, this is something this white house has worked for for a long time. i don't think we're going to hear the word china said explicitly too much later today from these leaders, including at that joint limited news conference. but china hovers overall of this. this is an effort to counterbalance their rising influence in the region, an important moment, one that many close to president biden believe will be a defining one of his foreign policy legacy. setting that aside to matters here at home, you're right, donald trump's legal team has indeed proposed a trial date in the federal election interference date. it's april of 2026. that is 2 1/2 years later than the january 2024 start date

proposed by special counsel jack smith. in their filing, trump's lawyers argue that given the massive amount of evidence they'll have to review, that's why it's going to take so much time, plus the former president's busy schedule for all of next year, they claim that a 2024 or even a 2025 start date would deny trump his right to a fair trial. the lawyers also claim that prosecutors have already had a 2 1/2 year head start in preparing their own case. on fox news yesterday, trump's own former attorney general bill barr rejected those arguments. >> you can't just say, hey, i'm a candidate. these investigations have been going on for a while. everyone knew about them even before he announced his candidacy. if there's a chance to get it

resolved before the election, it should be. >> totally agree with that. if you were innocent, wouldn't you want to be cleared before voters have a chance to vote on whether you should be president of the united states? bill barr said quite a few things yesterday. he also talked about the possibility that donald trump would be convicted by this time next year and whether he would spend time in jail or not. >> yeah, that's right, joe. >> sorry about that, jen. i thought we had that bite. >> i did too. i was ready to talk to you about it. >> you talked to alberto gonzalez. bill barr doesn't think donald trump will go to jail. >> right. >> alberto gonzalez does, right? >> that's right. this is kind of this interesting discussion and debate right now. there have been a number of republicans who may disagree with joe biden and democrats on virtually every policy issue, but they've started to be a

little bit more outspoken about donald trump's kind of violation of norms and all of his legal woes and all of the things he's done that he shouldn't have done. alberto gonzalez, i did an interview with him that will air on sunday. i did ask him whether he thought donald trump should serve jail time, and he ultimately said yes. that's one of the questions a lot of people are talking about. >> if donald trump is convicted and sentenced to serve time, should he go to prison despite being a former president? i know we're getting ahead of where we are at this moment, but what is your view on that in general? >> you're right. we're getting way ahead of ourselves. i haven't really thought about it. if in fact he's convicted of the crimes charged by jack smith and the department of justice, yeah, i think he should serve time,

quite frankly. there are people that on january 6th went to the capitol maybe not at the clear direction of president trump, but certainly he did nothing to stop what happened that day. they're serving time. so if, in fact, jack smith is successful in prosecuting donald trump for the crimes that he's charged, i think it would be fair that he go to prison, but we're a long way from there. >> so we may be a long way from there, joe, but this is an important question, because if we are all arguing, including many former republican attorneys general, that donald trump should be treated just like everybody else, he has the right to defend himself, but if he's convicted, should he serve the time in prison. and that's an important question and one that people have different views on. >> you have competing views from

two republican attorneys general there. it would be one thing if it were a stand-alone crime. there are a lot of working class americans, middle class americans that are in prison now. they are in prison now, they told their judges, because they followed the directions of donald trump who told them to come to washington, said it would be wild, told them to go up to capitol hill on january 6th, had to show strength, they couldn't be weak and that he was going to be righting there with them. so, again, what does it say about a legal system that if donald trump is ultimately convicted by a jury of his peers, what does it say that working class people have to go to jail for 5, 10, maybe even 20 years and donald trump gets to hang out at country clubs?

>> i don't want to be too snide or snarky about it, joe, but i think it says this is the american justice system. we've had a disparate impact of the justice system on people of color, people of modest or no means. we had millions of prisoners over the last decade serving time for non-violent drug offenses as an example, people sold weed and now they're behind bars for years and years. and you have donald trump who could be one of the ultimate exemplars of the notion that if you're powerful or you come from money or have political status or connections, that you don't ultimately have to face the music even after being convicted on a wide variety of charges in four different cases. he's charged with dozens of felonies now. i think there will be a question. i think a lot of people in

america would happily make a deal today if trump said i will not run for president, i will withdraw from this race in order to avoid jail time. i think a lot of people across the political spectrum would accept that. if we get to the other side of the election and trump has run to win so he could invalidate the cases brought against him, but he loses to joe biden, i think a lot of people are going to say, you know what, if we're going to be the kind of justice system in america that we claim to be and the president's been convicted on these very serious charges, he's going to have to do some time. we'll see whether this gambit of trump's to drag all this out ends up working to his advantage or disadvantage. >> i think most lawyers talking to him would say you lose your leverage after the election. let's bring in former u.s.

attorney donald heir. he was deputy attorney general under president george h.w. bush. he wrote a piece in the atlantic saying don't let donald trump take his case to federal court. also david road and "washington post" opinion writer and editor alexi mccammon. talk about your atlantic piece and why it's so important that the georgia case remains in georgia. >> joe, it's really a question of what the statute, the removal statute allows for. what the statute provides is that any act of an officer of the united states taken under color of law may be removed. that has been interpreted in a

pretty clear way by the supreme court to require two different things. the first is that the criminal conduct that's at issue in the case has to have been taken in the course of doing one's job. so the first question is, were the things that trump is alleged to have done actually part of his job or not? the other issue, though, the second requirement is one that was clearly recognized in a case that i actually argued in 1988 and lost in the supreme court. i was representing the united states. in an opinion by justice o'connor who recognized what she said had been true in the cases before, and that is, furthermore, the conduct involved and the issues in the case have to give rise to some what they call a colorable or plausible federal law defense.

so there are these two requirements that have to be met. neither one of them appears to be met in the case of donald trump with regard to the charges in florida. number one, it's not his job to police the handling of elections in georgia. that's simply not part of what he does. so he fails on that ground to start with. and beyond that, there's no question that anybody has heard so far of a defense that one would seriously think of as a real possibility. the two that people talk about mostly are absolute immunity of some sort. and trump has trumpeted the idea repeatedly that as president, he can do anything he wants to, that he's got immunity from turning all sorts of things over to anybody else, that it's absolute and he doesn't have to show any kind of reasonable

basis for it. well, those have all been rejected. that defense, i think, is not going to have any traction. the other one we're hearing about now is the first amendment and his basic idea that he has the right to say anything he wants to even if it's part of the commission of a crime. that's been kind of laughed off the stage too. barring something else, there's no colorable defense. >> on the matter of georgia, we should note that the former president said he was going to have a news conference at bedminster to provide inrefutable proof that he was innocent. he has since cancelled that news conference. the question of timing now, there are all these different trials. it's a question of which goes first. an aggressive start date offered by georgia, most believe that's not going to come to be. they think that will take a

while to get off the ground. in the federal election interference case, trump's team is asking for a seemingly laughable april 2026. but you've got some insight that actually that's the case that's heading to the quickest resolution and that the judge is giving some clues as to why. tell us. >> again, we don't know exactly what's going to happen here, but what's happening in the federal case is that judge chutkan has already warned trump about the threats he's made towards this process, the main one being if you come after me, i'll come after you was something he sent out on truth social. if he continues to have this kind of behavior, which could be seen as intimidating jurors, there's a chance judge chutkan can put him in jail. she can do that. he is a defendant on trial. in a way, that's what donald trump would want. it would be humiliating on one level, but politically he's then

a victim of the swamp here, you know, d.c. in general. one way for chutkan to push and pressure trump is to push ahead with a speedy but fair time schedule for the trial. it's a simpler trial. it's much more focused than the georgia case. as a federal judge, she has more power to do that. the federal system generally moves faster. so you could see the election interference case in washington playing out next spring and summer. the prosecution said they need about six weeks to present their evidence. that is the most likely trial to happen, i believe, before the 2024 election. >> i know you talked to sources on both sides of the aisle about the politics. i just want to ask you about the politics of georgia. there's clearly republicans speaking out against trump or not helping him in this case. it's a swing state. tell us more about what democrats and republicans you've

been talking to are saying about what this all could mean for georgia as a swing state in 2024? >> it looks increasingly difficult for it to go to someone like donald trump again. john ossoff and warnock won the day before the january 6th insurrection at the capitol. that was a huge win for democrats, of course helped them with their margins in the senate, which gives them a lot of power. it was totally overshadowed by what trump and his allies did the next day. that doesn't mean folks in georgia have forgotten what happened on january 6th or about the types of candidates they've been gravitating towards for the last couple of years. it's difficult to see politically how this could benefit donald trump or his allies in the state of georgia when these were the folks whose votes were threatened to be

thrown in the trash essentially and who were threatened with election fraud and some members of that community were threatened their lives, racial threats, threats about their family, folks facing doxxing online. it's incredibly difficult to see how that could help him in this purple state. >> almost impossible for any republican candidate to capture the white house if they don't win georgia. as we await these trials for donald trump, some who committed acts of violence in his name are getting more prison time. the justice department is seeking 33 years in prison for ex-proud boys leader enrique tarrio and a top lieutenant. the sentence, if imposed, would be the stiffest january 6th punishment handed down in the prosecution. federal prosecutors also asked for long prison terms for the other defendants in the case. tarrio and the three others were

all convicted of seditious conspiracy in may after a months-long trial that began in january. a fifth defendant was acquitted of seditious conspiracy but was found guilty of other serious offenses. a florida man who police say attacked law enforcement officers with a flagpole at the capitol on january 6th has been sentenced now to 48 months in prison. according to the department of justice, the 40-year-old man, quote, picked up a flagpole and thrust it into the chest of an approaching officer, then raised the flagpole over his head and swung it down, striking two officers in the back of their heads. the man was convicted of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon and civil disorder, both felony offenses. of course, some of the imagery of people using flags as weapons are some of the most searing from that day.

david, i want to get your reaction to these sentences, particularly what the doj is seeking to give enrique tarrio. >> i think it's impacting things in two ways. first, it was talked about earlier by joe, equal justice under law, all americans should be treated the same. there's this glaring example of hundreds of americans who participated in the january 6th riot going to jail for it. again, these seditious conspiracy convictions are very rare, very difficult to get, and those are extraordinarily long sentences. i think the justice department is pursuing this sentence also to deter people, that this bottom-up approach, you know, locking up a lot of people says this isn't a game, and if folks out there are thinking about using violence to achieve their political goals, these examples could possibly get them to think twice before doing so. >> i to go back to what we were

talking about a second ago, which is all kind of connected to this thread we've been pulling here. you were talking about the state of play in georgia. there's that same kind of dynamic in a lot of what will be the big battleground states in 2024. the one thing donald trump has on his side and has always had on his side is a very energized base. i know you've spent a lot of time talking to progressive groups and what is the democratic base. i'm curious what you think the level of enthusiasm they have for president biden. >> it's a great question. we've all been discussing democrats' response or lack of response to trump's legal perils. obviously president biden wants to maintain a sense of objectivity and distance from what's going on at the doj. that, of course, makes sense. but democrats, especially those in the base, younger people, people of color who are watching, again, these disgusting racist attacks

against the judges involved in these trump cases, these folks often want to see democratic leaders, whether the president or senators or folks in their local community, share the anger and outrage that they feel. that often doesn't happen. we saw it a bit after roe was overturned from folks like senator elizabeth warren. that got a lot of traction and response simply because she was expressing the same anger folks were feeling at the time. there's a big disconnect when one of the two parties we have is really going down this completely abnormal path, and the democratic party is stuck trying to be a normal political party that doesn't even respond to the craziness going on. i think voters will want to share more about what they are doing to hold these folks accountable. a lot of them are focused on

biden's age. one thing i hear from a lot of swing voters and focus groups and otherwise, it's like 2016 all other again. they view joe biden and donald trump as a contest between the lesser of two evils. as you all know, they're both around the same age, about three years apart and yet folks don't look at trump and his age and hold it against him the same way as they do against biden. >> unlike 2016, people know what a four-year term with donald trump looks like. thank you so much. coming up next on "morning joe", new polling shows vivek

ramaswamy doubling his numbers in the polls since june. also ahead, what we're learning about how ron desantis is preparing for next week's gop primary debate. and we have an update this morning on hawaii's devastating wildfire. the death toll continues to climb with more than 1,000 people still unaccounted for. a team of federal investigators has been dispatched to maui to determine the exact origin of the fire. there has been speculation that the blaze was caused by power lines, but there's been no definitive proof of that so far. the head of maui's emergency management office is stepping down just one day after defending his decision not to sound warning sirens as wildfires swept through the town of lahaina. he argued that the sirens are usually used for tsunami

warnings where residents are trained to seek higher ground, which in this case would have brought them closer to the danger. we'll be right back. r to the danger we'll be right back. ♪ things are looking up ♪ ♪ i've got symptom relief ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements at 4 weeks. skyrizi is the first and only il-23 inhibitor for crohn's that can deliver both clinical remission and endoscopic improvement. the majority of people on skyrizi achieved long lasting remission at 1 year. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. ask your gastroenterologist how you can take control of your crohn's with skyrizi. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪

learn how abbvie could help you save. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire power e*trade's easy-to-use tools, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis help make trading feel effortless. and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. e*trade from morgan stanley. with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier. react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity. e*trade from morgan stanley more shopping? you should watch your spending honey. i'm saving with liberty mutual, mom. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. check it out,

you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, i'll look into that. let me put a reminder on my phone. save $700 dollars. pick up dad from airport? ohhhhhh. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ 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 wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. now available in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. it's to die for. and it's all right here. streaming was never this easy, you know. this is the way. you really went all out didn't you? um, it's called commitment. could you turn down the volume? here, you can try.

get way more into what your into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network. every business that's why comcast business de is launching theal. mobile made free event. with our business internet, new and existing customers can get one year of unlimited mobile for free. it's our best internet. powered by the next generation 10g network and with 99.9% reliability. plus one line of free mobile for an entire year. it's the mobile made free event-happening now. get started for just $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get one free line of unlimited mobile. comcast business, powering possibilities.

happening right now, you are looking at a live event in atlanta where donald trump's 2024 republican rivals and others are speaking today and tomorrow at a conservative conference just days after his fourth indictment in georgia. you're watching georgia cover brian kemp on stage. the former president not expected to make an appearance. interestingly enough, the event is about a 15-minute from the jail where donald trump has to surrender by next friday. brian kemp is emerging as one of the more fascinating figures in the republican party right now, because he's a guy that stood up to donald trump's election lies. donald trump considered him and

also his secretary of state enemies number one and two. yet, when they ran for reelection in 2022, they absolutely routed their opponents, these pro-trump opponents. even this past week, fascinating that you had governor brian kemp come out to quickly and so strongly striking down the lies that donald trump was telling about georgia's elections. again, despite that fact, he remains extremely popular. right now you see him talking to erick erickson. we're going to see a lot of different republicans go there for the 2024 gop presidential race. one of those candidates, vivek ramaswamy, is going to be at the event tomorrow. he's seen a recent uptick in the primary polls.

a new fox news poll has his support in double digits among republican voters, third behind donald trump and ron desantis. let's bring in symone sanders townsend. he's a fascinating character, because at the beginning of his campaign i spoke to him a couple of times on the telephone. he seemed to be a really sharp guy. i didn't know exactly where his campaign was going. but since then, it's taken quite a few fascinating detours. he says he wants to abolish the fbi. it ends up while he's donald trump's biggest defender on the campaign trail, you know, he was very critical of donald trump in his book as it pertained to the election. you have sort of conspiracy theories that he seems to be sort of wallowing around in. again, a guy with a lot of

talent. at the same time, though, he seems to be playing, in my opinion, to the lowest common denominator in the republican base. what did you find out talking to him? >> you know, vivek ramaswamy is a 38-year-old guy that made his money in biotech. he likes to refer to himself as a political outsider. he talked a lot about the professional politicians when i was talking to him yesterday. so he gave a speech yesterday evening in california at the nixon library unveiling his foreign policy ethos, if you will. we talked a lot about foreign policy. we talked about the debate stage. we talked about the maui fires. it seemed as though he was saying what caused the wildfires in maui. we talked about ukraine.

>> your plan allows russia to keep the territory it has seized in ukraine. but the war can't end without ukraine, right? >> well, to be clear, ukraine is like a client state of the united states right now. we are literally paying their government employees, the people who work in the bureaucracy of ukraine's government are paid by u.s. taxpayer dollars today. i do think the u.s. is in a position to determine how this war comes to an end. here's how i would do it. their deal with putin is this, we freeze the current lines of control, the same way the korean war ended. a further commitment that ukraine will not commit ukraine to nato. in turn, ukraine comes out with its sovereignty intact. most importantly, i will require vladimir putin to exit his military partnership with china. the china/russia military partnership is the single

greatest military threat that the united states faces today. >> you know, so, joe, vivek ramaswamy seems to think that he alone can fix it. he has a clear plan. we've all spoken to parliament figures and president zelenskyy and ukraine will accept nothing more than full sovereignty, which means full control of all parts of ukraine. it was a very interesting interview. i think vivek ramaswamy is surging because he's willing to do interviews. he even said, if i can talk to you, i can talk to xi jinping. i rejected the characterization of myself as xi jinping. >> wow. i don't know all of your resume. i know that xi has put about 2 million uyghurs into concentration camps. i'm curious, do you have any concentration camps in your

background? >> no concentration camps. >> quite a dramatic comparison, wasn't it? >> yeah. no concentration camps. what vivek ramaswamy does is he is very good at commanding a conversation. frankly, he reminded me a lot of donald trump from 2016. he talked about the fact that i'm an outsider fighting for the little guy and i'm just talking to people and meeting people where they are all across the country, even though he's been to iowa 19 times, south carolina three and only a handful of times in new hampshire. i would watch those state polls. we'll see what he does on the debate stage next week. >> i agree with you. i have to say ukraine being a client state of the united states would be like saying that churchill's britain was a client state of the united states in

1940, as if that were a bad thing. to me, there remains this mystery. this is a guy who is, again, talented, can command an interview, is very good around people on the campaign trail. i just don't understand why none of these people try to be the alternative to what has failed since 2017 instead of rushing even closer to this failed model. no business person would look at a model that failed in 2017 through 2023 and say i want to be that. they would say let's be the alternative to what has failed over the past six years. it seems that his talents are going towards trying to be sort of a mini trump. >> right. why won't anyone call trump a loser because he has continued

to lose? it's like all these candidates are playing battleship or something. what was your conversation with him about his debate strategy? because desantis, according to the super pac memo from the outside, clearly wants to take him out. what is vivek ramaswamy going to do in the debate this week? >> he was very sure to preview what he's going to do on the debate stage versus what his campaign is going to do on the internet and in the press. when i asked vivek ramaswamy about his debate strategy, he said he was not focused on political professionals, that he's an outsider and that's how he's going to tackle the issues. that is in direct contrast, though, to his campaign spokespeople who when asked about the memo, had very harsh words for governor desantis. i think vivek ramaswamy is going to try to be above the fray. he's already qualified for the second republican presidential debate. he's not concerned about

qualification at this point. i think his concern is continuing to raise his profile. if he goes down the road he continues to go down, i think there's a ceiling. >> i totally agree. john heilemann, talk to us about desantis. we've heard about that memo. i would love for you to circle back about brian kemp. again, he's the one guy who has stood up to donald trump, continues to stand up to donald trump, and he can show up at gatherings and be roundly applauded. >> right. first of all, i'd like to say it's an awesome policy prescription to say i'm going to require vladimir putin to end his military alliance with china. who knew it was that easy?

i think that the interesting thing about desantis is, i think a smart way to read about this strategy memos that got leaked is that ron desantis is starting to see the writing on the wall and people around him are starting to think about preserving his viability for 2028 more than actually winning in 2024. if they are starting to see that he is not going to be the nominee and they're starting to think that trump will lose in 2024 if he is the nominee, they have their eyes on 2028. that's where we get to the brian kemp contrast. you think about two celebrated republican governors, both of whom want to be president. who rides into 2028 in a stronger position? ron desantis after the performance he's put on this year and apparently getting ready to toady up to donald trump as we go forward, or brian kemp, who as you pointed out, not only crushed all of his

republican opponents when he ran for reelection in 2022, stayed away from trump, beat david purdue by 50 points in the primary and beat stacey abrams by a solid eight in georgia. there's no contest about who heads into 2028 in a better position if you look at those two supposedly hot republican governors with their eyes on the prize post trump. >> a lot of people in the media say, oh, well, if trump goes down and desantis can't do it, let's look to virginia and glenn youngkin. i don't think so. i think you look at somebody like brian kemp, who again has stood up to trump, lived to tell about it and would probably present republicans their best shot moving forward, but we shall see. i want you to know nobody here

thinks that you're in line with president xi except for that guy on the right who you interviewed this weekend and we can't wait to see it. thank you so much for being with us. love your show. we'll be watching your interview tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. eastern here on msnbc. as florida governor ron desantis is focused on next week's debate, back home in florida he continues to move further to the right on climate change issues while still curiously maintaining the support of one of the state's the largest environmental charities. let's bring in the editor of airmail george pendle. he dives into the battle of the everglades. i'm so glad you're writing about this, george, because desantis -- it's almost impossible to remember, but we made fun of desantis when he ran

in 2018,just went after him because those stupid trump campaigns, he was dressing his kids in this, that and the other. i will tell you one year in before covid, he was making all the right moves as a republican, sort of a connie mack republican, yes, i'm conservative on economics but i care about the everglades, i care about florida's environment. desantis had a really high approval rating. you talk to liberals who said i thought this guy was going to be a nightmare, but he's saying all the right things on the environment. then covid hit and everything went sideways. but you're circling back talking about desantis and the everglades. what did you find out? >> it's a fascinating story. what you have is a perfect example of ron desantis's two

faces. to the national population, he's giving off this climate denial. just this week he approved climate denial videos being played in florida schools. in 2018 he ran on the environmental ticket for governor. he continues to be helped by the everglades foundation, which is this huge scientific organization devoted to the restoration of the everglades, kind of make the everglades great again. you know they've been supporting him since 2018. the founder of the everglades foundation is a hedge fund billionaire who described desantis when he won as he's like the dragons in "game of thrones." he's coming to save the everglades. unfortunate, as soon as desantis became governor, he started going in for this climate denial. the everglades foundation, though, is kind of stuck with

him through thick and thin despite the fact that their mission statement to save the everglades is all about halting climate change. anyway, desantis received lots of funding from the board of directors of the everglades foundation. even when he started doing things like allowing more cruse ships into key west and even when he was taking money from the sugar industry, which is a huge polluter in the everglades, the everglades foundation stuck with him, because the big project they were looking for, the crown jewel of everglades restoration was the creation of a reservoir in the everglades which would help flush the everglades with fresh water and provide all sorts of fresh water to the rest of florida. you know, the everglades have been known for this blue algae causing havoc and red tides up the coast of florida and it was hoped this reservoir would help with all of this.

the everglades foundation stuck with desantis through thick and thin, kind of biting their tongue. this year there was the groundbreaking on this reservoir. unfortunately, despite desantis and the foundation saying this was a great triumph, many say the reservoir is much too small to provide the amount of water necessary to improve the everglades. actual they say it's much too deep to be cleaned and this is a problem because there's going to be more of the algae growing in the reservoir. it's this strange balance we get to in the piece. did ron desantis in some way trick the everglades foundation into supporting him year after year and then gave them this kind of not perfect reservoir which doesn't really do the job? or rather more worringly, has the everglades foundation turned itself into a political beast

from being an ecological organization. that's what we really get to in the piece. >> i can't wait to read it. the new issue publishes tomorrow at 6:00 a.m. you can read more right now at airmail.com. thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. still ahead, it's a race against the clock taking place each night to rebuild one of the nation's busiest airports. we'll tell you which one when "morning joe" returns. which on "morning joe" returns. let innovation refunds help with your erc tax refund so you can improve your business however you see fit. rosie used part of her refund to build an outdoor patio. clink! dr. marshall used part of his refund

to give his practice a facelift. emily used part of her refund to buy... i run a wax museum. let innovation refunds help you get started on your erc tax refund. stop waiting. go to innovationrefunds.com you really got the brows.

beautiful shot of reagan national airport in washington, d.c., and speaking of air traffic, there's a race against the clock every night at that airport at reagan national to rebuild huge chunks of the runway before flights start landing again each morning.

nbc news correspondent tom costello gives us a look at how the crews are doing it. >> 2752 watch. >> reporter: in the shadow of the washington monument and capitol hill, reagan national is rarely quiet. >> american from the right. >> reporter: and runway 119 is america's busiest since it's the only one that can handle big planes at dca. 819 flights a day, but at 11:00 p.m. sharp, the flashing x tells pilots reagan's longest runway is out of action. >> runway 1 is closed. >> copy that. >> reporter: and the runway pit crews start their nightly race against the clock. cutting and grinding a thousand feet of runway each night, and then laying down a new layer of fast drying asphalt. they don't have much time as

smaller planes use another runway, runway 119 must reopen in just a few hours. it's midnight. they started working at 11:00. the clock is ticking. they've got until 6:00 a.m. to get their work done. at 6:00 a.m., the first planes start landing and taking off. >> it's all about fixing the cracks in the runway that come from years of rain and ice, but you don't have to be an aviation geek to think this is cool. they're actually peeling back years of history. runway 1 was laid in 1941 when national airport first opened before world war ii. fdr was president and planes were much smaller with propellers. now a belfast company is in charge of the biggest rehab here in eight decades. james kiok is the project manager. >> this runway is taking a pounding every day from these

jets landing here. >> this year we're replacing 8 inches every night this year. >> cutting holes for new runway lights and sweeping up every piece of debris before it can get sucked into jet engine, but engineers say the foundation that's carried the weight of 82 years of travel is rock solid. >> runway 33 clears takeoff. >> there's a sense of history out here, isn't there? i mean, this runway was laid in 1941. >> it's amazing what we are doing, and it's a runway which was built eight decades ago. it's still serving this airport and this capital of the nation. >> that's nbc's tom costello reporting. finally this morning we turn to a highly anticipated compilation album from eight high temperature time grammy award winning musician dan hour

back. title tell everybody, it features blues artists of all ages from chicago to the mississippi delta and the founding member of the black keys joins us now. dan, great to see you. congrats on the new album. tell us about its origins here, and and what the blues, whether it's from mississippi or chicago, what they mean to you. what is that atmosphere like? >> you know, growing up i was introduced, i had a lot of good teachers. they introduced me to some great music and it captured my imagination, and it really inspired me. it made me want to play guitar at a time where i was ready for it, you know, and i've never lost the love for that genre. i don't know what it is about it, it just kind of has a hold on me. so over the years, you know, in between recording modern artists and all different kinds of -- all different styles of music, i

always make room for what i consider to be sort of blues-based music. this compilation represents that. >> hey, dan, it's john heilemann here, and i want to pick up on that a little bit. people think about the black keys and people think about lonely boy and tighten up and kind of iconic garage rock, one of the most popular garage rock groups from that early part of the new millennium. some of us here are old enough to remember that you guys got your start on fat possum records which is kind of iconic blues label based in mississippi that had a bunch of your heroes on it. your blues roots go way back. i guess the question i have is what's it like to be out there now kind of taking up the cause of a genre that, you know, as pop has eclipsed rock, i mean, rock is having its own problems trike to hold its own with young

audiences. i just wonder what it's like to be out there evangelizing in a marketplace where even rock has a hard time selling now trying to go even deeper than that trying to take people back to the blues. >> even when i was a kid i pretty much felt alone in my love for blues music. i was probably the only kid in my high school reading "the land where the blues began." it was a niche genre, but it just never gets old for me, and there are certain musicians who deserve to be heard, so you know, there are people like r.l. boys and leo bud welch who are like the elders who i was lucky enough to meet and there's new voices like the moon risers, and you know, they kind of breathe fresh air into the style, and so this compilation was the idea around it was to mix the new and

the old and just have a good saturday night party record really. start to finish. >> there's i think one cut on this record that's yours. i'm curious, you've been doing this stuff even with the recent keys stuff has been in the blues genre. i'm curious whether we're going to get a solo album that's just straight blues? >> maybe not, but you know, pat and i did do a delta cream album where we covered r.l. and junior kimbrough. when i was 18 years old, fat possum was in full swing, and for the first time in my life, these blues musicians weren't just these antiques on record. i could go see them at clubs. i would go see r.l. burnside, paul jones. i would see all these musicians face-to-face, and i felt that energy and for me there was just nothing like it. it's pure americana. it's raw, and it's how

i want to hear music really. it's the basis for everything i love about music, and anywhere that i go, any genre that i dip my toes into i always have that in the back of my mind somewhere. >> yeah, like you said, pure americana. the album "tell everybody" is out now and the reissue of dan's 2009 debut solo album keep it hid is out september 29th. dan auerbach, thank you so much. that does it for us this morning, ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. right now on "ana cabrera reports," hurricane hilary now a category 4 taking aim at the california coast setting the stage for a rare west coast landfall. we'll have the latest storm track. plus, maui's emergency management chief out, the controversy over his decision to literally not sound the alarm during the wildfires