scott, who would not attack something trump said. don t we also have a responsibility to not only not do it but also to say when someone does it, that that s wrong or we disagree with it forthright and not try to kind of pull out punches? absolutely to i agree with you. one of the things that just shocked me early in trump s presidency was when he would use words like deranged and human scum to describe his enemies, enemies of the state. and i m from a generation when we would address our opponents by something like my right honorable opponent. what a what a fall in just the civility of our nation that was introduced by trump. and i don t think anybody can really justify that. i don t think it helps them at all. i agree with you. yeah, it should be renounced and called out. we re at the top of the hour. i just want to underline one final thing here because you brought this up, and i remember when nancy pelosi said that she prayed for donald trump, and he said, oh, that
to the region and quite frankly the whole world. the israeli leader also talked about the president s visit to the saudi kingdom. giving him a message to pass on to the leaders he will be meeting there in his trip. mr. president, you will meet with the leaders of saudi arabia, qatar, kuwait and oman and iraq. i would like you to pass them all a message from us. our hands are outstretched for peace. with that talk more about this nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander and jane harmon and president emeritus of the wilson center and author of insanity defense while why the failure makes us less safe. so peter, what more do we know about what president biden s expected to do and talk about when he is in saudi arabia? it s quite an accomplishment, a president of the united states going from israel to saudi arabia. reporter: yeah, that really says as much about the changing landscape here in the middle east as it does about anything else. the first u.s
host of the beat, ari melber joins us this morning. joe. you know, ari melber, over the past several years, we have been a constitutional republic run by people who have little respect for the rule of law. a former president with his henchman who didn t think twice about breaking the law, didn t think twice about breaking constitutional norms or calling for the arrest of their political opponents, whether it was hillary clinton in 2016 or joe biden in 2020. in 2016 with chants at national conventions for doing far less than donald trump did when he was president of the united states. and then in 2020, donald trump is president of the united states, ordering his attorney general to arrest his political opponents. and i ve heard it. i know you have. so many people, good democrats and independents and republicans asking the same question. is this guy above the law? well we wake up this morning, and we have an inkling. perhaps a belief that in the early morning hours of augus
meanwhile, a court hearing is scheduled for today on the request to unseal the affidavit used to search donald trump s mar-a-lago home. we ll have new reporting on where that investigation stands. plus, new polling in the fight to control the senate from a tight race in ohio to the democrat in wisconsin expanding his lead over republican ron johnson. we ll have the latest numbers for you this morning. good morning. welcome to morning joe. it is thursday, august 18th. joe, looking ahead to a big hearing today. yup. a lot of political waves beginning to sort of form out of this. they are. i m curious, what did you think of mike pence s speech? it feels it feels like he s looking for a lane. i believe his speech, willie, if i m not correct, was in new hampshire, was it not? it was. yes, it was. that would be kind of the, i think, real story there. what is he doing there? there s obviously maybe a long game being played here. i don t want to get ahead of anyth
warrant of mar-a-lago will hear arguments over whether to release the affidavit behind it. it s arguably the most important part of that warrant. the doj is fighting its release, citing highly sensitive information tied to a national security investigation. the former president wants it unsealed. we ll explore the implications of today s decision by the judge. we re going to go ahead and start with today s hearing over the mar-a-lago search warrant affidavit. msnbc s cal perry is outside the courthouse, ken dilanian also with us, and also with us, phil rucker, and chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official. both are msnbc contributors. thanks for joining me. ken, first to you. i want to talk about former trump organization ceo allen weisselberg, just officially pleading guilty to the charges against him. what happened in court and what happens for him next? reporter: well, he s going to serve five months at rikers island jail in new york city, lindsey,