we ll get it fixed and get it fixed properly in two years. but we re going to get it fixed and fixed properly. we ll get it fixed in two years. all right. he s going to get it fixed in two years. two years. wait, but he had a chance to fix it in 2017. what did he do? well, he called the debt ceiling sacred. and 18, 19. then he urged a default. now, donald trump is back in the mushy middle, promising a big fix down the road. you know, like infrastructure, health care, and a border wall. yeah. meanwhile, ron desantis continues de-santis. i think you should. really. if i say it, you should do it, okay? willie, mika wants me to change the pronunciation of my name to joe subaru. or brzezinski. joe subaru. it s been scarborough, like, my whole life. yeah. subaru, joe subaru. iramping up for a campaign, maybe it s time for a rebrand. people love a good subaru, reliable automobile. great family car. it is odd, i have to say, that the desant
beautiful sunrise in washington, d.c. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is thursday, may 18th. donald trump has claimed that he could declassify materials just by thinking about them. like i dream of jeannie. but there is new evidence in the mar-a-lago documents investigation that proves he knows it s not true. the former president is seizing on two failed endorsements in florida from governor ron desantis, while ignoring the lack of success his candidates had in the last election. also ahead, the latest on the debt ceiling negotiations with both sides digging in on one big issue. we ll explain what that is. and we re keeping an eye on president biden this morning as he is in japan for the g7 summit. welcome, everybody. along with joe, willie and me, we have the host of way too early, white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. former aide to the george w. bush white house and state departments, elise jordan is with us. and former white ho
he s going to say, as these guys said, prove it. this is a very dangerous scheme for them to play. as nick said, this is just another criminal charge waiting on other criminal charges being investigated. how do they play it, than? i think they declare victory in some way and get out of this thing, because this is not going to end well for them. this is going to end with perjury charges. it s going to end with a hearing being called that they are not prepared for. and if they tried the pr strategy and judge dearie s court, it s going to be worse for the lawyers. okay. and politically it s terrible. but let me just say, they re gonna claim victory of some sort, some way. how does one do that in this instance and then get out of this? how do you get out of it at this point? are they in for a penny, and for a pound? all we really care about is the mystery special master looking at the other items seized on the search. we never said we were going to take possession of or w
i dream of jeanne. remember, he was on sean hannity s show, and sean hannity said, hey, you d never do this stuff they re saying. he said, sure i would. i could do it. i have the power to do it. hannity pushed him more, and his response was, if i did i declassified a document, the document becomes declassified. of course, he lied at the cnn town hall meeting, saying he could do whatever he wanted to do. he could show it to whoever he wanted to show it to because it was declassified. he thought it was declassified, so it was declassified. what do we find out? in the tape, we find out the opposite. it goes to intent, doesn t it? donald trump knew he had improperly taken a classified document out of the white house, and it was still classified and he didn t have the power to declassify it as a former president. joe, you know, we have andrew
claim by trump. stating in a letter, the special counsel s office, quote, is prepared to demonstrate with specificity to a court why it is likely that the 16 records contain evidence that would be important to the grand jury s investigation. joe, this seems like i mean, he just constantly says he, like i dream of jeanne, can blink and the documents are declassified. there is going to be a problem for the former president if he doubles down on lies about taking classified documents away from where they re supposed to be in government archives. yeah, no doubt about it. elise, you know, he has said, donald trump has said, well, all i have to do is think about it, and they re declassified. there is a process. the importance of this, obviously, is they have records now of the archives working with