confirmed that u.s. army soldier travis king crossed into its territory. a statement from the state run korean central news agency claimed king had expressed his willingness to seek refugee status in north korea. u.s. defense officials have said that king willfully and without authorization crossed into north korea in july while taking a civilian tour of the demilitarized zone. coming up, one of donald trump s fourth indictment now looms over the first republican debate next week. will the gop front-runner show up despite his mounting legal trouble? we ll explain straight ahead on morning joe. so you only pay for what you need. that s my boy. stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.
to the debate this wednesday would attack desantis. he s hoping that desantis will take all the bullets for him and i think that s still his strategy. the problem with that strategy is, desantis is so weak right now, he s almost disappearing, chris christie is ahead of him in new hampshire. it s clear he may not be the target zone that trump is trying to create rather than himself. i still think that s the right strategy. i disagree with mika. i think there s a good chance he will show up because he s crazy but why would you go on to a stage with all these other candidates who can 90% of the time with their own, whatever thoughts asa hutchinson has to have, do you think trump will listen while asa hutchinson talks? i don t think so. i think he will use desantis as a zombie to take all the bullets. that was so good. okay. so it s interesting. sorry, mika. i really thinks he wants the zombie. reverend al s opinion was
is he is this control, right? he can go to the debate and he can dominate or he could not show up and he can dominate from someplace else. everyone will still be reacting to him and as a campaign veteran i know you set up your debate week, debate week gets happening, there s a debate on wednesday, on monday you want a big newsmaking opportunity to set the stage for the debate, trump has done that with saying he s going to release his long awaited report on the georgia elections on, monday, the 21st. the debate, that means everybody will react to him no matter where he is but, david, what do you see as the opportunity here, say trump does not come. what do you see as the opportunity here for the republicans that will be on that debate stage? yeah, i mean, at that point the opportunity is to become the new ron desantis, so he is the next stepping stone, i think he would be the person to absorb the slings and arrows, chris christie will go after donald trump, but a lot of these republic
the debate, i think donald trump shows, look, i can walk and chew gum at the same time, and so i think if you add that in and just his compulsive need for attention, i think he shows. so, jonathan lemire, i m going to take the other side of it. i do think he s scared of chris christie. he saw what chris christie did to marco rubio when chris christie went into a debate with one thing in mind. he knows chris christie put jared kushner s father in jail for a very long time. he knows he s a prosecutor who s ruthless and knows how to push his case, and he also knows that his secret sauce in 2016 was being the disrupter, right, shaking hillary clinton up on the debate stage, shaking
to deal with christie. matt lewis, you know, i was there, 2016 for that debate. and when donald trump showed up 48 hours after the access hollywood tape with a number of women who accused the clintons of inappropriate conduct in the years past and changed the news cycle. you documented it. he was able to get steady himself but had help back then and the conservative media clearly at that point was with him and has been with him ever since. how d now? so many of the outlets, fox news included, seem to be flirting, had flirted with other candidates, you know, do you sense now that they are fully back on trump or keeping their options open because that conservative ecosystem has been so vital to his rise. yeah, i think they are largely with him. there s a temptation, a danger, i think, that they could leave him and maybe that is another reason that trump would want to show up at the debate. look, if he s logical, he might not show up at the debate, you