less they would like him. and nikki haley might be the first to take the plunge in a few weeks, more republicans jump in and make the field better, that s probably better for donald trump who has without question the probably best from floor and ceiling in terms of his report. in terms of the white house s perspective think donald trump will be the nominee. that s the race they re preparing for, the race they like. polls like this, they ll win that one again. they like their chances in a rematch. it gets harder to predict if it s somebody else. they think trump is the guy. they re preparing as such and we should expect president biden to announce his reelection bid likely within the next couple of months. unclear if this matter about the classified documents night delay that timetable. as you know, the white house says we beat him once, we re happy to beat him again, and they believe he s weakened since
around this with pulitzer prize winning columnist at the washington post, eugene robinson and former u.s. senator, now an nbc news and msnbc political analyst, claire mccaskill. good morning to you both. gene, your latest column, you write about which questions need to be answered. writing quote, from what we know so far president biden eets mishandling of classified documents was not nearly as egregious or potentially criminal as former president trump s. there are legitimate questions about what the president knew and when he knew it. there are obvious questions that need to be answered, chief among them is how sensitive the information in the documents might be and whether unauthorized persons could have had access to them. after the justice department went so far as to send the fbi to seize the documents that trump had taken to florida, why did biden and his aides not immediately make sure there were no classified material in his possession. are we sure there are no others. has a
counsel s office responded to the letter sent by chairman james comer, writing in part quote like every president across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal. on sunday, comer requested visitor logs from biden s wilmington home after learning that classified documents from biden s time as vice president had been found there. the secret service echoed the white house s response yesterday with a statement of its own writing quote, we don t independently maintain our own visitor logs because it s a private residence. and jonathan lemire, as you brought up, there aren t visitors logs at private residences from what we have seen as far as tradition goes. as you point out, the trump white house refused to release visitor logs even from the trump white house. and they had no problem with it. yeah, it is certainly tradition among, you know, presidents, they have their private residences.
35 past the hour. president biden will travel to california on thursday to visit the areas that have been hit hard by recent devastating storms. biden will meet with first responders as well as state and local officials to survey damage and recovery efforts. the golden state is bracing for a final round of storms before dry weather will come later this week. we ll get a live report from california in the fourth hour of morning joe. a losing republican candidate for the new mexico state house has been arrested in connection with a string of shootings at the homes of democratic leaders. solomon pena is accused of paying four men to shoot at the homes of two county commissioners and two state legislatures. in november pena lost a state house race. pena alleged election fraud and took his case to lawmakers some
to democrats, rank and file democrats, you talk to contributors, you talk to the party members, they re a lot more concerned about a ron desantis than a donald trump. they think that joe biden can beat donald trump. they ve got the play book. they know where trump is weak. you know, but you just let s talk about i always talk about the atlanta suburbs, not just the northern suburbs but the southern suburbs of atlanta. those are areas donald trump will never get back. those are also areas ron desantis could roll up good numbers with. this is not even a close call. republicans have to know this, which makes you wonder why in the world they would consider putting up a nominee that was sure to lose the suburbs. i don t think you have to get to the question of what ron desantis can or can t do. i don t think you have to get to the question of what any of the other republican potential nominees can or can t do. we just have no idea what ron