I think they have more evidence as to President Trumps state of mind. Donald trumps former Attorney General with an ominous prediction for the former president in the 2020 election case. It comes as trump faces arraignment today in Federal Court in washington. Well get a live report from washington, d. C. , and legal analyst on what we can expect from todays hearing. Meanwhile, former Vice President mike pence just gave his most direct criticism of his former boss. Well play those comments for you. Also ahead, new reporting on a private meeting between President Biden and former president obama over concerns about the 2024 election. Good morning. Welcome to morning joe. It is thursday, august 3rd. Along with joe, willie and me, we have the host of way too early, White House Bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. Senior attorney and fbi official, chuck rosenberg. Reporter for the Washington Post, Jackie Alemany. And Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and Associate Editor of the Washington Post, you between robinson. Willie, i think we all expected to hear the best that the Trump Defense team had, the best the Trump Apologists in the media had and, man, if that was the best they got, donald trump is in really big trouble. First of all, as was said, its just the tip of the iceberg. Theres more coming. It was an indictment just to get things moving. We saw Savannah Guthrie. Well be playing the clip in a second. Savannah guthrie interviewed trumps lawyer. Theyre still talking about the First Amendment, where on the very face of the jack smith indictment, jack smith said, you have the First Amendment right to say what you want to say. You have the First Amendment right to lie. You do not have, though, a First Amendment right to commit a conspiracy to overthrow the federal government of the United States. I mean, it just makes absolutely no sense. Theyre either talking about the First Amendment or, on another news channel, people were talking about a twotiered Justice System, talking about Hunter Bidens Hubcap Rolling Off His 57 impala, Something Like that. That was bad. We heard it in the studio, a 67 impala, the hubcaps, they bounce the wrong way, they can take out an eye. They were talking about the twotiered system. I may have said it harshly yesterday when i said, we dont care if hunter biden goes to jail. I didnt mean it that way. What i meant was, if hes done something, if he is found guilty, he goes to jail. Hold on. Yeah. Oh, wait, thats what we do in america. Yeah. But for some reason, they cant say, if donald trump has done something, if hes guilty, he should go to jail. So theyre still this is what again, we talked about it yesterday. It is amazing to me that these people, Kevin Mccarthy and people on another Cable News Station, spent from election day 2020 to january 6th undermining confidence in americas voting system, in American Democracy. Its cost 1 billion. Itll probably cost em closer to 2 billion. But they did that, and they havent learned their lesson. Now, now, donald trump its like theyre willing to totally screw america, to Trash America for this guy. I dont want to see his face. Take him down. I dont want to see his face. Take him down. I dont want to see his face. Now, theyre willing to Trash America. Theyve already trashed democracy for that guy. If you listen to him yesterday, if you listened to republicans in the house, if you listened to people on the other news channels, theyre literally willing to Trash Americas judiciary, our judicial branch, the very branch in Madisonian Democracy that separates us from other countries the most, if you follow history. Its always the great leveller. Theyre willing to trash that now, willie, just because donald trump got caught stealing Nuclear Secrets, because he got caught stealing secret war plans, because he got caught stealing all of these other documents and burroburrowed they in his beach club in florida. Now, theyve got i dont know if i told you this weve got a 45Page Indictment, and everybody in here thats testifying against donald trump, theyre all trumpers. There are no democrats here. Citizens. Theyre citizens. Servants. Public servants who were serving donald trump. People that said, we really wanted him to win badly, but not so badly that we were willing to destroy the United States constitution and American Democracy in the process. As we said yesterday, every one of these people that testified were testifying against their own selfinterest, because if donald trump had been in the white house four more years, they would have gotten more powerful, ultimately more richer and more wellconnected in washington and the world. There you go. Networks and little members of congress in the Republican Party willing to trash American Democracy and now the judicial system In The Name Of donald trump. How many offramps, joe, how many times have they been given the chance, big chances, like he took Nuclear Secrets to maralago and waves them around at bedminster. No, it was a bookkeeping issue. Okay. How about a coup against the government detailed in the 45Page Indictment . What about hunter biden . That is the political defense, what youre hearing on capitol hill from republicans. Well, yes, we heard about the indictment, but did you hear about what hunter biden did . Did you hear about the new witness, attempting to draw a line. Yesterday morning, the defense is the First Amendment. Above the full New York Times, First Amendment is likely linchpin of Trump Defense. Thats where theyre going, joe. As we talked about at length yesterday, and you reminded us, in paragraph 3, i think it is, maybe 4, special counsel jack smith takes that away from them by conceding, yes, you had the right to say these things, including lies. You can say whatever you want. What you cant do is conduct a criminal conspiracy, and speech is often part of the criminal conspiracy. Willie, let me read it quickly, and thank you, as you know, im a dumb Country Lawyer. I wave things around. I dont know exactly where they are. Thank you for telling me it is paragraph 3, for bird dogging it for me. Sorry. Just i regress at times. Paragraph 3, the defendant had a right to speak about the election, to claim falsely there had been fraud during the election and hed won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, by seeking recounts, et cetera. Indeed, in many cases, the defendant did pursue the methods contesting the election results. His efforts to change the recounts, audits, though, were uniformly unsuccessful. He had a right, like every american, to speak publicly about the election and even claim falsely, willie, there had been election fraud. He has the right if he wants to do it. He has that right. Jack smith gets rid of that, as you say, in the third paragraph. These, these bumbling, these bumbling lawyers are going, First Amendment, First Amendment. Judge and the jury is going to look at it and say, well, wait, jack smith talks about that in the third paragraph. I dont know. I guess they just have absolutely nothing to defend him on. Yeah. Attorney general barr, former Attorney General barr, as we played, waived that defense, saying it is nonsense, the First Amendment. But thats what theyre going with, chuck rosenberg. Im curious what youve made in the last 24 hours of the defense weve seen from trumps team so far, whether its the First Amendment. We havent heard much, though we heard from some politicians about the good faith argument, that he actually believed the election was stolen and he was merely pursuing some of the things he heard. Unfortunately for him, theres 45 pages of evidence saying, yes, his aides and cabinet members told him hed lost and, in fact, these were lies, so that disrupts that, as well. What do you make of the First Amendment grounds here . Im glad you asked me that, willie. There is a technical legal word for it, and mr. Barr used it, absolute nonsense. Think of it this way. Speech designed to commit a crime, speech designed to commit a fraud is not First Amendment protected speech. If i lie on my tax return, that is speech, but it is not protected by the First Amendment. Willie, if you and i are running a ponzi scheme, and we solicit money from joe and mika and tell them were going to invest it in our Investment Fund and, instead, we buy a boat, an island and Minor League Baseball team, that is not First Amendment protected speech. Thats a crime. Instructing a witness to destroy documents is speech, but its not protected by the First Amendment. So i completely agree with mr. Barr on this point. That defense that the First Amendment precludes prosecution of mr. Trump garbage. It may work in the political arena, but it will not work in court. Period, the end. Lets look at whats going to happen in court today. Former President Donald Trump will be criminally charged today in washington, d. C. , for allegedly trying to disrupt the same government he once swore to protect. At 4 00 this afternoon, trump will be arraigned in d. C. Federal court on four Felony Charges stemming from his alleged efforts to block the peaceful transition of power following his 2020 Election Loss. The charges are conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. Members of the d. C. Police department could be seen setting up Security Barriers outside the courthouse last night ahead of the former president s arrival. Gene robinson, we havent had a chance to get your take since this came down. Its a remarkable document, 45 pages. The president of the United States, the former president of the United States once again marching into a courthouse to be indicted. Yeah. We get used to this because this is the third arraignment we will have seen of donald trump. Nonetheless, this is different. This is incredibly a president of the United States who attempted to cling to power, to stay in office, to fight despite having been defeated in a free and fair election. He refused to peacefully transfer power to his successor. That has never happened in our history. And it is historic that it is now being addressed with this indictment. So this is a were in a different realm now. You know, i certainly agree with you and chuck. Im not even a Country Lawyer but, obviously, the First Amendment defense is a dog that wont hunt. I think the more likely route that the trump laye lawyers areg to try to go is advice of counsel. Well, he really believed it. He was listening to the noted constitutional scholar, john eastman, and he was just listening to his lawyers. Now, the weakness in that, of course, is that the Attorney General of the United States and the white House Counsel, Deputy White House counsel were all telling him, stop, this is ridiculous. Youve got to stop this stuff. This is nonsense. Right. And the other reason is that the lawyers he was listening to are all unindicted coconspirators. So, you know, there is that pesky exception to Attorney Client privilege, and i also think itd pertain here. These were coconspirators if were not lawyers giving disinterested advice. So i dont know where he goes with this, except the political case, what about hunter biden . Well, yeah, hes got the political case. What about that hubcap that fell off Hunter Bidens 67 impala, acting as if the media is covering for hunter biden. Whatever will be will be. Were on doris days side on this one. Whatever will be will be with hunter biden. Theres just no equivalency, political equivalency, Moral Equivalency to that. Whatever it ends up being, a former president of the United States trying to overflow the federal government. This is like Benedict Arnolds cousin, like, stealing an apple from, you know, whatever. The attempt to okay, that wasnt the best example. Trying to distract. Yeah. Ill be working on that one. Benedict arnolds nephew stealing a british joe, if youve been watching fox all day, they never read the indictment. They never read the counts. They kind of hem and haw around it and never read the indictment. Yeah. They never talk about these charges and talk about the fact that you dont bring an indictment without proof and talk about many of these things we saw play out in front of our eyes, done by donald trump. Right. Many of these things we saw corroborated during the january 6th hearings. Yeah. You never hear that you know, willie. Because its too much fact for them. You know, willie, how she shows that . Well. Because she keeps it on that station all day. You have to wonder why Trump Supporters dont believe this is real. Just to become reactive. I say, please dont do that. Please, no. Lets watch you cant be blind to whats happening. Lets watch the all access pottery. She wont listen to me. Lets get to chuck. No, i i know what youre saying. I have respect for what youre doing there. It is disinformation. I cant do it myself. They didnt learn. Chuck, lets touch on the advice of counsel that Gene Robinson brought up. I would think part of the problem is, it is not exactly Forum Shopping, but trump had his white House Counsel around him. He had lawyers all around inside the white house. He had advisers. They all told him no. He went out and basically went Forum Shopping to find the craziest Conspiracy Theories he could find, especially after his own lawyers said, mr. President , you got nothing here. January 20th, 2021 is going to be your last day. He goes out and finds people like Rudy Giuliani whose legal theories trump himself calls crazy. Will advice of counsel carry any water in this court as a possible defense . Im glad you asked me that. First thing, joe, there is a defense known as advice of counsel. You see it from time to time. Its a real thing. So i think the more important question is, would it pertain here . There are two basic elements to it. To have an advice of counsel defense, lets say you, joe, a wonderful Country Lawyer, are my attorney, and i want to rely on you for advice youve given me to help prove i had no intent to commit the crime im charmed with. There are two requirements. One, im completely candid with you, my lawyer, about all the facts of the case, and the other, element number two, is that i act in good faith upon your advice. You know, past is prolong, mr. Trump has had trouble with both of those elements, candor and good faith. So it is a real defense. It may be available to him here to try and trot out in a court of law, but he would have to establish, again, that he was completely candid with his counsel, as i was with you, and that he acted in good faith upon the advice of counsel. I think those are stumbling blocks for mr. Trump in any setting, certainly in a court of law. Lets take a look at day ahead. Joining us now, nbc news justice Reporter Ryan Riley, outside the courthouse in washington, a matter of blocks away from the United States capitol that was attacked on january 6th, 2021. Ryan, good morning. We know former President Trump is waking up in bedminster, new jersey. Hell fly down to Reagan National later this afternoon. What do you expect to see around the courthouse today around 4 00 . A lot of secrecy. I think theyre going to bring him in through the garage, the elevators. The courtroom is in the annex of the building behind me. It was the newer facility built around 2005. What it allows them to do potentially is bring donald trump in. Its the same way they brought a lot of grand jurors in, through the garage, through the back elevators, and potentially bring them right into the courtroom. From what we understand, there will be about 11 Seats Available to the media, but thats going to be on a lottery system. Despite all our producers hard work overnight standing in line here, were not guaranteed to get a spot inside the courthouse. Theres going to be overflow and a media room, so well be at least looking at this on a closed circuit television, being able to see whats happening inside the courtroom. It probably should be a very short hearing. I expect, you know, Going Forward in this case, were probably going to see some Change Of Venue motions. Those have all failed in january 6th cases before. The Justice Department had evidence to point to, that d. C. Jurors are able to handle these cases appropriately. Both the proud boy and the oath keepers case, there were acquittals on certain charges for several counts, not the charges overall. There have been other acquittals in january 6th cases all together. They have some evidence that the Voir Dire Process can work here, that jurors can swear their oath, can take the evidence on its face. Despite, you know, maybe not being particularly fond of donald trump, can look at the facts and decide them fairly. You know, when chuck was talking about the First Amendment grounds, it struck me that potentially one thing youd expect if thats going to be the defense of trump here, theyd be calling for the charges against hunter biden in the gun case to be dropped. Then hunter biden has a First Amendment right to lie about being a drug addict on a gun form. Thats just, you know i think chuck is right, that that is not something that is going to have much merit in this courtroom behind me, and especially, you know, given the judges who know a lot of the facts about these cases. Yesterday, we saw another defendant who was charged, who was actually a cardinals mascot who ran around the stadium in st. Louis painted in red, and he was just arrested yesterday. This is someone who a lot of Conspiracy Theorists believe was an undercover officer but, note, the sleuths discovered him and he was arrested. Donald trump is now one more florida man charged in connection with january 6th. The red bird . Unofficial mascot. Okay, good, that was disturbing to learn a minute ago. Yeah. Ryan, let me ask you about security there. Obviously, a coordinated effort between the d. C. Metro police, the federal agencies, Secret Service involved, as well, with the former president being there. There was anticipation around the arraignment in lower manhattan. New York City Police said, dont try it here. Its not going to work. Most people stayed away. What are they expecting there in terms of a crowd . Reporter you know, yesterday, we did see somewhat of a crowd, as well as the day before. Not massive. Handleable. I think, you know, the bike racks are going to keep people away from the building hopefully. When i saw them last night, seeing them put them out, i was like, bike rack . On theme for january 6th. Thats what was the first things breached at peace circle, just a couple blocks over here to my left, during the initial breach. It was not something that stood up. Donald trump hasnt summoned anyone to come here. I certainly expect a lot of supporters to show up, but it is not this mass event. It was done on a quick timeframe, so it wasnt as though you could get necessarily a ton of people to show up. This is basically 48 hours from when we learned about the charges on tuesday. You know, we should see some supporters here, perhaps harassing reporters out here on the street and perhaps trying to get their moment on camera, but, you know, obviously, d. C. Is now in a posture where they can react to this pretty quickly and have a decent Security Situation set up here. Lets hope it is a peaceful day. President of the United States, the former president of the United States will be arraigned today at 4 00 eastern time in that courthouse behind you. Justice Reporter Ryan Riley, thanks so much. John, he mentioned potential Change Of Venue, highly unlikely. Donald trump yesterday suggesting the state of West Virginia would be an appropriate place for this trial. Coincidentally, he won by 40 points there in both his elections. This was trumps take on social media. He says, lets move it to an impartial venue, such as the, quote, Politically Unbiased, nearby state of West Virginia. A, West Virginia had nothing to do with january 6th. B, he won it by 1,000 points in 2016 and 2020. No ulterior motive there, im sure. I was talking to someone yesterday concerned about security around it, and makes the point that Donald Trumps most violent supporter, those likely to cause trouble, well, theyre already in jail nor january 6th, so hopefully that reduces some there. Journalism students were paid to stand in line to try to get seats, but dont know if thatll happen. Jackie, youve been covering this closely. Trump has a new legal team in place for this, these proceedings. Making the media rounds. Tell us what we know of them. Beyond, perhaps, the First Amendment considerations, what other possible defenses might we hear from them today . We should finally note, previous indictments, arraignments, donald trump addressed the media afterwards. They havent said whether he will today or not. There are a lot of tbds right now, john. On our part, the Media Outlets are welloiled machines when it comes to operating around Donald Trumps indictments, as this is the third one. We are anticipating that trump is going to potentially have a press avail or might be doing a lastminute rally in the area. But a lot of that is up in the air. As weve seen, there is a lot of bravado, public statements, you know, claiming that trump is welcoming these indictments. People and allies on his Campaign Arguing that this is only good for his polling numbers. At the end of the day, when trump has appeared in the courthouse before the judge to enter his plea deal, hes appeared dour and exfreedom extremely unhappy to be there. Afterwards, hes made the rounds, whether it be cafes in miami or parading around New York City in his motorcade. He has a new legal team with a little less experience than the media has in attending these arraignments. He has todd blanche, who has been with him since alvin bragg dropped charges related to the porn star and hush moneymy dani. He has a wellrespected and seasoned lawyer helming the legal effort. There is christopher kise, the lawyer trump brought in last year who was sidelined on the maralago case, now more involved with that case. We havent seen much of him with regards to the january 6th investigation. Then there is john lauro, the tv lawyer weve seen in the past few days, who also is someone who is well respected and has experience with this. As chuck and a few people noted, has been making some interesting, behind the eight ball arguments about what trumps Legal Defense is going to be, primarily focus ong the issue of free speech when jack smiths charges have avoided some of that issue by i talked to a number of lawmakers, january 6th Committee Members yesterday, who actually commended smith with dropping the Insurrection Charge and, instead, going with that final charge of conspiring against peoples right to have their votes counted, because it does help prosecutors avoid this argument over free speech and, instead, gives juries a little bit of an insurance card to judge trump on his conduct as opposed to his opinions or beliefs. All right. Jackie. Ahead on morning joe, much more fallout from Donald Trumps latest indictment, and the reaction from some who were inside the administration, like the former Chief Of Staff for mike pence. Plus, new developments in the special counsels other investigation into trump. I still cant believe mike pences Chief Of Staff had to call the Secret Service im glad they did on january 5th after trump basically threatened him. It was pretty ugly . They had im so glad for mike pence and his family, that the Chief Of Staff was smart enough to call the Secret Service to say, hey, donald trump is putting our lives in danger. He ready. There was crazy stuff that went down. Food against the wall in the white house. I mean, this is just it is an incredible time in history. Plus, new developments in the special counsels other investigation into trump. Why jack smiths team is citing potential Conflicts Of Interest in the classified Documents Case. Also ahead, what were learning about a private talk between President Biden and former president obama concerning the 2024 election. Sounded like an important talk to have. Yeah. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Five. Its happening, isnt it . Four. Three. Two. One. New projects means new project managers. You need to hire. I need indeed. Indeed you do. When you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. Visit indeed. Com hire and get started today. Im jayson. Im living with hiv and im on cabenuva. It helps keep me undetectable. For adults who are undetectable, cabenuva is the only complete, longacting Hiv Treatment you can get every other month. Cabenuva is two injections, given by my healthcare provider, every other month. Its really nice not to have to rush home and take a daily hiv pill. 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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. 33 past the hour. Welcome back to morning joe. Were following new developments this morning in the special counsels other case against former President Donald Trump. Now, is this the one where he tried to launch an insurrection to overthrow the United States. No. Is this where he stole government secrets and nuclear yes. Its not the Hush Money Payment with a porn star which nobody denies, not even donald trump. Not when he was accused of rape. It was sexual abuse, he was held liable. But the judge that said when they were making motions, actually, the common usage, how the u. S. Army uses the term rape, what is defined in the dictionaries, you committed rape. Thats not this case. There is still another lawsuit because he continues to defame this woman with wild abandon. This isnt the rape case. Shes suing him again. Its not the rape case. Not where he stole the Nuclear Secrets . Its not that one either. Okay. But no, it is that one. There are so many. So its not the case that he tried to overthrow the federal government, the election . Not that one. Its the rape case. Jack smith no, im sorry. Its the case where he tried to steal nuclear not tried. He stole nuclearlclear jet s he stole nuclearecrets and lied about it. Yes. I got it. Jack smith asked judge Aileen Cannon to schedule a trial for potential Conflicts Of Interest in the Documents Case, Including Military Secrets at his club in florida. The issue stemmed from defense lawyer stanley woodwards representation of walt nauta and other witnesses in the case. According to a court filing yesterday, woodwards current and past clients include three people who could be called to testify against nauta. Nauta is charged with conspiring to obstruct the governments efforts to reclaim classified documents. Woodward, at one point, represented Yuscil Taveras, anonymously named, who was asked to delete Security Footage at maralago. Taveras is not named in the indictment, and there are reports he may have cooperated with the doj after receiving a Target Letter and getting new representation. Despite this, woodwards ongoing representation of nauta could still be an issue. Chuck that, itself, is a massive case. Chuck, weve seen judges before bring up concerning about overlapping interinterests. Here, youre talking about the possible freedom or the incarceration of several men here. I would expect a judge to step in and say, counsel a, you cannot represent these two or three people whose interests are diametrically opposed in their dealings with the government. Do you expect thats what were going to see . I do, joe. Youre exactly right. Look, this is relatively simple. If an attorney represents, lets make it easy here, two people, and one of them is a witness at trial, and one is a defendant at trial, then that attorney has information because he represented both of them that he could use to the advantage of one and the disadvantage of the other. Thats a conflict. Its not that complex. The government was absolutely right to raise the issue with the court. The court has to hold a hearing on this. Now, of course, if the government succeeds in getting one of the lawyers kicked off the case, that slows things down a little bit. So be it. It is more important to protect the rights of all the individuals involved in the case and the record on appeal than it is to go faster than you ought to go. Id like to see all these cases tried before the election. That may not happen. Moving to conflict out an attorney will inevitably slow the case down or could slow the case down. As a lawyer, you always have a duty of confidentiality and loyalty to all of your clients forever. That doesnt end when one of them is charged and the other one becomes a witness. It lasts forever. So you cannot use, as a lawyer, Confidential Information you got from one person to help another. Thats the conflict. It seems relatively straightforward to me. The government is right to ask for a hearing. I imagine the judge is going to very seriously consider asking mr. Nauta to find another lawyer. I cant imagine that they wouldnt. Again, their interests moving forward will be diametrically opposed. Here is bill barr talking about the wreckage donald trump left in his wake regarding some of the codefendants. These two individuals, nauta and the carlos. And carlos are dragged into this thing, their lived turned upside down by trump to pursue, you know, this caper of his. He leaves in his wake ruined lives like this, the people who went up to capitol hill, these individuals, many of the people who served him in government that got sucked into things. He just leaves all this carnage in his wake. Do you think he cares about that . No, he doesnt care about that. Loyalty is a oneway street for him. Loyalty is a oneway street. Wow. We all know that, Gene Robinson. That is carnage. To build out a little on this, though, it is ridiculous, actually, that walt nauta and the other criminal defendant have the same attorney as donald trump. I mean, its ridiculous because, at some point and this would be true in any case at some point, if youre working, you know, at the direction of a principal, and they ask you to do something illegal for them, your interest diverges sharply with the principal the second everybody gets arrested, because youre able to strike a separate deal with the state or with the feds, whatever it is. This is a case i just cant imagine the judge, i cant imagine anybody allowing these two codefendants to be tied to donald trump with a lawyer who will not be giving them advice that is in their best interest. Their best interest on how to stay out of jail. Exactly. It seems obvious to me that nauta needs to find another lawyer, that this lawyer does have this conflict. Woodward. That seems to be the end of that. You know, this is something ive rarely said, but bill barr makes such an excellent point there. Because look at the wreckage. Look at the wreckage from the and the Trump Indictments, just the ones we have so far, right, the first one, the Stormy Daniels payment. Michael cohen, trumps lawyer, went to jail because of that caper. Look at the Documents Case. Youve got nauta and, you know, just in the hot seat potentially going to jail again. Hes trying to follow Donald Trumps orders. In this case, in the january 6th case, youve had, what, more than 1,000 people, i think, face justice. Many go to jail, some for Seditious Conspiracy, after donald trump fired them up and sent them off to sack the capitol, essentially. It is amazing, and it would be a travesty for all these other people to suffer the consequences of Donald Trumps selfish, egotistical, egomaniacal behavior, and for trump himself not to face consequences. Jackie it is right he is facing consequences. Jackie alemany, what will you be watching and looking for today as we watch this historic moment happen before our eyes . I dont know if well actually see donald trump, but there will be reporters in the room. The former president , his third arraignment, federal arraignment before a judge who has sent January 6th Rioters to jail. Yeah, mika. I mean, it is going to be really symbolic and historic to watch donald trump walk up those same stairs in the d. C. District court that over 1,000 other insurrectionists who were simply following trumps lead and direction to storm the capitol on january 6th, who have been charged and, in some cases, sen sentenced in the behest Of Trump On January 6th and leading up to january 6th. Im going to be watching the dynamics between trump and the obamaappointed judge who was assigned to the case, who has handed out some of the harshest sentences to january 6th insur insurrectionists. I want to turn to the woodward situation again, as well. It raises this broader situation of just how remarkable all of these cases are. There are coconspirators, witnesses, people who might have to be called to these court cases to testify against donald trump, who are all still working for the former president or financially tied to him in some way. Yuscil taveras, he was being represented by stanley woodward, one of seven people represented by woodward, who only gave incriminating evidence and told truth once he switched lawyers. The thing that jack smith was arguing yesterday is how is woodward going to crossexamine his former client in a court of law, especially as the former client is not waiving his rights to confidentialitconfidentialit. It raises the broader question of some of these people were going to be seeing accompanying trump today to the courthouse and afterwards, especially in the case of potential press avail, these are people who were mentioned in the indictment, either in some veiled term as a coconspirators, people like boris epstein, who continues to work for former President Trump, and people like jason miller, who continues to be a senior adviser. Susie wilds, a top person on the trump campaign. All people who have come before jack smith and coordinated in some form or another, either with the classified Documents Case or, now, the january 6th case. Wow. Willie, first of all, just susie wiles, considered one of, in republican circles, one of the most important, powerful, Smart Campaign minds in the state of florida. Shes helped run Donald Trumps campaign. Apparently, based on reports, shes the one he showed, you know, these maps of war plans to. Right. Shes thrown right into the middle of that stuff. Secondly, i just want to say, maybe its a generational thing, but, you know, when bill barr calls a conspiracy to steal Nuclear Secrets a caper, a caper. Well i would say stealing an apple pie from the top of a ledge is a caper. I think hes actually theres a little bit of a i think he is talking about trumps stupid think, honestly. Kind of putting it in quotes. Because he is so dumb. What hes done with the documents is so dumb. Everything that he does, he does out in the open. You read these indictments, all of them, hes so dumb. He just knows how to play the media, and some people fall for it. It is funny well, not funny, it is tragic for donald trump, isnt it . Hes been working the New York Post and the daily news since 1975, 1976, and he really, at some point, never really figured out where the sharp line was between, you know, page 6 columnist and jack smith. Its going to likely and im serious here. A little bit of a difference. It is going to likely cause him his freedom. Hes been able to get away with him his entire life. For some reason, he never figured out, you know, you dont cross the feds. You dont do illegal things and expect to be able to b. S. Your way out of an indictment and a charge that could send you to jail for life. Youre right. Hes operated with total impunity for all his adult life. In New York City in the early days. Its a game to him. Everybody has to be loyal or disposed of. Now, hes learning that this is not a game. Jack smith is taking this thing very seriously, and our Justice System takes his alleged crimes very seriously. On your point object susie wiles, when asked about what would be said to the new lawyers, the former Attorney General said, well, youll all become witnesses. Youll have to testify. Hes going to commit another crime, do something else, and youre going to be accomplices. Youre going to be in the room. You have to decide if its worth it to you. Wow. Thats amazing. The Washington Posts Jackie Alemany and former u. S. Attorney chuck rosenberg, thank you, both, very much for coming on this morning. Chuck, most definitely, not a simple Country Lawyer. Listen to every word he says. I would not want to be sometimes its chilling. A simple Country Lawyer across the table from him. Look at him. No, i would not. Seems so gentle. Yeah. Look at that. Raise that eyebrow. Legal killer, baby. Well, we appreciate your insight, quite frankly. Thank you, chuck. Did you see the eyebrow . Were trying to get through this. Coming up, a controversial downgrade of the United States Credit Rating, it has the markets in the red this morning. Well explain what prompted the move and tell you the reaction from one of americas top banking executives. Also ahead, Senator Blumenthal joins us in studio. Well talk about Bipartisan Legislation to protect children on social media. Also, his reaction to trumps latest third indictment. Morning joe is coming right back. What do we always say, son . Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance. So you only pay for what you need. Thats my boy. Stay off the freeways only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Trying vapes to quit smoking only pay for what you need. Might feel like progress, but with 3x more nicotine than a pack of cigarettes vapes Increase Cravings trapping you in an endless craving loop. Nicorette reduces cravings until theyre gone for good. When i first learned about my dupuytrens contracture, my physician referred me to a Hand Specialist. And im glad he did, because when i took the tabletop test, i couldnt lay my hand flat anymore. The first Hand Specialist i saw only offered surgery. So, i went to a second Hand Specialist who also offered Nonsurgical Options which felt more right for me. So, what id say to other people with dupuytrens contracture is this dont wait find a Hand Specialist trained in Nonsurgical Options, today. I found mine at findahandspecialist. Com. Global stocks fell after the u. S. Credit rating was downgraded from aaa to aa plus. Fitch is one of the Credit Agencies that evaluates a companys ability to pay bills on time. The agency decided the deteriorating political conditions, including the debt ceiling standoff earlier in the year and the January 6th Riot was reasons for the decision. When we said a ceo responded, i said, i hope its jamie. Its jamie. He has no b. S. No, he doesnt. Never did. Here it is, yes, Jpmorgan Ceo Jamie Dimon correctly called the move ridiculous, saying the u. S. Remains, quote, the most prosperous nation on the planet. The white house pushed back on the downgrade. Lets bring in this is important, we have a president emeritus on the council of foreign relations, Richard Haass. He looks so eerudite. And a golf correspondent. Well i have a complex mind, as fitzgerald said, richard, i can hold two competing thoughts in my mind at the same time. Arent we all glad i can . Number one, i think youll agree with me, we talked about it before, National Debt is a problem. Its over 30 trillion. That is an ongoing problem. We need a plan to bring it into control, a glide path, so to speak, that doesnt wreck the economy. At the same time, we have a 25 trillion economy. It keeps growing while china stagnates at 17 trillion. California has a larger economy than every other country than, like, three on the globe. Texas, a bigger economy than russia. You look at our economy. It may not be the greatest its ever been. Its better than just about every other economy on the globe. The question is, if youre downgrading us, i mean, are you downgrading everybody else on the planet . Because there is no safer investment on the planet right now than the United States of america. It was an odd time for fitch to do this, the rating service, simply because the news is pretty good about the u. S. Economy, both absolutely and relative to others. But if you take a step back, i think they are on to something. As you said, joe, its the massive accumulation of debt, but really what they focused in on was the politics of washington. It is consistent with the story of the week. Which is, the dysfunctionality of american politics, weve come to the edge multiple times. Lawmakers left town, nothing got dealt with. Theyre going to come back, and then what . Theres no confidence, essentially, that the politics of washington will allow the United States to deal with these issues. There, fitch is on firmer ground, so i get what jamie dimon and Larry Summers are being critical about. If you pull back the strategic take on whether or not our politics are up to it and were not just another economy. The dollars role is essential to the world. The American Economy is a quarter of the worlds economy. The question is, will our politics get in the way of our economics . Thats a fair question. I mean, i think its a fair question. Gene, if you look at the recent past, you know the United States is going to take care of itself. I will say, and i said it on this show and everyone was like, oh, my god, the debt ceiling, were going to spiral into i was like, no, were not. Anybody who knows washington, ive been through this time and again as a member of congress, then somebody in the media, they always do the deal. I dont care what side is bitching and moaning, saying theyre not going to join in. They always get the call from their top ceos, from their top contributors, from their top pacs, and the call goes Something Like this, youre not really going to let the United States government default on your debt, are you, mr. Speaker . Whether that speaker is Newt Gingrich or Kevin Mccarthy, gene, its not really a question. Yeah. Its not a question. Its an order, which is, do your Damn Business so my business doesnt get wrecked. I mean, thats why, again, fitch going, oh, they cant pay for their debt, its ridiculous. It always gets resolved, and it always gets resolved, not because we close our eyes and hope it gets resolved, it always gets resolved because our 25 trillion economy and the people who run it demand it gets resolved. Yeah, it always does. Look, i dont know exactly what theyre smoking over at fitch, but its like they all of a sudden realize there is Political Polarization in the United States and, you know, its like, all shocked and horrified. Its been that way for a while. Weve been to this brink of, you know, default many times now. Yes, in the end, we always honor the full faith and credit of the United States. It would be better, i think, if we did away with the debt ceiling and did away with this ridiculous exercise. Obviously, it makes people nervous, but to decide just Out Of The Blue that, oh, gee, this is a problem, we have to downgrade, it seems ridiculous to me. Im with jamie dimon, it doesnt actually mean anything. It doesnt mean anything. Again, i cant tell you, just a famous clash song, im so bored with the usa. Im so bored with these whiny debates about the debt ceilings, because they all get resolved. They have to get resolved. Willie, on the january 6th stuff, yeah, scared the heck out of us. Some of us were yelling the morning after on this show, shouting vulgarities. I cant remember who was. During. Or during. It was a frightening time for us. But here we are, a couple years removed, and what have we seen . Justice roll down like mighty waters. Over 1,000 of those rioters arrested. Over 500 of them already serving jail time. Nobody got away with anything. Yes, the reason why were not going to see rioters this week is because the people most likely to riot are either arrested, in jail, or going, yeah, im fine. Im just going to go on 4chan in my moms basement and type out my complaints while eating cheetos. Like, the system has held, and its held pretty damn well. Yeah, closely but surely. There is a direct line between january 6th, 2021, that horrifying day that we all watched and that many people experienced from inside the building, many members of congress, many of our colleagues in the media, and to today, now accountability. The president , the former president of the United States, the president that day who helped lead those people to the capitol, at 4 00 this afternoon, will be arraigned in d. C. Federal court, not far at all from the scene of so many of those crimes on january 6th. Wow. Hell be inside the d. C. Federal court, charged on his actions related to the 2020 Election Loss. Charges are conspiracy to defraud the United States. Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. Conspiracy to interfere with an official proceeding and conspiracy related to rights. Donald trump returns to answer for what he is alleged to have done, to cause the damage that day. Its actually become a familiar ritual, but it shouldnt be less stunning. The former president of the United States is going to be going to a courthouse. He is going to be processed by law enforcement. He is going to have to be taken into custody. Hell have to stand in front of a judge to enter a play. We expect it to be, of course, not guilty, then hell be released and resume campaigning for the white house, richard. We dont foe if well hear publicly from trump today. After his other arraignments, there were campaign speeches. We dont know if he will this time, but if nothing less, hell be on truth social. This is a leader trying to cling to power, to deny the wishes of the voters. This is the kind of thing, for the Foreign Policy expert, we see in other countries. Weve never seen it here. Even if this case, some believe, might be difficult to prove, isnt it an important step for this democracy, that were trying . Its an important step for the democracy that weve reached this point. We like to say were a country of laws, not of men, but were going to find out. Well test it. Right now, it looks like the law is prevailing, but well see what happens with the Legal Process. Well see how the political calendar and the legal calendar plays out. Were 15 months away from the next president ial election. See what happens there. The rest of the world is looking at this. Were looking at this. Its uncharted. I think its too soon to feel good in the sense about the primacy of the law, the primacy of process and so forth. Well see. This is as direct a threat, jonathan, as weve had on our history. Lets not kid ourselves, this is as frontal an assault on the rule of law, on American Democracy. Donald trump is violating essentially what i would call the cardinal tenant of a democracy, which is that we all have the obligations to put the country before our party or our person. What he is doing, what he did and what he is doing is he continues to violate that cardinal obligation of a democracy. Hes on trial. In a funny sort of way, were on trial. There is a Legal Process here, but ultimately, there is a political process. The question is, what prevails . Joe, lets put the calendar back up for a moment. That is an extraordinary calendar. You know, weve sort of become unnerved to everything and eme immersed in it. Thats a man running for president of the United States. Look at the next year. You have an arraignment today. Potential georgia, well call it likely georgia indictment coming later this month. Maybe a debate. Maybe he will, maybe he wont show up. Go down the list. Once you get to the caucuses and the primaries, hes going to be hopscotching between states where he is trying to win an election and to courtrooms up and down the east coast. Yeah. I mean, it really is unbelievable. Theyre getting ready in georgia. Theyve got the barriers up. Sheriff is speaking out. Talking about hell be treated like anybody else. Going to get a mug shot. Thats a georgia indictment possibly. Serious. Possible mug shot before the first gop president ial debate with several other indictments before him. Its really something. If you look at that, if you look at that schedule, if you look at that calendar, richard, you know, you have written a book and you have expressed concerns about how weve met the enemy and the enemy is ourselves. I would only say, though, again, you look at the 1,000 people arrested for the January 6th Riots, the 500 that are in jail now. You look at the fact that the most powerful guy in the country for 40 4 years is now facing justice. Thats confirmation here. It looks like, for now, no man is above the law. That sends a very clear message to our friends and enemies alike. It does. So far in that sense, so good. Its terrible weve reached this point, but it is impossible that the center has held, if you will, the political and you know, this legal system, joe, has held. It aint over until its over. Well see how it plays out. Getting to something jonathan was referring to, were used to seeing this thing in other country, the illiberalism. The idea that, basically, what donald trump represents here is a strongman. In latin america, the phrase was thats what were seeing here. The question is whether we will let him get away with it. We, the jury, and we, the voter. In a funny way, we know who he is. What we dont know is who we are. Its on us to find out. But we know who the majority of us are. But he has a lot of powerful supporters and a lot of his supporters have powerful platforms. Theyre still out there and doing what theyre doing, even today. Come on, lets face it, hes got one powerful platform that has generated so much of this reality that we now live in. You look at recent polls. Fox viewers dont believe he did anything wrong because theyre plugged into it and see it every day. We will let other people pass their judgments on whether thats a good thing for western democracy. They want him to show up at the debate more than they want to cover the story. They have the debate, and they want those ratings. Thats Donald Trumps ploy on this entire country. A ploy for ratings. Going to businesses and going to people who feel left out and appealing to them and getting their support. Crowd size, ratings, thats his sweet spot. Thats how he gets people under you left out the most important thing for him hessian he wants money. We were talking about the 250 million that he stole from people for the, quote, stop the steal effort. Mmhmm. I think jack smith has to circle back around. Thats a jim and Tammy Faye Bakker scheme. Thats a Steve Bannon Scheme on a large scale. I suspect were going to be seeing more of that. Richard is right, we seen this in venezuela with the strongmen. Weve seen it now in former democracies like hungary, thats now an illiberal democracy. Were seeing it in poland. In israel, its depressing to see what Benjamin Netanyahu is doing to that democracy right now. Were seeing a Battle For Democracy and western values right now in the United States. Well see how it plays out. Richard haass, thank you so much. Thank you, richard. Ahead of trumps First Court Appearance today, his attorney is already offering a possible glimpse at what the former president s defense may be. John lauro is arguing that trump was simply exercising his First Amendment rights by raising concerns about the 2020 election and was following the advice of his lawyers when he falsely claimed mike pence had the power to block the results of the election on january 6th. Heres what lauro told Nbcs Savannah Guthrie yesterday on today followed by reaction from trumps former Attorney General, barr. This is the first time the First Amendment has been criminalized. Its the first time a sitting president is attacking a political opponent on First Amendment grounds and making it criminal to state your position and to engage in political i have to give you a timeout on that one. Weve never seen that before. Well, the indictment specifically says that the president has a First Amendment right to speech. Yes. He even has a First Amendment speech to lie. I says it right here. Absolutely. This is criminalizing conduct, not speech. What President Trump had was an actual opinion of counsel, that his request to Vice President pence was completely lawful and completely constitutional. He also had many, many opinions of his own white House Counsel that that was not legal. No, youre entitled to believe and trust advice of counsel. As the indictment says, you know, theyre not attacking his First Amendment right. He can say whatever he wants. He can even lie. He can even tell people that the election was stolen when he knew better. But that does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy. All conspiracies involve speech. All fraud involves speech. So, you know, free speech doesnt give you the right to engage in a fraudulent conspiracy. Is it a credible defense to say he was just listening to john eastman . I dont think that dog is going to hunt, as you say. First, as the people who had some knowledge of whether or not there was fraud, everyone was telling him the election was not stolen by fraud. As to the issue of what he could do legally at that point, he went through all the lawyer you know, he wouldnt listen to all the lawyers in the department, in various departments of the white house who had those responsibilities, or his campaign. Hed search for a lawyer who would give him the advice he wanted. Im not even sure you would characterize what eastman said as advice. I dont think the defense of advice of counsel is going to go forward. I think the president would have to get on the stand and subject himself to crossexamination in order to raise that. Hed also have to waive Attorney Client privilege. What would happen if he got on the stand . I think, look, itd not come out well for him. You think it would hurt him . Oh, yes, yes. Former Attorney General bill barr on cnn last night. Lets bring in msnbc contributor, our good friend mike barnicle. Also, staff writer at the new yorker, susan glasser. Donny deutsch, on brand with Donny Deutsch. And we have a live voice outside of the courthouse. Jonathan lemire is still with us. EuGene Robinson. Id love for you to take on defenses we heard from john lauro, that this is a First Amendment case. Paragraph 3 of the 45 Page Indictment says, of course you can say whatever you want, you can even lie, what you cant do is use speech in a criminal conspiracy. Willie, you can talk about stuff all day long. You can talk about perhaps committing crimes, but the minute you begin to act, if you enter a criminal agreement with another, and one of the coconspirators, one of the members of that agreement takes one step toward the commission of the crime, that step need not even be criminal, youve krit committed the crime of conspiracy to, in this case, obstruct an official proceeding, to deprive people of voting rights, or to deceive the United States. We will not hear anything, i predict, from jack smith and his team of federal prosecutors. They are certainly they can do that. They have a First Amendment right to do that. But the thing is, these arguments will not resonate, will not play in a court of law. The beauty of our system, willie, is that we will have a jury who will be in a position to decide whether what the Defense Attorneys are telling the American People versus what the evidence shows in a court of law should win the day. I have to say, after reading that 45Page Indictment from jack smith, having practiced in this courthouse, having tried rico cases, this is a bit of a homecoming for me, i find it very hard to believe that anything the Defense Attorneys have said at least thus far publicly will win the day in a court of law. It does seem pretty thin so far. Well see if they change their defense. Youve got a new piece, glen, up for msnbc. Com, in which you write, why this Trump Indictment is the most important. I think a lot of people share that view with you. Could you explain why you think so . First and foremost, if charges were not brought for a president of the United States attempting to corruptly and, indeed, the allegation is now criminally retain the power of the presidency, if a president and his alleged coconspirators were not held to account, then i suspect every four years after a president ial election on january 6th, we would see, right up the street there, a similar attack on the peaceful transfer of power. People would be able to say, even plausibly, well, you know, the Department Of Justice didnt bring charges against donald trump and the others who orchestrated and incited the insurrection, so i guess it wasnt criminal. Thats why, you know, today is such a big day for the rule of law. There has been no case with this kind of profile. There has been no case that is this consequential to the health, and i would say the vitality and even the viability of our democracy than this case. Win, lose or draw, in my opinion, these charges had to be brought. Willie geist, such brilliant insights there. One of the things i love about doing this show, willie, so much is, you know, the breadth of knowledge and the variety of guests that we have here. Like, lets look at right now Donny Deutsch, for instance, and glenn, right . Two separate lives right here. Let me tell you something. If im involved hold on. If im involved in a complex White Collar Crime case thats going to put me in jail for years, im going to the left side of the screen. If i want to know where to get the best pimms cup, the oldfashioned in the hamptons, im going to Donny Deutsch right there. Yeah. Hell help with that. Two men, two gifted, talented men, living two completely separate lives. Separate lives. Glenn, may i say, congratulations, you win. [ laughter ] wow. Thank you, joe. I just dont get it. I dont know, donny. Is there a Changing Table behind you . What are you talking about . Mike pence were not letting donny defend himself . I dont want to hear it. Wow. Former Vice President mike pence yesterday gave one of his strongest criticisms yet of donald trump, both while on the Campaign Trail and in an interview with fox news. Pence responded to claims from trumps attorney, that the former president only asked pence to, quote, simply pause the voting on january 6th. Lets be clear on this point, it wasnt just that he asked for a pause. The president specifically asked me and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me to literally reject votes, which would have resulted in the issue being turned over to the House Of Representatives and literally chaos would be ensued. President trump asked me to put him over the constitution, but i chose the constitution, and i always will. I really do believe that anyone who puts themselves over the constitution should never be president of the United States. And anyone who asks someone else to put themselves over the constitution should never be president of the United States again. After reading the indictment, did you learn anything new from it . Well, i did. I didnt know anything about the i didnt know anything about the efforts to secure fake electors in states around the country. I learned about that after the fact. Susan, this seems to be the type of wow. Truth telling that many have been asking of republicans, of republican candidates, of republican leaders. Mike pence, post jack smith indictment, sounds like a new man. Actually, somebody thats telling the truth about donald trump, the man he served loyally for four years. You know, joe, i was wondering, where has this former Vice President been all this time . I know. He spent a couple years of hemming and hawing and not really owning it. He refused to testify before the House Select Committee investigating january 6th. Its very significant that he now have this testimony from mike pence. It certainly leapt out at me in the indictment where i saw there was contemporaneous notes that he apparently turned over to jack smiths Prosecution Team as part of this investigation. Im looking ahead to the debate later this month, the first debate of the republican president ial contest, and if pence is going to be up there on the stage, what an interesting question its going to be to ask all of these republicans who have been dancing around it, so many of them have been afraid. Theyre running against donald trump, but theyre afraid to criticize him. I wonder if theyll be asked, well, would you have done what mike pence did on january 6th . I mean, its a great question. We say all the time, i mean, very few people had on their bingo card mike pence, the former Vice President of george h. W. Bush, dan quell, as two people who would step into the gap among republicans to do the right thing, to save this country on a critical day, a critical juncture. Donny, now that we made fun about you, we can tell the truth about you. Tap into your expertise. Youre a legend when it comes to branding, advertising legend. I knew it. I learned early in politics. I was told early in politics, if youre going after the big guy or the big woman, if youre trying to win, its all about contrast. Youve got to contrast yourself with em. If youre just a warmed over version of the person who is at the head of the pack, youre going to lose. Its one of the things i never understood about the republicans being cowards in the face of donald trump. You know, this mike pence move may not work. It may not work, but we know the other way is not going to work, right . Mike pence actually speaking truth to power. Could that help him . I think its the only move for any republican. I mean, you just said it, you know, youre never going to beat coke with a bad new coke. Its not going to happen. I just want to go back to where you started the top of the hour, though, because it is so critical. Everybody is talking about this as one of the darkest days, and i see the brightness of it. I see that we have a system, a madisonian system of government, a legislative branch that can conduct hearings, public hearings, and bring it forth. We have a Justice Department that can indict a president. We have a judicial system that will hear the hearing, that will hold a fair and open public trial. Wow, wow, what an amazing im proud of us, if you will. Obviously, youre putting up the death spot on the air now. As Richard Haass just said, we will now put it back on us, on election day. Can we its not on him anymore and not on the system. The system is working. Its on us now. Will this guy get voted in today . But it is The Best Of Times and the worst of times, and i see The Best Of Times. I am proud of us, that we are at this moment right now. Mike, weve spent the last, gosh, what has it been, last eight years now, i think, swimming in the sea of Donald Trumps corruption, indecency, alleged crimes, crimes, everything else, and you kind of get used to it when youre swimming in the water. Its worth pausing right now and just stopping and saying, at 4 00 today, the former president of the United States will be arraigned in a Federal Courthouse on charges that he attempted to subvert democracy, effectively, to overturn the results of an election. It is certainly something we have never seen before in this country. No, we havent. Its a tragedy, actually. Part of it, the idea of a former president of the United States being charged with crimes that he committed while he was the sitting president of the United States. The question, i would think, willie, is how long do we Pay Attention as a nation . I mean, we have such a short Attention Span it seems in this country. I was thinking about this last night. I mean, you listen to people like glenn kirshner, and you have this analysis of the law. It is an education, listening to them. But how long do we Pay Attention to that . 50 years ago this week, bob holderman, former Chief Of Staff to richard m. Nixon, appeared before the watergate committee, led by sam irvin. It was nationally televised. The nation was glued to the hearings. They paid attention to those hearings, each and every day. The hearings made an incredible impact on the country, politically and culturally. The question i have now for you, glenn kirshner, is, do you think the trial, the upcoming trial of the president of the United States, the country sort of demands that it be on tv . Itd be a wonderful, educational event for people to really see the evidence put in play, the questions posed by the defense and the prosecution, and i think itd be very helpful for everyone if that occurred. Can it happen . It can happen, mike. I believe it has to happen. I mean, we have to drag the federal judiciary into the present day, even if theyre figuratively kicking and screaming. You know, its a little bit absurd that, you know, courtrooms, criminal trials are public proceedings, yet the limitation with respect to the public observing those proceedings is the size of the courtroom . That doesnt make any sense. You know, i have heard that they will be broadcasting or livestreaming the proceedings to other courtrooms, what we call overflow courtrooms. Maybe 100 or 150 people, 150 american citizens, you know, who will be directly impacted by how this trial, you know, ends up, can observe the proceedings . That makes no sense. Ultimately, itll be up to the Chief Justice, Chief Justice roberts, to decide whether, you know, this is the moment in time when the rules should make some sense, and they should militate in favor of transparency. When it comes to, you know, watching what the leader of our nation did to our nation. So i sure hope, mike, that the chief judge orders that these proceedings be televised. Yeah, lets certainly hope. I agree. Lets hope so. To the point made a minute ago, that its on us now, the system is working, its on the voters, well, Republican Voters are making clear they dont mind at all. Donald trump continues his polling in the party, continues to go up. The general election, as we know, could be a different story next year. Also think about the 2024 candidates. It was refreshing, how candid and direct mike pence was just now. Were getting that from Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson, but the majority are talking about pardoning donald trump. This is another example of the dual system of justice, that the Biden Crime Family is involved here. This doj effort is to distract from the latest legal efforts against hunter biden. All of that nonsense, but it reinforces how bifurcated, depressingly bifurcated we are right now, joe and mika. Couple different ways to look at that. The way i look at it is, they are just isolating themselves even more from mainstream america. We saw it in 2022. The poll suggested there was going to be a red wave. The polls also suggested that the antichoice forces were going to win in the kansas recount. The polls have been wrong time and again. Middle america, the socalled silent majority, the silent majority, mind you, it is not socalled conserve tiff republicans. Its a lot of people in the middle. A lot of people really turned off and repulsed by the extremism they see coming from the republican house, coming from these president ial candidates that all think its cool that you have donald trump, a former president stealing Nuclear Secrets. They think its cool that you have donald trump mocking and laughing at a woman he raped, according to a judge, a woman he sexually assaulted, according to a jury of his peers. You have republican candidates thinking its cool and also his apologists in the medi thinking its all right that he helped put together a conspiracy to overthrow the federal government. Now, listen, theyre going to lie to you now. Theyre going to lie through their teeth to you now. Theyre going to do everything they can to distract you. All you need to go see is their own words. Look at their own words on january 6th. As provided to us by mark meadows and his text messages. The desperation of fox news Host S Begging donald trump to stop the riots, to stop the insurrection. His own daughter begging donald trump to stop the riots, to stop the insurrection. Don jr. Begging somebody to impress upon his father to stop the riots, to stop the insurrection. All of them, sean hannity, laura ingraham. You can go down the list. That day, they knew exactly what was going on. Exactly what was going on. So i hate using the term gaslighting, but thats exactly what theyre doing right now. For ratings, i guess . They want them to show up for the debate. By the way, theres a candidate thats supposed to be the hot candidate, and, you know, hes saying, oh, well, this is a twotiered system. He wrote in his own book in 2021, i think, that donald trump was a loser for what he did on january 6th and challenging election results. Theyre all taking part in this bizarre play where they want to gain more votes. They want to get more ratings points. They dont believe any of it. You dont have to listen to me. Just look at their own words. Their own texts. What they say when nobody is watching. There ya go. Nbc news legal analyst glenn kirscher, thank you. Thank you, glenn. Greatly appreciate your insight on cameras in the courtroom. Yup. I think, again, ive never been a massive fan of cameras in the courtroom, but here, when you have the most important criminal case in american history, and you have an expresident that depends on Conspiracy Theories, isnt transparency what we must demand of our Federal Court system . Yeah, joe. I think cameras in the courtroom are a must. Because if we dont have them, what are we going to get . A onesided account coming from trumps lawyers. Youre not going to get anything from jack smith and his federal prosecutors. Frankly, that will not be a fair fight in the court of public opinion. Lets be real, this case, in part, will be fought and won or lost, at least in the minds of the voters, in the court of public opinion. Yeah. 100 . Glenn, thank you. Former president obama is committing to help in any way he can to secure President Biden another term in office. According to three sources familiar with the matter, obama made a trip to the white house in june where he and President Biden had a private lunch. They discussed the 2024 election, particularly the strength of former President Trumps base. Obama reportedly cited the increased Political Polarization of the country and stressed he was not concerned about biden, per se, but on trumps grip over republicans. Obama also underlined his worry that trump could be a more formidable candidate than Many Democrats realize. Gene robinson, obviously very good news for the sitting president , joe biden, that barack obama has committed his time and energy and effort to doing whatever he needs to get him elected. I know youve heard it. Weve all heard from democrats, that, you know, barack obama is in bali or something and not out campaigning, helping to save democracy. Ceived from democrats barack obama, but the former president who is better on the Campaign Stump than anybody else out there right now, the fact that well, ill ask you, how important is this commitment . I think it is very important. Obamas position appeared before that he wanted to be the closer. He comes in at the end and sealed the deal. The fact that he recognizes, number one, that he needs to get in earlier and to do everything he can starting now, starting yesterday to shore up and gain the support for joe biden, i think its very, very good news for democrats. It is even better news if he brings Michelle Obama into the fray, along with him. Also very popular among democrats. And, you know, look, they are extremely powerful as conveners of not just democrats but independents and others who remember the obama years as, you know, very fondly. So its very important. It is very good news for joe biden. I think joe biden, frankly, understands the threat that donald trump poses to our democracy, certainly as well as president obama does. Nonetheless, great that obama is in the game. Susan, its fairly remarkable, the extended shelf life that barack obama has politically in this country. Here he is, hes been out of the presidency for quite some time, and yet he is a critical component, obviously, of any Reelection Campaign for President Biden still, after everything thats happened in the last six to seven years, barack obama is still at the top of his game. No, i think thats an excellent point to make. Because, you know, you look at the incredible contrast between the actions of donald trump and his predecessor, barack obama. Whats remarkable is that one of the reasons i think obamas popularity has held among democrats is because, you know, there was no scandal in his administration. There was only a sense that it was, you know, succeeded by this extraordinarily chaotic spectacle. If anything, thats reinforced for many people, you know, why obama was their choice for leader. I agree with gene, he has been the closer. Hes the best thing the democrats have going for them in terms of campaigning right now. You talk about Michelle Obama. Remember, her extraordinary popularity donald trump was convinced in 2020 that Michelle Obama was going to come out and somehow swoop in and get the democratic nomination, no matter how many times he was told she had no interest in electoral politics. Thats a testament to the enduring popularity of both of them. Yeah. Obviously, donald trump greatly fears Michelle Obama. The thought of her running against him is horrifying. Donny, it is very interesting about the enduring power of donald trump, and whats so interesting is that you would expect powerful democratic politicians to be isolated and not understand trumps power. But i do remember back in 2016, you had Barack Obama Warning very early on, in all of obamas people, before anybody else, when wed be outside in the hallways, it was always the david axelrods, it was always the robert gibbs. Very early on they were saying, you watch this trump guy. Even when the media was going theres no way he could win, they go, watch this trump guy. Worry about him. Barack obama is still saying it. I remember bill clinton in late summer of 2016 warning democrats that he could win. Joe biden was offering those same warnings. I remember ed rindell at the convention saying that everybody is making fun of donald trump, but he could win pennsylvania. Everyone was like, youre joking. Joe biden was there, too, in the gettogether, live from the convention. He said, oh, no, no, its a real danger here. The fact that barack obama is still saying this eight years later, something that Everybody Needs to pay very close attention to. Ill be honest with ya, im so glad that he sent that message directly to joe biden. Joe, i couldnt agree with you more. Look, donald trump can win again. Ive got to say that out loud, he can absolutely win again. Forget what the polls are saying. He owns the base. Hes going to get the nomination. Last time, even despite the four years we saw of, what was it, 80,000 votes that separated them if they went the other direction, out of 80,000 votes, he still would have won. We need to say it out loud, donald trump can win. Unfortunate, and weve talked many times on this show, is how good all the Biden Economic numbers are, the bidenomics, biden still has an issue. The issue is people think he is too old. Whether its ageist or not, thats the issue. That is a big problem. Barack obama, obviously brilliant man, he is saying the quiet part out loud. Even as we come as this expresident is going tb arraigned today at 4 00, he can get reelected again. Democrats have to put it on the wall, stare at it and say it out loud. Absolutely. Donny deutsch with the drowning orchids behind you, thank you. The new yorkers susan glasser, thank you, as well, your piece is trumps offense, on the new yorker. Okay. Donnys place, get the pimms cups in hamptons lounge act. Com. All right. Still ahead on morning joe, a look at the broad implications this third Trump Indictment has for American Democracy. Peter baker joins us with his new analysis for the New York Times. First, democratic senator Richard Blumenthal joins us. Well get his take on trumps indictment, and well discuss his push to keep kids safe online. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. From prom dresses. To workouts. And new adventures. You hope the more you give the less theyll miss. But even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past. They may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. 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What i think is the most remarkable thing in the last 24 hours is, in essence, the president s team putting forth the First Amendment defense. I dont know, im not a constitutional lawyer, and maybe theyre right, if youre going to prosecute people for false information, you have to prosecute democratelected officials, too, but thats a shift from 2 1 2 years of telling the American People the election was stolen. I have the facts. I just never got to present my case because congress or the courts wouldnt hear it. He could walk in now and present it, and the conspiracies would go away if that was the case. Instead, theyre saying, everyone has a First Amendment right to mislead the American People. Obviously, hes been misleading the American People and what the Vice President s role was. That was the former Chief Of Staff to mike pence weighing in on the indictment and the Legal Defense the former president s lawyers are using in public appearances on tv. Joining us now, democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of connecticut, a member of the judiciary committee. Senator, good to see you. A lot to talk with you about, incluing this indictment. We were discussing the details of it. Well see a former president of the United States on charges that he tried to mislead the American People on january 6th of 2021. What jumped out to you when you read the indictment . It cant be repeated too often, no one is above the law. That quote from trump to pence, youre too honest, is haunting, in a way, but equally so, having lived through that January 6th Riot, now to watch donald trump appear before a court just down the block is going to be profoundly moving. The terror of that day, the damage it did to real lives, people injured and killed, capitol police. There were real consequences. You know, our democracy doesnt exist by magic. Its not a default state of being. It takes institutions and people who are willing to work, speak up, stand up for it, and were going to see test of that democracy because donald trump was not indicted by Merrick Garland or joe biden. He was indicted by a grand jury. Ordinary, Everyday Americans who were offended by what he did on january 6th and how he incited the mob and how he engaged in that conspiracy. So i think that were going to learn a lot about our democracy, and hopefully itll be upheld. Many of the people who were in that building with you on that day, on january 6th, mostly all of them republicans, have sort of backed off their criticism of donald trump. Senator tim scott, one of your colleagues, hes wellliked in the senate, came out yesterday when this indictment came down and said that this is President Biden weaponizing the doj. He knows better, of course. He was there. He knows what happened that day. He knows what donald trump did. In your private conversations with republicans, things they may not say out loud because they fear Donald Trumps voters, what are their true feelings about all of this and what were about to see in this trial . Theres no love lost in the United States senate for donald trump among republicans as well as democrats. You know, having lived through that day, when we were all aghast, frightened, terrorized, as we fled the capitol, literally walked and sometimes ran and saw and heard the mob outside, saw through the windows, heard them in the building, and then we gathered in one of the hearing rooms guarded by the not just the capitol police, but the national guard, we made the decision to go back and count the vote. Republicans, democrats together. Unfortunately, that sense of purpose has been dissipated since then. I am really disappointed that some of my republican colleagues havent been stronger in what theyve said publicly about donald trump. Senator, much of that fear to do so is fueled, though, by how popular trump remains among Republican Voters. Hes leading every poll. His numbers seem to only go up when he gets indicted again. What does it say to you right now . There are people in your state who love donald trump. There are people in every state who does. What does that say about where we are right now as a nation . I want to go back to a point that mika made earlier, because i think it is a serious one. Put aside the politics. If you look at the intelligence reports these days in the United States of america, the most persistent and lethal threat to our internal security is violent extremism. It is no longer the terrorist who is going to fly an airplane into some building. It is within our country, people, extremists, White Supremacists and others who would resort to violence over an election. So this trial is going to be a real test of our democracy. In a world where democracy is increasingly under threat, it will be a real opportunity for the United States of america to show that no one is above the law. Hes entitled to his rights just like any criminal defendant. He is assumed innocent until prevent interference, and this kind of violent extremism. So senator, there seem to be barriers to showing as you just pointed out, american citizens, the process of democracy, the process of a trial. We were talking earlier. 50 years ago this week, the watergate hearings were going on. The entire nation, you remember this. The entire nation was glued to those hearings. It was an Educational Opportunity for people not ordinarily mixing with politics or government to find out what was happening. So how is it that 50 years later with perhaps arguably the most important federal trial ever to occur within the United States judicial system, one man, john roberts, has the ability to say, put it on tv. Put this trial on tv with all the facts. The defendants, the prosecution, heres the questions. Here are the answers. Why not . One man stands between the public being educated and not being educated. I think thats an important point, mike. Sunlight is the best di disinfectant. Without it, people wont have a say. The prosecution cant do that under ethical constraints. Number tworks i have long supported legislation to open the Federal Courts including the United States Supreme Court where the Chief Justice sits, and there is no excuse in my humble opinion for the Chief Justice of the United States failing to open this courtroom because the American People need and deserve to see what goes on in this trial, and there is also no excuse by the way, for the United States Chief Justice failing to impose an ethical code of conduct for the United States Supreme Court. It is the only court i was talking yesterday to one of our most expected, the only court that doesnt have a code of ethics. They are answerable to no one, and i think the Chief Justice could defuse this issue by imposing a code of conduct this afternoon on the United States Supreme Court. Weve seen in reporting for the last couple of months the impact of all of that and some of the benefits of the members of the Supreme Court have received. I want to talk about legislation. Its called the kids Online Safety act. It advanced unanimously out of the Congress Last week, and now more than 40 lawmakers are cosponsoring that bill. It meant no safeguards including kids to opt out of algorithmic directions. You and senator Marsha Blackburn of tennessee probably dont agree on a lot of stuff, but you got together for this bill. As a parent of two teenagers, this is critically important. What if it passes, and i think you expect it will. What will it do . What changes because of it . First, let me say in the United States senate, this kind of bipartisanship is rare, and the partnership Marsha Blackburn and myself for reasons that you just mentioned may seem unlikely, but, in fact, weve worked for three years on this legislation and i do not take for granted that it will pass. We have 44 cosponsors, evenly divided republican and democrat, almost half the senate, but the opposition is there from social Media Companies and the big tech platforms because they have profited relentlessly and tirelessly from driving this toxic content about eating disorders, selfworth, bullying, sexual abuse, drugs, and what this legislation will do is give you as a parent, tools to disconnect from those black box algorithms destroying this country, causing anxiety in kids so they will spend time on these sites. It will hold the big tech platforms accountable for the first time to make sure that they are held legally responsible when they know that they could stop the harm to kids. Were talking about parents like you and young people who have come forward with these harrowing, haunting stories about lives damaged, lives lost that are so powerful. I think both senator blackburn and i have sustained this partnership over three years because of the voices and faces of these parents. Were going to meet with another group this afternoon. Im trying to mobilize them so that we pass it not only in the senate, but then in the house as well. Thats not anecdotal. Were looking at evidence and a lot of it that has done stuff to kids, made them depressed, and lonely. We would assume that are there senators that still have to be persuaded of the benefits of this . There are, and im hopeful that we will persuade them because the Big Tech Companies let me be very blunt, they have armies of lawyers and lobbyists, and we have been up against them before. Weve seen this movie. It hasnt always ended well, and we need support from the american public, from those parents and young people. I met with a group of Elementary School kids in hartford. Just a month or so ago, and they told me how their friends or buddies are afraid to come to school because of the bullying. Theyre involved in eating disorders because of social media. It follows them home to their bedroom. When we were growing up, home was a safe space. Its no longer safe, and this anxiety and anger felt by young people has become a means of social media exploiting them and making money knowingly. Frances houghen, he testified we have documents themselves. Theyre not going to give up without a fight. Your colleague, senator murphy, is working on similar issues. Hes heard the same things in his meetings with teenagers, and he was on with us a couple of weeks ago talking about that. Well keep a very close eye on this piece of legislation. Its called the kids Online Safety act. Democratic member of the judiciary committee, senator rich blumenthal of connecticut. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Still ahead, the Trump Supporters. Are they considering a second option in the 2024 republican primary . Well show you new polling on that. Plus, an update on the case of donald trump and an conflict of interest concern raised by the special counsel. Thats all straight ahead on morning joe. Traight ahead on morning joe. D joints, im feeling this moment. Along with clearer skin skyrizi helps me move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. And is just 4 doses a year after 2 starter doses. 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. Theres nothing like clearer skin and better movementand that means everything ask your doctor about skyrizi today. Learn how abbvie could help you save. tony hawk skating for over 45 years has taken a toll on my body. I take qunol turmeric because it helps with healthy joints and inflammation support. Why qunol . It has superior absorption compared to regular turmeric. Qunol. The brand i trust. The chase ink business premier card is made for sam who makes, everyday products, designed smarter. Genius like 2. 5 cash back on purchases of 5,000 or more, so sam can make smart ideas, a brilliant reality chase for business. Make more of whats yours. Do you think he knew that he lost the election . Do i personally believe that . Yeah, at first, i wasnt sure, but i have come to believe that he knew well that he had lost the election, and now what i think is important is the government has assumed the burden of proving that. The government in their indictment takes the position that he had actual knowledge that he had lost the election and the election wasnt stolen through fraud, and theyre going to have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. Thats a high bar. Thats a high bar. Now that leads me to believe that were only seeing the tip of the iceberg on this. You think jack smith has more . Oh, yes. I would believe he has a lot more, and thats one of the things that impressed me about the indictment. It was very spare, and there were a lot of things that he could have said in there, and i think theres a lot more to come, and i think they have a lot more evidence as to President Trumps state of mind. Donald trumps former Attorney General with an ominous prediction for the former president in the 2020 election case. It comes as trump faces arraignment today in Federal Court in washington. Well get a live report from washington, d. C. , and legal analysis on what we can expect from todays hearing. Meanwhile, former Vice President mike pence just gave his most direct criticism of his former boss. Well play those comments for you. Also ahead, the new reporting on a private meeting between President Biden and former president obama over concerns about the 2024 election. Good morning, and welcome to morning joe. It is thursday, august 3rd along with joe, willie, and me. We have the host of way too early, jonathan lemere, chuck rosenberg, jackie alimany, and Associate Editor of the Washington Post, euGene Robinson. So willie, you know, yesterday i expected to hear i think we all expected to hear the best that the Trump Defense team had, the best that the Trump Apologists in the media had, and man, if that was the best they got, Donald Trumps in really big trouble because first of all as barr said, its the tip of the iceberg. Theres going to be so much more coming in here. It was a very spare indictment to get things moving, but theres so much more to be seen, but we saw Savannah Guthrie. Well play the clip in a second. We saw Savannah Guthrie interview trumps lawyer, and this is on the very face of the jack smith indictment. Jack smith said, you have First Amendment right to say what you want to say. You even have a First Amendment right to lie. You do not have though the First Amendment right to commit a conspiracy to overthrow the federal government of the United States. I mean, it just makes absolutely no sense. So theyre either talking about the First Amendment or over on other news channel, people were talking about a twotiered Justice System and talking about Hunter Bidens Hubcap Rolling Off His 67 impala or something. We just heard it. That was bad. A 67 impala, you know, those hubcaps. They bounce the right way, they can take out an eye, but theyre talking about this twotier system, and as weve said, and i may have said it a little harshly yesterday when we said, we dont care if hunter biden goes to jail. I didnt mean it that way. What i mental was, if he should if hes done something, if hes found guilty, he goes to jail. Hold on. Oh, wait. Thats what we do in america. For some reason, they cant say if Donald Trumps done something, if hes guilty, he should go to jail. So theyre still this is what, again, we talked about it yesterday. It is amazing to me that these people, Kevin Mccarthy, and people on another Cable News Station spent from election day 2020 to january 6th, undermining confidence in americas voting system. In American Democracy. Its ended up costing a billion dollars. It will probably close them closer to 2 billion, but they did that, and they havent learned their lesson. Now now that donald trump its like theyre willing to just totally screw america. Theyre to Trash America for this guy. I dont want to see his face. Take him down. I dont want to see him face. Take him down. I dont want to see his face. Now theyre willing to Trash America. Theyve already trashed democracy for that guy, and if you listened to yesterday, if you listened to republicans in the house, if you listened to people on other news channels, theyre literally willing to Trash Americas judiciary. Our judicial branch, the very branch in democracy that separates us from other countries the most if you follow history. Its always the great leveler. Theyre willing to trash that now, willie. Just because donald trump got caught stealing Nuclear Secrets, because he got caught stealing secret war plans, because he got caught stealing all of these other documents and burrowed them away in his beach club in florida, and now theyve got i dont know if you told you this. Weve got a 45Page Indictment, and everybody in here thats testifying against donald trump, theyre all trumpers. Theyre not democrats here. Citizens. Er is vants. They were citizens. Public servants who were serving donald trump. They wanted him to win badly, but not so bad that we were willing to destroy the United States constitution and the American Democracy in the process, and as we said yesterday, every one of these people that testified were testifying against their own selfinterest because if donald trump had been in the white house four more years, they would have gotten more powerful, ultimately more richer and more wellconnected in washington and the world. So there you go. Networks and little members of congress in the Republican Party willing to trash American Democracy, and now the judicial system In The Name Of donald trump. How many off ramps . How many times have they been given the chance . Like he took secrets to maralago and waved them around at bedminster. That was a bookkeeping issue. Okay. How about an attempted coup against the government as detailed in this indictment . What about hunter biden . That is the political defense, what you are hearing on capitol hill from republicans. Its yes, we heard about the indictment, but did you hear what hunter biden did . Did you hear what this new witness said . Attempting to draw some equivalency there, and youre right. On the legal front, Donald Trumps attorney was on several networks and the defense is the First Amendment. Above the New York Times, the First Amendment is likely the lynch pin of donald Trump Defense. Thats where theyre going, joe. As we talked about at length yesterday, and you reminded us, in paragraph three i think, maybe four, special counsel jack smith takes that away from them by saying, yes. You had the right to say all these things, including lies. You can say whatever you want. What you cant do is conduct a criminal conspiracy, but in speech. Thank you because as you know, im a dumb Country Lawyer waving things around and dont know where things are. Thank you for birddogging it for more pe me. Sorry. Just i regress at times. Paragraph three, the defendant had a right says, jack smith, like every american to speak publicly about the election. To even claim falsely there had been an outcome of fraud and he had won. He was also entitled to challenge through lawful and appropriate means. Indeed, in many cases the defendant did pursue these methods. His efforts to change the outcomes through audits and legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful. So he had a right like every american to speak publicly about the election and to even claim falsely, willie, that there had been election fraud. He has that right if he wants to do it. He has that right, and so jack smith gets rid of that as you say in the third paragraph, and these these bumbling these bumbling lawyers are going, First Amendment, First Amendment. Judge and jury are going to look at it and say, well, wait. Jack smith talks about that in the third paragraph. So i dont know. I guess they just have absolutely nothing to defend him on. Attorney general barr former Attorney General barr as we played completely waved away that defense. He says thats complete nonens sense, the First Amendment. Thats what theyre going with. Weve seen from trumps team so far whether its the First Amendment we havent heard as much that weve heard from other politicians of the good faith argument which is that he actually believed the election was stolen and he merely was pursuing some of the things he had heard. Now unfortunately for him, there are 45 pages of evidence saying, yes. His aids and his cabinet members told him hed lost and that, in fact, these were lies. So that disrupts that as well, but what do you make of what weve heard on the First Amendment grounds here . Im glad you asked me about that, willie. There is a technical legal word for it, mr. Barr used it. Its absolute nonsense. Think of it this way. Speech designed to commit a crime speech designed to commit a fraud is not First Amendment protected. If i lie on my tax return, thats speech, but its not protected by the First Amendment. If you and i are running as ponzi scheme and we solicit money from joe and mika and tell them were going to invest it in our Investment Fund and instead we buy a boat and an island and a Minor League Baseball team, that is not First Amendment protected speech. Thats a crime. Instructing a witness to destroy documents subpoenaed by the grand jury is speech. Its not speech protected by the First Amendment. I completely agree with mr. Barr on this point. That defense that the First Amendment procludes of mr. Trump, it will not work in the political arena or in court. Period, the end. Well, lets look at whats going to happen in court today. Former President Donald Trump will be criminally charged today in washington, d. C. For allegedly trying to disrupt the same government he once swore to protect. At 4 00 this afternoon, trump will be arraigned in d. C. Federal court on four Felony Charges stemming from his alleged efforts to block the peaceful transition of power following his 2020 Election Loss. The charges are conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. Members of the d. C. Police department could be seen setting up Security Barriers outside the courthouse last night ahead of the former president s arrival. Gene robinson, we havent had a chance to get your take since this came down. Mmhmm. Its a remarkable document, 45 pages, and the president of the United States the former president of the United States once again marching into a courthouse to be indicted. Yeah, and we get inured to this because this is not the last we have seen of donald trump. This is different. This is incredible. A president of the United States attempted to cling to power, attempted to stay in office, to fight having despite having been defeated in a free and fair election. He refused to to peacefully transfer of power to his successor. That has never happened in our history, and it is it is historic that it is now being addressed with this indictment, and so this is this is a were in a different realm now. You know, i certainly agree with you and chuck. Im not even a Country Lawyer, but obviously the First Amendment defense is a dog that wont hunt, but i think the more likely route that the Trump Lawyers are going to try to go is advice of counsel, that, well, he really believed it. He was listening to the noted constitutional scholar, john eastman, and he was just listening to his lawyers. Now the weakness in that of course, is that the Attorney General of the United States and the white House Counsel and the Deputy White House counsel were all telling him, stop. This is ridiculous. This is, you know, youve got to youve got to stop this stuff. This is not nonsense. Right. And the other reason is that the the lawyers he was listening to are all unindicted coconspirators. Theres that pesky exception to attorneyclient privilege that i think would pertain here. These were coconspirators. These were not lawyers giving disinterested advice, and so i just i dont know where he goes with this except the political case. What about hunter biden . Hes got the political case. What about that hubcap that fell off of hunter biden two tiers. The media is sitting here and weeping for hunter biden. Que sera, sera. Whatever will be will be. Were on doris days whatever will be will be with hunter biden, and theres just no equivalency, political equivalency, Moral Equivalency, to whatever that ends up being and a former president of the United States trying to overthrow the federal government. This is, like, Benedict Arnolds cousin, like, stealing an apple from, you know, whatever. Its just it kept okay. That wasnt the best example. Were just trying to well be working on that one. Benedict arnolds nephew stealing a british i dont know. I just dont know anymore. If you are watching fox all day, they never read the indictment. They never read the counts. They kind of hop around it and never read the indictment and never read these charges and talk about the fact that you dont bring an indictment without proof and talk about how many of these things we saw play out in front of our eyes done by donald trump, and many of these things we saw corroborated the january 6th hearings. You never hear that because its too much fact for them. Do you know, willie, how she knows that . Because she keeps it on that station all day just to become reactive. Please dont do that. Lets watch you cant be blind to whats happening out there. Lets watch all access pottery. Dont get all she wont listen to me. I want to go chuck really quickly. I get what you are saying. I have so much respect for what you are doing there. Its disinformation. I cant do it myself. The counsel that Gene Robinson brought up, i would think part of the problem is he had his lawyers around him, lawyers all around inside the white house. He had advisers. They all told him no. He went out and basically went Forum Shopping to find the craziest Conspiracy Theories he could find especially after his own lawyer said, mr. President , youve got nothing here. January 20, 2021 will be your last day. He goes and finds Rudy Giuliani who trump himself calls crazy. Will advice of counsel carry any water in this court as a possible defense . Im glad you asked me that. So first thing, joe, there is a defense known as advice of counsel. You see it from time to time. Its a real thing. So i think this more important question is, would it pertain here . There are two basic elements to it. In order to have an advice of counsel defense, lets say joe, you, a wonderful Country Lawyer are my attorney, and i want to rely on you for advice youve given me to help prove that i had no intent to commit the crime im charged with. There are two requirements. One is that im completely candid with you, my lawyer, about all the facts of the case, and the other, element number two, is that i act in good faith upon your advice, and past is prologue, but mr. Trump has had trouble with both of those elements, candor and good faith. Its a real defense. It may be available to him for him to try and trod out in a court of law, but he would have to establish again that he was completely candid with his counsel as i was with you, and that he acted in good faith upon the advice of counsel, and i think those are stumbling blocks for mr. Trump in any setting, certainfully a court of law. Coming up, why Donald Trumps case around the 2020 election has broad implications for American Democracy. Peter baker joins us with his analysis of the New York Times straight ahead on morning joe. . The worry . That was then. And look at me now. Youll never truly forget migraine. But qulipta® reduces attacks, making zeromigraine days possible. Its the only pill of its kind that blocks cgrp and is approved to prevent migraine of any frequency. To help give you that forgetyouget migraine feeling. Dont take if allergic to qulipta®. Most common side effects are nausea, constipation, and sleepiness. Learn how abbvie could help you save. Qulipta®. The forgetyouget migraine medicine™. So lets take a look at the day ahead. Justice Reporter Ryan Riley is outside the courthouse in washington which is just a matter of blocks away from the United States capitol that was attacked on january the 6th, to 21. Former President Trump is waking up in bedminster and hell fly down this afternoon. What do you expect to see at the courthouse around 4 00 . Reporter a lot of secrecy. I think theyll bring him through the garage and up through the elevators. Theyve chosen the annex of the building behind me. Its the newer facility that was built around 2005, and it allows them to bring donald trump in, and its the same way they brought a lot of grand jurors in. Through the garage and potentially right into the courtroom. From what we understand, there will be about 11 Seats Available to the media, but that will be on a lottery system. So despite all of our producers hard work overnight standing in line here, were not necessarily guaranteed to get a spot inside the courthouse, but there will be lots of overflow and there will be a media room. Well be at least looking at this on a closed circuit television, being able to see whats happening inside the courtroom. It probably should be a very short hearing. I expect, you know, Going Forward in this case, were probably going to see some Change Of Venue motions. Those have all failed in january 6th cases before, and the Justice Department has a lot of evidence to point to d. C. Jurors are able to handle these cases appropriately despite the democrat leanings of d. C. , and both the proud boys and the oathkeepers case, there were acquittals. For several counts there were acquittals on both of those kaszst cases and there have been other acquittals in january 6th cases altogether, so there is some evidence that the process can work here, that jurors can swear their oath, can take these take the evidence on its face and despite, you know, maybe not being particularly fond of donald trump, can look at the facts and decide them fairly. You know, when chuck was sort of talking about the First Amendment grounds, it struck me that potentially if that was the defense, they would be calling for the charges against hunter biden and that gun case to be dropped because then hunter biden has a First Amendment right to lie about being a drug addict on a gun form. That is not something thats going to have much merit in this courtroom behind me, and especially, you know, given the judges who know a lot of the facts about these cases. Just yesterday we saw a defendant who was charged and it was a cardinals mascot who ran around the stadium in st. Louis painted in red and he was just arrested yesterday. This is someone who a lot of Conspiracy Theorists believe was an undercover office, but nope. The sleuths identified him and lo and behold, he was arrested yesterday. These are continuing to churn and donald trump is just one more florida man charged in connection with january 6th. The red bird. An unofficial mascot. That was very disturbing to learn just a minute ago. Let me ask you about security there. Obviously a coordinated effort between the capitol police, and Secret Service involved as well with the former president being there. There was some anticipation around the arraignment here in New York City and lower manhattan. New York City Police said dont try that here. Its not going to work, and by and large most people stayed away. What are they expecting there in terms of a crowd . Reporter you know, yesterday we did see somewhat of a crowd as well as the day before. Not massive. Handleable, but, you know, i think these bike racks are going to keep people away from the building hopefully. When i saw them when i was here last night bringing them out, i was, like, you know, bike racks, very on theme for january 6th. That was if first thing breached during that initial breach and that was not something that stood out. Donald trump hasnt summoned anyone to come here pitch expect a lot of supporters to show up, but its not this mass event, and it was done on a pretty quick time frame. It wasnt as though you could get necessarily a ton of people to show up because this is, you know, only basically 48 hours from when we learned about the charge ops tuesday. So, you know, we should see some supporters here, and perhaps trying to get their moment on camera, but, you know, obviously d. C. Is now in a posture where they can react to this pretty quickly and have a decent Security Situation set up here. The former president of the United States will be arraigned today at 4 00 eastern time in that courthouse behind you. Nbc news justice Reporter Ryan Riley. Thanks so much. So john, he mentioned Change Of Venue potential Change Of Venue highly unlikely. Donald trump suggesting the state of West Virginia would be appropriate. He won by 40 points there in both of his elections. Yeah. This was trumps take here on social media. He says lets move to an impartial venue, like the Politically Unbiased version of West Virginia. They had nothing to do with january 6th, and he won by 36 points in 2020. I was talking yesterday, concern about security around it and makes the point that Donald Trumps most violent supporters, those who will be likely to cause trouble, well, theyre already in jail for january 6th. Some of the news outlets have journalists who stand in line and try to get a seat in the courthouse, but we dont know if thats going to happen. Jackie, we should note you have been covering this all very closely. Trumps got a new legal team in place for these proceedings. Tell us about what we know of them, and beyond perhaps the First Amendment considerations, what other possible defenses might we hear from them today, and we should finally note that in previous indictments and arraignments, donald trump has addressed the media afterwards. They havent said whether he will today. There are a lot of tbds right now, but at this point a lot of the Media Outlets are welloiled machines when it comes to operating around Donald Trumps indictments. Were going to potentially have a presser, or be doing a very lastminerally in the area, but a lot of that is up in the air, and as weve seen there is a lot of bravado, public statements, you know, claiming that trump is welcoming these indictments, people and allies on his Campaign Arguing that this is only good for his polling numbers, but at the end of the day when trump has appeared in the courthouse before the judge to enter his plea deal, hes appeared dour and extremely unhappy to be there. Although, you know, in the aftermath, he has always made the rounds either at, you know, cafes around miami or, you know, parading through New York City in his motorcade, but he does have a new legal team that has a little bit less experience than the media does in attending these arraignments. He has todd blanch who has been with him since alvin bragg dropped charges to Hush Money Payments to Stormy Daniels. He was previously representing some other trump people, was brought onto the team. It was probably the most well respected and seasoned lawyer that is now helming the entire trump legal effort. There is also christopher who was on the maralago Documents Case. Hes now more involved with that case. We havent seen much of him with regard to the january 6th investigation. And the tv lawyer weve seen these past few days who also is someone whos well respected and has experience with this, but as chuck and a few people noted has been making some interesting behind the eight ball arguments about what trumps Legal Defense is going to be, primarily focusing on issue of free speech when jack smiths charges have very savily avoided issue. When i talked to january 6th Committee Members yesterday who commanded smith with dropping the Insurrection Charge and going with conspireing against peoples right to have their votes counted because it does help prosecutors avoid this argument over free speech, and instead gives juries a little bit of an insurance card to judge trump on his conduct as opposed to his opinions or beliefs. Coming up, our next guest believes donald trump would be willing to kick off another insurrection unless hes held responsible for what happened on january 6th. The head of the republican accountability project joins the conversation straight ahead on morning joe. pensive music footsteps crunching pensive music birds tweeting pensive music broom sweeping [narrator] one in five Children Worldwide are faced with the reality of living without food. No family dinners, no special treats, no full bellies. All around the world, parents are struggling to feed their children. 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Army uses the term rape. The way its defined in dictionaries rape is, and he committed rape, but thats not this case. Theres still another lawsuit because he continues to defame this woman with wild abandon, and so shes suing him again. This isnt the rape case. This is not the rape case. And not the Nuclear Secrets . Its not that one either. Wait, no. It is that one. Theres so many. So its not the case that he tried to overthrow the federal government and the election . Its not that one. Okay. Its the rape case. Jack smith has its not the rape case. Its the case where they tried to steal not tried. He stole Nuclear Secrets and lied about it. I got it. He has asked judge Aileen Cannon to discuss trump iss handling of the classified documents Including Military Secrets at his Maralago Club in florida. Nbc news has learned the issues stemmed from stanley woodwards representation of trump aide walt nauta and other witness in the case. According to a court filing yesterday, woodwards current and past clients include three people who could be called to testify against nauta. Nauta is charged with conspireing to obstruct the governments efforts to reclaim classified documents. Woodward at one point also represented represented Yuscil Taveras who was announced an aide in the alleged conspiracy to delete Security Footage at maralago. Taveras was not indicted in the case, and there are reports he may have cooperated with the doj after receiving a Target Letter last month and obtaining new legal representation. Despite taveras receiving new counsel, woodwards ongoing representation of nauta could still be an issue. That itself is a massive case. Yeah. Weve seen judges before bring up concerns about overlapping interests. Here youre actually talking about the freedom, the possible freedom or the incarceration of several men here. I would expect a judge to step in and say, counsel a, you cannot represent these two or three people whose interests are diametric could be diametrically opposed in the dealings with the government. Do you suspect thats what well see . I do, joe. I think youre exactly right. I think this is relatively simple. If an attorney represents lets make it easy here, two people, and one of them is a witness at trial, and one of them is a defendant at trial, then that attorney has information because he represented both of them, that he could use to the advantage of one and the disadvantage of the other. Thats the conflict. Its not that complex. The government was absolutely right to raise the issue with the court. The court has to hold a hearing on this. Now of course, if the government succeeds in getting one of the lawyers getting kicked off the case, that slows things down a little bit. So be it. Its more important to protect all the individuals in the case or the record on appeal than it is to go faster than you would ought to go. I would like to see all the cases tried before the election. That may not happen, moving to conflict out an attorney will inevitably slow the case down or could slow a case down, but as a lawyer, you always have a duty of confidentiality and loyalty to all of your clients forever. That doesnt end when one of them is charged and the other one becomes a witness. It lasts forever, and so you cannot use as a lawyer, Confidential Information you got from one person to help another. Thats the conflict. It seems relatively straight forward to me. The government has a right to ask for a hearing and i imagine the judge is going to very seriously consider asking mr. Nauta to find another lawyer. Coming up, well go live to the Federal Courthouse in washington where former President Donald Trump is set to be arraigned just hours from now. Nbcs ken delanian is there, and he joins us with the very latest straight ahead on morning joe. Straight ahead on morning joe. So you only pay for what you need. Thats 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. Before planning the wedding your bad hip was really acting up. Then, you heard about mako roboticassisted hip replacement. It starts with a ct scan to pinpoint the problem. That becomes a personalized, 3d plan to guide your doctor during surgery. Mako can help lead to better outcomes, like less pain and shorter recovery times. The lifetime of a hip implant is limited, and revision surgery may be required. Individual results and recovery times vary. Risks of surgery include pain, infection, heart attack, stroke, death, and other serious risks. Ask your doctor for important safety information. To find a doctor who uses mako visit makocan. Com tony hawk skating for over 45 years has taken a toll on my body. To find a doctor who uses mako i take qunol turmeric because it helps with healthy joints and inflammation support. Why qunol . It has superior absorption compared to regular turmeric. Qunol. The brand i trust. These two individuals nauta and carlos. Carlos are dragged into this thing. Their lives turned upside down by trump to pursue, you know, this caper of his, and he leaves in his wake ruined lives like this, the people who went up to capitol hill. These individuals, many of the people who served him in government that got sucked into things, and he leaves all this carnage in his wake. Do you think he cares about that . No. He doesnt care about that. Loyalty is a oneway street for him. Loyalty a oneway street. Wow. We all know that. EuGene Robinson, just to build on this, its ridiculous actually that walt nauta and the other criminal defendant have the same attorney as donald trump. Its ridiculous because at some point, this would be true in any case. At some point, if you are working, you know, at the direction of a principal, and they ask you to do something illegal for them, your interest diverges sharply with the prince tall the second everybody gets arrested because youre able to strike a separate deal with the state or with the feds, whatever it is, and this is a case i just cant imagine the judge. I cant imagine anybody allowing these two codefendants to be to be tied to donald trump with a lawyer who will not be giving them advice that is in their best interest. Their best interest on how to stay out of jail. Exactly. It seems obvious to me that nauta needs to find another lawyer, that this lawyer does have this conflict. Woodward and that that seems to be the end of that, you know, this is something ive rarely said, but bill barr makes such an excellent point there because look at the wreckage. Look at the wreckage from the from the Trump Indictments, just the ones that we have so far, right . The first one, the Stormy Daniels payment, michael cohen, trumps lawyer went to jail because of that caper. Look at the Documents Case. Youve got nauta and, you know, hes just in the hot seat, potentially going to jail again. Hes trying to follow Donald Trumps orders, and in this case, in the january 6th case, youve had more than what, a thousand people face justice. Many of them go to jail, some of them for Seditious Conspiracy after donald trump fired them up and sent them off to the to sack the capitol essentially. It is it is amazing, and it would be a travesty for all these other people to suffer the consequences of Donald Trumps selfish, egotistical, egomaniacal behavior, and for trump himself not the face consequences. Jackie its just right that hes facing consequences. Jackie, what will you be watching and looking for today as we watch this historic moment happen before our eyes . C moment happen before our eyes once he switched lawyers. The thing that jack myth was arguing yesterday is how is woodward going to crossexamine. Tease are in the kiemt indictment, either coconspirator or who continues to work for President Trump, and people like jason miller, who continues to be a senior adviser, suzy wyles who is a top person on the trump campaign. All people who have come before jack smith and cooperated in some form or another, with the classified Documents Case or now, the january 6th case. Willie, first of all, just suzy wyles very well said. Considered one of the republicans, as the most important, powerful Campaign Minds in the state of florida. Shes running Donald Trumps campaign. Apparently based on reports. Hes shes the one he showed, you know, these maps of war plans. So shes thrown right into the middle of that stuff. Middle of that stuff. And secondly, i want to say, maybe its a generational thing. But when bill barr calls a conspiracy to steal Nuclear Secrets a caper. A caper. Well i would say stealing an apple pie from the top of a ledge is a caper. I think hes actually theres a little bit of a i think hes talking about trumps stupidity there because he is so dumb. And what hes done with these documents is so dumb. Everything he does, he does out in the open. And you read the indictments, all of them, hes so dumb. Le knows how to play the media. And some fall for it. Hes been working the New York Post and the daily news since 1975 and 1976. And he really never figured out where the sharp line was between page six columnists and jack smith. Its going to likely im serious here. Little difference. It will likely cause him his freedom, because hes able to get away with stuff his entire life. He didnt figure out, you dont cross the feds. You dont do illegal things and expect to get out of an indictment and a charge that could send you to jail for life. Youre right. Hes operated in total impunity in his adult life. In New York City, in his days in politics. Its all a game to him. Everybody has to be loyal or disposed of. Now, he is learning this is not a game. Jake smith is taking this seriously. And our Justice System takes his alleged crimes very seriously. On your report what he would say to susie wiles. The former Attorney General said, youre all going to be witnesses and have to testify. He will commit some other crime and do something else. And youre going to be accomplices. Youre going to be in the room. You have to decide if thats worth it to you. The Washington Post Jackie Alemany, coming on. And chuck is not a simple lawyer. I would not want to be as a simple Country Lawyer, a cross across the table from him. I would not. He seems so gentle. Look at him raise that eyebrow. Elite killer, baby. We appreciate your insight. See what he did with that eyebrow . Thats a gift. Coming up, what is driving the day on wall street. A look at the latest from cnbc, after u. S. Stocks and bonds suffered a major selloff following americas credit downgrade. Keep it here on morning joe. Frustrated by skin tags . Dr. Scholls has the breakthrough youve been waiting for. The first fdacleared athome skin tag remover clinically proven to remove skin tags safely in as little as one treatment. Im jayson. Im living with hiv and im on cabenuva. It helps keep me undetectable. For adults who are undetectable, cabenuva is the only complete, longacting Hiv Treatment you can get every other month. Cabenuva is two injections, given by my healthcare provider, every other month. Its really nice not to have to rush home and take a daily hiv pill. Dont receive cabenuva if youre allergic to its ingredients or if you taking certain medicines, which may interact with cabenuva. 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Well get a live report from washington in a moment, as trump is hours away from an arraignment hearing. It really is something. I go back to the announcement that theyre downgrading because were politically we have political challenges. During bill clintons impeachment process, everybody was going to the floor. The hair was on fire. This is the end. This is the end. I remember going, this is what the constitution calls for. Lets go through the process. Take a deep breathe. It was around christmastime. And i said, you know, right now, around america, a lot more people focused on the kids, putting up christmas trees, families coming home for vacations, hanukkah. They are not freaking out. We have a constitution that allowed for it in bill clintons process. And allows for it in Donald Trumps process. If youre watching from the outside, this may seem shocking. But in america, we always say no one is above the law. This is simply keeping in that promise that maybe, just maybe, america means what it says and says what it means. This might be the best example of it, a former president of the United States, even he is not above the law. He know most of the republicans say the Department Of Justice being weaponized. They dont mean that. If they do mean it, that means our Justice System should look the other way around what happened in the 2020 election. Look the other way with everything we saw with our own eyes on january 6th. Thats not weaponization. Thats pursing justice. If in fact the former president of the United States had a hand in that, was involved in that, he should be charged with something. He will get a fair trial in washington, that starts today at 4 00 eastern time with his arraignment. 4 00 today. And what led up to this . The grand jury . Is that a twotiered Justice System . 12 american citizen voters. Whether in washington, d. C, or south florida or manhattan, wherever they may be. Fulton county, georgia. Again, its a grand jury made up of voters. Not made up of left wingers. Time and again, if youve just tuned in for the first time in a couple of days, this indictment, not left wingers. Not New York Times editorial page editors. Not people that write columns for the nation or for mother jones. These are republicans. Not just republicans. These are trump republicans. I mean, trumps Vice President , the Senior Leaders that donald trump put in charge of the Justice Department, the director of National Intelligence that trump selected, the department of homeland security, cyber security, and infrastructure security agency, donald trump said it was the cleanest election of alltime. His senior white house attorneys, donald trump selected every one of those senior members of his campaign team. People that all would have benefitted from donald trump stealing the election. They all stood up and said, no. And they testified and told jack smith and local republicans. Were losing the signal there. We have a busy day as we pick that up again in a moment. Were working on that. A very busy day, jonathan lemire. Well see, perhaps, the former president of the United States is expected to go through a tunnel and up through the elevator. We may get a glimpse of him somewhere in that process. See a former president of the United States, sitting to be arraigned, for crimes hes alleged to have committed while a sitting president , to overturn a president ial election. This has never happened before in our history, a former president facing criminal charges. Now, it will be the third time in four months this will happen to donald trump. We believe that at this point, cameras will not be in the courtroom. Theres hope that could change further in the trial. Donald trump, we learned from u. S. Marshals, he will be fptded again. No mug shot, they will use a photograph of him. Its not clear if we will hear from trump today. The previous indictments, they gave a press statement but have not said if they will do that. We shouldnt lose sight how unique and important this is, particularly for this case. He is being charged to trying to overturn the will of the people. Trying to interfere with the peaceful transfer of power, the bedrock of our democracy. And one that will now, this case will be in the background, as he tries to make a bid for the white house again. One he hopes could, if he wins, would be able to make all of the legal trouble go away. The stakes couldnt be higher for our democracy. We have joe and mika back with us. You plug in your camera as the same outlet of your xbox. It should have been too much charge for one place. Definitely. I do. Were playing call of duty at the same time. We play madden a lot. Explain to people why that happened. This is the top of mikas condo. And from the top of mikas condo, weve been dealing with a lot of canadian smoke. Obviously, that sometimes interferes with the signal. Also, of course, i blast when im doing the show, i blast Lee Greenwoods proud to be america. And it attracts american bald eagles. Sometimes they get in front of that satellite dish. And they cause the signal to act up. I got to say, its worth it. I want new yorkers to hear Lee Greenwood in the morning. Willie, you understand, right . Since youre going there, you go up before the show. Big cup of coffee. You stand there and summon the eagles. Youre in various states of undress, it has to be said. And thats awkward when chopper 4 goes by and catches some of that. Thats what you do. Thats how we start our day. This sound youre hearing, thats the sound that midtown new york hears all the time. You know, london, apple studios, they have let it be. Well, the top of mikas condo, we got Lee Greenwood. Lets let it breathe, yall. Littleknown fact, willie geist, im a gold record, given to me by Lee Greenwood personally. Come on. True story . I will bring it on the air. I do. I do. Lets get to real facts. Its hanging up. You do love that song. Hold on. I love it. I like how he said detroit. Houston to l. A. New york to l. A. I dont like say New York City in the song. Thats why i play it. You like this . I like it a lot. You know what . Its a very fitting song. Now, we can get over this stuff, about my condo. Never interrupt this one. You dont interrupt when he says stand up. Maybe tomorrow, i bring in my gold record. When you said you had a gold record, i thought it was one of your sit singles from your disco phase. Yeah. You know as everybody knows, before i won, i was the writer and producer of ring my bell. Uncredited. All right. Uncredited. I like to keep it quiet. Look at that. Oh, my god. That ferry. Nice t. J. The Staten Island ferry, man. Hold on. Hold on. Lets be quiet for a second. My gosh. Spectacular. Holy cow. Wow. T. J. , did you coordinate that . No. You have to let that breathe. No. Willie im done letting it breathe. You got to let me. Willie, we have to show t. J. , right . The fact that t. J. Had the statue of liberty, Lee Greenwood, the Staten Island ferry . All those things coming together at once. Were a welloiled machine. The ferry pulls out of frame just as the song ends for that single shot of lady liberty. T. J. Ten minutes after the top of the hour. If youre joining us on the west coast, we apologize for joe and willie. What are you apologizing for . They love Lee Greenwood, too. The part of the song you love the most . And proudly stand up. And it stops, right . And everyone stands up. Do you think Lee Greenwood would come on the show this. I dont. In about seven hours, former President Donald Trump is going to be arraigned in the d. C. Courthouse. Joining us now live outside the d. C. Courthouse, nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent, ken dilanian. Ken, if we can get back on track here, will you set the stage for what we will see today at 4 00 p. M. Eastern . Reporter no Famous Country music singers, mika. But president former President Donald Trump, expected to fly here on a private jet and enter this building through a tunnel. We may never see him in public. But hes going to appear in a magistrate judges courtroom. Not the judge presiding over the case. As we saw in miami, its a pretty proforma, a routine hearing. The charges will be presented and hell have an opportunity to enter the plea. In florida, his lawyer entered that plea on his behalf. Its unclear if he will utter any words during this proceeding. The magistrate judge may discuss some coconditions, for example, impose some orders of not having contact with other witnesses in the case. Thats unclear. Mr. Trump will have to be booked and processed again. His fingerprints will be taken with a digital machine. As in miami, theyre not going to take a mug shot photo. They will take an existing photo as his booking photo. It remains to be seen if he makes public appearances here or gets on the plane and leaves, guys. All right. Nbc news justice dilanian. And sarah longwell, and state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave airenberg. You write in part, quote, the most essential facts of the case are not in dispute. Nor did he deny any of the assertions made in the indictment on tuesday. Mr. Trump was astonishingly open at the time in declaring he wanted to overturn the election. Since leaving office, he has called for the turn of the constitution to reinstall him in the white house immediately. The question is, whether the facts add up to crimes, at a federal grand jury at mr. Smiths behest. As no other president tried to dispute defeat at the ballot box before, in charges were brought. Theres no president for applying the statute on the books for a circumstance. Now, the justice suspect and the electoral system will engaged in a 15month race to see which will decide his fate first. And the countrys. The real verdict on the Trump Presidency is still to come. Were watching it play out in realtime. The issue of cameras in the courtroom will be a big one moving forward . It will. Obviously, no one has more interest in this than the public. Such a bearing not just on history and what happened in 20202021, but what may happen in 2024 Going Forward. I think theres this tension there between the desire to have a trial on an orderly basis, but managing to find a way to get it done in time for voters to evaluate what it means for them before they cost their ballots. As it is, the classified Documents Case is scheduled for a trial in florida in may. It wont happen until after most of the republican primaries will be held. Well know who will be the republican nominee at the moment. Trump is the frontrunner, way far out in front. And you know, this trial, we dont know when it will be scheduled. Whether it can be scheduled before the voters get a crack at it. Theres so many things on President Trumps legal schedule. Its packed in there with the trial in march in new york. Hes got some civil trials coming up, as well. Sarah, your group, the republican accountability project, is out with a new political ad in response to the third indictment. It will run in swing states on programs the former president is known to watch. Lets take a look. You have to get your people to fight. And we fight. Youll never take back our country with weakness. We fight like hell. We will never concede. You dont concede when theres theft involved. Hang mike pence. When we walk down to the capitol, ill be there with you. And if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. Sarah, im looking at where youre airing this ad, and its places that are not hearing the trump in places on january 6th, in shows like hannity, and in state including pennsylvania, georgia, arizona and wisconsin, all of which are named in the 45Page Indictment, as places that the former president of the United States, meddled, interfered to try to overturn the results of the election. Thats right. Look. Donald trump, the indictments, they actually help him with these sort of hardcore trump voters. But it does hurt him for swing voters and those that might be persuadable. Weve seen in the latest polling, donald trump and joe biden are in an essential polling tie. Thats deeply frightening. You have to remind voters who donald trump is. Remind him this is the guy that tried to overturn an election. And we have to remind him over and over and over again. One thing i saw in all of the focus groups i do, is during the january 6th committee hearings, you did see some real slippage in support for trump. And so, elevating the salience of what he did on january 6th, reminding people how terrible that was, we want to continue to keep that in voters minds, so they remember who this guy is. So much of this trial is going to overshadow the elections. Timing is a big part of it. Trump is facing so many in legal issues, whats your best analysis as to the sequencing of these trials . In particular, this one. The january 6th case, the attempt to overturn the election. When do you think this trial will get started . And is there going to be a Change Of Venue to a deep red state like West Virginia. No. Hes not going to get this case moved from washington, d. C. Judge chutkan is a wellrespected judge. Just because she ruled against him, he wants to move it to a neutral site, like West Virginia, where he won by 40 points in the last election. Instead of judge chutkan, he would rather have the my pillow guy as a neutral arbiter. Hes not going to get this. This case will go first. Thats because washington, d. C. Circuit, they have zero tolerance for games to delay things. Judge canon, by contrast, is going to grant the multiple delays. The trial on the documents will take place after the election. I think it will get moved again and again until after the election. My counterpart in manhattan, alvin bragg, recently said he would be okay stepping aside, moving his trial to allow for the feds to take precedence. Thats something that state prosecutors often do, if the feds want to try a case, we let them. If they want to go first, we step aside. I think this case will go first, even before the new york trial. You can see this go in eight months, which would be around march. Lets just say, judge canon has been criticized by the 1 1st circuit for decisions she made regarding special counsel. Lets say here, if it is moved back, in her defense, this Documents Case, more complicated because youre dealing with so much classified material, than the january 6th case. Looks like jack smith, this is a lean, taught indictment of donald trump. Its something that you can almost prove on four corners of that indictment and have discovery on those issues with those people. Judge canon will be dealing with more complicated issues involving security in her case, correct . Yes. All true. Theres the federal act, the sepa act, that does not apply to january 6th. And jack smith clearly wants this case to go first. You know how i know that, joe . As you said, its a streamlined case, where the other codefendants, the coconspirators were not indicted here. Theres six other people who will be indicted in this case. But theyre not indicted with trump because jackson didnt want them to bring the case down. So, their day of getting their day of reckoning is coming. I think you saw that jack smith didnt want to swing for the fences here. Its a taught case. He can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. Theres no conspiracy or incitement of a riot or Insurrection Charges. The charges he filed were charges we expected months ago. After all, a year ago, judge david carter said it was more likely than not that donald trump committed the crimes of obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to defraud the United States. These charges are not much of a surprise. Its likely as in the other case, theres going to be more charges that will be coming later. Superseding charges coming later. Youre right. He started this thing out. And he wants it on the rocket docket to get it moving. State attorney for palm beach county, dave arenberg. Lets ask you, the same question that i asked my fellow former republican travelers, what they are hearing from people close to them who have supported donald trump over the past couple of elections. I noticed. Charlie sykes has noticed, theres an exhaustion that set in. And people, a lot of republicans im not saying 55 or 60 of republicans, but a lot of republicans who have been with trump, from the beginning, say im exhausted, im tired of him attacking other republicans. We have to find somebody else because i want to win. Yeah. Thats the problem, right . You cant beat something with nothing. This field of candidates has been showing us nothing. Ron desantis, nikki haley, all of them decided they are not going to go hard at trump. Theyre going to defend him when the charges come out. As a result, donald trump continues to dominate this primary and all of these other candidates have become bit players around the drama of donald trump. Theres no opportunity for somebody else to break through. I talk to the republicans, every week. The twotime trump voters. Theres a chunk of them that want to move on. I did a group just this week. And i was asking them, if donald trump isnt the nominee, who would you like to see . Well, i like tim scott. He seems nice. I like swami. Nobody even brought up ron desantis. He didnt get mentioned organically, which i thought was telling. But theres nobody that people are consolidating around, that theyre excited about. Theres got to be somebody thats willing to go headtohead with that. And theyve all chosen to run for second place because theyre all defending him. You cant beat something with nothing. Its a catch22. You cant beat the guy at the head of the pack if youre afraid to go after the guy at the head of the pack. But the loyalty runs so deeply to donald trump, even from people who are exhausted. They may want to go to donald trump. But they dont want fellow republicans the attack this guy, when media is attacking, liberals are attacking, democrats. Theres seems to be this feeling i can criticize donald trump. I dont want to hear other candidates or the media attacking him. There are republicans that have gone straight at him. Like Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson and will hurd and they havent gotten attraction. That strategy hasnt worked better than not going after him strategy. Right now, he is the dominant uncontested figure inside the Republican Party. Attacking him and sucking up to him hasnt worked for any of the other contenders. They have not demonstrated they can track a following or be the alternative. I thought they were running on the assumption, that trump would selfdestruct. They wouldnt take him on because they would wait for him to implode and pick up the pieces not alienaing his base. That doesnt seem to be happening. Doesnt seem to be any sign that trump is going to collapse of his own weight. This third indictment is at stake and more fundamental to our system. Its harder to brush off hush money for a porn star. Well, you know, mishandling documents. This goes to the heart of our democracy. It forces Republican Voters to take seriously what hes been accused of. We havent seen slippage in a major way thats provided an opening for another candidate. Not yet. Well be watching as things play out after the arraignment today. Again at 4 00 eastern today. Well carry that live on msnbc. Sarah longwell, thank you for being on with us. And coming up on morning joe, a downgrade of the nations Credit Rating drove wall street deep into the red. But experts say the selloff is nothing to worry about. Cnbcs russ sorkin is going to be here. He has analysis ahead of the opening bell. Ill bet he is a big Lee Greenwood fan, too. I think he is. Plus, the first sign of movement in a stalemate between Hollywood Studios and the writers on strike since early may. Well tell you what it is. Listen, mika. Theyre playing my song. You can ring my bell. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. When moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis takes you off course. 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Ask your gastroenterologist about rinvoq and learn how abbvie can help you save. More shopping . You should watch your spending honey. Im 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, ill 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. Bridgett is here. Only pay for what you need. She has no clue that im here. She has no clue whos in the helmet. Are you ready . Im ready alright. Xfinity rewards creates experiences big and small, and onceinalifetime. Look at beautiful seattle for you this morning at 32 past the hour. Welcome back to morning joe. Do you think Lee Greenwood on top of the needle, willie do you think if we blasted that maybe wont go over as well as n seattle. You find the highest peak in every American City and you play Lee Greenwood and youre going to get a good reception. How could you not . Its our not our national anthem. But pretty close. Pretty its pretty close. Let me tell you, the response is last segment or predictable. Lets go i dont know. Are you on threads . Im on the threats and the twitter. No twitter. Youre not on twitter. Lets be honest. This is the type of threads that i like. Morning joe is so much better when Joe Scarborough takes the day off. Let me say let me say to that person, i agree with you. Its so much better when i get to take the day off. Then, they say, why is mika so rude to you . Youre never rude to me. Sometimes you have to be assertive. Yeah. Now, were going to the twitter. The kids are calling x. Im off twitter. Im not doing it. There seems to be a theme here. Joe nbc, you need a day off. Oh. Exactly. Yeah. Theres a lot of this. Oh, joe needs to be back on his meds. I do. I think i need to take a couple of days off. You have to listen to the people. The credit score has been downgraded. You should embrace that criticism and take some time. Take some you time. Sweetie, i got to take no. Can i just say this . No. No. Dont do that. Willies right. No. I need to worry about me for once. Willie, can you cover us. I like reading the feedback on the air . Me time. Realtime. Realtime. Americas credit score has been downgraded earlier this week. Fitch ratings reduced the countrys Credit Rating from aaa to aaplus. And steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years. Yesterday, the downgrade sparked a selloff in stocks. And the s p 500 fell 1. 4 . Lets bring in the anchor of squawk box. Andrew sorkin. When i say what im about to say. I probably sound like a lot of people on september 14th, 2008. Or sound like a lot of people in september of 1929. But this fitch thing with jamie dimon sounds like a lot of nothing. You look at the resilience of coming out of covid, we may not be doing great. But were the tallest building in schenectady, at least for now. That, we are, joe. And for that reason, almost alone, i dont think you can take anything immediate or technical away from what fitch has said here. The bond market folks, whether its warren buffett, jamie diamond, we talked to joe manchin this morning. Everybody recognizes, its not the report is not going to change anything. Theres reasonable questions why they put out this report and the downgrade when they did, given that the own models show that things are actually getting better. If they were going to put this out before, you would think they would do it two or three years ago. If theyre going to downgrade our debt and you want the ratings to have semblance of accuracy or anything, you have to go to every other country. When the United States sneezes everybody else sneezes. Theres that. Having said that, theres something valuable that fitch is raising this issue. Im not going to say, hey, we have a debt problem in the United States. To relate this back to Lee Greenwood and his famous song. Is he a onehit wonder . I think that was 1984. Hold on a second. Hold on. Willie, can you please correct Andrew Ross Sorkin . Wood. Willie. Help me. First of all, its greenwood, andrew. Its out of ignorance. What are the other famous songs hes got . Well, first of all, willie, can you let andrew know the correct pronunciation of lees name . Greenwood. Greenwood. Somebodys got to love ya number one song. We can go on and on with this game show. I was going to say, in the early 80s, i was trying to relate it back. In the early 80s we had about 5 trillion of debt in the mid 90s. And we have about 32 trillion of debt today. And so, from a trajectory perspective, obviously, thats a very bad thing. Were talking numbers, andrew. The economy, blah, blah, blah. Willie, let me add to this. I cant believe what im hearing. Of his singles, seven have reached number one. A onehit wonder . Okay. Im wrong. Im wrong. A onehit wonder . We did the theory of relativity. Oh, Lee Greenwood did proud to be american. Come on. Seven number one hits. Good bless him and america. I dont mind the thorns if youre the rose. Exactly. Going, going, gone. This is so stupid. Go ahead, andrew. Its probably good that i dont cover the music industry. Lets just leave it there. Go ahead. You were saying. We have a debt problem. It has not truly reared its ugly head in any meaningful way yet. The question is when and if it ever will. And politically, in this country that we live in today, that is so kohlerized, is there any way to take control of this . In an environment where people wants stuff and doesnt want to give up stuff, its hard to see how we get there. As much as we think that should happen. As you know, jpmorgan ceo said of the downgrade, its ridiculous and doesnt really matter. We make the markets make the decisions, not rating agencies. Pretty much. One second. The market did go down yesterday. Everybody, all of the headlines say its a result of fitch. Im not sure thats the case. We had hot, good jobs numbers out of adp. We get the Unemployment Rate tomorrow from the government. And the important part about that is, the numbers are so hot, and good, in some ways, we talk about this, there was a view that the Federal Reserve may try to raise Interest Rates as a function of the fact that actually theres so much employment. Thats why the stock market moved the way it did yesterday, as opposed to the fitch thing, thats an obvious headline, but not necessarily how we got here. Thats good context. One mans view. Let me ask you. Looks like there may be i dont want to get too excited. But talks on this Writers Strike in hollywood. Not the actors side. But the Writers Union is now talking, perhaps in a productive way to end this with some of the studios. Theres going to be a meeting on friday. It will an important meeting to set up more talks. This is directionally in the right direction. Theres a potential plan to put together committees, to talk about issues. A. I. And other things being among them. I dont think this gets resolved by the weekend. Does it get resolved by labor day . We dont know the answer. And where do the actors piece of this, does that get done at the same time . Do they try to nail down the Writers First and then the actors . This will play out several more weeks, if not longer. All right. Cnbcs Andrew Ross Sorkin, thank you very much. Were sorry about all this. Sorry for my musical knowledge. Very low. Go on spotify or apple today and put Lee Greenwood on a loop. Youll be fine, young man. Thank you, andrew. Coming up, were following Donald Trumps arraignment this morning. Hes set to appear in Federal Court hours from now, over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Our next guest experienced firsthand the threats and chaos surrounding those efforts. Arizonas top Elections Official joins us straight ahead on morning joe. We moved out of the city so our little sophie could appreciate nature. But then he got us tmobile home internet. I was just trying to improve our signal, so some of the trees had to go. I mightve taken it a step too far. chainsaw revs tree crashes chainsaw continues daughter screams lets pretend for a second that you didnt let down your entire family. What would that reality look like . Well i guess i wouldve gotten us xfinity. And wed have a better view. Do you need mulch . What, we have a ton of mulch. Were projecting that kati hobbs is the winner. Secretary of state of arizona. Nbc is projecting Adrian Fontes as the winner. Arizona Attorney General for only 280 votes. The former candidate, kari lake is vowing to take her fight to the Supreme Court. Abe holiday is filing a lawsuit. Today, the Maricopa County heard arguments in the mark finchem lawsuit. Just into the newsroom, a judge has ruled against kari lakes lawsuit. A judge denying abe homedaes election challenge. A judge has tossed a case by mark finchem. Kari lake has been former secretary of state candidate mark finchem has been censured by a judge, challenging the 2022 election. Republican candidates for four top offices in arizonas 2022 elections fought and lost. Their election challenges. Joining us now, Adrian Fontes. His 2022 election opponent, just dropped his challenge to his Election Loss on tuesday. My goodness. Thanks for being with us. Were looking at election deniers, obviously, on the national stage. Youre dealing with it there. I think one of the really pleasant surprises, i think thats an understatement, in the 2022 election, was to see how election deniers were roundly defeated in office after office, in arizona, nevada, and other states where they seem so prevalent. What was your takeaway from 22 and where we are going into 24 . First, thank you for having me. Second, people understand the business of america is business. Business and government work hand in hand, when you have unpredictable, chaotic folks running government, thats bad for business. That means families will ultimately suffer. What we ran on in arizona wasnt necessarily probusiness, it was prosanity. Prorational thinking. Progetting stuff done instead of the radical Conspiracy Theorys that opponents were running on. Some won by wide margins, some narrower. But we made certain to talk to the entirety of arizonas population, not just the left or the middle. We talk to folks on the littal right, to let them know, they were going to be in good hands. We would have rational, reasonable, thinking people in office. That ended up helping carry the day. Peter baker has the next question for you. Peter . Sir. After 2020 and 2022, of course, theres been so much questioning of the veracity of our system. What is it that you and other people who run our elections can do to convince americans that they should have faith in the system again . Because obviously at the heart of a democracy is the faith that voters will be respected. A lot of americans right now questioning that, thanks in part to donald trump telling them they should. Strong and steady. I think thats the thing we have to do. We will stay on message. Well make sure that the story of the people who actually run our elections gets told. These are folks who are just good citizens. Theyre our neighbors. Theyre retirees. Theyre people who have been in our communities for a long time. Theyre the ones working the polling places, theyre the ones in the warehouses, the ones who are helping in these bureaucratic offices that nobody ever used to talk about. And slowly but surely, were going to defeat the big lie by slow, steady, constant work. Thats the way were doing it here at the arizona secretary of states office, and were going to keep doing it with strength. Were not going to pull punches when it comes to truth telling. Were not going to be nice to folks who want to overthrough our democracy. The combination of strong and steady is what arizonians wanted. Thats what they got and what theyre going to continue to get. You did, mr. Secretary, defeat the big lie yourself, as has katie hobbs, as the centerpiece of your opponents arguments in the race, and you won, as did hobbs. You state, arizona, its underlined again in this 45Page Indictment, that arizona is at the center of a lot of the Conspiracy Theories around the 2020 election and beyond. A state where those cyber ninjas i think they call themselves, came in and were searching for bamboo in the ballots on the Conspiracy Theory that the ballots had been shipped in from asia. I know its hard to follow. It sounds like im making it up but im not. My question to you is how do you convince a rather large segment of our population that has fallen under the spell of all these Conspiracy Theories to sort of step away from it . How do we return rational thinking to our politics . The beauty of American Democracy is we get our strength in our diversity. That cannot just be diversity of ethnicity or religion or all that, but diversity of thought. Theres always been folks in this country who have thought things that nobody else really can understand or agree with. The bottom line is, we need a lot of different perspectives, even if theyre not based in reality, so we can know what is reality. And who is actually telling the truth at the end of the day based on truth. So we just continue down that same road, with strength and with stability, and we just keep telling the truth over and over and over again. Because at the end of the day, thats what bears out. We have seen case after case, not just here in arizona, but across the United States of america, showing that when evidence is called for, when a court of competent jurisdiction comes and says like they did in the oldp wendys commercial, wheres the beef, and the beef doesnt show up, we know what the truth is. Slowly but surely i think were going to be in good shape, but its going to take a little time and patience. Thats okay. This is a society of instant gratification. But a lot of us know that when it comes to the big, big picture, american governance, the slow and steady hand will ultimately win out. So mr. Secretary of state, on that idea, what is the plan here for outreach, to sort of reassure the public, to install a sense of confidence in people to people who maybe are skeptical of the veracity of the ballot, who are believing the big lie . Arizona is ground zero to a lot of politicians who have made their name on that. Talk to us about those efforts, both voting law changes and also simply Public Awareness campaigns. Well, its those things and talking to the folks who are directly involved in these things. Look, i had some of those election deniers in my own office, having those conversations about how were going to improve election systems. We put our disagreements aside and come to agreement on the things we can come to agreement on. You know, some of them, the cracken lawyer squad themselves. Some are folks who have been calling for hand counts of every ballot across the state. But you take the time and the patience. You show a little bit of grace. You sit down with these folks, even if your fiercely disagree with them, and you talk about things. And eventually, coming to agreement on those things where you can find agreement will get you to the place where you can have those other conversations. Thats just what some of our lawmakers. But of course, the public outreach, going through the political channels, using the media, dealing on social media as well, all of these efforts are necessary. Every turn, at every turn, with every channel we can approach is where this fight is going to be fought. Sometimes its going to be with a gentle hand. Sometimes its going to be a little stronger. But at the end of the day, you just keep on pushing and you keep on pushing, and thats whats going to get us back to reasonable, rational thought when it comes to these sorts of things. It will take time, but we will get there, im confident. Arizona secretary of state Adrian Fontes, thank you very much for being on the show this morning. Chief White House Correspondent for the New York Times, peter baker, thank you as well. Well all be watching today at 4 00. We all will be watching. Jonathan, i dont know really what to say about the boston red sox. So im going to leave that to you. Typical red sox, on the west coast to disappoint. Thats the headline of the day, but well focus on other matters now. No trades. Willie, the yankees . They scored some runs last night. That was a good development. Its like secretariat starting to take that break right down the final stretch. That does it for us this morning. Ana cabrera and jose diazbalart we have to hear the chorus. Theyre next. Subway refreshed everything and now theyre slicing their deli meats fresh. Thats why this qb profers the new five meat beast. And this qb profers it. And if we profer it. We know youll profer it too. Are you trying to outspokesperson me . Maybe. Hi, im tony hawk, and like many of you, i take a statining to reduce cholesterol, but statins can also deplete coq10 levels. Thats why my doctor recommended qunol coq10. Qunol has the number one cardiologist recommended form of coq10. Qunol. The brand i trust. What causes a curve down there . Is it peyronies disease . Will it get worse . How common is it . Who can i talk to . Can this be treated . Stop typing. Start talking to a specialized urologist. Because it could be peyronies disease, or pd. Its a medical condition where there is a curve in the erection, caused by a formation of scar tissue. And an estimated 1 in 10 men may have it. But pd can be treated even without surgery. Say goodbye to searching online. Find a specialized urologist who can diagnose pd and build a treatment plan with you. Visit makeapdplan. Com today. Right now, special coverage with the third arraignment of donald trump just hours away. Lines and heavy security already this morning at the courthouse in washington. The 45th president set to appear at 4 00 p. M. This afternoon. Ahead this hour, what to expect as trump walks through the courthouse doors and his new demand to move the trial out of d. C. Plus, a complicated choice facing unindicted coconspirators Rudy Giuliani. Could they flip on the former president . Later, trump verses his veep. Mike pence doubling down amid their growing clash. Sadly, the president was
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