Good morning, its thursday, march 3, welcome to morning joe. We have a lot to get to this morning. Some breaking news developing late last night. With us we have veteran columnist in and msnbc contributor mike barnicle. President and ceo of politico jim vandehei. Pulitzer prize winning historian jon meacham. You won a pew litzer . He loves everyone knowing about that. He took a picture. And in washington, michael steele. Managing editor of Bloomberg PoliticsMark Halperin also with us. Mike, you obtained a copy of the speech that mitt romney is going to be giving later today. He is going to be slamming donald trump, calling him and i got this, willie, mark got a little bit of exactly what hes going to say. Calling him let me see if this is seringly clear enough. Calling him a phony, a fraud and playing the American People for suckers. So i guess hes not going to mince words today. And a stark contrast from four years ago when he stood with donald trump and saw his support when he was running for president. Its remarkable mitt romney has become the lead hatchet man against donald trump tweeting about him. Now this press conference. The question is, does it make any impact or does it allow donald trump to say there goes to establishment again, they ear out to get us. I think thats exactly what you know, its obamacarement unless youve got a better option, stop dising it. Well see. That happens later today. Also, donald trump will be on the show this morning so well ask him about that and he will be talking about that but also we have a lot of other questions for him so its good that hes coming on. Ben carson, is he in or out . I dont get it. Well get to that. Take a guess. It was sort of i guess hes not going do the debate it was a presuspension. First step. First step. That happened, too. But first, this developed late yesterday evening. A staffer for Hillary Clinton who helped set up her personal email server has been granted immunity from the Justice Department according to the Washington Post. Citing a senior Law Enforcement official, the paper reports Brian Paglianos cooperation was secured as part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Pagliano worked on a Clinton Campaign and helped set up the server in 2009 in the family home in chappaqua and was paid as a consultant. The Justice Department declined comment as did paglianos attorney. A spokesman said he is pleased pagliano is cooperating with the doj noting they urged him to give evidence in september of 2015. Instead he invoked his fifth amendment rights while appearing before a closeddoor meeting of the benghazi committee. Top Senate Committee chairmen also offered him immunity at the time to testify, something has changed. Since its discovery, the server has been at the center of headlines, a federal investigation and a political
tugofwar between both parties. The New York Times reports that the fbi could seek to question the former secretary of state and top aides in the coming weeks and that the investigation could be wrapped up by may. Her campaign told the paper theyve been cooperating and offered in august to meet with the Justice Department if needed. And earlier this week the state Department Released the last of the trove of more than 50,000 pages of clintons personal emails. More than 2,000 were marked classified. 22 were the highest level of sensitivity, top secret. Clinton and the state department have said that none of the material was marked classified at the time it was sent. Willie . Lets get more on this. Joining us now, Washington PostNational Security reporter adam goldman who broke this story yesterday. Adam, great to have you with us. Help us comb through it a bit. You reported the fbi is likely to want the interview secretary clinton herself and many of her aides. What is the peril for her as we look through all this . Well, theres legal exposure. Any time you get in the room with fbi agents who are conducting a criminal investigation. As you might remember, we saw this with Martha Stewart who didnt do anything wrong until she talked to fbi agents and lied to them. So theres a political question, a legal question for the hillary campaign. Do they talk to fbi agents so they can wrap up this investigation . If she doesnt, then her opponents in the race might say why isnt the potential contenders for the presidency cooperating with the fbi . This is only one of six investigations. If the fbi sends this to the grand jury, if the Justice Department decides to prosecute and press charges here, what is the worst outcome for Hillary Clinton in this case . You know, i dont want to say that hillary is the target of this investigation, i dont know that to be true. But certainly the fbi is looking at anybody who sent or received this classified information. Its difficult to say what the worst outcome is. Many people have told us that the investigation of general petraeus and his outcome really means that really could affect what happens in the hillary investigation. He was hit with a misdemeanor in the end so in he did something some people believe to be more egregious, what are you going to do with these people. So back up a little bit and define what it means to grant someone immunity. In what context would that happen . Because i think thats delight the underlying story. Well, there are two types of immunity. Theres transactional immunity which means well give you immunity for every bad thing youve ever done in your life and then theres use immunity. Use immunity is just what are you telling me now, well immunize you against that and anything you might have to say about the current situation. And thats the more common one, which was probably what pagliano got. Look, i think well, a, this
is another indication this is a serious fbi investigation. And what it shows is that the fbi and prosecutors are doing what they need to do to complete this investigation. You needed Brian Pagliano to talk to you. You needed to hear from the guy who set up the server and what did he know . But hes a bit player in this, obviously, because he didnt send or receive this classified information so its a sign the investigation itself is progressing. Okay. The Washington Post adam goldman, thank you very money. We should also note were going to be joined later by former attorney general Michael Mukasey for his insight on that. Lets go around the table. Everybody give me a sense of what this tells us, what we know. Ill start with Mark Halperin. Youve been following this along with every other aspect of the investigations, so to speak. What does this tell us . What do we know . Well, look, the fbi, as the Clinton Administration says, doing a security review
according to the Washington Post story and my sources theyve determined this was not handled well. The question is, does this rise to the level of criminality. I think well before we got to that point, either on the part of secretary clinton or anyone else, there would be interviews and the Clinton Campaign is clever will i now saying look, we like this cooperation, secretary clinton will cooperate. They want to diminish the political impact that will come if shes called in to testify, probably not before a grand jury but simply an interview with fbi agents but this is going to bring back democrats who were worried about Bernie Sanders for a while, forgot to some extent politically about this investigation. Theres no indication shell be indicted. Theres no indication anyone will be indicted but the Investigation Continues and if it goes from a security nov investigation to a criminal investigation, that would be a huge problem. Mike barnicle, can the campaign say this is much ado about nothing, weve been trying to talk to them . Or will they say its something bigger. They wont say its much ado
about nothing but theyll probably say theyre glad mr. Pagliano is testifying because they view his testimony as being favor to believe Hillary Clintons case, perhaps. But the timetable for when he will be interviewed, i dont know what that is. But the timetable of this issue propping up certainly isnt helpful in the publics eye. Jim vandehei, the timing . Well, its also a reminder for people who say donald trump cant win the presidency if he wins the nomination is that if you look at the exit polls for Hillary Clinton, you have lower voter turnout but the number of people who think shes dishonest, in the democratic party. Not just democrats and republicans. The more this hangs out there, the more it reinforce what is people never liked about the clintons. Jon meacham, ever seen anything like this before . Any president . Its like lucy and the football. Clintons opponents have always believed that this investigation or this scandal, this next thing was going to bring them down. And theyve endured and so i just would no one is writing
a preobituary but i would be scareful about that. Michael steele, what will the republicans do with this, do you think . Are there any options for them here . Oh, definitely theres the poisoned pill of having immunity being granted to someone associated with the Hillary Clinton operation, which has all kinds of nefarious undertones to it. So thats going to be the political spin on this and its one more reason why people dont trust her, why they dont like her and have that kind of weigh down her campaign. I think the comments around the table when you sum it together for hillary, this is a piece of baggage she does not want to carry but she has to. Shes going to try to carry it lightly. The republicans are going to try to weight it down as much as they possibly can. Weve got our own problems, as you know, with donald trump and the infighting over him. That is going to take a side step to this because this has morelolitical fodder longer
term for the gop. This is an uneasy time, willie geist. This is one. There are five other investigations including two out of the state department so this story will be around for a while. As republican candidates are set to meet tonight in detroit for their 11th debate, there are new efforts under way to stop the man whos won 10 of the first 15 contests. The prevailing Strategy Centers on denying donald trump enough delegates to have a majority going to the convention this july rather than defeating him outright in the primary. Several major republican donors behind an antitrump super pac are recruiting former jeb bush donors as the delegate stakes get high we are winner take all primaries march 5. The pac plans to spend millions in missouri, florida, and illinois. And thats just the beginning with katie packer telling politico in 2012 we spent 10 million against Newt Gingrich in florida alone. This as the conservative club for growth announced it is putting 1. 5 million behind this
ad wbr id wbr6606 in florida. But who has trump ever actually taken on . He hides behind bankruptcy laws to duck paying his bills and kill american jobs. He even tried to kick an elderly widow out of her home through eminent domain. Real tough guy. And as we mentioned at the top, the former standard bearer for the Republican Party, mitt romney, is about to address the state of the republican race, making a formal speech in utah this morning. Wbr id wbr6906 romney is not expected to endorse a candidate but will instead level a broadside against donald trump modeled on Ronald Reagans 1964 time for choosing speech. In excerpts released this morning thanks to Mark Halperin, the former Massachusetts Governor leaves trump out of the candidates with serious policy proposals saying donald trump says he admires Vladimir Putin while hes called george w. Bush a liar. Thats a twisted example of evil trumping good. He also said trump relishes any b
poll that reflects what he thinks of himself, but polls are also saying he will lose to Hillary Clinton, a person so untrustworthy and dishonest as Hillary Clinton must not become president. But a trump nomination enables her victory. Romney is also expected to say donald trump is a phony, a fraud, his promises are worthless as a degree from Trump University. He is playing the American Public for suckers. He gets a free ride to the white house and all we get is a lousy hat. His domestic policies would lead to recession. His foreign policies would make america and the world less safe. He has neither the temperament nor the judgment to be president and his personal qualities would mean america would cease to be a shining city on a hill. But trump did not wait for the barbs to come tweeting late last night looks like twotime failed candidate mitt romney is going to be telling republicans how to get elected. Not a good messenger. Mark halperin, you got your hands on this speech, youve
been processing. I mean, there are some problems with mitt romney making this speech, are there not . Well, he cant stop donald tru trump. The three candidates left in the race kasich, cruz and rubio are the ones that have to do it. These outside. Campaigns are part of the realization that if donald trump is going to have to be stopped, it will happen in the next two weeks, particularly in florida and ohio and maybe michigan and mitt romney wants to frame the argument. He does have a unique voice in the party. This speech, the parts of it ive seen, are very tough on trump and on Hillary Clinton and i dont think people should overstate the impact it can have. But on the day of the debate leading up to tonights debate there will be discussion of the ideas mitt romney is putting forward about donald trump and trumps reaction to it and thats part of what governor romney i think wants to see, which is a more rigorous discussion of what his view seasoned s and what that wing of
the partys view is of donald trump. In talking to several romney people yesterday i got the impression this had been building for a long time with the former governor. Hes not going to my understanding is hes not going to endorse anyone today. But whats your view of the background of this speech . The buildup to this speech . Why is it happening now . There are a lot of people who would like governor romney to run. Thats not what today is about. There are a lot of people who believe mitt romney needs to be part of speaking out against donald trump. He took his endorsement four years ago. He didnt make donald trump but he was part of validating him as an important figure within the Republican Party four years ago. So part of it is about trying to say heres what i think about donald trump now. Hes tweeted on the tax returns. Hes tweeted on the kkk thing over the weekend. But this is an attempt before its too late in the view of many people and ive been talking to people in the republican establishment now since super tuesday quite a bit, as have a lot of reporters, this is part of an effort that mitt romney wants to help lead to say
to the party this is a huge mistake, dont nominate donald trump, its not too late to look to one of these other three guys. Part of whats behind the scene, mike, is governor is not sure which of the three candidates can stop him so today hell praise cruz, rubio, and kasich and say theyre all good. I have a thought on that. That reflects the establishments problem which is they dont see yet one person in the field who can stop donald trump. Theyre trying to do a group effort. Meacham than willie. Meacham . Mark, do you have any sense from the text or what youve heard, will romney deal with the fact that he sought and received the endorsement last time . I dont know that hes explicitly going to engaged on that based on what ive seen on the speech. But hes well aware what his team said was it was a necessary thing to do in order to try to neutralize donald trump and in part a an understanding at the time that donald trump was not an easily controlled political force. I asked the same question,
whether hes going to sort of own up to that but as i said, they dont believe they made donald trump simply by taking his endorsement. Lets look at that endorsement. Four years ago and a month, february 2, 2012. Its my honor, real honor and privilege to endorse mitt romney. [ cheers and applause ] mitt is tough, hes smart, hes sharp. Hes not going to allow bad things to continue to happen to this country that we all love. So governor romney, go out and get them. You can do it. [ cheers and applause ] thank you. Thank you. There are some things you cant imagine happening in your life. This is one of them. [ laughter ] being in Donald TrumpsMagnificent Hotel and having his endorse system a delight. Im so honored and pleased to have his endorsement. Of course, im looking for the endorsement of the people of nevada. Donald trump has shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works, to create jobs for the American People. I want to say thank you to donald trump for his endorsement. It means a great deal to me to have the endorse mement of mr. Trump and people across this countly who care about the future of america. This is the problem. This is the problem. You cant get real now. You cant start telling the truth now. Thats what ever