white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire is with us for the morning. he was up way too early. we ll start with the report from friday, republicans investigating the 2.1 million ballots cast last year in arizona confirmed the accuracy of the official results that joe biden won maricopa county. cyber ninjas concluded that biden had won 360 more votes than the county awarded him in the official count. however, former president trump continued to make his baseless claims of last year s vote, issuing a flurry of statements. what is becoming a litmus test for many members of his own party. he continues spreading the big lie over the weekend especially on saturday at a rally in perry, georgia. we won on arizona forensic audit yesterday on a level you would not believe. it s clear in arizona that they must decertify the election. it was a corruption. it s my opinion by the way that georgia is far worst. and hopefully the arizona attorney general good man will
states. it is important to be clear this is a draft opinion that was leaked. an official ruling likely would not be published until next month, until june. the language could change. this was written by justice samuel alito, circulated among justices in february. the opinion, likely has the support of four other conservative justices including thomas gorsuch, kavanaugh and amy coney barrett. we realize this is one of the most sensitive issues in our country s politics. many of you watching have strong opinions on this and perhaps personal experience as well as we cover this story today and going forward we will do our best to be sensitive to those points of view and have discussions that are respectful of them. we ll have much more on this story throughout the hour. plus, we are also following developments today out of ukraine. right now the mayor of mariupol says that a convoy filled with evacuees from that steel plant is making its way now to zaporizhzhia. this as both
brand-new blockbuster reporting in the new york times pulls the curtain back on this new push by the stop the steal movement, which is based on the completely baseless idea that the 2020 election, which of course took place more than 15 months ago now, can be in the words of that movement s leaders, desert fied. quote, allies of mr. trump including the lawyer john eastman are pressing for states to pass resolutions rescinding electoral college votes for president biden and to bring lawsuits that seek to bring baseless claims of large scale voter fraud. some of those allies are casting their work as a precursor to reinstating the former president and even though there is no chance, zero chance, that the election will be decertified, this election has the potential for seeding more chaos, especially as the ex-president plots another run from the white house in mmxxiv. democrats an somes have raised concerns about the efforts. they warn of unintended consequences including the
added to the payroll. and unemployment ticked up just a hair to 6% and we are seeing massive revisions and it means employment is doing even better than we thought. good news for americans and the biden administration as well. we ll take you to the white house live once the president starts speaking about that. our eyes are on, of course, eastern europe. we have a look from fort bragg, north carolina, showing u.s. troops deploying to the region. and u.s. intelligence says russia could fabricate a pretext for an invasion of ukraine. more on all of this in members when i talk with congresswoman miki sherrill. you don t want to miss that conversation. and you thought that was all this hour? we just got news out of brunswick, georgia in the last hour regarding the men convicted of murdering ahmaud arbery. the hate crimes trial against them is moving full steam ahead. we re going to be covering that as well. we re going to start this hour with those higher-than-expected jobs numbe
good morning, welcome to morning joe. it s wednesday, march 13th. we have so much more to get to with that hearing yesterday on capitol hill. democrats pressed the former special counsel on his language about president biden s memory while republicans wanted to know why the president wasn t charged. meanwhile, also on capitol hill, today the who house is expected to vote on a bill that could lead to a ban on one of the most popular apps in america. we ll explain that legislation. we ll also get analysis on the alarming comments from russian president vladimir putin this morning about the threat to use nuclear weapons. he s saying that if russia s sovereignty or independence is threatened, he will use nukes. good morning, everybody. along with willie and me, we have the host of wasteway, bureau chief at politico jonathan louisiana mere. msnbc contributor mike barnacle and jonathan martin. great group this morning. also has president biden announced a new weapons package fo