A really busy week. Lets get right to the conversations you might have missed. You were obviously white house spokesperson. This is an issue that is going to follow joe biden around in this campaign. This campaign. Especially because donald trump, or the people that want donald trump to win will continue to make this an issue. What should the Biden Administration do . I know you are uncomfortable doing this, telling people i was about to ask you, what should President Biden do . Inquiring minds want to know. Any thoughts on just the white house, democrats generally when asked about this . Look, i think there is a couple of issues at play here, clearly one is, what is going on at colleges and universities. These are not monolithic protests across the country and they are not even monolithic at individual campuses. So yes, we need to get to a point where students are graduating and there is maybe some relief during the summer. What are they figuring out over the next couple of months abo
good morning and welcome to the saturday edition of morning joe weekend. it was a really busy week. let s get to some of the conversations you may have missed. gag order in donald trump s hush money case is an effect, but his attorney said, they will keep fighting to get it thrown out. that comes after new york s top court declined to hear trump s appeal of the matter earlier this week. the state court appealed trump s thing, there was no constitutional grounds for the appeal. that leaves the gag order imposed by judge juan mershon in place meaning, he could still face penalties in place for violating it. the order bars trump from going after witnesses, jurors, and others who were involved in the case. following his felony conviction last month, the sentencing is scheduled for july 11th. so, i guess first of all, do you expect this gag order to be put back before the sentencing? i don t, but maybe there is reason for it. and then, what do you expect for the sentencing?
For new prisons, trained police officers and mandated life sentences for people convicted of three violent felonies. 92 out of 100 prisoners behind bars are in a state prison, not a federal prison. this idea that the crime bill generated mass incarceration, it did not generate mass incarceration. harris said the crime bill did contribute to mass incarceration, invoking a federal three strikes law. incarcerates had been rising steadily since the early 1970s. you ll hear more about that debate. a quinnipiac poll from pennsylvania shows trump in trouble from opponents. sanders also ahead, poll shows trump within the margin against several other top candidates. it is interesting to see bernie sanders, though, also leading
People, we have put on track i think, the ability to right some really serious historical wrongs. we ve done i think a great deal much work remains to be done. but this justice department was committed to addressing those problems in as frank a way as possible. criminal justice reform if you look at the statistics, you ll see the incarceration rate goes like this and goes up in 1974 or late 70 something. incarcerates too many people for too long and no good law enforcement reason. it is time it is time to change the approaches we have been using the last 30 or 40 years. through the great work of the people in this department we are starting to reverse that trend. more work remains to be done. civil rights the lgbt community
being in the closet is a prison of sorts. for a gay man, there were so many times in my life i felt filled with shame and guilt and ugliness. and now, sort of to move through this, i hope to do that for these women. i am that woman in jail. no different. mcgreevey is also speaking out about the need for criminal justice reform. with 2.2 million americans either in prison or in jail, the u.s. incarcerates more of its citizens than either russia or rwanda. with 5% of the world s population, the u.s. has the highly dubious distinction of holding close to 25% of the world s prisoners. i am now joined by former new jersey governor, jim mcgreevey. go, alex! those are great stats. they re so important. they re so sad. i know this week you ve been talking a lot about gay marriage and your status as a gay american, and we want to get to that. the subject of what you re doing in prisons and the prison population, the notion of grace is so important and i want to get to that first.