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?
General william barr, rudy giuliani, and cardi b. as well as groups such as the hong kong activists, u.s. women s soccer team, migrants, the whistle-blowers who won in 2002, by the way, the cast and creators of game of thrones, and the cofounders of juul. my choice is a group too. but it s not one listed on their site. i vote for the diplomats. william taylor, george kent, marie yovanovitch, alexander vindman, kurt volker, gordon sondland, laura cooper, david hale, fiona hill and david holmes. for these past two weeks of impeachment hearings the nation was captivated by these civil servants who usually go about their jobs in anonymity. so that s who gets my vote. the diplomats. they thought it was their patriotic duty, their moral duty to come forward, some of them after being specifically directed not to, and reveal what they heard, what they saw, what they knew about the controversial policy actions
Mango less. people moved immediately to mint. now if we eliminate mint. you know the number one ingredient in mint is? it s menthol. we already have some companies that have multiple versions of menthol and many of them taste a lot like mint. and so, unless fda actually constrains something very narrowly, it s one of those big pandora s box that we can t get out of. yeah. and you are the head of juul. yes, sir. so what do you say? when i came into the job, we decided that action needed to be taken. we agreed this was a serious issue. we already removed our flavors from the market. most recently we removed mint. for us that was 70% of our business. it was a big step for us that felt it was the right thing to do with the youth data that came out and deal with this issue. today we are left with a tobacco and men that.
Jobs and they re going to hurt people who are adults who are trying to get off cigarettes and onto something more healthy. the vaping industry portrays their product as a great transition product for people who are trying to cut cigarettes. that s the debate that s going to take place, is back and forth between those people who are concerned about children s health examine those people who are concerned about jobs and the health of people who are adult smokers. the wildcard is the president and the first lady. the president attributed a lot of his sfw interest in this to melania trump and he referred to baron as being someone he was concerned about. so there s a question over whether they ll be there or send somebody. the ce of of juul, along with people, as you mentioned,
Altria, the parent company, bought a 33% stake in juul, and the ceo of juul comes from the world of tobacco. they re going to make money if people smoke, they re going to make money if people quit, so i think that s part of the problem. it s a conflict, a huge one, and one that many in the vaping community are taking notice of, steadily distancing themselves from juul and blaming them and them alone for the dramatic rise in teen and youth addiction. i think there is a fundamental difference between juul and all else. it s complete nicotine form. that nicotine form is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. juuling to me represents a far greater hazard than just using a regular e-cigarette. erica, you should know that we reached out to juul. they could not sit down for an interview at this time, but they agreed on this ban to flavorings