biden hosting the four congressional leaders tomorrow. that's after the meeting that happened in january where he tried to convince johnson, where he had other congressional leaders, key leaders up on the hill, to try and hammer out a plan for the foreign aid package, funding ukraine, you've been talking about that, the whole show, funding israel. you still have republicans, though, demanding the policy changers to the border, even though johnson and the hard liners killed the senate bipartisan deal a couple weeks ago. tomorrow's meeting will be telling, but it is a tight rope that johnson has to walk on. certainly, whatever the president tells him, hard liners will keep pushing him in the opposite direction. >> white house aides not giving the one-on-one meeting, for fear johnson will try to use the president as a political prop. they're not going to let that happen. we'll have complete coverage tomorrow. nbc's julie tsirkin, thank you for joining us. thank you to you for getting up "way too early" on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. senator rubio, of course, have a seat.

>> thank you. >> guess we'd better toast to president trump. that was a big victory tonight. 21 points. >> yes, sir. >> well, there was never any doubt. i guess trump owns the republican party now. >> yeah. i got to admit, though, sometimes i do not know what my party is doing. i mean, i've been pushing for ukraine funding for the past six months. it's essential to american security, and trump just killed it with one phone call. the man doesn't care about this country one iota. sometimes i think he's downright dangerous. >> and you just endorsed him, right? >> yeah, big time. big time. i mean, he's great. >> so great. >> yeah, he is incredible. >> you know, he once docsed me. he gave out my personal cell phone number to a speech to his supporters. thousands of them yelled at me, threatened my life. had to get a any phone.

>> you okay? >> oh, gosh. >> you okay? >> switched to verizon. but you know what? i still think he's the greatest president since reagan. >> oh, he is greater than reagan. >> he's greater than lincoln. >> oh, yeah, right? >> darn handsome and it makes me jealous. >> he happens to be a little bit further left than some of the people on the stage, but i always say, when i'm in trouble on the left, i call up lindsey graham. he straightens it out so fast. [ applause ] i'll tell you -- no, no, no, no. remember, remember -- i love him. he's a good man. come up here, lindsey. come up here, lindsey. come here.

>> okay. you ready? >> wow. if you couldn't tell, the comedy sketch was the first clip that we played. yikes. >> yeah. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, february 26th. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay. nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann. president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nations," reverend al sharpton. and senior columnist for "the daily beast," matt lewis. joe, great group this morning. quite a weekend for donald trump and his supporters. >> well, i don't know. i had somebody run against me in a primary once, and they got, i think, 19%, 20%. i melted down. i thought it was the end of all time. i think most politicians would.

if you're basically the incumbent and about to get the nomination for the third time, and you're still losing 50% in iowa and 60% in south carolina, which is your strongest state, i mean, "wall street journal" editorial page this morning has a point. before we get into the news, i know a lot of people have been talking about south carolina, but i think "the wall street journal" editorial page has it right here. let me read it. "yet ms. haley won nearly 40% of the vote, which as she said in her remarks saturday evening, is not some tiny group. that's especially true running against a quasi incumbent who was endorsed by nearly every gop official in the state. none of them want to risk getting primaried, yet, as in new hampshire, the size of her vote shows that millions in the republican party do not want mr. trump in the white house. a fox news voter analysis found

that 59% of ms. haley's voters said they would not vote for trump." let me say it again, 59% of haley's voters said they wouldn't vote for trump if he was the gop nominee. "the exit polls showed 36% of all republican south carolina voters said a conviction in one of his criminal trials would make him unfit to be president." so even if most of the voters hold their noses and vote for mr. biden, the question is, how many stay home, vote for a third party, or go to biden? a 10% would be divisive. "if mr. trump can't win over more of mer voters, he could make joe biden a profit." let me quickly go to john heilemann before we jump into the news here. john, you've got a guy that's about to win the nomination for the third time, and he's losing

50% of the republican vote in iowa, 40% of it in south carolina, which we've always said is his strongest state. so, yeah, i mean, if i'm running for the first time and i'm getting 59%, i'm happy. if i'm a three-time, basically, incumbent, those are the real warning signs. you know, your people warning about donald trump, and i certainly get it. he is a threat to american democracy. but right now, 40% of his electorate is a threat to him even getting there. >> well, yeah. joe, i have a reasonable comparative point. the democratic primary in south carolina took place quite recently. not the same day as the republican primary. joe biden, the incumbent president. donald trump, as you pointed out, a quasi incumbent. everybody says he has an iron grip on the republican party. joe biden won 92.6% of the vote

in the primary. williamson and dean phillips, the challengers combined, got about 5,000 votes. about 5,000 votes, 4%. nikki haley got 298,681 votes for about 40%. i mean, it's not apples and oranges. joe biden is an actual incumbent. trump isincumbent. trump won in 2016, 2020, and now this time. you know, there is a -- if you talk about, who has an iron grip over his party? who has control over the party? who has the loyalty of the base of the party? >> it's not donald trump. >> it's not donald trump compared to joe biden. it's certainly not donald trump compared to even where donald trump has been in the past in south carolina. look, all those exit polls you cited should be worrying for trump. there's also financial stuff we could talk about that should be worrying for trump. that's not down the road. that's coming real soon. >> right. >> this is not -- that was not

an -- look, give the man a win. win is a win. he is going to be the nominee. probably have the 12, 15 delegates by the middle of march. but, man, if you don't see the warning signs, the people around him, and they're smart people. i'm sure him and susie wiles sees it. >> smart people. they want her out of the race. >> yeah. >> for good reason. and for good reason. they want her out of the race. mika, i'll give you, again, a couple numbers here. i will say, i've said this before, and, you know, you have enough problems on "morning joe." like, i'm just trying to avoid flop sweat. mika will tell you, i'm a flop sweater. i am. i'm a big guy. i sweat all the time. >> oh, yeah. >> i'm just trying to not look like elvis '77 every day. so i don't want to judge other news outlets. i will just say, i've been

surprised, mika, by the alerts that i get when donald trump -- "donald trump smashes haley for victory," or whatever. >> right. >> a couple weeks ago, new hampshire, "donald trump routs." you know, we're hearing trump will win by 30 to 35 points in south carolina. how long did we hear that? heard he was going to win by 30 points for forever. again, he always underperforms as far as margin of victory in the polls. always does. yet, this was supposed to be a 30-point win. it ended up being a 20-point win. again, that's not the issue here for donald trump if you're inside his campaign. what you're concerned about are what i would be concerned about. i don't want to speak for them. what i'd be concerned about is, she won 40% of the vote. here we go. fox news voter analysis found that 59% of her voters, 59%,

said they would not vote for donald trump if he's the gop nominee. 36% of all south carolina republican voters said a conviction in just one of his criminal trials would make him unfit to be president. now, why am i underlining this? i've been saying on this show for months now that what i've been hearing from my republican relatives, my republican friends, from republicans who voted for donald trump twice over the last summer, over the last year. you'll remember, i won't say his name, reveal him. but a member of my family who voted for donald trump twice sat with us last summer and said that he and his friends in, i'll say a suburb, a contested suburb, always voted republican. will not vote for him. will leave the slot open. again, these were hard core

trumpers who, you know, i'll just say, really concerned me in 2020 when they voted for him again. they're gone. >> yeah. >> when you see the numbers, a third saying they're not going to vote for donald trump, that's where it is starting to show up. >> well -- >> and that is something the trump campaign is going to have to focus on between here and the end of the year. >> you mentioned fox news exit polling. there's, you know, different exit polls that have potential trouble ahead that's even more for donald trump in a likely general election rematch with joe biden. as "politico" points out, trump lost moderate and liberal voters to nikki haley by a large margin, citing the "associated press." when asked by nbc news, 81% of nikki haley supporters said their vote was more of a vote

against trump than it was for hail nmsz. haley also beat trump with college educated voters, 54% to 45%. 36% of all voters also said they would consider trump unfit for office if he is convicted of a crime by election day. despite trump's continued efforts to push the big lie, 36% of republican primary voters said joe biden was legitimately elected in 2020. >> yeah, mika, but, i'm sorry, who are the nimrods that are 61%? come on. come on. who are those people, matt lewis? let's talk about our former party, my former party. who are the nimrods, 61%, that still can say that with a straight face? matt lewis? >> i think part of the story

here is that donald trump narrow casts, right? he loves fan service. so if you are that 60%, you're getting what you want. you know, you're getting the entertainment. you're getting the anger. you're getting the humor, whatever. trump narrow casts. he does the fan service. what he doesn't do is he doesn't persuade. so i think donald trump has created this scenario whereby he's painted himself in a corner. he really can't grow his constituency. he can fire up his base. look, donald trump has even said, if you're with nikki haley, we don't want you. you know, it is too late. get on board now or you're done. it reminds me of kari lake in arizona. remember what she said? >> yeah. >> if you're a john mccain supporter, we don't want you. leave. >> she lost. >> changing the tune but it's too late to do the right thing now, as the tanya tucker song goes. this is what donald trump has created. it is a movement. it is a cult.

it is never meant to be 50% plus one. it's never meant to be a mainstream movement. the only reason there is even a chance of victory is that, because of the way our system works with the electoral college and various vagaries of the american system, it is possible donald trump could win with, like, 46% of the vote. otherwise, he'd be completely toast. >> with so many moving parts in his life, katty kay, given the legal challenges, it seems to me that nikki haley even losing funding from the koch brothers, whoever along the way, probably should hang in there. >> certainly from the white house's point of view, they're thrilled she's hanging in here. she's one of their best surrogates on the campaign trail at the moment. she's saying the things and reaching some republican voters in ways that joe biden never can. saying very similar things about donald trump. she's right. you know, if you take that 60% and the -- it's about 25% of the south carolina people who voted

in the gop primary say they're never going to vote for donald trump. 25%. that's a big chunk. >> it is. >> he can't afford to leave 25% of the republican party, even if some are switchover voters. so she's doing damage to donald trump, but she's also revealing things, i think, just as importantly. >> yes. >> she's revealing things to the biden campaign about his weaknesses. >> yes. >> that's very useful information for them. >> jonathan lemire, she's slowly, i mean -- there's still a long way to go, but every day, she goes a little further against donald trump and says the truth about him in a way really no one else can as a republican. >> yeah. there was some speculation despite haley's public insistences that she might bow out if she were town routed in her home state. she lost by 20. that wasn't as much as the polls had forecasted, but it was a decisive loss. she's clearly staying in. michigan tomorrow night. super tuesday next week. as she said, there's 21 states and territories that will have their voices heard in the next

eight or nine days. she is going -- she says she'll stay through them. the koch brothers is a blow, but she has other fundraisers this week, too. we'll hear her voice for at least a little while longer. reverend sharpton, i think it can't be overstated, though, some ap exit polling from saturday, a little over one in five gop primary voters in south carolina said they simply will not vote for trump if he is the party's nominee in november. let's assume when we get the binary choice of trump and biden, those numbers change a little bit. maybe it's not one in five, but maybe it is one in eight. even one in ten. if some of the republicans come home but they all don't, that'll be a real problem for trump. remember, this is south carolina. think about how that'll look in moderate states where republicans look differently, in a michigan or wisconsin, than they do in south carolina. we talk a lot about how president biden has worries about his base. yeah, that may be true.

but maybe, just maybe, donald trump does, too. >> donald trump definitely has problems in his base when i look at the vote in south carolina. you couldn't get a more conservative red state than south carolina. if you have those numbers of people voting against him, just about 40% voting against donald trump, which is no -- i think it was 3% or 4% in the democratic primary voted against biden. i mean, it's no comparison. when you have 20% saying if he's convicted, they won't vote for him. imagine you say, whether the numbers will change slightly by november, they may change slightly or even more than slightly the other way if there is a trial and a conviction by then. if i were donald trump, i would take the victory but i'd be very concerned. because he is clearly within the numbers of being a real

detriment to him in november if he, in fact, will be the nominee. but i do not think the numbers mean this will help him if south carolina is any measure. well, coming up in one minute, we're going to play something that donald trump said that is quite incredible. he explains why he says more black americans are supporting his candidacy. >> well, yeah, yeah. because he's been convicted of crimes? wow. >> we'll talk about it in 60 seconds. with a statin, leqvio is proven to lower bad cholesterol by 50% and keep it low with 2 doses a year. common side effects were injection site reaction, joint pain, and chest cold. ask your doctor about twice-yearly leqvio. lower. longer. leqvio® with so many choices on booking.com there are so many tina feys i could be.

so i hired body doubles. indoorsy tina loves a deluxe suite. ooh! booking.com booking.yeah (♪♪) some people just know that the best rate for you is a rate based on you. not one based on whatever this person's doing. get a rate based on you with drivewise in the allstate app. 19 past the hour. live look at washington. ahead of his win in south carolina, former president trump spoke at the black conservative federation annual gala on friday. here is some of what he told the audience. >> these lights are so bright in my eyes that i can't see too many people out there.

but i can only see the black ones. i can't see any white ones, you see? that's how far i've come. that's how far i've come. i got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing. they were doing it because it's election interference. then i got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time. and a lot of people said that that's why the black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against. they actually viewed me as i'm being discriminated against. it's been pretty amazing. i'm being indicted for you, the american people. i'm being indicted for you, the black population. the mugshot, we've all seen the mugshot. you know who embraced it more than anybody else? the black population. it's incredible. you see, black people walking around with my mugshot. you know, they do shirts and

sell them for $19 a piece. it's pretty amazing. millions, by the way, millions of these things have been sold. >> yeah, so, rev, yeah. >> my god. >> curious, rev. >> where to begin? >> i don't know. i suppose we could do a poll of black americans and ask whether they are more likely to support somebody because they stole nuclear secrets from the white house, they stole secret war plans against iran, they lied to the fbi about having those nuclear secrets and secret war plans, lied to the fbi and the justice department about having classified documents hidden in their beach front resort. maybe black americans relate to that. i don't know. i wouldn't think they would. do they relate to trump telling his i.t. director to destroy all the evidence, and now the i.t.

director testifying against him? or to maintenance people to flood the room where it all is? boy, it seems like a stretch, doesn't it, rev? to think donald trump doing all that, illegally paying off a porn star, according to the manhattan d.a., and trying to foment a riot on january 6th. i'm not so sure, rev. help me understand. why would black americans -- >> what's the connection? >> -- relate to donald trump there? i don't understand the connection. >> first of all, let's be clear, donald trump is using the stereotype of blacks being criminals and, therefore, we would gravitate towards somebody in a mugshot. he's in a mugshot for trying to interfere with an election. blacks were arrested to get the right to vote. that's what the maches were

about. it is the epitome of an insult, also, when you think of the fact that it is a black man that is prosecuting him in manhattan, alvin bragg, a black woman in georgia, a black woman, the new york state attorney general letitia james. he's saying black people would relate to someone indicted for trying to undermine the elections by blacks, but we would go with him rather than them? the other part of this that is so amazing is donald trump himself has been part of these kinds of unfair prosecutions of blacks. it was he that took out ads in newspapers calling for the death penalty of five young black and brown boys of raping a white woman in central park who went to jail falsely. it was later proven they didn't do it because of the dna. donald trump said, no, punish them anyway. all of a sudden -- i've been in this movement for 40, 50 years.

i've never seen him stand up for blacks that were treated wrong by the criminal justice system. now, he's a symbol of being persecuted? he is being persecuted by black prosecutors, a black woman judge in the federal court in washington, d.c., and shameless blacks are standing there applauding him. they need to check the facts. >> yeah. >> mika, he is also making racist comments against letitia james, against fani willis, against those prosecutors that happen to be people of color. >> yeah, alvin bragg. >> just because they're black. >> yeah. >> i guess he didn't -- maybe they didn't fit that into his speech. >> listen, first it was navalny. now, it's the african-american community. these comparisons are sick and grotesque.

biden/harris campaign co-chair richmond responded, quote, "donald trump claiming that black americans will support him because of the his criminal charges is insulting. it's moronic. and it's just plain racist. he thinks black voters are so uninformed that we won't see through his shameless pandering. he has another thing coming." john heilemann, i just, you know -- then there's tim scott. i don't know. it's very, on the republican side, the trump acolytes, those that just stay with him through anything, it's beyond hard to watch. how do you think the overall black community will respond to this? remember his comments the first time around. what do you have to lose? >> honestly, mika, i don't think most of the -- most black voters are paying attention to the race at this point, and i don't think they'll respond to this in any particular way.

but i will say, if you think about the things people talk about, correctly think about, what are the concerns the biden campaign has going into a general election against donald trump, it's not the head-to-head polls. they've seen their support among certain core constituenies clip, including non-white voters. at the core is a lot of black voters. the biden campaign says, wait until the race is clear, that donald trump is the nominee. we get to the fall and it is this binary choice between the two, the african-american community in america will remember that donald trump is an existential threat, and they are going to come home to us. we have a lot of work to do, but they'll come home. these kinds of comments, and not these comments specifically, but the fact that donald trump will make this comment and has for years, as rev points out, and will make them into the future because this is who donald trump is. "i only see black faces. look how far i've come, ha h

ha," and that's what donald trump will continue to say. the biden campaign has something to cling to when they say, when people focus on this race, our core constituencies will come back. they'll remember who donald trump is. he'll be showing who he is day after day. this is a preview of the thing they're counting on in the fall to bring african-american voters back to joe biden, with the intensity they had in 2020. >> yeah, a trump adviser made this same argument to me, the indictments would make black voters go for trump, the mugshot. added the new line of trump sneakers would appeal to black voters and get them to trump, which, of course, we can leave that aside, how grossly offensive that is. matt lewis -- >> especially with those sneakers. >> yeah. >> my god, they're the worst. >> matt lewis, let's give you the final word here on this particular moment. it's true. heilemann is right in that republicans and trump, in particular, think they've made

in roads with black voters, though he may have hurt himself with these comments. it is an area of concern for democrats. they know they have to work hard to get them back. their constituencies are saying, don't take us for granted. how do you see this dynamic playing out as november approaches? >> to me, what is interesting, first of all, this has almost trickled down. donald trump didn't come up with the bogus, i'm navalny, even though he unveiled that at cpac. that came from de souza, zeldin. also, that the mugshot would make trump popular with black americans, i think it came from the fringe right-wing activists types. at some point, trump, it gets to him. there is an old expression in politics. hang a lantern onto your problem. how do you make a mugshot into a positive? how do you make the fact that

you've been supporting putin for all of these years and his opposition leader was poisoned, then went to jail, died in jail, how do you put a happy face on that if you're donald trump? their ability to come up with these bizarrely devious and, in some cases, almost evil brilliant, but also entirely flawed, obviously, and bogus excuses is pretty unparalleled. i can't believe the audacity of doing it. some of them, i think, are better than others. look, i imagine there's someone out there in middle america right now who is not paying that close of attention to politics, who now thinks, oh yeah, trump is just like navalny. he's the victim. >> right. >> he is casting himself as the victim once again. if nothing else, it is impressive that he keeps trying. >> well, and he keeps saying, "i was indicted for nothing. they indicted me again and again and again," joe. you know, that gets repeated.

that reverberates across many news outlets, i guess i'll call them news. >> yeah. >> you know, websites and tv networks without any contradiction, without any answer back to it. so, like matt says, people go, oh, my god, they indicted him for nothing. >> yeah, you know, i just want to circle back really quickly. again, we're talking about the media and its coverage. we have been hearing now since 2020 breathless coverage. this is what trump campaign people constantly are telling the media. we're going to do really well with black voters. black voters are breaking to us. it'll be historic. i had one of their top people say, we're going to get 20% of the black vote. you wait and see. you just wait. we're doing better. it's all we hear. why is donald trump -- rev, you hear it all the time.

why is donald trump doing so much better with black voters historically? perhaps it is because black men like him because he plays a macho. you know, can we just actually deal with the facts here for a second? in 2020, donald trump, according to ap, got 8% of the black vote. it's about what we got in 2016. 8%, 8%. editors, think about it. john mccain in 2008 got 12% of the black vote. not a landslide. you know, maybe donald trump will get 8%, 9%, 10%, 11% of the black vote in 2024 if he's the republican nominee. but i'm constantly hearing this,

constantly hearing, "oh, he does so well with hispanics." by the way, we heard that in 2020, as well. biden doesn't relate to hispanics. trump is going to do well. he got 32% of the hispanic vote. when i was a republican, all i heard and all i read were story after story after story after story about how hispanics hated republicans because republicans like mitt romney only got about a third of the vote. now, trump does it, and he's somehow breaking -- this is like trump running around saying, "i have the best economy ever," when he had the worst economy ever, since herbert hoover. the worst economy since herbert hoover. even before covid, he ranked seventh since, like, 1960. he said it so people would believe it.

could you bust open this lie about donald trump doing well against black voters? because it's a lie. the data shows it's a lie. the data shows that people in the media keep repeating this lie, that trump somehow has some magic with black voters and is doing better than other republicans, when he's just not. >> he is not doing what they are saying. he clearly, as you stated, did less than john mccain and other republican candidates. let's be real clear. we're talking about a man that was just found liable for lying about how many square feet he had in his bedroom. why are we being surprised he'd lie about how many blacks are voting for him? he did not get the overwhelming majority or even a significant amount of black male voters, and he won't get it this time.

particularly when insulting people over and over again. you must remember, when they campaigned, the republicans, saying, well, joe biden didn't deliver on voting rights, it's because every republican in the senate and the congress voted against the john lewis bill joe biden was pushing. joe biden pushed the george floyd criminal justice reform act and gave an executive order when the republicans wouldn't do it. donald trump instructed republicans against every civil rights and voting rights effort that we have tried to do since biden has been president. we are not stupid, just like the judge was not stupid in new york, saying, "you gave square footage false information to banks to get loans and you defrauded banks." you're dealing with a con man. why should blacks will exempt about the number supporting him? he has tim scott plus maybe a

few. >> ""the daily beast"'s matt least, thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. two years since russia's invasion of ukraine. as the country enters the third year of war, soldiers on the front lines are reporting they're running out of ammunition. joining us from kyiv is chief foreign correspondent richard engel. you spoke with president zelenskyy yesterday. what did he tell you? >> reporter: this is a tough time for ukraine. volodymyr zelenskyy gave a conference, and then i sat down with him for the fifth time since the war began. he stressed the need not to appease vladimir putin. he says that vladimir putin is still intent on conquering all of ukraine and that he won't stop. he will keep driving across this country and that he has a plan all the way through 2030.

president zelenskyy said he was quite convinced that putin would win the runhe rubber stamp elec next month, keeping him in office through 2030. and people are mistaking if they believe that putin will stop. he said that for the united states, helping ukraine now is actually in the u.s. interest because if you allow putin to keep going and you appease him, the u.s. at the end of the day will be drawn into a much larger war, as happened in world war ii. a dictator was appeased and, ultimately, you had u.s. troops machine gunned on the beaches of europe. this is a historic moment, a moment of reflection, and he said on practical terms, the holdup of u.s. weapons, because currently, u.s. aid is being held up by the house in congress, is costing ukrainian lives. he said that russia is taking advantage of these delays to go on the offensive. he says that the russian

offensive is going to get worse and intensify over the next two months. i asked him specifically, okay, so what happens? what do you do if the weapons and ammunition from the u.s. don't come? >> we'll lose a lot of people. we will lose territories. united states focused on -- also on interior questions, political questions. you know, it's a tough period, election period. that's why it's a little slow. but the answer is if give us a strong package at one time, our steps will be more strong on the battlefield. we will lose less people, and we will win. >> richard, you've spoken about how the troops are being rationed in terms of the ammunition they can use. can you talk a little bit about the manpower itself?

i've heard that the median age of troops on the front line in ukraine is now 40 years old. are they running out of young people to fight this war for them? >> reporter: yes, they are. they're running out. the troops that are on the front line are exhausted. it is the probably number one domestic issue here. president zelenskyy spoke to two audiences over this weekend that ukraine is using as a moment to reboot the war, reflect on the war, see what worked, see what isn't working. the main question he's been asked from the ukrainian population, from ukrainian journalists, is what about the troops? when will we get a better system to have rotations in place? the troops that are on the front line can go out there and be on the same position in the frozen, muddy trenches, for months at a time, sometimes many months at a

time. yet, there is another segment of the population that is more or less sitting the war out here in the rear, in places like kyiv and other areas. they're trying to figure out a way to get more consistent rotation, to push people that are at the back out toward the front without losing military capacity. so it is something that they are deeply concerned about. they don't want to overextend and exhaust their troops because they do expect this is going to be a long war. it all goes back to the weapons. without the weapons, ukraine has to send its troops closer into combat. the weapon systems they're asking for are long-range weapons. it's all about range. this conflict is all about range. the closer you are to the front line, the more likely you are to be hit by russian mortars, ar artillery or drones. if you can fire back from a few kilometers back, with extra

range, 10, 20, 30 kilometers of extra range, ukraine doesn't need to send as many troops right to the front line, lowering the exhaustion, lowering the casualty rate. he also for the first time said 31,000 ukrainian troops have been killed so far in the war. now, that figure is lower than some u.s. estimates, but that's the figure he released officially this weekend. >> all right. nbc's richard engel reporting from ukraine, thank you very much. let's go to jonathan lemire. i'm curious if you have any indication from the white house or capitol hill as to the status of the aid package and how much hope it has at going through anytime soon. >> well, the senate returns this evening. the house comes back wednesday from their presidents' day recess. all eyes will be on the white house tomorrow, mika. president biden is hosting a bunch of congressional leaders, including speaker mike johnson, to discuss a number of matters. i've got some new reporting this morning that really looks at the lack of relationship between biden and johnson.

johnson is sort of an unknown when he ascended to the speaker speakership. a lot of senior biden aides called around because they didn't know johnson. they called around to their congressional allies on the hill. republicans and democrats alike, asking what they thought of johnson. most of them, they didn't know him either, outside of the big lie legislation, legal words, in 2020. white house aides released doubt that johnson can get a big deal done because his grasp on power is so tenuous. right now, aides tell me they do think a ukraine package is still possible, but it will come after a deal to get the government open. there is a government funding shutdown, mika, a deadline the end of this week. that has to happen first. the earliest a ukraine package could get passed, i'm told, probably the middle of march. that'll mean more weeks with ukrainian soldiers not having the ammunition they need. even then, it's not a sure thing. there is still a possibility of a partial government shutdown

for a few days. coming up, a conversation on disinformation and the harm it is doing to america. it's the subject of a new book from former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade. she joins us next on "morning joe."

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i got indicted for nothing, something that is nothing. they were doing it because it's election interference. i stand before you today not only as your past and hopefully future president, but as a proud political dissent. i am a dissident.

election day will be the new day. for cheaters and imposters and censers who have commandeered our government, it'll be their judgment day. their judgment day. [ applause ] >> that was former president trump campaigning over the weekend, once again blaming the numerous indictments against him as an attempt by democrats to sabotage his re-election campaign. that argument seems ridiculous at first, but when it is parroted by officials over and over again, it becomes more believable in the eyes of voters. a poll this month shows nearly three-fourths of republicans now agree, the federal election interference case against trump is being conducted unfairly. the rise of disinformation, especially in politics, has become one of the biggest

threats to free and fair elections. the book from former u.s. attorney barbara cquade, "attack from within, how disinformation is sabotaging america," explains how it is done and what to do to stop it. i don't know if it can be stopped at the rate we're going, barbara. i can't wait to hear about this. you saw right there, just over and over again, donald trump exaggerating things or lying flat out. we know it reverberates across many tv networks and websites, completely not answered to with the truth or not pushed back upon, and it lives out there, those lies. how do you, how does one in america counter the information so voters get the truth? >> mika, one of the things i talk about in the book is how people are choosing tribe over

truth. it doesn't matter what the statement is. what matters is who says it. what donald trump and others have done is so demonize their opponents and create the impression that there are only two sides to every issue, that i'm on the side of good and my opponent is on the side of evil. i've so demonized them, you shouldn't believe anything they say. and all of these allegations against me are fake news. it's all, you know, an effort to interfere with the election and other kinds of things. what can we do about that? at the government level, there are things we can do. for example, with regulation of social media, which has been allowed to grow, in some ways wonderfully. there's been a lot of innovation in tech. but we have allowed things like anonymous accounts, like bots to amplify messages that may not be popular but appear to be garnering likes and shares.

we allow algorithms to push us to content that outrages us. that is one thing we need to cover at the governmental level. we have to reform how we do campaign finance after the citizens united case. there's dark money in the system. people who have the power are benefitting from that, so it's difficult to make headway there. there are also things to do at an individual level. number one, we have to have the discipline ourselves to try to figure out what is truth and what is false. one of the things that disinformers do is is creat an illusion that truth doesn't matter. truth is for suckers. people become numb and disengage all together from politics. we have to take responsibility for ourselves, making sure we're learning the truth with fact-checking websites and by turning to media that is credible. things like factcheck.org and

other organizations that work to debunk false claims online. >> barbara, this is an important book to come out right now. thank you so much for doing this, writing this book, and thank you for being with us today. let's blow up a myth here, that it's just some far away place, away from media outlets, mainstream media outlets, that are believing this. it's not. it's highly educated people with advanced degrees that repeat a lot of these lies. i have two friends, one who said, i don't look at the news anymore. it's hard to figure out who is telling the truth. yet, she goes on, you know, every trash website out there, spreading these lies. the second thing is, you know, i

had another friend that i tried to work through, close friend, for months. bring me your lie? he brings a lie. of course, most of them were from epic times, a chinese cult conspiracy website. i found that after i disproved one thing after another, if he'd admit to that, then another lie would pop up. what about this? what about that? it reminds me, hitler talking about, you know, just flooding the zone with lie after lie after lie after lie. after a while, people get exhausted and just give up. this is happening to people with advanced degrees. >> yeah, we see it in russia with vladimir putin, it's the fog of flooding the zone with so mitch, that people don't know want to think and check out of politics all together. it's plenty of smart people, but we have been convinced we should choose tribe over truth and care

more about which party is aligned with this and which is not. people don't want to change their minds. they've been told the other side is the devil and is the radical leftist that will ruin america. you know, woke culture and other things. i find that one tactic i talk about in the book that can be useful is talking with people and asking about the evidence that supports their claim. you know, it isn't so much the facts that are out there but what are the underlying facts that support it? what's the data? what is the evidence? i come from a world of courts where they can't just say things and have a jury believe it to be true. you have to show them evidence to back it up. instead, if all they're talking about is somebody said something, that shouldn't be sufficient. i think being patient, being kind with our friends, but also recognizing there are people going along with the con to advance their political agenda, personal agenda, or profit agenda. with fox news, they had to pay the $700 million defamation

settlement to dominion voting systems when they fostered and sponsored lies about machines flipping votes from donald trump to joe biden. we need to overcome. there's a lot of force out there for lies. i think to have america means a democracy that's based on truth. >> barbara, so great to see you here on set. congrats again on the book. in terms of combating disinformation, you point out the tactics he uses. he says things over and over and over until his followers just believe them. they accept them as truth. how do we as the m immediate ja media or everyday americans combat that? >> on facebook or other social media outlets, they're seeing their own bubble of information

bombarding them with the same claims. one thing that is difficult is we don't always see what they're seeing. we have our own social media feeds. everyone we see is saying something that makes sense and is consistent. i know from time to time, my sister will say, well, everyone on facebook is saying it. it's not just one person. it must be true. i say, well, not everybody on my social media feeds is saying that kind of thing. we need to encourage people to expand their horizons, talk to other people. i think one thing is just that we've lost is social capital, getting out there and talking to real people. whether that's in the workplace, labor unions, social clubs with our neighbors, and talking to real people, as opposed to relying online to what we're seeing in the social media bubbles. >> barb, i wonder, you know, there is the problem of disinformation, been a problem, particularly in elections in an acute way starting in 2016,

where it's become much more pervasive and an acute thing. we saw this, the example of a new form of this, which was this story in new hampshire. this guy just -- we discovered the other day, someone who had to go use cheap voice technology, a.i. technology, to imitate joe biden. this guy who got hired to do that and mess around with the new hampshire primary. i wonder how much in your book you get into this question. the a.i. problem is accelerating the larger problem, which is disinformation, but you have these pervasive, very powerful tools that allow for deep fakes of video, deep fake audio, making things indistinguishable between truth and lies people see on the screens. is there a regulatory solution? is there a legal solution to that? is there a norms-based solution to that? it's coming. it's coming really fast. everybody is kind of looking up and going, man, this election

could end up being the a.i. election and not in a good way. >> yeah, the deep fakes and artificial intelligence you speak about i talk about in the book. >> yeah. >> i think we need to address it before it gets out of hand. i think we failed to do that with social media. we're already behind in terms of regulating social media. let's not fall behind so quickly when it comes to a.i. there are simple regulatory steps we could take. number one, not including a.i. in political advertising. just saying that is not to be done. when you've got, you know, false recordings of joe biden, for example, that you mentioned. you can imagine a visual of a political opponent saying something or doing something that would offend many voters. keeping that out of politics. social media itself could say, we don't take ads that include a.i. when it comes to political ads. i think another part of it comes from educating ourselves.

to not be susceptible. ask what it is and find the source before we believe something. i once fell for a fake social media post about patrick mahomes. saying that he wouldn't play another down for the chiefs until he changed their name to something that wasn't offensive to native americans. i spread it around. then talking with my husband and son, i say, now that i say it out loud, i wonder if that's really true. before you pass something on and share it with others, questioning the source. >> my goodness. john heilemann, i've been there. i've done that. you know, it is always bad. if i get a call from alex in the middle of the day, i'm like, oh, my gosh, who did i retweet that passed on false information? there was one this weekend that was questionable.

i didn't pass it along, but we have to be careful. speaking of misinformation, you're now officially the "morning joe" oms budsman. top of the show, you said i said trump had been, quote, convicted of crimes, correct? did i say that? >> i didn't tweet anything, joe, anywhere. >> no, no, no. are you saying that i said that at the top of the show? >> yes. earlier in the show, you said how donald trump was convicted of crimes, and i was trying to point out that he had been indicted for crimes but not convicted. that's correct. >> by the way, yeah, if i ever do anything like that, because katty is going, yeah, you doing. please, everybody, go hey! we're wading through 91 counts. it is important to not say, in new york, trump was found guilty of sexual assault by a jury. he was found liable for sexual

assault. he wasn't found guilty of raping e. jean carroll. actually, the judge said that, yes, we know he's been found liable. this is a civil not criminal suit. but what he did was, in fact, rape, if you judge it by how the dictionary would define rape, if you judge it but how the u.s. army defines rape. if you judge it by how most entities define rape, donald trump raped e. jean carroll. but you have to say, the jury didn't find him guilty of rape. it's the judge who had said that after the jury found him liable for i think it was sexual -- was it sexual assault, jonathan lemire, sexual abuse? >> you're right. he said it would meet the definition of rape. let's go to barbara mcquade, the lawyer, who will answer this more expertly.

what was the finding the judge found in the case? >> sexual assault. liable is the correct term. the judge went further to say in common parlance, what donald trump did and what the jury found he did would constitute rape. >> there we go, joe. >> concentrate rape against e. jean carroll. we need to be careful. thank you so much, barbara mcquade, for being here. the new book is titled "attack from within, how disinformation is sabotaging america." it is out tomorrow. we want to have barbara back on tomorrow because this book, "attack from within," is so critically important in 2024. now to a man who never spreads misinformation, except when he is talking about my beloved liverpool. nbc sports soccer analyst and co-host of "men in blazers," roger bennett. we normally don't lead the hour with the premier league, but, you know, you never played by the rules, my friend. you never played by the rules. your middle name -- >> a big rule breaker.

>> yeah, rule breaker. let's talk about my beloved liverpool. yesterday, it was a tight match until the very end, wasn't it? >> the first english ender of the season. this was important. this is boston red sox, liverpool, searching for the quadruple under their iconic manager, jurgen klopp. playing chelsea. the dodgers owner, a lot of money spent on the game. it was a war of attrition. liverpool, a lot of injuries, played day care age children and second stringers. chelsea could have taken the lead, but the goalkeeper parried. oh, into overtime. come with the hour. come with the captain.

virgil van dijk. courageous win. last stand for their manager, klopp, on the left. whether it is one of four, a quadruple, a klopp-ruple, it remains to be seen. for liverpool, a day of folklore, taking on a $1 billion team with a load of kids from day care, joe. incredible. >> yeah. klopp and the kids. you had four kids under 21. he kept sending teenagers onto the pitch. >> it was like watching a soccer-themed bar mitzvah. they were playing a money team. it was glorglorious. i wish you true joy, even though i'm dead inside watching these scenes. >> of course it makes you dead inside. i know that you've intervened klopp and you think a lot of him. it was very moving to see how much he got choked up. you can tell every win means so much more to him. >> he's the last sensible human

being left in great britain. of that there is no doubt. let's have a look at the premier league, joe. arsenal sought to keep up the title chase. facing saudi arabia-owned newcastle, who they ran through as if they were mere transparent pairs of major league baseball pants. early and often, oh, this goal, i think, made it 2-0, in the 24th minute. >> good reference. >> the movement, vision. then sako, one of the most joyful ewoks of a human being, this was cherry stems to be tied into a knot. two points from the top of the table. glory. another game, manchester united, a team whose controlling interests was taken over by a british petrol billionaire. they crapped the bed.

scored the winner in the 97th minute. shimmy, shimmy. fulham's first win at united since 2003. manchester united bleaker than jodie foster in alaska. 60 days of night, joe. 60 days of night. >> my goodness, roger. the references, my favorite. oh, there's the table. liverpool is at the top of it. man, there's a great liverpool/city match coming up that will determine so much. >> we should go, joe. we should go. you want me to read the news? >> yeah, could you do that? >> i will. i don't want to steal mika's thunder and overstay my welcome. >> yeah, wrap it up. >> roger, let's circle the liverpool/city game on the calendar. >> let's go. >> we've been saying for 15 years now, we were going to go to a match together. that would be a great one to go to together. >> joe, you, me, mika, i know she goes every week.

>> she won't go. mika will not go, but courage, roger. courage. thank you so much for being with us. roger bennett, as always. i want to say really quickly, because jack scarborough and i have been bemoaning the fact, jonathan lemire, about the new major league baseball uniforms. >> eh. >> actually, i would say they look like little league uniforms. our little league uniforms much better put together. as roger just said, they're see through. the shirts are so cheap. everything about it is horrific. what are they doing? >> another self-inflicted mlb wound. spring training has started. people are excited. it's the nike fanatics uniforms. the fonts are small, players don't like it, they look like the replica outside of the stadium to save yourself 50 bucks from buying the real one inside the ballpark.

the bigger issue, what has become this story line the last couple days, is the uniform pants. they're very thin and pretty see through. there's a real concern, particularly as the summer rolls on and things -- guys are getting sweaty. >> we get it. >> we'll see way more than we want. the players union is pushing the league to change this. >> do we have images? >> heilemann, it is a morning show. kids are watching. >> we're not going to. >> we can't. >> in the words of the manager, batten, it leaves nothing to the imagination. >> okay. >> fix the damn uniforms already. >> okay. >> they're so cheap. but they actually do look like -- >> oh, yeah. >> they look like -- >> katty is looking at them. >> oh dear. >> katty. >> save a few bucks. >> put that away, katty. she's looking at them right now. >> katty. >> she's like, oh my. >> we're not going to show this,

and i can see why. >> close the computer. >> katty kay, jonathan lemire, reverend al sharpton are still with us. >> come on. >> i'm trying to get some control over the situation. >> i'm sweating here again, mika. i'm sweating. >> you do that. he has the flop sweat. he's a sweater. >> i do. i have since fifth grade. i don't get it. what is it? >> i know. it's so cute. he's so confident, but he sweats. okay. >> it just happens. >> editor at "the financial times," ed luce is here. hi, ed. sorry about all this. >> no, no, i'm enjoying it. >> okay. that's a lie. congressional investigations reporter for "the washington post" jackie alemany. i know disinformation when i see it. good to have you all here. let's talk about south carolina. donald trump easily won south carolina's republican presidential primary on saturday, beating nikki haley in her home state by more than 20 points and claiming 46 of the 50

delegates. he also got some endorsements over the weekend. but let's talk about the exit polling that could point to potential trouble ahead for donald trump in a likely general election rematch against joe biden. as politico points out, trump lost moderate and liberal voters to haley by a wide margin, citing exit polls from the associated press. a little over one in five gop primary voters said they would not vote for trump in november if he was the party's nominee. when asked by nbc news, 81% of nikki haley's supporters said their vote was more a vote against trump than it was for h haley. haley beat trump with college educated voters, 54% to 45%. and 36% of all voters also said they'd consider trump unfit for office if he is convicted of a

crime by election day. joe, the numbers inside the numbers are really interesting as you get to the general election. >> they are. "the wall street journal" editorial page is all over this story. one of their main editorials today, ed luce, i'll read it to you, echoes and plays off the nbc poll. "as in new hampshire, the size of nikki haley's vote shows that millions in the party do not want donald trump back in the white house. a fox news voter analysis found 59% of haley's voters won't vote for trump if he is the gop nominee. 36% of all south carolina republicans said a conviction in just one of the criminal trials would make him unfit to be president. they go on to say that even if only 10% defect from donald trump instead of the third who say they would, that would be

decisive. they end it by saying, "if mr. trump can't stop winning over more of her voters, he could make ms. haley a prophet," who said, "you can elect him but if you elect him, you're going to lose." ed, this has been at the heart, the problem at the heart of trumpism from the beginning. that is, he's never going to get to 50%. he decided he doesn't want to get to 50%. he works to insult, like kari lake did in arizona, telling the mccain voters, we don't want you. telling nikki haley voters, we don't want you. get away. they go, all right. that's great. i'll vote for joe biden. i'll vote for an independent. or what will problem happen, as happened in 2020, they'll stay home. >> yeah. i mean, if dean phillips had been getting, say, 10% against

joe biden opposed to pretty much nothing, we'd be having headlines about how biden is weakening. >> mm-hmm. >> we have 40% showing here. you know, from new hampshire to south carolina for trump's main rival. 40%. >> wow. >> essentially, you know, aligning with a never trump perspective. yet, we have trump is crushing the nomination narrative going on. it is true in terms of mathematical counts, and winner takes all mathematicals, that trump is crushing it and will be the nominee. but those numbers in terms of the popular vote, 40%. -all this time, knowing everything they could possibly know about trump, not only voting for haley, but saying that voting for haley is a vote against trump, really, really bad news. it's a flashing red signal for trump in november. the more he locks up the republican nomination, the more

he jeopardized his ability to win in november. i don't know what haley's motivations are, whether it's 2028 or to be no labels candidate or just the amazing psychological boost of being the last person standing. >> exactly. >> when all the rest are bending the knee and kissing the ring. whatever it is, it is bleeding trump for november. >> ed, what do you think is -- you've had this haley phenomenon now. he's demonstrated the weaknesses you're talking about. you know, she's pretty now clearly signalled when she's going to be done, which is after super tuesday. she sort of -- in her speech in greenville, there was a question, will she go to the end? she clarified that. super tuesday not far away. middle of march. nikki haley will be gone, quite likely. donald trump will have the requisite delegates to become

the republican nominee. what do you think the rest of the stretch looks like as donald trump thinks about -- donald trump and his people think about the weaknesses exposed in his hold on the party. how do they spend the time between the middle of march and the conventions this summer in trying to put back together the kind of support they need to be able to take on joe biden? >> it's a great question. i see that some of his campaign team have been talking to nbc and saying, look, we're now going to pivot to the issues. which i think we've heard several thousand times before with trump over the course of almost a decade now, what his handlers want him to do and what might be the logical thing for him to do. it's not something he's ever going to follow. it is like biden's team saying the president will be playing basketball every morning between now and november. it is fantasy. what would be logical for trump is reach out, try to unify the

party, as always happens traditionally in divided primaries. you then select your opponent as your running mate. unless haley really eats all her words and self-abases to a degree that i think she made very difficult for herself, he's not going to consider her for a running mate and won't reach out to those who voted against him. what his handlers are is correct, you have to pivot. you have to become less insane. talk less about yourself. but what he will do is precisely that. >> ed luce's words, be less insane. [ laughter ] reverend sharpton, it seems it'd be a challenge for donald trump, someone you've known for a long time. he has been, in my estimation, disciplined only a handful of times in his political life. we remember the final week or so of the 2016 campaign, when he was. he went quiet. he got off twitter, stuck to the

script at the rallies, and it helped him. he hasn't done it much since. he seems to be, frankly, even more unhinged by the day. as ed said, he'll be the nominee. he'll have this wrapped up in a matter of weeks. is there any possibility of a pivot? what, instead, should nikki haley, or if she drops out, joe biden, how should they attack him if he tries? >> i think we must realize that donald trump is running not only for the nomination and then for the presidency, he's running to try and convince four juries not to vote him into being a felon. so the idea that he would somehow be disciplined when he is literally fighting for his freedom, this election to him is about him not going to jail. this is not about him going to the white house. this is about saying, if i get in, they'll have to delay state trials, he hopes, and pardon

himself on a federal trial. he is going to remain unhinged because he is, for the first time, i think, very frightened that it could all be over. so congress is set to return this week with two pressing issues on its agenda. government funding and foreign aid. lawmakers have until friday at 11:59 p.m. to get a deal done before a partial shutdown is triggered. meanwhile, the foreign aid bill that passed the senate earlier this month appears to be at a standstill in the house. it comes as ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy is publicly warning that millions could die if it is not approved. let's go to jackie alemany on all of this. ukrainian soldiers will continue to die in much higher numbers. ammunition is running low. what's the word on how this is going to play out? every day that goes by is a day of losses for ukraine.

>> if the house is likely to get any done this week, mika, or next week, or really anything done at all this year in congress, it is potentially this funding. there is enough momentum at this point. there are two democratic discharge petitions and actually one of those is technically bipartisan. fitzpatrick and jared golden introduced this discharge petition on friday together. it is remarkable that a member of the majority would introduce this petition to basically circumvent speaker johnson and get this border and ukraine funding bill onto the floor so it could get there for a vote. it'd need the support of five republicans who would have to sign onto the petition, which is still a big leap. another discharge petition is a backup contingency plan that was drafted by congressman mcgovern. it is a just in case the drafting and the language of the discharge petition that's been drafted by fitzpatrick and

golden doesn't pass muster. johnson is going to be heading to the white house along with chuck schumer and other house and senate leadership on tuesday. that's tomorrow. to basically have another jam session which, you know, the white house has tried to do repeatedly to force johnson's hand on this. but this is a really big week for him because it is essentially whether or not he is going to decide that he wants to keep his job in, you know, this hall of chaos, or if he is essentially going to dare his republican colleagues to undertake this task, of wanting to oust him and start the speaker's race all over again. >> these discharge petitions sound cumbersome, like they take a lot of time. ukrainians don't have time. let's bring in the defense editor at the economist and visiting fellow at the department of war studies at king's college in london. shawshank joshie. i appreciate your question, can

europe defend itself without america? should they, first of all? secondly, what are the possibilities of ukraine at this point without american support? >> good morning. it's great to be back on. i think the question here is not just about donald trump which is a preoccupation here in europe. what does a second trump term mean for us? would he make good on his threat to pull out of nato or to undermine the article five option. could the best in the world divert military resources and attention to asia if there was a war over taiwan? europeans must take these questions seriously. the basic answer is, while we outspend russia on defense spending by some way, we are a rich continent, we don't have the military capabilities necessary for autonomous

defense. it's not just about troops, tanks, or rockets. it's all the things that america brings to the table that makes those capabilities usable. air defense, intelligence, refueling tankers. i could go on and on and on. right now, europe does not have all of those things. it'd rely on the americans. those are the gaps that everyone is scrambling to try to plug. >> shashank, what is your reading, how much time do the ukrainians have? >> sounds like they're out of time. >> how critical, how urgent that this aid is released by the united states and gets there, you know, in what timeframe? are the europeans managing to backfill in the interim? is that sufficient? or are we really talking about a matter of life or death for ukrainians?

>> it's life or death. look, the europeans are backfilling to some degree. i was in munich two weeks ago where i saw the czech president stand up and say they had found almost, you know, down the back of the sofa, 800,000 shells. if these could be funded, things like that can help tide ukraine over. there are some things that only the united states can provide. that's just clearly a fact. it's not just arms. it is training, as well. let me put it very simply. if an american aid package does not materialize in the next few weeks, we are going to see more avdiivkas, more towns lost. it doesn't mean russia is going to slice through ukraine's lines like a knife through butter. i don't have the ammunition for that themselves. they don't have the leadership, the command, the organization. but ukraine will suffer more territorial setbacks, village by village. i will flag now that they will be at risk of losing some towns and villages that they captured in last summer's

counteroffensive. i can think of nothing that would be more diplomatically or politically harmful to ukraine's prospects than the symbolic blow of something like that transpiring. >> ed luce. >> shashank, president macron of france is holding a gathering of all the leaders today in paris. european leaders seeing what europe can do to fill the gaps that the complex can't produce. is there anything in terms of producing these air defense systems, refueling, the 155 millimeters shells that the europeans are providing, is there anything to do amid the panic setting in for ukraine, to set up and start producing stuff they haven't produced for a long time? >> great to see you. i think in the short term, it's not about production. we don't have time for

production. i will say this, europe, by the end of this year, people may not be aware of this, will outproduce the united states in the raw number of shells. so we can fill the gap technically. what's the problem? right now, i am told europeans, the eu, exports around 40% of its shell production to countries other than ukraine, outside of the bloc. that's extraordinary, right? so if we can persuade governments to fund and divert those shells to, say, bound for other countries in the world, to say, send them to ukraine instead, if we can find the money for that, this can eminently be done. but, of course, ed, you know as well as i do, we have problems in germany with the debt break constitutionally. we have problems in the uk can finding extra money for defense. everywhere you look, money is a problem. it's not just in the united states. but the means, the means are absolutely there if we can find them. >> "the economist's" shashank

joshi, thank you very much. his cover story is out now. we appreciate your being on the show. please come back. jackie, do we republicans like johnson, do they know how dire this is? >> i think actually mike johnson does. he's had enough closed door, classified briefings. he's been at the white house. he's gotten the rundown. the last time he came out of the white house, he did say that the case that he heard from jake sullivan and other national security advisors was really compelling. the problem is, it's the rest of his caucus, this growing isolationist view that's been growing since 2015 and this hesitance to support the allies abroad because of what has been propagated by the hard right gop lawmakers, that it comes at the expense of americans across the country, these programs, without the understanding of the whole

holistic, comprehensive view that this is a bigger cause. >> ed, if they do a discharge petition, and i suspect they may have to at the end, discharge petition, this is not -- we're not going to be sitting there going, oh, i wonder how this vote is going to do. i understand the progressives are very concerned about what is going on in gaza. i understand there are -- neville chamberlain -- actually, that's an insult to neville chamberlain. there are charles lindbergh republicans and extremists on the far, far, far, far right, so far right that they're actually leftist hippie freaks. i understand that divide. but donald trump knows and the speaker of the house knows, if there is a discharge petition, it's over. the aid passes. the aid for israel passes. the aid for ukraine passes. the aid for taiwan passes. the aid for release for the people of gaza pass. the humanitarian assistance for

gaza passes. we no this passes easily. just like in the senate, they had to get it to the floor. the second they got it to the floor, i can't repeat what my old friend john thune told the republican caucus, but he was right. they needed to get going because it was going to pass anyway. you can say the same thing in the house. it's going to pass anyway. but it needs to get on the floor. >> it needs to get on the floor. from what i understand, and jackie is the parliamentary expert, it is going to get on the floor. >> yes. >> you can't actually stop this. it'll be very useful to mike johnson, that it'll be out of his hands. i think it probably is going to pass. it will have come at great expense to ukraine. i don't think there is any expense to ukraine, by the way. they have plenty of weapons. whether they're using them well or not is another debate. for ukraine, this has been an

extraordinary expense. avdiivka, the last of this small town to russia, involved thousands of ukrainian lives and many thousands of russian lives. but these are deaths that didn't need to have happened and don't need to be happening. the 12-1 ratio of russian shells to ukrainian shells is measured in ukrainian blood. that blood you can trace back to the house of representatives for delaying this for so long. >> it is. it is on their hands, and they know it. that's why i suspect at the end of the day, they'll figure a way out of it. katty, we're not only looking at ukraine here, not only looking at israel, not only looking at gaza, but, my god, our allies in taiwan, our allies in australia, our allies in the philippines, they're extraordinarily concerned about the message these house republicans are

sending to the communist chinese, to president xi, that america doesn't have the will power to stay in and fight. this isn't just about israel, gaza, or ukraine. i think there are a lot of people in asia and across the world that say the biggest threat if he doesn't pass is that taiwan falls next because of donald trump and house republicans. >> this is the argument the white house made all along, that this is an open letter to the chinese to say, actually, america won't be there and the russians were right. wait us out. keep going. eventually, the west will lose interest. that's the calculation moscow has been making. but there are further ramifications that make the world more unstable, too. let's say america does abandon ukraine or even delays much longer in a way that makes ukraine lose significant territory. if you're sitting in tokyo right now, you might be thinking to yourself, you know what? is that american security

umbrella actually as solid as we thought it was? has it got holes in it? should we be doing more to beef us our own security? should we be looking at nuclear weapons? you're looking at the prospect, if america doesn't stick with ukraine, of a world that is more unstable because multiple counties around the world that relied on american security start thinking they'll take matters into their own hands and produce their own nuclear umbrellas or massive security operations. i don't think that is a world america wants. i don't think it is a world mike johnson wants or even a world donald trump would want. it wouldn't help america in the long run. it'd drag america into more conflicts, not less of them. >> yeah. ed luce, jackie alemany, thank you, both, very much for being on this morning. great to see you both. still ahead on "morning joe," we will show you the moment that former obama adviser david axelrod says biden advisors should pay to have every american watched as part of its re-election message. plus, what the alabama attorney general is saying about

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i wanted to say, welcome to the end of democracy. we're here to overthrow it completely. we didn't get there on january 6th, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this right here. we will replace it with this here. >> amen. >> that's right. all glory is not to government. all glory to god. >> if i were the biden campaign, i would pay to have every american see the cpac

convention. everything thwarting republicans has been this impression of the republican party as an extreme party. yesterday, you had someone stand up at the cpac convention as speaker and basically talk about, we almost toppled democracy on january 6th. we're going to do it now with this. he held up a cross. basically advocating for theocracy. this is not the image the republican party wants. >> yeah, former adviser david axelrod with that message to the biden campaign after a far-right activist told attendees at cpac his goal is to overthrow democracy and finish the mission of january 6th, which was met with glee. reverend al, if we've learned anything from the trump era, it's so believe our ears and eyes. cpac, you know, you can say what you want. at the same time, these are the very people who are pushing

trumpism into the future. >> they're pushing trumpism into the future and saying it like they're being patriotic when, in fact, they're being the opposite. >> yeah. >> when you see them using the bible in a distorted way, even if it was in an actual way, it's against what the country was founded on, freedom of religious. if you have a theocracy, you can't have a democracy. i'm in london, england, today. they fought the british for freedom of religion. now, they're saying, we want women to go by our interpretation of the bible, others to go by that. this is anti-american. it needs to be called out that way. you cannot celebrate the american revolution and then advocate a theocracy. >> this is not a drill. thank you, rev, for that. millions of americans are

being left out of the nominating process when it comes to picking candidates in both major political parties. according to a report from the unite america institute which researches and invests in non-partisan election reforms, 23.5 million americans will be locked out of the primary process because their states exclude independents from participating in democratic or republican primaries. the polarizing nature of america's partisan nominating system is the subject of the new book entitled "the primary solution, rescing our democracy from the fringes." and its author, the executive director of united american, nick, joins us now. thank you for joining us. in the book you write this, "in competitive elections, we often see the impact of partisan primaries on candidates who run far to the left or right to get

their party's nomination and then reinvent themselves for the general election to appeal to a broader audience." we've seen that, yes. "the less obvious but more pernicious impact of partisan primaries is how these same candidates, if elected, then govern. members of congress will act, speak, and vote in a way that is, first and foremost, necessary to keep their job, which nowadays means winning their next partisan primary. the problem is that what's required to win their primary often runs in the exact opposite direction of what's required to actually do their job, such as working across the aisle to solve problems." this is very real and is happening right now as we're seeing. what is the solution? >> thanks for having me. over the last decade, i've been researching and experimenting with a way to address the country's polarization. i developed a conviction that

party primaries are the biggest solvable problem in our politics today. it's not that they're the only problem. people talk about money in politics and gerrymandering. but if you look at which of these systemic problems we can actually do something about and which, if we were to solve, could make the biggest difference, i think addressing our broken system of primaries is the one we should be focused on. that's because the threat of being primaried is what determines the incentives of the elected officials, and why we can't address issues on foreign aid and things as we're seeing in real time. and it is solvable. it doesn't require an act of congress. each state can reform their primaries by replacing them with non-partisan primaries. that's the solution i write about in my book. >> amongst republicans, we see them -- we've had it publicly and privately, republicans saying, i can't support this because i know i'll get a challenge from the right. some maga type will come after me. the book also -- you write about

how independents are locked out of the primary process. we're seeing that play out, i think, very vividly also in 2024. polling of independents and, frankly, republicans and democrats suggest that everyone is just unhappy with this choice. talk to us about why your solutions could help change that. >> well, i think these solutions are about empowering a true majority of voters to be represented in government. you know, part of the dysfunction today is that 83% of our u.s. house seats are effectively determined in the primary because our districts are so lopsided. in the midterms, 8% of voters nationally cast ballots that determine the elections. so we have a small minority determining the vast majority of the officials. if we can replace the system with non-primaries, as alaska did in 2020, a true majority can express themselves. what we saw in alaska is that voters elected a moderate

democrat to the house and then they had an independent. they can make preferences, and it impacts the congress in a significant way. our leaders are liberated to represent their constituents, not just the small base of their party. that's what keeps the system so gridlocked as it is today. >> nick, allow me to follow up on that point. we have some places that tried the non-partisan primaries. you cite alaska. the results seemed to kind of validate the thesis. talk about california. the largest experiment, biggest state in the country, a place where non-partisan, my home state, non-partisan primaries have been implemented there. is there anything like as clear a set of data that's come out of that state, where you can point and say, alaska, you're like, look, it really works there. how is it working in california? >> there's no perfect electoral system. we have to compare every system to the status quo. when you have the status quo being closed primaries that

disenfranchise 24 million americans, a system even like california's is an improvement over that. our own research has found that since california adopted that system, it's been only one of five states that's depolarized since enactment. the two principles i write about in the book that california used and five other states abolished party primaries, is, first, every voter should be able to vote for any candidate regardless of party in every taxpayer funded election. second, whoever wins ought to have majority support. the states that have reformed their primaries, five so far followed those principles, and i think that's what more states should do. many are following. >> i'm curious, when you say there is evidence that california is depolarized, what does that mean? what's the thing you can point to and say, this is less polarized than before? >> you can look at the roll call votes of the state legislators of the delegation. there is more crossover voting than in other states, as well as pressure on elected officials to

have to represent a majority of their constituents. they're not beholden to the 8% that determine these elections in primaries. >> the new book is entitled "the primary solution, rescuing our democracy from the fringes," author nick troiano, thank you very much for coming on the show and congratulations on the book. >> thank you. coming up on "morning joe," a look at the biggest issues facing rural voters, and why our next guest says so-called good republicans are the only way to combat the problems facing that demographic. "morning joe" will be right back. voices of people with cidp: cidp disrupts. cidp derails.

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fertilization or the families who undergo the treatments. the comments came just days after the state's supreme court ruled that frozen embryos are children. that decision led to several fertility clinics suspending their ivf treatments over fears of prosecution. the republican party is now trying to distance itself from the ruling. senate campaign committee leaders warned they could use this for electoral gain and say candidates should express support for ivf. donald trump is appearing to follow that advice. he broke his silence on the ruling over the weekend ahead of the south carolina primary. take a listen. >> like the overwhelming majority of americans, including the vast majority of republican conservatives, christians, and pro-life americans, i strongly support the availability of ivf for couples who are trying to have a precious, little, beautiful baby.

i support it. today, i'm calling on the alabama legislature to act quickly to find an immediate solution to preserve the availability of ivf in alabama, and i'm sure they're going to do that. the republican party should always be on the side of the miracle of life and the side of mothers and fathers and beautiful little babies. >> okay. except we're here because of him. the biden/harris campaign criticized trump's comments, calling it an attempt to, quote, whitewash the reality he created. adding that trump overturned roe v. wade and continues to brag about it. katty, this is just, i mean, i've and the alabama supreme court decision, it's frightening to families that are already going through hell just to have a family. >> spending a huge amount of money to even have that chance. as we heard in alabama, then get told the next day, this

procedure may not go ahead. it's emotionally jarring, it's crippling financially for families. this is something that both republicans and democratic voters use. we have conservatives and depths who have had ivf in blue and red states across the country, which is why you had the trump surrogate on the weekend saying that, you know, he comes out fully in support of ivf. >> right. >> and all the processes ivf entails. they realize this is politically untenable for them, what's happening in alabama. it is another unintended consequence or perhaps intended consequence, but it's something they can't control. and what happens next? what is the next thing to go? is it the states that are looking at the morning-after pill or looking at iuds, those kinds of things? >> we'll stay on it. as we barrel toward a likely rematch of the 2020 election,

one candidate continues to have a hold over white rural voters. but it's not joe biden. seen here as a boy on the right side of your screen who went to public school is the son of a used car salesman and was born to a middle-class family in scranton, pennsylvania. instead, it is trump here on the left side, a private-school-educated son of a new york city real estate tycoon who became a millionaire at 8 years old and didn't have to serve because he claimed he had bone spurs in his little feet. so, why is it that trump appeals so much to a group he couldn't be more different from? joining us now, professor of political science at the university of maryland, baltimore county, tom schaller, and journalist and opinion writer paul waldman. their new book out tomorrow is entitled "white rural rage: the threat to american democracy." tom, i'll start with you.

why are white rural voters a threat to democracy at this point? you would think, looking at joe biden and donald trump's background, that the opposite would be true. >> we lay out the fourfold interconnected threat that while rural voters pose to the country. we show 30 polls and national studies. we provide the receipts. they are the most anti-gay, xenophoic in the country. qanon support and subscribers, covid denialism, obama birthism. third, anti-democratic sentiments. they don't believe in an independent press, free speech. they're most likely to say the president should be backed unilaterally without checks from the courts, and the strongest white christian nationalists. fourth, they're most likely to excuse or justify violence as

acceptable. >> you mentioned a lot of negative factors about this demographic. tom, what else do they have in common? what makes them vulnerable? >> well, a lot has to do with, as a starting point, the problems that rural america has, which are very real and very profound. they have more problematic education systems. they have poorer infrastructure. they've had a lock of economic opportunity. we see a lot of manufacturing jobs leave from rural areas. and that kind of left them open to someone like donald trump who would come along and tell them something that was true, that there is a system that has not served them well. and he said -- >> they're pissed off. >> they are, and they have some reason to be with both parties. the trouble is that what donald trump gave him was not something that was actually not going to fix those problems but a way to

channel their rage and anger. we've been told for so long, especially democrats, that in order to get rural voters, to get them to listen to you, you have to go there, empathize with them, show them you understand their lives, put on a carhart jacket and -- >> right. have a beer. >> maybe milk the cow. >> yes. >> and it turned out none of that was true. when donald trump came on, he didn't do any of that stuff. he was just a conduit for their rage, their anger, their resentment, and that turned out to be what they wanted. and it wasn't about the material conditions of their lives, because he didn't improve their lives, but he got more support in rural areas in 2020 than in 2016 despite the fact none of their problems had gotten better. all he gave them was a way to essentially give a big middle finger to democrats and others. >> isn't he more than a conduit to their rage? isn't he also a symbol of their aspirations to an extent? >> they are. what are their aspirations?

the economy is soaring and -- >> why aren't they seeing that? >> i think this is the disconnect. they'd rather channel their rage. i think what a lot of white rural americans have decided is their economic fortunes are decided by globalization and frankly capitalism, eating up the mom and pop stores and taking away the coal and farming industries, so they might as well vote on their culture issue, gold, gun, and religion, because they feel like neither party is going to deliver any material benefit. they're not going to reverse the closure of rural pharmacies and hospitals and health care facilities which are disappearing, not because of communism or socialism but because of capitalism. rural pharmaies and hospitals are closing because they're not money-makers. trump comes in and says, let's just hate on cities, hate on minorities, on immigrants, and at least they can deliver on that. so they're not even voting in their material interest anymore, and that's causing a further decay and decline of rural

communities. >> reverend al has a question. >> tom, when you also say that it is in the interest of those like donald trump to put the blame on people who are likely to be going through the same kinds of challenges and maybe a different part of the country, like blacks, like browns, like migrants, and he channels this rage that they rightfully have in rural areas toward the wrong people and those that could do something about it, escape without having to make change because if those rural whites and blacks and migrants and browns came together, they could really force real change. isn't it a diversion to the wrong people based on their inherent racism and xenophobia? >> absolutely, rev rend al. 24% of rural america is nonwhite now. we've had eight years since trump came in, a focus on rural

rights, their economic anxieties. with the exception of two things we can find, opioid deaths and gun deaths, on every other measure in rural america, rural latinos, african americans, and others are doing worse, and nobody cares about their economic anxieties. one of the things we argue for and paul argues in our concluding chapter, if rural america wants to revive themselves, they need to build a pan racial america. but there doesn't seem to be any effort to do that. >> wow. >> we have a whole chapter on nonwhite rural americans because they get ignored. we spent a couple years after donald trump got elected. journalists went to diners in rural america talking to red-hatted maga folks about what concerned them, what they were mad about. nobody went to the rural african americans, latinos, native americans to find out what they're mad about. they have every reason to be mad. what they're not doing, they're not overrunning the capicapitol

carrying ar-15s, and nobody treats them way we do our rural americans as though we have a moral obligation to know what they're angry about and to kater to them. >> yeah. the book is "while rural rage." find out more. in it, the threat to american democracy. tom schaller and paul waldman, thank you both very much for being here. really appreciate it. good to have you on the show. >> thanks. coming up, donald trump won the south carolina republican primary over the weekend, but there are signs of trouble for his campaign ahead of november. we'll dig into some of the exit polling that shows you that. plus, the latest from ukraine on the heels of the two-year anniversary of russia's full-scale invasion. nbc's richard engel joins us following his new sitdown interview with ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy. (♪♪) ohhh crap, that's a really good gift.

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and trump just killed it with one phone call. the man doesn't care about this country one iota. sometimes i think he's down right dangerous. >> and you just endorsed him, right? >> yeah. big time. big time. so great. >> so great. >> he is incredible! >> you know, he once doxxed me? >> no, really? >> back in 2015. gave out my personal cell phone number and thousands of his people called me up to yell at me. threatening my life. had to get a new phone. >> you okay? >> oh, gosh. >> you okay? >> switched to verizon. but you know what? i still think he's the greatest president since reagan. >> oh, he is greater than reagan! >> he's greater than lincoln! >> it makes me jealous. >> he happens to be a little bit further left than some of the

people on this stage, but i always say when i'm in trouble in the left, i call up lindsey graham and he straightens it out so fast. and i' tell you -- no, no. remember. remember. [ boos ] i love him. he's a good man. come up here, lindsey. come up here, lindsey. come here. >> okay. you ready? >> wow. if you couldn't tell, the comedy sketch was the first clip that we played. yikes. good morning. >> yeah. >> welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, february 26th. with us, we have the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire, u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay, nbc news national

affairs analyst john heilemann, president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton, and senior columnist for "the daily beast," matt lewis. joe, great group this morning and quite a weekend for donald trump. >> yeah. >> and his supporters. >> well, i don't know. i had somebody run against me in a primary once, and they got i think 19%, 20%, and i melted down. i thought it was the end of all time. i think most politicians would. if you're basically the incumbent and about to get the nomination for the third time and you're still losing 50% in iowa and 60% in south carolina, which is your strongest state, i mean, "wall street journal" editorial page this morning has a point. before we get into the news, i know a lot of people have been

talking about south carolina, but i think the "wall street journal" editorial page has it right here. let me read it. "yet miss haley won nearly 40% of the vote, which, as she said in her remarks saturday evenings, is not some tiny group. that's especially true running against a kweisi incumbent who is endorsed by nearly every gop official in the state. none want to risk a primary in new hampshire. the size of her vote shows that millions in the republican party do not want mr. trump in the white house. a fox news voter analysis found that 59% of haley's voters said they would not vote for trump." let me say that again. "59% of haley's voters said they would not vote for trump if he's the gop nominee. and 36% of all republican south carolina voters said a conviction in one of his criminal trials would make him unfit to be president. so, even if most of those voters hold their noses and vote for

trump in a race against mr. biden, the question is how many stay home, vote for a third party or go over to mr. biden? even a 10% defection could be divisive and decisive. if mr. trump can't win over more of her voters, he could make miss haley a profit." they're talking about when she said if donald trump wins we're going to lose. let me just real quickly go to john heilemann before we jump into the news here. john, you've got a guy that's about to win the nomination for the third time, and he's losing 50% of the republican vote in iowa, 40% of it in south carolina, which we've always said is his strongest state. and so, yeah, i mean, if i'm running for the first time and i'm getting 59%, i'm happy. if i'm the three-time and basically a three-time incumbent, those are the real warning signs. your people warning about donald

trump, and i certainly get it. he is a threat to american democracy. but right now, 40% of his electorate is a threat to him even getting there. >> well, yeah, joe. we have a reasonable comparative point here. you know, the democratic primary in south carolina took place quite recently, not the same day as the republican primary. joe biden, the incumbent president, donald trump, as you point out, kind of a quasiincumbent. everyone e everybody says he has an iron grip on the republican party. the two challengers combined got about 5,000 votes, about 5,000 volts, about 4%, whereas nikki haley got 298,681 votes for about 40%. it's not apples and oranges. joe biden is an incumbent. trump ran in 2016, 2020, and

this time. so, you know, there is -- if you talk about who has an iron grip over his party, who has total control of the party, who has the loyalty of the base of the party -- >> it's not donald trump. >> not compared to joe biden and certainly not donald trump cared to where he's been in the past in south carolina. look, all those exit polls you cited should be a warning for trump. there's financial stuff that is worrying for trump that's coming real soon. it is not unalloyed. look, give the man the win. he's won three. you can't take that away from him. a win is a win. he's going to be the nominee. probably have 12, 15 delegates by the middle of march. but, man, if you don't see the warning signings, the people around him don't see the warning signs, and they're smart people, they're pretty clear. >> smart people. they want her out of the race.

and for good reason. and for good reason. they want her out of the race. but, mika, again, a couple numbers here. i will say, i have said this before, and, you know, i got enough problems on "morning joe." i'm just trying to avoid flop sweat. mika will tell you i'm a flop sweater. >> he's a sweater. >> i'm a big guy. i sweat all the time. >> yeah. >> i'm trying not to look like elvis '77 every day. i don't want to judge other news outlets. i will just say i've been surprised, mika, by the alerts that i get from donald trump. donald trump smashes haley for victory or whatever. >> right. a couple weeks ago, i think it was new hampshire, donald trump routs. we're hearing trump's going to win by 30, 35 points in south carolina. how long have we heard that? he's going to win by 30 points.

again, he always underperforms as far as margin of victory in the polls. always does. and yet, this was supposed to be a 30-point win. it ended up being a 20-point win. again, that's not the issue here for donald trump if you're chris or suzy inside his campaign. what you're concerned about or what i would be concerned about -- i don't want to speak for them -- she won 40% of the vote. but here we go, fox news voter analysis found that 59% of her voters, 59% said they would not vote for donald trump if he's the gop nominee, and 36% of all south carolina republican voters said a conviction in just one of his criminal trials would make him unfit to be president. why am i underlining this? because i've been saying on the show for months now that what i've been hearing from my

republican relatives, my republican friends, from republicans who voted for donald trump twice over the last summer, over the last year, you'll remember -- i won't say his name -- but a member of my family who voted for donald trump twice sat with us last summer and said he and his friends in i a say a suburb, a contested suburb, always voted republican, will not vote for him, will leave the slot ohm. and, again, these were hardcore trumpers who, you know, i'll just say, really concerned me in 2020 when they voted for him again. they're gone. and so, when you see these numbers that, you know, a third are saying they're not going to vote for donald trump, that's where it's starting to show up. and that is something the trump campaign's going to have to focus on between here and the end of the year. >> you mentioned fox news exit

polling. there's, you know, different exit polls that have potential trouble ahead that's even more for donald trump in a likely general erection rematch with joe biden. as politico points out, trump lost moderate and liberal voters to haley by a wide margin, citing exit polling from the oop ap. in addition, a little over 1 in 5 gop primary voters said they would not vote for trump in november if he was the party's nominee. when asked by nbc news, 81% of nikki haley's supporters said their vote was more of a vote against trump than it was for haley. haley also beat trump with college-educated voters, 54% to 45%. 36% of all voters also said they would consider trump unfit for office if he is convicted of a crime by election day. and despite trump's continued efforts to push the big lie, 36% of republican primary voters

said joe biden was legitimately elected in 2020. >> mika, i'm sorry. who are the nimrods that are 61%? i mean, come on. come on. who are those people, matt lewis? let's talk about our former party, my former party. who are the nimrods, 61%, that still can say that with a straight face? come on. >> i think part of the story here is that donald trump narrow casts, right? he loves fan service, so if you are that 60%, you're getting what you want, you know, you're getting the entertainment, getting the anger, the humor, whatever. trump narrow casts. he does the fan service. what he doesn't do is he doesn't persuade. so, i think donald trump has created this scenario whereby he's painted himself in a corner, he really can't grow his constituency. he can fire up his base. but, look, donald trump has even

said if you're with nikki haley, we don't want you. it's too late. you don't board now or you're done. it reminds me of kari lake in arizona. remember what she said? if you're a john mccain supporter, we don't want you, leave. now she's changing her tune, but it's a little too late to do the right thing now, as the tanya tucker song goes. so, this is what donald trump has created. it is a movement, it is a cult, it is never meant to be 50% plus 1, it is never meant to be a mainstream movement. and the only reason there's even a chance of victory is that, because of the way that our system works with the electoral college and various vagaries of the american system, it's possible donald trump can win with, like, 46% of the vote. otherwise, he completely fails. >> with so many moving parts in his life, katty kay, given the legal challenges, it seems to me that nikki haley, even losing

funding from the coke brothers, whoever along the way, probably should hang in there. >> certainly from the white house's point of view, they're thrilled she's hanging in there, she is one of their best surrogates on the campaign trail at the moment. she's saying the kind of things and reaching republican voters in ways joe biden never can, saying very similar things about donald trump. she's right. if you take that 60% and the -- it ends up at about 25% of the south carolina people who voted in the gop primary say they're never going to vote for donald trump. 25%. that's a big chunk. i mean, he can't afford to lose 25% of the republican party, even if some are switch-over voters. she's doing damage to donald trump, but she's also revealing things, i think, just as importantly. >> yes. >> she's revealing things to the biden cam page about his weaknesses, and that's very useful information for them. >> jonathan lemire, she's slowly -- i mean, there's still a long way to go, but every day she goes a little further

against donald trump and says the truth about him in a way really no one else can as a republican. >> yeah. and there was some speculation despite haley's public insistences that she might bow out if she were to be routed in her home state. and she lost by 20. that wasn't as much as the polls had forecasted, but it was still a decisive loss. but she's clearly staying in. it's michigan tomorrow night, super tuesday next week. 21 states and territories will have their voices heard in the next eight or nine days. the koch brothers is a blow, but she's got another fund-raising scheduled this week too. we'll hear her voice for at least a little while longer. reverend sharpton, i think it can't be overstated some a.p. exit polling from saturday, a little over 1 in 5 gop primary voters in south carolina said they simply will not vote for trump if he's their party ice

nominee in november. assume we get tho that choice of trump and biden, those numbers change a little bit, maybe not 1 in 5 but 1 in 8, 1 in 10. some of those republicans stay home, but if they all don't, that will be a real problem for trump. remember, this is south carolina. think how that will work in other more moderate states when republicans look differently, in michigan, wisconsin, than they do in south carolina. we talk a lot about how president biden has worries about his base, and that may be true, but maybe, just maybe, donald trump does too. >> donald trump definitely has problems in his base when i look at the vote in south carolina. you couldn't get a more conservative red state than south carolina. and if you have those numbers of people voting against him, just about 40% voting against donald trump, which is no -- i think it was 3% or 4% in the democratic primary voted against biden.

i mean, there's no comparison. when you have 20% saying if he's convicted they won't vote for him. imagine, you say whether the numbers will change slightly by november. it may change slightly or even more than slightly the other way if there is a trial and a conviction by then. so, if i were donald trump, i would take the victory, but i would be very concerned because he's clearly within the numbers of being a real detriment to him in november if he, in fact, will be the nominee. but i do not think the numbers will mean that this will help him if south carolina is any measure. still ahead on "morning joe," donald trump says he thinks more black americans are supporting his candidacy. we'll show you his stunning new comments.

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former president spoke at the annual gala saturday. >> these lights are so bright in my eyes that i can't see too many people out there. but i can only see the black ones. i can't see any white ones. you see? that's how far i've come. that's how far i've come. i got indicted for nothing, for something that is nothing. they were doing it because it's election interference. and then i got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time! and a lot of people said that that's why the black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and diskrim nated

against, and they actually viewed me as i'm being discriminated against. it's amazing. i'm being indicted for you, the american people. i'm being indicted for you, the black population. the mug shot, we've all seen the mug shot. and you know who embraced it more than anybody else? the black population. it's incredible. you see black people walking around with my mug shots. they do shirts and sell them for $19 apiece. it's amazing. millions of these things have been sold. >> so, rev, yeah -- >> my god. >> curious, do you -- i don't know. i mean, i suppose we could do a poll of black americans and ask whether they are more likely to support somebody because they stole nuclear secrets from the white house, they stole secret war plans against iran, they

lied to the fbi about having those nuclear secrets and secret war plans, lied to the fbi and the justice department about having classified documents hidden in their beach-front resort. i mean, maybe black americans relate to that. i don't know. i wouldn't think they would. do they relate to trump telling his i.t. director to destroy all the evidence? now that i.t. director testifying against him. or to maintenance people to flood the room where the i.t. department is to destroy -- i just don't know -- it seems like a stretch, rev, donald trump doing all of that and illegally paying off a porn star according to the manhattan d.a. trying to foment a riot on january 6th. i'm not so sure, rev. help me understand. why would black americans relate to donald trump? i don't understand the

connection. >> well, first of all, let's be clear. donald trump is using the stereotype of blacks being criminals, and therefore we would gravitate towards somebody in a mug shot. he's in a mug shot for trying to interfere with an election. blacks were arrested to get the right to vote. that's what the mantras were about. it is the epitome of an insult, also, when you think of the fact that it is a black man that is prosecuting him in manhattan, albert bragg, a black woman in georgia, a black woman, the new york state attorney general, letitia james. so, he's saying that black people would relate to someone indicted for trying to undermine the elections by blacks. but we would go with him rather than them. the other part of this that is so amazing is donald trump himself has been part of these

kinds of unfair prosecutions of blacks. it was he that took out ads in newspapers calling for the death penalty of five young black and brown boys from raping a white woman in central park who went to jail falsely. it was later prove that i know didn't do it because of dna. donald trump said no, punish them anyway. so all of a sudden -- i've been in this movement for 40, 50 years. i've never seen him stand up for blacks that were treated wrong by the criminal justice system. but now he's a symbol of being prosecuted, prosecuted by black prosecutors, a black woman judge in the federal court in washington, d.c., and any shameless blacks applauding him need to check the facts. >> yeah. >> mika, he is also making racist comments against letitia james, against fani willis,

against those prosecutors that happen to be people of color. just because they're black. maybe they didn't fit that into his speech. >> listen. first, it was navalny, now it's the african american community. these comparisons are sick and grotesque. the biden/harris campaign co-chair former congressman cedric richmond said, "donald trump claims that black americans will support him because of his criminal charges is insulting, it's moronic, and it's just plain racist. he thinks black voters are so uninformed that we won't see through his shameless pandering. he has another thing coming." so, john heilemann, i just -- you know, then there's tim scott. i don't know.

on the republican side, it's the trump acolytes, those that stay with him through everything, it's beyond hard to watch. how do you think the overall black community will respond to this? remember his comments the first time around. what do you have to lose? >> honestly, i don't think most black voters are paying attention to the race at this point and i don't think they'll respond to this in any particular way. i would say if you think about, you know, the things people talk about, correctly, what are the concerns for the biden campaign going into a general election against donald trump, it's not the head-to-head polls. they've seen their support among core constituencies slip, including nonwhite voters, and at the core of that is a lot of black voters. the biden campaign says wait until the race is clear, that donald trump is the nominee, we get to the fall, and it's this choice between the two.

the african american community will remember that donald trump is a threat and they'll come home to us. we have a lot of work to do, but they're going to come home. not these comments specifically, but the fact that donald trump will make these kind of comments, and he's made fem thr years and will make them into the future, because that's who he is. i only see black faces. look how far i've come. ha, ha, ha. he'll keep saying it, and that is why the biden campaign is right, they have something to cling to when they say when people start to focus on this race, our core constituenies will come back because they'll remember who donald trump is and he'll be in front of them showing them who he is day after day after day. this is what they're counting on in the fall to bring african american voters back to joe biden with the intensity they sad back in 2016 -- sorry, back in 2020. >> a trump adviser told me that the indictments would make black

voters vote for trump, the mug shot would. and the new line of trump sneakers would appeal to black sneakers would do the same. of course, we can say how grossly offensive that is. matt lewis -- >> especially with those sneakers. my god, they're the worst. >> matt lewis, let's give you the final word on this. it's true, republicans, trump in particular, think they've made inroads with black voters, though he may have just hurt himself with these comments, it is an area of concern for democrats. they know they have to work hard to get them back. their constituencies are saying don't take us for granted. how do you see this playing out as november approaches? >> to me, what's so interesting about this, is, first of all, this is trickled down, so, like, donald trump didn't come up with the bonus "i'm navalny," even though he unveiled that at, can pac last week. he didn't come up with that. that came from desouza, lee

zellden. similarly, the mug shot would make trump popular with black americans, that's a year and a half old from fringe right-wing activist types. trump then at some point, it gets to him. there's an old expression in politics, hang a lantern on your problem. how do you make a mug shot into a positive? how do you make the fact that you've been supporting putin for all of these years and his opposition leader was just poisoned -- or was poisoned, went to jail, died in jail, how do you put a happy face on that if you're donald trump? their ability to cop up with these bizarrely devious, in some cases almost evil brilliant, but also entirely flawed, obviously, and bogus, excuses is pretty unparalleled. i can't believe the audacity of doing it.

some of them i think are better than others. look, i imagine there's someone out there in middle america right now who's not paying that close of attention to politics who now thinks, oh, yeah, trump is just like navalny, he's the victim. making himself the victim once again. if nothing else, it's impressive that he keeps trying. coming up, we'll turn to battleground michigan and have a preview of tomorrow's presidential primaries there. here's to getting better with age. here's to beating these two every thursday. help fuel today with boost high protein, complete nutrition you need... ...without the stuff you don't. so, here's to now. boost.

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richard engel. richard, you spoke with president zelenskyy yesterday. what did he tell you? >> reporter: so, this is a very tough time for ukraine, and president zelenskyy gave, first, a major press conference here, then i sat down with him as our fifth conversation since the war began. and he stressed the need not to appease vladimir putin. he says that vladimir putin is still intent on conquering all of ukraine and that he won't stop, that he will keep driving across this country and that he has a plan all the way through 2030. president zelenskyy said he was quite convinced that putin would win the rubber-stamp elections next month, keeping him in office until 2030, and he said

that people are mistaken. it's been believed that putin will stop. and he said that for united states, helping ukraine now is actually in the u.s. interest, because if you allow putin to keep going and you appease him, that the u.s. at the end of the day will be drawn into a much larger warrer, as happened in world war ii, where a dictator was apieced, then ultimately you had u.s. machine guns on the beaches of europe. so, this is a historic moment, a moment of reflection. and he said on practical terms the holdup of u.s. weapons, because certainly u.s. aid is being held up by the house and congress, is costing ukrainian lives. he said that russia's taking advantage of these delays to go on the offensive. he says that the russian offensive is going to get worse and intensify over the next two months. and i asked him specifically, okay, so what happens, what do you do if the weapons and

ammunition from the u.s. don't come? >> we'll lose a lot of people. we will lose territories. the united states focused on -- also on interior aggressions, but, you know, it's top election period, and there's why it's a little slow. but their answer is if to give us strong advantage, you know, on time, our steps will be more strong on the battlefield. we will lose less people, and we will win. >> richard, you've spoken about how the troops are being rationed in terms of the ammunition that they can use. can you talk a little bit about the manpower itself? i've heard that the troops on the frontline in campaign, the median age is 40 years old. are they running out of young people to fight this war for them?

>> reporter: yes, they are. they are running out. the troops that are on the front line are exhausted, and it is the probably number-one domestic issue here. president zelenskyy spoke to two audiences over this weekend that ukrainians are using as moment to reboot the war, to reflect on the war, to see what worked, what isn't working. and the main question he's been asked from the ukrainian population, from ukrainian journalists, is what about the troops? when will we get a better system to have rotations in place? because the troops that are on the front line can go out there and be on the same position in the frozen, muddy trenches for months at a time, sometimes many months at a time. and yet there is another segment of the population that is more or less sitting the war out here in the rear in places like kyiv and other areas. and they're trying to figure out

a way to get more consistent rotation, to push people who are at the back out toward the front without losing military capacity. it is something they are deeply concerned about. they don't want to overextend and exhaust their troops, because they do expect this is going to be a long war. and it all goes back to the weapons. without the weapons, ukraine has to send its troops closer into combat. the weapons systems they're asking for are long-range weapons. it's all about range. this conflict is all about range, because the closer you are to the front line, the more likely you are to be hit by russian mortars or artillery or drones. if he could fire back from a few kilometers further back with a little bit of extra range, 10, 20, 30 kilometers of extra range, then ukraine doesn't need to send as many troops right to the front line, lowering the exhaustion and the casualty

rate. he also for the first time said that 31,000 ukrainian troops have been kills do far in the war. that figure is lower than some u.s. estimates, but that is figure that he released officially this weekend. >> nbc eebs richard engel reporting from ukraine. thank you very much. let's go to jonathan lemire. i'm just curious if you have any indication from the white house or capitol hill as to the status of the aid package and how much hope it has at going through anytime soon. >> the senate returns and the house comes back wednesday from their presidents' day recess. all eyes will be on the white house tomorrow, mika. president biden is hosting a bunch of congressional leaders, including speaker mike johnson to discuss a number of matters. it looks at the lack of relationship between biden and johnson. johnson's sort of an unknown ascending to the speakership to the point a lot of senior biden aides called around to -- because they didn't know johnson -- they called around to their congressional allies on

the hill, republicans, democrats alike, asking them what they thought of johnson. and most of them, they didn't know him either outside of that big-lie legislation, legal words, in 2020. so, the white house really doubts johnson can get a big deal done because his grasp on power is to tenuous. so, right now, aides tell me they do think a ukraine package is still possible but it will come after a deal to get the government open. there's a government funding shutdown, mika, at the end of this -- deadline at the end of this week. that has to happen first. the earliest a ukraine package could get past, i'm told, probably the middle of march. that would mean more weeks with ukraine's soldiers not having the ammunition they need. even then, it's not a sure thing as there is still a possibility of at least a partial government shutdown for a few days. coming up, one of our next guests sat down with hunter biden for a rare interview. what the president's son had to say about his effort to stay

sober amid an onslaught of republican attacks. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

i got indicted for nothing, for something is nothing. they were doing it because it's election interference. i stand before you today not only as your past and hopefully future president but as a proud political dissident. i am a dissident. november 5th will be our new liberation day, but for the liars and cheaters and fraudsters and sensors and impostors who have commandeered our government, it will be their judgment day. their judgment day.

>> that was former president trump campaigning over the weekend, once again blaming the numerous indictments against him as an attempt by democrats to sabotage his re-election campaign. that argument seems ridiculous at first. but when it's parroted by officials over and over again, it becomes more believable in the eyes of voters. a new poll this month shows nearly three-fourths of republicans now agree the federal election interference case against trump is being conducted unfairly. the rise of disinformation, especially in politics, has become one of biggest threats to free and fair elections. elections. the new book from barbara mcquade "attack from within, how disinformation is sabotaging america" explains how it's done

and what can be done to stop it. you saw right there just over and over again donald trump either exaggerating things or lying flat out. we know it reverberates across many tv networks and websites, completely not pushed back upon. how does one in america counter disinformation so that voters get the truth? >> one of the things i talk about in the book is how people are choosing tribe over truth. so it doesn't matter so much what the station is. what matters who says it. what donald trump and others have done is to demonize their

opponents and say i'm on the side of good and my opponent is on the side of evil that you shouldn't believe anything they say, and all of these allegations against me are fake news, all in an effort to interfere with the election. what can we do? at the government level there are things we can do, for example, with regulation of social media, which has been allowed to grow in some ways wonderfully, but we have allowed things like anonymous accounts like bots to amplify messages that are maybe not have popular but appear to be garnering likes and shares. we have algorithms that push toward content that outrages us. that is one thing i think we need to cover at the governmental level. i think we need to reform the way we do campaign finance. after the citizens united case,

there is all kinds of dark money in the system. at an individual level, we have to have the discipline ourselves to try to figure out what is truth and what is false. one thing disinformers do is create an illusion that truth doesn't matter. people become cynical and numb and disengage from politics. we can learn the truth by fact checking websites and by turning to media that is credible, things like factcheck.org and snopes. >> this is such an important book to come out right now. thank you so much doing this, writing this book.

let's blow up a myth here that it's just rubes in some far away place away from media outlets that are believing this, because it's not. it's highly educated people with advanced degrees that repeat a lot of these lies. i have two friends of mine who said i don't look at news anymore because it's so hard to figure out who's telling the truth. yet, she goes on every trash website out there spreading these lies. i had another friend that i tried to work through, very close friend, for months, bring me your lie. of course most of them were from epoch times, a chinese

conspiracy website. i found that after i disproved one thing after another, then another lie would pop up. well, what about this, what about that? it just reminded me of hitler just flooding the zone with lie after lie. after a while, people get exhausted and just give up. this is happening to people with advanced degrees. >> yeah. this is that concept and we see it in russia too with vladimir putin. they call it the fog of unknowability. i'm going to fog with so much disinformation, people don't know what to think. we've been convinced we should choose tribe over truth. people don't want to change their minds, because they've been told the other side is the devil and radical leftists that will ruin america and woke

culture and other things. it can be useful to talk with people and ask about the evidence that supports their claim. it isn't so much the facts that are out there, but what are the underlying facts that support it? what is the data and the evidence? i come from a world of courts where you can't just say things and have a jury to believe it to be true. you have to show evidence to back it up. if they're talking about something said something, that shouldn't be sufficient. i think being patient with our friends, but also recognizing there are people out there deliberately going along with the con for their financial or personal agenda. we saw it with fox news and the settlement to dominion voting systems when they fostered lies about machines flipping votes

from trump to biden. coming up, martin sheen is our guest. he's putting the spotlight on a death penalty case out of texas that is getting national attention. "morning joe" is coming right back. attention. "morning joe" is coming right back ...for kung fu panda 4. jack black is back. ah, you're adorable. yah, whah! bombas makes absurdly comfortable underwear. made to move with you, not on you. because your basic things should be your best things. one purchased equals one donated. visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order. i was stuck. unresolved depression symptoms were in my way. i needed more from my antidepressant. vraylar helped give it a lift. adding vraylar to an antidepressant is clinically proven to help relieve

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30-year-old gordon dwyer just couldn't catch a break, not at work, not in love and especially not on the court. >> why am i such a loser? >> but that's all about to change. gordon, "wall street journal"

where we clearly go through the numbers we talked about as far as nbc goes.

haley won nearly 43% of the vote. it's not some tiny group that's running against a quasi incumbent endorsed by nearly every gop official in the state. 59% of haley's voters said they wouldn't vote for donald trump. and 36% of south carolina voters said a conviction in a criminal trial would make him unfit for president. donald trump barely broke 50% in iowa with an extremely depressed turnout, and here almost got to 60%. this is going to be the third time he's nominated for president. almost 60% not even close to

being good enough. >> right. exit polling showed that 42% of nikki haley's vote in south carolina said they'd be unlikely to vote for donald trump in a general election. let's be very clear. even if donald trump and his campaign are able to juice their turnout beyond the record level number of supporters in the 2020 election, those trump type ci21:z@inayçw8ga!m/í34ue!3[ we've got to also look at the fact that i'm going to throw this out there until the door is shut, no labels. door is shut, no labels. >> we have talked about that. they say they are going to get

on the ballot in 30 stats to provide americans with an option that is not joe biden or donald trump. nikki haley was making the case that americans are looking for somebody that's not joe biden or donald trump. frankly, no labels has not shut the door on her as leading the ticket. there's a point in time even if she runs this out for another month until donald trump becomes the presumptive nominee, why not continue on? >> in the speech, she sounded like an independent. i wasn't exactly sure where she was going to go. she's continuing the fight onto michigan. again, she may be looking at, i don't know, what happened in france with macron, who came out of nowhere, hardly was known the year before the election when he

first ran, ran as the third party and won. so maybe nikki haley is looking at that. she's definitely looking, though, at how she did in south carolina. there were all these headlines, you know, the breaking news, donald trump consolidating this and that, trouncing nikki haley. i mean, they're looking at this like it's 2016 and this is the first time donald trump has run. he is the incumbent. he's about to be the three-time incumbent for the republican party as far as nominations go, and he lost 40%. that would freak out any politician i ever served with if they had been around for eight years and were still losing 40% of the vote in their own party, 50% in iowa? nikki haley noted that yesterday at a rally in michigan and

pointed out that donald trump keeps bleeding support for a huge amount of republican supporters. >> you look at those first early states. they can say donald trump won. i give them that. but he, as a republican incumbent, didn't get 40% of the vote of the primary. so the issue at hand is he's not going to get to 40% if he's going and calling out my supporters and saying they're barred permanently from maga. he's not going to get the 40% by calling them names and by trying to take over the rnc so that it pays all his legal fees. he's not going to get the 40% if he is not willing to change and do something that acknowledges the 40%.

why should the 40% have to cave to him? >> he keeps saying dumb things. a couple of days ago saying black people support me because i have a mugshot, they can relate to me. that's basically what it was. it's not even the black voters he's going to lose because of it. it's going to be those white swing voters in the suburbs of atlanta, the suburbs of philadelphia, of detroit.

you go on and on and on. he loses black voters and he loses a lot of white voters and other voters. >> he's already lost black voters. he might get a little bit more this year maybe because of other reasons that have nothing to do with really donald trump. he's not going to lose black voters. it is white women in the swing states that republicans have been worried about for a very long time and over and over they have run from. abortion does not help in these cases. these kinds of things he's saying also is why the 60% like him. nikki haley is right, that 40% should be concerning, but he is still winning the primary. that's her problem, is she's trying to go from a to c without b. she would probably do really

well in a general election based on the groups that she's been able to cobble together. donald trump continues to win over and over again because the folks that like donald trump like the chaos, they like the things he's saying. over and over when i go to rallies or talk to people who support donald trump, they'll tell you they want to say whatever's on their mind without anyone coming back on them. that's just not how culture or society works. his team should be saying to him there are things we need to change and fix here in the language, because in the general election there are warning signs over and over again. these republicans saying they're not going to vote for him in december, that should be a warning sign.

people saying i can't do this again, i heard that a lot in south carolina when i was there. people saying i voted for him in 2016 and 2020, but i am done. i'm not voting for him and i'm not voting for joe biden. that's what republicans should be concerned about and worried about. the trump campaign doesn't seem concerned about that, but they should be. >> i like when eugene does the trump advisor thing and he pointedly starts with sir. michigan primary tomorrow, super tuesday. donald trump's going to be the nominee and have his delegates locked in by march.

here's the thing donald trump has coming up after super tuesday. he's got a court order that says he's got to pay a lot of money, almost half a billion dollars. leticia james says we'd like to have that money right now. he does not have that cash on him. a month from now when the court order comes due and he doesn't pay the bill, she's going to go to trump tower or one of the many buildings he owns in this town and say i'm seizing this asset now, i'm seizing that asset now. as trump locks up the primary, the cash crunch is coming right after the moment of triumph. talk to me about what you hear from trump people about how they're thinking about that problem and how it intersects with politics? >> march 25th, circle that date.

not only is that the beginning of the hush money payment trial, but that is also the day the civil fraud penalty is due here. i know they are actively looking for a lender to provide donald trump that sum of money in the form of an appeal bond. >> also potentially a bonkers lender. >> find somebody who donald trump is willing to give equity in the stake of his business. there is a lot financially on the business and corporate side of this that is on the line. you valls to look at the fact that you're talking about legal bills. there is an rnc resolution that's been put forward that could be voted on march 7th and 8th when the 168-member body gets together in houston texas, in which they would prevent the rnc from giving any of their

money to pay for trump's legal bills. we've seen already $80 million spent from his super pacs to go toward his legal bills. there's a lot he's going to owe in the future. for donald trump it's complicated, and his team is cognizant of that. it's easier to pull up and say we win in south carolina, but come november if they win they may be right. meanwhile, it's nine months ahead of financial obligations. let's look at michigan. michigan democrats are signaling they are unsure how president biden will do in the primary tomorrow over his approach to the israel/hamas war. gretchen whitmer was asked about the possible divisions within the party in an interview yesterday. >> how many uncommitted votes do you think we're going to see on

tuesday? how worried are you? >> i'm not sure what we're going to see on tuesday, to tell you the truth. i can tell you this, that michigan has been so fortunate to be the form of a robust arab/muslim/palestinian community and a robust jewish community. we've lived in harmony for decades. there's a lot of pain across all of these communities because of what's happening halfway around the world. this is, i think, a very high-stakes moment. i'm encouraging people to cast an affirmative vote for president biden. i understand the pain that feel are feeling, and i'll continue to work to build bridges with folks in all of these communities, because they're all important to me, they're all important to michigan, and i know they're all important to president biden as well. >> sounds like you're preparing for a sizable percentage of the vote being uncommitted and

sending that protest vote to president biden. >> i'm just not sure what to expect. >> that was similar protest effort with new hampshire. there was a push there to right in "ceasefire" and that went next to nowhere. michigan is a little different. there's a sizable arab american population there. they're very angry that members of congress were part of this effort. how worried are democrats as to what we might see there tomorrow night? it's a primary, but it's a state joe biden needs to win in november. >> you have beto o'rourke yesterday jumping in saying, yes, vote uncommitted in order to put pressure on the biden administration. debbie dingle was on the show yesterday describing what people in her community are going through, people who have relations in gaza, people who have lost grandparents or

parents. the situation is dire. people are grinding up animal feed to try to make flour. they're drinking saltwater in gaza at the moment. it's not surprising that people are angry, particularly from the arab american community. we're looking at younger voters. have they been so angry about this on college campuses? they may drift back to the biden administration. i think it's going to be hard for many arab americans to forget what happened in gaza. that does make it more important for the biden administration to have outreach. debbie dingle was suggesting the president needs to come up there and actually meet with members of the community. >> it is february, and there is time, but there is no doubt young voters and arab americans want to hear from the president and democrats and want to see

action in israel and in gaza. the "new york times" has as their editorial "u.s. call for humanitarian ceasefire in gaza is a necessary step." let me read a little bit from it. "joe biden circulating a hostages for ceasefire resolution may have been the best of the bad options available to the biden administration. president biden is right to take this step. the president was right to demonstrate sympathy and support for israel in the days after the october 7th attack. since then, his administration has worked tirelessly with arab allies, first mediating a brief halt in fighting in november, and more recently trying to negotiate a longer ceasefire to release the israeli hostages and bring humanitarian relief to gaza. hamas launched its attack to

provoke an israeli response, knowing the people of gaza would be acutely vulnerable. the terrorist group hides fighters among civilians and built infrastructure, including miles of tunnels, underneath homes, schools and hospitals. since the war began, 2 million people in gaza have been pounded by israeli bombardment. more than 29,000 people have been killed according to palestinian figures. more than half of gaza's homes and buildings have been destroyed, and gazans are at risk of starvation. yet, every effort to rein in israeli assault has been blocked by netanyahu or by unacceptable demands by hamas. the fact that the united states is circulating a resolution that mentions the term ceasefire should be a signal to israelis that american leaders are losing patience with mr. netanyahu. this is a moment when there are no good options for mr. biden

politically. allowing this conflict to continue unchecked is no longer acceptable and the united states alone has the power and the leverage to do what must be done. katty kay, joe biden has been more and more frustrated, more and more angry, more and more impatient with benjamin netanyahu continuing to make the moves that he has made. the prime minister barely has the support of a small minority of his own people. at some point, though, the biden administration is going to have to make that break, aren't they? >> they are now saying in public what they were saying in private to the israelis. over this weekend, you had jake

sullivan saying we have told the israelis they cannot go into rafah unless there is a plan to protect civilians, and we have not seen that plan yet from the israelis. you have netanyahu, though, yesterday saying we're going into rafah. >> defiant. >> even though the plan is not there, he's defiant. all of the things the administration are trying to do, the two-state solution, time and again netanyahu is saying bluntly, no, that's not an option that's on the stable. the question for the administration is what point do they start putting conditions on american aid? so far they haven't done so. >> congress is without a deal to fund the government this morning. with less than five days left, those crafting the funding legislation missed their deadline yesterday to release the bill. nbc news is reporting that house speaker mike johnson unveil add plan to avoid a shutdown to his republican colleagues.

the question is will the far-right members allow the plan to go through? let's bring in julie tsirkin. where do things stand? can there be a breakthrough with aid to ukraine and israel? >> reporter: exactly. that will be the main focus of the meeting tomorrow. president biden called the four top congressional leaders to the white house to discuss. certainly funding is a priority because that deadline is coming up in five days, and they have yet to release those spending bills. aid to ukraine and israel and gaza is super important. that meeting johnson has been asking for is not going to happen for obvious reasons. on the funding bill there are disagreements between republicans and democrats when it comes to those policy riders. that is what schumer said last night when he said they are not going to meet that deadline.

johnson countered and said republicans and democrats have been working diligently to come to a compromise. still certainly hard liners want johnson to hold firm and shut the government down and they want that full-year cr with a 1% decrease in all areas kicks in. now johnson finds himself in perhaps the biggest test so far of his speakership. if he can bridge those gaps and make this happen is certainly something to watch, but the clock is ticking. it looks like we may be heading towards at least a partial government shutdown. >> of course, making the situation worst is most people

on capitol hill are saying that speaker johnson is just in over his head. republicans are now saying it. some of them are saying it publicly. mchenry said we need our speakers to do better. this is how crazy the republican party is right now in the house for the people that are running it. we have a republican party in the house that, first of all, said no to border security, said no to the toughest border bill in u.s. history, number one. number two, said, no, we will not fund israel. three, no, we will not fund ukraine. four, no, we will not fund taiwan. and now, these same house republicans that are holding the

speaker politically hostage are saying we want to cut defense spending. >> who are they? >> what party is this? in 2024, they're saying don't support israel, don't support ukraine against a russian invasion that keeps getting worse, don't support taiwan and don't support gazans, and by the way, let's cut defense spending. yeah, lots of luck with that in 2024. on top of now being against abortion rights for women, ivf, lots of luck in the fall, fellas. vaughn, i was thinking about you.

donald trump and kari lake made me think of you. >> oh, that's much better. [ laughter ] >> i'll tell you why. nikki haley is warning everybody that donald trump is going to lose in the fall in part because he's saying, hey, anybody that supports nikki haley, we don't want them here. you know what, i have found if you insult voters and tell them you don't want their vote, you don't get it. it cost kari lake the governmentship of arizona when she said i don't want john mccain supporters. so she didn't get it, and she

lost. now history seems to be repeating itself. >> it has all of the echoes. i remember in arizona as she was talking about mccain, saying cindy mccain, his wife, wanted an end to america. that's utter nonsense. after that, what was so selling about that was 2022 was the experiment for 2004. we all know how donald trump was going to run this campaign. we all know he was going to air his grievances. we all knew that donald trump was going to make this about him, that he was going to seek revenge against anybody, including republicans that went against him. we knew how this would play out. the question is, could donald trump galvanize a part of america that didn't even vote for him in 2016 and 2020 to come and somehow take back the white house in 2024? but 2022 was that experiment. in arizona, frankly i thought

that kari lake was going to win. she was running against a democrat who was not necessarily taking her in a fight head on. a lot of people were criticizing that she was hiding and she wasn't willing to take tough questions or stand up to kari lake, she was passive. yet, voters said, number one, they were paying attention and they heard exactly what kari lake was saying. you saw a migration of independents and conservatives move away from kari lake. why i think joe biden has a good shot to win this election since is because voters are paying attention and are willing to cast aside candidates that are otherwise respected members of american society. >> vaughn hillyard, thank you very much for coming on this morning. coming up on "morning joe,"

a potential reckoning for big tech companies as the supreme court prepares to hear what might be the most important first amendment cases of the internet era. we'll talk to andrew ross sorkin about that as well as the new attempt at damage control from at&t following last week's widespread service outage. also ahead, we'll speak with alex thompson, who sat down for an exclusive interview with hunter biden about his struggles with addiction and why he says staying sober is key to keeping donald trump from winning reelection in november. m winnin reelection in november

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we continue monitoring the president's remarks.

i did have to say that even though the former president is entitled to his opinion, he's not entitled to his own set of facts. the market has indeed been going up and having nothing to do with him and having everything to do with this hike in interest rates and of course the whole artificial intelligence phenomenon that has benefitted nvidia and a host of other companies making money hand over fist. that has nothing to do with donald trump. he mentioned gas prices are out of whack. the national price is $3.26 a gallon. he went onto talk about the 2020 election and how that was rigged. this has been adjudicated dozens of times. it's been investigated by everyone and his uncle, no fewer than 44 investigations launched, some by judges picked by donald trump himself who found no evidence of that in the seven battleground states where most of them were focused.

donald trump lost each and every one of those states. no facts or history that he mentions on the stump right now will change that. >> neil cavuto, fox host, has been consistent in going after both sides. that's fascinating. >> yeah. after spending $31 million to support nikki haley's bid for the gop nomination, conservative billionaire charles koch and his super pac are suspending funding for the south carolina governor's campaign. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin. is this going to be like --

>> and at&t. >> hold on. we'll do all of them. here we go. potpourri. i'm fascinated by a headline i saw below the fold in the "wall street journal" this morning saying that adjusted natural gas prices fall to the lowest level in decades. the last couple of years any business person would say this. this has nothing to do with politics. you look at what's happening with natural gas, with oil, exporting oil. the united states is in a stronger position now than it's been in a really long time. but also over here ev startups

continue to slow down and the prospects dim. one more, because i'm really fascinated by this. top of business and finance, nvidia draws in more believers. man, it's a rocket ship, isn't it? it is impacting the entire market. now potpourri. >> i'm going to try to connect some dots real quick. first piece on the energy front, there's no question in terms of the price of gas. you can go to the corner and you can see the price. historically the president gets some credit for that, and we'll see whether the president gets credit for that. having said that, there are big issues that people have raised around what the president has done around lng long-term. critics of the president can look at that if they want to. they can also look at some of the ev issues. with the exception, frankly, of tesla, people are just not

buying evs the way folks expected them to. part of it is the cars aren't as good as people expect them to be. part of it the infrastructure is just not there to calm people's view around range anxiety and the like. that's one piece of the puzzle. >> can we talk about that for a second? because people try to make this political. it's very simple. if somebody says to you, i bought this ev, man, it's amazing, you're like, okay, i'll try it out. it's just not something i hear other than teslas. i want to make that transition. instead, somebody told me about a kia van. they said it's the most amazing car i've been in. i go, are you kidding me? i drove it. i was like, wow, okay, i'm going

to get one of these things. that sort of word of mouth that can get somebody who never thought of buying a kia to buy a kia van, that would be something. if somebody said i'm driving this suv that's an ev, and you've got to buy this thing, but you just don't hear that. >> the cars just not there yet. then again, there's this infrastructure piece. we are in a place where there's going to be a lot of evs rolling out over the next several years. the big question is are people to going to love them and buy them? this is a truth serum for a lot of folks who supported people in the republican party for a long time who for the last couple of months have been trying to support nikki haley because they were never trumpers. now you have the koch family, one of the largest financiers of

folks in the republican party saying they are out of the haley business for now. look, donors like to get behind winners. the view at this point is that nikki haley is unlikely to be a winner. the question now, though, is what do they do? do they sit on their hands and do nothing? do they give their money to the rnc, which is now going to be controlled by lara trump and is that funneled to the trumps? do they give their money to donald trump? that is less likely. this is going to be a moment of truth for a lot of folks, especially on wall street, who have been quietly saying they like nikki haley because they don't like president trump. but when it comes to president trump versus president biden, it may be a different story. the last thing, to answer our mika's question, at&t handing out $5 credit rebates for what happened last week when you couldn't make a phone call for

10, 12 hours, $5 is not going to do a lot. this goes to the regulatory piece. it may cost at&t only 5 bucks, few for those people running their own businesses, for example, using their cell phone and not being able to make a phone call or send e-mails and the like from their phone, that is a real issue. you can bet the fcc, ftc and others are going to be investigating this. that's even beyond the fbi looking at the it was a cyber attack, which it was not. is that a good potpourri? we didn't get to nvidia. >> we'll do that tomorrow. andrew ross sorkin, as always, thank you so much. i appreciate it. mika, i've revealed myself now as being a kia minivan driver. >> you love your kia. >> i never expected it.

you do too. >> i love the kia. >> you are still a ford f150 truck girl. >> yeah. >> and you have been for 30 years now? >> my whole life. my mom drove a pickup truck, ford f150. i have one that's 25 years old. yeah. joe got me the best anniversary gift, which is an f150. so, yeah, that's where i am. they're made a little differently now, and i have some complaints. i like the two tanks, plastic seats, gun rack, heavier. >> here we go. >> they were heavier. there's no doubt. >> there's a difference. >> definitely not an ev.

>> i do feel guilty about that. i'm not sure i can buy another car that's not an ev. this week, hunter biden will go before the republican-led oversight and judiciary committees for a deposition as part of the father's

benefit if they can land this plane. >> i'm curious about his awareness of his dad's political people's concerns. he decided to come out swinging

at one point and take this head on and really not try to hide from these things and take on his critics. he knows that there are people around his father who think that is not necessarily good for his father. obviously he does care about his father a lot and wants only the best for his father. did you talk to him about how he reconciles that and if it gives him pause to be standing next to abbe lowell and being so public when there are at least some questions in his father's inner circle about whether this is the best thing for his reelection? >> sure. it would give anyone pause. he is very concerned about his dad's political future. that's really the reason we didn't hunter biden the first two years which is something eugene wrote about. ñ"'2de 0=çp[d.g>

even though there are concerns, my understanding is he has his dad's blessing. that is the only bless that hunter really cares about. >> all right. national political correspondent for axios alex thompson. thank you so much. great piece. really intense and interesting. still ahead, is the state of texas about to execute an innocent man? we're going to go through the questionable conviction of ave. vine cantu who has the backing of high-profile supporters including martin sheen and a push for clemency. we'll talk to the award-winning actor next on "morning joe." we're back in two minutes. ornin" we're back in two minutes. help fuel today with boost high protein, complete nutrition you need... ...without the stuff you don't. so, here's to now. boost.

i'm on the other sield of this window because the prosecution not thoroughly investigating my case. and when the dallas police

department presented the false documents and the false witness statements and the false narrative to them, they took it at face value and didn't investigate it themselves. therefore, they presented this information to a jury and asked them to convict me, and they did. >> texas death row inmate ivan cantu is scheduled to be executed on wednesday for a crime he says he did not commit. cantu was sentenced in 2001 for the murder of his cousin and his cousin's fee and say. the couple was shot to death in north dallas. in the years since his conviction, lawyers, private investigators and a podcast producer all claim they have found evidence that discredits testimony from a key witness in the trial. a few jurors including the foreman have even made legal statements saying they would not have convicted cantu had they known the information they know today. no court has agreed to analyze

the new information. joining us anti-death penalty advocate sister helen pray jaun, the author of the book "med man walking" adapted into the 1995 movie of the same name for which susan sarandon won an oscar. also joining us martin sheen. the pair have been leading a campaign to stop cantu's execution. thank you both very much for being on with us. martin sheen -- >> thank you both. martin, if you can encapsulate for us, what can you tell us about the new evidence and why a court won't hear it? >> well, that's one of many questions and vital questions as we get down to the next 48 hours of ivan cantu's scheduled

execution. i came into this about a month ago with the sister asking me to reach out. i investigated all the new evidence that the cullen county d.a. greg willis has refused to initiate with his conviction integrity unit. he's the only one that has access to that. that could help, number one, to give him a stay and, number two, to review the new evidence and possibly exonerate him. so we're very anxious to get a stay. he's not going anywhere. we can't understand an act of compassion is being withheld on a man's life. that's what at issue here in the next 48 hours. the sister has gone through this so many times with so many death row inmates.

she needs to be heard in this vital conversation. >> sister, ivan is set to be put to death on february 28th, not long away. this is a race against time. i wonder how he's doing. when you speak to him, how is he holding up? >> ivan is a man, he has tremendous executive agency, thinks of ideas, probably has a photographic memory. he's participating very actively and thinking of everything he can to try to get the truth out. i'm involved because in late september i got a letter from him where he said, if i'm executed in texas, will you hold my hand and pray with me as they kill me. so when i say yes to doing that, i have already been involved with two innocent people, and i knew i had to not just be with him when he's killed, but to do everything i can to prevent his

death because everything that could go wrong in the case happened to ivan cantu. >> martin, what can you do? you bring your name recognition. you bring your celebrity to a case like this. can you get to governor abbott? can you make people listen, do you think? >> well, if he's listening right now, i would just say for anyone who believes in the death penalty, we are called to look life square in the eye and, frankly, choose death. so with all the news of massive deaths all over every continent it seems in the world right now, why is it so difficult to reach out and prevent, when you have the power to do so, the killing of what is clearly an innocent man at this point? why are we in such a hurry to kill him, as i said earlier, when he's not going anywhere. so a stay would be critical

right now. what is the harm? who has ever felt badly about an act of compassion? >> sister prejean, we'll give you the last word here in what could be the final hours of cantu's life. what is your message to the state of texas? >> and particularly to governor abbott, because the main witness against ivan did not recant until 2022, that late in the game. he admitted i lied. he was the main witness who claimed ivan had a motive, bragged about it after. then he gets up and says, i lied. everything was dependent on his testimony, but it came so late. the appeals court shut the door saying you should have filed sooner. so he's caught on that. my appeal is to the people of

texas. the killing of ivan cantu is being done in your name. the governor is a safety valve in this. he has the last vestige of the divine right of kings, the at least grant a reprieve, a stay. no court has seen all the new evidence. just give enough time for the courts to take a look at the new evidence and see if a new trial is really justified. that's what we're asking. >> so an innocent man is not put to death. sister ellen, thank you so much for doing god's work here on earth. we're grateful for that and grateful for you being here. martin sheen, it's always such an honor to have you here. i'll say the same thing. i know your faith moves you deeply. i thank you so much for what you're doing. >> well, thank you forgiving