crisis of course donald trump is going to use this. plenty of americans feel like the wall didn't happen, so perhaps biden can use that he didn't build the first time. there are also other americans who think that biden isn't doing enough. he'll exploit it for every inch he can as so many blue states and sanctuary cities are straining fe resources because of the influx. >> elise jordan, thank you. thanks to all of you for getting up way too early. "morning joe" starts right now. trump has been going after the judge's daughter, which is just nuts. the judge ordered him to stop, he declined this morning. this morning, he wrote another whole diatribe.

and nothing happened. are laws stupid? because i've been following them my whole life now. >> donald trump continues to test the limits of the gag order in his hush-money case, meanwhile his legal team is trying to once again to get the judge removed, less than two weeks before the trial is supposed to start the former president is also suing the co-founders of truth social -- >> wait a second, is this thought the trumpiest story of all time. so, this guy -- >> i'm going to sue you. >> this company goes public, everything trump does he loses billions of dollars, he loses his co-founders. everything he does. >> it's so sleazy. but it's how you and i and mika

and everybody else who have been around him for decades, they all say this is how he works. everybody that goes into business with this guy regrets it, because he's a terrible businessman and he sues you. >> it's a reflux. if you hang a chandelier in one of his terrible atlantic city casinos somehow you're going be blamed. in this case, this is a tough story to follow. the company goes public, it gets boosted by his supporters, absurd valuation because it doesn't have any revenue, things seem to be going well, it comes back down to earth now he's suing his co-founders of truth social because it's their fault that it's not going to well. >> also ahead, the moment donald trump dodged a question about abortion yesterday on the

campaign trail. he did his whole, we'll have answer in two weeks. >> the biden administration said we don't have to wait, you know how always lie about transportation week and infrastructure week never came. oh, we're going to have the answer on health care in two weeks. we got this answer. clip after clip, tape after tape. time after time. donald trump has said he was the one who, quote, terminated roe v wade. we don't have to wait two weeks, donald, we've heard what you said and what you bragged about. >> we have the host of "way too early. "jonathan lemire, elise jordan and president emeritus for the council of foreign affairs, richard haass is here.

>> jonathan, i know the yankees are doing okay, but how this boston red sox, won again last night against the fierce oakland a's. >> that played in front about 17 people last night. the sox did win in extra innings. they've won three straight. they're now 4-2. pretty successful west coast trip. last time, joe, you might recalled the sox opened up on the west coast, 2019, trying to defend our world series title. at least now, a little bit of hope and we should note, willie, the yankees knocked from the ranks of the unbeaten, the dream of 162-0 has been dashed but 161-1 is still possible. >> aaron judge struggling a little bit out of the gates. six games in he'll be fine.

areas for concern, there you have it. >> excellent start. got to get through the next two months. cole comes back. >> 161-1. >> here's the thing, willie, yankees lose, knicks losing, perfect time to get richard on this show. >> joe, joe. it was just easter the other day, show some love. be positive. all right, the reason we have richard on the show this morning is our top story. thousands of protesters gathered outside of israel's parliament in jerusalem for a third day, calling for early elections and a deal to release the hostages. sunday will mark six months since the hamas terrorist attack on israel and public demonstrations in the country have intensified in recent days.

israeli police say a protest last night outside the israeli prime minister's home turned into a riot. hundreds tried to break through barriers near netanyahu's home but were blocked. meanwhile, president biden says he was outraged and heartbroken by an israeli strike that killed seven world central kitchen aide workers in gaza. in statement, biden wrote, this conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed. this is a pay jar reason why distributing humanitarian aid in gaza has been so difficult -- because israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately needed help to civilians. he added, incidents like yesterday's simply should not happen. israel has also not done enough to protect civilians.

strong words, the strike killed seven humanitarian workers on monday including a dual u.s. citizen, more than 200 aid workers have been killed in the war so far, according to the white house. israeli prime minister netanyahu posted on social media on tuesday that israel deeply regrets the tragic incident and we'll do everything in our power to ensure that such tragedies don't occur in the future. i got to tell you, i'm glad the president spoke out strongly but this has to stop. >> it really does. richard, it's just continues and there's very powerful op-ed in "the new york times" last night by chef jose andres talking about how they coordinated their movements with idf, they had taken all precause of actions that needed to be taken and let

me just read some of his words, they're very powerful, strong words. he said, israel is better than the way this war is being waged. it's better than blocking food and medicine to civilians. it's better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with the israeli defense forces. the israeli government needs to open more land routes for food and medicine today. it needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. it needs to start the long journey to peace today. richard, israel and the supporters of israel, which i am, have been, always will be, fooling themselves if they don't think that the overwhelming number of americans agree with jose andres, that this is just enough and they need to focus on

permanent cease-fire, they need to focus on getting the hostages home and they need to focus on creating a world moving forward without hamas and of course in israel it will be without benjamin netanyahu and maybe then we can take the first step of a thousand steps toward a two-state solution. >> look, joe, exactly right, there are so many fault lines that have emerged in the last 24 hours. let's begin with the world central kitchen incident. look, this didn't come out of the blue, you roughly had 200 aid workers have been killed, also 20,000 sill civilians in gaza. put aside the hamas fighters. what this says to me that israel's approach to the war simply doesn't place enough emphasis on avoiding either aid

workers or civilians. then, you obviously have a question of competence here, why an identified vehicle was still targeted? what's going on here. that degree of incompetence. neither one is reassuring, you know, and for the first time the israeli government reacted. they understood what a pr disaster this was and is. but that doesn't change the basics. this was just high profile. >> richard, can i stop you there, such a good point. it's not an exception. it shows there has been about joe biden has been worried about indiscriminant bombings. these are the stories that we know about. we know about these seven aid workers but we haven't talked about the other aid workers that died because of this bombing,

indiscriminant bombing in this very tight, condensed area, like the hostages that broke free from their captors short list arms in the air doing everything they're supposed to do and they got shot by the idf. how many times? you know, crazy me i'm worried about the future of israel. i'm actually worried about americans loving israel as much as i love israel. i'm worried about benjamin netanyahu with this offensive is doing. and we're seeing it. we're seeing it. the more the protests rise against benjamin netanyahu and the more pressure he feels the more petrol so to speak he throws on the flames. he knows he can't leave power.

he gets sent to jail. so he'll intensify this war, he'll hurt israel's standing in the world even more, he'll get us further away from getting the hostages home all because he has to make himself like the indispensable man. >> whatever the motives, the prospects or the odds of a wider, longer war went up in the last 24 hours. you had in addition to this question of what israel does in gaza and how it waits going after hamas, you began with the protests in israel about that. the attack on the iranian compound in syria, you know we can argue that separately, the wisdom of that, some case for doing that but it does increase the odds that now this war will go wider.

chance for something with hezbollah goes up. what we're seeing, joe, is none of the preconditions of a common on the gaza front or more broadly with lebanon, the middle east is like an earthquake zone with multiple fault lines and several of them are going off at once and they reinforce one another. >> jon, this has drawn widespread condemnation from the middle east, the uk, the united states, those vehicles couldn't be marked more clearly. we're looking at those in this videos. other aid organizations are pausing their efforts. so what is the spot now that president biden has been in for a long time but that was made much worse what was happened,

domestic politics, on the international stage, what's the spot? >> those vehicles couldn't have been better marked. from the footage of the destroyed van one of the missiles went right through the logo of the world central kitchen. right there, and just killed everyone inside. it should be noted to richard's point earlier this mistake comes after the precision strike that killed the iranian general in syria, hard to reconcile those two things. real political pressure. another substantial uncommitted vote. primaries, there are some real anger there and that's not going to dissipate. now at least we have a moment you know the president, this has been bubbling up behind the scenes, president biden is furious at prime minister netanyahu still his

administration hasn't conditioned aid, they vent done it yet, this also happens we think a week or two perhaps before this rafah offensive. >> i'm so sick how upset president biden is, the buck stops with him, if he wants to stop arms sales, stops the bombs that are killing civilians, he can. he has the power. we don't need him going to reporters and talking background about how upset they are, what happened yesterday is still going to happen. at mika's conference, the head of palestinian red crescent spoke about the difficulty of aid getting in the country period from the north or south. she described a process that's like the tsa changing the rules every single day, going through airport security. until those checkpoints are working and aid is going through, we don't need to be

giving any more arms sales or money it needs to be stopped. it's ridiculous that it's going to on -- >> the criticism looks empty. six-month milestone of this war, that's one fact, two things have happened in the last few days, these attacks are continuing and yet so are u.s. arms transfers to israel without conditions. they've been going on for six months. why does israel need 2,000-pound bombs to be used in high density populated areas. where is -- that's how you undo the possibility of one day getting two-state solution. if you're going to have

palestinian state, if the territory isn't there to build it on, where's the administration's reaction to that. the biden administration is very close to reach the point their criticism of israel is too much. it's not nearly enough to affect the course of what's going on. >> it looks weak. what james baker have done? seriously. that was a moment we were a diplomatic superpower. >> we confronted israel. israel was subsidizing people leaving the soviet union. we'll help these people get out of the soviet union, but we're not going to subsidize them going into the west bank, that forecloses options down the road. we want to work preserve the

option. you have a choice, they made their choice that had economic consequences. >> richard, does benjamin netanyahu give a damn that joe biden is upset, frustrated by what he's seeing? >> no, he doesn't. indeed increasingly he's trying to position himself as someone in front of israel politics, you may not like me, i'm all that stands between you and america pressure. he doesn't care. he would care about damaging the relationship with israel's most important benefactor. we have to basically have some sanctioning, not just the stuff from the u.n., conditioning arms deliveries and some trade sanctions for example against goods coming out of west bank settlements, why should they be

able to come here for example without certain economic penalties, we got to -- we can't have a policy based on persuading israel. we have to have an independent policy that reflects our interests and values. >> and right now, that policy obviously netanyahu's policy obviously does not do that. it's not the response, at this point six months in, to the terrorist attacks, to the horrors of october 7th. hamas will never rule in gaza again. we all know that. hamas will never rule in gaza again. it's not going to happen. so people saying, we have to keep killing civilians to make sure that hamas never rules in gaza. they're not going to. at this point, there's the killing of civilians and aid workers and it's damaging israel's reputation across the

world. in a way that will have for-reaching consequences for years to come. those human tragedies, the human horrors as much we hear about it now to western aid workers, it's happening every night and every day to palestinians. it is. here's the rub, so to speak for the biden administration, they desperately want benjamin netanyahu out in israel because he's bad for the israeli people, he's bad for the region, he's bad for the world. the more confrontational joe biden is with ben ya min netanyahu, the more netanyahu uses that to stay in power. i'm even standing up to the big bad americans who claim to be

our friends. that's the balance right now. at some point, again, as elise said, words need to turn into actions and actions need to turn into consequences if the killing of relief workers and the cutting off of aid continues. >> we'll return to this. richard, thanks very much for coming on this morning. still ahead, we'll dig into new polling that shows donald trump and joe biden neck and neck in several swing states, what the numbers could mean for both campaigns. you're watching "morning joe." we're back in one minute. we're back in one minute

due to trump's low cash and limited resources the biden campaign said they think florida is winnable. i mean, technically powerball is

winnable. but doesn't make it a good bet. lot of florida voters have doubts about biden, i don't know, he's just so young. >> all right, new polling which finds joe biden and donald trump neck and neck in every swing state. according to the new numbers from the wall street journal, trump leads biden in arizona, georgia, michigan, north carolina, nevada and pennsylvania by figures that are within the marin of errors. in wisconsin, tied. negative perceptions about the economy remains a problem for biden. 36% of swing state voters say the economy isn't so good. 36% say it's in excellent, good condition. when sktd to rate the economic

conditions in their own states the majority of voters in five of those seven swing states it's in excellent or good shape. >> jim, these are snapshots. two things i'm looking at right now, obviously wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan, so critical, they're all very close, i'm surprised by, again, i would never guess this five years ago that joe biden continues to perform best in wisconsin. that wisconsin of all states seems to be a state older white guys actually aren't thrilled with what's happening with donald trump. georgia, tighter in this poll than i have seen in other polls, i think it shows again a good

trend in biden's direction even though trump's ahead a little bit. this is what i want some -- one or two people in the biden white house may watch this show, and i want you to talk to them right now on this conundrum. all polls have shown this, individuals, how are you doing economically? i'm doing great. i'm doing really well. then this poll goes, how your state's doing? it's doing great, really well. how is the overall economy? oh, it sucks. this discordant thinking has been out there, americans doing well economically, their states are doing well, a general how america's economy is going, do they just run to their

ideological corners, what's going on there and what does biden do to fix that over the next six months? >> joe, you're right. couple of things that are incredibly important. in the end voters are going to vote in their own best interest. they always do. more optimistic than the polls because voters think their own lives, their own economy, their own state economies are better than four years ago and they're getting every single day. in 12 polls out in the last go weeks joe biden continues to have momentum since the state of the union. you highlighted the state that i cared the most about, wisconsin, wisconsin is tipping point state, over two-thirds of the simulations we do every night wisconsin decides the presidency. joe biden is the strongest in that state, especially the economic reasons, 75% of the people in that state say their personal economic situation is

getting better. on the national question, there are several things holding over it, one of them is immigration, i think we need to address the issue of immigration and talk about it, because it worries voters and has them concerned. then we can go back to saying is your life better off? that's the sweet spot. >> so, to your point, former president trump was in wisconsin and michigan yesterday talking almost exclusively about immigration. migrant crime as he put it, telling stories that weren't true. phone calls with victims' families that he didn't have. you're right about the economy which is the unemployment is at historic lows, stock market seems to break a new record every week, you don't have to take our word for it, consumer spending is up, is that question

the overall health of the economy, is that kind of stand-in about how people are feeling about the state of the country or politics or the ugliness, how do you solve that riddle? >> it's a little bit of a stand-in for voters, two, three weeks ago, 60% of americans didn't think it's going to be trump versus biden. that might be their dream scenario, their dream matchup. the matchup that we're going to have. so they're starting to grapple with this. as time goes on, time will go on, people need to continue to feel better, economic numbers are ticking up. those important touchstones for how they're going to vote in november. >> jim, never too early to talk about 270 the magic number and some developments. let's talk about the map. there's buzzing about nevada.

the governor there has thrown behind an effort no longer allocate the electoral voters by districts. if that changes, we don't know if it will, if that changes, that takes away biden's best path to win. he gets wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan. losing the other swing states and no longer picks up the one in nebraska. this is possible, what do you think? >> i think this is what the moderate republican party, they're now changing the rules in the middle to benefit themselves. this is the hell donald trump had roth, i think there are real simulation problems when you look at the map, that one electoral vote really matters in the combination of other things,

then you need another state and so the easiest pathway to victory the mid western three states combined with nebraska. something tells me they're not going to go get away with this easy. a national outcry trying to change the rules. >> everyone, stick around. we'll be right back. >> jim, real quickly, did maine give the one electoral vote to trump in 2020? >> yes, sir, they did. >> so trump did get that one state. all right, if nebraska goes all or nothing, maine should go all or nothing, it balances each other out. >> joe you're fixing it right here on national television. >> that's how a republican thinks. >> see, you're going, oh, as a democrat. you can't change rules in the middle of the day. i'm the republican that goes, former republican but still

campaigns like one, you know what, we'll just change -- you change nebraska, we'll change in maine and then let's go get a big mac. >> we'll take a break. after the break, we'll talk about the swing states and how abortion could -- >> when was the last time you had a big mac? >> maybe 30 years. >> we'll change that today. >> no, that's not happening. no. we'll be right back. >> two all-beef pattys? all-bees

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house republicans just introduced a bill to rename washington, d.c.'s dulles international airport after former president trump. yeah. it's a great idea for anyone who wants to see an airport go

bankrupt. >> i got to say -- >> look at reagan national airport right now. >> why not tie the worst airport in america with the worst president ever. >> oh, you're going to miami? >> dulles. it's a tight fit. willie, when we're talking worst airports in america, i don't know if you have spent much time in miami, it's a horrific airport -- >> mika's documented that. >> yes. i have videos. >> she has documented that. >> i spoke to some workers, i used some of my local news skills. >> yeah, but -- >> i have some insight. >> so, anyway, but dulles is uniquely bad. i mean, that's just uniquely

horrific airport. can you think of a worst airport than dulles? >> no, we have to give credit. laguardia is nice now. to one has spoken those words before. laguardia is nice. we complained about the construction for years and we whined about that. it's hard to get to the gate -- >> hard to get to the gate? >> but inside it's nice. >> wear running shoes. >> you go in there, lemire, and i swear to god, you look outside and they're taking the bags off and it's amish people -- >> in pennsylvania. >> it stretches all the way to lancaster, pennsylvania. >> we're not in queens, we're lancaster county, you have to walk so far, i always stop -- >> you go to the shirt factory. >> i stop by harrisburg.

i got a hot dog. i keep walking. i finally get to my taxi. but i mean, laguardia? come on. i knew i would trigger you. >> try doing it with a toddler when you forget a stroller. >> i can't imagine. >> you basically described -- >> my life. >> mika has to get me to gate on time. lemire what's your worst airport in america? >> dulles is right up there. dulles, is really, really bad. miami is tough. parts of l.a.x. that i hate. l.a.x. is overburdened as well. but i think that's the short list here, i don't think there's -- elise, you're welcome to chime in. >> d.c. traffic, you have that tram situation, i hate a tram situation, just go to the gate.

>> conversely the fashional airport is awesome. well located. perfect. >> we're burying the lede. >> willie? >> newark, we're working on improvement fls they don't have a tram. >> sometimes you need a tram. atlanta, you need a tram. it's a huge airport. >> minneapolis is good. dallas is good. >> you're right, willie, laguardia is cleaner and jfk, from the time i started this show when every time i would fly in on sunday nights and they would lose my bag every single time it was a third world airport, jfk has really improved over the past 15 years. >> for sure. >> and newark is really improving, too. i wish we had the marine terminal. i judge all airports by how

quickly i get off the plane and get into the cab. >> the one problem with jfk budget 3.5 hours no matter what hour you land. bumper to bumper traffic back into is the city. >> one of the best airports in america, because i landed there and i didn't know i thought i was in the wrong place because memphis is super easy now. they did a great job now. >> okay, plan a trip. >> can i ask jim something? >> i think we want to talk politics with jim. >> can you tell me this? why is it in america, i think other countries obviously japan, it's inefficient for people who fly into new york internationally to land at jfk and sit if their car for thee hours getting into the city, it

seems to me any advanced society would have a train that goes from the airport, doesn't stop in queens, goes from the airport to midtown, to the center of the business world in about 15 minutes? why can't america do that? >> we can. we're starting to do that. they're about to work on vegas to l.a. in under an half an hour in the hyperloop. that's coming. we're starting to tackle the big challenges. >> okay, i hope you all feel better. he is good we talked this out. part of the problems is acceptance. >> no. never accept. you never accept. you change. you move forward.

you make it, take a sad van wyk and make it better. we're going move on to politics and what we were talking about before the break, most policy issues donald trump has been all over the map on abortion, once said women should be punished for having procedure only to backtrack days later. he boasted about terminating roe. which he did. and then called florida's restrictions, quote, terrible and a big mistake. lately, he's been promising to make both sides happy. now the former president says he wants to clarify his stance on abortion some time next week. here's his response to nbc's gabe gutierrez at a campaign rally in michigan yesterday. >> mr. president, do you support the six-week abortion ban that the florida supreme court just

upheld? >> we'll have a statement next week on abortion. we'll make a statement next week. >> i'm curious why would idiots boo a question like that? willie, i don't get it. why would you boo a question on whether he supports something that the florida supreme court just upheld unless they understand how devastating it is to his political -- >> for their dear leader. >> exactly, that's their job is to shout down, to boo, to drown out anything that might challenge donald trump because there's no good answer. how many times did we hear when trump was president, did we hear we'll be putting out a statement. it went on forever. he doesn't know what to say on this issue. he's bragged on tape again and again i'm the one who took down

roe. i appointed the three supreme court justices who delivered the holy grail for many of you to get rid of roe. now he's seen the political outcome of that in the midterms and beyond. he knows it's a problem. >> you know, and he's been bragging, it took 50 years, 50 years people said they were going to do it i finally did it. i terminated roe. >> he did. president biden responded on social media with a quote from trump about bragging about overturning roe and he captioned this with, you already made your statement, donald. >> i was able to kill roe v wade. so, jim, you never -- i know you especially as a guy who runs campaigns you never want your side to think they've got an ace

in their pocket, but roe is an ace, it really is. >> absolutely. >> time and time again democrats have outperformed pro-choice movements have outperformed time and time again, this is -- this is a real political killer for republicans, because they keep getting more extreme. it started with roe, they're now at ivf, most republicans don't even have the guts to say, come out and pass a law protecting ivf in the senate. >> joe, they keep thinking they can spend their way out of this. this is what youngkin tried to do in virginia. 9.9%, democrats are doing 9.9% better in elections because of this issue. biden went on with the best ad of the cycle.

30-second ad with trump's exact statement proudly saying he got rid of roe v. wade. at the end of the ad they have biden looking at the camera trump doesn't trust women and i do. the top-testing ad and what the biden team has on the air in the mid western states right now. because to joe's point this is the ace in the hole that the democrats have and the biden campaign is smartly doubling down on it. >> i think it's highly unlikely this this vaunted statement is going to be released in a week. first of all the guy doesn't give prepared statements. and second, it would be to his benefit to keep distract and throwing more spaghetti at the wall and talk about immigration. he wants to stay away from

abortion. >> this comes from florida, you know the governor desantis policy there, it will go into law at least for a while, voters will have a say in november. what's your take where things stand with sunshine state in. >> a state barack obama carried twice proudly to say that, it's a difficult state, i think this puts it in play maybe a little, what is going to michael bloomberg going to do? does he want to make this another cause that he wants to go after? it's still a little much for me. i'd rather spend my money in the great state of north carolina if you want to expand the map. it's in play and the republicans have the worst governor

candidate in america in north carolina. jonathan, i'd rather play in north carolina than florida. >> what about georgia? >> look, i think georgia is tough. we ought to sit back and wait to see what the court case does, to see if donald trump is convicted in the state of georgia, that state is absolutely in play. a state where democrats will get 47-48. the question is, can we get to 50? let's take a deep breath and see where we are in the summer. >> joe biden won it last time. as we go break, air travelers ranked as the five best. atlanta heartsfield. number three, detroit metropolitan. number two, sea-tac, seattle/tacoma.

number one, minneapolis slshgs st. paul. >> really good. with that we say good-bye to you, jim, thank you for sitting on the van wyk for two hours. coming up next the jeffrey goldberg joins us with his new piece "a study in senate cowardice." jeffrey joins us next. next.

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another gloomy day here in new york city, 6:52 in the morning, sun's up over new york city as you look south from rockefeller center. we talked yesterday about iowa's big win over lsu, a thrilling win, caitlin clark, angel reese, a great game in the elite eight, turns out it was the most watched women's college basketball game of all time, it averaged 12.3 million viewers on

monday night. according to nielsen data, more than all but one nba finals game last season, every mlb game last year and compared to college football last year, the game riefld only by the s.e.c. championship game. only one men's ncaa tournament game had bigger viewership. iowa now faces uconn this friday in the final four. joe, that game delivered on every front, great teams. great talent on the floor. it turns out the country was glued. >> i mean, unbelievable, you again -- you look at the quality of basketball that was played, it was so exciting. and, yeah, of course she's just -- >> phenomenal. >> she is, you know, there's a reason why she passed pete

maravich in points scored such a great matchup in so many ways, so many plot lines, so great for women's basketball which has been the butt of jokes. family guy and so many men, sportswriters in the past, i say no more. this is an extraordinary at the left schism. i can't believe there aren't a lot of younger girls who saw this the other night and said, i'm going to be the next caitlin clark and i think we're going to see women's basketball continue to get better. my gosh, she's just amazing. >> i'm transfixed. >> these are all different threes she hit. >> she's amazing. >> you're right, joe, i watched it with my daughter and i watched it with my son and my wife who's a casual sports fan

who's locked in on what's happening in women's sports. the arenas are packed. and caitlin clark and all these players who are stars now have done a good job of speaking to the past, the early days of uconn college basketball with rebecca lobo. there has been a long build to get to this moment and now the talent on all of these teams, iowa is going to play uconn next, paige bueckers is an incredible superstar for uconn. it's so fun to watch. we hope these arenas stay full and these superstars keep playing for us. because it's so fun to watch. >> all right, still ahead on "morning joe," we're learning new details about how donald trump was able to secure the

$175 million bond in his new york civil fraud case. >> and he's suing his own founders of his social media site. >> if he's not defending he's suing. be careful. >> i wonder what the learned thinks about that. we'll be right back. that. we'll be right back.

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it's the top of the hour, second hour of "morning joe." welcome back. it's wednesday, april 3rd. jonathan lemire and elise jordan is still with us. joining the conversation we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle and former u.s. senator claire

mccaskill. great to have you all with us this hour. >> and mika, obviously, a dear friend of mike's, a good friend of ours, and a good friend of ours, a great friend, a visionary who did so much in boston but also created basically camden yards and the new baseball parks, just revolutionized baseball, larry lucchino passed away yesterday. >> former president and ceo of the boston red sox, he passed away yesterday. he was 78 years old. a pittsburgh native. he also served as president of the baltimore orioles and the

san diego padres. during his 14 years in boston the club reached the playoffs seven times and won the world series in 2004, 2007 and 2013. lucchino was the driving force behind baseball's retro ballpark revolution, leading the effort to replace memorial stadium in baltimore with camden yards and followed up that effort with a new ballpark for the padres, petco park, as well as $300 million renovation of fenway. lucchino is a three-time cancer survivor, served as chairman of the jimmy fund. he was also a member of the famed 1965 final four princeton basketball team. a graduate of yale law school and worked on the house judiciary can committee investigating watergate. a full life and his family was

with him and it's just a very sad day for all of us. >> mike, especially for you and ann, larry was such a close friend of yours, and you know, you walk into his house and there's a picture of you and him after the sox had achieved the impossible dream. the 2004 world series. >> on the field in st. louis that night they won the world series. that was the beginning of a dream that larry had when he came to boston to restore the boston red sox to championship quality. you know, in listing his accomplishments i first met larry when he was working on the house watergate committee in 1972, 1973. alongside hillary clinton and bill weld, the former governor of massachusetts, larry was the only person i knew who had a final four ring from playing

princeton basketball a super bowl ring from running the washington redskins and four world series ring from the boston red sox. the biggest thing he was a brilliant executive and he put his dna on the boston red sox and his dna still exists on the boston red sox. the -- na, that stamp that we can do this, we can win, we did change the nature of baseball in this era by building camden yards, petco park, and he was an incredibly brilliant guy, sometimes hard to get along with, people will tell you that, he ought to be in the hall of fame. because he's hall of fame executive and hall of fame guy who left his stamp on baseball. >> no doubt about it. jonathan, for people who didn't

grow up in boston or new england, didn't grow up red sox fans, it's hard to explain what larry lucchino means to new england, to the entire region, what he did. what it means for the entire region. i took joey to the all-star game at fenway in '99, one of the great sports experiences of both of our lives. we went to get a hot dog at the concession stand. i talked about how much i love fenway. the guy, yes, they're talking about tearing it down and building a new stadium. lucchi in, o came in with john henry and fenway sports group, they just, even when the red sox were having a bad season, i tell jack, let's just go sit in the cathedral of baseball and just soak it all in.

larry lucchino had that vision and of course even more importantly than that, knew how to win, knew how to do something that hadn't happened with the red sox in over eight decades. >> i mean, growing up in massachusetts there was a real story line there in the late '80s and '90s that fenway should be replaced. out of date, falling apart. lucchino spear headed, when he came with the henry and werner, they revitalized fenway. larry also part in theo epstein the architect of 2004 curse-breaking title team and left his imprint on those franchise that we'll always carry with us. the red sox growing up was 86

years, we would have given anything for one world series title. he helped bring us four. >> you know, theo epstein became an intern for larry at baltimore. when they got on boston, you're right, there was a lot of chatter about moving, getting a new ballpark aing on the waterfront like camden yards or if new ballpark in cleveland. larry looked at the plans and said no, we're staying because you don't screw with the mona lisa. >> all right. on that note, our top story now, jeffrey, you have a new piece for the may issue of atlantic that you're debuting this morning, the title is "a study in senate cowardice." you write about your interview with former senator rob portman.

you specifically asked him about his vote to acquit donald trump in the second impeachment trial and you write this, on stage, portman reminded me of his comments on the night the capitol insurrection happened i took to the senate floor and gave an impassioned speech about democracy and the need to protect it, that's who i am, but this is incorrect, this is not who he is, portman showed the people of ohio who he is five weeks later on february 13th, when he voted to acquit trump, the man he knew to have fomted antidemocratic insurrection. portman then asked if it would be a good idea for president obama to be impeached by the new republican congress, he went on, well, he's a former president and i think he should be out of

reach. donald trump was a former president. if you start that precedent trust me republicans will do the same thing. they will. it was an interesting and also pathetic point to make, portman was arguing that his republican colleagues are so corrupt that they would impeach a president who had committed no impeachable offenses simply out of spite. >> so, jeffrey, this is a tough piece. it's an important reminder, though, about why we are where we are. the senate could have, should have impeached donald trump. for doing what they know he did. they were there. >> they spoke out against it. >> they spoke out against it in the most impassioned way, then these senators, some of them did

what i considered to be unthinkable. they voted to acquit donald trump. the question, jeffrey, is why, why would they acquit a guy that they know could have cost them their very lives. >> right. i mean, the why's unno-able except to these folks in their hearts. we have notions of why this happened, fear for one thing, literal fear. the same sort of mob that attacked the capitol attacking them. physically. they're worried about their families. probably a more broader explanation would simply be popularity, this is where the republican party was going. these are elected republican

officials. they wanted to keep their jobs. they saw what happened to people who stepped out of line. they saw, you know, even their own colleague romney being scapegoated within the capitol simply for standing up for his principles. they found excuses not to vote for it. we don't want to set a precedent. it was donald trump who set a precedent by not leaving office after he lost. that was the precedent that was set in early 2021. so, you know, it's the usual assortment of kind of lame excuses that keep people in their careers. that's my best explanation for it. >> jeffrey, this seems to me a fundamental question of our time, reminder, we didn't have to be where we are right now. >> right. >> donald trump may now just be

an angry rich guy sitting on the patio of mar-a-lago lobbing truth social posts. we talk a lot about lindsey graham, on january 6th who said i'm done, i'm out. he gets chased through the airport literally four days later through reagan national airport and gets called a traitor and flips. why didn't some of the others say, look, i like some of trump's policies he was a good president for one term but we can't go down this road. >> they did. if you look at the statements of so many of these senators, you need ten more republicans to vote to convict, if you look at some of their statements they were appalled by what happened, but then, time goes on.

mitch mcconnell could have ended this. he's the guy. but you know what, people like rob portman za highly respected senator, very smart guy, very accomplished guy, if he had built up mitch mcconnell's backbone, we wouldn't be here. but mitch mcconnell was the key player. along with kevin mccarthy going down to mar-a-lago. there was this moment, three weeks afterian 6th where ten or 15 republicans of high stature, could have gotten together and said, you know what, thank you for your service, mr. president, enjoy the golf but we're totally out and we're doing this as a group, so we're going to get some crap but we're going to spread out the risk but they collapsed in the face of this fear. >> you know, elise, they could

have talked about the riots. they could have talked about the anti-democratic intent. they also could have said at that time, not only did donald trump foment this revolt, this riot, but he's the first president since herbert hoover in one term to lose the white house, the senate and the house. this guy is bad news for us republicans. if we don't impeach him for the reason he should be impeached he could come back and cause us to lose again in 2021, what he did. '22, which he did. '23, which he did. they could have acted on principle. if someone was strong enough and tough enough they could have -- aren't you tired of losing?

if this lindsey graham, if this ted cruz, if this whomever else fill in the blank isn't enough for your moral conscience to be moved then be machavellian about it. he won one election and we lost. we got wiped out in '17. whether you're talking about delaware county in pennsylvania, whether you're talking about the virginia legislature, i can down all of it, the guy just loses. so they could have made that argument as well if they weren't so scared of their own shadows. >> joe, it just shows at that moment, three weeks after the insurrection, feelings were so raw, emotions were so raw and republicans, senators were angry that their workplace had been

the site of a huge riot and may have been in danger. the tenure is trump is over, trump is crushed. let's move on. on the republican side. you didn't have them stepping up and you had an overestimation of trump being gone and instead he's like a spider they thought they smashed out but he keeps growing his legs back. it really was a fundamental mistake to not the 9/11 hearings immediately after when it's fresh in the memory, we see how the weakness of historical memory after three years and how the conspiracy theories set in. >> clearly, the lede to jeffrey's piece is fear. the fear still exists out there. some of your former colleagues seem wrapped up in this fear. why is it so deep and so

lasting? >> well, i would disagree that it is as much fear for themselves and their families, as it is fear of not having political power, i i think whole exercise is exhibit a of how people's desire for power overcomes their integrity. overcomes their character. you know, mitch mcconnell thinks his legacy will be the supreme court. his legacy will be his failure to lead at the most critical juncture in american history, are we going to go down the road where presidents are going to try to use violence to fight the will of the voters or are we not? and if you look at what happened -- i mean, i know all these people, i know many of them very well, and they can't

stand this guy, they know how bad he is, if you remember mitch mcconnell likes to brag about how well he gives politics, he gave a speech i know my politics. he misjudged his politics here because what he believes trump under a joe biden administration would quickly go to prison, that the criminal justice system would do its job in a way that would minimize the possibility of donald trump coming back. well, he misjudged that. we can talk about merrick garland and him dragging his feet. but that didn't happen. now, you see this continued cowardice. by the way, rob portman wasn't even running again, give me a break, when he crumbled about prix trade i knew trouble was afoot and i know rob well, i word with him on many, many things, but this is really i think -- i think jeffrey's

article is so spot-on about the lack of courage, you know we have profiles in courage every year, they should have a new award for profile in cowardice, the republican senate caucus should be the first recipient of that award. >> lengthy list of nominees for that prize. there seems to be no sense that trump's grip is weakening, that there's no sense of more rebellion coming from these republicans, he's their nominee again this year and look he stands 1 to 2 chance of winning but if he were to lose, are we convince the republicans are going to turn the page on trump, trump-ism. maga has infected the party.

>> that's very good question. if you look at the profiles in courage, as senator mccaskill points out, the profiles in cowardice, the profiles in courage, mike pence, liz cheney, adam kinzinger, they're rewarded by knowing they've done the right thing. when i was at boarding school in england, we had this parlor game, who would collaborate with hitler if britain had been occupied and part of the heroic resistant knowing of course that collaborating, refusing to collaborate with nazis involves being shot, and it's a very useful exercise to conduct when you look at the current senate.

who is it that we think might do the right thing if we see a replay of january the 6th or november the 6th or next january and who wouldn't. clearly, people like lindsey graham we know about. we know that mitch mcconnell when push comes to shove loses his spine. who is it? who is it do we think is a potential profile in courage, because i can't see many. >> well, that's exactly the point. which is that the people who are profiles in courage or who have been profiles of courage, out in the senate and the house. you just named liz cheney, people left a long time ago. jeff flake, bob corker, people two said i can't do this, right, and there's not a lot of evidence right now that there's going to be anyone left in the

republican caucus on the senate side or the house side, you know some people will step up, i hope that you're right and people will think about, you know, david brooks use this expression -- they'll be thinking about doing the right thing as its own reward. one day if things go a certain way in this country people will be raising statues to mitt romney and six other republicans who voted to convict and the rob portmans, the larger group, they'll be lucky if they're forgotten, right, so i'd like to think that people are drawn into politics to do the right thing. careerism is put second. but, you know, i don't see a lot of people on the hill right now who are willing to challenge what's called the authoritarian

consensus of the moment. >> but, it's just of the moment. and, you know, jeffrey, what i find so shocking, i guess these people didn't grow up reading history. i guess they didn't study history. i guess they don't understand the long arc of history. you know, we still remember for all the great things eisenhower did, we still remember that campaign stop in 1952 in wisconsin, a state he was going to easily win, where he could have condemned joe mccarthy after joe mccarthy had attacked, you know, the general marshall, he didn't do it. we remember these things. we remember those who stood up and did the right thing, just like we'll remember like you

said, mitt romney, we'll remember liz cheney and, you know, a fascinating piece a couple years ago that's in line that ed had to deal with at his boarding school. instead of talking about nazi germany, she talked about east and west germany. in it she said nobody can really predict who was going to stand up. the very people that were expected to stand up to the communists, didn't do it. and others who they felt would be compliant ended up being fierce. one of the maddening things for romney was how careful he was zhow calculated he was, he was a money guy, he was a data guy, right, and yet, it was mitt romney that stood up and spoke

out against donald trump, in a way ann said, you wouldn't have expected. you would have expected it to lindsey graham but you never know. >> you never know, what ann did so well, this was a cover story in atlantic a couple of years act complicity. being come police it is the human norm, most people go along with the dominant view and political trend because it's easier, it's easier and there are positive rewards and the avoidance of negativity, if you just do that. so, yeah, mitt romney is very different than lindsey graham. lindsey graham at least to me is up front about it. i asked him once and you've had this conversation. what are you doing? you're john mccain's best friend

and now you're with somebody who mccain absolutely loathed. lindsey graham said if you know me i need to be relevant, right, i need to be in the game and that's the important thing. mitt romney has a relationship with god and he felt that god was going to judge him harshly if he did the thing that he knew was his heart was dishonest. >> lindsey graham, always having to be close to the bigger to be stronger. have come out and endorsed donald trump. i've always said, whoever our nominee is i'll spot. does that rule hold for a guy who's tried to overturn an election? someone like john thune who we like and respect, he's the

republican nominee -- >> to me it's sort of like, it's giving up your god-given privilege for thinking for yourself, this is true universally, it just seems to me a ridiculous -- no matter who we nominate, really, i mean, i don't know if you have been read ing donald trump's truth social posts. all caps skreeds if you read them out of context. >> easter sunday. >> his easter mess aj to the american people was, i'm sorry, the ravings of the lunatic and john thune and all these guys, they know it, they know what they're reading, to keep going along with this charade i'm

flummoxed. we want to get your take on what's going on in israel and the u.s. reaction. and the seven aid workers two worked for the world central kitchen have been identified and the attack itself or the mistake itself is added to long list of questions for israel. long list of questions that started with the hour rick attack by hamas on israel, there's no question about that, but then the questions begin about the response time, about the warning that was given to israel, a 40-page document about october 7th, and now why 200 aid workers later dead. happened to aid workers there to try and stop a famine that's raging now because of their attack on palestinians which has left tens of thousands of

palestinians dead. that's the problem that benjamin netanyahu has with israelis who are becoming impatient. talk about the situation this puts president biden in. >> it makes more difficult. jose andres -- the seven world central kitchen workers, jose andres' people is a whole different level in washington, d.c., anyone who lives here, president biden at some stage has to be one of jose andres' restaurants, the guy has been nominated by nancy pelosi for a nobel peace prize, he's overdo really. not a conflict in the world where he's not turning up and providing food to victims,

whether it's natural disasters, conflicts, wars, he's known and trusted. he's not political. in order to do his job very careful not to make provocative statements because he wants to minimize the chances that his food trucks, his aid, his medicine will be blocked. and so i think that this is a sort of turning point and i think for biden, i mean, there has been an element with a lot of these killings, a lot of the strikes on gaza of thoughts and prayers, it's bit like republicans after schools' massacres. we condemn the killings of aid workers but we know nothing is going to happen. i'm not sure that this isn't going to be a turning point. it's so, caught people's attention and imagination and

jose andres is such a saintly figure that i think this is going to cause president biden i think to think much, much more carefully about aid and conditions on aid to israel. >> yes. >> mika, this is what he wrote in "the new york times" in his op-ed. israel is better than the way this war is being waged. it's bert than blocking food and medicine to civilians. it's better than killing aid workers who had coordinated their movements with israel defense forces. . the israeli government needs to open up more land routes for food and medicine today. needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. it needs to start the long journey to peace today. >> jeffrey goldberg. >> well, first, ed is right, jose is a unique figure and his organization is unique. i've seen them operate on the

ground in ukraine and they're extraordinarily effective. i also agree with ed that this could be a turning point in the relationship between the biden administration and prime minister netanyahu and that prime minister netanyahu's fault. i mean, we talked about this in the past on this show. to alienate joe biden, if you're an israeli prime minister you have to work hard to alien ate president joe biden. pro-israel in his guts. in his soul. and what fetian hue has done for reasons that are both expedient politically and also deeply psychological is alienate an administration that's predisposed obviously to support israel's right to fight and even dismantle hamas. so, it's extraordinary. psychologically it's

interesting. almost netanyahu needs to create conditions for himself where he's isolated and marginalized. a psychological mechanism, he only has the support of 20% or so of israelis at this point. they blame him for allowing the security disaster that allowed these hamas gunmen to come into israel among other things. but as long as this war goes on he believes he's on the going to be voted out of office. these protesters have a different thought about that. this is a turning point. these horrible things happened in war. you know, right now we believe it was an accidental targeting. it would not have the impact geopolitically if netanyahu was trying, trying to listen to his friends about how he's conducting this war. >> but he's not.

and should mention the hostage situation, dragging out and just agony for the families. jeffrey goldberg, thank you very much. we want to mention that the atlantic was awarded the top honor of general excellence for news, sports publication at the 2024 national magazine awards for the third consecutive third. >> congratulations. >> congratulations. >> it's like the oscars for magazines. >> that's fantastic. also thank you to u.s. national editor at the financial times, ed luce. >> thank you for digging deep into your emotional reservoir to talk about the brutality of your prep school upbringing. >> oh. >> must have been terrible. and coming up, donald trump

has been ramping up his religious messaging in recent weeks and one organization is launching a new ad directed at faith voters who are uneasy with the former president's words. we'll show you that ahead on "morning joe." ."

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the nonprofit organization faith forward a group that says it's dedicated to bringing people of faith together to restore the soul of the nation, is releasing a new digital ad this morning. the organization says the six-figure ad buy is quote, meant to communicate directly to faith voters who are uneasy with

the message behind god-made trump. that was a video from trump supporters that depicted the former president as the messiah-like figure. here's an exclusive first look at faith forward's new ad. >> on the sixth day, god made all of us. god said we need leaders who can unite rather than divide. who don't idolize dictators and bullies. workers from wage theft. students from crushing debts. seniors from overpriced medicine and loved ones from gun violence. god said i need someone with arms strong enough to protect the planet. strong enough to fight evils spreading across the globe. god said i need someone willing to give their whole life in service and so president biden answered the call. god made us all, together we make our democracy strong.

thank god we chose a faithful president who doesn't worship himself and undermine the constitution he swore to uphold. we pray to god for what's true in ourer our hearts, four more years. >> a strong provocative commercial obviously playing off the one that set up donald trump as an idol, straight out of jeremiah. what's your out to on that ad? >> well, first of all, i think it's powerful, second of all the biden campaign needs to lean into every single area that donald trump is trying to claim, including faith. the contrast between these two men and how they live their life according to faith couldn't be more bizarre and different. donald trump clearly is

uncomfortable with the contours of christianity, he's never lived it, he's never -- he's never looked at god's commandments or jesus' teachings as instructed to him, he said he didn't feed to ask for forgiveness for anything, how can you claim to be a christian and say you don't need to be forgiven for anything? it's so unbelievably bizarre. and you know, if you listen to reverend warnock, senator warnock about the money changers and that's donald trump. i really think leaning into his faith, leaning into immigration, leaning into crime, leaning into all of the things that donald trump is trying to claim as his campaign foundation, is the best way for biden to hold on to the oval office.

>> you know, the point you make is so critically important, claire, because trump followers, evangelicals will say, well, everybody's done this, everybody's done that, everybody's sin, everybody, yet, growing up in the baptist church, what we learned and it's great again in this time after easter, to be reminded of it. that if you're a christian, you believe that christ died for your sins, and you need to ask for forgiveness and, you know, you see the bumper sticker across the south, christians aren't perfect just forgiven. that's the central core belief of evangelical christianity.

i can't speak for other parts of christianity. but for evangelicals it's always been ask for forgiveness, that's always at the call after you go 20 verses of just as i am, ask for forgiveness it will be given. right. donald trump undercuts that in a way that no evangelical i ever grew up with would have been okay with. but when donald trump says i've never done anything wrong no reason to be forgiven, they still fall right in line and say, oh, he's the second coming of christ. it's really twisted. i still, again growing up in the baptist church after all these years, i can't explain it. i can't explain it. how they would kind of like, this is a great follow-up to what jeffrey's atlantic article

talks about, how do these people that i knew, i grew up, how do they embrace a guy like this who says no, i've never asked for forgiveness because i don't need forgiveness from god. >> it's unbelievable. i'm quiet because i want to let it sink in. forgot all the excuses that these evangelical ministers are using, you know, oh the supreme court and oh, you know, restricting abortion and, oh, he's not going to let people use the wrong bathroom. forget all of that. this is a man who said out loud that he did not need forgiveness. i don't know of any priest or pastor or minister in the

christian faith that would let that go and not grab on to it and say, wait, wait, wait, wait. you need to understand the most fundamental part of christianity. the most fundamental part. overlook the adultery, the sexual assault, overlook all of that if you want, but how can you not ask for forgiveness for any of it? that's astounding and something that -- by the way, biden is quick to point to his faith. by the way, biden goes to mass. biden knows the scriptures. biden, he's not a perfect catholic by any means, none of us are perfect christians, but he understands his faith and his faith is fundamental to who he is, this is something that the biden campaign should lean into

it. especially on the topic of immigration, what would jesus say about a person who said these people desperate at our border they're vermin and not people. jesus would be appalled at that. jesus would speak out on that. so on all these topics, he's so unchristian-like, it's astounding to me that we're not seeing more ads like this, i hope we do. i think it's rally important. >> claire mccaskill, thank you very much for coming on this morning. and coming up, we'll speak with atf director, a look at gun violence and crime in america. "morning joe" will be right back. oe" will be right back there's always a fresh deal on the subway app. how about bogo 50% off footlongs? like the irresistible philly. what'd you got to say klay? there's nothing better than a sub— —sorry buddy.

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i'll fully uphold the second amendment, of course. i did it better than anybody. >> that was donald trump last night in wisconsin, bragging about how he did nothing on the issue of gun safety while president. later this week the bureau will announce a new volume of a four-part study on gun trafficking in the united states. good to meet you. let's talk about the source of a lot of the gun violence we see in america. when we see a mass shooting, we talk about the semi auto guns, but not the handguns. >> garland, he commissioned atf

with a great group of researchers from schools and labs and law enforcement offices all over the country got together and tried to answer what does gun trafficking look like 20 years after the first time we looked at it. one of the things that happened this week, as you said, we are issuing a new volume where we went to the atf investigators, and we asked, just shy of 10,000 cases and surveyed the data and asked what are you seeing over the five year period. these are incredibly brave people, and they are running towards gunfire, and we asked them, what are you seeing? the results of that are coming back about how guns are trafficked and getting into the -- >> you can use new york, chicago, and you can pick your city. where are they coming from? >> one of the big findings of the report, which is first here, and it's not out yet, but it

will be the way guns are trafficked changed over the years. we see fewer cases of sort of these rogue firearms dealers, right, selling guns in massive quantities out the backdoor, and there are still some so we have to be careful about that, but the big growth are people not getting a license, which you are required to do by congress, and if you are a gun dealer for-profit, you need to get a license, meaning you need to run background checks and sell guns with serial numbers so they can be chased, and we are dealing with people selling without a license, and that's online and at shows, and that's a big finding. the second thing you said, and we all know it's true and there's data on this, and 60%

are going to felons, and hundreds are linked to aggravated assaults, and one of the takeaways from the report, and now there's data for it and i hope everybody understands this, and if you are breaking the law and are arming somebody that should not have a gun, and you are not innocent, but you are supplying the firearm these felons are out there getting way too easily and using to hurt people all over the country. >> one of the elements of the study that we are told, and it's called time to crime, and in neighborhoods, certain urban neighborhoods, they shop guns around to young kids, i need a gun tonight.

the time to crime, what does that mean? >> time to crime is the measure of, okay, we have lawful commerce, and you look at the date of the lawful retail purchase. how long did it take for that gun to get to that crime scene? is it in the same person's hands, or was it a straw purchase or fake buyer, was it from a person selling it out of their trunk? how long did that take? the less time to crime, it's more likely the gun was trafficked. we are seeing the time going down, shorter amount of time from the first retail sale to the moment it's found in the possession that is not allowed to have it or used in a crime, and if it's three weeks since the gun was legally purchased until it shows up at a crime scene, chances are it was bought

not by the real owner, right, it was a straw purchase, or bought with the intent to traffic it. >> taking what you learned from the study and your overall work, if you could implement one policy fix to help make america safer, what would it be? >> so i said, you have to go with data, and there's a lot, but you asked me one thing, and you have to go with data. a couple years ago congress changed the definition of who needs to get a license, in other words, who needs to run background checks. background checks are a huge help in preventing firearms sales to people that shouldn't have firearms by law, right? so we have right now put out a proposed rule making about implementing this part of the bipartisan safer communities act, which would basically say,

you know, everybody who is dealing in firearms for-profit and engaged in that business, you need to get a license. background checks are a huge, huge help in preventing the wrong people from getting a gun in the first place. does it stop everybody? of course not. of course no one thing is going to solve the problem. the question is, is it legal? will it save lives? that should be the test. background checks have been proven over and over and over again to do both. >> we have said many times on the show when we talk about gun violence, the overwhelming number of americans support background checks. it's a fascinating new look, and as you say, it's 20 years in the making and it changes the view of where these guns are coming from. atf director, steve, thank you

for being here. >> thank you for having me. and then calling for one of the most liberal justices on the supreme court to step down. we'll explain why when "morning joe" comes back in two minutes. . you're in good hands with allstate. ♪3, 4♪ ♪ ♪hey♪ ♪ ♪are you ready for me♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪are you ready♪ ♪ that colonoscopy for getting screened ♪ ♪ is why i'm delaying ♪ ♪ i heard i had a choice ♪ ♪ i know the name, that's what i'm saying ♪ -cologuard®? -cologuard.

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truth social, and guess what? nothing happened. are laws real? i am been following them my whole life -- >> donald trump continues to test the limits of the gag order in his hush-money case. meanwhile his legal team is trying to once again get the judge removed. this attempt comes less than two weeks before the trial is supposed to start. the former president trump is suing the co founders of truth social. >> wait a second. willie, is this not the trumpyest story, he sues the co founders. that's everything he does, his whole life. he gets painters to paint his

office, and he will sue them. i will give you 50% -- >> no, he doesn't give them 50%. >> you and i and mika, we have been around him for decades, and they all say this is how he works. anybody that goes into business with this guy regrets it because he's a terrible serviceman and he sues you. >> it's a reflex. if you hang a chandelier in one of his terrible atlantic city hotels, if you are the electrician, you will get blamed. and his truth social goes public, and it doesn't have any revenue and has lost money, and things go well and it comes back down-to-earth, and now he's suing the co founders, and it's a difficult soap opera to follow

and not a very compelling one either. >> not pretty. we will show you how trump dodged a question about abortion yesterday on the campaign trail. he did his whole, we will have an answer in two weeks. >> like the biden administration said, we don't have to wait. you can always lie about transportation week, and it never came, and we will have the answer on health care in two weeks, and he never gives you an answer, and we have this answer. donald trump has said he was the one who, quote, terminated roe v. wade, so we don't have to wait two weeks, donald, and we have heard what you said and bragged about for the last year now. >> along with willie, joe and me, we have jonathan lemire, and

richard haus, the author of the weekly news letter "home and away." >> so jonathan lemire, i know the yankees are doing okay, but how about those boston red sox? won again last night against the fierce oakland a's? >> yeah, the oakland a's, the krepl duh law krepl. the sox did win, and they are 4-2. their pretty successful west coast take, and a couple more games. a little hope. we should note, willie, the yankees knocked from the ranks of the unbeaten, and the dream of 161-0 has been dashed.

>> aaron judge struggling out of the gate, and fur looking for areas of concern in an otherwise excellent start, there you have it. >> yeah, cold comes back and yankee prospects come back. >> 161-1. >> the way we look eight, willie, the yankees lose, and the knicks losing, and a perfect time -- perfect time to get richard on the show. >> joe, joe, and it was just easter the other day. show love. >> the reason we have richard on the show this morning is our top stories. thousands of protesters gathered outside israel's parliament in jerusalem for a third day calling for early elections and a deal to release the hostages. sunday will mark six months since the hamas terrorists

attack on israel, and public demonstrations in the country intensified in recent days. a protest outside outside the israel's prime minister netanyahu's home turned into a riot. hundreds tried to break through barriers near netanyahu's home but were blocked. meanwhile, president biden said he was outraged and heartbroken by an israeli strike that killed seven world central kitchen aid workers in gaza. in a statement biden wrote, this conflict has been one of the worst in recent memory in terms of how many aid workers have been killed. this is a major reason why distributing humanitarian aid in gaza has been so difficult because israel has not done enough to protect aid workers trying to deliver desperately-needed help to civilians. he added incidents like

yesterday's simply should not happen. israel also has not done enough to protect civilians. strong words. the strike killed seven humanitarian workers on monday, including a dual u.s. citizen. israeli prime minister netanyahu posted on social media on tuesday that israel deeply regrets the tragic incident and will do everything in our power to ensure that such tragedies do not occur in the future. i have to tell you, i'm glad the president spoke out strongly, but this has got to stop. >> it really does. richard, it's -- it just continues, and there's a very powerful op-ed dropped in the "new york times" last night by chef josé andreas, how they

coordinated their movements, and they took all the precautions that needed to be taken. let me read some of his words, and they are powerful. he said israel is better than the war has been waged and it's better than blocking food to civilians and better than blocking the coordinated movements. the israeli government needs to open more land routes for food and said minute today. it needs to stop killing civilians and aid workers today. it needs to start the long journey to peace today. richard, israel and the supporters of israel, which i am, have been, always will be, would be fooling themselves if they don't think the overwhelming number of americans

agree with josé andreas, that this is enough and they need to focus on a permanent cease-fire, and they need to focus on -- focus on getting the hostages home. they need to focus on creating a world moving forward without hamas, and of course, in israel it will be without benjamin netanyahu, and maybe then we can take the first step of 1,000 steps of a two-state solution. >> joe, you are so right. there are so many fault lines that emerged in the last 24 hours. let's start with the world kitchen incident. this didn't come out of the blue. roughly 200 aid workers have been killed and 20,000 civilians in gaza, and put aside hamas fighters, but what this says to

me is that israel's approach to the war simply doesn't place enough emphasis on avoiding aid workers or civilians, and why it is that an identified vehicle whose movements were coordinated were still targeted. is it cavalier or incompetent? neither one is reassuring. for the first time the israeli government reacted and they understood what a pr disaster this was and is. this was not an exception, but it was just high profile. >> can i stop you there. that's a good point. it's not an exception, and it shows there has been -- as joe biden has been worried about, indiscriminate bombing. we know about these seven aid workers, and we have not talked about it because it has not made

the front pages, the other aid workers that have died because of the indiscriminate bombing in this very tight and condensed area. it is like the hostages that broke free from their captives, shirtless and arms in the air doing everything they are supposed to do, and they got shot by the idf, and how many times do you think that has happened? crazy me, i am actually worried about the future of israel, and i am worried about americans loving israel. i am worried about what netanyahu is doing with this offensive? we are seeing it. we are seeing it. the more the protests rise against netanyahu, and the more pressure he feels, the more gas

he throws on the flames. he knows he can't leave power because he gets sent to jail. he will intensify this war and hurt israel's standing in the world even more and get us further away from getting the hostages home, all because he has to make himself seem like the indispensable man by creating even higher stakes in the war. >> look, whatever the motives, the prospects or the odds of a wider and longer war went up in the last 24 hours. you had a question as to what israel does in gaza and how it waits going after hamas versus getting the hostages back, and the attack on the iranian compound in syria, you know, we could argue that separately. the wisdom of that, and i think there was a case for doing that,

but it does increase the odds that now this war will grow wider. i think the chances are with hezbollah, it goes up. what we are seeing, and it's tragic, but none of the preconditions or prerequisites, the middle east is like an earthquake zone with multiple fault lines and at the moment several of them are going off at once. they reinforce one another. you hope out of bad news there could be a glimmer of good news, and i don't see it this morning, sorry to say. >> this has drawn widespread condemnation from the middle east, the west and the united states and uk, and you are seeing it everywhere, and those were aid workers, and you have other aid organizations pausing their operation saying we don't

know if it's safe to go into gaza, and what is the spot president biden has been in a long time but was made worse with what happened? we saw some of that in the primaries last night, and on the international stage -- >> the vehicles could not have been better mark. one of the missiles went right through the logo of the world central kitchen and killed everyone inside, and this mistake hit came after the precision hit, and there was an substantial uncommitted vote in wisconsin, and it's the primaries and there's a belief a lot of the voters will come home to president biden, and they are not all going to. there's real anger there that is not going to dissipate. now we have a moment where -- this has been bubbling up from

behind the scenes for a while, and president biden is furious at prime minister netanyahu and still his administration has not conditioned any weapons, and this happens a week or two before the rafah offensive. >> i am so sick of hearing how president biden is. the buck stops with him, if he wants to stop the arm sales and the bombs that are killing civilians, he can. he has the power. we don't need his aides going to reporters and talking about how upset they are. what happened yesterday is still going happen. at mika's conference, the head of the palestinian red crescent spoke in aub yao abu dhabi, and it was like changing the rules every day of going through

airport security, and until the checkpoints are working and aid is going through, we don't need to be getting any more arms or money, and it needs to stop and be conditional. it's ridiculous, it's going on unchecked and unfettered and we are sitting around and talking about how upset we are while we hemorrhage millions of dollars. >> we're approaching the six-month milestone of the war. two things have happened in the last few days, and one is these attacks are continuing, and so are u.s. arms transfers to israel without conditions. they have been going on for six months. why does israel need 200,000 pound bombs? that is how you undo even the

possibility, and joe was talking about one day getting to a two-state solution. states are built on territory, and if the territory is not there to build it on and you can talk about two states until the cows come home. at some point the words become empty, and the biden administration is getting to a point where they criticize what is going on. >> it looks weak. you were in the hw administration in the -- >> at the white house. >> yeah, we confronted israel, and israel was subsidizing people leaving the soviet union, and we said we will help the people get out of the soviet union but we are not going to subsidize them go into the west

bank and that forecloses options down the road, and we understand you don't have a palestinian partner today, but we want to reserve the day when you might have that, and you have a choice, and this administration has to have teeth in it. >> let me put it bluntly to you. does netanyahu give a damn by what the administration is seeing? >> he doesn't. he is positioning himself saying you may not like me and you may think i made a mistake on october 7th, and i am all that stands between you and the american pressure. he would care about damaging the relationship with israel's most important been been benefactor.

i would think there has to be trade sanctions against goods coming out of west bank settlements. why should they be able to come here without tariffs or other economic policies. we have to have an increasing independent policy that reflects our interest and values. coming up, our next guest says there's momentum coming up in the presidential race and it belongs to joe biden. that conversation is next on "morning joe." t on "morning joe."

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limited resources, the biden campaign said they think florida is winnable. technically, powerball is winnable, but that doesn't make it a good bet. a lot of florida voters have doubts about biden, saying, i don't know, he's just so young. >> technically, powerball is winnable. >> and joe biden and trump is said to be neck and neck in every swing state, and trump leads biden in arizona, georgia, michigan, north carolina, nevada and pennsylvania by figures that are all within the poll's margin of error. in wisconsin, the two candidates tied at 46% each. the economy remains a problem for biden, and 63% of the swing

states voters say the strength of the economy is not in good condition. when asked to rate the economic conditions in their own states, they say it's in excellent or good shape. joining us now, jim mussina, served as chief of staff for president obama. >> wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan, so critical. they are all very close. i am surprised by, again, i would never have guessed this five years ago, that joe biden continues to perform best in wisconsin, that wisconsin of all states seems to be a state older white guys actually aren't

thrilled with what's happening with donald trump. georgia tighter in this poll than i have seen in other polls, and that's a good trend in biden's direction even though trump is ahead by a little bit. one or two people in the biden white house may watch this show, and this is -- i want you to talk to them right now on this conundrum. you go -- all polls have shown this. you go to individuals, how are you doing economically? i'm doing great. i'm doing really well. this poll goes, how is your state doing? it's doing great, doing really well. how is the overall economy? oh, it sucks. i mean, this -- this discordant sort of thinking has been out there six months now, where 75%

of the americans say they are doing really well economically, and in this poll their states are doing well, and you do it in general of how america is going, and i don't know, what is going on there? what does biden do to fix that over the next six months? >> well, joe, you are exactly right. a couple things i think are incredibly important. in the end, voters vote in their best interest, they always do. that's why i am more optimistic than the polls, because voters think their own lives and state economies are getting better than four years ago, and they are getting better every single day. joe biden continues to have momentum since the state of the union. you highlighted the state i cared about most about, wisconsin. wisconsin is the tipping point state in over two-thirds of the simulations we do every night, wisconsin decides the presidency. once again, joe biden is

strongest in that state for a variety of reasons that you just looked at, especially the economic reasons. 75% of the people in that state say their personal economic situation is getting better. on the national question, i do think that there's several things holding over it, and one is immigration. we need to address the issue of immigration and talk about it, because it's something that worries voters and has them concerned. after you get past the issues, we can go back to saying if is your life better off and how do we make your life better off? that's the sweet spot. that's why joe biden is the best candidate we have seen in talking to the voters about their personal economic situations. >> to your point, former president trump was in wisconsin and michigan yesterday talking exclusively about migrant crime, and telling stories that are not true, and having phone

conversations with their family members that he didn't have, and you don't have to take our word for it but consumer spend something up, and people are spending money in the economy, and the overall health of the economy, is that a stand-in about how people are feeling about the state of the country or politics or the ugliness of it? how do you solve that riddle? >> i think it's a little stand-in for voters. two weeks ago 71% of americans didn't think it was going to trump versus biden, and now they are saying, okay, it's trump versus biden, and that's a stand-in as well because that may not be their dream match-up and that's the match-up they will have, and they are starting to grapple with it. my theory of the case has been as time goes on, people will continue to feel better and the economic numbers are getting up,

and those are touch stones for how they will vote in november. >> it's never too early to talk about 270, the magic number. >> let's talk about the map. >> the governor in nebraska has thrown his support behind an effort that would no longer allocate the votes, republicans get four and democrats get the one from omaha, and if that changes, that takes away biden's best path to win, because if he wins wisconsin, pennsylvania, michigan, but loses the other swing states and no longer picks up the one in nebraska, 269, that leads the playbook this morning, the alarm among democrats that this is possible. what do you think? >> i think this is what the moderate republican party has become. they are changing the rules in the middle trying to benefit themselves. this is the hell donald trump

has rot. it's ridiculous. there are real simulation problems. when you look at the map, that one electoral vote really matters in the combination of things, and you need another state. the easiest pathway to victory has been those states combined with nebraska. there will be a national outcry for trying to change the rules here, but looks like they will look at it. everyone stick around. we will be right back -- >> can i ask jim quickly, did maine give that one electoral vote to trump in 2020? >> yes, sir, they did. >> so trump did get that one state? so if nebraska goes all or nothing, maine should go all or nothing and it balances it all out, right? >> you are fixing it all here on

national television. >> yeah, you are going, oh, as a democrat, you can't change the rules, and i'm the republican that goes -- former republican, but still campaigns like one -- >> a conservative. >> i just go, you change in nebraska and we'll change in maine and let's go get a big mac. >> when is the last time you had a big mac? >> maybe 30 years. >> we will change that today. >> no, we are not. is that not happening. no. we'll be right back. >> what? two all-beef patties? ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, nutrients for immune health. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. (♪♪) (tony hawk) skating for over 45 years has taken a toll on my body.

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a bill to rename washington, d.c.'s dulles airport after former president trump. that's a good thing for anybody that wants to see an airport go bankrupt. >> look at reagan national airport right now. >> why not tie the worst airport in america with the worst president ever -- >> oh, are you going to miami? >> no, dulles. it's a tight fit. willie, when we are talking worst airports in america, i don't know if you spent much time in miami, but it's a horrific airport. >> mika has documented that, yes. >> i have videos. >> she has documented that. and i won't even -- >> i spoke to some workers, and i used some of my local news skills, and. >> a horrible quality of the miami airport. >> i have some insight.

>> okay. so anyway, but dulles is uniquely bad. that's just a uniquely horrific airport. can you think of a worse airport than dulles? >> no, but we have to give credit where it's due. laguardia is nice now. nobody has spoke those words before, and it's hard to get to the gate, and i know what you are going to say -- >> hard to get to the gate? hard to get to the gate? >> wear running shoes. >> you go in there, lemire, and i swear to god, when you land -- i have said it before, you look outside and they are taking the bags off and it's amish people, and you are going, what are amish people doing in queens. >> it stretches all the way to lancaster. >> we are not in queens, but we

are in lancaster county and we have to walk so far. >> you go to the shirt factory. >> yeah. >> i get a hot dog in harrisburg. i keep walking and i finally get to my taxi. but, i mean, laguardia, come on. >> i knew i would trigger you. >> yeah. >> try and do it with a toddler when you forget a shoulder. -- stroller. that's a lot of fun. >> you basically just described -- >> my life. >> -- when mika has to get me to the gate on time. >> i think laguardia has improved. dulles is really bad. miami is tough. there are parts of l.a.x. that i hate. l.a.x. is overburdened as well. i think that's the short list here. i don't think -- at least you are welcome to chime in. >> dulles is pretty uniquely terrible. getting there is a pain, and

d.c. traffic, and you get out there and you have that tram situation. i hate that tram situation, and just go to the gate. what is with all the trams? no. >> bwi is the worst airport. it's terrible. >> willie, newark? >> i am a jersey guy, and again, we are working on improvements. >> they don't have a tram. >> sometimes you need a tram. it's a huge airport. >> yeah. >> you are right, though, willie, laguardia, you know, it's cleaner. jfk, from the time i started this show, every time i would fly in on sunday nights and they would lose my bag every single time and it was a third world airport. jfk really improved over the

last 15 years. i just wish we had the marine terminal, because i judge all airports by how quickly i get off the plane and get into the cab. >> the one problem with jfk is you have to budget 3 1/2 hours on the srepb wick. even if you land at 1:00 in the morning, bumper to bumper traffic back to the city. >> i thought i was in the wrong place because the overall was so dramatic, and memphis airport is super easy now. they did a great job there. >> memphis. okay. >> can i ask jim something? >> no. >> he's the smart -- >> i am thinking we want to talk politics with jim mussina. >> quick. >> why sit in america, and i think other countries -- obviously japan, but it's so extraordinarily inefficient for people that fly into new york

internationally, to fly in for business, to land at jfk and then sit in their cars for three hours get into the city, and it seems any advanced society would have a train that goes from the airport and doesn't stop in queens, and goes from the airport to midtown, to the center of the business world in about 15 minutes. why can't america do that? >> we can and we are starting to do that. they are about to work on vegas to l.a. in under half an hour on the hyper loop. that's coming in the next ten years, they say. we are starting to make progress. and i spent an hour and 45 minutes on the van wicked. >> i hope you all feel better

now that we talked it out. we have to work on acceptance. >> no, no, you change and make it better. >> thank you. we are going to move on now to politics. what we were talking about before the break, like most policy issues, donald trump has been all over the map on abortion. he once said women should be punished for having the procedure only to back track days later, and he boasted about terminating roe, which he did, and called florida's restrictions a terrible mistake, and lately he has been promising to make both sides happy. now the former president says he wants to clarify his stance on abortion sometime next week. here's his response to nbc's gabe gutierrez at a campaign rally in michigan yesterday. >> mr. president, do you support

the six-week abortion bands the florida supreme court just upheld? >> i will give you a statement next week on abortion. >> wait, i am curious. why would idiots boo a question like that? how stupid do you have to be -- willie, i don't get it. why would you boo a question on whether he supports something that the florida supreme court just upheld unless they understand how devastating it is for -- >> their dear leader. >> that's their job is to shout down, boo and drowned out anything that might challenge donald trump because there's no good answer. how many times did we hear when donald trump was president, when there was something tough, we will put out a statement, we will have a plan in a couple weeks, and it went on forever

and of course it never came. he doesn't know what to say, mika, because he bragged again and again, i am the one that took down roe, and i am the president that supported the three supreme court justices that delivered the holy grail. he knows it's a problem, and we will keep hearing, we will be putting out a statement sometime soon. >> you know, he has been bragging, and he said it took 50 years, and 50 years people said they were going to do it and i timely did it and, he said, i terminated roe. he will have to live with it. >> yeah, and president biden responded on social media with a quote from trump about bragging of overturning roe, and he captured this with, you already made your statement, donald. >> i was able to kill roe v. wade. jim mussina, you never -- i know

you, especially, as a guy that runs campaigns, you never want your side to think they've got an ace in their pocket. but roe is an ace. it really is. >> absolutely. >> time and time again, democrats have outperformed pro choice movements, and movements outperformed time and time again. this is a real political killer for republicans because they keep getting more extreme. it started with roe, and they are now at ivf, and most republicans don't even have the cuts to say -- come out and pass a law protecting ivf in the senate. >> joe, they keep thinking they can spin their way out of this. this is what youngkin tried to do in virginia and got stomped for trying to do this. 9.9%, democrats are doing 9.9%

better in elections than the polls show they will because of this issue. the biden campaign came on with the 30-second ad with trump's exact statement proudly saying he got rid of roe v. wade, and they ends of the ad they have biden looking at the camera saying, donald trump doesn't trust women and i do. of all the ads we have tested in the campaign cycle, it's what the biden has on the air in the midwestern states right now wailing away on this because this is the ace in the hole, and the biden campaign is doubling down on it, smartly. coming up, justice sonja

sotomayor, why some want her to step down when we come back. so step down when we come back. co

to college football last year, the game rivaled only by the sec championship game and the college football playoff matchup between michigan and ohio state. only one men's ncaa tournament game this year had a bigger viewership. iowa now faces uconn this friday in the final four. joe, that game delivered on every front. great teams, great talent on the floor and it turns out the country was glued. >> i mean, unbelievable. again, you look at the quality of basketball that was played, it was so exciting, and, yeah, of course she's just --

>> phenomenal. >> she is -- you know, there is a reason she passed pete maravich who is just one of the greatest of all time in total points scored. but, willie, this was such a great matchup in so many ways, there's so many plot lines. it's so great for women's basketball, which has been the butt of jokes, family guy and so many men sports writers in the past. i say no more. this is extraordinary athleticism and i just can't believe that there aren't a lot of younger girls that saw this the other night and said, i'm going to be the next caitlin clark. i just think we're going to see women's basketball continue to get better. my gosh, she's just amazing, isn't she? >> i'm transfixed. >> these are not the same shot, by the way, this is all different threes she hit. >> no, she's amazing. >> you're right, joe, i watched it with my daughter, but i also

watched it with my son and my wife who is a very casual sports fan but is locked in not just to caitlin clark but what's really happening not just in women's basketball but in women's sport. these arenas are packed, the ratings are through the roof and caitlin clark and all of these players who are stars now have done such a good job of speaking to the past, of the people who came up, you know, the early days of uconn women's basketball and rebecca lobo and all of them who built the foundation of what we're seeing right now and weren't necessarily -- well, at uconn they were, but other places not playing to sold out crowds and huge arenas and huge ratings and everything else. >> yeah. >> there has been a long build to get to this moment and now the talent on all of these teams, by the way, they're going to play -- iowa is going to play uconn next, page beckers is an incredible superstar for them. i think you're right, this is a seminole moment in american sports and we hope these arenas stay full and these superstars keep playing for us because it is so fun to watch.

coming up, we will talk with the stars of the new netflix film "scoop" when jillian anderson and billy piper join us in the studio. "morning joe" is back in a moment. in the studio. "morning joe" is back in a moment

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live look at lax for you at just about 6:00 a.m. on the west coast. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 9:00 a.m. in the east. we have a lot to get to this hour. let's dive right in. president biden said he was outraged and heartbroken by an israeli strike that killed seven world central kitchen aid workers in gaza. nbc news foreign correspondent raf sanchez has the latest from tel aviv. raf, good morning.

>> reporter: good morning to you. we are now learning the identities of all seven of those aid workers who died in that israeli attack. they came from around the world, united in a mission to help the people of gaza, and the president personally calling the founder of world central kitchen, chef jose andres to offer condolences. overnight president biden paying tribute to the seven world central kitchen aid workers killed in a series of israeli air strikes. they were brave and selfless, he said of the victims, including 33 gerald jacob flickinger a dual u.s.-canadian citizen, seen here on a mission in mexico. president biden adding israel has not done enough to protect aid workers. >> this incident is emblematic of a larger problem. >> this is our -- >> reporter: the volunteers part of chef jose andres' effort to get good to gadd ans on the edge of pham mine. writing in the "new york times" andres describing them as the best of humanity, they are not faceless or aimless, they are

not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war. he urged israel to stop blocking food deliveries to gaza and highlighted prime minister benjamin netanyahu's comment about the strike. this happens in war. israel's top general overnight announcing findings of a preliminary investigation into the attack. >> it was a mistake that followed a misidentification at night, during a war, in a very complex condition. >> reporter: nbc news located each of the destroyed aid vehicles, finding they were attacked in at least three strikes over a mile and a half length of coastal road. world central kitchen says the cars were clearly marked with its logo and their movements coordinated with israel's military ahead of time. we pressed an israeli government spokesman. >> israel tells the world that its strikes are based on precise intelligence, that it takes measures to make sure there are not civilians in the area. how can that possibly be true given what happened here?

>> there is a war going on. it's a war zone. and in every war, sadly, tragically, mistakes happen and we do our very utmost to avoid those mistakes. >> reporter: world central kitchen pausing its gaza aid operation for now with three of its food ships turning back to sea. several other aid groups doing the same. a major blow to the humanitarian effort when it's needed most. >> and we're learning that two days before that deadly air strike world central kitchen believes an israeli sniper shot at one of its vehicles, the bullet damaged a wing mirror. no one was hurt but the aid group did file a complaint to the israeli military. we asked the idf about that incident but did not hear back. >> nbc's raf sanchez with that report. jonathan lemire and elise jordan are back with us and joining us we have u.s. special correspondent for bbc news katty kay and chief white house correspondent for "the new york

times" peter baker. >> peter, a blistering, blistering response from president joe biden on what happened there. a blistering response this morning in the "new york times" by chef jose andres. there's almost a feeling that this is a turning point which i would say is sad because you would think gazans, as many gazans getting killed would have been a turning point. >> right. >> but these aid workers really bring home how indiscriminate a lot of the killing has been. a lot of aid workers being killed. even hostages doing everything -- you know, escaped hostages being gunned down, doing everything they're supposed to do. and these high-profile incidents we always say, oh, there's going to be an investigation here, there's going to be an investigation there. meanwhile, support for israel, a

country i will always support, dropping not only in the united states, dropping in europe, dropping across the world. benjamin netanyahu in joe biden's opinion is hurting the israeli cause across the region and across the world. how much longer before we move from words to actions in the white house? >> yeah, i think that's the real question here and i think you're right to point out that for a lot of people the outrage that the president described yesterday in his statement is overdue because it wasn't just these seven aid workers who have been killed, but as you note, 30,000 people in gaza, obviously some of them are hamas and many of them are civilians and there hasn't been the same kind of expression from the president in quite as visceral a way. individual stories often have a power to move politicians in a way that kind of raw numbers as horrific as they are sometimes don't. and the question then is what you just said, does that mean that there's going to be any

change in posture by this president? he has been the one person inside his administration who has been most resistant to doing anything like putting conditions on future arms supplies to israel in terms of, you know, some of these international condemnations. he has been and remains, you know, israel's strongest support, even inside his own government, but that, you know -- you have to wonder if that changes after what we heard yesterday. the power of his words and the importance of calling chef jose andres personally was meant to send a signal and the question is whether the israelis will take a signal by that or whether biden will shift policy in the days and weeks going forward. >> katty kay, one of the things -- i mean, the president has been fed up with netanyahu for quite some time now and he's been trying to figure out the best way to make a break with him publicly from everything

i've heard inside the white house. he also understands this, though, that he has to be very careful on that side of the equation, too, condemning netanyahu, being so forceful that netanyahu actually uses that to consolidate power and sort of an us against them situation. so i guess the question is how does the president thread that needle and go after benjamin netanyahu in an aggressive way without netanyahu using it politically to gain even more power inside of israel? >> which to some extent netanyahu already is doing in israel, saying that he is the only thing that stands between israel and america, which might suspend its arms commitments or at least put conditions behind them. i had two interesting conversations in the light of this terrible attack on world

central kitchen. one was in the uk where there is -- i can't tell you, joe, there are outrage. three of these aid workers were british citizens, one was an ex special forces guy, somebody who knows what he's doing, has been in war zones and was still killed. a lot of questions in the british press about why is britain still supporting israel at this particular moment and what were the israelis doing? these were targeted missiles, these were bombs fired by drones that could have been averted at the last minute and they weren't averted even after the israelis were warned. a lot of very pointed questions in britain at the moment. but also a question with somebody out in hollywood who is a bundle of big donors who is saying big donors who are democratic sympathizers don't want to come in with big checks for biden at the moment because of war this israel and because of what is happening in gaza. this is really hurting him domestically, it's hurting him internationally and the questions i'm hearing is does the white house have power or not? i mean, can -- president biden

can complain and link to reporters all he wants, but does america have power? that would come in the form of conditions on these weapons and so far they've been reluctant to do that. but, you know, if this doesn't change the equation and you're right 200 aid workers have already been killed and yet somehow seven foreign ones get more attention, but, you know, at what point, what would -- what would be the thing that would get america to actually exercise its power or doesn't it have power? >> and, peter, that's the question. is president biden ready to take that step to make the arms deals conditional, to make that aid conditional? you can use these weapons for this, but you can't use it for that. it's a big step, but it's one that was thrown into stark relief yesterday by this truly abhorrent, egregious act against marked vehicles giving humanitarian said. do you think the president is considering this now? >> look, the evidence of the

recent days is that he hasn't been. they have just approved more weapons just in the last few days. our colleagues have reported it and i think that, you know, so far he has been reluctant to do that. their argument is we don't do that for israel, we may do that for other countries, we have in fact done that in the past for other countries but israel is an exception. has israel earned that exception? that's the question you hear from a lot of democrats. again, it's not the president's opposition, it's the president's own party that is most upset about his policy at this point and it's hard to take that away from an election year as katty just mentioned in which the president needs all the support he can get in a race he's losing it looks like according to polls from the "wall street journal" in these swing states. what swing state is the most important is michigan and as long as this war is going on, as long as it appears that the president is not listening to the left part of his own base, the more risk he has of a domestic consequence that katty

was talking about. >> well, also with younger voters as well. there's michigan, younger voters. there's still six months, but this actually -- this is building up a good bit. we were showing images for people that just tuned in, those images were protests in israel. it's always important to remember benjamin netanyahu only has about a 20% approval rating in israel right now and yet he continues his version of war, this total all out war. >> annihilation. >> again, at the beginning he squandered so much international support, continues to squander international support because of the absolute horror and the terrorism that was visited on israel on october 7th and unfortunately that man right there, his government had the war plans -- the terrorist

attack plans for a year. they did nothing about it. they knew where hamas was getting their funding in 2018. he and trump both ignored it. did nothing about it. in doha you actually had the qataris asking netanyahu's government, hey, should we continue funding hamas? giving them hundreds of millions of dollars? netanyahu's government says you better believe you should. continued propping them up. they even had warnings the day before that an attack was coming. netanyahu's government did nothing. and then when the attacks started, people were getting -- women were getting raped, people were getting killed, children were getting shot in their cribbs, babies were. netanyahu's government, nothing for an hour -- >> slow to respond. >> -- two hours, four hours, seven hours, ten hours, in some cases 13 hours.

>> it's never the time to ask why. >> no answers. no answers to those questions. >> now there's more questions. >> no answers to those questions. netanyahu continues taking israel over the cliff. i will be damned if i will let anybody say that you can't question netanyahu if you are a supporter of israel. i've got to say there are some publications that unfortunately are closing their eyes to the horrors that are being visited on the gazan people and the blow back that there's going to be in israel for decades to come. >> yeah. i think history will also look back at the perils of having a leader who is exposed, who is perhaps trying to stay in power to escape indictment, which a lot of people looking at netanyahu and every move he makes is clouded under that

reality. >> i'm looking at our list to see if we have anybody old enough to relate to what i'm about to say. tom nichols, i'm going to call you up. >> he's next. >> i know he's next, but i'm going to ask him about israel first. >> okay. >> tom is not as old as me because nobody is as old as me, maybe barnicle is tied, but, tom, let's talk about israel for a second and the framing of our world views. i mean, do you remember the -- do you remember munich? do you remember the '72 olympics? >> yes, i was a boy, i was watching the olympics and i remember what a shock it was even as a kid that somebody attacked the olympics. i mean, that was a bit -- that was a watershed moment, even for a child. >> so you probably, like me, probably as young kids, that was the first time we had heard of the plo, of the palestinians. when we were growing up that

framed so many americans' perception of the plo, the palestinian cause, yasser arafat, of course, all the times israel was attacked. and so i think for many americans you look at polls, that shaped -- just like iran in '79, the iranian hostage crisis shaped our views, rightly, of just how horrible that regime is. but talk about your concerns. do you share the same concerns that what's happening right now in gaza is going to continue to turn younger americans away from the israeli cause for years to come? >> yes, but i also think that there's been a problem among younger americans of a kind of reflexive anti-israel bias, particularly on college campuses. so there are two separate

problems, one is that -- that that campus -- and i have written about this for "the atlantic" that that campus anti-semitism was always there and growing over the years. >> always. >> and then -- then you have this, which is -- i think one of the parallels here is america after 9/11 where the united states goes into this with a lot of support, we've been attacked, the world is on our side, and then we start squandering a lot of that good will. i think that's exactly what's happening in israel and i think, you know, that distinguishing between support for israel and criticism of bibi netanyahu, joe, that you just pointed out is really important. that this is not -- you know, that people, especially here in the united states, who are, you know, a close ally of israel, should be able to criticize what netanyahu is doing without being accused of somehow being insensitive to what happened on

october 7th. you know, things happen in war, yeah, netanyahu is right, but war has rules, too, and there's a reason we follow them. >> and, mika, if you are agreeing with 80% of the israeli people who don't approve of benjamin netanyahu's handling of not only this war, but terror that led to this war, you know, netanyahu is the one who is in the minority right now and unfortunately, again, one tragedy after another as katty -- >> 200 aid workers have been killed. >> as katty said, aid workers killed and not enough being done to bring relief to the gazan people. >> the question is of course is this a tipping point for the biden administration? and we will be watching for that. it was four years ago this month at the height of the

pandemic when then president donald trump offered this advice to the american public. >> supposing we hit the body with a tremendous -- whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and i think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it. supposing you bring the light inside the body which you can do either through the skin or in some other way and i think you said you're going to test that, too. sounds interesting. right. and then i see the disinfectant knocks it out in a minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like that? by injection inside or -- or almost a cleaning. >> it doesn't get less staggering even four years later. tom is out today with a new edition of his book "the death of expertise" in which he

explains how missteps during the pandemic had everyday people trusting dubious sources instead of trusted leaders. i think one of the problems, tom, to that moment four years ago is it would be very difficult to trust that leader. so tell us about the new edition of the book. >> well, one of the reasons that we decided to go ahead with the new edition of the book is because i was wrong about something that was really important. i thought that a crisis like a war, a pandemic, a depression, but a pandemic, would actually bring people together and would kind of snap us out of this sort of know nothing willful ignorance about expertise, and actually things went in the other direction. that trust in experts got worse, despite the fact that the medical community and the expert community pulled off a miracle by finding a vaccine in a year,

one of the few positive things to ever go in donald trump's column as president. so we wanted to update the book because there have just been so many moments of really astonishing rejections of expertise over the past six, seven years since the first edition came out, but we really thought -- my editors and i really thought we had to take a closer look at what happened during covid. and a couple of things happened. one is that we didn't expect an entire political party to invest in ignorance as a strategy. that just played right into the worst parts of the pandemic to have the president saying, you know, as we just saw, the president of the united states saying, you know, ultraviolet lights and it's going to go away and disinfectants and so on. but the expert community made a few mistakes as well. in this vacuum of leadership public health officials tried to take the place of elected leaders and say, well, i guess we should shut everything down, we should wear masks, maybe we

don't have to wear masks, we're not sure when things should reopen. these are decisions that political leaders should have been but were not making and the scientists and the experts put themselves forward for that and it was a mistake. i mean, it really hurt them. the other thing that i talk about in the book that happened during the pandemic that i think was a tremendous mistake were the hundreds and hundreds of doctors who told people to stay at home, not to gather in groups unless you wanted to go in protest during the george floyd outrage. and that was a mistake as well because it suggested to a lot of ordinary americans that medical advice was too dependent on political orientation. so the experts have things to answer for, but i think nobody has more to answer for than the people who basically weaponized ignorance as a political tool while thousands of people were dying. >> and, jonathan -- and jonathan lemire, it was well-documented from the very beginning and you

obviously saw it up close, donald trump just lying to the american people. he knew how bad it was. he later told bob woodward he knew how bad this plague was. that a lot of people were going to die, and yet he starts out in january of 2000 praising president xi for being transparent on behalf of the american people. he says it's three people that have come in but they're being taken care of. he continued -- continued lying to the american people saying there's nothing to this, you have nothing to worry about, when he knew. he admitted to bob woodward that he was lying the entire time. he knew that americans were going to die and keep dying, but he kept lying because he was afraid it would hurt the economy and he was afraid that if he admitted to people that a

pandemic was coming, well, it might -- it might hurt him politically. >> yeah, trump prioritized his own political future. you got to the heart of it, that he thought a strong economy is what he needed to be able to win a second term, which is why in the early days of 2020 he praised president xi of china because he still wanted to get that trade deal done with beijing. he thought that would be helpful to his reelection chances. and then when he saw the market collapse, i was with him on a trip to india at the end of february, i write about this in my book, an overlooked moment, the first time that wall street really plunged because of fears of covid that was creeping at that point from china across europe and he panicked. we saw panic from trump ever since through that briefings including that infamous one where he talked about bleach. elise, it's the death of expertise to be sure but it's also the willfully -- willfully ignoring expertise, that trump side lined dr. fauci, he side lined others in the administration because he wanted

to be the face of the response because he was so concerned about his political future and it led to, let's be honest, a million americans died, untold thousands, tens of thousands of them could have lived had the messaging, had the science been able to take the forefront. >> but why did americans not trust in their institutions, in science? because of the mixed messaging they were receiving and they were being told that it was completely insane to assume that this came from a lab, that there was no possibility of a lab leak, that you have public health officials going out trying to stifle any dissent about that consensus belief that covid absolutely could not have come from a lab? this was a government cover up of the origins and i do think that that contributed grateful to then the citizens didn't want to necessarily participate if they are getting mixed messages and they feel like these experts aren't being forthright with

them. >> you know, tom, one of the huge problems was this was a pandemic that scientists were trying to chase. you know, if you looked at the 1919 pandemic, who got hit disproportionately, it was younger americans from, you know, when you read history. this it was older americans. so it took a while to figure out when to get the vaccine, how long the vaccine would keep people safe. and, again, so much of what science and scientists, the doctors, government was doing, they were doing on the fly trying to figure out where this virus was going to take them next. >> you know, a lot of what people thought was the failure of the experts was what we would call science. they were -- this was something

they hadn't seen before. they were trying -- testing out hypotheses, they were having arguments among themselves. the first big argument is how does it spread? is it spread through the air or through droplets? they got that wrong until other scientists course corrected and said, no, we need to rethink about that. i think part of the problem is that americans are used to such a high level -- a high standard of living, they're used to living in such a safe environment that when this happened and, you know, people were saying, what, it's been six weeks, you know, this global pandemic is burning the world and people are saying -- they're kind of tapping their watches and saying how is this not over? and science just doesn't work that way and certainly not when it comes to trying to stop a virus. i do have to take issue with one thing elise has brought up is the lab leak. it's true a lot of experts dug in their heels on not arguing about this in part because to

me -- as i said in the book -- arguing about where the virus came from is like trying to argue who is responsible for a plane crash while the bodies are still strewn across a field and the plane is still on fire and you're trying to triage the victims. the republicans went after the lab leak because they were trying to play a game of maybe this was an intentional release. tom cotton -- senator cotton of arkansas says point-blank there's a lot of things -- i'm just asking questions. the classic just asking questions about whether this was biologic warfare basically. so i think a lot of people on the left, including a lot of experts, took that bait and said, this is racist and it's silly and we can't have this argument. that was a mistake as well. but the origins, which most of the scientific community is still on a zoonotic explanation that it did come from animals, but that was a really unnecessary debate that was sparked by people who were

trying to get the blame off of donald trump and, you know, we're still having that argument to this day as if somehow that matters about whether or not you should get vaccinated. >> all right. the second edition of "the death of expertise" is available now. staff writing for "the atlantic" tom nichols, thank you very much for coming on this morning. we appreciate it. coming up on "morning joe," what we're learning about how donald trump came up with the cash for a $175 million bond in his civil fraud case. it was not from bible sales, we do know that. plus, we will explain why the former president is suing the co-founders of his own social media site, truth social. and supreme court justice sonia sotomayor is facing a public pressure campaign to retire. we will explain who is behind that effort. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back.

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this is the man with the good sense to loan a lot of money to donald trump. there he is, the next owner of mar-a-lago, billionaire don hanky, also known as the king of sub prime car loans. he sells loans to people with less than exceptional credit. forbes says his company repossesses about 250 cars a day. our former president got a loan from a repo man. >> jimmy kimmel last night. we have new information about how former president trump posted that $175 million bond in his new york civil fraud case and the billionaire trump supporter behind t nbc news has learned negotiations were under way to post the initial $557 million bond when an appeals

court reduced it. that's according to california billionaire don hengy, chairman of knight insurance group, the company who posted the bond, hengy insists covering the bond was a business decision and not a political one, adding he would be happy to do this for a democrat or a republican. donald trump's legal team has launched another effort to get the judge overseeing his hush money trial off the case. attorneys for the former president want to file a motion to have the judge recuse himself arguing his daughter's political work poses a conflict of interest. trump's team made a similar request last year. prosecutors for the manhattan district attorney's office say the judge should deny the request arguing trump's team has identified no changed circumstances that would warrant another motion to seek a recusal. that trial set to begin in less than two weeks on april 15th and of course that's the trial where donald trump has been attacking the judge's daughter by name. donald trump also suing the co-founders of truth social in an effort to prevent them from keeping shares in the company's

stock. yes, that's his own company. the former president's attorneys claim the co-founders made a series of costly mistakes that delayed the company from going public. let's bring in cnbc's dom chu. what's going on with this truth social thing? >> this is the latest in what's been a drama filled public debut for former president donald trump's social media company. this involves trump suing co-founders of truth social. trump alleges that they did not go through the necessary steps to set trump media technology, that's the holding company that went public, up for success, including things like not properly instituting corporate governance structures at the company and not being able to find a deal or merger partner to bring that company to the public markets in a timely and efficient way. as a result, trump says, they should not get their 8.6% stake in the company, which is worth roughly $600 million with where

the stock traded at yesterday's closing bell. now, the suit is being brought in florida state court, meanwhile, the co-founders briefly brought a suit against trump regarding that promised stake in the company in delaware chancery court that is playing out as well. a complicated move there. moving on to the economy, we are seeing upside activity in auto sales in america. auto manufacturers reported a 5% gain in first quarter sales this year compared to last, that's roughly 3.8 million vehicles sold during that first quarter which means an annualized sales right of 15.4 million. generally speaking most of the auto makers that reported sales data showed year over year increases, including toyota, which reported a 20% jump helped along by sales of hybrid vehicles and traditional gasoline-powered ones. on the other hand, though, we did see sales declines for tesla and more broadly a slower environment for electric vehicle sales.

tesla shares were also under pressure yesterday after the ev giant reported first quarter delivery numbers that fell well short of consensus wall street estimates and that was due in part to shipping delays, also a suspected arson attack that hampered production at one of its german approximate facilities. auto makers globally are seeing a slowed down in what was already a red hot market for evs over the last couple of years so something to watch. and we will end on the broader economic story here. private payrolls processor adp reported companies added 184,000 jobs in the month of march. that was better than economists forecast. february's private sector hiring was also upwardly revised to 155,000, services industries were responsible for the bulk of those gains and of course all of this comes ahead of more jobs data this week with weekly jobless claims tomorrow and the all important monthly nonfarm payrolls report that gets released on friday morning. there are also, by the way, guys, five speeches being made by fed officials later on today

including fed chair jay powell, austin gools blee, jay bowman and adrian coogler and michael barr. so joe, investors will be listening for any commentary that may hint at fed interest rate policy in the coming months. >> we will see. they keep promising cuts, this economy, though, not cooperating at times because it's so strong and resilient. cnbc's dom chu, thank you so much. always great talking to you. so, elise, i was very intrigued by what you said about the lab leak theory and intrigued because, you know, when it first came out, when some republicans were coming out early on saying, oh, this china virus, china lab leak, i was very skeptical of that and hammered some of them because, you know, it was kind of like, wait a second, you're saying that it's not a virus, it's no worse than the flu on

one hand and then on the other hand you're saying it's this huge, you know, biological warfare deal. and then about, you know, a year later it was like, well, wait a second because i think tom cotton said something and the "times" said this is an impossibility. no, it's not an impossibility, it's still out there. and then a couple weeks ago these documents were released that don mcneil who was the "times" reporter on covid-19 said that scientists lied to him. that there were documents released where they basically said we're going to lie to don mcneil because we don't want him to take the ball and run with it. mcneil said, you know, always a bad idea when you're in a democracy to lie because eventually in his words the beans all spill out eventually and they could have trusted me i wouldn't have overhyped it. but what he says now about the lab leak theory says the debate has now reached a, quote,

stalemate and adherence of both sides keep hurling mud. science journalists are caught in the middle, even editors not committed to either side for partisan reasons keep demanding to know which explanation is most likely so they can assign analysis of which political candidates benefit. you know, the point is if you don't know, you can say this is our best guess based on the science before us, but what the scientists said and what reporters followed up with because as mcneil said they were all lying to him, they said, no, no, no, there's absolutely no way it can be a lab leak, which misled reporters for a couple of years and now mcneil is speaking out. >> well, anytime a topic is not to be spoken of and it's not to be discussed in the public forum, especially when it's of great consequence to the tune of over a million people died, that

is just to me beep, beep, beep, glaring red light that it's something we should investigate and look into. you know, "vanity fair" has done some incredible reporting on just, you know, some of the cover up, the debate that scientists have had and, you know, i will just say to tom's last point that most scientists are in consensus, they really are still very split. and have we found one bat yet that has covid? one? we found this many, zero. >> yeah. >> so i just think it's -- it's insulting to the american public to not look into a weapon that disrupted or lives and it was, you know -- it killed so many people. when you look at our reaction to 9/11 and then compare our reaction to this. and if this was manufactured in a lab, we need to go -- we need to stop financing gain of function research. it's not that complicated. the obama administration banned

gain of function research so that we weren't playing around with bio hazardous weapons and maybe we should revisit that again. >> well, i think this is a topic that needs to be continued to be discussed and talked about because, again, i've talked to doctors on both sides of this debate, of good faith, and they're still asking questions about it. and there are doctors who completely mock and ridicule the anti-vaxxers, who say -- say it's just -- it's crazy and a lot of those same doctors believe it was a lab leak because they say it's like a weapon, because it keeps changing and it keeps -- viruses change and they adapt, but a lot of doctors say that this is just a too difficult to run down and that it seems to be a lab leak, but we don't know.

again, there is no consensus and so actually let science continue to do what science is doing and maybe we don't assign political, you know -- political labels to outcomes, we just -- we call it science. >> we definitely don't go silent as well. >> yeah. >> we will revisit this. back in 2020 justice amy coney barrett was confirmed to the supreme court, succeeding the late justice ruth bader ginsburg after her death that september. ginsburg had faced calls to retire in 2014 when barack obama was president and democrats controlled the senate. many see her refusal to step down as leading the court's rightward shift. the memory of that is now leading some on the left to worry about one of the current liberal justices. joining us now senior national political reporter sahil kapur. what are we hearing? >> the calls are growing among

liberal commentators, advocates and law fefrs for justice sotomayor to step down. they say it's not personal, they admire her work on the bench. she's 69 years old, her health has been in the spotlight due to her diabetes and they want her to retire this year so that president biden and a democratic senate can replace her without the possibility of her leaving the court under a republican. for the first time top senate democrats are opening up in interviews with nbc news about their fears. they are not calling on justice sotomayor to retire, but they are expressing concerns about a repeat of what happened to justice ginsburg who of course refused to retire when democrats had the white house and the senate, who died in 2020 and let donald trump and the republicans replace her with justice barrett, which led to that 6-3 conservative majority that recently overturned roe v. wade. take a listen to what some democrats are saying. here is senator richard blumenthal who sits on the judiciary committee. i spoke to him recently. >> you know, we should learn a lesson. you know, it's not like there's

any mystery here about what the lesson should be. the old saying, you know, graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in this body included. >> and there's senator sheldon whitehouse, a second ranked democrat who says the 6-3 is bad enough, run it to 7-2 and you go from a captured court to a full maga court. i think if justice ginsburg had to do over again she may have rethought her confidence am her own health. you might see a bit of unsolicited advice, senator mazie hirono say she has not advice for justice sotomayor. she's about to leave her 15 year milestone on the bench and nobody dauts she's currently operating at full speed. a white house spokesman told me,

quote, biden believes that decision toss retire from the supreme court should be made by the justices themselves and no one else. behind the scenes some democrats are flabbergasted that prominent liberals aren't being more aggressive about calling on sotomayor to go, as one democrat put it to me, they seem more worried about hurting her feelings than protecting their causes. my colleague and co-author for this sorry lawrence hurley reached out to justice sotomayor and she did not respond. guys? >> wow. nbc's sahil kapur, thank you very much. we will be talking about this once again very soon. coming up on "morning joe" -- >> the fbi raiding the home. >> you can't stay silent. >> two chairs, six feet apart. >> it's like a western. >> make no mistake, if we don't get the tone right, the story won't be him, it will be us. wi. >> the upcoming netflix movie

"scoop" gives an inside account of the great lengths that the bbc took to land the network's shocking interview with prince andrew. we will speak with actresses gillian anderson and billie piper about their roles in that new film next on "morning joe." ♪♪ i'm sarah escherich. i'm the life enrichment director at independence village, a senior living community in waukee, iowa. everybody here really, really make you feel like family and that they love you. our goal with tiktok was to enrich the lives of our residents. i think i am a tiktok grandma. my kids think i am. i mean, we're the ones that are being entertained. time goes faster when you're having fun. keep tiktok.

surrounding jeffrey epstein include his friend prince andrew. >> an unprecedented interview we will hear from the duke himself. >> i thought that went very well. >> every paper, every news channel, this is the story. >> go away. >> this is only going to get bigger. this interview, does it matter? >> yeah, it matters. >> that is a look at the new netflix film "scoop," inspired by real life events. it follows the tenacious british

journalists who landed that 2019 interview with prince andrew about his relationship with convicted pedophile jeffrey epstein. joining us now are two of the film's stars, jillian anderson and billie piper. good morning to you both. >> good morning. >> it's extraordinary to go back and watch the real interview. it is shocking just to watch how this thing just unravels in realtime. so gillian, you play the woman who interviewed prince andrew. how did you approach this when you first heard about it? was this something that compelled you, that scared you? what was it like to consider yourself in that chair? >> it repulsed me. the idea of playing somebody who was in our faces in the uk on a regular basis and knows really well and is still alive obviously, but, you know, the story is compelling enough and the script was phenomenal, and it felt like a fun challenge.

>> and you obviously are playing emily, a real journalist at the bbc. how did you approach that side of it? did you want to get close to her? did you need some distance from it? how did you approach that? >> she's in the process of doing her own project about the same topic and so was not really interested in communicating about it. there's a lot of footage that's out there about her and of her, lots of interviews listening to her audio book and just study. >> so your character, billie is the booker who makes this happen. a great moment for bookers to be celebrated in this show. >> quite right. >> what did you know about that interview? what was your reaction to it? and how did you approach your character? >> i think i shared the same response as everybody else, which was, wow, how has this happened? how did this end up on our screens. how was this passed, you know, and then i followed the story

very closely. when the script came about, i was really aghast about the unsung hero, this woman behind the scenes that nobody really knew about, and so we met a bunch of times, and, you know, it was a gift that the script was so brilliant, but then i met sam and i was like this woman is kind of ground breaking. i've never really met anybody like her before. she's such a force of nature and how doesn't anybody know about her? she was so integral and so, yeah, as an actor it was a gift, and we spent a great deal of time together. i was studying her, but it was i guess less pressure for me because she wasn't as public facing. is. >> i want to show our viewers a pivotal moment in the film when your character learns prince

andrew. >> no promises, but they've agreed to meet. >> right. this stays in this room, just the four of us. if it leaks that we're even meeting, they could get spooked. sam, whatever you need, it's yours. >> actually, there was one thing. >> name it. >> emily. >> i've never been smuggled into a palace before. >> we don't scare them off. we play nice. be respectful. >> relax. i've got this. how difficult can it be talking to the queen's son about his friendship with a convicted sex offender. >> what a moment that is.

katty kay, obviously you work with the bbc and at the bbc, can offer some insights into the story as well and let you take it to our guests. >> gillian, congratulations. i know emily well, and you've done a great portrayal of her. whenever an interview comes up like this, particularly with the bbc and the palace, but any kind of high profile interview, there's a lot of attention around it. and i was just wondering how you and roofus sewell re-created that attention. how did you prepare for the actual interview scene to give the audience some sense of just how high stakes, how high stakes it was? >> well, we didn't prepare together. we prepared separately. i was off doing my preparation. he was off doing his preparation, and we came together on the day of the interview having not rehearsed it at all, and we knew that we were going to be doing the interview from beginning to end. it's about 20 minutes, and they had re-created the entire room

of that wing of buckingham palace and had all the cameras that were in the room at the time of the interview, plus our cameras, and we sat down, and we got mic'd up, and the director phillip martin said, you know, are you ready? go essentially. >> it was amazing. it was amazing to watch. >> it was like doing theater. it was very much -- we went from beginning to end, and i was reacting to roofus as prince andrew in realtime. i'd rehearsed the movements and the gestures and all that kind of stuff, and at the same time i was seeing this person be identical to prince andrew and in my brain i was thinking -- i just wanted to stop and go, oh, my gosh. amazing. >> and by the way, that is how these interviews happen because you're always conscious of the fact that the person you're interviewing, they've got their

aides there looking at their watches saying wrap it up, wrap it up. i love it that you did it as close to a real interview as possible. billie, the artwork for the film says a lot about it. this could have been a film that was about prince andrew and the royal family. in many ways it's a film about the women journalists in particular and your role is a key part of that who were involved in this. and in a way, it's an even -- it's sort of metaphor for the fact that this story is about the women who jeffrey epstein invited to his house, the young women who have accused prince andrew and others. i wondered if that was very conscious, that you wanted to put women at the center of this story? >> yeah, i think so. i guess that clinched the deal for me when i was -- when i first heard about the project. it was women giving other women voices that they wouldn't otherwise have. >> but i also think that it wouldn't necessarily have gone the way that it went. i don't think they would have necessarily have secured the interview had the interviewer

been a man and not a woman. i think he felt that with emily, even though she's a tough interviewer, that he'd be in safe hands, and he might be able to charm and, you know. >> no such luck. >> no such luck. >> could have gone so differently. >> yeah! what is it about -- this has to both of you. what is it about the british royalty that not only fascinates people in britain but america. obviously your extraordinary role as margaret thatcher in "the crown," through this, through all americans focused on what's happening with the royalty, you know, british royal family right now, what is it? why does -- what is so intriguing about this family? >> i'm not sure if i can answer that. >> well, i mean, it's a such a big part of our history. it's in our blood. it's in our makeup, i suppose.

you know, and there is often, you know, there seems to be a lot of drama that comes out of it. i mean, it's hard -- it's also hard for me to comment on because it's kind of all i know, so it's like -- yeah, it's kind of our bread and butter i suppose. >> from the outside, you know, having grown up, you know, part-time in america, part-time in the uk, i think there's a degree of objectivity that i might have living in it and all the pomp and circumstance, which sometimes feels like, wow, is this still happening? is this still the way things are done? >> it also seems to allow people to have really big emotions, so, you know, when stuff comes up with the royals, it's a way for them to express their frustration about things in their own life. it's kind of odd in that way. it feels as if they're watching something, like a sitcom almost. i don't know. >> well, the film is extraordinary. it's called