that take place just in a small state, we should pay attention to all those things. any one state could potentially be the one that turns it. we are an extremely divided country. no one is ever going to have a significant lead, i don't think, for the rest of this campaign. look at all the trouble donald trump found himself in. this should be the moment where joe biden is able to surge, and he's just not. i think that should remind us that joe biden has a lot of problems himself, whether it's what's going on with gaza, the economy, whatever it is. there should be, i think, alarm bells, that this is not a moment where he is able to separate. i think it reinforces, though, that this is going to be tight every single step of the way. every little thing matters. >> we'll see if any new polling that captures more of the time that trump has been sitting in trial changed the race at all. i suspect you're right, this is going to stay close. msnbc political analyst brendan buck, thank you, as well. thanks to all of you for

bet getting up "way too early" on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts now. my weekend co-anchor was going to join me, but in solidarity with president biden, i decided to lose all my black support. nothing makes sense anymore. the candidate who is a famous new york city playboy took abortion rights away, and the guy who is trying to give you your abortion rights back is an 80-year-old catholic. how does that make sense? i'm not saying both candidates are old, but you know jimmy carter is out there thinking, i could maybe win this thing. >> it's been a year since i delivered this speech, and my wife, jill, with me tonight, was worried how i'd do. i told her, don't worry. just like riding a bike. she said, that's what i'm worried about. the 2024 election is in full

swing. yes, age is an issue. i'm a grown man. running against a 6-year-old. age is the only thing we have in common. my vice president actually endorses me. being here is a reminder that folks think what's going on in congress is political theater. that's not true. if congress were theater, they would have thrown out lauren boebert a long time ago. >> some of the jokes from both president biden and host, colin jost, at saturday's white house correspondents' dinner. >> i thought colin jost did well. >> he was really good. it was funny, subtle. it's a weird moment to, you know, be laughing, actually. >> the thing is, that is such a difficult room. >> yeah. >> i remember stephen colbert

being there and no laughter, very little laughter, because he was so dry. it is such a difficult room for a variety of reasons, which i won't go into here, as far as the crowd that's out there. but you've got to do exactly what he did the other night, which is, i got my jokes. i'm going to tell them. i'm going to have fun. he sort of dryly looked up at the audience. >> yeah. >> you know, sort of that carson look. >> there was a lot there. >> he did very well. >> wonderful. the president was hilarious. we'll have more from that event, including the president's more serious message about the importance of a free press, which is what the event is all about. also ahead, the latest on the protests over gaza that are spreading to more and more college campuses. and we're going to have ton exclusive, first look at

"forbes" list of the new ivies, poised to replace the elite constitutions, in part because of their handling for the protest. it is a much bigger story. >> even before these protests. >> this is a trend. >> i've got to say, the absolute weakness of the administration, the cowardice of the administration, and, unfortunately, on these elite colleges, having people that are now running these elite colleges on faculty boards that burn down college campuses in the 1960s, that were responsible for the election in part of richard nixon in 1968 because of the chaos on college campus, the chaos in chicago. and they gave america richard nixon and five more years of war. good job. let's see if these administrators, the ones that, like, tried to levitate the pentagon in the 1960s with abby hoffman. the ones who took over presidents' offices in the

1960s, that trashed college campuses, let's see if they're now going to elect donald trump for, i don't know, maybe the last election in american history. if so, good job. way to go. way to go by not being able to discipline students that violate your rules. you either have rules or you don't have rules. you either have standards or you don't have standards. if you can't live by them, leave. let's get some adults in these universities that actually teach students that there are consequences when they break the rules, when they break the laws, and when they spout genocidal chants over and over again. >> all right. we'll have more on that. and we're also going to be showing you, or at least telling you about -- >> wow. >> i'm having a hard time with this one. >> wow. >> how south dakota governor kristi noem is responding to

criticism after admitting to shooting and killing her young, happy, jubilant, joyful puppy. and then deciding to kill a goat after that with her gun. >> then bragging about it. >> it's one of the more staggering stories i've ever seen a politician put in a book, thinking this would actually make them look strong. >> yeah. >> it's sick. but we'll read from the book and let you decide. >> the dog, who was still a puppy. >> 14 months old, hunting dog. >> she actually said his grave offense was being joyful and happy. >> yeah. >> i've got to say, and you know, this has long been my attitude toward dogs. >> yeah. >> if a dog is misbehaving, i never look at the dog. >> right. >> i look at the owners and go,

"what? why? you don't know how to train a dog? you don't know how to make them is dog is in line?" by the way, if they're still puppies, you have a ways to go. >> so i come from growing up on somewhat of a family farm run by eastern european immigrants. we definitely had -- we were deer hunters, turkey hunters, geese. >> yeah. >> there was absolutely a sense of life and death with animals in our life. but there was never a joy in killing, and there was a respect to it and a process if you were hunting and if you brought home -- >> a deer. >> -- game. >> yeah. >> but this story was more about how she felt killing an animal, and that's what's scary about it. >> the impatience. >> the impatience, the kind of like a switch flipped in her

brain, and she decided she needed to kill it. like, this is not someone you want in charge, not someone thinking through -- >> just randomly going, oh, i'll kill the goat. >> -- the process of life and death. >> jonathan lemire, i mean, there are times we're watching red sox games, and the thoughts go through our minds with the relief pitchers. certainly not this year. lowest e.r.a. >> lemire is back. >> lowest in the major league and in more than 100 years for the red sox. lemire, you and i, we saw this coming. >> sure did. sure did. >> come on. >> nobody saw this coming. half of these guys were pitching for pensacola high school this time last year. anyway, this kristi noem thing, the most remarkable part of it is, and we can get serious here for a half second, the most remarkable part of it is, that the conservative movement has been so corrupted by donald

trump and has reached such new lows that she actually put that in about the killing of a happy puppy because she thought it would help her with the base. >> well, donald trump famously doesn't like dogs, so perhaps that was part of her calculation, as well. but it is -- it is stunning, what a self-own this was. to put this in her book and now stand by it. she put out a statement last night, you know, saying she acknowledged that some people were upset at her telling of the execution of her puppy named cricket in a gravel pit. that's what it was. an execution of cricket in a gravel pit. >> oh, my god. >> she framed it as, well, you have to make tough choices. that's what leaders do. that was part of her pitch to be vice president. let's be clear, she's on the short list, at least she was in the last couple of days. >> she was. >> some republican insiders

thought she might be atop the short list. trump was so enamored with her. that may all have gone out the window with this revelation. >> you never know. >> horrified some of the right, as well. we don't know. we haven't heard from trump yet. >> okay. >> yeah. i mean, tough choices. >> poor cricket. >> it's not tough choices. the tough part is, you actually take time to train the puppy. >> yup. >> yeah. >> you train the puppy. you don't shoot the puppy. if the puppy was nice to neighbors and, quote, too happy. there's -- i make tough choices? i kill things that are inconvenient to me. no, not exactly. >> no. >> it's not sort of -- yeah. >> we could have a deeper conversation about this. >> chilling. >> and we will. >> yeah. also with us, the president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton. >> he loves dogs.

>> national editor at "the financial times," ed luce is with us. and author and nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss joins us, as well. >> grew up in the english countryside with a lot of hunting dogs. >> yes. >> went fox hunting and everything. >> he is a quirky guy. that's what alex says. >> alex says you are a corgi guy, ed luce. do you have 12 corgis walking around your property? >> we did not, but that's an inspired guess. we certainly didn't have any puppies called cricket, but i'd consider it to be a very grave offense to execute anything called cricket. i mean -- >> that's right. >> -- this is proof that it's not guns that kill puppies, it is governors that kill puppies. >> yeah. >> i don't know. the silence of the puppies, the silence of the goat, the silence of the horses, there's so many jokes here. i share your tragic reaction to

this, but the humor, the humor can't be suppressed either. watching her rivals, like kari lake, people auditioning to be trump's running mate, post pictures of themselves with puppies, it's just very entertaining. >> no, it's -- i have to say, i have a story. my huge dog did that to a chicken. literally, my daughters watched it. the last thing i would do is be mad at the dog. i was mad at myself for creating this scenario in which the dog had access to the chickens. >> right. >> right? i just can't -- you've got to read it. it takes you to a different place mentally, like, what does it take to do that to a dog? donald trump's hush money criminal trial will pick back up tomorrow with court in recess today in this historic trial. on friday, former "national enquirer" publisher david pecker

wrapped up his testimony. wow. the defense tried to poke holes at his credibility at a witness, seeking to establish how his tabloid stood to profit off the stories it bought. earlier in the week, pecker testified about catch and kill agreements linked to trump's 2016 presidential campaign. but before his testimony ended, pecker revealed details about a conference call trump set up between the tabloid publisher and two of trump's white house aides, sarah huckabee sanders and hope hicks. the call took place soon after former playboy model karen mcdougal gave an interview to cnn. pecker told the two ladies he planned to extend an agreement with mcdougle that would keep her from speaking more widely about her alleged affair with the former president. pecker said sanders and hicks, quote, thought it was a good idea. joining us now, former litigator

and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. >> it is interesting. the argument that the defense was making really fell flat when they suggested that pecker was doing this for profit, all of this for profit. in fact, if he had run the mcdougle/trump story, it probably would have broken records. but he decided to sit on it because, as he said throughout his testimony, he wanted to help donald trump, his friend, get elected president. >> that's true. joe, it was underscored by the fact that in much of his testimony, david pecker's bottom line was clear as the primary motivating factor for him. but as joshua steinglass, representative for the d.a., established on redirect, yes, it was to his benefit to run positive stories about donald trump, who had long been a reader favorite among "national

enquirer" readers. but as steinglass asked, this was never your intention to right the story, right? pecker said, no. he said, if you'd run it, it would be equivalent to "national enquirer" gold, right? pecker said, absolutely. it was the story of a playmate of the year who was alleging, and a story i believed, by the way, a years' long affair with the republican candidate for president of the united states who was also a known celebrity and commonality in my universe. that would have been enquirer gold. at that point, we broke for lunch. it was the perfect point for the d.a. to have reestablished, this was far from what the trump world was calling standard operating procedure for the enquirer. >> lisa, there was a lot from the pecker testimony about affairs, hush money, catch and kill, the whole concept of that type of journalism, none of which is against the law or the

crime that he's accused of, the former president. did pecker's testimony help prove or begin to help prove the crime that he is accused of? >> absolutely. because, mika, the crime that the former president has been charged with is falsification of business records as a felony. in order to establish that he's committed a felony opposed to a misdemeanor, you have to show that he falsified business records with the intent to conceal another crime. that's where david pecker comes in. david pecker is critical to the establishment of the conspiracy to promote trump's election through unlawful means where at least one act was taken in the direction of those unlawful means. david pecker was there for the formation of the conspiracy. david pecker helped execute the conspiracy. david pecker's payment to karen mcdougal, which he understood would pose campaign finance law problems, was that unlawful means. through david pecker,

prosecutors have got an lot of what they needed to establish that this was felonious and not just your everyday garden variety misdemeanor. >> tried to pull back. does the testimony seem to add value to what the d.c. was trying to prove? did we expect pecker to be as strong as he was, or were we looking for that in other witnesses yet to come? >> pecker had a lot of information that we didn't quite know that he would have. namely, he put himself at multiple conversations either with donald trump and michael cohen or with donald trump alone that help establish that trump was a participate in the conspiracy and that he knew and intended the results of that conspiracy, which was to promote his own election by subverting the karen mcdougal story. so nobody was expecting that david pecker would come in and say, for example, "i met with trump alone in his trump tower

office in january of 2017. he asked me how karen mcdougal was doing," which was less about care of her welfare and more about, was she going to be quiet and compliant. >> right. >> "once i assured him he was fine, he said, i want to thank you for handling the mcdougle situation, handling the doorman situation." donald trump was so grateful, he let david pecker essentially throw himself a white house dinner that summer, after which, as they're walking in the rose garden, donald trump resumes the same conversation. "how is karen? how is she doing?" all donald trump cared about was that david pecker had an arrangement with karen mcdougal that allowed her to feel satisfied that she was getting something out of the deal. it became clear through david pecker's testimony that donald trump had the knowledge and intent that prosecutors not only want to establish but have to establish as part of their case. >> kept asking, "how is our girl?" >> eh.

>> david beschloss, we have -- michael beschloss, i'm sorry. it's really early. it is monday. >> david pecker. >> the two of us, we're two of a kind, right? >> exactly. >> witnesses to history. >> right? both of us. >> yes, exactly. so i was thinking back, starting in 2016/2017, donald trump started calling the media an enemy of the people. he constantly throughout the campaign talked about fake news. derided the mainstream press. it is so interesting. yeah, sometimes "the new york times" gets it wrong. sometimes nbc gets it wrong. sometimes -- >> sure. >> -- "the post," "the washington post," sometimes "the wall street journal," they'll get it wrong despite the editors and best efforts. >> they'll retract. >> usually, they'll retract it and correct it. it happens when you get 1,000

stories right, you may get one or two wrong. yet, trump has seized on what they've got wrong, sometimes what they've got right, and completely undermined a majority of america's confidence in the media. here, you have laid out the definition of fake news. >> sure. >> we got to see how donald trump masterminded lies about ted cruz, that his father had helped kill jfk. ben carson destroyed somebody's life by leaving a sponge in their brain. hillary clinton saying back in 2016 she has six months to live, which, of course, hillary is doing well, we can report. >> right. >> seven years later. but one lie after another lie

after another lie that was put out to voters during that campaign. you talk about cynically undermining the news, it is a move out of the old soviet playbook. try to undermine those telling the truth, and while you are spreading propaganda through a fire hose of falsehoods. >> perfectly put. and i guess if he were running against kristi noem, it wouldn't have been a good enough story that she kills puppies when it actually happened in real life. they would have had to invent something worse. amazingly enough. that's what authoritarian dictators do. soviet union is exactly where they do it. you saw people vilified, let's say at the orders of stalin, which they oftentimes were, for example, there was a chief of police called baria. baria was fired. the great soviet encyclopedia,

published by the government, people were told to tear out the page that mentioned baria and insert a page of the baring strait. that's what our lives could be like, under that dictator, if it ever happens. you were talking about 1968, which i think is a perfect comparison. donald trump knowingly or otherwise is operating from some extent to richard nixon's blueprint. you don't remember, but nixon used to give speeches saying, when respect for the president of the united states and tumult in this country has become so -- tumult has drowned out the president's voice that he can no longer speak anymore except for military bases, it is time for new leadership, he said. johnson at the time was not able to speak on college campuses. same year, george wallace was

campaigning in arenas saying, "everyone, look at those reporters back on the platform. those are bad people. you should go after them." who does that sound like? >> yeah. >> republican senator lindsey graham is coming to donald trump's defense following david pecker's testimony last week about a catch and kill scheme to help the former president. take a look. >> i think all these trials are political. i think it's selective prosecution. what's going on in new york is an outrage. the case is eight years ago. they created a crime just for trump. i think it is selective prosecution for political purposes. >> david pecker, who ran the "national enquirer"'s parent company, testified he paid to catch and kill stories about trump, specifically to help his presidential campaign. you don't have any concerns about that? >> you know, apparently, a lot of people do this.

arnold schwarzenegger, tiger woods. no, the whole thing is a crock. >> tiger woods is not running for president, and the allegation -- at least not yet -- and it's about campaigning. >> i think it's all b.s., yes, political b.s. >> rev, it's no surprise that lindsey graham would defend donald trump and bring in false equivalencies while he is at it. we should also fact-check, of course, this is not a charge invented just for donald trump. but i want to get you a big picture of the politics of this. far too early to know if there will be impact in november from this criminal trial. what graham is saying is what we're hearing from some republicans. the idea that this case is not that serious. it's prosecutor overreach. biden ordered it up, whatever it might be. do you think that's going to have -- did that talking point, will it resonate with voters?

people think, well, it was a long time ago and maybe it's not a big deal. could there be merit to the argument? will it work? >> i think they're trying to make it work. in the long run, whether or not they get away with it is ow the democrats and other independents that believe in the law and believe in not trying to tilt public opinion one way or another to, therefore, have all the information they need to know about a candidate to vote, how vocal they are and effective they are. we're talking about normalizing a man running for president of the united states that actively engaged in trying to, in effect, bribe people into not saying what it is his true character was so he could become the president of the united states. i mean, to normalize this kind of behavior at a presidential level is a danger to this country. how are we raising our kids? i think if they begin to amplify

that, like we were talking earlier about governor kristi noem. can you imagine if someone said kamala harris had shot an animal, how the reaction would be? we need to talk about this in the sense of, what are the standards we're talking about? it is now acceptable to bribe people, including porn stars you allegedly slept with, in order for you to achieve office, that's acceptable behavior? then what happens to all the moral standards evangelicals and other supporters of trump preach to the rest of us? >> ed luce, let's be clear, these are serious charges. of the four cases, you know, maybe it's the least serious, but this is a criminal offense. it is a serious case. we'll see how it plays out over the next six weeks or so. let's pause at that. let's get you on this topic. i saw you this weekend at the white house correspondents' dinner. the political world was focused on d.c., and there was a lot of chatter about this case. democrats wishing, i wish this

wasn't the case that went first. i wish some of the others had come in. now, there is a real chance none of the other cases will happen between now and the election. what to you think? with the understanding that we're still a long way away from november, what political implications, if any, might come from this trial? >> that's a really good question, willie. it's the case you'd least like -- well, i want to see this case go forward. this is clearly a crime. you're bribing people to conceal information about your character and falsely putting that down as an election expense. that is clearly a crime. lindsey graham is wrong about that. but let's just consider why the other cases aren't going forward. well, the supreme court is actively intervening on the grounds which are the exact opposite of the originalism that they claim is their motivating philosophy, the conservative justices. on the grounds that the president essentially is king, and a king can do what he likes,

they are trying to prevent, and i think will prevent, any trial before november of the trump january 6th attempted coup. then there's judge cannon in florida who is a trump loyalist. comically bad legal brain. has really bad sort of pretext for delaying the classified documents trial. so we've got a legal system with trump appointees preventing really serious cases, criminal cases from going to trial. we have one trial that is going ahead. that trial on its own merits is absolutely serious. i think it will damage trump. it is early. i think anybody paying attention to the kind of really low character of this man that is being revealed cannot, if you

are an independent or you're somebody who is still undecided, you cannot but fail to be put off trump. i expect that'll be the result. the final impact of the trial is a psychological effect on trump. sitting there without his cell phone, being told to sit down. >> absolutely. >> practically having to ask for a bathroom break and awaiting stormy daniels. the scenario of his nightmare testifying in front of him. that psychological impact on trump, i think, we shouldn't overlook. it's already apparent. >> and, you know, mika, how surprise -- you know i've always been a big defender of the supreme court, federal judges. i believe they've been the great balancing act throughout the trump presidency and beyond and have usually ruled on these issues in a way that holds the country together. i'm not talking about abortion. i'm not talking about --

>> right. >> i'm talking about these trump challenges. yet, i must say, even i was stunned that even while i want them to clearly define the outer perimeters of official acts, i think this is an important exercise by the supreme court, but the fact that some of the conservative justices sat there and allowed donald trump's lawyer to say that a military coup could be an official act. >> craven things, yeah. >> a military coup could be an official act. he was asked, went down the list. in any past supreme court hearings, somebody doing that would have been derided and mocked and ridiculed. here, other than, i must say, amy coney barrett, who was, like, wait a second, hold on. >> hold the phone. >> i've got to say, the other trump appointees and alito and thomas were, yeah, okay, well, maybe it is. it was jarring.

i've never -- i'm rarely jarred by the supreme court. i understand their role and what they do and that there are very conservative and very liberal people on the court. >> right. >> but in this case, it was staggering. >> shocking. lisa, the trial continues. the hush money criminal trial continues in new york city this week. what can we expect witnesses, testimony that you're going to be watching for? >> mika, tomorrow, we'll see the resumption of testimony of a gentleman named gary farrow, michael cohen's banker at the now defunct bank. that's where cohen directed the money to davidson, stormy daniels' lawyer, and that's an act cohen has been held criminally responsible. why? he lied on the forms to open that account. maybe more importantly, somebody at first republic bank flagged the transaction as risky and notified the treasury department. we never found out who that person was. that could turn out to be the

gentleman on the stand, gary far farrow. watch for that. the next thing to watch for, who comes next? the manhattan d.a.'s office is less than forthcoming with us. not because they want to hide things from the press but they know they're dealing with a person who has been accused of not one, not two, but 14 separate violations of the gag order. we're still waiting for an order from judge merchan about what the consequences of the violations will be. as, waiting with bated breath about who those next witnesses are going to be because they don't want to give defendant trump advanced notice so he can denigrate the people and perhaps worse through his social media posts and otherwise. >> legal correspondent lisa rubin, thank you very much for your coverage. we'll see you again tomorrow. ahead in 60 seconds, the latest on the growing unrest on college campuses across the country amid protests over the war in gaza.

one of our next guests says what universities haven't done is train their students to talk with one another. that important conversation is next. "morning joe" is back in one minute. harry & david makes mother's day easy. share a gift, made with love, with the mom in your life. choose from hundreds of stunning baskets and towers. it's the perfect way to say thank you - for everything. harry & david. life is a gift. share more.

i'd like to think what the students feel about the university is important enough that maybe we could bring this university to a halt and reorder its priorities. at the moment, it doesn't seem that this is possible at all. we may halt classes a few days, maybe for a spring, but ultimately, we don't change the foundation of this university, which is essentially an enormous business corporation. >> that was a columbia university student speaking to nbc news in 1968 about ongoing protests at the school in opposition to the vietnam war. >> i've got to say, it makes as much sense in 2024, having 18 or

19-year-old people running college campuses, as it did in 1968. which is to say, it doesn't make any sense at all. you do wonder where the adults are, the adults that are supposed to be running the university. the amount of money that they are paid to educate students, and they can't allow students to do to class pause a small subset of those students and outside agitators want to shut down the campus? where are the adults? it's staggering. not just to me. i know i'm a conservative. not just to me. but to 90% of americans. they want to know where adults are at columbia. they want to know where adults are at penn. they want to know where adults are at harvard. they want to know where the adults are at all of these college campuses where they're letting their students and

outside agitators run across the campus, shut down debate, scream whenever anybody tries to talk reason to them. shout genocidal chants, hold up signs pointing to jews, saying hamas' next victims. holding up signs talking about the final solution. chanting constantly "from the river to the sea. do you know what it is? if you don't, it's all right. most of the students don't understand they're chanting jen genocidal comments. >> all right, joining us now -- >> they want to wipe out jews, destroy the state of israel, and push them to the sea. they are hamas on college campuses when they chant that. >> some don't even know what they're doing. >> that's the point. but the adults do. >> yes, they do. >> yet, this -- by the way, this

is a long time coming. this has been coming since the 1960s. now, the people that were burning down college campuses, people taking over presidents' offices, those people are now on the faculty senate trying to encourage these students to do the same. they helped elect nixon. i guess they want to elect donald trump in '24. good on ya, guys. >> okay. joining us now, staff writer at the "atlant"atlantic," george p. "the campus-left occupation that broke higher education." also with us, chief content officer and editor in chief at "forbes," randall lane. "forbes" is out with a new piece entitled, "employers are souring on ivy league grads, while these 20 newivies ascend," which we are exclusively unveiling on "morning joe." it has synergy with what we're

covering in terms of the protest. it is bad news for ivies and good news for some universities that usually don't get a crack at being at the front of the line. >> so many parents that i've talked to from, you know, connecticut, when i lived in connecticut, they're sending their kids south. i talk to administraors at southern universities, smu, vanderbilt, of course alabama, georgia, southern universities. a lot of parents sending them south. it's really sad. george, i want to make sure people watching don't associate any of my conservative, born in the usa comments onto you, because you wrote a very thoughtful piece. let's read it right now. >> so you write in part this, george. "56 years ago this week, at the height of the vietnam war, columbia university students occupied half a dozen campus

buildings and made two principal demands of the university. stop funding military research and cancel plans to build a gym gym in a nearby black neighborhood. the current crisis brings a strong sense of deja vu. ideas born in the '60s have become the instincts of students who are occupying their campuses today. tweep oppressor and oppressed, no room exists for complexity or ambiguity. there is nothing to debate." which i think education is about. "elite universities are caught in a trap of their own making, one that has been a long time coming. they've trained pro-palestinian students to believe that, on the oppressor-oppressed axis, jews are white and therefore dominant, not marginalized, while israel is a settler colonialist state and, therefore, illegitimate. they've trained pro-israel students to believe that unwelcome and even offensive speech makes them so unsafe that they should stay away from campus.

what the universities haven't done is train their students to talk with one another." >> george, we've seen this not only in elite universities. i think we talked to you about this before, about even schools in manhattan where parents send their kids to schools and some of the thinking that has permeated, thinking that undermines liberal education. talk about what you're seeing right now on college campuses and how this has been a long time coming. most importantly, when we get beyond this, what it actually says to the death of liberal education in some of these elite universities. >> yeah, well, first, students have every right to protest. free speech has to be at the heart of a liberal education. when speech crosses the line

into coercion, when it interferes with the rights of other students to get an education, when it seems to be a form of harassment and discrimination based on the identity of the other students, then it is no longer free speech and it has to be sanctioned. you know, it's not an obvious line. administrators have a very hard time figuring out where free speech ends and coercion or discrimination begins. so i sympathize with them when they're called before congress and are demanded whether such and such a phrase is a call for genocide and whether that contradicts their code of conduct. what i don't sympathize with them on is that they have failed, as mika read from my piece, to teach their students to think in complex ways. to entertain conflicting views. to argue with each other.

to debate each other. to listen to each other. instead, there is among the demonstrators, and i think more widely in elite universities, a kind of orthodoxy that is set in, that makes some students feel absolutely certain of their views and other students feel a bit afraid to even challenge them. this comes from the adults. it doesn't come from the students. so that's what i blame the adults for. they're in a pickle. they don't know how to get out of it, but they have kind of made this bed for themselves by forgetting or abandoning the core values of liberal education. that's been a long time coming. it began, i think, in '68, where certain ideas among student radicals, that there's only power, really no disinterested pursuit of truth, that is now a given. that is the instinct that today's demonstrators are protesting with.

>> and you're absolutely right. unfortunately, at so many of these schools, randall, and we talked about this because we have kids that go to college. i've got kids that have been going to college for some time. it is distressing. it has been distressing to me as a parent. it's been distressing to them as students. we have really close friends of the family who even go to schools that are not ivy schools, who have said, basically, kids just keep their hands down now. because if they say the wrong thing, they're canceled. i must say, too, and if you don't know how bad things are on college campuses right now, you don't have kids going to colleges. because i will tell you now, that we have heard from friends whose children get canceled for having jewish friends. for dating jewish people. i swear to god, it's happening

today in elite college campuses across america. randall, guess what? the employers are saying enough. parents are saying enough. even alumni are saying enough. this is crazy. so what's the impact? >> when you were mentioning the adults in the room, employers are stepping up saying we'll be adults. we're out today with a survey, and the numbers are shocking. we surveyed 300 people from our future newsletter. three-quarters are direct employers, in charge of hiring for their company. what they said is, we don't want, you know -- 33% said they're hiring fewer ivy league students than they did five years ago because they're seeing these trend lines. they have a lack of critical thinking. they're seeing all these things

that george talked about. the ability to be a good employee means being able to talk to other people, work through problems, as opposed to sitting there and saying, no. we saw a 33% decline in the want of hiring, yet we see public universities, the same survey field, 42%, 40% says they're more likely to hire. 34% said more likely to hire non-ivy privates. this is not necessarily a problem with all education. it's certainly a perception problem with ivy league, but it's also a problem at the higher level in terms of the education for the prestige. employers said we like young, hungry students. the problem, joe, as you said, is not the students. the problem is the adults who are not, at certain campuses, putting up a system producing students that are going to be productive in society. >> so this exclusive reporting and data from "forbes" is fascinating. coming up after a break, everyone stay with us, we're going to talk about which

schools are emerging as the success stories here and which are not. also, bill maher has his take on the overall situation. more "morning joe." >> we'll dig more into george's "atlantic" piece. >> absolutely. more after a break. right back with more "morning joe." h more "morning joe.

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maybe the question today's protester needs to ask, why do i care so much about this

particular cause? north korea starves its people. china puts them in concentration camps. myanmar brutalizes. gays should be stoned to beth in burundi. nothing, ukraine? maybe if the google employees have the slightest idea of what fundamentalist, propressive [ bleep ] they're supporting, hamas, the houthis, the iranian revolutionary guard, they may take it easy on genocide joe. genocide, by the way, is when you want to wipe out an entire people. that's the stated goal of hamas. that's what from the river to the sea means. hamas would do it to israel but can't. israel could do that to them but doesn't. >> that's bill maher on his show friday, pointing out the selective outrage and the lack of understanding of the issues we're seeing from many of those

protesting israel over the hamas war. the hamas war that hamas started. the hamas war that continues because hamas continues to hold civilians in tunnels underneath gaza. we could go on and on. i've got to say, bill maher picked up on a point we were talking about. 500,000 people killed by assad in syria. no protests. columbia went on fine. 500,000 arabs killed, nothing. nothing. saddam hussein responsible for the death of about a million muslims, schools didn't shut down in the '70s, '80s, and '90s. kept going. nothing. then you add to what bill maher said. you could talk about 2 million people killed in sudan the past 20 years. the civil war continues. nothing on college campuses at all. i wonder what's different this

time -- oh, wait, it is actually israel. >> yeah. >> that's what's different this time. >> you could add ukraine to this. >> yeah. >> add anything. if you read recent reporting on what's happening to ukrainian soldiers, fighting so we don't have to. those kids in college can go to college, okay? we're not putting any skin in the game. we are sending -- oh, wait, no, it was really hard to send funding. i didn't see college kids saying, "you've got to send funding to ukraine because they're fighting for us." when you read about what is happening to ukrainian soldiers captured by russians, and then putting, if they're brought home in a prisoner swap, they're put back out there three months later because that's all they got. >> devastating. >> are you kidding me? i don't hear anything about that. >> nothing. >> that's -- >> it doesn't involve jews. >> -- the safety of the world. >> it doesn't involve jews or israel. if this were not arabs dying, it was palestinians dying, they

would have shut down campuses when assad was killing 500,000 arabs. but not a word. >> colleges are places for education, for deeper understanding, for understanding these different problems around the world, and for debate, for empathy, for learning, for hearing each other. >> by the way, jonathan lemire, we'll let you take it from here, but, you know, you take an issue. i can't think of an issue that requires more discussion, that requires more patience, that requires a greater understanding, that two truths can be held at the same time, if these students actually had been taught over their lifetimes to engage in critical thinking. because as we have done on this show, we have talked about benjamin netanyahu. we have talked about what he's done over the past decade.

you know, in the west bank, the illegal settlements. purposefully trying to kill a two-state solution. we've talked about all the errors he made leading up to it. his cynical alliance with hamas. we've talked about that. we have talked about the suffering of the people in gaza, the suffering of the palestinians in gaza. the fact -- in the west bank. the fact that arab nations hate the olympians. -- palestinians. arab nations will not allow the palestinians to go into their countries because they hate them. we've talked about that. we've talked about how, as the united states, we have got to keep pushing both sides toward a two-state solution, toward peace. is it easy? no. but, you know what? we're never going to have this discussion if college administrators at columbia and across these elite iies allow

their students to run around making genocidal chants, the hallmark of the protests. the administrators are sitting there. who is allowing this to happen at columbia day in and day out? who is allowing this to continue at penn? penn keeps getting worse. >> yeah, and we are approaching a fraught moment in this war. president biden spoke with prime minister netanyahu yesterday, again urged them to be careful going into rafah, where there is a million civilians. the israeli military seems to still be planning for an invasion in the days and weeks ahead, so the protests likely only to increase in response to that. you're right, joe. there is space for peaceful protests on campuses and elsewhere about the plight of the civilians there in gaza who have suffered. there is a place to criticize the netanyahu administration for their conduct in this war. we've been doing that here on the show. there is not a place, of course, for anti-semitism that has gone along with it, including columbia, where i am an alum.

the scenes of the campuses, cancelling commencements? some of these college kids, seniors who are losing their commencements, are the same ones who lost high school commencements because of covid. it is tough for these kids. our heart goes to them. tell us more, though. with scenes of tumult as the backdrop, tell us more of the findings of the list and what people are looking for as an alternative. >> it is funny. the ivy league has served a great purpose to the u.s. for over 300 years. harvard is pushing 400 years over. yale is over 300. upenn is almost 300 years old. it's been a sorter. a beacon, first for men and now for everyone.

employers can say, columbia, penn, check, check, check. the employers now are saying, that's not true anymore. they've forfeited that. in part, because the admissions officers have admittedly said, we don't really want well-rounded students anymore. they say, we want a well-rounded class of specialists. everybody who is -- you know, if you are an olympic swimmer or oboe player, they want exceptionalness in one area. when you have a class of special, opposed to a class where people are hard working, super achieving. you see the same thing when they abolished test scores. test scores were a great way for underrepresented kids to get to these schools because they can show they can achieve at the highest level. now, it is a crapshoot. we're seeing a manifestation of that. you have the campuses where, again, it's not the students' fault but the administrators' fault, but they've got classes at the ivies where it is not about the highest achieving.

it's about special. special sometimes means, you know, you can get entitled or people who aren't necessarily using critical thinking. they're just feeling. i feel this way, and i'm special. i think that's what the employers are reacting to. >> they're really saying it. michael beschloss, take the next question for george. >> i keep on thinking, george, you remember how william f. buckley once said he'd rather america govern by the first names in the phone book than the members of the harvard faculty. presidential elections is going to be six months from next week. are we in a situation where this is teeing it up for donald trump to say, you americans have been led by an out of touch elite that has been educated in places like harvard and columbia and penn that are doing things that

sound strange and out of the mainstream. is this an advertisement to his voters tha essentially says, elect trump, throw out the civil service, and throw out all these people who have been misgoverning you for decades? >> look, mike michael, i was 8 years old in 1968. it was a formative political experience for me. >> i'll bet. >> we all know what happened that summer in chicago. there were street battles between activists, anti-war demonstrators, and the chicago cops. that led pretty directly to, among other things, to richard nixon getting elected. of course, donald trump and the republican party are going to take advantage of anything that appears like chaos or an indulgence of chaos on the part of democrats. i think what we're seeing now on campus is probably a prelude to what we're going to see in

chicago, where the democrats are going to have their convention. again, i think for the first time since '68, as if they couldn't resist returning to the scene of the crime this cycle. i don't think it is going to be a scene that will help them to show that joe biden is in control of the country. that's sort of been a recurring republican attack, that he is -- that the country and the world are out of control, and he is too old and feeble to keep them under control. can i say one thing about the demonstrators? i think they properly were horrified by the number of deaths of civilians in gaza. when they called for a cease-fire and peace, they seemed to be calling for an end to this suffering. but that has shifted to calling for an end of zionism, which is essentially an end to israel. in arabic, from the river to the

sea, palestine shall be free, is palestine shall be arab. i don't know if students know that, but it is the call for the elimination of israel. how do it that students have perhaps unwittingly embraced the ideology of hamas? i think it is because they have been trained and educated in an atmosphere where there really is only one truth. that truth is that there are oppressors and there are oppressed. white jewish israelis, as they see it, are the oppressors. non-white, arab palestinians are the oppressed. that's the end of the story. it's as if israel is the last place where post-colonial theory can go to find oppressors and victims, so it becomes a simple matter. the whole complicated history of those two people is erased. >> yeah, it's 3,000 years of history erased. yeah, they do genocidal chants, "from the river to the sea." they've adopted hamas' ideology

instead of, again, protesting the deaths, the civilian deaths in gaza. it's moved from that direction, holding up signs, talking about the final solution, saying no two states, wanting to go back to '48. we could go on and on, rev. you know, this extremism, this calling on college campuses for the elimination of israel, the chanting, basically adopting hamas' ideology with so many -- in so many parts of these protests leads up -- again, we talked about 1968 -- it leads up to the protest of 1968. it just wasn't -- it wasn't just white conservatives in doorville, georgia, watching walter cronkite in '68 going, "what the hell is going on out

there?" i'm sure you can attest to colored people going, what is going on? why are they tearing things up? here we are, the same people that helped elect richard nixon over vietnam, and helped keep the war going for five more years, five more years, they're doing if same thing now on the faculty of a lot of these elite ivies. and they're helping donald trump. they're going to elect donald trump if they continue stirring this chaos. and if they don't learn from the lessons of '68, if they don't start acting like adults, rev. >> no, i absolutely agree. because i remember in 1968, i was 13, going on 14, becoming the operator of red basket new york's chapter. dr. king had started that

movement. martin luther king, april 4th, '67, came out against the war in vietnam. he was killed a year later. in the marches against the war, he said we must do what we must do for the moral question of killing vietnamese children, whatever he opposed and we all opposed in terms of the war. but when people started waving north vietnam banners and ho chi minh pictures, they denounced that. dr. king said, we're not supporting ho chi minh. we're supporting peace. in the battings, in the fights, a guy who lost for president in 1960 went home to california and lost for governor of california, was able to come through the middle with law and order, richard nixon, and win. what i raise to a lot of those that i agree with on it is an atrocity, what is going on in gaza, it is absolutely wrong what netanyahu is doing, but are we fighting back or are we being

hijacked by people saying hamas, who did the same thing to israeli children, is what we are about? i think, ed luce, the thing that we must address is the core reason these students started this, and the hijackers now have taken it somewhere else, that are now praising people who are doing exactly what we're supposed to be denouncing and losing the moral principle of what the protest is about with netanyahu, what he was doing in gaza in the first place. >> i think, reverend, that's very well put. i mean, i have to -- although i was minus a few weeks, i was born in june 1968, i was minus a few week when the columbia '68 protests began. they began, as you know, shortly after the assassination of martin luther king. mika's dad, dr. brzezinski, was a professor at columbia then.

he differentiated between the broader student protesters, many of whom were vague but idealogical, as well, about being cogs in a corporate machine, and protesting for meaningfulness in life, really spoiled what dr. brzezinski called bourgeois suburban brats. then the demonstrations that he did support, which was the black civil rights ones, who were saying, look, we're having gentrified by columbia university out of our land. this gym has essentially a segregated access point. dr. brzezinski had great sympathy for those protesters. they wanted to disassociate themselves from the more privileged student, very idealogical ones, which were doing their cause great harm. we're seeing the same today. to think that you have pro-hamas protesters, when there's such a righteous cause here, which is

protecting civilians, and you're getting people bringing in hamas agenda into that, this is a gift to netanyahu. it is a gift to him. if the object here is to stop more civilian deaths in gaza, you do not want to be giving gifts to netanyahu. the dumbness of highly privileged bourgeois students from the suburbs continues. >> it does continue. they're helping netanyahu. they are helping extreists on this issue. they're helping donald trump. they're doing the same exact things that the students that dr. pierzynski was talking about in '68, that they helped elect ronald reagan. spoiled the suburban brats.

only dr. brzezinski. i want to give final thoughts to michael beschloss and george packer. i was 5 years old. michael beschloss, let me go to you first as a historian. i was 5 years old. my first memories of 1968 -- can i see michael, please? 1968, i was 5 years old. my first memories, the '68 olympics, rfk's assassination, the chaos in chicago. what did i do? i looked at that, as most of us do, through the eyes of my parents. through the eyes of my grand mom. i just looked at their faces, and i knew we weren't all right. i will say, i think the chaos of my childhood politically, you know, in look through the eyes

of my parent, not only impacted me, impacted a ton of young people who voted for ronald reagan in 1980. there is a long stem that moves from this chaos when adults don't act like adults and step up. it is hard to talk about the consequences of inaction at columbia, the consequences of inaction at penn, the consequences of inaction at these elite schools, to allow their students to continue chanting genocidal chants. by the way, they'll lie and say, it's one sign here, one sign. no. you talk to the students who are trying to just go to school, and they will tell you, there is an anti-semitism, a vicious anti-semitism. let me say it the way dr. brzezinski said it, not with people of color, not -- it's not all arab students, palestinian

students. it is spoiled brats. just woke, white elite, rich boys and girls going to college campuses, wanting to play radical for the weekend, and they don't know the impact they're having. >> above and beyond all of that, and all of us are for the right to protest, and -- >> 100%. >> -- for people to feel secure. >> yes. >> but, you're absolutely right. this election is being handed to donald trump on a platter. in 1968, it was not only richard nixon. george wallace said the same thing. any campus protester who wants to lie down in the street and protest in front of my car, that'll be the last car he ever

lies down in front of. i would say the same thing about this year. if you like protest, don't hand the election to donald trump. he will make sure that protest, in many ways, is constricted and restrained and, in some cases, abolished in the country a year from now. be very careful about what you do and say. >> nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss, staff writer at the "atlantic," george pecker, and "forbes'" randall lane, the exclusive, "why employers are souring on ivy league grads and the so-called new ivies that are emerging," you can find that as forbes.com. randall, thank you for that. coming up, we're going to hear from bill barr again, his latest excuse defending donald trump. also, the story about kristi noem murdering her 14-month-old

puppy. >> in a gravel pit. >> thinking it was a political win. while she was at it, she figured she'd murder her goat, too. this is from kristi noem herself. >> didn't get it on the first shot. >> she had to go get more ammunition while the goat suffered in the gravel pit. >> while construction workers were watching this horrifying -- >> right, and the puppy lay there dead. >> daughter asks, where is cricket? >> we'll be right back. (vo) in two seconds, eric will realize they're gonna need more space... (man) gotta sell the house.

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she's bragging she shot and killed her 14 month old dog, because it was untrainable, according to her, and worthless as a hunter. your move, marjorie taylor greene. [ applause ] i just want to -- i just want to say this, say this to the people who say the parties are exactly the same. well, you know what? joe biden had a biting dog, but he didn't take him to the rose garden and blow his [ bleep ] brains outs, okay? >> right, remember that? joe biden's dog was such an issue for certain networks. >> i do remember also -- >> they feasted on it. >> i also remember you, again, again, training dogs. >> oh, me, yes. >> even, again, when hobson ate a chicken -- >> my big dog literally -- when

i was reading kristi noem's book, that portion, i was like, that's what hobson did. i remember being immediately so annoyed at myself for bringing him anywhere near the chicken coop. i didn't shoot him. >> we'll get to that story. first, we'll bring in someone who loves his dog, your dog, all dogs. >> he's a dog guy. nbc sports soccer analyst and co-host of "men in blazers." >> strange timing. why are we doing roger right now? >> he loves dogs. >> okay. >> also, liverpool have been playing like dogs, and i haven't given him a chance to gloat over everton. >> fine. >> crushing the hearts -- >> make it quick. >> -- of the jurgen klopp. >> r.i.p. cricket. nine out of ten dogs are a reflection of their owners,hone >> true.

>> mika, you love the football. you pretend not to. >> i kind of like it. >> premier league is down to the last gasp, a two-horse race between arsenal and manchester city. i don't like to be hyperbolic, mika, you know me, but the future of our democracy depends on the outcome. let's start with league-leading arsenal football club, owned by an american, stan kroenke of l.a. fame. they traveled for the north london derby apocalypse. must-win for both teams. seemed arsenal would hmiliate their rivals. they looked worse than kristi noem in her autobiographer, which is hard. arsenal having a party. however, spurs came back like the dallas mavs. second half. error by david rea.

then this on the penalty. it made it 3-2. nerves everywhere. there is an english football term, squeaky bum time. this was the dictionary definition. arsenal held on to win, 3-2. emerging victorious for the passengers on the plane that survived turbulent skies, clapping spontaneously the moment it landed. all eyes to manchester city, owned by abu dhabi, looking for a historic four-pete. they won this thanks to haaland, like a one-man s.e.a.l. team six. city were one point back. crucial game yet to play. finally, your team, heartbreaking liverpool. title challengers until a terrible two weeks. their incredible manager,

empathetic jurgen klopp. the last sensible person in the united kingdom, retiring the end of the season. this header made it 2-2. then there was an awful scene at the end. liverpool's iconic striker, mo salah, the egyptian king arguing publicly with his legendary manager. honestly hard to watch. is this the way it ends, joe, with a bang? no. a hard to watch bit on the sideline. in football, as in life, there is no such thing as a happy ending, is there? >> wow. >> what? >> awfully bleak. >> how are you feeling, joe? >> for a guy reborn in the usa. you know, i'm obviously not thrilled with what's happened to liverpool. it's been really painful, the past couple weeks. i'm not sure what happened. i really don't. it's not like they've lost a lot of good players. what are your -- any thought on why liverpool has not been able

to put together wins the way they did the first, well, three quarters of the season? >> i mean, let's focus on what we're losing. as joni mitchell said, don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got until it's gone? jurgen klopp is going. he is a beautiful man. i'm a horrible person, and even i admire him. perhaps his final lesson he's giving the world as he leaves football is how to face up to defeat. ultimately, in life, i think that's what defines you, joe. >> yeah, i'll tell ya what, it's been kind of a rough year for my fandom. saban leaves alabama. klopp leaves liverpool. yeah -- >> the end of the day, at some point, joe, you have to stop thinking it's your teams and it has to refract back on you. >> it's just like the dog, right? it's like the dog. it's not the teams. it's not liverpool. it's not alabama. >> all right. >> it's not envelope the red sox. >> nbc sports --

>> it's about me. it's my fault. thank you, roger. >> soccer analyst, co host of "men in blazers," roger bennett, thank you. >> don't you love him? >> sort of. >> he's the best. now to this -- >> speaking of dogs. >> south dakota governor kristi noem is defending her decision to kill her 14-month-old female dog, cricket, a puppy, actually. >> kill a puppy, yeah. >> kristi noem, considered a contender for trump's vice president, revealed in her book that she admitted to killing her dog. she took cricket, the little girl puppy's name. >> the puppy. >> on a pheasant hundred with older dogs, but writes the young pup ruined the hundred after chasing the birds and going out of her mind with excitement. >> she had a bad morning. >> the dog was bounding around with excitement and so happen

my. >> too happy. >> kristi noem describes calling cricket, using an electronic collar, to attempt to bring her under control. one of the shock collar, you know? nothing worked to stop cricket from running around with joy. then on the way home, after the hunt, as noem talked to a local family, cricket escaped noem's truck and attacked the family's chickens, crunching it to death with one bite and dropping it to attack another. >> this happens. the question is, like, how can the governor -- >> terrible moment. i've been there. >> how can the governor not keep a dog under control? >> i've been there. it happens. >> put it on a leash. she's blaming the dog. >> this is the part i don't understand. >> for getting out of the truck. >> i hated that dog, noem writes. adding that cricket had proved herself, cricket, untrainable. cricket. >> it's cricket. >> dangerous to anyone she came in contact with. >> the puppy's fault, not her.

>> less worthless as a hunting dog. at that moment, noem says, "i realized i had to put". >> all right, all right. this is enough. >> it was not a pleasant job, but it had to be done. >> she took the puppy to a gravel pit and gunned it down. >> after her story caused controversy, the governor doubled down and tried to paint the story as one of the necessary, dark sides of farm life. >> no. >> writing on x, the fact is, south dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. given that cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, i -- the dog tried to bite her -- i decided to follow the law. >> shot her in a gravel pit. >> being a responsible dog owner -- >> we've done enough of this. >> hold on. she revealed she killed the family goat because it was gross and it knocked down her kid.

goats can do that, but she killed it in the gravel pit along with the puppy. >> let's bring in former white house director of communications to president obama, jen palmieri, co-host of the msnbc podcast "how to win 2024" and survive your goat. and msnbc contributor and a author of the book, "how the right lost its mind" and started killing puppies in gravel pits, kind of a strange title for a book, but i guess he saw this coming, charlie sykes. charlie, okay, we could talk about the tragedy of cricket and this poor goat, festus, or whatever it is. >> it's more, what is going through her mind that makes her think she should murder her puppy in cold blood immediately after getting age are i. >> you can do that. it is the confessional aspect. charlie, the confessional aspect was done as a political pose. i'm tough.

i'm mean. >> i'm a murderer of puppies. >> i'm an s.o.b. and be kill a little puppy if it is in my way. that's the sickest part of this. donald trump's republican party and the grotesque, the grotesqueness of the conservative movement's -- >> do we have a picture of cricket? >> let me finish, please. >> okay. >> the violent wing, this is where they go. this is virtue signaling for republicans. virtue signaling. i shot in cold blood a puppy in a gravel pit. >> i think that is the most extraordinary part about all of this, that she thought this would be a plus for her. look, this book is a campaign book. it is a resume to be donald trump's vice president. she thought it was a good idea, let's include this story. let's tell this story about myself, how i took this puppy and shot him in the gravel pit. why should we have done this? the obvious explanation is she

thought that donald trump would like it. she thought that this would be a net positive. i can imagine her buddy, corey lewandowski saying, "no, put it in, kristi, because donald trump wants people who are willing to do the tough, dirty, nasty things that are necessary." and she did. now, obviously, it's blown up in her face because even in our -- even on the 2.0, killing puppies is a net negative. i suppose one of the good things is we haven't seen maga world come out in defense of puppy killing. of course, we've seen them come out in favor of a lot of things. but this does say a lot. kristi noem put this in the book and did not think it would be a net negative in the mind of donald trump. i do think that this is just, you know -- and why would she have thought that? well, because increasingly, brutality is the point. not just cruelty but brutality. donald trump has a fetish with

this. he talks about shooting shoplifters, extrajudicial murderers, drug dealers. he said, how can you make the border defense as vicious as possible? can we put razors on it? he tells stories about shooting prisoners of war with bullets tipped in pig blood. obviously, there are people in trump's orbit who thinks that this is the kind of thing that might induce him to think, she's a killer, tough, exactly the person who is willing to do the courageous things that need to be done. >> jen palmieri, this is a horrible thing. a puppy executed in a gravel pit. we can acknowledge that. but there are political ramifications. kristi noem, we know, is on donald trump's short list for vp. some thought she might even be at the top of that list, at

least until the last few days. trump famously doesn't like dogs, and he hasn't weighed in on this yet. but it is true, plenty on the right criticized her for what she did. your turn. you know, do you think this has sunk her chances and any larger lessons we should draw from this incident and the state of the republican party right now, the end of april 2024? >> i'm super excited we found a bottom, that puppy killing is something that -- >> maybe. >> maybe we found a bottom that everyone can be against. but i think it is super revealing about kristi noem, that she sat down and thought, how can i prove that i can be really brutal and really tough, and landed on this as the answer to that. but it also re -- and want people who are being considered to be trump's running mate, not just what they're willing to do but what they do reveals about what they think of the maga base, who they are, and what they need to do to appeal to these people, right? you have kristi noem saying, i'm going to write about how i shot

my puppy in told blood because nothing proves i can be brutal, tough, and mean like that. then you have senator katie britt who, prior to her state of the union response, was seen as a very confident, well-spoken, someone who was working in a bipartisan manner, representing alabama well, and then does the state of the union response and, you know, from the reporting, i understand trump's team was behind what she had to say, but also adopting a term that i did not know until she used it, a baby fundy voice. it's this -- but using a childlike voice in a supposed appeal to fundamentalists. she felt she needed to speak that way, childlike, in order to appeal to trump and to his supporters. well, what are you saying about -- what are you revealing about what you think of his

supporters, that that's what they think of women and that's how they have to present themselves? either shooting puppies or speaking from a kitchen in a baby voice without a lot of agency. >> whew. coming up, we're going to continue to follow the unrest on college campuses over the war in gaza. new york city mayor eric adams will join the conversation on how the city is handling the protests at columbia university. and as we go to break, some news from the biden campaign. it is announced adrienne elrod is joining its communications team as campaign senior adviser and spokesperson. elrod played a key role in president biden's successful white house bid four years ago, where she oversaw the campaign's surrogates program. she previously held positions with the clinton administration and served as a senior communications aide during hillary clinton's 2008 presidential campaign. she was also hillary for america's director of strategic

communications and surrogates in 2016. she most recently worked in the commerce department as director of external and government affairs for the chips program office. congratulations to adrienne. >> such great news. >> this is huge! we're back in just a moment.

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york city at 7:38 eastern time in the morning. joining us now, new york city mayor eric adams. mr. mayor, thank you for being on this morning. a lot to talk to you about. i know you have some things you want to bring to the table, but i first want to ask you about the protests on the campus of columbia university. from the city's point of view, what the police department is doing, and are there any discussions with the university as to how to handle this in the days and weeks to come? >> yes, we are. we have been communicating with all of the presidents, actually, nyu, fit, and a few other smaller areas, as well. they have been extremely collaborative as we find that balance, the balance of the right to protest but, at the same time, make sure it is done in a peaceful manner. what i think is important for the protesters to do, also, is to police themselves.

to use some of the hatred, disgusting terminology -- because protesting for peace shouldn't call for the destruction of any other groups. this is a larger problem many of us are missing. one of the most important analogies in sports is how good is your farm team? how good is the next layer of your professional team? when you have 18% of 18 to 34-year-olds that are not extremely proud of this country, that's a frightening message of what is coming up in the rear. i think you're seeing this play out, not only on the college campuses, but i'm seeing some concerning things across the city and across america, when it comes to things young people are going through. >> staying on the protests, columbia made clear they're not going to ask the nypd to clear campus, but we know some of the protests are outside the campus walls. in fact, some of those, non-students, outsiders, those are where we're seeing some of the more incendiary language and perhaps more disturbing behavior. what is the approach to those

activists? >> first of all, columbia is not asking for assistance, other schools not asking for assistance, that is with an asterisk. they want assistance of the police department. they'd like for us to be on the outside. they'd like for us to be at the entry points, where they're finding a large number of people who are on the grounds that don't attend the schools at all. i've been saying this for a while, there's a lot of outside agitators. our goal is to make sure that the students who want to attend school can get there safely, and make sure we don't allow those who are outside on the grounds or on the ground doing anything that is going to bring about danger. >> mr. mayor, you know we sal talked about this on "politics nation," but i want you to elaborate and respond. a lot of the original protest was to deal with what is going on in gaza in terms of innocent people being killed, children being killed, famine, being projected by some a possible

famine, which i certainly agree with and most people do, including a lot of people in israel agree that netanyahu has been way out of line on this. but then, there seemed to be a hijacking of the message, some of the outsiders that came in, and having a collective leadership, there was no student leadership, so to speak, and they wanted to get in a quarrel. they lose the message. you and i go back 33 years ago when i started national action network because some people i was working with started anti-white rhetoric. we said, no, no, no. we're anti what is going on. we went to harlem, started national action network. the hijacking of the message is important and something i want you to address because i think we get lost in this. many of these students are standing up for the human rights of people in gaza, just as we are standing up for the human rights of the innocent people

killed on october 7th in israel. it's not either/or. it's you must be for the humanitarian aid of both. the last point on that is if you're going to protest, which you know we protested together. i still am leading protests on dei. you expect in a non-violent way to keep order. if you are going to be penalized, you expect it. i've done 90 days in jail, three months, 45 days. i was arrested 30 times. you expect you're going to pay a price if you come out of the king tradition. it doesn't make the price right, but you don't act like somebody is doing something wrong to enforce whatever the standards are. >> well said. you put a lot there based on not only your analysis of what's happening now but based on your history as a person who has protested. watching you protest, we protest on many different settings. you expect whatever comes with it. at the same time, we have constantly witnessed the

hijacking of the message. there are people who look at issues, righteous issues across the country, and they move in with their own agenda. we saw that during the black lives matter march. we saw it during some of the early marches for arthur miller, for randolph evans. >> george floyd, they did it to us in george floyd. >> you see people coming in, and that is a concern here. righteous concern should not come to what we're seeing, of celebrating hamas. many people didn't see actually what happened on those videos at a peace rally. people who were rallying when hamas came in to murder, those people were rallying near the border because they wanted to say, we should dance together one day. we went after those who were calling for peace, and they harmed them. then i see individuals who don't really fully understand this conversation, but they're just going with the tone and the narrative of it. >> mr. mayor, let's turn to the

city's budget. always important. >> yes. >> better than expected tax revenue. more money coming in than your administration initially projected, but still tough decisions ahead. how do you balance priorities here? we know the influx of migrants that have strained city resources. more policing in different areas, including toward the subway. i know libraries have closed on sundays, an issue that's really stirred up a lot of people. walk us through how you're trying to piece that together. >> first, new york's wakeup stirred up, you know, so you maintain a discipline. it's all part of the process. we're going to land the plane. we're going to be able to shake hands with both the speaker and the city hall. here's what is important. public safety, prereq uisite to everyone, they want to be safe. we need a team well trained to carry out the responsibility.

we have better than expected tax receipts, but it is because we manage a humanitarian crisis. over 65% of those who we cycled out of our care are now self-sustaining. they havemoved on with the next step of the dream. instead of having 180, 191,000 asylum seekers in our care, we were able to move to the next level. then we had to deal with some financial cliffs under the previous administrations. we have permanent programs in place that we were using temporary dollars. so the independent financial experts, they looked at how we managed covid and crisis, and they said this deserves to have the bond rates increased because of how well they made the decisions. >> can cuts be undone? >> we'll sit down with the speaker and her team. we know the importance of libraries. this is the importance of the

process. i said before people start saying how terrible things are, let us finish the process. let's not get ahead of the process. we'll do as we always have done, and that's make sure we have the budget on time. >> all right. new york city mayor eric adams, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. >> thank you. >> we appreciate it. coming up, secretary of state antony blinken is in saudi arabia this morning for the first leg of a wider tour of the middle east, for talks with arab leaders about plans for a post-war gaza. we'll have a live report from riyadh. plus, donald trump's rnc overhaul does not appear to be helping his campaign. david drucker will join us with his reporting for "the dispatch." "morning joe" is coming right back. smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,

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and they're all coming? those who are still lewith us, yes.c. grandpa! what's this? your wings.

light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. in honor of our great veterans on veterans day, we pledge, to you, that we will root out the communists, marxist, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections. the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within. >> some of the extreme rhetoric being spewed by donald trump on the campaign trail, those remarks in new hampshire last year also featured his mocking

response to the attempted murder of nancy pelosi's husband. joining us now is charles homens, a reporter from the new york city times and the "times" magazine covering national politics. his new article for the magazine is entitled "donald trump has never sounded like this." charles, you write in part, about a transformation. in part this, trump's critics were right in 2016 to observe the grim novelty of his politics. their ideology of national pessimism, their open demagoguery and clear affinities with the far right, their blunt division of the country into us and them in a way that no major party's presidential nominee had dared for decades. but trump's great accomplishment, one less visible from a distance but immediately apparent at his rallies, was the "us" that he conjured there.

the way his supporters saw not only him but one another. and saw in themselves a movement. that us is still there in trump's 2024 speeches but it's not really the main character anymore. these speeches and the events that surround them are about them and what they have done to him, trump, and what trump intends to do in return. i've seen that. it's fascinating. do you think trump supporters understand that transformation that has taken place? and can you tell us more about it? >> you know, i think that's an interesting question. i think certainly when you're at the rallies, there's a real sense of community there in a way that there always has been. and i think sometimes people are not fully processing how much that's sort of built on this sort of creation of the world outside of the rallies as trump describes it and everything that they're sort of a raid against

at this point, that he considers enemies of the opposition. >> and do you sense any change in terms of how his supporters outside of the rallies are reacting to this? i mean, when i go to trump rallies, you're so right about the sense of community. i think it is a big part of what draws people in. they like the play list. they like the tailgating that happens beforehand. honestly, i'm not even sure sometimes he needs to be there. it's the community that's created there. but are you seeing that in the reaction to crowds, and the rallies, that they like the harsher language? and what do we think happens outside the rallies? >> i think you want to distinguish between the rallies themselves and republican voters more broadly. i think that if you go to the rallies, the atmosphere is pretty similar. if anything, it's sort of mellower and i think a little less -- it's sort of routinized

in a way that it wasn't even a couple years ago, which is interesting to me. but i think there are people sort of pick and choose what they want to believe he's serious about and what they want to believe he's not serious about. i was surprised talking to republicans mostly in iowa ahead of the caucuses and people who were not at the rallies and people who are very dedicated trump supporters. i was surprised by the number of people who express real misgivings over what he was saying on the campaign trail. we heard a little at the top of the segment. i suspect that is a factor in why his rhetoric has shifted a little bit since early this year. but i did hear for the first time really from people saying, yeah, i support this guy. i really like everything he says. but i'm a little worried about what happens if he gets re-elected. >> so charlie sykes, we remember the 2015, 2016 debates, whether

we take him literally. we should, at least most of the time. >> right. >> this is a darker rhetoric as charles' piece points out. do we think it's one thing for how it plays in the room at a trump rally. it's entirely another matter for how it plays with those independent swing voters who will decide those battleground states. what's your sense as to the impa of this newer, darker trump? >> well, i don't know except that i think the main impact is we need to take him literally and seriously because i think it's very, very clear what he would do with a trump 2.0 presidency. and the fact that he would have an infrastructure around him that would enable him to do this. a second trump presidency is fundamentally different from the first one because he knows where the buttons are right now. so this is the point that i think voters need to understand that if they think this will be a replay of the first trump presidency, which was chaotic

enough, you know, that would be a huge mistake. and i think that this is the task in 2024 is to actually try to very thoroughly imagine and describe what donald trump's vision for the country really is. what a presidency based on vengeance and retribution really looks like. because i think what you're going to see is that trump goes out to these rallies and he stokes the anger. he stokes the sense of victimization. how does that play out after the election? either way, if he loses, where does that anger go? because he's not ever going to concede. if he wins and creates an administration based on that, what does that mean for the country? and i think that's the kind of thing that we need as a country to get our heads around and certainly the swing state voters need to. >> all right. the new piece is online for "the new york times" reporter charles homans, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning.

we appreciate it. >> thank you for having me. >> thank you both as well. we'll see you soon. up next, we have a recap of where donald trump's criminal hush money trial stands. and we'll preview what could happen in court this week. also ahead, we'll show you some of the best jokes at the white house correspondent's dinner from president biden and host colin jost. "morning joe" will be right back. ♪♪ orning joe" will be right back ♪ (vo) you might be used to living with your albuterol asthma rescue inhaler, but it's a bit of a dinosaur,

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my weekend update co-anchor michael shea was going to join me here tonight. but in solidarity with president biden, i decided to lose all my black support. nothing makes sense anymore. the candidate who is a famous new york city playboy took abortion rights away and the guy who is trying to give you your abortion rights back is an 80-year-old catholic. how does that make sense? i'm not saying both candidates are old, but you know jimmy carter is out there thinking, i

could maybe win this thing. >> it's been a year since i delivered this speech. and my wife jill is with me to want was worried how i would do. i told her, don't worry. just like riding a bike. she said that's what i'm worried about. the 2024 election is in full swing. and, yes, age is an issue. i'm a grown man. running against a 6-year-old. age is the only thing we have in common. my vice president actually endorses me. being here is a reminder that folks think what's going on in congress is political theater. that's not true. if congress were a theater, they would have thrown out lauren boebert a long time ago.

>> oh, that's -- >> some of the jokes from both president biden and host colin jost -- >> i thought colin jost did well. >> oh, he was really good. he was funny. it was subtle. it's a weird moment to, you know, be laughing actually. >> the thing is that is such a difficult room. >> yeah, oh -- >> i remember stephen colbert being there. and no laughter because very little laughter because he was so dry. and it is such a difficult room for a variety of reasons, which i won't go into here as far as the crowd that's out there. but, you've got to do exactly what he did the other night, which is i've got my jokes. i'm going to tell them. i'm going to have fun. he sort of dryly looked up at the audience. >> yeah. >> you know, sort of that carson look. >> there was a lot there. i thought it was wonderful. >> he did very well.

>> and the president was hi lair louse. more from that event including the president's more serious message about the importance of the free press, which the event is all about. also ahead the latest on the protests over gaza that are spreading to more and more college campuses. and we're going to have an exclusive first look at forbes' list of the new ivies, universities who are poised to replace the elite institutions. in part because of their handling of the protests, but it's a much bigger story. >> even before these protests -- >> this is a trend. >> i have to say, just the absolute weakness of the administration, the cowardice of the administration and unfortunately of these elite colleges having people running these elite colleges on faculty boards that burn down college campuses in the 1960s that were responsible for the election of richard nixon in 1968 because of

the chaos on college campuses, because of the chaos and gave richard nixon and five more years of war. good job. let's see if these administrators, the ones that tried to lev tate the pentagon in the 1960s with abby hoffmann, the ones who took over president's offices in the 1960s, that trashed college campuses. let's see if they're now going to elect donald trump for, i don't know, maybe the last election of american history. if so, good job. way to go. way to go by not being able to discipline students that violate your rules. you either have rules or you don't have rules. you either have standards or you don't have standards. and if you can't live by them, leave. and let's get some adults in these universities that actually teach students that there are

consequences when they break the rules, when they break the laws and when they spout genocidal chants over and over again. >> all right. we'll have more on that. and we're also going to be showing you -- or at least telling you about -- >> wow. wow. >> i'm having a hard time with this one. >> wow. >> how south dakota governor christie gnome is responding to criticism after admitting to shooting and killing her young, happy, jubilant, joyful puppy. and then deciding to kill a goat after that. with her gun. >> and they're bragging about it. >> it's one of the more staggering stories i've ever seen a politician put in a book thinking this would actually make them look strong. >> yeah. >> it's sick. but we'll read from the book and let you decide. >> the dog, was still a puppy. >> 14 months old, hunting dog.

>> she actually said his grave offense was being joyful and happy. >> yeah. >> and i've got to say -- and you know, this has long been my attitude towards dogs. >> yeah. >> if a dog is misbehaving, i never look at the dog. >> right. >> i look at the owners. i go, what -- wait, you don't know how to train the dog? you don't know how to make sure the dog is in line? by the way, if they're still puppies you have a ways to go. >> so i come from growing up on somewhat of a family farm run by eastern european immigrants. and we definitely we had -- we were deer hunters, turkey hunters, geese. there was absolutely a sense of life and death with animals in our life. but there was never a joy in

killing. and there was a respect to it. and a process if you were hunting and if you brought home -- >> a deer. >> game. but this story was more about how she felt killing an animal and that's what's scary about it. the impatience, the kind of like a switch flipped in her brain. and she decided she needed to kill it. like this is not someone you want in charge. not someone thinking through -- >> just randomly, oh, i'm going to kill the goat. i'm going to kill the goat. jonathan lemire, i mean, there are times we're watching red sox games a and our thoughts go through our mind with the relief pitchers. >> certainly not this year. lowest e.r.a. -- lowest e.r.a. in 100 years for the red sox. you and i saw this coming. >> sure did. sure did.

>> nobody saw this coming because half of these guys were pitching for pensacola catholic high school this time last year. but any way, this kristi noem thing, the most remarkable part of it is -- and we can get a series here for a half second, the most remarkable part of it is that the conservative movement has got -- has been so corrupted by donald trump, and reached such new lows that she actually put that in about the killing of a happy puppy because she thought it would help her with the base. >> well, donald trump famously doesn't like dogs. so perhaps that was part of her calculation as well. but, it is stunning what a self-own this was here to put this in her book and to now stand by it. she put out a statement last night saying she acknowledged that some people were upset at

her telling of the execution of her puppy named cricket in a gravel pit. that's what it was, an execution of cricket in a gravel pit. but she framed it as, well, you have to make tough choices. that's what leaders do. and that was clearly part of her pitch to be vice president. let's be clear, she's on the short list or at least she was in the last couple days. >> she was. >> she was and in some republican insiders thought she might be atop the short list, trump was so enamored with her, that may have gone out the window with this revelation -- >> some on the right also horrified. but we don't know. we haven't heard from trump yet. we haven't heard from trump yet. >> yeah. tough choices. it's not tough choices. it's like, the tough part is, you actually take time to train the puppy. yep. you train the puppy. you don't shoot the puppy. if the puppy was nice to neighbors and if the puppy was,

quote, too happy. so, there's -- i make tough choices. i kill things that are inconvenient to me. >> no. >> not exactly -- it's not sort of -- yeah. >> we could have a deeper conversation about this -- >> and we will. >> also with us the president of the national action network and host of msnbc politics nation, reverend al sharpton. >> he loves dogs. >> ed louis is with us this morning, and author and nbc news presidential historian, michael beschloss joins us as well. >> grew up in the english country side with the love of hunting dogs. whatever, went fox hunting and everything. >> he's a corgi guy. >> alex says you're a corgi guy. do you have 12 corgi's walking around your property. >> we did not. as an inspired guest, we certainly didn't have any

puppies called cricket. as an englishman, i would consider it a grave offense to execute anything called cricket. it's not guns that kill puppies, it's governors that kill puppies. i don't know. the silence of the puppies, the silence of the goat, the silence of the horses, there's so many jokes here. i share your tragic sort of reaction to this. but the humor, the humor can't be suppressed either. and watching her rivals like kari lake, people auditioning to be trump's running mate post pictures of themselves with puppies, it's just very entertaining. >> no, it's nuts. i read that with such -- i have a story just like that hobson, my dog did that to a chicken. literally. my daughters watched it. and the last thing i would do is be mad at the dog. i was mad at myself for creating this scenario in which the dog

had access to the chickens. >> right. >> right. and i just can't -- you got to read it. it takes you to a different place mentally. what does it take to do that to a dog? donald trump's hush money criminal trial will pick back up tomorrow with court in recess today in this historic trial. on friday, former national inquirer publisher david pecker wrapped up his testimony. wow. the defense tried to poke holes at his credibility of a witness, seeking to establish how his tabloids stood to profit off the stories it bought. earlier in the week, pecker testified about catch and kill agreements linked to trump's 2016 presidential campaign. but before his testimony ended, pecker revealed details about a conference call trump set up between the tabloid publisher an two of trump's white house aides, sarah huckabee sanders and hope hicks. the call took place soon after

former playboy model karen mcdougal gave an interview to cnn in march of 2018. on the call, pecker told the two ladies he planned to extend an agreement with mcdougal that would keep her from speaking more widely with the alledged affair with the former president. pecker said sanders and hicks, quote, thought it was a good idea. joining us now, former litigator and msn-bc legal correspondent lisa ruben. >> you know, lisa, it's interesting, the argument that the defense was making really fell flat when they suggested that pecker was doing this for profit. all of this for profit. when, in fact, if he had run the mcdougal/trump story, it probably would have broken records, but he decided to sit on it because, as he said throughout his testimony, he wanted to help donald trump, his friend, get elected president. >> that's true. and joe, it was really underscored by the fact that in

much of his testimony, david pecker's bottom line was clear as the primary motivating factor for him. but as joshua stineglass, representative of the d.a.'s office established with him on his redirect, yes, it was to his benefit to run positive stories about donald trump, who had long been a reader favorite among national inquirer readers. but as stineglass asked him, your tension was never to run this story about mcdougal and pecker said i had zero intention. in fact f you had run it, that would have been equivalent to national inquirer gold, right? and pecker had to say, absolutely would have been inquirer gold. this is a story about a playboy, play mate of the year, who was alleging -- a story i believed by the way, a year's long affair with the republican candidate for president of the united states who was also a known celebrity and commodity in my universe, that would have been inquirer gold. at that point, we broke for

lunch. and it was the perfect point for the d.a. to have reestablished this was far from what the trump world was calling standard operating procedure for the inquirer. >> so lisa, there was a lot from the pecker testimony about affairs, hush money, catch and kill, the whole concept of that type of journalism, none of which is against the law or the crime that he's accused of, the former president. did pecker's testimony help prove or begin to help prove the crime that he's accused of? >> absolutely. because mika, the crime that the former president has been charged with is falsification of business records as a felony. and in order to establish that he's committed a felony as opposed to a misdemeanor, you have to show that he falsified business records with the intent to conceal another crime. and that's where david pecker comes in. david pecker is critical to the establishment of the conspiracy to promote trump's election

through unlawful means where at least one act was taken in the direction of those unlawful means. david pecker was there for the formation of the conspiracy. david pecker helped execute the conspiracy. david pecker's payment to karen mcdougal he understood would pose campaign finance law problems was that unlawful means. so through david pecker prosecutors have gotten a lot of what they needed to establish that this was felonious and not just your everyday garden variety misdemeanor. >> try to pull back, does that testimony seem to add value to what the d.a. is trying to prove? did we expect pecker to be as strong as he was? or are we looking for that in other witnesses yet to come? >> pecker had a lot of information that we didn't quite know that he would have, namely he put himself at multiple conversations either with donald trump and michael cohen, or with

donald trump alone that help establish that trump was a participant at the conspiracy and that he knew and intended the results of that conspiracy, which were to promote his own election by subverting the karen mcdougal story. so nobody was expecting that david pecker would come in and say, for example, i met with trump alone in his trump tower offense in january of 2017. he asked me how karen mcdougal was doing, which was less about care about her welfare and more about was she going to be quiet and compliant. and once i assured him that she was fine, he said, i want to thank you for handling the mcdougal situation. i want to thank you for handling the doorman situation. donald trump was so grateful that he let david pecker essentially throw himself a white house dinner that summer after which, as they're walking in the rose garden, donald trump resumes that same conversation. how's karen?

how's she doing? all donald trump cared about was that david pecker had an arrangement with karen mcdug thal allowed her to feel satisfied that she was getting something out of the deal. it became clear through david pecker's testimony that donald trump had the knowledge and intent that prosecutors not only want to establish but have to establish as part of their case. coming up, our next guest says the problems on college campuses have been years in the making. george packard joins us with his new piece for the "atlantic" straight ahead on "morning joe." if you have moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's disease... put it in check with rinvoq... a once—daily pill. when symptoms tried to take control, i got rapid relief... and reduced fatigue with rinvoq. check. when flares kept trying to slow me down... i got lasting steroid—free remission... with rinvoq. check. and when my doctor saw damage,... rinvoq helped visibly reduce damage of the intestinal lining. check.

for both uc and crohn's: rapid symptom relief... lasting steroid—free remission... and visibly reduced damage. check. check. and check. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin; heart attack, stroke, and gi tears occurred. people 50 and older with a heart disease risk factor have an increased risk of death. serious allergic reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. put uc and crohn's in check... and keep them there with rinvoq. ask your gastroenterologist about rinvoq and learn how abbvie can help you save. republican senator lindsey graham is coming to donald trump's defense following david pecker's testimony last week about a catch and kill scheme to help the former president. take a look. >> i think all these trials are

political. i think it's selective prosecution. i think what's going on in new york is an outrage. the case is eight years ago. they created a crime just for trump. i think it's selective prosecution for political purposes. >> david pecker, who ran the national inquirer's parent company, testified that he paid to catch and kill stories about trump, specifically to help his presidential campaign. you don't have any concerns about that? >> you know, apparently a lot of people do this. arnold schwarzenegger, tiger woods. no, i think the whole thing is a crock. >> obviously tiger woods is not running for president and the allegation -- at least not yet. >> yeah, i get it. i think the whole thing is b.s., yeah, political b.s. >> so, no surprise that lindsey graham would, of course, defend donald trump and bring in some false equivalencies while he's at it. and we should also fact check, of course, this is not a charge that was invented just for donald trump. but i want to get you big

picture of the politics of this. far too early to know whether there would be any impact in november from this criminal trial. what graham is saying is what we are hearing from some republicans, the idea that this case not that serious, it's prosecutor overreach, biden ordered it up, whatever it might be. do you think that's going to have -- is that talking point going to resonate with independents, swing voters who aren't paying attention day to day like we all are but hear that trump's in trouble for x, y, z, that was a long time ago, maybe it's not big of a deal. is there merit to his argument? can it work? >> i think they'll make it work. in the long run, how they get away with it, democrats and other independent that belief in the law and believe in not trying to tilt public opinion one way or another to therefore have all the information they need to know about a candidate to vote. how vocal they are and effective

they are. we're talking about normalizing a man running for president of the united states that actively engaged in trying to in effect bribe people into not saying what it is, his true character was. so he could become the president of the united states. i mean, to normalize this kind of behavior at a presidential level is a danger to this country. how are we raising our kids? and i think if they begin to amplify that, like we were talking earlier about governor noem, can you imagine somebody came out and said kamala harris had shot an animal, how the reaction would be? so we need to talk about this in the sense of what are the standards we're talking about? it is now acceptable to bribe people, including porno stars that you allegedly slept with, in order for you to achieve office. that's acceptable behavior. what happens to all of the moral standards that the evangelicals

and other supporters of trump preach to the rest of us? coming up, there are new marching orders at the rnc. and getting out the vote is not job one. david trucker explains what's happening there and how it could have a big impact on the ground game come november. "morning joe" is coming right back. vember "morning joe" is coming right back my mental health was better. but uncontrollable movements called td, tardive dyskinesia, started disrupting my day. td felt embarrassing. i felt like disconnecting. i asked my doctor about treating my td, and learned about ingrezza.

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i would like to think that what the students feel about the university is important enough that maybe we could bring this university to a halt and really reorder its priorities. at the moment this doesn't seem possible at all. we may halt classes for a few days or halt it for a spring. but ultimately we don't change the foundation of the university which is essentially enormous business corporation.

>> that was a columbia university student speaking to nbc news in 1968 about on going protests at the school in opposition to the vietnam war. >> identify got to say, it makes as much sense in 2024 having 18 or 19-year-old people running college campuses as it did in 1968; which is to say doesn't make any sense at all. where the adults that are supposed to be running the university. the amount of amount of money they are paid to educate students and they can't allow students to go to class because small subset of those students and outside agitators want to shut down the camp -- where are the the adults? it's staggering. not just to me. i know i'm a conservative. not just to me. but to 90% of americans.

they want to know where the adults are at columbia. they want to know where the adults are at penn. they want to know where the adults are at harvard. they want to know where the adults are at all of these college campuses where they're letting their students and outside agitators run across the campus, shut down debate, scream when ever anybody tries to talk reason to them, shout genocidal chants, hold up signs pointing to jews saying hamas' next victims. holding up signs talking about the final solution. chanting constantly from the river to the sea. you know what from the river to the sea is. if you don't. that's all right. most of the students chanting it don't understand that they are chanting genocidal comments. >> all right. joining us now -- >> they want to wipe out all

jews and destroy the state of israel. and they want to kill jews and push them to sea. they are hamas on college campuses when they chant that. >> some of them may not know what they're doing. >> exactly. >> that's the point. >> but the adults there do. >> yes, they do. >> but this is a long time coming. this has been coming since the 1960s. and now the people that were burning down college campuses, the people that were taking over president's offices, those people are now on the faculty senate, the faculty senate, trying to encourage these students to do the same. they helped elect nixon. they -- i guess they want to elect donald trump in '24. good on you, guys. >> okay. joining us now, staff writer at "the atlantic" george packard. the campus left occupation that broke higher education. 56 years ago this week at the height of the vietnam war, columbia university students occupied half a dozen campus

buildings and made two principal demands of the university, stop funding military research and cancel plans to build a gym in a nearby black neighborhood. the current crisis brings a strong sense of deja vu, ideas born in the '60s that become the instincts of students who are occupying their campuses today. between oppressor and oppressed, no room exists for complexity or ambiguity. there's nothing to debate. which i think education is about. elite universities are caught in a trap of their own making, one that has been a long time coming. they've trained pro-palestinian students to believe that, on the oppressor-oppressed axis, jews are white and therefore dominant and not marginalized. they trained pro-israel students to believe that unwelcome and even offensive speech makes them so unsafe that they should stay

away from campus. what the universities haven't done is train their students to talk with one another. >> and george, we've seen this not only at elite universities, i think we talked to you about this before about even schools in manhattan, where parents send their kid to schools and some of the thinking that has permeated the thinking that undermines liberal education. talk about what you're seeing right now on college campuses and how this has been a long time coming and most importantly when we get beyond this, what it actually says about the death of liberal education in some of these elite universities. >> yeah. well, first, students have every right to protest. free speech has to be at the heart of liberal education.

when speech crosses the line into coercion, when it interferes with the rights of other students to get an education, when it seems to be a form of harassment and discrimination based on the identity of the other students, then it's no longer free speech and it has to be sanctioned. and you know, it's not an obvious line. administrators have a very hard time figuring out where free speech ends and coercion or discrimination begins. so, i sympathize with them when they're called before congress and demanded whether such or such a phrase is a call for genocide and whether that contradicts their code of conduct. what i don't sympathize with them on is that they have failed to teach their students to think in complex ways. to entertain conflicting views.

to argue with each other. to debate each other. to listen to each other. instead, there is among the demonstrators and i think more widely in elite universities, a kind of orthodoxy that set in that makes some students feel absolutely certain of their views and other students feel a bit afraid to even challenge them. and this comes from the adults. it doesn't come from the students. so that's what i blame the adults for. they're in a pickle. they don't know how to get out of it. but they have kind of made this bed for themselves by forgetting or abandoning the core values of liberal education. and that's been a long time coming. it began i think in '68 where certainly ideas among the student radicals that there's only power if there really is no disinterested pursuit of truth. that is now a given. and that is the instinct that today's demonstrators are

protesting with. coming up, saudi arabia could play a critical role in ending the violence in the holy land. nbc's keir simmons is live in the kingdom's capital and he joins us straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪♪ hello, ghostbusters. it's doug. we help people customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. we got a bit of a situation. [ metal groans] sure, i can hold. ♪ liberty liberty liberty liberty ♪ in theaters now.

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maybe the question that today's protester needs to ask themselves, more than any other, is why do i care so much about this particular cause. north korea starves its people. china puts them in concentration camps. myanmar brutalizes the rohingya. the president of burundi says gays should be stoned to death because they, quote, deserve it.

nothing, ukraine? maybe if these google employees had the slightest idea what kind of fundamental it oppressive [ bleep ] they're supporting, hamas, the houthis, the revolutionary guard, they might take a little easier on the world's greatest monster genocide joe. genocide, by the way, is when you want to wipe out an entire people. that's the stated goal of hamas. that's what from the river to the sea means. hamas would do that to israel, but can't. israel could do that to them but doesn't. >> that's bill maher on his show friday pointing out the selective outrage the lack of understanding issues we're seeing from many of those protesting israel over the hamas war. the hamas war that hamas started. the hamas war that continues because hamas continues to hold civilians in tunnels underneath gaza. we could go on and on. but i have to say, bill maher

picked up, we were talking about this past week, this point, you have 500,000 people killed by assad in syria, no protests. 500,000 arabs, killed nothing. hussein, responsible for death of 1 million muslims, schools didn't shut down in the '70s, '80s, and '90s, kept going. nothing. and then you add to what bill maher said, talk about 2 million people killed in sedan over the past 20 years. that civil war continues. nothing on college campuses at all. i wonder what's different this -- oh, wait. it's actually israel. >> yeah. >> that's what's different this time. >> you could add ukraine to this. >> yeah. >> you could add anything. read the recent reporting on what's happening to ukrainian soldiers fighting so we don't have to, so those kids in

college can go to college, okay. we're not putting any skin in the game. we are sending -- oh, wait. no, it was really hard to send funding. i didn't see college kids saying, you've got to send funding to ukraine. because they're fighting for us. when you read about what is happening to ukrainian soldiers captured by russians, and then putting -- if they're brought home in a prisoner swap, they're put back out there three months later because that's all they got. >> just devastating. >> are you kidding me? >> i don't hear anything about that. >> it doesn't involve the jews. >> for the safety of the world. >> it doesn't involve israel. because if this were about arabs dying, this was about palestinians dying, they would have shut down campuses when assad was killing 500,000 arabs. but not a word. coming up, the key points to keep in mind as donald trump heads back to criminal court

tomorrow in new york city. a preview of the week ahead when "morning joe" comes right back. ♪♪ mes right back ♪

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♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪ i'll see you when i get there ♪ >> that's some of what audiences can expect from the new broadway play with music which takes us

back to 1976 and inside the california recording studio of an up and coming fictional rock band as the group navigates heart break, its newfound fame and the challenges of creating a lasting sound together. the production has received rave reviews with "the new york times" writing, quote, "stereophonic" is a staggering achievement and already feels like a must-see american classic. joinings now, one of the show's co-stars, making her broadway debut, juliana, the show's writer and grammy award winning and academy award show's original songs will butler. >> no way. >> a former member of the band arcade fire. >> yeah. >> wow. >> so, guys -- >> where do we begin? >> i think we begin with staggering achievement. >> that's not bad. that's a good start, guys. >> that beats being called, as

john lennon said, a blankette. any way, staggering achievement. will -- >> that's not bad. >> let's start with you. not a bad review. and all the reviews just extraordinary. >> yeah. we got those on opening night. and i foolishly read them at the opening night party. why did i read the reviews? what has this made me? it feels good. i like they like it. >> it's unbelievable. and what is it, david? what is the so fascinating to viewers to people in the audience about a story like this. because, there had been a few not executed quite this well, but there have been a few that kind of dive into this subject matter. >> people love rock and roll. i think people are always interested in what's behind these surface images and the

mythologies we know so well. but i really want to demystify what people think they understand about rock and what they think they understand about artistic processes and sort of peel back the surface. and i think people are interested in that. the show is very intimate. it's not just blown out with rock and roll. i'm really more interested underneath the surfaces. >> speaking of the creative process, talk about broadway and talk about your experience. >> how does it feel? >> it's delightful. it's delightful. and the audiences love the jokes we play. david wrote such a funny play. i just feel the audience is loving all the humor that's embedded into the fabric of the show. and we've done the show now -- we started doing it in october. and so i feel like we've all steeped in it. it's like a very strong, good

pot of tea. and we just get more and more comfortable and are loving it. >> so david, as joe noted, you know, there have been ore swipes at this particular subject matter. but talk to us about the origin of this particular tale. what were your influences? where did this come from? >> it's weird. i don't get linear ideas that lead to something specific. but when i was on a plane trip, i was on a plane going somewhere and i was listening to inflight radio to a led zeppelin song, "babe, i'm going to leave you." and something about the tenor of that music and the intensity and vocals on that song that struck me and i got a picture in my mind's eye of the studio where this guy was singing these very, very intense vocals. and suddenly i just thought, wait a minute, oh, what if that's a play? what would that set look like? what are the opportunities of

using a music studio as a set? i had seen it done in small ways. but really not as a dramatic landscape. and so i just -- something about the intensity of the music and the intensity of that song and this kind of weird push-pull dynamics in the lyrics with this guy saying i want to leave you but also i could never leave you. something about all that planted a seed in my mind and i knew i wanted to write something about it. >> that's a pretty awesome inspiration. inspirational starting point. will, let's talk about you writing music for an era. i love how it's described for a band that grew up listening to the white album and the type of music that kurt cobain would be listening to in the '80s. that's a real sweet spot. and that really was a period of time, one of the greatest periods of time for rock music, other than, of course, every time arcade fire released a new

album! but other than that, how fun is it to put your mind into like, i'm a 1976 man. you have todd runger and the eagles, incredible time, right? >> yeah. and david made a pretty intense chronology towards the end there. i was, oh, reading the chronology, the first tom petty album comes out two months into the studio when they're into the studio. so i'm like, i'm going to blast the tom petty album for research. do it all day. oh, yeah. this is -- they're in the studio and this record comes out. we got to top this. we have -- this is a really good record. >> so tell us about your character and a little more about -- no spoilers, but a little more as to what the audience sees as the story unfolds. >> sure. i play holly. she plays the piano and the keys in the band. she is one of the original members of the band. she's from england.

she's sort of accidental american transplant. and she -- i mean, what's so wonderful about the play is it's kind of hard to categorize any of the characters. they play so many roles and have so many colors to them. it's hard to say she's the enforcer or the musical connoisseur or the mother of the group or the sweet girl of the group. she kind of has all of these different opportunities to express a range of wild emotions. and you just watch this band who have already recorded an album together and are back in the studio. you watched them in process killing each other, killing themselves to make something beautiful. and -- >> yeah. >> yeah. i mean, it's pretty painful but wonderful. >> pretty painful. >> speaking of painful, you

know, david, will obviously great musician. i'm obviously a bad musician. i've been playing guitar, key boards, et cetera, since, i was 12, 13. >> really? >> i still get nervous when i get on stage. what am i going to -- okay. is this going -- right? so i only set that up to say, your actors had to be freaking out that they had to go out and do something that's not natural. talk about that. >> you're right. they were freaking out. we had to -- we had to tick a lot of boxes in the casting boxes. the play is hard to do without music. it's an intricate script. there's a lot of precisely choreographed. i make it really hard for them.

we focussed on finding people who could act and also sing. and if they could play an instrument, great. most of them couldn't play instruments. and so, we thought, okay. we're going to teach them how to play instruments as part of our rehearsal process. we got them music lessons. they did band practice for six hours a day when normal people would just be rehearsing a script. so it was involved. and it was sometimes a little bit hairy. but they turned out to be so incredible. i am blown away by the virtues you ty of these human beings doing this on stage every night. it's all happening live in front of you. i am blown away by them. >> so the new broadway play with -- >> we have to go see that, mika. >> you should. >> it's playing now. i would like to. >> we're going to go. this looks awesome. >> please. >> it's playing now through

august 18th at the john golden theater. actress juliana canfield. >> it's a staggering achievement. >> composer will butler and play write david ogmy. sorry about that. we'll be back with another one hour packed show including one liners from president biden at the white house correspondent's dinner. keep it right here on "morning joe." ent's dinner keep it right here on "morning joe.

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weather. what the hell? trump's so desperate he started reading those bibles he's selling. then he got to the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. that's when he put it down and said this book is not for me. >> laura trump is here tonight. okay. i got one woo. she recently released the cover of the song "i won't back down" upon hearing it, tom petty died again. i can't believe i'm saying this to a member of the trump family, but maybe stick to politics? president biden, isn't it crazy that he's only our second catholic president. what's even crazier that in just a few short months we'll have our third in rfk jr.

i'm kidding. like his vaccine card says, he doesn't have a shot. >> that's why i want to close tonight with my genuine thanks to the free press. there are some who call you the enemy of the people. that's wrong and it's dangerous. in the age of disinformation, credible information that people can trust is more important than ever. that makes you, i mean this from the bottom of my heart, makes you more important than ever. so tonight, i would like to make a toast. to a free press, to an informed citizenry, to an america where freedom and democracy endure. god bless america. >> some of the jokes and the toast from saturday's white house correspondent's dinner but also obviously a more serious message at the end of his

remarks from president biden. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." jonathan lemire is back with us and joining the discussion is the host of the podcast "on brand" with donny deutsche. donny deutsche. >> so jonathan lemire, i'm curious, what was your take away from -- everybody loves the kick around whoever the comic is that comes in, the president usually. but as you know very well, because you've been at it and we've been at it, that is just a tough crowd. it's always a tough crowd. and i thought -- i thought both of them did a pretty darn good job. >> yeah. i was there saturday night at the washington hilltop. it's a cavernous ballroom. that's first of all. second, you have an audience that's sort of at times afraid of being caught laughing at a joke. a lot of people are reporters, the whole thing is live on c-span. you don't know where the cut away cams are. so it's a reluctant room at times. it was striking to me those of

us in the room thought both men, particularly colin jost, did really well. he played very well in the room. even though he then got mixed reviews on tv. some of the sort subtle stuff he was doing, the pauses, the shifting the eyes, the delivery maybe didn't translate as well on television, but he was very good in the room and got a lot of laughs. and the president's speech was brief. but also amusing. he delivered a really couple good lines. went after trump in a more personal way we heard of and ended things on a serious note, not just calling the defense of the first amendment but also again calling for evan gershkovich, reporter held in russia, other reporters held throughout the world called for their release. important night that raises scholarships for young journalists. >> i thought colin jost did a great job. >> he was good. >> and he would tell a joke and if it didn't get an immediate reaction, he kind of, donny,

almost carson like, tried to look around. and i thought rode that way -- >> there was a fine balance he had to strike during this time. you can't be bringing the house down with -- you have to be very careful what you say. at the same time, try and be funny. >> try to make them laugh. i thought it worked, donny. >> yeah, look. he did a great job. it is, as jonathan said, i've been to that room a bunch of times. it's a tough, tough, tough room. it's also the topics today are so rough to deal with as a comedian. really, really hard. i think he did a yeoman's job. would have loved seeing shea there. that would have been really fresh. not that jost wasn't great but seeing the two of them would have been special. let's turn now to the new interview, former u.s. attorney bill barr when pressed act his sport for donald trump in the to 2024 presidential race barr said he said he will vote for trump

despite previously saying the former president should not be near the oval office and trump mocking him last week on social media. here is what he told cnn on friday night. >> i think that -- i've said this all along. if faced with a choice between two people, neither of which i think should be president, i feel it's my duty to pick the person who i think would do the least damage to the country. and i think trump would do less damage than biden. and i think all this stuff about a threat to democracy. i think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement and the biden administration. >> the biden administration or president biden himself? >> biden's support for the progressive agenda. >> what you said recently, which was that, you know, the conduct that was involved with donald trump, you said trying to subvert and prevent the progress, the execution of probably the most important process we have, which is the peaceful transfer of power after an election, name one thing that

biden has done that's worse than that. >> i think his whole administration is a disaster for the country. >> is worse than subverting the peaceful transfer of power? >> did he succeed? >> only because vice president mike pence stood in the way and now the people who are lining up to be vp again say they will not do what mike pence did. >> look. i was very loud in saying i thought it was a whole -- the whole episode was shameful. i'm very troubled by it. that's why it's not an easy decision. but i think when you have a hobbson's choice, you have to pick the lesser of two evils. >> you don't see this as the definition of putting party over country. >> no. >> i mean that is -- donny, that is so gross and pathetic. and the fact is, first of all, if he did vote for donald trump, he would be putting party over country. it's not even a close call. fact is he's lying. he's not going to vote for a guy that told him two weeks before the election to arrest his

opponent and throw him and his family in jail. kept pressuring bill barr to arrest his political opponent. and then january the 6th, he talked about the subversion of the peaceful transition of power. this is a guy he knows who has called for the execution of generals, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who for being insufficiently loyal to him, a guy that's talked about immediately throwing into jail people in the press whose coverage he doesn't like. i mean, his people have talked about arresting us, arresting the people who run this show the second they get in power. look to the camera and say, we're coming after you. and of course, donald trump talking about, you know, trying to get media thrown in jail and executed. i could go down a long list

without ever bringing my name up. but this guy is talking about -- he said he could use s.e.a.l. team 6 to execute political opponents and they couldn't arrest him. and his lawyers argued before the supreme court last week that if trump ordered a military coup, that could be an official act of a president. bill barr knows all of this. it's dangerous. and let me just tell you, when you ask somebody, what has joe biden exactly done that makes -- that compares to january the 6th, that compares to executing generals, they have no answer. >> it's everything. >> they go into this general ambiguity. i heard one pathetic supposedly, you know -- well, i heard one pathetic person in a position of power in the conservative movement, former senator, saying, you know, the student

loan program, you'll hear that from some republicans. biden trying to forgive student loans, that was as bad as donald trump trying to subvert democracy. none of them believe it. they're all liars. and for them to say that student loan forgiveness is as bad as january the 6th, shows you how morally bankrupt this party and this political movement has become. >> what i don't understand -- excuse me, from a human level, mika, you brought this up time and time again, how do these guys face their grandchildren around children and next door neighbors and don't they understand how history is going to see them? bill barr, you're not getting another job in the trump administration. what's in it for you to not stand up and be a man and tell the truth and basically speak what you know to be absolute fact and to sit there and just when asked about the threat to democracy, to kind of just throw it off and january 6th, just

tease that off a little bit, i can't understand from the human motivation point of view what -- >> no. >> don't you get it? in other words, i could see if this guy was lobbying to be the vice president or wanted to be attorney general again. what's in it for bill barr to not stand up and be an honest patriot? i don't understand. >> for our democracy. >> she did a good job disposing how dishonest he was. he had to say he didn't succeed. but that's because his vice president. i mean, it was really a pathetic attempt at a back flip. >> it was. and jonathan lemire, the fact that -- oh, he didn't succeed. oh, threat to democracy -- >> he'll try again. >> what's a threat to democracy. go before the election. two weeks before the election, donald trump ordered his attorney general to arrest joe biden and his family.

and he got angry because his attorney general, bill barr, would not arrest his political opponent two weeks beforehand and immediately after the election tried to subvert democracy. and all these jack asses get on tv, oh, he didn't succeed. oh, you know there's some people who will even say democracy is on the line. yeah, it is because the last time trump was in power he actually tried to destroy american democracy. >> and if mike pence had stepped into that waiting limousine as the secret service agents wants him to and left the capitol, trump may have been successful there. so, this is -- but this is another sadly predictable and embarrassing performance by the former attorney general bill barr. he is far from alone. just in the last couple days. think about this, mitch mcconnell, again say that even though he denounced what trump

did on january 6th, he will be supporting trump. he'll be endorsing trump. well, that's what the party wants. that's another person who is choosing party other patriotism. yesterday florida governor ron desantis, of course sharply critical of trump on campaign, desantis offered to help trump with fundraising since trump is really struggling there. we all wait to see if nikki haley will eventually do the same. her supporters say at least for now she won't. we'll see. but there's a sad inevitability. they all choose party over patriotism. >> you saw a brief moment with mike johnson. maybe there's something in the republican party has some degree of integrity. and then obviously you see this. what i found interesting about that interview also is what i call the head tilt when asked about democracy. and i get this from people all the time when they'll tell me th voting for trump. don't you understand what's on the line here? have you read project 25? don't you understand that he would start -- he would weaponize the justice department. that the ftc and fcc and joe to your point earlier report to

him, we wouldn't have a free press anymore or have a free election anymore and go through the litany of things and you get that kind of head tilt. really? no. >> uh-huh. >> people are not letting it seep in. >> where were they? >> what i find interesting is that these are not dumb people. people cannot let in what the potential is and what will happen. they give you this blank stare. >> that's right. >> no. you're too extreme. it's so obvious it's happening in slow motion. and yet people can't take it in. and i don't -- as i said, these are not maga people. these are people that i have dinner with. these are people i know. >> just desensitized. >> i'll explain, go through it. no. they kind of look at me like i'm a little nutty. no, this is happening. with that being said, will you still vote for donald trump? no. that's not happening. >> it's unbelievable. >> so the republican national committee was poised to open 40 satellite campaign offices across key battlegrounds when former president trump abruptly

replaced rnc chairwoman ronna mcdaniel. since then, neither the committee nor the trump campaign has much infrastructure or personnel in the swing states that will decide the election. joining us now, senior writer for the dispatch david drucker, latest reporting entitled "after rnc shakeup, trump ground game could be compromised". >> david a lot of people are looking at whether it's the war in gaza, hurting biden, whether it's the trials, possible conviction, that could possibly hurt donald trump. gdp versus inflation. all of these issues. obviously important to voters. but you and i both know, that at the end of the day, blocking and tackling wins super bowls. and if you're not raising the money you need to raise, and on top of that, you don't have the ground game that you need because you've put family members in there to help perhaps

funnel money from the rnc to your lawyers, i mean, that's blocking, that's tackling, and at the end of the day, that adds up to whether you win or lose, doesn't it? >> well, it certainly can. and i think we have to look at this, joe, in the context of how close the past two presidential elections have been decided by just tens of thousands of votes, less than 100 votes across a few states. and when elections are decided by a point or less, a percentage point or less, a ground game and money can make the difference. whether you're reaching your voters, turning them out to vote, especially with early voting and mail-in voting, when you get in the 2 to 3% range, maybe it helps. maybe it doesn't. beyond 3% it doesn't overcome other challenges. but when you're looking at how closely decided michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, nevada,

arizona and georgia were four years ago, if president biden is in a dog fight the same as he was with donald trump four years ago, this kind of infrastructure advantage can make a huge difference and be a huge advantage. and the question is, what is the rnc and the trump campaign going to do? they're going to do something. they are developing a ground game of sorts. my sources tell me it's going to be narrowly targeted, focussed on trump in about half a dozen states, maybe a couple of more. but what is it going to look like and who's going to be doing the work? >> yeah. jonathan, i guess i should have put a caveat on what i said before is it makes all the difference in close races. and it's going to be close in wisconsin. it's going to be close in michigan. it's going to be close in pennsylvania. georgia is probably going to end up being close. nevada always ends up being close. and again, the chaos -- i mean, you got trump now sort of going sideways with kari lake in

arizona. i mean, there's so much going on here that there's several states that could be decided by less than 30,000 votes. that's when you need a ground game. and again, right now, they've gutted the rnc. so may not have the ground game. >> yeah. over the weekend i was speaking to a senior democrat, optimistic one who feels good about president biden's chances. this person said a significant, a comfortable win in any of these battleground states would be half a point. that's how close this is going to be. and everyone seems to know that. so that ground game is going to play such a big role. so david, let's talk about the elephant in the room, which is trump and his legal troubles. first of all, that's where a lot of republican money is going right now to pay his bills. but also, donald trump is now off the trail. he is sidelined here for six weeks or more. and it's curious, despite him complaining that the trial is keeping him from campaigning, when he's had off days, he hasn't been on the road. he hasn't been on battleground

states. he's been at mar-a-lago, he's been golfing. how is it that the rnc, other republicans going to account for this, their best fundraiser, donald trump, being sidelined? >> well, look, i think they're looking at the polling right now and the polling looks good for trump. i don't think they're all that concerned. that's why trump isn't necessarily that concerned. what i found interesting in talking to republicans that are aware of what's going on with the rnc is that trump, over the last year, repeatedly told ronna mcdaniel, i don't really need the rnc to do a ground game. i just want you to handle voter integrity and in his terms catch the cheaters, right? so trump isn't even prioritizing ground game, at least as it comes out of the rnc. i think trump's senior advisers know better and know they need it. and so i think the question is how do they plan to deploy trump and who do they plan to do this work? how much will be done at the rnc. how much will be done outside of the rnc because there are talks about that going on as we speak. the interesting thing, as you guys know about trump, and i

kind of go back to 2020 when he was on trial in the senate for that first impeachment, when everything looked so rosy for him heading into 2020, and one of the reasons why, he wasn't on the trail. he wasn't tweeting or posting on social media. it was once that trial was ver is that he got back into the swing of things that voters were reminded of all the things that exhausted them about him. so all the things about him that exhausted them. and so, i'm really curious to see once he's finished with this trial and he's able to get out there and the way he usually is how that impacts things. >> well, and you are right. donald trump this year has real professionals around him. and they're good enough, mika, that they understand donald trump is better sidelined. the less people hear from donald trump, the better donald trump -- and if you can just limit that to him walking out of the courtroom, saying a couple of things and then moving on -- >> that would be -- >> the professionals that are around him now this time on his

campaign are like, that's a win. >> so, senior writer for the dispatch, david drucker, always great to have you on. thank you very, very much. coming up, secretary of state antony blinken is in saudi arabia this morning amid stalled hostage negotiations in gaza where he describes israel's latest offer to hamas as, quote, extraordinarily generous. nbc's keir simmons has more on that visit next. plus, elon musk makes a surprise visit to china, meeting with officials there to push for the roll-out of tesla's self-driving technology in the world's biggest market for electric vehicles. and rising prices have consumers in california suffering sticker shock as a recent minimum wage hike has increased food prices at a number of fast food chains. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin joins us next to break this all down. "morning joe" will be right back. ♪♪

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27 past the hour. secretary of state antony blinken is in the capital of saudi arabia today as he pushes for a deal to release the hostages taken by hamas on october 7th. nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons reports for us from ryad. keir? >> reporter: good morning to you. amid intense negotiations here in saudi arabia, and across the region, secretary blinken speaking here a short time ago, describing israel's offer to hamas as extraordinarily generous and saying, a deal between saudi arabia, the u.s. and israel is potentially very close to completion. this morning, secretary blinken in saudi arabia, with a deal over the war in gaza and release of hostages on a knife edge.

hamas releasing a second hostage video in less than a week, including 64-year-old american israeli keith siegel. his niece, holding on to hope. >> i think that now is the moment. i think i have faith that we can do a deal now. >> reporter: siegel one of five americans still believed to be held in gaza. israel's army is poised to launch an assault on gaza in rafah. the white house says president biden reiterated his clear position on rafah during a call with the prime minister. within hours, netanyahu declaring no deal. egypt's foreign minister telling cbs n's dan murphy a deal remains difficult. >> these are difficult negotiations. >> here in saudi arabia, secretary blinken discussing the day after war, aiming for incentives to bring the

bloodshed to an end. >> hamas has before it a proposal that is extraordinarily, extraordinarily generous on the part of israel. and in this moment, the only thing standing between the people of gaza and cease fire is hamas. >> reporter: we reached out to the icc, it declined to comment. >> nbc's keir simmons reporting from saudi arabia. thank you. meanwhile, protests against israel continued over the weekend with dozens of students and demonstrators arrested at cluj campuses across the country. nbc's news correspondent erin mclaughlin has the latest on that. >> reporter: this morning, tension on college campuses growing and spreading.

pro-palestinian protesters arrested at virginia tech overnight, after they failed to disperse following warnings from police. the university saying it recognized that the situation had the increasing potential to become unsafe. the heated conflicts now playing out at dozens of schools nationwide, with students demanding an end to the israel-hamas war and that their schools divest from israel. over the weekend, fights breaking out at ucla, duelling protesters clark on campus. police officers set up barriers to separate the demonstrations. >> i would not feel safe being on campus. it really makes me feel even being back here pity for the students who have to deal with this everyday. >> reporter: also in los angeles, at usc, the school's famed trojan statue vandalized. the protests popping up from the west coast to the southwest, at arizona state university, to the midwest at indiana university.

>> i never believed it would happen here in bloomington, indiana. it was terrifying. >> reporter: and washington university in st. louis where 80 were arrested this weekend. to the east coast, at northeastern over 100 people were arrested, ending that encampment. at harvard, protesters put up a palestinian flag where an american flag would fly. and while demonstrators remain at m.i.t., the president wants encampments shut down. >> it is creating a potential magnet for disruptive outside protesters. >> reporter: columbia, new york, the pro-palestinian encampment still stands despite the police crackdown earlier this month which ignited campus protests nationwide. many jewish students across college campuses fearing for their safety. >> the atmosphere created here, you feel threateneds a jewish student. this is disgusting. >> reporter: meanwhile,

thousands of miles aaway, encampment in gaza, a message to the american students. >> that was erin measuring mclaughlin reporting. i don't understand why colleges and universities aren't stepping up for basic behavior. >> because they don't adults aren't running the campuses. nobody is saying here that there shouldn't be protests. we would completely understand the protests. certainly talking about the humanitarian crisis in gaza. yeah, that's something that needs to be discussed, that students can discuss that they can debate over, talk through. of course, it is fascinating. there were no protests, campuses weren't shut down when vladimir putin invaded ukraine. oh, but i guess arabs weren't involved.

wait, 5,000 arabs were killed by assad in syria. really started a global refugee crisis. >> take us back to ukraine for a second. >> and humanitarian crisis. and yeah, we could talk about ukraine and the savagery of ukraine. and again, nothing. >> then there was a long-running dispute on capitol hill about funding for these people in ukraine who are going to war with russia because they were invaded and they are fighting for the safety of the world. we are sending aid. we're not sending our own troops. they are doing this -- >> right. >> for the world. and they are being brutalized, sexually tortured. their towns are being demolished. and i don't see the protests. i just don't notice anything when republicans wouldn't get funding to ukraine. i didn't see these students engaged intellectually with this

battle of ideas. >> half a million arabs die, nothing, under assad, nothing. a million muslims die because of sue dam hussein, nothing. absolutely nothing. they use -- they use chemical weapons on arabs, both of those dictators did, use chemical weapons to kill arabs. not a word. not a word. where were the encampments then? oh, wait, oh, hold on a second. jews are involved in this. so, jews were slaughtered on october 7th. the worst slaughter since the holocaust. so they're trying to get the perpetrators, the terrorists, and suddenly, half a million arabs killed by assad, not a big deal for columbia students. who cares. but here, whoa, well, changes everything. i will tell you, though,

again -- >> this is a very complicated situation. >> i'm not looking at the students. yeah, it's very complicated. and unfortunately they're simplifying it. >> that's it. >> with chants of genocide. from the river to the sea. chants of genocide. holding up signs that talk about the final solution. holding up signs that say, jewish students will be the next victims of hamas. they have not adopted the language of peace. they have not adopted the calls for a two-state solution, for a palestinian homeland. they have -- they have adopted the ideology of hamas. kill jews. destroy israel, from the river to the sea. so, it's very interesting, donny. we had forbes exclusive, a third

of people that forbes talked to that hire, we're just not looking to ivies anymore. we're just not doing it. and it's pretty simple, donny. you're a guy -- again, ran an extraordinarily successful business. you want hard workers who are intelligent, right? but you also need to worry about the culture of your company. you need to give people who are team players, people who can get along with fellow workers and most importantly, when there are disagreements, somebody that actually has been taught or has the emotional iq to defuse the situation. and say, okay, let's sit around the table and work this problem out on where our company needs to go or where our division needs to go. nobody -- george packard of "the atlantic" said today, they stopped teaching that at a lot of ivy league schools. they stopped teaching students how to talk to each other, how

to debate difficult issues and how to come out on the other side without talking about genocide, which is happening at columbia. and i've just got to say, for the life of me -- and i guess i'm glad we have you here because you're a penn grad. and we've got jonathan lemire here, a columbia grad, i would love to know what you think about what's going on penn, columbia, what's going on at these schools? >> it's reprehensible. joe, i want to thank you. you were the first one out to bring up the point bill haher about the atrocities around the world, the millions of arabs killed the atrocities in sudan, but only when it involves jews in israel do they protest and where are they then? it has to be repeated and repeated. it's an interesting thing, they put a palestinian flag up in harvard and it replaced the u.s. flag. i brought this point up last week. this is not just a hatred for

israel, this is a hatred for the u.s. and for what we stand for. i think that's an interesting thing that they replace -- not the israeli flag, but the u.s. flag. here we open on a story of blinken saying that israel has given a very generous offer for the hostages. a generous offer. their offer should be put down your guns, give us the hostages and we won't continue the invasion. that should be their offer. yet israel, who was attacked, has to give a generous offer. the last point i want to make about the protesters -- guess what, protesters, original israel was losing the pr war tremendously. that was the war they were losing. >> not anymore. >> not anymore. you are handing it b back to the jews and israel because the world seize these obnoxious protesters screaming pro-hamas, screaming river to the sea. guess what, you're putting the empathy back tojews, baaing to israel. thank you, stupid protesters. >> not just jews, which is a

great thing. but also to netanyahu. netanyahu wins when they do this, when they chant about genocide and donald trump wins. it's what happened with nixon in '68. people don't like to hear it. i've gotten some emails from friends who watch the show. friends of the show. and, you know, it's what happened with nixon in '68. i didn't bring this up before, my parents, my parents were democrats. '68 changed them. the '68 chaos changed them. the democratic convention and the chaos in the street, my family said enough of this. >> listen to this. >> enough of this. this doesn't -- this isn't who we are. you know, people, left wingers, my whole life love to say, oh, they become republicans because of race. no, they didn't. i never heard any racially insensitive thing in my house

growing one my parents. they were saints on that front. but i tell you what, they could not put up with watching the american flag burn. they could not put up with watching people who have been given the responsibility to mold children's minds into being young adults. >> and civil servants. >> and civil servants. allowing them to run their universities. 18-year-olds, allowing them to go into the president's office and take it over. i just -- you want to know -- you want to know how ronald reagan got elected in 1966 and 1980? that's the beginning of it right there. and we're seeing it here. and donald trump. let me tell you something, donald trump and his people love this. i've been hearing it all week. they love this going on. because they're going to elect trump. let's bring in right now,

co-anchor of cnbc andrew ross sorkin. andrew, i'm so exhausted by the lack of leadership at these ivies. i'm so exhausted. there's some -- you know, we had the president of vanderbilt who actually knows how to run a campus on last week. but i want to focus in on that forbes article, that forbes exclusive that says a third of the people that they've interviewed, they've surveyed said no more. ivies, no more. we're going to look to the new ivies. >> which are not ivies. >> which aren't ivies. but they also don't have the chaos. and i must say also again -- i apologize for going on, it's so important that people know the context of this, university of alabama, i talked to an alabama administrator couple months ago. and she told me, people in the northeast are just flooding in. we literally, we don't know what

to do with all the students that are coming here, that are going to georgia, that are going to smu, that are trying to get into vanderbilt, that are trying to get into unc chapel hill. all of these colleges in the south because they want to get their kids away from the ivies they went to. >> look, i think we're starting to see a shift. i think that poll is representative of it. i spoke with a whole number of business leaders last week who are trying to understand what kind of influence they can have about this. i wrote about it over the weekend. by the the way, got a lot of both praise and also a lot of backlash about the idea that american businesses may ultimately boycott hiring from some of these universities and not just those individuals who are participating in either the violence or blatant anti-semitism, but in some cases students from these entire schools in large part as a way to pressure the administrations to change their policies because, what is going to change

these universities? if kids are not getting hired from these universities, that is going to shift the entire balance. i talked to private equity folks, wall street folks who are saying, should we be managing the endowments of these institutions? you know a lot of these institutions, these universities, call up the wall street firms and say, you know, we're only going to put our money with you if you sign documents and fill out forms that talk about your d.i. policies and other things. maybe the wall street firms are going to start asking the universities what are your policies? so i think there's going to be a lot of pressure brought to bear. one of the last things, when you talk about following the money, about why all of these things are happening. you know, and why there's not been more pressure to bear. a lot of these universities, especially ivies, have such large endowments today, that whether they get additional donations or not, literally for the next ten, 20 years, it almost doesn't matter. the budgets that they have are so huge, the billions of dollars that they have. so the idea of listening frankly

to the donors or to the businesses that would be hiring the students, they may not have the influence that you might think that they would. >> so andrew, i want you to hit two more topics that are completely unrelated. >> yes. >> so this will test your dexterity here. one is elon musk made a surprise visit to china. give us your winners and losers there. and then secondly, california fast-food prices sticker shock. go. >> i'll go quick. big, big trip to china that elon musk just made and it's an important one to watch. they are going to allow -- the chinese government is going to allow tesla to effectively use its full self driving mode, if you will. but the only way they allowed him to do it is to use the mapping and other data software from bayou. he has to partner with a chinese company and he says he is willing to do that. that's a concession to some degree from him. but at the same time, it's somewhat surprising -- i don't know if surprising but some

folks who thought will china allow him to do this? will there be retribution, for example, from the tiktok decision that just happened last week in the u.s. and whether tesla would become a chess piece in these geopolitical debates. what you're seeing china say, we're doing business with tesla, trying to say we're open for business. so keep your eye on that. the piece in what's going on in california is even more interesting. you're seeing prices rise in a meaningful way for fast-food chains in california on the backs, it appears of higher wages going to $20 an hour in california. having said that, there's an argument to be made that these restaurant chains are pushing it. meaning they're taking margin. and they're doing that at the expense of customers. the wages have gone up, but the truth is actually food prices for the last six months have actually come down. so, you know, used to go to chipotle and they would say avocados cost a lot more

therefore the guacamole would cost a lot more. they haven't reduced the price since avocado prices wept down. it's a story that's not going away but it's an important one. >> cnbc's andrew ross sorkin, a lot on your plate today. thank you very much. we appreciate it. still ahead -- >> yeah, exactly. >> a look at the stories making headlines across the country including a tornado outbreak in oklahoma that left -- >> it just keeps coming. >> a trail of devastation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ limu emu♪ ♪ and doug ♪ hello, ghostbusters. it's doug... ... of doug and limu. we help people customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. anyway, we got a bit of a situation here. ♪♪ uh-huh. uh-huh. ♪♪ [ metal groans] sure, i can hold. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty liberty liberty liberty ♪ ghostbusters: frozen empire. in theaters now.

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it's a beautiful... about reducing your risk. ...day to fly. wooooo! time now for a look at the morning papers. we begin in oklahoma, where the tulsa "world" reports that four people were killed in tornadoes. weather hit the region produce 17 unconfirmed tornados. a state of emergency was reported for 12 oklahoma counties and officials say that a total of 100 people were

injured in the storms. in minnesota, the "star tribune" is highlighting an increase of police recruits. a total of 15 police departments more officers hired last year than in any previous four years and fewer officers also resigned or retired last year, and this is the first time that the agencies have reported an increase in the ranks since the pandemic and the 2020 killing of george floyd which led to a historic exodus. and the arkansas "democrat gazette" has a front page story of the meteoric sports betting taking the off in the state. they predict there is going to be a uptake because of mobile betting. it is the second year that mobile betting is allowed in the state, and in march alone, $50

million was done in march on mobile platforms. and now, a new look at the memoir of sophie spoke in abu dhabi, a mental health advocate. f all ages to prioritize their emotional wellbeing and psychological safety. >> your needs, you should not expect the minimum, but expect the maximum of nourishment presence and help from the people around you and we should not have to hold it altogether as women. >> relatedly, sophia is out with a new discovery and wellness book titled "closer together, knowing ourselves and loving each other" and she is sharing moments of her childhood and struggles with a eating disorder

and career as a television host to de facto first lady and mother of three. and sophie joining us now and also editor of "forbes" maggie mcgrath and houmadine who is also the morning editor of mika, and i arrived right when you were on stage, because i was struggling doing that job and this job and you were amazing, and i walked in and i thought this is going well. tell me why you decided to write this book and it has such an important message of mental health at this moment. >> well, you been shining a light on mental health for some time, and that crowd was amazing. and mental health is a common

denominator, because we all have a brain and it is also our childhood bond of attachment, and i go into it in book that it is so important to examine our mind and understand why we have the personality that we do, and from the childhood attachment and how you were taken care of in your life and who took care of you and present and touching you enough and playful with you and validate, how you saw reality and give you a sense of congruence and trust and then we carry it into the adult relationships, and the inner child is always active and if you don't think so, read "closer together" because you will be surprised what you learn and the need for authenticity, and need for attachment and authenticity is visceral need. and it is needing to express our own unique personality without needing it to please. we do it as a child to get parents' love, and partner's

love and validation and we do it in the public sphere and work sphere because we need the human connection. and so mental health is not the absence of mental illness but it is the absents of connection and that what we are seeing in this country and canada and the world and the war is raging of the world not knowing how to address their anger and sadness. so we have to be careful not to pathologize everybody, but to deal with our sadness and anger. >> sophie, you are such a light and so pleased to have you in abu dhabi and the book is a best seller, and no surprise, because so much that you have taught us, and one being that 70% of the mental health challenges start in childhood, and all of these

conversations about emotional leadership and emotional health or something that you said both in abu dhabi and in the book that has struck me is that we are all one trauma away from each other. and so tell us about the notion. >> and every time i say it and hear it, it is not only my words, but it is how people resonate this. we are all one trauma from each other, and it is one trauma life event to how your brain reacts to an event which is epy genetics and as mothers to hold the nucleus of the family and holding the responsibility of the family and being fatigued and insomniacs and suffering from sleep disturbances and depression and a lot more and it is a lot to carry. so whether you have a big roof over your head and all of the objects that you have dreamed of, but if your feeling of

security is not okay, then it is game over. when you are looking at students protesting on student campus, and when you are looking at the wars raging, and looking at people who cannot process their anger properly and hurting the animals, because i have been watching the show this morning, it is a mental health experience and crisis at every step. >> talking about a lot to carry, you have lived so much of your life in the public eye and you successfully navigated a pandemic with a prime minister of a large country, and separation and co-parenting and more. so how have you maintained your mental health practice during these challenging times? >> i am disciplined in practice and sit in silence with pain, and everybody has pain throughout their lifetime and to not feel overwhelmed, and we are not taught how to do it, and we

are not taught how to teach children how to regulate their motions, and we are raising a generation that are not only impairing and causing problems in the child development brain, because we are on strings all of the time and less human connection because we are on screens, but it is the brain where it is in expectant mode, but children don't fall off of trees and scrape their knees and get back up, and knowing the low cost and low risk is going to be met in teenaged years of higher costs and higher risks because we are on screens, then we don't have the resilience to deal with the crises in the world, because we are threatened by the differences of others. the most unhappy human beings are because they can't trust others, and look at the state of the world, and there a lot of human mental health to be done.

>> and the name of the book is "loving each other." and thank you so much for all of you. that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. >> right now on "ana cabrera reports" new chaos on campuses, and new clashes and new arrests as the pro palestinian clash across the country. plus, extreme weather, and where the threat is today after reports of more than 100 tornadoes in six states over the weekend. and also ahead, the second week of donald trump's hush money trial, and the look of the banker who is returning to the stand. and later, political frenemies and how donald trump and ron desantis are looking to bury the hatchet.