Second, but he was in a thing called the civil war. You can understand that. Andrew jackson was really, really treated badly. In fact, his wife died during the process. A lot of people said she died because of the way they were treated. I mean, she was heartbroken and broken in so many other ways. I heard that for years. And i look now, even last night i was saying it. I said, Andrew Jackson or anybody else, when you think of the fake things, nobody has been treated like trump in terms of badly. No, thats true. Thats true. Thats definitely true. There is some truth to that, willie geist. Its hard for me not to also look at the person asking the questions. I mean, are you kidding me . These networks floating trumps lies. Im not going to make fun of it or anything, but it is creating a whole level of lies that people are swallowing whole because they think thats news. They think those are facts. Thats the part thats sad. I mean, its pathetic that donald trump parallels himself to Abraham Lincoln and anybody else, but it is more pathetic and truly pathetic that our democracy is on the line. Because if that guy becomes president , look at his last house guest. Thats our country. Yeah, i mean, thats pure north korean state media, that kind of interview. Why are you treated so badly . Why are you so great . Why are people so mean to you . Also, another thing happened to Abraham Lincoln that former President Trump didnt get to, assessing who was treated worse in terms of leave that right there. Yeah. Leave that right there, yeah. To your more serious point, its a good one, which is, there are all kinds of Media Outlets friendly to donald trump whose audiences are receiving that message, the one you saw. Theyre not receiving messages about his stolen documents. Theyre not receiving messages about his attempts to overturn the election in 2020, all the legal trouble in front of him were about to talk about. Theyre hearing that. You have a not a majority of the country but a large swath of the country that is taking what you just saw there as news. Exactly. Theres a lot going on, actually, with donald trump that they might want to consider, but theyll probably never hear about it, at least in terms of facts. Along with willie and me, we have host of way too early, jonathan lemire. Former aide to the Bush White House and state departments, elise jordan. Big day for trumps legal issues. Former President Trump is expected to be in court today for a hearing in the federal classified documents case against him. In fort pierce, florida, u. S. District judge Aileen Cannon is set to hear arguments on two of trumps motions to dismiss the charges against him. The first argues he was allowed to store classified documents in unlocked rooms at his club under the president ial records act. This, he claims, was all good. The second motion claims the main statute used to form charges against the former president is unconstitutionally vague. In that interview yesterday with the rightwing network newsmax, trump defended his actions. I took them very legally, and i wasnt hiding them. We had boxes on the front a lot of the boxes had clothing, were moving out, okay, unfortunately. Were moving out of the white house. I had the right to do it, in my opinion and my lawyers opinion and Everything Else. Lets bring in former litigator and msnbc Legal Correspondent lisa rubin. Good morning. Apologies for putting this to you again because weve addressed this a thousand times. The president ial records act, does it cover what donald trump did . It does not cover what donald trump did. Willie, there is a definition in the president ial records act for what could count as personal and what is president ial. Donald trumps argument is effectively, its president ial if i classified it as such in my mind. Everything in my mind was personal before i sorry, personal if i say so in my mind. Everything in my mind that i took with me was personal, therefore, there can be no criminal prosecution against me. Right. Again, apologies for making you answer that question for the 1,000th time but well keep doing it as long as donald trump makes that argument. More broadly speaking, this classified documents case, where are we . Were hearing about judge canon and delays, delays. Where are we in the progress of bringing this to trial . A couple weeks ago, judge canon had a hearing where she took argument from both sides, when the case should be tried. She has yet to issue a Scheduling Order Setting A Trial Date. In the meantime, shes Hearing Argument today on two motions to digs miss. Dismiss. Im not a betting person, probably would make a miserable one, but the fact she set oral arguments on two motions to dismiss makes me think maybe she thinks she can get rid of this case without setting a trial date. That is frightening, given the gravity of the charges here and the evidence that supports those charges. Whats going to be the states defense then . What will we hear from them today if they try to counter what judge canon your theory, may be looking to make it go away. What is their argument going to be . First, the president ial records act doesnt support the interpretation and almost the perversion that donald trump is trying to give to it. That the president ial records act would hold that any number of the things donald trump took with him are inherently president ial and should have gone to the National Archives. There was a process to follow. The people in the white house surrounding donald trump were well aware of the process and in communication with the National Archives before he left the white house, let alone after it was brought to his attention, were missing stuff. The kim jongun letter, the letter barack obama left for you. That kicked off a cat and house game with the National Archives, then the fbi was chasing after trump to collect all the things he took. As you well know, he was not honest with them at any step of the process. He deluded his lawyers by having the boxes moved in this bizarre threecard monte he was playing with his legal team. I dont think itll hold up. In terms of the unconstitutional vagueness of the statute here, he is talking about the willful retention of National Defense documents. He says, among other things, that the phrase National Defense is unconstitutionally vague. He says that the unauthorized retention is another aspect of what is unconstitutionally vague here. We know this has been used to prosecute lesser stature people. Recently, a National Guardsman in massachusetts, i believe he got 21 years. 21 years in prison because of what he did, which, granted, was pretty egregregious. At the same time, it shows the Classification System is totally broken. How can, with a straight face, and nothing will happen to donald trump when what he did was equally egregious in terms of the crimes of these other lowranking, very lowranking soldiers and Defense Contractor . Elise, we see that all around us, right . We see that in the federal election interference case, too. 950 people have been sentenced and convicted for crimes associated with january 6th when the instigator in chief remains free from trial right now. It is no different here. Donald trump is immune to arguments that other people are doing time for the same things he has done and, in many cases, he has done worse. Lisa, im curious. I understand this is the reality, the process, the judge we have in this case. But if trump is not held accountable for taking classified documents into his club, into his home, in boxes, claiming theyre his, getting his workers to be involved in what is a crime, what is the precedent that will set, if somehow he skates from this . It is a terrible precedent, mika, which is why people like me are socon Certainconcerned A Rule Of Law and its survival in the post trump and during trump era. The notion that a former president can escape to their private residence with hundreds of hundreds of documents that affect the National Defense, lie about it, Enlist Maintenance Workers and valets in the crime, expect them to take the fall, and walk away scotfree, and then, potentially, get elected to the office again, thats unfathomable. Not just take the documents but obstruct, obstruct, obstruct. Correct. All the attempts to have those recovered, as well. Im struck by the clip you played of greg kelly interviewing him, nobody has been treated worse than trump. No one has treated us worse than trump has treated us. He is skating on this. Hell be in court in florida today trying to get this dismissed. Just north of there in georgia, the judge in the Georgia Election interference case has dismissed some of the charges against former President Trump and his codefendants. Judge scott mcafee dropped six counts, three applying directly to donald trump, who still faces ten Felony Counts in that case alone. The six counts focused on Accusations Trump and his codefendants asked Public Officials to violate their oaths of office. The judge found the language in the indictment too generic and did not specify which part of which oath of which constitution, state or federal, trump and his codefendants had been accused of asking georgia officials to violate. In that ruling, judge mcafee writes, these six counts contain all the essential elements of the crime but fail to allege sufficient detail regarding the nature of their commission. They dont give the defense enough time to prepare. End quote. The judge left the door open for prosecutors to reindict on these dropped charges. Judge mcafee expected to rule tomorrow on whether d. A. Fani willis should be disqualified from the case. Lisa, lets talk about what this is and what it is not. It is a splashy headline. Counts dropped against donald trump in georgia. Seems what the judge is saying is, you didnt explain these well enough. What are you accusing them of . What did the oath of a constitution violation, what do you think they did . They can refile and reindict or appeal the ruling. What judge mcafee pointed out himself, he said in the federal system, you file a motion for a bill of particulars. You ask for greater specificity and detail. If the court says you deserve it, you get it. We move on. We move to trial. Georgia law doesnt allow for that. Hes saying, im constrained here. I wish i had the same powers the federal court does, but this isnt the case in georgia, therefore, ill give you an extra six months from this order to reindict on these six counts, should you choose to. That having been said, this is not the big deal and the huge victory lap that the Trump Campaign and steve sato are making it out to be. Here is why. First, the rico count remains. Thats a count that for all defendants could lead to 5 to 20 years in prison time if convicted. More importantly, that rico count is alleged through a series of what are called overt acts. These are the things people do in furtherance of a conspiracy. Rico is a conspiracy. Hes saying, look, you might not have alleged with sufficient specificity what aspects of the oath you were trying to get these other georgia elected officials to violate, but you can consider each of these episodes as overt acts in furtherance of the rico charge here. Meaning, it comes into the trial still. We can still talk about the raffensperger call as proof of the rico charge. We can still talk about the call that, for example, trump made to now deceased Georgia Speaker, imploring him, you appoint the fake electors. All those things for these six counts are still a part of the case. What they are not is separate, independent charges with which these people can be convicted. Fair to say, these were poorly assembled or poorly argued. Well give you another chance to make your case because i dont know what youre arguing, is what hes saying. Poorly pled is how lawyers would describe it. You did not put together a Charging Instrument in the form of the indictment that gives these people enough notice to prepare for trial. It is a violation of their Due Process Rights as a result. Again, big picture here, rico charge remains. Not a single defendant here got off without remaining charges against them. Trump still has ten. Even mark meadows has the rico count, having got rid of the other one against him. And this is all still evidence in the case. It can be used to prove the conspiracy. Mika, the 91 Felony Charges against donald trump becomes 88 Felony Charges against donald trump. Could go back to being 91. Right. Thats where i want to ask lisa, are there other for those who arent completely reading into this, how did this come about . Was there a motion to drop . Is there a possibility other charges randomly, seemingly, could be dropped throughout this process . Does this delay the trial in any way . What is the timing of the trial as it appears now, and if and when it starts, does trump have to appear . Does the timing look like itll happen before the election . A lot of questions. You guys give very good pop quiz. Ill try to address those all. Mika, this came about because trump and others of his codefendants moved to dismiss these specific counts. It is called a special demur in georgia which they filed. They have a number of other motions to dismiss, aspects of the indictment or the indictment as a whole. For whatever reason, this is the one judge mcafee dealt with this week. What to read into it and how itll affect the trial remains to be unseen. But you can consider this, like, an element of judicial housekeeping. If you are preparing for the next stage of pretrial proceedings, you want to move the case along irrespective of who will be in charge, fani willis or someone else, you want to call the indictment. If there is a time to narrow the charges, now is it before we move into a phase where youre going to expect other defendants to perhaps plead out, or youre going to bring this closer to a trial date than we are now. It was an interesting choice that judge mcafee did this before ruling on the fani willis motion. On one hand, he might want to do this before he hands it back to her, as embarrassing as the proceedings were. On the other hand, he might be trying to call the indictment before he says to the prosecuting counsel of georgia, your turn. Find a prosecutor who is equipped to handle this indictment. On the point, judge mcafee gave himself tomorrow, a selfimposed deadline, to decide whether or not fani willis will be disqualified. We thought this was coming, the fani willis decision. Instead, it was the Surprise Move to dismiss the counts, at least temporarily. Lisa, you laid it out, what the document may be foreshadowing. If you had to hazard a guess, what do you think will happen . Well, i want to take this document out of it because i dont think this really impacts his decision on that. Its a hard, hard call, john. I think judge mcafee is struggling with what the right legal test is. If an appearance of impropriety is enough to disqualify fani willis, based on georgia case law, hell say the appearance of impropriety is there. On the other hand, i dont think we saw the proof that she and nathan wade financially benefitted from his involvement in the case. This is a woman who makes more than 200,000 a year. The amount of money in their vacationing, as lavish as it seems to be normal american, is not enough to justify the sort of bizarre, concocted schemes the defendants advanced. On top of that, it is still a he said he said, right . We dont have any clear indication of who is telling truth, and the Phone Records dont change that, even if mcafee lets them in. It could go either way. I think this is going to end up being a blemish on fani willis history no matter how it turns out. Stay tuned, also, to see if they face Disciplinary Proceedings from the state bar based on accusations that they werent telling the truth, even if she holds on to the case. All right. Msnbc Legal Correspondent lisa rubin, thank you very much. Aplus on the quiz. Yes, aplus. Aced it. For sure. Passed. Thanks. Still ahead on morning joe, well get to the fight over tiktok. Some top lawmakers argue its not about banning the app, its about National Security. Well be joined by a House Democrat who cosponsored the bill that passed yesterday. Plus, were taking a look at President Bidens swing through the midwest as he works to shore up the blue wall ahead of november. And hunter biden says he wont return to capitol hill next week for a public hearing in the Impeachment Inquiry against his father, President Biden. What his lawyers are saying about the, quote, carnival sideshow. Youre watching morning joe. Were back in 60 seconds. Welcome back. The attorney for hunter biden says the president s son will not testify next week in a public hearing for the House Oversight committee. Bidens lawye sent a letter declining the request, calling the hearing a, quote, carnival sideshow. Howell added hed consider testifying if the panel also included relatives of former President Trump. The letter was dismissed by comer, saying he expects hunter along with his business associates. So far, theyve come up with, a, nothing. B, nothing. C, nothing. If you looked at Donald Trumps family