Large of jurors currents and author of the book the crisis of zionism. Another hour of velshi begins now. Now. Good morning, its sunday oo may 5th. Many republican lawmakers have spent the weekend in Sunny Florida where the gop held its annual spring retreat this year. Some of them will have to face the bleak situation that faces them on capitol hill. Thousands of her presenters will be back in session tomorrow. There is one big issue hanging over their heads. Marjorie Taylor Greene is continuing to bow to force a vote to oust the speaker of the house, mike johnson, which she intends to bring in the floor in the coming days. If you didnt already know, marjorie Taylor Greene is big matt that johnson worked with ha democrats to negotiate the passage of some major bills, particularly the latest package of foreign aid that includes 60 billion for ukraine. Aid to ukraine has become a ne contentious point for Many Republican members, driven in no small part by Donald Trumps opposition to sending more aid i to the wartorn nation. In fact, the majority of House Republicans actually voted against the latest ukraine aid package when it came up for a vote a couple weeks ago. Johnson, however, appears likely to survive the threat to oust him, thanks in large part to his counterparts across the aisle. House Democratic Leaders announced last week that their t members would be willing to wo vote to table the motion, effectively rescuing Jostens Speakership at least for now. Rs even amongst House Republicans, there doesnt appear to be much appetite for another potentially embarrassing speakership battle. So far, only two other gop members, Thomas Massey and paul gosar have publicly supported marjorie Taylor Greenes effort. What happens next . Where is the house go from here . Democrats have expressed their willingness to work across the aisle to get something done in the house but the extremists within the Republican Party see bipartisanship as an affable unforgivable sin. Even though trump is being t forced to spend most of his time inside the courtroom as a criminal defendant, he remains defective the leader of the e gop, his influence is undeniable. He is the clear source of the issues that continue to drive a wedge in the Republican Party, causing chaos within the political system. Joining me now is hayes brown, Opinion Writer for the msnbc and steve bannon and an msn pc lyrical contributor, and author of the book the imposters, how republicans quit governing and seized american politics. Marjorie Taylor Greene is facing quite a bit of pushback for her allies and others in the Republican Party or as many are republic to oust mike johnson. Why is she moving forward with this plan to tear down her own Party Speaker . In the abstract you would think marjorie Taylor Greene would back down. She is seeing all kinds of pressure from conservative media from her own colleagues in the house. Ag common sense might say the smart move for her would be to listen all these folks and back down. Shes not doing that and i think there are three reasons why. The first is i think she has backed herself into a corner. She will look bad if she goes through with this but on the other hand if she backs down she looks weak. She is looking to avoid that which is one of the reasons shes moving forward. Additionally, there is a dynamic in which the Republican Base likes people who fight even when they know they are going to lose that fight, because there is an urgent among reconciled conservatives that they want to see the effort, they want to see the fight for the sake of the fight even if the outcome is predetermined. In addition to that, green is of the opinion, i think shes wrong, but shes of the opinion that there will be backlash in the base. They will vote in large numbers to take Speaker Johnson and far left activists will bail against democrats in an Election Year and will ultimately hurt democrats to proceed in that course. I think thats a mistake, that assumption, in large part the Democratic Base understands why the party is going on with this. You look at why greene is doing this and this is a key fact. There is an election exactly 6 months away, people are just going to be voting for the present, these House Members are all up for reelection two. Lets think about that. This issue that steve raises, there are a few democrats who have expressed dissatisfaction with the decision to keep Mike Johnston alive but fundamentally the Democrats Gain more by saying this is what the country needs to get done, the republicans are a complete junkyard of a mess. So why dont we not contribute more to this . I think that youre right there. I think anyone who is unwilling to go ahead and help out with this vote for mike johnson are probably a very safe district. If youre a democrat who is in a Swing District as there are few Swing Districts these days than you are looking at this issue very pragmatically. You are looking to be able to say we are the party who is actually able to govern. We are the party who was actually able to put aside petty differences and make sure something happens. I think that any sort of backlash among democrats is probably going to be among the more progressive members saying, look, why dont we try to shoot arrows shot . Get Hakeem Johnson actually and as a speaker . The counter to that is in leveraging democratic vote yet again to help out mike johnson, this clears the way for a stronger democratic hand as they tried to keep republicans i from pushing forward more cuts s in the new goshen for fiscal year 2025 which should be happening this summer. They are preparing to fund the g government for next year, which the timeline gets weird when you see how much things get pushed back in congress. This years federal funding didnt pass until march thanks to chaos among the republicans. To keep johnson in place, democrats are going to use that leverage to say, look, we dont want these insane cuts, lets have a clean, straightforward negotiation from the start on what the spending levels will be. Hopeful thinking, if true, steve. I know you read everything. There are some progressive members of the Democratic Party who are underscoring the fact that mike johnson is actually ideologically one of the more conservative members of the house, and he is still an election denier. So the idea that democrats might not just be keeping the business of government going but my delicious i dont want to put words in hayes map, but recurring some favor or gathering a chip for something r they could use later. There are some democrats who say not worth making a deal with the devil. They have a point. Y lets be clear about this. Be mike johnson is not a moderate. Hes further to the right and kevin mccarthy, mike johnson is the most far right speaker in modern american history. At that point why in the world would democrats go along with saving him . I think we know the answer. For one reason its the devil you know versus the devil you dont problem. They had to vote to replace mike johnson, will his successor be worse . The answer is probably yes so the calculus makes sense. I can, look at recent history, the last several months. Johnson has repeatedly turned to democrats to advance key legislation, including the ukraine aid. That is an important element for them when they are making this decision. As he just noted, there is leverage coming up, votes on essay authorization, key bridge, there are votes on fiscal year 2025 and if they can leverage this road in an advantage then that works in democrats favor. Hayes, i am conscious of the fact that there are many people who are worried about democracy and how the next y election goes, not from a horse race perspective, not from a pulling perspective from a substantive perspective. I worry about bringing this wo topic up, but this gathering of republicans in florida right now underscores one thing, and n that is the unofficial race for Vice President ial candidate for the Republican Party is on. A handful of people who want to be trumps running mate are down in florida this week and basically auditioning for trump. Whats your sense of how this goes and whether it even matters, who Donald Trumps running mate is . Donald trumps running mate matters in the way it always matters. If he is a knight unable for whatever reason to fill the duties of president , who is f going to step in . I think that when you look back at 2016, the idea of mike pence being in there as a backup to trump, as being a sort of yes man to him, that, i think, should weigh heavily in our minds. We should be thinking about, ul yes, this person could become president , but who is going to enable him the most . Whos going to say, yeah, youre right. He is not going to push back on him, he is trying to do unconstitutional things. Who is going to be in the room to say no, i dont think thats right. Given what weve seen, theres not going to be many of those people, none of the people who you have shown on screen are going to be that person. On that level, it doesnt really matter who he picks amongst this cruel, there are very few of them who are going to have anything substantive to say to contribute to the administration that he is going to be running. There are some who are definitely worse than others, i will give you that, some who will be more chaotic, more viscerally opposed to the actual action of governing, but i think that as far as who is going to be the top choice . Honestly, we are not going to know until trump makes that pic. No one is asking us for advice on it anyway. Thanks so much. Hayes brown is an Opinion Writer for the msnbc daily. Channel 11 steve benen is the author of imposters, how republicans quit governing and seized american politics. Donald trump may be forced to split his time between campaigning for president and falling sleep in criminal court, but hes got a whole team making antidemocratic plans on his behalf, exactly what they are up to you and why they are plotting this so openly coming up. Coming up. [ doorbell rings ] you must be isaac. Come on in. [ sighs ] heres my pride and joy. [ romantic music plays ] beautiful stair renovation, sir. And theyre covered with your home and auto bundle with progressive, so you get roundtheclock protection. So, is gabby coming down . Oh, she said shell meet you at the prom. Norman, bad news. I never graduated from med school. What . But the good news is. Xfinity mobile just got even better now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. Plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. I gotta get this deal. Thats like 20 a month per unlimited line. I dont want to miss that. Thats amazing doc. Mobile savings are calling. Visit xfinitymobile. Com to learn more. Doc . Speedco donald trump, the presented gop nomination for president hasnt had a lot of time to campaign for the last four weeks. Hes been sitting in a manhattan courtroom for his criminal hush money trial. He did attend the Spring Donor Retreat which was conveniently held at his Maralago Club in florida. According to nbc news in florida, trump compared the Biden Administration to the secret police force of germany. According to audio of the luncheon provided to nbc news, trump said, quote, these people are running a gestapo administration, adding, once i got indicted, i said, well, now the gloves have to come off. Often another room, Trumps Campaign team was delivering a closeddoor presentation to donors. They were confident they could flip democratic strongholds in minnesota and virginia to the trump column in november. This plan of action from team trump comes as bidens Reelection Team says its eyeing North Carolina and florida, two states where republicans have won in several consecutive president ial elections. Joining me from florida is nbcs news correspondent tosha burns. Good morning to you, we spoke with the chair of the rnc, michael watley. What does he say about the tumultuous state of the gop right now . Reporter both parties have very different problems, but they both have problems when it comes to unity. The solutions are also going to look very different. For the Republican Party, velshi, theyve come out of a really tumultuous primary where nikki haley, being out of the race for months, key battleground states like pennsylvania and you also have a lot of discourse on the hill right now. The chairman, the new chairman of the rnc has been beating the drum of party unity. I asked him how some of this discord is playing out and impacting this election and what his message to republicans is. Take a listen. You have some discord on the hill right now when you talk about unity. You have Speaker Johnson who is under threat of a motion to vacate from marjorie Taylor Greene and a faction of republicans in the house. What is your message to that small faction thats trying to take his job . We see three big selections, we need to elect donald trump as president and expand our majority in the house. We want to do that if we are not unified. We need to make sure that all of the republicans understand the gravity of this election cycle, and they do, and we need to make sure that they are on the same space as we are moving forward. Reporter on top of that , this weekend former President Trump did praise Speaker Johnson. He invited him to maralago, notably absent was congresswoman marjorie Taylor Greene, who, as we know, is looking to motion to vacate, to oust the speaker potentially as soon as this week. Because some interesting Shifting Sands given the alliance that has elected for a long time between majorie Taylor Greene and donald trump. There are people at the retreat were considered to be on the short list for donald trump as running mate for Vice President s. What is your sentiment . Ive got a few of them on the screen, these are people who were there. We had a conversation with a few people that suggested that donald trump main criteria for picking a running mate is someone who is not going to mike pence him, who will not have their own view of how things could go and possibly turn on him. Loyalty is a big factor, the other big piece of this is money, which we know the Trump Campaign needs right now. Thats a little bit what this weekend was about. There were hundreds of donors here and most of the major candidates for transrunning mates were here, schmoozing with the donors, their chance to impress and show trump, hey, i can help on the fundraising front. In his speech which was more than 90 minutes long, by the way, he did shout out a lot of those contenders. He was praised for grilling University Presence on the hill. He said about j. D. Vance that he turned out to be incredible after being a critic of his in 2016. When it comes to senator tim scott, he called him an incredible surrogate. He did specifically mentioned that marco rubio and Byron Donalds are being thought about for bp but they have a florida problem given he is a florida resident, Called Doug Bergen A Rich Man and called him impressive and also mentioned christina who is dealing with a Puppy Problem right now. Definitely a bit of a reality this weekend and we will see, ultimately one guy is going to make a decision as much as we want to speculate here, ali. Creative language, dealing with the little bit of a problem. Dasha burns, good to see you my friend. Dasha burns with us in Lake Worth Beach florida. Speak up the former president finds himself back in a New York City courtroom tomorrow for the start of week four of his hush money interference trial. A lot is going on in that trial. Important new testimony from key witnesses. Well talk about what to expect next on velshi. Elevator Doors Opening wait, theres an elevator . Only pay for what you need. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. look, things may seem fine down there, but you need to watch out for diseases. Ill be okay. Does this look ok . ugh. How do i protect myself . With the new Scotts Healthy Plus lawn food. Its the only product that prevents 27 diseases while feeding your grass to help keep your lawn healthy this season. Want me to show you how to put it on . No, i think i know how to use a spreader. Pick up a bag of the new Scotts Turf Builder healthy plus lawn food today. Feed your lawn. Feed it. ella fashion moves fast. Scotts turf builder healthy plus lawn food today. Setting trends is our business. We need to scale with customer demand. In real time. jen so we partner with verizon. Their solution for us . A private 5g network. ella we now get more control of production, efficiencies, and greater agili