Stories you are looking for, not just today, but in the weeks and month ahead . Looking ahead, the president and axios right now we have a globe thats been turned into a rubiks cube. Because the president has so much on his plate. He has two nuclear standoffs hes looking at, iran and north korea. And in addition to that, the early beginnings of a trade war on multiple fronts as weve been seeing here and throw into that the distraction of an investigation, a hot summer ahead. Indeed it is, mike allen live for us in washington, d. C. , appreciate it as always. Well see you back on morning joe in a few minutes and well be reading axios a. M. In just a little while. You, too, can sign up for the news letter by going to axios. Com. Im Yasmin Vossoughian alongside Ayman Mohyeldin and louis burgdorf, morning joe starts right now. Meet the man who wants to put Martha Stewart in jail. Martha stewart is being prosecuted not because of who she is, but because of what she did. 42yearold james comey, the u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york. Will President Trump use the powers of his office to pardon Martha Stewart . The president floating that idea today. Back in 2003, nbcs ann thompson introduced us to jim comey and he just so happened to prosecute the maker of the finest meatloaf sandwiches around. And im here with donald and Melania Trump and were going to make a scrumptious meatloaf sandwich, which is donalds favorite sandwich, according to melania. Ive never had meatloaf this good, but its very good. Also on forgiveness list, none other than a Celebrity Apprentice, who once compared his plight to that of Nelson Mandela and also gandhi. You are the project manager. Right. I know. And governor, i have Great Respect for you, i have Great Respect for your tenacity, for the fact that you just dont give up. But rod, youre fired. Thank you very much. Welcome to morning joe. Its friday, june 1st, im kasie hunt, we are having some trouble with joes camera at the moment. So hopefully hell be with us shortly. Willie is on assignment for the today show, mika will be back on monday. With us we have National Affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc, Jon Heilemann. The kids are running the asylum. Msnbc contributor Mike Barnicle. Do we have the flames for mike yet . Are those ready . I have them myself, but you dont. All right. Donnie deutsche is here and former aide to the george w. Bush white house and state department, elise jordan and columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post david ignatius. Jon heilemann, where do you want to start here with these pardons . Where do i want to start . Kasie, kind of extraordinary. We alluded to this here in some of the footage at the top of the show. Interesting, some of the connections between some of the people who the president has pardoned and who he is thinking about pardoning. They are connected in various ways through various people who have held the job who yently hold the job now as special prosecutor, people who have had connections in the past. Pat fitzgerald, jim comey. The president seems, theres no direct evidence to say that this is true or at least in reporting weve seen so far, but the president seems through his pattern of pardoning and the pardons hes thinking about or thinking about giving, hes trying to send a message to people about what he, about his willingness to do pardons, but also about what he thinks of some of the people who have involved in prosecuting these cases like jim comey and pat fitzgerald. Donnie, you know how messages get sent, sometimes in coded fashion, sometimes through Smoke Signals and other means. If youre sitting around, like your friend Michael Cohen must be today and yesterday, watching the television antics of the president and the pardoning antics, what message do you think Michael Cohen and others might be receiving . In the case of Michael Cohen, its pure confusion, up until this point trump has said no other signal than youre on your own and you barely work for me. To everyone else, its happy days are here again. If theres two words that are meant to go together, its trump and pardon. No checks and balances, no other system to go through. And i just wondering, theres been a lot of talk leading up to this. Are there any legal recourses, any point gearing up during the pardon or is a complete unadult rated path to the president to do exactly what and how he wants . Theres a process to pardons that again, the president s message yesterday was the process doesnt matter. The institutions dont matter. The rule of law doesnt matter. What matters is what i, donald trump, want to do of the moment. And of the moment means i want to pardon these people and heres the pardon. Do you think just is there any chance were going to get to this im sure. People are drawing kind of a beautiful mindstyle charts that paint the picture of the connections between those who have been pardoned, those who put those people behind bars, those who might be pardoned. Is there a chance that all of this that donald trump likes the executive authority. He likes, as donnie said, for once theres something he can do that no one can tell him he cant do. In the end theres no real check on his authority. Its up to the president. I think that Kim Kardashian west came and made the pitch for sentencing reform and she made the pitch for a 63yearold woman who has been imprisoned for 23 years, a memphis great grandmother, alice johnson, that she should be let out, she served her time for 22 years for a nonviolent crime. I dont think that maybe what tim kym was trying to get was for danesh de souza who was convicted and found guilty for Campaign Finance violations to be getting this free pass. This is once again, just totally bypassing can i just stop and ask what have you kids been doing . Gee, im away and you kids just take over the set . Yeah. Sorry. We had been playing cards just before you arrived. We made pancakes this moerng. Youre very strict about that you always just say we can have our wheaties, but we went crazy and had some chocolate chip pancakes. Yeah, okay. And sugar cereal. As much as you want. David ignatius, fortunately is in washington, d. C. David, its not really hard, its never really hard to read donald trump. He is a day trader. Hes the most crude, hes the crudest of political operators. Just as he admitted to leslie stahl off camera that he was attacking the press and basically numbing americans to these constant attacks of the press. And going at their credibility, hes doing the same thing with pardons. Hes throwing one out to the left if he could have 10, 20 pardons out there before he tried to pardon Michael Flynn, why, for donald trump, that would be great, to the higher the number, the better. Because americans will be less shocked when he gets around to people involved with his own misdeeds. You know, joe, i think were going to have soon, a line of petitioners figuratively stretching around the white house. As it becomes known that the president likes giving pardons, people will queue up to ask for one for a friend, a relative, a business associate. And hell love it. Being asked to give a special power of the presidency, and grant mercy to those he thinks deserve it, comments about dee souza, about blagojevich. Martha stewart, fascinating. And obviously second, there is a message here for all the people who are caught up in the investigation, starting with Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, all the people who mueller and company would like to flip, would like to pressure. And heres the president , sometimes described the iron whim of this president. He gets to exercise it on pardoning as on nothing else. So im sure theres going to be a new big feature of the trump white house. Notice he also surrounding himself in celebrity, Kim Kardashian yesterday. And then, you know now hes talking about pardoning other celebrities. People that are well known. People that have even been on his show. And theres a political angle to that as well. But you know, Jon Heilemann, i love how people when they talk to you about the power of pardons and the power to indict a president , they speak in absolute terms just like i heard three, four, five months ago that it is impossible to indict a sitting president. The fact is, its not impossible to indict a sitting president. Regardless of what the Justice Departments own guidelines are. You may break past those guidelines and this president may find himself indicted. The same thing with the power of the pardon. If the president of the United States starts moving towards pardoning people that are impacted in his own investigation take that up to the Supreme Court. I bet youll find at least four justices, maybe five, who say that when a pardon actually undermines the reason why the founders put that power in place at the beginning, well then maybe that pardon power is not so absolute. Right, i mean i think in both of those cases you mentioned, joe, i think the question is, is not that we dont know, right . There are, as with so many things in donald trump were in the realm of the unknown. Weve made this point before its the case that theres no one has ever tested the question of whether or not a sitting president can be indicted. Theres decades of policy that doj puts forward. But no one has ever taken it to the Supreme Court we dont know what the law of the land is on that question. Similarly, because the fact that most president s have exercised the pardon power with restraint, sometimes controversially, in the case of bill clinton and mark rich for example. There have been controversies, many of them. But generally president s have exercised the pardoning power with restraint. Weve not had any situation remotely like the one were now contemplating in which it looks like a sitting president was using pardons in order to, was starting to hint at the notion he might use pardons to undermine an investigation and to, to further obstruct justice. So what would the Supreme Court in its current, with its current constitution, what would they say if that matter was brought to them . If donald trump did the thing were now all talking about . No one knows. But i think youre right to say that when you enter the land of uncharted territory, you, we all are kind of without a map and a compass. And no one should speak in absolutes. Exactly and thats the whole point. People need to stop saying that, oh, you know the pardon power is absolute. He can do whatever he wants to do. Ive heard that over the past 24, 48 hours. We dont know that thats, thats the case. If you abuse any constitutional power, the Supreme Court will pull back hard. And will make a correction where correction is due. And they certainly im sure would look very long and hard at the pardoning of people that are involved in an investigation. That involves the president s own wrongdoing or possible wrongdoing. Donnie deutsch, final question here as we talk about all of these celebrities, Kim Kardashian going in yesterday. You obviously now were talking about other celebrities that people have followed, a conservative sort of celebrity type that did movies about barack obama and i think Hillary Clinton. Ive always had a theory about president s. I learned it first with Ronald Reagan, the great communicator, and i remember Ronald Reagan trying to get a couple of hundred Million Dollars for contras in central america. It sounds like a lot of money. In terms of military budgets, its a pittance. Its absolutely nothing. And i saw reagan turn on the charm, we had communists in south africa, i mean in south america. And this guy was going at it, giving everything he had, and americans just didnt respond. They just the reagan magic was gone. They had seen this tv show for six years and had enough of it. And ive always noticed same thing, barack obama, 2013, the guy just after getting reelected, just didnt connect. He was a great speaker, he had some wonderful moments. I mean charleston was just one of the most moving speeches weve ever seen. As far as being able to move the country it stopped. Im wondering with donald trump, as his reality show churns at such a rabid pace, im wondering whether, you where you think we are right now in his ability to move americans and whether were already some americans may already be getting tired of this act. Im talking about americans who voted for him who may be facing sheer exhaustion. Its a great question, i wish the answer was, were close to that point. I dont think so because there is such an inpredictability. Lets look at this as a reality show. Lets do the same analogy. If it was a real reality show, survivor you would turn this off and say weve seen this before. The thing about donald trump which makes him such a compelling car wreck, a compelling entertainer, you dont know whats coming next when you still have a show where thats intrigue, intrigue that leads to disgust or jubilation, we lean in. I wish as a marker, branding, a pop culture watcher, i could say this is wearing thin. The thing about the man is, there is always a new trick, whether you love him or you hate him, its interesting. When horde stern was in his zenith and they were doing research what do you love about howard stern . Why do you watch the show if you love him . I love him because i dont know whats coming next. Why do you watch the show if you hate him . I dont know whats coming next. Thats the thing about trump, the nerve that he hits like p. T. Ba barnum. The president and his moves on tariffs, just been absolutely all over the place. And you just really wonder what our ail layllies and adversarie thinking, you never any what tariffs are going to be implemented. What tariffs are going to be knocked down. We see this again this week. Normally the policies would be directed at our adversaries. In this case the United States has initiated a trade war with our closest allies, here in north america and europe. Citing National Security, the Trump Administration announced massive new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from mexico, canada and the european union. 25 on steel and 10 on aluminum. The move is expected to raise the prices for American Consumers on everything from canned soup to cars. And while 150,000 jobs could potentially be saved, experts and the u. S. Chamber of commerce are warning that at least two million jobs are now at risk. Following the announcement President Trump tweeted in all caps, fair trade, exclamation point. A visibly frustrated canadian Prime MinisterJusten Trudeau said the tariffs are totally unacceptable and an affront and its unconceivable that canada could be considered a National Security threat to the u. S. Canada announced dollar for dollar retaliatory tariffs on American Goods worth 12. 8 billion. Mexico also responded, saying it would impose tariffs of equivalent measures to various products, including pork bellies, cheeses and steel and the eu said its launching Legal Proceedings against the u. S. At the wto and in a swift, firm and proportionate manner, imposing tariffs on a list of American Products thats ten pages long. Joe, i think the one, the one piece of this that i find concerning that apparently the price of beer cans is likely to go up, right in time for the fourth of july. Right in time for the fourth of july. And david ignatius, you look at what the president did yesterday, what hes been doing over the past several months. And his actions really could not cause more unrest among our allies, more economic uncertainty. Republicans spoke out against it, its one of the few things that really gets them speaking out. Paul ryan, kevin brady, orrin hatch. With a statement, this is dumb. And im sure there are a lot of our allies that are thinking this. But again america, once again, being extraordinarily unpredictable. To our allies, friends, people who have counted on the United States being the bedrock of the international system. Since world war ii. Donald trump wants to shake things up. In this case what hes shaking up is the fundamental alliances of the United States. Our alliances with europe. Our best friends, real bullwashing bulwark with canada and mexico. Canada is the country where we have Early Warning of missile threats that would strike our country. This is being done by the president to try to achieve some transformation in terms of the status of manufacturing in the u. S. Our trade levels. I think for people its a headscratcher. I think ben sasse said it just perfectly in what you quoted. This is dumb. Theyre saying i understand that china is an adversary. But europe and canada . I think theres real confusion. Theres also going to be significant damage from these actions. As the retaliations come in. People will feel it in terms of products that they buy in terms of the cost of things that are part of products that they buy. And so i think were just at the beginning of a a kind of blowback from this action for the president , for the white house and the public that says, i d