Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning 20240702

The plan thaet can do that other than the pope. The pope. Republican congressman troy nells of texas with a totally normal comparison for the former president , the pope. A recap of what happened yesterday in Donald Trumps Criminal Hush Money Trial in just a moment. Plus, trumps comments about Birth Control that he quickly had to walk back. Also ahead a former Senior Adviser to President Obama lays out an alarming Supreme Court scenario for democrats if donald trump were to win in november. Well play for you that warning. Thats another one, elizabeth. Well get to that. So good morning. Welcome to morning joe. Its wednesday, may 22nd. Were in washington. The table is going what are we talking about today . With us we have u. S. Special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay, elizabeth b. Miller and Deputy Managing Editor for politics at politico, sam stein is with us. Well start with Donald Trumps criminal trial where testimony in the former president s hush money trial has officially finished. The defense only called two witnesses. And yesterday, rested their case. Former President Trump did not testify in his own defense, despite telling the press multiple times that he wanted to. Do you plan to testify in your trial in new york . Yeah, i would testify absolutely. Its a scam. Its a scam. President trump, are you going to testify . Yes. Will the gag order top you from testifying . No, it wont stop me from testifying. The gag order is not for testifying. Do you plan to testify in court . Probably so. I would like to. I mean, i think so. I mean, the story of his life. Who shocked me . Nobody is shocked. This is a guy that said, of course, im going to testify. Im going to testify. You knew he wasnt going to testify for a couple reasons. One, hes just a walking perjury machine. Seriously, you got a new Ice Cream Machine that you say makes ice cream really quickly . Creamy, by ninja. Well, hes a ninja perjury machine, right . You stand in front of it for ill never look at the creamy the same way. And it creates instant perjury. So we all knew he was lying. And it is a lie all along. He knew he wasnt going to testify. Again, i wonder who is stupid enough to believe him . Right . I wonder i wonder why his voters that keep going back to this guy when because its not just about its about everything. Oh, you know what, ive got to plan for abortion that everybodys going to love. And im going to talk about it. And then he comes back on states rights. And then he goes, ive got a plan for healthcare. Its two weeks away. Of course those two weeks turn into two more weeks. He has no plan for healthcare because he has no plan for anything positive for america. Yesterday, well get to this in a second, what about contraceptions . Oh, ive got a plan for that. Youre going to love it. Its a smart plan. Were going to take it back to the states. And then again, you know, well take it back to the states which means that Clarence Thomas was right. First they were coming for abortion. Then they were going for contraception and Marriage Equality and keep going on. Thats what he believes in his heart. And then he gets back for a guy that really doesnt believe anything that is one thing he believes. That states should be able to take away womens right to get contraceptives, to have abortions, whatever. Then he goes back to his campaign, that was really stupid, donald. Youre really dumb, donald. You need to change your opinion, donald. Youre an idiot, donald. Thats what theyre say to him. Im surprise that i had talk to him that way. They do, i guess. Then he changes his mind. Oh, wait. No wait. Those are democrats that are no, theyre not democrats. Just like the democrat saying that he was going to testify when the whole world knew he was lying about testifying because he would perjure himself on the stand and is afraid of what he would have to admit about this Tawdry Encounter With A Porn Star and a payoff through michael cohen. Okay. So when asked thats what i have to say, mika. Thank you. Thank you, very much. Thank you, joe. Right Out Of The Box hes awake. I was worried when i talked to him on the phone that he was sleepy. He already had he had his ice cream. Okay. You done good. You know what it is, mika, its so funny, i called Elizabeth Yesterday as well. Huh oh. Its not just me. Its everybody in the times Washington Bureau, when theyre tired, they drink rudys drip coffee. Oh, which you drink black . No, i dont drink black. Okay. Has anyone tried the coffee yet . Rudy says its really good. No. Im interested. Nobody has tried the coffee. Im interested. No. Sam. Im interested. Its the Hair Dye Sweat mixed in that gives it a special flavor. You have to report it out. Then you put it in the ninja and wow, its fluffy. So when asked why yummy. What do you think is in the mug . Oh my god. This is not real, is it . It is. Thats the problem. Yeah, unfortunately. This is our world, 2024. Can you sell . Center. Okay, when asked why he didnt take the stand, because the defense has rested in Donald Trumps Criminal Hush Money Trial, the former president refused to answer. Why did you decide against testifying in your case . Did you not want to take the stand . Wow. So the trial is now on break for the Memorial Day Holiday. And will resume next tuesday, may 28th, for closing arguments. Judge juan merchan has confirmed there will be court next wednesday, making that the first possible day for jury deliberations. Lets bring in former u. S. Attorney and msnbc contributor chuck rosenberg. Chuck, your thoughts on Donald Trumps inability or refusal to participate in this probably his team got him to not testify because i dont think they would have liked that. And just what about this Big Gap Now And Then what happens scheduling wise for this trial where we might be waiting for a verdict. Whats the timeline . Yeah. Well, let me start with the first thing first, mika, if i may. Good morning. Good morning. Its actually a smart decision by mr. Trump, so dont often use the words smart decision and mr. Trump in the same sentence. But it would be rare for a defendant in a criminal case to testify. Of the 50 or so criminal cases i prosecuted, i probably saw that happen two or three times. And it never, never went well for the defendant when he or she took the stand. And so, putting mr. Trumps noise aside, putting the braggadocious aside, it actually was a smart, strategic decision for him not to testify. Prosecutors were ready. I think he would have been shredded. And so i think resting without calling mr. Trump was a good legal decision. What happens now . Well, right now both side are working with the judge to fashion Jury Instructions. That will be the judges legal road map for the jury when they begin their deliberations. Jurors are the judges of the facts. But the judge supplies the law to the jury to help guide their deliberations. And then next week, both sides will have the opportunity to argue, to close, to sum up the trial. And after that, mika, the case goes to the jury and we await their verdict. Chuck, why do these Jury Instructions matter so much to both sides . Yeah. You know, its a great question. Theres not an obvious answer unless youre a lawyer and you sat through this thing. By the way, sitting through this thing can be painful. I hated this part of trial. Once the defense rested, i felt like i was done, but i wasnt. So here is an example. And just an example, but imagine that the government wants to prove that mr. Trump caused the entry of false records. They want to prove that the ledgers and the documents were false and that mr. Trump caused them to be false. So, a discussion perhaps only a lawyer could love. What does it mean to cause something . So, im holding a mug of water in front of me right now. If you wanted me to cause me to drop this, you could knock it out of my hand. You would be directly causing me to drop this. You could get joe to knock it out of my hand. You would be using a proxy to get me to drop this. You could sneak up behind is this and scare me and maybe i would drop it, so you werent directly causing me to drop it but you were indirectly causing me to drop it. And so, the government wants a broad definition of cause, not just that he made those entries directly himself, but he caused someone else to do it. On the other hand, the defense would want a very narrow definition of cause. Liability for defense from their perspective ought to be narrow. There the prosecution, ought to be broader. Getting the judge to give the right definition of cause. You knock this out of my hand, got someone else to knock this out of my hand, scared me and dropped it helps the prosecution. A narrow definition of causality could help the defense. And and please, please, mika i just want to remind everybody, please, nobody knocked that out of chucks hand. There actually is rudy coffee inside of it. It burns through table tops. And your lower intestines like sulfuric acid. Lets keep that right there. There it is. Made with some special ingredients that, well, lets just say are banned in 47 states. Chuck, i want to talk about this time that you said you hated. As an attorney, where youre just sitting and waiting. I would watch older lawyers. I wasnt like especially going to the courtroom, i had a very narrowly defined specialty at the law firm where i worked and that was windows. They thought i cleaned windows very well. Thats what i did most of the day. But i watch actually the seasoned attorneys and they would sit and be waiting for the jury. And they hated it. And they hated it because you never knew what was going to happen, right . Thats right. You know what, 90 of the time its right. But you know what, you lose some you should never win and you win some you should never lose. So thats when i hear people on tv trying to predict how a jury is going to come back, despite what where they are, whether in new york or northwest florida. Nobody knows because they really do they take their job seriously. And once they get behind those doors, it just takes on its own life, doesnt it . Oh, absolutely, joe. I can say with confidence that i felt my case went in well. I introduced the evidence i wanted to introduce. I obtained the answers from our witnesses that i wanted to obtain. But it would be crazy, foolish for me to tell you that i knew what a jury was going to do. And i think the reason i hated that part so much is that maybe as prosecutors were a bit of Control Freaks. And this is the thing we absolutely cannot control. Once the case is submitted to the jury, its theirs and theirs alone. And all you can do is sit and wait. So i will never tell you that i know what a jury is going to do. I will tell you that i think the governments case here went in well. Well enough to sustain a conviction. Whether or not that happens, i have absolutely no idea. Can i ask a question . Okay. Elizabeth, go for it. Chuck, so what is the ive heard repeatedly how good the governments case is. What would you guess would be the if trump is acquitted, why would the jury do that . What evidence would they hang that acquittal on . Yeah, elizabeth, in order to equit they also have to be unanimous. An acquittal or conviction requires a 120 verdict. Anything in between would be a mistrial, hung jury. To answer your question, in my experience when a jury acquits, right, and so thats a unanimous verdict, its typically, not always, but typically because they have some question about whether the government met its burden of proof. Thats significant burden. Its proof beyond a reasonable doubt. I will add this, i think its really important, can this jury acquit . Absolutely. Will this jury acquit . I have no idea. But an acquittal is never a vote by a jury that someone is innocent. They are not asked that question. It is guilty or not guilty. And so, often when theres an acquittal, the press immediately touts it as a finding of innocence. That is not the finding. But it would typically, elizabeth, be predicated on a belief by unanimous jury that the government failed to meet its burden of proof. All right. Former u. S. Attorney chuck rosenberg, thank you so much for your analysis this morning. Of course, well see you again soon. Though hes not testifying, donald trump is still talking a lot. Yesterday he unleashed a new line of attack against judge juan merchan upon leaving the courthouse. The former president accused the judge of hating him and having bias against him because of where the judge comes from. The judge hates donald trump. Just take a look. Take a look at him. Take a look at where he comes from. He cant stand donald trump. Hes doing everything in his power. Sam, whats he talking about . I mean, this is typical trump, right . This is the same exact or version of the line he did back in the 2016 campaign where he said the judge against him in the Trump University case was biased because he was from mexico. He wasnt as explicit in this case. That was pretty clear. Where he comes from could be and i think deliberately phrased to be interpreted however the viewer wants. But i think we all know what the implication was. And you know, all of this is sort of surreal. That statement in its own right would have been a shock to the system six, seven years ago. And it was. I remember how we felt when it first happened. But its become sort of normalized because weve been so inundated with trump. And i think on the macro scale, too, we just had a 15minute conversation about a potential the presumptive gop nominee might have a guilty verdict in a Hush Money Payment for a porn star. I think sometimes we dont really step back and say to ourselves that what were living through is a very tense, tumultuous and frankly surreal life. And i think the thing thats almost more interesting than all of that is the degree to which if you talk to democrats, theyll admit as much, the degree to which its not breaking through. And by that i mean right. The polls dont move. Trumps base doesnt move. We have lawmakers who are willingly going to the theres an acceptance happening. Theres acceptance to it and its become baked into our political psyche at this point. Joe . Well, i mean, elizabeth, its it says its far more than just concerning or nerve racking. This is just open, blatant racism thats now been sort of mainstreamed into american political life. This did shock people back in 2016 when he was talking about the judge from mexico. But here is a guy now that says take a look at him. Look at him. See where hes from. And i will tell you, this is what separates donald trump for myself, from me or for most americans. I look at him and go, Madison Avenue . Upper east side . Thats what i see when i see him. Im dead serious. Donald trump speaks in code because he wants people to see the judge as another. Everybody is another unless their immigrant parents were from scotland and germany. And so, you have people ill just go back to it. What did john meachum call it, the clubhouse the Clubhouse Set that are totally fine with. The grill. The grill. Yeah. The mens club grill at Country Clubs that are perfectly fine voting for a guy who talks about vermin, a nazi term, who also uses sort of the fascist slogan of go back to where you came from for sitting members of the congress that dont happen to be white. And then, yesterday, just take a look at him. Just say, seriously . Like what is this, 1933 . It is it still needs to be shocking to us today. But, you know, here is trump has also said we need more people coming from norway and the Scan Da Knave Yan countries. The population has become use to it. Can you imagine if another politician had said Something Like that . We would be talking about it for days. With trump, its just were used to it. Its discounted. And hes bringing up a whole new set of generation. I was trying to think of the right word, category, of politicians who do speak this way. And you see them in congress. And again, the reaction theres so much of it, joe, that right. Its hard to keep track. And again, you know, without going into the origins of fascism and cults, thats exactly how it starts when theres chaos, theres a fire hose of this type of information and its too much to keep up with. And overall communities and different whether its the media or voters or political organizations become desensitized. Yeah. And you know and the voters i wont say they become desensitized because thats giving them far, far too much leniency. Whats the word . The fact is well, i mean, theyre voting for a racist. Theyre it is an active choice to vote for someone who said in december of and i know this because i was a lifelong republican who on this show in early december of 2015, when he was talking about Muslim Registry said i would never vote for a man like that in my life, regardless of if it were my father or a woman if it was my mother, i would never. Right . Thats an active choice to say im going to vote for him even though hes supporting muslim registries. Im going to vote for him even though hes using the old fascist line, go back to where you came from. Im going to vote for him, these Men Grill Enablers are saying, when he says, just take a look at him. Look at where hes from. This isnt a passive choice. This isnt a, oh, im so dumb. They cant even hear what hes saying. No. This is them hearing that hes a racist, hearing that he a racist. These are racist terms. They would have been used by everybody in both parties. I kept going back to that iowa congressman keen who got kicked out of the caucus for saying far less in 2015. By other republicans. By the republicans. This is no trump derangment syndrome because republicans and democrats, predonald trump in 2016 would have considered any of these statements disqualifying. Now it is an active, active decision by members of the Republican Party, by members of the United States senate, by members of the United States house, by republicans, Men Grill Enabler republicans, by anybody thats voting for him to vote for someone who is for Muslim Registry, to vote for somebody who talks about vermin like hitler did, vote for people who said, go back to where you came from, for members of congress who arent white and are now looking at judges who, again, im sorry. Very american to me. And i just would never think, where did he come from. But for donald trump, its all us versus the others. Saying about this judge, oh, you know, hes not going to be fair to me. Look at him. Look at where he comes from. Look at him. Im sorry. He looks like an american to me. I mean, im sorry. Look at that. That guy looks like, i dont know, looks like one of my law professors. Looks like an attorney a teacher. Sat across the table with. Looks like a businessman that i may have dealt with. But for trump, for trump, he hears the name and he goes, look at him. Look at where he came from. And people are actively, actively choosing when they go in to vote for this guy to vote for a bigot, a fascist, a man who says he wants to be an authoritarian and dictator on day one. Yeah. If this were another politician who had not used the kind of language trump had used before, you could interpret trumps comments and he phrases it carefully as saying this guy comes from new york and therefore hes a democrat and will be prejudiced against me. But because we know that donald trump has a track record, specifically of calling out judges who have come from hispanic countries, there is an implication here when he says the words, look at him. I mean, look at not that there is much to see but look at him. Theres an implication thats what hes doing. Youre right about the otherization. When you study people who look at how rise or fall, you have to have normalization of politically violent language and you have to demonize the other, whatever the other is from your context. And i think we have seen both of those things happen. Add a third, otherization, demonization and celebrating violence. Celebrating violence. January 6th defendants, he loves to celebrate people who have broken the law and defaced our capitol and committed violence. But there is hypocrisy, in charlottesville when the other was the people who were walking down saying, jews will replace us, there were not very many republicans who came out and criticized that. Coming up on morning joe, well have for you Donald Trumps comments on restricting Birth Control, which he had to quickly walk back. Also ahead, Senate Democrats plan to force a vote tomorrow on the bipartisan Border Security bill blocked by republicans earlier this year. Well have the latest from capitol hill. Plus, a new warning about what a second trump term could mean for the future of the Supreme Court. Youre watching morning joe. Were back in 90 seconds. 90 secs tamra, izzy, and emma. They respond to emails with phone calls. And they dont circle back, theyre already there. They wear Business Sneakers and pad their keyboards with something that makes their clicketyclacking. Clicketyclackier. But no one loves logistics as much as they do. You need tamra, izzy, and emma. They need a retirement plan. Work with principal so we can help you with a retirement and benefits plan thats right for your team. Let our Expertise Round out yours. Why choose a sleep number smart bed . Can it keep me warm when im cold . And benefits plan thats right for your team. Wait, no, im always hot. Sleep number does that. Now, save 50 on the sleep Number Limited Edition smart bed. Plus, free Home Delivery when you add any base shop now at sleepnumber. Com former President Trump said hes, quote, looking at supporting restrictions on a persons right to contraception. So, related to this is the whole issue of contraceptives. Do you support any restrictions on a persons right to contraception . Well, were looking at that. Im going to have a policy on that very shortly. And i think its something that youll find interesting. And i would say its another issue thats very interesting. But, you will find it i think very smart. I think its a smart decision. But well be releasing it very soon. Well, that suggests that you may want to support some restrictions . Like the morning after pill or something . We are also, you know, things really do have a lot to do with the states. And some states are going to have different policies than others. But im coming out within a week or so with a very comprehensive policy which ill get to you immediately. The Biden Campaign put out a statement in response that reads in part, quote, its clear trump wants to go even further by restricting access to Birth Control and emergency contraceptives. Its not enough for trump that womens lives are being put at risk. He wants to rip away our freedom to access to Birth Control, too. A short time later, trump attempted to clean up his remarks writing in a social media post, quote, i have never and will never advocate imposing restrictions on Birth Control or other contraceptives. And neither will the Republican Party. And joe, of course, he was all over the place in his career as a democrat on abortion and yet look where we are now. Well, of course. You could listen to a lot of things he said during his first campaign. And now hes running around bragging about ending roe v. Wade, terminating roe v. Wade one day. The next day saying, oh, were going to have a compromised 15 or 16 weeks. But elizabeth, if you look at whats happening here, he said specifically, im working on a plan for contraceptives. Well have it out in the next couple of weeks. Well, i think Griswald V Connecticut was around 1965. So hes about, you know, about 60 years late to the game. But hes still talking about another plan for contraceptives and then hes talking about lets look at the states. He tries to clean it up on truth social people say this is bad politics. This is what Clarence Thomas wrote about in the dobbs concurrence. Weve come after abortion. Were coming after contraceptives next, Marriage Equality and down the line. Well, he was clearly caught off guard. He seemed very tired in that response. He was just kind of freelancing, just, wait, i have a great policy coming without realizing what he was actually doing was agreeing. We dont need a policy on contraception. Its legal in the United States. I think its just an example he looked like a very tired candidate right there. And then the comment about, oh, its important to leave it to the states. Its very smart. It was just kind of a mess of a response. And, once again, he was cleaning up. Lets not forget, you know, 2015, 2016 he said, i believe it was to chris matthews, that women should be punished for having abortions and had to walk that back. He has been all over the map on abortion for many, many years. And just again, with donald trump, he often says what his what he feels his audience wants to hear which is many Different Things at different points. Right. And you have a combination of his ignorance of the issues in general. But then, as you say, elizabeth, he looked awfully tired. Just completely beaten down and exhausted. Perhaps that worked together to produce the answer he said then tried to flipflop a couple hours later. But man, this would have to be frightening that a guy who doesnt even know what americas policy is on contraceptives are saying that hes going to be thinking about changing it in the next couple weeks. Lets bring in right now nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali. Ali, this is exactly what democrats, what womens groups, what women, what their loved ones have feared for quite some time, starting with abortion and then as Clarence Thomas said, they would go after the right to have contraceptives, access to contraceptives next. Yeah. The way they wrote the Dobbs Decision was going to open the door to other fashions of controlling how women can have their own say over their own Reproductive Healthcare. I think whats striking about both the instance that you brought up back in 2016, with chris matthews, i remember being in that green room and being with the Campaign Staff and they didnt seem aware of the fact that he had just made a major misstep outside of the lines of regular republican policy. I think thats again what were seeing here on contraception, a candidate who doesnt exactly know what lines hes supposed to color within in terms of where the party policy is. Thats problematic on a lot of fronts but especially when you color outside the lines on an issue where the party is already out of step with where the public needs it to be and then just kind of teasing this as something that doesnt have real life ramifications when it very much does. It very much does. Since its all connected, lets talk about the Supreme Court. Former President Obama adviser, dan pfeiffer, is warning about the impact a second trump term could have on the Supreme Court. Here is what the pod save america cohost said. Think about the stakes of the Supreme Court. If donald trump wins, he will almost certainly get two more appointments. By the end of trumps second term, thomas will be 82, alito will be 78. Theyre definitely retiring. Theyre definitely retiring if trump wins again. Could be kbj holding down the fort. So he will definitely get two appointments. If he gets two appointments, will have appointed five Supreme Court justices, all of whom will be around or below the age of 60 when he leaves office. That is a court maga Court Majority that will rule for decades. We can win the next however many president ial elections and absent something sort of extraordinary happening, trumps fingerprints will be all over the Supreme Court. We know this works. In stwaex, that vacant Justice Scalia seat that mcconnell held open, is one reason that republicans who did not like trump at the last minute were willing to hold their nose and vote for trump because they cared about the Supreme Court. So i think we can do that in reverse. Here we go, sam stein. I mean, this thought of that Supreme Court under a second trump term and womens rights have already been scaled back, our health is now less safe because of donald trump. And Supreme Court choices. Imagine exactly what dan pfeiffer is imagining, moving forward. Its frightening. Couple things here. One is, if trump is to lose this november, it will almost certainly be because of his appointees to the Supreme Court. By that i mean, he has himself taken credit for appointing the justices who overturned roe by the issuance of the dobbs. And that line, that individual line more than anything else up to this point i think is the most Determinative Line of the election. So, i think the Supreme Court, dan is absolutely right is monumental issue in that sense. Secondarily, dan is also right about the actuary tables. The justices are getting older. The next president likely will get to a point one or two. I think theres probably going to be an incentive for the two conservative justices to stay on if biden is reelected. Yes, this is an issue up for debate. Three, the sort of larger, more Morbid Discussion is, is this really the way we want the Supreme Court to be decided . I mean, were basically waiting for someone to croak. Right. I know. And theres larger conversations to be had about reforming the court to make it you do not have this type of intense Governing Entity be decided by someones health while being but rather you can do something that has term limits or structure it so that every president has a certain amount of appointments. That discussion is not happening. I want to be clear. But maybe it should be happening. Go ahead, joe. This is an extraordinarily important discussion that needs to continue to be had. Its i wrote a column about this in the Washington Post four years ago where i laid it out directly. There has to be court reform. You cant have, for instance, roe v. Wade, roe v. Wade was overturned because Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to an event, got sick and died. History hung on that balance. The right 50year right ended because of that. And it is as ghoulish spectacle of people trying to hang on to dear life until their party comes into power. James has been on our show before and talked about the expansion of the Supreme Court that has been thought out for the last 20, 30 years, where each president gets two selections. And you term limit you term limit Supreme Court justices. I think america may be the only western power that has judges appointed for life. Its a crazy process. Now, here is the reason why conservatives who well, faux conservatives, phony conservatives, will blow their stack over this. Theyll go, oh, this is this is not constitutional. Youre undermining no, were not undermining the constitution if we do this as a country, if we try to depoliticize this process. Well, were reforming the United States Supreme Court, mika. George washington, obviously set it up. Adams tried to do it. Thomas jefferson changed a number of people on the court. Andrew jackson changed a number of people on the court. Abraham lincoln changed the number of people on the court. After lincolns death they changed the number of people on the court. This is something that happened regularly until the 20th century, fdr tried it and it didnt it went sideways for him. So then every president is like, whoa, not going to do that again. Uhhuh. But then maybe they decided not do that for political reasons because it ended so badly for fdr. But the constitution provides for this. And i would love to see republicans and democrats in the future look at what sams talking about. That is reform of the Supreme Court that expands the court, that has term limits for federal judges and gives every president two Supreme Court picks during her or his term. And that way its not left to chance. That way, there is an orderly procedure. And that way people dont get 1. 5 billion to try to rig elections and transform the way the United States Supreme Court is run. Yeah. No. It doesnt seem like something thats going to be solved right now, which is what makes dan pfeiffers comments even more frightening. But it does right. But it would be good to address this at some point given the reality right now. Ali vitali, youre here to talk about this border bill. Which i guess Senate Democrats are planning to force a vote tomorrow. Whats the point of this . Once again highlight the issue. I mean, we watched this bill be negotiated in bipartisan fashion at the end of last year and into the early months of this year. Senator lankford was the republican. Senator sinema was in the room as the independent who tends to bring these parties together and of course Senate Chris Murphy was the democrat. This had a lot of gains in it that republicans didnt think they would get from democrats as they had these negotiations over the years. Then of course when push came to legislative shove, donald trump stepped in and told party leadership, i would like to keep this as an active issue in an election year. The border is one issue he turns into when hes in trouble in the polls or politically. Not a sitting member of congress. Ironically enough the way we talk about him on the hill. But what schumer is doing here, and hes setting this vote up for tomorrow, is trying to say, hey, lets show that democrats are trying to legislate around this. I would add that senator lankford, himself, one of the negotiators, though republican, said he is now not going to vote for this because it has become his words, a prop as opposed to a policy. And senator cory booker is someone who also had voted for this bill initially, trying to get it at least through a procedural vote, now he has said that he did that show he was committed to bipartisanship but now hes not going to vote for this because he thinks theres problems with the underlying bill too. Yeah. How successful do you think democrats are going to be in trying to do what theyre doing here in the hill tomorrow, trying to actually capture immigration as something that can work in their favor in we have seen Border Crossings down by 40 since december. Mostly because of what the mexicans are doing, not because of whats happening on this side of the border. Yes, yes. But could they turn this story around . Its true its been as the Border Crossings are down, less outrage in the headlines . Disappear is an issue if the mexicans carry on what their doing. Maybe keep speaking to them. Probably go back up again. But i dont know. They are trying very hard. This is a very, very serious issue for the democrats. But this gives them a big talking point. We passed this bill in the senate it will never become law. We passed it and the republicans were the obstructionists and it was all Donald Trumps fault. We shall see. Its a huge issue with voters. And they have an uphill climb on this one. And its even though, you know, we keep waiting to see and doesnt seem like its going to happen any time soon, where bidens Executive Action on the border, but i think the white house has decided that should he decide to put these restrictions in place, hell get attacked by the left part of the party. And then also there will be lawsuits instantly and look very weak. So this is i think this is one way that Chuck Schumer is working with the white house on this to try to make it work. Nbcs ali vitali, thank you very much. Great job on way too early. Thank you for coming on this morning. Coming up, a conversation on the strength of our democracy. Our next guest asks the question, Is America Dictator Proof amid Donald Trumps claims he will be one . But only for a day . Thats straight ahead on morning joe. Oe. Choosing a treatment for your chronic migraine 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more can be overwhelming. So, ask your doctor about botox®. Botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they even start. Its the 1 prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment. So far, more than 5 million botox® treatments have been given to over Eight Hundred And Fifty Thousand chronic migraine patients. Effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or Muscle Weakness can be signs of a lifethreatening condition. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Dont receive botox® if theres a skin infection. 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Thats why more choose Comcast Business. And now, were introducing ultimate speed for business our fastest plans yet. Were up to 12 times faster than verizon, at t, and tmobile. And existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds. At no additional cost. Its ultimate speed for ultimate business. Dont miss out on our fastest speed plans yet switch to Comcast Business and get started for 49. 99 a month. Plus, ask how to get up to an 800 prepaid card. Call today tatum trying to get free. Brown fakes, fires up the three, bang, bang jaylen brown knocks down the three to tie the game a rare double bang from mike breen there. Jaylen browns tying threepointer in the final seconds of regulation, the Boston Celtics back from 13 down in the second half. And sent last nights Series Opener against the Indiana Pacers into overtime. Jason tatum scored ten of the high 36 in the extra period as the celts took advantage of 21 turnovers by the pacers to win game one of the Eastern Conference finals, 133128. Series remains in boston for game two tomorrow night. Barnacle, youre with us now . Yeah. What did you think . Did you watch the game . Yeah, i did watch the game and watched jason tatum throw the game away with a lazy pass over his shoulder and force them into overtime. That was upsetting. The pacers are not going to go away here, sam. No, pacers are feisty. They took the knicks down in seven. Theyre a good team. I was nervous. That jaylen brown three in the corner was clutch. That looked like it was going to slip away. Yeah. But they got to get tougher. They have to get tougher. They do. And stay in the game. All right. Were moving on sam, before you move on, before you move on, we have to talk about another thing in boston really quickly, Mike Barnicle. By the way, the pacers arent going to have that many turnovers over night. The celtics have to play better or theyll have the same fate that the knicks had. But mike, the sox, i dont know now but they put two really good i dont just mean good, good, solid games with a young pitcher giving up two runs in the first inning. Thats when it gets interesting. Do they fold . Or do they keep going . And the red sox were showing this because theyre actually winning a game or two in a row here, but also the first series victory at the trough since 2019. In five years. Yeah, since 2019. Five years. How great was doran last night . Doran has really surprised me, joe. I liked his speed. I likd his combativeness. I like the fact that he likes to play everyday. But i always suspected that he was not a great outfielder. He might still not be a great outfielder but vastly improved and that leads to why the red sox are still playing well above their heads, i think, defensively. They have all improved. The red sox have now proven that they can play defensive baseball. I will say theres nothing prettier than watching doran try to take third on a ball in the gap. A livly sight. Look, katty kay is desperate for baseball news, mika, too. Keep on script here. Im taking notes. So lets stay with major league baseball. Well begin in pittsburgh. Pittsburghs pirates slugger, a rocket. The first player to record three hits with an Exit Velocity velocity of over 115 Miles Per Hour in a single game. Look, two of them eclipsed 120 Miles Per Hour. These are absolute bullets. That included the gametying double with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning. The pirates went on to beat the San Francisco giants in extras, 76. Now to the phillies. Let me keep reading the script. To philadelphia, phillies fans seated along the Wall In Right Center Field lost a tray of nachos, devastating, how could this happen to a rangers home run ball. The eighth inning solo shot that sent the cheesy snack on to the outfield grass. Look, we cover a lot of tragedy here, but that one is the worst. As for the game, phillies ace Ranger Suarez extended one of the greatest season opening runs in the history, striking out ten batters over seven innings of work to improve to 90, and lead the Philadelphia Phillies to its mlb best win. Now, finally, i can stop talking. Joe, all to you. You did a wonderful job. Mike, lets talk about a pitcher right now, and i think hes up tonight, a couple of years ago, it was, you know, degrom night in america. Now, whenever degrom could go on the mound before he got hurt in the third game, every season, now, though, weve got this kid out of pittsburgh, paul skains. I think hes up again tonight. He went out his last outing, just absolutely cy young material. Talk about this kid, how special he is. And were expecting him to pitch tonight, right . I think hes on the slot for tonight. Hes 65, 235 pounds, throws an average of 102 miles an hour most of the night. You know, he is not yet on the docket for having tommy jones surgery. Lets hope he continues. But hes a big, strong, healthy kid and it is awesome watching him, watching really talented Major League Hitters just have no idea how theyre going to get around on a high fastball that he can get in the strike zone, high in the strike zone, impossible to reach, pittsburgh needs him, baseball needs him, but hes a young pitcher. We want him to stay healthy. One of the few young pitchers, please, god, keep paul skains healthy. A great kid. He throws a lot of offspeed pitches. He doesnt depend on the 102mileperhour fastball. Lets hope he has a few years ahead of him. And major league batters will have another day to prepare for him, because alex corrects me and says hell be pitching tomorrow afternoon for the pirates. We have to circle back to katty kay. Shes not been given an opportunity to gloat over city once again winning the premiere league. I know there was a lot of screaming in your house, especially in the first half, when it looked like things might get a little tight with west ham then expected. But at the end, another title for man city. I mean, history making, right . First team to do to have four titles since 18something or other, as tom kept telling me ufl sunday. Over and over again. It was a good day in my household. My arsenalloving sun, a little less happy. Im not sure theyve spoken yet since the weekend. But theyve put harlan came through, good through, team well, strike hard. All of that nice money, as my husband keeps saying, seems to produce results. Look at katty. I just want to say to my friend who watches the show regularly and emailed me earlier this week, saying, why dont you do more womens softball, we will, in fact, mika, be reporting on College Softball for women as they get to the finals. I love it. We may do something we havent done on and report on College Baseball for men as well. But were following womens softball and well be reporting on it when we get to the finals. Good advice. Still ahead, well speak with israeli minister for Strategic Affairs, ron dermer on the heels of the International Criminal court issuing Arrest Warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and top hamas leaders. Also ahead, emmy nominated actor chris melony from law order Organized Crime will be our guest. Morning joe wiLl Be Right Back. Our guest. Morning joe wiLl Be Right Back smile you found it. The feeling of Finding Psoriasis cant filter out the real you. So go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a oncedaily pill for moderate to severe Plaque Psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. Its like the feeling of finding youre so ready for your closeup. Or finding you dont have to hide your skin just your background. 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And if you want a successful business, all it takes is an idea, and now becomes the future where you grew a dream into a reality. The all new godaddy airo. Put your Business Online in minutes with the power of ai. Trump ended up not taking the stand to testify. He wanted to take the stand, but then he saw it was three steps without a handrail. What is this . What is this . Mt. Everest, i cant do it. That is shocking. Trump is not talking . What happened . Did he write himself a check for 130,000 . Its just so peculiar that outside the courtroom, with his legal pads of notes he just talks and talks and talks, but then if you ask him to walk just a few feet inside the courtroom and to swear to tell the truth under penalty of law, suddenly hes afraid to speak . I mean, whats the difference . Is it the Fluorescent Lighting . I mean, i hate to even come to this conclusion, but is it possible that donald trump is full of [ bleep ] . I mean . The fact is, he would commit perjury, is the reason why his attorneys dont want him up on the stand, as well as the fact that if he didnt commit perjury, he would tell the truth, which would basically lay out the prosecutions case against him. So despite lying to america and saying he was going to testify on The Stand And Show em you know, tell em what the truth at the end he backed away. And then wouldnt even answer the question of why he wasnt going on the stand, when the press started asking that question. Wanted to talk about, you know, make racist claims about the judge, bigoted claims about the judge. But when it came to actually himself and answering the question of why arent you testifying in your own defense . He just walks away from the camera and ignores the question. And ignores the weeks and weeks of saying, ill testify, ill testify, ill testify. Katty kay, Mike Barnicle are still with us. Joining the conversation, we have former white house Director Of Communications to President Obama, jennifer palmieri. Nbc news and msnbc political analyst, former u. S. Senator, Claire Mccaskill and she are jen are cohosts of the podcast, how to win 2024. It is awesome and great to have you on this morning. Also with us, Senior Writer for the dispatch, david drucker. And at the table, senior Political Columnist for politico, jay martin. Hes doing well here today. Im thrilled to be here, at the table youve lumbered in and started screaming at us. Okay its a high honor. And you found the right floor. I did, eventually. Its good to have you here, especially this morning. Because this hour, i believe, what are we in . Hour two . Two. Okay. New polling finds President Joe Biden and donald trump battling in every swing state, but biden making up significant ground from just last month. In the latest Bloomberg Morning Consult poll, trump leads in arizona, georgia, North Carolina, pennsylvania, and wisconsin, while biden leads in michigan, but after the survey showed trump up by eight points in nevada last month, the new poll finds the two candidates tied. Biden has also cut trumps sixpoint lead in georgia to three points, and his fourpoint lead in wisconsin to just one point, while making similar gains in arizona and North Carolina, all of these results, joe, are within the margin of error. Well, especially in the three states that really matter the most right now. Of course, the Upper Midwest states of wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania. But, june, were going state what everybody knows. Its may. These things are so random. As i was saying before, the morning joe betting lines were open and we were giving the plus 13 after the New York Times siena poll, the plus 13 in nevada you could have made a lot of money that day. We would have piled on as much money as we made, as we did from Unsuspecting Frenchmen thought that macron was actually going to lose to la penn. We put the over under at 58. 5. But heres, lets just talking about the randomness of these polls. Because you know this better than anybody. Youve talked to the campaigns. In this poll, the only state they have joe biden ahead in is the one state in the Upper Midwest where his campaign thinks that he faces the toughest currents, and that is michigan. Thats michigan. They think theyre comfortably ahead, though they would never say it in front of a camera in wisconsin. Theyre feeling pretty good there. And then again, nevada. Here were talking about a 13point lead, then a sevenpoint lead last month. Now a dead heat. I mean, all of these states, all of these states will be so close. And nevada is justin of those states, i dont know how they do it, but its always close and democrats always end up winning. So way too early, baby way too early but still a snapshot. Yeah, the last time its close its very close. I think the last time that the republican carried nevada was bush in 2004. Thats two decades now. It does tilt democrat. I will say, this sort of leid leid organization out there is superb. This is their tallest task yet, trying to keep biden is going to be enormously difficult. But nevada is important, though, because it does give biden some tiny insurance policy, if he can stay competitive there. Otherwise, he has to run the inside straight. Michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania. He cant afford to lose a single one of those. And thats what the ball game is, joe. Its in those three big ten states. Look, i think theyre all basically a tossup right now. Heres the good news for biden. Hes got three governors in all of states where democrats who have a lot on the line right now, where democrats have to pull out a win, two of which want to run for president in 2028, whitmer and shapiro. They have a lot to help for themselves and for joe biden. And very proven ground games. Ive got a lot of faith in those operations. The ground game is kind of like a field goal in football. If you can get the score down to about three points, the ground game really matters, right . Yeah. And hes down 13 in nevada. It doesnt matter at all, right . Correct. Look, i was in nevada over the weekend, talking to the delegates at the Nevada Democratic party convention. A lot of frayed nerves, but a lot of confidence in the ground game, in part because the republicans right now dont have one. Its not that they have one, but its not as good. They dont have one. They will end up with one. I think that the concern has to be for Biden Campaign and directionally, when all the polls are pointing in one direction, one points, five points exactly. It usually means thats where things are. But on the other hand, weve seen these Swing State Polls fluctuate, and thats what democrats are hoping to do, is get this into a jump ball, when early voting starts, so that the edge they have in the field can make the difference and push biden over the top. And joe, to davids point, these are close. It shows theres work to do in the Biden Campaign in so many different directions. Im torn. Youre torn . Because i love american democracy. Me too. At the same time, i hate listening to democratic bedwetting every day. I want them to be scared so theyll work harder. I want them to be wetting their bed every morning, so they get up and work harder all day. Okay. I dont want to tell them that they have money on exactly. Get up, watch morning joe. Ill tell you its okay. Yes, exactly. You clean yourself off, and you go out and you work hard all day. But there is an awful lot of bedwetting here, blue consider, claire, youve done this. Youve done this on a very large level. Yes, she has. Theyve got the money, theyve got the ground game. Theyve got the nonfascist candidate. Theyre out working. Theyre outworking trump, even when trump is off, hes golfing or hes doing other loony things. And, you know, i dont want to tell people i feel good about this, but, i feel good about this. I think, i think if they work harder, they keep having more money, and they build that ground game, you look at wisconsin. Probably the best Party Chairman in the nation in wisconsin. And then you put the governor on top of that, do the same in michigan, do the same in pennsylvania, couple great governors there. You know what . Theyve got a lot going in their favor. Yeah, and dont forget, we have Senate Candidates in those states, too. And they are doing remarkably well. If this is all about changing parties, somebody needs to let the folks that are responding to polls in pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, nevada, let them know that those Senate Candidates support the same policies that President Biden has embraced. And you know, last night, joe, i was looking really carefully, its really interesting to see which party is going to be more extreme. Because typically the party that is most extreme has the most difficulty in these states that swing back and forth. You look at what happened in oregon last night, where you had very progressive candidates from local d. A. In portland all the way two open congressional seats and the moderates won. They swept the table. So i think that what youre seeing here is a coming home to understanding that joe biden is a decent man with loads of integrity and for those swing voters, thats going to matter. And the more donald trump talks, he is way more extreme today than he was ever in 2016 or 2020. He is saying things that he didnt even think about saying back in those elections. Thats right and the more hes out there, the more its going to help joe biden. Far more extreme. Again, joe biden, you know, its never going to look like Beetle Beetlemania when joe biden steps off a plane going to an event. Joe biden is about normalcy, and by the way, if you dont think thats a winning message in 24, youre not talking to the right voters, who even if they voted for trump in 16, are exhausted now. I want to say, mika, following up on what claire said, lets compare what happened in oregon last night, which thank god they voted in some moderate d. A. S. Thank god after the chaos in oregon over the past eight years, maybe theyre returning to the middle. Theyre already like handing out heroin and gum machines out there. Its absolute lunacy, lunacy and so thank god the voters said, enough of that, and we want moderate d. A. S, we want a moderate approach, we actually want to hold criminals, you know, responsible for crimes. So thats important, but we can go from oregon on this extremism to North Carolina. I never thought i would say this, but the extremism of the Republican Party in North Carolina and the gubernatorial candidate, and i thi their candidate for commissioner of education, i dont know if i have that title right, are so extreme. Yeah. They actually have put North Carolina into play. Which i would have told you three months ago was not possible. Right. Just to counter your earlier statement, i dont feel good about this. There you go. Work harder, everybody. Shes scared. I dont feel good about this. This is a candidate with many members of the Republican Party who do not adhere to norms and have no boundaries. Do not respect the law, do not respect human life, do not respect a womans right to choose, do not respect, do not respect, do not respect. And thats why theyre going to lose. I do not feel good about this. I hope youre right. We want to show you very contrasting messages from two former president s on the topic of dictatorships. Take a look. We will not be intimidated by the threats of dictators, that they will regard as a breach of International Law or as an act of war, our aid to the democracies which dare to resist their aggression. They will not wait for an act of war often our part. They did not wait for norway or belgium or the netherlands to commit an act of war. Youre promising america tonight, you would never abuse power as retribution against anybody . Except for day one. Except for look, hes going for it. Meaning . I want to close the border and i want to drill, drill, drill. Thats not no, no. Thats not retribution. I got it. Im going to be you know, he keeps we love this guy. He says, youre not going to be a dictator are you . I say, no, no, no, other than day one. Okay, so what you saw first was 1941, former president Franklin Delano roosevelt standing up to dictators during world war ii and then donald trump just last year vowing to be a dictator himself, for a day, if he returns to its a long day. It has been a long day. Joining us next year, u. S. Editor for the economist, john purdo. With a cover story entitled Is America Dictator Proof . John, whats the answer . Sorry, mika, i feel like im not going to cheer you up after those rather gloomy poll numbers that you were getting you down earlier. Theres a couple of ways to look at this. Theres one way to look at donald trump and this whole debate, which frankly he started when he made those remarks, i think it was last year about being a dictator on day one. And we all go around in circles trying to figure out, look at what he was actually did when he was in office last time around, look at some of the things he said, there were good debates about what he would really do. But another way to look at that question is to depersonalize it and take trump out of the picture and say, if america were to elect somebody who were both maligned and competent, and i have real questions over whether donald trump is competent enough to pull this off, but were that to happen, how strong are the checks and balances . And there, theres mixed news, ive got to say. I mean, there is some really substantial checks on president ial authority. If you look at how dictatorships have functioned elsewhere, often a Military Coup is involved. Thats impossible network, i think. Americas military is one of the strongest institutions in the country with deeply embedded democratic norms. But its also the case that you look at some of the formal checks on the presidency, and one of the things weve learned since 2016 is that they just dont work. You know, impeachment is one of the biggest checks written into the constitution, as a restraint on tyranny. And weve had ample proof over the past few years that that just doesnt work. And if you look down the list, there are a whole bunch of Emergency Powers that the president has, which somebody who is really determined, i think could exercise to subvert important democratic norms in quite a worrying way. So im not saying that trump is going to do this, but somebody could. But, john, in terms of restraints upon the presidency, or restraints upon a Candidate Running for president , who happened to have sat in the layoffs for four years, what would the restraints have done for someone who for instance, just yesterday, more than suggested that the Department Of Justice under President Biden had authorized use of lethal force to maybe take a shot at donald trump. Maybe try and Assassination Attempt on donald trump. What do duo about a candidate like that. What kind of restraints would work against someone clearly not within the bound of any restraint . Well, so then you have to look back at what he did when he was in office. And again, this was a question that journalists like me tied ourselves up in knots trying to figure out. You look back at some of the memoirs of people who served in his cabinet, mark esper writes in his memoir about donald trump asking if it was possible for him to give an order for him to shoot protesters in the leg in 2020. And he was told, no, no, you cant do that. And then we get into a question of, well, how serious was that . You know, is that a thing he really would have done, or is it like the remarks you guys were talking about earlier on contraception, where he says a thing, and its not quite clear, you know, how serious he is. So in terms of restraints in a case like that, i think those norms around the American Military are hugely important. I spoke to a bunch of people who served in pretty senior positions in the Trump Administration, and they pointed out to me, one of them said, the d. O. D. Is not in a rush to operate against american citizens. Those kind of checks are really important. But the striking thing, if you look through the constitution, and look through the law, its a lot of those things that arent written down, enormous around doj dependence, norms of how the military would behave in times of crisis, those are things that are real guarantees, rather than the stuff thats written down. If you ask most americans what theyre taught in the civics class, it would be, well, the constitution is the guarantee. And that might be a bit too comforting. John, i think one of the things that trump taught all of us is that democracy is partly laws and partly norms and traditions. And if you have a candidate thats willing to ignore those norms and conditions, democracy gets put under threat. One of the things that people talk about and the Trump Campaign talks about openly wanting to do is under this provision of schedule f its called, taking a whole group of Civil Servants who are not political and making them effectively political appointees, which could change americas democracy, not just for this president , the next presidency, but presumably for years and years and years to come. Do you think we hear that the Trump Campaign is sort of more organized and more efficient and has more of a plan . Do you think it is up to the task of doing Something Like that and how much of a threat would that be to democracy . Its definitely more organized than was the case prior to 2016. I mean, im sure youve spoken to lots of the people ive spoken to, katty and magaaligned think tanks and their plans are quite well developed. That said, the federal bureaucracy is a huge beast. And you talk to people who have served in the white house, served in the administration, getting it to do anything is quite tough. And there are 25,000 odd lawyers in the federal government and so, a Trump Administration could come in well organized with a really good well, not good but a thorough, determined plan and it would struggle to get all of these things done. I dont think the federal bureaucracy i dont think you can wave a wand and make this stuff. That said, you can undermine some really important norms. And you can do a lot of stuff, right . So i guess it depends. You need to sort of calibrate your degree of alarmism. If you look way back, i think George Washington had a staff of four when he was when he was president. The federal bureaucracy has obviously grown a huge amount over the course of the 20th century. It was interesting, both clips of fdr, that we were watching a little earlier, mika. I mean, fdr did serve three terms, right . Which is something that donald trump would sort of teasing us about the other day. But that the existence of that federal bureaucracy now, which isnt written into the constitution, is a pretty important check, i think. And i dont think you can sweep it away on day one. No, no, not day one. It is fascinating. George washington only had four people working for him. And of course, two of those were employed just to separate jefferson and hamilton. So he really was working effectively with two people. U. S. Editor for the economist, john prideaux, thank you so much. Im so glad that john brought up George Washington, because i was going to come you and say, since 1789, the United States has depended on the goodwill of the sitting president of the United States to make the constitution work. And we learned in the negative with donald trump, if you dont have that, you dont have the constitution i mean, richard nixon. People talk about richard nixon, there is no comparison on nixon and trump. Nixon lost in 60. He may have complained about im. His people may have thought for good reason that illinois wasnt counted the way it should have been counted, but he said, im not going to put the country through that, he conceded. When the Supreme Court came came back unanimously and said, you have to turn over the tapes, nixon knew his presidency was over. Why . Because he played within the constitutional guardrails. And the goodwill that we expected of president s. Not so with donald trump. So what do we do moving forward . Yeah, well, and lets not forget bush gore. Oh, my gosh, yes. Our country was on a knifes edge and the Supreme Court spoke and there were a whole lot of people, especially people who were very familiar with the law who were very unhappy with the Supreme Court decision, and what did al gore do . He did what was best for the country. We do not have that guy in donald trump. He is not going to do what is best for the country. And what worries me the most about this, what worries me the most is that bright line dividing our military from our politics. And if you all remember, donald trump sent over some of his Idiot Minions to the Department Of Defense at the very end of his administration, and frankly that was part of the reason that we had the big mess up where the National Guard was not called out quickly enough when we had we had his rioters trying to stab out the eyes of Police Officers with flagpoles. And i worry that our military is going to be weaponized in a way that would be so damaging to our country. Hes talking about using the military in a domestic way. That is not what our founders wanted. Our founders did not want the military the federal military, to be used to abuse the rule of law in this country, that has been so clear about how the rule of law is supposed to work in america. And thats why ive said a number of times, i think the Military Leaders who know what donald trump is capable of, who have retired, have really a strong obligation to speak out against donald trump between now and november. Thats the real look, theres a remedy to all of this. Its called the United States congress. Its not called the Supreme Branch for nothing, but it has to stop acting like a quasiparliament that supports its party, each party, when its president is in power, and use the jealous of its own authority and use it. And thats how you put a check on a president who doesnt want to observe particular norms or laws and keep democracy humming. So bring it right back to reality, as opposed to the future that were looking at here, with very good information to pull from, we have the Defense Resting in his criminal trial, possibly a verdict, but in the next one or two or three weeks, maybe longer. How will you be watching how he uses that, whatever the verdict will be, donald trump will use it in some way. I think their hope is that its a mistrial, because then he can say, see, even in liberal new york, they didnt even think that i was guilty. And hell just use that to say that he was a martyr and that, you know, it was all a sort of kangaroo court. And then, i think hes confident with some reason that hes not going to face trial, mika, the rest of the year. Right. In any of these other cases. Theyre going to use that, to borrow a phrase, as his get out of jail free card. I think politically, whats interesting, these indictments, more serious than the ones hes dealing with now with this trial, have been hanging over donald trump for a year plus now and it hasnt hurt his standing with voters and there are voters in some of these swing states its theoretical. But everything is theoretical. Ive talked to political operatives on both sides of the aisle and they tell me that people in a way are desensitized. Theyre so used to trump. And theres been like a memory hole of what they didnt like about him when he was president. And when you have such visceral issues, like inflation and everything that goes along with that, motivating voters to figure out who to vote for and what to do, this is one of the reasons why trump is in a position after being twice impeached, indicted, where he can be reelected. The Retrospective Approval Rate of trump is extraordinarily high. Its unbelievable. Its what jars the Biden Campaign, the fact that looking back, they dont recall the handling of covid or the collapse of the economy, they just remember lower gas prices. Thats the bidens challenge. To remind them of everything else. Joe, jump in. I want to say, mika, lets go back to the shot of j. Mark and drucker. America needs this. The morning joe family of viewers needs this. We need you guys once a week. I would mess up your hair, but its effort. Well even come up yeah, you cant comb your hair. This is like a we want you two go to that shot of the two. We need this every week. J. Mart and drucker. Were going to and cnn, you cant g listening right now. Do not steal them. Were going to even were going to produce this thing out, and i bet we can even get a sponsor for it. J. Mart and drucker rudy coffee. Well put rudy coffee right in the middle. I cant be bought, but i can be rented. Yes, you can i can be bought. All the great points you guys just made, im going to talk to jen palmieri about in terms of how the Biden Campaign deals with this. Theres so much to deal with, and thats half the problem. The dispatchs david drucker, former senator claire mccas kyl, thank you all very much. Well be listening to your podcast with jen, how to win 2024. And still ahead on morning joe, the top lawmakers in the house and senate are mulling an invitation to israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of congress. Well talk to israels minister of Strategic Affairs about that amid mounting criticism over the countrys Military Operation in gaza. Youre watch morning joe. WeLl Be Right Back youre watch morning joe. Ll Be Right Bac with the freestyle libre 3 system know your glucose levels. No fingersticks needed. All with the worlds smallest and thinnest sensor. Manage your diabetes with more confidence and lower your a1c. Try it for free at freestylelibre. Us frizz. Dryness. Breakage. New dove 10in1 serum hair mask with peptide complex. Fortifies hair bonds at a molecular level. Helps reverse ten signs of damage in one minute. Keep living. Well keep repairing. Do you support the idea of calling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, having addressed in a joint meeting of congress . Yes, look, im discussing that now with the speaker of the house and as ive always said, our relationship with israel is ironclad and transcends any one Prime Minister or president. Thats Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer when asked about whether hes in talks with House Speaker mike johnson to invite israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of congress. With us now, israels minister of Strategic Affairs, and an observer of israels war cabinet, ron dermer. He previously served as israelis ambassador to the United States. Ron and i have been friends for several years and talk on the phone often, usually about antisemitism and the fight against antisemitism. And good to be with you again. I probably did you no favors at home by saying that. Obviously, weve had some real disagreements with the netanyahu government, with the execution of this war, and were going to get to all of that. I dont want people to think that were not going to get to that, but there are a couple of things i want to get to first. And that is, first of all, the chart and again, i will say, and you know, ive been extraordinarily critical of Benjamin Netanyahu, but i want to address these charges by the International Court against him, and just the rank Double Standard in bringing these charges against any israeli Prime Minister. Ill open the floor to you there. Well, look, thank you for that, joe. Its obviously outrageous. I think a lot of people that you bring charges against the hamas leaders, a Terror Organization that perpetrated this terrible attack and bring charges against israels Prime Minister and defense minister, so everyone understands thats absurd. But beyond that, the actual charges themselves false. The main charge that the icc has is that israel has a policy of trying to starve the population in gaza. In the war cabinet, weve never had such a policy. Weve put in half a million tons of food into gaza, over 20,000 food trucks and 30,000 trucks, weve paved roads to get humanitarian assistance in. Have there problems within gaza of how you distribute humanitarian assistance, of course . Were dealing with Hamas Sthaels thats stealing the aid, but israel has never had a policy of starving the people of gaza, and thats why this is so absurd. The other charge they had, for your viewers, is israel has a willful target of trying to target civilians, and thats also completely false. You have colonel john spencer from the urban War Institute of west point, general David Petraeus saying, no country has ever gone to such Great Lengths to get civilians out of harms way. Of course, civilians were killed, its a tragedy of warfare. We had Friendly Fire thats killed a dozen of our on troops. Three of our Substantia Hostage to escape, and our troops saw them as an enemy, and unfortunately killed them. There is no policy to kill innocents. We do everything to keep innocents out of harms way. Thats why this is outrageous. If i could say 30 seconds more, its dangerous hold on one second. Let me ask you some questions, and then respond to the questions. Let me just first of all, we need to talk about egypt closing the border, which they for some reason, they closed the border. We also need to talk about egypt undermining the peace talks. The egyptians have been allies of the United States and have been very helpful to israel. I want you to get to that in a second. But i want to going to this issue, there are a lot of people who believe that israel has committed war crimes. A lot of people who think that what israel has done in gaza has been extraordinary and never happened before, while weve been very critical of some of the bombing in gaza. The fact is, civilian deaths, if you just look at percentages versus enemy combatants, higher in our attack in mosul. You can look at what the United States did in iraq. The good war. You can look what we did, the firebombing of one german city after another. The firebombing of tokyo, Nuking Two Japanese countries cities, and doing so, again, to end that war and to save what many people believed at time would be a million jobs, japanese lives. I mean, there are a lot of criticisms that i have of israel and the way theyve conducted this war, but if you compare what israels done in gaza, which, again, is ugly. War is ugly. You even compare it to what the United States has done, and god forbid, we compare it to the butcher of damascus, assad, or the million muslims that Saddam Hussein was responsible for killing. The half a million arabs that assad was responsible for killing. Weve said it all along, there seems to be, the only thing that differentiates this is that its actually jews that are defending their homeland. And that is an international crime, compared to all of these other countries, including the United States. I think thats right. And i thank you for saying it. If you look at the percentages of combatants to nonkpat accountants in israels war in gaza, its about one to one. Every civilian who was killed is a tragedy of warfare, but there are really specific rules of war. You have to draw distinctions between combatants and noncombatants, you cant use disproportionate force or proportionality and you have to give warnings. And i think israel has gone to greater lengths than any other than im familiar with, speaking of an enemy warfare that embeds itself in schools and and im sorry to interrupt you, i want to say, and ill let you continue talking, but i want skeptical viewers who heard what you say to go back and watch what we said on this show, a show that has been critical of israel but what we said on this show right after october 7th. Hamas did. They were going to use civilians of shields, and when a jew dies, thats good for hamas. When a palestinian dies, they consider that great for hamas. It was part of the calculation of october 7th. Go ahead. Thats exactly right. For us, its a tragedy. And for them, its a strategy, when they use civilians as human shields. And thats what theyve done, and we have done our best to try to kick the civilians out of harms way. But if you actually look at the numbers, youre quite right. What you did in your war, sometimes its three to one, i think sometimes the u. N. Standard is nine to one. Its about one to one. Around 14,000 terrorists have been killed and a similar number of civilians. You have to understand, also, that the numbers that are coming out ever are from Hamas Ministry of health. Theyve said 35,000 people were killed. The u. N. Repeated those numbers and just a couple of weeks ago, you may have covered it on your show. We did. Frankly, i dont have the time to watch morning joe as much as i did in the past when i was israels ambassador to the United States. But they said that we now have 10,000 people who were killed that we cant identify. We dont know if theyre women, if theyre children, what it is. Thats after a lot of people saying, you know, 75 of the casualties are women and children. So i would ask people to wait, to suspend judgment, to wait for all the facts to come out and theyll see a very different story. This civilian issue is not true. The willful starvation of the population is not true. Ron, ron ill get to egypt in a second. Lets stay this is a very important point, again, for critics of israel and they have every right to be critics of israel. It is very important to remember, again, that these numbers have come from hamas. The media, in the west, has taken it on. Certainly in the arab world, has taken it on, and acted as if hamas numbers, which were propaganda, were actually fact. And even and i say, even the u. N. , because i want to get this in, ron. You can comment on it, it goes to how we should be very skeptical of what International Organizations ever say about israel. I checked this out. Last year, Human Rights Council, the United Nations, there were 15 resolutions condemning israel. There were seven resolutions condemning the rest of the world. That would include china with their concentration camps, russia with their invasions, north korea, on and on. Now, youre saying, oh, this is because of the war. No, in 2022, the United Nations condemned israel more. In 2022, than the rest of the world. This is why you should be skeptical of whatever the United Nations or other International Organizations, say about israel, even if like us, you have real, grave concerns about some of the things that have been happening in israel and in gaza. Go ahead, ron. Yeah, its a good point that you made about the u. N. Human rights council. Maybe a trivia question, you should ask one of your questions to find out, when was the last year, because every single year, there are more resolutions in the Human Rights Council against israel than there are in the entire world combined. You just talked about the last two years. I dont remember the last year that there were fewer in israel than the entire world combined. When it comes to the statistics, let me give you one example. You remember the case, it was on the eve of President Bidens historic visit to israel when he became the first president to come to israel during a time of war. And i told counterparts at the white house, you know, you do a disservice to the president , because his visit was not just in a time of war, it was early in the war when we could have actually had another front and President Bidens visit at that time could have prevented another front in the northern part of israel from opening up. Not only did he come on air force one, he sent the aircraft carriers and the battle groups to deter hezbollah and to deter iran. On the eve of his visit, there was an attack, a missile landed, it turned out to be next to a hospital. The first reports were the missile hit the hospital, within several hours of the times had a headline that said at least 500 people had been killed. At least 500 people. Within several hours, they knew exactly how many bodies there were in that household. Turns out, several hours later, it had nothing to do with israel. It was an Islamic Jihad rocket that had been fired at israel. It fell short, hit the parking lot next to the hospital. And then the most remarkable thing happened, joe. For the first time in 2000 years, people were resurrected in the land of israel, because the numbers of dead went from 500 to 50 or 60. Guess what . Those u. N. Statistics, still out that 500. And they kept going up. Be skeptical of these numbers, like you said. Theres always room for legitimate criticism of any democracy. Were not beyond criticism, but the liablist charges against israel, you saw some of those against the icc, are totally false. Ron, let me ask you a couple of questions that ive been trying to get answers on since october the 7th. And everybody keeps trying to push it off. They just wont tell us the truth. And i hope youll be able to. Three weeks joe, can we go back to egypt for one second . Just one second . Ill tell you, what were running out of time. Talk about egypt. Give me just a couple of minutes on why egypt because youre the first undermined these peace talks. Youre the first host to actually level any kind of criticism of egypt that ive heard. One of the reasons why we have a problem in gaza is that egypt did not open its gates to allow people in gaza to go into egypt. What happened during the ukraine war, refugees went out . What happened in the war in syria, refugees went out. Egypt made a decision early to block it and to not allow people out. And hamas is obviously responsible for the civilians killed in gaza because they used them as human shields. But look at egypt, why did you not open your doors . Why did you not allow Palestinian Refugees to temporarily going into your territory to get them out of harms way. Right now, egypt is withholding 2,000 trucks of humanitarian assistance from going into gaza because they have a political issue about the rafah crossing. Im glad you pointed that out. The issue of the negotiations over the hostages a separate issue, but its very important for egypt to do the right thing on humanitarian assistance and protecting civilians. And i will say, in the weeks following october 7th, we said that they needed to open that border, they had to guarantee israel needed to guarantee the right to return for palestinians and refugees need to be protected. Egypt would have no part of that. Let me ask you. Ive been trying to figure this out. Weve all been trying to figure this out for some time. Hamas obviously a Terror Organization that hates jews that wants to kill jews, that wants to wipe israel off the face of the earth. You know that, i know, weve all know that for a long time. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu, why did he authorize continued pamss from qatar to hamas . And i think qatar has given hamas maybe 1 billion through the years. Why did Benjamin Netanyahu, just three weeks before the attack said, yes, of course, qatar, we want you to keep funding this terrorist organization that says they want to kill jews . This was a policy, unfortunately, that was going on for many years. I dont think it was the right policy and i dont think that we should repeat that mistake. But youre quite right, 15 to 20 million a month that qatar was providing, sometimes more, sometimes less for hamas, and allowed iran to poor money into hamas and all of that money iran was providing hamas was going to build its. Military machine, but qatari money was flowing in, and a lot of people took the approach before october 7th, lets keep the money going into gaza, and for somehow, this will keep the situation calm if gaza. It didnt work out. Its a lot by the way, its a lot about whats happening right now with iran. People think, lets give billions of dollars of sanctions relief to iran and somehow well keep a lid on the situation. But this was Benjamin Netanyahu who knows, who knows but its not that hamas is a terrorist organization. Thats correct, but its not just Benjamin Netanyahu. Ive been in the security cabinet. This is issue that goes back many years. Most of the Senior Security officials in israel all supported that policy. Ultimately, the Prime Minister why . We all have responsibility for the policy, because they thought that would keep gaza quiet. Thats why also you had a policy of enabling palestinian workers to go into israel. We had around 20,000 on october 7th until october 7th, who were coming in and working in israel and a lot of people thought, you know, hamas is deterred, because there have been rounds of conflict with hamas. They got beaten down. We never launched the full war into gaza, but on one hand you had the stick of Israeli Military action, these rounds of fighting. You remember 2009, 2014, 2021, 2023. And on the other hand, the carrot of allowing workers from gaza to work there. And a lot of people thought, hamas is interested. Yes, we know theres a terrorist organization. They want to murder all the jews, destroy the state of israel, but right now theyre focused on consolidating their power. And all of the professionals within israel thought that the policy was the right policy. But didnt the government didnt the government have the attack plans from hamas a year earlier and werent there warnings inside of so those reports are false . No, what happened is, after the war, look, were going to have an investigation of exactly what happened. What were talking about after october 7th, people find things that hey, this person thought there was an attack plan. This person gave a warning. But thats a needle in the haystack after the fact. Im telling you, i was sitting in the Israeli Cabinet for 11 months or 10 months before october 7th. We didnt know of any attack plan. We knew that hamas has the will to attack israel, we knew that they were constantly trying to build up the capabilities, but we certainly didnt know there was a plan, because we would have launched a war to thwart it. Had israel launch the war on october 6th, people would say, why did you do that . Hamas was deterred, there was no need to have this kind of war, which we knew was going to force israel to pay a heavy price in terms of our own soldiers, but a huge price on palestinian civilians. Thats why we didnt do a war before october 7th, going back many, price on palestinian civilians. Thats why we didnt do a war on october 7th going back many years. A couple quick questions. One. Have there been any investigations in israel to explain why it took the netanyahu government so long to rescue women that were being raped and children who were seeing their parents shot dead and elderly people being brutalized, and why did it take them 12 hours to save these people . You are talking about the hours after october 7th where people in the southern part of the country, after 3,000 terrorists ran in. The scenarios that i think israeli Security Officials and leaders were thinking about at the time was a scenario where you could have a dozen hamas people go in and try to kidnap somebody and do a terror attack, and this was an invasion of a Terrorists Army of 3,000 people, and they overwhelmed the israeli troops there. I can tell you that there were many brave soldiers and Police Officers that saved a lot of israeli lives because they got there. Its the scale of the attack going through 50 or 60 different points and 3,000 terrorists streaming into the country, that, israel was not prepared for on october 7th and thats why there will be a full investigation on what happened and how it happened and what to do to prevent Something Like this from happening in the future. Ron, what do you say this morning to the families of hostages, some of them americans, who want desperately for their loved ones to come home . What is the netanyahu government doing . What is the Israeli Government doing to bring the hostages home . Fortunately, we were able to get about 80 israelis, and Foreign Workers in the deal from four months ago. We have not been able to get a second hostage deal. We have been working on it for several months and the United States and other people in the region to get a deal. Around three weeks ago hamas put a proposal forward and they signed their own proposal and instead of the deal that was on the table that the United States said was a generous offer, and israel will work and do whatever it can to bring the hostages home. The troops brought four hostages that were killed on october 7th but was kept in gaza, we brought them back and gave some level of comfort to their families, despite the fact that their family members died. We want to bring as many hostages alive as quickly as possible back to israel, and we are committed to doing it, and its one of the aspects of the war. We have had several people, david ignatius, farid saw carra, coming on the show, and the resolution has been a hope of the United States, and what stands in the way are illegal settlements in the west bank. The New York Times this past weekend had a huge story in the magazine about the extremism on the west bank. Joe biden asked the netanyahu to curb the extremist attacks on the west bank against palestinians there. Are there any efforts by the netanyahu government to curb the extremist attacks against palestinians on the west bank . Of course. We are a country of law and you cant take laws into your own hands. The problem is people have taken a marginal phenomenon in israel and put it out there to be accepted in the mainstream and its not. We have taken action ron, with all due respect, this is netanyahu letting the payments for years standing in the way of a twostate solution. First of all, i dont think the settlements you are talking about, its not something unique to netanyahu, and its a disagreement we have had with the United States for the last century. We reached peace with egypt. Remember, in gaza where we face the horrors of october 7th, we left unilaterally in 2005 hoping it would advance peace and it did the opposite. I dont agree with the premise that any territory handed over to the palestinians have to be free of jews. Any settlement on peace, my view is very different. I think once we have a palestinian neighbor willing to be living with jews among them, they will be willing to live with jews aside them. There should be jews and palestinians living together. You have to have a Palestinian Authority capable of living with jews alongside them. Unfortunately, we have not had that. One of the worst numbers of the horrific attack on october 7th, its that 80 of the palestinians in the west bank, they supported that attack. 80 . You cannot make peace with a people who are poison to that extent. I am hopeful that because of the impending military victory we will have in gaza you can have a deradicalization process linked to the future. You did it in germany and japan. You achieved a military victory and took former enemies and made them some of your strongest allies in germany and japan. The good news in israel, in the gulf we have the saudis who are partners with us in the gulf and who are deradicalizing, making great efforts to deradicalize. Of course, i agree with that. I also understand, though, that its my opinion and the opinion of many others that followed this closely that the netanyahu government has worked overtime undermining the Palestinian Authority that helped spread the radicalism, and that doesnt help, and it was not only the worse slaughter of jews since the holocaust, but those celebrating that, absolutely sickening. I know you have to go, but this can be done, if you look back 25 years ago now 26 years ago, what bill clinton did and tony blair did, and you had the queen of england shaking the hands of martin mcguiness, a man that blew up and killed her uncle. This can be done, but there has to be willing partners on the palestinian side and israels side so you can move towards the twostate solution. You have a willing partner in israel. Every time we were faced with an arab partner that was willing to make peace, we made peace, and that was true of sadat, and its true, Prime Minister netanyahu, dont forget, he made peace with four arab states, and not ancient history, four years ago, the peace plan that was is the saudi deal next . Do you think a saudi deal is in the works . Definitely. Definitely. I dont know if we will be able to put it together and stitch it in in the next few weeks because of the political calendar you have in the United States, but i believe strongly we will get a saudiisraeli normalization, and there are two issues and i think its hard for them to move forward when theres heavy fighting going on in tkpwaurz, and in gaza. I think we will be in a different situation. The other thing, how can we Work Together to find a formula that will work regarding the palestinians, and its possible to stitch that together. The palestinians should have the powers to govern themselves and now we have to work out the language, and the saudis would like to do it and we would like to do it and we have to find the right moment to do it. I think there will be a historic change in the region, not just jews and arabs, but muslims. There would be a peace with israel. This is a game changer. One of the reasons why october 7th happen was perhaps to scuttle the deal. We dont have intelligence that hamas was trying to scuttle it, but i have seen a lot. Everybody was celebrating that a deal between israel and saudi arabia is scuttled. We would like to have a military defeat of hamas and another defeat for the terror axis by reaching an agreement between israel and saudi arabia. Thank you for coming on and look forward to talking to you soon. Thank you. Katty kay, at the end there, the netanyahu government has said, and netanyahu said in the past, that in effect a twostate solution was dead. Thats not what ron was saying there, and he said peace was possible and interesting enough, he becomes the first israeli official, at least that i have talked to that, that admits they funded hamas and the funding was a tragic mistake. So a couple things that i took away from that was the repeated use of the idea of investigations to look at that kind of funding and look at your questions about why it took so long to get to the settlements on october 7th. Theres a history in israel in some of the investigations taking a long time and not leading to much or being buried, and it would be encouraging for the families of the hostages in particularly to learn those investigations would happen a lot sooner. We are already into may and this happened last october, so i get the war, the understanding of that. The egyptian Intelligence Forces undermined the latest ceasefire by adding conditions or having conversations after something had been agreed, and i dont have reporting on that on. The government, the Israeli Government is under a huge amount of pressure at home to have a ceasefire or deal, at least, to bring the hostages back. So its interesting that they are pinning the blame for that on somebody else. On the bigger, Strategic Alliance between the saudis dependent on the twostate solution that both americans and the saudis have said, when the ambassador said we can have a world where they are living side by side with peace and respect, and i dont know how the people of gaza are now all their ancestors and the people that follow them, knowing their mother, father or brother may have been killed, whether they are going to be able to contemplate a life in which they live side by side peacefully with the israelis, and that didnt happen in 2011, it took generations for those palestinians to move onf they have. We will continue this conversation for sure. Our third continues with this hour from this scene outside the courthouse yesterday at former President Trumps criminal trial. Though dont want Donald Trump Holding rallies. What happens at rallies . This is five weeks sitting in a courtroom, and who shows up . Tens of thousands of people show up at Donald Trumps rallies and the democrats hate it. Theres not another person on the planet that can do that other than the pope. The pope. Republican congressman of texas with a totally totally normal comparison for the former president , the pope. Here we go. We will have a recap of what happened yesterday in Donald Trumps criminal hushmoney trial in a moment. Plus, trumps comments about Birth Control that he quickly had to walk back. Also ahead, a former Senior Adviser to President Biden lays out an alarming Supreme Court scenario for democrats if donald trump were to win in november. We will play for you that warning, and thats another one, elizabeth, that we will get. Welcome to morning joe. Its may 22nd. With us, u. S. Special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay, and elizabeth miller, and Deputy Managing Editor of politics at politico, sam stein is with us. We will start with the criminal trial where the trial officially finished, and the defense called two witnesses and yesterday rested their case. Former President Trump did not testify in his own defense despite telling the press multiple times that he wanted to. Would you like to testify in your trial i would testify, absolutely. Its a scam. Its a scam. Why didnt you testify . It wont stop me from testifying. Do you plan to testify in court . Probably so. I would like to. I mean, i think so. Its the story of his life. Nobody is shocked. This is a guy that said, of course, im going to testify, yeah, and you knew he was not going to testify because, one, hes a walking perjury machine. You say you have a new Ice Cream Machine that makes ice cream creamy, and hes a ninja perjury machine. I will never look at the creamy the same way. It creates instant perjury. He knew he was not going to testify. Again, i wonder who is stupid enough to believe him, right . I wonder why his voters that keep going back to this guy when he because its not just about its about everything. Oh, you know what, i have a plan for abortion that everybody is going to love, and i am going to talk about it, and he comes back and goes, states rights. He goes, i have a plan for health care and its two weeks away. Of course, those two weeks turn into two more weeks, and he has no plan for health care and he has no plan for anything positive for america. What about contraceptions . I have a plan for that. We will take it back to the states. Again, we have to take it back to the states which means that Clarence Thomas was right, first they were coming for abortion, and then contraceptions and Marriage Equality and thats what he believes in his heart. Then he gets back, and for a guy that believes anything, thats one thing he believes, that states should be able to take away womens rights to have abortions and contraceptives, and then they say, you are dumb, donald, you need to change your opinion you idiot. Thats what they were saying to him. I am surprised they talk to him that way, but they do, i guess, and then he changes his mind, and they say those are democrats saying that, and no its not. Just like he said he was going to testify when the whole world knew he was lying about testifying because he would purger himself on the stand and he was afraid of what he would have to admit about the encounter with a porn star and payoff through michael cohen. Okay thats all i have to say, mika. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hes awake. Okay. I was worried when i talked to him on the phone this morning that he was a little sleepy. He had his ice cream. Yeah. Okay. You done good. You know, mika, actually, and its funny because i called Elizabeth Yesterday as well, and its not just me but its everybody in the times Washington Bureau, and when they are tired, they drink rudys drip coffee. Thats what is keeping us awake. Has anybody tried the coffee . Rudy says its good. No, nobody has tried the coffee. Im interested. Sam. Its the hair dye and sweat that mixed in and gives it the extra flavor, and then you put it in the ninja, and its fluffy. Gross. I am just sticking oh, what do you think is in that mug right there. Oh, my god. This is not real, is it . It is, thats the problem. Unfortunately, this is our world, 2024. Okay. Center. Center. When asked why he didnt take the stand because the defense rested in the hushmoney trial, former President Trump refused to answer. Why did you decide against testifying in the case . Do you not want to take the stand . So the trial is now on break for the Memorial Day Holiday and will resume next tuesday, may 28th, for closing arguments. Judge juan merchan confirmed there will be court next wednesday making that the first possible day for jury deliberations. Lets bring in former u. S. Attorney and msnbc contributor, chuck rosenberg. Chuck, your thoughts on Donald Trumps inability or refusal to participate in this, probably his team got him to not testify, because i dont think they would have liked that. What about this big gap now . What happens scheduling wise for this trial where we might be waiting for a verdict, what is the timeline . Let me start with the first thing first, mika, if i may . Good morning. Its a smart decision by mr. Trump, so dont often use smart decision and mr. Trump in the same sentence, but it would be rare for a criminal defense to testify, and i saw that happen two or three times and it never went well for the defendant when he or she took the stand. Putting mr. Trumps noise aside, it actually was a smart strategic decision not to testify. Prosecutors were ready. I think he would have been shredded. I think resting without calling mr. Trump was a good legal decision. What happens now . Well, right now both sides are working with the judge to fashion Jury Instructions. That will be the judges legal roadmap for the jury when they begin their deliberations. Jurors are the judge of the facts but the judge supplies the law to help deliberations. Next week both sides will have the opportunity to close and argue and sum up the trial and then the case goes to the jury and we await the verdict. Why do the instructions matter so much to both sides . Thats a great question, and theres not an obvious answer unless you are a lawyer and have sat through this thing. I hated this part of the trial. Once the defense rested i felt like i was done, but i wasnt. Heres an example and just an example. Imagine the government wants to prove that mr. Trump caused the entry of false records, and they want to prove that the ledgers and the documents were false and that mr. Trump caused them to be false. A discussion perhaps only a lawyer could love, if you wanted me to cause me to drop this, you could knock it out of my hand and you would directly causing me to drop this. You could get joe to knock it out of my hand and you would be using a proxy to drop it, and you could sneak up behind me and cause me to drop it, you were indirectly causing me to drop it. The government wants a broad definition of cause, and not just that he made the entries directly himself but caused somebody else to do it. On the other hand, the defense wants a narrow definition of cause, because liability of defense from their perspective ought to be narrow, and liability from the prosecutions perspective ought to be broader. Getting the judge to give the right definition of cause, you scared me and i dropped it, you got somebody else to knock it out, and that will be up to the definition. Please, please, please, mika. Please, nobody knock that out of chucks hands. Theres actually rudy coffee inside of it. It burns through table tops and your lower intestines like acid. Lets keep that there. There it is, made with special ingredients that lets just say are banned in 27 states. Chuck, i want to about the time you said you would wait, and i had a narrowly defined specialty in the law firm where i worked and that was windows, they thought i cleaned windows very well and thats what i did most of the day. I would watch actually the seasoned attorneys and they would sit and wait for the jury, and they hated it. They hated it because you never knew what was going to happen, right . Thats right. They would say, 90 of the time its right, and you lose some you should never win and you win some you should never lose. Thats how people on tv is predicting a jury will come back despite, you know, where they are, whether they are in new york or northwest florida. Nobody knows, because they do, they take their jobs seriously. Once they get behind the doors, it just takes on its own life, doesnt it . Absolutely, joe. I can say with confidence that i felt my case went in well and i introduced the evidence i wanted to introduce and obtained the answers from the witnesses that i wanted to obtain, but it would be crazy, foolish for me to tell you that i knew what a jury was going to do. I think the reason i hated that part so much is maybe as prosecutors, we are a bit of Control Freaks and this is the thing we absolutely cannot control. Once the case is submitted to the jury, its theirs and theirs alone. All can you do is sit and wait. I will never tell you that i know what a jury is going to do. I will tell you that i think the governments case here went in well, well enough to sustain a conviction. Whether or not that happens, i have absolutely no idea. Could i ask a question . Okay. Elizabeth, go for it. I have heard repeatedly how good the governments case is. What would you guess would be if trump is acquitted, why would the jury do that . What evidence would they hang that acquittal on . Elizabeth, remember, in order to acquit, they also have to be unanimous, right . An acquittal, or a conviction requires a 120 verdict. Anything in between them would be a mistrial hung jury. In my experience, when a jury acquits, and thats a unanimous verdict, its typically not always, but typically because they have some question about whether or not the government met its proof, and thats proof beyond a reasonable doubt, a significant burden. Can this jury acquit . Absolutely. Will this jury acquit . I have no idea, but an acquittal is never a vote by a jury that somebody is innocent. They are not asked that question. Its guilty or not guilty. Often when theres an acquittal, the press touts it as a finding of innocence. Thats not the finding, but it would typically, elizabeth, be predicated on a belief by a unanimous jury that the government failed to meet its burden of proof. Next up, the attack on the judge overseeing trumps criminal hushmoney. Thats next on morning joe. Were back in a moment. How did i ever miss this . Before you were preventing migraine with qulipta . Youll never truly forget migraine, but zeromigraine days are possible. Dont take if allergic to qulipta. Most common side effects are nausea, constipation and sleepiness. Qulipta. The forgetyougetmigraine medicine. Smile you found it. The feeling of Finding Psoriasis cant filter out the real you. So go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a oncedaily pill for moderate to severe Plaque Psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. Its like the feeling of finding youre so ready for your closeup. Or finding you dont have to hide your skin just your background. Oncedaily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer skin than the leading pill. Dont take if youre allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. Sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. Serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, and changes in certain labs have occurred. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, liver or kidney problems, high triglycerides, or had a vaccine or plan to. Sotyktu is a tyk2 inhibitor. Tyk2 is part of the jak family. Its not known if sotyktu has the same risks as jak inhibitors. Find what Plaque Psoriasis has been hiding. Theres only one sotyktu, so ask for it by name. So clearly you. Sotyktu. Though he is not testifying, donald trump is still talking a lot. Yesterday he leashed a new line of attack upon judge juan merchan upon leaving the courthouse, he accused the judge of have r hating him and having bias against him because of where he comes from. The judge, take a look at him, take a look at where he comes from. He cant stand donald trump. Hes doing everything in his power sam, what is he talking about . This is typical trump, right . This is the same version of the line he did in the 2016 campaign where he said the trump against him in the the judge was against him in the Trump University trial. Where he comes from could be, and i think deliberately phrased to be interpreted however the viewer wants, but we know what the implication was. That statement in its own right would have been a shock to the system six or seven years ago. And it was. I remember how we felt when it first happened. Its become normalized because we have been so inundated with trump. On the macro scale, we had a 15minute conversation about a potential presumptive gop nominee that might have a guilty verdict in hushmoney payments for a porn star, and we dont step back and say what we are living through is a tense and tumultuous and surreal life, and interesting, the degree to which its not breaking through, and by that i mean the polls dont move, and trumps base doesnt move. We have lawmakers willingly going theres an acceptance happening. Yeah, exactly. An acceptance to it and its becoming baked into our political psyche. Joe . Well, elizabeth, far more than just concerning or nerveracking, this did shock people in 2016 when he was talking about the judge from new mexico, but heres a judge now that says look at him, look at him, see where hes from. I will tell you this is what separates donald trump i will speak for myself, from me and most americans. I look at him and go, Madison Avenue, upper east side. Donald trump speaks in code because he wants people to see the judge as another. Everybody is another unless their immigrant parents were from scotland and germany. You have people i will just go back to it, what does jon meacham call it, the clubhouse, the clubhouse folks that are totally fine with the the grill. Yeah, the mens club grill at Country Clubs who are perfectly comfortable voting for a guy that talks about vermin, a nazi term, and uses the slogan for go back to where you came from for sitting members of congress that dont happen to be white. Yesterday, just take a look at him. Seriously . What is this, 1933 . It is it still needs to be shocking to us today. But but you know, trump also said we need more people coming from norway and the scandinavian countries, and thats how there as well. This has been going on since 2016, 2015, and the population has become used to it. Can you imagine if another politician said Something Like this, we would be talking about it for days. Coming up, we will talk about donald trump back tracking after saying hes open to putting more restrictions on Birth Control. Morning joe is coming back. Lets talk about the Supreme Court. A former obama adviser is warning about how a second potential term could have an affect on the Supreme Court. Take about the stakes of the Supreme Court. If donald trump wins he will almost certainly get two more appointments, and by his second term, thomas will be 82 and alito will be 78. They are definitely retiring. And Justice Sotomayor will be 72, and he will appoint five Supreme Court justices all of who will be around or the age of 60 when he leaves office. Thats a maga Court Majority that will rule for decades. We can win the next however many president ial elections, and absent something sort of extraordinary happening, trumps fingerprints will be all over the Supreme Court. I think we should make this a big issue. We know it works because in 2016, that vacant Justice Scalia seat mcconnell held open, and you heard this, that republicans that did not like trump at the last minute were able to hold their nose and trump for vote because they cared about the Supreme Court and i think we can do that in reverse. The thought of that Supreme Court under a second term and womens rights have already been scaled back. Our health is now less safe because of donald trump and Supreme Court choices. Imagine exactly what dan pfeiffer is imagining moving forward. Frightening. If trump is to lose this november, it most almost certainly would be because of the appointees to the Supreme Court. That line, that individual line, more than anything else up to this point i think is the most Determinative Line of the election. Thats a monumental issue in that sense. Dan is also right about the actuary tables. The justices are getting older and the next president will likely be able to appoint one or two. I think there will probably be an incentive for two justices to say on if biden is elected. Yes, this is an issue up for debate. And three, the larger and more Morbid Discussion is, is this really the way we want the Supreme Court to be decided. We are basically waiting for somebody to croak. There are larger conversations to be had about reforming the court to make it so you dont have this type of intense Governing Entity be decided by somebodys health, but rather you can do something that has term limits so every president gets a certain amount of appointments, and that discussion is not being had, let me be clear, but maybe it should be. Go ahead, joe. This is an extraordinarily important conversation that has to be had. There has to be court reform. Like roe v. Wade, that was overturned because Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to an event and got sick and died. History hung on that balance. The 50year rite ended because of that. James has been on our show before and talked about the expansion of the Supreme Court that has been thoughtout for the last 20 or 30 years, where each president gets two selections, and you term limit you term limit Supreme Court justices. I think america may be the only western power that has judges appointed for life. Its a crazy process. Coming up, emmy nominated law and orders kris meloni. Morning joe is coming right back. Tech need to get your windshield fixed . Safelite makes it easy. You can schedule in just a few clicks. And well come to you with a replacement you can trust. Vo schedule Free Mobile Service now at safelite. Com. Safelite repair, safelite replace. First psoriasis, then Psoriatic Arthritis. It was really holding me back. Standing up. Even walking was tough. My joints hurt. I was afraid things were going to get worse. I was always hiding and thats just not me. Not being there for my family, that hurt. Woo i had to do something. I started cosentyx®. 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Sign up at shiningthroughcidp. Com. All be heard. Be hopeful. Be you. Been so stranger to death, and covering the most violent conflicts in the world, he withdrew soldiers and some of his own colleagues and has seen them die in the line of duty, but now hes recounting his own Close Encounter with death during a medical emergency in 2020. In his new book entitled in my time of death how i came facetoface with the idea of the after life. A lot of times there were people on the other side of the line trying to kill you, but this time it was personal. What happened . I almost have been killed in front line situations, which is weirdly impersonal as you say. What happened to me is i had an abdominal hemorrhage, and i had a weak spot that ruptured and a problem that had been in my abdomen my whole life and it decided to rupture, and i was turn into a human hourglass, and by the time i got to the hospital by ambulance, i was a few minutes from dead. They managed to save me. I was conscious the whole time. Im an atheist, and i dont believe in an after life and dont have mystical thoughts. You saw your father . My father appeared above me to welcome me, and he said you can come with me and i will take care of you. And i was like, you are dead, and we have nothing to talk about, and i said to the doctor, hurry, im leaving, you are losing me. What was different in terms of you facing death . You were in afghanistan and you faced death on a daily basis, and this was personal and you are in the hospital, and the nurse after the surgery tells you we thought you were going to die. Yeah, i was blown up in an ied and bullets flying above my head, and a lot of stuff, and that was elective, and i am a reporter and will go to the war zone, and i gave that up after a colleague was killed in libya, and i had a family, two young daughters, and it didnt occur to me the front lines can come to you, right . In mid sentence, i had a pain. You said you were an atheist, did you find that god knocked on your door . I dont believe in god, but some people do. My father was a physicists, and he taught me to think in rational ways. What it made me think is that with or without a god thats a separate conversation, there may be some kind of post death existence that we dont understand. Theres interesting theories about how it might work. Sometimes people ask, are you spiritual now, and thats a term about physics that we dont understand. Do you wake up and think im glad to be here . What i would say is that i dont go to church, but the worship that i conduct in a sense in my own life is in the present moment and with the people i love on the earth and appreciate it, and thats a church you can attend on your own and its effective. Its my church, too. How i came facetoface with the idea of an afterlife. Its on sale right now on amazon and every place else. Thank you very much for this. Thank you. The latest on the Singapore Airlines flight when we come back, a flight that when landed with such severe turbulence, a passenger died and 20 others remain in intensive care. Nbcs tom costello has new details and why everybody on the plane was scared. Theres no problem with understanding that. Were back in a moment. Help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. E trade from Morgan Stanley with powerful, easytouse tools, power e trade makes complex trading easier. React to fastmoving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you wont miss an opportunity. E trade from Morgan Stanley music have Heart Failure with unresolved symptoms . It may be time to see the bigger picture. Heart failure and seemingly unrelated symptoms, like carpal tunnel syndrome, shortness of breath, and irregular heartbeat could be something more serious called attrcm, a rare, underdiagnosed disease that worsens over time. Sound like you . Call your cardiologist, and ask about attrcm. An alternative to pills, voltaren is a clinically proven arthritis pain relief gel, which penetrates deep to target the source of pain with nonsteroidal antiinflammatory medicine directly at the source. Voltaren, the joy of movement. Were learning more about the severe turbulence that hit a Singapore Airlines jet yesterday. One passenger died and dozens were injured on the flight from london to singapore. 20 remain in intensive care right now. Tom costello has the latest and why such incidents are happening more often. Reporter breaking this morning after the dramatic turbulence onboard the flight, the ceo is speaking out. We are deeply saddened by the incident. The extreme turbulence injured dozens of passengers and flight attendants, some critically. One hospital treated 70 passengers, roughly onethird of those aboard. 73yearold kitchen died. An airport official said the passenger suffered from a heart condition. Four americans were also onboard, a family on its way to a rotary convention. Flight radar data shows the plane pushed up suddenly and then down, like a violent wave at 37,000 feet. Then a controlled emergency decent to 31,000 feet and an emergency landing. Firefighters rushed in removing victims on backboards. Inside the plane, evidence of a terrifying flight, bloodstains on the ceiling. Andrew davies was a passenger socalled clear air turbulence is difficult to predict, and Climate Change already made wind shear much stronger. If you imagine the air flow over the wing, this wing will be pushed up violently and innocently, and the airplane will tilt to the left. The pilots radio turbulence to the cockpit. We have seen people have broken limbs because somebody else has fallen on them, and we tell people to protect yourself and keep that seat belt fastened even when the sign is not on. The takeaway is that this is happening more and the reason for it is invisible to radar. I am worried about all the flights coming im thinking i have so many flights coming up over the course of the summer, and Climate Change is going to keep getting worse. Its extraordinary the repercussions of Climate Change you wouldnt think of, and now it affects the airlines. Coming up right now, the socalled she economy is booming. Womenowned 2023 with fertility care and wealth and Wellness Industries leading the way. In fact, the women president S Association a nonprofit for Women Business leaders just released its 2024 list of the 50 Fastest Growing womenowned and led companies. Fertility startup kindbody took the top spot, followed by symbiotika a health and wellness company. The fertility companies and the companies that help with benefits for fertility, theyre booming because women are realizing they have a long runway and they can make these choices along the way and businesses want to retain great female employees and thats the way to do it. Here to tell us more maggie mcgrath. Youve been covering this for forbes, were covering it on know your value. What were the big take a ways from this list of women owned and led companies. The average honoree i want to say, 50 over 50 list, was 54 years old. Yes, thats right, mika. These 50 companies employ more than 18,000 people, have a selective 7 billion in revenue and are led by ceos who have an average age of 54. Now, this should not surprise us. We know from the women of the 50 over 50 that age and experience are advantages in running and growing sustainable businesses. I spoke with the ceo of womens president organization Camille Burns and she said that one of the interesting trends, other than the fact that, yes, you pointed out health and wellness, direct to consumer companies, those are sectorbased trends she saw on this list, one of the other interesting trends is that experience is driving this growth. Oftentimes camille told me ceos of Small Businesses and startups are afraid to invest in resources that feel too expensive for the companys budget, but its when they spend that money on the Senior Executive or the piece of technology that felt too expensive, thats when they see the companys growth. Mika, i think thats such an important lesson not just for founders and ceos but for all women. Absolutely. You have to invest in resources in order to grow. You spoke with the kind body founder and executive chairman who is also honored on forbes and know your value 50 over 50 list last year. What did gina who is known as the og fertility founder have to say about the growing Business Opportunity in Family Building . I asked gina about the challenges of running a Fertility Company in america in 2024 when we have state by state differences in Reproductive Health laws that could affect the way her customers access care and the way her company operates. She said that the Political Landscape has not been a hindrance to her business. Customer demand continues to grow and is, in fact, the largest driver for her business growth. Globally we see one in six adults struggling with fertility and in the u. S. Those numbers are slightly larger and we see the numbers for her own company, she recorded 180 million in revenue last year, said shes on track for 250 million and she thinks it could be a multibillion dollar business. She was very careful to note that ivf and fertility planning should not be partisan issues. Right. Speaking of 50 over 50 founders, the nominations deadline for our Fourth Annual im so proud to say u. S. List, 50 over 50 list, is fast approaching. It is may 30th. So eight days away. Maggie, how is it going . What do our viewers need to know about nominating a woman who has proven success has no age limit . You know what i always say, you dont need to wait for somebody to nominate you, you can just do it yourself. Nominate yourself. There is no deadline for success and innovation but there is a deadline for nominations, it is may 30th. Weve read fabulous stories of resilience and gutsy business decisions. We want to see more of these. We are looking for founders and leaders across all sectors and i especially want to see more founders and leaders in stem fields, traditionally maeldominated fields. I wanted to ask a commonly asked question weve been getting. This list does not include posthumous figures. Weve been touched by some of these stories but we are looking for women born in or before 1973 and are actively making a difference on this planet today. So if that describes you or someone you know, please, please tell us all about it. Maggie mcgrath, thank you very much. Talk about yourself, ladies. To read more about the Fastest Growing womenowned Companies Head over to knowyourvalue. Com. Daniella has a great piece about this. We spoke to several of the founders and got their best advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. For all the details and guidelines about the 50 over 50 list go to forbes. Com or knowyourvalue. Com to get your nominations in today. Katty and susan page is here for the next hour. We did have women lying up about their age. I love that. Were like, sorry, youre 49 1 2 thats a no can do. Sorry. Thats great. It was fun to say no. I know somebody i want to nominate. Please. Just as i was listening i thought dont you think . Its a great reminder because there are so many amazing women. I love it. Were going to get ready for the next hour. Still ahead, louisiana lawmakers vote to reclassify two Abortion Pills as controlled substances. We will dig into the effects this new legislation could have on women both in the state and across the country. And we will speak with someone who knows louisiana pretty well, former new orleans mayor now national cochair for the Biden Harris Reelection Campaign Mitch Landrieu joins the table in washington. Morning joe wiLl Be Right Back. Washington. Morning joe wille bright back bell ringing someone needs to customize and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual inaudible sounds elevator doors opening wait, theres an elevator . Only pay for what you need. Liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. People couldnt see my potential. So i had to show them. Ive run this place for 20 years, but i still need to prove that im more than what you see on paper. Today im the ceo of my own company. Its the way my mind works. I have a very mechanical brain. Why are we not rethinking this . I am more. Im more than who i am on paper. Confederate monuments statues were like, you should take that down. Really, thats got to come down. Thats got to come down. Unified yike. Thats not a dog whistle, thats a whistle made of dog, evidently maga now stands for make america germany around 1938. Yeah, thats kind of what it is. That was late nights take on a video former President Donald Trump shared on his truth social account that referred to a unified reich as being among possible developments if he were to win reelection in november. Although the Trump Campaign later tried to distance itself by saying it was not an official campaign video, and also blaming a staffer for reposting it, it remained up on trumps social media account for 19 hours before being taken down. Its worth noting that trump has previously said that the only people permitted to post on his accounts are himself and Senior Advisor dan scavino who worked at his golf club in breyer cliff. Who i guess is a staffer. Both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris reacted to the video. Whats next for america . Is this on his official account . Wow. A unified reich . Thats hitlers language. Thats not americas. He cares about holding on to power. I care about you. In this moment in this moment extremists are trying to divide our nation and we see them as they encourage xenophobia and hate. Just yesterday the former president of the United States who praises dictators, who said there were very fine people on both sides in charlottesville lets not forget took to social media and highlighted language from nazi germany. Highlighted language from nazi germany. This kind of rhetoric is unsurprising coming from the former president and it is appalling and weve got to tell him who we are. Mike barnicle and katty kay are still with us. Joining us we have Washington Bureau chief at usa today susan page and cohost of msnbcs the weekend simone town send and also Mitch Landrieu. We will start with you, we heard the president and Vice President responding. I know that i know that its a fine balance to respond to everything that comes from trump world our way and for the Biden Campaign to do so, oh, well, it must be a huge challenge, but to me it seems like Something Like this is worth noting. Theyre going to say, oh, youre just getting triggered, oh, it was just a mistake, we took it down. And yet we now have a track record of this former president and how a lot of what he says happens. Well, some very wise person once said that when somebody tells you who they are, you should you should believe them. And of course one of the reasons this is important to highlight is because this is part of a large pattern that has been with us since donald trump unfortunately has been with us. This election is going to be about a choice, its going to be about a guy who gets up every day fighting for the American People, who believes were better together, that diversity is a strength, wants to build an economy from the bottom up and middle out and is actually doing that and getting the work done or someone who believes that america ought to be left to a few people and everyone else should stand on the side and his rich friends should benefit. This statement that the expresident made, as i said, is part of a pattern. He was in favor of keeping up the confederate monuments, he talked about back in the day when somebody sent to him about david duke he didnt really know. He talked about in charlottesville there being both sides to that issue. This is a tip of the hat to White Supremacy and White Nationalism which is unfortunately a very important part of the expresident s base, which goes to show you what hes going to do if he gets elected again. He has already told you hes going to be a dictator for a day. He wants to make sure that he could Order Seal Team 6 to shoot political opponents. Donald trump cant hide behind it. Nobody messes with his social media posts. I think people become so overwhelmed they tune out, susan page. The White Supremacy, stand back, stand by, january 6th hostages, you know, the list goes on. Celebrating violence, celebrating what happened, laughing at what happened to paul pelosi. The list is so long. You could spend the entire day going through the list of things that could be frightening about a second trump term. Then theres this whole set of americans out there who are not just exhausted by it, but they dont kind of remember trumps presidency the way it happened. In a way the impact of these comments gets less the more often they are said, but, mitch, youve worked in campaigns and as you know sometimes things happen in campaigns that you dont intend to happen, mistakes happen. Always. People screw up. Do you think its possible that this is an example of that or do you think there was a deliberate decision to use the words, to spotlight the words unified reich which has such resonance with nazi germany . I dont know if it was unintentional or intentional, it just continues to happen everywhere donald trump goes. Everywhere he goes he creates chaos, creates the worst of the worst and they continue to have this constant thread that actually sends the clear message that he says i am going to be for certain kinds of people and not others. When he says Something Like people are vermin or blood is poison. Who says reich . Simone . Reich is not in my vocabulary. Its not on your bingo card, its not in your vocabulary. Do you think the Biden Campaign is responding in kind effectively . Are people hearing it . Well, with their Campaign Chairman sitting right next to me, i think that the response yesterday was absolutely warranted to your point and, good, there are people out there that will say, oh, the Biden Campaign talks too much about donald trump, i think that those people are not paying attention. I think the rest of us talk about donald trump, the Biden Campaign does not talk about donald trump a lot. I think they have picked and chosen when to highlight him. I would say that he has said so many things and is doing so many destructive things that more is warranted. He spoke to the nra this past weekend and lots of attention was paid rightfully so to his comments about the current president , President Biden and the electric chair. But there was a lot more that he said and did and so its kind of like where donald trump is concerned for the American People, its a hear no evil, see no evil for lack of a better term. Because he is out of sight, out of mind for the American People they have forgot what he has done. Theres a balance because this election for people across the country is about the future. You talk about housing and the work on infrastructure that has been done and what that means for folks and what you will do if given another term thats what people want to hear. You have to talk a tightrope. Lets move to louisiana, the house approved a bill yesterday, this is why mitch is here, that classifies two drugs used to induce abortion as controlled dangerous substances. Meanwhile, former President Trump said in an interview that he is, quote, looking at supporting restrictions on a persons right to contraception. Nbc news senior washington correspondent Hallie Jackson has the latest. Reporter a new front line this morning in the battle over abortion access. And bill is finally passed. Reporter louisiana lawmakers moving forward with a plan to put two abortion drugs in the same category as socalled controlled dangerous substances like depressants and stimulants. Criminalizing the possession of mifepristone and mifepristone for in inn without a prescription. If overutilized the drug can be harmful. Reporter the bills author says his sister was given the drug without her con sneent the goal is not to prevent women from getting the access to pills when they need them, it is to simply say when you are a bad actor in possession of these pills that you should be held accountable. Reporter but critics question how the state could enforce the proposal and warn it may have a chilling effect. Let me tell you something, 50th in maternal outcomes is not prolife. Reporter 280 louisiana doctors in a letter say reclassifying the drugs is not scientifically based and creates confusion and misinformation, considering the drugs are also used after miscarriages and to induce labor. There are only a very small percentage of the time are they utilized for abortion care. Reporter louisiana already has one of the most restrictive laws in the country, banning both medication and surgical abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest, only for the life of the mother. Since the overturning of roe v. Wade more than a dozen states put in place stricter abortion laws, raising the political stakes on reproductive rights heading into november. Former donald trump first opening the door on restrictions to Birth Control. Do you support any restrictions on a persons right to contraception. Im going to have a policy on that very shortly, i think its something that you will find interesting. Reporter but hours later backing off, making clear on his social media platform he does not support a ban on Birth Control and will never advocate for one. All right. Nbcs Hallie Jackson with that report. Great panel to talk about this and its not crazy. I will say it, i just told my friends here that i saw plan b at a drugstore in florida and bought ten because i figure at some point theyre going to be outlawed. At the rate were going. Am i crazy . Is the risk that we go from banning abortion bills to banning the morning after pill. When the roe v. Wade ruling came down there was a line in the ruling that hinted at what we are seeing now, that there would justices on the Supreme Court who would like to take a look at contraception. All forms of contraception, including the plan b that you have you know, that you hoarded. Just wondering what they were making of the drugstore where you bought a lot of plan b. It was a scene at cvs. I can see where youre doing it. We have doctors in mexico shipping morning after pills to women in the United States because they are legal in mexico. I have a lot of young women in my life. They are trying to help out women in the United States. Mitch, how much push back do you think this gets politically in louisiana . Louisiana obviously a red state. How much is it galvanizing people do you think in louisiana . A lot. It proves the case that President Biden has made that he trusts the women of america to make decisions about their Reproductive Health to them and donald trump wants to return it to the states which by the way is the same legal argument they used to let slavery hang around for a long period of time. Because its going back to the states as a consequence of donald trump appointing three Supreme Court justices, states like idaho, states like ohio, states like florida, states like texas and now louisiana have gotten as restrictive as they possibly can. Theyre making it harder for women. These pills are not just to treat abortion but to treat miscarriages. You know the case in ohio where they passed a law that actually allowed since theyre monitoring pregnant women for police to search their toilets. Donald trump is the reason the states are now doing this. Its hard to imagine its a political plus even in a socially conservative solidly red state like louisiana to go after means of contraception. I think thats true but you also saw this with ivf in florida. As soon as people started saying what it meant to leave it to the states people started going, oh, we didnt mean that is correct its not prolife or its pro choice. The bottom line is who has the responsibility of taking the choice. The president trusts women, donald trump trusts legislators and sheriffs deputies more than women about their own radio productive health. I think the American People are on the side of the president and Vice President s views here. This is where biden should hammer it home. Yes. It seems to me this is one of the reasons why you all pushed so hard for the debates and box donald trump in, i think, quite masterfully into agreeing at least right now to play by joe bidens rules and i think we will see at least one debate, i know everybody has said yes to two but i dont trust donald trump to show up. Because its issues like these that he will have to speak about on the debate stage. I see what his post on the social site said, but i also heard what he said on the stage. Abortion has been a powerful political issue for democrats ever since roe v. Wade was overturned and yet we see in yet another set of Swing State Polls that donald trump is ahead. Why is that . Hes actually, the polls are moving in our direction fairly quickly and the only one that matters is the one on election day. I do think its because people have selective amnesia. Thats what campaigns are about, we are going to remind everybody about all the things donald trump said and did. Four years ago. What it was like when joe biden took over when hundreds of thousands of people were dying, the economy was crashing, americans were standing in food lines, there was an active insurrection in play. People will remember that and when american citizens start thinking about this campaign, theyre worried about their families getting back to school to work and mosque, they are going to know that donald trump was really bad for america and joe biden has been good. Mike barnicle has a question for you. Hi, mike. Mitch, this question of what the Louisiana Legislature did yesterday criminalizing abortion bills it raises the issue of the millions of families in this country with children living on the margins and the idea that the Louisiana Legislature, largely republican, obviously, and the Republican Party in general seems opposed at every turn, Child Tax Credit bills and everything like that, from helping the living children today and the families of the living children today, giving more emphasis on the unborn than they do to People Living on the margins, poor People Living on the margins. What do you do with that in a campaign . Well, i think you talk about it in a very aggressive way, for example, in louisiana one of the first things that a newly elected governor did was reject money that the Biden Administration wanted to send so that kids to have lunch at schools during the summer. The other thing they did was restricted somebodys ability to get benefits when they were unemployed. This idea through the entire Prolife Movement that they want to talk about life in the womb but they dont want to talk about life after a kid. This has been present the entire time and that hypocrisy not being able to create that consistent ethic of life is just right there in the center and i think people in the country are going to see that. On top of that, i just think women in america and most people in america are going to see what the states are doing now because donald trump permitted them to do that and say that is not who we are as americans. Theyre going to see it play out in realtime. Women suffering, dealing with just impossible decisions. Us having having the greatest health care in the world and not being able to give it to the women who need it. Thats what were going to be, ridiculous. Thats where we are and were going to watch women going through this now. Here is the point that the president has made, if the Supreme Court didnt think that women had power, i think women in america are going to show folks what their power really looks like because it is clearly at risk and its at ris income realtime and theyre seeing their rights being taken away. This is the first time in 50 years that a fundamental right has been taken away. When donald trump said make america again he said i want to take you back, i want to take you back to germany and the third reich, back to the civil war with the lost cause, back to where women did not have rights. I dont think were going to go there. National cochair for President Bidens Reelection Campaign Mitch Landrieu, Symone Sanders town send thank you as well. Tell be watching the weekend saturday and sunday mornings beginning at 8 00 a. M. Eastern right here on msnbc. Coming up on morning joe, the United Nations suspended Food Distribution in Southern Gaza due to a lack of supplies and no safe way to deliver aid. Well get the latest from the region as humanitarian operation right side on the verge of collapse. Plus, irans Supreme Leader leads Tens Of Thousands at a funeral for the countrys president , foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash. How about iran respond to the loss of its hardline leader . That discussion is straight ahead on morning joe. Der . That discussion is straight ahead on morning joe. Slowing my cancer from growing and living longer are two things i want from my Metastatic Breast Cancer treatment. And with kisqali, i can have both. Kisqali is a pill that when taken with an aromatase inhibitor helps delay cancer from growing and has been proven to help people live significantly longer across three separate clinical trials. So, i have the confidence to live my life. 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Now to the latest in gaza and the worsening humanitarian crisis there. The United Nations has suspended Food Distribution in the Southern City of rafah due to a lack of supplies and no reliable way to deliver the aid. Nbc news Foreign Correspondent raf sanchez has the latest. Reporter with no sign israels military offensive in rafah is slowing, the u. N. Overnight suspending Food Distribution in Southern Gaza, saying its short on supplies and its just too dangerous. While in the north the pentagon also updating on that floating pier built by the u. S. Military, saying that so far none of the aid delivered through it has reached hungry residents. It comes after the prosecutor of the International Criminal court accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deliberately starving the people of gaza. An allegation he denied to msnbcs stephanie ruhle. Weve enabled air drops, maritime routes, were building a port. The whole thing of a deliberate starvation policy is ridiculous. Reporter israel pushing back by a dramatic move by three of the allies who say theyre recognizing an independent palestinian state. Ireland, norway and spain saying peace can only come through a twostate solution. Israels Foreign Ministry calling the move a gift to hamas and iran and recalling its ambassadors. As tension increase aboard israel seizing equipment from the Associated Press only to back down after pressure from the white house. The Israeli Government said ap footage of gaza was being used by al jazeera which is now banned in israel. Three years ago in the last gaza war israel bombed an Office Building used by both the ap and al jazeera, saying hamas was operating out of it. That was nbcs raf sanchez reporting. Meanwhile, irans Supreme Leader presided over a funeral for the countrys late president , foreign minister and the others killed in that helicopter crash. The funeral procession began yesterday in northwest iran and has now traveled to the capital, leading to scenes of both mourning and reports of cautious celebrations as well. Joining us now senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace kareem sajapor and executive director of the Mccain Institute Evelyn Farkas is with us. Katty kay has the first question. It seems like iran at this juncture could go one of two ways after raisis death, it could become more militaristic, more authoritarian or a regime unpopular at home could start to see its demise. The late great dr. Brzezinski, mikas father, he said 20 years ago that the clerics are part of irans past not its future and i think raisis death accelerates that future in iran and i think essentially what we will see in the coming years in iran, if indeed the regime survives, its going to be dominated by military men, by the revolutionary guards, but its a big if whether or not this regime can survive given the profound popular discontent inside iran. Rev listen, thinking about another very difficult part of the world, the situation we see in israel, weve heard the Biden Administration get increasingly frustrated with israel, with our allies in israel, increasingly willing to speak up about squandering the good feeling they had and the world support they had in the aftermath of the terrible october 7th attacks. Given this current situation, including the action of the International Criminal court, what can the Biden Administration do, what should they do to try to move this along in the right direction . Yeah, i mean, susan, we need robust diplomacy. So the Biden Administration obviously is trying, but i think the more pressure needs to be exerted on hamas, more public pressure. I do agree that clearly the Israeli Government is having a pr problem, which is largely they have contributed to, the fact that humanitarian assistance is not getting through is is not entirely their responsibility, but largely, again, theyve made it really difficult, they havent opened up the corridors, sydney mccain from the World Food Program has said that there is a famine in gaza, some of the israeli spokespeople have disputed that. It doesnt look good to dispute it, just bring the food in . Right. So i think thats a problem for israel, but we need to make sure that the arabs, all of our allies in the middle east and the europeans frankly who are taking these unilateral actions right now to recognize a palestinian state that they actually help us with the diplomacy, that they put pressure on the arab states to put pressure on hamas and remind everyone what hamas is and what the role of iran is in all of this. Kareem, do you agree . Yes. You know, i think theres two kinds of countries in the middle east. Right. Theres builders and destroyers. I call them falcons and vultures. Countries like saudi arabia, uae, you know, a lot of parts of israel theyre trying to build soaring cities, societies, companies, and then you have iran and its axis of resistance and they are in the business of destroying, not building, and capitalizing on power vacuums and civil wars and the misery of others. Unfortunately in this world this building probably took 1,000 people to build ten years, you can destroy it in a couple days. So destroying is much easier than building and for the United States we really have to be on the side of the builders. So i want to move now to the issue of ukraine. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to call for stronger supportive measures from the west in his countrys fight against russias invasion. Speaking to the New York Times, zelenskyy once again pointed to the importance of fortifying ukraines air defenses and beyond saying that his country wants to launch americanmade weapons into russia to strike at military targets. As Russia Strikes against ukraine on a daily basis, ukraines inability to counter with the same approach gives russia a huge advantage in the war. Zelle ski also asked why nato countries could not shoot down missiles launched into ukraine. He cited irans unprecedented attack on israel last month in which the u. S. Worked with israel and other allies to eliminate the inbound missiles and drones. Like why cant there be a way to protect ukraine that is similar to what israel has . Hes posing a really valid question, mika. I think the reason the administration has decided not to take direct action to shoot down missiles and, mind you, these are missiles, not the pilots in the planes, not the russians themselves, over ukrainian territory, because our administration is afraid they have been cowed by the threats that Vladimir Putin and his officials have made about using nuclear force. Right now theyre demonstrating using Nuclear Tactical weapons. I frankly think the likelihood of the russians using a Nuclear Weapon even a demonstration weapon is less than 50 . Of course you cant rule it out so if youre sitting in the white house you have to be cautious, but theres no reason why the ukrainians cant use the weapons that we gave them to attack valid military targets inside of russia. Theres no reason. We really shouldnt give the russians that kind of sanctuary. Weve given ukraine the weapons to stop the military aggression against ukraine. There shouldnt be a red line we draw there. Are we with ukraine or halfway . That was the question president zelenskyy was asking is what is holding you back . There is a feeling in ukraine of incredible frustration that this package took so long. Took so long. Took so long because of our own politics and also what is our end goal . We know what ukraines end goal is in this war. What is the United States image of how this can end in a way thats satisfactory . Im going to say really quickly that Vladimir Putin cannot prevail. His Foreign Policy needs to be defeated. You guys have said this a million times here, i want to add that right now while were talking about ukraine, republic of georgia and, mika, im sure your brothers are watching this really carefully republic of georgia, their government has decided to turn them away from the European Union just like the puppet government in ukraine did in 2014 and the georgian people are on the streets demonstrating. We dont know whats going to happen but i think Everyone Needs to understand putin has made a move there. So its not just about ukraine. If he wins in ukraine hes going to ratchet up the pressure but hes also not waiting. He thinks were on our back foot now. Where is this all going . Even talk about the iran russia relationship. Yes, i mean, i wonder if theres an opportunity here for the United States to work with china because china is a country which theyre commonly lumped together with russia but in my view they have very different interests. Russia is a country like iran which benefits from instability, the disruption of free trade, disruption of the production of oil because oil prices did high and they make much more money. Those two things are to chinese interests. China doesnt benefit from certain instability in the middle east, disruption of free trade and oil. So i wonder if theres kind of more of a geopolitical overlap between america and china than russia and china. Takes some agility. A lot of agility. Senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, kareem sagapor, thank you and executive director of the Mccain Institute, Evelyn Farkas. Thank you as well. Great to see you. Coming up, our next guest argues there needs to be a new way to measure the prosperity of americans. We will explain what the concept life is ahead on morning joe and what youre looking at, live pictures, fleet week has started in new york city. We wiLl Be Right Back. Smile you found it. 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Theres only one sotyktu, so ask for it by name. So clearly you. Sotyktu. The Gross National product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our whitmore our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning. Neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about america except why we are proud that we are americans. That was robert f. Kennedy during a president ial Campaign Speech in 1968. Rejecting the use of Gross National product to measure americas economic health. Joining us now editor at large news week cnbc founder and contributor tom rodgers, his latest piece coauthored with his son Robert Rodgers who is a physician scientist is entitled step aside, gd, its time for lif or Lifestyle Improvement factor. Tom, what is this concept . Well, my son came up with this concept. He is a physician scientist, but he has an economics degree from harvard and we talk a lot about both health care and the health of the economy. What weve lost here along the way, even though Bobby Kennedy was talking about a lot of nonmaterial things in life that gdp doesnt measure, weve lost the connection between Economic Growth and Lifestyle Improvement. Things that really make life more enjoyable. And so we came up with this notion of lifetime improvement factor, a way of measuring what makes life worthwhile. There are a lot of things that people spend money on that really are maintenance expenses in life that you have to spend on rent, on tuition, on medical expenses, on child care, on home insurance, on Car Insurance. A bunch of things that generate Economic Activity from consumer spending, but they really are not things that enhance ones lifestyle. So what were trying to do is isolate those things that enhance peoples lifestyle, where they feel their life has been improved in terms of being able to have fun and enjoyment. Travel, vacations, being at live sports, concerts. The kind of things that you would say, wow, if i could spend more on that, im enjoying life more. Now, obviously that doesnt measure a bunch of nonmaterial things that none of these economic measures like gdp or the Consumer Price index or personal income index capture, but we think its time to really figure out how we can meaningfully assess if people feel that their life has improved. So, tom, in this and im not going to use the word polarized to describe America Today because its overused. So lets say in this unsettled country right now today, a country seemingly with amnesia, they cant remember january 6 and what happened on january 6, a country that has the Attention Span a little shorter than just the snap of my fingers, how do we go about getting that done in this unsettled country, convincing people, you know, you dont need that extra coat that you just bought today, instead do something more worthwhile that will make you happier, how do we go about doing that . Well, its really something that i think both democrats and republicans could find interesting for their own purposes. Democrats of course always think that these aggregate measures dont really get at whether lower income and middle income people, how theyre prospering. We see today in polls that most people think the economy is not in good shape, which is hard to understand because we have gdp growth and low unemployment and the stock market is doing well and wage growth is doing decently and yet people think their own personal financial situation is better than that. How do you explain that, though . Upwards of 70 of the people in this country when asked how are you doing economically, how are you doing, they say im doing okay. How do you think the country is doing . The country is terrible. How do you well, one of the things is we dont have a measure to get at that, why do people think their life has improved when it comes to the things that they can enjoy . Its just a measure out there that we ask people what their sentiment is, but we dont actually measure it. And the Lifestyle Improvement factor would very much get at that. I think republicans who are always looking to figure out some way to critique the state of the economy because they have to live with the Inconvenient Truth that under democrats the economy has been better, true of clinton versus bush one and obama versus bush two and biden versus trump. So i think both sides of the aisle could benefit for their own purposes actually having a measure like this that gets at what it is that people feel has enhanced their life. Now, were only talking about material things that can be measured, so the kind of things youre pointing to on Greater Happiness that might come from any number of things that you cant measure materially, were not trying to get at. Thats a very, very hard notion. But we do think when it comes to material consumption theres certainly a way to assess and measure if people really have a basis for thinking their life has improved versus being overwhelmed with the cost of just maintenance expenses. Its interesting to see if you look at the cost of basic tennis sneakers, adjusting for inflation they really havent changed in more than ten years, the price. The price of going to a tennis match adjusted for inflation has more than doubled. So you have inflation itself within these life enhancing, lifestyle improved factors and even that gets something we have to assess. The new piece is online now for news week. Great idea. Tom rodgers, thank you so much for coming in, its always good to see you. Thank you, tom. And coming up on morning joe, emmy nominated law and order actor Chris Maloney is taking on a new case, giving voice to victims of what has been described as the quiet epidemic. He will join us along with filmmaker lindsey keys to explain. Next on morning joe. psst psst ahhh with flonase, allergies dont have to be scary. Spray Flonase Sensimist daily for nondrowsy long lasting relief in a scent free, gentle mist. Flonase all good. Also, try our allergy headache and nighttime pills. Some people just know theres a better way to do things. And some people. Dont. Bundle your home and auto with allstate and save. Youre in good hands with allstate. Today, at americas beverage companies,. Our bottles might still look the same. But they can be remade in a whole new way. Thanks to you. Were getting bottles back. And weve developed a way to make new ones from 100 recycled plastic. New bottles made using no new plastic. Youll be seeing more of these bottles in more places. And when we get more of them back. We can use less new plastic. See how our bottles are made to be remade. Why choose a sleep number smart bed . Can it keep me warm when im cold . We can use less new plastic. Wait, no, im always hot. Sleep number does that. Can i make my side softer . I like my side firmer. Sleep number does that. Can it help us sleep better and better . Please . Sleep number does that. 94 percent of smart sleepers report better sleep. Now, save 50 on the sleep Number Limited Edition smart bed. Plus, free Home Delivery when you add any base. Shop now at sleepnumber. Com sure, im a paid actor, and this is not a real company, but there is no way to fake how upwork can help your business. Search talent all over the world with over 10,000 skills you may not have in house. More than 30 of the fortune 500 use upwork because this is how we work now. And theyre all coming . Mthose who are still fortuwith us, yes. Work grandpa whats this . Your wings. Light em up gentlemen, its a beautiful. Day to fly. Nothing has changed, theyre dumbfounded, youre still sick. Maybe its all in your head they tell you. Well, its not. Its chronic lyme disease. That was really good. Thats actor chris meloni in a psa for the Global Lyme Alliance. Last month a group of advocates led by the law and order svu star went to capitol hill to seek increased federal funding to study the conditions of those suffering from the longterm effects of lyme disease. They had meetings with lawmakers from both parties hoping to bring bipartisan support to what the advocates say is a long overlooked issue. I would agree. And the emmy nominated actor joins us now, he also served as an ambassador for the Global Lyme Alliance. Also with us filmmaker lindsay keys who directed the documentary titled the quite yet epidemic focusing on living with lyme disease. Thank you for coming in this morning. Chris, that was a great psa. You nailed it. How did you get involved with this . Yeah, as a matter of fact, im kind of reliving that. Thats very painful to watch because ive ive been through everything that was that was written on there. Well, thats how thats why im here. I see. Okay. My family has been severely affected by lyme disease and i needed a place to find support, to find an answer. So that led me to Global Lyme Alliance and in the midst of that one afternoon midst of that one afternoon, my wife and i went to see the quiet epidemic, lindsays movie, and that left me paralyzed with pain and reliving everything that was in the film, and so we got connected and got together. Very cool. So weve seen long covid, in this country, now we have long lyme disease. Yes. My concern as a grandparent and a parent, grandparent specifically, is little kids, summer time, out running, lawn, grass, what are the symptoms of a little kids lyme disease. How would a parent or grandparent know enough to say, hey, come here, let me check you out here. We have heard of the bulls eye rash as being the classic sign of lyme disease. That occurs in about 25 of cases. Thats important to note. You can look for rashes, theyre not always going to be there. Flu like symptoms in the summer, also known as the summer flu, joint pain that migrates throughout the body. Mood personality changes. Its hard to know. If you suddenly notice that your child or your grandchild is not well and all of the Laboratory Tests are coming back saying theres nothing wrong with this child, its important to know that the Laboratory Tests are inaccurate and you want to find a doctor who is willing to make a clinical diagnosis and treat as quickly as possible. You know, chris, youre not a doctor, youre not a politician. Youre a celebrity. We have seen the power of celebrities to focus attention on diseases or other issues facing the nation. What is it that you hope you yourself can do in this cause . And have you been surprised by the power of your voice in talking about this . Pleasantly surprised. And thank god for that. I was more stunned and shocked by falling into this world of lyme disease and understanding the facts and figures. You know, its been around since 1975. There is nearly no money being thrown towards research. What the medical professionals understand it to be, they dont know. And theyre slowly now admitting to that. No one is admitting to chronic lyme when there are millions of cases out there. Its, you know, a disease that needs attention. Thats what were hoping for. It Needs Congress to pay attention, and get some funding to research so that we can get an answer. I mean, this is one of the Fastest Growing epidemics thats coming our way. In the 1980s there were about 1,500 reported cases of lyme. Now each year there are nearly half a million. Of that half a million, at least 10 will turn into chronic lyme where there is, as of now, no cure. Amazing. I spent most of my weekends on a farm, and almost everybody i know, incluing several members of my family have had lyme disease. It is debilitating. What is the aim of looking for new treatments, exploring alternative treatments. Are there things out there that were not trying that we could be trying . There are so many therapies out there that we could be trying. The issue is as chris said, theres been a serious lack of funding. We also lack clinical trials. Its been 18 years since the nih funded a treatment trial for lyme disease. Ticks are exploding across the country. They carry far more than just lyme disease. There are nearly 20 pathogens that have been identified in ticks at this point, and doctor do not have the tools backed by science to figure this out. We have to change that. All right. For more information, you can visit globallymealliance. Org. Actor chris melioni, and film maker lindsay keys. Thank you for bringing light to this. It seems really dire. Im texting everybody about the cats. Chris, i hope youre feeling better. Thanks for coming on. WeLl Be Right Back with much more morning joe. Liberty mutual customized my Car Insurance and i saved hundreds. Thats great. 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And rudy getting, i guess, served after a Birthday Party that he posted on social media saying you cant get me to the Arizona Attorney general. Come on, dude. All right, what are you thinking about as we close out the show, susan page . First item we talked about was the turbulence. The last item we talked about was longterm lyme disease, both of them related to global warming. We spend so much time talking about the trial, understandably, and the election understandably as well, but one of the big fallout things from this election could be the state of the planet and of course Climate Change is clearly the existential story of our time. Its a hard one to tell. Because were dealing with so many issues head on that are right in front of us. Mike barnacle, final thoughts before we close out the show. I have been thinking about the upcoming memorial day weekend and the fact that its not just a day for shopping or going to the movies or having a cookout. It ought to be a day when we think about who died on memorial day, why they died and think about the fact that were Walking Around as a free people here today because of what happened in the past in our history. Totally agree, and i think all the issues that were discussing pertaining to this election, it comes down to our rights and it comes down to democracy, and for what a lot of people fought for and died for. Something absolutely to think about this memorial day weekend, and in the months and weeks and days leading up to the election. Its only wednesday, though. Weve got two more days to get through. Alex reminds me, why is it not friday . It definitely feels like it should be friday. It does. This has been a very long week. That does it for us this morning after four hours. Oh, four hours and 17 long years on morning joe. That does it for us this morning, ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. Right now on ana cabrera reports, twin hearings