find enough votes for him to win the state in 2020. turns out, trump may have tried to pressure the governor of arizona, as well. plus, florida governor and 2024 candidate ron desantis facing new pushback after his campaign released a video mocking donald trump s past support for lgbtq issues. what transportation secretary pete buttigieg had to say about that. also this morning, what we re learning about a mass shooting in baltimore yesterday that left two people dead and more than two dozen injured. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is monday, july 3rd. i m jonathan lemire. alongside the bbc s katty kay. joe, mika and willie all have the morning off. we are glad you re starting your way with us. with us, we have former white house director of communications to president obama, jen palmieri. the president of the national action network and host of msnbc s politics nation, the reverend al sharpton. and white house editor for politico, sam stein. good morn
times, and maybe something we underestimated about trump in 2016, all those years in entertainment served him incredibly well. christie has some of the combative fight in him, and this seems to be an election about fight as much as conservatism. perhaps if you fight for people, that s what voters want. i don t think it gets christie much above he polled at 5% recently. he needs to be at 49% to take on trump, but what does it do to the other candidates in the field? what is the ripple effect of what christie is doing on the other candidates? yeah, well, that s the hope, right, is that remember rocky 4, there is the great scene when the russian has been cut, finally cut, and it s a bad cut! nobody thinks that donald trump donald trump has this image that he is magical and that he can t be beaten. so if someone finally ever does land a glove on him, and i ve
we should never forget that factor because that attracts people. reverend al sharpton, you know of what you speak right now. jen palmieri, let s get you into this conversation, your assessment of what chris christie is doing. does it have any staying power? do you anticipate it making any dent at all in either trump or even perhaps desantis? the thing that i thought was in his critique that was most effective is he said he s not he s trying to win for himself, not for you. i think that puncturing him as a three-time loser, as christie did, may soften him up, but unless somebody convinces voters that he s actually not for you, i mean, that is we talked about this morning, we ve talked about his appeal in the rallies. it does feel like that pickens rally. wow, it felt like something changed or solidified in that
buchanan used to talk about people being what he called political athletes. chris christie is a political athlete. he has this it s not just charisma. part of it is charisma, part is toughness, but he is prosecuting the case against donald trump in a way that no one else is either doing or, frankly, i would say capable of doing. i would add this. i don t think you could teach this. i think that what chris christie has, the bluster, the humor, the toughness, you re born with that. and so i think that christie is a unique figure in this race, more than anybody else. he is the one person who has the chance to actually, maybe not beat donald trump, but put donald trump into a position where other people decide, oh, we could actually run against him. furthering matt s point, so many republicans for so many cycles now have complained that trump blocks out the sun. he gets all the media attention. he gets all the oxygen. one thing chris christie figured out, as matt said, is if you
rally in terms of his, you know, in terms of his leadership in the primary. but his ability to connect with the crowds, and they do feel like he is fighting for them. you know, christie may be able to soften him up some. matt is right, somebody else needs to pick up that mantle and go right at trump. that is what the question of the primary is, whether it is trump or not. i think what you really need to do to break the republican elector from trump is convince them he is out for himself. he is not actually for you. he has shown that over the course of the last seven years. that s tougher to do. one trump operative made the comparison to the selma, alabama, hey, it s my party. senior columnist for the daily beast, matt lewis. thank you for the thought-provoking piece and joining us this morning. turning to the weather. it s hot.