We will tell you about that new reporting just ahead. Good Morning And Welcome to morning joe. It is wednesday, June 23rd, along with joe, willie and me, we have Msnbc Contributor Mike Barnicle in New York and here in Washington Columnist and Associate Editor for the Washington Post David ignatius, New York times Washington Bureau Chief Elizabeth buh miller, national political reporter for axios Jonathan Swann and white House Correspondent for Politico And Coauthor of the Playbook Eugene daniels. Willie, you all had a Mayors Race in gotham. There was a Mayors Race, no talk of suing snl or yanked off the air for mean impersonations they may have done. Yes, the vote was in, ballots have been cast and the primary race for new York City mayor but we are not going to know for a couple weeks who won. The ranked Choice Voting System prevents us from telling you who won exactly but for now we know that new York City Police Officer Eric Adams is the early leader with 32 of the first voice vote, trailing adams Maya Wiley at 22 and Catherine Garcia with 20 of the vote. Fourth place goes to 2020 president ial candidate Andrew Yang who led early in this race but who conceded Last Night. On the republican Side Guardian Angels Founder curtis sliwa, throw back to the 80s won the republican primary so he moves on to the General Election. But we wont know, we will get into some of these numbers and what happens next because it is a little bit confusing about who still could win if its not Eric Adams. We will get into those numbers in just a minute. Yeah. Yeah. New york voting. Anybody here live in New York other than im telling you im telling you, like if republican legislators tried to concoct a Voting System like new York Citys and New York states, man, it would be like Jim Crow 8. 0. It is chaos up there, eugene. And it always s you know, during the 2020 election, and i would call my friends and i would say, hey, have you voted yet. They go, ive been in line for eight hours, ive been waiting to do this for four years im about to go home. Its a mess up there. You hear that from everybody. Anytime people in New York youre talking about voting and with the ranked choice it is confusing, it doesnt make a lot of sense to a lot of people. Thats something that all of these conversations about voting being made easier. Right. Thats not whats happening in New York. Its a democratic stronghold, but it also doesnt matter because the primary picks the person. Exactly. Willie, were not going to know for like im sorry, I Cant say it with a straight face. Its not like a big geographic area where you need to have a lot of time for the mailin ballots to get in. How long does it take to get from Staten Island to, you know, midtown . I remember writing stories years ago about there was problems back 20 years ago. Theres still problems. Willie, i mean, two weeks, its going to take two weeks for them to figure out who won a Mayors Race in one city . It may be longer than that, actually, may be midjuly before they actually know. Now next tuesday is when they start reallocating the votes in the ranked choice, they look at the Mailin Voting, look at the absentee voting. Yes, it will be a while but it will be interesting to see how this shakes out. This is a first in our country for a city or an electorate this size to use ranked Choice Voting. We are learning as we go. Willie, i was walking around yesterday largely in the upper west side, but parts of Midtown Manhattan and i suspect that i was looking at a Classic Case of voter suppression. Thats what this was, ranked Choice Voting. I mean, there were longer lines at the bakery that i go to than there were for people voting. I dont know what the turnout ended up being but i suspect it was low. Mike goes to Magnolia Bakery which is very popular and always has a line. He does, also in fairness when mike starts a sentence by saying i was just walking around the City Yesterday im always concerned. Do you know what we call that . No. Days ending in why. Leave mike alone. Mike was up late Last Night at 11 30. I was. To watch the Red Sox win. Thats crazy. You had a great Oped Yesterday i mean, it was a depressing oped not upbeat. I think it was an important oped talking about afghanistan. Who could have seen it coming if we let them know we were going to retreat and get out what a shock that the taliban would take advantage. And start killing people left and right. Joe, its happened so quickly. President biden announced back in april that he would be pulling all u. S. Troops, not many left, 2,500, out by September 11th and across the country there has just been a domino effect. More than 50 districts have fallen since May 1 and there is a sense in afghanistan now talking to old friends there, a real demoralization. The fear is that Full Scale Civil War will break out again. I quoted a woman who runs a Womens Shelter who was just thinking about the women who had fled persecution, taliban battering and, again, these are the women weve been telling since early 2002 go to school, get jobs these are women hobbled that the united states was bringing a new era to afghanistan, hobbled in it, lived it, and now are literally On The Run trying to find someplace thats safe. President Ashraf Ghani the President Of Afghanistan such as it is will be in town friday to talk to Pooid Snoon whats that going to do . Theres very little left to do. Its too late. Its one of these situations where it really is too late. The troops are on The Way out, every Week Centcom sends another Press Release, its basically all gone. What are the other option as soon as are there any options . Mika, the only options left are financial support that will give them the money to buy the things, fire the contractors, keep their military in the air which is the most important thing and then diplomatically it turns out that every country that matters does not want the taliban to take over in kabul and that includes russia, china, iran, pakistan, every single country agrees with us. So some way to bring them together more forcefully to say, no, thats probably but they dont want it enough. They dont want it enough. I was in pakistan last week, i interviewed prime minister Imran Khan by The Way, if you or your family is going i islamabad this weekend and you see posters of Jonathan And Cant read whats under that face its not good at all. Oh, no. You are a man On The Run. David is exactly right, this is where its heading, theyre very worried. They were talking about a civil war, that seems to be what everyone is expecting. The idea that you can coerce the taliban into a Peace Settlement seems like a Pipe Dream right now. Why would they . They have all the cards, the u. S. Has no leverage, they are out. The other thing you sometimes hear from people is its not your fathers taliban, its a different taliban. Its a more technologically advanced taliban, more sophisticated with Social Media but we know from reports on the ground it is horrific in the areas that they have already taken over in afghanistan, women are not allowed to leave the home in some of these areas, girls are not going to school, theyre doing public hangings, confiscating smart phones. Tell that to the women that are living in the areas that they have already taken over. The u. S. Is pulling out, they want to keep some kind of a Counterterrorism Effort in the region but thats going to be complicated because in pakistan they dont want the public, its very sensitive issue and they might come to some covert arrangement with the pakistani military forces, but its pretty hard to hide drones. So after 20 years, david, and this always angers people when you put it this way, why the rush . I say why the rush, weve been in germany since 1945, weve been in South Korea since, what, 52, 53, 54 after the war. Why didnt we catch our breath and say, okay, china, russia, pakistan, germany, all of our allies who didnt want the taliban to get in there, why didnt we say, were going to get out if you guys dont step out. We will be part of an equal Grand Coalition there to keep 3,000, 4,000 troops in there, but we are not doing it alone. Whats painful, joe, is we had a coalition of support there. Nato, our nato allies were with us on the ground, were shocked that we were thinking of pulling out so quickly and not talking to them about it. Why didnt we do that . I think the administration coming in was holding things close. They talk a better game about sharing with allies than they sometimes practice. I share your view, you and i were talking before the show, ive seen traveling in syria, in afghanistan that small numbers of u. S. Forces can have a significant effect on these conflicts. In syria they just blew out the islamic state. We had very wellmotivated allies, we dont have that in afghanistan, our allies in afghanistan but the idea that we needed to pull these out right away i think was Joe Bidens and biden bears scars from the 2009 debates about afghanistan and he came in and he wanted to do it and he did it over the objections of his military. I think Defense Secretary Austin probably national Security Adviser Joe Sullivan opposed this, but, you know, were seeing Joe Biden has pretty strong views on this. Hes always been this way. He wanted to split iraq into three pieces, remember, and he was very frustrated with the long debate during the Obama Administration about, you know, the surge in afghanistan and this is what he but here we are in a situation, we will have the 20th Anniversary of 9 11 this september and its a very theres a very good chance that afghanistan will be a complete mess and all of those veterans, all of those Men And Women who died will look at afghanistan and think what was The Point . You know, i know a number of veterans who feel it was useless at this point. Right. And, you know, there was we never had our strategy there was up and down over the years, we wanted big then we pulled back, we went in again, pulled back. We covered all the ups and downs. I hate to say this, its history repeating itself has happened this happened earlier in afghanistan. And, willie, you know, i think most americans exhausted, have been exhausted by, you know, the years of War Following 9 11 and but you look at afghanistan, you look at the 2,400, 2,500 troops, syria, 2,500, 3,000 troops, we actually had figured out a way to maintain some sense of security in protecting people across in these zones without sending 100,000, 150,000 people to fight. Our allies have to be scratching their heads, whether you are talking about our allies that were leaving in afghanistan or youre talking about the kurds. Wait a second, the united states after getting us engaged cant be part of a Peacekeeping Force of 2,500, 3,000 troops . What kind of Super Power is that . Yeah, and thats the argument people like general petraeus have made, keep a small force there to respond as needed. The biden administration said they will be across the border and they can come back in if they need to to suppress anything that happens. Mike, if you go back and read the book Forever War 12 years ago, 2009, It Saw all of this, it was all coming. One of the threads of the book is that the taliban and the people of afghanistan have something we dont have, which is time and patience, they are not going anywhere and so whenever we left, whether it was ten years ago or ten years from now, there was likely to be some return to pre9 11 afghanistan. Yeah, you know, in speaking with a couple of people over the weekend who had a lot to do with the Afghanistan Policy and still do have something to do with the Afghanistan Policy, a couple of different points were raised. One is you are correct, afghanistan lives in a different Clock And Calendar than we do and the other aspect is weve been there for 20 years and 20 years later as david pointed out just a couple of minutes ago we basically have a country of various armed tribes in afghanistan. So in terms of keeping a small protective force there you would have to worry about one of the core principles of The American military, you would have to worry about your own Force Protection and 2,500 people youre going to leave in afghanistan, 2,500 americans armed, theyre going to be vastly outnumbered. David, id like to ask you about The Point that President Biden raised in geneva during his Press Conference after the meeting with putin when he said the russians seemed willing to help as much as they could on afghanistan, as well as iran. What do you think he meant by that . So, mike, theres been something called the extended traka which is a group that includes russian, the united states, pakistan, thats been talking about trying to get a stable international coalition to prevent a radical takeover of afghanistan, collapse of the government. Its been meeting, it met in istanbul, it meets in Doha And Qatar regularly. The problem is it doesnt go anywhere. Its everybodys second most important thing. I think one thing that President Biden could do on friday when he gets the visit from ghani is to make this much more of a priority. This is on him. As much as america is sick of a war and, you know, every one of us would share that, were not going to like watching what it looks like as we retreat and the suffering of the afghan people. So this is bidens last chance to do something about that, mike, and i hope he will. Its not going to go anywhere unless The American president wants it to go somewhere, and its obvious that Joe Biden has been checked out on afghanistan since that famous moment when he threw the napkin down with karsi in 2009 or 2010. So this is extraordinarily difficult and it is extraordinarily frustrating. I remember flying out of pensacola, sitting next to a special ops guy, it was in 2004, its when iraq this blown up, and everybody at that point was saying, well, if we just sent those troops to afghanistan instead of iraq, we would be fine. So i said to him and he was he had been around you know, he had been to a few rodeos, he was a pretty tough guy. I said is that true if we had sent 100,000 troops . He said, first of all, we shouldnt have sent them to iraq. Thats the stupidest damn thing i had ever seen in my life. He said, yeah, give us 100,000 troops in afghanistan and then put them in pakistan. I said, but we cant he said, exactly. We cant. He said its going to be tough and its going to be frustrating, but, yeah, its going to be tough and its going to be frustrating. This is what i heard from obama. 10,000 people die in the syria civil war, well, its difficult. 20,000, well, its tough. 50,000, well, Theres Nothing we can do about it. 100,000 die. I dont know what we can do. 200,000 500,000 people die. Yes, sometimes its difficult being the united states of america, but the answer is not to just retreat and say its too hard for us to figure out because, guess what, when we do that half A Million people die. They did in syria and there was a Refugee Crisis that was the worst Refugee Crisis since The End of World War ii. Or isis forms. Or isis forms. Thats exactly The Point. I mean, this administration, Joe Biden desperately wants to turn away from middle east, he wants to focus on china and he basically wants to get out, but you keep getting dragged back in. Its the oldest story in the world and what happened when obama pulled out of iraq . Isis formed. And sure enough, you know, americans dont tend to care about Foreign Policy until they see people getting beheaded and americans getting beheaded and a terrorist army on the march. So he had to go back in. What happens, its almost a certainty that this summer is going to be just a Horror Show in afghanistan which of course we all know is the most fertile conditions for terrorism and for all these groups to reform, ungoverned territory. Joe biden might want to turn away but there is a good chance hes going to be pulled back. You know, eugene, and ive said this Time And Again whenever ive been critical of what President Obama did in syria, i was on this show saying, weve been in iraq enough. Its absolutely crazy. You looked at the polls, everybody wanted to get the hell out of iraq. It was a nightmare, it was the wrong war, wrong time, wrong place. We all wanted to get out. Yeah. But it ended up that i was wrong and a lot of americans were wrong. Its not that simple. Yeah. I mean, my dad fought in afghanistan and iraq when i was in High School well, younger, but, you know, so i remember the Frustration And Weve lived that as a family, the frustration of him being over there and how long he was over there and what are you over there for . All of that as a part of it. So i think that this president he has continued to feel that from The American people. Well, he has that personal experience himself. Exactly. He knows what that feels like and how frustrating that war has been for americans in this country. And that seems to have played a huge part of in this. Like you were saying, he doesnt want to be in the middle east, he wants to focus on russia, he wants to he can to us on china. That is where they want to focus all of their energies in this White House and those are the things that are weighing on them and like you guys said, and every said, as soon as they made the announcement is this is going to be owned by biden no matter what ends up happening. Yeah. Yeah. Very difficult conversation. Were going to move now to the fight against the pandemic and more than 150 employees of Houston Methodist hospital have either resigned or been fired after refusing to get the covid19 vaccine. Earlier this month the Hospital System suspended 178 employees for two weeks without pay for not complying with regulations that they be vaccinated against the coronavirus. In response 117 employees filed a lawsuit over the requirement, but it was later thrown out by a federal judge. Houston methodist was one of the nations first Health Systems to impose a vaccine mandate, but more have followed suit including the majority of hospitals in washington, d. C. And maryland. Elizabeth, 95 of doctors based on surveys ive seen have taken the vaccine. For some reason a lot of Health Care workers dont and its not just in this houston hospital, i mean, this is happening across america. A lot of places and there is a lot of reasons why they wont, they feel its my body, you cant tell me what to do, its an Emergency Authorization Vaccine so, therefore, theyre worried that it was developed too quickly. Theres a lot of different reasons why theyre saying they dont want it, but it seems like a basic requirement that if youre going to work in Health Care youre going to be dealing with people who have covid. You are a Health Care provider. That perhaps you would want to be vaccinated. It shows you how politicized this vaccine is still and how people do not have all the facts about it. Yeah. It was fascinating, you know, tony fauci, Anthony Fauci, was going door to door this weekend in washington this past weekend knocking on doors trying to convince people to get the vaccine. We reported that this morning. He spent 90 minutes in an Cost I Cant talking to people on their front porches and in 90 minutes he convinced he said six to ten people to get vaccinated, but promising, you know, 51 gift certificate, perhaps you can win a jeep in a raffle and he got people down to get vaccinated. Its a very slow process. There is still an enormous amount of hesitancy about this vaccine but there shouldnt be in hospitals. No. Really, i mean, we dont want to send our loved ones, we dont want to go hospitals being treated by people who arent vaccinated. I dont want to even be in a Grocery Store with people who arent vaccinated. But there is this resistance which, okay, if theres personal resistance people have their reasons, we live in a free country i i understand that, what i dont understand are leaders that have pushed back so hard against the ideas of Vaccine Passports, people suggesting that somehow this is Big Brother when all of our children have had, quote, Vaccine Passports or they dont get to start kindergarten and they havent been able to do that for, what, 50 years. This is nothing new. You know, its nothing new and there is a fascinating split that you pointed to is that the American Medical Association says 96 of doctors have at least one shot. There was a survey from kaiser back in march that showed only 52 of frontline workers, nurses, people working in the hospitals, Health Care workers have it and part of the hesitancy was that it was new, that it was untested, that it didnt have full Fda Approval and that was the argument. Some of those nurses made in this case that they lost, now a lot of them have been let go. But youre right, it feels like weve bumped up against a ceiling here. The white House Yesterday announced its not going to reach the 70 Vaccination Goal that it had set for the fourth of july. It just couldnt be any easier, frankly, to get it. Theyve done everything they could, the states have done everything they could, theyre giving away cars, giving away million dollar lotteries, its all there for the taking but the fact remains there is a certain percentage of The American population that flatly is not going to get vaccinated even as this Delta Variant moves in and has a lot of Health Care experts very concerned for the places where the Vaccination Rates are so low. And i have people saying, well, its not approved by the fda yet. Why is it not approved by the fda yet . There is a process. I was in geneva a couple weeks ago interviewing the guy who runs gabi the key part of covax the effort to vaccinate the world and for them its so galling for them to hear people in the u. S. Health care workers rejecting the vaccine. They cant get vaccine for elderly vulnerable Health Care workers in all of these developing countries. The problem we are not Out Of The Woods yet here. I mean, if this virus rips through the developing world were going to see more and more mutations and these variants are going to come back here to america and if we have a significant unvaccinated population i mean, they may evade the vaccines that we have already so its a real problem. Its a real big problem. You know, bribing people now and they are not taking it so i dont know where you go from there. It has to be so maddening its galling. For people in countries that cant even get a vaccine. For all those countries we are giving vaccines so that was announced by the White House, they are looking at us and saying i dont understand why you dont want this . We will take yours, exactly. Thats what you keep hearing. Still ahead on morning joe, more on new York Citys mayoral race. Our next guest says there are national implications to the vote. We will explain what those are. Plus, whats next for Voting Rights after yesterdays republican filibuster in the senate . And on infrastructure the cochairs of the House Problem Solvers Caucus join us here to discuss where the bipartisan plan stands. Also ahead violent crime on the rise across the country and local leaders see few options for regaining control. And as we mentioned, new reporting this morning about former President Trumps efforts to get Saturday Night live to stop mocking him by getting the Justice Department involved. Youre watching morning joe. We will be right back. D. Youre watching morning joe. We will be right back. 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This is normal for an american president. This is really unbelievable. A rerun of snl in March Of 2019 marked an angry tweet from the president asking if the federal Election Commission should look into the show, quote, knocking him. But according to the Daily Beast the wounded Commander In Chief took it a step further. According to two people familiar with the matter, trump asked advisers and lawyers in early 2019 about what the federal communications commission, the Court System and most confusingly to some the Department Of Justice could do to probe or litigate snl. Jimmy kimmel and other late Night Comedy Mischief makers, my god. In a Statement Yesterday the former president called the Story Fake News but added, quote, i do believe that the 100 onesided show should be considered an illegal Campaign Contribution from the democrat party. Willie, what i love most about his denials is theyre always followed by admissions. I deny i ever did that, however, you can find like the candlestick in the kitchen with mr. Green. Remember President Trump tweeted a lot of that in realtime when he was watching, by The Way, a rerun of snl caught on the backside. He tweeted, hey, shouldnt the ftc look into these late night shows, they are so mean to me. Its a stark contrast from former president george w. Bush who would throw his head back and laugh at will ferrells impersonation of him. Didnt seek to prosecute in any way there. My goodness, what a way for a president to occupy his time. Lets turn back to the new York City mayoral primaries where former Police Captain Eric Adams is leading The Way in the democratic race but with new York City using a ranked Choice Voting System for the first time will his lead hold up . Joining us now coceo and founder of the data and Analytics Company Apple start sascha samatin. We need to you walk us through what happened Last Night and what happens from here. You were telling us turn outexceeded expectations. A big number . Thats correct. It looks like turnout is going to be several hundred thousand votes higher than it was in 2013 which was the last open seat mayoral rate where Bill De Blasio was chosen in the democratic primary, its going to be the highest turnout since 1989 when David Dinkins Beat Ed Koch in the democrat i can primary. Adams at 32 , wylie 22 , Kathryn Garcia close behind. There enough vote once you start reshuffling the deck through this ranked Choice Voting System to get garcia or wylie up ahead of Eric Adams. The first thing is we have to get Absentee Ballots in. 80,000 were returned but 220,000 were requested. Until theyre due and counted they wont be able to begin the tabulation for second choice and third choice and fourth Choice Votes. Thats what will happen next. Lets pretend this is the remedial class how does this work in ranked Choice Voting. We have the top three. Whats The Next Step here . How do they reshuffle these votes . Sure. So The Way it works is if no candidate gets above 50 which is the case here they will take the candidate who received the fewest first Choice Votes and eliminate them and reallocate that candidates votes to whoever those voters chose second, rinse, repeat, do this over and over again until either one candidate gets would have 50 plus one or there are only two candidates left and obviously one will have more than the other. See, joe, Theres Nothing to it. I get it now. So based on the trends, based on what we know so far is there any way to project out where the second ranked voting is going to go . Does it look like most i mean, i saw that adams won every borough except manhattan, which really really has to be good for him in the long run, but is there any reason to believe that were going to be surprised by the turnout once the second ranked voting comes in . Its possible that second and third choice could switch place. Its imminently possible that it may end up being garcia and adams as the final two as opposed to wylie and adams which is what it looks like right now, but it seems highly unlikely at this point that adams lead is going to get shrunk enough that there are enough votes outstanding to flip it to one of the other candidates but its not impossible. Sascha, when is the next time that New Yorkers will vote . So there will be a General Election in november, however, that General Election will be between a democrat and a republican in a sit that is six to one democrat to republican. So its pretty unlikely to go for anyone except the democrat. Yeah, except, i mean, the republican, he does bear a beret. I mean, that shakes things up, man. Im sorry for my ignorance, but i love showing it on the air. So after they do the ranked voting do we have one versus two to get to 50 or is it just whoever wins this second round . Thats actually a really good question, joe. Thank you for making my ignorant question seem insightful. Its a very fair question. Actually, so you can rank up to five people on your ballot, but you dont have to rank five. So there will be some number of voters whose ballots effectively are thrown out once however many candidates they rank are finished, if they dont rank one of the final two. So when it gets down to the final two candidates its really just who has the highest number of votes, it doesnt have to be 50 plus one. For people catching up to this system what are the advantages of this ranked Choice System . It was a referendum item, voters of New York decided they wanted it. What is the advantage of this for people who like it better . Also a good question. So among proponents of this system people think that this creates more consensus in politics and in a lot of ways it actually did and that was borne out by this campaign. One of the suggestions is that ranked Choice Voting will limit negative campaigning because when you want to get another candidates second Choice Votes you obviously have much less of an incentive to be seen as someone who is constantly throwing left hooks and right hooks on a Debate Stage or via your television ads. Thats actually something we saw in the campaign. Very few of the candidates spent any money at all in terms of financial resources on negative communications. Andrew yang actually i believe was the only candidate to go negative against another candidate. He went from leading in the polls for most of the race to ultimately conceding Last Night. As a matter of fact, joe, Andrew Yang and Kathryn Garcia formed an 11th Hour Alliance asking voters to vote for them in some order one or two. That never works. Anyway, this is interesting. Sacha, lets talk about national implications because we have all been looking at the republican party for good reason because a chunk of them are trying to destroy the constitutional republic. Just that. So we have a good reason, im going to give us a break for folks, saying an element of the republican party. I think really, though, the longterm implications of 2020 and new Yorks Race Last Night will be with us for a while and that is because we have a democratic party that is much more moderate to i will even say, slash, conservative than most of us think. You look at biden, the fact that, i mean, if you read twitter, if you looked at Social Media you would have thought biden was going to finish 12th in the democratic primary. He went to South Carolina and black women said, no, wait, just hold on. Yeah, i think were going to go ahead and vote. You guys sip your lattes and were going to get involved in the process now. You look at new York City, the same thing. You have people chanting with slogans, i think its a lot like what David Shore said, there are white progressives that are far more progressive some would say extreme on issues than even hispanic or black streeters. I think that bore itself out in new York City Last Night, bore itself out in the democratic primary. I think there are national implications to this. I could be wrong, though. What do you think . I think thats absolutely right. I think if Adams Or Garcia wins it will be off of a coalition that looks a lot like the biden coalition, a coalition of pragmatic folks, voters of color and a variety of different communities stitched together behind a competent Candidate Running on experience. I also think, you know, you see some of the implications already in the top Line Results that are available based off of Last Night, you know, look at The Bronx, look at queens. Eric adams dominated in the Outer Boroughs, including, for example, in alexandria ocasiocortezs congressional district. Now, congressional races are not ranked Choice Voting. If there was a congressional race Last Night which there obviously wasnt in that district the former republican, former Police Officer who plans to carry his Service Revolver to the Mayors Mansion would have been the leading candidate in the democratic primary. Yeah. Wow. Thats big news. All right. Thank you so much, sacha. We greatly appreciate t a lot do think about here. You jean, i remember during the middle of last summer when defund the police, the debate really was exploding, very interesting that that leaders that represented the south bronx, leaders that represented parts of brooklyn were saying, wait a second, do you know what, if Park Slope wants to defund the police they can defund the police. We want more cops in our schools, with he want more cops on our streets. And it just, again, it sort of went to what i kept hearing from Reverend Al leading up to the South Carolina primary where hes going, boy, biden is in trouble. He goes, hold on. Just wait. Just wait. And he was right. I mean, this party is for more moderate than i think we in the press give them credit for being. I think thats right. And you are talking about people representatives in New York who said no to defunding the police. Ritchie torres even before he was in congress when he was on City Council he voted against defunding the nypd and he and i talked about that earlier this year and he said, you know, the people that live in new York City dont want that. The people that i represent dont want that. So there is a huge conversation still going on in the democratic party on what defunding the police actually means, first of all, there is not one definition so its kind of all over the place so that makes it hard for them to make a decision on these things. But youre right, black voters are more pragmatic and they always have been. We saw it like you said in South Carolina, i also was telling my parents both from South Carolina, i was talking to folks and all of my Family Members were like, no, were voting for biden. Everybody was like, no, its fine, hes fine here. So i kept telling all of my colleagues that thats what was going to happen and everyone was a little surprised but black people werent. It was also that biden was seen as the one person who could defeat President Trump at the time. He was the one candidate who was going to save the democrats from Donald Trump. Pragmatic. And thats the pragmatism. We didnt have last time around. That we see Time And Again. Again, from black voters who, you know, i had members of congress that have said, do you know what, we really cant afford to take a chance, our Voters Cant afford to take a chance on some wild new plan, we just need to make sure, you know, that things get better and that in this case Donald Trump gets beaten. And the politics of this Crime Issue are really naughty. I mean, biden you can tell because biden really doesnt want to talk about a whole lot except for the economy and covid. The fact that theyre doing an event on crime and they feel the need to actually put out here is what were going to do about crime, when youre seeing the Homicide Rate around the Country Spike in certain areas as it is, its an easy issue for republicans to demagogue. This issue of defund even though most elected officials distanced themselves from it, when you listen to David Shore and other analysts it did seem to have a Weighting Effect on democrats, particularly down ballot. When you talk to House Democrats in some of these Swing Districts, theyre really worried about this idea. And the thing is they dont have to republicans dont have to even demagogue this. People live crime. I mean, they live it and, david, it looks like this is Back To The Future election because i suspects a year from now its going to be a lot like 1975, were going to be talking about crime and were going to be talking about inflation. Those two themes are likely to roar back. I think biden is beginning to try to get out ahead of them. I had a fascinating conversation last week with one of bidens closest advisers, he was remembering the campaign in 2020 when they traveled the whole country and he said, we were amazed that the country was very different from what we had expected. That the message the country was listening to was our message, people wanted a centrist. That certainly was true after South Carolina more obviously than before. But its no accident that Joe Biden ended up winning the nomination and winning the presidency because people in The End wanted that centrist line. I think theyve learned that, theyre struggling now to figure out how do you make that work here in washington which is so polarized by pushes you toward the wings, but, you know, to have a democrat as john said, to have a democratic event talking about crime in 2021, thats pretty interesting. What democratic president has not been a centrist since time began . I mean, i ask you. There has never been, you know, a Liberal Democrat elected president , ever, going back to carter, i mean, right . Carter, clinton, obama. When you talk to black voters what they say is when things get bad for america it gets worse for black people and brown people, right . One of the things is when white people get a cold black people get the flu. Right. When theyre thinking about a what happened and how they think about the four years of the Trump Administration theyre saying, do you know what, were not ready to take a chance, were not ready to do shake things up and do it new because it could backfire worse on black people. So that is where that pragmatism comes from. Its hard fought. They take their vote very seriously because that is also hard fought. That is one of the things when, you know, progressives, you know, while on twitter, progressives seem like they own the democratic party but that is not really the case. It is a lot less clear cut than that. Their takeover of the democratic party is a lot harder because the progressive left is a little bit more whiter than the base of the democratic party so it makes it harder for them to take over there. And just to follow up on what you said because i know there will be republicans, wait, obama he was leftist and whatever. You go back and look at Barack Obamas position, first of all, he was opposed to Gay Marriage, he was asked why he was opposed to Gay Marriage he said, well, as a christian i believe marriage should just be between a man and a woman. Not really radical. That viewpoint. You look at his position on immigration, another issue that matters to conservatives, that guy was intense. I will say it for the 8,000th time on this show. Illegal Border Crossings on the southern border 50 year low. He deported more people than in the previous George Bush and almost any other president , again, over the last 20 years. Do you think geithner was a socialist . Larry somers you bring up a great point, you dont win from the left, the democratic party, jimmy carter, bill clinton, Barack Obama and for anybody that believes that Barack Obama was a leftist, just talk to democratic activists, theyre still angry that he didnt you know, even if you look at what he says even though, what he said about like the woke debate. He has contempt for sort of the wokeness and people a mandela speech, wait a second, you were saying that certain People Cant Talk about an issue because theyre white and theyre men . Well, thats just not the country we live in. Time and again he has like the scaled back voting Rights Bill which went nowhere but he supported it. Voter id. We need to talk about that. Its the word you keep going back to, pragmatic. Painted as this left wing radical, look at his position. He always stayed pragmatic in a way that was really frustrating to progressives. And just ahead Steve Kornacki is going to break out the Big Board for more on the New York Mayors Race. Also Coming Up prime was the top issue for new York City voters and its an issue for cities across the country. Were going to ask a top white House Adviser what to expect from the president when he addresses the surge in violence later today. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Spray, lift, skip, step. Swipe, lift, spin, dry. Slam, pan, still. Fresh move, move, move, Move Aaaaand still fresh. Also Coming Up, crime was also Coming Up, crime was ss activated when you move. You did it. A steakhouse with a vegan menu. That serves dinner at 4 30. Help to satisfy everyones taste. Just a text away. One of the many things you could expect when youre with amex. Its coming back to you now. Real pants. Find amex offers to save on the brands you love. One of the many things you can expect when youre with amex. Serena its my 3 10 noexitinsight migraine medicine. Its ubrelvy. For anytime, anywhere migraine strikes, without worrying if its too late, or where i am. One dose can quickly stop my migraine in its tracks within two hours. Unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks cgrp protein, believed to be a cause of migraine. Do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. Most common Side Effects were nausea and tiredness. Serena ask about ubrelvy. The anytime, anywhere migraine medicine. So were just debating president sees. Thats all. All right its 53 past the hour a new report finds that four men who took part in the killing of Washington Post Journalist Jamal Khashoggi were trained in the united states. According to the New York times the saudi men were trained in arkansas under a contract approved by the State Department just a year before the 2018 killing. The training was conducted by Security Company Tier 1 group, the times says. There is no evidence the officials who approved the training knew the men were involved in a crackdown on dissenters in their home country. Elisabeth . Well, this is an example of what happens with this is partly about the perils of military partnerships, u. S. Military partnerships with authoritarian countries and just we do training for a lot of countries, this one obviously was a big problem and its, you know, politically disastrous, i think, but it just shows, again, the problems of this, it shows after the training what happens is you Cant Control what happens when they go home. Right. And it sort of underscores the problems we have with, again, our general alliances with countries like the saudis. David, this has been a longrunning problem with the united states after the shah of iran fell, we all read those stories for years about how the cia helped the shah in his torturing of dissidents. Progressive forces from around the world, latin america, asian countries, certainly in the middle east. This story is an example of how the truth comes out. I wrote two years ago in 2019 the basics of this story, that tier 1 we give you credit for the story. That was very generous. Thank god. The point is that i didnt want to the tweeting for the next three weeks. We stay on, we the News Media stay on things that matter. So theres significant additional detail that drives home this point that we have to be careful about training. That your colleagues at the times found to advance it further. Somebody in another few months is going to get more. I think thats one of the best things about the News Media is we dont leave things alone when Theres Something like this thats important, our colleague murdered, brutally, by a foreign regime that turned out to have been trained in part by the united states. And were sticking with it. Where is mbs with the biden administration . Where is Saudi Arabia with the united states . Arms length comes to mind. The united states biden administration has decided i think probably rightly that Saudi Arabia matters to us. That its important for u. S. Security, were important for their security. Mbs is just a terrible problem for this administration. Theyre trying to maintain relations with the country while making clear that they have severe reservations about him as a leader. Its likely that he may be king of Saudi Arabia for many, many years to come. So you have to think carefully how do we deal with that . How do we make clear how do the saudis get beyond this . So the obvious way is to continue the reforms that hes doing in the social sphere in criminal justice. To stop arresting people arbitrarily, stop imprisoning activists, stop the secret police activities. Things he needs to do are obvious, communicated to him by americans, he just needs to start doing them. Still ahead, theres a lot happening on Capitol Hill, or not happening, depending on your point of view. Kasie hunt joins us with her latest reporting on Voting Rights, infrastructure and whether or not House Speaker Nancy pelosi will appoint a select committee to investigate the January 6th insurrection. Plus, the newly elected president of the southern Baptist Convention Ed litton will be our guest. Youre watching morning joe. We will be right back. Ack. Its all coming together. And teachers and School Staff have worked hard to get us here. Securing federal funding, vaccines and making sure public schools are welcoming and safe for everyone. This fall, its back to school. Five days a week. Were excited to be with our students in person. As a parent, i had concerns, but with safeguards in place, im ready now. Lets do this were allin ready to help every child recover and thrive a message from The American federation of teachers. This is the greatest Idea Youll ever hear. Okay, its an app that compares Hundreds Of Travel Sites for hotels and cars and Vacation Rentals like kayak does for flights. So its kayak. Yeah, like kayak. Why dont you just call it kayak. Im calling it. Canoe. Compare Hundreds Of Travel Sites for thousands of trips. Kayak. Search one and done. Theres no widespread effort to stop voters from casting a ballot and there is no desire to hand States Constitutional authorities over to the federal government. Our democratic colleagues are struggling to accept this reality. And what could be more hypocritical and cynical than invoking Minority Rights in the senate as a pretext for preventing debate about how to preserve Minority Rights in the society. There is no effort in any state in america to suppress votes based upon suppression of minority participation. What this is really about is an effort from the federal government to take over The Way we conduct elections in this country. It is a solution in search of a problem. Regardless of what may be happening in some state, there is no rationale for federal intervention. My colleagues my colleagues, if senators 60 years ald held that the federal government should never intervene to protect Voting Rights, this body would have never protected passed the voting Rights Act. The republican leader uses the language and the logic of the southern senators in the 60s Who defended states rights and it is an indefensible position for any senator, any senator, let alone the Minority Leader to hold. Democrats say they will keep fighting after senate republicans blocked a debate on a sweeping voting Rights Package aimed at countering the wave of new Voting Laws in republicanled states. The vote was split 50 50 along party lines. Short of the 60 votes needed to overcome the republican filibuster. David ignatius, Jonathan Swan are still with us here in washington and joining the table we have Nbc News Capitol Hill Correspondent And Host of Way Too Early Kasie Hunt and Pentagon Correspondent for the New York times Helene Cooper joins us. Willie geist and Mike Barnicle still with us back in New York. Good to have everybody here. So, willie, and mike, you listen to some of what was said yesterday and some of those clips and the argument that the federal government should always stay out of elections, never question states, which was basically the gist of Mitch Mcconnells argument, really does sound like what you heard in the 50s and the 60s, early 60s. And we dont want to conflate things here. I think a lot of democrats on The Hill would say hr1 was a bad Bill Front to back. That there were some good provisions in there, but overall it was not going to pass, and thats what they were voting on yesterday, but at the same time theres no Doubt Youve got republicans, Mitch Mcconnell the first among all of them, that are not going to do anything to stop State Legislatures who are working as we speak to be able to overturn the will of voters. Theyve changed the rules to do that in georgia, theyre changing the rules to do that in texas. So State Legislators can run over secretaries of state, can run over local election officials, can decide what votes they want to count and which votes they dont want to count. Thats not hyperbole. Thats whats happening. You put your finger on something important which is that these laws that were seeing in some of these states dont just go to the front end, they are not just access to the polls, but on the Back End after those votes have been cast. And we can see things like were seeing in arizona right now where the Cyber Ninjas are looking for bamboo in the ballots because they think they might have been shipped in from china, that they are allowed to take our Voting Systems out and look at them and do god knows what with them and come back with some kind of a report that ultimately if they have the right republicancontrolled legislature could overturn things. Kasie, if you watched this Debate Yesterday and this vote, i just dont know anyone who is surprised by it. Mitch mcconnell has said from the beginning that this legislation is unnecessary, that its a solution in search of a problem. So now you have progressives in talking to some yesterday who said, okay, now do you believe us . Now do you believe us, democratic leadership, that republicans are not going to go along with any of this, you couldnt get a single republican to vote even to open the debate on this question. So we have to now get rid of the filibuster and pass the things that need to be passed. Thats the view from progressives anyway. Well, and the reality here of course is that any federal voting Rights Legislation Youve got to end the filibuster if you want to pass that as democrats. Right. Its simply not going to get through the senate without that. So, you know, i think, joe, to your point this Bill Hr1 becoming s1 was always kind of the Pipe Dream, the long shot. I think there are some people who are questioning, okay, was that the the right strategy, with as it not, but at the same time that allowed Joe Manchin to say, okay, look, lets put Voter Id and some of these other things on the list and demonstrate that republicans are simply going to stand in The Way of this. Are they drafting a Followup Bill now that will take the portions that need to be taken . You know, we had Jon Favreau on yesterday he said the biggest problem is not even addressed here which is State Legislators being able to overturn the voting inside their own states. Are we getting a bill thats going to have the Voter Id and the purging of the rolls, the Gerrymandering Reform and the other things that democrats want, and then take care of the State Legislature Problem . I think theres probably going to be a conversation about something, it may be the John Lewis Voting Rights Act which would address, you know, What The Supreme Court did not voting Rights Act, but i can that this really is going to become a Grassroots Fight for democrats. I think youre going to see people in congressional districts, Town Hall meetings trying to make this the next litmus test. The State Legislature Stuff is extraordinarily critical, especially were starting to see laws that allow politicians to remove election officials, remove some of those people that we saw, republicans in states like georgia, Brad Raffensperger who stood up and said, no, we counted them all correctly, this is what the result of the election s i mean, thats particularly concerning because if we do ever get what else is going to be standing in The Way . David, here is the constitutional conflict, you have the united States Constitution that directs State Legislatures to decide how elections are run in the states, but there is nothing in the constitution that suggests they can pick and choose what votes they want to count, what votes they dont want to count and thats where a lot of these State Legislatures are giving themselves opening to do it and, again, if you think thats hyperbole, just look at whats happening in arizona, look at what people were trying to do in georgia, what theyve been trying to do all across the country. Its a test of our federalist system, the fundamentals. We do delegate a lot of powers to the states. The problem here is that theres a Poison Loose in our electoral system. If these challenges to how we count votes become pervasive, so every state fingers, rewriting the rules, allow to reexamine the results people are going to stop trusting the results in any election and any Election Outcome will be subject to challenge. I dont know how a democracy operates in a world like that. So i think the stakes in this are enormous. I was encouraged personally that Biden Yesterday basically said to manchin find the path forward. Lead us towards something that we could get unity on because its so important that there be something thats beginning addressing this in a rational way before the republican State Legislatures run wild. And helene, its just i know you love talking about domestic politics. But i want to vote. Exactly. So the thing is this argument that if somehow we make an exception to the filibuster for Voting Rights that the walls of the capitol are going to come crumbling down and the constitution will turn to dust. Its a ridiculous argument thats being made right now. Harry reid got rid of the filibuster for federal judges and then Mitch Mcconnell got rid of the filibuster for supreme court justices. What is more important . Like locusts did not descend from the heavens after they did that. Why cant we do that for Voting Rights . We need to check to see if cicadas did at that time, though, i dont know whether Brood X was around or not. Look, it feels like every step we take what happened yesterday all of this gets us One Step closer to getting rid of the filibuster, it feels almost as if we have to go through all of this, but i found, you know, david just mentioned Senator Manchin and Finding A Path forward, just lets not forget that Mitch Mcconnell called, you know, Manchins Proposal a stacey abrams bill to begin with. So thats like its going to be hard for its going to be very hard to find a path forward. The fact that we even got this far in this bill i think says something. This was always a Pipe Dream on the part of the democrats in that were even having this discussion shows how much everything has changed since January 6th. It says so much about where we are, but for the longest time ive thought that, you know, The American The American institutions have largely held under President Trumps assault on democratic institutions. Now im a little bit worried about how much longer our institutions can hold when you see whats happening now, when you look across the country at these State Legislatures and you look at the whole american ideal, this democratic miracle that we are. Yeah. It is getting a little bit scary. A precious miracle. It is getting a little scary. What are your thoughts, Jonathan Swan, in what the republicans position is on this . Do they see the implications and, you know, for Joe Manchin what is the path what more can he do . Right. So manchin its not a bill, its more a checklist, right, these are the things that i would like. The problem is thats not going to get the republican votes, either. Theyre basically drawing a line and saying we dont see any need for any medical legislation. The thing i find frustrating when i talk to republicans about this is there are many republicans who will say, you know, i dont agree with what trump is saying, you know, that the election was stolen or whatever, but theres no need for anything to be done on a federal level. Maybe theres some middle ground here. Right. The thing that frustrates me about the political debate around this is its often very dishonest and sort of irrational. Hr1 the democratic House Bill and s1 is out of step with The American people. It effectively nullifies Voter Id. You can write your name, this is me, whatever, and if you do polling on Voter Id most americans support t democrats, republicans. Right. Whites very popular. Very popular. If only we could have a rational conversation but the fact is the republican party has drawn a line and said we see no role for any kind of federal law. Meanwhile at the State Level they are doing a whole bunch of Voting Laws which are clearly a direct response to Donald Trumps rhetoric about the election being stolen. Youve seen hundreds of these bills introduced at the State Level and Mitch Mcconnell talks about a solution in search of a problem. Well, whats the problem that all of these bills are trying to solve at the State Level . Hes just actually thats a damning phrase for republicans who are looking for a solution to a problem. Like Ron Desantis pushing to fix voting in florida when im from florida, like that was about as smooth a Voting Process as ive ever seen in my life. By The Way, trump won going away, Theres Nothing to fix there, he knows Theres Nothing to fix there. But you look at every republican poll and what are the most important things . One, stop alien innovations, two, Voting Fraud. Every poll, whatever crime number one, voting Fraud Number two. Its ridiculous, its gotten into their heads and, again, its fueled by Conspiracy Theories from like cults in china that have websites that stupid people in america are following. And if you put the screws to a politician about why theyre heading down this path they say things like, a lot of people have questions about this. People in my district have questions. Well, they have questions because you are feeding the narrative and the Conspiracy Theories that Bubble Up and are amplified in the Media Bubble that so many of those voters are looking at and to jonathans point, mike, the predicate for these laws that were seeing in states is this lie. The Bottom Line is that Donald Trump, you know, he didnt create a lot of these lies but he certainly was the loudest voice on some of them. Up to yesterday, he was on Tv Yesterday saying, no, i do not concede this election. A lot of people have a lot of questions. So the foundation of what were talking about in terms of Reform Rest its on a lie. Yeah, willie, and you are correct. I mean, the former president did not create these divisions but he certainly enhanced them and he basically woke up every day trying to further divide this country. Weve been talking about the damage being done to this country, most of the morning, we do it most every morning because the damage is so extensive, but a lot of it is invisible. We began talking about the Health Care workers an hour ago in texas who refused to get vaccinated because the vaccine was politicized. Wearing a mask was politicized. Now we listen to Senator Cornyn on the introduction to this segment speaking, he had the ghostly vibe, the rhetoric that you would hear from John Stenis or Richard Russell in the early 1960s over what . The basic american right to vote. And the republican answer to voting in this country is to either suppress it through various State Legislatures or to make it so arduous, to difficult that the simplest of democratic methods, getting up and going to vote on election day, is now a contentious issue. Thats damage being done to institutions, damage being done to america and i dont think as much as we talk about it we dont pay enough attention to it or talk about it enough because the damage is already extensive. Again, i want to underline the real crisis here, the real crisis with a lot of these republican pieces of legislation thats passing, its not the front end, its not actually getting out to vote. Like the Georgia Bill actually if you look at some measurements, Nate Comb tweeted out, its easier to vote now in georgia than it was four years ago. It just is. The problem is on the Back Size of the process where the State Legislatures can come in and remember the guy in michigan, the one republican in michigan that said, i just have to do my job because thats my job. Like hes out now, right . And you think about the Secretary Of State in georgia, theyve decided they passed legislation, they can walk over whoever the Secretary Of State is. This is what democrats need to start focusing on and stop talking about, oh, its harder to vote than it was in 1873. No, its not. Its not even harder to vote than it was in 2016. Its the Back End of it all. Where republican State Legislatures want to be able to step in and disallow votes that they want to disallow if Fulton County or Maricopa County or in Milwaukee County or in wayne county. Thats the crisis. And, kasie, mike was talking about Donald Trump didnt make the situation or made the situation worse but he didnt invent it, but he invented the Big Lie and he started it a year ago. We did these Jimmy Kimmel a year ago in covid or covid history and Donald Trump this time last year started with Voting Fraud, mailing in Voting Fraud, its all about Voting Fraud. He was hammering away at this nonstop and he did it deliberately because he thought he was going to lose and he wanted to happen exactly whats happened. Its the same strategy he uses in terms of the press where he would say, well, im going to tell you that the News Isnt true so when they write something bad about me you wont believe them. The same thing with the voting, hes laid the groundwork saying theres going to be Voter Fraud so if he lost he can say i only lost because of fraud. Has Ron Desantis said where the Voting Fraud is . Not that i can recall. Has the governor of arizona, ducey, said where the Voting Fraud there is no Voting Fraud, right . Not enough to overturn an election, no, and thats The Point. Do you know who else said that . Rudy giuliani in federal court said there was no widespread Voter Fraud. None of trumps lawyers would say that in federal court in front of a federal judge because they would be sanctioned. Right. When they actually get in real trouble if they did it. No, its true. One of the things here that i think and willie hit on this, and david as well, thats so important is that this fundamentally undermines trust in the system and there are no republicans right now who are going back to their districts and leading on this issue, its why when you ask republicans over and over again do you think Joe Biden is the legitimate president and they kind of squirm and say, okay, fine, but they dont really want to answer the question. Adam kinzinger is making this point, if leaders are not stepping up and leading and telling people, no, this is this how it is, people that they trust in their Communities Day in and day out, then all they have to go on is what Donald Trump was saying and, you know, i talked to members of congress in the hallway who would say, well, i have to entertain this, all my constituents are stressed out about it, its all i hear about when i go home and this needs to be something that we look at. You know, its what Vladimir Putin wants to happen, distrust in our democracy is a national Security Problem for the united states. And you talked about republicans showing courage. Willie, talk about defining political deviancy down, now the definition of courage, now the definition of courage for republicans is to say that Joe Biden is president of the united states. Right. Exactly. Theres only a handful of them who will even do that in The Way you just mentioned. By The Way, Congresswoman Stefanik got a new job because of her willingness to go along with that lie and she gives you the same answer, well, there are a lot of questions about it. We will come back to this. We want to turn to New Yorks primary race, featured a new ranked Choice Voting System for democrats. Former new York City Police Captain Eric Adams is the early leader with 32 of the first Choice Vote, trailing adam former counsel to Mayor Bill de blasio Maya Wiley at 22 and former City Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia has 20 of the vote. In fourth place is 2020 president ial candidate Andrew Yang who led this race early on, but who conceded Last Night. He has left the race. It could be a few weeks before we find out who exactly will face republican curtis sliwa, he won with 72 . Willie, im not going to lie, im not going to lie, i like the beret and always will. You have to respect that he stayed with the beret for 40 years. Its never gone anywhere. He is consistent with on that issue. Lets go to the Big Board, were happy to say we find national political correspondent for nbc News And Msnbc The Legend himself, Steve Kornacki. Steve, good morning, its great to see you. So help us make some sense out of ranked Choice Voting and the numbers that came in Last Night. Yeah, great see you guys, too. What you are looking at here ranked Choice Voting very complicated, rube Goldberg Device used to get the winner of this primary in new York City. Just about all of the vote that was cast yesterday that was cast in the early Voting Process, this is the first choice of those voters when they go in, their ballot, they can rank their first choice, second choice, third fourth, fifth choice. There are still Mailin Votes that are not going to be opened for another week. Theres probably about 100,000 of those, probably more than 800,000 that are counted here, theres another 100,000 or so mail ballots that will be added in about a weeks time then you will have everybodys first Choice Vote and at that point they will then begin running through the sort of instant Runoff Process that basically means they see who is in last place that is correct candidate gets eliminated. They look at, okay, who was that candidates voters second choice and they reallocate it, run the numbers and will do that until one is left. Thats the complicated process that lies ahead. There is some clarity given that this is the bulk of the vote, just in terms of the first choice, this is the bulk of it right here. There is some clarity in these numbers. You can draw a Line Reit here, Andrew Yang former president ial candidate early polls in this race showed doing very well, he conceded Last Night. He is not going to win. Anybody south of him on this list does not have any chance of winning this. So already youve got it down here functionally, functionally the suspense that adams, Wylie Or Garcia. You could draw another line between adams and wylie and garcia. Thats a significant lead right now that adams has over wylie and garcia. What we want to watch to see is when i say those Mill Ballots that will be in in about a weeks time that they will begin counting in about a weeks time one of these two candidates Wylie Or Garcia, do they have an edge with the mailin ballots, can they get a little bit closer to Eric Adams before they begin that extremely complicated ranked Choice Process . I said that because new York City is the largest jurisdiction to attempt something like this, ranked Choice Voting, but its been around for a while in a number of places. If you look at the history of ranked Choice Voting when youve got all of the results for first choice in any election in this country thats done ranked Choice Voting, the biggest gap thats been overcome by a candidate, a candidate who wasnt leading after they tabulated all the first choice, the biggest gap ever overcome was 9. 3 . If you look at right now if i actually put the decimal points on here, Maya Wiley currently trails Eric Adams by 9. 4 . So that would actually be outside currently just by a touch outside the biggest gap ever overcome in one of these. So that, you know theres suspense, theres uncertainty, this is something new, but that does look like a pretty substantial lead that Eric Adams has and, in fact, if you break it down five boroughs of new York City i think its very interesting all but manhattan Eric Adams is leading, is carrying, thats brooklyn, Staten Island, queens and The Bronx. There is a breadth at least so far to this Eric Adams coalition thats not being matched by anyone else. So, steve, thats why i think the consensus this morning seems to be its not over but that Eric Adams is likely to go on and win. But based on the numbers youve seen just overnight in the last few hours, does one or the other of the two candidates, Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia look more likely to challenge Eric Adams if anyone is going to. This is where it gets interesting because if you look between these two candidates, Maya Wiley and Kathryn Garcia right now obviously wylie is a little bit closer to adams but if theres any expectation about who is going to do a little bit better with the mailin ballots when you look at where the Mailin Vote is expected to be the largest and how the candidates have been doing and the results we see i think there is an expectation that garcia might do wetter than wiley with the maine votes. Instead of wiley drawing from ten points behind adams to maybe six or seven in the Mailin Voting i think it may be that garcia is able to get within about 9 or 10 of Eric Adams so it actually might end up helping adams. If what im describing Plays Out that ends up helping adams i think potentially. One other thing i would point out the final Marist Poll, the Hairist Wnbc Poll that played out all of those different rounds of ranked Choice Voting, their final poll ended up with a final three of adams, wiley and garcia. In the secondtolast round the candidate who got cut was wiley so it became an adams garcia race. The question was are her voters second choice more Adams Or Garcia. The Marist Poll found 27 points, 14 of them went to garcia and 13 of them went to adams. In other words, the final marist Wnbc Poll did not find that there was a substantial advantage in Maya Wileys second Choice Voters for garcia or for adams, they found it was basically even between those candidates and, again, anything approaching even when youre talking about second Choice Distribution right now is going to help Eric Adams. What one of these candidates, Wylie Or Garcia is going to need is a tremendous imbalance when you start consolidating through the ranked Choice Process. Again, gap youre looking at here we havent really seen elections potentially where something like thats been overcome, but, again, were saying this is a Big Grand Experiment in New York so we will find out. Steve, do we know off of Last Nights results which of the three candidates how did all three of the candidates do in the borough of manhattan . Right. The one borough, in fact, i think we have a map here we can show you, lets see. Here we go. Here is our trusty new York City map. Theres manhattan, thats about a third of the entire vote here in this primary, Kathryn Garcia is carrying manhattan and Eric Adams isnt just losing manhattan, hes getting wiped out in manhattan. What Eric Adams is doing to offset that, though, is hes winning Staten Island thats a pretty small amount, winning brooklyn thats 30 of the vote, hes winning queens, hes winning The Bronx in a run away, so its that sort of outer borough strength, that outer Borough Coalition that is really powering Eric Adams in this thing. You know, if you sort of slice this even more thinly and you started to look at the neighborhoods here you would see i think pretty clearly a pattern wealthy areas, areas with high concentrations of college degrees in manhattan in particular a Kathryn Garcia stronghold, she ran in this race with The Endorsement of the New York times, i think thats a demographic that the New York times endorsement typically does well with. Eric adams is the Borough President in brooklyn, maybe a bit of an advantage for him there, too. If you take a look there are some districts here within brooklyn heavily africanamerican districts where youre looking at the returns now, adams is winning them overwhelmingly. You talk about that dynamic of manhattan versus the Outer Boroughs in new York City a lot and its the Outer Boroughs that are powering Eric Adams, garcia the strength much more concentrated there in manhattan. All right. So, steve, one final question. Im going to the belmont tomorrow, im thinking about putting a lot of money, maybe this Weeks Salary on fair thee well baxter, he is a mutter, im curious whats it look like. Im so honored you would ask me after my belmont stakes pick i think finished secondtolast. I appreciate the vote of confidence. Lets see what the Weather Looks like in the morning. By The Way, we noticed that, mika and i were watching. My dad is from kentucky because i finally got mika who loves Horse Toss finally watch these races and so we were looking at your predictions in belmont. It was a little difficult, wasnt it . I have to say my Kentucky Derby Winner was Medina Spirit who will ultimately be technically taken down, but they dont get the money back and if you can collect money in one of the three Triple Crown races i think youre doing okay. So i survived for the year, but thats rare for me, trust me. I like the cut of your its great watching him. We love having him on. Hes like the mad scientist. He is a great. Thank you, steve. Still ahead, morning joe, weve been talking a lot about Bipartisanship Or Lack thereof on Capitol Hill. We will be joined by two lawmakers on opposite sides of the aisle who are trying to fix that. The cochairs of the House Problem Solvers Caucus are next. Plus from Culture Wars to Conspiracy Theories, we will talk to the newly elected head of the nations largest Protestant Denomination about the new challenges facing christian leaders and the church. Morning joe will be right back. Ng joe will be right back theres interest you accrue, and interests you pursue. Plans for the long term, and plans for a long weekend. At thrivent, we believe money is a tool, not a goal. To learn more, text thrive to 444555, or visit thrivent. Com. Psoriatic arthritis, made my joints stiff, swollen, painful. Tremfya® is approved to help reduce joint symptoms in adults with active psoriatic arthritis. Some patients even felt less fatigued. Serious allergic reactions may occur. Tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a Vaccine Or Plan to. Tremfya®. Emerge tremfyant™. Janssen can help you explore Cost Support options. Managing Type 2 Diabetes . 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Politico reports that as talks stretched toward the threemonth mark since biden first unveiled his infrastructure plan, many democratic lawmakers say its time to see more movement before their scheduled weeks long august break. Many progressive democrats are insisting on a guarantee that if they vote for a bipartisan package other priorities like climate change and social programs will pass through reconciliation. Joining us now democratic congressman josh gottheimer of new jersey and republican congressman brian fitzpatrick of pennsylvania, they are cochairs of the House Problem Solvers Caucus, the group recently unveiled its own version of a bipartisan infrastructure plan. Will you solve any problems here today with this . We will. Trying. Josh and i have been doing the hard work. Its very easy to take a pure Party Line Approach and be reflexive and reactive. Weve take this into three buckets, weve defined what infrastructure should be for this round, we got 75 of our caucus to agree which mean we are locked into that vote. Round two was the scope, we agreed, again, we got 75 of the caucus to agree with 1. 25 over eight years and now we are on the paid for conversation which is the toughest and thats where were getting josh and i with the g 20, the group of sparts that proposed something similar and they are working in the White House right now. When you agreed on what infrastructure is is there any agreement so some of these social programs and other issues would be a part of that . I think we looked at that and said what can we get a bipartisan plan on, physical infrastructure, roads, bridges, rail, water, broadband, hard infrastructure. Innovation. We worked closely electric vehicles, energy. Worked closely with our senate colleagues and have been for months. The only way to do this is actually by working together. Can i ask you guys this, just explain to our audience because i love the concept and its awesome that you guys are running it, but talk about the problem Solvers Caucus. Tell america what that is. I know this sounds crazy and then, brian, you can jump in. 29 democrats, 29 republicans we get together every single week with one mission, to actually get to yes versus screaming and yelling at each other and we disagree plenty, right . Brian is a proud republican, im a proud democrat, but we stay at the table to try to get it done. We build relationships, we build Trust T takes time like when you were in congress actually get to know each other, each others families The Way it should be. When we have tough situations and disagree we stay at the table and try to find a solution. Its so important getting really getting to know the members personally. Elijah cummings and i worked on a committee and we were working toward longterm care and we figured out halfway through the process that our staff was actually getting directions from leadership and were constantly trying to undermine us. I fired like half of my staff and got people on that actually werent working for leadership. Its because elijah and i knew each other, trusted each other and we knew that we each had each others back. I mean, that makes all the difference when you are going there. If the leadership is hammering you, if staff is trying to undermine you, its those relationships that we dont have enough of anymore. Yeah, josh and i came in together in the 115th congress and the one thing that we talk about all the time that perplexed both of us is why people dont take the same Reaction And Approach to government that they do their personal relationships where you dont let the enemy of the good, rather 80 of something than 100 of nothing and few diversity of thought as a strength to be harnessed not a weakness to be criticized. Why does that work in every area of our life but in government people abandon that. They dont believe in moderation and go for the fringes. People at Town Hall meetings, why dont you fight i would be like, im going to ask you a question. Why dont you go and into work on Monday Morning and why dont you scream at the person in the next cubical, see how that works. Why do you want us to scream and yell at each other and hate each other and expect us to get anything done . Im not asking you to scream at your coworker so why are you asking me to scream at my coworker. We created really in response to the fringes that are always trying to block things and say no. Our motto is we try to get to yes. What can we theres always going to be things we disagree with, leave them on the side of the road, we can come back to that come, what can we agree on and get that done incrementally. If you insist on getting 100 of everything which no one gets in their life, you sit down, talk to each other, figure out mika gets 100 of what she wants. Focus on getting 80 . In fact, when we meet when we get to three quarters of us agreeing we stand together as a block, thats our whole model and we dont campaign against each other and we take this approach of if you are going to insist on everything, youre going to get nothing. Right now this Infrastructure Deal is exactly proof of this. Theres a deal to be had after years of talk being infrastructure, were finally within inches of getting this done. So my question for you i suppose if we are going to talk about the policy you guys are trying to get to yes on, the White House has sort of stepped in and said on the hardest part which you acknowledge is the hardest part, who you to pay for this that they are not really on board with the idea of a Gas Tax on fees for electric vehicles, for example. They say, hey, thats no going to tax people going to work every day, the middle class, people using the roads. I dont understand how youre going to overcome this, especially after it seems like democrats in the senate were maybe getting there on some of this, but the president says, no. So how do you overcome that . Well, theres in our conversations theres actually a long list of potential pay fors and weve been working on those for months as well and there might be a couple that you have a long list so a couple might not get through but Theres Plenty of areas where there is agreement on going after and closing the Tax Gap and going after tax cheats, areas like an infrastructure bank, public private partnerships. So Theres Plenty of places where were finding agreement, maybe repurposing some of the covid dollars. We have to keep working through it. You have to stay at the table. People want us to walk away and want everyone to say enough is enough but after years we are within inches. We have to stay at the table and keep working on it. What do your leaders think of this . Does speaker pelosi, leader mccarthy do they oppose this effort . No, i mean theyre fine with it . Certainly josh can keep for their leadership we keep them apprised. Anybody threaten you, tell you to is that i away from doing this stuff . No. You have people on the wings who never liked this, right, and they will scream and yell and send emails and calls and all that kind of stuff, but the Bottom Line is what i found with our leadership which is critical and we did this when we worked on the bipartisan 980 Billion package at The End of the year on covid relief which the Problem Solvers were instrumental in getting done. You have to be up front and transparent with your leadership, dont hide the ball. Just be up front and honest and dont surprise them. Helene. Joe, i love that youre asking whether people are threatening to break their legs or anything like that. Anybody threaten you . But enough of the substance, whats the atmosphere like . Is there any shouting at each other or do you get straight down to business . When you are in the middle of all of this political vitriol that were having, what are these meetings like . How long are you guys in there and are you actually it cant all be like nice and harmonious. It actually is, believe it or not, and i tell everybody i tell everybody both in our Problemsolver Caucus meetings and the g 20 meetings you would be really proud, you really would. Everybody is civil to each other, theyre trying to figure out what the nuances are from people with different perspectives and how do we come up with something that will get it done. Oftentimes people when they are in front of the tv cameras or on the House Floor they conduct themselves very different. Ive been incredibly impressed. You would be proud if you saw the substance and the civility. It takes hours. You asked about that. Late at night after were done with our meetings we sit together literally for hours. Of course we disagree but you do it with civility and thats really the difference. I want to touch on that because thats the most important thing. Human nature is when you get attacked you get into a defensive posture and respond accordingly. We dont go there. We dont attack each other personally. If we disagree on each others tails we will debate that. You have brian who represents Bucks County obviously really important politically famous Area And Youve got josh more importantly who represents the Paramis Mall. The Paramis Mall is the heart of america. Its gods country. To be specific, its the Paramis Park Mall and they had one of the first chickfilas in all of the northeast. I used to eat there for lunch in High School. Congressman gottheimer, greetings from your friends in berger county. You said youre close to a deal on infrastructure. What gives you that hope. We heard pessimism, what is that space in the middle that you believe there will be some legislation passed here . Obviously the senators are working and we talk to them and keep in regular touch. I think as was mentioned theres still some differences on a couple of the pay fors, i think a lot of the actual areas of focus from Policy Standpoint of roads, bridges, rails, we were talking about before, i think Theres Agreement there and also general agreement on how much to spend over a period of time. We put out a package 1. 25 trillion over eight years, i think thats the zone of where were going to end up landing. Again, theres still negotiations going on, but i think were very close. Were close in the pay fors so i think this is going to get done. Could chairs of the Problem Coal Verse caucus, josh gottheimer and brian fitzpatrick, thank you for being on. Please come back. Thats nice. See that . That just happened. Coming up Congressman And Dccc chairman John Patrick Maloney said when it comes to voting Rights Senate republicans had a choice, Gridlock Or Progress and they chose gridlock. We will talk to him about what that means over the fight for the filibuster. Plus the president of the southern Baptist Convention Ed litton is standing by. How hes going to handle the far right Conspiracy Theories that weve seen embraced by a large number of members of the group. Morning joe is coming right back. Ght back limu emu doug oh are you using liberty Mutuals Coverage Customizer tool . Sorry . Well, since you asked. It finds discounts and policy recommendations, so you only pay for what you need. Limu, youre an animal whos got the bird legs now . Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Na na na na na na na na. Hey hey hey. Goodbye. Na na na na. Hey hey hey. Goodbye. Na na na na na na na na. The worlds first sixfunction multipro tailgate. Available on the gmc sierra. My name is douglas. Im a Writer Director the worlds first sixfunction multipro tailgate. And im still working. In the kind of work that i do, you are surrounded by people who are all younger than you. I had to get help somewhere along the line to stay competitive. I discovered prevagen. I started taking it and after a period of time, my memory improved. It was a gamechanger for me. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Hey lily, i need a new Wireless Plan for my business, but all my employees need something different. Oh, we can help with that. Okay, imagine this. Your mover, rob, hes on the scene and needs a plan with a mobile hotspot. We cut to downtown, your Sales Rep Lisa has to send some files, asap so basically i can pick the right plan for each employee. Yeah i shouldve just led with that. With at t business. You can pick the best plan for each employee and only pay for the features they need. It is 50 past the hour. Live look at times square this morning. A followup to a conversation we had on the show on monday. In a defeat for the far right, the newly elected president of the nations largest Protestant Denomination says he wants to move past tribal social issues and back to the bible. Columnist Peter Wayner described the groups vote this way in his recent New York times piece. The conventions newly elected president , ed litton, barely defeated mike stone, the choice of the denominations insurgent right. Mr. Litton, a soft spoken pastor in alabama, who is very conservative theologically, has made racial reconciliation a hallmark of his ministry and has said that he will make institutional Accountability And Care for survivors of sexual abuse priorities during his twoyear term. And the newly elected president of the southern Baptist Convention, ed litton, joins us now. Pastor, thanks so much for being with us. We are grateful that you would come on the show of a backslidden baptist. Great to have you here. So just talk about joe, thank you for having me on, and youre in good company. So tell me, what are your goals over the next two years . Well get to all the details of, you know, the infighting, but right now, what do you hope to have accomplished over the next two years . Well, one of the things we want to do is jesus gave us a strong commission to take the gospel, the good news of his love for the world to the world, but he also told us that we are to love one another, and that we are to by this, thats our credibility, Love God first, love one another, its called the great commandment. We want to exercise both of those musclemuscles, strong the and great compassion. Help me out. You and i are probably around the same age. I may be a little older than you. We both grew up in the southern baptist church. Im just curious, at what point did studying the bible, like we did in, you know, Sunday School and Training Union and on Wednesday Nights and following jesus word, trying to figure out, you know, what were supposed to do here on earth to be better christians, when did that focus get supplanted by abortion critical race theory, and these issues that politicians debate day in and day out . Well, i think it just reveals that we live in the real world, just like everybody else, like you do. And we face the real pressures of this world. So those issues come up. Theyre part of our lives. So what the difference for us needs to be, and its exactly what you just said, this is The Way you and i were raised, that our confidence is in the word of god, which is infallible, sufficient. We tend to look at the issues of our culture not through the grid of critical race theory, especially in the areas of systems of injustice, we look at them through the word of god. And were asking the question, how would god have us respond as good citizens. As good neighbors, as people who inhabit the same land with everyone else. I mean, i would be a hypocrite if i didnt say i didnt benefit politically from churches being involved because i mean, you know, evangelical is one of the reasons i first got elected in 1994. That said, i would be in the middle of some of these church services where they were talking politics the entire time, and i sat there thinking, what ever happened to rinder under seizer and under god, that which is gods . Thats a great question. I have been on this journey, wee a similar age, and we have gone through that. I have sometimes talked too much. But the condition of my heart is that god didnt make us a political action committee. He made us to be the church. He called us Salt And Light. What does that mean . Those are quiet influences yet powerful influences in a community for good, that were to care about our neighbors, love our neighbors. When theres injustice, were speak to that injustice. Weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Those are Terms God tells us how to be good citizens. This is Mike Barnicle, im in New York and im also a cafeteria catholic. Im across the street from your church. Im wondering in this conversation youre having with joe which is enlightening and uplifting, the catholic church is going through some issues right now in america, centered on american catholic bishops recently wrote a proposed draft of a letter basically urging catholic pastors across the country not to distribute holy communion basically to the president of the united states. And i wondering from your perspective, not about the catholic church but about faith in general and worship in general, how did we become so politicized . Well, as i said, we live in a political world. And we, as humans, are political beings. And politics is all about learning how to live and get along with each other. And set governance for ourselves, so were a part of that. And everybody is welcome to their opinion, but let me tell you, theres 47,000 southern baptist churches led by 47,000 pastors and their primary concern is the word of god to their people because we want our people to be the Salt And Light that god has called us to be. Which means even when we have strong disagreements, and i just affirm the catholic church for their stance on prolife issues. We believe in the sanctity of wife, not just in the womb but through all of life. What we want to do is enter that public discourse with civility. We want to have that public discourse with kindness and treating people with respect. This is how jesus treated people, and he is our role model. And mike, just a side note, and just me talking, if you actually care about what jesus said on the issue, jesus was constantly asked by fairsis, why are you having dinner, why are you sitting down with tax collectors, why are you sitting down with sinners . And Jesus Answer was, i didnt come to save the righteous. I came to save the sinners. So again, the catholic church can run the catholic church, but if you just look at that verse, Kasie Hunt, its pretty straightforward what jesus would do, if anybody like cares what would jesus do, he said i came here to have communion with the sinners. Right, and thats, i mean, thats where you can make the biggest difference, right . And i will admit, im not a catholic or a baptist. Im in fact your resident episcopalian, i guess. And reverend, in the episcupallian church, have had our share of divides. One of the things i was interested in as we were talking about this on monday and i have learned more about you is racial reconciliation and how thats become something that has been important to you. You said that when you started this group youre working on, you were scared because you didnt want to be called a bigot, but you also were concerned about being called woke. Can you explain your thinking and your fears there . Well, in my community, a very conservative group of people, woke is a pejorative, unfortunately, but the bible tells us repeatedly, were to wake up. And we all need to wake up to realities. And those realities are that god called us into this world to be that Salt And Light. So when i look around and started seeing some things and seeing history that i had never really been aware of, when i related to people who are real and for two years, a group of us sat in a Car Dealership Conference room every two weeks, had lunch together, and we talked about the most gutwrenching realities, not that took place in 1957 but took place 57 days before that meeting. And things in my city. I love my city, but my city has a terrible scarred past when it comes to race. And theres a huge racial divide. And were asking god to bring us together as brothers and sisters in christ. And i want to say something, really, its simple but its true. If you want to learn something, you need to stop talking. You need to listen. And the more we did that, the more i learned. And the more i began to talk about what my struggles were, and so what happened is after two years we have been together now for over seven years now, this group, we love each other. And we serve together. We help each other. We come stand by each other. Before i went to the southern Baptist Convention, my racial Reconciliation Group gathered in my office and prayed over me because were friends. I think thats the solution, not just within our denominational groups but the solution in this nation, that we would turn our hearts and stop being enemies with one another. Yeah, you know, i was going through twitter on Saturday Morning and i saw an atlantic Journal Constitution Story that actually my brother was in. And their church had six white guys get together with six black guys. They have gotten together over the past year and a half. They had bible studies, and you know the old saying that the most segregated hour of the week is on Sunday Mornings in church. Its remarkable, my brother said its changed his life. Its changed The Way he looks at the world, pastor. It does. And let me say this, too. At the southern Baptist Convention this year, we made a strong statement about that very issue. That we were going to stand for those who have been sexually abused. Were going to make our churches safer places, but were also going to work at racial reconciliation, because the bible gives us the tools. Its what we call gospel reconciliation. If you love the gospel, you have to love people. People dont look like you, think like you, or vote like you, and you have to set those things aside and say what really matters in this life and what matters in this world. Ultimately, were all going to be accountable to god. When we are, when he holds us accountable, we want to see our lives have made a difference. President of the southern Baptist Convention, ed litton, its great to have you on the show this morning. Thank you very, very much. Still ahead, President Biden is expected to address the nations rise in violent crime later today. With a particular focus on Gun Violence. White house senior adviser Cedric Richmond joins us for a look at the new plan the administration is laying out. And as President Donald Trump was vocal about his disdain for Saturday Night live and he apparently took those complaints to the Justice Department. Obamacare is a disaster. And i actually do have a replacement plan, okay. I just read about it this week. Its a terrific plan. Just great. Its called the affordable care act. Thats the same thing as obamacare. And if you repeal it, 20 Million people will lose their health insurance. People could die. Listen, sweetheart, im about to be president. Were all going to die. Moments like those were reportedly enough to trigger the former president into wanting the Justice Department to stop snl from teasing him. My god. Well tell you about that new reporting just ahead. Good morning. And welcome to morning joe. Its wednesday, June 23rd. Along with joe, willie, and me, we have Msnbc Contributor Mike Barnicle in New York, and here in washington, Columnist And Associate editor for the washington post, david ignatius. New york times Washington Bureau chief, elizabeth bumiller. National political reporter for axios, Jonathan Swan, and white House Correspondent for Politico And Coauthor of the Playbook Eugene daniels. Also an Msnbc Contributor. Willie, you all had a Mayors Race up in gotham. The was a Mayors Race, no talk of suing snl or having them yanked off the air for the mean impersonations they may have done, but the vote is in. Ballots have been cast in the primary race for new York City mayor but were not going to know for a couple weeks who won. The rank Choice Voting System prevents us from telling you who won, but we know former Police Captain, Eric Adams, is the early leader with 32 of the first Choice Vote. Trailing adams are former counsel to mayor de blasio, maya wily, and Catherine Garcia with 20 of the vote. Fourth place goes to 2020 president ial candidate Andrew Yang, who led early in the race but who conceded Last Night. On the republican side, guardian Angels Founder curtis sliwa, throwback to the 80s, won the republican primary. He mouvs on to the General Election. We wont know, well get into some of these numbers and what happens next because it is a little confusing about who still could win if its not Eric Adams. Well get into the numbers in just a minute. Yeah, yeah. New york voting. Anybody here live in New York . Im telling you, im telling you, if republican legislators tried to concoct a Voting System like new York Citys, and New York states, man, it would be like Jim Crow 8. 0. It is chaos up there, eugene, and it always is. During the 2020 election, and i call my friends, and i would say, have you voted yet . They go, i have been in line for like eight hours. I have been waiting to do this for four years. Im about to go home. Its a mess up there. You hear that from everybody. Anytime beam in New York, youre talking about voting, especially with the rank choice, this is very confusing. It doesnt make a lot of sense to a lot of people. Thats something that, all of these conversations about voting being made easier, thats not what is happening in New York. Its a democratic stronghold, but it also doesnt matter because the primary picks the person. Exactly, and willie, were not going to know for like two im sorry, I Cant say it with a straight face. Its not like a big geographic area where you need a lot of time for mailin ballots to get in. How long does it take to get from Staten Island to midtown . I remember writing stories years ago when i was a Metro Reporter for the times about danny defrancesco, there were problems back 20 years ago. It hasnt changed. Theres still problems. Willie, i mean, two weeks. Its going to take two weeks for them to figure out who won a Mayors Race in one city . Maybe longer than that, actually. Maybe midjuly before they know, because now next tuesday is when they start reallocating the votes in the rank choice. They look at Mailin Voting, absentee voting. It will be a while, but interesting to see how it shakes out. This is the first in our country for a city or an electorate this size to use rank Choice Voting. Were learning as we go. I was walking around yesterday, largely in the upper west side, but parts of Midtown Manhattan, and i suspect i was looking at a Classic Case of voter suppression. Thats what this was, rank Choice Voting. I mean, there were longer lines at the bakery that i go to than there were for people voting. I dont know what the turnout ended up being, but i suspect it was low. In fairness, joe, mike goes to Magnolia Bakery which is very popular and always haa line. He does. And when mike starts a sentence by saying i was walking around the City Yesterday, you know what you call that . No. Days ending in y. Leave mike alone. Mike was up late Last Night at 11 30. Was, it was great. To watch the Red Sox win. You had a great Oped Yesterday. I mean, it was a depressing oped, but it was i think it was an important oped talking about afghanistan. Who could have seen it coming, if we let them know we were going to retreat and get out of afghanistan, that the taliban would actually take advantage of it and start killing people left and right. Joe, its happened so quickly that President Biden announced back in april that he would be pulling all u. S. Troops, not many left, 2500, out by September 11th. And across the country, there has just been a domino effect. More than 50 districts have fallen since May 1. And there is a sense in afghanistan now talking to old friends there, real demoralization. The fear is that fullscale civil war will break out again. I quoted a woman who runs a Womens Shelter, i was just thinking about the women who had fled persecution, taliban, battering. And again, these are the women we have been telling since early 2000 to go to school, get jobs. Were going to protect you. The united states was bringing a new era to afghanistan. Who believed in it, lived it, and now are literally On The Run trying to find some place thats safe. The president of the government of afghanistan, suches as it is, will be in Washington Friday to talk to President Biden. But whats that going to do . Hes not going to change his policy, is he . Theres very little left to do. Its too late. Its one of these situations where it really is too late. Troops are on The Way out. Every week, they send another Press Release saying what percentage of all of the equipment is gone. Its basically all gone. What are the other options . Are there other options . The only options left really are financial support that well give them money to buy the things, hire the contractors, keep their military in the air, which is the most important thing. And then diplomatically, it turns out that every country that matters does not want the taliban to take over in kabul. That includes russia, china, iran, pakistan, every single country agrees. So some way to bring them together more forcefully to say no, thats probably the best thing. They dont want it enough. Theyre not going to commit. I was in pakistan last week. I interviewed the prime minister. And by The Way, if you or your family is going to islamabad and you see posters of jonathan up and you cant read whats underneath that face, its not good at all. Oh, no. Youre a man On The Run. A few things. David is exactly right. This is where its heading. Theyre very worried. They were talking about a civil war. That seems to be what everyone is expecting. The idea that you can coerce the taliban into a Peace Settlement seems like a Pipe Dream right now. Why would they . They have all the cards. The u. S. Has no leverage. Theyre out. And the other thing you sometimes hear from people is, its not your fathers taliban. Its a different taliban. Well, okay, its a more technologically advanced taliban. Theyre more sophisticated on Social Media. We know from reports on the ground, it is horrific in the areas they have already taken over in afghanistan. Women are not allowed to leave the home in some of these areas. Girls are not going to school. Theyre doing public hangings, confiscating smartphones. Tell that to the woman in the areas they have already taken over. And the u. S. Is pulling out. They want to keep some kind of a Counterterrorism Effort in the region, but thats going to be complicated because i tell you, in pakistan, they dont want the public, its very sensitive issue, and they might come to some covert arrangement with the pakistani military forces, but its hard to hide drones. Coming up, beer, lotto tickets, free transportation. Officials have rolled out all the stops to entice americans into getting vaccinated. But the numbers are still falling short. Well talk about the implications of that next on morning joe. Hooh. That Spin Class was brutal. Well you can try using the buicks massaging seat. Oohh yeah, thats nice. Can i use Apple Carplay to put some music on . Sure, its wireless. Pick something we all like. Ok. Hold on. Whats your buicks wifi password . buickenvision2021. oh, you should pick something stronger. Thats really predictable. Thats a really tight spot. Dont worry. I used to hate parallel parking. [all together] me too. Hey. 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Tremfya® is the only medication of its kind also approved for adults with active psoriatic arthritis. Serious allergic reactions may occur. Tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. Tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a Vaccine Or Plan to. Tremfya®. Emerge tremfyant™. Janssen can help you explore Cost Support options. Were going to move now to the fight against the pandemic, and more than 150 employees of Houston Methodist hospital have either resigned or been fired after refusing to get the covid19 vaccine. Earlier this month, a Hospital System suspended 178 employees for two weeks without pay for not complying with regulations that they be vaccinated against the coronavirus. In response, 117 employees filed a lawsuit over the requirement, but it was later thrown out by a federal judge. Houston methodist was one of the nations first Health Systems to impose a vaccine mandate, but more have followed suit. Including the majority of hospitals in washington, d. C. And maryland. Elizabeth, 95 of doctors based on surveys that they have taken, the vaccine, for some reason, a lot of Health Care workers dont, and its not just in this houston hospital. This is happening across america. A lot of places. Theres a lot of reasons why they wont. They feel its my body. You cant tell me what to do. Its an Emergency Authorization Vaccine, so therefore, theyre worried it was developed too quickly. Theres a lot of different reasons why theyre saying they dont want it, but it is it seems like a basic requirement, that if youre going to work in Health Care, youre going to be dealing with people who have covid. A Health Care provider. You would perhaps want to be vaccinated. It shows you how politicized this vaccine is still, and how people do not have all the facts about it. Yeah. It was fascinating, you kno, tony fauci, Anthony Fauci was going door to door this weekend in washington, this past weekend, knocking on doors trying to convince people to get the vaccine. We reported that this morning. He spent 90 minutes in anacostia talking to people on their front porches, and in 90 minutes, he convinced, he said, 6 to 10 people to get vaccinated. But promising 51 gift certificate, perhaps you can win a jeep in a raffle. He got some people down to get vaccinated. Its a very slow process. The point is there is still an enormous amount of hesitancy about the vaccine, but there shouldnt be in hospitals. No. Willie, we dont want to send our loved ones, we dont want to go, hospitals being treated by people who arent vaccinated. I dont want to even be in a Grocery Store with people who arent vaccinated. But there is this resistance, which okay, if theres personal resistance, people have their reasons. We live in a free country, i understand that. What i dont understand, though, are leaders who have pushed back so hard against the ideas of, like, Vaccine Passports. People suggesting that somehow this is Big Brother when all of our children have to have, quote, Vaccine Passports or they dont get to start kindergarten and they havent been able to do that for, what, 50 years. This is nothing new. You know, its nothing new, and there is a fascinating split that you pointed to, which is that the American Medical Association says 96 of doctors have at least one shot. Theres a survey from kaiser back in march that showed only 52 of frontline workers, nurses, people working in the hospitals, Health Care workers have it. And part of the hesitancy was it was new, it was untested, it didnt have full Fda Approval. That was the argument some of those nurses made in this case that they lost, now that a lot of them have been lego. It feels like we have bumped up against the ceiling. The White House announced its not going to reach the 70 Vaccination Goal it had set for the fourth of july. It couldnt be easier to get it. They have done everything they could. The states are doing everything they could. Theyre giving away cars, million dollar lotteries. Its all there for the taking but theres a certain percentage of The American population who flatly is not going to get vaccinated even as the Delta Variant moves in and has Health Care Experts Concern for the places where the Vaccination Rates are so low. I have people saying, well, its not approved by the fda yet. Why is it not approved by the fda yet . Theres a process. I was in geneva a couple weeks ago interviewing the guy who runs gavi, the key part of covax, the effort to vaccinate the world, and for them, its so galling for them to hear people in the u. S. Health care workers rejecting the vaccine. They cant get vaccine for elderly, vulnerable Health Care workers and all these developing countries. The problem, were not Out Of The Woods yet here. If this virus rips through the developing world, were going to see more and more mutations, and these variants are going to come back here to america. And if we have a significant unvaccinated population, i mean, they may evade the vaccines we have already, so its a real problem. Its a real big problem. And you know, youre bribing people now and theyre not taking it. I dont know where you go from there. It has to be so maddening. For people in countries that cant even get a vaccine. For all those countries were giving vaccines to that was announced by the White House, theyre looking at us and saying i dont understand why you dont want this . Well take yours, exactly. Still ahead on morning joe, the president s party almost always loses ground in the first midterm after his election. Congressman sean Patrick Maloney Sin Charge of keeping that from happening. The chairman of the dccc joins us just ahead on morning joe. 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There are hundreds of goodpaying jobs, with most new workers hired from bayviewhunters point. We dont just work at recology, we own it, creating opportunity and a better planet. Now, thats making a difference. Former President Donald Trump reportedly wanted the Justice Department to stop Saturday Night live from Making Fun of him. This is normal for an american president. This is really unbelievable. A rerun of snl in March Of 2019 sparked an angry tweet from the president , asking if the federal Election Commission should look into the show, quote, knocking him. But according to the Daily Beast, the wounded Commander In Chief took it a step further. According to two people familiar with the matter, trump asked advisers and lawyers in early 2019 about what the federal communications commission, the Court System, and most confusingly to some, trump lieutenants, the Department Of Justice, could do to probe or mitigate snl, Jimmy Kimmel, and other late Night Comedy Mischief makers. The former president called the Story Fake News, but added, quote, i do believe that the 100 one sided show should be considered an illegal Campaign Contribution from the democrat party. Yeah, willie, what i love the most about his denials is theyre always followed by admissions. Its beautiful. I deny i ever did that, however, you can find, like, a candlestick in the kitchen with mr. Green. Remember, President Trump tweeted a lot of that in real time when he was watching. By The Way, a rerun of snl he caught on the backside. He tweeted, shouldnt the ftc look into the late night shows, theyre so mean to me. Its a stark contrast from former president george w. Bush who would throw his head back and laugh uproariously at will ferrells impersonation of him. What a way for a president to occupy his time. Still ahead, one of the president s top advisers joins us here on the set. Cedric richmond has been working on Gun Safety Reform since day one of the administration. And he joins us with some new developments. Morning joe will be right back. I dont know what that was all about. But i will tell you this. Dont mess with texas. So then i said to him, you oughta customize your Car Insurance with liberty mutual, so you only pay for what you need. Hot dog or. Chicken . Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. From prom dresses to workouts and new adventures you hope the more you give the less theyll miss. But even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. Although uncommon, up to 1 in 5 survivors of meningitis will have long term consequences. Now as youre thinking about all the vaccines your teen might need make sure you ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. My psoriatic Arthritis Pain . I had enough its not getting in my way. Joint pain, swelling, tenderness. Much better. My psoriasis, clearer. Cosentyx works on all of this. 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Know how to get in touch with your family. Write down phone numbers for your parents, siblings and neighbors. Pick a place to meet your family if you are not together and cant go home. Remind your parents to pack an emergency supply kit. Making a plan might feel like homework, but it will help you and your family stay safe during an emergency. Think about all of these mass shootings we have in our country. If those were people that were muslim, foreign extremists, or even homegrown extremists and not just everyday crazy kids going around shooting the city and other cities, congress would be tripping over itself to close the Gun Show Loophole to have a universal Background Check to do a myriad of things to keep guns in the hands of law abiding citizens, not the people who dont belong having firearms. We need congress to act. Pretend its foreign extremists shooting up our cities instead of americans. Wow. All right, miamis police chief, Art Acevedo with those comments yesterday, that come as cities struggle to get the crime crisis under control across the nation. A topic on the front page of this mornings washington post. Shootings and killings spiked during the shutdown. Leaders had hoped the violence would subside as cities reopened, but it has not. Between guns, poverty, and police being back on their heels, officials have failed to reach a consensus on the reason for the surge. The mayor of austin tells the paper, quote, the tools for fighting back are limited. Without state and federal help. This comes as President Biden is expected to deliver Remarks Today on his strategy to respond to the Nations Surge in Gun Violence. Joining us now, White House senior Adviser And Director of the office of public engagement, Cedric Richmond. Also with us, national political reporter on the washington posts breaking news team, eugene scott, and nbcs Kasie Hunt back with us. Good to have you all onboard. Sir, ill start with you. What is the approach on the Administrations Front to try and combat the violence, the surge in violence across the country . And balancing that with the very, very careful situation we need to navigate with the Nations Police forces . We have a comprehensive strategy, and President Biden is very forward leaning into this. First, were going to make sure that we look at gun dealers, Rogue Gun dealers that are selling guns to people who should not get them. Second, were going to do Atf Task forces to look at violent crime and help these cities combat it. Three, were going to put resources in the community. So that we do crime prevention programs, Community Violence Intervention, that we create Summer Job programs, invest in recreation, do those things that prevent crime on the front end, but were also going to deal with those that are out there that are breaking the law all at the same time. And so the president will lay that out today. Were concerned about the 30 increase in homicides over the last 18 months. So this is something that we know the human toll that it takes on families. We know the pain it causes. And we know the disruption it causes in the communities. We want to make sure we deal with it. Lets talk about the Rogue Gun sellers, because that is such an important part of this story that we just never seem to talk about, when Theres Gun debates, its what type of guns do we want to ban or what type of Background Checks do we want to expand. I think theres an agreement on expanding Background Checks among most americans. 9 out of 10 crimes committed with a gun are not committed by a person who bought the gun. Theyre illegal guns. So what are some of the plans to crack down on that that youre talking about . Well, the amazing part is atf has an idea, and a lot of the local mayors have an idea of who the bad actors are. But in the past, atf has not gone after them. So what the president is going to announce why not . Why not . Im not sure, but we are. Thats the main part. So you will hear the Attorney General Talk Today about efforts that they will use. Youll hear the President Talk about efforts and their focus, our focus is to make sure those gun dealers, that we have zero tolerance with them. Mr. Richmond, what do you think is the root of the cause of this spike in violence . We read through some of the cities dont know, from the administrations perspective, why is this happening . Look, a bunch of reasons, i believe, but one is the proliferation of guns on the streets of america. The fact that we have let the nra govern this country for far too long and the president is willing to take them on directly. Two, we need to make sure that we are investing in our children, that were giving them Summer Job programs, recreation programs, education programs. So our strategy to fight crime is to prevent it from happening in the first place, and were going to invest in police also. To what extent do you think this is police being concerned that if they do something i mean, the defund the police movement, certainly, its had an impact here in washington, d. C. Do you think that has anything to do with the rise in crime . I dont. But what i will say on that is, even during the height of the defund the police, during the campaign, President Biden said that he wanted to put 300 Million more into community policing. We want to make sure we protect black and brown communities, all communities. In order to do that, you have to deal with policing. But we want the policing to be constitutional and just. At the same time, we want to protect those communities. Thats why the Arp Money, mayors can use the Arp Money to hire police, which far too many had to lay them off during the pandemic. And were not going to let republicans repurpose that money and take it away from these mayors and states that can use it for crime prevention. Eugene, i know you have a question. First, lets talk quickly about the new York City Mayors Race. New york, like liberal bastion of all liberal bastions. They pick the most conservative candidate when it came to crime. And you really are seeing this in all communities, a concern about this growing crime wave. This looks like this could be a really big issue in 2022. Absolutely, and not just in New York but just nationally. I was in New York monday, and we know that it has its reputation of being this liberal bastion, but its more politically diverse, especially on the left, than people realize. Homicide, Gun Violence is an issue many liberals really care about and they want to see solutions. And many of the candidates offered very different solutions. And the more conservative ones seemed to game traction. You were mentioning republicans earlier. This is something we have seen republicans and democrats talk about, the rise in crime and Gun Violence in cities. And we know that the biden administration has been very vocal about their desire to work with republicans. We have seen mixed success so far. What do you think needs to be done to get republicans onboard with what the biden administration wants to do related to this issue now . Were going to stress what we want to do. They can come along or were going to do it anyway, because we know how important this is. So Community Violence Intervention is very important. And its very effective. And so were going to keep doing those things that will prevent crime in the first place, but no matter how liberal you are, you want to live in a safe community. And were going to make sure we do it in a comprehensive matter. So thats our Focus And Youll hear the president really dive into it today. Willie geist up in New York. As a congressman whose district covered most of the city of new orleans, youre too familiar with the problem of Gun Violence. So im curious what you think is reasonable in terms of gun safety. I mean, theres people who want to ban semiautomatic weapons. We know as joe pointed out that most of Gun Violence takes place with handguns which is really the source of the problem and most people who commit violence with handguns arent even going through a Background Check. We know about people who want to ban semiautomatic rifles, people who want expanded Background Checks, but how do you get to the core of this problem and begin to solve it . Well, part of it, and you mentioned some of it, but what you didnt mention and im sure you know is the capacity of the magazines. So a gun that can hold ten rounds of ammunition is a lot different than a gun that can hold 15 or 20. And we need to make sure that we look at guns in a comprehensive manner, and President Biden still supports an assault weapons ban. And we need to make sure that we keep guns out of the hands of criminals in the first place. Thats why were going to crack down on gun dealers. We need to close the Gun Show Loophole and have Background Checks because thee ruamerican families. American citizens dying on the streets of this country, and the president is going to do something about it. White house senior adviser Cedric Richmond, thank you very much for being on with us this morning. Well be watching for that today. Thanks a lot. Up next, will the filibuster keep democrats from passing meaningful legislation . And how will that impact their strategy heading into the midterms . Well talk to the congressman responsible for getting democrats elected to the house. Keep it right here on morning joe. [ ] looking for superior protection against Uv Damage and early Skin Aging . 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You really outdid yourself. Yes, we did. The Allnew Buick envision. An suv built around you. All of you. Theres no widespread effort to stop voters from casting a ballot. And theres no desire to hand States Constitutional authorities over to the federal government. Our democratic colleagues are struggling to accept this reality. What could be more hypocritical and cynical than invoking Minority Rights in the senate as a pretext for preventing debate about how to preserve Minority Rights in the society. You know, John Cornyn is right. I dont think a lot of americans will want for the federal government to take over rights that the states have when it comes to voting. That said, when the states are taking over the State Legislatures are taking over the power from localities and from secretaries of state and from local county supervisors and the likes and saying, oh, we can just decide what votes were going to count and what votes were not going to count, thats a big problem. Lets bring in the chairman of the dccc, democrat, congressman sean Patrick Maloney, and adrienne elrod, also former senior adviser to the house oversight committee, kurt bardella, also a columnist for the l. A. Times. This is dccc day here. And sean says our studio is the color of his dining room. Good to know. Good taste. So sean, everybody says that democrats are going to lose. You look at the history, democrats are going to lose. You look at redistricting, democrats are going to lose. Tell me why democrats arent going to lose . I look forward to the morning after the election. The voters will decide that. What were going to do is fight for good jobs and good Health Care and safe streets and end the pandemic and grow the economy. And the other side is trying to throw up barriers to voting and taking us back to an era when states rights arguments were used to suppress the vote and to engage in racial discrimination. I think thats a good comparison in the Swing Districts. And well let the voters figure it out. What about the blocking and tackling in the Swing Districts . Are your members holding Town Hall meetings every weekend . Are they knocking on doors every weekend . Are they doing the blocking and tackling that democrats havent always been good at doing in the past . Thats a fantastic question. We just moved a huge number of resources into early community organizing, into community engagement. Were going to build back better. Were going to be in communities with cultural competence, with local people, working who are Train Today do so. Im a big believer in getting away from the air wars we always fight, back to the basics. You better believe it, were going to be on the ground, and it starts with great candidates and members of gres doing their work and delivering on things like the infrastructure package, on things like ending the pandemic, on bringing resources to local police departments which were doing, and every republican voted against. Those are the results were going to be running on. Were going to deliver. Youre a former republican, im a former republican. Youre consulting with the dccc right now. I dont know if you can say this. Have you noticed a cultural difference, like republicans, i have said this before. When i ran, i didnt run to win by one percentage point. I ran to get every vote, to get every dollar, and make sure that person would never, ever think about running against me again. It was total political warfare. Now, we would play it clean, but it was really rough. And it was an obsession. I havent seen democrats, like, not a lot of democrats with that intensity. Is there a cultural divide between how democrats and republicans run . I think that the biggest difference certainly that i have observed is that republicans truly, they dont care if something is 100 right, 100 accurate, 100 factual. And democrats really do care about the truth. I think it surprises them, i have had many democrats ask me, do republicans really not care . And my answer is no, they dont care. They dont care what it takes, how ugly it gets, how nasty it gets. Let me add on to this, i will say, in my experience, democrats think theyre right and everybody else is wrong. I mean, the democrats that i have been around at times, and thats not great when youre campaigning. Like, its sort of like, we talk about dbt and you have to say, maybe some people listen to these republicans and they think theyre right. How am i going to beat them . I think part of the challenge is, on the surface by The Way, please, dont tweet at me. I by The Way, dont tweet at me. I didnt say that skillfully. I know what youre saying. I was trying to help, but i think ive let me help bail you out. I think part of it is on the surface, democrats believe that, hey, we are right about a lot of these things. We are the party that is for democracy, we are the party that is for social justice and equality, and the republicans are 100 not. But that in itself is not enough to win. Its not enough to be right. You have to convince The American people that Theres Something in it for them. Republicans are very good, in fact republicans are better than democrats of using fear and weaponizing fear to get ahead electorally. And i think democrats are going to be more aggressive in 2022. Theyre understanding that the stakes are so much higher now, that literally democracy we had a violent insurrection and republicans, the Law And Order republicans are saying it was just this is the thing. So i guess i was thinking like a democrat going into the trump election, because i thought this is very simple. Yeah. This is democracy versus a guy who has fascist tendencies, hes trying to get his Attorney General to arrest his opponent. Yep. Hes calling the free press enemies of the people, hes trying to get some members of the press thrown in jail and executed. This is easy. He gets 75 Million votes. Obviously i missed something last time. Yeah. So talk about how important it is, sort of the Meat And Potato issues at The End of the day, a lot of americans are like, okay, so am i going to be able to pay my bills, is my street going to be safe, is inflation going up, is it going down. Thats really what it comes down to, joe. And lets not forget about the access hollywood tape. We thought when that came out, its over, done deal. But it really does come down to how does electing this person affect my everyday life and thats why i think democrats right now are doing such a good job on drawing a contrast on a lot of issues that affect the lives of everyday people. The Child Tax Credit, for example, huge thing thats going to hit mailboxes in midjuly. Democrats are playing that up and they are making sure that The American people know this is a biden harris accomplishment. It did not happen because these checks magically appeared. Youve got to drive in The Point what are you doing to affect the lives of everyday people. Same with infrastructure. I saw my old friend from the clinton White House days on earlier talking about the problem Solvers Caucus and theyre trying to work together. Democrats have to keep driving home those issues that affect the lives of everyday people. In 2006, Ram Emmanuel was the chair. I think those days are over, i dont know that we can run on washington is corrupt anymore as the single issue. Youve got to get down to what affects those families who are voting in this election. And, of course, republicans, a lot of the republican congressmen are taking credit for things they voted against. Thats something democrats need to call out. We have Social Media in this election in ways that we didnt ten years ago. And people are being factchecked in ways that they never have before. Media organizations are factchecking and calling out lawmakers for saying that they did things that they really didnt do. So i dont think thats going to happen and be as successful as it perhaps has been in the past. People will be held accountable just because weve seen it happen so far already. Casey, you have a question for the Dccc Chairman . I do, indeed. Good to see you. My question is about how whats going on in congress ties into the races that youve got to run. Bernie sanders says he wants to potentially spend 6 Trillion in an environment where inflation is a real concern, youre also talking about raising taxes, youve got suburban voters that are relying on stocks going up to protect their 401 K S. Is spending 6 Trillion a good political plan . Look, im going to let senator sanders argue for his own plans. What ill tell you we all support is a strong Infrastructure Bill and investing in americas families. You just heard about the Child Tax Credit thats being rolled out. Every republican voted against that and we are going to hold them accountable. And we are going to build bridges and roads and broadband and good water systems. My strict in the Hudson Valley on a bipartisan basis supports all of that and the measures in the Rescue Plan that are funding good policing at the local level, supporting local governments that are ending the pandemic. Were growing this economy at 6 , 7 in the next 12 months. In fairness to the democrats, the president and Bernie Sanders would pay for their proposals, which is something the republicans wont do. So i do think the results are going to be what matters. So 6 Trillion in new taxes to pay for it . Whats the right number in your view . The congress is going to work that through. What we ought to do is address the needs of working people in this country once again, we ought to show up with real results. And the difference between now and 2006 is that were the governing party and were saying to The American people, judge us by our record. We have a record that were proud of. Were going to deliver good jobs and good Health Care and save streets and we are going to grow this economy. And we have proposals to be fiscally responsible when we do it. I think thats a good thing. Mr. Chairman, its Willie Geist in New York. Im curious what you took away from Last Nights mayoral race in new York City. After this long campaign, a former Police Officer, a guy who has served in the nypd for almost 25 years, who was a republican for a few minutes back in the 1990s, looks like as of the first night of counting he likely will be the next mayor of new York City. What do you take away from that vote in New York that you can apply nationally . I thought you would never ask, so thank you for that voice from New York, Willie Geist. Good to see you again. I think what you saw Last Night is you saw a democratic party that has both feet on the ground. That is a diverse coalition that is focused on good housing and good jobs and good Health Care, but is also going to demand safe streets and good policing. You saw in Eric Adams someone who understands both the need to keep fighting for racial justice in a country that is in many ways trying to go backwards on those issues and were not going to stop fighting for racial justice. But were not going to accept the false choice that we should choose between racial justice and safe streets. Were going to do both. And thats what i think Eric Adams really represented. And by The Way, if you look at the overall results Last Night, and i know were still counting in this conclave of the cardinals, when the white smoke goes up. Im just a simple country lawyer, as you know, joe. Its kind of hard. But in fairness, if you look, what The Point is, to allow a more nuanced aggregation of the voters will. What you really saw there was that candidates who support good policing and public safety really took better than twothirds of the vote. Thats a very diverse coalition that put that forward. So i think youre going to see out of new York City a pretty good representation of where the democratic party is. And when you put that together with the George Floyd Justice in policing act that were going to get done, i think on a bipartisan basis, when you look at the smart proposals the White House is unrolling this week, that Cedric Richmond just spoke about to fight rising crime rates, thats the common Sense Combination of fighting for something that matters, but also keeping our streets safe at the same time. Thats where the democratic party is. And i think thats what New York is telling you. So, congressman, taking that message that you just spelled out, taking it nationally from locally, nationally to the world beyond twitter, where nobody is on twitter, just living their ordinary lives, is it fair to say that you might be going to the country with a message that as democrats, were here to help you, and as republicans theyre here to scare you . Were here to deliver while they divide. Were going to fix, they want to fight. You better believe it. And if you look at what happened in the special election in new mexico where they threw the Kitchen Sink at our candidates on lies and distortions about what we stand for, we blew the doors off. People said we would be lucky to win by 10, our candidate won by 25, and she stood for something on issues of racial justice, but also talked about what she was for with specifics, responded to their lies, but also ran on the record of this administration, which actually matters more than these washington issues. What matters is whether the pandemic is in the rearview mirror, whether the economy is growing, people are making money, feeling good and safe in their homes. Thats what were going to deliver on. And thats the national message. Its interesting you guys didnt get into a big fight. Come on. The soothing blue color makes everything feel why do i need to get into a fight . Why does he fight me when i blow myself up early on. I appreciate it. I know the source of your twitter trouble today. Thank you. Eugene scott, adrian elrod, thank you all. That does it for us this morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Hi, there. Im stephanie ruhle. Its wednesday, June 23rd and the battle is not over yet. Vice president Kamala Harris and senate democrats vowing to continue the fierce fight for Voting Rights in this country after republicans blocked the legislation late tuesday, following a 50 50 party line vote, which is far short of the 60 votes needed to move forward, at least temporarily shutting down one of President Bidens top domestic priorities to override the wave of restrictive Voting Laws that has been