>> no, he was making fun of himself there. >> you have to wonder if the former president is feeling the heat. >> i expected him to sing "myway" and with the scarves wipe the sweat off his face and -- >> it's hard for me to -- as special counsel jack smith turns up the temperature in federal court, amid the back and forth over the protective order in that case. there's new reporting this morning -- >> do you think he's well? >> no. >> i'm just saying, him sweating that much. do you think he's -- >> in a million different ways, i don't think he's well? >> do you think he's unwell? >> marco rubio didn't sweat that much. ron desantis doesn't sweat that much. that was a lot of sweat. >> yes. new reporting on a secret memo that laid out the plot to overturn the 2020 election. we're going to go through that major development in just a moment. meanwhile, we're getting a better idea of the timing for the next possible indictment for the former president -- >> by 2028? >> no. the case down in georgia. >> can she delay this any longer? >> i think it's coming. >> 2028, maybe 2029. >> it could be his fourth indictment. we'll talk about that and what the timing looks like now. also ahead, more instability in the desantis campaign. we'll tell you about the latest shake up for the florida governor in his 2024 presidential bid -- >> the shake up will be dramatic as we look at these pictures of desantis. word is he may stop zipping the vest up three quarters of the way. >> yeah. good morning and welcome to "morning joe". >> who wears a vest in the summer when it's like 800 degrees? >> i don't know. but there's so much news, and i guess that's how we survive is laughing once in a while. >> i'm not laughing. i'm wondering why a guy is wearing a vest when it's 800 degrees outside. >> it's wednesday, august 9th, i guess i should say, it's only wednesday. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. >> not wearing a vest. >> looking very good this morning. dapper. u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay, always elegant. and white house editor for politico, sam stein. sam's here. >> also sharp. >> all right. >> i tell you, this is -- this issue, this abortion issue is turning into a remarkably politically potent issue for people who want a return to, well, where the united states was for about 50 years, where women had a right to make health care decisions and make choices about their own bodies. we've seen in kansas, we've seen in kentucky, we've seen in one red state after another. we saw in a supreme court race in wisconsin landslide victories, all because republicans are taking extremist views. and we saw it last night in a state that has gone deep red, ohio. >> red, red, red. voters overwhelmingly rejected a republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state's constitution. more than 3 million people went to the polls in ohio's special election, voting to defeat issue one, which keeps the threshold for passing future constitutional amendments at a simple majority. >> this was all about abortion. >> rather than 60% super majority that was proposed. >> all about abortion. >> of course, this is all about abortion, because they were going to have a referendum this fall. and suddenly, the pro-life groups and the republican legislators, katty, decided, we're going to rig things, we're going to change the rules, we're going to require 60%, because we know the party of the people don't want women to have their health care decisions decided by men and state legislators. 57% of ohioan voters say "no" to rigging the process. 43% said "yes." but katty, that almost certainly ensures that this fall, ohio will be yet another republican state that pushes back against the abolition of roe. >> yeah, republicans wanted to make it so that you couldn't change a law in part of the constitution without 60%, having 60%. for decades, it's been 50%. that's been fine for all the other amendments that they've had in the past, but when abortion was on the ballot, they wanted to make it that much harder for pro-abortion rights people to do it. actually, that 57% is not far off the 60% that they were mandating. what's extraordinary about this is that it's august. a quarter of -- august! this is not even a vote on abortion. this is a vote on an amendment to the constitution that is potentially about abortion. and even so, ohioans turned out in huge numbers. and the campaign that had been campaigning on pro-abortion rights had thought this might be close. this reminds me of kansas. this reminds me of that first vote we had, where we were all surprised by the margin of the victory for the pro abortion rights group. and here we are, more than a year after dobbs, and it is still rallying people 57%. that's a big victory for the pro abortion rights group. >> a huge victory. like a huge victory in wisconsin, a state that's always been very close. a huge victory in kansas, another state that was red. time and time again, you look at these polls, and they just don't tell the tale. people a year and a half out, are you going to vote for the guy -- for people that don't follow closely, are we going to vote for the guy who falls off his bike and stutters once in a while or a guy who created a riot. and do you remember the red wave of 2022? neither do, you know why? it never happened. you know why it never happened? abortion's a big issue. also, some people, i know it's quaint if you right this morning for the "wall street journal" editorial page or on fox news, some people love american democracy. we're kind of old-fashioned that way. i don't know. it's worked for us for 240 or so years. we would like to keep it for another 240 years. so you add abortion and american democracy, because americans aren't as stupid as editorial writers of the "wall street journal" editorial page over the past week have believed them to be. they see through the lies and the gaslighting and they decide, hey, this is really troubling what this guy -- maybe this guy over here could ride a bike if he wasn't sweating so much. this other guy, he falls off a bike once in a while. but wait a second, he actually believes in the constitution of the united states. you add that and abortion together and it has been a potent, potent political punch in the gut against republicans who have been trying to take away women's rights. >> and women's rights, you bring up a good point here, because i think what we're seeing here is that men and women are seeing health care being taken away from their families, from their loved ones. and while it is an issue of a woman's right to choose, it's also an issue of family's health, of a husband watching her husband, his wife have to bleed out, because she can't get the medication she needs for a fetal abnormality. this is an issue now that goes across the board. and men and women understand what has happened over the past few years with rights being taken away. right to health care. >> and when you look, sam stein at these numbers, 59% in kansas, 57% in ohio, a left side victory at the supreme court race up in wisconsin, the republicans called it the most important race in years. when you see that happening, you don't get to 57, 58, 59% with only the women that went to the women's march like in 2017. you don't get there with left-wing activists. you don't get there with women. you get there with women, men, young, old, black, white, hispanic. you name it. this is an issue that cuts across all demographics and it's shocking to me that the republicans still have their head buried in the sand on this issue. because in another election, i don't know if they know it or not, is coming up next year. >> yeah, to mika's point, it's men are involved in the pregnancy, obviously, they don't carry the burden of the pregnancy, but they're there for the process, and it resonates, the issue of abortion, for men as much as women. and if you look at the issue on ideological grounds, there's a recent poll that shows something like 35 to 40% of republicans were upset over the dobbs decision. those numbers don't really happen in many other issues. and i think the proof now is in the pudding, so to speak. we have three major elections, probably more i'm missing, kansas, wisconsin, ohio, where it's very evident that abortion rights is an incredible motivator. i would just add that in ohio, you know, katty's right, they tried to sneak this in on some municipal election, in the middle of august. it was fairly transparent, what the anti-choice crowd was trying to do. and i think that it backfired pretty badly, obviously, with voters, who felt like they were just being hoodwinked. who felt like they were being taken advantage of. it's already a bold proposition to ask voters to willingly vote to reduce their ability to change their state's constitution in the future. but to do it in the fashion that they did, that these organizers did, to try to sneak it in in a municipal election, in august, i think, was insulting, frankly, to a lot of ohioans. and it proved to be insulting by these numbers. >> think about donald trump's republican party. one, they tried to take away a presidential election. two, they line up in support, and i won't name the editorial page again that does it. they line in support of a fake electorate's conspiracy plot, right? that their own people knew was unconstitutional. that their own people knew would be overturned by the united states supreme court. but they were doing it to confuse the issue and to delay a constitutional process. and they wanted to throw out the votes, of millions and millions of americans in seven states. they don't go to tennessee. again, more anti-democracy nonsense. they actually kick black members of the tennessee legislature out, because they dare raise their voices. they let a white woman stay in, by the way. that's interesting. justice blind? i don't know. republicans certainly aren't blind. your black legislator in tennessee and you speak up and speak out. they kick you out, right? and now you go to ohio and what do we have? you first of all have the women of ohio, have the right to make health care decisions for themselves, are parents of 10-year-old girls that are raped, they have to flee the state so they can make health care decisions for themselves. republicans take that right away from ohio women and ohio families and ohio doctors. then they come up with this scheme and say, we'll take away your right to amend the constitution, and we'll sneak it in in august and you have to get 60% to claw back the right we've taken away from ohio and across america. and as katty said before, this is august. august is such a dead month politically, i will tell you any campaigns, of four campaigns i ran, we basically shut down in august. because everybody's gone. nobody's focused on anything. they're finishing their vacations or they're getting their kids ready back for school. they're getting ready for the fall. >> this must have been important. >> and as katty said, ohio voters flooded to the polls to tell these antidemocracy republicans "no." one person, one vote, majority rules in these forums. you can't change the rules midstream, because you want to continue taking away the rights of women from making decisions about their own bodies. >> president biden celebrated after issue one failed, releasing a statement that reads, this measure was a blatant attempt to weaken voters voices and further erode the freedom of women to make their own health care decisions. ohioans spoke loud and clear and tonight, democracy won. in recent years, republicans in a handful of states have sought to make it more difficult to pass citizen-led initiatives, from expanding medicaid to raising the minimum wage. according to the "washington post," last -- >> i mean, but they lost in really liberal states, i bet. i bet these efforts lost in really liberal states. >> last year, such efforts to raise the voter threshold failed in south dakota. >> south dakota. >> and arkansas. >> arkansas -- who won those states? was that trump or biden? did they win -- those are really liberal states. >> and attempts to schedule a similar vote in missouri were unsuccessful this spring. >> sojonathan lemire, they're not even trying to hide it anymore. they're not even trying to hide the fact that they're trying to make these processes more difficult. they're trying to change the rules midstream. they said as much! the anti-abortion groups, the anti-women's right groups said as much, we're changing the process, or else we're in big trouble. guess what? if taking the rights of women away to make their own choices over their own bodies puts your organization in big trouble, i think it's safe to say after the past year and a half of election results, those people that want to strip women of their rights, they're in big trouble. >> yeah, it is a fundamental effort and a unique effort in american history to take away a right. and we are seeing the consequences here, in these deep red states, including in ohio. as well covered a frankly bathe effort to recover this in the middle of august, to try to sneak it in like they did. and it's just the latest defeat for this effort. and frankly, the anti-abortion movement in this country needs to come to a reckoning here in terms of how they're handling politics and the ballot. because they're being handed defeat after defeat after defeat. and this comes on the heels of two years of republicans in a number of state legislatures trying to take away another right, the right street, restricting access to the ballot. and we have seen the consequences there as well. that played a role in the 2022 midterms. but abortion here is by far the biggest. and it is even one where republicans are threatening, some believe, many believe, our national security, because of senator tubberville's hold on military promotions, right now, army, marines, both without a commander because of his hold, because it's an abortion-related issue there as well. >> jonathan, can i ask you a question on that point. you've got republicans who used to criticize democrats for using the military to push their radical social agenda. >> oh, wait. >> now you have tommy tubberville that stopped the united states marine corps from having a commandant leading it for the first time in 150 years. now you have radical republicans in the senate who are lining up, meekly behind tommy tubberville, who are now stopping the united states army from having a leader there as well. like, the readiness issues, and republicans know this, the readiness issues that this poses for our men and women in the united states armed forces, devastating. devastating, and yet, they're letting this guy from alabama basically lay waste to readiness in the united states marine corps, the united states army, and across all of the services. like, have you heard of any republicans in the senate who actually give a damn enough about the readiness of the marines and the army and the air force and the navy and the coast guard? have you heard any of them saying they're going to stand up to tubberville and stop this madness? >> there's been some private grumbling, but very little in the way of public concerns. we did hear from nikki haley yesterday, who said that she didn't like how this was going down. that she sided with the idea of tubberville, that the military shouldn't be doing this, but said it shouldn't be carried out like this. maybe that will be the start of something, it remains to be seen. but republicans were proudly declared the party of national security, of defense, and yet they've turned their back on this particular issue. and it's 100%. that's exactly right. it's hard to make that claim now. and it also should be noted that this is further proof that abortion, a defining issue in 2022, clearly still a driver this year. it will be again next year, too. and some democrats feel like it could even potentially expand the electoral map for them. >> so as we follow this major news out of ohio this morning, there's a lot of other news to get to. a major development in a new reporting on a secret memo to overturn the 2020 election. we haven't heard about this before. this definitely laid out a strategy for trump to actually overturn president biden's win of the 2020 election. again, not free speech, more like a strategy to actually do it. >> well, an illegal scheme, to actually delay a constitutional count. free speech? nope, just an illegal scheme to stop the constitutionally mandated count of electoral votes on january 6th by making a bad faith argument to sow confusion among the electorate and this is the thing we'll really explore, mika, they did it even though they knew it was unconstitutional and the supreme court would stop their plot. not only did you have this person that came up with an illegal scheme saying that from the very beginning, was after eastman adopts it, takes it into the white house, mike pence turns to eastman, saying, is the supreme court going to uphold this? and eastman goes, well, i don't think, i don't know. and you have pence turning to donald trump and going, see, your own guy knows, supreme court is going to overturn this. an illegal scheme. nothing about free speech there. nothing about free speech. >> we'll have more on the secret memo. also, news on potential timing for a fourth indictment for former president donald trump. we'll be right back. rmer presid trump. we'll be right back. it's not just designed to look good... it's built to command attention. it's not just a comfortable interior... it's a quiet refuge. they're not just headlights... they light the way forward. the new fully electric audi q8 e-tron models... - the company goes to the firstborn, audrey. the model train set is entrusted to todd. mr. marbles will receive recurring deliveries for all of his needs in perpetuity, thanks to autoship from chewy. - i always loved that old man. - what's it say about the summer house? 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( ♪♪ ) constant contact. helping the small stand tall. white house celebrating this morning the crushing defeat of an anti-choice referendum procedure, actually, in ohio. >> 3 million people turned out to vote on this. >> and katty, as you said, in august. it's crazy that that happened. >> a special election. >> in a special election in august. >> i was just checking out, the population of ohio is 12 million, so 3 million turned out to vote. that's a quarter of ohioans turn out to vote. we're not talking about a presidential election. we're not even talking about a primary vote here. we're talking about a vote on an amendment to change the constitution. but everybody saw this for what it was. this was the prelude, this would have set the stage for anti-choice forces in ohio to severely restrict women's rights to health care in the state. and mika's right. this is not a women's issue. i think this is so often portrayed as a woman's issue, but last i check, it takes two people to get a woman pregnant. and men are intimately involved in this process. they see what their wives are going through, and we've had one story after another, including the case that's going through the courts in texas, of women whose health has been very dangerously put at risk because they couldn't get access to the health care that they need because they've had pregnancies that have gone wrong. and we have now so many of those stories right around the country that people in ohio, of course, there was the famous case of the girl who was raped had to go to indiana, they know what this means for women and for girls. >> men are stepping up. and by the way, at the top of the hour, ohio senator sherrod brown will join us to talk more about this. now to one of the other big stories that we're following this morning, a previously unseen memo is providing potentially damning new evidence about the plot to overturn the 2020 election results by donald trump and members of his inner circle. the memo, which was obtained by "the new york times" and has not been verified by nbc news, was allegedly sent many early december 2020, by trump lawyer, kenneth cheeseboro. cheeseboro was one of the co-conspirators identified but not charged in the justice department's most recent indictment of the former president. in the newly obtained note, cheeseboro outlines what would become known as the fake elector scheme, which falsely claims that former vice president mike pence had the power to block the certification of the state's votes on january 6th. >> and to lie about people who were going to be the electorates, fake electorates to create a fraudulent slate of electors, and this is what trump's defenders are calling free speech. no, no, that's an attempt to defraud americans. >> cheeseboro allegedly wrote to another trump lawyer about what he acknowledged was a, quote, bold and controversial strategy, but claimed that he was not necessarily advising this course of action, despite trying to distance himself from the plan, "the times" reports that just one day after sending that memo, it ended up on the desk of trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. >> oh, that's just not good for rudy or anybody. >> as for the fake electorate scheme itself, cheeseboro even admitted that the supreme court was likely to end up rejecting the plan. but even in that case, he claimed that airing it out publicly would, quote, buy the trump campaign more time to challenge the election. >> this is as clear as day. they're coming up with a fraudulent scheme that they know is illegal, they know the supreme court will reject it, but what are they trying to do? they're trying to illegally delay a constitutional proceeding, the constitution of the united states says that the electorates get together and they count the votes, the date is january 6th, and here's a plan, a completely illegal scheme, where they're going to get fake electorates, have people lie, that they're certified to be electorates, and then have mike pence put these fake electorates before the united states congress. and in inso doing, steal, what, 7 million, 8 million, 10 -- i mean, how many millions of votes are they stealing from people in swing states who are elected by actual the real electors, who, again, are part of the constitutional process. that trump's trying to undermine. the argument that this is somehow free speech to have this illegal scheme that they knew was illegal, is just, it's stupid, even for trump supporters and certain editorial pages. >> yeah, one of the charges trump faces is a violation of rights, trying to defraud rights, the right to vote is one of them. and they were trying to disenfranchise millions of americans by trying to toss out their vote and trying to install these fake electorates. and this memo puts in one place sort of "a" to "z" the scheme that we have known has been out there. and now is going to be clearly central to the prosecution against trump in jack smith's case there in washington. this idea that it would -- they knew -- the supreme court, even a supreme court that was pretty trump-friendly in most ways had ruled against him on election issues. we have documented how badly they fared in courthouses across america in the weeks after election day, november 2020. there was something like 63-1, and the one win was a very small procedural one. they knew that this wasn't going to pass legal standing. that said, they were trying to buy time. they were trying to buy time to push for more cases, they were trying to buy time to install these fake electors, and then put it to mike pence on january 6th. and if he had said, well, look, we've got competing sets of electors here, let's throw them all out, let's put it to the house, and that's how trump wins, because the math worked in trump's favor there. that's the scheme. that's how they wanted to stay in power. and that's how jack smith is going to proceed with this prosecution. >> yeah, i just add, i mean, this reads to me like a plot to subvert the vote, presented publicly as an insurance plan in case the courts somehow intervened on trump's behalf, even after 63 or whatever decisions against the trump campaign at that point. the other thing that stands out to me is just how little -- and again, most of trump's actual lawyers, the professionals in the justice department and at the white house did actually care about the real-world consequences, the laws that may have been pushed or violated, but there were a select few people here, including kenneth cheeseboro and john eastman who simply, it didn't occur to them or they didn't care enough about what the consequences and spill-out of such a strategy were. cheeseboro is saying, this is bold and controversial. in another memo, eastman, i believe, said something, well, they may be rioting in the streets, but that's why we have the insurrection act, as if a little sort of blood in the streets was just the price you pay for this type of strategy. and it's remarkable, i guess, to me, maybe a little bit shocking, that people were willing to just let their minds wander to those places in pursuit of a they understood privately to be controversial and perhaps even illegal steps to subvert democracy. >> and you look at their interactions, katty, and again, they understand that this scheme is not going to be seen as legal by the united states supreme court, they say as much. mike pence confronts donald trump later, saying, even your own lawyer is telling you that this is not legal. the supreme court is going overturn it. but they talk about how this will cause delay. lit cause confusion. it may cause riots in the streets. and when that's brought up as a possibility, that this will cause riots in the streets, they say, yeah, that's why we have the insurrection act. that's why we have the army to put down riots that they're responsible for my pushing something that they know is illegal. >> in part of donald trump's defense, presumably, when this goes to trial will be, well, i genuinely, as he said last night, in new hampshire in that rather moist appearance -- >> sweaty, yeah. >> i generally believed that the election had been stolen. this is what my lawyers were telling me. i had good lawyers like eastman telling me this was the case, so you can't get me for that, because that's what my belief was. well, then jack smith will come back with this kind of evidence. you know, here you are. you were presented with a plan, but you were also told by people like mike pence that this would not go anywhere. that this was -- that the supreme court would not think that this was okay. so you're going of a lot of this, i mean, we talked about this a lot around 2016, i mean, what was the aim of russia? to sow chaos and a sense that democracy was not strong and sowed dissatisfaction in the democratic system. and when you read this secret memo, it sounds like that, that part of the aim of this is to show, is to sow chaos and to make people think that the system is not working. >> right. it wasn't about, actually, having a system that works, a process that works. they knew the supreme court was going to overturn it. it was about creating the delay, creating the chaos, and if riots happened, as they said, that's why we have the army. that's why we have the insurrection act. then we can use the insurrection act, get the army in the street, put down the riots from people whose votes have been stolen, and trump can declare martial law, which is basically what they're talking about doing. and yeah, this is what russia, "wall street journal" editorial page, this is what russia was trying to do in 2016. this is what russia admitted that they were trying to do in 2016. this is what the head of the wagner group bragged about, saying, remember how successful our campaign was in america in 2016? >> hmm. >> i mean, come on. russian hoax. you shame yourself every day. you shame yourself every day. if you don't see a linkage here. >> right. >> if you don't see the linkage of the russians trying to sow confusion, and then donald trump on his own, learning from people that he's always admired, on his own. to just create a process that will sow confusion, that's illegal, that will sow delay, and if he's lucky, will create riots in the streets, and they can use the insurrection act to declare martial law. and you call it free speech! i call it un-american! and guess what, most americans agree with me and not you. you're disgusting! you're absolutely disgusting if you're going to forgive this type of behavior. and i say that to the republican establishment that's been going, oh, you know, there's two standards of justice here, hunter biden's laptop, hunter biden -- and over here, we're talking about an illegal scheme, to overthrow an election! to get riots in the street, so donald trump can declare martial law, and you're saying there's some sort of legal equivalency? there's some sort of moral equivalency. that's grotesque. and what's so sad for you, is you know it's grotesque. the entire republican establishment knows it's gross. you've got a guy trying to steal an election, and you've got a prosecutor that's trying to bring him to justice. and if this guy were a democrat, you would already have him locked up. jack smith is trying to bring this guy to justice. and what do you do? you sit back silently. you talk about, oh, two standards of justice. and then you're silent as donald trump threatens a federal prosecutor. an officer of the united states court system. saying, i'm coming after you. silence. >> yeah. >> and you wonder why you keep losing elections. it's not going to stop. you're going to keep losing. you're on the wrong side of history. you know who's on the right side of history? >> hmm? >> people that support american democracy. warren buffett said it after september the 15th. you bet against the united states of america, you lose. and you all have been betting for a guy that's been talking about terminating the constitution of the united states, that's tried to overthrow a presidential election, that worked his hardest to undermine american's confidence in american democracy, in the american democratic process. and you're still standing behind him. and then said, come to washington, it will be wild, and encouraged these riots with a speech on january 6th and sat back and did nothing for three hours while his children, while his lawyers, while his campaign people, while everybody he knew begged him to stop the riots. his response? well, maybe mike pence deserves to be lynched. and you're still supporting him! because you said, oh, i mean, hunter biden. >> weaponization. >> hunter biden, weaponization. you say those words and you think actually that provide you absolution? oh, no, no, that will provide you no absolution in history books. no absolution at all. and it's going to get you routed at the ballot box again. >> what's sad is they know better. they actually no better and they -- >> they should -- >> a lot of these guys know better, and women. speaking of delays, donald trump's lawyers have been called to appear in court later this week after a judge rejected their apparent attempts to delay what is normally a routine procedure in the 2020 election case against their client. after days of back and forth regarding a protective order requested by prosecutors, judge tanya chutkan put a scheduled matter. this is where the lawyers will come and hash this out. doesn't really need to be done, but they're doing it. trump is not required to attend. >> what do we expect there, jonathan lemire? >> we expect the judge is going to make a decision on whether or not trump can keep talking so freely about the case. he did so yesterday, defiantly so. threateningly, during while profoundly sweating on stage in new hampshire. he went on to say, if this happens -- >> a lot of sweat, man. >> it was an extraordinary amount of sweat, of perspiration. we really probably shouldn't dwell on it further. but he did go on to say, i won't be able to go to iowa, i won't be able to come here in new hampshire and talk about this. his team will make the argument, yes, free speech, but more than that, he's a presidential candidate. he needs to be able to talk about these things. we'll have to see what kind of guidelines or guardrails will be established, and we'll see friday, but jack smith and his team have made it very clear that this is thing, this is rhetoric and it shouldn't be part of the case, he shouldn't be talking about evidence of the case, trying to intimidate witnesses or influence a jury pul. this is all extremely important stuff. and legal analysts have suggested, if it were anybody else, trump would, he could potentially even lose his social media or be locked up for this. it's an early test in this case for a judge who is clearly trying to accelerate the timetable of the case. >> two standards of justice, we would say here, my gosh! two standards of justice. i'm wondering, i'm a sweater from way back, i understand. but donald trump was so bathed in sweat, really, i was worried for his health. do you think this is why he's afraid to debate the republicans, because he's got a sweating condition? >> no, i don't. >> i -- i think that he was really hot. but what's funny is that he was making fun of chris christie. >> there's a lot of talk about body temperature this morning and moisture and it's just making me generally uncomfortable. and i think we should, you know, move on. >> okay, well, again -- >> there's actually so much real stuff to say, but having said that, it's just a little bit fitting given that he just makes a living out of making fun of people's appearances. i mean, i was once someone he made -- he literally made worldwide news making fun of my face. okay. let's bring in nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard. do you remember that? >> i think you were a murderer and i was face shamed, but what people -- >> he always calls you psycho. >> no, i'm psycho joe. >> i'm neurotic and psycho. yeah, i'm psycho. okay, we'll ask michael schnell about this. vaughn hillyard was at the trump rally in new hampshire yesterday. also with us, congressional reporter for "the hill," michel schnell who wants nothing to do with this. >> thank you for being with us. vaughn, first of all, take a -- and i swear this has nothing to do with -- has nothing to do with how much he was sweating last night, but just politically, give us the temperature of the room, how were they feeling about trump, how were they feeling -- >> no, you know, people say, take the temperature of the room. >> read the room. >> read the room for us. i take it if they're going to a trump rally, most will be rock-ribbed trump supporters. is that what you found there. were there any people that were questioning whether he could actually win in a general action. >> i was perfectly dry yesterday. when we were looking at that gymnasium, i think this hits at the point, joe, that you were just making, for all of the attention on the past, i think that what was so striking to me yesterday was i've covered a heck of a lot of these rallies over the last nine years. and that was the most defined donald trump that i have ever witnessed. for donald trump, this is not just about him. to a certain extent, he's powerless as a defendant in the courtroom, unless he takes the stand. but what donald trump is able to do is mobilize his political operation. to use it as a bludgeon against the u.s. justice system. we have seen him do it against the u.s. election system. we have seen him do it against the u.s. media. for now here in this moment, it is able mobilizing these millions of americans to initiate a distrust in the courtroom proceedings that are about to take place. i want to let you hear from two of the folks i talked to, because when i stood there in that room and talked with these voters here, for donald trump, you know, he told that crowd, his base, the maga base is the most passionate and spirited that it's ever been. and that maga base may have shrunk over the last three years, i don't think he's wrong about his assessment of those that may remain. >> that's nazi germany hitler. you can't silence your political opponents because you don't agree with him. joe biden should be in prison for his bribes. >> the vote was stolen, i believe it, in my heart. remember, they blew up one of the election corridors where they kept all of the dominion machines. why'd that blow up? >> if donald trump were to be found guilty by a jury -- >> ha-ha! >> -- where do you see this going? >> civil war. civil war. divide it up, because we can't live together, obviously. >> and if he wants me to protect him, i'll go in there and let him know that i'll do it. >> i think this is about the inherent danger of where donald trump takes this from here. forget about the election, forget about general election 2024 and whether he can win or not. if donald trump is found guilty by a jury, where does this go from here? i know that we did not foresee an actual physical attack on the u.s. capitol on january 6th 2021, and i can't begin to foresee an event of what may metastasize coming out of a guilty conviction or another election loss from donald trump. but what i'm increasingly convinced by, from conversations like those across this country, is that we are increasingly getting closer to an event, whatever that event may be, that event is becoming increasingly closer here, because donald trump does have millions, it may not win him an election, but it will be there to defend him to the very end, whatever that end may look like. >> joe, this is where republican leaders are so needed. and they are so not present for the truth, for reality. we need 100 mccain moments, 100 times over. remember when he said to that member of the audience, no, you're wrong. when the disparaging comment, the untrue comment was made about barack obama. this is why this is pervading, because other republican leaders, members of congress, trumpers, people who have either been infected by his lies or know kevin mccarthy, that he is a liar and has committed crimes against this democracy, you know it to your core, and you play that game. and these people are caught in the middle. these people are infected with lies and people like that went to the capital on january 6th. >> but if kevin mccarthy, if mitch mcconnell, if members from new hampshire's republicans -- >> they know better. >> said that. they would immediately become the outsiders. they would immediately become part of the deep state, which is part of the problem. it's also part of the reason why you've seen a boiling down of the number of trump supporters. it's gotten smaller. it has gotten, i think it has gotten more intense. and as people have made the point, it's not really a political campaign, it's a movement. >> it's a threat. >> but it's a movement, you have the leader of the movement that started by calling the press enemies of the state. he then undermined american's confidence in elections, when he knew he was going to lose. he started talking about how american democracy was rigged, so he turned his supporters against that. now he's turning his supporters against the judicial system, the rule of law in the united states, because he knows he's going to be found guilty of some of these charges, because he committed the crimes. and the question is, what are you hearing on the hill? we certainly hear what members say publicly. are you hearing any concerns privately from republicans about the continued radicalization of donald trump and his supporters? >> well, look, joe, absolutely, some moderates and more centrists in the party have been voicing concerns about this. there are a number of lawmakers up on capitol hill who have said a number of republicans, rather, more of those moderates and centrist who was said that they don't want to see donald trump be the republican nominee come 2024. there are a number of other lawmakers, republicans, who have endorsed some of donald trump's challenges. look, the reality of it is that donald trump is still the leader of the republican party. he's of course the overall front runner in the gop primary, and when we talk about some of these followers, particularly those ones up on capitol hill who could become the minority of the party if they were to speak out against donald trump. we saw some lawmakers try this out after january 6th. you talked about speaker kevin mccarthy back when he was minority leader, we'll all remember that days after the january 6th capitol riot, kevin mccarthy went to the house floor during that impeachment debate and actually said president trump bore responsibility for the riot, and said that he needs to take responsibility for the actions that happened on january 6th. but then everyone will remember it was just days after that kevin mccarthy said that, well, he doesn't think that donald trump provoked the riot, and he thinks that while donald trump bore some responsibility, there are also people all across the country bear responsibility, and then after that, of course, there was that infamous trip down to mar-a-lago to meet with the president, so after january 6th, kevin mccarthy and some other republicans tried out this state of being of going against president trump and criticizing him. but the fact of the matter is that time showed that the party was sticking behind donald trump, that the gop was staying behind trump, and because of that firm grip and that firm grasp on the party, a number of these lawmakers careened back to president trump's side, and that's what we're seeing play out right now in the wake of this indictment after indictment after indictment. >> and kevin mccarthy, where does kevin mccarthy go from here again? the party continues to get more and more radical. they're pushing for impeachments, he was on sean hannity, i think, and hannity kept talking about biden's bribery scandal. kevin mccarthy knows there's nothing there. he knows it's a lot. he knows that every time they talk about these scandals and these tapes and this, that and the other, he always ends up getting humiliated. talk about the tight rope walk kevin mccarthy is having to take every day? >> it's an extremely tight rope, and it's a tight rope because of that small majority that kevin mccarthy has in the house republican majority. and just to go back to what we were talking about, what you guys were talking about at the beginning of the show, that was in large part because republicans under performed in the 2022 midterm elections, which polls showed was a large reason for that was because abortion was a large issue for democrats and voters across the country. kevin mccarthy has been walking this very fine line on a number of matters throughout this congress. you bring up impeachment. kevin mccarthy has said that if the facts and the situation rises to the level of a need for an impeachment inquiries, that if they got to that need for an impeachment inquiry, they would go there. the understanding and assumption is that a formal vote would be needed to actually open up that inquiry which of course no democrats are voting for that. kevin mccarthy is going to have to do it all on his own. that's going to put a number of biden district republicans in a tough spot. again, another fine line he's being forced to walk because of the former president. >> yeah, that's a real problem for him, for the republicans sitting in biden won districts, there's so many of these radical positions that the mtgs are trying to get them to take, the more extreme members are trying to get them to take, the lauren boeberts. vaughn, i want to ask randomly, kari lake was talking about jumping into the arizona senate race. with or without kari lake, that's a fascinating race. you look at some of the numbers and see it's split three ways. we don't know if sinema is going to run in that race. talk about arizona, and a lot of different pieces of the puzzle and the senate race. >> governor doug ducey still lives in arizona but has shown no indication or desire to jump into this race. there's a sheriff running for the republican nomination. this is kari lakes if she in fact gets into this. it's important for folks to remember, kari lake lost by 17,000 votes here, she has a firm base of support still in the state of arizona. a long time conservative state. kyrsten sinema has not announced her independent run. if she gets in, early polling suggests kari lake would be a formidable candidate against ruben gallego and kyrsten sinema. it comes back to remembering the potency of the maga base that still exists. in a race that would be split three ways, it could put kari lake into the u.s. senate. >> nbc's vaughn hillyard and congressional reporter for the hill mychael schnell, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," ron desantis shakes up his -- >> is it desantis or duh santis. >> casey says it's desantis. >> who does? >> she says it's desantis. >> what the latest staffing change. >> if it's desantis, why do they say duh santis. president biden says he'll be visiting vietnam soon, a trip that could be seen as a show of power as the u.s. looks to counter china's influence in the region. we'll speak with admiral james stavridis about that. also ahead, one of our next guests argues the republican party has picked donald trump over democracy. vanity fair's molly jong-fast joins us ahead to explain. "morning joe" is coming right back. to explain. 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once-in-a-lifetime. we're not getting a point in washington, d.c., russia should have never done this. i was in ukraine three months with president zelenskyy before this started. they were already fight to go that point, but at the end of the day, it's a junior high team playing a college team. they can't win. we can throw all the money we want to, but unless we send nato and our troops over, which we're not going to do if i got anything to do with it, then there's no chance. >> first of all, look at that lower headline, americans grow tired of the ukraine war racket as if fighting for freedom, for your own country, ukraine, is a racket, as if the united states of america and nato fighting to keep central and eastern europe free from russian or soviet aggression. >> is exhausting. >> in the past, is a racket? that's not a racket. that's kind of like, that's about as reagan-like as you can have. it's very american. it's very republican. it's very conservative. it's very democratic. republicans, democrats, together worked to end the cold war, so what, did we fight to end the cold war so we send messages to dictators or tyrants that they can invade other countries? today it's russia invading ukraine. tomorrow it's china invading taiwan? and iran, giving them a green light. seriously. what planet are these people on because they sure as hell aren't what they claimed to be in the past. >> that was republican senator tommy tuberville bragging about his votes against funding the war in ukraine. >> so they're bragging now for voting to help vladimir putin. >> like a jv team. >> ask 100,000 dead russian troops, their families if the ukrainians are the jv team, tommy. >> and nato. >> and meanwhile, tommy is working really hard and the republicans are letting him in the united states senate to continue to damage american readiness based on some radical wild idea that you should debate about social issues when it comes to military issues. >> it's a two-fer for tommy. not only is he hurting our military readiness, he's making women think twice about joining the military. >> so the commandant of the united states marine corps for the first time in 120 years. he installed 300 military promotions since february, and now the army, like the marine corps do not have confirmed leaders for the first time in american history. the united states army thinks that tommy tuberville and republicans in the united states senate who are letting this happen, the united states army no longer has a confirmed leader joining the marines for the first time in 150 years. let's bring in supreme allied commander, james stavridis, a chief international analyst. i can tell you, whenever i would go to the pentagon, and there were debates going on in the armed services committee where i was, and had to do with social issues. it didn't matter what those generals or admirals were, whether they were republicans or democrats, whether you assumed they were or guessed they were, they would say son, son, can you just debate abortion. can you tell your committee members to debate abortion or these other issues, gay rights issues on the house floor, and just worry about making the military strong, and keeping our readiness up. i've got to say, i've seen that happen sometime. never seen anything like this, admiral, have you? >> no, i have not, and you know, i had six tours in the pentagon over my long career in the navy. i know the hill very very well. one of the hallmarks of good governance is making sure your military is apolitical. and what i would say to senator tuberville who i guess used to be a football coach, hey, coach, this is not a game we're playing over there. and let's face it, this is hurting military readiness. it is hurting military families. they can't move because of these holds. you mentioned the marine corps and the joint chiefs, it's also the u.s. navy, our first female chief and naval operations, none of this makes any sense, coach, and you ought to know better, and frankly, joe, every time i is interacted with members up on the hill, they parked the social issues at the door. that's what we want them to. last thought on this, senator tuberville, how are you going to feel when senator left wing two years from now says, oh, i'm not going to confirm anybody until the pentagon walks away from fossil fuels, for example. this is a nuclear weapon you're using, and it is not making sense, and it's hurting the american military. >> it really is. let's talk about ukraine, which, you know, tuberville was so pleased that he was helping vladimir putin. i mean, i'm sure he's one of putin's favorite senators now, that he's going around bragging on fox news about how he thinks the ukraine war is a racket. actually, there are a lot of people in central europe and eastern europe and western europe and freedom lovers, it's about what kind of world we live in, whether we let a tyrant invade another country, another sovereign land, which, by the way, which we signed a treaty with in 2014 guaranteeing their territorial integrity in exchange for them giving up nuclear weapons. i'm curious, we had david ignatius talk about how the fight was going. he talked about the porcupine strategy, the simple fact is that russia is choking on ukraine. the porcupine won't get away any easier, won't get any easier to swallow no matter how long the war lasts. and david says that ukrainians are making slow and steady progress. certainly, muddy season is coming up, and everything grinds to a halt in october. where are we in the state of this war? >> yeah, it's really three wars, joe, at this point. let's start at the c, just because i'm an admiral. we saw some terrific footage, best video i have seen in a while of a sea drone effectively sinking a russian warship, in the sea war, the black sea fleet is hunkered down, scared, in port for the most part. air war, this one i would call a draw at the moment, but when those f-16s get to the skies, and that will be sooner, i think, than many believe. the train programs ramping up. watch for the ukrainians to move out in the air, and land war, david's got it exactly right. it's a grind. and as a military guy, i'll tell you, being on defense is where you want to be. right now, the russians are the defensive force. we saw in the military, defense is to offense as three is to one. it's an advantage. but, you know, joe, you mentioned a moment ago, 100,000 killed. i think that number is much higher. i have seen serious analysis that looks at, for example, obituaries filed throughout russia that would have that number up 150,000, 200,000 killed in action. putin can't sustain those kind of losses indefinitely. it's a big porcupine that he's going to have to swallow. i don't think he'll succeed. >> admiral, while we have you, can we get your take on the news that president biden might be going to vietnam. i was a little surprised about this decision. we've seen some sort of a wrap between u.s. and china much welcomed over the last month. if he goes to vietnam, is that kind of obviously to shore up an ally in the region against china. does that put a risk some of that tentative diplomatic unthawing that we have seen over the last few weeks. >> it's a smart analysis on your part, katty. i think even so, it makes sense for the president to go, and it can be handled in sensible ways. vietnam is a big country, a powerful economy that's simply booming. my father fought there. we have deep ties to vietnam that have gotten stronger and better, and here's the real key. it shores up support in, for example, the philippines and singapore and australia, and, yes, we ought to be mindful of how it looks to the chinese. we're not trying to encircle them, but it's smart geopolitics on the ground of the president. i would support that visit. >> i wanted to ask you about this because so many people lie about joe biden's foreign policy, and again, i usually wouldn't use that word lie, but it fits here when they talk about him being weak. you look at what's happened with the strengthening of nato, stronger than ever before. and we have to bring it up, what he has been doing. after three presidents have promised to pivot to asia, we now have reinforcements and a strengthened presence with guam, with south korea, the philippines, japan talking about building out their military budget. this is the strongest, most forceful position the united states allies have been in in the china sphere in decades. talk about that, and let's talk about the other important thing because i am, somebody that thinks we need to keep talking to china. i know you agree with me. we have to keep talking with china. we have to make this relationship work. not on their terms. on our terms. but how do we thread that needle of being strong, stopping chinese expansion in that theater while still keeping diplomatic tracks open. >> that's the right side picture. in other words, this is a complex region of the world. we do have to have the ability to interact economically in sensible ways with china. and i think later today, you're probably going to see some restrictions put on investments and things like facial recognition, artificial intelligence, cyber security. should we be trading with china. should we have the ability to have a conversation sensibly with china. do we need china to work on climate with us. do we need china to help us end this war in ukraine. yes, and we can do that at the same time, and i would argue, our best strategy, encourage japan to be self-sufficient, to get its defense budget to 2%. bring nuclear submarines to australia. that's a big game changing move. get the philippines to allow us access in bases, in time of war. treaty allies make sense, and this particular trip, yes, go to vietnam. don't lose sight of singapore, very capable military as well. we are stronger together in the pacific just as we are in europe with nato. >> retired four star navy admiral james stavridis, thank you very much for your insight this morning. and at ten past the hour, in ohio, voters overwhelmingly rejected a republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state's constitution. >> ohio, we did it. we did it. look at that, more than 3 million people went to the polls in ohio's special election voting to defeat issue 1, which keeps the threshold for passing future constitutional amendments at a simple majority rather than the 60% super majority that was proposed. as of now, 57% voted against the measure while 43% voted to support it. republicans argued the measure was intended to limit the influence of special interests and that this was not related to abortion. >> absolutely not true. >> democrats question -- >> that's the exact opposite of what anti-choice groups said. >> democrats questioned the timing of all of this as republicans attempted to jam through the measure ahead of the november vote on enshrining abortion rights in ohio's constitution. i wanted to point out in the audience of people cheering, men and women, of course, who came out to vote. >> it's so important. >> a special election. >> the democratic senator of ohio, sherrod brown, senator brown, my god, the turnout was overwhelming, and it seems to me that ohio follows kansas, follows wisconsin, follows one state after another that is sort of purplish red where voters came out and said enough, we want women to keep their rights over their bodies. >> yeah, and what you just said, what both of you said about turnout. this was four times the turnout that the secretary of state had predicted. and the race was overwhelming. it was clearly a rejection of the power grab that politicians in columbus were making. and it certainly was about abortion, but certainly it was about the corruption in columbus and the power grabby state officials. and with a huge turnout in a compelling 14 point margin. that's good news for ohio, and it's a bipartisan effort. >> it was. explain if you could what you think happened. we're in the middle of august, it's a special election. this is a pretty large chunk of ohio's population that came out to vote. what did democrats do to get the message out here? for some i would think it would be confusing as to what this was about? >> well, they scheduled the special election, august, after getting rid of august special elections earlier in the last year, earlier this year. but they thought nobody was going to turn out, and when abortion rights were at stake, when just this power grab for the future, whether it was labor rights or voting rights or abortion rights that state house politicians wanted to take away with this power grab, and voters were also saying work together, work together in the pact act, work together on fentanyl, on infrastructure, which is what we have been doing, and in congress, i think voters spoke about that, too. you got to work together. no more one party rule. no more power grabs, and that's what i have been trying to do through my career in the senate, and i think voters are saying, let's work that way instead of making one political party more and more powerful with this power grab. >> can you throw this forward to next year's election, to 2024, what the vote on issue 1 in ohio, obviously a state trending redder and redder what it might mean for the state next year? >> what i'm looking forward to is a couple of things, fighting against fentanyl, fighting to keep wall street executives accountable, fighting to make sure infrastructure that we got broad band throughout ohio, all of those things, and i'm looking to november, working with abortion rights advocates to make sure we pass in november. then we go into next year, and, you know, i know i will be targeted next year. that's the way mitch mcconnell and donald trump will do it. that's the way it is. i ask people when you talk about next year, to go to sherrod brown to help, and my focus now is getting things done in the fall in congress, and my focus fighting for workers in the dignity of work, and abortion rights on that ballot issue. i think this portends well for that, as it has in other states. women spoke in huge numbers. and men, along with them in both parties spoke about abortion rights. we know that was a victory for sure there and i think that rolls into next year with the momentum people want to take into ohio. >> senator sherrod brown in ohio, with the big news this morning. thank you so much. >> when we were over commemorating the 25th anniversary of the good friday agreements that brought peace to northern ireland. i talked to bill clinton, we've got two huge issues right now, guns and abortion, where republicans are in the minority. >> the wrong side. >> most americans, 90% of americans want background checks. 70% of americans want access to abortion. what should be done? this is what bill clinton said about the importance of referendums like the one last night in ohio. >> if you look after roe v. wade was repealed, the people that went, like in michigan, they went straight to the ballot box in kansas, straight to the ballot box. i think if -- i urge this approach way back in the '90s on trying to restrict assault weapons. but it's a lot of trouble. you know, it's costly. it takes time. and they, you know, we've never done the ballot box as much as we should have. in colorado in 2000, when president bush v al gore by 9 points or something, colorado voted for background checks at gun shows by 70% in a referendum because a big problem with gun owners is they say, well, you know, what these people want to do sounds reasonable, but it's a slippery slope, how do i know it won't be limited and i argue we ought to put it up for referendums, let people vote on them. then neighbors have to talk to neighbors. they have to treat each other like people. and on my side, there are too many people who favor a lot of these gun measures who don't know any of these country people, and they don't understand that, you know, most of them, you would be glad to have as neighbors if your house caught on fire because they would come over and take your kids to safety and come back and help put the fire out. >> what a radical concept, democracy. let's bring in special correspondent vanity fair host of fast politics podcast, molly jong-fast and writer at large for the conservative web site the bulwark, tim miller, served as communications director for jeb bush. molly, let's start with you. it is really something. you listen to what bill clinton is saying there, and he's just talking about democracy, and, you know, we've heard sunlight is the best disinfectant, if 70% of americans are against the overturning of roe v. wade, then we take it to votes. if 90% of americans want to see background -- universal background checks of 75% of americans want red flag laws. if the majority of americans are against assault-style weapons, take it to referendums and it seems right now, republicans, whether it's the tennessee legislature or whether it's ohio's republican legislature or whether it's donald trump, the last thing they want is one person, one vote. >> it's unbelievably shocking what we're seeing with republicans going against democracy, as opposed to just mildly criticizing trump. you have people like j.d. vance going against the special counsel, the federal government saying, you know, this is all a witch hunt, and he knows better. he went to an ivy league law school, and he's just pandering. you're seeing this again and again. republicans pandering because they have seen these numbers, and they think that the only way to win in primaries in this party is to sort of take the lowest common denominator and run with it, so they're doing it. >> you know, but, tim, we were republicans back when republicans liked to win. and what they don't understand is you've got republicans now who are on the wrong side of all of these issues. they're behind a guy who's lost every election since 2017. '17 through '23, '24 is coming next. they're on the wrong side of universal background checks. like only 6% take their side. 90% are against, and you look at this abortion issue. man, they get their clocks cleaned not on the upper side of manhattan, but kansas and kentucky. in ohio. in wisconsin. right? what's happening here? do they want to own the libs so much, and by libs, i mean 90% of americans so much that they don't give a damn whether they win or lose anymore? i'm serious. it's one of the great mysteries. i tell you, when i'm a republican, i'm sorry, it was total warfare. it was all about winning. it was whatever it took, and that's how republicans used to think. now they're just like these frail little snowflakes that are triggered and willing to lose election after election. i don't get it. >> i'll try to explain it you, joe. it is a little confusing, i do have to admit. it's hard to point everything back to 2016. but i think a lot of this goes back to 2016. republican voters were told that donald trump couldn't win, that they had had mitt romney and john mccain force fed to them. a lot of establishment republicans liked romney and mccain but the base didn't. and everyone said donald trump can't win, including me, donald trump can't win, and donald trump won, and i think this was a thumb in the eye to the media and to the left and the liberals, and they thought, okay, if we just followed this recipe, we're going to eventually win, and these elites keep telling us this isn't going to work. i think it's hard to deprogram people from that. there have been a lot of republican establishment politicians or old guard politicians, if you will. they were too scared over the last eight years to point out all the ways that donald trump was hurting them, all the ways that maga extremism was hurting them, and so voters got conditioned, right, to thinking that this isn't true, right, and that they can win without some of these extreme positions, and so i think that explains trump, and on the abortion thing, you look at ron desantis, for example, he had a winning position. and a 15-week ban. say what you want about the merits of that policy, he had a winning position on a 15-week ban. and he got pushed to the right by this tiny, losing base to change that, to up the ante to the primary to a six-week ban. it's not helping him politically, as we can see, and it's not helping the party politically, but that is where the incentives are right now, you know, in a republican primary. >> so it worked in '16, mika, but again, the whole hand on the hot stove deal, 2017, 2018, 2019, yikes. 2020, do i have to keep going? 2021, 2022. at what point do you figure out that putting your hand on a hot stove hurts? and at what point do you not realize that having donald trump at the head of your party makes you lose elections? i'm sorry. i'm just a simple country boy. >> oh, here we go. >> but this isn't a rubik's cube behind my back with my eyes closed, this is easy. >> and we have met many republicans who seem like they're so fed up with all the drama, they don't care where it comes from, they just want an alternative, and molly, in your new piece in vanity fair entitled "the gop picks donald trump over democracy," you write in part, quote, when the 10090th person to be charged in connection with the january 6th attack appeared last week, it was unlike those many previous defendants' cases, major international news. this is a historic day for america, a british television anchor told me on "sudden london" as donald trump faced charges 3,600 miles away. i looked at her, i mean, this is the third time it's happened, and we're all still waiting for georgia's fani willis to file the fourth. as with the previous two indictments or in the aftermath of january 6th, we're stretching back to the "access hollywood" tape, there was a moment after the latest charges in which republicans had a chance to untether themselves from the albatross that is trump, and once again, they refused. republican voters and donors could ban together and elevate another candidate even though most haven't offered anything but weak, trump-adjacent futures for the gop. instead, donors and voters seem paralyzed by the inevitability of trump. i would add into there, the media, the right wing media. perhaps they don't acknowledge the damage trump is doing to democracy or simply they don't care. but the fact that the 2024 field with rare exceptions isn't even trying to offer a post-trump pro-democracy future is perhaps the worst indictment of today's gop, and molly, it's like the conversation we were having earlier, there are some republicans in leadership, and i would add, you know, in other platforms that know better. they know this is destructive. >> i would say mitch mcconnell knows better. i would say kevin mccarthy knows better. i mean, pretty much all of the republican senators with the exception of tommy tuberville who seems to know not much could get up there and say this is madness, we are a country that has rules and laws and what's happening with donald trump is he tried, and we're seeing more and more reporting to this effect. he tried to overturn the 2020 election, and had this elaborate plan. we don't do that in this country, and all of these republicans know that, and they all know better, and many of them have gone to fancy law schools, and they have sort of chosen that it's too hard to do it. they're scared, probably, of the base. you saw what vaughn hillyard was saying. these people are very connected to trump in ways that we can't even sort of process, and they're also living on earth, too. right? there's a right wing media that has presented a world that is really earth too. it's not where we live. and they think trump won 2020, and will win again, quote, unquote, in '24. >> tim, can you spell out a little bit, what you're talking about with ron desantis. you write about him, and you describe his avenue as kind of a prisoner's dilemma. what do you mean by that? we have seen the shakeups in his campaign. i don't know if that's going to make a difference, changing his campaign manager this week. but what do you mean by the prisoner's dilemma? >> two meanings, one was i was talking to a desantis adviser in iowa this weekend who said they are considering a long-term delegate strategy, the marco rubio strategy, if you will, you get second, third, you get third and stick around and keep running rather than getting out of the race and consolidating. who knows what's going to happen, maybe donald trump will be in prison. this seems like a fantasy to me, but i think this shows how weak the campaign is. the other side of this prisoner's dilemma that desantis has, to mika's point a minute ago, there are republicans that are tired of trump. it's not as if that's a fantasy. the problem is it's 20% of the party, maybe 25. every time he speaks out against trump to try to shore up that 25%, right, every time he goes back to the ron desantis of 2018 or 2019 that, you know, appealed to my ex-boss, jeb bush, more of a mainstream republican, to shore up the 25%, he loses, you know, with the maga base that he needs to win from. the inverse is true, every time he tries to get to trump's woke, every time that he, you know, goes way out on a limb to appeal to trump's base, that 20 to 25% start to look longingly at tim scott or chris christie, right, so he's really stuck right now and can't figure out a way to appeal to both of those groups. >> writer at large for the bulwark, tim miller, and special correspondent at vanity fair molly jong-fast, thank you both very much for being on this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe," why a mysterious cool patch in the pacific ocean is puzzling scientists. and why it could mean a potential climate disaster for parts of the u.s. and the world. >> but there's a real mystery here. they don't understand. they call it like a cold tongue or something. they don't understand why it's happening in this part of the world, and it could actually bring down the sea temperatures in the future? which would be a good thing, of course, but at the same time, could cause extreme draught for the western united states. it's really a great puzzle to climate scientists. >> we have a climate scientist with us next to explain this. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. this you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. 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washington, d.c. it's time now for a look at the morning papers. the arkansas democrat gazette reports more than 82,000 residents have lost their medicaid coverage. officials say those people either didn't send in the information needed to determine their eligibility or they no longer qualified. this as the federal covid emergency that expanded medicaid qualifications has expired. nearly 40,000 arkansas residents were eligible for coverage under that. >> as we look at that headline, it's important to understand that medicaid plays such a disproportionate role in bringing help and aid to rural hospitals. to rural nursing homes. to so many health care systems in rural america that depend on medicaid. so i'm just hoping. i know republicans have been hostile to medicaid in the past. i'm hoping that they can focus more on the rural constituents, rural americans that they represent. and support medicaid. >> the telegraph has a front page feature on a georgia bill that would require kids to get parental approval in order to make a social media account. the legislation would require social media sites to take more steps to verify the age of their users and remove features that would be addictive to children. >> that would be the whole thing. they designed the whole thing to be addictive, to keep people on their phones. >> in states such as utah, arkansas and texas have passed similar laws. >> it's a good idea. >> we'll be following that. in massachusetts, the republican leads with the state's governor declaring an emergency over a rise in migrants seeking shelter over there. governor maura healey says about 5,600 families are currently being housed in the state's shelters. that's 80% higher than the number of migrants housed last year. healey is asking the federal government to help fund new shelters and quote, expedite federal work authorizations. she sent a letter to the department of homeland security asking the government to set up and address what she called a federal crisis of inaction that is many years in the making. >> katty kay, this is a democratic governor in massachusetts. you've had a democratic governor in illinois telling the biden administration to get moving, to provide help. you've had a democratic governor in new york state asking for help from the biden administration. you've had eric adams, the mayor of new york city asking. we're seeing all of these pictures. i understand how you look at the numbers. i understand that illegal border crossings in june dropped to i think a two-year low. still chaos. you look at these scenes out of new york. you look at the scenes out of massachusetts, illinois, california, gavin newsom doing the same thing. it's a state of emergency. there's nothing. there's nothing positive about this for anybody involved here. and this is just a situation that looks to be completely out of control. >> yeah, i mean, you look at opinion polls and the two issues that are still resonating with voters, obviously the economy and immigration is something high up on voters' minds in red states and blue states. it is a problem for these blue state governors. it has actually interestingly, though, there was one report from economists out of new york suggesting that an influx of migrants into some areas of new york has helped boost gdp, which we have seen in other places around the world. if you get immigrants around the world, it boosts gdp in those areas. it's a problem for blue state governors, people are thinking about this, voters are thinking about this, and you have scenes of migrants arriving. the chaos as you say on the border does seem to have died down, and the number of illegal crossings seems to have been dying down. for the biden administration, this is something they'll have to answer for over the next year during the election campaign. >> and by the way, yeah, we have said here many times, mika, we're for the support of raising the number for legal immigrants, for work visas, for helping people with small family restaurants, small family hardware stores. entrepreneurs starting up businesses. there are not enough workers in a lot of parts of the small business economy, and you go to silicon valley, of course they need high-tech immigrants. we support that, but chaos, not the answer. this has got to be converted into workers getting workers, again, to help family restaurants. from everywhere from family restaurants to silicon valley start-ups and in so doing, we will raise the gdp and also, again, you know, try, try to ease some of the chaotic scenes that we have seen. again, in new york, from new york city down to the border. >> so in south carolina, the greenville news reports on the 2023 officially being declared the hottest month on record, the hottest july, with an average global temperature upwards of 62 degrees fahrenheit, surpassing the previous records set in 2019. >> and i got to say, katty, at this point, you look at people that are climate denialists and you're like, seriously, it doesn't even rise to the level of conspiracy theories. it's just plain stupid, walk outside your door, right? >> yeah, look, it's not even climate denialists, those have mostly gone now. it's all of the people that accept we have climate change. this is happening every single summer. this is the biggest story potentially of our time, and all of those people who say, yeah, okay it's happening but i'm not going to do anything about it. or i'm going to carry on implementing policies that increase the use of fossil fuels. we know what's happening here, and we know what needs to be done. but globally, not nearly enough is being done, and we're going to have one horrifying report after another about how close we're coming to some kind of catastrophe. >> meanwhile, as world temperatures climb, including water temperatures, there's one patch in the pacific that is bucking the trend. the area along the equator in the eastern pacific ocean is known as the cold tongue, and has been cooling for the past three decades. scientists are racing to find out why because changes in that part of the ocean could affect weather patterns around the world from extreme droughts to worsening wildfires. joining us now, professor of climate at the columbia climate school, dr. bradley horton who focuses on climate extremes and impacts. thank you very much for being on. >> dr. horton, we know you will be able to unravel this mystery for us in the next five to seven minutes. i mean, really -- >> what's going on? >> it is the great mystery in climate science. everything else is heating up, but this one part of the pacific ocean cooling down over the past three decades. what are the theories? why is this happening? >> yes, so as you said, starting out with the big picture, globally, we have seen over a degree and a half fahrenheit of warming of those upper oceans. there have been a couple of locations as you mentioned, the eastern tropical pacific, a couple of other spots have had weak cooling trend over the last three to four decades. now, scientists have long understood why that part of the tropical ocean is cooler than other parts of the tropical pacific ocean. it has to do with a few things, including the way the winds and currents flow along the surface of the tropical ocean. they basically move in certain ways that lead water to move away from the surface. it has to ride up from below in the eastern tropical pacific. waters that are lower are of course, so that cools the tropical surface. and clouds in the tropical regions where theres so much hot sun, clouds are effective at blocking the heating. we understand historically why that part of the ocean is cooler than other parts of the tropical ocean. the climate models have tended to suggest that that part of the ocean like all parts of the ocean should be warming. it isn't, and that's getting a lot of attention. >> professor, i guess we're all grappling with a hot summer and we're looking for signs of optimism. is there any chance this area of the pacific could give us hope that things are not as bad as they seem, and after the summer, what do you see that looks optimistic on the climate front? >> yeah, so starting with the last part of that question, i think really it's in the solution space. that's where most of the hopes looks because the climate news, the climate impacts news from these extreme weather events is extremely negative, as you know, but when we look at how quickly we're starting to ramp up some of these clean energy solutions, price of renewables coming down, young people starting to insist in their investments that they put their money in companies that are committed to reducing emissions and to protecting their workers and their supply chains from the growing climate risks. there you can see some optimism, specifically in the context of the eastern tropical pacific. there are uncertainties there. we could get lucky and have that part of the eastern tropical pacific still keep warming towards the lower bound of what's going to happen. there's bound to be more warming, just with the warming to date, we've seen more heat waves, more extreme flooding and impacts. we're going to see more warming. if the eastern tropical pacific continues to stay cool, it might not be quite as bad and partially not counter act the parts of the ocean looking worse than what we thought and what our models suggested. >> doctor, we have, in talking to leaders in gulf states, middle eastern states, gulf states, their gauge is they may have 20 more years of fossil fuel, that's it. we're obviously, you look at our cafe standards for our cars, they've shot up almost exponentially, the united states has done a good job since 2006, 2007, going down. we need to do a better job. i'm just curious, though, as we move forward with these alternative energy sources as we lessen our carbon footprint, and i know this is really just a guess, a hypothesis, but what is the possibility of the earth, the atmosphere beginning to heal itself if we give it that chance? >> yeah, it is a great question, and it gets to this issue that there is momentum. some of the greenhouse gases we have already put in the atmosphere, they're going to last for 100 years or more. the unfortunate truth is we haven't yet seen all the sea level rise and some of the warming that's baked in from our emissions to date. there are sources of optimism going forward. as we remove some of the types of small pollutants that we have put up into the atmosphere, as we reduce our methane emissions as well, you can see quick responses at the climate in that sense. so we're bound to see an increase in coastal flooding, rainfall flooding, and heat waves. but if we can quickly transition, if we can quickly make that pivot, somehow reduce our fossil fuel emissions, you know, by 50% or so in the next decade or so, globally, a huge challenge, then we can avert the worst impacts and buy ourselves enough time for those really transformative innovations and protect our most vulnerable communities, too, around the world. >> and, doctor, we were talking about china earlier in terms of the need to keep an open dialogue with them for the economy. but can you explain what a huge carbon footprint china has and how we can't reach any of these goals without figuring out how to get china and india on board? >> yeah, it's really all of the above. we're admitting so much more globally than we can afford to. almost all of the countries of the world have to reduce emissions, but especially the u.s. and europe, outsized impact, partly because those historical emissions are largely still in the atmosphere. but we have to also, as you note, focus on china and india. china, the biggest emitter globally right now. per capita, still less than the u.s., but bottom line, those emissions need to come down dramatically, really across the world, but especially as you say, u.s. and china, if we can see more collaboration there, maybe that can be one of the societal tipping points, other countries see this is where investment is moving in a way that can feed back and give us a positive climate tipping point unlike all of these negative ones we're seeing around warming oceans, loss of sea ice, which can lead to more warming, for example, so we need some of these positive narratives. >> dr. bradley horton, thank you very much for your insight this morning. and coming up, we're going to look at the progress that has been made in the years since president joe biden signed the historic c.h.i.p.s act. and a little later this morning, we'll be joined by hip hop legend chuck d. we'll talk to him about the 50th anniversary of the music genera. "morning joe" is coming right back. music genera. "morning joe" is coming right back trying vapes to quit smoking might feel like progress, but with 3x more nicotine than a pack of cigarettes - vapes increase cravings - trapping you in an endless craving loop. nicorette reduces cravings until they're gone for good. your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire hey, everybody. mike pence here. remember $2 a gallon gas? i do. and then joe biden became president of the united states and launched his war on energy. since that time gasoline prices are up 60%. electricity prices are up 25%. joe biden's war on energy -- >> that was part of an ad, you know, where presidential contender, mike pence, was acting, pretending to top off his gas pump, but he could be seen holding the handle without squeezing -- i have a truck so i know he was not pumping the gas. >> mike pence and the republicans like to talk about joe biden's war on energy. this morning, while reading -- i think i saw it on simba 4, u.s. production of oil in america is at its highest level ever, rising faster than previously expected, helping counter cuts that were made by the saudis. u.s. oil production will reach a record 12.8 million barrels a day in 2023, and that's up from a previous forecast. american production will increase in 2024 to 13.1 million barrels a day. maybe you like this. maybe you don't like this. maybe you think, especially after our last segment that maybe breaking records for oil production, not the best thing to do. but whether you like it or don't like it, the fact is that any republican that tells you joe biden has a war on energy and gas prices are going up because joe biden is not allowing american manufacturers to pump oil out of the ground, lying. record-levels -- record levels. anyway, it's just tiring. >> meanwhile -- >> it's just firing. >> really tiring. exactly one year since president joe biden signed into law one of his hallmark, the chips program. good to have you back on the show. one year in, how's it going? what has been done, especially in, maybe, terms of job creation? >> mika, it's great to be book especially on the one year birthday with the chips and science act being signed into law. we have 140 people on staff, and we have received over 400 statements of interest from 42 states, and that's significant. at one point there was a perception that it would only be going to certain states, and we are seeing widespread interest across the country and the chips and science act will benefit every single american, directly or indirectly. of course, since biden took office, bidenomics is taking place here, and we feel very good about the success of the program. we are moving at a record pace. to the point on jobs, this is so critically important. we know the chips and science act will create hundreds of thousands of jobs, and at least 60% of the jobs are estimated to be jobs that don't require a college degree, and that's critically important to get people back to work, and these are jobs that have upward mobility in the conductor fabs, and we feel good about the pace of the program and it's exciting to see how far we have come in the course of one year. >> we spoke about this once before and i want to ask about the update on the timing of this. as we head into the presidential election, there's politics around this. it would be great for the president to go around the country and be like barack obama did in 2008, this platform brought to you by this -- brought to you by the biden administration. where are we in terms of the money going out the door and getting into projects? >> great question. i don't want to get ahead of the announcement we will have coming up. they will be coming soon. one of the top jobs here, not only making sure we are strengthening our top security, but we also need to be good stewards of economics, and we have to make sure that we are being good stewards and spending this money effectively and strategically, and at the same time we need to move quickly. you look at other countries, japan is moving at a rapid pace. we have to make sure that we get these fabs built and create major ecosystems around the fabs with suppliers so we can build the very sophisticated chips here in the united states, and we have to make sure that we are being good stewards with taxpayer dollars but moving as fast as we can. >> adrian elrod from the u.s. department of commerce. thank you for the update one year later. the third hour of "morning joe" starts right now. you know what they will say? trump didn't look well. he was extremely wet. it's 104 or 105 degrees in this room, but we're okay with it, right? >> i was going to say that looks like elvis in '77. >> he was actually making fun of the appearance of other people. >> no, he was making fun -- >> you have to wonder if the former president is feeling the heat. >> well, i expected him to take a scarf and wipe his face and throw it in the crowd. over the back and forth of the productive order -- >> do you think he is well? >> no. in a million different ways i don't think he's well. >> marco rubio didn't sweat that much. >> correct. >> that was a lot of sweat. >> yeah, new reporting on a secret memo that laid out the plot to overturn the 2020 election. we will go through that major development in just a moment. meanwhile, we are getting a better idea of the timing of the next possible indictment for the former president. >> like 2028? can she delay this any longer? >> i think it's coming. >> 2028, maybe 2029? >> we will talk about the timing and what it looks like now. also, more destability in the desantis campaign, and we will tell you about the shake-up -- >> the shake-up will be dramatic. word is he may stop zipping the vest up three quarters of the way. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." >> who wears a vest in florida in the summer? >> who knows? >> it's wednesday, august 9th, and i guess i should say it's only wednesday. with us, we have the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire. and u.s. correspondent for bbc news, catty kay, and sam stein. sam's here. >> i will tell you, this is -- this issue, this abortion issue is turning into a remarkably politically potent issue for people that want a return to, well, where the united states was for about 50 years where women had a right to make health care decisions and make choices about their own bodies. we have seen in kansas -- >> uh-huh. >> we have seen in kentucky, and we have seen in one red state after another, landslide case victories all because republicans are taking extremist views, and we saw it last night in a state that is deep red. >> yes, it was a republican-backed issue, and people voted to defeat issue 1, that keeps the threshold about passing amendments at a simple majority -- >> this was all about abortion. this was all about abortion because they were going to have a referendum this fall, and suddenly the pro life groups and the republican legislators decided we will change the rules, we're going to require 60% because we know the majority of the people don't want women to have their health care decisions decided by men and state legislators. 57% of ohio voters say no to wigging the process. 43% said yes. and that almost certainly ensures next fall ohio will be another republican state that pushes back against the abolition of roe. >> yeah, when abortion was on the ballot they wanted to make it that much harder for pro abortion rights people to do it. the 50% was not far off the 60% they were mandating. what is extraordinary about this is it's august. this is not even a vote on abortion. this is a vote on an amendment to the constitution that is potentially about abortion, and even so ohioans turned out in huge numbers, and the the campaigns campaigning on pro abortion rights that thought it might be close, this reminds me of kansas, the first vote we had where we were all surprised of the margin for the victory of the pro abortion rights group, and here we are it's still rallying people. 57%, that's a big victory for the pro abortion -- >> yeah, it's a huge victory in kansas, another state that was red. time and time again you look at the polls and they don't tell the tale. are we going to vote for the guy that falls off his bike and stuttered once in a while or a guy that tried to overturn the election, and it's just like 2022. remember the red wave of 2022? neither do i. you know why? never happened. you know why it never happened? abortion is a big issue. and if you right for the "wall street journal" editorial page, or fox news, some people like democracy. we're kind of old-fashioned that way. i don't know, it has worked for us for 240 years. why not keep it for another 240 years? americans are not as stupid as editorial writers at the "wall street journal" believed them to be, and they see you the lies and the gaslighting and decided maybe this guy over here could ride a bike if he was not sweating so much, and this other guy, he falls off a bike once in a while, but wait, he believes in the constitution of the united states. you add that and abortion together and it has been a potent, potent political punch in the gut against republicans who have been trying to take away women's rights. >> women's rights. you bring up a good point here because i think what we are seeing here is men and women are seeing health care being taken away from their families, their loved ones. while it's an issue of a woman's right to choose, it's also an issue of family's health, a husband watching a husband -- his wife having to bleed out because she can't get the medication she needs for a fetal abnormality. this is an issue that goes across the board. men and women understand what has happened over the past few years with rights being taken away, the right to health care. >> when you look, sam stein, at these numbers, 59% in kansas, 57% in ohio -- again, red, red states, a landslide victory in a supreme court in wisconsin, and the republicans called that the most important race in years, and when you see that happening, you don't get to 57, 58, 59% with only the women that went to the women's march in 2017. you don't get there with activist. you don't get there with just women. you get there with women, young, old, black, white, hispanic, you name it. this is an issue that cuts across all demographics, and it's shocking to me that the republicans still have their head buried in the sand on this issue, because another election -- i don't know if they know it or not, is coming up next year. >> yeah, to mika's point, men are involved in the pregnancy. obviously we don't carry the burden of the pregnancy and we know what happens and we are there with our wives and we feel very much of the process, and it resinates for men as much as for women. there was a recent poll that showed 35 to 40% of republicans were upset over the dobbs decision. those numbers don't really happen in many other issues. i think the proof now is in the pudding, so to speak. we have three major elections, probably more, but in kansas, wisconsin and ohio where it's very evident abortion rights is an incredible motivator. in ohio, they tried to sneak this in on a municipal election in the middle of august. it was fairly transparent what the anti-choice crowd was trying to do, and i think it backfired pretty badly, obviously, with voters who felt like they were being hoodwinked and taken advantage of. to do that in the fashion they did, that these organizers did to try and sneak it in in a municipal election in august was insulting, frankly, to a lot of ohioans. >> think about donald trump's party. number one, they tried to take away a presidential election. two, they line up in support -- i don't name the editorial report that does it, they lined up in support of a fake electors conspiracy, and their own people knew it would be overturned by the united states supreme court, but they were doing it to confuse the issue. go to tennessee, more nonsense. they kick black members of the tennessee legislature out because they dare raise their voices. they let the white woman stay in, by the way. that's interesting. justice blind? i don't know. your black legislature in tennessee is kicked out. you go to ohio and what do you have? the women in ohio have the right to make health care decisions for themselves, and parents of 10-year-old girls who are raped who have to flee the state so they can make health care decisions for themselves, and first republicans take that right away from an ohio family and ohio doctors, and then they come up with the scheme and say now we are going to take away your right to amend the constitution the way we have done for years, and we will sneak it in in august and you will have to get 60% to claw back the right we have already taken away from women in ohio and across america. as catty said before, this is august. any campaign -- the four campaigns i ran, you shut down in august because everybody is gone, and nobody is focussed on anything. they are finishing their vacations or getting their kids ready to go back to school and getting ready for the fall and for everything, and as catty said, ohio voters flooded to the polls to tell these anti-democracy republicans no. one person, one vote, majority rules in these referendums. you can't change the rules mid stream because you want to continue taking away the rights of women to make decisions over their own bodies. president biden celebrated after issue 1 failed, releasing a statement that reads, this measure was a blatant attempt to weaken voters' voices and further erode the freedom of women to make their own health care decisions. ohioans spoke loud and clear and tonight democracy won. there have been a handful of states that want to make it difficult -- >> they lost in liberal really states, i bet. i bet these efforts lost in really liberal states. >> last week the effort to raise the threshold failed in arkansas and south dakota, and -- >> those are liberal states? jonathan, they are not trying to hide it anymore. they are not even trying to hide the fact that they are trying to make the processes more difficult. they are trying to change the rules midway. they said as much, the anti-abortion groups, the anti-women's rights groups said as much, we are changing the process or else we are in big trouble. guess what? if taking the rights of women away to make their own choices over their own bodies put your organization in big trouble, then i think it's safe to say over the past year and a half of election results that those people that want to strip women of their rights, they are in big trouble. >> yeah, it's a fundamental effort and unique effort in american history to take away the right and we are seeing the consequences in the deep right states, including ohio, as, frankly, a bad faith effort to try and sneak it in like they did. it's the latest defeat for this effort. frankly, the anti-abortion movement in the country needs to come to a reckoning here in terms of how they are handling politics because they are being handed defeat after defeat after defeat. and a number of legislators want to restrict access to the ballot and we have seen consequences there as well, and that played a role in the 2022 midterms. abortion is the biggest, and it's one where republicans are threatening our national security, because of senator tuberville's hold on military officials because of the abortion-related issue as well. >> jonathan, can i ask you a question on that point? >> sure. >> you have republicans that used to criticize democrats for using the military to push their radical social agenda. >> oh, wait. >> now you have tuberville that stopped the united states marine corps from having a commandant leading it for the first time in 150 years. now you have radical republicans in the senate who are lining up behind tommy tuberville who are now stopping the united states army from having a leader there as well. like, the readiness issues, and republicans know this, the readiness issues that this poses for our men and women in the united states armed forces, devastating. and yet they are letting this guy from alabama basically lay waste across all the services. you have heard of any republicans in the senate that give a damn enough about the readiness of the marines and coast guard? do any of them say they are going to stand up to tuberville and stop the madness? >> there's been private grumbling. we heard from nikki haley that said she sided with the idea of tuberville that the military should not be doing this but should not be carried out like this. of course, republicans were proudly declared the party of national security, of defense, and yet they have turned their back on this particular issue. it's 100% -- it's hard to make that claim now. it should be noted this is further proof that abortion, a defining issue in 2022, clearly still a driver this year. it will be again next year, too. some democrats feel like it could even potentially expand the electoral map for them. coming up, ukraine is striking russia with drones. could fighter jets be next? that's when "morning joe" comes right back. ♪♪ a previously-unseen memo is providing potentially damning new evidence about the plot to overturn the 2020 election results by donald trump and his inner circle. the memo obtained by "the new york times" and has not been verified by nbc news was allegedly sent early in 2020 by a trump lawyer. he was one of the co conspirators identified but not charged in the justice department's most recent indictment of the former president. in the newly obtained note he outlines what would become known as the fake elector scheme which falsely claimed former vice president mike pence had the power to block the certificate -- certification about the states' votes. >> yeah, and it was a fraudulent slate of electors, and this is what trump's defensers are calling free speech? >> no, no, that's not free speech. it's a criminal scheme. >> that's -- >> he acknowledged a bold and controversial strategy but claimed he was not necessarily advising this course of action despite trying to distance himself from the plan, and "the times" reports one day after sending the memo it ended up on the desk of trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. not good. >> not good for rudy or anybody. >> he admitted the plan would probably end up being rejected but would buy the trump campaign more time to challenge the election. >> this is as clear as day. they are coming up with a fraudulent scheme they know is illegal. they know the supreme court will reject it, but what are they trying to do? they are trying to illegally delay a constitutional proceeding, and the constitution of the united states says the electors get together and count the votes. the date is january 6th. here's a plan, a complete -- a completely illegal scheme where they are going to get fake electors, have people lie that they are certified to be electors and then have mike pence put these fake electors before the united states congress, and in so doing, still what, 7 million? 8 million? how many votes are they stealing from people in swing states that were elected by actually the real electors, who, again, are part of the constitutional process. again, the argument that this somehow is free speech to have an illegal scheme they knew was illegal, it's stupid even for trump supporters and certain editorial pages. >> yeah, one of the charges trump faces is violation of rights, depriving rights and the right to vote is one of them. they were trying to disenfranchise millions of americans by tossing out their votes and installing fake electors. and this one memo puts in place a to z, this scheme has been out there and it will be central in the prosecution of trump in jack smith's case there in washington. even a supreme court that was trump-friendly in most ways ruled against him, and it was documented how badly they faired in the weeks after the election. there was a one small procedural win. they knew it was not going to pass legal standing, and that said they were trying to buy time to install these fake electors, and then put it to mike pence on january 6th. if he said, look, we have competing sets of electors here and let's throw them all out and put it to the house, and that's how trump wins. that's the scheme and that's how they wanted to stay in power, and that's how jack smith will proceed with his prosecution. >> this reads to me like a plot, an overt plot to subvert the vote presented publicly as an insurance plan in case the courts intervene, and there was 63 or something number like that against trump. and some of the lawyers did care about the real world consequences and the laws that may have been violated, but there were a few select people here where it didn't occur to them or they didn't care enough about what the consequences and spill out of what the consequences were. and then eastman said that's why we have the insurrection act as if a little blood in the streets was the price you pay for this type of strategy. it's remarkable, i guess, to me, and maybe shocking that people were willing to just let their minds wander to those places in place of what they understood to be the illegal steps to divert democracy. coming up, trump's indictments, all three of them, and will we see a fourth next week? that's straight ahead on "morning joe." oe." for moms, from centrum. ♪ this new mom ♪ ♪ here i go ♪ ♪ i am strong and brave i know ♪ ♪ with a little time for me ♪ ♪ no doubt i will get through ♪ ♪ loving me is loving you ♪ ♪♪ new from centrum. the women's choice multivitamin brand. what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ stop right there! this week, get the denny's super slam starting at $7.99. hungry for all your breakfast favorites? when you want america's biggest breakfast starting at $7.99... at denny's, it's diner time. now open really late. ♪ chevy silverado has what it takes to do it all. with up to 13 camera views. and the z71 off-road package. ♪ you ok? yeah. any truck can help you make a living. this one helps you build a life. chevy silverado. it's about 110 degrees in this room. nice job with the air-conditioning! >> first of all -- i swear this has nothing to do with how much he was sweating last night, but just politically, give us the temperature of the room. how were they feeling about trump? you know, people say take the temperature of the room -- >> read the room. >> i take it going to the trump rally, most of them would be trump supporters, and is that what you found there? were there people questioning whether he could actually win in a general election, or were they all in for donald trump? >> well, when we were looking at the gymnasium, the point here, the joke you were just making and with all the attention on the past, and what was so striking to me yesterday and i have covered a lot of the rallies in the last nine years, and it was the most defined donald trump yesterday. he is powerless as a defendant in the courtroom unless he takes the stand, but what donald trump is able to do is mobilize his political operation, and use it as a bludgeon against the united states justice department, and it's about mobilizing millions of americans to initiate a distrust in the justice in the united states. donald trump told the crowd that his base, the maga base is the most passionut. >> joe biden should be in prison for his bribes. >> the vote was stolen. i believe it. in my heart -- remember, they blew up one of the election areas where they kept the dominion machines. >> where do we go? >> civil war. divide it up. we can't live together, obviously. >> i think this is about the danger of where donald trump takes us from here. forget about the election, forget about the general election in 2024 and whether or not he can win, and if donald trump is found guilty by a jury, where does this go from here? i know we did not foresee a actual physical attack on the u.s. capitol on january 6th, 2021, and i can't begin to see an event that will metastasize, and we are getting closer to an event whatever that may be because donald trump does have millions that may not win him an election but will be there to defend him to the very end, whatever that may look like. >> this is what republican leaders need them, and we need 100 mccain moments 100 times order, and he said to that member in the audience, no, you are wrong, the untrue and disparaging comment was made buy barack obama, and other republican leaders and members of congress, trumpers, those that have been infected by his lies or know that he is a liar and has made crimes against the democracy, and these people are caught in the middle. these people are infected with lies and people like that went to the capitol on january 6th. >> but if kevin mccarthy, if mitch mcconnell, if members from new hampshire's republican -- >> they know better. >> -- party said that, they would immediately have become outsiders and immediately become part of the deep state which is part of the problem. it's also part of the reason why you have seen a boiling down of the number of trump supporters. it has gotten smaller. it has gotten more intense, and it's not a political campaign, but it's a movement. >> it's a threat. >> it's a movement, michael, that have the leader of the movement that called the press an enemy of the state, and he undermined elections when he knew he would lose, and he talked about american democracy and how it was rigged and he turned his supporters against that. now he's turning his supporters against the judicial system and the rule of law in the united states because he knows he will be found guilty in some of the charges because he committed the crimes. the question is what are you hearing on the hill? we certainly hear what members say publicly. are you hearing any concerns privately from republicans about the continued radicalization of donald trump and his supporters? >> look, joe, absolutely moderates and more centrists in the party have been voicing concerns about this and there are a number of lawmakers on capitol hill, more republicans, said they don't want to see donald trump be the nominee in 2024, and there are a number of republicans that challenge some of trump's challengers. he's, of course, the overall frontrunner in the gop primary. when we talk about some of these followers, particularly those on capitol hill who could become the minority of the party if they were to speak out against donald trump, we saw lawmakers try it out after january 6th. you talk about speaker mccarthy, and the day after the january 6th capitol riot, kevin mccarthy went to the house floor and said trump bore responsibility for the riot and should take responsibility for what happened on january 6th, and then everybody will remember it was just days after kevin mccarthy said he didn't think donald trump provoked the riot, and while he bore some of the responsibility there were others across the country, and then went to mar-a-lago to meet the president. after january 6th, kevin mccarthy and others in the government tried criticizing donald trump, and time shows the gop was staying behind trump and because of the firm grip and grasp on the party, a number of the lawmakers went back to trump's side, and that's what we are seeing now in the wake of this indictment and after indictment and after indictment. and then dozens of companies stepped up to help employees get access to reproductive care, and now we look at how the dobbs decision affected the job market. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." on "morning joe." 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(intercom) flightdeck, see you at the house warming. are you keeping as much of your investment gains as possible? high taxes can erode returns quickly. at creative planning, your portfolio is managed in a tax-efficient manner. it's what you keep that really matters. book your free meeting today at creativeplanning.com. yeah, i have not voted for ukraine, and russia never should have done this, and they were already fighting and at the end of the day it's a junior high team playing a college team. they can't win. we can throw all the money we want to, but unless we send nato and our troops over, which we will not do if i have everything to do with it, then we have no chance. >> the united states army no longer has a leader for the first time, and let's bring in a four-star admiral in. i am sure he is one of putin's favorite senators. there are people in eastern europe, and western europe and freedom lovers across the world that actually think it's about what kind of world we live in, whether we let a tyrant invade another country, another sovereign land, which we signed a treaty with in 2014 guaranteeing their giving up nuclear weapons. david ignatius, we talked about the porcupine strategy, and the porcupine will not get easier to swallow no matter how long the war lasts. he says the ukrainians are making slow and steady progress, but certainly everything grinds to a halt in october. where are we in the state of the war? >> you know, it's really three wars, joe, at this point. let's start at the scene, just because i am an admiral. we have seen terrific footage, the best i have seen in a while, of a sea drone effectively sinking a russian tank, and the training programs are ramping up and there could be mig-29s available, and it's a grind. as a military guy, i will tell you being on defense is where you want to be. right now the russians are the defensive force, we say in the military, defense is to offense is three is to one, and it's an advantage. you mentioned a moment ago 100,000 killed, and i think that number is much higher. i have seen at a serious analysis that looks at, for example, obituaries filed, and it would have that number way up. putin cannot sustain those kinds of losses indefinitely. it's a big porcupine he will have to swallow and i don't think he will succeed. coming up, we will go live to ohio where voters just rejected a republican-backed proposal that would have made it tougher to protect abortion rights. nbc's ali vitali has more straight ahead on "morning joe." i'm a bear. i'm coming out of hibernation after the best nap of my life... and papa is hungry. and while you're hittin' the trail, i'm hitting your cooler. oh, cheddar! i've got hot dog buns! and your cut-rate car insurance might not pay for all this. so get allstate, and be better protected from mayhem, like me. roar. 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breathing should be beautiful. . i was the fastest girl in america. i set many national records. and i was a straight "a" student. when young women are forced to push themselves beyond what they're capable at their given age, they're at risk for developing red-s. and if you're not getting your period, you're not going to be able to have the necessary levels of estrogen to maintain strong bone health. in my case, i broke five different bones. part of me wonders if i had worked with more female psychologists, nutritions, even coaches where i'd be today. i got caught in a system designed by and for men which destroys the bodies of young girls. >> in 2019, mary cain shared her experience of going from one of the best track and field athletes of her generation to what the "new york times" describes as "yet another stand-out young athlete who got beaten down by a win at all costs culture." cain's story is one of many that our next guest cites as an example of the lack of science and research in women's sports. joining us is christine yu author of "up to speed." the book makes the case for new approaches to help women athletes excel at every stage of their lives by highlighting researchers who are creating more inclusive studies to close the gender data gap. i should point out i know mary cain very well because my daughters ran track with her. my older daughter, i think, did the 4x7 relay with her, they won many, many races together. >> i know her story well. tell us a little bit about what you think is not being done right now to give women the best shot at being successful, healthy athletes. >> i think the reality right now is we're not building the infrastructure to support girls and women at all levels of sport. as we've seen, you know, girls and women now are competing at such an incredible level of athleticism, but there's been precious little investigation into how women actually respond to these higher levels of physical demand, the toll it takes on their bodies and the factors that lead to injury. only 6% of sports science research focuses on women specifically. so that means our understanding of how the body performs and adapts and, you know, even gets injured is really based on a partial picture of the human population. >> yeah. i noticed something she mentioned, which just as a runner myself and having walked in circles with a lot of other professional athletes who run track, running track in college, like skipping periods and things like that, it does start to happen. that's a normal reality of a runner's life. are there thoughts that perhaps we need to be looking at perhaps preserving how the female body works in a way that allows them to continue to have their period and normal bodily functions and not run to the point where you're blocking out your periods? >> absolutely. as you said, losing periods is a common thing that happens in a lot of athletes. that doesn't necessarily mean it's normal. i think we often confuse common with normal. what that actually means is that the body is undergoing a lot of stress. our bodies are smart. when it experiences these high levels of stress, when it thinks it doesn't have enough energy to fuel the body's normal daily functions, it starts to shut down. one of those things that starts to shut down first is the reproductive system and the menstrual cycle. but the menstrual cycle is an extremely important piece of female physiology. it controls so many different aspects of our physiological systems from not only reproductive health but cardiovascular health, mental health, gut health, immunity. it's a critical factor we need to recognize as an important part of a functioning female body. >> so, what are you hearing of the answers to that? back in the age of running track, it was run as fast as you can, run as hard as you can, you get really skinny, you don't eat enough and you don't get your period. is that the answer? and is the answer to that not to run or is there something in the middle? >> absolutely. what researchers are pointing to is that part of the reason that the body starts to shut down these systems is because it doesn't have enough energy. so it -- women are often encouraged -- especially in sports like running and other endurance sports, we tend to underfuel our bodies. we're caught between this wanting to have this super lean competitive physique that we see olympians and elite athletes have. we think that's the key to athletic success. so we tend to start to, you know, not eat as much. again, the body is smart. it thinks it's starving and it starts to freak out a little bit. it starts to shut down these systems. really eating enough actually is a key part of this. making sure that your body feels like it has enough fuel, that it is safe. then it can actually perform. then it can actually adapt to the training that you're doing and get better. i think that's a really key part of it that has often been misunderstood, i think, amongst not only girls and women but also coaches. >> you know, the physiological differences between a male athlete and a female athlete are dramatically different in many ways. i'm curious for parents who are watching, coaches that are watching that have not read your book or looked into the science, talk about the body breaking down from overuse. i would guess because the male body usually is more muscular, maybe there are some ways that it's able to rehabilitate itself, heal itself faster than the woman's body if they're being pushed in a way that maybe a men's training schedule would be. is that the case? does it take -- should coaches be far more concerned about, you know, pushing young girls especially, young women especially because if they aren't they'll end up like mary cain? >> i think it's definitely being aware of these critical periods of times of transition. so when you look at something like adolescence, it's a tremendous period of growth and change. for boys and girls. but i think that because of -- again, because of the menstrual cycle and the way women's hormones fluctuate, women's bodies go through periods of transition at puberty, at pregnancy and during menopause, where the hormones are changing and the physiology literally is changing in our body. that's very different than what boys and men experience. i think for coaches and parents, it's recognizing these periods of transition when girls' bodies, women's bodies need to adapt. we might need to pull back a little bit or we might need to take a bit of time and patience so that girls and women can get used to and can normalize to this new body that they are growing into. so i think that's a critical piece of it. it's not continuing to, you know, bang your head against the wall and keep pushing and pushing and pushing, but being patient and recognizing this is a normal period of transition. athleticism or your performance might dip a bit, but it will eventually even out. >> yep. i got it. the new book is "up to speed: the groundbreaking science of women athletes." so many important messages here. christine yu, thank you for writing this book. appreciate it. thanks for coming on. >> thank you very much for having me. we're entering in the fourth hour of "morning joe." we begin with the major news out of ohio and another significant victory at the ballot box for abortion rights advocates. more than 3 million people went to the polls yesterday voting to defeat issue 1, a measure that would have raised the threshold to amend the state's constitution from the simple majority to 60% of the vote. 57% voted against that proposal. issue 1 was rushed to a vote by republicans ahead of a november referendum on whether to constitutionally guarantee abortion rights in the state. think about this. a special election in the middle of august. and they thought people wouldn't turn out. >> 3 million people in ohio. >> let's bring in nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali who is live in columbus, ohio. also with us, john heilemann. ali, what are you hearing from voters and state officials there? >> i think there's a reason that we had trouble finding republicans who would be overtly optimistic about how issue 1 would fair. certainly the secretary of state right before polls closed last night, a republican who had said that this was 100% in his words about abortion access, he told me that he had no regrets about going all in on this. at the same time, he was not -- he still said he thought it would succeed but they would respect the will of the voters here. clearly they have to do that now because of what we saw in these results. i think you're right to point out the timing of this. the fact this was in the dog days of summer. it was popped up late in relation to how much lead time voters typically have to prepare for elections. certain polling places that voters might have gone to were closed because this was a truncated way of doing an election. nonetheless, millions of people turned out for this. i talked to folks at a polling station yesterday, i asked them, do you guys come out for every election? special elections? they said, no, this is the first one we came out for but because of the way the media covered it and the issue at play here, they felt it important to take a walk on a tuesday afternoon and get to their polling places. it's also important to look at the margins here. 57% is decisive. it was clear earlier in the night that measure 1 was going to fail. it underscores the point of why republicans wanted to raise that threshold. we have to look into the breakdown of the numbers more. the fact that you could have overwhelming turnout in a summer election, in a special election and still only hit 57% is a testament to what happens in red states when abortion is on the ballot, but also a sign of why republicans were wanting to make these changes in the first place it looks ahead to the november referendum that they're going to do, which is directly focused on abortion, enshrining that amendment into the ohio state constitution. that is now something that can be done by a simple majority as opposed to the 60% threshold. >> ali vitali, thank you so much. >> thank you. we appreciate it. john heilemann, my gosh. you look at what's happening from kansas to kentucky to wisconsin to ohio, what happened in the 2022 election. how many americans said that abortion was the top issue of mind when they went and voted, suddenly you look back to issues like, you know, prop 13 in california and 78, which many people believe ushered in the reagan revolution, you look at 9/11 and the politics post-9/11, i would put the overturning of roe v. wade politically in these camps. we're really seeing it. here's a state that donald trump won by over 8 percentage points, yet there was a rout in the other direction once again against anti-choice forces. >> right. look, joe, it's now just a little over a year ago that we saw what i think will be, when history is written of this, the most revolutionary -- or the great warning shot across the bow of everybody who wants to -- those who want to restrict abortion rights. in kansas, august 2nd of last year is when that vote took place, a redder state than ohio. people thought, we'll see what happens. now it's an unprecedented moment. we saw it happen there roughly -- over 60% voting on the pro choice side, to preserve abortion rights in kansas. now we come to ohio, a state less red than kansas but more of a swing state. donald trump won this state in 2016, won it in 2020 comfortably. it was the ultimate swing state for a long time but it's reddened considerably over the past ten years, yet we see that kansas was not a fluke. we see when abortion rights are on the ballot, you mentioned a bunch of other examples, here's the next big headline event. when the supreme court decided to put at risk a fundamental right that had been extended to women for 50 years, it turns out many, many voters, the vast majority of voters and certainly the vast majority of women voters, who are the most important voters in america because of their turnout rates and their roles in presidential elections, turns out they don't like it, and even in august in elections that are engineered to favor anti-abortion forces they say no, we're not having it. it's a huge warning shot across the bow of republicans and others who continue to cling to these positions that are just not popular with the majority of americans. >> it is a resounding turnout. 3 million voters in a state of 12 million citizens in august. as you said, john, this was engineered to depress turnout. this was engineered to create a threshold where a clear majority couldn't change a constitution. again, it seems to me that republicans -- i mean, maybe they get it behind closed doors, but, you know, you look at wisconsin, they're operating off a total ban from 1849. you look at what's happening here, what's happening in other states. they don't seem to be picking up the message from voters. should we expect any movement in the republican party? will they move to, let's say, the 15-week ban that some people have proposed nationally? have you picked up any understanding from party leaders that they'll keep getting routed if they don't do that? >> i think there's some understanding of it, joe, but what this speaks to is the republican -- you see it in the case that we talk about all the time, the case of donald trump. why is it that republicans continue to rally around a proven loser even though they know -- many of them know that trump poses a threat to their reelection down ballot? they continue to do it because the party has become a captive to its base. parties always have this problem. they have the most animated, energetic part of their party that exercises power over the party. as a collective, every party has to meet that challenge and figure out a way to keep the base energized while appealing to the broader coalition of voters to win. republicans are failing at it over and over again. they're failing at it over the continued adherence of donald trump. i think there's a lot of strategists and party leaders who understand the problem, but they refuse to stand up to their own base in this case and in the case of trump and in both cases they are paying a price for it until they figure out a way to push back on their own base and say we can't win with these positions. >> another big story this morning, a previously unseen memo is providing potentially damming new evidence about the plot to overturn the 2020 election results by donald trump and members of his inner circle. the memo, which was obtained by the "new york times" and has not been verified by nbc news, was allegedly sent in early december of 2020 by trump lawyer kenneth cheeseboro. he was not charged in the justice department's most recent indictment of the former president. in the newly obtained note, he outlines what would become known as the fake elector scheme, which falsely claimed former vice president mike pence had the power to block the certification of the state's votes on january 6th. he allegedly wrote to another trump lawyer about what he acknowledged was a bold, controversial strategy, but claimed he was not necessarily advising this course of action. the times reports that just one day after sending that memo, it ended up on the desk of trump's personal lawyer, rudy giuliani. it was a scheme that cheeseboro admitted the supreme court was likely to end up rejecting, but he claimed airing it out publicly would buy the trump campaign more time to challenge the election. >> let's bring in chief legal correspondent, anchor of "the beat" ari melber. trump said he was just trying to delay the counting of the electoral college. now we have the scheme and we understand it's put forward in bad faith. you know about this, we're just reminding viewers, taking them back a couple days when we found out that mike pence at one point turns to donald trump and says your own lawyers don't even believe i can do anything here. in the meantime they're plotting and scheming to create these fake electors. how important is this memo not only to the case but understanding that this is not about free speech, this was a scam to undermine the constitution. >> you said it, a scam. i found the memo super interesting. the outlines of the plot have emerged, this is the first time we've seen this memo in its detail. what you have here is bad evidence of the conspiracy. jack smith has chosen to charge this as a conspiracy case, one or more people conspired to do it, plan it out. not something like happens on the spot. you have to prove the planning. a memo like this is bad because it shows just how detailed the planning was. the defense that this is legal advice or a first amendment issue is a weak one. jack smith has shown the strong evidence he has. say joe and mika go to the bank and you have a plan to pick up your money out of your account. if you write down, here's how we're driving there, here's the day, here's the amount we take out, that's fine. you have a written plan. you could call it a memo. if you go to a bank and it's not your money and you don't have an account and you start writing down the plan, we'll pull up at this time, here's the getaway car, that's not a memo. that's your conspiracy written down. that's what more and more of this material looks like. >> no doubt about it. >> ari, i want to ask you -- i'll stick with your analogy. if joe and mika are going to the bank and joe writes something down or has his lawyer write something down and he says to mika, mika, go to the bank and ask them to give you all the money in the bank, please. all that money is mine. i'm entitled to it. there's no question in my mind that money is mine. here's 20 pages of my thoughts on why all the money in the bank is my money, which is effectively what trump's lawyers are saying. trump believes the election is stolen. it's effectively an insanity defense. everyone is telling him, like everyone is telling joe that money is not yours, but because trump was truly deluded about the outcome of the election, he believed it. therefore none of these things, none of these legal theories hold water. what is the best piece of evidence in the indictment that goes to that question, beating back the notion that trump's dilution is a justification for what he did? >> that's a good question. first the government doesn't have the obligation to prove that donald trump had the state of mind that he was definitely lying, though they go to great lengths to show that. i think the reason is that it does strengthen the case to show it. it shows a corrupt or malicious intent. it's not a legal requirement only that he knew it. second, the indictment and i think the trial ultimately would have this evidence that they gathered that he was repeatedly told that he lost, that they conspired on aspects of this scheme before they had the results meaning by definition, if they can prove that's true, they have people doing this conspiracy as the government charged it before they knew the result, which means the results didn't matter. they had a plan to stay in power. third and finally, this is a legal point but i want to make it, some of these charges relate specifically to the outcome of the election. some actually do not. so, when they say the conspiracy was to delay or stop the certification, that's it. all you have to prove is that they conspired to do that, they took those concrete steps as a group. that's what a conspiracy is. now we know and everyone watched it, they also achieved that result. it's not just that you stopped president biden from taking office, we had a scheduled certification on the 6th under law. it did not happen. it happened on the 7th. the means to delay it involved several things, the violence, which donald trump is not charged for. there was the elector fraud, the pence plan, et cetera. when they go to prove that, john and folks, they don't need to prove necessarily what donald trump's state of mind was on the 6th. if i showed you a secret diary on the 6th where he says i think i won. sorry, bro, your conspiracy defendant issue is did you conspire to delay or obstruct this proceeding? did you and your team take measures to do that. the answer is yes. y'all remember the 6th. y'all remember mitch mcconnell coming to the floor saying this was an insurrection. we were run out of here by thugs. that charge, for example, is completely provable, separate and even if donald trump had whatever state of mind that day. >> ari, thank you. a new look at how last year's supreme court decision to overturn the federal right to an abortion has impacted the jobs market. morgan radford has that report for us. we're back in just a moment. st . i'm saving with liberty mutual, mom. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, let me put a reminder on my phone. on the top of the pile! oh. 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 they'll 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 you're thinking about all the vaccines your teen might need, make sure you ask your doctor if your teen is missing meningitis b vaccination. this morning we've been covering last night's major win for abortion rights advocates with ohio voters overwhelmingly rejecting a republican-backed ballot measure that would have made it more difficult to enshrine abortion rights in that state's constitution. meanwhile, a new study is analyzing how last year's supreme court decision to overturn roe v. wade has affected the job market, especially in states with the most restrictive abortion bans. nbc news correspondent morgan radford got an early look at that study and joins us now. what are we learning about the job market and abortion this morning? >> good morning. look, the data is fascinating. this is a study done by the indeed hiring platform with research from the university of california and the institute of labor economics. it looks specifically at companies that decided to offer financial help for out of state abortions just shortly after the dobbs decision came down. in other words, if you worked for these companies and lived in a state with a strict abortion ban your company would cover the cost of traveling out of state to get an abortion. here's what they found. companies that announced these policies saw an 8% increase and people clicking on their jobs postings compared with similar jobs at similar employees who did not announce such a policy. if you look at this dotted line here where it says 2022, you can see when the dobbs decision was released and the uptick thereafter. that uptick is what they would expect to see if those same firms had instead announced an 11% increase in actual wages. what's interesting is high level of interest was especially noticeable in typically female-dominated jobs. the researchers describe that as nursing, child care, dentistry, that was after the abortion became illegal after dobbs. there was also a down side you can see on my right. that same study found these same companies had a drop in job satisfaction from existing employees. the employees already working in those systems, that's according to employee reviews shared online. the decline was driven by a dip in satisfaction with upper management. a dip driven by dissatisfaction by positions filled by men. was does this all men when it comes to the big picture? we spoke to indeed.com's chief economist said the study itself focused on one specific change but it has broader political implications across the country. >> if you are offering jobs that are more democratic leaning -- located in more democratic-leaning states or offering these benefits, you are likely to see an increase in job seekers, particularly if you're trying to attract women or if you're hiring for jobs that are heavily dominated by women. you might have a tougher time or you might receive fewer clicks if your job is located in a state that doesn't offer these benefits where you have more restrictions in place. >> this is sort of the first peek behind the curtain we're getting at a lot of these economic implications. these results are being driven by relatively high-paying jobs. that suggests people who would benefit from these travel costs are those who might already have the means to pay for them. these company-sponsored benefits are not attracting the group most at risk by these abortion bans which is low and medium-income women. >> so much in there. morgan radford, thank you very much for that report. morgan, you'll stick around for our next segment. a very big departure from what we were just talking about. everyone is excited for our next guest as hip-hop celebrates its 50th anniversary. a new podcast traces hip-hop's birth from tragedy to triumph. public enemy front man chuck dee joins us live in studio along with the project's co-creator. they'll break down the story behind the story and what this moment means for the music genre. you're watching "morning joe." r" . but as you get older, it naturally begins to change, causing a lack of sharpness, or even trouble with recall. thankfully, the breakthrough in prevagen helps your brain and actually improves memory. the secret is an ingredient originally discovered... in jellyfish. in clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve short-term memory. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you 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boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health versus 16 grams in ensure® high protein. boost® high protein. now available in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. learn more at boost.com/tv wow, you get to watch all your favorite stuff. now available in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. it's to die for. and it's all right here. streaming was never this easy, you know. this is the way. you really went all out didn't you? um, it's called commitment. could you turn down the volume? here, you can try. get way more into what your into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network. stop right there! this week, get the denny's super slam starting at $7.99. hungry for all your breakfast favorites? when you want america's biggest breakfast starting at $7.99... at denny's, it's diner time. now open really late. ♪♪ that's fight the power by public enemy, the iconic song that ranked number two in rolling stone's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. this week marks the 50th anniversary of hip-hop and the cofounding member of public enemy, chuck d is shedding new light on the genre's roots. in june, an intersection in the south bronx was renamed after a gang member who was killed there while trying to break up a fight in 1971 when new york city was rife with gang violence. his group chose to pursue peace instead of revenge in the wake of his murder. shifting from violence to unity against systemic oppression and paving the way for the dawn of hip-hop. that story and the movement that emerged is now the subject of a new podcast series entitled "can you dig it?" a hip-hop origin story. chuck d who narrates the new podcast joins us now along with co-creator pete chelala, also with us for the discussion is president of the national action network and host of msnbc's politics nation, reverend al sharpton, morgan radford, ari is with us and jonathan heilemann. >> were you his manager or his minder? >> i was more like his son. he wouldn't let me get into the business because he wanted me to stay a preacher. let me go to chuck. chuck and i go way back. i think it is probably a blessing that we both are sitting in this studio because we're both now five or six years apart. i don't think we thought we would get to this age growing up. >> but you're the energy in that movement that made that thing happen, the fight the power thing. without you, that doesn't take up the speed and momentum. here we are at hip-hop 50. the thing about it, to be here with lights, camera, action pete chelala. the seed of it, talk about the seed of what hip-hop grew up out of. that's what was really -- >> i wanted you to elaborate on hip-hop not only changed music, it changed the social movement. in '89 when you came out with the group fight the power, a young man had been killed in brooklyn for being black in a white neighborhood. when we started the marches, we shall overcome didn't fit us. fight the power became the soundtrack to the urban movement that later became barack obama and all of that talk about the social impact of hip-hop and that whole era that gave a cultural bend to a northern urban version of what was going on in the south? >> we didn't invent the energy. i think a lot of the time the synergy of that period was a lot of people and a lot of different things calling for a different time. the city left a lot of us for -- you know, for dead in many cases. it was lopsided. one-sided politics, not even looking at us at all. we have people like you, movers and shakers that were heard in black radio at the time. wlib was really a fuel for me, hearing john hendrick clark on the radio. that gave me enough fuel to say, well, these are real people doing real things, saying real things in a community that's ignored by the city. therefore the issues that were in the city at that particular time were highlighted, what could we add to it culturally? how could we be that other voice that's coming through if we don't get any time on the radio stations. this is what we're getting from a talk radio issue, let's talk about the issue that we could put a soundtrack to. no different than the godfather of soul. there's an issue, a problem, i'll put a beat to it, you're dancing but throwing your fists in the air. if you watch ari's show on the nbc, you know he can dig it. you have the next question. >> some law, a lot of lyrics. go ahead. >> i'll remember that. chuck, great to see you guys again. congratulations on this project. could you tell us about the power of storytelling? everybody knows in politics narrative matters. obama was able to write his own narrative, his own autobiography along the way that introduced himself differently than minority candidates in the past. you are a master storyteller, people are indebted to these artists for these stories, yet at the time -- you just alluded to new york and certain neighborhoods being left behind by the government, much of hip-hop was maligned and not listened to at the time, but the story about inequality, about police brutality, about violence in the neighborhood in a way that didn't fit with the right-wing narrative but was true to your experience, the stories turned out largely, if i may, to be true and prophetic. tell us about the storytelling and what that means now as more mainstream culture looks at it during this anniversary. >> i will pass the baton to pete chelala. the story has been there, how can we actually have a multi-dimensional kick on the story that takes it into the future. this story had been there for a long time, this was the precede of hip-hop which created hip-hop in the first place because it was a neighborhood that was left like i said before. pete brought me the story and we kind of like -- there was a lot of mythology still floating around. what we wanted to do was anchor and bring it to the ground for everybody to hear and see and experience. that's what pete brought to the table. i happened to be a voice for it because he wrote it well, put it together well. there's nobody better than him to bring it home exactly how that happened. >> i appreciate that. i appreciate you guys giving the voice. this is an ah-ha moment story. it's a global ah-ha moment, it's rooted in politics, policy and urban planning. when we pulled the texture back of the story of hip-hop, the dawn is 1973 and we bring the story back to robert moses. if he didn't carve through the bronx with a six-lane highway called the cross bronx, it wouldn't have burned. thousands of kids would not have joined gangs and the death of black benjie would not have been murdered. he was murdered trying to keep the peace and his gang was given the decision, do we retaliate and lay down the law here. there's 2,500 get to brothers, they would do a good job finishing it off or push for peace. for mika, this story is also going back to the fingerprints of powerful mentor women. the woman who started bronx parens had a big affect on these kids. then black benjie's mother, when given the choice to retaliate, she said i want to stop the cycle of violence and tip these guys into the whole avenue peace treaty. we always say no peace, no hip-hop. no murder of black benjie, no peace. we want to give credit to the kids who made that decision and did the impossible. they basically changed the world. >> nothing starts from itself. there's a community behind everything. when you talk about positive moment, it's almost like you're climbing up a mountain, you have to have the energy, the power, the backing and the collective voice of a people to make something happen. hip-hop is all over the world. we're celebrating the 50th year. that's a tremendous achievement but it does not come without the effort of community heads and leaders that gave a voice to power. >> chuck said in an interview -- >> john, go ahead. >> no problem. chuck, i wanted to pick up right on where you were at. you and i talked about this before. you did a podcast a few years ago where you told the story of the clash, the rise of punk rock in london, england roughly at the same time as this story is unfolding in new york, the birth of hip-hop and all the stuff we've been talking about today. the political/social context that gave rise to punk is the same one that gave rise to hip-hop. now we're 50 years later. talk about the state of hip-hop today. we have an incredibly polarized -- we have social cultural context in which you would think political music, music arising out of politics, whether that's in hip-hop or rock or whatever, you would think you would be seeing a very vital resurgence in that. instead we don't really see that quite to the degree we did in the '70s and certainly in the '80s around the time public enemy was so powerful. talk about where we are today and why there's not more politics and social commentary still in hip-hop. >> you have tens of millions of people recording right now. morgan can tell you, inside hub music people are streaming 6 million songs. we need better curators to curate who is saying what. there's efforts out there. there's people looking at concerns and writing a song and recording it the same night. the reason why this is different from 1989 is simply because people come and go. the same people in the mix in 1989, many of them are not here and new people have grown into being into the mix today as adults. therefore you always have to fight the power because the isms remain. you have to keep going at it. you bring people with the energy. people like pete that says, hey, i think this story needs to be told. i always told a new yorker, sometimes you can find out your status by reading the names on the street. black benjie has a street. we say if i'm looking at a skimmer horn street it behooves you to figure out who that is. black benjie has a street, find out who that is. if they don't know who that is, we need to step up the education. educating new yorkers on new york will give us a leg up on that movement and energy. >> it's interesting you talk about education. the truth is 50 years, that's a long time. hip-hop has changed. the context has changed, the people have changed. now we have hip-hop that includes lgbtq+ rappers, many more women, young white men, young jewish men. this is a movement. you talked about what you were trying to say then. do you think people listen? what is the message now? what do you want the younger guys to hear? >> the powers that be in broadcasting to me i think they're lazy. >> what do you mean? >> they count the gross instead of looking at the net and are always trying to figure out numbers. we're talking about -- there's a quality of our existence that can't always be quantified. so you got to have curators that go out there and search the story like pete and brian grand masters did. they find the story and bring it to the forefront and it's available. there's mass distraction everywhere. everything is everything at the same time. you need focus to funnel the people like -- focus on this for a second. it would behoove you to know about the thing you love. you don't got to say you love hip-hop, when you say you love hip-hop, it's as simple as that. >> pete, tell us the genesis of all this. your research. what led to this that led to that that led you to this extraordinary story that changed everything musically, cut rally, politically. >> i came of age in the '80s and '90s with hip-hop. when i started pulling the curtain back, i realized several things. it's not just black and rap. it's heavily hispanic origins. it's emceeing, dejaying, breakdancing and i wanted to give credence to that. also again, it's an ah-ha moment of struggle. i wanted to put the light on -- we did, our team wanted to put the light on black benjie, yellow charlie, those who grew up disenfranchised, condemned. a good friend of mine, he couldn't afford a baseball mitt. he had to use his hands and lgs to compete. coming from the streets to nothing to yankees stadium is a remarkable story. it's an exciting one at that. >> and it's put together with a hell of a soundtrack and done in a hip-hop way by his partner, brian masters. i call him the grand master of podcasting documentary. >> podcast -- >> this is a told story but never told this way. it's recreated, cinematic for your ears and very emotional. people need to listen to it. >> pete only had a half cup of coffee. >> out of respect to joe -- out of respect to joe scarborough, you wore your yankee cap. >> baseball, as a met fan, this is blasphemous. it's fitting because it's the bronx, it's hip-hop and it's the 50th anniversary tomorrow. the 12th we'll be celebrating with hip-hop alliance care as one in the bronx at 1520 sedgwick avenue, the birthplace of cool hurk and cindy campbell throwing a back to school event on august 11th. big up to the blast master. the podcast series "can you dig it" is available on audible tomorrow. chuck d and pete chelala, thank you both. >> all right, baby. >> he's had his morning joe. >> can't wait for that. that's amazing. >> thank you guys so much. up next, we'll read from the new piece that's entitled no fellow republicans, the justice department is not biased against us. we'll tell you which former attorney general wrote that. we'll be right back. ight back. more shopping? you should watch your spending honey. i'm saving with liberty mutual, mom. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. check it out, you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, i'll look into that. let me put a reminder on my phone. save $700 dollars. pick up dad from airport? ohhhhhh. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ >> woman: why did we choose safelite? only pay for what you need. >> vo: for us, driving around is the only way we can get our baby to sleep, so when our windshield cracked, we needed it fixed right. we went to safelite.com. there's no one else we'd trust. their experts replaced our 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mayo and served with hot au jus for dipping. try the roast beef or pastrami french dips today. only at togo's. david: as we start a new school year, there's something new happening in california's public schools. they're called community schools. leslie: it really is shared leadership with families, students, educators, and communities. jessie: i feel like we're really valued as partners. david: it's a more innovative, holistic approach. grant: in addition to academic services, we look at serving the whole family. narrator: wellness centers, food pantries, and parental education. jessie: they're already making a difference. david: california's community schools: reimagining public education. featuring fresh artisan bread piled high with tender roast beef, smothered with melty provolone cheese, just enough chipotle mayo and served with hot au jus for dipping. try the roast beef or pastrami french dips today. only at togo's. welcome back to "morning joe," a live look at the capital for you at 52 past the hour. former u.s. attorney general and counsel to president george w. bush, alberto gonzalez has an op-ed for "the washington post," and it's entitled, no, fellow republicans, the justice department is not biased against us. and in it he writes in part, quote, i am among a number of jurists with experience at the highest levels of our government who grow more concerned as support for trump mounts in direct proportion to the number of indictments against him. we have a duty as americans not to blindly trust our justice system, but we also shouldn't blindly trust those who say it is unjust. if we decide that presidents should never be charged with crimes after they leave office for actions committed while in office, we are no longer a democracy. pundits across the political spectrum have a duty to be honest with americans and to demonstrate that trump is not being singled out and treated unfairly unless there is clear evidence to believe otherwise. the american people should withhold their judgment, consider the facts as the case moves forward, and be wary of words designed to fan the flames of partisanship. the rule of law is the glue that holds our country together. if we are to survive as a democracy, we must continue to respect and protect it. and reading these words, which are so important obviously from a republican former attorney general. >> right. >> clearly a message to republican leaders and to pundits on tv and on websites, but my biggest worry is about vulnerable americans or people who don't have time to worry about this who aren't thinking about our democracy. >> right. >> who assume that it is not fra jill and it will just hold on. >> our influencers who actually not just americans don't follow the news but john heilemann influencers who actually read bad faith op-eds in "the wall street journal" or watch fox news. again, i've noticed a real shift in editorial pages of the wall street journal, which i've read, you know, my entire adult life, but i've noticed a real shift. they're circling the wagons. there's always been this debate, wall street journal people going why can't fox be more like us. it's very clear now the more indictments that pile up, the more "the wall street journal" becomes like fox news and this is all the democrats' fault. there is a real price for that, isn't there? >> well, i think there's -- i mean, it's the ultimate price to that, joe. it just further enhances, it makes worse the kind of fundamental fact of our political culture, which is this tribalism where everyone on the red team hates everyone on the blue team just because they're on the blue team and vice versa. i don't want to -- i'm not like kind of trying to sound like some -- in the middle. everybody should get along, partisan conflict, differences of views, different ideological perspectives. those are what american democracy is all ability. at the same time, i was at a show here at the troubadour about a week ago with steve earl, no coastal elite, no liberal but a working class populist kind of progressive. he said we have to get to a place where we can have conversations with people who we know are going to disagree with us from the very beginning of the conversation. if we can't have that, we can't make progress on any front, and what you're pointing to is an example of the further siloing of america in the way that media writes. it's a recipe for long-term decline of america if we can't get it together on this front. >> well, and we've seen this from extreme sites. i've said this for many years. we've seen this from chinese religious cults that have conspiracy websites. what we're seeing now are more mainstream republicans that have spoken out against trump actually dropping their guard and circling the wagons. to me that's disturbing because we've got to move pro-democracy forces, pro rule of law forces in the other direction, and sadly, right now it's not happening. >> much more on this tomorrow, that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage after a quick final break. fter a quick final break. ♪ with wet amd, sometimes i worry my world is getting smaller because of my sight. but now, i can open up my world with vabysmo. vabysmo is the first fda-approved treatment for people with wet amd that improves vision and delivers a chance for up to 4 months which means doing more of what i love. ♪ vabysmo is the only treatment designed to block 2 causes of wet amd. vabysmo is an eye injection. don't take it if you have an infection or active swelling in or around your eye, or are allergic to it or any of its ingredients. treatments like vabysmo can cause eye infection or retinal detachment. vabysmo may cause a temporary increase in eye pressure after receiving the injection. although uncommon, there is a potential risk of heart attack or stroke associated with blood clots. open up your world! a chance for up to 4 months between treatments with vabysmo. ask your 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