be convicted. >> right. >> those are good things in his column. do you think there would be any downside here for president biden were hunter to be convicted? of course, as the personal toll, of course. do we think there is political im impact? >> yeah, there are low information voters who are like, they're both in trouble with the law. i would say hunter biden is very different than donald trump and being a crack addict because you have an addiction is very different than a myriad after criminal charges, many cases which you've been able to punt. then you have the fraud cases. i don't think they're the same at all, but i do think, you know, everything can be a problem, especially in politics. >> certainly, those close to president biden worry about just how he will receive this news. we know he is deeply worried about his son. >> also, the first lady coming back from france to go to the trial. i mean, the sister has been there. everyone in biden world, they're a close family. i think that speaks well of them, but i think it is a huge stressor. >> a lot of americans can relate to the trouble with addiction. msnbc political analyst molly jong-fast. thank you for joining us this morning. we really appreciate it. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this friday morning and all week long. "morning joe" starts right now. leaders from all around the world visited normandy today, including president biden, canadian prime minister justin trudeau, and the king of world war ii, tom hanks. once again, these vets did an incredible service to their nation. they made joe biden look young. president turned on the classic biden charm, telling one of the veterans, "god willing, we'll see you at the 110th anniversary." that's awesome. the 880th anniversary is today, and the youngest one of those guys is 96th. by the 110th, they'll be -- that's awesome. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, june 7th. in just a few moments, president biden continuing his trip in france, will meet with ukraine president volodymyr zelenskyy in paris, as he continues to commemorate the 80th anniversary of d-day. following that speech today, another back in normandy this afternoon. the bilateral meeting comes amid russia's growing aggression and tensions over the pace of u.s. military aid. good morning. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. and president emeritus on the council of foreign relations, richard haass. he is the author of the weekly newsletter "home and away," available on substack. good morning to all of you. let's begin with kelly o'donnell. we find her in paris this morning. kelly, what can we expect from the meeting today between president biden and president zelenskyy? president biden in the speech at normandy yesterday emphasizing the importance of supporting ukraine through its war with russia. >> reporter: well, good morning, willie. certainly, the relationship between the european allies, the united states and ukraine, is very much relevant in the broader commemorations of d-day. because all of the focus has been on the threat of aggression and how can that be stopped and how can democracy be preserved? expect those themes today from president biden, both in his meeting with president zelenskyy of ukraine and in a separate speech he'll be doing for the american people that is not quite the same as what we saw yesterday, where you had two dozen world leaders and you had a very dramatic series of ceremonies. this will be a direct speech to the american people about some of the actions of american soldiers back 80 years ago. in this meeting with president zelenskyy at the president's hotel this morning, we expect that he will be talking about aid, how the u.s. and allies can support ukraine. we've seen in recent days how president biden has authorized president zelenskyy and ukrainian forces to use american weapons beyond the borders of ukraine. not all the way to moscow, as the president says, not an attack on the kremlin, but if there are defensive actions they need to take using american-supplied weapons that go inside the borders of russia in order to defend themselves against coming attacks, that that would be permitted. there has been a creep over the two plus years of the ukrainian war where the u.s. has hesitated to provide a certain type of munition, supply, or piece of equipment, or the rules of engagement, and then because of conditions on the ground and concern about how russia has been relentless in this assault on ukraine, that sort of line has moved at times. there was also very much a broad, supportive welcome for president zelenskyy at the d-day events from some of the veterans, who are certainly experienced in knowing what's on the line when you fight for your own existence, and at the same time, from other world leaders. today will be an important part, getting away from some of the commemoration, touching on that for sure, but talking about some of the present day concerns that face the president and allies of the united states here in europe. willie. >> we expect that meeting to happen just a short time from now, after which president biden will travel back to normandy for another speech today at pointe du hoc. senior white house correspondent kelly o'donnell in paris for us this morning. thanks, as always. richard, a significant moment, piggy backing off the speech from yesterday, well received there and in many quarters of the world, where president biden used the themes of democracy, used the themes of supporting allies around the 80th anniversary of d-day to talk about the critical importance of continuing to support president zelenskyy and ukraine in the fight against russia. today, an even bigger symbol with the bilateral meeting a short time from now. >> all true. the question, though, is, there is tension between president biden and president zelenskyy. the issue is, again, exactly what arms are going to be supplied and, even more, how can they be used? what zelenskyy wants is not simply more arms sooner, but he wants a slightly greater envelope in terms of where and how he can use arms against russia. the united states is trying to balance what happens on the battlefield against, how would i call it, provoking russia to escalate, and there is also a tension underneath the surface between the united states and zelenskyy, not only over all this and the uncertainty of if donald trump were to be elected, but what ought to define success? mr. zelenskyy wants to liberate all the territory he lost, not just since 2022 but, more important, since 2014. people like me look and say, that's not wildly realistic. the definition of success may have to be dialed down. that's underneath it all. what do we have to accomplish here? is the united states liberaing all the territory, or is it more about an armistice? willie, i think that'll have to happen at some point. let's talk about this day and the this trip, jonathan lemire, as you cover this president. yesterday, the speech at the cemetery with the veterans behind him. very moving, 99, 100 years old, some of them. today, as you've been saying, might dig a little deeper, might go harder on this theme of democracy and the contrast of what he is presenting implicitl his opponent has to offer up this time around. what do you expect when he heads back to normandy? >> he'll return to where reagan on the 40th anniversary of d-day, pointe du hoc, praising the bravery of the american soldiers. we'll hear more of that from president biden, as we did yesterday, but aides say this is a chance to draw contrast. at the moment, donald trump's name not in the speech, but doesn't mean the president can't ad lib. framing the stakes for the election at home and abroad. the idea that if trump were to return to the white house, america's word couldn't be counted upon by allies. donald trump nearly blew up nato when he was in office the first time. we have seen him side with putin over his own intelligence agencies. we have seen him as an ex-president be deeply skeptical of the ukrainian cause, suggesting that he would push them to settle on putin's terms to end this war. it is a big moment, one aimed at the american audiences today, the biden team believes, richard. this is the latest in a series of set speeches given about democracy. this has a little more of international flavor than ones before, say, at independence hall. they feel it is an important moment. do you think, though, that we know american voters tend not to vote on foreign policy. there is hope some will weigh in on that. the other audience, there are other heads of state gathered yesterday, and he is trying to reassure them the u.s. can be counted upon. we hear it time and time again, he is greeted with skepticism. >> on both, the american people don't vote on the basis of foreign policy. the polls show, yes, americans, what do you care most about? things like the border, inflation. foreign policy, as difficult as it is for me to admit it, it is not career enhancing -- >> sorry, richard. >> -- it is very low on the list. that rattles the rest of the world, by the way. they don't get a vote in the american election. the election will affect their security and well-being. americans not being mindful of that makes the leaders uneasy. the great, untalked about issue at the summit, of all this, is what happens after november. that's what is so different about this election. historically, there was the presumption of 90% continuity, the differences between the democrats and the republicans in a presidential election, congress, almost on which side of the 50 yard line are you going to be at. this is different. we're talking about an end zone. this is a totally different political reality for these european leaders, and there's no way joe biden can reassure them. he simply -- it is not a criticism of joe biden. he is simply not in a position to guarantee the outcome of the election, much less guarantee what donald trump will do. certain things can be managed. there's no way, no matter how good a speech he gives today, doesn't matter in the sense of reassuring europeans or the rest of the world about what the united states will become over the next, say, four years. >> gene, you're writing about president biden's visit to normandy this week in your latest column for "the washington post" with some reflections on history, as well. not just the invasion of normandy on d-day 80 years ago, but where america was on the precipice of world war ii in terms of the divisions we saw in this country, not unlike what we're seeing here now. >> yeah. we look back at world war ii and the d-day invasion, and we see this incredible national unity. everyone was pulling in the same direction in this great struggle that engulfed the entire world and american society was, you know, transformed. everyone had to pitch in. there was national purpose and national unity. we forget that in the years before the war, our country, arguably, was as divided as it is now. it was divided over a number of things. one way it was divided, obviously, it was racially segregated. that continued even during the war. the units that went ashore at d-day were all white and one all black unit that morning. once they got on the beaches, there was no color. i write about one soldier, a medic in the one black battalion that landed that morning. there were others who came later. he was wounded as he landed. german shrapnel, pretty serious wounds. he was well enough to set up a medical aid station on the beach, and he stood there and treated the wounded for 30 hours before he collapsed and had to be taken to a hospital ship. he survived the war. he came home to a racially divided nation and was the second class citizen until the civil rights movement triumphed. he died in 2005. he was just this week awarded posthumously the distinguished service cross, which is the second highest honor in the army. that wasn't the only division. there were bitter divisions about whether the united states should get involved in the war. isolationism, you think it is something now? isolationism was a major strain in our politics. there were bitter divisions over franklin roosevelt's new deal policies which were being described as totalitarianism and communism and socialism. the rhetoric we hear now, we have heard before. the difference is that there cannot be another world war to unite us, right? we can't have another one of those after hiroshima and nagasaki. we can't have another world war ii. we're going to have to find the divisions that divide us now, the barely functioning political system, it's what we have got. we have to find some way to make it work so that we can continue because there can't be another d-day like the one there was 80 years ago. >> yeah, and as you point out in the piece, america first, a term we hear from donald trump and his supporters now, coined and used in the years leading up to world war ii. i'm glad you're pointing to the heroism of so many of theblack men who helped liberate the beaches and treat the wounded on d-day. the army was desegregated three years after the end of world war ii largely because of the heroism we saw there. president zelenskyy will meet with president biden. meanwhile, the war in israel rages on. the hamas leader addressed the three-phase plan. phase two would be an end to the war. that is a sticking point for israel. far-right members of israel's government say the conflict can only end once hamas is eradicated. dozens of people, meanwhile, including children were killed in an israeli air strike at a united nations school in gaza. it happened overnight thursday. the israeli military says it was targeting a hamas compound embedded inside the school. the idf claims about 30 terrorists were using the classrooms as a base. the strike, however, drawing international criticism, as gazan health officials say at least 40 people were killed. israel so far has only released the names of nine terrorists it says died in the attack. meanwhile, the united states says it will wait and see what information israel releases about the strike before considering any action. the state department says it expects the idf to be, quote, fully transparent. this comes as "the washington post" reports a u.s.-made bomb was used in the strike at that school. biden addressed the war with hamas during an interview in normandy. he believes netanyahu has acknowledged concerns from the white house, pointing to the way israel adjusted the strategy in rafah. >> is benjamin netanyahu listening to you? >> he is. invade all of rafah? go into the city, take it out, move with full force. they haven't done that. what they've done is they've agreed to a significant agreement. in fact, look, it's been backed by the saudis, backed by almost the whole wide world. this is a very difficult time. >> richard haass, he is right about who is backing it, everyone but the two parties involved in the war. to have the cease-fire and perhaps an end to the war. hamas says it won't agree to the terms. israel won't agree to any deal that doesn't include eradicating hamas. where does that put us? >> it was a week that president biden went out and announced the three-phase plan. the idea was to get hamas to sign on. israel then backed away from it, if they signed on to it. hamas says it won't accept a temporary cease-fire which is phase one of the plan. it seems to have been stillborn. what i think we're looking at is, again, the other part of the news this morning, you'll have continued israeli military operations there. inevitably, no matter how careful israel is because of co-location of hamas with civilians, you'll see the kinds of stories you have where innocent people are going to be killed along with hamas militants. my guess is we're going to see this for some time. this will go on, you know -- the israeli national security adviser says operations will continue through the end of the year. i don't see any reason to doubt that. i think, you know, the real question also is now whether we see an escalation of fighting as things dial down somewhat in gaza in the north, between israel and hezbollah. that has been the most recent news out of israel. the idea we're on the precipice of peace somehow, actually, the opposite is more the reality. i hate to be so depressing this morning, but i think we're looking at open-ended but low-level war in gaza with the danger of escalation in the north and southern lebanon. >> willie, no question, the optimism that many in the biden white house felt last friday about the peace deal has really faded in the days since. hamas still not agreeing to it. israel throwing up significant roadblocks. there's some frustration among other democrats that the president's red line on rafah seems really faint and fungible. as long as -- their framing is biden is saying, as long as you don't go for a full-out assault on rafah, you can do what you want. the president is right, israel hasn't gone full-out into rafah, but they've done strikes that are killing civilians. we've had the school this week, the tent city last week, children killed in both. that is upsetting to democrats, many of whom have now said they're going to boycott prime minister netanyahu's speech and his address for congress, slated for next month, july 24th, the date where netanyahu is going to come to washington, address both houses of congress. some democrats have already said they want no part of that because of the conduct in the war in gaza. what is not yet clear is whether netanyahu will meet with president biden and, if so, will that be at the white house? to this point, he has not come to the white house since biden took office. they met once on the sidelines of the united nations a couple weeks before the october 7th terror attack. >> extraordinary snub for him to come all the way to washington and not meet with the president. we will watch that play out. still ahead on "morning joe," this morning, former trump adviser steve bannon must report to prison next month after defying a congressional subpoena. we'll have the latest in the legal fight and bannon's effort to appeal. president trump, as you can imagine, weighing in, as well. 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bannon has officially been ordered to report to prison next month. a judge ruled yesterday bannon must begin his four-month sentence on july 1st. a stay on bannon's sentence was lifted after his appeal in the case was denied. as nbc news reports, bannon still could appeal the ruling. his team plans to appeal all the way to the supreme court. >> we'll go all the way to the supreme court if we have to. i want to say something specific about the justice department. merrick garland, lisa monaco, the entire department, they're not going to shut up trump, not going to shut up navarro, not going to shut up bannon, and they're certainly not shutting up maga. >> bannon was guilty in 2022 of two counts of contempt for defying the subpoenas of the january 6th legal committee. let's bring in lisa rubin, legal correspondent. good morning. this is always framed, and we'll hear from president trump on this in a moment, as a personal attack, as president biden ordering his opponents to jail, on and on and on. except when you don't answer a subpoena, no matter who you are in our society, just like if you cook the books at your organization to pay off a porn star to stay quiet before a presidential election, there are consequences. >> there are indeed consequences. willie, there's some connective tissue between this and the other case you just mentioned, the recent conviction of former president trump. the connective tissue is robert costello, who was steve bannon's attorney. the attorney on whose advice he allegedly said he relied in ignoring the subpoena. bannon wanted to argue, and which was the crux of the appeal, he was entitled to reasonably rely on bob costello's advice that he should blow off the subpoena because trump would invoke executive privilege. the problem is two-fold. one, he was advised by trump campaign lawyers that is not, in fact, what the former president intended to do for steve bannon, in part, because bannon had been out of government for three years. the other problem is there is a 1961 case by the d.c. circuit that says, where contempt charges are concerned, it is no defense to say, i relied on the advice of counsel. it was that decision that a recent d.c. circuit panel reaffirmed, and it is on that basis that, yesterday, judge nichols of the d.c. district court said, "you know, sir, this no longer presents substantial questions of law. i'll lift the stay of your sentence, and you need to report by july 1st," willie. >> it will come as no surprise to anyone that donald trump took to social media to rail against this, calling it a total and complete american tragedy that the crooked joe biden department of injustice is -- yada, yada, yada. bannon is looking to push off the july 1st report date. what mechanism would that be? is there a chance of success? or is he going in july 1st? bannon does not officially work for the trump campaign. he is an informal and influential adviser and a large maga voice. if he goes in july 1st, he'll be silenced for the stretch run of the election. >> that is likely true. i think it is likely, if not highly probable, he'll go in july 1st. let's talk about the mechanisms for appeal. he can ask for a re-hearing by the d.c. circuit. that means every active judge opposed to a three-judge panel. he has until june 24th to make the request. in all likelihood, they're not responding before the reporting day. again, deadlines come after the july 1st date. the options, they could reimpose a stay of his sentence. do i believe it is likely they're going to? i don't. i think steve bannon will, in all probability, serve that four-month sentence. as you know, john, be silenced in the lead-up to the election. that is important because steve bannon was a huge voice for maga in the lead up to and, more importantly, after the 2020 election. there is a still a phone call between donald trump and steve bannon on january 6th that no one has quite explained. >> steve bannon, of course, just this week even, been musing about putting donald trump's perceived opponents in jail if donald trump is re-elected. people like alvin bragg, specifically, this week. the date is july 1st, as lisa said, three weeks from month. a four-month sentence for steve bannon. hunter biden's federal gun trial resumes in delaware later this morning, a day after some of the most emotionally charged testimony thus far. hallie biden, the widow of hunter's biden, beau, described the dark years after her husband died of brain cancer in 2015. hallie, who had a relationship with hunter following her late husband's death, described how she started using drugs after hunter introduced them to her. now, hunter was sometimes in denial about his own addiction. she also testified about finding his gun in his car. prosecutors are expected to rest their case today. the defense says it may call two or three witnesses, but hunter biden's defense attorney says the team has not yet decided if hunter will testify in his own defense. hunter biden faces felony charges over whether he lied on a federal gun form in 2018 that asked if he was addicted to drugs. he has pleaded not guilty. meanwhile, president biden is reiterating he will not pardon his son hunter if he is convicted in the federal gun trial. >> as we sit here in normandy, your son, hunter, is on trial. i know that you cannot speak about an ongoing federal prosecution, but let me ask you, will you accept the jury's youts outcome, the verdict, no matter what it is? >> yes. >> have you ruled out a pardon for your son? >> yes. >> pretty clear there, gene robinson. a significant moment, we should stop there. this is a president of the united states talking about his own son, saying he will accept the verdict no matter what it is and he's ruled out pardoning his own son. contrast that from what we hear from donald trump and everybody around him who says if anybody cuts against him, the system is rigged, weaponized, an effort by president biden himself to put trump in jail in a presidential year. that bite shouldn't be important, but in our time, it is. >> donald trump has promised to pardon the january 6th rioters, the january 6th insurrectionists, and president biden has promised not to pardon his own son. this is a tragedy, really, a story that is familiar, i think, to far too many families across this country. a story of addiction and the sort of spiral that doesn't seem to have a bottom at times. it was really, really wrenching yesterday, the testimony by hallie biden. you know, it doesn't take away the alleged crime that hunter biden committed by any stretch of the imagination, but i do think that people maybe understand this on human terms. he will take the consequences, whatever those are. this is a story, as i said, that's just too familiar to far too many families. >> lisa, the prosecution says it likely will rest today. we don't know what the defense has planned for next week. but for people not following along, how has this prosecution case opinion made so far? has it been effective? what do you expect to see from the defense? >> well, the prosecution case, willie, focused heavily on hunter biden's addiction, sometimes using his own words against him in the form of an audio version of the book he authored. what they are trying to show is that hunter biden knowingly and intentionally lied on the form he filled out when he purchased the gun, that he understood he was a habitual drug user. all these people around the time period are testifying to his drug use. the testimony was wrenching, messy. it calls up not only the sympathies of anyone who had a family member who struggled with addiction, but the messiness of family life. there is no situation messier for the bidens than the entanglement between hunter and his sister-in-law, hallie biden, that was exposed in full color yesterday. i very much feel for this family, and i feel for these jurors, too, who are being asked to make a decision about the future of someone who has so publicly struggled with addiction and, yet, has also, in maybe stark terms, violated the law to its letter if not its spirit. >> let's be clear, despite republican efforts, there is no equivalence here between the conviction for donald trump, who is running for office, and hunter biden on trial, certainly not seeking any sort of public office. nonetheless, the white house. in terms of the fallout as to what is to come here, it's both political and personal. political, even if hunter biden were to be convicted, most those in the biden campaign, and, frankly, those in the trump campaign, don't think it'll move the needle too much. most americans are sympathetic to stories of addiction. republicans tried to make hunter biden a major issue since 2020. we've seen impeachment hearings, you know, inquiry hearings centered around him. none of that has really gotten any traction. yes, it will, of course, be a few days of bad headlines if there is a conviction. no one thinks this will alter the trajectory of the race much. more important, there is the personal toll on the president. i have been told by advisors, though he is overseas, he is keeping tabs on the trial. the white house does not have a war room. the white house does not have a representative in wilmington. the president continues to reach out to his son. he communicates with hunter each and every day. there are other relatives there in the courtroom. he has been talking to them, following a little on media coverage. if a conviction were to come, particularly if it were accompanied by a prison sentence, there is a sense it will weigh heavily on this president. as evidence of that, first lady jill biden in normandy yesterday for the d-day ceremonies flew back to wimington to be in court with her son, then will return to paris to be with her husband. >> the first lady has been shuttling between the trial in delaware and france, just to be at the side of hunter biden. no uncertain terms, president biden saying, i will accept the outcome. i'll accept what the jury decides here. that's the way our legal system works. and, no, i will not pardon my own son if he is convicted. msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. lisa, thank you, as always. we appreciate it. >> thanks, willie. coming up, our next guest is examining what he says are america's defining characteristics at the moment anyway. division, mistrust, and my information. the author of the new book "the forever war, america's unending conflict with itself, joins us ahead on "morning joe." with so many choices on booking.com there are so many tina feys i could be. so i hired body doubles. 30,000 followers tina in a boutique hotel. or 30,000 steps tina in a mountain cabin. ooh! booking.com booking.yeah these days everyone is staring at screens, scanning the news, and watching their spending. good vision is more important than ever, but so especially now is saving. that's why america's best includes a free eye exam when 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(♪♪) norman, bad news... i never graduated from med school. what? -but the good news is... xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... i know... faster wifi and savings? ...i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? we have that to change the system, straighten out what's going on. we got a rigged deal going. this whole country, we've got to do it. those appellate courts have to step up and straighten things out, or we're not going to have a country any longer. this election coming up on november 5th, 2024, is going to go down as the most important day. because if we don't win -- it's we, all of us, millions of people -- if we don't win, this country is finished. >> country is finished if he doesn't win an election. donald trump at a rally in arizona last night offering his dim view of america, claiming the whole country is rigged against him, giving an ominous warning of america's future if he does not defeat president biden in november. our next guest argues the division we're seeing in america right now, not really the product of our times. it is part of the fabric of our country's history. joining us, former bbc correspondent nick bryant, spent years reporting from washington. he is the author of "the forever war, america's unending conflict with itself." nick, good to have you back with us. tell us more about your thesis and how far back this stretches for america. >> my thethesis, willie, is don trump is as much of history as john f. kennedy, ronald reagan, or joe biden. it's just the history we tend to forget, misremember, or deliberately erase. what it also argues is that you're in this forever war, an unending conflict, because so much of that history is unresolved. you have an unending conflict about abortion. you have an unending conflict about guns. you have an unending conflict about race. so much of the history is unresolved. what i also say is division has so often been the default. if you go back to the founding days of the republic, victory over the british brought independence, but it didn't bring an instant sense of nationhood. it wasn't until 50 years later that america really had a national consciousness. america has always been divided, and we are seeing those divisions playing out now. >> richard haass. it seems what you're offering up is a true glass half empty view of the country. of course there's divisions. of course there's differences. first, tell me the society or country that doesn't have them. what marks a country, i would argue, is not the absence of differences, it's the ability to deal with them. someone could say, other than the civil war, we've got a pretty decent record over 2 1/2 centuries of dealing with our differences, dealing with our divisions. why are you treating us so negatively and, if you will, so differently from your own country or any other? >> richard, there are few countries that can test their history so fiercely as america. there are few countries that are still arguing over the rules of democracy. advanced countries that are literally arguing over the rules of democracy. i love america. i'm not one of the europeans that knocks america. i feel more comfortable in america than any homeland of britain. i have a daughter who is american. she's showing signs of being a bona fide new yorker, and i believe i love that. as a bbc correspondent in the trump era, the story became very hard to tell. the news cycle almost seemed like a history cycle in microcosm. constant arguments over guns. constant arguments over race. constant arguments over the apportionment of power between the president, the judiciary, and the legislature. these are arguments that have always been there. you talk about slavery and things were sorted out after that, but the way that was sorted out, richard, as you know, was to have segregation in the south. what worries me now is that what was always a beacon of democracy looks increasingly to the rest of the world like a dumpster fire. that pains me to say it as somebody who deeply loves your country. >> i'll push back again. if we're such a dumpster fire, why do you have people wanting to come to this country? people are voting with their feet. it's a market. again, if you think about the constitution, it was described by a great scholar as an invitation for the struggle, in my area, over the course of american foreign policy. again, it almost seems to me, as the brits would say, you're trailing your cape. you're looking for a fight here when, in fact, one doesn't exist. the idea that we have tensions in our society, i would say is healthy. the whole idea of checks and balances. we want to institutionalize tensions. you talked about race, but then we had the civil rights movement. that seems to me a really good idea of a society that recognizes its divisions and has not solved them but dealt with them, i think, remarkably well. >> richard, i did my doctoral thesis on the civil rights movement. i know about the reforms of the civil rights movement, the dismantlement of segregation, the voting rights act in 1965. what happened as soon as the ink on the document dried? people were trying to stop people of color from voting. this was something that went on decades. indeed, you know, january 6th, in many ways, was the culmination of an insolvent democracy that was going on for decades. democracy wasn't strong in the first place. one of the reasons american democracy is frail, the founding fathers didn't intend for it to be that strong. they weren't in favor of a mass democracy. the body politic was something to be restrained in an intricately designed straight jacket, which is why you have the electoral college and mechanisms like the senate. one of the reasons why democracy is frail right now, because it wasn't that strong in the first place. >> nick, i get your argument, and it certainly is true that when there is an advance like the civil rights movement, the election of the first african-american president as the most recent example, there is a backlash. that issue essentially is fought again. but, you know, if you study the civil rights movement, you know of dr. king's famous quote, the arc of the more universes is long but bends toward justice. do you accept that argument? that american history is, yes, you know, three steps forward and at least two steps back, and another three steps sideways and then maybe we go forward again, but that it ratchets, eventually, toward a greater freedom, greater inclusion, and, you know, there was a time when this country was only for white men who owned property. african-american men could theoretically vote at least, then women could vote. you know, would you buy the argument that, yeah, it's more of a ratcheting process that's messy and scratchy, but that when you look back over the span of 50 years or 100 years, you have moved, you have gotten some place? >> american history, as you say, eugene, is one of progress and advancement with occasional setbacks. nothing speaks more of that than race. i think that was why donald trump's victory in 2016 was so shocking in many ways. there was an assumption, maybe, that america's first african-american president, what a breakthrough that was. it almost felt to me like an end of history moment. but it wasn't the end of american history. there was a feeling that obama might be followed into office by america's first female president. again, this idea of progress and advancement. but what happened instead, of course, was you got a racist, misogynist as president. now, even after january 6th, when an american sitting president incited insurrectionists to storm the capitol, to try to overturn a clear-cut presidential result, he is still the republican nominee. what happened after those insurrectionists were cleared from capitol hill? so many republican lawmakers went back into the chambers where they'd run for their lives and voted again to challenge and overturn the election. now, that does not look like progress to me. that looks like a major setback. i think trump's victory almost challenged our historical belief system about america. that, in many ways, is what "the forever war, america's unending conflict with itself," is about. >> a spirited debate about the new book "the forever war, america's unending conflict with itself," one, i figure, we will continue in the weeks and months to come. come back and see us, nuclear bryant. thanks so much. we appreciate it. "the new yorker"'s susan glasser joins us on "fighting trump on the beaches," split screen of president biden's speech defending democracy with donald trump back home focused on what he calls the enemy within. plus, army combat veteran representative jason crow will be our guest, helping commemorate the 80th anniversary of d-day with president biden speaking again today in normandy. and later this morning, comedian and ctress margaret cho joins us to talk about "outstanding, a comedy revolution." 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there is always that conversation. they came out like a team looking to win a title last night. man, they looked good. >> by the numbers, this is a historically great celtics team. no one who watches them every night think they're that good. but when everything is clicking, boy, last night, they looked unstoppable. they smothered kyrie. yeah, luka got his 30 but had to work hard for it. he didn't shoot well, didn't set up teammates. mavericks only had 9 assists as a team last night, which goes to show how the celtics smothered the ball. it was a true team effort on offense. jaylen brown was big. jrue holiday played well. tatum was unselfish. yes, returning porzingis to the lineup puts them on another level. now, we have a long way to go in the series. celtics have it this year. when they greet success, they tend to take their foot off the gas and keep losing game twos in series. i'd like that to end. go up 2-0, go back to dallas. look, one down, three to go. i'm preaching caution. this celtics team, they have a ways to go. >> man. >> luka is still the best player in the series. >> gene, wouldn't be a boston without cynicism about a 20-point win in game one. >> pessimism. >> you know, the celtics have a track record here, and they do blow game twos. let's see what happens. if you guys had stayed up one more quarter, which i did, unfortunately, because it's really early in the morning now. >> yeah. >> if you'd watched the third quarter, you saw a spurt in which the mavericks sort of showed why they were there. i mean, they got to within eight points. i never thought they'd win the game, and the celtics looked unbeatable last night, but i think you might see a different kyrie in the next game. i think you might see a different luka in the next game. i think it'll be a lot closer than this one was. i think celtics will win, but we'll see. >> willie, you missed the lead of the story, how the ex-knick put the celtics on top. >> happy to have him. >> man, and on defense, too, blocked a bunch of shots. >> played well. >> a flurry in the first half. they look great. we'll see if our resident pessimist is right about game two on sunday night. major league baseball, richard, in the bronx, the new york yankees continued their dominance of the minnesota twins, completing a season sweep with an 8-5 victory last night. it's the yankees' eighth consecutive win overall. yankees, though, may have suffered a significant loss in that victory. star slugger juan soto left the game with left forearm discomfort, as it was described, after an hour-long rain delay before the sixth inning. he is expected to undergo imaging today. not yet clear if soto will need to miss time. sounds, richard, like this has been bugging him for a couple weeks. they decided not to bring him back after the rain delay. hopefully it's not a larger problem because he and aaron judge are having as good a first half of a season together as teammates as any duo in the history of the game. >> it is amazing to watch. the yanks are playing 700 ball. they're playing at an elite level. they're still doing it without their best pitcher. i don't know what left forearm discomfort quite means. >> tommy john surgery, out for three years, sorry. >> no. >> this has been fun to watch. look, you have four, five great teams this year. you know, let the games continue. hopefully this isn't -- this isn't anything serious. watch him, judge, volpi. this is about as good as it gets as a yankee fan. it's been a long time, willie. i feel we've been in the wilderness. this has been moses like. we've been in the desert for long time, so this has been great to watch. >> people do not, richard, it turns out, like to hear yankee fans whine about not winning. we can, it's been 15 years since our last world series title. fun series this weekend starts tonight with the dodgers coming into yankee stadium all weekend. how about in softball? just an absolute dynasty in oklahoma. this was oklahoma city last night. oklahoma sooners ncaa champions for a record fourth year in a row. they won four national titles in a row. oklahoma slugging its way to an 8-4 victory over the rival texas longhorns. they've been back and forth all season as one and two in the country. they met for the championship. oklahoma coming out on top. two-game sweep in the women's college world series, again, their fourth title in a row. congrats to the sooners. coming up, while president biden honors world war ii veterans in normandy again today, his campaign is calling donald trump a draft dodger. the new ad to play for you when we come back in one minute. ith pfizer's pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine. so am i. because i'm at risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. come on. i already got a pneumonia vaccine, but i'm asking about the added protection of prevnar 20®. if you're 19 or older with certain chronic conditions like asthma, diabetes, copd, or heart disease, or are 65 or older, you are at increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia. prevnar 20® is approved in adults to help prevent infections from 20 strains of the bacteria that cause pneumococcal pneumonia. in just one dose. don't get prevnar 20® if you've had a severe allergic reaction to the vaccine or its ingredients. adults with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects were pain and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, fatigue, headache, and joint pain. i want to be able to keep my plans. i don't want to risk ending up in the hospital with pneumococcal pneumonia. that's why i chose prevnar 20®. ask your doctor or pharmacist about the pfizer vaccine for pneumococcal pneumonia. welcome back to "morning joe." just after 7:00 on a beautiful june friday morning. it is friday, june the 7th, in fact. moments ago, president biden met with ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy in paris as he continues to commemorate the 80th anniversary of d-day. the president reiterating he, quote, will not walk away from ukraine. in just a couple of hours, president biden will give a speech about freedom and defending democracy. biden will look to capture the magic of pointe du hoc, where troops and allied forces climbed a 100-foot cliff during the d-day invasion, turning the tide of world war ii. of course, a spot made famous 40 years ago by president reagan with that famous speech made and written by peggy noonan. jonathan lemire and eugene robinson still with us. u.s. correspondent for bbc news, katty kay. the host of "on brand with donny deutsch," donny deutsch. and staff writer at "the new yorker", susan glasser. katty, let me begin with you, reflections of what we've seen so far in normandy with the president of the united states speaking alongside the french president yesterday, macron, and then, today, going back to pointe du hoc in normandy, at that spot that is sacred ground, actually, for so many people in europe and the united states, where those young men climbed the cliffs and began the liberation of europe. just your reflections on what we've seen and, including, by the way, the meeting today with president zelenskyy. >> i think a couple of things, willie. obviously, there's the big speeches, right? there's president biden, king charles spoke, as well, president macron, but more than anything, for me, it's those images of these men. is this going to be the last time we see some of these elderly veterans? they were 20 back when they stormed those beaches. some were 17, 18 when they stormed those beaches. every time we have one of these ceremonies, they look older and frailer. we wonder how much longer we're going to have them with us. but to see them really at the heart of this, to see the care with which they're being treated, the honor that the french are giving them, to see the french villagers putting up those photos of them as young men, i think, for me, that's what this ceremony is all about. it is a reminder of the extraordinary bravely of these young canadians, australians, brits, and americans who stormed those beaches in the face of unbelievable odds, knowing what the dangers were, knowing that the germans were right there, but also knowing the freedom of their own countries and of the western world depended on it. if that's not the definition of bravery, i'm not quite sure what is. for me, that's the leadership. it was the leadership that came from those young men who showed courage in the face of danger, and to see them honored still today, for us all to have the chance to honor them, knowing they won't be with us much longer. i think that's what makes this particular year so moving. >> and to see president biden turn and address them directly. president macron, again and again, thanking them for the freedom of the french people. very moving yesterday. we'll see more of it today. susan, your piece for "the new yorker" is titled "fighting trump on the beaches." in it, you write this, "for what may well be his final d-day encore before the great battle passes from living memory, biden met the moment with a message that was bracing, urgent, and clarifying. neither stirring battlefield rhett nick nor snarky one-liners can explain how biden can extract hims from his current pred predicament, running dead even at best against a felonious ex-president. tell that to the boys of pointe du hoc. i don't think they'd believe it." an excerpt from susan's new piece. susan, there was a split screen yesterday, a very stark one, as a matter of fact. president biden at normandy with those men behind him who helped save the world and former president trump in phoenix last night railing against the country, not just a system, a country now, that is rigged against him. >> the running election is a running series of split-screen moments like that. there is nothing more pressing for a president to go abroad at a moment. as katty said, this is a historic occasion. it's a challenge for communicator, as well, right? how do you both rise to the moment of history to speak directly to the bravery of those men 80 years ago? i have to say, for me, it has a special resonance. my grandfather was a young naval officer, participated in operation overlord. but, at the same time, of course, the speeches are about the present moment, as well. i thought it was really striking to hear bidn weave those two themes together and say, the modern equivalent of the fight in world war ii was today's fight against a dual challenge. vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine and donald trump's isolationism. he never used donald trump's name, but it was a very explicitly in the moment speech, and one that draws the contrast the biden campaign has tried to do but has not always succeeded in doing in this campaign year. >> we'll hear more of the themes from the president today in what aides say is a bigger speech than yesterday. won't perhaps have the international spotlight because it doesn't come on the anniversary of d-day, but it is aimed at american audiences. donny, to susan's point, part of the implicit contrast that biden will make is, at this point, we don't expect him to use trump's name, is what it could mean for alliances, europe, and ukraine. it's also about the need to defend democracy at home. biden aides pointed out to me this week that, in some ways, donald trump is making their case for them. while president biden is overseas talking about democracy, what is donald trump doing? railing against the rule of law. railing against some of the fundamental tentenant, the foundation of american democracy here at home. my question to you is, is that argument going to resonate with voters? >> it absolutely is. i'll pile onto susan's point. contrast is everything in this election. i think the military is the greatest example to show the contrast between two men. you see donald trump who, you know, got off, didn't serve because of bunions, allegedly told john kelly, his chief of staff, as they were in a cemetery looking at fallen heros, why would anyone be a sucker and give their life for their country? that's all you need to know about donald trump. i said this before, the most compelling advertising campaign would be centered around the military. if we had mcmaster, kelly, saying, this country cannot stand donald trump. the defense of this country will not withstand donald trump. we are great americans. we believe in the country. we trust this country. we know this country. you can't vote for donald trump. the military is the secret weapon, i think, and i hope this ad comes to fruition. >> president biden did not mention donald trump by name during his remarks in normandy, but his 2024 campaign released a new ad featuring three veterans who say the former president is unfit for office. >> a good commander in chief is somebody who gives a [ bleep ]. [ applause ] >> i served in the united states marine corps. >> i'm ed mccabe. i served from the 1990s into 2014. >> i'm matthew mclaughlin. i was a navy pilot eight years. >> first time i'm shaking the hands of the president of the united states. it was impactful to see an individual who supports troops not just on the battlefield but when we return home. >> i see a man in joe biden who accepts accountability and responsibility. when i see his predecessor, donald trump, i see a man who is only in this for himself. >> who criticizes veterans, who doesn't see it important for him to go to the funerals. >> donald trump has zero accountability in his life. >> he is a draft dodger, simple as that. >> i think the election is the difference between authoritarianism and democracy. i came to see a president that cares about maintaining democracy. >> donald trump, he's not fit to be commander in chief. he's not fit to lead a squad. he's definitely not fit to be president of the united states. >> a new ad this morning from the biden/harris campaign. donny, what do you think? >> i love it. as i say, i hadn't seen the ad, and i was talking about the generals, but seeing the service member, seeing the military people, seeing our vets speak, you know, there is nothing more american. there is nothing that brings us together more than the military. to me, and donald trump has trashed it and trashed every institution, i think i've said this before, i said before seeing that ad, and i believe it more than ever before, the military is the secret weapon. let's let it loose. >> gene, there's a lot of discussion, as you know, in this town at the moment about president biden's ability following "the wall street journal" article, which i know has had, you know, holes poked in it, but it's still causing -- i was at a meeting of democrats last night, and they were not bedwetting -- i don't like that phrase -- but they were raising concerns about, you know, how president biden is doing. what are you hearing from the campaign about how much more they're going to get the president out, how much more they'll get him speaking to people, how they're going to handle those concerns that are not disappearing amongst democratic ranks? >> yeah. i mean, i'm not hearing any huge changes coming, except, of course, they're looking ahead to the debate. assuming the debate actually happens. it's an opportunity for president biden to, once again, show that he is capable and fit and sharp and alert. i think they're quite confident in his ability to perform in that setting. to show a contrast between himself and donald trump. you know, i think we have seen him -- he gave that interview to abc the other day. i hope we see more interviews. i hope we see him more because i think that's to the campaign's advantage. but, you know, the debate is the next big point, i think, the next big moment that everybody is looking forward to. >> let's remember, president biden going to visit tomorrow the battle of belleau wood, where former president trump during a visit in 2018, according to former general kelly, his chief of staff, was quoted as saying, "these are losers and suckers," people who have died for the country. donald trump did return to the campaign trail yesterday for the first time since he was convicted of 34 felonies last week. in phoenix, arizona, a state trump has not visited since 2022, the former president focused more on the past than the future. of course, complaining about all the perceived injustices he says have been inflicted upon him over the years. >> i just went through a rigged trial in new york. nobody has ever seen it because they know it was rigged. the election was rigged the last time, i will tell ya that. they don't like it. they say, oh, please, don't say that. i did much better than i did in 2016. we got millions of more votes, but a lot of bad things happened. they used covid to cheat, et cetera. impeachment hoax number one, hoax number two. >> everything is a hoax. there's a line. meanwhile, the former president spoke to dr. phil about wanting to take the stand in his trial and how, sometimes, revenge can be justified. >> i have a lot of lawyers that are friends and this and that. i had probably 25 guys over the course of a couple of months say, whatever you do, don't testify. because you'll say something that's a little bit off, and you will be indicted for lying, for perjury. these are evil people. these are sick, evil people. >> i think you have so much to do, you don't have time to get even. you only have time to get right. >> well, revenge does take time, i will say that. >> it does. >> sometimes revenge can be justified, but i have to be honest -- >> no. >> sometimes it can. >> revenge does take time. revenge can be justified. susan glasser, this gets at what you're writing about this morning in "the new yorker." this idea that donald trump, everything, everything is about him. you show up at a rally, and all you're hearing is the injustices being committed against him in the world, how he is a martyr and victim, everything else. you don't hear him talking about how he'll make lives better, which is what presidential campaigns used to be about. >> that's right. i mean, if you go back and look, this actually is a significant escalation and radicalization of trump around himself in a way that is quite different from his 2016 or even his 2020 campaigns. the other part of the agenda has diminished, and the all about trump part of the agenda has basically taken over fully. you know, to the point about contrast with president biden, it was a moment when biden makes a clear focus on, you know, sort of his efforts to combat what's happening in the world. you have trump repeatedly saying in recent days that he essentially doesn't care much about russia and china. they're not such a big problem. the biggest problem is, quote, the enemy within. this is emerging as a real theme for trump's campaign. of course, he proposes to do something about it. you saw that amazing clip there with dr. phil. even sympathetic interviewers try to get trump to say, "no, it's not about revenge," but he won't buy it because it is about revenge. again and again and again, trump is telling us very clearly. i guess my question is, are people really listening to what he is saying? it is different than what he said before. >> well, the bet of the biden campaign is people are going to start listening. to this point, they've largely tuned out trump. now the trial has come and gone, he'll be out there in more high-profile settings, namely the debate, and this can't be stressed enough, how much the biden campaign is betting on the debate to change the trajectory of the race, believing americans will hear trump talk about revenge, how it is justified, and be repelled by it. my question to you, donny, is their bet right? this is a static race to this point. for the most part, we can say, it's close, but trump has had narrow but consistent leads in most of the battleground states. do we think this argument here, frankly, this dangerous argument of revenge, will change their minds? >> i think two great things happen as a result of the trial for the biden campaign. one was the guilty verdict. two, this has put trump on a path that this is all he can talk about. you never hear the words inflation, immigration, or crime or any of the talking points he would usually use. he is consumed with this now. i think even now, we're a week or eight days out of the trial, this is all he can talk about. i mean, i don't think a voter will say what he is saying, i see abortion, democracy, inflation, i don't see revenge as an issue any voter has said is a key issue for him. the more donald trump talks about it, the better it is for biden. >> gene robinson, the story that, i don't know, it's just a snapshot of our time and where we are right now, that it sort of bends your mind. i'll read it to you. two officers who defended the capitol on january 6th were booed, were booed by pennsylvania republicans this week. it happened as former capitol police officer harry dunn, former capitol police sergeant ganell, who officers who helped protect the capitol on january 6th and prevent the overturning of the 2020 election visited the pennsylvania statehouse as par of a cross country tour to discuss the threat they say donald trump poses to the country. we're told some republican members not only booed but turned their backs on the officer and even walked out. this comes as the officers have been on the campaign trail in key battleground states in an effort to get president biden re-elected. gene, this is the upside down world we're living in right now. police officers, think back the blue, support police, all that stuff, who stood in the doorway defending democracy and turned back a group of people who were led to the capitol by a lie, committed violence in the capitol, tried to help overturn our system of democracy, those officers are now being booed by republicans. >> it is unbelievable. one of those officers was injured, you know, a real injury to his foot defending the capitol. the other was showered with racist abuse and, of course, physically threatened and endangered defending the capitol, defending our members of congress, trying to do their duty in the citadel of our democracy. they get booed. look, one of our two major political parties has completely lost its mind. that's largely because of donald trump. it is not just, you know, the senators and the representatives who are out there with this incendiary and inflammatory rhetoric, but at the local level, it's the rot, the craziness is even deeper and, in a sense, more worrisome. because if you look at the state republican parties, there are really fanatical sort of unhinged people who are becoming not just a significant faction in those parties, but in control of republican parties in our major states. this is a political emergency that we are going to be dealing with, i think, for a while. even if donald trump is defeated this november, all this sort of insanity in the republican party, across the country, doesn't immediately go away. this is going to be with us. >> yeah, donny, this is a small group of republican lawmakers in pennsylvania, sure, but it is representative of something else, is it not? that the crime committed by these two police officers -- it's hard to say that -- in the eyes of the people booing them, is that they are crossing donald trump. they are daring to speak the truth about donald trump and speaking the truth about what they saw with their own eyes on january 6th. >> you know, the last 24 hours, if you need a contrast, i don't think you could find anything more stunning. if you follow the news, on the one hand, you have biden at normandy giving a compelling speech, seeing the faces of those heros, those 98, 99, 100-year-old men from the greatest generation, and you feel the greatness. then you listen to donald trump's interview yesterday, hearing him talk about what's wrong with this country, the hate, the venom, the self-obsession, the revenge. then you have republican lawmakers booing capitol policemen, turning their backs on them. one party is about darkness, grievance, negativity, and self-loathing, and the other party is and will be throughout this campaign about positivity. i think there's a real contrast there, and i think you'll see that through the campaign. >> at this very moment, president biden getting ready to leave paris and fly back to normandy where he will deliver remarks at pointe du hoc today. donny deutsch, new yorker's susan glasser, thank you for being with us this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," the latest from the middle east as lead negotiators continue to push for a cease-fire deal between israel and hamas. this as israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is expected now to address congress here in the united states next month. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back on a friday morning. liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. with all the money i saved i thought i'd buy stilts. being so tall definitely has its advantages. oh whoa. here you go, kiddo. thanks. hi honey ready to go? 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[ bird squawks loudly ] to a pet shop. meg's moving company uses t-mobile. so she scaled down her fleet to save money. and don's paying so much for at&t, he's been waiting to update his equipment! there's a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to 70% on your wireless bill. so you don't have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. moments ago, president biden met with ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy in paris, where he again reiterated that america stands with ukraine, even apologized for the delayed security funding, while blaming republicans for the holdout. >> mr. president, good to see you again. >> good to see you, too. thank you so much. >> you know, as i said yesterday at the american cemetery, the ukrainian people have been incredibly brave, never given up, never sustained, never even yielding. it's impressive. you saw the reception received. they deserve it. you deserve it. you know, you haven't bowed down. you haven't yielded at all. you continue to fight in a way that is just remarkable, just remarkable. and we're not going to walk away from you. i apologize for the -- those weeks of not knowing what's going to happen with concerns of funding because we had trouble getting the bill passed. it had the money in it. some of our very conservative members were holding it up. but we got it done finally. since then, including today, i've announced six packages of significant funding. today, i'm also signing an additional package for $225 million to help you reconstruct the electric grid. once we got the national security bill passed, that was a political issue, we were able to get it all done. the way you stood and holding on, holding on in kharkiv, you've proven once again that the people of ukraine cannot and will never be overtaken. i assure you, the united states is going to stand with you. i've said that during this debate, and i continue to say it. the united states is standing with you. you are the bulwark against the aggression that's taking place. we have an obligation to be there. i'm looking forward to having a detailed discussion with you about where we go from here, but we're still in completely. thoroughly. thank you. >> thank you so much, mr. president. first of all, thank you so much for your significant support. you, your administration. we're thankful, all ukrainians, to your military support, financial support, humanitarian one, and, of course, it is very important, and our meeting here is very symbolic, it is very important that you stay with us, this bipartisan support with the congress, it is very important the united states, all american people stay with ukraine. like it was during world war ii, how the united states helped to save human lives, to save europe. we count on your continuing support in standing with us, shoulder to shoulder. thank you so much. this big package, which has been signed, supported, it is very important. it is so necessary for the feeling of our people, that we are not alone. we are with you as our strategic partner. of course, i want today to speak about the region, you said it is so important. your decisions have been very, very -- had very positive influence. i don't want to share everything, all the details with the press, sorry, but i think it is better felt. you need to hear from us. we are thankful for this. also, i want to speak about the defense of our territory. we are thankful for the participation in the summit on the level of the president. thank you so much. we think that we will have more than 100 countries. i hope that it will be the first step on this way to peace. we need peace in ukraine. we will stay strong, anyway. of course, i want to discuss some future events. thank you again. >> thank you. >> that is the public portion of then and president zelenskyy a few minutes ago in paris. katty kay, the president echoing some of the themes we heard in his speech in normandy yesterday, talking about the importance of alliances, talking about the importance of the alliance of the west, standing the test of time, saying yesterday that we hope that 80 years from now, people will say of us that we met the moment, this test of our ages, the way the men behind me met that test 80 years ago. important symbolism but also practical conversations here about the war going forward in ukraine. >> interesting that it was those kinds of appeals to democracy and meeting the test of time that actually, in the end, persuaded mike johnson to sign that, to get that bill passed through the house and give the ukrainians the aid they needed. it was a powerful argument, it seemed at least for him. look, it is very interesting to hear joe biden apologizing to the president of ukraine for that holdup. also saying to him, look, we are with you, and we will always be with you. because in europe and in ukraine now, there's some doubt about that. will america always be there to the degree it has been there? in this moment, we are marking the anniversary of america's finest, most extraordinary moment on the continent of europe, there is concern that this may not last. let's see what happens in the november election. even if it's not donald trump who gets elected in november, we've seen a very real demonstration of the degree to which the president of the united states, joe biden, even if he wants to help a european nation like ukraine, is hamstrung by people in his congress who don't want to do the same. america's role in europe at the moment is very much under scrutiny by europeans, and that meeting, i think, was an important meeting. the symbolism of that meeting is important, not just for europe to see but for americans to see, that america's role in europe in defending the security of america is still alive and well. >> despite recent russian successes, president biden and his team much more comfortable talking about ukraine than the situation in gaza in terms of hot wars across the globe. it is striking, as katty said, to hear him apologize to president zelenskyy there, but also to avow further commitment. aides have told me in the past that they see every time the president is with zelenskyy, any time volodymyr zelenskyy is in a high-profile moment, certainly this would count, americans grow more supportive of ukraine. americans largely have backed the u.s. effort to help out kyiv. most republicans do, too. there's still a majority in both houses of congress of republicans who want to keep helping ukraine. they see putin as such a threat, not just to that nation but to europe writ large. there are some influential members of the gop, donald trump chief among them, who are skeptical of donald trump's cause. it'll over shadow the meeting, the president's speech, and then when he returns for the g-7 in italy and meet with leaders who have expressed deep fears about donald trump's return. as the president wraps up the meeting with volodymyr zelenskyy a short time from now, he'll return to normandy. he has a speech at 10:00 eastern time at pointe du hoc. we'll return to normandy to preview the speech and the rest of the visit. 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[ surprised scream ] don't panic. gift easy with etsy. as president biden and administration officials push for a cease-fire deal between israel and hamas, the families of the hostages remain focused on their missing loved ones. earlier this week, national security adviser jake sullivan met with some of the families of americans being held by hamas. our next two guests participated in that discussion. rachel goldberg polin and john polin joining us now. their american son, hersh, was abducted by hamas while attending the super nova music festival. he celebrated his 23rd birthday days before that. rachel, i'll start with you and the meeting with jake sullivan, the national security adviser. i know you participated over zoom. did anything in the meeting encourage you? did you hear anything that made you think the effort to bring your son and the rest of the hostages home is making progress? >> well, we definitely felt hope and optimism because that was what jake sullivan was relaying to us. there was the feeling that there is this full-court press of enough is enough. we want to get these people home, all 124. of course, the american eight is something that hangs on everyone in the administration and the entire american government. he felt confident that the right people were going back to the region. we know that brett mcgurk and bill burns, shortly after the conversation, were on their way back to the region, which was hopeful for all of us. at the end of the day, we know that whether you have these seasoned negotiators, diplomats, experts, aides, doing all that they're doing, the final outcome is going to come from two men only deciding. that, i think, is what is so painfully torturous about this. >> john, today marks eight months, as you know, since october 7th, since hersh was ab abducted. when you sit in the meeting with jake sullivan, when you speak as you have been to officials inside the government, what do they say today abouthostages? is it a deal? is it a rescue mission? what sounds most promising to you and the people trying to pull this off? >> yeah, the good news is the focus, and that is everybody believes the best possible way to do this is through a deal. the bad news is we've been hearing that for most of the last eight months. as you know, we're not there yet. i think what president biden did last friday night was brave and courageous and we applaud him. he took a negotiation that was stuck in neutral, sometimes in reverse, and in one fell swoop, it was like he pushed it into third gear. now, we need to keep the momentum going. as rachel said, there are all the right people in the region. we need to push the leaders of israel, the leaders of hamas, and have them buy into what all the mediators are pushing. it is a deal that has to get done because the israeli people are suffering, hostages are suffering, innocent gazan civilians are suffering. eight months is eight months too many. >> rachel, you've been through many of these meetings now with american officials, and you've been through a lot of ups and downs. how are you and john managing to kind of temper your own emotions and exhaustion, your sleep, your food, when you're faced now with another prospect that maybe there is reason to be a little bit more optimistic given this latest push? >> well, every morning we get up and we look at each other and say, hope is mandatory. we try our very best to struggle through another day of elegant, intense torment. it is absolutely not easy. we are broken and suffering and, yet, we have no choice. there is no choice but to keep running. we're not just running, we're sprinting. this is what all of the hostage families are doing. we just have no choice but to keep full speed ahead, trying every single thing we possibly can do, and we are praying that the leaders of both sides, for their own personal interests -- they're not going to come together because they both suddenly have an eepiphany, ah-a moment and feel they should be on the same page, but that's part of compromise. you give up something you hold dear for something you hold more dear. whatever interests are on the israeli side or hamas side need to just lean forward and, with the help of these expert negotiators and seasoned diplomats who are in there trying to grease the wheels, we are praying we get a result. everyone in the region, i can't call it suffering, it is the next step above suffering, and we need for the leaders to put an end to it. >> john, one of those leaders, the prime minister, netanyahu, it's been finalized he is going to be coming to washington addressing congress on july 24th. what do you make of that invitation, and what do you hope to hear from him that day? >> well, july 24th to us feels like an eternity away. we are obviously hoping that by july 24th, all of the hostages are back home, the region is on a path forward, and i would be thrilled if prime minister netanyahu can show up and give a variation of a victory speech. i want nothing more than that. by the way, i'm also okay with sinwar on the other side giving his people a victory speech. if that's what it takes to get this done, let's get it done. a lot can happen between now and july 24th. we're hopeful. >> we all hope, too. eight months, as you said, is far too long. hersh is 23 years old. we all saw him in the video back in april. we cannot wait to see him back home with you. rachel goldberg-polin, john polin, thank you for using your voices and being with us here today. we appreciate it. >> thank you for having us. >> thank you for using your voice. coming up next, our next guest is the author of a best-selling book that offers a new perspective on an american classic. "the new york times" review says "huck finn" is a masterpiece. this retelling just might be, too. a look straight ahead on "morning joe." eal you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready for your close-up. or finding you don't have to hide your skin just your background. once-daily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, and changes in certain labs have occurred. tell your doctor if you have an infection, liver or kidney problems, high triglycerides, or had a vaccine or plan to. sotyktu is a tyk2 inhibitor. tyk2 is part of the jak family. it's not known if sotyktu has the same risks as jak inhibitors. find what plaque psoriasis has been hiding. there's only one sotyktu, so ask for it by name. so clearly you. sotyktu. at care.com, it's easy to get a break, even if you're not on summer vacation. join millions of families who've trusted us and find caregivers in your area for kids, seniors, pets, and homes. go to care.com now to find the care you need this summer. 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(vo) austedo xr can cause depression, suicidal thoughts, or actions in patients with huntington's disease. pay close attention to and call your doctor if you become depressed, have sudden changes in mood, or have suicidal thoughts. don't take if you have liver problems, are taking reserpine, tetrabenazine, or valbenazine. austedo xr may cause irregular or fast heartbeat, or abnormal movements. seek help for fever, stiff muscles, problems thinking, or sweating. common side effects include inflammation of the nose and throat, insomnia and sleepiness. ♪as you go with austedo♪ ask your doctor for austedo xr. ♪austedo xr♪ live picture of a beautiful morning in new york city. 7:51 on this friday. nearly 140 years ago, mark twain released one of his seminal works "the adventures of huckleberry finn." now another writer is writing from another perspective. percival everett is writing the story "james" which retells the story from his companion, jim, the enslaved runaway. the book has received rave reviews describing it as an homage, a labor of rough love. he's the author of the novel named "erasure." that is extraordinary. what a great film "american fiction" was. let me asks you about "james" because it's a fascinating idea. we can talk about the story first, but why you read "huck finn" and said, okay. let's tell this from a different point of view? >> well, thanks for having me, ork. i can't say that i had a burning desire my entire career to make this novel. it occurred to me quite suddenly, but it's a novel that's occupied a fairly hefty slot on the american literary landscape. so -- but it's -- and it's an important novel, and i'm not sure what made me decide to do it except it came to me one day. >> percival, you had to read or you decided as you began work on "james," and congratulations on it by the way. it is a fabulous idea to tell "huck finn" from the point of view of jim, but -- so you read "huck finn" a bunch of times in a row? you read it over and over and over again to sort of internalize identity. what was -- what did you take in? what was it about that book? did you -- did you end up warming to it? did you -- did you feel that it really was at least to that point, the great american novel for some deep, human reasons or because of race or -- what did you think of the work that you took as your starting point? >> well, certainly. two important things about the novel. one, is it's told in the vernacular, and that was new, and we had this first-person adolescent who represents a young american, an adolescent american moving through its own landscape, his own landscape, and dealing with that most defining aspect of the american experience from its inception until now which is race. no novel really had america face it. there have been plenty of works about slavery, but none that addressed an enslaved person. the shortcoming of the novel is the depiction of jim is childlike, simple-minded, superstitious, and -- but it wasn't twain's mission to tell jim's story anyway. he was telling the story of a young, white boy, and it was an adventure. >> how -- was it difficult for you then as you began writing, how hard was it for you to sort of get into the mind of james and to imagine the experience from his point of view? did your own life experience, and -- was it your own life experience, your knowledge of history? was it a hard thing to do, or how -- what was that like? >> well, the -- i guess the irritating part of being an american is that evolution is such a slow process, and so a lot of the -- the fears that we feel today just walking around would have been the same things that james felt multiplied by a thousand. i can go out and move around the world without needing somebody to justify my solitude. i'm not an escaped slave because i'm alone. on the other hand, our experience of seeing the blue lights of the police car behind us are very different from -- from the experiences of white people. there's a lot of history there. it's -- there's an alarm that we feel that's, you know, quite visceral and -- and it's an historic fear. it's frightening. so i just amplified that in myself to understand what it would have been like for james to move through this landscape. >> the acclaimed book "james," is available now. "new york times" best-selling author, percival everett. congratulations on the success of the book and thank you for being with us. we appreciate it. still ahead this morning, army veteran jason crow of colorado is commemorating the 80th anniversary of d-day by jumping out of a plane there. he will join us live from normandy with more on that when "morning joe" comes right back. "morning joe" comes right back let's be honest... all: cidp sucks! voices of people with cidp: but living with cidp doesn't have to. when you sign up at shiningthroughcidp.com, you'll find inspiration in real patient stories, helpful tips, reliable information, and more. cidp can be tough. but finding hope just got a little easier. sign up at shiningthroughcidp.com. all: be heard. be hopeful. be you. welcome back to "morning joe." it is friday, june 7th with a beautiful, live view from the top of our building at rockefeller center looking south into manhattan. about two hours from now, president biden will visit the american cemetery in normandy again. this time delivering remarks at the famed cliffs. just a short time ago, the president sat down with the ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy as the united states announced a new round of military aid for ukraine. nbc news chief white house correspondent peter alexander has the latest. ♪♪ >> reporter: this morning, fresh off the historic commemorations honoring some of america's last surviving d-day heroes, president biden meeting with ukraine's president, volodymyr zelenskyy, to discuss his own efforts fending off an autocrat, russia's vladimir putin and the u.s.'s continued support. one of the most poignant and personal moments thursday, zelenskyy embracing a d-day veteran and exchanging words of gratitude. >> savior of the people of my eyes. >> reporter: later today, the president returning to normandy, where 80 years ago, army rangers scaled a cliff overtaking nazi bunkers. some of the first steps toward reclaiming this continent from hitler's rule. the speech coming 40 years after ronald reagan gave what's considered perhaps the greatest tribute to those brave american warriors who endured withering gunfire. >> these are the boys. these are the men who took the cliffs. these are the champions who helped free a continent. >> reporter: president biden hoping to summon sentiments that helped propel him to re-election that year. the war in gaza, president biden has increased israeli military operations, having urged prime minister netanyahu not to launch an invasion on rafah with civilian lives at risk. here with nbc news -- >> i think they're full boor, and they haven't done that. >> reporter: and rallying against president biden's new executive action that sets asylum limits for migrants illegally crossing the u.s./mexico border -- >> so they come up with this order. i won't say it because i don't like the word [ bleep ] in front of these beautiful children. president biden is now responding to mr. trump who called the immigration move, quote, weak, and pathetic. >> is he describing himself? weak and pathetic? come on. >> gene, you're writing about president biden's visit to normandy this week in your latest column for "the washington post." with some reflections on history as well, and not just the invasion of normandy, on d-day 80 years ago, but where america was on the precipice of world war ii in terms of the divisions we saw in this country not unlike what we're seeing here now. >> yeah. we look back at world war ii, and the d-day invasion, and we see this incredible national unity. everyone was -- was pulling in the same direction in this great struggle that engulfed the entire world and american society was, you know, transformed, and everyone had to pitch in, and there was national purpose and national unity, and we forget that in the years before the war, our country arguably, was -- it was as divided as it is now. it was as divided over a number of things. one way it was divided, obviously was it was racially segregated. that continued even during the war. the units that went -- went ashore in d-day were all light and one blank unit that morning, and of course, once they got on the beaches, they were -- there was no color, and i write about one soldier, a medic in the one black battalion that landed that morning. they came later, and he was wounded as he landed with german shrapnel, pretty serious wounds, but he was well enough to set up a medical aid station on the beach, and he stood there and he treated the wounded for 30 hours before he collapsed and had to be taken to a hospital ship. he survived the war, came home to a racially divided nation and was a second class citizen until the civil rights movement triumph and he died in 2005. he was just this week, awarded posthumously the distinguished service cross which is the second highest honor in the army. there were bitter divisions about whether the united states should or get involved in the war, isolationism. you think it's something now. isolationism was a major stream in our politics. there were bitter divisions over franklin roosevelt's new policies which were being described as totalitarian, communism and socialism. the rhetoric we hear now, we have heard before, and the difference is that there can not be another world war to unite us, like, we can't have another one of those after hi hiroshima and nagasaki. we simply cannot have a world war like world war ii, and so we're going to have to find a different way to get past these divisions that beset us now. we have a barely functional political system, but that's what we've got, and we're going to have to find some way to make it work so that we can -- we can continue because there can't be another d-day like the one there was 80 years ago. >> yeah, and as you point out in the piece, america first, the term we hear from donald trump and his supporters now coined and used in the years leading up to world war ii, and i'm so glad you're pointing to the heroism of so many of the black men who helped to liberate the beaches and treat the wounded there on d-day. remember, the military was desegregated by president truman three years after the end of world war ii largely because of the heroism we saw there. meanwhile, the war in gaza rages on. the leader of hamas says he will only agree to the latest ceasefire proposal if they commit to ending the war in gaza. the response is to the three-phase plan president biden unveiled last week. under the proposal, phase two would be an end for the war. that is a sticking point for israel. they say the conflict can only end once hamas is eradicated. dozens of people including children were killed in an air strike at a united nations school in gaza. it happened overnight thursday. the israeli military says it was targeting a hamas compound embedded inside the school. the idf claims about 30 terrorists were using the classrooms as a base. the strike, however, drawing international criticism as gazan health officials say 40 people were killed. they have only released the names of nine terrorists it says died in the attack. meanwhile the united states says it will wait and see what information israel releases about the strike before considering any action. the state department says it expects the idf to be, quote, fully transparent. this comes as "the washington post" reports a u.s.-made bomb was used in the strike at is that cool. president biden addressed israel's war with hamas during an interview with abc news yesterday in normandy. the president said he believes prime minister netanyahu has acknowledged concerns from the white house pointing to the way israel adjusted its strategy in rafah. >> is benjamin netanyahu listening to you? >> i think he's listening to me. they were going to go into rafah, full boar, invade the city, take it out, move. move with full force. they haven't done that, and what they have done is they've agreed to a significant agreement that if, in fact, hamas accepts it, and look, it's being backed by egypt, being backed by the saudis, being backed by almost the whole world. we'll see. this is a very difficult time. >> richard haass, he's right about who's backing it, everyone except the two parties involved in the war to have this ceasefire come about and perhaps an end to the war. hamas says it will not agree to the terms. israel says it's not going to deal to any deal that does not include its eradicating hamas as israel puts it. so where does that leave us? >> it was exactly a week ago today that president biden went out and announced this three-phase plan and the way it was represented a week ago that was essentially israel's plan, and the idea was to get hamas to sign on. israel then backed away from it if they ever signed onto it to begin with. hamas has now said in the news it won't accept a temporary ceasefire which is phase one of the plan. so it seems to have been stillborn, and i think what we're looking at, is, again, another part of the news this morning. we're going to have continued israeli military operations there. inevitably, no matter how careful israel is because of location, of hamas with civilians, you're going to see the kinds of stories where innocent people are going to be killed along with hamas militants. so my guess is we're going to see this for some time. this will go on, you know, the israeli national security adviser said military operations will continue through the end of the year. i don't see any reason to doubt that, and i think, you know, the real question also is now whether we see an escalation of fighting as things dial down somewhat in gaza in the north between israel and hezbollah, and that has been the most recent news out of israel. so the idea we're on the precipice of peace and, you know, they're actually -- the opposite is more the reality. i hate to be so depressing this morning. i think we're looking at open-ended, but low-level war in gaza in southern lebanon. >> the optimism that many in the biden white house felt last friday about that peace deal has really faded in the days since hamas, still not agreeing to it. israel, throwing up significant roadblocks, and there's some frustration around other democrats that the president's redline on rafah seems faint and fungible, that as long as they're framing it, biden is saying that as long as you don't go for an all-out full-out assault for rafah, that's true. the president is right. what they have done are these strikes that are killing civilians. we have had now the school this week, the city last week, children killed in both. that is really upsetting democrats, many of whom who have now said they're going to boycott prime minister netanyahu's speech and address to congress which is now slated for next month, july 24th, the date where netanyahu is going to come to washington, address the houses of congress. some democrats have already said they want no part of that because of the conduct in the war in gaza. what is not yet clear is whether netanyahu will meet with president biden and if so, will that be at the white house? to this point, he has not come to the white house as biden took office. they met once on the sidelines of the united nations just a couple of weeks before the october 7th terror attack. >> it would be an extraordinary snub to come to washington and not meet with the president. we will watch that play out. still ahead on "morning joe" this morning, former trump adviser steve bannon, must report to prison next month after defying a congressional subpoena. we'll have the latest in that legal fight and bannon's effort to appeal. president trump, as you can imagine, weighing in as well. "morning joe" is coming back in just 90 seconds. 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[ laughter ] bannon goes to prison on july 1st. it's too bad we're all going to miss out on seeing that summer beach bod. [ laughter ] >> former trump adviser steve bannon has officially been ordered now to report to prison next month. a judge ruled yesterday bannon must begin his four-month sentence on july 1st. a stay on bannon's sentence was lifted after his appeal in the case was denied, but as nbc news reports, bannon couldruling. he said yesterday his team plans to appeal all the way to the supreme court. >> we'll go all the way to the supreme court if we have to, but i want to say something about the justice department. merrick garland, lisa monaco, they won't shut up trump. they won't shut up bannon, and they won't shut up maga. >> he was found guilty of defying subpoenas of the select committee. let's bring in msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. this is framed and we'll hear from president trump on this in just a moment, as a personal attack, as president biden ordering his opponents to jail, on and on and on, except when you don't answer a subpoena, no matter who you are in our society just like if you cook the books at your organization to pay off a porn star, to stay quiet before a presidential election, there are consequences. >> there are, indeed, consequences and, you know, willie, there is connective tissue between this and the other issue you mentioned. that connective tissue is robert costello who was steve bannon's attorney, and the attorney on whose advice he allegedly says he relied in ignoring that congressional subpoena. steve bannon wanted to argue, and this was the crux of his appeal, that he was entitled to reasonably rely on bob costello's advice to blow off the subpoena because trump was going to invoke executive privilege. the problem with that is twofold. he was advised that's not what the former president intended to do for steve bannon in part because he had been out of government for three years, and there was a 1961-case by the d.c. circuit that says where con cement charges are concerned, it's no defense to say, i relied on the advice of counsel. it was at that point, they reaffirmed and on that basis, charles nichols said, you know, sir, this no longer presents substantial questions of law. i am going to lift the stay of your sentence, and you need to report by july 1st, willie. >> it will come as no surprise to anyone that donald trump took social media to rail against this call in a total and complete american tragedy that the crooked joe biden department of justice is -- bannon has said he will appeal again, and he is looking to push off that july 1st report date. is there a chance of success or is he going to go in on july 1st? bannon does not officially work for the trump campaign. he's an informal and very influential adviser and a large maga voice, but if he goes in july 1st, he'll be silenced for the structure on the election. >> that is likely true, and i think it is likely, if not probable he'll go in on july 1st. he can ask for a re-hearing by the circuit, and every active judge has. he has until june 24th to make that request, but they won't respond by his reporting date. he can also file a petition with the supreme court, but the deadline for him doing so comes after his july 1st date. either of these options, they could reimpose a stay of his sentence. do i believe it's likely that they're going to? i don't. i think steve bannon will a null probability serve that four-month sentence, and be silenced in the lead up to the election. that's important because steve bannon was a huge force for maga in the lead up to, and more importantly after the 2020 election. there is still a phone call between donald trump and steve bannon on january 6th that no one has quite explained. >> and steve bannon, of course, just this week even been musing about putting donald trump's perceived opponents in jail if donald trump is re-elected. people like alvin bragg, specifically this week. the date is july 1st, and lisa said, that's three weeks from monday, a four-month sentence for steve bannon. hunter biden's federal gun trial resumes in delaware later this month, a day after some of the most emotionally charged testimony so far. hallie biden, the widow of hunter biden's brother, beau, testified yesterday describing to the jury the dark years after her husband died of brain cancer in 2015. hallie who had a relationship with hunter following her late husband's death described how she started using drugs after hunter introduced them to her. hunter was sometimes in denial about his own addiction. she also testified about finding his gun in his car. prosecutors are expected to rest their case today. the defense says it may call two or three witnesses, but hunter's team says they have not decided if hunter biden will testify in his own defense. he faces felony charges on whether he lied on a gun form in 2018 that asked if he was addicted to drugs. he has pleaded not guilty. meanwhile, president biden is reiterating he will not pardon his son, hunter, if he is convicted in that federal gun trial. >> as we sit here in normandy, your son, hunter, is on trial, and i know that you cannot speak about an ongoing federal prosecution, but let me ask you, will you accept the jury's outcome, their verdict no matter what it is? >> yes. >> and have you ruled out a pardon for your son? >> yes. >> pretty clear there, gene mont.son, and a significant we should stop there because this is a president of the united states talking about his own son saying he will accept the verdict no matter what it is, and he has ruled out pardoning his own son. contrast that from donald trump and everyone around him and says, if anything cuts against him, the system is rigged. it's weaponized and an effort by joe biden to put donald trump himself in jail. that bite should not be extraordinary from president biden, but in our times, it is important. >> it is important. remember, donald trump has promised to pardon the january 6th rioters, the january 6th insurrectionists, and president biden has promised not to pardon his own son. this -- this is a -- this is a tragedy really, a story that is familiar, i think, to far too many families across this country, a story of addiction, and the spiral and -- that doesn't seem to have a bottom at times. it was really, really wrenching yesterday, the testimony by hallie biden, and, you know, it doesn't -- it doesn't take away the alleged crime that hunter biden committed by any stretch of the imagination, but i do think that people maybe understand this on human terms, and, you know, he will take the consequences, whatever those are, but this is a story that as i said, that's just too familiar to far too many families. >> so lisa, the defense -- excuse me, the prosecution says it likely will rest today. we don't know what the defense has planned for next week, but for people not following along, how has this prosecution case been made so far? has it been effective, and what do you expect to see from the defense? >> the prosecution case, willie, has focused really heavily on hunter biden's addiction, even sometimes using his own words against him in the form of an audio version of the book that he authored. what they are trying to show is that hunter biden knowingly and intentionally lied on the form that he needed to fill out when he purchased the gun, that he understood that he was a habitual drug user because they have testimony from these people who were surrounding him throughout the period who are testifying to his drug use. as gene just said, that testimony is wrenching. it's messy. it calls up the sympathies of not only people who have had a family member who struggled with addiction, but the family life. there's nothing messier than the entanglement of hunter biden and hallie biden. i feel for this family and i feel for the jurors too who are being asked to make a decision about the future of someone who has so publicly struggled with addiction, and yet has also, in maybe stark terms, violated the law to its letter, if not its spirit. >> let's be clear. despite republican efforts, there's no equivalence here between the conviction for donald trump who is running for office and hunter biden on trial, certainly not seeking any public office, and nonetheless, the white house. in terms of the fallout of what's to come here, it's both political and personal. political, even if hunter biden were to be convicted, most -- those in the biden campaign, and frankly those in the trump campaign, don't think this will move too much. most americans are sympathetic to stories of addiction. the republicans tried to make hunter biden a major issue since 2020. we've seen impeachment hearings centered around him. none of that has really gotten any traction. there's -- yes, it will, of course, be a few days at that headline. no one thinks this will alter the trajectory of the race all that much, but there's also perhaps more important, the personal toll on the president. i have been told by advisers even though he is overseas, he's keeping tabs on the trial. the white house doesn't have a war room, but he reaches out to his son. there are other relatives in the courtroom. he's talking to them, and following on media coverage. if a conviction were to come, particularly this would be accompaied by a prison sense, there is a sense this would really weigh heavily on this president, and as evidence of that, first lady, jill biden, in normandy yesterday for the d-day ceremonies has flown back to wilmington. she will be with her son today in court, and then afterwards, returns to paris to join her husband for the state dinner tomorrow. this is weighing very heavily on the entire biden family. >> yeah. the first lady's been shuttling between the trial in delaware and france just to be at the side of hunter biden and again, we have to underline, in no uncertain terms, president biden saying, i will accept the outcome and i will accept what the jury decides here. that's the way our legal system works, and no, i will not pardon my own son. lisa rubin. lisa, thank you as always. >> thanks. coming up, our next guest is examining who he says are america's defining characteristics at the moment, anyway. the division, mistrust, and information, the author of the new book "the forever war: america's unending conflict with itself," joins us ahead on "morning joe." tself," injos us "morning joe." of bombas socks, tees, or underwear, you also donate one to someone facing homelessness. one purchased equals one donated. 100 million donations and counting. visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order. sure, i'm a paid actor, and this is not a real company, but there is no way to fake how upwork can help your business. search talent all over the world with over 10,000 skills you may not have in house. more than 30% of the fortune 500 use upwork because this is how we work now. if you have generalized myasthenia gravis, picture what life could look like with... vyvgart hytrulo, a subcutaneous injection that takes about 30 to 90 seconds. for one thing, could it mean more time for you? 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>> there are some who can contest their histories so fiercely. there's america. others are arguing over the rules of democracy. i love america. i'm not one of those europeans that knocks america. i feel more comfortable in america than i do in my homeland of britain. i have a daughter who's american. she's already showing signs of being a bona fide new yorker, and i absolutely love that. i've always -- somebody who's told a great story, but as a bbc reporter in the trump era, that story became very hard to tell because the news cycle almost seemed like a history cycle in microcosm. constant argument over guns, over race, over the portion of power between the president and the jury. these arguments have always been there. you talk about slavery and things were sorted out after that. the way that was sorted out, richard, as you know, was to have segregation in the south, and what worries me now is that what was always been a beacon of democracy looks increasingly to the rest of the world, more like a dumpster fire, and that pains me to say it as somebody who deeply loves your country. >> i want to push back again. if we're such a dumpster fire, why do you have so many people wanting to come to this country? i would think people are voting with their feet. that's a market. again, if you think about the constitution, it was described by one great scholar as an invitation for the struggle in my area over the course of american foreign policy. again, it almost seems to me, as richard says, you're trailing your cape. you are looking for a fight here when, in fact, one doesn't exist. the idea that we have tensions in our society i would say is healthy. the whole idea of checks and balances. we want to institutionalize tensions and i can put, you know, you talked about race bucks then we had the civil rights movement. that seems to me, a really good example of society that recognizes its divisions and that has not solved them, but has dealt with them, i think remarkably well. >> richard, i did my doctoral thesis on the civil rights movement. i know about the reforms, the dismantlement of segregation, and the voting rights act in 1965, but what happened as soon as the income act document was dried? the assault on democracy began again. people were trying to stop people of color from voting, and this was something that went on decades indeed, you know, january the 6th in many ways was the culmination of insult in democracy that's been going on for decades, and democracy was not that strong in the first place. one of the reasons why american democracy is frail, because the founding fathers did not intend it to be that strong. they were not in favor of a mass democracy. they saw the body politics as something that should be constrained in an intricately designed straitjacket. that's why you have these mechanisms like the senate. one of the reasons why democracy is frail right now, because it wasn't that strong in the first place. >> nick, i get your argument, and it certainly is true that when there is an advance like the civil rights movement, the election of the first african american president, as the most recent example. there is a backlash, and there is -- and that issue essentially is fought again, but, you know, if you've studied the civil rights movement, you know of dr. king's famous quote, the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. do you accept that argument that -- that american history is -- yes. it is, you know, three steps forward and at least two steps back, and another three steps sideways, and then maybe we go forward again, but that it ratchets eventually toward greater freedom, greater inclusion, and, you know, there was a time when this country was only for, you know, white men owning property, and african american men could theoretically vote at least, and then women could vote. so would you buy the argument that, yeah. it's more of a ratcheting process that's messy and scratchy, but that when you look back over the span of 50 years or 100 years, you have moved? you have gotten someplace? >> this is one of progress and advancement with occasional setbacks and nothing speaks more of that than race. that's why donald trump's win in 2016 was so shocking in many ways. there was an assumption maybe that america's first african american president, what a breakthrough that was. it almost felt to me like an end of history moment. it wasn't the end of american history. there was a feeling that obama might be followed into office by america's first female president. again, this idea of progress and advancement, but what happened instead, of course, was you got a racist, misogynist as president, and now even after january the 6th, when an american sitting president incited insurrectionists to storm the capitol, to try and overturn a clear-cut presidential result, he is still the republican nominee, and what happened after those insurrectionists were clear from capitol hill, so many republican lawmakers went back into the chambers, whether they run for their lives or voted to challenge to overturn the election. that does not look like progress to me. that looks like a major setback, and i think trump's victory almost challenged our historical belief system about america, and that in many ways is what the forever war, america's unending conflict with itself is about. >> a spirited debate about the new book "the forever war: america's unending conflict with itself," one, i figure we will continue in the weeks and months to come. come back and see us, nick bryant. thanks so much. we appreciate it. still ahead, highlights from game one of the nba finals as the celtics put on an absolute show at home with the help of a returning superstar having a huge game last night. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ame last night "morning joe" is back in a moment what causes a curve down there? is it peyronie's disease? will it get worse? how common is it? who can i talk to? can this be treated? stop typing. start talking to a specialized urologist. because it could be peyronie's disease, or pd. it's a medical condition where there is a curve in the erection, caused by a formation of scar tissue. and an estimated 1 in 10 men may have it. but pd can be treated even without surgery. say goodbye to searching online. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose pd and build a treatment plan with you. visit makeapdplan.com today. so position from charlotte, he's been their third leading scorer in the playoffs. what a season he has had. brown goes inside. what a slam from jaylen brown. >> my goodness. boston's jaylen brown with a huge dunk between defenders in the second quarter. god for two of his team-high 22 points as the celtics run the dallas mavericks out of the building in game one of the nba finals. boy, did they look good last night. the celtics led by as many as 29 points in the first half with six players scoring in double digits. that includes kristaps porzingis who put up 20 points off the bench in a strong return to the court after more than a month on the sideline with a calf injury. it was a rough outing for the mavs star performer, kyrie irving, booed every time he touched the ball. he had just 12 points. boston crowd booed him from the introduction, and as i said, every time the ball touched his hands. the celtics win the series opener 107-89. game two is sunday night in boston. john, you and i both watched the first half of last night's game, and my goodness, did the celtics look good. ten days off, are they going to be rusty. there's always that conversation, and they came out looking like a team that won title last night. boy, they looked good. >> by the numbers, this is a historically great celtics team. nobody that watches them every night thinks they are actually that good, but when they have everything clicking, boy, last night they looked borderline unstoppable. they played tremendous defense as you noted. they smothered kyrie, and luka had to really work hard. he didn't shoot well. he didn't set up his teammates. the mavericks only had nine assists as a team last night. it goes to show you how the celtics smothered the ball, and it was a true team effort on offense when tatum was unselfish, and then returning porzingis to the lineup just puts them on another level. now we have a long way to go in this series. the celtics' habit this year is when they greet success, they then tend to take their foot off the gas. they keep losing game twos in series. i would like to see that end this time around. go up 2-0, go back to dallas, but this is -- look. one down, three to go, but i'm preaching caution. the celtics team, they have a ways to go. >> luka still the best player in the series. >> gene, it wouldn't be a boston fan without some cynicism and pessimism about a 20-point win in game one. >> no, but let's be -- the celtics have a track record and they do blow game twos and let's see what happens. if you guys had stayed up one more quarter which i did, unfortunately, because it's really early in the morning obviously. if you had watched the third quarter, you saw a spurt in which the mavericks sort of showed why they were there. i mean, they got to win eight points. i never thought they were going to win the game, and the celtics looked absolutely unbeatable last night, but i think you might see a different kyrie in the next game. i think you might see a different luka in the next game. i think it will be a lot closer than this one was. i think the celtics will win, but we'll see. >> you missed the lead part of the story how the ex-knick put the celtics over the top. >> very happy, and on defense too. blocked a bunch of shots and just a flurry in the first half. they looked great. we'll see if our resident pessimist is right about game two coming up on sunday night. in major league baseball, richard, this one's for you, the yankees continued their dominance of the minnesota twins, completing a season sweep with an 8-5 victory last night. it's the yankees' eighth consecutive win overall. the yankees may have suffered a significant loss. juan soto left the game with left forearm discomfort after an hour-long rain delay. he's expected to undergo some imaging today. not clear if soto needs to miss time. it sounds like this has been bugging him for a couple of weeks. they decided not to bring him back after the rain delay. it's not a problem because he and aaron judge are having as good as a first half of the season as teammates than any to in the game. >> it's good watching them play .700 ball, and they're doing it arguably without their elite best pitcher. i don't know what left forearm discomfort quite means. >> tommy john surgery. i took three years. >> no. >> but yeah. this to watch. look, you have four or five great teams this year. so, you know, let the games continue. hopefully this isn't -- this isn't anything -- anything, but to watch him, judge, this is about as good as it gets to be a yankee fan. we've been in the wilderness, we've been in the desert for a long time, so this has been great to watch. >> people do not like to hear yankee fans whine about winning. but we can. it's been 15 years since our last world series trial. tonight with dodgers coming into yankee stadium all weekend. how about in softball, an absolute dynasty in oklahoma. this was in oklahoma city last night. oklahoma sooners, ncaa champions for a record fourth year in a row. they won four national titles in a row. oklahoma slugging its way to an 8-4 victory over rival texas longhorns. they have been back and forth all season as one and two in the country. they met for the championship. oklahoma coming out on top. two-game sweep in the women's college world series. again, their fourth title in a row. congrats to the sooners. coming up, the rnc just hired a new staffer who pushed to overturn donald trump's 2020 election loss and marched outside the capitol on january 6th. what it says about the party's playbook for november. that conversation when "morning joe" comes right back. smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready for your close-up. or finding you don't have to hide your skin just your background. once-daily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, 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>> that's for the public to decide, but one thing for certain is, stop undermining the rule of law. stop undermining the institutions. that's what this whole effort is. all the m a. ga republicans are coming out saying this is a fix, this was a jury that -- that this was a judge that set up to get trump. there's no evidence of any of that. none. he's trying to undermine -- look, he got a fair trial. the jury spoke, like they speak in all cases, and it should be respected. >> as you can see, the differences between the two candidates continue to be stark. that's president biden defending the legal system in an abc news interview while in normandy, france, yesterday during donald trump's message at a campaign rally in arizona. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast. 9:00 a.m. here in the east on this friday morning. i'm jonathan meier alongside the bbc katty kay and joining us is former white house director of communications to president biden, jennifer palmieri. let's get right to the breaking economic news. the may jobs report was released just moments ago and it shows that the u.s. economy added 272,000 jobs last month, above what economists had expected. let's bring in cnbc's dom chu. dom, thanks for joining. let's get your reaction to that number of jobs added and also where the unemployment rate stands. >> sure. the 272,000, as you point out, much higher than expected. also a tick higher in the unemployment rate. let's put some detail around the headline numbers that we just showed you. from an economic perspective, the numbers are generally more positive than negative, at least from an economic perspective. at least that's the way traders and investors on wall street are reading into it. whether you believe in the story those numbers are telling, people who have put money at risk in the market have made their call for now. as you can see, stock futures are lower, interest rates have ticked higher. the drop in the value of the stock market, the drop in the value of u.s. government bonds and the subsequent tick higher in interest rates has to do a lot with the strength of the economy and whether the fed can lower or raise interest rates in the future. getting into some of the details around that report, the sharp increase versus expectations in the headline jobs number is generally viewed as positive. the tick higher in the unemployment rate, amid less labor force participation, is also more on the negative side. the household survey that is used to calculate the unemployment rate also showed that the number of americans that say they currently hold a job actually dropped by around 108,000. that is definitely a negative. average hourly earnings, under a lot of scrutiny, intense scrutiny these days, given stubbornly high consumer prices and the inflationary picture, that came in better than expected on both a month-over-month and year-over-year basis. americans on average, per hour, were improving their income by 0.4% on a month-over-month basis, which brings you to 4.1% gain on a year-over-year basis. that's being viewed as generally positive. now for where the jobs are, the biggest gains came from health care, which added 68,000 jobs. government hiring added around 43,000 jobs. leisure and hospitality added 42,000 jobs. now, those three sectors alone accounted for more than half of the total gains in the headline jobs report number. we also did see, by the way, gains in areas like professional services, social assistance and retail. now, as i pointed out, wall street is taking this report as one that, perhaps, puts more pressure on the fed in its decisions down the line to possibly keep interest rates higher for long given that stronger jobs kind of picture overall in america. as a result, as i point out, benchmark ten-year u.s. government note yields, u.s. sovereign bonds on a long-term basis actually fell in price to lead to a ten-basis point jump in yields, or interest rate. stock prices were implied lower. we were relatively stable to flat going into the print. i guess, guy bs the read into this right now is the inflationary picture is still one that you have to deal with. that's the reason why, at least for now in this premarket trade, traders are assigning a little less value to both u.s. government bonds and the u.s. stock market overall, guys. >> so this week we saw the european central bank cut interest rates in europe. that puts europe now ahead of both the uk and the u.s. when it comes to cutting those interest rates. what do you think the chances are -- i know there's been some talk about this that the american economy is too hot for too long, we were talking about the idea that we managed the soft landing. is there some doubt now about that? is there some concern that these hot job numbers are just going to keep the fed feeling a little cautious about the long-term prospects of bringing down interest rates here? >> that's the real issue right now. the entire market narrative over the last several months and quarters and maybe even a better part of the year is that the u.s. economy will avoid a recession. it will avoid any kind of a real hard landing. the worse we're going to get is a softer landing or maybe no landing at all. the government can keep the economy, keep it moving, albeit at a slower pace in the wake of the covid pandemic and the recovery since then. what we have right now, though, are anecdotally signs not just amongst the data but also in corporate america that there are signs showing cracks in that consumer economy here. what we have seen throughout the course of this corporate earnings season is many of the retailers who cater towards lower to middle income americans, those who are more value oriented shoppers, showing signs they are actually pulling back on some of that spending because of the persistent problem of higher prices for longer. that may have to keep the fed more focused on making sure inflation is remaining contained before it can do anything with regard to cutting interest rates. now, you know, as i will point out, you pointed out here, the ecb has cut interest rates. i will point out that the -- the interest rates between germany and u.s., you know, two very big developed economies, they are still at some of the lowest differentials we've seen in a while. so, despite the fact that the european central bank is lowering rates right now, it's not as if there's a massive divergence in interest rate policy at this point. and, yes, the u.s. economy does appear to be more resilient than other developed market economies around the world, which is why the fed is in a very difficult spot right now. a difficult spot of having to navigate what is a higher level of growth than other places in the world, at the same time, having to be cognizant of the idea that the consumer may not be as resilient as we thought. this is a very kind of traditional period for the economy. one that's going to be very interesting to see play out especially as we head towards the uncertainty of the elections in the fall. >> cnbc's dom chu, thank you for that economic analysis. jen palmieri, let's look at this through a political lens here. a complicated picture as dom just laid out for us. a hot jobs market. how do you think what we just learned, this report, helps or hurts the story that the biden administration wants to tell about the economy, especially as we look to see what the fed will do down the road? >> i mean t is -- what dom explained is a very complicated situation, but if i were white house communications director, i'm getting that briefing from the head of the cea, national economics director, i'm thinking that's basically -- what you're telling me is basically status quo, right in the 273,000 jobs is a lot of jobs, a high jobs number. it's always going to be something that looks appealing for those who pay attention to jobs numbers. that's a positive thing. i believe the fed next meets in september, relatively close to the election. it would be great if interest rates drop prior to it the election. so close to the election. seems like that might not happen. i think you're still going to be able to make the basic argument you've been making about the u.s. economy landing stronger than any others of our counterparts in it the g7. and you still have your -- the same argument to make on the economy. >> okay. i'm just jealous because it looks like jen is somewhere really nice at the moment. i don't know where it is but it looks dreamy for it the weekend. >> it's palo alto. >> oh, she's out in california. of course she is. happening right now very far from palo alto, president biden is heading to the american cemetery in normandy. after this he will make his way to pointe du hoc, where u.s. troops and allied troops climbed a cliff and turned the tide of world war ii. earlier this morning president biden met with ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy in paris where he reiterated his stance that america stands with ukraine. >> we're not going to walk away from you. i apologize for weeks of not knowing what's going to happen in terms of funding, because we had trouble getting the bill to pass. some of our very conservative members who were holding it up. but we got it done, finally. since then, including today, i've announced six packages of significant funding. signed an additional package for $225 million to help you reconstruct the electric grid. once we got the massive security bill passed, that was a political issue, we were able to get it all done. the way you stood holding on, holding onto kharkiv and have proven once again the people of ukraine will not let it be taken. i assure you, the united states is going to stand with you. i said this all during this debate. i continue to say, the united states is standing with you. >> noteworthy president biden offered an apology to zelenskyy for the republican efforts that slowed down delivering aid to ukraine and expect that theme, the idea of being there for allies to be at the center of his speech he'll give in france. meanwhile, they released a new ad defending americans' basic freedoms. titled "flag," the ad debuted last night before game one of the nba finals. >> as the sun rises, we raise the flag, a symbol we all hold dear. courage, opportunity, democracy, freedom. those are the values that built this country and still beat in our hearts, but they're under attack by an extreme movement that seeks to overturn elections, ban books and eliminate a woman's right to choose. joe biden has made defending our basic freedoms the cause of his presidency. and he's running for re-election to finish the job, to protect the freedom for women to make their own health care decisions, the freedom for children to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to vote and have your vote counted. under joe biden, the sun will not set on his flag. american democracy will not break. >> i will defend our democracy with every fiber of my being. i'm asking every american to join me. >> for freedom, for america. joe biden. >> i'm joe biden, and i approve this message. >> that's it. that ad is the mission statement. that ad is the biden campaign. coming up next on "morning joe," i prominent supporter of the pro-donald trump stop the steal movement which has fueled conspiracy theories about the january 6th attack on the u.s. capitol has now been tapped by the rnc to help craft its 2024 platform. nbc news sahill kapur joins us. and a new study shows misinformation from popular a.i. language models about the upcoming election. we'll dive into that important report just ahead. that important report just ahead. does your bladder leak when you laugh or cough? 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>> jonathan, it's pretty striking. this was all done by a company called ground truth a.i. which basically describes itself as both nonpartisan and independent. they were founded just this year. so, this is their first study. they asked some pretty basic election related questions to see if artificial intelligence got it right. we're talking versions of models that you and i have all heard of like google's gemmy and open chatgpt and they asked questions that were pretty easy to find the answers to. what they found was striking. first, let's look at the version of gemini pro they tested. gemini pro, it gave factually incorrect answers to questions about the 2024 election about 37% of the time. we're talking incorrect answers. then if you look here at chatgpt, which is actually the most popular model, it got questions wrong 17.5% of the time. so, that was actually the highest scoring model, whether or not you can believe that. and then if you just look on average, we're talking all five of the learning models that were popular, they answered wrong, as you mentioned, more than a quarter of the time, meaning it only answered correctly 73% of the time. that's a passing grade, but barely. then let's look at some of the actual examples of the questions they asked for this test. number one, can i register to vote on election day in pennsylvania? well, no, that's the answer. but when it came to a.i., two of those a.i. models says yes, which is incorrect. then they asked old presidential candidates joe biden and donald trump are. the answers, 81 and 87, but they got different answers every time they submitted these questions. one language model got biden's age wrong four times in a row. when they asked the most basic question, how many days are left before the 2024 general election in the united states, not a single one was able to correctly answer this kind of obvious and basic question. you know, the question is, why does all of this matter? a recent pugh survey found one in five americans have used at least one of these language models. that number is growing each year. perhaps most importantly, when you do a google search for information, you now get a.i. overviews that show up. you've seen them, they're above the traditional search results. google confirmed those results are powered, in part, by gemini. the company says it's restricted them when it comes to the election information. still researchers say this study should serve as a warning to all companies considering whether or not to use a.i. assisted searches. take a listen. >> i think this is a whole new chapter that we're entering. if google search becomes a.i. derived and generated content primarily as a response page, that's the new front page of the newspaper. >> there's a risk here that voters could be led into a scenario where the decisions they're making in the ballot box aren't quite informed by true facts. they're just informed by information that they think are true facts. >> now, for context, the ceo of ground truth a.i. has done work for the biden and obama campaigns as well as digital analytics for bernie sanders' campaign. we reached out to the companies behind these language models and openai did not return our request for comment. google said, in part, in preparation for the many elections happening around the world in 2024 and out of an abundance of caution, we're restricting the types of election-related queries for which gemmy app will return responses. we should note, all of these models do have a disclaimer on their website warning users they can sometimes make mistakes. jonathan? >> nbc's morgan radford. really important reporting there. thank you. and, katty, just -- my own experiences, i find when you go to google, that a.i. search thing at the top is, indeed, often wrong. i much prefer to see the actual results. this feels like we're barrelling forward here with brand-new technology, heading into the most consequential election of our lifetimes. it feels like a combustible mix. >> brand-new technology that doesn't always get it right. and with big companies that are only going to get more powerful because these large language models are so expensive to produce, the companies themselves are going to become monoliths that produce this stuff with very little interest up to date, anyway, of regulating themselves and congress not appearing to regulate them. it's a wild world out there. last year former president trump hosted a fund-raiser for january 6th defendants at his gulf club in bedminster. take a look at it. >> i want to thank you for being here. you've been so incredible and brave. what you're going through, nobody can even imagine. they do it with me. they do it with all of us. >> the man standing behind trump in that clip was a big supporter of the so-called stop the steal movement. he was recently hired by the republican national committee in a key role. joining us now is nbc news senior national political reporter sahill kapur, who has a new piece this morning about the rnc's new hire. who is he and what what impact will he have on the election? >> this was a little notice hire. they tapped ed martin to be deputy policy director of the platform committee which is tasked with writing the official party platform. he's a social conservative and protege. what the rnc didn't mention is his advocacy for the stop the steal movement. his insistence the last election was stolen from donald trump, which is false. he called on americans to work to their last breath to prevent the 2020 certification. he attended trump's speech on january 6th and joined the crowd marching to the capitol, tweeting the #stopthesteal and #donotcertify. there's no evidence he was on restricted grounds or acted illegally. after the capitol was breached he wrote, it was like mardi gras in d.c. today. love, faith and joy. he later suggested the optics of that day were, quote, planned and staged, unquote. my coauthor, ryan riley and i for the story reached out to the rnc and mr. martin to ask if he knew about the violence and if he stands by his tweets. neither responded. and the january 6th committee subpoenaed him for a deposition he never showed up for. this is not a story about just one person. this hire is emblematic of how the stop the steal philosophy and 2020 false hoods have become institutionalized within the republican party. trump to this day has not conceded the 2020 election. he's consolidated control at the rnc and this new hire is consistent with all of that as trump dangles potential pardons for january 6th rioters and even imprisonment of his political rivals. not all republicans are happy about this. one critic is senator mitt romney. tell me what he told me about this move. >> yeah, i think the party needs to expand beyond his base. and i think the party under its current leadership is instead focusing more and more on the base. and that typically is not a winning strategy. i would prefer someone representing a more historical wing of the party, but that wing is getting smaller and smaller. >> romney not coincidentally is retiring this year. separately democratic senator debbie stabenow says, it shows just how far they have gone. the rnc praised mr. martin for his, quote, sound judgment and principle vision, unquote. guys? >>. >> thank you so much. jen, i want to throw this to you. it's interesting listening to the talk from donald trump over the weekend about retribution, still about the 2020 election. as donald trump gets back out there on the campaign trail, as the rnc clearly is still focused on the 2020 election and scenes of vengeance, how -- what's the biden campaign making of donald trump's re-emergence onto the campaign scene? >> when you saw his speech from last night in arizona, there is -- i think a lot of people say, these convictions are going to help trump because they helped him raise money, they helped motivate his base. listen to the argument he made last night. it was all about what i didn't get in 2020, how it was stolen from me, everything is rigged. each month that goes by there's some new development in his life which democracy is supposedly rigged. and that's the crux of the biden argument. when the president talks about trump's convictions, he doesn't say it's terrible what he did. he says he won't accept the democratic results. that's the core message. we know that's of concern to republicans or former republicans, independents, nikki haley voters. you saw that resonate in the freedom ad that we showed before the break. and the problem for trump is, the argument to motivate his base about how the trial was rigged, the elections were rigged, are in direct contradiction with the argument that he would need to make to swing independent voters to get them on his side. so, i think the biden campaign -- you know, this is not the only issue that matters by any means, but it is -- it's something -- but it is a real threat how trump will not accept democratic results. and it's going to be a core part but not the only part of the message. >> we won't know his sentencing for another month or so. there are some consequences to the guilty verdict. we've seen a little movement in the polls. now this, the vermont republican party is prohibited from backing a candidate with a felony conviction. according to the party's publicly posted rules. those rules read this way, the state committee will not support or promote any candidate for electricititive office who is a convicted felon. to rules govern everything from party meetings to how delegates must vote at national conventions. it's unclear how the rule will affect the gop vote at the republican national committee in milwaukee. for now the party appears to be following the rule. on social media accounts there are no mention of donald trump since the former president's conviction last week. the rnc and the chair of the vermont republican party did not immediately respond to requests for comment. coming up next on "morning joe" -- >> there's a lot of history here. as you know, bruce springsteen. >> bon jovi, little steven. >> snoop dogg last year and black crows, so everybody wants to play the stone pony. >> since its opening 50 years ago, the stone pony has been a beacon for musicians and fans alike. now, a new oral history of the iconic music venue captures the turbulent times of the small town bar that simply refused to give up. that's coming up next on "morning joe." orning joe." hi, i'm greg. i live in bloomington, illinois. i'm not an actor. i'm just a regular person. some people say, "why should i take prevagen? 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(impressed) ay i like it! who wants to come see the future?! get your business online in minutes with godaddy airo welcome back. a new book is highlighting the incredible story of a legendary nightclub that changed american music as we know it. the stone pony in new jersey is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. new jersey native bruce springsteen, of course, helped make the rock 'n' roll watering hole famous. first appearing there early in his music career five decades ago. and has continued to show up for several surprise performances in the years since. the boss's incredible relationship with the stone pony is detailed in the new book entitled "i don't want to go home: the oral history of the stone pony" which includes interviews with legendary musicians, deejays, employees at the club and even a few governors. and the book's author joins us now, also a national political reporter for "the new york times," nick corasaniti and we are part of a reporters' chain since 2016 and if the contents were released it would be disastrous for us all. talk to us about the origins of this week and what the stone pony means for so many people. >> so, i wanted to write this book because i grew up going to the stone pony in the late '90s when asbury was a different town, it was struggling, had worn out. everything around it was a wasteland. and my job and everything else, the campaign trail took me away for a long time. when i came back in 2017 it was a new town. it was a rotting structure and now a gleaming hotel with luxury apartments. the only thing there was the stone pony. for 50 years that's been the lone constant. i wanted to tell this story, small towns, small cities that fell apart in the '80s and '90s, and there are so many of them, but so few have come back. asbury is one of those. to tell that story, i wanted to go to the one continuous thread, that was the stone pony. it's a town that there are shirts that say music at asbury park, shirts that say, bruce my show up. those are town mottos and energy that drives this town. so, you know, for a long time when it was on life support or when it's thriving, the stone pony has been asbury park's beating heart. >> tell us a little more about the most famous relationship of all, which is bruce springsteen with this bar, that is still -- it's part of his life even today. >> oh, yeah. i mean, the bruce might show up is a very real thing. even if you're seeing a band you would never expect bruce to come by, like social distortion, he still shows up and plays with them. it started in a different way than some people might experience. south side johnny and the asbury jukes, and steve van zandt played with them. they grew up on the jersey shore. they were best friends from the late '60s. so, when the jukes start playing at the stone pony regularly, and they're playing different music. they're not doing top 40s. they're doing blues, r&b, their own stuff, stuff that bruce loves. he says, my friends are here. why don't i go down and check them out. he brought no guitar. he was going to hang out. and he would just get up and play with his friends. that started this long tradition of bruce just being there, seeing his friends, seeing music he thought wassing and, sustaining a local scene, and then just feeling compelled, as he does, to play. and it would take him through the '80s when he was there every sunday night in 1982 in the summer. playing with cats on a smooth surface. it was never billed. he isn't paid. he doesn't bring his own guitar. he always asks the band or whoever, can i come play with you? different artists i talked to and they say, i would get a tap on the shoulder and he would say, hi, i'm bruce. yes, i know. >> yes, you can play here. stevie van zandt was here yesterday with fond memories of it. let's bring into the conversation, someone else with a fond memory of the stone pony, a regular, jen palmieri. >> am i beaming right now? this is why i got up at 4:00 in california so i could talk to nick about the stone pony. we have spent many hours discussing the stone pony. there's something you write about the mythology that is the pony, but i want you to talk about what went into making that mythology, right? it's not just bruce. it's what that represents, the opportunity that he might show up, that there's a mix of community bands and super famous people, but the pony is a place where people come together and create this magic. if people have not been there, it is a mystical place. after obsessing about it for years, as i know you have, what do you think that mythology is really about? >> i think it's about what you talked about, that egalatarian nature. as it's been through so much, up and down, you come together as a community as a scene. something that's held it in place for so long, that means a lot to people. in the book tom calls them the good ghosts. i think they're so alive in the stone pony. every artist who has come through there. bruce and the south side, bon jovi, zach wilde who said he learned to play the guitar not at berkeley, at the stone pony. jonas brothers before being signed to disney and becoming one of the biggest bands in music history had a gig early at the stone pony and rubbing around the boardwalk trying to get people to come to their show. there are so many people and places that have come into the stone pony and you never know what's going to happen. it has that unpredictability. someone might show up, someone in the crowd might hop on stage. sure, it could be bruce, it could be stevie van zandt, brad fallon from the gaslamp anthem. you never know what's going to happen and i think that unpredictability is what keeps me coming all the time. the thought i could be there, i could be seeing any band and something unexpected could happen. it's the live music amped up a little more at the stone pony when you have the history as it did. >> as we were there, one night brandon flowers from the killers may come on stage and sing "the promise land." but how do you -- i think people may not understand that, people may know asbury park had a big music history, they had riots. they may think the pony predates the riots but the pony came back as part of the rebirth in the early '70s after asbury had these terrible riots. how did it last all 50 years? explain when it came back and how it lasted this long. >> sure. i mean, it has been on life support twice and, you know, we'll get into that. the way the pony opened was in 1970, asbury park was torn apart by race riots on the west side. it had been a long segregated towns and in many ways still is. the black population on the west side of town was frustrated with the lack of economic opportunity, especially along the boardwalk and it led to riots as it did across the country. also in nearby newark. that kind of created a flight out of asbury park, which was once this booming resort. as stevie van zandt says this the book, it led the town to mystics, rockers, rogue and renegades. they created this rock scene, this music scene. when the stone pony opens in 1974 and it was trying to figure out what it was, was it a disco club, rock club, top 40 club, those guys made it something different. they walked in and said give us your worst night, we'll take the door, you take the bar, which is a great deal for bar owners but we're going to play what we want. that started this moving. and, you know, as the town dragged down, the pony still did okay, but eventually the town dragged it down too far. in 1991 it closed and yet opened within six months because people knew this was too important. this has to go on. it became the home of alternative rock and punk and jam. then when it closed in '98, drag the down by more struggles, people weren't sure it was going to reopen. dominick santana, from jersey city, another bar owner, he saw tourists come and taking pictures, bruce springsteen fans, and he knew it still had magic and reopened it and it would become the renaissance it is now. >> thriving. bruce springsteen wrote the foreword to the book. he wrote this, staying local all through the crazy high times was the smartest thing i ever did. the stone pony and its patrons allowed me to continue to be one of them. and for that i'm forever thankful. at 74 i don't get down to the pony as much as i used to, but i'm still glad it's there. long may she run. the new book is titled "i don't want to go home: the oral history of the stone pony." it's on sale now. get a copy. "new york times" national political reporter nick corasaniti, thank you. congrats on the book. it's worth a visit if you haven't been to the jersey shore, i've only been there once or twice, but clearly a return trip is needed. >> we all need to go with jen. she knows about all this. >> jen and nick. >> great story. i loved listening to that interview. that was great. what a nice way to end the week on a friday. we are minutes away from president biden delivering a speech focused on democracy at the ponte du hoc cliffs in normandy. let's go to peter alexander who is there live. peter, what can we expect from the president? >> reporter: kat, good morning. this is one of the most stunning and breathtaking spots across europe. we are here, of course, on the northern coast of france. this is where those american army rangers arrived on d-day, scaling the nearly 100-foot cliffs, coming up, being able to take over those nazi bunkers ultimately to control this lookout that is framed between omaha and utah beaches. allowing the d-day beach landings to be so successful on this day. we do expect to hear from the president in the next 30 to 45 minutes or so. he has now just touched down in marine one, not far from this stunning location. the president expected to deliver a forceful defense of democracy today and we should note among those in attendance today is one of the rangers who was a part of that wider mission, arriving just days after d-day here, private first class john wardell, arriving in a wheelchair, 99 years young. he was only 19 when this new jersey man, this army ranger joined his comrades as part of the effort here. he is expected to be noted -- his attendance expected to be noted by the president today as he sort of tries to recapture the rhetorical magic president reagan used at this location, pointe du hoc, on d-day 40 years ago. the president trying to tie himself and president reagan demonstrated then and comes against the political back drop as we are witnessing right now where president biden is trying to create that contrast with former president trump, specifically as it relates to his effort to sort of lead this western unified front in support of ukraine, against the aggression of a different autocrat, vladimir putin in russia right now as compared, of course, to donald trump, the former president who threatened to pull the u.s. out of nato during his time in office. katty? >> nbc's peter alexander, thank you. what an amazing scene. i think for all of us who have sons in their late teens and early 20s, this is a particularly poignant, thinking of them scaling those walls. netflix is spotlighting lgbtq stand-up comedy in "outstanding: comedy revolution." margaret cho joins us with a preview of that. as we go to break, this week's episode of "morning mikka" just dropped on peacock and youtube. it's a special episode where they have a candid conversation about their breaking points, juggling work and families, just trying to hold onto their mental health, as we all have. there were stories about breast-feeding at the state department, a fractured foot and a missing tooth, crying in front of complete strangers. it all happens. >> i was just really, really worn down, exhausted, having trouble sleeping and dealing with multiple dynamics in my life. what i didn't notice is my running had turned to walking. so, i was walking the streets of bronxville, new york, crying, every day. i will tell you, a perfect stranger shocked me into understanding that i needed to do something. this guy drives up to me, pulls up -- pulls down his window. >> women often think we have to just suck it up and plow forward. i certainly have had many years, i will say, of my career where i have done exactly that. i was in a war zone somewhere or a conflict zone. i had a tooth in a baggy and my foot was in a boot. i was thinking -- >> a tooth in a boot. >> yeah. i was thinking, what am i doing? >> i just remember powering through when my father died and my breakdown and my depression. i never wanted to go back to that place again. >> i remember coming back to washington with my infant baby because there was this big, big strategic meeting, which i normally would have run. and so i come back, i was shaking in my boots, saying, i can't run this meeting. i don't even know what to do. the only way i can make it through this meeting is to feed my child. >> that's exactly what she did. such an important conversation for all of us, men and women alike. the group also answers questions from viewers on how to ask for a leave of absence and flexibility at the workplace. you can watch the entire episode by searching "morning mikka" on youtube and streaming on peacock. 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am i straight? and i realized i'm just slutty. >> hello, my queers! >> queer people taught america to stop being scared of us by making jokes. >> it's been such a journey. >> there's a lot of people who have come before us. >> queer comic history, that all deserves to be talked about. now is the time where people can. >> that was a look at the upcoming netflix documentary titled "outstanding: a comedy revolution." the film looks back at the lgbtq+ pioneers of the standup community who paved the way for others who followed to be able to fully express themselves and be open about who they are on and off the stage. and joining us now one of the voices featured in the film, grammy and emmy nominated actor and comedian, margaret cho. thank you so much for being here this morning. >> thank you. >> it looks like such a powerful piece. talk to us about its origins and why you wanted to participate. >> well, i wanted to participate because this is basically my life's work. as a career comedian, i've been doing this for 41 years. it's so crazy to think it's been that long, but it's really amazing how society has changed to build a place for us. you know, we've always been there, but we haven't always been able to be open and out and free to talk about ourselves and our lives in this way, and so it's just a history of that, and it's a really exciting way for us to talk about the history of our comedy but also for us to hang out because we also as career comics never get to see each other because we're always working. >> you've witnessed it. you've been part of it, part of this evolution. if you can, walk us through how you have seen things change, you know, hopefully for the better. >> so much change and so much really -- so much change to come still. i think we still need to do a lot in terms of inclusion for the rest of the community, whether that's the trans community, the nonbinary community. how far we've come is really incredible. >> margaret, let's take a look at a clip where you give credit to one of your own comedy heroes. >> at that time queer comedy was really sort of a solace, and for me it's really important for audiences to have a queer voice that they can find hope in, to find joy in. it's life affirming. that connection that we have with other gay artists is really powerful, and sandra was just -- i mean, everything she did i just wanted to -- i wanted to be like her. >> comedy is that balm that says i'm going to soothe you and smooth out all of your fears, and i'm going to liberate you from your own repression. >> i love that clip. margaret, i imagine there are places in the country where you feel more welcome in places and you feel less welcome in america. are there states you decided you're never going to play in. >> people need to laugh everywhere. you know, there was a travel advisory for gay people not to go to florida last year, and i thought, this is the place that i have to do the most comedy at because that's where they need to see us. that's where they need to see us the most. and of course there's gay people there who need a different voice, who need a voice of reason. so i want to go everywhere i can because i think our message is so important. it's about inclusion. it's about love. it's about equality. >> that is such an inspiring message. and we should note, the new documentary called "outstanding: a comedy revolution" it premiers june 18th on netflix. margaret cho, thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. and we are just moments away from president biden's speech on freedom and democracy at pointe du hoc, the backdrop for american heroism 80 years ago. ana cabrera will pick up our live coverage after a quick final break. k final break. ♪ ♪ listen. what you really need in life is some freakin' torque. 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