Ephemeral legislation. Yeah. That went from being the word of the day a couple days ago, to now i think its the word of the week. Ephemeral or malodorous, its one of the two. Its still early. We have a couple hours ahead. Maybe we can find another one. Meanwhile, the Florida Governor is seizing on a potential weakness in trumps third president ial bid. Well show you what he had to say about that, and how he responded to questions about his last name. Is it desantis, is it December Desantis . Did he answer it . He did, and it was unrevealing. Huh. Republicans are still upset with Kevin Mccarthy over the Debt Ceiling Deal. Wah. One calling for a day of reckoning. Are you kidding me . It is a day of reckoning for the extremists, who thought that they were going to be able to hold, not only congress and Kevin Mccarthy and the president hostage, but also hold the United States economy hostage. They werent able to do it. These guys struck a deal, and struck a deal that passed overwhelmingly. Plus, well show you liz cheneys latest comments on a possible president ial bid. It comes ahead of announcements expected next week from Chris Christie and mike pence. Good morning. Welcome to morning joe. It is friday, guys. Can you believe it . Im not sure if i believe it. It is june 2nd. I feel like summer is officially started. Everyone should take a vacation. Along with joe, willie and me, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. Former aide to the george w. Bush white house and state departments, and whatd we find out yesterday, yale grad. Yeah, yale grad. Colombia grad. Its a shock. I know it is shocking. Not at all, actually. Pulitzer prizewinning columnist and Associate Editor of the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson is with us. Cofounder of axios, mike allen is with us. Good to have you all on board. Mike, get us started. Do it. Good morning on the first friday in june. It is a happy friday. So cute. I love him. Were ready to go now. The Senate Passed the bipartisan Biden MccarthyDebt Ceiling Bill last night, ensuring the u. S. Will not default on its debt. 6336 with more democrats voting for the deal than republicans. The bill now heads to the president , and then itll be signed into law by President Biden. In response to the bills passage, biden thanked Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell for their work, and also noted, quote, no one gets everything they want in a negotiation, but make no mistake, this bipartisan agreement is a big win for our economy and the american people. You know, the thing is, the measure of just what a Big Blanking Deal This was those are bidens words. To borrow from joe biden after the Affordable Care act passed, you just go back to a week ago. You look at all of the headlines talking about how we were in crisis, we werent going to get this done. The huffington post, trouble ahead for debt deal. Bbc, Debt Ceiling Crisis looms as talks end with no deal in sight. Most people were predicting this was going to be a massive crisis. The fact that joe biden was able to do what joe biden was able to do once again, and that Kevin Mccarthy basically stared down the extremists in his own caucus. Mmhmm, give him that. Its a really big deal. Columnist David Ignatius has a piece in the Washington Post titled biden is delivering on his most farfetched pledge compromise. David writes, in part, this. The president s Con Genital Centrism is easy to criticize, especially in this era of hard, polarizing views. He is a conciliator, a dealmaker, likes saying yes and has trouble saying no. He is also riskaverse, and he avoid escalation when facing potential catastrophe. Whether it is war with russia or a budget default. One memorable moment in The Budget Drama came when representative chip roy, one of the most fanatical gop die hards, sputtered that deal was a turd sandwich. The majority of republicans decided to eat it. Bidens stavistic embrace of mccarthy, two white, male Irish Catholics cutting a deal in private, is hardly a summit of american politics. My whole soul is in this, bringing america together, biden said at his inauguration. He meant it. This week, he delivered. He not only delivered this week, he has been delivering for quite some time, willie. I mean, you look at i said this, make no mistake, biden crushed the extremes once again and cleared out a space in the middle big enough to drive a truck through. He may have trouble riding a bike or walking across the stage theres that. But the mann knows how to get things done in d. C. Better than any president since reagan. Just a pop culture moment, i went to see Neil Young In Concert A Couple years ago. Somebody dragged me out. I never go out at night to watch concerts. But im a huge neil young fan. Was watching, and people were shouting songs from the balcony, play old man. Neil young just stopped. He was plugging his guitar into his amp. He just stopped, turned around and looked up and he said, ya know, ive done this before. Like, just let me do what im gonna do. The whole place roared. That reminds me of biden. Theres no substitute for experience. This guy has done it before. You look at how he, once again, defied expectations, not only from the haters but from his own party. Its a pretty remarkable record. You look at the Bipartisan Legislation, and anybody who would mock that, willie, please, show me a president in the last 25 years, the last quarter century, thats had more Bipartisan Legislation thats joe biden. And this was his theory of the case, as david got to in that piece when he was running in 2020. Hes been there before. Hes experienced. He knows how to work across the aisle. A lot of people roll their eyes at that, oh, that doesnt really happen anymore. We watched it happen the last couple weeks, particularly the last few days. Give Speaker Mccarthy credit, as well. They got serious when it was time to be serious. Jonathan lemire, it is a stark contrast to donald trump, whose theory of the case was, im an outsider in 2016. Im going to go turn over the tables in washington. Im going to go break a bunch of stuff. Im going to do it the way no one has ever done it to get things done. Now, joe biden is offering that contrast of, okay, you saw how that went for four years. Let me sit here quietly, calmly. Yes, i might be getting up there in years as they acknowledge, but i still know how to get things done in washington. He and the Republican Leadership did it. Yeah, bidens pitch since day one has been bipartisanship and experience, his commitment to trying to work across the aisle, which he successfully did with the Infrastructure Bill and did it again here. He has done things with democrats alone when needed, the Inflation Reduction Act to name one, but he prefers to walk across the aisle, to take the temperature down. And he has enshrined the achievements of his first two years. They werent touched in this deal. Its an important thing the white house says. Also, we should note, the white house sort of ceded the Messaging Space to republicans the last couple weeks that kept the president out of the fray. Democrats said, we should be in there. Were losing the politics of this. It was a deliberate strategy. I got new reporting that goes behind the scenes of that. The white house feels they got a really good deal here. If they were seen gloating or crowing about it, republicans might be less supportive of it and lose votes. They decided to wait. The victory lap will come another day. They feel this is important for the country, and this idea of the president being sort of above the fray, being the calm, steady happened, thats a nice contrast against the hysterical republicans, they say, before 2024. Well, it didnt give republicans a oneonone matchup with biden, and it kept him above the fray which, at the time, it did seem there were moments when perhaps biden could have seemed like he was more in it. Especially, i mean, this really got to the very, very, very end of the ticking time bomb. They got it done, but its incredible, last week, we had a congressional member who was voicing his deep, deep concern that a bill was actually going to pass. That some kind of deal would ever be reached between these two parties. I think that this is definitely a win for biden. It shows that he can create compromise and that theres some competence there. That is what so Many American voters, both sides of the aisle, really want at the end of the day. I mean, gene robinson, you look, im just looking back, just looking back at it. An article back a couple months ago. It said, why biden is getting more bipartisan laws than anyone expected actually, it was from a year ago i was skeptical he could convince republicans to support anything. I was wrong, jonathan says. Jonathan is being, you know i love reading his columns. He is always honest about when hes had blind spots. But most people were saying, biden, come on. This old guy is living in 1974, 1974. There is no such thing as bipartisan deal anymore. But he gets them done, and he gets them done, just like elise and willie said, by keeping quiet. By not going around crowing about, oh, theyre doing this or that. Not insulting them, letting them have their day. They talk about how biden is getting taken advantage of, and then they get the deal done. Its kind of like how pros do it. Yeah. It was very professional. Look, look at that vote in the house. The vote in the house, it was a huge bipartisan majority, more than 300 votes in this package. Did you think youd ever see that happen, given how polarized the politics are right now . I thought that was amazing. The second observation is that i think this negotiation actually started back during the state of the union address. Remember when President Biden sort of jedi mind tricked the republicans into all pledging loudly, they would never touch Social Security and medicare and medicaid . That was all off the table. So he set the terms for this discussion long before it even began. I think at the white house and in biden world, they must be hoping that the republicans and others continue to underestimate him, continue to think that hes, you know, old and dottering and has no idea whats going on, because theyre getting their pockets picked on a regular basis, and hes get things done. So the underestimating that we have been following for years now, i also think is a little bit of a Media Narrative or a problem that the media is confronting. David rothkopf put out a whole thread the other day, talking about bidens presidency and how the media struggles for balance because if you cover it positively, youre somehow doing Something Wrong, when the only thing, it seems, the only criticism that those on the right can find is his age. The counter to that is what we are seeing right now, wisdom, years of experience, years of mistakes, years of living life. Right. Living through hardship. You know, No Matter What you think of him or what side of the aisle you are on, this man is wise, and he is putting it to use and keeping his head down. Right. I just, you know, you even look at the end of the day, he got the deal done. What can you say . Of course he got the deal done. David rothkopf is exactly right. If you go in day in and day out, youre in the media, and all you hear in the media day in and day out is, oh, youre liberal, youre bias, legacy, media, all the stupid stuff they say. Oh, theyre in the tank for biden, this, that or the other. You are, and it makes people twitch, well, maybe we shouldnt say the truth. For instance, that not only has he passed more Bipartisan Legislation than any other president this century, hes also helped with the reconstruction of nato, the flexing of americas muscle around china, whether its in the philippines or in guam or in australia or in japan. I mean, you actually have, for the first time, china back on their heels. Theres a reason theyre not talking to us right now. Theres a reason why theyre being petulant. Its because weve flexed our muscles all around the areas where they were hoping to be aggressive and hoping to move. So youve got that in Foreign Policy. You have nato, which donald trump wanted to tear to pieces, tighter than ever before. This morning, this morning, in helsinki, americas Secretary Of State will be delivering, in a country that has an 800mile border with putins russia, will be delivering a speech on how catastrophic this war has been for Vladimir Putin and russias military. Guess what . Hes doing it from a country thats in nato, russias worst, worst nightmare. This would have never happened under donald trump. Or, dare i say, any other president. Joe biden has figured out how to do that. Can somebody say, oh, biden is doing a great job . No, but i can. Biden is doing a great job. I say that as somebody who is very critical of his withdrawal of troops from afghanistan, somebody who has been very critical of the southern border and the signals he sent earlybo hasnt moved fast enough to take care of the humanitarian crisis. Theres points we can point out that hes made mistakes on, but, taken in total, hes done a pretty damn great job. Its not reflective, of course, in a lot of the polls. Because you know what . Along with passing more legislation than anybody else in the past 20 years, he fell off a bike. Along with pushing back china and expanding the u. S. Military presence around china that actually stops them from being aggressive, even more aggressive, he tripped over a sandbag. I hope hes okay. That looked like it hurt. Hes fine. Its perhaps the bumping of the head when he got off marine one when he got back to the white house that may have hurt even more. But you have all of these distractions, mike allen. You and i have been in washington long enough to know a couple things. Getting things done legislatively and on a Foreign Policy level, something president s havent been able to do this century. Two, a lot in the Mainstream Establishment Media are afraid to say that because the trump right and the right wing are constantly working it. You cant say that. Youre bias. Youre with the biden crime family, this, that. Rothkopf, i think, was right. Yeah, joe, youre exactly right. And you dont have to cover it positively. Cover it clinically, the way axios does. Exactly. Pull back the camera. Take a look. What are we seeing . We have talked about compromise, competence, and this is the wily side of joe biden. Three takeaways. Some Companion Reporting to jonathan lemires point about the white house wanting a deliberate contrast with the republicans. The other thing the white house deliberately did in lying low was to give Kevin Mccarthy the space he needed with his right wing. The view in the white house, im told, was, let them beat their chest. Let them huff and puff. Hes going to do what he needs to do to get the votes he needs to get from his right, which he did. And the president in the end will get that win. Second, people are seeing washington work, and you were talking about the disconnect between what President Biden is accomplishing, where the economy is, and where peoples sentiment is, their view of the country is still very, very bleak. But people want washington to work. We didnt go right up to the cliff. Monday, right, is the date that default was supposed to kick in, the latest date from treasury secretary janet yellen. So for once, Congress Getting something done a few hours before we had to. The third one, joe, that speaks to your point about how much hes done, when you step back and look at the totality of whats been accomplishments in these two years, the chips act, the infrastructure act, a lot of that money is still being spent. Hes going to have a lot to talk about and show as he runs for reelection. Guys, to underline something gene said about the vote total in the house, this bill got 314 vote, cleared the house by nearly 200 votes. We dont see that very often. Within the space of 24 hours after it made it through the house, it got 63 votes to clear that 60vote hurdle in the sen senate. The president will sign it today. Theres a larger point. Theres the view that the inmates run the asylum in washington, and weve seen it has been, but here, the extremists stay where they belong, on the extremes. People came together to get something done at a time where there could have been a catastrophe on the other side of it if cooler heads had not prevailed here. Well, you know, whats the local news thing . If it bleeds, it leads. If it bleeds, it leads. Gene robinson, you know, if somebody screams, it leads. If they go to a mic and Say Something outrageous, if it i