we ll go over what exactly happened and what it could mean for putin s leadership as well as the war in ukraine. plus, republicans continue to veer toward an electoral cliff, backing former president trump despite his mounting legal challenges, even as many voters are deeply disturbed by his multiple indictments. perhaps that s why president biden is leading trump in a 2024 matchup. and a year after the supreme court stripped away abortion rights, the high court s approval rating is in the basement at just 31%. we re breaking down the new poll numbers just ahead. good morning and welcome to morning joe. it is monday, june 26th. joe is off this morning. we begin with this weekend s developing news out of russia, where the head of the mercenary group, wagner, launched the most direct challenge to vladimir putin s grip on power in his 19 years as president. it started on friday when yevgeny prigozhin, the leader of a private army, posted a video to social media. in it, h
and in some cases until today to even comment on this scandal. now, the first tactic.hi it s no big deal. this is saying that the irs wanted actually tougher charges for hunter biden. it s not unusual forl fo investigators and prosecutorsth to have disagreements beforeey they you know, as you go through these cases, how many times do they have disagreement they ha way? alonga all the time. yeah, all the time. i mean, this is the waf thy thi is part of the process. this is the way that it and it s what we wan e t. onl this is what we want. well, that s the only honest thing said that exchange.co oh, that, of course, refusesurse to acknowledge the most incredible claim of all thatjoe joe was in the room where it happened when hunter was demanding money for his family from a chinese businessman, which are all ccp approved, ofe. course. here s how they cover that. hewe have not verified it s basd on a whatsapp. we don t know the verification of that. we don t know whether
he s taken issue with how the war s been carried out and a brief tell fio to address president putin for the treasonous in the path. they embarked on path of betrayal and armed rebellion and the terrorist methods and answering both to the law and to the people. they claim the group controls russian armed forces and headquarters that s near the ukraine and the warmings operations and they said today that president putin is mistaken with traders in an audio message on telegram and this on treason of the motherland, the president is deeply wrong and we re patriots of our moreland and nobody turns themselves in at the request of the president and sfb, security service or anyone else. here s former cia station chief and fox news contributor. quite significant for ukraine and they re responsible for operations inside ukraine and this is a zero sum game and russia is focused on their own internal dissent and treasonous dissent. they can t take it as they otherwise would. repo
smith. this is america reports. a house panel voted yesterday to release testimony given by the two irs agents last month and both of these claim the president s son received preferential treatment during the department s investigation. but it s a whatsapp message in the hands of house lawmakers now that s raising some eyebrows and new questions today. john: members of the ways and committee say the 2017 text hunter biden appears to invoke his father s name while pressuring a chinese business associate for payment. it seems to contradict president biden s claims he s never been involved in his son s business dealings. aishah: jonathan turley will join us in a few minutes. john: jacqui heinrich is live on the white house lawn. all we know about it comes from house ways and means republicans who saw this presented to them by the whistleblower. we have not heard from anyone else about the authenticity of the text. the president, though, has long maintained as you said,
undoubtedly been weakened. prigozhin announced his paramilitary fighters would pull back to avoid bloodshed. the kremlin later announced war lord could leave for belarus allegedly without penalty for his mercenaries taking hold of the critical russian city of rostov-on-don. they were going to dismantle pmc wagner. we came out on the 23rd of june to march for justice. in this time we did not 3eu8 a single drop of blood on of our fighters. now the moment has come when blood may still spill, that that s why understanding the responsibility, we are turning back our convoys and going back to field camps according to our plan. reporter: according to a spokesperson for secretary of state antony blinken, quote, support by the united states for ukraine will not change. the united states will stay in close coordination with ukraine as the situation develops. and russian officials offered this, quote: we ve warned the western countries against any hint of possible use of the domes