Morning Joe - 4 killed, including a police officer, in shooting at New York City office building

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

A gunman opened fire inside a high-rise corporate building in the heart of Manhattan on Monday evening, killing a New York City police officer and three other people, officials said.

We lost four souls to another senseless act of gun violence, including a member of the New York City Police Department, Officer Islam. He served in the 47th precinct. He was just 36 years old. He's an immigrant from Bangladesh, and he loved this city. He's a true blue New Yorker, not only in a uniform he wore, but in his spirit and energy of loving this city. And early tonight, I met with the officer's family.

I told them that he was a hero, and we admire him for putting his life on the line. New York City Mayor Eric Adams late last night honoring a fallen NYPD officer. One of the four people shot and killed yesterday in Midtown Manhattan. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, July 29th. Willie, such a tragedy. And again, an NYPD officer and others gunned down senselessly yesterday in Midtown, New York. Yeah, just a few blocks from where I'm sitting right now in Midtown, Manhattan. These are the front pages this morning, Joe, of the New York tabloids.

Terror on Park Avenue, writes the New York Post, Daily News, Midtown Carnage. Here's what happened. A man with a rifle entered a high-rise building during rush hour yesterday evening, killing a New York City police officer, as you heard there, and three civilians before fatally shooting himself. Video shows a chaotic scene outside the Park Avenue skyscraper, which houses offices for major companies like the NFL and the investment firm Blackstone. The lone gunman has been identified as 27-year-old Shane Devon Tamura from Las Vegas. Police say he has a documented history of mental health problems.

According to officials familiar with the investigation, the suspect did leave a note at the scene of the shooting where he mentioned his mental illness may be linked to CTE from his years playing high school football. Investigators are looking into whether that may be why he targeted the building, but they stress the investigation is early and ongoing. Officials also say they found a cell phone at the scene, as well as a rifle case, magazines of ammunition, a loaded revolver, and medication prescribed to the suspect.

Among those killed, 36-year-old NYPD officer Deedarul Islam, an immigrant from Bangladesh. He'd been with the department for more than three years. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch spoke about the slain officer during a news conference last night. Officer Islam was married with two young boys and his wife is pregnant with their third child. He's assigned to the 4-7 precinct in the Bronx. He was doing the job that we asked him to do. He put himself in harm's way. He made the ultimate sacrifice, shot in cold blood, wearing a uniform that stood for the promise that he made to this city. He died as he lived, a hero.

As I mentioned, NFL's offices are in that building. The commissioner of the NFL, Roger Goodell, says a league employee also was seriously injured in the attack, now in stable condition at the hospital. Let's bring in NBC News National Law Enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter. Tom, good morning. So let's just go back a little bit and walk us through what exactly happened last night. Looks like the man double parked his car and kind of walked in just holding out in the open that semi-automatic rifle. Yeah, an incredible sight here in New York City because obviously people don't open carry

assault rifles around this city and you're used to seeing them on police officers. So we do see him on a surveillance camera walking in. That's the camera there that captures him walking into this building kind of it appears casually. And then once he gets inside, he turns to his right, he begins firing, he kills officer Islam, kills several others, and then finds his way into the elevator. The elevator comes down to the lobby floor, according to the police commissioner, Willie.

And he lets the person out, does not confront that person, doesn't shoot that person, gets into the elevator bank, and then eventually gets his way up to the 33rd floor, where the shooting continues. And then he then dies by suicide after that. Apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the police commissioner said to his chest. So that's the information that we have to backtrack it a little bit further. This happens approximately 628 last night when the 911 calls start coming in. As you mentioned, this double parked car outside of their BMW with

Las Vegas plates, it immediately sticks out to police officers because, you know, they clear the scene, they get everybody out of there and that car remains there. As a matter of fact, the former assistant commissioner for the police department, now deputy mayor of public safety is on the radio asking for a check of the license plate. They were eventually able to go back and look at the license plate and track it back using the license plate reader. So according to the police commissioner, they were able to find out that he's in Colorado on July 26. You remember from the incident outside of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, they were able to track that individual's movements through the license plate reader systems in Colorado. That system is quite helpful. Nebraska, Iowa on July 27th, and then in Columbia, New Jersey

around 424 yesterday afternoon. They've got his movements across the country taking this weapon here. Also found in the vehicle was his cell phone, which they'll try to get into if they haven't already. They found, as you mentioned, a revolver inside the vehicle as well. Then that note, which is certainly providing a clue because apparently there was nothing on his person that helped them out other than his wallet in a photo of a apparently now expired concealed carry permit in Las Vegas. That's really what they have to go on is that note, the fact that he mentions his mental health, perhaps linked to a football injury, perhaps linked to CTE. We know this is the headquarters of the NFL. It's not clear from anybody we've talked to at this moment that he directly says that

there's a link between him showing up at this building and conducting this shooting in the NFL, but I think people are certainly circling that information and the fact that it's there. Why he ended up on that floor, which doesn't appear to correspond with the NFL's offices and all of those details will be figured out, or they won't because obviously this individual's deceased. So that's what we know about the investigation so far. No word and certainly no indication at this point

that anybody else has been involved, but obviously they'll look and see how he got that gun. Yeah, and to be clear, he played high school football. He didn't play college or in the NFL. So he's talking about CT as a possible link. We'll have to wait and see if that turns out to be true. Didn't even go to the right floor if he was targeting the NFL was even close without getting into the specifics of what floors the NFL is on. Is there anything else from what you've been able to report out in that letter that might indicate to them why he took this incredible measure to drive clear across the country to shoot people at random in the lobby of a building in New York City before going upstairs

killing one other person and himself? So you know our colleague Jonathan Deanst was up till within the last several hours here this morning working this and when we were chatting before going to bed last night, obviously this presents a potential challenge here. Because if somebody was, again, targeting a business or an institution in New York City, approximately seven months ago, I was sitting in this exact seat.

And you and I were talking about a targeted killing of a UnitedHealthcare CEO. And so if people are going to start going after individual companies, given the size and scope of businesses that are here in New York City, particularly very high profile ones, given the fact that all the information is out there and is public as far as where companies are located, this raises significant security concerns. As far as the floor, as far as why he chose this, he may have just looked up the NFL address,

seen that it was 345 Park Avenue, doesn't know that in these buildings, including the one that we're in, we're not the only tenant here, this whole building is not NBC and MSNBC, I mean there's a number of private companies that are here that have nothing to do with our industry or business, so that's fairly typical, we know that,

you and I work here, a lot of people know that, but not everybody knows that. So it's not clear yet as to, again, what floor, why it was, and as we all know from these complicated elevator systems, that you know maybe this person just happened to select the floor that was already selected by somebody else. So all of those things will go into the investigation as much as they can try to figure out. Obviously this individual is dead, but I think certainly the focus right now for the police department is not only on the investigation but also on the fact that one of their officers from the 47 precinct in the Bronx who was doing what

they were asked to do as the police commissioner said, you know, this was the first target apparently of this shooter is unfortunately deceased, father, two kids, wife expecting, certainly a difficult morning in the city. Immigrant from Bangladesh. New York Times has appeased today just pointing out he was living his dream. An immigrant here bought a place in New York, raising his family there,

said he just wanted to make his family proud by being a New York City police officer. He was in uniform. We should point out the New York City police officers often work extra security. We're so grateful we have that in this building as well providing a presence but that is not an unusual thing to see a New York City police officer stationed at a high-profile building. Right, exactly. That happens all the time and it's for the very reasons that you would expect and the very reasons that we were kind of talking about here this morning that we

have these high-profile companies they attract sometimes unfortunately individuals with a documented or undocumented history of mental health issues and so they see these these places as a as a place that speaks to them or that they have an issue with even if you know a major corporation has never interacted with this individual ever, people feel some sort of a calling or some sort of a reason to conduct an attack. The NYPD's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau, after the shooting of Luigi Mangione,

I think it was within a day or two, we were here on set reporting it out as we were getting the information, they were concerned about the idea of potential copycats and people continuing to target corporations. So this is something that they're very aware of gets us back to your point the idea of having a uniformed police officer in these high-profile buildings with these high-profile businesses is fairly common and it's something that the NYPD works with these companies because it works for them. You have an officer there somebody who can see something here's something and if something happens in a building, they have some sort of a connection or relationship with the building. Obviously, yesterday, somebody

armed with that type of a weapon is going to be somebody who's going to be difficult to stop. And the police officers knew right away. They call for their heavy weapons teams, the strategic response group. Those are the units. We show the video of them all the time around the holidays, around the parades, and along with CRC, the counterterrorism component. They're focused on having those weapons and being able to respond as fast as they can. The victims in the lobby, Officer Islam, a security guard, and a woman who was said to be trying to hide behind a pillar but couldn't get there fast enough. We'll learn more details, I suspect, today about the motives. We'll also talk in just a little while here, live on Morning Joe with New York City Mayor

Eric Adams. NBC's Tom Winter, thanks for your reporting as always. We appreciate it. President Trump appears to be breaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in acknowledging there is starvation in Gaza. Netanyahu has repeatedly denied that claim as world leaders are criticizing him for deteriorating conditions in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza amid Israel's war with Hamas. While President Trump did not blame Israel for what's happening right now in Gaza, he

did admit yesterday to a serious problem there, then doubled down on those comments following his meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Mr. President, the president said there's no starvation in Gaza. Do you agree with that assessment? I don't know. I mean, based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry. But we're giving a lot of money and a lot of food, and other nations are now stepping up. We can save a lot of people. I mean, some of those kids are, that's real starvation stuff, I see it. And you can't fake that. We're gonna set up food centers

where the people can walk in and no boundaries. We're not gonna have fences and you know, they can't, they see the food from 30, 30, you would say yards away. And they see the food. It's all there, but nobody's at it because they have fences set up that nobody can even get it. It's crazy what's going on over there.

President's saying it's real starvation. You can't fake that. Meanwhile, for the first time since the October 7 terrorist attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza, two major Israeli human rights groups are accusing their own government of genocide in Gaza. The groups say there's been a deliberate intent by Israeli leaders to target the Gazan population as a whole rather than strictly going after Hamas terrorists. The executive director of human rights, Israel, also cited attacks on

Gaza's health system and the blocking of access to aid as evidence of intent in their report. Israel's government called the findings baseless and a smear on its right to self-defense. Joe? Let's bring right now the co-host of our fourth hour, contributing writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News and the host of the Rest is Politics podcast, Cady Kay, and senior writer for The Dispatch, David Drucker. He is also a Bloomberg columnist.

Kaddi, the chorus of protests across the world continue to grow increasingly loud. The pictures coming out of Gaza, absolutely heinous, as David Ignatius and others have said on our show. Even inside the Israeli military, the Israeli intel services, you have people saying the military causes for this war ended a year ago. We have no more military objectives to meet. And yet, this suffering continues.

The picture is absolutely heinous. And now, as Willie said said even groups inside of Israel are Accusing their own government of genocide. What has been the reaction across Europe and across the rest of the world? Look, I mean those photos have been running here in Europe for several days now and public opinion has become more hardened against the Israeli Government we've had the French now saying that they are gonna recognize a Palestinian state. That's a break with previous policy. There's an enormous amount of pressure

on Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who you saw yesterday with Donald Trump. In fact, one of the moments where Keir Starmer actually kind of interjected, and didn't quite contradict, but made sure that he spoke up with President Trump. He was very careful with him. Was on the situation in Gaza saying that the British public was revolted by what they saw.

So it's stronger language than Donald Trump. But what's surprising, Joe, is the degree to which Europe and the rest of the world who's watching this seems to be waiting for Donald Trump. All the focus now is on is Donald Trump changing his position. I spoke to Senator King from Maine just last night who said that his phones are now being inundated with calls from his constituents say something has to be done. He's put out a statement saying that until children in Gaza are no longer left starving, America should suspend all aid to Israel. I doubt that will happen.

But there is pressure growing on Donald Trump through the images and through American public opinion, it looks like. And Europeans, meanwhile, just kind of frozen a little bit and waiting for America to act. The fact, Jonathan Lemire, obviously, that one man continues this with an extremely hard right coalition, long after the military objectives have been achieved, is again causing deep divisions among Israel supporters across the globe in this country and even in Israel itself. This comes down to, though, Benjamin Netanyahu ignoring the president time and again, Benjamin Netanyahu doing what he thinks is in his best political interest,

his best personal interest, and Benjamin Netanyahu continuing just this savagery long after, again, military objectives have been met. Yeah. long after, again, military objectives have been met. Yeah, and there's been so much reporting, including a blockbuster story in the New York Times a week or so back, to underscore that very point. The military objectives have been long since reached that Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel,

is persisting in this war largely to just stay in power and to try to put off his own legal issues. But this is a dire moment. To Kadhi's point, those images of starvation have really broken through here in the States as well in the last week or so. This morning, the world's leading body on hunger just a few hours ago deemed this a quote worst case scenario of famine, declaring indeed what is happening there in Gaza, a famine.

And Israel, a little bit of AIDS come in the last couple days via these airlifts. It's not nearly enough. And the pressure mounting. And we heard from President Trump yesterday, break with Prime Minister Netanyahu. We know their relationship has been very up and down since Trump came back into office.

It was very close, Trump's first term. It frayed when Trump was out of power because Netanyahu recognized Joe Biden's victory. And now, you know, it was cozy again earlier this year, certainly around the Iran strike, but there's been mounting frustration within the White House about Israel's attacks in Syria of late and this situation in Gaza, which seems to have no endgame. And David Drucker, to Joe's point, I mean, one of the sort of tenets of modern Republicanism was sort of just unabashed, complete support for Israel.

But we are seeing some phrase there in the Baga coalition. We have seen not just Steve Bannon types, but lawmakers suggest, wait, this is too much. And now we have President Trump, you know, showing real frustration. The question is, per your reporting, Republicans you speak to,

what is that gonna translate into action? So I don't think it translates in the short term or even in the medium term to a lack of military and other aid for Israel. I think support for Israel in the Congress will remain strong, but I think you have to look at two things and you reference the MAGA movement. President Trump, we know, just doesn't like bad headlines.

Regardless of how credible they are, regardless of what's behind them, he does not like them. And that is likely to cause him to put some pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, either to tell him, you better make the case that this isn't what everybody thinks it is, or you better clean it up. The other thing, and we've talked about this in recent days, younger populist conservatives do not have the same affinity for Israel that rank-and-file Republicans do. And I think Israel needs to be cognizant of that. We talk a lot about younger progressives and how they feel about Israel and what that's doing inside

the Democratic Party's coalition. But younger populist conservatives coming up in the Republican Party don't feel about Israel the way Republicans have over the past 25, 30 years. And that's something that the Netanyahu government has to be or should be aware of. Finally, I would say what is very interesting here, there was once a very vibrant peace movement

within Israeli politics, right? There was a lot of support for a two-state solution, and there was a big split in Israeli politics over that. After years of terrorist attacks, threats by Iran, that peace movement evaporated, and Netanyahu has been in power so long in part because there has been such a focus by Israeli voters on security and no trust in any sort of peace movement. So the fact that we're seeing voices within

Israel speak up in the way that they are is a very significant development in Israeli politics. It really is an after October 7th. Obviously, you had a united Israel, you had a united certainly the United States, so many of our leaders united all behind Israel to do what Israel needed to do despite the absolutely unforgivable security lapses by Benjamin Netanyahu. Despite all of that, you had a unified Israel, a unified America, certainly in Congress for the most part. But that is changing, and it's changing because we are seeing pictures every day, and we have for a long time coming out

of Gaza and the most heinous stories. The Associated Press reporting last week, the starvation has reached such levels that an infant died weighing less than what he weighed when he was born. There is continued reports, not from Hamas, not from quote health officials in Gaza, but from the International Red Cross, from the United Nations, from humanitarian organizations, left, center and right, from the Red red crescent, all saying the same thing, that people are getting shot trying to go to these aid stations just to get enough food to keep their babies alive for a few more hours, for a few more days.

And they haven't been able to do it. You know, Willie, there's the idea that somehow that there's these left-wingers or there's people that don't love Israel that are making these complaints. Let me just say, you know, in Congress, nobody supported Israel more than I did. On TV for 20 years, 21 years, you can talk to, you know, Jonathan Greenblatt for 21 years. Nobody's talked more about anti-Semitism in this country and spoken out aggressively for 21 years on television against anti-Semitism across the United States and on college campuses over and over again and been supportive of Israel. But as David said, the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu and Benjamin Netanyahu's government

in Gaza, and I will say also with the bombing of Catholic churches in Gaza, with the continued attacks against Christians in the West Bank. Bombing Syria when, of course, the Trump administration is trying to steer that country in the right direction, not only for Israel and the Middle East, but for the world. This continuing is turning a lot of younger Americans, especially, against Israel. So there's not going to be a presumption of doubt in favor of Israel in the years to come because of what Benjamin Netanyahu is doing. Now, I would say if you love Israel, if you believe that Israel needs to remain a bulwark in the Middle East, you actually have to speak out against the savagery that's going on in Gaza because people are dying there and because there will be long-term ramifications against the state of Israel when it comes

to support in the United States and across the West. Yeah, and you say you're already seeing some of that. Israel, of course, had and still has the sympathies and the horror of the world for what happened on October 7th, but some of that goodwill now evaporating among many people as they watch what's happening with its government, not with its people and the victims of what happened on October 7th. And as for the two-state solution, David mentioned there's actually right now here in New York, the UN General Assembly meeting to talk about it, a two-state solution potentially. The United States and Israel are boycotting those talks today.

We'll have much more on that story coming up. Also, podcaster Joe Rogan raising more concerns yesterday on his show about the Trump administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. We'll show you his new comments just ahead. And a reminder, the Morning Joe podcast is available every weekday, featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can get that wherever you find your podcasts.

You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Hey, welcome back to Morning Joe. Beautiful shot of the White House, and what's sure to be another scorcher of a day. You know, Willie, sometimes you have campaign launches like Ronald Reagan's in 1980 that go off swimmingly well, right? You know, the American flag behind you, the Statue of Liberty, it's beautiful.

Then you have launches like Hillary Clinton's, the first time she ran for the United States Senate. She wanted to play New York State of Mind at the end of her first event. And unfortunately, her staff member pressed Captain Jack, a song about masturbation and heroin addiction. It's not the launch you want, right? By the way, side note here, if you haven't seen the Billy Joel documentary, it's extraordinary. Have you

seen it? Yeah, incredible. Oh my god. Love that man. He really, he yeah, oh he's just, he it's an incredible story of perseverance. He's went through so much up and down and just his songwriting extraordinary. So anyway, so but I digress because every time I think of Billy Joel I just think about how what incredible documentary and what incredible life he's had and how he's just kept fighting through it all. But again I digress. We had another one of those launches yesterday in the fine state of Georgia, where they were a guy running for the United States Senate, unfortunately misspelled his own state's name. Not exactly. Let's pronounce that not exactly. Let's ride.

How would you pronounce that? George. Let's ride. George, George maybe, something like the let's ride. I like the swagger of the let's ride after you spell this name of your state incorrectly. That's Mike Collins. That's Mike Collins.

He's announced he's hopping in that Senate race in Georgia, which is gonna be fascinating to watch. But Joe, what do you call that a staff error if you're the candidate there or I don't know what you yeah yeah probably yeah well I don't know I mean we we get it happens every day you know when we have TJ as a director something goes goes wrong. You just gotta ride. You go, let's ride. We ride through it.

Remember one of my favorite periods was when TJ was over at CBS and we were still playing. Oh yeah, hadn't been here for years. For mistakes that happened on the show. Still making mistakes. Yeah, still making mistakes, baby. You had a powerful reach there, TJ.

So anyway. No one catches powerful reach there, TJ. So, anyway. No one catches more strays than TJ, you know? Whenever there's a problem, right over to TJ. TJ, we love you, buddy. All right, let's get back to the news. President Trump has been unable still to avoid questions about Jeffrey Epstein, this time while he visits Scotland. During a news conference yesterday with UK's Prime Minister Keir Starmer at President Trump's golf club in Turnberry.

The president again called the Epstein case a hoax, blamed the Democrats, and added that he never visited Epstein's Caribbean island. For years I wouldn't talk to Jeffrey Epstein. I wouldn't talk because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help and I said don't ever do that again. He stole people that worked for me. I said, don't ever do that again. He did it again.

And I threw him out of the place. Persona non grata. I threw him out. And that was it. I'm glad I did, if you want to know the truth. And by the way, I never went to the island. It's a hoax that's been built up way beyond proportion. I can say this, those files were run by the worst scum on earth. They were

run by Comey, they were run by Garland, they were run by Biden and all of the people that actually ran the government, including the auto pen. Those piles were run for four years by those people. If they had anything, I assume they would have released it. The whole thing is a hoax. Kind of just mad libs there. Auto pen, hoax, scum. The president also reiterated his ability to pardon convicted Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell if he wants to. Meanwhile, the Trump administration seems to believe the president's base will move on from the Epstein accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, if he wants to. Meanwhile, the Trump administration seems to believe

the president's base will move on from the Epstein files. It has not, but podcaster Joe Rogan disagrees, calling out the administration for gaslighting its supporters. Here's what some of Rogan said on Friday. Look, we still have ADHD, right? Collectively as a nation, right? I mean, things move on.

And I think maybe that's what they're, you know, some people are saying, look, they've called the recess on Capitol Hill because they figure by the time they come back in September, everybody will have moved on from this, right? I think they're wrong. I don't think this is... Again, this feels like and just looks like that one of those handful of conspiracies, again, you go to JFK or whomever, that's just gonna hang around. Nat. This is a line in the sand. This one's a line in the sand. Because this is one where there's a lot of stuff about, you know, when we thought Trump was gonna come in and a lot of things are gonna be resolved, gonna drain the swamp, gonna figure everything out. And when you have this one hardcore line in the sand that everybody had been talking about

forever, and then they're trying to gaslight you on that. So, Joe Rogan talking there to a former CIA officer, but the case that the president is trying to make is just not working, saying it's a hoax perpetrated by the Democrats who remind people that Jeffrey Epstein was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in the summer of 2019 when President Trump was in office in his first term. Jeffrey Epstein died in prison a short time after that also while President Trump was in office. So just a reminder of some core facts of this story.

Right. And Jonathan Lemire, again, the bigger problem for the president seems to me is that his base for years has singularly obsessed it seems on this conspiracy theory and the belief that Democrats were pedophiles that had this massive widespread, you know, and Hollywood stars had this massive, widespread pedophile ring that Jeffrey Epstein was at the center of. And so, you know, Tom Winters and other NBC news reporters can say there's no list there, there's no there, there. They're just not going to listen to that.

And what's going to be most interesting is that you know Mike Johnson broke the house into recess to get away from this story which is just absolutely horrible and if you're a Democrat you're talking about that across the district. They stopped the people's business just to get us out of town so the Republicans would stop talking about this. The problem is when you get home into your district if you're a Republican now and you're holding town hall meetings people are gonna be asking about Jeffrey Epstein because that's what they've been obsessing about for years and I just don't think it goes away in their mind regardless of what NBC News and other

news outlets are saying. Yeah, that's right. This has been such an animating conspiracy for so long. President Trump himself, he only fanned the flames occasionally. He was not a major driver of it, but plenty of people around him did, including many of whom have very high profile positions in the government right now. And I've reported for this show and for The Atlantic just how angry President Trump is,

that a lot of these people, lawmakers, but also podcasters, media influencers, people he believes he created, they're making money off of him, he has told people around him, are openly defying him, that he can't get this to stop, and it's not gonna go away. Those lawmakers are gonna go home over this month after Johnson sent them away from

here in DC, and they're going to get an airfield from constituents. And David Drucker, I mean, we have Speaker Johnson also show defiance, though he sent them home, showed some defiance and said, like, well, look, we do need to get to the bottom of this, suggesting that if there are unanswered questions in September, that the House might need to take action. We know the Republican lawmakers threatening to do more. They've already issued subpoenas. And Ghislaine Maxwell is going to make an appearance, you know, not public, but she's going to

talk to congressional investigators in later next month. So despite the White House's efforts, this is not going to go away. And as we discussed on the show yesterday, if suddenly pardon, something Trump has not ruled out, if a pardon were to come to Maxwell, that would suddenly, I think, only explode the situation further. Yeah, I don't see how Trump goes in that direction. But then again, he often goes in directions that don't make sense to people. Look, I think what's fascinating here is that you saw Trump there in that clip, talking about the fact that, you know, or posit that, I mean, look, if this thing was real, the Democrats would have used it against me.

In other words, this is a conspiracy theory. If it were true, all of these other things would be happening. His problem is that every development in a conspiracy theory furthers the conspiracy theory for the people that believe it. I think Mike Johnson and House Republican leaders are trying to figure out what to do here. The going home early for the August recess was a delaying tactic. They don't actually want to break with Trump and they don't want to actually in a sense go to war with Trump over this. So they're hoping that over the recess the court takes action in a way that

absolves them of having to do anything. Everybody gets the information they need or sees the action taken that they want and they can come back in September and just go back to legislating and working with the president on policy issues. If that doesn't happen, then it's going to be very interesting to see exactly how aggressive is Johnson willing to be in defiance of Trump. I don't know that we know how much yet because there are a lot more sort of rank and file members of the House Republican Conference than there are MAGA-aligned members like Marjorie

Taylor Greene, even though they're all in a sense aligned with Trump. But I mean, they're heading into primary season. They don't want to get crosswise with Trump heading into primary season. Republican primary voters tend to blame Republican members of Congress, rather than Trump, for things that Trump is responsible for. So it's a delicate political balancing act for them. But you know, you're right to point out how much this issue has broken through with just, forget Republican voters, even people that don't believe in conspiracy theories

and don't think this is necessarily a conspiracy, they're all talking about it. It's very accessible. It's not political. So it's top of mind for everybody. Right. I mean, it even has one word, right? It's the Epstein scandal, it's simple to say and it's dominated the headlines for the last three weeks. I guess the question is does it carry on dominating attention for the next four weeks? And if there are more things like meetings with Maxwells, even sending the house home early, that feeds this idea that there is some kind of cover-up going on of powerful people protecting powerful people with some sense of pedophilia in the mix, which has been part of this conspiracy theory for ages.

I think a lot of it will depend on how much members here, Republican members here from their constituents about this over the next four weeks, and also how much Democrats manage to keep the story alive and how much more, let's all watch the Wall Street Journal, I'm sure Rupert Murdoch is loving this, how many more stories the Wall Street Journal has to drop and when it decides to drop them. Willie. All right, senior writer for the Dispatch, David Drucker. David, thank you as always. Coming up, we'll dig into Paramount's merger with Skydance and the new watchdog position

created to get the FCC to approve the deal. We'll explain when Morning Joe comes right back. There are new questions this morning surrounding the potential consequences of Skydance Media's acquisition of Paramount, the parent company of CBS. The FCC's approval for the $8 billion sale last week was followed by Paramount's $16 million settlement over a lawsuit brought by President Trump. Settlement over an edit that 60 Minutes made, the type of edit that 60 Minutes has been making for well over half a century. Stipulations of the deal include the hiring of a watchdog task with fielding complaints about alleged political or ideological bias within the organization's news coverage.

And Willie, let me just say, quite a leap for the network of Murrow or of Cronkite or of Mike Wallace. I would like to know where Mike Wallace would tell Skydance or anybody where they could stick that watchdog. It would not be pretty. And by the way, let's underline the fact how outrageous that settlement with Donald Trump was over a pedestrian edit. Yeah, yeah. Edit for time happens every day in the news business at magazines and newspapers and on television networks. You can't show the whole thing. We have the ability to post the whole thing somewhere else so you

can see the full context. We can give you the transcript. But for time, yes, interviews are edited. So that first settlement of $16 million to a lot of people was the first canary in the coal mine where they said, whoa, this network and this corporation is willing to effectively pay off the Trump administration to get this deal done. Let's bring in the founder of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. He's writing about all of this and a new piece for the new Republic title, The Tiffany Network Shatters as Paramount CBS sells its cheap soul.

Sells its soul cheap. Also with us for the conversation, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle. Good morning to you both. Jeffrey, let's just take the media side of this first about everything that happened to get this deal done. I mean, you can watch the dominoes fall from the settlement. The 16 million dollars was 60 minutes. Colbert in the surprise move is canned. They say it's strictly a financial decision, but there was no attempt to streamline the show or improve its finances before he was axed effective next year.

How did this all come to be? It was all about the deal, the Skydance deal? It's a pathetic desperation to try to salvage the rapidly imploding Viacom Paramount CBS empire that once was. When Sherri Redstone, and I supported Sherri Redstone's move to try to push her senescent dad out in his 90s, losing control of CBS and the Paramount Viacom implosion. But it was worth $80 billion now, now eight. I mean, she's lost more than 80% of the value, almost 90% of the value under her leadership.

But yeah, you and Joe just nailed it. It's outrageous. Those edits, like you suggested, you put your transcripts out. We've all seen these. Anybody who wants to can see the transcripts. There's nothing untoward taken out, just shortened. And you can see what was done there.

And to pay $16 million for that is ludicrous. And what damages? The guy won. How was he in any way damaged? And Colbert, you know, I think we would say on this network, Jimmy Fallon, you can't beat that, but Colbert was doing awfully well on late night. He was the king of late night. If somebody said that the expenses were high, he's paid the same thing as Fallon and Kimmel get paid and Kimmel has 300 people on staff instead of two. So they want to cut it, they could come up with a proposal, but 10 months away from the

end of the contract, you don't just cancel it like this. Something weird happening there politically. Yeah. Mike, this is, Mike Barnicle, this is all about the deal. They wanted to get the deal done. And so they did whatever needed to be done. But I go back to my question. What would Mike Wallace say?

What would Walter Cronkite say about part of the deal being that a, quote, watchdog would be there to report on bias? I mean, this is, we have watchdogs, watchdogs at universities, watchdogs at news networks. Seems un-American, and obviously un-American, to have government watchdogs looking over all of our institutions. You know, Joe, you mentioned several icons of CBS News,

Cronkite and Mike Wallace and people like that. There were also the people who worked there every day in the news department, people like Willie's father, Bill Geist, who was a legend in terms of what he did on news shows, on CBS Sunday morning news shows. And people like that, the reporters out in the field. That to me, and I think to a lot of people, is the heart of what CBS News and CBS, the network, really stands for. You're presenting the news.

You knew you were getting the news. You knew you were getting an accurate portrait of what happened in the world and in the cities yesterday of the United States. And Jeffrey, the news department, the gutting of the news department, the idea of an ombudsman, the idea of CBS paying $16 million for a simple 30-second edit, that it happens multiple times a day at every network. What happens to the soul of a network when you strip it the way they're stripping it down apparently in the news department. You know, it is gut-wrenching. Obviously, it's very demoralizing to journalists, but it's a clarion call to American society what's happening here as you come back on those

legends like Bill Geist, but also the names that Joe threw out there of Cronkite and Mero and the rest, is this was so prophetically, horrifyingly foretold in Cindy Lumet and Patty Chayefsky's 1976 film, I'm sure you remember, Network, and then a decade later, less of a more of a romantic comedy, Broadcast News, and then The the insider actually named 60 Minutes and worried about the degradation of this Tiffany network, the shattering of Tiffany network. It's awful. Murrow had once said, you know, that Edward R. Murrow, who is a great legend of the CBS News, in pointing out that a private media is a public American treasure, but it shouldn't

be a state propaganda organ. And in fact, he said that to be persuasive, you have to be believable. To be believable, you have to be credible. And to be credible, you have to tell the truth. And a nation of sheep will wind up being led by a government of wolves. We can't let this go. And it's outrageous. Willie, we were talking off camera, if you don't mind me saying, just asking what the

FCC is up to here and what Commissioner, Chairman Carr is doing by trying to call these shots and the notion of having thought police to judge what's acceptable is really outrageous. What's your understanding, Jeffrey, of just practically how this works? I mean, Bill Owens, who's the executive producer of 60 Minutes, resigned a couple of months ago rather than work this way. We have a new executive producer, someone who's an excellent producer, has been with the show for a long time.

But are the stories running through some government watchdog, 60 Minutes, put together an investigative piece about the Trump administration, and it's going to go through the filter of a government watchdog? Or how is this all going to work? Do we know yet? Well, I hope it's akin to the somewhat controversial concessions made by Columbia University coincidentally at the same time is that these watchdogs are hopefully just an advisory group that has no teeth. There's no governance power, I believe, in the Columbia University decision. I believe in this

case it's going to be the way some newspapers had created public editors. They they they could embarrass the the organ, but didn't have any direct control. And so that might be at worst as where it goes, but it can have a very chilling effect. It's it's alarming. And we certainly see, you know, Fox News has plenty of edits. And, you know, where's the concern there? There's an overnight media watchdog group that has actually challenging the the bar status of Commissioner Carr as to whether or not he should be stripped. And so that is going to put him on the hot seat. I don't know if they succeed and it won't necessarily require that the chairman step

down, but certainly starting to hold accountable who's doing this oversight on a partisan basis. And it's very troubling to see concessions made, whether or's it's very it's very it's very troubling to see concessions made whether or not it's the media or universities or corporations or law firms. It's an important piece and appreciate you staying on this Professor Yale's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld. Thank you. You can read the new piece in the New Republic online now. Thanks so much. Thank you very much. New polling from the Wall Street Journal shows Democrats now getting their lowest rating from voters in 35 years. That new survey finds 63%

of voters hold an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party. That's the highest share in the Wall Street Journal poll dating back to 1990. Only 33% of Americans hold a favorable view of Democrats. That is compared to 43% of voters who view the Republican Party favorably. Fifty-four percent have an unfavorable opinion there, Joe. With us now, let's bring in the National Editor for the Financial Times, Ed Luce. His new piece is titled Western Liberalism's Waning Star. Ed, thank you so much for being with us. Such an extraordinarily important piece. I know we had you on the show yesterday, but after the piece came out, we demanded more Ed Luce. So thank you so

much for being here. There's so many fascinating things about this article, but I want to start with what you talk about what the left, not only in America and the center-left in America, what their problems are, but those problems, how they're duplicated in Britain and across the rest of Western Europe. That is, first of all, they seem to be soulless, believe, don't know what they believe in, and secondly, they seem to be intolerant. Walk us through those two. Yeah, this is a pattern that's very clearly Western-wide.

If you look at the malaise that's affecting, it's not just center-left parties, it's center and center-right parties. It's the sort of traditional parties of liberal democracy. And I think it's best sort of exemplified by what Keir Starmer's Labour Party is going through in Britain. It's only been in power for a year. But it's in the doldrums and has been almost immediately after it took office, in spite of having won a massive majority. The Nigel Farage, the Reform Party that Donald Trump's friend

Nigel Farage started is surging in the polls. And you're seeing something very similar in France with Marine Le Pen's far-right party there, Macron, the French president. He's a rock bottom approval ratings. The new government in Germany, the coalition government between the traditional social democrats and Christian democrats, only in office a few months,

is now behind in the polls to the AFD, the far right German AFD party that JD Vance and Elon Musk and others keep boosting. And of course we have a populist in office here in the United States, but with Democrats not doing well. And I think the pattern here is the left, the centrists, don't really have much conviction about what they stand for.

You know, they cannot explain their stance on a bumper sticker. And people like Farage, people like Trump, people like Le Pen can. And so when the left is in office the right surge but when the right is in office the left don't surge. So what I call the law of political laws of hydraulics are broken there. The left is not breaking through. Now you talk about one, that are expanding, those religions look for converts. Those on the wane, those who are dying, they hunt heretics. Talk about that and how that has defined the left for over

a decade across the West and the consequences of that. So I think one of the things that's really blindsided a lot of us in the last few years is the surge of support for the right, for the populist right amongst the young, particularly young men, but not just young men. And the more I sort of look into this and talk to, sort of anecdotally, but look at the data, the more I realize that they see themselves as being regulated, micro-regulated in their lives,

what they can say, what they can think, how they express themselves. They feel that the establishment is actually a liberal establishment. And that it's kind of Victorian, you know, in that you've got people who are extremely privileged and well-off and older than them, telling them what their etiquette should be

and what their manners should be. And this is a resentment we didn't see coming. We saw the right as basically old people, people over 65. Increasingly, it's young people. And increasingly, it's people who feel economically, their prospects are really not up to match. But at the same time, they're being told that they're just behaving wrongly

and have to watch how they behave for fear of being scolded. Could you also, other than like the speech codes and the sort of political correctness and the belief by young males that they're being attacked by this left-wing establishment, you also brought up COVID and said that the left and the center-left are fools if they ever look at another election again without looking back to the lessons of COVID. Can you please explain that? Because I think that's an extremely important part of this piece as well. And that really keys into the sort of young versus

old thing. Essentially, what we did was we imposed very strict rules, social distancing rules, sometimes lockdowns, that were there to protect the vulnerable, older people, people with pre-existing conditions, diabetes, et cetera, at the expense of the young, not just of their schooling, but of their ability to socialize, their ability to live their lives. And this is an absolutely sort of defining moment

for anybody who was young. COVID sort of marked their lives, pop marked their lives. And I think gave them a view of the left and of regulation, not just the CDC and NIH, but the establishment in general, that we are underestimating in terms of how jaundiced they feel about the world. And so COVID is a seminal thing. It's over, but it's not over.

All right. As we come up here on the top of the hour, wanting back to our top story this morning, we're learning more details about the police officer killed in yesterday's shooting here in Midtown Manhattan, 36-year-old Deedarul Islam, one of four people gunned down at 345 Park Avenue, was an officer with the New York City Police Department for more than three years. He was an immigrant from Bangladesh, the father of two young boys with a third child on the way. Family's friend spoke to the New York Times about Officer Islam's decision to join the NYPD,

saying in part he wanted to leave behind a legacy for his family, something they could be proud of. The suspected shooter in the attack has been identified as 27-year-old Shane Devon Tamura from Las Vegas. He's said by police to have acted alone. The motive not been disclosed, officials familiar with the investigation tell NBC News the suspect did leave a note at the scene, in part voicing anger about his mental illness, saying it may be linked to CTE from playing high school football. Investigators are looking into whether that may be why he targeted this building, which houses the NFL's headquarters. Important to note, the investigation early and ongoing and no link has been made there. Joining us now on Morning Joe,

New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Mayor Adams, thanks for being with us this morning. You're not just the mayor, you're also a former police officer, I'm so sorry we mourn with you the loss of Officer Islam, an immigrant who came to this country from Bangladesh, created a life for his family and was killed yesterday. What more can you tell us about the investigation this morning, sir?

Well, Kalei, when you think about Officer Islam and the role he played as a member of the New York City Police Department, it is part of the increase we see in various immigrant groups who are joining the force, and it has become one of the most diverse police agencies in the country. We know that the suspect involved walked into the building carrying an automatic weapon in his right hand, and he entered the building, and immediately to the right was Officer Islam, and he took his life and also struck an additional security personnel who was at the door as well.

This was just a horrific condition. We have a total, as has been reported, we have a total of six people who were shot, one being the suspect who shot himself. And we know that we have one individual who was injured, and they were seriously injured. They seem to be in serious condition at this time. And we have several other civilians who lost their life, including Officer Islam. Mr. Mayor, what more do we know this morning about motive, if anything? So far we know that police found that note. The alleged shooter mentioned CTE. It's a bit of a leap, frankly, he didn't play in the NFL, didn't even play college football.

He was a high school football player in California that he would then target the NFL offices and kill at random people in the lobby. Do we know anything else about why he did this? No, no more than the note. We're still investigating. This is relatively new. There's no more than just a note at this time. And as you indicated, We're still investigating. This is relatively new. There's no more than just a note at this time. And as you indicated, he talked about CTE.

He was not an NFL player. We have reason to believe that he was focused on the NFL agency that was located in the building. agency that was located in the building and we're going to continue to investigate with our federal partners to ensure that we can find a reason and identify of any other weapons we found an additional weapon in a car that was parked outside at this time and just really hats off to the men and women of the New York City Police Department. And our pardon is for immediately going in the building, going floor by floor, doing a search, looking for any incendiary devices to conduct a very thorough investigation.

Mr. Mayor, there are many elements of this tragedy yesterday that have a ripple effect that people are going to be feeling for a long, long time. For me, one of the most critical aspects of it is the fact that Ditaral Aslam, the police officer killed yesterday, left two little boys, two little boys, and his wife is pregnant with their third child, and he's an immigrant from Bangladesh. The New York City Police Department is filled with immigrant police officers. Can you tell us how many, what's the composition of the police department? How many languages, different languages are spoken by members of the New

York Police Department for translation, things like that? How rich it is in terms of its composition, representing many races and many religions. Could you speak to that? Yes. And there's a personal note for me in this story, but just specifically dealing with our agency has what we call fraternal organizations from various ethnic and immigrant groups from the continent of Africa to South and Central America. Although they all wear the blue uniforms and members of the police department, the department

allows them to celebrate their rich diversity and is extremely rich and diverse at this time. The exact numbers I do not have, but we constantly attend to various ethnic and the functions of these various groups. And they bring a very, very important opportunity. They are almost like ambassadors for their countries of origin. And when it comes down to the Muslim officers, after September 11, they went through a horrific experience because of the terrorist act that had nothing to do with them, but it was attached to our Muslim officers. And so I actively assisted them in creating an organization that is still in place right now, and a fraternal organization.

My attorney allowed—they used my attorney to put the organization in place. And we recruited heavily for our Muslim officers and Muslim immigrant group to join the police department. And so this is the first Bangladeshi officer that we lost in a line of duty. And just seeing the families and friends who were there had a devastating impact for the entire NYPD family. But the Bangladeshi community really felt this loss and pain. Mayor Adams, good morning. This shooting yesterday, of course, comes a few months

after the targeted killing of a health care executive also on a midtown Manhattan street. There's only so much a city government and a police force can do in a bustling big city where people, of course, need to come and go as they please. But are there messages that you or the police department are delivering to some of the corporations that call New York City home? There are so many there in Manhattan, about additional safeguards that

perhaps should be in place in the wake of these high-profile incidents? Yes, and that's a good question, because this gun came from outside our city. The perpetrator drove to New York. And so, yes, we are removing these illegal guns off our streets, over almost close to 23,000 illegal guns off our streets. But when you have individuals driving into local municipalities from other areas with firearms, it makes it increasingly difficult. But our partners, such as the building 345 Park Avenue, rooting management, they implemented

so many safeguards, and even to the point that they could have stopped the elevator from moving in any direction or bringing it back to the floor. But the security guard that was in charge of that operation was killed at the desk as he attempted to flee the suspect. He was killed at the desk and that took away that operation. But on the floor itself, there were safe rooms such as the bathrooms where you had bulletproof doors and you were able to lock in the staffers inside. And so there were many things that rooted management put in place to make their tenants safe. And

there were some great opportunities to do so, and one individual was able to, or several individuals, able to lock themselves in the safe rooms, and we believe it played a major role in not having a greater loss of life. New York City Mayor Eric Adams, our sympathies again to you and the New York City Police Department on the death of Officer Islam and to all the families impacted here. Thanks for being with us this morning. We appreciate it.