Morning Joe - Could AI treat patients better than humans?

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

August 25, 2026: 7am — Could AI treat patients better than humans?  To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

All right, a few other stories to get to before we reach the top of the hour. A Navy sailor on the USS Abraham Lincoln says his father has been detained by immigration authorities in Florida. Joshua Avillas says he learned Saturday that his father, Luis Manuel Aviles, had been taken into ICE custody. In a Facebook post, Avila wrote, I've been deployed for over nine months out at sea in the Middle East to board the USS Abraham Lincoln. fighting for a country that has given me everything. He added, we have done everything through immigration to get his green card approved. And we are just waiting. Please stay strong.

I'm coming home, dad. The Department of Homeland Security says Border Patrol arrested Avila's father during a vehicle stop in Key West. But Avelas claims his father has a driver's license, social security card, and work permit, and has lived in the United States for 19 years. And here is one of the problems, exactly a case like this, where you have people like Mr. Revelyas, who is trying to do the process and trying to do everything right. And this comes at great cost to people who are doing everything they can

to be here legally and do things the right way. And it is bankrupting for many people to do that while trying to make it here in America. And now they're too afraid to show up to their immigration meetings or hearings. They're too afraid to show up because of these violent tactics by ICE. Because of the videos that we've seen across the country of people getting shot, of U.S. citizens getting treated violently documented or undocumented, there is illegal activity should not happen to anybody on American soil.

Due process should happen to. everybody on American soil. But what you have is this intense, violent tactics against documented or undocumented people that make them too afraid to actually follow the law. And it's the violence and the fear that is now exacerbating what is a horrible situation, again, deployed by ICE and the way they do business. Also, this, if you're not horrified by what you've seen so far, Try this one. A mother and a daughter in immigration custody. After going to a hospital in central Florida, after being in a car accident, they go to the ER. Juliana Calero and her daughter Grace Stephanie Calero were receiving medical treatment when, according to family members, hospital staff, told them ICE had requested the women be taken into custody.

Take a look. Relatives say both women had valid immigration documents and were in the process of seeking asylum. Because they were, when you seek asylum, you're trying to flee violence of what are we looking at here? The Polk County Sheriff's Office says deputies determined the women had overstayed their visas. However, the Sheriff's Office adds that neither woman faces criminal charges and both are being held. held in the county jail. The family says they have not been able to speak with them since their detention. ICE has not commented on the arrest. So fleeing violence from their countries, and this is what you've got here in America. You get in a car accident, you go to the ER,

a mother and a daughter are ripped out of the ER like that, Jonathan Lemire. And the list goes on of story after story after story of people being nabbed off the street in violent ways, often by ICE agents that don't appear to be trained to even be able to use their weapons correctly. I'd be scared if I got near anybody like that, and everybody is scared when they see a situation like that. And isn't that part of the point here, how could it not be, to fear people into not showing up and doing their process and trying to be here legally, are again we going after the worst of the worst, or we just going after people to create a level of fear out there

where laws can be broken, people can be detained for months, and children have to show up alone for the detention hearings. The list goes on as to how backwards, un-American and sick this is. What are we doing here as a nation? What are we doing? This is not the worst of the worst that President Trump promised that he would focus on during the campaign. And his administration keeps saying that they're targeting. A mother and daughter at a hospital, a video impossible to watch. And then the USS Abraham Blinken, which has just had a record deployment in the Middle East with terrible conditions on board. Conditions that the Trump, won't admit to, but we know from relatives of sailors who have been on that ship how bad things got so bad that some members try to jump overboard. And yet while one of those sailors was serving his country for months at sea, his father's detained. And he asked to write that

heartbreaking Facebook message telling him, telling him, Willie, that, you know, stay strong, dad, I'll be home soon. I mean, this is, I mean, yes, there's the political angle of this. This This is why Trump is so underwater and what used to be a signature issue, immigration. This is partially why Republicans are expecting to do poorly this November. But it's more than a political issue. It's a human issue. It's about humanity. It's about a nation's decency.

And we're failing that test. We were told it was rapists and murderers. So we're going to be shipped out, right? This whole time during the campaign in 2024 again, to which people said, yes, please secure the border and get out the violent criminals. We just heard, as Mika read those stories, these were not criminals, other than overstimals. other than overstaying a visa and awaiting their asylum hearing. I mean, when you have a man in Mr. Avilis, the father of the sailor,

who's been here for 19 years, is a handyman in Florida and raised a son in America who loves the country so much that he joined the United States Navy and has been on that ship. And then in the case of that hospital scene, the sick thing, John, is that there are people, Stephen Miller comes to mind, who like what they see in that picture because it sends a message to other people.

people don't come here unless you want to be this person. This is the mother. And then later, the daughter who had just been in a serious car accident was arrested in her hospital gown when she was discharged awaiting now deportation hearings. It sickens most Americans to watch this, but not enough people in the Trump administration. Because this will continue. This will continue. The quotas are still in place. Stephen Miller still has calls multiple times a week with DHS officers saying, we need to get our numbers up. We need more people out. And in some ways, you know, the national storyline has moved on since Minneapolis, so that we have had a few other high-profile incidents of violence. But there's just, there is so much else going on. The ICE tactics have been a little

less in your face. Well, I mean, except we, of course, see this at a hospital. And we're seeing it at courts. We're seeing it at airports. They've just sort of changed tactics a little bit, but the drive is still there. These scenes are still happening. And there's no sign, no sign. The Trump administration is going to back down. In fact, the opposite, where Trump in a political corner, when he feels like his back against the wall, he almost reflexively goes to what he thinks is his best issue, his thinks his base wants, which is immigration, which is deportation, which are more scenes like that. And maybe a sliver of the base does want that. But polling shows, by and large Americans are disgusted by those scenes. We've crossed the top of the hour. It's

five after seven here on the East Coast, joining the conversation, MS Now National Affairs analyst, John Heilman. He's a partner in chief political. columnists at Puck. Also with his sky parrimand. She's president and CEO of Democracy Ford, a nonprofit legal organization that looks to advance democracy through litigation, policy, and public education. Also with a book we want to talk about as well. Good morning to you both. The Supreme Court yesterday opened a possible path for President Trump's executive order that restricts voting by mail. The president's order directs the United States Postal Service to decide which voters are eligible for mail-in ballots through.

state citizenship lists. Supreme Court's conservative majority did not rule on the legality of the executive order. It instead ruled that states that sued did not have the legal right to challenge the order. So, Sky, there's so much to this story. First

of all, that the President of the United States is using the United States Postal Service, kind of stacking the board of governors with people friendly to him and his politics, some of them election deniers, but also the fact that they're creating lists acceptable to the Trump administration of who states can allow to vote. What do you make of what you heard from the Supreme

Court yesterday? Look, I mean, it's disappointing that the Supreme Court would create more chaos here. Lower courts have been very clear. The president doesn't have the authority to do what he's done. And the Supreme Court, by the way, was clear that it wasn't ruling at all on the legality. But what happened yesterday by telling the states, you have to go back and sue again in a few days once the rule comes under effect is that a lot of people are now confused. And so what we want everyone to know is that you can still vote by mail, the Constitution does not provide the president the authority to do what he is doing. And lower courts, including courts, by the way, that have judges that were appointed by Republican presidents, including President Trump himself,

are ruling against this administration. I don't think that the president will ultimately prevail if this goes back up to the Supreme Court. I believe that this will stay blocked in the lower courts. But certainly, if chaos is the point, that's what the administration wants before the election. our job is to fight the chaos and to make sure that people have that accurate information. But that's the issue. The clock is ticking. You know, first of all, we see that the president has, you know, he has stacked the post office with allies. It certainly seems like he gets a lot of favors from the Supreme Court, the conservative majority there, which seems very into the idea of expanding executive power, despite the fact that we know elections should be administered

on the state level. But the, you know, primary season's almost over. Early voting's about to begin. You're right about the timing, but the timing also works against the president, too. I mean, here there's already another injunction that was not the subject of this order yesterday. The Postal Service, if it implements the final regulation, which we think it will, will be sued again. The lower courts we expect will block it, and then the administration would have to take it back up to the court where it would then be faced with a merits determination. And even justices like Amy Coney-Barritt have recently said in opinions at the court, the president just doesn't have this authority. But this.

is why and an indication why the courts are not going to be the silver bullet here. And I say this as a person that leads a team that's in court every day and we're winning many of those days. But the courts are not fundamentally the silver bullet here. It is going to be the American people and it is going to be the American people demanding that their votes be counted. And that's, of course, why I wrote the book that we're going to talk about later today. John Hammond, I mean, President Trump, we should remind everyone used mail in voting as recently as an election last week. So he votes by mail. What is behind this effort, this unusual, to put it mildly effort by the Trump administration, to use the Postal Service, to use all these other levers to at least slow or create doubts in the public about mail-in voting, which, as we have to point out, every time we talk about it, fraud is vanishingly rare across this country. Yeah, Willie, just to get to the point that you and John were just talking about a second ago, just about how early, early voting starts, I believe North Carolina's,

first state that starts receiving mail-in ballots on September 4th, which is just really right around the corner next week and in-person voting. I think the earliest in-person voting starts in the middle of September. So voting, you know, we all know elections in America now don't take place on Election Day. They take place for a good deal before that. And we are right on the brink of election season, the general election season starting in some really critical states in America. You know, the answer, I think, is self-evident. Donald Trump for 18 months has been talking about, has been making very clear his intentions by hook or crook, by every possible means to interfere with mess with the midterm elections.

And that involves his actual efforts to try to federalize the elections. Sky, and I literally were talking yesterday for a podcast this week about the fact that, you know, this Constitution is very clear on this. federal government does not control elections. That is left to the states entirely. There is not a lot of ambiguity in the Constitution about that. Donald Trump continues to talk about it. Why?

Maybe because he thinks that there's some way in which the Supreme Court would side with him regardless of the Constitution. And he would be great from Donald Trump's point of view if he could federalize the American elections. If not, the sowing of doubt is the point and the effort of the administration to try to in an election where we know that in midterm elections, that irregular voters, primarily in these off here in these midterm elections, Democratic, inclined voters, voters who are the swing voters in the country, they are the target where Donald Trump can suppress that vote while still maintaining

what parts of his base do reliably vote. The Republicans have a better chance of doing well in these election. So if you start at the worst with actual interference in the election and then dial that back to the sowing of doubt, which is one thing to the Supreme Court ruling yesterday, does that's Donald Trump's a full spectrum election interference machine, Mika. And I think he he's clearly trying to pull every available lever to try to engineer an outcome that he likes better than the one that he seems to be headed for this fall. Well, perfect timing then to talk about Sky's new book out today titled Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times. And in its sky, you argue that the defense of democracy cannot be left to politicians, the courts, or institutions alone, because it belongs to ordinary people.

I would love for you to explain that because I think a lot of ordinary people right now are feeling very powerless. They're feeling powerless, they're feeling alone, but they're also asking what they can do in this moment. The feeling of powerlessness, of exhaustion, of one outrage after the other, that is a feature, not a bug of the way that Donald Trump and his far right movement wants the American people to think. They want you to believe you don't have power. We're in reality, it's always been the people in this country that have demanded more and that have forced change. And we have seen that over the past 18 months. We have seen millions of people take to the streets in this country in the single largest days of peaceful mobilizations.

We have seen people stand up to media companies to say you're not taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air, right? As powerful institutions have been stepping back or on the sidelines or unsure about this moment, people have been stepping forward, but they want to know what to do. And so I wrote this book as a guide to answer the question we all get all the time, which is what can I do in this moment. And it turns out there's a lot of things you can do. So this is a guide for people who are exhausted and outraged. There are ways to refresh you and get you back on track. And for people that are eager and wanting to take action today, we have checklist from everything from five minutes to what you can do over a longer term time commitment.

You're right. I think over the last decade, some people who have been politically engaged for their whole lives are exhausted. And they say, I just can't watch this circus every day. I want to wake up anxious and angry every day. So what is a good place to start for somebody who wants to engage or perhaps re-engage, get back into the process? Well, the first thing we say is you've got to stop spiraling and pick up a shovel. I got that from my grandmother in Southeast Texas. But that's really real because Donald Trump and this far-right movement wants you to spiral, an outrage of the day. Actually, action is the thing that we need to do. And so the first piece is to change your mindset.

And that takes a while for some people. And it's an action that counts to defend our democracy. We also talk about achieving what I call information sobriety. which is to figure out how you are getting your news, what is healthy, what is accurate, and to tune the rest of it out so that you can really focus on taking small, repeatable steps that if we all take them together, become big things that can change our country. That can be a challenge, getting sober with your information, but it's so important. And we have tips about how you can do it.

This is a great book. People are going to love reading it. They need it right now. It's called Ordinary People, Extraordinary Times, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, Sky, Perryman. Sky, great to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Still ahead on Morning, Joe. Our next guest is taking a look at how artificial intelligence is disrupting medical care and what that means for both physicians and patients.

Talk to Dr. Ezek Emmanuel about all the possibilities straight ahead on Morning Joe. Welcome back, live look at Capitol Hill as the sun comes up over Washington. The American Medical Association is out with a new framework for physicians' role in the age of artificial intelligence, insisting doctors remain central to patient care. But our next guest says the evidence disagrees. Joining us now, Dr. Ezekiel Emmanuel. He is the vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania and served as a White House health policy advisor under President Obama. And he's the co-author of a new piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association

that asks, will autonomous AI exceed AI-aided physicians as the best medical care? And I think you're creating a little controversy here, Zeke, but I definitely want to hear more. maybe I start by asking about your brother and Claude and how that makes part of your point. Yes. And which brother? Yeah, Ram had night sweats for about two weeks. And he called me and I went over possibilities infection like Lyme disease or Babesiosis. I went over, you know, dreadful possibilities like cancer and Hodgkin's disease.

He went to his doctor, got 48 blood tests, all negative. Doctor and I, you know, scratch our head and said, well, you know, maybe it's post-viral or something and, you know, sort of dismissed it. The night sweats went away. And then a few weeks later, he went out to Montana when fly fishing. And a few days later, the night sweats came back. He went out to dinner with his wife and said, you know, Amy, why don't you look up Montana, trout fishing and night sweats. And lo and behold, Claude came up with the fact that there's a

protein on trout that gets into your hands when you take them off the hook and throw them back in the water. And that does cause night sweats. So there you have a diagnostic case, which, you know, frankly, flummoxed to doctors. Now, I'm not a trout protein specialist. But it does illustrate an example of what we found when we looked at the literature. Since January 2024, there have been 51 studies looking at AI compared to doctors. And it shows that AI is equal to or better than doctors, albeit mainly in artificial cases of patient actors or chatbots, in getting patient information, making a differential diagnosis. What are the possibilities here, like I did with my brother,

ordering tests to narrow down those possibilities, recommending guideline concordant care, the best treatment, and then managing patients with chronic disease like diabetes and high cholesterol and other diseases. That's pretty impressive. And if you look at the history, AI alone becomes better and better. And as it improves, when you put doctors in the loop,

the way the AMA wants to do it, they actually introduce more errors. And that was the most surprising thing to us because the doctor in the loop actually could degrade performance of AI alone, not improve it. Are we ready for AI doctors today? We say no.

You know, but that doesn't mean that it's not going to happen in the next few years, not for everything, but for some important aspects of medicine. So what do you say to doctors who say, hey, you can't replace the doctor-patient relationship that will always prevail in medicine. So there are two things, I would say. First of all, there are lots of large swaths of this country where we don't have enough doctors, especially primary care doctors, rural areas, urban areas.

And in those places, AI is going to be tremendously beneficial to get people care that right now they can't get. So you would be comparing AI to, you know, probably no care or care that might be 100 miles away. And that, I think, will, it won't take any patients away from a doctor and it'll boost patient care. That's the first thing. The second thing, and I think this is really important, is, you know, everyone talks about the art of medicine, human connection empathy. So let me say two things about that. The first is, actually, the data suggests that AI might be more sympathetic and empathetic and supportive than doctors. Google did a study with patient actors, and the patient actors consistently found the Google Gemini better, Amy, sorry, Google Amy, better than actual doctors

in terms of empathetic support, eliciting information, having them participate in decision making. And that is a warning sign, I think, that, you know, we don't have a lock. We doctors don't have a lock on empathy. The second point I would say is, you know, for the last hundred years, doctors have been touting the science of medicine, not the art of medicine, and we can offer better cures. And we don't admit patients to medical school based upon the art of medicine or their compassion. We admit them on organic chemistry, physics, calculus, biology, and we don't spend that much time compared to the pathophysiology, anatomy, and microbiology on human connection, support, communication. So we'll have to change our medical school if we really think

human connection and compassion and empathy are critical. So John Howellman, the doctor making a case here for AI medicine, but we have seen poll after poll show a remarkable shift on AI in the last year or so, where even some evangelists of it have really backed off. Now, some of that is because of economic costs, the size and expense and sounds of data centers and the like. but also just a growing sort of suspicion. What is AI? What does it really mean? Do you sense here that, like,

is American people ready to have AI be a significant part of their health care? You know, Jonathan, I think, you know, there are two simultaneous things as this show often talks about how two things can be true at the same time. You know, I occasionally will find myself in a conversation with someone where I'll say something about, you know, about the way that we're headed towards an era, not just of AI, but of like robotic surgery,

which we already have some elements of, but where people will be going into get surgery done by AI-powered robots. And people recoil at that notion, just like some people recoil at the notion of self-driving cars, until you point out that they will almost certainly be more precise, more accurate and less prone to error than humans. You'll be able to build systems that are more precise, more accurate, et cetera, et cetera, and less prone to failure.

So I think people are, that in general, people have a neadjerk reaction against that, that kind of technological takeover. And it's certainly the case that there are widespread qualms. And I don't think just about the economic costs, but about the notion of this large, enormous kind of epochal change that's sweeping across American society. And people don't really understand it. They don't think there's policies in place to prevent against the harms. the anxiety level that we see in polling and that you see in your everyday life is off the charts. At the same time, everyone you know types into a chatbot, the symptoms that they have when they start to feel ill. They've been doing that. Before that, it was Dr. Google. Now it's Dr. ChatGBT, or Dr. Claude.

people as they fear the large-scale consequences are rapidly integrating these technologies into their lives. And I wonder, Zeke, you know, there's, it's clear that there is, that the quality information coming out of AI on the medical front is getting better and better all the time. Inevitably, it's going to get better and better all the time. But, but I can remember a thousand conversations with a thousand doctors in the course of my life where they'd say, don't go on Google and ask and put your symptoms in because you're likely to get as much garbage out of Google as you come and talk to an actual doctor. I don't think you're saying that we're in a place yet where people should start relying on chatbots rather than you and your colleagues to get their medical information, right?

You're 100% correct. On the other hand, I would note three things. The first is, as you point out, People are doing it and doing it regularly. And certainly in the younger cohorts, it's a regular way of assessing medical diagnoses, treatment options, et cetera. Doctors are doing it. Two-thirds of doctors regularly consult something called open evidence, which is a LLM for them on diagnosis. About 80% have used LLMs in their patient care.

So it's already in the system. Second, I do agree the government and regulation is falling behind and people are nervous that there are no safeguards. And one of the things we have proposed is we need a licensure recommendation. You don't want to use chat GPT or Claude out of the box. So the best models are actually trained on medical information, have guardrails and harnesses to make sure they don't make mistakes like, you know, if you say, well, should I go to the emergency room and they say, no, stay home and you have a heart attack. That's a real case.

And the best systems actually have very good guardrails. And we're going to get better and better. And the last point is, you know, we do have difficulty getting to doctors these days. And there aren't enough PC primary care doctors and others. And this is going to fill a niche. I think it's going to fill a niche in two places. Again, people, mainly rural areas and urban areas that can't get to a doctor and the tech-enabled tech-savvy Silicon Valley who don't like people and really like their computers, they're going to be the early doctors and we're going to see how it works. But there are hurdles. A lot of them are regulatory and frankly malpractice hurdles that we need to solve and the government

needs to get on that pretty quickly. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. And John Hellman, thank you as well. And coming up on morning, Joe, Canada. is reacting to President Trump's new tariffs. We'll show you how the prime minister is responding and what kind of retaliatory measures could be on the table. Plus, Vanderbilt University is coming to the Big Apple,

the school's chancellor. Daniel Deermeyer joins us next with a special look at that. Morning Joe. We'll be right back. It's a beautiful day in New York City, 736 on this Tuesday morning, and a big day for Van Gogh. Vanderbilt University in New York, expanding its national footprint and opening a new campus in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan. It's the university's first campus outside of Nashville. It aims to provide students a pipeline to one of the world's great metropolitan capitals. As Vanderbilt's Chancellor Daniel Deermeyer puts it, quote, New York offers unbounded opportunities, and Chancellor Deermeier joins us now.

Daniel, it's great to see you. This is the point where I give full disclosure. I went to Vanderbilt. My wife went to Vanderbilt. We love the place. Wait, what? Yeah, you hadn't heard? Yeah. Since we're a football school now, I know you wanted to talk about the opener next week against Austin P. But we'll say that to the end of the interview. Let's talk.

You're about to head across the street to ring the opening bell at the NASDAQ to open this campus in New York. Talk a little bit about why you thought this was an important opportunity to expand Vanderbilt. Absolutely. And thank you for having me this morning. So great day for Vanderbilt and we're so delighted to be in New York. The way we're thinking about this is that university, really shouldn't be ivory towers, is that the great university for our age

should be deeply engaged with its local community, particularly the innovation economy and the creative community. And once you believe that, then where you are matters. And so we can do many wonderful things in Nashville, but we want to be part of the great innovation economies around the country.

And so we're opening campuses in New York in Florida and South Florida and West Palm Beach. Chattanooga, Tennessee, We're going something in quantum there and in San Francisco. And so New York is our very first campus. It's a wonderful opportunity for our students to spend time and our faculty, you know, in one of the world's great global cities. Yeah, the way you've described a little bit is almost a semester abroad for Vanderbilt

students. And it's about 100 students, I think, to open almost that. They get to go live in this beautiful campus in Chelsea that was an old seminary. Yep. It came up for sale effectively. And you all kind of jumped on it. Yeah, exactly. back. We're starting with around 100 students. We may increase that over time. We love the location.

It's fantastic. It's this beautiful piece right in the middle of Chelsea. And it looks a little bit like you take a piece of Vanderbilt and move it right in the heart of New York. You know, there was a piece that I know you saw in New York Magazine a couple of weeks ago that says how Vandy bested the IVs, which kind of gets into what you've been able to do since you arrived on campus right at the start of the pandemic, but also chancellors prior to you as well to kind of build Vanderbilt into this place that it is now. What have been the keys for you to reach that place where when I say I went to Vanderbilt in a way it wasn't 30 some years ago when I got into Vanderbilt, people go, wow, what's been the key to the rise of Vanderbilt? Yeah, we've seen a

dramatic increase in application and interest in Vanderbilt, especially from the northeast, California. It has been remarkable to see we had like selectivity, admissions rate about 4.6 percent. which is right there where the ivies are. And that's a dramatic increase for us. What we see when we talk to parents and when we talk to students is really, I think, it's two pieces. Number one, it's the education.

It's a place that values academic rigor, but also we want our students to grow as full people. So when you walk across campus, it's a happy campus. It's a community that's both challenging and supportive. And then I think the second component in today's environment, we have the strong decades-long commitment to civil discourse. We have a nationally leading program called Dialogue Vanderbilt that prepares students for operating in a society where there are different points of view so that they can agree across differences.

That's a very, very important component of a Vanderbilt education. I think that's valued by families and students that want to be part of the Vanderbilt community. So it's hard to have a conversation about anything right now, particularly, though, I imagine in academia, without talking about AI. Yes. So how does Vanderbilt look at this, where you mentioned, wanting to be an innovation. I couldn't help but notice.

San Francisco, New York. These are places where AI research and technology advancements being done. But also, on the simple practical level, how do you get students to learn to use it without, like, using it to do their work? How do you balance that? Because that's a great challenge right now

for students to actually learn on their own. Absolutely. And I think this is one of the defining challenges for higher education right now. How do we think about AI? How do we think about preparing our students for the world that they will enter? The way we always think about it is we want to teach students not what to think, but how to think.

And AI, of course, has an important component to that. What we focus on, and this is really recognized by our employers to their value that in the Vanderbilt graduates. Number one is they need to know the area well. So if you want to work in investment banking, you need to understand how markets operate. Then the second thing is that you need to know the tools. It's very difficult right now to find a position in desired careers without being able to really being fluid in AI. tools. And we do that by having created our first new college in 40 years, a little bit over a year ago, which is called College of Connected Computing. And the vision there is computing for all.

So you need to understand the subject domain, but you need to be able to use the computational AI tools at well. And then the third component, which I just mentioned, is the ability to function in a professional environment from day one. You need to be able to work together, collaborate, ask good questions, communicate well, be presentable, and be able to work. in a team environment. Those are critical skills and our students really excel on all three. Daniel, you wrote a piece for Forbes a couple of days ago in op-ed. This idea that college, is it worth it these days? People have questioned the institutions because of some of the scenes we've seen on campus over the last few years. And you wrote this, American higher education

has reached a defining moment. Universities face a choice that can no longer avoid. Recommit to the principles that once earned the public's trust or preserve the status quo and watch the course. crisis of confidence in higher education deepened. So what are those principles you think, not just Vanderbilt, but all schools need to recommit to? Yeah, I mean, we are having, of course, we're right now living through a period of tremendous challenge for higher education. It's technology, but it's also a loss and confidence in higher education, particularly elite universities. The numbers in terms of public trust, support by the public have plummeted. That's true on the left and on the right. And we're doing wonderful things as universities. We're recently. We're

We're providing transformative education, but we also need to fix some things. And one of the critical things is we need to be utterly clear about our mission or purpose and our values. Universities are not political parties and there should not join political movements. They're providing an enormous service to the country by focusing on their mission. And that needs to be reaffirmed and that needs to be the practice, the reality on campus every day. And it is for sure these days. The new campus, Vanderbilt University, New York City, opens today,

Chancellor Deeremeyer is going to ring the bell at the NASDAQ, then cut the ribbon at the new campus. The Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, Daniel. Thanks so much. Great to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Anchor down. Coming up, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is defending his meeting with the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. So what Jeffries had to say about that next on Morning Joe. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries facing some backlash for a private meeting with President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. In a social media post last night, Jeffries tried to reassure Democrats. that his sit-down with Kushner does not signal a softer approach to the Trump administration. He asked for a meeting, and I took it to discuss the affordability crisis that exists that is not a hoax.

At the same period of time, I shouldn't have to say it, but I am. No one is going to get a pass. We're going to hold every single member of the Trump cartel accountable. John, we'll get to the substance in just a moment. But first, where are you on a green Yankees hat? I know you're a Red Sox fan. I favor only the blue classic Yankee hat. Yeah, I've seen teams start to get, do more, more alternate uniforms.

I will admit, the Red Sox are very guilty. We've got yellows. We've got greens. But at least those players are wearing them on the field. Yankees never wear the green here. It seems also maybe a little big for them. But yeah, I'm not quite sure. I'm quite sure it's the right look.

We'll give them a pass. Let's put that to the side. the substance, are Democrats right to be annoyed by this? Or is this the way government works, which is that sometimes you talk to people you don't agree with or perhaps don't even like? It's the way government's supposed to work. But right now, Democrats have no patience for this. It's true. They think even this meeting could be a sign of appeasement. And the leader made clear, it is not. But look, if the Democrats do take the House, there is some basics of governing. They're going to have to do. President Trump's still going to be in office two more years.

So I think that's the thought here. But the blowback has been intense in recent days, leading Jeffries to have to do this. Also, Jared Kushner telling people that in a week's time, he met with both leader Jeffries and representatives of Hamas and got far more blowback for the Jeffries meeting. Because they've taken it on that side, too. There's just a sense here that these two parties shouldn't be, the extremes of each party thinks there should be no relationship. That's not good for our democracy. That's not good for the basics of governing. I don't think this signals anything stronger here. Jeffries is going to take, if the Democrats win the House, there's going to be investigations. There's going to be talking of impeachment. He's not going to go

soft on Trump. Yeah, I wouldn't expect that all. On Kushner's side of it, a signal perhaps that he knows where these elections are headed and wants to get prepared for that. Still ahead, the Trump administration now shifting its focus to economic warfare on Iran, but its plan likely depends on cooperation from another world power. We'll explain that when Mourri Joe comes right back.