Morning Joe - Deal or damage? Experts warn EU trade deal could weaken U.S. alliances

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

President Trump has struck a new trade deal with the European Union, setting a 15% tariff on most goods and avoiding a full-scale trade war, for now. 

Would you consider a pardon or a commutation for Gieland Maxwell if cooperating? It's something I haven't thought about. It's really something... It's something I've recommended. I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about. If you're asking my opinion, I think 20 years was a pittance. I think she should have a life sentence at least. I mean, think of all these unspeakable crimes, and as you noted earlier, probably a thousand victims.

I mean, you know, this is this is, it's, it's hard to put into words how evil this was and that she orchestrated it and was a big part of it. Uh, at least in under, under the criminal sanction, I think is an unforgivable thing. So again, not my decision, but I have great pause about that as, as, as any reasonable person would. And that's another example of some daylight between President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson, as the president did not completely rule out a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell, who was, of course, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime associate.

Meanwhile, the president in Scotland today touting a new trade deal with the European Union. We're going to break down the details of that agreement. Plus, we'll bring you the latest from the Middle East. As Israel says, it will pause fighting in Gaza amid pressure to allow more aid into the territory. Also ahead this morning, the CIA director teased the release of files on Hillary Clinton and Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

We'll play for you his comments. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, July 28th. I'm Jonathan Lemire, in for Joe, Mika and Willie. Thank you so much for starting off your week with us. And alongside we have NBC News, national affairs analysts and partner, Chief Political Commissar at PUC, John Holliman,

as well as the host of Way Too Early, you just saw her, Ali Vitali. Great group to start us off and let's dive right in. President Trump is still in Scotland as part of a five day visit there. The president was greeted by crowds of protesters as he kicked off his weekend of golf and some trade talk with scores of people gathering in cities across Scotland carrying signs with slogans like resist and no Trump. More protests are planned for later today. Trump was spotted playing golf at his Turnberry course on both Saturday and Sunday morning

before meeting yesterday with the president of the European Commission and then a little short time later announcing a trade agreement with the EU. Later this morning, Trump is expected to sit down with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to talk trade as well as the deepening hunger crisis in Gaza. The president will then travel across Scotland to cut the ribbon on his new golf course there

over in Aberdeen. And so that trade agreement reached between the U.S. and the European Union stays off a potential trade war between the two allies, at least for now. The deal sets a 15 percent tariff on most European goods, including cars. The EU has also agreed to purchase 750 billion dollars worth of American energy and invest 600 billion dollars into the United States. Now, some products will not be subject to tariffs, including aircrafts and their components, certain chemicals, and some pharmaceuticals.

President Trump says the 50 percent tariff on steel will remain unchanged. Now, this 15 percent tariff is lower than the 30% rate Trump had previously threatened, but higher than the 10% that the EU had been hoping for. European Commissioner President Ursula von der Leyen spoke to reporters yesterday about the deal and the negotiations with President Trump. It was very difficult because we started far, far apart from each other. It was tough, fair, but it was tough.

And therefore, rightly so, you saw the tension at the beginning, so we had to work hard to come to a common position, and till the very end, as always in negotiations, you don't know whether you'll find the landing point, the landing zone at the very end or whether it crashes. So it was tough but in the end as we were successful, it's it's good and it's satisfactory. Let's bring it now. President Emerus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas.

He's the author of the weekly newsletter, Home It Away, available on Substack. Also joining us, U.S. national editor at the Financial Times, Ed Luce, and staff writer for the Atlantic, Frank Foer. Thank you all for being with us this morning. Richard Haas, let's start with you. Much has been made about how President Trump has put a strain on traditional alliances, the EU chief among them. He has used some really vitriolic rhetoric to describe them over the months.

But now a deal is struck, maybe not perfect, but done and puts at least for the time being fears of a trade war to the side. What do you make of what you heard from the EU Commissioner and the President of the United States? Well, I think this is a deal that's less for what it accomplished, Jonathan, than what it avoided. The Europeans did not want to have an escalating tariff war. People wanted predictability. But also for the Europeans, as important as the trade dimension is of the relationship, there's other dimensions beginning with the security and obviously with the war against Russia in Ukraine. So it was very much in the European interest to somehow, some way, find a way to resolve the trade frictions.

I expect there'll be some in Europe who'll say perhaps they ought to have pushed back harder, they gave up too much. But I think this was something of a bargain or a decision from their point of view to reflect their greater priorities. I think one of the, the only other question I'll be interested with what Ed has to say about this is the long-term consequences of this, that even if a crisis was avoided right now, whether this sets in motion trends or pressures

that essentially move the Europeans away from the United States because it sends signals that we're prepared to see this relationship deteriorate unless we get our way on tariffs and trade. Well, Ed Luce, let's do exactly that. What do you make of Richard's question there about the short and long-term trends out of this deal? It's exactly the right question from Richard. I mean, look, this is better than it could have been. There was a 30% tariff threatened on August the 1st if a deal wasn't reached, but it is

worse than what Britain achieved, which was a 10%, not a 15% tariff. So the European disaffection with this, whilst many share the relief that Ursula von der Leyen, you showed expressing there, they also, from France and Germany in particular, expressed real frustration that there's going to be quite a big hit here to European GDP. And we've got Europe already in the last six months negotiating to have a partnership agreement with the Indo-Pacific trade area, the CPTPP as it's called. They're reaching out to Latin America, they're looking at South East Asia, they're looking at Africa, they're looking to do real deals, real trade reduction a barrier reduction deals all over the world, which will increase

trade between them and reduce trade with the United States. So I think the long-term effect that Richard was implying is there's going to be more free trade everywhere but with the United States. And that's going to divert growth from the U.S. ultimately. So John Hammond, we know there are few ideological constants when it comes to Donald Trump, but one of them is his belief in tariffs. And he is imposing some here, but strikes a deal that avoids, at least for now, a larger trade war. But the other one is still, you know, there was a handful of friendly words we heard from

him over the weekend, but still largely some sort of distrust and even at times distaste for Europe. Yeah, that's right, Jonathan. I think there are a couple of larger questions. One of the two that Ed and Richard talked about, one of them which is as you get a rebalancing of global trade and the alliances that kind of flow out of the economic arrangements between these, not just these countries, but these trade blocs. The other question is, what happens to prices?

We have heard for a long time that what will happen if we impose tariffs that are higher than existing levels, that we're going to start to see prices rise on the products. So from the narrow domestic political context for American consumers, are all of these products that we paid lower prices for in the past, are we gonna be paying higher prices for them now? And do American consumers notice Trump loves, not only loves the art of the deal, but he loves to be able to declare victory.

I made a deal. What does the deal accomplish? What does the deal do for us? Does it actually accomplish anything that's good for American consumers? Does it, what are the long-term implications for the alliances and global trade? Those questions are down the road. Donald Trump wants to take the short-term win.

In this case, for him, averting catastrophe, but being able to announce a deal is kind of enough. Those questions might be down the road, Frank, but the road is getting shorter. We've yet to see the true tangible impact of tariffs in some of these economic reports that we look at, but analysts do say it's coming. And what they see in a deal like the EU one, for example, is that it's not enough to completely disrupt global trade, but it is enough to pass on higher prices to consumers. That was a central political issue for Trump in 2024.

And this is a guy who loves to say promises made, promises kept. On this, it doesn't necessarily sound like he's going to be able to, right? Right. Well, for now, companies have swallowed so much of the cost, they haven't passed them on fully to consumers. But every law of business and economics suggests that over the long run, that's not something that they'll be able to sustain. So there is going to be a point at which prices

are going to start to tick upwards. We don't know exactly the magnitude of that, of course, but this does undercut the fundamental promise of the Trump administration, and he's gonna get slammed with that eventually. So staying overseas, let's turn to the Middle East now, where Israel says it is imposing a daily 10-hour pause on military activity in parts of Gaza

to allow for greater aid delivery into the enclave. It comes amid growing scrutiny and some real international anger over Israel's actions there. The IDF announced yesterday that over 120 aid trucks were collected and distributed, with another 180 trucks set to enter the enclave. In a social media post on Saturday, Israel's foreign ministry denied that Palestinians are being starved and accused Hamas of spreading propaganda using manipulated images. The United Nations, meanwhile, says that nearly one in three

Gazans haven't eaten in days. World Health Organization data shows that 63 malnutrition related deaths in July alone, nearly half of them children. Israel blames the UN for failing to distribute aid while vowing to continue its fight against Hamas. Yesterday in Scotland, President Trump was asked if he believes Israel should be doing more to allow food into Gaza. Well, you know, we gave $60 million two weeks ago and nobody even acknowledged it for food. And it's terrible. You really at least want to have somebody say thank you.

No other country gave anything. We gave $60 million two weeks ago for food, for Gaza. And nobody acknowledged it. Nobody talks about it. And it makes you feel a little bad when you do that. We've heard that from President Trump before, demanding to be thanked for U.S. aid. Let's recall the Oval Office blow up

with Vladimir Zelensky of Ukraine earlier this year. But, Richard Hosh, let's focus here on what's happening in Gaza. It feels like this last week was something of a tipping point in terms of international outrage about the famine, the starvation in Gaza. The Associated Press had a story over the weekend about a five-month-old daughter who had died of starvation, dying, weighing less than when she was born a few months prior.

Israel has said that some of these images are manipulated. There just seems no evidence of that. And instead, we have real, real anger here and pressure. It seems like Israel has relented at least a little, but there's a long way to go. You're right, Jonathan. Let's take a step back. October 7th, Israel was the victim of horrific terrorist attacks. And October 8th, if you will, the world understood why Israel felt the necessity and the legitimacy of retaliating

against Hamas. But we're now into what I would call October 9th. And what you have is Israel prosecuting a war where over 50,000 people have been killed. Probably 75 percent of the people of Gaza have been forced into a quarter or less of its territory. You're having examples of malnutrition or worse. And Israel is increasingly losing as loss, public sympathy around the world. It's increasingly isolating itself.

And what I think you've seen over the last 24 hours is a reluctant, what, admission, concession by the Israelis of that. So they've allowed now some daily pauses in the military action, some new food corridors, but none of this changes the basics. We're 21 months from war now into this conflict, and we still don't have a clear path for ending it. These talks have been suspended between Israel and Hamas using Qatar and the

United States as intermediaries. Israel still has not come forward with a day after strategy. Hamas still sees the hostages, who are the great losers here, along with the Palestinian people, Hamas sees the hostages as their principal area of pressure on Israel. So again, 21 months later, the end is still not in sight. So this is a situation, quite honestly, for which there are zero winners. Ed Lewis, there's been a lot of really good reporting in recent weeks, including from The New York Times a couple of Sundays ago, about how the Israeli military, its generals, believe that all military objectives in Gaza were actually accomplished quite some time ago, really questioning why Israel is still there outside of Prime Minister Netanyahu's wish to keep the

conflict going so we can remain in power. And this is, it would seem to be, the result. I mean these images of children, and we should note that the Western media is really not allowed in Gaza. It's very few images have made it out. But there are horrific scenes of starvation. So many children here. And to Richard's point, Israel has not just squandered international sympathy, but really has enlisted the anger of so much of the world.

Yes, I mean, and this was, as your question implies, foreseeable a long time ago, I don't think there's too many people around the world and in Israel, at least parts of Israel, who doubt that Netanyahu is trying to prolong his grip on the Israeli government because he doesn't want to face trial on the various corruption charges, some of which are now ongoing. But the international reaction is building. France last week, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said France would recognize a Palestinian state this coming September at the United Nations meetings in New York, which follows similar announcements, perhaps

more predictably by Spain, Ireland and Norway, huge pressure on Kirsten Dahmer's Labour government in Britain to do the same. There's now, I believe, 200 members of Parliament who've signed a petition to that effect. That's about a third of the number of MPs. So the longer this goes on, and it has gone on way too long, the greater that kind of gesture that we've seen from France and might be seeing in the coming weeks from Britain is going to be. And just to make one point about Trump saying the Garsans haven't thanked him for that $60 million in aid. There's malnutrition and starvation going on there. There are people who are going

to collect food who are losing their lives. There are stampeds, there's IDF shootings. There's some confusion, but not that much confusion, about what's going on here. But the fact that President Trump thinks that there should be gratitude for this situation is, I'm sorry to say, it's borderline obscene. Yeah, I think beyond borderline, Ed, and Frank Foer, I ask you, I mean, I'm probably the lowest rung on the totem pole here in terms of foreign policy expertise, but at least the way that I learned it back when I was a civil country lawyer,

as Jessica Arbor would say, was that using starvation as a method of warfare is a war crime, and that seems kind of beyond dispute that that is one of the things that Israel's doing here. And when you hear people on the left who have been crying that this war is an exercise in genocide for

a long time. And people have said, well, let's have a real argument here. Are they really perpetrating genocide? It seems that Israel is handing those who want to accuse it of genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, they're handing them a very strong argument because that is, again, when you start using starvation as a tool of warfare, it is not only a war crime but it starts to give a strong as I said a strong argument to those who say this is a policy of genocide and I it's hard for me to see it some other way even bending over backwards to try to give Israel the benefit of the doubt. I mean we should all be able to agree that

feeding starving children is a moral imperative. The decision that the Israeli government took last March to assume control over food distribution in Gaza, when there was no real plan for being able to effectively distribute aid, has really been the catastrophe from which this has all unfolded. In Israel itself, there is this epistemic closure that Israel lives within this filter bubble where the images, the horror, the facts on the ground that there is

starvation taking place, that there are these hard limits on the amount of food flowing in haven't really penetrated, that Israelis kind of price in all of these criticisms as part of global anti-semitism or they say that these institutions are all aligned against them. And I think one of the things that I find so troubling is how the Israeli public is so untroubled at this stage by these things that just tug at the heartstrings of everybody who opens a newspaper or logs on to social media. And what I also find makes me despondent is that fixing this problem isn't that easy. Gaza is a failed state. Nobody has control over the strip. Governance doesn't

exist. There are not just rampant hunger, there are gangs, there is Hamas. And so I think fixing this at this stage, it's gone on too long, but it's gone on too long for there to be necessarily easy solutions to just flooding the zone with food. This seems to be the point of a real global focus right now, the situation in Gaza. We, of course, will be covering it each and every day as well.

President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, thank you for joining us this morning. Ed Luce, the Financial Times, thank you as well. Ed's new book of course titled, The Life as a Big New Brzezinski, America's Great Power Profit is available now. Still ahead here on Morning Joe, President Trump is now suggesting that Kamala Harris paid celebrities to endorse her for president. We'll fact check that allegation with the Reverend Al Sharpton, who was named in the president's accusatory truth social post.

Plus, we'll bring you the latest on the fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein case, as President Trump expresses his frustration over the growing and continuing backlash. A lot to get to this morning and a reminder that the Morning Joe podcast is available each and every weekday featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Joe.

We'll be right back. Over the weekend, President Donald Trump called for Vice President Kamala Harris to be prosecuted, falsely claiming yet again that Harris paid for endorsements from celebrities during her 2024 presidential campaign. In a rant posted on social media, Trump claimed that Beyoncé received $11 million, that Oprah got $3 million, and that the Reverend Al Sharpen took home $600,000 to endorse the then vice president. Trump added that they, they quote broke the law. They all they should all be prosecuted.

Trump made similar claims about the vice president earlier this year and late last year. The Harris campaign is consistently denied paying for endorsements. Federal election records show that the Harris campaign did pay Beyonce's production company one hundred sixty five thousand dollars000 in reimbursements which is common with large event productions. Oprah has said she was not paid to appear alongside Harris at a live streamed event in Michigan back in September 2024. Records show production fees of roughly a million dollars work

campaign recovered by the campaign while Sharpton's National Action Network was paid $500,000 for get out the vote initiatives. Last year, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign explained to Deadline that it was required by campaign finance laws to cover costs associating withholding such events. Joining us now, the president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's politics station, the Reverend Al Sharpton Rev. Good to see you. We have a couple questions for you on this,

but let's just start most simply with the accusation that President Trump has leveled at you. Were you paid for an endorsement? Well, absolutely not. And as the FEC filing say, they helped the campaign, gave funds for get out the vote campaigns for National Action Network, of which I'm a part of, and other civil rights groups, some of which got more than National Action Network did. National Action Network, no, I even endorsed her.

What is interesting about this, though, is that the fact that this is the, as you accurately reported, second or third time, lawyers for Nash Action Networks looking at, can we sue him for defamation? Because he had knowledge this time that there was no endorsement and that I didn't get any money. This went to the nonprofit that I'm connected to. But let's look at the larger picture here. Donald Trump is in very serious problems around this whole question

of Epstein. So last week, he was trying to flood the zone to take any pressure off of him and try to put his MAGA base back together again. The fact is he started by saying he's gonna fire the Fed chief. That didn't work. Then he went on to something about tariffs. That didn't work. Then he decided to do what he started his political career on, start race baiting, which was, he started with birtherism

that Obama wasn't born here. Then he went and released the files now last week of Martin Luther King Jr., some of which are very questionable, and the family was opposed to him doing it. That didn't work. The next day he goes after Barack Obama, saying he ought to be prosecuted. That didn't work. Then he tried something else.

Then over the weekend, Kamala Harris, Oprah Winfrey, Beyonce, Al Sharpton. The race card, the thread here is race. And that's what he's trying to do. They're swapping money. They're doing things like Obama was holding back with Russia. It's all about trying to get past Epstein. We have shown in National Action Network and other groups what we did and didn't do in the campaign, even when I spoke at the convention, I said we don't endorse candidates.

We have come with our files. Release the Epstein files, Mr. Trump. Do what we did or be quiet. Yeah, you're certainly right. The four names in that post, the Vice President, Oprah, Beyonce, yourself, very clear what they have in common. John Hyman, let's bring you in on this too.

Just this idea, this seems to be, to Rev's point, Trump playing the greatest hits, falling back on some of his lesser impulses perhaps, playing with birtherism and the like, but also just shows still this frantic nature of trying to throw things against the wall to distract from an Epstein story that's simply not going away. Right. It's the last part of that that matters, Jonathan, I think, which is I understand why they're frantic because he's thrown a lot of stuff against the wall and none of it has

done what it normally has done for him, which is to move people along, get people distracted. And usually, you have the people who are very most easily distracted are those in his base. He's been able to count on that. You think about the range now of what the distractions have been. You've got on one hand all due respect to Rev, but it's like, on one hand you're like, hey, those guys, Kamala Harris, who I beat, right, who's no longer a political threat to me whatsoever,

who I beat in the election, fair and square, paid endorsers, who cares? On the other end of the scale, Barack Obama has committed treason and should, according to the law, if you're guilty of treason, should be put to death. No one cares about that either because it's self-evident that all of these things

are what we've just said, they're all distractions. And the one persistent reality is that the Jeffrey Epstein thing is not going away because for the first time, Donald Trump is faced with a thing, a controversy, where he is at odds with the people who have supported him, believed in him, trusted him the most, and they are looking at him going,

wait a minute, you're full of crap. You're not making good on this promise, and we're starting to have some questions about it, and that's why it's not going away. I know you're gonna talk about probably the Mike Johnson thing, but boy, 80% of the discussion over the weekend And that's why it's not going away. I know you're gonna talk about probably the Mike Johnson thing, but boy, 80% of the discussion over the weekend

on broadcast and cable television was on Epstein. Not on any of the rest of these matters. Yeah, well, it all is efforts to distract, including playing the race card, not working. We will have much more on the Epstein matter in our next block, but before then, Frank, you've got a new piece out for the Atlantic this morning titled NASA and the end of American ambition.

In it, you write in part this, the story of Elon Musk can be told using the genre of fiction that he reveres most. In an act of hubris, NASA gave life to a creature called SpaceX, believing it could help achieve humanity's loftiest ambitions. But as in all great parables about technology, the creation eclipsed the creator. Frank, tell us more. So I wrote a parable

about the United States, because if we go back to the 1960s and we recall Apollo, what it was was the greatest demonstration project on behalf of the competence of the American state. That they achieved something that nobody thought was possible on the timeline in which they achieved it.

And it really did seem to symbolize something about this country. It gave us this tremendous advantage in the war for hearts and minds during the Cold War. And then we speed through that narrative and we come to this endpoint where this thing that we once did so well internally was something that we ended up outsourcing to Elon Musk. And it's not just capacity that we've outsourced to Elon Musk, it's vision that we've outsourced to Elon Musk. And I tell the story of how this came to be because it's not just simply that he emerged in the course of the selection and aligned himself with Donald Trump,

that there were decisions that we made over time across both parties that ended up dismantling this competence that we had built up, shifting power to contractors, taking power away from the government. And the thing about our dependence on Musk is it's not just in the realm of transporting cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station, that our military and our intelligence community have become incredibly dependent on Musk as well.

That even as Musk and Trump are spouting, the government announced that Musk's company would be involved in the creation of something called MilNet, which is a new communications system that our intelligence services and government are going to be completely dependent on. There's talk of building a new missile defense system for the United States called Golden Dome, and SpaceX will be essential to that. The government has gone back and they've looked at our contracts with SpaceX to see if it's possible to purge SpaceX in order to satisfy Donald Trump. And they've concluded that that's simply not possible, that we've reached this moment where we've gone from Apollo to this place where even if we wanted to escape our dependence on Elon Musk it's not possible because he's developed

something that is essential that we failed in our ability to cultivate a robust market and I think that that's a pretty terrifying state for us to be in. Yeah that important new piece out this morning for the Atlantic. Staff fighter at the Atlantic Frank Forah. Thank you as always. Story available to read online now. Coming up here on Morning Joe as mentioned we'll dive in to the Jeffrey Epstein matter. We'll dig into Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanch's two day meeting with Epstein's convicted associate Delane Maxwell and the lack of transparency surrounding it. Morning Joe we'll be right back. This is part of the rush to get this deal done. Jeffrey Epstein's story. Oh, you got to be kidding with that. No, had nothing to do

with it. Only you would think that that had nothing to do with it. President Trump responding to that Epstein question yesterday amid discussing trade talks with the EU. That comes as Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche wrapped up nine hours of meetings over two days on Friday with convicted Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. But as NBC News reports, the meetings remain shrouded in secrecy with Blanche making no public statements about what she said, nor did he give any details about the next steps in the DOJ's much criticized Epstein investigation.

Now, just before leaving for Scotland on Friday, reporters asked President Trump if he was considering a pardon for Maxwell. Would you consider a pardon or a commutation for Gieland Maxwell if cooperating with him? It's something I haven't thought about. It's really something. It's been recommended. I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I haven't thought about. It's really something... It's been recommended. I'm allowed to do it, but it's something I have not thought about.

If you're asking my opinion, I think 20 years was a pittance. I think she should have a life sentence, at least. I mean, think of all these unspeakable crimes. And as you noted earlier, probably a thousand victims. I mean, you know, this is... it's hard to put into words how evil this was and that she orchestrated it and was a big part of it, at least under the criminal sanction I think is an unforgivable thing. So again, not my decision, but I have great pause about that as any reasonable person would.

So that was again, Speaker Johnson on Meet the Press yesterday, really breaking with President Trump on the Epstein-Maxwell matter. We'll turn back to the politics of the moment in a second. But joining us first, NBC News Senior Executive Editor for National Security, David Rhoade, and MSNBC legal correspondent and former litigator Lisa Rubin. Thanks guys for both being here. David, I'll start with you. Just talk to us a little bit more just how unusual the Blanche meeting was with Maxwell and the concerns about the lack of

transparency. We've heard nothing about it since it concluded. So we report on this over the weekend, sir, and my colleagues and a senior Justice Department official said he had, a former official said he'd never heard or never seen anything like this where the number two official in the Justice Department goes down, has this meeting. A key question is whether who is in the room. Normally, you would always want two people to be there, two people from the prosecution side,

because one would be a witness to whatever Ghislaine Maxwell was saying. We can't get an answer from the Justice Department about that. And what's so strange is this, again, lack of transparency when it seems like, like politically what they need most is transparency. So we have no sense. Is he going to meet with her again? What's going to be next? And then there's these rumors or thoughts of a pardon. Trump certainly didn't deny it. He sort of said, well, I haven't been thinking about it. Who knows if that's true or not. But that is what many have said here,

is that perhaps Maxwell could offer, you know, some sort of testimony that would exonerate Trump and then be rewarded. Well, and in addition to exonerating Trump, the Justice Department itself has painted itself into a box with respect to additional evidence. And I'm just gonna read to you now. The July memo that sort of caused all this kerfuffle says unambiguously We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties and layman's terms

We didn't find anything that we could use to charge anybody else So if you're the Justice Department and you've already boasted about doing this 360 review of all of the evidence at your disposal and not just the grand jury materials, but all the hours of interviews, the videos, et cetera, what choice do you have but to go to the one other thing that might be out there? The Rosetta Stone, as she was called, of the upstanding investigation, Ghislaine Maxwell. Whether or not she's trustworthy is, of course, a major open question.

She herself was charged with three counts of perjury for which she was never tried. But the reason that they're going there isn't just to exonerate Trump. It's because any hope of putting this to bed has to come up with something new that they haven't already seen, because they've told the world,

we looked at everything and we found nothing. And you're right to question Maxwell's credibility. The DOJ itself did that all along. So as an example of how this story is simply not going anywhere, the Manosphere, if you will, the MAGA supporting podcasters and the like, have still very much latched on beginning with podcaster Joe Rogan, who's criticizing the Trump administration for its handling of the Epstein files. He called them out Friday on his show while speaking to a former CIA official. Also critical of the Trump administration comedian and podcaster Andrew Schultz who says he voted for the president. He is rebuking the base like almost like spitting in their face like they are

asking for it he campaigned on it. He put Spongino and Cash in there, which might be the stupidest thing in the history of the world. Why would you put the two guys that have nonstop pounded the pavement talking about how we're gonna expose this Epstein thing, and the second they get in there,

you better shut the fuck up. You have to shut them up. Go on, Rogan, lie. It is a very peculiar thing. It worked in that I think it moved any of the smoke off of Trump because, at least for me, I was like, there's no way that he's involved if he's putting Bongino and Cash in who have campaigned on exposing it.

Like, why would you hire those guys or appoint those guys? Right, so I'm like, he can't be. But the fact that he will not touch this, and then this last week him doing the b**** distractions, dropping the MLK file. Like who asked for the MLK file? The second he started talking about Obama, I was like, oh, he's guilty.

Also, like, why are you talking about Obama and treason? You got a guy who has sex with teenagers that you are protecting. The Epstein stuff is so crazy, because when cash Patel was on here and he was like there's no There's nothing and I was like, what are you talking? Yeah, I didn't even know what to say My thought was and people like why didn't you push back more? My thought was like I'm just gonna put this out there and let the internet do its work because there's nothing I could the guys Saying there's no tapes. There's no video that doesn tapes, there's no video. That doesn't make any sense. Everyone knows it doesn't make any sense.

The whole thing is nuts. And then he's like, well, we have a film. We're going to release that film. And the film has all f***ing minute missing from it. Yeah. Like, do you think we're babies? Like, what is this? The backstory, of course, FBI Director Cash Patel,

who was on Rogan's show last month, promising to release everything that the administration could. But Patel has since faced blowback from Trump supporters after the DOJ earlier this month released a memo confirming that Epstein had died by suicide and that there was no evidence the financier had a client list that could lead to more prosecution. So John Heilman you're our Manosphere correspondent and I wanted to get your sense as to why you think this is a riff. We know that the

the Epstein conspiracy theories really erupted on the right. And President Trump, for the first time, has been unable to sort of put it back in the box. Like they're these people, Rogan, Schultz, the like, they're not letting it go. Yeah, they're not idiots. And a lot of those guys like Andrew Schultz and Joe Rogan are really have been portrayed as being MAGA media. They're not really MAGA media. They ended up siding with the president in 2024. You know, famously Joe Rogan was Bernie Sanders' guy for a long time.

And you can listen to Andrew Schultz. He talks about how much he likes Zoran Mamdani. They are anti-establishment. They are anti-elite. And they are not about Rogan. But if you listen to that Andrew Schulz podcast with Ezra Klein the other day, he's done with Trump. I mean, he's finished.

He's moving on. He thinks Trump is now, to Andrew Schulz's mind, at least as I listen to that two and a half hour podcast, he basically is like Trump has revealed himself to be just another elite politician who's covering up for the rich and famous. And that is, of course, the huge political risk here for Trump. He has misread his core constituency and what they want and what he's stoked from the very beginning. And I will say, as we come back around, I agree that the prospect, the only reason you're

going down having Todd Blanch go down and talk to Jolene Maxwell this way is at least if a pardon is on the table. That's what she's going to want. There's no reason to send Todd Blanch down there if you're not going to have that conversation. And if they give her a pardon now, it will do nothing but make this worse. Because again, the Andrew Schultz's and Joe Rogan's and many of the people on the base, including people like Marjorie Taylor Green, will see that for what it is. She's the woman who knows everything,

and she's going to be given a pardon now with Mike Johnson saying she should have a life sentence. She should have worse than a life sentence. If she's going to be given a pardon now with Mike Johnson saying she should have a life sentence. She should have worse than a life sentence. If she's given a pardon to stand up and say Donald Trump did nothing wrong, no one on Trump's in Trump's base or in the Manosphere or anyone else who wanted to have clarity about Jeffrey Epstein, no one is going to believe it. It's going to make Trump look even guiltier. Another potentially vast misreading of what he has unleashed here. Yeah, that would be an extraordinary firestorm. And Ali, let's go to you. You cover the Hill.

Let's talk about Mike Johnson, who, you know, for so much of his political career has prided himself no daylight between speakership and the White House. But yet now, I mean, for a week, two weeks now, he has been willing to break with Trump on the matter of Epstein. What is that reflective of? Is that his constituents and frankly, his caucus talking to him about it? Yeah, it's the realities of the conference, right? Because no daylight works when you're passing legislation that's in lockstep with the White House.

Every Republican wants to say that they notched a legislative win. But on this, there's a much more complicated dynamic, especially when these folks have to go home and talk to the very same voters that, for years, they and Trump, hand in hand, promised transparency on this issue. And so the speaker has had to toe this very delicate line of knowing that none of his members want to be seen

as the ones that have their names stamped next to Thomas Massey, as the ones that buck the White House, but none of them also want to have their names the ones that have their names stamped next to Thomas Massey, as the ones that buck the White House. But none of them also want to have their names specifically on the dotted line to be the ones that held up the release of the files that they promised to release in the first place. And so this really is a merry-go-round of Republicans facing their own campaign promises and now the consequences of not fulfilling them.

I think for Speaker Johnson, it was interesting on Meet the Press this weekend, the way that he seemed to say, well, the reason that I'm not behind the bipartisan push for transparency on the Epstein files is because the Kana-Massey legislation doesn't have enough protections in it for victims. Okay, if you actually have that as your only concern, you could go back to those same two legislators and say,

this is the problem I have with it. Can we offer an amendment? Can we write rewrite a piece of the bill? That could be something that's actually a pretty easy fix. And so if that's the central problem, there's a way to get around that and actually pass this legislation. And so the speaker is clearly trying to buy himself some time. Senators have been even more transparent about that, that they want DOJ to be able to buy the time

to talk to Maxwell. That's, of course, problematic for all of the reasons that Lisa and David have pointed out. But this is a stalling measure that's only bolstered by the fact that August recess is on the calendar every year. And what's going to come out is the underlying intelligence that I have spent the last few months making recommendations about final declassification

and sent that to the Department of Justice that will come out in the John Durham report classified annex. And what that intelligence shows, Maria, is that part of this was a Hillary Clinton plan, but part of it was an FBI plan to be an accelerant to that fake steel dossier, to those fake Russia collusion claims by pouring oil on the fire, by amplifying the lie and burying the truth of what Hillary Clinton was up to. That was CIA Director John Ratcliffe claiming that former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton conspired to manufacture intelligence

during the 2016 Russian election interference probe in an effort to undermine Donald Trump's victory. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is calling for a special counsel investigation into the matter. On Meet the Press yesterday, NBC's Kristen Welker confronted the senator about those claims, reminding him that in 2017, he agreed with the intelligence community's finding that Russia did try to interfere in the 2016 election. Senator, are you trying to rewrite history to distract from the Epstein matter, Senator? No, I'm trying to let you know and the media know that we found something we didn't know

before. At the end of the day, I'm not calling for a prosecution against President Obama for treason, but I am calling for an investigation. Mr. Miller also said there was no credible evidence that President Trump colluded with the Russians. For years and months and days and weeks, people had their lives turned upside down, chasing the Mueller narrative that Trump was in bed with the Russians, that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians.

The only people colluding with the Russians were the Hillary Clinton campaign and Christopher Steele manufacturing a document to get warrants against Carter Page based on lies and falsehoods. So, yeah, I'm very familiar with it. What you don't seem to acknowledge is there's something new being found. Rather than reinventing the wheel here, let's go back to a special counsel model to look at this something new. Something new is statements by President Obama.

I don't like your analysis. Russia wasn't involved here in 2016. Senator, you're saying there's something new. This report goes back to 2020. It's five years old. There's actually nothing new in this report and nothing that changes any conclusion. But let me, I want to talk about Gaza. The evidence that she turned over is new about Gaza. It's new to me.

I did. It's new to me. But Senator trying to sweep this stuff under the rug and that's not right. But Senator, you know that at the time you said you you did believe the assessments and the multiple investigations.

But let me move on to Gaza. Let's talk about Gaza, Senator, because this is so. Senator Graham with a muttered whatever there at the end of his exchange with Kristen Welker, I meet the press yesterday. David wrote clearly exasperated put on the spot, but let's get to the heart of the matter. Is there anything new Graham is now

suggesting that there's new at all these years later, new evidence has materialized that would warrant this sort of investigation. Can you fact check them? No, there is nothing new here. And our colleague Dan Duluce, an NBC reporter, spoke to the CIA officer, the senior officer who oversaw writing these reports, the main report about what happened in 2016.

And she said that Tulsi Gabbard is lying and the White House is lying. This talk of Obama and treason on a plot is false. And if you look at the report, whether it's the Senate intelligence report or the initial assessment, it's that Russia intervened in the election to denigrate Hillary Clinton. It was Putin's personal animus towards Hillary Clinton, you know, full stop. And I just want to say, to keep mentioning the dossier, I was a reporter for Reuters at

the time. We had the dossier. Most mainstream journalist organizations had the dossier during the 2016 election. We didn't write a word about it because we couldn't verify it. The dossier was not an issue in the 2016 election, so it's all these talks of plots and all these things like that. And I can just say in terms of the dossier

and journalists that had it, we didn't write about it. And again, the author, the person who oversaw this report said that Tulsi Gabbard is lying when it comes to a treasonous plot. John, if I can add something, David just disputed the factual basis for what Lindsey Graham was saying. Let me take on the legal one if I can. Calling for a special counsel investigation here is almost laughable because the Supreme Court's presidential immunity decision would preclude any prosecution of President Obama for treason based on his official acts. The only reason you would want a special counsel here is to continually put him and other people under the

microscope in the hopes that it would lead to something else, all whitewater style, right? That Ken Starr starts investigating one thing, ends up with a Monica Lewinsky-like situation. But in any event, for the most part, that presidential immunity decision is broad. It gave Trump protection against two federal cases, and it should prevent against any prosecution, much less an investigation of former President Obama. John, I go back to our earlier conversation,

which is, and I'll turn the table on you, which is, I understand the unending catnip-like appeal of this issue for Donald Trump. And some of it is not just political posturing, but there's some deeper psychological thing that goes on with Trump around this. He just can't let it go, and his obsession with Obama and all the rest of it. But again, I come back to the question of whether putting aside the legal issues,

which are totally reasonable, like there is no, there's not gonna be no pre-prosecute of Barack Obama, even if there was a basis for it. Is this gonna, how has this accomplished anything for Trump on the core issue that's actually bedeviling him right now?

Do you see some way in which this is, you're a great student of Donald Trump and his Houdini-like ability to get out of jams. Is this a path forward for him that will solve his problem with his base? I mean, it can't be. He cannot be underestimated in his ability to get out of jams.

We have seen him time and time again do it. I'm not sure this is it. Yes, this feels like an attempt to play a greatest hit, knowing it'll incite some of the base, it'll get play on Fox News and the like. I think you're right. There's something also deeply personal for Trump when it comes to both Obama and questions about the validity of his 2016 election.

We know how he bristles at the very concept that Russia interfered in his behalf, even though we know and the Senate Intelligence Committee concurred that it did. I think it's more of an example of him just sort of flailing here. And I've talked to, reported last week or so, how much the White House has really struggled to come up with some sort of game plan to navigate them their way out of the Epstein mess, that they are frustrated that they can't turn the page on this. And we saw it yesterday in Scotland. Look, President Trump got a trade deal done.

He got his legislation through. No one's talking about that. They're talking only about this. And that is driving him nuts Lisa before we let you go You've been focused late with laser light intensity on the email of a matter Give us the latest as to where his situation stands Well on Friday afternoon the Senate voted the last procedural vote 50 to 48 to let Emil Bovi's nomination Go to the floor of the Senate That vote is expected as early as today.

But also on Friday, there was a discovery that in addition to Erez Ravini, the former Department of Justice lawyer who blew the whistle on his interactions with Emil Bovi, there are two additional whistleblowers, both former DOJ lawyers who have come forward. One has come forward to the DOJ Inspector General with evidence that he or she says corroborates

Arizra Veni's story documents and evidence that that person says show that the Department of Justice willfully did not comply with an order from Judge James Boasberg concerning the deportation of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act. What that other whistleblower has to say we don't know, but there we have verification that the whistleblower and or their counsel has provided evidence to the Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats. We're looking for more to hear what they both have to say. One of them trying very hard right now, John, to hew closely to the whistleblower protections and regulations and going about this in the right way, which is to the inspector general.

But I want to point out to you and our viewers that person came forward initially on May 2nd, well before Erez Ravani ever blew the whistle on Amal Bovi. This is not a coordinated effort according to people close to that whistleblower. Erez Ravani has no idea who that whistleblower is and has not communicated with that whistleblower about their own reporting. So we remain focused on it today. no idea who that whistleblower is and has not communicated with that whistleblower about their own reporting. So we remain focused on it today. We'll bring it to you as it comes.

We'll be watching for it. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, thank you so much for being here with us this morning. You can check out Lisa's show. Can they do that on MSNBC's YouTube channel? NBC's David Rhoade, thank you as well. His latest reporting online now.