Morning Joe - Disney's ABC pulls 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' after FCC chair criticizes the host's Charlie Kirk comments

Episode Date: September 18, 2025

Disney's ABC pulls 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' after FCC chair criticizes the host's Charlie Kirk comments Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Yeah, broadcasters are different than any other form of communication, including here. We're on cable right now. Fox News doesn't have an FCC license. CNN doesn't, but ABC, CBS, NBC, those broadcast stations do. And with that license comes a unique obligation to operate in the public interest. And over the years, the FCC walked away from enforcing that public interest obligation. I don't think we're better off as a country for it. But look, President Trump ran directly at these legacy.

broadcast outlets, and he exposed them to these market forces. And a lot of these affiliate groups said, to your point, we're tired of carrying this stuff. Late night shows, something's gone seriously awry there. They went from going for applause, from laugh lines to applause lines. They went from being court gestures that would make fun of everybody in power to being court clerics and enforcing a very narrow political ideology. We at the FCC are going to enforce the public interest obligation. If there's broadcasters out there, that don't like it. They can turn their license into the FCC. But that's our job. Again, we're making some progress now. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Fox News last night commenting on ABC's suspension

of Jimmy Kimball's show. We're going to have much more about that decision straight ahead. Plus, we'll go through yesterday's highly anticipated testimony from the ousted CDC director, including her warnings about the future of vaccines. We'll get inside. on that from Dr. Vin Gupta. Also ahead, we'll bring you the latest from London as the pomp and circumstance of President Trump's visit is finished, and he's set to hold meetings this morning with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and we'll dig into the Fed's big decision on rate cuts. Morning Joe, economic analyst Steve Ratner is here with his charts on that. Well, good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, September 18th, along with Willie and me. We have

the co-host of our fourth hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire. U.S. special correspondent for BBC News and the host of The Rest is Politics Podcast, Katty K, former Treasury official and Morning Joe Economic Analyst, Steve Ratner, here on the set, along with editor-in-chief of Seventhore, Ben Smith, with us this morning. I think we dive right in. Disney-owned ABC polling Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show off the air, indefinitely, amid controversy over the host's recent comments about the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. During his monologue on Monday night, Kimmel spoke about the Republican response to Kirk's

killing, saying, quote, the MAGA gang is desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger pointing, there was grieving. FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, described those remarks yesterday as the sickest conduct possible, adding that the FCC could move to revoke ABC affiliate licenses as a punishment. Just a few hours later, the biggest owner of ABC affiliated stations Nextstar announced it would preempt Jimmy Kimmel live for the foreseeable future, citing Kimmel's comments about the killing of Kirk. Around the same time, Sinclair, which owns and operates 30 ABC stations, also announced it would no longer carry Kimmel's show.

And a short time after that, a spokesman for ABC said in a statement that the late night program will be preempted indefinitely, but did not explain the decision. President Trump praised the move on social media, posting in part, quote, congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. So, Willie, we're going to kind of go through. There are a lot of different facets to this story and a lot of questions. And there's a business facet to this story, just as there was with the Colbert story a couple months ago. We should note last month, Next Star, announced plans to acquire one of its rivals, Tegna, for $6.2 billion.

That deal, expected to close in the second half of the next year, would require the FCC to relax the national ownership cap that limits how many stations one company can own in the United States. FCC Chairman Carr has suggested in the past he is willing to raise or eliminate that longstanding cap. If the deal goes through, it would further consolidate station ownership across the United States. Let's bring in Ben Smith. Ben, you've interviewed Brendan Carr not so long a couple of months ago. should point out he in the past has spoken very clearly and forcefully about the need for independence and newsrooms, for example, that the government should not be reaching into a newsroom or perhaps into a comedy show that the audience should decide if they want to turn away.

But here what we have is the chairman of the SEC going on a podcast yesterday saying we can do this the hard way or the easy way on a podcast. We saw this chain of events from Next Star and then ABC and then Brendan Carr congratulating next star for having the courage to pull Jimmy Kimmel off the air. Yeah. I mean, when I talk to Carr in February at the summer four event in D.C., you know, I was trying to sort of establish a bit of common ground in a way, because I think one thing that historically Americans agree on is that the biggest threat to free speech is from the government

of whichever party the First Amendment is written to restrain the government from cracking down a speech. I sort of said to him, just to set up the conversation, don't you think, you know, whatever else we're talking about? But basically, the thing that Americans mostly worry about is a government crackdown on speech. Don't you think people like you, or the regulators, are the people we should be most worried about? And he said, no. He think, in his experience, in the last few years, the biggest threat to speech was the big social media companies.

And I do think there's a really deep shift in the way that people in the Trump administration, and honestly, based on their personal experience, starting with the president of getting thrown off social media platforms, I mean, the way they see speech is via their own experiences in the late 2010s, the early 2020s, of fighting with social media platforms. And now they feel like, look, they did it to us. We're going to do it to them. Don't worry about so much about these legal details. Well, I mentioned Brendan Carr, FCC chairman Brendan Carr, was named the position by President Trump last year after rising through the ranks at the agency. He's long spoken out against government censorship.

for the freedom of speech. In 2019, Carr posted on social media, quote, should the government censor speech it doesn't like? Of course not. The FCC does not have a roving mandate to police speech in the name of the public interest. In 2021, he wrote, quote, a newsroom's decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government official. In 2022, Carr posted, quote, political satire is, one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people into the discussion. That's why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship. In 2023, he said, quote, free speech is the counterweight.

It is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian's dream. And yet, here was Carr in an interview yesterday right before ABC announced they were pulling Jimmy Kimmel live off the air. You know, when you look at the conduct that has taken place by Jimmy Kimmel, it appears to be some of the sickest conduct possible. Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. these companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead, a very reasonable, minimal step that can be taken. I mean, obviously, look, there's calls for Kimmel be fired.

I think, you know, you could certainly see a path forward for suspension over this. And again, you know, the FCC is going to have remedies that we could look at. So what does this mean? We can do this the easier way or the hard way. Yeah, I mean, authoritarian's dream. To quote himself, this is what happens when you start censoring speech. Comedians are, we've heard the warnings. So if comedians can't joke about government in charge, that's a very deeply slippery slope.

And we should know this comes after just this move last night and Steve will get to the business dealings in just a moment. But like, this comes after we heard from J.D. Vance and Stephen Miller and other members of the administration. that they were going to use, the Kirk assassination could be used as a pretense to crack down on opposition. And in the way that this president and his administration view opposition, that includes the media. That includes people on TV who they don't like. So, Steve, talk to us more, though, about the business aspects of this. We have seen a number of occasions of media companies buckling to pressure from President Trump, who could maybe see a couple times now, because of a deal that needs to get through.

So it's free market versus free speech. Yeah. So look, broadcast companies have business in front of the FCC all the time. They have to get license renewals. They want to buy a station. They want to sell a station. The FCC is still a significant regulator. And therefore, they respond to pressure. Now, obviously, every company in America is susceptible to pressure from Trump now. He's proven that he does not, he does not shirk from taking hostages and from punishing enemies and so forth. And so this is what you kind of almost expect. we saw in the case of Colbert, we don't really know the numbers around Kimmel. We saw in the case of Colbert, Paramount claiming they were actually losing money on Colbert. And so you could argue there's a business side of it. But this was clearly a response and a desire to avoid antagonize the administration. You know, I've been around the FCC a pretty long time when I was a media investment banker. I did a lot of deals that involved them.

And while I was not around working anyway, when Nixon was president, Nixon was the only other president that I'm aware of in modern history, who literally tried to use the FCC to punish his enemies and protect his friends. They threatened to take away FCC's licenses very much like what we're seeing under Trump. Caddy Kay, your thoughts? What questions does this raise in your mind? No, I mean, one of the things that makes America different from many other Western democracies is this broad definition of free speech.

We have, in Europe, many countries regulate hate speech. It's something that the government is allowed to do, and there are different definitions of it in different countries. What makes America exceptional is this very broad definition under the First Amendment that people have the right to say things that others find offensive or sick, as Carr has described it himself. But Ben, going to you, there are things that the Trump administration has done that have been seen as an overreach and as a kind of overexpansion of executive privilege

that have ended up in the courts. where do you see this one going? What are the means that the broadcast companies have to fight back against this if they think that there is a legal case yet? Yeah, I mean, I think the sort of genius of a lot of the Trump legal actions it's never going to wind up in the courts. And these are companies that are so exposed to the federal government in so many different ways that they are just going to look for ways to settle,

whether that's a payment or whether that's firing somebody. And I think, you know, in particular, you have these weakened industry. It's broadcasting people. Broadcast television is a dying industry and it's been kind of rolled up by these companies that Willie mentioned before that you've never heard of. Next Star, Tegna, these are sort of private equity back giants that are swallowing what used to be vibrant businesses but are now declining businesses that get managed by, you know, this kind of big company you've never heard of who are all gradually collapsing together. And in that environment, they're very weak. They're going to do whatever the government wants. So, Ben, what is the chilling effect of all this, which is Colbert was obviously from day one critical of Donald Trump, Jimmy Kimmel, critical of Donald Trump from the beginning? Is there a message being shot across the bow of anyone not just in comedy and news and all over the place that we will, the Trump administration, use all these levers of power to go after you if you cross us? Yeah, I mean, I think the chilling effect is saying mostly the owners of these companies. I think there's a lot of talk, you know, is the Trump administration going to go after individual journalists? They might. But what they've found is that they can bring pressure to bear on the owners of huge

consolidated companies that threaten related interests. And I think, you know, people through the ranks get a message explicit or subtle to tone it down. Well, this also comes just a couple days after President Trump sued the New York Times for $15 billion and did name a few reporters by name. So, I mean, the difference is New York Times independent company. They can fight it. They can benefit from it in some ways, you know, that Trump isn't going to say we can take away your television networks. That, I mean, that's, no doubt there's the distinction there, but the broad theme remains the same.

It is a push by the administration to punish those they don't like using any power or lever of government that they have. J.D. Vance said on that podcast, if you hear someone say something ugly about Donald Trump call their boss. Right. And that's on a low level, somebody makes a tweet, and now on a very high level, ABC, they called ABC's boss and Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off the air. And Ben, to your point, these bigger companies that I gave it, that

they are exposed because they're in negotiation. They're dealing with the government as opposed to free from it and perhaps able to benefit from it. So this is a really interesting. What do you see potentially down the line as next if there is a next? I mean, I think that you're going to, I mean, my, I think that each, you know, every time you see one of these settlements in whatever form it takes, the administration is saying, wow, this is really working.

Let's look for more targets. We're going to revisit this throughout the show. Semaphores, Ben Smith. Thank you very much for coming on this morning. Other news now, a lot to get to. The former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Susan Menares, testified in a closely watched hearing yesterday, just weeks after her firing last month by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. NBC News correspondent Ann Thompson reports. I believe preventable diseases will return.

And I believe that we will have our children harmed for things that we know they do not need to be harmed by. Polio, measles, diphtheria, whooping cough. The stakes laid bare by fired CDC director Dr. Susan Menares over the future of the nation's vaccine policy. In August, 29 days after he called her scientific credentials unimpeachable, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., dismissed his hand. handpicked Senate-confirmed choice over vaccines. He just wanted blanket approval. And if I could not commit to approval of each and every one of the recommendations that would be forthcoming, I needed to resign. Minars told the Senate committee she refused to pre-approved the decisions of a vaccine advisory panel without science or data.

Several new members of that committee, selected by Kennedy, share his vaccine skepticism. I was fired for holding the line. on scientific integrity, but that line does not disappear with me. Two weeks ago, Kennedy told another Senate committee, Minars lied about her firing. Did you tell the head of the CDC that if she refused to sign off on your changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, that she had to resign? No, I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, are you a trustworthy person? And she said no.

Menars also said Kennedy disparaged the nation's top health agency. He called CDC the most corrupt federal agency in the world, emphasized that CD employees were horrible people. He said that CDC employees were killing children and they don't care. He said during the COVID outbreak, CDC told hospitals to turn away sick COVID patients until they had blue lips before allowing them to get treatment. Menars said Kennedy's assertions are not true. Some committee Republicans zeroed in on the COVID vaccine.

Does the COVID vaccine reduce hospitalization for children under 18? It can. It doesn't. Doctor and committee chairman, Bill Cassidy, wants to hear from Kennedy himself. I think Secretary Kennedy has to come and address this specifically. Ann Thompson reporting there, the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, composed of 12 Kennedy appointees, is set to meet today and tomorrow to vote on vaccines for measles, COVID, and hepatitis B.

Former CDC chief medical officer, Dr. Deborah Howery, testified alongside Monterez and said the committee may recommend delaying the hepatitis B birth dose until age four, despite no supporting data for that move. Howary warned, if the vaccine schedule proceeds as planned, the U.S. will, quote, see kids dying of vaccine preventable diseases. She called on Kennedy to resign. Joining us now, NBC News medical contributor, Dr. Vin Gupta. Dr. Gupta, good to see you, as always. So what are your thoughts, your concerns, perhaps, about what recommendations may be coming from this new panel.

Well, like, good morning. You said it in the T.F. There is going to be a revisiting from this new group of advisors on this advisory committee for immunization practices on three vaccines. That's what we're expecting. And so it revunk it to some degree is this is the measles, mumps, rubella, there are a cella combination. vaccine that we don't talk a lot about. It's also the hepatitis B vaccine, as you pointed out, and COVID vaccine for children. The chilling effect here, Willie, is, you know, if we were, for example, delaying the hepatitis B vaccine in any absence of any reason to do so, there's a reason we give it at birth. It's the so-called birth dose. Within the first 24 hours of life, we give this vaccine. And what we've realized is that it's important to give that vaccine right within that first 24 hours, because babies get exposed to hepatitis B from any number of potential risks.

Mom, potentially, if she wasn't screened later in her pregnancy. And why does that matter? 90% of children that end up getting infected with hepatitis B in their first moments of life end up developing chronic liver disease. It's a lifelong condition. Not much you can do about it. So there's a rhyme to the reason of what we do. It's a very safe vaccine.

and we can go through all the data on why. But really, the fact that Rand Paul, he was really in RFK, they are the drivers of revisiting these things that no other country in the world is revisiting. But that's the concern here. And my dad, let me just point out, health systems really across the country, my own health system, while Monoraz, Dr. Monterez was speaking yesterday,

I got an email from my health system saying, We are going to recommend for all of our patients, no changes to how we vaccinate for the respiratory viral season. America's health insurance plan said we're not, we're going to continue to cover vaccines. So there is civil society stepping in saying, you know what, we don't care what's going to happen the next two days. We're going to keep things as usual. So as you said, the hepatitis B vaccine, for example, is given to newborns. And now this panel led by Kennedy wants to delay that to four years old. Let's just take that one vaccine as an example.

Is there some new data? Are there some new medical revelations that would recommend this change? No. And, you know, let me try to channel the contrarian view. Why are they saying this? You know, they want to take us back, Willie, 30, 40 years ago where they're recommending only give the vaccine if, say, mom or child might have, might test positive. And that's what we used to do 40 years ago.

We missed a lot of kids that needed the vaccine because we just didn't, screening is ineffective. You don't screen everybody. For example, mom, mom usually has to get screened at eight weeks of pregnancy, but there's a lot that can happen between eight and delivery, and they can get exposed. And so there's a lot of imperfections from this screen and then vaccinate framework that we did 40 years ago, Willie, that has fallen into disfavor because we've missed so many kids. And that's the expectation. The expectation is now if they remove the birth dose, here's why this matters. Vaccines for kids, for children, VFC, it's a Medicaid-funded program, Lily. Half the kids in this country get their vaccines funded at zero cost through that program. So while a private insurer is saying we're not going to make any changes, and we're going to continue to fund vaccines, Medicaid

is very much accountable to whatever ASIP does. So if ASIP says, going to change the hepatitis B vaccine. It's no longer going to be covered. NBC News medical contributor, Dr. Vin Gupta, thank you very much. We'll stay on this with you. Thank you. And still ahead on Morning Joe, the Federal Reserve announced a highly anticipated interest rate cut signaling concerns about a slowing labor market might now outweigh worries about inflation. Steve Ratner will head over to the southwest wall with charts on that. Plus, we're following President Trump on his state visit in the UK, where he is set for meetings this morning with Prime Minister Kier Starrmer. And a reminder that the Morning Joe podcast is available each weekday.

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. 24 past the hour, the Federal Reserve announced its first interest rate cut of the year yesterday after the central banks highly anticipated two-day September policy meeting. The Fed lowered its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point to a range of 4 to 4.25%. The 12-member board voted 11 to 1 to cut rates and signal two more cuts are expected before the end of the year. Trump's newly appointed Fed governor, Stephen Myron, was the only dissenting vote.

He was in favor of a larger half-point cut instead. Steve Ratner, you have charts on all of this. I guess let's start by explaining the cut that we got yesterday. Yeah, Mika, it was actually a surprisingly uneventful meeting after all the build-up. We thought there might be more dissension, more controversy. As you know, Trump has been kind of trying to pack the Fed, so to speak, and try to get faster cuts, more cuts, and so forth. But he didn't really get it yesterday.

And as you said, only one governor actually cited in favor of more cuts. So here's the cut he did yesterday. And as part of it, every quarter of the Fed issues, new projections for where it thinks interest rates are going. And you can see the glide path has been pretty similar. It bounces around a bit from the March to the June to the September estimates really based as much on Trump and the tariff wars as anything else. tariff wars seem greater. We thought interest rates would stay higher. Now they seem to be a bit

less. Interest rates coming down. And then they stabilize over here. But as you also said, what's happening now is the Fed is pivoting from worrying about inflation, rightly or wrongly, to worrying about the jobs market. And so you can see over here what's been happening to the jobs market. Now, obviously, when you go back to 2021, we had a lot of COVID effects, reopening of the country. But these are annual rates of job creation over that period. of time. And you can see that back here, we created about 200 and, we're creating 216,000 jobs in the course of 2023 per month, dropped to 168,000 here, drops to 75,000 here. And in the last four months, when of course, we all remember Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we created

only 27,000 jobs a month on average. Why is that happening? You hear different reasons. It's very anecdotal at this point. Certainly business is holding back on hiring because they really don't know where the economy is going. They don't know where tariffs are going. They don't know where Trump is going. But you also may be starting to see some effects of AI in terms of companies feeling they can get by with fewer people to do the same or even perhaps more work. So Steve, let's look more at the softening labor market in your second chart. Chairman Powell explicitly said yesterday that was the big concern with the softening labor market. And as you point out, for the first time since the pandemic, you have more people looking for jobs than there are jobs available.

Yeah, exactly, Willie. So before the pandemic, of course, typically we have more people looking for jobs than there are jobs. Then you had the pandemic, huge number of jobs. People could kind of get jobs very easily, and the lines have been converging. And then just last month or so, they actually crossed, and you do have more people looking for jobs than there are jobs. And so that's another sign of a weakening labor market.

And then another thing that's worth pointing out is the long-term unemployed, and the number of people who have been employed for unemployed for six months or more. And you can see right now we hit, and it's been jumping up, we hit about 26% of the people who are unemployed six months or more. Again, ignore COVID, very aberrational, but the last time we were at that level was 2016. So we're starting to have a problem, not just with the unemployment rate, but with also people, stay. unemployed for a long time. And one of the things you also hear anecdotally is that this is a really tough hiring season for young college graduates. Again, for the reasons I said, companies are just holding back or they think at these entry-level positions they might be able to do more with AI. So it's going to especially affect young people. It's really hard. And let's talk about

inflation. While it may not have been as much at consideration here, it feels like it's getting worse or at least not getting better. Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right. And what's interesting is that Powell pivoted sooner than he said he was going to pivot. He always said 2% inflation is our goal. We have to be a 2% inflation. That's where we're going to get to. And then as the jobs market is weakened. And the Fed does have this dual mandate of worrying about both.

He pivoted. And so if you look at his inflation projections, you can see, as you said, inflation has been nudging upward. And the Fed actually thinks it could continue to nudge upward as we've not felt the full effects of the tariffs. and then it gradually, gradually declines, but it does not get to its 2% target until out in 2028 now. And so the Fed has decided whether pressure from Trump had any effect or not. We don't know. Powell is a pretty resolute guy, and has been very firm in saying it didn't.

But nonetheless, they've decided to prioritize jobs and accept a bit more inflation than they expected. Now, the other thing that the Fed projects every three months is growth. And here, again, the growth projections being go March, June, September have been jumping around in part because of what I was talking about before, Liberation Day, tariffs on, tariffs off, and so forth. But the big takeaway from this is that even whichever set of bars you like, whichever their forecasts you like, growth is expected to remain way below where it was in 23 and 24. We had, and if you go back further, put aside COVID again, you'd find the economy growing about 2.5% a year. That's a fairly normal rate for an economy like this. Now the Fed is projecting

more like 1.5% going forward all the way to 2028. And Trump has said that slow growth now is simply setting the stage for faster growth later as his policies take effect, a period of disruption, whatever. The Fed is saying, not so fast, we think there could be a little bit more growth, but the Fed does not see for almost the entirety of Trump's term growth getting back to where it was during the last years of Biden and before that. All right, morning, Joe, economic analyst, Steve Ratner. Thank you very much. We look forward to more on this.

I'm curious, Caddy Kay, looking at the labor market and Steve's comments on inflation, it seems like a dismal time, especially for younger Americans or Americans in their 30s and 40s, trying even to buy their first house, looking for opportunity, overall affordability, which politically, I'm thinking affordability is where Democrats need to live in developing a message and looking for solutions in the months, weeks and months

heading up to the next election. Yeah, and it's not even just buying their own house, Meeker is always often renting their own house. You look at some of the inflation data and actually some things have come down, but one thing that hasn't come down is housing, and that includes renting. You and I both have teenagers,

and we have kids in our early 20s who have just come out of college. we know how hard it is for kids at the moment to find jobs. And what Steve was saying about entry-level jobs is particularly true. So you combine that with a whole generation of people who are coming out of college who have college debt, who then can't afford housing, prices are too high for them, and they can't get jobs. I think this is an area that Democrats are going to have to focus on. And you could see it in New York in the race with Mamdani, all those young people voting for him

on the basis of affordability. The question for Democrats is, can they get those people excited about Democrats? proposals to fix this in the run up to the next election. Coming up, the European Union could fast track a move to increase economic pressure on Russia. We'll explain what that means next on morning, Jeff. Just moments ago, I've arrived at the country residents of U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer, the two set to hold meetings throughout the morning ahead of a joint press conference, set to begin shortly after 9 o'clock Eastern Time. Join us now, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas.

He's author of the weekly newsletter, Home and Away, available on Substack. Richard, good morning. Morning, Willie. The Brits know how to throw pomp and circumstance. at an American president, as they're doing extraordinarily well over the last two days. We're seeing it again this morning. What is the aim, though, of this? Many people have talked about their hope that they can bring him along on the question of Ukraine. What is the point of all this? From the Brits' point of view? The basic goal is to avoid a crisis and a blow-up,

and that's what all the pomp was about. It wasn't any policy. And the deployment of the king and queen was, shall we say, deft. All very good. Now the policy. stuff, but on policy issues, the two governments could hardly be farther apart. Fundamentally different on Russia and Ukraine, really different on Israel and Gaza, and obviously different on things like climate change, tariffs, you name it. So this was really about crisis avoidance, if you will, more than anything, just to invest in the relationship, give President Trump, make him feel really comfortable, so he sees Britain benignly.

Stama, the Prime Minister, has actually managed to have a pretty good relationship. There's not really no policy results to show. for it. John, throwing a lot of horses at the problem. That's what you do. Horses and funny hats. That's the British way. So Richard, certainly the trade deal is part of this, too. We know UK jumped in early. They're trying to hammer out some of that. But let's zero in on Ukraine here. It does seem like a pretty dire moment of the war. People close to Zelensky have described him as pretty despondent about the lack of U.S. help of late. There's been still no promises, concrete promises of what security guarantees could look like. And no pressure from Trump

in any meaningful way about Putin and over the weekend to talk about, well, we'll put sanctions in if all of you do first. Like non-starters there, that's not going to happen. So just talk to, is there anything that Starmor can, as we look at this devastation of the most recent Russian attack, is there anything Starmor can get here? You know, what is Europe's hope to move Trump? How do it do it? Well, the answer is they fail to do it up to now.

Odds are they won't be able to do it meaningfully. There's two things. Is can you put more pressure on Russia? so far at least the president shall we say has been reticent to do that can you do more for ukraine unlikely uh finally i think there's the first tranche of arms that wasn't simply allowing the biden administration approved arms to go a little bit from this administration possibly things like defense anti-missiles patriots are possibility i think the real question is the europeans then get permission to keep buying stuff from the united states to give to ukraine that's probably

the most you're going to get. I think essentially, let's just be blunt here. Bottom line is Ukraine is essentially on its own with European support. The phase of massive American help for Ukraine, I think, has essentially worked itself out. This administration, this Republican Congress is not there, even though quite a few Republicans in Congress would like to be there. I don't think they're going to push it. Certainly this Defense Department isn't there. You've got to pull back from Europe, questions about Asia. Real focus on the Western Hemisphere. year. So I think the reason that Zelensky's despondent is a, it's realistic. And Ukraine has been remarkably resourceful with drone technology and the rest. The problem is they're up against

an adversary that has three to four times as much, you know, many people, controls a lot of Turk. Just keep the grind. And Putin, because he runs an authoritarian system, is in many ways better able to sustain this grind than is Ukraine. We're going to end the fourth, we're going to end this fighting season now, the third year of the war, going to be slightly a break, not quite a break, during the winter, then I think, let's be blunt. We're probably looking at a fourth fighting season. That's where I think we're heading. Probably the only good news out there is the Russian economy is somewhat weak. Energy prices are low. So I think there are some questions about Russia's long-term ability to sustain it. But Ukraine is kind of, as in a, what you will, again,

we're in something of a post-American phase of the war, right? now. The head of the European Commission said on Tuesday that the EU's financial arm will propose speeding up the phase out of Russian fossil fuel imports. Ursula von der Leyen posted those comments online following a phone call with President Trump over the weekend. The president said the United States would impose major sanctions on Russia once other NATO members stop purchasing Russian oil. Joining us now, senior fellow at the Atlantic. Council, Ian Brasinski. He served as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO policy under President George W. Bush and Caddy Kay, you're there on the set with Ian. I'll have you give

the first question. Okay, Micah, I'm going to take over from your sister at this point, Ian, just for a second. I think that makes life easier within the Brasinski family. So you've been writing about how the U.S. can't afford to stay on the sidelines, but there's this phrase going on around about a G0 world, a world in which basically there is no leading superpower like the United States anymore that is driving policy. And that's certainly what it feels like. And it feels like Ukraine is the unfortunate victim of that G0 world. Do you see anything? It's interesting listening to Richard, who sounds pretty pessimistic about the idea of America getting back on board. Republicans I speak to in the Senate say they just can't get ahead of the president on this.

Do you see anything that would change America's position when it comes to Russia and when it comes to Ukraine? Well, I think you make an important contextual point, you know, a zero power world. If Trump continues to pull America on an isolationist path, withdraws from our security commitments and undercuts U.S. relationships with its key allies in Europe and Indo-Pacific, that is a zero-power world, and that will be a more chaotic world. Just think of the context we are now, where we've just begun this process, so to speak. We have the worst war we've had in Europe since World War II. We have a ranging conflict in Gaza, increased violence across the Middle East, and Russia, that's going to be in China, acting with increasing assertiveness

in the Indo-Pacific. We are on the cusp of a very, of a very dangerous escalation of global conflict. And that is a direct result of America's withdrawal from the world and a growing perception among our adversaries that we have lost the will to fight for our interests, for our values for our allies. Yeah, I mean, for all the bling in London, and, you know, that was a real shock and all performance by the British royal family, you can put out all the red coats you want, you can put out all the prancing horses you want. The reality is that Britain is looking weak at the moment, has a own weak political

situation. America is looking weak politically and divided at the moment as well. It's not a great moment for the Anglo-Saxon world. So that perhaps leaves the Europeans. If you were advising Europe, America's traditional allies at the moment, throw in the Canadian, throw in the Australians. What would you advise them to do if we're really heading into a sustained period where America is absent? Well, this is a moment for decisive action by the Europeans. I mean, for example, he's a Chequers. The president is a Chequers today. Chequers is a

repository of some of the great archives of Churchill. And I hope they're leveraging Trump's interest in Churchill to bring from his, his Churchillian moment rather than going down the path of Chamberlain, which led to chaos and World War II. For the European, Europeans to pull America in the right direction, they have to act more decisively. So Starrmer and Macron and their efforts develop a deterrent force for Ukraine is a step in the right direction, but it has to be more decisive. For example, the EU, now is not the time for more incremental sanctions. It's time to body slam the Russian economy. It's time to start moving European forces towards the border of Ukraine to demonstrate a commitment and willingness to support Ukraine with force if the time comes for.

that. I think they're in a position where if they start acting decisively and they can have effect on Russia's perception, they'll create a dynamic where Putin, or excuse me, where Trump will not want to be left out, left out of the possible winning team. They have to lead to pull Trump. If they expect Trump to lead, we'll continue the way that we're headed right now that Richard accurately portrayed. But if they act with decisiveness, I can't guarantee you Trump will follow, but he's more likely to if he sees success. Richard, the president has shown himself to be resistant to that kind of pulling along. They've pleaded their case.

Remember, they came an incredible European leader's act of solidarity to the White House. They sat with the President of the United States, tried to impress upon him the importance of rallying behind Ukraine, try to show the benefits to the United States. It doesn't appear, though, he's been compelled by these arguments. He's been distracted by other things for sure. But as you pointed out, some have said the action should be in the Congress, in the Senate, on sanctions, and there are, as you pointed out correctly, many Republicans who want strict sanctions on Russia. Why aren't we getting them? Because the White House doesn't want them,

and what we've seen after nine months is a Republican-controlled Congress that's not going to go against the wishes of this president. No, the main thing the Europeans can do, and sanctions are not going to move Putin. Let's just be straight. The real thing you can do is help Ukraine more. that's one thing they've got to do and that's transferring more arms to Ukraine transferring more money to Ukraine so Ukraine can buy American arms Europeans also need to spend

not just more on defense which Donald Trump has gotten them to do to his credit they need to spend more collectively you get the German defense budget you got a French defense budget a British defense budget the problem is there's way too much duplication there isn't a European defense effort Europe has to increasingly think about the era

where they can't count on the United States that era has probably arrived and they need to have more of a collective security in Europe. And that's the problem. You don't really have European defense efforts. Again, you have national defenses. So the Europeans have to get serious about spending their defense euros, shall we say, in a much more collective, concerted way. That'll be, that'll also be a big test, but they're not quite there. You're certainly right. Leader Thune has made clear that they have more than 85 supporters of the sanctions bill, but it's not going to happen until Trump

gives the okay. He has yet to do so. Ian, I want to go back to Richard said something earlier about the Russian economy. It's limping along at the moment. But talk to us a little more about the support they still have. You know, India and China still buying a lot of Russian oil and gas. They're getting weapons from North Korea, you know, drones and the like. Talk to us about just the Russian war machine, because we've known since the early days of this conflict,

as well as Ukraine has done, exceeded expectations in every possible way. Russia simply has the numbers in terms of man. men, equipment, and these days, drones? They have the numbers, and they have the will. They have a leader that is determined. On the numbers, the Russian army is actually reconstituting itself. That's one of the concerning things that we're facing is that as Ukraine is being ground down, the Russian military, particularly army, is actually growing.

It's increasing its capacity. And we're seeing that even just through the daily barrages of drones, 800 shots in a single evening across. the country. So Russia is reconstituting itself. We haven't hit the Russian economy sufficiently. We haven't hit the economies of its allies sufficiently to shut down that war machine. And the Russian economy, you know, it is growing, but it is fragile. And I'm actually a little bit more confident than Richard is on the potential impact of sanctions. If we actually really leverage the full force of the potential we have, let's not forget that the combined economy

of the United States, Canada, and Europe, is 25 times that of Russia. It has far greater control of the global financial system. We could really impose a lot of harm, a lot of pressure on China, on India, and others who are basically profiting off of this war through Russia if we had the will to exercise that power. And so this is, you know, this is tariffs, this is secondary sanctions, this is cutting Russia and its allies off on the financial system. And you don't do that incrementally.

You do it with one real solid body below. That's how you change Putin's perception of the correlation of forces before him. Right now, he sees a transatlantic community that's unwilling to exercise that power. Ian Brasinski and Richard Haas, thank you both for your insights on this. We appreciate it. And still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll show you what former President Obama had to say about the murder of Charlie Kirk and the rise in political violence. And we'll dig into Jonathan Lemire's new piece on The Running Mate. Kamala Harris really wanted.

Morning Joe is coming right back. An investigation in Southern Pennsylvania, where three police officers were faced. fatally shot while serving a warrant yesterday. NBC News correspondent Aaron McLaughlin has details. New York County, Pennsylvania, a suspect opened fire shooting five police officers, according to three people familiar with the matter, before the shooter, who has yet to be named by officials, dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I heard gunshots. I'd like to preemptively say that there are many details, which at this point we are not prepared to release. I can confirm

that there were five law enforcement officers who were shot today. Three fatally. Sources tell NBC News, police had apparently been serving a warrant when the suspect opened fire. The chaos captured on police dispatch. We have one officer down, class one. First responders flooded the scene in rural Pennsylvania. Numerous police and EMS units responded to the scene. And a shelter in place was ordered at local schools as a precaution and later lifted. Fortunately, there have been no children injured in any way. This kind of violence isn't okay. We need to do better as a society.

And the lieutenant governor wrote, send prayers to the officers and those involved in the shooting, advising the public to stay away from the area. Aaron McLaughlin reporting from Pennsylvania, the state police commissioner said the two surviving officers are in critical but stable condition at a local hospital. And we certainly hope that they get better very soon.