Morning Joe - ‘I have no fear of the Trump administration’: Pope Leo reacts to Trump’s criticism

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

‘I have no fear of the Trump administration’: Pope Leo reacts to Trump’s criticism To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I'm not a big fan of Pope Leo. He's a very liberal person, and he's a man that doesn't believe in stopping crime. He's a man that doesn't think that we should be toying with a country that wants a nuclear weapon so they can blow up the world. I'm not a fan of Pope Leo. Absolutely, man, that's true. There's a lot going on on this Monday morning. That would be actually Donald Trump's very upset that the Pope actually reads the Bible. Bible and the gospel and he actually quotes the gospel and he quotes the Bible. Blesser the peacemakers.

And Mika, that doesn't even get to what the president last night posted a picture of himself. Posted a picture of himself. Yeah. That was in response. In my eye pictures, Jesus Christ healing people. And it just, I don't know, just the Baptist in me reminded me of what Jesus said. Many believers will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. and false prophets will arise and lead many astray, and because lawlessness will be increased,

the love of many will grow cold. That wasn't the Pope. That actually was Jesus, who also said, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed or the meek, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for. We'll go through the whole thing down the road. Well, moments ago, Pope Leo responded on a flight to Algeria telling reporters, quote, I have no fear of the Trump administration or speaking out loudly of the message of the gospel,

which is what I believe I am here to do. The gospel will be around much longer than any politician. Good morning. And welcome to morning, Joe. It is Monday, April 13th, and we have so much to get to this morning. With us, we have the co-host of our 9 a.m. hour, staff writer at the Atlantic,

Jonathan Lemire, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas is with us. Editor at The Insider, Michael Weiss, joins us once again, and columnist and associate editor at the Washington Post. David Ignatius is here. David Ignatius, and I just want to talk about this briefly because we have so much news to cover.

You almost wonder if Donald Trump posting a picture of himself as Jesus is to distract from all the terrible news that happened for the administration yesterday. But I do want to just put this in perspective. A week ago, Donald Trump, the President of the United States promised mass genocide as a negotiating tactic, promised mass genocide against an entire civilization. This week, he portrays himself as Jesus Christ while viciously attacking the Pope.

That's a rough week or so and raises many, at least, I think, to me and many people in Washington, many disturbing questions. So, Joe, like you, I've found the self-iconography. in the image of himself as the healing Jesus figure profane. That's the only way to put it. The minute you saw it, I was troubled by it. At a time when he's picking a fight with Pope Leo, he's already gone after the Aetola.

Maybe he's trying to be broader as attacks on religious leaders. But it's just disturbing. You can't help but wonder what many Christians who've seen Donald Trump as an embodiment of their faith and beliefs, I think, when they see this kind of imagery. But it's just a piece with somebody who's now self-memorializing, putting out memes of himself as a warrior king, a Viking, Star Wars figure. go down the list. And this latest one is especially disturbing. I wonder, Joe, isn't there anybody in the White House

who looks at these things and says, Mr. President, I'm not sure you ought to put that one out. Clearly not. Obviously, yeah. Obviously not, because people love,

people have, say, oh, he was just joking, you don't get the joke. I can tell you for evangelicals, unless they want to completely turn their back on everything that they were raised on. We'll look at that.

It's blasphemous. Yeah. So aside from profane, hinged posts that Republicans seem to just turn away from and cower from. We do have major news to get to this morning. Hungary's authoritarian leader, Victor Orban, has conceded his race for re-election, ending his 16-year run as prime minister and dealing a massive blow to Vladimir Putin and to right-wing populism around the globe. With nearly all of the country's ballots counted, Hungary's center-right party was set to win 138 seats in Pallerman.

That's more than two-thirds majority that his pro-European rival, Peter Majar, needs to undo Orban's constitutional overhaul. Majar is a former ally of Orban who ran on issues of health care and the economy. This year, voter turnout was the highest it's been since 1989 and just look at the this video. 1989 being the year that the Berlin Wall fell and Hungary was finally freed, it appears they are free once again. So in a post on social media, president of the EU commission, Ursula von der Leyen, posted Hungary has chosen Europe.

Europe has always chosen Hungary. The election result follows a month-long diplomatic blitz by the Trump administration, who sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Budapest in February to show support for right-wing populist Victor Orban. And last week, President J.D. Vance made a visit there to show support. He literally said it across a table. We're here to support you and wish you luck. Yeah. Well, and you can go down the list, members of Trump's family. Everybody was all under this. And Michael Weiss, you're reporting just absolutely extraordinary. And I believe it played a role in the homestreet.

stretch, where you showed that you had Hungary and Russia in collusion with each other. And there's, of course, there's Donald Trump Jr. also talking. But Michael Weiss, talk about the impact of this victory, this smashing victory. It is, it is, I won't say a death blow to right-wing populism in Europe, but it is astonishing, considering all the levers of power that Orban controlled. So talk about it what it means for Hungary, what it means for Europe, and also what it means about this 10-year run of a far-right-wing xenophobic populism that's been rising in Europe. Yeah, it's an extraordinary victory. One of the big concerns that we, as observers of this election had had, was that this was going to be a near-run thing.

And then Orban would use basically every trick in his toolkit to try and steal it from, leaning on Russian interference. You know, I mentioned a few days ago, Joe, that the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service has assets all over Hungary that were kind of ginning up social media pumping disinformation and these fake narratives into the information ecosystem. We have, you've mentioned the degree to which

the United States government, the president, the vice president, the secretary of state intervened very forcefully on behalf of Orban to the point where even Trump was posting to social media. bribing the Hungarians to vote for Orban, saying that the full economic might of the United States would be behind Hungary, should they return the incumbent, you know, as prime minister. But this all failed. And it failed catastrophically for Orban and for Putin and for Trump. As I speak now, it looks like the opposition will have upwards of 140 seats in the parliament. They needed 133 for a supermajority. the supermajority allows Peter Mayer to essentially undo most of what Orban has done over the last 16 years,

this sort of autocratic form of state capture, packing the courts, putting his oligarchic cronies in positions of power, in civil society, media institutions, you name it. I mean, Anne Appelbaum has written extensively on sort of what Hungary has undergone, because frankly, a lot of it mirrored what Poland had undergone. under the Pish Party, right? So I do think that this is a massive message to far-right populists in Europe, although I will say, in Hungary's case, again, this was a decade and a half, and people didn't turn out

because they were necessarily pro-European or pro-Ukrainian. They turned out because the state was in ruin, the economy was in tatters. And that's really what made Orban lose this race. Richard Haas, we will get to your sad golf predictions soon enough. They looked very good Saturday afternoon at the Masters, not so much by the end of that. But let's talk about how sad the administration and Vladimir Putin would be, as the Wall Street Journal noted, the remarkable coalition of Vladimir Putin, Sergey Lavrov,

Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, J.D. Vance. You had a The United States, Trump's United States and Putin's Russia, throwing their full weight behind a man who owned most of the instruments of government power, and he still suffered a historic crushing landslide defeat. I'm curious, your thoughts on the fact that Lavrov and Rubio, Trump, and Putin were working so, feverishly behind the scenes to prop this guy up. This autocratic thug, an autocratic thug that, that again, destroyed an independent judiciary, destroyed an independent press, destroyed almost all of the institutions that rose up after the Soviets were kicked out of Hungary and 89.

Well, you're exactly right, Joe. So I took it as a good day, not just for Hungary, but for what we used to call when we were young, the West, it showed the resistance of democratic societies and political culture. And after what, 16 or so years and corruption on stilts, he was turned out. And it showed that all these forces from the outside and the inside in Hungary couldn't prevail. The turnout, though, was so large and so one-sided. I think that's in some ways a message for us, that the way to defeat people who would undermine democracy is to make it so clear that even if they try to do things around the edges, they can't succeed.

But Orban, as you've talked about here, was such a symbol. He was such a model for what you might call modern, illiberal democracy. So the fact that he went down as decidedly as he did, I actually think is a really inspiring positive development for all of us. And all the people you mentioned, it was a bad day for them and good for that. You know, Jonathan Lemire, I still call it the West. I still talk about Western democracy. I still believe in Western democracy. And I believe yesterday was a great day for Western democracy.

It was a very bad day for people who over the past decade have done their best to try to destroy Western democracy, to destroy liberal democracy, liberal, a traditionally small government term, even though. a lot of really stupid people don't understand that because they don't read history. I guess they just scroll in crayon books, but liberal democracy, Western democracy, what the United States of America has been for so long. But let's make no mistake about it. This administration lined up with Vladimir Putin instead of Western democracy. And it was a crushing defeat for them, was it not? It most certainly was.

This was a tough day for Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Donald Trump, who all endorsed Orban in the campaign's final stages, either implicitly or explicitly. It was striking. You never see an American administration back a foreign candidate like this and to do it for Orban. And as Michael said. And, Jonathan, you know the history of Trump and Orban. Even when President Trump was out of office, he invited Orban. Orban to Moralago and said, this is my guy. This is my model. This is who I love. This autocratic thug that destroyed an independent judiciary in Hungary, destroyed an independent press in Hungary,

destroyed democratic freedoms, rigged the process so badly that I almost impossible that he lost last night. This is, this was Donald Trump's role model, this autocratic thug. He said it himself. Trump and people around him pointed to. to Orban and said, that's what we want to do here. You know, Orban spoke at CPAC in the United States. You know, we had prominent conservative media figures host their shows from Hungary. Like, you know, Orban was- They took CPAC to Hungary, not to interrupt you, but these right-wing thugs that used to support

Reagan and the things that I still support, freedom, liberty, Western democracy, the pushing back against Russian authoritarianism, these thugs actually took CPAC to Hungary and said, this is a guy we want to be like. This guy who, again, has trashed the judiciary, trashed the free press. I mean, again, there is an access. So when we talk about Donald Trump, this isn't just a defeat for people in the Trump administration. I mean, this is a defeat for a bizarre chunk. of right-wingers in America who for some reason embraced his illiberalism and his hatred of the free press and his hatred of a free independent judiciary. And this morning, it's all, it's, it's, it's, it's in an ash heap in in in Budapest and across Hungary and across Europe and across

America. Yeah, I mean, Orban was Trump's guy. He was the model. They were all in on him with, you know, capping off with Vice President J.D. Vance, heading to Budapest in the final couple of days his campaign. A tough weekend for the vice president. Obviously, you know, was in Pakistan as well when that Iran deal didn't come to fruition. We'll talk about that a little later. But David Ignatius, I mean, you know, a friend of ours who is Hungarian says every 30 years, Hungary can we trust to do the right thing. He's darkly joking, 956, 1989, and now yesterday. And certainly, a lot of this was about corruption at home, would lead to this result. but the implications here are big, and please speak about them now.

Yes, for this administration, Donald Trump and his presidency, because they went all in, they lost. But talk to us all about the ripple effects we will now get for the rest of Europe, for Russia, and for Ukraine. Jonathan, I think this was a European version of a wave election, as we put it. The majority for Orban's challenger was overwhelming. The turnout was huge beyond. what they've had in recent years. And it was seen as absolutely a bellwether for which direction

Europe would go towards increased authoritarianism, toward making deals with Vladimir Putin, toward exceeding to Donald Trump's vision of how the West should work. And Hungarian voters turned out in huge numbers to say no. And the corruption issue was at the center of that. It's a real warning for people around Donald Trump who've gotten used to doing deals that are unprecedented in the United States, that in the end, voters rebel at that kind of corruption. The question I have is whether this will have a knock-on effect for other right-wing populist movements across Europe. There are already early signs that maybe in France, Marine Le Pen and her right-wing party may be suffering from the same kind of voter rights. rejection. But it was a hinge moment. The Trump people, Trump himself, Vice President of Vance,

wouldn't have worked so hard to prop up Victor Orban if they didn't see this as a crucial potential turning point for Europe. Yeah, you know, in, I believe it was 2018, 2019, and Obama warned about the twilight of democracy. One of an extraordinarily important book, as is her most recent book, that talks about authoritarianism and how it goes from border to border, and whether it's in Belarus or Hungary or whether it's in Russia or whether you have leaders in the United States who want to bring it here, there are no boundaries. They help each other. And if you read both of Ann's books, you will see that's exactly what happened here. But the people rose up. The people spoke out. And one of these autocratic thugs is now out of office.

What is something, though, I think people should take heart in this morning is when Anne wrote Twilight of Democracy, she was looking at Poland, the law and justice party. She was looking at Hungary and Orban's thuggishness, the worst of the worst. And here we are in 2026. And this morning I woke up to a phone call from the Prime Minister of Poland calling the newly elected Prime Minister of Hungary, saying, I think I'm actually happier today than you are. This is a new day in Europe. Things are moving in a good direction. The people are speaking out. They're rising up against these would-be autocratic thugs. I just want to underline one thing for Democrats in America and Republicans who want to reform their party and make it better.

Run against corruption. Run against a bad economy. Those are, you know, we actually had Orban, driven from power because that's what they talked about. A bad economy, corruption, those sort of things that drove voters to come out on record number. 80 percent. 80 percent came out last time. We still haven't even gotten to Trump's war with Iran and what seems to be a rolling set of strategic blunders. So still ahead on morning, Joe, we will turn to Iran and where the conflict stands right now.

after Vice President J.D. Vance and top U.S. negotiators left Pakistan without a peace agreement in place and a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz set to begin in a few hours. Richard Haas has trademarked this idea. The royalties will start rolling in right away. We'll talk about it. And later this morning, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is our guest. We have a lot to talk with her about, including the conflict overseas and Victor Orban's. loss, but as we go to break, a look at the Travelers' forecast this morning from Accuethers, Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how is it looking? Meek, it's suddenly summer across the Mid-Atlantic State, an exclusive Acky Weather Forecast for your Monday.

How about upper 70s, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, 86, spotty showers keep temperatures down a little bit across New England. Watch for some strong thunderstorms later today in Chicago. stays dry across the southeast as the drought worsens, strong thunderstorms, and West Texas. Watch for some delays this afternoon around Chicago. East Coast, though, you're looking good. To help you make the best decisions to be more in the know, download the Accuether App today. Welcome back.

The fate of the fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran remains uncertain this morning after marathon peace talks between the two countries failed to. produce a deal. The negotiations stretching over 21 hours in the Pakistani capital on Saturday were the highest level face-to-face meetings between American and Iranian leaders in nearly five decades. Before departing Islamabad with no agreement, Vice President J.D. Vance, who led the delegation for the United States, told reporters in part, quote, we've made very clear what our red lines are, adding the U.S. gave our, quote, final and best offer. We'll see. if the Iranians accept it. A U.S. official tells MS now, those red lines for Iran include ending

all of its uranium enrichment, ending funding for militant proxies, and fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz with no tolls for passage. Iranian officials for their part said the U.S. quote, failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation. But they left the door open for future talks, adding that now it is the time for Washington to decide whether they, can earn that trust. You know, David Ignatius, of course, what the Iranians would say, and since 1979, I very rarely found myself saying that what the Iranian said had a hint of truth to it. But when they say they have trouble trusting the United States negotiators, the truth is that

in the middle of two negotiations over the past year, Donald Trump has cut off those negotiations and bombed them in the middle of what they thought were negotiations. So the fact that they were there, that's a good first hurdle. I am curious, what happened in Islamabad? You wrote a column about this. Take us behind the scenes. So, Joe, from what sources close to the negotiations tell me this meeting, which is historic to have a U.S. vice president meeting atop Iranian official face-to-face.

That's something we really have waited 47 years for. predictably that the meeting began in a pretty chilly way with both Vice President of Vance and Mohamed Bakr Kalibov, the Iranian, putting down markers about their hardline positions and some basic sparring and testing. But over the long period, 21 hours total of this session, at least 16 hours of direct conversation, I'm told that the U.S. side began to have respect for, Pali Baf, the Iranian counterpart, his foreign minister, Araghi, as sophisticated negotiators. The American aim was to present such a broad deal.

As one person put it, a bigger cake that the Iranians could consider, relief of sanctions, return of monies to Iran, a vision of Iran as part of the modernizing economy of the Gulf, place that would look more like the United Arab Emirates, let's say, than beaten down Tehran of today. All these goodies, if you will, if the Iranians would agree to essentially give up the pieces of their nuclear program. And in the end, as we know, the Iranians weren't prepared to say that. And so the meeting ended in what's described as failure.

And President Trump promptly imposed a blockade. I'm told that that blockade, Joe and Mika, should be seen. I know your followers of USC mixed martial arts. So you know at the end of a cage fight, one of the fighters, the other one in a chokehold and try to choke him out. So the other fighter taps out and says, okay, that's it, I submit. Right. That's basically Trump's idea is to take a weak Iran with this blockade, cut off any revenue. prevent Iran from recovering economically until it taps out and then says it's prepared to consider this big, broad U.S. deal.

Will that lead to escalation in the military conflict? Will it lead to further talks as the U.S. hopes and expects? They hope talks will continue through Pakistan even this week. Impossible to say at this point, but it was a big meeting, and I think the importance of the symbolism of top U.S. and Iranian official getting together, it shouldn't be minimized. Well, and David, I want to underline that fact for people that may just say, oh, this ended in failure, this was a complete disaster, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, because they didn't get a deal.

I've been shocked if they would have been able, after everything, these two countries, our country and Iran has been through since 1979, the distrust on both sides since 1979. This isn't going to happen in one meeting. Could you talk about, and again, I'm not being Pollyannish, I'm going to be hypercritical of the Trump administration that are at the morning. I want to say that on this point, I see it as a very positive step that the United States and Iran were able to stay together that long, that the negotiators were able to talk that long, that they're expanding this out to make it more of a complete negotiation

instead of just on a couple of narrow things. understanding that Iran needs what it needs. And there is no doubt for the Trump administration to not have this war be seen as a total disaster, they have to get a tough deal on nukes, and they've got to get the straits open. So that's where we are. Iran has its needs. But all in all, don't you see this as a positive step that we were able to get together and talk through the weekend? Joe, you know, I've learned in so many years, decades now, of covering the Middle East

to restrain my optimism whenever anything happens. That said, I did find this gathering in Islamabad, just the images of the two leaders, the reports I had that they talked in a constructive way

encouraging. At some point, this process has to happen. It's gone 47 years, and as Henry Kist, and Dr. Brunsky as well said, at some point, Iran has to change. It has to stop being a destabilizing revolutionary force and join the modern world.

Be as productive. A country as its people and culture will allow it. And maybe that process began over the weekend. We have to wait and see, but I have to credit Trump with at least making the effort. So hours after that high-stakes meeting ended with no agreement. President Trump said the U.S. Navy would begin a blockade, stopping ships from entering or leaving the Strait of Hormuz. The president made that announcement in a lengthy social media post yesterday morning, adding the Navy would also interdict any vessel that's paid around's wartime toll and begin destroying mines laid in the strait. The U.S. military, however, later appealed to scale back the president's pledge, saying that starting at 10 a.m.

Eastern today, the blockade will apply to all Iranian ports, but ships traveling between non-Iranian ports may still transit the strait. Iran's parliament speaker responded with this taunt to American consumers, quote, soon you'll be nostalgic for four to five dollar gas. That comes as oil prices once again surged above $100 per barrel last night after the announcement of the blockade. President Trump was asked last night by reporters when he expects Iran to return to the negotiating table. I don't care if they come back or not. If they don't come back, I'm fine. Their military is gone. Their missiles are largely depleted. The manufacturing capability for missiles and drones is largely defeated. We've been very nice. We haven't ripped down

too many bridges. We did one only because they broke their word, they broke their promise. And remember, their promise was that they were going to open the Hormone's strait. They didn't do it. They lied. Richard Haas, you've been talking about a blockade for weeks now. What do you make of the latest developments? Look, I think it's a step in the right direction, Mika, puts pressure on or on. The idea that they would control what's going through the strait and would collect hundreds of millions of dollars a day in the process since is untenable, I would argue. And don't forget, before this war, what was the

Achilles heel of the Iranian government? It was their economy. The war has made a bad situation worse. So where we have leverage over Iran is not with continued applications of military force. It's with enhanced economic pressure. So I think this is a step in the right direction. I would couple this with a diplomatic initiative, say we're going to essentially block the straight until everybody gets to use it. We also want to see some kind of a new authority. The Iranians could participate in it with all the local countries about what the ground rules are for using the states. Maybe even there could be a small toll that would be shared by all the neighboring countries. But this is to me far better than think about it. Meek, a seizing Karg Island

or trying to escort individual tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. Those would have been military and political nightmares. So I think this is a smart move, and it puts pressure on Iran. Quite honestly, I wish we had done it before the meetings in Islamabad. And indeed, my biggest problem with the talks is that we didn't focus on the strait. We've got time to deal with the nuclear issue. We've got time to deal with some of the other issues, Iranian support for proxies. The issue that's untenable for the United States and the world is the impact of the war

on the global economy. So this ought to be up front. We need to sequence the approach to the, to negotiations. So I actually think this could create a backdrop to successful talks. There's no surprise, really, that this was a point of disagreement in the talks in Pakistan and why they fell apart. Even when the ceasefire was brokered last week, there were fundamental disagreements in what each side said they were agreeing to. The texts were different about whether the fate of the Iran's nuclear program and the fate of the straight-in-form moves. Iran's saying they're not going to just give it up. They certainly want to be able to take a cut at minimum from ships that go in and out. So there's significant gaps to be bridged here. And Michael Weiss, let's talk about this.

It's certainly, to Richard's point, an effort to squeeze the Iran economy. But there are going to be other effects here. The U.S. is going to feel this. Europe's going to feel this. Asia's going to feel this. Prices are going to go up. Gas prices and other matters as well, because as we've learned over the last month or so, so much important material goes through that straight. And there seem to be risks involved here. You know, what does China say the first time one of their ships get stopped in this trade information? Are they going to sign off on this? And it was described to me as, yes, an effort to put pressure on Iran, but also to put a pressure on Europe to say, you're going to hurt from this too. We want you to say you'll help us in the straight. Right. I mean, the UK has said

And we're not participating in a naval blockade. That's our closest ally. Trump is meant to meet with Xi next month. And, you know, 13% of China's seaborne oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz. So to your point about what Beijing is thinking about this, that'll be a very interesting meeting. I mean, look, I met with a senior U.S. intelligence official a week ago before the ceasefire was announced. And that official described to me a likely scenario or state of affairs, which is, we're in for a penny and for a pound here. We went to war with Iran.

We have battered them. We have weakened them. But they're a wounded tiger and a wounded tiger that we cannot afford to get back up on all fours because guess what? They are going to retaliate in some form. You know, one of these red lines is the elimination of the financing of proxies, meaning Hezbollah, Hamas, all of the militias in Iraq that have bedeviled U.S. forces for, you know, over a decade, right? They're not going to stop doing that because we asked them to, right? For them, this is more than just power projection. This is their very survival. I think to their mind, I mean, whether you're not, what are you want to argue, did we lose the war, do we win the war? They think that they have won simply by existing at this point. So they're going to drive a hard bargain. And this is, I think, why these talks in Pakistan went the way they did after 21 hours. All right, editor of the insider, Michael Weiss, we can't thank you enough for coming on and sharing your insights on Hungary. Just some extraordinary reporting by you,

and we're very grateful that you got up very early to be with us this morning. Thanks, Michael. My pleasure. All right. David Ignatius, let's talk about, we often, for good reason, talk about the dynamics that Donald Trump has to deal with $4 a gallon gasoline prices. Let's talk about the dynamics at Iran and the leaders in Iran have to deal with right now. It does remind me, and I'm sure it's an imperfect parallel,

but it reminds me of when I first met Dr. Prisinski, and he called me stunningly superficial, what we were talking about were the Oslo Accords. And I had said, and by the way, the overwhelming weight of the international community agreed with me that that, that, that, that, that, Arafat had been given a great deal, had been given a great deal that he walked away from. But in part, I said he walked away from that deal, because he knew if he took it, he'd probably be killed by Hamas, or he'd be killed by some other radical. Let's talk about the dynamics, just so Americans as they're looking at the news.

They're not just thinking about, oh, Donald Trump's under pressure because gas may go to $4 a gallon. The pressure that Iranians face, going back, who is the first person in Iran that comes back from Islamabad and goes, yes, I think it's a good idea for us to make a deal with the Americans? Who is willing to say that to the toughest guy, toughest leader in the Revolutionary Guard? So, Joe, you raise what I think is going to be the key issue over the next week or so,

which is the Iranian internal debate. The United States has put on the table a very broad and in some ways attractive economic package that would mean a lot of money for Iran would mean a promise of American assistance in rebuilding Iran after the war. but I am told by people in touch with sources in Tehran that already there is sharp criticism of Muhammad Bacher Kalibov, the House Speaker who met with J.D. Vance, for even sitting down and talking about this kind of cooperation with the United States. He's being accused of corruption, of selling out the revolution.

So there we go. that you'd fear, Joe, is that the hardliners are out to get him. And we'll see whether he has the toughness and the political support to be able to resist that. All right. It's going to take that. Because, again, I didn't know that, David, but it underlines the fact that the challenge here isn't whether Donald Trump can be fine with gas prices being a little bit higher to look, you know, sees way through the negotiations, it may be whether those that are willing to negotiate with us to bring an end of this war to move Iran forward as a nation and as a civilization, whether they have the nerve to step forward and whether they have the toughness to stand up to the worst

elements in Iran. Coming up, Reverend Al Sharpton joins us with his biggest takeaways from this year's National Action Network Conference after sitting down with several potential Democratic 2028 candidates. Morning, Joe. We'll be right back. All right. Welcome back to Morning Joe at 46 past the hour. Joining us now, the host of Politics Nation on MSNal, Sharpon. He is president of the National Action Network and the CEO and co-founder of Axis,

Jim Van de Hyde joins us. You know, Rev, I loved being at National Action Network this weekend. And it was so moving. And it was wonderful to have a chance to talk to people. in this convention that you said turned into a revival. And I was struck by the fact that everywhere I went, everybody was just asking, you know, they're asking one question, one question above all else.

That's that. Where's Mika? Oh. That's ridiculous. They did ask where Mika was. But let me tell you, Mika, since you weren't there, everyone has been asking me since we had just about everyone that's being touted as presidential.

candidates in 28. What about Joe? Did you see how Joe was received? I mean, when he walked out there now, you've got to understand the picture. He was there as morning, Joe. Yeah, but you've got to understand the picture. He came right after Kamala Harris, right before Pete Buttigieg. And when I brought him out after Kamala Harris and everyone was supposed to go into workshops

and we, you know, centering down, everybody jumped back in their seat. He held the audience for Pete. Pete probably would have been talking about 500 people, but we kept about 2,000 in room because we brought out Joe. And he went right at where I think the candidate should have gone. He talked about how we've got to bring America together. He talked about how he and I had 20 years ago on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Now, not only do we talk in the middle about issues,

and we become friends. and he kind of brought the room together. So, you know, New York Times asked me who did the best at the convention. I said, Joe Scarborough. Oh, God. Oh, great. So let's talk about, other than talk show hosts, let's talk about all the people that you had there

because I thought Kamla got a great reception, people chanting, run again. And that's when you said, hold on, this is not a tent revival. This is a convention. But you also had a lot of other people. there that Josh Shapiro and Pete Buttigieg, Westmore, others that also were greeted very warmly. What was your takeaway? I think that they all were treated somewhere between warm and enthusiastic. Westmore absolutely had a great reception. But I was very interested how Governor

Bashir was able to really get a very good response. Because he talked about being raised by a Baptist minister's father. He knew Reverend Malone, who was a key national board member. He talked to a lot of the religious side of the movement, which, you know, we come out of the king movement, and that means a lot. But she was good. Shapiro was very well received. And I think that he did very well. And I think Cory Booker did well.

I think the question is going to be who can come with the message that will energize the base and expand the base at the same time. And as Donald Trump gets further and further bizarre, because when you're dealing with church-based civil rights groups like the one I had or others, and you have a man that is now acting, you know, projecting like he's Jesus, which is blasphemous in the eyes of many people. I mean, I think the Christian right has a challenge this morning on how you support someone that not only says at one point he was anointed by Jesus, now he is Jesus while he attacks the Pope. Right. He's given them a lot to consider and a lot for his potential opponents because he will be the one

that has to deem his success. I would assume he gives a lot for his opponents to work with. Well, and why don't we show once again what we showed off the top of the show? Jim Van de High just wrote a column and that AI generated image of Donald Trump as Jesus. And as we keep this up, Jim Van de Haie, you're right. You've written a column about making sense of the chaos in Washington, D.C. I want to keep this up just because it's important, again, for how not only we see ourselves as a nation, but how the world sees America. And you have a president who last week was talking about killing an entire civilization, which, by the way, that is a war crime in and of itself, threatening genocide, or committing it.

And then a week later, Jim, for evangelicals this morning, for people like Franklin Graham, who have just been nothing but apologists for. some extraordinarily un-Christlike behavior over the past decade as a politician. I'm just wondering your thoughts about Donald Trump. Once again, challenging his evangelical supporter saying, okay, normalize this guys, normalize this, and just the back and forth and the chaos of threatening again, threatening genocide one week and painting himself as Jesus the next while attacking the Pope. Yeah, I think he's playing with political and religious fire. Go back a week ago over Easter when he sent out that true social post and had just like crazy language in it on Easter weekend when people are celebrating one of the holiest holidays for all of Christianity.

And the backlash was severe. You saw it with all these mega podcasters. I'd say anecdotally, the number of people that I talked to who were Trump supporters who said that was kind of the last straw. then to see him this morning presenting himself as Jesus Christ, whether it's a joke or not. Most people who are faithful don't take their faith as a joke. None of this stuff happens overnight. It tends to trickle, trickle, trickle. But I think he is playing with fire with the base.

And if you look at where his standing is, he should be worried. I'm surprised his advisors didn't say, come on, man, like, at some point you're pushing this too far. Your favorable ratings are already relatively low. Look at what happened in Hungary. And I don't think what happens in Europe happens here. But I think a lot of what happens here, you see elements of it happening in Europe. And when you have somebody who's governed in a way that you enamored, you sent your vice president over there to give a speech right before the guy got clobbered.

And then you see that there's this sort of movement within that ended up displacing him. You should be a little bit nervous. I think that I think you see it in the polls. You see it in the moods in these rallies. And I think Democrats should be taking a lesson from this. I don't know that being a conventional Democrat is going to get anybody the nomination. That's not the mood of the American people. They're looking for something very different.

And yes, all of those candidates that the Reverend had are very talented. I don't know if any of them sort of hit that vein. Yeah, we have the president in his true social post that was put up just before that AI image complained that Pope Leo was soft on crime. I mean, it just sort of madness that he's the sensitivity here. And I think it's because, you know, first of all, Pope Leo is an American. And he's a counterweight to Donald Trump on the global stage. I think Trump's not used to. He's not used to sharing the stage with anyone.

And Pope Leo has been a very quiet figure in his first months in the Vatican. That has now changed. He is speaking out here against the war. And Jim Vendehy, you know, this comes as, as you say, the president, you know, already aliening a lot of his supporters with these posts, but also as the impacts of the war are only going to increase. So yes, we don't know exactly what this blockade will bring. Maybe a diplomatic solution is still in the offing. But at least here in the short term, the economic pain is only going to go up. for Trump, you know, and Republicans. Watch the numbers.

The trajectory is not great for Donald Trump. He's losing young Americans. He's losing Hispanics. He's losing all of the mega podcasters with the biggest audience. Yes, he still has this mesmerizing hold over the base. By little by little, he's starting to lose that coalition, that new coalition that brought Republicans into power. It's the reason they think they're going to lose the House and they now think there's a 50-50 chance.

They lose the Senate. All right. Watch the numbers. For us, before we end this block, we do feel a responsibility. In fact, you know, there is actually a contractual responsibility that we go to you is Morning Joe's golf correspondent. You had a special correspondent. You had predicted throughout the weekend, and of course, we got texts throughout the weekend that you had predicted that Cam Young was going to win the Masters. I would be lying. if I didn't tell you, I was very worried Saturday night that we would be hearing, I told you so, all Monday morning. But it was a great pick. I mean, it was, he did very well. It's just the last few holds. I got to say, it was just a great, great performance by Rory. I think the last person to win two years in row was Tiger in 0102. Nick Faldo did it in 89.90. Nicholas did it, I think, in 65.

66. So this was a huge achievement. And so the next thing I'm going to say is not meant to take anything away from Rory, who just at the top of the game, an extraordinary. I do want to say, though, Scotty did something that nobody has done at least since 1942. And he had such a remarkable run the last two days, first time since 1942 that any player at the Masters went all weekend without a boge. Talk about that. You're right. Everybody else kind of wilted under the pressure a little bit and Rory came back. He was up by

six after two rounds. He was down by two strokes Sunday morning. He persevered. And Joe, at that level, everybody is so good at their game, but his mental and emotional toughness is striking. Scotty Shephler,

he was the one person who didn't wilt. He just started too far back after a bad opening. But he played fantastically well. They are the two dominant golfers in contemporary in the game right now. And it's great to have it. I feel fortunate watching such talent. And I'm just sorry Cam Young didn't win. But next time, next time. Yeah. There was a miss put on, I think, 15 or 16 that really looked like it was going to go in for Scotty that really probably made the difference. It was incredible. Jim Van de Haid, let me ask you, what does it feel like to play golf and go an entire weekend without making a bogebogie because we know you do that all the time every time you pick up a

your golf bag that happens to you right yeah yeah everyone says they suck at golf like i legitimately suck at golf though i do put the effort uh into watch the masters yeah yeah exactly okay okay okay we got to get to the top of the air no what are you working on right now jim oh my god we've got a new newsletter that i've been working on called c suite uh that's me as a CEO writing to other CEOs I just think there's this gap for leadership right now, and we're trying to help fill it by letting people know what we're learning about AI in real time, business, and political intelligence so people can hopefully make better, reasonable decisions. All right, do us a favor, if you will. Next time you come on, let's talk about that. I think there are a lot of people that watch this show that either run businesses or want to know more about management.

Would love to get your insights there. Love to do it. Right. Appreciate it. Hi. Thank you.