Morning Joe - ICE in Maine shoot and kill a man who was not the target of an arrest warrant

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

July 14, 2026 - 6am: ICE in Maine shoot and kill a man not the target of an intended search warrant U.S. carries out strikes on Iran for third straight night, fight for control over the Strait of Hormuz Trump notified Congress of resumption of war in Iran on Friday Trump announced primetime presidential address Governor of SC appoints Lindsey Graham's sister, Darline Graham, as his temporary replacement in the Senate World Cup latest     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.

It's an international waterway. No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That's existing international law. That's the way it is. We're going to keep the straight, and we'll probably run it. We'll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe you'll call it the guardian angel of the strait, and we should be reimbursed for that. We guarded it for nothing, and now we're going to guard it.

We're going to get paid for guarding it, a lot of money. But we just want to be reimbursed for doing all of this, for putting our people in danger, But we're really not putting people. We're really saving people. President Trump, yesterday undercutting what Secretary of State Marco Rubio said about the Strait of Hormuz just three weeks ago, bringing the latest out of the Middle East in just a moment. Plus, a federal judge had sharp criticism of President Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, arguing it was brought in bad faith for an improper purpose and going after the DOJ and its attorneys.

We'll go through that ruling in just a moment. Also ahead, we will break down the detain. of yesterday's deadly ice shooting in Maine. Another one. The second use of deadly force by an agent in less than a week. Again, there are serious questions about the statements coming out of the Department of Homeland Security. What exactly happened there? And who was the target of that mission in Maine? With us this morning, the President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas. He's author of the Substack Home and Away, opinion writer at the New York Times, Marra Gay, MS now contributor Mike Barnacle, and Politics Bureau Chief and Senior

Columnists at Politico, Jonathan Martin. Good morning to you all, Joe. Yeah, you know, before I talk about what I'm looking at, I want to talk about what happened in Maine. Jay Mart will remember that when people like me started running, Jay Marte, you remember Ruby Ridge, Waco, everywhere I went. you know, I had wanted to talk about, well, the flat tax is more. They wanted to talk about Ruby Ridge.

They wanted to talk about the ATF killing families that had guns. They wanted to talk. And suddenly you started seeing all the don't tread on me signs all over everything. You know, now, of course, you see the don't tread on these signs on Maseratis outside of country clubs from people who are so aggrieved from the government because they have a billion dollars and somebody may be trying to raise their tax rate from, you know, 36, percent to 38.5 percent. But here, don't threat of me, it was like, don't gun us down and, you know, family's going to. And that's exactly what's happening here. They're gunning Americans down in the

streets. They're killing citizens in the streets. They're killing immigrants in the streets of America. And here in Maine, hey, Susan Collins, wondering what you're going to say about this one, since she funded it. I mean, people are getting gunned down for driving in their cars. it happened in Texas. Wonder why Ken Paxson is saying about that. Happening in Texas. It's just wildly out of control. You have the state, the centralized state,

sending out people that don't have any qualifications to be carrying a firearm and using it the way they are. And they're gunning down. They keep killing people in these streets of America, J. Mark. The street. Don't tread on me. Don't tread on me. Are you kidding me? If you support this administration, take that sign down. Because that's exactly what federal agents are doing. They're shooting people in the streets of America.

And they're doing it not necessarily of their own volition, even though there obviously has to be accountability for the individual actions. the overall motivation is driven by a top-down demand from senior figures in the administration who have this as their life's work. It is the overriding focus. So there's downward pressure on these agencies, which then flows to the actual officials and the troops themselves, officers, I should say, in the streets. But, how did that happen? I thought when things get so bad because they were killing so many people in the streets,

of America that they actually, the White House said, okay, Republicans, stop talking about mass deportation and maybe we're just going to back off. And Stephen Miller, why didn't you go sit in the corner? Well, I think he's out of that corner. Why are they doing this? Why are they still pushing this self-defeating policy that kills Americans, that kills people in the streets of America? No, I think it's a shrewd observation that the two killings in January in Minneapolis,

obviously, effectively ended the career of the head of the Border Patrol, and then soon after, ended the career of the head of DHS. Christy Noem. But it didn't end the career of Stephen Miller. And that's the key point here, because obviously he's driving this more than anybody else, and Trump's not going to touch him. So, yeah, maybe for a couple of months, Stephen Miller had to lay low, but now, obviously, he's trying to get his numbers back, and this is happening again.

And so it's only going to stop if Donald Trump. Trump sees the bad press and tries to step in again. But that's the only way you can get action is if Trump doesn't like the coverage. And so here we go again. It's the same pattern. But to your point, the politics of this are so brutally awful for the Republican Party because they've given away their best issue, which was immigration. It was the best issue they had last year.

And certainly in 2024. And now the issue has been flipped. And now it's an issue they're playing defense. on. It's a place like Texas, for example, Joe. You have the Voting Rights Act being repealed by the Supreme Court. Then you have in the streets of Houston, the killing of this migrant, you can't think of a better way to motivate Democratic voters, independent voters in Texas than those kinds of steps. So here's the story we're talking about. This is now the second time in less than a week. An ICE agent shot and killed someone who was not the intended target of an arrest warrant.

Yesterday's deadly shooting happened in Biddeford, Maine. It's a town about 20 miles south of Portland. Immigrant rights groups say, the victim is 26-year-old Juan Sebastian Guerrero from Columbia. The organizations say he had been issued a Social Security number and was authorized to work in the United States. Guerrero was shot just after 7 o'clock yesterday morning while driving a white car.

A witness told the Associated Press and other outlets, he looked out his third floor window after hearing a pop-pop-pop sound and saw a small car turn 90 degrees to the curb with an SUV behind it. He said the driver was wounded and the car started to move down the street until the SUV hit it, describing the driver as having a bloody face, adding, he clearly heard the victim say, I tried to stop. Nearly 12 hours after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security released a statement saying ICE agents were surveilling an address for a person with a final order of removal from the United States.

when ICE tried to stop a vehicle driven by someone coming from that address, the vehicle attempted to flee the scene and fearing for public safety, DHS, wrote an officer discharged his weapon. All right. Let's stop right there. They're not even lying anymore about somebody trying to weaponize. Because they used to lie about that. And so then all the pro MAGA media outlets and said, oh, they were using a weapon. Yeah, never saw the videos. but they just started lying, you know, just like Christy Nain would always start your lie first. Now the lie, I mean, they've even taken that lie out of it. They'll say, oh, we had to shoot and kill him because we feared for public safety.

Like what? What was the guy driving, like a little white facade? Like feared public safety? What's wrong? They're just gunning people down. What's wrong with these people? We've been saying this now for months and months and months. If you talk to the NYPD, you don't shoot into a car.

You don't unless you're being engaged in a firefight. If the guy or the person, the woman flees the scene, you get the tag number, you call ahead and someone pulls the person over up ahead the street. You don't shoot into a car. There was a little more victim blaming there. Again, they got the wrong person as they did in Houston last week. And just to put a point on it, no body cam. No body cam in Houston. Nobody can in Maine.

And why isn't that? Wasn't that a requirement? by Christy Knoem all those months ago, after what happened with Renee Good and Alex Pruddy when they were shot in Minneapolis, that part of this $20 billion push into DHS would include now body camps. No body cams. So they're violating every good policy of policing that we've seen. Marr, we want to wait and hear the particulars of this, but Senator Angus King of Maine, who's going to be on the show later, his office reported out that it had talked to Mark Wayne Mullen, the head of DHS, and confirmed that this man who was killed. yesterday was not the target of the investigation. They shot into a car at the wrong guy.

Well, there's no excuse for this, no matter who he was. People should not be gunned down in the street, in the streets of America or anywhere else. We are waiting for details, but the witness accounts suggest that there were children on the scene. So I'm having trouble, as you said, Joe, understanding how gunshots are going to improve public safety at 8 in the morning in a coastal town in Maine as someone who is authorized to work here is driving to work potentially with his child in the back seat is what it looks like. We don't know for sure. And I just want to say, too, the anger that Americans feel was, I think we saw some of it, just a taste of it, when protesters came to Susan Collins' office

yesterday, demanding that. Why didn't she vote to fund this? They give ICE one money than ever before? Right. I think that's right. Right. She voted. Wouldn't she be the one that would require body cams being worn for the billions of dollars that she's handed over to these agents who are going around shooting people in their cars, killing Americans in Minneapolis? Right. And I just want to say, you know, I don't live in Maine. I'm not an immigrant, but I'm a proud American. And this administration has made every single American complicit in these deaths. This is happening with our taxpayer dollars. that could be going to schools to health care. Because of what Susan Maine and Republicans are doing? And they've sat back and let this happen. But the other thing here is the hardliners in this administration,

they don't care about the politics because many of them are white supremacists. And they don't care. They're cruel. And this is what they want. This is the same administration that removed protections for Haitians, for Syrians. at the same time, it's allowing more Afrikaners only, white South Africans only in. So this is all one of a piece. And when we ask ourselves, why is this administration doing something that is so obviously

bad politics in addition to cruel and un-American? I think we need to really look carefully at all the anti-democratic behavior from this White House because this is not a popular policy. So why would someone pursue a popular policy in the term year? extraordinarily unpopular, and they've driven away any advantage they had from Hispanics two years ago. And might, again, going back to Willie's point about NYPD, they don't just shoot into cars. Any cities. You're not shooting in a vehicle. Shoot in a vehicle. There's another element here, Joe, that's really critical. And this is not for the first time this has happened in a city or a town in the United States of America, where ill-trained or untrained federal officials shoot and kill someone.

In this case, they shot a resident of Maine. And the idea that the federal police, the ice people, are there to take over that investigation is beyond outrageous. The Maine state police, I'm sure, has a very good homicide unit. They should be the ones covering this. They should be the ones. They should have encircled that area right there, frozen it for evidence. It's a shooting scene. and no ICE agent should be allowed to interfere in that investigation.

It's not for the first time that this has happened, that ICE comes in and says, yeah, we shot and killed a guy, but it's our case now. Get away. No. Yeah, they're killing people in hometowns across America. Here we have Biddleford before we had Houston this week, and then they go in and cover it up. It certainly looks like a cover up,

and if they're not covering it up, then why don't they let local authorities go in and just do their job? Someone shot and killed in the streets of Vittelford. We'll go and investigate. Thank you very much. You've done enough effing damage already. So there's that issue. Again, it's just a nightmare for Americans.

It's also bad politics. So as, you know, Mara asked, you've got to ask, this is just horrific politics going around killing Americans and killing people in the streets of America in the summer. The state, the centralized state, don't tread on me. Please. Now we go overseas. So the Donald Trump I heard talking last night, talking about charging fees.

That sounds more like the Donald Trump that we've heard for a very long time. How did George W. Bush go into Iraq? And why was he such a huge sucker where he didn't take the oil? When I go into Venezuela, I'm not going to be a sucker like George W. Bush. I'm going to take the oil. Of course, there's the whole war crimes thing. That said, he continues. saying it. But this MOU that was floated out there that gave this terrorist state half a

trillion dollars did not sound like Donald Trump. It sounded desperate. The Iranians knew he was desperate. And so we have a bit of a reset now where we're not giving them half a trillion dollars and saying pretty please. But there's no doubt it puts us in a quandary because this entire operation has put the United States in a bad position. Yeah, and maybe he's learned that now once and for all Iran's not going to honor whatever these agreements are in negotiations just buy them time to do whatever they were going to do. The United States carried out a third consecutive night of strikes on targets across Iran as the fight over the Strait of Hormuz intensifies.

The latest round of attacks came just hours after President Trump said he would reinstate the naval blockade of ships traveling to and from Iranian ports in the key waterway. As we said, the president also suggested the United States. States will become, quote, the guardian of the strait for a fee equal to 20% of the value of a ship's cargo. This despite his administration previously insisting there should be no fees in the waterway upending centuries of U.S. support for global freedom of navigation. All of this sending global oil prices surging today to a one month high, Iran, meanwhile, hitting back with attacks targeting U.S. military sites in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Jordan, as well as two U.

UAE flag tankers in the Strait of Hormuz killing one crew member. The UAE now is threatening to retaliate, again, raising the possibility of return to a wider war. President Trump was asked yesterday if this is simply the new status quo. Mr. President, you noted the United States is bombing Iran again. I mean, you've been bombing Iran for months now. Is this just the new normal for the American people? Well, you know, we're in Vietnam for 19 years. We're here for four months.

So I think we've done a lot. We've knocked out their Navy in a period of one month. We knocked out their Air Force. Air Force is non-existent. We knocked out most of their missiles. Most of their drones. We knocked out their drone manufacturing capability about 92%. Their missile capability for manufacturing.

We knocked out 89%. And they have a little capability, but they don't have any capability for us. This is almost a military skirmish. Now, with all of that being said, you have to get people. that want to make something. We had to deal with them two days ago. And then they said, oh, we can't make that deal. We have to negotiate it further. And this is what they've done for 47 years. The difference is nobody negotiated like I do. And this should have been done by Bush and Obama and Biden and people before them. Playing the hits there, Richard. So not a little skirmish to our Gulf

allies who are being attacked right now by Iran, not a little skirmish to people paying for gas year oil price is now going to go back up with the straight in contention. But what do you make of this 20% proposed 20% levy on any cargo coming through the Strait of Hormuz? What does that do? And is it possible to actually enforce? It's not possible to enforce. Totally legitimizes what Iran wants to do, which we oppose. It reinforces a flawed MOU, which gives them the right to do it after 60 days. Raises fundamental questions about our motives. You can disagree with everything the administration's done about the swore, but at least they were foreign policy motors now to make it look like somehow it's a scheme to collect. One last thing, you can't keep the straight open by threats.

No one's going to give insurance this trip. What are we going to do? Have the entire U.S. Navy in the strait convoying individual tankers? The ships aren't safe. You can't do it. It just is not a workable thing. At some point, we need to reach some accommodation with the straits. And I think after four months, we ought to have learned. We can't bomb Iran into capitulation. So again, I listen to all this, I watch all this, and I just, I just do not see the logic of what we're doing. So, Richard, we can't bomb it into capitulation. We also can't emmol you at any capitulation by saying, yours half a trillion dollars. Why don't you now become the global force you've always dreamed of coming? So how do you thread that needle?

We are, and understanding, we are in a terrible position. There's a reason why every president from Reagan forward, I think the New York Times said today, did not go into Iran. They knew the strait was there. They knew that would give them extraordinary leverage. But we are there. So how do we get out without making the Iranians even stronger? So that's, you know, what I've been thinking about, what I've been writing about, it's almost as if I were in my old job at the policy planning staff at the state department. What do we do? We are where we are. How do we get out of it? We need a strategy here. So let me just say a couple of pieces of it, Joe. One would be, we need to reduce the importance of the strength.

of Hormuz. There's a dozen ways to do it, producing energy elsewhere. The UAE announced a few days ago they're going to build a new port outside the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf of Oman. You build new pipelines. There's all sorts of you know, you accelerate solar and wind and all, you have an all of the above energy strategy. There are things we do to reduce the importance of what is going through the Strait of Hormuz. That's one thing. Second of all, we have got to take away Iran's threat to the neighbors. What do they do? They're going after the energy infrastructure of the region. But how do we do that with asymmetric warfare being what it is? So one of the things it's going to take time, but we work with Ukraine and others and we get defenses against drones.

Who did the Saudis sign a deal with? Ukraine. Why? They have the most advanced drone defenses. What we ought to have is a serious strategy for, we're not going to do it overnight, but again, we've got to take away Iran's threat to the region. That's going to take some time. It's going to take anti-missile systems like patriots. We've got to produce more of them, both for Ukraine as well as for the region.

drone protections, counterterrorism. We need a serious strategy. So we take Iran has two principal pieces of leverage to stop the straight, to control the straight, and to attack the neighbors. We have to have a long-term strategy to deal with those. And we can't take our right off the ball. The biggest ball may be Iran's nuclear program. And last I checked, it's not, the MOU simply says we have to have talks about it. And we need a policy for that. So we're not going to solve this in a day. And quite honestly, you know, if the goal is to get the global and U.S. economy on track, we may have to live with some type of arrangement with Iran and the strait.

So we'll have it open or we'll go to Iran. But I argued for four months ago. Yeah. Open for all or close to all. We go back to our basic deal. I think that's a reasonable policy. You know, Jamar, if I'm a Republican running in the fall, I'm not sure what I would want to take to my voters less. We're still at a hot war.

Or hey, listen, the war that our guy started has made Iran stronger. I'll be honest with you. That second one would have been a lot harder to sell in Northwest Florida, at least in my day, that we went to war. We spent billions and billions of dollars. We made Iran stronger. So it is a catch-22 for those Republican candidates who were notified by the president. that, yeah, we're back at war.

Yeah, but Joe, they don't want to have American troops on the ground in the region. I think that's the worst scenario. But you're right. There's no great option, and neither choice is ideal. I think that the raw politics of this, as bad as it sounds, are probably better off if you're still engaging in hostilities, and you can use that as a cover, but you don't send ground troops over to make things worse. The challenge with re-engaging in hostilities is that it's going to spook the markets,

and that obviously is going to restart inflation, which is going to create headlines Trump hates, and by Labor Day, you know, you're going to have the possibility of gas prices going back up. And that, to me, is the key question overall of this, Joe, is what are gas prices like on Labor Day or on October 1st? I think that's going to drive this election vis-a-vis the war more than anything else. I think that was the great fear that Trump had, which is why he rushed into the MOU in the first place was this thing was really taking a toll on his political standing and he wanted a way out. Well, he's now back in and his party could pay the price this fall. What an incredible thing. Gas prices are up.

Stocks are down and we're spending a billion dollars a day in Iran. billion dollars a day. We're going to have much more on a run coming up in just a minute. Still ahead on Morning Joe, a federal judge is calling President Trump's lawsuit against the IRS this year an exercise in self-dealing. And it got worse from there. MS now legal analyst, Barbara McQuaid, joins us to go through a scathing, scathing new ruling. Plus, we've learned the sister of late Senator Lindsey Graham will finish out his term in office what her appointment means for that Senate seat. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Accuweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie has a looking out there.

And Willie, here comes the heat today into the northeast of your Accuether forecast. How about 99 in Burlington today with Sunshine? Accuether says 94 in Boston, Sunshine, New York City, Washington, D.C. 98 in Green Bay, sunshine and hot in Chicago. Spotty thunderstorms in the southeast, but flooding downpours. San Antonio, Austin, and Houston, where there's going to be. some travel delays today. If you're flying across the northeast, you're fine. Watch the southeast, though, including Atlanta. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know,

download the Accuether app today. In a scathing new ruling, a federal judge is harshly criticizing President Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, arguing it was brought in bad faith and for an improper purpose. You'll remember Trump sued his own administration in January over the leak of his tax returns and then struck an agreement with the IRS in late May to create a $1.776 billion, so-called anti-weaponization fund intended to help Trump's political supporters, including those who attack police officers on January 6th.

In her 56-page decision yesterday, the judge determined lawyers on both sides of the case, including Trump's attorneys and lawyers for the Justice Department and IRS, tried to manipulate the judicial process. The judge referred one Trump attorney to the Florida Bar for possible disciplinary action and also sent her order to the New York Bar where acting attorney general Todd Blanche is a member.

The DOJ spokesperson issued a statement on the ruling that reads in part, there was no collusion in this case and the partisan judge who speculated otherwise as disregarded decades of precedent. Joining us now, former U.S. attorney and MS. Now legal analyst Barbara McQuade. Barbara, good morning. The tell always is when they attack the credentials of the judge

because they can't do it on the evidence. But my goodness, this ruling not just called the entire case improper, but went after the attorneys who prosecuted it and the relationship between the White House and the Justice Department. Yes, and I love the callback to no collusion. That's an only but a goody. And of course, you know, collusion isn't really the point. It's that there is no arm's length in this relationship here. There is a conflict of interest because, as the judge said, Donald Trump is the plaintiff and Donald Trump is the defendant.

She even cites the new slaughter case decided by the Supreme Court citing the unitary executive theory. If the president is allowed to fire anybody in the executive branch, including the head of the IRS and the head of the Treasury Department, that when he sues those people, this is not an arm's length transaction. This is a conflict of interest. She also knows a couple other interesting things, Willie. That is, she actually raised this issue while the lawsuit was pending. And two days before briefs were due to explain to her why. this was a legitimate case over which a court has jurisdiction, they dismissed the case and instead negotiated this out-of-court settlement. She said that was a real tell that there was never any

case or controversy here in the first place. You know, Barb, we have sat through for years, just looking at these asinine lawsuits being brought. And I would just, I just look at it and say, who are the attorneys that are doing this? Because if I'd done that in northwest Florida, I think the federal judges there would not only sanction me that probably put me under jail for a week for being in contempt. I actually see this as a really positive step forward. These are officers of the court. They are not just dupes of Donald Trump. They are officers of the court. Do you see this as a positive step forward that a judge is finally treating them as officers of the court who, if they step over the line, are going to be possibly sanctioned by the bar?

I do because I think that kind of response could have a deterrent effect on lawyers who feel like they're able to get away with it. As you know, Joe, there is a specific law that forbids lawyers from engaging in conflicts of interest. And she cites that rule when she makes these referrals. I think the other thing that's important here is Todd Blanche getting quite a bit of comeuppance here, where she refers to him as misleading at best and disingenuous at worst based on the testimony he gave to Congress last month. He, of course, is facing confirmation hearings this week.

And I think this court gives a lot of good ammunition to the senators who'll be asking questions to explain to the American people just what was so awful about this. They attempted, as the court says, to manipulate the process and use the court to legitimize what was otherwise an improper payout to Donald Trump. There's, of course, the slush fund, but she also notes that this was potentially a $100 million gift in the form of immunity from tax audits to Donald Trump himself. And so I think that we're going to hear a lot of questions about this during those confirmation hearings. Those hearings coming up tomorrow and the day after should be fascinating. MS now legal analyst Barbara McQuaid.

Barbara, thanks as always. The governor of South Carolina has now appointed Senator Lindsey Graham's sister, Darlene Graham-Nordone, as his temporary replacement in the Senate two days after the lawmaker's sudden death. President Trump took to social media yesterday to recommend Republican governor Henry McMaster a point. Graham's sister to serve the remainder of Graham's term, which expires in January, writing, quote, this would be a fabulous tribute to Lindsay who loved her dearly. Darlene is nine years younger than her brother, and it's never held public office. Her parents died before she reached the age of 14, and Lindsay Graham later became her legal guardian.

She is currently the commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind and serves on the state's Workforce Development Board. She will serve in the Senate role ahead of the special primary later this summer to decide the new Republican nominee for the Senate seat. So, Jay Mart, you've got a new piece out in Politico, remembering the life and the legacy of Lindsey Graham. The headline calls Graham a politician in full. I know you covered him closely for a long time.

Joe's known him for decades. What are sort of your memories of him and how will he be remembered in Washington and South Carolina? Well, as the ultimate politician, he was relentless. You know, there are a handful of people in public life that you guys know, that I know, who they, every day, they just, they go, go, Rahm Emanuel, obviously is the, you know, Democratic version of this. Lindsay Graham comes to mind.

There was a sort of hustle. They're a great American story, right? He grew up in the back of a pool hall in rural South Carolina and get to the heights of global power. with president's prime ministers and royalty. And so it's a great American story. But it's also just the classic American tale of somebody who was going to hustle their way to the top. He was married to his work. And, you know, he never had a family, obviously.

He was constantly traveling, constantly acting Willie as the sort of ambassador without portfolio, self-assigning roles. One day he could be the head of the Senate campaign committee. that the next day he could be the top judicial advisor to the president. After that, he'd be the de facto envoy to the Middle East. He didn't wait for an assignment. He rode to the sound of the guns. And there's less of that in Congress today. There's less freelancing, less entrepreneurship. But he really embraced that. And just lastly, he did it with gusto. It was somebody, whether you liked or hated his politics, man, he was having a good time. He was so full of joy.

I'll just end with this. I interviewed him at the Munich Security Conference, Willie, in February. And he was joking with me that he was spending so much time shuttling between the Gulf states in Jerusalem, trying to get the salty Israel normalization done, that he was tempted to open a chick-fil-a in Israel. But he noted, of course, it'd be closed on Saturdays, not Sundays in the Holy Land. There you go. Lindsay, you are right.

Lindsay just worked around the clock. I mean, any codel that there was. Lindsay was overseas. He was on it. He was on the codel. He was, you know, anytime there was a dinner, Capitol Grill or anywhere where, you know, I'd go out once every three months and Lindsay'd be there, you know,

with a group of people around him. He worked around the clock. You know, Mike, Lindsay, though, me, this, Lindsay's story really is the story of the Republican Party from, well, the day that I stepped into Congress until the day he died, because he was a shapeshifter. When, you know, when I was there, there were, there were 12 of us that raised hell every day about balancing the budget. And Lindsay was there with us. He was one of the 12. And, and it was, it was intimidating. You had like the most powerful people in Washington screaming at you and, you know, yelling.

And, you know, we got called down one time to HC5 and Gingrich and everybody else were, were yelling at the 12 of us, made a stand in front of the entire caucus. And Steve Largent got up. Gingrich said, you all, you know, explain what you have done. You have shut down the house. You have destroyed our majority. you have, you have humiliated the Republican Party. Explain what you're done. Steve Larson was the first person that came up and he said, you know, Newt, I used to catch

balls across the middle, arms fully extended. I'd have 280 pound guys who not only could kill me, but we're actually trying to kill me. Sometimes they got pretty close to doing it. I'd be knocked out for hours at a time. So, Newt, you can't intimidate me. And he went on and gave a great speech. Lindsay stood up next and said, my name's Lindsay Graham and, Newt, as you know, you can intimidate me. And the whole place just erupted.

Yeah, that's who he was. But then Lindsay went on and said, why, he was sticking with the 12 of us. And we were going to continue to shut down bill after bill, after bill, after bill, until they came up with a plan to balance the budget. And so that was Lindsey Graham, 1995, 1996, 1997. We were all sort of surprised when we went over to the Senate. He became John McCain's guy.

John, we all loved John. John was a war hero. But he didn't care too much for us because we were always causing trouble, shutting down the house, fighting too hard for balancing the budget. But they got along, and, you know, he was with a great honorable man. a public servant.

And then we saw him go to Donald Trump. And so you can really, you can trace what I would consider to be the fall of the Republican Party just based on the people that Lindsay associated himself with. And, you know, but that said, I have wonderful memories of him.

Said a lot of tough things about him here. But when I saw him at the 30th reunion, he was smiling, laughing, joking, which he always did. He never took anything personally. Very kind to my family. And that was the guy he was. First of all, you hail from a really complicated era in Republican politics in your House career. Right. But secondly, I always found Lindsey Graham to be immediately funny when you'd meet him. I'd bump into him at airports and I always have something very funny to say. And yet he was such a complicated guy. And you alluded to it, his bounce from

John McCain to Donald Trump. Clearly, there were psychological issues there seeking for father figures or whatever. The thing that I never understood about him is that he was never cruel in terms of when he would speak to you about different politicians or issues or whatever like that. But he once said about Joe Biden that if you can meet a better person, God never created a better person than Joe Biden. And yet he said some horrific things about Biden during Biden. President's presidency and just quite recently. And I've never been able to juggle that. What went on in Lindsay's head to do that?

He just accessed a power. Yeah. At the end of the day, that's what drove him. And if you ask him, he would just admit, Donald Trump's president. So that's what I've got to do. I don't understand it. I've never understood it. And never understood there are a lot of, you know, there are some people like John Thune,

who I've also known since the early days of, of Congress who, John supports a lot of policies that I'm deeply opposed to, but at the same time, John will speak up. When it's time to speak up, John spoke out. Lindsay, Lindsay just didn't do that. I mean, he would tear up on camera talking about Joe Biden and then go, you know, a year two later attack him, but that's what it was. Donald Trump required that from him.

Jonathan Martin, great new piece about Lindsey Graham is available online right now. J-Mart, thanks so much. Coming up, we will talk to tomorrow. Not the chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A. Info, from Israel. You get a chick-fil-A reference in your piece. You're doing something.

You're doing something right. You're doing something right. We're going to talk to Mara in just a minute. Her new piece for the New York Times titled, The Democratic Establishment had it coming. She'll explain that. Plus, Pablo Torres joins the table. Give us a look at the dramatic finish to the home run derby. And let's talk World Cup.

France, Spain, in just a few hours. Pablo coming up next. Wow. He was not afraid. Jordan! That's Jordan Walker of the Cardinals, finishing with six consecutive home run swings in the final round of Major League Baseball's home run derby last night to beat the Phillies, Kyle Schwaber, who was swinging in front of the home crowd in Philadelphia,

the dramatic finish, denying Schwaber the title in his third appearance in the contest, as Walker becomes the first player in Cardinals' franchise history to take the Derby Crown. The American League and National League All-Stars take the field tonight for the mid-sum. Summer Classic. This year's roster features players 11 under the age of 25, 11 of them. Host, Philly's lead all teams with six all-stars. The Angels Mike Trout, who grew up in nearby Millville, New Jersey, will start in the AL Outfield in his 12th All-Star game. That's the most of any of this year's participants. First pitch, 8 p.m. Eastern. Join us now, the Pulitzer Prize winning host of Pablo Torre finds out MS Now contributor, Pablo. Good morning.

Richard. Have you ever won a Pulitzer Prize, Richard? It's in the mail. That's right. He's holding his breath. I'm lobbying now. We want to talk on FIFA for Richard. Let's talk World Cup in a sec. We've got France, Spain, Final Four today.

Yeah. Any takeaways for the All-Star game, home run derby action last night? I'm just glad we're not leading with the Red Sox entering the break, winning nine and a row. I'm just glad we're not doing that. Nine in a row? I thought we were going to just hammer me over the head with this.

Can I ask, Mike, first of all, it is really just incredible. makes no sense. You guys were bottom of the American League. Also, all of our players are hurt. So it's gravity defying. I will say one of the things that happened is you've got a second basement now in there who is every bit as, yeah, every bit is joyful. Yeah.

As let's just admit it. Meyer, who we all hope is going to turn into a superstar was sour. It was sort of a bummer. I mean, it is amazing when you guys that are smiling and happy and hugging each other and rooting each other on. Some crazy things happen every once. Well, the ninth straight victories, you've got to discount the last three. They were playing the Mets.

The exchange rate. It's like one and a half wins. The on and awful. Yeah. That's it. The worst team, money. You're saying this is not a great encouraging back page with the Mets. So, Mike, you do know that every Red Sox fan is Art Howe at the end of Moneyball.

And you do know that Craig Breslo is feeling pretty much like Billy. Bean right now. Because he is, I don't know if anybody's taking more abuse. Yeah. And, but right now, they've nine in a row. Listen, I'll take the nine and a row. But you take a look at that roster. Yeah. And that is not the roster of a real contender. It's just not. The Red Sox roster is not the roster. Billy, we've been doing this for 30 years and you're telling me. To quote Billy Bean from real life, this bleep doesn't. and work in the playoffs.

So I think that might be the story here as well. The hat came out of the wild card. You know, the cast came out. I will say what does work in the playoffs is pitching. And these pitchers have been extraordinary without crochet. Yes. And Sonny Gray. Maybe Sunny Gray.

What is he? 10 and 1 now? He's 10 and 1. Did they let him play the All-Star game? He should have been on the All-Sart. How can you be 10-1 with a below 3-ERA and not be in the All-Star game? Good question. That is my story from the All-Star.

Just to answer your question, Willie. So, Zach Wheeler, the Phillies, you know, not the ace, but the second best pitcher. Angry. Furiously saying I wasn't invited as that first tier. I'm not coming off the bench as the reserve to play in this game. Even though it's at home, him going to war with Major League Baseball is a level of, like, pettiness that I have to respect, even though no one knows who came off the bench. Why would you expect that pettiness? Because for me,

for me. It's a good question. Thank you. I was wondering. The same day. Because there are some forms. I think we've heard of the scourge that in our kids, but go ahead. Granted, I've heard you talk a lot about politics today, and this may not be the lesson.

But at a certain point, the magnitude of a person saying, my self-worth is measured in one way. And Rob Manfred, I don't think. I don't think I'm the way that you see me. And him refusing to do it, I go to baseball reference.com and I see, oh, an All-Star. That's all anyone's going to know. But he's like, I don't want this. even though it's played at home because that's how much of a stubborn old school pitcher I am. I kind of respect that.

Mike, do you? I'm with him. Okay. Really? Thank you. He should have been named to the team to begin with. He's got one of the best records of the National League. Yeah, like a two-ish ERA.

Yeah. I mean, come on. What are you doing not putting him on the team? All right. Papa, let's talk about the beautiful game here. Let's get into it here. We're down to four. Today on Bastille Day, by the way, which is the Fourth of July for France.

France is playing Spain in. their day of the revolution. And then tomorrow, kind of a shaky Argentina squad taken on England. What are you looking at here? I mean, so France is the favorite, know that. France and Spain, these two empires going at it. I mean, Mbapé, that's the best player in the world. We've seen what he's done for years now. I think France is going to make the final. I think that would be unsurprising to everybody. Hasn't Spain had their number over the past couple of years? Spain has, in Spain's defense this year, they left their first goal

in the last round in the entire tournament. But to me, the emotional power of what might happen in the other side of the bracket if England beats Argentina. So Leo Messi,

this is his last dance, we think. He's been leading the whole thing in terms of just like goal scoring. Yeah. But England, if it comes home, Joe. Yeah.

And you know the psychology of England. Oh. There's a mix of just self-aware, sarcasm and self-deprecation, but also the desperation of what if this actually did happen for the first time in 60 years. Self-loathing. Self-loat. The chanting, which makes fun of themselves as much as it does, anything else. It's just pathetic. What happens. But I will tell you, the difference between this England team and past England teams is not Harry Kane, because Harry Kane looks like he's out of central casting of somebody who choke and a penalty kick and put it 30 feet over the bar. but Jude Bellingham.

Yeah. Yes. That kid, what is he? 23. I see him moving on the field and I'm saying, it's a guy that's like, he doesn't have ghosts chasing him. That's a guy that's got players chasing him.

I think he's a difference maker for this England team, and I think he gets them past Argentina into the finals against France. With a France team, I've got to say, I just haven't seen, has. Has anybody here seen a weakness that France has? No. They've been dominant. Oh, my God.

They are so good, top to bottom. Also just fun to watch. The artistry watching them. It's just the athletes. Have you ever even watched football? Yeah, I've been watching the games. Have you really? Yeah.

Okay. I want to say something about Jude Belling. You don't apologize now? I will. I apologize. Richard Substack is overflowing with soccer takes. That doesn't matter. Why are that?

The Jude Bellingham thing is fascinating because after these games, he gets serenaded with Hey Jude and it's delightful. Yeah. And after they win that game against Norway, his manager, Thomas Tuchel, comes out and says, basically, this team was sloppy. My own team, England, my own side. Sloppy, lucky, all this stuff. And Jude Bellingham puffs his chest out and says, hold on. I don't know if our manager knows what it's like to play against a team like this.

And there's this almost like old-fashioned American manager versus star tension. And Jude Bellingham, to your point, I think that guy. is he's about to take another jump in terms of global celebrity. And it's in part because he is standing up on a world stage and playing that well and also saying things that are just really interesting. You don't expect that to come in that way. I love the end of the U.S. games

when they would sing country roads. It was really so moving. I got to say, Wonderwall. Oasis and the Beatles are hard. And the Beatles. When they're singing a baby. Incredible. You know it's incredible.

The baby is the one that saves me. The longing. Just all the longing from 1966. A pubescent longing out from those lines. And they're, you know, 78-year-old men weeping at the bottom of their cleats. You know they feel that. You know what's equally incredible, I think, is what the World Cup has done for America. Oh, yeah.

And for this country. It's opened up America in a way. It hasn't been opened up in about 10 years. People thrilled to see the teams here. thrilled to interact with people from around the world. And the international fans having a blast here and loving America. That's great. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's something that the White House has absolutely no understanding of, and that is that soft power often is more powerful than the hard power. And this has been soft power. It's best. Let's talk really quickly, Richard. We're not supposed to, because we have to go to break.

But talk to us really quickly about the open coming this weekend. Royal Burkdale in England. Yeah. Scottie, interesting. Scotty shot for one last year. He didn't even make the cut. This current week. Are you kidding, man?

In Scotland. First time in years. First time in a year. So, just, it's an interesting setup. But you got a lot of rich, Rory's playing. Tell us how the course? Never played it. I know.

It's kind of as quasi-linksy. I think the Scotty thing is an advantage for him. He's going to be mad about last week. I wouldn't want to play against Scott Schoft. And in a several days not playing in the Scotta show, but he went to England early to get ready for this tournament. But you also got Rory playing good golf, Tommy Fleetwoods from this part of the country. Be interesting.

Be fun. Okay. Richard Haas, he can do it all, can he? He really can. Golf, big FIFA guy now. He's got it all. But without the Pulitzer Prize, without the Pulitzer Prize.

Without the Bullets. Yet. Bobbo, thank you, sir. So sad. Still ahead. We're going to get a live report now from Maine following yesterday's fatal shooting by ICE in that state,

how residents are reacting and details about what exactly happened. Plus, a major endorsement of the race for U.S. Senate in Michigan, as Democratic Senator Gary Peters endorses Congresswoman Haley Stevens in the race to replace him. They both will join us on Morning Joe.