Morning Joe - Morning Joe 4/29/25

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

Canada's Mark Carney pulls off huge poll swing to keep power and condemns American 'betrayal'

We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons. We have to look out for ourselves. And above all, we have to take care of each other. When I sit down with President Trump, it will be to discuss the future economic and security relationship between two sovereign nations. And it will be with our full knowledge that we have many, many other options than the United States to build prosperity for all Canadians. Newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney with a strong message overnight during

his victory speech. We're going to dig into how his election win could impact relations with the United States. Also ahead, we'll break down President Trump's first 100 days in office, as well as his latest executive order calling for a possible domestic deployment of the U.S. military. Plus, we'll have the latest on negotiations between Russia and Ukraine ahead of a Putin-backed three-day ceasefire next week. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, April 29th.

Along with Joe, Willie, and me, we have the co-host of our fourth hour, Jonathan Lemire. He's a contributing writer at the Atlantic, covering the White House and national politics. MSNBC political analyst Anand Girdardis, he's publisher of the newsletter on The Ink, available on Substack and has something new to announce today. We'll talk about that.

And NBC News, now he's here guys, National of Airs analyst and partner and chief political columnist at PUC, John Heilman. So Joe, we have a lot to get to today, packed with news. We're gonna start with the president's first 100 days, but the news overnight from Canada, quite amazing as well. Well, and also amazing news, John Heilman here on time. It's time to ring the John Heilman here on time bell. Hold on. Okay. So there we go. Yeah, we don't ring that often. I mean, you don't ring

that often, but we did there. So, Willie, the Washington Post, I was just checking the headlines, called Mark Carney's and the Liberal Party's comeback a stunning comeback. The New York Times called it a dramatic, actually it was the Wall Street Journal, called it a dramatic turnaround. And the Conservative Party leader who had been turn around and the Conservative Party leader who had been basically aping American politics and trying to turn himself into a mini Trump actually not only lost his bid to be Prime Minister but lost his individual seat that he'd been holding for 20 years. It was a stunning reversal and a stunning rebuke for conservatives in Canada. Just, you know, Carney ran a remarkable campaign and still with Mike Myers,

and I'm serious, put out perhaps the best political commercial I've seen in a decade. Well, yeah, this was if you were handicapping this race a couple of months ago, early in the year, at least January, when Trudeau announced he would be stepping down. As you said, the conservatives were the favorite to win. Everything changed when Donald Trump first put on the tariffs and then talked relentlessly, including in the last couple of days about making Canada the 51st state, saying it is meant to be. let me come and take over Canada.

Well, there was a complete rejection of that inside of Canada by the voters and Mark Carney, who won last night with the Liberal Party, the incoming prime minister to succeed Justin Trudeau. You heard it again last night, defiance. We are a sovereign nation and we will be that way when I sit down with Donald Trump. He said there has been an American betrayal, said the new prime minister of Canada, our great friend on the border. And we have to change the way we look at the United States.

And that message really, really resonated in the last couple of months with voters in Canada. Well, and when Trudeau stepped down, liberals were down about 22, 23 points in polls. And they won last night. And they're waiting this morning to see if they actually have an outright majority to run parliament in Canada. It was really one of the most stunning political turnarounds in quite some time. Meek, and we'll talk about that a little bit later. But right now, obviously, today marks the 100th day of the second Trump administration.

Yes, the president will be holding a rally in Warren, Michigan, at Macomb Community College, where he made two campaign stops ahead of last year's election. It comes as five major polls over the past week show historically low approval ratings for the president. Trump yesterday dismissed the numbers in a long post on social media, writing that the pollsters should be investigated for election fraud.

President Trump has signed 143 executive orders, so far more than any other president in history in the first 100 days. Meanwhile, in an appearance on Fox News over the weekend, longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove gave a stark assessment of the president's handling of the economy. Take a listen. When it gets to the economy, he is in very bad shape. And it's not only that he's in the short term in bad shape. There's also evidence in the poll

that no matter even if he gets his way on certain things like tariffs, that he's not good in the long run. Take a look at this. Trump policies. Today, will it help the economy? 32% say yes. Will it hurt the economy, the economy? 32% say yes. Will it hurt the economy? His policies, 54% say no.

10% no difference. In the long run, will it help the country? 40%. In the long run, will it hurt the country? 51%. So there's some very deep-seated skepticism among ordinary Americans about the effect of the economy, the president's economic policies, both in the short run and the long run.

He was elected because people had more confidence in his ability to help the economy and lower prices than they did in Kamala Harris. So to what do you attribute that new skepticism or real concern about the economy? Well, I have a slightly different view. I agree with you that they voted for him because they felt better, in my opinion, about they looked at the last four years under Biden, Harris and said, not good. And they had they looked at and remembered the four years under under President Trump and said those were a lot better.

I think this was a hope. I don't think it was based upon a explicit understanding of what he was going to do. They just hoped that he would do better on inflation and jobs and economic growth. And then when he came in, just the sort of chaos and the inability of the administration to explain what they're doing, I think has hurt them very much. And a tanking of the economy you could add into that. That's Karl Rove, the Wall Street Journal editorial board this morning argues, quote, at 100 days Trump 2.0 is in trouble. The new piece on the op-ed page reads this way, presidential second terms are rarely successful and on the evidence of his

first 100 days Donald Trump's won't be different. The White House motto seems to be that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing too much. That's especially true on tariffs, which could sink his presidency. Ken Griffin, the investor and major donor to Mr. Trump, summed it up last week as a self-inflicted blow to the American brand. The U.S. is needlessly ceding global economic leadership. Voters re-elected Mr. Trump in part because they remembered fondly his first-term economy. But that success was owed mainly to his pursuit of conventional GOP priorities like tax reform and deregulation.

This term, he is indulging his trade and foreign policy obsessions and the early results are negative. He will fail unless he heeds the warnings. That is from the Wall Street Journal. President Trump obviously doesn't see it that way. He thinks all the polls are fake, talking about the interference in an election. Not clear which election he's referring to, but obviously the data is there. Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, even many conservatives saying, not so good so far.

Yeah, he won the last election and he's prohibited from running again. So it's not sure what he's talking about there. We'll certainly hear a very different message from the president. Tonight, he heads to Michigan, one of those blue wall states that he won twice, in 16 and 24 after losing it in 2020. A lot of his closest aides feel like that's where he made his strength, white working class voters, and flipped over just enough, of whether it's black and Latino voters,

and gathered some new members of his coalition this time around you know he's going to be talking about the economy he's going to bet he's but when he does so. It's going to be in sharp contrast with reality we have seen the markets quake we have seen consumer sentiment plummet we have seen real worries about inflation because of this self-inflicted trade war because of these tariffs that very few people think

is a sound economic plan. We're also going to hear him lean in heavily, I am told, on the issue of immigration, which is what they keep want to coming back, the topic they keep wanting to return to. Even yesterday, on the White House lawn, putting up posters on the fence there, on the White House driveway of who they say

are illegal immigrants who then committed violent crimes through the United States, which is their justification for their deportation plan, and putting them up in a way that if a newscaster is doing a live shot from the White House, that's the backdrop. It's unavoidable. Those pictures, it's a very in-your-face moment, Willie, and that's what they want to talk about because so much else, they can read the polls. I talked to someone in the White House yesterday saying, it's not panic, but of course they understand their numbers are down.

They'd rather have good polls than bad. They recognize right now American voters not quite sure what they're seeing. Yeah, I mean, and that is the attitude in the White House is we'd rather have good polls and bad polls. A lot of stuff has been going on over the first 100 days. But we're going to start focusing on trade deals, on peace deals, on tariff deals. And then they say they believe those numbers are going to turn around. John Heilman, though, there is, as John O'Mear said, always a focus on immigration if they think that they need to move from another subject.

The problem there is they're upside down on immigration in several of the polls. Also, just about every poll I've seen over the past week has shown they're upside down significantly, even on the Abrego Garcia case. Now, of course, headlines over the past couple days about two young children that were taken out of the country with their mother, one with stage four cancer, I believe, advanced cancer. And so, again, even on the issue that should be, again, the winner for them, there is this overreach that always seems to turn, if not their most ardent supporters, certainly those swing voters that put the president over the top in the upper Midwest, blue wall states, turning them off.

And I mean, we see the numbers dropping among Hispanics. We see the numbers dropping among Americans without a college degree. We see it dropping especially with younger Americans. So there are these specific areas where this overreach, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out, this overreach seems to be getting in the way of even issues like immigration, which should be helping President Trump. Well, that yeah, that's right, Joe. And I got to say, you know, you look at all of the polling that that we got over the weekend at this hundred day mark and you know, it is he is now in the

invent since the invention of modern polling. If you're judging public opinion through the best instruments we have, his first hundred days are less popular and his presidency is in worse state than any president in the history of modern polling. And if you look across those issues, this gets to your immigration point. There isn't a bright spot. There's not something, you can't say, well, he's down here, but he's doing great over here.

Immigration is the strongest issue they have and he is across all of that polling. His numbers on immigration aren't great. And I think you've got to think back to the first term when immigration was an important reason why he won the first term, often overlooked by people in analyzing the 2016 race. And what happened was he lost the plot with family separation. The family separation policy was when people started to put human face to the cruelty of that policy, and he lost a lot of support on immigration around that issue.

And I think it was predictable that if he tried to do an immigration policy that was as draconian as he promised, that the same phenomenon would happen now. The Abrego Garcia case and a number of these other cases are getting a ton of attention for good reason, and they are dragging his numbers down on an issue where in general, he has a lot of support among the American people, and in general,

it's always been one of his strongest issues. They are just comprehensively, politically speaking, in a huge amount of trouble with the American people right now. And Mika, I'll tell you, what was so remarkable about the polling that came out is, of course, we have the headlines about President Trump, because he's the president. That's where the headlines are going to go, being at 39% in several polls, 40% in some polls, being extraordinarily low on a lot of issues. But then the other side of the story is the polling on Democrats.

The Democratic brand is as bad as it has ever been. And really, one of the most stunning polls is this one right here. With Donald Trump at historically low numbers, voters were asking the ABC News Washington Post poll, who do you trust to do a better job handling the country's main problems? Donald Trump, still beating Democrats

by seven percentage points. Of course, 30% of Americans still up for grabs because they say, we don't trust either of them. By the way, for people who've always dreamed of an independent candidate being president of the United States, that poll right there is something that's going to be passed around for the next several weeks. Because again, 30% of Americans say none of the above. But Democrats, again, this should be a time for Democrats to step through the door that

voters and Donald Trump has opened up for them, and they're not doing it. And one Democratic governor, J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, he took note of that. Yeah, he issued some pretty harsh criticism about his own party. Here he is in New Hampshire on Sunday. Fellow Democrats, for far too long, we've been guilty of listening to a bunch of do-nothing

political types who would tell you that America's house is not on fire even as the flames were licking their faces. Voters didn't turn out for Democrats last November not because they don't want us to fight for their values but because they think we don't want to fight for their our values. We need to knock off the rust of poll-tested language, decades of stale decorum. It's obscured our better instincts. We have to abandon the culture of incrementalism that has led us to swallow the cruelty and the callousness with barely a cowardly croak. a cowardly croak. Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption, but I am now.

These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace. They have to understand that we will fight their cruelty with every megaphone and microphone that we have. We must castigate them on the soapbox and then punish them at the ballot box. All right, on on Gerard Artis. Actually, in terms of people doing everything they can, a great opportunity to talk about the book club you're starting up, so it makes sense to. But first, if you listen to Governor Pritzker,

who is obviously very frustrated with the party, it sounds like the party needs to focus on what gets them rebuilding. So what does the party need to focus on, and what does the party need to avoid focusing on, at least for this time? The most important thing in those clips you showed was the sounds of the audience as they, as their brains realized someone was actually maybe fighting for them.

And it took them a second to process it because it hasn't happened in some time and it doesn't happen often now. And you could feel this kind of pent up, thank you for saying that. Thank you for calling for protest. Thank you for saying these Republicans should have no peace. Right now it is not about progressive, moderate, this and that. It is about level of fight, level of spine. And so I think right now there's been this void.

And when you look at that 37-30-30 poll, the winner is the only winner in American life right now is the void, is the sense of defenselessness. No one, I mean, that's a terrible number for the president, but that's a terrible number for a Democratic party that claims to be an alternative. And so it is essential. I think it's great that the governor is talking like this, but the AOC Bernie tour, we're going to need to try lots of different efforts to build actual passionate movement. And it's going to take, frankly, exactly as he said, a different level of spine, a different

willingness to fight. It is not going to take these kind of these encrusted members of Congress who have just shown themselves to be useless in 95% of cases, it's going to take a whole new bunch of people. And Joe, just on the other side of that, is there also a possible strategy for unity between Democrats and Republicans? Wouldn't now and the weeks to come be a moment where you might find a good number of Republicans regretting their vote. I just worry that, you know, there's an opportunity there as well.

I mean, there is an opportunity there, but the Democrats have to get their own house in order first. And the way you do that, especially when you're out of power in all branches of government, they usually coalesce around one person. Of course, it happened after the 2004 election, a lot of coalescing around Barack Obama. There has to be somebody that the Democrats begin to coalesce around. It may be a messy process for a year or so, but I think you are going to see that coalescing. But I would tell you, going to what Annen is saying, the Democrats, just like those people who voted for Donald Trump and Swingberg, they want somebody who's going to fight for

them. That's a bottom line. They want somebody that's going to stand up and speak out and fight for them. And that means, you know, that means going after the biggest tech companies in the world who have monopolies. To allow more tech companies to get started and to create more jobs and spread wealth across America. And it also means they have to fight. And I know you'll agree with me with with with and for working class voters and middle

class voters who keep falling further and further behind. There's always this stupid either or choice. It's like you either have to call yourself a socialist like Bernie Sanders and be progressive like AOC, or you can't fight for working class Americans. I mean there is a synthesis here where you can have people who are moderates on a lot of issues that will make swing voters comfortable, but who are also willing to fight the way Bernie Sanders and AOC are willing to fight for working class voters. And to say what is true, that's not demagoguery, but to say the system is

rigged for the richest people on the planet. The system is rigged for billionaires who pay basically 6% of what they make every year in taxes. Well, people who work for them are paying 35- 39%. People who run family restaurants and book stores on Main Street are paying, hardware stores on Main Street, paying 40, 45, 50% in taxes. There has to be that fight. And they also can't be afraid, Ann. They can't be afraid to fight on issues

that the media or that Republicans say are unpopular issues. This is one of the things I learned when I was running. Whenever there was an issue that I believed strongly and that people said, you know, it was just political death to talk about it. I ran straight to it. I ran straight into it. And I think in this case, Abreu Garcia, who you hear Republicans say, please fight for

him. Yeah, I say, yeah, listen to the Republicans on this one. And USAID, where you had a billionaire wielding a chainsaw, the richest man in the world bragging about taking food from the poorest people on our planet. Now I can't tell you, Ann, how many Democrats say, oh, people hate foreign aid. We can't talk about that. Wrong. Wrong.

That is a moral issue. That's also an issue about what kind of country we are. That is a moral issue. That's also an issue about what kind of country we are. That is Ronald Reagan's. We are a city shining brightly on the hill for all the world to see. Like Democrats have to stop being scared of their shadow like they've been for too long. And I mean, I'm curious, what is your message, Democrats, on how they start influencing those swing voters to turn their way? You know, I tend to think about politics through the lens of emotion often. And you ran races, you know how important what people are feeling ends up being in politics.

And those things are sometimes related to facts and they're sometimes adjacent and sometimes kind of far afield from the facts. And the biggest emotion, political emotion of our time, I believe, is the sense of defenselessness. I think people on the left feel undefended. I think people on the right feel undefended. I think people who are unaffiliated with any tribe feel undefended. There's urban versions of feeling undefended. I think people on the right feel undefended. I think people who are unaffiliated with any tribe feel undefended. There's urban versions of feeling undefended.

There's a border version of feeling undefended. There's economic versions of feeling undefended. When you look at your paycheck, there's feelings of being undefended when you deal with the healthcare system and you see things like some number of people gravitating to a murderer of a healthcare CEO because again, they're

just feeling so undefended that anything, anything is appealing. And I try to have some kind of faith in the wisdom of democracy even when I don't like the outcome. When Donald Trump won the second time, I tried to think about what is the wisdom of the democracy here? And I think the wisdom is people are saying, like, let's just try whatever. Nothing conventional works. And I think it's really, really important for that sense of fight to be embedded in whoever comes next in Democrats.

So as for the question of democracy, you've got an announcement for us this morning to subscribers of The Inc., a book club about democracy. Tell us about it. So a remarkable thing happened a few months ago. Someone I've known for a long time, Lee Haber, who built Oprah's book club with her, reached out to me and said, I want to build something with you. And I thought it was maybe like an email to the wrong person at first.

But she, like so many in our country, is anguished by what's happening. And we worked together over the last few months and today we're launching the Inc. Book Club. And it's a book club centered on democracy, but around it, not just head on. We're going to read fiction, nonfiction, things old, things new. We're starting with Ezra Klein and and Derek Thompson's book abundance which has been provocative and controversial but working that they want to ban books on the right so we're going to read them. Got a book for you. Yeah, it's the calls big at loose wrote it

also OK I like talking about it I like it, but we you know there's so much doom scrolling right now. Yeah, and we wanted to do what I call bloom scrolling and have people read for context. James Baldwin is a great line. You think it's the worst thing in the world until you read a book and realize you're not alone in that way. I think books also show us what can be beyond just being against Donald Trump. There has to be something imagined on the far side of the mountain.

And they help us console ourselves and connect to each other. MSNBC political analyst, Anand Girdardas. Thank you so much. Congratulations on the book club. We'll be following that and still ahead on Morning Joe, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered a three day ceasefire in Ukraine.

NBC's Keir Simmons joins us to talk about what Putin's trying to achieve by doing this and what it could mean for a larger peace deal. Plus, what a former top adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegsath is saying about the state of the Pentagon right now and the quote, tale of two peats. Morning Joe is back in 90 seconds. about empty shelves because they say that a lot of these supply lines and the cargo ships are being held up. A lot of people are saying turn it around with the tariffs this high. I don't want the product.

Are you worried about empty shelves? Not at present. We have some great retailers. I assume they pre-ordered. I think we'll see some elasticities. I think we'll see some elasticity. I think we'll see replacements. And then we will see how quickly the Chinese want to de-escalate. That's Treasury Secretary Scott Besson on Fox News when asked about the ongoing trade war with China and concerns that the president's tariffs could lead to retail shortages. And it's something that

the president's tariffs could lead to retail shortages. And it's something that I think the heads of huge department stores like Walmart have been warning White House officials that if they keep moving forward in the direction they're moving forward on, they're going to have to be prepared for empty shelves at a lot of retail stores around America. Obviously, something that Scott Beasant and the president and the White House would not want to see. John Heilman, we've been talking a good bit about poll numbers. We showed the clip of Karl Rove on Fox News, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, obviously a Murdoch newspaper. These are conservative voices that we're showing that are talking about how

political gravity is settling in. I think the question that a lot of people would have is any chance that that political gravity settles in on Capitol Hill, especially among Republicans in the Senate. I mean, obviously, Joe, that's the $64 billion question. And look, the key thing for Trump throughout this first 100 days has been, as you well know, the acquiescence of Senate Republicans to pretty much any... To Senate and House Republicans, Congressional Republicans, to pretty much anything he's wanted to do.

He's governed out of the executive, all the executive orders. There's been very little legislation moved on Capitol Hill. But in terms of appointments, in terms of everything that he's tried to do, essentially, the congressional branch, the legislative branch of our government, controlled by Republicans, has said to Trump, you have a free pass,

do whatever you want, don't talk to us, we're not going to exercise our institutional prerogatives. On tariffs, it's the first time that we've seen a sign that there are Senate Republicans at least, a few in the House, but not many, but Senate Republicans led by Rand Paul, who are loudly speaking out and saying, you know what, this tariff policy is terrible, and we need to take back the congressional authority to pass tariffs, to this shouldn't be an executive function. That vote's coming up this week. The White House yesterday issued a veto threat.

Now that bill is never going to get to the president's desk because House Republicans are never going to pass it. So why is the White House and Trump has said a bunch of things on Truth Social about Republicans in the Senate, why are they freaking out so much about that? I think they're freaking out about it, not because they fear it becoming law, but because they can see that that is the first sign of political gravity kicking in on Capitol Hill

and the first sign that Republicans may not just give him a blank check going forward if the economy continues to suffer under this policy, and that rightly has Trump worried. So far they have given a blank check. We'll see how far they're willing to be pushed. Let's turn overseas where Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans for a 72 hour ceasefire in the war against Ukraine.

According to the Kremlin, the ceasefire will run for three days beginning next Thursday, May 8th. Officials say the decision, which came without Ukraine's input, was made on, quote, humanitarian grounds. The announcement came just hours after President Trump suggested Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is willing to give up the country's claim to Crimea territory that Russia illegally annexed in 2014 as part of a larger truce deal that we have not heard that from Zelensky himself.

Let's bring in NBC News Chief international correspondent, Keir Simmons. MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle joins the table as well. Stumbling in. Fellas, good morning. Good to see you. Keir, it's nice to have you at the table. It's great to be here. We always see you out in the field.

It's good to have you here with us. So you've covered this work so closely for the last three years. What is your sense of where things are? We had those dramatic photos of President Trump inside St. Peter's for the funeral of Pope Francis sitting face to face in those chairs discussing for about 15 minutes the future of Ukraine. From what you can tell from your reporting, where are we right now? We're at a crunch moment. I'll be in Moscow next week when President Putin hosts the Victory Day celebrations in Red Square with President Xi there. So that's, I guess, now 10 days, maybe more away. And that's going to be a

symbolic moment to see the Chinese leader and the Russian leader standing together. And where will we be? I mean, if anyone around this table knows what President Trump plans to do, and that's the really big question here, I'm not sure he necessarily knows. But what I think we can say now with more certainty after President Putin announced this three-day ceasefire around those Victory Day celebrations is that Putin is absolutely prepared to not do this, to not do the deal. Why would I say that? Because the offer from Washington and Kiev was 30 days and Putin just hasn't signed

up to that at any moment. The three-day ceasefire is a cynical game of chess because what he's effectively doing, and it's impressive frankly, I mean, the guy is a tactician, what he's effectively doing is trying to rule out the Ukrainians, many have already said this in the last 24 hours, rule out the Ukrainians from attacking Moscow, which we now know they are very capable of doing during his victory celebrations while he has the Chinese leader in Moscow. If the Ukrainians do that, then Putin will say, well, you see, you can't trust the Ukrainians

with a ceasefire. So therefore, why would I sign up to a 30-day ceasefire? We also know that there are Russian forces prepared for another offensive. They've struggled a little bit in the spring, according to reporting, but they're looking towards the summer. They appear to have pushed Ukrainians out of Kursk. That's what they said they've achieved in the past 24 hours. They say they've finally done that. I was on the Russian side of the front line in Kursk last month, and it looked, it was clear to me they'd already taken Kursk, the Russians taking it back.

The Russian soldiers there that I saw, and they were everywhere, I think they'd like to stop fighting, but they didn't look exhausted. I watched American equipment being carried away on trucks. So I think the Russians are absolutely prepared to keep going to try to win back the four, the four key regions aside from Crimea that Putin wants. And I think Putin will look at the situation like this. What's my best option? Is doing a deal about my best option or is continuing the war my best option? He shares that a little bit with Trump. It was interesting to hear President Trump say, I'm determined but flexible. That's a little the way that Putin operates.

He's a tactician. He knows what he wants to achieve ultimately, which is to weaken America, to divide Europe and America, to weaken the West, to make Russia stronger. And he just thinks at each moment, what's my move now to get to that ultimate goal? So you used the word cynical a few moments ago in describing Putin. You've sat with Putin. The three-day ceasefire on the anniversary of Russia's greatest victory in World War II is just laced with cynicism.

But Putin versus Trump, two rather cynical individuals, I think. How does it match up, in your mind, Putin's game-playing against what Donald Trump wants to achieve in Ukraine? Well, I think the question is whether President Trump and that image of President Trump and President Zelensky in Rome together, the question is whether President Trump is prepared to turn on a dime and support, continue to support Ukraine. There's obviously a congressional challenge there too, but the US still has the capability to provide that intelligence support.

Whether he is really prepared to message to President Putin that you cannot win this because we will stay, we actually will shift and supply the kind of support to Ukraine that at least freezes the battlefield. And as much as President Trump, and who doesn't, hates to see the dead bodies, hates the killing, hates the nature of war, it's pretty difficult to escape the conclusion that unless you leave President Putin with the impression that he cannot win, he will judge that. It depends on his definition of winning, though. President Putin's definition of winning. Yes, exactly. Absolutely.

And the Russians are absolutely clear about this. They will say that they want to keep the territory they have. We know that they have declared that more territory than that is theirs, that they want to tackle the causes of all of this, by which they mean NATO and all those other things. I mean, they're not... It's always... I know you all know this. It's always a good idea to just listen to what somebody says.

Yeah. I mean, of course, the next time that Donald Trump stands up to the letter of Putin will be the first time. I mean, once in a while, we get a little tough rhetoric and then he backs down immediately. We've seen that time and again. But let's talk about the other party in this, which is the Ukrainians. You know, where from what you've heard, where do they stand? I mean, yes, heartened by the appearance, the brief appearance with Zelensky and

Trump in Rome. But where do they stand at this moment? They've had this 30-day ceasefire offer out there for well over a month now. The Russians have shown no inclination to take it. Do they feel like they have the Americans back, the Americans have their back? And if not, will Europe stand up enough? It's a great question. And the issue, for example, about Crimea is that it's just clear that Crimea is... To get back Crimea, and we've reported on this at NBC, look, to get back Crimea was

an incredibly difficult task, is frankly, at this point, an impossible task, unless your timeline is decades, unless you're prepared to just hold almost like a kind of a Cold War stance, we'll hold the line until something shifts geopolitically. So, you know, I think there's a real challenges here for the Ukrainians to say it clearly. The French and the British just don't have the capability to support the Ukrainians without the U.S.,

the way that the U that the US can. And the question that gets asked about whether President Putin would launch an attack on NATO, on a NATO country, that question is missing the point that the Russians are already running a shadow war against Europe, against NATO, and that really for Putin, if you just think about his ultimate goals, all he needs to do is show that NATO is weak. He doesn't need to invade Poland. He just needs to make a move that collapses Article 5, that collapses that alliance, that

demonstrates you can't, you can't, you're a paper tiger. That's what he needs to do. And it's not, he doesn't need to invade a NATO country to achieve that necessarily. Joe. Keir Simmons, thank you so much for your insights on the war in Russia.

Let's talk about the domestic situation in the UK right now. Jonathan LaMaire and I taking note that Keir Starmer taking a leading role in the war between Russia and Ukraine and also Liverpool taking their 20th major league title, winning the Premier League this past weekend. Obviously, happy days are here again in the UK, right? Yeah, if you're from Liverpool, it's great. They stormed it. I mean, they didn't even, it wasn't even close in the end, Joe. So, it was a great match, though. It's been a great season. And what was interesting with the Premier League this season was how tight it was aside

from Liverpool. So Man City, the collapse of Man City, they are really tight in whether they're going to be able to play in Europe. And people who follow the premiership will know that there's this the group of teams at the top of the table who will you fight over the ability to play in Europe in the following year so yeah great I mean you know congratulations to Liverpool and this this year of course top 5 finish really get to go to Europe as opposed to the usual for this

was me as you well know such a great moment for Liverpool because they did win it 5 years ago in 2020, but it was amidst the covid season and they had to celebrate no fans in the stands there was no no sense of joy and at that point that the squad had a 30 year title drought this time around the win again 5 years later this the scenes from Liverpool on Sunday were out of control and people are already gearing up for the victory parade in a couple weeks.

Sunday were out of control and people are already gearing up for the victory parade in a couple weeks. All right, NBC's Keir Simmons, thank you. Great to have you on set with us. Thanks, Keir. We appreciate it. And coming up, Ed Luce is writing about, quote, the dinner that saved Europe. He'll join us to explain his latest piece straight ahead on Morning Joe. Let's go. Let's go.

Let's go. Mr. Prime Minister? Mike Myers? What are you doing here? I just thought I'd come up and check on things. You live in the States? Yeah, but I'll always be Canadian. But you live in the States? Yeah, so?

Do you remember Mr. Dress Up, the children's show on CBC? What were the names of Mr. Dress Up's two puppet friends? Casey and Finnegan? Budda. Spud? Howie? Meeker? Capitalist Saskatchewan?

Regina? Tragically. Pip? You're a defenceman, defending a two-on-one. What do you do? Take away the pass, obviously. What are the two seasons in Toronto? Winter and construction.

Wow. We really are Canadian. Yeah. But let me ask you, Mr. Prime Minister, will there always be a Canada? There will always be a Canada. Alright, elbows up. Elbows up.

That was comedian Mike Myers, a proud Canadian appearing in an ad for the Liberal Party with Prime Minister Mark Carney last month ahead of national elections in Canada. Meek, I've got to say, it is, I mean, I don't usually follow who's running the Bank of England every week. So I didn't realize, like Mark Carney's been in the spotlight a lot before. And I understood that he'd been involved in banking for a very long time.

that he'd been involved in banking for a very long time and had been an important voice in economic issues across the globe. But when I first saw that commercial, I was struck by the fact that actually Mike Myers was Mark Carney's straight man. And he carried that off so well and has such an ease about him. And also, you know, Canada, as our good friend, Jay Mark said yesterday, he'd been borrowing a lot of division, a lot of the tough tactics from America in their politics. And Mark Carney, you just see him in that ad, you see him on the campaign trail, and this is a guy who's calm. He is, he's connected with voters, and he's extraordinarily competent. It is Canada going in a direction actually opposite

than how America has been going for the past 20 years with their politicians. It's really telling, you could tell. He's extraordinarily effective political talent for this time. But again, that commercial, really one of the best political ads I've seen in a very long time. Right. But again that commercial, really one of the best political ads I've seen in a very long time and not because there's an SNL

store in there but because the real store of that ad is a guy whose name was on the ballot. Right. Never in politics and yet he's a pro and very comfortable with this moment. Mark Carney has won a full term as Canada's Prime Minister, marking a stunning turnaround for the country's Liberal Party. Carney called for an election after he was sworn into the position following Justin Trudeau's resignation. As of now, it is still unclear if liberals, who have been in power for almost a decade,

will be able to secure a majority government. When Carney took the stage to address his supporters last night, he mentioned Canada's relations with the U.S. As I've been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. Never. But these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never, that will never ever happen.

But we also must recognize the reality that our world has fundamentally changed. We are once again at one of those hinge moments of history. Our old relationship with the United States, a relationship based on steadily increasing integration is over. The system of open global trade anchored by the United States, a system that Canada has relied on since the Second World War, a system that while not perfect has helped deliver prosperity for a country for decades is over. These are tragedies, but it's also our new reality. We are over.

We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons. We have to look out for ourselves. And above all, we have to take care of each other. All right. Let's bring in the U.S. national editor at the Financial Times, Ed Luce, who's here to talk about the column he has up on the FT right now. But Ed, you're also writing about Mark Carney. And I'd love to get your thoughts on this moment. And might Democrats look to the north for a model on an answer to Trump?

Well, I should declare, Mika, that I've known Mark since he was a PhD student in England in the late—in the early 90s. His wife Diana, who's English, said, come out for a drink with me with this Canadian doctoral student. And so I've known Mark for 35 years. And I have to say, I never expected to see this day, not because he's not supremely qualified to be Canada's prime minister, but because his background as governor of the Bank of England, having worked for Goldman Sachs in New York,

all of these sort of smell of globalism to electorates that, you know, are nowadays really on the lookout for people, people who are allegedly elitist. And I think in the space of a few weeks, Trump turned those electorally suspect credentials, I think, I mean, very substantive credentials, but electorally suspect ones from being toxic into being absolutely key qualifications

to manage Canada in an international climate where the economy is parlous and where you need somebody who knows how things work and what he's doing. And so it is extraordinary to see this. He's really well qualified. I just didn't expect him to win. And yesterday was the first time, he's 60, it was the first time in his life

he'd ever stood for public office. Ed, are you surprised by the speed with which this happened? As we said a minute ago, conservatives just a couple of months ago were up by 20 points in the polling for this election. And then as President Trump began his attacks on Canadian sovereignty, continuing to talk about Canada becoming the

51st state of the United States of America, and then of course the 25 percent tariffs. It really galvanized a national movement inside Canada to push back against America. But boy, it happened in just a couple of months. It did. And I mean, his opponent, who lost his seat, by the way, Pierre Polyeuvre, the Conservative party leader, who'd been forecast to be prime minister, you know, as almost a done deal for more than a year, a coming landslide, etc. His opponent had this sort of Me Too Trump line, Canada first.

Carney changed it into Canada strong, and thereby became the patriot in this race. And Polyevra, because he'd already sort of presented himself as essentially a Trumpian, he was in a prison not of his own making. And when Trump starts threatening, you know, Canada's economic prosperity, it's very difficult for Polyevra to repudiate Trump, because he's already presented himself as Trumpian. And it ought to be said, we're seeing similar dynamics happen in the Australian election, which is happening

in a couple of weeks. And this is without Trump threatening to annex Australia. So even there, we're seeing the conservative, they're actually called the Liberal Party, confusingly, in Australia. But the Conservative Liberal Party leader, Peter Dutton, is the Trumpian in the race. He's not doing well.

He's been sinking for the last 100 days, and I believe that's no coincidence. And Carney, despite being from the same party, will be an entirely different kind of prime Minister than was Justin Trudeau. So, Ed, let's talk about the new biography we've been anticipating for quite a while around here of Drs. Vignette Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor. Your book comes out two weeks from today. Ahead of that, you've written a guest essay for the New York Times titled the dinner that helped save Europe referring to a dinner in 1979 and the relationship

between Pope John Paul II and Dr. Brzezinski. Tell us about it. Well this is actually a dinner that Mika would be better qualified to tell you about because she was there. So I mean M a feel free to interrupt me at any moment. Well, no, because I just have the stories about how the kids ruined everything. But no, you take it away on the importance of the dinner. Well, so this was the Pope's first visit as Pope to the United States. That is me. Oh, wow.

He'd had, um, he'd had a meeting with Carter and then, he invited Dr. Brzezinski back to the Vatican embassy a couple of miles away from where I am for dinner. And Brzezinski said, can I bring my kids and wife? And the pope said, sure. And so he brought them all along and apparently kept winking at Mika's older brother, Ian, because he had turned up in dirty sort of running track stuff.

He'd been hauled off a running track. Yeah. Ripped jeans and those boots that they all wore, untied boots. But anyhow, continue please. The pope put your brother at his ease, I think is the... But the dinner was this extraordinary sort of beginning of a relationship between the first non-Italian pope in 453 years, happening to be a Pole, who Dr. Brzezinski had already met and interacted with, and the first and so far last Polish-speaking national security

advisor, grand strategist. And they agreed that having the pope having met Carter, that Carter was more like a religious leader and the Pope was more like a political leader and they they laughed quite a bit about that and they repeated this joke many times over the years. The following year the Soviet Union amassed 18 divisions on the border of Poland was on the brink of invading Poland to try and squash its wildfire solidarity union movement which was anti-communist and this relationship between Brzezinski and the Pope, Brzezinski even had on his White House phone P Pope, so that he had a hotline to the Vatican. This relationship helped persuade the Soviets that Poland would be indigestible. It was a porcupine. And it

is, I think, perhaps the biggest accomplishment in a way. It's something that didn't happen. It's the non-invasion of Poland that could have triggered World War III. And this relationship, very improbable, between two Polish-born world statesmen is the key reason why that didn't happen. Yeah, you know, Mike Barnicle, there's always a saying in intel agencies that nobody ever writes headlines about the bombs that don't go off. This was a possible World bombs that don't go off. This was a possible world war that didn't

go off because of the relationship between two Poles and the porcupine strategy that Dr. Brzezinski and the Pope helped devise that would have made Poland maybe easy to invade but impossible to digest. I do want to note, we showed a picture of Mika earlier. Mika didn't always behave well around international leaders. We've already talked about Deng Xiaoping and President Carter shared that with me one time. Said, no, that's true. She also ran over Menachem bagon with a golf cart almost derailed camp david accords here though she was well behaved she was the one person in the brisinski

family i think at that meeting mike that was well behaved um they made a mistake the pope made a mistake of having mrs brisinski bamba sit next sit next to Pope John Paul II, and she spent her time there peppering him with questions about when they were going to put women in the ministry. Well, you know, Joe, we can talk about these events now because they're past history and they've been released publicly, but the Secret Service was always on high alert when Mika was around a room where there was a notable like the Pope. They were always, always alert for her movements, her activities, and the fact that she might shout something that was, you know, but anyway.

Inappropriate. Ed, I would like to ask you about these two fascinating men, and this one particular dinner, and the throwback to a time when friendship between people, between leaders of the Catholic Church and national security advisers, or just friendship within the art of diplomacy is so important. And friendship in this case, I think, formed because both of these men were aware of the threat of Russia and of war, what war felt like, what the shroud of war feels like. How much of a bond,

how much of a strengthening of that bond that existed happened at this dinner? Well, I was, that's a great question, Mike. I was fortunate enough to get hold of all the correspondence, private correspondence in Polish, which of course I got translated between Dr. Brzezinski and Pope John Paul II. And it went on for many, many years. The Pope died in 2005, so it went on for 27 years. The Pope died in 2005, so it went on for 27 years. And this is a correspondence

between people who could, at least on the Cold War front, finish each other's sentences. But they also shared, you know, I think concerns about the social problems facing the West. They, you know, they were really interesting in how they were not triumphalist after the end of the Cold War. They they were both deeply concerned that the problems would now begin to mushroom at home in Western countries, including the United States. And that proved to be kind of prophetic at a time when there was a lot of triumphalism,

understandably because the West had won the Cold War. They turned to the next problem. So this was a stroke of luck historically to have these two poles in this position with that Cold War, World War III potential trigger. It was a real stroke of luck, but it underlines the importance of really having deep relationships, whether it's with adversaries or with friends. This is something that I think is incredibly hard to do nowadays, given the sort of technologically controlled and just incredibly busy nature of public schedules.

It's much harder to find the time to sit down, talk and build trust. And I think Dr. Brzezinski's life and many others underline the importance of doing that. All right, US National Editor at the Financial Times. Ed Luce, thank you so much. We so look forward to having you back to talk about ZBIG. Thanks for being with us today. Thank you. Mika, we'd be remiss if we didn't. You were actually in the room. I've heard you talk about other world leaders and not always glowing that you were able to meet while you were growing up but You seemed to put Pope John Paul the second at the top of the list. You said he was a beautiful man Absolutely wonderful. He just had an extraordinary presence. Tell us about that. He did his ability to connect

upon first sight was incredible. Talked a little bit about making my brother feel comfortable, my mother feel comfortable. But really what he was able to do to galvanize the youth of the world through his time as pope was incredible and an incredible force for the Catholic Church. And in the days after now the death of Pope Francis, I do see some similarities in what Pope Francis was able to do and with his charm and ability to embrace difficult issues, face them, take accountability accountability and push the church in the direction of inclusion. I I was really given

a lot of memories of Pope John Paul the second to very different boats, but they were able to galvanize people and bring them in and it had to do with what they said what they did through their time as Pope, but also their presence was beautiful. He had a beautiful, wonderful, charming, loving presence, Pope John Paul II.