Morning Joe - Morning Joe 5/27/25

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

At least 27 hurt as van hits pedestrians at parade celebrating soccer win in Liverpool, England

The president has always had a very odd conception of Vladimir Putin. I think he's thought that he and Putin could be kind of friends and partners and could make deals together and so on. I don't think Putin has changed. I don't know what the president's talking about. This is the way Putin has always been. He's always been a particularly brutal dictator, willing to take whatever measures he thought necessary to advance his interests, whatever he thought he could get away with.

He thought he could get away with invading Ukraine. He thought he could conquer Ukraine in a matter of days. He failed to do that, and he has been spending his own people's blood and treasure for as long as he's needed to after that. And now he seems more intent than ever. He's the same old Vladimir Putin. So I hope the president has had a real moment of truth about him and will proceed accordingly. Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume weighing in on President Trump's social media

post where he said the Russian president had gone crazy. We'll go through the response from the Kremlin and how the escalating rhetoric could impact peace talks with Ukraine. Plus, we'll get a live report from Tel Aviv for the latest on a reported ceasefire proposal from President Trump's Middle East envoy. Also ahead, we're going to dig into the latest developments with President Trump's trade wars as the markets are reacting to his delay of another big tariff. Meanwhile, the president spent part of Memorial Day at Arlington National

Cemetery honoring fallen service members, but he also mixed in some campaign-style comments. And we'll have an update on the escape of several inmates from a jail in New Orleans, a story we've been following for over a week. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, May 27th, along with Willie and me, we have the cohost of our fourth hour, contributing writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire. President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations,

Richard Haas is with us, and columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius. And Willie, we'll get to our panel on the Russia-Ukraine developments in just a moment with the Wall Street Journal editorial board calling upon Republican senators to do something to counter Putin. But first, that tragedy in Liverpool yesterday. Yeah, at least 27 people this morning hospitalized,

including four children, after a minivan crashed through a group of pedestrians at a soccer parade. At least one adult and one child suffered very serious injuries. At the time, thousands of people had lined the streets to celebrate Liverpool's Premier League title win. Video shows the minivan traveling at a high speed and plowing through the crowd before

it came to a stop. The driver was arrested at the scene. He's described as a 53-year-old British man. Authorities say the crash is not being investigated. It's terrorism related. And no one else is being sought in connection with what police are calling an isolated incident. Let's bring in NBC News foreign correspondent Raphaph Sanchez, live from the scene of the incident in Liverpool.

Raph, what's the latest there? Well, Willie, as you can see, a major police investigation is now underway, trying to understand how this joyful championship parade turned really into a scene of horror. I just want to explain the geography here. We are at the bottom of Water Street. This is one of the main drags in central Liverpool.

And less than 24 hours ago, you had tens of thousands of soccer fans on both sides of the street. They were cheering some of the sport's biggest stars fresh off their championship win in the English Premier League coming down. And then that dark minivan came careening into the crowd. So just to explain, that minivan is still parked on the street.

It is on the other side of that large police vehicle, which is obscuring the view. And detectives are continuing to carry out forensic investigations. As you said, the driver of that minivan is under arrest. Police are saying he is a 53 year old white British man and viewers may be wondering why are the police mentioning his race and our best guess as to that Willie is that last year there were major riots in this country sparked by misinformation on social media after a violent attack. People on social media accusing falsely a migrant of carrying out that attack. So we believe that is the reason police are mentioning race in this case.

Now as you said, nearly 50 people were injured when that van came slamming into the crowd. Four of them were children. One of those kids, Willie, was actually trapped underneath the van. Firefighters had to lift the van, pull that child out to safety. One child is seriously injured, but miraculously, no one has been killed in this incident, at least so far. A number of people are still in hospital. Police are saying they are not treating this as an act of terrorism. They are saying they believe this is an isolated incident

and they aren't looking for anyone else, but they have so far not laid out their understanding of what the motivations are here. They haven't brought any charges yet against the person in custody or anyone else. So we may understand a little bit more if and when those charges are brought. But we are hearing just a wave of condolence and solidarity

coming from across the world of sport, including from LeBron James, who's actually a part owner of Liverpool Football Club. And I can tell you guys, the anthem of that soccer team is you will never walk alone. It is a song that you hear chanted at Anfield by the fans here. That's the major soccer stadium.

And there is a real feeling in this city today that people are not walking alone, that they are supporting each other to get through this tragedy. Raph, just to go back to a point you made earlier, the police have determined this is not an act of terrorism, so they do know something about what happened. Do they talk at all about what this may have been? Was it a medical incident?

Was the person drunk? Is there any idea of what took place yesterday? So, Willie, there are very strict laws here in the UK about what authorities can say once somebody has been arrested that is with the goal of not biasing a future jury trial. I can tell you our team at NBC News has verified a number of videos taken before the minivan crashed into the crowd and it does appear to show some kind of confrontation between the driver of that vehicle and a number of soccer fans. You can see people banging on the sides of

the car. One person tries to open the door of that car. So we simply do not know what the motivation is but it appears that the driver was in control but in a high stress situation in the minutes before he plowed into the crowd. We just at this point do not know what the motivation was and we don't really understand whether or not or to what degree this was intentional. More than 50 people injured, a couple of them very seriously. NBC's Raph Sanchez live in Liverpool, England. Raph, thanks so much.

Mika? All right. Now, Russia continued to launch missiles and drones throughout Ukraine yesterday, marking the third day in a row of intense bombardment targeting civilian areas. Ukraine's military reported another round of more than 350 drones and missiles launched throughout the country. In the past week, Ukraine says, Russia has launched north of 1,300 drones and almost 100 missiles. At least 30 civilians have been killed and more than 150 people have been injured.

And amid Russia's intensifying attacks on Ukraine, the Kremlin is pushing back at President Trump's recent criticism of Vladimir Putin, suggesting Trump is suffering from, quote, emotional overload that comes after Trump on Sunday said Putin had gone, quote, absolutely crazy. Speaking to reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov thanked President Trump for starting the negotiation process to end the war, while also suggesting the president was emotional over the issue. Peskov then went on to claim Russia's intense bombing campaign over the past three days was retaliatory in nature. Vladimir Putin met yesterday with Turkey's foreign minister at the Kremlin. It's the same Turkish official who mediated the talks

in Istanbul earlier this month between Russian and Ukrainian officials. Meanwhile, Germany's new chancellor said his country and Western allies, including the UK, France, and United United States are no longer imposing range restrictions on any weapons supplied to Ukraine. Let's stop right there and talk about what that means, the range restrictions and how that will impact the fight, David, and then your analysis on this Putin-Trump situation in terms of name-calling and other things. So Mika, Chancellor Merz's announcement that the range limits will be removed is significant

in terms of the damage that these missiles can do to Russian cities as far away as Moscow. The German Taurus missile is reportedly able to reach 300 miles, which would allow it to hit Moscow. The British Storm Shadow has got a range of 155 miles. The Atacom's missiles that the US supplies can go 190 miles, but there have been limits on how much of that range can be used. And the Russians have simply moved their key airfields and supply depots back out of range. So this is a significant step to put targets that would be valuable to Russia within range of weapons that Ukraine either has or is getting in large quantities, like the German Taurus. More generally, Nika, this moment right now is crunch time for Donald Trump on Ukraine

and on Russia. Vladimir Putin, in effect, has disrespected him directly. I made a survey of all the statements that Trump has made since January, threatening sanctions, warning Putin, telling Putin if he didn't come to the table, there'd be trouble. And he has—Putin has ignored every one of them. He's refused the compromise proposals that Trump has suggested. He's refused to cease fire.

So now Trump really is in the situation where he's going to have to exert some real pressure on Putin to get these negotiations back on track or visibly give up as the Russians fire their ballistic missiles and drones on Kiev, which would be a very, very unattractive, I want to say humiliating situation for Trump. So Richard, this is Vladimir Putin knowing what he has in Donald Trump, that Donald Trump

hasn't put any real pressure on him, that he can kind of act with impunity as he's begun to do now with these drone strikes and missiles shot at civilians inside of Ukraine. A fascinating dynamic here between President Trump and President Putin, where you have Donald Trump saying, I don't know what the hell happened to Putin. I've known this guy a long time, to which everyone in the foreign policy community says, this is exactly who Vladimir Putin is,

and always has been. The response from the Kremlin is that Donald Trump is just being emotional. They've used that word a couple of times now. What's going on here? Donald Trump is not the first American leader to exaggerate the importance of his personal chemistry with a Soviet or Russian leader. FDR did it with Stalin.

George W. Bush did it with Putin and so forth. So he's in a long line of American leaders who have gotten this wrong and somehow think that personal chemistry or personal relationships are really critical. They're never critical. And Trump should have learned that not just with Putin, but with, say, the leader of North Korea or with China. There's a limit to what personal things do in diplomacy. What this shows is we're being played.

Putin's uninterested in a ceasefire. He wants to continue prosecuting the war for the simple reason that he thinks he's winning, even though what he's gaining is marginal. The real question, by the way, is how we respond to it. The option out there in the Senate is secondary sanctions. Problem with those is historically, we've tried them before, and you end up having a massive friction between the United States, and in this would be India, Turkey and other countries, China, rather than with Russia. They tend not to work as decisively as people want.

The real question, and this administration is not talking about it, it seems unwilling to do it, is to help Ukraine. And to basically give Ukraine the arms it needs, not to liberate every square inch of territory, just to defend itself, to send the message to Putin that more war isn't going to do the answer. One other thing that was really interesting, the report by the new chancellor of Germany talking about taking off range restrictions. The assumption in the Trump administration is that if we end harming Ukraine, that'll weaken Ukraine and they'll somehow, this will bring the war maybe more to a close.

Actually just the opposite. We are going to lose any leverage or influence. That'll weaken Ukraine and this will bring the war maybe more to a close. Actually just the opposite. We are going to lose any leverage or influence. So what you're actually going to see is something of an escalation of target selection. And the war, the scale or scope of the battlefield is actually going to widen rather than shrink if the United States distance itself from Ukraine. And right now the United States is still sharing intel. It's not stopping sending assistance there, but it's really there's no more money coming,

new money coming. As I first reported a couple of weeks ago, the Trump has a package of sanctions in front of him, and he's kind of, I'm told by aides sort of vacillating back and forth whether or not he wants to apply them. To this point, he has not. David Ignatius, we know there's also this bipartisan bill with 80 co-sponsors, 80 plus co-sponsors at this point. Lindsey Graham, obviously a close Trump ally, although not afraid to break with him occasionally

on foreign policy issues. He's the one who introduced it. Senator Blumenthal, others quickly hopped on board. Do you have any sense there for people that you talked to on the Hill, others, that there's going to be enough pressure here to push this through for the House, but also for President Trump to finally get there some sort of punishment for Putin, because as we have well chronicled, yes, once in a while, Trump offers harsh words for Putin in Moscow, but there's never, ever been any follow-through.

So it's hard for me to imagine Republicans in the Senate pushing these sanctions over the strong opposition of Trump. I think it's going to go differently. I think Trump, Lindsey Graham is going to go to Trump and say, Mr. President, you're being disrespected. This is humiliating. You need to take action. And Trump will encourage this process.

There was reporting last night from the Wall Street Journal that elements of the Trump administration, Trump White House, were nearing that point of openly supporting sanctions themselves. I do think this war is about to get, as Richard was suggesting, a lot dirtier. The attacks on cities by Russia have been brutal, but there are attacks on cities now increasingly by Ukraine. Ukraine has drones that are able to penetrate, get to Moscow and its environs. They also have the capability to wage on the ground a dirty war of sabotage, of assassination.

I've met with leaders of Ukrainian military intelligence. They are very, very tough, and they have networks inside Russia, as Russia has networks inside Ukraine that can do a lot of damage. So as bad as this war has been, it could tip into a much nastier phase of dirty war unless Trump decides this is the moment we've got to back them up. I would just note, since the overwhelming attacks of early Monday morning, the attacks that I monitor on my systems have fallen off as if the Russians are having second thoughts. Maybe we ought to slow down and do some talking.

So you mentioned The Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal editorial board has a new piece on that angle entitled Time for a GOP Senate Revolt on Sanctions Against Putin. It reads in part, Mr. Trump may be the only person in the world still surprised by how Mr. Putin is behaving. The Russian is the same man he's been for two decades, bent on reconstituting as much of the old Soviet empire

as he can get away with. Ukraine is his obsession. He's not going to modify his ambitions merely because Mr. Trump alternates between begging for peace and scolding outbursts on social media. Senator Lindsey Graham has 82 cosponsors on a bill that would hit countries that buy Russian oil and gas with tariff sanctions, combined with the promise of more arms to Ukraine when the current supply runs out.

These sanctions might change Mr. Putin's calculations about the price of war. But GOP senators can act or not, Mr. Trump, or not whether or not Mr. Trump approves, they can vote on the sanctions bill and force the president to face the hard reality of Mr. Putin's ambitions that Mr. Trump would rather avoid. We'll be following that and we'll move now to the Middle East where the Trump administration is denying reports that Hamas has agreed to a ceasefire proposal from the US.

According to Reuters, a Palestinian official close to the group claimed the new proposal includes a 70-day truce, the release of 10 hostages and a partial withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip. An Israeli official, however, dismissed the proposal, calling it unacceptable. U.S. Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff also called the Reuters report nonsense. He told NBC News, quote, Israel is in a conversation and will agree to a temporary ceasefire and hostage

deal that would see half of the living and half of the deceased hostages returned. And that leads to a substantive negotiation to finding a path to a permanent ceasefire. This comes as President Trump is calling for an end to the war in Gaza. He made the comment on Sunday, adding to the pressure Israel is already facing from other partners like Britain, Germany and France. With Hamas on Gaza, we want to see if we can stop that and Israel. We've been talking to them and we want to see if we can stop that whole situation as quickly as possible.

Joining us now NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley live in Tel Aviv. Boy, Trump needs a win in one of these wars. Matt, what more do we know? I mean, this is a man who said that when he came to office that he would end the Ukraine conflict on day one. He had that initial victory we saw right before he took office when there was the longest period of sustained ceasefire in the Gaza Strip that lasted for about two months until the Israelis broke it on March 18th. That was essentially the Joe Biden plan that was agreed to just before he came office.

But boy, did he take credit for that. But now it looks as though the war in Gaza is raging on a level that we haven't seen, even during the height of the fighting last year. And it looks as though peace is just as much as far away as ever. Now, Steve Witkoff, who has a lot on his plate, as you've seen, he's just ricocheting between Eastern Europe and here in the Middle East.

He seems to be doing his level best to try to resolve these conflicts. But as you just saw yesterday, we had a bit of whiplash ourselves here in our bureau talking about what was likely to come out of these negotiations. You heard that Reuters report saying that Hamas had agreed to some kind of terms for a ceasefire. And then our own Garrett Haake in Washington, he spoke with Steve Witkoff. And as you said, Witkoff poured cold water on all of those proposals and said there is no such thing as a Witkoff proposal, which is reportedly what Reuters said that Hamas had agreed to.

And he said that the Reuters report was nonsense. And it sounds as though Mika, we're back to square one when it comes to all of this. But we did hear from Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel. He also seemed to say that there was something significant in the works and then he backed off of that. Willie?

NBC's Matt Bradley live from Tel Aviv. Matt, thanks so much. So Richard Haas, we've been here before. Talk of a ceasefire, something is imminent. We're on the doorstep. We've heard criticism from Germany's chancellor of Prime Minister Netanyahu saying it's unconscionable what he's doing in Gaza right now. So, should we believe any of this this time? Is there a ceasefire on the horizon? Look, what's being talked about is actually a boil down. It's a reduced version of the deal that Israel and Hamas had agreed to several months ago.

There was a phase two, supposed to be full Israeli withdrawal, full hostage return. Now you're talking about limited hostage returns for limited withdrawal. I don't know the impossible, don't know whether it's going to happen. What's more interesting to me is what's going on. Basically the two million people of Gaza are increasingly being forced into a sliver of the territory, probably about a quarter of the territory. So what was already the most crowded population in the world has gotten that much more crowded.

You have real questions about the aid deliveries going into Gaza. You also have leading Israeli figures, including a former prime minister saying, we, the Israelis, must face up to the fact, this is Ehud Omer, that we are committing war crimes in our use of force and the denial of humanitarian supplies. You have another previous prime minister, Ehud Barak, basically saying, look, let's

just end this war. A majority of Israelis now want the war to end. You're never going to completely eliminate Hamas. You physically cannot. Let's get the hostages out. So you have this situation on the ground, these reported negotiations, but what you also have is a massive debate in Israel

that's reemerging about the strategy, and the prime minister is increasingly, he's got the votes in the Knesset, but he's increasingly isolated in Israeli politics. Yeah, and these images, daily basis, just horrible scenes out of Gaza, the humanitarian crisis, right? 11 weeks of no aid through it all, now only a trickle. The Israeli bombardments have ratcheted up in recent days.

We're seeing these reports of women and children killed in many ways, gruesome fashion. And David Ignatius, it does seem that Netanyahu is more and more isolated from terms of public sentiment, but he still, as Richard said, got enough political capital here to push forward and in some ways seems to be enacting what Donald Trump had proposed months ago, which is pushing out the Palestinians entirely from Gaza, taking control and then trying to rebuild in some fashion a lot of skepticism there as to what that would look like, a lot of opposition, of course, from other Gulf neighbors.

So what's your read here about that piece of it? Because at the same time Netanyahu and Trump, their relationship has really grown frosty in recent weeks, once close allies, but it's gotten cold enough that Trump skipped Israel on his recent trip to the region. Jonathan, I think part of the tragedy is that Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't have a clear strategy even now for ending the war. He keeps using ever more military force to achieve smaller and smaller gains. There's talk that he hopes to compel the remaining leadership in Hamas and Gaza to leave, to flee Gaza for

exile somewhere else. But it is a situation in which Israel really is running out of options. It doesn't want to occupy Gaza itself. It doesn't want Hamas ever to take it over again, it just doesn't have a clear picture even on relatively simple issues like distribution of food and humanitarian aid. These Israelis have not been able to come up with an alternative to the traditional UN system that has consensus support, has a strong leadership group. So I think Netanyahu's isolation now,

even from President Donald Trump, grows by the day. He keeps thinking that more force will answer this, more military actions in Gaza, but that does not seem to be the case, quite the opposite. All right, The Washington Post's David Ignatius, thank you very much for being on this morning. We'll be reading your piece, which is online now.

And still ahead on Morning Joe against the backdrop of growing tensions with President Trump, Canada has welcomed Britain's King Charles to the country. We'll talk about the significance of that visit. Plus, we'll take a look at what President Trump had to say at Arlington National Cemetery yesterday as he boasted about his second term successes and launched partisan attacks. All right, at 28 past the hour time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. King Charles is in Canada this morning, but not for a typical royal visit. Instead, this trip is seen as a show of support for the nation's sovereignty as President

Trump continues to call for Canada to become the 51st U.S. state. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney invited the King, who is Canada's head of state, to deliver a speech later today, outlining his government's agenda for the new parliament. It is rare for a monarch to deliver a so-called speech from the throne in Canada. King Charles, Mother Queen Elizabeth did so only twice in her 70-year reign. The last time was in 1977. We'll be watching that. Three more of the 10 inmates who escaped from a New Orleans jail have been captured.

But two escapees remain at large and officials describe them as extremely dangerous and said they could be anywhere. The inmates fled from the jail earlier this month through a hole behind a cell's sink and toilet. Several people including a maintenance worker at the jail have been accused of assisting in their escape. And really sad news this morning, former Democratic congressman from New York Charles Rangel has died at the age of 94. The outspoken lawmaker spent nearly five decades on Capitol Hill and was a founding member

of the Congressional Black Caucus. Born in Harlem, he was the first elected in 1970 and earned the nickname of the Lion of Lenox Avenue, referring to one of Harlem's primary corridors. He was the first African-American to chair the Ways and Means Committee, but stepped down amid an ethics investigation in 2010. Wrangel retired from Congress in 2017. And coming up, we'll dig into the new reporting on some of the guests who attended President Trump's dinner party for the top buyers of his crypto coin and the potential conflicts of interest that this raises. Morning Joe will be right back. 35 past the hour, live look at the White House.

Cloudy day in Washington. So President Trump held a private dinner last week for more than 200 investors who bought into his meme coin, raising ethics concerns about buying access to the president. NBC News has learned the guests paid between $55,000 and $37.7 million for the Trump coin, making the average cost of a seat at the dinner over $1 million. Joining us now, New York Times investigative reporter David Ferenthold and CNBC reporter Mackenzie Sagalos. Both have been covering Trump's meme coin dinner extensively. Mackenzie, I'll start with you. What's the latest that you know? What's going on?

Well, what we're looking at now is stablecoin legislation in Congress hitting a standstill as a direct result of this dinner. And part of the concern comes from the list of attendees. You've got the number one token holder, Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto mogul who owns $97 million worth of two Trump-related tokens. He won this contest, and he is one of a long list of names that are related to foreign capital. You've got a lot of blockchain analytics firms dissecting who made this top leaderboard, 220 guests at that dinner. If you look at the top 25 token holders who had a special VIP reception with the president,

all but six of them are tied to foreign exchanges that aren't open to American users. And that's part of where the concern is and why you're seeing a lot of Senate Democrats now pull back on the Genius Act. So David, you've got a great piece in the New York Times about this dinner, who was there, why they were there, Justin Sun, who was just invoked there under investigation by the SEC. Lamar Odom, former NBA player,

was among the invited guests there. A 25-year-old named Nicholas Pinto was there. He was dropped off by his father in a Lamborghini. His takeaway from the night, Pinto, quote, the food sucked. Wasn't given any drinks other than water or Trump's wine. My glass was only filled once. He said Trump didn't even talk to most of the guests. So if you can just take a step back, paint for our viewers a picture of what was going

on that night and what exactly this Trump coin even is. It is a strange concept what the coin is. Basically it's what you think it sounds like Bitcoin or something like that could be used as currency, but this is not meant to be used as currency. It's basically just something fun to speculate in. And the problem was that people weren't that interested in speculating in it until the Trump folks announced this dinner where if you paid a certain amount, you invested a certain amount, you got to come to a dinner with President Trump. It seems like there were sort of two different experiences at

this dinner talking with the people that were there. The lower tier folks, the folks that weren't VIPs, they basically got to go to a dinner at Trump's golf club. They didn't get to meet him. He showed up, made a little speech that was partly about the golf club, and then left without having dinner. So for them, they were like, either they were disappointed either with the food

or the lack of access to the president, or if they had a good time, it was just because they got to meet each other. It wasn't because of their access to Mr. Trump. There was a different experience for the VIPs, the top 25 holders of this coin. And again, buying this coin means money goes to President Trump. They got to meet the president, they got a VIP reception with them, and they got a tour

of the White House the next day. So they had a very different experiences, and those folks came away happier, I would say. Yeah, and certainly the tour of the White House has, for many, raised the ethical concerns here. That is the people's house, and it's part, Mackenzie, of the scheme for Donald Trump and his family to enrich themselves. So talk to us a little bit more, if you will, if there's any estimates as to how much Trump,

his family, Trump org is profiting off of this, and what sort of, if any, like watchdog or investigation could be launched by Democrats or lawsuits by good government groups? Walk us through it. So the Trump family is now tied to three different crypto tokens. You've got the meme coin that we're talking about that's related to that contest dinner, where Trump-related entities take 80% of profits. And separately, you've got two other tokens through World Liberty Financial, a crypto bank that the family was talking about on the

campaign trail. They've sold 550 million dollars worth of tokens, 75% of profits go to the family there. On paper they've got 1.1 billion dollars in World Liberty's token and then that third token is a US dollar peg stable coin called USD1. You just had an Emirati fund, MGX, invest $2 billion into that token. And so some of these profits are just on paper at this point. They're not a liquid stake that you can immediately sell

with that meme coin in particular, even though the founders of it hold a certain cash, there is a lockup window. But in the interim, a lot of the trading activity that we've seen tied to this exuberance over a contest dinner or any sort of announcement that the president makes, there are trading fees that are earned for insiders. So we've seen north of 320 million dollars just in trading fees on that Trump meme token so far. And going to your second point there, concerns and whether there might be inquiries, yes,

we've heard Democrats on both from the Senate and the House looking to open probes. Representative Maxine Waters has been talking about this, but separately you've got a block of Senate Democrats who are now saying that they want to add an amendment to the Genius Act, a bill designed to regulate stablecoins that would bar the president and other senior officials from either directly or indirectly profiting from stablecoin ventures while in office, which is a direct shot at that dollar peg stablecoin that the Trump family just launched. So David, this is a direct access, is it not, for people who can afford it to the president

of the United States, whether you're Mr. Sun, who's trying to get an SEC investigation dropped on him, whether you're a foreign government who wants to have influence over President Trump, or I guess if you're a former NBA player trying to launch his own coin, this is a way to get to this president, is it not? It is. And that's both physical, like this is the easiest access we can see because they had to come to the Trump golf course in person. We got to see them when they signed in.

We can't really measure the way that other folks who were buying into these currencies are getting access to the president behind closed doors. One of the things that the White House has said is, oh, the president is doing this on his private time. This is outside his work duties. But what we know from the law and experience is that the president is never off. He's never not the president is doing this on his private time. This is outside his work duties. But what we know from the law and experience is that the president is never off. He's never not the president. He's always the president. And so there's no such thing as a presidential side hustle. In this case, when he spoke to these folks at his golf club, he was speaking

from the presidential lectern. And certainly folks see this as a way to access the president. They've said that explicitly, buying these coins, getting into these businesses is a way to get the president's ear. It's a way to influence him. And I think we're just seeing a little bit of it because with this thinner actually happened in person, the rest is a lot harder to see. New York Times investigative reporter, David Ferenthold and CNBC's Mackenzie Segalos. Thank you both very much for being on this morning. We'll turn to tariffs now. Stock futures are on the rise this morning on the heels of President Trump announcing he will delay tariffs on the European Union until July 9th.

A top EU trade official posted on social media yesterday that he'd had good calls with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over and U.S. Trade Representative Jameson Greer, adding that the EU remains fully committed to constructive and focused efforts toward a trade deal. That news comes just one day after President Trump spoke with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and agreed to delay the tariffs. But it's worth noting that top analysts warn the threat of tariff escalation between the US and the EU isn't over yet. Meanwhile, a 90-day agreement between the US and China has brought tariffs down to 30%.

And the deal is creating a sense of urgency at many Chinese factories. Distributors are being rushed by their American customers to find space on container ships and send out backlogged orders before the pause ends in August. Joining us now is CNBC's Beijing bureau chief, Eunice Yun. Eunice, what more can you tell us? Well, Mika, despite the tariff relief, Chinese manufacturers have been telling me that they are still dealing with a high degree of uncertainty. A manufacturer in the port city of Ningbo, 100% of its products have been selling in

the U.S. on Amazon and other retailers. The company says that it's feeling relieved about the U.S.-China tariff truce, but it's hardly business as usual. Like many other Chinese factories, this maker of outdoor gear and other items has been holding inventory for its U.S. customers, who stopped shipments when President Trump hit China with 145% tariffs in April. Boxes are piled up next to production lines, which the company says is not normal practice. These boxes have been here since January. They were supposed to ship out in April.

For now, most of this factory's clients are trying to rush backlogged orders to the United States during this 90-day pause in the trade war. But some may face delays because of a lack of space and container ships since so many suppliers here are doing the same thing. The factory says that it's responsible for all the costs until its products reach that port. Everything else beyond that it says is paid forS. importers as well as other American companies, including the tariffs.

For its future, in April, this factory started shipping to new customers outside of the United States. This area used to be packed with boat awnings that would go to the United States, but all of those headed to Europe. Unlike the American versions, these European ones, which will be used on lakes rather than the ocean, don't have a protective coating for salt water. Redesigned by a Chinese factory, unsure of what comes next. The tariff issues have become so sensitive in China, Willie, that that company that we visited did not want to be deemed in our report and

the factory managers said that they didn't want to be interviewed on camera. Fascinating look at this. CNBC's Beijing bureau chief, Eunice Yoon. Thanks so much, Eunice. Appreciate it. So, Richard, let's talk about these tariffs. Big news out of Geneva a couple of weeks ago was that, OK, we're going to stand down on these tariffs. Everything is fine for the United States and China. We're seeing the real world impact of tariffs. We saw it in that report. There's a report in the New York Times today about what Japan is doing to sort of insulate

its economy, spending a lot of money to bracing for all the impact of these tariffs, which soon will be felt here in the United States. Look, what tariffs do is distort business. And what you're seeing are all the reactions to it. This is not normal business, creating barriers, stockpiling things, and so forth. It also creates all sorts of uncertainty. When 90 days ends, what then?

What's going to be the US-China tariff? What's going to be the US and the EU? We see how markets whipsaw. Late last week, the futures showed going down because of this new round of U.S.-EU tariffs that the president suggested. Now, the market, the futures are going up because the threat was lifted. It just created a business environment, Willie, where people are essentially increasingly immobilized. In order to do business, you need a degree of predictability and certainty.

You've got to have some sense of how things will price, whether things will be available down the road. And what we're doing is removing the necessary predictability and certainty from the market. And we're simply seeing businesses pull back or increasingly ask themselves, how do we do this and work around the United States? All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe. You know, I got the World Cup and I got the Olympics.

The 250 years was not mine. I'd like to take credit for it. But I got the Olympics, I got the World Cup when I was president. And I said, boy, it's too bad. I won't be president then. And look what happened. I turned out, we're going to have a great time. We're gonna have a great celebration, but most important of all is the 250th anniversary. That blows everything away, including the World Cup and including the Olympics as far as I'm concerned. So not exactly what you would expect

for a Memorial Day speech at Erlington National Cemetery, but that wasn't the only rally style comment from President Trump yesterday. So we'll have more from his address coming up at and morning Joe. SGA against Gobert shot clock at seven drives. Drives, pulls back, drives again. Stops, falls down, gets it to Williams. Three pointer. It's going to Jayla Williams with a big bucket.

Shea Gilders Alexander passes the ball through the defenders legs as he slips to the ground setting up a Thunder three pointer late in the fourth quarter. The freshly named MVP led with 40 points against the Minnesota Timberwolves last night as the Thunder bounced back from a 42 point loss in game three. Jalen Williams turned in the best offensive performance of his playoff career with 34 points. The Thunder beat the T-wolves 128-126 for a 3-1 series lead. UK OKC now can close out the Western Conference finals at home tomorrow in game five. Tonight in Indianapolis, Richard, the New York Knicks try to get even against the Pacers

in game four of the Eastern Conference semifinals after that stunning comeback, Richard. It's been a playoff series, I guess, full of stunning comebacks and a playoffs all the way back to the Boston series for the Knicks of comebacks. Also of letting the other team come back from time to time. How are you feeling going into tonight? Feeling good, feeling good. Look, you're right.

Game three was the mirror image of game one. Unbelievable 20 point. We should do a poll, how many people around the table went to sleep and gave up on the Knicks. I did not. We hung in there. Tonight, look, the New York Knicks coach has discovered he has a bench. He has more than the five starters. So I'm feeling good. I thought the Knick effort the other night, the defensive effort, was unbelievable. I think when we were texting the other night, I said, Tibbs, 95 games into the season season discovered his bench and put some guys in

literally had no idea if some of these people were truly who are these guys it's good to ask them to turn around so you can see their names nick uniforms this is going to be a trenchant bit of sports analysis here game four to two one series pretty important must win it is I think for the nixon it is that's a hard thing to say like a road game but we have found these playoffs not only are comebacks the thing home court advantage doesn't matter Disadvantage and I think that like if I think the next yeah, it's a toss-up game They win tonight that you have to feel good about getting next, you know to to you have momentum Losing tonight doesn't end things but losing having to win three in a row against this pagers team would be very challenging

But yeah, I mean look give the Knicks credit. They showed a lot of fight the other night. They came back. They could have mailed it in. They didn't. It should be good. It should be a good scene tonight. And as quickly on the other series, you know, that's a clutch performance at the end.

The Timberwolves hammered the Thunder in game three, felt like they were about to come back into the series. And the MVP, MVP SGA did just enough last night with some help commanding 3-1 league. He's incredible. I think the world is waking up to SGA now the MVP. You can never turn off the TV when the Knicks are playing. You never know what's gonna happen one way or the other but it's gonna be exciting at the end for sure. Richard Haas thanks so much. Good luck tonight to our Knicks. Coming up we'll