Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/1/23

Episode Date: June 1, 2023

Special counsel obtains audio of Trump discussing classified doc after leaving office: Report

That's a sacred element of our country. They can't use the debt ceiling to negotiate. Now, I say to the Republicans out there, congressmen, senators, if they don't give you massive cuts, you're gonna have to do a default. We will fix it in two years. I'll get it done, and we'll get it done

permanently and properly. But it is past, and I guess I knew it was going to pass. But we'll get it fixed and we'll get it fixed properly in two years. But we're going to get it fixed and we're going to get it fixed properly. And we'll get it fixed in two years. You're going to get it fixed in two years. In two years. But he had a chance to fix it in 2017.

What did he do? Well, he called the debt ceiling sacred. He called it sacred back then. In 19. No, then he urged a default. Now Donald Trump is back in the mushy middle, promising a big fix down the road. You know, like infrastructure, health care and a border wall. Yeah. Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis continues. DeSantis. And by the way, DeSantis.

By the way, I don't think I'm going to. No, I think you should. I'm not going. I think it works. Really? If I say it, you should do it. OK. Willie, Mika wants me to change the pronunciation of my name to Joe Subaru. Or Brzezinski. Joe Subaru. And it's been Scarborough like my whole life. Yeah. Subaru, Joe Subaru.

If you're ramping up for a campaign of some kind, maybe it is time for a rebrand. People love a good Subaru. It's a reliable automobile. It's a great car. It's a reliable automobile. So maybe you go with Subaru. It is. It is odd. I have to say that the DeSantis campaign won't confirm one way or another how to say his name. We're happy to say it, however, it's meant to be said. But we've heard so many different versions of it. It goes back and forth from one event to another. Genuinely not quite sure how to say the governor's name. But you know, Willie, though,

he called himself Ron DeSantis his entire life, called himself Ron DeSantis when he was running for governor, called himself Ron DeSantis after he was governor, and then suddenly Politico reports that his wife wanted him to change his name, which I understand. Mika, the pronunciation to Da Santis. And again, it's like Mika is like, I need to be Joe Subaru. And so I understand that. But it's still De Santis or Da Santis. I mean, come on, man. Let's just nail it down so we can all move forward together. Joe Subaru, by the way, reminds me

of Joe Isuzu. Remember him, Joe? I'm throwing it back, really dating myself. There was an ad campaign. So let's try it today. Let's workshop it and see how it feels. I've got to say that Joe Isuzu, great commercial, by the way.

Joe Zuzu. And I had, Willie, actually, I had one of those Zuzu Troopers. Oh, my God. That went straight up. Yeah. I didn't know at the time that if you coughed, that it rolled that way. But I loved it. I got to say, it was, you know, stick. It was standard.

I like Subaru. It was great. I always wanted a Subaru. You could do whatever you wanted to do with it. I would just get dirt, and I would shovel in the back of it and, you know, re-side the lawn. Way deep in the weeds. It was really great. So anyway, but no, I don't want to be Joe Azuzu, back of it and you know, 3 side of the law, a really really

great. So anyway, but now I don't want to be Joe is a zoo, but Joe Subaru okay, I got what I want me to say in here so maybe no I think I'm going to keep I think I'm going to get my name while we can tell you say presents key you had said when you were my stop that you're going to be where it's not a rational space. You didn't do that yeah but you're telling me to be brazinski willie stop help me starting the show with a bang here aren't we a little therapy out of the gate meanwhile exactly how does that make you feel um i don't like when this is not where we talk about those things. And this is so

obvious. OK, we've told you this for years. But why? OK, just stop. OK, stop. I'm going to now continue the headlines. Ron DeSantis continues to criticize Donald Trump while campaigning in Iowa after he hardly said anything about the former president for months. We're also following two former Trump allies ready to jump into the 2024 race. We'll look at the impact, if any, Chris Christie and Mike Pence could have on the growing field. And we'll have the big takeaways from NASA's UFO research team, which is trying to explain hundreds of sightings since the mid-90s, along with Joe, Willie, and me, Joe Subaru. We have the first-

Actually, why don't we do like Ron D. Sanders coming to Scarborough? Okay, fine. Maybe do that. Okay, so we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lee Meyer, and U.S. Special. special correspondent for BBC News, Katie Kai. All right. We're following new reporting involving the investigation into former President Donald Trump and classified documents that he took with him when he left the White House. Multiple sources tell CNN federal prosecutors have obtained a 2021 audio recording of Trump acknowledging that he kept a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack on Iran after leaving the White House. The existence of the recording undercuts Trump's primary defense

that he declassified all the documents that he brought with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. CNN reports the July 2021 meeting was held at Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, with two people working on the autobiography of Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as well as Trump aides, including communications specialists Margo Martin, who, as The Guardian reports, regularly taped Trump's conversations with authors to make sure they are accurately recounting his remarks. So, Willie, this is really interesting because this is all about people writing books about themselves and recordings of all that stuff that people want to put into history about their time in the White House. Yeah. And it also shows us where the special counsel may be in this investigation.

That recording that he is talking about reportedly indicates Trump understood that he had, in fact, retained classified material after leaving the White House, that it was still classified while in his possession and that he no longer had the ability to declassify it. On that recording, Trump's comments reportedly suggest he would like to share the information contained within the document, but that he could not because he is aware that he no longer has the ability to declassify materials after having left the White House. CNN did not listen to the recording, but did cite multiple unidentified sources describing what was on the tape. The recording has not yet been confirmed by NBC News, and Trump has denied any wrongdoing. Joining us now is political investigations reporter for The Guardian,

Hugo Lowell, who has matched CNN's reporting. So walk us through, if you would, Hugo, what you know about this tape. Having not, I don't think, listened to it, but having heard all the accounts from people who have. What did the former president say and what does it tell us about what he knew about the documents in his possession? Our reporting suggests that he actually have declassified this military document relating to Iran when he was in the White House and he still had entire theory about how he could or how he had declassified everything that ended up at Mar-a-Lago and elsewhere was totally declassified because, you know, either he just thought about declassifying it or because he took it up with him to the residents. I think the fact that the document, according to our reporting, was classified at the secret level is also significant because that is the kind of document that the Justice Department typically charges

in espionage cases. You don't want something that is too sensitive, something that is top secret, because it's difficult to get the intelligence community to sign off declassifying that for use at trial. And something at the confidential level on the other end of the spectrum is probably too low of a threshold for it to be compelling to a jury. So the Justice Department is always looking for kind of secret-level documents. And the fact that this document relating to Iran, according to our reporting, was classified at the secret level, I think just makes it even worse for Trump. So Donald Trump knew what he had was classified. He knew he had brought something he shouldn't have brought back to Mar-a-Lago, which raises the question, if this is coming out of Jack Smith's investigation now, who's leading, of course,

the DOJ investigation into these classified materials at Mar-a-Lago, what does it tell you, according to your reporting, Hugo, about where the special counsel is in this investigation and whether he may, in fact, be bringing charges perhaps sometime soon. Yeah. And two words, espionage investigation. I mean, if you're looking at the sort of documents that Trump had in his possession and might have been showing other people, and we should say on the on the audio tape, it's not clear that Trump actually showed this document to anyone. It's not even clear if he had it in his possession at the time. But the fact that the special counsel is zeroed in on this sort of conduct, and we have reporting from kind of other witnesses who have gone before the grand jury that a lot of the questions

have been, you know, what did Trump show people? Did Trump have classified documents out in the open in his office at Mar-a-Lago? That suggests that this is primarily and increasingly an espionage investigation. Yes, there is the obstruction element here, because that has been such a big part, you know, with the movement of boxes in and out of that storage room, as, you know, we have discussed so often. But the fact that we are talking about the classified documents

and what Trump might have shown people, that is textbook espionage investigation under Section 793 of Title 18. Well, and Katty Kay, again, this also shows that when Donald Trump's been talking about this, he's been lying time and time and time again. Now, of course, as we saw on the CNN town hall meeting, Republicans actually cheer whenever he brags about being a liar. But special counsels aren't quite so excited about that. And when I say Republicans, I mean those Republicans in that CNN town hall audience cheered at him saying he lied about the debt ceiling and he was being hypocrite and they thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

Jack Smith doesn't think it's so funny. So when Donald Trump goes on Sean Hannity on September 21st, 2022, and says, I can declassify things by even thinking about it. A sucker's born every day and Republicans start repeating those talking points. He lies and he says at the CNN town hall meeting, I can do whatever I wanted to do with it. I declassified if I want to. If I take it, it's because we find out with this audio recording, just like the audio recording in Georgia, that Donald Trump is in legal hot water because even Trump knows in these recordings and it goes straight to intent, doesn't it? That he can't declassify just by thinking about it. He didn't declassify just by thinking about it. And in fact, he knew he was in possession of a of a of a classified document that he improperly, illegally took from the White House. Yeah, now it turns out that there are tapes. Look, there were always

problems around the I've declassified these documents just by thinking about them argument. I mean, there presumably would have had to be some kind of paper trail showing that he had done this. What would happen to those declassified documents once he took them back from his residence, you know, into the White House while he was in office? Would they suddenly get reclassified again? And not to mention the fact that, you know, you'd have allies in a total uproar if it was possible just to declassify documents in this rather casual way. The argument, his argument never really held water. I mean, it's interesting, Hugo's reporting that now it's looking like there could be more than just obstruction if this is some kind of espionage case as well. I mean, I don't know what that means in terms of the president or as you're suggesting, Joe, in terms of his supporters. I mean, I guess his supporters will buy his argument

that he's the victim of the greatest witch hunt ever and that this was in his power to do this. His diehard supporters, again, you know, cumulatively the amount of legal problems that he's facing from a special counsel who is an independent special counsel and not a political appointee? Does that start chipping away at those women that were always the voters we're always talking about in the suburbs of places like Atlanta and Milwaukee and Philadelphia? Right. Yeah. And the thing is, Jonathan O'Meara, that's the point. I mean, there's some hardcore supporters who will say it doesn't matter that Donald Trump's a liar. It doesn't matter that he stole classified documents. It doesn't matter that Donald Trump's a liar. It doesn't matter that he stole classified documents. It doesn't matter that he obstructed justice.

It doesn't matter that he broke the law. It doesn't matter that he kept lying and that he moved documents the day before they were coming down to get the documents. It doesn't matter that he got caught on tape lying. They'll say that. But when you go a little bit below the surface with them, they go, I'm so exhausted by this guy. Right. When when when they when they when they aren't having to admit that they voted for him twice and that they keep defending him, you scratch below the surface.

And I hear it time and time again. We both do. They're so exhausted by him. And Katty brings up a great point. I have to keep bringing it up because as we talk about the Republican nomination, Republicans have a choice here. Do they want to win or do they want to lose? And if they want to lose, I can just let them know they need to keep backing Donald Trump because this news and I think the indictment that's sure to come now from the Justice Department is really going to hurt Donald Trump. The suburbs of Atlanta, the suburbs of Philly, the suburbs of Detroit, the suburbs of Milwaukee, you name it. Maricopa County, where all of these swing voters are that decide elections. This is, again, Trump people say, this is fine.

It's fine. They won't come out and say it, but they like that he's a liar. They like that he lies to the FBI. They like that he lies to the DOJ. They like that he lies to everybody because they think somehow in some perverse twisted logic, they think somehow that's like sticking it to the libs by being a liar, constantly living your life, your entire life being a lie in public service. That's what they think the problem is. And we're going to get to the debt ceiling in a minute. I don't think that's where

most of America is. I think most of America actually, you know, I think there are a lot of voters who decide elections, Jonathan, who are going to hear this and it's going to push them even further away from Donald Trump, making them even more exhausted by the constant lies, the constant legal problems, the constant violations of laws and just basic standard governing ethics. Yeah. The most basic way to maybe look at the 2024 race is exactly that. Those swing voters who broke at least some of them for Trump in 16, who broke hard away from a 20.

What possible reason is Donald Trump giving them to have them come back in 2024? And this certainly just adds to that, that yes, the hardest core Trump supporters, they're with him forever. Nothing can change their minds. We have seen that over the last couple of years. But there are even there's another slice of Republicans who did go for Trump, maybe even in 20 as well, voted for him twice, who probably want something different here, who recognize that even as these indictments, or at least the first one, helped Trump in the GOP primary polls, and maybe this next one will too, it's not going to help him in a general election next year. It's almost impossible to see a way that it does. So Hugo, I want to return to the investigation for a moment and just let's talk about some of the cast of characters involved. We should note Margo Martin was a pretty junior White House staffer,

but one of the very few from the West Wing who followed Trump into his post-presidency. She plays a much larger role in his life now. Of course, Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff, is the one who had this book where this audio is connected to. But who else is Jack Smith talking to? The interviews, has he interviewed these two? And also other employees at Bedminster and Mar-a-Lago who could be shedding light on this piece of it as the investigation seems to be heading into its final stretch. Yeah, from what we understand, actually, the Trump legal team learned about the tape, not through their own client, but because Margot Martin had her laptop and her devices imaged by prosecutors working for the special counsel and got asked about the tape when she

testified to the grand jury hearing evidence in this case in mid-March, towards the end of March. And then the Trump legal team itself got a subpoena for the tape, and it kind of all went downhill from there. But, you know, she's not the only person. There have been multiple witnesses, apparently, to whom this tape has been played. And we should remember that the special counsel basically subpoenaed almost every employee that works at Mar-a-Lago, not just the political staff, not just at least two or three lawyers who work for Trump, but also the cooks, the maids, the assistants to the valets. They were interviewing groundsmen.

They were interviewing people who were connected to the IT systems and the security system. They recently had the two Calamari's, Matt Calamari, senior Matt Calamari Jr., who oversees security at the Trump Organization properties, go in to testify. And so the special counsel has basically spoken to everyone. The last time that the grand jury met, we believe, is around May 5th. We understand that the grand jury may have even expired May 18. And so we have to assume that at this point, the investigation is coming to a close and charging decisions are being considered right now. Wow. Political investigation supporter for The Guardian, Hugo Lowell, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. We'll be following that and have more

conversations about it later with legal experts. Politics now. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has stepped up his criticism of former President Donald Trump. DeSantis made a... Is that what he's saying? I'm trying. I mean, that's how he used to say it. That's how his parents say it, right? No, I'm telling you,

it's how he said it in his campaign video. I'm trying to say his name the way he says it. The way his parents said it. DeSantis makes sense, right? DeSantis made appearances in four different towns in Iowa yesterday, touting his efforts to push Florida farther to the right. While he never mentioned Trump by name during his speeches, DeSantis criticized the former president's policies,

saying he would have gotten rid of Anthony Fauci during the pandemic and would have closed the border. Leadership at the end of the day, it's not about entertainment. It's not about building a brand. It's not about virtue signaling. It's about producing results. You really need a very disciplined, energetic president willing to spit nails and fight the needed battles every single day for eight years. You can't get cowed by the left. You can't worry about what the legacy media says.

You need to be willing to clean house on day one. And so that means, you know, if you have a problematic bureaucrat like a Fauci, you don't elevate Fauci. You bring him in, tell him to pack hisci. You don't elevate Fauci. You bring him in, tell him to pack his bags. You are fired. And you have to be willing to do that. It's so funny. He talks about, he says, you actually do things you don't virtue signal. Virtually everything he says publicly is virtue signaling. He goes after one phony issue after another, virtue signals about it. He brings up Anthony Fauci,

virtue signals about that. He virtue signals about Disney. He virtue signals about books. He virtue signals about all of these other things. It's all about virtue. He doesn't talk about books. He virtue signals about all of these other things. It's all about virtue. He doesn't talk about inflation. I haven't heard him talking. You know, the thing is, what about focusing on jobs? What about focusing on inflation? What about focusing on a lot of other issues? You know, well, I mean, now that I've got to say with abortion, that's something that was very real. He has completely impacted the lives of women in Florida. And will over time stop businesses from coming to the state of Florida if they have a choice to go somewhere else where you don't have like an almost absolute ban on abortion. Now, DeSantis did mention the former president while talking to reporters later, questioning the former president's commitment to conservatism. He called out Trump for siding with Disney and his feud with the entertainment company,

saying his Republican rivals position is, quote, bizarre. Let's go right now to Des Moines. And we have senior writer for The Dispatch, David Drucker. You know, David, we've all been asking, everybody's been asking, when are people going to actually go after Trump by name? He did it yesterday, talking about how Trump's entire family moved to Florida. If it was such a horrible state, he was doing a horrible job. Why did your entire family move to Florida? A good question. And yesterday, he was quite direct going after Donald Trump. I think maybe we're starting to see a new phase of the campaign where

it actually looks like a traditional campaign instead of somebody going around patting Donald Trump on the head all day. Yeah, this looks a lot different, Joe and Mika, than 2016 and a lot different than 2024 has looked up until now. Becoming a candidate, Ron DeSantis has clearly unleashed himself when it comes to the former president. Look, strategically, I think he's doing it correctly so far. When you talk to voters in Iowa, which I've done the past couple of days and I've been doing repeatedly over the past couple of months, they want a Republican that focuses on the future and focuses on a lot of these cultural issues that are very important to them. But when confronted with questions about his rival, they want a candidate who's willing to stand up

and just be blunt and honest about it and not shy away from that. And that's what the governor is doing so far. So, look, he's got to come from behind. We'll see if he can run a competent campaign. We'll see if voters really take to him. But so far, it's been really interesting to watch in two ways. One, he's not a very dynamic speaker, but the audiences are eating up the content of his speeches and what he's able to do, which is different than a lot of senators that I've covered. Instead of saying, I've proposed legislation, he's able to say, I signed this into law. And that carries a lot of weight here. Secondly, this is just very different. Usually when a political spouse is involved in a campaign, male or female, they will introduce the candidate and then they step to the

side and they're done. And so far, what Governor DeSantis likes to do with his wife, the first lady of Florida, Casey DeSantis, is she comes up in the middle of his speech. He invites her up. She gives a mini speech, a riff of her own for about five, 10 minutes. Then she steps back down into the audience and he continues on with the rest of his speech. It's stylistically different. The audience is like her and she has all of the charm and the savvy that he doesn't always appear to have. And I think he understands that she is a very impotent weapon for his campaign. And I think that's why he's he's he's involving her the way he has. She's definitely an asset to his campaign.

David, you know, the book on Ron DeSantis and not just from the national media, but from the media in Tallahassee and politicians, Republicans included in the state of Florida, is that he's just, as you sort of alluded to, not real comfortable in that room doing the retail politics and the glad handing and the schmoozing and all the things that you have to do to earn votes in a place like Iowa. As you watch him on the campaign trail, is that a fair assessment of the kind of politician he is? Well, it's a fair assessment of the kind of politician he has been up until recently. Look, my reporting from Tallahassee a couple of months ago delved deep into this. And I had a lot of Republicans in the Florida Capitol question whether he was going to do this. Right. I mean, if he was going to run for president, was he going to stick around in the room and shake hands and pose for selfies? Because he

didn't like to do it. He didn't like to do any of it. He's not a small talker. He's not a kibitzer, but he is doing it. I will say, Willie, I've watched him now a couple of weeks ago in Iowa. I've watched him the past couple of days. He's working the room. He's hanging out and getting back to his wife just because I think it's an important factor here. She also does it. They work opposite ends of the room. They have almost equal crowds around them for handshakes, selfies and comments after the speech. And so he understands presumably that this is what you need to do if you want to win. And he's doing what is required to put himself in a position to win. You know, you know, Jonathan Amir,

I think one of the reasons why, even after the Twitter launch, I thought that Ron DeSantis had a chance to catch up with Donald Trump is, there's something else about him. You hear him talk, and again, yes, there's just a lot of virtue signaling. He looks at the polls. He sees what the most hardcore part of the base wants.

And he gives him that. He also can. I mean, this sounds simple, but I can tell you for an exhausted Republican Party that's had to deal with Donald Trump, he can speak in complete sentences. He's articulate. He can string. He can string. He can string. You're right. Sentences, paragraphs together. And it is the contrast. So he's not a glad hander. I've got to say,. And like, you know, Jeb got up and talked policy, man, like you you knew exactly where he wanted to take the state. And people really responded that to a big way. I've got to say with Ron DeSantis, I think sometimes we're all focused so much on what he can't do, which is he can't glad hand like W. He can't glad hand like like Reagan, that we don't focus on what he is doing and what audiences in Iowa and New Hampshire and the early states are going to see. And that's a guy who's smart, a guy who can can actually deliver a speech and answer questions in a way that resembles, again, some, some semblance of logic. That's something Donald Trump just still to this day can't really do. He, he insults somebody. He has a little

punchline and that's about it. Yeah. If you look at a transcript of a DeSantis speech, it is coherent. A transcript of a Trump one, very different. And you're right, that is something he could do. He also, to David's point, can point to a record of things he has done with executive power there in Florida. He's also raised a lot of money. Despite the glitch he launched last week on Twitter, his campaign has said they've bankrolled a ton of cash. And we know that he's caught Donald Trump's attention, who is pounding him multiple times a day on True Social. Speaking of DeSantis' name, he started pounding him multiple times a day on True Social. Speaking of DeSantis' name, he started attacking the DeSantis or DeSantis. He's also started calling him Rob for some reason. My sense is that was a typo and now he's just going with it.

But that is a defining dynamic in this race right now. But David Drucker, the field's about to grow. Mike Pence is going to be where you are in Iowa sometime next week. He's going to announce his campaign. Chris Christie is going to do the same in in Iowa sometime next week. He's going to announce his campaign. Chris Christie is going to do the same in New Hampshire. Give us your sense of the field right here as it grows more crowded. The conventional wisdom has been that's good for Trump. What sort of lanes can Pence and Christie find? Well, we will find out.

Look, you know, Governor Christie has not wanted to run unless he thought he could mount a viable campaign. He's told me many times staying at a Holiday Inn Express. It's just not glamorous enough to do this, just to go on a kamikaze mission to take down Trump. But he is going to, I think, sort of sequester himself in New Hampshire, focus on the front runner who remains Trump for now and see if he can make some headway. Mike Pence, I think, is going to be interesting to watch in this regard. You know, there are a lot of Republicans and Democrats I talk to all the time, usually in Washington, but also around the country, who say, what happened to the Ronald Reagan version of the Republican Party that I liked so much? And that's how Mike Pence

is going to run, both on issues and temperament. And we'll see if there's a market for that in the Republican Party in these early states such that he can become a contender. He also will not shy away from criticizing the front runner, although he tends to conduct his politics in a little bit more of a civil manner. And so we'll see how how that works out for for him. The conventional wisdom, as you say, Jonathan, is that the more crowded this gets, the better it is for him. The conventional wisdom, as you say, Jonathan, is that the more crowded this gets, the better it is for Trump. The Trump campaign certainly feels that way. And that could end up being the case. I think the real question is, is it crowded when it starts voting, when voters start going to the polls in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, or does it thin

out again as people try to mount campaigns and fail? Also, is this a little bit different? And I will tell you from a donor aspect, one way it is different is this. In 2016, different Republican donors were picking their favorite candidates and they were making sure their coffers were full so they could get to the starting line. This time around, a lot of Republican donors are keeping their powder dry. They don't want to keep candidates in the race that don't have a chance to win and help Trump. And some of those donors may actually back candidates they don't necessarily like all that much, as long as they feel like that candidate is on the rise and is in a position to beat Donald Trump. So we'll just have to see how this plays out in the coming months.

So interesting. Senior writer for The Dispatch, David Drucker. Thank you very much for coming on this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe, with a deadline looming, the House passes President Biden and Speaker McCarthy's debt ceiling deal. But what happens now over in the Senate? We'll go over that. Plus, Steve Ratner has charts on all of this. And Russia launches a new round of missile strikes on Kiev overnight after more than a dozen attacks throughout the month of May. We'll have the latest on the fighting overseas. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. It is 36 past the hour. Beautiful shot of the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

That's where the House of Representatives passed the Biden McCarthy debt ceiling bill on a bipartisan basis last night, the final vote was 314 to 117, with members from centrist groups like the House Problem Solvers Caucus, the Republican Governance Group, and the New Democrat Coalition providing the critical votes needed for the bill to pass. Most of the votes against the legislation came from members on the ideological ends of both parties, the House Progressive Caucus and the House Freedom Caucus. While both groups were vocal in the lead up to the vote, moderate congressional members quietly ended up with a win, showcasing the reshuffled power structure in this new era of divided government. I mean, Willie, it's fascinating, isn't it? We hear from the extremes on both sides talking about all of the problems with this bill. We hear this may be the end for Kevin McCarthy. And man, I got to say, 314 to 117. I mean, whenever I'd be on the House floor and look up at a vote that was supposed to be close, I mean, you rarely got into the 300s.

This was a route. And it really does show that sometimes the people that control the House are the ones in the middle who don't run in front of television cameras every time they have something to say with their hair on fire. Right. That's exactly right. And in this time of our crazy wild politics where the loudest extremes get a lot of attention and make all the noise, President Biden, his team at the White House, Speaker McCarthy and his team in the House went ahead responsibly and negotiated this thing pretty quietly. And they listened to the right and they listened to the left. Remember, there were calls from progressives for the president to invoke the 14th Amendment to take that huge step and just go ahead and raise it unilaterally, the debt ceiling. He rejected that. He resisted that. He said, no, we're going to do this the right way. And Kevin McCarthy, for all the flaws we've talked about now for years, he did the job.

And as you say, that vote total, I think, even surprised some people who had been counting the votes even 24 hours ago that, yes, there is a group on the right and there is a group on the left who rejected this. But by and large, the center held heel here and the responsible thing happened. So now that bill heads to the Senate, where both Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have already endorsed the measure during a news conference yesterday. Schumer stressed senators cannot afford to amend the bill and send it back to the House, saying, quote, that would risk default. Plain and simple, Joe. So it does look like senators we've talked to on this show and off the air that this will get done by the end of the week. Remember, that X date comes June the 5th now, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. So we talk about Kevin McCarthy. We talk about Joe Biden. Here's another example. Joe Biden. I know. Again, knowing how things work. Everybody was saying we were going to default.

This was going to be a catastrophe. Just to add this to the list. The guy's been around. He knows how to get things done. And, you know, in this case, Kevin McCarthy, same thing. He's been around. They knew how to stop the country from defaulting. And one of our next guests has written about this. We have also with us with charts, former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner looking at the winners and losers and all this. Also with us, U.S. national editor at The Financial Times, Ed Luce, whose latest for the paper is entitled Game, Set and Almost Match to President Biden on the debt ceiling.

You know, Ed, for all of the gibberish that we hear from the Trump right, that Joe Biden is a communist, a child molester or whatever they say, child whatever. The Biden crime family, all of the crazy stuff. He's some left wing freak. You know, he was the only centrist really running in 2020. Democrats picked him. And because he's a centrist who knows how to make government work, one piece of bipartisan legislation after another. And here, it's not even close.

LBJ said you always push. So, you know, you want it to be as close as you can make it. That proves it. Well, this one wasn't even close. The center held in a big way, didn't it? It did. I mean, the story of Biden over many years, over many decades, really, but particularly the last few years, is that he's serially underestimated. I mean, the right, the right, of course, have, you know, persuaded themselves that he's senile. But I think what they're mistaking that for is a very calm temperament.

He doesn't play the excitement game. And even now, with this extraordinary victory, he's not playing the excitement game. Our mutual friend David Rothkopf said, you know, when he scores a touchdown, he's happy to allow other people to do a victory dance, which I think is a good way of putting it. He sees the sort of longer term impacts. It's too early to celebrate because it's got to pass through the Senate. So he takes the calm, mature, been around more blocks in Washington, D.C. than almost anybody else in this town approach in order to get this bill passed and avert catastrophe. What was the fuss about? I mean, this is a real, just in pure policy, in fiscal, budgetary terms, this is elephant

gives birth to a mouse situation. What the fuss was about, I don't know. And I'm sure Steve, you know, will have more breakdown on the numbers here. But the bottom line is Biden keeps being underestimated and he keeps putting off wins. Katty. Yeah, I mean, Ed, all of that's right. And it's kind of extraordinary that he's managed to do this and that actually, you know, we saw a moment, God forbid, of Republicans and Democrats doing the sensible thing. But there is this looming question about how this feeds back onto America's reputation around the world. I mean, you know, we're going to go through this again. The chances are in two years time. And and the and the whole kind of image of America is competent as having a

government that works has been has already, even though a deal has been struck, has already been struck. You know, when you have the German finance minister telling American politicians to grow up, you kind of wonder what America's enemies are thinking. And it's it's not as I was even, you know, told by a Republican, this is not a good look. I mean, I guess it would be better than the Italian prime minister telling him to grow up. But Germans tend to be quite boring and adult in their politics. The you're quite right. No bad thing. And good reasons for it. But you're quite right. The the debt ceiling hasn't been fixed. The 14th Amendment legal route would be way too risky with this Supreme Court. The chances they would strike it down is way too high. And that would create the equivalent

of a default. It would create a market panic. And so two years from now, we're going to get another debt ceiling showdown, depending on who's president and who controls the House. But remember, Kevin McCarthy and the Freedom Caucus and others wanted this to be only a one-year extension so that the whole thing would have been replayed again in an election year. It's a two-year one, so it's going to be after the next election. They wanted 10-year limits. They wanted America essentially to tie its hands behind its back in budgetary terms for 10 years. They only got two-year spending limits. They wanted to essentially repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, all the clean energy stuff that Biden passed last year. They didn't get any of that. And they wanted, I think, most tellingly, to gut the IRS to really ironic,

since this is supposed to be a fiscally responsible jihad. They wanted to gut the state's ability to raise taxes. And Biden preserved most of that. So you live to fight another day. America, I don't think, is in a position to solve this debt ceiling, this absurd debt ceiling rule, which is unique to America. It's not in a position. Biden's not in a position to get rid of that debt ceiling sword that hangs over it. But a win is a win. And, you know, compared to what we were expecting, this is a win. All right, Ed Luce, we'll be thinking about the elephant and that mouse all morning long. Thank

you for bringing us that image. We appreciate it. Thanks, Ed. So let's swing over the southwest wall. That's where we find Steve Ratner with his chart. Steve, let's dig into some of the details of this deal. We've talked a lot about the politics. Who got the better of this one? Well, I'm with Ed on this, and I think the headline on his op-ed kind of says it all, game set and almost match to Biden. One thing to note about that bipartisan vote that you guys were just talking about is that there were more Republicans who voted against this, against the thing their own speaker had negotiated than there were Democrats.

You guys had some fun yesterday with words like ephemeral and malodorous. And it is all, I think, an indication that, in fact, the White House did get the better of the deal. They're not taking a victory lap at the moment because they don't want to upset what looks like a pretty positive course in the Senate. But I think you'll see them perhaps do that at some point because they deserve it. And we can take a look at some of the provisions. Ed mentioned a few of the things. But this is a comparison between the two bills. This is the House GOP bill that they passed. This is what they said they were prepared to have go into law. And this is the deal that

ultimately emerged. They wanted to cut. I'll give you just a couple of examples, they wanted to cut domestic spending, non-defense spending, to $555 billion. It was $744 billion in the current fiscal year. It ended up at $704. Ed mentioned these 10-year caps. This is really important. They wanted to cap this thing for 10 years. They only got two. And so if the Democrats were to be back in power in two years, they can undo as much of this as they want to. He mentioned the IRS clawback. They wanted 80 billion. They got maybe not even 21 billion. I won't get into the weeds on that, but that number could be smaller. And the irony here is that the IRS actually more money. The IRS actually reduces the deficit because then they can collect more from the tax evaders and tax avoiders out there. But nonetheless, most of this was preserved.

And this is also important. I'm going to talk about both of these in a little bit more detail in a second, which is the Republicans wanted a very broad work requirement. They wanted basically everybody receiving public assistance other than Social Security to be working. And they got a tiny fraction of that, which we'll talk about in a second. On the student loan situation, where you know there has been this moratorium, the Republicans wanted every penny of that money paid back. They're not getting any of that. All they're getting is that the freeze that's in existence on student loan repayments would end, which it's going to anyway, and it would restrict the ability to put in another moratorium, which nobody wants to do

anyway. So essentially, there's no difference on student loans for what is going, would have happened anyway. No change on taxes on either side, no increases in the loopholes closed. We can discuss whether that's the best idea, but that's where they came out. And then importantly, the Republicans wanted to repeal all of the green energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, and they got zero on that provision. So as we move over to your second chart, Steve, obviously, Speaker McCarthy had touted this deal to his caucus, saying we cut one point five trillion dollars over a decade. That's a massive savings. It's more than we've been able to get in many, many years. So we ought to vote for it. The Freedom Caucus disagreed that it was enough, but enough Republicans agreed to get the bill through.

So what were the spending cuts really like as you look inside this legislation? Sure. Let's take a look at that. So as I said before, we can look at the fiscal 2024. That's the next year of non-defense discretionary. That's where all the action was. That's what was on the table. Nothing else was even on the table, really, to be changed. And so the president and his budget proposed a bid over $800 billion. As I said before, this is the 2023 amount. This is $744 billion. The Republicans wanted it down at this $550 level that we talked about, and ended up here, about $40 billion, as I said, less than what we are going to spend anyway, and then a bit less than, but $110 billion less than the Biden proposal, hundred and ten billion less than by the Biden proposal.

One hundred and forty five billion more than the Republican proposal. So we didn't end up in the middle. We ended up on the Biden side of the ledger. And then this one is really important. So, as I mentioned a minute ago, the Republicans wanted a lot of these. This is snap. This is our food stamp program. The Republicans wanted a lot of these people out there working and a very broad work requirement. They also wanted a work requirement on what we colloquially call the welfare program. They got absolutely zero on welfare. On food stamps, all they got was that people between 50 and 54 would have a work requirement,

but they exempted veterans, They exempted people with housing problems from all of this. And so there are some numbers coming out suggesting that actually there may be fewer people working or at least required to work under this than what we have now, but certainly only at worst, a very tiny sliver more and nobody on the welfare side of the equation. So, Steve, you know, since you didn't vote for Donald Trump, there'll be some people that will suggest that you're a communist and trafficking children like all of us. They suggest I'm a communist because I actually believe in small government and because I've been fighting for it my entire life. And well, they support a guy that increased the deficit and the debt more

than any human being in world history. Talk about communists, talk about socialists, talk about reckless big spenders. That's who they are. So let's talk about who we are now with that background so people understand where you're coming from. You and I have been critical of massive spending. You and I have talked about our concerns about debt. Even during the Obama administration, you were part of an organization that urged President Obama, Republicans and Democrats to bring down the national debt to be more fiscally responsible. You've been critical of the Biden administration, much to their consternation about big spending programs and inflation. You've warned that inflation was coming, that it wasn't transitory. I can go down the list. But you have been, you know, you've been very concerned about deficits and debt.

So with that as a background, with us being concerned about the debt, about thirty one trillion dollar debt, which Donald Trump's contributed to more than anybody in American history. How does this deal work for us? I know the national debt still goes up, but is this a good balance between the two sides as far as you're concerned as someone who's been concerned about the debt for years? Well, look, it's a start. It does reduce the debt and deficit over the long term. But let's just take a look at some of the history that you referred to, Joe, and I think you'll see what the magnitude of the problem is. So this is this is our history of revenues and expenses on a national basis. And all this stuff in the middle is deficit, which becomes debt. If you go back to the late 90s, remember that under the Clinton in the Clinton years, we actually had a surplus for a few years.

And then we got into the financial crisis and it all ballooned. Then we started working it down, working it down. And then Trump shows up right here. And since Trump showed up, what's happening? The deficit and the debt gets larger. Obviously, there was COVID. But even before there was COVID, you had the Trump tax cuts, which were supposed to pay for themselves. And instead, you can see revenues going down here as a percentage of GDP. On the spending side, for all the brave talk, spending actually started to go up even before the COVID spike. And so all this pink stuff between these two lines, all this pink stuff are deficits and debt that Trump added to our problem. Under Biden, you can see outlays starting to come down, revenue starting to go up.

We're starting to get that deficit down. This will help. But but it is a big problem that in which Trump was a contributor, not a helper toward getting to a lower deficit picture. But we shouldn't also forget, Joe, and this is something you and I have talked about a lot over the years, that we do have a long term structural issue that we have to think about. And I don't want to end on a kind of Debbie Downer note, but we've got to talk about all the aspects of this. We've been cutting from non-defense discretionary. And you can see that non-defense discretionary, which is everything from the Labor Department, EPA, FDA,

a lot of agencies that really make our lives better. We've been cutting from them in a gradual way for a long time in order to try to offset the fact that there are large parts of our budget, which do include Social Security and Medicare, and I'm not suggesting go in there and start hacking away at them, but we have to recognize that as a percent of our GDP, those costs have gone up, squeezing this down, and that's a trend that unfortunately is not showing any real sign of abating. All right, Steve Ratner, thank you very much with the charts this morning and coming up on Morning Joe. From Bud Light to Target and now Chick-fil-A, we'll talk about the latest brands to be caught up in America's culture wars.

Morning Joe, we'll be right back. Welcome back to Morning Joe. It's just about the top of the hour. And look at that beautiful shot of the White House on this. I guess it's the summer morning. It's the summer now. Well, is it summer? I think it's summer the 22nd, but we're going to call it June 1st.

Man, if it's June, Willie, and it's like, you know, it's light at 430, 445 in the morning and late at night. Yeah, it's summer, man. Yeah, we're getting 830 sundown now. It really does feel like we're stepping into summer. And I got to say, this is such a beautiful time in New York City as well. Beautiful in Washington, that shot. But it's not too hot. The humidity's low.

This is peak New York weather right now. Everyone's happy. It really is. Jonathan Lemire and Katty Kay are still with us. And joining the conversation, we have MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle. You showed up, Mike. It's nice of you to show up. We appreciate that.

Yeah. It's kind of grumpy. Everyone needs a place to go. Yeah. Exactly. And we need you in our place. Speaking of, White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein, is also with us this morning. And it's great to see you, Sam.

So we are following new reporting this morning involving the investigation into former President 2021 audio recording of Trump acknowledging that he kept a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack on Iran after leaving the White House. The existence of the recording would undercut Trump's primary defensive argument that he declassified all documents that he brought with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago. CNN reports the July 2021 meeting was held at Trump's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, with two people who were working on the autobiography of Trump's former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, as well as Trump aides, including communications specialists Margo Martin, who, as The Guardian reports, regularly taped Trump's conversations with authors to make sure they

accurately recounted his remarks. On the recording, Trump's comments reportedly suggest he would like to share the information contained within the document, but he can't because he's aware he no longer has the ability to declassify materials after having left the White House. CNN did not listen to the recording, but cited multiple unidentified sources describing it. The recording has not yet been confirmed by NBC News. Trump has denied any wrongdoing. So here's a fascinating thing, Mike Barnicle. Well, it's, I guess, not fascinating. But Trump has been on TV repeatedly lying.

He says he declassified. I remember back in September of 22. Remember, he was on Sean Hannity's show. And Sean Hannity said, hey, you'd never do this stuff that they're saying. Sure, I would. I could do it. I have the power to do it. And then Hannity pushed him a little bit more. And his response was, if I think that I've declassified a document, the document becomes declassified. Then, of course, he lied at the CNN town hall meeting saying he could do whatever he wanted to do. He could show it to whoever he wanted to show it to because it was declassified. He thought it was declassified. So it was declassified.

What do we find out? We find out in this tape just the opposite. And it goes straight to intent, doesn't it? That Donald Trump knew he had improperly taken a classified document out of the White House and that it was still classified and he didn't have the power to declassify it as a former president. Joe, you know, we have Andrew here and he's going to speak to this, I assume, with much more specificity and knowledge than any of us are. But this is going to be it's going to shape up, I would think, from people we've spoken to as a defining moment, not only for the Republican Party, but for the country. Because if the words espionage or treason are even hinted at in the filing documents when and if an indictment is brought against the former president, people are going to have to finally make up their minds. There's going to be enough of this talking about, oh, he's a tough guy. I like the way he talks. He's a tough talker.

And the stuff about the woman that's all made up. It's a, you know, they're after him because he's Donald Trump and all that stuff. That's going to go out the window. That's going to go right out the window because it's going to be a defining moment, whether he chooses himself, according to the documents, or whether he chooses the country. He's clearly chosen himself at every turn of his adult life. And we're going to find out from Jack Smith's investigation exactly what the story is.