Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/17/24

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Trump confuses the name of his doctor when bragging about taking a cognitive test

Joe Biden has no plan. He's got absolutely no plan. He doesn't even know what the word inflation means. I don't think if you gave him a quiz, I think he should take a cognitive test like I did. I took a cognitive test and I aced it. Dr. Ronnie, Dr. Ronnie Johnson. Does everyone know Ronnie Johnson, congressman from Texas? He was the White House doctor. No, actually, they don't know him. They don't know Ronnie Johnson. Who's Ronnie Johnson? There's nothing like mocking your opponent's mental acuity and messing up the name of the doctor who actually administered your own cognitive test who's sitting in the audience.

Person, man, woman, horse. Yeah. Ronnie Johnson. The name of Trump's former White House physician turned U.S. congressman is Ronnie Jackson. Wait, what? Not Johnson. What? Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Monday, June 17th.

So what else is new, right? With us, we have NBC News national affairs analyst and a partner and chief political columnist at Puck, John Heilman. John Heinz, personal surprise winning columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post and MSNBC political analyst Eugene Robinson, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, Peter Baker and the co-host of MSNBC's The Weeknd. Also doing way too early. Also co-host Morning Mika, Simone Sanders Townsend. Thanks for all of you being in early on Monday morning. So, John, John Heilman, I think I'm not I'm not going to this politics thing, but I'm guessing that if you're going to make fun of your opponent for being cognitively disconnected from from facts and figures, it's probably good for you to not be disconnected cognitively from facts and figures as Donald Trump was this weekend. Oh, well, Jim, it's good to see you this morning here on Monday.

Or is it Chuck? Chuck Scarborough? Jim Scarborough? No, Joe. Joe Scarborough. Yeah, I mean, glass houses, man. You don't want to be throwing stones at... People who live in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones. That's all I'll say about that. Well, you know, and the thing is, too, it's getting really more obvious, Mika, that they have the Trump campaign

has understands they have a serious problem with Donald Trump on facts, on issues, on you name it, because they have to keep engaging in cheap fakes to try to make Joe Biden look bad. And this weekend they've done it over the past several weeks. They've got the New York Post doing it. The RNC is doing it. All of these right wing stooges on X are doing it. And if you have to make stuff up, you got to make stuff up. Obviously, you don't feel like you have a strong enough campaign

to win outright. No. I mean, they're grasping in many different ways, but I think that's just Trump being Trump, getting names wrong and getting information wrong and I don't think he cares. Our top story... Well, you know,

I fear having a president like that. I really do, with storm clouds of World War II on the horizon. Oh, for sure. Absolutely. Our top story this hour, the Biden campaign took in a record haul at a star-studded fundraiser over the weekend. The campaign says it raised more than $30 million in Los Angeles on Saturday, breaking the record for the Democratic Party's largest fundraising event ever.

NBC News could not independently verify that claim. President Biden appeared at the event alongside former President Barack Obama, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jimmy Kimmel. Kimmel actually moderated a conversation at one point asking President Biden about the Supreme Court and the possibility that the next president will likely have an opportunity to appoint two justices and what voters can do about that. Elect me again. I'll tell you why. No, I'm not just saying. The next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees. Two more.

Two more. He's already appointed two that have been very negative in terms of the rights of individuals. The idea that if he's reelected, he's going to appoint two more firing flags upside down is really, I really mean it. Could this be the scariest part of all of it? Well, I think it is one of the scariest parts. But look, the Supreme Court has never been as out of kilter as it is today. I mean, never. I taught constitutional law for nine years. This guy knows more about it than most. Look, the fact of the matter is that this has never been a court that's been this far out of step. And by the way, when we said after the decision that overruled Roe v. Wade, the Dobbs decision, you had

Clarence Thomas talking about the fact that there are going to be other things we should reconsider, including in vitro fertilization, including contraception, including all these things. And they're going there and they're going. And by the way, by the way, gay rights. But by the way, not on my watch. Not on my watch. Not on my watch. Boy, you know, Peter Baker, this has proven to be such a key issue when you look at what's happened in 22 and 23 and a lot of the special elections of that time, even in red states like Kansas, Kentucky, have gone overwhelmingly for for choice on this issue. Now you add IVF that's now been thrown into the mix. You add contraceptions that have been thrown into the mix. The Biden campaign really does believe this is going to be one of the most vital issues for their base, don't they? They do. And what you hear the

president doing there is even expanding beyond the issue specifically of abortion rights to say, OK, it's just the first step on their path toward reversing a whole series of rights. Right. One of the themes that they have emphasized again and again was the idea of freedom. Freedom is a word the Republicans have used pretty successfully over the years. And the Biden campaign wants to kind of take the word back a little bit, talk about not just women's rights, but as he pointed out there, LGBTQ rights and just the rights of any married couple to or a non-married couple, as, you know, defined by the Supreme Court way back in the 60s to have the ability to decide when to have contraception and not and all those kinds of things. And I think he's pointing to a future that sounds dark and scary in order to try to galvanize Democratic voters. They may be upset with him about age or inflation or whatever else.

He's trying to say, look, there's a lot at stake here, things that you really care about that will be on the table if if you're not getting out to vote. Well, and, you know, Mika, Peter brings up such a great point, underlined such an important point that Democrats are taking back the word freedom for years. The NRA, you know, support freedom, vote Scarborough, support freedom, vote whomever they thought was right on gun issues. Right. So so now you have Democrats talking about freedom. And I will tell you, I've seen some focus groups where it really cuts through, where libertarians are saying, libertarians are now saying, wait a second, this government can hardly do anything right in their opinion. Why in the world are we going to turn our bodies over to them to make decisions about health care? And in this focus group, I thought that was a man speaking in a swing state. So this is about freedom. And you see the freedom of women that

also I think for a lot of men, they see if if that could happen with the women they love, it could also happen to them. I think in this election, the Supreme Court is definitely taking center stage for a lot of people who might not have thought of thought of it so much in their vote. But with Alito hanging flags upside down in his house and then lying about it. His wife. Bold face, lying about it. We don't know if his wife did it.

We don't know if anything they're saying is true. There was some altercation with a neighbor where the wife was called a bad name that happened after the flag was hung upside down outside their house and at their beach house. We don't know what the truth is about that because they keep lying about it. So that's one Supreme Court justice. Then you have Clarence Thomas, who literally refuses to follow ethics rules when it comes to taking gifts from Republican donors, refuses. I mean, he's been asked now

for several years to please cough up the information and he keeps forgetting $250,000 plane flights. I mean, this is the U.S. Supreme Court and Simone for women. And you're right, Joe, the men who love them, the men who are really clued into the pain that losing 50 years of health care rights, it's causing to women right now. This is front and center. This isn't some sort of issue in the background for this election. For women, it's life and death. It is very, very true, Mika.

We had Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt on our show on this past weekend. And Dr. Nesbitt used to be head of the D.C. Department of Health. Now she's at Georgetown. She's been a board-certified health physician for 10 years. And she gave the example of what about young women who are diagnosed with cancer in their early 20s or late 20s, mid-30s, and the doctor tells them that you need to freeze. We suggest you freeze your eggs if you want to have the option of having a family later in life. And this Supreme Court,

some of the justices are poised to take that option away. You have Republicans across the country that are poised to remove that option away for young cancer patients, women who are literally being told they must be on death's doorstep before they can be helped and saved. And lest we forget, we are waiting on a decision from the Supreme Court on Idaho, on right now what's happening in Idaho, on if a woman who is pregnant comes into the emergency room, her right to be saved, to be helped, to be stabilized. Idaho says, well, if she's pregnant, we need to make sure the baby is intact and we don't want to need to make sure the baby is intact and we

don't want to do anything to hurt the baby. And under Idaho right now, what Idaho would like to do is to potentially let that woman again be knocking on death's doorstep before they do anything for her. All right. Now to former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffins, saying former President Trump often discussed executing people at White House meetings. Speaking with Mediaite on Friday, Griffin highlighted an April interview from former Attorney General Bill Barr, where he was asked if he remembered a time when Trump called for a leaker to be executed. And here's what he told CNN. Melissa Farah Griffin, who was Trump's communications director, posted yesterday and said that you were present at a moment

when Trump suggested executing the person who leaked information that he went to the White House bunker when those George Floyd protests were happening outside the White House. Do you remember that? I remember him being very mad about that. I actually don't remember him saying executing, but I, you know, I wouldn't dispute it. You know, I mean, it doesn't sound the president would lose his temper and say things like that. I doubt he would have actually carried it out. I don't you know, but he would say that on other occasions. You said, you know, the president had, uh, I think people sometimes took him too literally.

And, and, you know, he would say things like similar to that in, in occasions to blow off steam. Uh, but I wouldn't take them literally every time he did it. Oh, you mean like he'll get rid of Roe? That's just blowing off steam. Griffin went on, went further saying Trump had called for executions multiple times. And Bill Barr kind of danced said like, I don't recall that specific instance, but there were others where he talked about executing people. And I'm like, how you rationalize that that is a person fit and sound judgment to be president of the United States. They're reading the tea leaves. They know there's a very real chance he's going to be president again. And there's not a lot of glory or like victory in being right, but being on the wrong side of Trump.

I think that's ultimately what it comes down to. So, Gene, let's let's get this right. The attorney general of the United States heard the commander in chief calling for the execution of staff members. Yeah. And then when he is asked about it after he's made clear that he is going to endorse for president, the man who's calling for the execution of staff members, because I guess Barr is shocked and stunned by Joe Biden's like student debt relief plan. That's where they always run to. Oh, well, if you think January 6th was bad and calling for the execution of staff members are bad. What about Joe Biden's three

tier plan to relieve students of their debt, which they actually do? They actually that's their go to. You think January 6th was bad. But here we have a guy who's attorney general, a lawyer. And I just tell you, lawyers, you know, I'm not even a good lawyer, but you get lawyers in conversations. They remember things. They have a dictaphone going in. They've got they've got, you know, they've got it going in their heads. And you hear something like that. You are trained for your mind to set that apart. OK, the president of the United States just said we should execute staffers for leaking. Yeah.

I mean, what Barr says is so laughable. And what Alyssa said is so chilling that we actually have Republicans, so scary. We actually have Republicans that are going to go out and endorse a guy who called for the execution of fellow staff members and then claims he doesn't remember it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't specifically remember that, but I won't deny it. Right. I wouldn't say that he I won't say that he didn't call for execution of staffers because that's the sort of thing he did. Right. That's the sort of thing he did, right? That's the sort of thing he said. This is insane, right?

I mean, step back for a second. We're talking about the president of the United States talking about how members of his staff should be executed for leaking information that he didn't want leaked, which was not national security information or anything. It's just something that he didn't want leaked, which was not national security information or anything. It's just something that he thinks is embarrassing to him. Absolutely unprecedented and insane. And we shouldn't, you know, like a lot of things that Trump is saying now, we shouldn't just sort of sort of walk past it and say, as Bill Barr said, oh, well, people are taking him too literally. Well, I'm sorry, but that's like the only way I know how to take

people. Right. I mean, I can't you know, when you say I want to execute that person and you're the president of the United States, I I have to take you literally when you stand in front of a rally in Las Vegas and talk about, you know, boats and electrocution and sharks. I have to take you literally. I don't I don't know how to how to take it otherwise. And this is a person who was elected president of the United States and who has a chance of being elected again, that should cause all of us to just just to step back and think for a minute. This is not this is not normal and this is not acceptable or safe for the country. Joe, Mika, I want to just think about it this way. The most charitable interpretation of what Bill Barr is saying here is something like, the President of the United

States on a regular basis would blow off steam. I think that was his phrase, right? He would get mad. And he would say things around the table like, let's imagine saying something like, not, I want to have this leaker found and executed. But let's imagine he's just blowing off steam. He's saying, you know, if we could find that leaker, I'd like to take him out of the back of the White House on the South Lawn and have him shot. And let's say he wasn't being serious. Let's just say he was blowing off steam, right? As a matter of presidential temperament, is that the guy you want to have behind as the commander in chief sitting in the Oval Office?

A guy who, when he's frustrated, when he's blowing off steam, again, to use Barr's formulation, is someone whose way in which he exercises his frustration is to casually talk about having people who work for him shot, executed in some way. I don't know if that's by hanging or by a guillotine or by the firing squad. I think it speaks to a temperament that is the kind of temperament that leads you to a president of the United States who, when your vice president is on Capitol Hill in the middle of a riot that you have incited, and the people at that riot are talking about lynching the vice president, your temperament, that temperament, that person, that president is the kind of person who says, I'm not going to do anything to call off the mob that I incited.

I'm just going to sit up here and let it play out. And I'm going to say quietly, according to at least some of the reporting that we've seen in some Capitol Hill, some stuff from the January 6th committee, was that, you know, maybe our supporters have it right here. Maybe Mike Pence deserves this. Maybe he deserves to be killed, to be strung up on the Capitol grounds. I think, you know, whether you don't have to get all the way to Donald Trump was ordering the execution of staffers to think that this is a very dangerous temperament and a very dangerous mindset to have. And one that shows an enormous lack of respect for the office, for the seriousness of the position, and as someone who is not in control of himself in a way that you would want

a president to be. But let's put this all in context because you are right. When Donald Trump got the riot going on January 6th, as Lindsey Graham and Kevin McCarthy said, he was responsible for these riots. Not only did he not call off the attackers when they were saying hang Mike Pence, not only did he tell staffers, according to their testimony, that maybe Mike Pence deserved hanging. He put out a tweet. Right. At a perilous time, which put Mike Pence in even more danger. He decided to do that. And make these comments that we're now finding out that, again, that Barr is claiming he doesn't remember these. You have to put these in proper context, too. This is a guy running for reelection in 2024, running to be president of the United States again in 2024,

who has said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs needs to be executed, has had his lawyers argue he can execute political opponents with SEAL Team 6 and can't be charged criminally, who has talked about finding media companies guilty of treason, gelling them, has called for the immediate arrest of his political opponents. And we keep hearing it from his people. We heard it again this weekend from his people that anybody who opposes Trump, Trump's opponents need to be jailed. So this wasn't just one stray comment five years ago. This is active.

It's ongoing. And because he is so craven to be, I guess, relevant, the former attorney general of the United States is willing to go along for the ride. Well, and your point is well taken. It is definitely well documented that there are really scary tendencies on the part of this former president. But even if anybody said something like that in jest or to blow off steam in any situation, if it happened on the front porch of your house or if you said it on the show, it would be off putting. It would be striking. People would think something was wrong with you.

For a president to say it in the Oval Office, talking about it and a guy who talks about executing political opponents and generals. It is relevant. It is to be taken literally. Still ahead on Morning Joe, the latest in the war in Gaza as the Israeli military announces a new daily tactical pause and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu moves to disband his war cabinet. Plus, we'll dig into the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a federal ban on bump stocks. What Democrats are saying about that ruling. You're watching Morning Joe. We will be right back. It's 110, but it doesn't feel it to me, right? Everybody was so worried yesterday about you and they never mentioned me.

I'm up here sweating like a dog. Secret Service said we have to make sure everyone's safe. I'm up here sweating like a dog. Secret Service said, we have to make sure everyone's safe. I said, what about me? Oh, we never thought of that. They don't think about me. You feel the breeze? Because I don't want anybody going on me.

We need every voter. I don't care about you. I just want your vote. I don't care. So if you want America and if you want to save America, I'm asking everybody to go and swamp the vote. USA dot com swamp the vote.

USA dot com to make a plan to vote either by mail or early in person or an election day. Just vote. I actually tell our people we don't need your vote. We got so many votes. We don't need them. We just don't want to see votes stolen. We don't want to say, you know, steal the vote. We got so many votes. We don't need them. We just don't want to see votes stolen. We don't want to say, you know, steal the vote. We're not letting it happen. We're not going to let it happen. It's not happening again. All right. Donald Trump's interesting pitch to supporters that he doesn't care about them and doesn't need their votes. The first was from his infamous Las Vegas rally last weekend. The second from a sold out campaign event in West Palm Beach, Florida on Friday night for his B-Day.

On Saturday, Trump participated in a community roundtable event in Detroit at a predominantly black church. Trump spoke to a crowd of mostly white voters on Saturday where he took credit for the record low black unemployment rate achieved under President Joe Biden last year. Wow. That event came after Trump gave an interview to Semaphore, which focused on how Trump's talk on race politics and masculinity has been influenced by the black men who have been part of his life. And in it, Trump said, quote, I have so many black friends that if I were a racist, they wouldn't be friends. They would know better than anybody and fast. They would not be with me for two minutes if they thought I was racist. And I'm not racist. Meanwhile, Democratic Congressman Jim Clyburn,

who was an influential part of President Biden's 2020 campaign, says he doesn't think black voters are really swinging toward Donald Trump. Clyburn told Politico Playbook's Deep Dive podcast that Democrats shouldn't be concerned. I don't think it needs to do anything with what he's doing. I think Joe Biden is doing exactly what he needs to do to win re-election. I think the polling has taken place. Something that's amiss with the polling. I call your attention to the recent polls over in Maryland. The African-American woman running for the United States Senate nomination. The Sunday before the election, one poll had her five down. The other poll had her seven down.

And she won by 13. How do you explain that? That's 20 points. Yeah. So I have no idea what's going on with polling these days, but I do know this. The polls did not have Ossoff nor Warnock winning Georgia, and both of them won.

Poles did not have Macbeth getting 80-something percent in their district, but she did. Anybody who believes that Donald Trump will get 30 percent of the black male vote or 12 percent of the black female vote, I got a bridge down there on Johns Island and I'll sell you. All right, Gene Robinson, your thoughts? I think he's talking about the Ravenel Bridge down in Charleston. And, you know, and I guess there's some people out there who would buy it. Usually when I see candidates go to an event in at a black church, usually there are black people there. I saw very few black people in that black church. Simone earlier, way too early. I hope the church got a nice fee for its capital fund or whatever from the Trump campaign for the use of the facilities. But I think that tells you absolutely

zero about African-American support in the coming election. And, you know, I'm not necessarily quite as dismissive of polls as Jim Clyburn, simply because I think the presidential campaign needs to worry about everything. Right. And so if you've got some polls, you need to worry about that. You need to work to shore up whatever witnesses are out there. But I do agree with him that we are not going to see any sort of wholesale migration of African-American voters to Donald Trump. I don't see that. I don't hear that.

I don't think it's going to happen. I mean, not off gold sneakers and white people at the black church. And Mika, I just, you know, I had to ask Eugene. I said, no, Eugene, can you know, I had to ask Eugene. I said, no, Eugene, can you have black friends and be racist? And he assured me that you could because that's what I thought. And I just, I thought so.

But, you know, can I say this one thing about polling, Mika? I think that polling for campaigns is predictive. It's not predictive, right? It's not, polls are not crystal balls. They are informative. And so all of the campaigns that I have worked on, you have used the polling to inform your strategy. That is what polls should do. So along those lines, I do think that the current polling that is out there, I agree with, you know, Mr. Clyburn in the sense that I don't think that it is it is it is accurate to the point of what black voters are going to do. But I do think it indicates that there are some rightfully skeptical, some some cynical voters out there in the African-American community who are wondering what this what what another Biden administration means for me.

And I think that the campaign knows they need to answer that question. And with some of the events that you've seen the president and the vice president take part in, I think they are attempting to do that. Simone Sanders Townsend, thank you. As always, we'll be watching the weekend, Saturday and Sunday mornings, beginning at 8 a.m. Eastern, right here on MSNBC. And thanks for doing way too early this morning. And coming up on Morning Joe, we're learning more about the ground rules for the upcoming presidential debate, which is now less than two weeks away. We'll go through what both campaigns have agreed to. Morning Joe is coming right back. Thank you. It was Bryson DeChambeau's putt on the 18th hole to win the U.S. Open, his second U.S. Open win and second major championship overall. The winning putt came after an incredible shot from the bunker 55 yards from the hole,

setting up that great ending at Pinehurst. DeChambeau rightfully called it the bunker shot of his life. Meanwhile, what a Sunday to forget for Rory McIlroy. He had a one stroke lead going into the 16th hole, but missed a 30 inch par putt. And then on the 18th hole, he got about three feet from the cup, but missed another short putt. That would drop him one stroke behind DeChambeau and extend his 10 year drought in major championships. Let's bring in Morning Joe's golf correspondent, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Harris, and staff writer at The Atlantic, Mark Leibovich,

also a two-time U.S. Open winner, Mr. Leibovich. So, Richard, take us through the ending yesterday. A lot of drama. A lot of drama. Rice and DeChambeau began the day, the fourth day of the tournament, several strokes up. Rory McIlroy reversed it, went up two with only about four or five to play. And then you had one of the epic collapses in golf. This was a guy, Joe, who had made close to 500 putts in a row of the length of the two that he missed in those last few holes.

Oh, my goodness. It was about as much of a mental meltdown as you see. And it's actually an interesting question. Will he be able to come back from this? It was painful. And Bryson DeChambeau, you know, great shot you saw at the end out of the bunker. What's called the Sandy out of the bunker and then sank the puck. Fantastic.

And that's actually a big thing. He's on the live tour. So it's also interesting about the people on the live tour are able to play in the major tournaments. And actually, this was an interesting thing for professional, for professional. Oh, a great redemption for him. He was, shall we say, he used to be rather unpopular with the fans. Now he's popular. He's a quirky guy.

You can see the bodybuilding, 3D printing of his golf clubs. He's a curious guy. But this will be more known as the tournament that Rory lost than he won. Yeah, that's really something. And Gene Robinson, it reminds me of my older brother, three years older than me, loves golf. I never really did, but I'd go out and golf with him in the summers, and he would be standing over me, towering over me from behind, and I would putt much like Rory there.

What we called it was the yips. And let me tell you, Rory got the yips. Well, he kind of got the yips and he and he did miss those two short putts um i disagree with ritter has a bit a bit though because i think dechambeau won that tournament i mean remember he missed a short putt coming home too um dechambeau also missed a a gimme putt um and so that's a shot right there. And that bunker shot on 18 was Tiger Woods-ish. I mean, if you think about a 55-yard bunker shot

that everyone thought was essentially impossible, it would have been good if he had gotten the ball within 20 feet of the hole. That shot, I think, really won him the tournament. Otherwise, he would have bogeyed the hole, they would have gone to a playoff,

and who knows what would have happened. Let's give DeChambeau his props. The only person to get a Sandy from that bunker all day. Let me tell you some heartwarming, Richard, some heartwarming news this weekend coming out of Fenway. I'm so glad Alex. I wish you a happy Father's Day yesterday, Joe. This is not Alex. No, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just telling you, I'm so happy to see that Alex Verdugo was actually, whatever was ailing him last year,

whatever prevented him from running out routine ground balls while a member of the Red Sox or actually run after fly balls in the outfield, he's gotten past it. He had a good Friday night, so he must have a better HMO because he actually ran out ground balls for the Yankees. That said, what a night, what a weekend for the Red Sox. Last night, the Red Sox, man, on fire on the bases. Nine stolen bases.

Nine stolen bases. Breaking nine stolen bases. And there's Raffaella, man. That kid is extraordinary. They've got a bunch of young kids. They've got a 500 team. For some reason, the owners of the Red Sox decided they were going to just buy, like, the PGA and stop spending money on baseball teams.

But nobody and none of these young kids have figured that out. They are they are playing like crazy. And what a great weekend. Heilman, you are sort of moderately a Red Sox fan, right? I've seen you at Fenway once or twice. Sure, sure. I mean, look, I'm primarily a profound, deep, lifelong hater of the New York Yankees. And so that, as a kid growing up in L.A., made me a Red Sox fan. By proxy, this is a good, you're right, Joe, it's a good weekend out there at Fenway for the good guys.

Always nice to see anything bad happen to the Bronx low-hards. I do think on the earlier question, I'd like to see Richard and Eugene battle it out, given their conflict over the golf tournament. I'd like to get a tee time for them at winged foot and see those guys go toe-to-toe. And potentially, I got Lebo, I think, is here, right? Lebo could be their caddy. I think he's famous for his caddying skills. You can caddy for both of them and keep score. Gene, I would have given you putts of that length, just so you know.

I wouldn't have made you putt that out. Yeah, I would have given them to you, too. Neither one of us would have missed. Exactly. Lebo, didn't you go to Harvard or something? No, I didn't go to Harvard. Boston's not a college town. I just assume everybody on the show went to Harvard but me. You didn't, huh? Not a big college

town. As they said in Spinal Tap, not a big college town. No, I never went to Harvard. I think I used the bathroom there once, which I guess, you know, technically gives me an affiliation. No, I didn't. But I'm giddy over the weekend. And actually, I think if you want to apply the Red Sox-Yankee series to the U.S. Open, I think the Yankees lost this series more than the Red Sox won this series. The Yankees were sort of Rory McIlroy. No, it was nice to see. I would like them to have a summer that we can pay attention to, and it looks like they might be doing that.

And can all the Red Sox fans on this show right now at least acknowledge the terrible thing that happened to Mookie Betts, who now plays for my Dodgers? Horrible. Horrible. Yeah, he cracked. I told you he was injured. You did. Mika walked in and said, Mookie Betts is injured.

And, I mean, I never get any sports information from you. Well, I follow a little bit. Who told you that? Did your daughter tell you that? No, I was reading. Okay. Well, it's horrible hearing about the fractured hand. I hope he gets better soon.

Here it is. Here it is. It's terrible. Oh, God, I hate that. That's a 98 mile anhour heater right on the wrist. 98 miles an hour. Ouch. Oh, God.

Bay eye. Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay, yay. Oh. No surgery required, Alex tells me. Yes, but but out in doubt, out indefinitely after. Yeah. After he EPs the show and and vice president for for morning news, he he's actually a doctor, a hand doctor at HSS. So, yeah, exactly. So that is that's good to know. And Mark Leibovich, as we sputter through this segment, we actually do have a bit of highbrow sports news,

or at least commentary coming from The Atlantic under your byline about renaming Boston's airport after a man who said, I don't play for the city of Boston. I play for the Celtics. Yeah, I think it is high time that Boston's Logan Airport be renamed to honor one of the greatest Bostonians, if not the greatest Bostonian ever. Bill Russell, the great Boston Celtics center who had an incredible life, certainly as one of the sport's greatest champions, if not the greatest champion, but as a civil rights giant and someone who had an incredibly fraught relationship with the city of Boston during what was probably the nadir of its racial history in the 60s. And what Bill Russell is a story of is just reconciliation. I mean, certainly struggle and fighting through and really just bold statements throughout his career, which was just brilliant on the court, but even more so off

the court. And I remember back when Obama was president and he was giving the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Russell, I think that was in 2011. Obama was sort of like a big kind of silent proponent of them putting a statue up of Russell in Boston, and they put one up in City Hall Plaza. Mayor Menino did it or presided over it in 2013. And I think since then, in a way, there have been some sort of later-day efforts to honor him even more properly, and I think this would be the ultimate, and I think it would be great. And I think William Logan, the guy who Logan Airport was named from, has had a great run 80 years. Name a terminal after him or something. Yeah, you know, Gene Robinson, what a man

Bill Russell was. What a man. And to to be a hero in Boston during that time. And you talk about the 60s, but my God, even one of the most horrific scenes on integration came in 76, where a young black man was being held by the arms. They tried to shove an American flag into his chest. And that moment was frozen. It was a tough, racist town. And yet Bill Russell, a hero there and a guy, a guy that never I will just I will. This is G-rated, Mika, because it's Monday morning. I guess he never put up with any guff, man. He was tough as hell. Well, he was tough as hell. And he was the smartest guy in the NBA.

And I remember when I was a really little kid, my dad was a huge, absolutely dedicated Celtics fan. He loved, loved, loved the Celtics because of Bill Russell and because he won those, what, 11 in a row, 12, I don't know how many in a row NBA championships with the Celtics, not by being the biggest guy, because that was Will Chamberlain, or the strongest guy against Chamberlain. He wasn't the fastest guy by far. But he was so much smarter than anybody else on the course. He played with this amazing, almost ESP sense of timing to block shots, to get rebounds, got any rebound he wanted over bigger and stronger players. Um, he knew what pass to make. He knew exactly what his team

needed and he won all those championships in a row, all while being kind of a figure in the civil rights movement. I mean, we looked up to Bill Russell as a leader in that sense, even before all the conflict in Boston over school busing. So I will sign that petition, Mark. I'm, you know, for Bill Russell Airport, I think absolutely long overdue. Let's do it. Let's do it. All right. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll tap into one of Richard Haass's other talents.

But yeah, no foreign policy. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Fifty three past the hour, the Israeli military is temporarily suspending its daytime operations along an aid corridor in southern Gaza. Officials announced the tactical pause yesterday, adding that the fighting in other parts of Gaza, including Rafah, will still continue. Since Israel moved into the southern Gaza city last month, aid shipments have plummeted. The United Nations says hunger is now widespread and more than 50,000 children need to be treated for acute malnutrition. This comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is disbanding the country's war cabinet. An Israeli official tells NBC News Netanyahu is expected to hold future talks about the war in Gaza with a small group of ministers, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, your little puzzle pieces here and there.

You'll see an attack. You'll hear of civilian deaths and death of IDF soldiers. You'll hear about political skirmishes inside of Netanyahu's war cabinet. Read stories about him becoming more and more isolated. It's hard to really get a sort of view from 30,000 feet, which is why you're here. What are we looking at? What direction is this war moving? What we're looking at, Joe, is Israel girding itself for a long open-ended war. You have tactical pauses that allow humanitarian supplies to get into parts of Gaza, but nothing is being done to bring about a permanent ceasefire, simply because Israel doesn't want one.

It doesn't want to cease the military operations to degrade Hamas. And the terms that Hamas has laid out are unacceptable to Israel. So I think what we're seeing militarily is an open-ended, lower-level war in Gaza. And then the disbanding of this inner war cabinet, well, that's because two of the members, two of the more moderate members have resigned. Bibi will have a de facto war cabinet with the defense minister and Ron Dermott. He didn't want to have a formal one because that would have required him to allow some of the most extreme people in his government, including Ben Gavir, the minister of national security,

to join it. But again, all of this suggests to me a long, low-level war in Gaza. And again, as tension begins to turn to the north, whether we're going to see an uptick in military operations there. Because, right, there's a strong consensus in Israel on both, that Israel has to go after Hamas, and that it's unacceptable for any Israeli government to allow this reality to continue in the north, where on the order of 75,000 Israelis have been forced out of their homes to move south, away from the border with Lebanon, away from Hezbollah. So the chance of military operations there are going up. And Peter Baker, the president, of course, floated his own ceasefire plan last week. But with Hamas's counter demands, they're just they they are demands coming from Hamas that very few Israeli citizens support.

So what's the next step for the White House? Yeah, I mean, the problem is that Hamas and Israel have pretty starkly different points of view about the ceasefire. The idea that the ceasefire would have to be a permanent end to hostilities, that's what Hamas is demanding. And obviously, Israel isn't ready to agree to that. And I think that the Biden administration, I feel, is growing less and less optimistic about it. You know, over the last few months, every time we got sort of a head of steam going on these talks, they would talk very optimistically. They think that they're close. They need, you know, that there's a bridgeable gap there. They felt like it's a matter of going through the proposals from each side and seeing if they can narrow those gaps.

And now you're hearing, I think, a different tone, a tone where they're beginning not to give up. The president said the other day during his trip to Italy, he hasn't given up there. But even he was suggesting that he didn't have much hope at this point for that ceasefire coming anytime soon. And I think that there's sort of a, you know, a resignation that there is not a short term, you know, end to this. And that's they're girding themselves as well for a long term operation and what that means for the United States and other Israeli allies. All right. Now to Ukraine. Representatives from about 100 delegations came together this weekend in Switzerland to attend the Ukraine Peace Summit. Vice President Kamala Harris represented the United States meeting with Zelensky on the sidelines of the summit, where she once

again pledged America's full support. Seventy eight countries signed a joint communique saying Ukraine's territorial integrity must form the basis for any potential peace agreement with Russia. Multiple global powers in attendance did not sign the document, including Brazil, India, South Africa and Saudi Arabia. Russia was not invited to the summit. China was, but did not attend. So, Richard, we have seen, obviously, the continued unified support of the G7, of the EU, of the United States, standing shoulder to shoulder against Russia. Where has it gotten us, though? And is there any hope for this war coming to an end soon? Or like the Israel-Hamas war, is this one that's bound to go on for a very long time? Well, I'd say this Western support has gotten us quite far.

If you compare compare where we are today as opposed to two and a half years ago, when this war, this phase of the war began, what Ukraine has accomplished with American and European help is quite extraordinary. It's essentially fought Russia to to a standstill. That said, the idea that Ukraine, no matter how much help it gets militarily, is going to be able to liberate Crimea and liberate the eastern areas, it's not going to happen. That can't be the measure of victory or success or doomed to failure. At the same time, what Putin's asking for is unacceptable, that Russia gain formal control of all of the East, that Ukraine be barred from ever becoming a member of NATO. So, Joe, I think the best we can hope for is that, one, Western aid continue and that Ukraine be freed up to attack larger

areas inside Russia, basically so Russia feels the pain of the war more. And so Russia understands that time is not on its side. And then sometime in 2025, if those two things happen, I think then it presents the possibility, not of peace, not of agreement, but of some type of an interim ceasefire or armistice. I think that is the most we can hope for. Richard, let me let me let's put up this map again, because this map, for the most part, has been where we've been for the past year, year and a half, a year and a half ago. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, then Mark Milley, saying privately to people and also publicly, in a sense, the Ukrainians aren't going to get the Russians out of their territory. The Russians aren't going to get to Kiev. Nobody's going to get what they want. And the sooner they figure that out, the sooner they figure out how to make peace around this new reality, the better. Well, here we are 18 months later. I suspect we can go 18 more months

unless something really dramatic happens. And I see nothing to suggest that anything really dramatic is going to happen. That's what the map is going to look like 18 months from now, too. At what point do both sides sue for peace, a peace that neither one will like, but a peace that will at least give us a ceasefire? Well, I think what's essential, Joe, to get to where you want is that Western military aid to Ukraine continue. Putin has to come to the conclusion, however reluctantly, that time is not on his side. Second of all, I wouldn't use the word peace. I think the most we can get is a kind of Korean style armistice,

some type of a ceasefire. Russia wouldn't give up its claims to all of Ukraine. Ukraine would not be asked to give up its claims to Crimea in the east, but simply get a ceasefire would save a lot of lives, save a lot of money. Some reconstruction could begin. Peace is something we're going to push down the road, I think, decades down when Putin is no longer running Russia. But I believe the goal next year ought to be to get some type of ceasefire. That is, it is not impossible, but both sides have to give up some of their dreams. We have to have some really honest conversations with Ukraine about what's realistic. And Russia has to be, finally come to the conclusion

that time will not serve its interests. Well, and Russia also is going to have to understand that while Ukraine may not officially be a member of NATO, NATO support is going to pour in. EU support is going to pour into Ukraine to help rebuild Ukraine and make attacking Ukraine in the future just not a possibility. Peter Baker, what is President Biden's best hope right now for this war coming to an end? Well, you know, we talk about whether something dramatic can happen in the next 18 months. Something dramatic will happen potentially in November. And that's the most important thing right now on this war. What Putin is waiting for is to see who's going to be the president of the United States. And that's

going to be determined in November. If it's Trump, that's a very different circumstance for him than if it's Biden. Right. Obviously, if Trump wins, that's that's tantamount to what Putin wants. Right. Because Trump has already said he's more than happy to trade away Ukrainian territory, Ukrainian sovereignty, Ukrainian independence even, in order to make the war go away. He says he can end it in a day. The only way you end it in a day is simply giving Putin what he wants. And he's made perfectly clear he's willing to do that. So that's what Putin's waiting to see happens. He's not going to make any deal between now and November. Why would he? He's in perfectly fine shape for the moment. And so the idea that this has anything to do with what's happening in the battlefield, what they're trying to do is get

the battlefield to the place where in November, each side can be in the best position it can be and for what inevitably will be the next stage of this war. And the next stage will depend on whether it's going to be President Biden, who's willing to do what he can to help Ukraine, or President Trump, who's willing to do what he can to help Russia.