Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/18/24

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

White House slams 'cheap fake' viral clips that claim to show President Biden confused

I took a cognitive test and I aced it. Dr. Ronnie. Dr. Ronnie Johnson. Does everyone know Ronnie Johnson? I love Ronnie Johnson. Dr. Ronnie. Dr. Ronnie Johnson. He gave me the test.

Then I went home to my beautiful wife, malaria, and... Trump bragged about passing one cognitive test while failing another. It's like walking into a glass door after the doctor says you have 20, 20 vision. Well, here's the problem. The sad thing is under MAGA law, his name is now Ronnie Johnson. OK, the late night's having fun with Donald Trump's latest gaffe. Meanwhile, the White House is slamming cheap fake videos spread by right wing media, which are edited to make President Biden look confused. We'll go through the fight against clips with no context and some edited misleading.

And Howie Kurtz, she played me a clip from Howie Kurtz's show on Fox News, taking people to task for for doing just that. Yes, he did. He did a great job. He had guests on that were completely misleading again. But again, he did it. He did it. Nonetheless, and it's very important for people that are being fed a steady stream of lies to be told by somebody that reviews the media. Hey, you're being this is a lie. You're being a state. And, you know, how he said what what I've always thought, which is, you know, the age issue for both of these these candidates. That's a real issue. Yeah. So you should talk about the issue. You want to talk about age? I think everybody thinks both of these candidates are older than they're they're comfortable with. Both of them. That said. Make those issues don't make up others.

Well, and also, I think when those on the right try and make it look like Biden is out of his mind or the Wall Street Journal does a front page piece saying Biden is completely slipping and they don't notice at the very same time that they're covering Biden in this way that is misleading. Donald Trump is on stage talking about sharks and batteries and really looks like he's slipping. I think Jonathan O'Meara, the thing that's so, so I don't know, surprising is the right word, but I'll just say so concerning in the middle of a presidential election is it's a tabloid. I understand it's a tabloid, but the New York Post, you know, the same guy that owns the New York Post, owns the Wall Street Journal, owns, you know, the Fox News, owns the Times of London. Let's just go down the list. But, you know, the front of their paper deliberately lying about about this, what Howie Kurtz was talking about over on Fox News, deliberately lying about Joe Biden.

And, you know, while he was giving the thumbs up to parachuters and of course, it's, you know, this media ecosystem, it seems more and more focused on just spreading misleading or outright false stories about Joe Biden. And, you know, the Wall Street Journal, who I praised in this space for their their new editor. I really like the changes of Wall Street Journal. But but even that their paper a week ago or so in a story that just made absolutely no sense. We've talked about it on the show already a couple of times. You know, they get Kevin McCarthy to lie on the record when there were reports months, you know, in the making that Kevin McCarthy always lies on the record about Joe Biden's mental acuity. And then he says the completely opposite thing, either on the record to other publications or to his own staff about just how good Joe Biden is in negotiations. Yeah. One wonders if there are orders coming from on high about tilting the

media coverage here from these outlets. I mean, the New York Post, let's just take that as an example. They knew better. It had been a full day earlier. In the aftermath of that moment in Normandy, it was completely debunked. There's videos from other angles, not just put out by the Biden campaign, but put out by independent observers saying, no, no, President Biden was not meandering off. He was going to salute one of the other parachutists.

And then he came back to take, you know, the prime minister signaled him. He came back to take that photograph. For hours, that was a done story. And the Air Post put it on the front page anyway the following morning and tried to turn it into something it was not. Yesterday, we had White House practice secretary Karine Jean-Pierre call out these cheap fakes. And in particular, the one Twitter account associated with the RNC, the National Republican National Committee, which puts out a lot of these misleading videos and then it's amplified by others on the right. And the RNC researchers account simply said, nope, we're going to keep doing it. Just flat out said, we don't care. And that's the problem here that the Biden campaign, but also those of us in the media are going to have to grapple with between now and November because the speed of these fakes only is increasing.

Well, yeah. And, you know, it's John. Jonathan's right. You have to start asking, are these coming on high when you have the same news organization doing what Jonathan just said, deliberately lying about a shot, cropping it in a way they know they're lying to the readers. Right. And that comes about a week after the Wall Street Journal story that they know is misleading. No reasonable person could not know it's misleading. And again, why do we bring this up? We bring it up just to say this is we've now expanded far out from just deep fakes on Twitter slash X, other social media, TikTok, to now deep fakes or cheap fakes even in the New York Post and other publications. Yeah.

So we're going to have a lot more on this coming up. Also ahead, we're just over a week from the first presidential debate. But a longtime Democratic strategist is questioning whether Trump will even show up. We'll play over a week from the first presidential debate, but a longtime Democratic strategist is questioning whether Trump will even show up. We'll play for you those comments. Also, Dr. Anthony Fauci will join us live in studio this morning. We'll discuss his time at the White House during the pandemic and much more. We look forward to that interview. You know, a lot of people are really, really angry at this guy. Why? What angry at this guy for committing his entire life to trying to save millions of Americans' lives.

I know. They're really angry. I mean, they're thinking, how dare he do that? But yeah, he pretty did. With us, we have former chairman of the Republican National Committee and co-host of MSNBC's The Weeknd. Michael Steele is with us this morning. Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post and MSNBC political analyst. Eugene Robinson is here.

Deputy managing editor for politics at Politico. Sam Stein, along with our very proud Celtics fan, Jonathan Labine. We have buried the lady. And look at Jonathan with his green tie. Oh, no. Not just green tie, Joe. Not just green tie. Oh.

I won't put it on. I won't put it on. But I have my green tie. I have my jacket. Please, actually do. Gene Robinson. Too much. I can't do it.

Why don't you take us through the game? Because you're talking about misinformation when it comes to Boston sports teams. I don't want Jonathan to do it, but I will get his reaction. Take us through the game, Gene. Well, look, at the beginning, the Mavericks put up a fight. You know, they had blown out the Celtics in that last game. They came out with determination, but the Celtics were just too good. They were just too good. They just have too many weapons. And Jason Tatum was sensational last night. Every time they needed a big play, which frankly wasn't for very long in this game because they never trailed. The Celtics ran away with this. They were the best team in basketball all season. And they really breezed through the playoffs with a couple of off nights.

And, you know, that core of Tatum and Brown and White and Drew Holloway, you know, you hardly even need Porzingis, you know. I mean, they were just massively good. And congratulations to the Celtics. Yeah, and now let's go for the view from Boston from a man who gets his Boston sports news from local Boston sports stations. Jonathan Lemire, why is this bad news for the city of Boston, for the Boston Celtics, and, of course, for our beloved Red Sox? Am I the NYT pitch bot of the Boston sports team? No, this was great to see. First of all, Joe, quick notes.

Red Sox playing really well. Two out of three against the Phillies, two out of three against the Yankees. They won again last night against Toronto. Nice to see. First of all, Joe, quick list notes. Red Sox playing really well. Two out of three against the Phillies. Two out of three against the Yankees. They won again last night against Toronto. Nice to see. They're really coming on. They're fun. They're aggressive.

They stole nine bases Sunday night. I was at that game. Great to see. As for the Celtics, this core, as Gene said, the core of Tatum and Brown, they've been together seven-odd years or so now. They have come close a number of times. They were in six straight conference championships, and they got over the hump this year.

They earned it. It's been great to watch their evolution. A terrific supporting cast. A coach who was really doubted last year came into his own this year. Look, as you know, I'm always a nervous Boston sports fan. I was anxious for most of the game last night. But Eugene was right. Outside, once we got to the middle of the second quarter, this game was over,

even though I didn't really – wasn't allowing myself to believe it. And this is now their 18th championship, putting them one ahead of the Lakers for most of all time. And this is a team that in particular means a lot to this city. Parade on Friday. Yeah. Yeah, you want to – I hate that. And this is a team that in particular means a lot to this city. Parade on Friday. Yeah. Yeah, you want to – I hate that the Celtics officially have more championships than us now.

Of course, that's magic. And I will say it is – what an incredible run. And by the way, if you want to be grim, be an Atlanta Falcons sports fan, speaking of Boston. Sam Stein, I'll go to you really quickly here. I know you're a Red Sox fan. I don't know if you're a Celtics fan, but, I mean, Red Sox are on quite a run. And I will tell you, a really heartwarming, almost made-for-TV,

hallmark movie story in that first game of the Yankees, Red Sox game, where Alex Verdugo, who was plagued by a mystery illness last year when he was a Red Sox, wasn't even able to run out routine ground balls or run after routine pop flies in the outfield, now has regained use of his legs as a Yankee. It's good to see. How heartwarming. We still won two out of three. Yeah, it was very heartwarming to see Alex regain function of his lower limbs,

which he lacked last year. And, yeah, but it was better to see the two out of three. By the way, he lacked only when he had to run out ground balls. But anyway, go ahead. Last year's team, I'm trying to erase from memory, but this year's team feels a little different. I know we sort of linger in the 500 zone for a while, but we're three games over now.

As Lemire said, we've been playing really well. What I like about this year's team is they're scrappy. The base running, the triples, the stolen bases. We're doing the stuff that we didn't do last year, which makes it fun. I don't have high expectations, but I am enjoying them. Whereas last year felt like a tedious mess all the time. I will say for the long-suffering city of Boston, it had been an excruciating five or six years without a championship.

So thank God for the Celtics pulling it off. On a serious note, I'm happiest for Al Horford. He had been in the league for, what, 17 years without a championship. This is great for him. One of the league's really unsung heroes. Great player. Yeah, you know, some words you will never hear from me. Long suffering Boston sports fans have had like 87 championships in the four major areas.

I mean, listen, it's yeah, it's been quite a run. But anyway, congratulations to the city of Boston. As we were discussing, the White House is joining the Biden campaign in pushing back against recent video clips going viral that make President Biden look as though he's confused during public events and other appearances. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blasted the use of the misleading videos, which are edited to make the president look bad and then circulated by right-wing media and allies. Take a look. They are cheap fakes video. They are done in bad faith. And some of your news organization have been very clear, have stressed that these right-wing, the right-wing critics of the president have a credibility problem because of the fact-checkers have repeatedly caught them pushing misinformation, disinformation. I think that it tells you everything that we need to know about how desperate Republicans are here. And instead of talking about the president's performance in office, and what I mean by that is his legislative wins, what he's been able to do for the American people across the country.

We're seeing these deep fakes, these manipulated videos. And it is, again, done in bad faith. That's all they've got. The Republican accounts circulating many of the clips responded, claiming the videos are unedited and promised to keep posting them. A lie. A lie. A lie. And also just if something is unedited, it's one angle, not showing the whole story. How about this? They lie about their lies, which, of course, you would expect liars to lie about their lies. I mean, we're talking about Trump.

They're lying about their cheap fake. By the way, I just I got to say this one more time. They're only helping Joe Biden. They're only lowering expectations. They do it before every State of the Union address. And then afterwards, they're so freaked out that Biden did well. They say he must have been on cocaine, a sort of, you know, 2024 version of, you know, maybe, you know, maybe an Eric Clapton song in the background. But they're doing the same thing for the debate. They lower expectations. They say he's like not cogent. And then he goes out and he does a really good job. And they're like, wait, what happened? The Washington Post has reported about how these cheap fakes were used to attack Biden during his recent trip to Normandy. And we showed you last

week the Trump campaign sharing a clip which appeared to show President Biden at the G7 summit wandering off from other world leaders before the Italian prime minister comes over to alert him about a group photo. But when you see the video from a different angle, you see the whole story. After a skydiver landed in front of the president and other leaders, President Biden turns to his left where there are troops. The president appears to say something to them and gives them the thumbs up before he's tapped on the arm by the Italian prime minister. As these cheap fakes continue to circulate, there is growing concern that attempts to fact check them may not be able to keep up.

As one Democratic strategist puts it, quote, the lie is sprinting the 100 meter dash and the fact check is taking a stroll on the beach. So it's never going to catch up and it's never going to have the same reach. And this is the problem. And this is why, you know, the debate, everything about this campaign will make somebody who is in support of democracy and perhaps would even choose Joe Biden over Donald Trump just in support of democracy, never going to have a chance against lies, disinformation and crazy insults. Never going to have a chance. Michael Steele, I disagree. They will have a chance. In fact, if you look at Donald Trump's track record and Donald Trump's Republican Party over the last seven years, they're 0 and 7. So, yeah, maybe the Biden team is going to have to work harder. Maybe Democrats are going to have to work harder. Maybe people who actually like American democracy are

going to work harder. But they just have to work harder and get the word out that these people are lying. Not only is the RNC lying, but also mainstream media outlets are now all in on the lies. Yeah, I think that's true. I agree with you, Joe, a little bit on that. The reality is a very stark one, and it's one that a number of us have been warning about for a while. You know what we haven't brought up in this conversation, which is right there at the tip of the spear, is AI. The AI-generated ads where you can take these events. We're talking

about taking a clip and just showing one angle from it. We've already seen the RNC and the Biden, excuse me, the Trump campaign effort play in this space when the RNC put out its AI ad last fall, didn't tell anybody. They had completely made it up and whole out of whole cloth. And then, of course, the robocalls using the voice of the president to tell voters not to vote during the New Hampshire primary. So you've already seen these practices put in place. The problem is it's not just one of, oh, guess what? Fact checkers can't catch up or keep up. The problem is you have mainstream media outlets that are like we, as you mentioned before, the Wall Street Journal in their own ways perpetuating this.

So it gives an air of legitimacy to some of this. And before you have a chance to come back and say, wait a minute, Wall Street Journal, what the hell are you doing? You know, that's not what this is. Why don't you come clean about it? It's already been placed up on X, right? A platform that Elon Musk said, hey, lie as much as you want. We don't care. And it goes out there. And then what do you do? So you're right. I think in the main, people kind of know some of this, but it's going to get worse, not better between now and November. And that's going to be the difficult part, particularly for American media that wants to try to play the balls and strikes, but wind up actually, you know, tipping their hand a little bit from time to time.

I mean, look, in major areas where people get their news, this lie or this concept about Joe Biden is being validated. And you brought up the Howie Kurtz segment that I showed you, and he played Sean Hannity doing an entire segment on that scene with the paratroopers. That's a show that has a great deal of influence. A lot of people watch it. They get their information and they make decisions based on it. They come to conclusions based on it. They do 10 minutes on that. I mean, that's I know you might think it's funny. I don't think it's funny. I think that you don't think it matters. I think it matters.

That's what they do. They have a lot of power and a lot of influence, and they don't they don't use responsible judgment or facts or news. Their goals there are different. The goals there are not to share news with people. Should we get a breaking news headline down below? No, I hear you. But I mean, they've been doing this.

I think this is now reaching a fever pitch. And I guess this is what gets me about Democrats and people who are center left. Like they're shocked, shocked that gambling is going on in the institution instead of figuring out how to shut it down. Hey, I'm not shocked. This is what they do is what they've always done. It's I mean, am I am I don't remember the am I am I shocked? I was going to say, am I shocked at the story and a couple of stories that have gotten into The Wall Street Journal, like the day after Andrew Ross Sorkin reports that Donald Trump was just out of his mind and people were laughing at him and a group of CEOs the next morning. You know, you've

got the Wall Street Journal going, CEOs love Donald Trump coming out of the media. No, it's just not true. So am I am I I'm so shocked by I'm shocked by so few things in the political realm anymore, the media realm that I hate to say it. But I will say, yes, I am shocked that that's happening to The Wall Street Journal, because what I've always done when I have friends that read The websites that are run by, you know, Chinese religious cults or other, you know, are funded by Qatar. What I always do is go, well, listen, you OK, you want the news, go to The Wall Street Journal. It's a Murdoch paper. And they've got some of the best reporters anywhere in America and the world. And that's that's sort of Sam's sign. That's sort of changing here in this landscape. I've got can also say when it comes to New York Post, it's very rich that the right wing Trumpers have been beating their chest and self-righteous indignation for about three and a half years now going, oh, how could you? How could you have ever doubted the New York Post and the Hunter Biden laptop. So how could that how could that have even gone through your mind, gone through your

mind that maybe something being planted in the New York Post may have been misinformation when they're showing us exactly why reasonable people would believe anything dumped at the end of a campaign that favors Donald Trump is just out and out misinformation. Look again, look at the parachuting story and everything else the New York Post is doing right now. Yeah, I totally agree with that. If you're going to run deceptive videos, the risk you run as an institution is that people won't believe you when you get legitimate stuff, right? That's the that's the flip side. I will say there's something that Jonathan said earlier in this program that I think it's worth stressing for the viewers. And I think it was

underscored by the quote you read from Eric Schultz, which is, this is a two-tiered system. One is that these videos get put out at a remarkable speed. And the second is that people who are interested in sort of the factual underpinnings of the videos, or lack thereof, I should say, frantically try to keep up. And Jonathan knows this very well. But, you know, our internal Slack channels at Politico regularly do feature, you know, these videos being put in there with the question, where is the full clip? Like, what is the context of this clip? And journalists across the country are being forced into this posture. Imagine how much time and resources you waste trying to track down the validity of the actual

video just to make sure whether it's in context or not. Sometimes it is, but often it isn't. And that's just the current state of journalism, right? It's like you have to spend a lot of time sussing out whether these videos are real or not. And I fear that this is going to be just the future because, like Michael Steele said, the technology is just going to get more and more efficient at making these videos look more and more real when they're really not. Well, you know, that's not – you're absolutely right, Sam. I agree with everything you said, except it's not wasted time for news organizations to check this stuff out, because that's what we have to do. We have to interrogate every, you know, every purported fact and see if it's real or not. What has really struck me about the parachute video, you know, I'm not any sort of believer in conspiracies, but I do believe in coordination.

And boy, this is this this parachute thing was so coordinated. It was it. I wondered what that was about. And, you know, Karine Jean-Pierre said it's a fact of desperation. I've got to admit that that occurred to me because there was a certain desperate feel to it. I mean, you just look at the clip from a different angle and it just obliterates the story they're trying to tell. It's just so easily. And so, Gene, that's the thing. So, Gene, that's the thing, right? They put this up knowing they're going to be called out as liars, knowing that there are other angles that are going to prove that they are lying to their audience,

that it will be exposed, that they lie today, but the sun's going to rise tomorrow and the facts are going to become clear. People are going to wake up and go, oh my God, they were lying to us. And yet they didn't care. Maybe they thought our readers are stupid. Maybe they thought our readers live in a fact-free echo chamber. I don't know what they thought, but whatever it was, they were undervaluing and underestimating their readers. Well, I think they were, but I also think that they're trying to implant, to imprint this sort of idea. They've been working on it for a long time, but this was a huge push, trying to imprint this idea that Biden is, you know, brain dead, basically.

So doddering that he has no idea where he is. And people, you know, the Amen chorus, there are people who I didn't expect to be in that chorus who usually have more respect for fact who were, yeah, that's right, he was totally lost. Look at the clip. Well, you look at the clip. You know, you look at the video clip. Come on. And so I think they're trying to leave this impression. And they don't really care if it gets called out as a why because they figure, well, for some voters, I guess the impression

is still there. I don't know. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we're going to dig into the latest effort from the White House to protect undocumented immigrant spouses of American citizens. Plus, Maryland Governor Wes Moore is pardoning more than 175,000 marijuana convictions in his state. He joins us ahead to discuss his new executive order. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. Go to California. We have 100,000 people show up.

I said, why are we losing California? Why would we lose it? It's so corrupt. The whole election process, it's a rigged deal. We have a rigged country. We have rigged elections. The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020, and we're not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024. Former President Donald Trump in that speech in Detroit on Saturday, still claiming the last election and the whole country are rigged against him. Joining me now, longtime Democratic

legal advisor who co-chaired former President Barack Obama's Commission on Election Administration, Bob Bauer. He is the author of a new book entitled The Unraveling Reflections on Politics Without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis. You know, Bob, I hope this doesn't. This is an important book. I hope you don't take this wrong when I say we're both kind of old.

And we've seen a lot. We've been around a lot. I remember when I first came to Washington, D.C., I'd watch Tim Russert on Meet the Press and he would be interviewing a guy that you work for, Tom Daschle and Trent Lott. And while the cameras were rolling, those guys, man, it was a 15. It was a thrill in Manila, 15 round and rounder. And afterwards, as you know very well, they were friends and they would go and they'd talk about how they got things done. Talk about and I know your book focuses on this, the damage, the scar tissue in American democracy that we've both seen over the past 30, 35, 40 years. Well, yes. And Joe, I'm not going to dispute your point about my age, but let's just say we're getting on. Maybe not old, but getting on. Getting on. Absolutely. I recall when I was younger, a vigorous fight that was reported

in the paper between Hubert Humphrey and Barry Goldwater going back that far. And when it was over, they walked out of the Senate chamber with their arms around each other, sort of arm in arm. And that tolerance for the other side, that understanding that there are disputes, but when the disputes are resolved, we're citizens of the same country, is absolutely critical to the flourishing of this democracy, to the protection of democratic values. And in this book, what I'm attempting to do is to show that at bottom, a democratic politics, an ethical democratic politics respects difference. It respects, I noticed in your last segment, a discussion of lies. It respects a difference

between truths and falsehood. Parties do puff up and they argue their cases strenuously. And sometimes each side finds exaggerations in the points of view advanced by the others. But at the end of the day, they respect the voters and they respect the fundamental importance of conveying truthful information in support of their positions. When that starts to collapse, the democracy is strained. And the book I wrote is about how those of us who have a role in politics and government have an ethical responsibility to attend to the health of our democratic institutions in choices that are made every day. Bob, I'm old, too, so I remember those days. But when did this unraveling begin?

Do you trace it to, like, a moment, to a figure, a person? When did this change happen? And so, you know, imagine a Republican and Democrat walking off the Senate floor today with their arms around each other. When did this happen? I've observed over the course of my career a striking difference. I got into politics shortly after the Watergate affair. I graduated from law school. And at that time, there was still the basis for that sort of dialogue and a deep belief that it was a necessity, that it was something that, in effect, those in public life owed the public, owed the voters. And that has dissipated.

And I understand there are different points of view on how that happened. The key thing is that we have to get back to an appreciation of the ethical dimension of politics and these choices that are made every day to lie or not to lie, to respect or not to respect an adversary, to respect or not respect the law, to respect the difference between the public and the private, that public office is a public trust and not an opportunity for private political or other gain. These are critical tenets that underlie the flourishing of the democracy. We have to get back to that. But I understand that there are significant disagreements about how we got to the point

where we are today. Yeah, you know, Michael, still proving how divided we are. We can't even figure out both sides, can't even figure out like what began the great divide. If you talk to most conservatives, I'm sure you and me in the past, we look 1987 and the so-called Borking of Robert Bork, just complete destruction of his character before he even got out to have his hearings. You talk to a lot of Democrats who talk about the class I came in with, with Newt Gingrich, who, you know, hyper partisan, personalized things, still still engaging in just a great exaggeration to get his points through. And so even what caused the Great Divide

is still debatable. But those are two good places to start, aren't they? Yeah, they are. In fact, Joe, I think, I mean, this has been a fascinating space for me for a while in trying to contextualize this moment that we see with the unraveling of the Republican Party, the unraveling of our national discourse around some of the things that you and I would stand in alliance against, you know, the meekness of the world on policy differences, right? So you have this, you know, conservative view of America and a liberal, traditional liberal view of America. And that space was a safe battleground for a lot of our politicians. But something changed. And Bob, that change is at the core

of what began the unraveling. It's the combination of forces, I would think, that the pressure to get power, to hold power, up against the pressure to do good public policy. The last big public policy effort, you know, under Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society effort, ate at some of the underlying fabric around policy, but also stoked this idea that, well, we need to get the power back. How do you see these elements continuing to shape the unraveling of American political discourse to the point that it is now done so amongst citizens. One thing when the politicians have their back, now the citizens should be also a part of this unraveling. Citizens respond to leadership. And if you have leaders, for example,

who completely allied the difference or ignore the difference between truth and falsity, who believe that their political adversaries are their enemies and they're not just to be defeated at the polls, they're to be destroyed, then citizens understand politics in a completely different way. But it's not a democratic politics. It is politics. It's about vying for power. But it's not a democratic politics in the small d sense. Your clips at the beginning, which reveal yet again, you know, a refusal to accept the outcome of elections, the suggestion that an election has to be rigged if one side wins and the other side loses, the only explanation for the victory of the one and the loss of the other is rigging.

All of that breathes in the citizenry a belief that the politics is corrupt and that the constitutional framework within which we conduct that politics is itself somehow wanting, that we're not committed to those constitutional values. I mean, consider, for example, former President Trump saying that he thought the suspension of the Constitution or the termination of his guarantees might be necessary for him to succeed and for his politics to prevail. That's something the citizens cannot hear. And so, again, it falls to everybody in a position of responsibility in politics, in

government, to think about the choices they make every day that bear on whether we have a healthy or an unhealthy democratic politics in this country. You know, Bob, I was talking, you know, talking about it's interesting. I say, well, maybe Bork, maybe it was we came in with Gingrich. I remember, though, I mean, you know, I was a really conservative guy at a 95 ACU rating. Most Democrats thought I was out of my mind. And yet, you know, every time I was on the floor, I was sitting with Democrats, my my close friends, Harold Ford, John Lewis, and I would travel home together more times than not.

He called me his travel buddy, Bill Delon. God rest his soul. I just I just love Bill so much. Maxine, what do you name it? Like the most liberal people were good friends with Elijah. My gosh, Elijah, the most liberal people were friends with, in my case, one of the most conservative people in Congress. And guess what? When we needed to do something bipartisan, I'd go to Harold Ford and I'd sign on to one of his bills. Harold would sign on to my bill. We'd do something on long term care together in the middle of impeachment. For God's sake, we passed long a long term care bill. We could disagree strenuously.

And this was, you know, this was through 2000, 2001 and still be really close friends. Yes, and those debates are ones that can end in joy for one side and disappointment in the other. A key is recognizing that the debates continue. You might win one day, you lose the next. That's the way the system operates. And the failure to recognize that and to recognize the humanity and the good faith of fellow citizens, the humanity and good faith of fellow leaders, the failure to do that strikes at the very heart of a democratic self-governance. I mean, what you just described is absolutely critical to the way our politics has to be conducted. And the opposite is extraordinarily damaging to it. So, Bob, elsewhere in the book, you reveal that you played Donald Trump during Joe Biden's 2020 debate prep.

We, of course, have another debate on the horizon in just a week or so's time. So my two questions for you would be, first, are you going to reprise that role? Are you going to be Trump again? And secondly, what other counsel would you give to President Biden as he prepares for this moment? Well, I can't speak to the advice that I would give to the president in debate prep or any other context. And unfortunately, you know, as you can imagine, I can't actually speak to debate preparations. That wouldn't be appropriate for me to talk about. But that episode that I recounted in the book was one that I really enjoyed telling. It was an experience that, and I've done other debate preps before and played other roles like that. That's, again, part of the process of people coming together to hear

candidates debate with each other, put themselves before the American public, lay their views out, their competing visions out. And I thought it was a high privilege to have an opportunity in 2020 to participate. I know that sounds a bit evasive, but I'm afraid that's the constraint I'm operating under. I think I understand why. A bit evasive? I think I understand why. I think we actually got the new book. What a great book. Really important. The Unraveling Reflections on Politics Without Ethics and Democracy in Crisis.

Bob Bauer, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. Thank you. Thank you so much, Bob. Appreciate it. More than 100,000 Maryland residents will now have cannabis-related convictions pardoned. After Governor Wes Moore signed an executive order yesterday, the order wipes the slate for 175,000 marijuana convictions and makes Maryland the first state in America to issue mass pardons on cannabis paraphernalia related charges. Maryland legalized recreational marijuana back in 2023 after the state legislature passed a

constitutional amendment on that. And Maryland Governor Wes Moore joins us now. He's also a member of the Biden-Harris Campaign's National Advisory Board. So thank you so much for joining us. This is historic. Tell us, first of all, about the mass pardons. Who is this going to impact and why you did it? Well, you know, we did it because this is about both moral justice and economic justice. And the reason I bring up both of those two things is, you know, Maryland voted that we should have a recreational cannabis market. In fact, we voted by a 70 percent margin that we were going to have a recreational cannabis market. So my administration has been working over the past 18 months and rolling out what many believe to be the most equitable and the smoothest rollout that we've seen of a cannabis rollout inside of our state. We have 174 new social equity licenses, people who now have the ability to sell legally cannabis. But also we know, which is, again, a historic number.

But at the same time, we know this. You cannot talk about the benefits of legalization if you're not willing to wrestle with the consequences of criminalization. That we still had tens of thousands, over 100,000 people who still had cannabis charges. And so when we say from a moral perspective, you cannot continue to have people who have records for something that is now legal and a multi-billion dollar industry having an ability to get jobs, having an ability to go to school, an ability to get a home. And at the same time, it's an economic imperative. Where I was with someone named Shiloh yesterday, for example, who for years has had a misdemeanor cannabis charge that has not allowed him to keep steady

work. He got one job and he was fired on the second day because he didn't pass a background check because of a misdemeanor cannabis charge, something that is now legal. And so this was really important, not just economically for the state. It was really important for the individuals who received the gubernatorial pardon. But also, this was really important when it came to taking a moral course for how Maryland was going to operate and how Maryland was going to lead. Hey, Governor, Sam Stein here. I was going to ask you about Maggie Rogers and Maggie Rogers Day in Maryland. I saw the video of it, but we're going to stick on topic for the point today. Obviously, she's a good Maryland girl. Yes, she is. Eastern Shore. Look, what you're doing in

Maryland, obviously, on marijuana is to a, something that the Biden administration has tried to do nationally, which is just essentially lower the temperature around it, get rid of the harsh penalties for use of cannabis. But I'm wondering, as you take these proactive steps to normalize, essentially, cannabis use, is there more that the feds can and should be doing on that front as well? Not just decriminalization, but looking more towards the feds can and should be doing on that front as well, not just decriminalization, but looking more towards the legalization elements. Yes. And I applaud the Biden-Harris administration because they've been able to do things that have been really important to this cause, like moving cannabis from a schedule one to a schedule three drug. There's no reason that

something like cannabis should have had the same classification as heroin, you know, than other synthetic drugs. And so that was actually an important step about the way that society looks at it and also urging governors to be able to take this look. And the thing that I would continue to tell people is if you're wondering whether or not you should do this, if you're wondering whether or not this should happen in your states, I would say this, listen to your people, listen to what they're telling you. Keep your ear close to the ground, because that's exactly what we did in the state of Maryland. When we put it up for a referendum, we saw overwhelmingly that the people of our state wanted this done. When we were pulling together this package to have now what is the largest mass pardon in U.S. history for cannabis, for misdemeanor cannabis charges.

We actually brought everybody around the table. We had law enforcement and we had activists, that we had community members and we had people who were involved in business and in the industry. Everybody had a seat at the table. So for anyone wondering how you go about doing this or whether or not this is a good thing, I think you should do what we did in Maryland. Listen to your people, and they'll tell you what the right direction of going is. Governor, Michael Steele here. It's good to see you again, sir. I hope everything's going well for you. Good to see you, LG.

Yes, indeed. So this effort is unique, as you said, on so many fronts. I have a two-parter for you real quick. The first is, what other safeguards, in addition to opening up the cannabis market in Maryland, 174 new licenses, for example, what other safeguards or steps has the state taken to, you know, introduce this market in a safe way? Because, you know, there are still families and communities that are concerned about this expansion of cannabis. This effort to clear records is applauded and supported, but there's also the other side of it.

So there's that. And the other piece is the celebration that all Marylanders had when you declared the harbor open and the Key Bridge project underway. Talk a little bit about where things are with that effort as well. So you've got these twin episodes in your administration, which really stand out and stand up, I guess, in many ways, your leadership. So talk about how you're addressing these two divergent moments for your administration. Thank you so much, LG. And yeah, when it came down to really roll out the new cannabis market, we knew that it needed to be transparent. It needed to be safe. It needed to be fair. And those were the guidelines that we looked at. And so in addition

to making sure that we had real safety guidelines, and this was part of the whole point of actually regulating it. And when you're turning into a recreational market is part of the challenge you had with the illegal market was you had people who had no idea what they're actually getting. You had people who had no idea what was actually inside the materials. By being able to do this in a proper way, by being able to do it in a controlled way, you're actually able to take partially part of the revenue and actually move it towards safety criteria, move it towards support systems for families. You're able to actually do creative things with ways that can help it to be not just more accepted, but a safer way of integration into society. And then also we had a clear focus

on providing access to capital to people as they were trying to enter into the industry. accepted, but a safer way of integration into society. And then also we had a clear focus on providing access to capital to people as they were trying to enter into the industry. Part of the challenge we've always had, not just with cannabis, but with a collection of different industries, has been the initial tranche capital, right? The friends and family round. And the thing is, we know that not everybody has the same friends and not everybody has the same family. And so by being able to add access to capital to that frame was a way of helping to make sure that we can have an equitable distribution in the way that we looked at the cannabis rollout. And I appreciate the words about the opening of the Port of Baltimore. You're right. I mean, I remember that first morning when at 2.02, you know, my phone

rang and we saw that there was a ship that was the size of the Eiffel Tower that was now caught in the Patapsco River with tens of thousands of tons of steel and water. And I asked people, I said, you know, how long is this going to take? And people were telling us this could take up to a year. And I said, I can't. I got tens of thousands of port workers. I cannot tell them this is going to take a year to get them back on the job. And so people worked around the clock. And I'm so thankful for the measure of coordination, for how the private sector stepped up, the federal government stepped up, the state coordinated with

all these various units. And what they told us was going to take 11 months. We got done in 11 weeks. And the Port of Baltimore is back in the moment right now. And it's a beautiful sight. All right, Maryland Governor Westmore, thank you. Good luck against the Yankees tonight. Thanks for being on the show this morning. Go O's. Go O's. All right. Coming up, from the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s to the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci will join us to reflect on his career as the nation's top physician.

You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back.