Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/2/23

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

Senate passes debt ceiling bill; Biden crushes political extremists

I don't like the term woke because I hear woke, woke, woke, you know, it's like just a term that use half the people can't even define it. They don't know what it is. These poorly performing woke financial scams, the era of woke and weaponized government is over. We will demolish woke tyranny that has now gone woke at the top levels with the woke and all this nonsense. They want to go woke.

They want to go woke. I don't like the term woke because I hear woke, woke, woke, you know, it's like just a term that use half the people can't even define it. They don't know what it is. Wow. He likes it. Then he doesn't. Doesn't know what it is. Says it all the time. Perhaps former President Trump doesn't like the term woke.

At least when Governor Ron DeSantis uses it. You know what term I don't like? Ephemeral. And yet I catch myself, Willie, all the time talking about ephemeral legislation. Yeah. That went from being the word of the day a couple of days ago to now. I think it's the word of the week. Is it not ephemeral? Either that or malodorous. It's one of the two. It's still early. We've got a couple hours ahead of us. Maybe we can find another one. Meanwhile, the Florida governor is seizing on a potential weakness in Trump's third presidential bid. We'll show you what he had to say about that and how he responded to questions about his last name.

Is it does Santis? Oh, did he? Is it? He did. He had his own answer for that. And it was completely unrevealing. Also, it had some Republicans in the House are still upset with Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the debt ceiling deal, with one calling it for calling for a day of reckoning. Are you kidding me? It is a day of reckoning for the extremists who thought that they were going to be able to hold not only Congress and Kevin McCarthy and the president hostage, but also hold the United States economy hostage. They weren't able to do it. These guys struck a deal and struck a deal that passed overwhelmingly. Plus, we'll show you Liz Cheney's latest comments on a possible presidential bid. It comes ahead of announcements expected next week from Chris Christie and Mike Pence.

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, guys. Can you believe it? I'm not sure if I believe it. It's June 2nd. I feel like summer has officially started. Everyone should take a vacation along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Departments. And what did we find out yesterday? Yale grad,

right? Yeah, she's a Yale grad. She's so elite. You got Columbia grads, Yale grads. I mean, come on. It is a shock. I know it's shocking. Not at all, actually. Pulled surprisingly in columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, is with us. And co-founder of Axios, Mike Allen, is with us. Great to have you all on board. Mike, get us started. Come on. Do it. And good morning on the first Friday in June.

It is a happy Friday. He's so cute. I love him. We're ready to go now. The Senate passed the bipartisan Biden-Mc Biden McCarthy debt ceiling bill last night, ensuring the U.S. will not default on its debt. The final vote was 63 yeas to 36 nays, with more Democrats voting for the deal than Republicans. The bill now heads to the president and then it will be signed into law by President Biden. In response to the bill's passage, Biden thanked Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for their work and also noted, quote, no one gets everything they want in a negotiation,

but make no mistake, this bipartisan agreement is a big win for our economy and the American people. You know, the thing is to measure just what a big blanking deal this was. Those are Biden's words. To borrow from Vice President Joe Biden after the Affordable Care Act passed, you just go back to a week ago and you look at all of the headlines talking about how we were in crisis. We weren't going to get this done. The Huffington Post, trouble ahead for the debt deal.

BBC, debt ceiling crisis looms as talks end with no deal in sight. And it just went on and on. And I think most people were predicting that this was going to be a massive crisis. The fact that Joe Biden was able to do what Joe Biden was able to do once again, and that Kevin McCarthy basically stared down the extremists in his own caucus. Again, a really big deal. Columnist David Ignatius has a piece in The Washington Post titled Biden is delivering on his most far fetched pledge compromise. David writes in part this.

The president's congenital eccentricism is easy to criticize, especially in this era of hard, polarizing views. He's a conciliator, a dealmaker who likes to say yes and has trouble saying no. He's also risk averse, and he avoids escalation when facing potential catastrophe, whether it's war with Russia or a budget default. One memorable moment in the budget drama came when Representative Chip Roy, one of the most fanatical GOP diehards, sputtered that the deal was a turd sandwich. Well, the majority of Republicans decided to eat it. Biden's a tavastic embrace of McCarthy to white male Irish Catholics cutting a deal in private is hardly the summit of American politics, but it was a good faith negotiation that solved a big problem.

My whole soul is in this bringing America together, Biden said at his inauguration. He meant it. And this week he delivered. And he not only delivered this week, he's been delivering for quite some time, Willie. I mean, you look at and I said this, make no mistake, Biden crushed the extremes once again and cleared out a space in the middle big enough to drive a truck through. He may have trouble riding a bike or walking across the stage. There's that. But the man knows how to get things done in D.C. better than any president since Reagan. And just a pop culture moment. I went to see Neil Young in concert a couple of years ago. Somebody dragged me out. I never go out at night to watch concerts, but I'm a huge Neil Young fan was watching.

And people were shouting songs from the balcony. Play old man, play needle in the damage done. And Neil Young just stopped. He was plugging his guitar into his amp. He just stopped, turned around and looked up and he said, you know, I've done this before. Like, just let me do what I'm going to do. The whole place roared. And that reminds me of Biden. There's no substitute for experience. This guy's done it before. You look at how he once again, once again, defied expectations, not only from the haters, but his own party. And it's it's a pretty remarkable record. You look at the bipartisan legislation, and anybody who would mock that, Willie, please show me a president in the last 25 years, that in the last quarter century, that's had more bipartisan legislation than Joe Biden.

And this was his theory of the case, as David got to in that piece when he was running in 2020. He's been there before. He's experienced. He knows how to work across the aisle. A lot of people rolled their eyes at that. That doesn't really happen anymore. We just watched it happen over the last couple of weeks and particularly the last few days and give Speaker McCarthy credit as well. They got serious when it was time to be serious. And Jonathan Lemire, it is a stark contrast to Donald Trump, whose theory of the case was I'm an outsider in 2016. I'm going to go turn over the tables in Washington. I'm going to go break a bunch of stuff. I'm going to do it the way no one's ever done it to get things done.

And now Joe Biden is offering that contrast of, OK, we tried that. You saw how that went for four years. Now, let me sit here quietly, calmly. Yes, I might be getting up there in years, as they acknowledge. But I still know how to get things done in Washington. And he and the Republican leadership did it. Yeah. Biden's pitch since day one has been bipartisanship and experience. His commitment to trying to work across, try to work across the aisle. He successfully did that with the infrastructure bill. He did it again here. He has had to where he has done things with Democrats alone when needed, the infrastructure, the Inflation Reduction Act, to name one. But he prefers to work across the aisle to take the temperature down.

And he has enshrined the achievements of his first two years. They weren't touched in this deal. It's an important thing the White House says. And also, we should note, the White House sort of ceded the messaging space here to Republicans the last couple weeks that kept the president sort of out of it above the fray. And that annoyed some Democrats, at least. They said that, look, this is a moment where we should be in there. We're losing the politics of this. But it was a deliberate strategy. I've got new reporting this morning that goes behind the scenes about that, how they felt like if the White House feels like they got a really good deal here, but if they were seen gloating or crowing about it, Republicans might lose. They might lose votes. They might be less reluctant, less supportive of it. So they decided

to wait. The victory lap will come another day. They feel like this is something important for the country. And this idea of the president being sort of above the fray, being the calm, steady hand, that's a nice contrast against the hysterical Republicans, they say, before 2024. Well, it didn't give Republicans a one-on-one matchup with Biden and it kept him above the fray, which at the time it did seem there were moments when perhaps Biden could have seemed like he was more in it, especially as I mean, this really got to the very, very, very end of the ticking time bomb and they got it done. But it's incredible. I mean, just last week, we had a congressional member who

was voicing his deep, deep concern that a bill was actually going to pass and that that some kind of deal would ever be reached between these two parties. So I think that this is definitely a win for Biden. It shows that he can create compromise and that there's some competence there. And that is what so many American voters, both sides of the aisle, really want at the end of the day. I mean, Gene Robinson, you look, I'm just looking back. I'm just looking back at a Jonathan Shade article back a couple of months ago. And he said, why Biden is getting more bipartisan laws than I than anyone expected. Actually, it was from a year ago. I was I was skeptical he could convince Republicans to support anything.

I was wrong, Jonathan says. And Jonathan's being, you know, I love reading his columns. He's always honest about when he's had blind spots. But most people were saying, Biden, come on. This old this old guy is living in 1974, 1975. There is no such thing as bipartisan deals anymore. But he gets them done and he gets them done, just like Ali said and Willie said, by keeping quiet, by not going around and crowing about, oh, they're doing this or doing that, by not insulting them, letting them have their day, letting them go around, talk about how Biden is getting taken advantage of, and then Biden gets the deal done.

Exactly. It's kind of like the way pros do it. Yeah. I mean, it was very professional. And look, look at that vote in the House. The vote in the House, it was a huge bipartisan majority, more than 300 votes for this package. Did you think you would ever see that happen, given how polarized our politics are right now? I thought that was amazing.

And the second observation is that I think this negotiation actually started back during the State of the Union address. Remember when President Biden sort of Jedi mind tricked the Republicans into all pledging loudly? They would never touch Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid. And so that was all off the table. So he set the terms for this discussion long before it even began. And I think at the White House and in Biden world, they must be hoping that the Republicans and others continue to underestimate him, continue to think that he's, you know, old and doddering and has no idea what's going on because they're getting their pockets picked on a regular basis and he's getting things done. So the underestimating that we have been following for years now, I also think is a little bit

of a media narrative or a problem that the media is confronting. David Rothkopf put out a whole thread the other day talking about Biden's presidency and how the media struggles for balance, because if you cover it positively, you're somehow doing something wrong when the only thing it seems the only criticism that those on the right can find is his age. And the counter to that is what we're seeing right now. Wisdom, years of experience, years of mistakes, years of living life and living through hardship. And, you know, no matter what you think of him or what side of the aisle you are on, this man is wise and he is putting it to use and keeping his head down. And I just, you know, you even look at the end of the day, he got the deal done.

What can you say? Of course he got the deal done. And I mean, David Rothkopf's exactly right. So if you go around day in and day out, you're in the media. And all you hear in the media day in and day out is, oh, you're liberal, you're biased, legacy media, all the stupid stuff they say. Oh, they're in the tank for buying this, that and the other. You are. It makes people twitch and go, well, maybe we shouldn't say the truth. Like, for instance, that not only has he passed more bipartisan legislation

than any other president this century, he's also helped with the reconstruction of NATO, the flexing of America's muscle around China, whether it's in the Philippines or in Guam or in Australia or in Japan. I mean, you actually have for the first time China back on their heels. There's a reason they're not talking to us right now. There's a reason why they're being petulant. And it's because we've flexed our muscles all around the areas where they were hoping to be aggressive and hoping to move. So you've got that in foreign policy. You've got NATO, which Donald Trump wanted to tear to pieces, tighter than ever before. And this morning, this morning in Helsinki, America's secretary of state will be delivering in a country that has an 800 mile border with Putin's Russia will be delivering a speech on how catastrophic this war has been for

Vladimir Putin and Russia's military. And guess what? He's doing it from a country that's in NATO, Russia's worst, worst nightmare. This would have never happened under Donald Trump or, dare I say, any other president. Joe Biden has figured out how to do that. Can somebody say, oh, Biden's doing a great job? No, but I can. Biden's doing a great job. And I say that as somebody who is very critical of his withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, somebody that's been very critical of the southern border and the signals that he

sent early on on the southern border and hasn't moved fast enough to take care of that humanitarian crisis. There are things we can point out that he's made mistakes on. Right. But taken in total, he's done a pretty damn great job. That's not reflected, of course, in a lot of the polls, because you know what? Along with passing more legislation than anybody else in the past 20 years, he fell off a bike. Along with pushing back China and expanding the U.S. military presence around China in a way that actually stops them from being aggressive, even more aggressive, he tripped over a sandbag. I hope he's OK. That looked like it hurt.

I would not have done that. He's fine. It's perhaps the bumping of the head when he got off a Marine One, when he got back to the White House, that may have actually hurt even more. But you have all of these distractions, Mike Allen. But if you just you and I have been in Washington long enough to know a couple of things. One, Biden is getting things done legislatively and on foreign policy level in a way that a lot of presidents have not been able to do this century. And two, a lot in the mainstream establishment media are afraid to say that because the Trump right and the right wing are constantly working the refs. You can't

say that. You can't say anything. You're biased. You're with a Biden crime family. This that it's just it's Rothkopf, I think, was right. Yeah, Joe, you're exactly right. And you don't have to cover it positively. Cover it clinically the way Axios does. Pull back the camera. Take a look. What are we seeing? We've talked about compromise, confidence.

And this is the wily side of Joe Biden. Right. So three takeaways here. One, some companion reporting to Jonathan Lemire's point about the White House wanted a deliberate contrast with Republicans. The other thing the White House deliberately did in lying low was to give Kevin McCarthy the space he needed with his right wing. The view in the White House, I'm told, was let them beat their chest, let them huff and puff. And he's going to do what he needs to do to get the votes he needs to get from his right, which he did. And the president in the end will get that win. Second, people are seeing

Washington work. And you were talking about the disconnect between what President Biden is accomplishing, where the economy is and where people's sentiment is. Their view of the country is still very, very bleak. But people want Washington to work. And we didn't go right up to the cliff. Monday, right, is the date that default was supposed to kick in the latest date from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. So for once, Congress getting something done a few hours before he had to. And the third one, Joe, that speaks to your point about how much he's done when you step back and look at the totality of what's been accomplished in these two years,

the CHIPS Act, the Infrastructure Act, a lot of that money is still being spent. So he's going to have a lot to talk about and show as he runs for reelection. And guys, to underline something Gene said about the vote total in the House, this bill got 314 votes, cleared the House by nearly 200 votes. We don't see that very often. And then within the space of 24 hours after it made it through the House, it got 63 votes to clear that 60 vote hurdle in the Senate. The president will sign it today. So there's a larger point there. There's this idea that the inmates run the asylum in Washington and the extremists have taken over and all that. In some ways, we've seen that happen.

But at the end of the day here, the extremists stayed where they belong on the extremes. And people came together to get something done at a time where there could have been a catastrophe on the other side of it if the cooler heads had not prevailed here. Well, you know, what's the local news thing? If it if it if it bleeds, it leads. If it bleeds, it leads. Gene Robinson, you know, if somebody screams, it leads. If they go to a mic and they say something outrageous, if it's MTG or somebody else, it leads. We sat there and we listened to these people at the beginning of this Congress talk over and over again about how they owned Kevin McCarthy. They owned they were going to be the people who whatever,

you know, we're talking about Biden here. McCarthy crushed all of those people, too. He won't tell him that. But but they basically said he's going to do what we're going to do or we're going to vote him out. Oh, really? Yeah. Over 300 votes. No, you're not. And Willie also brought up, you know, some of the other things. You look at the VA bill on the burn pits that these extremists were against because Biden was for it. A lot of Republicans came crawling back because they knew it was so popular. The China competitive bill, a bipartisan bill. The CHIPS Act, a bipartisan bill. The infrastructure bill, the gun safety bill. I could go on and on, Gene.

These extremists are getting crushed over and over again. Yeah. I mean, Joe Biden has always been, you know, a center of politician. And and and that's where he's always been. That's where he is now. And and, you know, this idea in Republican circles that he's you know, that he's, you know, practically the the son of Marx and Engels. I mean, he's not Joe Biden, you know, he represents Delaware, the you know, the the corporate state. I mean, you know, he's Joe Biden, and he's a centrist Democrat, and that's the way he has approached his presidency, and he's had a lot of success. I got to say one other thing about Kevin McCarthy. You know, when we all watched those 15 embarrassing ballots he needed to become speaker, I confess that I did not imagine that he would be able to wrangle his very slim majority as well as he has done thus far. And, you know, he came through this, and he managed

to marginalize those on the extreme, extreme right. And he let them mouth off and say whatever they wanted. But in the end, you know, he delivered. And and so that that surprised me. And I think it surprised a lot of people. He certainly did. And and just like Biden, he let people shoot their mouth off, attacking it is on his own party, attack him, insult him. And he just put his head down. And again, for people like that haven't been on the floor, been a part of it. I'm telling you, when you think a vote's going to be close, you're expecting 225, 230 votes. Maybe you see something go over 300 on the big board and suddenly you realize something's afoot. Yeah, I get that was a huge win in the House. It was a huge win in the Senate. And I will say, let's look at the people with experience. Joe Biden.

Joe Biden wasn't freaking out. He did a little gesturing early on, I think, you know, when he was a foreign trip, I think he said something tough and may have regretted it. He and McCarthy got on a phone call. Everything's fine. Biden was like he knew this was going to get done. And Mitch McConnell, what was Mitch McConnell saying all along? Relax, it's going to get done. Like the people who'd been around knew they were going to figure out how to get the votes. So President Biden will address the nation at seven o'clock Eastern about the debt ceiling, about the debt deal. And also, you know, he will be generous to all those involved on both sides of the aisle that helped get a deal done. Joe mentioned President Biden's fall yesterday. The White House says he's doing just fine after he tripped and fell during the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony in Colorado Springs yesterday.

He was quickly helped up by Secret Service and pointed to something on the stage. The White House communications staff says the president tripped over a sandbag on the platform. The president returned to his seat on stage. Ceremony continued. And afterwards, he shook hands with the graduates and posed for selfies. When asked about the spill later in the day, here's what OK, did the jig. Donald Trump was asked about President Biden's fall yesterday during a Fox News town hall meeting. Take a look. You can't fall. You just can't fall no matter what. Just can't allow it to happen. And I better not allow, especially after saying this, I better not allow it to happen with me.

You know, in his response, Trump acknowledged his own concerns about falling after a speech at West Point back in 2020, when he was seen walking very carefully down a ramp, and he made reference to that, saying, you know, basically, Jonathan O'Meara was kind of like, it's dangerous out there. He said, that's serious stuff, and it's very dangerous out there, and you don't want to fall. But it was Biden's fall yesterday.

I'm glad he's okay. Biden's fall looked like a hard fall. Glad he got up. Sandbag. And he was okay with it. But obviously, though, again, Biden's talking tonight. We've been talking about things that actually do matter, the legislation. At the same time, there's some people in the campaign, I'm sure, that were like, oh, come on. Yeah. Yeah, no doubt there. First of all, a rare moment of self-awareness from

Donald Trump there to acknowledge that he also had trouble walking around, actually, at a service academy at graduation. Those things apparently are tough for commanders in chief. But yes, in terms of President Biden, White House says he is fine. It was a hard fall. He tripped over a sandbag that was there on stage. He was clearly in some pain afterwards. He was very ginger as he gingerly sat down afterwards. But he continued throughout the ceremony, got back on Air Force One. As you say, he did bump his head on the Marine One as he stepped off the helicopter on the White House lawn.

But he does seem he's fine. But, yes, on a serious note, this is, and you're right, we have spent correctly the majority of this block talking about the debt ceiling bill and that accomplishment. But presidents do fall. They do. They trip and fall. President Obama did a few times. But no president has ever been 81 years old and run for re-election while they did so. His age is an issue here. The Republicans immediately jumped on this. They blasted all over social media. The White House was very quick to be defensive. They pride themselves, this White House, on being above the fray. We don't engage on Twitter. Yesterday, they were all over Twitter because they knew, they know, polls show that Americans do have concerns about the president's

age. This is going to be a storyline they have to deal with. But they feel like they have. They feel like voters in 2020 know how old Joe Biden is. They know how old he is now. They like the job he's doing. He seems like he's fine. Well, I'm Gene. He just keeps he keeps rolling up achievements. I mean, you just keep rolling up one achievement after another. You can go to the voters. You can lay that out. But this does remind me of another president that was constantly mocked and ridiculed for falling that you and I will remember, Gerald Ford. That guy, in the words of Elvis Costello, that guy could not stand up for falling down like me. And I'll say I do it, too. Bumped his head all the time, whatever he was walking through. It seems like his cranium always found the bottom of a door.

But but but it was sort of it caught on and people started talking about it, started looking for it. And just like they are now with Joe Biden. Yeah, they did. I remember Ford. Ironically, Ford was probably one of the, certainly one of the better and maybe one of the best athletes ever to be president. And yet, yes, you know, I mean, you know, he stumbled occasionally. You and I both, because of height, we both have thick layers of scar tissue on our heads from bumping our heads, right?

You know, everywhere, because, you know, doorframes are not always made for tall people. You know, again, this is an issue. Age is an issue. Of course, if it ends up being Biden versus Trump, we're talking about, what, three years or something like that. We're not talking about a huge difference. You know, they're both two older men who would be running to be president. We're just glad that the president didn't suffer an injury.

After all, he rides around on his bike and fell off his bike once. He knocks around. But I think they've managed to tamp this one down. Of course, it will be, you know, on Fox and other networks. It will be shown again and again and again because that's what they do. Yeah. OK, still ahead on Morning Joe, 2024 White House hopefuls Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are sparring over how long they could each serve as president. We'll show you. It's kind of getting ugly. That new back and forth Republican Republican on Republican violence. It's so sad to see a lot going on there. Plus, what former President Trump is saying about reports that special counsel Jack Smith's office has a recording of him discussing a classified document he kept after leaving the White House. And what he says, it has to do with his poll numbers.

What did you say? It was a perfect. Yeah, something like that. And also ahead, Russian missiles strike Ukraine's capital for the sixth straight day in a row. We'll have the latest on the relentless attacks. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Thank you. name better before. I don't like the name change. Should we tell him that? But most people don't know what I mean. No, he's actually sort of changed the name. It's a syllabolic, they call it. He wants a syllabolic name. There's been some confusion over your last name and the pronunciation, and I'm just wondering, to correct the record, what is it? Oh, this is ridiculous, these stupid things. Listen, the way to pronounce my last name, winner. So, well, I guess it's stupid if he called himself D. Santus his entire life, and then the last year he called himself D. Santus.

I mean, it's like, I don't know, Willie. It's kind of kind of strange, but that's OK. It's not a big deal. We'll call him whatever he wants to be called. This is trivial, but it's getting more strange by the moment. Is it? Which is it? Like we said, we want to call him whatever he'd like to be called, but he won't even say it when asked directly about it. When he was sworn into his most recent term, the chief justice in Florida said DeSantis and he repeated it as DeSantis. So we're kind of all over the place. Again, not a big deal. We just like to nail it down as we move through a long presidential

campaign. I feel like I feel like when I'm saying DeSantis, I feel like I'm making fun of him. Yeah, but you're not. But I'm not. Because that's what I'm saying. What do you say? That's what his parents called him, Because that's what I'm saying. What do you say? I think that's what his parents called him because that's what he called himself. No, maybe he doesn't like the duh in it because it sounds

like you're saying duh. No, he called himself DeSantis. And then he stopped recently. But then an announcement earlier, we heard him talking about DeSantis.

So what's your name? Anyway, you want to seriously, that's not a tough question. You ought to be able to answer that. So now on to weightier issues here. Elise, we have the secretary of state who yesterday was in Oslo meeting with the foreign ministers there talking about, again, NATO, strengthening the bonds of NATO, strengthening this historic alliance,

talking about pushing back against Russia's aggression and Russia's invasion. And this morning, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Helsinki. And if you just look at that map, he's in Helsinki, in a country that's been historically at war with Russia, had an uneasy relationship with them. They've got, what, 600, 800 miles of border with Russia. And I think for Putin, what's most galling, it's a country that's like two hours away by car from St. Petersburg, from where he was born and where he grew up. But as Admiral Stravita said, you look at Sweden, you look at Finland, you look at Estonia, Latvia, NATO is in the process of turning the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake. It's pretty extraordinary. And this morning,

Blinken talked about Putin's historical strategic failure and talked about the 100,000 casualties. Just unbelievable. In the last six months, Vladimir Putin has not only damaged himself economically, but he's also gutted Moscow's military might and Russia as a world power. You look at that map and it really is just stunning to see how NATO is his entire neighborhood. And if not already a NATO country, they're trying to join up, you know, with the exception of Belarus. I just do, though, I'm excited that later in the show we have Kori Schake coming on to discuss her important new article, because I think it's a pretty important time in the debate over the Ukraine war, because we can continue and keep keep getting bogged down and putting more money, putting more weapons,

prolonging the violence, or we can try to push for negotiations. And so it's it's going to be interesting to see how this proceeds over the next few months. I'd be really surprised if we didn't see some move toward negotiations after the so-called spring offensive takes place. And we'll see what the impact of that is, because that'll certainly shape the contours of any negotiated peace. Mike Allen, feel free to comment on Blinken's trip or whatever else you're working on today. What are you looking at? Yeah, Joe, one thing that leaped out at me in Secretary Blinken's

remarks is he started talking about peace, looking beyond war, a just and lasting peace. We're also seeing more and more reporting about rebuilding Ukraine and how much people in Ukraine live normal lives in one window and in others, sheer terror. Other things that we're looking at, Joe, pulling back the camera on this week, that's going to turn out to be historic because of these twin deals. And we've talked about the wiliness, the compromise, the competence of President Biden. We also have to say, and Eugene Robinson alluded to this, how surprisingly strong Speaker McCarthy emerges from this, that those numbers were bigger than you think, that you see him walking around the Capitol a spring in his step. And you know why? We weren't sure that he was still going to be speaker at this time.

So he's stronger, too. And you saw a little nod from one professional to another and President Biden not only giving him his space, but Biden twice in public statements saying that Kevin McCarthy negotiated in good faith. And that's not the usual rhetoric. That's a hat tip one leader to another. Graceful. No doubt about it. And again, as David Ignatius pointed out with Chip Roy's colorful assessment of the deal, if in fact Kevin McCarthy was serving up turd sandwiches, as the congressman said, he sold a lot of them this week, over 300 of them. I mean, come on, put that up on your McDonald's sign. Over 300 turd sandwiches served. But anyway, thank you for that colorful assessment,

Chip Roy. And really quickly, Mike, let's talk about some serious business here. I know you and Vanda High, the kids, you guys went over and watched a few soccer matches in England. How did that go? Yeah, so my first Premier League game in Wales, this was a graduation trip and project. Actual research by Jim Van de Heij's son, James, who graduates Saturday from college. He and his friend Liam Walsh were in Swansea learning about the economics of soccer. It turns out that the economics of soccer are as difficult as the economics of media. It turned out not to be a great business. But we got to see the very best in the world, those Premier League players.

And I asked the guys, we're a football lacrosse family. So I asked the guys about the style of soccer play. And Joe, the guys, we're a football lacrosse family. So I asked the guys about the style of soccer play. And Joe, you can appreciate this. They were talking about how much faster it was in the U.S., how much more precise it was from the U.S. So it was fun to hear these two young men off to play soccer in college, their dream, watching other professionals at the top of their game. Right. And let me say, we're going to, Willie, I need to bring you in here really quickly. Willie, I've already talked to Mike about this. We're going to lean on Vandahe to give us some cheeseheads and tickets to a Packers game this fall. We all need to go descend on Lambeau Field

and we're counting on Vandahe to make it happen for all of us. You know, I've never been to Lambeau Field. It's a big hole in my life. I would love to do it. It seems like VandeHei is the man to get us in that building. Let's do it. Willie, we've got a brat for you. Okay.

The co-founder of Axios, Mike Allen, thank you very much. Happy Friday. Happy weekend. And go Pack. Mike. Yes, have a good one. Okay. Coming up, NASA is on a mission to expand cooperation in space.

We'll speak with NASA Administrator Bill Nelson about what the future holds in the exploration of the final frontier. Plus, the former mayor of New Orleans, Mark Morial, is here. He joins us to mark 20 years as the head of the National Urban League. Morning Joe will be right back. While he was still mayor, Mark came to Los Angeles. The Rodney King meeting, that just awakened people here in Ferguson, Baltimore, North Charleston, South Carolina. The list goes on and on. We had the Tamir Rice case in the city of Cleveland.

And so the first person I called was Mark because he understood from the work he'd done in policing in New Orleans and the stuff that was happening all around the country. He knew that as an Urban League leader, that I was going to have to be prepared. A look at the tenure of president and CEO of the National Urban League, Mark Morial, who today is celebrating 20 years leading that organization. And Mark joins us now. Congratulations. Thank you. Good morning. Good morning. I want to I bet it has. And I know I'm just talking about you're just starting. And I know your greatest. Let's just get this done. Your greatest accomplishment, of course, is marrying Michelle Miller. But we'll put that aside. And then during your tenure, I do want to start on the positive because there is so much to talk about in terms of challenging challenges for black America. But what do you think the greatest accomplishment or or or touch point during your tenure on a positive level would be?

You know, I think and let me just talk about America. I think the election of Barack Obama and the idea that a black man could get elected president in 2008 is a significant accomplishment. No way it would have been predicted, foreshadowed or foreseen, as well as I don't think anyone would have foreshadowed the election of a president like Donald Trump. And it indicates that in the 20 years I've been at the league, it has been a roller coaster ride for the nation and a roller coaster ride on issues issues of racial justice. But I'm proud always because in this work, I get a chance to work with incredible people, men and women from all backgrounds and the people on the front lines in the Urban League, its partner organizations in civil rights, business, labor and the faith community who represent, I think, this coalition of people who are really striving to build this next generation of America, who are striving to build an America which stands and understands

both the good and the bad of its past, but is trying to create a great future. And at the league, I'm proud that, you know, we took a proud organization that was sort of moored in the 20th century and rebuilt it, rebranded it, repositioned it, restrategized it. So the National Urban League is five times as large. It reaches six times as many people. Every program in the direct services world we do with our affiliates is new. We've got a whole new generation, a young generation of leaders at the local level, the young professionals. It's been a dramatic transformation, but we're just one of many institutions, organizations in civil rights, social justice, and the like who are in this fight for now and our future as a nation. So, Mark, congratulations. You just went detailed

some of the successes and accomplishments. Let's hear you talk about some of the challenges you think you have you have faced during your 20 years so far and are still very much on the horizon. You know, when I took over, 9-11 had just occurred. Then Katrina hit. Then we had the great recession, the Obama election and covid. And but I think the period from the killing of Trayvon Martin all the way through the present with George Floyd and beyond. I think the police killings have been the most jarring, challenging, difficult, defining issues that have occurred in this time that I've had a chance to lead the organization because we are struggling with this. The rate of killings is unacceptable. The spike and rise in gun violence and mass killings is jarring. And, you know, it it it

focus. I focused on it. It focused in a very special way during two international trips I took in the last year, where you go abroad and you go to these countries, maybe not, quote, as prosperous as the United States in some cases, but then underneath they don't have the gun violence problem. It's not an obsession. The fear, the security, the concerns, the way it impacts people's lives. So that's been a tremendous, I think, challenge that's been a through line all the way through. When I got to New York, I remember distinctly there was a movement to repeal the Rockefeller drug laws. It was the beginning of this movement, if you will, for civil rights and social justice in the country. And, you know, we focus on economics.

So we've stood up reentry programs to help returning citizens. We've stood up a much more aggressive effort to work on small business growth and development to help people become homeowners. But these numbers lag, this disparity that exists in the countries, it's almost frozen in a sense of suspended animation. And so while I'm proud of the work, the challenge is tremendous. Mark, first, congratulations. You've been head of the Urban League now longer than Vernon Jordan was, probably longer than Vernon Jordan was, probably longer than Whitney

Young was. I mean, you know, and to be mentioned with those names, it just says a lot about you and what you've been able to accomplish. But let's talk about that economic focus. The fact is that the gap between black and white wealth is as large as it's ever been. How do you crack that? It's one thing to talk about incomes and you can make some progress in that and maybe some backsliding. But that wealth gap has been persistent. And it's generational. It perpetuates itself. How do we finally crack that?

And, Gene, what's stunning in the 20 years I've been at the league is we've actually lost ground when it comes to black homeownership. We were nearly at 50 percent of all black people being homeowners in 2005, six period. Now we're down to the low 40s once again. What's stunning is how you can step forward and then dramatically, if you will, move back. I think it requires a new, a much more significant commitment. And I think I'll say, where can the Congress on the heels of this debt deal focus? Focus on poverty, focus on lifting up those child tax credit, minimum wage. If you lift the bottom, you're going to ultimately help the wealth gap. But I was in a meeting last night with a number of African-American investment

bankers and the leaders of major companies. Gene, we have to build an economic business, businesses of size and scale in the black community, in the Latino community in this country. The wherewithal and the expertise is there. Those that control the capital markets have to be more committed to it. If they are, it is absolutely doable. So it operates on multiple levels. Confront poverty, help people at the lowest ends of the spectrum have dignity and have a living wage, and then help those who are aspiring to become homeowners as well. Knock the barriers out of the way. Create down payment assistance programs. Create, if you will, and I say these types of things are going to benefit black Americans. They need to be focused, but there's going to be

benefits for so many others if we do this. So our programmatic work is expanded. The work we do to help people become homebuyers, small business owners, continues to expand, Gene. But there needs to be a commitment from the public and private sectors to do this anew, because this is the Achilles tendon of America. The Achilles tendon of America is the racial wealth gap and the overall gap in income that we face. President and CEO of the National Urban League,

Marc Morial, congratulations on 20 years. We'll look ahead to 20 more. Appreciate you all. Thanks for having me all the time. Yeah, thank you. We appreciate you. Thanks. Still ahead, we'll take a look at the stories

making front page headlines across the country, including another Republican governor sending National Guard troops to the southern border. Plus, Ron DeSantis loses his temper on a reporter while on the campaign trail. We'll show you that strange moment just ahead on Morning Joe. I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know the forces that divide us are deep and they are real. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature.

For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. Yeah, but he fell off a bike. President Biden's inaugural speech promising to work with the other side of the aisle. The debt ceiling deal shows he can deliver on something that many thought was not possible. And and that would be a bipartisan agreement on disagreeing with Joe Biden. Willie, when I remember when President Biden said that he had so many people in the Democratic Party mocking him, saying that's not the way things work around here anymore, that he's out of touch. He's out of date. That was from an era and a century long past. You had Republicans saying the same thing. Of course, think about this.

Just think about the context of that speech. That was 14 days after January the 6th. My Lord. That was in the middle of Donald Trump and a lot of people on the far right. And unfortunately, some the middle right saying the election was stolen. And yet in the tensions were very high in the middle of that time, tensions higher at that inauguration than any inauguration since Abraham Lincoln's first in 1861. And yet, even with that context, Joe Biden believed in the goodness of America. And he also understood the need to getting both sides working together with malice toward none. Pretty incredible what's been accomplished. And you know what? Let's go ahead and put Mitch McConnell in there for some of that legislation in the Senate. And let's put Kevin McCarthy in there as well for being

a respectful partner, both of them respectful towards each other during this debt ceiling deal that ask anybody that knows anything about the economy had to pass. Yeah, there were moments a few weeks ago, you referenced something that President Biden said, Kevin McCarthy came out of that early White House meeting with some criticism and it was leaked out that he said Joe Biden was a liar. And you thought, OK, is this thing going to go sideways with the stakes this high? And then about two weeks ago, serious people got serious because the problem was so deadly serious and they got the job done. And you're right to listen to that clip. That is two weeks after January 6th, two weeks after January 6th. He was calling for that kind of calm and that kind of bipartisanship.

And there was a lot of eye rolling and a lot of people saying, clearly, take two weeks ago as an example, that's just not how Washington works anymore. It's not where we are. But you said something important, which is that Joe Biden believes that he does believe it. You know, he's been up there since 1972, having to get things done as a United States senator, having to broker massive deals on a health care package as vice president. And now a lot of legislation when you tick through the list in this first year and a half or so. He believes it. He believes that bipartisanship is important, that it can still work, despite what the extremes were yelling about for the last several weeks. He got in the room with Speaker McCarthy and to both of their credit, got something really important done. Jonathan Lemire, Elise Jordan and Eugene Robinson still with us and joining the conversation.

We have MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle joining us and Pulitzer Prize winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. You know, Doris, I remember after January the 6th, Ann Applebaum writing a column in The Atlantic saying we've got to figure out how to deal with Trump supporters, 77 million people. We've got to figure out how to bring them back into the mainstream of American political thought. Sort of like Abraham Lincoln in his second inaugural talking about with malice toward none after the South had been responsible for the killing of about 650,000 Americans. And Anne got absolutely eviscerated by people talking about how naive she was, how how she was, was, you know, we can never forgive. We can never forget. We can never deal with these people again. It's a good thing Joe Biden agreed more with an apple bomb than our critics, because a hell of a lot has been done just because Joe Biden believed. Well, and the good heart of a lot of Americans.

And, you know, Joe, what you and Willie have both said is you've got to believe that it's possible to make it possible. And maybe the fact that he was there so many years ago when it did work allows you to believe it can work again. So many of the people in Congress in the recent years have not seen it work. They've just seen the broken Congress, so they don't believe it. But it's a real different idea for what a deal means. I mean, think about what Trump says. You know, he says, all these people who say making a deal when both sides feel good, that's a bunch of crap. He said, what really matters is winning, and I always win. What you've seen in this last week is a deal that was made that satisfies both sides,

both sides giving credit. One of the things old Harry Truman said is, amazing what you can accomplish as long as you don't care who gets the credit. This is what worked during Reagan and Tip O'Neill. It's what worked during Dixon, Dixon, during Dirksen and LBJ. It's what works during World War II when you had a mission that people from all sides could work together. And then all those congressmen and senators had been in the war in World War Two and Korean War. And they were in there in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s. Thank God we've got somebody who's been around for a while who knows that it can work and has brought it back again on both sides of the aisle. I think this is a moment to celebrate. Well, and, you know, Mike, I was there

when you had Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich going at each other, two guys that just had absolutely no use for each other in many ways. There's government shutdowns, impeachments. And yet you talk to both of those men and they will tell you even during impeachment, they were talking about concerns about Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Even during government shutdowns, John Kasich was patiently going over to the White House, sitting with Leon Panetta. There was the white hot noise down here. And then there was the signal that they stayed focused on. And that was getting things done. And I'm reminded of what Tip O'Neill's son told Chris Matthews about his relationship with Ronald Reagan. He said, the only thing my dad hated more than

Ronald Reagan's ideology was getting nothing done for the American people. So they learned how to work together, learned how to be friends, learned how to put America first. Well, you know, Joe, I mean, part of the reason, part of the answer to as to what happened, the successful event that concluded last night in the Senate is Joe Biden's roots and it's Joe Biden's human nature. I mean, the roots of Joe Biden are really in the United States Senate. And I think if you think about it and look back at it and talk to him about it, he will tell you that after he lost his wife and daughter, the Senate gave him purpose. It gave him a reason to live. And two guys in the United States Senate helped save his life in that sense. Mike Mansfield and Ted Kennedy, both of them convinced Joe Biden then not to leave

the Senate in grief, to stay and work. And so he stayed and he worked. And all these years later, he gets Kevin McCarthy in front of him, the two of them. Both men severely underestimated all their political lives, both the president and the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. And guess what? Within human nature, within the realm of human nature, each of those guys finds something in the other. They find something in the other that they like. And that begins a

discussion, a long-term discussion that results in what happened last night in the passage of this bill that saved the American economy in the United States Senate. That's Joe Biden's life. We'll see about Kevin McCarthy. We'll see if he can continue with that sort of convivial, let's get along aspect. Let's see what can get done for the American people, as you just said. But the roots of it are in Joe Biden's dedication to the United States Senate and dedication to getting something done.