Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/27/23

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

Audio leaked of Trump's 2021 conversation about classified documents

A jam-packed Morning Joe starts right now. We'll have to see. Yeah, we'll have to try to figure out a... See, as president, I couldn't have did less. No, I can't. But this is... Now we have a problem. Isn't that interesting?

Oof, that is part of a recording obtained by CNN of Donald Trump reportedly showing off U.S. war plans against Iran with people who were at his golf club in New Jersey two years ago. We're going to have expert legal analysis on this seemingly damning piece of evidence in just a moment. It comes as the Justice Department will meet this week with someone who stood up against Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump's lawyers are also busy in New York trying to get the ex-president's hush money case moved to federal court. We'll have the latest on that. We'll also get a live report from Moscow for an update on that revolt against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, June 27th. Joe is on assignment, but Willie's back. And with us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Beer Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, former White House press secretary, now an MSNBC host, Jen Psaki, and founder of the conservative website, The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes. A lot going on in politics, Willie, but this audio tape, of course,

the talk of the town, so to speak, it'll be interesting to see if lawyers can put together that tape, what he's referring to, and match it with the document, the DOJ. We've said it before, Mika, Donald Trump on tape in a legal case against him, and this one is pretty stunning.

So just weeks after Donald Trump pleaded not guilty to 37 felony counts related to his mishandling of classified documents, a damning new audio recording appears to be the clearest evidence yet of his alleged wrongdoing. In the leaked tape obtained by CNN, the former president seems to show off what he admits is, quote, secret information regarding America's potential plans to attack Iran. According to a source, the conversation, which NBC News reported on earlier this month, took place at Trump's New Jersey Golf Club in August of 2021. There, the former president reportedly was meeting with writers who were helping his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, to write a memoir.

It's unclear who the other voices are on this recording, but The New York Times previously reported one aide, Margo Martin, routinely taped interviews Trump gave for books. Here now is that recording. These are bad, sick people. That was your coup, you know, against you. Well, it started right at the beginning. Like when Millie's talking about, oh, you were going to try to do a coup. No, they were trying to do that before you even were sworn in.

That's right. Trying to overthrow your election. Well, with Millie, let me see that. I'll show you an example. He said that I wanted to attack Iran. Isn't it amazing? I have a big pile of papers. This thing just came up.

Look. This was him. They presented me this. This is off the record, but they presented me this. This was him. This was the Defense Department and him. Wow.

We looked at some. This was him. This wasn't done by me. This was him. All sorts of stuff. It's pages some. This was him. This wasn't done by me. This was him. All sorts of stuff. It's pages long. Wait a minute.

Let's see here. I just found, isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know. Except it is like highly confidential, secret. This is secret information. Look at this. You attack. Hillary would print that out all the time, you know.

She'd send it to Anthony Weiner. Yeah. The pervert. He's pretty. By the way, isn't that incredible? Yeah. I was just saying, because we were talking about it. And he said, he wanted to attack Iran.

He's in the papers. This was done by the military, given to me. I think we can probably, yeah? We'll have to see. Yeah, we'll have to try to figure out. See, as president, I could have de-lessened. Now I can't. But this is the lesson. how we have a problem.

Isn't that interesting? Yeah, it's so cool. I mean, I look we here and I have. And you probably almost didn't believe me, but now you believe me. No, I believe it's incredible, right? No, it brings some brings some coach in place. So that extraordinary recording, Mika, was turned over to special counsel Jack Smith's office before the indictment of Trump earlier this month. It has not been independently obtained or verified by NBC News yet. Reacting to that leak on social media last night, Trump attacked the Justice Department, as you expect, claiming the tape somehow exonerates him from wrongdoing.

NBC News has reached out to the Trump team for further comment, but we've not heard back. So, Mika, he says on the tape, quote, it's highly confidential, then goes on to concede that he no longer as a former president can declassify things. We'll talk to Chuck Rosenberg in a second. But boy, when he talks, he talks and it's all on tape. Well, and we've seen him do that in real time. And Joe and I, especially as he loves to show off stuff and kind of go on long tangents. And in this case, it appears he's showing a document. And the key will be if that document perhaps can be matched up with that conversation. But just overall, let's back up for a second. These people seem so, to use the succession star, they're so unserious.

These people are not serious. I mean, former President Trump is talking about a potential, you know, attack on Iran as if it's a joke, joking with people about Hillary Clinton. I mean, it's painful. And we've heard this many times over, this former president in action, watching him just treat our American values, our our democracy as if it was a joke. And now it's not a joke anymore for him because this could have him in very hot water. Let's bring in former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg. And Chuck, I just want to know overall what you make of this tape. Is it damning? Is it as bad as it

sounds to a layman? And what do you think the defense could be of this? It is damning, Mika. And let me add another factor. There's context around the document. His words in and of themselves are damning. They presented this to me. It was from the military, essentially. I could have declassified it when I was president. I can't now. But there's also context to it. There were people in the room. At one point, Mr. Trump claimed that he wasn't waving around a classified document. He said that what he was showing at that meeting were newspaper clippings or magazine articles. But people in the room saw what was in his hand. And if there are classified document markings on the thing he was waving around, they can testify to it.

So yes, the words are damning. But there's more to the story than just the words. And the witnesses will put that flesh on the bone. People should understand that these documents don't live in isolation. They live in a world with other people who are seeing and talking and understanding precisely what it is he's doing. So, Chuck, I'm just everyone who knows Trump and the way his attorneys work is often they don't have much of a defense, so they tangle things up and push things off, create legal delays. Is there any argument to be made that our national security is at risk and that this

actually needs to be accelerated? Well, I think it will be accelerated as best they can, given that they have to work. They both sides in this criminal case have to work through a number of classified document issues. But to your point, there are shifting sands here. Remember right after the FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, the defense was those documents were planted. Then the defense became, I'm still reviewing those documents that they belong to me. I don't have to turn them over. Then the defense became, I declassify or can declassify documents in my brain. All those

things are untrue. And the more stories you tell, the easier it becomes for the government at trial to prove your intent. If there was one story and it was true, Mika, you would tell it. When you continue to tell various stories and they change over time, I think that evinces intent. So, Chuck, I don't want to put you in the position of being on Donald Trump's defense team, but if you can imagine it for a moment, this tape is out there to go along with everything else we know and everything else we don't know, frankly, that Jack Smith, the special

counsel, still has in terms of evidence. How do you prepare a defense when it's right there on tape? Yeah, it's a great question and I'm glad you didn't actually put me on Mr. Trump's defense. I appreciate that. How do you prepare a defense? Well, look, I think there are factual defenses that he can try at trial. Some of them, however, might require him to take the stand. And that could be an uncomfortable position for Mr. Trump. And then there are legal defenses that he can take a swing at. For instance, he might challenge the decision of a district court judge in the District of Columbia who pierced the attorney-client privilege and permitted his own attorney to testify against him. You know, you take another swing at that.

He may argue that he had the authority to declassify these documents or that, in fact, he did declassify these documents while he was still president. I don't think that goes anywhere. And by the way, it is obviously undercut by what he says on the tape you played earlier, the fact that he lost the authority to declassify when he ceased being president. So, look, defense attorneys will take a swing at this factually and legally. But so far from what I'm seeing and hearing and in the indictment I read, the government seems to have a compelling case. And John, the political lesson that Donald Trump has learned here again, has learned over the years in his short time in politics, is that just put your head down, call it a witch hunt, and your support will not only hold, but he'll gain ground on Ron DeSantis in this case, as we saw in that NBC News poll. So there's no indication he would seek a plea deal. He would agree to anything like that. He's just going to say it was a witch hunt.

I've been exonerated and plow forward. That may catch up to him this time, though. Yeah, I mean, a lot of lawyers would advise him to take that deal. But he, of course, has shown no inclination to do so. We have noted time and again, his poll numbers are only going up in a Republican primary. That may be a very different story come a general election. Were he to be the GOP nominee, we should note he in his Truth Social post last night, he didn't challenge the validity or the authenticity of the tape. He took a different interpretation of it, but didn't say it was it was fake. Charlie Sykes, let's turn to the politics of this. I mean, if you're, let's say, Ron DeSantis, who's appearing in New Hampshire today,

just like Trump is, or one of the other candidates. And to this point, your message has been basically to defend Trump on this issue. Let's set aside Chris Christie. He's been on the attack. The rest of them have largely defended Trump and criticized Jack Smith instead. But here you have on tape, more or less, Donald Trump waving papers around saying, I'm committing a crime right now. Isn't that the moment where it could be an opening for some of these Republicans to change their tune? Well, you would think so. Right. But I mean, how many potential off ramps have they had that they passed by? You know, you are hearing the voices like Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson and Will Hurd who are, you know, calling calling out Donald Trump and talking about this indictment. But the other candidates apparently have settled on the strategy of, you know, hoping that somehow Donald Trump will implode or that Jack Smith will take care of him.

Look, this would be an interesting moment. If Ron DeSantis actually wants to win this nomination, he's going to have to eventually go at Donald Trump. He's going to have to talk about Donald Trump's unfitness for office. So far, he has been unwilling to do that, even though he's sort of tiptoed toward it. But I think this is the interesting question. Does this make a difference at all? My sense is probably not, even though this tape is extraordinary. I mean, not only do you have a former president of the United States admitting maybe multiple felonies on tape, but he's laughing in a cavalier manner about sharing war plans. You would think on Earth 2.0, where we have a rational political system, that this would be the definitive breaking point. But we've seen this

show before. So until Republicans actually decide, wait, you know, this this former president actually was laughing while he was giving away war plans that might might have cost or might cost American lives. You have to assume it's going to be same old, same old. So, Jen Psaki, I'm just curious, because if you look at right wing websites or watch certain certain TV channels, you will hear all about Hunter at the state dinner. I mean, you will hear Jim Jordan going on and on and on about conspiracy theories and and you won't hear as much about this.

And I'm just curious, the White House obviously not going to chime in on these audio tapes or anything like that. But at the same time, how does how does the the Biden White House make a distinction that cuts through to people that are being honestly misled? Such a good question. I don't spend too much time on right wing websites, but I completely concur with what you're saying about what's out there and the challenge the White House has right now. I mean, for them, if you're sitting in the White House right now, you're putting your head down around all of these investigations. They're not going to comment, or that is their strategy, on the specifics of any of Trump's legal woes. And the same thing on Hunter. I think, you know, what we saw with Hunter appearing at the state dinner was, in my suspicion,

was the president, his son wanted to come, so his son's going to come to the dinner. Was that optically easier for the White House and the White House communications team? Absolutely not. But I suspect that was more in the family circumstance of him wanting to come and wanting to just, the president wanting to show that he loves his son and he's standing by him. What I suspect, Mika, as we watch this over the next couple of months is they will be very quiet for the time being. But once it gets into the middle of the campaign, they're going to have to find a way, to your point, to draw that contrast, not by commenting on the specifics of a criminal investigation or the specific ups and downs

of every legal development, but by drawing the morals and the values contrast, right, of there's one president who values our national security and protects documents, protects our secrets. And there's another former president candidate who doesn't. There's one who stands up for democracy and our democratic values. And there's one who doesn't. There's ways to draw the contrast without getting into the specifics. But I think we're not going to see that for a little while. Well, meanwhile, in the documents trial, Judge Aileen Cannon has scheduled a new pretrial hearing for July 14th in the Trump documents case. The hearing comes at the request of Special Counsel Jack Smith's office, which filed a motion on Friday to discuss what classified information

will be used in court and how. At the same time, Judge Cannon denied a separate request filed by Smith's office. She ruled that a list of 84 potential witnesses in the prosecution of former President Trump would not be kept secret. Smith's office wanted the list of witnesses with whom Trump is not allowed to communicate with about the case to be kept under seal. Judge Cannon stated in her order that prosecutors failed to explain why it was necessary to keep the names under wraps. Chuck, what problems do you see here? And also, what do you make of Judge Aileen Cannon's scheduling? She seems to be working at a pretty fast clip. But again, the complications come when you're dealing with classified documents and how to actually address those in court, but potentially keep them out of

the public realm. Could that slow things down? Or back to my very first question, could that actually trigger an escalation because they're so serious? Yeah, lots of good questions, Mika. So as to the scheduling, some of that seems to me to be aspirational. But you have to set a date and get things going. ostensibly will be to begin to discuss how you can apply the Classified Information Procedures Act, a statute that permits the government and the defense to redact or substitute certain phrases in classified documents so that they can properly and sort of acceptably be made public. But these are aspirational dates, and I expect some of it's going to slide. Remember, the judge said an early trial date, I believe in August, and I think there's about zero chance that that happens. There now seems to be a new trial date in December,

and I think there's a very small chance that that happens. I've worked with the Classified Information Procedures Act. I can assure you that the government in this case reviewed within the intelligence community those documents that it wanted to charge. So the 31 documents that you see in the indictment were probably very likely all discussed in advance with the intelligence community. Nevertheless, the Classified Information Procedures Act can be a bit cumbersome. It's not all that complex, but it is a bit cumbersome. And it's going to take some time to work through it. So you might expect Mika to see those trial dates slide a bit. I hope the judge holds both sides to a very tight schedule.

That's what this case needs. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen. Charlie Sykes, we have so much Trump legal news this morning that we've only touched the tip of the iceberg. We've got news about Secret Service agents testifying in the January 6th investigation. We've got news out of the state of Georgia. We've got news in the Stormy Daniels case and on and on it goes. So back to the point you were making a minute ago about all these exit ramps Republicans have had. They've had every chance, including a president taking war plans and nuclear secrets and waving them around at his beach club.

And those off ramps have not been taken by most Republicans, by those who believe in Donald Trump. So should we just operate under the assumption that, in fact, all of this, all of this legal trouble makes him stronger within the primary, not in the general election, should we just assume, and it used to be a running joke that, well, he could win the nomination from prison or with an ankle bracelet around his ankle, that maybe that's actually true? Probably so. But, you know, what we have to look for is the cumulative weight of all of this. And we're also discovering that it is possible to get new information and new evidence. Jack Smith has, we don't know the full extent of Jack Smith's investigation. We don't know what those Secret Service agents have testified.

We don't know what dazzling details might come out. Remember how shocked everybody was when Cassidy Hutchinson testified. So you have to assume that this is not going to change anything. But, you know, it is one indictment after another, one drip after another, one tape after another. The testimony, you know, is it going to break people away? Will there come a moment where Republican voters go, do we really, really want to do this? Are we going to put him on the general election ballot? So we don't know at this point, because to use a phrase that we use way too often, this is really uncharted territory. We are dealing every day with something that is absolutely unprecedented. You know,

a former president who's behaved this way, who's looking to get power back again and yet is facing multiple indictments on issues that are not trivial. I mean, this Mar-a-Lago document case, I think a lot of people thought, well, what is it going to be? You know, is it going to be trivial documents? Will it be things that are not consequential? Well, now we are finding out that that we're talking about actual war plans. You know, it's one thing to say that Donald Trump becomes strong with every indictment, but we don't know what's coming down the pike. Charlie Sykes, thank you very much. And Chuck Rosenberg, thank you as well.

We'll be following all of this as we continue to follow the latest news out of Russia following those major developments over the weekend. We're joined now live from Moscow by NBC News chief international correspondent Keir Simmons. Keir, what's the latest there? Well, Willie, after those dramatic days, the Kremlin clearly now trying to reestablish more traditional optics of presidential power. front of two and a half thousand Russian security forces who helped to push back on that rebellion over the weekend and telling them that, saying to them, President Putin, you helped to avert a civil war. Late into the night, last night, President Putin meeting with senior security officials, including the head of the presidential, of the National Guard, Zolotov, the head of the FSB, Bortnikov, and Defence Minister Shoigu, who, of course, Yevgeny Prigozhin was trying to unseat. So a message there, I think, in those optics of Putin showing that he still has the

same team around him, including the defence minister. And then that stunning 10pm speech last night by President Putin in which he didn't once mention Evgeny Pogosin, the head of the Wagner group, by name, but furiously railed against what he described as a mutiny, an attempt at bloodshed, as a crime. So that very angry, optical statement from President Putin late last night. But then I think some more kind of traditional Putin politics, if you like,

while he made that angry statement, at the same time this morning, we're hearing the Russian government announcing that members of the Wagner group will not be prosecuted. They will not be prosecuted. So, you know, that kind of slightly hard to read combination of trying to show strength and also some flexibility from the Kremlin as they try and reassert their control over over this country and of course really one of the important reasons to be here in Moscow is to have the opportunity to get beyond below that and actually just talk to ordinary Russians I won't try and characterize what they had to say but let's just play for you a few examples of some of the comments that we got out in the streets of Moscow how do you feel Moscow. It's abnormal, I think. Were you worried that you would see Russians fighting Russians? Yeah, I worry about it.

I think a lot of Russians, they don't want the war. But you know what? I think people should know the truth. People on Russian side, they also dying. What happens now, do you think? I don't know. I have no idea, actually. And meanwhile, Mika, we're just hearing this morning from President Lukashenko of Belarus, who, of course, brokered that deal between the Russian government, the Kremlin, President Putin and Prigozhin, saying that if Russia falls, we all die, saying that he put his forces on high alert.

That was just a sign of how dramatic he considered the events of the weekend to be. And then just finally, Mika, on Evgeny Prigozhin, that extraordinary 11-minute rant yesterday in which he appeared to double down on some of the accusations that he had made, claiming that he was not trying to topple President Putin, but that he was trying to help, if you like, to demonstrate the security flaws in Russia. Well, we don't know where Pogosian is now, but I think one of the questions will be, where are his fighters? President Putin's saying that they can't join the Russian army or that they can go home to their families or that they can go to Belarus. Many questions, I think, this morning over what happens next with Bogosian.

Absolutely. NBC's Keir Simmons, thank you very much. And back with us now is columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. And you can hear the trepidation in the voices of those Russian citizens, kind of confused, kind of scared, not knowing really what to say. And I'm still technically our Wagner troops being offered to stay with the Russian army or leave to Belarus. How in the world does that work? And what did Putin's speech reveal to you? It seemed a lot shorter and a little less focused than expected. The speech to me, Mika, revealed that Putin is angry,

that he is determined now to root out the conspiracy against him that exploded on Saturday. You had troops marching on Moscow 200 kilometers from the outskirts of the city. It's also clear to me from Prigozhin's statements yesterday that he believed that he had allies in the Russian military, perhaps in the security services, who would allow him to move all the way to Moscow. If you read his statement carefully, he says, about 200 kilometers away, suddenly we did reconnaissance and we realized there would be a bloodbath. In other words, the cavalry was not coming for him.

He was not going to be greeted by friends. That's what Putin is going to try to figure out in the coming days. Who was against me? Who was plotting? Who was working with Prigozhin? You know, how deep did this conspiracy go? It's a way, I think, for Putin, who has appeared to be weaker and more vulnerable than any of us could have realized to reassert some of that strength by chasing down the conspirators. I think he will be generous to some of the Wagner fighters, but I think there'll be no generosity. He may allow Prokosian himself to stay in Belarus, but he's obviously looking at him furious. Yeah, david there's a report this morning that a

plane linked to the wagner group did land in belarus as a sense of prognosis may unconfirmed but may have made that trip um you certainly over the weekend as this was unfolding washington largely held its tongue so did european capitals wanting to let this mess play out in russia didn't want to get in the way but now that things are seemingly calming down there at least a little bit what's your reporting tell you as to how how Kiev is trying to take advantage of this moment with their counteroffensive? Well, Jonathan, you're right first that the message from the administration over the weekend when they were really worried about command and control of nuclear weapons in Russia, other very sensitive issues like that. The message to NATO and the

Ukraine was cool it. Be careful. Exercise caution. Now that the crisis has passed, I think Ukraine is going to want to exploit every opportunity to advance against a somewhat demoralized Russian force. How well this force can be coordinated by its leadership, by a defense minister, Shoigu, who's been directly attacked, humiliated, really, in Prokhorin's statements, by General Gerasimov, the chief of staff, similarly attacked by Prokhorin. That we're going to have to wait and see. Will Putin need to have new commanders in the field?

He'll have more credibility with his own troops. Those are all questions going forward. This is a moment now that Ukraine can push its counteroffensive. Their basic idea has been to probe, probe, probe, and then look for the areas of weakness. When they find them, they have lots of troops in reserve. Hit those hard. Go as far as they can. And I think that's what we'll see in the next couple weeks.

We'll see. They'll find an opening, and they'll try to go as hard and as fast as they can. And I think that's what we'll see in the next couple of weeks. We'll see. They'll find an opening and then they'll try to go as hard and as fast as they can. David, I was talking to one prominent former ambassador who expressed some suspicion about this deal that happened so quickly as it appeared the Wagner Group was rolling its way to Moscow, was within a day of it and suddenly stopped, agreed to a deal very quickly, suddenly brokered by the president of Belarus that Vladimir Putin publicly forgave him and said, you know, bygones will be bygones. What are you hearing about how this all played out over those extraordinary 48 hours? And do you have any suspicions of your own that maybe this was a deal that was sort of baked before all this happened?

I don't think it was baked before it happened. I should stress that I'm still largely guessing the information is still so paltry. But I do think that by Prokosian's own statements, he believed until midday Saturday that his army could roll north. He called it the March of Justice. And something happened, and that something was that Putin had found out and organized a force of resistance that stopped him cold about 200 kilometers from Moscow. And at that point, the floor fell out from under Prokosian. He had no alternative, really, but to seek the deal that his friend, Alexander Lukashenko, the head of Belarus, was offering. I think Putin had an interest at that point in defusing the crisis. But I would not want to be writing a life insurance policy for Yevgeny Prokosian today. I just don't think that man

is long for the world. No, I don't think so either. David, before you go, and thanks for coming back on this morning, you have a new summer novella debuting this morning on the Washington Post website called The Tao of Deception. It is the first of four installments, and it's described as a fast-paced, fictionalized thriller recounting how Chinese intelligence services could have shattered the CIA's network of spies in China almost a decade ago. The site's paywall has been lifted so everyone can enjoy it. Tell us more and any reflections on reality here. So, Mika, we decided to have some fun with this. A century ago, newspapers and magazines published fiction as a regular part of their offering.

We all remember reading about Charles Dickens' serialized novels. In this case, there is a story that has haunted me for years about how the Chinese rolled up the CIA's networks in China, their agents and informants. It was just over a decade ago in an especially brutal way. And I've wanted to get to the bottom of that. I've written a little bit of journalism about it, but I just couldn't take it any further. And my editor at The Post, David Shipley, suggested, why don't we see if we can explore this, tell this story in a different way through fiction, just imagining what was in the minds of the characters. I've done this. I've written 11 novels now, so this is not unfamiliar to me. But I think if readers go to the site and read this short novel, they'll see a lot that isn't written or known about how Chinese intelligence works. We know everything about Russian intelligence. We've all read the John le Carre novels. We know

Carla and Moscow Center. We know very little about China. And that's what that's the veil I've tried to open in this short, short novella, The Tower of Deception. I love it. Columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. Thank you very much for being on again this morning. I'm with our GOP chairwoman, Elise Stefanik from New York, and we are going to expunge the impeachments of President Trump. And I'm very glad to let you know that the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, came out in support. I think it is appropriate, just as I thought before. And you should expand this. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy discussing new efforts to erase the two impeachments of former President Donald Trump from the congressional record.

Joining us now, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. And, Gene, your latest piece is entitled Moves to Expunge Trump's Impeachments Would Be Laughable If Not So Dangerous. And in it, you write in part, quote, The right wing media echo chamber will treat the expungement as legitimate, which would make the impeachment somehow illegitimate, the nation's information gap, already a canyon, will further widen. For the record, expunging a presidential impeachment is not a thing. It has never been attempted because it makes no sense. Both of Trump's House impeachments led to trials in the Senate as the Constitution instructs. Is the Senate supposed to pretend that those trials, which ended in acquittals, never happened? What about the pages in the congressional record that chronicled the impeachment proceedings?

Would they be ripped out and destroyed? Sent to Mar-a-Lago for Trump to hoard in one of his cardboard boxes with his golf shirts and newspaper clippings. I guess you can't help but to joke because it is so ridiculous. But I have to tell you, every day as we look at national security secrets, nuclear information potentially stolen by a former president and evidence of that coming up, you do have right wing media and other claimed to be news networks and websites and all covering what they believe the equivalent is, which would be Hunter Biden going to the state dinner or something like that. And we see we see legitimate, important news that is potentially critical to our country's national security being thrown away at will by those who just don't want

to consider it real. Exactly. This is one of the biggest and most serious problems facing this country today and facing our democracy, in my opinion, is the information gap, is the fact that in the right wing media ecosystem, Hunter Biden is the only story worth telling. And President Trump's impeachments, well, you know, they were, yeah, maybe they happened. Now it's going to be that in fact, they did never happen. It's like an alternative universe timeline. And how can we have a democracy if we can't agree on basic facts, if we can't agree on what happened, on what we saw with our own eyes, on what is what is written in the congressional record? to widen this this gap that keeps us from from talking across the divide, that keeps us from

from from moving forward as a nation. And I think this just makes it that much worse. And and look, this has the support of the speaker of the House. It's just it's amazing. Amazing. And Jen, when you look at just the Kevin McCarthy, the speaker, given another chance here to be the adult in the room and to say, stop with the nonsense. Let's move forward. Let's get some legislation passed. Let's do things for the people who voted for us. Taking a pass on that and again fanning the flames of this stuff that comes from the extremes of his party. I mean, we're talking about looking to the past again, just as a political question. Let's look back to 2020. Let's look back at Hunter Biden. Let's look back at all this stuff rather than looking ahead as the man you once worked for, President Biden, is attempting

to do even with this Congress that he has to deal with. That's right. I mean, Willie, I think it's pretty clear that Kevin McCarthy is motivated right now by fear, fear of losing the speakership, fear of angering the base of Republicans, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, whatever the collection of people from the circus wing of the party is. He's fearful of angering them and angering the Trump base because he wants to hold on to the speakership. Now, we don't know whether or not Kevin McCarthy thinks truthfully this is the right strategy as speaker or the right thing he should be doing as speaker because he's so motivated by that fear.

It is, as Eugene just said, it is startling and it is alarming because this is not what Congress is elected to do. This is not what the speaker is supposed to be doing. But we also know that the contrast is quite stark between kind of leading the House of Representatives down a rabbit hole of trying to expunge impeachments versus actually trying to get something done. And I think what a lot of Democrats are betting on, and I spoke with Speaker Pelosi and she's betting on this over the weekend, is that the American public is smart and they will look at this and think, look, that is chaotic and crazy. And I don't even know what they're trying to do over there. I would like the people who are

representing me to do something. We won't know until the election, but I think that's what a lot of Democrats in leadership and Democrats running the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and certainly the Biden campaign is betting on. The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, thank you very much for sharing your piece with us this morning. Time now for a quick look at some of the morning papers. We begin in Florida, where the Pensacola News Journal reports activists are pushing for an amendment to protect abortion access in the state. Yesterday, more than $230,000 were raised during an event to support a ballot initiative for the 2024 election. The initiative aims to strike down any Florida laws that delay or restrict abortion access. Willie.

The Portland Press-Herald has a front page feature on Maine lawmakers advancing a bill to require background checks for private gun sales. The legislation passed the statehouse yesterday, but its fate in the Senate remains uncertain. Supporters say it would help to reduce gun violence and make it more difficult for criminals to get weapons. Maine already requires background checks for commercial sales from licensed dealers. And in New Jersey, the record leads with a bill to create a state office of community schools. The agency would focus on addressing student needs through community-based educational services, as well as provide family and health support. Similar programs already exist in other states. And the Dayton Daily News has a

front page feature on the massive investment Amazon Web Services is making in Ohio. The company says it will invest nearly $8 billion by the end of 2029 as part of an expansion of its data center operations. Officials in Ohio say this will lead to hundreds of new jobs in the state. Amazon already is one of Ohio's largest private sector employers.