Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/27/24

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Biden and Trump to face off in Atlanta tonight

Tomorrow is the first presidential debate. And the big controversy is which drugs may be used tomorrow night. And I just I just want to state for the record that I have no idea what drugs I will take when I watch the debate. But they will be potent and they will be plentiful. Well, it's finally here tonight. President Biden and Donald Trump are set to face off for their first presidential debate of this election cycle. It is a pivotal moment that could shake up the race for the White House. We'll go over how both have been preparing their pitch to voters and we'll show you a demonstration on how the microphones will actually work if Biden or Trump decides to interrupt each other.

Mika is actually getting this technology from CNN and going to import it into Morning Joe. I think it could be. Do you send me? Yeah, I'm going to call Casey. We're going to get it all set up here and it'll work perfectly. Also, I had another significant abortion document was mistakenly posted by the Supreme Court. What are they doing? Mistakenly, like it just goes up, it goes away. We'll go over whether it could be welcome news for abortion rights advocates and how the justices

are seemingly poised to rule in the case. Do they not know how to use computers? I guess not. First, though, let's go to Atlanta. Jonathan Weir is down in Atlanta. Jonathan, big concern that tonight we are going to see... It's a good thing he's there. We're going to see dazed, confused,

you know, people who've seen better days. And then we're going to switch over from the Yankees. Ba-boom. The Yankees-Mets game. And there it is.

And there it is. I mean, the Mets. RTJ. RTJ, so excited. Meet the Mets. Beat the Mets. Not last night. Well, and, of course, meet his daughter.

Mills is a huge Mets fan. But this was a great game last night, Mullen, of course, Mika's daughter, Mills, is a huge Mets fan. But this was a great game last night, Lamere. I mean, I don't know what more you'd want in a baseball game than the Yankees losing by double figures. Yes, it is, first of all, for the Mets, the power of grimace. They have continued to be on a complete roll thanks to that McDonald's cartoon character. There are the Grimace Reapers on the back page of the New York Post. They are now back in 500 and in the wildcard mix. And they play their slumping Crosstown Yankees, rival Yankees.

Yes, Aaron Judge-Holbert again. He's unbelievable. But they're in a tailspin right now, the Yankees. And, you know, I think the eyes of the nation are wondering, will they be able to recover? Can they prove they're still up for the job of being atop the American League East? You know, Willie, it is a terrible situation to be the New York Yankees and only have a 30-game cushion, being like 30 over 500.

Look at that. Look at that. 22 over 500. They're 52 and 30. It is interesting. The Yankees and the Orioles have both decided to sort of skid at the same time. But it's a marathon. We say it all the time.

It's a marathon. Nobody's ever as good as they look and nobody's ever as bad as they look. You want this is what you want to happen. And this is what I think is why they're so diabolical and they're so evil, the Yankees. They know you want to have your slump before the All-Star break. They're getting it out of the way just so they can crush Red Sox fans' hearts even more violently after the All-Star break.

On their way to 100 and I think 18, 119 wins. They're going to make, you know, that Mariners team look like minor leaguers. It's all part of the evil empire's plan. I count myself guilty early in the season when the Yankees look so good for looking up, once again, the all-time record for single season wins. It looks like we're going to fall a little bit short of that now. But as John said, the Orioles are the only thing keeping the Yankees in first place right now because they've been slumping a little bit too.

But it's kind of Aaron Judge right now and nothing else. He hit his 30th home run last night. He's on pace for that incredible record-breaking season in 2022. He's playing out of his mind. Soto's been good, not as good lately. They've had some injuries. They've got guys that had to call up in the lineup. The pitching's been absolutely atrocious. They're losing the series against the good teams, too, which is not what you like to see.

The Mets, meanwhile, red hot. But again, we are at the halfway point of a very long season. We don't panic in the Bronx, and it pains me to say, but the Red Sox have been a very pleasant surprise, I have to imagine, for you guys. Six games over 500 in the playoffs as we sit here right now. You guys have been predicting doom and gloom, but they look good. You know what? It's the Red Sox division to lose, Joe. They're a fun team, and Willie, don't even try.

Don't even try that Bear Bryant stuff on me. You just can't do it, Yankee boy. You just can't do it. But we'll see. But we have Mika. Tonight is I've got to say, this is one of the most fascinating debates in that you just don't know what's going to happen. You're going to be holding your breath,

wondering what's going to come out of each one of these guys' mouths, wondering if they're going to be able to complete the sentences, wondering if they're going to be able to complete the sentences. Wondering if they're going to just walk off stage halfway through. I mean, this is going to be the sort of terror that's going going to seize both sides every bit as much as it did. We Republicans for the three debates in 2000 when George W. Bush was behind the microphone. Not even close. Al Gore managed to lose all three debates.

Think about that. Okay, also with us, Deputy Managing Editor for Politics at Politico, Sam Stein, who, Yes, we, we. You were doing a great job with the French names for the NBA draft and way too early.

I appreciate that. Thank you. Also with us, NBC News national affairs analyst, John Heilman. He is a partner and chief political columnist at puck and MSNBC contributor. Yes. Okay. And author of the book, how the right lost its mind. Charlie Sykes. Oh my God.. For the first time in four years, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are going to go face to face tonight in Atlanta. Sources familiar with Biden's plans tell NBC News the president is going to travel directly from Camp David to Georgia later today after a week of intense preparation

at his Maryland retreat. That prep will reportedly include both dress rehearsal style mock debates and informal huddles with advisers. He's been doing that today. They'll make him most likely he's just going to rest and watch Morning Joe on a loop. Contrary to claims from Trump's team, Biden campaign sources say the president has maintained his executive schedule while at Camp David and that only part of his days have been spent on debate prep. As for the former president, the Biden campaign believes Trump is preparing more for tonight's debate than he has been in letting on publicly. They are bracing for Trump to arrive in Atlanta, quote, more disciplined than on past occasions. This guy's going to be but have been strategizing ways to get under the former president's skin to remind Americans of his more uncontrollable side.

I don't I don't. How do you get under Donald Trump's skin? Come on. This guy is a professional. It's like he said, he's been doing this for ever. He spent his entire life on television. He spent his entire life debating. I mean, he would really, really have to screw things up to not win this going away tonight.

Yeah. He said he didn't really need to prepare for the debate because his life has prepared him. He's so well versed in these issues. He gets right to the point. He stays on message. He doesn't meander. So we'll be expecting more of that tonight. Biden's campaign also said the president likely will bring up Trump's felony convictions during the debate. The campaign putting out a statement yesterday that reads Donald Trump is a twice impeached, 34 time convicted felon whose record of attempting to overthrow democracy, promising to enact revenge against his enemies and inciting political violence at every opportunity makes it clear he belongs nowhere near the White House. He'll have to answer for his priors in front of tens of millions of American voters. We will be watching his priors. That's the way convicted felons. So, John, you've been reporting this deeply on both sides. What do you expect to see in that room tonight? I mean, it is going to be a contentious debate this evening.

Certainly, we the President Biden, as outlined there, is going to try to be very assertive and aggressive going after Donald Trump for a number of things, including who won the 2020 election, put him on the spot, make him say again the big lie, to talk about January 6th, defensive democracy at home and abroad. We'll hear from him about abortion rights. And indeed, he will talk about the need, he will talk about Donald Trump's convicted felon, and he'll try to make that argument that the conviction is just another sign of Trump doing whatever it takes to look out for himself while ignoring the American people. Now, I've been talking to those involved in the Biden debate camp at Camp David. Yes, there is the possibility that Donald Trump will come out tonight more disciplined,

but they think that won't last and they're going to President Biden is going to aim to provoke him. Look, they're on the defensive as well. They know Trump's going to come at him swinging on immigration, on inflation, potentially Hunter Biden's conviction. They say to President Biden that, hey, it'd be OK to flash a little bit of anger at that. That's a human response. And so many Americans can relate to a loved one battling addiction. But let's just be clear about this. The stakes here are really high and both sides know it. This has been a static race within a few points throughout. That's partially why the Biden team wanted this debate so early, to get Americans to pay attention, to kind of drag Donald Trump back into their living rooms and say, look, this is the choice. Biden versus Trump. You may not be thrilled with

that choice, and polls suggest a lot of Americans aren't. But you're going to have to make a decision here. This is the race. And they think this is a moment where the president can not only quiet the doubters, much like he did in the State of the Union, that he's still up for the job, but he can once again paint Donald Trump as fundamentally unfit and dangerous to hold that office again. John, Jonathan is right that Americans, and you know this, talking to people all the time, are kind of looking away from this campaign at this point. They go, ugh, these two guys again. This is a moment when the country really is going to tune in, even if just for one night,

and perhaps form lasting impressions. And as John says, both of the campaigns are very aware of that. So you're going to be down there tonight in Atlanta. What do you expect to see? Well, I guess first, one thing to say about this is, you know, we're going to there's Joe's right in saying this. It is, you know, given the two candidates, there's, you know, the possibility that something will happen outside the bounds of what anyone expects in any direction is reasonable.

So like making predictions about what's going to happen in the debate. You know, the likeliest thing is that Joe Biden is going to get, especially with the expectations have been lowered for him by Republicans for months, stupidly, that he's going to overperform their expectations and that he's going to do what he did in the State of the Union. That's the most likely outcome. The most likely outcome on Donald Trump's side is that he's going to be, you know, Donald Trump. We're not clear that Trump has any other mode than the Trump that we've seen. I think it's one of the things about having this thing so early is that the Biden campaign pushed for it to be early. They didn't push for it to be early because they thought that

what would happen here was that with the six percent of undecided, persuadable, available voters in the six states that are in play, six or seven maybe states that are battleground states, that people were going to have their mind changed tonight in that group. If you haven't decided between Donald Trump and Joe Biden at this point, an event that would change your mind tonight and would hold until November is a pretty unlikely thing. This is a moment like the State of the Union for Biden to calm nervous Democrats, to frame the race going forward. We're going to have these big events coming forward. We've got the NATO summit in Washington, D.C.

You've got Trump's VP pick. You've got the Republican convention. Those are in the next two weeks after this debate. And I think the way the Biden campaign thinks about this is kind of like the starting bell, in a way, for the general election, where they can get up in front of this big audience and say, this lot of events that are going to occur between now and November. So we're not going to I don't think you're going to see when we see a lot of the instant polling and the numbers that people look at. That's the thing to really talk about the next few days. Realize this is a really early debate and a lot of stuff is still going to happen between now and November that are going to actually make up the minds of the people who count. And add to that list of stuff that's going to happen, Joe, the sentencing of Donald Trump on July the 11th on those 34 felony convictions. Right.

I mean, yeah, this is so early. This is unless this political campaign is different from every other American political campaign. I mean, the the the thing I learned very early on in campaigning was as far as spending and when undecideds like really began to focus, it's all don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes when they're right up on you, the final two, three weeks, and really charitably for the undecideds, a lot of them just make up their mind the last week, the last three or four days when they're going into the voting booth. So this really is, Charlie Sykes, a lot like a preseason game. It's June. The elections in November, there are, you know, the famous, I think it was maybe it was Harold Wilson or McMillan who said in politics, a week is a lifetime.

We still have five, five and a half months until this. This is really, really early, isn't it? You know, I'm really glad you're giving us this reality check because, of course, this debate is pivotal. It's incredibly important. But we live in an era of just constant amnesia. I mean, you do this every day. Right. And sometimes at the at the end of the week, you look back and say, what actually happened this week? Something that happened two weeks ago feels like it happened in a completely different era. So I think that's it. That's important. And as for, you know, undecided voters, there was a survey in Wisconsin yesterday of registered voters that found the race tied 50-50, which is amazing because that means there's no undecided voters out there. So, again, there's a lot of things that are going to

happen. And and, you know, as John Heilman pointed out, you're going to have that this post debate spin is going to be as significant as anything that happened. But I am fascinated by all the discussion about, you know, expectations, you know, who's going to show up, what's going to happen. We don't know. But we do know one thing. Donald Trump is going to be Donald Trump. Donald Trump is either going to be the unhinged howler monkey or and I've heard a lot of speculation about this, a lot of pundits, you know, saying, well, maybe we'll get the more low energy Joe Biden. I mean, Donald Trump, maybe we will get the more disciplined and presidential Donald Trump. That Donald Trump doesn't exist. And keep in mind that if you have a 90 minute debate

in which the temperature is low, one thing we're going to discover or be reminded about Donald Trump is that he doesn't really know anything about anything. Now, I don't think that this debate is going to turn on policy or substance, but if it does, just think about it. How much does Donald Trump know about substance and policy? How many questions can he answer about substance and policy at his rallies, at his interviews? Think about what he actually talks about. I mean, he's he's doing this non-prep where he's doing softball interviews and doing the rallies. Listen to what he says when he is unscripted. Listen to what he says when he's, you know, off the hook. So, you know, I'm going to be fascinated by seeing, you know, how does Donald Trump react to not

having an audience? How does Donald Trump react to actually having hostile interviewers? How does Donald Trump have to react when he is trying to pretend or be the reality star who wants people to think that he's presidential? It's going to be the one thing we know about tonight is it's not going to be boring. Well, this is one of the things, Mika, you really educated me on early on in 2016, Donald Trump had a meeting with the editorial board at The Washington Post. And I was reading it to you and I just couldn't believe it. He talked about his hands and the size of his hands for over half the interview. I go, this guy's crazy. And he said, no, he's not crazy. If he's talking about his hands, he doesn't have to talk about his foreign policy plans. He doesn't have to expose how little he knows about economics, how little he knows about what he's really going to do on the deficit or the debt. And and we still have the same thing here. There's a reason he talks about sharks and he talks about electric batteries.

He doesn't. This guy, this guy doesn't know. He hasn't studied American history. He doesn't know. He hasn't studied constitutional law. He doesn't understand constitutional framework. The guy doesn't know policy. He hasn't spent his life studying policy, working through it. So, yeah, it is going to be interesting when the studio is quiet, when there's no cheer cheering section to cheer on some really stupid things he says, where basically everything he throws up there is a strike because the audience is wildly. He doesn't care. He doesn't give a damn about public service. He thinks public service is for

losers. He thinks the people who are buried at Arlington National Cemetery are losers who didn't know, didn't understand what was in it for them. That you have to look at his core values. His core values are the problem. I mean, it's not even that he can't answer a question. And then to Charlie's point, hostile interviewers. I don't think that I don't think that Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are planning to be hostile. I think they want a fair debate. Well, they'll be tough to both sides. They will be tough to both sides. And I think the hostility from what we're seeing already from the Trump campaign is coming from Trump toward them to try and create hostility. And I'm sure that they will be elegant and fair and try their best to ask Donald Trump. And this is his worst nightmare. Basic questions. Right. Basic questions. To Charlie's point.

You know, I have a hard time. The thing I found, though, it's not just Willie. It's not the basic questions that have always been the problems. When Donald Trump gets on stage and he mauls somebody who's interviewing him, it's always the inability to ask the follow up. You said the election was rigged. Yeah, it's the election. Wait a minute. Well, hold on a second. What about the 63 federal judges that said that? Well, and then they just go on. Well, wait a minute. What about the Supreme Court? Your Supreme Court? What? And you just stay on it. You just hammer it. We've seen one or two people. My favorite is. Wait a second. It says here, Jonathan Swan's the best. Because he's like,

he's like, wait, what did this child say? It's the worst Australian accent ever. And we have people in Australia who watch us and email us. Good day, mate. See, I can't even say that right. But there are very few people like Swanee who know how to continue and stay after it. I think Jake, Dana, I think I think those two tonight are going to have the ability to not only ask the tough, fair question, but more importantly, the follow up that has to be asked. Or to call out lies. Yeah, to call out lies. I'm glad you didn't do your Crocodile Dundee, which is a classic in your arsenal. I'm so good at it. I'm so good at it. That's a knife. You got a whole thing you can do. Yeah, I mean, listen, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are two of the best we have in our business. And they will be able to ask, especially, I think, in this format, Sam Stein. We can't underline this enough because we haven't really seen it before.

It's the kind of debate you typically see. And I say this as a compliment and as a good thing on a local level, on your local news affiliate where the candidates come into the studio. They sit there with no crowd. It's not a rally. It's not a rah-rah event. And they just have to answer the questions. And if they don't answer it, instead of talking over the crowd, the moderators have a chance to ask it again. Sometimes the opponent can challenge and rebut, and you actually get two answers on issues. So it's going to be fascinating to watch that, just sort of the mechanical dynamic of how this plays out tonight. I'm going to try to do this without offending an entire continent.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think the moderators are going to play a major role tonight. We've already sort of gotten some hints of frustration from the Biden camp that CNN has said it's not going to do real time fact checking. I'm with you guys. Follow-ups are important. If we can get some good follow-ups, pressing the candidates, both candidates, frankly, on issues, if they're evasive, I think that's valuable. Obviously, this is a compressed debate. It's 90 minutes. You have a commercial break. You can go down rabbit holes, potentially. That's what Mika was saying. One thing Trump might want to do is actually take you down weird rabbit holes just to kill some time. Right. So you have to be

cognizant of that. I don't envy the task. It's a high stakes, high profile task for Jake and Dana. I think ultimately Biden's going to have to do something on his side that maybe the moderators won't, which is either press Trump for follows, which Biden could potentially do, or press him on specific issues. And Jonathan and I were talking about this. And one thing Biden wants to do is he wants to get Trump on the record about the 2020 election results. Do you believe that they were valid? And I think if the debate moderators don't ask that, I would not be surprised if Biden himself doesn't come out and presses Trump specifically on that very basic question. Well, and I'll tell you what, and I know he has to be ready for this, too.

But Republicans think immigration is going to be an issue. I wish I were in Joe Biden's position as a debater going against somebody in Donald Trump's position as a debater. And when he attacked on immigration, I would turn and go, wait a second. We put together the toughest immigration bill in history. You had the most conservative Republican from the state of Oklahoma put the toughest border security bill in place, a bipartisan bill. And you killed it, Donald. You killed it because you said you were afraid that Democrats might get credit. And while you're doing that, terrorists are streaming across the border. While you're doing that, more drugs are streaming across

the border. And this gets this circles back into what I think is the main theme they're developing, which is Donald Trump is in it for himself. Joe Biden is in it for America. And he can say, why did you do this? Why do you make America less safe? Why do you make Americans more, more, more vulnerable to fentanyl? All for yourself, because you knew it wasn't best for you politically. And to that basic question, Sam Stein was talking about about the 2020 election and whether it was

stolen. This is a big decision for the moderators. And I've seen it at our network, at CNN. I've seen the problem where he answers that he lies and then the interview goes on, therefore validating a liar. And so the question is, what do you do when he lies about that again? What will be the plan to stay on it? Because I think that's what I wouldn't let go. What's the most basic and elemental thing? It will take up a lot of time and you're going to have to live with that. Sometimes TV isn't perfect and you can't stick to time and go right to break. Ask Joe. But like this man has lied through every question. And then these interviewers, and they're some of the best in the business.

I've seen it happen to them. Oh, they have to go to the next question. Well, I don't understand why. I'd like to understand why when someone lies bold face to you, you continue an interview, therefore validating the lie. This is not an interview. It's a debate, which I know this will be even follow up question, Mr. President. Sixty three federal judges that follow up question your own. There's a read, including Alito and whatever follow up question, Mr. President. This is an element. It's not like you can go. It's not like you can go from trying to to steal American democracy and undermine it to quantitative

easing. Yeah, it is. It's an elemental question. It's an elemental issue. And so, yeah, I hope there are a lot of follow ups on it. Still out in the morning, Joe, the Supreme Court appears poised to rule in favor of emergency abortions in Idaho. A panel of legal analysts will join us with a closer look at the unsigned opinion that was leaked online and Mika in a session that is ending with some fascinating rulings. Yes, yes, yes. Plus, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp says he did not vote for Donald Trump in his state's primary. We'll play for you the Republican leader's comments, including what he's saying about supporting the presumptive GOP nominee in the November election. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds.

If we go behind the podiums, you can see two green lights. When they're on, they signal to the candidate his microphone is on. When the green lights're on, they signal to the candidate his microphone is on. When the green lights are off, they signal to the candidate his microphone is off. Now I want to give you a sense of what it will look like for viewers at home if a candidate whose microphone is off interrupts a candidate whose microphone is on. So I'm standing at one podium and I'll ask Phil to come in and take the other podium. And so let's say I'm answering a question. My light is green and I'm speaking. Phil's microphone is off and his green lights are not illuminated.

He's going to interrupt me as I'm speaking. And this is what it will sound like. My volume remains constant while Phil's interruption can be difficult to understand. Let's try the opposite. My microphone is now on. Victor's microphone is off and he's going to interrupt me. My volume remains constant while Victor's interruption can be difficult to understand. A demonstration on CNN yesterday on how the microphones will work at tonight's presidential debate between President Biden and Donald Trump.

You can hear when your light's not on. It is really tough to hear. So hopefully cutting down on crosstalk, Jonathan Lemire. So let's put a little bit of frame around this debate and some context. We seem to get another poll every day. What it shows basically is that we're within the margin of error. Donald Trump in one poll yesterday had a little bit of a lead outside the margin of error. But previous polls have shown President Biden taking the lead back. Swing states are where we're focused, and those are all within the margin of error at this point. So what is the expectation from

your reporting from the White House about where this race may head after tonight's debate? Well, first, a quick follow up beat on what we just saw there in terms of the setting for tonight's debate. What you're seeing behind me here in Atlanta, this is deceptive. This is not where the debate is going to be tonight. This is the spin room across the street here on Georgia Tech's campus, the home of the Yellow Jackets. In fact, we're in the basketball arena. I can see Mark Price and John Sally's numbers retired just above me. But this is where tonight this will be filled with journalists and there'll be campaign officials. This will be a spin room.

Campaign surrogates, elected officials will be here trying to talk about what they just saw in the debate. So this will be a frenzied hub of activity tonight. But this is not where the debate is. The debate is across the street in a small TV studio. No audience, just two men, the two moderators and indeed the mics that mute. That is what Americans will see as they watch from home tonight and format the Biden campaign wanted in terms of where we go from here. Both sides acknowledge, and I was speaking to some Biden officials about this yesterday, that even if one of the men has a great night, let's say Joe Biden hits a home run tonight and Donald Trump has a terrible night,

even then, these two men are so well known and this race is so static, that probably only moves the polls a couple of points. They don't think there's anything in this election, short of a health crisis, that could move this polling by eight, 10 points or more. That's just not gonna happen. These men are too well-known. This race is too frozen. It is where we are.

But if Joe and Mika, somebody tonight has a good night and the polls even move just two or three points. And to your point earlier, we're still early in the debate cycle. There are a number of major events ahead. NATO summits, both conventions, the second debate in September. There are things there many times and opportunities for the numbers to change again. But even the best possible night moves to two or three points. But in a race this close,

that does matter. It matters at least somewhat. Yeah. And whether that evaporates in a week or two based on what happens in courthouses or on the campaign trail or somewhere else. Who knows? John Hyland, I'm curious if you think the Biden campaign is starting to coalesce around this message. Donald Trump cares about himself. Joe Biden cares about you. Is that the message that they're trying to bring into focus and a message, a theme we're going to probably hear Biden go after time and time again tonight? Yeah, I mean, I think, Joe, that that, you know, we discussed this the other day on the show after Jen O'Malley Dillon was on my podcast and she kind of had that encapsulation. She then kind of went on for a little bit. And there was a tight bit at the top of that answer when I asked her what the campaign's message was. She said, you know, Joe Biden is fighting for you and Donald Trump is only fighting for himself.

And I think, you know, that's a that that if you look at that, you look at the advertising they've done, you look at the messaging out of the campaign since then. That does seem to be the formulation they're settling on now. You know, that is a message that has a familiarity to it. It's not, we've seen, that's a democratic populist message that sounds a lot like what Barack Obama said about Mitt Romney, for instance, right? About a typical selfish, narcissistic, rich Republican focused kind of on himself and not caring about you. I care about, I'm on your side. I'm fighting for you. Right. One of the questions I have about that message is how well it gets to another thing that Biden wants to talk about and that the Biden campaign wants to talk about, which is that Trump is not just only about himself, but that Trump is creates a degree, a high degree of chaos that he's that kind of rolls in the notion of norm breaking, law breaking,

creating this kind of un-American lack of respect for for for for what for for the things that are great in some sense for for our for our lost traditions, democratic norms. I don't think that that fits in under that rubric quite that clearly. But they are certainly going to try to slide that underneath what seems to be, as I said, the message they've settled on. Right. That does seem to be the message. But I've got to say, there's so much swirling around there. You want to encapsulate it into one word. I really do believe the word is exhaustion, because even before the 2020 campaign, I was hearing Trump loyalists sighing on. Oh, I'm so exhausted. I'm so tired of this guy. I wish he'd just shut his mouth.

I'm so tired. I can't. And then you hear it more after, especially after after January the 6th. So exhaustion, I think, is a powerful, powerful word for the Biden campaign to use. Also powerful, Mika. John Heilman has to really quickly give us his take on it. Season three of The Bear. Ten seconds.

Are you watching the debate? You can give us five words. Are you watching The Bear? I mean, if I had not, if I was not professionally obligated to watch this debate, you know what I'd be doing today, Joe, which is it was just binging all 10 episodes. Season three. The wait is over. They were supposed to not drop until today. They put it out yesterday in the late afternoon, changed that delivery schedule a little bit earlier. I think maybe maybe thinking about the debate. Yeah, I can't say more than I know how much you love the bear. I think you're going to like this season a lot.

You've seen it. John Hellman, thank you very much. We'll see you again tomorrow from the debate site in Atlanta. We look forward to that. And coming up, a pair of Republicans, former elected officials, throw their support behind President Biden. We'll tell you who they are and show you what they're saying about the potential consequences of another Donald Trump presidency. Plus, Trump gives supporters a clue about his choice for a

running mate, what tonight's debate might reveal about his pick. A big distraction so he doesn't actually have to answer questions. We're back in a moment. The Supreme Court appears set to rule in favor of emergency abortions after a document surrounding a high profile case in Idaho was accidentally posted to the court's website. NBC News senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett has details. A mistake of epic proportions rocking the U.S. Supreme Court. A closely watched decision on abortion set to come down any day now, mistakenly and briefly posted to the court's website this morning, indicating the high court is likely on the verge of allowing emergency abortions in Idaho. The document, obtained by Bloomberg Law, before it was quickly removed from the website. The court's spokeswoman

explaining the court's publications unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the court's website, adding that the court's official opinion will be issued in due course. NBC News has not verified whether the document is the final version of the opinion or a draft, but the media's rare advanced access in this case harkening back to an unprecedented leak in another abortion case just two years ago in Dobbs, when Politico published the draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The current battle over Idaho's law, which criminalizes nearly all abortions except to save a mother's life. The Biden administration sued the state, arguing that abortion ban directly conflicts with a federal law requiring hospitals that receive federal funding provide abortions to

women facing health emergencies, even if not on the brink of death. That conflict, doctors say, puts them in a dangerous bind. It's a really heavy burden to carry, to have the five years of potential incarceration to take care of your patients. The document published by Bloomberg in full includes an unsigned opinion from the court punting on the ultimate dispute for now, sending it back to the lower court, which means women in Idaho will be able to obtain emergency abortions while the lawsuit continues to play out. But it also highlights deep divisions on the high court. The justices trading barbs in the document.

Justice Jackson saying today's decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position. While Justice Alito calls the court's decision baffling, saying the court has simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents. NBC's Laura Jarrett reporting for us there. Joining us now, former litigator, MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, and former U.S. attorney and MSNBC contributor Barbara McQuaid. Good morning to you both. So, Lisa, I'll start with you. We can get to the Supreme Court's

baffling IT problems over the last couple of years in a moment, but I think we should start with what this Idaho law says, which when you step back and you go, my gosh, we're talking about the law provides for the life of the mother, but that's a determination the doctor has to make. In other words, if there's organ failure that the woman could survive, they can't perform the abortion. If her long-term fertility is threatened, they can't perform the abortion. So what exactly are we talking about here? That's generally true. The Idaho law forbids abortion unless necessary to prevent the woman's death. It's not even framed in terms of preserving her life. It's only if necessary to prevent her death.

It's since been amended to allow for abortion, for example, in the cases of sepsis, which is like an infection through the body or an ectopic pregnancy, a pregnancy that can't come to fruition because of how it's formed in the organs. But for the most part, the law says that a doctor has to be certain,

and reasonably so, that the abortion care is necessary to prevent a woman's death. And as we heard in the package that Laura put together, doctors in Idaho are constrained. They feel like they can't do anything to stabilize their patient's health. And that's why we're in this situation where this case has come to the court now. And the doctors have to make that decision in a moment. So is this woman going to live or die? And if I perform an abortion and she was determined she wasn't going to die, I can go to jail for five years because I thought I was saving her life. So then now let's talk about what you saw in those documents briefly uploaded to the Supreme Court site before being taken down, but

captured by Bloomberg Law. What did you see in that argument? What I saw is, first of all, the decision of the court in this document, whether it's a draft or a final document, we still don't know. But if this is real, it is a single sentence decision for six justices and an unsigned one, meaning no one justice is taking credit for it. Simply saying we made a mistake to agree to hear this case and the stay of the district court's injunction of Idaho's law is vacated, meaning the district court's block of Idaho's law insofar as it conflicts with the federal law necessitating the stabilization of the patient's health, that can't happen. Idaho's law must give way to that federal law. But as Laura also noted, Willie, this is a temporary reprieve. It's not a victory. All this does

is send the case back to the lower court for further appellate proceedings. And that means either Idaho's law or one of the other six states that have a very similarly drafted law is likely to come back before the court at a later point in time. This is a proverbial kicking the can down the road and potentially kicking the can down the road to a point in time where the Department of Justice is not controlled by the Biden administration, but by a president who doesn't believe that the case should have ever been brought in the first place. Count on a Trump Department of Justice, if there is one, to walk away from the litigation in this case and not continue to insist that Antala, the federal law,

is supreme over Idaho and other states' laws. Unless, Lisa, Americans take this this case and this issue to the voting booth, what we're learning about abortion, we're learning in real time, in vicious, violent, real time, what these extreme bans are doing to women's people who claim to be pro-death. Look at infant mortality in Texas since these extreme bans were put in. Infant mortality is up, as in more babies are dying. We know that women are put in life and death situations because abortion is health care, and they're not allowed to get the health care that they need in their time of need. So the pro-death party may lose at the ballot box as more and more cases like this come up. And we see exactly how important abortion is to women's health care. Barbara McQuaid, to Lisa's point, Justice Jackson said this is just a delay. In a way, the Supreme Court punted on this. Yeah, absolutely. And as you point out, it does save for another day the decision on the merits. Meanwhile, we've got other states, not just Idaho, but other states

where this is an issue and doctors have to worry about the uncertainty in the law. In fact, you mentioned Texas. In Texas, there was a similar challenge, and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the other way in favor of Texas. And so that means in Texas, if there is a conflict between EMTALA, a need for emergency stabilization, stabilization and the Texas law, the Texas law prevails. So the doctors in Texas are not able to perform that stabilizing treatment. And so that case remains alive while the court, in the words of Justice Jackson, dawdles in Idaho to figure out what the law of the land is. And in these six other states, the doctors will face this chilling effect of not knowing where the law lands. And so Justice Jackson would have said, let's just decide the case. Stop. Stop kicking this around, because in the meantime, people are going to die. Barbara, this is Sam Stein. Moving from one legal quagmire to another one,

the court still has to issue an opinion on the topic of presidential immunity with respect to the case involving Donald Trump. What can we read into the fact that this continues to be pushed down further in the docket? It possibly could come today, may not come today. And is there anything we can read into the fact about the cadence of the cases that are coming public? As in, is this going to be sort of the grand finale that the court issues here? Yes, it could be. You know, there's still something like nine opinions yet to be sort of the grand finale that the court issues here. Yes, it could be. You know, there's still something like nine opinions yet to be decided. We've got so far on the public docket at least two days left to issue all of those. I suppose it's possible the court may

even go into July. But with regard to the immunity opinion, what I think it shows is some level of disagreement. If the court were unanimous in its decision, it would have been issued long ago. But, you know, what takes a long time is when the justices are sending drafts back and forth to each other and trying to get other people to sign on to concurrences or to dissents or to majorities. Perhaps it is the chief working hard to reach some sort of majority or unanimous opinion of 9-0 by softening some of the language. But clearly, this is an issue of great importance, of great controversy. I imagine we will see it, if not this week, early next week. But this flurry of opinions, and so many save for the end, is really unusual.

Usually there's a couple of high-profile cases that come down this late. But for there to be so many says not only that there's a disagreement in the court, but I think it says that the court is selecting cases that are designed to change the law of the land. And so in that way, Chief Justice Roberts, who claims to be one who calls balls and strikes, is also choosing his picture. So, Lisa, let's weigh in on immunity and your sense of when we may hear about it. Any others that you're particularly waiting for in this court? We have 12 opinions left and two decision days left. We don't know if Friday is the last decision day. Traditionally,

the chief justice takes the bench and the day before the last day of decisions will announce that it is so. So today at 10 o'clock, we can see whether Chief Justice Roberts tells us that tomorrow is the last day. If he doesn't make that announcement, we should expect decisions next week of those 12. In addition to the immunity case, I'm also waiting for decisions not only in EMTALA, where we don't know whether the final decision will look like the case we were talking about earlier. And I'm also waiting for a decision in a case called Fisher. That's a case brought by a January 6th defendant who argues that the federal government has wrongly construed the obstruction of an official proceeding statute. That's a criminal statute that's been charged against hundreds of January 6th defendants, including the former president, who is facing conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. The argument that the defendant is

making is that it essentially only applies to things like paperwork and not physically blocking Congress from carrying on with its business. If the defendant is right about that, that will affect a large wave of January 6th related cases and potentially affect the former president's case as well, depending on how the immunity case goes. And the final case, Willie, that I'm waiting for is one that could shape federal agencies for decades to come. It's called Loper Bright, and it deals with whether or not federal agencies are entitled to deference for their decisions. If the Supreme Court, as expected, changes the law there, count on agencies to have a lot less power to do what they have traditionally

done, which is issue regulations that could affect everything from the environment to the Department of Justice and everything in between. A lot still hanging out there. We'll see how quickly it comes down or we may have to wait into next week. MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin and former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuaid. Thank you both. It's always so great to have your expertise with us this morning, Joe. Yeah. You know, Charlie Sykes, it has been a fascinating week or two with these Supreme Court decisions. You have Roberts, the Roberts court, which, of course, defined by Dobbs. A lot of people still glossing over the fact that Roberts, the chief justice, went along with the Mississippi 15 week ban where plurality of Americans are, but was against how far the court went. But you look, whether it's the Roberts court over the past

week saying gun rights are not absolute. You don't have to find a perfect parallel in past law to overturn something was a setback for the gun rights absolutists. Same with the Idaho abortion case. Yes, they sort of punted, but at the same time, they held Idaho's most extreme anti-abortionist factions in check there, ruled for the Biden administration when all the Trump conspiracy theorists said them trying to curb disinformation with social media platforms was somehow some Orwellian task. It has it has been it's been a fascinating term. And yet the court seems to be dragging its feet on what many consider to be the most important case. And that's an immunity case that I must tell you, because I have confidence in the

courts. I still have confidence in the courts. I really expected them to quickly affirm the D.C. Circuit's ruling from months ago. No, I did, too. It would have been it would have been the easiest choice for them to make. You know, I was thinking about what, you know, John Roberts is thinking this morning. I mean, this is the it's been a bad week for the court in some respects, because, I mean, they're facing all these questions about the, you know, the ethical challenges faced by judges, Justice Alito and Thomas. And of course, you have the slow walking of the immunity and this this opinion that was leaked. Just it's it is it is not a good look. But as you point out, this is a fascinating and complicated court because it is a 6-3 conservative majority. But in reality, it's really like it is 3-3-3.

And that's going to play out in a lot of different ways. But again, the next 48 hours, next few days is going to be extraordinary, depending on, you know, if they throw out the the convictions of many of the January 6 protesters, if they water down their immunity ruling. So we will see. But but if you're Justice Roberts, you have to understand that this is an institution in deep crisis with with many Americans questioning its legitimacy. I think you'd have to look deep into American history to find a time when the court was under this much challenge, probably back into the 1930s. But, you know, again, this has been an extraordinary week, and it's going to become more extraordinary over the next three days. Well, and Charlie saying it's a 3-3-3 court reminds me that, oh, I forgot what I think is one of them for law nerds, one of the

most dramatic showdowns over the past week. Amy Coney Barrett's opinion saying to Clarence Thomas, you just can't go back to 16th century like law books and make up stuff like it has to be attached to the law. And so there is a great conservative debate that you would expect inside of a law school that's going on in the court now. And we'll define the court. Thank you very much for coming on this morning. A lot still ahead.