Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/28/22

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

Jan. 6 panel adds last-minute hearing Tuesday afternoon

A live look at Capitol Hill ahead of a last minute hearing today from the January 6th committee scheduled for later today at 1 p.m. The panel called back to the Hill from recess to present new evidence and witness testimony. The big question this morning, what has the committee learned that seems to be so urgent? Really, as we take a live look at five fifty nine, almost six a.m. on the East Coast, just absolutely beautiful shot of the United States Capitol. You can guarantee you're guaranteed that it's going to be another dramatic day of hearings there. The January 6th committee has has just revealed things about that day from Trump supporters that I think surprised even the most loyal Republicans. And I expect today is going to be no exception. We have Jackie Alimany standing by to give us the very latest on her reporting on this. Plus, federal agents make moves on another key figure in the January

6th investigation. We'll have the latest developments concerning John Eastman. The feds took his phone, Mika. The feds took his phone. That's never good. Not a good thing. Honestly, he's the architect of the attempted coup and the feds have his phone. We'll have much more on that. Well, you know, we were asking how could this guy not be in legal trouble? Apparently he seems he may be green bananas. All right. As the battle over abortion hits the states, many are wondering if there's anything the federal government can do to protect services for

women. And what is the state of women's rights? We'll be talking about all of that. Willie's with us. Good morning, Willie, Joe and Mika together again. The team's back. Welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, June 28th. Along with Joe, Willie and me, we have U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye and Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. So, you know, Willie, yesterday I'm here working. We're doing we're doing a show on, I think, the most one of the most significant other than Bush v. Gore, perhaps the most significant case of the Supreme Court in half a century. And I get a text from somebody with breaking news about yesterday being the 15 year anniversary of something.

I want to want to take any guess on what actually somebody actually wrote about 15 year anniversary. Morning, Joe. No. What is it? It was when Mika tore up. Oh, shredded. Oh, yeah. And burned the Paris Hilton script.

Is that right? It's really not that big a deal, guys. It should be a literal holiday. We shouldn't have been working yesterday. Yes. We're not saying it is a big deal, Mika. Obviously, I'm surprised that somebody sent it to me yesterday morning. Exactly.

And somebody wrote it up saying this changed. Whatever that changed, that changed the face of cable news. Then the face of cable news was it was in serious, serious. But yeah, that was 15 years ago. And the amazing thing is it was just all off the top of our heads. You just happen to have a paper shredder. My favorite part is when you were trying to pull the lighter away from her. No, I never stand in the way of whatever Mika's doing.

But when there were pyrotechnics presented, I just felt for the safety of the crew in the studio that I should probably remove that from her hand. But her point was well taken. And I think that was the last time we ever did a pop culture story like that, it's fair to say. 15 years ago. As a lead. By the way, by the way, they they did. The people at the desk sent that because of the beginning. They used to send us the news and say, these are the news stories you read about.

That stopped very quickly. Actually, it stopped then. But they actually we had all of this news coming out of Iraq. And that was the lead story. Paris Hilton getting out of jail. Right. My Lord, how things have changed. Things have definitely changed. Yeah, the stakes have been raised. That's for sure.

And guys, like, what are we doing still here? OK, let's get to the news, maybe because we love it. New polling shows a swing back toward Democratic candidates ahead of November's midterm elections. It is the latest survey from NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist. Forty eight percent of voters say if the midterms were held today, they would more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate. Forty one percent say they would vote Republican. That's a one point increase for Democrats since last month and overall a 10 point swing from April when 47 percent said they would back the Republican candidate in the same new poll. Fifty five percent of all voters say they oppose the court's decision to overturn Roe, although the majority of Republicans say they support the ruling. I want to see a poll of Republican women. Yeah, well, you know, it is

it's it's not it's not. As as wide of a gap as Democrats might believe, I think the majority of Republican women probably support the ruling. But but, you know, Willie, and we can love to get everybody else's insight on this. But but there's a tradeoff here. And it really does depend on who is inspired to go out for turnout. But there's going to be a tradeoff. This is Donald Trump hates this privately and he's complaining about it privately because this will hurt him. This will hurt Republican candidates in the very areas that cost him the election in 2020 in the suburbs. We always talk about the northern the suburbs of North Atlanta, the Philly suburbs, suburbs,

you know, the I-4 corridor, which, of course, Republicans did fairly well in. But those suburban areas are areas that Republicans have been losing over the past several years, the suburbs. And this is only going to cause especially women in the suburbs to move away from them more. On the other side, you have Hispanic voters who have long been more traditionally pro-life than a lot of Democrats have given them credit for. You may have a break towards Republicans on that side of the margin. And then, of course, as always, there's a split in education, college grads, people with postgrad degrees. They're going to move toward the Democrats after

this ruling, if you believe the polling and those with high school degrees, those who really formed the backbone of of a lot of Republicans and surge over the past 20, 30 years, they're going to most likely, if you believe the polls, move to Republicans. So I don't think it's clear cut. I will say something's happened over the past two, three months. And maybe it's the gun debate. Maybe it's the leaked memo that in several polls have shown Democrats picking up 10 points in the generic ballot test. This is a little tighter than some of some of the ones that I've seen. But there are some others that show Democrats surging as much as 10 points. Yeah. If you think about what's happened in that time, as we look down and we should be clear that this does not include the last week when the Roe decision officially came down. But as you said, we heard the leaked memo. We saw the details of it. We assumed that this was going to happen. So maybe you can factor that in

to Democrats increased enthusiasm with the January 6 trials, of course, that come within this poll. And then, as you said, the gun debate as well. So, Gene Robinson, this Roe versus Wade, as you look at the enthusiasm among Democrats, is something immediately after it came down that Speaker Pelosi and President Biden said, our recourse here is to go vote. If you don't like what you saw at the court on Friday, you have to go vote. Do you expect this to be a galvanizing issue as Democrats go to polls in the fall? Well, look, I think, first of all, the major impact of the decision is is on humanity, is on people. Right. And we were making that decision. But in terms of the politics, yes, I expect it to boost Democratic candidates. And in fact, I will be very interested to see what those numbers look like when they do figure in last

Friday, the day it actually came down, because it was one thing to know it was coming, even to read the draft opinion, but to have it just sort of land Friday, just have it happen. I know that just anecdotally, people I've been talking to, it just personally hit them really harder than they would have expected, knowing it was coming. And so I wonder what impact it's going to have. I also wonder, you know, I always look at those numbers for independents and, you know, Democrats and and Republicans are not well together. They're the majority of the population, but the largest segment of voters consider themselves independent. And if they break substantially toward Democrats, then this

could be a very different midterm election from the one that a lot of people were expecting. And that's what we're looking at in the polls. And you're exactly right, Gene. You look at those independent voters and see there's some wild swings. I mean, you look up at, for instance, and they're called independents for a reason. You look, for instance, at Governor Whitmer's numbers up in Michigan. She's doing very well, according to a poll I saw yesterday with independents where Joe Biden is upside down. So, again, they're not as loyal to party as as they are to who the individual candidate is. Katie Kay, the question, though, is about in these national races, there has always there's already been this great sorting. And Donald Trump has done it.

The question is, who voted for Donald Trump, who after Roe is going to say, you know, I think I think I'm going to vote Democratic in the coming years. I don't know that that's the case. We may be talking again on the margins. We may be talking about these independents. We may be talking about two or three percent. But the question is, once again, whether the Democrats are going to be able to work the ground game enough to make this a difference. So people who are adversely affected by this and fear the loss of their rights in the future, reading the Thomas concurring opinion, whether they're going to actually

register, vote, organize, outwork Republicans, get people to the polls and make a difference. I haven't seen a lot of evidence that Democrats are really good at that anymore. I think you're right, Joe. And we're probably only talking about the margins and we're probably only talking about a few districts and only a few states. I spent the last month traveling around the country. And the only thing people are talking about when I ask them what they're going to vote on in the midterms is five dollars a gallon for gas. And that was even the case over the course of this weekend. I was in Pennsylvania during the weekend when the ruling came out, and I spent the time talking to an abortion provider, a doctor who actually said, look, there's a potential that

this galvanizes the other side, too, in a state like Pennsylvania. Yes, it might galvanize some Democrats. It may persuade some independents to get out and vote Democratic. But make no mistake that it's going to be a galvanizing factor on the right as well, because they see a state like Pennsylvania and they look at the gubernatorial race there

and the chance that Pennsylvania, if a Republican wins the governor's mansion in November, could also ban abortion. And you'll get pro-life conservatives turning out to vote in bigger numbers, too. So it could galvanize people on both sides. Democrats are certainly hoping that come November, this boosts their numbers in critical districts and critical stakes. At the moment, my reading from traveling around the country is that the economy is trumping

everything. And in November, is there still the momentum there? Even though over the course of this weekend, we heard the outrage. We heard men, women, families, everybody, all Democrats turning out appalled and saying that they will vote on this. But it's the only option Democrats have. Right. They have to say they're going to get turnout up because what else do they have to run or what else do they have to say about this? Yeah, that's they're going to be facing some headwinds if things stay the same with inflation, with gas prices, with food prices. So they are going to have to organize. They are going to have to really figure out how how to get people out to vote.

One one other thing, Mika, that it'll be curious to see how conservatives, how how Republicans respond to this. I remember back in 1989, 1990, 1991, when the Soviet Union fell on Christmas Day, 1991. I think most Republicans expected for, you know, to take a victory lap for quite some time after the Soviet Union fell and thought that Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush would get credit for it. The voters responded far differently. And they said, well, wait a second. Now that we're beyond the Cold War, we can take a risk on a guy like Bill Clinton. We don't need a World War Two veteran. I'm curious, since so much is driven by negative partisanship in American politics these days, since since so much is driven by what you're against instead of what you're for.

Yeah, I am curious. And I know some Republicans are talking about this, too, whether it's the party that's aggrieved, which Republicans have been aggrieved, it seems, for the past 30, 40 years, but whether it's a party that's aggrieved, that's in the minority, in this case, the Democrats, that are compelled to vote, while those who won maybe not have as much of an edge. We'll find out this fall, but it's a fascinating question to pursue. There's maybe four or five really key issues that, you know, Democrats could run on. But the economy, that's going to hang heavy over the elections to come for sure. But there is obviously abortion. There's obviously guns. And then there's January 6th. And let's turn to that now. Speculation is swirling after the abrupt announcement from the January 6th. And let's turn to that now. Speculation is swirling after the abrupt

announcement from the January 6th committee that it plans to hold another, a sixth public hearing today. The only thing the committee has revealed is the hearing will, quote, present recently obtained evidence and receive witness testimony. The Washington Post reports that even some senior committee staff have been kept out of the loop. Three sources tell the Post the secrecy is due in part to credible threats against a witness. The committee announced last week that it was taking a break until mid-July and yesterday gave just 24 hours notice about the hearing scheduled for one o'clock this afternoon. Also consider that Congress is in the midst of a two week recess. So they're interrupting the recess. Let's bring in

congressional investigations reporter for The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany. Jackie, there is reporting on who today's witness will be. What are you hearing? Yeah, Mika. So we have confirmed that that witness today is expected to be Cassidy Hutchinson, a senior aide to former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Hutchinson has already played a pretty prominent role in these hearings with her recorded depositions being played throughout the past five hearings. She's also been a key person for this committee in terms of the full scope of their investigation. They've released excerpts of some of her closed-door depositions that revealed some pretty damning charges against

the former president, including that former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows was warned directly of the potential for violence on January 6th. We've also previously reported that she overheard Mark Meadows come back out of the Oval Office on January 6th and say that he heard the former president express support for the pro-Trump rioters who were chanting, hang Mike Pence. So she could have some even more pretty bombshell revelations today. But we have heard actually that some of the, as you just read, that the reason why her testimony has been so closely guarded is because of massive security threats. In the last hearing, she did say, reveal that Marjorie Taylor Greene, she had heard that Marjorie Taylor Greene asked the White House counsel's office for a pardon. And you can only imagine what that sort of does in terms of elevating her name and potentially causing far right extremists to to levy some of these

credible threats that have come her way. And yeah, Jackie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, as you know, not the only name she mentioned regarding those pardons at the White House. This is an extraordinary move. We thought that we were on a break of three or four weeks here before the committee was going to come back to have members of Congress and this committee come back from their districts, back from recess and sit. There must be something coming here. But this is about maybe as close as we're going to get to the president.

If you don't have Donald Trump and you don't have Mike Pence, you don't have Mark Meadows himself. If you have the senior aide to Mark Meadows who had eyes and ears on all these conversations, obviously she's seen and heard a few things that would be significant here. But to have this hearing reopened a few weeks early, do we have any sense of what she's coming into town to tell them today? We don't. But we have had people previously tell us that if there is anyone who's going to be the John Dean of this investigation, Cassidy Hutchinson is the person who is the most likely to be that person in terms of her access to the top figures in Trump's orbit and her proximity to the former president, what she was able to overhear, the people that she saw going in and out of the Oval Office on January 6th.

But it is important to note that we're not sure if there's going to be another witness necessarily corroborating her testimony today. But, you know, there was clearly a sensitivity and an urgency to her testifying today. And you've got to think that it's in part due to these security concerns, but also because they're worried that she might potentially back out. This is this is not a small thing for this individual to come forward, put her career on the line. Obviously, she's she's being compelled in some ways. There are subpoenas at play here. Several individuals like Bill Stepien, for example, who ultimately didn't appear, were subpoenaed to appear. But this is a big thing for her.

She's in her 20s. She's a young person with little institutional support in terms of the other people who she used to work with cooperating with this investigation. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see what she's going to reveal today. That hearing is at one o'clock Eastern time in Washington. We'll, of course, take it live here on MSNBC. The Washington Post, Jackie Alimany from inside that committee. Jackie, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Another big name in this investigation, of course, John Eastman, the lawyer and Trump ally who helped to advise the former president on efforts to overturn the 2020 election, says he had his phone seized by the FBI. In court documents filed yesterday, an attorney for Eastman said federal agents executed a search warrant as he was leaving a New Mexico restaurant with his wife and a friend last Wednesday night. According to the filing, agents patted Eastman down, took his phone

and, quote, forced him to unlock it. He's now fighting to have his phone returned, arguing the seizure was unlawful. This took place the same day federal agents searched the home of Jeffrey Clark, the former Justice Department official, Trump briefly considered appointing as acting attorney general before that was thwarted. So, Joe, obviously, John Eastman wrote the letter, drew up the document showing Mike Pence how he could overturn the results of the 2020 election, not certify that election. He is a central figure not just to the committee, but now it looks like to the Justice Department. Well, and we said last week that the two people that look like they were going to have problems were Clark and Eastman. And it seems the feds have confirmed that. Let's bring in right now to discuss this and the the court recent court rulings. Professor Meredith at Harvard Law School, Lawrence Tribe.

Thank you so much for being with us, Professor. Let's start by talking about the seizure of Eastman's phone. What does it mean? What it means is that Eastman is definitely a target of investigation by the Justice Department, although the actual affidavit connected with the subpoena was drawn up by other than the Justice Department, it was the inspector general. But it's all coming into focus. It's Eastman, Clark, a number of people immediately around the president. Advising him that he basically didn't need to worry about having whether he really did or didn't believe that he won the election. We have it covered from every angle, as his son once said. Yeah. So, Professor Tribe, you wrote a book on abortion one time talking about how it balances two of the most critical issues of our time, and that is liberty versus life. And there's always been

that balance when it's come to Roe, when it's come to abortion. Talk about the hearing or talk about the ruling and what it means not just for abortion, but other rights that many Americans have taken for granted for the past 49 years. Well, the ruling didn't strike a balance. It basically erased women and their bodily integrity and their liberty out of the equation altogether. And it said that the other side represents potential life. Now, the moment you say that potential life is entitled to protection, even at the cost of basically forcing women to bear a life, that immediately turns to contraception and to other issues like that. And what the court said about abortion is that the word doesn't appear in the Constitution. Well, that's true of parenting. It's true of the right to have a baby. It's true of same-sex marriage. It's true of a lot of things. Also, the court said it's not based in the early traditions majority says not to worry, it's only women we're

going after, at least that's how I translate it. Thomas says, sorry, all of those rights, rights protected by what lawyers call substantive due process, rights of personal liberty, personal choice, integrity, dignity, all of those, unless very explicit or deeply embedded in our history, are up for grabs. And he's basically inviting challenges to the contraception decision, Roe v. Wade, to same-sex marriage or Bergafell. He didn't mention interracial marriage, but Loving v. Virginia is also based on rights not written into the Constitution, unless you say that liberty and equality covers it all. But then it should cover the woman's right to control her body and her life as well.

Professor, Justice Thomas was the only justice to seem to indicate that the court might go after those other rights as well. Other members of the majority didn't support that position or don't seem, at least publicly, to support that position. What do you read into what appears to be a split in the conservative majority over this? How do you read it? Is it going to go the way Justice Thomas is suggesting or the way that perhaps Justice Alito seems to be indicating? I think it's going the way that Justice Thomas is suggesting. Of course, Justice Alito would say, don't read too much into our opinion. We're not yet reaching all those other cases. But the only reason he gives for thinking that the other cases are different

is not a reason at all, just a definition. It says this case involves potential life. Well, duh, of course it does. So I think it's clear that the court is going all in. And what's especially interesting is that nothing significant has changed since 1973 on these issues. All that's changed is the faces of the people on the court. That's what led the dissenters, Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, who wrote an unusual joint dissent to say, don't believe it. If this really were limited, then this would not be an exercise of judicial power. It certainly has implications for all these other areas. And if it doesn't, that reaffirms the fact that this is just judicial fiat. That's what it looks like to me. Professor Emeritus at Harvard Law School, Lawrence Tribe, thank you very much for being

on the show this morning. We appreciate it. And we'll have more on this ahead. President Biden is facing criticism from his own party after the Supreme Court's decision to end Roe v. Wade. We'll talk to DNC Chair Jamie Harrison about how this issue is going to affect the midterms and what Democrats are going to do. Plus, Ukraine's president is calling it a daring terrorist attack. A Russian airstrike on a crowded mall in Ukraine kills at least a dozen people and many more are missing. We'll go live to the scene where crews are searching for survivors. You're watching Morning Joe. We will be right back. At least 18 people were killed and 59 injured when Russian missiles hit a crowded shopping

mall in the central part of Ukraine yesterday. President Volodymyr Zelensky says more than 1,000 people were inside the mall at the time of that attack. In a telegram message, Zelensky called it, quote, one of the most daring terrorist attacks in European history, adding the number of victims is impossible to imagine. Local officials say the death toll is likely to go up as rescuers scour that debris. Leaders at the G7 summit condemned the attack, calling it abominable and vowing unwavering support for Ukraine. The U.N. Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting later today to discuss the attack.

And join us now from the scene of that attack in central Ukraine. NBC News correspondent Ellison Barber. Ellison, what more can you tell us? Hey, Willie, let me just show you what is happening here right now, because rescue teams are literally going inch by inch throughout this debris, sawing, shoveling, moving whatever they can out of the way. They are looking for evidence here. They are also looking for missing people. Families of 40 different individuals have reported their loved ones as missing. Right now, we have been told that the death toll is at 20 people dead and you have

close to 60 people injured. Half of those injured people in hospital, as we watch today as these crews just keep working, keep pressing on, they're pulling out bits of fragments left over from missiles, trying to collect evidence. The general prosecutor for Ukraine, she was here this morning. She told us that they believe this could potentially be a crime against humanity. The Russian Federation, the Russian Defense Ministry, they claim that they struck a factory nearby this shopping center that was actually housing weapons provided to Ukraine by both the U.S. and the EU. They claim that once they struck that factory, those munitions then detonated and caused a fire at this shopping center, a shopping center they claim was inoperable. But the numbers of the people who were injured, the video from the moment this attack happened,

shows you just how busy this area was. It was certainly an open shopping center. We watch more as it goes through, just stalling everything down. This has been constant for hours and hours now. I spoke to a local official here this morning, and he said that there is a factory sort of just behind this area. But he claimed that it is a factory that has nothing to do with any sort of military objectives or weapons. He says that it is a factory that is essentially working on

construction related to roadways. This is a heavy industrial area, and there's a lot of infrastructure related to transportation here. So he claims that that area that was also struck had nothing to do with military action. But Ukrainian officials say two missiles directly hit this area. Russia is claiming that it was just a fire here. And we have really watched. I can show you a little over this way, Tom, if we have time. These are some of the fragments that they're collecting here to try and make that case that this was a direct hit by two missiles. Ukrainian officials say they were Russian missiles and they are literally just going

through everything bit by bit. I was asking a local official this morning if they had any sense of how old the victims were here. They said right now they're not sure, but they believe there were at least some teenagers among them. Willie? Yeah, 18 dead. And as we said earlier, they expect that number to go up. The Russian military says it was targeting that factory you mentioned as a weapons depot and that the mall was collateral damage. But obviously what you're seeing behind you tells a different story. NBC's Alison Barber in central Ukraine. Alison, thanks so much. I'm sure we'll be back to you soon. Mika, this all, of course, happens

against the backdrop of the G7 and President Biden next today going to the NATO summit where the subject will be the war in Ukraine. Absolutely. And and there is this duality, Joe, where you have Ellison with her great reporting, literally spelling out for us a missile attack on a mall. The reports, of course, of the attack in Kiev, even at kindergarten, was hit, that the Russians are being aggressive. They're making sure their killing is widely known and very public. At the same time, these reports that the Russians are sort of running out of gas, that what they're doing is unsustainable. Well, this may be a sign of desperation because, again, you look at Western analysts, what they've been reporting over the past several days, they believe that Putin's war machine is exhausted, that he's running out of the supplies needed and running out of troops unless he constitutes a draft in the country which would be extraordinarily unpopular.

But Russians have failed. I mean, they failed in just about every metric that you would use to measure this war. Strategy, an F. Logistics, an F. Troop morale, an F. Political support across the globe, an F. The blowback has been extraordinary. You would have to just say, Caddy, the one area where the Russians seem to be exerting their will, as again, here's the Washington Post headline from this weekend,

Russia will soon exhaust its combat capabilities. Strategy F, logistics F, troop morale F, political blowback F. The one thing that they have continued to do is commit war crimes. And they've done it against maternity hospitals. They've done it against cancer wars. They've done it against kindergartens. They've done it against malls. And they do that, as so many military analysts say, because they can't do anything else. Yeah. Do you remember when we saw that theater in Mariupol where they had the word children written on the sidewalk on the road outside? And it was clear that there were children inside and the Russians bombed it. And I think that gave us the preview of what their tactics were going to be leading up to this shopping mall attack that we saw over the course of the weekend. As the Russians feel they are losing militarily or at least strategically or suffering strategically, they tend to get more, I think the only word is just atrocious in the way that they

act militarily by attacking civilians in shopping malls. And it's an indication of the frustration, I think, that Vladimir Putin is feeling in the way this war has not gone the way that he planned. That Washington Post headline about them running out of missiles and running out of ammunition is very interesting. There are mixed reports, I have to say, that I've been getting speaking in conversations with European diplomats. There's some frustration from Europeans and Americans that really the only look we're getting inside the war is what Ukrainians are telling us. And we may not be getting the full picture from Ukrainian intelligence in what is happening, there is less visibility in what's happening inside the Russian military. So if the assessment now is that the Russians are running out, then that's a little bit of a change

from a couple of weeks ago when the fear was that it was the Ukrainians that were running out of ammunition. But the Russians have been throwing ammunition and people. I mean, Vladimir Putin seems to care nothing for his own soldiers either. They are expending personnel in the military as if it was water. There just no there seems to be no care for Russian soldiers at all. And then, of course, as things are going badly, we see this kind of attack we saw over the course of the weekend. I mean, it's just the atrocities just keep mounting in the country. Well, and you look at you look at this from from 30,000 feet and you look at history as a guide. And we remember Paul Kennedy's landmark work, and I think was 1987, the rise

and fall of the great powers. And he traced from 1500 through the late 1980s, how you would have countries rise and fall and you could predict the outcome of a war based on their GDP, the rise and fall of the GDP over the preceding decades. You look at what's been happening in Russia and they once had a fairly strong economy in the Soviet Union, even though it was, again, though economically, in many ways, it was always a basket case. But if you just measure by their GDP, it's now dropped to, as we've been saying since this war began, to a GDP that's smaller than Texas's GDP. And it's only gotten worse since this war has begun. You look at another

Washington Post story from yesterday where China has cut their imports to Russia. And so while China's not going along with the EU or the United States and some of these sanctions, they are in a de facto sense, Gene, and they're isolating Russia even more. And and you just look at this and you look at the war crimes of Vladimir Putin continue to he continues to commit. Zelensky says he wants this war over by the end of the year. It's getting harder and harder to figure out how Vladimir Putin strikes a peace deal that allows him back into the world community when he's committed all of the mass atrocities that Americans and Europeans have seen on their TV sets every night. Yeah, it is difficult to imagine him, you know, the G7 once again becoming the G8 and Putin going to to a meeting with the who've just met in Bavaria. I mean, that's unimaginable.

But it's also unimaginable exactly how the allies stop Putin from committing these war crimes. I mean, Russia may run out of smart munitions, cruise missiles and the like. I think it'll probably be a long time before they run out of dumb bombs. And they can they can lob them at shopping malls that can lob them at kindergartens. They can anywhere in the country at will. And and that seems to be it may not just be a spasm of frustration. That may be Putin's strategy going forward to keep the pressure on that way. He's not going to get back into the world community. But on the other hand, he considers himself personally untouchable, that he thinks he's secure in power. He's going to continue with this war a la Peter the Great.

And so how this ends has always been the big question. And that question gets murkier and murkier the longer it goes on. And the only reason, Mika, this war is going on right now is because of oil prices, because Russia is still making money with their oil. And I've got to say, the United States has got to get serious. We have got to get serious about alternative energy sources. I read about this in a book about the future of conservatism in 2009. And I talked about how critical it was that we dominate in the area of alternative energy sources in the future. So we didn't have to rely on petro dictators.

And here we are all of these years later when people have been talking about that. Democrats have been talking about that for such a long time. But we've got to get serious. I'll go back again to Barack Obama's approach on energy. It's all of the above. We need to continue while nuclear plants. Again, something that we've been saying for 20 years. We also, though, have to double down on our investment in alternative energy sources that will move us from where we are to where we need to be, because when we get there. Petro dictators. They can't fight these wars anymore. They can't have the influence they have. They can't bribe leaders in the West. They can't exert or export their radical, racist theology.

So it is happening all over again. It is. It is a national security issue, a national security issue that we aggressively move towards alternative energy sources. And it's not going to be clean. It's not going to be neat. There can be a lot of mistakes along the way. They're going to be they're going to be investments that don't pan out. But we have no other choice. That's where we need to get to. One hundred percent. All right.

Coming up, we have new reporting on the growing frustrations inside the Democratic Party. Activists and even members of Congress are upset with leadership following the Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights. We'll discuss the state of the party

with its chairman. Jamie Harrison joins us next on Morning Joe. 47 past the hour. A beautiful shot of the sun coming up over the White House in Washington, D.C. This morning, following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, The Washington Post reports frustration is growing among Democrats about perceived inaction from the top of the party. The report in the Post reads in part this to an increasingly vocal group of frustrated Democrats. Responses by party leaders have been

strikingly inadequate to meet a moment of crisis. They criticize the notion that it's on voters to turn out in November when they say Democrats are unwilling to push boundaries and upend the system in defense of hard won civil liberties. The paper notes some progressive lawmakers are frustrated. Democratic leadership has so far appeared unwilling to wield their power in a way, they say, that is often done by Republicans. One activist interviewed by The Post talked about similar hesitation by party leaders on issues like police reform and voting rights, saying, quote, It's very similar to what happened in 2020. Go back to the voting booths. It always comes back to now you, the individual, do something.

But we've elected these people who are in office at this very moment to take action on things like this. So, you know, Willie, we have a Senate that split 50-50. You've got a senator from West Virginia in a state that Donald Trump won by what, 68, 69 points. You have a senator from Arizona who actually has pretty high approval ratings inside of Arizona because she's charted a moderate to conservative course. It's called democracy. I'm not exactly sure. I understand it's very frustrating for all Democrats. Not exactly sure what they expect Joe Biden to do. Yeah. And the reaction is always tear down the institutions if we don't like the way something is going. I don't think everyone in the party agrees with that. But let's turn to

the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Jamie Harrison. He's here with me in New York. Mr. Chairman, it's good to see you this morning. Great seeing you, Willie. I want to talk specifically about that ruling, but just get your take on that story. Is there frustration in the Democratic Party with this president that he should be doing more than saying you have to go vote in the fall? Listen, I think there's less frustration. There's not the frustration with the president. It's the fact that these things are happening right now.

You know, for the first time in my lifetime, really, I'm 46 years old. We are seeing America take away rights instead of add and protect rights. I mean, that's just galling. You know, I was raised by my grandparents. My grandfather and my grandmother couldn't always vote. My grandmother didn't always have choice over how to control over our own body. And I thought that my kids, we would be building on the rights that they have gained over those years instead of tearing them away. And what we are seeing from this court

is just a relentless assault, not only from the court, but also from Republicans in state houses and in Congress, a relentless assault on American democracy and the freedoms that we all enjoy. And so what I think you're seeing is the

frustration from folks, particularly the young generation of what is this? I have never experienced this in my life. We should be moving closer to what the ideals of the founders are instead of moving back. And I think that's that frustration. But what we have to do as Democrats is to bottle that frustration, take that and make sure that we build the infrastructure to protect American freedoms, to make sure that long term that we never get to this place again. We have to be just as we have to be more relentless in terms of protecting democracy than the Republicans are in terms of tearing it down. And that is the charge for the Democratic Party over the course of the next few weeks, few months and the years to come. A lot of these trigger laws already now going into place, including in your home state of South Carolina, where there's a fetal heartbeat law. You can't get an abortion after the point at which they can detect a fetal heartbeat. What is

your sense of whether this energizes the people that your your job is to go out and get to vote? We were talking about not just Democratic women, probably some Republican women, independent women, apolitical women whose attention certainly was grabbed by what they saw on Friday in this ruling. Do you expect women to go out and vote on this issue, including some who may not have gone to vote in a midterm election? I think we are seeing right now an energy and an activism, particularly amongst women that we have not seen since the election of Donald Trump and the march on Women's March. You know, what we are seeing is that we have this joint effort with the DCCC and the DSCC. We built out this website called DefendChoice.org.

And we are seeing a record number of activists sign up because they want to make phone calls. They want to send text messages. They want to do everything within their power in order to make sure we enact change and we secure their right to protect, to control their own bodies. And, Willie, I would not be surprised. And, you know, I grew up in the South, in South Carolina, and many times in some of those communities, men and women vote, the husband and wives vote the same way. I would not be surprised that in this election cycle, you get women, particularly in areas like the South, where we have all these trigger laws and they end up pulling a very different lover than their husbands. We will see, Joe. I'm just curious, Mr. Chairman, your reaction to these these progressives who are saying stop saying it's on the voters, stop saying it's on us to

get people out to vote. I just want to say, you know, remind our viewers that Republicans picked up what over a thousand state seats, legislative seats from 2010 to 2020. There's a reason why Republicans control formerly Democratic states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania. There's a reason why crazy legislation is passed into law. And that's because Republicans did the work on the ground. Would you encourage those who are saying it's not up to us to get out and vote? Would you encourage them to refocus their efforts instead of criticizing Joe Biden actually doing over the next 10 years what the Republicans did over the past 10 years? Well, Joe, I would tell everybody we need to do what Queen Beyonce said. We've got to get in formation. We need to build the infrastructure.

And that's what I've been trying to do as chair of the DNC. You know, you don't get a whole lot of headlines, but we've been rebuilding the infrastructure of our state parties. Because at the end of the day, what we are seeing is that Republicans have been able to chip away at rights on a state level. And then that has been able to amplify on the federal level. Well, the only way that you combat that is to build an infrastructure, a brick wall to stop that from happening. And that's strengthening our state parties again. Joe, in 2018, we put $30 million on the ground as a DNC. We have already committed $70 million on the ground. For over a year, we've been building our voter protection efforts. We have voter protection teams across the country. We put organizers on the ground across the country.

You don't get a whole lot of headlines about that, but those things are happening right now and have been happening for a year. And so what we have to do, folks, is focus our energy. The enemy is not within. We have to make sure that we push back against these Republican efforts to take away American rights. And you do that on the ground. And that's why we've been focused on registering, mobilizing, supporting grassroots groups like Planned Parenthood and NARAL. We want to see record turnout this November so that we can then, on a state level, make sure that we protect Roe, but also on a federal level, do all that we protect Roe, but also on a federal level, do all that we can to make sure that we codify that. And it's not just Roe. It's a number of

other things as well. Jamie, this is Gene Robinson. So Republicans spent 40 years packing the Supreme Court with justices who would make these rulings, who would overturn Roe, who were against basically all gun control, who had no respect for voting rights. They spent the past 20 years turning these state legislatures from blue to red. So is that what Democrats are now looking at, a 20-year, 40-year struggle to get back to where we were? Or is there a way to do that more rapidly, more expeditiously? And how do you sell a long march to the Democratic Party? Well, it's hard selling.

It's good seeing you, Gene, but it is hard selling a long march because many times our folks are focused on a cycle. You know, they're just focused on what we do in 2022. But I'm also thinking about what do we want this party to look like in 2032, in 2042? What's going to be the next Georgia? What's going to be the next Arizona? How do we build up state power in states like South Carolina? How do we regain and energize people in South Dakota? How do we mobilize the native communities? How do we go back and strengthen our connections to Latino communities across this country? And that is what we are focused on. And because sometimes people don't see the end results right now, they get frustrated. And I understand that. I've been

doing this for a while. I get frustrated as well. But we've got to take that frustration and we have to bottle it and we have to make it and turn it into action. And so our focus at the DNC right now is building a stronger infrastructure so that this party isn't built around a personality or an individual, but long term is sustainable and they can fight back against these attempts to take our rights away from us. DNC Chairman Jamie Harrison, thank you so much. And coming up, we appreciate your being on. New reporting on the Capitol attack investigation ahead of today's surprise hearing. The Select Committee is now focusing on conversation among Donald Trump's children and top aides captured by a documentary filmmaker weeks before the 2020 election.

Plus, Congressman Ruben Gallego is calling for Justice Department action based on the panel's proceedings. The Arizona Democrat joins the conversation in our fourth hour. I've got to also say, I like what he's saying. I've been talking about it for some time. Yeah. Don't call him super mag or whatever. They're freaks, weirdos and insurrectionists. Call them by their names. Yeah. It's all in our fourth

hour of morning show. We'll be right back. Boy, it looks nice in Washington this morning. Beautiful day.