Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/5/25

Episode Date: June 5, 2025

Musk urges lawmakers to ‘kill the bill’

You know, anytime you ban people coming to the United States from other countries, it has a real impact. But it is chiefly in service of trying to get us all talking about that or talking about the Biden investigation they launched today, instead of talking about the centerpiece of this story, which is this bill to make the rich even richer at the expense of everybody else. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut putting into context a series of moves last night from President Trump. The president announced a travel ban to

the US for people from 12 countries and partial restrictions for seven others. He also ordered an investigation into former President Biden and officials in the Biden administration for the use of the auto pen, a device Trump has himself admitted to using. Robot president. It all comes as- Hashtag robot president. Yeah.

The things that are going out there now. Senators continue to work through President Trump's massive tax and spending bill and its impact on millions of Americans. Meanwhile, Elon Musk ramps up his pressure campaign to kill the legislation, calling on Americans to contact their representatives in Congress. Plus, President Trump claims he spoke to Vladimir Putin for 75 minutes yesterday. We'll dig into the big headlines coming out of that conversation. Wow.

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, June 5th. A lot to get to this morning. Yeah June 5th a lot to get to this morning. Yeah, really a lot to get to and Chris Murphy basically going talking about what we've said for some time the second term try to separate the signal from the ground noise to signal obviously all that everybody Washington's focused on right now is Elon Musk and and how many Republicans he can

take with him going against this massive pork barrel spending bill. So we're talking about auto pens, we're talking about, I'm sure robot presidents will come back into play pretty soon. This is really, this is what Washington, D.C. is focused on right now. This bill and whether it's in a lot more danger passing the Senate because of Elon Musk. Yeah, we'll get into the details of this new travel ban from 12 countries in a minute. The effects of that are very real on the people trying to immigrate to this country.

But as Senator Murphy said, President Trump obviously throwing a lot against the wall in the hopes of distracting people from a bill that yesterday the CBO said will inflate the debt by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years and increase by almost 11 million people, the number who lose health care because of cuts to Medicaid and changes to the Affordable Care Act. So the impacts of this, if it is passed, are very real. And as you guys point out, Elon Musk now is again from a distance this time, from outside of Washington, a central player in all this, Mika, because of the pressure he is putting on saying kill the bill, get rid of this thing. It's gonna crush

people on health care, it's gonna cut crush people on the debt and drive this country into a ditch effectively is what he's saying. So now you have these members of Congress, including Speaker Johnson and senators, many of whom, by the way, their campaigns were bankrolled by Elon Musk in many ways, feeling pressure both from the White House and from the world's wealthiest man. It's very convoluted, but Elon Musk is ramping up its criticism of President Trump's legislative agenda calling on senators to kill the bill.

In a series of social media posts yesterday, the Tesla CEO tried to rally Republicans against the legislation, urging voters to call their senators and congressmen, writing, quote, bankrupting America is not OK. Musk also suggested drafting a new bill that won't add to the national debt. The comments mark what appears to be an escalation in the rift between Musk and the Trump administration. One senior White House official telling NBC News President Trump is now considering how and when to respond, adding he was, quote, caught off guard, but not entirely surprised by Musk's opposition. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson had this to say. Elon and I left on a great note.

We were texting one another, you know, happy texts, you know, Monday. And then and then yesterday, you know, 24 hours later, he does a 180 and he comes out and opposes the bill. And it surprised me, frankly. I think he's flat wrong. I think he's way off on this, and I've told him as much, and I've said it publicly and privately. I'm very consistent in that. But am I concerned about the effect of this on the midterms?

I'm not. Let me tell you why. Because when the big, beautiful bill is done and signed into law, every single American is going to do better. Oh, my God. beautiful bill is done and signed into law, every single American is going to do better. Oh my God. Is every American going to do better? And what about Elon?

I guess that's what speakers have to do. I don't know. They have to put together big, horrible bill, a pork barrel bill. I mean, let me just be really clear here. This bill would never pass when we served and we balanced the budget four years in a row and actually ran a budget surplus for two years. Part of the reason why is these huge massive bills never went through. Because what happens is when you have leadership working with the White House, any White House, any leadership, and

they try to jam everything into one bill. There's so much in there that you're going to be shocked. We've seen it from everybody, from Marjorie Taylor Greene being shocked that the AI forces basically were out and the lobbyists got it. So no states can do anything, can touch AI, are regulated at all for like a decade or so. And you have other people seeing spending, pork barrel spending bills in there. We have a $37 trillion debt. And as Willie said, this adds $2.4 trillion more dollars to a debt that's going to already grow by 20 trillion dollars over

the next decade. That's unsustainable. That's going to lead to a fiscal meltdown. Jamie Dimon is right. That's going to lead to a bond meltdown. This isn't even a close call. This has nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with politics. This is just pure, simple math.

And it's as if these House Republicans who claim to be conservative, it's as if these House Republicans, they see this, a house on fire, and they run to it, a $37 trillion debt, they run to it, and they throw trillions of gallons of gasoline on the fire to have it explode, specifically $2.4 trillion worth of debt added on. No ideology. This is black and white. By the way,

this is something that Democrats, my Democratic friends and Republican friends need to understand. The game is over. The gig is up. You can't keep kicking the can down the road. But that's exactly what this bill does. We can't afford it anymore, and we especially can't afford it, Willie. As you said, adds $2.4 trillion to the debt, going to take 10, 11 million people off of insurance. So much of that is going to be gutting rural health care. When you gut Medicaid, you gut rural health care. So this is how bizarre

things have gotten in Washington DC. Think about it. You have House Republicans who claim to be for the working man. House Republicans are going to gut rural health care to give tax cuts to the richest billionaires in Silicon Valley and Wall Street. Let me say that again, because nobody's doubting this. I mean, everybody knows this. You talk to rural hospitals, you talk to any health care provider in rural America, they will tell you, this bill will gut, will gut rural health care in the reddest of the red states. And for what?

So billionaires in Silicon Valley, people running monopolies in Silicon Valley, and billionaires on Wall Street, hedge funders, so they can get even more tax cuts. The rich can get richer and the poor, well, the poor just lose their healthcare, Willie. I'm sorry, I don't know where Mike Johnson thinks his members are going to be running over the next two years, but they're going to be running in red state America where they're going to be a lot of people who are going to be hurt by this bill. They can call it a big, beautiful bill all they want to, but the fact is this is a type of bill no conservative would ever vote for, ever.

It's reckless, it's irresponsible, and it's a fiscal nightmare. And people who've built their careers on being fiscal conservatives and saying that we've got to shrink the size of government and yet here you have $2.4 trillion. Republicans saying there are $1.3 trillion of cuts in this package over a decade, true, but there are also $3.7 trillion in lost revenue because of the tax cuts, as you just pointed out. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, this morning has some new reporting on that fraying relationship between two of the world's most powerful men, maybe the world's two most powerful men. According to that reporting, President Trump is losing

patience with Elon Musk's outbursts over the last couple of days over this bill. A senior White House official said Trump was not happy about Musk's decision to lambast his signature legislation describing the president as confused as to why the Tesla chief executive decided to ratchet up his criticism after working so closely with the president for four months. The official said senior Trump advisors were caught off guard by Trump's latest offensive.

The piece continues, quote, Congressman Thomas Massey, one of the two House Republicans who voted against the bill in the House last month, was pleased Musk is speaking out. I figured he would eventually get there, said Massey, who noted the two have not spoken on the issue. You don't land rockets backwards or get cars to drive themselves by ignoring the people who are lying to you.

End quote. Let's bring in Bloomberg columnist and senior writer for the Dispatch, David Drucker, and NBC News congressional correspondent Julie Serkin. Good morning to you both. Julie, let's talk about that back and forth on Capitol Hill. We just heard Speaker Johnson doing his best to say that Elon Musk is wrong about this bill despite all the data we've just talked about, despite what the CBO has come out and said about adding $2.4 trillion to the debt

over a decade. Where does this play out from here? You have conservatives, Republicans who are trying to please effectively Donald Trump on the one hand and Elon Musk on the other. Well, I don't think unless Elon Musk, Willie, promises to fund challengers, primary challengers, or even Democrats, which is a concern for Republicans in the White House, that Republicans on the Hill are going to pay attention to him,

at least the ones who want to pass this bill, right? I think that's the distinction here, because I think what Elon Musk illustrated yesterday or helped us understand was the Republicans who are gonna vote for this no matter what and are just making noise, like Senator Josh Hawley, who has a big issue with the Medicaid cuts and reforms because he, of course course represents a rural constituency in missouri or senator ran paul senator ran

johnson who have been talking about the deficit and are echoing perhaps what elon musk has been saying online for josh holly for example yesterday he told me this is donald trump's administration trump drives the train he does not think that elon musk is going to have influence to kill this bill but one very important through line and all of this is yes, it's about the deficit. Yes, you want must of course helps the president run a campaign that was all about cutting the debt and now this bill as you point out will add

to it, but it's also about the electric vehicle tax credits that were removed as a part of this bill. That's very important for Elon Musk and his business. In fact, a couple of months ago, he said he doesn't need those tax credits because his business was doing so well. Of course, now that's not the case for Tesla. And we have new reporting that Elon Musk actually spent the last few weeks trying to lobby Speaker Mike Johnson, who is the only member of leadership, Republican leadership, that he has that kind of relationship where he can call and text

to keep those credits alive, to not put them in this bill. By the way, another thing in this bill, people who drive electric vehicles are now going to have to start contributing to the highway trust fund. So a lot of changes made in this legislation that would hurt Elon Musk's bottom line, and a lot of people I'm talking to think that's exactly why he's making noise right now. Well, and David Drucker, of course, also the NASA administrator issue came up there. So no doubt there are a lot of reasons for the bottom line for Elon Musk for him to be upset right now.

And perhaps that has something to do with all of this. Perhaps it has a lot to do with all of this. But I'm just curious, in your reporting, forgive me for being naive here. This bill, if this were put in front of us by Newt Gingrich or anybody else's speaker, we would have laughed it off the floor. And the last thing you would want would be for somebody supporting this bill to do what Donald Trump did yesterday and say, oh, I agree with Elizabeth Warren. We should get rid of the debt ceiling forever.

We go, aha, OK, there you go. There's your evidence, right? But I just I I'm incapable of understanding how somebody who calls himself a fiscal conservative could vote for this bill. The size of it would be a deal killer in the first place. The added two point four trillion dollars in debt on top of 20 trillion in the next 10 years on top of 37 trillion, I mean I could you know kind of go on and on. On and on and on about this but David is there. I don't understand why there's not a level of unease from a

lot of people that I served with that are still there to pass what looks like to me the most fiscally irresponsible bill in American history. Yeah, well listen, Joe, as you know, lawmakers don't like to push boulders uphill. They only like, excuse me, they only like to push them downhill. And the people you served with are now in a Republican party where populists are ascendant and fiscal conservatives, really the traditional conservative that we like to think of from the Reagan era, is a minority within the coalition. And so there just isn't a lot of support for the kind of fiscal restraint that used to

sort of characterize the Republican Party at least philosophically. But David, are there not four or five in the House? And this isn't even fiscal restraint. This is just like not jumping off a cliff fiscally. Yeah, well, I mean- There aren't four or five conservative Republicans left in the House that say no to this? Well, yeah, but saying, it's not saying no to this. It's saying no to President Donald Trump and their voters trust Trump more than they trust

them. So as long as Trump wants this bill, this bill is likely to pass one way or the other. Now I've talked to Republican strategists about this and this is the point I want to make is that Republicans with their thin majorities in the House and Senate really aren't doing much else. Every ounce of energy they have, most of the legislation that they might pass is all rolled up into this reconciliation package. That includes a lot of the tax cuts for middle and lower class voters that the president

campaigned on. That also includes a lot of the border security components that are broadly popular that he campaigned on. And so if this thing collapses, the entire Trump agenda collapses, that which he can't do by executive order, and the entire congressional Republican agenda collapses, they risk going to the voters empty-handed next year. That's a recipe for disaster.

One other thing here, and Republicans have told me, that if they were to start from scratch and do this in a way that wasn't going to add to the debt, that would require actual normal legislating and they'd have to negotiate with Democrats, at least in the Senate, where Democrats can filibuster. And the Republican base would look at that as a complete failure and be really, really

upset that they weren't just plowing this stuff through. So there are a lot of political considerations that are not surprisingly are looming larger in the minds of these Republicans than the fiscal considerations because no voter, finally here, no voter's beating on their door complaining about the debt. They're just not. Yeah, well, they will be. They will be. Willie, you know, it's amazing that one of the arguments for not going back and doing

this right is you would have to actually go through regular order. You would have to actually go through regular order. You would have to actually go to committees. You would actually have to start at subcommittees, go to committees, go to the House floor, instead of the House Speaker and one or two other people writing this bill behind closed doors that nobody sees, nobody reads, and after it's out there, you have members being shocked going, oh my gosh, I didn't know that was in there. That's what happens when you say, oh, we're not going to go through regular order because we want to jam a lot of BS in here that nobody's going to read.

You know when they find out about that? They find out about that about two weeks into their campaign because I guarantee you, they may not have read the bill, but their opponents and the DNC will have read the bill, but their opponents and the DNC will have read the bill, and everything they're voting yes on, they're going to pay for politically, every single thing. And we're seeing that from members already in the House who voted for the bill, and now after the fact, you're hearing exactly what you're laying out, which is people saying, wait a minute, the bill, this massive bill includes this.

And they go, oh, well, I didn't like that. I guess, wait a minute, the bill, this massive bill includes this. And they go, oh, well, I didn't like that. I guess I should have fully read the bill. And they're going to hear more about that, as you say, if this makes it through from people in their districts whose hospitals are eliminated, who lost health care because of this. And Julie Serkin, maybe people don't care in the abstract about the debt. Maybe that's not something that motivates them and brings them out to polls.

But if you take away their healthcare, as this bill, according to the CBO, does to 11 million people, they sure notice that and they know who voted for it and why they lost their healthcare. So, you know, if history is our guide, Republicans do not cross Donald Trump in the end. They raise protests and they say they don't like something, but they eventually fall in line.

Do you suspect, based on your reporting on Capitol Hill that's what's gonna happen here? Absolutely they are not going to back away from this bill because Elon Musk told them so and it's a shift because a couple of months ago everything that Elon Musk would put on X would really scare Republicans in Congress but that was because he had the backing of the president right there's no pressure David's absolutely right like the one that can come across Pennsylvania Avenue on Capitol Hill from Trump. And I think it's an important point that they have not done much legislatively in the House.

At this point in 2017, at least the House already passed the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Of course, it was blocked in the Senate, but for Republicans, they had a win on that issue. Now, of course, as you point out, Americans being kicked off their healthcare is not a win politically, but at least they were able to show their base that they did something

that the president ultimately ran on. Of course, they weren't successful, but in this case, you really have a house that has not accomplished much. And remember, the reason it was put in this one big, beautiful bill is because there are such fragile majorities. The only way that you can get all of this through to fund the president's agenda, the

border, the military, the energy, all of these things that he ran on that he now wants Congress to make do on is by stuffing it all together and force people to swallow the things they don't like in addition to the things that they might like. And so now you have a situation, of course, where the House passed a bill that is probably gonna get torn up by the Senate at least a little bit. There's no way they can send back even close to the same product because you have those moderates in the Senate.

Even Josh Hawley, of course, is not a moderate, but they know what's at stake if they take away Medicaid from millions of people. They know that they are gonna lose in the midterms in 2026. Trump might not be worried about that because he can say that historically that's what happens. The party in charge loses in the midterm elections. But the senators who are in their seats right now are worried about that. And you have to think about the Republicans in the House just quickly here

who voted for things that the Senate is going to change and now their primary opponents, Democrats, are going to still be able to run on that and throw that in their faces in 2026. So this is a huge problem for them. Trump is not ideological in any way, as we know. He doesn't really care about that. He's gonna make deals with whoever he needs to, even if it's Democrats at the end of the day. So that's so important to point out.

There's so many House Republicans, and this goes way back. There's an old saying that a lot of people watching may not remember, but there was an old saying you would go around when they were trying to get you as a member of the House to vote for something that the Senate would never vote for. You'd say, I'm not going to be BTU'd, which was Bill Clinton passed a bill that had a BTU tax that House members fought against, but ended up voting for. And then it got stripped out of the Senate bill. So they voted for nothing. But every one of them had to defend that on the campaign trail.

Why did you vote for an increase in energy tax? Why did you vote for this? Why did you vote for that? I'm sitting here most likely because a conservative Democrat who is in leadership voted to get the bill over to the Senate. And then after he saw what's happening, he said, I don't need this. I'm not going to be defending this on the campaign trail every day. And that's, of course, this is important. That's the reason why Republicans took the majority for the first time in 40 years because of a terrible bill, a terrible budget bill. And so this is a game changer, Mika.

When you have somebody like Josh Hawley, who's looking at it, he's thinking, Uh-oh. Am I really going to take away health care from the reddest parts of my state so Silicon Valley monopolists and Silicon Valley billionaires can get an even bigger tax cut? Like, that's a game changer for any Democrat that's running. If you have a Republican willing to do that, that's fine. And by the way, the whole thing, I, oh, we had to vote for it because it was an up or down. But no, no, no.

Why don't you legislate? Why don't you do your job? Why don't you go through subcommittees? Why don't you go through committees? Why don't you do it the way Congress had done it for like 220 years, where you actually go to Capitol Hill and work? You actually go to Capitol Hill and legislate.

You actually don't let the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader and a couple of lobbyists sit behind closed doors, locked closed doors, where 430 members are locked out. Think about that. They lock out like 430 members from this process, and two, three, four people write this bill. Yeah, go try selling that on the campaign trail,

and say, oh, I couldn't really do anything. It was an up or down vote. Yeah, it was an up or I couldn't really do anything. It was an up or down vote. Yeah, it was an up or down vote because you're allowing it to be an up or down vote. You're adding trillions to the debt because you're deciding you don't want to do your job. It's too hard. It's too hard to be a subcommittee member or a committee member and actually take this through the process.

Too hard. So it's an up or down vote. It's ridiculous. There you go. Big beautiful bill, has some ugly consequences. We'll see what happens. NBC's Julie Serkin, thank you so much for your reporting this morning

and still ahead on Morning Joe, the latest from Gaza, as Israeli forces recover the bodies of two hostages who are being held by Hamas. Plus, President Trump says he spoke with Vladimir Putin yesterday over the phone what the Russian president is saying about the war in Ukraine and the possibility of a peace deal.

Also ahead, more problems reported at Newark International Airport. We'll go over the latest travel troubles there. And a quick reminder that the Morning Joe podcast is available each day featuring our full conversations and Analysis you can listen wherever you get your podcast and as we go good got a break looking Absolutely beautiful shot the Brooklyn Bridge in New York Friday yet

Close close, okay New York. Is it Friday yet? Close? Close. Okay. the right field line that one heading toward the stands and that's going to be a fair ball and that ball is gone. It's out of here. He tucked it in there and he walks it off. Sedan Raffaella with a home run. Little League Dimensions.

Sedan Raffaella curls one around the pesky pole in right field. That's a two run walk off home run, giving the Red Sox an 11-9 win over the Angels. 308 feet. That's the second shortest home run on record ever. In baseball? Well, it's definitely the shortest walk off, right?

Isn't that the whole point of the thing? But that pesky pole, Jonathan Lemire, very generous. That'd be 20 rows deep at Yankee Stadium. No, no, no. Absolutely. No, no, no. You should put aside your haste just for a minute. They should. 20 rows deep.

I think he should not have accepted that. That was just no. Roy, I mean, just look, look, you play the ballpark. You're socks needed. I needed that with yeah. We need that win badly for people who haven't been following the Red Sox

this year. You're very lucky if you, especially if you're Red Sox fan, but Willie, I think we you know we have a seat marked for Ted Williams longest home run there. We need to mark that one for the shortest three three hundred.

Look at this now three hundred and eight feet and this literally. Look at that. It you've got the pesky pulled it's about 15 feet past first base, Willie, and nothing like it in baseball. Yeah, I mean, even he was surprised.

You can see him as he ran up the first baseline kind of putting his hands out like, should we count that as a home run? I'll take it. And then he kind of embraces it, rounds the base, walk up. But as we talked about yesterday, Joe, they've 17 one- run losses for the Red Sox. Yes here, which is seems impossible given the smallish sample size of games they've even played this time. They got one. They got the walk off home run in a tie game. Yeah, I mean, Jonathan, let me see it right there going past the yellow pole and it just

dropped inside the yeah. Yeah, exactly. Jonathan, we're not even halfway through the season. This has been like the most torturous season yet. I've been a Red Sox fan since 1975. This has been hard because as Willie said, every game, see I lost my voice screaming, every game seems to be a one run game. Every one, we go into the ninth inning time and time again. One run ahead a one run get everyone we go into the 9th inning time and time again one run ahead or one run behind.

Yeah, Joe was screaming just to how crap like crush that look at that 500 feet that's why I lost his voice know you're right this has been it's been extraordinary because it came to the season with such high hopes they had a good off

season they spent money the first time in a while we thought that they would be a contender this year and yes, you're right is still early June. But it's been 17 one run losses by far the most in the league they have by far the most blown saves in the league they've had a number of key guys hurt. And you know they showed some fight yesterday. They fell behind multiple times and kept coming back that's

good they still lost 2 out of 3 to a pretty lowly angels team down. Yeah, there's someone they need some changes and soon and we all Joe I know you are to waiting for Roman Anthony this top prospect to be called up there's a sense that some real lineup changes could be on the horizon. We're going deep in Red Sox. We better stop right now I will just finish with this is make a sad to me last night she turned cheddar Pimps Cup and she I

didn't you know Joe now she said if the Red Sox were just 501 Ron games. The first place I think that's if that's what she said she didn't put the force of some way she said I'm done with this team. Yeah, it was had forces and we. Actually had had anybody in their front office. Every year Richard

president of the Council of Foreign Relations Richard Haas being insulted. Yeah, it's all kind of quite and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, managing editor yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, President Trump says Russian President Vladimir Putin told him Moscow will have to respond to Ukraine's major drone attack over the weekend. And then Ukraine will have to respond to their... The war continues. Okay, I see what you're discussing. Trump posted on Truth Social that he and Putin spoke for about 75 minutes yesterday. And while the call was a good conversation, it was not one that will lead to immediate peace. Trump also wrote that the pair discussed the ongoing nuclear negotiations with Iran.

According to Trump, Putin suggested he would participate in those talks and possibly help to bring them to a, quote, rapid conclusion. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian delegation led by President Volodymyr Zelensky's chief of staff met with U.S. officials yesterday in Washington. They held discussions with the Trump administration's envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, as well as Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Zelensky's advisor called the meeting productive, saying they discussed Monday's peace talk in Turkey, as well as the need to strengthen support for Ukraine's air defense.

Jonathan O'Meara, you've written extensively on the Putin relationship right now with Donald Trump over the past several weeks. Tell us about it and go to Richard for the first question, if it doesn't have anything to do with the Giants. We'll set that aside, poor guy. As far as the Trump-Putin call, it was interesting. It wasn't scheduled. It was a relatively spontaneously planned call. The one thing that the readout does not include, the one that President Trump posted suggesting that Vladimir Putin told him that Russia would have to retaliate, Trump didn't say anything about him telling Putin not to. And I think that's where we are right now with this war.

Where Putin, where Trump, I have out was very was frustrated by Ukraine's attack on the weekend, simply because in his mind, it will extend the conflict that this was now Russia will have to hit back Ukraine will likely have to hit back to that the talks in Istanbul this week which Trump had actually put some hopes into. I reported last week saying that maybe they can make a first step.

They went nowhere. So so Richard that's where we are right now. We have president of the United States not attempting to curb Russia's response here. We know Putin, he talked yesterday to officials at the Kremlin. He called Ukrainians terrorists for what they did. I think the US is bracing for a Russian counterattack of some kind in the days ahead. And as far as Trump's perspective, even as he tried to cozy up to Putin a little bit with help with Iran, it's like he's throwing up his hands in the air and suggesting there's

not going to be an end to this fighting in Ukraine anytime soon. Well, he's right. There's not going to be an end to this fighting anytime soon for the simple reason Vladimir Putin wants to prolong the fighting because he thinks continued war serves his interests more than Ukraine's. The fact that the call happened yesterday in and of itself tells you something. It's as if the Ukrainian military action was somehow the problem, forgetting about all the Russian actions day in, day out against Ukrainian civilian targets, against cities

and so forth. So again, the administration is one sided here. If the president wants to realize his own peace proposal, there's one way to do it. Stop sabotaging it. Give Ukraine open-ended support to remain a viable independent state. All this talk about secondary sanctions against Russia, all this talk about peace talks isn't going nowhere. If the president wants peace, he has got to persuade Vladimir Putin that continued war

will not give Russia anything but more dead soldiers. The president, however, is not willing to send that message, so the peace talks are going nowhere. Axios is reporting just now that from the White House that President Trump thought the Ukrainian drone attack was, quote, badass. He liked what he saw out of that and perhaps gave them a little more credibility in his mind and their position in this war, at least. He liked what he saw out of that and perhaps gave them a little more credibility in his mind

and their position in this war at least. So Donald Trump has shown no proclivity for how many years now to oppose, let's say, Vladimir Putin in any real way. So do you think their dynamic has changed at all because Ukraine has shown this ability to fight and to reach deep inside Russia? Well, it should. I mean, the president always tells Zelensky about his bad cards, terrible hand to play. Well, Zelensky showed he had some whole cards here. He could play them. It also showed that even if the United States backs off, Ukraine's position is not hopeless. They can buy themselves with a little bit of European help.

They can buy some arms off the market from the United States. They can stay in there. Their ingenuity compensates. I don't see the president warming up to Ukraine. And again, it gets back to the mystery of his relationship with Russia. But no, I think, Willie, I'm really sad to say, here we are in the middle of the fourth fighting season. I think it's quite possible we'll be talking around this table about the fifth fighting

season. I just don't see anything in the works right now that's going to bring this war to a close, because again, Ukraine is willing to accept an unconditional ceasefire. Russia is not. It's almost that simple. And for some reason, American foreign policy will not adjust to that reality. But Sam Stein, I mean what Richard just said has been a reality though since the beginning of this war and you look at Vladimir Putin and American presidents trying to deal with Vladimir Putin you can start with George

W Bush he invaded Georgia Putin invaded Georgia. You go on to Barack Obama. Putin invaded Ukraine, took Crimea. You go to Donald Trump, and he's not listening to Donald Trump. Joe Biden. Joe Biden spent, you know, two years trying to move Vladimir Putin, trying to get Bill Burns to be able to negotiate it. I mean, so I don't know what anybody thinks Donald Trump could say to Vladimir Putin that we get Vladimir Putin to respond to him any differently than he did to Joe Biden or Barack Obama or George W. Bush. I mean, this is, this war will go on until Vladimir Putin decides

that he just can't afford it anymore. And even with America leaning in all the way, I guess what I'm saying is America's president, if you go back to George W. Bush, when he looked into his eyes and saw his soul, America's president seems to be opinion secondary to what Vladimir Putin's opinion is. Yeah, but I think you've hit the nail on the head, which is the stumbling block of this issue, which is that Donald Trump, to a degree now, it's become a test of his own abilities

to negotiate and maneuver in his own relationship with Putin. Trump has promised time and again that he can get through to Vladimir Putin. He's obviously publicly wooed him in ways that I don't think any recent president has done. And so if Trump were to fail in these negotiations, if he can't bring some sort of ceasefire to this conflict, then it becomes almost an indictment of Trump as well.

And that's creating this untenable situation that Richard's outlining here. It's also creating problems for Republicans back home. And I want to talk to David about this, because we have this massive sanctions bill that the Republicans and Senator Bumulthal, Democrat, are considering and trying to push, which essentially put tariffs on countries that try to buy fuel from Moscow, Trump is blocking it. And now we've seen Republicans put in this interesting and difficult bind where, you know, after the JD Vance, Zelensky blow up in the Oval, they all kind of tepidly rushed

to JD Vance's and Donald Trump's defense saying, yes, you know, Zelensky should have said thank you. Now they're back and saying, yes, Zelensky should have said thank you. Now they're back and saying, Putin's wrong here. What is your sense of how the Republican Party outside of the Trump administration is viewing this saga now? The polling on this has always been interesting in that Republican voters are still traditional in their view of Russia, and they've opposed the invasion, they've held Russia responsible. You know, I think the question is, are Republicans in Congress

willing to exert their will like they did in the first term? You know, there was a bill in the first term that was signed into law because Republicans in the House and Senate insisted on it that said that the president couldn't make any deals with Vladimir Putin without congressional sign-off. People forget about that. But they've been much more deferential this time around for all of the reasons we always discuss about the president's political comeback and where, you know, and his sort of takeover, his domination of the party from a sort of ideological and political standpoint, wherein in the first term he was still really an outsider in the party in the process of taking it over.

So I don't really think that there's much that they're going to do until at least, number one, until this reconciliation package is pushed off the table. All of their energy, all of their effort, and this is true when we discuss the issue with the tariffs and all of the concerns about that, nothing's going to be dealt with until this package is off the table. Then maybe you get them to turn their attention to Russia and Ukraine. And the way they would do it, if they do it, is to say, we're here to help you, Mr. President. You're being hurt by this. Let us help you.

You know, the question is whether they want to really get involved in this and they will love that. And push back. You know, though, it is interesting, Jonathan Lemire, you look at Roger Wicker, who's a chairman of the Armed Services Committee, coming out strongly, calling, calling Putin, I believe, you know, war criminal, but praising Zelensky. you have the most powerful Republicans in the House on the appropriate committees who have always done that as well. So it seems the Republicans will continue to put pressure on the White House and on Putin if they get their chance. But I want to go back and talk about this relationship with Donald Trump. Again, Willie quoting Axios, the first thing we've heard thus far about Donald Trump's

saying that these attacks by Ukraine were, quote, bad ass. But also your reporting shows that Donald Trump's patience with Vladimir Putin is growing thin right now. And there actually does seem, for the first time, from what I've read in your pieces, at least perhaps a change in the nature of that relationship as it pertains to this war. Yeah, it has changed to a degree, yeah. I mean, to the Axios story,

heard similar things where he was impressed by the audacity of attack, but still unhappy with it because it's gonna prolong the war and that's this biggest thought right now. Trump simply wants this to be over with. He promised it in 24 hours to end it that of course didn't happen. He does not inherently like the violence. He also wants to move on to trade deals and normalize relations with Russia. He just simply he wants to put the conflict in his rear mirror and he's exasperated with both men it has been well

established some of his issues with Zelensky but you're right in recent weeks his relationship with Putin has changed at least a degree he's still largely deferential the U.S. has largely been deferential to Moscow throughout this process but Trump is he's fed up with some of Putin's stall tactics you know he has said publicly and privately he now wonders if Putin actually does want to bring the war to a close. And to a lot of observers, it's like, well, well, yeah, that's been obvious

for some time, but Trump is there now, too. And that might have some meaning. That said, the Senate sanctions bill has been sitting there. It's got 80 co-sponsors, Graham, Graham Blumenthal bill, and they're simply waiting for Trump to give the go ahead, like make this happen, and he hasn't yet. So he still wants to see this process play out a little further, Joe and Mika, but he's frustrated with both sides.

And anything that he thinks is prolonging the war, escalating the violence, draws his unhappiness. All right. Senior writer for The Dispatch, David Drucker, thank you very much. the in the first primary debate. We're gonna bring you those highlights and tell you who, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now endorsing. We're back in 90 seconds. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. Just before, 10 minutes before the top of the hour, time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning.

The United Kingdom is pushing forward on plans to strengthen and expand its military. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled the spending blueprint this week, which called for the construction of new attack submarines, munitions plants, and for the modernization of its nuclear warheads. As the Washington

Post reports, Britain is a formidable military power, but analysts say it has been constrained in recent years by tight budgets. A Guatemalan man who was wrongfully deported to Mexico has been brought back to the United States. It comes after the Justice Department said it would comply with a federal judge's order to facilitate the man's return. He is expected to remain in federal custody as the Trump administration considers

the next steps in his case. As the New York Times reports, the government's actions mark a significant departure from the defiant stance it has staked out in other immigration matters. We'll watch that. And a look at the state in history. 57 years ago today, Senator Robert F. Kennedy was shot and later died after claiming victory

in California's Democratic presidential primary. It happened at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. The gunman, Sir Hans Serhan, was arrested at the scene and is serving life in prison. Kennedy's assassination came just two months after the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in Memphis. And still ahead on Morning Joe, one of our next guests says, quote, we're being governed by the Trump Organization, Incorporated. New York Times opinion columnist Thomas Friedman will join us to explain what he calls Trump's

gilded gut instinct. Plus, we'll bring you the latest in the president's feud with Harvard University as the White House suspends the school from participating in the student visa program. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. We mentioned at the top of the show this proclamation signed by President Trump yesterday banning travel to the United States from 12 countries, reminding people of what he did in 2017 when he first came into office. And we should remind people this is something he promised literally on inauguration day.

He asked the State Department and other organizations within the government to look at dangerous countries, as he would put it, where vetting is not sufficient, where there might be terrorist threats, and he's come up with the list that you see on the screen in front of you. This will get legal challenges, obviously many of them. It's set to go into effect at midnight on Monday morning, but how do you see this playing out? Well, on the one hand, it's obviously significant. It's going to impact a lot of people's lives.

On the other hand, it seems pretty evident to me that this is done as somewhat of a distraction, right? I mean, the whole premise of this was this attack, this horrific anti-Semitic attack in Boulder, which prompted Trump to take this action. That was from an Egyptian national. If you pull up the names of the countries in that list, Egypt's not on the list, OK? And then the second thing here is that Afghanistan, this one was particularly interesting because we are simultaneously saying that Afghanistan, the national security situation has deteriorated

so badly in that country that we can no longer take people in from that country. On the same hand, we are also saying we are deporting people back from our country into Afghanistan, people who are translators, for instance, back into Afghanistan because the national security situation in that country has stabilized. Those two things don't actually coexist in reality. And so, yes, this will be legally challenged. Yes, this is a significant policy announcement. It will have ripple effects and immediate impacts on people's lives.

But there obviously is politics at play here. So, Richard, I want you to first of all give us an update on the PGA. You've really fallen short as being our golf analyst where it is right now. Perhaps you can do that after you talk about your latest piece where you talk about the Trump doctrine. And on the Trump doctrine, I want to ask you this. Are there places where disruption by Donald Trump, doing it a way that other presidents have not done it, are there some positive things coming out of that? Like for instance, Iran wanting to talk to us, Britain saying and other European nations saying, hey, we need to rebuild our military and in the Middle East, shaking things up in the Middle East. So Netanyahu doesn't think we're going to depend solely on him as our only Middle East

ally. Short answer to the latter is yes. And you chose some of the main ones. I think the idea of trying to reach an agreement with Iran, where they would essentially get out of the nuclear weapons business, is worth trying. And the Israelis in some ways have set the table where I think he's got a shot at that much more, by the way, than succeeding with Ukraine and Russia or succeeding with Israel and Hamas.

I think the Europeans are all going to become somewhat more self-sufficient. So yeah, I think there is some good that's come out of that. I wouldn't have necessarily done it in exactly this way, to say the least. But I think there are some positives. My bigger argument is that in 20 years, Joe, we've gone from George W. Bush, who wanted to bring democracy to the world and transform it, to Donald Trump, who basically says to the world, you go do what you want. We don't care. We don't care about human rights.

We don't care about democracy. All we want to do is deal with you. So I think we're likely to see a world where there's less rule of law. And then you see countries like Russia and China, where again, we just ignore what they're doing. What we're seeing is countries that treat their own citizens really badly also tend to treat their neighbors badly. And that's in the case of Russia. So I think this is a doctrine where we give up trying to have an impact on the world.

And I think ultimately it'll make the world not just an uglier place, but also a messier, more violent place.