Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/10/24

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

NYT: Democrats panic about Biden but do nothing

In 1949, leaders of 12 countries, including President Truman, came together in this very room and created the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the single greatest, most effective defensive alliance in the history of the world. I didn't even know what the hell NATO was too much before, but it didn't take me long to figure it out, like about two minutes. The American people don't understand what would happen if there was no NATO. Another war in Europe. American troops fighting and dying. Everybody has a water spot. When water comes out, you get, they don't have anything for me. It wasn't inevitable. Again and again at critical moments, we chose unity over disunion.

Sir, Chris Christie is not a fat pig. Please remember that. He is not a fat pig. Progress over retreat. I said, no, I will not protect you from Russia. Freedom of attorney. When people who love our country protest on January 6th in Washington, they become hostages. Hope over fear.

Let's look at the Jefferson Memorial let's look at the Washington Monument let's go and look at some of the beautiful scenes and you end up getting shot mugged raped make no mistake Ukraine can and will stop Putin I had a very good relationship with Putin we talked about it was the apple of his eye. This is a pivotal moment for Europe or the transatlantic community. And I might add for the world. Did you ever hear of Hannibal Lecter? They always say, oh, that's terrible. The Trump would say he is rambling about Hannibal Lecter. No, I'm not rambling. Yes. Oh, yes. And was Donald Trump yesterday, Willie, at his first. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow. At his first campaign rally in nearly two weeks compared to President Biden speaking to world leaders at the NATO summit. It is a contrast. The Biden campaign wants to continue to push in hopes of putting the focus back on his opponent rather

than his own mental acuity. Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, there are still serious concerns within the Democratic caucus about the president's reelection chances. And now we're hearing publicly from a Democratic senator who says Biden's campaign could lead to Republicans winning both chambers of Congress. We'll talk about all of this. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, July 10th. Willie's back. Joe's off along with Willie and me. We have the host of way too early White House bureau chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle and former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. So, Willie, that was an incredible parallel yesterday side by side. Trump, very smooth, very smooth talking about Chris Christie being a fat pig, never really knowing what NATO was.

The J6 hostages, the people who defecated on our Capitol are now in his mind hostages. He was smooth saying that as well. And he did not mangle his words at all when he talked about his close relationship with Putin. It was good that we could clearly understand that. Yeah. J6 hostages. Those are also people who beat up police officers and went to jail for convicted by juries of their peers in our legal system. That is, by the way, the moment the Biden campaign has been waiting for, which is to say Donald Trump effectively has been in hiding strategically for the last almost two weeks now since the debate. And let this play out with Joe Biden and with Democrats and what to do about his future in this campaign. Now he's back out there and the Biden campaign says,

remember that guy? Here's the contrast they've been looking for. All of this while congressional Democrats now are largely falling in line behind Biden, despite reported panic behind the scenes. According to the New York Times, top Democrats have settled on a strategy that some concede could be dangerous.

Do nothing, at least for now. The Times notes the consensus among many Democrats is that Biden himself is the problem and their unwillingness to say so is reminiscent of the way congressional Republicans behaved during the Trump administration when they would criticize and mock him privately, but profess total fealty in public. Longtime party loyalists say they've been reduced to hoping for another major public misstep by President Biden to either persuade reticent members of Congress to speak out or to convince the president he should leave the race on his own. Democratic

senators met yesterday for their first caucus luncheon since returning to the Hill, where they discussed the viability of the president's campaign. Speaking to reporters after that meeting, Democrats remain tight lipped about what was said inside the room and by whom. All the concerns is or whether or not that was a one off situation or there is more to more to the issue. How confident are you that President Biden will be the Democratic nominee in November? I'm confident at this point, but I will tell you, it remains to be seen in the way he campaigns and the effectiveness of campaigning, whether he continues to be the flag bearer for our cause. Senator, do you still support President Biden?

Yes, I think it's really important that we focus on the fact that President Biden has been a really excellent president. He had a bad debate. Former President Trump had a horrific presidency. You don't have any concerns about his ability to serve for more years? No. Do you want him to be the Democratic nominee? I think if President Biden feels, and he's in the best position to know, that he can take on and beat Donald Trump, then yes, I certainly do. And that's what the president is indicating. He had a great conversation. It was constructive. Standing behind the president, but not with exactly ringing endorsements. Meanwhile,

one Democratic senator did step out publicly to talk about his doubts about President Biden's chances to beat Donald Trump in November. A source familiar with yesterday's closed door meeting told NBC News Senators Michael Bennett, John Tester and Sherrod Brown all voiced concerns about the president winning the election. Senator Tester later did not deny the report, but referred NBC News to a statement in which he says the president's debate performance raises serious questions. The spokesperson for Senator Brown declined to comment, but it was Senator Bennett who confirmed his remarks going on TV last night on CNN, but stopping short of saying the president should drop out of the race. Well, it's true that I said that, uh i did say that behind closed doors and you guys and others

asked whether i had said it and that is what i said so i figured i should come here and say it publicly why do you think he can't win in november i just think the the this this race is on a trajectory that is very uh worrisome if you care about the future of this country. Joe Biden was nine points up at this time, the last time he was running. Hillary Clinton was five points up. This is the first time in more than 20 years that a Republican president has been up in this part of the campaign. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House. So for me,

this isn't a question about polling. It's not a question about politics. It's a moral question about the future of our country. And I think it's critically important for us to come to grips with what we face if together we put this country on the path of electing Donald Trump again. Join us now, NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale. Ali, good morning. It's good to see you. Senator Bennett wanted to say he believes Joe Biden is one of the best presidents in modern American history.

He lavished him with praise, but said this moment is too important. His personal belief, again, that's his own personal belief, is that Joe Biden can't win the election. Is that reflective of what you're hearing privately when you talk to Democratic members up on the Hill? Good morning, my friend. I mean, kind of. I think what Senator Bennett is doing that so many others are not is coming out and putting his name publicly on the things that he is saying privately, both to his colleagues, to his friends and potentially to reporters. I think that's also why this story has such a dissonance between the public and the

private. I know that there are some and I've heard these complaints that the media, that reporters are making too much of this. And it's largely because there is still a large number of Democrats behind the scenes who are griping, who are panicked, who are saying it to their colleagues and who are actively weighing whether or not now is the time to come forward and say publicly either that they have concerns, as Senator Bennett was saying, or that they want Joe Biden to step down. Right now, the public numbers on that are only at nine on the House side. There are no Senate Democrats who are saying Joe Biden can no longer be the nominee and he needs to step down.

Bennett and Senator Patty Murray are some of the only ones who have gone so far as to say that they have questions in Bennett's case to outright question the electability of the president. But that's what the rest of this week, I think, is going to be shaped by is whether or not the people who have private concerns are willing at this point to make them public. I mean, you bring up the other two senators who are in that room yesterday saying that they have concerns about Biden's ability to win. Both of those same senators are in key Senate seats that are needed. They are essential for Democrats to have any shot of maintaining what they have in the Senate, let alone even think about growing it. If those two people start

stepping forward, then I think you have a really different dynamic here. But the Senate is also a different beast than the House. I think on the Senate side, many of us are looking to the ways that senators will handle this moment, in large part because Joe Biden was a member of their ranks for so many years as a senator. It's a body that he plays, pays close attention to. It's a body that he respects. And those are the colleagues, I think, in my conversations who could have more of an impact on the president if they were to try to make a final push to try to get him to renounce himself as the standard bearer of this party. But I think by and large yesterday, what could have been an inflection

point sort of just ended with a collective sigh and this sense of resignation that it's sort of getting close to the time to turn the page on this. And you've got to come together, unite and support the nominee. Yeah. Jonathan Lemire, the front page above the fold, The New York Times, that piece we just referred to top Democrats swallow fears and back Biden. So for the most part, the Biden campaign in the White House has done its job of keeping Democrats on board over the last almost two weeks now since the debate. Some some vigorous support, some less vigorous from Democrats. You had Chuck Schumer on the Hill yesterday saying answering every question about this with I'm with Joe, I'm with Joe. They are publicly standing by Joe Biden, but it does feel tenuous. They're hoping that there is not another moment in public from President Biden that may change the way they have to deal with this.

Yeah, there's no question that an amic here in Washington, as Ali just mentioned, is very different what we're hearing in public versus private. There's a lot of private anxiety about President Biden. And there was a real sense that the White House and the reelection campaign last week wasn't doing nearly enough to try to tamp that down. And even finally, when he sat down for that interview with George Stephanopoulos on Friday, that didn't ease too many nerves. This week, though, has been different.

The president and his team have been far more aggressive. He has repeatedly said public appearance after public appearance. He's had a lot of private calls, including the Democratic mayors last night, where he has made it very clear he's not going anywhere. Obviously, a message he delivered on this show earlier in the week as well. And I think there is a sense that's the strategy from the Biden inner circle is to say, look, if you want him out, put up or shut up. If you really want him out, put your name to it and let's do this. And so far, very few Democrats have. And I think it's a sense of there is a reluctance to challenge someone who has been has been a good president in their eyes, who has been a faithful party member for so long.

Also, real concerns about what the alternative would be if it's not President Biden, although we are seeing the vice president's poll numbers pick up of late. And there is a sense for my reporting, speaking to highly top Biden officials, that if they can get through this week, the odds of President Biden remaining the nominee go up dramatically. There are a few inflection points, though, that still could could happen. One is, you mentioned Senate Majority Leader Schumer. People believe he if he were to change his mind, if a number of senators were to come to him and say, look, we're going to lose this house, this chamber. If Biden stays atop the ticket and he makes that pitch to the president, maybe he'd listen. So far, though, Schumer shows no sign of doing that. Former Speaker Pelosi, who we'll have on the show later today, another voice that will carry a lot of weight to this point, though, she hasn't called for President Biden to step aside,

Mika. And there is this week here, we're going to talk more about NATO later, but a chance for President Biden to show not just Democrats, but those eyes watching from around the world that he's still up to this job. And that news conference tomorrow, which will be since the debate, his first big moment, unscripted moment where he has a chance to show Americans he can still do the job. If that goes well and lawmakers come and go from Washington this week without a rebellion, the Biden team thinks he'll get through it. It's interesting you talk about, you know, what the alternative may or may not be. And that is an area where I think Democrats are self-destructing. I'll get to that in just a moment. But here's one Democrat who believes that Joe Biden should step aside. This is Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill of New Jersey.

I spent the week hearing from my constituents about their strong concerns about prosecuting the case against Donald Trump. I've heard from people concerned about the Supreme Court decisions, concerned about abortion, women's reproductive health, and just advocating as strongly as possible that we have someone that can really take that case strongly and energetically to the voters. Congresswoman, Mikey Sherrill there, Allie, um, and you were at that meeting yesterday. So I'll, I'll go to you with this notion. I think two things can be true at once. And I think a lot of Democrats are being very transparent about this, this notion that they're, um, acting Trumpy and saying nothing to see here. I don't see that. I

see a lot of Democrats saying he had a terrible debate. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, a terrible night. But Donald Trump had a horrific presidency. And that's where I think Democrats should focus in on, because they're being self-destructive if they just tear President Biden down, but they don't offer an alternative. And right now, the alternative is Donald Trump. So if they have questions about Joe Biden's ability to run on this campaign and a lot of them do. And the questions after the debate. Hello. Are clear. They're very clear. And people have made them. What happened? Was it a one off? Was it episodic? Everyone is asking that question. No one is hiding and pretending nothing happened. We all saw it kind of hard to avoid. So having said that, he also has a record that is historic. He also

has a lot of things to say about why he should perhaps remain on this campaign. And he also is raising a lot of questions. But the opponent right now is Donald Trump. The opponent right now is arguably certifiable in terms of the things he says on stage. He may say them smoothly and get a laugh out of them, but they're crazy or cruel or anti-democratic or downright criminal, okay, the J6 hostages. And, oh, right, he's a convicted felon. I think Democrats need to stay focused on who the opponent is, what the questions are about Biden, but don't forget his accomplishments. You know what?

We can do several things at once, but I wouldn't crucify the one candidate you have right now, unless somebody has an incredible alternative that is just a shoe in that would fit perfectly, that it works with the process and it represents what the American people wanted, then go for it. But I'm not seeing it. And I'm seeing a president who is extremely accomplished, who is running for reelection, who had a terrible night and is raising some questions against the opponent that I just described. You were at the meeting yesterday. What's your reporting out of the meeting? Is anybody stepping up and sort of seeing the parallel here?

These two guys running against each other. A lot of them see the parallel and a lot of them see exactly what you're talking about. We focus on the people who are shaky or who might come out or who have come out, like Congresswoman Sherrill. And rightly so, because I think many of us are looking to see if this is an inflection point. But I think even for the people who have been critical and someone that I think about is Congressman Jerry Nadler, who we reported privately had voiced concerns to his colleagues and then publicly sounded like this when he talked to us outside of that meeting. Watch. All I'll say is the president made very clear yesterday that he's running. And for me, that's dispositive. We have to support him. Do you have concerns about Biden? Do you have concerns about him being on the top of the ticket? Whether I have concerns or not is beside the point.

He's going to be our nominee, and we all have to support him. Have you done enough to ease your concerns over the last few days? He has made clear he's—he has made very clear he's running, and that is—that's dispositive of me. We must—we must get behind him. We must support him. Donald Trump's election will be extremely destructive to American democracy. I feel like that conversation actually encapsulates so much of the conversation that I've had

with Democrats broadly on the Hill is that they are engaging with the premise of our questions about the debate, about what it means going forward. I think that's very un-Trumpian if we're trying to draw some kind of parallel that I personally don't see that exists here as someone who's reported on Democrats and on Republicans at tense moments where people aren't exactly excited to talk to reporters about it. Republicans will typically just not engage with the premise, say they didn't see the tweet, say they didn't see the comment. That's not what Democrats are doing here. They are engaging in a really painful process, both amongst themselves and in the media, about what to do

with the person who's going to lead their party at a critical juncture for this country. No one is not aware of the stakes here. And I think the thing I've heard from Democrats is the concern that if this continues to drag out, and I'm interested in seeing if once we come to the end of the week, we don't see some sort of end to this hemming and hawing process. But we're far from there yet. It's only Wednesday. A lot can happen. But at the same time, I do think the longer this drags on, the concern that I've heard from Democrats who, however reluctantly, are in the president's corner is that they end up wounding their nominee, who is their nominee, at a point where they need to be building him up, uniting behind him and making him stronger. Not just as we turn our attention to Republicans and the contrast that the convention will bring.

I think it will be stark. But also as they go through the summer, they don't want to be talking about alternatives anymore. They want to be focused on the road ahead and they want to make sure their standard bearer can do it, too. Ali, I had that same thought watching Congressman Nadler. There it is in a nutshell. Is he up to the job? Long sigh and a pause. He's going to be the nominee where Democrats are right now. Ali Vitale covering Capitol Hill so well for us from Washington this morning. Ali, thanks so much. So, Mike Varnacle, what's your sense of things inside the Biden campaign? How we're almost two weeks now since the debate. They do seem to have gotten Democrats to say things like that in public, which is I may not be thrilled about the prospect, but I believe still that Joe Biden is our nominee.

I believe still he can beat Donald Trump, as he did in 2020. I am looking at these battleground polls just this week that show it's still a margin of error race in some states. So there have been some gains by Donald Trump. They still believe, at least they say so publicly, that Joe Biden is the guy who's going to beat Donald Trump. Well, if you're in the Biden campaign, you can sort of walk yourself back from the ledge a little after watching Donald Trump at the top of this hour. And that would give you hope. Now, for several weeks, Trump has been fairly disciplined. And Trump, for the first time in his life, has a campaign run by true professionals who pose a lethal threat to the Biden candidacy. Susie Wiles and I think Chris Lasavita is his name. They are very, very good at what they do.

And they are very, very good so far in presenting the discipline, Donald Trump, to the nation. That was a completely unhinged, undisciplined Trump we saw. Chris Christie is a fat pig. The J6, you know, hostages, as he calls them, stuff like that. That's what you want. If you're the Biden campaign, that's a sense of optimism that you would have this morning watching that take place. By the way, this big strategy over the last two weeks has been to hide Donald Trump, go play golf for two weeks. Exactly. And then they bring him back out. So Steve Ratner, let's talk. We've talked about Democrats on Capitol Hill. We've been talking about the voters and the polling. Let's talk about the donor class

in the Democratic Party, which does have a lot of say about how all this turns out. What is the overwhelming sentiment right now about the men and women, Democrats for most of their lives, who have supported Joe Biden over the last several years? Where are they right now after that debate performance? Look, Willie, there's nothing that the donor class that I'm in touch with in the larger donors wants more than to beat Donald Trump. That is become that is the rallying cry. That is the existential objective. We just want to win. The debate performance obviously did not go well, shall I say, shall I say. And it has really changed the dynamic among the big donor class. And I think from what there's some anecdotal evidence, there's obviously people I talk to,

there are a few numbers floating around, and it feels like the big donors are, to a considerable extent, going to keep their textbooks closed, at least till they get convinced that the president is up to the job. That may take the convention and a great convention speech and a great convention. It may take the next debate on September 10th, I think it is. But that's a long way away. And the campaign has to raise money to get there. Money is the air supply for for any campaign, really. And if the air supply gets cut off, you have problems. And so the donor class is really quite unhappy. And I have to also just add, quite frankly, that the president's

comments, I think it was on this show on Monday when he talked about the millionaires and the billionaires, and I'm not going to be pushed around by them, didn't go down so well among the donor class. Look, all of us think nothing would be better than campaign finance reform. We'd all like to get out of the business of writing these checks. But as long as the system is what it is, the money has to get raised. And that donor class becomes important to election. Can I say one thing about the previous part of the conversation? Because I've been talking a lot to electeds up on the Hill, senators and congressmen.

And I would underscore from really pretty direct conversations what Ali and Jonathan were saying, which is that you've got a lot of folks who are saying one thing in public or nothing in public and something else in private. And there's nothing that's happened to my knowledge in the past week that has fundamentally shifted the attitude of the senators and congressmen about the state of the campaign and about the president's political standing. They think they are terrified that he cannot win. They would I would I would venture to say that a majority of the Senate caucus, for example, if you took a vote, would vote for a change. But there are no votes. The problem with this is it's a revolution without a leader, that unless and until Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Pelosi, maybe Obama,

weigh in on this thing, the president is going to have been successfully moving, keeping it in his corner. And I think that's likely to be what happens unless something else dramatic happens. But I don't want to suggest, I don't have any sense that there's been a fundamental shift in mood on the Hill, only more of a sense of inevitability. And therefore, you want to navigate your way through it if you're a senator or congressman without blowing yourself up. But I think the the sentiment that there's going to be a change in direction here from the president to something else is is is not high. So just back to the donors for just a moment. If they are waiting to see some kind of a change, Joe Biden's not going to suddenly become 51.

He's going to be 81 for the rest of this campaign. So if they don't see what they want to see, talking about these donors again, what comes next? Is there some kind of a plan? Are they trying to rally other candidates? What are they what do they do? No, if you want to talk about Capitol Hill as a bit of an amorphous thing, they at least have leaders. The donor class doesn't have leaders. Donors do what they want to do. I think what you'll see, first of all, I think if the president does well, let's say in the next debate, then they will come back with perhaps some enthusiasm. Even if he doesn't do great. The donors want to win. They want to beat Trump. They don't have a plan. But I think you will see a bunch of them coming back

once they once it becomes clear, A, that Joe Biden is going to be the nominee and B, that he's in the game, so to speak, and that if it's not a if it's not a Reagan like performance, it at least still clear the bar and they can support him. All right, Steve, stay here. We're going to get to your charts after a quick break. And Mika, donors like everyone else in this conversation don't appear to have a great backup plan. They know they have concerns about Joe Biden. They're just not sure what to do about it. Yeah, I think that's what I was I was trying to say. I mean, right now, this is what we have. And there's a lot to say about it. We have a packed show ahead. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will join us after Democrats huddled

behind closed doors yesterday to discuss President Biden's candidacy. Plus, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer will be our guest. She says she has a complete confidence in Joe Biden. Also ahead, President Biden forcefully defends NATO as he kicks off a summit marking 75 years of the alliance. We'll show you what he had to say and bring in retired Admiral James Savridis. We're back in 90 seconds. Welcome back to Morning Joe. It's 28 past the hour. A beautiful shot of the White House. As we mentioned at the top, President Biden addressed allies at the start of the 75th NATO summit being held in Washington, D.C. Here's more of what the president had to say yesterday. Today, NATO is more powerful than ever. 32 nations strong. For years, Finland and Sweden were among our closest partners. Now they have chosen to officially join NATO because of the power and meaning of Article 5 guarantee, that's the reason.

It was the most important aspect of the alliance in 1949 and is still the most important aspect. My friends, it's good that we're stronger than ever because this moment in history calls for our collective strength. Autocrats on overturned global order, which is by and large kept for nearly 80 years and counting. Terrorist groups continue to plot evil schemes, cause mayhem and chaos and suffering. In Europe, Putin's war of aggression against Ukraine continues. And Putin wants nothing less, nothing less than Ukraine's total subjugation to end Ukraine's democracy, destroy Ukraine's culture, and to wipe Ukraine off the map. And we know Putin won't stop at Ukraine, but make no mistake, Ukraine can and will stop Putin.

Today, I'm announcing the historic donation of air defense equipment for Ukraine. The United States, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and Italy will provide Ukraine with the equipment for five additional strategic air defense systems. And in the coming months, the United States and our partners intend to provide Ukraine with dozens of additional tactical air defense systems. President Biden speaking yesterday. Joining us now, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, retired four-star Navy Admiral James Stavridis. He is Chief International Analyst for NBC News. Admiral, it's always great to have you with us,

particularly on this topic that's near and dear to you, which is NATO, the growth, the strength of NATO over just the last couple of years since Russia launched its war inside Ukraine. What did you make of what you saw yesterday of this this alliance that has been so critical over all these last 50 years, being stronger than excuse me, 75 years being stronger than ever today. Yeah, it is stronger than ever. And our motto when I was the commander was stronger together. Both those things are so true. And just to move beyond the words, let's do the numbers for a minute. This is an alliance that is anchored by the United States with our

$800 billion defense budget. But here's the punchline, Willie. The rest of NATO's budget is $400 billion collectively, second largest in the world. It's bigger than China's budget. It's four times the size of Russia's budget. So you put it all together. NATO has 10 times the military budget, for example, of Russia. Number two, three million young men and women under arms, almost all volunteers, 800 ocean-going warships, 15,000 combat aircraft. It's a remarkably powerful military alliance. And then secondly, if you go to the gross domestic product, ask Steve Ratner about it, you add up the United States, 25% of the world, the rest of NATO, probably 20, 25% of the world, close to 50% of the world's gross domestic product represented by the leaders you're showing next to me right now. And third and finally, and this really is the strength of it and the strength of the speech

that President Biden gave at the beating heart of this alliance is Article 5, a guarantee that if one nation is attacked, all will respond. That Article 5 has been evoked exactly once in the history of NATO, not during the Cold War against the Soviet Union. It was evoked on 9-11 when we were attacked. Europeans came with us. They fought and they died in Afghanistan after we were attacked. As the commander of that mission, as the NATO commander, I signed hundreds of letters to young Europeans' families for their sacrifice. So bottom line, this is a venerable but powerful and capable alliance that faces real challenge and threat today. But overall, we're very lucky to be a leader of this alliance.

Admiral, on Monday, the Russians missile attack on a children's hospital in Ukraine. The Ukrainians feel that it was targeted. They think they can prove that it was targeted. So my question to you is in terms of Ukraine's ability to counterattack with their weapon systems into Russia. Why is the chokehold put on Ukraine so much about attacking within Russia? I think the conventional answer to the question, Mike, is because we don't want to escalate with a nuclear power like Russia. Personally, I disagree with that. I think it is time to unshackle the Ukrainians, provide them with

longer range missile systems. And I guarantee you, the Ukrainians would not be striking Russian children's hospitals. They would appropriately go after military targets, military bases, the bases from which the attacks like this are launched. The Ukrainians, in my view, would responsibly use those systems like the ATACMS. We ought to provide more of them. And more importantly, we ought to allow them to extend the reach of those to legitimate military targets far deeper within Russia. them. And more importantly, we ought to allow them to extend the reach of those two legitimate military targets far deeper within Russia. I think you're on point. Final thought. This will

come to a head with the addition of the F-16 fighters, which dozens of them will be joining the Ukrainians, Ukrainian pilots trained by NATO. That's a weapons system. That fighter, the F-16, the Fighting Falcon or the Viper, as it's called colloquially, can do that kind of air to ground mission at deep range. We're going to have to grapple with what restrictions, if any, we want to put on those. There's no reason to be afraid of our shadow with Vladimir Putin. So, Admiral, world leaders and diplomats alike have gathered here in Washington for the NATO summit. And there's a trio of moods sort of in the air here. One is certainly celebratory, the growing alliance. Another is resolve in terms of helping Ukraine, although there are

some differences as to how to do that. But there's also real uncertainty. There's real anxiety hovering over this summit, in part because of the European elections that we're seeing, but also more than anything, November's U.S. election and the fear that Donald Trump could be president again. I know you are still so plugged into this world. What's the latest you're hearing? Just tell for us, please, just the level of anxiety from these leaders as to what would happen if Trump comes in and what it could do to the future of this alliance. There's deep concern. And I get that at every level from very senior political actors to very senior military former former and current, convey to me a concern. And it's legitimate. It's based on the things former President Trump has said. You showed clips of it. One in particular sticks in the Europeans' mind. It's he may decide to let Russia do whatever the hell it wants to. I'm quoting here. Those are very chilling comments to our European colleagues.

They were, by the way, gave a collective sigh of relief last night after a very strong speech by the president. I am told he is going to be in a variety of meetings today. And I think he'll represent our nation very well in every respect. And it will help allay some of those concerns. But it won't allay the concern about a return of an individual who's been so deeply skeptical and verbally critical of the alliance. Having said all that, the silver lining may be that the Europeans will therefore spend more on their own defense, which they need to do. And if so, there is every opportunity that this alliance will emerge even stronger. But yes, the shadow of a Trump presidency, which is one that is has been clearly stated to be potentially anti-NATO,

is a real concern. Retired Admiral James Stavridis, thank you very much for your insights this morning. We appreciate it. And coming up, we'll check in with two leading health experts about the concerns surrounding President Biden's fitness for office, including the former Obama health policy advisor who says the president's age isn't his problem. Dr. Zeke Emanuel will join us with his take. Plus, the data doesn't lie. Job growth under President Biden continues to outpace that under Donald Trump. Steve Ratner has charts on that. We'll be right back. Beautiful live picture of Capitol Hill at 643 on a Wednesday morning on Capitol Hill yesterday.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell hinted an interest rate cut could be coming soon. Powell telling lawmakers on the Senate Banking Committee that holding interest rates too high for too long could jeopardize economic growth. He did not specify when exactly that cut might come. Let's bring back in Steve Ratner. Steve, you're taking a look this morning in your charts at the economic records of President Biden versus that of Donald Trump. Let's start with job growth. What are you looking at? Yeah, well, look, this election is obviously going to be fought on the economy like many elections. And Donald Trump has argued that President Biden has delivered the worst economy in history. So let's look at a few metrics that might suggest the facts are actually something different. And you mentioned job growth. We can start with job growth.

So this is job growth across presidents going back to Reagan. But let's focus for the moment on Trump versus Biden. And let's be fair and strip out the effects of covid, which obviously hurt Donald Trump and ultimately helped Joe Biden during the recovery. So that's these darker bars. And you can see even stripping out covid, Donald Trump created an average of one hundred eighty two thousand jobs a month. Joe Biden created an average of two hundred sixty eight thousand jobs a month. Joe Biden created an average of 268,000 jobs a month. And that is not only more than Donald Trump. That is more than any president going back to somewhere before Reagan. We go back to Reagan here. So even Clinton, even Reagan, Joe Biden created, ex-COVID, more jobs. The president's

been talking a lot about manufacturing jobs. So let's look at the record on manufacturing jobs. It is true manufacturing jobs began to come back under Trump. Not surprisingly, they fell off a cliff. And Joe Biden has brought them back to the highest level they've been at since during the financial crisis. We have 186,000 more manufacturing jobs than we had in 2008. Obviously, we'd like to have still more. But manufacturing is a very tough sector for us. And this is a pretty impressive performance. So job growth better under Joe Biden, objectively. Let's move over to your next chart, which is the growth of GDP

and wages. How much money people are making? How do those two stack up there? Sure. Well, GDP is obviously the holy grail of any economy. The faster you grow, the better off people will be. Sometimes with a bit of a lag, this and that, but they'll be better off. So, again, let's be fair and let's strip out covid from these results and take a look at what we see. So under Trump, GDP growth averaged two point six percent annual rate during his presidency, not including COVID, as I said. Joe Biden averaged 3.6 percent during his presidency. One percent on an economy that is well over 20 trillion dollars is an enormous difference in terms of the amount of economic activity, extra economic activity that you're creating. And so

this one isn't even close. Look, look, we all have to acknowledge that inflation has been tough. There's no doubt that we went from a very benign inflation environment to considerably. That's the green line to a considerably higher inflationary environment. Some of that was driven by supply problems. When you had supply chain problems, shortages, prices tended to go up. A lot of it was driven by the Federal Reserve and not addressing that quickly enough with interest rates. And yes, some of that is on the Biden administration with the American Rescue Plan, which most people in retrospect thought was too

much. But look what's been happening in the last year. Probably people don't realize this. First of all, inflation has come way down and it is very close, as Jerome Powell suggested in his testimony yesterday. It's getting very close to where the Fed could cut interest rates as soon as September. And secondly, for more than a year, wage growth has been higher than inflation. In other words, the wage growth, the black line higher than the green line. And so we are making up ground and it is moving in the right direction. One of the arguments we've heard, Steve, we heard again last night from Donald Trump, is that effectively, if it weren't for covid, I would have had the greatest economy in the history of America. And in fact, he said yet last night until covid hit, I had the strongest and best economy ever.

The data you just put up there accounts for that. You said, let's be fair and let's consider covid. Is there any accuracy to what Donald Trump says there? No, I think I think it is right here. It is right here. He not only didn't have the greatest economy ever, he didn't have the greatest economy of the last two presidents. Two point six percent for Donald Trump. Three point six for Joe Biden with, I will tell you, is a completely honest and fair removal of COVID from the statistics. All right. Third chart, Steve, is about debt. We hear from conservatives

about concerns over the debt. Those concerns seem to have disappeared for four years while Donald Trump was president. What do you see in the chart there? Yeah. And moreover, Donald Trump in his campaign appearances has been talking about, well, we were getting ready to pay the debt and we were moving in the right direction on the deficit and all this kind of stuff. Again, it's just not true. Forget about COVID for a second. Again, Donald Trump comes in and the deficit is here at about 700, 750 billion dollars. And in his first three years, he increased the deficit because of his massive tax cut, which it is important to say, went mostly to the wealthy.

COVID did blow the doors off of it. No, no question about that. But he was on a trajectory for that to keep going. Joe Biden had to do the same thing during COVID. He's brought it down a bit, needs to go down further. This is one of our great challenges. But let's take a look at the record altogether. And again, one more time, stripping out COVID, being very fair to both of these guys, Donald Trump added $4.8 trillion to our national debt during his presidency through deficit spending. Joe Biden has added less than half of that, $2.2 trillion to the national debt. And so it is, in fact, Joe Biden who has the far better record on budgetary matters than Donald Trump, even though he goes out on the campaign trail and claims the opposite.

Steve, do you have any idea of why the Biden campaign, not the Biden administration, but the Biden campaign is not showing the American public charts like these and talking about the differences between four years ago and today. Mike, I'd leave a lot of that to the political experts, but, you know, they did go out and try this Bidenomics thing and it didn't work, honestly, for whatever set of reasons. And I think the inflation and numbers I showed you over on the other chart play a significant role. The people simply believe that they are worse off than they were three and a half years ago. And things like GDP growth and budgets and deficits are a little bit abstract when you're trying, when you go to the grocery store and you're finding that food prices are, in fact, up 20 percent over the last four years. So they've really kind of given up on the idea that they can go out and

sell the economy today. What they're selling now is his ability to continue the progress into the next term. Steve Ratner, bring cold, hard data to these conversations about the economy. Steve, thanks so much as always. We appreciate it. Still ahead, co-chair of the Biden-Harris campaign, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer will join the conversation. Plus, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi will be our guest. Also ahead, two-time Oscar-winning actor Michael Douglas will be live in studio to discuss his new film, America is Burning. A stacked lineup ahead on Morning Joe. Welcome back. As questions continue to swirl around President Biden's neurological health stemming from that debate performance two weeks ago. One doctor is saying age is not the issue. Former Obama White House advisor for health policy, vice provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, has a new article for The Atlantic entitled

There Are Exceptionally Sharp Octogenarians, Biden Isn't One. He writes in part, quote, The White House and the Biden campaign have suggested that the president's problems at the debate stemmed from an exhausting travel schedule and a cold. Such explanations do not inspire confidence. Yes, it's common for elderly people to bounce back more slowly from stressors. But even if jet lag and illness exacerbated normal cognitive limitations, said limitations remain ready to surface again. And who knows when the next life and death decision will need to be made. Crises don't wait patiently for presidents to be fully prepared. Someone whose cognitive competencies can be compromised as badly as Biden's were by routine travel and a mere cold,

may be able to live a normal life, but they'd be hard pressed to endure the rigors of negotiating with Congress or a foreign leader, much less making multiple rapid decisions when some future domestic or global disaster emerges. And I should point out that President Biden is right now at the NATO summit hosting it. And Zeke joins us now, along with NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta. Zeke, wouldn't we have seen more for what you were saying? More issues, wouldn't they have come out in the past? Some people are saying that maybe there was some hiding going on. Yeah, I think that's been suggested. Joe Biden's had fewer spontaneous interactions than other presidents, much fewer. There's, you know. You talk to people who've been around the president, and

for several months, if not for a year, there has been a noticeable shift from the mental agility, the acuity, the good give and take, and the perceptive questions to after the summer of 2023, where that's declined. And we should say this is normal aging and there doesn't have to be any disease here. This is what happens as people age and their fluid intelligence or ability to problem solve their verbal fluency declines. So let's talk about normal aging for Joe Biden, Zeke. And Vin, I'm going to get to you. Stand by. Over the past six months, he attended the G7 summit in Italy. He traveled to Normandy to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day at a rousing speech there. He delivered the commencement address at Morehouse College in Georgia. He met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv.

He also traveled to Israel for a war cabinet meeting October 7th. He visited Baltimore to survey the damage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge. He visited the site of the East Palestine-Ohio train derailment. He went to the southern border to make a push for a bipartisan border deal, which the Republicans turned down or actually Trump did. But he had a deal that they never would have had an opportunity to get. But he put it out there, which was politically smart of him. Just yesterday, he hosted NATO. Of course, we know he's taking the press conference tomorrow. He's made stops in 21 states for both presidential duties and campaign events.

So, I mean, this is aging. Those are the rigors of a normal presidency in the 21st century. Let's be clear. And let's be clear. Joe Biden's been a terrific president. You could go down the list, whether the American Rescue Plan, the infrastructure plan, the the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, trying to relieve students of debt and managing two wars, I think quite admirably. Those are the rigors that and many of those presentations and speeches and events have been with the teleprompter. And we have seen him at the State of the Union do great.

Right. But, Zeke, I want to put this in context. Those are the things Joe Biden is doing while he is aging. And so, too, Donald Trump is aging. Is he not? Look at his age. So if you're going to diagnose him, let me ask you, what do you think Donald Trump's sort of would you consider him to be mentally fit to be president? Can I have your opinion on his brain? Well, I don't I'm not judging the brains, but I do think Trump has many of the problems of aging. He has an inability to concentrate. He meanders when he talks.

He doesn't problem solve. He goes back to the same things over and over again. And his problem is he lies over and over blatantly. And that's even worse. This is a critical election, the most critical election in American history since the Civil War. And I think if you ask me now, I'm voting for Joe Biden. There's no question the policies of Donald Trump are terrible. But this is also not the best options that the American public has. We're a country of 330 million people, and we have a lot of really talented people in the country. Dr. Van Goop, what's your take on what has become really the

story, the only story of the day, it seems, and that is Joe Biden's mental acuity. What do you make of the debate and what do you make of his recovery from it? Well, Mika, you know, I thought you laid it out there really nicely, which is to say I care for many octogenarians. And I would I would say from a cardiovascular standpoint and what we've seen from a mental acuity standpoint, take that last night, you mentioned it with the NATO summit. There's going to be days that are better. There's going to be days that are not as good. Cardiovascularly, he's in excellent shape. I'm a pulmonologist. I see this all the time in oxygenarians. I think he's actually quite high functioning as an oxygenarian, keeping up that schedule. And so, you know, just from this is a subjective conversation. Zeke is offering his

opinion. I can tell you what I see in my own clinic and what I see clinically. I think Joe Biden is actually quite robust relative to what we see normal aging at 81. More broadly, what I would say is exactly to your point, we don't talk enough about his opponent. There are signs of forgetfulness, judgment issues. We saw that last time in his speech he ate in Florida. The exact same things that we're talking about and scrutinizing the president about, certainly we're seeing symptomatic in former President Trump. More broadly, just zooming out again, it's really important how we talk. Let's forget the 2024 election. Let's just focus on cognitive testing. This has now become a bad phrase, and I worry about that. Less than 20% of individuals 65 years of age and older, Mika, actually voluntarily even seek out any type of brain health support.

There's many reasons that are reversible if somebody is experiencing age-related decline, like hypothyroidism, vitamin deficiency. Maybe they've had a recent concussion. It's important that we talk about this in ways that are not stigmatizing as a country, as a broader media, because people can get help for their brain. And we need to be normalizing brain health, just like we talk about cardiovascular health. And I worry the impact that this dialogue is having, again, across the country on something that's critically important to people's Asian. So, Dr. Zeke Emanuel, thank you very much. And Vin Gupta, I'd love to have you back to focus on the moments of concern medically that you have about Donald Trump, just to bring some balance to this. But breaking news, both candidates are old, and I appreciate both of your insights

very much. Thank you, doctors.