Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/17/23

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

House passes defense bill with controversial amendments

For Senator Tuberville to say that he's not jeopardizing national security when he injects politics into the defense process. And frankly, this is not the time to do it. Not when there is a war going on in Europe, not when American leadership is vital to the international global order. For him to really jeopardize our national security by injecting politics and preventing our military leaders from being able to take their positions and do their jobs is really, you know, it's beyond distressing. It is just that it is a jeopardization to our national security. That's Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois criticizing Republican Senator Tommy Toberville's blockade of military promotions. Duckworth, of course, lost both of her legs while serving in Iraq after a helicopter she was flying was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade. Also,

on Capitol Hill, the Republican-controlled House approved a defense bill loaded with far-right social issues that has almost no chance of passing the Senate. We're going to take a look at the looming showdown over funding the military. Also ahead, we'll dig into some brand new reporting that special counsel Jack Smith is now putting the pressure on a worker inside the Trump organization who's connected to the classified documents investigation. Meanwhile, Trump's top Republican challenger in the 2024 race is already shaking up his presidential campaign staff, a move which Governor Ron DeSantis' team says is not related to his lagging poll numbers. Plus, a perception versus reality problem for President Joe Biden

when it comes to the economy. We'll break down the polling that's not lining up with the latest economic data. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Monday, July 17th. I'm Jonathan Lemire, back from Europe. I'm in for Joe, Mika and Willie, and we've got a great group assembled on this Monday. The president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, the Reverend Al Sharpton is here. Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today, Susan Page. President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass is with us. NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent, Ali Vitale, who just saw host way too early, is here.

And communications strategist and former aide to House Speakers Ryan and Boehner, Brandon Buck. He is an MSNBC political analyst as well. Thank you all for being here. And we have a lot of headlines to get to. But, Richard, we're going to start with tennis. The front page of The Wall Street Journal right here. This was one of the great matches I've ever seen.

Carlos Alcaraz, 20-year-old from Spain at Wimbledon, defeating Novak Djokovic, many consider the greatest player in the world, as Djokovic was going for a fifth consecutive Wimbledon and a calendar year Grand Slam. This was spectacular stuff, including a game in the third set that lasted about 26 minutes. What was so interesting about it, the first set, Djokovic won, blew him out of the court, and that lasted 34 minutes. So you had one game in the third set that was almost as long as the entire first set. It was as good as it gets. Alcaraz has an arsenal that is really quite extraordinary. You expect the power, you expect the speed, Jonathan. He's 16 years younger. But he also did things with finesse that were really

quite, and I've never quite seen it, where he'd almost pause in his forehand, wait to see which way Djokovic committed, and then he would hit the ball. It was really, it was quite a stunning display of artistry. Susan Page, I spent my Sunday at a kid's birthday party at a bowling alley, but all the TVs were on tennis and everyone was staring at this. Just extraordinary stuff. And there's a storyline about this is maybe the sign of generational change is Djokovic passing the torch to the 20-year-old Alcaraz. I think Djokovic is going to be around for a while. I'm not going to count him out. But this was about as great as it gets. What do you think as you watched along? Yeah. And of course, Djokovic, pretty gracious, himself acknowledging a kind of passing of the torch or the beginning of a new generation taking over tennis.

I thought he deserved some credit for acknowledging the greatness of the tennis that he was seeing on the other side of the net. Yeah, I've always been team Federer. Djokovic sort of likes to play the villain in these roles, but he was gracious yesterday. And one wonders if he'll, sort of as he moves into the last stage of his career, if he'll finally get that fan love that has eluded him because so many tennis players preferred Federer or Rafa Nadal. Great stuff. We'll have more about that later on, but let's get to the headlines now. House Republicans have passed a defense spending bill that limits abortion access, transgender care, and diversity training for military personnel. The controversial legislation was approved on Friday, primarily along party lines.

This after the far-right Freedom Caucus pushed to include amendments on major social issues. Democrats then accused Republicans of turning what's usually a bipartisan bill into a culture war. The legislation is now headed to the Senate, where it's certainly expected to fail. Here's what House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had to say about that. Just focus on the military. Stop using taxpayer money to do their own wokeism. A military cannot defend themselves if you train them in woke. We don't want Disneyland to train our military. We want our men and women in the military to have every defense possible. And that's what our bill

does. The money focuses directly on their quality of life and more importantly, on the investment. Now, Republicans are specifically defending an amendment passed in the House's annual defense spending bill last week that blocks the Pentagon from covering the expenses for women in the House's annual defense spending bill last week that blocks the Pentagon from covering the expenses for women in the military who need to travel out of state to have an abortion procedure. Here is what Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, as well as Congressman Michael McCaul of Texas, had to say yesterday about that measure.

Shouldn't all troops, regardless of where they're stationed, get the same treatment? Like, why penalize them for living in Texas? Well, they're free to travel to another state. They'd be penalized. They'd have to take the time off. To have an abortion, just not taxpayer expense. They'd have to take the time off and the like. And so that would impact their ability to do their jobs, arguably, right?

If they have to go on leave. The military should not be paying for abortion tourism. So what should women who are in uniform in a place where they cannot access abortion because they are there on orders, what should they do? Well, if they want to take that step, they have 30 days of annual leave. It shouldn't be taxpayer funds giving them three weeks of paid, uncharged leave. So, Ali, let's talk about the mechanics of this. Past last week is noted likely to go down in the Senate. We heard Kevin McCarthy talk about wokeism. Where is this going and what are

the real world implications of suddenly this bill being in real jeopardy? I mean, look, this is typically something that is bipartisan in nature. And you look at the way that it came out of committee. I think it was like 58 to one or something very bipartisan like that. It's something that I asked the speaker on Friday why he thought you watched this shift from going from something that was very bipartisan to basically passing along party lines. There were a few exceptions, some of them frontliners in tough districts for reelection next year.

But, look, I mean, I think it speaks to the current mindset of this House Republican conference. Now, we know, because we watched this dance be done with the debt ceiling battle, that the first pass at this out of the House Republican conference is not the thing that ultimately gets passed in the end. But there are a lot of changes that are going to be made here between this House version and what the Senate is ultimately going to take up. And I think what's going to be important here is some of the promises that McCarthy may have made to get members of his conference on board here in the first place. The fact that, for example, he's now got Marjorie Taylor Greene, who he promised a spot on the conference committee for this bill. That means that, for example, he's now got Marjorie Taylor Greene, who he promised a

spot on the conference committee for this bill, that means that she's going to be one of the folks who's in the room and actually helping to hammer out what this ultimately looks like. I think that's going to be really important. The other thing I'm looking for, too, is the way that this abortion issue, which really did start with Senator Tuberville in the Senate, him holding up those military promotions until the Pentagon changes the policy you were just talking about. It seems like he's struggling for an off ramp a little bit. I know when he was talking to one of our NBC colleagues last week, he seemed to say that he would back down on this, maybe if there were a vote.

He's changed sort of the way that he's talked about this over the last few weeks. Again, it sort of looks like he's looking for some kind of an off ramp. I'm wondering if that's one of the things that comes to fruition as they're conferencing out what this NDAA might look like. But I think more than anything, this is instructive of not just the battle that we're looking at right now on the military and how Congress is going to tell the military they can use their funds, because that's what this is, but then the later funding bill itself on spending coming in the fall and whether or not we're going to go to a government shutdown, each of these battles, debt ceiling, now NDAA, all of that is instructive for what's ahead.

Rev, in the clips we just played, it's impossible not to be struck by the callousness of the two Republican lawmakers while talking about this. Senator Cotton used the phrase abortion tourism. Just give us your sense as to just like how he is portraying an issue that is so difficult and so central to so many women put in a situation where now, I mean, they're being political pawns. To really minimize the impact of a woman's decision to have or not have an abortion, to try and act like this is some excursion, like you're going on a vacation spot or something, shows the callousness, you used the right word, of the right wing in these particular arguments.

This is not tourism. This is basic decisions that take a lot of real gut-wrenching decisions to make. And then to try and use the fact that this country needs to have its defense at all times on alert. I mean, we have battles going on all over the world, Ukraine, et cetera. And we're going to play these culture wars in the middle of a time that recruitment is down. It shows you that they have no boundaries to try and moralize. And Susan, I think that you from your approach watching all of this, I mean, there's really no place I can remember in recent history where we've seen this kind of moral majority from from the older days even try to interfere with military strength and military recruitment to try to make an argument that ought to be made in the public square or in churches. Yeah. And let's think about what the political consequences will be for some of these Republican members in districts that are either swing districts or districts that Joe Biden won, who have cast now votes in favor of this pretty hard line position on abortion for women in the military. And I and I wonder, Richard Haass,

you know, we talk about the political consequences, which are considerable. We know what are the what are the actual national are there national security repercussions if there is a failure to pass this defense authorization bill, which I think is is possible when we look at the showdown coming up? I think this national security consequences isn't almost whatever happens. One is in the rev was getting at it a little bit. One of the biggest problems facing the military right now is retention and recruitment. And women play now an increasingly central role in the American military. Things have really, really changed.

I'm not sure these lawmakers maybe understand that. So to weigh in on these issues in the way they're doing really undermines readiness. That's point one. If this bill weren't to be passed because of this, yes. I mean, we've already got a time now where the U.S. military can't do the procurement it needs to, again, is having personnel issues. If suddenly funds aren't available at this moment in the United States, even though we're not a direct participant in Ukraine, we're, shall we say, a major indirect participant there. Plus, we've got operations in every other theater of the world. That would be a major, major problem. Makes it impossible to plan. It makes it that much more difficult. Let's make one political statement. You know, everyone around this table has been doing these issues for a long time. We've come a long way since politics

stopped at the water's edge. This idea that this becomes another football for American politics, I just think is a sign of just how much things have deteriorated. And Richard, to that point, I mean, it was a major topic of conversation last week while overseas covering the president. I mean, the defense secretary was there talking about Senator Tuberville's blockade here. They can't fill important positions. There are jobs or key jobs, military that are left vacant right now. President Biden himself in his news conference in Helsinki singled out the senator for what he's for what he's doing. And Brandon Buck, give us you know, you've worked a couple of Republican speakers.

You're well aware of the machinations and the strategy and the GOP leadership in the House, and of course, weighing on the Senate, too, what are they doing here? What is the thought process behind the Republican Party that's not just blocking leadership positions, but also doing a thing that's, to Richard's point, potentially challenging American military readiness? Well, I think it would be a mistake to say this is a part of any plan. I mean, Kevin McCarthy held that press conference on Friday after the bill passed, a bit of a pep rally for the bill, which is funny because this was something that he was trying to avoid all week long. And going back to last week,

they were held up in rules committee for a very long time trying to sort out how to handle this. As Ali pointed out, this was a bipartisan bill just a few weeks ago trying to sort out how to handle this. As Ali pointed out, this was a bipartisan bill just a few weeks ago. He didn't want to do this for those political reasons. He didn't want to put his members in this position. He also knows that looking down the road, this is going to come back to the House without a lot of these provisions. And once again, he's going to have to sell this to his members as a walkback. A little conspiratorial, I guess, when it comes to the House Freedom Caucus and what their real motivations are. I think they like to set up a situation where the House negotiates with the Senate, doesn't get all of these more extreme provisions,

and then they can put it at Kevin McCarthy's feet for not having delivered once again. I think Kevin McCarthy is facing a lot of pressure on this, and it's going to extend to when we start doing actual funding for the military. Look, we haven't failed to pass one of these authorization bills in 60 years. We don't know exactly what would happen if we didn't get one done. But we sure know that if we can't fund the military when we get to the appropriations next, that's a huge, huge problem for not just us, but lots of places around the world. And one of those places, of course, being Ukraine and the U.S. assistance there. And there's developing news out of that war-torn nation this morning,

where a reported explosion on the Kerch Bridge, which connects Crimea to mainland Russia, has killed two people and injured another. Russia has blamed Ukraine for the explosion, which has now shut down traffic on the bridge. Ukraine has not yet claimed responsibility for the attack. The bridge, of course, is the same one struck by a blast in October of last year that rendered the bridge useless. It underwent intense repairs. It reopened in May. It is a point of real pride, Richard Haass, for Vladimir Putin, the construction of this bridge after Russia illegally annexed Crimea some years ago. We also have breaking news this morning about how Russia might be pulling out of the grain deal that allowed grain to come out of Ukraine to help feed part of the world, particularly Africa.

And there's real fears of famine if this can't get restored and restored quickly. Give us your sense here on that. But also this explosion, which, you know, let's say Ukraine was responsible, you know, shows another moment where they're not unafraid to strike within Russia's borders. No, it's not the first time, by the way, Ukraine has done this. So, you know, the three three stories, if you will, today, one is the Kerch Bridge, and this will complicate or prevent it complicates Russian resupply of their of their troops in Crimea. And again, as you say, Jonathan, exactly, it's a strike against Putin's prestige. When this bridge was opened, what, it was about five or so years ago, if my dates are right. Tremendous fanfare. And this shows, again, the Russians don't have control. The breakdown of the grain agreement, that show,

which will hurt a lot of the world. This is a real setback if this doesn't get put back on track. Ukrainian grain, Ukraine is traditionally one of the breadbaskets of the world. There'll be a lot of prices around the world that will spike. This will complicate seriously the economic situation, a lot of the developing world, Africa, the Middle East. And so there's that. We'll see whether this happens. And then thirdly, a big story over the weekend about mines and how the Russians have heavily mined territory.

They're dug in defensively and how it's very hard to wage an effective counteroffensive against that kind of thick mine. And the Ukraine side has really churned out, churned a lot, a lot of equipment, lost a lot of lives. The initial months or weeks of the counteroffensive have proven, shall we say, very costly. So this just gives a sense this war is going on in many, many ways at once. And Russia is, if you will, fighting a defensive, indirect struggle. But nothing yet is decided in any way. Yeah, I asked President Biden about the state of the counteroffensive last week when we were in Europe. And he acknowledged that President Zelensky told him that it had been a very hard slog so far,

slower than anticipated on the subject of Ukraine. Fox News yesterday aired an hour-long pre-taped interview with Donald Trump, in which anchor Maria Barataromo pressed the former president on his repeated claim that he could end that war, that war in Ukraine, in just one day. Take a look. You said you could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Yes, I could. How would you do that?

I know Zelensky very well. I felt he was very honorable because when they asked him about the perfect phone call that I made, he said it was indeed perfect. He said he didn't even know what they were talking about. He could have grandstanded, oh, I felt threatened. Well, that's not going to be enough for Putin to stop bombing Ukraine. No, no, no, I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that I know Zelensky very well and I know Putin very well, even better. And I had a good relationship, very good, with both of them. I would tell Zelensky, no more.

You've got to make a deal. I would tell Putin, if you don't make a deal, we're going to give them a lot. We're going to give them more than they ever got if we have to. I will have the deal done in one day. One day. Hang on. I mean, first of all, that again, ending this one day, Susan Page suggests that they're going to play to give Russia plenty, that he's telling Zelensky, hey, that's enough. I think we can read between the lines what that is about. But also, let's remember, he's characterizing his relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky as I knew him very well. Yes, because it was his conversation with Zelensky that got him impeached

the first time as he was trying to withhold military aid to Ukraine. And so Ukraine would dig up political dirt on now President Biden. So that's the backdrop to that conversation. But just give us give us your read here on what we're hearing from Trump. And I will say one of the persistent storylines at the NATO summit in Vilnius last week is this real fear that if Putin can hang on through the American elections next fall and he's rewarded with Donald Trump as the White House, he knows he's got a shot to win this after all. Yes. I mean, this is a concern we heard from quietly from NATO leaders about what would happen if Donald Trump wins the next election, which is not an impossibility. We heard that first question at that Finnish news conference from a Finnish reporter. Can we count on the United States to stick around? Because it would be a very the U.S. position would be quite different toward the war in Ukraine and toward Vladimir Putin if Donald Trump moved back into the White House.

Of course, the idea that the American president, whoever he or she is, could tell Zelensky to make a deal and that he would do so is pretty laughable, given that Zelensky has shown himself to be a pretty valiant leader of Ukraine and someone who is willing to stand up to the United States when he thinks it's in his interest. And the question of when Ukraine will be interested and willing to get sit down for a serious diplomatic solution, I don't really think we're there yet. So, Brandon, there are certainly some in Republican leadership and Senate Minority Leader McConnell, chief among them, who are saying, look, we're going to support Ukraine. This is what our job as Americans to do to to bolster Kiev against what Russia is doing. But there's definitely a strain of isolationism, a strain of Republicans who are questioning whether or not this is the right idea. We know there's some in the Republican House and those voices have grown louder about the idea of

funding to Ukraine. We also heard from Tucker Carlson at an event he held in Iowa in recent days, really pressing some of the GOP candidates about whether or not this is a good idea. How prevalent or how much of a factor is this going to be for Republican voters as they look at these candidates today, including most of all Donald Trump, that this could be, we want to not support Ukraine. We want to do something very different than this current White House going forward. Oh, it's very real. I mean, the party is so much more isolationist than it was. And we actually saw this vote in the House on the bill we were just talking about. There were amendments offered to significantly limit or even cut off support for Ukraine, and they failed overwhelmingly. But 70 something Republicans voted for that.

And it's easy to look at it. Well, those didn't pass even close. But I looked at it and was like, wow, that's a lot of Republicans saying they're willing to cut off aid to Ukraine right now at this moment. I mean, I was bracing in that Trump interview for him to say that that's his position, that he's going to cut off and that's how he's going to end this war. At least, thankfully, he said, you know, he maybe used strength to try to end it. But it's real. It's pervasive. There are a lot of very popular figures out there who push this stuff all the time. And there's an audience for it. And Trump has been one of the leaders of the isolationist movement, you've got to say. Like, so, you know, he's responding to something that he saw out there, but he also drives

it a lot himself. All right. Well, Brendan Buck, thank you very much. We're going to have more on that Donald Trump's interview, Richard, including his idea that he United States, if he were president again, may not defend Taiwan against China because of semiconductor chips. We'll get into that. We'll also get into new developments in Trump's legal trouble, including a key pretrial hearing in the classified documents case. What to expect in court tomorrow and new reporting that the special counsel is now weighing charges against a Trump organization employee. We'll explain why. Plus, new efforts by the former president to shut down the grand jury in Georgia, where the district attorney appears poised to announce criminal charges. Also, Hollywood actors are set to join writers on the picket line today. We'll have the

latest that the duel strikes that could bring down the entire entertainment industry. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Some in Hollywood are sounding the alarm over the damage that could be caused by the dual strikes of the writers and screen actors guilds. In an interview with Face the Nation yesterday, former Paramount Pictures CEO and IAC chairman Barry Diller shared his thoughts on the harm a prolonged strike could bring. This actually will have devastating effects if it is not settled soon. And the problem with settlement in this case is there's no trust between the parties. These conditions will potentially produce an absolute collapse of an entire industry. On Friday, actors represented by the SAG-AFTRA union joined members of the Writers Guild of America on

the picket line. The writers have been on strike since May. There have been little to no negotiations. There's a sense that both of these strikes could last a very long time. Writers, of course, suggest that the industry needs to change going forward, particularly how AI may impact the business. We'll have more on that in the morning ahead. The White House, meanwhile, continues to tout Bidenomics in an effort to convince voters that the improvements in the job market and inflation are all thanks to the occupant of the Oval Office. White House Counsel of the Economic Advisers Chair Jared Bernstein suggested to MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart yesterday that he's confident the United States will likely avoid a recession. But convincing the public is an altogether separate issue. A recent Associated Press

poll found that just 30 percent of adults think the economy is, quote, good. Meanwhile, while speaking at the conservative Turning Point Action Conference yesterday, Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia warned that President Biden wants to address issues like education, medical care and rural poverty. Take a look. Lyndon B. Johnson is very similar to Joe Biden. How are they the same? They're both Democrat socialists. Lyndon B. Johnson was the majority leader in the Senate. Does that sound familiar? He was Vice President

to Kennedy. Joe was Vice President to Obama. He was appointed as the President after JFK was assassinated. Then he was elected. His big Socialist programs were the Great Society. The Great Society were big government programs were the Great Society.

The Great Society were big government programs to address education, medical care, urban problems, rural poverty, transportation, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and welfare. The Office of Economic Opportunity and big labor and labor unions. Now, LBJ had the Great Society, but Joe Biden had Build Back Better, and he still is working on it. The largest public investment in social infrastructure and environmental programs that is actually finishing what FDR started that LBJ expanded on and Joe Biden is attempting to complete. So, Reverend Al Sharpton, that sound you're hearing is the White House thanking Marjorie Taylor Greene for the campaign commercial. Let's remember, of course, that in their first months in office, they eagerly embraced the Lyndon Johnson comparisons. The Great Society is what they were shooting for. They're trying to be the most transformative legislative presidency since then, those first two years when they had the Democrats

in control in the House and the Senate. That sounds like, I think for most Democrats, that's music to their ears. I was waiting on the attack. I mean, she said all of that and I was waiting for and what do you object to? She left out the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act. And she forgot to say that Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater in one of the biggest landslides in presidential history in this country. But and that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump. He didn't inherit this from the assassination of his predecessor. But we won't let facts get in her way. I think that if I were the Democratic Party leadership or the Biden people, I would take that clip and run it all over the country because the things she's saying that Biden stands for and LBJ and FDR stood for are the things most

Americans want and many are living on right now. You're going to attack Medicare. I mean, I see now why they put out of the Freedom Caucus, because now she's in a caucus of our own. And it's not a very wise caucus. Maybe a double agent. Ali Vitale. So certainly the White House is leaning into the idea of the economy. The things that Marjorie Taylor Greene just mentioned all poll pretty well among Republicans, but among voters writ large. But we just noted that Americans don't feel that great about the economy. So that's the risk here, right, with the president and therefore Democrats falling in line behind them, really saying, hey, Bidenomics, we're full on embracing and trying to take credit for this economy. He's giving another major speech on that issue later this week in Philadelphia. But there are risks here, too. Yeah, of course there are, because and we were talking about this on way too early this morning as well. The idea that

there is this disconnect between what the numbers say about how the economy is doing and what voters are telling me and you and all of us when we go out on the campaign trail that they are feeling. And it comes at a time when Trump has been able to successfully show Americans or at least convince them that he's good on the economy, despite the fact that his businesses have not always been on the up and up, despite the fact that they haven't always made the money he says that they make. Nevertheless, Trump is still perceived as strong on this. And Republicans are going to try to continue to leverage the issue. I think the thing that I'm so struck by when I hear what Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene is saying there, because you're ticking through things, health care, rural poverty,

yeah, those are things that I think a lot of Americans would like to see solutions to going forward. But the other thing that I think of here is the ways in which the White House has leaned in on issues like this in the past. You know, when she mentions Build Back Better, which eventually became the Inflation Reduction Act, it lacked some of the key tenants that were initially proposed. But many of the things that were in Build Back Better and then ultimately the IRA were things that polled very well among Republicans and Democrats alike. And that's something that the White House leaned on quite heavily. The idea of, for example,

doing infrastructure, which is generally popular in a bipartisan fashion. All of these things are things that the White House is going to point to to say, hey, not only are we getting results or did get results in the first two years of our administration, but we're getting results on things that people can actually see and feel a difference to and also that they support in polling. You know, Ali, it was interesting to me in the clip that we saw as Marjorie Taylor Greene was going through this agenda that she apparently finds offensive. There wasn't much of a reaction that we could hear from that conservative young audience. I don't know if she got a better reaction later on than she did to the clip that we saw. You know, here's the dilemma for the White House. So they clearly need to do a better sales job,

especially in talking about things like the strong job market, the fact that inflation eased. We had good inflation numbers at the end of last week. But a sales job only goes so far when you're talking about the economy, because that's something Americans live with every day of their lives and their own families. It's hard to convince people things are going well if they're having trouble meeting their bills, if they're having trouble keeping their kids in college or paying the rent.

And Richard Haass, you've had experience at the White House. What can the what can the White House do on an issue like this to change the public's perception about what is going on in their own lives? Well, what the White House can do is one is hope that things continue to get slightly better. There has been progress on the inflation front. We'll see what growth numbers are. It's not going to be that easy in certain ways. The numbers coming out of China in a funny sort of way will slow things down here. And then you've got to basically explain, explain and explain, point to things that are getting getting better, show, demonstrate, essentially educate. You know, the Oval Office is in some ways one of the great

classrooms of America. FDR on the fireside chats. It's not President Biden's strength necessarily. But I think essentially you've got to explain there's got to be a narrative. There's got to be a story. And we've come out of COVID. And here are the things that have gotten better. And we're doing these things to deal and everyone's dealing with weather related things. We'll connect that with climate change. Essentially explain what it is, the investments that we're making in the country. But essentially, you've got to have a narrative that the American people buy into. And I don't think the Biden administration yet has constructed a narrative that people understand and essentially say, OK, I get it. I can support that. Yeah. And the White House, they acknowledge they need to do a better job of making this case. And

while the reelection campaign is not going to really ramp up for many, many months, we're going to see the president try to do it with a series of official events, including a couple this week. Coming up here on Morning Joe, we'll go through the big shakeups inside the Ron DeSantis campaign that it says has nothing to do with the Florida governor's lagging poll numbers. And then tonight, Joe Scarborough hosts a primetime special, kicking off with the top headlines of the day, plus a look at the making of this summer's highly anticipated blockbuster, Oppenheimer. We'll bring you Joe's conversations with director Christopher Nolan and the stars of the film, Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt,

and Robert Downey Jr. You will not want to miss this. Watch Joe Scarborough presents tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC, as well as streaming on Peacock. We'll be right back with much, much more. Morning, Joe. Time is never time at all. You can never ever leave without me and a piece of you. 120 at-bats does not have a home run this year. A game-winning walk-off home run. What a jinx.

Alan Trejo of the Colorado Rockies clearly taking issue with the Yankees. Play-by-play announcers call, and he lifts the NL Rockies to an 8-7 win as they take two out of three from the Yankees in the series. The Yankees, Richard Haas, have now lost six of their last eight games, falling to 15-19 since reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge left their lineup with an injury on June 3rd and does not seem close to returning. Meanwhile, in Chicago, look who's coming.

The Boston Red Sox beat the Cubs in an 11-5 blowout yesterday, highlighted by that grand slam hit by Masataka Yoshida in the fifth inning. He's been terrific. The Red Sox and Yankees are now tied for last place in the AL East. Maybe charitably we'll say they're tied for last place in the AL East. Maybe charitably we'll say they're tied for fourth place in the AL East. Richard, we're not used to seeing the American League East standings look like that. Neither of these teams are particularly good. Neither of these teams feel like they're real threats in the postseason. But the Red Sox actually have the baseball's best record since July 1st. So they're at least coming on. But you're Yankees. What's the deal? And when's

Aaron Judge coming back? Is he? There's so many news stories we could talk about. No, we're spending time on this. Yankee pitching was yet again disastrous yesterday. Yankee hitting wasn't as bad as it normally is. Not clear what Judge's timetable is. But even with him, it's not clear to me the Yankees have a winning formula this year. I think, though, the big story, if I may change the subject slightly, is the Baltimore Orioles. Even you, Jonathan, even Joe, I don't think would have predicted that the Orioles would be as good as they are like now.

Right now, Tampa Bay Rays, gravity has asserted itself. But the Orioles are playing stunningly well, far, far better than preseason predictions. But that said, the Yankees and the Red Sox are still not out of it in terms of the postseason. We're only about, what, 55% of the way through the season? So there's time to continue to disappoint. Yeah, this is actually, we should note, the first time ever that a division has had every team win 50 games at this point in the season. Sox and Yankees only a game or two out of the wild card. And the Orioles have the fewest losses in baseball.

So, Richard, it was my suggestion to spend another hour talking about the Yankees, but I'm told we have to move on. But we'll keep you to get weighed in on this story, too. We mentioned that hour-long pre-taped interview on Fox News yesterday that former President Trump had. He weighed in on Ukraine. Well, he was also asked about Taiwan. Take a look.

Should the U.S. help defend Taiwan if it means going to war with China? Well, I don't want to say it because if I'm in the position of president, I don't want to say what I'm thinking. You know, I just if I if I answer that question, it would put me in a very bad negotiating position. With that being said, Taiwan did take all of our chip business. You know, we used to make our own chips. Now they're made in Taiwan. 90 percent of the chips are made in Taiwan. Consuelo Mackay- Advanced semiconductor chips, 90 percent are made in Taiwan.

If China goes in there, they'll be able to turn the world on and off. Isn't that right? David Morgan If China takes Taiwan, they will turn the world off, potentially. I mean, potentially. But remember this. Taiwan took off, potentially. I mean, potentially. But remember this. Taiwan took smart, brilliant. They took our business away.

We should have stopped them. We should have taxed them. We should have tariffed them. So, Richard, what do you think? I mean, this is the president talking a very dangerous game here with Taiwan and akin to how we mentioned a little earlier how Vladimir Putin might be watching the 2024 election to take his cues as to what to do next. Well, maybe Xi Jinping will as well. No, you're exactly right. I think both presidents, Putin and Xi, are going to wait and see and see what things look like

come January 2025. The first half of what the former president said was actually consistent with U.S. policy. He wouldn't say one way or the other. It's called strategic ambiguity whether the United States would come to Taiwan's defense. That's actually consistent with American foreign policy. Second half, though, shall we say, is wildly, wildly inconsistent. This idea of portraying Taiwan as an economic adversary, the way he did it, is one, wrong, and two, casts real doubt about our willingness to come to Taiwan's defense. And if we were not to, we shouldn't underestimate the consequences, not just economically, but strategically, the Japanese, the South Koreans and others, the entire American alliance system in Asia,

I think now hinges on what the United States is prepared to do for Taiwan. If you don't want China to be in a position where, to use the president's expression, it can turn off the world's economy, then let's deter China. Let's persuade Xi Jinping that whatever his dreams, whatever his aspirations to take over Taiwan, the costs and the risks would be too great. We ought to be projecting a certainty that we are going to come to Taiwan's help, and we ought to be projecting a certainty that we are going to come to Taiwan's help, and we ought to be building up the capacity to do it. This, unfortunately, goes in the opposite direction. So, Rev, we mentioned how President Putin and President

Xi are watching this, but our allies are also getting messages here that they know that Donald Trump has a, at least least reasonable chance of being president again. And it seems like every time he opens his mouth on issues of foreign policy, foreign capital, some of our staunchest allies have to wonder if America will be there for them again. We're Trump to return to office, which is the kind of trepidation a lot of them have said is that we don't want to go all in until we see where the future is. You have to remember for for this want to be president again to give the signal that the United States would not be committed to Taiwan. One, he's saying something that is is could be devastating in terms of relationships. But at the same time, is he playing politics to cheat like he plays politics to Putin?

I mean, he plays all these dictators. Let's not forget when we saw the attempted mutiny with Putin just three weeks ago, it was also uncovered that this group led by his former chef tried to, in many ways, influence the election and support Trump in the first place. We're looking at the front page of today's New York Times talking about if Trump gets back in, he wants these vast powers. So vast powers, if he gets back in, play the chief, play the Putin. I mean, this is very threatening not only to our allies, but to our citizens. You know, President Biden has had some struggles sticking to the official policy of strategic ambiguity on Taiwan, too. He said several times, made it very clear that

under his watch, the United States would come to the defense of Taiwan. But Ali, I wonder what you're hearing on Capitol Hill. We've talked earlier in this hour about the divisions among Republicans on aid to Ukraine. Where does the Hill stand on this debate over what the U.S. would do if China moved against Taiwan? Yeah, I think this is one of those conversations that we're rightly having as inextricably linked with the conversation around Ukraine and Russia, especially as we watch the ways that the Chinese are both observing that situation and potentially engaging with it. This was one of the key issues on combating Chinese aggression that we saw the hill at the beginning of this state of divided Congress actually likely to act in bipartisan fashion on. And we've seen,

for example, the Select Committee on China Issues work in bipartisan fashion. It's one of the places where we do watch Republican senators and lawmakers broadly criticize the former president for the ways in which he speaks graciously about people like Xi, similarly to the ways that he speaks about Putin and Kim Jong-un. I do think I was struck there, too, by the way that, you know, folks in the Commerce Department probably had their ears perk up as Trump is talking positively about the need to recalibrate the way that chips are made. Certainly, that's something that Congress acted on in the early phases of the Biden administration in the first year, that was a big win for them.

And so certainly that's one of the things that they're trying to tout here, even on the world stage. I know that people don't exactly connect hard politics with chips politics, but that's something that the White House and the Commerce Department are trying to show as they, again, tout Bidenomics and take that show on the road. Trying to factor it into the geopolitical landscape, too, I think is going to be an interesting thing on if they can do it. Ali Vitale, thank you very much. Richard? Yeah, on the economic side, I am struck by some of the continuity between the Trump administration and the Biden administration, a larger government role when it comes to things like chips. But on the foreign policy side, couldn't be more different. And when foreigners, you were just in

Europe, Jonathan, watch us. What they ask themselves, it's what's the exception and what's the norm? When they look at Biden, they look at Trump, they wonder whether Biden represents a return to traditionalism and Trump was the exception for those four years or just the opposite. Whether these potentially four years of Biden are the exception. And essentially the new normal for American foreign policy is Donald Trump and the Republicans in the House. And that's what makes them so uneasy. They no longer have the ability to count on us with confidence what we're going to be doing in a couple of years. That's a major, major change that we've become unpredictable and, from their point of view, somewhat unreliable. To that point, President Biden was overseas touting the expansion of NATO.

Many NATO members wonder if Donald Trump comes back to office, will the United States pull out of that alliance? Richard Haass, thank you very much for your analysis and your tennis insight. Well done today, sir.