Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/22/24

Episode Date: July 22, 2024

Biden ends 2024 reelection bid, endorses VP Harris

Joe Biden has been one of the most consequential presidents in American history. He has put people over politics and patriotism over personal position. And this is another heroic act in a long running series of heroic acts by Joe Biden on behalf of the American people. From the moment he was first elected back in 1972 to the United States Senate. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries yesterday praising President Biden's political career following the president's decision to withdraw from the race. Biden made the announcement in a letter posted to his social media accounts yesterday afternoon, writing in part, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down

and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term. Shortly after that announcement, President Biden endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place this November and called on Democrats to come together to defeat Donald Trump. Willie. So where does this go from here? Although President Biden did endorse Vice President Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket, the Democratic nomination technically does not automatically transfer to the vice president. A spokesperson for the Democrat National Committee said last night it is now the committee's responsibility to implement a framework to select a new nominee, which will be, quote, open, transparent, fair and orderly. The DNC Rules Committee will hold a public meeting Wednesday afternoon, which also will stream

on the DNC's YouTube channel. The party co-chairs have promised the process will be comprehensive, fair and expeditious. Exactly when Democrats will choose a nominee, unclear this morning. It's also unclear if the party will continue to move forward with that virtual roll call scheduled for the first week of August, a move that was made to avoid a ballot deadline issue in Ohio, but which since has been resolved. The party does unite behind Harris, which it appears to be doing this morning. It could decide to formally nominate her through the virtual vote before August 7th. The convention is set to begin on August the 19th.

So what happens to Biden's delegates? The only requirement for delegates under current convention rules is to, quote, in all good conscience, reflect the sentiments of those who elected them. But since Biden left the race, his delegates are free to support whoever they choose. The president does not have to release his delegates. So let's pause there, Joe. Yeah, the delegates are part because

I think it was good at the top of the show. I think we should read all the subsections of the Democratic National Committee's charter. And Alex, could we go on a couple more hours on that? Because I don't think anybody wants reactions to anybody. I saw where that was headed. Yeah. Thank you. But let's talk about how extraordinary this moment is. We'll talk about the technicalities of it in just a moment. But it came to a point, as you know well, Joe, having talked to so many people inside the campaign and John is reporting this morning that President Biden received information. He received polling. He heard about the donors drying up, that the money was stopping.

He got hard data from a couple of people he really trusts on the innermost, not just the inner circle, the innermost two or three people who told him, this doesn't look good for you or your legacy. Doesn't look good, and we'll go through the specifics. But why don't we show Americans some of some of the headlines? And so are the New York Times. Biden bows out. Just just extraordinary. A late reversal upends the race for the White House as president endorses Harris to lead the ticket. Here's the Wall Street Journal. If you can pop that up there, guys, push in a little bit. Biden drops out, endorses Harris. And of course, you've got some of the tabloids here in New York City. Joe's out and the New York Post

writing simply the end. Yeah. For Joe Biden. Yeah. And and so there had been some talk for quite some time on Friday. Mark Halperin broke news actually on X. He laid out what was going to be coming on Sunday. There still was a lot of confusion, though, as you said, inside of the inside of the campaign. And there was growing anger inside of the campaign and and john we talked about this growing anger inside of the campaign and we'll just say it anger at steve rachetti and anger at mike donald that the campaign believed and people inside the white house who loved joe biden believed they weren't giving the straight story to Joe Biden. That changed Friday night.

Word started spreading around the campaign. Message received by Reschetti. Reschetti and Donovan were going to get the information together, especially Reschetti. And he was going to go deliver the bad news to the president this weekend. What can you tell us? Here's what happened this weekend. Rehoboth Beach, the president, of course, still battling covid, still isolating at his family home, summoning his two closest aides, Donald and Rashidi. They were there for him in 2016 when

he decided not to run. They were there again in 2019 when he decided to jump into that campaign. They are his closest advisors. And then they presented him Saturday morning with new information, as we reported exclusively, new battleground state polls that show the president down in all seven battlegrounds and also support really slipping in places that Democrats have won now for cycles, Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, all of those now in jeopardy. And by the way, let's say this, too, and I think everybody needs to understand this. It wasn't just the debate performance that was causing concerns. I'll have you get back to that

in one second. But really quickly, John Heilman, Joe Biden was already starting to slip in Minnesota, in New Hampshire, in Virginia, and a lot of these states that weren't swing states even before the debate. And that was causing an uneasiness in Biden world. New Mexico, New Jersey, New Jersey, Donald Trump in some polling was within a point or two. Yeah. And I think just as you said quickly, this poll, this information that Biden got on Saturday was new to Biden, was not new to others. And some of this polling had been around for several days. And one of the frustrations that people like Nancy Pelosi had was that Joe Biden is not getting this information. He's being shielded from it. At one point, actually summoning Mike Donilon on the phone in one of her conversations with Joe Biden and saying,

Mr. President, let's get Mike Donilon on the phone and talk about the polls. And so I think, finally, the information, all of this is recent information, obviously, but it was new to Joe Biden to be presented with things that Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi were well acquainted with. A lot of other Democrats knew in the numbers. And by the way, just to be really clear here, and Jonathan, I'll let you finish up on this. To be really clear, Rushetti and Donlon loved Biden. They'd heard Biden counted out

time and time and time again. The family had heard the Democratic establishment just absolutely shit on Joe Biden time and time and time again. And what did he do? He always exceeded expectations. He became president of the United States,

as we all remember, in 2020, with the entire Democratic establishment mocking him, saying he wasn't good enough, he wasn't up to it. So as a background, you can understand why Ricchetti and Donovan said, hey, let's do it again, Rocky. Come on. One more fight. You can do it. Yeah. And the first lady and the president's son, Hunter, also firmly behind his decision to stay in the race. They still believed he could win. And as of Saturday morning, as of Saturday morning, President Biden was still intending to stay in this race. But then he talked to his closest aides as the day went on, summoned the family and then made the decision to bow out because of those polls,

because the fundraising dramatically drying up and because so many Democratic lawmakers had spoken out against them. Now, some of the heavyweights, Schumer, Pelosi, Jeffries, had done so privately. Fears in the Biden camp, that was about to change, that if the president had stayed in the race as this week went on, that those leaders, namely Pelosi, were going to go public with the polling, with their concerns, with a call for the president to bow out. Doing so yesterday was a face-saving move. The president and his family wanted to save his reputation and choose his own terms of exit. All reporting we had throughout the weekend was that Monday was going to be brutal for the president. So yesterday really seemed to be the best time for him to get out.

So that's the reporting about what happened this week. And Mika, I'd love first to get your reaction, because you obviously have strongly supported Joe Biden. You still believe that he would have been the best chance to beat Donald Trump because he's the only one who's done it before. I'm just curious what your thoughts are this morning. Well, obviously, on many levels, I'm I'm really sad. Joe Biden is a patriot. I love him. I love his family. And I love what he's done for the country. He had authenticity and touch, whether you saw it or not. But everything about him, even sometimes the stutter and the bumbling was part of the touch, part of the sort of empathic, very loving, very clear, clear eyed touch that he had that allowed him and enabled him to be an effective president.

But all of that turned against him after the debate for all the reasons that we discussed. And he would say no time to complain about it. Let's move on. It's go time. And Democrats really have a moment of momentum here. And my hope is that they grab it and run with it, get unified, get organized, get coordinated. No more infighting. Donald Trump is not easy to beat.

He is not easy to beat. He is not easy to beat. And anyone who thinks he is is back at 2016 when they're laughing at the concept. And you can see how quickly they tried to steal the unity narrative. And I've heard from inside Republican circles and right wing media that the hate campaign against Kamala Harris has begun. You'll notice they purposefully pronounce her name wrong. They say Kamala. They do it all the time. It is on purpose. But the talk is to start that hate campaign and get it going and start it churning. So my hope is that major Democrats and major Republicans from the Obamas to the Bush family to military leaders get behind the democracy ticket and we move on. And throughout the show today, we'll see, Willie, if leading Democrats are going to get on board with Kamala Harris. We'll be hearing from some for the first time and seeing if there are some endorsements

this morning. Willie? And there have been many of them. A groundswell yesterday in the in the minutes, actually, in the hours, certainly after President Biden's announcement of support for Kamala Harris, not official endorsements. Some of the leadership, they want to do that in a more formal way. I think we're talking about Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, even former President Obama. Reverend Sharpton's with us as well. Rev, we talked to you last week. You had just spoken to President Biden, who said he was all in. He was in it to win it. We had the campaign chair, Jen O'Malley Dillon, on this show the last time we were on the air, Friday morning, which now feels like a lifetime ago, adamant that President Biden was staying in the race, citing battleground polls. They were seeing things that the rest of us weren't seeing. It shows how closely held this

was and how late it was made that many of the leaders, even of the campaign outside of Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donald didn't know until literally minutes before this went public on Twitter. So I'm curious for your take on the announcement, the decision by the president and also on the prospects for Vice President Kamala Harris. We've seen a ton of money just this morning reported fifty five zero million dollars raised since the announcement in less than 24 hours. There has in this moment a lot of Democratic enthusiasm for the vice president. Let me start with the second part first. When I got home last night from the studio, Vice President Kamala Harris called me.

And the one thing that I think I took away from the fact that she was planning on what her next step was going to be is that she's being very level-headed about this. She really did not know till the last minute because she and I were in New Orleans at the Essence Festival together a couple of weeks ago, and she was telling everybody to stick with Biden. She was very loyal. So this was unexpected to her till the last few hours.

But she also was very clear she's running against someone who does not fight by the rules. This is going to be a street fight. She understands it. In many ways, Joe Biden is certainly a gentleman compared to Donald Trump. Donald Trump, we must remember, he went after Barack Obama, saying he wasn't even an American. Imagine the misogynist and racist stuff he's going to come with Kamala Harris, and I think she's prepared for that. A week ago when I talked to President Biden and I was saying at all costs, we must protect his legacy and what he began because it's not finished in terms of voting rights, women's rights and other things. He was dug in. He was going to fight to the end. And maybe it was his commitment to

those principles that he said it order to best preserve that and maintain that, I'm going to step back. And I think that the country, Republican and Democrat, owes him a real, real, real applause because I think he showed that he has commitments bigger than himself, which is rare in politics. What he did took real courage. And what he's done for this country, he should have everyone's gratitude. Yeah, you mentioned Donald Trump, Mika. Donald Trump has been melting down on social media in the 12 hours since clearly, clearly

his preferred candidate was President Biden. Clearly their game plan was geared toward President Biden, and now they're having to pivot a little bit as well. Let's bring in John Meacham. John, you've got a new piece up. He's the Rogers chair in the American presidency at Vanderbilt University. A new piece on the New York Times dot com posted just moments ago titled Joe Biden, my friend and an American hero. John,

good morning. So interested in your take as a friend of Joe Biden, as a occasional advisor to Joe Biden, but also as a historian where this sits in American history? Well, we're commemorating here the remarkable act of political sacrifice, self-sacrifice by a man of great grace and a president of great consequence. And understandably, we're talking about what happens now. That's what the republic does. That's what democracy does. It's an organic thing. It's at risk. And it's vital that, as Mika said, we stand for the Constitution, the rule of law and the kind of decency and dignity that the president of the United States just did something that is counterintuitive to human nature and particularly counterintuitive to the human nature of a politician. There was an old Tennessee senator from my state who said that the only true cure

for political ambition is embalming fluid. And so what you have here is someone who did assess reality. He, as he often says, he respects fate. One would given his life, the arc of his life, which is punctuated by great victory, immense achievement and immense tragedy. And so I think he's this is a president who when people like me look back, we're going to look at someone who stepped into the breach in 2020, who defended democracy. You know, when you think about it, in many ways, the Biden presidency began on January 6th, 2021. And it was a moment where, remember how eerily empty the Capitol was once the protesters, the rioters, the insurrectionists were gone. He stood in that eerily, sort of strangely still and quiet West Front to step into a moment that in which democracy itself was under the greatest siege

it had been since FDR had been there in 1933. And before that, since Abraham Lincoln had been there, both of them on the other side of the Capitol, in 1861. And that's not overly grand. That's not hyperbolic, as President Biden would say. It is, I think, a cold-eyed assessment of the reality of the history of the moment. And President Biden stepped in and he bent history in what I would argue, and I think most of the folks here would agree, is a very American. You can disagree with the policy details. You can disagree with the emphasis here or there.

But by God, the American consensus in which we actually recognize and respect each other fundamentally and are together enough to try to make this a more perfect union. We are a more perfect union because of President Biden. And I think history is going to laud him for it. And I hope the president does as well. You can read John's column in The Times. This is part of what he says. Mr. Biden has spent a lifetime trying to do right by the nation, and he did so in the most epic of ways when he chose to end his campaign for reelection. His decision is one of the most remarkable acts of leadership in our history, an act of self sacrifice that places him in the company of George Washington,

who also stepped away from the presidency. To put something ahead of one's immediate desires to give rather than to take is perhaps the most difficult thing for any human being to do. And Mr. Biden has done just that. To be clear, Mr. Biden is my friend and it has been a privilege to help him when I can. Not because I am a Democrat. I belong to neither party and have voted for both Democrats and Republicans. But because I believe to him to be a defender of the Constitution and a public servant of honor and grace at a time when extreme forces threaten the nation. And those extreme forces that threaten the nation, John Heilman, people that supported Joe Biden and now are going to be supporting Kamala Harris or whomever gets that nomination are still there. That's still going to define this campaign. Does it seem to be the fait accompli that that will be Kamala Harris? Or do we believe there may be others running against her?

Well, I think there's a large question that's now floating around about Joe Manchin. Obviously, he was the only person who's come out and asserted that he is, not asserted, I think, on the record, but there's reports that he is actively asking around about the possibility of re-registering as a Democrat and taking on Vice President Harris. I think,

and someone will check me at this hour, most of the leading potential challengers to Kamala Harris have now endorsed her. I think it's the case that possibly Governor Gretchen Whitmer has not affirmatively endorsed her. If that's wrong, someone tell me. But as of last night, at least, she had put out a statement on Joe Biden, but had not definitively said that she was not planning to run, although people around her prior to this had said that she had no intention of running again. So if you think about it, you've got the governor of California, the governor of Pennsylvania, most of the people who people thought might be in an open contested convention scenario in this hunt, they have already declaimed interest. And when you saw that, that kind of the sort of incredible overflowing of enthusiasm for the vice president yesterday in public, the fast cascade of endorsements among across the party.

It may very well be a fait accompli, Joe. I think there are some questions about to go back to the very beginning of the show when we were talking about what the process is going to be. There still is this question. Do they go ahead with the virtual roll call vote or do they have a competition, which may not be much of a competition, but have some kind of a process in order to make this not seem like just a straight anointment or a coronation. Do we want to throw this thing open and let the delegates vote on the floor in an open scenario after some number of potential town hall meetings or debates?

But it kind of depends on who decides that they want to run. We've got to see, Rev, if anybody's going to step up and run, because right now Kamala has, the vice president has overwhelming support. I think every state chair has come out and already endorsed her. You look at all the money that's being raised. Talk to the campaign last night, the same campaign that two weeks ago was in despair, now saying that there's just just it's just electric inside. The money's flowing in. People are calling in. How can we be part of the convention?

How can we be part of this campaign? It's really real energy in there. And it's going to be hard for anybody, I think, to step in front of that speeding train. One thing I've learned in politics is don't take granted for granted. We're still less than 24 hours since this all started. And we do not know whether someone will try to disturb the process or not. Clearly, I did a New York Times piece this morning saying Kamala Harris is the logical person to continue with the Biden administration. Right. It's doing in many areas. But we do not know till we know. And that's the kind of person I talked to last night on the phone with Kamala Harris, because there are people plotting as well as the Trump forces plotting.

So I'm glad we have a grown up now in Kamala Harris that's saying let's go carefully. Yes, everything looks good, but we're not even 24 hours after we knew Biden was out. We don't know what a mansion will do. We don't know what some others will be that will be disruptive. We need to figure it out because we may end up in disarray and need a healer to come in. We don't know. The patient is not out of the hospital. Right. Not been announced that the party is recovered. The party is now out of intensive care, but it's not at discharge. That's the way you see. Two notes, Mika. Senator Manchin will be our guest on this show a short time from now with, I think, every major elected official in America.

We have an incredible show lined up. And also to John's question, Governor Whitmer of Michigan has not officially endorsed Kamala Harris, but has said previously she would not get in the race if Joe Biden dropped out. And according to The New York Times, was on a call, the Harris for president call last night offering her support. So just put that in as well. Among many others, we have David Plouffe, historians Michael Beschloss, Jonathan Alter, Senator Amy Klobuchar, Jim Clyburn, Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper, Elizabeth Warren, as you mentioned. Let's bring in host of MSNBC's The Weekend, Simone Sanders Townsend, she's a former senior advisor and chief spokesperson to Vice President Kamala Harris. And so, Simone, the Republican freakout has begun.

And actually, as Joe pointed out yesterday when this all broke, the Republican reaction to this, and I've been sort of following and digging into it through contacts I have, I have, and it is very real. It is a hate campaign against who they call Kamala Harris. And they are freaking out, melting down. I can't think of the other words, but you see this very strong reaction, which shows that something has moved the meter, and perhaps Donald Trump himself may not be happy about the concept of Kamala Harris. I've been watching all night long videos of her in Senate hearings, grilling former Attorney General Bill Barr, Supreme Court nominees. And man, can she prosecute, can she grill Republicans, can she drive the point home when she's in that mode?

So I guess my question to you is, what do you think? Will she get the support? Will she get the element delegates? And can she prosecute the case against Donald Trump? And because the grilling, the former staff, we like to refer to it as putting someone on the witness stand. She knows how to do that quite well from her previous life as a prosecutor. Before we talk about the vice president, I've also had the privilege to work for the president. I worked on his last campaign. I was a deputy assistant to the president of the White House, in addition to serving the vice president. And Joe Biden is a remarkable man. He is selfless. And frankly, what he did yesterday, very few elected officials in this country would be willing to do.

And just the way in which it was handled. Joe Biden is a better person than me. Let me just say that when it comes to the vice president, there was not a more loyal person, frankly, throughout this entire process to the president. Sands, I would argue, you know, Rashedi Donlan, Annie Tomasini and Anthony Bernal, then Vice President Kamala Harris. And this dynamic that I think will eventually be set up, because I do think that she will eventually be the nominee in that statement she put out yesterday, you saw her say that she plans to earn and win this nomination. And with the, by my count, what, 153 House Democrats endorsed her yesterday.

By the end of the day, 32 Senate Democrats, 12 of the 23 Democratic governors in this country, SEIU, AFT, two of the largest unions for complete state delegations, South Carolina, Tennessee, to name at least two. That is working to earn the nomination. Remember, Sharpton said he got a call. Getting called, that's shoring up the support. And so in the immediate aftermath, it's my understanding the vice president was on the phone all day long yesterday asking people for their support, not just expecting to get it. And while, yes, other folks may decide to throw their hat in the ring, if you will, in this nominating process, which, frankly, would be well within their rights. They would have to write to the DNC to declare their

intentions. They would have to sign a form that would say they are a Democrat. I worked for Bernie Sanders in 2015, 2016. He signed that form to be in the race in that Democratic primary. And then they would have to get 300, at least 300 signatures. A good candidate would get about anywhere between about 600 from all 50 different states of DNC members, delegates to the convention. And I think that the Biden-Harris campaign had 3,900 delegates. I don't think it's going to be a problem for the vice president to get 300 to 600. So I do think that she is well poised to lock up this nomination. And then comes the part of winning, campaigning, and then hopefully, you know, for the Democrats' sake and democracy, winning against Donald Trump.

This is not going to be an easy race. I think the last point I'll make is much has been made about the president's age and how maybe the race was just so close because voters were concerned about Joe Biden's age. I would argue that the race was always going to be close. It was close in 2020, and it is going to be close this time.

And I do think that the people around the vice president and the Biden campaign and now the Harris campaign especially realize that. Yeah, you know, I think Simone's exactly right. This race was going to be close in the end. We're a 46-46 nation. And when everybody's melting down and freaking out, I still believed this race in the end would tighten up because it always does. And it was going to be a close race. So and I suspect this will be a close race to whether it's the vice president or somebody else running, because we are divided as a nation right now. But but fascinating, fascinating times to put it in perspective. Let's bring in Pulitzer Prize winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

Doris, I'd love to get your thoughts on this. This does not happen much. You don't have somebody that is on their way to get a party's nomination that stops the two of the two years that come to mind. 1952, when Harry Truman decided not to run 1968, of course, famously in March of 68. LBJ, the difference, though, in those two cases, in this case is in 52 and 68. You had both the incumbent president and their wives saying for different reasons, Bess wanted to get back to independence and had it had enough. And Truman was exhausted as well. In 68, both Lady Bird and LBJ were concerned with his health, as you know, certainly better than anybody else. But in 24, it was much different this year because

you actually had Joe and Jill Biden still believing they could beat Donald Trump and certainly in their eyes and do their part to save democracy for another four years. You know, you're so right, Joe. I mean, I've lived with these presidents, it seems, for half a century. And I think the hardest thing for them is to relinquish power. And the really, really hardest thing is to not go for a second term. I think they all felt, as Abraham Lincoln said, that a second term is an endorsement of the first and they want to finish the job. That's something Joe Biden kept saying over and over again. And I think what was particularly hard for him was that he'd come back before from so many difficult situations.

So at first, I think in these three weeks, there was a feeling and the family felt it, too. We can come back from this. We've done it before. And yet somehow age and health is something that it's not a matter of will. It's not a matter of hard work. It's much more difficult to come back. When Lyndon Johnson faced a similar situation, it is different, as you said. And partly what happened to him was that the Tet Offensive at the end of January had changed the whole contours of the Vietnam War. He knew that the time to wind it down had finally come, but he feared if he called for

a bombing halt and called for negotiations, it wouldn't be believed if he were a candidate. So he decided, he made that decision. Nobody knew for sure he was making that decision. Even Lady Bird herself, who was closest to him, knew that it had been tacked on to the end of the speech about the war, that he was going to withdraw from the presidency. But no one knew would he say it because several times before, he had almost withdrawn from races in the last minute and then came back to go forward. So she said she watched him all day. She was looking at the clock ticking. She saw the kind of composure in his face. Teddy White, the reporter, had seen him five days before

when he looked so filled with tension. His voice was so soft he could hardly hear it. The eyes were nestled in lines and wrinkles. When Teddy White saw him on the screen that night, even before he made his withdrawal statement, Teddy White was sitting with my husband up in New Hampshire. He said, something's up. I can tell. His face looks composed. Just imagine the tensions that are released for Joe Biden.

Relief was the major thing that Lyndon Johnson felt. He had felt tensions for days and days. Should I make this decision? He was feeling like people were against him. 36 percent approval, 57 percent disapproval. And then he makes that decision. And I think this will happen for Joe as well. Relief from making the decision, all the countering motions during time, betrayal, sense of defiance. He's done it. It'll be seen as an act of patriotism, as was Lyndon Johnson's. It will be seen as a personal sacrifice. And Joe, unlike Johnson at the time, knows that he's already made his mark on history. The last presidential poll said he was 14th in terms of presidential rankings.

That puts him in the top third already. Johnson would take many years before the country would realize how high he has come in the presidential rankings. So I think this is a moment of relief for him. We'll see composure in his face and a different show than we've seen in the last couple weeks yeah doris good morning i'm curious for your thoughts about historically what comes next not just on the personal level for the president who makes this decision to step aside but for the country obviously democrats have been in despair since the debate three and a half weeks ago deeply concerned about the prospect of another trump administration and not confident, according to polls and according to anecdotal interactions we've all had with people that

Joe Biden could beat Donald Trump. And now, since about 146 yesterday afternoon, you've seen this wave of enthusiasm from Democrats, gratitude for President Biden, excitement about Vice President Harris. No one's predicting a victory. It's going to be a tough climb to defeat Donald Trump. The money is pouring in. What does history tell us may happen from here politically? Well, certainly what happened with Lyndon Johnson's withdrawal, euphoria hit the Capitol because there was a feeling that nothing could change without him making this decision. And there was hope there was hope in the future. And I think that's what we're going to do. Looks like we are frozen.

Door is frozen. So we'll go to our other presidential historian. We always have one in the relief pen. I'm Bobby Cox walking out. We're going to go to the lefty lefty. Bring in Meacham. Bring in Meacham. Yeah, yeah, there you go.

So you've traded down. You're trading down, my friend. No in Meacham. Bring in Meacham. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. So you've traded down. You're trading down, my friend. No, no. You know Joe Biden well and it is fascinating. You know him well as an independent, someone who

votes for both Democrats and Republicans. But talk about why this this decision was all the harder for him, because he did believe, as you've written in the book and as he said, time and again, that the soul of America itself was on the line in this race. And it wasn't wasn't anything he wanted to trust to anybody else. He believed when nobody else could beat Donald Trump and nobody thought he could beat Donald Trump. He knew he could do it then. And he still felt like he could do it this time as well.

Again, unlike LBJ in 68, unlike Truman in 52, they all knew they they since the the political winds were coming and were going to knock their house down. Not so with Joe Biden. How much harder did that make him for make this decision for him? I think it's incredibly difficult. I mean, his whole life was operatic victory and terribly tragic, almost unimaginable, except it was all too imaginable because it was real, tragedy. Remember, he almost left the Senate before he took his Senate seat. That's where this story begins. He's 29 years old. He wins a seat in the United States Senate. The terrible tragedy of the death of his wife and his daughter and the near death of Hunter and Bo.

And he thinks about not going to Washington. And yet he endured. As he likes to say, he found purpose in the pain. So before he turned 30, he is someone who had had a cataclysmic event that had that was a personal event that had political implications. Right. He has spent his life at this nexus where the personal and the political always vitally intertwined or Doris and I would have to find something else to do. but in a particularly vivid, tangible way. And he's, metaphorically, he's left for dead again and again and again. 88, the implosion of that campaign. 2008, I think, you know, he got, I'm not sure he got any votes. Actually, I think he was out before anything, votes were cast.

Then suddenly he becomes vice president. And then 16. Bo dies the year before. He does not. President Obama and others convince him. There's some President Obama disputes that. But but there we are. Defends him not to seek the presidency against Hillary. And that was the story.

The story was over, right? The Biden Institute went up. You know, he went to Penn to hold forth. That was the story. And then Charlottesville happens. And I totally credit him on that, that he saw something that reminded him of the worst elements of the 20th century.

And one thing to remember about, I think, about how he sees Trump, former President Trump, is that he genuinely believes that this man represents the worst of the American character and that there is a Biden vision of America where Lincoln's better angels end up prevailing at the very last minute after we've exhausted every other possibility. And then there's a Trumpian vision of the world where everything's in decline, everything's terrible, and it requires a strong man to do it. And that is an elemental difference. It's an elemental distinction between visions of the country. And so he wanted to fight for his vision.

All right. Presidential historian John Meacham, as always, we're so grateful. Thank you for being with us today. Thank you for being with us today. And John Heilman, as we talk about how time and again, Joe Biden's career was almost over. I can't help but go back and think about Richard Ben Kramer writing about Joe Biden, so many beautiful things about his 88 campaign, which ended very early. It was a terrible campaign, a flawed campaign. And at one point, when he was speaking,

after a speech, his head was splitting so hard, hurting so hard, he had to run outside and literally stick his head in the snow to try to dull the pain. Of course, that was because he was about to about to have an aneurysm. But but time and again, he he had a political collapse and then a rebirth. And he always asked after the 88 campaign, he could he could never he could never figure out why it ended the way it ended. He believed that it was God's will that one day he would be president of the United States. And that happened in 87, 88. His life, of course,

saved famously with with that operation uh but it would be it'd be another generation before he fulfilled that dream against all odds i must say after uh iowa new hampshire fulfilled that dream and became president of the united states which again uh shows it's just outlines a remarkable political life he has had all these years. I like being able to correct John Meacham occasionally. He did, there were some votes cast for Joe Biden in 2008. He competed in the Iowa caucuses and dropped out, I think a day or two afterwards because he had done so poorly at Iowa. But he had like 2%, I think.

Yes, yes. It was important in this context because he after 88, he thought about running in 2000. He thought about running in 2004. Right. He kept thinking that he that he had a presidential run in him. And so that he ran in 2008. He made a comment on literally the first day of his campaign about Barack Obama that was seen as being condescending. And it sort of blew up his campaign literally in one day in the New York Observer. And that was the end. The donors looked and said, we're not going to be with Joe Biden. It was a going nowhere campaign from the first, from the first that that by that Obama chose him to be vice president and that he then served obama with such an older white man serving a young african-american man which gave him great credibility with a lot of black voters and would

come back to boost him when he ran in 2000 when he ultimately ran in 2020 all of that is an extraordinary an extraordinary political life and yet i think it's right to say that if you think about what the meaning of yesterday was, is that the the above the fold on Joe Biden's obituary one day will now be that he there's a couple of a couple of lines. One, the first will be that in the first real authoritarian threat to the United States, Joe Biden stood up to it in 2020. And then in 2024, when faced with it again, made the courageous decision that he was not, he didn't have what it took in the end to beat it back and made this self-sacrificing decision. Those are the, will now be the political headlines. One act of where he beat back authoritarianism, another where he yielded to have the Democratic

Party have a chance to beat back the second attempt at authoritarianism. I think those are going to be the headlines for him. And that's why yesterday's decision was, I think, the right one. And one that will be remembered kindly by history. Well, and again, how one is doing in the public opinion polls when they leave office is not how history looks at them 20, 30, 50, 100 years from now, because Rev. Harry Truman left with 22 percent approval rating. Almost every historian considers him to be a near great historian for all he did with NATO, for all he did with the Truman Doctrine, containment, basically starting the Cold War, but framing it in a way that the United States would beat back Soviet authoritarianism.

George H.W. Bush, another one term president who will be seen, if not already, as a near great president, because what he did when the Soviet Union collapsed, when the wall fell, the way he bound Europe together, he will be seen that way, as will Joe Biden, who will be seen, I think, by most historians as a person that beat back authoritarianism by running in 2000 and did his part by deciding to step down in 2004. And like Cincinnati's. Leaving power voluntarily and going home. No doubt about it. I remember as a teenager, we were marching against the war in Vietnam and LBJ. Lyndon Johnson was the enemy. And in the looking back now to history, Lyndon Johnson was one of the greatest presidents for the things I believed in

and for the country that ever existed. And I think that is why I pointed out in my piece that Joe Biden deserves credit now. When you look at the fact that we're sitting here this morning with the leading candidate, according to the polls, a convicted felon and one that has been found to have sexually molested a woman. I mean, if he does not try to get out of the debates, and, you know, Donald Trump and I both come from New York and Brooklyn, we call him a punk in the streets. I don't think he wants to debate Kamala Harris.

You think he'll be afraid to debate? Oh, he's a political punk. There's no doubt about it. Really? And I think that if his friend was promoting the about Don King, it would be the prosecutor versus the felon. That's how you would promote it. And she should open up. Yeah, I can get and he used to get out him in his intro at the convention. So Don should promote the debate, the felon versus the prosecutor.

And she should open up by saying, I'd like to first ask my opponent, did he get permission from his parole officer to be at the debate? OK, I'll tell you what, somebody page Don King. We have a packed show this morning, Mika, a packed show. Yes, we do. Congressman Jim Clyburn, who played a key role in helping Joe Biden win the White House, has endorsed Kamala Harris. He is our guest this morning, along with several other Democrats who are throwing their support behind the vice president, including Senators Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren, plus two governors whose names have been mentioned as possible. Running mates Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Roy Cooper of North Carolina will both be our guests this morning,

along with many more. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. There is a there's a shot of Capitol Hill where Washington is in shock this morning. An earthquake, a tornado, a tsunami, a change. I don't know. What should we say? Those are all good. That's all right. I will tell you there's some Republicans in there freaking out. I mean, you know, here's the thing. Like, if the other side is freaking out and going crazy crazy you know you've got them where you want them and so democrats have to be feeling pretty good this morning i i had heard from

inside the trump campaign for some time right now that the one thing donald trump feared was not having joe biden throwing it you boxing. Yeah. He was used to going against Biden. Right. So what have they done? They've switched it up. It's going to be a southpaw now. Rocky's a southpaw. Don't go into it. It's my best Burgess Meredith, folks, for children scared this morning. Go back and see Rocky. But this is the one thing that sort of had him melting down. Most people say that over the last month, he's been more serene than usual since the trial. He's been a little calmer than usual. But the one thing that got to him was the idea that he might not be running against Biden because that's all he's been focused on since 2020.

But now you're hearing Mike Johnson, you're hearing all these other people just freaking out. This is this is illegal. You can't do that. Right. What? You can't. You can't decide at a convention who your nominee is going to be. You cannot. You can't let the delegates. Well, yeah, you can. You can decide at the convention who you're. It's one of the stupidest things i've ever heard in my life but again the fact they're freaking out so much has to excite a democratic party that was really at its lowest ebb of any party that i've seen since let's say watergate the entire theory of the case from the trump campaign it's literally on signs is strength versus weakness donald trump is strong he just survived an assassination attempt.

Joe Biden is old and weak, the argument goes. Right now, that's off the table. You have Kamala Harris, the vice president, United States, who presents. I mean, you talk to Democrats last night sort of imagining again that debate on June 27th, what it would have been like if Kamala Harris had been standing there and the softballs that were coming across the plate, the lies Donald Trump was telling, what she would have done with those and now will do if there's another debate. Age becomes an issue now because what is he, 20 years older? I think he's almost. He's now officially, now that Joe Biden is out of the race, he's now the oldest major party nominee in the history of the country. And as we've all pointed out, has shown many signs of mental slippage. And, you know, you would think at this point with Joe Biden out of the race that we could all now focus on clearly and cleanly on another elderly gentleman who may be not up for the job. If the standards apply to Joe Biden are now to apply to Donald Trump.

He's 20 years old. Right Trump. He's 20 years old. Right. And he's 20 years old. Yes, he's 20. Almost 20, yeah. Almost 20 years older. And that's, I think, one of the reasons why

Republicans are melting down because suddenly he's the old guy in the race by a long shot. Yeah, and they tried for the unity message, which worked for how many days at the convention? Four and a half or something like that.

And then the back half of Donald Trump's speech that night on Thursday completely ended that. If you want to go watch another speech, his event on Saturday. Oh, boy. All the way back to the old Trump. Oh, was it really? And he was completely, and this is on Saturday, right?

So he's completely freaked out about what may be coming down the pike. There was no sign of this alleged new Donald Trump, which none of us bought, of course, or no sense of unity. He was the old Donald Trump. Yeah, he was exactly the old Donald Trump. And we are seeing a meltdown on Truth Social in the last 24 hours, you know, suggesting that he might back out of the debate, suggesting that actually Joe

Biden, you know, will still today wake up and decide he still wants to be the nominee. And that's Trump nonsense. But it does underscore what has we've all been hearing now for a couple of weeks. Tim Alberta did a piece on it wonderfully for The Atlantic about how the entire Trump campaign has been geared around one man, Joe Biden. And yes, they've got opposition research against Vice President Harris. They will be able to pivot. But Trump himself wanted this rematch. Trump himself has told confidants he couldn't believe how well the debate went. And he was eager to do it again because he felt like he could pummel Biden that much further. That's gone now. It's not, Kamala Harris has noted, a prosecutor. We also recall when she was in the Senate, effectively grilling members of the Trump administration who were testifying.

That is something that does worry Republicans. And we're seeing just this a new narrative and a burst of enthusiasm reflected in the fundraising. And just Democrats suddenly fired up again about this election. In case you were outside this weekend enjoying time with your loved ones, we watched the Donald Trump rally. So you didn't have to. Here's a sampling of the insult fest. And as you're seeing, the Democrat Party is not the party of democracy. They're really the enemies of democracy. This stupid president that we have, stupid. He's a stupid person. This stupid person, low IQ. He's a low IQ individual. Take his IQ. I guarantee you it's in the low 50s or 60s. From crooked Joe Biden and Kamala, I call her laughing Kamala. You ever watch her laugh? She's crazy.

You know, you can tell a lot by a laugh. No, she's crazy. She's nuts. She's not as crazy as Nancy Pelosi, crazy Nancy. presidential. So that was Donald Trump at a rally the other night. Not his best work in terms of his insults and also just low energy and on his brain. It's kind of like Don Rickles on Quaaludes.

It's the bite of it all, you know? Rickles, you want it? No, well that's, you know, it's you know, that cuts completely, Rev, against what we heard, which was that there's going to be a new improved Donald Trump. He's he's not going to be insulting people. And there you heard him calling the president of the United States stupid. I mean, just on and on. I again, I just it's I guess I'm so old. I'm so old because I just grew up in a world where that did nothing but hurt you with voters.

And I just I've got to believe that's why even after the debate, he was still tied basically with Biden, maybe one or two points ahead of Biden, just because all of those insults offend enough people that it keeps him at 46 percent, 47 percent in most polls. And and it shows he has no content. I mean, to just stand there calling people names and saying the vice president is crazy. I mean, where's the content? Where's the beef? Where's the vision for America? That's the thing. Where are you going to take us in the future instead of insulting us because of things that have happened in the past? And let's not forget he had chosen a vice president whose claim to fame was that he was leading in the Senate against DEI and that he's a leading opponent of

women's right to choose. Now they're facing a candidate that is the personification of both of both women's rights and diversity. Kamala Harris is their worst nightmare because when she walks in, she represents everything that Trump and Vance stands against. You couldn't have a better match. I'm going to get to me in one second. But first, just around this table, I never really got a good answer. I've never got a good answer in my own mind figuring this out. I can usually figure some things out in politics, not all. But I've never figured out this J.D. Vance pick. It just strikes me as one of the dumbest picks ever.

It adds nothing. It accentuates his weaknesses, accentuates his weaknesses on abortion, accentuates his weaknesses on women. That's not a small issue. If you go back and look at voting patterns over the past two, three years, I would say it's sort of the biggest political earthquake as far as an issue goes since Prop 13 in 1978 in California. I mean, it has changed the landscape of American politics, certainly among swing voters. So why get somebody that doubles down in that area? I think I have an answer for you that will make sense to you. Your core conviction is that this race is gonna be close. Right.

Donald Trump and his team's core conviction is that it is not going to be close. They came into this convention, and for a long time, Donald Trump was thinking of a much more safer caretaker kind of pick. That's why Doug Bergen was in that race, Marco Rubio, people who were very safe. By the time they got, he made this decision at the very last minute, on the basis of all reporting we can

tell. He started to shift towards the notion of a legacy pick in the last month or so before the Republican convention, but then he really finally made his decision after the assassination attempt. By that time, there is, within the Trump campaign, there is a view that they are headed for a landslide. They thought that before the debate, they thought that Donald Trump was on his way to winning 320 electoral votes. This is what they told Tim Alberta before the debate. After the debate and the assassination attempt, I sat in a room with Tony Fabrizio in Milwaukee, the Trump poll leader. And he said, we have we stopped counting the number of paths we have to 270 electoral votes when we got to 25. And they they are thinking convinced. So they think they're

going to they think they're going to win 330, 340 electoral votes. They think they are on the way to a landslide. They're convinced of that. If you think that I'm not saying that's correct. I'm just saying if you believe that you don't care about you, you're making your vice presidential on the basis, not of a close race, but on the basis of, we are about to change American politics. And I am about to put someone who I think will be the heir to MAGA. That is what the calculation was, I think. And yes, it was a total doubling down pick, not a pick for a close race. Well, let's hope that, yeah, for their own sake, it turns out better than that for them, Mika, than it did for President Dukakis, who was 17 points ahead at this stage in 1988. Yeah. On your point about J.D. Vance, the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, had a really interesting take on that on Real Time.

We'll show you that in just a moment. But it's so interesting. The kind kinder, gentler Trump just spoke softly at the convention, but it was still celebrating mass deportations. It was still cruel. It was still full of lies. And it's just so interesting how confident the Republicans were at the convention. And at the same time, now that Joe Biden, who many felt was too old to continue

with his campaign, unfit for the campaign, that same lens, whether it's opinion writers or thought leaders, that same lens, that focus needs to be put back on Donald Trump because he's the old one now. And many would argue he has been unfit since day one of his first presidency. And if you use that same lens, you will find a man who is mentally unfit every day, who doesn't make sense every day. When he does make sense, he sounds like a white nationalist. When he does make sense, he seems to be in love with Vladimir Putin. When he does make sense, he calls the convicted criminals who rioted at the Capitol, defecated all over the Capitol, tried to kill the vice president and Nancy Pelosi, the people who were convicted and in prison. He calls them hostages and says he will pardon them. And obviously, he's a man who tried to steal a free and fair election. So, Simone, how does the lens, the same lens, in all fairness,

get put back on Donald Trump, the lens that was used on Joe Biden when he had moments that's where he seemed a little bit less than clear. Look, I think across the board, not obviously here at this proverbial table we are at, but across the board, people have to get serious about Donald Trump and J.D. Vance. And I mean, this whole I don't understand how they sold this new tone mess post the assassination attempt, because Donald Trump has been clear exactly about who he is. He's never minced words about who he is, what he believes and how he rolls. And so the idea that I mean, after you saw Ron Johnson on that stage during the Republican

National Convention and Carrie Lake literally pointing up to the press saying, targeting the press in her convention speech. I don't think that was in the prompter. There was going to be some new tone I didn't understand. And then we got to Donald Trump, who literally halfway through the speech, when he decided to go off the teleprompter, when he started shouting out people's names. That's what he does at a Trump rally. We America witnessed a Trump rally in primetime last week, and I'm so glad that they were able to see it. But people have to vigorously cover the Trump Vance campaign because what you have to take down on Trump in his word, what he's saying he will do.

Sometimes his words are slurred. OK, and we need to ask why. Simone Sanders Townsend, thank you very much for being on this morning.