Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/23/24

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

Majority of pledged DNC delegates endorse VP Harris

Our campaign has always been about two different versions of what we see as the future of our country. Two different visions for the future of our country. One focused on the future. The other focused on the past. Donald Trump wants to take our country backward to a time before many of our fellow Americans had full freedoms and rights. But we believe in a brighter future that makes room for all Americans. We believe in a future where every person has the opportunity not just to get by, but to get ahead. Vice President Kamala Harris making her first visit to campaign headquarters after taking over the Democratic presidential campaign.

We're going to have more of her comments, the latest on the shattering fundraising records and the coalescing of support around her nomination. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, July 23rd. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kay, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and associate editor of The Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, former Treasury official and Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner, and member of the New York Times editorial board, Mara Gay. And Joe, she's not the official nominee, but as it pertains to the campaign, it certainly is go time.

It is go time. Look at the headlines here. Starting a 15 week dash. Harris Press's case. 15 week dash. I mean, this is like I must feel like I'm in London at the beginning of a, you know, of a British election. This is a way we should do it. I'm serious. I've always thought it's just insane that people run for four years. I mean, this is great. But let's let's I want to sort of see Ratner really quickly because Steve's like really rich and, you know, he coughs and like, you know, a million dollars just comes out. So he gets numbers. And for a poor country lawyer like me, Steve, this is kind of hard to put my arms around just how much money the vice president is has brought in over the past 24,

36 hours. Talk about it. It's extraordinary, Joe. I don't think we've seen anything quite like this. She's raised well over 80 million dollars, perhaps as much as $100 million. And these are almost entirely small donors going online to the ActBlue website and sending in $10, $25. I think she had something like 880,000 donors contributing to her campaign during this period. It really reflects the upsurge in excitement and belief that the Democrats have a candidate now who can hopefully win. Well, you know, and Mara, what's so interesting is when I talk to people that aren't in this business and don't talk about this incessantly 24 hours a day, nobody's saying she's FDR or Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama as far as political talents go. They understand that.

And at the same time, they're so excited. They don't expect that. They're just so excited. They're so energized. It's historic. It's also, many people believe, all that's standing between the United States and a very, very dark place for this country. You know, I was out of town for a few days and I came home yesterday to Brooklyn and just walking through the streets, every other conversation on the street was who should be her

running me? What do you think? People are throwing out names. The excitement that you hear from, I'm going to assume that most of my neighbors in Brooklyn are Democratic voters. Really? It's shocking in the bubble in which we live. But no, the excitement is palpable. And I think it is, we'll see because you have to win the thing. But I do think in the past month, part of the concern with President Biden was, I think this election might come down to big momentum, to excitement. And it's going to be really close. And that can really make the difference. So I think the party is already seeing that excitement and they haven't even had their convention yet. So it seems like this was the

right decision. I mean, the donors certainly feel that way. And the fact that they're small donations suggests it's not just the big donors, but it's it's the party party voters. And that's that's what I'm hearing, Jonathan, again, for people who aren't really politically engaged. They all go, what do you think about this? You know, I'm getting texts from people I haven't talked to in a while, and they said, I've already given my contribution. I don't know if it's $15 or $25, but there is a real excitement, a real energy.

Yeah, it is. It is a 180 for Democrats. The race has completely changed. And I think what we've seen of the fundraising numbers here in the last 24, 36 hours is that there was an untapped hunger for Democrats to get involved in this race. And they just simply weren't there with President Biden. They may have liked him. They may have voted for him in 2020. They respected the job he did as president, thinking he was a good president. But they just didn't think he was up for being a candidate now. They didn't think he was up for beating Donald Trump.

And a fresh face here is suddenly is being rewarded. And now that we've already seen her, you know, appear to abuse some attack lines, which we'll get into, that communicated in a way that at least recently, President Biden was not able to. She's going to abuse some attack lines, which we'll get into, that communicated in a way that at least recently President Biden was not able to. She's going to hit the road today, heading to Milwaukee, heading to Wisconsin, arguably the top battleground state in the nation. And Democrats are they are fired up. They are ready to contribute not just with their dollars, but their time.

The campaign took tens of thousands of people volunteering in the last 24 to 36 hours, too. It has completely changed the feeling around this race. And Mike, speaking of completely changing the way Democrats are looking at Joe Biden right now, you've heard one after another, after another, actually feeling free to say he's been a great president for us. This was a great man making this decision. And the contrast between Democrats say between Joe Biden and what he did and Donald Trump putting country over self is a stark contrast that I suspect we'll we'll see play out throughout history. As far as looking back at this time, the contrast is going to be pretty, pretty dramatic. Yeah, it already is. And it's been magnified over the past 24, 48 hours.

The interesting thing to me is you used to just use the phrase politically engaged people. Early yesterday morning, I'm getting the newspapers, buying the newspapers at this variety store that I get my newspapers at. And the woman put the papers together, The Times, The New York Post, The Boston Globe and everything like that, and put them on the counter for me and looked at the paper, the headline on The Times yesterday, and looked up at me and said, he withdrew you know a lot of people aren't as politically engaged obviously as we are right and yet on the other side of the coin my wife because she's my wife and what she does for a living is different than what I do for a living she was talking to Rufus Gifford who was

one of the president's chief fundraisers, President Biden's chief fundraisers, and now Vice President Harris's chief fundraisers. And he was telling her that he thought by the end of the day today, they would have hit the $100 million mark in terms of contributions thrown over the rail in 48 hours. That is astounding. Yeah, that really is. And Gene, you've said that Joe Biden has done his part in your column today. Now, what's the next step? Well, the next step, you know, I wrote that column on on Sunday saying the next step is for the Democratic Party to coalesce. I believed it would. The thing to do was to coalesce around Vice President Harris as the presidential candidate. That has happened already. She's already, by most counts, surpassed

the number of delegates now who've come out and said they're going to vote for her, the number that she needs to become the nominee. So she is the presumptive nominee. And what are Democrats doing? I mean, they are voting with their dollars, they're voting with their feet. There is an excitement and enthusiasm and optimism, a feeling for the first time in in many months that this is not only a winnable race, but that they can really slam Donald Trump in this election coming up. You saw Vice President Harris yesterday going to campaign headquarters, in many ways the most important political speech she's given because it was her introduction to the nation as the the democratic presidential candidate and i just thought just objectively

standing back i thought she knocked it out of the park i mean i thought she was forceful. She was funny. She was eloquent. She she paid homage and tribute to Joe Biden, who called in and sounded happy. He sounded Biden sounded pleased with the way this was all playing out. I know that he's a good politician. He can sound like that, and maybe his deep feelings were otherwise. But he seemed better and better with the decision that he had made. And I thought Harris showed the prosecutorial skill that she's going to show again and again in the campaign. And I just imagined Donald Trump and his brain trust watching that and just saying, you know, what are we going to do? This is a different race. You know, Sunday night, there was a phone call with 40,000 black women

getting together to support Kamala Harris. Last night, there was a similar phone call with 20,000 black men. She's going to have foot soldiers. She's going to have enthusiasm. This is a new ballgame. Yeah, and it's historic on so many levels, Gene, as you mentioned. I remember when the vice president spoke at my San Francisco Know Your Value event and she talked about breaking barriers. And she's well aware of how hard it is, that it is painful, it is difficult. And she actually was talking about considering running for president back then and talked about the risks, talked about the criticism she would get, talking about how breaking barriers is painful and then you get stronger.

And I think we're going to see that play out here. As Jean mentioned, a majority of pledged DNC delegates is now endorsing Kamala Harris for president with just over 100 days until the election. The forceful show of unity signals Harris is the clear favorite for the Democratic nomination. Harris put out a statement late last night, writing in part, I am grateful to President Biden and everyone in the Democratic Party who has already put their faith in me. And I look forward to taking our case directly to the American people. And at what is now her campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, Harris spoke to staffers announcing that Julie Chavez Rodriguez will

stay on as her campaign manager and Jen O'Malley Dillon, the former chair of the Biden campaign, will run her campaign as well. Harris praised President Joe Biden's legacy and accomplishments and then shifted her focus to the vision of her campaign and her opponent. Before I was elected as vice president, before I was elected as United States senator, I was the elected attorney general, as I've mentioned, of California. Before that, I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles, I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain.

So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump's type. Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. Because we here know when our middle class is strong, America is strong. And we know that's not the future Donald Trump is fighting for. You know, Katie Kay, American politics has gotten a bit old of late. Remember, it may have been Teddy White who was looking at JFK from behind when he was president. He said, oh, my God, a young man's hair. You see Kamala Harris and you go, oh, my God, hair. I mean, it's like it's like it's like what This race has just radically changed because whether you're Democratic or Republican, so many people have said,

why is everybody so old that's running for president of the United States? And you look at Kamala Harris, and it's a dramatic difference. I mean, we're talking, you know, she's, what, 19 years younger than Donald Trump? I mean, this is a real generational shift. I know a lot of people, you know, may be saying, you know, you've got Republicans being just total idiots attacking her as being a DEI candidate. And I will tell you, 99 percent of Americans don't even know what those

letters stand for, but they know that it's probably racist and it's just not the way to go. But, oh, there it is. Oh, hi, Timmy. But I will tell you, when I look at the vice president, I'm just looking at somebody that is a generation younger than Donald Trump. And I think it's going to energize a lot of people that Democrats need to win this election. Yeah, it's been old and white and male. And one of the things I love about Kamala Harris is she's a couple of weeks younger than I am, and everybody is saying how young she is. So I'm turning 60 this year.

That is awesome. I'm thrilled. That is just great. Now I feel like I'm one of the young crowd, too. It's just, you know, thank you, Kamala Harris. Look, one of the criticisms of her 2019 campaign was that she didn't really have a message. But we heard there a very clear message. She laid out what her agenda is going to be.

And in one day, she's managed to put the focus back on Donald Trump. The problem for Joe Biden in the end was that it was all about him and not about him in a good way. By going up to Delaware and the speech she gave yesterday, she's already turning the prosecution against the opposition. And that's where the Democrats need to be. They need to make this race about Donald Trump. So that's why you're hearing not just the relief that the kind of nightmare of the last couple of weeks is over, but also this sense of excitement that there is around her candidacy and her ability to prosecute this case. Now, as Mika said, this is going to be hard. It's going to be hard because she is a first, but it's going to be hard because Donald Trump, while he's beatable, most Democrats believe he's not easy to beat.

And so there's some sense of now, is she going to be political athlete enough to do that? And I think we'll see that in the next few weeks. Yeah. And again, on the age thing, she does look strikingly younger in the grand scheme of things. And she was on the very first 50 over 50 list now four years ago. So it's kind of nice to see this change and shift in attitudes towards age when it comes to women over 50. Still ahead on Morning Joe, the director of the Secret Service gets grilled by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle following the attempted assassination on Donald Trump. We'll take a look at what happened during yesterday's hearing. Plus, with delegates lining up behind Kamala Harris. We'll talk to DNC Chairman Jamie Harrison about what to expect at next month's Democratic convention. But first, we are breaking down

the financial implications of Project 2025, Donald Trump's potential policy agenda. Steve Ratner has charts on that. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. It is the weirdest thing to me. Democrats say that it is racist to believe. Well, they say it's racist to do anything. I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today. I'm sure they're going to call that racist too, but it's good. I love you guys. Please clap. Please, please clap.

Please. What happened there? I don't know, but... It doesn't matter. That is not Rich Little or even Rich Little. That looked hard. By Rich Little standards, I would... Not Henny Youngman.

It's not. It's more Henny Youngman. Take my wife, please. Take my Mountain Dew. Take my Mountain Dew. I don't know. Maybe he should just read the script. Okay.

Like this? Like this. Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance making his first solo appearance on the campaign trail yesterday in his home state of Ohio. That was his home state. And then later in Virginia, and the senator accused Vice President Kamala Harris of not sounding grateful enough to be an American. Oh, sweet Jesus. Wow. Deliverance. By the way, speaking of Jesus, did you hear the Southern Baptist Convention, Mika, fired a guy. Let me see if I have it. Fired a guy for thanking Joe Biden for putting country over himself. He was like a leader of the Southern Baptist Convention. And because he actually said basically regardless of party, we should be grateful for Joe Biden putting his country over his personal ambition.

They fired him that day. That is that is that is shameful. Russell Moore, who used to hold the position and also left the position because Russell preferred telling the truth about Donald Trump. It's it's just really sad. And the guy that was leading the charge also was angry because this person that got fired yesterday opposed jailing women who had abortions. So that's where we are. That's where we are. That's a good luck with that this fall. We're going to have a little more on that.

But first, here's what J.D. Vance had to say. Let's listen. When I see her give a speech and she talks about the history of this country, not with appreciation, but with condemnation. But you, if you want to lead this country, you should feel grateful for it. You should feel a sense of gratitude. And I never hear that gratitude come through when I listen to Kamala Harris. I don't know Kamala. I served in the United States Marine Corps and I built a business. What the hell have you done other than to collect the government check for the past 20 years? Prosecuted criminals and, you know, served as attorney general, served as a U.S. senator, served as vice president.

I guess. Yeah. Wait a second, are you saying are you saying that she was prosecuting generals? I mean, prosecuting criminals while J.D. Vance was wearing his little tech vest, getting paid millions and millions of dollars by Peter Thiel and saying, I love San Francisco and calling calling Donald Trump Hitler. Is that is that what he's saying? Like, does he really want to compare his record to her record? Because it's not really good. It's not really good. If you look at what's happened over the past several years and the guy has just completely flip flopped from going.

He he may be America's Hitler to suddenly saying that he's like the future. It's ridiculous. I think this is going to be a real challenge. Maybe not. Some people are so mean they can't see beyond themselves. But Maraghe, to run against Kamala Harris, who is accomplished, who is a black woman, and I think they're going to bump into walls, let's just put it that way, along the way as they try and run against her. The Republicans, the right-wing media,

I was watching some yesterday making fun of her voice. I mean, we're talking middle school stuff. And it's not a good look. I don't know how people respond to this, but they they seem to be grasping. And that's that is actually what this change has created in terms of a of a dynamic now of a race between Donald J. Trump and Kamala Harris. It's complicated. You know, I guess in not quite knowing what the line of attack should be. The Republicans in 2024, their first instinct is just to be racist and sexist. I guess that's like a tick that they've developed at this point. You know, the problem for J.D. Vance and for the Trump campaign is that anybody who, any voter who is going to be responding to that by voting for them was probably not going

to vote for the Democrats anyway. So what they're actually doing is they are motivating every Democratic voter, every fence sitter, every independent voter, and people who just are disgusted by racism and sexism and want to see a multiracial democracy continue to the polls. You know, when the AKAs hear that, they're going to march in formation to the poll. So that's the contribution that J.D. Vance is making. I mean, saying you should be grateful for this country, it's just all that is is a dog whistle calling her uppity. Every black voter in America knows that. This is really not helping his case.

But I guess that's just their go to line. If when all else fails, just try racism. And how how rich coming from a guy who is on a ticket that is constantly bashed the USA, that is constantly said the American dream is dead, that has constantly said that the men and women that are in the United States Armed Services are weak and woke when they are stronger than they've ever been relative to the rest of the world. How ironic that you've got a guy that actually is part of a ticket.

And look at their words. Not mine. Look at their words. That's done nothing but tear down the United States of America. Saying that Kamala Harris seems like an ingrate. Donald Trump inherited like $400 million from his daddy. Like, talk about a silver spoon. He's been given everything anybody could be given in this country.

And all he does is trash it. All he does is say that this is a horrible country. All he says is it's a weak country. It's a terrible country. And only he says is it's a weak country. It's a terrible country and only he can save it. I mean, the hypocrisy, Jonathan, is terrible. And and these these veiled attacks that aren't really that veiled. They already have. This is the problem with J.D. Vance as a vice presidential pick. And I think they already know it now. The problem is they had all those voters after Charlottesville. All the dog

whistles. They had that after Charlottesville with when Donald Trump said they're good people on both sides. They had those voters. They need to get the voters now in the suburbs of Atlanta and the suburbs of Milwaukee, the suburbs of Philly and the suburbs of Detroit. That doesn't get them there. So I think this race is going to get even more interesting. And I just wonder if they are capable of adjusting to doing what they need to do to actually bring new voters into the fold. Yeah, the Vance pick doubled down on the voters that he had. And yes, maybe it helps them in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. But this is just going further on MAGA. That's not expanding the tent at all. And now you have, on the Democratic side, we know that President Biden had been struggling with young voters, progressive voters, voters of colors, black and Latino. Vice President Harris has a chance to

potentially reverse that. And while the Trump advance ticket shows no ability now to potentially have new outreach to those voters. We are also seeing a recycling of some of the Michelle Obama attack lines. That's what that line felt like from J.D. Vance. And at least in these first couple of days, a real struggle to sharpen what they're going to say about Kamala Harris. For example, the NRSC, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, put out a memo yesterday suggesting attack lines, among them that Harris sometimes laughs at, quote, inappropriate moments. They also they also this is real. They they criticized her love of Venn diagrams.

Now, how that is going to resonate with any voter. I mean, we could create a Venn diagram, perhaps, of people who are upset by laughing and diagrams. Mike Barnicle, that's going to be a pretty small number. What did you know about the Venn diagram? And when did you know it, ma'am? I mean, come on. There's nothing there. You know, the interesting thing about what you just read

and what we just saw from J.D. Vance on the screen is this is an eight-year-old playbook in terms of our politics that people are familiar with, that Donald Trump brought to the scene, public scene when he first ran for president in 2016. But it's been his playbook for at least 40 years. And it's been filled with everything that you just indicated. You know, sly racism, bitterness, resentment, talking America down. No one's as good as they are. Everybody's deficient in some aspect or another. This is an old and tired playbook. And what you just read, you know, I hadn't thought about the Venn diagram stuff. That's a game changer. That could pack a punch. That really could. I mean, the thing is, the idea, Mika, is that

if you want to win Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, you have to get swing voters. You have to get them in the suburbs. And this sort of talk doesn't get Republicans those votes. It just doesn't. You know, they may be playing cynically to try. I don't know. Maybe they think that J.D. Vance and Donald Trump and Republicans that that put out, you know, racist statements. Maybe they think cynically that that's going to help them in rural America. I would hope not. But it's certainly not going to help them with the sort of swing voters they need to get. And again, if they want to win, it's what we said leading into 2020.

If they want to win, they have to expand their electorate. They're just not doing that. And J.D. Vance, that's why J.D. Vance never made any sense to me, because he doesn't expand the electorate like Nikki Haley would, like the governor of Virginia. What's his name?

Glenn Youngkin. How quickly we forget. Glenn Youngkin would have done. There would have been people like that that would have made people in the suburbs of Atlanta go, oh, okay, yeah, I can vote for him for just like Mike Pence did that with evangelicals. But they just didn't do it. They doubled down on on Trumpism. We'll see how it works. Yeah. Well, I think just knowing Kamala Harris, this seems like a perfect matchup

for the Democrats to win. And I'll tell you why. If she was running against a Mike Pence, a polite person, it might be just whatever. But she's running against someone who often behaves in a racist, misogynistic way. The more racist they get, the more misogynistic they get, the more mean they get, the more cruel they get, the better she gets. That is her pocket. She, as she told me many times, she eats no for breakfast, but even more, the prosecutor in her, the person who wants to protect people, when she gets given that kind of behavior, she gives back even more. So let's talk about diagrams now.

Project 2025, the 920-page policy manifesto by the conservative group, the Heritage Foundation, highlights a wish list of economic and financial plans under a potential Trump second term. While Trump hasn't said he doesn't know anything about Project 2025, he says he doesn't know anything about it. We did a segment recently with NBC's Von Hilliard showing how connected to it he actually is, even if he denies it. Proposals include higher taxes on lower income Americans, increased student loan payments and major cuts to Medicaid.

Steve Ratner has made his way to the Southwest Wall with charts on those financial implications of Project 2025. And Steve, your first chart shows there would be higher taxes on the less well-off. Tell us about it. Sure, Mika. Look, taxes are obviously perhaps issue number one on the minds of many Americans, and Project 25 is very clear about what it wants to do. It essentially wants to restructure our tax system into only two tax brackets, 15 percent for lowest earning, less than the Social Security maximum, which is, I think, about $166,000 a year, and 30% for those earning above.

But that would radically change how much different Americans pay. It would actually increase the amount that people making less than $150,000, less than that cutoff pay, $1,000, $2,000, $2,500. They would pay more taxes, but people above the wealthy would pay dramatically less taxes. If you earn $400,000 a year, you would get a tax cut of about $14,000. So an extraordinary shift in the tax burden away from the wealthy and toward the less wealthy. This is an even more extreme version of what Trump did in his tax bill, the TCJA, Tax Cut and Jobs Act, back in 2017 or so. And you can see here the impact of that was similarly regressive in that people at the

bottom got a much smaller percentage increase in their tax cut, and people at the top got a much larger tax cut. 85% of this tax bill went to people making more than seventy five thousand dollars or to business. And so essentially what this proposal would do is take this and put it on steroids. So, Steve, the the the Biden administration's attempts to actually lessen the student loan burden really enraged Republicans. In fact, whenever you would bring up January the 6th, it seems that a lot of Republicans go, yeah, well, look what Joe Biden did with student loans. And they were serious. Like, that's just that sad. But they were serious. This Project 2025 thing actually is going to increase the burden on on people with student loans. Right.

Yeah. So Joe Biden did make a bunch of proposals. Some of them got litigated and overturned. But then he found other ways, which I'm going to talk about in a second, to address the student loan burden. But what Project 2025 would do essentially would be to eliminate all of what the Biden administration did to cut the burden of student loans. And you can see here, this is broken down by education and all the way from some college but no degree to master's program. And so in terms of the monthly student loan payments for the people at the bottom, their monthly average student payments would go from 78 to 308 dollars. So a huge increase for those with very little college, people who don't probably have great jobs and for whom this is a big burden. And then smaller increases, but still substantial all the way up to people who have master's degrees. So completely

wiping out everything the Biden administration has done for the last three and a half years. But let me show you one impact of what the Biden administration has done. We all know that student loan debt has been a huge problem and it's gone up and up and up. It's gone up and up per student. And this is even inflation adjusted and it went up under Trump. But for the first time since at least 2007, student loan debt per borrower has actually gone down for three straight years. Still really high, but you can actually see tangible progress made under the Biden administration in reducing that student loan burden.

Yeah. And so we're talking about higher student loans. We're talking about higher taxes for working class Americans. And finally, let's talk about the impact that it's going to have the Medicaid. You know, there there used to be this this idea, oh, Medicaid, that just goes to poor people living in urban areas. And what a lot of Americans have figured out since Medicaid cuts have come. No, it actually it that's money that actually funds rural hospitals. That's money that funds nursing homes. That's money that funds a lot of of medical care, a lot of medical treatment for Americans of all of all demographics in all parts of America. And Donald Trump are I mean, if if he really does embrace 2025, like he said in the past, he's going to support more

massive cuts to Medicare. Yeah, Joe, you're right. And Medicaid, Medicaid. You're right, Joe. Medicaid. I think right, Joe. Medicaid, I think there's something like 90 million people on Medicaid in America, 38 million children. So you're right. It is not just some urban program for a few poor people. And what Project 2025 wants to do is put limits on how long you can stay on Medicaid, effectively kick people off Medicaid, put in work requirements, put in a whole number of restrictions that would dramatically change the number of people who are on Medicaid. So this map shows you by color coding, the darker colors being the worst hit places,

what share of enrollees could lose their Medicaid. So in Virginia, in Wisconsin, in Idaho, you could be talking about 40 to 50 percent of people being kicked off of Medicare, Medicaid. In every state, pretty much you can see that it's anywhere from 10 percent up to 40 percent all the way across the country. It would be a massive change in a program that, as you said, is absolutely central to our health care system and to the lives of so many people who can't afford their own healthcare. But it's also a question politically of whether this is really a great idea for the Republicans to embrace, because Medicaid is actually extraordinarily popular.

Not surprisingly, it's supported by 90% of Democrats versus only eight who have an unfavorable view of it. But even among Republicans, 65 percent of Republicans think favorably about Medicaid and only 32 percent think unfavorably about Medicaid. So it's terrible policy. It also may be terrible politics for the Republicans to embrace proposals like this. And it's particularly terrible if you look at the map in states like Virginia, Wisconsin, and obviously important states for this election. Thank you so much, Steve Ratner,

at the Southwest Wall. They tell us that it's the Southwest Wall. Greatly appreciate it. Gene Robinson, you know, it's so fascinating. I've always thought that, you know, throwing terms around like Project 2025, that was just, you know, that was a little too esoteric for voters. You know, keep it on a bumper sticker. Keep it simple. Say they're going to take away your Medicaid. Say they're going to make you.

But this really pulls badly for Republicans. It really polls badly for Donald Trump and really polls well when Democrats attack it. It's fascinating. It's, weirdly enough, one of those things that's kind of cut through the fog. Yeah. And there are all these clips of Donald Trump talking about how important it is before denying that he knew anything about it. Exactly. You can tell it's cutting through by the frequency with which Donald Trump tries to distance

himself from these policies that he previously endorsed and that the people he's going to bring into an administration if he, are determined to enact. And so, you know, Project 25, yes, it sounds esoteric and abstract. And so, you know, politics, repetition matters. And Democrats have been repeating, repeating, repeating Project 2025. So it does cut through after a certain point. And, you know, if I were running the Harris campaign, she's going to Wisconsin today. I would send a courier over to pick up Steve Ratner's chart of those states that are going to lose all that Medicaid coverage, where all those people are gonna lose their health care, and that has Wisconsin bright red. And I would take that up to Milwaukee with me today, and maybe that's what I would lead with in the speech. These are stunning numbers. This is atrocious, ruinous policy. And people are

learning about it. This could be highly effective. Jean, thank you very much. We'll be reading your latest piece online now for The Washington Post. And coming up, our next guest is investigating how autocracies are working together to undermine the democratic world. The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum joins us with a look at her new book. That's next on Morning Joe. The press gets angry. They said, is President Xi of China, is he a smart man? I said, no, he's a brilliant man. He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist.

Can you imagine President Xi, Putin, all of them? They're all smart, tough. They love their country or they want to do well with their country, whatever it is, all ideology. But we have to have somebody that can protect us. And Orban was right. We have to have somebody that can protect us. Right now, we have really low IQ people in there.

And the president in particular. You know, a lot of times the press would say, he gets along with Kim Jong-un, North Korea. He has a lot of nuclear weapons. All he wants to do is buy nuclear weapons and make them. I said, just relax, chill. You got enough. You got so much nuclear weapons, so much.

I said, just relax. Go to a nice, let's go to a baseball game. I'll show you what a baseball. We'll go watch the Yankees. President, she's brilliant. Yeah. Just take it from Orban. Orban was right.

Love letters to Kim Jong-un. Kim Jong-un, Yankees fan. Yeah, huge. We saw thatkees fan yeah huge i mean we knew that i mean i mean we knew he liked rodman yeah but the yankees that was donald trump at his campaign rally in michigan on saturday this is the new and improved donald that was saturday what okay let's bring it right now steph raider for the atlantic and apple bomb she's out today with a new bug titled autocracy inc the dictators who want to run the world and this is this is a great follow-up to to your last extraordinary, which you say, you say in your defense, your books do usually have happy endings. If we want them to have happy endings, they will have happy endings.

Right. It takes effort to create the happy ending. It doesn't happen automatically. There's no law of history that gives it to us. One of the things that's so mind-b bending about Donald Trump is the fact that we have all grown up. We have all been taught that that that history does have an arc and that arc does move towards freedom and justice and liberty.

And if if you believe like I know I know we all believed growing up that that freedom was expanding. Freedom was on the march. We were going to beat the Soviet Union. We were going to help free 100 million people behind the Iron Curtain, all of that, that we were moving in the right direction. And even when we weren't, we at least knew what the North Star was. It was freedom. It is shocking to hear Donald Trump align himself with Putin, with Xi, with Kim Jong-un, with Orban. I mean, I always when people ask what would a second administration look like? Well, just Donald Trump has told you it will be we will be be big hungry

but but how did that come to be and Why are such a large swath of? Republicans my former party Who used to be? For Reagan, you know sort of the spread of freedom and liberty. How did they get to this point where they are falling behind a man who loves Kim Jong-un? I think there are a couple answers. One of them is the Cold War ended and some people didn't want to switch into talking about policy and how to fix the roads and how to make things better. If you remember the 1990s were the era of policy wonks and we need to think of what the right program is to make people more prosperous.

And for a lot of people, I'm afraid some of your former colleagues, that was boring and they wanted to go on doing ideological warfare. And that became our modern culture wars. I think that's that's a part of the explanation. And then another part is that when the Soviet Union fell apart, there were these enormous new markets to go into. We went into them, I think, often in good faith. Right. And we assumed that that would mean our values would move from, as we used to say, from the West to the East and liberalism and freedom would spread. And I think something different happened, that some of the ideas and especially the corruption of the autocratic world instead came in our direction. And that's what my book is about. Well, and how did that happen? How did we get infected?

Globalization was supposed to spread free markets, free enterprise, free political thought across the world. Globalization meant that there is now one open global conversation and anybody can participate in it. And the Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians can join our conversation. And we saw a kind of crude version of it in 2016 with the fake Facebook pages and Russian trolls and so on. But it's actually a lot more sophisticated than that. There are, you know, there's a lot of thinking that goes into autocratic narratives. How do we convince people that autocracy is safe and stable and secure and democracy is divided and chaotic and degenerate or even sexually degenerate. And people put a lot of money and effort into writing those stories and pushing them out in lots of different ways and convincing people of them. And it's not even a question anymore of

autocratic influence, like we're so weak and they influence us. It's that there are Americans and Europeans who have the same view and who borrow these ideas. I mean, the world is open. You can borrow ideas from anyone. You can borrow technology from anyone. And, you know, whether it's Chinese surveillance technology or whether it's Russian narratives, they're up for grabs. And at the end of the day, Katty, it's all about money. If you believe that Donald Trump at the end of the day is all about, you know, the bottom line, it's all about money.

You know, talk to business people, talk to foreign governments. They will tell you they would much rather deal with China than the United States, because when you deal with China, you know, you pay off one or two people. You deal with one or two strongmen. You don't have to worry about a subcommittee chairman or chairwoman holding up a bill that is, you know, maybe six months from now, we'll get from the House to the Senate and then maybe we'll get to, you know, all the checks and balances. It drives a lot of people mad and crazy. And there are no checks and balances to speak of in China or some of these other countries. Right. What you describe is the kind of messiness of democracy.

And what Donald Trump wants is a much more transactional view of foreign policy. It's not what America has had since the end of the Second World War, but that is kind of what he represents. You give us this, we'll give you that. Forget the idea of global leadership. Forget the idea of morals or values or ideals. This is just, as you say, it's about money. Anne, let's talk a little bit about Viktor Orban, because I've been reading what

J.D. Vance says about Orban, and it's kind of a very open, frank admiration for the guy, right? Whether it's we should in America get the Department of Education just to ban the teaching of critical race theory, or we should, like they have done in Hungary, give money to couples to stay together. I mean, it's a weird kind of interventionist banned the teaching of critical race theory, or we should, like they have done in Hungary, give money to couples to stay together. I mean, it's a weird kind of interventionist view of the government in family life. Even if they're not happy, we'll give them loans in order to stay together. How much does this election, where now you have the presidential and the vice presidential candidate on the GOP side being so open about their admiration for somebody like Victor Orban. How much of this is this American election a turning point in the kind of narrative where you say we can have a happy ending or not

have a happy ending and it's up to us? Is this an important moment in that in that story? It's a really, really important moment. I can't stress enough the ties between Orban and the Heritage Foundation. These are the authors of Project 2025, which you've just been talking about. He is also a model for would-be authoritarians around the world because, of course, he was democratically elected. He was legitimately chosen. He was chosen to be leader of Hungary. But once he attained power, he began to alter the institution. So alter the press, alter the judiciary, particularly to alter the nature of the of the of the bureaucracy to switch out civil servants and put put his. And by the way, if I if you can just expand on that, altering the press, not on the margins, taking over media companies, like bringing charges against people that ran media companies, bugging the phones of reporters, telling telling media companies that weren't positive.

I'll tell you what, you can leave the country. We're going to keep your company. You can leave the country or you can go to jail. I mean, like this is this isn't a light touch. No, it was not subtle. It was not subtle. And he also arranged for billionaires or millionaires who he had empowered through government contracts to buy media companies. So as the media became weaker in Hungary, like it has been everywhere else, he, you know, he found people who would step in and take over. So that was another. So it was actually often changes of ownership. It wasn't direct censorship like in the olden days.

Right. OK, so Autocracy, Inc. is the book and we're not even close to being done with Ann Applebaum. We'll come back and talk more about this after the break and we can't wait to hear what the happy ending is going to be