Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/24/24

Episode Date: July 24, 2024

Trump campaign strategy: Tie Harris to Biden

One reason Trump might be struggling to find a good attack on Harris is that deep down he likes her. Because we know that when she was running for California attorney general, Trump donated to her reelection campaign. Yeah, $5,000. Or as Fox News is reporting it, bombshell, Kamala Harris took money from convicted felon. Big news, one of the first polls taken since President Biden dropped out of the race shows Vice President Harris leading former President Trump. Man, if you thought Kamala Harris was laughing hard before.

Yeah, it seems like voters are excited by the idea of having a president who knows when their iPhone flashlight is on. Yeah, Kamala is a hit, and I think I know why. She's way younger than Trump and wears less eyeliner than J.D. Vance. Kamala raised $81 million in 24 hours. She would have raised even more, but Melania hit her daily withdrawal limit. So.

All right. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, July 24th. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire, NBC News National Affairs Analyst and a partner and chief political columnist at POC, John Heilman, president of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation. Reverend Al Sharpton and co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend, Simone Sanders Townsend. She's a former senior advisor and chief spokesperson to Vice President Kamala Harris. Joe and Willie are traveling this morning. We're going to get to three national polls conducted after Joe Biden withdrew from the race, staying on as president. But Simone, to your point at the end of way too early as Republicans

try and connect Kamala Harris with Joe Biden, I think her answer to that and will be and has been, yes, absolutely. I'm part of a winning team that beat Donald Trump. I'm part of a winning team that has had a historic four years. So their clap back is quite easy to that. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, Mika. Look, I think Republicans just don't know what to do here. And because they don't know what to do, they cannot argue against the substance of what the president and vice president have done over the almost last four years. They have immediately resorted to racist and sexist stereotypes and attacks. I mean, we've heard Donald Trump just yesterday, I believe, he was on the stage talking about that, you know, a woman can't be president.

Like, what are you saying? What what is going on here? So this is an opportunity, I think, for Democrats to stay focused. They do have a winning message here. Everything obviously is not rosy. There are some thorny issues that they're going to have to address. But the issues on the merit of the issues in the policy, I think the Harris campaign is on very solid ground. Yeah. Let's take a look at these polls. The first from Reuters and Ipsos finds Vice President Kamala Harris leading former President Donald Trump by two points, 44 percent to 42 percent among registered voters. In a Reuters Ipsos poll taking taken last week, it was Trump ahead two points against Biden.

So a shift since the shift. A morning consult survey conducted in the 24 hours after Biden's announcement also shows Harris faring better than the president. According to this poll, Trump leads Harris by two points among registered voters, 47 percent to 45 percent. Last week, the survey found Trump leading Biden by six. And an NPR PBS Marist College poll taken on Monday shows Harris trailing Trump by a single point among registered voters after one conducted earlier month, found Biden leading Trump by two points. All of these new polls results are within the margin of error still. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris held the first rally of her 2024 campaign yesterday just outside of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The vice president spoke to a fired up standing room only crowd packed into a high school gym.

Harris was on the offensive throughout the 20 minute speech attacking Donald Trump. She framed the election as a prosecutor versus a felon, a fighter for the middle class versus someone who caters to billionaires and a choice between the future and the past. And in this campaign, I promise you, I will proudly put my record against his any day of the week. As Attorney General of California, I took on one of our country's largest for-profit colleges that was scamming students. Donald Trump ran a for-profit college that scammed students. As a prosecutor, I specialized in cases involving sexual abuse. Well, Trump was found liable for committing sexual abuse. As Attorney General of California, I took on the big Wall Street banks and held them

accountable for fraud. Donald Trump was just found guilty of fraud on 34 counts. But Donald Trump wants to take our country backward. He and his extreme Project 2025 agenda will weaken the middle class. Like, we know we got to take this seriously. Can you believe they put that thing in writing? Read it. It's 900 pages.

But here's the thing. When you read it, you will see Donald Trump intends to cut Social Security and Medicare. He intends to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and make working families foot the bill america has tried these failed economic policies before but we are not going back we are not going back. Not going back. We're not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back. We are not going back. All right. You can see the excitement there for Kamala Harris. A lot of people inside the campaign from folks I'm talking to are really feeling it. And these polls, this, Jonathan

Lemire, is a great place to start when you're either neck and neck or edging ahead or not edging too far behind. For a candidate jumping in, what, 100 days before the election, this will be about resilience, of course, to get through the next three months. And also who she surrounds herself with. Jen O'Malley Dillon put out a memo. What's your reporting about what's going on inside the campaign in terms of how they're going to put this together and move forward quickly? Yeah, so far, it's been pretty seamless. The transition from Biden for president to Harris for president. They're still staying there, headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware. Yes,

first of all, there are a couple of personnel shifts. Mike Donilon, one of President Biden's most senior advisors, staying with the campaign, but probably taking a little more of a secondary role, I am told. Steve Ricchetti, again, one of the president's top men, remains at the White House with the president. And his focus going forward will be continue to work on legislative agenda and say and sort of burnishing the president's legacy there. He still, of course, is president for six more months. But otherwise, most of the key campaign staff staying in place. They are looking for additional hires. David Plouffe, someone on our air this week, is being considered as a possibility.

Jim Messina, another one. There's been some reporting. They've had some outreach to him. These are veterans of the Obama campaign. General Manny Dillon, though, remains campaign chair. And she did put out a memo this morning, just a few minutes ago, talking about Vice President Harris's pathways to victory. And again, she notes this is going to be a tough race, a tight race. And it largely still goes through those three states in the blue wall,

Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. But she acknowledges that Harris doing better than President Biden, but also Donald Trump in some other key voting areas, young voters, black voters, Latino voters, voters who Democrats have grown worried about. There's a sense with Harris now at the top of the ticket, there's a chance, Reverend Al Sharpton, to sort of excite those voters again, to bring them home. And if they do, that could open up some more pathways. The Sunbelt, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada, those states that a few weeks ago seemed like they might have been slipping away. Now there's a sense they could bring back young voters and black voters, Latino voters and raise the enthusiasm and sustain it. One of the things that they must be very cautious of is to get the enthusiasm that we've seen over the last 48 hours, but sustain it.

We saw a lot of enthusiasm in 16 around Hillary Clinton. We have to keep it all the way to Election Day if she's going to be victorious. And I think that you play the backboard like you're playing basketball. Every crazy shot that Donald Trump takes at her, use it to score. This whole thing of saying she's a DEI selection because she's black. Oh, my God. You use that to even energize your black base and your female base even more. I hope he keeps saying stupid things. He rolls out people that are convicted of crimes, rap stars. And that's like that's the picture of the black community. You roll out people that are legitimate political people.

There's nothing wrong with people wanting to redo their lives that are rap stars, but to act like they're political leaders. I mean, at the Republican convention, he even used as part of his video a picture he had of me and him in the 80s, trying to act like he reaches out. Was that a DEI video, Mr. Trump? Use his own weight against him. Yeah. And the DEI argument, racist, no doubt. And one that seems like it plays for the Republican primaries, less of a winning strategy, perhaps in a general election. John Hammond, I mean, we all watched the vice president's first rally yesterday.

Burst of enthusiasm. A number of Democrats I heard from saying like a breath of fresh air. And this is not meant to denigrate Joe Biden by any means, but just that Vice President Harris was communicating and delivering attack lines in a way that they simply hadn't heard from the top of the ticket in quite some time. And there's a chance here, though there's only 15 or so weeks until the election, she's got momentum. And the timing, even after it took President Biden a long time to get the decision, may work in her favor where she's got this burst of timing, even after it took President Biden a long time to get the decision, may work in her favor where she's got this burst of energy here. Her announcement, her VP pick coming soon and then her convention.

But we need to start seeing some battleground polls, too. Yeah, all true. And I think, you know, the you know, in the long arc of history, no one will begrudge Joe Biden for taking three weeks, three and a half weeks to make the decision that he made. And what will be looked back on is the fact that he made the decision that I think that many Democrats and many people who love the president but felt that it was the right thing for him to step aside, they think it's the right decision. History will reward that decision for him having made it when he made it. And I do think that by even though everyone was very impatient among those who wanted him to step aside, the reality is, having taken these three weeks, chewed those three weeks

off the clock, and gotten this decision to the other side of the Republican convention, where there's a clear open field running now for Vice President Harris to kind of make her move to march with the kind of enthusiasm that she has, the momentum that she has into the convention in Chicago, which so many people for so long have thought, oh, Chicago could be a nightmare. They thought it could be a nightmare for Joe Biden. They thought it could be a nightmare if it was an open contested convention. Now you have this whole rallying effect. It seems like what you're going to see in Chicago is going to be a love fest behind the new nominee. I think,. I think the most important thing in this

Jen O'Malley-Dillon memo, the crucial sentence, which is, this was something she said before, but Joe Biden was still at the top of the ticket, and something she's saying now, it is a fact. About 7% of the electorate is undecided. And that group has been all along disproportionately made up of African-American voters, Hispanic voters, and young voters. And the hope that the Biden campaign had previously was that those voters who were basically Democrat-leaning voters, Democratic-leaning voters to begin with, could be brought home for Joe Biden. The worry was that they might never get enthusiastic for Joe Biden. There's no gimmies in politics, but from the perspective of the Harris candidacy,

that those seem to be very much available voters that she will have a strong potential to bring back into the Democratic fold. You know, Joe Biden was hovering in the high 80s among Democrats, where Donald Trump had 95 percent of Republicans who were with him. If she can bring the Democratic base home, get those voters home, and given the demographics of it, she has a good chance to do that. They're going to be in a better position to win with her than they were with Joe Biden. As well, no disrespect to Joe Biden, but that is that I think that is a reasonable analysis. It's all about the dynamic. And somehow Kamala Harris's presence as a candidate is really, in my opinion, going to

is already and will continue to expose the nastiness on the Republican side that perhaps even some Republicans have become so inured to. Tonight, President Biden will address the nation for the first time since his decision to drop out of the presidential race. Biden will deliver the primetime address from the Oval Office at eight o'clock Eastern. According to a source familiar with the remarks, Biden is expected to detail his decision to end his reelection campaign and also outline his plans for the rest of his time in office. Meanwhile, the New York Times reports that ahead of tonight's address, former President Trump's campaign sent a letter to ABC, NBC and CBS demanding Trump be given equal time. Simone, you know, while this has been a really difficult decision for Joe Biden and one that's been perhaps made more difficult by members of his own party. No one is better than pressing the reset button than Joe Biden. He has stood by

Kamala Harris from the very beginning. He's extremely loyal and he believes in people. And that's why his people succeed, because they have the backing of their mentors. And Joe Biden will fight for her as well. And it's so interesting because the fight here now will be against Trump's lies. Because again, as I said before, a very successful presidency. It's not like Kamala Harris is picking up the pieces of a mess. She's actually taking the baton from a presidency that has made history. So that's one argument she'll need to make. But the other challenge will be to keep up with the disinformation that Donald Trump and his people put out there, whether it be about foreign leaders and who our friends and enemies are on the world stage or about Joe Biden's actual accomplishments.

I mean, I had to laugh, Mika, because Donald Trump doesn't understand that Joe Biden is still the president of the United States of America. You don't get to demand equal time from the president, honey. He's no longer a candidate. Someone needs to brief former President Trump about the rules. Absolutely. So the speech tonight that the president is going to give, I think, is very important. People have been talking about Joe Biden. So he is gone and he is going to come before the American people tonight and tell them not only am I not gone, I am here. I'm going to do everything I can to support my vice president. And let me also tell you how I plan to finish the

job that I am still that I am still doing. And there is so, I mean, there is so much work left to do that this administration can get done. I mean, we are still on the cusp of a deal happening between Hamas and Israel to end that war, get the hostages back, and get to some form of a peace agreement. And that's just one thing there. When it comes to the vice president and her campaign, though, absolutely, there is a record that this administration has. There's a record that she has. And this is also going to be about the future, though. And there are we've already heard the attacks, right, coming from Republicans. And I think that

these are not new. The vice president herself has been one of the people that has been very much so targeted from the beginning of the administration by right wing conservative media. There has not been a focus on a vice president like this from the beginning. And as when I went to work at the White House, as folks told me ever, they didn't focus on Pence like this. They didn't focus on Biden like this. They didn't focus on Dick Cheney. I mean, you can go down the line. The focus on her was insane, but also very intense. And so this is not something new to her apparatus. But people have to counter the misinformation. You already hear folks talking about the border czar.

She wasn't the border czar. She did diplomacy in Central America. But the campaign is going to have to make that case. Talking about inflation, talking about her record as a prosecutor. What exactly did she who did she prosecute? Those are things that you already see the vice president herself positioning. But it is only going to get more intense as we barrel towards not even just November, but people start voting in September. Wow. All right. Before we go to break, we want to follow up on a reference from Monday's show

when MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle said that Donald Trump was found guilty of rape. He was referring to Mr. Trump being found civilly liable for sexual abuse in the E. Jean Carroll case. Mr. Trump has not been criminally convicted of rape. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll take a look at what voters in Battleground, Wisconsin, think about Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket. Elise Jordan joins us with the focus group she just conducted yesterday. Plus, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to address Congress this afternoon. We'll have the latest on the reaction from Capitol Hill as dozens of Democratic lawmakers plan to boycott the remarks.

You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. President Biden's selfless decision has given the Democratic Party the opportunity to unite behind a new nominee. And boy, oh boy, are we enthusiastic. We are here today to throw our support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris and her candidacy has excited and energized the House Democratic Caucus, the Democratic Party, and the nation. Vice President Harris has earned the nomination. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries announcing their official support for Kamala Harris for president.

A new piece just published on NBCNews.com is highlighting how Democrats are cautiously optimistic they may finally have the first female president with Kamala Harris, despite the challenges of sexism and racism. NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale writes that Vice President Harris is entering the presidential race with some unique weapons that Hillary Clinton did not have eight years ago. And Ali joins us now. So what kind of weapons, I'll put that in quotes, are you talking about that perhaps puts Kamala Harris in a unique position to have an advantage here? My question, Mika, was what's changed since 2016, since 2022, and even since I wrote my book in 2021 about the role that Vice President Harris plays in Washington. And of course, now that

she's going to be on the top of the ticket. And I think the thing that Harris has now, according to all the conversations that I've had with lawmakers and experts at women's groups, is that she has more proof of purchase. People have seen since 2016 the 2018 influx of women elected to the House. They have then seen the role after 2022 that the Dobbs decision will play. You know, I was listening to your conversation with Simone about the idea of Republicans now focusing on immigration and the border. That was not a good time, I think Simone would agree, for Vice President Harris in the early years in this White House. But what everyone that I've spoken to has told me is that

this immediate coalescing around her has so much to do with the way that she spent the last year and a half on the campaign trail. And it's because the topic set has really flowed to her skill set, which is to say she is the perfect messenger on reproductive access and abortion health care. And she has shown that out on the campaign trail. She's a very different candidate, even watching her in the last few days than she was when I covered her in 2019 and 2020. And then certainly even after her first year in the White House, many people are paying attention to that. But I also think it's really important to just point out the ways in which the landscape has changed. And I think the way that we talk about not just women being elected in 2018 and the Dobbs decision in 2022, but most of the

experts and leaders that I spoke to for this piece said, you just look at a place like Michigan, where it is mostly women elected throughout the upper ranks of leadership in that state, starting and stemming from Gretchen Whitmer, that tells a larger story to people that women can win when they run, that voters just have to vote for them. And I think that that's a really important proof point as we go ahead and talk about not just Harris as an historic candidate, which she is, but also as someone who can just simply be electable. Well, in a guest essay for The New York Times entitled How Kamala Harris Can Win and Make History, you mentioned Hillary Clinton. She writes in part, I know a thing or two about how hard it can be for strong women candidates to fight through sexism and double standards of American

politics. As a candidate, I sometimes shied away from talking about making history. I wasn't sure voters were ready for that. And I wasn't running to break a barrier. I was running because I thought I was the most qualified to do the job. While it still pains me that I couldn't break the highest, hardest glass ceiling, I'm proud that my two presidential campaigns made it seem normal to have a woman at the top of the ticket.

Ms. Harris will face unique additional challenges as the first black and South Asian woman to be at the top of a major party's ticket. That's real, but we shouldn't be afraid. It is a trap to believe that progress is impossible. I couldn't agree more. And Jonathan, the mayor, I'll let you take it back to Ali. It's interesting because Kamala Harris has made a point in some of her opening speeches about her experience. And it's not just her experience as vice president working under this successful presidency legislatively and on

the world stage, not just her experience in the Senate, often in hearings, grilling Republicans from the Trump administration on their misdeeds, not just her experience as an attorney general, but her experience as a prosecutor. And I say that because whether it's in a speech, whether it's somebody lobbying an inappropriate question at her or whether it's in a speech, whether it's somebody lobbying an inappropriate question at her or whether it's during a debate, Kamala Harris is used to dealing with highly unusual situations. She's dealt with criminals and abusers, people who have absolutely no, no walls, no, no boundaries around what they might say or might do. People who behave irrationally.

She's used to that. She's used to that behavior. She can manage it. She's not shocked by it at all. Even bold faced, lying, disgusting attacks that even happening in person is something she's got. Yeah, no, she's ready for this moment. That is that is clear. And look, there have been some questions at times about some of her political talents, in part stemming from her 2019 2020 presidential presidential campaign simply didn't

go very well. It didn't. She didn't even make it to Iowa. But she has those close to her say and frankly, those who were skeptical of first of her at first say she has grown into this moment. We saw her certainly become this administration's leading voice on abortion, health care and other issues over the last few years. you know, how often in these first days of her campaign, she is invoking, as Mika said, her time as a prosecutor and suggesting prosecutor versus felon, cop versus con, if you will, when she lays this out against Donald Trump. And also talk to us about that, but also just how that is reflective of how this moment in politics have changed, where in 2019, 2020, her prosecutor background was held against her by Democrats. And right now it is seen as a real strength held against her by Democrats and including some black voters. I remember going to South Carolina and hearing this from voters and then also hearing it from Congressman Jim Clyburn at the time when we were talking about why she hadn't yet caught on.

I think Harris in 2019, again, is a very different politician than she is right now. And the issue set has changed to match where her resume is, not just in terms of taking on Trump from an offensive perspective, saying that she's the prosecutor going against someone who's a felon. Certainly, she laid that out yesterday in her first rally. But the other piece of it, too, is watching the ways that she has been able to speak to women, be the first vice president to go to an abortion providing clinic. All of that means that she is so central to the conversation around reproductive health care access, which I have said we have said on this show is the issue that I would put money on being the thing that turns voters outside of just do I want to vote for a Democrat? Do I want to vote for a Republican? That's important. But I think the thing that Secretary Clinton says in her op ed that is so essential is that this is now normal.

The idea that women can run and be at the top of a ticket, it's normalizing. And that has such a big role to play here, too. NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Ali Vitale, thank you very much for coming on this morning with your reporting and joining us from Green Bay, Wisconsin, former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department, Elise Jordan. She's an MSNBC political analyst, and she sat down with Wisconsin voters last night to get their thoughts on the election. So first, Elise, tell us about who these voters are that you spoke with. Hi, Mika. So last night, I sat down with two groups of Wisconsin voters, the all-important voters in this state where around 20,000 votes decided the last two presidential elections, we spoke to a group of female Trump supporters.

And then we spoke to a group of right-leaning swing voters to hear what they thought about the recent shakeup in the election and how they see the campaign. Now, Mika, I will say that I had been in Wisconsin about a month ago doing similar focus groups, and I was really shocked at what a burst of energy the new nomination of Vice President Harris has given the race in the sense of how the Trump supporters responded and how the swing voters responded. So I'm excited for everyone to hear directly from the voters at this important moment. Right. So let's let's listen to one of the groups you spoke with, women Trump supporters in Wisconsin. I'll say it again, women Trump supporters in Wisconsin. Here's some of what they had to say to you about Vice President Kamala Harris.

Do you think that having Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee dramatically changes Donald Trump's odds of winning? I'm worried about it. I think she's going to go for the minority and female and younger voters. Progressive. Everybody's excited about her. And that scares me. You know, because Trump has to reconfigure where he's going and how they're going to outsmart her.

How do you perceive Vice President Harris compared to President Biden in terms of competency and experience? I think she's worse. She doesn't even know what's going on at the border. Right. And that's what she was supposed to be doing and in charge of. I mean, as a school teacher, if I did not do what I was supposed to be doing, you better believe my job would be in jeopardy. Well, it isn't.

Not only was her job not in jeopardy, she was just handed a promotion. Is there anyone that Kamala Harris could appoint as her vice president that you would find reassuring? Would make you consider voting for her? No. No. No. I would never consider voting for her.

No. No. No. I would do RFK Jr. way before her. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.

And she's not the first woman to run for the presidency, Hillary Clinton. I'm assuming no one voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. So it's not necessarily going to sway you to vote for a woman in office. When do you think America will have a female president? When there's a competent one. I don't get a good feel for her. I think she's an idiot. Right. Mary, why do you think that she's not that bright? Because she hasn't done anything in the time that she's had. We don't know anything about her as far as her three years so far in the White House. She's not real smart. That's my opinion. It could be wrong. If Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election, do you think that will be an honest result?

No, absolutely not. No one respects her. Hey, Elise, some fairly unsurprising responses there from the MAGA group that you talked to. I'm really interested in the other group you did, which is the kind of the swing voter group, the center right voters. And I'm interested because one of the things that the Trump campaign has done, in addition to some of the racist and sexist attacks that they've launched against her over the course of the last couple of days, there has been in their advertising or digital video, there's been this focus on the question of she was in on it. She was concealing President Biden's health and trying to make that one of the many arguments they want to make about her. I'm

curious in that group, in the in the center right group, not the MAGA group, what kind of what you hear from them about that issue? I'm trying to try to get a sense of whether that is an issue that has real salience with voters and something that the Harris campaign is going to have to deal with going forward. Well, Harmon, that's a great question because that's exactly what we're about to hear in the next clip and why we chose this clip, because it really came out so organically. The idea that these swing voters, that these right leaning voters are grappling with considering Vice President Harris, but they feel misled by the Biden administration about Biden's fitness. And so they don't necessarily trust her. And they question if she played a role in a so-called,

quote, cover up of President Biden's health. So let's listen to the second group of voters. These are undecided voters. Talk about their caveats with Donald Trump and with Kamala Harris. If you have one concern about President Trump, tell me that concern. And then what's your one concern about Kamala Harris? For me, my concern about Trump is him making too aggressive of choices and us not being able to recover from it. I appreciate that he is willing to, if a bomb is dropped on our doorstep, he is out the door as fast as it hit us. But that does make me nervous because did we vet everything that's going to happen of it?

My concern about Harris is a bomb has dropped on our doorstep. It's going to be six months before we move, and now we're viewed as weak. So, again, which route do I really want to go? It's personal questions on myself. So it makes me a little nervous on both sides. What about you Brad? It would just be nice if they concentrate more on the issues instead of the mud slinging and personal attacks. I mean we got problems in this country that's the left ring and the right ring are on the same bird. I mean let's let's try to find that common ground but

we can't agree on things. Let's start with that. What about you Karen? I don't think we can't agree on things let's start with that what about you karen i don't think we can ignore trump's convictions his integrity his moral character i worry about him if he gets retaliation for you know something he gets him upset, and he's going to retaliate without slowing down, thinking it through. I honestly need to get more information about Camila because I just don't know enough about her. So I'm going to wait and see.

I have to kind of step back and see. I've learned a lot just through our conversation today about her that I found really interesting. Who do you blame for President Biden being in office in this condition? Who deserves the blame? His close staff. They work with him every day. So I think that's what also makes me nervous about the Vice President Harris. Talk about that a bit. So yes, she's going to be in it, but she also helped keep him in where he's at right now. And if he really is as bad as what they've been saying, I think if he steps down as president and she steps into the presidency before the end of his term, it almost makes me question a little bit more why it didn't happen sooner. She's worked

with him. She's been, to my understanding, with him daily or at least a couple of days a week. Why hasn't this been brought to attention? If she's willing to hide that type of information once she's in office, now what she's willing to hide for herself. And so I think that makes me a little bit uneasy, not necessarily that I wouldn't vote for her for it, but it definitely opens that questioning of why now? Why are you now being okay with exposing Biden's health concerns? Is it because it benefits you or kind of what that line of questioning looks like? Is it a power grabber? Does anyone agree with Melissa's point that it calls into the vice president's judgment that she has been around while Biden's health has deteriorated. 100 percent. Agreed. But it also seems like that's kind of how she carries herself. She

kind of does what in the moment she needs to do to continue to move forward and move up. So interesting. I love these, Elise. They really give a sense of how people are thinking in these swing states, independent voters, voters who maybe still are making a decision. I'm curious. It almost seems like you get a sense of what the challenge will be for Vice President Kamala Harris when you hear from these voters. What are you going to be doing today? Who will you be speaking with today? Well, we're leaving the National Railroad Museum, who hosted us last night to talk to these great Green Bay voters. And we're heading to Madison and we're going to talk to progressive voters under the age of 40. And then we're going to hear from traditional Democratic voters about how they feel about President Biden leaving the race and their thoughts on the new nominee, Kamala Harris. All right. MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan. Great work. Thank you so much. Simone, I'm wondering what your thoughts there are on some of the comments made by those

voters. It's interesting because the way Joe Biden came to his decision was painful and it involved a lot of things that happened within the Democratic Party. I think you and I are aligned about that. I I I'm very concerned about this sort of narrative. And I do believe it comes from the right that there was lying about his situation, about his abilities. And, you know, it was a big cover up. These are the types of things that will happen to Kamala Harris as the race progresses. And those voters just proved it. What do you think? Look, my point about the right wing media machine that has been targeting the vice president from the beginning, you know, ever since she was put on the ticket as the running mate in 2020, that same machine has been targeting President Biden,

even during his 2020 campaign throughout the entirety of the time he served in the White House as president. And what those voters are saying is what is being repeated incessantly throughout right-wing media, on television, on social media, in right-wing and conservative, I don't even think does it justice, because these are not conservative outlets. These are truly right-wing outlets. And because people have heard it so often, they take it to be true. And so the campaign is going to have to do the work of countering this narrative. But they have to pick and choose because some of the things you won't be able to,

you know, it's like, how can you undo four or five years of negative media coverage and lies about the president and the vice president? Lastly, Mika, this is why the Oval Office address from the president today is so important. Literally reading some of the things online, some of the stuff from right wing conservative media and even some of the stuff from mainstream media. It would have you think that Joe Biden is no longer the president of the United States of America, that he has stepped down from the campaign and he has somehow advocated his duties as president. And that could be further from the truth. And so you cannot ignore when you see the president sitting at what, I don't know if it'll be the Resolute Desk or if he'll be in Cross Hall tonight, but you cannot ignore him standing there or sitting there

speaking directly to the American people, clear and concise and making his case. And that is going to be important for those voters that at least talk to in Wisconsin. Simone Sanders Townsend, thank you so much for coming on this morning. We appreciate it. And coming up on Morning Joe, it could be a contentious day on Capitol Hill where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to deliver a joint address to Congress amid the ongoing war in Gaza. And we'll have the latest fallout from the assassination attempt on Donald Trump after the director of the Secret Service was grilled by lawmakers on Monday. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. People can become a bit dispirited, and we have to remind them of what is good and what is right,

and that they are important and that they are not alone. I think for us as leaders at this moment in time, one of the things we can do best is to remind people they are not alone. And that's about building community, about convening and bringing people together and reinforcing the fact that we all have so much more in common than what separates us. That was Vice President Kamala Harris at the National Urban League's annual conference back in 2022. Today, this year's conference kicks off with more than 100 lawmakers, White House officials, business leaders, activists and celebrities convening in New Orleans for the event. And joining us now, the president and CEO of the National Urban League, Mark Morial. Mark, it's great to have you back on the show. Hey, good morning.

Obviously, current events will be taking center stage, I'm sure, today. But tell us what and who we can expect today. Well, we've got a great lineup of celebrities, people like Cheryl Underwood, for example, Leslie Odom, a number of others who will be with us to be honored. The speakers are far and wide, but let me maybe share with you what's on people's mind. Project 2025 and a discussion about that plan and what a Trump

administration might mean when it comes to policy is turn this place on fire. The attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion that have taken place have turned this place on fire. And now with Kamala Harris on the ticket, the energy around voting has surged. The interest in people to be involved in our Reclaim Your Vote campaign, which is a nonpartisan get out the vote campaign, has surged. Today, we'll open with a Reclaim Your Vote rally at Xavier University, a historically Black university here in New Orleans, to kick off the convention because civic engagement and voting is central to what people here are talking about and thinking about. Mark Al Sharpton, as we look at this race and the beginning

day of the National Urban League's convention, we see that in the last 12 to 18 months, we've seen affirmative action overturned by the Supreme, this Supreme Court. We've seen DEI as an outgrowth of the affirmative action under attack. Voting rights has been severely impaired by the Supreme Court. Women's right to choose. So you and I are part of what they call a civil rights eight, eight legacy organizations, you and Urban League, me and National Action Network, directly feels under attack on some of the laws the generations ahead of us established have now literally been reversed. I'm glad you mentioned that, Reverend, and I'll be very pleased to welcome you and see you on Friday when you'll be part of a discussion we have on exactly that. We're going to talk about that. And I think what we are as the civil rights leaders of today, we're the bridge to 60 years ago. The Civil Rights Act of 64, the bridge to 70 years ago, the Brown versus the Board of Education decision, and now can define for America why these attacks coming from state legislatures, from the Supreme Court, from the Trump candidacy

are so severe and important. And I will tell you that people are worried. They are indignant. They are fired up. Most of our conferees over the last 24 hours, what can we do? What should we do? How do we fight back? How do we make sure our voice is heard? And so Friday, you and I will lead that discussion along with Melanie Campbell and several others, because people want to be in the discussion about what they can do. These attacks coming from the Supreme Court, coming from state legislatures, are so anti-democratic, so anti-American, so undermining of the progress that generations of leaders have helped us make. And they affect our children and they affect our children's children. So we stand in the breach, I think,

is the moral conscience of America, along with many others, to say that this direction is not right. All right. This year's National Urban League's annual conference kicks off today in New Orleans. President and CEO of the National Urban League, Mark Morial, thank you very much for coming on this morning. We'll be watching. Yeah, take care. Still ahead, Democratic governors Kathy Hochul of New York, Wes Moore of Maryland, and Tony Evers of Wisconsin will be our guests on their support for Vice President Kamala Harris

and what the fight is ahead. Plus, hours from now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address a joint session of Congress where lawmakers are deeply divided over his leadership. We'll discuss what to expect there. And we'll speak with the parents of Israel Hamas hostage Hirsch Goldberg Poland, who met with Prime Minister Netanyahu this week. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the death of a black woman in Illinois who called 911 for help, only to be shot and killed by a responding deputy. NBC News correspondent Maggie Vespa has the details and a warning.

Some viewers may find this video extremely upsetting and disturbing. I heard somebody outside. Yeah, we checked your house. We checked your backyard. I walked all the way through all these backyards. An Illinois woman's last moments seen in chilling detail on newly released body camera video. Prosecutors say on the morning of July 6th, 36-year-old Sonia Massey called 911 about a possible intruder. When two deputies arrived at her Springfield home, she at times appeared confused.

I'm trying to get help, y'all, but... What do you need help with? Nothing. I just... Minutes later, Massey picks up what appears to be a pot of boiling water from her stove. The deputy on screen, identified by prosecutors as Sean Grayson. The coroner confirming the mother of two was fatally shot in the head. Her body blurred by police in the video. Protests demanding charges against Deputy Grayson have mounted since. President Biden this week writing in a statement, Sonia's family deserves justice.

He walked around the counter to get a better shot. If you have fear for your life, you don't walk towards the person. Civil rights attorney Ben Crump speaking alongside Massey's family, who say she'd suffered from mental health issues. But you know what I want? I want justice for my baby. Yeah. Grayson was fired from his job with the sheriff's department and a grand jury has now indicted him on three counts of first degree murder. His attorney declining to comment when reached by NBC News. Now the world seeing for themselves how one woman's call for help took such a tragic turn. is your last name? Reverend, now, your thoughts. There's a lot of reporting coming out of this

about what was actually said at the scene when others came to see what happened and family members showed up, what they were told versus what was seen on that body cam video. No, this is an outrage is almost an understatement. I mean, it's almost an execution to see a woman standing there with hot water that he told her to take off the stove. And then he shoots her, comes around the counter to shoot her. I mean, this is the worst video I've seen. And I'm saying I did George Floyd's funeral and the marches. And this is even worse. I know that I talked with the father, Mr. Wilburn, on yesterday with Attorney Ben Crump, attorney general of Black America.

We're going to be rallying. She had two children. And we're having a rally in Chicago with a room with Reverend Marshall Hatch and Ira Ackrey on Tuesday to rally around her children and to give them some support that I'll be going into Chicago with Reverend Hatch and Ackrey to support Mr. Wilbur and her father and her two children. The policeman has been indicted and been prosecuted, but that only is the first step toward justice. And we want to see these children are handled and see the support and feel the support of the community.