Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/29/24

Episode Date: July 29, 2024

Trump already claiming Democrats are going to cheat in November

Well it's true these guys are just weird. It is. They're running for He-Man Women Haters Club or something. That's what they go at. That's not what people are interested in. This is not our living room, but we're using this fake living room to talk to you about a super weird idea from JD Vance. Yeah, it's not. I mean it's quite weird. I think Donald Trump, I know him, and he's probably sitting and watching the TV. And every day, Vance, it comes out Vance has done something more extreme, more weird, more erratic.

You may have noticed Donald Trump has been resorting to some wild lies about my record. And some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it's just plain weird. Democrats describing Republicans with what was the word of the week. Weird. Both candidates were on the campaign trail over the weekend with Donald Trump making an authoritarian style pitch to a crowd of conservative voters. We'll play for you those comments. Meanwhile, Trump's running mate continues to defend his remarks on childless cat ladies. We'll show you how J.D. Vance decided to double down and we'll bring you the latest from the Middle East, where there are growing fears of a wider conflict following a deadly attack in Israel by Hezbollah. And also ahead, an update on the Paris Games,

including an injury scare for one of Team USA's most decorated athletes. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, July 29th. I'm Jonathan Lemire. Joe, I'll make you continue their vacation this week. They'll pop back on, though, in the event of any big breaking news. Willie, that lucky guy, he's on an assignment at the Olympics in Paris, and we will check in with him at various points during the week. But with us this morning, we do have MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan. She is a former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department, former White House director of communications to President Obama, Jennifer Palmieri, President of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, the Reverend Al Sharpton,

and Managing Editor at the Bulwark, Sam Stein. You just saw him on way too early. So let's get started. A lot to get to. Busy news morning. We have now passed the 100-day mark until the November election. And the Kamala Harris campaign says it raised over $200 million in its first week, with the majority of donations coming from first-time donors. There was also a real surge of volunteers, with over 170,000 signing up in a single week. The campaign held what it called a weekend of action, sending its top surrogates like VP contender and Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro out on the campaign trail. As for Donald Trump, well, on Friday night, he addressed Christian voters at the Turning Point Action Believer Summit in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he tried out some new attacks on Vice President Harris.

She was a bum three weeks ago. She was a bum, a failed vice president and a failed administration with millions of people crossing. And she was the border czar. Now they're trying to say she never was the border czar. She had nothing to do with the border. She was the border czar. But if radical, liberal Kamala Harris gets in, and by the way, there are numerous ways of saying her name. They were explaining to me, you can say Kamala, you can say Kamala. I said, don't worry about it. It doesn't matter what I say. I couldn't care less if I mispronounce it or not. I couldn't care less. Some people think I mispronounce it on purpose, but actually I've heard it said about seven different ways. There are a lot of ways. There are a lot of ways.

Trump then hailed a rally in St. Cloud, Minnesota the next day, Saturday, where he is already claiming election fraud, months before any Americans have even cast their votes. If they don't cheat, we win this state easily. Okay. They cheat. They have no shame. They cheat. Do you understand that? You crooked people. They're the most crooked. They cheat. They cheated in the last election and they're going to cheat in this election, but we're going to get them. So Jen, obviously it's inherently offensive to not bother to learn how to pronounce someone's name. And Trump and many of his allies could do this

consistently. But that right there, that's dangerous. We have seen this before. He has laid the groundwork months in advance of any voting to suggest that the only way he could lose would be that if it were rigged. Yeah, I mean, and he does seem kind of he does seem pretty nervous. Right. And when he's saying when he's saying it isn't, you know, he's always projecting when he's saying it doesn't matter how he how you pronounce her name. You know, you know that he's actually pretty worried about her. And there was there was those comments about saying that if he you know, the only way he's going to lose is if he is, if it's if it's rigged. And we know what that brought us last time around. But then also, if I were the Harris campaign, the comments that he made a few days ago where he said to addressing Christians,

so presumably these are politically conservative evangelical voters, that after four years, they're not going to have to vote again because he's going to have done everything that they could imagine that they would want to have happen. Talk about doubling down on a out on an extremist agenda. Right. Talk about doubling down on Project 2025. I think that that is a big opening for the Harris campaign. And that's what I would drive this week. So, Sam, let's talk about what we're seeing there, that anxiety from Republicans. It does seem like for the first time in a long time, Donald Trump's not the central news story in a campaign.

Obviously, we spent a long time talking about President Biden and his age, whether he could continue. But here we are one on one. And Trump seems completely overshadowed by Democratic good news, by the enthusiasm on the other side. And there seems to be a lot of anxiety from his campaign, from other Republicans, about just how they're responding and truthfully at this point, how they're faltering in their response. Yeah, I think a few things are happening here. One is he's being overshadowed, which I don't think sits particularly well with Trump, who likes to be the center of attention. Two is the money, I think, can't be overstated. Raising $200 million in grassroots donations over the course of a week is unheard of. I think that if you're the Trump people and if you're Republicans, that's something

to be very concerned about because that money is just going to keep going. Third is I think the rollout of J.D. Vance has been rough. I just think objectively it has not been what they've wanted. He's kind of become memefied already. And then I think the fourth thing is, and this is something my colleague Mark Caputo captured in his piece that looked at how they're responding to this Kamala Harris boomlet, is that Trump kind of views politics as downstream from culture. He obviously is a product of TV, and he was able to manipulate that and use that to become a political figure. And I think what he sees in Harris's rise is that she's becoming a cultural phenomenon. And I think that's very difficult for him to process and deal with, because it can be very politically potent. And it's causing them to have difficulty adjusting. They've planned this whole campaign around Biden, and now they have to revamp it around Harris. But it's not like you can just attack her sort of as a traditional liberal, which they're going to do.

You have to now attack her on a variety of different fronts, because she's becoming a cultural phenomenon, too. Yeah, to say that J.D. Vance's rollout has been rough is pretty kind there, Sam. We're much more on that in a little bit. But first, let's be kind, OK? It's a very generous way to start the week, I suppose. But we're going to get more to that in a minute. But right now, though, we want to bring you the moment that the Jen just referenced, where Trump told that group of religious conservatives in Florida that if he were to be elected president this November, they will never need to vote again. And again, Christians get out and vote just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. Four more years. You know what? It'll be fixed. It'll be fine.

You won't have to vote anymore. My beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians. I'm a Christian. I love you. Get out. You got to get out and vote in four years. You don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed. So good. You're not going to have to vote. Now, spokesperson for Trump's campaign released a statement on Saturday trying to clarify the comments, writing that the former president was talking about uniting this country and bringing prosperity to every American. We can sure fact check that. Reverend Sharpton, let's get you on this. There are a couple of interpretations here about what Trump meant. One is what we just floated, this idea that, you know, because I'm going to give you everything you need these next four years, I don't even bother showing up. And that, you know, I think

for many sets off alarm bells or this is this idea that, well, maybe we won't even have any more elections four years hence. There are some Democrats who warned that's what Trump meant. His campaign pushed back against that idea as well. But just talk to us as to what you saw there and how worried are you? I'm very concerned. First of all, if you take either interpretation, there are justification which doesn't really land well. All those of us that fear he meant what he said and said what he meant. Either way, it's a danger to this country. If he's saying he's going to give the far right Christians what they want, it is frightening at best. And if, in fact, let's remember, he said twice, Jonathan, we're going to

fix it. Well, if you are dealing in a climate where they're trying in some states to stop drop off a drop box for voting, where they're trying to limit early voting. I mean, fix it can mean exactly what they're doing in many states, changing a lot of the voting regulations, changing a lot of the voting access. And I think that he said out loud what he intends to do. He intends to set a situation working with the right wing governors to where voting will not matter. He will have it fixed. He said it. And I see where his campaign has tried to clean it up. They didn't address him saying fix it. We're going to fix it. He said it twice. Yeah. So at least let's talk about this split screen where on the Democratic side right now, no doubt a lot of enthusiasm.

And sure, some of this could just be the honeymoon phase. Vice President Harris has only been on the ticket for the presumptive nominee now for a week. But the money's rolling in. The volunteers are there. It's everyone. It's all anybody is talking about right now is Vice President Harris and how they feel good. Democrats feel good about this campaign. And we have a faltering Republican side at the moment. But at the same time, some pretty dark, ominous warnings here about how they still think they could win. Well, and President Biden's decision to drop out of the race completely shook up the post, what should have been the glow from the Republican National Convention. So while Donald Trump does have the bump among his supporters that you normally see

after a convention, it was not a storyline last week about things that were discussed as convention. It was about the future. It was about the prospect of Kamala Harris as the new president for the Democrats. And so we were we were in Wisconsin for Morning Joe focus groups, and it really was just staggering how different the vibe was from when I had been there previously, six weeks earlier. There was six weeks ago, voters were really depressed, Democratic voters. And now they are energized. They might have some qualms about Vice President Harris. She might not have been their first choice, but she is now. And they are in and they're activated. And it's going to be interesting to measure. You know, Trump had obviously at the RNC,

that was quite a fervor there. His supporters are always enthusiastic. But can Democrats actually match that this go around is the question. We'll have more on your focus groups a little later in the morning. And it should be noted, though, the timing was inadvertent because President Biden was really trying to stay in this race. But by dropping out when he did after the Republican Convention, that really did blunt momentum that Trump would have had from the RNC. And to talk about now making the Harris campaign the centerpiece. And instead, what are we talking about from Republicans? His running mate and that rollout not going all that well.

Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio is standing by his past comments about childless cat ladies. As a reminder, here's what the Republican nominee for VP said back in 2021 when he was running for Senate. We're effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it's just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. So on Friday, Senator Vance appeared on The Megyn Kelly Show to try to defend his comments. Obviously, it was a sarcastic comment. I've got nothing against cats. I've got nothing against

dogs. I've got one dog at home and I love him, Megan. But look, this is not, people are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said. And the substance of what I said, Megan, I'm sorry, it's true. It is true that we become anti-family. It is true that the left has become anti-child. It is simply true that it's become way too hard to raise a family. Not much of a cleanup there. And then Vance also appeared last night on Fox News, where ahead of the interview, this was how he was introduced by host Trey Gowdy. When that interview surfaced, two things leapt to my mind. Those of us who talk for a living make mistakes.

We say things that in hindsight we might phrase differently or better or not at all. And then I thought about a stormy day at Reagan National Airport where I met two women desperately trying to get home to South America. I was trying to get home to South America. I was trying to get home to South Carolina. We spent the whole day together, finally making it to Charlotte. And then somehow we got them on a flight to Houston. They were headed to visit family in South America before returning to their new home called America. And when we parted ways, they said they'd like to pray for me as their way of saying thanks for the day spent together. And I assured them it's too late to help me. But I do have a friend who's expecting, and she got some tough news about her unborn child. Would they please pray for her instead?

And they did, and they still do to this day. They're Catholic nuns, childless, dedicated to God, love this country, living lives of service to others. And it's not just Catholic nuns, childless, dedicated to God, love this country, living lives of service to others. And it's not just Catholic nuns. Some of the finest people I know don't have children. Teachers and guidance counselors and lawyers and doctors, and they love other people's children enough to teach and guide and protect and minister to them. Some people choose not to have children. Others desperately want them, but they can't. In a moment, we'll speak with Senator J.D. Vance. We have never met

before, but we have many friends in common who tell me that he is smart and he is talented and he is more than capable. None is perfect. No, not one. That's what the good book says. And the American people are forgiving if we ask. That is a jaw-dropping introduction of J.D. Vance on Fox News. So when Vance came on, here's how he responded to the criticism of his comments. Do you agree that there are people who very much love this country and are invested in its future, but they also happen to be childless? Oh, of course I believe that, Trey. And if you look at the full context of what I said, it's very clear the Democrats have tried to take this thing out of context and blow it out of proportion, which is what they always do, Trey, because they don't have an agenda to run on themselves. Really, what I'm trying to get at here, Trey, is that it's important for us to be pro-family as a country. Of course, for a whole host of reasons, it's not going to work out for some people. We should pray for those people and, of course, have sympathy for them. I still think

that that means we should be pro-family, generally speaking, as a party. And I think that our country has become particularly hard for parents, especially under the policies of Kamala Harris. So, Jen, efforts to clean that up have failed to this point, to put it mildly. And I think the fact, the evidence, the fact this became a thing on Fox News last night shows this is broken through. This is a real thing that Trump fans now have to deal with. Well, and it does it does strike me when Vance decided to go on Megyn Kelly, which I'm sure Megyn Kelly is very persuasive in her pitches. She's like, come on my show and clean this up. It's something Trump would would have never done. Right. Trump would have never apologized or tried to explain. He just would have moved on. But Vance just like keeps digging deeper and deeper into this hole. And it is it is it's the kind I mean, like, look, look, look at Trey's own response to it to talk about, you know, what's what's he conveying to us in that?

And what he said, I mean, first of all, it's a very moving thing about what he said about the about the nuns. But it also suggests to me he does not think this is a winning ticket. When a Fox anchor is going out of their way to distance themselves from the running mate, it does not suggest to me that they think that this is a that this is a winning message. And he keeps you know, he he he basically apologizes to the cats is what Vance does. Right. But then not. But then saying that the women I like apologizes to the cats on the, on the underlying comment that, uh, that childless women are ruining the country. Um, and, and does he support childcare tax credits when that was up in the, you talked about, did he support that when that was up in the Senate? I don't believe he voted for that. I don't believe he voted to, he's not, he's acting on anything like this and it is you know this kind of stuff this organic wildfire that like it this is what fuels campaigns and everyone gets

it and it punctures through politics and it's what you know this is what you this is the kind of lightning in a bottle that campaigns hope for i think you nailed it, though. Organic wildfire, lightning in a bottle. What happened last week with the liberal memes about J.D. Vance went mainstream. And outside of J.D. Vance's base, outside of the Republican base, he has been branded, he has been defined as weird. Whether they like it or not, recovering from that is going to be next to impossible with most Americans after what went down last week. And then he just kept piling it on by not really showing an ounce of empathy and just saying, I'm really sorry. I never would have wanted to hurt people who have struggled with fertility issues. That's not what I meant. I meant I want to support families,

but no, he has those sarcastic remarks that aren't even funny. And he kind of shows that he can't really deliver a one liner. So, Sam, weird is the word here in terms of initial impressions from Vance to the American public. We know why he was picked. There were some Republicans who at the time warned Trump. This is maybe this is not the right decision. But for Trump, it was like, look, this can help me in the Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan trio, you know, France next door from next door in Ohio. Also the idea of white working class voters, populism, and perhaps that Vance was going to be the MAGA heir apparent as Trump and his team made that pick thinking they were winning and winning big. And this was their effort to sort of run up the score. That race now has totally changed. What are you hearing? What's you and your reporters hearing

in terms of second thoughts that GOP might be having? Well, the Republican Party writ large, there are portions of it that look now at the pick and say, man, maybe we should have gone in a different direction. We have not heard that from the Trump operation. And frankly, I wouldn't totally expect it until maybe later if things keep going this way, because it's not their position to ever sort of admit fault or doubt. Often their position is to just whack back harder. And they tried desperately this week. You could see it online. All the Van Saragats and the Trump operatives trying to redeploy the weird moniker back on Democrats in a forced way. But look, yes, you're right. I think this pick was made from a sense that they were going to win.

Now, Trump wanted to and his operation wanted to jack up the white male vote because they felt like that's how they lost in 2020 to Biden. But they also felt like they were going to win. And I think one of the perils that you see now is not just that J.D. Vance, you know, has these positions that, you know, are offensive to women, although I think that's a huge peril. But in a larger sense that he, you know, is from a different generation where you say a lot of weird things. You go into your media echo chambers. All these clips that have surfaced have come from conservative media, conservative podcasts.

Also, he's 39, like, you know, that age of which I'm part of. You know, we wrote a lot of stuff online that we probably regret. And I think ultimately, you know, that's hampering him is that he said a lot of things, wrote a lot of stuff online that is now coming back to bite him. And that simply would not have been the case for some of the other nominees. I just sincerely doubt, for instance, that Doug Burgum had like a secret blogger passed in his file. I just don't see that happening. So anyways, I think that's part of the problem here. Now, Sam, don't worry. You've been carefully vetted. You will not be my running mate. I would definitely not pass a vet. Don't vet me. Don't even waste your time. Not worth it. There's no chance. No one in the party is calling for you. We should we should note,

though, this is how John Bolton, who served for the Trump administration, a longtime Republican, he responded to these Vance comments. I think these comments by Vance are really the 2024 counterpart of Hillary Clinton's famous statement in the 2016 election where she called Trump supporters deplorables. I mean, if politicians can't learn, it's one thing to attack your opponent. It's another thing to attack your opponent's supporters. And that's just not a way to win friends and influence people. I don't think Vance learned the lesson that Hillary Clinton, unfortunately for herself, learned in 2016. That's going to hurt Trump as you get closer to the election. So, Reverend Sharpe, there are two things here, right, this is doing. One,

this is just further firing up the left, who are already so enthusiastic this last week about Harris. This is another thing they can point to and meme-ify and fundraise from. But it also does risk, for the Republicans, alienating that thin slice of voters who actually are gettable in this race. Maybe suburban women or families who have gone for Biden or Trump and were not sure where to go this time around now see a new choice and then see comments like this. It could be really turned off by them. They can really be turned off. That's a thin slice of voters that could go either way. And I think that it shows that you're looking at a person who says it's sarcastic to say something that is outright misogynist and offensive to not only women, but to men in this country. There's nothing sarcastic about that. What I think it also shows is that he is really not a good political athlete.

If you get caught saying something that is indefensible, you say I was wrong. I shouldn't have said that. And you try to deal with it and move on. You don't try to justify it or act like it was just some sarcastic comment that, you know, is very injurious to people. And I think that Donald Trump is seriously got a problem because this guy is going to keep doing it. When you can't own that you've made a grievous error, you're going to have a long three months, Donald Trump, with this guy. Can you imagine this guy being a foot away or step away from being president of the United States? And he has said things like this and doesn't even know how to deal with it. Really good political discussion to start us off this morning.

We will have much more as Morning Joe rolls on. But next, we're going to bring you the latest from Israel as authorities blame Hezbollah for a missile strike that killed 12 children and teens on a soccer field. We'll talk about the growing fears of a wider war in the region. You are watching Morning Joe. We're back in just 90 seconds with that. Welcome back. There are renewed concerns this morning of a wider war in the Middle East as Israel begins to respond to a strike on a soccer field Saturday that killed 12 people, mostly children and teenagers.

Israel blamed the attack on the Iran-backed group Hezbollah. Hezbollah, meanwhile, denied responsibility for the strike, which hit an Israeli-controlled town in the Golan Heights. Israel's defense forces said yesterday that they'd hit seven targets deep inside Lebanese territory in response. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said at a press conference earlier today that there is every indication that the rocket used on Saturday was from Hezbollah and that he was deeply saddened by the loss of life there. Joining us now, columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. David,

thank you so much for being with us this morning. We know that since October 7th and those Hamas terror attacks, there has been great fears that the war would widen, as terrible as things were in Gaza, that it could spread throughout the region. This seems to be now, for many, to be the moment where those fears seem to be on the brink of realization so as you say jonathan we're again at a moment where it seems like the war as as horrific as it's been in gaza might expand the attack sat Saturday on this Muslim Druze village on the Golan Heights, Magdol Shams, killed 12 young people. The U.S. has said, both Secretary Blinken and the NSC, there's no question this was a Hezbollah rocket, although Hezbollah has denied it. The Israelis have already begun retaliating, striking military targets. The latest report I saw said that two people have died in those attacks. I think more attacks may

be coming as Israel tries to drive home that this is unacceptable. We've had a lower level of border skirmish since the day after the October 7 strike when Hezbollah began hitting Israeli targets. That's been continuous. It's driven, the estimates I hear are 100,000 Israelis who are living in the north from their homes. They're living other places in Israel. They want to go back home and they can't until this violence stops. The thing that's so painful about this latest attack is that U.S. officials believe that there is a settlement of the Lebanon conflict, a deal that Hezbollah and Israel would agree to, once the Gaza war ends. There's been a U.S. proposal on the table now for many weeks that's supported, to my

knowledge, by the Israeli military and security establishment. The Israeli defense minister, Yaron Galan, has his policies aligned pretty much exactly with what President Biden has been saying. Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to resist. He was just in Washington. He rushed home after this attack on the Druze village to be part of the security discussions. But he is the principal person who is seen as on the Israeli side waiting, not yet prepared to do this deal. We'll have to see over the next few days whether there is an attempt to really get the deal the rest of the way. Secretary Blinken had said within the 10-yard

line 10 days ago, can they get the rest of that way, get the deal closed, get the hostages home? The pressure inside Israel to complete this and get a release of hostages is enormous. I think Prime Minister Netanyahu has to deal with that pressure. But as you began this segment, here we are again at a moment when the war could become much wider. And what it needs is the kind of diplomatic solution the U.S. has laid out that's been endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, that's been endorsed by G7. It just needs to happen. They need to get the rest of the distance. And we'll see that Brett McGurk, the NSC Middle East advisor, is traveling the region trying to pin down last details of this deal. So

we'll see in the next few days whether he can make progress. David, you had a recent column that was fascinating, not just, you know, going beyond a ceasefire, but looking at post-war planning. And you called it Abraham Redux. And it was surprising because at the same time that, you know, Benjamin Netanyahu has just completely publicly rejected any deals with the Palestinian Authority, you have diplomats, Emiratis behind the scenes working with Israelis and Americans, and they're negotiating some kind of, quote, reform Palestinian Authority in the aftermath. Can you talk about the column and what you reported? So it's just a truth, at least, that in the Middle East, people are almost always going in two directions at once. And this is a good example of that. The top advisor to Prime Minister

Netanyahu, Ron Dermer, former ambassador to the United States, went to Abu Dhabi in mid-July to talk in detail with the Emiratis and with Reverend Kirk, who we mentioned earlier, who's President Biden's chief Middle East advisor, about a very specific set of ideas for the day after the conflict ends. This has been the thing that Netanyahu has been least willing, really, to discuss since the war began on October 7. There's been pressure to figure out where is this ending up? Where are we going? And Netanyahu has generally resisted that discussion. With the Emirati's help, he was discussing a very specific plan for stabilizing Gaza, moving from the north to the south, having the Palestinian Authority invite a series of foreign countries,

European countries, Arab countries in the Middle East, such as the UAE, such as Egypt, to take part in an international force that would stabilize Gaza, begin to restore order and normal life there. So the fact that he has in the UAE, the country that Israel signed the Abraham Accords with in 2020 under President Trump, perhaps a partner is one of the few hopeful things I've seen in recent weeks in this generally still so painful conflict in Gaza. The Washington Post's David Ignatius, thank you. And we, of course, will be following the latest developments out of the Middle East all morning long. Coming up next here on Morning Joe, the third full day of Olympic competition is underway at the Paris Games.

We'll have a look at the latest triumphs for Team USA. Plus, new reporting on the growing tension between international sports authorities and the U.S. over the handling of doping allegations abroad. We'll be right back with that. A live shot of Paris, 12.38 p.m. there, 6.38 a.m. here. And it is the third full day of Olympic competition, and it's underway at those Paris Games. It was a scary start yesterday for Simone Biles in her Paris debut, appearing to injure her calf while warming up on the floor exercise during the women's gymnastics qualifying round. But despite some discomfort, it did not stop her from competing. The seven-time

Olympic medalist finished atop the leaderboard in the all-around, as well as number one on vault and floor. Meanwhile, defending all-around champion Suni Lee delivered a stellar routine on the uneven bars to secure her a spot in the all-around final as well. Elsewhere, the U.S. men's basketball team opened its run to a fifth straight gold medal with a dominant group stage win over Serbia. Kevin Durant led the scoring with 23 points in the 110-84 victory. Team USA also added some more hardware yesterday with Hayley Batten winning silver in the women's mountain biking final. This marks the best ever finish in mountain biking for the U.S. and the nation's first medal in the sport since a bronze back in 2012. To the pool now, the U.S. went one and two in the women's 100-meter butterfly for the third time in history. American Tori Husk won her first individual gold medal, and teammate Gretchen Walsh

finished a close second for silver. The women's individual foil final saw Lee Kiefer and Lauren Scruggs become the first Americans to compete against each other in the gold medal match, with Kiefer becoming only the third woman to successfully defend her Olympic gold medal in that event. Elsewhere, American tennis star Coco Gauff earned a straight set victory in the first round of the Paris Games. Familiar clay courts there. And the U.S. women's national soccer team remained undefeated at these Olympics, clinching a quarterfinal spot with a 4-1 win over Germany. The team will play its final group stage match against Australia. That's coming up on Wednesday. The United States currently leads the overall medal count, but Japan so far has won the most gold. Joining us now, the host

of Pablo Torre finds out on Metal Arc Media, ESPN's Pablo Torre, an Olympic-sized fan of these games. That's right. So let's start with a few, I mean, some of the noteworthy. So much has happened. You pick where to begin. Can we start with LeBron James? I thought we were going to start with fencing. So I have a lot of fencing takes, Jack.

A lot of fencing takes. They're too hot for television, I think. Sabre fencing. That's on Peacock. Yeah. Fascinating. Arguably corrupt. Sabre fencing takes, Jack. A lot of fencing takes. They're too hot for television, I think. Sabre fencing. That's on Peacock. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fascinating, arguably corrupt saber fencing is. I digress. LeBron James, for people who are not familiar with what's been happening in basketball in

the world, 92 happens. The Dream Team gets summoned to save the U.S.'s pride because, of course, our college kids are being destroyed by all these international powers who are sending their pros. What's happened since then is that the world has caught up. And so we have needed a hero. We've needed a hero to catch up, a hero who might or may not be doing a George Washington crossing the Delaware impression as the flag bearer here, LeBron James,

leading Team USA across the Seine. Well, LeBron James has been in the NBA domestically, the oldest player in the league. And he is the best player in the world definitively right now. You mentioned Kevin Durant being basically perfect from the field. But LeBron James has been the guy saving the U.S. against South Sudan in warmups. Because South Sudan, by the way, has been a threat. They're that good at basketball. Now Germany in warmups. And now Serbia against the reigning, well, arguably the best player in the world, Nikola Jokic, the MVP. And so for me, LeBron James turning back the clock, he's 40.

And we rely on him to be the flag bearer metaphorically and also literally holding everybody on his back. So the world has really gotten, they've caught up to us basketball. I didn't understand that. I was like, what is going on? Or is the U.S. team just mailing it in? But the world is actually that competitive. Yes.

So this team. And did we propel them to do that? What's happened? We did. And we did that because we exported basketball. We globalized the sport. And also because when all these kids were watching the dream team, they grew up and realized I want to compete against them.

And so right now there are 39 non-American NBA players that the U.S. is going to be facing. There were just nine of them in 92. And so this is a direct effect of the United States in 92, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley, Larry Burr, all those guys inspiring the next generation. And so it's a good problem to have, except you might get embarrassed by someone like Victor Wembenyama now in France or Nikoli Jokic until yesterday. But yeah, LeBron James has been the key to sort of holding the line in a way that we remember. This is my childhood now. The U.S. is beating up in other countries. It wasn't this way in previous Olympic cycles in between 92 and now. Yeah, it's remarkable how LeBron at this point

would not be considered the best player in the NBA. No. But the rest of that team defers to him. He's the leader here. Speaking of other prominent Americans, Simone Biles obviously had sort of a shaky Olympics a couple of years ago, well-documented, very, very open about her sort of mental health challenges. You know, and I think everyone held their breath when she suffered this injury and warm-ups, but persevered. Yeah. Let me explain what's happening here. So Simone Biles is the LeBron James of gymnastics, right? She suffers what's called the twisties in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where she lost her sense of self in an actual physics context. So she would get up in the air and would lose her ability to land, her confidence.

And so this is about as damaging as you can have a psychological condition in the sport of gymnastics. And so what do you do when you're Simone Biles and you're coming back for the first time? You increase the degree of difficulty. So, gymnastics is graded on not just execution, but degree of difficulty. If you want to know how good Simone Biles is, she's going for her sixth maneuver, her sixth move to be named after her in the Olympic scorebook. And so this is something that no one has done in all four of the events involved in bar and, you know, in all of these things, in beam. And so for her, her ability to not just pull these things off, but actually ratchet up

how hard it is to do is what makes her special. And so she has she could do things where she does not pull off the trick. But because the degree of difficulty is so high, she is not someone you can even compete with. It's just an insane thing by virtue of the sport and the rules that she has dominated. And it's it's only getting higher. So, Pablo, we open the show discussing how the word weird is really appropriate to our politics right now. Some have said that the Olympics opening ceremony also fit under the category of weird. It certainly struck us as just being big French. But some have decided to make it really a political issue here.

And we're hearing certainly from the right suggesting that it was even borderline blasphemous. Yeah. Any opening ceremony that culminates in Celine Dion performing for the first time since she was diagnosed with all of these health issues, her illnesses, I wept. I don't know if anyone else in America is brave enough to admit that I wept upon seeing Celine Dion singing in front of the Olympic torch at the Eiffel Tower. But look, if we want to just wag our finger at France for being super French, for having Marie Antoinette being played by a woman holding her own head, followed by, you know, a heavy metal. It was a history lesson.

It's like, guys, this is France. Like, it's one thing to be like, oh, America, we're getting out of control. The wokes are taking over. This is France. This is what they do. No one was literally nude in that. I'm sorry. Like we brought the Olympics to Paris. Thank God we got Celine and a bunch of catwalks and a guy in a mask running across roofs. This is kind of the best case scenario for an artistic depiction of what it means to be super French. And so I appreciated it as a man of, of course, of great culture and also, yeah, like escargot sometimes.

If I'm weird, so be it. French fries. Freedom fries, Jack. Limit to how far you go there. All right. So despite this year's Olympics only having just started, there is already controversy surrounding the 2034 Winter Games. On Wednesday, the International Olympics Committee formally awarded the event to Salt Lake City, Utah. But the decision has sparked anger among some global groups who have accused the United States government of overreach, citing a 2020 law that allows the Justice Department to prosecute those involved in doping scandals, even for events taking place outside the U.S.

We should also note the next Summer Olympics, 2028, also in the U.S., in Los Angeles. For more, let's bring in New York Times investigative reporter Michael Schmidt. Michael, tell us a little bit more about this doping controversy. So basically, the Justice Department and FBI are investigating how the positive tests of 20 Chinese swimmers were handled in the lead up to the last Olympics. These swimmers tested positive for a heart medication and the Chinese blamed the tests on saying that this medicine had been mixed in in a contaminated kitchen. And that's why these athletes tested positive. And that's why they were cleared of wrongdoing and secretly allowed to go to the Olympics, even though no one knew about this. So this is at the last Olympics. There's a criminal investigation into this.

The IOC, the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency do not like this investigation. They're deeply unnerved by it. And they're trying any way they can to get leverage on the United States and the American Congress, which controls the budget for WADA. Not the entire budget, but a significant portion of it. So when they have been negotiating recently with Salt Lake City and giving them the bid for the 2034 games, they basically convinced the local officials to work with them to help push back on these congressional and Justice Department and FBI investigations and to try and help them, you know, you know, move past them in some sort of way. And it was a highly unusual maneuver, certainly one that I talked to a bunch

of people that are in the anti-doping and legal worlds had never really seen before and have sort of raised the stakes of this Justice Department and FBI investigation. Eleven of the swimmers who tested positive back in 2021 for this drug are on the Chinese Olympic team this year and are competing and will be swimming in the pool this week. Michael, the idea that there is a contractual clause in the agreement to bring the Olympics to Salt Lake City contingent on this doping finding basically being repudiated or being potentially rebuked in a formal way. Where is the accountability for people who are wondering why is this OK? Why is the U.S. interest in anti-doping in such obvious conflict with WADA,

which you would think based on the name is also on the same page with the same set of incentives. So it's not really clear how it's going to play out and what's going to happen in terms of who is even going to respond to the fact that this deal was made. Congress has been sort of at the forefront of criticizing the World Anti-Doping Agency and the IOC for their handling of these positive tests. They have already held at least one hearing to look into how the tests were handled. Michael Phelps testified before this hearing about how there is a lack of confidence among athletes about the World Anti-Doping Agency, which is supposed to ensure that there's a level playing field in sports. But this deal was cut and announced just a few days ago. This Justice Department investigation has been going on for just a few months.

We're in the early stages of it. And, you know, a lot of times people that try to mess with a Justice Department investigation in any sort of way, the Justice Department does not like that. They see that as some sort of interference at times. And what the IOC and WADA are trying to do is they're trying to basically put the United States in the position of having these games, the 2034 games, taken away from the United States if the attempts to hold them accountable for these positive tests and how they were handled goes forward. So it's it could be a real interesting standoff in the in the months and certainly years to come. And we'll certainly be following it all along. New

York Times investigative reporter Michael Schmidt. Michael, thank you for joining us this morning. Pablo, against my better judgment, thank you for joining us this morning. Pablo, against my better judgment, let's talk baseball for a minute. Neither the Yankees or Red Sox playing all that well at the moment, but credit where it's due, the Yankees take two out of three at Fenway this weekend. Yeah, I was going to say, I've been reading different back pages than you, John. I mean, it seems like the Yankees are doing pretty good. They won two in a row.

Two in a row. Basically tied in the win column with the Baltimore Orioles. The top of the A.L.E. The erasure of the Baltimore Orioles on this television show. The Orioles should have put this division away when the Yankees slumped. It's outrageous. What? It's outrageous. Jen, clinging to just a slim one-game lead.

It's a lead problem. They're in first place. I don't understand this. That's very lead. It's a lead, Pablo. They're in first place. I don't understand this. That's very good. It's very good. Except that I believe America is healing. Yes, we have Olympic scandals with Salt Lake City. Yes, we have all sorts of corruption everywhere else.

Yes, things are weird in lots of ways. But to me, this is my childhood. The Yankees climbing back into a position of leadership, pulling off big trades. Jazz Chisholm, John, I like him. Could use the help. There's been a flurry of... He played in this game.

He did play in this game. That's right. That's what we'll say about his contribution. He played in this game. Sam Stein, I'm going to throw me a lifeline here as a fellow Red Sox fan. Oh, come on. You're back up now?

Let's talk about... Look, the Sox have come out of the all-star break here. I believe they've lost six out of eight. They're still very much, they're in the wild card race, but trending in the wrong direction quickly. What can be done? Well, the front office needs to do something. I mean, we're kind of sitting on our hands. We need bullpen help badly. We need a right-handed bat badly. But the last couple of seasons, we've done nothing at the trade

deadline. It seems like ownership doesn't want to spend too much money. And they got long-term ambitions for these prospects. They're not going to give up the prospects. But look, I mean, we didn't expect much from the season from the Red Sox. The Yankees may be right there, but they've not played inspiring ball. Let's be honest about it. They're probably destined for a first-round exit from the playoffs again, which is how this is going to go. But we probably won't make the playoffs. I'm feeling a bit despondent right now about the Red Sox. I've got to be honest.

Yeah, and the inability to do anything, the front office decision not to do anything in previous deadlines doomed that team. We'll see if they do it again. Pablo Torre, despite the Yankee talk, thank you for joining us this morning. We appreciate it. A pleasure as always.