Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/30/24

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

'Incompetent, not very smart': Trump's new line of attack on VP Harris

How good is Josh Shapiro? Well, he's gotten a heck of a lot done in just over, well, in over the last year and a half. And it's another example of Democratic governors who believe in our three-part strategy. Get f***ing done. This election isn't just about a name on the ballot. It's an election about all of us and what it is that we're willing to fight for. What it is that we're willing to work for. And what kind of future we want to build for our children and our grandchildren. What I know about you, I want a future that is cleaner and greener.

I want a future with better schools and safer streets. And I want a future with more freedom, not less. And I want a future where I can look the 47th president of the United States in the eye and say, hello, Madam President. I hope you're with me. Let us get to work. Thank you. That was Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and then Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro rallying for Vice President Kamala Harris yesterday just outside of Philadelphia. That comes as the Veep stakes really heating up with one person bowing out and another now emerging as a possible contender.

We'll bring you the very latest on that. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is defending his choice for running mate and J.D. Vance's past comments on childless cat ladies. We'll show you what Trump had to say. Plus, the former president has still not committed to debating Harris. And last night, he made several excuses for why he may skip the event. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, July 30th. I'm Jonathan Lemire. Joe and Mika continue their vacation this week, but you'll see them back in the event of any big breaking news. Willie is in Paris covering the Olympics, and we will check in with him a little later this hour. But with us now,

we do have MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan. She is a former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department. NBC News national affairs analyst and a partner and chief political columnist at Puck, John Haman. Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson is here, and managing editor at the Bullwark, Sam Stein. Good morning to you all. A great group as we get rolling this morning. And we'll begin with some politics. And Vice President Kamala Harris will be in Atlanta today for her first Georgia campaign rally as a presidential candidate. The Harris campaign says its operation in Georgia is the largest of any Democratic campaign in history. It has mobilized hundreds of staff members across two dozen field offices.

Georgia has also seen a real surge in volunteers, with more than 7,500 currently signed up in just one week. Harris's Atlanta appearance coincides with an endorsement from the state's former lieutenant governor. That's Republican Jeff Duncan crossing party lines there. In an opinion piece in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Duncan argued yesterday that Harris is the only viable means of defeating Donald Trump in November. So today's rally in Georgia is the Harris campaign's first step in its new plan to ramp up efforts in those key battleground states that are going to decide this election. The campaign reports more than 250 coordinated field offices across major swing

states. It also has 600 staff members on the ground in the so-called blue wall states, states that have largely voted Democrat in the last several presidential elections, with an additional 150 staff planned to join next month. Harris's team said its volunteer numbers are growing as well. By the start of this week, the campaign had gained 360,000 volunteers. As for her Republican opponent, Donald Trump sat down for an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham last night, where he continued his attacks against Harris's intellect

and once again hedged on whether or not he would debate her. She's sort of incompetent. She's not very smart, but she's very radical. Very radical. She got rid of the laugh. I noticed I haven't seen that crazy laugh that she gets. She's not very smart, but she's very radical. Very radical. She got rid of the laugh. I noticed I haven't seen that crazy laugh that she gets. She's crazy. That laugh, that's the laugh of a crazy person.

But I noticed that she's not using that laugh anymore. Somebody convinced her, don't laugh. Just don't laugh. I want to do a debate, but I also can say this. Everybody knows who I am. And now people know who she is. She's a radical left lunatic. She'll destroy our country. She wants open borders. Then why not debate her? Oh, wait. But because they already know everything. You know, I'm leading in the polls by, I think, a lot. I

don't know. I hear different numbers. But I'm leading in all of the polls. I'm leading big in all of the swing states. I don't like rewarding fake news. I don't like rewarding the people that have been here. They're going to make tens of millions of dollars with this debate. In response to those comments, the Harris campaign released a statement accusing the GOP nominee of being scared,

adding that Vice President Harris will be on the debate stage September 10th. Donald Trump can show up or not. So Eugene Robinson, let's start here with these attacks, these new attacks that Trump is trying out on Harris about her intellect, about her laugh, seems to be the mark of a campaign that doesn't really know yet how to go after its new opponent. They don't they don't have a clue at this point how to go after Kamala Harris. They were all set up. They had their plan A to go after Joe Biden's age and and South Asian woman? Do they, you know, this idea of trying to attack her intelligence makes absolutely no sense, given who she is and what

she has achieved in her life. So they just don't know what to do. I mean, they're they're they're spinning their wheels at this point. And we'll see. I assume at some point they'll come out with a more or less coordinated attack strategy. But they're nowhere near that. So at least it would seem, as Eugene said, I mean, some of these attacks are are borderline sexist and flat out sexist. And Trump himself has not used DEI, that phrasing, as much as a lot of his fellow Republicans have. But it's all part of the same attack line. It seems to me that, you know, there is still that sliver of people in this country who don't know who yet they're voting for. Some of those people are women or men who who will be offended by these kind of comments. This seems really risky here. Kamala Harris is not defined

yet by the majority of American voters, except for Donald Trump's base. They know who they have their impression of Kamala Harris. That's obviously not going to change. Other than that, he needs to get to work. His campaign needs to get to work. This has been over a week and a half and they haven't really landed an attack on her that's resonating. They are just so all over the place. You hear, you know, oh, she's not that bright. She didn't. She failed at the border, but it's not coordinated. There's not any drumbeat going. And so as of now, I just I would not give them a very high score on being able to define her. And also Trump seems very scared and weak about the debate. Jason Miller came on with Chris Jansing on this network and very scared and weak about the debate. Jason Miller came on

with Chris Jansing on this network and said that Donald Trump definitely would debate. And that was not what Trump was saying last night to Laura Ingraham. He seemed to be hedging in a big way. And there's certainly worry about some of these attacks on Fox Business yesterday. Host Stuart Varney criticized Trump for calling Vice President Harris dumb. I've been hearing a lot from women. They are not happy with what Trump has been saying and some of the language that he's using about Kamala Harris. It's insulting. I've been out and about over the weekend.

And when Donald Trump called Kamala Harris dumb, that was a profound mistake, in my opinion. Women react to that kind of thing. And so they should. I mean, don't you think you should tone down the language? OK, get through to the central message by all means. But tone the language down. He said he was going to be nice. And then he says, I'm not going to be nice. I think that's a mistake. So, John Hammond, your latest column for Puck is titled The Harris Honeymoon and Team K's Quest to Make It Last. Certainly, at this moment, nine days in, it has.

And we're seeing Republicans flail a bit in terms of how to respond. Where does this go next? I'd say they're flailing more than a bit. The flailing has been comprehensive over the course of this period. I will say that we got a preview, I think, of what some of this is going to look like when Dave McCormick put up that ad last week that was very focused almost exclusively on her being excessively liberal. I think if you talk to people around Kamala Harris that they recognize that she put a lot of baggage,

issues baggage, which all comes from that period of time from when she was running in the Democratic primary in 2020. And the whole party was running, except for Joe Biden. It turned out that Joe Biden made the right bet. Joe Biden was who he was, which was a moderate, kind of a center-left Democrat. The rest of the party lurched very far to the left on a lot of questions. And that McCormick ad laid out all of the stuff that paints her as being too extreme for the center. The Trump campaign has finally got its first ads on the air. The campaign, not the super PAC. Those ads are basically a boiled-down version of this McCormick ad, which was, I think, about two minutes long. But they have a real ad now that Trump put up on Truth Social yesterday.

And I think the focus of their efforts is going to be to try to paint her. And Trump has been hitting this in his speeches, too, although Trump is all over the place. But he keeps coming back to that she's extreme, that she's liberal, that use the San Francisco, kind of points to all those things. How well that will stick is anyone's guess. But there's no question that focus, if you are trying to define someone, focus is important. It's almost more important than what you focus on, is that you focus in some way. And certainly, this is not a vulnerability that the Harris people are unaware of. And so, the question for them is going to be how fast they can get up on defense. And that is a whole other discussion we can have. They have a lot to do in a very short period of time.

Yeah, they do. And they're certainly raising a ton of money. At this point, they have such media coverage. They haven't spent much of it yet, but that's going to change and change quickly. So Republican strategist Karl Rove warns that Donald Trump needs to regain control of that campaign narrative, saying the former president is clearly in a subordinate role compared to Vice President Harris. Rove made the argument during an interview on Fox News over the weekend while outlining what both Harris and Trump need over the next few weeks to bolster their campaigns. Let's take a listen. So this is what Harris has got to do between now and the end of the month. Introduce yourself. Let's take a listen. that that person would be capable of being president if something bad happened. And so that makes us feel better about her leadership abilities.

She's got to have a convention that unifies the Democratic Party and has a positive impact on the American voter. And then the week after, I think, is going to be absolutely critical. The Democratic Convention starts on August 19th. And what that means is, is that they've got one week after that convention, one week and a couple of days before Labor Day. And that's going to be, I think, attitudes by Labor Day are going to be really important. So she needs to come blowing out of that convention in Chicago and showing big crowds and lots of enthusiasm. Trump, he has difficulties, too. He's got to frame Harris. He's got to find the right message to

go after her, because as as Lucas said, we've got one hundred and one days as of today and he's got to get back in control of the of the dialogue. He is clearly in a subordinate role here. He feels uncomfortable with it, I suspect. And he likes being in the guy who's setting the tempo of the campaign. And that's not happening. Think about this, Neil. Nine national polls since Joe Biden announced on the 19th that he's not running. If you if you take those those nine polls, it is Trump by zero point eight eight. That's basically nine tenths of one percent. And that's after he gets the bump coming out of the convention that that really showed a unity for the Republican ticket in the Republican Party. And so this is going to be a barn burner and is very much up for grabs

in the next two or three weeks are going to be critical for both camps. Sam Stein, the whole premise of the Trump Biden campaign from the Trump campaign's perspective was strength versus weakness. I can only imagine the reaction at Mar-a-Lago to the phrase subordinate role. Yeah. Well, first of all, I need whiteboards. How many whiteboards does Carlo have? I mean, that was like two. Great penmanship.

Yeah, very good penmanship too. There was an interesting report that emerged yesterday, private fundraising remarks from J.D. Vance, where he acknowledged that Vice President Harris has essentially reset the race. The public posture from the Trump campaign is that nothing's changed. They're continuing with their plan as is. They feel very confident in their path to victory. But for him to admit that privately really does illustrate the degree to which this race is now different. And I do agree with everyone else that the Trump campaign is, to a certain degree,

flailing to try to find what the right counterpunch is here. I think we're going to get a real window into it in the next couple of days. I noticed reports this morning that the Trump campaign is out with a new ad. It's first for the Harris era as the Democratic nominee. It's going to focus on immigration, which is not a surprise, honestly. Immigration has been the bedrock issue for Trump since he emerged in 2016. It's probably the one issue he consistently has hammered over and over and over again. And on top of that, Harris was in charge of migration from the Northern Triangle early in the Biden administration. And so this, I think, is going to be the predominant focus, which portends a very nasty, ugly close of the campaign in which we will

have a lot of anti-immigrant rhetoric that Trump will push forward. I think the Harris response is going to be, look, we took action, we being she and President Biden, with this executive action, and you tried to and effectively torpedoed a bipartisan deal to, you know, handle the border. It goes to show you how significant that executive action was that Biden took in the spring and neutralizing some of these attacks. So, John Hammond, I think immigration clearly going to be front and center in this election. It is Harris's perhaps greatest vulnerability. Her team sort of acknowledges that privately. We also need to figure out how it's going to play in these

battleground states. And I think we don't want to skip past that today, that Harris is going to be in Georgia, a state that the Biden team, a month or a couple of months back, even pre-debate, said might be slipping away. They felt Arizona the same. North Carolina always felt like a little bit of a reach. They were really, particularly post-debate, they put it in a memo. They said basically our only path to win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. Do we think now that map has really expanded for Harris?

Well, here are the things. I'll do my own Karl Rove thing, although Karl is a world-class trolling of Trump right there. Don't think that that subordinate thing was a slip of the tongue by Karl Christian Rove. I think there's three things. They have three weeks before the convention starts. And if you include the convention week, which is key to introducing or reintroducing Kamala Harris to the American people, you have four weeks. A million things to do. Luckily for them, they're not starting from a standing start. They're inheriting most of this Biden operation. There's some changes going on at the top of it, naturally. But they have three big things to do. First thing is, they have to do something Donald Trump manifestly failed to do, which is to nail the VP selection. That's one. That's a huge

thing. The second thing, another thing they have to do is they have to get on the air, as we were just talking about, figuring out how they're going to try to, in paid media, how they're in the battleground states, how they're going to try to define the candidate and especially defend against some of the incoming that Republicans are going to have. But the third thing is your point, Jonathan, which is they have to reset the map. And there's no doubt that because of on the basis of what we just know from public data, that the surge in enthusiasm for her with non-white voters, particularly African Americans and with young voters, suggests that she would be in a better position to compete in

some of these Sunbelt states, whether it's North Carolina, Georgia and Arizona and Nevada, all of them could be more competitive for her than they were for Joe Biden. It's also the case that Biden's one remaining strength was with older white voters. And part of the reason why the blue wall looked like a good path for him, maybe the only path, was that he had this unusual degree of strength with seniors and white seniors in the Midwest. She may be less competitive in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan than Joe Biden was. So, there's a ton of research that Team K needs to get done in this period. And they've not, you know, she is, for all, she's been vice president this entire time.

The amount of research that a presidential campaign does on its vice president, an incumbent president, almost none. They have some, They have some idea. But compared to what you do for someone at the top of the ticket, where you know exactly how they're perceived by every important slice of the demographic, every part of the electorate, that does not exist. And they are racing out there right now to try to figure out what are her strengths, what are her weaknesses, what can be built on, what has to be defended against. Huge amount of stuff to do in a very, very, very short time. So next up on Morning Joe, we'll continue this conversation. And as mentioned, Harris needs to nail her VP pick. Donald Trump might have missed. He's trying to defend his running mate amid growing backlash over J.D.

Vance's past comments about childless cat ladies. Plus, we'll take a look at the reaction to President Biden's proposal to dramatically overhaul the Supreme Court. Democratic Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill, who introduced a SCOTUS ethics bill earlier this year, will join us to weigh in on that. Also ahead, Democratic Senator Gary Peters is our guest as labor leaders urge the Harris campaign to consider him as a potential running mate. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in just 90 seconds. 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. 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 them, 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. 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. I think that he was on a podcast where he was asked about AOC's statement that she said in the past that, you know, I don't know about having kids with climate change in the world and turbulence and has to. That was his response to it. But it was brought up by Trey Gowdy about this story with the Metu nuns,

greatest Americans who love America. What about George Washington? Never had any kids. Does that make him a bad American? And he went ahead and said, no. There's people that try to have kids or don't want to have kids and are great Americans. So he wanted to explain himself.

The question is, when you're explaining, you're usually losing. And that's all they want, is him to sit there the whole time and explain the comments. When you're explaining, you're usually losing. Fox News host Brian Kilmeade with that take on Senator J.D. Vance and his continued attempts to tamp down the backlash from his already infamous childless cat lady's comments. Meanwhile, in his interview last night on Fox, Donald Trump tried to defend his running mate over those remarks. He's not against anything, but he loves family.

It's very important to him. He grew up in a very interesting family situation, and he feels family is good. And I don't think there's anything wrong in saying that now they took that as an indication that people that don't have families look i could see it's an easy opening right oh it's oh it's so crazy but i know so many people they never met the right person or male or female they just never met the right person they're unbelievable they're every bit as good as anybody else that has the most. So what do you say to women out there watching? He's addressed it. But what do you say to women out there watching? I think they might not have. I think

they understand it. No, I think they understand it. Not sure they do. Eugene, your latest column for The Washington Post is titled No, really, Republicans are getting Weirder. And J.D. Vance appears to be exhibit A. Yeah, he's absolutely exhibit A. I mean, come on. OK, so he says this this really kind of stupid, geeky, weird dorm room late at night kind of thing, right? This tosses off this insult about Charlotte's cat lady trying to be clever with Tucker Carlson. And it comes back to haunt him. And he can't just take it back. He can't just say that, gee, that was a really, really dumb thing to say. And I really regret it. No, he kind of doubles down and doubles down because that's what he's expected to do. If you're Donald Trump's running mate, you can never back down.

Right. So he says, well, you know, you have to focus on the substance. Well, the substance of what he was talking about is like really crazy about how, you know, if you have kids, you ought to be able to vote more times in an election than a single person. And just all this sort of really, really weird stuff. And this is, you know, this is who he is. And I think this is going to keep sort of cropping up. And so now we have in Vance and Trump, one of the weirdest tickets that I can recall. These are two really unusual people who say and do weird things. Trump is out talking

about the, you know, the shark and the boat and the battery and all the time and the late, great Hannibal Lecter with all his eccentricities and weirdnesses. And now you have J.D. Vance. And then you have this dynamic between the two of them, which is going to be fascinating because you can imagine how happy Donald Trump is to have to be explaining away the kind of odd words of his vice presidential candidate, of his running mate, and now he's going to have to explain away what the Post reported J.D. Vance said in a fundraiser about how, well, gee, I don't know, You know, running against Kamala Harris when they changed candidates, that was a that was a sucker punch. And we have to regroup and we just don't quite know how to run against her.

Trump's not going to like that either. So this is going to be fascinating. But it's weird. So, Sam, not only is it weird, but for the first time in a long time, certainly in months, if not more, during this campaign, Trump has had to be reactive that they're not setting the agenda. They are actually in that subordinate role, at least in terms of news cycles at the moment. And it's a place that clearly makes him deeply uncomfortable. And, you know, there's certainly a lot of Republicans already pointing fingers, really second guessing the choice of ants. Yeah, I mean, we have to remember, it wasn't that long ago, four week period, roughly, post debate to when Joe Biden dropped out, where we had this abnormal situation that Trump was out of the public eye in a strategic reason for it. He usually likes to, you know, commandeer the public eye and the public stage,

but in this case, he was staying away because all the focus was on Joe Biden. And now, to your point, highly reactive to both Kamala Harris' ascension, but also the choice of Vance. And I think Vance was chosen from a position of strength. They felt like they were going to win the election. They wanted to, you know, rack up margins with the white male vote, which they had worried about drifting to Biden. But they also just felt like they were on auto drive. And now they're looking back and they're wondering, did they make a mistake? Could they have expanded the coalition? I think more to the point, could they have chosen a vice presidential nominee who didn't come up in this current media ecosystem where you go on these podcasts, where you go on Tucker Carlson, where you post blogs all in an effort to reach the more fringier elements of your party,

because that's what it takes to win a primary and get you into your Senate seat. And this is what's tripped up J.D. Vance. I think part of the problem, obviously, is the insulted cats, the insulted childless parents, sorry, childless people. But the other part of the problem is that it's just this weird, abrupt evolution from a guy who's talking about, in sympathetic, empathetic terms, growing up in Ohio and Appalachia, the communities that were left behind, and then now is talking about, in sort of angry terms, people who don't have kids.

And I think that's really jarring for a lot of voters to see. So on this, Elise, you have more for us from your recent focus groups out of Wisconsin on the issue of running mates. Tell us a little bit about what you heard from voters. So the progressive voters that I spoke with in Wisconsin were incredibly motivated to defeat Donald Trump. And it's not just the former president, though, that these voters find off-putting. It's also J.D. Vance. So let's hear from those voters. What do you think of J.D. Vance?

I've only heard one soundbite and that was enough. Strange fellow. What do you think, Anthony? He's just such an odd person. He's he's proven himself. And I think this is why Trump loves him so much. He's proven himself personally to Trump to be exquisitely valuable. Right.

Because he started off his his narrative about Trump just totally tearing him apart, excoriating him. And just, you know, over time, just like a lot of other lawmakers on the right, they kissed the ring and they made that transition. There's been very few people that surpassed Vance in that respect. And so I think he's, as far as Trump is concerned, he's really earned that position. My mom is from Appalachia. She's from rural western North Carolina. And my whole family goes back generations there. The TVA saved my family. My grandma had burlap sacks for underwear and I am instilled in that every day when I talk to my mom. She always says don't forget that and I find

his depiction of people from Appalachia to be so offensive. He got out and he sold his book and he doesn't go back. He doesn't talk about his family. They're just a sad story about poor America instead of what they are, which is victims of exactly the kind of price gouging capitalist narcissists that he has decided to become a part of. I also asked these progressive voters who they thought Kamala Harris should pick as her running mate. Take a listen. Who would be your top choice for Kamala Harris to pick as her vice president?

Tim Walz, Minnesota governor, got a very progressive record, speaks very well on camera. And, you know, I'm a Midwestern guy in a region of the country that the Democrats absolutely need to win. I agree. I actually was going to say Tim Maltz as well. He's done a remarkable job in Minnesota. He's in a similar vein to Tony Evers and sort of that like fun school teacher kind of guy. I'm a big Gretchen Whitmer fan, even though I imagine that they're probably gonna be like i want her one for president why do you see which is why i want her four years of common and yeah but uh but i've i could be wrong and i would love to be proven wrong but i feel like i'm realistic that there are a lot of people who are going to insist that

there not be two women on the ticket. However, I would still, I would still love that. I'm really kind of ashamed of myself because I wasn't thinking about two women running on the same ticket. There's no shame. There's no shame. Yep. And you know, I want to believe that I'm kind of highly evolved and everything, but I just fell right into place assuming that she needed to have a white male next to her. I'm really undecided about it, you know, and I still have to do more research about it. But I'm just really optimistic about her choice because I think it's going to be someone who's kind of forward looking and can make some decent changes. Howman, so what do you make of those voters and their reaction to J.D. Vance and then

some of the names that they were bandying about for potential VP picks for Kamala Harris? Well, they seem to be like many progressives. They seem to be rabid as consumers of political media. They're like they're they're having a they're having that kind of conversation at the level of pundit. You know, they know these are not kind of people reacting on a gut level. They like they're absorbing a lot of political media, as people who are partisans sometimes do. I think they've lifted the names on their short lists, or the same names that are on the public short lists, the ones that we see. I think what you found here is something that we've all seen now.

The world has proven, in another universe, the focus groups with progressives might have been, how's the Harris selection, how's that going? Well, we already know how it's going with progressives. And what you could see in that group was they are on board with her. And they're already moving on to the next center. They're not kind of like, wow, what's happened over here? Which is how a lot of these voters in the Senate are already on board with Kamala Harris. And they are largely looking to these other questions about legacy. I heard one person there talk about who should succeed her in the White House, I believe. Whether Gretchen Whitmer might be her successor.

So they're looking down the road a little bit. So, Sam, let's do a quick update on those Veep stakes. North Carolina Governor Cooper bowed out yesterday, saying he was to be he was had been was in the vetting process, but no longer wants to be involved. Labor is really pushing for Michigan Senator Gary Peters, who we should note is our guest a little later in the show. We saw the governors Shapiro and Whitmer campaigning for Harris yesterday, although Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan governor on our air yesterday, made clear she's not part of this. We see a few other names there, Governor Beshear of Kentucky, Secretary Buttigieg, of course, Senator Kelly of Arizona,

Governor Pritzker, perhaps on the outside right now. What's the latest you've heard as to what Team Harris is thinking and when they'll make this decision? Well, they got to make a decision soon because the deadline is coming up for the nomination. They got to get in the ballots. You know, it's down really to three is what I'm hearing, which is Tim Waltz, Mark Kelly and Josh Shapiro. Obviously, there's some other names in the mix. Pete Buttigieg, Gary Peters, as much as we want to promote him as a guest on Morning Joe, probably an outsider. But look, I think that what I took away from Elias's focus group was the end remark, forward looking. That's what they want. And I think that's what Harris's team is looking for, too. This is they have the virtue of being able to say with Biden dropping out that they are creating a generational contrast with Trump. They've they've been handed the luxury of making this election about the future, even though they are the incumbent party. And I think what they want

to do here is they want to supplement the ticket with someone who can help them make that contrast. All those people can to a degree, but a young governor probably does the best. I'll just leave it at that. All right, Sam Stein reading tea leaves for us. We appreciate it. Coming up next here, we switch to the Olympics and Team USA added eight more medals to its total. We'll have an update on the competition at the Summer Games there in France. Plus

our own Willie Geist. Yes, Willie Geist will join us live from Paris. Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Simone Biles, when it is the team competition, gymnastics coming up around 1215 Eastern Time, 615 in the evening here. This could be another gold medal for Simone Biles, who, of course, is a legend already in the world of gymnastics. And this team favored to win it all. They got silver in Tokyo after winning gold the previous two Olympics. So looking for a bit of redemption. Also, a great storyline here coming up a little bit later, 9.30 a.m. Eastern time, is the U.S. women's rugby team advancing to the semifinals.

They're going to play New Zealand in one semifinal. They are at least guaranteed to play for a medal. Of course, if they win in that first game, they go to the gold medal game. But even if they lose, they get a shot at the bronze later today. So that's a lot of fun. Now, the picture everyone is talking about, John, this morning is this one about 10,000 miles away from where I'm standing in Tahiti, where they're holding the surfing competition. This is Gabriel Medina, a surfer

from Brazil. Just a surreal photograph. This is after his run during which, by the way, he set an Olympic record with a 9.9 score, now a favorite to win the gold medal. This is him after his dismount. So the wave has kicked him off. He's floating through the air, already celebrating because he knows what he did. You can look at that all day. It looks like something out of Photoshop. That's the real thing. Gabriel Medina floating down in Tahiti. You mentioned Nick Itzkin. He won a bronze. He's from Los Angeles in fencing last night. And one of the things a lot of people have been talking about here in Paris is these extraordinary venues, these old historic

buildings turned into Olympic competitive venues. The one at the Grand Palais I went last night to watch, it was absolutely electric. I didn't know I was a fencing fan until I walked into the Grand Palais last night. There were two French women who were competing for the gold medal. So it was filled with fans from France, but also a lot of Team USA fans watching Nick Itzkin win the bronze medal. If you can see some of the footage here, look at that. That is a glass ceiling. It's a famous building. You've seen it in movies before. Right at the bottom of the Champs-Élysées along the Seine, turned into a fencing venue. And this is the final point in one of the semifinals for one of the French competitors who went on to win the gold medal.

So, John, these places are all so cool. Beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower. We talked about it ahead of these Olympics, but just to see it in person, it delivers. It exceeds expectations when you're watching at 10 o'clock at night, a rock and roll beach volleyball match in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. So we're less than a weekend, already a lot of good news, as you said, for Team USA leading the medal count. They'd like to win a few more golds, and perhaps that happens today as Simone Biles gets on the mat with that Team USA gymnastics competition, John. So we're doing well so far. Long road ahead. Simone Biles, certainly the spotlight today.

And you're right to note how Paris has done such a wonderful job using their famous landmarks, his backdrops, his venues. Really, really great. Willie, that photograph of that surfer, extraordinary. However, he wouldn't be able to do that on the Seine right now because there's water pollution concerns that's canceled some events. Give us the latest as to are they going to be able to actually use Paris' famed river for these games? So this has been a decade-long concern that Paris and France have spent $1.5 billion, $1.5 billion over the last decade, to decontaminate, effectively, the river.

Now, they had rain, as everyone saw Friday during the opening ceremony, so they had runoff from the streets into the Seine. They had it, they thought, in a good place. They took some tests last night and this morning and determined it was not safe for the swimmers to go in for the triathlon. So not canceled, but postponed until tomorrow. So you'll get the men's and women's now triathlon

happening on the same day. They are optimistic that they'll be able to run those races. They'll be able to swim those races in the river. Obviously the swimming competitions, Katie Ledecky and the rest are held in an arena somewhere else. But the marathon swim and the triathlon swims do take place in the Seine, which as of right now, officials are determined not safe for swimming, but optimistic those swimmers finally can get in the water tomorrow. Willie Geist, live for us in Paris. Thank you, my friend. We'll talk to you again later this week. Next up here on Morning Joe, Vanity Fair's Molly Jung Fast will join us with her new piece that argues female autonomy could be demolished if Donald Trump were to return to power. Plus, Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal and Gary Peters will be guests to discuss their support for Vice President Harris and the stakes of November's election. Also ahead, we'll speak with a Republican mayor in a key battleground state on why he's

now fully backing Harris's bid over fellow GOP member Donald Trump. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. Live shot of the U.S. Capitol. Looks like an overcast and muggy. Washington, D.C. this morning at 6.52 a.m. on the East Coast. So there was a pointed exchange on Fox News yesterday when host Neil Cavuto pushed back on Republican Senator John Kennedy when Kennedy called Vice President Kamala Harris a ding-dong and a loon. Here's part of that conversation. The polling that I've seen shows that many Americans think that the vice president is not a serious person. As I said, that she's a bit of a ding dong.

And number two, that she is a member of the loon wing of the Democratic Party. I'm just wondering how you think that will resonate with women when she is called nasty and crazy and a ding dong and all and disrespectful between you and the president. What has been said about her? I'm just wondering, do you worry how that comes across? And maybe you draw no distinction between a female candidate and a male one, and that's fair game, but that this could hurt you with female voters with these type of comments. Well, let me say it again. The vice president is a candidate for president of the United States. I don't care about her gender. Neil, maybe you do, but I don't.

I don't care about her race. I care about her competence. Then why call her a ding-dong? I'm telling you what the polling shows. I'm telling you what the polling shows. And it does. And I'll be glad to sit down with you and walk you through the polls. Please do, because I never know when it's constructed to call people names, you know,

Senator. I just, on the left or the right. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings, but let me say it again. Senator, you keep bringing it back to my feelings. My feelings matter a little. All I'm telling you is if you think you can gain this November calling people names, I don't know how far that goes, left or right. But we'll see. It's still early to your point. Your feelings seem to me like they matter to you a lot, Neil. And I'm trying to be objective here. Let me say it again. Are you really being objective, Senator? I just think you've got a bash-a-thon, a name-calling at her. If you call that being objective, I don't know. But, Senator, I do want to thank you for coming. Well, thank you for having me, Neil.

I hope you have a better day. Yeah, so do I. I hope you have a better day. Good for Neil Cavuto. Eugene Robinson, I mean, there it is that's what the republicans are doing yeah really ding dong so uh just uh they should just keep that up okay uh you know i i think uh i think senator's right go ahead and call call her names all you want and see what that see what that brings you i think um and i and I hope the senator has a better day.

It's really rich for Senator Kennedy to just in his hokey southern accent, considering he's lived in D.C. now for decades, I guess, to call her names and then to also claim that polling backs it up. I've not seen any polls where that her intelligence is belittled and demeaned. And this just shows they do not have a solid attack right now. If all they're doing is name calling, petty name calling that also falls apart on the surface because she has is a pretty successful career woman, then they are not doing well at this at all. Yeah, there's no polling about ding dong or loon. We should know Senator Kennedy also went to Oxford. And yet here we are. And not