Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/31/23

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

Mar-a-Lago staff, Carlos De Oliveira, is to appear in court on Monday for allegedly hiding security footage linked to Trump's classified documents probe.

Or it could be both. That was Donald Trump over the weekend taking the stage in Iowa to the lyrics of a country song about the potential of going to prison. We'll go through the latest developments in the classified documents case as one of Trump's employees is supposed to appear in federal court later today. Also ahead, we're hearing from the Georgia prosecutor who is likely to bring charges against the former president there for interference in the 2020 election. Plus, we've got brand new reporting on the massive amount of money that Trump's political group is spending on his legal costs. And new polling out this morning has more bad news for

the DeSantis campaign, with the Florida governor failing to build substantial support from Republican voters. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, July 31st. I'm Jonathan Lemire in for Joe Mika and Willie. With us, we have member of the New York Times editorial board, Mara Gay, White House editor for Politico, Sam Stein. You just saw him on way too early. And the founder of the conservative website, The Bulwark, Charlie Sykes. It's a great group. Thank you for being with us this morning. And we'll begin the week with the latest on those new charges against former President Donald Trump in the classified documents case. Today, a newly introduced third defendant, the property manager at the former president's Florida home, is scheduled to be arraigned in Miami federal court.

Carlos de Oliveira was named in a superseding indictment last week and charged with four counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements to the FBI. According to prosecutors, Trump directed both de Oliveira and his valet, Walt Nada, to destroy security camera footage last year from the room monitoring where boxes of classified documents were being stored at Mar-a-Lago. That alleged order came just days after the FBI issued a subpoena for that same footage. It's unclear, though, if de Oliveira's arraignment will go on as planned today, because as of last night, we're told he still did not have a Florida-based

lawyer. Maybe the same stall tactic that NADA used earlier in the case. Let's bring in NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent Ken Delanian right now with the very latest. Ken, what do we think we will see, if anything, today? Good morning, Jonathan. Well, it all depends on whether he can find local counsel. And for somebody like Carlos de Oliveira, you know, that's a big deal. He has to find a competent lawyer in Florida on very short notice, assuming he didn't know he was about to be named in an indictment to represent him. So we may not see the arraignment today. But one thing is clear is that this these new charges add a really important new dimension to the obstruction of justice angle to this classified documents case. And it really separates what happened here with

the situation with President Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence, who both had classified documents found in their residence. This this what was laid out on Friday in this new superseding indictment was a scheme that was something out of a mob movie where Donald Trump allegedly instructed two lower level employees to delete surveillance footage days after he got a grand jury subpoena. That is very clear to regular Americans what that's all about. And it also undercuts what had been Mr. Trump's defense in this classified documents case, because, you know, if the documents were declassified, if he had to write to them,

which is what he's been saying all along, then why would he need to destroy evidence, surveillance footage showing those boxes of classified documents being moved? So that's so this is a very important development in the case. We remains to be seen whether this third defendant is arraigned, but at some point he will be, Jonathan. So, of course, this came sort of out of nowhere at the end of last week, while the eyes were all in Washington, thinking that the January 6th election interference indictment could come down. And we should know we still anticipate that coming could be in a matter of days. But, Ken, on this case, we heard from Trump, you know, on Truth Social over the weekend at his rally, insisting, insisting, hey, we never deleted

anything. We never deleted the server. But that's not the point, right? It wasn't that it actually was delivered. It was that he gave the order to. That's right. He's charged with a conspiracy to obstruct justice in this matter. And it doesn't it doesn't matter if you've succeeded in a criminal conspiracy, if the prosecution can prove you engaged in one. Now, I will say reading this superseding indictment carefully, it doesn't give any hint that prosecutors have direct witnesses who can put the words in Donald Trump's mouth, delete the footage. What they have is a third-hand conversation, at least what they've laid out in the indictment, the superseding indictment, between DeOliveira and a fourth employee who appears to be cooperating, where he

says the boss wants the footage deleted. Now, obviously, what they would like to do is flip Mr. de Oliveira and have him testify about his conversations with Donald Trump. And if those, in fact, were the conversations, that becomes a devastating witness. But there's reporting that, you know, they brought him in and they talked to him under what's known as a proffer, a queen for a day proffer, according to The Washington Post. And they didn't like what he said and they believe he lied to them, which is why they've now charged him with false statements. And he's represented by an attorney who's paid for by Donald Trump's super PAC. So thus far, he's standing firm. And it does raise a bit of a question about how strong the evidence is here in terms of pinning on Mr. Trump the conspiracy to delete the footage. We'll just have to see if this is all the prosecutors have, Jonathan. A conspiracy complete with references to the boss and hush emojis in text messages.

NBC's Ken Delaney, and thank you so very much. And Ken just mentioned this new report in The Washington Post that reveals that Trump's political group spent more than $40 million on legal costs in the first half of this year to defend Trump, his advisers and some others. What's more, Trump's Save America PAC is financing legal work that is now raising questions from prosecutors about potential conflicts of interest. That's according to people familiar with the matter. Trump advisors told the Post that the PAC, which raises most of its money from small dollar contributions, is footing the legal bills for almost anyone

drawn into the numerous Trump investigations who requests help from the former president and his advisors. And joining us now to talk about it is one of the co-authors of this brand new piece of reporting, The Washington Post's Devlin Barrett. He covers national security and law enforcement for the paper. Devlin, it's great to see you. Please explain the potential issue here with the representation of the two

who have been charged in the documents case. We just mentioned them, Valet, Walt Nauta, and the property manager there, Carlos de la Vera, and the IT worker who looks to have provided information to prosecutors. Right. So it's not unusual for an employer to pay for the legal costs of an employee who ends up getting involved in an investigation. But what's so interesting and and frankly, potentially important about the Trump situation is when you look at these witnesses, when you look at these Trump employees, what you're seeing is a kind of high stakes game of chicken, where when prosecutors come to suspect that a person is being more loyal to Trump than the truth, then they start pressing them. And in some cases, they can essentially bring them over to being a

witness. That's what you see happening in Ucil Taveras' case. That's why you see, that's part of the reason why you see a superseding indictment. In the case of Carlos de Oliveira, in the case of Walt Nauta, they pressed them both. They engaged in this sort of high stakes game of chicken with prosecutors. And ultimately they were charged. On here, slightly off topic, but on the same general thrust, this story about the $40 million that the PAC spent on legal fees. One of the questions that I've had, which I guess I would love for your insights into

is why did they do it through the PAC as opposed to setting up an entirely separate legal entity, which the Times is now reporting they're doing, just a legal defense fund to cover this. Why go through a political entity like the PAC raising money that should ostensibly be for political purposes or an election, as opposed to doing something that was strictly for legal purposes, like a legal defense fund? Sure. So it's long been the case that political entities are allowed to pay the legal costs of the candidate or the campaign. And that's been true for decades.

And people have made this raise this question and and had this concern for a long time. But I think the simplest answer to your question is that it's just easier if you know your campaign is raising a lot of money. If you know that that campaign or PAC is allowed to spend money on legal costs for a lot of campaigns and a lot of politicians, the answer is, well, why not do it? It's a simpler way to both raise money and spend it. The Washington Post, Devlin Barrett, more terrific reporting. Thank you for joining us this morning to share it with us. Now, over the weekend, some of Trump's challengers in the 2024 presidential race highlighted the issues with his current campaign. I think we've got to move forward. We can't have a general election where we are handing it over to Kamala Harris because

we're dealing with indictments and court cases and legal issues of President Trump. So it would help you get your message out and Republicans get their message out if he drops out. Is that what you're saying? Well, none of us want to be talking about indictments. I don't even know if it's the third, fourth or fifth indictment right now. But what I can tell you is it's a distraction. And frankly, the media is talking about it nonstop. But when I do these town halls, the American public is not talking to me about that. I think what our voters need to begin to think about is where we have a front runner right now who, when he gets on the stage for the Fox News debate on August 23rd, will be out on bail in at least two different jurisdictions, if not three between now and then. How are we going to beat the Democrats with a candidate who is going to be out on bail

facing numerous, numerous self-inflicted wounds in courtrooms across this country? Donald Trump is not running for president to make America great again. Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison. And if we elect, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Listen, I know the truth. The truth is hard. But if we elect Donald Trump, we are willingly giving Joe Biden four more years in the White House. And America can't handle that. As you can hear, that audience at Friday's Iowa Lincoln

Dinner wasn't buying that critique of Trump delivered by former Congressman Will Hurd. Yesterday on Meet the Press, Hurd was asked about his comments and the hostile response from the crowd. I knew there were going to be people that didn't like it, but what I didn't expect was there were a lot of people that actually clapped, and then more, there were going to be people that didn't like it, but what I didn't expect was there were a lot of people that actually clapped. And then more, there were more people that just sat there politely and probably understand and knew what I was saying was the truth. But new polling shows that most Republican primary voters simply don't want to hear the truth. In the latest survey from The New York Times and Siena College, Trump leads Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by 37 points, 54% to just 17% among likely GOP primary voters. All other candidates earned less than 5% of support in the poll,

which we should note was conducted before new charges were announced against Trump in the classified documents case, that superseding indictment. If you take out all candidates other than Trump and DeSantis, the survey still shows the former president leading big by a margin of 62 percent to 31 percent. The poll also suggests that 56 percent of Republicans say Trump did nothing wrong in the classified documents case, though it remains to be seen if late last week's superseding indictment has any impact on that support. My guess would be no. And as it relates to Trump's actions after the 2020 vote, 75 percent of Republicans say he was exercising

his right to contest the election. Just 19 percent say his actions threatened american democracy charlie sykes charlie sykes charlie sykes so this is yet another poll that shows that this is donald trump's party no matter what sort of legal peril he faces himself in we have just spent the first little bit of this show detailing the new allegations and it sure doesn't seem like it matters. That same dinner where we played that sound from Will Hurd, all the Republicans were there. I won't surprise you to learn who had the biggest crowd and the biggest reception. And that's Donald Trump. Yeah, I would say that these these polls are unambiguous. And what happened in Iowa was pretty clear.

If you wanted to know what the what the nature of the Republican Party was right now. I mean, he still dominates the party. He goes into Iowa. He he insults the governor there. And he's the only candidate that gets the standing ovation. One of the candidates that actually calls him out is his boot. So the poll makes it very, very clear that at this point, I think I mean, here's the reality check, Jonathan. I think you'd have to be naive to the point of being delusional to think that Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee for president, despite all of this. And I think you have to be naive to the point of being delusional to think that any of these these indictments are going to change all of that, because what you have is this alternative reality of the Republican base that that sees January 6th as somehow quasi legitimate, that is willing to overlook all of Donald Trump's lies, all of the crimes, all of the things that he has has done. You know, when you add up everything we know about Donald Trump and everything that all of the Republican insiders and members of his administration have said.

And then you look at those polls and you have to ask yourself, what would it take to actually loosen his hold on the Republican Party? At this point, Jonathan, I can't think of anything. I can't think of anything. And you saw that on display over the weekend and you see that in those numbers. Yeah, Mara, and certainly a general election might be a different story. These are things that you can't imagine these indictments help him with undecided or swing voters next year. But right now in the Republican primary, we're at we're at two indictments, likely a third, maybe this week and nothing changes. Well, you know, it really speaks to the extent to which Donald Trump

has gotten a large portion of the Republican base to identify with him. And so the more under attack he becomes, almost like a bunker mentality has developed among the Republican base. And they just dig in even deeper with him. You know, one of the questions that I had, and I was wondering if maybe Charlie might be able to shed some light on this, is Charlie. You know, one of the questions that I had, and I was wondering if maybe Charlie might be able to shed some light on this, is Charlie, you know, more and more, especially as candidates like Ron DeSantis have risen, who, while not a populist himself necessarily, certainly is far to the right of most voters in the country. Do you think that this is an overall realignment that we're seeing among Republican voters

with right wing populism? Or is this really just more cult-like behavior about Donald Trump himself and Trumpism? Well, that's a fascinating question. I think both things can be true at the same time. And Ron DeSantis seemed to be under the illusion that he could run a kind of, you know, I'm Donald Trump without the baggage. And he's gone for all the social issues. But as I think is becoming increasingly apparent, this is not an election about issues. It's not an issue. It's it's not one or where you're going to have a referendum even on woke ism.

It really is about Donald Trump and it is about Donald Trump's personality. But at the same time, you are seeing this this hard realignment on the right. There was a convention of young conservatives recently in Washington, D.C., and the reports out of that would suggest that they're not interested in traditional conservative values or even fiscal issues. They they like the the social red meat issues. So I think the hangover of this is going to take is going to is going to linger for a very, very long time. I think decades from now, we'll look back on on this as very much a realignment, even after Donald Trump leaves the stage. Yeah. Trump had the big crowd in Iowa and then another one at a rally in the battleground state of Pennsylvania over the weekend. And he's continuing to suggest, Trump is,

that the Bidens were involved in a bribery scheme with Burisma. You'll recall that's the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden once served on the board. And on Saturday at that eerie Pennsylvania rally, Trump demanded that further military aid to Ukraine be withheld until the Biden administration turns over everything related to the Biden's family's business dealings. Joe Biden is compromised. He's dragging us into a global conflict on behalf of the very same country, Ukraine, that apparently paid his family all of these millions of dollars. In light of this information, the U.S. Congress should refuse to authorize a single additional payment of our depleted stockpiles. But the weapons stockpiles

to Ukraine until the FBI, DOJ and IRS hand over every scrap of evidence they have on the Biden crime family's corrupt business dealings. We have to know and the public deserves to know. In addition, Congress should immediately vote to block Joe Biden's recent call up of reserve forces. We're sending now troops over to Europe to fight. We're sending troops to fuel this escalating conflict. Not a single American life should be put at risk because crooked Joe Biden has been illegally paid off he's been paid off this is a corrupt president hang on so Donald Trump is suggesting the U.S. withhold military aid unless Ukraine turns over information about the Bidens doesn't that sound extraordinarily familiar you recall

that Trump was impeached the first time for his attempts to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, including, wait for it, withholding of aid to Ukraine in exchange for information on Joe Biden. Sam Stein, we have traveled back in time, apparently. And we should note, first of all, one bit of fact-checking,

that there are not American soldiers being sent to fight in Europe. That's not that's what Trump said there is not correct. But here he is doing a calling for exactly what him got impeached the first time. Sam, does anything matter anymore? Jonathan, time is a flat circle. We are in the loop here. I'm not surprised that Trump was not chastened by his first impeachment. It was a perfect phone call. This will be branded a perfect speech. And that's just how he rolls, right? I mean, this is not only is this what he does, it's, you know, he says the quiet part out loud. But in this case, he also, as a policy matter, has been more deferential to the Russian side of this calculus and has waxed on a lot about his disagreements with the Biden administration over its support for Ukraine. And, of course, tying the investigations into Biden to Ukraine aid is not surprising in

the slightest. As you noted, he did this several years ago. He's going to do it now. The question, I suppose, is when the administration, the current administration does come around to Congress saying, hey, we need more funding for Ukraine. What happens in the House? Do Trump's allies in the House actually take this call over the weekend seriously and condition any aid on some sort of investigative finding? I don't think it's unreasonable to see a future in which that actually is the case. And then the Biden administration really does have a tricky issue on its hands here. Well, to this point, the House Republicans have suggested they'll go ahead and impeach And then the Biden administration really does have, you know, a tricky issue on its hands here. Well, to this point, the House Republicans have suggested they'll go ahead and impeach President Biden about, well, whatever.

And they're working towards expunge Donald Trump's impeachments for the record. So odds are they'll take their cues for from the former president. Lunatic Democrats. They impeach me. They indict me. They rig our elections. And the Republicans just don't fight the way they're good people, but they don't fight the way they're supposed to fight. The others are dirty, sick players. And the Republicans are very high class. They've got to be a little bit lower class, I suspect. Any Republican that doesn't act on Democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out. That's former President Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania Saturday night, lashing out at Republicans who he sees as not defending him adequately throughout his multiple investigations. And given those comments, Trump might not be too pleased with Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who is warning her GOP colleagues that impeaching President Biden could lead to consequences in next year's election.

What about this issue of impeachment? Is the party divided? Well, I do believe we are at this point. An inquiry is different from an impeachment vote and is another tool in the toolbox. But I will tell you, every time we walk the plank, we are putting moderate members, members that won Biden won districts. We are putting those seats at risk for 2024. We are putting the majority at risk. And it's not just impeachment that does that. Other issues like abortion, et cetera, also put those members on the plank. But the one thing I'll say is this, is that whatever the evidence shows us, we ought to follow the facts and we have to be better than Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi really politicized the impeachment process. We do not

want to do that here. We have to show overwhelming, undeniable evidence in order to move this thing forward. And if we can't, then we should not. So, Charlie Sykes, let's start with President Trump, former President Trump's comments. They're calling for any Republican who he deems not adequately defending him to be primaried. We spend a lot of time on the show noting his influence on the GOP. Right. Do we think this is something that could come to be? Are people going to jump in the race against them? Or do you think this will motivate more and more Republicans to take up his cause and investigate Biden and the Democrats?

Well, I don't think it's an empty thread. And I was thinking over the weekend that one of the consequences of the looming indictments of Donald Trump is it becomes, you know, there'll be more pressure to impeach Joe Biden. Look, there's kind of a two step strategy here, expunging Trump's impeachments and then moving ahead with an impeachment of Joe Biden, all of which has the effect of throwing lots of smoke and dust into the air and also downplaying the significance of impeachments. I mean, you and I are both old enough to remember when impeaching a president was a very big deal. But what if we come to a moment where everybody has been impeached, that that impeachment becomes just sort of same old, same old? much in Donald Trump's interest to basically say, look, I'm facing indictment, but look what's happening to Joe Biden. For the Trump world, it really is important for them to convince the American public that, yes, he may have been involved in questionable activity, but everybody is corrupt. Because if everybody is corrupt, then really, what does it matter? So I think that

you're seeing that two-step with impeachment, wiping out his impeachments, watering down the significance of impeachment by going after Joe Biden and creating the alternative narrative. So I imagine there's going to be tremendous pressure on Republicans. And Nancy Mace may be talking about her reluctance, but we've seen before how when the squeeze is really on and it is on right now, Republicans tend to fall in line. And I wouldn't be surprised if they did this time as well. Yeah. Congresswoman Mace, you know, warned against impeachment there, but she's also at the very front of all these Biden crime family

talks. So she's certainly trying to have it both ways. But Mara, she may not be wrong in that, you know, it seems like most Americans don't want the GOP to go down this path. And we saw Speaker McCarthy kind of try to tap the brakes late last week about the impeachment inquiry. But if Donald Trump's going to call for it, pressure's only going to be on. Well, it's pretty stunning because you can kind of see the Republican train derailing as we speak, because we know that Trump has been a loser in elections at this point. And yet there's really nothing, it seems, that the rest of his party can do to stop him from losing seats for Republicans, which is what Nancy Mace is warning of. But this one lonely voice,

I mean, there's no way that you can stop this Trump train like that. And also, it shows you the extent to which the party is really, I mean, Donald Trump is really about protecting himself. He's not about winning Republican seats. And so, you know, most Americans don't want to hear about this. This is a giant distraction, among other things. Hey, look over here, everybody. They're persecuting me. They're prosecuting me when when really this is there's a really serious process underway across the country in which he is being held to account for potential crimes he may have committed. So I think this is a political disaster in the making for Republicans. And we'll see how how it plays out. So Sam Stein, let's get you your take on this as well.

You know, the White House is they understand this might be coming. They're certainly not welcoming an impeachment inquiry. No White House would. They think it would probably be a political winner for them, but it would be a painful process all the same. You know, we've seen McCarthy struggle at times, really struggle at times to keep keep the sort of far-right factions of his conference at bay. What do you think? How do you chart this out for us? With Trump's going to put on this pressure, what do you think McCarthy does? I mean, that's a great question. The history is pretty clear on this stuff. I mean, you just look at the Clinton era where impeachment obviously backfired on Republicans. I think there's people within the House GOP conference who know this, who are worried about it. Obviously, Nancy Mace expressing her concerns there.

But if you're McCarthy, there's a lot of different pressures you have to consider here, right? I mean, I thought Ken Buck, the congressman, had really interesting commentary last week, which is that he thought it was just a distraction tactic by McCarthy to try to alleviate some of the pressure from conservatives that he's facing right now over, among other things, the deal he cut on the debt limit and the forthcoming fight over government funding. At the same time, McCarthy does have Trump to consider, and Trump wants the expungement of his impeachments.

To Charlie's point, he wants to dirty the waters. So it looks like Joe Biden and myself are all the same. If you're McCarthy, you have to sort of just make it through the day at some point. And so I think that's why he's floated it. I don't see it happening immediately. I think there's a reason he kind of dialed it back a little bit. And part of the reason I don't see it happening immediately. I think there's a reason he kind of dialed it back a little bit. And part of the reason I don't think it happens immediately is, frankly, I don't think they've actually made the case yet. I mean, I think you do have to actually consider the substance here. You know, Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings are obviously unseemly and problematic. But by their own admission, Republicans have not tied

the president, Joe Biden, to profiteering from them. And if you actually dig into the sort of storylines here, they become a little bit tricky to follow because they've gone down very weird paths. You know, there's Romania, there's Ukraine, there's different quirky characters, there's IRS whistleblowers. You start to lose the plot a little bit. And so I think Republicans are trying to make sure that the narrative actually makes sense to viewers, to the public before they proceed with this, because they will quickly lose the public if they don't. So House is gone now, out for more than a month on recess. I think there's some hope there that some of this pressure dissipates. We shall see. Charlie Sykes, great analysis as always. Thank you for joining us this morning.

An American woman and her child have reportedly been kidnapped in Haiti as that country struggles with ongoing violence and downright anarchy. NBC News correspondent Ali Rafa has more on the kidnapping and the travel warning that the United States government has issued. An American nurse and her child missing after being reportedly kidnapped as violence sweeps across the island nation. I'm a nurse from New Hampshire, but now I live in Haiti. 31-year-old Alex Dorsenville and her child were taken Thursday from the campus of a Christian nonprofit near Haiti's capital, Port-au-old Alex Dorsenville and her child were taken Thursday from the campus of a Christian

nonprofit near Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Her husband founded the nonprofit, which confirmed the kidnappings, saying they were taken while serving in the community ministry. But details about how they were abducted are still unclear. The State Department ordering evacuations from Haiti's U.S. Embassy and issuing its highest level travel warning the same day the pair was kidnapped. Since the assassination of its president in July of 2021 and an earthquake one month later, Haiti has collapsed into anarchy. With armed gangs now controlling an estimated 80% of its

capital. We have very deep concern for the situation there. We are also very focused on working together with partners to try to help the Haitians restore security, restore stability. Efforts by the international community to form a multinational police force had made little progress until Saturday, when Kenya volunteered to take the lead. Alex and her child apparent victims to the country's chaos, as the search for them continues. That's NBC's Ali Rafa with that report. Elsewhere overseas, Saudi Arabia is the latest country to express an interest

in trying to settle the war in Europe. The Saudi kingdom announced over the weekend that it will host a peace summit next month to begin talks on a way to end the conflict. Now, Russia is not invited, but the Associated Press reports that Brazil, India, South Africa and several other countries are. The AP cites a high level U.S. official saying a representative from the Biden administration is expected to attend the event. Meanwhile, on the front lines of the fight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called yesterday a, quote, powerful day. As Ukraine says, it retook some ground that it lost last May, specifically in the area surrounding Bakhmut, which, of course, has seen some of the war's fiercest fighting. Ukraine's deputy defense minister telling a national broadcaster that 77 square miles have been recaptured by Ukraine's forces in the south, while adding progress so far has been limited amid

entrenched Russian positions and many, many landmines. It's been nearly two weeks now since U.S. Army Private Travis King crossed into North Korea wearing civilian clothes. After serving time in a South Korean prison for assault, King was scheduled to return to the U.S. for a disciplinary hearing when he joined a private group touring the Demilitarized Zone, the DMZ, and then ran across the border into North Korea. It's unclear whether King purposefully defected when he entered the country. North Korean government has not provided any updates. Now, our next guest is

taking a look at the historical significance of defectors from the former Soviet Union. Author Eric R. Scott joins us now. He's out with a new book with the title Defectors, How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World. Eric, thanks so much for joining us this morning. Tell us more about this premise, about these defectors who fled the Soviet Union before the Iron Curtain came down, and what it means for our world today. Well, thank you very much. So defection is an unusual thing. When we typically think about migrants fleeing, we think of the way that people are prevented from entering countries by borders. But defectors were people who fled illegally, who fled countries that had exit controls, essentially criminalizing their exit.

And the other interesting thing about defection during the Cold War was that their flight was actively encouraged by the U.S. and its allies. And so defection was jointly produced by this criminalization of exit and this encouragement of escape. And the book looks at defection around the world, not only in border zones along states, but also on the high seas, around embassies, aboard airplanes. And what I really look at is how Cold War borders were constructed by efforts to rein in and control these defectors. These defectors were often very unpredictable people. They did things for a variety of reasons. And the book looks at their history from really the end of World War II until the present. Yeah. Eric Maragay here from The New York Times. Obviously, we know very little, actually,

about what happened in this case. But how do you think about this border with North Korea? Obviously, the Cold War ended many years ago. But help us contextualize what may have happened here and what the different incentives are with the governments involved here. Well, first of all, North Korea is very interesting because this is one of the last countries that still prevents the exit of its citizens. So when we think about defection, most of the people we look at are fleeing North Korea. But there are a few cases of people fleeing the other way. The DMZ is really the ceasefire zone of the armistice of the Korean War 70 years ago.

It is highly militarized. There have been a few cases of people fleeing into North Korea, several U.S. soldiers, a handful really, since 1953 who fled for a variety of reasons. Some were disenchanted with their military service. Some had disciplinary issues, as Travis King appeared to have. One appears to have been drunk at the time of his flight. And so I think there's probably a lot of different motivations at play here. And I would suspect the North Koreans are probably as surprised as we are in terms of his flight and trying to make sense of why he did what he did.

And what will happen next. The new book titled Defectors, How the Illicit Flight of Soviet Citizens Built the Borders of the Cold War World. Author Eric R. Scott, congratulations on the book. Thank you for joining us this morning. Back Votto extending the Reds lead over the Dodgers yesterday with that two-run bomb in the third inning. Cincinnati beat LA 9-0 and moved a half game ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers and then moved back atop the National League Central. To Baltimore now as we do a little baseball roundup. Woo! The New York Yankees were sunk, well, by the end of the first inning of last night's rubber match against the AL East leading Orioles. The Orioles tagged Yankee starter Luis Severino

for seven runs in the opening frame and then tacked on two more in the fourth on the way to an easy 9-3 victory over the Bronx Bombers. The Orioles remain, as you can see, one and a half games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays atop the AL East. Blue Jays five and a half back. Red Sox have lost two out of three over the weekend, eight back, Yankees nine.

The Los Angeles Angels continue to be buyers ahead of tomorrow's trade deadline. In a second significant move after the team announced last week that it simply won't deal its two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, the Angels added Colorado Rockies outfielder Randall Greitchuk and first baseman C.J. Krohn in exchange for a pair of pitching prospects. But here's the big move. The AL West's leading Texas Rangers added more arms for a potential championship run, acquiring left-handed starter Jordan Montgomery and righty reliever Chris Stratton from the St. Louis Cardinals. And that comes after the Rangers finalized a deal for New York Mets ace Max Scherzer, who was set to make his starting debut in Arlington on Thursday. Mad Max to the Rangers. The Mets, meanwhile, have just hours now to decide what to do

with their other highly paid three-time Cy Young Warder still on the roster. There are reports this morning that the Dodgers could be interested in the 40-year-old righty, Justin Verlander, who earned the 250th win of his career on the mound yesterday and a 5-2 victory over the Washington Nationals. Sam Stein, let's do a little baseball trade deadline talk. The New York Mets, it can be argued, are one of the most disappointing teams in the history of the sport. They have by far the biggest payroll the game has ever seen. By like $90 million more than any other team.

They have long since fallen out of the playoff contention. They've traded Scherzer. Verlander might be next. He's probably the biggest prize out there on the market with Otani staying put in L.A. What do you think happens this next day or so before we hit the trade deadline? Well, it raises a really interesting question, a philosophical one, really. Can you be the most disappointing team in the history of the sport if your entire fan base is basically conditioned to disappointment, right?

This was the expectation for the Mets fans that they would faceplant, and they've lived up to it. So, arguably not the most disappointing team, just playing to type. As for the trade market, it's weird. It's not very little activity, as you're aware. Apparently, the asking prices for, you know, middle of the rotation arms is astronomical. Doesn't mean that as we get closer to the actual deadline that things won't go crazy. I, as I'm sure you, would love to see the Red Sox get a really good front of the rotation pitcher with a little bit of, you know, salary control that they could bank on and maybe give up very little for.

You know, that type of deal, maybe Shohei Otani for Nick York, right? Like something like that. But, you know, not going to happen. But I would like to see the Sox make a little bit of a splash in what has been a very pleasantly surprising season so far. Yeah, they lost two out of three over the weekend, but they've been the best team in baseball over the month of July. Yeah, I think I hope they're buyers more than sellers of the market, although my hopes are relatively modest. Mara, we want to turn now, though, before the top of the hour about your recent op ed for The New York Times. And it's about the issue of public health and safety, in particular about swimming. The piece is called

When it comes to swimming, why Have Americans Been Left on Their Own? And you write in part this. The United States doesn't have to accept these deaths, nor does it have to retreat from the water to save lives. America can build more public pools. It can transform natural bodies of water into safer places to swim. It can subsidize swimming lessons and raise pay for lifeguards, making the job more attractive. The United States can build a culture of swimming instead of one of drowning. Of course, as you write, this has been a series of drownings here in New York City region and

elsewhere. So tell us what led you to write this piece and why. Tell us why on so many levels learning to swim is so important. You know, I'm a swimmer, not just a political junkie. And I've always wondered, why is it that so many Americans can't swim? Why do we accept these drownings? So I got a chance this summer to really look into it. I actually spent months interviewing family members of those who have drowned. And it was a pretty devastating, hard piece to write in that sense. But what I found is that we have a public health crisis on our hands that the country has largely ignored. We have 4,000 people who drown every year in the United States. That's an average of 11 a day. And the reason, according to my reporting, is really that too many Americans don't have a safe place to learn how to swim. So we have 10 million private swimming

pools in this country and fewer than 309,000 public ones. That's a figure that actually includes condo associations, hotel pools. So the number of truly municipal pools that are open to the public is much smaller. And as a result, Americans don't have a chance to learn how to swim. You know, in addition, this is a missed opportunity because this would be a great investment for every community across the country. Rural communities have this problem. Suburban ones, inner cities. This is across the board. Americans are drowning. We don't have to have this be this crisis. And of course, the rates are even higher among minority communities, and there's a history there. So I think overall, this would be a great investment for the United States. And swimming brings joy. There's a lot of health benefits. It would bring people together.

And it would be, I think, the best bang for your buck that this country could get. So I hope every community across the country can look into it. And there's also things that I laid out that the White House can do and Congress can take a look at. Build a public surveillance system around drowning, especially. Especially at a time when more people try to seek refuge in the water during these sweltering temperatures.

The extreme heat. Yeah, it's an important piece. You can find it in The New York Times.