Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/31/24

Episode Date: July 31, 2024

Harris is now leading or close to Trump in every battleground state

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. Yeah, I mean, if you have friends who've chosen not to have kids, you know how totally miserable they are. Oh no, I got too much disposable income. My life is so hard. I can fly business class. I still have a sex life. Please kill me. J.D. Vance's childless cat lady comment continues to be a major storyline in the presidential race and his cleanup attempts. Well, they don't seem

to be working as there are now more examples of him using similar phrasing over the past few years. Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris is building real momentum with her campaign, holding a raucous rally last night in front of a huge and lively crowd in Atlanta. It comes as the Veep Stakes is heating up with the campaign saying the vice president will appear with her new running make next week. We'll be joined by one of the men on the shortlist for that job, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. He will be our guest this morning. Also ahead, we'll bring you the latest out of the Middle East following a strike that killed a key leader of Hamas.

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, July 31st. I'm Jonathan Lemire, along with the BBC's Katty Kay, in for Joe, Mika and Willie. And with us, we're happy to say that we have NBC News and MSNBC political analyst, former US Senator Claire McCaskill. She and our friend Jen Palmieri are the co-hosts of the MSNBC podcast, How to Win 2024. Also with us, managing editor at the Bullwark, Sam Stein, and editor at large for the nonprofit newsroom, the 19th, Erin Haynes. Caddy, good to see you this morning. Yeah, I mean, we have children. We love our children. We wouldn't do anything different in our lives. But to suggest that those childless Americans don't have high quality lives, too,

not only inaccurate, but continues to be, on a more serious note, like deeply offensive to people. And it's one of those in a news cycle that is so fast, a news cycle that is that is relentless and things just we just seem to move on to the next story within a few hours at times. This one is really staying, and particularly for someone who, J.D. Vance, is trying to really introduce himself nationally. This is not a good first impression. Yeah, people with kids don't like it. People, of course, without kids don't like it. And then there's this weird policy proposal that people who have kids should get more votes in the United States.

I don't know about you, John, but when I had kids and they were small, I think I should have had my votes taken away from me. My brain was so addled with lack of sleep. So I think I was the last person that should have had extra votes when my kids were tiny. I mean, yeah, it's it's weird and it's sticking, like you say. And of course, the Democrats are making hay out of it. Meanwhile, Vice President Harris, it looks like, has closed the gap or taken the lead over Donald Trump in every swing state, according to the latest Bloomberg and Morning Consult poll. The new numbers show competitive races in all seven battleground states among registered voters. In Arizona, Harris now leads by two points after Trump led President Joe Biden by three points there in a survey that was taken earlier this

month. In Georgia, the polls show that the race is tied after Trump led by a single point in the previous survey. In Michigan, Harris now leads Trump by 11 points. That's double digits, a six point improvement on Biden's previous numbers. In Nevada, Harris has raised a three point lead for Trump and turned that into a two point lead of her own. She also trails by just two points in North Carolina. She's also cut Trump's lead from seven points to four points in Pennsylvania. And in Wisconsin, the poll shows Harris leading by two points after Biden led there by three points previously. We should note that with the exception of Michigan,

every state's result is within the margin of error. Harris's lead in Michigan also varies from other polls, by the way, that have been taken since Biden exited the race, but they are kind of extraordinary numbers and show a big swift pretty fast. Those numbers come as Vice President Harris herself held a rally last night in Atlanta, drawing a very energetic crowd of some 10,000 people. She laid out the contrast between her and Donald Trump, once again presenting this election as a choice between a prosecutor and a felon. Harris also attacked the former president on border security and called him out for flip-flopping on the next presidential debate. Our administration worked on the most significant border security bill in decades.

Some of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, D.C. supported the bill. Even the Border Patrol endorsed it. It was all set to pass. But at the last minute, Trump directed his allies in the Senate to vote it down. He tanked, tanked the bipartisan deal because he thought it would help him win an election. Which goes to show Donald Trump does not care about border security. He only cares about himself. So here is my pledge to you. As president, I will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed, and I will sign it into law and show Donald Trump what real leadership looks like. So last week, you may have seen, he pulled out of the debate in September he had previously agreed to.

So here's the thing. Here's the funny thing about that. Here's the funny thing about that. So he won't debate. But he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to thing about that. So he won't debate. But he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me. And by the way, don't you find some of their stuff to just be plain weird?

Well, Donald, I do hope you'll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage. Because as the saying goes, if you've got something to say, say it to my face. So, Claire McCaskill, a lot to get through here from what we saw from the vice president last night. First, it was striking. The border immigration is perceived as perhaps one of her biggest weaknesses. She went right there, right at the top of that rally. She addressed it head on, tried to flip it on Trump for his efforts to kill that bipartisan bill. And as we'll show you a little later in the show, she's got an ad on this as well. They're dueling ads. Trump has one attacking her. She's got one defending herself on this issue. The signature moment from that is

going to be the say it to my face about the debate, sort of goading Trump to meet her in September. But I'm also just struck by the feel of last night. That crowd was huge. It was raucous. The vice president is clearly having fun on the stage. An unthinkable scene for Democrats two weeks ago. Yeah, it is a remarkable thing that we are witnessing. This is a woman who's been underestimated by the chattering class, by people who don't know her well, people who assumed she wasn't ready to take on this kind of campaign in this way. And I think if we watch that speech last night, what struck me so much, I don't think people realize how hard it is when you're constantly interrupted with a lot of emotional

outbursts of a crowd and how you pause and allow that emotion to build and how you build off of that emotion for a crescendo. Really, that was a very well done set of remarks last night. And people really don't realize how difficult that is to do it with confidence, with a smile on her face. That's the biggest contrast in this campaign now, Jonathan, is that the Democrats are having fun. And it's about joy and opportunity and freedom. And the other side is about, you know, cat ladies and electrocuting boats and the stuff that most Americans are just going, well, that doesn't really move me. Yeah. And the weird is the word

the Democrats have fixated on the last 10 days. But it's also it's really dark. It's a dark image. It's a dark image of America that Donald Trump and J.D. Yance are putting forward. And it was a real contrast from last night. And Aaron Haynes, you were there. You covered that rally last night in Atlanta. Tell us a little bit more about what it what it felt like there, how the crowd responded to her as this is the general election is in a new, such a different place. And Vice President Harris's rollout here continues to be really impressive. Yeah, I mean, Jonathan, what you saw on the screen was exactly what it felt like in that arena. I mean, the mood, the best way I could describe it was festive.

And it was even in leading up to that electrifying 27 minute or so speech that the vice president gave. You had a parade of rock stars, political and entertainers taking the stage and really firing up a crowd that didn't really need much. You had a DJ in the arena. They were dancing, you know, for the three hours leading up to when she appeared on stage. And then you also have people like, you know, Stacey Abrams, who is certainly still a hero in Georgia. She made her first appearance for the vice president, who is now the presumptive Democratic nominee on stage. You had Senators John Ossoff and Raphael Warnock make a rare joint appearance on stage together, you know, at this rally. They don't often do that. They are coming back to that historic 2020 election for them as well. Then you had Megan Thee Stallion. You definitely had

this crowd fired up. And rapper Quavo from Migos, who then introduces the vice president, talking about their working relationship to address gun violence. So you had all these people coming out, really keeping this energy and enthusiasm going into week two of Harris's campaign, as she is really the de facto Democratic nominee. This is energy that I saw in Georgia in 2020, frankly. So, you know, I don't know if they can keep the same energy up for the next 98 days. That's something like 14 weeks from now. But if they can, Georgia certainly seems to be definitely back in play for Democrats.

Yeah, the energy there last night. I mean, crazy. The money there also pouring in as well. Sam, I don't know if you've got, if you need a little bit more money, but I see that Amazon is not yet selling Say It To My Face t-shirts. So there's a business opportunity for you.

I know, I'm sure they pay you a lot of money to do way too early. Every morning you do it brilliantly. But if you need a little bit more Say It To My Face t-shirts have to be sold, I reckon. Look, these polls, more seriously, what do you make of this Bloomberg poll, this kind of enormous shift that we've seen?

I haven't seen a shift like this during this campaign, this rapid and this distinctive, particularly that Michigan number. What are you making of that Bloomberg poll? Is this an out this rapid and this distinctive, particularly that Michigan number. What are you making of that Bloomberg poll? Is this an outlier or is this a reflection of where things are headed for Democrats? Do you want me to start with the serious stuff or can I play off of the Amazon T-shirt business idea? Go on. Go on. Okay, because I hadn't thought about the T-shirt business idea, but I look into it. It's a no-brainer. Not necessarily my forte. Also, Claire made a very valid point about constantly being interrupted.

I know it. I've worked with Jonathan Lemire. It is a problem. It's hard to speak when that happens. As for the polls, as for the polls, look, I don't put my stock in any one set of polls individually. I think there's some numbers there that, frankly, are head-scratching. Plus 11 in Michigan.

I mean, come on. That's not going to be the case. Also, minus four in Michigan, I mean, come on. That's not going to be the case. Also, minus four in Pennsylvania, I don't think that's going to be the case either. But if you look at trends, I think that's where you have to put your money, right? And the trends all point to the same thing, which is that Harris has gained substantially relative to what we expect in an election like this over the past two weeks. I mean, we are talking about three, two, three, four points across the board in the states and nationally. And I think it's just manifested in the ways that we saw

at Atlanta last night. Democratic enthusiasm, which had been so bad for so long, suddenly gets, you know, erupted out of this bottleneck. And you're seeing it with crowds. You're seeing it with poll results. You're seeing it with fundraising. You're seeing it with poll results. You're seeing it with fundraising. I think she's made up a huge amount just on that alone. The question is, can she sustain it, build on it, and then also keep in that coalition the sort of independence, the older voters that Biden did have in his back pocket? Can she do that and create that winning coalition? And that's where the next three weeks, I think, are going to be critical. Yeah, that's a really smart point by

Sam Stein and what will be his last appearance on Morning Joe. Sam, we all love you. We love you. And we're grateful you're here. But it is a good point. And look, let's look at this poll for a minute. I mean, look, it's hard to reconcile a number that has Harris up 11 in Michigan and down four in Pennsylvania. That doesn't quite wash. But I think the overall trend line, and we talk about this show on the show a lot, it's about trends. And the trend in the last 10 days is a race clearly, clearly shifting toward Harris here. But a race that even Democrats, even the most optimistic Democrats, Democrats who are being carried away by the surge of enthusiasm acknowledge, well, it's going to be a really close race. This is going to be this is still basically

a 50 50 toss up type race here, at least at this moment. You know, now just shy of 100 days to the election. And, you know, Republicans, though, while there is momentum, Republicans still playing defense in amid growing backlash over a 2021 remark about childless cat ladies, Donald Trump's running mate, J.D. Vance, is getting attention for another resurfaced comment. Take a look at what he had to say in a podcast interview from 2020 about Americans without children. Just these basic cadences of life that I think are really powerful and really, really valuable when you have kids in your life. And the fact that so many people, especially in America's leadership class, just don't have that in their lives. You know, I worry that it makes people more sociopathic and ultimately our whole country a little bit less, uh, less mentally stable. And of course you talk about going on Twitter. Final point I'll make is you go on Twitter and almost always the people who are most deranged and most psychotic are people who don't

have kids at home. Oh, boy. A spokesperson for Senator Vance responded, writing in part this. Once again, the left wing media have twisted Senator Vance's words and spun up a false narrative about his position on the issues. As he has clearly stated, he was talking about politicians on the left who support policies that are explicitly anti-child and anti-family. So, Claire, this is, first of all, let's just say this, let's make this clear up front. This was not a one-time remark from J.D. Vance. He has said versions of this a number of times. And in fact, as we pointed out yesterday, his campaign even tried to fundraise off of similar comments. But this is something, you know, first of all,

just react to what he said, but also just in terms of the politics of the moment, J.D. Vance, all he's doing right now is trying to clarify comments that seem to only grow more damaging by the day. Yeah, he he's really made a mess of this. And his spokesperson, I mean, give me a break. We all heard him say it. He's now said we're now the sociopaths that people who don't have children are sociopaths. I am more so than anything else that has happened since Kamala Harris took over the Democratic Party. This comment will move those disengaged independent voters more than anything else, because it is a personal insult that is hurtful in a way that people don't forget. And everyone knows someone in their life they love that is childless, sometimes by choice, sometimes not by choice. Sometimes it is step parents who are parenting stepchildren in exactly the same ways

that they would if they had had a biological child. Even people who have adopted children, this hits home to them. It rests inside of them. It will move voters. And he cannot run from these comments. He's said it over. It's what he really believes. So the question is, did they not vet this guy? Do they not know that part of his ethos is if you don't have children, you're less than the rest of America? It's really bizarre to me.

No question that part of this is a product of the way Trump built out the VP process where he wanted to save it to the last minute and have the suspense. And yes, this campaign says that there was vetting done of all the leading candidates. But clearly, Katty, clearly not enough. Or they found these comments and agreed with them. Yeah, I mean, there is a kind of 1950s vibe to all of this, right? That, you know, you have to have a kind of nuclear family. You read Project 2025, which I spent a lovely weekend reading so that you all didn't have to. And I know they're distancing themselves from that as fast as they possibly can. But the whole kind of ethos of 2025, that project, a lot of it is about family values, nuclear families, having kids.

I mean, and you hear that come out in J.D. Vance's comments. I mean, Erin, it was interesting listening to the hour earlier to Michael Snell in that program we can no longer mention because John Lemire took such offense to Sam Stein's comments, that the idea that members of Congress are now saying, Republican members of Congress are now saying that J.D. Vance was the worst possible pick for Donald Trump. Do you think is there any chance, do you think, that the Trump campaign or the former president would ever think of trying to switch out his vice president? I don't know if that's even possible for him at this point. But what are you hearing on that front? You know what? First of all, justice for Sam Stein. Let me just say that,

you know, Sam, we love you. This land really should not continue. I know, but he's just so, Aaron, he is so teasable. We can't resist. I mean, he's like, it gives us all joy in the morning to tease Sam. I'm sorry. I mean, look, you know, at least for now, you know, Republicans and former President Trump seem to be tethered to J.D. Vance as his running mate. This is the ticket that, you know, former President Trump chose. I was in Milwaukee when J.D. Vance was announced. Obviously, so much of the enthusiasm there was around former President Trump, especially coming out of the shooting that he had just survived. And so there was a lot of momentum around that. People that I spoke to there didn't seem to have a problem with J.D. Vance at that time. Right. Because these kinds of comments had not yet trickled out.

But look, at the 19th, we've been saying gender is on the ballot. And as women are continuing to hear the kind of comments that J.D. Vance has made in the past, as Jonathan has said, that he's campaigned on, he's fundraised on, as people from the LGBTQ plus community are hearing the kinds of things that he said around the transgender community. You know, these are not comments that are, you know, making them want to support the Trump Vance ticket. And in fact, they could be galvanizing those kinds of people to to reject that ticket and either stay home or vote for a, you know, Harrison, whoever her running mate is. So, you know, with gender on the ballot and gender really being kind of a baggage issue, it sounds like for J.D. Vance, this is this is really not the rollout. I know that that that that campaign was hoping for. And it's important to remember the context of the Vance pick.

The Trump campaign did so when they were confident they were going to win and win big. They thought they were heading to a blowout victory over President Joe Biden. And the pick of Vance was to firmly print MAGA on the Republican Party for years to come to run up the score, to make it Trump's party forever. That race has changed and that pick looks very, very suspect now. Editor at large for the nonprofit newsroom, the 19th, Aaron Haynes. Great to see you. Thank you for joining us this morning. Still ahead here on Morning Joe, a top leader for Hamas has been killed in Iran. We'll get a live report from the region on this developing story and what it could mean for fears of a wider war. You're watching Morning Joe, and we're going to be back in just 90 seconds.

There is developing news this morning out of the Middle East. The political leader of Hamas was killed in a strike in Iran. The group made the announcement late last night, calling the death of Ismail Hania an assassination. Hamas is now blaming Israel for that attack, but Israel has yet to comment on it. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says he is aware of the reports but has no other information to provide. According to Iranian state media, Hania was killed in Tehran shortly after attending the inauguration of Iran's new president. He had been leading political operations for Hamas from exile in Qatar and was a key figure in the ceasefire negotiations with Israel. Meanwhile, Israel says it has killed a top Hezbollah

commander in Lebanon. Israeli forces launched an airstrike in a densely populated suburb near Beirut yesterday. According to Lebanon's public health ministry, a woman and two children were also killed in the attack. At least 74 others were wounded. Israeli officials say the Hezbollah commander, who died, was a close advisor to the Iran-backed group's leader. Israel believes the commander was responsible for the attack over the weekend in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that killed 12 children and teenagers. Hezbollah, however, has denied responsibility. Let's bring in NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley. He's live in Beirut.

Matt, what more are we learning about the death, first of all, of the Hamas leader? Well, we're hearing that this is going to have a major impact on these ongoing negotiations that were already kind of moribund to begin with. But we just heard from the prime minister of Qatar saying, how can we continue these negotiations if Israel keeps assassinating the negotiators? This prime minister, of course, is one of the main intermediaries between Hamas and the Israelis, working with the United States and with the Egyptians, trying to come up with some sort of negotiated truce or bringing some measure of peace to the Gaza Strip that would also free those

remaining hostages held inside the Gaza Strip, those Israeli hostages. So that is the immediate impact that we're going to be seeing. But really, from now on, we're also hearing the Iranians saying that they are going to be retaliating for this. Now, in the past, we've seen that Iranian retaliation has been quite measured, almost more symbolic than practical. But at the same time, this is a major escalation. And when you take these two twin assassinations together, this looks like a very, very destabilizing factor. And in just the past 24 hours, really, this region has changed dramatically. Now there's much more pessimism in an already pessimistic environment. You know, this situation here in Beirut, this is very worrying because there were

some outstanding questions. Are the Israelis done retaliating for that attack in the Golan Heights on that soccer field that, as you just mentioned, killed a dozen children and teenagers? It looks as though they might be finished, but Hezbollah isn't finished. Now the Iranians aren't finished. Hamas also has reasons to retaliate. So now we're seeing an increase in the anger, even as American diplomats are trying their best to negotiate some sort of peace. This sets everything back in the region by days or weeks. It is a very, very difficult situation and one that, you know, the Israelis are going to have to acknowledge. They have instigated what looks like an interjected more and more instability

into a situation that was already deeply unstable. It's going to be very, very difficult to recover from this. And I have no doubt that American diplomats are going to be trying to tamp down the possibility of a region wide war. And I've been saying this for months now. This situation right now is the closest that the entire region has come to a region wide war in recent memory. Guys, Matt, talk about the Israeli position, though, because Israel is stretched thin. Their economy is stretched thin with so many young people now fighting already against Hamas in Gaza. Can they really take on a northern front like this in Lebanon? And this is a matter of much speculation. A lot of ink has been spilled on this very topic. It's a really important issue.

Is Israel's military, which was humiliated on October 7th, capable of opening up in full another front on its northern border with an enemy that would dwarf the power of Hamas in the Gaza Strip? Hezbollah, as we know, really behaves more like a state within a state, and it really behaves more like an army than a militia. This is a very rigid hierarchy group that has officers. It has international connections. It is a political force here in Lebanon.

It has ministers in the government. Its operatives are able to travel around the world, unlike those who are confined—Hamas officers who are confined to the Gaza Strip. So they were able to gather support. This means that Israel is continuing to instigate more and more anger from Hezbollah and now from Iran, Hamas. Iran, by the way, is the main patron for both Hamas and Hezbollah. So these conflicts are very much intertwined. And this is why this is so incredibly dangerous and why it makes the Israeli claims that they're trying to tamp down the situation. They're repeated claims that they don't want war

over the northern border. It makes it harder to believe and it will certainly make it harder to believe for a lot of their antagonists here in the Middle East who are right up on the border with them. It looks as though Iran is planning some sort of retaliation that could very well happen through its major proxies, its primary cat's paw right here in Lebanon, Hezbollah, which already in just the past 24 hours has a very new grievance to add against Israel. So again, an inflammatory set of double-barreled assassinations that has set this region already on edge right up to the brink of war.

Guys, a lot of fast moving and destabilizing developments in the region to be sure. NBC's Matt Bradley live for us in Beirut. Matt, thank you so very much. And amid these global hotspots, Donald Trump says that if elected president, foreign adversaries would walk all over Vice President Harris for reasons, quote, a lot of people understand. In part two of a sit-down interview that aired on Fox News last night, Trump was asked specifically about the possibility of Harris dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Here's what Trump had to say. I think they'll walk all over.

I think they'll look at her. I think they'll walk all over. I think they'll look at her. I think they'll walk all over. She'll be so easy for them. She'll be like a play toy. They look at her and they say, we can't believe we got so lucky. They're going to walk all over her. And I don't want to say as to why, but a lot of people understand it. Claire, it certainly seems to be an unsubtle suggestion from Trump questioning, again, Harris's intellect and her gender. Yeah, I don't understand what he thinks he's accomplishing by basically saying because of the way she looks, people are going to walk all over. I mean, this is a really accomplished woman. I think people don't realize to rise through the ranks of warfare in the Democratic Party in the state of California, you've got to be tough. The job of an elected DA, I had that job.

It's a hard job. There's incoming every day. People are hypercritical of decisions you make that are about life and death. This is someone who is tempered by her experience and ready to be steely tough. And when he does this, he's calling into mind people like Margaret Thatcher and Angela Merkel and other women leaders across the world that have gone toe to toe with the worst this world has to offer and done very, very well. I think it is a huge mistake for him to continue to bang on gender like this in a way that is kind of echoing the childless cat ladies of his running mate. And shows the lack of other attacks they seem to have. They have nothing. They got nothing. They got nothing. On the vice president. Yeah. So as for Russia and China, last week,

Russian and Chinese military planes flew together off the coast of Alaska in an unprecedented show of unity between the two U.S. rivals. According to U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the strategic bombers came within 200 miles of U.S. airspace. Facing a bevy of economic sanctions from the West following his invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Putin has grown increasingly close with his Chinese counterpart, causing concerns among NATO allies. So let's bring in now former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Matthew Brzezinski. He was stationed in both Kiev and Moscow for the journal. Matthew, good morning. Certainly, U.S. officials have warned they're not happy with the growing ties between Moscow and Beijing. China has not supplied lethal

aid to Russia's war effort in Ukraine, but they've certainly propped it up in a number of ways. These countries seemly growing closer. But you say that might actually backfire for China. Tell us. Well, I don't think this relationship is nearly as scary as some are making it out to be. China is acting very, very opportunistically. And in fact, this bomber patrol, which got so many headlines, is an example of the games that the Chinese are playing, not with us, but with the Russians. You know, you're picturing squadrons of bombers bristling with technology. In fact, it was a couple of ancient propeller-driven planes that had no bombs on board, and very likely the Chinese gave us a heads up and gave us the flight plan. This was political theater, not intended to frighten us

so much as intended to appease Vladimir Putin, because the Chinese relationship with Russia is one that is borderline, frankly, predatory. The Chinese are the big winners in the war on Ukraine because Russia's isolation has left it absolutely desperate and vulnerable. And the Chinese are taking tremendous advantage of this. And in fact, more telling of the relationship is not, let's say, this joint patrol, but the fact that on that very day, the Chinese kicked the Russians out of a joint venture to build a passenger plane, a wide-bodied, long-range passenger plane that will compete with the duopoly of Boeing and Airbus. The Chinese, for 10 years, used the Russians to help design the plane. And the Russians have much more experience and unceremoniously booted them out once they'd gotten what they needed from the Russians.

And in fact, the Chinese are fleecing the Russians in so many different ways that this is not a happy relationship. It's frankly is not even a situationship. But it's it's something that, you know, we in the West should not worry about too much. There's not a lot of love between the two. Matthew, I hate to make this all about US elections, but one of the very few areas where there is not very much policy difference between Democrats and Republicans at the moment, is around the issue of China. So how are the Chinese watching what's happening in the U.S. this summer? How are they seeing this transition from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris? What do you think Xi Jinping is making of the race so far?

I think they're very relieved. The last thing China wanted, probably, is a Trump victory where he brings a rapid end to the war on Ukraine. China is making far, far, far too much money off of Russia. Russia, after the invasion of Ukraine, had lost its European energy markets. And China is getting a 40% discount on what the Germans and the French were paying for natural gas. This is tens and tens and tens, savings of tens and tens of billions of dollars. Moreover, Vladimir Putin's, all his infrastructure was aimed towards delivering energy to the West. Now he's desperate to build giant pipelines to China. The Chinese have been playing such hardball with him.

Putin went to Beijing last month and there were great embraces and affirmations of love and a no limits partnership. But in fact, that was an abject failure. He left empty handed. The Chinese have refused to build this pipeline with the Russians, and they will only do so in the conditions that Russia sells them natural gas at their own domestic subsidized prices, which the difference being that the Chinese are willing to pay $84 per thousand cubic meters of gas, whereas the Germans and the French were paying almost $500. For the Chinese, this is a huge boon. But this is absolutely just exploitation. And this relationship is absolutely paper thin. And many of the things are just for show, really.

Former reporter for The Wall Street Journal, Matthew Brzezinski. Matthew, thank you for your analysis this morning. Coming up here on Morning Joe, yesterday featured just 12 medal events in the Summer Olympics, the fewest of any day in Paris, but there were still plenty of triumphs for Team USA. We'll bring you those highlights next. This is America's border czar, and she's failed us. Under Harris, over 10 million illegally here. A quarter of a million Americans dead from fentanyl. Brutal migrant crimes.

And ISIS now here. Do you have any plans to visit the border? You haven't been to the border. And I haven't been to Europe. I don't understand the point that you're making. Kamala Harris failed. Weak, dangerously liberal. On the border, the choice is simple. Kamala Harris supports increasing the number of Border Patrol agents. Donald Trump blocked a bill to increase the number of border patrol agents. Kamala Harris supports investing in new technology to block fentanyl from entering the country. Donald Trump blocked funding for technology to block fentanyl from entering the country. Kamala Harris supports spending more money to stop human traffickers.

Donald Trump blocked money to stop human traffickers. Donald Trump blocked money to stop human traffickers. Kamala Harris prosecuted transnational gang members and got them sentenced to prison. Trump is trying to avoid being sentenced to prison. There's two choices in this election, the one who will fix our broken immigration system and the one who's trying to stop her. Vice President Kamala Harris sharpening her attacks on Donald Trump in that new immigration ad released just hours after Trump launched his own ad on that same issue. Joining us now, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. He is a retired combat pilot and NASA astronaut and serves on five different Senate committees, including Armed Services and the Joint Economic Committee. Senator Kelly, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Let's start with the issue

of immigration, an issue that, of course, very important in your state of Arizona, perceived by some as perhaps the vice president's political weakness. She's trying to turn this issue on its head. She opened her rally last night talking about it. We just saw that ad. Tell us, though, what is the experience of those in your state about immigration and what's the best path forward? Well, Jonathan, let me start by saying thank you for having me on. And let's talk about those two ads for a second. The first one is typical Donald Trump. It was a bunch of lies and it was politics. The second ad was was facts. Donald Trump and and Senate Republicans. I mean, what did they do several months ago? We had a bipartisan bill

that we negotiated faithfully with the administration, both sides of the aisle. And Donald Trump said that Senate Republicans can't vote for it. He wanted to talk about this issue instead of actually fix it. And J.D. Vance and other Republicans, they ran away from it. So Kamala Harris and the administration wants to fix this problem. She's worked on this problem for three and a half years. And it's a challenging problem. I mean, I represent a border state, but we have made progress, especially with what was put in place over the last several months. But I can't stress more that this is an issue that Donald Trump and Republicans just want to talk about. I mean, J.D. Vance is down here. I think he's in Arizona today, probably getting

a photo op at the southern border. Kamala Harris is about solving problems. Donald Trump wants to take us, drag us back a decade. Senator Sam Stein here. You have been reported. I think you're aware of being on the VP shortlist of having received vetting materials. I have one quick question and then sort of a larger question. One, do you by any chance have plans to be in Philadelphia next Tuesday, just out of curiosity? And then two, as we talk about the issues that are going to be litigated during this campaign, obviously immigration is going to be one. Cost of living is going to be another. But I'm just

sort of wondering, can you put on your political hat and sort of diagnose where you think the battlefield will be on a policy front for the next three months? I mean, this is going to be a debate over what Donald Trump stands for and Kamala Harris stands for fundamentally. I mean, Donald Trump, when he was president, gave huge tax cuts to billionaires. He weakened our alliances across the globe and he tried to take away and successfully took away fundamental rights for women, reproductive rights. Now he's talking about voting rights. I mean, he said just this week, if he's elected, we're not going to have to vote again. I think people know what that means. Kamala Harris wants to take us into the future. She wants to reduce the cost of education, health care. She wants to have a country where kids can grow up and live their own

American dream. We can't have four more years of Donald Trump, especially with J.D. Vance, one heartbeat away from the presidency. I think we all know guys like this. I mean, what he stands for. He thinks people are worth more or less based on when they decide to start a family. And on reproductive rights, I mean, he wants to further restrict IVF. He would not vote for a bill to just try to help family, help people start a family. So I think it's going to be about these fundamental issues. And then it's pretty clear that we need to work really hard. I'm going to work as hard as I can between now and Election Day. We've got 97 days. We have to make sure that Kamala Harris is elected the next president of the United States. And returning to that, Senator Sam was mentioning that the vice president's

campaign noted outlined a travel schedule next week in which they say that Harris and whoever her running mate will be will appear at a number of stops kicking off Tuesday in Philadelphia. So let's get an update there where you stand with this process. What sort of you've been in contact with the Harris campaign? Have they said to you, we'd like you to be the choice? Jonathan, I'm not going to get into any of that. I am going to be focused on making sure that Kamala is the next president. I'm going to work as hard as I can. My wife, Gabby Giffords, she's already working really hard on this. She has been. She was in Pennsylvania most of last week. She was in Michigan. She's going to be in other battleground states. I'm going to be traveling across the country tirelessly.

Next week, my plans right now are to be in Arizona. Arizona is important, not only for who's going to be in the White House, but also who's going to keep control of the United States Senate. We've got some really important elections in Arizona, and this election is going to come down to some really fundamental things. Do we want to take this country into the future with Kamala Harris as our leader, who has, you know, has experience. She's an experienced prosecutor. Or do we want to be dragged back into the past with somebody who is now a convicted felon and a guy standing at his side that only has this job because he would do what Mike Pence wouldn't, and that's to overturn an election. Mark, let's circle back to immigration for a minute. I think,

unfortunately, a lot of people hear about the bipartisan bill that was negotiated and don't really understand how far that bill went to change the status quo. I mean, this was a bill that when I was in the Senate, I don't think that the Democratic Party ever would have embraced because it really did a lot of things in terms of asylum seeking, in terms of being able to turn people away at the border. It really was, I would call it an aggressively center bill. It was not left. It was center, maybe even center right. And I think you need to explain to people how bold it was for Trump to say, no, we're not going to take the win because I'd rather campaign on the issue. It's a little bit like I'm going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it. It is just bull. And I know

you can speak plainly to this because you live in Arizona. You can't afford just to talk about it. I do, Claire. I'm down at the border all the time meeting with mayors, sheriffs, NGOs down there. It's a hard problem to solve. And by the way, this was like you said, this was not meeting the Republicans on the 50 yard line. This was meeting them on the 10 yard line on their side of the field. We realize we've got to get operational control over the border. I realize this.

Kamala Harris realizes this. And this legislation was going to do that. And our goal here was to get this legislation passed and then start working on comprehensive immigration reform. But this was stopped dead in its tracks by Donald Trump because he wanted to have this as an election issue. Like a lot of other Republicans, they don't actually want to solve this problem. They just want to talk about it. And that's why his running mate, J.D. Vance, is down at the border to take a picture. That's the only reason he's there. He should be back in Washington, you know, trying to

trying to get this done. And I will tell you this, Claire, when Kamala Harris is the next president, we're going to continue to work on this. It's the right thing to do. At the same time, we're a country of immigrants and we need comprehensive immigration reform. Dreamers, dreamers are as American as my own two kids and deserve a pathway to citizenship. So where this is a complicated issue, one thing is pretty basic, and that's that we had an agreement. We had the votes. And Donald Trump wakes up one morning and sees that he does not want this problem solved. So he told Senate Republicans that they were not allowed to vote for it. And not every one of them, but most of them, including J.D. Vance, they didn't walk away from this problem. They ran away from it. So I'm looking forward to seeing Kamala Harris in the White House.

We can get back to doing the hard work. She's had a lot of success in the Northern Triangle. I was just in Mexico meeting with the president and the future president of Mexico. We talked about that. The work she did in Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala is now paying dividends. You combine that with the executive actions that Kamala Harris, President Biden took. We now have a much more stable situation. But what we need is strong bipartisan legislation. And Donald Trump made it very clear that he does not want that. Senator, I appreciate that you don't want to get into the horse race around the vice presidential pick, but let me ask this a different way then. What do you think that Kamala

Harris, given her weaknesses over the border or the attacks that she's going to take over the border from the Republicans, what do you think she needs in a vice president? Katty, I think that's going to be something that the vice president is going to have to figure out. I think she's got a lot of great choices out there. My focus is not on this. And this is not about me. I mean, this is about the future of our country. You know, having somebody in the White House, having Kamala Harris in the White House that is going to be focused on bringing down the cost of prescription drugs, making education more affordable,

affordable child care. Or Donald Trump, which I expect what we would see is more collateral damage to our alliances, taking away fundamental freedoms and rights. I mean, he's got he's running with a guy, you know, who who says that in cases of rape and incest, you know, two wrongs don't make a right. I have a hard time understanding what's wrong with a woman who has been raped deciding to terminate a pregnancy. I mean, this is a guy who says that when women get, you know, unintended pregnancies, that it's an inconvenience. Inconvenience is when you get stuck in traffic on your way home from work. I mean, so the two of them together, I mean, Donald Trump is is, you know, is bad by himself. You combine him with a guy who was not picked to win an election. He was picked to overturn an election. That's a problem. And that's why I think every American needs to

realize that they got to get out there if they can knock on doors, make phone calls. And more than anything, they need to vote and get their friends to vote. So, Senator, this is your first interview like this since President Biden announced he would not be running for reelection. We appreciate you doing it here. I just want to get your thoughts about the president's decision, his legacy in office, and just what this means now for the Democratic Party. I served 25 years in the United States Navy, so I've served our country for a long time. And I would put President Biden's service to this country up against anybody's record. And what he did was very patriotic. And he realized that we've got to be best positioned to make sure that we do not get four years of Donald Trump with J.D. Vance. I mean, that is clear. We need to move this country forward. Kamala Harris is absolutely

the right person to do this. She's an experienced prosecutor. You know, she fights crime. My parents were both cops. I look at Kamala Harris as, you know, as a cop, as a prosecutor, attorney general. On the other hand, you have a guy who's a convicted felon. And I have a granddaughter now. She's three years old. And I mean, just the example that Donald Trump sets for kids, you know, growing up with with this divisive politics, with lies, with, you know, just, you know, criminal actions. It is very concerning for me and for the future of our country. And that's why, again, we've got 97 days. I'm going to work as hard as I can. And my wife, Gabby Giffords, is as well to make sure that Kamala is elected president. And Senator, as a final question about an issue close to home, who you would potentially be serving with in the Senate,

we now know that the general election for the other Arizona Senate seat will be Ruben Gallego versus Carrie Lake, Lake winning her primary. Give us your thoughts on the race. Well, Carrie Lake won the primary, but a guy with no money got about 40 percent of the vote. And I think the I think Arizonans realize what Carrie Lake stands for. So it was not an overwhelming, she may, she may have won by 14 percentage points. She ran against a guy who had a hundred thousand dollars in his campaign account because Carrie Lake stands for divisiveness, dividing us. I mean, she still will not agree that the that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. She thinks she's governor and is still litigating the 2022 election. Now she wants to be a United

States senator. Carrie Lake is somebody that right before her last election, she asked if there were any John McCain Republicans in the room and then she kicked them out when they put their hands up. Now, I mean, I looked up to John McCain my entire Navy career. I still do. Patriotic American who served his country at the highest level and a Republican throwing John McCain Republicans out of the room during an election season. I mean, that is what Kerry Lake represents. On the other hand, we have Ruben Gallego, Marine combat veteran, member of the House Armed Services Committee, cares so much about our veterans and members of the military. A guy I work with on practically a weekly basis to make sure we have the military we

need to stand up to our adversaries. He's absolutely going to win this election and he's the right guy for the job. Joining us for a wide-ranging interview this morning, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona. Senator, thank you. Thank you, Jonathan.