Morning Joe - Morning Joe 7/9/24

Episode Date: July 9, 2024

Biden fights for political life in critical week

The media has spent almost two weeks calling on a candidate to drop out of the race, and somehow it's not the convicted felon. Biden's brushing everyone off. He's like, hey, people have been telling me not to run for president since 1988. I think I know what I'm doing. I think I know what I'm doing. Good morning, and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Tuesday, July 9th.

Good to have you with us. Along with us, we have U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye, President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass is with us, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson, and managing editor at the Bulwark. Also, way too early duties this morning. Sam Stein is with us. You know, it's pretty incredible what's been happening. Oh, by the way, I found out this morning, Wall Street Journal editorial page, you and I were very relieved that the president didn't say we were elites.

I mean, why would, turn up truck, dumb country lawyer. I missed that. I'll have to take a look at that. I mean, come on. It's nothing elite about me. Man of the people, Caddy. Caddy can tell you. I'm a man of the people.

Caddy can confirm. Caddy, though, this is what it finds. Oh, also, he's not an H.A. guy. Just get him. He's just a vet on top of the show really quickly. Let's try and get some organization here. I have people keep coming up going, I hope you and me are okay. So apparently some right wing, some right wing something said that we were fighting each other over Joe Biden and got really testy. We have a semi-vigorous debate.

Does not get testy. You should see it at home when she tells me to take out the trash at 10 at night. That's when it gets testy. I mean, seriously, we've had bigger debates. We have had bigger debates. All right. We're fine. Can we hug each other?

No, no, no. So, Katty, coming into this week, I've been hearing, oh, my God, from source after source after source, that this was the week like the Biden campaign, the White House, Democratic leaders, press people, those who've known Joe Biden for a long time, family members all said last week, this coming week is when it's going to get really ugly because there's going to be mass defections. They're going to be letters. Democrats are going to come out by the dozens and speak out against Joe Biden. We're taking this day by day by day. But I must say, yesterday, he started with a letter. Then he came on this show. He called donors. I do think by the end of the day, the White House had to be thinking, all right, we stopped the dam from breaking. There are like eight or nine defections

in the House. The Senate's still kind of grumbling. But day one, they seem to at least hold serve, so to speak. Yeah, I spoke to several people yesterday who said they kind of wished he had done what he did yesterday, starting on your show with the letter to Congress and reach out to donors earlier. My reporting is that the president himself was pretty rocked by that debate performance and it took time for him to recognize what he needed to do. I don't know that we can say the dam has totally held or will completely hold permanently. There are certainly a lot of people who are allies of the presidents and supporters of the presidents who still have questions about his long-term capability of prosecuting this race in a way that would give the Democrats the maximum chance

of beating Donald Trump in November. And I don't think those questions have necessarily stopped. I've spoken to some people up on Capitol Hill who don't love the comments about the elites and a slightly dismissive tone, as they would characterize it from the campaign about members of Congress. But I think everybody still wants reassurance that Joe Biden is the best Democrat to run against Donald Trump. And that's the bottom line. I mean, it's very messy, right? If you've been hearing this, it's messy. I love your characterization of this as therapy. This is cheap therapy, if everyone would like to listen. But it's messy. And I'm not sure that we are in a position where we can say it is absolutely clear

that Joe Biden is going to be still the Democratic nominee or that Democrats are necessarily happy. It's not just elites. I mean, we've had these polls for months and months and months showing that the American public has concerns about his age. I'm here in Europe. European allies have concerns about his age. But he did yesterday what a lot of Democrats had been asking him to do.

Right, yeah. By the way, speaking of Europe, just for your reading list this morning at home, folks, The New York Times has a great column on how what happened in France on Sunday was nothing short of shocking. And Jerry Baker with The Wall Street Journal talks about what conservatives can learn from from labor's massive victory. And so two two really good articles. And we'll be talking to Candy about that a little bit later on. And I will say, Gene Robinson, you know, survival is one thing. Stopping an autocrat from becoming president of the United States and upending 240 years of of constitutional norms is quite another. And I will say, I, you know, again, taking a lot of calls, took a lot of calls from angry Democrats. Now, they were donors. They were elites, what Joe Biden would rightly call elites. And by the way, that is a perfect positioning for

Joe Biden. If you've been in politics 54 years and you're 81 years old and you've been a politician since you were 29 and you can run a campaign against elites, come on, take that baby. Like, that's a great thing. But that said, there are some really angry people. We'll read an op-ed from Ari Emanuel, who wrote something in The Economist, just came straight out and said he was lied to. He was lied to by the Biden people. He was lied to by Jeffrey Katzenberg.

He was lied to by everybody. You know, and Hollywood raised 30 million dollars for Joe Biden. So there is there is anger out there. The New York Times editorial page once again saying, step down, Mr. President. We'll read from that. So, yes, Joe Biden can survive. But there's a lot of work to do in a little bit of time. Yeah, there is an awful lot of work to do in a little bit of time. Yeah, there is an awful lot of work to do. I mean, you're right that the idea of Joe Biden, who's been, you know, a major political figure for his entire life running against the Democratic Party establishment is I think the technical term is malarkey. It's kind of crazy, but he is able to do it,

and he's doing it. And we're going day by day. He won the day yesterday, clearly, because there was not even a trickle of new defections, to say nothing of a flood. The dam did not break. And so it held. and he gets to—today, he gets to fight another day, and he probably gets a bit of a respite. He's got the NATO summit going on the next three days. It's hard for me to imagine a lot of people, a lot of Democrats really relishing the idea of attacking the sitting president while he's doing a NATO summit, while he's conducting foreign policy.

Exactly. And Gene, that's a great point. I'm glad you brought that up really quickly. Underline that fact, OK? Because so he gets through today. Now a NATO summit takes the middle of the week. There is no way anybody is going to undermine the president in their own party while he is meeting with NATO leaders about the future of freedom in Europe. So maybe that has bought him two, two and a half more days. Exactly.

Look, that brings him to the press conference he scheduled on Thursday, which he needs to perform well. He needs to perform a whole lot better than he did in that debate. And that will not be enough for all the people who say it's time for Joe Biden to withdraw, to step aside, perhaps for Kamala Harris, perhaps for some sort of more open process involving delegates. It won't be enough, but it will be enough for some. And again, it'll buy him more time. And he just reminded everybody with that letter and his appearance on Morning Joe yesterday morning that he does hold the cards here. I mean, this is his decision. He holds all of them. And so

if you're going to get him out, you're going to you're going to have to push. You're going to have to convince you're going to have to push. But he's going to have to make the decision. And his decision right now is he's in the race to stay. Yeah, well, I mean, Joe Biden, before all of this happened, was 81 years old and people had concerns about his age. And he's still 81 years old and people have concerns about his age, no matter what he does. Before the debate, Donald Trump was crazy. He had dictator type tendencies. To quote the president, he's a pathological liar. He's a fraud, a proven fraud, a bigot. I mean, all those things are still the same today. And yet we're spending all of this time. It's got to be frustrating for those who actually believe in this race and believe that there are very two clear choices here to hear this conversation going on and on.

Having said that, following his letter yesterday to congressional Democrats in which he forcefully affirmed he is staying in the race and his call in interview with us here on Morning Joe, President Biden then looked to reassure reassuring donors in a call with the Biden Victory Fund's National Finance Committee. The president thanked his biggest contributors and urged them to move past last month's debate and focus on Donald Trump instead, saying, quote, We can't waste any more time being distracted. The president told the group he is the best person to be Trump and that he's not going away. Biden also spent a few minutes answering questions, including what his strategy will be for the next debate. The president responded, quote, attack, attack, attack, which is what Democrats want to hear. Yeah. And then there's the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which is reaffirming its support behind President Biden, though some caucus members have either called for

Biden to drop out of the race or have said they are concerned. The caucus as a whole released a statement that reads in part, quote, We stand with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris for the last year and a half. the Biden-Harris administration partnered with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus initiative to take the CHC on the road. Through that initiative, we have worked to empower Latino communities across the country. A meeting between Biden and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is reportedly in the works, though no word yet on when it is supposed to take place. A meeting did take place last night between Biden and members of the Congressional Black

Caucus. Biden spoke with the group virtually for about 20 minutes and touched on issues such as uplifting black America and growing wealth, housing and taxing the ultra wealthy. Members reassured Biden they still support him and then his debate fallout. Here's how CBC Chair Congressman Stephen Horsford described the meeting. President was clear that he is in this race to win.

We have one objective and that is to win. And this president is fit and prepared to continue to serve. He's civil and he's experienced that the opposite side offers us nothing but chaos and extremism. To be clear, President Biden is our nominee. The vice president, Kamala Harris, is his running mate. They are the team that will ensure that we move America forward and there will be no other nominee than President Biden. And later this morning, House Democrats are set to hold a caucus wide meeting.

Here's some of what key leaders and members are saying about Biden's candidacy ahead of the gathering. I made clear publicly the day after the debate that I support President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket. My position has not changed. But that's Biden and the Democratic ticket to support Biden on the ticket or just Biden and whatever the ticket is. Same answer. We have a great president. He has a great president working with has a great record of working with us. A great record of achievement. And I'm hopeful that he will be the next president of the United States.

I have spoken to the president over the weekend. I have spoken with him extensively. He made clear then and he has made clear since that he is in this race. The matter is closed. He had reiterated that this morning. He has reiterated that to the public. Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him. I really do believe that the more members of our caucus who speak directly to him, the more confident they will feel. So I've encouraged the White House to make sure that the President does as much outreach

as possible, or not the White House, but the campaign, that the President does as much outreach as possible. All right, listen, I'm not here to give advice to my colleagues. They all have independent districts and things that they feel like they have to do. I do think that we should continue to have whatever conversations we need to have with our constituents, with our colleagues, we should have them in private. Well, you know, and Sam Stein, the last comment may have sounded, you know, like she didn't want to answer the question or try to have it both ways,

but that is politics. And that's the thing that hit me this weekend when people said, oh, the House Democrats are going to go back and they're going to push Joe Biden out. I mean, you know, I was last week, a couple of I think I've said here a couple of places I was driving my car windows down and, you know, had some Democrats yell, hey, take it easy on Biden, Joe. And you look on Twitter, which has been a hotbed of angry far right reactionaryism over the past five years or so. It's changed, man. There are some angry Democrats out there. So all of that anecdotal, but I found in politics from a very early age, enough anecdotes usually lead to leads to pretty good data eventually.

And I was just thinking about those House members. What are they hearing from their constituents? Chances are good they've got a lot of pissed off constituents saying, yep, be loyal to the president of the United States. And perhaps that may be why we're seeing more House Democrats freeze. What have you heard in your reporting? Same thing. And you're right. It's anecdotal. But eventually those anecdotes pile up to become something close to empirical. Right. And, you know, I talked to one House Democratic member who went home over the July 4th break. He said he had, you know, of all the conversations he had with voters or Democratic voters,

it was something like an 80-20 split of people who really thought Biden was getting an unfair shake here and should not be pushed out of the race. More importantly, of the 80 percent, predominantly African-American women. And as you know, that is the bedrock constituency with the party. It is notable that not a single member of the CBC has said anything about Biden leaving the race, nor does it seem like they're going to. It's maybe more notable, I think, that you have some of the progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez coming out and saying they want to see Biden stick it out

I mean he does not have much credibility among progressives they've been incredibly disheartened with his handling of the Israel Hamas war for some of them to come out and say look stick with this guy that is a huge help for him going forward.

This doesn't mean he's in the clear. I think we're all very cognizant that, you know, there's incredible pressure on him to prove that he has what it takes to bring the fight to Trump. There's going to be a lot of eyes on that Thursday press conference. You know, just the timing of it is incredible. But if you're the Biden folks, this has gone about as well. The last two days, I would say, has gone about as well as you probably could have hoped.

Right. You've more or less called the party's bluff. You've made the outreach and you've seen the most important lawmakers that you need say, stick with Joe. Yeah, we're going to get to Richard Haas in a second, who has a decidedly different point of view than our own Mika Brzezinski. But, Gene, I want to circle back to you for a second. And again, I want to talk parallels. This is the same, I mean, for different reasons. But this is where Joe Biden was in 2020. Yeah.

You know, people say, get out of the race. You're terrible at this. You're too old. You're out of it. You can't win. How many times have we heard Joe Biden can't win? You can't win. He's going to have to step aside after 22. And again, there are people out there that are saying, you know, because I get the emails. I'm just stating facts here. I'm not saying what ought to be. I'm saying what is. And Gene, that's how it was in 2020.

And then Jim Clyburn. And as I've said for years, black women predominantly stepped up, saved Joe Biden's candidacy and helped him win in places like Wisconsin, Philadelphia, Atlanta, places that mattered and Detroit. And here we are again, Gene, where you look, black women, the Congressional Black Caucus, something different now, again, anecdotally, but this is going to bear itself out in polls, I suspect older white people in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, rallying to a man that a lot of them are saying is being unfairly attacked. Look, you you and Mika were there that morning in 2020, the morning of the New Hampshire primary, when Joe Biden came on Morning Joe and he was done. Right. He was done. He was finished. He was never going to be president. We all knew it. It was kind of in the air. Nobody quite said that, but that's what was going to happen.

It was finished. And then, a couple of weeks later, he was the presumptive nominee. I mean, he was on his way. We saw then that Democratic voters can be extremely sort of cold-eyed and pragmatic. And they made a decision led initially by Jim Clyburn and African-Americans in South Carolina. But Democrats across the country decided, no, this is the guy. This is our safest choice. This is the guy who can beat Donald Trump. And so they went with Joe Biden, and he beat Donald Trump. Now, you know, past performance does not guarantee future results, but that has been

the pattern with Joe Biden. He gets counted out and he somehow comes back. That's kind of the judgment of a lot of pretty important actors in this play right now, that Biden is still the safest alternative. But again, things can change. And we're kind of still in a day-to-day situation now. One more major slip by Biden, and that could open the floodgates and that could create all these scenarios that that are kind of, you know, seem really wild and unlikely, but could unfold. So we'll just we'll we'll take it day by day for now. Right. And that's really, Gene just really underlined the greatest concern with those who who love Joe Biden, but believe he should step down because there is

one more one more meltdown like we saw debate night and it starts all over again and it's all over. And their concern is what happens if that comes in September? What happens if that comes in October? What happens if it comes on Thursday, this Thursday, if something like that happens at the press conference, this conversation begins anew. So there is a right now there is a bit of a perilous, perilous march toward the nomination and beyond. Well, the New York Times editorial board is out with a new piece entitled The Democratic Party Must Speak the Plain Truth to the President. The board writes in part, quote, the 2024 presidential election is not a contest between two men or even between two

political parties. It is a battle for who we are as a nation. President Biden clearly understands the stakes, but he seems to have lost track of his own role in this national drama. As the situation has become more dire, he has come to regard himself as indispensable. He does not seem to understand that he is now the problem and that the best hope for Democrats to retain the White House is for him to step aside. Yeah. Richard, what? It's OK. What? I'm just, you know, I would think that also not saying on the debate stage that you're willing to accept the election results would be a reason to write an editorial saying that you are not fit to serve and to run for president again. But well, I mean, you know, the thing is, again, right now, the issue is what happened the night of the debate on Joe Biden's side.

That happened as well. Well, that did happen as well. And it will be covered in time, but it needs to be covered more. Again, the New York Times syntax blog probably should, you know, the obsession because people feel guilty about not seeing this early on. It doesn't mean they have to overcompensate for the next five months. So but Richard Haass, I'm glad you're on that side of the screen. I will I will throw it to you and have you comment. Do you feel any different than the last time you were on or do you agree with The New York Times that for the good of the country, Joe Biden needs to step down? Yeah, it's actually one of those rare moments where I do agree with the New York Times editorial page. I think there's a difference between asking whether the president will be the candidate.

I think he probably will, Joe and Mika, if he decides to hang tough. Should he be the candidate is obviously a different question. I think a couple of reasons not. One is the structural moment. This is a bad, bad time for incumbents. If you look what happened in South Africa, India, France and Britain, four big elections. And in each case, there's an anti-incumbent mood. Joe Biden has the burden of incumbency. And if you see Donald Trump as the threat, many of us do. There's a big strike against him. Second of all, look at this morning. If the whole idea is to make Trump the issue, his past record as president, his

congenital lying, his own physical and mental fitness for the job, I think it's going to be extremely hard for Joe Biden to press that case. As you said, any minor slip, any imperfection, again, Joe Biden's going to be the issue. So if the whole idea is to make this a race about Trump, which I think is necessary if Trump is to be defeated, I do not think Joe Biden is the person to accomplish that. Many of the other potential Democrats would be better placed. Also, let's be honest here. I just don't see how a person as 86, four and a half years from now, Joe Biden would be 86 going. Also, let's be honest here. I just don't see how a person as 86, four and a half years from now, Joe Biden would be 86 going into the last three months of his

presidency. I'm just hard pressed to see how he would be in a position to do the job. This is not an anti-Joe Biden rant. I've respected him. I've been friends with him for 50 years. I think he's done a good job as president. To me, the question is, is he the best candidate to beat Donald Trump? I would say not. Is he in a position where he could serve effectively for four more years? I would say probably not. Mika, the argument that somehow the people have spoken, let's be real about the campaign. There was tremendous pressure from the White House pressuring other Democrats not to get in the race.

And the whole argument was that will weaken Joe Biden against Donald Trump. And a lot of people took that to heart. And I don't think now you can use the argument that other people didn't get in the race to say people had their chance and Joe Biden's the nominee. I just don't think that's fair. I think that a lot of Democrats would have gotten into the race, but were worried about that they would somehow look disloyal to weaken the Democratic front runner? Well, I never said that. I just believe that Joe Biden knows how to do the job. He's proven he can do the job. He's had an historic

presidency. He can go on for about 20 minutes listing what he's done and wouldn't be finished in terms of his accomplishment, including bipartisan legislation and so on and so on. And managing these two international situations, two hot wars, it is Joe Biden and his team believes that he's the best person for the job. And oh, by the way, he has beaten Trump before. So there's a record on every level. That's hard to compete with. Right. Katty K, though, just wrapping up the segment. Richard is right. If this campaign

is about Joe Biden, Donald Trump wins. If this campaign is about Donald Trump, Joe Biden wins. It's that simple. And right now, because of the debate performance, not because of any conspiracy, because of the debate performance, Joe Biden's own debate performance, inexplicable debate performance. Trump literally doing nothing, staying at home. I think he called in to Sean Hannity last night. But just no events. He's gone completely dark. They are keeping him in a hermetically sealed caddyshack. And that's that's a rough spring. That's your public appearances count 10 to nothing. And this reminds us all,

of course, I find it so hilarious, regardless of how you feel. I mean, the hypocrisy, people going, oh, Joe Biden says he needs to go to sleep by eight o'clock. Barack Obama went up at six o'clock every night. Donald Trump never worked. George W. Bush went up at six o'clock every night. They watched ESPN most nights. I'm sure allies were like, that's not true. Yes, it is. It is true. And Donald Trump, I mean, you remember those, he averaged like, what, two and a half, three hours of work a day in the White House. Remember all the executive time? He did nothing. So again, it's it's all of this is very legitimate. But so many arguments that are used against Joe Biden just don't hold water if you're a supporter of Donald Trump. If you're in

the media, it holds water. If you're a supporter of Donald Trump, it holds no water because no president has ever done less in the White House than Donald Trump. Look, I don't think anyone is debating, certainly on the Democratic side, that Joe Biden would be infinitely preferable from their point of view to Donald Trump. In Europe, Joe Biden would be infinitely preferable for Donald Trump. I think everyone has agreed on that.

The question is, and Mika is right, he was 81 before the debate, he was 81 after the debate. But there is a sense that the debate has revealed something that perhaps was being shielded from the American public or being shielded from the press or being shielded from members of Congress. I have heard from them saying they didn't feel they were getting a clear picture from the campaign about Joe Biden's abilities before that debate. So the question is not whether it's Joe Biden or Donald Trump. The question is in this election in November. And this is the simple question. Who is the best Democrat to take on Donald Trump in November? And people who had felt that before the debate, they were totally on board with Joe Biden. Some of them are now questioning

after the debate whether he is really the best person to take on that campaign and i it's i don't know that there is a clear simple answer and i don't think denigrating those who are raising these questions is particularly helpful from the campaign's point of view because you risk alienating more people i understand why joe biden is doing that it's a very clear tactical political thing to do and anyone would probably do that in his position, put yourself against the elites. But it doesn't necessarily make the questions go away. And the single thing that I'm hearing

is exactly what you have just said, Joe, is that there is a real concern amongst people who are diehard allies of Joe Biden's, who have been with him for decades, that between now and November, there will be another incident like that debate performance. And that will cost Democrats of what is already a very close election. I think you're right.

Denigrating people who are raising questions is not a good not not a good play. Questions are fair to have. At the same time, really important to push back against narratives that don't make any sense or that are not true. Like Joe Biden was hiding for months and months and months. Did anyone see him hiding? I believe you spent three hours with him running all over the place doing acrobatics. I believe he went to the G7. I believe he went to Normandy. I believe he went to a state dinner. I mean, I can think of the things that he did in the weeks before the debate. I did not see this man hiding. I saw him on the world stage. By the way, the alternative on the world stage. Let's talk about the campaign. Let's talk about Donald Trump on the world stage and think about every single time he showed up on the world stage and the mess he made. I'll just put it that way for America. So it just it's frustrating when there are narratives like he's hiding,

he's hiding something. He's mangled his words for years, people. OK, I'll be the first to say. I will say, and I'm so sorry, Alex. So we're going to have to continue this because this is this is critical. And then we'll go to break. Gene, let me go to you like me. You're a little older and maybe we've been around, you know, our parents and others who who have have gone through whatever they've gone through. So Mika's right. And I've said this before. So I was with Joe Biden this spring. I think it was April. You came back tired because he was running up so many stairs. So I haven't talked about the whole thing. We spoke three, two, two, two and a half, maybe three hours on foreign policy. We talked about economic policy. Like this was deep stuff.

Like what is Bill Burns? You're right. What is Bill Burns strategy talking, you know, getting getting this this war to come to an end in Russia and Ukraine, whatever? He, of course, couldn't tell me the classified stuff, but he went deep. He went deep wherever I went. I said, OK, and what would you're doing again, hemming in China. And he talked about what he was doing, what they had done in Guam and what they were doing with Japan and what they were doing with Australia and the strategies. It was I came home. I haven't said this on the air, but it was one of the most impressive tours around the world since I had the honor of being able to talk to Dr. Brzezinski

when he was alive. He then said, have you ever been around, you know, the White House? I said, no. You know, most presidents hate me, Mr. President. And he walked me up to the second floor, showed me around there. I said, OK, that's great. I'm an old guy. He goes, here, let me show you what's on the third floor. He walks me up to the third floor. I'm like, holy cow. I get to see the room where Donald Trump put his makeup on every morning. It was all very exciting. Covered with bronzer. And then, yes, a little bronzer. And then, you know, you spray it. He takes me all the way up to the top. He shows me the balcony and I'm thinking I'm tired. And the guy's walking up all these stairs and, you know, I'm trying to exercise. I'm an old guy, but I'm

coughing and wheezing. And so there's all of that. There's all of that. Right. So three hours. He's vigorous. He's slow. He is slow. His movements are slow, but mentally he's vigorous. Physically, he's doing what a lot of people couldn't do. But that just begs the question to me. Yeah. Right. He's there. I've gotten some calls late at night when he disagreed with some op-eds that I'd written in the past. So, yes, that's really positive, but it still begs the question, if he's that with it there, what happened? What happened? Denied of the debate.

And by the way, I've talked to other people that have spent a lot of time with him that don't work for him. So, you know, they have no skin in the game, spent a lot with their experience, the same as my experience. So the enduring mystery here is, to me at least, because everybody said, oh, it's a cover up. OK, well, if there's a cover up, let's find out who covered it up and fire him. There's, you know, the media should cover fire anybody that covered up Joe Biden's infirmities. And as I've said, even when The Wall Street Journal tried to write an article, they had to lead with Kevin McCarthy, a guy who said told his staff that he was vigorous

and a great negotiator. So, Gene, doesn't that doesn't that I don't not going to say find it more troubling, but more vexing if that's a Joe Biden I saw and that others have seen. What happened that night? Well, and that's the question, because the Joe Biden that I had seen up close and personal in the not very distant past was the Joe Biden you're describing. And he sounded a lot like the Joe Biden who called in yesterday. So he mangles a few words. Not every sentence, you know, lands where it was initially supposed to land. But he was obviously, you know, not just coherent, but forceful and purposeful in what he said, and clearly with it.

So, what happened on debate night? And I think the question that is not yet answered and that needs to be answered is, was that a one-off? Or is this, does this happen on a regular basis? Are these bad days? He said it was a bad night. He keeps saying it was a bad night. How many bad nights does he have? How many bad days does he have? Is this something new? And we don't know the answer because I, for one, have not seen that Joe Biden that we saw at the debate. Right. And he has answered. He said he was sick. And by the way, all the lack of hiding made him sick. He needs to hide a little bit more. He's always out there. You saw him in Normandy. People are all over him. He needs to pull back and not get sick. He has told you he was sick. He has told you he was sick. And nobody

likes the answer. But that is the answer. Still out of morning, Joe. The latest from Ukraine after a Russian missile strike hit a children's hospital in Kiev. Vladimir Putin is now targeting children's hospitals. It comes as NATO leaders get ready to meet in Washington today. This is, by the way, who Donald Trump says is brilliant, by the way. This is who Donald Trump loves. This is who Donald Trump wants to be like. This is who Donald Trump wants to emulate. Vladimir Putin, a guy.

And by the way, has Donald Trump condemned Vladimir Putin for targeting a children's hospital? OK, he says he was chatting with him recently. So you would think he would have something to say. Plus, how Britain's new prime minister beat the far right and far left by addressing real voters problems. The Atlantic's Anne Applebaum joins us with more on that. So much ahead. You're watching Morning Applebaum joins us with more on that. So much ahead. You're watching Morning Joe. We're back in 90 seconds. We will celebrate our alliance this week, the 75th anniversary, but we will also make decisions for the future on deterrence and defence, ensuring that we have the forces,

the readiness, the capabilities we need to continue to deter any aggressor, and also ensure that Allies continue to carry their fair share of the burden. We have good numbers. 23 Allies are now spending at least 2% of GDP on defense, up from only three allies when we made the pledge back in 2014. That was NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Pentagon yesterday. The 75th NATO summit kicks off today in Washington, D.C. The war in Ukraine will be a major topic among NATO allies. And yesterday, Russia launched a wide scale missile attack across Ukraine, which caused massive damage

to a children's hospital in Kiev. Video of the aftermath shows emergency crews trying to dig survivors out of the rubble of the destroyed building. Ukraine's security service has accused Russia of launching a missile directly at the hospital. Russia denying that, saying the damage was caused by a falling air defense missile launched by Ukraine. Joining us now, senior fellow at the Washington think tank, the Atlantic Council, Ian Brzezinski, and staff writer at the Atlantic, Anne Applebaum. And we'll give Katty Kaye the first question. Katty? Anne, let me start with you. I mean, a year or so ago, we were looking at the situation

in Ukraine and seeing this as a moment of validation for NATO. NATO had been kind of in the doldrums. We had Sweden and Finland joining the alliance. And as you look at it today, and those images from that hospital attack are just heart-rending. And you look at Russia's position in Ukraine and you look at some of the political fractions within NATO. How does NATO, as it celebrates its 75th birthday, how is it standing and looking to you? So the point of this summit is going to be to show Putin that NATO will remain unified. And I think despite the various, you know, political headwinds that you've just described, despite the recent election in France, despite what's happening in the United States, I think the NATO, I think it's incredible how unified the alliance is. The idea is to put some money into a basket for the future. What NATO needs to do now is deter

Russia and show that there will be a price to pay for continuing the war. And of course, there will be a price to pay if the war spreads farther. And that's really the purpose of this summit. Remember that this war is a kind of psychological game. Putin is actually running out of soldiers. He's losing equipment. He can't keep doing this forever. What he's trying to do is hold on just long enough for NATO to break up. And the point of the summit is to show that it won't. Richard, Sam Stein here. I mean, the backdrop of all this, of course, is what we were talking about earlier in the show, which is Joe Biden and his inability at this juncture to inspire confidence, both domestically and the world stage. You know, we've talked, we've seen European diplomats basically act as if he will not be president by next year. I'm wondering if you're picking that up, too, and just sort of how that colors this summit. Do people who support Ukraine sense that there is a shortened window here to get

something done or even produce some sort of resolution? Because Trump may very well come back into power come January. Sam, you're right. The reality of this summit is there's the formal agenda and there's the real agenda. The formal agenda is the bridge to the future for Ukraine. There'll be talk about greater European defense effort. That's all necessary. And by the way, there's a lot to celebrate with NATO at 75. It's been history's most remarkable, successful alliance. But there is a but.

One is the ghost or specter of Donald Trump hovers over the proceedings, in part because Trump is a candidate who, unlike most presidential candidates, indeed, any presidential candidate in the modern era, doesn't share any of the foreign policy consensus. Any other candidate who's imaginable just about would be a supporter of NATO. He's not. And people there can read the polls. And there's also real concern about President Biden. So people at the summit are going to be putting him under a microscope to watch everything he does and says and how he walks and all that. Essentially, they're looking for reassurance. The hidden consensus is they would overwhelmingly prefer continuity. And they're they're frightened of change. Let me turn it to Ian. I haven't yet, you know, he's one of the Brzezinski's I haven't disagreed with this morning. So I think it's important to spread it around the family.

What do you think NATO is prepared to do on, and do you think it's prepared to do enough either on the amount of spending, but also on how the money is spent? NATO spends a lot of money if you add up all the national budgets, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts. You don't get that amount of collective defense effort.

How serious are the Europeans about a collective European defense effort? Well, thanks, Richard, and it's good to see you, and it's good to see Mika and Joe and Anne, of course. Let me just say that, you know, those pictures we saw, those were war crimes committed by the Russians. That is unjustified brutality. And at this summit, the key issue is how is the alliance going to respond? Will it provide, will it present a strategy that will enable Ukraine to win quickly, decisively, on its terms? And to your question,

you know, doesn't NATO have the resources to apply it? I'm not entirely convinced this summit is going to provide that strategy or the resources. They're talking about shifting the contact group that provides security assistance from U.S. control to NATO control. That's useful and helpful, but not decisive. They're talking about NATO doing more training outside of Ukraine. Helpful, but not decisive. They're talking about NATO doing more training outside of Ukraine. Helpful, but not decisive. They're talking about $40 billion just over the next year, uncertain what will happen after 2025. That's helpful, but not decisive when it comes down to enabling Ukraine to do what is necessary to win on its terms and quickly, because time is not on Ukraine's side in

this war. There's just too much of an imbalance of economic and military power between Ukraine and Russia. This is a moment for the alliance to act with decision. And it's underscored by the fact of the atrocities that Russia is committing against Ukrainians just yesterday. day. Yeah. So, Anne, earlier this morning, talked about a Wall Street Journal op ed piece by Jerry Baker about how labor won a crushing victory in part because populists and conservatives couldn't become aligned in Britain. You you're right. Your piece is absolutely fascinating and a lesson that critical lesson going back to what you've been writing about for years. And that is how to defeat populism. You talk about two types of populism, actually, that Labour was able to defeat. How did how did they do it? So and this is relevant to the NATO summit, too, of course,

what the Labour Party did was reform itself and led by Keir Starmer, who's now the prime minister. They they moved it away from the from far left positions that it had under the previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who lost a couple of elections with those. They moved it not just to the center, but they moved it to economic, local, domestic issues. So schools, hospitals, you know, what people think about when they wake up in the morning. They tried to reconnect it with ordinary voters. They talk about working people. They talk about service. You can hear it in all of their language. And every every every every labor politician that I met last week nationalism, fear of immigrants to create a kind of hysteria about the need to, you know, for Britain to defend itself, remove itself

from Europe, remove itself from institutions. And by refocusing on what people care about and by saying they want to show that labor is a is a reliable partner. It's a part of it's a part of the world. We're going to trade normally with our with our neighbors. By doing that, they made labor a trustworthy party again and they won. And it's not an exact, exact parallels of the U.S. at all. It's a different voting system and so on. But that instinct that what really matters is how we talk to people, you know, why they should vote for us, you know, making yourselves electable in the best possible sense is a way to defeat both this kind of sometimes madness on the left, as well as the

really dangerous right wing populism that we now have everywhere. So, Ian, I guess the counterpoint, again, in the American example to what Anne was outlining there is that the Republican Party has basically abandoned the sort of, you know, traditional conservative neoliberal economic agenda and gone full in on the populism. And yet the polls going into the election here in the UK showed Labour way ahead. The polls in the US show the Republican Party, Donald and its standard bearer, Donald Trump and Joe Biden, almost neck and neck and continue to do that. Do the American voting public, Republican, traditional Republican public,

have they jettisoned those kind of conservative principles of economics as well, unlike voters in the UK? Or do you think we're going to see something in November that suggests more of a UK model? You know, when you look at polling, it's clear that the maggot elite leaders, Donald Trump and his senior advisors, bring a certain nativism to their policies and their outlook, for example, on NATO, since we have this summit coming up. But when you look at polling broadly, including in the Republican Party, most Americans are actually very transatlantic in their outlook. In other words, polling just came out from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Eighty percent of Americans think we ought to sustain our commitment to NATO or improve it.

Mark Thiessen had a great piece in The Washington Post reporting on Ronald Reagan Institute's recent polling that focused very much on the MAGA population, those who support Donald Trump. They're actually very transatlanticist in outlook. is this an outlook? So when you look forward, whoever wins this election is going to be resting on an American population that's internationalist in outlook and is very committed to NATO. Now, what the elite does in that context is a little bit uncertain. We'll see. And it'll depend on what the election is. If it's Biden, it'll be continuity. If it's Trump, even with this American outlook, we could have a rocky time in the alliance. Well, you know, what's so fascinating is that in Donald Trump's first term, you had him saying obviously hostile things about NATO time and time

again, always trying to apologize for Vladimir Putin. Again, I await a statement of him harshly condemning Putin for blowing up children in hospitals. We'll see if that happens. But you had a Republican Senate that maintained a very hard line against Russia and against Putin. There's good reason to fear that wouldn't be the case in the second term when you see what people like Marco Rubio and others are saying. J.D. Vance, they actually seem to be moving further and further away from what they believe their entire lives and the party moving further away. As Ian said, nativism, Donald Trump talking about tariffs. The Wall Street Journal editorial page talk about the massive tax increases Donald Trump's going to exact on middle class Americans through his tariffs. You look at just the anti-immigration.

We're not talking illegal immigration. I think Republicans and myself included have always wanted, what Ronald Reagan talked about being a nation of immigrants for economic reasons as well as spiritual reasons regarding the spirit of this nation. It's just it doesn't exist in Donald Trump's Republican Party. The senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, Ian Brzezinski and the Atlantics and Alpabomb. Thank you both very much for being on this morning, previewing the summit this week and coming up, fans may or may not have been booing Novak Djokovic during his fourth round win at Wimbledon yesterday. We'll explain the last name of his opponent, which may have been to blame.

That's straight ahead on Morning Joe. Are they booing me? No, they're saying boo-erns. Boo-erns. Are you saying boo or boo-erns? Boo! I was saying boo-erns. We're saying balloons. Welcome back. Seven time Wimbledon champ Novak Djokovic breezed by Holger Ruhn in straight sets last night,

and then admonished the crowd over perceived boos during the fourth round match. To all those people that have chosen to disrespect the player, in this case me, have a good night I'm hoping that they were just Commenting on Rune and that they weren't disrespecting you. I they were they were they were I don't accept it No, no, no, I know they were I know they were cheering for Rune, but that's an excuse to also boo. I Listen I I've been I've been on the tour for more than 20 years so trust me i know all the tricks i know how it works it's fine it's fine it's okay i mean supporters often stretch out his name when cheering for him which sounded a lot like booing and i i i'm with

him i agree they were doing it to goad him kind of in a goading manner. I know exactly what that's like. Rude. No. They were not. Yeah, they were. And to distract him and stuff. Just win.

He did. Yeah, but he just win and like smile and tip your hat to the crowd.