Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/15/24

Episode Date: August 15, 2024

Trump’s economy speech packed with personal attacks

This isn't rally, but this is a different kind of thing. Today, we're going to talk about one subject and then we'll start going back to the other because we sort of love that, don't we? But it's an important, no, it's an important, they say it's the most important subject. I'm not sure it is, but they say it's the most important. Inflation is the most important, but that's part of economy. All right, Donald Trump undermining what his campaign had hyped as a significant economic address. The former president was light on policy and heavy on personal attacks. We'll show you more of what he said straight ahead. Meanwhile, the economy is the top issue for President Biden, as it appears his administration is going to pull off the soft

landing he predicted. Also ahead, we'll go through the, quote, normal things suburban women care about. That's according to Vice President nominee J.D. Vance, what he thinks is normal. And Republican Governor Greg Abbott of Texas is promising to keep busing migrants to northern cities. But there's one big problem with that plan. We will explain. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Thursday, August 15th. Along with Willie and me, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Beer Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire.

MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle, co-host of MSNBC's The Weekend, former senior advisor and chief spokesperson to Vice President Kamala Harris, Simone Sanders Townsend, and U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye, is with us this morning. And big news on the economy this morning, Willie, and it appears Donald Trump is sort of struggling to cope with that news. Yeah, this is the front page of The Wall Street Journal screaming headline above the fold. Inflation hits lowest level since 2021.

Donald Trump gave last night, yesterday in Asheville, North Carolina, was supposed to be an economic policy address. He said, I guess I have to talk about the economy, but don't worry, we'll get to the other good stuff in a little bit. So we'll play some of that. Also, if you're just tuning in, missed the end of way too early. We got a tour of the market basket locations of Massachusetts from Waltham to Tewksbury. That's right. One topic, you guys, I noticed a glaring omission from your segment was Aaron Judge hitting his 300th career home run in Chicago last night, becoming the fastest player in Major League history to 300. Second place, Mike Barnaclee, you know the answer to that? Ralph Kiner.

Ralph Kiner, very good. Even you guys, Red Sox fans, the way I felt about Mookie Betts as a Yankee fan have to appreciate Aaron Judge. Absolutely. In addition to being a skillful and a great and a powerful hitter, batsman, he's also a really extraordinary human being. He's a good guy. OK, now I'll add to that. No, he can do market basket instead. You want Aaron Judge is an undeniably great. And what was so impressive is when he came up and he had that monstrous rookie season. Remember those first playoffs? The Astros just dominated him.

He couldn't hit. The league adjusted to him. And then to his credit, he adjusted back. And he's been one of the single best hitters in the league over the last few years. Hits for average. He draws walks. He hits for power, obviously. Now, he is a little older than people realize.

He's 32. So let's not say he's going to go catch Barry Bonds now. This is not about a career home run record. But it does go to show just how good he is. And he and Soto are powering that lineup. And the Yankees back atop the A-list. To that point, that home run came because they intentionally walked Juan Soto to get to Aaron Judge because Soto had homered in four consecutive at-bats. And you're right.

He's having a monster season, leads in almost every offensive category in Major League Baseball, including batting average. He's second in the league in average. Yeah, he'll be MVP. He should be the MVP. More on the market basket in a minute. Speaking of the economy, new data, as Mika mentioned, showed U.S. inflation has hit its lowest level in three years. Great news for Americans for the economy could now set up the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates soon. President Biden yesterday touting his economic policies when asked about those new numbers. Has the U.S. beat inflation, Mr. President?

Yes, yes, yes. I told you we're going to have a soft landing. We're going to have a soft landing. My policies are working. Start writing that way, OK? Start writing that way, John. He's feeling a little loose these days, is he not? Media critic, President Joe Biden. No, I mean, let's be clear.

The president has had his misgivings with some of the press coverage. He's had his frustrations. But that's also a bit of a mic drop moment because he's not wrong. He has said for a while we're on track to have this soft landing. And I think and he is administration have put together policies that they've kept telling American people like we'll get there, be patient. And a lot of economic indicators have been good for a while. Inflation was the stubborn one. It is now we're getting good news there, too. And I think that this is a president who is obviously engaged in the day to day policy and helping his vice president run. But also, let's be clear, has an eye on his legacy.

He thinks this will be a big part of it. Absolutely. I mean, that clip was that's a man on his way out. OK, that's Joe Biden saying, look, now y'all going y'all going to keep playing with me for these next six months. I'm play with y'all. I think when it comes to the economy, inflation, how cooling is not just happening on its own, right? Inflation is not just going down on its own. The Biden administration has been putting pressure on some of the companies, which frankly is what we're going to hear some of from Vice President Harris, is my understanding in her economic speech that she plans to give on Friday. But what this administration has done when it comes to junk fees, right, and junk fees is not something I think everyone across the board understands,

right, but some of these little fees that are tacking onto American people going at companies after that, talking about the fact that they have made, these companies have made record profits, yet the prices had not come down. And then we saw companies like Target lower a number of prices across the board. That just doesn't happen because companies feel good. Pressure has to be put on some of these corporate entities. And so the administration has taken a turn in the last couple of months to do just that, which I think coupled with the other work that it has done, the administration has done on the economy and the policies, is why we are seeing the numbers we're seeing now.

So it doesn't just happen. And I think that's what I'm hearing from Joe Biden. He's like, look now, give me the credit. Yeah. And we've talked about this. The economy has been so strong except for inflation. And it's still nagging and it's still too high. But that was a good number yesterday. So when you listen to Donald Trump's speech last night, it was almost like something that had been written months or even years ago when he's talking not only about inflation, but about a hellhole of violent crime when the violent crime numbers, of course, are down across the country, when migrants flooding across the border. Well, those numbers are down, too. He's got a speech that he's programmed, his greatest hits that just don't measure up to

the facts right now in the country. Well, he was supposed to deliver an economic focused speech yesterday in North Carolina. But just as you put, Willie, minutes after taking the stage, he questioned the significance of the economy in November's election and again veered off several times to personal attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris. Take a look. Now, this is a little bit different day because this isn't around. This is we're talking about a thing called the economy. They wanted to do a speech on the economy. A lot of people are very devastated by what's happened with inflation and all of the other things. So we're doing this as a intellectual speech. You're all intellectuals

today. Today we're doing it and we're doing it right now. And it's very important. They say it's the most important subject. I think crime is right there. I think the border is right there for personally. We have a lot of important subjects because our country has become a third world nation. We literally are a third world nation. We're a banana republic in so many ways, and we're not going to let that happen because we're starting a free fall. She went from being a totally disrespected person six weeks ago. Nobody thought she had a chance. Nobody. And I don't think she can possibly win. If she does, our country is finished. You want to know the truth. But she was totally disrespected. The most unpopular vice president in the history of our country for nearly four years.

Kamala has crackled as the American economy has burned. What happened to her laugh? I haven't heard that laugh in about a week. That's why they keep her off the stage. That's why she's disappeared. That's the laugh of a crazy person. I will tell you, if you haven't known, it's a crazy, she's crazy. They told her, don't laugh, don't laugh. No, it's her. No, her laugh is career threatening. They said, don't laugh. She hasn't laughed.

She doesn't laugh anymore. It's smart, but someday it's going to come out. That's the laugh of a person with some big problems. We're not going to let this incompetent socialist lunatic keep breaking our economy for four more years. It'll destroy our country. On election day, we're going to tell her that we've had enough, that we can't take it anymore. Kamala, you're doing a horrible job. You know why she hasn't done an interview? Because she's not smart. She's not intelligent.

And we've gone through enough of that with this guy, Crooked Joe. It's sort of overwhelming because, yeah. I just feel the need to laugh, Mika. It's threatening life. Sort of overwhelming because, yeah, I just feel the need to laugh. There is some like I do feel the need to laugh. And actually, Kamala's laugh her on TikTok. She is killing it with the young people and all those things that people on the far right are putting out there. It's like, look how crazy young people love. And she's becoming an Internet sensation for laughing, for saying things and then enjoying a joke

or actually answering questions from young people that are funny. And it's just sort of interesting to watch all this turn on its head for Republicans who think it's going badly for her, but don't miss the part where it's going really well. Or when you do, you actually have to grasp and say that her crowds are created by AI. So, Katty, I tried to I tried to follow that. And this is the interesting thing about Donald Trump. And it's it's important for those preparing to debate him or interview him because he goes on so many strange tangents that you can't keep up to a point. And then when he realizes he's not going anywhere, he just starts attacking someone personally. I think he was talking about the economy and I think he said it was an important

subject. But then he moved to the border and talked about, you know, this third world nation that we live in, the United States of America, and then said that the economy was in a free fall. And then at that point, when perhaps, I don't know, maybe he realized he didn't know what he was talking about or maybe he just lost his't know what he was talking about, or maybe he just lost his train of thought. Then he goes into these attacks against Kamala Harris. But again, on, you know, in the world of TikTok and in the world of campaign coverage, the very things he's talking about, a lot of people really love. Yeah. Donald Trump doesn't really like giving policy speeches. He doesn't really like policy. He feels that kind of hems him in a bit and it pins him down to ideas and things that he

might have to deliver on. He tends to prefer the personal, which is why he goes on attack on the personal. I had lunch this week with somebody who's advising him, speaks to him every week and said, look, every minute not spent speaking about the economy, immigration and crime is minutes lost. Well, there you have a kind of hour plus long speech. And about 10 minutes of it is economic policy, which is basically cutting taxes. And the rest of it is like you say, Mika, kind of meanderings into the personal because that's just where he feels more comfortable when it comes to debating him i i think donald trump is one of the hardest people to debate i think kamala harris is excited about the prospect of debating him but he's not an easy person ask anyone who has debated him he's not an easy person to debate because of all of this and i think democrats

have to be careful not to underestimate how yes everything is moving in their direction yes like you say he's a kamala harris is a massive TikTok phenomenon at the moment. But they have to make sure those young people actually turn out and vote. And historically, obviously, young people turn out and vote in lower numbers than older people. And, you know, be careful about prepping for the debate. Right. Because it's not it's not going to be easy for them. You know, Mike, as you listen to that, that speech and the tone that Donald Trump brings, the American carnage tone reminded of the line that Governor Josh Shapiro uses, which I won't repeat here, but basically says, hey, man, stop talking America. We actually love this place. We know we're imperfect. We've got things to work on. The border could be better. The economy inflation could be lower. But why do you hold this country in such low regard? And when you listen to that, you wonder. I know there's a core group that connects with, but most Americans are proud of this place we live in.

We want to improve it every day. We got some we got a ways to go to make it the place that it should be and can be. But the joy that we see at the vice president's rallies that uplifts these crowds versus what you see in that speech. The contrast is really stark, and it's a contrast that the Harris campaign likes to see. Yeah, it's literally the campaign is yesterday versus tomorrow. We just saw yesterday. We saw a man standing there in the stage saying, we are literally a third world country.

I don't know anyone who believes that we are literally a third world country. And the thing about the Trump campaign now that makes me wonder a lot about it is Susie Wiles and Chris Lasavita running their campaign are extremely good at what they do, but they seem to have lost control of their candidate. Their candidate has a tired 20 year old act. We just saw it. He updates it with some figures from the past two or three years. But it's a tired old act. The election was stolen. We're a third world country. Crime is up. Immigrants are going to rape your daughter. All sorts of fear factors. And a lot of it, a lot of it with huge, huge, ugly racial overtones, especially when it comes to the vice president. And you wonder, how long will it be before he really goes out of control? And I think what's

going to happen is when that debate occurs and he's in the ring with the vice president of the United States, a woman, a very sophisticated, very intelligent woman, and she hammers him like a prosecutor and doesn't let him off the hook, he will go, well, I can't say it, but something will snap in him and that'll be it. And certainly there is that juxtaposition of cop versus con, prosecutor versus convicted felon. We should remember that's still a major issue here, too. And you mentioned Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, campaign leadership team for now. I mean, there is growing unhappiness from Trump. I know we'll get to that in a moment with Hugo about his team. We should note in every presidential campaign Donald Trump has ever run, he has fired his campaign manager in the month of August. Three's three for three. This could be number four. And this is two for three. And this is number three. And I think

that there is growing unhappiness. They have not been able to adjust to what the change atop the Democratic ticket. And we're going to see another news conference from Trump today for exactly that reason. He's upset with his staff. He feels like only he can turn this around. He's his best messenger. So that's why he's going in front. And the problem is putting him out there. We just see all this again. He thinks it helps him. But I think most of his advisers disagree. We mentioned Hugo Lowell. Let's bring in the senior political correspondent for The Guardian out just this morning with new reporting. His piece titled Top Trump Advisors in Turmoil After Campaign's Worst Month of 2024. Hugo, good morning. So let's continue

this conversation. John just mentioned it to well-regarded political operators at the top of this campaign. Are their jobs in trouble? You know, look, the shocks are circling. It has been a bad enough month, previous month for the Trump campaign that there are enemies kind of real and perceived, I think, that are starting to look at the Trump campaign's leadership team and really start to tell Trump, you know, you've got to get rid of these guys and you've got to reset and you've got to do it now. And the meeting that, you know, consistently comes up in kind of people's minds around the campaign is this August 2nd meeting that happened between Trump, Laura Trump, and Kellyanne Conway, where they kind of discussed like strategy and

kind of policy positions. And Kellyanne Conway told us that she did not talk about anyone's titles or mention any names or said that anyone should be fired. But the takeaway from that meeting for the Trump campaign leadership was Kellyanne's coming for their jobs, or at least they had such a bad month that Kellyanne felt emboldened enough to make a play or felt emboldened enough to kind of suggest that, you know, they needed to go. And the takeaway for the campaign is they have to take this very, very seriously. You know, as John said, summertime is a bad month for the Trump campaign historically. In 16, they brought in Kellyanne Conway and David Bossie and Steve Bannon. And in 2020, they replaced Brad Pascal with Bill Stapien. And so this has historically been the time when

Trump makes changes. And there is some concern now that this could be in the offing. You know, there's been some reporting, too, that Donald Trump now at this point is unhappy with the choice of J.D. Vance as his running mate, that he perhaps would have preferred someone else. This is him deflecting, obviously, what's been happening over the last four weeks to blame somebody else as if it's J.D. Vance's fault for what he says out there and how things are going. But are you picking up any of that, any regret, buyer's remorse? You know, I think there was some remorse initially when the childless cat comments came out. I think it's kind of shifted a little bit. And it's because, you know, as ever in Trump world, it's whoever has the last word with Trump. And the last word with Trump at the moment is, you know, J.D. Vance could continue to be OK for us, because if you think about it from the Trump campaign's perspective, the one thing that J.D. Vance does, it targets a very specific demographic

that the campaign is trying to turn out. And that's the white male vote. And kind of my colleagues have also reported on this. But J.D. Vance does speak to that demographic. And they think, you know, if there is one way they can pitch it to Trump in a way that he won't sour on his running mate, it is to say, look, this is a guy that can get out a key demographic for us in November. And so you need to stick with him, you know, regardless of how you feel at this point. All right. Senior political correspondent for The Guardian, Hugo Lowell, thank you very much for being on with us. In an interview last night on Fox News, Donald Trump's running mate, Senator J.D. Vance, suggested that suburban women don't care about reproductive rights. Take a listen to his answer when asked about whether they care about that issue.

Well, first of all, I don't buy that, Laura. I think most suburban women care about the normal things that most Americans care about, right? They care about inflation. They care about the price of groceries. They care about public safety in the streets where their kids play. Look, as Donald Trump has said, he wants the American people at the state level to decide abortion policy. And you compare that to the Democrats who want to do nationalized taxpayer funded abortion up to the moment of birth. I think Donald Trump is actually trying to identify the reasonable compromise where he lets California figure out its abortion policy, Alabama and Ohio figure out

their abortion policy. That is actually the common sense approach. And it's the approach that's most respectfully of the American people. So many lies in there. We'll get to that. Harris's running mate, Governor Tim Walz, hit back at Vance's remarks in a post on X last night, writing, it's pretty normal to respect a woman's right to make her own damn health care decisions. And someone might want to tell J.D. Vance Simone that there are no abortions right up to the moment of birth. This is a lie that they use in this argument to deflect and break down the conversation because what they don't want to deal with is the fact that abortion is health care and that a woman with an ectopic pregnancy or a non-viable pregnancy can be sterilized if she does not get the health care she needs. And women do want

normal reactions from doctors when they need abortion health care, not doctors that are afraid of new laws that bring them back to the dark age and either have them bleeding out at home or becoming sterilized. That's all. They're just simply hoping that they could have health care. So I hope that J.D. at some point takes a look at what abortion is. It is health care. And nobody's doing an abortion in the ninth month or when the baby is out of the body, as Donald Trump says. I mean, not only they're idiots, but it's it's beyond insulting after what Donald Trump and his Supreme Court picks have done to women's health care in this country. Absolutely, Mika. I mean, hear, hear to everything you just said. As a former campaign staffer,

it really makes me wonder, like, what are the preps? Who is speaking to Senator Vance before he goes out and says things such as this? Because it flies in the face of the reality that people all over this country, women and men are living in. I don't think Senator Vance and some Republicans within the Republican apparatus understand when they say, oh, well, Alabama should be able to decide, California, Michigan, so on and so forth. What we are setting up in this country now that is the live reality of people all over America is that if you are a woman in this country, your your ability to make the decisions about your own body depends on where you live, what your zip code is. And in many respects, how much money you have, if you have the ability to travel out of state, if the health care that you need is not able to be administered in the state that you live in. And God hope that you can live to get the health care that you need.

So that is really the health crisis that is confronting women in this country. And this is going to be a big issue when it comes to the general election. I think abortion is a kitchen table issue for folks. It is an economic issue. And it is something that is absolutely on the front of minds of every person in this country, especially if you live in a state where there is a total abortion ban or a partial abortion ban. And frankly, a lot of the battleground states fall into that category. Simone, thank you so much. And still ahead on Morning Joe, the Biden administration has

struck a deal to lower the cost of several popular drugs under Medicare. Health and Human Services Secretary Javier Becerra will join us with more on that. Plus, the latest from Russia as Ukrainian troops continue to push into the country, capturing dozens of Russian soldiers. But first, Steve Ratner standing by with charts, fact checking Donald Trump on the economy. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Live picture of the White House, 625 in the morning.

During his speech in North Carolina yesterday, Donald Trump made several false claims about the economy and what he accomplished during his time in office. Joining us now with a fact check, former Treasury official, Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Ratner. Steve, at the Southwest Wall, great to see you. Let's dive right in. First up, here is what Donald Trump said yesterday about the economy during his administration. We had the strongest economy in history. There's never been a country that had an economy like us.

I gave Harris and Biden an economic miracle and they quickly turned it into an economic nightmare. See, this is an oft repeated claim by Donald Trump that he had the strongest economy of all time. And now he's adding he handed Joe Biden an economic miracle. What's the truth about that? Not only did he not have the strongest economy of all time, he didn't even have the strongest economy of the last two presidents, himself and Joe Biden. And so let's take a look at some of the facts here. First, the strongest measure, the best measure of an economy is its growth rate, GDP growth rate. And so let's take a look at some of the facts here. First, the strongest measure, the best measure of an economy is its growth rate, GDP growth rate. And so when you compare the two and I have adjusted out covid in fairness to both presidents, although you see it doesn't actually change the picture.

Trump grew his economy at a rate of about two point six percent a year, which is actually not a bad rate. And that excludes covid. Biden grew his economy, has grown so far his economy at 3.5 percent a year. If you take out the effects of COVID, the disparity is even greater. So I've done this as honestly as I can do it, no matter how you do it. It doesn't come out in Trump's favor, even against Biden, let alone against 5000 years of other economies around the world. Secondly, you can look at jobs. That's a very important thing in an economy, obviously, to Americans. And again, I've adjusted out the effects of COVID. 182,000 jobs on average a month created by Trump.

271,000 jobs on average created by Biden. Again, if you take out COVID, the disparity is far greater. So that is one of his most preposterous claims. Yeah, the numbers don't lie. And he has made that point. We were cooking along and then COVID came. That's not my fault. We can talk about that more of how he handled COVID. But even adjusted for COVID, you're saying Joe Biden has had the better economy. All right, let's move on to energy. This is former President Trump talking yesterday about American oil production and energy independence. We were energy independent four years ago.

Think of it. Today, we're getting energy from Venezuela in the form of tar. Steve, what do the numbers show? Well, first of all, we were never energy independent under Donald Trump. In fact, we really haven't been energy independent going back until sometime before 1950. You can see that the amount of oil imports that we had during Trump did, in fact, decline. This is part of a long progression that goes back to the mid 2000s. It's nothing that he particularly did.

It continued under Biden. And lo and behold, the first time we have been energy independent, as it applies to oil, was in 2023 under Biden's presidency, when we actually exported a bit more oil than we imported. Now, Trump has hung up on Venezuela. I'm not exactly sure why. He usually likes the dictators. In this case, he seems to not like it as much. It is a fact, as Trump said, that Venezuelan oil is bad oil. It's very heavy. It's very polluting. But look what happened to Venezuelan oil imports over the last seven and a half years. Under Trump, we averaged 10.3 million barrels of Venezuelan oil a day coming into this

country. Under Biden, we're down to 1.7 million barrels a day of Venezuelan oil. So the idea that somehow Biden is the one who brought in all this Venezuelan oil. So the idea that somehow Biden is the one who brought in all this Venezuelan oil is absolutely directly contradicted by the numbers. As is often the case, exactly the opposite is true of what Donald Trump says. In fact, we are not running on Venezuelan tar. OK, let's talk about migrant crime. Donald Trump yesterday in North Carolina went on a tangent about what he claims is a surge in migrant crime. Here's what he said. They all said I was wrong when I said that migrant crime will reach epidemic proportions.

And now it's much worse than that. It's a lot worse than epidemic proportions. It's beyond control. We have a new category of crime. It's called migrant crime. And I think it's going to end up being the worst category of all. All right, Steve, what does the data show? Well, you know, it was supposed to be an economic speech, but he can't help himself and he has to get off into things like migrants and immigration and the border and crime and all that kind of stuff.

But once again, the facts are not quite what he said. First, let's just talk about crime in general. He likes to think the country's in the middle of some crime wave. That is actually not true. Violent crime per 100,000 people has dropped 26 percent under Joe Biden, with an average of 398 per 100,000 people, down to 294. What is even more amazing is that it, in fact, ended Trump's administration slightly higher than when it began. Or certainly at best, most favorably, you can't see any improvement under Trump's administration. All the improvement has been under the Biden administration. Now, there's the fallacy of migrant crime. If you read the New York Post, you'd think, of course, all crime was committed

by migrants. But in fact, we've talked about this, I think, before, but it's really quite traumatic. If you look at, if you break crime down between native-born Americans, documented immigrants, and undocumented immigrants, you can see that native-born American crime rate is actually higher than it is for documented immigrants and way higher than it is for undocumented immigrants. That's true whether you look at violent crime, whether you look at property crime, when you look at drug violations. The fact is, immigrants actually commit fewer crimes than Americans. And for the undocumented immigrants, it's not totally surprising. They don't want to get sent back to wherever they came from. So they tend to behave themselves better than a lot of Americans and a lot of documented immigrants.

So this is a complete fiction that Donald Trump has created. And Steve, right on cue, the New York Post this morning on its cover has an 11-year-old Venezuelan child in handcuffs talking about the problem you just outlined. Great charts telling the truth, as always, with data, Steve. Thanks so much. And before I let you go, I want to ask you about the inflation number yesterday that came down 2.9 percent year over year. What does it mean for the economy?

Yeah, this is real. This was really good news. And even Trump actually, I think, briefly acknowledged it yesterday. It's the lowest inflation rate we've had since 2021. It's broken below 3 percent. It's getting close to the Fed's target of 2 percent. That combined with some suggestions that consumers are starting to pull back, that the economy is starting to weaken a little bit, has pretty much solidified a rate cut by the Fed in September. And that's good news for homeowners. It's good news for borrowers.

It's good news for generally getting the economy going a little bit faster. And of course, politically, it's good news for the Harris ticket. All right, Steve Ratner, thanks so much. So important to stop and get the data from Steve as we punch through some of these lies we hear every day. Steve, thanks so much. As Steve mentioned, Donald Trump is claiming migrant crime has surged, but border officials actually say they're seeing a drop in migrant crossings. NBC's Julia Ainsley joins us from El Paso with new reporting on what has led to this change.

Morning Joe's coming right back. Beautiful shot of New York City at 38 past the hour. Welcome back to Morning Joe. Several towns along the southwest border report a major drop in migrant border crossing, so much so that in Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott's controversial program of busing migrants to other states has slowed to a trickle. Joining us live from El Paso, Texas, is NBC News Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainslie. Julia, what's behind the dramatic drop? Well, Mika, I'm here in downtown El Paso. I've spoken to you and Willie and Joe right here from

outside Sacred Heart Church many times in the past where there have been hundreds of migrants sleeping behind me. I could tell you right now it's completely quiet. The numbers have fallen so dramatically. Just in the last few weeks, they've seen border crossings under 2,000 per day of illegal border crossings. That's down from 4,000 in May and over 8,000 in December. It's a number of factors. The Biden administration is pointing, of course, to the fact that this came in June, that big latest drop that we've seen when the president rolled out his asylum restrictions that allows Border Patrol to keep anyone from claiming asylum if they cross the border illegally, unless the numbers get below 1500 per day, which they haven't yet so far. Now, there are some nationalities that they can turn back to Mexico.

Others are quickly deported. And there have been a slight increase on the northern border. Other people I've spoken to are pointing to Mexico, increasing their interdictions. And of course, the hot weather always plays a factor this time of year. But really what it's done here in Texas is it's mean that Texas Governor Greg Abbott's plans to bus migrants have really come to a trickle. He's promised to keep busing them. There are rumors he might try to bus some migrants to Chicago during the DNC next week, but that's going to be really hard for him to do, Mika, simply because there aren't enough people to fill those buses. And we've talked to people from city from those cities that have received

buses in the past. They say they've by and large stopped. New York, Denver and Chicago all have stopped receiving them as of June. The Chicago suburb received one in June. Chicago itself hasn't received any migrants since Christmas. Cities like L.A. and Philadelphia haven't seen any migrants there since January. D.C. hasn't gotten any migrants from those Texas buses since last year. Again, these are just the buses that Texas Governor Greg Abbott was paying for to send migrants as a political message. There are still plenty of migrants who do cross the border and try to find their way to those cities. But by and large, a lot of those programs that were meant to go show a political message

aren't as easy to carry out simply because of the numbers here, Mika. Julia, I know that the Mexican government has done a lot. You mentioned it. They've restricted visas for people coming into the country. They've kept people away from the northern border. There has been some concern, or there was earlier this year, that the government might sort of play politics with the border and perhaps open up some of the numbers coming up to the border ahead of the election. What's the thinking on that now that Kamala Harris is at the top of the ticket on the U.S. side? I mean, how much how much is the American government kind of in negotiations and in talks with the

Mexican government to keep those numbers down? You know, when I talk to officials of the Mexican government, they have a pretty open dialogue, even if it isn't at the highest levels. People a little lower down are constantly talking about fentanyl, about immigration, about arms trafficking. That's something the Mexican government cares a lot about. And as you know, they are there, will soon have a newly instated president who really agrees a lot with the policies of the current AMLO administration. And they have been able to increase their interdictions of U.S.-bound migrants by three times. And that doesn't always mean deportation.

Sometimes, and a lot of humanitarian advocates don't like this, is they will interdict migrants who are almost to that northern border and bring them back down south as a way to try to frustrate them or keep them from reaching the northern border. All of that is because they speak so often with the Biden administration. And yes, if you're reading the tea leaves here, it may be that it's because they want to keep these numbers low before an election that they'll say that they will work with a Trump administration, Harris, Biden, whoever's here. It's so important for the Mexican government to work with the U.S.

government. But the sense I get is that they do want to help the Biden administration on this issue in particular. All right. NBC News Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley. Thank you very much for your reporting this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe, veteran pollster Frank Luntz joins us with another of his focus groups, this time with voters who say they weren't voting for President Biden, but now they say they support Vice President Kamala Harris. He'll explain the sudden shift in enthusiasm. Plus, we'll bring you the latest in the Israel-Hamas war as a formal ceasefire. Negotiations are expected to resume.

White House National Security Spokesman John Kirby will be our guest. Also ahead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and The Who. Those are just some of the iconic musicians who performed at Woodstock 55 years ago today. We'll speak with the official photographer who captured the magic of the festival. Morning Joe will be right back. at Dallas for you this morning. Let's take a look now at some of the morning papers with headlines from across the country. And we'll start in Texas. The Austin American statesman leads with a probe by the Mexican government into claims that a prominent cartel leader was kidnapped and illegally handed over to U.S. agents. The cartel leader wrote in a letter from prison that he was kidnapped and flown to New Mexico against his will, where federal agents were waiting for him.

It is against the law in Mexico to abduct Mexican citizens in order to hand them over to authorities in another country. In Minnesota, the Star Tribune is highlighting the latest outbreak of MPOCs in African countries. The World Health Organization declared a global health emergency yesterday due to the rapid spread of the virus, formerly called monkeypox. The virus also appears to be deadlier since the last outbreak in 2022, with a death rate of about 3 percent compared with 0.2 percent. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the number of overdose deaths in the city are down for a second straight month. The number of reported fatal overdoses fell to 39 in July, a 50 percent decrease from the same time last year. It's also the lowest number of deaths since the city began releasing such data in 2020.

And the Philadelphia Inquirer is showcasing Jambi, a newborn Sumatran orangutan, making her first public appearance at the Philadelphia Zoo. Look how cute. Oh, my gosh. According to zookeepers, this is the first successful birth of this species at the zoo in 15 years. Orangutans are listed as critically endangered with a population of only 14,000 left on the island of Sumatra. Experts attribute their endangered status to deforestation and climate change. Jambi, very cute. Very cute. Aww. Welcome, J, very cute. Very cute. Aw.

Welcome, Jumbie. I want one. I like that. I was going to make an animal transition to this next story, but I'll leave it to the side. The Washington Post is reporting. I'll sit right there for you. It's sitting there.

It's actually too easy. I'm going to leave it there. You could do it. That's what I was doing. We're trying to be subtle. Road kill. Exactly. Cut it up. Exactly. Cut it up.

Exactly. Eat it. Buy a mistake. Leave it in your car. Go to a steakhouse. Grab some Peter Luger's. Great sauce. The sauce.

The sauce is so good. I have like four bottles at all times in my refrigerator. But you've got to stop at 18 first. It's cash only. Peter Luger. You've got to realize, though, you have to catch a flight. Exactly. Okay. So there's her ham fisted transition. The Washington Post is reporting independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr.

Oh, tried to meet with Kamala Harris last week. Tried. Kennedy campaign officials tell the Post he wanted to discuss the possibility of serving in a potential Harris administration, perhaps as a cabinet secretary, if he throws his support behind her campaign. People familiar with the conversation say Harris and her advisers have not responded with an offer to meet, nor have they shown any interest in his proposal. What a surprise. The outreach follows a meeting last month between Kennedy and Donald Trump to discuss a similar policy role and endorsement that, too, resulted in no agreement. So like a lot of people, John, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sees where the wind has shifted a bit for the moment and hedging his bets, perhaps. Yeah. And no surprise, the vice president, her team want nothing to do with this. I mean, Kennedy, of course, a legendary name in Democratic politics, but his own family has renounced most of

his stances here, particularly on vaccines. And there have been moments where he seemed like almost actively working with the Trump campaign with the two men had a phone call a few weeks ago in which Kennedy seemed to suggest, yes, I can help you win. But Mike, it does just go to show, though, where the fall of this man and his last name, but also he still plays, could, a little bit of a role in this election. Polls have shown his support has definitely dropped. He was in the double digits for a while. Now it's low single digits. But in some of these really close states, he could make a difference. But the sense now is he might take more votes away from Trump than Harris. Yeah. And whatever votes he's taking from either of the candidates,

his votes seemingly are dwindling with each passing week. His candidacy has been weakened considerably by himself. I mean, the crazy story about the bear in Central Park, just, Bobby has always had a lot of crazy stories to tell you over the years. I've known him for a long, long time. My family has known him for a long, long time. And he tells you some stories about haunted houses and bears in Central Park. And the strength of his candidacy is the weakness of his candidacy is clearly apparent. And why would the vice president's campaign want anything to do with him? Of course not. It's not just bears and some of his policy ideas as well. And as Amy Walter told us when she was here yesterday talking about the data, it looks now with Kamala Harris in the race,

like he's pulling much more from Donald Trump than he is from Vice President Harris.