Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/22/22

Episode Date: August 22, 2022

NBC News poll: 57% of voters say investigations into Trump should continue

They want to make them responsible for having taken classified documents and preserved them. I still haven't seen any evidence that he was even at, that Trump was even asked to give these documents back. Do any of us really believe that Donald Trump is like reading his nuclear secrets on his bedside at night? This is the first entering of a former president's home for potentially information, whatever they think's wrong, plus the way Hillary Clinton's negotiation and emails were handled. What use could a former president have for classified or top secret information once he's left office? Every former president has access to their documents, how they write their memoirs. Those are some of the new excuses from Republicans about why Donald Trump took classified documents home with him to Mar-a-Lago. There was, though, one of the old ones, but Hillary Clinton. The

former president now is previewing his legal plans as he pushes more dangerous rhetoric. Also this morning, new polling from NBC News shows Americans no longer believe the economy is the most pressing issue facing our country. Steve Kornacki joins us to break down the numbers and to tell us what is on the minds of Americans. Good morning. Welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, August 22nd. With us this morning, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, the great Katty Kay. Katty, just taking some broadside shots a moment ago at your home country and the technology there. I was very deeply concerned by that.

And I was just hoping no one was listening back home. I think you're OK. We'll redeem ourselves here. Let's start with that new NBC News national poll, which shows 57 percent of Americans believe the investigations into Donald Trump should continue. 40 percent say they should continue. 40 percent say they should stop. When it comes to top issues facing the country, threats to democracy have overtaken the cost of living. The poll also shows a very dissatisfied electorate tracking with other numbers we've seen for several months now. Seventy four percent of Americans say the country is headed in the wrong direction. A record 58 percent believe America's best days are behind it. And 68 percent believe the United States currently is in a recession.

Republicans have a slight two point edge when it comes to which party voters want to control Congress, though that's in the margin of error, a tie game there. But Democrats have significantly closed the enthusiasm gap. Sixty eight percent of Republicans express a high level of interest in the upcoming election versus 66 percent for Democrats in May. That gap was eight points. Let's go straight to NBC News national political correspondent Steve Kornacki at the big board and the co-founder of Axios, Mike Allen, with us as well. So, Steve, take us through some of these numbers and what jumped out to you. Yeah, Willie, I mean, everything that we're trying to figure out, it seems in the last month or so is something changing here in terms of the midterm climate towards the Democrats benefit away from the

Republicans. Of course, the usual trend has been the out of power party. The opposition party does really well in midterm elections earlier this year. Just about all the numbers were pointing in that direction. The question is, are those numbers changing at all? So let's take you through some of the big ones you showed a few and let's try to put some context on this. First, the president's approval rating. I mean, typically this tells you a lot about where things are going in a midterm election. The only two times in the modern era when a president's party has not lost seats in Congress in a midterm, the president's approval rating was sky high on Election Day. That would have been 2002 with George W. Bush. He was in the high 60s.

That would have been 1998 with Bill Clinton. He was in the high 60s. You see Joe Biden is sitting at a 42% approval rating, 55% disapproved. The last time our poll, the NBC poll, was in the field, it's been a little while, but back in May, it basically looked exactly the same. Start of the summer, end of the summer here, Biden's approval rating in our poll basically flat. You mentioned also that question of the generic ballot in our polling. Again, comparing the late spring start of the summer with right now really hasn't budged that much statistically here. Republicans ahead by two now had been a tie in May.

This is interesting when you look at this one historically. Think back now over the last decade or so, there have been two big Republican midterm years. That was 2010. That was that huge sweep when they won 63 seats. And that was 2014, Barack Obama's second midterm. It was a big one for Republicans. At this same point in 2010, Republicans were plus six on the generic ballot. It was clear by the end of summer 2010 where things were going in that midterm election and that Republicans were headed towards a very strong performance. I think what's interesting is if you look at 2014, which was the other big Republican midterm year,

at this point, Republicans actually trailed in 2014 on the generic ballot by an average of 1.4 points. I think it's worth keeping in mind, if you think back to 2014, there was talk until very late in that midterm cycle that maybe Democrats were actually going to buck history and have a good year. One of the things was that generic ballot was favorable to the Democrats until deep into the midterm campaign. So if you're a Republican, you hope that this is a repeat of 2014. If you're a Democrat, you hope he could just kind of keep it where it is right now in terms of that generic ballot. And then you mentioned the enthusiasm as well. I mean, look at this change. I do think this

is notable here. If you went one screen too far there, if you went back to March, this is what I'm saying. Earlier in the year, the numbers there were consistent with a big Republican midterm advantage. The Republicans had a 17 point advantage when it came to their voters saying they had the highest level of enthusiasm coming into the midterms. In May, it was down to eight. Now that gap is down to two points. And if you think back to just four years ago, the big blue wave of 2018, when Democrats gained 40 seats in the House during Trump's presidency. On this same question, Democrats were leading by two or three points. So now it's a Republican advantage of two points in our poll. But the movement there, it started before that Roe decision, but it's continued since that Roe decision. The movement there in the Democrats

direction, I think that one is interesting. And then you put this up here, the top issues, what people say the top issues facing the country are, it is interesting, threats to democracy makes number one overall. If you add together cost of living and jobs and the economy together, they would come to 30%. If you merge those two as sort of similar, that would be number one, although that combined total is down a little bit from our last poll. But what I thought was really interesting was just to look at the partisan breakdown. How do the two parties look at the top issues facing the country? And you see some pretty stark differences on this one. For instance, you take the question of abortion, particularly after the Supreme Court decision. Fifteen percent of Democrats rate that as the most important issue facing the country. Five times greater than the Republican number. Only

three percent of Republicans rate abortion as the top issue facing the country. And then how about this for an imbalance? Immigration and the border. Two percent of Democrats cite that as the top issue in the country. Fifteen times as many Republicans. Thirty percent rate that as the top issue in the country. Fifteen times as many Republicans, 30 percent rate that as the top issue facing the country. So there are some stark divides here between how each party universe looks at the big problems facing the country heading into this midterm. So much fascinating information in these polls. And Mike Gallin, if you just look at that screen that Steve has up right now, he's right. If you combine the numbers two and three, those are the economy. That's 30 percent. So that really is number one. But the fact that 21 percent of Americans now say threats to

democracy are one of the most important issues or the most important issue facing the country does show the impact of the January 6th committee's select hearings and perhaps even now the FBI investigation looking into Donald Trump and this general theme, this general tone that we've been living with for a couple of years now about really the foundation of what our country is built on. Willie, I think that's a great point. There's been a lot of debate about the January 6th hearings. They've definitely over delivered in the content and the drama that they have come up with between their live witnesses and their network documentary-style production. But this is a sign that people are like,

oh, is that only inside the Beltway? No, this is a sign that it's seeping out. And, Willie, I can tell you, I've been talking behind the scenes with the committee and for their hearings when they resume in September, they plan more blockbusters. They're thinking of it as season two and they are not going to have a sophomore slump in their season two. They're definitely teeing it up. In fact, Liz Cheney, vice chairman of the committee, even teasing the idea that they might try to call President Trump and yesterday pressing Vice President Pence to deliver on his statement last week that he was considering or that he would consider appearing. She actually said he has an obligation to do that. So that's a big fight we're going to see in the next couple of weeks.

Willie, zooming back to this poll, and it's a great NBC News poll, 1,000 registered voters, three-point margin of error. There's two findings here that really leapt out at me, and they're both very clever questions. The first one that we saw in that graphic earlier, when we saw that only a third of Americans think the best is yet to come. I have not seen this question before. Are we is our America's best days behind us? And I guess it's been asked because Mark Murray's story says that this is a record number of people said that it was that the best days are behind us. And then a second Finding, Willie, that we're featuring in Axios AM this morning was also a very clever question that NBC has asked over time, and that is about President Trump. They asked Republicans, are you more aligned with President Trump or the Republican

Party itself? And this is where we're starting to see an early sign of possible data showing an FBI bump for President Trump among Republicans. He could still have this could be completely moot. He's, of course, being investigated for possible violations of the Espionage Act. So your poll numbers don't make much difference to you in that situation. But we're seeing a recovery in this NBC poll from May until now in the number of Republicans who think that they are aligned with President Trump as opposed to the Republican Party. Why that matters? This is Trump dialing in to the idea among Republicans. The more that they are against Trump, the more Republicans say they're for him.

Yeah, and Katty, that's a great point by Mike. I mean, Donald Trump is banking on this, and it's why he's putting so much into his conspiracy theories and attacking the FBI. He's banking on this actually helping him, the fact that he took documents back to Mar-a-Lago, and now he can be the martyr and the victim, a victim of the deep state or whatever today's excuse is for whatever he did. But boy, when you look inside those numbers, especially on the economy, Katty, Joe Biden has to be thinking, what do I have to do here? You know, you have record unemployment at three point five percent, 11 million open jobs. But it's really

inflation as that recession question gets to that has people feeling like we're in a recession. But for all of his legislative achievements over the last couple of weeks, even, that approval number remains flat over the last few months. Yeah, it's interesting traveling around the country, as I did earlier this summer. The one thing that people kept raising with me was the price of gas. Gas prices have come down. We all know that. But it hasn't trickled down yet to supermarkets, for example. Grocery prices are still high. And until people start seeing those prices come down across the board,

and I think it's still a silly see them come down for long enough that they trust they're not going to go back up again, then I think it's going to be very hard for Joe Biden's approval numbers to shift around that. Steve, there's something there's an anomaly in this poll that I want to ask you about. I spoke to Mark Murray about it earlier, but I wanted to get your take. When you look at the list of issues ranked by importance, the issue of abortion comes like, I think it's eighth on the list or something, but it comes sixth on the list. But it's pretty low down there as a list on the list in terms of its importance. And yet we keep hearing that this is a huge galvanizing factor, particularly for Democrats in the midterm elections. So how do you weigh those two things?

If abortion is ranking so low, how can it also be this big galvanizing factor? Yeah, well, that's where I think the partisan breakdown is so interesting, because abortion overall, you know, is not really near the top here in terms of issues animating voters. But just look inside the Democratic universe. That's what you're seeing in this column right here. These are just Democratic voters. And actually, it's number two. It's the second highest prevalence issue among Democrats. Threats to democracy is the highest you're going to get back from Democrats. Abortion is the second highest you're going to get back from Democrats. Then cost of living, climate change come in behind that. And again, just it's a night and day difference from Republicans,

where you stack all of these issues up in terms of Republican voters and ask them what they think is the most important. And they put abortion basically at the bottom of their list. So what that ends up averaging out to here, when you put Democrats, Republicans and independents together, for that matter, is abortion clocks in in single digits. But when you just look at Democratic voters, it's actually the number two issue there in terms of salience. And I think it gets to that. It gets back to that question. I believe it's the the screen before this. It gets that enthusiasm question we talked about. You know, this is basically the way this question is asked in a

poll is it's been doing this for years. You can you can compare in past midterm cycles. You ask on a scale of one to 10, how excited are you about voting in this year's midterm elections? And what you're seeing here is the percentage in each party who said either a nine or a 10 put themselves at the top level at that scale in terms of interest. And at the start of this year, there was a huge disparity between the parties. Republicans had a 17 point advantage there on that high enthusiasm for voting in the midterms. That was basically cut in half in May. Of course, the Dobbs decision came down in June. And since June, we've seen that close even further. That Democratic number

has gone 50, 61, 66. So I do suspect that abortion has had something to do with that in terms of increasing the Democratic interest in this year's midterm elections and bringing that gap down to just two points right now. And that enthusiasm is showing up in fundraising, as we saw in new numbers again yesterday as well, where Democrats are doing very well. Steve Kornacki, such fascinating information and a snapshot of where we are as a country right now. Steve, thanks so much. Mike Allen, thank you as well. Good to see you this morning. We showed in that poll 57 percent of Americans believe the investigations into Donald Trump should continue, and they are. Former President Trump says he is planning a Fourth Amendment defense now to keep the Justice Department from analyzing the documents

seized from his home. In a post to his social media site on Friday, Trump accused federal law enforcement of, quote, destroying our country and teased he would soon file a motion based on the protection from unreasonable search and seizure. Trump's top attorney said on Saturday he's considering a motion to appoint what is called a special master in the case. This would be an outside official selected by a judge to carry out a judicial matter on the court's behalf. As of this morning, however, there still is no indication Trump's team has taken those steps. Let's bring in congressional reporter for The Guardian, Hugo Lull, and NBC News senior national political reporter, Mark Caputo. Guys, good morning. It's good to see you. Hugo, let me start with you. You've been looking at this question of the Fourth Amendment. Is this just something that Donald Trump is throwing against the wall, or is his legal team actually pursuing this? It's not exactly clear, right? I think the fact

that we haven't seen this motion or filing to appoint a special mass that will review the documents is not encouraging. I think certainly, though, that the Trump legal team is cognizant they have to do something. I mean, I spent the last few days in West Palm Beach, and the overall sense was they needed to file something, not least because Trump was not particularly pleased at how Christina Bob, one of his lawyers, kind of got pulled apart by Laura Ingraham on Fox News the other day and kind of got castigated for not filing anything. So I think if we see something that's likely to come today, they can't really afford to wait any longer. If they wait any longer, the FBI and the DOJ would have already finished

their filter review. And frankly, there wouldn't be any need for a special master to go through the documents. So I think they're really on the time crunch now. Mark, you're looking at the way that Trump world and former President Trump himself is looking at the FBI's execution of the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago politically and how it may or may not help him if he does, in fact, decide to run in 2024. He, of course, thinks it helps him. That's why he's making a big issue of it. He's raising tons of money off it. But I take it from your piece. There are some people in his world who think it's not so great for him.

Yeah, it's usually not so great if you have the FBI execute a search warrant at your home. And then in a separate investigation, your close friend and advisor is a target in an election interference case unrelated in Georgia, where you might be the target as well, where your former CFO of your eponymous company, the Trump Organization, has to plead guilty to tax fraud charges and agrees to turn state evidence, where you agree or you have to plead the fifth more than 440 times. That happened in just two weeks. Yet nevertheless, amid all of this, Donald Trump is communicating to others. It actually feels pretty good because he is primarily focused on his political future. And in order to do that, he's looking most directly at a potential 2024 Republican primary.

And the polling shows a Politico morning consult poll that he had increased his putative or potential lead over DeSantis, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his closest rival, potential rival by 10 points. There was another private poll that he had been shown, which was shared with us in a Florida congressional race where before the raid, Donald Trump was essentially tied with DeSantis 38-37 in a crowded primary. After the raid, Trump's lead grew to 52 to 20 percent over DeSantis. He's looking at this. He's looking at the increased fundraising. He actually says he feels pretty good where he is. Now, his advisers are like, well, we're not quite sure about that.

Let's be careful. But so far, he's been able to survive kind of like the roadrunner to all of these various coyote investigations where they've kind of come up nothing. In some cases, yes. In two cases, he got impeached. He didn't get removed from office. So in Trump's mind, according to them, he doesn't think this is going to amount to anything. But boy, there's just a lot of stuff out there. And it's hard to see how he gets away or gets out of this without a cut or a scar. But, you know, stranger things have happened, I guess. Yes. So, Mark, at the moment, we seem to be in Trump world as we often are weighing up the kind of political side of his life against the legal side of his life. And at some point they may clash. There have been a lot of speculation straight after the raid that Trump may just, you know,

buoyed by all the enthusiasm he saw from his supporters around the FBI search that he may jump into the race very early. Your reporting now, as we see, is that he's inclined to wait until after the midterm elections. So is there a chance then that between now and the midterm elections, these investigations pick up, we get more legal problems, and that this would actually leave a window for him to be dissuaded from running if he makes the calculation that actually he can't win. And as we know, Trump hates the idea of losing almost as much as he likes the idea of winning. But just by opening that time frame to end of November, does he kind of open up some sort of wiggle room for people to say to him, actually, you know what, it's not the best idea? Well, Trump often has a certain amount of wiggle room and a lot of these sort of speculative things that he engages in. But in this case, from what we hear from people is he feels relatively good about his political future, at least in a Republican primary, because he's so far out in front. He's so much in the center of attention. Now, if he gets charged before then,

maybe that would make a difference. But Brennan Buck, who's a Republican political strategist, a consultant, we quoted in our story, he said Trump is going to win the Republican primary for president even if he's in jail. So the likelihood, I think, that Trump would ultimately not run, considering everything he's done up until So the likelihood, I think, that Trump would ultimately not run, considering everything he's done up until now and everything we've heard is pretty slim. That is, I think he's going to run. It's just a question of when he announces. And yeah, as you guys write in the piece, he's particularly feeling himself right now after last week taking the political scalp, the one he really wanted in Liz Cheney, reminding himself of his own

power in the party right now. So, Hugo, as we look forward wanted in Liz Cheney, reminding himself of his own power in the party right now. So, Hugo, as we look forward to this week and the investigations, we're awaiting the ruling and the redactions on that affidavit. The judge said, I'm open to releasing the affidavit. Justice Department, take it home with you. Black out whatever you think needs to be blacked out. But then we are going to put some out there. What is the potential impact of that? Or is it going to be, as so many analysts have said on our show, probably just a page full of black lines? I think it could be potentially quite significant if you think about the kind of things that they would have to redact,

but the kind of things that they wouldn't have to redact. I mean, some of these affidavits also list out the kind of statutes that the DOJ thinks have been violated based on kind of testimony from informants, testimony from FBI agents on the case. And so it's quite possible, I think, based on speaking to former U.S. attorneys, that the DOJ redacts a significant portion of the affidavit to do with sources and methods and investigative techniques that effectively outline a roadmap for the investigation, but leave unredacted discussion or potential discussion about the kinds of crimes they think might have been committed by Trump or people around him at Mar-a-Lago by the very virtue of him holding on to those documents that he

wasn't authorized to have. So I think if that comes out, that could be another blow for him. But we'll find out on Thursday whether the judge is inclined to release that. A big week ahead. Congressional reporter for The Guardian, Hugo Lowell, and NBC News senior national political reporter Mark Caputo. Guys, thank you both for being here. We appreciate it. Katty, you had some trouble, as you pointed out in your last hour, establishing a connection with the UK. Now we have moved things stateside. We're going to go across to New Jersey. We've got running the cable under the Hudson River. CNBC correspondent Frank Holland joins us. Frank, good morning. What can we expect for the week ahead?

Hey, good morning to both of you. All right. Well, Wall Street looks like it's going to open up in the red this morning, following a big change in direction in the markets last week. The Dow looks on track to open up more than 300 points lower right now. The S&P and the tech heavy Nasdaq both coming off a down week that followed four weeks of gains. A lot of concerns about the Fed aggressively hiking rates, creating a major slowdown or possibly a recession. Those continue to weigh on the markets. Several Fed presidents came out late last week saying they believe more rate hikes are needed to get inflation under control. The Fed's target for inflation remains right around 2 percent. Last read, inflation was over 8 percent. The Fed will also hold its annual symposium at Jackson Hole this week, where Fed Chair Jay Powell will speak on Friday. All right, more changes coming to streaming

service HBO Max ahead of its merger with Discovery+. The streamer now pulling dozens of movies and shows in an effort to cut costs, move away from content aimed at kids and families, and just declutter that site. Some of the shows include Sesame Street spinoff, the Not Too Late Show with Elmo, and teen drama Generation that are getting cut.

Discovery Plus and HBO Max are merging next year, and the moves are designed to focus on the biggest audience that each has. HBO specializes in adult-themed content that skews towards a male audience. Discovery specializes in adult-themed reality content that is watched more by women. Executives want to have more content that targets both adult gender demographics and is really moving away from kids' programming. Last week, HBO Max also laid off 14 percent of its workforce as part of a reimagining of the site. Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon also premiering last

night. Kind of an example of that adult focused content we'll likely see more of going forward. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news, guys, but you want to get ready to pay up more for your morning cup of coffee. A poor harvest in Brazil. The world's largest coffee producer is threatening to push prices even higher. Farmers have endured both drought and frost, resulting in a crop being less than half of what it would be during a quote unquote good year. Brazil matters to the global market because it's by far the world's biggest coffee exporter. Bad weather also hurting the coffee industry in neighboring Colombia. And a little fun this morning. Amazon's taking cybersecurity Hollywood with a

new public service announcement with Hollywood stars Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson. Do not give that shady website your password. You just got phished. Cyber criminals. Shoes off, please. Go to the real site and create a stronger. I swear. Multi-factor authentication. Oh, man. This is the stench.

We'll take it from here. Visit protectconnect.com to learn more. All right. The goal is to shine some light on the easiest ways to prevent breaches and trying to bring some more understanding to the mainstream about things like multi-factor authentication. And I'm not just going to throw that out. I'm going to explain it. That's when you're required to enter a code you receive by email or text in addition to a password to gain access to a secure network. Ninety-five percent of cyber attacks are caused by human error, not some sophisticated hack or some other high-tech method. The PSA clearly putting a lighthearted spin on data security, but the problem is very serious and

it's actually growing. According to the FBI, losses from cybersecurity attacks have increased by 383 percent to over $6.9 billion over the past five years. Willie, back over to you. Michael B. Jordan can make even cybersecurity exciting. CNBC's Frank Holland. Frank, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Still ahead here on Morning Joe, the daughter of a key Putin ally killed in a car explosion just outside of Moscow. Russia is blaming Ukraine. We'll dig into that and we'll go live to Ukraine for the latest amid mounting tensions around a major nuclear power plant there as well. And later, playing politics with people's lives. We'll explore the move by Republican governors in Texas and Arizona to bus thousands of migrants to the Northeast,

with the bill being paid by their own state's taxpayers. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. Ted, you're going to think about running for president. Would you be running to send a message or would you be running to win? No, look, you run for president because you believe you would be the best, the best candidate because you believe you'd be the best president United States. And so any decision that I make about doing something that significant and that serious would be with the intention of winning. And because I think I would be the best candidate. Would your path be inside the Republican Party or outside the Republican Party? I haven't made any, any specific decisions or plans about that at this point.

So running as an independent is a possibility? It's one of the things you're thinking about? I'm not going to go down that path anymore in terms of speculating. Congresswoman Liz Cheney speaking with ABC's John Carl after conceding her election primary loss. Here's more of that wide-ranging interview. This wasn't just losing a House seat. You were in leadership. You were considered a future Speaker of the House, a potential future, maybe even the

next Speaker of the House. It's a lot to give up. Any regrets? No regrets. You know, I feel sad about where my party is. I feel sad about the way that too many of my colleagues have responded to what I think is a great moral test and challenge of our time, a great moment to determine whether or not people are going to stand up on behalf of the democracy and on behalf of our republic. What does your defeat say about Trump's hold on the Republican Party? I think one, it says that people continue to believe the lie. They continue to believe what he's saying, which is very dangerous. I think it also tells you that large portions of our party, including the leadership of our party, both at a state level in Wyoming, as well as on a national level with the RNC, is very sick. And that,

you know, we really have got to decide whether or not we're going to be a party based on substance and policy or whether we're going to remain, as so many of our party are today, in the grips of a dangerous former president. In addition to Trump's gloating about your laws, his spokesperson said, she may have been fighting for principles, but they are not the principles of the Republican Party. I mean, arguably he's right, isn't he? Well, doesn't that tell you something? What I'm fighting for is the Constitution. What I'm fighting for is the perpetuation of the republic. What I'm fighting for is the fact that elections have to matter and that when the election is over and the courts have ruled and the electoral college

is met, that the president of the United States has to respect the results of the election. And if Donald Trump's spokesman says that those are principles that are inconsistent with Donald Trump's views and inconsistent with the Republican Party's views, I think that ought to give every American pause about who Donald Trump is and about what the Republican Party stands for today. You're starting this political organization. Can you tell us, what are you going to do? I'm going to be very focused on working to ensure that we do everything we can not to elect election deniers. And I'm going to work against those people. I'm going to work to support their opponents. I think it matters that much.

Will you be getting involved in campaigns against those Republican candidates that are challenging or denying the results of the election? Yes. Including your Republican colleagues here in Congress? Yes. So, Cady, it'll be interesting to see what that looks like for Liz Cheney, what her role is as she moves forward. She's made very clear she's not going anywhere, but what impact can she have? But just taking a step back, it remains extraordinary that in the space of five or six years, Liz Cheney, a Republican

named Cheney now has no place in the party where her father, you know, for many years was a name brand and a central figure, particularly in the state of Wyoming, but nationally. And now we've gotten to the place where the litmus test is, did you back Donald Trump enough? Not are you conservative enough? Yeah. Meanwhile, she had, of course, a 93 percent voting record in line with Donald Trump. So it wasn't like she was voting against his policies. It wasn't like she spent her career trying to oppose his agenda. It was really just on this one issue of the 2020 election and Donald Trump's insistence that it was stolen from him. I thought it was interesting listening to that today, Willie, as we have this poll out showing that the threat to democracy is the number one concern amongst voters in America

as they head into the elections. And yet there is Liz Cheney alone in her party alongside Adam Kinzinger and the few brave people who voted to impeach Donald Trump and have now been ousted from the party. But she's alone with Adam Kinzinger sitting there trying to defend the thing that Americans say is their top issue in the poll going into the midterm election. I think that tells you all you need to know about where the Republican Party is on this one issue. And to be clear, she sacrificed her political career, which still had a lot in front of it, to take this stand. So we will see what she does going forward.

Coming up next here, a live report from Ukraine on the volatile situation at one of the world's largest nuclear power plants. Plus, chaos and scattered papers. Some new reporting on the final days inside the Trump White House. We will be joined by one of the journalists behind that story when Morning Joe comes back on a Monday morning. Authorities have launched an investigation into the killing of the daughter of a prominent Russian nationalist and an ally of President Vladimir Putin. 29-year-old Darya Dugina died yesterday after the car she was driving blew up on a highway near Moscow. Russian investigators say someone planted an explosive device in the car, which they believe was intended for her father,

Alexander Dugin. Investigators say Dugin took a different vehicle at the last minute. So far, no one has claimed responsibility, but a separatist leader in Donetsk blamed Ukraine. Kiev immediately denied any involvement, saying, quote, we are not a criminal state. Alexander Dugin, also known as Putin's brain, is a fierce defender of Russia's war on Ukraine and long has advocated for the unification of Russian speaking territories. His daughter was a journalist and commentator who shared her father's views. She had been sanctioned by the United States and British governments for spreading disinformation about Ukraine. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden is stressing the importance of protecting Europe's largest nuclear power plant that is in

Ukraine. During a call yesterday with the leaders of Britain, France and Germany, Biden expressed concerns about the situation at the facility as fighting has intensified there in recent weeks. He stressed the need to, quote, avoid military operations near the plant. The leaders also recommended inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency visit the site soon in order to determine the safety of its operations. Joining us now live from southeastern Ukraine, NBC News correspondent Josh Letterman. Josh, what more can you tell us? Well, Willie, there was more shelling near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant over the weekend. And just to give you a sense of what we're really talking about here, we're in Zaporizhzhia, which is a city of more than 700,000 people.

Right across this road, that's the Dnipro River. And the nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, is right down the river on the other side in Russian-occupied territory. Right now, the winds are moving westward toward Kiev, meaning if there were radiation release, that would potentially start moving toward population centers. And I spoke this morning with the exiled mayor of Enerhodar, the small village where the nuclear plant is located. He's now here in Zaporizhia. He told me it's getting harder and harder to even figure out what's happening in and around that nuclear plant because the Russians have taken over the communication systems, the cellular systems

and the Internet. People really are struggling to get information out of there. But another big concern is potential Russian retaliation for that car bombing you mentioned that killed the daughter of Alexander Dugin. There are no indications right now that Ukraine was responsible, but certainly he has been seen as the intellectual godfather, if you will, of many of Putin's views, including his staunch support for invading Ukraine. And we're already seeing some right wingers in Russia call for some type of retaliation against Ukraine, which is already on high alert right now, because on Wednesday we are heading into Ukraine's Independence Day, which also happens to coincide with the six monthmonth anniversary of this

war. And President Zelensky over the weekend has been warning that Russia may be planning some type of particularly vicious attack to mark that day, to spoil the Independence Day, but also to remind Ukrainians as the war surpasses the six-month mark that they remain vulnerable all across this country. And in preparation, Zelensky is warning Ukrainians to take extra precautions on that day. Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine, will be having a round-the-clock curfew as they try to keep people safe on a very bittersweet Independence Day. Willie? Yeah, Josh, clearly a tense week there in Ukraine. Talk to me a little bit more about the nuclear plant, the vulnerabilities to it.

And, you know, without being alarmist, we don't want to get out ahead of ourselves. But I do think it's worth people trying to understand what would be the potential practical implications of a strike against that plant, which is the biggest nuclear power plant in the whole of Europe? What could be the ramifications? Well, there's a few possibilities, Katty, and we've been speaking with nuclear experts about this. The nuclear reactors themselves, there's six of them there, are fairly secure. They're built to withstand a plane flying into them. We've already seen, though, a lot of shelling at the site that has damaged the power lines. Some of them have already been knocked out. And a big concern is that if the

power supply to the cooling systems that keep the nuclear reactors from melting down goes out, they would really have to rely on diesel generators for short periods of time to try to prevent a nuclear meltdown. And the other concern is there are massive amounts of spent nuclear fuel, hundreds of nuclear fuel rods that are stored at that site. They are less secure than the nuclear reactors themselves. So if there is shelling at that site that first damages the protective layer over them and then strikes the nuclear fuel itself, that could send radiation spreading. Depending on the size of the disaster here, some experts in Ukraine are

predicting it could be larger than Chernobyl, could mirror what we saw in Fukushima, could send radiation spreading not only into Europe, but also into Russia, Cady. Yeah, obviously, Josh, those are the concerns not there yet, Thank goodness. As we mark this six month, I mean, we have to stop and say that Ukraine has more than held its own. Remember the days leading up to this, the weeks leading up, there were thoughts that Russia and Putin were going to roll tanks into Kiev and raise a flag and install a puppet government fairly quickly. But here we are now. And in fact, as you and I were talking about yesterday on Sunday, today, attacks from Ukraine inside Crimea, even that that land that was taken by Vladimir Putin in 2014 illegally, by the way. So in many ways, Ukraine is stepping up its attacks here as we hit

the six month anniversary. That's right, Willie. And it was interesting because for the first week or so that we were starting to see these mysterious explosions in Crimea, the Ukrainian government was really coy about it. They were not taking responsibility. They were kind of evading direct questions about whether Ukraine was behind those attacks. But in the last two days or so, we've started to see Ukrainian officials much more forthcoming about the fact that there is now a concerted campaign by Ukraine to try to liberate, to demilitarize Crimea. President Zelensky saying in one of his evening addresses that he can feel the liberation of Crimea in the air. Now, we should point out, Russia has poured massive amounts of troops and military assets into Crimea. There's no sign

they're going to be able to evict Russia from the territory they illegally occupied in 2014. But certainly Ukraine is trying to make clear to the Russians, including the Russians who are civilians living in Crimea, that they are vulnerable, that they are not safe and that Russia can no longer feel that they are impervious and can use it as a rear base and a staging ground to attack Ukraine as the Ukrainians try to prevent this from becoming a frozen conflict and start to take back territory in the south as they head into the winter months. And Ukraine obviously doing a lot of this with the billions of dollars of aid the United States and the West have provided. NBC News correspondent Josh Letterman covering a lot of ground for us from Ukraine this morning. Josh, thanks so much. Still ahead this morning, the Republican governor of Texas has sent nearly 8000 migrants to New York City and Washington, D.C. in the last four months.

And now leaders in both cities say they need federal assistance to help all of those people. We'll have the latest there. Plus, a disturbing video out of Arkansas shows state police investigating use of force by three officers. We'll have much more on that story ahead on Morning Joe.