Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/6/24

Episode Date: August 6, 2024

Today: Harris to announce running mate

I think we need to really address the fact that this perfect storm really has been circling and marinating all weekend long. So we obviously had the Fed that did not give a lot of clarity on Wednesday about when that cut was going to be, whether it was September. Then we had Friday's economic data that came out, which showed a boost in unemployment. That was not good. Then we had a weekend full of fear-mongering around the Middle East and Iran attacking Israel. And then you had the Japanese market go down the largest amount since 1987. And all of that together added to this crazy fear thing. We saw the VIX spike up above 65 today, which showed fear, as your prior speaker said, not panic, but fear.

And so I don't think this is much a reflection on the economy as much of a perfect storm around all these components that are happening in the market. You know, fundamentally, nothing that much has changed economically since 10 days ago when we were trading at record highs across the board and no one and everyone was saying there's never another down day on Wall Street. Nothing fundamentally has changed. OK, that was a New York Stock Exchange trader explaining. I like his global market. Yeah, he's into it.

Good. But as you pointed out, as well as Andrew Ross Sorkin said yesterday, what goes down also goes up. And this morning, the futures board is back in the green with all the three indexes posting gains. And Japan's Nikkei just closed up 10 percent, its largest single day gain since 2008. We'll dig into the seesaw of it all. Right. And the thing is that's important to realize is if you look at the fundamentals of the economy, it's still very strong. The things we were saying last week are true this week. We are still the envy of the world. We economically in every way, even the market now, my gosh, over the past four years, it's just exploded. So this was a slight correction. It there's there may be more of a correction to come, but that has more to do with how stocks have been overpriced and the over exuberance that we've been hearing traders warn about for a very, very long time that these stocks are being overpriced.

But we'll see what happens. And, E.K., again, bouncing back yesterday, we'll see what happens here today. Also this morning, there's more fallout from the comments Donald Trump made over the weekend in Georgia. We'll explain why that state may be back in play for Democrats this November. With us, we have the host of Way Too Early, White House Bureau Chief at Politico, Jonathan Lemire. U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Katty Kaye, is with us. Managing editor at The Bulwark, Sam Stein. And Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and associate editor of the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson. I got to ask a question. Hey, Bobby

Dahlbach, what's with the glasses? What? Wait. Oh, Lemire, it looks good. This is just the latest effort in my ongoing struggle to look smarter. And at this point, I have largely failed to this point in my life and career, so this is just the latest trick that I'm trying. We'll go for it for a few days. We'll see how it goes. Do we like them? I like it.

Try again. All right. They look adorable. Katie Kay. No, Jonathan, you look adorable. Katie Kay. No, Jonathan, you look great. Katie Kay. Keir Starmer's premiership has started off with quite a challenge. We're not getting there's not a lot of reporting in the United States about this, but a lot of white nationalists, a lot of neo-Nazis have been going around doing absolutely horrific things to Muslims, to people of color.

Generally, I saw a headline of a Filipino nurse that was being rushed in to help with with some injuries caused by these white nationalist riders. And she was pelted with rocks. What's going on over there? And can you explain how this was all started by a big lie? Yeah. So this was triggered by an absolutely just awful event a couple of weeks ago when three young girls who had been to a Taylor Swift dance class were stabbed to death by an individual who for a while out on social media, it was claimed that the killer was a Muslim. And that triggered attacks against mosques in Stockport, the town where these girls were killed, and rioting out on the streets. It then turned out the killer was not a Muslim.

He was a 17-year-old, but the police made the unusual step of releasing his name. His parents had been Rwandan refugees, but he was born in the United Kingdom. He's British. He's black, but he was born in the United Kingdom. He is now in custody, but it hasn't stopped these far right nationalists coming out onto the streets and attacking people who they think shouldn't be in the United Kingdom, whether they're there because they're brown or whether they're there because they're Muslims. What the prime minister's challenge is would be what they would like to do. The government, my understanding is, is have a whole load of arrests very fast. But the UK justice system is slow.

It takes time to get these people through courts, but they really want to send a message out. Keir Starmer has been out very much in public saying this is not acceptable, denouncing the protesters. But it's an indication of some of some of this is social media. People jump in there. You've got young kids who seem to have. I mean, weirdly, young kids jumping into this who seem to have no political agenda at all. But just it's summertime. They're off school and they see the violence. They seem to pile in and it has to stop and be stopped. More importantly, well, anarchy in the UK.

We remember those images from the 1970s. I will say this is a great opportunity for the new prime minister to show strength and act aggressively, clean up the streets, get these racists off the streets, arrest them and make sure that they face justice. Gene Robinson, before we get to the news of the day, behold, you bring tidings of good news to Democrats east, west, north and south. For unto them is born the reason for exuberance. You know, Democrats, this is one thing I never understood about Democrats. They're like, yeah, we don't we don't we don't deserve good things.

I'm like, B.S., you take what you need. You fight. If you need it, you take it by getting the most votes, by knocking on the most doors. And every time you knock on a door, every time you plant a yard sign, you do it with exuberance. You do it with joy and you do it knowing you have no choice but to win. And you're telling Democrats it's OK. It's OK. You can be happy while you're going out about your business of working hard and winning elections. Right. You don't have to be overconfident, but be happy. You just had like two of the best weeks

ever in politics, right? You've had this amazing couple of weeks. You've got more money than you can spend at this point. You just have to figure out how to how to spend it. You've got an opponent, a Republican ticket that's self-destructing in any number of ways. They just helped you put Georgia back in play for the election. So, yeah, you should be a little pumped at this point and you can be happy about what has happened without saying, you know, without being overconfident, without being silly about it and sort of not tending to business. So tend to your business and get it done. It's, you know, three yards in a cloud of dust. There's that part of it.

But do it with some joy and do it. You know, it's a happy time for the Democratic Party right now. As old as old Nike commercials always say, do it like Sam Stein. Speaking of a happy time. With a smile on your face. Vice President Kamala Harris will announce her running mate for the Democratic ticket at some point today. I'm being objectified. Just a little bit.

Again. She'll appear with that pick at an event this evening in Philadelphia. NBC News reports the finalists still include Senator Mark Kelly and Transportation Secretary

Pete Buttigieg, as well as Governors Andy Beshear, J.B. Pritzker, Josh Shapiro, and Tim Walz. While Buttigieg is still in the running, it's worth noting he is scheduled to be in Maine today and tomorrow as part of his cabinet role.

Shapiro, for his part, had a fairly normal day yesterday and played basketball with his son while his two dogs looked on at the bevy of reporters staked outside their home. That's not what my dog would be doing. OK. And not to read the tea leaves, but hours from now, he's set to deliver remarks at today's Harris for President event at Temple University. Meanwhile, Waltz appeared at a Harris fundraiser in Minnesota, where reporters say he made a veiled reference to the VP slot, saying, quote, I think all of you know you don't wake up as a schoolte teacher just angry about something and figure out how to get elected to Congress and become the governor. And then and then life comes at you fast. Whatever happens. Wow.

Well, that's not veiled. No, it doesn't seem veiled. But it's it's getting next to impossible to read the tea leaves. You know, it seemed like about a week ago. And that's credit to the Harris campaign that that really have done a great job. Sam Stein at keeping this very close. About a week ago, I started getting reporting from various sources that Josh Shapiro was a lock. Then I started getting reporting that there was fierce and furious pushback against others in the party that were trying to undermine his candidacy.

And so now the last 24 hours, we've been hearing that Tim Walz is a lock, which means, of course, we know absolutely nothing about what Kamala Harris is going to do. It's probably, you know, it's going to be Walz or Shapiro. Yeah, this is such a weird process because it's been condensed to a couple of weeks, right? And usually you don't have the prospective VP candidates out there in public kind of demonstrating their acumen to be VP, right? Usually they're more subtle about it. But in this case, because it was so condensed, you had Tim Walz, Josh Shapiro, Indra Beshear, even Pete Buttigieg going out there and sort of auditioning in front of us to, you know,

and really for Kamala Harris to say, hey, this is the type of skill set I could bring to the ticket. At this juncture, honestly, I have yet to hear a definitive, you know, one way or another. It could go either way. I think you correctly identified the two frontrunners here. The only thing I would say is that the amount of anti-Shapiro stuff that has been pushed, not just publicly, but privately, suggests both that he is the frontrunner because people are trying to knock him off that pedestal, but also some weird discomfort within the party over him that I did not know existed. I think ultimately the party would get around him that I did not know existed. I think ultimately the party would get around him for obvious reasons. And also, I think, you know,

the case for him outweighs the case against him substantially. But that's been the most interesting thing for me the past week is just watching this sort of latent anti-Sapiro movement kind of take hold. The latent anti-Semitism, I'll say it as a Baptist. I mean, you've got the most gifted speaker of the lot. You've got, when you see Kamala Harris and Josh Shapiro together, just a generational shift, a really dynamic, striking generational shift. JFK taught us that politics was visual. Seeing those two younger candidates on the screen and in American politics, younger means anybody that was born

after 1946. You see those two younger, dynamic people on the screen and you're like, wait, OK, wow, this is a new generation ready to go past old grievances and move forward. And I will say, too, let's just say it. I am. Meek and I have both been very impressed by Governor Walz, but we've been impressed by Governor Walz watching his witty little asides with his daughter or are on Twitter. He's Democratic governor of Minnesota. I will say, though, he is there is a reason Jonathan O'Meara, the left wing likes him. And this is definitely a left wing versus a centrist battle right now that is playing out. It's not about Israel. There are people that are attacking Josh Shapiro in a veiled way on Israel because he's Jewish. It's that simple. Tim Walz has hugged Benjamin Netanyahu, embraced him, talks about our close alliance.

And his language on Israel is actually, is actually, would be more of a concern if they're worried about Palestinian protests outside of Chicago. Then, yeah, let me say it, the Jew, Josh Shapiro, who is called Benjamin Netanyahu, the worst prime minister in Israel's history. So this is shaping up people on the far left are not liking Shapiro.

And just bluntly, this this anti-Semitism strain that we see from extremes on the left and the right, unfortunately finding its way into this fierce pushback against a man who I think, with all due respect to everybody else, seems beyond. It's the logical pick, especially if you'd like to win Pennsylvania, the one state you have to win. Yeah, you've certainly identified parts of the reasons why there is this pushback to Shapiro. A lot of it is also just perception versus reality. He and Wall's really not that different on Israel and other issues. But you're right. So our reporting this morning shows that though no one has been officially eliminated, it is indeed really, it'd be a real surprise if it were anybody other than Walls or Shapiro. This is the pick.

And I think you hit upon it that Walls is seen as more progressive, more left than Shapiro. So then it's a question of what message does Vice President Harris want to send? You know, is it going to be a nod to those in her own party? Or is she trying to pivot more towards the middle, more towards a general election, picking the more moderate governor of Pennsylvania? And Eugene Robinson, obviously, geography does not always play in to these choices. We've seen, in fact, most running makes are not selected based on where they're from. This feels like it could be the exception to that rule. Pennsylvania is the most important state on the map for a Democrat. Shapiro is very popular, 60, 61, 62,

63 percent in the polls. So that would be a good argument. But it's not the only thing the vice president is going to consider when we learn her choice in the next few hours. No, it's not. And one thing that we haven't talked about and we have no idea about is what who does she have chemistry with? You know, they've got to fit together in a, you know, in a constructive way. And she has to feel that about whoever she picks as her running mate, because they're going to be spending a lot of time together and they're going to be and when they're apart, they're going to have to be working in concert. And, you know, four years is a long time. And so we have no idea about that. We just don't know. So I think we really don't know who it's going to be. So I'll go along with the,

you know, the sort of conventional wisdom that it's either Shapiro or Waltz. I am not entirely convinced that the others are ruled out at this point. We just don't know. Yeah, that's very exciting. We'll see what happens today. So the other big story this morning, the markets, they are rebounding this morning after yesterday's massive global sell-off. The Dow dropped more than 1,000 points and the S&P lost 3%, the worst session since September of 2022 for both. The sell-off started in Japan with its market posting the worst day since 1987, which had a ripple effect around the world. But that index recovered significantly today. Despite yesterday's losses, the Dow closed about 7,500 points higher than when Donald Trump left the White House on

January 20, 2021. What did you say? Could you read that again? Higher than when Donald Trump left the White House on January 20, 2021. So you're saying right now, even after the bad day yesterday. Yeah, the Kamala crash, they're calling it. Donald Trump's calling it 7,500 points higher than when Donald Trump left office. So people are that much richer that are calling Biden and Harris socialists. So can I just, can I just just if they're keeping score at home. Go ahead. Stock market is 7500 points higher than it was when Donald Trump left office.

Also, illegal border crossings. We're going to go there. Are lower now than they were when Donald Trump left office. That's all I got to say for now. It's pretty fascinating. What a great job Biden and Harris have done. And I'm looking forward to hearing about it on other right-leaning networks. Well, no matter what the actual facts are,

Donald Trump was very quick to blame the drop on Vice President Kamala Harris in a series of social media posts. And later in a campaign ad, Trump branded the meltdown the quote Kamala crash. He also claimed the country is heading into World War Three and another Great Depression. You got the number right. Wow. In a statement responding to those attacks. You know, I was afraid he was going to say we're about to go into the Spanish-American War. He kind of sometimes he's a couple of wars.

In a statement responding to those attacks, aris campaign spokesman wrote in part quote what middle-class families need is steady economic stewardship not chaotic ranting lies donald trump had the worst jobs record of any modern president and oversaw some of the worst days in the stock market in history while spending his presidency lining the pockets of his wealthy friends who shipped American jobs overseas. And he even announced that in a phone call at Mar-a-Lago. Just called them up and said, I got you guys your tax cuts on camera in front of everyone. Made a lot of people rich. Super appropriate. Now, despite blaming Kamala Harris for yesterday's stock market plunge, Donald Trump has spent the better part of the last three years taking credit for Wall Street's gains under the

Biden administration. So which is it really? Fox News host Neil Cavuto yesterday called out Trump for trying to have it both ways. The Donald Trump thing in the market amazes me. When they're up, it's all because of him and looking forward to him. When they're down, it's all because the Democrats and how horrific they are. Yet some of our biggest point falloffs, three of the biggest of the top 10, occurred during his administration. A lot of those were in the COVID years. I get that. But, you know, you either own the markets or you don't. It does confuse me. I keep a very, very close look at all the records here, sell us and otherwise. Three big ones, the three biggest among them

in the history of the markets occurred during the Trump administration. Not all on him, but they did occur under his watch. So just want to remind you that. Wow. Three of the worst days in Wall Street history happened under Donald Trump. I think it's very fair assessment, especially if you keep track of things like this.

Joining us now, the anchor of CNBC's Worldwide Exchange, Frank Holland. All right, Frank. So we we've seen the Nikkei rebounding 10 percent overnight. What are we expecting when when the Dow opens up in Nasdaq today? Well, good morning, Joe Amico. You know, we have the futures, of course. We are seeing a bit of a modest bounce back on Wall Street this morning when we're looking at the futures. I'm taking a look right now. The Dow looks like it would open up over 100 points higher. The S&P, the Nasdaq, about a half a percent higher in the pre-market. And of course, you guys already talked about it yesterday. The markets had their worst day in nearly two years. The futures give us an indication that we could see a rebound,

but it's important to note, and something a lot of U.S. investors are watching, that's European stocks. They open higher, and then they turn negative. That sentiment, it sometimes crosses the Atlantic and weighs on the U.S. markets, certainly something that a lot of people are watching. You guys also talked about this. We're saying that the U.S. seeing kind of a modest bounce back. Well, Japan, huge bounce back over there. Yesterday, the Nikkei had its worst day since October of 1987,

that so-called Black Monday crash. Today, best day since October of 2008, up 10 percent, best one-day point performance ever. Wow, that's fascinating. Talk about, Frank, a lot of different things going on. But you've had some of the sages of Wall Street saying for some time that the value of stocks have been overpriced. How much of this do you think was just a correction waiting to be had? Because some some some stocks were just according, again, to people who actually know about this stuff, just overinflated. Well, you know what? It's a multifaceted issue. Number one, we saw mega cap tech earnings like an alphabet disappoint somewhat to investors was really just one data point in the alphabet

earnings. It was YouTube at YouTube ad revenues that cause that stock to slide. Then we saw Amazon come in and weak guidance. That's what they say they expect to see in coming quarters. They also talked about the weakening consumer. That kind of spooked the markets. And then we saw the jobs report come in lower than expected. Unemployment go up just a bit, not historically high, but go up a bit from where we've seen it recently. And a lot of people got started getting worried about a slowdown in the economy and also possibly a recession. Now, I want to go back to your main question about valuations. All year long, people have talked about mega cap tech stocks being overly valued, high valuations, lofty, frothy, some of the words that people use. But that wasn't an issue until recently. A lot of people think those stocks got to the point they rose so much they were essentially

priced to perfection. That's something that you're going to hear on CNBC a lot. Basically, any small issue in those earnings reports and you're going to start to see a sell off. Also, we've seen a rotation. A lot of people expecting those Fed cuts coming up in September. A lot of people rotating into more rate-sensitive sectors. We're talking industrials, financials, materials. And, of course, in some cases that you have to sell some of those winners to buy into some of those other stocks. So it's a lot of different factors leading to that sell-off when it comes to mega cap tech.

All right. CBS's Frank Holland, thank you so much. Great to see you too. And Katty Kay, we will be waiting to see what happens with the market. It is also obviously a lot of people in the political world concerned about how that's going to possibly impact the upcoming race. But a lot of twists and turns between now and November. Yeah, I mean, look what's happened over the last three weeks. If we think we're going to be able to judge today what's going to be happening in three weeks time, I think we've

all had a lesson in hubris over the last month. If an interest rate comes, that could be good for Kamala Harris. If it comes in September, it could be good for Democrats. The likelihood of that actually trickling down to make an impact into people's pocketbooks between September and November, most economists seem to think is pretty slim. It takes longer than that. But stability is what most voters will look for. If this volatility continues till November, that could be a problem for her. If it stables out again, people will forget these blips. All right. Still ahead, what we're learning this morning about an attack that injured several U.S. service members in Iraq. NBC's Courtney Kuby joins us with the very latest on that.

We'll also go live to Jerusalem amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran. NBC's Richard Engel is standing by. Plus, after congratulating Vladimir Putin for last week's prisoner exchange, Donald Trump is now praising another authoritarian leader. Who just stole an election. Okay. Who just stole an election south of us. We're back in 90 seconds.

It's worth watching, guys. The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side. That's a right triangle, you idiot. Don't! Welcome back. 27 past the hour. Time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning.

A California man could face decades in prison for his brutal attacks against police officers. On January 6th, prosecutors say David Dempsey was among the most violent rioters that day, fighting with flagpoles, crutches, pepper spray and broken pieces of furniture. At one point, he attacked a fellow rioter who was trying to disarm him. Dempsey pleaded guilty in January to two felony counts of assaulting police, just a fraction of the crimes that officials say he committed that day. Nine staff members have been fired by the main U.N. relief agency in Gaza. It follows an internal investigation of Israeli allegations that workers there participated

in the October 7th terror attack. According to the findings, nine of the 19 people accused, quote, may have been involved. Congress voted in March to eliminate all donations to the agency until at least March of 2025. And Bloomberg News has apologized for breaking an embargo and publishing a story last week that revealed a prisoner exchange involving the United States and Russia. White House officials wanted to keep the news under wraps until the prisoners were safely released into U.S. custody. Bloomberg's editor-in-chief says the company's actions violated ethical standards. The apology came hours after the publisher of The Wall Street Journal, the paper where Evan Groskowicz works,

said this on Morning Joe. All I can say is that the standards that we apply at The Wall Street Journal are very clear on that. You don't report something unless you have it confirmed. You just don't want to push ahead. Embargoes are embargoes. And when people's lives are at stake, you take those embargoes even more seriously. And so I'll leave it at that. Gene, I've got a question. I'm actually a bit confused by this. We heard yesterday that a reporter, just an excellent reporter, one of the most respected in Washington, D.C., was was blamed for this. Yeah. And what I what I found to be so interesting is that at least the way I remembered it, reporters would write story.

They would report. They would write stories. They would hand it to their editors. Then it was editors who made the decision whether to print the story or break it. Didn't all this strike you as confusing yesterday that you had the publisher pointing a finger at a reporter for the paper actually releasing the story. Yeah, I'm very confused because, in fact, the way you described it is the way it does work. Editors do make the decision as to what actually gets published and what does not. At least at The Washington Post, reporters do not hit the button and publish something. And so editors are, you know, that's their job to make those judgment calls. And in the case of something like an embargo, I don't know

any other facts about this. I know that, you know, if a reporter is not entirely honest or straightforward with an editor, if the editor doesn't have full information about what's going on, that would be one potential reason you would be angry at a reporter. I have no indication that anything like that happened in this case. And as you said, ultimately, the buck stops with the editor. It really does. Exactly. And that's the way it's always worked. And that's the way it still works. All right. We're also following developing news out of Iraq of a suspected rocket strike on Al-Asad Air Base that is believed to have injured several U.S. personnel. That's according

to a defense official who spoke with NBC News. For more, let's bring in reporter on the story, NBC News Pentagon correspondent Courtney Kuby. She also covers national security. Courtney, what more do we know about this? Yeah, so this was two rockets that are believed to have been fired by an Iranian backed militia group operating in Iraq. They landed on this base in western Iraq, al-Assad. It's an Iraqi base now, but it houses U.S. and other coalition troops, including U.S. personnel that are contractors. So at least two rockets struck the base, injuring a number of personnel. Now, at this point, we don't have a lot more fidelity on exactly the

nature of those injuries, but I am told that none of them are expected to be life-threatening. But this is an escalation. Now, many of these militia groups, there are a number of them that are operating throughout Iraq and Syria, they do take shots at bases fairly frequently. But the fact that these rockets not only made it onto the base, but that they caused injuries is really raising some eyebrows at the Pentagon and across the U.S. military. Now, it comes, of course, at a time when there is this increased tension throughout the region, not only just what has been an extremely tense situation since October 7th, but last week, the Israelis acknowledged that they killed a Hezbollah leader outside of Beirut. And then there was this assassination in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, who is a leader of Hamas.

Iran has vowed very clearly to retaliate for that. So the big question is, what could that retaliation or that response look like. Many officials believe one of the players in that response could be some of these militia groups in Iraq and Syria, like Qatayb Hezbollah and others who have taken shots at U.S. and other troops in the region. But so far, officials believe this is not the beginning of a larger response. That being said, they really are watching for an increase in activity by some of these groups. Again, in Iraq and Syria, we've heard a lot in recent months about the activities of the Iranian batutis in Yemen. The question is, could we see an uptick in that? And then,

of course, how will Iran ultimately decide to respond? Joe and Mika, we have seen a lot of comparisons to what they did in April when they vowed to respond to, and in fact they did respond to, an Israeli strike. That one occurred in Syria. They launched off hundreds of projectiles towards Israel. The U.S. still has a lot of air defense systems in the region should they need to help Israel defend. But at this point, it's still an open question how Iran may respond to these provocations last week. All right. NBC's Courtney Cooley, thank you so much for your reporting.

We greatly appreciate it. And, Cady, if you if you look back to April when they launched thousands of projectiles to little to no effect, Israel intercepting most of those with the help of the United States and other allies in the region. And then also, I'd go back to January of 2020, when the United States killed Soleimani and the Iranians did something similar as they've done here. They launched some missile attacks at a U.S. base and they immediately contacted our allies in the region and said, pass along to the United States. We just had to do that. Nothing else is coming after this. It was basically a game saving device, as as were the the missile attacks april uh i'm curious if we're going to see

something different here or if the iranians still are in a position where they don't want to provoke the united states i'm a certain true back in april and they literally told the israelis uh these this is what is coming your direction uh they gave them a head a heads up that allowed Israel to defend itself and none of those missiles caused any harm within Israel. The fear this time around is that even if the Iranians feel they don't want to escalate the war, how many times can they be provoked before they do something that precipitates some kind of wider conflict, some kind of mistake occurs? I heard Richard Haass talking about this earlier this week, just yesterday. There is always the risk of some kind of a mistake in that region and tensions are very high. So when you're sitting on a tinderbox,

everybody, and that's why the diplomacy is intense at the moment on all sides, the diplomacy has to work overtime to try to make sure that some kind of mistake doesn't lead to a wider conflict or that everybody is understanding each other and that the Iranians have a way to retaliate, which they have to do for the killing of Haniyeh on their own soil. But they also have to do it in a way that doesn't precipitate a wider conflict if that's not what they want. So let's go to Jerusalem now. Joining us now from Jerusalem is NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel. Richard, what is the latest there? So I was here in April and I'm here once again. And just to reiterate what you were talking about, last time when Iran retaliated for an Israeli assassination, it did telegraph it. And we were all watching. I was standing on

this very rooftop waiting for the drones and missiles to come in. Iran announced when they were launching. It announced the direction they were going, more or less. And it said that they would be followed by ballistic missiles. So all the Israelis and the Americans had to do was look up the sky, point and shoot. It was like skeet shooting. And some of the ballistic missiles did get through, and the U.S. and Israel were very satisfied with their response that the equipment worked and that a wider war was averted. This time, there was a lot more mystery.

The Israelis, the Iranians don't seem to be telegraphing what they intend to do nearly as closely. So this is something like a game of wait and see. When is it going to happen? What is going to happen? And we're all trying to read between the tea leaves. And there are some tea leaves that give a few indications. One, the CENTCOM commander, General Eric Carrillo, is here. That is a very concrete sign. He came here to help coordinate the U.S.-Israeli response back in April. His presence in the country is a sign that the US anticipates something could be happening soon. US officials say they are observing movements of missiles

within Iran taking place. It could be a distraction, it could be a diversion, or it could be preparations. Russia, and this is a new dynamic, is also involved in the picture. The Russian defense minister was in Iran yesterday, and today the Iranian media are reporting that not only did they request Russian air defense systems, which are very sophisticated, they are state-of-the-art pieces of equipment, but that some of those air defense systems have already arrived. So that would indicate perhaps we have a little bit more time as Iran is trying to harden its defenses. And then one more tea leaf, because that's really all we have to go on at this stage. It's not being telegraphed like last time. There is a meeting

tomorrow in Saudi Arabia of the Organization of the Islamic Conference. And it is possible that Iran wants to seek approval of the broader Islamic world for retaliation before it carries one out. But to go back to what Qadi was saying earlier, Iran has said it's going to respond. It feels that it is duty bound to respond to an attack on the political leader of Hamas right in the capital of Tehran during inaugurations, right after he had met with Iran's supreme leader. So, Richard, if you will, give us some insight on what Benjamin Netanyahu is facing, not only at home, but internationally. You have Joe Biden, of course, reportedly angry with Netanyahu because he keeps moving away from a peace deal to get the hostages home and to give the Israeli people some relief from this. And this from Reuters yesterday, from Jerusalem, August 5th, Reuters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is

facing anger in Israel and abroad over his handling of talks on a Gaza ceasefire that have faltered, just as fears have grown that the crisis could spiral into war with Iran, three Israeli officials said. Divisions between Netanyahu and the defense establishment over the deal, which could help defuse the escalating crisis that risks engulfing the Middle East have also surfaced in public remarks and behind closed doors. This is a man that observers inside and outside of Israel had predicted from the beginning would keep this war going as long as he could because he knew after the war ended, he would be out of office and would face charges. That friction, that tension seems to be rising,

not only with Israel's most important ally, but certainly seems to be rising inside of Israel itself. Tell us about it. So this is one of the most important and perhaps least understood dynamics of this entire conflict. And it is the the dynamic of of Benjamin Netanyahu himself, who's been dominating Israeli politics for the last 20 years and who faced an enormous failure on the with the October 7th attacks. and he has never really accepted responsibility for it. Yes, he also faces numerous investigations. And the concern by Netanyahu and the people around him is, if he leaves office, he is in enormous trouble,

that his reputation will be destroyed in history, that he could end up in prison, so therefore he is trying to keep the conflict going as long as possible and keeps changing the rules of the game, keeps extending the goalposts. There is a lot of anger here against Prime Minister Netanyahu, and some of it is coming from the hostage families themselves. There has been the workings of a hostage deal on the table for months. We've reported on it several times. Hamas even said that they had agreed to the terms.

Then Israel came back and said, well, the terms that Hamas agreed to weren't exactly the same terms that Israel agreed to, but they were very close. And now suddenly Israel carries out this assassination in Iran during the inauguration of one of the top negotiators for Hamas. So the peace talks have collapsed and families who were hopeful are now in a great sense of despair. And they worry that Netanyahu is doing this for his own political motivations, to keep the conflict going long enough that perhaps President Trump can come into office, change the dynamic, save him, and give him a new lease on life. So I would say Israelis are divided. There is the official line that, yes, Israel wants to kill Hamas leaders, and it will do that when and wherever it can. And then there is the other narrative, and there are many in the Biden administration

and also here in Israel that believe that targeting this Hamas official, who was not hiding, that the leader, he was a negotiator, he was someone who was easy to find in that way at that time, was a provocative and political move potentially for for Netanyahu's own benefit. NBC's Richard Engel, thank you very much for your reporting and analysis. We appreciate it. And still ahead right here on Morning Joe, Arizona's attorney general has agreed to drop nine felony charges after former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, against former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, in exchange for her full cooperation with the investigation into the plan to subvert the state's 2020 election results.

We'll go over what it means for the 17 other co-defendants in the fake electors case. Plus, we'll have a look at the latest Olympic medal haul for Team USA at the Paris Games. Do you think Willie's going to stumble out of his? I don't know. Bedouin? I don't know. He's got a great view in that little balcony. Balcony.

Morning Joe's coming right back. Cigarette. Is it your decision to waive these rights and enter a guilty plea because you are in fact guilty? It is. What I did not do, but should have done, Your Honor, was to make sure that the facts the other lawyers alleged to be true were in fact true. I believe in and I value election integrity. If I knew then what I know now, I would have declined to represent Donald Trump in these post-election challenges. I look back on this whole experience with deep remorse. That was Jenna Ellis, a former Donald Trump attorney, when she pleaded guilty in the Georgia

election case and was sentenced to five years of probation and $5,000 in restitution. Now, Ellis is cooperating in another election related case. She's one of the 18 defendants in the Arizona fake electors indictment. And yesterday she signed a cooperation agreement with prosecutors there who are dropping the nine felony charges against Ellis in exchange for her testimony. Joining us now, former litigator and MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. So, Lisa, first of all, tell us where this entire case stands, what impact it could have on Donald Trump, if any or if not. And then how important would her testimony be? Well, let's start, Mika, with where this case stands, which is really at the very outset of proceedings.

We had a series of hearings earlier in the summer where the defendants got to enter their pleas. Shortly after that, the lead prosecutor, Nick Klingerman, told a gaggle of reporters who include NBC News' Alec Tabit, we expect that the next steps will be that we'll make some plea offers. In fact, when he made that statement, he knew he had met with Jenna Ellis just the day before in a meeting that's referred to in these plea documents. That's where Jenna Ellis laid out for prosecutors, here's what I can give you, here's what I am prepared to say, here is what I know about the events at issue in this indictment. And indeed, Jenna Ellis, in cutting a plea deal here, is pleading guilty.

But there will be no charges against her. There will be no consequences for her. And unless and this is a big unless unless prosecutors find that during that June 17th meeting or at any time in the future, she lies to them about what transpired in Arizona. Now, with respect to the former president, as you noted, he hasn't been charged yet. He's unindicted. Co-conspirator one in this indictment. But Jenna Ellis's plea deal necessitates that she cooperate with prosecutors in a variety of different ways and across a variety of investigations. There is a very subtle suggestion in the plea documents that not only will all of her statements be provided to defendants in the existing case, but they'll be provided with respect to any criminal case that arises out of a referenced investigation and a referenced grand jury proceeding. Does that mean that prosecutors are contemplating potentially charging the former president? It could be that they are waiting to see what happens in others of these cases,

including how the presidential immunity decision affects the federal election interference case before Judge Tanya Chetkin, which, as we discussed yesterday, was just reactivated. Do you think the plea deal that Jenna Ellis cut was unusually generous? I think the plea deal that Jenna Ellis cut was exceptionally generous. But Mike, remember, she's the first person to plead out here. She also is the linchpin potentially to perhaps the person that prosecutors are most interested in hearing from next. That would be Rudy Giuliani. When you look at this indictment and you look at where Jenna Ellis is mentioned, it's really solely in relation to her work with Rudy Giuliani and meeting with Arizona legislators. We know that Rudy Giuliani in Arizona sort of played two parts.

One was part of the campaign to convince Arizona legislators to have a do-over or somehow invalidate the certified results of the election. But he was also involved in the corresponding and parallel fake elector scheme that was run through Boris Epstein, who is also a defendant in this case. There is no allegation in the indictment, at least on its face, that shows that Jenna Ellis was also part of that fake elector scheme. However, she's been charged with forgery in respect of that fake elector scheme, just like everybody else has. So is Jenna Ellis going to be that person who can sort of connect the dots for prosecutors? She very well may be, or she may provide such damaging

information about Mr. Giuliani that he has no choice but to talk with prosecutors himself, something that he has avoided assiduously in some of these other cases. Yeah, Lisa, I was going to ask you about Rudy, because if I recall, throughout the fall and into the winter of 2020 to 2021, she was next to him. He was he was leading the charge, but she was his right hand person. So putting Rudy aside, obviously, we establish that Trump is not is unindicted co-conspirator number one here. Does this have any potential to sort of bleed into the presidential election? Obviously, it's a state case, but, you know, Trump's obviously are going to argue that he has nothing to do with this. And then even if it were to touch him, that he has some sort of immunity from it. But I'm curious for the viewers, you know, can you give us a sense of the timing of this?

And if this has the ability to or the possibility that it could affect the presidential campaign? I think it could affect the presidential campaign, Sam, in a political sense, right? Depending on what Jenna Ellis says and how it incentivizes other people perhaps to seek or accept plea deals. There could be some information in the public domain that isn't yet common knowledge that could impact voter behavior. But as to the carrying out of this exact case, do I think, for example, that Arizona is barreling toward a trial before the election or shortly thereafter? Certainly not. But they've done something here that other states and the federal government did not, which is to avoid charging former President Trump. And insofar as they've done that, they have a clearer path to pretrial proceedings working more smoothly

than perhaps we are seeing in the federal cases and certainly we're seeing in Georgia right now. All right. And MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, thank you very much. We appreciate your reporting and insight this morning. It is.