Morning Joe - Morning Joe 8/8/22

Episode Date: August 8, 2022

Senate passes sweeping climate, health and tax package, putting Democrats on cusp of historic win

To do something with 50 votes is rough. To do small things with 50 votes is rough. To pass such a major piece of legislation with only 50 votes, an intransigent Republican minority, a caucus running from Bernie Sanders to Joe Manchin. Wow. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, after the Senate passed a sweeping climate health care tax bill, putting Democrats on the verge of another major win ahead of the midterms. for big pharma will explain. And Donald Trump's Republican Party gathered in Dallas for CPAC this weekend, where the big lie was on full display, along with an incredibly ridiculous guest. And this is not the one I'm talking about. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Monday, August 8th. With Joe and me, we have U.S. special correspondent for BBC News and Katie Kay and Jonathan Lemire is recovering from the reporting he just did on toilets. But here's the big news this morning. Senate Democrats have done it. After more than a year

of negotiations and dead ends, Democrats have passed a reconciliation package that includes a bulk of their priorities. The yeas are 50, the nays are 50. The Senate being equally divided, the vice president votes in the affirmative and the bill as amended is passed. No Republicans voted in favor of the final bill. It passed with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Kamala Harris. The bill went through some last-minute changes during an overnight voterama. That process allows senators to suggest amendments to the bill before a final tally. Seven Democrats, including Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona,

voted in favor of a last-minute tax change introduced by Republican Senator John Thune of South Dakota. That led Democrats to scramble to replace that measure with one of their own. The final draft of the Inflation Reduction Act would invest more than $300 billion in the climate reform, the largest in American history. The bill allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices for the first time, cutting prescription drug prices for Americans 65 and older. It also adds a new 15% minimum tax on large corporations. The Inflation Reduction Act will now head to the House. Leadership there has announced lawmakers will return from the August recess on Friday to vote on the bill.

Senate Republicans were able to keep one key item out of the Inflation Reduction Act. They voted to block a cap on insulin costs for millions of patients across the country. So they kept to their brand, let's just say. Democrats had tried to limit those costs at $35 for private insurers. Only seven Republicans joined all Democrats to try and keep the cap in place. Many of the 43 Republicans who blocked it had a different take on this in the past, including Senator Joni Ernst just two years ago. The skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs has become a matter of life and death for so many. We've heard the heartbreaking stories of individuals who could not afford their insulin, were forced to ration and skip doses, and as a result, they lost their lives.

Iowans have been very clear with me where they stand on this issue. So she cared until she didn't. So that's another Republican branding thing. Just flip against something. The bill does include that cap for people 65 and older on Medicare. And Joe, I just want to start with how big a win this is. The name of this bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, everything seems to be lining up in a way that has really brought this together for Democrats. Hopefully, ultimately, in a way that Americans can understand that they have been working on their agenda and they got it done. Yeah, it's been incredible. I mean, you look at the work they did on. First, I got to say with Joni Ernst and the other Republicans that voted to allow Big Pharma to keep gouging diabetics. My son, type one diabetic. I can I can afford it. Unfortunately, so many Americans have to make really tough choices on insulin.

And a lot of Iowans get get by Johnny Ernst and Americans by Republicans. It's grotesque. It's absolutely grotesque. Hypocrites and liars for backing down on that. But you look at what they did, Mika. The New York Times talked about how it capped a remarkably successful six week stretch that included the approval of a two hundred eighty billion dollar industrial policy bill that bolstered American competitiveness with China. The largest expansion of veterans benefits in more than two decades. Longstanding goal of slashing prescription drug costs, allowing Medicare for the first time to negotiate the prices of medicine directly and capping how much Americans pay out of pocket for these drugs. Four hundred billion dollars for climate and energy programs. I mean, it will allow the U.S., think about this, altogether to cut greenhouse gas emissions, greenhouse gas emissions by about 40 percent below 2005 levels at the end of the decade. That's just unbelievable. And you look now at Joe Biden, and I know we're going to talk about this,

but you look at these Democrats, a 50-50 split Senate. And you look at Joe Biden, suddenly you have this huge climate change plan, this huge plan to lower drug costs, to help Medicare recipients. Well, the head of the Republican Senate's talking about increasing costs for Medicare and Social Security and taxing poor and middle class Americans. You've got this. You've got an economic rescue plan that's led to the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. You've got a massive bipartisan infrastructure plan that was passed. You've got the first significant gun safety legislation passed in over a decade. We've got the Electoral Count Act that was reformed to prevent future January 6th. You've got the China competitiveness bill, $280 billion

to make sure that we can have a stronger semiconductor manufacturing base in America so we're not dependent on China. Confirmation of the first black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court. And then this package, Mika, which is landmark. I mean, there is no doubt you look at what happened in the 10 years before Joe Biden stepped into the White House, the last six years of President Obama's administration and Donald Trump's time in the White House. Joe Biden has done more than them, not combined two, three, four, five, six, seven times. This has been an extraordinarily successful two years legislatively. Any way you cut it, even Republicans have to admit this privately. And

they are. It's been a hell of a run. So it has. And I just want to develop on that point and then back up and look at how this all happened, especially with this this package itself, which is which is landmark, as you said, Joe. First of all, you're right for Joe Biden. Think about it. Pull out 20,000 feet. World stage preventing a nuclear war, preventing World War Three. Check COVID. He survived it. Two bouts of it never went to the hospital.

COVID is under control. And this president, unlike the former president, who always talks about his strength, who had to be shipped off quickly to the hospital and pumped with all sorts of crazy drugs. Al Zawahiri, check. This is all global. And this president has checked it off and there's more. Then you move to domestic and you look at this huge accomplishment. And I just have to question members of Congress on the Democratic side who are just like flies to a fly strip to the latest polls of today. And I just think, why are you being so transactional? I mean, don't you have a mind that can pull out 20,000 feet and look at what this president has accomplished? Because

these poll numbers, if you look at history and you look at how Americans feel when they see accomplishments piling up, they tend to see what a president has accomplished. They see it in their pocketbook. By the way, gas prices plummeting. I mean, it's all moving in Joe Biden's direction. He's got his aviators on and he's just getting it done while even people in his own party are questioning whether or not he ought to run for president. I'm not advocating here. I'm just looking at the facts. I'm looking at a Republican Party that is a bunch of lunatics who are taking away women's rights and have one crazy notion after another. Just crazy out of their minds and no points on the board. Let's bring in co-founder of Axios, Mike Allen, and co-founder of Punchbowl News, John Bresnahan.

Bres, let's start with you. How did this play out over the weekend? How did the Democrats get this over the line? You know, once Joe Manchin was aboard, that was the big moment. And then, of course, there was Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona. But Manchin was the key. Manchin had stopped the Build Back Better Act in December. He was worried about costs. You know, he was difficult throughout the spring and into the early summer. He was worried about inflation.

Inflation was rising. He was worried about deficits. But once, you know, and then this fell apart again. And then Schumer to his credit, you know, said, we're going ahead. We're going with a narrower bill. It's going to do Medicare prescription drugs. We're going to go ahead with a narrow bill. And once he got to that, Manchin kind of took that very personally and said, no, I still want a deal.

And behind the scenes, the White House had, you know, had reached out to him a little bit. Some white as Steve Ruscetti and Brian Deese talked to him a little bit. But it was really Chuck Schumer. Schumer deserves an enormous credit here. He kept the lines of communication open with with Manchin. And then once he had Manchin, he was able to focus on cinema and he was able to address her concerns about taxation. So Schumer deserves an enormous amount of credit here. You really have to give Chuck Schumer a lot of props here for for working his members. That's what he does. You know, he may not be the greatest floor leader in history, but he's damn good with his members. Yeah. Hey, Mike Allen, tell me what what's happened over the past

couple of weeks. Can you can you put it into perspective? I mean, I go back to Reagan's early days in the early part of his administration, passing a lot of bills. But when's the last time we have seen seen so much legislation get through, especially in this very, very partisan Washington, D.C. environment? That's right, Joe. We could debate whether Biden was trying to be more like LBJ or FDR, but they both had such better congressional majorities than he did. So this was a real O. Henry ending, O. Henry switch before the midterms. Someone pointed out to me that this Inflation Reduction Act was kind of the opposite of Build Back Better. Right. Build Back Better had so much build up. We covered all of the ins and outs of it. And then it had this sort of apocalyptic collapse, whereas this appeared out of nowhere one evening, a press release out of Manchin's office quickly endorsed by Schumer and then moved super quickly in a way that almost nothing does on Capitol Hill. So, Joe, the bottom line of this, people in the White House say this is no lucky break, that this is the president putting out an economic theory. You heard him say in the State of the Union, bottom up, middle out, not top down, bottom up, middle out. And this is a vindication of slow patience.

Eye on the prize. I mean, and you know what? Mike Allen brings up LBJ, Caddy K. Not a coincidence. LBJ, also a creature of the Senate, something Joe Biden has been criticized for. But you look at this landmark legislation, then you stack on top of that Truman-esque efforts with NATO, the historic expansion of NATO, what he's been doing with Ukraine, walking the finest of lines, preventing World War Three while taking the lead around the world in defending freedom in Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe. And suddenly you're like, well, maybe senators do know how to do this job. Yeah, I mean, Joe Biden has certainly spearheaded the efforts in Europe.

He's motivated European partners. He was there right at the beginning as the Russians were invading, sharing intelligence, U.S. intelligence in an unprecedented way with European allies in order to get them on board, in order to get skeptical Europeans who didn't believe there was going to be an invasion. If there was going to be invasion, it was going to be small. He really pushed that. And it's, you know, you have to think back to previous presidents and wonder whether they would have done as much as Joe Biden has done, both in terms of the spending and the spending, America's spending compared to European spending has been by multiple factors in terms of military hardware and support for

Ukraine. So he has really driven this effort. And he's used his years on the Foreign Relations Committee, of course, as a foreign policy expert. Remember, Joe Biden really was a creature of the foreign policy establishment in Washington for decades. And he's used that when it comes to Ukraine. On this, in a sense, what he's done in the last few weeks is let Chuck Schumer take the lead. This creature of the Senate has also known when it was more useful for him to step back from the Senate and let Chuck Schumer take the lead. And it's Chuck Schumer who deserves much of the credit on the Democratic side for what was signed into law this weekend. All right. So, Mike Allen, thanks very much. John Bresnahan, thank you as well for giving us the

latest on how this happened over the weekend. Then there's this. There was more news over the weekend. Election deniers and conspiracy terrorists took center stage at CPAC in Dallas over the weekend from Marjorie Taylor Greene to the MyPillow guy to candidates who won recent primaries after supporting the big lie. The event was in full propaganda mode, featuring Donald Trump as Rambo, a mock January 6th rioter crying inside a jail cell. The event was packed with right wing buzzwords and violent rhetoric. In the Senate every day, I represent 30 million Texans in my job. It's like the old Robin Coliseum where you slam on a breastplate and you grab a battle

act and you go fight the barbarians. And as they say in the military world, it is a target rich environment. We are at war. We're at a political and ideological war. You're at a political and ideological war. You can say anything else you want about it, but we're at war. Think about after high noon on the 20th of January 2021, when an illegitimate imposter took over 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and took over the administration.

And Donald Trump was the headliner Saturday evening at CPAC. The former president used his speech to spread lies about the 2020 election and false claims of rampant voter fraud. He also took on the Inflation Reduction Act, specifically targeting Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. I said this was going to happen. Joe Manchin is devastating West Virginia. Kyrsten Sinema agreed to allow this massive tax increase just yesterday to go forward, only provided that Wall Streeters are allowed to keep their current carried interest provision. It's a hell of a provision. The annual political conference is attended by conservative activists and elected officials

from across the U.S. and beyond. And Joe, I just I have no words. I have I have no words. And Ted Cruz's language in the age of mass shootings. Yeah, please take it away. I have a few words for what we just heard. It is a fat, bloated, 1977 era style Elvis routine, playing hits from the past, half-hearted, half-assed. And the audience is just there going through the motions. Look at that. It's just pathetic and it's sad. And here's a guy who who after he passed the grossest tax cut package ever for the richest billionaires and multinational corporations in the world, he flew down to Mar-a-Lago that night and said to his billionaire friends sitting around his table, I just made all of you a lot richer

today. And I think most working class Americans, most middle class Americans are really glad that some of the that that the very pieces of legislation that he helped pass, the tax bill he helped pass, the provisions that allowed the biggest multinational corporations in the world to pay zero in taxes. Those bills got stripped. As far as Steve Bannon goes, yeah, we are at war. We are at war politically with guys like Steve Bannon, freedom loving Americans, Americans who believe in the Constitution. Steve Bannon's a guy who said his hero is Vladimir Putin, said before he even got into the Trump White House, he wanted to tear everything down. He wanted to tear the White House, he wanted to tear everything down.

He wanted to tear the state down. He wanted to destroy the state. He said that before Donald Trump was sworn into office. And, well, that's exactly what he tried to do. Please take that picture down. Can you take that down for me? Do people know that he doesn't look like that? Thank you. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, the thing is, again, you know, Katty Kay, all of these clowns, they're all under investigation. Not those three people sitting on the stage. But Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, I mean, how many times has Steve Bannon been indicted?

I'm going to need to get a calculator just to keep up with it. Trump, he's got so many investigations going on. He's going to end up getting indicted like this is this is this is I guess the biggest shock is that this is who CPAC is now embracing. raising once a place where Ronald Reagan went, now a place where former, current and future indicted anti-democratic thugs go. Yeah. And Viktor Orban showing up from Hungary was just the icing on the cake. Indicted, absolutely. Donald Trump investigated. Steve Bannon indicted, as you say. It doesn't, though, Joe, in states like Arizona, seem to mean that Donald Trump and his message is any less popular with the conservative wing of the Republican Party. One of the things when I was traveling around the country that struck me as interesting is that, you know, the big question, I think, heading into 2022,

but heading into 2024 as well, is the genie out of the Trump bottle, if you like. Even if Donald Trump were not to win, to what extent is Trumpism, whatever that means, and I'm never entirely sure if you can define Trumpism in terms of actual conservative policy or policy at all, for that matter, is Trumpism still alive and well. And the degree to which conservative Republicans who love Donald Trump define their entire political agenda right now on the notion that the last election was stolen is really striking. I mean, it's not about policies. It's not about conservatisms. It's simply about the idea that they were robbed. This sense of grievance that Donald Trump has

perpetuated, that he was wrongfully denied a second term in the presidency in 2020, has just spread like wildfire and replaced everything else. And you hear it when Donald Trump speaks, you hear it when he speaks at CPAC. That is it. That's his message at the moment. His message is the election was stolen. And I don't know. I mean, you know, you are always the one who has said that American elections are about looking forwards. They are about conveying a sense of optimism. When Donald Trump spoke in Washington, we didn't hear that. When Donald Trump speaks at CPAC, we don't hear that. It's just about the past. And I was robbed.

And that's pretty much it. Well, on a related note, Michigan's attorney general is requesting a special prosecutor being involved in a case surrounding her Republican Trump backed opponent, who is at the center of a voting systems breach investigation. Politico reports that a months long probe by the state police has led to Matthew DiPerno, who is accused of seizing and tampering with voting machines in several Michigan counties. Joining us now with her reporting on this investigation, Washington correspondent Heidi Prisbilla. Heidi, what more do we know about this? Yeah, Mika, imagine that you are the attorney general conducting a criminal investigation and the evidence trail leads to your competitor. That is what we have here. We obtained documents last night alleging that the GOP nominee for attorney general

orchestrated an illegal campaign to obtain and tamper with a series of voting machines throughout Michigan. Specifically, it's alleged that he was present, at least among the evidence, in an Oakland County hotel room during which those tabulators were tampered with, that he is a, quote, prime instigator of this scheme, Mika. And also, the machine showed up later in a lawsuit that he used, one of the lawsuits to try and cast doubt on the credibility of the election. These tabulators showed up in an exhibit in a subpoena in his lawsuit. Amazingly, last night, Mika, I also went onto his law firm's website and saw tabulators with red duct tape over them being messed with during a One America News special exclusive.

Now, it's unclear whether those are the same tabulators. But to wrap this all up, Mika, this is the man that Donald Trump wants to become the next top law enforcement official in Michigan. Michigan, again, was a main theater for some of the most bitter fights over the last election. And within that, Matt DiPerno could be seen as kind of a stage manager. He launched this lawsuit in Antrim County that was used all across the country in lawsuits. It even showed up, Mika, in a draft executive order that Donald Trump was working on to seize voting machines. Now, that executive order never actually came out. But DiPerna was there as well on the State Department on January 6th.

Mika. Heidi Prisbella, thank you so much for your reporting this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe, a Republican lawmaker warns her party about the possible consequences of taking extreme positions on abortion. It comes as a red state passes a near total ban on the procedure, the first since Roe was overturned. Also ahead, there are fears of a nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine following attacks near a critical power plant. Retired four-star Navy Admiral James Tavridis joins us with expert analysis. We'll be right back with much more Morning Joe. 31 past the hour, China is expanding its show of force after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the self-governing island of Taiwan.

China announced several days of live fire drills following Pelosi's visit that saw the regional power fire ballistic missiles into waters near Taiwan, the first time since the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. The drills, which were originally due to end yesterday, are the largest China has ever held in the Taiwan Strait. We'll be following that and turning now to the war in Ukraine, where Russian forces over the weekend allegedly targeted Europe's largest nuclear power plant, raising fears of radiation leaks. Ukraine and Russia traded accusations over the shelling. Ukrainian officials say Russian rockets on Saturday hit the power plant in Zaporizhia in the southeast, damaging three radiation sensors and injuring a person. Officials say the attack risked a nuclear disaster and a catastrophic leak was, quote, miraculously avoided. For days now, experts have

warned that intense fighting around the plant poses a grave threat. Russian forces have controlled that plant since March, using it as a base to launch artillery attacks on nearby Ukrainian controlled towns. Moscow, however, denies carrying out the attack and blamed Ukraine. Joe, this is this is Moscow just getting as close as they can to something that, you know, could be catastrophic, could be could change the world. Well, it's more of the same. They're reckless. They're irresponsible. They're war criminals. It's just I mean, war criminals are going to going to act like war criminals. And this is just one more one more example of it. Let's bring it right now. Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander, retired four star Navy Admiral James Trevitas. He is also chief

international. He does he does so many things. I can't even name them all. Admiral, let me ask you first about Taiwan and China. Tensions continue to rise there. What's your latest take on all the drills that China is conducting around Taiwan? I think we were all hoping that this would kind of come to an end, the exercises, the drills, the live fire elements of it. After the conclusion of the Sunday deadline, China had given itself to finish it. But the bad news, Joe, is within a matter of a few hours ago, they've announced an extension. Now, they're not continuing the missiles, the naval gunfire. They're shifting to undersea warfare. But, you know, if you're a merchant

captain and, you know, I'm a former sea captain, you're a merchant with no defenses. You really don't want to go through anywhere near something like that in case a torpedo comes your way. So unfortunately, it appears this is going to go on for a few more days. At the end of this process, however, ISS attentions are going to ease. China will have made its point. Xi does not want an exchange of ordinance, if you will, with the United States. He's got big political fish to fry this fall. So look for another couple of days and tensions to go down, Joe. I'm curious, what have you learned from this? Just looking at the Chinese, looking how they've responded.

What have you learned from China and what is your current take on the possibilities of China moving on Taiwan, especially given just how badly the Russian invasion of Ukraine has gone? It is correct to say that we have learned a lot about what it might look like if China decided to attack. It'll probably start with some kind of a blockade. It'll start with long range missile attacks. They've shown us that. Now they're showing us the anti-submarine warfare and the anti-surface ship warfare. So frankly, we're getting a good look at what their ideas might be. But Joe, I would say, despite a lot of analysis that says a war is imminent, I don't think so. I think if you're President Xi, you're

watching Ukraine and you're asking yourself, number one, are my generals as bad as those Russian generals appear to be all trained in the same systems? Number two, you're asking, I wonder if those Taiwanese will fight the way the Ukrainians are. Most observers think they will. And number three, you're asking yourself, you know, the West is hung together here pretty well, arming the Ukrainians, creating sanctions. Would that kind of unity be germane if I attack Taiwan? So bottom line, I think in China, in Beijing, President Xi is less enthusiastic, shall we say, about a military option here, having watched Ukraine. Admiral, let's talk a little bit more about Ukraine and specifically about this nuclear

plant in Zaporizhia. Both sides seem to be blaming the others for shelling near the plant. How concerned are you that this could, as Zelensky is saying, amount to some kind of a nuclear disaster? Are we in a very precarious situation at the moment? Unfortunately, we are. There's 200, roughly 200 containers of spent nuclear fuel. If an explosion occurred directly on those, and these are not in buildings even as hardened as the nuclear power plant itself. So you could have a release of nuclear material. You know, think Chernobyl like event. That's pretty bad, obviously. And certainly Putin is using this to frighten the

Europeans. He's also wants to continue to control the area around the nuclear power plant to use it as a base because he thinks the Ukrainians will not attack it. And then thirdly, he's thinking to himself, I can knock down the Ukrainian infrastructure. Ukraine has five nuclear power stations, 15 nuclear power plants. They get a lot of their heating. A lot of their energy comes from nuclear. Putin would like to take that away. So controlling that plant looks very tasty to him. I think he's going to continue to use this. And as Joe said a moment ago, this is war crimes 101. It's attacking critical infrastructure in a way that could risk, frankly, large portions of Eastern Europe. All right. Retired four-star Navy Admiral

James Tavridis, thank you so much for being on this morning. We'll be following and monitoring the very latest in Ukraine, specifically around the nuclear power plant. Coming up, one of the most criticized actions of the Trump administration was the separation of migrant children from their families at the border. And now an extensive investigation is bringing more of that policy to light. What led to it? How did they talk about this? We'll talk to the reporter behind this investigation next on Morning Joe. Also ahead, a conversation on extremism in the Republican Party. One of our next guests says it didn't start with Donald Trump and it won't end with him either. Morning Joe is back in just a

moment. Well, I never understand how some of the people behind this who stood up for this, who spoke for this, especially at the Department of Homeland Security, can get up and go to work every day and look in they they have allowed children to be ripped from their mother's arms, be locked away and have this part of the Trump administration's policy actively separating children from their mothers. More than three years ago on this show, we talked about the Trump administration's family separation policy and how many people were complicit in traumatizing countless children who tried to cross the border. And this morning, we're learning a lot more from a brand new 18 month investigation by The Atlantic entitled We Need to Take Away the Children. Take Away Children. The piece shows how separating children from their parents wasn't an unintended side effect of the plan. It was the plan. Again, we need to take away children. And there they are. Key officials from the Trump years anticipated the worst that could

happen and ignored it when it did. How the policy could make a comeback if the people behind it returned to power. Joining us now, the author of the piece, staff writer at The Atlantic, Caitlin Dickerson. Caitlin, thank you for coming on and for this reporting. And I'd like to start there with what did you find out about when we know where Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and folks in the inner circle stood on this? We can go over it. But what did you find out about different cabinet secretaries and people lower to mid-level jobs, did they say anything to try and stop this? Was anybody flagging this policy as cruel? No one in the Trump administration's bureaucracy was surprised that the president and that people like Stephen Miller were pushing for very harsh enforcement policies, family separation being probably the pinnacle of that. But what I was most interested to learn in reporting this story is how it actually came to be, knowing that you can't have a policy like this that impacts thousands of families with just a

couple of political supporters. You need the members of the bureaucracy and you also need the top political appointees of the administration, many of whom say that they don't personally espouse these very harsh views on enforcement. And what happened was that they didn't stand up and they didn't push back and they didn't listen to red flags that were being raised from people who worked

below them, from the subject matter experts who sit in apolitical roles, you know, many of whom have served under multiple administrations. They make up the vast majority of our executive branch, right? It's not just political appointees. It's mostly these apolitical subject matter experts. And when these folks raised red flags and said, you know, not only is this policy unethical, it's unfeasible. It's not practically possible for us to do this without losing track of parents and children. Those warnings were ignored because of the immense pressure that these political appointees faced from their bosses. So was the strategy to traumatize, was that verbalized as we quoted coming into this? And secondly, I was very critical of people like

the head of DHS. Did they make a concerted effort to try and stop this? Did anybody speak out? So Tom Homan, who was serving as the head of ICE, but was a lifelong really, throughout his adult life, immigration enforcement officer, he came up with the idea to separate families as a deterrent. And the goal in a sense was to traumatize, but it's this convention in law enforcement, the idea that you introduce harsh consequences against one person so that you discourage 10 more or 100 more from doing the same thing. And so the focus actually wasn't really on the thousands of families that were separated. They were seen as unfortunate but necessary casualties, people who had to suffer in order to secure the border. It's a culmination of this

strategy known as prevention by deterrence, which has really dominated our immigration enforcement apparatus since 9-11. And as border crossings increased, so too did these consequences that leaders in law enforcement came up with. But the problem is that there's not a whole lot of evidence that these efforts actually work, nor are they, of course, worth it when you're talking about taking thousands of children away from their parents, some of whom are still separated today. Caitlin, great reporting that you've got here, including those details about how some ICE officials and even some people in the DHS were disappointed when families got reunited too quickly because they felt that undermined the whole deterrence program. That in and of itself is remarkable. You had people there in

the DHS when they saw that some families were being reunited, disappointed, not pleased that the kids were getting back with their parents. But talk a little bit about the sort of different attitudes within the Trump administration, or rather some of the duplicity from some people in the Trump administration. It seems from your reporting almost as if people like Stephen Miller, who really believed in this program, were slightly misleading other members of the administration, Kirsten Nielsen being one of them at DHS, or at least not giving them all of the information or all of the accurate information in order to get this policy through and implemented. Is that right? That's right. And it wasn't just Stephen Miller.

It was people like Tom Homan, who I mentioned, who was the head of ICE, Kevin McAleenan, who is the head of CBP, in conversations with Kirstjen Nielsen, who was the DHS secretary, who is the highest ranking law enforcement official who's responsible for this and signed off on it. There's no getting around it. But what I learned, which is really important, is that she wasn't given good information. She was told that processes were in place that would allow for the swift reunification of children and parents within a few days after prosecutions of parents took place, which, as you pointed out, was this argument that came up, you know, when the public finally came to understand that thousands of families had been separated after many months of being completely

misled about it. You know, the administration changed course and started to say, well, the prosecution was the goal. It wasn't separation. And that wasn't the case. And Kirstjen Nielsen was given bad information. And that part of that is what led to her signing this off. Wow. Staff writer at The Atlantic, Caitlin Dickerson, thank you very much for your reporting this morning. Still ahead, the latest from Capitol Hill following a huge win for Democrats and for President Biden's domestic agenda. Senator Chris Murphy joins us to talk about the sweeping climate and economic package now headed to the House, the Inflation Reduction Act. Plus, we're joined by Indiana State Representative Rita Fleming as her state becomes the first since the overturning of Roe to pass a near total ban on abortion. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. Fifty three past the hour live look at the White House.

Beautiful day as the sun comes up over Washington. President Biden, Biden and the first lady are scheduled to travel to Kentucky today where they are expected to join Governor Andy Beshear to view damage from the storms and meet families impacted by the devastating floods there. The National Weather Service says flooding in the area remains a threat, warning of more thunderstorms through Thursday. At least 37 people have died since last month's storms, which dropped more than 10 inches of rain in only 48 hours. Since then, Biden has expanded federal disaster assistance to the state, ensuring the federal government will cover the cost of debris removal and other emergency measures. This will be the president's first trip since he tested positive for covid 15 days ago.

The teacher shortage in America has reached crisis levels and school officials across the country are scrambling to ensure that as students begin to return to classrooms, someone will be there to educate them. State and district level reports detail staffing gaps that stretch to the thousands and continue to remain open as summer rapidly comes to a close. Experts attribute the crisis to pandemic related exhaustion, low pay and the escalating educational culture war that has in some states restricted what teachers can say in the classroom. And Joe, this is such a frustrating situation. I went one story about a teacher leaving his job to go work at a big box store because he got paid better. Well, and that's the thing. We can talk about culture wars. We can talk about all of these issues. We can talk about how teachers haven't been treated well in the classrooms. That's been the case for a very long time. But we have a teacher shortage. We have a pilot shortage. We have a worker shortage. Companies that you've been working with, Mika, mom and pop outfits you and your family have been working with for 50 years, had to shut down this summer. Workers just, you know, they're going to different places. If there's a problem and there is a real problem, America's and we talked about it this weekend, America's America's air system is broken.

It's absolutely everybody we know can't get to where they're trying to go to on planes. You know what? The corporate, the huge, massive corporations, the airlines that we taxpayers bailed out and gave them billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars just so they could fire, just so they could send their pilots on their way and save money. They need to be forced to rehire pilots with those tax dollars and give them a hike in pay. Guess what? We won't have a pilot shortage. And it's the same thing with teachers. Raise teachers pay. Pay them a good wage, more than just a living wage. Pay them a good wage. And guess what? They won't they won't be leaving to go work for hamburger joints because they're getting paid more there. Pay your teachers as if they hold the future of America in their hands because they do, because they're teaching tomorrow's leaders. For sure. And Joe, on the airline situation, which we'll be covering

extensively throughout the morning today, we did have Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on the show about a week ago, and he said that things were getting better, that the airlines were getting certain. No, they're not. No, they're not. That's what I was going to say. I was I was dumbfounded, Mika. Maybe you can explain it. I wasn't on the show that day. I was dumbfounded that he said things are getting better when literally everybody we know who has tried to get somewhere in a commercial flight over the past month haven't. They've either been delayed or the pilots haven't shown up or there's an air traffic problem. It's insane. Our system is the worst. Our air system is the worst it's been in my lifetime. And for Pete Buttigieg to say that everything's OK, that's a serious problem, Pete. Hey, Pete, if you think

it's getting better, you need to try to fly every day. You need to get on a commercial flight every day, Pete, Mr. Secretary. And I promise you, by the end of the week, heads will roll in the transportation department and you will be talking to the head of Delta and American and United and telling them what they need to do to get this system fixed. I mean, the next time the airliners come for a bailout, we should tell them to drop dead because they have screwed Americans. They have screwed passengers

trying to get home to see their families, trying to get their kids home in time for school. It's a nightmare out there. It is at an emergency proportion. That is for sure. And I think the message has been sent. We'll be talking about this more coming up. Senate Democrats finally pass a major bill to address key pieces of President Biden's agenda. We'll break down what's in the growing divide between America's political parties. We'll talk to a Pulitzer Prize winner who says it all comes down to education. And tomorrow on Morning Joe, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is our guest.

We have a lot to talk with her about. Morning Joe is back in one minute.