Morning Joe - Morning Joe: Zohran Mamdani declares victory in NYC mayoral primary

Episode Date: June 25, 2025

State Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is the leader as first-choice votes are tallied in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary, ahead of former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

We hear it was obliteration. It was a virtual obliteration. When you take a look at the ground above, don't forget the flame is all underground. But everything above, if you look at the before and the after picture, everything above is burned black. The trees, everything. There's one building, but that's a building that sunk substantially into the granite. So that, you know, the fire goes right over it. It was, I believe it was total obliteration. As President Trump speaking earlier this morning at the NATO summit in the Netherlands, doubling down on his claims that Iran's nuclear facilities were destroyed by Saturday's strikes. That doesn't match the assessment from the U.S. intelligence agency that looked into it, but we're going to dig into that report as well, is what others are saying about the

attacks. Plus, we're going to go through the major upset in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary, just an absolute shocking outcome for a lot of people, not only in New York, but across the country. Also, former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made a stunning comment yesterday about potential cuts to Medicaid after Tom Tillis said this was going to cause Republicans to lose their seats in a big way. Mitch McCain said they'll get over it. It comes as President Trump is calling on the Senate to stay in Washington to hammer out its changes to massive tax and spending bill.

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Wednesday, June 25th. With us we have our co-host of an hour, 4th Hour, contributing writer at The Atlantic, Jonathan O'Neill, also co-founder and CEO of Axios, Jim Van De Hei, and columnist and associate editor for The Washington Post, David Ignatius. We're going to get to Iran and the Netherlands in one minute, but Jim Vande Hei, I want to start on Capitol Hill first. And my gosh, the 32nd commercials that Democrats are going to be able to line up. Now you have Joni Ernst talking about Medicaid cuts saying, well, you're going to die anyway. We're all going to die anyway. And now you have Mitch McConnell going, sure, it's going to hurt their health care,

but they'll get over it. Just put your head down and vote for this bill. Talk about all of, just the rising pressure inside the Republican conference to figure out whether they're going to pass this thing and do what leaders are saying are best for the party or actually worry about whether they're going to get routed the way Tom Tillis suggested they would yesterday in that closed door meeting? Yeah. I mean, Senator Tillis lives and breathes in a swing state, and so much more attuned than maybe Mitch McConnell, who's retiring to that short-term politics. And what you see unfolding in both the House and the Senate among Republicans is this debate

over Medicaid. Yeah, there's a lot of other components to this bill, massive extension of the tax cuts, a lot of other things affecting spending. But what worries Tillis, what worries others is if you are cutting Medicaid, and it's a little technical on how they're cutting it, but ultimately Tillis, others do believe it's going to have a tangible effect for a lot of people who don't have a lot of money back in their either their district or in their state. So they're deeply, deeply worried about it.

And what Tillis is saying is like, listen, this could cost us seats in the Senate. They already think they're going to lose the House. Remember, if you think about what's happened over the last 24 years in politics, almost every election is a change election. You look at that House map, you look at that narrow majority, and the assumption is Republicans probably will lose the House if you look at history as an indicator. So if you put on top of that cuts to Medicaid, that by the way disproportionately hit the base of the Republican Party.

Under MAGA, they really focused on the working class. And so those Medicaid cuts hit profoundly harder in red districts and even in some of these red states. And so that's what they're dealing with. It's easy for Mitch McConnell to say they'll get over it. What I assume he meant is by the time you get to the election, there'll be 100 other things that people are worried about. But I don't know that that's the case, because in the past, entitlement cuts have been lethal and off your elections because older voters vote in disproportionate numbers compared to younger voters and they

obviously care more about entitlement programs. Well and here you're going to be able as a Democrat to say, wait a second, they gave tax cuts to Elon Musk and these tech bros that run monopolies so they could cut Medicaid for children in red state America? You talk about a toxic combination, and again, you have Jody Ernst out there saying, you know, you'll get over it. People die anyway. Come on, people die anyway. And then going to a graveyard to mock those who were offended by that.

Now Mitch McConnell saying they'll get over it. Not lining up well. Speaking of not lining up well, John Lemire, the Andrew Cuomo for mayor race, didn't line up too well for him. The numbers that came in last night, shocking. And here you have the New York Times, of course, with an editorial saying that the winner last night, Mamdani, was not qualified. And then you have the Wall Street Journal, of course, just saying this is no time to elect a socialist who's saying he's all for globalizing the inventata.

I mean, yeah, that's I don't know if that's why a lot of people in New York City think they need right now, but it sure looks like that's what they think inside the Democratic primary. Yeah, it is truly a stunning result in New York, front page of the Daily News, using those exact language. Mamdani stuns Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo, of course, not just the son of a famous Democratic legend, but a multiple-term governor himself, one who had to resign in disgrace, but largely his record was seen as positive, but we'll say ran a pretty listless campaign and got thumped by Zoran

Mondami 33 years old proudly declared himself a socialist who ran a very smart campaign he was everywhere he mastered social media and really excited some of the young voters progressive voters in the city and. And we'll dive more into it later. Does his election open up possibly of an independent path for embattled current New York City Mayor Eric Adams? Maybe. But I think right now we're gonna have a lot of discussion from Democrats about the idea, is this symbolic of how we need to turn the page, how we need to go reject sort of the

older generation of politicians, those sort of tired faces and ideas, and go to a fresh start, at least in the Democratic Party, you know. And again, it's just the primary last night. That's what the signal seems to be. And a result that... The Madani sort of was closing strong. Few thought this would end last night. It's ranked choice voting.

There was a belief this was going to stretch on for another week or more, but Cuomo conceded. He now will consider running as independent himself. I'm not sure how likely that is. Mamdani, at minimum, enters the general election in a heavily democratic city as the heavy, heavy favorite. We will get more to that later on. We will now turn to Iran. An initial assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency concludes that America's strikes on

Iran were not as effective as President Trump has been claiming. Earlier this week, Trump said the bombs, quote, completely obliterated Tehran's nuclear facilities. But now three people with knowledge of the report say the strikes only set the country's program back by three to six months. One source told NBC News this. This assessment is already finding that these core pieces are still intact. The White House, however, is strenuously denying the report. A statement from press secretary Carolyn Levin reads in part, this alleged assessment is

flat out wrong and a clear attempt to demean President Trump. Everyone knows what happens when you drop 14 30,000 pound bombs perfectly on their targets. Total obliteration. According to Axios, Israeli intelligence service believe the strikes caused very significant damage to Iran's nuclear program, but they're still working on a final assessment. And Joe, we've heard from President Trump again this morning. He's overseas. He's at The Hague for NATO meetings.

He is also saying that, wait, no, this was a total success, that this was a total devastation of these sites you know and we should be clear this is still an initial assessment other agencies will do their own but at minimum this calls into question just how complete of a wipeout this was. Yeah we just don't know yet there there are different assessments David Ignatius I just don't know yet. There are different assessments. David Ignatius, I just went through and sketched out a couple that I've seen so far. Of course, you have the president saying that the facilities were completely obliterated, as we just said. Israel said the damage was, quote, very significant, and the Tantz facility was, quote, completely destroyed.

The defense intel assessment said that they didn't dismantle fundamental elements of the nuclear program. They delayed the program the three to six months. And the IAEA said it was, quote, directly impacted and some had, quote, extensive damage. So still we're sort of in the fog of war right now, but tell us what you know, what you've heard, what we should be looking for. So, Joe, first, initial intelligence estimates are an art more than a science. It takes a while to have enough information to make good judgments.

There's a history of policymakers being unhappy when intelligence analysts say that claims that people are making, especially for military programs, simply aren't being borne out on the ground. That happened repeatedly with Iraq and Afghanistan. It happened with Vietnam. Consistently, intelligence analysts said, these wars are not going the way policymakers think. Now, we're seeing a new version of that.

The president's language is so hyperbolic, to use words like obliterated when you have no early evidence whatsoever, is just silly. And now, the reaction to the analysts' initial comments, and I should note that the analysts themselves say they have low confidence in these estimates, meaning we have very little information to go on. But the reaction has been childish as to where it comes to mind. It's like there's no Santa Claus. What do you mean that it wasn't obliterated? But I think it will be some days before we get really confirmed reliable accounts.

The issue this raises to me is, well, if this was a worthy target, if destroying Iran's nuclear capability was something in the interest of the United States, then the implication of this first assessment that didn't set the program back by more than three to six months is correct. The implication is you're going to need to go back and bomb it again. So critics need to think carefully. As they say, oh my gosh, this didn't accomplish anything, the military response would be okay, need another mission.

Well, yeah, exactly. If in fact the nuclear program had to be destroyed and it is not destroyed, then there's the suggestion that either the US has to strike again or Israel has to be allowed to continue strikes to try to finish off the facilities. You're right, a lot of people taking victory laps here saying that it wasn't destroyed. Well, what that begs a question. Okay, well what are you going to do now? Because, again, let's be very, doesn't matter who you voted for, whether you voted for Donald Trump or Kamala Harris or somebody else, understand, a damaged,

a battered Iran whose facilities aren't completely destroyed, and who can rebuild those facilities will rebuild those facilities, rebuild them with even more urgency and the situation will be even more dangerous in the future. So a lot of tough choices still ahead for the president and for our allies and for political leaders in the United States. Let's bring it though right now NBC News

senior White House correspondent Garrett Haig, he's in the Haig Netherlands where the NATO summit is underway. Garrett, what have you heard from the president so far this morning? Well, Joe, it was interesting listening to your discussion because I think the president would disagree with your assessment. He this morning talked a great deal about Iran and those strikes, casting them in historical terms and arguing that there's perhaps a third option here, that the strikes he believes were so successful that this question of whether the facilities were totally obliterated or not may be secondary if Iran's fighting spirit is effectively broken. Listen to some of the manner in which the president describes the attacks and now this moment for Iran. How long do you think the Iranian nuclear program has been put back by these strikes?

Years? I think basically decades because I don't think they'll ever do it again. I just don't think they're going to do it. I think they're going to take their oil, they're going to have some missiles and they'll have some defense. I think they've had it. I mean they just went through hell. I think they've had it. I mean they just went through hell. I think they've had it. That hit ended the war. That hit ended

the war. I don't want to use an example of Hiroshima. I don't want to use an example of Nagasaki. But that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war. This ended that with a war. If we didn't take that out they would have been, they'd be fighting right now. So you hear the president there, I think presenting perhaps the most optimistic case here that Iran is just gonna be over it at this point and placing his decision to bomb these nuclear facilities

without saying he wanted, saying he didn't want to, doing exactly what he said he didn't want to, putting them on the same footing as the American atomic strikes against Japan without saying he didn't want to, doing exactly what he said he didn't want to, putting him on the same footing as the American atomic strikes against Japan that ended World War II. Joe, as for the actual business of this summit, we've heard relatively little about it from President Trump. We know they're going to be talking about increasing defense spending across all of

the NATO allies, something that's been a Trump issue for years, and also significant discussion about the war in Ukraine. The president is set to meet with president lindsay today after having to cancel on a minute g seven to head back to washington to deal with the iran crisis they'll get another bite at the apple here today on those topics as well all right here it thank you so much in the seas garrick reporting live from the

netherlands thank you so much in just an editorial not garrick said, the president wouldn't like my assessment. That's not my assessment, that's the assessment coming from people in his administration. But again, it's early. Israel is saying that perhaps there was more damage than we believe. But again, this is gonna take,

this is gonna take a while to figure out exactly how much damage there are at the facilities. Let's bring in right now senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Kareem Sajjipour. He focuses on Iran and the US foreign policy toward the Middle East. And Kareem, I want to follow up on something the president said because I was thinking about this last night. The argument about whether Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities were completely obliterated

and blown off the face of the earth and on and on and on seems to be missing the point in that they can always put those facilities back together in time. They can always try to rebuild those facilities again in time. I think the question for me is, will that strike, will the United States' willingness to go in and launch that sort of attack do what President Trump said, and that is possibly move the Iranians to the negotiating table where you can have a nuclear deal that's negotiated that has US supervision and UN supervision to make sure they don't ever break out and put together a nuclear weapon. You know, Joe, it's a big question.

At the moment, you have an 86 year old supreme leader with limited stamina living in a bunker and he's ruling over a Swiss cheese regime. It's a regime which has been thoroughly penetrated by Israeli intelligence so his nuclear negotiating team as far as we know doesn't even have access to them. So even if we were to start negotiations next week it's not clear that those negotiators are empowered to really do anything. You know, one thing the president said

about the regime now being coward, you know, unfortunately, the language from Iranian officials and the big takeaways, certainly from the Revolutionary Guards, may be not that Iran's mistake was pursuing a nuclear program, but their mistake was not pursuing a nuclear program more aggressively and actually getting a bomb because had they been North Korea I

would have given them a cloak of immunity to prevent such an attack so you know I think that this the portrait of a new Iranian regime which is cowed and is now interested in being a nation rather than a cause is really an optimistic assessment. Well and and andire, again, this is the great danger. I talked about it last week. As an old political mentor of mine said, if you're going to go after the snake, you better kill the snake. And so if they were going after Iran's nuclear program and they didn't do significant enough

damage for that nuclear program, you just can't declare victory and walk away. You've got to go and make sure they're not now going to be in an even quicker rush to get to a position where they can build those weapons. So like North Korea, they will be immune from these attacks in the future. Right. And I think the administration would do well just to sit and pause for a second and say, look, this takes a little time to figure out what exactly happened here. But the president's rush to declare victory, the hyperbolic language, may not be very useful.

And to be sure, we don't know yet what happened there fully. There's also the fate of where did that uranium go? Was Iran able to evacuate some of it? Some of the scientists report certainly some were killed, but others may have escaped. There's just a lot we don't know yet. No doubt a blow is delivered to that program. That does not mean Iran is going to abandon it. Joining us now for more from back to the Hague is White House Bureau Chief for Politico,

Dasha Burns. She sat down with a series of U.S. leaders, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio there at the NATO summit. Dasha, good to see you. What did Secretary Rubio and the rest tell you in terms of how they are assessing how this went? Hey, Jonathan. Good morning.

Well, my conversation with Secretary Rubio very much touched on everything you guys are talking about this morning How early is it? How much do we know at this stage? He did acknowledge its early days There are some pieces of intelligence that they do have some that they're willing to share some they're not and some that is are just Going to take time particularly the extent of the damage at fordo where that's a giant mountain They're not going to be able to go inside of it. Certainly not something that Iran is going to allow any time soon. However, he did say that he believes that and he is confident that significant damage was done.

Take a listen to some of what he told me when I asked him about those reports that you guys have been talking about that seem to indicate that less damage was done than what the president has been saying and that Iran's nuclear program has only been set back by a few months. I asked him about those leaks reports. Take a listen. I can also tell you that intelligence leaks are one of the most frustrating things anywhere, not just because you got somebody who has access to this putting stuff out there, but because it's so often mischaracterized.

Intelligence report for anyone who's ever seen it sometimes is an assessment. Some analysts will make an assessment, or analysts will make an assessment. And in these leaks what you typically have is someone who read it and then leaks it to the media giving it the spin and the angle they want it to have because they've got some purpose. Embarrassed the administration, they were against the action, whatever it may be. Let me tell you this. The Iranian program, the nuclear program today looks nothing like it did just a week ago.

The program today has been set behind significantly from where it was a week ago. It is in far worse shape today than it was a week ago because of U.S. actions and because some of the actions the Israelis took. So the bottom line is they are much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action. And so even there, there was a difference though in the words used by Marco Rubio

versus the words used by Donald Trump. He did not say obliterated. He said they have less capacity now, that it's in worse shape now than it was a week ago. So a slightly softer language than what you heard coming from President Trump. I also guys asked about this idea of regime change that's been thrown around. There are some in the GOP that really want it. There are some in the MAGA base, the isolationist faction that really does not want us to get any further involved in this, didn't even approve of these strikes to begin with.

And Rubio was pretty adamant that that is not on the table right now. He said to me that the world is filled with regimes that he and the president don't like, but that doesn't mean that it's the job of the United States government to go and change those regimes. He kind of interpreted President Trump's social post where he mentioned regime change, telling me that what the president was referring to was a movement inside of Iran.

If the Iranian people wanted to change the regime, that might be a direction that they wanna go, but it's not something that the US is considering getting involved in at the moment. Guys. White House Bureau Chief of Politico, Dasha Burns, Important interview there. Dasha, thank you so much live for us at The Hague.

David, again, I just want to get your take on this, since this is something you've covered so well for so long. We heard from Secretary of State Rubio there about that Intel assessment, and he suggested, well, you know, he was trying to... Maybe it was a deep state actor who disagreed with what we did. And we heard from White House Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt who suggested that this was someone, again, trying to demean President Trump. Can we go the other way on this?

Do you have concerns that this is perhaps an attempt by the administration to intimidate the intelligence agencies, to try to almost to get them to cook the books, to deliver a more rosy assessment what they want. Is that what we're seeing here? We should note that there were supposed to be congressional briefings yesterday. They were both canceled as to just how successful this attack was. What do you see here?

Are politics trumping policy? So Jonathan, you put your finger on it. I wouldn't want to bet on the job tenure of the DIA analysts who had the courage, maybe just impulse, to make this initial assessment that the damage from the attack was considerably less than was thought. This administration has shown that it is prepared to go into the intelligence agencies and alter the intelligence or in some cases remove the people. They've done both. If they don't like the conclusions, if the conclusions don't support their policies. For example, there was an intelligence assessment that said that one of the cornerstones

of the president's immigration policy, the idea that Trenvilla Aragua, the gang that's active in the United States, was being directed by the Venezuelan government. And the analysts looked at that and said, nope, that's not what the evidence says. They're a bad, and the government has an interest in them making mischief, but they're not directing anything. And so the leadership and the directorate of national intelligence wanted a new product that argued differently, and then ended up replacing the top people who've been responsible for that product. That's when you get real trouble, when people get so upset at the truth that intelligence analysts see, an inconvenient, unpleasant truth that they're putting out that they want

to dub the analysts. And then you really begin to go down towards cooking the books and utterly unreliable information that feeds bad policy. But Jim Van De Hei, we also need to take a deep breath here ourselves. And I completely agree with what David said and what everybody else has said. This is my Harold Ford at his best. I agree with everybody here on the screen. That said, Jim, we also have to be cautious about being played by people inside the intel

community who want to get their message out. I'm not saying that's happening here, but I remember in the last Trump term, the New York Times runs a story on the front page, somebody from the intel community said Vladimir Putin was paying for hits against U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Everybody ran with it. About six months later, it said, well, actually, they just had a low degree of confidence in that. That's happened an awful lot.

Happened a lot in Iraq. It happened a lot in Afghanistan. So again, that's why waiting to see what happens actually and not drawing too many conclusions makes sense. And that, of course, not only is the best practice for the White House and for the president, that's the best practice for the media as well, just because they got a couple of leaks from the DIA. Yeah, I think that, listen, the truth usually exists in a little place called reality, right? So what are the known knowns? Once we decided that we're going to attack Iran,

people should celebrate the fact that we have amazing bombers, amazing weaponry and intelligence that we could hit those sites with such precision and no U.S. casualties. That's a great thing. The president has every right to celebrate that. But then you have to get back to the known knowns of, it's impossible to know the extent of the damage. And then you have to look at incentives.

The president has every incentive to declare total victory. And the Iranians probably have an incentive to say, yeah, he might be right because it could hold off another attack. That's why I would watch most closely, and I'm curious for Krim's take on this, what do the Israelis find? What do they see?

Because they have the biggest incentive to have the most accurate intelligence because Iran is the most direct threat to their existence. And if it wasn't obliterated, they're probably the ones who are going to go in and do a lot of the dirty work again. Curious for your take on that, Kareem? Well, it's a very good question and the Israelis I've spoken to and folks in the IC and David perhaps can attest to this that they're pretty confident that, for example, they know where that highly enriched uranium is. They know where a lot of the scientists are. They've been able to assassinate some of these people in their own bedrooms. And so the Israeli sources I've spoken to are a little more confident that this attack

did set back Iran quite significantly. But the other big question is where is the political leadership in Iran headed? You know this is a country which could go in very different directions. It could have a young population which wants to be like South Korea, not North Korea. It could potentially transition to something, a much more moderate regime. But there is a danger here that the big takeaway from the Iranian revolutionaries is that, you know, we need to double down on WMDs and give ourselves, as I said, a cloak of immunity. David Ignatius, I think it would be great to wrap up this segment by talking about your column yesterday, where you talk about how inexact actually assessments are on nuclear

programs or weapons of mass destruction. We don't have to recount for many people in this audience when George W. Bush was looking over the evidence of Iraq's WMD and saying to a CIA director, George Tenet, you mean this is all we have and Ten tenant raising his arms and saying, Mr. President, it's a slam dunk. That was the Intelli assessment from the director of the CIA before we went into Iraq. What you're saying is that perhaps Donald Trump decided to go in because what Tulsi Gabbard was delivering and what others were delivering may in fact have been a bit more conservative than what reality seemed to play out.

Take us into your findings. So Joe, my recent reporting underlines that intelligence analysis is selective and different and it evolves over time. And a good example is this disagreement between Tulsi Gabbard and US intelligence and President Trump, backed by Israeli intelligence over whether Iran was trying to make a bomb. There are two different questions here, whether Iran was accumulating the uranium for a bomb

and whether it actually was trying to make the warhead that would fit on top of a missile. And there's more and more evidence that they were trying to make a bomb, that they had a program that they had stopped, that they restarted. And there's a lot of evidence coming from the IAEA, which is an independent international agency. So I ended up thinking that the president had more reason, like the Israelis, to be concerned about weaponization than U.S. analysts had suggested. You know, the final point is we're now heading into a period where ideally there's going

to be a negotiation over limits on whatever exists of the uranium program. Maybe a lot, maybe a little, but whatever there is, it's got to be limited. And the highly enriched uranium that's in Iran, 400 kilograms, a lot, has to be identified and removed from the country because it poses a real danger. I said this morning, it's a lit fuse. So I think those are issues people ought to be focusing on rather than this kind of backward looking second guessing of analysis that's still so premature. It's not referring about the questions going forward, what are negotiators going to try to do?

And these assessments are so premature. The question is, as David said, if these negotiators are able to get Iran to the table, get Israel to the table, get the United States to the table, if everybody comes to the table and comes up with a meaningful deal, nuclear deal, that will be supervised. As Ronald Reagan said, you trust but verify, then those strikes will have had a significant and important impact, regardless of the level of damage to the facilities.

David Ignatius and Kareem Sajjapur, thank you both so much. Greatly appreciate it as always. And make sure you read David's very important column in the Washington Post. It explains so much about Donald Trump's decision to go to war. Still out in the morning, Joe, we're gonna turn back to the results of New York City. Shocking, and I will say shocking, Democratic primary election. As the progressive candidate declares victory, a socialist goes to

Wall Street? Like how I asked that question? Ron Burgundy, they put the question mark there. A socialist goes to Wall Street? Actually they didn't put it there, I did. But he declares victory and a lot of New Yorkers that are shocked. We're gonna dig into what this might mean not only for New York but for Democrats nationwide. Plus, President Trump tells Congress no one can go on vacation until his spending bill is passed. Sit down, don't pass, go, get the job done. That's what he's saying. We're going to take a closer look though at the legislation that has Senate Republicans scrambling to try to settle their divisions while Mitch McConnell is telling everyone yeah they may take away their health care but they'll get over it yeah

doesn't work that way you're watching Morning Joe we'll be right back and listen to our podcast listen to our podcast. Listen to our podcast. It will change your life. Your four okay ones will triple. Your backswing will get smoother. And yes, that male pattern baldness that's haunting you, it'll reverse. Morning Joe podcast, wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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In a stunning upset, 33-year-old state assemblyman Zoran Mondani has declared victory over former governor Andrew Cuomo in the New York City Democratic Mayoral Primary. While no candidate has yet secured a majority in the first round of the rank choice election, Mamdani's early lead over Cuomo has all but solidified his victory in Cuomo last night, basically conceded to Mamdani. We'll get more results in the days ahead, but it is a seismic outcome. Joining us now to help us make sense of it, president of the National Action Network and

host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton. The Rev, of course, you've been so central in many ways to this primary process. But as we talked at the top of the show, this is a huge upset. Cuomo, of course, comes from a famous democratic family, was governor just a couple years back. This was viewed as a political comeback for him, maybe even a stepping stone back into even higher office. And he didn't just lose, he lost significantly, by far more than anyone would have anticipated, even as we did see that Mondani had the tailwinds and was closing strong.

Give us your assessment here. What should we read out of this result last night? I think that clearly Mondani did much better than anyone could have predicted. He seemed to go into the early voting stage with a momentum, but I don't think even he would have thought it would have ended this way. So it was a stunning victory At the same time many felt that by Cuomo not making a lot of appearances not being accessible worked against him and and in many ways

You saw mandami everywhere and he last Saturday He was at our Nash Action Network and he made himself available. The challenges he will have now is that you have New York Times saying he's not qualified. You're going to a broader base of voters. And will some of the older voters, even in the black community and Latino community, come out and vote for him. When you have Eric Adams, the incumbent mayor on the ballot, who still has a strong base in the black community and in some of these communities. And what happens with Jewish voters, where Mandemi right or wrong has been called the

anti-Semitic. So it's going to be a very very interesting fall election. I think he made history last night. The question is whether or not it can stick with a general election and when knowing Eric Adams the way I do, I think Eric Adams would want this fight more than he would have wanted against Andrew Cuomo. Well, listen, I think we're going to hear more, Rev, about him saying that people who say they need to globalize the Infantata is not a bad thing, is not anti-Semitic. I think we're going to be hearing an awful lot more about that.

We're going to be hearing about his economic plans, a socialist in New York. There's going to be, I think we're going to have a very competitive, interesting general election. I want to follow up though on something that you've said and something we've talked about time and again. And I'll tell you, it goes all the way back to 2015 and early 2016 when Donald Trump kept coming on this program, people say, why do you keep having Donald Trump calling on your program? He said, well, we've offered it to every candidate. He's the only one that like walks through the door and calls us. And as I've said before, Lindsey Graham called us once or twice, but we offered it and we

offered, you know, Tim Ryan did it this this past cycle. I think it was but showing up makes the difference. So many times this guy showed up Cuomo thought he was going to be able to coast in you look at and there was an analysis by the New York Times after the 2024 election. You look at the interviews that Donald Trump showed up for versus Kamala Harris in the timeframe that she was in the race. Not even a close call.

Trump shows up. Trump talks to people. I found is just as well. A lot of people who voted for me that said, you're too conservative. We're uncomfortable with some of your positions, but we see you, we know you, and we know when you get elected to Congress, you're going to come back and you're going to be here and you're going to fight for us for what we need.

Talk about how showing up makes a difference. You can't be a preacher in a church and show up one out of every four Sundays? No, that's for sure. I think showing up, it says to people that you really are engaged with them and you really want them to know you and they can feel you. And when you don't show up and have this rose garden strategy, when you're not one that has the rose garden,

it just gives a kind of removed feeling from people. And I think that this is what we're going to see coming down the pipe here with this election in New York. We've got Democrats around the country going to be worried as they try to overtake the House and make Hakeem Jeffries the speaker, is this guy being labeled a socialist and all going to hurt us in other areas? I mean, I think what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think,

what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think, what I think,omo. Yeah, in New York, the Adams dynamic versus Mondani is gonna be interesting.

And then nationally, we'll have to see what lessons we do. You're right. Republicans are already gleefully saying, ah, this is the new face of your party here, this socialist. We're gonna paint him as someone out of step with many Americans.

At the same time, I think within the party, we see this push, this urge for sort of generational change to say goodbye to some of the familiar names and faces and move towards somebody new and fresh. We'll have certainly a lot more to say about this this morning and in the weeks ahead. But Jim Vanaheim, we want to turn to you now. And your latest Behind the Curtain Calm with Mike Allen is titled An AI Marshall Plan. Tell us about it.

Yeah, we've talked a lot about this on the program. I think when we look back three years from now, we're going to wonder why the hell Washington, corporate America, the public wasn't paying a lot more attention to artificial intelligence. Even in that bill that we keep talking about, the big, beautiful bill, they're trying to prohibit any regulation at the state level for a decade on a technology that people don't even know how to operate in six months. And having talked to CEOs, having talked to political leaders, having talked to people at the top 10 technology companies, they all agree that only two things matter long term

for our survival and for us to thrive as a nation. And that is staying ahead of China and winning the AI war. And there are things that you could do now, right? The president's in NATO, he could be building a global alliance that is a trade alliance, that is a supply chain alliance, that plays by our rules for artificial intelligence instead of sort of picking fights with each of the individuals and making those relationships harder, right? You think about Canada, a country that who doesn't love the Canadians now, but you have the president kind of taking

pot shots at them when they have a ton of precious minerals that we're ultimately going to need to build the artificial intelligence to beat China. And so there are things that lawmakers can do. There are things that CEOs can do that don't necessarily require regulation. They do require people in positions of power to get a lot smarter on a complicated technology that's moving at a lightning fast speed. Well, what I love about your reporting, Jim, is that when you talk to people in Silicon Valley, not you, all of us, when we talk, and you talk about some limits or some protections, they'll throw their arms and go,

oh, but we can't let China beat us, right? We can't let China beat us. So you guys, Washington has got to let us do whatever we want to do, because if you get in our way, well, then China is going to beat us. You're talking about something much bigger than that. You're talking about a coordination of these efforts, not only just in the United States, but also among our allies to make sure we stay a step ahead. But you also, you also talk about a kill switch. And again, this is something that Eric Schmidt and others have talked about. At some point, if this technology starts moving away from us and it's looking like a scene out of 2001, a space Odyssey, you talk about a kill switch for HAL, so to speak. What does that look like?

What it would look like is just having Congress, even in a top secret fashion like we did with nuclear weapons in the 40s through the 70s, be able to know what these models can do before their release so that if they get so sophisticated and start to play out in some of these scarier scenarios that we've painted in the past, that you have an ability to prevent its release. Right now, you're totally beholden to the company. Can I interrupt you right here? Yep. Can I interrupt you right here, though? Yep.

You said, and you're reporting previously, and this is what's so frightening, is the very people who are at the forefront of the AI revolution, they don't understand how this knowledge is moving as quickly as it is, is advancing exponentially. They don't even understand it themselves, right? So how in the world could Congress be able to see around the curve to figure out what the next danger looks like? What they do know is basically when you hear of OpenAI releasing the next version of CHAT GPT, they know months in advance its capabilities. So what you could do, and they do this already with defense specialists in the federal government,

give them a heads up of what are its capabilities. So if its capabilities are in the area of, well, we could get into a scary territory, you could theoretically slow its release. We're not there yet, but you might be there in 18 months. You might be there in three years. And the fact that we have members of Congress who are just clueless about the technology and clueless about its capabilities,

clueless about what it could do to its workforce of their constituents is a big flashing red siren that everybody should be paying attention to. That doesn't mean that you need to regulate. It does mean that you need to have more public awareness. You have to need more corporate awareness. And you need more people just thinking about how do you turn this awesome technology that the seven biggest companies in the world are all pouring the vast majority of their investment

in to will it into existence. They're not dumb companies. They wouldn't make an investment that is literally hundreds of billions. They're spending more collectively than Canada spends for its entire nation. This is a huge amount of money on a new technology, so you should assume it's going to approximate the capabilities that they talk about. Well, if you assume that, then you might want to start building a framework to better understand it. And one day, maybe if you have to regulate it or put rules around it, be ready to do that because you did the preparatory work that was required. There are a few more important stories out there we of course will stay on it. Co-founder and CEO of Axios Jim

Van DeHuy we appreciate your coverage Jim. Thank you so much the Reverend Al Sharpton. Thank you as well great to see you. Coming up here on Morning Joe, we'll explain why the FBI is reportedly moving some agents away from immigration cases. Plus, the Trump administration has promised to deport migrants accused of very serious crimes. NBC Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainsley will join us with her new reporting on what the data shows so far. Morning Joe, we'll be right back. Moore with one out. And it's an hard out to right center field pretty deep.

Raffanello's back. It's over his head. It's off the wall. It might be a home run. Moore's racing on his way to third. The game is tied at least as Moore has a triple. And I think he's won it. Safe to the Red Sox. It's a home run. Yeah, Kristen Moore follows up his game, tying home on the eighth inning with a two-run walk-off shot.

Blah, blah, blah, blah. Red Sox lose again. You know, Lemire, you know, Lemire, God does provide us, as Robert Duvall showed us, with tender mercies at times. And the tender mercy here is the fact that while the Red Sox have lost four in a row, the Yankees have lost seven out of ten.

And also, they're just the evil empire, so we got that going for us. But we're six games back. We're six games back, and thank God the Yankees still suck. What say you? A west coast trip for the Sox that started so promisingly after the Devers trade has really hit the skids here. Crochet did his part, our ace he was magnificent last night. Yeah of course he did. What happens again? Our bullpen blows it. Nothing. We can't hit. Nothing. We lose. You're right silver lining is the Yankees lost as well and for that let's bring in the host of Pablo Torre finds out on Nerdalark media a representative of the evil Empire MSNBC. Pablo do you agree that the Yankees still suck?

I'm just looking at the Mets the Mets the back page is the Mets there's so much going on in the world guys. The Mets are look I'm a journalist I will report here objectively that the Yankees have lost nine of 12 lost. Why is that? What do you think your problem is right now, Pablo? I think it's the heat. What's haunting the New York Yankees that that is not only making them lose nine out of 12, but also made it that they've only won one world series this entire century.

What is that about the Yankees? They've made them so bad. Well, if we're going to take the global perspective, I do believe it is climate change. Carlos O'Donnell was pulled after 88 pitches because he was too hot. That was an actual quote from Aaron Boone. So are you saying then that in this century it's global warming? So you're saying the Red Sox must have a little bit of reptile in them because we won a World Series in 2004, in 2007, in 2013, in 2018.

I would say cold bloodedness does feel appropriate. It does feel cold blooded from you guys today. That's true. Reptilian as well, I would co-sign that adjective. Look, how does it feel down there in the standings, just for the record? Is the temperature lower there or hotter? How does it work when you're the standings, just for the record? Is the temperature lower there or hotter? How does it work when you're six games back, just for the record? I wanted to also ask about that.

You know, this is kind of like saying how did Secretariat do in the first couple of lengths out of the gates at the Kentucky Derby. We're going to be late chargers, my friend. We're going to be late chargers. It is confounding to us. I'm wondering. It's all sad. All of this is sad.

It's all. Can we talk about teams outside of the AL East? Because that's all we do for good reason. Give me some good news from the Central Time Zone, for God's sake. Because we always talk about the AL East. And then somebody like the Rangers ends up winning it from the Central Time Zone for God's sake, because we always talk about the AL East, and then somebody like the Rangers ends up winning it from the Central Time Zone. Johnny Carson always said,

the secret to success lies in the Central Time Zone. So give me some good news about the Cardinals, or the Cubbies, or our... Oh yeah. Or the Detroit Tigers, best record in baseball. Oh, the Tigers, I love the Tigers. Let's talk about the Tigers. Tigers, 50 wins.

This is me literally reading the standings right now. 50 wins. By the way, I will say, when I look at the... So Cincinnati, right? Can I just give you my grievance? So the Yankees lose to the Reds, extra innings. They start this kid who grew up a Yankee fan, right? And he obviously beats the Yankees.

The Reds are 42 and 38 in the NL Central. Wow. So, you know, that's cool. Congrats to them. This happened. Yeah, when you say bullpen falters, temper is flare. We're also talking about jazz chism getting tossed because he didn't like the called strike three.

We're talking about Aaron Boone not managing the bullpen. Well, these are actually some of the issues, Joe, when you ask me what is vexing me. It's all of this. It's all of this. I'm reminded though of a wise man who told me recently, there is a lot of baseball left. So a lot of baseball left.

Well, we got a long way to go. I mean, I claim you look at the Atlanta Braves who were like one in 87, like before the All-Star break back in 2021. Then they I might exaggerate just a little bit, but at least I know that Detroit's in the Eastern time zone. But those Braves came back at a strong second half. And yeah, maybe that's our problem. Since we don't really report on any baseball teams

that are west of the Hudson, we think like Central time zone starts west of the Hudson. New Jersey and Detroit are in the Eastern time zone. Jonathan O'Meara, you have some reporting here. Yeah, I can move on to the Detroit Tigers are indeed in the Eastern Time Zone. Jonathan O'Meara, you have some reporting here. Yeah, I can move on to you. The Detroit Tigers are indeed in the Eastern Time Zone, if though the Central Division. That's right. But yeah, it's a tough time for the official teams of Morning Joe. The New York Mets are also in a terrible slump right now. It's bad. But Pablo, there are some good news stories.

Certainly the Central is there. Also out west, we have a really good race out in Ashley West. The Padres and Dodgers are two teams. Yeah. I mean, setting aside Red Sox Yankees, the best rivalry in baseball right now, two teams that genuinely dislike each other and seem to be coming to blows nearly every time they face.

Otani's pitching again. That's the one, kind of sees on that. Showy Otani's pitching again. Pitching again. And this is against lots of logic, lots of counsel from experts like Tom House on my show saying, don't do this, he's doing it. We should have our popcorn thanking Otani

for doing something that no one has done in a way that he doesn't frankly need to do. He could wait for the postseason, but he's not. And that is, look, baseball, It's summer. It's hot as hell I'm grateful that the best players take these very very sweltering games seriously We are at the halfway point of the season Red Sox sadly one game under 500 But who's counting but who is counting MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre? Thank you. We'll talk about the Celtics sell-off another time

I gotta ask. So Pablo, how was Tom House? Wasn't Tom House the guy that caught Hank Aaron's 715th Hummer? Caught the home run in the bullpen. Look, he was a guest on my show. He's the preeminent expert on pitching. No one does the science and psychology better. And this guy has takes. He's battling Parkinson's right now,

but his voice could not be clearer. And he wants to spend his time counseling people. And this is Tom Brady, Drew Breen. This is football and baseball, right? So the best throwers across the world go to this Yoda of pitching. And he's saying, show, hey, Otani, maybe you don't want to do this.

But Otani continues to do it. And good for us, maybe not so good if you listen to Tom House. Do you think you think Tom House will will will coach Lemire and me when we get ready for our wiffle ball championship against the Pablo Torre finds out losers? Look, Pablo Torre finds outs. We find out as well. We have a hell of a pitching staff.

Your rotator cuffs stand no chance. Yep. Labor Day weekend. Hey. Wiffle ball tournament. Let me ask you, Lemire, what's your best, what's your best, what's your best growing up, what was your best wiffle ball pitch? So I actually have, that I still use against my kids. I will say

Christie Matthewsson of the Wiffle ball set and my kids have pretty good. I will say not granted That's crazy. They're 13 and younger. So there's nothing. That's terrible. We're going to continue this. Oh, I got a riser. I got a riser. Do you?

Oh. That's good. And I'm not above a little Gaylord Perry. Not above a nail file. Not above a little saliva, just to give a little more spin. My knuckleball's pretty good, too. My knuckleball's pretty good, too. I occasionally do the riser, but mainly the sweeper.

But I gotta tell you, my brother, my brother had a sinker. It was just maddening. He had like, you know, three years older than me. He'd throw it in my head three times and then just put it right down the middle and fell off the table. That's the best. I love people ball so much. It really is.

I really do. Okay, so we're gonna, so Labor Day weekend, do we have the morning Joe versus the public? I'm in. Our farm system is deep, just as a warning. Okay, hopefully we'll do better than the Yankees and the Red Sox.