Morning Joe - New Graham Platner accusation, Calls grow for him to step down from Maine Senate race

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

July 7, 2026 - 6am: Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is facing calls to drop out after a woman accused of him of sexually assaulting her FIFA highlights Trump arriving in Turkey for start of NATO Summit Trump, Putin had a phone call ahead of NATO Summit Senior Editor at Forbes Dan Alexander discusses his new article: ‘I’m Now Broke’: These Investors Lost Billions Buying Trump Stocks And Crypto   To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I can just tell you, there is nothing out there that is going to be, will run counter to any of the stories that I've talked about openly this entire campaign. And I know everyone continues to be like, oh, what else is coming? Ironically, the whole what else is coming has essentially been the same thing the whole time, which is I've been very open about the fact that I struggled, very open about the fact I had a long list litany of failed relationships for years because I might. itself was not in a good place. And then every now and again, we will have a media outlet or a politically motivated attack come up and try to drag it all up. But it's all very much within the exact same story that I've told this entire time. Okay. So you say there's nothing out there that could be concerning. And this may seem a little bit rich. There's nothing out there. I just want to make this clear.

There's nothing out there that's actually concerning. People make everything seem very concerning because that's what people do in politics. All right. So that was our interview with U.S. Senate nominee, Grand Plotner of Maine, almost a month ago, telling us there was nothing else coming out that would be concerning to his campaign. Yet now, a woman has come forward, accusing him of sexually a sexualist. her, which Plattenor denies. We're going to go through that new reporting from Politico. And what options Democrats have if he indeed does drop out of the race? Plus, we will preview the start of the NATO summit. The meeting is expected to be dominated by recent deadly Russian air strikes in Ukraine,

strikes in Ukraine, as well as President Trump's strained relationship with the alliance as a whole. Also ahead, a disappointing end to the World Cup for the U.S. men's national team. They got one of their star players back for last night's match against Belgium, but didn't seem to matter. Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. It's Tuesday, July 7th. With us, we have the co-host of our 8M hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, and to MS now National Affairs analyst John Heilman. He's partner and chief political columnist at Puck. And Willie will get to Graham Platner and that story in just a moment.

But it looks like, well, two things, actually. Like President Trump intervening in getting the U.S. Star Stryker reinstated for yesterday's game didn't help. But here's my take. So, Balagan, right? He intervened on behalf of this red flag situation, which never happens, right? But in a way, I'm very grateful the President of the United States. and Stephen Miller, because Balagan's story really frames the whole issue of birthright citizenship. He was born in Brooklyn because his mom couldn't get out of the country to go back home.

And so he's an American. Yes, that part of the story is definitely true. Unfortunately, it did not make a difference last night. They would have lost with them. They would have lost without them. They were just totally outclassed by Belgium. I think it's better that he did play. It was an absurd red card.

I think most people agree. Howard happened is in dispute, but he should have been on the field last night. But, John, it didn't make much of a difference. This is the back page of some of the papers this morning. Uncle Scram, that's the New York Post. And then not their night, says the New York Daily News. I mean, they faced a much better team than they've played in Belgium. Belgium's really good.

But also, the United States just looked terrible last night. There's no way to sugarcoat it. No, they didn't just lose. They got thrashed. It was an embarrassing performance, unfortunately, and a disappointing end to what had been a really good run. They won their group stage. They got through Bosnia.

There were some real highlights here. The tournament on the whole, you know, now becomes sort of a mixed bag for Team USA. The World Cup in the United States has been a wild success. People have loved it. But in terms of the Team USA's performance, like the round of 16 is sort of minimally acceptable. When you're at home, you know, they'd hope to get through at least one more round here.

And this was a game going in. There were real expectations that, They had a shot to win, and they were thoroughly outclassed. They gave up a goal in the first nine minutes. They gave up a couple devastating goals later. I mean, this wasn't even close. And the balligan question is a big one. There's certainly some karma issues, whether President Trump,

I think most people agree the red card coming on replay was bogus. But once the red card's assigned, there's really not a way to overturn it. President Trump stepped in, bragged about it. And I think it's safe to say that Belgium used it as motivation. Just two notes to you, Will. as soon as the game was over, the official Belgian Twitter account tweeted overturned this with their goal. And then that last goal, the game was already over. It was three to one. And they score that last goal in extra time to make it four to one. It was really a punctuation,

like take this. And then afterwards, what did they do? The Belgian players did the little Trump dance in the corner. So they were clearly rubbing some salt in the wound here and thoroughly beat up a USA team, which up until this point had given us a lot of joy and hope came crashing down. It was fun, but as you say, there was expectation that maybe the quarterfinals, just as a step of progress from previous years to get the soccer in America in this team in particular over that hump. Didn't happen last night, Mika. Belgium's great, but it was a shame that the United States, which had played really well throughout this tournament, didn't really show up last night.

Some questioning whether the president got in their head a little bit because it did sort of change the whole mental dynamic around the game. And if you know enough about soccer, you know that it is. and this team was on the upswing and they were feeling the joy. We'll talk about it more with Roger Bennett. Let's get to our top story this morning, Maine Democratic Senate candidate, Graham Plotner, facing calls to drop out of the race after a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her. The woman, Jenny Rasko, detailed on her allegations to Politico in a series of three interviews over the past two weeks. MS now does not.

identify victims of alleged sexual crimes unless they come forward publicly. She says she casually dated Plattner on and off from 2019 to 2021. She told Politico that Plattner in late 2021 entered her home in rural Maine, uninvited and deeply intoxicated. She says he sexually assaulted her after telling him to stop. She then cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter, was not consensual. Politico reports Resco previously described reckless and unsettling behavior by Plattner to the New York Times, but says she didn't go public with the specific assault claim because she didn't want to be known as a rape victim. She told CNN yesterday that her reasons for coming forward are not politically motivated. I couldn't disagree more. That was actually

one of the reasons that I didn't come out. Because you agree with this politics. I do. I really agree with his politics. I think we need somebody with those political stances and who are willing to do the work. And, you know, I see his political videos. They get me fired up as well. I understand why people want someone like him in office. You know, and I felt like me coming forward would essentially potentially take that away. And I felt really uncomfortable with the responsibility of and the weight of my story and what that might do. In response to this new reporting, Plattner posted a video statement on social media,

calling the accusations against him troubling, serious, and false. So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political reality, it will inflict. We are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins. Those were the goals when we launched this campaign, and they remain my goals today. Now, Maine State law allows Platner to be replaced on the ballot if he decides to drop out of the race, but he has to do that by this coming Monday, July 13th. The State Democratic Party would then have until July 27th to name his replacement. We're going to dig into the politics, the timing of this in

just a moment. But first, let's bring in one of the reporters who broke the story of the new allegations, senior national politics correspondent for Politico, Adam, Adam. I want to get right to the questions about this, the questions surrounding this on both sides of this debate. There's not a police report, correct? Correct me if I'm wrong. And there's not a legal case playing out here for due process to see itself through. So my question to you, given the very high standards, political has, before they write something like this and publish it, what aspects of this story brought it to the level of publishable? Yeah, you're correct here, Mika. There is no. police report in this case. We spent a lot of time talking to Jenny, you know, asking her for cooperating evidence. She shared that she had confided into a number of people, including her therapist in almost real time. And we reviewed email exchanges between she and her therapist

referring to what she called this sexual assault and her therapist sort of acknowledging that this had happened to her. We talked to people who she confided in in the months after this happened. We asked her why she didn't file a police report, and she described sort of the insular nature of where she lives in her corner of Maine that she shares with Graham Platner, and she, you know, debated sort of how to handle this, and we found ultimately the number of cooperating pieces of evidence to support her story in a way that we could report it. So what are some of those corroborating pieces of evidence? So you've got conversations with her therapist and people who she confided in.

Any conversations with Graham Platner at the time of it where she said, because apparently as part of this story, she says she even confirmed to him, that this was not consent. Do you have that? What do you have that actually connects this literally? Graham Plotner to raping this victim? Yeah. She reached out to him the day after via Instagram and essentially, you know, told him that,

you know, she didn't want to hear from again. She told him that morning as well. and, you know, we looked at messages that she had sent to others in the months after this happened through social media. But you were able to see those DMs? She tried to recover those DMs. We were not able to review those DMs, but she described them to us. We also, long before he was a public, before he was a political candidate, we saw her essentially explained. to others that he was, quote, in her words, consensually careless, end quote.

Right. But were you able to see the interactions between Graham Plattner and this alleged victim? Did you actually physically see them? Did she produce them for you? She attempted to uncover them. She, but was unable to. Willie? So let's talk a little bit, Adam, about some of the timing of this.

Some people pointed out it's a week out from the date that Democrats now have to scramble and potentially find a new candidate. If Platner does indeed drop out as he's expected to, we'll talk more about his support in the Democratic Party nationally at the state level has collapsed after these revelations. She was, Jenny, in that New York Times piece. She appeared in the piece a few weeks ago. So what's your sense of why she decided she wanted to go into more detail with you at this point? Yeah, Willie. she was frustrated with how that article landed. She told us.

She was frustrated with another woman that she knows who was quoted in that piece, how her story was received. She felt there was a lot of negative polarization around that anecdote that she was written off just because she was a Republican. And, you know, she wanted main voters to have sort of the full story here. And, you know, she sort of relayed all of this to us. And how do you square yesterday we heard it? We just saw on that soundbite that Graham Platner just saying objectively that the charges are false.

He says they are troubling, but that they're false, that this doesn't happen. So just to pull back the curtain a little bit, how do you square that as a reporter as you produced this story? Yeah, you know, it's we gave the Platner. We reached out to the Platner campaign early Sunday. We gave them roughly 24 hours to sort of respond to this and, you know, included their response. We, you know, stress test all of the reporting in this as much as we could. And, you know, of course, you know, included his denial. But, you know, she, Jenny, who describes him as being, you know, deeply intoxicated.

And, you know, at times while this alleged attack was occurring, And, you know, he was sort of just as she describes it passing in and out of recognition of what was going on and even, you know, occasionally, you know, apologizing. And, you know, the next morning, she confronted him about this and he didn't quite seem to remember what had happened. And she felt deeply wounded by that. And in her telling, you know, live with that for years. So, Adam, let's talk now about how the Plattner campaign is responding. We saw the video. from the candidate yesterday, and he says taking time to re-evaluate next steps. What is his team suggesting to you as to what the timing might look like for, indeed, his decision as to what do next we have, as we'll dive into in a few minutes, have seen his support nationally really fall apart here. How is this landing with his campaign?

Because he is, to this point, his popularity has been pretty resilient in Maine due to previous allegations. This one, though, might be different. Yeah, John, there's some indication. that he is trying to have some leverage in this situation and find a candidate who sort of fits his progressive fighter profile, you know, the former progressive gubernatorial candidate, Troy Jackson has been name-checked as a possible replacement here. And so in some ways he's trying to look at the contours and negotiate, you know, a potential exit from his race.

He has galvanized a lot of support in Maine. We see these very things. videos from the town halls that he has, the way that he's received on the campaign trail. And there's a lot of, you know, significant support for his platform, for his message, the way that's resonating across the state of Maine. And so, you know, they're looking for a path out and they're weighing sort of all their options at this point. So, Adam, in closing, obviously this is a huge political bombshell story, a story that might probably will lead to the end of Grand Platner's campaign. And I'm just, I'm going back to the

decision to publish and I'm curious what, what concrete evidence. You have conversations with therapists, conversation with friends. But what took this story beyond Grand Platner saying this was consensual? Jenny Rasko saying this was not consensual. What took? What took it over the edge and had you and your editors decide to publish, of course, kind of an earthquake in democratic politics. What was the piece of evidence or pieces of evidence that made you sure of this story? Yeah, I mean, long before he was a political candidate, long before much of the country knew his name. Jenny and her telling had confided in a number of people. And a number of people. We saw screenshots that she shared of messages relaying this account to others. We viewed

an email response from her therapist to her, acknowledging that they had talked about this. Those are the things I said, but those are, what is the actual, is there evidence between her and him, evidence of a crime? Because he's being, he's being accused of rape. So what is the, what put this over the edge. Because he says he didn't, and he has people on his side who say he didn't. She says he did, and there are people, but none, there's, I'm trying, what's the through line? What ties this together and gives you the evidence to bring this story to the point of publishable?

Yeah, you know, we interviewed her, you know, three separate times. Her story stayed consistent across those times. You know, we talked to people who. who she had spoken with contemporaneously about these attacks. And all of those stories lined up and checked out. And ultimately, you know, Politico stands by our reporting. And we talked to, you know, people who cooperated her story largely. The new reporting is online right now.

Senior national politics correspondent for Politico, Adam Wren, thank you so much for getting up early and sharing this story with us. We appreciate it. Now, top Democrats who backed Plattner through a number of controversies during his campaign have begun rescinding endorsements. Congressman Rokana called for Plotner to drop out of the race last night, posting to social media sexual assault or violence against women is a red line. These allegations are very serious and credible.

In a statement to MS now, Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote in part with so much at stake, The best path forward is for Graham Platner to step aside as the Democratic nominee and address these serious allegations outside this Senate race. Senator Rubin Gallego wrote on social media that he was rescinding his endorsement and called the allegations troubling and deeply serious. The National Democratic Party is also calling on Platner to leave the race. Chairman Ken Martin confirmed the party's stance last night, writing Mainers deserve a Democratic candidate who can serve the people of their state, which is why it's time for him to end his campaign. Democratic leaders in the Senate are reportedly putting their foot down, blocking any monetary support for Maine's Senate race until Plattner drops out as a nominee.

Willie, this is obviously, Graham Platner has been really talked with different stories along the way. and there are a lot of analysts who are now saying, why did it take so long? At the same time, this is an incredible moment in time to come forward, and some are questioning that as well, the timing. Yeah, and as we've learned, at least in the last decade, but hopefully far before that, it's not easy for any woman to come forward and put herself out there and put her name and face to a story like this. She doesn't want to talk about this publicly, so the allegations

taken very seriously reported out by Politico. But immediately now, we have, as you point out, six days for Democrats, John Howman, to find a new candidate if Platner does indeed leave the race, as many are expecting him to do. I mean, me could just tick through it. You've got Elizabeth Warren, one of his chief supporters. We haven't heard yet from Bernie Sanders.

As of this morning, we may shortly, Rokana, Tammy Duckworth, Gallego, the senatorial campaign committee has withdrawn its support, the main Democratic Party. so there's really not a whole lot left. So what is your sense of what happens here in the next few hours today? Well, I mean, first, Willie, I think there's just to correct the one thing you said a second ago, there's two stages to this, right, where Plano has to decide by Monday if he's going to drop out.

If he doesn't drop out by Monday, he's on the ballot. If he decides that between now and Monday, this party then has two weeks after that to figure out who their nominee is going to be. and there is nothing in in, in, in, in main law or in the way that the Democratic Party works that tells them how to do that. So I think one of the questions is going to be, is the practical matter of, of what's the process by which you would select another candidate? There is a strong sense that that grand platter is going to drop out. Some people think that he may drop out as soon as this morning. And, and that will throw it. It's a very important decision, obviously, the main Democratic Party has to make.

the one thing that the party has ruled out is the notion of having a kind of the party itself select someone from the closed kind of ranks of the party. They have this, they're saying that they're not going to do that, even though, again, by law they would be able to if they, if they chose to. I think that's in keeping with a lot of the kind of sentiment up in Maine. I don't think a party that, a Democratic Party that was attracted to Graham Platner's candidacy, the outsider nature of it, the populist nature of it, is probably not one that would be all that inclined to accept or rally behind a nominee that was chosen by party insiders.

There's been discussion about the possibility of calling a party convention in that two-week time to talk about candidates and take some kind of a vote. There's also been talking about holding a snap caucus, putting together a quick Democratic caucus to kind of redo the results from the primary. I'm not sure where they're going to come down on that. I will say, and I know there's a lot of things to discuss here, but when it comes to the timing of this story, Republicans, broadly speaking,

were kind of licking their chops over the notion that Graham Platner, looking their chops for the notion that they feel like they have very, very heavy opposition research dossiers that they were waiting for after the deadline, after the deadline of next Monday, where the Democrats would be locked in with Graham Platner to drop what they think of as being, very damaging material on him. I don't know what that material is,

but there's been a lot of scuttlebut about that. And so if it were Republicans who are driving the timing of this disclosure, they would have waited until after the deadline. They were very happy to campaign against Graham Platner with the material that they feel like they have in their bags. I think that argues against the notion that a lot of progressives have immediately reacted, which was, well, this is obviously Republicans who are responsible for this. This is the establishment trying to take Graham Platner out.

I think that whatever the motivations are that Jenny Rascott was driven by to come out when she did. And, you know, there's no reason not to believe the things she said to Politico. Certainly her conduct with having put out kind of a bailed reference to this in the New York Times story suggests that she should, that there's some credibility to the notion she shares as politics and didn't want to be identified as a rape victim. That rings true to a lot of women that I've spoken to. I don't think, though, that the argument that this is obviously a Republican, their doings of Republican. or Platner opponents rings true again, given that if you really wanted to take him out, you probably would have let him have him stay on the ballot and then gone after him later with the material you have.

And of course, there was the governor of Maine. Jan Mills was in this race, but there doesn't seem to be much momentum there that you could jump back in. There are some other candidates, though, who have made it clear, some state officials who have said, yes, I'd still like to get in this. So we'll see where it goes, Hauman. But let's take a step back here. I mean, you know, first of all, which we noted again, just how resilient Platteners

campaign has been up into this point, that it took this to finally put him, you know, on the brink of having to drop out. It speaks to his talent, but also to where the electorate is. And it's also, though, a Democratic Party that looks at the Senate map, you know, and eight months ago, nine months ago, would have been unthinkable. They had a chance to flip it. Now they really do, but it's going to be really tight. So they've got to make this choice right. Susan Collins, a survivor. So just give us your sense here is to, like, what role Washington may try to play here, whether it's Leader Schumer, how you see this playing out next couple of days and weeks? Well, Jonathan, for sure. And this is a state that people think because of the fact that there's a

rare state for Democrats, they're defending a state here or taking on to try to challenge a Republican here in a state where that was carried by Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. And so in a lot of respects, Maine is almost, Susan Collins is essentially a Republican who's been a very resilient, as you say, resilient incumbent in a state that is increasingly blue at the statewide level. And again, it has a Democratic governor and so on. So this was supposed to be the easiest pickup for Democrats. And so the notion that that this might be in jeopardy now is something that leaves a lot of people very uncomfortable and wondering, you know, how this all went wrong. I do think that, you know, Chuck Schumer kind of already waited into this

race once in a way that proved to be very much adverse to the state of mind. of the electorate because of course, DSCC put all of its weight behind Janet Mills, in fact, scared away some other candidates who might have been compelling candidates who might now be back in consideration. Dan Kleber, the guy who founded the main beer company had apparently been thinking about running

a kind of anti-Wall Street populist campaign and was told by the DSCC that if he did that, they would effectively come after him and not support him. And so the kind of the ways in which Washington has played in this race already haven't been particularly effective. But obviously, though, the DSEC has a huge interest in this. And so the discussions between the main Democratic Party and the National Party about how to proceed process-wise, I think they're going to be really important over there, of course, the next few days if Graham Platter does drop out. But I can't imagine that what's going to happen is at the end, just like the main party is not going to behind closed doors, select a candidate.

I think it would be a terrible look for the party and not. again in line with where the mood of the electorate is up there if the Democratic Party in Washington were to try to handpick a successor to Graham Platner. So many great points, John Howman. Thank you very much for your analysis this morning. We appreciate it. And still ahead on morning, Joe. We'll get a live report from Turkey ahead of President Trump's arrival at the annual NATO summit.

Plus, what we're learning about a phone call between Trump and Vladimir Putin just days ago, before Russia launched a massive new attack on Ukraine. And as we go to break, I'll look at the Travelers' Forecast this morning from Acuweather's Bernie Raynow. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, it's very murky this morning along the East Coast. Your Accuather forecast. Also, it's a wet forecast in Boston.

Raines all day. Morning rain, New York City, Philadelphia, some afternoon thunderstorms in Washington, D.C. Enjoy the sunshine, Chicago and Detroit. some strong thunderstorms in the Carolina is elsewhere from Florida toward Texas. It's warm, it's humid, let's call hot and humid with spotty thunderstorms. Travel delays, we're going to have them all day in Boston and New York City. Watch Miami this afternoon. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the ACU weather app today.

Live pictures there that you see. This is the tarmac moments from now President Trump will land in Turkey for the annual NATO summit. and you see preparations are being made there for his arrival. Once he touches down, he will participate in a state arrival ceremony and Honor Guard review before moving into a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Erdogan. Trump will later have dinner with fellow NATO leaders, leaders who he has repeatedly criticized even just days ago for their levels of defense spending. In what is likely to be an effort to combat that criticism, NATO Secretary General Mark Ruta told reporters yesterday,

the alliance will showcase a series of new military projects worth billions of dollars. Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting Trump, who had suggested he would bring a gift to Erdogan, is expected to tell the Turkish president he is prepared to restore the country's access to F-35 fighter jets. It's a move that would reverse a ban Trump himself imposed seven years ago on national security grounds. Let's bring in President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haas. He's the author of the Substack, Home and Away. And also with us, MS now international reporter Inest de Lekwetra, who joins us live from Ankara, Ines, what are you watching for today?

Hey, good morning, Mika. On that last point on the F-35 fighter jets, worth pointing out that the Israelis oppose that. We heard from the Israeli Prime Minister saying that that would upend the balance of power in the Middle East. So that's going to be something to watch going forward. But here, you know, as the summit is just about to get underway, there is certainly a mood of uncertainty. This summit comes at a time when transatlantic relations have really been strained. And just to recap how strain they've been just in the last year, you've had President Trump threatening to take Greenland from NATO. ally Denmark. You had Trump launching a war on Iran without consulting NATO allies and then lashing

out at NATO allies for not doing more to support the U.S. in that war. You had Trump picking fights with the British Prime Minister, Kirstarmer, more recently picking a fight with the Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Maloney, saying she was obsessed with taking pictures of him at the G7, which of course she denies. You had the U.S. announcing it would be withdrawing some troops from Germany and launching a review of the U.S.'s military presence in Europe. So all of that has NATO officials really on edge. There are concerns there could be additional troop withdrawals announced here. In terms of the president's message, we are expecting him to focus on getting NATO allies

to ramp up their defense spending. That was really a big win for him at last year's summit, getting NATO allies to commit to spending 5% of their GDP on defense. And so I think, you know, this time around, we're going to see NATO allies going out of their way to show that they are taking steps to do just that. I think that's why you're seeing today NATO showcasing those. new military deals, you know, worth billions of dollars to show that they're taking steps to ramp up their spending. So, yeah, so that's going to be something to watch.

And we're watching Air Force One now pulling up the tarmac. The president will be descending those steps shortly. MS. Now international reporter, Ines de le Cotera, reporting live from Ankara, Turkey, and S, thanks so much. So, boys, Richard, the dynamics here at this NATO summit with President Trump just in the last few days, again, calling NATO a paper tiger, questioning why it exists, saying Europe, you're on your own effectively. You should be responsible for your own defense. He's complaining still about the fact that none of these countries joined him in the war. He began in Iran. They say, that's your war. We're not interested in that. And of course, the war with Ukraine, which creeps closer to their border, attacks inside of Kiev just a

couple of days ago. What are you going to be watching for here in these next couple of days? A couple of things. One is whether there's any sense that the Europeans have confidence in the United States. Quite honestly, the biggest issue is a lot of Europeans will tell you privately, Willie, they think of there's a crisis if Russia want to do a probe into some European country, they're not confident we're going to be there. So that's one thing. And there's nothing this president has done to reassure him. Second of all, very specifically, will he provide Ukraine some of the air defense systems they need? They are getting pummeled by our Russian missiles. And will we provide patriots? To what extent do we have them? And will we provide them?

Thirdly, I actually find this whole conversation about how much the Europeans are spending really old. The real question in defense is not how much you spend. It's how you spend it. That applies to us. It applies to them. So it would be really good if someone on the U.S. side who knew something about defense policy made that pivot. Because, again, Europeans spend a lot on defense. The problem is they don't spend it in the right ways.

By the way, same thing applies to us. That would be a much more productive conversation. In fact, John, the Secretary General of Mark Ruda was in the Oval Office. office put up those, you know, kinko's billboards for the president calling it the Trump trillion. Since 2017, when you came into office, we, the Europeans, have spent $1.2 trillion. Thank you, sir, for that. The president dismissed it and say, why didn't you help me in Iran? But clearly money, a financial transaction is how the president views this relationship with NATO.

Yeah, and some even foreign leaders have given Trump some credit for the pressure he's applied to get more defense spending. This particular secretary in general, this really likes buttering up the president of the United States. He decided that's the best avenue to improve that relationship. We'll see if it works. You know, but Richard, let's talk in particular about the Trump-Zolensky relationship. There's an executation they'll meet here in Turkey in the coming days. Their last couple meetings have gone better. And by better, I mean, like Trump didn't throw him out of the local office, which happened last February. But you've hit on a key point here. The U.S. sure,

still so sharing intel, but has not done much else for Ukraine. And even over the weekend, White House officials previewing this trip, still insisting that Russia has the momentum in this war, that it was a matter of time before Ukraine would have to come to the table to make a deal, when the facts on the ground seem the opposite. Sure, Russia is able to still strike Ukraine with long-range missiles. Well, Ukraine's able to do the same. And Ukraine's been able to steal back some of that territory of late. Ukraine is taking the war to Russia in Crimea, where the whole Russian position for 2014 is somewhat vulnerable. Obviously, going after Russia's energy infrastructure, going after Moscow, humiliating Putin there. I don't know where the administration is getting its take. The entire

thrust of the Whitkoff-Kusher diplomacy has been Ukraine has no choice but to swallow a bad deal. Zero chance they will. Zero chance they should. It shows a real misreading of the battlefield and the momentum. It shows a real misreading of Ukraine politically and psychologically. I don't yet sense that the administration has come around to the idea that Russia needs an end to this war, at least as much as Ukraine, because then we'd see a whole revamping of the U.S. position. Indeed, the thing to look for, will we go back to calling for a ceasefire? Rather than trying to impose a pro-Russian outcome on Ukraine, if the administration simply said, nobody's going to win this war, let's just have a ceasefire in place and kick down the road,

all the territorial and other issues, that would be a smart position. And I would hope to see that. I'm not confident we're going to see it now, but the sooner we see that, the better. And in fact, President Trump had a long 90-minute call with President Putin, On Saturday, he said it was productive. He said Putin wants the war to end. And then literally the next day, Putin attacked inside of Kiev with drones, with missiles, killing people, injuring dozens more.

Here's how President Trump characterized that phone call yesterday. A Vladimir Putin shortly after speaking July 4th struck Kiev and killed innocent civilians. Why is it he feeling any pressure after speaking with you? Well, I think he does feel pressure. He wants to end it. and Ukraine wants to end it, and we're in talks, and we'll see if we can get it ended. It's a terrible thing. President Putin wants it to end.

I will tell you that very strongly, a good call, and President Zelensky actually wants it to end now, and we're going to be going to NATO, and we're going to be talking about it, and I think we're going to get it ended. I had a very good call, and I think we'll, I think we're getting close to getting it done. So, Richard, he continues to say Putin wants to. this war to end? That's just not true, is it? I think it's slightly more true than it was because Putin's paying a price of the war. Economically, the casualties, over a million casualties since this war began, most of them

dead. He's not winning the war. Certainly not winning it on the ground, and he's now paying a price for it. But no, I think you're right. He had Putin hasn't pivoted. Putin wants this war to end, by the way, Willie. It would end in a New York minute. He would simply say, let's have a ceasefire in place. That's all he has to do. So, the president, you know, the idea, where the president is getting an idea that Vladimir Putin wants the war to end, what he may be sensing is a little bit less confidence. It's harder for Putin to say that now, that the trend is our friend, that time is on our side. So maybe they're picking up on that, but no, it hasn't yet translated into it. But I do think if the U.S. changed its approach,

there's more to work with now than any time over the last four years. If we stop trying to jam a pro-Russian peace deal down Ukraine's throat. The other thing we've got to do is help Ukraine. Again, what better way to signal to Putin that he's not going to have his way if the U.S. make some patriots available to Ukraine? That would send a powerful message. And as you say, Zelensky at this point, given the state of play and the war and how well they're conducting themselves, isn't going to have a deal jammed down his throat. He thinks they're doing well. Stay with us, Richard. Coming up, President Trump continues to defend himself against critics who say he's profiting off the presidency. He is. Our next guest has

spoken with several investors who've lost billions of dollars on Trump-related stocks in crypto. That's straight ahead on Morning Joe. So, yeah, I'm very much for crypto because it's not a question of a personal thing. Because I let my kids do whatever the hell they do they can do. I don't talk to them, ever talk to them about it. I'm allowed to, I think. I'm allowed to. But I don't bother because this is a much higher. This office is a much higher calling.

To me, cryptos are very powerful. A lot of people are using it, Bitcoin. They're using it at levels that nobody, I don't think anybody understands really how powerful. And if we didn't do it, China would do it in a minute. President Trump, once again, defending his investments yesterday, after a recent disclosure revealed he made $1.4 billion from crypto-related ventures last year.

Trump continued to tie his legacy. to the stock market, even as public opinion of his handling of the economy has dropped. He rung the opening bell yesterday for the first time ever from the Oval Office, surrounded by lawmakers and investors of Trump accounts, a federal savings initiative for children under the age of 18. Present at the event was CEO Michael Dell of Dell Technologies and his wife, who have pledged to donate more than $6 billion to the program. Trump, whose financial disclosure shows he purchased anywhere between $300,000 to a million dollars worth of Dell stock last year, praised the Dells and urged Americans to buy their computers, which then sent the stock soaring yesterday. It's another example of how Trump's personal investments have benefited from his work in the presidency.

Joining us now, Senior Editor at Forbes, overseeing Money in Politics Coverage, Dan Alexander. He's the author of the 2020 book, and titled The White House Incorporated, how Donald Trump turned the presidency into a business. Dan's out with a new piece today in Forbes entitled Meet the Investors who lost billions buying Trump stocks and crypto. And Dan, I'll read a part of the piece in which you detail. The steps Trump took to cash in on his name in and out of office. And you write, throughout the president's life, his most remarkable creations, whether casinos in Atlantic City, public offerings on the New York Stock Exchange or political movements across America, all relied on one thing.

Believers, in 2021, Trump left the White House with an abundance of them and quickly got to work monetizing. To do so, he followed a process with three distinct stages. First, the invention, come up with a business concept, invest almost nothing, take a big chunk of equity. Second, the sale stir up a frenzy among the faithful cash out what you can. And third, the mess. Watch the assets collapse, salvage the scraps. From 2021 to 2025. Five Trump Family Ventures reached public investors. Trump Media, World Liberty Financial, Trump's meme coin, Melania Trump's meme coin, and American Bitcoin.

And now they're all hitting the messy stage. Is there something different now, or is this something that keeps repeating itself? Well, it does keep repeating itself. But one of the things that's different is that Donald Trump has taken advantage of a particular moment in both the business world and the political world. Obviously, the political world, now he's president. And so he has the ability to hype things like nobody else on the planet. But there's a second component of this, which is that there are two sort of buckets into

which those five ventures fall. The first are companies that went public via special purpose acquisition corporations. And the second are cryptocurrency offerings. Both of those things became huge sort of fads on Wall Street over the last handful of years, and both of them rely mostly or largely on salesmanship. Donald Trump is perhaps the greatest salesman in American history, and so he's used that particular skill of his to apply to this moment and, again, leverage the presidency. All of it when you add it up gets due to a tremendous amount of money.

The amount of sort of net worth increase that we've seen from those five ventures across the first family, $3.1 billion. Now, a lot of that is because they cashed out a lot already, $1.9 billion. So even as these assets have collapsed, they're still sitting pretty. But meanwhile, their investors collectively are down, we estimate, $7 billion. So, Dan, can you describe a little bit what this meme coin is? I think it's confusing to people. A lot of ways it was access to President Trump. If you bought enough of the meme coin, you could go to Maralago or his golf club in Virginia. you maybe meet the president if you're lucky, you get a bag of goodies to take away at least.

But was there ever any real value for someone who bought that meme corn, or was it just a fun thing to own? It's just a fun thing known, or at least that was the idea for the people when they got into it at the start. I don't know how much fun they're having with it now. But initially, you know, they launched this, and they explicitly said this is not an investment. But remember, this is something meme coins in particular are.

part of the crypto market that is more exposed to hype to sales and ships than virtually anything else. And they announced on January 17th, three days before Donald Trump becomes president. So there's all this buzz floating about. And what you see is this massive frenzy, tons and tons of people getting in. And as that frenzy is happening, Donald Trump is making more money because he makes money on every transaction that happens. He can collect a small fee. And then he also hangs on to a big basket of the coins himself.

So the question is, all right, how do you turn something that doesn't have any real intrinsic value? And it's something that has the appearance of having real value. And that's when you see him start to do things like say, you know what, even though I'm president, I'm going to take time out of my day to travel to my golf club in Virginia and have dinner with the top 220 meme coin holders. We see that that's effective. You know, I talked to one guy who had invested a relatively small amount at the beginning. When he heard about that deal, he said he went crazy and put in almost $500,000. which was 60% of his portfolio.

He took a hit of about $250,000 by the end of the year when he decided, you know what, this thing's going way down. I don't have any way to predict which way it's going to go from here. So there's been a lot of hurt from people who sort of got wrapped up in the hype of it and now I've lost a lot of money. Dan, when you look at the totality of all this,

do you see questions simply that the president is, what, not adhering or violating the norms that you ought not to mix the personal and the private and the public? Or do you see that actually that he's crossed legal lines? What is your, so is this simply way off? Or is this actually a legal question if you had a different Justice Department? What's your interpretation of it? Well, your final clause there is very important.

It certainly breaks a lot of norms. You know, we've never seen a president making this much money all at once, leveraging the presidency. It's clear that he's leveraging the presidency. A lot of these things weren't having any success before he wins the presidency, then all of a sudden, billions of dollars are flowing in. But from a legal perspective, you know, he has taken a very clear stance. His administration has taken a very clear stance that they are not going to go after crypto firms in the same way that, say, the Biden administration did. And so the likelihood that

there would be any sort of, you know, legal ramifications at this point are virtually zero. Now, if you were to put the Biden Justice Department in here right now, it's hard to imagine that all of this would have been able to happen. The new reporting is available online right now. Senior editor at Forbes overseeing coverage of money in politics. Dan Alexander, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. We appreciate it. And still ahead on Morning Joe, much more on the fallout for Democratic Senate candidate

Graham Platner following a new political report that he sexually assaulted a woman he was dating in 2021. We'll get a live report from Maine. Plus, the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Senator Gene Shaheen of New Hampshire will join us live from Turkey as she is leading a bipartisan congressional delegation at the NATO summit. Morning, Joe. We'll be back in just a moment.