Morning Joe - Rubio: China Opposes Militarization of Hormuz

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

Rubio: China Opposes Militarization of Hormuz   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.

All the news teams are on the ground in China to cover this epic and historic summit. All except one, because our CBS news colleague, Tony DeCopal, is being forced to broadcast from Taiwan after failing to get a Chinese visa in time. Well, that is disappointing, but it does fit in with their slogan. CBS News, when events happen, we're at most one country away. All right. Stephen Colbert, not holding. back on CBS with only five shows left in his run on the late show. As for President Trump's China trip, it's still not clear what, if anything, was accomplished as he heads back to the United States claiming great deals, but offering few details, deals for who? What are they?

What's the goal here? We'll dig into the root causes also of rising grocery prices, as many Americans are feeling a financial squeeze on staples and at the pump. Also, Ahead Ice is moving forward with plans to turn warehouses into detention centers, despite legal challenges and the unpopularity of these sites. We'll go through that as well, especially since many in the state of Texas, for example, are quite a profit machine. So there are a lot of incentives to get these built and to get more and more people inside them, reportedly under horrendous conditions.

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Friday, May 15th. With us, we have the co-host of our 9 a.m. hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire. MS Now National Affairs analyst, John Heilman. He's partner and chief political columnist at Puck. MS. Now National Security Reporter, David Rode. And managing editor at the bulwark, Sam Stein is with us this morning.

So I see you guys approved of my S&LJ. Very nice. Yeah, you saw that. Yeah, they're dialed into culture. I did the weave. Yeah, very nice. That was very good. What's the goal?

What is it? What's the goal here? What do we do? It's really good. They got to keep that guy coming back. Okay, let's get to our top story this morning. Or what we know about it. President Trump is on his way back to the United States this morning,

boarding Air Force One overnight after a two-day summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The visit was filled with pageantry and line. Lots of kind words, but little tangible policy change in the relationship between the two superpowers. Key divisions remain, with China issuing a stark warning against further U.S. support of Taiwan. The president did mention some wins from the trip, including new trade deals, but gave little details. He was equally vague about any commitment from China on Iran. This has been an incredible visit. I think a lot of good has come over.

We've made some fantastic trade deals, great for both countries. He's a man I respect greatly, become really a friend. We did discuss Iran. We feel very similar in Iran. We want that to end. We don't want them to have a nuclear weapon. We want the streets open. We're closing it now.

They closed it. Then we closed it on top of them. but we want the streets open, and we want them to get it ended because it's a crazy thing there, a little bit crazy. President Trump met with Xi Jinping for their final closed-door discussion at the symbolic headquarters of China's ruling Communist Party. Sheeshild reporters, he chose the historic venue to return the kindness from when Trump invited him to Mar-Lago back in 2017.

In a truth social post from earlier in the day, President Trump attempted to clean up comments apparently made by she about the U.S. being a declining nation, insisting the leader was talking about his predecessor's time in office. So almost two years in, it's still Joe Biden's fault. Willie, again, not to imitate SNL, it just seems to me the president says it was an incredible visit for who, what was accomplished.

And what was the initial goal? Yeah. Also might want to back off the sleepy Joe Biden comment when you're falling asleep in public. Come on now. Most every time we see you. A sentence. Yeah, the question is what are the deliverables, as they put it in diplomatic terms. When you go to a trip, there's always something that's been wired ahead of time that you can say, we accomplish this here.

We both walk away. They have said it's mutually beneficial without giving much specifics. President Trump announced that China had planned to buy now 200 jets from Boeing, very specific. news. When asked after the president left a couple of hours ago, Chinese officials kind of said, well, we made some deals that are mutually beneficial, did not confirm that deal. We'll see if that bears out. Let's bring into the conversation the former United States Ambassador to China and Nicholas Burns. He also led the State Department's Iran policy from 2005 to 2008. Ambassador, great to have you with us on this morning. So now that the president is on the plane on his way back to

Alaska for a stop there, assess for us what happened over the last. couple of days and what the United States takes away from the summit? You know, I think the most important thing that happened is that President Trump went there, and I'm serious about that. It's a top-down system in China. Xi Jinping makes all the big decisions, so you've got to have head of state relations that work, and I hope that they've been able to establish that kind of relationship. But there are a lot of troubling questions left on answer. The first is on Taiwan. You saw that shot across the bow by Shizhen. Ping meant to intimidate the United States when she said that if we cross, if the U.S.

crosses China's red lines on Taiwan, there could be a conflict between us. That's meant to intimidate. And what I'm looking for is whether or not now the United States, the Trump administration, goes back to the big Taiwan arms packages that they put aside in anticipation of this visit to Beijing and move it forward. The Chinese obviously don't want us to do that, but we have to do it because we've got to to strengthen Taiwan's defenses. I think that's the first big test. And the second test will be on Iran. It's not surprising that the Chinese said, Xi Jinping said that they want the straight open

without Iran as a tollkeeper. It's not surprising that the Chinese said they don't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. That's been their position for 20 years since I was negotiating this issue for the George W. Bush administration. But what has to happen now is that China ought to go forward, use its considerable authority with the Iranian government and its credibility and push the Iranians towards a ceasefire agreement, I'm skeptical that'll happen, that the Chinese will actually go out of their way to bail us out. So lots of other unanswered questions, but I think those are the two big ones. Ambassador, just going back to your first question on Taiwan, obviously President Xi was looking for some distance between President Trump and Taiwan in a way that previous presidents have not shown that.

Trump has shown that he's open to being a little bit further from Taiwan than others have been. Do you have concerns that China perhaps smells weakness or vulnerability in this president in terms of his relationship to Taiwan and that it may actually take action there? I do have those concerns. I have concerns that the Chinese feel that President Trump, in his second tour in office, has not been at all clear about upholding our traditional half-century policy, one China policy, which means that we do provide weaponry to Taiwan authorities to help them strengthen their deterrence. And that's the opening.

And you may remember about six weeks ago, President Xi and President Trump talked on the phone. And President Trump said he was negotiating this issue of arms sales with China. Well, no American president has agreed to negotiate what we do towards Taiwan with the leadership in Beijing. So I think there is that concern. And I don't think a Chinese cross-straight attack is imminent. That's not the immediate issue right now. But they do, I think, sense a weakening, a softening in the U.S. position. And I really hope that President Trump did not lead them in that direction during these talks.

Mr. Ambassador, President Trump has mentioned, is wheels up from Beijing on Air Force One. He actually just provided his first thoughts on truth social about the summit. I'll just read the first sentence. China has a ballroom. And so should the USA. So that shows you where he is right now. He's pushing the ballroom. He also already mentioned something about the gold statue in Durrell. I wrote a piece ahead of this trip saying that the goal was sort of to do no harm, that they didn't want to make things worse. And you would correctly identify a couple

of flashpoints that could be tension down the road. But it seems like the relations between the U.S. and China, the two biggest powers in the globe didn't get worse over the last couple days. But it also seems like not that much was actually accomplished either. Well, it looks like there's going to be a resumption of agricultural purchases by the Chinese. That's very important for our farm and ranch economy. The Chinese have been diminishing it over the last couple of years because of all the, frankly, the friction we've had, both in the Biden and Trump administrations. They're also going to go ahead with the Boeing by a Boeing, but they've been delaying that for six years.

So I think that's just getting those two issues, agricultural sales and Boeing back to where they should have been several years ago. The one thing that didn't happen, which I was encouraged by, is that there was no announcement that the Chinese would purchase the H-200 chip from, this is the advanced semiconductor chip from Navidia. And I think that's important because I have opposed the Trump administration's willingness to have our most advanced chips sold to the Chinese market. That only helps the Chinese competitors to our tech companies, but it also puts, it's our military at a disadvantage because the liberation army will get hold of this sophisticated technology. So the fact that that didn't happen, I thought, was the positive sign. And one last

issue, Scott Besant talked about yesterday. He said there is going to be the start of talks between the two countries on artificial intelligence, particularly this issue of security from terrorist groups and criminal groups with mythos model of anthropic so powerful. I think it does make sense. for the U.S. and China to begin to talk together. How do we work together to mitigate the worst aspects of what criminal and terrorist groups could do with these powerful AI models? Ambassador, as we've been noting for the last couple of days, it is extraordinary when you take a step back that the President of the United States in the middle of a war with Iran is meeting with the leader of China who is backing Iran in the war that the United States

is prosecuting. You touched on this a little bit earlier, but do you believe that China has the leverage Iran to change the dynamics of this war, to at least bring them to the table. And are you skeptical that they will, in fact, use that leverage if they have it to help bring this war to an end? You know, I think China does have a lot of leverage because they purchase 1.4 million barrels a day at a steep discount from Iran at a steep discount in favor of China. China's been the largest, you know, exporter of goods to Iran as well. And so they do have influence.

I doubt they'll use it. You know, the old saying, don't interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake. I think that's how the Chinese look at the United States right now in the Middle East, particularly in the Strait of Hormuz. And the Chinese would pay a price, if you will, for forsaking Iran in terms of the politics of this in the China-Iran relationship. Just as China didn't lift a finger to help, couldn't. Venezuela back in early January when the U.S. went in and kidnapped. They haven't helped Iran very much to completely side with the United States, I think would be difficult for China's reputation in the authoritarian world, which is where Xi Jinping lives. So I'm a little bit skeptical. I hope the Chinese would use their influence to help the U.S. to open the straight with no tollkeeper. That remains to be seen. Yeah, what's the incentive? Former United States ambassador to China, Nicholas Burns, thank you very much for being on the show

this morning. We appreciate it. Okay, so David, I guess the question is, what are the questions you have coming out of this trip? Winners, losers, and what is the incentive for China to help the U.S. on Iran? I think there's very little incentive for China to help the U.S. on Iran. The Strait specifically. In the street specifically. Just the immediate update from the strait is that a boat was sunk yesterday.

Another one was taken by Iranian forces and dragged toward the Iranian coastline. So no change there. And then the long term, and you talked about yesterday, it was a story I did about Chinese companies, private companies, selling any aircraft missiles, or they're considering the sale of any aircraft missiles to Iran. China's long-term goal is for America's attempted regime change in Iran to fail. They don't want that to succeed. They want this to regime to exist. They want it to antagonize the U.S. They want the U.S. to lose resources there. They want it to be our Ukraine. So that's not going to change. I talked to a shipping. who talked about how all these ships are going to resume. Even if there is a peace deal, China will continue to send components and fuel for missiles to help them rebuild their missile stock. No matter what agreement is reached, China, I think, will help Taiwan rebuild those missile stocks, get them anti-aircraft missiles. They'll do them through private companies, but China's goal is to weaken us.

And I didn't see any breakthroughs regarding Iran in this trip. Yeah, I'm not hearing any reporting. It really, like, what exactly was the win here? There seems to be no answer. A lot of private meetings and family members came, like a commerce gathering. Chamber of Commerce meeting in China. It almost seemed like President Trump was playing the role of Commerce Secretary here. In terms of trying to get some business deals done, there may be some big outlines of agreements,

but it's not sure that anything is concrete yet. We'll see what comes out next few days as both sides read out the particulars. But John Harmon, yeah, maybe the U.S. U.S. didn't inflame the situation with China, but it's not clear, if anything really was accomplished. And for the president, I think the two big takeaways is that the situation Iran remains unchanged. And we know the economic toll that's taken here in the United States, but also just a sense of weakness, that the Ashizun Ping is there in Beijing presiding over the summit by most measures in a stronger position than the president of the United States who's bogged down

with a war, he can't budge. Right. I want to just think about two very easy, very simple things here. of them is the question of deliverables that Willie was talking about before, because that's what Trump's metric is, right? He wants to be able to come back from a summit and say, we signed the biggest deal ever on this. We made the biggest agreement ever on that. He yesterday touted this Boeing thing, right, which was kind of a, you know, they agreed to buy 200 jets. The Wall Street's expectation was that the deal was going to be some more close to 500, and Boeing shares went down 5% yesterday on the news that Trump was touting. Huge deal for Boeing. 200, they thought. it was only to be a hundred fifty. Well, Wall Street told you exactly what I thought about that deal.

And I think that in and of itself is not a big deal. But that's the kind of thing Trump wants to take credit for. The second thing is your point about what looked kind of pathetic. And you know, the, I saw your Hippocratic headline, maybe thinking about the Greeks. And the fact that you have Xi Jinping, the context for that true social post that Trump put up was Xi Jinping is talking to Trump, apparently in private, about the Thucydides trap. The Thucydides trap is about what happens when a rising power and there's a declining power. He didn't call the United States the declining power, but said, you know, we have to be careful, China and the U.S., to avoid the Thucydides Trap. Because what often happens in the Thucydides Trap is that the declining power sees the rising power and provokes a war.

So basically, this is, P.C.S. and maintain, say, let's not get into war, but the implication was that the U.S. was in decline. And Trump's response to that was so sad. I mean, not just the fact that he's blaming Joe Biden, Mika, but let's read the first sentence of it where he says something like, yesterday when Xi Jinping so elegantly. I have it here. Go ahead. When President Xi very elegantly referred to the United States is perhaps being a declining nation. That's all you need.

Just stop. That's just, it's an amazing thing to write. Is it one of more incredible Trump sentences ever. I see very elegantly, because I can't ever say anything that critical of Xi Jinping, let alone. He never does. Right. But that is just a very, he treats in that, he sounds like he's talking about.

about Vladimir Putin. And I think the, you didn't have to pin the tail of the donkey and say in the United States is the declining power for it to be very clear that in the optics and dynamics and any metric that Trump understands, let alone the rest of the world, which of those two countries is a declining country? And she didn't need to say it directly. It's pretty clear to everyone where they stand in terms of relative power and trajectory. Working class Americans would agree with that probably at a grand scale. Why speak that way to an authoritarian leader who has like the greatest firewall in the world and sort of stopping the free flow of information.

Who's, you know, jailed Jimmy Lye, the publisher, pro-democracy advocate from Hong Kong. Yes, and but like, and Donald Trump has no problem, belittling political rivals in the U.S. and being incredibly, to other people, you know, and I just, looking back, Trump made this, made his bed here. Yeah.

There were three key mistakes he made. First was this trade war with China. The one he started out with all the tariffs, he lost that trade war. And that China came back at him. This was before the last meeting in Seoul. That did not work. He was going to bring the China to their knees. It didn't work. The second thing was the, I think, the obsession with first Canada as the 51st state, but then Greenland. And he destroyed essentially the relationship with NATO. That was a major mistake. And then the last one, obviously, is this war with Iran. So it's three geostrategic mistakes. In my view, and I talked to experts about it, that led him to come into this summit in a very weak position. And we're not. saw that. The first and the last point that you made leading to massive economic struggle, Sam Stein here at home, with rising gas prices, rising prices at the grocery store, rising prices for health. I mean, all around Americans, many would argue, are suffering at the

rising costs around them and trying to stay afloat. Look, I'm going to zag ever so slightly here. Like, I'm not, I think there's some virtue and value to try. trying to make sure that relations with China are non-combative and productive in some respects. And if Trump can get a reduction in tariffs, if you can get more Chinese purchases of American farm equipment and our beef, for instance, that's great for the country, it's good. But, you know, we'll take time. That's the zag. Now, what I will say is, and we're going back to these true social posts, because that's really all we have to work off of at this point,

is it's remarkable how little actual prep it appears went into all this. Usually during these things, and David and Jonathan can attest to this, they go into these summits with deliverables already baked in, and they'll have, you know, copious amount of paperwork to hand out. They'll have briefings to give to reporters. And they'll have things to tout and crow about after the fact. And when Trump appeared on Fox News last night to talk about this, it was all in the abstract, very little about what we were talking about with China with respect to Iran, for instance.

And then if you look at his true social feed this morning, it's ridiculous. The two posts, the two main posts are him, glowing at the fact that they made that 30-foot-tall gold statue of him at Trump Dural. And the other one that Jonathan Lemire talked about, which is how China has a ballroom and how great the ballroom is. A functioning operational white house. House would have more to crow about, would have baked in the accomplishments in advance, would be coming back from China with the deliverables already there. But that's not this White House.

And again, the one deal that was announced was announced by President Trump in an interview with Sean Hannity when he said Boeing's buying 200 jets. Chinese officials asked about that did not confirm that that even had happened. And it's even lower than was expected, as John pointed out. One other question for you before we go to break here, David, is the C.I. director's visit to Cuba yesterday. John Ratcliffe went to Cuba talking to people there saying effectively, we want to come in here, we want to help you, want to bring capital, we want to bring all those things, but you must change your regime if you're going to get our help. Is Cuba sort of next on the list for this administration after Venezuela and Iran?

I think they are because it's a lot easier to pick on a small island that's 90 miles from the United States than it is to deal with, you know, a power of the size of China. So it's an intimidation effort. It's, you know, Ratcliffe has risen a lot inside the administration. He spends most of his time at the White House, I'm told. That's also about FaceTime of the boss. So it's important, and that's also Marco Rubio effort. And he generally has handled things well. There were talks about a peace town Lebanon run by Rubio's team, and the people involved have told Julia Jester, our colleague, that those are going well. They're just well organized, which can't be said about the rest of the administration. And just the last one on China, I don't know if this is a strategy, but it almost

seems like the Chinese aren't announcing any deals or confirming anything as a way to just, again, make Trump look weak. Totally agree. No, no idiot. No jets. Yeah. The Chinese wanted the non-deliverable summit here. I mean, Sam points out the goals of maybe potentially reduction in tariffs or help on Iran.

I mean, these are two products of this administration's creation. So they need help on their own problems. And here are the headlines. I mean, it all is about sort of Trump going to him. Trump butters up she who stands his ground. She gives Trump warning on Taiwan. Trump might welcome Chinese investment. America might not.

It's... She looks strong. It's a wash. It's a failure of a wash. MS now senior national security reporter David Road. Thank you very much for coming on this morning. Still ahead on Morning, Joe. We'll get to some of the other stories, making headlines.

this morning, including the latest in the fight over access to the abortion pill. We're breaking down the Supreme Court's new ruling. Plus, we'll dig into new reporting on the Department of Homeland Security moving forward with controversial plans to turn warehouses into detention centers despite lawsuits and a watchdog investigation. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers' Forecast this morning from Acuethers Bernie Raynow. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, it's looking better for our Friday across much of the northeast and mid-Atlantic. Now, the exceptions of that statement is in Boston and Portland, lingering clouds, a couple of showers around.

Same story in Albany. Your exclusive vacuum with a forecast. Cloud's breaking in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. looks great. Morning shower in Chicago. Nice afternoon. Watch out for some gusty thunderstorms from Iowa toward Missouri late today. From Texas toward the southeast, it's generally dry, although there can be a spotty shower in Dallas. Travel delays, I'd look for a few in Boston this afternoon. To help you make the best

decisions and be more in the know, download the Accuether app today. Back with a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. Government data this week confirmed what many Americans are feeling. Grocery prices in the United States soared faster in April than in any month in nearly four years. Drove up the cost of everything from hot dogs to tomatoes. And just one example, seafood prices are up 6.2 percent over that time. as ABC News describes, the jump in food prices stems in part from a historic oil shock set off by the Iran War, which increased diesel costs. Diesel is the lifeblood of the food supply chain, fueling trucks and ships. Higher fuel costs for suppliers mean price hikes in grocery aisles as the increased costs are passed down the supply chain.

So Sam Stein, this connects back to what President Trump said just a couple of days ago, that he's not concerned about Americans' financial situations. He said that before he's not interested in the affordability question. His staff and team have sent him on the road to do events about affordability. He immediately dismisses the idea from the stage and talks about other issues. These prices, though, in the last couple of months, it's a price hike of the president's own making brought on by the war in Iran. 100%. And Mika was absolutely right.

The things that he's dealing with now are the problems of his own making. It's tariffs, and it's the war in Iran. And here's the scary part for the White House. This is the beginning of it, right? I mean, the straight-of-romoze is not going to be reopened anytime immediately soon. And even if it is, getting fuel costs down takes a lot of time. Estimates could be that it would be into the next calendar year before we start to see it get anywhere close to pre-war totals. And that's just going to be distributed throughout the supply chain, throughout the food,

throughout all prices that are related to fuel. And so when you're looking at grocery prices, this is a huge problem. And I say this all the time, but it's true. We are getting to the season where people travel a lot and grill a lot. And this is going to be noticed by voters when they have to travel to a vacation and go outside and cook their hamburgers. Ask anyone in the Biden administration how this worked out for them. All right. The Supreme Court has ruled the widely used abortion medication Mitha Pristone can continue to be prescribed through telehealth and sent to patients by mail.

Two drugmakers asked the court to intervene after the Fifth Circuit restricted nationwide access to the medication. The Justice's order keeps that ruling blocked as litigation continues in the lower courts. The two most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, dissented with Alito calling the majority's order, quote, remarkable and complaining it was, quote, unreasoned. And the Washington Post reports the Department of Homeland Security is moving forward. with a controversial plan to transform industrial warehouses into immigration detention centers. Two people briefed on the discussions told the post that DHS is preparing to award contracts to oversee construction and operations at warehouses. It's acquired in Texas. ICE staffers are also exploring what work can be done at a warehouse in Maryland.

In an emailed statement to the post, a DHS spokesperson wrote that the department is, quote, reviewing agency policies and proposals put in place before Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen took over the position from Christy Noem. So, John, I mean, the politics of this is, I think, pretty horrendous. And I think it's something Democrats have pretty outspoken about as many can't even get into these detention centers to see what is happening. and there are reports of horrific conditions from women not able to breastfeed their children to people not having access to clean water.

Lots of reports coming out, but no ability to confirm anything because lawmakers who it is their job to go in and inspect what is going in inside these centers cannot get in in many cases. It's also the case that these detention centers are profit machines. So the more people they can get in,

the more money is made all around. Can you explain what is happening here? Seemingly, some worry that the country is becoming ignored to this issue. Well, I don't think the country is becoming ignored to the issue of the way that ICE was used in course the first 14 months of the administration to prosecute this deportation agenda of Donald Trump's. In fact, I would say right now, the interesting question here is whether after a law, Actually, after Minnesota died down and the Trump administration kind of beat its retreat there. And then Christine Nome was lost her job and a new head was put in a DHS, Markway Mullen.

That issue received that kind of some of the temperature around that issue went down. I would say in the first 14 months of the administration, that that issue was, you know, among the handful of issues that really broke through to a lot of Americans and was politically damaging to the administration. Partly because of the emphasis placed on the war in Iran and partly because of those. sometimes symbolic and sometimes substantive changes on the ice side, that issue receded for a while from public view. The question that this raises, Mika, is whether the administration is going to, and you would say, well, that would be sort of politically suicidal, but it has done politically suicidal things quite frequently in this Trump 2.0 timeframe, whether they're about to start taking action again that presses ice back into the headlines again, and whether the combination of these things around the detention centers, but also are there other cities? They have not, Donald Trump has never said that they abandoned the approach that they were taking to Los Angeles, Washington, to Chicago, and then Minneapolis, they were ramping up. Is, are we at a pause where there's going to be a resumption of that kind of behavior across the board where ICE is going to become central to our politics again? If that is the case, headed into the midterms in October, that will be yet another reason that Republicans are facing enormous political headwinds.

The best thing in the world that's happened for the administration on this front has been people not talking. talking about ice for the last three months, that may be about to, it may be about to end. You're exactly right. And the answer to your question came this week, John. Tom Holman, the Borders are speaking at a border security event in Phoenix, talked about some of the pressure that the administration is getting, whatever happened to the mass deportations. Perhaps they had backed off after the execution style killings of René Good and Alex Prady in Minneapolis. Maybe they had left the cities and maybe was over. This is Tom Homan, and this is a quote. He said, forgive the language. He said this, you ain't seen.

shit yet. This year will be a good year. Mass deportations are coming. That's from Tom Homan speaking to a group in Phoenix this week. Yeah, we were talking, this is, they're telegraphing. It's coming again. And there have been some suggestion. They're going to back off this warehouse plan. We've seen this week. That's not the case. Stephen Miller has, you know, been, he's lost, you know, some of, he's less visible than he was. He still retains remarkable cloud inside the White House. He's still the face of this. Mark Wayne Mullen has taken the new secretary, has taken some time to put his people in place. You know, Obviously, Tom Holman presents a different, perhaps more competent face than Corey Lewandowski and Kirstie Knoem, but they're ramping up again.

And they have not made an official go decision, but there is a sense in the Trump administration, they are going to ramp this back up. They think this is a signature promise. And I agree with John's analysis. This would be a political mistake. But there are some in Trump's orbit who, they're reflexively. When things are bad politically, what do you do? You always fall back on immigration.

And in second term, that means these deportations. And perhaps even they want that fight again, not necessarily violence on the streets, but I mean the political tension to start talking about immigration ahead of the midterms thinking maybe that will fire up Republicans who otherwise were pretty downtrodden about their chances. Now, I would think that would be a mistake. That's not what Americans want, but that's one of the things they're thinking about. Is there MAGA support for these human profit machines that are based on cruelty, separating people in inhumane conditions?

Like, are people rallying and saying, yay, at his events or whatever? want this? Are we seeing a desire for what we have seen so far with ice among the MAGA base? I think among the MAGA base, there's enthusiasm for the deportation agenda, broadly speaking. People don't make, I think, in general, most voters don't make the kind of, are kind of parsing this out in the way you are. Mika, I think what the MAGA base wants is more deportations. They're a problem in Minneapolis, or they're not even their problem. I don't think they cared very much about what happened in Minneapolis, frankly. And they're, they want to see more brown people. sent out of the country.

They don't, if that means the for-profit, the four-profit penitentiaries, that's kind of in the weeds for a lot of people. What they're like, it's like, we want deportations, we want them now. That is not, by the way, obviously, not a majority of the country. It's not even a majority,

certainly not even majority. I don't think of the Republican Party, but there is a, when you think about the Trump base, they're willing to overlook almost anything in the service of the cause, which is get the illegals out. And I think that's,

Trump is right that that general cause is popular with his base. But again, he has never a problem with his base, really. He has a bigger problem with independent voters for whom what they saw on the streets in Minneapolis was an enormous problem. And if you look at Donald Trump's numbers with independence, which is what's killing them heading into the midterms, this is one of those issues along with prices, Jeffrey Epstein, the profiteering, the ballroom, focused on himself, and then the cruelty on the streets of America's cities. That's why you're sitting at numbers for Donald Trump with independence that are in the 20s at this point. It's the constellation of those issues.

This is not going to help his political fortunes or the Republican Party's political fortunes with those voters and those of the voters who are key. Glenn Cowan was a member of the 1971 American table tennis team. He was very much a part of his generation. One night, we all came back from the practice hall together on a bus that they provided for us to the hotel. and Glenn missed that bus. And so the next bus that came along, he got on. And, of course, it was the Chinese bus with the players on it.

And he realized when he stepped inside that it was all Chinese. Photographers were present to witness the scene. The images they captured were picked up by news agencies around the world. All right. guest says that moment, more than five decades ago when U.S. ping pong player Glenn Cowan missed his bus was, quote, the start of a relationship that must be salvaged to prevent a deteriorating rivalry from spilling into unmanageable global conflict with potentially apocalyptic outcomes. Author Tim Barnacle joins us now with his new piece for his American Times substack titled

ping pong, how China and the U.S. can get back on track. And Tim, you're right in the piece about AI, actually, and how that could be the next existential crisis and that the U.S. needs to get on the bus. Did we do that in this summit? Well, I don't think so. I mean, we see this week of President Trump kind of bending the knee, and as that clip shows, it started with Glenn Cowan missing the bus.

Now, when it comes to AI, this week, Taiwan was discussed and the idea of strategic ambiguity and semiconductors and Secretary Rubio kind of holding the line, well, President Trump kind of being wishy-washy on what the line is, became part of the conversation. Now, what was left out, as I said, was artificial intelligence in the piece. Now, AI, if you look at what's happening with Mesos, the new property coming out of one of the companies, is these things that can perhaps destroy the economy. perhaps create biological weapons, perhaps do things that can upend our lives in a matter of seconds. Now, what we need to pursue, I would argue, is nonproliferation, just as we do with atomic weapons,

just as we do with nuclear weapons, yet both the Chinese and the Americans are leaving humanity behind by leaving that off the table. So just to go back to him to what we came in on, which was ping pong diplomacy, and go back before that moment, when Nixon, as you write in the piece, actually, despite being a true anti-con, communist hawk going way back. He had expressed an interest in bringing China into the world, which leads me to the question, did Cowan really miss the bus? Was that really serendipitous? Or was that part of a plan? Well, I mean, that's part of it. And I'm struck by how much Glenn Cowan looks like Neil Young in those images, especially in 1971, right off after the goal rush. Now, Henry Kissinger, who was then National Security Advisor, who then became Secretary of State,

had gone into China right around then to conduct these secret meetings to plan this visit for Richard Nixon. Now, he believed that he, sure, Cowan did miss the bus, but the Chinese were there, not by happenstance, but by purpose. Now, whether or not that's true, the player who Cowan associated with that, who struck with a conversation, actually, you know, held to his dying day that it was happenstance, but it doesn't matter because from Cowan does help Lee to to Nixon, which 52-odd years later does help lead to Trump and Xi this week. So you're making the connection here, right? There's like, look, how China and the U.S. can get back on track.

Ping-pong, metaphorically, is the key. The lesson from the Cowan experience as it relates to today is what? Well, the lesson today is that there are areas where we can cooperate. Again, we talk about why we're enemies and why we're adversaries, but we don't have to be enemies. I was part of a delegation in 2023 as part of the State Department as a speechwriter, and I went to Beijing. I went to the Great Hall of the people. I was up close in these same places where Xi and Trump were. Now, there are areas like Ambassador Burns said before, we can agree.

Now, on climate is one, renewable technology, renewable energy, which the Chinese are selling around the world amid the Iran war, is something we could be doing now. The Trump administration has given that game away. But think about also impacting Americans' everyday lives. Fetanol, tens of thousands of Americans die every single year for fentanyl that is produced in Chinese labs and trafficked across the Mexican border. We see this president talk about what's happening at the border,

and yet this week said nothing about what is happening in those Chinese labs. That could have been a bilateral win for the Chinese and the Americans, and could have been a bipartisan win for this president. He failed at that. Let's get your thoughts on what we were talking about at the top of the show, that the President Trump went into this summit in Beijing, sort of in a moment of weakness. Yeah. That it's a role reversal here where it seemed like Xi Jinping to use Trump's favorite phrase,

had the cards, and that what that means going forward is, you know, the idea of a rising or declining power. Well, I mean, the true social posts, you know, last night, our time, whenever it was in Beijing, time, 12 hours after that, of saying, using the phrase, a nation in decline. That has been the thesis for the Chinese about America for the last 20 years. The fact that they got, President Xi got an American president to use that phrase has him smiling from Beijing to Brussels. And to say it was elegant the way he put it. I mean, he couldn't have scripted it.

President Xi couldn't have scripted it better. I mean, in terms of no one knows pageantry over policy better than the Chinese, and no one does that appeal to more than President Trump. That was on display this week. The new piece is available to read on the American. Times with Tim Barnacle's substack. Tim, thank you. Good to have you back on the show. And still ahead on Morning Joe, a growing number of American farms are declaring bankruptcy. We'll show you what a group of Louisiana farmers are telling MS now about the American dream feeling out of reach. Morning, Joe, we'll be right back. Welcome back. It is 54 past the hour. An increasing number of

American farms are declaring bankruptcy. Take a look at this map, which shows the number of bankruptcies among farms in each state last year, which totals 315 in all that marks a 46% increase from the year before, 46%. MSNOW reporter Namdi at Guanwu set out to learn why. He traveled to a farm in Monroe, Louisiana, run by a group of brothers who descend from three generations of farmers. They say their American dream now feels nearly out of reach as they are pushed to the brink of bankruptcy amid the current economic climate. And Namdi joins us now.

Also with us, a co-host of The Weeknight on MS Now, Simone Sanders Townsend, and the host of the podcast on brand with Donny Deutsch. Donny Deutsch is with us. Good to have you on board. I think I have that shirt. Okay, so Namdi. You did that off camera.

I was hoping you would just slip away from it. It's a chic shirt. I got it. It's Jay McLaughlin. Seriously. Every color. Mike Zan Taylor. Okay.

Man, it's for all of us. All right, Nandi. Let's get, actually, this story really hits home, and it's telling it, it's speaking to a narrative across the country of people struggling under pressures, economic pressures all around. Tell us about this farm that you visited in Louisiana and the struggles they are currently facing and how they're referring. and how they reflect in the numbers that we've seen. Yeah, you know, I went to Nelson and Sons Farm. It's a farm that's currently run by four brothers that come from a long legacy of farming,

one that dates all the way back to slavery. And like we mentioned, the American dream for them has always been a profitable farm, but they've been struggling 10 years ago. In 2016, these farmers opened their own operation, these brothers, and they told me they've experienced bad year after bad year after bad year since then. There was a trade war in 2018 and 2025

that decimated sales. of soybeans. These are crop farmers, so that was a huge issue for them. There's been natural disasters, a series of tornadoes and hurricanes that's hurt them in a record drought in the south that's really hurt business. But most recently, they've been struggling with surges in the price of fertilizer and fuel, and they say that is what's currently pushing them to the brink. When margins are already, ready, so thin, increases like that are really shocking them. And there's a sense from these farmers that the current administration politicians don't fully understand their plight. One thing I heard time and time again is we want politicians to come to this farm

because the demonstration President Trump made doing the White House, it feels a little bit disconnected from the reality they're facing. So I want to play some of my conversations with these brothers, one who laid out exactly why they want politicians to come to the farm, and another who laid out why they're currently facing bankruptcy. They'll see that actually worked that a former got to put into the stress that they have. Like just last year, over six, four, farmers killed themselves in Arkansas. So it's, if they come out and see what a farmer actually go through and the headache they have, like this right here is easy, this cake walk.

But finding that side, making sure that the crop is being produced right and all that. It's, if they was to come see it, hands on, not no real farmer, not no little, I'm going to show a short, show farmer, come out to a real form labor job, they'll see a family form, they'll see the struggle that a farmer actually go through. I'm thinking this year is bankrupt. We all in and try to make it or, you know, three years, it's just a tough fight, you know, for us. And, you know, I don't want to have to file bankruptcy.

That's the last thing you would have to do, you know, but the way it's looking, it's just It's tough, you know, very tough on this. So as of now, these farmers have been trying to navigate these fertilizer increases as best as they can. They're using a synthetic blend of fertilizer that's a little bit cheaper. They're also planting less, which they tell me is a real pain point, because that just means less money at the end of the year. So really, a group of farmers that are struggling and hoping to make it another year. So Namdi, I mean, bankrupt is up 46% year over year.

It sounds like they may be headed in that. direction. I hope it doesn't end that way, but they're prepared for it. And prices aren't going to go down in the short term. They're just not. Even if the straight of Hormuz open today, the knock-on effects of the war would go on for several months. So farmers like the Nelsons, do they have a plan for a post-bankruptcy life? What does their life look like when all they've ever known is farming? That's exactly a point they made to me. These are people who grew up on a farm. They watched their father farm. It's all they know. they tell me the dream is to, again, find a way to survive another year and have their children who are actually in college and pursuing agro business, continue the family business. But again,

it just feels a bit out of reach right now. They tell me that the primary focus for them is just doing enough to make it to December and hoping that if there's another government aid package or hoping that if the straight opens, then the long term they'll be able to sustain themselves. But another thing I want to point out is, for instance, last December we saw from the administration that $12 billion bridge package aimed at farmers in response to trade disruptions. They describe that as a band-aid for a situation that required stitches. They say aid from the government often comes too late and just isn't enough. So just as I've been listening to you talking and listening this incredible story with this family

and them telling you even hearing about suicide, you know, the rising number of bankruptcies, people in utter desperation due to economic factors, Simone, can we talk about the politics of this? I just was trying to make a list of the pressures on Americans today due to tariffs, inflation, the cost of groceries, gas prices across the country, health care, the cost of health care, not just the cost of health care, but the cost to get to health care, access to health care, access to life-saving procedures that are no longer allowed in many states, but actual access to health care by getting to the hospital.

There are areas where you can't get to a hospital without driving for hours because they have shut down rural hospitals in many cases. Costs of fertilizer, as you brought up, the rising numbers of bankruptcies, the rising use of credit cards. People, the White House touting, that's great news, that people have to use their credit card and perhaps pay, you know, more and more interest on them because they can't afford their daily needs. And then there's housing affordability. Affordability across the board is squeezing Americans. And it seems to me that

blaming Joe Biden is kind of getting old at this point, given that he was trying to ignite green shoots in the economy. What do the Democrats do to message this? Because again, I think they struggle with the incoming at times and get bogged down in it. And yet there is a through line here. Yeah, look, I think Democrats have to give a vision for what they're going to do when and if they get power back. And that's what's going to be important. Family farmers like the Nelson family. They are small business owners. This is how they have pulled their best, the generational wealth in their family. Exactly. And that is the story of so many families across the country.

I just keep thinking about COVID and how that crisis, we are still feeling the effects of it and everything from hospitality to small businesses. This is another crisis that I, I don't. don't know if Americans are going to be able to pull themselves out. There might need to be another American rescue style package. But Democrats, they understand the affordability issue, right? I don't think anybody's, I think everybody understands, even the president, even though he doesn't want to talk about it, that affordability housing, things cost too much. What are you going to do about it when you get power? Americans, I think, evidenced by what we're seeing in the streets with the protests and whatnot, these no Kings days, they know they're not, Donald Trump's not

popular. And I think about that man, I'm talking about Louisiana, Mr. Marshon. I don't know if y'all saw that viral video from a gentleman who was testifying in the redistricting. And he laid out everything from redistricting to what Donald Trump and the Republicans are doing internationally and health care. It was like the American people are absolutely paying attention. It's not going to be enough to just talk about why the Republicans are failing. You have to also talk about what Democrats are going to do. And if you look at the local campaigns, these races, these very competitive races that are being ran. That's really what they're trying to focus on. And yeah, I'm talking about political messaging, Donnie. You have everything that Simone just laid out

in terms of costs. And on the other side of it, you have a president obsessed with using taxpayer money to build a billion dollar ballroom to build an arch to himself, do a $30 million paint job that we didn't need on the reflecting pool on and on. Yeah, Joe coined the three Cs, which I really like and stuck with me, which is corruption costs and chaos. And I still think the headline is the cost, though. I mean, when you saw, you put up numbers from CNN last week, whereas do you blame Biden or do you blame Trump for the cost? And you went through every item. And there was a 25 to 30 point differential. So that, what the Democrats have to be careful of that head doesn't spin in too many different directions. You draw that straight line to, as you said,

Trump's building a ballroom. He's building a golden arch. He's building an arc. And golden arch, he's building. Maybe building whatever he's, whatever he's building. And you're getting screwed at the gas pump. You're getting screwed at the grocery store. You're getting screwed everywhere. And whether it's farmers or anybody else, the former story is no different than any other hardworking American. So just really focus. Don't get caught up in too many different focus on course. It's the cost stupid. All right. Louisiana state senators

have advanced a new congressional map that would eliminate one of the state's two majority black districts. Democrats condemn the proposal as racial gerrymandering and a major rollback of black political representation in a state where black residents make up roughly one-third of the population. The plan would dismantle Louisiana's sixth district, currently represented by Democratic Congressman Cleo Fields, and redraw it into a Republican-leaning seat. The proposal now

heads to the Louisiana House where Republicans hold a supermajority. This isn't the only place, Simone, where we've seen this happening. Do you think voters are tuned into this issue? Yes. In Louisiana right now, there's actually a recall effort to recall Governor Landry over this very specific thing, calling this special session to redraw these maps. What exactly are they doing? You need 500,000 signatures across the state. And in the local reporting and the folks that I talked to just yesterday said that the lines were literally out the door at these petition sites to sign the petition.

Now, will they get the 500,000 signatures? I've talked to some voting rights advocates that believe they will. Will the recall effort be successful? not, probably not, but it is a good organizing tool. And the reality is that this is an attack, not just on black elected officials. This is an attack on black voters, black people, black political power across this country. In Tennessee that we've talked about, the district that they carved up. The district was represented by Steve Cohen. Steve Cohen is not a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. He is a white man. He just happened to be a Democrat. But what they did to the district

is dilute the voting power of black voters. I know people like to talk about. My Republican friends is not about race, but I just, I can't help but I would see that when given the opportunity, these states from Florida to Alabama to Georgia, they're looking at it now, to Tennessee to Louisiana, they went directly to carve up the districts of black voters. This is about, this is an attack on black political power, and that's why folks are organizing this weekend. There's a big march that's being planned, but protest is fine. What are you going to do about it? And those conversations are currently happening. Donny Deutsch about this backfiring? What do you think?

I think it does not help. It certainly doesn't help. I think the Republicans are playing, doing every dirty pool they can possibly do. I don't think it, and I still think there's going to be this tremendous blue wave, despite what they start to do, what they're trying to do with these, with these black areas. I think that it's, they're groping its draws. I see, I think to the earlier discussion we had about costs, I think the Democrats were really set up in a big way. I don't know if this came up in your conference. conversations when you were in Louisiana, but not me, my question, I don't know the Nelson's politics, but when you talk to farmers, probably many of whom across the country, many of whom

experienced bankruptcies, support President Trump, does it change the way they look at him? Does it change the way they look at politics when the policies are destroying their businesses and in many ways their lives? So, you know, we've spoken to farmers beyond the Nelson family. When farmer was based in Georgia and they were Trump supporters and they said that what they're facing may impact their vote. The Nelson family, what was interesting is they were hesitant to levy the criticism just at one party. They said the struggles we've been facing have taken place during the Trump, Biden, and now Trump administration. So really, the criticism is leveled at both. But they do acknowledge right now that it's hard to support Donald Trump where they feel that his actions has a direct result to the

plight they're in high prices, high fertilizer prices, high diesel prices. So for them, they try not to see this through a partisan lens, but it's kind of hard not to. Can I just make one point, Mika, you know, there's a lot of conversation about the fact that these are southern states, they're conservative-leaning states. As a black woman who grew up as a Democrat in Nebraska, my congressional district, District 2, delivered electoral college votes for Obama, Biden, Clinton, as well as Kamala Harris. So I understand when voters have the ability to go to the ballot and pick the representatives of their choice, when they can make their voices heard, things can change.

And so what is happening in these southern states is not by happenstance. I personally believe they're trying to steal the election. This is just one of the many of the ways they are trying to do it. And people do have to be vigilant. But I'll be honest, maybe I'm a little pessimistic. There's very little once these maps are passed that folks will be able to do prior to November because of what the Supreme Court has done as it relates to the Voting Rights Act. But that doesn't mean people are going to stop fighting.

They are actively working on it. But who, I'm stressed. Yeah. Simone Sanders-Townson, thank you. very much for coming on. We'll be watching the weeknight at 7 p.m. Eastern right here on MS Now. And MS Now reporter Namdi Iguanwu, thank you so much. It's great to have you on the set. Come back. We love your reporting. We appreciate it.