Morning Joe - SCOTUS allows Trump's mail-in voting order, Sen. Ted Cruz in 2028 and JD Vance

Episode Date: August 25, 2026

August 25, 2026 – 6am: SCOTUS allows Trump’s mail-in voting executive order to move forward European leaders attend Ukraine Independence Day events El-Sayed and Fox host clash over culture wars and prices Canada to announce retaliatory tariffs against United States Bessent threatens new sanctions against Iran ‘On the Road with Jonathan Martin: Democratic nominee for Iowa Governor Rob Sand MS NOW’s Ali Vitali talks about her interview with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)  Cruz says GOP has not settled on VP JD Vance for 2028 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.

It is now a time for world leaders to make a decision between prosperity and isolation, peace and terror, America and Iran. The campaign we begin today will gather force with every day that follows, and it will not end until this regime stands alone. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent yesterday, as the Trump administration is now focused on economically isolating Iran from the rest of the world will explain why this pressure campaign could depend largely on China. Also ahead will bring you expert legal analysis on the Supreme Court's ruling that opens a

possible path for President Trump's executive order on voting by mail. Plus, we'll show you some of the top moments from Abdul Al-Sayed's appearance on Fox News last night. The Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan spard several times with host Jesse Waters, and it was quite a conversation. Good morning, and welcome to Morning, Joe. It's Tuesday, August 25th. With us, we have the co-host of our 8-A.M. Hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, and Politics, Beard Chief and Senior Political Communist at Politico, Jonathan Martin. And we begin this morning, Willie, with the Supreme Court's ruling, allowing the President Trump's executive order on mail. It's actually the way he

votes, right? Mail-in, right? Yeah, he just did it a week or so ago, as a matter of fact. And the clock is ticking on this because mail-in ballots are going out next week in North Carolina. They've got to figure this out soon. The president's order signed in March calls for his administration to create a list of eligible voters and directs the United States Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to people on those lists created by the Trump administration. The Supreme Court's conservative majority did not decide in the legality of that executive order. It instead ruled that 23 states who have sued did not have the legal right to challenge the order because the states could not demonstrate there was sufficient harm by voting rules that had not yet taken effect.

Join us now, MS Now Justice and Intelligence Reporter Candelanian and MS now senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Good morning to you both. So Lisa, let's help our viewers understand this a little bit better that the Supreme Court was not commenting on the legality of this, as I said, just on standing for the states that are suing. But as I also said, the clock really is ticking on this because ballots are about to go out. So if you can explain the ruling a little bit, but then also how quickly it might come back to the Supreme Court. It absolutely might come back very quickly to the Supreme Court and not necessarily in this

case. Let me explain a little bit about what this ruling does because there's a lot of confusion about it. Technically, what the court is doing is staying what a lower court enjoined. Basically, a lower court prohibited the implementation of certain sections of the president's election integrity-focused executive order. But he can't technically move forward with the parts of it that govern mail-in ballots yet because another lower court has an injunction that's still in place that prohibits the United States Postal Service from giving effect to its rules about mail-in-balloting. That having been said, here are the couple of things that the president can do right now. He can authorize the Department of Homeland Security to start compiling lists of citizens. in each state sent out to those states.

And he can also tell the DOJ that they have to prioritize the prosecution of people who give ballots to those who are unauthorized to vote. The majority here says those two things are not connected and that they don't force states to do anything. But the three dissenting justices say you have to see these two things as of a piece. If you give states a list of citizens who are allowed to vote and you also tell DOJ go after the people who give ballots to people who are unobiles, authorized to vote, what you're essentially doing is saying you had the list all along. And if you give a ballot to someone who's not authorized to vote, the fact that you're giving them a list of citizens is something that DOJ may use in the future to say, you intentionally did this, you recklessly did this. In other words, as Justice Sotomayor says, you're basically

giving people tools that you're going to use against them in future prosecutions. That could very much chill state and local election officials in their provision of ballots obviously giving state citizenship lists to people who are supportive of the president's agenda is also potentially a problem. Think about red states with deep blue cities that maybe have large immigrant populations. That's where you could see the list, I'm sorry, the use of these citizenship lists being potentially really pernicious in the lead up to the November election. So Ken Delaney, there are so many layers to the story. First of all, we should remind everyone how vanishingly rare fraud in mail-in voting is, perhaps why, as Mika said, the president

uses this in the 2024 election. About 30% of ballots were sent in via mail of those found the Brookings Institute. There were four documented cases in 10 million ballots of fraud. So let's start there. Then there's the idea of this list, a political list, perhaps, started by the Trump administration. There is the stacking of the board of governors at the post office, making the post office a political arm of this administration.

So how are you looking? at this through the prism of the courts, but also of the government using the post office in this way. Right. Well, that is extraordinary, Willie, because as you know, the Constitution says that the states dictate the time and manner of elections

and it allows the Congress to make rules governing national elections, but nowhere does it mention the president's role in elections. And yet the Trump administration is coming in here and saying, we control the Postal Service, we're the executive branch, so we can tell the Postal Service to decline to

treat and deal with and convey certain mail-in ballots. That's extraordinary. The other extraordinary thing about this decision is that it's once again an example of where the conservative majority has said, oh, no, no, no, we're not ruling on the merits, but you haven't shown that you've been injured yet. You states have not shown that you have actually experienced an injury, and so we can't rule yet. And the dissenters, the liberals, are saying, you've got to be kidding me. The midterms are around the corner. Are you saying that we have to wait until the Trump administration improperly interferes in an election that's supposed to be governed by the states before you will act. And yet that's what the Supreme Court has done here. And it's not the first time

they've done this in other cases involving the Trump administration. As Lisa said, it's not the end of the story. We're going to see more litigation on this. And the Supreme Court may well ultimately decide that what's happening here is improper. But what they've done is they've left a sense of unease here, along with all the other ways that we are concerned that the Trump administration is going to try to interfere in the elections with this midterm. Here is the latest example, Willie. And yet another moment where the Supreme Court, of course, seems highly deferential to President Trump and the executive branch, the conservative majority at times acting like it's part of the team. And J-Mart, let's talk about the politics of this. You know, the polls

suggest this November we could be heading for a Democratic wave. A strategist in both parties think the House is heavily favored to go Democrat. Senate, true toss up now, something that would have been unthinkable a year ago, considering the map looked pretty favorable for Republicans. But now Democrats think they've got a chance, but there's been this fear hovering over this election for IBM, for a year or more, that the Trump administration was going to find a way to put its thumb on the scale, whether that was the ICE agents in the streets, the National Guard, trying to crack down on voter rolls. You know, of course, we'll see if they even accept the results, if they don't like them come November.

But here it appears at least temporarily they're getting yet another assist from the courts. Yeah, let's just get straight to the point. The coverage and the attention to this ruling would be vanishingly small, at least in terms of the national media, or not for precedent to borrow a legal term. We all live through the 2020 election in the aftermath.

John, like that's the reason for the concern. We know what Trump is capable of, And we know the degree to which we as a country relied on the courts in the aftermath of 2020 to effectively cast aside Trump's challenges one after the other and affirm Joe Biden's election and swearing in as president. So once again, we're at the mercy of the courts. That's why this matters so much because, yes, I think there is this assumption for a good reason, given his past action, that Trump is not going to sit by and lose control.

of one or both chambers of Congress without a protracted fight that invariably will get into the courts. And here we will be again, much as we were six years ago, hoping and waiting for the court to do the right thing. So, Lisa, let's talk about next steps at the Supreme Court. As you said, that may be back there very quickly. What happens from here after yesterday's ruling? Well, first of all, Willie, there's the stay that the Supreme Court entered yesterday on that case will be in effect until a federal appeals court can rule and until this case comes back to the Supreme Court. So it's not necessarily in this case

that will be back before the Supreme Court. But there is another injunction in place. That's in a case brought by the League of Women Voters. And that still prohibits the president from implementing the part about the United States Postal Service in mail-in balloting. That's the part where the USPS basically says to states, you send us your lists of people who are eligible to vote by mail

and we're only going to send in the ballots of people who are on your list. There's an injunction against that rule-taking effect. However, late last night, Department of Justice went to the court and said, we're asking you to reconsider your ruling in light of the Supreme Court ruling. And if you don't, we're going to ask a federal appeals court to do the exact same thing. Stay your ruling. If that happens, you can bet that the losing party will be back before the Supreme Court faster than we can say go.

So, Ken, let's talk about why the Trump administration. is doing this politically because they see what perhaps is coming down the pike, at least in the House of Representatives come midterm elections a couple of months from now. But why are they going to such lengths to use the machinery of government to make it harder to vote by mail? Yeah, and it's not just the Trump administration. It's Republican attorneys general. Look, I mean, we've seen this for years, right? Republicans don't like mail-in voting. They believe that it favors the Democrats. Donald Trump made mail-in voting a central public. clank of his bogus arguments that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Remember, he said he went to bed

and he was ahead and then he woke up and he was losing. And so because of mail and voting, he claimed. And so, you know, but that argument's been with us for years. What's new here is the Trump administration using the levers of government to try to stop Americans from exercising their right to vote in a way that their own states and the people they elected to govern elections have dictated is okay. And they're using every possible avenue, not just this one. And again, as I said earlier, that's part of a panoply of levers they're trying to pull to potentially try to influence this upcoming election, including, you know, I'm covering the Justice Department. I hear people concerned every day about what the FBI, what the DOJ could do in a contested state if they

decide to pursue bogus allegations of fraud by, for example, serving. a search warrant and seizing voting machines or somehow interfering, sending armed agents to polls, even though the law prohibits that. So there is a lot of concern right now about what this says, about what the Trump administration is willing to do in this upcoming election, guys. And they've already shown it in the state of Georgia going in and seizing all those ballots a few months back. MS Now Justice and Intelligence Reporter Candelanian and MS now senior legal reporter Lisa Rubin. Thanks so much, guys. We appreciate it. Mika. Well, Ukraine celebrated its Independence Day yesterday, marking 35 years since the country broke from the Soviet Union.

The annual holiday has held a deeper meaning since the start of Russia's invasion four years ago. Ukraine has remained defiant, and the country's drone warfare has proven surprisingly effective in countering Russia's attacks. Several European leaders made the trip to Kiev to attend celebrating. The UK's new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, made Keeve his first trip to a foreign country since taking office. He sat with Ukrainian President Zelensky to discuss additional assistance in the war effort. Nearly a dozen other European leaders showed their solidarity by attending the day's events as well. Zelensky addressed the ongoing war with Russia, saying Ukraine absolutely wants peace. But it is not going to simply surrender. I know we have a lot to get to, but Jonathan Lemire, let's just talk about this Independence Day celebration. They had a drone parade. A lot of it was actually shown to make sure that others see it, like Russia, because Ukraine continues to defy expectations. And it's getting to the point where their domestically developed defense industry is so impressive that they may share it with their European

counterparts, they really are the surprise here and the incredible force for peace. Meanwhile, we're all distracted by Iran and tariff and all the other things going on. Ukraine keeps plugging on and defying all expectations. Yeah, an appropriate imagery yesterday because Ukraine is such a survivor, a remarkable story here, how they fought off the much larger opponent. And they've done so with the help of the rest of Europe. And that's why it's so fitting that the European leaders were there yesterday, even as the U.S., frankly, has largely withdrawn from that conflict. Europe has stood shoulder to shoulder with Kiev.

I mean, the fighting on the ground has been frozen for a long time. Very little territory changing hands there. This has changed into a very new conflict. Russia is still able to fire missiles from distance into Ukraine, still hitting Ukrainian cities, inflicting civilian casualties. and Ukraine running low on defensive measures. But their drone warfare, as you say, Mika, the advances in the technology they made are extraordinary. They've offered to share that with the rest of the world,

with Europe, with the Middle East, with the United States. But Russia has an effective drone development as well. We've seen horrible footage in recent days of these Russian drones heading into Ukraine, killing innocent civilians, one, a man on a bike, and this drone simply kills. You know, a reminder of the human toll of this conflict. And we'll see if the U.S., Mika, does re-reanour. engage here. President Trump, when he met with Zelensky, said the right things, but has yet

to follow through with missiles, with funding, with patriots, or even a lot with pushing Elon Musk to allow Zelensky and Ukraine access to Starlink in Russia, which would improve their targeting. For now, the U.S. remains on the sidelines. All right, back here at home, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate in Michigan, Dr. Abdul-Elsaid appeared on Fox News for an interview with. with host Jesse Waters last night. The discussion, at times both confrontational and a little strange, covered a range of social matters brought up by Waters. But El Saeed continued to try and bring it back to the issues that helped him win his primary. Here is some of the conversation.

I know I don't agree with you on this. You want to abolish ICE. Who's going to deport the criminal aliens from the country? Well, you and I both know that we've long before, we haven't. had ICE, we had INS. We were able to enforce our immigration policies without shooting people in the face in the back of the head. And we just celebrated our 250th anniversary. That was an anniversary of throwing away tyranny. Now, to bring that tyranny back under the guise of the U.S. government itself, that seems to me to be inconsistent with the freedom you and I both love. Yeah, but I mean, that's a dodge, Abdul. They did the same thing as ICE back then, INS. Do you know how many illegal aliens are in the country now? In the face in the back of the head? Do you know

How many illegal aliens are in the country now? We had, no, I mean, to your point, Jesse, Jesse, let me to answer the question. To answer it, how many do we have? Fewer when we had INS. To your, to your answer, we had far fewer when we had INS. So arguably, INS worked a lot better. Abdul, listen, we had twice as many illegals now when we had INS. So to your argument, you have to have the manpower to do it.

If you want to do that correlation, we have ICE now and we have far, far more undocumented people. So ICE is clearly not working. You know what the issue is in America? In Michigan, what? The issue that people are worried about is not that somehow somebody's gonna come and push a real law on them.

The issue in Michigan is people are worried about how they're gonna afford their gas. The issue in Michigan is, how am I gonna see a doctor when I get sick? How am I gonna keep my job? You're out here, honestly, you guys love to play this cultural game, where you use these words that sound really foreign

to avoid actually having to talk about the issues that everyday people like to talk about. You have not asked me one time about the issues that people actually care about in Michigan. You don't wanna talk about gas prices. You don't wanna talk about grocery. You don't want to talk about health care. You don't want to talk about the stupid trade war

that's about the destroy. We spent the whole interview talking about that stuff. That's destroying, that is destroying our own military. You don't seem to want to talk about any of those things. You want to bring up all this culture war that, you know, I'm not here to fight a culture war. We talked about the war. We talked about gas prices in the Green New Deal, okay? If you want to do an interview, I brought them up every time.

You can do the interview, okay? You're doing the greatest hits. Jesse, like, I mean, this is, like, you could play this game if you want, but like, you can keep doing the greatest hits if you want. You can keep doing the greatest sits if you want. You told me we're going to come up for a conversation. And when we have conversations, I think it's okay to also ask questions. I just want to understand what you're getting at here.

I'm getting at whether you think men should play in the next U.S. senator in Michigan, I'm interested in getting money out of politics, putting money in your pocket and passing Medicare for all. You're feeling most people don't care about what sports kids play. Okay. Actually, celebrate Fox News and Jesse Waters giving extended time to an interview like this. It did get weirded at times where the, like, the issue of circumcision came up. but there was a point behind it. And I'm wondering, J. Mart, how you think El-Sayed did?

I thought he was effective at times. I thought a lot of it was talking to over each other, so you couldn't really totally bake out what the other was saying. Kind of to be expected when you have two strong personalities like that. I guess the bigger question I have is, what's that necessarily getting, Al-Sayyid? I think he wants to spar because he thinks he's got the goods, and he obviously is pretty talented.

But is that helping Michigan Democrats and helping the Democratic Party get a step closer to taking back the Senate majority going on Fox prime time? You know, I'm not sure it is. I think the great question between now and the election is, can he make this race about Donald Trump and Donald Trump's stewardship of the country

or is this race going to be about him? Because if it's about Trump, he's got a lot better chance to win. If it's about him, not nearly as good, especially at this moment, guys, when Canada is now a full-fledged trade war with the U.S., there's very few states where that could more adversely impact American politics and specifically the Republican Party than Michigan. Why let that be the issue instead of yourself and your own desire to get into a spat with Jesse Waters, I'm not sure. And Abdul Osayette, John may see some disaffected

Trump voters who maybe watch Fox News, any one of those he can capture, he'll try. Good on him for going on. Good on Jesse Waters for having him on. But they did focus a lot on cultural stuff. Sharia law. Should boys be playing girls' sports? All of that stuff. But J-Mart brings up the current here and now salient issue in Michigan

and not just in Michigan, but states along the border of Canada, which is a trade war with Canada, launched by President Trump. Scott Besson talked about it again yesterday, which is going to drive up prices in those states and across the country. Yeah, not helpful to my country. Rogers' Senate campaign, to be sure. The trade war with Canada, as J-Mart just said, it's going to really

have an impact on some of the states that, frankly, border our neighbor to the north. And there are some significant races there. Yes, Michigan first and foremost, but there's going to be Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine, not helpful for Susan Collins either. These are going to be issued. This is something that the Democrats in those states can use. And El-Saheed did hit that a few times yesterday. I suspect we will hear a lot of it in the weeks ahead. And Mika, I think the other part, why perhaps he went on last night to Fox News. news is that we have seen poll after poll after poll that even as we've had this primary season where Democrats are sort of juggling between progressives or moderates and art, and we're seeing

a split result. The one thing that the party seems to really want is someone who's going to fight, go after President Trump, go after Republicans, and in this case, they're proxy, Fox News. So I think that's why El-Said yesterday made the decision to go on there and it was willing to trade some blows there with Jesse Waters. And he did. And there was a lot of talking over and yelling and some interesting misinformation there or facts that were jumbled. But I still think it's great that Fox had him on.

And I think it's great he went on and he did take the opportunity to talk many times about why, you know, people who are billionaires perhaps could afford being taxed a little bit. He had the time to explain why that mattered and how their money actually makes money. He also spent a lot of time saying, listen, you haven't asked me once about President Trump. And A, B, and C, done by President Trump. And there were some great sparring there that I thought was healthy and needed more for Democrats to step up, go on Fox News, for Fox News to have Democrats on. And by the way, for different points of view to show up on all of the networks that people watch. So I thought this was really actually constructive.

It was a little hard to watch at times. But at the same time, I commend him for going on. And I commend Jesse Waters for having him on. And I hope there's more of it. Still ahead on Morning Joe, we get to President Trump's escalating trade war with Canada. As Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares to announce retaliatory tariffs against the United States today. Plus, Jonathan Martin's new interview with a Democrat looking to break the Republican Party's grip on the state of Iowa. And as we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from

Acuweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika Formos, it's a beautiful, or let's call it a terrific Tuesday. New York City, although there could be a spotty shower. Acuether says sunshine in Washington, D.C. Philadelphia, spotty shower or afternoon thunderstorm. New York State in the New England. Sunshine in Chicago, spotty thunderstorm in Green Bay. Then it's just hot in Texas. Hot and dry in Atlanta. But watch for some thunderstorms. from New Orleans toward Miami. Your acuether travel forecast, not many problems today. Look for an afternoon thunderstorm, though, in Miami.

To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the ACU weather up today. Just about half past the hour, Treasury Secretary, Scott Besant yesterday threatened a new series of sanctions aimed at crippling Iran's economy, but he provided a few concrete details on that. Bezzen also said President Trump is contacting world leaders to cease their interactions with the regime, although he did not identify the leaders or give any deadlines.

He was also pressed on China's role in propping up the Iranian regime. Chinese banks have often been talked about being targeted, but we don't see any of those institutions targeted here. Is that something that is coming in this campaign, or is the very delicate, trade truce with China, something that could prohibit you from going that far and taking that very big step. We want to make clear to hear today that no one is above the reach of U.S. sanctions, that if they facilitate transactions and are part of the ecosystem that turns Iranian oil into money, into repression, they will be targeted.

We find that the best way to engage with countries is through quiet diplomacy, and we are level-setting with every country to tell them our expectations. You described this as an economic D-Day, but D-Day wasn't a threat of an invasion, and the U.S. didn't give a timeline to Germany. So why not impose the sanctions today? Well, we are giving everyone the opportunity to remedy. bad behavior. Why would I want to blow up the global financial system? We believe that it is important to level set and give people a cure period, but they should know that that will move very

quickly and that we are serious. We believe that a warning shot and a level set of expectations is appropriate. And if people do not want to meet our expectations, then we expect, and they should expect that they should will leave the dollar system. Okay, Iranian officials are dismissing the new threats with the country's parliament speakers saying the United States is not in an economic position to restrict its relations with other countries. Joining us now to talk about that, senior writer at the dispatch, columnist at Bloomberg opinion, David Drucker.

So, David, Scott Bessett sounded really, really tough there. very much believing that the U.S. is in power of determining how this goes, but to use Trump's own equation, especially as he was talking to Zelensky once, we don't have the cards. Do we have the cards? Do we have the cards? Or does China have the cards? Yeah, well, that's a very good question, Mika, and I think we're going to find out. I think there are a million ways I could pick this apart. Let me just first, you know, I mean, level set us as the secretary says. said and make clear that ratcheting up pressure on the Iranian regime to reduce the terrorism that it proliferates all over the globe, particularly in the Middle East, is a very good idea and one that the United States should be engaged in at all times. I think the question

is, would a strategy like this that targeted the Iran's economy been a good idea before we started shooting versus after, right? Because you can then gradually ratchet up pressure. Secondly, Mika, this would be, I think, a much easier strategy to accomplish if we set aside for a minute that Tehran doesn't care about economic pressure because they don't care about having a thriving economy. Because if they did, they wouldn't have been in this position for the last 40-plus years. But let's set that aside. If you weren't antagonizing Europe and weren't antagonizing our allies in Asia, it's much easier when you pick up the phone for so-called quiet diplomacy that this president never engages in to get people to hop on board and help

you out, whether it's fair or not, it's just a fact of life. But we have antagonized Europe, we've antagonized South Korea, we've antagonized our allies in Asia. And so getting them to set aside China's concerns and China's power and China's coercion to do something with us is going to be a very tough sell. Now, I could be wrong about all of this, and this could go swimmingly. But I just think it has to be said that we've done this completely backwards, and it's like we're doing these weird somersaults. And now, you know, and Besson, look, Besson is probably one of the smartest cabinet members and best choices that the president made in crafting the 2.0 cabinet. But to threaten expulsion from the dollar system at a time when people are

questioning American leadership and influence around the globe seems to me to be an interesting approach, to say the least. Yeah, I mean, John, it's a good point by David, which is that President Trump thought militarily he was going to bring Iran to heel within a couple of weeks. That hasn't quite happened. They've closed the straight. They've pulled other levers. So now here we are at what they're calling the end game. Secretary Benson called it yesterday. President's called it Economic D-Day. Secretary Besson talking about economic asphyxiation of Iran. But to do that, the countries that support Iran right now, China, Russia, North Korea as well,

the President Trump's been flattering lately with President Xi coming to the United States one month from right now for a state visit in Washington. Is President Trump, is this administration really going to twist the arm of Xi to completely distance itself from Iran at this point? I mean, if passed his prolog, answer is no. I mean, I think we have to be really skeptical of this and the fact that it wasn't part of the initial wave is telling. Yes, I mean, we've been chronicling this for a few days now, that China, Russia, these are not places Trump has ever really been tough with. And now suddenly he's sending Valentine's to Kim Jong-un again. It wants to have a summit with him this fall. So this is not, those are not things, if you're

going to do those things, you're probably not going to slam them economically. So therefore, where does this leave us? I mean, yes, the president is probably right. in that the military campaign isn't working. But let's also be clear. We're not resuming the hostilities also because we've run out of weapons. And we don't have the defensive munitions to be able to shoot down Iranian rockets heading towards American bases in the Middle East or our allies in the region. So there's that.

Yeah, diplomacy hasn't worked either. Not only of the Iranians not to be trusted, to be sure, but frankly, they've got the better of us to this point. The MOU was a gift to Tehran. And Tehran sees it as almost codifying their control of the Strait of Homer's, which is really what this is all about at this point. So yes, an economic punishment is probably the play. But the thoughts on that would be, you know, that first of all, that actually has to have teeth.

And secondly, we don't know if it'll work or how long it will take to work. Because the hardliners in Tehran don't seem to really care how their citizens suffer. And there's been reporting the last 24 hours so that some of the more political figures there are pushing the Revolutionary Guard, hey, that like it's time to maybe come to the table, start talking. but we'll see how much influence they really have. They seem settled in. This could take a very long time if it works at all.

Yeah, they're clearly emboldened by all of this. We'll see if this brings them to the table or if any of the countries that are influential on Iran want to participate in this economic asphyxiation, as Secretary Besson called it yesterday. J. Mart, let's look at your new episode of the On the Road YouTube show and podcasts. We love this.

You sit down with all kinds of leaders and candidates, including now the Democratic nominee for governor of Iowa, a fascinating candidate, Rob Sand. You asked him about his views of the Democratic Party today. Let's watch. You made an important point, Rob, which is that Democrats tend to do better when they don't run the insiders, right? They tend to avoid the folks for outsiders. But that's also, you're asking a guy who was a registered independent first.

Yes. I don't tend to like the party politics stuff. And I tend to want to be supportive of someone. I think that we have a fundamentally broken two-choice political system. I don't think that either the Democratic or the Republican parties is solving enough problems deserve special legal privileges in order to force us to pick between the lesser two evils. And I want somebody, my inclination is, I want it to be shaken up. So, J. Marr, for people just tuning into this race, it is a fascinating one.

That governor's race is kind of a toss-up, depending on the poll you look at right now. Tell us more about Rob Sand, who he is, what he believes. Well, he's the last statewide Democrat left, Willie, in Iowa. Well, this is a state that Obama carried twice, historically, has been a battleground state, but obviously has gone for Trump three times and tilted quite a bit to the Republican Party. And so he's really Democrats, you can say, last best hope, but he happens to be running in a really good national environment. Still, the party has not won the governorship there in 20 years. So Rob Sand, who's 44 years old.

He's the state auditor, is giving them an opportunity. And you can hear Willie in his words there that he's very deft at playing what I call the politics. of defense. He knows he's trying to win an away game. And he's got to do this pox on both houses. I don't love my own party either, but you got to pick one, which obviously is what you have to do to win over Trump voters in a place like Iowa. I asked him a couple of things. I asked him, would you want a campaign with Joe Biden or Kamala Harris? He didn't mince words. He said, no, let's move on. I said, which governors, will he? Do you emulate? He gave me two Republican governors before I finally said, are there any Democratic governors out there you admire? And he obviously finally spit out one.

But he understands he's got to be careful to win over the kind of Iowa voters who have tilted to the right. And I do think this is the best possible year. If Democrats are ever going to win Iowa again, it's going to be with this national environment and with a farm economy that with tariffs, you know, obviously fuel fertilizer, this would be the year. So he's won to watch. And then just last Lastly, I said, do you want to be on a national ticket one day? And, of course, you brushed that off. You talk to a lot of Democrats, though, and they'll tell you, you can win Iowa. Maybe you have a shot.

We'll say. One race at a time, and you're right, farmers are getting crushed foreclosures, hitting record highs in Iowa and other states. That's going to play here. It'll be so interesting to watch. Jaymart, thanks so much. You can watch more episodes of On the Road with Jonathan Martin right now on YouTube. Still ahead on Morning Joe.

It's interesting that you focus on the Supreme Court in this book. Is that what you envision next for yourself? No, it's, I have zero interest in being on the Supreme Court. Ali Vitale, our good friend, joins us on the heels of her interview with Republican Senator Ted Cruz. A lot to talk about there when Morning Joe comes right back. Welcome back for more than three decades. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been one of the most consequential and constitutional. figures on the high court. And in a new book, Republican Senator Ted Cruz is drawing on his own

Supreme Court clerkship, his longtime friendship, and hours of interviews to offer a personal portrait of Thomas and the experiences that shaped his views of the Constitution. In going further, the incomparable Clarence Thomas Cruz traces Thomas' Thomas' journey from poverty in Georgia, to the nation's highest court and makes the case for his impact on American law. Joining us now, MS Now Senior Capitol Hill Reporter and host of way too early, Ali Vitale. He joined you, Allie, to talk about his book, but that's not all you discussed. Tell us about it. Definitely not all we discussed, Mika, though we did talk about some of the impactful decisions

that Thomas has made on the Supreme Court, things like the Dobbs decision, and now the ways that this current DOJ in some ways is trying to make it permanent to carry the words of the Attorney General Todd Blanche. That's something that Cruz interestingly told me was outside of the purview of DOJ. You can read that part of our interview on MS. Now. It's the full is also on YouTube. But I thought it was fascinating to talk to Cruz, not just about where his focus is in this book, but where his focus might be in the future. Of course, thinking about not just these midterms where he has made endorsements in races where sometimes his endorsed candidate beat Trump's endorsed candidate. But then also, what

it means for someone who is set to travel to Iowa, for example, in the coming days. And if he thinks that this 2028 Republican field is settled behind J.D. Vance, for example, listen to that exchange that I had with Senator Ted Cruz. Look, I think going forward, we're in the midst of a debate about who our party is and what we believe. And I think economically, we've got a debate. Are we a small government, free market conservative party? Are we a big government nanny state party? Is this a party that has coalesced already behind J.D. Vance? Oh, no. There's going to be a full discussion about who we are and what we believe. Are you going to be part of that? There'll be time to figure that out. I'll certainly be part of the

discussion because I care deeply about economically. I think we should be a conservative party and on foreign policy. We've got a debate. Are we an isolationist party that withdraws from the world? or do we believe in American leadership? And I care deeply about both of those issues and who the party is. So he is drawing the fault lines right there, Willie. I mean, he's saying that'll be a discussion for another time, but how quickly he said to me that the party, oh, no, not settled behind J.D. Vance. This is someone who, of course, ran for president in 2016,

has had one heck of an arc when it comes to President Donald Trump. He went from the last bulwark, as Lemire and I were talking about on way too early, against Trump ascending to the GOP nomination in 2016, only to now in this latest interview talking about Trump as talking about being one of Trump's closest allies in the Senate and saying that he talks to the president all the time. It was interesting at one point he said, he does good things and he does bad things.

I like it better when he does the good. I mean, the distinctions are starting to be there as the party turns the page post-Trump. And I'm interested in the role that someone like Cruz could play in that. And fascinating that answer. If you listen closely, there was implicit critique of the Trump administration, which is this isolationism. We're turning our back on our allies.

We're attacking our allies and courting these dictators around the world, pulling away from Ukraine, for example. And then on the economic question, he asked, are we going to be a conservative economic party? Well, $40 trillion in debt, high inflation tariffs, none of those things fall over what any of us would have defined as a conservative ideology in terms of the economy. So it's interesting, too, in your interview just talking about his relationship. with Donald Trump says he talks to him once a week or maybe every day. He said, he listens to me, not always, but he listens to me. How does he view that relationship? There were a few fascinating things, even in relation to the court, right? I asked Cruz at one point, you're writing about a Supreme Court justice, do you want to be on the Supreme Court? And he said,

no. And in fact, this wasn't a hypothetical for him during Trump's first term. He said that Trump came to him at each of the three vacancies and asked him seriously, do you want to be on the court? And at each point, Cruz said no, because he wants to play a game of action. politics, and you can't do that from the bench. But on tariffs, too, he made the point that he is someone, there's two camps, he said in the Trump administration, people who view tariffs as leverage and people who view tariffs as permanent policy, he put himself in the first camp, saying that tariffs should be leverage, but urging people within the administration on Canada, for example, to take yes for a deal when that point comes. Yeah, there were a few moments where he tried to

create a little daylight. As we talked about last hour, he was about his slate of endorsements, and you asked him if they needed to be Maga, candidates. And his response was, eh? So, I mean, literally, that's what he did. And then we saw, again, here, where he created a little bit of space. So David Drucker, let's talk about this a little bit. It's two tracks here. First of all, we are

seeing small, again, let's emphasize. Small signs of the Republican Party starting to look beyond Donald Trump. You know, that in a couple of years he will, we think, come off stage. So there's that. But also, let's think about that conversation with the idea of, okay, well, who's going to be next? Sure. Vice President

Vance would be the favorite, but we know there's Marco Rubio talk, there's probably a couple Republican governors looking at it, and I think we'd have to include the man once known as Lion Ted, who has turned himself into a Trump acolyte. He might be thinking about it, too. Yeah, and I think it's going to be very interesting to see who wants to challenge Vice President Vance when he's very likely to have Trump's endorsement and the Trump machine behind him, not to mention his own machine, which he has been building for the past couple of years. That's going to be formidable. And I think a lot of Republicans are going to look at what happened in 2024.

Talk to a lot of Republican insiders about this, and they're going to determine that the juice isn't worth the squeeze, particularly if the environment looks like it's more favorable to a Democrat. But I do think Ted Cruz is interesting in this regard, at least initially, is that he is one of the first prominent Republicans we have seen openly challenge certain elements of the Republican coalition that has grown around President Trump, most known. notably in his very direct, specific criticism of Tucker Carlson and people of his ilk. Many Republicans will do this euphemistically, but they won't name Tucker by name.

Senator Cruz continues to do that. And he's just very open about the divisions within the party, right? And when Ted Cruz ran for president the first time in 2016, his view of the party at the time was the exact same place that the party was. and now it's a very open question, and it's a debate in many ways that he's initiating. It'll be interesting to see where it goes. Bloomberg's David Drucker. Thank you so much for coming on this morning.

And MS Now, Senior Capitol Hill reporter and host of way too early. Ali Vitale, thank you as well. And still ahead on Morning Joe, will bring you a live report from South Carolina where polls are about to open for a primary runoff election for the seat of the late senator, Lindsay, Graham. Morning Joe will be right back.