Morning Joe - Senate advances Sen. Lindsey Graham's Russia sanctions bill

Episode Date: July 29, 2026

July 29, 2026: 8am — Senate advances Sen. Lindsey Graham's Russia sanctions bill  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.

To the top news story of the morning, U.S. Central Command says American forces successfully intercepted a ballistic missile attack launched from Iran yesterday with the conflict widening early this morning, as Jordan's military says it also intercepted and destroyed five Iranian missiles. In a post on social media, CENTCOM says Iranian forces fired multiple ballistic missiles at U.S. bases in the Middle East and what it called. and attempted surprise attack. Sengom says all of the missiles were intercepted and that U.S. forces remain vigilant. Yesterday's launch came just before U.S. and Saudi fighter aircrafts carried out coordinated strikes on multiple Iranian-backed sites in eastern Iraq. Sencom says the operation was in response to more than 30.

IRGC directed drone attacks over the past 72 hours and warned that, Iran and its proxy forces must halt the attacks for or face further U.S. military action. A U.S. official says the Iranian missile barrage and the joint U.S. Saudi strikes were not directly connected, even though they happened within hours of each other. So anything but a ceasefire happening here. Right. And you know, Elizabeth, the idea that there, you know, we got that message from Central Command, the idea that there's a Central Command or a Central Command or a Central force coming out of Iran doesn't seem quite so likely when you hear about attacks like this

and the reason why the foreign minister quite clearly is on a different page to members of the hardened revolutionary guard who do not want to yield, who do not want to end this war, who are feeling a degree of power they've never felt before in Iran and they don't want to make peace with America. I mean, this is one of the many problems with this. for who is in charge here. It's unclear. And this attack happened after President Trump said that we're going to announce that he was not going to be attacking Iran.

And Iran just ignores him. Once again, the United States looks and looks like it is not in control here, not calling the shots. It is very reactionary. And again, it's a problem with whatever you can talk to, you know, the negotiators or not, or you can say that they're, you know, you're working with. with them in some way or hope to work with them. And then the IRGC does what it wants.

This is just, you know, five, six months into this war, there doesn't seem to be any kind of end in sight. I don't know how he gets, the president gets out of this. I don't think he knows himself. And I think it's certainly going to continue, certainly into the midterms, and just be a real albatross around the president's neck. It is a mess.

David French, no. argument here. It is a mess. And this is something as desperate. Desperately, as Trump wants it to go away, he simply can't. And this is a new one. Iran launching the strike first, it appears, you know, that they're making decision to escalate after

a few days of relative calm. Trump has resisted, for the most part, every chance he's had to escalate the strikes, including he had a meeting last Friday, where they put it on the table in front of them. Do you want to go back to, you know, more or less an all-out war? And he opted against. But he is in a bind, and at minimum, it seems like these low-level hostiles are going to be

off and on for weeks, maybe months to come. Yeah, we're in a really tough situation because Trump is now obviously desperately wanting to end the war that he started. But Iran, which was the recipient of the initial attacks, now doesn't, or at least factions within Iran don't want to end the war. They want to continue this conflict, which is a sure sign. from their perspective that they believe that either that they're winning or they'll continue to gain more advantage from continuing the hostilities. And that brings me to another point, which is, is Iran now seriously miscalculating? Are we now looking at Iran, which has been, by many reports, radicalized during the process of this war? And when I say radicalized,

that's by Iranian standards. It was already radicalized. So even more radicalized. In this circumstance, is it in a period or is it in a position of overreaching, perhaps overreaching dramatically? Because this was a large-scale attack, a relatively large-scale attack, after the war seemed to be petering out once again, with Iran still in control the Strait of Hormuz, a situation that they would want. But here, they initiated this round of hostilities. So this has been a concern of mine from the beginning.

We have lots of parties here putting their foot on the gas to continue this war, not as many people wanting to put their foot on the break, and Iran seems to want to continue to where we started. Coming up, we'll go live to Capitol Hill, where Dr. Anthony Fauci is set to testify before the Senate Homeland Security Committee this morning about the origins of COVID-19. You're watching morning, Joe. We'll be right back. Coming up, Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, will be back on Capitol Hill today for a meeting with a bipartisan group of senators. pushing to pass a sweeping new bill, imposing sanctions on Russia.

One of those lawmakers, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, joins us straight ahead on Morning Joe. We'll be right back. We have a lot more still to get to this hour, including measles cases, now at a 35-year high. We're going to hear from a health expert about the ongoing impact that the Trump administration is having on the spread of the virus. That's next here on Morning Joe.

Gorgeous shot there. Sun coming up over Lake Michigan, the Chicago skyline just before 7.30 in the morning in Illinois. 8.30 here in New York. Measles cases have hit a new record in the United States as the virus rapidly spreads across the country. The CDC says there are outbreaks in almost every state as vaccination rates continue to decline. MS now reporter Britt Miller brings us more. Measles is on the rise with cases hitting a 35-year high. The CDC reports 2,300 infections nationwide so far this year, more than all of last year. We'll be past 4,000, maybe being closer to 5,000 by the end of the year. More than 150 people have been hospitalized, mainly kids under 5 and kids over 20.

Now experts say the U.S. is at risk of losing its measles. Elimination status. We need 95 to 97% of the population vaccinated for her immunity. Once you drop below that level, it can spread much more easily across the population. Forty-three states and Washington, D.C. have confirmed cases. South Carolina and Utah have become hotspots for the highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease. Data shows most infected people, about 93% are unvaccinated or have unknown vaccination status. The problem is, can be attributed to two people, Trump and RFK Jr. They've been campaigning against this vaccine, saying it's linked to autism, even though

that's been widely disproven through numerous studies. HHS secretary, RFK Jr., is also the former head of a nonprofit known for its anti-vaccine advocacy and has publicly questioned the benefits of vaccines. But when lawmakers pressed the secretary during a hearing in April, things got heated as he seemingly changed his tone. Are you taking the position as your CDC director has taken that the measles vaccine is vital to keeping American children healthy in this country? Are you taking that position today? That has not been your position. That's my position. We promote the measles vaccine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

He's mainly been campaigning against vaccination. in general, against MMR in particular, and every time some crisis happens, you say, oh, no, no, no, I'm not saying people shouldn't get vaccinated. Though the MMR vaccine has proven to be 97% effective in preventing measles, doctors worry the seeds of doubt planted by the Trump administration have already taken root. It was totally avoidable. You know, the tragedy is when you have the power to prevent illness and you don't use it, and people get hurt.

And despite what Dr. Emmanuel and others have said about no known link between vaccines and autism, new reporting by the Wall Street Journal says President Trump recently confronted RFK Jr. asking why he isn't doing more to investigate the alleged connection between the two. Back to you. MS now is Britt Miller with that report. So in a Senate hearing that's scheduled to begin in just a few minutes, former White House chief medical advisor Anthony Fauci, expected to face some real tough questions about the origins of COVID-19

and the federal government's response to the virus. This comes just days after, Republican Senator Rand Paul released more than 1,000 pages of Fauci's diary entries from the early months of the pandemic. In some of the entries, Fauci does reveal how much he enjoyed his newfound celebrity status, calling it flattering, and that the high people he was meeting, such as Julie Roberts and Joan Baez, but he also called some of the attention very unnerving.

Fauci's journal also documents his concern about the rising case counts, deaths, and questions about the spread of the virus. Other entries detail his conversations with President Trump, in which Fauci writes that the president pushed him to be more positive when he made his TV appearances. Senator Paul has fought with Fauci for years over unproven clen that the United States government funded research at the Chinese lab that may have developed coronavirus there in Wuhan, which sparked that global pandemic back in 2020.

Paul, who arranged this morning's hearing, argues that the writings prove Fauci discussed the origins of the virus differently in public than he did in private, and he has accused the scientist of destroying government records related to pandemic response efforts. Fauci, who retired in 2022, has strongly denied the allegations during previous congressional testimony. Let's bring in MS now, congressional reporter Kevin Frye, who joins us live from Capitol Hill. Kevin, I mean, Dr. Fauci, first of all, let's be clear, has served the American people long before the COVID pandemic, already heralded as one of the nation's top scientists and public servants. Unexpectedly put in the spotlight here in 2020, the diary suggests he wasn't quite sure what to

of that. And I think some of this is being taken out of context. We know the Republicans have made Fauci a boogeyman for quite some time. So with that as the backdrop, Fauci will appear, you know, there in front of the cameras in the hearing hall today. What should we expect? Yeah, I mean, one of the outstanding questions is what exactly he will say, if anything? There is speculation he could try to plead the fifth. We know that Paul has referred him to the DOJ under the Biden years previously. So this threat is outstanding, and certainly Paul has made no, he's not been exactly coy about his desire to potentially try to catch Fauci in what he describes as a lie. If you look at his Twitter account from the last few days, that is basically every other installment on his Twitter feed, which is essentially his, don't lie, we're going to hold him accountable. They are also expected to, as you mentioned, as they're coming with this new diary of documents, go after him on this question of what Fauci knew and WAN,

when he knew it. There is an entry from a few months into the pandemic. We are talking early February of 2020. So before we even really saw massive shutdowns here in the United States, where Fauci is part of a call with several other scientists from around the globe discussing where this could have originated, and there was disagreement on that call. Nonetheless, this is something that we have seen Paul highlight online. We expect him to try to corner him on exactly. the origins of this. This has been one of Paul's personal focuses for quite some time now, to the point where Democrats that I've talked to, including one of the members of this committee, have essentially said that Paul has a vendetta against Fauci. One of the things, as you highlighted

here, that we expect him to at least be pressed on is this celebrity question. Throughout the diary entries, yes, he is documenting which interviews he's doing and when he is doing them. And one could argue, and I imagine there will be some argument, particularly from Democrats, that this is part of his public awareness campaign, that he was essentially documenting, okay, how am I getting out the word about the seriousness of COVID-19? But at the same time, he is touting his interactions with Barbara Streisand over the phone and playing music for her on his Amazon Alexa. That is likely to be something, just talking with Senator Ron Johnson, another Republican on this panel, he's likely going to bring up that he wants to highlight, yes, he was famous, but he needs to be. In Ron Johnson's words, infamous. So this is going to probably get very personal very quickly, but again, the question is precisely what Fauci decides to do. We've been given no clear indication in his team has been mum in the lead-up to this.

One other thing, as you highlighted at the top there, Jonathan, this is quite the trajectory for Fauci, who for 40 years was a leading health expert within the United States. He is credited in a bipartisan fashion for his work on AIDS and HIV, both domestically, and internationally, including under the Bush administration. And now he's coming under scrutiny. Six years later, we should say, after COVID outbreak broke out across the globe, he's coming under renewed scrutiny here on Capitol Hill. Well, we'll be keeping an eye on the proceedings.

If anything, particularly newsworthy happens, we will bring it to you. Congressional Reporter for MS Now, Kevin Fry, reporting live from Capitol Hill. Kevin, thank you so much. Up next to your morning, Joe, we're going to be joined by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. after the upper chamber last night advanced a bipartisan bill championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham. Morning Joe, we'll come right back with that. Welcome back. The Senate voted last night to advance a bipartisan bill championed by the late Senator Lindsey Graham

that imposes sanctions on Russia and some new penalties against Iran. The vote was 86 to 12, with nearly all Republicans and a majority of Democrats supporting the measure, pushing it well beyond the 60 votes needed to tee up a final vote. The legislation would impose harsh new penalties on countries that purchase oil and other energy products from Russia, as well as extend existing sanctions against Iran, seeking to limit its ability to fuel its wartime economy. Eleven Democrats voted against the measure because it also grants President Trump some new tariff powers. Joining us now, one of the co-leaders of that bill, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. He is a member of the Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Judiciary Committee.

Senator, good to see you again. And I know you and Senator Graham worked on this, you know, for a very long time, you know, I guess fitting in a way that on the day of his funeral, an important step was taken. Please tell us what's next and whether President Trump, you know, who has been more, has been warmer to this of late, whether you think he'll go for it. I think he will go for it because one of Senator Graham's last shining accomplishments was in effect to persuade President Trump that it is in his interest and our national interest to support Ukraine by imposing these crushing sanctions and tariffs on purchases of Russian oil and gas

because they are fueling Russia's war machine. You know, yesterday was a real emotional roller coaster, the sadness of that funeral service saying farewell to our friend, Lindsey Graham, But then the exhilaration of the Senate chambers vote with President Zelensky in the gallery. What's next is that we will move on to the stages of approval that are required under the Senate procedures over the next few days, I hope, because we have such a solid coalition, a bipartisan majority, that is a tribute not only a Senator Graham, but really to the Ukrainian people, because they have accomplished miraculous, on the battlefield in developing new technology.

And President Zelensky in the closed-door meeting we had with him before that vote, all of the senators were invited and many of them, the majority attended, said to us, we need this bill, we need the sanctions, because it will help to throttle Putin's economy and bring him to the table. So what's next in the long run, I hope, are serious peace talks, but I think we should have no illusions that Putin is going to continue his slaughterous, murderous invasion, and that's why these sanctions can be very important. And Zelensky certainly had a warmer meeting with President Trump yesterday than he had a year

or so back. He also made an ask for Patriot missiles. What can you tell us as to whether what the administration might be willing to provide? I think the administration has a greater willingness, but it is hamstrung by the shortage of many of the kinds of munitions that President Zelensky needs to defend against the aerial reign of terror with missiles and drones that every night imperil and kill his people. What he needs are interceptors for his patriot system, PAC-3s. A lot of it is in short supply because of the Iran War.

As we well know, the munitions are exhausted in many respects by that war. And so very excitingly, what's happening now is that American companies like Lockheed and Raytheon are licensing the production of that kind of defensive war platforms to Ukraine. So it can build its own defensive capability. But short term, it needs more help from the United States. I think there's more willingness to do it. But Ukraine right now, in drone technology, which is also used to. to defend against aerial attack is doing its own production and its own development so much so that it is helping our forces in Iran. It is sending not only the technology and the actual

drones, but also people to train our forces in the use of them. So there is a real partnership developing that has enormous potential. Certainly very encouraging. Senator, before you go briefly on Iran last night, Iran struck first. After a few days of relative peace, launched a series of attacks. The United States responded. It seems like yet again, we are nowhere near a permanent end of this conflict. What right now is top of mind for you in Iran? What's top of mind for me is that we need to put a halt to the unlimited, unbridled discretion that the president seems to feel he has to wage this war. Congress has the power of the purse.

He's coming to Congress for more money, literally tens, perhaps hundreds of billions of dollars more. And we need to exert our authority by saying no to the president, no more money on this reckless, illegal war that is killing our own service men and women taking brave lives, inflicting more than 600 casualties on American forces. Our sons and daughters are put in harm's way without. Congress even being asked to approve this war as required by the Constitution. It's more than just legalities.

It's lives of Iranians as well as Americans and it's our global economy. So we need to put a halt to it as best we can using the power of the purse. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, thank you. I'm certain we will speak to you again soon. And we'll be right back here with more. Morning Joe. Lindsey Graham believed in a strong America. Wanted a strong America.

He had unwavering faith in the righteousness of American power and prayer. And he was extremely hawkish. I will tell you, he never saw a war that he didn't like. Only his true friends would understand that. President Trump there eulogizing Senator Lindsey Graham. At one point, he also gave out Lindsey Graham's old cell phone number, again, as he did during the campaign.

campaign trail back in 2016. Joining us now, Starfighter at the Atlantic, Mark Leavich, and independent journalist Lindsay Keith. Good to see you both. Lebo, I know you wrote on, you've written extensively about Senator Graham over the years. You wrote yesterday about his funeral. What struck you while you were watching? It was one of those kind of old school bipartisan. I mean, a lot of people from around the world came in. I mean, it was definitely a big event. I learned a lot just from watching body language, which is always fascinating at these things, especially between the presidents. There seemed to be a moment between Netanyahu and Zelensky at one point. You never really know what Trump's going to do, especially when he's one of the speakers.

It looked like he was reading that speech for the first time. There were a lot of asides here and there, and it was not clear whether he had compared notes with anyone, whether he'd reviewed it with anyone. And it was an odd speech, but it was kind of authentic in some ways because they had a very quirky relationship, sometimes a very tumultuous relationship. Obviously, the history between he and Senator Graham was pretty well documented. It's been quite a trajectory. So, I don't know, look, I think as anthropology goes, it was a great couple of hours. And I couldn't stop watching it.

And it was pretty widely covered. And I think Lindsey Graham probably would have appreciated that because he himself was very much a product of the media. Yeah, no question there. A familiar site in Washington's green rooms. Lindsay, also, I mean, as Libo said, Prime Minister Netanyahu was there, President Zelensky was there. You know, Graham, those were sort of his last efforts to support Israel and its war in the United States' war with Iran. And being a real staunch ally of Ukraine. In fact, one of the last things he did before he passed away, he had just gotten back from a trip from Kiev. Yeah, it was really striking to see the amount of world leaders there. Not only Zalinski and Netanyahu, but in front of me, I was actually at the Catholic.

There were all these ambassadors who were there as well. And I think it just really showed not only the pools that Graham had here in D.C., but globally as well, people paying tribute to him. But it was fascinating as well, you know, speaking of President Trump's speech, while you played some interesting moments from it, he was the one person who actually got laughs, kind of talking about, as Mark had pointed out, you know, their interesting relationship over the course of the years. and he was the one who actually had some levity throughout his speech, where I actually thought he struck some very somber chords. And he had just spoken, of course, coming from the White House, speaking with Zelensky and Netanyahu. I was surprised from the positive reviews that both those meetings got,

that the president didn't open those up more to the media. And as Mark pointed out, you had some tension between both of those world leaders at a time when Graham, that was one of his last efforts, as you mentioned, to try to solve those.