Morning Joe - Trump and Putin set for summit in push to end war in Ukraine

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

Trump and Putin set for summit in push to end war in Ukraine

I think that President Putin would like to see a deal. I think if I weren't president, he would take over all of Ukraine. It's a war that should have never happened. If I weren't president, in my opinion, he would much rather take over all of Ukraine. But I am president, and he's not going to mess around with me. We shall see how that turns out in Alaska. That was President Trump yesterday, talking tough, ahead of today's meeting with Vladimir Putin. Now, the question is, will Donald Trump bring that same energy when the two are face-to-face in Alaska?

And will he push Vladimir Putin to do what no president this century has done? And that is, play by the rules of this world order. Good morning. And welcome, good morning, Joe. It's Friday, August the 15th. We have co-hosts of our fourth hour, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Caddy Kay. Columnist for the Washington Post, David Ignatius. MSNBC political analyst Eugene Robinson and former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul.

There are a lot things to talk about today. We, of course, have the Alaska summit between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Also, D.C.'s dance with the feds. You have them cooperating in some places, partnering up and pushing back and others. That's fascinating. And David Ignatius, I'd love to talk to you briefly about today, August 15th. And an interesting day for this summit to be taking place. As I'm sure you know, every August 15th, VJ Day, a day that General MacArthur said, today the guns are silent.

Today, a great tragedy has ended. Today, a great victory has been won. We've learned about appeasement. That was a war that started with the appeasement in Munich in 1938. And it seems to me a good day for, and a good reminder for this president as he goes to Alaska. So, VJ Day was a day when American power was unrivaled and the sense of joy that was felt by people on the streets from what we see in the news recordings of it was unlike anything that I've seen. My father, who was serving on a carrier in the Pacific, was at sea. He remembers just the

sense of relief that he wasn't going to have to be part of the invasion of Japan and the terrible loss of life. But there was a sense then of the United States having had the discipline and commitment to see through its pledge to combat Japan, to fight against Hitler and Nazism in Europe. That persistence is very much on our mind today as we look not to war fighting, but to a peace effort by President Trump that will move into a new phase in Alaska.

But it is a haunting day for those events to be happening, Joe. It is a haunting day. And Gene Robinson, it also is a reminder that even after great battles are won, even after the great war is won, everybody wakes up to a terrible new reality, and that is of an atomic age and a sense of foreboding. And then, of course, an immediate challenging coming from the Soviet Union, who is now occupying Eastern Europe immediately after this great victory in the war. And it's just a reminder to all of our leaders. leaders, that time keeps moving on, history keeps moving on, and you better be ready for it, and you better be ready for it with competent leadership, the type of leadership that Harry Truman had around him after FDR's death. That's absolutely right. You need competent leadership, one hopes, in the United States, and also in our allies. I mean, what had been... the world order, the world order that was established after V.J. Day, after that great

allied victory in World War II has been changed. And when the world order changes, it doesn't snap back to what it was. It's heading toward something else. Maybe a sort of great power arrangement. That seems to be what Putin wants, where big countries do what they want and boss the smaller countries around, help themselves to their resources. And is that the world we're heading toward? Is it a world where no one is paying attention to other conflicts, like the awful war that continues in Sudan. So, yes, we need leadership to first understand this new landscape and then find a way through it. Yeah, and it's so interesting you talk about whether it's a great power approach or whether it's small states that actually have a say.

There has been one review after another from Ed Luce's book about Dr. Prasinski, talking about the difference between the two, that Kistinger believed great power should rule the world stage. And Bresensky, because being from Poland and understanding that Poland had been crushed first by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, wanted to focus more on smaller states and understand how they played to the great tide of history.

And as Adelous has suggested throughout the book and as a clear telling of history shows. Brzezinski was right, and in this case, Kissinger was wrong, especially about the fall of the Soviet Union. Caddy, it's interesting, and we'll get on to news, but it's interesting that Winston Churchill, again, one of my favorite quotes about Churchill was when he was right, he was right, and when he was wrong, my God.

Let them say that of me. But Churchill, though, was wrong about so many things leading up to World War II, but he was right about the big one. He was right about Hitler, started warning about Hitler in the early to mid-30s, and even before the end of World War II, even before VJ Day, he was desperately trying to warn FDR about what the Soviet Union was up to. And again, it seems that for this president, for every president, for every prime minister, you have to be looking at. over the horizon and understanding not just what's in front of you, but what's next. Churchill saw what was next with Hitler, and he saw what was next with Stalin, and he was ignored in both cases, and we paid a great deal for that. Yeah, and then the run-up to the Second World War, I mean, he had people around him,

like obviously famously Neville Chamberlain, who didn't see what was coming with Hitler, but he did also have people like Field Marshal Montgomery, who also was preparing out in the planes of Dartmouth for Hitler and for what was going to come. So Churchill saw what was coming. The question now, I think, as we go into Alaska, this meeting where that atomic age, that Cold War, that world order that you've all three been talking about this morning, is all hanging over what we are about to go into in this summit up in Alaska, where President Trump is heading this morning to Alaska for that meeting with Russian leader of Vladimir Putin. The two will meet in Anchorage to discuss a ceasefire in the war in Ukraine.

They will then hold a joint press conference. This is Putin's first time in the United States since 2015. Yesterday, Putin expressed his optimism about the summit, telling his advisors, the Trump administration is making, quote, energetic and sincere efforts to stop the crisis and reach agreements that are of interest to all parties involved. Russian officials are also expecting to discuss potential economic ties with the U.S. and an end to the Kremlin's exile from the Western financial system. President Trump was asked about the deal he might strike with Mr. Putin yesterday.

Are you prepared to offer Vladimir Putin access to rare minerals to incentivize him to end the war? We're going to see what happens with our meeting. We have a big meeting. It's going to be, I think, very important for Russia. It's going to be very important for us. And important for us only that we're going to save a lot of lives. a lot of time trying to get the war solved. If we can get the war solved, we'll be very happy. As far as rare earth, that's very unimportant relative. I'm trying to save lives.

I think it's going to be a good meeting, but the more important meeting will be the second meeting that we're having. We're going to have a meeting with President Putin, President Zelensky, myself, and maybe we'll bring some of the European leaders along, maybe not. I don't know that it's going to be very important. We're going to see what happens. And I think President Putin will make peace. I think President Zelensky will make peace. We'll see if they can get along. So David Ignatius,

I'm so sorry, Cathy. David Ignatius, the, you hear what the president's saying there about having Zelensky involved. I'm in the second meeting saying that's the important meeting. I'm curious what went behind that?

Was it, was it consultations with Europe? And what do you what do you take from that so joe the i'll give you first the the optimistic version and then probably the more realistic and pessimistic version um trump has agreed now to this two two phase process that will by his planning brings olensky and europeans into discuss the framework that he and Putin have explored. One big question is whether they'll quickly be a ceasefire and then discussions of the details

or agreement on a package, the basic deal points that would precede a ceasefire. The more worrisome scenario is that Putin will make an offer to Trump that Trump will accept, and Trump will then, in effect, try to ran that down the throat of Zelensky and Ukraine. It will be a concessionary agreement that requires Ukraine to give up territory without providing Ukraine the security that it needs after any peace agreement.

That's the biggest fear that I hear. We just don't know until the meeting happens which direction Trump will go. Will he be tough with Putin and say, this is the deal and be prepared to impose sanctions if Putin resists, or will he accommodate Putin's desires and hope to have an improved relationship with his personally, he's expressed a lot of personal rapport with. Trump has in the last several days been trying to reassure Europeans who are terrified that it's going to be the second scenario of a diktot, that no, he's prepared to stand with Europe, prepared to stand with Ukraine, not going to abandon Ukraine, whether those are

just words we're going to find out very quickly. Kady Kay, it certainly seems that the president has been listening to his NATO allies. And a few have remarked that it's fascinating what a close relationship he's building, not only with Kier Starrmer, the British Prime Minister, but also that the administration is building with British leaders right now. And perhaps that is moving the president a bit more toward working with Europe, working with the UK as they come to a deal here, possibly with Russia. Yeah, of course, you've had J.D. Vance on holiday with his family in the UK just over the past week,

spending a few days with the Foreign Secretary at his private residence, the two families together. That's been seen as a good thing in the British circles. But I think actually the real key here, Joe, has been the German Chancellor and the relationship that Donald Trump seems to have built with the German Chancellor and with the Finnish President. and the Germans are in a position because of their centrality in Europe because it's not Macron, the baggage that goes with Macron and Trump. The German Chancellor seems to have been able to both talk to Trump on a more equal footing and to bring along as well the European and other European partners.

So it has been nearly three and a half years since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. And since then, the fighting has killed an estimated 250,000 Russian soldiers, many of whom were simply thrown to the front lines with little to no training. The total number of casualties is approaching now a million on the Ukrainian side. Up to 100,000 troops have been killed. Some analysts believe that the number is far higher than that. From the war's opening days when Russia's initial assault was repelled and the world soon learned that the Kremlin's military machine had been overestimated for years,

there was Moscow's failure, of course, to seize the capital of Kiev. the symbolic fight for Snake Island in the Black Sea and the sinking of Russia's most prized warship. There are the unforgettable images of Ukrainian civilians caught in the crossfire as their children were kidnapped and brought across the Russian border. And two years ago, almost to the day, President Putin is widely believed to have assassinated his former friend, the head of the Wagner military group, who had helped to achieve victories on the battlefield before staging a brief rebellion against the Russian leader. So Ambassador McFaulers, you look at this meeting, which is such an unusual meeting because this is not one where the underlings have done the work beforehand and the principles are just going to go in and sign on the dotted line. It really does seem to depend so much on how President Trump himself is feeling about the situation and how he feels about the meeting with Mr. Putin. what are your biggest concerns and what is the most optimistic ambastom at full feeling this morning?

Well, the first concern is that Putin's already achieved a victory. He's having a meeting with the President of the United States of America. He's an indicted war criminal. He can't travel to many countries, certainly most democracies. He's now meeting with the President. Second, it's in the United States of America. So he's already achieved a lot of his objectives. He doesn't have to do anything, and this is already a victory for him.

Therefore, for President Trump, he's got to get something out of this meeting to make it look like it was all worthwhile. And he's made it very clear. I think he's right. Getting a second meeting with President Zelensky, that is the goal. And I wish him success. I want this war to end. It cannot end without Zelensky in the room.

It cannot end without Ukrainians negotiating. and therefore getting to that second meeting, I think, is the key outcome that we are all looking for. Of course, we have no guarantee that there will be a second meeting because to this point, the Kremlin has refused to sit down with Zelensky. They don't want to legitimize his government. So foreign policy scholar Hannah Notte writes a guest essay in the New York Times with this headline. Putin should be careful what he wishes for. It reads in part this way.

As Mr. Putin indulges his illusion of total victory, Russia's global throw weight suffers. In September 2023, Russian peacekeepers largely stood by as Azerbaijan took control of a disputed enclave in the Caucasus. Last December, as rebel forces approached Damascus, Mr. Putin abandoned Syria's brutal dictator, his longtime ally, Bashar al-Assad, to his fall. In June, Russia took a back seat as Israeli and U.S. airstrikes hit Iran. Iran's nuclear and military facilities, denouncing the attacks but doing nothing to help materially. Mr. Putin has long insisted that Ukraine will be his, but in a world shaped by Mr. Trump's mercurial temperament and might is right principles, his obsession may cost Russia more than he has bargained for. So Mr. Ambassador, no question. Putin is seen as much weaker today than he

was at the beginning of this war three and a half years ago. The military has been exposed, the economy's in tough shape. But to your point, point, he's already achieved something of a victory, readmission to the international community, at least to a degree, by getting this summit one-on-one with the President of the United States. We know that President Trump in recent weeks has been tough, rhetorically, on Putin. We know that he put together some secondary sanctions on India. That's good, many experts say. But we also know that for the majority of his decade on the global stage, Trump has been extraordinarily

deferential to Putin, particularly in the only other time they had a one. one-on-one summit, which was Helsinki seven years ago. So that's the fear that so many Europeans have expressed to me is that Trump, though, saying all the right things right now, clearly guided by Europe to get to this point, but he's going to get in that room with Putin and he may not talk tough. I agree with your European friends. I feel exactly the same way. First of all, rhetorically, he's been tough, but in real actions, he's done next to nothing to put pressure on Putin. Those secondary sanctions were threatened. They haven't been put in place. The better stress, would have been to put sanctions in place before the meeting.

The better strategy would say we're going to be with Ukraine for as long as it takes. By the way, the majority of Americans agree with that statement. The better strategy would be to say we're going to increase weapons to Ukraine to create leverage before the meeting. President Trump has done it exactly the opposite. And I hope he's got a strategy. Maybe it'll work. I don't know.

But it suggests to me that Putin is in a very strong position. He doesn't have to agree to anything, and this is still a victory for him. Trump needs something out of this meeting. And when you need something out of the meeting, that gives all the power to the other side of the table. Well, it'll be interesting, Gene, to see how the president approaches Vladimir Putin. When you consider, of course, the casualties reaching close to a million for the Russians, the fact that they've underperformed every step of the way in this war, the fact that their economy is struggling, oil prices are down, all of their efforts to amp up

the economy at the start of the war are now starting to wear down, and you're really starting to see it in the Russian economy. So Vladimir Putin is not negotiating from a position of strength, whether he's telling Donald Trump and the world that are not. Now, that's true, although I think Putin may care more about his internal strengths than his external strength, and at least I don't know of any indication inside of Russia that Putin's grip on power, his authority, has been weakened at all. He wants to stay there. He wants to remain effectively the czar of Russia, and so far I think he's accomplished that. David, here's a question, Right. Presidents don't go into these meetings really by themselves, even if they're sitting, even if the president Trump is sitting there by himself.

They have AIDS. They have, you know, Biden had Jake Sullivan. You know, Jimmy Carter had Dr. Brzynski. I mean, they are, who does Trump have? Who does Trump have? Who is a foreign policy thinker of caliber who couldn't help him navigate? this difficult passage. So I think Trump would say that he is his own foreign policy expert, that he knows what he's doing. There's been interesting evidence recently that Vice President J.D. Vance is playing a greater role in shaping these negotiations. He's developed a close relationship, it's said, with his British counterpart, David Lamy,

spent time with him on holiday, but not just that. He's attending more meetings. He's exerting more influence, and that influence is, I'm told, increasingly supportive of Europe's position. Essentially what Vance is saying is it's Europe that's going to provide the weapons and the training for the Ukrainian military going forward, but the United States has to keep some involvement. I think, Gene, the two X factors, if you will,

our first, Trump himself. Trump, as a peacemaker, has changed week to week. It's this weird kind of vacillating approach. One week, he's whipping Zelensky and calling him the problem. And the next week, he's stroking Volensky. Zolensky, same thing with Putin back and forth. He needs to be consistent. He needs to decide, hear my goals, and then be disciplined day-to-day over these next few days

in trying to get them. And the second is Ukraine itself. Ukraine is war-weary. It does, it needs a peace. There's an interesting poll that the Gallup did that just came out this month that shows that the percentage of Ukrainians who believe they can fight on until final victory has fallen from 78% in 2022 when the war began to now about 24%. So people have lost hope that they can get this total victory.

The percentage of people who want a negotiated settlement correspondingly is shot up. So there's been a change in Ukraine, but when you ask people a question directly, are you willing to give up land? Nobody wants to say that in public. So that's one of the delicate issues that President Trump will have to weigh in the next few days is this question of land for peace. Is that the bargain he's going to try to strike? To that point, it was seen as reassuring in key in other places that Trump in recent days

has said that today's summit in Alaska won't be about land swaps, even though he did say that a few days prior. He's changed that, suggesting that won't be on the agenda today. Zelensky also reminds the international community that the Ukraine Constitution, there has to be a national vote to give up land. It's not something he can just do unilaterally. Trump wasn't thrilled to hear that earlier this week. But, Joe, the question is, as we've been outlying all week, we know that there's a scenario today where Putin will agree to a ceasefire, but demand otherwise maximalist conditions. Had no NATO, no security guarantee. I'm keeping this land, et cetera, Trump desperate for a deal may take that to Ukraine and say,

hey, if you don't take this, you're the obstacle to peace. The question will be, if Trump rejects that, how could he then be tough on Putin? Will those secondary sanctions come down? Or will there, perhaps, for the first time in this administration, the promises of new aid and new weapons directly from the U.S. to Ukraine? Because that's what so many experts say, that would be Trump's best leveraging point. Well, I mean, Donald Trump's holding a strong negotiating. card, and that is Republicans in the United States Senate, who've already said, if this doesn't work,

they're going to lay down the toughest sanctions against Russia that Russia has ever experienced. So if it actually, Donald Trump talks about the art of the deal, I have always found there's nothing better negotiations than walking away from the deal, not getting upset, but just going, no, that's not going to work. I'll see you later. And walking away from it. And then, let him come back to the United States and said, Vladimir Putin still thinks this is like 2022. It's not 22. It's 2025. He's lost a million troops. His economy is struggling. He couldn't do anything in Syria. He couldn't do anything in Iran. He couldn't even do anything in his own caucuses. He has to do a deal whether he understands it or not. But if he doesn't understand it, that's fine.

we'll let the United States Senate implement the toughest sanctions ever against Russia and see how he likes that. That's the art of the deal, walking away when you have somebody that's not going to give you anything that you want. Now, that said, Ambassador McFaul, David Ignatius brings up a great point, and that is land for peace. It's something that nobody in Ukraine may want to talk about. It's something that many people writing op-eds that support Ukraine, as do you, as do I, might not be comfortable talking about. But as you know, even inside the Biden White House two years ago, they were saying, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs was saying, listen, Ukraine's not going to get every Russian troop out of their country. and Russia is not going to get Keeve. There is going to be a deal, if there's ever a deal, that both sides are going to hate.

What does that deal look like, Mr. Ambassador? Well, Joe, first you're right. There is a deal to be made. Ukrainians, I talk to Ukrainians every single day. They want a deal. They want this war to end. And publicly, President Zelensky can't endorse land for peace right now, but private. people I know close to him think that there could be a deal. But here is the essence of the

problem. Land for peace. What guarantees peace? That is what President Trump needs to focus on. And that's what the Ukrainians are nervous about. They think it'll be land for peace today. And two years later, Putin will start the war again. And by the way, they have a good reason to worry about that because this war started in 2014. President Trump, I think, has forgotten that fact. And then it escalated in 2022. So they need something that guarantees peace to sign off on the land part. And the obvious solution, the master solution, the grand art of the big deal is NATO membership. And why that's so great is because Putin doesn't get a vote about that. He doesn't get a say about that. And this notion that he won't accept it, I radically disagree with.

I've been in the room with Putin. I know that he wants this war to end too. and he would take land for NATO. That's the creative solution that I hope this administration begins to think about because if there's not a guarantee for peace, why on earth would they sign up for giving away the land?

Yeah, it is not just about territory. It's about independence and the guarantees of independence. And we'll have to see whether President Trump understands that part of it as well. NBC News International Affairs analyst Ambassador Michael Maffaul.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe. Attorney General Pam Bondi is naming a new emergency police commissioner for Washington, D.C., a move city leaders say is not legal. We're going to break down that argument as the district agrees to other measures implemented by the Trump administration. Plus, we'll bring you the latest on the fight to redraw congressional lines in Texas and the push by California Democrats to do the same thing.

And a reminder that the Morning Joe podcast is available each weekday, featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. morning, Joe. We'll be right back. Lovely shot of Washington, D.C., the nation's capital and our home. The nation's capital and our hometown. And in another huge step towards complete takeover of this city and the police by the Trump administration, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced yesterday that she was stripping authority from the city's police chief

and appointing the head of the drug enforcement agents, Terry Cole, as the city's emergency police commissioner. At my directive, we have made Terry Cole now the commissioner over the police. He runs the entire show, keeping everyone organized, and they report. report directly to me and I report to the President of the United States. The new chain of command means the city's police chief, Pamela Smith, must receive approval from coal before issuing any directives to law enforcement. However, Washington, D.C. leadership is pushing back on the change. Democratic mayor, Muriel Bowser called the move unlawful. D.C.'s Attorney General also suggesting that the

police department does not have to follow this order. Joining us now, former New York City police commissioner and the executive chairman of Tenea Risk, Bill Bratton, Eugene Robinson. Mr. Bratton has the first question. Bill, I'm curious. I don't imagine you would have appreciated a federal takeover of the New York Police Department. But how do you view this situation with the attorney general, given the president's lawful order, to take some control of the D.C. police. How do you view this installation of a new police commissioner over the police chief in D.C.?

And how do you view the whole situation with the federal government inserting itself in this way? They're creating a potential for mass confusion, being quite frank with you, the idea that the head of the DEA, who is newly appointed trying to take over that massive organization, is now being given the additional responsibilities of running day-to-day, the Washington, D.C. Police Department, which is a very complex city, very complex department. If the news accounts are correct this morning, this is not a done deal yet that there's a great dispute between the city of Washington government, D.C. government, and Ms. Bondi, the Attorney General, as to she have the power to affect effectively put somebody in over the chief of police.

It's going to take a little while to clear up some of this confusion. I think it's actually untenable that the head of the DEA is going to be there day-to-day to make decisions that a chief of police has to make. And if I understand correctly, what they're talking about is that the chief of police has no powers to independently issue policies, guidelines, or orders, absent approval from the DEA head. I just don't see how this is going to work out. And this is in the city where the president does have significant power.

And let's make no mistake about this. This is just the first step to going into other cities, as the president has made quite clear, including the city of New York, to have a lot of intimacy with in the sense of that department, the head of that department, Jesse Tisch, is doing an extraordinary job. So it's going to be a period of turbulence and uncertainty, and we don't need that. No, we don't need that. David Ignatius, you can have the next question for the commissioner, but just I've noticed, I certainly know you've picked it up as well. There are some things that the mayor of Washington, D.C. is going along with. They're doing everything they can do to make this run as smoothly as possible and are deferring to the federal government, where they feel it's proper to, refer to the federal government. They went around. They cleared out homeless encampments saying get out and go to shelters before the feds come here, trying to prevent any terrible pushback or

fights. At the same time, though, there are some things that the administration is doing that's clearly over the line, and they seem to be pushing back there in the proper places. So, Commissioner Braddon, I want to ask you the question that any resident of Washington has on his mind, which is, will these steps help reduce our crime problem? We do have a crime problem in Washington. It's getting better, but it's still significant. And how are the individual officers, who are the front lines in that fight, going to respond to all this turmoil on top of them?

What does that mean for a police? officer in a patrol car trying to deal with crime every day, how are they going to be affected? Confusion, instability, uncertainty. That's what's being created at the moment. Then the issue is sustainability. These surges are not uncommon in policing, my policing career. You surge into high crime areas, you get the problem under control, and then you move on. The federal government does not have the resources to stay involved in that city the way they are. the last couple of days or the way they're going to expand in the next several days. That's the reality.

And then if they want to expand into other cities around the country, you can't keep pulling DEA agents, FBI agents, ATF agents, away from their primary responsibility to deal with their areas of concern, drugs, organized crime, terrorism, and put them on the streets to arrest immigrants. It's just not sustainable. And the confusion that's created in Washington, it's going to be a good test case in the sense of if they decide to do this elsewhere, how is it going to work? Right now, what they're setting up with the head of the DEA trying to run the day-to-day operations of that department

and trying to run nationally and internationally, the DEA, I don't think how they're going to do it. Everything I understand about, I mean, is a very competent administrator, work with the DA many years, but has no experience money and municipal police department in a city as complex as Washington, D.C. So putting this conversation in additional context, the editors of the New York Times have a piece on America's historic drop in crime. As the editors note, these declines have erased the spike in crime that occurred during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the piece, crime rose during that era for two main reasons. First, pandemic policies undermine public trust and stability, stoked America's political divisions, and shuttered unifying places like

churches, libraries, schools, and restaurants. The second lesson, according to the editors, involves the importance of law enforcement. Virtually all sides in the debate made mistakes during this intense period. Among the most damaging was the growing belief among Democratic officials that enforcing the law could be counterproductive when it involved low-level offenses such as public drug use, shoplifting, and homeless encampments. Some Democrats believed enforcement of these laws disproportionately hurt minority groups and did not contribute much to public safety. This argument never made much sense, especially given the polls, showed strong support

for basic law enforcement across racial and income groups. And Mr. Commissioner, would love to get your reaction to that piece, certainly making an argument, look, there needs to be law enforcement, but also seemingly tapping the brakes about overreach here. I was fascinated by that New York Times editorial that so much of which they have supported over the past years, they're now recognizing they were wrong. The idea that small crime, quality-like crime, broken windows, it does matter, to successfully deal with, with public order in the streets of America. You need to deal with serious crime and disorder at the same time.

And the New York Times was one of the principal proponents pushing back against police dealing with disorder, the so-called broken windows. So that editorial fascinates me because it's basically a capitulation on the part of the New York Times, recognizing that they were wrong. It wasn't just democratic leaders. They were wrong and not appreciating that cops count police matter and that police matter when they're doing two things, fighting crime, serious crime, and at the same time simultaneously dealing with the causes of much of that crime,

which is social disorder. Former New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton, thank you so much for joining us, sir, this morning. His book, The Profession, A Memoir of Policing in America, is available now. Coming up, we'll take a look at some of the other stories that are making headlines this morning, including the new species that scientists have just discovered in Australia. You do know what to miss that.

We'll be back in right a moment. Time now. The other story is making headlines. The Department of Health and Human Services is revving a federal task force on childhood vaccine safety that was disbanded in 1998. The agency says it is making the move,

quote, to improve the safety, quality, and oversight of vaccines administered to American children. The task force was formed in 1986 as part of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, which aimed to compensate the small number of children who had adverse reactions to vaccines. A chance discovery of a 25 million-year-old fossil on a beach has led paleontologists to identify an entirely new species of whale. The discovery of a partial skull, including ear, bones and teeth, was made in 2019.

Scientists say the small predators thought to have grown 10 feet in length, had powerful jaws, a shark-like snout, and were built to. hunt. There you go. You know, one of those on a cold night. And a Michigan auto worker has been reunited with his wallet. 11 years after it fell out of his shirt pocket at work, a mechanic in Minnesota was replacing a part in a Ford Edge when he spotted the trifold wallet. The mechanic says it survived more than 150,000 miles in the engine bay, including a trip from Arizona to Minnesota and several harsh winters. He contacted the auto worker through Facebook this summer and sent him the long, lost wallet. I hope the money was still inside it.

Still ahead, member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, is raising concerns about today's meeting between President Trump and Vladimir Putin. He'll join us to explain why, and we'll dig into California Governor Gavin Newsom's effort to redraw his state's congressional map and how this could impact the midterm elections.

Morning Joe will be right back. Welcome back. Dozens of Texas Democrats are preparing to return to the state after temporarily blocking Republican-led redistricting efforts. This comes as the Texas House Speaker is expected to adjourn the first legislative special session later today. In a statement yesterday, State Representative Gene Wu, who leads the Texas House Democrats, said they would start returning if that happens. Wu added that the group is ready to take this fight to the courts. Governor Greg Abbott has said he will immediately call on a new special session once the first one officially ends. Texas Democrats yesterday met virtually with former President Obama, who praised them for their efforts to stop Republican redistricting efforts. And of course, this talk in Texas has spurred other states, blue states, to consider the same.

Gavin Newsom in California yesterday held an event and talked about plans there. While doing so, suddenly there was a surge of federal immigration officers, ICE agents, border patrol agents, who just happened to show up at the same place where Newsom was meeting. and Joe, he said, the governor said that, did not think it was a coincidence and said that he would not be intimidated by the show of support from D.C. And we should also mention, Joe, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. I mean, it's no, no, you know, you, yeah, no, I mean, seriously. What, what are they doing? I mean, this is, I don't, I don't know if they're aware of it, but this is America. And the fact that they show up in masks at a political rally, I know, yes, this is ominous, this is this is that, blah, blah, blah, this really just looks stupid and plays

right into Gavin Newsom's hands, plays right into the Democratic Party's hands, and does the exact opposite thing that they would want to do, which is to suggest we're not here, for political reasons, we're here, you know, to do our job to arrest those who are in the country illegally. So, yeah, that was talk about a miss. we've got to say also. And you're seeing it's so interesting, Jonathan, the polls that we're seeing where you'll see Americans saying, yes, I agree with President Trump on the southern border. I agree that we should make sure that we have legal immigration and not a lot of illegal immigration. And then you look and see approval ratings on immigration, and he's actually upside down in a lot of polls.

And the reason why, not the underlying policies, it's the implementation of those policies and ham-fisted attempts to intimidate like that. And people running around again with masks, sunglasses, no identification on them whatsoever. It's not an American, it's not a site that Americans want to see on the street. Certainly not independence, not swing voters. So it's interesting, of course, they have every right to do their job, and Americans want them to do their job, keeping our borders safe. But that just doesn't make sense.

But what you're seeing, bigger picture, let's go 30,000 feet. And what you're starting to see now are Democrats starting to do quite well in generic ballots. In one poll after another, Democrats are taking three, four, five, six, even seven-point leads in generic ballots. And there's a political story saying, they came out yesterday saying the Democrats, if they squint hard enough, they actually can see a Senate majority. And actually, if it's a wave of election, there's no reason why Democrats don't win a state like Maine that both Joe Biden won, I believe, by nine points, and Kamala Harris won. North Carolina, Roy Cooper, the governor, very popular governor there, is in that race. He's ahead in the polls right now. Democrats have talked Sherrod Brown, an extremely popular populist who ran against a wave in 2024 and lost.

They've convinced him to get back in there. And they believe they have an outside shot at Alaska and one or two other states. So, again, all of this overreach, again, it's disturbing. But it should be concerning to Republicans as well because they are losing the middle of America when they go around and again separate babies from their mothers, have masked men on the streets of college campuses or right off college campuses, grabbing women and throwing them into unmarked cars. It's not something that Americans are comfortable seeing. And that's why despite the underlying popularity of keeping the southern border safe and secure, Donald Trump right now is

upside down in some polls on immigration. Yeah, and that's exactly the reason why. Images of these Border Patrol agents with masks, you're showing up at political rallies, which some there deemed to be fascist. That's what this looks like. You know, Americans, yes, they want the southern border. That's no doubt. But there's this overreach, moving into communities pulling out people, that seems to be the problem. So, Gene, you know, the president, he's underwater on a number of issues, including immigration. And there is a growing sense of optimism among Democrats, certainly on the House, and as this Politico piece notes, maybe the Senate, Joe ticked through the states, maybe you add Iowa to it, maybe Texas. Some of these are reaches. The map's tough, but if things

were to break a certain way, they got good candidates, maybe. Just maybe. I mean, we've seen this movie before, right? And the, you know, an administration wins with a fairly narrow margin overinterprets that that margin as a huge mandate overreaches and then is chastised and punished in the first midterm. We are seeing that now on steroids, I think, at least the first part of that story, and we'll see if we see it in the midterms as well. But I think Democrats feel a whole lot better now than they were feeling a few months ago. Well, and David Ignatius, what happens?

We have seen it in our lifetime several times. Of course, I don't know. I may be older than you. I'm not sure. I'll just say we're old enough to remember 1974. And just a massive landslide, 1980. I remember watching the returns of the 1980 elections going, wait, he lost? He lost?

Again, it was a complete wave. Some of the safest, safest Democratic senators swept away by the Reagan Revolution. 1986, Ronald Reagan at the height of his powers. Democrats shock Reagan and Republicans. and they take over the U.S. Senate. And then, of course, 1994, I went out, I went out, I went out after we got our results and I had won and, you know, I'm talking. Somebody said, hey, we just took over the House.

And I said, we, we, what do you mean? We're Republicans. We don't win the House. They, no, no, we took over the House and the Senate. It happens in wave elections. And this is why, this is, this again, Republicans. Republicans need to worry about overreach. And when you have guys in masks and unmarked and wearing sunglasses, and they're showing up at political rallies, yes, yes.

Prime time of MSNBC and the New York Times editorial page will criticize it for good reason. But Republicans aren't just, quote, owning the libs. They're pushing away independence. So, Joe, there's a fascinating question for Democrats about how they should respond to these people and masks and intimidation and National Guard tanks at the Union Station last night, greeting arrival. Governor Newsom said yesterday that this is a break the glass moment and talked about, you know, ever more extreme ways of challenging what Trump is doing. And it's interesting to me to ask, is that the way to get to, you know, decisive rejection of what Trump is doing? Or will that make life easier for Trump? Democrats have to think very carefully about the best way to fight the kind of actions they're seeing.