Morning Joe - Trump denies writing letter to Jeffrey Epstein with drawing of a naked woman

Episode Date: July 18, 2025

Trump denies writing letter to Jeffrey Epstein with drawing of a naked woman

I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by Biden, you know. Okay, cool. Cool as a cucumber. This guy's not worried about a thing. So let me get this straight. According to Trump, all the top Democrats got together and said, let's create some fake files that destroy Trump's political career. They don't ever use them. They let Trump get elected. Don't use them.

Let Trump get elected again. Still don't use them. And then once he's the president, hope he releases the files without ever looking at them. That's the Daily Show's take on the Jeffrey Epstein files. This morning, the Trump administration may be one step closer to making more information, though not all of it public. We'll dig into that new development.

Plus, a rare acknowledgement from the White House about President Trump's health. Dr. Van Gupto will join us to explain the diagnosed vein condition we learned about yesterday and the surprise announced from CBS that the late show with Stephen Colbert will be canceled. Good morning, welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, July 18th. With us, the co-host is our fourth hour, contributing writer at The Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. special correspondent for BBC News and host of the Rest is Politics podcast, Cady Kay, and senior writer for The Dispatch, David Drucker.

He's also a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. So Joe, big news from the world of late night. Stunned a lot of people. Stephen Colbert came on his show, opened last night, and said, it's over. Our last show is going to be in May of next year, so you still have some time with him. But he learned on Wednesday night, according to reporting, that his show would be canceled,

that his contract would not be renewed. Obviously, the reason given by Paramount was that it just didn't make financial sense to have these shows anymore, but obviously hanging over all of this is the settlement that Paramount made over the 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris last year and all the pressure perhaps

from the Trump administration felt by Sherry Redstone, who runs Paramount as she seeks a FCC-approved merger with Skydance. Yeah, you know, the economics of the late-night shows just didn't make the sense, kind of sense that it's made for the past 50 years. Through Jack Parr, the age of Carson, of course, Letterman, you go on and on. So the economics were making less and less sense. But the timing of this actually is terrible, and it's terrible because you had the settlement with Donald Trump, and then you had Colbert and John Stewart criticizing that decision, and then a week later, they're saying, oh, unfortunately, we don't have the money to continue this.

I mean, it's not even like they're trying to hide the main purpose of it. I mean, it's certainly, again, you can make that economic argument, but that economic argument should have been made weeks before this or should have been made a couple months down the road. This just makes it look completely connected with the 60-minute settlement. Yeah, no question about it. And it is true that there's trimming happening all over the place at broadcast networks.

There are late night shows that are having to give up their bands and things like that. But Stephen Colbert, two nights ago on his show, called that settlement on the 60 Minutes interview a bribe. He was very critical on the air of Paramount. And then about 48 hours later, you have this decision coming down that his show would be canceled. Yeah. 48 hours later you have this decision coming down that his show would be canceled. Yeah, I will say also though,

just the media world is changing dramatically. And you know, yesterday, of course, I was working a good part of the day, which everybody knows that's code for trying to find what dogs we bet on when we do our off-track running pilgrimage. Hey, that's work. Yeah, that is hard work. we bet on when we do our off-track betting pilgrimage. Yeah, that is hard work when we do our Saturday

off-track betting pilgrimage. It's still in Times Square, right? And so, the office. But then, I'd been working, had not seen the British Open, not seen the Open, said I wanna see the highlights. This is going a very, very, very long way to make a very small point. And you know, I usually look at YouTube on my phone. So I'm saying, then I said, oh, I got to work.

So I had read somewhere that everybody was putting YouTube now up on their TV. All the kids are doing it. All the old folks are doing it. Everybody's doing it. I said, well, I can keep doing work. I can look at the dogs and also see the open. So I did that, put it on the screen, and I just sat there working for 20 minutes, watching YouTube clips of, you know, 10 hours of golf sort of, you know, crushed down to about 15,

20 minutes. And that's what was happening with the late night comics. They've put on this show, they've got great production, they're spending all of this money. And most of the people that see anything about it see it just the way we saw it there. They'll see it, you know, 15 second or 30 second clips. And just the economics of that doesn't make sense anymore for these late night empires as great as they are. Yeah. And it's in some ways it's sad to see, but it is a reality that these show late night shows, whether it's Colbert or Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel, they don't even measure themselves that much anymore by that total audience at night watching because they know so much of it.

Perhaps most of their viewership and their fans watch them the next morning. They watch it on YouTube like you did yesterday, or they watch it in different places or just in short clips on social media. And there was the news just a few days ago that streaming has surpassed both cable and broadcast television in terms of the way that people consume media. So that's hanging over all of this, of course. But as you say, the timing of this,

not pretty for Paramount and CBS News. And a lot of Stephen Colbert's longtime fans are not just disappointed, but angry about the way this happened. Yeah. Oh, no doubt about it, and the timing very bad. Jonathan O'Meara, let's talk about polls really quickly. CNN poll came out yesterday, showed Donald Trump's approval rating at 42%, showed the big bad beautiful bill or whatever they're calling it way upside down. I mean 65 percent or so people are against it.

Showed the...how much? 61 percent against the big, beautiful bill. There we go. 39 percent approved. Upside down there, there's another one about Democrats who are less popular than ever, lowest approval ratings ever. But the one that has to be standing out to the White House and also to other Republicans that are looking and seeing how Donald Trump is doing with his base, because we keep hearing that his base is moving away from him with all of these podcasters and online influencers, was Donald Trump's approval rating with Republicans.

It is sitting around 88 percent. The Quinnipiac poll, it's up to 90 percent. His numbers actually have gone up since the Epstein story hit the front pages again. So anybody hoping that the Republicans were going to drift away? Independents are drifting away, but the Republican base staying right there with him. Yeah, to this point, that is absolutely true. First, a big quick beat on the Democrats. Only 28% approved in that poll of the Democrats showing the work they still have the work

that they still have to do. They're still picking up the pieces from November's election loss. There's still sort of this a lot of self-reflection, self-doubt. Frankly, some of it's turned into a circular firing squad. Democrats still turning on themselves in the post-Biden era, trying to chart a new course. They've had some success standing up to the Trump agenda, far less success sort of identifying what they stand for and what their positive vision for the future might be.

But back to the Republicans, that poll captured a few days ago, so it has missed, it wouldn't have picked up the couple of recent developments in the Epstein story, including significant ones from yesterday, which we will get to in a moment that may change things somewhat. But your larger point is right, though there's some loud voices on the right now objecting

to some of the things that President Trump has done, namely handling of that matter. The vast majority of Republicans still stand with him. And that's been the case now for a decade. He has an iron grip on the GOP base. There's been very little rebellions against him along the way. He recovered certainly from January 6th and elected again and now enjoys their support. But they have a lot of work to do. I wrote last week, the White House understands that they got their bill turned into law,

but it's not very popular and they're going to have to try to sell it. But that's going to be challenging when we know people like Republican Josh Hawley, that's Senator from Missouri, already saying he's going to try to amend and change what he voted for a few days prior, Joe. So there's a recognition here. There are a lot of things in this bill that Americans simply don't like, and they're going to hold Republicans accountable now, potentially in the midterms. And that's, Cady, when you look at the independent number, which is very low here, at low 30s,

people may look at that and say, oh, it's all about Epstein. I suspect that right now the 32% may have just as much or probably even more to do with the legislation that just passed, which is unpopular on so many fronts. Yeah. I mean, look, we're in the middle of the Epstein story. It's hard to know whether this has legs for another week, another two weeks, another month or another day, right? This is the way this media environment works.

It depends how many more stories comes out. Most of the kind of Democratic and Republican strategists that I've spoken to don't see the Epstein story having such a big impact in the 2026 midterms as the big beautiful bill because people are going to feel that in real term, unless it's amended, unless Josh Hawley manages to get those kinds of amendments and Republicans may feel they just have to if people are really starting to feel or see enough stories about how it's going to impact their healthcare and their own financial situation. I still feel this has more impact on the country,

and potentially, of course, on debt, interest rates, inflation, a whole host of other things in the medium term than the Epstein story does. Yeah. And of course, David Drucker, this poll was conducted from the 10th to the 13th. So before, as John Lemire said, a lot of the more recent revelations took place. But you look again, I want to show you these two numbers. You look at the independent numbers, they are low. But you look at the Republican numbers, and this is fascinating, 88 percent.

An approval rating sitting at 88 percent at the same time that MAGA influencers all over the podcasting world and on TV are warning the president that he has to come clean with the MAGA base. He's got to put everything out there regarding the Epstein files. This poll at least suggests, and again it was taken from the 10th to the 13th, but at least at that point this poll is saying that's not the case, that the base is still sticking there. What can you tell us? Well, Joe, I think we should put a sort of lifetime moratorium on speculation that this or that is going to tear the mega base away from Trump. Of course. We've been doing this for a day.

I don't mean you or I, but it's just collectively here. We've been doing this for a decade now. But David, the only difference here is that it's the MAGA influencers, the most powerful MAGA influencers that are doing it instead of the mainstream media. Yeah, that is correct. It's just my read, Joe, that the MAGA influencers really sort of, they exist because of Trump. They're popular because of Trump.

And so you have a MAGA base, a Republican MAGA base that is loyal to Trump, and then they search out media figures and influencers who give them the content that they want. As opposed to these influencers creating the base that then Trump scoops up, it's not that they haven't been helpful in, well, at least the 2024 election with some of these irregular voters and giving them access to content and more reasons to consider and then vote for Trump. But the way this generally works is that these people have become popular because of something that Trump created. Now, where Trump has always run into trouble is with center-right Republicans who are not

make America great again type of voters, who are more of your standard Reaganite. Part of Trump's magic is he's always been just normal enough for the normies and just sort of crazy enough, if you will, for the irregular MAGA voters. But they have always looked to Trump as a North Star, not Joe Rogan and not Steve Bannon, but they've been able to use that energy and that movement to then build their own sort of media profiles and empires. And while they can and will exist without Trump, because they serve a certain segment of the American electorate, they are not actually in control of how these voters feel about

Trump and ultimately how they vote. Although what you can look for with irregular Republican voters is do they feel that Trump and a Republican Congress have done enough heading into midterm elections where they don't normally vote to get them out to the polls considering that Trump himself will not be on the ballot. Right. Well, President Trump is hearing this. At another day of growing calls to release those Epstein files, President Trump now directing

Attorney General Pam Bondi to ask a court for the release of, quote, pertinent grand jury testimony in the case of the deceased convicted sex offender and the former friend of Donald Trump. The president made that announcement last night in a social media post saying his decision comes based on the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein, his words. The president also called the Epstein case a, quote, scam perpetuated by the Democrats, while also saying the whole matter should end right now. In response, Attorney General Vande posted on social media last night that the Justice Department

is, quote, ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts. Meanwhile, President Trump now says he will sue the Wall Street Journal over its latest reporting about a letter Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein back in 2003. According to the journal, the letter was part of a larger gift Epstein's former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, was preparing. It was an album of dozens of letters from Epstein's friends and associates to mark his 50th birthday. People who have reviewed the notes tell the journal the pages are among the

documents the Justice Department reviewed when it investigated Epstein and Maxwell years ago. It's unclear whether these documents are part of the Trump administration's recent review. The journal reports it reviewed the letter bearing Trump's name, describing it as body. The paper writes the letter, quote, contains several lines of typewritten text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand drawn with a heavy marker. The letter concludes, Happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret. NBC News has not independently verified that document.

In an interview with the journal on Tuesday, the president denied writing that letter saying, quote, This is not me. This is a fake thing. I never wrote a picture in my life. I don't draw pictures of women. It's not my language. It's not my words. The journal reports the president then threatened to sue the paper if it published the piece, which it did publish.

The Justice Department has not responded to the journal's requests for comment, and the FBI declined to comment as well. Last night after that story was published, Trump slammed the piece in a true social post, calling it false, malicious, and defamatory. He went on to say he will be suing the journal, its parent company, News Corp, and its owner, Rupert Murdoch. So, Jonathan Lamire, this is an explosive piece. You can read through the details.

There's text, dialogue written, typed out. There's a drawn picture of a woman around it as well as part of this birthday gift to Jeffrey Epstein more than 20 years ago. Donald Trump says it's not true. He says he's suing. Wall Street Journal stands by the story. They do. This story had been rumored for a few days.

It was echoing throughout the sort of New York and Beltway media sphere that the journal had something and had something big. And the White House was trying to squash it. And in fact, as the paper chronicles, there was a phone call Tuesday night with President Trump, which he denied it. Trump himself posted on social media that he called editors at the Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch himself to say don't run this and Trump's accounting Murdoch

said he would try to stop it but then didn't. So that's some of the back story here but this is a seemingly a big deal that it's further if the letter if accurate suggest more connections between Trump and Epsi We knew they were friends, certainly. Trump has spoken about that. They've been photographed together. But it is a pretty body letter. There's an imagined dialogue between Trump and Epstein that some could view potentially

incriminating or at least weird. The drawing is pretty graphic, which we won't fully describe here. Caddy, that Trump, you know, allegedly wrote on this letter to Epstein. Now Trump is vociferously denying it. We have seen him intimidate media organizations before the threat of lawsuit. We opened the show talking about how he has sort of his shadow covers the media landscape right now. So we will see the White House is vociferously denying this, vociferously denying this.

They say they're gonna put out more material, although we should note grand jury transcripts far from the full thing. Where do you think this goes from here? Is this revelation gonna impact how Americans view this story, but also Republicans and how they will now handle this going forward as they've been willing to defy Trump at least a little bit to this point.

I don't know. I mean, I think anyone who thinks that Donald Trump doesn't have a bawdy side to his character has been living under a rock for the last 20 years, right? I mean, we know this. The Access Hollywood did nothing to stop Donald Trump getting elected in 2016, and he's saying it on tape. So I don't think there is much surprise about this in terms of what it may or may not reveal about Donald Trump's character and his attitude to sex and women.

We've seen that before. I mean, I think what it does, perhaps paradoxically, is it gives the White House, as we saw that with Caroline Leavitt, we saw it with JD Vance, who finally weighed in on the story late last night. It actually gives them some kind of an opportunity to turn this into a kind of railing against the press. And that's always a very much more comfortable zone for them to be in. And if they can say, look, this is now let's shift the focus, right, the next distraction, let's stop thinking about Epstein.

And you're seeing that with some of the influences. I think Laura Luma has already kind of weighed in on that too that this is actually the White House against the press. Yet again the press is maligning us. I think that's probably safer ground for the White House in fact. Yeah David Drucker it seems to be actually a perfect off-ramp for a lot of these influencers. We've been talking about these MAG influencers who have said you promised you you're gonna release the files. You haven't released the files.

We're going to stay on this until you release the files. Oh, look, look what the big bad Wall Street Journal did to Donald Trump. He's once again a victim of the lame stream media. And they immediately, you know, it's not like they have short attention spans. They again, they see the 88% of this poll and suddenly they're going, oh, now we can attack the Wall Street Journal. Again, Murdoch-owned, but now we can attack the mainstream media and that can fill up our shows for the next two, three, four days and we don't have to talk about the Epstein

files. Yeah, that's correct. You know, there's a couple of things going on here, Joe. First of all, I think we ought to find a video of Donald Trump reciting the snake, right? Because he lived by the conspiracy theory, died by the conspiracy theory. He's fueled so many of these, and it's been a part of his political strength, particularly with the irregular voters. So, the facts might be murky to some, but this is really an episode, an issue of Trump's own making when you really look at it.

But the other thing here is, as you know, Joe, for many Republicans, they simply don't believe negative reporting, right? And 25 years ago, we would have talked about bias in reporting, but not whether the basic facts were correct, but it would have been about how they were presented. One of the things that has worked so well for Trump politically is that he will simply refute facts, refute stories. Many voters with years of distrust in the media believing it was biased toward the Democrats against Republicans believe Trump's refusals and denials. And so instead of having a conversation about whether or not, you know, I should, as a voter,

should I support or not support Trump based on these facts? These facts aren't true. They're out to get Trump. And then Trump always turns it around and they're not really out to get me. They're out to get you. This has worked very well for him. And it's why I'm always skeptical that things like this that, you know, in theory may or should cause an administration all sorts of political problems.

I just, I always have a wait and see approach. Yeah. I mean, it would, it would be Willie, any one of these things would probably end the political career of just about everybody on the political landscape. But Donald Trump has moved past everything from Access Hollywood to January the 6th. He got reelected again. Chances are good, a body birthday card, if he did in fact send that, even if his own voters see stronger evidence of it, not going to impact him with a base. And as David said, it's a measure of how well he has conditioned his supporters to distrust the media that he can convince them that the Wall Street Journal owned by Rupert Murdoch is a tool of the left.

The larger point though, Jonathan, even if this story doesn't stick with his voters is the fact that is whispered by some of these same podcasters and influencers who support Donald Trump, that Donald Trump was friends with Jeffrey Epstein. He's no wrongdoing. He says he didn't do anything wrong in this larger case, but that they were friendly and that he may have written him a letter they were friendly and that they he may have written him a letter on his birthday and that they did go to Atlantic City and hang out in the 80s and 90s. So that is out

there when he's so defensive about this and saying it should go away. It's a scam. It's a hoax. The very people who support him but are so invested in the Epstein story are saying, why are you so anxious for this story to go away? Yeah, I think this is one of those moments where two things are true at once. Certainly, as you just discussed, Trump has been very good at moving past a lot of scandals that would have doomed any other political candidate, Axis Hollywood chief among them. It is not a surprise that he uses the, quote, in his words, locker room talk sometimes.

But this time, the locker room talk will be attached to a significant criminal conspiracy. And there's certainly no evidence of any crime committed by President Trump, no wrongdoing at all, yet that's going to fuel questions of this unseemly relationship. And that's part of it. And I don't think as much as no doubt, those on the right can now rally against the Wall Street Journal, can rally against the media. At the same time, their fundamental questions about the Epstein matter, persist. I don't think those are going to go away.

This is a conspiracy theory created largely on the right. It has fueled Republicans and MAGA influencers for a long time. They have ignored Trump's wishes to let this go. And I think right now, Willie, that's going to persist. And the grand jury testimony, that'd be a piece of this if it comes out, if indeed the

attorney general is able to release some of that. But that's still a small part of the investigation. Now some of it, of course, will never see the light of day. It's sensitive. It involves, as we've heard from Tom Winter and others, there's no actual list. Some of the material there involves minors. That of course shouldn't be released. But there's still going to be questions about what else is there, and it's hard to see those fading anytime soon.

Well, and Willie, Jonathan just made the key point on why this is different from other scandals or dust-ups or whatever you want to call it. This has been a conspiracy theory that has been pushed by MAGA. This has been a conspiracy theory that's sort of been a foundational part of the MAGA base and their worldview, their view toward the federal government for years now. So the fact that NBC News, Tom Winter, Ken Delaney, David Rode, the fact that they all say there is no list, there is no there there. If there ever were, it got destroyed years and years ago. And there's no more incriminating information on Donald Trump, again, based on their reporting,

NBC News reporting. That's one of the reasons why the media and the, I think, Democrats, for the longest time, haven't acted on this. Not because they were part of some grand conspiracy theory involving Tom Hanks and Oprah. It's because they saw the reporting that there was no there there. And so here we are at a very interesting time where the mainstream media has believed it, the Democrats have believed it.

Now it's the MAGA base who would be the last to believe, need to believe for Donald Trump that there's no grand conspiracy theory here that the deep state took part in. But that may take a while to get from here to there. Yeah, too many people have been too invested for too long in this story to merely walk away from it after a social media post, even from President Trump.

Senior writer for the Dispatch, David Drucker. David, thanks for being with us this morning. We always appreciate it. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Congress has passed President Trump's $9 billion spending cut package. We'll go through which programs are losing funding. Plus, we'll show you how Democrats are challenging one

of the president's judicial nominees. And a reminder, the Morning Joe podcast is available every weekday, featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Joe on a Friday morning. We'll be right back. The United States says it did not support Israel's recent airstrikes in Syria. Meanwhile Syria's leader has accused Israel of trying to fracture his country and vowed to protect the Druze minority after Israeli strikes hit Damascus

and other parts of the country on Wednesday. A ceasefire is now in place between Druze fighters, government troops, and Bedouin tribes. The United States, along with regional Arab states and Turkey, have backed that truce, while Israel has defended its actions as protecting Druze civilians near its border. Joe, interesting. This is the latest case in Iran a few months ago where the United States, after an Israeli strike, said, we had nothing to do with this. Right.

And certainly real concern about a Syrian government that the Trump administration is trying to support. Obviously they don't want a power vacuum in there. And so Marco Rubio and the Trump administration condemning those attacks on the new Syrian government. Meanwhile, on the West Bank, the Christian community is calling for help after a series of confrontations with Israeli settlers escalated into violence this month. Local Christian leaders say fires set by the settlers have damaged the ruins of a historic church. NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley has been reporting on this story and

he joins us live now from Tel Aviv. Matt, I'm getting reports daily from missionaries who say that settlers on the West Bank are using violence, are burning their homes, are going after churches, are terrorizing Christians across the West Bank, which of course is where Bethlehem and other places that are extraordinarily important to the faith are in the West Bank. Tell us what's going on. Yeah, I mean, this is the West Bank. This is where, this is Judea and Samaria, as the Israelis call it.

This is where Christianity was quite literally born. And now we're seeing Israeli settlers trying to turf out the very last Christian majority town in the West Bank. And it's not because they're Christians. It's because they're Palestinians. And this is something that I heard loud and clear when I went to this town earlier this week. And I'm glad that you introduced this talking about the situation with the Druze in Syria and the Druze in Israel.

This whole conflict and all around Israel's borders, we do it a disservice when we say that this is just about Muslims versus Jews. This is a multi-confessional issue and one that is fractured along all of these different confessional lines. And it's a very interesting moment here when we're seeing all of these different religions coming into play just now, this week.

Here's our report from Taipei earlier this week. These Palestinian Christians may be a small minority, but they have endured here since the time of Christ himself. But now, millennia after the crucifixion, they face the possibility of extinction. The ruins of this 5th century church show just how long Christians have been here. But look, Israeli settlers have set fire to the fields here, trying to force them to leave after centuries. Thought to be the last Christian-majority town in the Muslim-majority West Bank, folks

here in Tabea are being squeezed even more, not because they're Christian, residents say, but because they're Palestinian. No Muslims, no Jews. They don't differ between Muslim or Christian. The settlers, they are dealing with us the same. Muslim or Christian, they are fighting with us all the time. Settlers often harass the Palestinians, bringing their cows to graze on their olive orchards. Settler violence targeting Palestinians in the West Bank has spiked to unusually high

levels over the past several months. The United Nations reported at least 740 incidents of settler attacks just so far this year, with June alone seeing the highest number of incidents. They feel that everything belongs to them. Father Pizzabella is the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem. Only a few months ago, he was among the top contenders for the Catholic papacy in Rome. Now he's once again asking the world for their prayers, including the new U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who is both a fundamentalist Christian and an outspoken supporter of Israel.

What has he told you? He told us, not just me, that he's following. He will raise the issue to Israeli authorities, and then he'll follow. You believe him? I am a believer by vocation, so I try to believe. If I don't believe, it will be a bad thing for me. The past few days may vindicate Father Pizzabella's faith. Just after my visit to Taipei, Ambassador Huckabee condemned the killing of a young Muslim Palestinian American man from Tampa,

whose settlers beat to death last weekend in the West Bank town of Sinjil, calling the killing a terrorist act. Like the priests of Taipei, Saifullah Musalit's father appealed to the U.S. for help. We demand the U.S. government to do something about it. They're always saying, you know, for justice, justice, justice. But as Palestinians, they dehumanize us. President Trump said he would hold a meeting yesterday to discuss the killing. But for the Christians of Taibeh, this test of faith has become yet another testament to their fortitude.

They want us to leave and they want us to emigrate. But we will never leave our land. We will die here. So Matt, there is, it looks to me at least, like Christian persecution in the West Bank and of course news out of Gaza yesterday that even the Pope condemned with the bombing of a Catholic church there. Tell us about it. Yeah, and it's interesting because that very Catholic church that was struck by what the

Israelis said was stray artillery in the Gaza Strip. This is the last Catholic Church, or the only Catholic Church in the Gaza Strip, serving what is thought to be a little more than a hundred Catholics who still remain in Gaza. Now as you mentioned, this caught the attention of the current Pope. It was the previous Pope, Pope Francis, who died only a couple of months ago, who kept up a regular daily conversation with the head priest of this church for months before he died and after those October 7th attacks, asking after their welfare, trying to see if they had eaten,

trying to see if they were safe, and offering a kind of benediction, the kind that only the Pope can really give. And you know, this is just goes to show, as I was telling you guys earlier, this conflict is not about Muslims versus Jews. We're seeing Druze people in Syria and in Israel, a young Muslim American man in the West Bank, Christian churches in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. This is a kaleidoscope of different identities

and religions, and they are all clashing right here. And it really is more about nationality and ethnicity than it is about theology. NBC's Matt Bradley, thank you so much for your reporting long time, after October 7, America and a lot of the world reflexively and I think rightly supported Israel's right to strike back against the Hamas terrorists. Netanyahu effectively struck back against Hamas terrorists, against Hezbollah, against Iran. And as David Ignatius said yesterday, a lot of things to be thankful for if you support Israel and if you believe that these terrorist groups should be pushed back. But as David also said yesterday, there are deep concerns when Netanyahu keeps expanding this war.

A year now, a year passed in Gaza, when many of the military and the intel community said there's no military reason to continue bombing, to continue shooting into Gaza. There's a humanitarian crisis. Same thing with Syria. Marco Rubio and the Trump administration, deeply critical of Netanyahu's bombing in Syria, of the Syria government building. And now on the West Bank, something we've talked about for a very long time, the settler violence continues to explode.

And of course, many evangelicals don't care or haven't said anything about the suffering on the West Bank or the suffering in Gaza. But now we've gotten to a point, because there is no pushback against this, that Americans are being killed on the West Bank by these settlers. Americans are being killed and Christians are being persecuted. The last majority Christian town in the West Bank, where Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but the last town in the West Bank that's majority Christian, getting just the persecution there continues day and then that. And again, I hear from missionaries,

I hear from pastors every day about what's going on there. And I'm glad Mike Huckabee spoke out against the American being killed. It seems the least that we could do. But there's just been silence. So now the Israelis are bombing Catholic churches in Gaza and they continue persecuting Christians in the West Bank and we hear absolutely nothing from the evangelical community. Yeah, I mean, first of all, that was a great report from Matt. I mean, it was very comprehensive and he made this nuanced point that this is not necessarily about religion. It's about ethnic identity and whether you're Palestinian or not Palestinian. And when I speak to people in Israel, to journalists in Israel, what they say is that Benjamin

Netanyahu has a vested interest in prolonging this war, whether it's allowing settlers to do these kinds of things in the West Bank, turning a blind eye to it, possibly even encouraging it in order to have, you know, disruption in the West Bank and prolonging it in Gaza as well. It was heartbreaking, that video of Pope Francis speaking to the Catholic priest that was released after Pope Francis' death and now to see that that church has been bombed. We're focusing on this perhaps today because it's Christians, because it's an American. But really I think what the point Matt was making that is the right one is being in Europe,

I'm hearing this story so much more. It is Palestinians, children in Gaza who are being killed at aid sites again and again, coming under fire from IDF forces. And the focus needs to also be on those children as well. And those Palestinian children, those Palestinians in the West Bank who aren't doing anything wrong, who aren't associated with terrorism necessarily and have now find that they're being hassled by Israeli settlers. And I think you have to ask, what is Netanyahu trying to do here?

What's he really trying to do here? Yeah, you're exactly right. The questions need to be asked. The New York Times had an exhaustive study and a look into Netanyahu keeping wars going on when ceasefires and peace treaties were possible and the conclusion of so many people that he was keeping going on for his own political and personal and legal reasons. And we have spoken out against the continued killing of Palestinians that have nothing to do with the Hamas terror group, have nothing to do with terrorism.

And Willie, the International Red Cross, came on our show last week talking about mass casualty events, people being shot, gunfire wounds, and mass casualty events continuing in Gaza from people that are doing no more than trying to go get bare essentials for their family, bread, a little bit of food, something to keep going, and something to stay alive. And they're getting shot up and killed, according to the International Red Cross, not Hamas officials, but the International Red Cross, and it just keeps happening. Without much aid at all and being forced into smaller and smaller areas as well. We'll stay on top of this story.

Also this morning, we'll dig into the rare acknowledgement from the White House about President Trump's health. NBC News medical contributor Dr. Vin Gupta joins us to explain the president's new diagnosis, we'll tell you what it is when Morning Joe comes right back. Live picture of the White House, 6.50 in the morning. In Washington, President Trump has been diagnosed with something called chronic venous insufficiency. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt made the announcement yesterday. Recent photos of the president show him with noticeably swollen ankles, as well as bruising on his hand,

which the press secretary attributed to the president frequently shaking hands and taking aspirin. Let's bring in NBC News medical contributor, Dr. Vin Gupta. Dr. Gupta, always good to talk to you. So what exactly is this condition? Yeah, Willie, good morning. Chronic venous insufficiency, essentially, there's blood in our feet

that has to make its way back up to the heart. And our veins, I mean, this is for everybody, has a mechanism, they have valves in it, that basically push the blood back up against gravity. Over time, as we get older, that mechanism starts to deteriorate. And so what we're seeing, at least amongst 10 to 15 percent of society as we age, this is very common. About 15 percent of people at maximum usually have some version

of this. The president, I mean, I think what's surprising here is, you know, he's been photographed, one of the most photographed people in the world. This is the first time we're actually noticing, pretty pronounced, you're showing it right now, pretty pronounced both leg swelling at the ankle. And that is, I was taken aback when I saw the degree of it. Yeah. Doctor, so let's talk about both conditions, and we don't have to show his ankles anymore.

We get the idea. So my father, that happened to my father, his ankles would swell like that as he got older. And, you know, I've always been struck by the stories about bruising on the hands. Just, I've never met anybody over 70 that doesn't have bruising on the hands. And if you are, you know, I will say I've been so skeptical of just about everything a White House physician has ever said about every president, especially Donald Trump. But in this case, you get to a certain age where you just look at your hand wrong and

you bruise. I mean, we've all seen it. I know you've seen it in your patients. I've seen it with everybody in my family. But also, though, imagine shaking hands over and over again. I'm repeating this because this actually has the ring of truth. Yeah, I mean, Joe, I agree. And I would say that the one difference here is there should be we should start to norm that whether it's a Democrat or Republican in the White House, that they should

just release the actual record. It's not a summary statement saying everything looks normal. And so that would be the one area I would say transparency here would be helpful because the press secretary went on and said all these labs are normal. It would be better just to look at it and to come to our own determination. But I agree with you.

I think a lot of these things are common. Chronic venous insufficiency is common. It is not something that is in any way gonna impact one's life expectancy or his ability to be president. What I would say is their workup was comprehensive. They really ruled out the one thing that we worry about in this case of swelling.

Your audience probably is well familiar with this, swelling after a long flight or with their loved ones. This is common. And they ruled out heart failure. And I think that's the one thing that we were worried about appears to be ruled out based on what you said. Right, and obviously, if you're president of the United States,

you do a lot of traveling. And Jonathan Lemire, I would often say the same things about Joe Biden. If Biden, after traveling around the world and holding press conferences late into the evening and coming back the next day, and it was tired, I mean, he, of course, slowing down, but it's always been pretty remarkable. You had with Biden, somebody had gotten 80, Donald Trump 79 right now, and very active schedules. I just wish Congress could do something, could pass a law requiring, again, medical records. It can even be

after the Trump administration ends, so they don't know whether it's about a Republican or a Democrat, but we get medical records and we get, you know, even an independent medical evaluation because, you know, we've talked about, you know, Donald Trump's physician saying, oh, he could live to be 200. Oh, he's Superman. You know, all the crazy stuff that Ronnie Jackson had said about him. And then you look at Joe Biden, and you find out that he hadn't had a PSA test, like supposedly since 2019, they wouldn't take a test, they wouldn't take other tests that they were afraid weren't going to turn out well for his cognitive reasoning.

It seems to me, I mean, how do we get to a point that we can have an independent medical exam for whomever is the next president, the president's beyond? Because for people like you that have to report on presidents, you're just sort of whistling in the dark. You have no idea what, you know,

how any president actually is doing. Yeah, White House has become notoriously stingy about releasing medical records. You mentioned some of it with President Biden. Obviously, that was a hallmark of Donald Trump's first term. We learned very little about his health, including when he got COVID. And now this time around, they've

been reluctant to give out information as well. In fact, it raised eyebrows that they even put this out as incomplete as it was. But something we'll certainly keep an eye on. Dr. Gupta, I want to turn now to something else I know you're following. This new report on potential deaths from the Medicaid cuts that could be coming as part of the so-called One Big Beautiful bill the Republicans have now passed into law. Talk to us about what could be fatal implications.

Yeah, you know, Jonathan, this was released by a lead researcher at the University of California San Francisco. It was a modeling study. What's going to happen over the next 10 years based on about $700 billion in expected cuts to Medicaid? And what did it find? It found about 1,000 preventable deaths we expect will occur because people, just a lot of vulnerable people, do not have access to timely healthcare, healthcare whatsoever.

What I think is also important to recognize is that a lot of people are going to have preventable disease where they're not going to be able to prevent, say, going to the hospital, going to the ER. So about 100,000 estimated hospitalizations every year. This is the low number. And really important also to recognize healthcare is the biggest part of the economy in most of the country.

300,000 jobs, Jonathan, this is what is estimated to be lost every single year because hospitals are gonna close. And so this is a broad-based impact both on the livelihoods of people, but also on job security because a lot of people have healthcare jobs. And as we've said many times, this will hit red states and blue states, urban, rural.

This is going to affect so many people, as you point out. Dr. Vin Gupta, NBC News medical contributor. Dr. Gupta, thank you.