Morning Joe - Trump provides no evidence of illegal voting in speech

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

July 17, 2026: 7am — Trump provides no evidence of illegal voting in speech  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.

Live picture of the Statue of Liberty through the Canadian wildfire smoke that's blanketing huge swaths of the country today. Just after 7 o'clock on this Friday morning, the nonprofit legal group Democracy Ford says it plans to take new action today in response to President Trump's prime time address last night. The organization tells MS now it will file a motion as part of the group's effort to learn what the Trump administration has been doing with its investigation into the 2020 election and if it has acted improper. Joining us now, the president and CEO of Democracy Ford, Sky Perryman. Sky, good morning. We can get into the details of the suit in just a moment, but I'm just curious about your reaction to what we heard last night. We've kind of been going through and cataloging the lies we heard.

A lot of it warmed over conspiracy theory. Some of it confession, the documents that were declassified, one prominent one showing that it was Vladimir Putin and Russia putting its thumb on the scale in favor of Donald Trump in the 2020 election. And another big revelation was that Venezuela may be tampering with its own elections, not ours. What did you hear last night? I think you hear a desperate attempt by the president to try to cede so many doubts in the American people's minds. This is, you know, another part of his playbook, but it really did look desperate.

I mean, not only are the documents that he's referring to not supporting his claims, but instead supporting claims that the entire intelligence community, the expert voting community around the country, have been saying for so long there was no interference. And to the extent there is a threat to elections, it's from the president's own allies. And so I think you really saw a desperate attempt. And the American people, though, got a front row seat to what we believe this administration will be doing over the coming weeks and months, which is to continue to try to have people doubt what they know, to discourage people from voting and from using their voice. And the important thing is, I believe we see across this country,

the American people are just not going to fall for that. And the lawyers, of course, are going to be prepared. So, Sky, let's be more specific about what you think now, the goals, the aims of the Trump administration are first around the 2026 midterm election, because he made that speech with all the lies that he told. And then at the end said, And that, my friends, is why we need the Save America Act, which many Republican senators have said as a non-starter. But what do you believe the Trump administration now will do from here over these next few months? You know, he's trying to normalize questions around the election. He's trying to normalize statements that have no basis.

I think he will try to use our national security apparatus to claim that there are threats that have not been substantiated. And I think this was, you know, part of the first part of that chapter for this next election. Let me ask, Sky, there are many things we hear every day. And we're just bombarded with it, right? It's sort of the firehood of falsehoods, firehows of falsehoods. But let me ask you, are there anything specifically that you're most concerned about that we should most focus on? Like, for instance, the president's talked about having the ability to seize vote. voters rolls from individual states or else he won't allow the post office to mail ballots.

He's talked about deploying ice to polling locations, which I can tell you is a guy who's been on the ballot, that will piss off Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike. I know how voters are when they go to the polls. I've seen it up close. You stay away from them. You let them do what they want to do or they get pissed off. And then finally, like the shutting, this is what I'm really concerned about. I'm sure you are too.

But on election night, some phony emergency and Donald Trump trying to get the feds to shut down polling locations in swing districts in Democratic precincts to try to, well, rig an election like he's always talking about. What are your biggest concerns? and what do Americans do to help the cause to make sure that everybody has a fair and free vote? Yeah, so the number one concern, of course, and this is what a lot of this is aimed at, is that the American people just will check out and not vote because the president continues to seed all types of lies and to intimidate and try to scare people, whether it's through ice surges or other things. And so what the American people can do there is to not allow this president to,

take your vote or to take this election, and there are scores of lawyers that are ready at every turn to make sure also that that doesn't happen. So I just do think we have to stay focused that a lot of these scenarios, and I'll talk about some of them that do concern me, but a lot of these scenarios, the incessant talking about these scenarios, the president taking the stage, all of that is to try to get people to say, you know what, it might not be worth me voting this year. And that will not happen because the American people will not be underestimated. But it is, it is something that we all need to protect against and to work to combat. Now, Joe, to your point, all of these scenarios are concerns because this president is operating so lawlessly. What we want people to know is the

president is like zero for 12 or 13 in all the voter rolls cases. We at Democracy Ford have blocked the ability of the Department of Homeland Security to try to use this modify SAVE database. Republicans and Democrats in Congress appear to not be willing to allow the SAVE Act to be passed that would disenfranchise 70 million people, including many, many women across the country. And so I think that the president's losing on this, on his attempts and his agenda, and we're going to ensure that he do that. And so that brings us to what we did this morning, which is, you know, we were already in court before I got here this morning filing a lawsuit that demands that the administration turnover documents from OD and I, from the FBI, and from the

Department of Justice that they have been withholding contrary to law for weeks now. And we will be able to also get more documents that will yet again show that the president has no basis for these claims. President and CEO of Democracy Forward, Sky Perryman, thank you very much for coming on the show. Come back soon. And Sky, Sky, thank you for what you're doing. Again, the idea, it's not to help Democrats or independents or Republicans. It's to help everybody to get out and have a fair and free election. So let's bring in the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut. Also with us, MS now senior national security reporter David Rhodes.

So, Congressman, as you know, I'm just a simple country lawyer, went to Southern State schools. I'm not as smart as those Ivy League boys like J.D. Vance and Ted Cruz and Pete Hagseth. But it seems to me, it seems to me, Mattlock would be very, very confused here because we heard that this speech was going to be proven that China influenced American elections. But I got these documents here that talk about how wrong. Russia tried to rig the election. This is from Donald Trump's own intel community, and these documents, well, if you don't mind, you don't mind, I'm just going to read a little bit of it. And I think you'll be real interested in it.

It says the Russian governments advancing narratives with U.S. officials and other prominent persons as well as online. these figures, this is the Intel community released by Donald Trump, these figures are conspiring to intensify their efforts as the election approaches to orchestrate a high-profile corruption scandal implicating Joe Biden and the Democratic Party at the peak of the 2020 presidential election. Their aim said Donald Trump's own Intel community in 2020, is, to defeat the former vice president and ensure the president's victory. Russian actors,

listen to this. This is so diabolical. No American would ever consider doing this. Russian actors have circulated narratives about voter fraud resulting from mail-in balloting and called some U.S. primary voting processes rigged by the Democratic Party. I guess, I'm confused. I'm a simple country lawyer. This is from the Trump administration talking about vote rigging, which sounds like what the president was doing last night, which they say is what Vladimir Putin was doing. And it reminds me of Marco Rubio and the Intel committee and the Senate saying that the 2020 election caused a real threat to America's national security because a Russian interference. Now, I don't get it. We were supposed to hear about China. Instead,

we have documents that say, well, in China, it was Russia who interfered in 2020. Can you help us out? Can you help us understand this a little better? Because I'm confused. Yeah, it is, it is hard to understand, Joe. Look, the president told three huge lies last night. Number one, that our elections are corrupt. They're not. Oh, and by the way, only the election of 2020, which he lost is corrupt. 2016, when he won and 2024, when he won, those were fine. No problem. But 2020 when he lost, that one was correct. Can I ask you this? Because again, I'm simple guy. Who was president in charge of the 2016 election? This is a good one. Exactly. Exactly. And to your point, it was Barack Obama. It was Barack Obama in 24, which was okay.

That was sleepy Joe Biden. But the only election that he says was rigged was the one in 2020 when he was president. Exactly, Joe. So there's that lie. There's the lie. And this is in some. some ways the most pernicious one, this deep state that the CIA or the FBI tried to keep this information from the president. And, you know, he needs to say that, of course, because as you point out, it was his CIA, it was his FBI. And the reason that really troubles me is that the intelligence community, Joe, as you know, is full of amazingly patriotic people who get paid an awful lot less than they should to do amazing and dangerous work. And last night you heard the president, and by the way, working with the leadership of our current intelligence community,

slag those people off and lie about them. And most importantly, this whole China thing. You read this thing. And by the way, I have with me, the American public can look at this. This is a declassified intelligence community assessment prepared by the Trump leadership in 2020 at the very end of his term, which says that the Chinese, it just says it in black and white. The Chinese did not interfere in the election, full stop.

Did they think about it? Do they do what they always do? We just think about whether they can, you know, meet up-and-coming politicians in California or whatever. Yes, but this thing says clearly that it was, as you pointed out, the Russians who intervened just as they did in 2016 to help Donald Trump get elected. So what we saw last night were three pernicious lies in the service, and your previous guest, Sky Paraman, made this case very, very well, in the service of creating just enough doubt and anxiety about our elections that when he loses, as he's going to do in November, he can see. say, well, we've got new evidence of what I told you about in July, in Georgia, in Michigan, and I have sent armed DSA agents to DHS agents to take control of ballot boxes. Joe, that's the moment that our democracy ends.

Congressman, in the document that you just held up from 2021, we should remind our viewers, because there's so much going on that the current CIA director, John Ratcliffe, was the director of national intelligence. So he knows the man who was seated in that audience in the East Room last night, stood and applauded at the end of that speech. He knows it's all nonsense because here's a quote from that report, quote, we have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections by altering any technical aspect of the voting process. That's from that assessment of the Intel Committee in 2021. So you started to get into it there, Congressman, but as we've been

saying this morning, this speech was a pretext. He wants to save America Act pass. I don't think that's going to happen unless suddenly some of these Republicans in the Senate change their minds, which they could. But what do you believe specifically the president is setting up right now? Is he going to use the National Guard? Could he use ICE at polling stations? What do you see coming? Look, in contrast to 2016, now he has all of the tools of the federal government as his disposal. So let me just sort of play out that scenario. You know, it's 9 o'clock on election night, and he realizes that he's going to lose control of the House of Representatives, which is very likely. And maybe even the Senate, right? And so what he does is he says, you know, he says, I've just gotten a report

from the director of CIA or, you know, the director of national intelligence that the Iranians are currently conducting an operation to damage the voting totals in California and Georgia and Michigan. And therefore, I have ordered federal agents to take custody to save our elections from the Democrats and whoever it is he's going to pick on, the Chinese in all likelihood, because that's what we heard last night. And they will seize the ballot box. in order to keep those ballot boxes secure. Now you have ballot boxes being loaded into the back of DHS vans. The chain of custody is lost in those very sensitive locations

where, you know, the races could be won or lost by a couple hundred votes. And what do we do? What do we do? The chain of custody is lost. We will never know if that scenario, in fact, plays out who won the elections. And that is what last night was about, just getting enough of his people. And by the way, I'm pretty familiar with his people because I was one of the last guys out of the Chamber of the House of Representatives. on January 6, 2021, when his people broke windows, murdered police officers, and when after, you know, members of Congress and senators wanted to hang Mike Pence, that's the level of violence that his loyalists are willing to engage in. And I can't tell you how uncomfortable and tragic it was for me to watch the president lie in the service of that mission and to watch his people, like John Radcliffe, who I have known for many, many years, just stand by instead of saying, I have some principle, I have some integrity, I'm going to resign. That's the old world.

That was really painful to watch. Well, you know, and there are these police officers who died whose families certainly think that their deaths, their suicides were directly related to what they endured. And obviously, Brian Sicknick, dying almost immediately after he had been a lot. attacked. These writers claiming they wanted to hang Mike Pence. Yeah, hang Mike Pence and to commit violent acts. You know, David Rode, it's fascinating.

Two people last night that were standing up. And I will say, I do want to be careful about CIA Director Ratcliffe because of all of Donald Trump's AIDS, he has in many ways from people inside the agency. He's done a pretty good job of holding the line on Ukraine and other issues. But you just heard about Director Ratcliffe in his other position, understanding that there was no evidence, as the Congressman said, that China was doing anything to swing the election in 2020. But you also had Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was running the Senate Intel Committee. and they concluded in an after-action report from 2016 that Donald Trump's 2016 campaign posed, quote, a grave counterintelligence threat because of its openness to Russian influence.

And I won't read it again, but, you know, the only thing that was proven last night by documents released were, that it was the Russians, in fact, that were actively trying to influence the campaign in 2020 based on documents, the White House released, based on Donald Trump's administration in 2020, all of these things. I mean, the calls are all coming from inside the House that are damning for what the president tried to prove last night. Yeah, it's so hard to cover this because, and I feel, you know, for the American public. And I just want to say the clearest explanation I have for what's going on. And I'll talk about Rackleff in one second.

But this speech, to me, just shows how desperate, delusional, and dangerous this administration and this president is becoming. Just on Rackcliffe, I think he owes an explanation to the American people. This is a public document. This is his dissent that he put out in January 2021 after the election. and the main point he made was that he believed that the amount, the effort to shape, not to interfere, not to change the votes. There is no mention in this document from John Rackcliffe that China tried to or changed any votes in the 2020 election.

John Rackcliffe simply made the argument that the Chinese effort to influence the operation through propaganda and bots online was larger than the broader assessment that Representative Hines was just talking about. And that dissent is actually in this document. It's actually public. And so if there's anyone who should be held account now, whether it's by President Trump or if he testifies before Congress, it's John Ratcliffe. He either allowed this giant plot to happen where all this was hidden from the president. He is a member of the deep state or he did not. And which one is it, Director Radcliffe? Were you part of a deep state plot that hid from the President of the United States, that China was doing all these nefarious things?

I just, I don't understand it. He's got an incredibly powerful position, and I don't understand how he's trying to use it. And then I have a couple documents I want to talk about as well, but I don't want to talk too much this morning. Well, you know, you know, Rev, I've got to say there are disagreements. And if John Radcliffe saw Chinese influence in there, I personally am glad that he wrote that dissent to suggest, and I don't know Radcliffe, I maybe, maybe maybe spoken to him one time on the phone for about five minutes. But if somebody has a dissent, I put it in there. I think that's a good thing. But the fact is, you know, nobody here is saying that we should not be alert to Chinese influence on our elections. They may try to do it again

in 26 or 28, just like Russia has tried to do it in 16, 20, and 24. So I'm glad they're staying alert to that, at the same time, there's just no evidence of what Donald Trump was saying last night. No, there's no evidence. And I would raise the question that if this was available to the president, did he discuss this when he went to visit China not that long ago? It seems to me that this is just something to discourage people from believing the results of the midterm elections, which are likely to go democratic. My concern is that what will the Democrats do to make sure that people do not feel that it's useless to vote? How will they defend the fact that they may try to, as Congressman Himes have said, confiscate and hold some of the election returns,

and how do we beat back that kind of cynicism where people feel it's of no value to vote? So Congressman Himes, is there a plan in place or would you suggest a plan that would in fact say to people, don't be discouraged, come turn out anyway? Yes, we know they're trying to act like everything is rigged, but these are going to be safe elections and we'll protect your vote, even if they try to, as has been suggested, try to in some ways take some of the ballots and hold them. Yeah, well, thanks, Reverend. Look, there's a political answer, a partisan answer to that question, which is one thing that the Democratic Party needs to think about doing is making the win too big to rig. In other words, get people out there. The polling very much indicates the level of energy. But then if you set aside the partisan stuff, which we should in this conversation, yeah, the American people need to be constantly reassured that it is safe for them to go to vote, that it is illegal. It is illegal for federal officers who are armed to be anywhere near a polling place. And that no matter what the circumstances are, they've got the right to go in there and vote. We need to keep saying something that is also 100% true, which is that, because this is the underlying lie here, apart from the sort of Chinese interference thing, which is that foreigners do not vote in our elections. You know, conservative groups like

Cato and Heritage have done the studies, and they've showed that in billions and billions of votes cast in this country, a handful, literally a handful, single or double digits, foreigners have voted in this election. And then, of course, we got the work to do with which you are so familiar, making sure that we are witnessing at the polls, that we're recording everything that happens peacefully, peacefully without antagonism. We've got to remember that Donald Trump would love nothing more than to have a scuffle, a scuffle, a fight or something at a polling place. Because now all of a sudden you've got law enforcement there.

Now all of a sudden you've got chaos, and that's exactly what Donald Trump wants. Ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, Democratic Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, Thank you so much for coming on this morning. We really appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Still ahead on morning, Joe. We're going to go through new analysis on the damage to the reflecting pool.

Oh, come on, man. Good Lord. It's unbelievable. And it contradicts claims from the president and his administration. I guess it's a metaphor. It's all a metaphor. We'll be right back. There you go.

Back just before the bottom of the hour. Following the political downfall of Britain's Kear Starmour, the UK now is set for its seventh leader in a dead. a newly elected member of Parliament and the former mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham is poised to become the next prime minister of Great Britain on Monday. Let's bring in Sky News anchor and MS now contributor, Wilfron Frost. He's also the host of the Master Investor podcast. Wilfred, great to see you this morning.

So for our American audience, who's kind of the head spinning turn here of another prime minister of the UK, introduce us to Andy Burnham. Yeah, so Andy Burnham is literally, literally as we speak, just been confirmed as Labour leader. And then, as you said on Monday, he'll become Prime Minister when Kirstarmer formally tenders his resignation to the king and then invites Burnham to form a government. He was born in Liverpool and then ultimately became the Manchester mayor

from 2017 to 2026. And with that, can very much describe himself as he's been described as the King of the North and to represent a different part of Britain, perhaps give Labour the chance to win back some of those voters that they've lost to Nigel Farage's Reform Party. Before going into local politics, though, he was in Westminster politics. He was an MP from 2001 to 2017. He had junior roles in the Blair government and then senior roles in the Brown, Gordon Brown government from 2007 to 2010, and tried to become Labour leader twice back then, 2010 and 2015 and failed and then pivoted

to that more local approach. And look, the big question is, is how far to the left of Kirstarmer is. He's thought to be a little far, a little to the left, but not as far as Jeremy Corbyn was. And we don't really know the precise answer to that. What he's really defined his pitch as is more devolution. He said this morning in his speech that he's giving us as we speak, it's not about who governs Britain, but how Britain is governed.

Thank you so much for joining us. It's very similar to the dynamic here in terms of progressives in the Democratic Party. How far left will they go? I want to ask you about how you think this new prime minister will deal with President Trump, and particularly the war with Iran, which is now resumed, gas prices are going to rise. That's a much bigger pressure in Europe and in the UK. Will the Britain be more aggressive in trying to help in the straight-or moves? Will this prime minister be more aggressive in trying to confront Trump?

Or what would be the strategy you think? So starting with Trump, I think, you know, as Trump said in an Oval Office press conference recently, in response to a question from my Sky News colleague Mark Stone, he said, oh, I heard he's very, very liberal and it sort of set the hairs racing that this wouldn't be a good relationship. I don't think on global politics his politics will be much different from Kirstarmer's. And if anything, he's got more of a personality that might allow him to woo Trump than to be, you know, blunt, Kirstama perhaps lacked a little bit. He's a bit of a guy's guide, but he loves his sport, for example.

But he's also quite funny. You know, just in the speech he's giving it the moment, self-deprecating, using a joke, an insult that people have used against him for not having clear politics, right back at them and taking a bit of self-deprecation. And I have a feeling that might that part of it appeal a bit to Trump. In terms of the Iran War, you know, the UK is obviously wary. Our finances are in serious trouble. And our bond rates, by the way, have responded much more to the end of the MOU than perhaps other countries have. And I think, will we help more? We haven't really got much capability to do anything more. I think what that highlights, though, is he's going to face all of the same problems that Starmo has faced in terms of we want more spending here. We don't want more tax hikes. But if you want to pull one of those levers, you're going to have to accept the other because we can't afford more borrowing with borrowing costs elevated because of the war. So while we're on a run, Wilfrid, you sat down with J.P. Morgan Chase CEO, Jamie Diamond for a recent episode of your podcast. And you asked him, about the economic impact of the war with Iran. And here is part of your conversation.

You know, if the president sought your advice or if you were giving the advice, can we afford as a country to pursue military objectives in Iran for months from now, the economy can handle that? Of course. You have to really separate the really important subject from the economy.

Like the economy, I mean, they'll all do respect about the economy. You don't want gas prices up. You don't want unemployment. like that, but, you know, Winston Churchill got you guys through, you know, 18 months who he stood alone against Hitler, all by yourselves. Could the economy withstand that? Not really.

Did you guys, what do you call it? You know, do it? You did it, you know, with him and it's standing behind you. And so, you know, this Iran, whether you like what happened with this Iran war or not, I think it's naive to act like it isn't a major, not a threat to the world. They've been killing and murdering people for 47 years. They can't have nuclear weapons. something's got to be done.

Why we allowed all this and proxy wars endlessly, and these proxy wars have been going on. And so it's a situation that needs to be resolved. I think it would take fortitude. I think a president would have to go to the American people and say, this is important. We're going to resolve it. I can

resolve it without any military deaths to put 100,000 of your kids on the field and get allies support, but we are going to have this strategy basically economic, you know, just tighten down an economy until they you know, until they say we're done. And that could happen. It may take a year and gas prices may go up. But is that a better outcome than them having a nuclear weapon in 10 years? Yeah. And I wouldn't even

compare the economy to that. One is maybe life and death for mankind. The other one is the economy. The economy is facing a lot of threats at this moment in time, including AI. What else, Wilford, did you get from this conversation? Yeah, by the way, on the economy, you know, that kind of followed some warnings about the economy, but clearly he delineates the mission in Iran as being above the questions around the economy, particularly, by the way, inflation. That's why we moved on to that topic. And he said he's not a buyer of government bonds here. He's worried that inflation will continue to pick up, that rates, therefore, will rise and bonds will fall. He wasn't broadly a buyer of the S&P 500 at these levels as well. So off the back of their bumper earnings,

I think he's giving a clear message. He's not sure how much longer this great set of performances in the markets can continue. I will say I've interviewed Jamie six or seven times. This was late yesterday afternoon. I've never had 60 minutes with him. So it was a really interesting long-form conversation. The full episode of the podcast drops on Tuesday early next week. And look, there's always lessons to learn from it, particularly in business leadership.

And there's a lot of the current environment in there, but a lot of the long-term business leadership stuff too. We'll look for that. Sky News anchor and MS now contributor Wilfred Frost. Thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. My pleasure is always. We appreciate it. Good to have you. MS now senior national security reporter David Rode. Thank you as always.

And still ahead on Morning Joe. Joe's conversation with Academy Award winning actor Morgan Freeman, who has a blues album coming out next month and a single out today. Morning Joe is coming right back. Trump's longtime teleprompter operator is accused of using inside knowledge to cash in on prediction markets, allegedly making more than $100,000 by betting on what the president would or would not say. Honestly, respect. You know what I'm saying? Oh, I know people are going to say it's cheating if he knows what words are in the prompter,

but with Trump, that's not a sure thing. For example, let's say he puts a bet down that Trump is going to read the word magnificent in a speech. And just across the bridge in front of Arlington Cemetery, we're building a magnificent. Really beautiful. Does that count?

Does that count? But I assume Trump is cool with this. I mean, game-recognized game. He's on unpaid administrative leave right now. There are very strict ethical guidelines here at the White House. Did she just say there are very strict ethical guidelines at the White House? This is like claiming that Love Island has addressed code.

Nice track. Yes, it's true. President Trump's long-time teleprompter operator dating back to 2016 is believed to have participated in insider trading about the speeches he scrolls. The suspicious activity first detected by the prediction market platform Kalshi back in March and then referred to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Investigators found that Gabriel Perez, who was operated Donald Trump's teleprompter for a decade now, allegedly used insider knowledge of the president's speeches to win more than $100,000. As a close aid to Trump, Perez has been known to have final eyes on all of the

president's prepared remarks. Perez reportedly has acknowledged some of the trades he's made and currently is in talks with regulators about returning his profits and refraining from making similar trades. Maybe still be around, but just not make those trades. Meanwhile, President Trump's social media company plans to start charging for special early access to his true social posts, including ones from the president that potentially could affect national security and financial markets. According to the Associated Press, the new subscriber feature would allow Wall Street trading firms and other institutions to get news from top true social contributors in milliseconds, potentially allowing subscribers to profit off of subsequent moves in stocks, bonds, and interest

rates. The AP points out the biggest shareholder of True Social's publicly traded parent company is President Trump himself. Therefore, he would directly benefit from this new business move. No word yet on how much subscribers would be charged for this new future. The Trump family company declined to comment. True Social's parent company did not respond to requests for comment. So Rev, just rotten all the way through. We can fold this into the story from a couple of weeks ago where we learned that President Trump has made nearly a billion and a half dollars off of cryptocurrency since he took office a year and a half ago. You can add in the Qatari jet that he was gifted and now flies around on without

proper security measures according to the Secret Service. Boy, there's a lot to choose from, Rev, and it all stinks. It all stinks. And what is scary to me is that we begin to see this become normalized in the American mind. because there's so much, it's almost every day, another angle, to blatantly say you're going to charge people or companies, get money from them so you can give them a heads up on things coming that they can use to do whatever they want to do

in terms of buying stocks, making predictions at the market. It is corruption with no veil over it. And at the same time, it's become normal. And let's not forget, the president himself has been convinced. convicted of this in a Manhattan court of some of these shenanigans. So it is scary to me that we're looking at the normalizing of using the White House and the powers of the presidency to outright graft the American people. We can throw in defense contracts. The president this week was talking about magnets. It turns out that one of his sons is running a company that would benefit

from that. It goes on and on and on. Reverend Al Sharpton, Rev. Thanks so much as always. We appreciate it. we, of course, will be watching Politics Nation this weekend right here on MS now. Still head here, the World Cup final is set for Sunday in New Jersey, with Spain taking on Argentina. And for the first time ever, the game will feature a star-studded halftime show, kind of like the Super Bowl. We'll tell you who's taking the stage next on Morning Joe. President Donald Trump's going to be attending the World Cup final this weekend.

The White House yesterday confirmed the president's going to travel to New York City today and attend FIFA's reception at Trump Tower in Manhattan. And it will be at Sunday's game between Spain and Argentina at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The head of FIFA signaled last month, he and Donald Trump would present the trophy to the winning team. Meanwhile, superstitions keeping the president of Argentina away from Medellands this weekend. The Argentine leader said yesterday he'll watch the match from home where he's viewed the team's seven previous content. He also explained another ritual. And while he'll also be wearing a heavy coat, quote,

the day of the Switzerland game, it made me really hot. I took it off and they scored a goal against us. I put it back on and I never took it off. There you go. Again, a wise. It works. It does work. I do it all the time.

Jack's opening doors and stuff? We're opening doors. We're locking things. I never wear Alabama shirts during an Alabama game. It doesn't work anyway. Superstitions aside, the World Cup finals is going to kick off Sunday at 3 p.m. And for the very first time,

Yay. The World Cup final is going to feature an extra dose of entertainment. Yes, in the form of a halftime show. Produced by Global Citizen and curated by Coldplay's Chris Martin, the star-studded show will be headlined by Madonna, Shakira, Justin Bieber, and BTS. And it's all for a great cause. The performance will support the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund.

a new initiative to expand access to quality education and football programs for children worldwide. And joining us now, Fran Katsuda, she is executive vice president and chief people policy and purpose officer at Cisco, a longstanding partner of Global Citizen. So, Fran, it is so great to have you here. We want to hear about the Education Fund. But first, talk about the halftime show. I know Global Citizen got involved in a FIFA event. last year, but this is as big as it gets. Talk about global citizen running the halftime show

at the World Cup final on Sunday. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. And it is incredibly exciting. I think for all of us, the energy of World Cup over the last four weeks has been so very fun. And I think it brings the world together. And Joe and Mika, I think another element that brings the world together is education. because we know that when we can educate a child, we change the trajectory of their life. And from a global citizen perspective, having an opportunity like this,

where the world is coming together and to put a spotlight on education and what's possible. And how we break the cycle of poverty is so important to us. You know our mission is to eradicate extreme poverty. And we're so optimistic that not only in the halftime show, But now, as a result of all of this work, we're going to see the World Cup impacting lives like never before.

Yeah, so, and this is also, I mean, all the different endeavors that Cisco is involved in, right in line with what you do along with global citizens. So tell us about what you're hoping this education fund will be able to accomplish with everything that's being put forward through this halftime show. Yeah, from an education fund perspective, we are. hoping to raise $100 million. And I think what is so unique about this is that those $100 million will go to organizations around the globe, so many grassroots organizations that are truly having impact. From a Cisco perspective, we've always realized the power of education. And I would say even more so now as we look at AI and the impact to the economy and jobs

and people more broadly, we have through our own networking academies, trained around 28 million learners over the last 27 years. And so for us, this intersection of Cisco and Global Citizen in service of education is really powerful and impactful to us. So you've already raised 50 million in this education fund, the goal, $100 million. I know some countries have contributed some money. Is that something the United States could do?

But presidents coming to the final. The United States could be in line also to help out with other countries. Hey, that's exactly our hope. And I think, Joe, at this moment, we're closer to a $60 million number, which is exciting and shows momentum as we're getting closer and closer to Sunday. And so our hope is that the U.S. and more broadly around the world, and for citizens around the world to just engage, you can go to globalcitizen.org and learn a lot more. But like I said, this is just the beginning.

And I think we have so much work to do. Well, how exciting if the present could come. Oh, I know. Maybe bring a little money. And bring a check to the Education Fund. Could be good. We will take it. That would be great.

A final half-time show produced by Global Citizen is this Sunday in Cisco's. Fran Katsudas, as always, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. We really appreciate it. All right. Still ahead, Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania will be our guest. We'll get his reaction to last night's speech from the president. Morning Joe is back in just a moment.