Morning Joe - Trump terminates Canada trade talks again after Ontario runs ad featuring Reagan

Episode Date: October 24, 2025

Trump terminates Canada trade talks again after Ontario runs ad featuring Reagan Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Secret Service closed access to the Ellipse Park, which is a public park, from which journalists had been capturing live images of the East Wing demolition. Well, that makes sense. If none of it's on camera, they can just claim the East Wing hanged itself in prison. Now, a lot of, I guess, I'm going to. Stephen Colbert, hitting on two of the stories making headlines this morning, the president's unilateral decision to reshape the White House. and how the Epstein case still looms over Capitol Hill amid the ongoing government shutdown. The president, meanwhile, was up late last night, setting trade policy via social media, a Canadian political ad about tariffs triggered an angry escalation to the economic standup.

We'll have more on that. We'll see how Wall Street reacts to that when the markets open later this morning as we are on for four hours. Also ahead, we break down the story. engulfing the NBA right now involving gambling, organized crime, and what's being called a nightmare for the league. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, October 24th, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the co-host of our fourth hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. Special Correspondment for BBC News and the host of The Rest is Politics podcast, Katty K, columnist, an associate editor for the Washington Post, David Ignatius, and editor at The Insider.

Michael Weiss is with us this morning. And Joe, a lot of late breaking moves by the president last night. Blame Canada, man. Blame Canada. Get out the South Park theme, you know, theme track, theme song. And, yeah, a lot of stuff happening. We'll get to that. We're going to be obviously getting to what some pretty tough sanctions if they're enacted the correct way against Russia.

And Willie, in sports, the NBA, man, it just keeps happening. It happened back with a ref a while back. I guess basketball must be a pretty easy game to fix. I remember David Letterman even back in the 1980s when Tulane got caught cheating on games, shaving points. And they got like kicked out for a year. Letterman said, that's a shame because they were going to be 17 and 13 this year. So, I mean, and people like Bill Simmons have been saying for years that refs fix games, right? I mean, at least he said, you know, a good while back.

But this is really, this is another black guy for the NBA. Well, this is something else entirely. There was the one official who was caught and thrown out of the league. This is a Hall of Fame player in Chauncey. Billups who won a title with the Detroit Pistons in 2004. His nickname is Mr. Big Shot because he made all those big shots down the stretch in the playoffs. Now the head coach of the Portland Trailblazers, there's that side of it in a poker scheme. We'll get into the details of it backed by the mob, but he's also been identified by a lot of people as co-conspirator 8.

We haven't confirmed that, but every detail about co-conspirator 8 matches Chauncey Billups in more specifically giving information about games he was coaching, that getting through to betters about who was going to play, who was not going to play, and making a lot of people a lot of money. The other player is a current player, Terry Rozier, who over his career, I looked this up this morning, Joe, has made $135 million. He's in the midst of a $96 million contract. And yet, according to the allegations filed yesterday by the Justice Department, he was in involved in basically shaving his own statistics because betting is so specific. Now, you can bet that Terry Rozier is going to get either over or under five rebounds in a game.

And obviously, if he knows that, he can control that, make some money off of that. So we'll get into the details. But it's very ugly and involving some really prominent names in this league. Really is. And I mean, and they rigged Jonathan O'Meer, they rigged poker matches out. Like, they get suckers in East Hampton, you know. If you're a dork in East Hampton, in East Hampton, and suddenly NBA players, stars are showing up at your house going to want to play poker and they walk in your house and behind you are like guys that look like they're from the set of a Scorsese mob movie, you know, and the dealers, like, you know, it's got a name tag that says, Fast Fingers, Louis. Maybe, maybe you should realize you're the mark.

I mean, they just went around the Hampton suckering these stupid people taking their money. Yeah, when Boris the Albanian, which I believe is one of the nicknames involved here, shows up, you know, I'm probably not going to have a great night. No, there are two different stories here. Cancel the clam bank? Yeah, we're done here tonight. Jonti Billups does seem to be allegedly the linchpin between the two. But the poker games, some of the details are wild.

The contact lenses and sunglasses they were used in order to cheat and rig the cards. But the far more concerning story for the NBA, of course, is the other part of this. And we know, and we will talk about all morning, the way that gambling is so pervasive now, sports betting is it's legal in a lot of states and it's and like the way that the leagues themselves for decades did everything they could to run away from gambling now embracing it the partnerships with draft kings and phanduel and the like and this is what happens when and you have an NBA coach uh you know potentially giving information about players he's going to sit so therefore teams can bet gamblers can bet on that we have another third player in this in this is a damon

jones you know a sort of obscure bench player but he apparently got word that lebron james was going to miss a game and therefore told gamblers, hey, bet against the Lakers tomorrow because LeBron's not going to play, it's an easy mark. That's the real concern here is that there's inside information potentially impacting the fairness of the games, the competitive and the integrity of the game because that's a huge deal. Yes, it is. We're going to have much more on this in just a moment when Pablo joins us with his reporting on this. To our top story at the top of the show here, Russian President Vladimir Putin is responding to the news. that the United States is imposing sanctions on Russia's largest oil companies.

Speaking to reporters in Moscow yesterday, Putin called the move an unfriendly act. He went on to say it is an attempt to put pressure on Russia but added no self-respecting country ever does anything under pressure. Putin brushed off the idea that sanctions will have a significant impact, but conceded that some losses are expected. According to the Wall Street Journal, the new sanctions hit at the core of Russia's faltering economy amid the ongoing war in Ukraine. So, Joe, these sanctions do require some collective action across the globe. Yeah, they really do. And David Ignatius of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, other outlets, Washington Post reporting, these sanctions actually have teeth. They could

really have a significant impact on Russia's already faltering economy. The question the Wall Street Journal economy is already beginning to falter. This adds a pressure, ads, I was told by a European diplomat yesterday, a likely possibility that the Russian people will see more and more of what this war is costing them and may begin to respond appropriately. There's still an awful lot that the United States could still do to tighten the screws further with Putin. But this is a significant step, especially after President Trump seemed to back away from taking a tough line against Putin last week after meeting with Zelensky. He was supposedly shouting at Zelensky, President Zelensky of Ukraine, telling him to take

the deal. And now he's come back hard. But again, we have to see, will this really apply to India? Will Chinese entities be prevented from slipping around the sanctions? Those are the kind of questions, I think, that people want to look at carefully. We're going to be looking at those questions, and obviously it's going to play an important role on whether it has the impact that the president says he wants it to have. But, Caddy, there's sort of, there's another story inside of this story that is actually quite striking

to me as I was reading through all the reports yesterday, and that is a cooperative. between Donald Trump and European allies. Of course, you had NATO Secretary General there, but you also had Wall Street General reporting that the United States and the European allies, Donald Trump and leaders of Europe, are now starting to see their way forward to a possible ending to this war.

And it all started with that coordinated approach inside the White House right after the Anchorage Summit. Yeah, I mean, certainly the Europeans are not giving up on whatever diplomacy and leverage and military leverage they have. You've got Zelensky today meeting the king in the UK. He'll then go down and meet Stama, and Stama is pushing for more long-range European missiles

to be given to the Ukrainian. So it's not like the Europeans have kind of backed away from either the negotiation effort or the military effort. I mean, their military ramp-up is taking a long time, but they definitely want the Americans to know that they have a seat at the table. I mean, they are, I've just come back from central Europe. And one of the questions I keep getting asked is, why does President Trump keep siding with Vladimir Putin?

And it seems to be a truism, right? He backs away, he puts more pressure, he backs away and books more pressure. And that's what's so interesting about this sanctions package is that it is a concrete thing that President Trump, if he's prepared, as David says, to hit down on the Chinese and on the Indians as well. it's a concrete thing that he's doing that hurts Vladimir Putin. And we can see Lemire from Putin's response. And if you think how reluctant he's been to do anything that will counter Vladimir Putin or put pressure on Moscow, what makes you think, what has happened in the last few days, Jonathan, that has made him think, okay, this is the right moment to do this?

Yeah, we've had months worth of angry rhetoric from Trump to Putin, which of course a shift from his first term. But this is the first time it's actually been followed up with concrete action. These are the first sanctions, in fact, of Trump's second term towards Russia. Got a reaction there from Moscow. And I think it is a slow impatience. This is not going to get done. And Trump, we know, is desperate for this war to end. He is presiding for a Nobel Peace Prize.

He keeps checking off the list of the other conflicts. He is allegedly solved. But this one remains incredibly stubborn. So, Michael, there is a sense, though. This is certainly a degree of pressure. It's not full out yet. But it's a step. And it comes on the heels of Trump saying to Zelensky, no, we're not going to give you Tomahawks. So it is still not a full-on assault against Moscow, but it does seem to be, at least

in the right direction. What you'll read of where does this go? Is this still status quo in the conflict itself? It's not status quo. I mean, as you say, this isn't a magic pill and a lot depends on enforcement. There's a 30-day wind-down period, which allows companies to extricate themselves from transacting with Ross Neft and Luke oil. But one of the things to note is there's already a pariah effect, right? Chinese and Indian state oil companies have said they are going to stop importing crude from these two companies. That's no small thing. You know, even in the midst of Trump taking these calls with Putin and sort of taking on a seemingly pro-Russian position, objectively pro-Russian position, he's also said something interesting, which is

he wants to chip away at Russia's energy economy. But it's always been, you guys do it first, right? He told the European Union, you should put 100 percent tariffs on China. He did 50 percent tariffs on India, and everyone said, well, how come you aren't going after your buddy Xi, right? That's the bigger business partner with Russia. But other things have been happening behind the scenes. The Wall Street Journal, I think a week or two ago, reported that U.S. intelligence is sharing information with Ukraine. Why? Because Ukraine, for the last several months, has been striking at Russia's oil refineries, export terminals, and oil depots. And in the month of August alone, they've done about 58 strikes with their drones and missiles. All homegrown

kit, nothing Western, right? But the fact that U.S. intelligence is helping them hit Russia inside Russia where it hurts is an interesting data point here. So I think with Trump, it's, as you quite rightly say, he wants this war to end, right? And he's almost willing to do it at any cost. He told Zelensky, why don't you give up all of Donets? The last time he did that, the Ukrainian said, that'd be like you giving up all of Eastern Florida. And that kind of shut Trump up for a while. But he tried it again. The important thing is, though, and this is a kind of very lead in all of this stuff, right? Putin picks up the phone, calls Trump. Instead of tomahawks, Trump says, hey, let's go to Budapest and do the whole Alaska thing again.

When that's happened in the past, the shelf life of these sort of Russian distractions have typically lasted months, if not weeks. This one lasted about seven days, right? And even the White House, according to CNN reporting, was shocked that Trump decided to go for sanctions and to do it this quickly. So I do think it's fair to say that he's growing increasingly frustrated, if not exasperated with Putin. I think he came to office thinking, the force of my charisma and my good, camaraderie with Vladimir would end this war. Russia would do this as a personal favor to me. No, they still are engaged in a war of conquest. They want the whole thing. And I think he's beginning to realize that. I want to get to David's piece that links what we're seeing in Russia

to these boat strikes, actually, following a series of deadly strikes against alleged drug-carrying vessels at sea. President Trump is now preparing to broaden the campaign to the land. He made that comment yesterday at the White House, directing his Defense Secretary Pete Hegesa to inform Congress about any escalation of military action on land, but stopping short of saying the administration would seek approval for that use of force. So now they're coming in by land, and even the land is concerned, because I told them that's going to be next. You know, the land is going to be next, and we may go to the Senate, we may go to the, you know, Congress and tell them about it. But I can't imagine that

have any problem with it. I think, in fact, while we're here, I think it's a good idea, Pete, you go to Congress, you tell them about it. What are they going to do, say, gee, we don't want to stop drugs pouring in. So David's latest column is titled Trump is ignoring the real threat matrix. In it, David writes this, why America slept. That might be the title of a future book examining the Trump administration's shift of national security focus away from a mounting Russian threat against Europe and toward a noxious but relatively impotent network of drug gangs in Venezuela. This misallocation of priorities is evident across the Trump administration. The FBI's most experienced national security agents have been purged. Cyber defenses at several

agencies have been slashed. Scores of veteran CIA analysts and operations officers have quit or been forced out. Alliances with friendly intelligence services have weakened. Trump's reluctance to confront Russian President Vladimir Putin militarily, even as he chases Maduro, confounds U.S. allies in NATO. European countries now feel they're directly in the firing line without an adequate American shield. And it raises again, David, the eternal question of why. Why Donald Trump's instinct is to turn away from Putin, and in this case, toward these boats allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela. Well, it is a mystery. It's something we explore every day in our coverage. You know, I'm glad to

see Trump taking a further step with sanctioning the two Russian oil companies. But in the article you quoted from, I tried to look broadly at the administration's national security policy. And it is disturbing to see how many parts of our defenses have been eroded, purged, stripped away as Trump has diverted attention towards issues that matter to him, migration in particular. but now this ill-defined campaign, to me, against Venezuela and Venezuela, drug operations, drug boats. I heard a lot of skepticism from former CIA officers about the covert action that President Trump says he is authorized to affect change in Venezuela.

People know these things historically have often ended very badly, in part because there isn't sufficient domestic support. The country doesn't really understand what we're attempting. And because there isn't an indigenous rebel force in the country, just think back at the Bay of Pigs, if you want an example, a force that we had trained in Florida that landed on the island. It was so thoroughly penetrated by the Cubans. They knew more about than the CIA did, I think. And they just got wiped out when they landed. If President Trump wants to avoid that kind of disaster in Venezuela. He needs to be thinking very clearly about just what he's trying to do, and he needs to talk more to the country, certainly to the intelligence committees in

Congress, which I believe are still in the dark about exactly what this is. So, David, do you understand exactly, based on all of your reporting, do you understand why he's doing this, why he's talking about ramping this up into a land war? Again, certainly says nothing the Maga Bays wants. It's America first, Fortress America. You've got this, you've got anywhere from a $20 to $40 billion bailout of Argentina. This seems certainly far afield from what this president and what is Maga base said they were going to do before he got into power. so joe i'm just going on strands of evidence the administration hasn't laid out a full and

well articulated strategy but it does seem as if part of mega foreign policy involves the idea of doing more in our own hemisphere pulling back from areas that are distant like europe let's let europeans worry about ukraine that's not our problem and expending more effort in this hemisphere to be the dominant power. So these actions arguably are in line with that. The president early on talked about Panama, the Panama Canal, wanting to control that. He's been a much more demonstrative friend to Argentina's president, Malay. That could get him in some real trouble.

Those financial markets are pretty slippery. And now this vaguely defined but apparently quite ambitious effort to bring political change in Venezuela. The Venezuelan regime is so rotten. It's hard to find anybody who's going to defend or speak up for Maduro. I think that's not really the point. The point is more, this is a key supposedly secret use of American power. Covert actions are, that's like basically a blank check to the CIA. And we just need to hear more from the administration about what they hope to accomplish.

Covert action that's not terribly covert because, it's kind of announced in the Oval Office. Not as covert as it might be Michael. I mean, it is interesting. I've just spent a few days in the Czech Republic. And one of the questions I keep being asked in Central Europe, but also in the rest of Europe, is how do we respond to a president who seems erratic in many ways,

but is clearly not a friend of Europe? And what are the options for Europe? We've got a president who's prepared, as David says, to flex his muscles when it's a regime he doesn't like in Venezuela. Maga, and the Europeans don't know how to respond to this. They don't know how to respond to it collectively or individually. They're trying to ramp up defense spending, and maybe they're just not doing it fast enough,

and they could put the pressure on much faster. The reforms coming out of Germany are perhaps not speedy enough. But what would you say to – I feel like a therapist when I go to Europe. It's okay, don't jump out the window quite yet. But what do you say when Europeans say to you, deal with this administration? How do we get the best for our continent out of this administration? I think there is a kind of light motif to Donald Trump's foreign policy with respect to the transatlantic relationship, and it's one of disengagement, if not abdication, right? He said to

Europe, you guys don't spend enough on your defense. So now suddenly there's a benchmark, 5% of your GDP has to go to defense and infrastructure. A lot of these countries, a lot of our NATO allies, are creeping up to that benchmark, as Secretary General Ruta has emphasized. He also said to Europe, pay for the war in Ukraine. So NATO implemented this pearl system whereby weapon systems that Ukraine badly needs an only American source, such as the Patriot Air Defense system, Europe is now paying for. So the U.S. taxpayer is no longer donating or spending money to gift anything to Ukraine. This was a big MAGA concern for a while. So I think, you know, the unintended consequence of this is actually beneficial for Europe because for a long time, 80 years or so, the Europeans have

kind of looked to the United States for, well, what do we do next? And now the United States, Through bullying and through intimidation is saying, well, you need to stand on your own two feet. That's a good thing. My advice to the Europeans has been consistent. Act as if the United States is not got your back. It's not on your side. It's not going to lead on Ukraine. Act as if what Donald Trump says is true, take it at face value. And then if the United States does something that's a pleasant surprise, such as sanctioning Rosneft and Luke oil, or maybe providing tomahawk missiles at a future date, say thank you very much. We appreciate it. but continue on this path because I do think this is also something that transcends this administration. It's probably going to continue for the foreseeable future. And it has been continuing through successive administrations. If you talk to, for instance, the Baltic states,

they felt this kind of disengagement as a theme under the Obama administration, less so perhaps under Joe Biden. But it's been something that's coming. And I think Donald Trump is kind of the battering ram, if you like, for this relationship. Yeah. And this is, Mika, one of these instances where the means of doing this, obviously, has not been good. Many of us have been deeply concerned about how he's gone about his relationship with Europe. Certainly the first term, he's got better relations now. But as Michael says, it is significant that these European powers are now talking about 5%.

And they're getting up to 5% for a couple of reasons, one, because of Donald Trump's intimidation. And two, because they don't think they can counter the United States. anymore when push comes to shove. This, though, is something that, I mean, Republican and Democratic politicians have been complaining about for 30, 40 years that Europe needs to carry more of its own burden. And as Michael said, you know, maybe the ends don't justify the means. But in this case, it's better for Europe, better for America,

probably better for the collective national defense of every one of those countries and for us. Editor for the insider, Michael Weiss, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. We appreciate it. In The Washington Post, David Ignatius, thank you as well. His new piece is available online right now. And still ahead on Morning Joe, we'll show you some of the ad that pushed President Trump's to announce that he's going to end all trade negotiations with Canada. Also ahead, live reporting from Virginia, where New York Attorney General Letitia James will be a ring.

in federal court this morning on bank fraud charges. Plus, we'll break down the detail surrounding the arrests of multiple NBA figures yesterday in connection with two federal gambling probes. And a reminder, the Morning Joe podcast is available each weekday featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcast. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. announced overnight just in the last few hours. He is ending all trade talks with Canada effective immediately over a Canadian television ad opposing U.S. tariffs. In a social media post, Trump wrote, quote, the Ronald Reagan Foundation has just announced

Canada has fraudulently used an advertisement, which is fake, featuring Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about tariffs. The television ad from the province of Ontario features audio from a 1987 Ronald Reagan speech that does criticize tariffs. We should note the audio is not fake as the president claimed, but it was edited and rearranged. Here is a portion of that ad this morning. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the weight of prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition.

That ad aired during an American League Championship Series game between the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Meriters, which pulled in more than 9 million viewers when it was broadcast, former President Reagan's Foundation's Foundation's, says it is reviewing legal options, accusing the Ontario provincial government of using selective audio and video, saying the ad misrepresents Reagan's address, and that Ontario's government did not seek nor receive permission to use and edit the remarks. The Office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but a spokesperson for Ontario Premier Doug Ford denied any wrongdoing in the ad campaign telling CBC News, quote, the commercial uses an unedited excerpt from one of President Reagan's public addresses,

which is available through public domain. So because of that adjo overnight, President of the United States saying, we're not talking to Canada, our neighbor to the north anymore. He's very upset about that. Those are Reagan's words. Yes, edited. Things do get edited. We can go back to Reagan's comments about immigration.

There are a lot of things we can call back to the man who was the touchstone for generations for conservatism. Well, you know, yesterday we had a wide-ranging discussion about dorks and nerds. And I'm enough of a dork and a nerd that around 3.30 this morning, I listened to the entire address. And it was in April 25th, 1987 radio address. It's on YouTube. And I have absolutely no idea what the Reagan Foundation is talking about. Because those words, in that Canadian ad were directly from that April 25th, 1987 address that is up on YouTube.

And the bizarre thing is that in their statement, they directed dorks and nerds like me to YouTube to see that the Canadian ad reflected Reagan's feelings about tariffs 100%. And here is a direct, unedited clip from that address that sounds just like the Canadian ad. Roll it, T.J. So soon, because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens. Market shrink and collapse, businesses and industry shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs. The memory of all this

occurring back in the 30s made me determined when I came to Washington to spare the American people, the protectionist legislation that destroys prosperity? It's all there. Willie, it's all there. Everything Ronald Reagan said, all the clips that were in that Canadian ad, that Ottawa ad, were all there in the address. It's really a very bizarre turn of event. Yesterday, Donald Trump said, well, I would have done the same thing if I were them.

I understand why they did it. Then the race, I don't know if somebody called the Reagan Foundation and said, hey, we need to attack this ad, but they're attacking not only Reagan's words, but the foundation of Reagan's views on tariffs. He believed short-term tariffs were fine, but long-term tariffs, as he just said, wrecked the economy and would cost millions of people their jobs. Yeah, it's strange. One thing for President Trump, we've come to expect that to misrepresent things, but for the Reagan Foundation itself to come out kind of in support of that argument is, is I. as you say, Jonathan Lemire, this just came, dropped overnight, President of the United States

in a true social post saying, yeah, we're done talking to Canada because my feelings were hurt about this ad, which as Joe just laid out, and we played, you could hear it, you can see it, you can go on YouTube yourself if you don't believe in watch. It's what former President Reagan said. It's what former President Reagan said, and our current president is so easily triggered that a TV commercial can change international policy, trade. policy, foreign policy. I mean, it's sort of an extraordinary encapsulation of where things are right now for this administration. And there's a lot of focus on tariffs and trade right now. The president later today heads to Asia. He'll meet with Xi Jinping while in Korea

on the sidelines of a summit there, the Chinese trade deal. And that's been pretty tense at times. They hope to work on that. You know, obviously we're waiting on the Supreme Court to make a decision whether all these tariffs are legal in the first place. But, but this is the president of United States throwing a fit over an ad. And we should note the timing of this is pretty remarkable because what all he throws if he gets angry about this today. What's tonight? Tonight is game one of the world series. Where is that game being played? Toronto, Canada. Oh boy. So there's going to be let's watch the American National Anthem likely get booed tonight like it was during that hockey tournament earlier in the spring. But this is going to set at the exact moment where we should

be celebrating our friendship with Canada. This happens. Okay. And secondly, Joe needs to some sleep. Like, seriously, what are you doing? We're talking about Trump tweeting in the middle of night or whatever. He's up at 3.30 looking at Reagan's speeches. It's not good for you. It's very compelling. I mean, who among us is not awakened in the middle of the night and said, let me listen to a Ronald Reagan radio address from 1987. I think we've all, we all do that, right? You need to take the magnesium that I gave you. There's only one that works. That stuff does not work. No, it totally does. No, across the board, I'm getting raved reviews, except from you.

I start talking, I start talking like Pablo Tori. I don't want to sound like that. Well, I know. That's an issue. That is a big issue. It's a big issue. I hope he's okay. I don't know.

He's not. So we'll have him later. Caddy Kay, this unvote. You know, he's a Luddite. You know that? You know, Pablo is a Luddite, Mika. I mean, he doesn't like our, Jonathan Lemire and our supercomputer. He doesn't like AI.

I think he's probably scared of light bulbs in his own house. He probably turns around and sees his ones. Yeah. Exactly. They put like shades over them for Pablo. It's all right. It's okay. Everyone's different.

Okay. So, Caddy Kaye. Not for something completely different. This unpredictability, though, you know, that's part of what we've seen from this president. At the same time, as he's, you know, making waves and making big changes in some regions of the world, for the positive. I'm looking at the Middle East and is trying to figure out

how to manage Ukraine. This unpredictability I don't think necessarily is great for effective foreign policy. Well, I mean, part of the problem is that all of the things that Michael was saying that Europe is trying to do are great. And actually, I've said for years

that Europe needs to boost its own defense. We can't keep calling 911 America every time there's a problem. The problem is that Donald Trump is asking those things at the same time that he's putting tariffs on these countries and making it incredibly difficult for their governments to enact the kind of reforms,

do the kind of spending on defense that they need to do whilst they're fighting a tariff. We had Mark Carney just this week before that ad came out, saying this is what he said. Many of our former strengths based on our close ties to America have become our vulnerabilities. And the new Canadian doctrine going forward is going to be how much can we America

proof Canada. So the problem with the tariffs is that they cost him a lot of money. Mark Carney has to shore up the industries that he has to shore up because they're being tariffed by the United States. His fiscal situation is harder. It's exactly the same in Europe. The Germans are trying to do what they can to boost defense spending, but at the same time they're having to face a tariff war from the United States. It makes it very difficult for these countries to do what they need to do. But the message is the same. Michael's message, Mark Carney's message, America proof your future. I don't think. that is the strongest position for America to be putting itself in going forwards.

We'll see what ads play during game one of the World Series tonight in Toronto. And Pablo joins us for a preview of the Fall Classic, as well as his reporting on the federal gambling indictments that have rocked the NBA. Morning Joe will be right back. popular to go after some of the defendants that we went after today but justice has served blindly and how do we counterman that simple the unsealing of these indictments today shows the force of the Department of Justice and our great Attorney General and the leadership that we have at the FBI and the team here to specifically meet out justice. And look, let's not, you know, mince words.

This is the insider trading saga for the NBA. That's what this is. That's why we are going to take heat. That was FBI director, Cash Patel, speaking alongside federal prosecutors yesterday in New York City after Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat Guard Terry Rozier were arrested, along with dozens of others in connection with a pair of illegal gambling investigations that federal authorities say involved leaked inside information about NBA athletes and separately rigged poker games backed by organized crime families. So, Joe, we walk through some of the salacious details of this. It's just an extraordinary story and a huge problem for the league.

You know, I mean, baseball had one massive scandal like this in 1919. and there's still movies made about it. I mean, what is it about the NBA? I mean, why does this keep happening to the NBA? Again, like you said, this is a completely new scale, right? But you've had people complaining about the NBA and refs. And like I said, people like Bill Simmons suggesting perhaps that they were, you know, refs for some time had been trying to push the game in one direction or another,

even a ref that got caught up in a cheating scandal back in 2007. Yeah, and what's interesting about this, too, is you say, why would these guys do it? Why would they risk everything? Why would Terry Rozier alleged to have risked everything? A guy who's made $135 million in his NBA career. There are questions that perhaps, again, these are just thoughts out there that why would he do it? Perhaps there were gambling debts. He was told he could settle if he helped them out by, you know, taking himself out of a couple of games and like suppressing his stats a little bit. That's all speculation at this point. But with guys who make this much money in the old days, the scandals you

and I were talking about earlier, Joe, like college basketball, point shaving, pre-NIL. These guys made no money. And so if somebody said, hey, I'll give you five grand to shave a few points in this game, Arizona State, you could get a kid to do it. But Terry Rozier, $135 million in his bank account, it really is confounding. I mean, and getting involved and organized crime, illegal, you know, poker game. It's just crazy. Let's bring it right now the host of Pablo Tori finds out a moment.

Metal Arc Media, MSNBC contributor, Pablo Tori. Amika, as you know, Pablo Tori, currently, there is a dance track in Denmark and inspired by Pablo Tori. It's the number 14 dance track in underground dance clubs in Denmark. T.J. Run it. I mean, I think we're all inspired by it. I don't hear. Oh, wow.

What's this? Yeah, that's it. That's it. Oh, my God. That's it. I don't believe I granted my NIL rights for this song. This feels like a scandal in and of itself. On the 558.

That's all I'm going to tell. You've really arrived now. That is haunting. And yet strangely, strangely animating from a... It is strangely. I kind of want to start dancing in ways that I shouldn't. That's why it's so big in Denmark. I tell you, and Meek is going to be putting it on her $5.58, and it's about you constantly ragging on the mirror and me.

A very special person. Who does this? Who does this? Who does this? The house band. It's the house band, for God's sake. Oh, my God. Never questioned the house band. And don't question the house band.

I didn't realize that this was Maasley Cantina as well, that you guys had a house band, just like aliens playing instruments. We got it. This is, you know, at some point, you will respect the process. You will respect the computers. At some point. You will respect the NFL rankings at some point. But that point is not now. Let's go from the NFL, though, to the very dirty business of what's going on in the NBA.

And one of the, one of the roughest, bumpiest segues out of a story and back into a story. Help us out. It is, it is music to my ears, this scandal, as much as it is. horror show for the NBA. I've been reporting on this story for months. I released an episode in July about the characters linked to the Jonte Porter scandal. Remember that scandal, of course, that was the no-name NBA player who was banned for life. He was in a group chat with a much of unsavory characters that fed lots of speculation and fear around the league. This is the culmination, the next step, at least. It's not over it yet, but is the next step in that.

And so this press conference yesterday, I mean, I had been anticipating this DOJ report, but the scope of it, Cash Mattel showing up for it. Chauncey Billups, a name that I had heard in my reporting but had not published. The reason why this is so jarring is because Chauncey Billups, just the sticker shock here, he's a Hall of Famer, was just inducted. He is the active head coach of the Portland Trailblazers. This is a story that begins with Locosa Nostra. That is the kind of ancient scandal on some level we're talking about.

But in the poker side, there is X-ray technology and marked cards and rigged shufflers and these private Molly's game adjacent poker games. So there's that stuff. But then in the next indictment, because there are two, you have the figures you mentioned, these active NBA players and coaches who were doing something that is a reflection. of the era of legalized gambling in which we live, which feels quite modern, John, because that is where we get to the concept of prop bets and the under and that. So the poker thing is wild, but that's separate.

It is this other part. It is the gambling on the games. It's two things. First of all, as we were talking about earlier in the show, all of these leagues, the NBA made most of all, but all of the leagues have gotten into bed with these, with Fandul, with Draft Kings, all these companies where you can bet, bet. is sports betting is legal in a number of states now, not all, but a number of states. And there's sponsorship everywhere, whether it's ESPN, Fox, any telecast, there's ways to bet on

this. And it's the prop bets. And those are so easily manipulated. If you're a player and you're looking to make a little cash or help out your friends or whatever it might be or organized crime, it's easy to say, you know what, I'm going to get under four rebounds today, especially if you're some bench player who's only going to get limited minutes. It's that the kind of stuff that's so easy manipulated. So talk about that. And also, head coaches, they decide lineups. And which players sit.

That's so dangerous. Yeah, the menu of prop bets, in your imagination, when you think about like the mob and these point shaving things, you're talking about affecting the score. This is not even that. This is the ability to bet against yourself, essentially. If I am going to do badly in a game, if I'm going to take myself out of it,

I'm going to get less than what the gambling operators say I'm projected to in a given game. So I can get under the number of rebounds that I'm expected to. I can bet against that. I can play fewer minutes and therefore help my team be worse than they're projected to be. And so there are these micro ways, these truly individualized ways to do worse that are really, really hard to, frankly, isolate to the naked eye. But because the menu of legal bets has these thing called props, that's a prop bet,

under Terry Rozier Rebounds is one of the things in this indictment, you have a market for highly specific micro bets. And so all you got to do is do worse in a given game according to these allegations or feed information about which players, which stars are not going to be in these games that you can feed to people who can profit by putting in legal bets that then ultimately did get flagged by operators. And the question is, well, how organized was this? How coordinated Was this in terms of the literal mafia? And what did the NBA know and when did they know it? How did they handle it?

I mean, that's where, by the way, the gambling with poker stuff, it is a separate indictment, but the characters overlap. And so the reason why they were announced together is because there is some connection here. Chaunty Billups appears in both indictments. There are a couple of other characters that appear in both indictments, but there are two schemes that are made possible through legal. sports betting. And Willie, it seems to me that professional sports, they've been playing with fire over the past

several years. If you look at, you know, just about any game, especially baseball games. They've got two kinds of ads. They've got ads for ED, and they've got ads for sports gambling. And I feel like once a game, I have to turn to my son, not talking about the first ads, but turn to my set and say, say, say, Jack, you know, don't gamble on games. Don't gamble on games.

That's so awkward. This is very bad. People's lives are destroyed if you do it. And think about the micro-bettings. What do they say? You can now bet on anything, right? So it used to be, oh, well, you know, a team, it's really hard to rig a game because you've got to get five, six, seven, eight players involved to rig an entire game. That used to be the logic and why it'd be so hard to throw a game.

And what we're talking about here is somebody scoring over, under 14 points or something like that. But they brag, these gambling outfits brag, that you can bet on everything. You can bet on the third pitch. You can bet on the fourth, but you can bet these micro bets allow a guy to say, hey, I'm going to throw a ball on the third pitch or the fourth pitch or something along those lines. And it gets, it's so easy to manipulate the game, so easy for play. players to throw the game or to fall into schemes like this.

Yeah, and it's gotten so pervasive, Joe. We're watching the ALCS the other night, and I'm sure we'll see it tonight and throughout the World Series. The game is happening. This is in-game. The game goes into a small box and the gambling ad comes at the same size, draft Kings or whatever it is, fan duel. And it's five or ten seconds, but it's reminding you, hey, this game you're watching,

lay some money on it. This at bat you're watching. Lay some money on it. And so, yes, of course, they're encouraging that. I think the buffer, Pablo, always was supposed to be, especially now with the money people are making in professional football, that these guys couldn't be, excuse me, in any professional sport, the NBA football or baseball, that they couldn't be tempted by a gambler saying, hey, here's 50 grand.

Well, Terry Rozier's making $25 million with the heat this year. He doesn't need the 50 grand. Why would he throw it all away? So that remains one of the open questions here. Well, listen, Chauncey Billups also has made nine figures in his career. Something that I always have to remind myself, though. I've done reporting separately on how easy it is for people in sports athletes to lose their money. If you do a dive into the financial records of these individuals, if the allegations, of course, are true,

I bet you would find, so to speak, that money is a priority for them in the present tense. And then you add the layer of just gambling. I mean, look, what is clear to me in my reporting is that Chauncey Bellops was a figure who was appearing in and around poker games for several years now. Terry Rozier is somebody who had these associations with unsavory characters. You don't own list. I don't want to speculate so baldly here, but the notion of what does the Italian mob, according to this indictment, have on these guys, can raise questions of what do these guys need financially, as well as to what extent do they have obligations to pay off. And so in that way, we have an ancient story about lots of wealthy, famous people

who have these associations to the mob, according to the federal government, in which they have to deliver things. And their role in the poker stuff, by the way, is also like a cinematic thing. The whole premise of why was Chauncey Billups showing up at poker games, according to this indictment, it's because when a famous celebrity athlete especially shows up, they are regarded as a whale, meaning he was used as bait to lure professional poker players in who thought they would feast on the sort of incompetent athletes, not knowing that the athlete, according to the indictment, was in bed with the people running and rigging those games

and the poker pros would lose money. And so that's part of the story too. They were there to attract as almost a honeypot people to lose money. Yeah. Yeah, and Willie, you know, the question, why do all these people with all this money bet? Well, we have stories. We've heard stories, don't know the specifics, but that Michael Jordan loves to bet,

constantly betting on golf and everything. Our else, at least in the past, was Phil Mickelson, a book came out recently. Phil Mickelson reportedly bet a billion dollars over the past several decades and lost up to $100 million in gambling debt, according to a book. And again, I don't know if those. numbers are specific and and and but i know that's what the reporting was but it it it suggests that these very competitive athletes yeah who whether on the basketball court or whether you know the 18th hole of the masters they need that charge and for a lot of them they get it

out of gambling and and gambling like massive amounts of money yeah the difference is Phil Mickelson wasn't intentionally shanking one into the woods to keep his screw down. You know what I mean? We're talking about people on their own games controlling their own statistics and controlling the outcome of games. But you're right. Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, has been open about it. And certainly Phil Mickelson, just massive sums of money. And the answer, as you say, has always been it satisfies in some way their competitive spirit.

This is just an extraordinary, wide-ranging story. Pablo Torre, thanks so much. I'm sure we've not seen the end of this. We have not.