Morning Joe - Trump threatens to take Kharg Island

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

June 11, 2026 — 9am: Trump threatens to take Kharg Island 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.

A beautiful shot of an elated but probably very sleepy New York City. Welcome to the fourth hour of morning, Joe, the day after the Knicks' historic comeback in game four of the NBA finals. It's now 6 a.m. out on the West Coast, 9 a.m. here in the east. And managing editor at the Bullwark, Sam Stein, for the hour. And Sam, your sports alleginges are confusing to many. You are as well-known, a long-suffering Red Sox fan like me. And boy, are we dreadful. We will not discuss them.

But New York Giants and New York Knicks fan. I suppose it's a product of having Connecticut roots, right? Yeah. Or at least a New York Knicks appreciator. I appreciate it. So here's my deal. Connecticut, people understand it about Connecticut. It is a divided state.

Like Boston, New York, there are allegiances. And I happen to grow up basically on the fault line. So I've loved the socks. I love the New York Giants. And then in basketball, I've been sort of a nomad. My dad grew up a huge New York Knicks fan. He loved the Dave DeBusher, Bill Bradley, Walfreyser, Earl Monroe, those teams that actually were the last ones to win a title.

But I kind of was a kid of the 90s, and so I'm not going to be shy about it. I love Michael Jordan, right? And so I voted for the Bulls. My big team is the Yukon Huskies, which is what the state loves. And I've been watching Steph Castle of the Spurs versus the Knicks, who I appreciate. And the last night's game was operatic. I don't know.

How would you even describe it? It was something that I think as soon as it ended, we recognize that it will be historic. And I was just watching it, and I was just blown away by how they chisling away at the lead. And then you get this. Yeah, that we're seeing here, we're seeing here, Brunson missing a deep three,

but O.G. and O'G. and Obey flying in from nowhere to tip at home with 1.2 seconds to go to complete the Knicks comeback. They defend the last possession effectively. They win. And to be sure, the Knicks played a. a truly dreadful first half. Oh, my God. And then an inspired second half.

And, you know, and we should do the exact opposite of, with situation for the Spurs, who couldn't miss the first half. So NBA record, I believe, for most three-pointers made in the half of a finals game. And then went Stone Cold, missing eight in a row at one point. They only scored 30 points in the second half. And that was the fear for the Spurs team going into the series, is that they were too young. The moment may have gotten the best of them.

And Sam last night, it was the moment, but also that arena, the crowd, the celebrities, all that, and the spurs simply fell apart down the stretch. Well, I just want to emphasize the arena in the crowd because obviously this is somewhat related to Game 3. Game 3, probably the most anticipated sporting event in Nick's history, right? And then Donald Trump shows up.

The vibe's a little off. There's so many celebrities there, and they just didn't really have it at the end. And then the crowd last night, for the first half, seemed like they were catatonic. like someone had punched them in the gut because of what was happening in the first half. And so you started, it kind of,

they crawled back into, the crowd's getting a little wilder. They don't want to get too committed. And then suddenly just absolute bedlam. And it was unreal. And you're watching Jerry Seinfeldary. He seems overcome with the motions. There's Walt Flasier. I mean, it was just unbelievable.

Yeah. And now the Knicks are one win away from their first title in 50-plus years. The City Electric, very similar with the New York Rangers did in 1994. They had a 50-year drought. They won it. And now the Nix might be on the verge of doing so. Game 5 in San Antonio on Saturday. And if needed, game six back here in New York on Tuesday. Nix fans get some sleep between now and then. All right, we now need to turn to the news. The United States and Iran traded strikes once again this morning. And President Trump just told

Fox News a few moments ago that the United States fired 49 Tomahawk missiles towards Iran, along with bombing by fighter jets, after saying earlier in the day that Iranian leaders were taking, quote, too long to negotiate. Trump also once again warned that strikes could continue if an agreement is not reached. Now, Iran retaliated to the latest U.S. attacks by targeting American bases in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. Sirens sounded in Bahrain. Kuwait's airspace temporarily closed, and Americans in Jordan were warned to take cover. There's also escalated tension in the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranian military has now ordered completely closed to all vessels. And just a few moments ago, President Trump took the truth social to flat out say that the U.S. will be hitting Iran again tonight.

He put it very hard, all caps. And then he goes on to say this. And at some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Karg Island and other oil infrastructure points and assume total control. of their oil and gas market. So if that's not an empty threat, if that's not a bluff, that is a market escalation in this conflict, it would seem the war

tends to know the verge of really resuming. Let's bring in now MS Now, senior national career reporter David Rode and the co-host of the weekend and Washington reporter for MS Now, Jackie Alamini, who joins us live at the White House. David, back, we'll start with you here. This ceasefire, you know, has been fragile

to say the least, and obviously it has been punctuated by, punctured, I should say, with various spasms of violence, particularly in recent days. But this is the biggest wave yet since that ceasefire went into effect. And if Trump follows through on this threat, especially if we go after Carg Island, which we have discussed almost certainly would involve ground troops, then we are full-fledged at war again. Give us the latest, you know. Yeah, look, if the president, there appears to be a change. strategy here. This is a much more aggressive posture than the past where there were sort of,

you know, the Iranians would do something in the U.S. would retaliate, but not this intensely. Karg Island is a serious, a verbal threat. There are enough forces in the region for the U.S. to take Karg Island. There's special operations forces. There's a marine expeditionary unit. That's about 2,000 Marines. And I think there's no doubt U.S. forces could take that island. The problem would be a barrage of drones and missiles that Iran could just keep hitting that island with, and I think there would unquestionably casualties. And then separately the threat to, you know, again, saying sign this dealer, we will going to, we're going to bomb you again tonight, that's an escalation as well. The 59 Tomahawk missiles was a serious number, but there's no

nothing, no reports that I've heard of the U.S. sort of striking power plants or bridges and maximalist threat in the past. But this, I'm going to hit you every night approach, and particularly as you've correctly noted, we're going to take cargo. That's a major escalation. So Jackie Allen and Annie, let's go to you at the White House. What are you hearing from your sources from White House officials? Yeah, Jonathan. I think the quote that we've heard so far, at least publicly, that encapsulates the situation that we're in right now and potentially really dipping into a full-fledged resumption of this war is what Pete Hagseth, the Defense Secretary, told reporters earlier today, which is if we need to negotiate with bombs, we'll negotiate with

bombs. That is an inclination that I am told and that the president has made clear on truth social in interviews that he has always been predisposed to, but has so far been successfully sort of talked off of these episodes of brinkmanship by our diplomatic allies, our allies in the region who have encouraged him to commit to diplomatic negotiations, not give in to some of Iran's patterns and to, as in the words of one diplomat that I, a senior diplomat that I spoke to last month, dip into what could essentially amount to a global calamity when it comes to not just the security of the region, but also obviously the economic repercussions that were dealing with. This is the president who has expressed his impatience with the pace of

negotiations, despite being told by his own senior advisors, military leaders in briefs, conversations, some that have been shared publicly, some that have been reported about private conversations, that this is essentially what would happen, that there was no realistic, expeditious negotiation path here, and that it would take some time. We've said this time and time again, but the JCPOA took several years to negotiate. And as David has noted repeatedly, this is a playbook that Iran is using to try to drag out these negotiations to essentially wait out. the Trump administration. And so I think going forward here in these next few days, we're going to see if this strategy now of essentially negotiating with bombs, as Pete Hegsef said, is something

that is going to be pursued further and is something, and the way that Iran responds from at the negotiating table to these continued strikes. I just want to emphasize one thing here, which is that this is, at least from my read, the posture that the administration took at the beginning of the war. Jackie describes as negotiating through bombs. If you recall, there was talk of taking Karg Island. Obviously, we had an incredibly aggressive arrow campaign, but Trump would repeatedly post about, you know, hitting the bridges and wiping out civilization and going after the desalienization plants. And David, I guess the question for you on this is we've returned to this posture. Didn't work the first time because the Iranians obviously responded with incredible

regional hits and aggression of their own. They attacked neighboring countries. in a way that I think took us off guard a little bit. And then, of course, those countries said, hey, can you not do this anymore? Is there a sense that the Iranians are just set back so far that they can't do that again? I mean, why is the administration going to this playbook after they had tried it already and it didn't work?

I think it's more about the administration's own frustration about these high inflation numbers about how this is all dragging on. And look, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed. The president talked about this. We don't have a secret operation. Yes, which was at best, he said, and I think it's likely true, 200 tankers made it through over a month. Right.

Every day there was 130 tankers going through the straits. So this isn't, that secret operation isn't solving anything. We don't know where the Iranians stand. They are under a lot of pressure, but every time Trump has threatened them militarily, they have responded with an even higher escalation on their side. Our colleague, Amin Moyhildeen, he's talked to a senior Middle East official this morning. he said, this official said they were close to a deal before these strikes and they're pushing to try to get everything back on track this morning, but we don't know. But definitely Trump is now escalating and the Iranian response has been to, and it's not to attack U.S. forces.

No. It's to hit pipelines, refineries, the Kuwait airport. And that's where there isn't enough of a defense in those countries or even the U.S. to stop every Iranian drone. And I do think it's important to emphasize this, as Sam just said, we've been to this part before, the bombardment. This happened before earlier in the war, and it wasn't effective. The issue is, will Trump take another step? Will he indeed target the infrastructure, the power plants, the water plants of Iran? Will indeed he commissioned ground forces, which likely would be needed to seize Karg Island? He's been very reluctant to do that because of the potential dangers and the political cost that would come with it. So if he's not willing to go there, and he very well may not,

this may not budge the conflict unless indeed Iran is so weak. It can't hit back like it could before. But it is an interesting development here these last couple of days because Trump so clearly wanted this ceasefire to persist. He did not want any sort of hostilities to resume. Well, they have, at least in a somewhat limited way now. So we will be watching this as the day and weeks ahead we go forward. But David Rhodes just mentioned inflation is one of the pressures here. And President Trump has continuing to blame higher costs for Americans on the war in Iran, but he insists the economic pain only temporary. New data released yesterday shows that inflation is outpacing workers' wages, rising to 4.2 percent over the last year, the highest level since April of 2023.

Trump then gave a surprising answer when he was asked about that report. You can serve as to President about the latest inflation number which came out this morning. Could that be a... No, I love it. The numbers were trying to try to... You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why?

Because as soon as this war is over, you know, I can say it now. Something you didn't know. You know, we've been taking out millions of barrels of oil. Nobody knows it. You know who doesn't know about it? Iran until right now. Inflation to come down between now. Oh, when the war is over?

Yes. It's coming down. I know you can't. It's going to come down like a rock. I love the inflation, the man says. Jackie, I suspect we'll hear that and a handful of Democratic campaign ads

this fall. And it's Trump, again, showing sort of a lack of awareness of what most Americans care about. He's also insistence on only discussing good news. He's convinced this will pass. But that's not where the American people are right now

and poll after poll after poll show they disapprove of his handling of the war and they disapprove of his handling of the economy. Yeah. John, that point you made before, you made that elegant transition to the current economic reality is exactly spot on. I mean, the war in Iran and the current state of the economy are at this point inextricably connected. And I think what you see Trump trying to do here is essentially will a different reality. And it is why he has been so eager to keep in that

ceasefire and to try to push Iran into a sort of deal as quickly. as possible. And that actually has been a concern by some of our allies that the president has been so eager, so desperate to come to some sort of resolution, to be done with this, to put this behind him, to see gas prices potentially drop and the economy cool back down again to get to that point pre-war, that he would enter some sort of final agreement that wouldn't be amenable to the people around him and would, to the countries around Iran, and would essentially be in a worse situation than Iran and the U.S. and the rest of those neighboring countries were prior to the start of the war. For example, I shared this example yesterday, but the Strait of Hormuz.

That has been something that has been concerned from a lot of our allies because it is something that obviously affects them day-to-day, affects them economically. They have been worried that when the president was touting some of these ideas of coming to an agreement about a toll, Any ship that goes through what was previously a fair and free international waterway would now be working with Iran just to do business as usual. That's something that is non-negotiable to the Saudis, to Bahrain, to the UAE. And some things like that, these sort of the minutiae of what is actually being negotiated right now in the details, this is something that's been really concerning and isn't something. thing that I think can be hashed out in such a short period of time that's at least according to people who have experience doing this, who are currently or tangentially evolved involved in doing this. And so, you know, whether or not we're actually just a few days from a deal or whether

actually resuming these strikes has waylaid that, I think there is going to be at the end of the day still a lot of scrutiny on what the details of that are because the president is so eager to shift the focus back onto the positive things. Yeah, and even if the war were to end in the next couple of days, and we certainly shouldn't believe any timeline that Trump presents, prices would likely stay high for a while before they start to see relief. Jackie Alamedy live at the White House for us, thank you. We will be watching the weekend at 7 a.m. Eastern on the weekends right here on MS Now.

Also MS Now, Cyanas Review Report, David Rode. Thank you. Please keep an eye on the situation in the Middle East. Let us know if you hear something else. When we come right back here on Morning Joe, we're going to go inside the brand new blockbuster reporting at the New York Times by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about the freak out at the White House about how to handle the Epstein files. Morning Joe, we'll be right back with that. Welcome back, live shot there of the U.S. Capitol 921 now in Washington. And during testimony yesterday before the House Oversight Committee, billionaire Microsoft Co-Four. founder Bill Gates acknowledged that he was aware that Jeffrey Epstein had been convicted of a sex crime during the period that the two men knew each other. Gates told lawmakers he met with Epstein in 2011 while trying to raise money for his foundation, but no donations resulted and later

alleged that Epstein tried to use information about Gates, cheating on his then wife, Melinda, to pressure him into renewing their relationship. Gates went on to say that he never witnessed or suspected that Epstein was committing crimes and expressed deep regret about ever having associated with the convicted sex offender. Gates is among several prominent individuals to appear in the DOJ's release of the Epstein files. They show the two men met multiple times and that those close to Gates maintained a relationship with Epstein. Gates is not connected with any crime connected to the disgraced New York financier, and he himself is not accused of any wrongdoing. Let's bring in former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave Arrenberg.

Certainly Dave, a public relations disaster for Bill Gates. But go further than that. Do you see any other, you know, if not criminal, but untoward connections that could be explored? Give us your takeaways from yesterday. Jonathan, I didn't see that Bill Gates opened himself up to any potential criminal charges. My biggest takeaway, though, is that, remember, we had heard lots of allegations that Epstein blackmailed prominent figures, even though the July 2025 DOJ memo said there was no credible evidence of blackmail. And until now, only Epstein survivors had made specific blackmail accusations.

Well, yesterday, Bill Gates became the first public figure to explicitly say that Epsine threatened to expose his personal secrets if he didn't play ball. Gates never used the term extortion or blackmail, but that's what he clearly meant when he said that Epsine was working to use information about his infidelities to pressure him to financially re-engage with him. And although Gates said it didn't work, it did give us a lasting impression that this was the blackmail that we had all been waiting to hear that we all thought, had existed, but no one had ever confirmed. And the other takeaway I got was something you already mentioned was that Gates admitted that he fully knew about Epstein's 2008 conviction

for child sex crimes when he and Epstein became friends three years later in 2011. I've always been amazed at all the brilliant successful people who embraced a registered sex offender because the guy was rich. And it wasn't like Epstein's past was a secret. Bill Gates pioneered the use of personal computers. Certainly, he would know how to do a Google search. And one last thing, whatever you want to say about Bill Clinton, at least he had the good sense to cut ties with Epstein well before his 2008 conviction. Meanwhile, Bill Gates and too many other elites chose to start a relationship with Epstein long after the entire world knew exactly who he was. Yeah, and certainly the Epstein saga continues to shadow the West Wing and the New York

Times is out with an explosive new report on the struggle within the White House to contain the fallout from the Epstein files. This new reporting by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan is part of their upcoming book based on interviews with hundreds of officials and lawmakers close to the Trump administration. The duo report that on July 17, 2025, President Trump's top officials filed into the White House Situation Room without the president himself in order to discuss how to address the Epstein files. To those in the room, Vice President J.D. Vance appeared panicked about the way the Epstein files were already dividing the MAGA coalition. He floated an extraordinary PR gamut that the White House enlist Tucker Carlson to interview

Epstein's longtime girlfriend and co-conspirator, Delane Maxwell, as she sat in prison. As the meeting in the Situation Room was taking place, the Wall Street Journal published a bombshell report that the administration had been trying to kill because cell phones are forbidden in the situation room. A staff member brought in printed copies of the report, which detailed a birthday card from Trump to Epstein. In the days before that story published, Trump had called the papers editor-in-chief, Emma Tucker, and its owners, including Robert Burdock, practically shouting at them and threatening to file a lawsuit. But the bullying didn't work. And now in the situation room, Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles, prepared a public denial for the president.

The Times report goes on to note that inside the White House, Trump had no interest in releasing anything related to the Epstein files. And senior officials were initially unconvinced about the reach of the crisis. They told colleagues that Republican voters simply didn't care. AIDS also, it's been reported, we're afraid to even mention the Epstein matter, to the president and Sam Stein, you know, we know that they were wrong. Republican voters did care. Certainly loud voices in Trump's coalition cared. It was a rare moment, very rare, where Republicans in Congress sort of defied the president's wishes in authorizing the release of the Epstein files. And it's true that the public conversation

has moved away from Epstein because of the war in Iran, but it's still sort of lingers. There's so many unanswered questions that at some point you know will resume and potentially consume the presidency again. I have a lot of thoughts on this. I don't know how much, how long I have to cook on this one. But to your point, okay, let's go for it. To your point, we do these focus groups that's our long will does. And Epstein comes up organically in them still a year after this, the vote for the release. So it is lingering. I don't think it's going way. It's not obviously the top issue anymore. But it's not. out of sight for voters. Two, on this story, I was blown away. And no one's denying, I mean,

the Martin is not denying anything in the story for what it's worth. I mean, it's pretty solid reporting. I was blown away by several things. One is J.D. Vance clearly nervous about the blowback and his standing with the MAGA right on the internet. But he did do something that was notable, and probably in retrospect they should have done, which he argued for immediate transparency. Just get out of the way, rip the band out because it's coming out one way or the other. He was right. The other people were wrong. And yet he doesn't come across that way. There's one anecdote in there where they talk about whether they should give a pardon for Galane Maxwell. And the response inside the room has nothing to do with the morality, ethics, or legality of it. It's, oh, no, that would create a real PR problem for us

if we were to do that. And I was blown away about how cynical that was. But really, I think the most interesting and most troubling element of this, well, there's a lot of troubling elements of this, is Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche at the time is the deputy AG. Okay. He, he, He is ostensibly part of the Justice Department and therefore should have some sort of separation from the White House. And yet he's sitting in the situation room throughout this, plotting ways to shield the President of the United States from public scrutiny and legal scrutiny. He is not acting as a part of the Justice Department.

He's acting as Trump's defense lawyer. And he's intimately involved in all the decision makings. And I just want you to think back to those days in 2016, when the Attorney General of the United Loretta Lynch stepped onto an airplane of Bill Clinton, where Bill Clinton was, not his airplane. He was just on the airplane and talked to him. And at the time, it was a huge scandal because the DOJ was investigating whether or not Hillary Clinton had used private email unlawfully. And this was top story on all the shows. It created havoc for the campaign.

This, Todd Blanche, sitting in the situation room to do defense work for the president amid this type of investigation. is so much worse, and yet it's like the third element of that story. Yeah, it is extraordinary how the way this is all shifted in the Trump era. We're almost numb to it because there's just so much. We can't wait to read more in that book out later this month from Maggie Heyerman and Jonathan Swan. Former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Florida, Dave, thank you. As always, we appreciate it.

And coming up on Morning Joe, we'll get the latest from Capitol. Hill as President Trump calls on Republicans to pass a third reconciliation bill. Plus, Democratic Congresswoman Becca Ballin is standing by. She's calling for strong guardrails are artificial intelligence, especially when it comes to our nation's elections. That's straight ahead here on Morning Joe. Welcome back. We're following a developing story in Albania, where thousands of people have taken the streets for days now protesting against a proposed luxury resort that's backed by President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. You're seeing some of the images there.

Many demonstrators fear environmental damage as the project is planned for an area that includes Albania's uninhabited island, Cazan, as well as wetlands and coastal habitats around it. In an interview last week, Ivanka Trump described how she and her husband discovered the site. An unbelievable, beautiful 1,400 hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean. We were on a friend's boat and we stopped for a swim. Effectively, that's how we found it. We swam to the islands.

We went on a hike barefoot all the way up to the top and we were just captivated. And it stayed with us ever since. And over the course of many years, we developed the opportunity to help realize its potential and transform it. MS Now International reporter, Enesda La Quatera, is in Albania and will have reports on the story throughout the day here on the network.

You'll want to watch those. Meanwhile, back in Washington, President Trump has laid out his demands for new Republican legislation, telling lawmakers to deliver a $350 billion reconciliation bill that will include

his beloved Save America Act. Trump outlined the request on social media last night, writing in part this, no games, no delays, and no weak compromises. Do this ASAP. The legislation would mark Republicans' third attempt at a reconciliation bill this Congress. Some lawmakers have raised concerns about the controversial Save America Act, which requires proof of citizenship to vote, requires photo ID, and largely bans mail-in ballots except in

certain cases. Joining us now, Democratic Congresswoman Beckabout of Vermont. She is seeking re-election this November for her third term in office. Congressman, great to see you again. A lot to get to, but let's just start there with this request, dare I say, demand from President Trump to get this for the reconciliation bill to include a lot of Pentagon spending and this, the Save America Act. Democrats, of course, have been unanimous in opposition. Republicans have balked as well. What are your concerns about the legislation and what do you see its future being? Can the GOP ram this through on this party line, reconciliation line? They're certainly going to try, but what we've seen time and time again is Speaker Johnson,

who is not often able to deliver the votes that he needs on the floor. Things often go sideways at the last minute, so it remains to be seen whether he's going to be able to pull this off. Look, Americans don't want this. They don't want federal interactions in state elections. They want states to be running their elections, and they want guardrails on ice. They have said this time and time again. They do not want a blank check that this administration has to the tune of tens of billions of dollars to continue to terrorize people in our cities. And so once again, you have the president and his Republican allies in Congress not focused at all on the American people. This is just yet another example of that.

A congresswoman, I guess for two to say you hear, someone who has an island in Albania that you bought after you walked over at Barefoot, do you have any... No, I actually want to talk to you. Sorry, I had to do. No, no, it's crazy. You had a recent kind of interesting controversy, Rock Your Campaign, which is in an AI-generated online video smearing you. We've seen this,

we're showing it, we're seeing it, we're I think this in other places, too. I saw the other day that James Tala Rico, a conservative group, basically made an AI-generated video of him singing some version of sound of music in which he's pro-trans. Right. I have a question of you. I know you're introducing legislation around this. And first of all, I'm shocked it's legal that people can do this. And a lot of Americans don't realize that. It's absolutely legal. So it is legal. Okay. That's my first question. My second question is talk about the sort of difficulties in combatanties. Because even right now, as we're showing this ad, I feel like a little discomfort because this is obviously fake and the more

we talk about it, the more eyeballs get seen or see it. And yet you have to combat it some way. So can you just sort of walk through the legislation and the difficulties combating it? Yeah, I really appreciate this because it is for that exact reason that you say, the more that we show it, the more that we normalize it. Look, we have a crisis around elections right now because we have had someone at the very top of the Republican ticket or sitting president attacking the integrity of elections, right? This is part of that. This is part of that campaign to get Americans to doubt what they see, to doubt that they can trust elected officials. And in my case, you had a right-wing media personality in Vermont, create an image, rather a likeness of me

using my voice, using my image, and made a completely fake AI video. And there was nothing on it that said that this is AI generated. And we know that Americans watch videos for like the first four or five seconds. Right. Right. So the first impression is that I said these things, that I did these things, and that I am not showing up for Vermonters. And I introduced, as you mentioned, an act called the No Fakes Act, because Americans, Americans don't realize they actually don't have control over the likeness and image.

And this would give them a private right of action. And it's directed not just at individual Americans, but at people who create books, who write poems, who generate music. And this is building off of the work that was done in the Take It Down Act, which was going after deep fake porn. But it's shocking what is allowed to be posted using other people's likeness and voice. It's a really important conversation, one we will continue. Democratic Congressman Beckett Ballin in Vermont, thank you, come back soon.

We should also note, a way too early regular, which we always appreciate. Coming up next on Morning Joe, speaking of AI, one of the top artificial intelligence companies is looking to help nonprofits across America through a new fellowship program. We're going to learn more about Anthropics Claude Corps. Next, I'm Morning Joe. Welcome back. one of the nation's largest artificial intelligence companies has launched a first of its kind program focused on aiding non-profits. The so-called Claude Corps program from Anthropic will gather

hundreds of knowledgeable applicants to work across the country using Anthropics AI tools to help those organizations advance their goals. Join us now with more, head of public policy, Anthropic Sarah, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us this morning. Please tell us a little bit more about the program. And candidly, do you anticipate any sort of backlash where right now there is so much concern among people about AI taking jobs away? Explain, if you will, how you're trying to make the case that, hey, it can actually help people, help communities. Thanks for having me so much, Shay. We're really excited about ClaudeCore.

I think, you know, as you mentioned, there are so many people that are trying to ensure that there are shared benefits from AI. And with the launch of this National Fellowship, we're really trying to make sure that young people who are thinking about their future can get skilled up with AI skills and actually deploy those skills into their communities. So whether it's with the YMCA or veterans organizations, we think that there's lots of good that can be done with AI. And this is a start of many more things that we hope to do in the future. And so while we know that there's lots of road ahead of us in this economic transition, it's really important that we take a first step today. to start doing programs like this. So this program will basically teach people how to match themselves with nonprofits or charities that align with their interests.

How does AI serve in sort of the functionality of that? Yeah, it's a great question. So we're actually working with an organization named CodePath that has done a lot of this work before. They upskill people with technological skills and then deploy them into community organizations. And we know there's a lot of young people that are already utilizing these AI skills. we're going to continue to sort of foment those skills, and then we'll work to pair them with organizations that really want their help in, you know, designing back-end systems or deploying AI to benefit the constituents or the communities that they serve as well. So this is using the technology to make the nonprofits more efficient at their mission, or is it using this technology to situate people with nonprofits that they would like to support?

It's a little bit of both. So it's situating folks to have the skills to then deploy them into their communities. but I also think that upskilling people so that they have the AI skills to go forward after they're done with their fellowship is going to be very beneficial. The program is deemed clog core and the head of policy for public policy for anthropic Sarah Heck. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

And we'll be right back here with more, Morning Joe. Recapping the breaking news of the last hour or so, Sam Stein, President Trump, after two days of U.S. and Iran exchanging a fire there in the middle of the middle of at least. He took the truth social, saying that the U.S. will be hitting Iran again, quote, very hard tonight and goes on to say that at some point in the near future, we will be taking Karg Island. So perhaps, Sam, this is a bluff because we know Kark Island will require ground troops and those forces would likely pay a heavy price. It's not even clear the U.S. has assets in the region to do so. But certainly, this is either the mark of a real escalation in the war

or a sign of President Trump's frustration that he can't get Iran to the table. Yeah, I just want to remark how surreal this is, right? I mean, you and I are sitting here talking, we're like, well, he could be bluffing, but maybe he's not bluffing. And if he's bluffing, what does that mean? If he's not bluffing, does it mean we're saying ground troops into Iran? And, you know, he was on Fox News doing an interview this morning,

and it's amazing how much, so much of this is motivated by what he perceives to be bad press coverage that he's getting. He kept referencing pieces in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal as being inherently unfair to the successes of the war. and that's why he's doing this. And I just, you know, we'll see if it happens, but it's a very troubling way to actually conduct serious operations.

Completely agree. This war has not gone the way the president thought it would. Iran survived the bombardments in its early days. Now perhaps that's picking up again. We will see if Trump is willing to go further than that. We, of course, we'll have complete coverage of that. Tomorrow right here on Morning, Joe.

We'll see you at 6. 6 a.m. Eastern. That'll do it for us this morning. Thanks for watching. Anna Cabrera picks up MS Now's live coverage after a short final break.