Morning Joe - Trump wraps up G7 Summit with a series of high-stakes meetings, while questions about Iran agreement linger

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

June 17, 2026 - 6am: Trump wraps up G7 Summit with a series of high-stakes meetings, while questions about Iran agreement linger Republican and Democratic lawmakers express skepticism about the preliminary Iran agreement Hillary Clinton says former President Biden's failed re-election campaign was a "terrible miscalculation" on his part 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.

Why can't they see, why can't we all see the MOU right now? Well, there, yeah, so first of all, the president said by the latest Friday, possibly as early as tomorrow, we're going to release the memorandum of understanding text. The reason why we haven't released it yet is there are some delicate diplomatic things going on where the Iranians and not just the Iranians, but some of our mediators, the Pakistanis and the Gattaris have asked us to sequence this in the right way. I don't frankly fully understand it, but there are sensitivities that exist in the Arab and Muslim world that we're trying to. to be responsive to. Fundamentally, does it really matter if the deal comes out on Wednesday versus Friday? No, that's why we haven't emphasized it so much is because at the very latest, the text is going to be out on Friday. Vice President J.D. Vance explaining why the text of the agreement between the United States and Iran has not yet been released. We're going to go through the details

of the deal that are starting to trickle out and how it's being received by the world leaders, President Trump is meeting with right now in France. Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, some Republican senators are saying they should have a vote on any agreement with Iran. But would the president agree to that? We'll show you his response. Also ahead, we'll go through the primary election runoffs in Georgia, where there were mixed results for Trump-backed candidates. Good morning and welcome to morning, Joe. It is Wednesday, June 17th, along with Joe, Willie and me. We have the co-host of our 8am hour staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, U.S. national editor and columnist at the Financial Times. Ed Luce is with us. Also with us, opinion columnist for the New York Times, David French.

It's great to have you all with us this morning. So questions continue to swirl about the agreement between the United States and Iran to end the war as the text has not yet been formally released. Vice President J.D. Vance yesterday said officials need to sequence this in the right way. When asked why the language has not been made public, while President Trump says it will be released in a couple of days, meanwhile details of the deal continue to trickle out in reporting. The Wall Street Journal cites people familiar with the agreement who say the U.S. will allow Iran to immediately begin selling oil and fuel under the deal, adding that the provision for waivers of sanctions on oil sales takes effect immediately upon the signing of the agreement this week and also

covers necessary services, including banking, transportation, and insurance needed to facilitate the sales. That signing is expected to take place Friday in Switzerland, but still, threatening to complicate any lasting agreement is the tension between Iran and Israel. It seems like right there might be some challenges, Joe. Well, I can only say if half of what Bloomberg News is reporting is what's at this memorandum of understanding, the president does not want to put this up for a vote in the United States Senate because it would be voted down. Bloomberg says it's in the text of the 14-point draft memorandum, adding that the Iranian news agency cited an unnamed official saying parts of the text published by Bloomberg are inaccurate. So Bloomberg has put this up. Michael Weiss has tweeted it. Iran says parts are inaccurate.

it says it's a draft. We just, and we have not yet confirmed this is actually the actual MOU, but the 14 points that Bloomberg lays out is this. One, the United

States undertakes together with regional partners, the creation of a comprehensive plan agreed to by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran while ensuring, that's the United States. The United States, according to this draft MOU that Bloomberg has released this morning,

says it ensures the financing of at least $300 billion, $300 billion to Iran, and how that happens will be formulated within the next 60 days. We can stop right there, Willie, or we can talk about how the United States will commit to ending on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of final agreement, all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran. All sanctions. This is what the Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning. I could go on, but it is the unfreezing of billions and billions of dollars. Again, it is my hope, not for the sake of Donald Trump, not for the sake of Republicans or Democrats, not for the sake of any political party, but for the sake of the United States of America and all of our allies in the region, that this

This draft MOU that Bloomberg has gotten a hold of is nowhere near the final MOU because this would be devastating. It would create in Iran a behemoth in that region and allow them to sell oil in a way they've never been able to sell oil to make revenue, the way they've never been able to get revenue. And again, this MOU at least puts the burden on the United States. of raising the $300 billion in reconstruction costs. Reading through this draft MOU that Bloomberg has released and says his part is the MOU, it looks like we lost the war. You read through this and you say, wait a second.

Well, what about the nuclear program? Well, what this MOU says about the nuclear program is pending a final agreement, it will remain, quote, status quo. The nuclear program will be status quo. So, again, it is my great hope that over the next several days, the sensitivities that J.D. Vance was talking about is the sensitivities of a Republican Senate that would be an open rebellion against something like this,

and all of our allies in the region, probably across the world, because this still, this MOU would create in Iran a behemoth stronger than it's ever been. Yeah, I mean, a memorandum of understanding is an agreement to negotiate. So let's hope this is the starting off point. But even as a starting off point, it is shocking to read the United States of America conceding some of the things that you just laid out to Iran. If you go back to March the 1st, the morning after this war started, Donald Trump was talking explicitly about regime change. Remember the nuclear program, he said, had been obliterated, and now it was going to completely wipe out Iran's military, as Defense Secretary Higgs would like to say, the Navy's at the

bottom of the sea, they're incapable of responding in any way. Of course, they've been responding for four months now around the Gulf. And you got to a lot of it, Joe, which is ending sanctions, unfreezing assets, and then the creation of this $300 billion investment fund, a private investment Fund, that according to Reuters would include some private American companies, along with Gulf companies, to pump $300 billion into Iran as an investment fund, a rebuilding fund for that country. It also, Jonathan Lemire, puts an awful lot of trust in a regime that deserves no trust whatsoever, which is to say, status quo on the nuclear program, you just promise us you're not going to

pursue and develop a nuclear weapon. That's in writing right now. We'll see it changes by Friday. We'll see if it changes when the bigger negotiations come along. But right now, not a lot to be excited about if you're on the U.S. side. Well, let's start here. It's not usually a vote of confidence in your deal when you won't let anybody read it. And so I think there is a real sense here.

The Trump administration knows privately this is not a good agreement. We had the president yesterday. He continues not only as he accomplished none of the war aims they set out before this conflict began back in February. But yesterday, we have him furiously back away from some of the things he has said all along needs to be done. He was asked about the Iran and the uranium dust. They still have. And he says, quote, you could make the case. Why are you even bothering removing it?

Because it's not really valuable. So even that he's distancing himself front. And I wrote a piece that just published on the Atlantic this morning. This is a significant defeat for President Trump. This is for the United States. We exit this conflict weaker, strategically. economically, militarily, and perhaps even morally when you consider the girl's school that we blew up in the first hours of the war, as well as the fact that we were in negotiations with Iran, you know,

seemingly not in good faith because we then launched the attack soon thereafter. And for Trump, this is sort of a preview. I write about how, you know, particularly post midterms, we'll see him become less and less relevant. He's to the president. Inherently, of course, he'll have power. But the rest of the world is learning to ignore him. We're seeing Iran get the best, of him in these negotiations. And Ed Luce, yes, all the caveats that Joe and Willie just laid out, things perhaps could change on Friday. But a big part of this is, this is a huge win for Iran in terms of the money that they're going to have access to, $300 billion from the Gulf, the ability to sell oil against, sanctions apparently being lifted. And no real enforcement

mechanism in terms of the nuclear program going forward. As Willie said, and I report in the story, there are some voices in the administration who are skeptical about this. Hegset, Rubio, Ratcliffe, saying we can't necessarily trust the Iranians to uphold their end of the deal. But Trump so desperate to put this in his rearview mirror, going ahead anyway. Going ahead anyway. I mean, the Obama deal had international weapons inspectors crawling all over Iran to check whether the deal was being upheld. by Iran. So that will be one test. Will there be IAEA, International Atomic Energy Agency inspections as and when they like all over Iran? And really, if you read this draft MOU, this 14-point

draft, you do not get the impression that Iran is about to concede anything like what it did in 2015, which incident with Obama, which incidentally began with, in the prologue the statement that Iran pledges not to produce a nuclear weapon. So that's nothing new. That is absolutely boilerplate language. But then if you listen to Vance, who's clearly, you know, being designated as the full guy here, describing Iran as having, after 47 years, finally seen the light, this has not been a good way of doing business, now we're going to do business with the United States and we're going to be reasonable. I'm sorry, but that doesn't even pass the laugh test.

Iran today is a considerably stronger regional power, a considerably more threatening one to Israel and other of America's allies than it was on February the 28th. There is no other way to see this than as a complete capitulation by President Trump and really a moment of a moment. I think of, well, I'm not going to use the word shame, but I mean, a really bad moment for the United States.

Well, let's go to Capitol Hill, where Senate Majority Leader John Thune was asked specifically about whether he and other top Republicans have been briefed and what's included in this so-called Iran deal. As members of the game, would you have been briefed, John Watson, and the memorandum? I don't think I certainly have not yet, although we are requesting that, and I assume we will at some point hear from the administration with greater specificity about what's in that memorandum.

I mean, we're all hearing in generalities what's to be reported so far, but until I get more specific information, I'm going to hesitate to say anything more about it. And as lawmakers from both parties continue to express skepticism about the preliminary agreement, Senate Republicans say Congress should have a vote. on any final deal. Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said yesterday, if there is a final deal, and I hope there is, it should come to the Senate for approval.

Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said, the final agreement is a treaty, and it sounds like a treaty, he said. Then it certainly seems like the deal should be subject to a vote by Congress. Republican Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee echoed his colleagues. President Trump for his part appears for now to agree, saying yesterday, I will send it to Congress. I like the idea. I'm glad he likes the idea, David French. How do you think David French, Congress will react to this

if the reporting bears out of what we're hearing of what is in this MOU? Well, you know, here's the problem they have because they failed and couldn't exercise their authority on the front end. They're in a box on the back end. So, yes, I absolutely agree. This should go before the Senate at the very least. This is absolutely a treaty by any understanding of the word. So, yeah, the United States Senate should weigh in here. But the problem is, and they'll know this, if they say no to this, if they say no, what does that mean?

Does that mean a very unpopular war restarts? Does that mean that negotiations restart? What next? Because we were sort of led into this war without these kinds of questions being asked and answered on the front end, here we are in the allegedly the back end with Congress trying to reassert itself, but no real plan be here at all. Joe, I would just point out the New York Post this morning, a rare moment when you've lost the New York Post love bomb, the New York Post ripping President Trump on this deal for showering, it says, this regime with money, the lifting of sanctions and this $300 billion investment fund for funding the radical regime. That's the New York Post going after Donald Trump. And just one more

point. If the big victory in this is that the Strait of Hormuz is open, while the Strait of Hormuz was open on February the 28th when the war started. So if that's considered the big win of this, and it would be for people paying a lot of money at the gas pump right now here in the United States, boy, the bar has gotten really low. It's gotten really low. If you look at the beginning of the war, the president had threatened the Iranian, and said if you continue to shoot people in the streets of Iran, we're going to come in and suggest that we were going to liberate them.

And he called for the liberation of the Iranian people and the changing of the regime and getting rid of the Islamic regime. And so again, I just want to underline this, Willie. Again, we don't know. We have reporting from Bloomberg. Michael Weiss is talking about it. And reporting about what's in this MOU. What we've seen is a draft MOU from Bloomberg.

But we also, though, we do get some of that confirmed in pieces. The Wall Street Journal confirming that, in fact, the sanctions are going to be lifted. which again, if you talk to anybody, anybody before Donald Trump won re-election in 2024, they would tell you, they would go on and on about how it was Biden that was responsible for what happened in Israel because they lifted sanctions. They let them out of the box. It's all I heard repeatedly, oh, you can't lift sanctions on Iran. Well, they're talking about lifting sanctions on Iran. The Wall Street Journal, they've confirmed that part of the reporting. I suspect the New York Post has seen the draft MOU and probably more than just the draft,

given what they're writing ahead of time. And the $300 billion slush fund that we're giving the Iranians, $300 billion. This MOU says the draft MOU, which we haven't confirmed yet, but it seems to be confirmed a lot of it across other news agencies. That $300 billion says it's the United States' responsibility basically for the financing of it and for the bringing of it all together. So Willie, and on nukes, they're talking about maintaining the status quo, the only language in there is the same boilerplate language that Barack Obama did. Again, looking at these terms, if these terms are anywhere near the final terms, then Barack Obama got the greatest deal from the Iranians

compared to the Trump administration. And again, just for the record, I was against the Obama nuclear deal because I said you can't trust the Iranians. And they had a hell of a lot of weapon inspectors. Here, looking at this, MOU, we're just throwing money at Iran and basically saying, yeah, do whatever you want to do. And now Donald Trump's saying, oh, the nuclear material's not even important anymore. So, and all of this circles back to two truths. One, we don't know if this is the final MOU. We don't know what Friday will look like. But number two, again, why announce a piece deal on your birthday? Like, so you can have a big birthday and a claw on the White House lawn and not actually show America the memorandum of understanding that you're yapping about nonstop and that you're taking

victory laps on nonstop. I mean, it's almost like, Willie, they're winging it. You might say they're winging. That's right. Yeah, the New York Post, by the way, does report out a bunch of the terms of this memorandum of understanding. It will underline, as you just did again, this may not be the final memorandum of understanding and a memorandum of understanding. It's just an agreement to negotiate down the road. So maybe it gets better from here, but even as a starting point, this is pretty devastating for the Trump regime, given the objectives it laid out four months ago when the war started, not even close here. Jonathan's piece in the Atlantic is titled Trump in defeat in it. John writes this. President Trump lost. The war he waged against Iran promises to conclude in a humbling

whimper with the signing of a ceasefire agreement later this week. The United States is left weaker, diminished militarily, strategically, economically, and perhaps morally. Despite that, the president was so desperate for the war to end that he repeatedly backed off his threats, allowing Iran to call his bluff and upbraided his close ally Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for responding to attacks in the region in a manner that jeopardized the negotiations. Back home, Trump is still the most powerful figure in politics, but those small acts of Republican defiance are adding up. He's had a series of losses. in the courts, including in his efforts to remake the nation's capital in his own image.

Democrats are favored to capture at least one House of Congress this November, which would give them the ability to slow Trump's agenda and open investigations into his administration. Once the midterms conclude, the race to replace Trump will begin, although that will further diminish Trump, it is unlikely that he will go out with a whimper. This is definitely a moment in time for this administration because you're having Fox News contributors on the air yesterday, one of them, Andrew McCarthy calling President Trump, Neville Trump, an unflattering comparison, of course, to Neville Chamberlain. Republicans on this issue, at least, and maybe now further, are feeling a little bit liberated

to criticize the president. Yeah, there have been a few things lately. There's been the ballroom funding, the January 6th slush fund. We saw Republicans, the Senate oppose both of those. Now we've had others in the Senate object to this, sort of where is the deal? We've seen Lindsay Graham, although he is careful to direct his criticism at. Vice President Vance, who is the one heading to Switzerland on Friday, rather than President Trump. But we've had some hawks, Mark Levine, among them.

You're flat out saying, like, where's the deal? And not only that, how are you, why are you signing with Iran over Israel? That's his take here. And that's a big part of this as well. Even this morning, reports of some Israeli strikes in Lebanon. So there is going to be pressure here. There's going to be continued some even low-level violence in the region that could endanger these talks. But for Trump, it is a diminishment.

It is someone who entered this conflict riding high off of Venezuela, what he did there, thought that he could accomplish anything he wanted on the global stage, found otherwise humbled here by Iran, as other presidents had before him. And Mika, you know, he is someone who is going to face his own political irrelevancy going forward. But right now, in the near term, he is weak in the United States militarily and economically and on the global stage. Still ahead on morning, Joe. We're going to break down last night's primary results, including George. Georgia's closely watched Senate race, where Republican Congressman Mike Collins will now take on Democratic Senator John Ossoff in November. Plus, despite a $14 million renovation, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is full of green algae. How the National Park Service is trying to fight

the problem and is it the right way? As we go to break, a quick look at the Travelers forecast this morning from Acqueweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, we have a severe weather outbreak across Midwest today with widespread damaging winds and dozens of tornadoes. Worse of the severe weather is south of Chicago and Detroit, but you're in the threat there. Watch that area from St. Louis toward Indianapolis. Spotty thunderstorms, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. this afternoon, drenching thunderstorms along the Gulf Coast as we're tracking a tropical rainstorm. Spotty. thunderstorm this afternoon in Atlanta.

Delays we're going to have them all day in Atlanta this afternoon, Miami, New York City, and Philadelphia. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Acky weather up today. A shot of the White House, I usually say beautiful. I don't know what that thing is behind it. I've never seen any

clips from anything that happened behind there, but I can guarantee you it wasn't good. It seems to be, maybe it seems to be coming down. I don't I heard it was American culture on the skids with a former first lady being savaged and attacked by somebody who spit on themselves. That kind of overshadowed all the other hideousness. Oh, so much hideousness. Happy birthday USA.

Mika, Senator John Kennedy, and I'm not sure because my Aristotle reading was limited in college, but I think he may have been actually channeling Aristotle when asked by a reporter yesterday on Capitol Hill whether he believed that the Iranians would actually stick to their word on nuclear, on curbing their nuclear program. Senator Kennedy from Louisiana said, well, unless you were homeschooled by a day drinker, you're not going to believe that. So I think, again, both Aristotle and Oxford University's own Senator John Kennedy, I think he speaks for a large swath of the Republican Congress and not trusting the Iranians to stick to their word. And really, the only thing they've said is what they said to Barack Obama. So if that was such a disgraceful move by the Obama administration,

then I'm sure they will all come out and say the same thing about this still as well. I mean, you would think. By the way, let's bring in MS now contributor. Mike Barnacle joins the table. Good to have you on board, Mike. So we want to pick up our conversation about Iran and Ed Luce with your latest piece for the Financial Times, which is titled, This time, Trump and Netanyahu have really fallen out.

And in it, you write in part, quote, Netanyahu sold Trump and his own public on the idea that after 47 years, Iran's theocrats were finally meeting their Waterloo. Rarely has a geopolitical roll of the dice gone so rapidly wrong. The Israeli leader thus faces an unpalatable choice. Either he submits to a deal, that leaves Iran considerably stronger than it was before February 28, or he breaks with the U.S. by trying to scupper the deal.

The America First camp will be primed to praise whatever deal Trump strikes, even if it's less good than Obama's, which Netanyahu also did his best to scupper. From their point of view, Trump's flirtation with Middle Eastern forever wars is over. He is back to the president they thought they knew. Netanyahu is often called Israel's Houdini. Even he, however, will find this vice hard to escape. Should he try to jeopardize the Iran talks, Trump's reaction could be worse than mouthing off to a reporter.

And Ed, how bad could it get? Well, so part of this draft MOU is unconsulted with Israel, but part of it is that Israel withdraws from Lebanon. That is how the Iranians understand it. And that is something that the Israelis are not prepared to do. It's very unclear whether Iran has full control over Hezbollah, but if Hezbollah continues to fire rockets at Israel, Israel has said it will respond and it will not withdraw from Lebanon. So if you take that has read, this will immediately jeopardize the deal. But I think the sort of bigger picture here is that Netanyahu's life's work is getting rid of the Iranian regime. And he thought on February

28th that he was now on the cusp of realizing his life's work. And you heard the language, you know, from Trump talking about the people rising up, the regime being changed, unconditional surrender, and all the kinds of things that were music to Netanyahu's is Trump is now saying that the Iranians are very rational. They're very reasonable people, that Israel should stop sort of targeting apartment blocks in Beirut, that it should, you know, have a, it should ideally outsource the battle with his brother to the leader of Syria because Israel can't be trusted. Of course, he said those things that he said to Axios about Netanyahu. It's a family show, so I won't repeat what he said. I don't think I was talking last

night to David Ignatius at an event. And we agreed that we had never heard an American president talk in that way about a leader of an allied of a friendly nation, as Trump did about Netanyahu. So this is a political death sentence for Netanyahu, and therefore we'll see what he does over the next 60 days, whether he tries to undermine this deal. But Trump's made it very clear that he's going to get this deal with Israel's support or not. And, you know, the potential for a U.S.-Israeli breach should not be underrated. David, as Ed says, I mean, Prime Minister Netanyahu thought at long last he had found the president who was going to help him wipe out Iran.

It's military capability. It's nuclear program. Take out the regime, all of those things. You go back to that reporting from the New York Times inside the situation room where Prime Minister Netanyahu came and explicitly made the case to Donald Trump and convinced him to launch the war in Iran. And now here we are all these months later, where you have a memorandum of understanding and talks that from Iran's side need to include Israel pulling away from Lebanon. And Israel says we can't do that as long as Hezbo is striking us from there. So not only did

Netanyahu not get what he wanted out of this war, he may have to retreat because of the agreement that Donald Trump appears to be ready to sign. Yeah, if this unfolds the way it appears to be unfolding, this isn't just a defeat for America. It's a potential disaster for Israel. Because if you look at the larger context here, Israel burned a lot of its relationships with a lot of countries in the world

over the last couple of years, but it is absolutely wrapped both arms around the Trump administration. It has thrown all the dice in with the Trump administration. And if you have a rift here, if the end result here is not only pulling in Hezbollah into the deal, making Hezbollah a beneficiary of the deal, but also creating a degree or maybe even entire rupture with the Trump administration, then all of a sudden Israel is going to be in a situation where it is going to look into the world and see fewer and fewer friends and its most powerful friend is now deeply uncertain in its relationships with the country.

So obviously we're thinking first and foremost about the impact of this deal on the United States. But if you put on the hat of analyzing this from the standpoint of Israel's best interests, not only do you not totally destroy the nuclear program, not only do you not completely destroy the Iranian missile program, not only do not end its support for proxies, you've actually brought one of its proxies in, the worst one, the most dangerous one in, is a potential beneficiary. This is a disastrous for Israel.

Well, it, again, if the MOU that we've seen, the draft of it is anywhere near the final deal, and based on reporting Mike Barnacle from several outlets for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post and Murdoch-owned outlets, who actually have been far more supportive of Donald Trump than not, then this is a disaster. you, and by the way, it's, I just want to ask everybody if they can just step back for a second and take Donald Trump out of this, take Democrats, Republicans, the midterms out of this, take 2026 out of this, and look what the world will be like over the next decade if this deal actually goes through. Mike, we're talking about $100 million, the New York Times, are the Wall Street Journalist estimating, $100 billion.

in unfrozen funds. J.D. Vance admitted to the possibility of a $300 billion fund for the Iranians. It's a reparations fund. Like, we lost the war. And you go down the list, a nuclear language that is identical to the same language the Iranians have been using for 50 years. Donald Trump distracted, saying, oh, we're not even concerned about the nuclear materials in there. Why even go in there after it? You know, I can add all of this up. And if it's anywhere close to what news reports are suggesting, Mike, this isn't a disaster for Donald Trump. This isn't a disaster

for Republicans or Democrats. This is a disaster for America. This would be, this would be, as Bob Kagan wrote a month ago, perhaps the greatest American military defeat in history? Is that, is that, for all those that hear my words, I ask you to go down the list of what this proposed MOU is saying. And if, if in fact, the Iranian stand to gain upwards to half a trillion dollars from these guarantees, if that's where we end up based on reporting from The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, Vance's own words, that would create a superpower in Iran, a country that's been the epicenter of terrorism since 1979, who's burned American flags since November of 1979, who have chanted death to America since 1979, who have taken Americans' host.

blown up American Marines, you go down the list. This would empower them in a way they've never been empowered in 47 years. So, Mike, this isn't about Donald Trump. This is about us. This is about America. This is about our allies in the region. This is about the stability of the world moving forward. Joe, we honored Memorial Day just a few weeks ago.

We're on the eve of July 4th, the 250th anniversary of this country. Jonathan Lemurs' lead in the Atlantic piece today, President Trump lost. Yeah, he lost, but as you just pointed out, America lost too. I mean, the greatest nation on earth succumbed to the whims, the ego, the enormous ego of a sitting president of the United States, who is now hiding the homework. on a specific deal that supposedly is going to calm the Middle East forever. It's not going to. He lost a war, and he lost also ancillary to this,

billions and billions of dollars per day that America spent fighting this war. And Mika, when you look around at this country, for instance, I was having dinner last night with Bob Kerry, a Medal of Honor recipient, former senator from Nebraska. and he was talking about the status of the country, the military of the country, the mood of the country. And it's a sad story, as Joe just outlined, this is about much more than just this war and this moment. This is about the United States of America, the meaning of this country in the world, and it's been diminished. Adleuze of the Financial Times, thank you very much.

And David French, thank you as well. Still ahead on Morning, Joe. new reporting from Washington about the growing price tag for President Trump's Ballroom Project and how taxpayers could be on the hook for some of it, a good part of it. Morning Joe is coming right back. That is such a cool live picture. There's got to be AI, right? It's too, it's almost too good. I'm told it's real. TJ with the camera work, 646 in the Morning Statue of Liberty. The World Cup delivered another incredible day of action as some of the tournament's biggest stars took center stage on the pitch, including one of the world's most prolific strikers in recent years, Erling Holland,

who took just 29 minutes yesterday to score his first ever World Cup goal finishing with two, as Norway marked its return to the tournament for the first time since 1998, with a 4-1 win over Iraq. Later, Killing Mbapé of France climbed the World Cup career scoring charts. Now, with 14 after netting a pair for France to become the national team's all-time goals leader, with 58 in a 3-1 victory against Senegal. And Leo Messi made history last night with a hat trick for reigning champion Argentina, tying the record for most men's World Cup goals

at 16 in a 3-0 victory over Algeria. I mean, you can't ask for a lot more from the World Cup than you got last night. Jonathan Lemire, a hat trick for Messi, the world's most famous player. Mbapé got a couple of goals. I was out there at MetLife Stadium. The atmosphere was great.

It was electric. The France fans showed up. Senegal had a nice pocket of fans, too. And it was a really close game. Senegal played really athletic and tough defense. Scoreless right until about midway through the second half. And then Mbapé kind of broke it open. But an incredible day at the World Cup yesterday.

That last Mbapé goal was outrageous. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we were lucky enough. We were at the Brazil-Moraka game on Saturday. It's a great atmosphere. There was so much angst, so much trepidation around this World Cup. I wrote about it. People were really anxious about how it would go.

But now the games are here. It's been a success. And yes, I mean, Holland and Bappe, let's take a minute on Messi here. He is 38, he's 38 years old. He's 38 years old. Someone found a clip in the World Cup in 2018, when Argentina fell short. The announcer was like, well, that's our goodbye to Leo Messi on the world stage. He's played two World Cup since.

They won it four years ago. He scores a hat trick last night and showing, I'm still here that, yes, he's older now. There are other great players. We'll see Ronaldo play today as Portugal makes their debut. but Messi is still, he's the best. You know, as you know, I'm not a soccer aficionado, okay? But the athleticism in these contests

is incredible. Messy in particular. And again, 38 years of age, he revitalized. Oh, my gosh. Look at that. He's the greatest in the world. He is. He picks his spots so well

and what's this, his vision. He just understands the game. The comparison, the only one I can think of is like the way Wayne Gretzky used to see the ice where he would anticipate things Two or three moves ahead. Messies like that. And we saw his brilliance again yesterday. Incredible. Incredible. And I will say one quick shout out, Mika, NJ. Transit, getting people in and out of the games pretty well yesterday, at least from where we were sitting. I'm sure some

people had problems, but it was moving pretty quickly yesterday. That's good news for soccer fans. All right. Well done. Okay. Still ahead. We're going to get to some of the other headlines making news this morning, including what to expect from Kevin Warsh, ahead of his first meeting as federal Reserve Chairman today. Morning Joe is coming right back. Welcome back a few minutes before the top of the hour. Time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. The Trump administration is dumping hydrogen peroxide into the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to fight a growing algae problem after spending more than $14 million to refurbish and clean the pool. An algae bloom erupted just

days after its reopening this past week, causing the water to take on a greenish color. Not sure hydrogen peroxide itself will keep it from coming back. We shall see. Florida's so-called alligator Alcatraz immigration detention center is no longer holding detainees. ICE released a statement yesterday saying all of the detainees have been moved to other facilities out of safety concerns because of of hurricane season. But the agency did not say how many people were moved or where were they transferred. A lot of questions there. And today, new Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh will oversee his first policy meeting and hold his first news conference. Economists are not expecting any immediate changes with the central bank keeping its key interest rate at 3.6%.

And coming up on Morning Joe, President Trump continues meeting with world leaders for the G7 summit. Currently speaking right now with the president of Egypt. We'll talk about how the possible agreement with Iran is being perceived overseas. Morning Joe will be right back.