Morning Joe - U.S. temporarily lifts oil sanctions against Iran, Maggie Haberman and Johnathan Swan discuss the bombshell new book on Trump's second term, "Regime Change"

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

June 23, 2026 - 6am: Iran is reportedly prepared to allow UN nuclear inspectors back into the country Pentagon looks to request an $80B supplemental request for Iran war costs Trump reflecting pool vandalism 'conspiracy' NY Primary preview: George Conway joins Morning Joe on his run for NY-12 Maggie Haberman and Johnathan Swan discuss the bombshell new book on Trump's second term, "Regime Change"   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.

This will last for at least 50 years, and you'll never have a leak. It's very strong. You couldn't, if you had a knife, I don't want to give anybody ideas. If you had a knife, you can't even cut it. It's so strong, so powerful. It's powerful rubber. It is beautiful. Are the contractors who did the initial work with a reflecting pool,

are they splung for the current condition, or is it the vandalism? No, vandals. You know, we have 100, we have a, I think, 290, 300 foot slit. Right through it, probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind. Absolutely not true. That was like completely devoid from reality. I don't want to give any ideas. Can you?

President Trump yesterday. They couldn't do anything. Blaming vandals for the peeling paint and sealant. A box cutter. Floating in the reflecting pool. A plastic box cutter. But just seven weeks ago, he described it as almost indestructible. We'll have more about that $14 million mess.

Contract. Front page of New York Post, Willie. It's not going away. Easy Mala. This is, of course, a lot of people expressing concerns. Some say, including myself, you should not give the Mullah's money before they agree to do anything. When you've lost the New York Post, as we pointed out a few times in the last week, I mean, this is not us saying again. It's a New York Post. It's Ted Cruz. It's Republicans. Ten billion. You cannot turn over $10 billion. Plus the $300 billion. dollar investment fund, by the way, and pour that in and say, as J.D. Vents says, we hope Iran becomes a normal country. Right. We hope they do the right thing with all this money when the last 50 years have proven they will not. We think when you have money, there'll be Luxembourg, right? No. Jay, the vice president's saying, how, in his words, cool, it is, that now the U.S. and

Iran are talking and there's a chance to normalize those relations when we know that the hardliners in Iran have only been empowered at the end of this war. And they have no incentive, no incentive to trust American word again. And there's nothing cool about giving $10 billion. You know, before it was like, oh, it's cool. If they do the right things, we'll give them this money and we'll pay him $300 billion in reparations more than the Germans had to pay at the end of World War at Versailles. But, you know, you know, dire straits had a line for this. Money for nothing and your checks for free. Now, he may not be interested in the second part of that, but money for nothing. Money for nothing, Willie.

Okay. I want my, I want my, I want my, Mark Duffler's grateful for the shout out this morning. I'm sure Mark is just sitting there going, hit it on glass. All right. Meanwhile, the president is traveling to Pennsylvania today. Why are we giving a money? They're not in. A lot of palates and many ballots. It is his first public event since he signed the memorandum of understanding with Iran. We'll bring you a preview of that as well as the latest on the negotiations to end the war.

So the pallets, though, that was like four. $400 million in cash, right? I think at the end of the day it was like $1.7 billion, but the pallets were $400 million. Total, but the pallets they talked about, $400 million. It's a lot of pounds. We've already given them $10 billion. Is that been $5 billion?

You can't put that on the pallet. They just wire it straight in. Also this morning, New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman and New York Times White House reporter Jonathan Swan will join us for the release. of their highly anticipated new book, regime change, inside the imperial presidency of Donald Trump. And as Larry King would say, we're going for the hour. So we're going to have them for an hour. It's a big one.

Blockbuster. Let's get to the top story, which of course is Iran, reportedly prepared to allow UN nuclear inspectors back into the country following negotiations in Switzerland. Although inspectors were already allowed in the country, under the previous agreement, this could mark the most tangible outcome from the latest round of U.S. Iran talks. Still, there remain questions surrounding Iran's nuclear program enrichment activities and any long-term agreement for future discussions. Much of the progress announced this week was procedural with committees formed,

communication channels established, and a roadmap drafted for additional... It's not the best picture, Jamie Vang. Starting all over again. Come on, we got to do better than that. In a worse situation. It's like, you know, people do, like, every time I'm talking about my mouth wide open and everything. Oh, come on. Vice President J.D. Vans, who led the U.S. delegation in Switzerland, argued the inspector's return is an important for step.

And President Trump also projected confidence yesterday. We have the Iranians allowing weapons inspectors, nuclear inspectors into their country for the first time in a long time. We're obviously going to bolster that inspection regime to make sure they. They can never have a nuclear weapon. I think Iran, I can say, on a sort of a different scale, is in its own way working out very well. Maybe it's hard to say just as well, but maybe almost just as well. And we're doing very well in terms of negotiating a fair and reasonable deal.

One of the things that we are doing also when it came up last night is money that's being unfrozen is going to be used to buy food, and the food's going to be bought exclusively through the United States from our. farmers. And corn, soybeans, all of the things they need are going to be bought from our farmers. So our farmers are very happy. Iran's foreign ministry said this morning, there's been no visit scheduled for inspectors from the IAEA. So Willie, here's, yeah, I mean, here's, here was Donald Trump's problem. He had a war that

wasn't going to ever end. Right. And he's got political problems at home. The White House was putting out polls yesterday that show, even though this is going to be terrible for his legacy, even though it's going to be terrible for the region, even though it's going to empower the Iranians and make them even stronger than they've ever been before, most Republicans are glad he made this move. And I would guess ultimately, politically in the short run, this will be a better move for him because people just don't want to be in an endless war. Long-term consequences are going to be worse than the Iraq war. But short-term consequences. consequences. Politically, White House thinks they've made the right move.

Yeah, I mean, he's wanted this war to end since it's basically two weeks into the war. Remember he said, we're going to go in quick, overwhelming force, take out their military capability, we're going to sink their navy, put them at the bottom of the sea, we're going to change the regime, and then we're going to be out of their end game. We took out Iran. We did what Bibi Netanyahu asked us to do, and Jonathan Lemire simply put, this just was a lot more complicated and difficult than either he knew or he was advised by the people close to him. And as gas prices rose, as people didn't understand why actually we went to war, was there an imminent threat to the United States? As you said there was at the beginning,

as he saw the people were not going to rise up in the streets and take down the regime, as he told them to on that first day, he realized he needed a way out. And now here we are four months in, and he's desperate to find him. And this is clearly the play from the White House is to try to memory hole this war. I mean, to Joe's point, like the long-term modifications here are significant and real and likely disastrous for the United States and its interests. But in the short term, the short term political decision here is to pretend this never happened, to say, look, gas prices are coming down. Like, you know, the prices and other areas are coming down.

But they went up. But that's not how they're going to. Look, the straight-in-form moves is open. Like, they're just going to keep pushing. They are going to ignore the fact that the problems were caused by their decision to go to war, and they're going to point to say, hey, things are better now. And they're going to say in this news cycle, which is so relentless and so fast, the voters aren't going to be thinking about this in November. That's the bet they're making.

Now, that bet may prove incorrect, but that's what they think, that the November will be decided, the midterms will be decided on other issues, not this. Yeah, I mean, the biggest problem, and as we've all been reading through regime change, the biggest problem that J.D. Vance and other people inside the administration and on Epsen, especially Dan Bonchino, we're jumping up and down saying, number one, don't go to war. Number two, you've got to release the Epstein file. Stop, you know, Todd Blanche sitting in the situation room, you know, sort of mastermining this cover-up of the Epstein file. So even as this war fades, and if they can, memory, all it, with the base, with the low-propensity voters, with we'll call them the Joe Rogan voters,

just for lack of a better term, with these voters, they're going to remember that they promised one thing on Epstein files he did another. They promised one thing on foreign wars and did just the opposite. That's right. Suppressing the Epstein files is unforgivable to a lot of voters in this country. And that story is going to come back, by the way. It already is because of this book. And that Donald Trump promised no new wars.

It's fascinating to watch the spin J.D. Vance's camp when Republicans are critical. They say, well, you guys, you're criticizing us because you just want forever wars. To which they say, no, we wanted no wars, which is what you promised us going into this. And now we're in this quagmire with no clear way. out of it. Let's bring into the conversation Politics Bureau Chief and Senior Political Connollists at Politico, Jonathan Martin, and decorated combat veteran, former

commander of U.S. Army, Europe, retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling. He is an MS now military analysts. Guys, good morning. General Hurtling, I'll start with you, just your assessment of where these negotiations stand from your point of view and what the best case scenario is

for a resolution here. One of the things I'm doing, Willie, is not just looking at domestic news articles, but also articles from the region. And it just seems repeatedly there's a dissonance between what our spokespeople are saying versus what the Iranian spokespeople are saying. Both sides have their own view of this. My view is, as we went in to discuss the MOU over the weekend, which is basically an agenda for what they're going to talk about, they evidently confirmed that that's pretty good agenda. but they added some more things.

But we really haven't gotten into the meat of the issues yet. You know, the next 60 days are going to be tough. And even with those 60 days, we know the president yesterday opened the administration, I should say, open the straits for Iranian oil to get out. So we're already starting to see Iran benefit from these peace talks. It is, you know, one of the things that struck me yesterday, I had a friend remind me that the 22nd of June was the day that Hitler invaded Russia and also that Napoleon invaded Russia. Neither one of those two individuals successfully achieved their strategic objectives.

And yet this is the same list as we're hearing from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's book that President Trump is comparing himself to people that seem to be authoritarian, but actually lose the battles they're going into. So Jay Mart, Jonathan Martin, let's talk about the politics of this. I'm just curious. Given the landscape, the president's going to Pennsylvania, he undoubtedly has some news channels that will cover this in a way that doesn't point out that the deal they're working on right now pales in comparison or matches that of the deal the Obama administration struck and won't cover it this way, although this is unusual for the New York Post. Is there a political consequence to what has happened so far in this war that Donald Trump started himself? Well, I think the deeper consequence was what Trump feared, which is not being Herbert Hoover.

That started in the Great Depression. But, you know, undermining his own political prospects because gas was going to hit five bucks a gallon, his numbers were going to fall deeper into the 30s. And I think that's what he feared more than anything. else. Now, the question is, can the Hawks do what the Hawks have done the last three months, which is every time Trump is closed at cutting a deal, can they yell Obama Obama and pull him back from the ledge? That's what you're going to see happen now, I think. I think you're going to see more grumbling about the MOU from the Hawks. And I think anytime you see either the Iranians

not fulfill one of their elements of the bargain or do some kind of provocation in the region, you're going to see the Hawks urge Trump, well, now you've got to close down the rates again. You got to start the blockade again. We have to control the straits. And if not, you're going to be Obama. That's been their cudgel for the last two months. They played it and played it and played it until Trump finally lunged for the deal that he was craving because he was tired politically of the consequences of the war. I just am not sure, guys, that Trump's ever going to restart this conflict. He wanted an exit ramp politically. He was sick of this. Hated seeing his numbers fall, and he got the exit ramp he wanted. All right. General, you have a new piece out for the

bulwark entitled Iran showed us the future of asymmetric warfare. And in it, you write in part, quote, many Americans still imagine asymmetric warfare is something that happens overseas and is confined to military operations. They picture insurgents planting roadside bombs or terrorists operating from distant safe havens. Increasingly, however, the battlefield looks very different. The target is confidence in alliances in governmental institutions. and who is elected to lead a nation in expertise regarding the affairs of state at home and abroad. Tell us more. I went on to talk, Mika, in that article about what I used to do as a commander U.S. forces in Europe.

And that included evaluating the armies I was working with, the 49 different countries that make up the European continent. We were very close. I visited most of those during my time as commander and got to know them. We would evaluate them on the strength and weaknesses of their government, how many alliances they had formed, how they used the military, the trust of the civilians that were part of that society, the cultural norms. And we saw that when Russia invaded Ukraine a few years ago, that Russia was weak in all those areas. And I harkened back to my time, Russia was not one of the top 10 or even the top 20 of the 49 countries in Europe. you and we saw them falter on the battlefield. The same thing now is happening to us. People are evaluating not just our military because they know it's strong, but also our capability to govern

the institution's strength of our nation, the kind of alliances we continue to have or not have, and they're saying, hey, we're slipping. The military might be very good, but do they have all of the institutions behind them and are they following the rules of law and the norms of a democratic society? And truthfully, you know, if I were evaluating our nation right now, like I did, the nations of Europe, we would have slipped. And I think that's how the world is seen. And it's only being exacerbated by the president picking fights with the prime minister or Italy or announcing Starmers' resignation before he had a chance to announce it. When you do those kind of things you not only lose the trust in the governments, but you also see that people will not share

things with us. And that's what alliances are all about. So this invasion of Iran, the military attack in Iran may have shown our military power in a great way, but all of the other things are fading. And that's what's concerning, I think, to many who studied this kind of stuff. General, thank you so much. The new piece is online right now at the bulwark. MS now military analysts, retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hurdling, thank you so much. And Willie and John this year, just look at what's happened in 2026. You've had the Ukraine war that was supposed to in three days actually start to shift Ukraine's way. We're seeing a lot of explosions in Moscow and throughout that country.

Airports being shut down, people not being able to get gas and gas stations. And then you look at it in the Iranian War, Donald Trump, I thought it was going to be over in two weeks. It's going to be an interesting two weeks, what he said. And now we see it's continuing. It's continuous. And we're having to bribe them with half a trillion dollars. So you can really see the tide has changed and asymmetric warfare really, really can bog down the bigger countries.

Yeah, I think the conventional thinking that we could just bomb them into oblivion. They like the term obliterated. Remember those podium banging press conferences with Pete Hed? exit at the Pentagon for all those weeks about their Navy is at the bottom of the sea. We have superiority. Our military is superior. There's no question. But what they didn't anticipate or perhaps underestimated, John, was that Iran had other levers that could pull, namely shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and that it did keep a bunch of its missile capability to attack, perhaps not the United States, but all of our Gulf neighbors as well. On that point,

we did anticipate that they would close Strait of Hormuz. We just didn't act on it. The President Trump ignored the advice that that would happen. believing that they would be able to overwhelm them or to take this straight of who was back or that Iran would capitulate. But your point is exactly right. And the Pentagon is behind in this sort of technology. This is not what we've made our investments. In fact, with this new president, with this president in office, they've outlined billions upon billions of dollars in building ships. They're talking about battleships. Do you know how? I mean, battleships that would have been great in like 1987. But you look at the number of drones that are going to be produced by Iran versus up. Us, we're fighting a 1987 war.

Yeah, we're fighting the last war. And Ukraine has offered to help that the U.S. is starting to finally take up them up on some of these, you know, sharing the technology that they've developed on the fly for this war to great effect. And you're right. They're striking deep within Russia now. But the DoD is going to have to start changing how they think about warfare because it's changed on us. And you can go back and look at Pete Higgs at the press conferences the first several weeks of this war and being so enraged, if anybody questioned, well, whether the Iranians had any fight left, and I'm suggesting that they didn't, you know, love the American military or they didn't love America.

You can just go on and on. And it's all there. It's worse than a mission accomplished banner saying you won the war in Iraq. If you go back and look at those early press conferences, they were wrong about everything. Much more still ahead on Morning Joe. Jonathan Martin will explain his new piece about the shadow looming over Obama's days in the sun. Plus, as we said, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan join us to discuss their brand new blockbuster book digging into the first year of Trump's second term with hundreds of interviews from members of the administration and the president himself. And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Accuethers, Bernie Rayno.

Bernie, how's it looking? Meeka, some lingering rain along the East Coast. Today, your exclusive vacuum of the forecast shows, to rain Portland, Boston, New York City, rain this morning in Washington, D.C. How about sunshine, Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh, steamy in the Florida Peninsula with afternoon thunderstorms. Clouds will break for some sun in Atlanta and some strong thunderstorms late today in Oklahoma City. If you're doing any traveling, we're going to have some delays, mostly this afternoon. Boston and Miami all day in New York City.

Philadelphia. To help you make the best decisions and be more in the note, download the Accuather app today. We had vandalism. Vandals. You know, we have a hundred and we have a, I think, 290, 300 foot slit right through it, probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind. National Guard. Police have been all over the mall.

How would these vandals have gotten so close to do something like that? I mean, we didn't have, we didn't have a lot of them then. Who would think that somebody would go into a place? pool and take a knife and start cutting it. Do you have proof of that? Yeah, yeah. You have photos or videos? Well, let's put it this way.

When you have a 350, I think it's 350, not 250, a 350 foot slid from one end to the other, you think that's proof? Yeah, that's proof of a really bad no-bid contract, well. And the worst, that's what the bid is. I mean, avoid of reality lie that you can just see for yourself. Yeah. The size of the alleged gash apparently keeps growing in President Trump's mind. The president claims vandalism is to blame for the large pieces of liner that have been floating in the water at the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool.

The president also claimed without evidence that somebody put fertilizer in the pool causing the massive algae bloom. He told reporters the pool would have to be drained again to repair the more than $14 million renovation job. I don't read any more of this. It's really, it's actually quite symbolic. But actually, this is where we are. This is where we are. This is where we are. Where you have, Jonathan Amir, you've got a president who is focused on this legacy now,

but so much of his legacy has to do with changing things in Washington, D.C. It's like Donald Trump, the contractor is coming out in sort of this next phase of his presidency. And he really is. He's obsessed with it, whether it's putting gold on anything. that doesn't move in the White House, whether it's tearing down, you know, the east wing of the White House, whether it's this reflective. He's obsessive about it because he's Donald Trump the builder. And the focus on it is, if you're she and you're looking at this, you've got to be thinking, my God, he's lost his mind. Yeah, I mean, more power to him, he probably would say.

I mean, yeah, and it's not just that. It's also the Kennedy Center. And, of course, he was dealt a defeat there. And his name has come off of it. It's trying to build this, what I would deem a blasphemy like an arch that would obscure that sacred view between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. And now there's this. I mean, this is pure fiction. This is pure fiction. And he's all over two social claiming that it was Antifa, that Obama played a role somehow, that the former president of Obama was something to do with the algae bloom here in the pool. He's provided no evidence of this slash, 300-foot slash down this side. We even had a dead duckling in the pool, reflecting pool, Willie, because

of whether it's toxic algae bloom or the chemicals they poured into it to try to turn it blue, which that didn't work either. And let's remember this is because of all the celebrations coming in the mall on the coming days for the 250th, including the Trump rally. And he's afraid of what that backdrop's going to look like. This is the snapshot of the whole administration. You have incompetence doing a bad job. You've got corruption. No big contract to the pool guy in Palm Beach who lives near Mar-a-Lago, who has no idea how to do this kind of work. And then when it fails because of the incompetence, you create a conspiracy theory. You tell lies about people.

You detain American citizens for questioning who put their hands in the water. Or you suggest that reporters who pick up a piece of the paint that's floating and show it to a camera. You have Janine Piro on TV saying they're looking into investigating and perhaps prosecuting that reporter for telling the truth. They are completely spinning out after wasting $16 million of taxpayer money. on this nonsense project that's now going to have to be started over again. And Donald Trump cannot stop talking about it. He's obsessed with it. He's creating these wild conspiracy theories as John said that.

Again, blaming Obama. Obama. And by the way, the length of the slash, which no one saw went from 290, 300, 250. He's making up numbers about this slash that these vandals and Antifa went in to cover for his own incompetence and corruption of the administration. Well, speaking of Obama, Jay Martin, your latest column for Politico Magazine, you write about the opening of the Obama presidential library. Quote, the unveiling of presidential libraries has always been one of those political rituals that blends past, present, and future. In Chicago, however, it was as if yesterday, today, today, and tomorrow all converged.

It was inevitable that the current president would shadow the gathering because this is, like it or not, the age of Trump. Who he is and what he's done to the country and presidency is inescapable. Yet, in their impassioned effort to argue that there is and was a better way, the Obama's all but dragged Trump on stage with them. Obama invoked the country's founding and its promise, simply citing checks and balances, an independent judiciary and the necessity of a peaceful transfer of power to assail Trump. Those values, Obama said, didn't belong to any party, but were American values we can all share. So, Jay Mart, talk about the shadow looming over this event.

Well, first of all, I'm just glad to have an alibi, guys. I was not the one creating that 4,000-foot, jagged line across the reflecting pool. Exactly. I was in Chicago, so it wasn't me. Now, look, these events guys are so fascinating, right? Because obviously the politics of the president is always inescapable. You know, there's a famous moment where Jimmy Carter unveils the JFK Library in 79, and Teddy is sitting right there about to launch his primary challenge of Jimmy Carter. Don't forget George W. Bush's library in 2013 open in Dallas.

That morning, Barbara Bush goes on the Today Show and says, the country doesn't need any more Bushes. Sorry, Jeb. So there's always sort of present-day politics infused with the past, but it's so striking with Obama because on stage you've got his two would-be successors, the two heirs to the throne who were a generation older than him, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, who the previous week had mixed it up a long distance because Hillary said Biden never should have run and hurt his legacy by running. A little awkward. Then you've got the president, which obviously is as thick in the air as the humidity was, which is true. Trump's everywhere in their remarks because he has to be given what's happening now in the country. And then, guys, lastly, the future is an escapeable because they're looking down out of crowd. And who's in the crowd in front of them? Well, it's Josh Shapiro. It's Gavin Newsom.

It's Mark Kelly. It's Pete Buttigieg. And yeah, it's two local boys named Rahm Emanuel and J.B. Pritzker. So this event ostensibly is about Obama's library, but it's really about the politics of the past, president, future. and they're all converging there in one glorious place at one time. All right. All right, Politico is Jonathan Martin. Thank you very much.

Thanks for letting me rest. Yeah, we love it. It's a great article. Glad we got you to finally get in the chair there. He rolled in a little late. He's a busy, man. Jay Marte, you're busy, man. Some mess.

I've got algae all over my arms, guys. I was having to get along before I got on the air. Speaking of that, Jay, Mart, we would. I have to get the algae off. Here's the latest truth social. This was from yesterday. This was part of President Trump's many thoughts on the algae situation. He put up a picture of one of those inflatable frogs that took off during Portland protests,

holding up a sign that says first they came for the algae. I don't know if we could show the... And he goes on to make the comparison to making the World War II. I mean, just... I won't even get into it because it's so nonsensical. It's so insinating as to wear his... The president's head is right now. Yeah.

This is where he's obsessed with the reflecting pool. Yeah. And he's grasping at any straws, including a slop that he sees on truth social to try to explain it to a employee responsibility. Coming up voters in New York, we'll head to the polls today for the state's primary elections, one of the Democratic candidates for the race in New York's 12th U.S. congressional district. George Conway is our guest. He joins us next on Morning Joe. Welcome back to Morning Joe. 38 past the hour, beautiful shot of New York.

York City. From Bruce Springsteen to Patty Smith, Gladys Knight to Rod Stewart, some of the biggest names in music are paying tribute to legendary producer Clive Davis, who passed away yesterday, surrounded by family and loved ones. Davis was the driving force behind the careers of Whitney Houston, Barry Manilow, Earth, Wind and Fire, Alicia Gies, and dozens of other artists. He joined us here on Morning Joe back in 2013 with some incredible stories about his musical discoveries. I had a record. It was the first record, a hit that I had. If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair. And that was a hint of what was going on at Haydashbury in San Francisco. I really went there expecting to see the mom and some poppies to see Simon

and golf uncle. I was not prepared. for the musical revolution of the electrification of the guitar, groups like the electric flag, the Who, Jimmy Hendricks, and this brand new group featuring Janice Joplin. So it changed the rest of my life. All right, remembering Clive Davis. That was nice having him on. It is Election Day in New York as voters head to the polls for a series of high-stakes Democratic primaries. In New York City, Mayor Zoran Mamdani will testify.

his influence as he and his allies attempt to unseat two Democratic incumbents, Congressman Daniel Goldman and Adriano Espayat. Maldani is backing several progressive contenders, and if he prevails, he could cement his political base as a major force in New York politics. We're also watching the Democratic race to challenge Republican Congressman Mike Lawler, who holds a Hudson Valley area seat. Democrats are desperate to flip. The winner of that race is expected to face a costly battle against the two-term incumbent in a district with both deeply Democratic and Republican areas. Also up for grabs is the state's 12th U.S. congressional district, where the seat is open for the first time in more than three decades following the decision by Democratic Congressman

Jerry Nadler not to seek re-election. Among the crowded field of Democratic candidates are state assemblyman, Alex Boris, Michael Lacher, grandson of former president, John F. Kennedy, Jack Slossberg, and Republican-turned-vocal Trump critic, George Conway. Who joins us now? Along with his dog.

But the dog left. The dog left. Okay. That's good to have you. I'm curious about an issue that's obviously very fraught in democratic politics, and that's the issue of Israel. I read something this morning about Dan Goldman,

taking his daughter to use the restroom at a coffee shop in Brooklyn. And the owner or somebody posted just the most hateful that says stay out, never come back, da-da-da, it was really hateful. I mean, has it gotten to a point? I mean, I don't think he's even gotten to APAC money. Has it gotten to the point that you're going to be viciously attacked if you've ever supported Israel or even if you're trying to take a more nuanced position on the issue?

Absolutely. I mean, it's a very, very bad atmosphere out there for everybody, frankly. I mean, the anti-Semitism is outrageous. And then there's a counter to that. I went to the game five of the Nick Spurs series, and a man walked up to me who had better seats than I did. And he gave me both middle fingers and called me a Muslim sympathizer and a Mandami supporter. I don't know where that came from, but he was swearing at me. on video. This is like seconds after the Knicks won their first championship. It's crazy. It's crazy. And, you know, there is just a lot of bile out there. And a lot, you know, as you say, nuance doesn't get you anywhere with any of it because it's just like you can't, you can't express a rational position without somebody, you know, basically attacking you as being, you know, being pro-Semitic or

anti-Semitic or pro-Palestinian or anti-Palestinian. You can't just say, look, this is what I think makes sense for a very difficult area of the world. Yeah, what's the key issue? You've been campaigning around there. What do you hear about the most? I think the key issue for everybody, and I mean, it's throughout the country, but particularly in New York where everything always is more expensive is affordability, affordability, affordability of housing, affordability, of groceries, affordability, of not so much gasoline, so people don't necessarily drive here directly, but affordability of health care. And the thrust of my campaign is that if you want to make progress and any of those things, you have to get rid of the obstacle to that. And Donald Trump is a principal obstacle.

That because he doesn't care about anything other than himself, about his reflecting pool that you were talking about, about his new 747. And, you know, he's saying things like affordability is a hoax, and that doesn't care about inflation. And that's true. He only cares. about himself. And my point is, you can't separate, you know, the Trump issue from all the other issues that make a difference in people's lives. Because what are you going to do? Pass a bill that fixes everything and then he vetoes it. And even if you do sign and commence him that it's a, it's a crypto deal for Don Jr., what's he going to do? Is he going to enforce it? This man who tried to take apart the Department of Education, that statutory mandate, doesn't follow the law.

And so my point is that, you know, this man is doing so much damage. Thirty-one months. to go in his term, and he's done so much in the time in the last 17, 17, I don't know that we can survive that 31 months without cutting that term short. And that's the reason why I call for the impeachment and removal of Trump and, frankly, the rest of the gang. And even if we don't succeed, it's just important for America's standing in the world, important for our democracy, that we make this case and try to clean up our own house. So George, all the candidates in this race, the Democrats in New York 12 are against Donald Trump. The Democrat is going to win the race. So what sets you apart in terms of issues? In other words, if every, we agree, everyone thinks Trump is bad in this race and that all of them will vote against whatever he proposes. Why are you different than others? Because we need at this point, you know, not just legislators, but we need essentially prosecutors in Congress. And I'm the, you know, I'm 30 year, I practice law 30 years ago, for 30 years a food box away from here. I've argued in the Supreme Court. I've conducted investigations. And we need, this is lawyering what we need now to make the case against Don.

Donald Trump to make the case in front of the House Judiciary Committee and ultimately make the case on the floor of the Senate and impeachment trial. Well, I think that's what's so interesting here is we've heard from Democrats who sort of say, yes, Trump is out there, but we want to make this issue, this race about local issues. You've sort of done the opposite. Like, you've made it embrace the idea. This is a national idea. This is about the American and President Trump. So talk to us about why you decided that was so important. And it's about prosecuting, but I also assume communicating, right? Because that's what we've seen. Those are the candidates that have broken through, including mayor and you. I mean, because I think the issue of Trump's criminality and corruption and the well-being of the American people are inextricably intertwined. And I think we saw as an example of where we want to go, Hungary, where Magyar went out into the countryside and basically explained, listen, these people are screwing you. And that's what's happening. I mean, I have a apartment in Chelsea that overlooks the Gateway Project, right?

The Gateway Project, he tried to shut down the Gateway Project, which is the new tunnel across the river. because he wanted Penn Station and Dulles Airport named after him. I mean, it's like we can't have nice things because this guy only cares about putting his name on the Kennedy Center, about, you know, his giant claw in front of the White House, the ballroom that's never going to get built. And it's basically he does not care about anything other than seeing his name on things. And he basically says that. He says, well, I don't care about inflation.

Big deal. All right. Candidate for U.S. Congress. George Conway, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. I'll be watching. All right. Is this dog in here? Is this dog? Did you bring your dog? I did bring the dog, but they took him out. The dog is great. The dog is great because not only do people like the dog, but he distracts the leaf litters for the other candidates. I like that. He's a little. I like it. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe. It is a book that is making headlines for weeks for its reporting inside the Trump White House. The co-authors of regime change, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan.

Come on, you can smile. Join us next here in studio. Morning, Joe, will be right back. A significant algae bloom has turned the water into a sea of green. That is really green. I didn't realize that's neon. Did they replace the water with Mountain Dew? What is it?

I mean, didn't they just have a pool company coming and fix it? How did it get so green? One of those companies, Greenwater Services. It's not about the name. I'm sure Greenwater Services, a very reputable company, that fairly won the reflecting pool contract because of their expertise and track record. The administration paid a company

to do the work in a no-bid contract. The company's owned by a trust run by Republican donor, John Kefaro. That's the pool guy. That's the pool guy. Does Trump do business with anyone nor pool guy Looks like an extra from guys and dolls? It's like Donnie Brasco got stung by a bee.

Oh, my God. Welcome back to morning, Joe. I just heard DJ's voice. It's like when TJ and I would play like 30 minutes of The Daily Show with John Stewart and Scarborough. Back in the day. Back in the day, John Stewart. Join in the conversation, we have New York Times

White House correspondent Maggie Haberman. And New York Times, White House reporter Jonathan Swan. They are co-authors of the new book, out today, titled Regime Change, Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump. And what a book it is. It's incredible. Spent the last week reading it. And it really kind of encapsulates everything. And you know, the thing about it is, Maggie, and we talked about this before the book, talking about it, a lot of these books will have, like five or six stories.

that people will gasp about, and they'll make big headlines, and it's good reporting. But this is sort of, it's more thematic. It's not just sort of a look, well, this happened in the White House on this state, and isn't this shocking? You read through it and you start picking up these themes, and you actually start putting your arms around all the chaos of the first year. Yeah, one of the things that really struck us as we were reporting this book, and this book took us an enormous amount of effort, to quote my colleague, no, we're not in Fallujah, but this was a lot of hard work because this is a different White House, really unrecognizable in so many ways to the first term. And one of those ways is they do try to keep information from getting out. They do

have this sort of bubble of information around them, you know this well, much more than before. And so this was a huge intensive effort to show readers and take you inside how this government works, not just here was this moment, here is something that happened. But if you want to understand how this administration is functioning, if you want to understand how decisions are made, if you want to understand this small group of people who are running this government and what this could mean going forward, this is, I think, the best of people. best effort that you can have right now. It's obviously the first draft of history. There will be much more to be written about this period. But you do see that it is a White House that is much more invested in him. It is an administration that is much more invested in him than in term one. He is operating on gut instinct in a way that surpasses really anything that we saw in his first term. And a lot of what we've seen is some of what he was hoping to do in term one. But it is a story

of hubris and buying into the idea that this one person actually could do things that nobody else could, and you are sort of seeing the bill coming due for that right now and around. It's a story of Jonathan that you guys tell of really no process in so many major decisions. And I could name five, six, seven, eight, ten examples of him just going through and just throwing numbers off the top of his head for tariffs or just making decisions. that people are, wait, wait, what did he do? What did he say? What are we? But the best example of it was when he decided Jack tariffs up to 125% against China, then China, she just sat there, said, okay, no rare earth minerals for you, no magnets,

know this, no that. And Trump panics, and he goes, okay, we got to do something about it. What did we put the rate at? And somebody said, 125% sorry. He goes, holy shit. He didn't remember. And that's just one example. For people saying, oh, you're just picking that.

No, it happens time and time again where he just like, it's all from the gut. There's no process. And again, that's why we go into Iran when any expert would have told him not to do that. Well, it's two things. So on the tariff situation, it's a great example because this is something he's thought about for years, talked about trade. You know, it's this thing he's sort of over had, but never really had a devourable. developed economic theory of how this would work. But he has believed in this.

For sure. For sure. For sure. For sure. But at a sort of gut, fairly superficial level and was always restrained in term one. You had people like Gary Cohen saying, no, this is terrible. He did some tariffs. They were fairly targeted and narrow.

But there was a meeting early on where they're talking about tariffs on Mexico and Canada. And Trump says, what are we doing for China? And someone says, you know, we should probably do some analysis. And he says, put him in for 10. put them in for 10. Right. Like at last minute. Put them in for 10. That's literally a quote in an over office meeting. And of course, then, you know, Xi Jinping did not back down.

He had prepared very, she Jinping had prepared very deliberately for this Trump term. And it ratcheted up and up and up. And before he knew it, he was in a massive trade war with essentially an embargo against China. So Maggie, I mean, you have covered Donald Trump closely for many, many years. You're talking about some of the difference between the first term and the second term. We see them, the public sees him out of the open, just beginning with the people he surrounds himself with, that Fox News hosts have big and important jobs. But from your point of view, from the inside, just how different is this time around from the first term?

This is a group of people who genuinely believe in him. These are people who, in many ways, got radicalized by the investigations into him, by the assassination attempts that he faced. watching him get, he's the first sitting president who in the U.S. who was a convicted felon. And, you know, he is still obviously trying to get that appealed. But they were in these court fights with him. And watching him still win. And watching him win overwhelmingly. And watching their data prove to be right. Basically informed their view of how they were going to function, which is A, he was denied things that he wanted last time by people who either saw him as dangerous. or at least in need of being curbed in some way.

And remember, he had never run for city council, much less president. He wins on the first shot. He has no familiarity with the federal government outside of lobbying for contracts or lobbying for grant funding or things like that. And he expects the world to function kind of like a municipal government, right?

And that is what he knows in New York. He didn't know most of his government last time. He didn't know most of his White House last time. And so, as Jonathan said, he actually, this trade war is something he has wanted to try for a long time. It is true that he has talked about tariffs for decades, but what that looked like beyond just a blunt instrument was not clear to anybody. They are letting him do things because the theory is, I mean, I shouldn't say letting, he's the president. And their theory is he can do what he wants and that he should get to do what he wants. what ends up happening is something like how we got to Iran, which we describe in detail in the book,

both the 12-day war and how that worked last year and then the lead-up to the February 28th strike, which really was the president wanting to do this. There really were close to none. Pete Hedgeseth was really the closest in terms of thinking this was something that should be done. But Trump was told over and over again inside his government, here is what could happen. Dan Cain laid out, here are the scenarios. He was told by the CIA director and his national security advisor, Marco Rubio, and Secretary of State, that these regime change scenarios that Bibi Netanyahu had presented in the situation room of the White House.

And we took readers inside there that these scenarios were farcical. Rubio took it further, said they were bullshit. Didn't mean that nothing could be accomplished. But Trump just, you know, heard it. and he wanted to go ahead. And he was very clear with people he spoke to that he believed it would be okay because things always are. And here we are.

Comparing the terms, the one thing that I noticed before Donald Trump got into politics and I would go to Moroago to have a meeting with him, I noticed he never sat down. He always go table to table to tip. How's your food? What should do that? What can I do for it? show room. Okay. And I always told people when he started getting into politics, he was the ultimate concierge. He just, it just was. And what I found in your book is, because we all ask a question,

how does he have this much power over Republicans? You go into great detail about him learning the lessons between the first and second term. And he just showered members of Congress with all this attention. Tim Burchett said, yeah, telling reporters, he knows my name. I'm just so flattered. My name, constantly calling him, constantly bringing him over to a point where you write, this jumped off the page on 211. You write, Trump wielded near total command over his party in Congress command greater than any president before him. Well, we tried to find any president where you could compare it for their own party in Congress. I defy you to tell me one, where you can convince these guys.

who, many of whom absolutely knew or felt that Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Bobby Kennedy were all, and this is in the views of quite a number of Republican senators, grossly unfit office, and yet they just did it anyway. There were people who really didn't want to vote for his legislation, you know, cut Medicaid in their districts and states. Huge problems. They got through it. They do it anyway.

And you bring up the point of Johnny Ernst wanted to vote against Hegzeth. And she saw her political life. Absolutely. They went after her and crushed her. There's two options, really. There's two options. You go along with it. Fall online.

Or you get crushed. Right. And they are open about that. I mean, Chris Las Savita, one of his operatives, said, basically, I can't remember, you might remember the exact quote. Yeah. It was on the record. It was essentially that, you know, the iron fist rule that they take with the Republican

party. And if you don't fall in line, you get your eff and head bashed in. But it's this. It's this, they see it as a virtuous cycle, because what actually happens is fear raises money that generates more fear. So corporate America is terrified of him. So they go out and they say, hey, guys, we need some money, right? So all these companies give money.

They build up their political war chess. Thomas Massey in Congress says, oh, you know, I'm not going to support this. They say, okay, the hammer's coming down. What's happened to Thomas Massey? He's out of Congress. All right. So it's four minutes past the top of the hour. We're talking with Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan about their brand new book, Out Today, Regime Change.

We're going to have them on for quite some time to get into the details of which many of them are just absolutely, there's no words to describe the dramatic impact it's having on this country that you are both able to pin down. I want to pull back a little bit before we dive in deep because you cover in great detail many dimensions of I'll call it encroachment from this presidency down through the country into media, into changing the look of Washington, whether it's monuments in Washington or the White House itself, the judiciary, the concept of due process, the self-dealing going on, these detention centers across the country, improper deportations, Ukraine wars, alliances around the world.

These are in no order of importance. But what ultimately, and I'd like to hear from both of you, is your conclusion about Donald Trump's state of mind and the ability of his team to do enduring damage. Maggie? I don't fancy myself a psychiatrist. I don't know about his state of mind in terms of, you know, sort of long-term the way people are.

What do you conclude after working on this book? The same thing that we've been saying, really, which is that this is somebody who is uninhibited, who is operating on people. pure gut, who sees himself as this world figure. So one thing that I do want to talk about on a specific, if I can, just to make that point, when we had this interview with him on March 16th, which was at the end of our reporting process, and we had asked for an interview several times because he is the subject of the book, but the reporting was done. We wanted to fact-check

with him. We did not want to just sit and have sort of an open mic night. And when we went in, first he greeted us with pictures of maple trees, which was what he was looking at. And the amount of time that he is spending on decor and sort of re- and remaking the White House, Washington in his image, and sort of trying to make sure that people can't take his name out of commission the way it happened before. So that is one thing he's very focused on. And then we asked him a question about power and how he sees his own power. Because we knew that he had been talking about this with confidants, and we wanted to see what he would say. And we were a few weeks into the war at this point. And he tells Natalie Harp, who is his ever-present aide,

who sits on the side of the wall in the Oval Office in almost every meeting, go get the printouts. And then he says, do you know who Gary Player is? And we weren't really sure where this was going because Gary Player is a golfer in a very well-known one, yes. And so she comes back with these sheets of paper,

and she hands each of us a two-pager. And he tells this story about how Gary Player introduced him to a historian, and a historian had this theory of the case about Trump. And this paper begins that Donald Trump is the most powerful person who has ever walked to the earth. More than Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon, the Cesar's. Yeah, he calls him the top ten. These are the top ten. Top historian.

Yes. And the people he's naming are the top ten of sort of the, the, the well-known influencers of history, so to speak. And that Trump is more powerful than any of them because he has the might of the U.S. military, because there's social media, because he's got reach. And Trump is just sort of reveling in this. You know, he's reading the names,

and I wasn't reading them along with him. I don't think Jonathan was either. And hearing him say it out loud was actually sort of jarring of Hitler, Mao, Stalin. It turned out that this was not a historian. This was Jonathan went down a rabbit hole and tracked him down. We were asking what the name was David King. He was Gary Players' business associate and caddy.

Almost a historian. Right. But there was no moral assessment here of who Trump was happy to be in the company of. It was about power and how it was being exercised. So that is my takeaway from all of this about his state of mind. You know, there's also something very telling that you guys write about. it's a 1990 interview. I'm not sure who it's with talking about Tiananmen Square. Who was, who said in Playboy? Playboy. And so Trump actually is comparing Gorbachev unfavorably with the

communist Chinese because Gorbachev was weak in dealing with protesters. But he talks favorably about what the Chinese did in Tiananmen Square, crushing the pro-democracy protesters. And he talked about strength. It's strength. And it's sort of the same thing that runs through it. And the reason why he loathes, he seems to loathe Western democratic leaders who get elected and loves she, Putin, and tyrants. The through line has been as an embrace of power and those who wield it. And Jonathan, one way that's so striking in your book is the way Trump's use of power

for the purpose of retribution. So talk to us a little bit of whether it's Jerome. We have some remarkable scenes. in here about, you know, Trump being frustrated at Todd Blanche, wanted to make Patricia James' life miserable, that he wanted to go after in a very colorful language, Jerome Powell. Talk us about how we've never seen a president use the levers of government for his own personal agenda to carry out revenge. So Watergate happens, and after Watergate, there is a societal decision that we need to put in some reforms and that as a matter of prudence, not as a matter of law,

It makes sense that the Justice Department operates independently from the White House when it comes to investigations. And again, what these guys will say is, well, the Constitution says they report to the president. Of course, that's technically true. As a matter of prudence and as a matter of the country, do you really want the President of the United States saying,

that guy, that guy that I hate, I want you to investigate. That's literally what's happening, of course. They think that's what happened. But, I mean, let's face it, one thing that your book did bring out is, like, Letitia James ran. And one of her political promises was she was going to investigate Donald Trump. I won't speak for you all, but I still, and I said it at the time, I still don't get the Alvin Bragg charges against Donald Trump. So, obviously, I do understand the classified documents case.

But you guys bring out the fact that, I mean, he feels like a martyr and everybody around him feels like a martyr. you say he was facing economic Armageddon weeks away from having to pay $350 million? I mean, it really did. And then the assassination attempt, it really, that has been part of building this sort of godlike, as you all say, this godlike wall around him with his supporters. All of that's true, but in terms of the effect of it. But the fact is there is no evidence that Joe Biden was directing any. of Merrick Garland's activities. In fact, quite the opposite.

They were extremely frustrated with Merrick Garland because he didn't move quickly enough. Well, the same thing with Bragg and James. But you raised something really interesting, which is the pain is sort of the point. Trump, you know, people say, oh, they haven't been that, quote, unquote, successful in the sense that, well, you know, some of these people, these people are not in jail yet. John Bolton has obviously been charged. But for Trump's mind, and he has said this to people, He just wants them to go through the process, the pain of being investigated, the pain of being prosecuted. That's enough, actually.

Of course, he would love them to go to jail as well. But the fact that Letitia James has to go through this herself, the fact that Comey, you know, is stressed out about this. That is emotional sustenance for him. Wow. So here's, we're going to read from the book, the exchange that Maggie described, just to frame it out a little bit more. It's on page 411. And you both asked Trump if there's ever been an American president as powerful as he is now. And he told you a story about recently attending an event honoring golfer Gary Player,

where another man who he described as a historian gave the following assessment of Trump. Quote, he began reading from it, reciting names from some of history's most powerful figures, explaining how each fell short of his own power as U.S. president. Alexander the Great, the Caesars, William the Conqueror, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hunt, Tamerlane, Napoleon, he said, with relish, Hitler, Mao, Stalin. Trump lingered on the document's central argument that each leader, however, fearsome in his day, had no global reach. Their power was local, but his was not. And a White House aide later texted you stating that the historian, Trump mentioned, was actually Gary Players Caddy and confident

who had long been fascinated with history and he gave Trump this assessment in person, then wrote it up and sent it to the White House. Caddy historian. We're going to continue this conversation with Jonathan and Maggie. After a break, there is a lot more to talk about. Straight ahead on Morning Joe.