Morning Joe - WH Ballroom... now Helipad?: SEMAFOR explains 'How Trump became the president of Washington, DC'

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

July 7, 2026 - 8am: Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is facing calls to drop out after a woman accused of him of sexually assaulting her FIFA highlights Trump arriving in Turkey for start of NATO Summit Trump, Putin had a phone call ahead of NATO Summit There are growing questions about the health of Republican Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky DOJ plans to send election monitors to cities in Michigan ahead of its August primary SEMAFOR's Shelby Talcott explains 'How Trump became the president of Washington, DC' 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.

Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It's Tuesday, July 7th. With us, we have the co-host of our 8-M-hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, and MSNNAN, National Affairs analyst, John Heilman. Let's get to our top story this morning, Maine Democratic Senate candidate, Graham Plotner, facing calls to drop out of the race after a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her. The woman, Jenny Rosco, detailed on her allegations to Politico in a series of, of three interviews over the past two weeks. MS now does not identify victims of alleged sexual crimes unless they come forward publicly. She says she casually dated Plattner on and off from 2019 to 2021.

She told Politico that Plottener in late 2021 entered her home in rural Maine, uninvited, and deeply intoxicated. She says he sexually assaulted her. after telling him to stop. She then cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual. Politico reports.

Resco previously described reckless and unsettling behavior by Platner to the New York Times, but says she didn't go public with a specific assault claim because she didn't want to be known as a rape victim. She told CNN yesterday

that her reasons for coming forward are not politically motivated. I couldn't disagree more. That was actually one of the reasons that I didn't come out. Because you agree with this politics. I do. I really agree with this politics. I think we need somebody with those political stances and who are willing to do the work.

And, you know, I see his political videos. They get me fired up as well. I understand why people want someone like him in office. You know, and I felt like me coming forward would essentially potentially take that away. And I felt really uncomfortable with the responsibility of the weight of my story and what that might do. In response to this new reporting, Plattner posted a video statement on social media, calling the accusations against him troubling, serious, and false. So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful of the political

reality it will inflict. We are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins. Those were the goals when we launched this campaign, and they remain my goals today. Now, Maine state law allows Platner to be replaced on the ballot if he decides to drop out of the race, but he has to do that by this coming Monday, July 13th. The state Democratic Party would then have until July 27th to name his replacement. We're going to dig into the politics, the timing of this in just a moment. But first, let's bring in one of the reporters who broke the story of the new allegations, senior national

politics correspondent for Politico, Adam, Adam. I want to get right to the questions about this, the questions surrounding this on both sides of this debate. There's not a police report, correct? Correct me if I'm wrong. And there's not a legal case playing out here for due process to see itself through. So my question to you, given the very high standards, political has, before they write something like this and publish it, what aspects of this story brought it to the level of publishable? Yeah, you're correct here, Mika. There is no police report in this case. We spent a lot of time talking to Jenny, you know, asking her for cooperating evidence. She shared that she had confided into a number of people, including her therapist, in almost

real time. And we reviewed email exchanges between she and her therapist. referring to what she called this sexual assault and her therapist sort of acknowledging that this had happened to her. We talked to people who she confided in in the months after this happened. We asked her why she didn't file a police report and she described sort of the insular nature of where she lives in her corner of Maine that she shares with Graham Platner. And she debated sort of how to handle this. And we found ultimately the number of cooperating pieces of evidence to support her story in a way that we could report it. So what are some of those corroborating pieces of evidence? So you've got conversations with her therapist and people who she confided in.

Any conversations with Graham Platner at the time of it where she said, because apparently, as part of this story, she says she even confirmed to him that this was not consent. Do you have that? What do you have that actually connects this literally? Graham Plotner to raping this victim? Yeah. She reached out to him the day after via Instagram and essentially, you know, told him that, you know, she didn't want to hear from again. She told him that morning as well. And, you know, we looked at messages that she had sent to others in the months after this happened through social media. But you were able to see those DMs?

She tried to recover those DMs. We were not able to review those DMs, but she described them to us. We also, long before he was a public, before he was a political candidate, we saw her essentially explain to others that he was, quote, in her words, consensually careless, end quote. Right. But were you able to see the interactions between Graham Plattner and. this alleged victim. Did you actually physically see them? Did she produce them for you? She was, she attempted to uncover them. She, uh, but was unable to. Willie?

Uh, so let's talk a little bit, um, uh, Adam about some of the timing of this. Some people pointed out, it's a week out, uh, from the date that Democrats now have to scramble and potentially find a new candidate. If Platner does indeed drop out as he's expected to, we'll talk more but his support of the Democratic Party nationally at the state level has collapsed after these revelations. She was, Jenny, in that New York Times piece. She appeared in the piece a few weeks ago. So what's your sense of why she decided she wanted to go into more detail with you at this point? Yeah, Willie.

She was frustrated with how that article landed. She told us she was frustrated with another woman that she knows who was quoted in that piece, how her story was received. She felt there was a lot of negative polarization around that anecdote that she was written off just because she was a Republican. And, you know, she wanted main voters to have sort of the full story here. And, you know, she sort of relayed all of this to us. And how do you square yesterday we heard it. We just saw in that soundbite that Graham Platner are just saying objectively that the charges are false. He says they are troubling, but that they're false, that this doesn't happen. So just to pull back the curtain a little bit, how do you square

that as a reporter as you produce this story? Yeah, you know, it's, we gave the Platner, we reached out to the Plattener campaign early Sunday. We gave them roughly 24 hours to sort of respond to this and, you know, included, included their response. We, you know, stress test all of the reporting in this as much as we could. And, you know, of course, you know, included his denial. But, you know, she, Jenny describes him as being, you know, deeply intoxicated. And, you know, at times while this alleged attack was occurring, you know, he was sort of, just as she describes it passing in and out,

recognition of what was going on and even, you know, occasionally, you know, apologizing. And, you know, the next morning she confronted him about this and he didn't quite seem to, to remember what had happened. And she felt deeply wounded by that. And in her telling, you know, lived with that for years. So, Adam, let's talk now about how the Plattner campaign is responding. We saw the video from the candidate yesterday and he says taking time to re-evaluate next step. What is his team suggesting to you as to what the timing might look like for indeed his decision as to what do next we have, as we'll dive into in a few minutes, have seen his support nationally really fall apart here. How is this landing with his campaign? Because he is, to this point, his popularity has been pretty resilient in Maine due to previous allegations.

This one, though, might be different. Yeah, John, there's some indication that he is trying to have some leverage in this situation and find. a candidate who sort of fits his progressive fighter profile, you know, the former progressive gubernatorial candidate, Troy Jackson, has been name-checked as a possible replacement here. And so in some ways he's trying to look at the contours and negotiate, you know, a potential exit from his race. He has galvanized a lot of support in Maine. We see these videos from the town halls that he has, the way that he's received on the campaign trail. And there's a lot of, you know, significant support for his platform, for his message,

the way that's resonating across the state of Maine. And so, you know, they're looking for a path out and they're weighing sort of all their options at this point. So, Adam, in closing, obviously, this is a huge political bombshell story, a story that might probably will lead to the end of Grand Platner's campaign. And I'm just, I'm going back to the decision to publish, and I'm curious what, what concrete evidence? You have conversations with therapists, conversation with friends. But what took this story beyond Graham Platner saying this was consensual?

Jenny Rasko saying this was not consensual. what took it over the edge and had you and your editors decide to publish, of course, kind of an earthquake in democratic politics? What was the piece of evidence or pieces of evidence that made you sure of this story? Yeah, I mean, long before he was a political candidate, long before much of the country knew his name, Jenny in her telling had confided in a number of people. We saw screenshots that she shared of messages relaying this account to others. We viewed an email response from her therapist to her, acknowledging that they had talked about this. Those are the things I said.

But those are, what is the actual, is there evidence between her and him, evidence of a crime? because he's being, he's being accused of rape. So what is the, what, what put this over the edge? Because he says he didn't and he has people on his side who say he didn't. She says he did and there are people, but none, there's, I'm trying, what's the through line? What ties this together and gives you the evidence to bring this story to the point of publishable? Yeah, you know, we interviewed her. her, you know, three separate times, her story stayed consistent across those times. You know,

we talked to people who she had spoken with contemporaneously about these attacks. And all of those stories lined up and checked out. And ultimately, you know, Politico stands by our reporting. And we talked to, you know, people who cooperated her story largely. The new reporting is online right now. Senior National Politics correspondent for Politico, Adam Wren, thank you so much for getting up early and sharing this story with us. We appreciate it. Coming up on Morning Joe. Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty.

Communism is a loser, and it always will be. The communist system is the opposite of the American system, and the communist system has never worked. They're communists. They want to destroy our country. We're not going to let that happen. Why the president's new favorite word might not be as effective as he thinks it is. Michael Dermaski explains in his latest piece for the new republic. And that conversation is straight ahead on Morning Joe.

Willie, this is obviously, Graham Platner has been really talked with different stories along the way. And there are a lot of analysts who are now saying, why did it take so long? At the same time, this is an important. incredible moment in time to come forward, and some are questioning that as well, the timing. Yeah, and as we've learned at least in the last decade, but hopefully far before that, it's not easy for any woman to come forward and put herself out there and put her name and face to a story like this. She doesn't want to talk about this publicly, so the allegations taken very seriously reported out by Politico. But immediately now, we have, as you point out,

six days for Democrats, John Howman, to find a new candidate if Platner does indeed leave the race, as many are expecting him to do. I mean, me could just tick through it. You've got Elizabeth Warren, one of his chief supporters. We haven't heard yet from Bernie Sanders. As of this morning, we may shortly

Rokana, Tammy Duckworth, Gallego, the senatorial campaign committee has withdrawn its support, the main Democratic Party. So there's really not a whole lot left. So what is your sense of what happens here in the next few hours today? Well, I mean, first, Willie, I think there's just to correct the one thing you said a second ago,

there's two stages to this, right, where Plano has to decide by Monday if he's going to drop out. If he doesn't drop out by Monday, he's on the ballot. If he decides that between now and Monday, this party then has two weeks after that to figure out who their nominee is going to be. And there is nothing in main law or in the way that the Democratic Party works that tells them how to do that. So I think one of the questions is going to be, is the practical matter of what's the process by which you would select another candidate.

There is a strong sense that Grand Platter is going to drop out. Some people think that he may drop out as soon as this morning. And that will throw it. It's a very important decision, obviously, the main Democratic Party has to make. The one thing that the party has ruled out is the notion of having a kind of the party itself select someone from the closed kind of ranks of the party. They have this, they're saying that they're not going to do that, even though, again, by law, they would be able to if they, if they chose to, I think that's in keeping with a lot of the

kind of sentiment up in Maine. I don't think a party that, a Democratic Party that was attracted to Graham Platner's candidacy, the outsider nature of it, the populist nature of it is probably not one that would be all that inclined to accept or rally behind a nominee. that was chosen by party insiders. There's been discussion about the possibility of calling a party convention in that two-week time to talk about candidates and take some kind of a vote. There's also been talking about holding a snap caucus, putting together a quick Democratic caucus

to kind of redo the results from the primary. I'm not sure where they're going to come down on that. I will say, and I know there's a lot of things to discuss here, but when it comes to the timing of this story, Republicans, broadly speaking, were kind of licking their chops over the notion that Graham Platner, looking their chops for the notion that they feel like they have very, very heavy opposition research dossiers that they were waiting for after the deadline, after the deadline of next Monday, where the Democrats would be locked in with Graham Platner to drop what they think of as being a very damaging material on him.

I don't know what that material is, but there's been a lot of scuttlebut about that. And so if it were Republicans who are driving the timing of this disclosure, they would have waited until after the deadline. They were very happy to campaign against Graham Platiner with the material that they feel like they have in their bags. I think that argues against the notion that a lot of progressives have immediately reacted, which was, well, this is obviously Republicans who are responsible for this. This is the establishment trying to take Graham Platiner out. I think that whatever the motivations are that Jenny Rascott was driven by to come out when she did, and, you know, there's no reason not to believe the things she said to Politico. Certainly her conduct with having put out kind of a bailed reference to this in the New York Times story,

suggests that she should, that there's some credibility to the notion she shares as politics and didn't want to be identified as a rape victim. That rings true to a lot of women that I've spoken to. I don't think, though, that the argument that this is obviously a Republican, their doings of Republicans or platinum opponents are rings true, again, given that if you really wanted to take him out, you probably would have let him still have him stay on the ballot and then gone after him later with the material you have. Coming up, how Donald Trump became the president of Washington, D.C. We'll dig into that headline from semaphore

when Morning Joe comes right back. Welcome back. There are growing questions this morning about the health of Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. The Kentucky lawmaker was admitted to the hospital more than three weeks ago back on June 14th, but his office has only released some vague updates on his condition since then. The latest one from last Thursday states that McConnell, quote, continues to improve, but it offers no specifics about why he was hospitalized nor the type of treatment he's receiving.

There's also been no confirmation from McConnell's office as to whether or not the senator is even currently conscious. The New York Times reports that on the morning that McConnell was taken to the hospital, In their words, emergency responders reported performing CPR on an unconscious individual undergoing cardiac arrest at the Senator's Washington address. That's according to recordings of dispatcher calls that were widely reported by news outlets last week and obtained by the New York Times. The recordings do not name McConnell as the individual. We should just note that I think this is a storyline is going to trigger more and more questions in the days ahead. Let's take a look now at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. starting with the cost of oil, which has plunged since President Trump signed

a memorandum of understanding with Iran, and airlines are finally seeing some relief when it comes to the price of jet fuel. But as the Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning, air travelers aren't seeing any savings yet. While fuel prices are definitely down from their peak, experts say airfare isn't likely to follow because travelers keep paying up. Carriers have raised ticket prices several. times since the start of the war, but there has still been consistent travel demand.

At least one analyst notes that consumers might start rethinking travel plans after the summer rush if prices remain this high. Elsewhere, Toyota has announced it will spend $3.6 billion to build a new auto plant in Texas. The company says it will move production of its mid-sized Tacoma pickup truck from Mexico, cross-the-border to Texas, when, that factory is complete. The investment is expected to create roughly 2,000 U.S. jobs. The announcement comes less than a week after the Trump administration confirmed it would not extend its current trade agreement with Canada and Mexico. Also this morning, Microsoft is eliminating 4,800 jobs as part of its latest effort to cut costs in the age of artificial

intelligence. The cuts will largely impact the software giant's Xbox video games division. Over the past several years, Microsoft has spent billions of dollars in an effort to expand Xbox, but it has still struggled to narrow the gap with competitors like PlayStation and Nintendo. The company has had multiple rounds of layoffs in the last year, including one that cut 9,000 jobs. Still ahead here, as more and more Democrats call on U.S. Senate nominee, Grand Platner to leave the race. Former Republican House fear, Kevin McCarthy said something yesterday about how his party handles controversies surrounding Republican candidates. We'll see if what he said rings true at all. That's next. I'm Morning Joe. Welcome back. This morning, we've been covering

the growing calls for Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner to drop out of the race after a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her. The woman detailed her allegations to Politico in a series of three interviews over the past two weeks. Now, Graham denies the allegations, calling them, quote, troubling serious and false. Still, top Democrats who backed Platner through a number of previous controversies during his campaign have now begun rescinding their endorsements. Meanwhile, last night, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy suggested Republicans are different. and would never cozy up to a candidate who faced accusations of sexual abuse. Let's take a look.

Look, we're celebrating 250 years. The one thing I know about Republicans, when we had a very bad candidate and found out, we didn't vote for that person. We walked to it. For better or for worse. When Matt Gates came forward, we got rid of them. Now, he's talking about Gates there, I think, when Gates was attorney general nominee. But remember, Gates as a congressman wasn't voted out. Republicans didn't back away from him.

And more than anything, that's the same Kevin McCarthy. Let's remind everyone who flew to Marlago just days after the January 6th insurrection for a photo op with President Trump, who was found civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. Trump also, of course, bragged about how he treated women in that access Hollywood tape back in the 2016 campaign. Let's now bring in contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, Molly Jung Fast, and also the editor of New Republic, Michael Tamaski, MS now contributor, at least Jordan, back with us as well.

Thank you all for being here. Molly, let's start with you on the platinum issue. We can set aside McCarthy's absurd hypocrisy. Let's just focus here. You know, this woman obviously very brave in coming forward and telling her story here. And it's one that seems to be for many Democrats. it's the breaking point in their support for Platner. What do you think happens next?

So look, this is a Maine election that takes place in Maine that the people of Maine vote in. And so the big question, I think, is we saw already from that Times piece that the people of Maine, his numbers were going down, right? We saw the polling that his main numbers were down. And so now the question is, and the Times piece didn't have necessarily, it seemed as if it was sort of nipping around the edges, but it didn't have an allegation like this, which is the full, substantial, you know. Well, I did have him putting her in a room and holding her captive, which I don't know,

and grabbing her a lot. Again, yeah, yeah, I know. I mean, it's not to me the media debate over this, over what constitutes enough. I, it is not up to me to constitute what is enough. I think it's up to the voters of Maine. And we saw these polls after that time story came out that said they were starting to really. His fundraising started to fade too. Right.

And so then the question is, and again, look, with this story, as someone, I mean, what she says in this story is that she is, I mean, the misogyny that I found in the story was this poor woman is saying it was non-consensual when it was obviously rape. And she couldn't say that because she, was, you know, trying to protect him to some extent. So in my mind, this is a really serious, you know, as a woman and a mother of a daughter, you know, as serious as it gets. And you see in, you know, the ways in which the culture, you know, this victim is protecting this man. So in my mind, this is, you know, but it's not up to me because I don't even live in Maine. It is up to the voters of Maine.

So Michael, let me go to you with, I'm just fascinated with this horrified, really, in terms of just what constitutes a red flag in terms of coverage of a political candidate. You have the first time story being pretty much dismissed in a lot of corridors because the accuser, the victim, had a past of working for right-wing causes. and then certainly these allegations are more extreme of breaking into her home and raping her. But why were the first round of accusations that were pretty egregious and terrible, not seen as enough of a character flaw to be disqualifying? That's a really fair question. Those were bad and really, really disturbing allegations. but I think people at that time, a lot of people, including me, I admit, felt that we needed

to weigh those against what appeared to be the will of the Democratic voters of Maine, who were very solidly behind Graham Platner and, you know, who nominated him to the Democratic nomination by a massive margin. So, you know, there were things like that to weigh. there's not much to weigh here. This is a credible allegation of rape. You know, not of physically accosting a woman and locking her in a room. A credible allegation of rape.

That's different. In a court of law, he'd be entitled to the presumption of innocence, and we'd have to wait for his day in court. A Senate campaign isn't a court of law. It's a political campaign, and we're entitled to make judgments based on what's best for the party and what he should do that would be best for the party. He should go. And yes, it's worth reiterating that his, to this point had been rather resilient. He had managed to stay afloat here. This one does feel different. A lot of Democrats calling him to drop out. Rumors he may do just that in the days ahead. We, of course, will be following this story.

Up next here on Morning Joe, President Trump announces yet another construction project for the White House. We'll tell you what it is when we come right back. This just in, President Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Turkey, meeting with Turkish President Erdogan complaining about NATO. No surprise there, saying he didn't even want their help with the Iran war, but he was still upset that he didn't get it. So perhaps setting a tone of more grievances with the alliance as that summit kicks off today and tomorrow. Meanwhile, Malcolm Tamaski, you note in your latest piece for the new republic that, and I'll read from it,

Donald Trump has a new favorite word. He's been calling Democrats communists ever after, ever since a few Democratic socialists want some House primaries. But, you argue, it's crystal clear in a factual sense which party is more radical today.

The Democrats could elect two dozen socialists and they still wouldn't be anywhere near as far left as the GOP has gone far right. Michael, setting aside the difference between a communist and socialist. Tell us more about your argument here and why you feel not going to work.

Well, okay, so first of all, the Republican Party has gone a lot farther right than the Democratic Party has gone left. And I could talk about that for two hours. I don't have two hours, so I won't. But, you know, we have a sitting president of the United States, Jonathan, who invited an avowed white supremacist to dine with him at his home. That would be Nick Fuente. I could go on and on and on like that. The Republican Party is much farther right than the Democratic Party is left. Now, as to this word, Donald Trump, grew up in a time and place where calling somebody a comedy packed a big wallop. There's no question about it. And, you know, he's been saying radical left lunatics and Marxists and things like that for a long time. So now he's just gone the last logical step. I think, you know, it'll resonate within the MAGA world and maybe a little bit beyond the fringes of the MAGA world. I don't see it packing a huge punch, though, for a couple of reasons. I think a lot of people don't even know what that means anymore. You know, it's, you know, the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. So you'd have to be 45 at least to have any memory of what

communism actually was. 57.5% of the country is under the age of 45. So I don't know. I could be wrong, but I don't see it, you know, generating a lot of heat for him. Nor probably a line that he'll stick with. The new piece is available to read online. Now, editor at the New Republic, Michael Tamaski. Thank you as always. Meanwhile, President Trump is breaking ground on yet another construction project of the White House. Trump announced yesterday he's building a new granite helipad on the White House Southline. We're building a helipid, beautiful helipad, and it's got the seal of the White House on it in granite, in carved granite. It's a really a beautiful thing. And I'll tell you, Sikorsky is paying for it. You know why? Because they didn't

tell us how powerful these helicopters were, and they felt a little bit guilty. They sold us I like power, by the way. I think it's great for a helicopter, but they probably, I don't know, they felt a little guilty, and they are paying for the cost of it. It's about $5 or $6 million. The helip had, of course, not the president's only project. He's also set his sights on renovating the East Wing, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, various statues and fountains across the Capitol City, the golf course, and much, much more. It's all detailed in our next guest's latest piece titled How Trump Became the President of Washington, D.C. Its author, White House correspondent for Semaphore, Shelby Talcott, joins us now.

Shelby, good to see you. On one hand, there's a lot of anger as to how president is trying to remake the Capitol in his own image. But it also, to me, is a sort of a tell that his agenda has almost been reduced to this because there's so much more he's not able to get done. Yeah, I do think that you're seeing he is sort of reaching some of the limits of his power, right? The Supreme Court has checked him on a number of issues, even as they have also given him wins. He's fighting. He's dealing with this kind of intra-party fighting within the Republican Party within Congress, when historically they have really just agreed to whatever he wants.

And so you're seeing as he has these difficulties, he's talking more and more about the projects that he's doing here in Washington, D.C. you're seeing an uptick on true social. He mentions it a lot in public conversations with lawmakers, with us here in D.C. And so he's talking about it more, and he's really leaning in more and more into what can he do here in Washington, D.C. And part of the reason for that is that he has kind of a lot of freedom to do what he wants. There are a lot of spaces here in D.C. that constitute federal land. So he has a lot of leeway that I think people don't realize for him to be. able to make a lot of these changes, whether it's here, whether it's at the ballroom or whether it is,

you know, the reflecting pool or adding new statues throughout the city. You know, you're seeing him sort of wield his power in that way. Shelby, do you have any sense on how this is playing in the broader, you know, we're cruising into the midterms here. We were told he was laser-focused on affordability. Does this speak to the base? Is there pushback from these conservative? projects. Yeah, I think it's split. I think I've talked to Republicans who really agree that this needs to be done, that D.C. needs to be a city that it is, that, that, you know, the president can be proud of. But at the same time, I think there are a lot of constituents, a lot of regular voters who are wondering, why are we so focused on the city, right? I can't afford to buy groceries. And so there

is that push and pull that you're definitely seeing. The new piece online now for Semaphore, White House correspondent for Semaphore. Shelby Talcott. Thank you so much. Sorry, we were ran out of time. back soon. That indeed does it for us this morning. We will see you again tomorrow, 6 a.m. Eastern for more morning. Joe, money power to money power politics with Stephanie Rule is up next after a short final break.