Morning Joe - White House plagued by drum beat for more information on Epstein case

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

While taking questions at Joint Base Andrews this week, President Trump told reporters he didn't "...understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody.” He also referred to the case as “pretty boring stuff.” The Morning Joe panel discusses Trump's remarks and why the issue is not going away.

I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey, they were made up by Obama, they were made up by the Biden informa- you know, we- and we went through years of that with the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, with all of the different things that we had to go through. We've gone through years of it. But she's handled it very well, and it's going to be up to her. Whatever she thinks is credible, she should release. A mixture of conspiracy theories and defiance from President Trump yesterday on the Jeffrey

Epstein files. His base continues to express anger at the administration for not releasing records connected to the convicted sex trafficker. And now House Speaker Mike Johnson breaking with the president will go through all of that. Meanwhile, Russia is dismissing President Trump's call for a ceasefire in 50 days, as well as his tariff threat. We'll look at what could come next in that years-long conflict.

Also ahead, an update on the New York City mayoral campaign, as Democratic candidate Zoran Mamdani met with business leaders in hopes of easing their concerns about him. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, July 16th, along with Willie and me. We have the cohost of our fourth hour, contributing writer at The Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire, and New York Times opinion columnist,

David French. And Willie, it seems the far right, much of it, digging in on finding answers and justice as it pertains to sex predator Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah, and some people who had decided to let this go came back to it again yesterday. There is no let up now in the drumbeat for more information about that Jeffrey Epstein case despite, as we just heard, President Trump's repeated efforts to put the issue to rest. The controversy continues to plague the administration, driving a chasm among MAGA supporters.

The president spoke to reporters yesterday, questioning why anyone would even care about the deceased convicted sex offender. I don't understand why they would be so interested. He's dead for a long time. He was never a big factor in terms of life. I don't understand what the interest or what the fascination is. I really don't. And the credible information has been given.

Don't forget, we went through years of the Mueller witch hunt and all of the different things, the Steele dossier, which was all fake. All that information was fake. But I don't understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It's pretty boring stuff. It's sorted, but it's boring. And I don't understand why it keeps going. I think really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like like that going.

But credible information, let them give it anything that's credible. I would say let them have it. Well, millions of his own supporters disagree. They are some of the loudest voices calling for more transparency, more information about what happened with Epstein. Among them, Charlie Kirk, who was back on the topic last night, posting a list of quote action items to get to the bottom of the case. Megyn Kelly doubled down on her criticism of the Department of Justice in a blog post saying, nice try, but she will not be deterred from talking about Epstein, she said.

Fox News host Brett Baer opened his show last night with coverage of the story. Podcaster Joe Rogan questioned the administration for its handling of the case. They've got videotape and all of a sudden they don't. You know, you have the director of the FBI on the show saying there's no tape. If there was, nothing you're looking for is on those tapes. Like, what? Why did they say there was thousands of hours of tapes of people doing horrible s***? Why did they say that?

Right. Didn't Pam Bondi say that? Also calling for more clarity is House Speaker Mike Johnson, who pressed the administration for more visibility on the case. It's a very delicate subject, but we should put everything out there and let the people decide it. I agree with the sentiment that we need to put it out there. And Pam Bondi, I don't know, when she originally made the statement, I think she was talking

about documents, as I understood it. They were on her desk. I don't know that she was specific about a list or whatever, but she needs to come forward and explain that to everybody. Speaker Johnson joins other Republican members of Congress breaking with President Trump on this issue. Several conservatives in the House also spoke out yesterday. Whatever they have, and I think Van Vondie is turning it over to somebody else now, but whatever they have it needs to be transparent, it needs to come out.

You don't think the Justice Department is transparent? No, I wouldn't say that. I don't know what they have. This all just came to a head and we'll see. But on all this, it should be transparent. The American people need to see what's in there and that's not hard. Should there be an investigation or special counsel investigation? I don't know. I'm not an attorney. I just find them guilty and hang them publicly.

I mean, that's not over the top either. I'm ready. I'm over it. It disgusts me. I'm big on clarity and transparency and that's a good reason people don't trust government, neither party. But you don't believe what the Justice Department is saying? I don't know. You know, I don't. I don't. I think I don't. I don't. I don't trust them.

I think moving forward, we need a special counsel. That has got to happen. There has to be a special investigation into this if we aren't going to be provided information. So this is certainly important and I want answers. And maybe that takes that special counsel to do so. All right. So those are all Republicans calling for more information. Despite those calls, though, House Republicans blocked another amendment that would mandate the release of the Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Yesterday, Democrats tried to force a vote on a measure that would have required the DOJ to publish the files within 30 days. This comes just one day after Republicans on the House Rules Committee voted against attaching a similar Epstein amendment to a cryptocurrency and defense funding bill. Democrats have promised future votes on the measure while Republicans are dismissing the move, calling it a partisan ploy. Republican Congressman Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who you just heard from a second ago, telling Axios, quote, it's just politics. It's not about protecting little children.

And that ticks me off. So David French, you're writing about this this morning. You've been writing about it quite a bit. I think it's worth taking a step back to the layman who follows the news but does not understand why conservatives, some conservatives, millions of conservatives, why our Department of Justice, why the White House, why the FBI right now is consumed about a case of a convicted sex offender who killed himself in jail six years ago. Why is this so resonant and why won't it go away?

Yeah, I'm glad we're taking a step back here to help people understand because I don't think the average person in the United States understands the extent to which MAGA is motivated by, and their support for Trump is motivated by this burning sense of conviction that America is led by a ruling class of pedophiles, that the top of American government, the top of American industry, is populated by pedophiles. If you have a belief, just think this through for a moment, if you have a burning conviction, if you have a belief that the top layer of American government is populated by pedophiles, then your motivation to, quote, drain the swap, is going to be rooted in furious anger. Just furious anger. This has been stoked, by the way, by the Trump administration and by figures within MAGA for years.

If you're going to go back and look at rhetoric before the 2024 election, you're going to have a Cash Patel, you're going to have a Dan Bongina, you're going to have, to some extent, even Trump himself talking about, we've got to get this out there and get this out there. You're going to have, in extreme Christian circles, prophecies about how Trump is the man who is supposed to expose all of this, to root all of this out. So, what we're talking about here is actually a disruption for the motivating force for MAGA to begin with for an awful lot of people. So, that's why when I saw all of a sudden this DOJ memorandum, an unsigned memorandum, by the way, a very cowardly way to do this, comes out and refutes

every key element of the bigger Epstein conspiracy that says, there's no list. That was a shock to people because Bondi implied that the list was on her desk, that there's no blackmail. Another shock to people who believed that blackmail was one of the ways that the pedophile Cabal kept everyone in line and talked about that he had, in fact, killed himself. And then we have this staggering weirdness, I guess is a good way to say it, of releasing videos that are supposed to allegedly disprove conspiracies, but yet have missing minutes within them, and there's evidence that comes from Wired magazine, not from some obscure right-wing conspiracy site, that, hey, this video may have been spliced together,

may have been edited in some way, and all of a sudden all of these alarm bells start going off around MAGA in a way they've not gone off around, say, cuts to foreign aid or unconstitutional tax on free speech or exploding federal deficits or inconsistency policies towards Ukraine. All of that, they'll stick with him easily. But this is something else entirely, because it's foundational to the purpose of the whole movement, but part of the movement.

That's why you have seen some of people who otherwise would be absolute peak Trump sycophants breaking with Trump, like your Benny Johnsons of the world, your Charlie Kirk's of the world. I've never called Joe Rogan a Trump sycophant, but raising his voice here. Megan Kelly. These are people with immense followings. Of course, they're not as influential as Trump. No one is in MAGA. But they have immense followings. And then you're seeing rank-and-file rebellion. When Trump posted his screed bizarrely blaming the Epstein files on Obama and others,

this was one of the first times you saw the user base of Truth Social. This is the core of MAGA, the beating heart of MAGA, turning on Trump. So, he actually does have a real problem here. When you see even a Mike Johnson saying something, that means he's hearing from constituents. And for years, we've never seen any daylight between Trump and MAGA. Maybe one brief incident of booing when he brought up the vaccine at a rally some time ago. But this is the first real breach we've seen. And when you've been around MAGA, you know why.

Because this is foundational. This is why many of them supported him in the first place, which is ironic considering his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. But this is why many of them supported him in the first place, which is ironic considering his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. But this is why many of them supported him in the first place. This is foundational to the reasons for supporting him. All of a sudden, he's comparing it to the so-called Russia hoax. He's putting them in the category of the Democrats and Trump-dissentering Republicans, who are very keen on investigating ties to Russia.

This is a wild moment. I knew it would be a problem when I saw that memo. I knew it would be a problem for him. I did not see how much of a problem it would be and how hard it would be for him to tamp it down. Yeah. And when you've invested, as you say, years and years and years of your life, when this is foundational to who you are,

you're not going to walk away from it after an unsigned memo from the DOJ and the FBI. John, very fascinating, frankly, to watch Donald Trump, the president of the United States, grapple with this. A guy who was an acquaintance of Jeffrey Epstein, who once called him a terrific guy, who acknowledged jokingly his affinity for very young women. Trump talking about Jeffrey Epstein, frankly, just looks uncomfortable when we see him guy who acknowledged jokingly his affinity for very young women. Yep. Trump talking about Jeffrey Epstein frankly just looks uncomfortable when we see him there yesterday talking about this. And clearly flailing.

I mean, yesterday on the tarmac there at Joint Base Andrews talk about how boring the story is. He wouldn't understand why anyone would talk about it. Mind you, it was just two days prior that as David mentioned, Donald Trump's defense was that it was a conspiracy created by Barack Obama. I don't let's take that at face value that's not boring if you're saying the for president United States created this and it just shows that they have not landed on a good

defense as you noted you know this is sort of right from beginning always a bit of a uncomfortable fit as a mug of conspiracy some because Trump did have at least some ties to Epstein. There's a bunch of photographs of them together. Now, Trump himself has not pushed this conspiracy nearly as hard as others in his orbit in recent years, but it has become a core piece of the MAGA movement. And what's so interesting is we sat on the show yesterday. It looked like the firestorm was petering out.

We talked about how Charlie Kirk had said's a well I'm not going to talk about this anymore and others in the right wing movement seemingly we're getting in line and president Trump said let's drop it and they seem like they're willing to that changed again yesterday Kirk did devote his show to this Fox News which had largely ignored for 24 hours they talked about it as noted Megan Kelly Benny Johnson they all jump back on board and most significantly to me anyway was

speaker Mike Johnson who has shown no appetite at all to defy Trump at this point during his tenure has you know has has been painted by others on the Hill is as is being almost afraid of his own shadow in terms of not want to defy the White House but in this one yesterday, Mika he did calling for a full release of these, whatever files they may be, which stands in exact contrast of what the Oval Office wants. Well, there's a reason for that. I mean, there are blatant conspiracies, and then there is this

legitimate, terrible, horrific case. Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of horrific crimes against many young girls and bringing other people in with the help of his girlfriend, who is right now in jail for helping him over decades abuse young girls and bring young girls to lots of allegedly powerful men. Let's bring in co-founder of Punchbowl News, John Bresnahan. I'm just wondering, you know, I think there are those who are concerned that Trump wants this case disappeared as a conspiracy, and yet too many people are bought into what happened because there's a legitimate case here and there are real victims I don't think you can make this go away. The president sir seems to be trying I'm wondering what you think about the Speaker of the House

does that carry any weight when ultimately these votes don't seem to push anything through. I mean I do I think I think Johnson is under a lot of pressure from his conservatives. I mean, I think Johnson is reflecting the mood in his conference. What you guys didn't mention is last week there was a vote in the Senate Appropriations Committee when they did the Commerce Justice Science bill. This has to do with the FBI funding. They voted on an amendment to call for, you know, Pondy to release, to do a report on this and to release everything. And that was a unanimous vote. Republicans, Senate Republicans voted for it. There's pressure inside both sides of the Capitol for more, the Trump administration

to do more. This is not going away. I think, I think there's rank and file pressure there. The leadership, like you said, has tried to tamp it down, and it's not going away because the base is upset about it. And these guys are very close to social media on what the talk radio and everything, they reflect what they hear. And this is what they're reflecting when it's hearing, and it's percolating up to it. This is a real, real problem for them, and it's not going away. You know, it's interesting when you hear President Trump because when he talks

about the people who want justice in this case and want transparency in this case, it's like put it away. He calls them bad people. He's calling mega bad people. And you have people on the right who have very strong, powerful voices like Megyn Kelly who says this is BS and there's BS here and she's not giving up. No and I think this is a problem for them. Also if you look at the history of this case it's Florida which is you is the heart of Republicanism now. The case came out in 2008. There was this plea deal that, in the end of the Bush administration or Republican administration, there was a plea deal that there was a lot of criticism that Epstein got off really easy.

The remarkable thing is that kept going for a decade after that. There was, and then Epstein tried to be rehabilitated and there was a lot of powerful figures who remained in his orbit. And then this was the base, the average Americans were upset about what happened and this powerful man with powerful friends getting away with crimes and then he got a sweetheart deal. And this came out and of course his death happened during the Trump administration. There's no place for Republicans to hide on this. They can't hide behind Obama.

They can't hide behind the Democrats. This happened on the Republicans watch. There's no place for Trump to go on this. He's going to have to give them something on this. David, we can remind people that pizza gates, that people remember when a man went into a pizza shop in Washington, DC and fired actual shots, was based on another conspiracy theory

that pedophiles and children were being held in the basement of a pizza shop in Washington. That wasn't true, but it just gets to this larger idea that you kind of laid out a minute ago, this working theory that America is governed by a ruling class of pedophiles. So for the people who are banging the drum so hard and they want to see files that Pam Bondi says don't exist or a client list that she says doesn't exist, what do they expect to see if something does come to light?

If everything is made public, what is their suspicion about what will be revealed in there? Gardner So, I would say there's a small version of the Epstein theory and a big version of the Epstein theory. The small version, I think, is in some ways kind of legitimate. It is legitimate. Mika said it very well just a moment ago. You do have, unlike the QAnon theory, unlike Pizzagate, you have very real, very grim crimes here, around which there is, frankly, a lot of mystery. Why was he so well-connected? All of those extremely well-connected people that flew

with him on his jet, that went with him on his private island. What did they see? What did they do? There are a lot of questions swirling around this case that I do think are legitimate questions about the case. That's what you would call the small version of Epstein. The big version of Epstein really doesn't have questions, to be honest. It has convictions. The conviction is that Epstein was at the epicenter of a global pedophilia ring that has pulled in everyone that's come in contact with, that lives at the tip of an iceberg. We don't even know the full extent of the iceberg, that it's the tip of the iceberg. Therefore, if you dug into Epstein, you would rip open. It'd be like lifting the rock on the entire ruling class of the United States of America. They're small, and then there's big.

And in the small version, well, look, I share a lot of questions about some of the weird elements of here. It is very strange that the most famous federal prisoner commits suicide so immediately and with such ease. I'm not going to say he didn't kill himself, but how did this happen? Why did this happen? These are questions that are legitimate. It's legitimate to ask all of those people he's connected with, what did they see? What did they know? Donald Trump had years of interactions with Epstein,

has praised Epstein publicly in the past. What did he see? What did he know? In that sense, he's always been a very odd vehicle to bring the Epstein matter to a closure. He was right there with Epstein during some of those partying days years ago. You've got the videos, you've got the photographs. So, I do absolutely understand Americans who want to know more about this. There is something real that happened here, a series of very real crimes committed by one of the most connected people in the world. So, yeah, let's have more information.

Now, that big version starts to then verge on the QAnon idea of the whole ruling class in the grips of a pedophile ring, or the whole ruling class being motivated by that. There's one other element here that I've not seen people talk about, and that is the role of religious prophecy here. It is also a number of these very deep, hardcore MAGA people. They don't just operate under this conviction that there's a ring of pedophiles. They also operate under this conviction that God appointed Trump to bring all these people to justice. This is creating an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance.

Let's also not forget how many of these key MAGA figures spent years stoking it and saying, it's there, it's there, it's being suppressed by the Democrats. When it comes out, it's going to be terrible for the Democratic Party. Even as recently as this Fox interview, where Pondy had said, it's on my desk. She now says she was talking about the Epstein case file and not a list, but she was asked about a list. So, you have this MAGA all of a's in this position of understanding that the administration either has not been honest with them, has used them, has used their fears and concerns to gain their support.

It's either not been honest or it's part of a cover-up. You see this all over social media. Two options. They lied to us or they're part of it. After some of the rhetoric you saw from Patel, from Bongino, from Vance, from Bondi, you understand why they feel lied to right now, or in the worst alternative of the cover-up. This is very deeply, emotionally impacting people. When you understand MAGA, you understand why. Well, also, if you're a citizen of this country or a reporter and you want answers, this doesn't make sense. None of it makes sense.

Joe was saying back in 2016, this was years before he was arrested, that this situation was bizarre. And there are reporters who had been following this case and said that this would be the biggest child sex trafficking, child sexual abuse case in this country has ever seen. And yet it's covered up for different reasons. Prince Andrew's involved and the different interests are involved and it keeps getting tamped down. Now you have bondi yesterday wooden just saying in in a very kind of beaten down tone

No answers. We have nothing for you move on. We're not talking about it And david french to your point lifting the rock on the entire ruling class. Isn't That what mag is about. I mean, isn't that taking down these people who have truly controlled everything and opening it up and showing the answers here? And by the way, speaking of answers, Jeffrey Epstein's girlfriend, who is in all the pictures that you see with Jeffrey Epstein and all sorts of powerful people, even the president and his wife, there's Ghislaine Maxwell. She's everywhere. And she's in jail right now for helping him in these child sex trafficking crimes.

So there are answers to be had in many different ways. And in a way, it's treating MAGA like they're stupid, like they were wrong this whole time, searching for justice for hundreds of young girls who were abused at the hands of the powerful. Co-founder of Punchbowl News, John Bresnahan, thank you so much for coming on this morning. Appreciate your insights. Still a lot of questions, though. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Congress faces a Friday

deadline to pass President Trump's $9 billion spending cut package. We'll take a closer look at the legislation and how it could impact Americans. Plus, we'll bring you the latest on the war in Ukraine as Russia continues to attack Kiev and President Trump ramps up his calls to end the war. And a reminder that the Morning Joe podcast is available each weekday, featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Joe.

We'll be right back. President Trump has placed conditions on the military aid the United States is sending to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Russians don't appear to be concerned about President Trump's tariff threats if Vladimir Putin does not agree to a peace deal. NBC News chief international correspondent Keir Simmons has details. Twenty four hours after announcing the U.S. will send Ukraine weapons paid for by NATO allies, President Trump warning they should not be used on Russia's capital should Zelensky target Moscow or deeper into Russia he shouldn't

target Moscow after the Financial Times reported president Trump on a July 4th telephone call asked the Ukrainian leader if he could strike inside Russia citing people briefed on the discussions who said Trump asked Florida me can you hit Moscow can you hit some Petersburg to the White House disputing the report saying president Trump was merely asking a question not encouraging further killing outside the Kremlin Russians

responding with defiance this is scary. Why should we watch is coming. I believe in peace between Russia and America. Kyiv and many Ukrainian cities have been bombarded by Russia, often with missiles, while Ukraine has mostly used drones like this strike for its attacks inside Russia. President Trump has threatened punishing tariffs on Russia and its trading partners if President Putin does not agree to a peace deal in 50 days. I've been very disappointed with president. I've solved a

lot of wars in the last 3 months. But I haven't gotten this one yet. We met Alexander who cuts keys and repairs shoes for a living he says business has improved we don't give a dime about Trump he told us. And he sees cure Simmons reporting there from Moscow so Jonathan unclear which wars have been quote solved in the last three months. We'll put that to the side.

But obviously this shift in tone over the last week or so, not just tonally, but also pushing more weapons toward Ukraine, a huge shift for President Trump. A huge shift for the moment and a welcome one. Yeah. But it only goes so far. You know, as I wrote for the Atlantic yesterday, President Trump got tough with President Putin sort of for now. That's where this is. And look, NATO allies are grateful for the defensive weapons that are coming. There's going to be some time before they get there, but the

Patriot missile batteries will make a real difference in Ukraine defending itself. There had been talk of offensive weapons as well. That's not part of this package, not ruled out by the White House, but it's not what they're doing now. And as we heard, the White House pushing back against the idea that President Trump authorized strikes deep into Russia, saying, no, we don't want that. But I will say, some from the Ukrainians, not the euphoria of that first 24 hours after President Trump's decision, has sort of worn off. There is been a sense of like, well, he said that Russia could have, the sanctions would come in 50 days.

If Russia didn't come to the table seeking peace in 50 days, that's when the US would ramp up its sanctions. Well, first of all, the US does very little trade with Russia. So those aren't very significant. The secondary ones with China and India, those would be more so. But as a person close to the Ukrainian government put to me yesterday, well, you sort of gave Putin 50 days now of free reign, that he can do what he wants without necessarily any American consequences. Now, maybe President Trump would shift that timeline.

Maybe he would adjust things if he feels like Russia's continuing to take advantage of him. And that is what fueled this, Willie, more than anything. It's not a shift in his strategic worldview, but rather he was tired of being played by Putin, angry, humiliated, decided to act. The default setting on President Trump, David French, long has been, well, deference maybe, but at least friendliness to Vladimir Putin. That's changed a little bit in the last week or so.

How much stock do you put in this sort of new posture from President Trump toward Putin? Do you think it lasts? Well, there's no way to know. I mean. But look, let's look at the recent past. He's moved from being what you might call anti-Ukraine, virtually switching sides, putting almost all the pressure on Ukraine early on in his administration, to now is what I would call a very weaker version of the Joe Biden approach, which was to provide Ukraine with weapons, often slowly, sadly, and with too many limits. But at least he stood with Ukraine.

We're now moving toward a weaker version of that. It's progress, I suppose. But I do think after that initial burst of euphoria, which is appropriate for Ukraine to feel, because there was real fear that Trump was just effectively switching sides in this conflict to the idea that he was now saying stern words about Vladimir Putin. Now, there is this sobering realization that 50 days is a long time, and even this economic threat at the end of the 50 days is not nearly as effective as a threat of more weapons, more military support. Economic sanctions matter, but one thing that's been surprising to a lot of people over the course of this war is how little they have actually harmed the Russian economy, at least

compared to hopes and expectations. But what has worked at holding back Russia is raw military strength, enhanced by the most capable American weapons. That has been more effective than anything at holding back Putin. So, to say, now we are at least going to give some weapons, that's progress. But this 50-day deadline, which is coming in the middle of this serious summer offensive, where Russia is unleashing some of the largest aerial attacks that we've seen in the entire war, is pressing Ukraine at multiple points on the front.

This is not a good moment and not a good time for Ukraine in this war. Ukraine's had some successes, but it's under intense pressure. In this 50-day limit, when it was first announced, you began to see reports from Russia that they took that as a permission structure. They're taking that as a period in which they could exert maximum effort to try to break the Ukrainian line. So, we're moving in a better direction, but we're still really, really far from where we need to be.

And he's moving in this direction not because he's suddenly judged that defending Ukraine's in our best national interests. It seems like he's moving in the direction more out of personal peak. He's kind of mad at Putin, which is a very unstable way to run American foreign policy. New York Times opinion columnist David French, as always, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. We appreciate it. And coming up on Morning Joe, we'll have new reporting on Zoran Mamdani's mayoral campaign

and the praise he says he will not, the phrase he says he will not use after meeting with dozens of business leaders yesterday in New York City. Plus, the Trump administration says it's scaling down its military operation in Los Angeles following the protests over ice raids in the city. We'll bring you the latest on that. Morning Joe is coming right back. Just about 20 minutes before the top of the hour. Time now for a look at some of the other stories. Making headlines this morning, the United States is joining forces with 18 other nations to conduct three weeks of military drills in Australia.

It's an effort to send a message to China that America's allies are prepared to act in tandem against any aggression from Beijing. 40,000 troops are involved from personnel from Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and several European countries. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is ordering the removal of 2,000 National Guard troops from Los Angeles. At least 4,000 troops were mobilized there last month

after protests broke out over ICE raids and President Donald Trump's immigration policies. Their deployment marks the first time a president ordered National Guard troops without a governor's permission setting off a clash between California Governor Gavin Newsom and President Trump. Newsom called the president's decision to deploy the troops an assault on democracy and military overreach. And the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor says he will discourage people from using the term globalize the intifada. Zoran Mamdani has faced criticism on the campaign trail for

previously refusing to condemn the phrase, which has been seen as a call to violence against Jews. Mamdani's shifting language comes amid a general election battle against Mayor Eric Adams and former governor Andrew Cuomo, who are running as independence and the Republican nominee, Curtis Slewa. Willie. New York Times reporter covering Wall Street, Lauren Hirsch, is following the latest on all this.

She joins us now also with this president of the National Action Network and the host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton. Good morning to you both. So, Lauren, let's pick up on this meeting with Zoran Mamdani, yesterday business leaders in New York City, some heavyweights in the room, some who decided not to attend. Jamie Dimon had a scheduling conflict, he was not there. What did they hear from him?

Did he sort of assuage their suspicions at all about him? What was it like in the room? They heard a really charming, affable guy who was well-prepared. He made jokes. He made self-deprecating jokes. But they did not hear someone who changed his policies. And so if you had concerns about his economic policies going into the meeting, you had the same concerns going out. For some people, the charm and his disarming nature was enough to calm people a little bit.

For others, the fact that he was very much sticking to his policies further enraged him. So there was a bit of a division coming out of the room in terms of response. But in the room, it was mostly cordial. It was mostly pleasant. There was one quite pointed question effectively saying, how can you tell us you're not going to drive business out of New York? And he danced around it a bit. I think his message was, I believe strongly in my policies,

but I don't think they're bad for business. And I think many of the business leaders saw a little bit of a disconnect in how you connect those two dots. But overall, they found a nice charming guy and they were, you know, they appreciated the fact that he wanted to meet with them. This is a guy who can't, he's not trying to run from who he is, which is I'm a Democratic socialist.

He said just a week ago, billionaires should not exist. Yeah. When asked, there were some billionaires in the room. He said, I'm going to attack you more. That's that's true. But I believe it's the best thing for our city. What about the story that Mika just walked us through where he said, OK, I won't use the phrase globalizeize the itafatit, and I will discourage others from using it,

almost sort of grudgingly because he's refused to say, refused to condemn that language even as recently in the last few days. Right, so that answer came after he was being pushed on Israel and his views on that by the CEO of Pfizer. And my understanding is it was a fairly long response before he got to it. Some people were very happy to hear that. And as I said, some people, it's never going to be enough.

So others weren't mollified. And by the way, one person I spoke to didn't even hear it. It was interesting. I called him back. I was like, did he say this? He was like, no, I didn't hear it. So I think there is an element of almost hearing what you want to hear as you go through this process and interesting to watch if he does you know it may be is

moderating on this other other positions he also takes more of a slightly centers tact as he heads to a general election that would obviously be a play that we've seen from other progressives also of note he really praise Boston mayor Michelle who's wildly popular in Boston and distance himself from Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson decidedly less so rev. But he also enters a race here where the setup seems to really favor him.

First of all, anytime there's a you have a D next to your name, you're the Democratic nominee in a deep blue city, that is helpful. He's got that. But if Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams both persist in this race and are both vying for the same sort of centrist vote, they split that. That only helps them, Donnie. No, I think the fact that Andrew Cuomo has now announced he's in the race, which I, among

others, asked him not to, let's have a one-on-one, the fact that he's in makes it highly unlikely that Zuran does not win. I talked to some people last night who were part of the partnership meeting, and they were relatively impressed with Zuran. They had very serious concerns, and they were impressed. He's very charismatic, which we found. He came twice to National Action Network, and some of them agreed with him, some disagreed, but they say he's a lot more personable and more informed than they thought.

I've said to him when he's come in with us that, you know, in my early days, you would say things or identify with people that say things that you should just say, that is not right. That is not what I meant. He went as far as saying he will tell people not to say it again, but you've got to say it's not right. It's not right to talk about things or say things that are morally wrong. So I think that he will in many ways not give up what he believes, but then he has to be

judged by what he believes. And I think he's willing to take other penalties. So it's a lot of similar vein, the people you talk to in that room, you know who might be more inclined to support an Adams or Cuomo what's their view on the 2 of them both staying in a complicating things not happy, I mean a lot of all Street donors have really been pushing one or I do for them ideally both to drop but not they want to be a

competitor. So they were unhappy that that come I decided to say and of course, almost still has supporters and he will continue to have supporters but I think they see a little bit of writing on what they think is the writing on the wall, I'm given the race as it stands now and so what is their fear if mom Donnie does become the mayor of New York City, I mean they serve. of vocalize them in that room. Yeah. But what are their specific fears about what happens to the city?

So one of the biggest things that I hear is just lack of experience. You know, you can talk about taxes, you can talk about his other policies, but they really wonder whether or not he just has the experience to run the city. Like these people are managers. They know the challenges that come with that. There's of course concerns about freezing rent, about taxes, about New York City's competitiveness. There is a lot of conversation around people fleeing New York and it's easy to dismiss it. And of course it is hard to pick up and leave, but we did see some companies do that during the pandemic and it has become easier with remote work

and the world that we're living in. So I do think we will see some companies will be in exodus. That's not clear, but I think there is a genuine concern it could impact the New York economy. And then I should say crime. It's another it's a really big focal point for them and of course plays into whether or not people would want to leave. Given some of his past statements about the police in this city of Big Anies trying to bring back to the center slightly, it's going to run from some of his past statements about the police in this city. But again, he's trying to bring back to the center slightly.

It's gonna be hard to run from some of his positions. So New York Times reporter Lauren Hirsch. Lauren, thanks so much. Good to have you on. Coming up next, New York governor Kathy Hochul joins us to discuss the impact of President Trump's policies on this state, as well as a major issue heading into next school year.

She'll tell us what that is. Also ahead, a dramatic ending to Major League Baseball's all-star game decided by the first ever swing-off. We'll tell you what that is when we come back. the lies all burning holes through yet the center he could get it on his first swing and he did. Oh, sure.

Bones in the All-Star game. They rallied in the game and L has rallied in the swing. Look out, Chop House. Nationally takes the lead four to three. So what are you watching there? That is not the home run derby from two nights ago. That's the actual all star game last night. Kyle Schwabber winning the game for the National League in the game's first ever swing off

kind of baseball's equivalent of penalty kick shootout in soccer. The game tied after nine innings, six six. So they go to the swing off. The National League had a big lead in the bottom of the six after Pete Alonso's three run home run to right field, made it five-nothing. Couple of batters later, Corbin Carroll of the Dbacks hit a solo shot. It's six-nothing. Looks like the game's over.

But the next inning, Brent Rooker of the A's got the American League on the board with a three run shot. All of a sudden, you got a ball game. The AL down two in the top of the ninth. Bobby Witt Jr. It's a double to right to score a run. It's coming I swear. Later in the inning with the AL down to their last. Okay here's Bobby Witt.

I just lost my SportsCenter audition but there it is. Okay there's Bobby Witt. I just lost my Sports Center audition, but there it is. OK, there's Bobby Witt. Now with the American League down to its last strike. Stephen Kwan, there it is, reached on an infield single to third, scoring with Junior. Now the game is tied. All right, we're all caught up. 6-6. So that sets up the swing off. Schorber named the game's MVP for that effort. He's the first non-pitcher to be hitless and still win the MVP award. He went over to the walk during the game's nine innings.

Jonathan Lemire, as you reminded me this morning, the stakes are a little lower. This does not decide who hosts the World Series. So why not? Let's have a swing off. It was kind of fun. And Schwerber, the former Boston Red Sox, delivered. Yeah. The more Carl Schwerber in our lives, the better. I think we all agree with that. off it was kind of fun and Schwab or the former Boston Red Sox delivered yet. More cost for our lives the better I think we all agree with that he's one of the most

fun players in the game. Yeah, but that's my take to why not I think you're comparison with penalty kicks and soccer seems apt something that's sort of a part of the game but not really but why not it's an exhibition it stopped

determining home field advantage World Series a few years ago. This is I look I think the officer game is still also meaningless their exhibitions baseball is by far the best also game of the major sports I watched last night with my one of my sons. It is fun to see your players in there, I'm glad they went back

to wearing their own yeah forms as opposed to always do that the the AL only ones or whatever. And I'll also say, Willie, we just mentioned it as we came in, the All-Star game in Atlanta last night, the tribute to Hank Aaron was really, really, really well done. Great to see him get that remembrance on the national stage. Yeah, if you haven't seen that, check it out. They turned off the lights, recreated it with the radio call. It was a beautiful moment. And to your point, it's just fun to watch Paul Skeens pitch to Aaron Judge. And you don't get to see that outside of the All-Star game.

Got him to ground out. He did two strikeouts and a ground out. Skeens was dealing last night as he always is. All right.