the president said it again when he was with the irish prime minister this weekend, suggesting with putin now newly re-elected, and we put that word in quotes, that this is a threat that's not going to go away anytime soon. white house reporter for bloomberg news, jordan fabian, thank you for joining us this morning. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. you see the spirit from the hostages, and that's what they are, hostages. they've been treated terribly and very unfairly. you know that. everybody knows that. we're going to be working on that soon. the first day we get into office, we're going to save our country and work with the people to treat those unbelievable patriots, and they were unbelievable patriots and are. >> i think it is very unfortunate at a time there are

american hostages being held in gaza. that the president or any other leaders would refer to people that are moving through our justice system as hostages. it's just unacceptable. i was there on january 6th. i have no doubt in my mind, margaret, that some people were caught up in the moment and entered the capitol, and they're entitled to due process of law for any non-violent activities that day. but the assaults on police officers, ultimately an environment that claimed lives, is something that i think was tragic that day. i'll never diminish it. >> mike pence once again taking a stand against his former boss. he also refused to endorse trump for president. those comments from donald trump came during a stump speech for a senate candidate in ohio.

trump was more focused on his personal grievances, giving more incendiary remarks. meanwhile, the former president has so far refused to condemn vladimir putin for the death of alexei navalny. but for the first time publicly, putin addressed the death of his chief rival. also ahead, we'll show you the israeli prime minister, benjamin netanyahu's response to senate majority leader chuck schumer after the highest ranking jewish elected official in the u.s. called for new elections in israel. we're looking at news here and around the world. donald trump, again, the republican frontrunner who basically clinched the nomination, addressing one of the first things he'll do in office, is free the -- and i say this in quotes -- hostages. it's beyond twisted for him to use that word. not surprised but as disturbed as we'll ever be. >> what if you were an american

family with hostages still being held -- >> sick. >> -- in tunnels underneath gaza, people who actually are hostages who were doing nothing but being in their home or at a musical festival, minding their own business, when hamas terrorists came and seized them and beat them, raped them, abused them, took them underground. >> holding someone. >> donald trump comparing those people in name to others that drove from across the country, came to the capitol, used bear spray on police officers, beat the hell out of cops, beat the hell out of other people who got in their way, wanted to hang mike pence, were looking for nancy pelosi, destroyed a lot of offices, defecated in the united states capitol. again, jammed cops' heads in doors and tried to hurt as many people as they could.

jonathan lemire, you know, donald trump, i remember the day after donald trump and members of his family getting in trouble for calling these rioters patriots. they packed off. some of them backed off. donald trump wading straight in, saying these people were patriots and that, you know, others saying this wasn't a bloodbath. i would suggest that you talk to the wives, sons, and daughters of those police officers who lost their lives as a result of january 6th, and they will tell you that their loved ones lost their lives as a result of january 6th. donald trump continues to praise these people. he says, he says, everybody knows they're patriots. no, everybody doesn't, in fact. you have to be twisted and

demented in your head if you can look at can rioting, people beating the hell out of cops, with police officers with american flags, trying to kill them, and call them hostages after they went through the court system. that is a sickness and a twistedness, and the continued -- you have people continuing to try to apologize for this behavior. starting with donald trump. trying to minimize what happened on january 6th. for those who say, why do you talk about donald trump? we talk about donald trump because, yes, democracy is on the line. when donald trump says this is normal political behavior, the rnc said it was normal political behavior, donald trump says it. he says those people abusing police officers are patriots.

those that got sent to jail for trying to overrun the u.s. capitol and for beating the hell out of cops are hostages, nothing -- there is nothing normal about this. for those week-kneed wimps that say we should never mention donald trump's name and just turn our faces from this and talk about something else, i would suggest there are germans who tried that with hitler. didn't turn out well. >> look at this footage. look at this footage. these are rioters with flagpoles, hockey sticks, spears. we saw a cop being crushed in a door. being tasered with their own weapons, assaulted with their own guns. >> donald trump calls these people patriots. >> this is a bloodbath.

there was debate about trump's use of the word bloodbath at the ohio rally, and we'll get to that. let's note how he started the rally in ohio. they played the january 6th convict choir, their version of the national anthem. >> these convicts, these rioters. >> donald trump, first of all, said they were hostages, and said that on day one, were he to be elected -- mind you, he also said on day one he'd be a dictator. he's also saying now on day one, he would try to free these hostages. more than that, donald trump was a former commander in chief of this nation. he saluted. he held up his hand and saluted at his temple this version of the national anthem. the convict choir's version of the national anthem. that image, even as much as any of his rhetoric, shows you what he wants to bring to this nation again were he to take office. >> let's look at that moment

again, jonathan. people are so numbed by donald trump right now. we have ed luce we're going to be bringing in in a little bit. ed did what i think a lot of us should do, what a lot of journalists should do. that is, instead of trying to figure out the totality of the chaos, ed said, let me tell you what happened over the past five days. focus on that, understand that if any candidate from any other time had done one of these multitude of things he did over five days, they'd forever be eliminated from american political discussion. that doesn't happen here. that's a real problem. including, again, pledging allegiance to a convict choir's version of the national anthem. take a look. >> announcer: ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated

january 6th hostages. ♪ o say can you see by the dawn's early light ♪ >> yeah. >> my gosh. >> again, these people, i guess it's a cult, i don't know, maybe they're brainwashed into it, but, i'm sorry, no apologies. no apologies. there are a lot of people, "oh, i lived my entire life out of manhattan and drive to pennsylvania to try to understand better." no, you don't have to drive from the upper east side to scranton to figure out these are people that want an autocrat. these are people who don't like american democracy the way it is. they understand they lose a fair

fight. they want to accept election results when they win, and they want to start a revolution when they lose. they're still embracing it here. it is sick, mika. it is sick. i swear to god, the press has got to wake up. let's try to understand who these people are. it's pretty obvious. they have the video. they see the cops getting the hell beaten out of them. they're calling these people hostages. they're lying day in and day out about what happened on january 6th. they're saying, oh, nobody tried to hurt mike pence. nobody tried to hurt nancy pelosi. yet, you talk to the security detail. they were calling home to say good-bye to their loved ones because they thought they were

going to be caught by donald trump supporters and killed. trying to understand this, seriously, is like trying to understand a poisonous snake about to bite you. it's american democracy that's at risk over the next six months. i swear to god, the fact this race is even close speaks volumes about what donald trump has done to this country. >> with us today, bbc special correspondent katty kay. and as joe mentioned, "the financial times'" ed luce is with us. also with us, former supreme allied commander of nato, navy admiral james stavridis. chief international analyst for nbc news. good to have you all this morning. >> we'll get to the ohio rally in a second. admiral, as a man who dedicated your entire life, also taken young men and young women across the world, protecting and defending america, the

constitution, our national interest, your thoughts on these opening moments of this rally, opening moments of donald trump talking about these people who use the american flag, that brave men and women like you have taken into battle the last 30, 40 years, that american flag that was used to bludgeon cops, i'm curious your thoughts on what you've heard. >> joe, i spent a fair amount of time in uniform trying to rescue hostages. particularly when i was commander of the u.s. southern command. we had hostages being held by terrorists in columbia. in afghanistan, we had handfuls of hostages who were held. those truly are hostages. point being, i know what a hostage is.

that prison choir is not hostages. i know what a patriot is. a patriot swears to defend the constitution of the united states. that's the oath every volunteer takes. it's not an oath to the commander in chief. it's an oath to the constitution. those are patriots. yeah, i know hostages. not a prison choir. i know patriots. i served alongside millions of them. i'll close with this. the correct term for the prison choir, convicted felons. >> bottom line. following the saluting of the january 6th choir, the next hour and a half, trump spoke little of the republican candidate he was there in support of. instead, he listed a long list of grievances and painted a

bleak picture of america's future, including this warning that came when he was discussing chinese-made cars being imported to the u.s. from mexico. >> we're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line. you're not going to be able to sell those cars. if i get elected. if i don't get elected, it'll be a bloodbath for the whole -- that'll be the least of it. it'll be a bloodbath for the country. that'll be the least of it. >> shortly after the speech, the trump campaign tried to clean up those comments. insisting in a statement the former president was talking about a bloodbath for the auto workers and auto industry. and before everyone is triggered and shocked, because this is a shock opera we have to, unfortunately, endure because we're constantly shocked by what he says. but don't let that shock, don't let that trauma let you forget what you're hearing.

believe him. >> jonathan lemire, back to you because you're reporting on this. you know, it was a distinction without a difference. talking about the auto industry. then it'll be a bloodbath. maybe you can connect that to the auto industry. maybe you can, okay. again, i've never really heard people discuss macro economics in terms of bloodbaths. but maybe so, for argument's sake. then he says, "and that's going to be the least of it." if you think there's going to be a bloodbath in the auto industry, even if you take that argument at face value, which, again, given the tone of the rest of the speech, bloodbath, i'm not sure he's talking about the niceties of international

trade. let's take that argument as is. then he goes on and says, that's going to be the least of it. repeats it, it's going to be the least of it. obviously, he's talking about a bloodbath for america. it's laid out in the terms of it. these idiots on twitter, these idiots on cable news, idiots on sunday show going, "he was only talking about the industry, and this is one more," that's bullshit. i'll say that at 6:15 a.m. it was bullshit. he knew what he was doing. we're not stupid. americans aren't stupid. he was talking about a bloodbath. sometimes a bloodbath means a bloodbath. when he finishes by saying, and that's just going to be the least of it, seriously? these people may be stupid. we're not. >> no.

it is clear what he meant. one of trump's rhetorical gifts, if you will, is he speaks just vaguely enough that people can read into different meanings. he allows a little wiggle room and a little out every time. we saw this in the bloodbath comments, which became a firestorm. rightly, it was the headline out of the rally in ohio. it was reported all over the place. immediately, we showed the statement already, the trump campaign within minutes put something out. >> they knew he screwed up. >> they recognized. they have some professionals on their team, and they realized it was a problem and tried to clarify it with that comment. what happened then, there was a snowball effect on cable news and particularly social media, voices in the right-wing, including prominent voices, really pushing back. claiming the media was taking it out of context. claiming they were biased against trump, et cetera. yes, his comments about bloodbath came shortly after talking about the automobile

industry. again, that'll be the least of it. that's the tell. also, it's that violent language that was peppered throughout his speech, a speech that, again, mind you, began with the former commander in chief saluting the version of the national anthem being performed by january 6th convicts. >> exactly. >> that, ed luce, if you think you shouldn't take this seriously, one should believe him, at this point, the violence of january 6th is something that he talks about in a wistful way. he wants to help these people, these people who committed crimes. we look at global threats around the world. it seems that the threat of violence within, i'm reading more about people concerned about violence in the u.s. promulgated by donald trump. when he does that, you can see he is serious about it. >> i don't need much context to understand what he is saying.

i know people have been going over and over his words. it is very clear what the use of the word bloodbath is. that the subclause, by the way, if i don't get elected, what it means. joe said, auto analysts don't use terms like bloodbath when it comes to upturns and downturns in the auto industry. it is clear what he is saying. the context eludes people like elon musk who thinks this was a auto commentary. it was plain to anybody listening to this. you only need to listen once, and you don't need a language expert. he's not only saying i'll pardon the hostages, as he calls them, those put away for january 6th, but he is signaling future such acts have a green light from him. this is not just a commentary on

the past, the january 6th convicts, this is an enabling statement about people who will help this upcoming election. the bloodbath comment is unequivocal. there is no need to pass this. >> ed, you're right. >> and -- >> go ahead, joe. >> sorry, katty. go ahead. >> yeah, i mean, he also puts this, trump, in the context that this will happen to the country more broadly. i went back this weekend, it's worth in this moment, i think, looking at the work of rachel kleinfeld who has written about what happens when democracies descend into violence and abandon the rule of law. two things need to happen. one, the normalization of political violence, which we hear from donald trump again and again and his supporters. and the dehumanization of his opponents and people he sees as others. we heard that again over the course of the weekend, where he called some immigrants coming into the country not even human. those, according to kleinfeld,

are the two conditions you need for democracies to lose their democracy and become countries that are prone to political vie violence. it is the pattern you're seeing here. it is what we have seen through january 6th. the bloodbath comment doesn't come in a vacuum. it comes in the context of those january 6th images. you only need to replay those again and again to see the kind of political amnesia that has set in in america the last two years. all the polls showing us right after january 6th, a majority of republicans, even trump supporters, thought that what happened was a disgrace. yet, over the course of two years, people have forgotten. polls show a majority of maga supporters think it is okay, what happened january 6th. the ultimate conclusion of that is donald trump getting up and saluting the people who have been convicted of violence on that day. convicted in some cases of seditious conspiracy on that

day. saluing them as hostages. it feeds into the fragiity of america's democracy. it's been down graded because of things like january 6th and because of the kind of political violence and the normalization of violent language we're hearing at the moment. >> of course, people will say, when you bring up january 6th, oh, americans have grown numb to it. you've grown numb to that? grown numb to the fact that the guy that's running for president now and praising rioters and calling rioters patriots, who used american flags to bludgeon the hell out of cops, you think that's okay? you think we should move on from that? no. he hasn't moved on from it. he starts his rallies pledging allegiance to these rioters.

to these cop killers. again, you talk to the families of the police officers who died after 9/11, they'll tell you, that's exactly what they are. they'll tell you that. katty is right, talking about immigrants that commit crimes, calling them subhumans. not even humans. >> yeah. trump will say, yeah, talking about immigrants. yeah, you don't hear him talking about white people that way, whether they committed crimes or not. again, it is selective. it is to ring a bell. it is to do what hitler did. yeah, i'll use the word and say the name. that is to take a group of people and turn them into non-humans. that's what he is doing. >> for january 6th, the cops who

died, there's also a lot of cops and people who were there who are still living with very serious injuries from that day. the trauma of that day. their lives have been changed irreparably, in some cases destroyed. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll do live to moscow. vladimir putin extends his rule over russia for another six years. nbc's keir simmons joins us after questioning putin about the death of opposition leader alexei navalny. plus, the latest from tel-aviv as the white house weighs how to respond if israel launches a military invasion of rafah without a credible plan to protect civilians there. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. that theu is a rate based on you, with allstate. because you know that just because it fits in the cupholder doesn't make it 'to-go'. and you know how to brake, without breaking everything.

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u.s. charity world central kitchen working with the united arab emirates. several sources tells nbc news the white house is considering what a response might look like if israel presses into rafah without plans to protect civilians. that's according to one former and three current u.s. officials. on friday, top biden administration officials indicated they had not seen plans for an operation in rafahah that prime minister netanyahu approved. so far, administration officials have been advising the israeli government to forego a large operation in rafah and consider smaller, more targeted counterterrorism missions. that comes as israeli prime minister netanyahu responded to senate majority leader chuck schumer's comments last week in which he called for an election in israel. and called netanyahu a major obstacle to peace.

here's what netanyahu said in an interview yesterday with cnn. >> i think what he said is totally inappropriate. it is inappropriate for -- to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. that is something the israeli public does on its own. we're not a banana republic. the majority of israelis support the policies we're leading. go to rafah, destroy the hamas battalions, and don't put in the palestinian authority that educated its children to the annihilation of israel. the majority of israelis support my government. it's not a fringe government. it recommends the policies supported by the majority of people. if senator schumer opposes these policies, he is opposing not me but the people of israel. >> president biden is a self-described zionist. even he is starting to distance himself from the way you are handling the war. he called what schumer said a

good speech. he said that he shared the concern of many americans. they aren't criticizing israel. they're criticizing you and your right-wing coalition. >> dana, there is a fallacy that is being perpetrated here, and you should take polls. you have your own polls. check whether the people of israel support the policies that i'm being criticized for. to present that as something that is -- i'm an outlier, it doesn't represent the majority of the people of israel is a fallacy. >> there were other polls in israel, three major israeli television stations, that said what israelis also support are early elections. that's what i really want to focus on here, is senator schumer not calling to sort of topple the government but, specifically says, when the war winds down, will you commit to calling new elections? that's my question, will you?

>> dana, two-thirds -- first of all, what you said is wrong. the vast majority of israelis oppose early elections until the war doesn't end. look, a lot of the polls are -- >> channel 12 says -- >> -- misguided -- >> -- 64% of the israelis support an early election. >> that's not -- no, i'm afraid they asked the question, did you support it during the war, and they said no. number one, they haven't called for it. >> schumer is calling for new elections once the war winds down. >> well, we'll see when we win the war. but -- >> will you commit to new elections -- >> the survival of israel -- >> -- when the war winds down? >> -- everything we hold dear together. >> will you commit? >> that's something for the israeli public to decide. it is not something -- look, that's something for the israeli people to decide. i think it is ridiculous to talk about it. >> actually --

>> you think it is ridiculous because you want to stay out of jail. >> the indictments, yeah. >> you think it is ridiculous because you don't want people trying to figure out why it took you seven, eight, ten, twelve hours to rescue people that were being raped, beaten, killed, to act. you don't want early elections or discussion of it because you don't want to face the music for your alleged crimes and also to the fact that you had, your government had hamas' terrorist plans for a year and did nothing about it. your government was warned the day before, the morning of, of what was coming, and you did nothing about it. you knew how hamas was being funded with illicit funds as early as 2018. you and donald trump did nothing

about it. you knew that hamas was asking your government -- not hamas, sorry -- qatar was asking your government weeks before the october 7th terror attacks whether hamas should continue being funded by qatar. you said yes. you keep thinking that you can drag the war out indefinitely. you're not going to have to face any of the music. and then you lie when faced with a poll. you say, oh, that's not what the people said. do you -- you just run over it. yeah, so i mean, you know, this idea, this idea that a thrice indicted prime minister who tore the country to pieces, declaring war against the rule of law, and

is the worst prime minister in israel's history, worst prime minister since 1948. if you look at what he did to actually make hamas' attacks possible, with the green light for the funding from qatar, the green light in not going after hamas' illicit funds. you look at all of that, this is a guy, of course he doesn't want to face the voters because he knows he'll be routed. he is extraordinaily unpopular. admiral stavridis, the question is to you. i mean, the united states government finds itself in a very difficult position. wanting to support israel but not wanting to support bibi netanyahu's desperate attempt to stay in power at any cost. he knows once he's out of power, there's a chance he'll be going to jail. >> yeah.

i found senator schumer's comments incredibly appropriate. yeah, we're not voters in israel, but we're friends of israel and friends give friends advice when we see friends headed in a bad direction. particularly because our weapons systems are being employed here, it's entirely appropriate. my view. for senator schumer who is uniquely positioned to do it as, if you will, the senior person of jewish faith in the government of the united states. so as i look at it, to kind of pick up the points he hit a moment ago, if the netanyahu government continues on its current course, four things are going to happen. none of them good. let's do it from the inside out. inside israel, there's going to be more turbulence, more anger. look at january 6th type of

events. number two, you're creating another generation of terrorists by what is amounting to a deal of indiscriminate killing in gaza. the number, 30,000, credible. half of them under the age of 18. number three, you're damaging the relationship with the united states. that's prima face. when you have somebody like senator schumer, a lifelong friend of israel. someone like me, i went to israel as a lieutenant junior grade in 1978. but it is time for friends to criticize friends when necessary. finally, the information here, the narrative, israel is being shredded internationally as this is being repackaged by russia, china, tehran, and it is being

repackaged. it does damage to israel and, therefore, the damage to democracy globally. i'd say, as we look at what's happening as friends of israel, we need to tell them what they need to do next. it is not go in heavy in a massive ground campaign in rafah. >> well, again, you know, they can try to turn friends into enemies. benjamin netanyahu supporters and right-wing extremists in the united states can try to turn israel's lifelong friends into enemies. i'm a lifelong friend of israel, have been my entire life. i was in congress. apac would have me go give speeches to help the cause, and i did that through the years. i have always supported israel. but i don't support benjamin netanyahu's reign in the midst

of just the worst attack against israel. >> he's turning the tide of international support. >> well, he's -- you know, friends don't let friends drive drunk, as they say. friends also don't let friends have a leader destroy the country's standing on the globe, in the shadow of the worst attack against jews since the holocaust. we're supposed to stand by here as we watch somebody like netanyahu desperately cling to power, when what he is doing is not in the best interest of israel? >> so many questions. >> and the lie that hamas is ever going to reconstitute and run gaza again is a lie. admiral, we'll get back to this in a second. we have keir simmons. >> we have to go to moscow. >> but i want to get back to this because that's the lie right now that you hear. oh, if they don't go in and kill another 10,000 civilians, hamas is going to come back to power.

it is a lie. hamas will never regain power in gaza, ever. >> correct. >> that's over. we'll be right back on that thought. >> hold that thought. vladimir putin will remain in power until at least 2030. this is after the russian president overwhelmingly won a fifth term in the country's election over the weekend. putin's victory comes just weeks after the death of russian opposition leader alexei navalny in a remote arctic prison. nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons joins us live from moscow. keir, you spoke with putin earlier. what did you hear from him? >> that's right, mika. late-night news conference after his election last night. in response to a question from nbc news, president putin described the death of alexei navalny as an unfortunate incident. the result of this election, according to russian officials, is that president putin has been

elected with 87% of the vote after a turnout of 77%. those are historic numbers, and they are going to be questioned by many russia watchers and critics from around the world. after a weekend of protests where we saw the attacks on police stations, drops into ballot boxes, and the drons on ukrainians, the election still went ahead. despite opposition leaders not being able to stand. nbc news was one of the first to question president putin after the election results. take a listen. mr. president, journalist evan gershkovich spent this election in prison. boris, who opposes your war in ukraine, wasn't allowed to stand against you. and alexei navalny died in one of your prisons during your

campaign. mr. president, is this what you call democracy?

>> reporter: after that news conference in which president putin did make news in that answer by apparently confirming reports that he had agreed to some kind of a deal where alexei navalny would be released from prison, while not explaining how, days later, according to his accounts, alexei navalny ended up dead, alexei navalny's wife yesterday took part in protests in berlin. after that news conference, i got to the kremlin spokesman,

dmitry peskov, to ask him about yuia navalny's call. >> what do you say to leaders around the world who won't belief this election, who won't believe the results you're announcing tonight? >> around 87% after 24 years in power, it is unprecedented. >> if 80% is accurate. >> 87%. >> if 87% is right. >> it is right. it is right. everything is extremely transparent. our whole election system is transparent in the country. there was a chance for every observer who had an intention to observe this election to be here and to observe. but for certain organizations

that are unwelcomed here anymore because we don't want anyone to keep interfering in our internal affairs. so, but, well, again, this unbelievable level of support, this is the best sign that all speculations about illegal elections is actually ungrounded. >> reporter: as i mentioned, i did ask him also about yulia navalny's call for global leaders not to recognize the election, and he suggested that her voice didn't count because she wasn't in russia. but we are hearing this morning, kind of split-screen, if you'd like, countries that you'd expect congratulating president putin. north korea, china, iran, venezuela, and then western democracies talking about this as not free and fair, including

the biden administration and leaders in western european capitals. >> yeah. well, of course, donald trump is not president of the united states, so, of course, the united states didn't congratulate him as it used to congratulate other people that would have these sort of rigged elections. let me ask you, keir, a quick question. >> that was fascinating. >> yeah, just absolutely fascinating. so, yes, you read in america, read 87% of russians support vladimir putin, and you're going to be skeptical. it is going to be, like, rigged election. of course, he keeps a lot of his competitors out, either by sending them to jail or in other ways, killing some. that said, can you explain to americans that vladimir putin right now is fairly popular by historic standards in russia?

of course, this is a country that turned back to a hero worshipping of joseph stalin, a guy who killed 20 million to 30 million russians and ukrainians. so this is not anything to laud him for. but just explaining, there are quite a lot of russians who support the direction he is taking the country. >> reporter: yeah. look, all the evidence from the independent polling that is available, and it's not much, and also from our own experience here in russia, is that president putin is popular among many russians here. on the other hand, this was a staged, managed election in which candidates weren't allowed to run. as i mentioned, including boris who we caught up with yesterday, who signed his initials into the ballot paper. he was against the war, has been against the war in ukraine. he wasn't allowed to run.

it's both those things at once. the kremlin now, what they're already doing, will be trying to describe this as a sign that russia is unified and unified in president putin's aims of his so-called special military operation. the reality, i think, is that there are lots of russians that would like to see negotiations, but they don't want, according to, again, the best that we can see, they don't want the negotiations to look like a capitulation. they want the negotiations to be on russia's terms. that's where, i think, largely, russia is right now, the people. although, of course, there are people calling out the war and criticizing it and questioning it, that's, i think, largely where the country is. i think all of this means with president putin now looking at another six years, and within the same time, of course, president zelenskyy saying he's

prepared to negotiate but on his terms, ultimately, all of this means the convict is likely to continue for some time. >> nbc's keir simmons live from moscow. thank you very much for that reporting. >> thank you so much, keir. in an interview on fox news that aired yesterday, donald trump was asked if he believed, as president biden does, that putin is responsible for navalny's sudden death in a prison last month. listen to his response. >> the media, as you know, blamed putin. joe biden blames putin. much of the civilized world blames putin. do you believe vladimir putin has some responsibility for the death of alexei navalny. >> i don't know. perhaps, i mean, possibly, i could say probably. i don't know. he's a young man, so, statistically, he'd be alive for a long time, right, if you go by the insurance numbers. he'd be alive another 40 years, so something happened that was

unusual. >> obviously, he survived a poisoning attempt by the kremlin and barely lived. went back, got jailed, and suddenly, he keeled over, they don't release the body. how could any of that happen without putin and high-ranking officials sanctioning it? >> you can't say for sure, but, certainly, that would look like something very bad happened, right? >> ed luce, he just can't bring himself to state the obvious when it has to do, well, with so many things, but especially when it has to do with vladimir putin. he's so weak. >> yeah, he is. i mean, i'm waiting. we're awaiting his statement of congratulations on putin's victory. i guess that's going to happen today. it is inevitable it'll happen. he was caught on a hot mic the last day or two praising kim jong-un, the north korean

leader, as having the respect of his people. his people stand up for him, and that's what i want from my people. trump's absolute worship of these people is an envy, basically. it is an expression of his desire, a projection of what he wants. i think, you know, it's obvious what happened. he was in an arctic gulag, and they killed him. he can't bring himself to concede that. his envy for putin is going up another notch today. 87%, can you believe it? i expect his statement anytime soon. >> katty kay, it really is remarkable how much he praises dictators. that quote that ed was talking about that resurfaced this weekend, that was from 2018. it could be said this week. it's been said this year.

>> his opinions have not changed. >> he constantly praises kim jeong eun and talks about love letters. he phrases vladimir putin as being brilliant for his invasion of ukraine. goes on and on. here, of course, can't bring himself to say anything pad about vladimir putin, even when we talk about the death of navalny. >> it was interesting how he squirmed around that. he didn't want to deny something bad had happened to that navalny. he didn't want to say putin pears the responsibility for this. i was drawing up the list of strongmen donald trump said nice things about. erdogan, viktor orban, hitler, kim jong-un, xi jinping, vladimir putin. all of those people have been praised by donald trump at one point in particular. it is particularly this issue of when he was in the white house,

the fact that kim jong-un comment comes from 2018 is indicative. it was when he got into the white house and perhaps didn't have that much understanding of the way that governments worked, and his advisors since said he didn't understand the workings of american government. he realized the limitations on himself as the chief executive. the things he could not do as president of the united states. then he looked to people like erdogan in turkey and realized what erdogan could do pause because he wasn't restricted by the constitution of the u.s., by congress, or the rule of law. that's when the envy came in. he said in the hot mic comment, he can do things i can't do and i wish i could do. >> admiral stavridis, there was a protest movement in the weekend's elections at noon on sunday in russia. there were thousands of people who lined up to say they stood against vladimir putin. it was an organized effort. we should be clear, not only did

putin win, even independent polls suggest he is popular at home, even if this was a sham election. let's get your take here. he has to be watching the political discourse in the united states and the praise he gets from donald trump, the momentum he has on the battlefield in ukraine. there's no reason not to wait this out until november, is there? >> 100%. there is zero incentive for him to make any negotiation, despite the fact he's lost probably a million young men from the russian population of 150 million. a million young men, so 1 in 75 young man is either dead in this war, grievously wounded, or left the country to avoid the draft. those cracks are eventually going to pull the machine apart, i think, in russia. but, for the moment, he is firmly in control. he really has been firmly in control going back to when he

put down yevgeny prigozhin. his former chef, private army, all of that. when prigozhin was executed by blowing up his private jet, i think that's the moment you got peak putin. that's what gave him the confidence to take out navalny. he sees donald trump as a potential supporter, therefore, he's going to wait until the end of the year. final thought, all the more reason, how do we stop this, we pass the bill for the $60 billion in aid for ukraine which has strong support on both sides of the aisle in congress but can't get through because the speaker of the house refuses to bring it to the floor. if we did that, gave the aid, strengthened the ukrainians, that would be a way to pierce putin's armor. we should do it. >> that's what the biden

administration has been hoping for for some time. they want the aid to get to ukraine. they believe that's the best chance to getting both sides to the negotiating table and at least get a cease-fire that would be acceptable to the ukrainians and perhaps putin, to stop two plus years of fighting that's now basically devolved into a world war i style shootout. ed luce, before we go, i wanted to circle back and have you weigh in. you've written about the middle east, gaza, israel. circle back to the argument made by benjamin netanyahu this weekend and made by right-wing extreme websites in america and other outlets who make the argument, you either support benjamin netanyahu or you hate israel. saying, by the way, that to lifetime israel supporters. >> there has been no one who has

been more of a consistent defender of israel than shuck chuck schumer, or a more regular apac attendee than chuck schumer. israel is becoming a pariah, which is not good for israel. it was a pro-israeli point he was making. biden, to some extent, echoed. that while this continues, israel's security is undermined. you cannot, as netanyahu spent his career doing, you cannot snuff out all the non-violent palestinian voices, the palestinian authority, palestinian civil rights groups, and build up hamas, as netanyahu has been doing, and expect that israel's security is going to be enhanced. what schumer was saying was something that, you know, everybody has been thinking. i think it is surprising how

long he took to say it. clearly, some of this was directed at damage limitation with the democratic base. it is an absolutely correct point. the final thing i'd say is that netanyahu basically endorsed mitt romney against obama in 2012. netanyahu, behind obama's back, spoke to congress, breaking all the protocol against obama's iran nuclear deal. he's always involved in american politics. for him to say you can't interfere in israeli politics, it's -- >> well -- >> donald trump, to let you know how intimately he is involved in american poitics and media, donald trump attacked "morning joe" when he was president.

benjamin netanyahu retweeted it. oh, stay away from israel. oh, let us run our own. no, he's attacking democratic presidents. he's choosing sides. he's actually retweeting, you know, little skirmishes that the president is having with media outlets. it really, really is a joke. again, for those of us who love israel, it is sad to see this happen. it is sad to see how desperate actually, when it looks like he is going to have to ultimately pay for his continued funding and support of hamas through the years. u.s. national editor at "the financial times," ed luce. >> thank you, ed. >> thank you so much. retired four star admiral james stavridis, thank you, as well. we are forever grateful for your service to our republic. of course, he's the co-author of the new book, "2054: a novel."

>> look forward to that. >> mika, you're excited. >> i am. also, looking forward to this next story. >> march madness, the fields are set. defending national champion uconn named number one overall on selections on sunday houston, purdue, north carolina joining the huskies as the men's tournament top sooeds. let's bring in the host of "pablo torre finds out," pablo torre. >> big moment. >> you can relax. alabama made it in. >> look at him, he is breathing. >> yeah, yeah. >> kentucky made it in. >> box breathing. >> you do box breathing? >> yeah, absolutely. >> the final four and the box breathing, mika, for you. >> it is good for you. we should do a box breathing session on "morning joe." >> absolutely. >> he's so mindful. don't be too mindful in this

segment. take us through the 64. pablo, what shocks and outrages you? >> yeah, everybody is angry with the committee, joe. remember how mad everybody was with the college football playoff committee. the ncaa tournament selection committee is even more, yeah, pitchforks, more blow torches pointed in their direction. they were saying this was the hardest field to pick this year. it's been really difficult and really chaotic. a lot of conference champions that emerged, meaning they took spots from teams on the bubble. all of this is tournament lingo for, nobody really knows what they should have done here. the people who are mad, i think, are those in the big east conference, for instance, right? the big east conference was the second ratest conference in america. only had three teams in, and that is a problem. rick pitino and st. john's feel snubbed. the back of "the new york post" says as much. this is rick pitino being angry.

st. john's march sadness. sad and angry at the same time. the reality of the tournament now is that every year, every year, the people who expect the best teams in college basketball to win, they look stupid. maybe that's story every year. you have your picks. the person in the office who pays no attention wins. >> right. >> fewer blue bloods. i mean, duke, ucla, kentucky, kansas, like, those areteams of. they reign again. >> it was a topsy-turvy season. >> there wasn't a team that held the number one spot for long.ki purdue, unc. >> uconn is defending national champion. they're the number one seeded

team. that is obvious. joe mentioned tongue in cheek how auburn made it in. i have auburn in the final four. i'm going actually iron bowl, joe, john, and mika. auburn and alabama meeting in the semifinal. >> whoa. >> i say this, of course, knowing that in some way, i feel like some scarborough has just seeped into my brain from doing this show this often. but i do believe it. i do believe auburn can beat uconn. i believe they can make it to the final four. alabama, top ten schedule in terms of strength of schedule. the hardest schedule they faced is one of the hardest in the country. a fast-paced team. to me, there's s.e.c. exceptionalism with alabama beating a bunch of teams in the west, including arizona. yeah, s.e.c. for an upset on that side of the bracket.

>> what did i tell you about this pablo guy? i said, i like the cut of his jib. >> you did say that. i noticed. >> i'm a husky fan. >> mika is a husky fan. what about the women's side? >> caitlin clark. look, south carolina, want to nod to them first. south carolina is essentially a dynasty, the best team in america for years and years. the top left quadrant, south carolina playing in albany. to me, the story remains caitlin clark. the biggest name in the entire tournament field is caitlin clark. i say this every time i see you. it's not a, hey, let's nod to the nice female player because it's really nice she's so good. >> right. >> this is the biggest name in basketball right now. i'll include the nba because of the ratings she's getting, beating nba games. the idea that in the final four of the women's side, we might have south carolina, stanford,

uconn, and iowa, with caitlin clark in her last dance, michael jordan metaphor, this is her last run to college and then is going to the pros. this is it for her. we'll see a show, the best in basketball. iowa and caitlin clark, brightly circled a million times over on that side of the field. >> people, just because i'm, you know, an old guy, an old, grumpy guy, people are like, when will women get paid the same amount? i said, well, when women start drawing the ratings that men draw. we see this -- >> it's happening now. >> -- in tennis and everything else. in basketball, it is happening now. if anybody can find a more compelling basketball player right now with what she's doing day in and day out, let me know. you're exactly right. i want to go to the nfl for a second. >> i figured. >> i have a few pet peeves.

russ wilson is one of them. i'm glad he's getting to play on the steelers. >> there it is. >> haven't talked about my latest pet peeve. jack scarborough and i, we believe that justin fields has been treated like garbage by the bears, by the bears fan base, by everybody else who kind of saw him last year and the first half of this season, then they put on beer goggles or something. let me tell you, the second half of the season, that kid was great. like, he really turned that bears team around. i remember they won the first game and everybody goes, that's the bears' one win this year. i really think the steelers getting this guy, not a pun, it was a steal, with an "a." it was a steal. this guy is the most underrated guy right now. he's got to be thinking, what else did i have to do last year

in the second half of the season? i turned this really lousy team around. >> this was a shocking transaction, him going to the steelers, because your guy, russell wilson, was just acquired. he was the backup to kenny pickett. kenny pickett goes away, and russell wilson is the starter. then they get justin fields. i want to point this out, to the underrated argument you're making, it is completely right in this sense. they got fields for a 2025 conditional fourth rounder, meaning he'll be a sixth round pick, right? >> unbelievable. >> sixth round pick if things don't shake out that way. unbelievable bargain. the question now is the competition. everybody is saying out of pittsburgh, this is russell wilson's job. justin fields is the backup. i don't believe that justin fields believes that. we'll get a competition. we're going to get your guy and your new guy, justin fields, together competing. that's going to be -- look, the steelers' quarterback scenario is going to be a soap opera.

you have two highly qualified, would-be backups trying to prove their ego is not delusional. to me, it's a great deal for the steelers. a better deal for everybody who wants drama because we're going to get some out of the quarterback room in pittsburgh. >> finally, a final thing, staying on the bears for a second, listen, i love this guy. he seems like a wonderful guy. i was genuinely moved after a loss, him jumping in the stands, hugging his mom, crying. >> caleb williams. >> it's cool. but, i'm sorry, i don't think caleb williams is the number one draft pick. i think the bears are going to be really disappointed. they should have stuck with fields. i'm curious, are you high on caleb williams? >> he reminds me of patrick mahomes. maybe this is me wearing beer goggles around 7:00 a.m. at this point. >> what? >> i see patrick mahomes, joe.

i squint a little bit, and i see patrick mahomes. >> yeah. >> that is enough for me. if i'm a team trying to reset everything, i want the guy reminding me of patrick mahomes. i know williams is not an s.e.c. guy. i see that in the underpinnings of this take, but caleb williams is excellent. >> i'll say, lemire, it is also not just what you bring physically, it's also what you can do when you're in the huddle, what can you do with the team. i don't know that we ever saw any huge wins at usc with him. i'm just a little skeptical. again, i like the guy. he seems like a wonderful guy, and i hope he is patrick mahomes. but when you squint and look at caleb williams, do you seema see mahomes? i don't. >> the quarterback is a leadership and skill position. most guys can make the throw.

can you will your teammates to victory? patrick mahomes can do it. scouts say williams is probably the best prospect coming out in a few years. bears are gambling on upside. you reset the contract clock. fields is about to be paid. you can have caleb williams for cheap for several years and spend money in other places. they'll be a better team, no question. assuming williams is decent, bears have a better supporting cast around him at the least. it opens a wild quarterback situation in pittsburgh. my money is on fields beating out russell wilson this summer. >> we shall see. >> okay. >> a lot of predictions. >> espn's pablo torre. >> from the kids who brought you the detroit lions. >> thank you. >> mika said, you know, we really need a palate cleanser, and she played a clip of trump on friday. >> well -- >> this is a palate cleanser. ten minutes of basketball and

golf and -- or baseball, football. >> pablo, if it wasn't you, i'm not sure i'd allow it. >> my lungs are open. >> i'll cleanse the palate another moment. >> please don't. >> jack and i went to see the red sox and the yankees yesterday. >> oh. >> lemire is taunting me. >> i walk to the team store. jack wants a wap. >> did you get me something? >> so i walk into the store -- >> you went to the store? >> i see this young lady buying something in line. the t-shirt, i can only see the top, says, "jesus hates," and i go, oh, my god, you know, politics has gotten so twisted here. how could it be? jesus doesn't hate. that's just not biblical, right? i was really upset. then the person moved in front of her and said, jesus hates the

new york yankees. >> there it is. >> that's true. >> okay. >> there it is. >> some light heresy as a palate cleanser, sure. >> it's true. >> i'm waiting for my t-shirt. you always get me something when you go to the team store. >> i'll get you that t-shirt, sweetie. >> no. you always get me some cool red sox gear. every time you go to a red sox game, you get me something. >> come on, joe. >> this backfired. >> pablo, thank you so much for being with us. >> thank you, pablo. >> you want to do some golf? >> all right. 12 minutes past the top of the hour, we're going to start with the news. >> australian rules football. >> donald trump delivered another divisive speech over the weekend while stumping for an ohio senate candidate. >> there goes the palace cleanser. >> outside of dayton, the 2024 republican nominee kicked off the rally on saturday with this.

>> announcer: ladies and gentlemen, rise for the horriy and unfairly treated january 6th hostages. ♪ o say can you see by the dawn's early light ♪ >> if it didn't involve the destruction of democracy, you'd think it was a "saturday night live". >> the unfortunate truth here, they are singing to the people who committed crimes on january 6th. the whole thing is sick, but it's the reality of trump. >> you have a guy who has 91 criminal counts against him, so i guess all people who are charged are people, even convicts, are now great american heros. he is saluting. look at this. >> i've never seen him salute so seriously. >> this guy, jonathan lemire, i

that beat the hell out of cops. this is his salute to cop beaters, and their families would say, cop killers. >> look. >> this is a former commander in chief, the person who would make the decision to send in u.s. men and women into harm's way. he is saluting with his make america great again hat, a january 6th convict choir. he is someone who is the presumptive republican nominee. he stands about a one in two chance to be president. that is what he is doing, saluting men and women he calls hostage hostages. for the next hour and a half, trump spoke little about the senate candidate there in ohio he was supposed to support. instead, he painted a police vehicle -- bleak picture of

america's future, including about this, chinese cars coming into the united states from mexico. >> you're not going to be able to sell the cars. if i get elected. now, if i don't, it is going to be a bloodbath for the whole -- that'll be the least of it. it'll be a bloodbath for the country. that'll be the least of it. >> wow. joining the conversation, we have the president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton. retired cia officer marc polymeropoulos. an nbc news security and intelligence analyst. and rogers chair in the american presidency at vanderbilt university, historian jon meacham. katty kay is still with us, as well. >> so, jon -- >> there is more, take it away. >> -- you have a former president talking about that bloodbath. of course, all his defenders in far right-wing media and on websites were saying, oh, he was

talking about the car industry. except, well, you know, he started talking about the car industry. he moved on to talking about economic bloodbath. then he said, and that's going to be the least of it. expanding it out from whatever he was talking about to say, that's going to be the least of it. you know, these taxes that i'm going to hoist on the american people through tariffs, that's just going to be the least of it. for this bloodbath that he is talking about. again, you see it from beginning to end, the celebration of political violence in america, starting with him saluting, again, what family members and police who died after january 6th would call cop killers. >> there's no mystery here. in some ways, i think it's in context a good thing that trump is being straightforward about

it. by the way, you try to diagram a trump sentence, you know, good luck with that. it'd be like john nash in "a beautiful mind." here's the thing, whenever someone tries to explain away anything that the former president said, he'll say it within 24 hours. there's no real -- that's a wasted argument. this is what we're facing. we can sit here and talk about it historically and culturally and politically and analyze why almost half the country is in favor of an authoritarian sort of -- it's not even comic opera anymore. it is operetic, inherently dramatic, but it is existentially real here. >> yet, jon -- >> the issue -- yeah. >> even after yesterday, even after the bloodbath, saying that's going to be the least of it, even after praising these

convicts whose actions, their families say, led to the death of four police officers, your friends and my friends who are lifelong republicans said, "yeah, well, i said i wouldn't vote for him after january 6th, but i can't vote for biden." as if, and we've said this before, as if it is 2004 and this is the old republican party against the new democratic party, instead of political violence against a side that actually supports american democracy. >> it is the fundamental question of the age, right? it's a question that if we had failed to answer successfully in the previous 240 years, we wouldn't be here at all. american democracy has survived. it has reformed itself. not perfectly, but it has become evermore perfect.

because just enough of us were willing to believe in the rule of law and the capacity to defer our instant gratification in order to create a social contract that ultimately would lift up the greater number. if just enough of it don't do it now, then all of that is gone. as president biden would say, that's not hyperbole. i worry all the time about this reflexively partisan mindset. that i, frankly, don't have. when i talk to people, as when you do, and they say exactly what you just said, which is, yeah, trump is crazy but biden is a socialist, or whatever, you know, whatever it is, it's just -- a, it's not true. that president biden is outside the american mainstream. president biden in many ways is

the american mainstream. and once people decide that a partisan letter next to your name is more important than the substance and content and spirit of the person whose name it is, then we are not a constitutional democracy that values reason over passion. we are a country that values passion over reason. that's dangerous. >> we also heard more comments from donald trump about migrants in the ohio rally and an interview with fox news. take a listen. >> words like vermin and poisoning of the blood, the media immediately says, that's the language that hitler and mussolini used. >> i didn't know that, but that's what they say. our country is being poisoned.

>> i would do the same thing. if i had prisons teaming with ms-13 and all sorts of people that they've got to take care of for the next 50 years, you know, young people that are in jail for years, if you call them people. i don't know if you call them people. some cases, they're not people, in my opinion. these are bad animals. >> of course, not people, animals. he doesn't -- essentially, he doesn't say anything about white prisoners. in fact, for a lot of white prisoners, he wants them free. says he'll free white prisoners on the first day. he has the choir singing to his supporters. so the overwhelming majority of those people imprisoned on january 6th are white. so they're heros, and, yet, immigrants who are in prison, he says, are animals. fascinating. also fascinating, how he -- you

know, he can take out, "the press says that's language hitler used." just say, "hitler used the phrase." i don't know if it is a buffer for fox news, saying, the press says this. no, it's what hitler said. of course, mr. president, that's what hitler said. anyway -- >> weird. >> rev, we keep hearing about the poisoning of the blood. we keep hearing, you know, they're animals, subhumans, basically. he's been doing this quite some time. his opening statement talking about rapists coming from mexico. also, constantly talking about they're breeders. he's said that throughout his

campaigns. it's just one attack after another against the others. they should go back to where they came from. he's actually said about members of congress that are not white. i'm curious, your thoughts on the president's latest attack on immigrants, the president's latest attack on american democracy this weekend, and what we really saw in ohio. >> i think that he has taken off any cover. he is really running a clear white supremacist campaign. he's stood there and called whites that tried to stop the certification of an election, which is tantamount to trying to overthrow the government, he's called them hostages. while there are real hostages in the middle east. at the same time, imagine if you were a family member of a hostage in the middle east,

hearing him calling people that tried to overthrow an election a hostage, equivalent to them. then he is going to call people of color that are coming from central and latin america, haiti, animals and all kinds of names that dehumanize them. you may disagree with the policy, but to make people less than human is exactly the kinds of things that blacks went through in america, being called three-fifths of a man. we're now dealing with different policies based on those that are on the right that want to do it for different strokes for different folks. i remind donald trump, his own in-laws were immigrants that had to be brought into citizenship. what makes their blood different than somebody's blood from south america that may be seeking a better life and we need to have a policy that would not have them come in a way that would be

contrary to our view -- >> rev? >> -- but, dearly, we can't act like their blood is poisonous. >> rev, if i'm not mistaken, one, two, three, four of his five children are children of immigrants. >> that's right. >> four of his five children are children of immigrants. i don't get it. so did they poison the blood of america when they came here? are his children poisoning the blood? how would he feel if politicians were saying his children and his wives poisoned the blood of america? >> by his definition, he participated in that. by his own definition. i mean, this is absolutely

offensive beyond politics. we're not now talking about republican versus democrat. we're not talking about biden versus trump. we're talking about the absolute sanctioning by a lot of people of a man that is going on a clear white supremacist kind of campaign, to be the president of the united states while he entertains dictators. i mean, he didn't meet with orban. he hosted him at his host in florida. he praises putin. we actually are sitting up here saying that half the american voting public is entertaining putting this type of man back in the white house? if that doesn't get us up and energized to really vote, i don't know what will. >> marc, talk about how this kind of weakens the fabric of american democracy. i saw a poll recently that the number of americans who endorse political violence at the moment is 73%. that is the same as it was at the height of the troubles in

northern ireland. an extraordinary number of americans say political violence is okay with us. at the moment, this is a win for putin and xi jinping. connect the dots. it is part of the picture, of how you're propagating one particular model of politics, the american model looks very fragile and precarious at the moment. >> you're absolutely right. we have to decide, who do we want to be? right now, at every, d.c., thei ambassadors, intelligence chiefs, are writing back to their capitals based on what they heard from trump. it is chilling and alarming. someone like myself, i spent the majority of my career in the arab world, and at the end of it, it hasn't, you know --

running pushback against russia and vladimir putin. this was the notion of liberal democracies versus autocracies. freedom versus tyranny. that's who we were at americans. i think that can be called into question now. the polling number you cited, chilling, alarming, and you really have to think, you know, what has happened to us? one final point on this, and i think this is a really important notion. where are the general milleys, general mattis? general kelly has been vocal. we need the leadership of the national security structures who were apolitical for so long, they need to step up and say the comments, bloodbaths, advocating political violence, are not okay. the republican party is having trouble doing this. where are the national security leaders, particularly in the military, who ordinarily don't do these things? again, it's a callout. which is milley and mattis right now when the country needs them? >> how important would that be, jon? >> i don't know if it is

dispositive, but it surely is illuminating and important. you know, there was a line, william faulkner in the '50s gave a speech, i think at the peabody hotel in memphis, you know, with the ducks. he said, talking about integration, he said, there will come a day when southerners of goodwill, white southerners of goodwill will ask themselves, why didn't someone tell us this, tell us this in time? so we have to tell people. you have to bear witness. you have to stand up and be counted. not that he is going to change something in the next five minutes. reverend sharpton has lived this. but because in the fullness of time, moral witness has weight. if moral witness has weight, then if you feel compelled to stand up for the constitution

and for decency, then this is the hour. i don't know what you're waiting for. right? what other factors would have to be in play for someone to want to go on record and say something has crazily controversial, get ready, joe, okay? i'm for the constitution. whoa. >> right. >> you know, whoa, wait a minute. i'm for the rule of law. oh, you're going a little lefty there. >> yeah. >> that's it, right? i wish -- mika will love this. i have an obsession between, people say, this is simple and straightforward. there are a lot of things straightforward. little that is simple. this is it. this is a straightforward thing. it is not simple. the straightforward issue of the hour is are you for american democracy and an attempt to be decent to each other, or are you

not? >> right. i do love it. >> if you want to say, oh, it's so much more complicated, and, oh, what about harris and, oh -- no. none of that matters. that's a hangover of a conventional way of viewing american politics that was fine when bob dole and george mitchell were going at it. bob dole and george mitchell are not going at it today. this is a different time. >> right. >> totally agree. historian jon meacham, thank you so much for being on this morning. joining us now, delegate stacey plaskett who represents the u.s. virgin islands. she's also a member of the house intelligence committee. to that, it's food to have you on the show. i'm curious, trump's influence on leaders in congress, your

fellow members of congress, has already stymied legislation, foreign aid, and committees have been used to go after the biden family. to what do you say to this threat from within that trump creates within our politics? what can be done? >> thanks so much. so glad to be here with you guys this morning. we see it every day in washington. every day in committees. we are not doing the business that the american people have sent us there to do. we are not able to pass legislation that we'll normally pass, right? we're about to do a stopgap, potentially, a stopgap legislation to continue a continuing resolution for an entire rest of the year for defense spending, department of homeland security, labor, health and human services, as well as foreign aid. that is outrageous.

the fact the republican party cannot agree on defense spending, cannot agree on homeland security spending. why can't they agree on homeland security? the border bill that was negotiated by a conservative senate republican, as well as the democrats, has been told, don't pass that bill, by donald trump. because i need to use the border as a leverage point during election. therefore, nothing gets done. at the same time, committees that should be doing the work of the american people are engaged in years' long investigations of biden family with exculpatory evidence given by the individuals that they thought were going to be witnesses, or their star witness being indicted for lying about what he is doing. they still won't let it go. there is no work being done in

washington right now. >> the government could shut down on friday if a deal is not reached. you just mentioned it here, that republicans on the hill are taking their marching orders from donald trump. it's not just on the border skirt. it's also they're standing in opposition to funding aid to ukraine. trump suggested he doesn't want that to happen either. >> yes. >> how disturbed are you that these men and women in washington, they're taking their cues from someone who has been talking about a bloodbath if he doesn't win and is saluting a national anthem done by january 6th convicts who he deems hostages. >> well, the highest ranking republican in the house, elise stefanik, calls those individuals hostages, as well. there is an entire co-opting of the republican party. it is no longer functional. that's what republicans who think that they want to put donald trump back in need to understand. that is not what's going to happen. you think your 401(k)s and your

investments are going to do well if donald trump is in office? nothing the entire country will get but come to a screeching halt at the behest of one individual who is solely interested in his own power, his own finance, and that of members of his family. >> delegate plaskett, one of the things -- you're on intelligence. one of the things i think people are not aware of, as well, is that we have the situation now that is grave in haiti. >> yes. >> we have the situation in the sudan. we have the situation now in niger last night that wants to remove american presence. yet, china and russia is all over the african continent. we have a presidential candidate that has called haiti and those african countries a-hole

countries. give a picture, because kenya said they'd send 1,000 troops to haiti but the u.s. congress will not give the budget. >> sure. >> that kenya needs in order to do what he does. >> yeah. >> tell us how tenuous we are in these situations that could explode any moment. >> we are trying to -- members of congress, the democratic caucus are trying to do what america does, which is to be a leader. which is not just to support other countries but to support our own national security interests. that's what funding to ukraine does for us. with regard to haiti, we recognize that there is $40 million sitting, waiting to be approved by one individual who needs to sign off on that. that is the chair of the foreign affairs committee, mr. mccaul. he will not sign off on it so the kenyans can receive the funding they need to bring troops, to bring stability to haiti, so that they can then create that transitional

government that they're working on and ensure there are elections and quell the gangs. if that does not happen, what we will see is a resurgence of migrants coming to the border from haiti, which is exactly what the republicans want. to continue the narrative that they already have about the border being chaotic. much of that chaos, as we know now, is being driven by them. not willing to sit down. not willing to negotiate. not willing to do what's necessary to protect those other nations and individuals in their countries so that they are not coming to our own border. >> yeah. democratic delegate stacey plaskett of the u.s. virgin islands, thank you so much for being on this morning. and marc polymeropoulos, before you go, i want to circle back on israel. specifically, your thoughts on benjamin netanyahu, who seems to be refusing to face facts, at least, at the very least, on how

he's viewed globally. he seems to be defying the administration's advice about how and when to go into rafah. your thoughts? >> right, mika. so i think a couple things can be said. first is, there's almost universal opinion, you know, certainly within the democratic party, that prime minister netanyahu is not someone who we enjoy dealing with or who is good for israel. i think, you know, i share that, as well. one of the things i think we should be careful of, though, as we see this kind of rift between not only the biden administration but now chuck schumer and netanyahu, is that the israeli domestic political scene does matter. i mentioned this before to jonathan and to joe, certainly on the air here. you know, inside israel, there are some things that the u.s. is not in favor of, such as an incursion into rafah that the majority of the israeli public is in favor. same thing for the two-state solution. i've always been in favor of this. the administration is pushing it, but the israelis i talked to say they're not ready. i think it is worth mentioning

in this because it makes the administration's dealings with the bibi government even more problematic. last point, all eyes today are on doha. not gaza. the chief has arrived for further negotiations. this cease-fire is incredibly important. it'd take a lot of the nasty rhetoric back and forth, take it out of the equation between israel and the united states. it'd get aid into gaza, which is critical, and get israeli hostages home. let's hope the cease-fire negotiations finally work. the fact the mossad chief is there is a good thing. >> retired cia officer marc polymeropoulos, thank you very much. still ahead on "morning joe," donald trump wants one of his top republican critics, liz cheney, jailed. how the former congresswoman is responding to that. plus, we'll get new reporting about anger and anxiety on the rise within the biden campaign as we head closer to november. first, our next guest says

our culture has made parenting harder than it needs to be. best-selling author tim carney joins us to explain. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> look at the cherry blossoms. they're out. >> so pretty. >> i love it. look - i'm not a young guy. that's no secret. but here's the deal — i understand how to get things done for the american people.

i led the country through the covid crisis. today we have the strongest economy in the world. i passed a law that lowers prescription drug prices. caps insulin at $35 a month for seniors. for four years donald trump tried to pass an infrastructure law and he failed. i got it done. now we're rebuilding america. i passed the biggest law in history to combat climate change because our future depends on it. donald trump took away the freedom of women to choose. i'm determined to make roe v. wade the law of the land again. donald trump believes the job of the president is to take care of donald trump. i believe the job of the president is to fight for you, the american people. and that's what i'm doing. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. look, i'm very young, energetic, and handsome. what the hell am i doing this for? [laughs]

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welcome back. there is a new trend surrounding birthrates in western countries, including the united states. >> interestingly enough, now china having a real demographic collapse. >> according to data from the u.s. census bureau, u.s. population growth last year was half of the global average. america's so-called baby bust is a focus of a new book entitled

"family unfriendly," how our culture made raising kids much harder than it needs to be. joining us now, the author of the book, tim carney. a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute and a columnist at the washington examiner. >> thank you for being with us, tim. i'm excited about your book being released. we talked about alienated america, and i felt that was so important. looking at the big picture and looking at things like churches, synagogues, places of worship across america where the pews had emptied out and left, again, an alienated, isolated america. you now take it from these organizations, whether it's religious or non-religious, and you come into the family. you follow up on what many people have been writing about

now for the past 40, 50 years. but you really bring it in to a sharp focus. talk about some of the challenges that parenting is facing today. >> well, when you look at the fact we have an epidemic in childhood anxiety, and parents are more stressed. you mentioned the birthrates. all those are symptoms of the fact we have a culture that is family unfriendly. specifically, raising children is not supposed to be an individualistic undertaking. it always involves community support. but the way i put it in the book, we have let the logic of capitalism seep into our social arrangements. societal trust is low. we're not relational. we're transactional. you even see it in things like youth sports. the local little league coached by volunteers has given way to travel sports, which is intensive and expensive. all the helicopter parenting, the tutoring. it's almost like parenting is becoming a competitive thing,

and that's not good for anyone. >> you know, it's so funny you say that. i look back at my childhood, raised by my parents, and, by the way, i couldn't go anywhere in my town where i didn't see friends of my parents, little league coaches, my football coaches, my sunday schoolteachers. you go down the list. >> this is so good. >> when hillary clinton said it takes a village, everybody was like, socialist. i thought, well, that's kind of how my brother and sister and i survived. >> yeah. >> a teacher saying, "joey, what are you doing?" my sunday schoolteacher looking at me going, "really? really, boy, you're going to do that?" i mean, that's how we were raised. as a community. >> absolutely. it takes a village is a line that appears again and again in my book. because the human species is not meant to just be raised by two parents.

the family needs support. think about it. you need mentoring. you need older kids to be the babysitters. you need older parents to say, you know the one little milestone you're worrying about or the thing you're buying, the wiper warmer for their butts, that's unnecessary. skip that. these are the things that really matter. my wife and i, we have known that. we've done that. you overparent, and somebody says, you have to stop worrying about that. just let them go. let them ride the bikes until the streetlights turn on. all that requires societal support. you know, what i try to do in the book is not just sort of give tips to parents. my wife and i, we have six kids. i have some credibility on that. also to say, you need the social infrastructure to help. one example is smartphones. i think smartphones are really bad for kids, but i talk to so many people parents, interviewed them for this book, who said, "i didn't want to give my kid a smartphone, but snapchat or instagram messenger is the only way they communicate." i realized how much it takes a

societal support to keep smartphones away from eurokids. you need a school that says, don't bring them here. other parents saying, we're not going to give it to them. parents can't do the struggles alone. the anxiety is not just about individual parenting practice, economics. it's social support for families, and that's what's lacking. >> i've seen it, and it's so true, give your child social media the day you want his or her childhood to end. it is problematic. this argument, oh, i have to get my kid, you know, an iphone, the latest iphone so he or she can communicate, get them a flip phone. dials your number. have it on speed dial. it has little else. i want to talk about, because maybe people watching, you know, you've got, you know, two parents engaged. i was lucky enough to have two parents engaged. same with mika's and mika's kids and my kids.

we are a village. we're all together. >> mm-hmm. >> but i want to talk about the importance, and i've seen it as football coach, baseball coach, and i'm sure you've seen it, too. a kid comes on your team, and maybe he or she only has one parent, an absentee parent who may be abusive or something like that. i've seen how mentors, i've seen how football coaches, i've seen how sunday schoolteachers, how teachers in high school, through extraordinary love and effort and support, have filled, not perfectly, but filled that gap to tell that child in a broken home, "i believe in it. i'm behind you every step of the way. talk about that. and ohio important it is. >> yeah. and it has to be relationial, in other words, you can, in a lot of places you have the county government, the social services

will assign somebody who's a professional and will try to help this kid but so much of it has to be relational. so much of it is just imbedded in the community. going to be there. you talk about the coaches and mentors, et cetera. in fact, there's social science data in my book that points to exactly that. the ability of children to sort of rise up out of poverty. they can do itful they don't have a pair of mattered parents but there has to be a robust community around them. social paths, a bunch of other families they're tight-knit around them. that is the predictor of children rising out of poverty. it's not something you that can replace with a government program. it's not something you can replace that is explained with money and just keeping marriages together. some of the organizations that have helped structuringing marriages, they've been based on building community around families. that's exactly what people need, is to raise their kids, they

need support. and, yeah, just one more note on the social media. people say the medium is the message, i think that's exactly true. the message of social media is basically you are alone. you should compare yourself to these other people. maybe these other kids had a party that didn't invite you. it really is saddening to the kids and anxiety-making. >> tim, following up on your point. you know, i grew up in brooklyn, on welfare after my father left. but my mother but me in the church. i grew up with the church culture, feeling that those values and continuing that tradition was our responsibility. so, talk about that. how the fact that we now have a social media world you that identify yourself, wherever you want, rather than being grounded in certain things. can make the continuity of a family and the continuity of a tradition be in many ways avoided.

and i think that that's a danger, particularly to communities that are challenged economically and socially and educationally. >> that's exactly right. i use the image as sort of guarded. we can't determine what our kids become, we shouldn't try. but what we do when we build our culture, we cultivate a sort of garden for them to grow up in. social media introduces invasive weeds. and introduces a new way of looking at people. and just you see it visibly with kids staring at the phone, not involved. we need to inherit culture from our parents. that's one of the reasons i went and visited israel and other neighborhoods that have that sort of background. we inherited something, we got something from our ancestors and we're going to pass it down. the intergenerational community that you're talking about, al, that's what kids need. instead right now, they feel i

have to write my entire script on a blank page. they're being told, go ahead, do whatever you want. that's a great idea but unless it's in the concept, we have these neighbors, these friends, ideally, one day, i'll get married and have kids. all of those expectations are set by little platoons, little cultural institutions. telling your life is a blank piece of paper, go ahead and do it, that's not healthy for kids. >> the new book is titled "family unfriendly: how our culture made raising kids much harder than it needs to be." >> tim carney, thank you. now after five months after israel began its offensive against terrorists in gaza, the regional hospital systems are overwhelmed and lack critical resources. and some health officials fear the worst is yet to come. a diagnosis of doctors with decades of experience in war zones are in new york city today.

to meet with united nations about the crisis there. they will then travel to washington, for a meeting with the biden administration and senior members of congress. joining us now, two members of that delegation, critical care specialists, dr. zahir zalud. he's co-founder of the humanitarian organization focused on health. also with us, professor nick maynard. he's a leading oxford consultant surgeon. and he's just returned from a medical mission in gaza. i guess, professor, we'll start with you, with your reflections upon returning from your trip there to help deliver care. >> yes, thank you very much for asking me on. i've been in gaza for nearly 15 years. and in many ways have become very familiar with what i call normal gaza which, of course, is not normal by anyone else's standards. and working in the health care system there is challenging at

the best of times. since october 7th, the health care system has become extremely challenging to work in. and it's been systematically dismantled over the last few months. when i was there at al axa hospital, i saw things that i would never have expected to have seen in any health care setting. the most appalling injuries. the lack of resources. and i'm a surgeon, so i was operating most of the time on devastating, explosive injuries to the chest and abdomen. and we had to do that often with very little resources, very little instrumentation. often, there was no electricity, no water. so very, very challenging places to work. and it's getting worse by the day. >> so, doctor, tell us what your message will be today, during this meeting at the united nations, as well as when you head to washington? the situation seemingly has only

grown more dire. and now there's more concerns of widespread famine in the region, too. >> this is the worst humanitarian that the world is witnessing, i've been in ukraine, i've been in syria and yemen and other places. this is heartbreaking what is going on in gaza. when i was in gaza last month, i've seen the impact of the war on children, pregnant women, elderly people with special needs 1 out of 100 children in gaza has been killed. this is a huge number by any measurement. that's the difficult of 500,000 american children killed. 70,000 of them are injured have severe or minor injuries. there's famine, 1 out of 3 children in gaza have acute malnutrition. and the food insecurity is the highest level in half of the population. and there's the impact of the war, not only injured people, people who are injured every day

and many of them are children, patients with chronic diseases, with cancer, with hypertension, hard disease, and they are dying. and this is also a mortality rate of the war. so my message today to the united nations, of course, we will be get the insights and stories of the children and the people impacted by the war, but this is -- has to stop. this has to stop. the missiles. the shortage of food and clean water and fuel has to stop. otherwise, it's going to be catastrophic. there are some estimates that 250,000 people in gaza will die, with escalation of the current crisis. and this should not be tolerated. i think our administration can do more to stop the war. >> professor, there's reports from gaza this morning that the idf is going back into the al shifa hospital where it went, of course in gaza city earlier, saying that hamas fighters have regrouped in these hospitals. in all of the time that you've

been working hospitals in gaza, i just wonder if you can clarify this, in the time that you were there before, how much evidence did you see of hamas being inside hospitals and, therefore, making these hospitals targets for the military operation? >> zero evidence, is the short answer to that. i know shifa also extremely well. i've operated in their operating theaters there. i've been to every square inch of the hospitals. i've never been restricted any access at all. i've never seen any evidence of hamas militants in the hospital. i clearly can't comment on any tunnels in gaza city. but certainly, in the hospitals themselves, no evidence at all. and i've known people who have worked in shifa, particularly, for over a decade. people i would call very close friends. i've been talking to them and messages them almost daily since october 7th. and again, they say there has been no military presence at all

in the hospitals. and in al axa hospital, i spent two weeks there, again, spent my whole time in every single part of the hospital and no military presence at all. so, i've not seen any credible evidence put forward by the israeli defense force of hamas militant presence in these hospitals. and the evidence that has been put forward has been not remotely credible. >> doctor, let me ask you this, as you talked about the young people, the children being killed, and the malnutrition of others and famine, these are not children of hamas. these are children of just people, residents, in the gaza? i mean, because, again, the picture that many in the world need to understand, we're talking about independent of the politics or what's going on with hamas and israel, where children on both sides are being

innocently killed or starved? >> reverend, you're absolutely right. the amount of suffering i've seen in gaza, i have not seen any other place. these are children who are killed just because they are present somewhere. went i went to rafah, you see two things, the first time, when you get into rafah. tents. you have tents everywhere, because 85% of the population are displaced. and children everywhere. because half of the population are children. one of them, i actually brought a copy of this certificate. sometimes, we do not humanize these numbers. he was killed, he was 12 years old. i was in the hospital like chicago, and mass casualties, people came injured at the same time, seven of them dead on arrival. we had to put him on life support and then i took care of him in the intensive care unit. he had abdominal surgery, had brain injury, he died the in

connection day, he never woke up from surgery. we cannot communicate with his family because we were not able to communicate with them. this is one out of those 13,000 children that have been killed. there is 200 eulogies every day, 80 of them are for children. it's important to understand the impact of the war on innocent people. these people had nothing to do with the october 7th terrorist attack on israel. i think it's important for us to maintain the moral leadership in the world to stop the war. and also make sure there's more food and medicine for the people suffering. we can do that, i think president biden mentioned that in the speech there's suffering in gaza. but i think we can do more to reduce the suffering and make sure there's no more people dying unnecessarily. >> doctor and professor nick maynard, thank you both for coming on the show this morning. we really appreciate it. >> thank you.

>> thank you very much. and the third hour of "morning joe" continues right now. do you see the spirit from the hostages? and that's what they are, hostages, they've been treated terribly. and very unfairly. and you know that. and everybody knows that. and we're going to be working on as soon as the first day we get into office. we're going to save our country. we're going to work with the people to treat those unbelievable patriots. and they were unbelievable patriots and are. >> well, i think it's very unfortunate at the time that there are american hostages being held in gaza. that the president or any other leaders who would refer to the people who are moving our justice system as hostages. and it's just unacceptable. i was there on january 6. i have no doubt in my mind that

some people were caught up in the moment that entered the capitol. and they're certainly entitled to due process of law for any nonviolent activities that day. but the assaults on police officers, ultimately, an environment that claimed lives, is something that i think was tragic. that day. and i'll never diminish it. >> mike pence, once again, taking a stance against his former boss. he also refused to endorse trump for president. those comments from donald trump came during a stump speech for a nat candidate in ohio. but trump was more focused on his personal grievances giving more incendiary remarks. meanwhile, the former president has so far denied condemning vladimir putin for the death of alexei navalny. also ahead, we'll show you the

israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu's response after senate chuck schumer after the highest ranking jewish official in the u.s. called for new elections in israel. we're looking at news here and around the world. donald trump, the republican front-runner who basically clinched the nomination. basically said the first thing he'll do in office is free the -- i say this in quotes -- hostages, it's beyond twisted for him to use that word, not surprised, but as disturbed as we'll ever be. >> and what if you're an american family with hostages still being held. >> six. >> in tunnels underneath gaza. people who are actually hostages who are doing nothing but being at home, at a music festival, minding their own business when hamas terrorists seized them, beat them, raped them, took them underground. and donald trump comparing those

people in name to others that drove from across the country, came to the capitol, used their spray on police officers, beat the hell out of cops. beat the hell out of other people who got in their way, wanted to hang mike pence, were looking for nancy pelosi. destroyed a lot of offices. defecated in the united states capitol. and again, content endorsed and tried to hurt as many people as they could, jonathan lemire, you know, donald trump, i remember the day after donald trump and members of his family getting in trouble for calling these rioters patriots. and they backed off, some of them backed off. donald trump now just going straight -- wading straight in,

saying that these people were patriots. and others saying this wasn't a bloodbath. i would just suggest you that talk to the wives, sons and daughters of those police officers who lost their lives. as a result of january 6. and they will tell you that their loved ones lost their lives as a result of january 6. and donald trump continues to praise these people. and he says, he says, everybody knows that they're patriots. no, everybody doesn't. in fact, you have to be twisted and demented in your head if you can look at the rioting, if you can look at people beating the hell out of american cops out of police officers, with american flags. and trying to kill them and call them hostages. after they went through the court system.

that is a sickness and a twistedness. and to continue -- you have people continuing to try to apologize for this behavior starting with donald trump. trying to minimize what happened on january 6th. you know, for those who say, why are you talking about donald trump? we talk about donald trump because, yes, democracy is on the line. when donald trump says this is normal political behavior. rnc of course said it was normal political behavior. donald trump says it. and he says those people abusing police officers are patriots. and those that got sent to jail for trying to overrun the u.s. capitol and for beating the hell out of cops are hostages. nothing -- there's nothing normal about this. and for those weak-kneed wimps that say we should never mention donald trump's name and just turn our faces from this and

talk about something else, i would suggest, there are germans who tried that with hitler. didn't turn out well. >> uh-huh. >> just look at this footage. look at this footage. these are rioters with flag poles, with hockey sticks, with spears, trying to attack cops. we just saw footage there, a cop being crushed in a door. being tasered with her own weapons. being assaulted with their own guns. >> donald trump calls these people patriots. >> this by any definition is a bloodbath. there was a lot of debate this weekend about trump's use of "bloodbath" in an ohio rally. go back to how he started that rally in ohio. he played the national anthem, these convicts. these rioters here. donald trump said they were

hostages, were they to be elected, mind you, he also said on day one he'd be a dictator on day one. he's also saying on day one he will fry to free these hostages. but more than that, donald trump was a former commander in chief of this nation. and he saluted -- he held up his hand and saluted at his temple this version of the national anthem, the convict choir's version of the national anthem. and that image, even as much of his rhetoric shows you what he wants to bring to this nation again were he to take office. >> let's look at that moment, jonathan. again, people are so numbed by donald trump right now, we have ed de luceia that we're going to be bringing in. ed did what i think a lot of journalists should do, that is, instead of trying to figure out the totality of the chaos, ed said, let me just tell you what

happened over the past five days and just focus on that. and understand that if any candidate from any other convict did one of the multitude of things they did over five days they would forever be omitted from american discussion. that doesn't happen here. it doesn't happen here, so, yeah, and again pledging allegiance to the convict's choir of the national anthem. >> announcer: ladies and gentlemen please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated january 6th hostages. ♪ oh say can you see by the dawn's early light ♪♪ >> yeah. >> wow. >> i mean, it's again, these people -- these people, i guess, it's a cult, i don't know. maybe they're brainwashed into

it. but i'm sorry, i'm sorry, no apologies. no apologies. there are a lot of people, oh, i went to manhattan, driving to pennsylvania and try to understand a bit better these -- no, you don't have to really drive from the upper east side to scranton to figure out these are people that want an autocrat. these are people who don't like american democracy the way it is because they understand that they lose a fair fight. they don't want a fair fight. they don't want a fair political fight. they just -- they want to accept election results when they win. and they want to start a revolution when they lose. and they're still embracing it here. it is sick, mika. it's sick. you know, i swear to god, i swear to god, the press has got to wake up and start to -- let's try to understand who these people are -- it's pretty

obvious, they have the video. they see the cops that are getting the hell beaten out of them. and they're calling these people hostages. they're lying day in and day out. about what happened on january the 6th. they're lying and saying, oh, nobody tried to hurt mike pence. nobody tried to hurt nancy pelosi. and, yet, you talk to the security detail, they were calling home -- they were calling home to say good-bye to their loved ones like 9/11. because they thought they were going to get caught by donald trump supporters and killed. so, please, i mean, trying to understand this, seriously, is like trying to understand a poisonous snake that is about to bite you. and it's american democracy that's at risk over the next six months. and i swear to god the fact that this race is even close speaks volumes about what donald trump has done to this country. >> with us today, u.s. special

correspondent for bbc news katty kay, and as joe mentioned the u.s. editor at financial times, ed luce is with us. and navy admiral james stavridis, he is chief international analyst for nbc news. good to have you all this morning. >> we're going to get to that rally in a man. i want to start with you, admiral, a man who has protected and taken young men and women across the world defending america, the constitution, our national interests. your thoughts on the opening moments of this rally. the opening moments of donald trump talking about how these people that use the american flag, that brave men and women like you have taken into battle over the past 230, 240 years. that that american flag that was

used to bludgeon cops, i'm curious, your thoughts on what you've heard. >> you know, joe, i spent a fair amount of time in uniform trying to rescue hostages, particularly when i was commander, for example, of u.s. southern command, we had hostages being held by terrorists in colombia. when i was commander of the nato mission in afghanistan, we had handfuls of hostages who were held. those truly are hostages. point being, i know what a hostage is. and that prison choir is not a bunch of hostages. point two, i think i know what a patriot is. a patriot is someone who swears to defend the constitution of the united states. that's the oath that every volunteer in the armed forces takes. it is not an oath to the commander in chief. it's an oath to the

constitution. those are patriots. so, yeah, i know hostages. not a prison choir. i know patriots, i served alongside millions of them. and i'll close with this, the correct term for the prison choir ore convicted felons. >> yeah. >> bottom line. you know, following the saluting of the january 6 choir, for the next hour and a half, trump spoke very little about the republican candidate he was there in support of. instead, he aired a long list of grievances and painted a bleak picture of america's picture that included this warning which came while he was discussing chinese made cars being imported to the u.s. from mexico. >> we're going to put a 100% tariff on every single car that comes across the line and you're not going to be able to sell those. if i get elected -- now, if i don't get elected, it's going to

be a bloodbath -- that's going to be the least of it, it's going to be a bloodbath for the country. that will be the least of it. >> uh-huh. shortly after the speech, the trump campaign tried to clean up those comments insisting in a statement to nz, the former president was only talking about a bloodbath for the auto industry and autoworkers before given yets triggered and shocked because this is a shock opera that we have to, unfortunately, endure, because we're constantly shocked by what he says. but don't let that shock, don't let that trauma, let you forget what you're hearing and believe him. >> well, jonathan lemire, back to you, because your reporting on this -- you know, it was a distinction without a difference. he was talking of the auto industry, then he pivots. he goes, it's going to be a bloodbath. okay. if i don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath. maybe you can connect that to

the auto industry, maybe you can, maybe you can't. okay. but again, i never really heard people discuss macro economics in terms of bloodbaths. but maybe so but let's just say for our human sake. but then he says, that's going to be the least of it. that's going to be the least of it. if you think there's going to be a bloodbath in the auto industry, even if you take that argument at face value which, again, given the tone of the rest of the speech, bloodbath, i'm not so sure he was talking about the niceties of international trade. if you just take that argument as is, then he goes on to say, that's going to be the least of it. and repeats it. going to be the least of it is clear what he meant. >> and one of trump's sort of rhetorical gifts he speaks vaguely enough and circuitously

enough that people can read in the meanings. heal allows himself wiggle room in and out. we saw this with a firestorm of the bloodbath comments. rightly, it was the headline that came out of that rally in ohio. it was reported all over the place. immediately you saw, we showed the statement already, the trump campaign within minutes because they recognized -- >> they knew he had screwed. you. >> and they do have professionals on their team and they immediately knew there was a problem and tried to clarify it. what happened there was a snowball effect, on social media and prominent voices in right wing pushed back against. saying the meeting was taken out of content, we were biased against trump, et cetera, et cetera. as you said, joe, yes, the comments came shortly after he was talking about the automotive industry. again that will be least of it -- that's the tell. it's also that violent language that was peppered throughout his

speech, a speech that began, mind you, with the former commander in chief saluting the version of the national anthem being performed by january 6 convicts. >> with that end, ed luce, one should believe him, the violence of january 6 is something that he talks about in a wistful way. he wants to help these people, these people who have committed crimes. and we look at global threats around the world, and it seems that the threat of violence within -- i'm reading a lot lately about people concerned about more violence here in the u.s., promulgated by donald trump. and when he does that you can see that he's serious about it. >> yeah, look. i don't really need much context to understand what he's saying. i understand that people have been going over and over his words. it's very clear what the use the word "bloodbath" and that subclause where he says, oh, by

the way, if i don't get elected means. as joe said, auto analysts don't usually use terms like bloodbath when it comes to downturns in the auto industry. it's very clear what he's saying. and the context is, it moves people like elon musk who will apparently thinks this was an auto commentary. but is absolutely playing to anybody listening to that. and you only need to listen to it once. and you don't need a language expert to know what he's saying. and he's not just saying i'll pardon the hostages, as he calls them, the criminals who put away for january 6. he's signaling the future such exacts have a green light from him. so, this isn't just a commentary on the past, on january 6 convicts. this is an enabling statement about people who are going to help him this coming election.

so, the bloodbath comment i think is absolutely unequivocal. there's no need to parse this. >> yeah, you're right. go ahead, joe. >> i'm sorry, katy, go ahead. >> he also puts this, in the context, trump, that this will happen to the country more broadly. i went back this weekend, looking at the work of rachel kleinfeld who has written about what happens when democracies descend into violence and abandon the rule of law. she says that two things need to happen. one is the normalization of political violence which we hear from donald trump again and again and his supporters, and the dehumanization of his opponents and people that he sees as others. we heard this over the weekend where he called some immigrants coming into the country not even human. those according to kleinfeld are the two conditions that you need for democracies to lose their democracy and become countries that are prone to political violence and have political

violence. it's exactly the pattern that you're seeing here. it's what we've seen all the way through january 6. and that bloodbath comment doesn't come in that context, it comes in the sense of images of january 6th. you only need to play that to see the images coming into america. after the polls showing after january 6, a majority of americans, even trump supporters, thought what happened is a disgrace. over the course of two years people have forgotten it and they've normalized. and now the majority of maga supporters feel that's okay what happened on january 6. the ultimate conclusion of that is donald trump standing up and saluting those convicted of seditious conspiracy that day and saluting them as hostages. i think it feeds into the

fragility of america's democracy. america's democracy has been downgraded because of january 6 and the political violence and normalization of violent language that we're hearing at the moment. >> and, of course, people will say when you bring up january 6, oh, americans have grown numb to it. >> yeah. >> you've grown numb to that? you've grown numb to the guy running for president now and praising rioters and calling rioters patriots, to use american flags to bludgeon the hell out of cops? you think that's okay? you've grown numb to that? you think we should move on from that? no, because he hasn't moved on from it. he starts his rallies pledging allegiance to these rioters. these cop killers. and, again, you talk to the families of the police officers

who died after 9/11, and they will tell you, that's exactly what they are. they'll tell you that. and katy is exactly right about what he said about immigrants and, of course, he was talking about immigrants that commit crimes. and called them subhumans. >> yeah. >> not even humans. and trump will say, well, talking about immigrants. yeah, you don't hear him going around talking about white people that way. >> no. >> whether they committed crimes or not. so, again, it's very selective, it's ringing a bell, doing what hitler did. yeah, i'll use the word and i'll say the name. that is to take a group of people and turn them into nonhumans. that's what he's doing. >> as for january 6, the cops who died there are also a lot of causes and people who were there still living with very serious injuries of that day.

the trauma of that day, their lives have been changed irreparably, in some ways destroyed. coming up nbc's keir simmons is in russia this morning. he'll have the very latest on vladimir putin's first public comments about the death of alexei navalny. "morning joe" is back in a moment. power e*trade's easy to-use tools make complex trading less complicated. custom scans help you find new trading opportunities, while an earnings tool helps you plan your trades and stay on top of the market. e*trade from morgan stanley.

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administration officials indicated they have not seen plans for an operation in rafah that prime minister netanyahu approved. so far, administration officials have been advising the israeli government to forego a large operation in rafah. and instead, consider smaller, more targeted counterterrorism missions. that comes as israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu responded to senate majority leader chuck schumer's comments last week in which he called for an election in israel. and called netanyahu a major obstacle to peace. here's what netanyahu said in an interview yesterday with cnn. >> i think what he said is totally inappropriate. it's inappropriate for -- to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. that's something that the israeli public does on its own. we're not a banana republic. the majority of israelis support the policies that we're leading, go to raf fashion destroy the

remaining hamas terrorist battalions. make sure that we don't put into gaza, instead of hamas, the palestinian authority that educates their children towards terrorism and the annihilation of israel. the majority of israel support the majority of my government. not a fringe government. it represents the policy supported by the majority of the people. if senator schumer opposes these policies, he's not opposing me. he's opposing the government of israel. >> president putin is trying to distance himself. he called what schumer said was a good speech. shared the concerns of many americans. they aren't criticizing israel. they're criticizing you an your right wing coalition. >> dana, there's a fallacy being perpetrated here. you should take polls, you have your own polls, and check whether the people of israel support the policies that i am

being criticized for. and to present something as something that is an out lier, doesn't represent the majority of the people of israel. >> there are other polls in israel. three major israeli television stations that says what israelis also support are early elections. that's what i really want to focus on here is senator schumer not just calling from the top of the government, but specifically says when the war winds down, will you commit to calling new elections? that's my question, will you? >> dana, two-thirds -- first of all what you said is wrong. the majority majority of israeli oppose early elections in the war doesn't end. we just had many polls on that. look, a lot of polls -- >> channel 12 says 64% of israelis support the -- >> all polls show -- that's not. no, i'm afraid.

asked them the question do you support them during the war, they said no. >> that's not what schumer is talking about, he's calling for new elections when the war winds down. >> well, we'll see when we win the war -- >> will you commit to new elections when the war winds down? >> it's everything that we hold dear together. >> will you commit to new elections -- >> i think that's something for the israeli public to decide. it's not something -- look, that's something for the israeli people to decide. i think it's ridiculous to talk about it. >> well -- >> actually, it doesn't seem ridiculous at all. >> to stay out of jail, you think it's ridiculous to talk about it, because you don't want people trying to figure out why it took you seven, eight, ten, 12 hours to rescue people that were being raped, beaten, killed. to act. you don't want early elections or any discussion of it because

you don't want to have to face the music. not only to your alleged crimes but also to the fact that you had -- your government had hamas terrorist plans for a year and did nothing about it. your government was warned the day before, the morning of, of what was coming. and you did nothing about it. you knew how hamas was being funded with illicit funds since january 18th, and you and donald trump did nothing about it. you knew that hamas was asking your government -- not hamas, i'm sorry, qatar, was asking your government weeks before the october 7th terror attacks whether hamas should continue to be funded by qatar. and you said yes. you keep thinking that you can

drag the war out indefinitely. and you're not going to have to face any -- then you lie when faced with a poll. and you say, oh, that's not what the people want. you just run over it. so, yeah, i mean, it's -- this idea, this idea that a thrice-indicted prime minister who tore the country to pieces, declaring war against the rule of law, and the worst prime minister in israel's history. the worst prime minister since 1948. if you look what he did to actually make hamas' attacks possible with the green light for the funding from qatar, the green light in not going after hamas' illicit funds, you look at all of that this is a guy -- of course, he doesn't want to face the voters because he knows

he'll be routed because he's extraordinary unpopular. admiral stavridis, the question to you, the united states finds itself in a very difficult situation wanting to support israel but not wanting to support bb netanyahu's desperate attempt to stay in power at any cost because he knows once he's out of power there's a chance he goes to jail. >> i for one found senator schumer's comments incredibly appropriate. yeah, we're not voters in israel, but we're friends of israel and friends give friends advice when we see friends headed in a bad direction. and particularly because our weapons systems are being employed here, it's entirely appropriate. in my view, for senator schumer who is kind of uniquely

positioned to do it, if will you, as the senior person of jewish faith in the government of the united states. so, as i look at it, to kind of pick up the points you hit a moment ago, if the netanyahu government continues on its current course, four things are going to happen, none of them good. let's do it from inside out. inside israel, there's going to be more turbulence, more anger. look at january 6 type of events. number two, you're creating another generation of terrorist s by what is amounting to a great deal of indiscriminate killing in gaza. now, those numbers over 30,000. pretty incredible, half of them under the age of 18. number three, you're damaging a relationship with the united states. and that's prima facie i went

toss legal as a lieutenant grade 1979. and it's time to criticize friends when necessary. finally the information here, the narrative. israel is being shredded internationally as this is being repackaged by russia, china, tehran pyongyang, caracas. it does damage to israel and therefore damage globally. and i would say if we look at what's happening, as friends of israel, we need to tell them what to do next. and it not going heavy in a massive ground campaign in rafah. coming up, how biden leads, we'll dig into the third

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vladimir putin will remain in power in at least 2030, this is after the russian president overwhelmingly won a fifth term in the country's election over the weekend. putin's victory comes just weeks after the death of russian opposition leader alexei navalny in a remote arctic prison. nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons joins us live from moscow. keir, you spoke with putin earlier. what did you hear from him? >> reporter: that's right, mika. at a late night news conference

after his election last night, he was posed a question from nbc news, president putin described the death of alexei navalny as an unfortunate incident. there's also, according to russian officials, that this election with president putin has been elected with 87% of the votes after a turnout of 77%. those are historic numbers. and they're going to be questioned by many russia watchers and critics from around the world. after a weekend of protests where we saw arsenal attacks on polling stations, and bombs dropped into ballot boxes and even drone attacks rained on ukrainians. the election still went ahead. despite the fact that opposition politicians who are against the war in ukraine were not allowed to stand. nbc news is the first international news organization to question president putin after those election results.

take a listen. >> mr. president, journalist evan gore awitch spent this election in prison. boris who opposes your war in ukraine wasn't allowed to stand against you. and alexei navalny died in one of your prisons during your campaign. mr. president, is this what you call democracy?

>> reporter: and after that news conference in which president putin did make news in that answer by apparently confirming reports that he had agreed to -- some kind of a deal where alexei navalny would be released from prison, while not explaining how

just days later according to his account, alexei navalny ended up dead. alexei navalny's wife yesterday took part in protests in berlin, and after that news conference i got to the kremlin spokesman dmitry peskov to ask him about the call not to recognize the election. take a listen. what do you say to leaders around the world who won't believe this election, who won't believe the results that you're announcing tonight? >> well, around 87% after 24 years it's extremely -- >> reporter: if 87% is actually correct. >> 87% is right.

it would be extremely plausible that the election system is quite secure in our country. and there was a chance for -- we had intentions -- to be observed but for state organizations that are unwelcome here. because we don't want anyone to -- to interfere with internal affairs, so -- but, again, there's unbelievable level of support in the operation. this is the best sign, all speculations about illegal elections is actually ungrounded. >> reporter: as i mentioned, i did ask him about yulia navalnaya's call for leaders not to recognize the election. he suggested that her voice didn't count because she wasn't in russia. but we are hearing this morning,

kind of a split screen, if you like, the countries that you'd expect congratulating president putin, north korea, china, iran, venezuela. and the western democracies talking about this is not free and fair, including the biden administration and leaders in western european countries. coming up, more on this important topic. we'll hear from a ukrainian-born actress who is urging everyone not to lose sight on what's happening in her homeland. she joins us at the 3050 summit. we'll bring you that important conversation just ahead on "morning joe."

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♪♪ two years ago at the know your value 30/50 summit, actress

and advocate ivana sakhno joined me and huma abdein, where we spoke about her continued activism and reiterated the importance of staying vigilant in the fight against authoritarianism around the world. take a listen. >> walk us through what those early days were like and what you're doing now as you continue to use your voice and your platform to advocate for the people in your country? >> i think individually and collectively we all gathered to just do everything within our power to help our motherland. the people in ukraine are my heros, and we are trying to do our best. since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, since we last spoke, i became an

ambassador for the official fundraising platform of ukraine launched by president zelenskyy. we're focused on rebuilding schools and bringing childhood back to children. >> some people would say that ukrainians are the heros of the world, fighting for the safety of the world. there is some disagreement about that going on in american politics. can you fill in the blanks for those who think perhaps support isn't necessary for ukraine, that maybe americans should worry about america? >> the war in ukraine is not just a headline. it's a human tragedy that continues to unfold every day. i'll be honest, i'm witnessing the world and the united states become naturally, sadly more desensitized. i wish for people in power and

everybody who listens to remember that the decline of oppressive empires throughout history underscores the power of collective efforts towards freedom. overcoming authoritarianism is a shared endeavor. >> the feeling amongst many young people that we should increasingly focus our efforts at home, that the support for conflicts that are outside our boundaries. what do you say to your peers of the same generation when you hear those comments and thoughts? >> sadly, history learned from the previous mistakes of humanity so we don't repeat those mistakes again. >> is history repeating itself right now? and if you agree with that, can

you specifically tell us how? >> sad lysadly, it's evident th history is repeating itself. >> not so evident to some people. that's why i'm asking you to explain, because i hear you. you don't need to say it to me. i'm the daughter of an eastern european refugee in world war ii. can you explain why we may be in the middle of history repeating itself? >> those who hold power, their greed and desire for control is more valuable to them than the safety and well-being of our children. we don't have to look far in order to see that. >> what does justice look like

to you? it's hard to imagine when the end of this conflict might take place. what do you hope for the people of your country? >> justice to us is us having our territories back. justice to me is being able to see my grandmother, who i haven't been able to see for more than ten years, talking to her on the phone and hearing russian planes taking flight to drop bombs on the children of my country. justice to me is having the freedom in ukrainian. it's their land. they have had a long history of being oppressed, by stalin, by putin. >> we will continue to bring you more inspiring conversations from our 30/50 summit right here on "morning joe" in the days to come. you can get full coverage at know your value.com and

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if this election isn't won, i'm not sure you'll ever have another election in this country. does that make sense? i don't think you're going to have another election in this country if we don't win this election. i don't think you're going to have another election or certainly not an election that's meaningful. >> more dark rhetoric from donald trump during a rally over the weekend in ohio. we'll have his incendiary remarks straight ahead. welcome to "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9 a.m. in the east. first, the latest out of the

middle east, where israel's military is conducting an early-morning raid on the al shifa hospital in northern gaza. raf sanchez is with us. what's the latest? >> reporter: mika, this morning the al shifa hospital, the largest medical facility in the gaza strip is once again a battlefield. israeli forces are saying they tracked down and killed a senior hamas operative who was hiding out inside of that hospital. palestinian health officials are saying this is another example of israel targeting a medical facility, which is a potential war crime. they say there are multiple casualties reported at that hospital. there are thousands of palestinian civilians sheltering on the hospital grounds. they were hoping for food over

the weekend. the first aid ship reached the coast of gaza ladened the food from world central kitchen, that charity run by chef jose andres. the food hasn't been distributed. it's unclear what the holdup is. humanitarian organizations are saying these deliveries by sea is a start, but you need more food coming in by land and you need to create security conditions on the ground to make sure that food can be safely distributed, and all of this bringing new urgency to cease-fire talks under way right now in qatar. a senior israeli official says it's being led by mossad. the framework is one that we're now familiar with, a potential

six-week cease-fire that would lead to the release of around 40 hostages and several hundred palestinian prisoners. this israeli official says they are not optimistic about a breakthrough. >> oh boy. raf, you're following prime minister netanyahu's response to chuck schumer's calls for new elections in israel. how is he reacting? >> reporter: yeah. this speech from chuck schumer, the most senior jewish official in the u.s. government really landing like a bomb here in israel. prime minister benjamin netanyahu is clearly furious about this, saying it's totally inappropriate. he's saying israel is not a banana republic, that it cannot be pushed around by the u.s. president biden listened to chuck schumer's speech, and he thought it was a good speech. he's not distancing himself from the senator's comments about

israel. the prime minister also saying he will push ahead with plans to attack the city of rafah in southern gaza. he says that is necessary to destroy hamas. the white house has said consistently any attack on rafah could be a disaster without a credible plan to get the more than a million palestinians sheltering in the city out of harm's way. >> raf sanchez live from tel aviv, thank you very much. donald trump sparked controversy once again at a campaign rally over the weekend, saying there will be a, quote, bloodbath if he isn't reelected. garrett haake reports. >> reporter: trump on the attack this weekend in ohio, lashing out at some of his favorite targets from the criminal cases against him. >> it's all politicked. it's all from biden. >> reporter: to what he claims are the criminal migrants crossing the southern border and destroying the country.

>> they're not people, in m opinion. these are animals, okay? >> reporter: it was the use of bloodbath that are creating new headaches for the campaign. >> we're going to put 100% tariff on those new cars that come across. if i don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the country. that'll be the least of it. >> reporter: the biden campaign seizing on the remark and rejecting the trump campaign's claim that it was about only cars. >> the idea that they're going to be able to spin their way out of this is ridiculous. every single day donald trump is promoting political violence on the stump. >> reporter: republicans shrugging off the comment,

including mike pence, who has said he will not endorse trump. >> i see him departing from the mainstream conservative agenda that has defined the republican party for the last 40 years. >> reporter: the biden campaign flush with $53 million in donations. the president attended washington's gridiron dinner. the 81-year-old cracked a joke that his 10 p.m. speech came, quote, six hours past my bedtime. >> joining us now author and nbc news presidential historian michael besh love. before he get to trump's clear

warnings about what the future will look like if he's elected, how is biden handling the age question? >> i think he's handling this perfectly and not only making fun of it. of course, the gridiron dinner is notorious for speakers making fun of their own party, making fun of themselves and biden. i wasn't at the dinner, but from all reports he did an incredible job. he's also marrying poking fun at himself with experience. he's leaning into the fact that with age and experience equals getting things done. he started talking about the four economic bills passed, putting the first black woman on the supreme court, some of the student loan forgiveness he was able to do.

the chips and science act and the infrastructure bill was bipartisan, but a lot of the work he's done is behind the scenes. he's using the fact that he is older to talk about the experience that he has and the ability to get things done for the american people. really at the end of the day, that's what people want. they want someone in office to serve as president who will get things done for them, and he's done that. >> michael beschloss, i want to talk about donald trump increasingly sounding like a fascist, a dictator, mimicking them and using words that are clearly out of the pages of some of the most powerful autocrats or dictators of our time. >> absolutely. >> i guess the fear is that for some americans who may not be informed about history, there's

that vulnerability that trump preys upon. and then there are those who are making the choice. i need to understand that. is there any precedent, or is this how fascism works? are they sucked in and brought in on different terms, whether trump has something on some republican leaders or others are just so uninformed, they don't care? is it a mixture? how does it work? is there a precedent? >> well, i totally agree with what you've just said, mika. that's how fascism and totalitarianism and in germany's case, the holocaust came to germany, which had been a country with big institutions of democracy until the early 1930s. in a way, donald trump has done us all a favor. if we were talking 20 years ago and talking about what would have seemed like an abstract

subject of how fascism and dictatorship might come to america, you probably would have been more wiser. i would have said you would have had some smiling person pretending to be a normal candidate like all the candidates for president going back to 1789. and suddenly, after getting elected, that person would use the enormous powers of the presidency given to that person by the constitution. in a way donald trump has made out easier. when he tells you he'll be dictator for a day, we all know dictators don't resign after a day. when he used the term bloodbath, yes, it was in the context of an automobile speech, but he knew what he was saying. when he talks about migrants as animals, this is him telling you what his choice is. you were asking is there any precedent for this? no. i hate it when people treat this as if it's just one more

presidential campaign with lots of jokes, you know, both sides flawed. yes, these are two old candidates. one of them is mentally stable, joe biden, whom i saw give a great speech at the gridiron dinner or saturday night. donald trump is not someone who seems to have all his marbles. all i'm saying is, as we talk about this campaign, as it unfolds, we have never seen anything remotely like this in american history. a major party candidate is saying you elect me, there's going to be dictatorship, bloodbath, violence, retribution against my political enemies that equals what we've seen in germany and italy and other places. if americans choose this voluntarily, then this country has changed in a way i do not

understand. >> well, he definitely has his followers and they are unchangeable. the part that's difficult to understand is the growing number of those in congress who will hold up legislation for this man, who will let him interrupt our process, whether by inciting an insurrection or by telling them not to pass legislation so he can do it later and look good. they do that for him. they bow down. they completely humiliate themselves for donald trump to the destruction of positive change for this country and bipartisan legislation. adrianne, i guess my question for you is, it's going to be a challenge for the biden campaign to keep it fresh, if i can say it that way, because this firehose of shocks and falsehoods and horrible things that come out of donald trump's mouth, i mean, most people who

believe in democracy agree he is a horrendous human being who should not be handed back the reins of power, not ever, not in a million years. at the same time, he has this hold, and the hold is seeping into leadership in congress. it's seeping into the bench, if you look at the republican response to the state of the union, that was a mini trump. her behavior after, trumpy, laughing about a lie, laughing about trafficking and her lie about it. there are many like her, people who grew up in this country, who pledged allegiance to the flag, who chose to serve, and seemed normal until they seemingly were poisoned by this man. i don't know any other way to describe it. michael beschloss can't either. he's a lot smarter than me, although we both went to williams. my question is, how does the

campaign plan to make sure that americans aren't numbed to the stakes every day until we get to election day in november? >> i don't want to act like this is a simple thing, but this is a relatively simple thing. use donald trump's own words. when you're giving speeches out on the campaign trail, whether it's president biden, vice president harris, use his own words, reiterate his own words. he's delivering exactly what he's going to do if reelected. he's going to govern like an authoritarian leader. he admires dictators. he's made it clear there will be a bloodbath should he not be reelected. take him at his word and literally say repeat, repeat, repeat on the campaign trail, repeat his own words so the

american people can understand what donald trump said he's going to do. sometimes what he says lives in a silo, because his rallies are not always covered live. oftentimes he's covered more in the right-wing media and not necessarily the mainstream media. make it clear to the american people every person know what he is saying. i think president biden and vice president harris have done a very effective job using his own words to campaign, to use his words to push back. you've got to make sure you are taking what he is saying to the voters en mass so they understand including those independent swing voters, they understand what is at stake should donald trump win back the presidency. >> trump just a few moments ago on truth social again repeated his explanation that bloodbath was simply a reference to the

auto industry. he also said that will be the least of it. it's very clear what he was talking about. i'll read you this line from president biden. this is a white tie, very formal, no-cameras-allowed event. he said two parties clenched their party's nominee for president. one is too old and mentally unfit to be president. the other is me. that's the argument that the biden white house are taking. they're acknowledging, yeah, the president's pretty old, they know that. they're saying he has the stability to do this job. they're suggesting that donald trump not only doesn't have the mental fitness, but he's dangerous. >> they are. there's only one issue this year. it's overwhelming. if we came back, let's say, 100 years from now and looked on

what happened that was the most important thing in america in the year 2024, however this election turns out, it will be americans were given the voluntary choice to become pawns in a dictatorship under a presidency of unimaginable brutality and violence and all sorts of things that are as un-american as anything we can imagine or whether they voted against that. anything about horse race or age or trump is more entertaining on the stump, that's wonderful. what i would suggest is let's go back to the late 1920s in germany. the nazis and hitler came to power under a legal system. they did not seize power overnight illegally. they were able to get elected. one reason that happened was that people didn't realize if you're voting for hitler, this could end in the holocaust and a

defeat in world war ii. >> yep, 100%. author and nbc news presidential historian, michael beschloss, thank you very much for being on this morning. joining us now, white house reporter from the "washington post," tyler pager and nbc news's carol lee. we'll start with your newest piece, skbietd entitle -- >> the president being frustrated he is not getting the credit he feels he deserves for the things he's accomplished in office, for his poll numbers being below former president trump's, that has been going on for a long time. we first reported about that two years ago. the difference now is they are less than eight months away from an election in which the

president feels he is the only thing standing between the country as we know it as opposed to becoming a country that we don't recognize under former president trump if he comes back into office. the pressure is really high. this is a very different kind of moment. there's a limited and shrinking amount of time for the president and his team to turn this around. what we're told in our reporting is that the president is really pressing his team colorfully at times to figure out a way to turn this around. part of his argument is, look, i've done it your way. don't go after donald trump too early, govern, be presidential. it's not working. so from the president's perspective, he's going to try it more his way now. that is, be out among people more. he's pressing very specifically for information about how his specific accomplishments are being translated into different

consistencies and different states. part of his argument is get rid of this lofty rhetoric. i want to speak more plainly. now, the pressure is onto see whether or not this is ultimately going to work. as one person close to the president told us, there is this feeling from the president that he's been overmanaged, that he's felt cocooned at times. in some instances, he's kicking himself for taking advice that his instincts thought he shouldn't be taking, that he should have gone in a different direction. the question is, is this going to work, and at what point do they start to see these numbers turn around and the president feel like he is landing with voters, because he's currently not. >> the white house, as you know, feels good about how the state of the union went. it then kicked off a blitz of campaign travel, including the president heading out west this week.

one thing that helps when you're trying to sort of not reset a campaign but find new footing is when you have an overwhelming financial advantage, which the biden team does. they're going to have a massive lead in terms of cash on hand from republicans. how do campaign officials hope to exploit that advantage? >> a couple things. you're absolutely right. the one very long, if you look at everything president biden has, is money. he's got a lot of it. it's continuing to come in. what his team expects is that's going to become even more so once they start really highlighting former president trump, what he's saying, what he would do if given a second term. they think that's very motivating for donors and that the money will continue to flow in. the question is where do they spend it? they say they're going to spend it more putting infrastructure into states. there's been criticism that the president's campaign has been slow to build out infrastructure in key battleground states.

they're spending money on ads. there was a bunch of ads early on. it was to try to tell the american people what the president has accomplished in office, what the benefits are for voters in those accomplishments. now, it's more let's highlight former president trump and what he would do and lean into the more negative aspect of his campaign, the democracy question. you're going to see the president continue to raise a lot of money and spend a lot more money than we've seen a campaign do so far. >> nbc's carol lee, thank you so much. let's turn now to tyler pager, who's also reporting on president biden and how he pulls together his speeches. tell us about it. >> thanks for having me, mika. thts part three of a series published over the weekend. it looks at how biden

communicates with the american people and takes readers into the speech writing process. he goes over every piece of a speech, changing words, trying to make sure that he feels the message he is trying to convey will connect with american people and not just people inside washington, but often referencing people from his hometown in scranton, pennsylvania. i reported on that story right before he gave his speech at the 2020 democratic national convention. he pulled a security guard into his speech prep and read him part of the passage and tried to ensure that man would understand what he was trying to say as sort of a test for the broader american audience he was about to speak to. one thing the article looks at is this tension between biden's age and himself over the practicing of a speech. he spends a lot of time preparing the exact words, but

less time on the delivery aspect of it. i spoke with ron klain, his former chief of staff, who told me he would often say, mr. president, the speech is good, we should practice it. the president would say, i'm just not happy with the text yet, ron. i want to work on it a little bit more. obviously for the state of the union and the like, he does rehearse. i think there's increasing concern within the president's inner circle that he should spend more time practicing the speeches. that's because often times it exacerbates concerns about his age. we were talking about how the campaign is trying to assuage voters' concerns about his age. >> "washington post's" tyler pager, thank you. coming up janis mackey frayer joins us live from bay

beijing and the growing conflict in the indo-pacific. plus, we'll dive into why federal authorities are investigating meta for its role in the elicit sale of drugs. also ahead, vladimir putin scores another landslide election win and is now set to rule for six more years. we'll discuss what that means for russia and the world. "morning joe" will be right back. the world "morning joe" will be right back

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half past the hour. welcome back. the united states and japan are taking part in joint military exercises in the pacific known as the iron fist.

the drills have taken place every year since 2006 and were moved from california to japan last year as the biden administration looks for help with countering china in the region. joining us live from beijing, nbc news foreign correspondent janis mackey frayer, who just spoke with the u.s. ambassador to tokyo on the sidelines of those military drills. what did rahm emanuel tell you? >> reporter: i spoke with the u.s. ambassador, rahm emanuel mainly about jab scaling up its defense posture given the threats of russia, of north korea, of the deepening relationship between those two and, of course, china. it's no secret the ambassador has criticism of china that he has shared widely on social media. but like the u.s., japan also sees china as its greatest strategic competitor.

so it's looking to double its defense spending to 2% of gdp. a country that for decades has held to this constitution is going to soon largely have the third largest defense budget in the world, doing deals with the u.s. for jets and cruise missiles. there's also the expanded joint training. i went and saw part of the iron fist exercises around okinawa. japan is placing missiles on the island chain around okinawa and also building a new military base that us air craft will eventually use. here's a bit of what rahm emanuel had to say about china fuelling friction in the region. what is it that china is doing that is creating potential for

conflict? >> they're in conflict with everybody. they have a land problem with india. they have a challenge with the philippines. they're chasing american planes, australia planes, canadian planes. they're constantly violating japan. china is not going to win the award for the good neighbor politician. there is no country in the region they're not in some kind of kinetic problem with. i think the world has woken up to the fact that an untethered china is a destabilizing china. >> reporter: you'll recall that president trump was actually wanting u.s. allies in the region, japan and south korea, to pay more for security

arrangements with the u.s. with that in mind, i asked ambassador emanuel if japan had signalled to him whether they have concerns about the potential outcome of the election later this year. is there concern on the japanese side of the possibility of a change in administration after the election in november? >> you win an award for diplomatic questions. >> thank you. >> 40 years the united states tried bringing korea and japan together. it one of the things that china strategically bet would never happen. today there's a bipartisan consensus. the united states is the number one investor in japan and japan is the number one investors in the united states. it's no longer about alliance protection.

the u.s./japan alliance is about alliance protection in the indo-pacific. >> reporter: it's important to note that japan's prime minister kishida has been invited to the white house for a state visit with president biden. it's going to be important for the japanese prime minister in terms of optics back at home. his approval ratings are down, and there's no guarantee he's going to be able to push through a lot of these security plans. he will also be giving a speech to congress on the importance of the u.s./japan alliance in countering china. those will be words that will be very closely watched here in beijing by officials within china's leadership. >> janis mackey frayer live in beijing, thank you very much. federal authorities are investigating meta platforms, the owner of facebook and

instagram, for its role in the elicit sale of drugs, according to the "wall street journal." on friday, meta's president of global affairs says the company has joined an effort with the state department and others to help disrupt the sale of synthetic drugs online and educate users about the risks. for more, let's bring in cnbc's dom chu. >> it's part of a criminal grand jury probe looking into the matter. that's according to the "wall street journal" report. the report goes on to say that subpoenas were delivered last year, and they've requested records related to, quote, drug content on meta's platforms and/or the elicit sale of drugs by meta's platforms. the fda is reportedly aiding in this investigation. the source notes that investigations like this do not always lead to charges of

wrongdoing, but this comes at a time of heightened scrutiny across the board, not because of elicit concerns around free speech but also national security concerns. we are getting more content around tiktok's reach in influence and financials as well. this was according to a report from the fieshlg times. tiktok made top-line revenues of $16 billion during the course of last year. it goes on to say that bytedance, the chinese parent company of tiktok made roughly $120 billion in revenue in 2023, which was 40% over the previous year. that gives some more insight into just how big tiktok is compared to bytedance overall.

meta platform made nearly $135 billion in revenues last year, which was 60% growth over 2022. all of the scrutiny over tiktok and its parent company by congress may make signs of slowing growth in the u.s. some analysts are noting that daily active users at tiktok are beginning to slow and even trailing snapchat and instagram and facebook in the final quarter of last year. and we'll end with how much appleby's is capitalizing on that song by walker hayes. earlier this year appleby's sold

its out $200 in less than a minute online. you get $1500 in savings if you go every week during the year. >> for sure. cnbc's dom chu, thank you so much for your reporting. before we go, if you're shopping online today, you may not be able to get what you want from some of your favorite places to go shop. adrienne elrod, tell us why. >> this is a really incredible effort. over 70 businesses across the country in the united states are closing their doors today to say we want to see paid leave pass, the federal paid leave policy

pass for all americans. they're doing this in part because congress has not acted. they're also doing this because obviously it's an election year. they want to make sure candidates are talking about this. the united states is one of the only industrialized countries that does not have a paid leave policy. it's pretty ridiculous and a little embarrassing. president biden has been a champion for paid leave, making it clear this will be a priority for his second term. if you want to go to a store called catch, which sells maternity clothes, they are closing in solidarity in wanting to see congress act. democrats did pass paid leave in the house. it needs to get passed in the senate. they want to see action on this and pretty quickly. >> if you feel it, sometimes then you realize why you need to support it. this might help.

adrienne, thank you so much. still ahead, we'll have a report from moscow following russia's presidential election there. there was no real opposition to vladimir putin, which led to protests from supporters of the late opposition leader alexei navalny. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." navalny. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." for 44 years. when i have customers come in and ask for something for memory, i recommend prevagen. number one, because it's effective. does not require a prescription. and i've been taking it quite a while myself and i know it works. and i love it when the customers come back in and tell me, "david, that really works so good for me." makes my day. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. choosing a treatment for your chronic migraine - makes my day. 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more - can be overwhelming. so, ask your doctor about botox®. botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they even start. it's the #1 prescribed branded chronic migraine

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deserves the perfect sidekick. welcome back. vladimir putin will remain in power until at least 2030 after the russian president overwhelmingly won a fifth term in the country's election over the weekend. i mean, he didn't have anyone really running against him. so i don't know how you win. putin's victory comes just weeks after the death of russian opposition leader alexei navalny in a remote arctic prison. keir simmons has the latest from moscow. >> reporter: this morning, president putin beginning another six years in power after

an election that saw die poured into ballot boxes, arson attacks and drone strikes russia blamed on ukraine. putin won the biggest victory of his leadership, russian officials say, after years of crushing opposition leaders like alexei navalny. nbc news was the first international news organization to question the russian leader after the election. mr. president, journalist evan gershkovich spent this election in prison. another opponent wasn't allowed to stand against you. alexei navalny died in one of your prisons during your campaign. mr. president, is this what you call democracy? "that's life," putin said. his answer suggested he had agreed to release navalny on the conditions he never return to

russia. days later, navalny was dead. his widow yulia joined protests in berlin as russians demonstrated by simple standing in line. >> there can be no negotiations with mr. putin, because he's a killer, he's a gangster. >> reporter: the kremlin spokesman rejecting criticism of the election. alexei navalny's widow is calling on leaders around the world not to accept this election. >> you know, those are people who get themselves deprived of their motherland. >> her husband died -- >> the longer they stay abroad, the less connection they have with their own country. >> nbc's keir simmons with that report. joining us now, the rush editor for the economist. he's also the host of the

critically acclaimed podcast "next year in moscow." thank you very much for joining us this morning. there's so much to talk about in terms of this election, if that's what you want to call it. it didn't really seem like one to me. you say it should be a wakeup call to the west. you say sanctions are not enough. tell us why. and that the west needs to show the world that putin is the enemy. i this the world knows that, at least part of it. how do we go further with that message? >> yes. thank you for having me. i wouldn't call this an election, because elections suggest choice, and there was clearly no choice. this is a different kind of procedure. it's an acclaimation.

the fact that putin won by 88% is because it moves him to a different level inside the country and a different level of threat outside the country. the two are very closely connected. it's more what started inside russia. it was started to crush any seeds of modernization and democracy that were threatening to putin. he was threatened not by nato militarily, but by nato being an alliance that defends individual liberty and the rule of law. it was that that was threatening putin's rule. that's why he lashed out against ukraine. he's fighting in ukraine against the west and against his own people. you know, now that he's awarded himself that 88%, he is more dangerous. i think it is a new threshold.

he's feeling emboldened by this. you know, sanctions are not going to by themselves work. sanctioning putin's elite is probably the right thing, but as long as sanctions fail -- and they have failed to really cut russia's sources of financing from oil and gas -- they're not going to be that effective. what i'm trying to argue in that lead article and my other coverage and in this podcast, which you were kind to mention, is that the world kind of needs to understand that what's happening domestically is connected to that aggression. therefore, to russia. therefore, to win the war against putin's regime, and it is evil regime, no two ways about it. he's trying to change the way you and i live. he's trying to change the conditions in which western institutions are built. to win that war, you can only

win it in alliance with people inside russia who are standing up to him, who are resisting him. those who have queued despite the threats and intimidation, the action which nvalny called for. navalny in a film on cnn said if it kills me, that's means we're unusually strong. i think putin knows that he killed navalny because navalny represented the idea of a modern different kind of a non-aggressive russia which clearly undermined his idea of russia and his own kleptocratic rule. >> let's talk further about the future dissent. impressive numbers at a number of polling places. it should be noted the bravery of those who did so. we wonder what would happen to some of them. putin tightened his grip on

power the last year or so. it seems longer than that preg goes was feeling threatened. do you think he's emboldened to crack down even harder on those who dare stand up against him? >> absolutely, i think he s. he's already in his first appearance on television immediately after this acclamation, he basically said traitors inside the country will be treated the same way as enemies on the battlefield. there's talk of restoring death penalty. there are three new large prison camps, gulag camps being built inside russia. he's stepping up again the repression to the level we've seen not just in belarus but in central asia, in places like iraq. i think this is the man who has nothing to lose now. he feels he's fighting for his own existence, for existence of

his regime. he will not hesitate to use live munition against his own people. now, this is the bad news. i'm not sure there's that much good news. in a sense what this protest has also revealed -- and i think this is really worth noting is that it showed enormous demand for change. and it shows that basically far from buying into putin's idea that russians are behind him, what we're seeing here is this enormous pent-up resentment of putin. i, for one, do not really subscribe to the idea that this regime can survive vladimir putin. i think once he goes, we will see a different dynamic as we've seen after the death of stalin. to remind you, saddam hussein was elected with 100% vote not

long before he was overthrone. >> russia editor for the economist, arkady ostrovsky, thank you for coming on the show. there's so much to talk about. we're joined by chief journalist at northwell health, charles kennedy, the former editor and reporter for "the boston globe." he's author of the new novel entitled sycamore." it follows three men bonded by their friendship, loss and a love for their country. thank you very much for coming on the show this morning, mr. kenney. i understand also this is a novel about how love can heal. tell us about it? >> thanks, mika. this story really is about three characters who are very good

people. like most people in life, they face very difficult times. there's much joy in their life, mush accomplishment. but there's much suffering as well. that's really the case with most of us. nobody gets out alive. so what happens in this story is, when there is suffering, when there are setbacks, how do you deal with them? how do you mitigate suffering, and how do you keep going in life and have a purpose, and the heart and soul of the novel is how these friends and loved ones lift each other up and buoy one another. i think this is really the story underneath the surface of the aging boomer generation because there's a lot of challenging issues out there. there's a lot of suffering. i think very quietly a lot of people are doing exactly what these characters are doing which is providing the kind of love and support and understanding

that gets us through hard times. >> so given your career, what drew you to writing this at this point? >> so, the most important thing to me in this novel is to create these three characters who i consider -- i love these characters. i consider them to be really good people, and i think they're emblematic of so many aging adults among us. of course, there are people who do bad things and people who are not considerate, et cetera. we see a lot of unpleasant things in the country today, but there's an enormous number, a kind of foundation out there of great strength and caring. i wanted to get at the core of that with three characters who are real and who are realized on the page and for whom readers

can really root and be supportive of. that's really what drove me. >> the new novel is entitled "american sycamore." author charles kenney, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. before we go, adrienne elrod, what will you be watching today? what do you think the big issues are? obviously israel and watching prime minister benjamin netanyahu's next moves probably very high on that list. >> yeah, absolutely. that's certainly high on the list. i'm looking to see if we will see any republicans finally break from donald trump. by using the term bloodbath this weekend, we all know what he meant, what he was intending for that to mean. are we going to see any republicans break on that? what is going to be their breaking point? i'm looking for that as well. >> speaking of prime minister netanyahu, reports just now that the prime minister and president biden will speak today, their

first conversation in about a month's time. certainly the first one that comes after senate majority leader schumer's call for a new election in israel which president biden said was a good speech. we'll have to see what comes up in that conversation, mika. >> all right. we'll see you tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. eastern. that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in 90 seconds. ds

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right now on "ana cabrera reports," new controversy on the campaign trail. former president trump w