republican argument that he has allowed unchecked immigration across the border during his presidency, and he is throwing it out there now, early in the campaign, now early in the summer, to try and get the high road on it before it becomes an issue at the debates. >> all right. we really appreciate it. white house correspondent for reuters, jeff mason. same travels to france. thank you for joining us. >> thank you, sir. >> i'll certainly note for those who have the ability to see normandy and the d-day cemeteries and sights, please do so. it is something you will always remember. thank you for getting up "way too early" with us on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. trump was found guilty. they were going to put him in an orange jump suit, but it felt redundant. trump will be sentenced july 11th, and his lawyers said to get his affairs in order. trump said, that's what got me

in trouble in the first place. >> jimmy fallon upstairs last night. good morning. tuesday, june 4th. "politico's" jonathan lemire. pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post" and analyst for msnbc, eugene robinson. "vanity fair" writer and host of the pod cast "the fast politics," molly jong-fast. president biden made his most candid comments yet about trump's criminal conviction. in off-camera remarks, biden told the audience a convicted felon is seeking the office of the presidency. the president added, quote, "as disturbing as that is, more damaging is the all out assault donald trump is making on the american system of justice. . biden is reported to have said, "something snapped in this guy of the election and it is

literally driving him crazy." biden went on to call trump unhinged. maybe a private preview, joe, of where we might see president biden go publicly as the campaign rolls out, now that donald trump has been convicted on 34 felony counts. >> right. it is, jonathan lemire, it may be a private preview, but this is how biden feels. this is how his campaign team feels. this is how people around him feel. they are glad the trial is over. they're glad that he is going out on the trail. as i said yesterday, while that long-stemwinder of a press conference was going on friday, the biden campaign was celebrating. they said, okay. he sounds older, more unhinged, less connected with reality. this is why we want him out of the courthouse and on the campaign trail. >> yeah, it seems counterintuitive, but they're exactly right. some senior biden people were eager for the trial to end. they felt, in some ways, it

shielded donald trump from the scrutiny of the rest of the voters. when they actually hear him talking again and he is in their living room again, which he was in the news conference on friday, which he will be in the debate in a few weeks' time, americans will be repulsed and don't want to go back to that trump term. in terms of how the president and his team are going to handle this, it was previewed to me a couple weeks ago, as we saw last week, president biden's first words about the verdict were simply, "we need to respect the process. the judicial system worked, and attacks against it are disgraceful." now, we're seeing other democrats and the president himself begin to ramp up his attacks on donald trump. the biden twitter account, more than a dozen times yesterday, used the phrase convicted felon. we heard it again from president biden last night. now, they don't believe this conviction itself is a race-changing event. they do think, though, it'll

help along the margins. in a close race, that could matter. more than that, they think it's just the latest piece, the latest piece, willie, of this overall example they're building about how donald trump isn't fit for office. look at the lengths he would go to to keep power. look how he's only out for himself and not you, the american voter. >> yeah. given this came in late may, this verdict, we'll see how long it can burn through a long campaign, whether it stays alive as a conversation piece. molly, you're writing about this in "vanity fair." molly's piece is titled "trumpworld's post-conviction spin cycle." molly writes, "while many trump surrogates appeared to go about their messaging in lockstep, there were some rather stark inconsistencies, suggesting that trump's verdict was not something republicans had a clear handle on. the weirdest dissonance came from mike lee, who couldn't seem to make up his mind on whether the trial was a boon or a bust. at 5:15 p.m. thursday, the utah

senator tweeted progressives have, quote, guaranteed trump's election. but a mere 20 minutes later, the senator appeared to turn the dime, saying of the trial, i can't imagine a bigger, more impactful contribution to the biden campaign. a jury has found trump to be guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records. in his world, this reality doesn't really matter. it's something that can be endlessly spun and mangled and perverted into a word salad of projection of lies. but when it comes to wiping off a stain that is this indelible, trump world is going to have a much harder time," writes molly jong-fast. molly, i'll let you expand on this a little bit, on your piece. obviously, we heard reflexive reaction from most republicans, not surprising at all given a lot of them were at the courthouse during the trial to support him, saying that this was a miscarriage of justice and the criminal justice system is broken and the country is terrible and all those things, because one time it cut against them. how do you expect this to play,

though, for the rest of the campaign? >> it reminded me a little of the "access hollywood" tape. there was a moment of panic. when the "access hollywood" tape broke, there was silence, and everyone was like, are we sticking around with this guy? republicans are now in too deep to do anything but keep this going. donald trump is the platform of their 2024 campaigns down the ticket, so i don't think they'll cut and run from him. in fact, we saw lots of defending. but we saw a kind of very weird defending, right? they'd defend some things but not other things. you know, they attacked the rule of law, which is what we were expecting. i lot was this playbook, but there was this tacking and weaving. ultimately, i also think donald trump is, you know -- when they're not completely in lockstep, that's something to look at. so i do think there were some problems there. ultimately, you know, trump was always going to say this is what he expected and that this was

how he thought it would go, but i think they really did think that he was going to skate, at least skate on some of the charges. >> yeah. i mean, they wouldn't have been alone. again, i was sure there would be a possibility of a hung jury. sure that maybe there would be one person out of the 77 million who voted for donald trump in 2020 that was on that jury that would not take their duty seriously. i was wrong. the trump campaign was wrong. there were 12 jurors willing to set aside all pre-existing beliefs, all pre-existing prejudices, and just look at the facts of the case, follow the jury instructions, and convict him on 34 counts. gene robinson, you're saying there is something donald trump could do if he really wanted to make america great again, and there's about as much chance of him doing that as the tories winning in a landslide next month. tell us what he could do. >> well, he could withdraw from

the race because he's just been convicted of 34 felonies. you know, imagine, joe, if there was any other point in american history, from the founding of the republic until the day in 2015 that donald trump rode down that escalator at trump tower. any other moment in our history, a candidate for any office who was convicted mid-campaign of 34 felony charges would have been out of the race before the jury foreman had finished the 34 guilty verdicts, right? it would have been unthinkable that someone would stay in any race given the status as a 34-time felon. but, again, you know, we're in this very different world. i thought, as i was sitting down

to write a column yesterday, i thought, well, look, somebody needs to call for donald trump to step out of the race because, you know, all these sort of, you know, hang-wringing democrats and chin-stroking pundits, they've been calling for joe biden to step aside. the only thing he is guilty of is living to 81, you know? it's just this weird, topsy-turvy, upside down world that we live in. we need to stop every once in a while and realize, this is not normal. this is not healthy. this is insane. and i kind of wonder if maybe that will sink in, just that fact of how insane and unacceptable this is, will sink in with some voters over time. we'll see. >> i suspect it may with swing

voters. we saw some polls over the weekend suggesting that it just may do that with independent voters, with swing voters especially in the upper midwest states. but gene brings up such a great point, willie. in the good old days, back when i was in washington, i mean, heck, if somebody got indicted of 34 counts, they immediately resigned from congress and, you know, went to prepare their defense. here, donald trump gets convicted 34 times of 34 different felonies, and, of course, you have united states senators who are trying to use it as a badge of honor. their guy is being persecuted by the state. >> yeah, i mean, martyrdom, right? he's been compared to religious figures, without irony, by members of the united states congress, by people on tv, as a rallying cry behind him. that's the trump way, though, isn't it? never surrender.

never apologize for anything. put your head down, and keep moving. pretend, despite all the facts around you, that you are the victim. >> and always, always play the victim. i mean, that's -- >> yes. >> -- always it. always play the victim. always play the martyr. you know, he was asked this weekend, "fox and friends" interview, about evangelicals supporting him. we even saw people that used to be -- i just saw shocking things by evangelical so-called leaders. one of them having trump next to jesus on a cross, saying, "why wouldn't you vote for somebody who has been convicted? you worship somebody who was convicted." that shows you just the depravity that many of these people are willing to sink to. it's just straight out

blasphemy. >> i was going to say, there used to be a word for that, blasphemy. molly, the point of all this is that donald trump could not pull all this off alone, right? he'd be a convicted felon, and he'd sound as insane as he does sound in the interview with "fox and friends" over the weekend for 90 minutes or however long it lasted. >> right. >> but the entire party, the entire media on his side rallies behind him and legitimizes his claims of victimhood. >> what was interesting this whole weekend was that the message out of trump world was, this helps him, right? we raised gonzo money. again, we'll have to wait to see the filings, but it's still a lot of money either way. and he said, you know, this helps him. this makes him more powerful. you libs have done it now, right? even though, remember, it's a state case. the other thing is that this doesn't exist in a vacuum. he has three other cases plus all of these civil cases. i mean, this guy isn't just -- this isn't just one rogue

prosecutor. i mean, the guy has done all of these things which have led to all of these investigations. so, look, i think to watch trump world pump him up, both to try to play him as the victim and to also say he must stay in because he is the only way that they're going to survive is a bizarre thing. >> you know, there is such a bubble, too, jonathan lemire, that these people live in. i mean, even people in sort of the media orbit that i've talked to, they think 34 felony convictions, it's great for donald trump. great for fundraising, firing up the base. man, people are going to do whatever it takes to vote. it fires up his 44%, his 43%, you know, and the ceiling may be

46%, 47%. but, you know, they actually believe it. trump knows better than to believe that this is something that he wants, but there are people around him that have convinced themselves, living in the bubble, that these 34 felony convictions was the greatest political advance for trump in some time. they're just completely delusional. >> i mean, they're right it'll fire up the base. they're right it'll be good for fundraising, at least for the time being. couple things here. first, we do know and have long said on the show, the way to know what donald trump is thinking is what he posts on truth social in the middle of the night. it has been screed after screed, expressing frustration of what's happening in his legal cases. also, i talked to people around him, he doesn't want to go to prison. he didn't want to be convicted. they convinced themselves they'd get a hung jury. they were surprised by the verdict and, particularly, that it was unanimous. even if this helps politically

with his base, there's simply no way it helps beyond that. democrats feel there's worries already about complacency, that the members of the base will say, well, trump has been convicted. he can't win. no. that's why the overarching message from the biden campaign immediately was, he can still win, conviction or not. we've got to get out there and beat him at the ballot box. it's about those swing voters, and, in particular, as someone in the biden camp put it to me yesterday, the people who are going to decide this election, the suburban voters, some of them older voters, they care about a couple things. they care about democracy, and they care about decorum. they're sort of turned off by the idea, the biden people believe, that donald trump not only is now indeed a convicted felon, but the other part of that fox interview over the weekend, willie, was he threatened retribution. he said, we'll use the department of justice to get back at the people who did this to me. that, i think, will be upsetting to a lot of voters who are going to cast their ballots and decide this thing in november. >> confirmed everything people believe about what will happen. i'll fire the generals.

i'll put in maga. we'll have our own people in there, and we'll get rid of, effectively, the federal government and replace it with our own. a lot in the interview if you're interested. let's turn to news. president biden is expected to sign an executive order today that would shut down the southern border when daily migrant crossings between legal points of entry exceed 2,500 people. under the order, the border would not reopen until that number falls below 1,550 a day. it wouldn't stop trade travel or migrants lawfully presenting themselves. two of the sources stress details are still being finalized by the white house has begun to discuss the order with lawmakers. one source telling nbc news the white house is acting now because it believes the numbers will rise through the summer as they tend to do. department of homeland security officials say the southern border currently is seeing more

than 4,000 border encounters every day. joining us now from the border town of mission, texas, nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley. good morning. tell us a little bit more about this order and what the impact may be. >> reporter: well, as far as impacts goes, one of the quickest things we can expect to see is groups who were advocating for migrants suing the federal government and getting this entire thing enjoined in court. that is because what we expect the president to unveil today is actually very similar to something president trump tried to do under his presidency, to try to make it illegal for any immigrant crossing the border between ports of entry -- that'd be in a place like this where he built the wall -- between legal ports of entry, to make it illegal so they couldn't claim asylum. that was stopped in courts. that was something stephen miller actually came up with. this is pretty close to that action. now, what i'm told is this is really the way the biden

administration is lobbing the ball back into the court of congress. as you know, they wanted that bipartisan deal that langford, sinema, and others worked on in the senate that didn't even get a vote and, of course, president trump told republicans not to vote for because he said it didn't go far enough. this is their way of saying, look, we've tried to take really bold action through an executive order. the court stopped us. now, it's up to you, congress. they want that message going into the november election, especially if those numbers rise along the border. we do have to point out, though, numbers have remained slower and steady since december. we saw historic highs in december, over 12,000 a day. since then, they've remained around the 4,000 to 5,000 per day along the southern border. here in rio grande valley, this used to be one of the busiest spots on the border, willie. anytime we wanted to come down, see what was happening on the border, i've seen hundreds of migrants packed under a bridge just beyond this wall.

today, pretty quiet. we've seen a few border patrol vans roll through. they might be hearing some small groups of migrants coming through. by and large, the border has been quieter this year than we saw especially toward the end of last year. i just have to point that out because sometimes i think we forget about that when we're talking about border politics. >> it's important to point out. you've covered this so well and so closely for so long. the process now is you show up at the border and say you're seeking asylum, that you're being persecuted in their home country, and then you're released into the united states while you wait for your hearing on asylum. that can take, as you know, many years. is anything being done to address that side of it, to get more judges, more courts, or more ways to process those cases more quickly? >> reporter: well, that's what they wanted in the border bill. without more money from congress, it's really hard to see how they could do that. we understand they want to get more beds in i.c.e. detention so

more people can be held awaiting the decision. but in lieu of the money, this is to push more people back into mexico. in fact, it's a reason why we're hearing about this this week and not earlier. they wanted to wait for mexico to get through the elections over the weekend before they announced this. they really can't do a deal like this where they don't allow migrants to come in, claim asylum, and get onto that process that can take years unless they get mexico to agree to take back the migrants that won't be allowed in. they plan to do that at just 2,500 a day, willie. we're already seeing over 4,000 a day. it's hard to imagine a scenario where they would get down to that 1,500 people a day trigger to then reopen it. this would effectively shut down the border immediately and keep it closed for the remaining future. of course, as you pointed out, that does not mean legitimate trade and travel. it means migrants passing between legal ports of entry. >> homeland security correspondent julia ainsley down along the border in mission, texas. thanks so much, as always.

we appreciate it. jonathan, we should underline something that julia said, which is, we'll hear republicans in congress complaining about this today. too little, too late. they had the legislation they asked for sitting right in front of them, bipartisan, led by one of the most conservative senators in the senate, james happening for. kyrsten sinema and chris murphy worked on it for months. donald trump told republicans not to support it anymore, and they walked away from it. the timing, why now for president biden? >> two pieces. julia hit one, waiting for mexico's elections to conclude. that happened. the other timing, we're five months to election day. that's why the president and his team felt they had to do something on this. we've been right to underscore, republicans crafted this deal in the senate and then walked away from it because donald trump wanted to keep it an election issue. polls do show, molly, that, you know, immigration remains a pretty good issue for republicans despite the facts of the matter. and the president, biden and his

team, they acknowledge privately they were a little slow to act earlier in his term. they are acting now. they feel they need a show of force, push it back to congress, try to get something done. even if nothing gets done, they want to show voters they're making an effort here ahead of november. >> right. look, what julia said was so important. they don't have the money, right? they don't have the money for the judges and the system, and so what happens is you have people come in for asylum and then they are released. you don't have the mechanism to process these claims. that's not going to be solved with an executive order. republicans have been saying biden can do an executive order and solve this problem. this is his way of saying, you know, we've done an executive order. obviously, you can't solve it without the money. >> expected the sign the executive order today, is president biden, before he heads off to france for the rest of the week. still ahead on "morning joe," dr. anthony fauci returns to capitol hill and is grilled

by republicans about the origins of covid-19. we'll put some of the major moments from that hearing. plus, the latest from israel as prime minister benjamin netanyahu denies claims he has accepted a cease-fire deal with hamas. you're watching "morning joe." we're back in just 60 seconds.

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nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles has the latest from delaware. >> reporter: for the first time in american history, the child of a sitting president is facing a criminal trial. now, the 12-member jury is set. six men and six women, including six jurors who own guns themselves or have family members that purchased them relentless. hunter biden accused of lying on a federal form in 2018 to purchase a gun, checking a box saying he was not an active drug user, despite acknowledging in his book he was addicted to crack cocaine at the time. first lady jill biden making a surprise appearance, sitting just a few feet behind her son in court. and the president offering his support, saying, "as the president, i don't and won't comment on pending federal cases, but as a dad, i have boundless love for my son." president biden spending memorial day weekend with hunter. recently inviting him to state dinners and defending him publicly. >> first of all, my son has done nothing wrong. i trust him.

i have faith in him. >> reporter: but his son's legal battles likely to take a political toll on the president in the midst of a re-election campaign. hunter's original plea bargain, which would have resulted in no prison time, was blasted by republicans as a sweetheart deal. it fell apart under a judge's scrutiny. special prosecutor david weiss, charging him for tax and gun crimes, to have hunter biden pleaded not guilty. weiss saying he'll rely on the laptop, saying it is real and will be introduced as a trial exhibit. it contains significant evidence of the defendant's guilt. prosecutors expected to call hallie biden, who hunter was dating when the handgun was discovered. she's the widow of his brother, beau. >> jonathan, you have information about how this trial may impact biden personally as he goes through the campaign. >> no question. people closest to the president believe this will be far more of

a personal matter than a political one. republicans have for years now tried to make hunter biden a major issue. poll after poll after poll shows americans simply don't care. in fact, americans in many ways are sympathetic to the bidens because so many of them also had struggles with addiction. they understand the president's love for his son. we had lindsey graham actually surprisingly say yesterday that he believes, look, hunter biden faces tax charges later this year in california. he says, i think any average american who has done their taxes like hunter biden would have probably faced prosecution, talking about the california case. graham goes on to say, however, i don't think the average american would have been charged with the gun thing. i don't see any good coming from that. a moment of humanity from the senator. that's hunter biden's argument. he feels he is being prosecuted because of his last name. his father privately also feels some guilt, thinks his political career has shone a spotlight on hunter biden which led to the trial. aides worry about the president this coming week. he's going to keep tabs on the trial even in france.

he texts or calls his son every day. he'll talk to relatives in the courtroom. he's worried about a possible conviction and incarceration. he is worried it could challenge hunter biden's sobriety. this is something he's worried about, the impact of hallie biden's testimony. that's going to be a very tough moment for the family, as well as hunter biden's ex-wife who is also expected to testify. they don't think this will be much of a political issue for the campaign, but they are worried about the human toll on this president going forward. >> molly, we've said all along, from the beginning of this, if hunter biden did something wrong, the evidence will be presented. the jury will convict him or not. that's the way the court worked, just like it worked for former president trump last week. on the political side of this, in the media bubble joe was talking about, hunter biden is all day, every day, his laptop and everything else. they tried to make the implicit case that he is corrupt and, therefore, so is joe biden. they haven't presented evidence of that. there have been congressional

committees for months and months who talked about smoke but no fire yet. we're still waiting for the fire on that. they're trying to tie hunter biden to joe biden, but as john points out, the american public outside of a very specific sliver of it just doesn't seem to be that interested. >> yeah. look, hunter biden struggled with addiction. we are a country that has been riddled with addiction. a percentage of this population has struggled with fentanyl and all sorts of opioids. you know, addiction is a real american problem. so the fact that they keep hammering him on being an addict, on having a gun, you know, which republicans really like guns. i think this is going to keep going, but i do think biden has a really good opportunity here to say, the law is the law for everyone. be it my son or donald trump. you know, this is the way it works in this country. >> we'll see how it plays out. the jury has been seated. trial effectively begins today.

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wow. that's a beautiful shot. is that cgi, t.j.? too good. 6:34 in the morning. our friends at wnbc chopper 4 giving us a look at lower manhattan. nearly two years after the supreme court overturned roe versus wade, a new book is shedding light on conservativs' years long strategy that led to the decision. the book is "the fall of roe, the rise of a new america," explaining how the right's fer fervant anti-abortion activists helped overturn the law. elizabeth and lisa, congratulations. today is pub day. >> thank you. >> today is pub day. >> your baby is out into the world. here we go. >> it's here. >> deeply, deeply reportive, like 350 interviews. you get into the history of this

issue. it's a lot to get through, but i guess i'll start at the end, which is, how the dam ultimately broke after this half century effort to overturn roe versus wade. donald trump getting in the white house, obviously, put those three justices on the supreme court. at the end, what happened that pushed it over the finish line? >> our book is really the first narrative of how roe fell. what we did was look it the final decade of what we call the roe era. what we saw in the period is this tightly connected web of conservative anti-abortion activists who were able to move the levers of power in their favor in ways big and really small. you know, working at statehouses to start pushing through legislation. then, as you point out, donald trump gets elected. they jump on the train. it becomes a bullet train for them. they get really lucky. they have the three seats on the supreme court. they're dealing with an abortion rights movement that's really ill-equipped and unprepared to take on this threat and a country that really has this

pervasive sense of denial, that this right that has been part of american life for two generations, could suddenly disappear. >> elizabeth, donald trump, obviously evangelicals were skeptical of him in 2015. 2016, he talked about being pro choice many times in public previous to that. ultimately, maybe they realized they could shape him a little bit because he so desperately wants to be elected, that they could dictate what they want from him. >> they did. one of the interesting things we found, too, it wasn't just evangelicals, right? catholics played a really important role in the anti-abortion movement's growth, origins. evangelicals were late coming to that in history. the leaders of the anti-abortion movement actually really were rooted in their conservative christian values. values about family, womanhood, and, of course, abortion. what our story shows is that it was chose values that really

were behind the movement. certainly, as lisa was saying, there's all these levers of power they pulled. at its core, this is all happening over a period when america is becoming increasingly secular. there's so much cultural change, especially when it comes to marriage, family, and sex. these are the things that the anti-abortion movement ultimately is hoping to change, right? it's not just about overturning roe. it is a much bigger, half century plan to roll back the sexual revolution. >> joe, you've watched this through faith and also politics over the course of your life and career, culminaing once donald trump is in the white house with 50 years of precedent overturned. >> right. right, 50 years of precedent overturned. elizabeth, you are right. catholics have been pro life for quite some time. as i always joke on this show, evangelicals, my church, southern baptists, were pro

choice from the time of jesus' birth until the eagles broke up. so when you say a new america, i think it is interesting. it was a new republican party and the redefinition by political activists in 1979, 1980, what it meant to be an evangelical, what it meant to be a christian. you had people like paul weyrich and, you know, richard viguerie and jerry falwell deciding, this is how to be a southern baptist democrat. i'm curious, how did their political machinations in 1979 and 1980 not only change american politics, but based on your reporting, how did it change how evangelicals looked at their own faith, in bringing

in this political controversy that many now put at the center of their faith? >> well, look, you can think about politics influening religion or religion influencing politics. the story that we've been really seeing that you've been talking about on this show for so long is in the trump era, especially the last decade, we're really seeing the merging of those two things and politics influencing religion. think back to this very long game, the anti-abortion movement, conservative christians think in generations about change. it is not just a political cycle. but, also, the people that you mentioned, right, that's a couple generations ago. what our books about is there was actually this most recent generation that got overturning roe over the finish line, really led by conservative christian women. they have a vision of what it means to be a woman in america, how motherhood fits into that,

that really changed the game in the end. it's not just the story of kind of the '80s religious right. there is a modern religious right that is enormously influential, and it's not just on issues about abortion. it's issues -- all kinds of cultural issues in this whole realm about rolling back the sexual revolution. >> some ways, they've radicalized along with the republican party. this is a new generation of socially conservative activists, and they've gone -- i think donald trump's republican party expanded their horizons of what could be possible, and that's part of what we see playing out in the politics now, particularly on this issue. >> well, and let's also just state what every survey shows. a lot of people call themselves evangelicals as a cultural marker, not as a religious marker. i mean, no one less thantim keller said he stopped using the word evangelical to describe himself because the word had been so politicized. i'm curious, lisa, in your

reporting, i think the cliffhanger here as dobbs was being decided after the leak was whether john roberts was going to be able to get kavanaugh or comey barrett to come with him and just go with the mississippi 15-week ban. i'm curious, what did your reporting find? how close did the chief justice get to getting one of those two to take a more incremental approach? >> well, he didn't get all that close. he tried, and he certainly tried hard. in the end, this isn't what happened. you know, one of the most interesting things i think we found, we uncovered some sort of internal documents that showed where this movement wants to go in the future and how, you know, elizabeth was talking about how this is a movement that's really intent on changing the structure or reverting the structure of american families. what we saw, they're looking at other things going forward. that's hinted at in this decision by thomas.

certainly, the internal documents we got a handle on were talking about trans rights, parental right, religion in public squaur s publicquares, schools and town meetings, same-sex marriage. this is the start of a series of cases on these issues that will wind their way through the court. >> this is exactly what i wanted to ask about. there's this fetal personhood. i say embryonic personhood. you know, i'm on the opinion side. but can you make this make sense in the broader context of the fall of roe? >> sure. look, i think for this anti-abortion movement, the fall of roe was not the end. it was the beginning of the end, right? the goal here is to eliminate all abortion, if they believe it is morally wrong, contradictory to many of their conservative faiths. they want to eliminate it. of course, something like fetal personhood, which is basically the granting of constitutional

rights to a fetus, which makes it, you know -- would functional functionally make all abortion illegal. >> on the other side of this issue, the defenders of abortion rights. were there things they could have done differently? were there opportunities missed? were there inflection points they didn't see the threat coming? >> it is a hard question to answer in many ways. yes, we talk about some of those pivot points. also, the thing that they were really up against was this generational thinking. right? the right was planning in really 50-year periods. they were never going to let up. the deluge of laws in state courts, how they were -- in statehouses, the way they were transforming the court slowly over time, right? these are things that are just like bit by bit by bit, right? it makes it hard to see. it's why so many people, and why we wrote this book, really, were

so surprised. how did this actually happen, right? it's hard to see when it is just inching forward. but the left just, you know, and hillary clinton talked about this to us in our interview with her, the left just doesn't have that same kind of infrastructure at all. this is a big reckoning on the left for how are we going to -- or are we going to, like, respond to this, and what's that actually going to take? it's not easy, quick gratification change, right? you have to build building blocks over time. >> i also think the left was looking at chaning sort of the cultural conversation. getting rid of safe legal rare, destigmatizing abortion as a procedure. they were really fighting for public opinion, right? the anti-abortion movement was fighting for the levers of power. it turns out power is more powerful than public opinion, certainly when it comes to the courts. i think there was also this mismatch of goals in a way. >> gene? >> lisa, so you write about, you

know, power versus public opinion, but public opinion does not agree with this total, anti-abortion position. do people in the anti-abortion movement, a, realize that, and, b, is this sustainable over the long term? >> oh, yeah, they realize that. i'm sure you guys -- i know you guys have talked a lot about the politics of abortion now. you just have to look at donald trump and how he behaved in 2016 when he eagerly sort of made common cause with this movement and how he is behaving now. i think one big thing that was working in the advantage of the anti-abortion movement was this sense of denial. nobody can see what they do not believe is going to happen, right? now, that's been shattered. there is this steady drum beat of news out of these states. you know, the cases of women seeking medical attention or some new ruling or law that keeps this issue again and again

in the news and is sort of showing people, like, how it is butting up directly against public opinion and what a majority of people in the country want. i think it is a harder task for them going forward, for sure. we're seeing that play out in the politics. we'll certainly see it play out in 2024. i think we'll see it play out in several cycles to come. >> elizabeth, the politics of this are tough. you heard donald trump himself blame the abortion issue for the losses in the midterms in 2022. but from your reporting, what are the activists looking at next? lisa touched on it a little. trans rights, gay marriage. we saw ivf come up in alabama. >> yeah. >> even very conservative republicans even running from that, the idea of taking away ivf. what's next on the list. >> the ivf question is interesting. it'll keep coming up. it's funny, right after roe was overturned, we have some reporting about the anti-abortion movement asking, you know, talking behind the scenes with state lawmakers,

when could they do that, how long would the time horizon be. they said a few years, but it's happened so much faster. especially for their base, like the people who talked about themselves as pro life voters, especially evangelical millennial moms, this is now reframing how they're thinking about this. kind of wondering, okay, there's some bigger questions here that we need to figure out. how does our -- how do our own cultural, moral, and religious views fit in with how that has played out and really become politically powerful, dominating, and kind of one-track lane? >> america is being confronted with questions from, you know, voters to state lawmakers that they never thought they'd have to ask. i mean, i'm sure everyone remembers after roe fell, there were debates over kids and whether a 10-year-old girl could terminate her pregnancy. this is not something that was part of the political discourse now, and it was an issue that

politicians on both sides could skirt. now, the politicians have to talk about uteruses, and it is not comfortable for them. it is forcing direct confrontations for people and politicians about the actual, lived reality of what this is beyond sort of the political, like, talking points and sort of phrases, you know? >> the obvious irony of the ivf issue is it brings the gift of life to people who otherwise could not have it. >> right. >> the new book is "the fall of roe, the rise of a america," an issue that will hang over this presidential election. elizabeth dias and lisa lerer, congratulations on the book. >> thank you. ahead, benjamin netanyahu appears to be distancing himself from the latest cease-fire proposal. we'll dig into what he is saying about the framework deal as pressure mounts to secure the release of the remaining hostages. we'll ask the former prime minister, naftali bennett, where things stand when he joins the conversation next on "morning joe."

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republican congressman fong was sworn in yesterday, replacing kevin mccarthy. with a new republican in the house, the party breakdown there is now 218 republicans to 213 democrats. that means a majority to pass 2.

republicans can afford to lose only two votes from their own party on any one vote. india has begun to count the votes in its general election, widely expected to result in a rare third term for prime minister narendra modi. the process has taken six weeks as votes were gathered from throughout the world's most populous country. there was an average turnout percent of 66%. if modi wins, he'll become the second prime minister in india's history to serve three terms. the first in 60 years. president biden will travel to france this week for the 80th anniversary of d-day. on thursday, commemorations will honor more than 150,000 allied troops that stormed the beaches of normandy june 6th, 1944. the president is expected to recognize the alliances that

defeated dictators bent on world conquest. the president will speak again on friday where his words will focus on the defense of freedom and democracy. he'll then travel to paris for a state visit with french president emmanuel macron, joe. a new focus group is delving into voter reaction to donald trump's guilty verdict. the interactive video platform in association with a research firm, wick insights, sat down with a group of so-called double haters, unhappy with the prospect of choosing between joe biden and donald trump. none of the participants who live in north carolina and georgia felt trump's conviction would affect their vote, and none thought biden would win the election. in addition, they were also asked if the former president was treated fairly at his trial. >> i think he was treated fairly. i didn't watch the trial, but when you're before a judge or

whatever, or jury, and they have to go by the law and by what, you know, the judge and jury say. i feel like he was. >> i feel like he was treated fairly. i feel like he actually got away with saying a lot of disparaging things, not only about the jurors, about the judge, as well. i know he said things before about other people who were prosecuting him, and i'm just thinking, you know, if it would have been anyone else on trial and you're bad mouthing, say, the jurors or the judge, what would have been the repercussion of that. >> yeah, i think he benefitted from his stature, definitely with given a gag order, did not abide by it. most people would obviously not have the money he does, getting nailed for the fines and things. he skirted by on that. i think he was absolutely treated fairly, if not better than most people during the trial. i do trust the legal system enough that if the prosecution and defense were both able to pick jurors and they presented

it so quickly, and the jurors and the judge all agreed to follow due process and found him guilty very quickly, i have a hard time believing that there were that many jurors agreed upon that were all in on he's not guilty but we'll kind him guilty for kicks. >> yeah, everybody there thought that donald trump was given a fair trial. none of those people said, in that focus group, that it was going to impact their vote. that said, polling of undecideds in georgia and also north carolina showed that, actually, quite a few did believe it'd have an impact on their vote. the host of "majority rules" and the "undecideds" and founder of all in together, lauren leader. i'm looking at the top line on the polling you all took. 78% believe the verdict was the right verdict. 21% thought it was the wrong

verdict. and this is the difference in voting with the threat of prison hanging over donald trump. a very large difference, 12%. a large difference, 15%. moderate difference, 23%. that adds up to over 50%. so over 50% of these so-called double haters said it could have an impact on their vote, but overwhelmingly, almost all of them believe donald trump got a fair trial. >> yeah, and that was what was so fascinating. especially in listening to their conversation, first of all, they were so nuanced and really thoughtful about their responses. you know, i just want to say, like, this is the only -- so far, it's the only swing state poll that's been done since the verdict. it's going to matter a lot. of course, swing states will decide the election, and undecided voters will be a huge factor in the decisions of the election. what struck me was the incredible contrast between this confidence in the legal system, that the jury was fair, that the trial was fair, and that trump

was treated fairly. they did not buy any of the trump sort of claims that the whole thing was rigged and it was unfair to him. they didn't buy that at all. yet, yet, they also felt it was politically motivated, that the trial was brought this year because of the election, that it wouldn't have happened -- that it wasn't an important enough issue to have been brought. a number of them talked about the documents case in florida, the classified documents as being more important and didn't understand, you know, why this was brought this year. i'll also say, they did not understand the charges. they couldn't articulate what it was he was convicted of. but i think that's what is so fascinating about dynamic, joe. we're seeing it in the national polls, as well. americans are saying it doesn't matter, at least some polls are saying it doesn't matter. he was treated fairly. the verdict was fair. yet, somehow, he's still going to win and i doesn't matter he's a felon. i think that's a really -- that'll be a really hard circle for the biden campaign to square over the next few months.

>> well, i mean, of course, these voters were in georgia and north carolina. they may be hearing something different than voters in wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania. i will tell you, again, we talked about it earlier, lauren, that jonathan lemire brought up how older voters -- >> yeah. >> -- and we've seen that older biden in the upper midwest. those are the older people if you look, as jonathan said, who believe in the rule of law, who believe in decorum. another part of your survey i find absolutely fascinating on these double haters, you ask people why they don't like joe biden, and they'll talk about issues. they'll talk about the economy, immigration. ask why they don't like donald trump. 40% almost say his personality and almost 30% say his corrupt administration. why is this important?

pause for those double haters in the upper midwest who already have a problem with donald trump's personality, already have a problem with his, quote, corrupt administration, doesn't this just feed into trump's vulnerability among the very voters he has to win over? >> yeah, i think it does. look, the other factor that we talk about so much on the show that i always bring up is around what are the motivators and the turnout drivers? we know from the last segment, which was so fascinating, look, women remain extraordinarily angry and frustrated with the overturning of roe. they know that that sits on donald trump. and we saw in the midterms even when trump was president, the backlash against the chaos, right, which was so motivating for midterm voters in his first term. i think that's the piece of this that's really hard to put your finger on. you've got this, like, meaningful percentage of undecided voters in key states,

but then how does that square against the really intense motivation of people who will vote against him, even if they're not -- even if they don't love joe biden, will they come home and turn out for him payoff what's at stake, the issues, and they don't want the chaos? you're right. we're seeing this in the over 50 voters. we'll see the strength among women voters, including women in the middle, who will, i believe, turn out over these issues. trump has been in court. we haven't even begun to hear the chaos coming from him. we got a taste of it in the fox news interview this weekend. just wait, i think a lot of americans, the more they have to reconnect with the chaos and the personality issues, i think they're going to ask those people. all in all, the trial seems to have made very little impact, despite the fact that people believe it was fair. he was treated fairly in our justice system. >> lauren, you just mentioned that's always been the biden theory of the case, that the more americans that hear donald trump, the less they'll want to sign up for another four years of that. beyond the negative argument the

biden folks can make about trump, in this fcus group and other work you've done, are there positive, pro-biden messages resonating, or is it simply, hey, we're not the other guy? >> you have so much complaining about the economy when it comes to biden. we saw that in the poll, too, as joe pointed out. when it comes to what are people frustrated with on the president, it's the economy. they don't see him taking enough action. you know, i really think that's going to continue to be critical. he's going to have to address that and continuing to say to people, you know, we're doing great. everything is great. it doesn't seem to be breaking through. people are not feeling it, especially in the middle class. one of the other women in our focus group said she felt like neither of the candidates were looking out for the middle class. they perceive joe biden as looking out for more of the poor. trump is looking out for the rich. nobody is looking out for them. i think that's going to need to -- it is a fascinating dynamic for the folks that remain undecided. that is an opportunity for the president to potentially win people over. >> all right. host of "majority rules" and

"the undecideds" on two-way, and founder of all in together, lauren leader, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. fascinating. donald trump is bragging that he is doing well with evangelical voters despite being convicted on 34 criminal charges in his hush money trial. in an interview with "fox and friends weekend," here's how he responded to a viewer question about his relationship with god. >> you've been sustained by prayers of lots of americans. i've seen people praying over you. her question, you've been faced with so much adversity and persecution for years. what is your relationship with god like, and how do you pray? that's sharon from alabama. >> okay. i think it is good. i do very well with the evangelicals. i love the evangelicals. and i have more people saying they pray for me, i can't even believe it.

they are so committed and so believing. they say, "sir, you're going to be okay. i pray for you every day." i mean, everybody, almost -- i can't say everybody, but almost everybody that sees me, they say it. >> um -- [ laughter ] i'm sorry. i mean, seriously. just go to church once, right? >> once. >> just get the crib notes, right? i can write it out for you in an index card, okay? i'll just write it out for you on an index card. when somebody asks you what your relationship with is with god, don't go, well, i e don't go, well,vangelicals vote for me and say, "sir, we

pray for you." not sure where on the sermon on the mount jesus said that. it certainly wasn't the be attitudes. he was asked in 2016, do you ask for forgiveness. he said, i've never done anything that i needed to ask god for forgiveness. i find it fascinating, willie, he didn't ask the question about a relationship with god. as far as his prayer life goes, again, he still -- you know, he says he has no need to pray because he's perfect. he's asked about both of those things, and he goes, well, you know, evangelicals like me. they say, "sir, sir." it is -- it is just a parody. for people to go, oh, he is a man of god, he is jesus, he is jesus in flesh, it is really -- again, i mean, comparing him to jesus christ on the cross, which some evangelical so-called leaders did, it's just -- it's just beyond parody. it is sad. >> you know, he's got somebody

who follows him around with a printer. he likes physical printouts. print him a couple verses. he's been in politics ten years. just memorize two of them. you can spit those out every time you're asked about religion. instead, he said, quote, "religion is such a great thing." that was his summary of his faith in that interview. >> yeah. >> joining the conversation, we have senior writer for "the dispatch," david drucker. david, good morning. it is good to see you. obviously, donald trump is a few days removed now from this verdict of guilty on 34 felony counts. you put the evangelical question to the side for a moment. what's your sense of how this is playing in republican circles. >> look, it's playing great in republican circles. first of all, he's raising a lot of money, so the trump campaign has hundreds of millions more to invest in the campaign they didn't have before, at least in the immediate. that's going to help them. the party has rallied around

donald trump. you know, it's a lot different than ten years ago, even five years ago, where, first of all, they wouldn't necessarily rally around him, at least not sort of the elite levels of the party, the operational elements of the party. now, they are completely behind him. the other thing i've noticed, willie, which is interesting, is even during donald trump's presidency, when elected republicans and others in the conservative movement would defend donald trump, they would try to do so in sort of normal terms and manners in which republicans had spoken and messaged for decades. now, the party's messaging from senators and members of the house of representatives and others is almost completely reflective of how donald trump and his base talks about politics, right? so you have unanimity there. you have perfect symmetry. look, when you look at the polling in the immediate, i want

to see what happens with polls that are in the field, not this week but polls that are in the field next week that we're not going to get until the following week. but as we've seen in the past, a lot of times, we'll see movement in polling, then everything settles down because scandals simply simply, major events often don't have staying power. by favorite for now analogy when looking at this verdict as it has impacted republicans is to look at how the dobbs decision and the fall of roe v. wade impacted democrats. it was an ongoing, sustaining, fundraising event that galvanized the party in a midterm election when the party in control of the white house is often not energized. for now, you know, what donald trump has is an energized party that, you know, may not necessarily have been that excited about a third consecutive campaign, even though the polling showed he was

in a position to win the election. >> republicans have a very good, for lack of a better word, senate map. they have a lot of opportunities of seats to pick up. how are you seeing this play out with these senate candidates? >> well, any time you can activate anyone who is inclined to vote for you as long as they show up, something like this is -- anything that does that is going to be, molly, a net plus. what republicans have going for them, even though, you know, in the trump era, it hasn't always worked out perfectly, is they're competing for senate seats in montana, ohio, and other places that are just, you know, red as the day is long. so even though sherrod brown in ohio is tough to take out, even though jon tester in montana is tough to take out, in a presidential year, you're looking at tester in montana having to overcome, you know, trump's previous margin over joe

biden in montana, 16 points, right? donald trump's previous margin over joe biden in 2020 was, what, 8, 9 points? i mean, that's a huge sort of over vote you need to accomplice there. even in 2018, when republicans got shellacked and lost 40 seats in the house of representatives, they were able to pick up seats in missouri and elsewhere because of the red/blue divide. >> rnc co-chair lara trump, of course, donald trump's daughter-in-law, is drawing criticism from one prominent conservative commentator after suggesting her committee would not support former republican governor larry hogan, senate candidate, in maryland. hogan posted on x after trump's felony conviction, urging americans to, quote, respect the verdict and the legal process in light of this dangerously divided moment in our history. shouldn't be that controversial. apparently, it is enough to get you canceled by the rnc.

here is what lara trump said, followed by reaction from fox news analyst. >> does the republican national committee support larry hogan for senate. >> i don't support what he just said there. i think it is ridiculous. anybody who is not speaking up in the face of really something that should never again have seen the light of day, a trial that never would have been brought against -- >> does the rnc support his bid? >> -- the respect of anyone. >> doesn't deserve the respect of anyone? >> he doesn't deserve the respect of anyone in the republican party at this point. quite frankly, anybody in america, if that's the way you feel. that's very upsetting to hear that. >> so are you willing to cede the senate seat in maryland to the democratic party and not support larry hogan? >> what i'll tell you is that we, of course, want to win as a party, but that is a shame. i think he should have thought long and hard before he said that publicly. >> are you willing to use republican party resources to

support his bid or not? sounds like you're saying you're not. >> well, i'll get back to you on the specifics monetarily, but what i can tell you is as the republican party co-chair, i think he should have never said something like that. i think it is ridiculous. >> does it make sense to kneecap somebody who might get you the senate? >> no, it's political malpractice. lara trumps of the world ought to be saying, please, mr. hogan, please, governor hogan, you do whatever you have to do to get elected. some of the things you say and you believe in don't agree with what i think, that's okay. do what you have to do. that's how politics is played by smart people. you know, you remember how trump himself went into georgia after the 2020 election and gummed up the works down there by criticizing the voting process down there, basically talking voters out of voting. it cost the republicans control of the senate. let's hope that the trumps don't

repeat the same thing. if you're a republican, you should hope that. that's what could happen with this stupid stuff. >> joe, again, the scandalous comment from larry hogan, by the way, a popular figure in the state of maryland, as the hosts point out, could win. here it is. we have it. "regardless of the result, i urge all americans to respect the verdict and the legal process." that, according to lara trump, donald trump's daughter-in-law who runs the rnc, is enough to get you thrown off. >> and the head of the rnc now saying that someone who says, regardless of the result before they knew what was going to happen, we should respect the legal process, we should respect the rule of law, the head of the rnc now saying that is so objectionable, that every republican in america and every american should not respect

larry hogan. it's extraordinary. these people on wall street that are coming out and supporting donald trump, they're doing that in the face of all the things he said, but now in the face, again, of statements like this from trump, the disrespecting of the rule of law, something which, by the way, our individual rights rest on. also, american capitalism rests on the rule of law, rests on people being sure of fair outcomes, and respecting those outcomes. i do have to say, though, david drucker, you listen to brit hume bring up what happened in 2020 in georgia. >> yeah. >> how donald trump went out of his way to cost republicans control of the senate. you look what happened in pennsylvania in 2022, where he

picked dr. oz over dave mccormick, who would have won that race most likely in 2022. you look at what he did in georgia, supporting herschel walker. it's like every time donald trump gets involved in republican senate races, he shows how little he cares about the republican party, just like lara trump here and the rnc. they don't care about the republican party. they don't care about what's good for the republican party. they don't care about the republicans having control of the senate. they only compare -- they only care about donald trump. somebody's general statement that every politician and every good american over the past two centuries would have said is somehow disqualifying now that larry hogan said it before donald trump was convicted. >> you know, look, joe, donald trump has never professed to

care about the republican party. in fact, it's one of the reasons he's had so much staying power atop the republican party, because he reflects the contempt that so many republican voters, particularly base voters, have for the party in the first place. it's something that other republicans never emulate because they always think about the health of the party writ large and donald trump doesn't. he told me when i interviewed him for "in trump's shadow," he said, yeah, he was angry about the results in georgia, so hi he tanked the senate races there. jeff flake would still be a senator from arizona today if donald trump hadn't chased him out of the party and out of politics ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. there would be one more republican seat in the senate that would have mattered. so this is par for the course for trump's leadership of the party, such that it is. now, i would point out, the rnc was never and is never going to spend any money in deep blue maryland. the national senatorial committee may or may not.

if you are going to communicate to the republican base, which is a minority in maryland but you put their votes together with independents and moderate democrats and other people that may not like the other candidate, you can't tell the significant, minority group of voters that larry hogan deserves to be punished. if you're at the senatorial committee, you have to feel good about lara trump's statements. statements also from a senior trump adviser who went on trirt twitter and said, "you're finished." you may not have to throw money into maryland and go to the places you're on defense, pennsylvania, wisconsin, ohio, montana, and possibly elsewhere. >> right. david, i just want to check, help me out here, though. >> sure. >> this statement made by larry hogan, i want to have this right. he didn't say this after the

verdict. he didn't say this after trump was convicted on 34 counts. he said this before the verdict, right? just to tell people, we need to respect the legal process. >> regardless of when he said it, and it is an interesting note there. i had assumed, because of the way i digested the remarks and the response to the remarks, that the tweet or the post on x came after the verdict, it is exactly what a republican running in maryland should be saying. because he has to win the votes of democrats who are pleased with the verdict and think that it is about time donald trump gets punished for wrongdoing. you know, we talk so much, and understandably so, about the republican base and how do they process everything in the campaign? did you make them angry, activate them? there is also a democratic base. they look at the world in a particular way. they want to see particular results from their elected leaders and from the process, as

well, that don't upset them. this verdict, regardless of, you know, the debate about the legal way in which it was done and whether bragg should have brought this, they were pleased to see donald trump finally get punished for what they believe is a history of wrongdoing, both during his time in politics and before. >> all right. "the dispatch's" david drucker, thank you so much. willie, this comment that lara trump and the head of the rnc and everybody, trump's campaign people think should be disqualifying for larry hogan was said minutes before we found out what the verdict was. >> yup. >> this is what used to be called statesmanship. now, it's being called disqualifying. >> yeah. >> again, only in the age of trump would something like that

draw such a fierce response. >> it is weakness. it is disloyalty. it's all the things we heard. you're right, joe, that came in the space between the time we heard that there was a verdict, without knowing what it was yet. he said, okay, effectively what he is writing there is, we have a verdict. whatever it is, let's respect the outcome. the temperature is high in this country. let's try to turn it down a bit. we heard the verdict after he made that tweet. apparently, that's enough to get you booted in trump and lara trump's rnc. ahead on "morning joe," former israeli prime minister naftali bennett joins us to discuss where things stand on a potential cease-fire deal and the status on the hostages still being held inside gaza. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. supporting your - oops - energy, immunity and metabolism. and yours too! you did it! plus try centrum silver, now clinically proven to support memory in older adults.

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♪♪ biden's plan will destroy 5 million jobs. >> 353,000 jobs added in the first half of the year. what a blowout report. >> your 401(k)s and money itself will be worseless. >> you might have noticed in the corner of the screen, the dow has never been higher than this. >> if biden wins, there will be no fracking, no oil. >> the united states is producing more oil than any country ever in history. >> bankrupt your social security system. >> senior citizens set to see a big bump in the social security checks. >> you'll be locked down for years. >> covid-19 public health emergency in this country officially ending at midnight

tonight. >> if biden won, china would own the united states. they'd literally own the united states. >> trade deficit with china was up under donald trump. under biden, it's finally coming down. >> there will be no school, no graduations, no weddings. >> marriages are back to pre-pandemic levels. >> no thanksgiving. >> happy thanksgiving. >> no easters. >> happy easter. >> no christmases. >> merry christmas, america! >> no fourth of july. >> happy fourth of july, everybody. >> other than that, you'll have a wonderful life. >> credit due to jimmy kimmel and his team, putting that run together. contradictions and poor predictions from donald trump. in a new wide-ranging interview, president biden is outlining his vision for a second term and highlighting his efforts to lead the country around the world. the president spoke exclusively to "time" for the publications upcoming cover story titled "if he wins." joining us now is "time's" washington bureau chief massimo.

he and sam jacobs interviewed biden for the cover story on may 28th at the white house. massimo, good morning. what is the pitch if you had to put it on a bumper sticker? we'll let you go a little longer. what is the pitch for a second term other than keeping donald trump out of the white house again? >> well, i think the point that biden and his team make is that foreign policy is very, very important, as important as any issue. the difference between biden and trump on foreign policy is as big a difference as has existed on foreign policy in 100 years, maybe ever. biden believes in alliances. trump and his team are very skeptical, don't like alliances. it matters generally for the future of the world and for americans' prosperity and security, which way the country chooses to go.

>> tell us more about the president's vision for a second term in terms of his foreign policy, particularly on the matters of ukraine and what we're seeing in israel and gaza. >> so, you know, the big issue in the background is china and managing china's rise. what biden talks about in this interview is a kind of alliance-based approach to managing that. they point to -- he and his team point to ukraine as an example of the way that a values-based alliance can maximize and amplify american power and influence. he's expanded nato. he brought in some asian powers into the effort in ukraine in ways that people haven't done before. in the middle east, it's been a more pragmatic approach after initially isolating saudi arabia. the administration pivoted and embraced them to try to pull them back from china. obviously, he's wrestled mightily with the alliance with

israel and with bibi netanyahu. all of that gets to how you manage china, which is the first country in 100 years that has the potential to challenge the u.s., both militarily and economically. you know, that really -- that competition is going to shape, you know, the future for the u.s. over the coming century. >> tell us a little bit more about that. also, the role that india might play. we have prime minister modi and his party just today, we're learning, going to be re-elected, but a smaller margin than anticipated. how does president biden attempt to -- say he'll attempt to manage these forces? >> so, again, it's a good example of what the biden approach is versus the trump approach. trump took a very bilateral one-on-one approach, transactional by his own account and his aides' own account, achieved a fair amount on the world stage in his own right.

the biden approach is more multilateral, internationalist. with india, for example, in addition to the straight one-on-one stuff, they focused on the quad, which is japan, australia, india, and the u.s., and trying to build that up into a kind of more formal, sustainable force. he's -- the list, if you look back at the stuff they rolled out at the bilats between biden and modi, they have a long, long list of things that they have tried to put on the table, to bring india closer to the u.s. you're quite right, that's a key, strategic player in managing china. >> of course, the president expected to underline the importance of american alliances around the world during speeches to commemorate the 80th anniversary of d-day this week in france. "time's" cover story featuring president joe biden goes on sale next friday, june 14th. the title, "if he wins."

"time's" bureau chief, massimo calabresi, thank you for coming. >> thank you for having me. the white house turns up pressure on israel and hamas to accept a cease-fire deal. foreign correspondent raf sanchez has the latest. >> reporter: this morning, israeli attacks on gaza showing no sign of letting up. air strikes leveling buildings in the center of the strip and fires rages. even as the white house intensifies its push to finally end the war and bring the hostages home. the president speaking to the leader of qatar, urging him to pressure hamas to accept the cease-fire offer. >> you know, you fail every day at it until finally you succeed. i believe we will succeed. it's a question of when. but can i tell you when exactly it is going to happen? i can't. >> reporter: today, new urgency after the idf announced the deaths of four more hostages in hamas captivity, three of them

in their 80s. >> we are sorry we couldn't save them in time. >> reporter: the idf says they died during an israeli operation months ago, and vowing to investigate difficult questions amid unconfirmed hamas claims they were killed by israeli fire. families of hostages now pressing the government to make a deal, including the parents of hersh goldberg polin. >> everyone in the region is ready for our suffering, agony, and misery to stop. it doesn't matter which side. >> reporter: inside gaza, the strikes and the suffering continue. with time running out for children like ahkmed who has cerebral palsy and needs surgery he can't get in the strip, where the health care system all but collapsed. last night, flames across northern israel after rocket fire from militants in lebanon, raising fears that without a deal soon, the war in gaza may spread across the region. >> raf sanchez reporting from

israel. we're learning more about the four hostages mentioned by half. kadav, amiram, yoram, and chaim kidnapped october 7th. their bodies were in gaza. popplewell had been hiding with his mother, who was among those released in november. popplewell was seen a few weeks ago in hamas propaganda video. his kibbutz described him as a quiet and gifted individual. amiram cooper was an economist, poet, and composer. leaves behind his wife, three children, and nine grandchildren. 80-year-old chaim perry was a man of art and cinema. he was a teacher and a founder of the art gallery. he leaves behind a wife, five children, and 13 grandchildren.

and yoram metzger established the winery. he was 80 years old. joining us now, former prime minister naftali bennett. thank you for being with us today. i want to start with the hostages and just the gut-wrenching news that four more hostages are, through intelligence, the idf believes to be dead. still their bodies, remains are in gaza. two 80-year-olds, an 84-year-old, one of them protecting his family in a safe room when he was ripped away from his family. some of their wives were also taken hostages but released. now, we know they are dead. what can you say about the continued effort, the very difficult effort, obviously, to get the hostages home? >> well, there's 120 hostages of which, unfortunately, there's 41 confirmed dead or to be murdered by hamas. we're dealing with the most

genocidal terror jihadist organization on earth. you know, they are cynical, will execute our people. the bottom line is that we can't allow hamas to stand. we can't have them exist at the end of this war. >> even in this latest cease-fire proposal, which we'll get into, israel has said, we'll stop shooting if you release the hostages. so do you have any hope that hamas would listen to that? >> i think the only way to release the hostages is if sinwar, the commander of hamas and the leadership of hamas know that their hours are over and that we're minutes away from killing them and destroying that leadership. then the deal needs to be we will not kill you. we'll allow you to get on a boat and get out of gaza if you release the hostages. i think the half-hearted efforts or conducting of the war right

now by the israeli government, coupled with the american administration's slowing down idf all the time, i think that is self-defeating. the quicker, the faster we move in, the quicker we'll have a deal. >> when you say half-hearted, you have said we should have been talking -- talking about the idf when i say we -- should have been inside rafah months ago. >> that's right. i think there's way too much talk. we're going to do rafah, we're going to do this, do that. just do it. we can destroy hamas, and we can make that one offer to them. we will allow you to live but expel you from gaza if you release the hostages right now. sinwar is playing a cat and mouse tactic with us now, biding time. the overall strategy right now of iran, of hamas, of hezbollah, is to exhaust israel. just last night, hezbollah shot dozens and dozens of rockets on

the galagalali ee. it is burning. imagine in el paso, texas, there were 100,000 people living now eight months in hotels or motels because their homes are burning. that's what we're facing. we have no choice. we have to win. >> joe has a question for you, mr. prime minister. joe. >> mr. prime minister, what's been your response, your reaction to families of hostages saying the netanyahu government hasn't done enough to focus on bringing those hostages home? >> well, you know, when i give interviews abroad, i typically don't criticize my own government. i think that the efforts have been feeble in terms of focusing on sinwar. you can't conduct a war, turning it on and off like a slight switch. i was a soldier. i was a commander. if we just have several weeks to go in with all the force

necessary and tell sinwar, the only way you'll live is if you raise a white flag and release the hostages, we can get this done. but we keep on wavering, vacillating on this. this is not how you can bring results. >> so it's your opinion that, actually, a full-scale invasion of rafah would bring the hostages home more quickly? >> look, yes. obviously, there's no guarantee here. it is a heart-wrenching situation. i think the current approach of thinking we can reach this amazing deal where all the hostages will be released, i think it is naive. it means you don't understand what we're dealing with. the only way that we get results is if they understand their time is out. i want to say one last thing. we sealed the corridor called the rafah corridor that

basically is the border between sinai and gaza. from about a week ago, hamas can no longer replenish its arms. time is running out for them. people are not aware of this. if we just follow through, i think we can get the best results possible. >> let's talk about the, quote, destruction of hamas. the phrase has been thrown around a good bit. is that the killing of all of hamas leaders, or is that the expulsion of hamas from gaza as an effective governing force? because i believe the biden plan does say that part of that plan expels hamas from gaza as a governing forge. >> the latter. what i would envision is the leadership of hamas, either we take them out and kill them as we've done to several, or similar to beirut of 1982, we

get them on a ship, several thousand of the leadership of hamas, get them out, and then we can begin the rebuilding of a new gaza and build a new future for everyone. >> mr. prime minister, let's talk about this deal that president biden unveiled publicly on friday. he framed it as the israeli deal. this is something that he said the government had agreed to. we heard from prime minister netanyahu saying, well, no, not quite. can you explain the disconnect? >> there is a degree of disconnect. the bottom line, though, i think, it's moot. i don't think there is a deal. i think it's an illusion. i don't think sinwar will release the hostages. he might release several of them to dangle and bide his time, but he's playing around with us. there's no reason to believe that he would release the biggest asset that he's acquired unless he sees his death coming. >> u.s. officials say, though, they're saying that part of the divide here was the agreement

that the israeli military would withdraw from gaza. is that something the government would consider? >> look, i read the press. i heard netanyahu offered that sort of thing. i think that we have to retain the rafah corridor, otherwise, what we'll see is a very rapid rebuilding of hamas and we'll see another october 7th, perhaps, in 2025 or 2026. and they won't release the hostages. they may release a few hostages. they've got 120 of them. they're not going to release all the hostages. no way. unless he sees tanks coming over. that's the only option that will bring that result. i know this guy. >> that's the leverage he has, holding the hostages. >> yes. and the leverage -- >> he can't lose it. >> but the leverage we need to create is an imminent and immediate threat on his life and the lives of leadership. it's not -- if we just follow through and stop this vacillation, we can do it.

i fought hamas. i fought hezbollah many years. we can do this. this is not the most complicated thing on earth. by the way, we're doing it with very low civilian casualties right now. we managed to move about a million citizens away from harm's way. it was told to us we couldn't do it, it'd take months. it took days. >> despite your best efforts to protect civilians, we know hamas uses civilians as shields. there was the tent camp, 45 people were killed in grizzly pictures. as a commander, should more care be taken, as someone who was a commander, more care be taken to avoid the civilian casualties on the merits of not killing women and children, of course, but also the way it turns public opinion against israel? >> well, i want to correct you. we did not attack the tent camp. we attacked and took out two leaders with very precision weapons. >> it killed 45 other people. >> it did not kill.

what happened was those people were hiding within ammunition, and that ammunition that hamas cynically placed under them, rpgs, it was a secondary explosion. hamas murdered their own people. >> but that's just the point. hamas hides behind civilians. how do you -- if you're going after hamas, how do you avoid civilians? >> if hamas is determined to kill its own people, there is nothing i can do to stop it. we cannot prevent hamas from killing its own people. yesterday, let me tell you a story in one of the houses under the bed of a 10-year-old girl in gaza. there was an ammunition depo with rpgs and explosives. there is no way in the world that we can prevent hamas from killing its own people. it wants to do that because it knows you'll ask me those questions, and it applies pressure on israel. the way to do away with it is if everyone pressures hamas and not israel. and points the finger at hamas,

stop killing your own people. stop hiding explosives under civilians. >> joe? >> mr. prime minister, let me ask you, first of all, about the state we find ourselves in right now. we have both, i'm sure you know this or you wouldn't come on the program, we've been extraordinarily critical of hamas and have said from the very beginning that when they kill a jew, that's good news. when a palestinian is killed, that's great news for hamas. we certainly understand that equation. we also understand the terrible, terrible toll it's taken on the gazan people. also on israel's reputation across the globe. i want to ask you about where we are right now, though. it seems to be the worst of all worlds. the idf is frozen in place. gazans are starving.

gazans are not getting the medical care they need. it's almost like a siege. it seems to be the worst of all worlds. is that one of the reasons why you're saying the idf needs to be able to go into rafah and finish off hamas, finish this war off, and start the rebuilding? >> precisely. you know, you take off a band-aid quickly, you don't do it slowly. you can't fight a war with an on and off button. you can't. i was a fighter, and it is impossible. when you hit your enemy, hamas, you punch them in the face. he's wobbling. what you do not do is tell him, take a month off, get better, come back and fight another day. this lack of continuity, lack of determination, coupled with the american pressure on us to go slower is a mistake. this could have been over three, four months ago if we just followed through. i think both governments are not

conducting themselves in an optimal way. >> what does gaza look like in your eyes after hamas is expelled? after, hopefully, the hostages are released. after there is some semblance of control. do you believe the israelis should take control of gaza, or do you believe in the possibility of an international peacekeeping force with the united states and your arab neighbors? >> well, i'd envision the model of post world war ii germany. the first phase is, first of all, defeating the nazis. we've not yet finished that. then i would put in place an interim-appointed government of competent egyptians, primarily, palestinians, saudis, emirates,

while israel retains the security responsibility. we don't want to govern gaza. there is no desire. in that case, it is simple. this could go on five, six years, in which period we'd also discontinue the incitement, so they'd have to stop teaching kids that jews are pigs, et cetera. stop it in the media. stop it in the mosques. within six, seven, eight years, you know, we see how it develops. then we could hand over to self-governance. we do not want to govern gaza. we have no desire whatsoever for anything from gaza. ever since we pulled out of gaza in 2005, we handed it over to the palestinians. so there is no territorial fight here. we have a terror state that wants to destroy israel, and we don't want to be destroyed. >> do you see any third party, any outside force? is it qatar, for example, who could apply any pressure on

hamas to release the hostages, to accept some kind of deal? >> i think qatar could do much more. i think qatar is playing a very dirty game,double-faced game. they pretend to be western and an advanced country, but they, in many ways, are helping, together with iran, to foster terror for many years. yeah, they could pressure hamas for the simple reason that, right now, the hamas leadership is living in hotels in doha, qatar, and they could tell them, look, if you don't get the hostages released, we'll kick you out. you can live in damascus or tehran, which is not as pleasant. >> with a similar message. >> they have blood on their hands. >> former israeli prime minister bennett, thank you. >> thank you. i want to thank all of you for being decent and fair regarding

this very complicated and unfortunate conflict. >> coming up next, house republicans grill dr. anthony fauci over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. congressman robert garcia of california defending fauci. the congressman joins us next. smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin. it's like the feeling of finding you're so ready for your close-up. or finding you don't have to hide your skin just your background. once-daily sotyktu was proven better, getting more people clearer skin than the leading pill. don't take if you're allergic to sotyktu; serious reactions can occur. sotyktu can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections, cancers including lymphoma, muscle problems, and changes in certain labs have occurred.

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yesterday in a combative hearing about the origins of covid-19. nbc news senior washington correspondent hallie jackson has more from capitol hill. >> dr. anthony fauci on defense. >> when you're dealing with a new outbreak, things change. >> reporter: and dismissing claims he played any part in a suggested cover-up of covid origins. >> the accusation being

circulated is absolutely false and simply preposterous. >> reporter: the doctor, who retired 18 months ago, back in the spotlight adds part of a republican-led investigation into the pandemic's origins and response, a hearing at times turning testy. >> mr. fauci, because you're not doctor, that man doesn't deserve to have a license. as a matter of fact, this should be revoked and he belongs in prison. >> reporter: fauci explaining what he meant when he testified behind closed doors in january that the six foot social distance rule sort of just appeared according to transcripts. now clarifying it came from the cdc with no clinical trials done. >> you didn't feel an obligation as the lead scientist at the nih to challenge that? >> i challenged the cdc multiple times. >> reporter: fauci served in his government role since 1984, advising seven presidents of both parties and was a prominent expert in the fight against deads like hiv aid when covid

started spreading he was the pandemic's public face, appearing in briefings, magazines -- >> here is dr. anthony fauci. >> reporter: on late night shows. but since then he has become politically polarizing, idolized or demonized. overnight fauci saying the vitriol he faces, including on capitol hill, means he still gets death threats. >> you have performances like that unusual performance by marjorie taylor greene in today's hearing. those are the things that drive up the death threats. >> reporter: testifying emotionally now about the death threats his family faced. >> it is very troublesome to me. it is much more troublesome because they have involved my wife and my three daughters. >> at these moments, how do you feel? >> terrible. >> that was nbc's hallie jackson reporting. willie, it really is, it's extraordinary that a man who

committedis life to public service and tried to demonize him over masks. the guy is yelling, why didn't you do clinical trials like on masks and six foot distances? we were in the middle of a pandemic that would kill millions of people. they didn't know. they had to do best efforts at the time. do you think that guy and his family would have volunteered for a clinical trial, saying, we are going to try one feet, two feet? no. they were doing the best they could. vaccines. they were trying to figure out, is this going to be like past vaccines where it creates smart cells that can actually stay with you for 10, 15, 17 years. they didn't know. we've now found out afterwards you have to have a booster maybe every six months. maybe it will be after a year. it is again, it's -- it's what

generals call the fog of war. they are in the middle of a war that killed millions of people and they were doing the best they could do. whenever they made mistakes, it seemed to me they made mistakes by acting like they were more certain about things than they actually were. but again, they were doing the best with facts that they had before them. and i find it hard to believe that anybody would deny that reality unless they were trying to win cheap political points. >> that's what it is. he has become a villain in certain circles despite decades of service. and also we should point out led by former president trump. this country got to a vaccine in record speed and saved untold numbers of lives. dr. fauci was there. operation warp speed under president trump helped get us across the finish line. they never mention that. there are things in hindsight

that weren't right. kids should have been back in school sooner. we know that now and we learned from it for god forbid the next time. it's easy now from the cheap seats years later to make charges and accusations against dr. fauci. joining us now, democratic congressman robert garcia of california. take us inside the hearing room yesterday. what was it like. >>? honestly, shameful. i think one of the absolute worst things i have seen in congress. dr. fauci is an american hero. we should remember what was happening during that period of time. there were some days we were losing over 4,000, 5,000 people a day in this country. we were working our groceries as they were coming in, separating and distancing seniors. trajectories in nursing homes. i personally lost potato my mom and my stepdad to the pandemic. she was a health care worker. so this attack on dr. fauci not giving him the respect of

calling him a doctor was insane. and this whole idea, i mean, that we are going to attack someone that was leading a group of the most brilliant medical minds in the country, in the world, to develop a vaccine that saved millions of more lives is something that should be a complete embarrassment to the congress and of course marjorie taylor greene just led that insanity and shamefulness. >> i knew that about your mother and stepdad. i am so sorry. i know this was personal for you yesterday. we heard accusations that dr. fauci suppressed curiosity about the lab leak theory in china, that perhaps wasn't animal-born. what is your assessment of that debate? >> dr. fauci has been completely transparent. he even cleared -- there were a lot of things we are exploring. he hasn't ruled anything out. could it have been a lab leak? could it have been animal to animal transmission? we don't know at this moment. what is he not going to do is

rule anything out. he is also not going to entertain these conspiracy theories. we had members of the republicans on the committee insinuating that dr. fauci was covering up the origins, somehow involved in creating covid, that he somehow parachuted into the cia headquarters for secret meetings. this is the kind of insanity that is happening right now in the congress. i also -- i take real issue with the leadership of the republican house putting someone like marjorie taylor greene on a committee, a select committee that is supposed to be looking at the pandemic on how we prepare for the next pandemic, knowing how completely unserious she is. she set up this whole committee for complete failure. there is a lot we could be doing. how to reopen schools faster, better deal with businesses, make vaccines better. these are real questions that we're actually not working on in this congress. >> well, and one thing that came out yesterday, regarding the lab leak theory, when someone approached him in 2020 and said

they believed that perhaps they needed to look at the lab leak theory and thought it may have been a lab leak theory. there was an email that was the hearing where dr. fauci said, if you have evidence of that and if you believe like somebody who is trying to cover up the possibility of labeak ying, if you believe that, get your information to the fbi now, they need to see it? >> absolutely right. dr. fauci has served presidents of both parties. he is a committed dedicated public servant and again led a team of the world's best and brightest to save millions of lives around the world. in the united states, we lost over 1 million americans. we lost over 7 million people around the world. we were having 9/11-like death events every single day. this was a horrific tragedy. the single largest loss of life event in the modern era and

republicans want to play politics by attacking this man. and it's completely shameful and we should be embarrassed of it. i am glad he came. i am glad he stood up to them. he said the truth. it's important to continue to support truth, science, and facts and not these conspiracy theories that marjorie taylor greene and so many others are putting out there in the community. >> congressman, lastly, a different subject, immigration. later today president biden is going to announce executive orders effectively to give the ability to shut down the border with mexico really restrict asylum. let's get your reaction to that, sir. >> sure. look, we haven't seen the final proposal yet. so without knowing exactly what's in it, broadly speaking, think we understand that president biden is on his first day of office submitted a comprehensive immigration reform bill, including border security

provisions and pathways to recipients and ways to fix the system. republicans have done nothing to bring that issue up or to actually get a hearing to president biden's other proposals. we can all agree, democrats and republicans, that there are serious challenges along the border. i think we can all understand that. we also know that we need to fix the asylum system. we have to provide more resources. we need more asylum judges. so i think the president is doing the best he can having no support from the republican party on either of the security piece or on piece of actually being a humane country. i immigrated to the updates when i was a young kid. i am an immigrant from a immigrant family. it is shameful that we turn our backs on immigration and having a humane and orderly border and process in the country. we will see what the president has to say. i am hopeful that this congress needs to address broader immigration reform and create pathways for the 10 million plus people in the country that don't know what their future is going

to be like. >> we will get more details later today from the president when he signs that order. democratic congressman robert garcia of california, congressman, thank you for your time this morning. appreciate it. >> thank you. and the third hour of "morning joe" continues now. found guilty. they were going to put him in an orange jumpsuit but it felt redundant. trump will be sentenced july 11. his lawyers told him to get his affairs in order. he was like, that got me in trouble in the first place. >> jimmy fallon last night. welcome to "morning joe." tuesday, june 4. with us jonathan lemire, pulitzer prize-winning editor of the "washington post" and msnbc eugene robinson and special correspondent at "vanity fair" and host of the fast politics podcast molly john fast. good morning to you all. a fundraiser in connecticut last

night. president biden made some of his most candid comments yet about former president donald trump's criminal conviction. in off camera remarks biden told the audience that a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency. the president added, quote, as disturbing as that is, more damage something the all-out assault donald trump is making on the american system of justice. president biden is reported to have said, quote, something snapped in this guy after the 2020 election and, quote, it's literally driving him crazy. biden went on to call trump unhinged, joe. so maybe a private preview, joe, where we may see president biden going publicly as his campaign rolls out now that donald trump has been convicted on 34 felony counts. >> right. it is, jonathan lemire, may be a private preview, but this is how biden feels, this is how his campaign team feels. this is how people around him feel. they are glad the trial's over.

they're glad that he's going out on the trail. as i said yesterday, while that long stem winder of a press conference was going on friday, the biden campaign was celebrating. they said, okay, he's -- he sounds older, more unhinged, less connected with reality. this is why we want him out of the courthouse and on the campaign trail. >> yeah, seems counterintuitive. they are right. senior biden people were eager for the trial to end because they felt it shielded donald trump from the scrutiny of the rest of the -- of the voters when they actually hear him talk again and he is in their living room again, which he was in the news conference friday, which he will be in the debate in a few weeks time. americans will be repulsed when they don't want to go back to that trump term. the way the president and the team handle this, we saw last week president biden's first words about the verdict were

simply we respect the process. the judicial system works. now we see other democrats and the president himself begin to ramp up his attacks on donald trump. the biden twitter account more than a dozen times yesterday used the phrase convicted felon. we heard if from president biden last night. now, do they -- they don't believe this conviction itself is a race-changing event. they think it will help along the margins and in a close race. that could matter. they think it's the latest piece, the latest piece, willie, of this overall example they are building about how donald trump isn't fit for office. look at the lengths he would go to, to keep power, he is only out for himself and not you, the american voter. >> this came in late may, this verdict, we will see how long it can burn through a long campaign, whether it stays alive adds a conversation piece. molly, you're writing about this

in "vanity fair," titled trump world's post-conviction spin cycle. she writes this. while many trump surrogates appeared to go about their messaging in lock step there are stark inconsistencies suggesting trump's verdict was not something that republicans had a clear handle on. perhaps the weirdest display of dissonance from mike lee who couldn't seem to make up his mind whether the trial was a boon or a bust. at 5:15 p.m. on thursday he tweeted that by pushing for and securing trump's convictions, progressives have guaranteed trump's election. a mere 20 minutes later the senator appeared to turn on a dime saying of the trial, i can't imagine a big, more impactful contribution to the biden campaign. a jury has found trump to be guilty on 334 counts of falsifying business records. in his world, this reality does not really matter. it's something that could be endlessly spun and mangled and perverted into a word salad of projection and lies.

when it comes to wiping off a stain that is this endellable, trump world is going to have a much harder time. molly, let you expand on your piece. but, obviously, we heard reflective reaction from most republicans not surprising given a lot of them were at the courthouse during the trial to support him saying this was a miss charnl of justice and the criminal justice system is broke and the country is terrible and all those things because one time it cut against them. how do you expect this to play for the rest of the campaign? >> so it reminded me of the "access hollywood" tape. there was a moment of panic. it wasn't quiet. when the "access hollywood" taupe broke there was silence. obviously, republicans are in it too deep to do anything but keep going. donald trump is the central platform of their 2024 campaign. you know, down the ticket. so i don't think that they are going to cut and run from him. in fact, we saw lots of

defending. but we saw a kind of very weird defending. defend some things but not other things. they, you know, they attacked the rule of law, which is what we were expecting. a lot of this was in playbook. there certainly was tacking and reaching. also think ultimately donald trump is, you know, when they are not completely in lock step, that's something to look at. and so i do think there was some problems there. ultimately, trump was always gonna say this is what he expected and this was how he thought it would go. i think they is think that he was going to skate or at least skate on some of the charges. >> yeah. i mean, and they wouldn't have been alone. again, i was sure that there -- you know, possibly a hung jury. sure that maybe there would be one person out of the 77 million who voted for donald trump in 2020 that was on that jury that would not take their duty seriously.

i was wrong and the trump campaign was wrong. there were 12 jurors who were willing to set aside all pre-existing beliefs, all pre-existing prejudices and just look at the facts of the case, follow the jury instructions and convict him on 34 counts. now, gene robinson, you say there is something donald trump could do if he wanted to make america great again and there is about as much chance of him doing that as the tories winning in a landslide next month. why don't you tell us what he could do? >> he could withdraw from the race. he has just been convicted of 34 felonies. you know, imagine, joe, if this were any other point in american history from the founding of the republic to the day in 2015 that donald trump rode down that escalator at trump tower, at any other moment in our history a candidate for any office who was convicted mid-campaign of 34

felony charges would have been out, out of the race before the jury foreman finished reading the 34 guilty verdicts, right? i mean, it would have been unthinkable that someone would stay in any race given the status as a 34-times felon. but, we're in this very different world. i thought, as i was sitting down to write a column yesterday, look, somebody needs to call for donald trump to step out of the race because, you know, all of these sort of, you know, hand-wringing democrats and chin-stroking pundits, they have been calling for joe biden to step aside. the only thing he is guilty of is living to 81. you know? it's just this weird topsy-turvy

upside down world that we live in, and we need to every once in a while and realize this is not normal. this is not healthy. this is insane. and i kind of wonder if maybe that will sink in, just that fact of how insane and unacceptable this is. it will sink in with some voters over time. we'll see. >> i suspect it may with swing voters. we saw some polls over the weekend suggesting that it just may do that with independent voters, swing voters, especially in the upper midwest states. but gene brings up such a great point, willie. in the good old days, back when i was in washington, i mean, heck, if somebody got indicted of 34 counts, they immediately resigned if from congress and went to prepare their defense.

here donald trump gets convicted 34 times, 34 different felonies, and of course you have united states senators who are trying to use it as a badge of honor, that their guy is being persecuted by the state. >> yeah, i mean, martyred, right? he has been compared to religious figures without irony by members of the united states congress, people on tv as a rallying cry behind him. and that's the trump way, isn't it? never surrender, never apologize, put your head down and keep moving and pretend, despite all the facts around you, that you are the victim. >> always, always play the victim. i mean, that's always -- always play the victim. always play the martyr. you know, he was -- he was asked in this weekend "fox & friends" interview about evangelicals supporting him. we saw people that used to -- i

just saw shocking things by evangelical so-called leaders. one of them having trump next to jesus on a cross saying, why wouldn't you vote for somebody whose been convicted? you worship somebody who was convicted. and that shows you just the depravity that many of these people are willing to sink to. it's just straight out blasphemy. >> there used to be a word for that. blasphemy. molly, the point of this is that donald trump could not pull this off alone, right? >> right. >> he would be a convicted felon and sound as insane as he does sound in that interview with "fox & friends" over the weekend for 90 minutes, however long it lasted. but the entire party, the entire media on his side rallies behind him and legitimizes his claims

of victimhood. >> and what was interesting this weekend is the message out of trump world is this helps him, right? we raised money. we are going to have to wait to see the filings. a lot of money either way. and he said, you know, this helps him, makes him more powerful, you libs have done it now, even though remember it's a state case. the other thing is that this doesn't exist in a vacuum. he has three other cases, plus all of the civil cases. i mean, this guy isn't just -- this isn't just, like, one rogue prosecutor. i mean, the guy has done all of these things which led to all of these investigations. so, look, i think that to watch trump world pump him up both to try to play the victim going to survive is a bizarre thing. >> you know, they -- there is such a bubble, too, jonathan lemire, that these people live

in. i mean, even people in sort of the media orbit that i have talked to. they think 34 felony convictions is great for donald trump, great for fundraising. firing up the base. man, people are going to do whatever it takes to vote. fires up his 44%, his 43%, you know? and 46, maybe 47%. they actually believe it. trump knows better than to believe that this is something that he wants. but there are people around him that have convinced themselves living in a bubble that these 34 felony convictions are the greatest political advance for trump in some time, and they are just completely delusional. >> they are right it will fire up the base. they will right it will be that

for the time being. there are a couple of things. first, we do know and we have long said on this show the way donald trump is thinking is what he posts op truth social in the middle of the night, expressing anger and frustration. he doesn't want to go to prison. he didn't want to be quicked. they thought they would get a hung jury. they were surprised by the verdict and particularly it was unanimous. even if this helps politically with his base, there is simply no way it helps beyond that. now, democrats feel there is worries already about complacency, that the members of the base say, well, trump has been convicted, to, he can't win. no, the overarching message from the president biden is he can win, conviction or not, we have to beat him at the pilot box. it's about the swing voters, in particular someone on the biden camp put it to me yesterday, the people who decide this voters, suburban voters, older voters,

they care about democracy and decorum. they are turned off by the idea that the biden people believe that donald trump not only is now indeed a convicted felon and the other part of that fox interview over the weekend, willie, he threatened retribution. he said we are going to use the department of justice to get back at the people who did this to me and that i think is going to be upsetting to a lot of voters who are going to cast their ballots and actually decide this thing in november. >> confirmed everything people believe about what's gonna happen, fire off the generals, have maga, have our own people in there, get rid of the federal government and replace it with our own. a lot in that interview. president biden is expected to sign an executive order today to temporary shut down the southern border when migrant crossings surge. nbc's julia ainsley is in mission texas and joins us straight ahead. "morning joe" is back in a moment. k in a moment ♪ these diamonds, diamonds on my teeth ♪ ♪ brand new whip is what they see, yeah ♪

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like carpal tunnel syndrome, shortness of breath, and irregular heartbeat could be something more serious called attr-cm, a rare, underdiagnosed disease that worsens over time. sound like you? call your cardiologist, and ask about attr-cm. spo. president biden is expected to sign an executive order today that would shut down the southern border when daily migrant crossings between legal points of entry exceed 2,500 people. according to three sources familiar with the discussions under the order the border would not reopen until that number falls below 1,500 migrants a day. any shutdown would not stop trade, travel or entry by immigrants lawfully presenting themselves at points of entry. however, it would prevent migrants for applying for asylum if they cross the border during the closure. two of the sources stress the

details are still being finalized but the white house has begun to discuss the order with lawmakers. one of the courses telling nbc news the white house is acting now because it believes the numbers will rise through the summer as they tend to do. department of homeland security officials say the southern border currently is seeing more than 4,000 border encounters every day. joining us from the border town of mission, texas, nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley. julia, good morning. so tell us a little bit more about this order and what the impact may be. >> reporter: well, as far as impacts goes, one of the quickest things we can expect to see is groups who were advocating for migrants suing the federal government and getting this entire thing enjoined in court because what we expect the president to unveil today is actually very similar to something that president trump tried to do under his presidency, to try to make it illegal for any immigrant crossing the border between ports of entry, that

would be in a place just like this where he built the wall, between legal ports of entry to make that illegal, to make it so they couldn't claim asylum. that was stopped in courts. that was something stephen miller came up with. and this is pretty close to that action. now, what i'm told is this is really the way that the biden administration is lobbing the ball back into the court of congress. as you know, they wanted that bipartisan deal that langford and sinema and others worked on in the senate that didn't get a vote and of course that president trump told republicans not to vote for because he said it didn't go far enough. this is their way of saying, look, we've tried to take really bold action through an executive order. the court stopped us. now it's up to you, congress. and they want that message going into the november election, especially if those numbers rise along the border much we have to point out though, numbers have remained slower and steady since december. historic highs in december,

12,000 a day. since then they have remained around 4,000 to 5,000 per day along the southern border. here in rio grande valley, it used to be one of the busiest spots. i have seen hundreds of migrants packed under a bridge just beyond this wall. today pretty quiet. we have seen a few border patrol vans roll through. they might be hearing some small groups of microbrews coming through. the border has been quiet they are year than we saw especially towards the end of last year. i have to point that out. sometimes we forget with about that when we are talking about border politics. >> you covered this so well and so closely so long. the process now is you can show up at the border and say you are seeking asylum, you are being persecuted in your home country and you go into the united states while you are waiting on your hearing for asylum which could take many years. is anything being done to get more judges, more courts, more

ways to process those cases more quickly? >> reporter: that's what that he wanted in the border bill. without more money from congress hard to see how they can do that. they want more beds in i.c.e. detention. but in lieu of that money, this is to push more people back into mexico. in fact, willie, a big reason we are hearing about this this week and not earlier, they wanted to bait for mexico to get through the elections over the weekend before they announced this pause they really can't do a deal like this where they don't allow migrants to come in claim asylum and get on to that process that can take years unless they get mexico to agree to take back the migrants that won't be allowed in. and they plan to do that at just 2,500 a day, willie. we are already seeing over 4,000 a day. it's hard to imagine a scenario where they would get down to that 1,500 people a day trigger

to then reopen it. this would effectively shut down the border immediately and keep it closed for the remaining future. of course, as you pointed out, that does not mean legitimate trade and travel. it means migrants passing between legal ports of entry. >> homeland security correspondent julia ainsley in mission, texas. thanks so much. appreciate it. >> jonathan, we should underline something that julia said, which is we will hear republicans in congress complaining about this today, too little, too late, they had the legislation they asked for sitting in front of them, bipartisan, led by one of the most conservative senators in the united states. ♪ james langford, kyrsten sinema, chris murphy worked on it for month and donald trump totals republicans not to support it anymore and they walked away from it. so the timing on this, why now for president biden? >> two pieces. julia hit one. they wanted to fate for mexico's elections to include. that happened. and we are five months to election day. that's request why the president and the team felt like they had

to do something on it. republicans crafted this deal in senate and then walked away because donald trump wanted to keep it an election issue. polls show that immigration remains a pretty good issue for republicans despite the facts of the matter. and the president, biden and his team, acknowledge privately they were slow to act earlier in his term. they are acting now. they need to have a show of force, push it back to congress. even if nothing gets done, they want to show voters they are making an effort ahead of november. >> what julia said was so important. they don't have the money, right? they don't have the money for the judges and the system. and so what happens is you have people come in for asylum and then they they are released. so you don't have the mechanism to process these claims. and that is not going to be solved with an executive order. remember republicans have been saying, you know, biden can do

an executive. he can solve this problem. so this is his way of saying, you know, we've done an executive order. obviously, you can't solve it. >> expect today sign that executive order today as president biden before he heads off to france for the rest of the week. still ahead on "morning joe," new reporting on why the president's worries are growing as hunter biden's trial and felony gun charges against in wilmington. that's next on "morning joe." jo. wait, no, i'm always hot. sleep number does that. can i make my side softer? i like my side firmer. sleep number does that. can it help us sleep better and better? please? sleep number does that. 94 percent of smart sleepers report better sleep. now, save 40% on the sleep number special edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add an adjustable base. shop now at sleepnumber.com

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opening statements are set to begin this morning in hunter biden's felony gun trial after a jury was selected on the first day of proceedings yesterday. nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles has the latest from delaware. >> reporter: for the first time in american history the child of a sitting president is facing a criminal trial. now the 12-member jury is set. six men and six women, including six jurors who own guns

themselves or have family members that purchased them recently. hunter biden accused of lying on federal form in 2018 to purchase a gun. checking a box saying he was not an active drug user despite acknowledging in his book he was addicted to crack cocaine at the time. first lady jill biden making a surprise appearance sitting a few feet behind her son in court. the president offering his support saying, as the president, i don't and won't comment on pending federal cases, but as a dad, i have boundless love for my son. president biden spending memorial day weekend with hunter and recently inviting him to steak dinners and defending him publicly. >> my son has done nothing wrong. i trust him. i have faith in him. >> reporter: his son's legal battles likely to take a political toll on the president in the midst of a re-election campaign. hunter's original plea fwargen which would have resulted in no prison time was blasted by republicans as a sweetheart deal and it fell apart under a judge's scrutiny.

special prosecutor david weiss charging him for tax and gun crimes to which hunter biden pleaded not flee. the defendant's laptop is real, be introduced as a trial exhibit and contains significant evidence of the defendant's guilt. prosecutors expect today call hallie biden, who hunter was dating when the hand fun was discovered. she is the widow of his brother beau. >> ryan nobles reporting there. you have new reporting about how this trial may impact president biden personally and as he goes through the campaign? >> no question. the president people closest to him believe this will are far more personal than republican. republicans have for years tried to make hunter biden a major issue and poll after poll after poll shows americans simply don't care. americans are sympathetic to the bidens because so many of them have struggles with addiction so they understand the president's love for his son.

lindsey graham said yesterday that he believes like america, because hunter biden faces tax charges later in the year in california and he says i think any average american who's done their taxes like hunter biden would have probably faced prosecution, talking about the california case. however, i don't think the average american would have been charged with the gun thing. i don't see any good coming from that. so a moment of humanity there from the senator. that's hunter biden's argument. he feels like he is being prosecuted because of his last name. his father feels guilt, thinks his political career shown a spotlight on hunter biden which led to the trial. aides worry. he will keep tabs on the trial while in fans, he texts or calls his son every day, he is worried about a possible conviction and incarceration, could challenge hunter biden's sobriety, the impact of hallie biden's testimony. it that's going to be a tough moment for that family as well

as hunter biden's ex-wife also expected to testify. they don't think this will be much of a political issue for the campaign. but they are worried about the human toll on this president going forward. >> and we have said all along from the beginning of this if hunter biden did something wrong, the evidence will be presented, a jury will convict him or not. that's the way the court worked the way it worked for former president trump last week. but on the political side of this, in the media bubble that joe was talking about, hunter biden is all day every day, his laptop and everything else, and they've tried to make the implicit case he is corrupt and, therefore, somehow so is joe biden. they haven't presented evidence of that. there have been congressional committees for months and months and months who talked about smoke but no fire yet. we are waiting for the fire on that. they are trying to tie hunter biden to joe biden but as downpoints out, the american public outside of a very specific sliver of doesn't seem to be that interested? >> yeah, look, hunter biden struggled with addiction. we are a country that has been

riddled with addiction and, you know, a percentage of this population has struggled with fentanyl and all sorts of opioids and, you know, addiction is a real american problem. so the fact that they are -- they keep hammering him on being an addict, on having a -- you know, also on having a gun, which republicans really like guns. so i think it's going to be -- i think this is going to keep going. but i think biden has a good opportunity here to say the law is the law to for everyone, be it my son or donald trump. you know, this is the way it works in this country. >> we'll see how it plays out. the jury has been seated. trial effectively begins today. coming up, we will be joined by two "new york times" reporters behind a new investigation into the years-long political and religious campaign to overturn roe v. wade. that's next on "morning joe." e.

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supreme court overturned roe v. wade a new book is shedding light on conservatives years-long strategy that finally led to the dobbs decision. the book the fall of roe, the rise of of a new america, and it explores how the right's most fervent anti-abortion activists persuaded the court to end nearly 350 years of press sent. the co-authors, national religion correspondent for "the new york times" and national correspondent for "the new york times." good morning to you both. congratulations. today is pub day. >> today is pub day. >> congratulations. >> thank you. >> your baby is out into the world. >> it is. it's here! >> deeply reported like 350 interviews. you really get into the history of this issue. so it's a lot to get through. but i guess the -- i'll start at the end, which is how the dam ultimately broke after this half-century effort to overturn roe v. wade. donald trump getting in the white house, obviously, put

those three justices on the supreme court. but at the end what pushed it over the finish line? >> the book is the narrative how roe fell. the final decade of the roe era, what we saw in the period is this tightly connected web of conservative anti-abortion activists were able to move the levers of power in their favor in ways big and really small, you know, working at statehouses to start pushing through legislation and then as you point out, donald trump gets elected. they get really -- you know, they jump on that train. it becomes a bullet train for them. and they get really lucky. they get the three seats on the supreme court and they are dealing with an abortion rights movement that's really ill equipped and unprepared to taken at threat in a country that has this pervasive sense of denial that this right that has been a part of american life for two generations could suddenly disappear. >> elizabeth, donald trump, obviously, evangelicals were skeptical of him in 2015, even

2016, he talked about being pro-choice many times in public previous to that. and then maybe ultimately they realized they could perhaps shape him a little bit because he so desperately wants to be elected, they can dictate what they want from him? >> they did. one of the interesting things, it wasn't just evangelicals, catholics played an important role in the anti-abortion movement's growth, origins. evangelicals were late coming to that in history. and the leaders. anti-abortion movement were rooted in their stiff christian values, values about family, womanhood, and of course abortion. and what our story shows is that it was those values that really were behind the movement. certainly as lisa was saying, there is all these levers of power that they pulled. at the core, this is happening over a period when america's

becoming increasingly secular. so much cultural change when it comes to marriage, family and sex. these are things that the anti-abortion movement is ultimately hoping to change. it's not just about overturning roe. it's a half-century plan to roll back the sexual revolution. >> joe, you watched this closely from the point of view of faith and politics over the course of your life and career culminating once trump is in the white house of 50 years of precedent overturned. >> right. and elizabeth, right. catholics have been pro-life for quite some time, a as i always joke on this show. evangelicals, my church, southern baptists were pro-choice from the time of jesus' birth until the eagles broke up. and just so when you say a new america, i think it's interesting.

it was a new republican party and the redefinition by political activists in 1979-1980, what it meant to be an evangelical, what it meant to be a christian. and you had people like paul weyrich and, you know, richard viguerie and jerry fall well just deciding whole cloth this is how we beat a southern baptist democrat. so i'm curious how did their political machinations in 1979 and 1980 not only change american politics, but based on your reporting, how did it change how evangelicals looked at their own faith and bringing had this political controversy that many now put at the center of their faith? >> well, look. you could think about politics

influences religion or religion influencing politics. the story is in the trump era, especially in the last decade, we're really seeing the merging of those two things and politics influencing religion. and you could think back to this long game, the anti-abortion movement conservative christians think in generations about change, not just a political cycle. also the people that you mentioned, that's a couple of generations ago. what our book talks about is there was actually this most recent generation that actually thought overturning roe over the finish line was really led by conservative christian women and they have a vision of what it means to be a woman in america, how motherhood fits into that. that really changed the game in the end and it's not just the story of kind of the '80s religious right. there is a modern religious right that is enormously influential not just on issues

about abortion. issues, all kinds of cultural issues in realm about rolling back the sexual revolution. coming up, the double haters. voters who don't particularly care for president biden or former president trump. how that part of the electorate could end up swaying this presidential election next on morning morning. lection next on morning morning. liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. with all the money i saved i thought i'd buy stilts. hi honey. ahhh...ooh. look, no line at the hot dog stand. yes! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty.♪ (wife) saving for retirement was tough enough. only pay for what you need. (husband) and navigating markets can be challenging at times. (fisher investments) i understand. that's why at fisher investments, we keep a disciplined approach with your portfolio, helping you through the market's ups and downs. (husband) what about communication?

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the research firm sat down on sunday with a group of so-called double haters or voters who are unhappy with the prospect of choosing between joe biden and donald trump. none of the participates thought trump's conviction would affect their vote, and none thought biden would win the election. in addition, they were also asked if a former president was treated fairly at his trial.

>> i don't think he was treated fairly. i didn't watch the trial, but when you're before a judge or whatever or a jury and they have to go by the law and by what, you know, the judge and jury say. i feel like he was. >> i feel like he was treated fairly. i feel like he actually got away with saying a lot of disparaging things not only about the jurors, about the judge as well. i know he said things before about other people who were prosecuting him. if there wouldn't have been anyone else on trial and you're badmouthing the jurors and the judge, what would have been the repercussion of that? >> he benefitted from his stature and given the gag order didn't abide by it. other people would get nailed with some fines and that, but he

skirted by it. i do trust the legal system enough that if the prosecution and defense were both able to pick jurors and they presented it so quickly and the judge and the jurors followed due process and found him guilty quickly, i have a hard time thinking there were that many jurors who agreed upon he's not guilty, but let's find him guilty for kicks. >> none of those people said in that focus group that it was going to impact their vote. that said, polling of undecideds in georgia and north carolina showed quite a few did believe it would have an impact on their vote. let's talk to the founder of all in together lauren leader. lauren, i'm just looking at the top line on the polling you all

took. 78% believe the verdict was the right verdict. 21% thought it was the wrong verdict. this is the difference in voting with the threat of prison hanging over donald trump. a very large difference, 12%, a large difference 15%, moderate difference 23%. that adds up to over 50%. over 50% of these so-called double haters said it could have an impact of their vote, but overwhelmingly almost all of them believed donald trump got a fair trial. >> that was what was so fascinating in listening to their conversation. they were so nuanced and thoughtful about their responses. so far it's the only swing-state poll that's been done since the verdict. of course, it means a lot, because undecideds will be a

huge factor in the election. the contrast between this confidence in the legal system that the jury was trial, the trial was fair and that trump was treated fairly. they did not buy any of the trump claims that the whole thing was rigged, they didn't buy that at all. and yet, they also felt it was politically motivated, that the trial was brought this year because of the election, that it wasn't an important enough issue to have been brought. they talked about the classified documents case in florida as more important. they didn't understand the charges. they couldn't articulate what it was he was convicted of. we're seeing in the national polls that americans are saying it doesn't matter, or at least there have been some polls saying it doesn't matter, that he was treated fairly, the verdict was fair, and yet somehow he's still going to win and it doesn't matter that he's

a felon. that's going to be a really hard circle for the biden campaign to square over the next few months. coming up, actor bill pullman joins us with his new movie about alec murdoch. movie about alec murdoch why choose a sleep number smart bed?

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you famously said regarding hillary clinton, "lock her up". >> hillary clinton -- i didn't say lock her up, but the people said lock her up, lock her up. >> the people said lock her up? that was your whole campaign. stop it. we were there. it's like arby's said, we never said we have the meat, the people said we have the meat. also, if you didn't say it, then who's this dingus? >> lock her up. >> lock her up. >> folks, i was talking about hilary swank, okay? no baby is worth a million

dollars. >> donald trump did say lock her up many times. welcome to "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. in the west, 9:00 a.m. in the east. joining us is doris kearns goodwin. so good to have you with us. >> what a time. >> president biden making his most candid comments yet about donald trump's criminal conviction. at a fundraiser in connecticut last night, the president called trump a convicted felon who snapped after the 2020 election. biden said he wants you to believe it's all rigged. nothing could be further from the truth. it's reckless and dangerous for anyone to say that's rigged just because they don't like the outcome. the justice system is a core of american democracy and we should never allow anyone to tear it down. quote, here's what's becoming

clearer and clearer every day, the threat trump poses in his second term would be greater than the first. this isn't the same trump that got elected in 2016, biden said. quote, he is worse. this is joe biden using the term convicted felon. this is a private fundraiser in connecticut. but this is something we may hear more of in the biden campaign, that they are officially running against a man convicted of 34 felonies. >> every event affects the next event. i always thought this verdict would affect how the debate happens, how the conventions happen. he is saying we are a country that is corrupt, a country that looked like a third-world country and that all our systems are corrupt. i just don't think the american people are going to feel that way. if you look at history, that

kind of backward, negative look has not worked in campaigns. i think biden understands that. carter talked about the malaise of the people and reagan said, no, it's not the people, it's the leadership. fdr says, no, it's not the people that's the problem. it's your leadership and i'm going to do action. the debate can change everything, conventions can change everything, but right now this will affect the tone of the campaign. >> this dark, dim view of america by trump, this carnage

as he called it in his debate years back. you've got to win more than your base to win an election, so perhaps an optimistic view is the way to go for president biden? >> you've got to expand your base. i think back to 1964 and the republican convention and goldwater. new york governor rockefeller, a popular person in the party, is trying to argue for a civil rights platform. he gets shouted down. it looks like the party narrowed itself. they say goldwater lost at that convention. you're narrowing your party by saying you can't even say this verdict should be followed because it's a verdict, it's the rule of law. it hadn't even been done yet.

he said it before it. it was just a natural thing about our system. >> we have that moment you just described from 1964. let's take a look. >> oh yay. >> i would remind you that extremism in the defense of little bit is no bias. let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. >> doris, 1964 is really instructive. fdr, his sense of optimism, we have nothing to fear but fear itself, the band playing "happy days are here again," ronald

reagan, "it's morning in america." it's always the optimism that rules the day, that wins the elections usually for great leaders. you look at donald trump, you look at the republicans. they attack the rule of law, they attack our judicial system. they attack our military. they say it's weak and woke. they attack our economy, the envy of the world right now. they attack our universities. of course, we all have issues with aspects of certain things that certain professors or certain administrators say, but the fact is the top 25 universities on the planet are here in the united states. so we have a great country on so many fronts. and, yet, you have a guy that's actually running against america, running against the greatness of america. it just seems it's just the

opposite of what ronald reagan or fdr did. >> i couldn't agree with you more, joe. i think also what you see when you look at what former president trump has said will be his second term, he's talking about going backward to retribution, to grievances, to going after generals, going after opponents. people want to look ahead, not backward. i think about abraham lincoln when he was told after the union had won the war essentially that he should go after the southern leaders and maybe they should be put on trial and maybe they should be executed. it was a radical wing that wanted that to happen. he said, no, i just hoped they'd leave the country. he said, with charity for all, let us bind up the nation's wounds. we need to have people not looking backward to grievances

but looking forward. unless you have that vision, you have no chance at all if you're looking backward. >> that is the remarkable moment of many remarkable moments in lincoln's second inauguration, inaugural address, when after 650,000 americans had been killed because of the war the south began, he said with malice toward none and was trying to bind the two together. right now we find ourselves in a country -- and maybe you can provide some insight. on one side you have a candidate and his followers, a candidate who talks about terminating the constitution, executing the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, saying that he can hire seal team six to execute political opponents and not face

any criminal charges unless congress says he would, saying that he's going to ban television networks, saying he's going to fire u.s. attorneys that don't prosecutor and jail his political opponents. i could go on and on and on. and when you ask people how they could support someone who is anti-democratic like that, their response is -- and i'm not trying to be funny here. their response is, will biden try to forgive student loans, joe? >> wait a second. executing generals, executing political opponents, i mean, you could go down that list, and their moral equivalence is joe biden trying to forgive student loans, which the supreme court overturned? how, how, how, how do we find

common ground with people who are that dedicated to supporting authoritarian that they create these false moral equivalencies? >> i guess, joe, the other question too is how do we find an understanding of people for whom party has become a fundamental part of their identity, when the leader says things like that, they don't agree with him, but they rally around him. it becomes a litmus test to a stolen election and a litmus test to an unfair trial. there was a survey in 1958 where it asked people, would you be upset if your daughter married a democrat or republican, would you care? 72% of the people said they don't care. in 2021, it turns out 79% of the people marry people in the same party and they worry about

people marrying outside their party. i don't know how parties have become so much of our identity like that. george washington warned against this. he said baneful effects of party have to be addressed in the future. they read it and minutes later they go back to this incredible party as being the other. this is what teddy roosevelt warned about, if people begin to regard people in different parties or sections or regions or rel as other -- >> we talked about president biden gave a new interview to "time magazine." it's mostly based on foreign policy, but in there he tells the familiar story that in his first g7 in office, the first

one post-trump in 2021, he makes a declaration to the other leaders, america is back. and they say, for how long? we don't trust this now because we've seen your democracy be imperilled by president trump. he looks to victor orban and these man want donald trump to win. the bad guys want him to win. doesn't that tell you all you need to know about the threat he stands both at home and abroad? >> his love letters with kim jong-un of north korea as well. let's bring in the spokesperson for the biden/harris campaign, adrienne elrod. good morning. >> good morning. >> we heard inside that connecticut fundraiser the other day that president biden did call donald trump a convicted felon. is that something we'll hear more of going forward in the

campaign? >> yeah, i think so, willie, because the bottom line is that is simply the case. but the bottom line is this and this is something the president and we have made clear, donald trump will be beat at the ballot box. it is a binary choice between joe biden and donald trump, and that choice will be made at the ballot box. we're fighting for every single vote. we're making infrastructure investments in every single state. we're spending our money we're receiving from grassroots donors on building out infrastructure in states. we have offices in multiple battleground states. we have over 500 staff in those states and growing. donald trump's donor money is going on legal bills.

the bottom line is even though donald trump is now a convicted felon, we will beat him at the ballot box, and that is where our focus is and that is where the race is. >> i'd love to get your opinion, adrienne. you were talking about what the democratic party and the biden campaign are doing. i'm curious your reaction to what the head of the rnc laura trump said is that larry hogan, a potential u.s. senator from the state of maryland, that larry hogan should be disqualified and shunned from the party because he said before the verdict came in, regardless of the result, i urge all americans to respect the verdict and the legal process. at this dangerously divided moment in our history, all leaders regardless of party must not pour fuel on the fire with more toxic partisanship. we must reaffirm what has made

this nation great, the rule of law. what is the biden campaign's reaction to the head of the rnc, the republican national committee, saying someone should be shunned from the party for advocating respect for the rule of law? >> yeah, joe. it's really disturbing. i don't know that's necessarily for us to decide what lara trump is saying. we'll let the voters decide that. we see in poll after poll that protecting democracy is in the minds of voters. when someone upholds the backbone of what makes this country a democracy, which is our judicial system, it doesn't matter if you're a democrat or republican, it matters that you're upholding the constitution and what it's built

on, which is our judicial system. president biden made a very forceful statement aftertrump was convicted of 34 felonies making it clear that undermining our judicial system is a dangerous trajectory. president biden very much supports democracy. he made it clear, look, the legal system played out as it should. this is a jury of donald trump's peers who made this decision, both his attorneys and the prosecution had a role in determining who the jurors were. so making these statements, whether you're a democrat or republican, in this case, it was larry hogan, defending democracy, that's what we need to see more of. whether you're a maga republican, donald trump, whoever you may be, tearing down the institutions of our government, that is where we really get into a dangerous course and a dangerous trajectory. joe, you're going to start seeing that contrast even more that president biden will make as we finish this campaign onto

election day, that we must protect the pillars of our democracy. democracy is truly at stake and on the line. when you look at voters in key battleground states, that's going to make a key difference in this election. >> time will how how the verdict impacts the election. we can say it's fired up donald trump's base of supporters, his campaign putting out pretty significant fundraising totals. it's certainly going to be a big number. give us your reaction to the president's reelection and your own fundraising totals? >> we're going to have wait to see what the fec report says. we had successful fundraising in the days after that as well.

we know donald trump is going to raise a lot of money. we raised a lot of money. putting the money situation aside, we're not focused on the horse race. we know some days polls are going to be up or down. we know building infrastructure in these key states will make a difference going into election day. president biden is traveling to battleground states across the country talking directly to voters about lowering prescription drug costs, capping insulin at $35, really growing our economy. he's taking that message to these states. we talked about this on the show. when donald trump was not sitting in a courtroom, oftentimes he was not on the campaign trial, he was at an nft conference or selling his trump-branded shoes, whereas joe biden was taking his message to

the campaign trail. i think that's going to matter. that's going to be the contrast. when you are a swing voter making your decision, you look at democracy on the line, who's fighting for you and your personal freedoms and you and your family's, trump makes it clear he'll be focusing on political retribution, trying to get back at those he thinks have wronged him, the contrast could not be more clear and we want to make sure every single voter understands. >> adrienne elrod, thanks as always for your time. we appreciate it. >> thanks, willie. doris, curious for your thoughts this week as the president leaves tonight for france. he'll be giving a speech in normandy on the 80th anniversary -- i can't believe we're saying that -- 80 years since d-day.

it takes on a new residence at this time in our history, does it not, talking about alliances and the importance of standing by them? >> the last 80 years has been marked by internationalism and the idea that america is still that leader of the global alliance. in world war ii, d-day was the exemplification of that. with weapons they needed, the ships and planes and tanks needed to make it happen. the government/business relationship, it was the most magic time we'd seen that happen in our country. now this isolationist strain put forward by the president, when you remember d-day, you can say, yes, this was a moment and it mattered. it still matters. it's important for president biden to talk about alliances and how they've made the difference in the last 80 years

and how they'll make the difference in the future. america is still the leader of the world, and we want to feel that way. >> doris, we take so much for granted. we americans take so much for granted, and for good reason. you look at what happened 80 years ago, and it created, it was the beginning of the end for, for nazi germany. but out of the ashes of war, of course, came nato, came an alliance that would help for the most part keep the peace for 80, you know, for 75 years. and an alliance that would give us really an unprecedented run of peace and prosperity. here we sit. 75 years actually for that long of a period, for no world wars and for the type of prosperity

that we've enjoyed in the west, i mean, it's unprecedented. do you think that may in part be one of the reasons why so many americans are taking for granted just how special this time has been and are willing to take a chance on somebody? who wants to throw that away? who wants to turn their back on the nato alliance? who wants to turn their back on western democracy, the basic values of it? who wants to embrace orban, who attacks liberal democracy? >> we know that world war ii ended with the allies winning. we know nato has kept the peace all this time. it didn't have to happen. in the 1930s and '40s, isolation was so strong at that point. we had to stop it. it could happen again in

isolationism and going along with countries who don't believe that internationalism works. we can't believe just because it happened before that it's going to keep happening. it's a continuing vigilant fight for democracy. >> we don't know if president biden will use donald trump's name in europe, but the contrast will be clear. he'll give his own speech on friday and talk about democracies, maing clear. and then over the weekend he'll travel to a world war i ceremony, the same ceremony skipped because it was raining. >> presidential historian doris kearns goodwin, we love having you here. "an unfinished love story, a personal history of the 1960s"

is available now. thank you, doris. thank you, doris why choose a sleep number smart bed? can it keep me warm when i'm cold? wait, no, i'm always hot. sleep number does that. can i make my side softer? i like my side firmer. sleep number does that. can it help us sleep better and better? please? sleep number does that. 94 percent of smart sleepers report better sleep. now, save 40% on the sleep number special edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add an adjustable base. shop now at sleepnumber.com

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life's daily battles are not meant to be fought alone. - we're not powerless. so long as we don't lose sight of what's important. don't be afraid to seize that moment to talk to your friends.

- cloud, you okay? because checking in on a friend can create a safe space. - the first step on our new journey. you coming? reach out to a friend about their mental health. seize the awkward. it's totally worth it. i know that you've said before that you've been sustained by the prayers of lots of americans. i've seen pictures of people praying over you. >> it's incredible, actually. >> what's your relationship with god like and how do you pray? that's sharon from alabama. >> i think it's good. i do very well with the evangelicals. i love the evangelicals. and i have more people saying they pray for me.

i can't even believe it. and they are so committed and they're so believing. they say, sir, you're going to be okay, i pray for you every day. i mean, everybody, almost -- i can't say everybody, but almost everybody that sees me, they say it. it's such a beautiful thing. you know what's a beautiful thing too? when they have all this bad stuff going on, they have nobody who look up to, they have no god, anything. they kill people, beat people, push people into subways. there's just nothing there. religion is such a great thing. it keeps you -- you know, there's something to be good about. you want to be good. it's so important. i don't know if it's explained right. i don't know if i'm explaining it right now. but when you have something like that, you want to be good. you want to go to heaven, okay? if you don't have heaven, you almost say what's the reason. what do i have to be good?

let's not be good. what difference does it make? >> i really don't know what to say. religion is a good thing was his reaction. he was asked what's your relationship with god? he said, i do good with evangelicals. asked about his prayer life, he says, people come to him and say, sir, i pray for you every night. proving an extraordinary ability to sound clueless after all these years on the most basic questions of faith. and what's your relationship with god? and talk about your prayer life are two of the most basic questions. joining us now, nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann. he's a partner and chief political columnist at "puck." he and his former partner mark

halperin also asked donald trump some questions about faith in 2016, new testament or old testament? his answer was, both! what's your favorite bible verse? >> equal. >> what's your favorite bible verse? oh, i don't want to talk. and asked if god's forgiven him, i don't pray for forgiveness. there's no reason for me to be forgiven. this is a man claiming massive support among evangelicals, john heilemann. please explain this, john heilemann. >> one of the greatest mysteries in modern politics, joe. you had the author of that book about roe on earlier. i think the change that took place that you pointed to in the religious right went from

essentially the political people kind of guiding the movement and taking it to a new place to where it has become more recently, which is, that the religious people took over, in some sense, the conservative movement, and they decided to channel their values through political instruments. for a lot of people in the anti-abortion movement and more broadly on the values right, trump became an instrument to advance their causes. it's one of the most cynical things i've seen in politics. people talk about true believers and talk about the faithful being single-issue voters are blinded by their beliefs, idealogically driven extremists. they looked at trump and said, well, we know he's not a christian. we know he doesn't believe anything he says. but this guy is our ticket to getting done what we want to get

done. overturning roe is one thing. but across the board he just became the tool by which they could achieve things they long wanted to achieve and hasn't been able to achieve. they turned out to be right about that, but they made a very deep, very cynical deal with the devil. i don't mean to call trump the devil, but they made a faustian bargain. >> they were making that bargain even before donald trump. when jerry falwell and others say, okay, we're going to turn abortion not only into a key political issue for evangelicals, we're going to turn it into a religious issue, so you have the southern baptist church going from being pro-choice to pro-life and other mainstream protestants being pro

life. that's one step, but it moves forward now to where it becomes the most important issue. these political issues become the most important political issues. so if you talk to people of faith like russell moore and others, they would tell you the so-called deal with the devil was the deal evangelical leaders made some time ago when they decided to replace spiritual goals with secular goals. >> right. >> we are not going to fight the spiritual battles and try to win people. that's not going to be our primary focus. >> right. >> for a lot of these evangelical leaders we hear with the national audience, their primary focus is going to be on the secular, whether that's gaining and keeping political power or telling adherents how to become rich, the so-called

prosperity gospel. both of those are completely opposite of what jesus preached about over three years. >> just to put a fine point on it here, i don't think the christian right thought that ronald reagan was a spiritual vandal. i think they thought he was one of them. i think they thought george w. bush, for example, was genuinely born again. i think they thought mitt romney was a person who took his spiritual life seriously. i think even though the demands of faith had been to some extent yoked to politics prior to donald trump, donald trump is the most gratuitous extreme outgrowth. collectively these are not stupid people in this movement. there was a calculated thing where the christian right looked

at trump, knew full well he was not one of them, did not go to church, was privately probably pro choice, was someone who had done all kinds of things they would find morally depraved and unacceptable and sinful and that he made no real effort to try to even pretend to be one of them when he would answer these questions the way he would answer them. and they said, we don't care, because this is a winning ticket for us. with him under our thumb, we'll be able to get that supreme court majority they so long wanted. >> john, people always ask me, where can i get more heilemann? today we have an answer for that. the impolitic podcast with john heilemann launching today. tell us about it. >> i had this podcast for a few years called hell or high water

that i put into the deep freeze like han solo. when i moved to puck we decided to relaunch it under this new title. it's not only been relaunched as of this morning talking about the trump trial with andrew weissmann, but also it's expanded. it's twice a week rather than once a week. going to happen every tuesday morning, every friday morning. >> it's called "impolitic." download it now. >> not just politics. we talk about some business, some tech, entertainment. i'm trying to be a little bit willie geist, a little bit jonathan lemire. >> no one has aspired to heights so great. >> i know, i know. i'm fuelled by a vaulting ambition. >> i know what you're fuelled

by. john heilemann, thank you so much. john's weekly column for "puck" is online now and the first episode of his new podcast "impolitic with john heilemann" is out today. still ahead, a former congressman's 6-year-old son upstages him on the house floor. we'll show you the moment that is going viral. t that is goingir val eyes on me" performed by gi-yan ♪ all eyes on me brand new drip is what they see ♪ ♪ these diamonds, diamonds on my teeth ♪ ♪ brand new whip is what they see, yeah ♪ ♪ in my bag like a bunch of groceries ♪ ♪ all this cheese and greens just come to me ♪ ♪ look at me on the go. always hustling. eyes on me ♪ ♪ all eyes on me, brand new drip is what they see ♪ ♪ these diamonds, diamonds on my teeth ♪ ♪ brand new whip is what they see, yeah ♪ freedom you can't take your eyes off. the new 2024 jeep wrangler and gladiator. jeep. there's only one.

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regardless of one's opinion of the current republican nominee, we'd be well served to remember the long and cherished tradition we have in this country of settling our political differences at the ballot box. for nearly 2 1/2 centuries, our nation's elected leaders have properly resisted the temptation to oppose their political rivals

through the weaponization of our justice system, equal justice for all. and an overall trust in our justice system is fundamental to who we are as americans. >> republican congressman john rose of tennessee yesterday giving a speech on the house floor decrying the conviction of president trump while his 6-year-old guy steals the show. guy had just graduated from kindergarten. the congressman took it in stride saying, this is what i get for telling guy to smile at the camera. >> it happens. our next guest is an award-winning reporter and the author of several critically acclaimed nonfiction books incluing the "new york times" best seller "fiasco." it was a pulitzer prize

nomination. it's out today, titled "everyone knows but you, a tale of murder on the main coast." tom joining us now. we're such big fans here from "fiasco" to "first principles," i've got to ask what made you move from nonfiction to a murder mystery in maine? >> i thought i wanted to have a little fun. the news has just been so relentless, life has been so weird. i've never heard the word "weird" in connection with american politics so much. i just wanted to have some fun. i recommend it to you. nonfiction is hard, it's facts, trying to get everything right and shepherd it through the whole process without getting

things wrong. it turns out in fiction, you can make things up. i just found it fun to tell the story. also, i love maine. i love writing about maine, this very unique place, deep in culture. it was a chance to write about that. the maine culture works because it's so different. i wanted to write a detective novel in which everybody kind of knows what happened except for the poor guy investigating the murder. >> right. it remind me of when john grisham wrote "the firm," he talked about the main character escaping and going through, you know, mississippi and alabama and florida's gulf coast, you know, reading. i said that guy knows of what he

writes. i could say the same thing about you and maine. they always say write about what you know. you know maine so well. talk about how you've wrapped maine around this mystery. >> maine is just so different. it's the only state that has in its legislature native americans. under a colonial treaty, they serve in the legislature. it's the only state that's crossed by the national railroad of another country, the canadian national railroad. it's the only state that borders more american provinces than it does american states. it's the only state with only one interstate highway. i think most of all it's the only state with a pre-industrial culture. people who work with their hands, physical labor, is deeply respected. what you and i do, writing and talking and that, that's kind of

seen as frivolous in maine. a guy i knew was talking to me, he said, well, he was an investment banker, i guess he just wasn't good for much else. [ laughter ] >> exactly. there's that scene in "wall street" where gordon gekko says, boy, you're either on the inside or the outside. you could say the same of maine. you're either on the inside, you're either a local and a mainer, or you're not. talk about this place and the mystery when a local fisherman is killed and not a lot of people are weeping about that fact, but how he has to come into this culture. really it plays into your title. >> it is very much. in order to solve the murder, he has to figure out the culture. he has to figure out that in

this culture it judges people differently, it sees violence differently. the whole world operates differently. that is maine. everyone knows but him not just who the murderer was, but what the culture is, why things work. at the end, people are very sad to see this murderer arrested. they understand it has to happen, but they're not pleased by out. >> the new book is titled "everyone knows but you, a tale of murder on the maine coast." it's on sale now. great summer reading, i can't wait to get into it. thomas ricks, as always, thank you so much. >> you're welcome. coming up next, actor bill pullman will join us with a look at his film about the murdaugh murders, the killings that garnered major national attention last year. ion last ye.

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this is alec murdaugh, and he was the loving father of paul and husband of maggie. alec murdaugh is innocent of all of the crimes. >> a lifetime original movie. >> i had the embarrassment of bouncing a check. >> no worries. we have plenty of money. >> based on a true story. >> how do we explain this? >> i will think of something. >> tell me what you have kept from me. >> i have not been keeping anything from you. >> the new mini series following the downfall of the murdaugh family, and the head of the

murdaugh family is alec murdaugh when his trial made headlines after murdering his wife and son after an addiction of pills and a life of crime. and joining us is bill pullman who plays him in the series. i tuned in late, and i could not get enough of this. and so when you first heard of this guy, what were your impressions of this guy? >> well, i knew that everybody else in america had known about him, but i think that i didn't know if i were going to do it. it had to be a fast decision, but the first thing is that if i didn't know if i wanted to do something like this, but then you started to watch this, and they have body cam and car cam,

and all of this. and then i started to watch the first few scenes, and i thought i didn't know if i could do this, and then it went over to, i have to do this. >> and so it is so repulsive about this character, and then there is something rich about playing this character. >> yes, yes. i have to say that you are going to be entering into this, and put armor on about your morality, and a jedi knight of denial. >> we have a few of those these days. >> i remember talking to my friend connie and he would say, oh, it is like old satan looked at him and said, whoa, dude, you are bad. >> how did you prepare for the

role, and not just someone that satan would say about this, and someone that is timely and new developments as we speak. and how did you develop the role? >> well, it is literally, and researching, and the movement is so fast, but we had to get moving, because the production was so fast. but there is a similar amount 06 things that you can be similar to, and then few other things, that you are not trying to channel those aspects as they would occur to him. and he also lost a lot of weight, and so, there were those issue, and i said, i have to go with my weight, because we don't have a lot of time to shoot the movie. >> and so there is a number of incidents, and this is when you

are confronting your son paul about a boating accident. >> and now, besides a dead girl and our financial wound. >> stop! >> i am not finished. talk to me. talk to me. >> she was my friend. i did not mean for it to happen. i did not mean for anyone to get hurt. >> the real hurt that you caused that night has not begown be felt. >> paul. >> i am ashamed, and even embarrassed of you. get out of my sight. >> and in addition to having to capture the darkness of the man, you have to capture a southern accept, and if you get it right, people let you know, right? >> yes, and there is a number of different accents, yes. there is south carolina, but there is a even though the low

country they call it. and there is a lot of accents there they call it. but you can always go check it out. >> it is a tough saying. and they would let it for years and years, the idea of pulling it off, and no one on to him, and you could just see it on the stand that they said that they knew that he did it. >> and so both of the installm lts of the murdaugh murders are streaming on prime video and lifetime.com. bill pullman, thank you for being here. and we will going to get you back into the new york city theaters. we are putting in a call. ana cabrera picking up the coverage in one minute. coverage in one minute. good vision is more important than ever,

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