his presidency. he's had different messages about bidenomics, putin's price hike. they haven't been able to settle on the message. we'll hear the president tout the various pieces of legislation he's passed, also tout that inflation is stable in its recent reporting. that is one of his vulnerabilities tonight. we should expect to see trump particularly hammer him on the issue, and how biden responds will be a marker for what we should expect his message will be over the next several months heading into november. >> biden on defense, but we should expect him to go on attack on abortion rights and his dislike for donald trump likely will shine through. white house reporter for "the washington post," tyler pager, thank you for joining us this morning. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" on this

thursday morning live from atlanta. "morning joe" starts right now. tomorrow is the first presidential debate. the big controversy is which drugs may be used tomorrow night. i just -- i just want to, you know, state for the record that i have no idea what drugs i will take when i watch the debate, but they will be potent and plentiful. >> well, it's finally here. tonight, president biden and donald trump are set to face off in their first presidential debate of this election cycle. it is a pivotal moment that could shake up the race for the white house. we'll go over how both have been preparing their pitch to voters, and we'll show you a demonstration on how the microphones will actually work if biden or trump decides to interrupt each other. >> mika is actually getting this technology from cnn, and we'll import it into "morning joe" and

use it on me. >> we'll set it up here, and it'll work perfectly. also, an abortion document was mistakenly reported by the supreme court. >> what are they doing? >> it goes up and then away. we'll talk about whether it could be welcome news for abortion advocates and how the justices are seemingly poised to rule. do they not know how to use computers? >> apparently not. first, jonathan, a big concern in atlanta tonight is that we are going to see -- >> good thing he is there on location. >> yeah. >> we'll see dazed, confused, you know, people who have seen better days, and then we're going to switch over from the yankees -- boom -- the yankees/mets game. >> there it is. >> really? >> there it is. >> mets, our t.j. is so excited. meet the mets, beat the mets.

>> my daughter. >> mika's daughter is a huge mets fan. this was a great game last night, lemire. >> i mean, i don't know what more you'd want in a baseball game than the yankees losing by double figures. yes, it is a -- first of all, for the mets, the power of grimace. they've been on a roll thanks to the mcdonald's character there. on the new york "washington post" -- "new york post," they are at .500. judge is unbelievable. they're in a tailspin right now, though, the yankees. the eyes of the nation are wondering, will they be able to recover? can they prove they're still up for the job of being atop the american league east? >> you know, willie, it is a terrible situation to be the new york yankees and only have a

30-game cushion, being 30 over .500. look at that. look at that. 22 over .500. 52-30. it is interesting, yankees and orioles both decided to sort of skid at the same time. it's a marathon. we say it all the time. it's a marathon. nobody ever is as good as they look, and nobody is ever as bad as they look. this is what you want to happen, and this is why there's -- they're so diabolical and evil, the yankees. they know, you want your slump before the all-star break. they're getting it out of the way, just so they can crush red sox fans' hearts even more violently after the all-star break. on their way to 100, and i think, 118, 119 wins. they're going to make, you know, the mariners team look like miner leaguers. >> it's all part of the evil empire's plan. i count myself guilty early in the season when the yankees look

so good for looking up, once again, the all-time record for single season wins. we're going to fall a little short of that now. as john said, the orioles are the only things keeping the yankees in first place because they've been slumping, too. it's kind of aaron judge right now and nothing else. he hit his 30th home run last night. he is on pace for the incredible recordbreaking season in 2022. he is playing out of hit mind. soto has been good, not as good lately. they've had injuries, guys they had to call up in the lineup. pitching has been atrocious. they're losing the series against the good teams, too, which is not what you like to see. the mets, meanwhile, red hot. again, we are at the halfway point of a very long season. we don't panic in the bronx. it pains me to say, but the red sox have been a very pleasant surprise, i have to imagine, for you guys. six games over .500. >> yeah. >> in the playoffs as we sit here right now. you guys had been predicting doom and gloom, but they look good. you know what, it is the red

sox's division to lose at this point. >> willie, don't even try that bear bryant stuff on me. >> it didn't work, huh? >> you can't do it, yankee boy. mika, tonight, this is one of the most fascinating debates in that you don't know what is going to happen. you'll be holding your breath, wondering what is going to come out of each one of these guys' mouth, wondering if they can complete sentences, wondering if they're going to walk off stage halfway through. this is going to be the sort of terror that's going to seize both sides every bit as much as it did, we republicans, for the three debates in 2000 when george w. bush was behind the microphone. >> not even close. also with us -- >> al gore managed to lose all three debates. >> think about that. >> all three debates. >> with us, politics at politico's sam stein. you were doing a great job with

the french names for the nba draft on "way too early." >> i'm global. i appreciate that. thank you. >> also with us, nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann. he is a partner and chief political columnist at puck. and msnbc contributor -- >> rhymes with luck. >> yes. okay. author of the book "how the right lost its mind," charlie sykes. >> president joe biden and former president donald trump are going to go face-to-face tonight in atlanta. sources familiar with biden's plans tell nbc news the president is going to travel directly from camp david to georgia later today after a week of intense preparation at his maryland retreat. the prep will reportedly includes both dress rehearsal style debates and huddles with advisors. he's been doing that today. mika, most likely, this else going to rest and watch "morning joe" on a loop. >> contrary to claims from trump's team, biden campaign

sources say the president has maintained his executive schedule while at camp david, and that only part of his days have been spent on debate prep. for the former president, the biden campaign believes trump is preparing more for tonight's debate than he has been letting on publicly. they are bracing for trump to arrive in atlanta, quote, more disciplined than on past occasions. >> this guy is going to be ready. >> but have been strategiing ways to get under the former president's skin to remind americans of his uncontrollable side. >> how do you get under donald trump's skin? come on, this guy is a professional. >> it's thin. >> it's like he said, he's been doing this forever. he spent his entire life on television. he spent his entire life debating. i mean, he would really, really have to screw things up to not win this going away tonight. >> yeah. he didn't really need to prepare for the debate because his life has prepared him. he is so well versed on these issues. >> of course. >> he gets right to the point.

he stays on message. >> come meander. we'll expect more of that tonight. biden's campaign said the president will likely bring up trump's felony convictions during the debate. a statement reads, "donald trump is a twice-impeached, 34-time convicted felon whose record of attempting to overthrow democracy, promising to enact revenge against his enemies, and inciting political violence at every opportunity makes it clear he belongs nowhere near the white house. he'll have to answer for his priors in front of tens of millions of american voters. we'll be watching." >> priors. >> that's the way you talk about it. >> that's what they're called. >> convicted felons. john, you've been reporting on both sides. what do you expect to see in the room tonight? >> i mean, it is going to be a contentious debate this evening. certainly, president biden, as outlined there, is going to try to be assertive and aggressive, going after donald trump for a number of things, including who

won the 2020 election. put him on the spot. make him say again the big lie. to talk about january 6th, defense of democracy at home and abroad. we'll hear about abortion rights. indeed, he will talk about the need -- he will talk about donald trump's convicted felon and try to make the argument that the conviction is just another sign of trump doing whatever it takes to look out for himself while ignoring the american people. now, i've been talking to those involved in the biden debate camp at camp david. yes, there is the possibility that donald trump will come out tonight more disciplined, but they think that won't last. they're going to -- president biden is going to aim to provoke him. look, they're on the defensive, as well. trump will come at him on immigration, inflation, potentially hunter biden's conviction. they say to president biden, it'd be okay to flash a little anger at that. that's a human response, and so many americans can relate to a

loved one battling addiction. let's be clear about this. the stakes here are really high, and both sides know it. this has been a static race, within a few points throughout. that's partially why the biden team wanted this debate so early, to get americans to pay attention, to kind of drag donald trump back into their living rooms and say, look, this is the choice, biden versus trump. you may not be thrilled with that choice, and polls suggest a lot of americans aren't, but you'll have to make a decision here. this is the race. they think this is a moment where the president cannot only quiet the doubters, much like he did at the state of the union, that he is still up for the job, but he can once again paint donald trump as fundamentally unfit and dangerous to hold the office again. >> jonathan is right. americans, and you know this talking to people all the time, are kind of looking away from this campaign at this point. they go, ugh, these two guys again? this is a moment when the country really is going to tune in, even for one night, and perhaps form lasting impressions. as john says, both of the

campaigns are very aware of that. you're going to be down there tonight in atlanta. what do you expect to see? >> i guess, one thing to say about this is, you know, we're going to -- joe is right in saying this. you know, given the two candidates, you know, the possibility that something will happen outside the bounds of what anyone expects in any direction is reasonable. >> yeah. >> main predictions of what's going to happen in the debate, joe biden going to -- especially with the expectations lowered for him by republicans for months, stupidly, that he is going to overperform their expectations and he's going to do what that he did in the state of the union. that's the most likely outcome. most likely outcome for donald trump's side, he'll be donald trump. not clear that trump has any other mode than the trump we've seen. i think one of the things about having this thing so early is that the biden campaign pushed for it to be early. they didn't push for it to be early because they thought what

would happen here is that with the 6% of undecided, persuadable, available voters in the six states that are in play, six or seven maybe states that are battleground states, that people would have their mind changed tonight in that group. if you haven't decided between joe biden and donald trump at this point, an event that would change your mind tonight and would hold until november is a pretty unlikely thing. this is like -- this is a moment like the state of the union for biden to calm nervous democrats, to frame the race going forward. we're going to have these big events. we have the nato summit in washington, d.c. you have trump's vp pick. you have the republican convention. those are in the next two weeks after this debate. the way the biden campaign thinks about this is kind of like the starting bell, in a way, for the general election. they can get up in front of this big audience and say, this is what the choice is going to be about over the course of these next months. we'll fight this thing out. for those undecided voters,

their decisions are likely to come much later, and there are a lot of events to occur between now and november. when we see a lot of the instant polling and the numbers people look at, that's the thing to really talk about in the next few days, realize this is a really early debate and a lot of stuff is still going to happen between now and november that are going to actually make up minds of the people who count. >> add to the list of stuff that's going to happen, joe, the sentencing of donald trump on july 11th on the 34 felony convictions. >> right. i mean, yeah, this is so early. unless this political campaign is different from every other american political campaign, i mean, the thing i learned very early on in campaigning was, as far as spending and when undecideds really began to focus, it's the don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes, when they're right up on you, the final two, three weeks,

and, really, charitably, for the undecideds, they make up their mind the last three, four days when going into the voting booth. this is a lot, charlie sykes, like a preseason game. it's june. the election is in november. there are, you know -- the famous -- maybe it was harold wilson or mcmillen who said in politics, a week is a lifetime. we have five, five and a half months unthil. until this. this is really early, isn't it? >> i'm glad you're giving us the reality check. of course, this debate is pivotal. it is incredibly important, but we live in an era of just constant amnesia. you do this every day, right? sometimes at the end of the week, you look back and say, what actually happened this week? something that happened two weeks ago feels like it happened in a different era. that's important. as for, you know, undecided voters, there was a survey in

wisconsin yesterday of registered voters that found the race tied 50/50, which is amazing. that means there's no undecided voters out there. again, there's a lot of things that are going to happen, and, you know, as john heilemann pointed out, you're going to have this post debate spin that's going to be as significant as anything that happened. i'm fascinated about the discussion on expectations. who is going to show up? what's going to happen? we don't know. we do know one thing. donald trump is going to be donald trump. donald trump is either going to be the unhinged howler monkey, or, and i've heard a lot of speculation about this, pundits saying maybe we'll get the more low energy joe biden -- i mean, donald trump. maybe we'll get the more disciplined and presidential donald trump. that donald trump doesn't exist. >> right. >> keep in mind, if you have a 90-minute debate in which the temperature is low, one thing we're going to discover or be reminded about donald trump is that he doesn't really know anything about anything.

now, i don't think this debate is going to turn on policy or substance, but if it does, think about it, how much does donald trump know about substance and policy? how many questions can he answer about substance and policy? >> right. >> at his rallies, interviews, think about what he actually talks about. i mean, he's doing this non-prep where he is doing softball interviews and doing the rallies. listen to what he says when he is unscripted. listen to what he says when he's, you know, off the hook. you know, i'll be fascinated by seeing, you know, how does donald trump react to not having an audience? how does donald trump react to actually having hostile interviewers? how does donald trump have to react when he is trying to retend or -- pretend or be the reality star who is presidential? the one thing about tonight, it's not going to be boring. >> this is one of the things,

mika, you really educated me on early on. in 2016, donald trump had a meeting with the editorial board at "the washington post." >> yeah. >> i was reading it to you. i just couldn't believe it. he talked about his hands, the size of his hands for over half the interview. i go, this guy is crazy. you go, he's not crazy. if he's talking about his hands, we doesn't have to talk about his foreign policy plans. he doesn't have to expose how little he knows about economics, how little he knows about what he's really going to do on the deficit or the debt. and we still have the same thing here. there's a reason he talks about sharks and he talks about electric -- >> batteries. bing, bing, bing. >> this guy doesn't know. he hasn't studied american history. he doesn't know. he hasn't studied constitutional law. he doesn't understand constitutional framework. the guy doesn't know policy. he hasn't spent his life studying policy, working through it.

so, yeah, it is going to be interesting. when the studio is quiet, when there is no cheering section to cheer on some really stupid things he says, where, basically, everything he throws up there is a strike because the audience is -- >> what charlie said, first of all, he doesn't study policy or history, it's worse. he doesn't care. he doesn't give a damn about public service. he thinks public service is for losers. he thinks the people who are buried at arlington national cemetery are losers, who didn't understand what was in it for them. you have to look at his core values. his core values are the problem. i mean, it's not even that he can't answer a question. then to charlie's point, hostile interviewers, i don't think that -- i don't think that jake tapper and dana bash are planning to be hostile. i think they want a fair debate. >> they'll be tough to both sides. >> i think they'll be tough to both sides. i think the hostility, from what

we're seeing already from the trump campaign, is coming from trump toward them, to try to create hostility. i'm sure that they will be elegant and fair and try their best to ask donald trump -- and this is his worst nightmare -- basic questions. >> right. >> basic questions, to charlie's point, he'll have a hard time. >> willie, it's not the basic questions that have always been the problems. when donald trump gets on stage and he mulls somebody who is interviewing him, it's always the inability to ask the follow-up. you said the election was rigged. yeah, blah, blah. what about the 63 federal judges who said. well, da, da, da, da. then they go on. wait a minute, what about the supreme court, your supreme court? da, da, da, da. >> stay on it. >> you stay on it. you hammer it.

we've seen one or two people. my favorite is -- wait a second, it says here that jonathan swan is the best. wait, what does this chart say? it's the worst australian accent ever. we have people in australia who watch us. >> the best interview. >> email us, good day, mate. i can't even say that right. but there are very few people, like swany, who know how to continue and stay after it. i think jake, dana, i think those two tonight are going to have the ability to not only ask the tough, fair question, but, more importantly, the follow-up that has to be asked. >> or to call out lies. >> yeah, call out lies on both sides. >> i'm glad you didn't do the crocodile dundee, which is a classic in your arsenal. >> i'm so good at it. >> that's a knife. you have a whole thing you can

do. [ laughter ] >> that's good. >> jake tapper and dana bash are two of the best we have in our business, and they will be able to ask, especially, i think, in this format, sam stein, we can't underline this enough because we haven't seen it before. it's the kind of debate you typically see, and i say it as a compliment, a good thing, on your local affiliate level. no crowd, not a rally, not a rah-rah event, and we have to answer the questions. if they don't answer it, instead of talking over the crowd, the moderators have a chance to ask it again. sometimes so the opponent can challenge and rebut. you actually get to answers on issues. it's going to be fascinating to watch that, sort of the mechanical dynamic of how this plays out tonight. >> try to do this without defending an entire continent. >> please do. >> yeah, i agree with you. i think the moderators are going to play a major role tonight. we've already sort of gotten hints of frustration from the

biden camp that cnn has said it's not going to do real-time fact checking. i'm with you guys. i think, you know, follow-ups are important, right? press the candidates, both, frankly, on issues if they're evasive, that's valuable. this is a compressed debate. it is 90 minutes. you have a commercial break. you can go down rabbit holes potentially, and that's what mika was saying. one thing trump might want to do is actually take you down weird rabbit holes to kill time. you have to be cognitive of that. i don't envy the task. it is a high-stakes, high-profile task for jake and dana. ultimately, i think biden is going to have to do something on his side that maybe the moderate moderaters won't, which is press trump for follows, which biden may do, or press on specific issues. one thing biden wants to do is get trump on the record about the 2020 election results. do you believe they were valid?

i think if the debate moderators don't ask that, i wouldn't be surprised if biden doesn't press trump specifically on that base question. >> i'll tell you what, and i know he has been to be ready, too, but republicans think immigration is going to be an issue. i wish i were in joe biden's position as a debater going against somebody in donald trump's position as a debater. >> yeah. >> when he attacked on immigration, i'd turn, wait a second, we put together the toughest immigration bill in history. you had the most conservative republican from the state of oklahoma put the toughest border security bill in place. a bipartisan bill. you killed it, donald. you killed it because you said you were afraid that democrats might get credit. >> that's right. >> while you're doing that, terrorists are streaming across the border. while you're doing that, more drugs are streaming across the border.

and this gets -- this circles back into what i think is the main theme they're developing, which is, donald trump is in it for himself. joe biden is in it for america. he can say, why did you do this? why did you make america less safe? why do you make americans more vulnerable to fentanyl? all for yourself. because you knew it wasn't best for you politically. >> to that basic question sam stein was talking about, the 2020 election and whether it was stolen, this is a big decision for the moderators. i've seen it at our network, at cnn. i've seen the problem, where he lies and then the interview goes on, therefore validating a liar. >> that just can't happen. >> the question is, what do you do when he lies about that again? what will be the plan? to stay on it? because i think that's what i would -- i wouldn't let go

until -- >> it is a basic and elemental thing. >> it'll take up time, and you have to live with that. sometimes tv isn't perfect, and you can't stick to time and go right to break. ask joe. but, like, this man has lied through every question, and then these interviewers, and they're some of the best in the business, i've seen it happen to again, oh, they have to go to the next question. i don't understand why. i'd like to understand when someone lies boldface to you, you continue the interview, validating the lie. >> your own supreme court, including alito and whatever, follow-up question, mr. president. this is an element. >> be prepared. >> it's not like you can go from trying to steal american democracy and undermine it to quantitative easing. >> yeah. >> it is an elemental question. it is an elemental issue. yeah, i hope there are a lot of

follow-ups on it. ahead on donald trump, the supreme court appears poised to rule in favor of emergency abortions in idaho. we'll look at the opinion leaked online, in a session ending with fascinating rulings. >> yes, yes. plus, georgia governor kemp says he did not vote for donald trump in his state's primary. we'll play for you the republican leader's comments, including what he's saying about supporting the presumptive gop nominee in the november election. you're watching "morning joe." we're back in 90 seconds.

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you're in good hands with allstate. if we go behind the podiums, you can see two green lights. when on, they signal to the candidate his microphone is on. when the green lights will off, they signal the microphone is off. i want to give you a sense of what it'll look like for viewers at home if a candidate whose microphone is off interrupts a candidate whose microphone is on. i'll ask phil to take the other podium. say i'm answering a question. my light is green, and i'm speaking. phil's microphone is off, and his green lights are not illuminated. he is going to interrupt me when speaking, this is what it'll sound like. my volume remains constant, while phil's interruption is difficult to understand. >> there's try the opposite. my microphone is on. victor's microphone is off, and he is going to interrupt me. my volume remains constant,

while victor's interruption can be difficult to understand. >> demonstration on cnn yesterday on how the microphones will work at tonight's presidential debate between president biden and donald trump. you can hear when your light is not on, it is tough to hear. hopefully cutting down on cross-talk. jonathan lemire, let's put a little frame around this debate and context. we seem to get another poll every day. what it shows, basically, is that we're within the margin of error. donald trump in one poll yesterday had a little bit of a lead outside of the margin of error, but previous polls have shown president biden taking the lead back. swing states are where we're focused, and those are all within the margin of error at this point. so what is the expectation from your reporting from the white house about where this race may head after tonight's debate? >> first, a quick follow-up on what we saw there in terms of the setting for tonight's debate. what you're seeing behind me here in atlanta is deceptive. this is not where it'll be. this is the spin room across the street on georgia tech's campus,

the home of the yellowjackets. i can see mark price and mark salley's numbers retired above me. this is where, tonight, it'll be filled with journalists and campaign officials. this will be a spin room. campaign surrogates, elected officials will be trying to talk about what they saw in the debate. this will be a frenzied hub of activity tonight, but the debate is across the street in a small studio, no audience, just the two men, the two moderators and, indeed, the mics that mute. that's what americans will see as they watch from home tonight. a format the biden campaign wanted. in terms of where we go from here, both sides acknowledge, and i was speaking to biden officials about this yesterday, that even if one of the men has a great night -- let's say joe biden hits a home run and donald trump has a terrible night -- these two men are so well-known and the race is so static, it probably moves the polls a couple points. there's nothing, short of a health crisis, that could move

this polling by 8, 10 points or more. that's not going to happen. the men are too well phone. the race is too frozen. it is where we are. but, joe and mika, if someone tonight has a good night and the polls move two or three points -- and we're early in the debate cycle. there are a number of events ahead, nato summits, the second debate in september, there are many times and opportunities for the numbers to change again, but even the best possible night moves two or three points. in a race this close, it matters, at least somewhat. >> yeah. >> whether that evaporates in a week or two based on what happens in courthouses or the campaign trail, who knows? john heilemann, i'm curious if you think the biden campaign is starting to coalesce around this message, donald trump cares about himself. joe biden cares about you. is that the message they're trying to bring into focus and a

message we'll probably hear biden go after time and time again tonight? >> yeah, i think, joe, you know, we discussed this on the day after general ma after general mali dillon went on about the message. she said joe biden is fighting for you. donald trump is only fighting for himself. if you look at that, look at the advertising they've done, the messaging out of the campaign since then, that seems to be the formulation they're settling on. now, you know, that is a message that has a familiarity to it. it's not -- we've seen that's a democratic populist message that sounds like what barack obama said about mitt romney, for instance. a typical selfish, narcissistic, rich republican focused on himself and not caring about you. i'm on your side and fighting for you. >> right. >> one of the questions i have about the message is how well it

gets to another thing that biden wants to talk about and that the biden campaign wants to talk about, which is trump is not just only about himself, but trump creates a degree and a high degree of chaos that kind of rolls in the notion of nor breaking, law breaking, creating this un-american lack of respect for the things things like laws democratic norms. that doesn't fit under the rubric clearly, but they'll try to slide that underneath what seems to be the message they've settled on. >> that does seem to be the message. i've got to say, there's so much swirling around there. you want to encapsulate it into one word. i believe the word is exhaustion. even before the 2020 campaign, i was hearing trump loyalists sighing, going, oh, i'm so

exhausted. i'm so tired of this guy. i wish he'd just shut his mouth. >> i can't do it. >> i'm so tired. i can't. then you hear it more after, especially after january 6th. exhaustion, i think, is a powerful, powerful word for the biden campaign to use. also powerful, mika, john heilemann has to quickly give us his take on it, season three of "the bear." >> ten seconds. >> are you watching the debate or "the bear"? >> if i was not professionally obligated to watch this debate, you know what i'd be doing today, joe. just bingeing all ten episodes, season three. the wait is over. it was supposed to not drop until today. they put it out yesterday in the late afternoon, changed that delivery schedule a little earlier. i think maybe thinking about the debate. >> yeah. >> i can't say more than i know how much you love "the bear." i think you'll like this season a lot. >> you've seen it?

>> john heilemann, thank you. we'll see you again tomorrow from the debate site in atlanta. we look forward to that, yes. coming up, a pair of republicans, former elected officials, throw their support behind president biden. we'll tell you who they are and show you what they're saying about the potential consequences of another donald trump presidency. plus, trump gives supporters a clue about his choice for a running mate. what tonight's debate might reveal about his pick. a big distraction so he doesn't actually have to answer questions. we're back in a moment. what if we don't get down in time to get a birthday gift for zoe? don't panic. with etsy we can find the perfect gift, and send her a preview right away.

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the supreme court appears set to rule in favor of emergency abortions after a document surrounding a high-profile case in idaho was accidentally posted to the court's website. legal correspondent laura jarrett has details. >> reporter: mistake of epic proportionsclosely watched deci abortion set to come down any day, mistakenly and briefly posted to the court's website this morning, indicating the high court is likely on the verge of allowing emergency abortions in idaho.

the document obtained by bloomberg law before it was quickly removed from the website. harkening back to an unprecedented leak in another abortion case just two years ago in dobbs, when "politico" polished the draft decision overturning roe v. wade. the current battle over idaho's law, which criminalizes nearly all abortions, except to save a mother's life. the biden administration sued the state, arguing that abortion ban directly conflicts with a federal law requiring hospitals that receive federal funding provide abortions to women facing health emergencies, even if not on the brink of death. that conflict, doctors say, puts

them in a dangerous mind. >> it's a really heavy burden to carry, to have five years of potential incarceration to take care of your patients. >> reporter: the document published by bloomberg in full includes an unsigned decision by the court, punting on the dispute for now, sending it back to the lower courts, meaning women in idaho will be able to obtain emergency apportion, while the lawsuit continues to play out. but it also highlights deep divisions on the high court. the justices trading barbs in the document. justice jackson saying, today's decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in idaho while this court dawdles and the country waits. pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position. while justice alito calls the court's decision baffling, saying the court simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question the case presents. >> laura jarrett reporting for

us there. joining us now, former litigator, legal correspondent lisa rubin. and former attorney and legal contributor barbara mcquade. let's start with what the idaho law says, which when you step back and go, my gosh, the law provides for the life of the mother but that's a determination the doctor has to make. if there is organ failure that the woman could survive, they can't perform the abortion. if long-term fertility is threatened, they can't perform the abortion. what are we talking about here? >> that's generally true. the abortion is only to prevent the woman's death. it's not framed in preserving her life but only to prevent her death. it's since been amended to allow abortion for, for example, in the cases of sepsis, like an

infection through the body or a pregnancy that can't come to fruition because of how it is formed. the doctor has to be certain, and reasonably so, that the abortion care is necessary to prevent a woman's death. as we heard in the package laura put together, doctors in idaho are constrained. they feel like they can't do anything to stabilize their patients' health. that's why we're in this situation where this case has come to the court now. >> doctors have to make that decision in a moment. is this woman going to live or die? if i perform an abortion and it was determined she wouldn't die, i could go to jail because i thought i was saving her life. now, what did you see in the documents, briefly uploaded to the supreme court site before being taken down by captured by bloomberg law? what'd you see in the argument? >> first of all, the decision of the court in this document, whether it is a draft or a final document we still don't know,

but if this is real, it is a single sentence decision for six justices and an unsigned one. no one justice is taking credit for it. simply saying, we made a mistake to agree to hear this case, and the stay of the district court's injunction of idaho's law is vacated. meaning, the district court's block of idaho's law inas far as it conflicts with the stabilization of the patient's health. that can't happen. it must give way to the federal law. as laura also noted, this is a temporary reprieve. it is not a victory. all this does is send the case back to the lower court for further appellate proceedings. either idaho's law or one of the other six state ws a similarly drafted law is likely to come back before the court at a later point in time. this is the proverbial kicking the can down the road and potentially kicking the can down the road to a point in time where the department of justice

is not controlled by the biden administration but by a president who doesn't believe the case should have ever been brought in the first place. count on a trump department of justice, if there is one, to walk away from the litigation in the case and not insist the federal law is supreme over idaho and other states' laws. >> unless, lisa, americans take this case and this issue to the voting booth. what we're learning about abortion we're learning in real time in vicious, violent, real time, what these extreme bans are doing to women. people who claim to be pro life, they are pro death. look at infant mortality in texas since the extreme bans were put in. infant mortality is up, as in more babies are dying. we know that women are put in life and death situations because abortion is health care. they're not allowed to get the health care that they need in

their time of need. so the pro death party may lose at the ballot box as more and more cases like this come up and we see exactly how important abortion is to women's health care. barbara mcquade, to lisa's point, justice jackson said this is a delay. in a way, the supreme court punted on this. >> yeah, absolutely. as you point out, it does save for another day the decision on the merits. meanwhile, we have other states, not just idaho, but other states where this is an issue and doctors have to worry about the uncertainty in the law. in fact, you mentioned texas. in texas, there was a similar challenge. the fifth circuit court of appeals ruled the other way, in favor of texas. that means in texas, if there is a conflict between the need for emergency stabilization and the

texas law, the texas law prevails. the doctors in texas are not able to perform that stabilizing treatment. that case remains alive while the court, in the words of justice jackson, dawdled in idaho to figure out what the law of the land is. in the six other states, the doctors will face this chilling effect of not knowing where the law lands. justice jackson would have said, let's just decide the case. stop kicking this around. in the meantime, people are going to die. >> barbara, this is sam stein. moving from one legal quagmire to another one, the court still has to issue an opinion on the topic of presidential immunity with respect to the case involving donald trump. what can we real into the fact that this continues to be pushed down further in the docket? possibly could come today, may not come today. and is there anything we can read into the fact about the cadence of the cases that are

coming public, as in, is this going to be the grand finale that the court issues here? >> yes, it could be. you know, there's still something like nine opinions yet to be decided. we've got, so far on the public docket at least, two days left to issue all of those. i suppose it is possible the court may even go into july. with regard to the immunity opinion, what it shows is some level of disagreement. if the court were unanimous in its decision, it would have been issued long ago. what takes a long time is when the justices are sending drafts back and forth to each other and trying to get other people to sign on to concurrences or to dissents or to

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praising him, he was the source of the story. you could see that that's sort of a correction of the low expectations set. joe biden is a dottering man. they're worried he is going to do well, and now there is a list of the drugs they speculate joe biden could be on during the debate tonight. that's where they are in framing this. >> i mean, are the murdochs proud of that?

are the murdochs proud of the fact they lie about joe biden on the front page of the "wall street journal"? great institution, a "wall street journal," with a great editor. you see what's happened the past several months, and i really love the direction "the wall street journal" has been going. but somebody puts a garbage piece on the front page of the "wall street journal," a clear lie, and people in the media world, even conservatives, scratching their head going, never seen anything like this before. now, now, murdoch's "new york post" is talking about what drugs, what drugs a presidential candidate is going to be taking. are they really proud of what this australian is doing to america? is he really -- i mean, how low is rupert murdoch going to go here? i'm just wondering how much lower does he have to go?

is there no bottom? we're talking about drugs. why don't they just say, "we're afraid donald trump is going to humiliate himself tonight, and so we have to come up" -- after lying about donald trump, rupert murdoch's "new york post" lying about joe biden and these cheap fakes, now, they follow up, when they're not going to use cheap fakes if biden has a good night, but what are they going to do after their lies? will they be caught once again lying to the readers over and over and over again? whether it's about parachutes or meetings at the g7, i mean, willie, it's just -- i can't even believe it. even i am shocked they're doing this.

>> they're preparing readers and viewers for the possibility that donald trump going to do terribly tonight and, therefore, there will be a reason for it. well, the moderators were unfair. joe biden was on drugs. no one is talking affirmatively in any of this coverage about donald trump. they're trying to find these angles in on joe biden. even the banner when we were playing the sound bite, "joe biden spends a week at theater camp." it's called debate prep. presidents, including republicans, by the way, have done it for generations. because donald trump doesn't do it, they have to reframe all of it. jonathan lemire is with us live from atlanta where the debate will be held tonight. also joining us, from the debate site, nbc news and msnbc political analyst, former u.s. senator claire mccaskill. contributor to the conservative website the bulwark, tim miller. also with us, author and presidential historian doris kearns goodness. and msnbc contributor mike barnicle. what a crew we have assembled for this hour. this is a hall of fame cast. let's go to the debate side.

claire mccaskill, your view to the lead-up to the debate and what we might see tonight. >> yeah, it's been interesting to watch the republicans try to back the truck up about expectations of joe biden's performance. listen, all joe biden has to do is come out there and be scrappy joe scranton, as my friend jen palmieri calls him, and throw some hay makers. he needs to tell him to shut up, to quit lying. he needs to be a street fighter tonight. he doesn't need to be as presidential as he is inclined to try to be. in policy, he's great, but it is more important that he get under donald trump's skin. the way you get under donald trump's skin is you confront him with his b.s. i'm hoping that joe biden does that. i have a feeling that's what they've been preparing for at camp david. >> tim, talk to us about what

punches he should throw, what he should strike, and the stakes of tonight. this has been billed as the most important debate in generations. do you agree? >> it is important for joe biden. a part of this is if you look at the numbers, we're trying to figure out, democratic senate candidates are running ahead of joe biden. why is that? what is underneath that? there is a certain voter that hasn't tuned in as much, that is part of the democratic coalition, that is worried about his age, maybe they're not happy about inflation, and if joe biden shows that he is the vigorous joe biden he showed at the state of the union, if he reminds the voters why they hate donald trump -- because most of the voters don't like donald trump at all -- i think he is poised to gain a couple of points in the polls and win some of the votes back. you have to go after trump on his extremism, obviously on social issues, on issues like abortion, but you also have to trigger donald trump a little bit. you know, my colleague, laura caputo, said trump might seem

irrational, but he has a lizard brain. he knows he botched the debate last time. he has to make sure joe biden doesn't get under his skin, or we'll get the crazy donald trump we know and love on the debate stage tonight. >> doris, it'll be a fascinating trip back to the future. you have to go back to 1960. of course, a presidential debate you know very much. you've written about it eloquently. the kennedy/nixon debate. there's no studio audience. it was so fascinating, hearing the stories after, you know, time and again, people listening on the radio thought nixon won. people watching on television thought kennedy won. again, without an audience cheering, there really was -- it was really left to the viewer to draw their conclusions. we'll have the same thing tonight. >> absolutely right.

you know, what's interesting is the debate did not have to become a tradition after 1960. in fact, eisenhower had warned nixon not to do it. don't give kennedy the advantage of standing side by side with you. then in 1964, it was told to lbj, in fact by my husband, wrote a memo saying, don't debate. you're the president of the united states. don't give your opponent the statute to stand next to you. in '68 and '72, nixon wasn't making the same decision. ford, behind in the polls, decided to debate carter. he needed the debate, he thought, which was a mistake. on the second debate, he was asked a question about the soviet domination of eastern europe, and he said, no, there is no soviet domination of eastern europe. there will never be one in a ford administration. max frankel tried to give him a second chance to get it right, and he still got it wrong. the problem was it reinforced the problem he was ill informed

or not smart. after that, continued, got audiences, people interrupting each other, and lost two people talking straight to the camera as they were in 1960. tonight, we've gone back to that to focus on it. we have two guys tonight that will be live, next to each other, and that's what people will want to see. the people themselves will make up their mind as to whether or not they talk to them, whether or not they said the truth, whether or not they were believable, whether or not they cared about their problems. i can't wait. the whole country, i'm sure, is anxious and excited about what is going to happen tonight. >> yeah, doris is right, mike, this is a tune-in moment for a country that has tuned out this campaign, a lot of people have outside of our world of political junkies. people are sick of seeing these guys and say, call me after labor day. tonight will be interesting for many of the reasons that doris laid out, including the fact it's not a rally. you're not going to hear big

applause, hooting and hollering when donald trump says something. it'll sit there if he says he won the 2020 election, the moderators have time to jump in and follow up. the format will be fascinating to watch. >> it'll be fascinating to watch for a number of reasons. first of all, i don't think any of us really appreciate the tumult that has really rocked this nation for several years. parts of this country never really got over covid and the shutdowns after covid. they're still living with the consequences of that, especially if you have school children who missed two years of school, things like that. tonight, i think president biden's principal job, and claire alluded to it, is to remind the nation who the opponent is. remind a nation who donald trump is and what donald trump did and did not do during his presidency. it's going to be interesting to see how he does it.

i think he's going to be fairly tough on trump, to try to get him to react and, to claire's point, to get him to overreact, in fact. shutting off the microphones won't make a difference if trump really overreacts. you'll hear him, and i think that's what they're banking on. jonathan, you've been there and are there today. what's your sense on the internals of the biden campaign prep in terms of reminding the country of who donald trump was as president? >> yeah, that's key to what they want to do. they want to draw contrast between biden and trump. they also want to lift this sense of trump amnesia that settled across a lot of the country. who have the remembrances of, oh, the economy was good or something, and forget the drama and tumult. i'm told biden will push the convicted felon phrase, and he'll talk about abortion rights, january 6th.

he'll talk about the 2020 election and try to get donald trump to repeat the big lie in front of a national television audience. claire, we've outlined here in the last few minutes the way biden will go on the attack, but let's talk about how he'll play defense, too. donald trump's team previewed, yes, we'll hear about hunter biden, but more than that, it'll be on immigration and inflation. how should the president respond? >> well, i think biden has a pretty good story to tell about the immigration issue. all biden has to do is focus the audience on the fact that he was for the toughest immigration bill in decades, and donald trump stopped it. so he had to take action. since he took action, the border crossings are down by 40% already. so you see, first, donald trump blocking because he didn't want a political win for his opponent, once again being selfish, putting himself before country. then joe biden taking decisive action and getting good results.

as long as he keeps it in that contrast, he's going to be fine on immigration. the key here is, and i think you see it in some of the pre-debate stuff from the biden campaign, they want to remind people that donald trump is all about himself and joe biden is about you. and i think you'll hear that theme over and over again running through all the contrast that biden will try to draw. >> biden and his surrogates coalescing around that idea of a central theme between now and november. tim, tell us a little more about what else you're look out for tonight. i think we should expect the president to make a robust defense of democracy at home and abroad, and the foreign policy doesn't usually sway too many voters' minds. you know, ukraine and the russian invasion might. >> yeah. i don't think it'll be too hard for starters to get donald trump to repeat the big lie. that's a good, low bar for the biden campaign to start with. i think he'll be able to do that easily. on the foreign policy, yeah, i

talked earlier about how biden does have to speak to his base, the soft parts of the base. then the nikki haley voter, ukraine, commitment to democracy at home and abroad, that'll be the issue for the bulwark folks, my folks. can you get to the suburban, college-educated republicans who don't know what's happening at "the wall street journal," who think thinks are getting crazy over there with the attacks on joe biden, can he contrast trump on that and put trump in this box where trump is defending putin, trump is attacking our allies at nato, and he is attacking our institutions at home? i think that's a good run of issues for biden. he has to be careful on foreign policy. the other side of the coin, trump is going to say, the world is on fire. everything is crazy. everything was calm when i was here. i think one of the challenges to president biden is not being too defensive on those questions. staying on the attack. having crisp answers about what he has been doing and also attacking donald trump on the ways he's going to alienate us in the world. >> you know, claire mccaskill, i want to go to you here. it's just -- it's galling and it

has been galling to me for some time, that donald trump repeats something enough that everybody believes it is true. even people in the media that talk about how great the economy was under donald trump. when you go back before the pandemic, if you don't count, the economy was the best ever. no, it wasn't. i know a lot of people hate numbers and they hate facts, and i understand a lot of people in trump land, they're snowflakes and, like, it's their feelings that matter. they lead with their feelings. but here are the facts. before the pandemic, america's gdp was 2.5%, all right? post world war ii, that's not the greatest performance ever. that ranks donald trump eighth,

eighth, behind lbj, behind jimmy carter, behind reagan, behind ike, behind nixon. i could go on and on. find eight presidents post world war ii, and donald trump did worse than most of them on gdp growth. yet, donald trump is going to keep lying about the greatest economy ever before the pandemic. no, he didn't. it wasn't anywhere close to the greatest economy ever. i just wonder how much longer moderators and others are going to allow this lie to continue to fester. it's a lie that is having an impact on this race. >> well, that lie has a lot of economy with a lot of other lies that donald trump repeats incessantly. the most ludicrous suggestion of

all, if -- i mean, republican senators who know joe biden well, believe me, when they hear donald trump talking about joe biden taking drugs, it is like fingernails on a blackboard. they know better. they know it is the stupiest allegation ever cast in a political campaign. jobs, joe, remember when we talked about jobs, jobs, jobs? what a contrast of job creation between donald trump -- and i'm not talking about during the pandemic. i'm talking about before the pandemic versus what joe biden has done. so he has to acknowledge that prices continue to rise, although more slowly and not as acutely as before. but we have done so much. that's where he can pivot to health care. that's where he can talk about capping insulin. that's where he can talk about expanding health care and how many people have health care now. then look at what donald trump is talking about. i mean, donald trump is talking about, once again, trying to overturn obamacare. republicans still, that's on

their wish list. don't kid yourself. he's got a real story he can pivot to on health care, and that really res nat really reso voters in the undecided column. >> claire, the challenge, joe, for joe biden and the moderators is to keep up with the lies, whether it be about the economy pre-pandemic or the pandemic. >> right. >> which he lied to america about. which he kept from america for weeks and weeks. many say he managed that pandemic like a loon. many people died because of him. >> you think the bleach thing -- >> also just not telling america it was coming. >> yeah. >> that might have caused a problem. but telling bob woodward, yeah, i didn't want to freak people out. >> and mess up the economy is what he said. >> okay. >> doris, i'll end with a question i'm sure you've thought about regarding the history of debates, specifically incumbents

in debates. some of the biggest debate disasters have come from incumbents that should have been -- you know, going against weaker opponents, they should have been able to clear the deck, so to speak. ronald reagan in 1984. none of us knew exactly where reagan was kind of wandering off to when he talked about driving up the pacific coast highway in '84. he recovered very well in the next debate. you could look at cleveland with barack obama in 2012. president obama had a disaster in 2012 in his first debate with mitt romney. said as much. he recovered, obviously. donald trump, though, in 2020, his first debate was just off the rails. he did not recover from that. that may have been the deciding factor in what moved the election to joe biden. i'm curious, though, why that is and what joe biden needs to be

worried about tonight, to not fall into the trap of president obama, president reagan, and -- who was the other i mentioned -- oh, '84, reagan, obama, trump, and then reagan. >> obama's first one, right. >> yeah. >> i think the problem, generally, you're just right, is that they're rusty because they haven't been in debates. especially in this case for president biden, he hasn't been answering questions as much as other presidents might have. they're not used to it. that's what you saw. you saw that rustiness on their parts, but they were able to recover. i mean, obviously, reagan recovered brilliantly by the self-depprecaing humor. people feel good about it when he said, you know, i will not deal with age in this campaign. i will not exploit my opponent's youth and inexperience. everybody laughed. even mondale had to laugh. there is a moment in the debate, i'm going way back in time, when lincoln was in a debate with

steven douglas. somebody yelled at him, mr. lincoln, you're two faced. he said, if i had two faces, do you think i'd be wearing this face? that's what makes people like the person. [ laughter ] it is interesting. that's why i think biden is preparing so hard, and we should be glad. don't we want our kids to prepare for some big exam instead of say, i'll wing it, like president trump is saying? but you can overprepare. reagan said he overprepared in the first debate, and he wasn't himself. they said, just be yourself. it's the fine line between preparing and not having memorized so many things that you say, what should i say for a, b, c, or d? be yourself. that's a fine line. presidents have to do it. it's the big moment for them. think about waking up this morning and what enormous anxiety they must be feeling. as i was thinking yesterday and today, you think about what anxiety everybody in the country is feeling. it'll be good when tonight is over and we can say, it all worked out well somehow.

>> doris kearns goodwin, let's hope. thank you very much. it's great to have you on again. her book, "an unfinished love story, a personal story of the 1960s," it is out and fabulous. thank you. claire mccaskill and tim miller, thank you, as well. we'll see you tomorrow for post debate analysis. we're all going to be a little sleepy tomorrow morning but happy to be here. still ahead on "morning joe," dow jones ceo and "wall street journal" publisher joins us with an update on his colleague, wrongfully detained american reporter evan gershkovich, whose trial is now under way in russia. plus, house speaker mike johnson is criticizing president biden's handling of the war in gaza. the letter he sent to the white house weeks before prime minister benjamin netanyahu is set to address a joint session of congress.

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coast. trial proceedings began yesterday behind closed doors in russia of the case of "wall street journal" reporter evan gershkovich. taken into custody on espionage charges in march of last year. gershkovich is considered wrongfully detained. that's the u.s. government assessment. it is unclear what happened in court yesterday. we don't know exactly how long the trial might last. his next hearing is set for august the 13th. joining us now, dow jones ceo and publisher of the "wall street journal" almar latour. also with us, richard haass. almar, i'll start with you. the front page above the fold in the "wall street journal" is evan's trial. just below that, a chilling image of evan in court, first day of his trial with a shaved head. what's your reaction to the beginning of this trial? >> well, unfortunately, it's playing out in as grim of fashion as we anticipated.

it's farcical, the proceedings, with a sham trial based on a lie. evan's head has been shaved. they moved him to a different facility because the court proceedings moved from moscow to where he is now in a cell with four people. he has, so far, one cellmate. the trial itself is a mystery. the proceedings are a mystery. our lawyers are not allowed to talk to us, the very lawyers we've retained cannot share anything about the trial or they will be charged with espionage. so all of this is a fiction. all of this is a spy book. >> if he is found guilty, which as we noted, more than 9 some percent in this court reach

a verdict, he faces up to 20 years in prison. i want to respect your private negotiations and conversations behind the scenes because it is se sensitive, but to the extent you can share, are there glimmers of hope when you talk to intermediaries, when you have discussions with russian authorities? >> not once throughout the process have we lost hope. there have been ups and downs. i can't speak to the very specific developments right now, but people are working around the clock. not just u.s. officials but allied nations, as well. we feel very supported. the family feels supported. i know evan feels that support, as well. we will get him out. >> joe, a statement from evan's family yesterday talking about the excruciating last 15 months since evan was snatched and put into prison on sham charges of espionage. >> it is heartbreaking. heartbreaking for the family.

obviously, almar, heartbreaking for the family of journalists at "the wall street journal" who have, for years, provided americans and the world some of the greatest reporting across the world. mika's -- one of mika's relatives who was on the show yesterday was a "wall street journal" reporter in a similar beat. how is this impacting your news gathering? obviously, it breaks everybody's heart, but what tough decisions are you all having to make about how you cover the world and continue shining a light on the darkness in russia? >> well, thank you, first of all. we have a relatively new editor, who has led with grace throughout this whole ordeal. i believe that this is really a moment for our particular

journalism coming really close to our purpose. to double down on that purpose of bringing reliable information to a world in which reliable information is hard to come by. i think everyone is extra motivated. at the same time, it is very precarious right now to be a reporter in hot spots around the world, and so we proceed with caution. we have a security protocol in place that we've tightened up even more, but we are doubling down on our mission. >> yeah. and we have said on the show, i've certainly said many times, even if we had problems with a story or two, what an extraordinary job we think emmett tucker is doing over at "the wall street journal." really breathed life into the publication over the past six months or so and has highlighted this issue time and again,

richard haass. the family has to be heartened by how "the wall street journal" has stood with it shoulder to shoulder. i am curious, though, how do we feel with a superpower, or at least a country that considers itself still to be a superpower, when they keep kidnapping our journalists, our athletes, and just american citizens that are kidnapped by vladimir putin and then exchanged later for international fugitives, international thugs? like, weapons dealers, merchants of death. >> joe, i wish i could give you a good answer. i was involved in trying to get american hostages out of lebanon years ago when i worked at the white house. it's just one of the most frustrating things. the more you talk about it, the more you try. in some ways, it is a real dilemma. it signals, wow, this is

valuable. what else can we get from you americans? it's just a dilemma for the government and, you know, it is also the question of what is motivating russia? i'd be curious, to what extent do you think this is to intimidate, to basically teach, show all journalists, you cover us in certain ways, we're going to get you? to what extent have you gleamed from your contacts with them that this is also potentially a way to set up a trade? again, i don't want to go too far, but what do you think is motivating them? >> so, traditionally, these types of cases have led to a trade of some sort. that is definitely one of the motivations that we discern. i think it's a level of deference going to a trade from the u.s. and allies around the world, that's one thing. i think the motivation is also to humiliate the west and to humiliate free press and to

serve up an example. to say, hey, do not write about us in any unfavorable manner. >> almar, the negotiations for evan's release are obviously sensitive, much of it, all of it, probably, behind the scenes. we don't know much about what is going on publicly, nor should we know. obviously, again, the insertion of domestic politics into this propped up yesterday. former president donald trump on his truth social platform said, quote, "fear not, evan. i will get you home soon, and you will be safe while there," unquote. what is your reaction on that? >> i'm not commenting on specific posting, but we've seen bipartisan support throughout this past 15 months. that is continuing in some form. we hope that evan can come home sooner than the election, and we

are working toward that. i'm putting a spotlight on evan for that very purpose, to try to get him home now. i know a lot of work is being in place. i do think it is important, per your comments just now, that there is a debate on how we're going to end the hostage taking industry by autocrats. it's really putting pressure on journalists all over the world. you see this behavior being mirrored in other nations, as well. that is a legitimate debate to have. it is apart from that particular posting. >> almar, what can americans watching right now, watching this show, watching other shows, that want to help, what can they do? >> first of all, join in the discussion. start conversations around this. wear a button like the one i'm wearing now. why is that important? it may not feel like, at an individual level, you're contributing, but you are.

there needs to be an awareness that free press is under assault. even free press, there is no free society. this is something we hold very dear. if we let this slip out of control, it'll be a high price to pay, not just in potentially elsewhere, as well. this is one of the most important discussions we should have in this country and around the world. >> reading from the statement from evan's family yesterday, quote, we miss our son, and we just want him home. we all hope he comes home soon. we stand with evan, with you, and we'll stay on this story. dow jones ceo and publisher of the "wall street journal," almar latour, thank you for being here today. appreciate it. >> thank you for your support. richard, stay with us. we want your analysis on what israel's defense minister is saying about shipments of weapons after prime minister netanyahu claimed recently those have stalled. we're back in a moment.

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welcome back. 44 past the hour. israel's defense minister says significant progress was made during his meeting with white house officials. gallant was in washington this week holding discussions with secretary of state antony blinken, defense secretary lloyd austin, and white house national security adviser jake sullivan. according to the white house, the cease-fire deal and efforts to reduce hostilities with lebanon were among the main topics of discussion. in a video statement released

yesterday, gallant explained the obstacles surrounding america's supply of weapons to israel have been addressed. this as israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu accused the white house of withholding arms and slowing down israel's operation. a claim the biden administration has refuted. meanwhile, on capitol hill, house speaker mike johnson is criticiing president biden's handling of the war in gaza. he sent a letter to the white house yesterday writing in part, quote, "the failure to resolutely support israel in its military objectives has made it harder to help facilitate the release of those being detained." johnson went on to accuse the president of not focusing on the release of the hostages instead, trying to micromanage israel. >> we can't have this on the show when it was mike johnson, at donald trump's urging, that slow walked funding for israel.

when everybody was coming together once again with a bipartisan bill to fund ukraine, to fund israel, to fund taiwan taiwan's defense. >> and what happened? >> what happened? he listened to donald trump and marjorie taylor greene. >> okay. >> instead of listening, of course, to the israelis and listening to the ukrainians. i really -- the moral craning lectures from that guy? i mean, it's just like lecturing on the southern border. i'm saying tonight, again, any democrat that does not knock rhetorically somebody's head off their shoulders in a debate, that talks about the southern border after it was donald trump that killed our best chance of securing the southern border in 30 years, doesn't know what they're doing. i'll just say that.

it's open and shut. >> okay. richard haass, let's talk about what's happening in israel right now. it seems to me, because i think it's what's happening, but i need to talk to you because you actually know what's happening because you talk to people every day about it. benjamin netanyahu is sort of standing in the middle of a no man's land. israeli troops, for the most part, are just standing still. the fear of famine among the gazan people grow because nothing really is happening to speak of. they're not going into rafah to try to finish the operation off, and they're not able to get to a cease-fire. of course, i blame hamas completely for that. still, something has to be done. it makes sense that he's getting hammered from the left and the right in israel. >> joe, i think this is now

parked in the situation you describe in gaza. this is going to be the new normal, quite possibly for some time. not a cease-fire. not high intensity combat operations, but low-level, open-ended conflict. i think that suits the israelis militarily because they can transfer most of their resources to the north. it suits the prime minister politically because he doesn't have to set into motion political dynamics that would threaten his political coalition who want no part of anything. that conceivably opens the door of talking about palestinian nationalism or bringing the palestinian authority into play. i actually think gaza after eight, nine months, this is going to be the new normal for some time. attention is going to turn initially to the north. the israelis are in an untenable situation. 75,000, plus or minus, of their people can't go home. the real question is whether they deal with this diplomatically or militarily. in this case, hezbollah and iran, what they agree to.

i think to add to the morning gloom a little bit, there is a chance we could see a spike in violence in the west bank. a lot of friction between settlers and palestinians. almost, in some ways, a third intifada, it is not a far-fetched possibility. >> of course, it's exactly what netanyahu would prefer. the more unrest, the more of his ability to continue to clamp down on the west bank, the further he can move from a two-state solution, the happier netanyahu is. willie, this may be untenable for israel right now. this sort of, again, world war i type stalemate is also untenab the people of gaza, untenable for those who are starving to death, for famine that's spreading. it's untenable for our arab allies in the region who want to come in and help after -- after the war is over, and at this

point, you just have to ask if hamas is not going to take a ceasefire, is the most humane thing israel can do is move quickly and finish this war so -- so the gazan people don't just sit there and slowly starve to death over the next six months? >> and that's what a lot of people inside of israel have called for. the question, i guess, richard, is what does it mean to finish this war? how do you finish it? >> well, you can't finish it militarily. israel has probably killed, i don't know, 10,000 to 15,000, plus or minus based on their numbers, hamas fighters. that leaves another 15,000 or 20,000 there given the original estimates. you can degrade them. israel seriously degraded them. they couldn't mount an operation like they did on october 7th right now, but they're still there, and if there's not a replacement force to provide security in gaza, they are down, but not -- and again, that's why you hear so many israelis, willie, including that extraordinary open letter in the

"new york times" essentially frustrated with the prime minister who won't introduce a political and military strategy for taking the military gains that israel has made and translating it into something enduring that is better. that's why i think we're looking at what you might call occupation light, and that way the israelis avoid political decisions. >> criticism from speaker johnson of the white house. let's talk about prime minister netanyahu. >> yep. >> going out in a very public way, criticiing president biden and this administration for he says, slowwalking support given the fact that the united states has been there literally from day one on october 7th in this regard. >> two reactions. one, as best i can tell, we are not slowwalking support. we paused that one order of 2,000-pound bombs. that's weapons they should never use in gaza in the first place. those guarantee large numbers of civilians. i do not think based on everything i've seen -- i think

it kind of climbed down yesterday. they said, yeah. we've addressed the issue. there is no issue. there's a large flow, you know, israel gets $3.8 billion a year in american military aid which leads me to the prime minister's video the other day. i thought it was outrageous, and i thought the president should have gone out and basically said, who the hell does this man think he is? the united states has been very supportive of israel with arms, with intelligence. this is an important relationship to us. the prime minister of israel ought to be saying thank you. he owes an apology to the american people. the united states has stood by israel. it doesn't mean we necessarily agree with israel's every policy, but we stand by the state of israel and the security of israel whether it's against iran or what have you, but i don't think those kinds of public criticisms of the united states should go unresponded to. >> what is netanyahu up to there then? he knows without the united states he's got no shot. what is he up to with all the public criticism of president biden? >> one was an endorsement of donald trump.

let's just put that on the -- on the table. the other is he is positioning himself as the only man in israel to who can stand up to american and international pressure, who can take and make the tough decisions. whether this might keep them as prime minister or if he has to face the israeli electorate again, this will be his platform. you may not like me. you may think i made a mistake on october 7th, but you need me because israel faces a hostile region, a hostile world, an america that is not giving it unconditional support. you need somebody like me in the driver's seat. that will be his platform. >> yeah, and that's his platform, but the reason why -- he's doing everything he's doing is because you talk to people in israel. one of their biggest long-term complaints about netanyahu is he doesn't make tough decisions. he won't make the tough decisions whether it's about peace, whether it's about war, whether it's about hostages. he doesn't make tough decisions. he just wants to hold onto

power. so use america as a scapegoat, kick us for guaranteeing your survival, and that allows him, again, to not make decisions, to continue into this sort of no man's land where you're not only the israeli people, and the gazan people, but also the hostages continue to suffer indefinitely. >> lives hanging in the balance. >> he does nothing. >> richard, thank you very much for being on this morning. a lot still ahead. donald trump says his support among black voters has gone through the roof. >> yeah, that's lie. >> since his conviction on 34 felony counts. >> lie. >> so since he's become a convicted felon, the black vote surging. >> he's lying. >> we'll show you what he had to say to black business owners in atlanta yesterday ahead of tonight's debate. "morning joe" is back in a moment. t's debate "morning joe" is back in a moment

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presidential debate. and the big controversy is which drugs may be used tomorrow night? and i just -- i just want to, you know, state for the record that i have no idea what drugs i will take when i watch the debate, but they will be potent and they will be plentiful. [ applause ] >> well, it's finally here. >> yes. >> tonight, president biden and donald trump are set to face off for their first presidential debate of this election cycle. it is a pivotal moment that could shake up the race for the white house. we'll go over how both have been preparing their pitch to voters, and we'll show you a demonstration on how the microphones will actually work if biden or trump decides to interrupt each other. >> mika is actually getting this technology from cnn and going to import it into "morning joe." >> i think it -- >> to use on me. >> i'm going to call k.c. we'll get it all set up here. >> i like it. >> it'll work perfectly. also ahead, another

significant abortion document was mistakenly posted by the supreme court. >> what are they doing? >> just goes -- boop, it goes away. we'll go over whether it could be welcome news for abortion rights advocates and how the justices are seemingly poised to rule in the case. do they not know how to use computers? >> i guess not. first though, let's go to atlanta. jonathan lemire is down in atlanta. big concern that tonight we are going to see -- >> it's a good thing he's there, yeah. >> we're going to see -- >> on location. >> -- dazed, confused, you know, people who've seen better days, and then we're going to switch over from the yankees. baa da boom. the yankees/mets game. >> really? >> yes. i mean, the mets, our t.j. so excited. meet the mets, beat the mets. >> t.j.? my daughter. >> mika's daughter.

a huge mets fan, but this was a great game last night, lemire. >> i mean, i don't know what more you would want in a baseball game than the yankees losing by double figures. yes, it is the -- first of all for the met, the power of grimace. they continue to be on a complete roll. it's that mcdonald's cartoon character. the grimace reapers. they're now back at .500, and in the wild card mix and they play their slumping rival yankees. aaron judge homered again. he's unbelievable. they're in a tailspin right now, the yankees. >> yeah. >> i think the eyes of the nation are wondering, will they be able to recover? can they prove they're still up for the job of being atop the american league east? >> you know, willie, it is a terrible situation to be the new york yankees, and only have a 30-game cushion being, like, 30 over .500.

22 over .500. they're 52-30. it is interesting, the yankees and the orioles have both decided to sort of skid at the same time, but it's a marathon. we say it all the time. it's a marathon. nobody's ever as good as they look, and nobody's ever as bad as they look. you want the -- this is what you want to happen, and this is what i think is so -- why they're so diabolical and so evil, the yankees. they know you want to have your slump before the all-star break. they're getting it out of the way just so they can crush red sox fans' hearts even more violently after the all-star break on their way to 100 -- and i think, 118, 119 wins. they're going to make, you know, that mariners team look like minor leaguers. >> it's all part of the evil empire's plan. i count myself guilty early in the season when the yankees look so good for looking up, once

again, the all-time record for season wins. we'll fall a little bit short, but the orioles are the only thing keeping the yankees in first place right now because they have been slumping a little bit too, but it's kind of aaron judge right now and nothing else. he hit his 30th home run last night. he's on pace for that incredible record-breaking season in 2022. he's playing out of his mind. soto has been good. not as good lately. they have had some injuries and guys they have had to call in the lineup. they're losing the series against the good teams too which is not what you like to see. the mets, meanwhile, red hot. we are at the halfway point of a very long season. we don't panic in the bronx, and it pains me to say, but the red sox have been a very pleasant surprise i have to imagine for you guys. six games over .500 in the playoffs as we sit here right now. you guys have been predicting doom and gloom, but they look good. >> it's the red sox's division to lose. >> don't even try to bear brian

stuff that didn't work. you can't do it, yankee boy. you just can't do it. we'll see, but we have mika. tonight is -- this is one of the most fascinating debates in that you just don't know what's going to happen. you're going to be holding your breath, wondering what's going to come out of each one of these guys' mouths, wondering if they're going to be able to complete the sentences, wondering if they're going to walk off halfway through. this is going to be the sort of terror that's going to seize both sides every bit as much as it did, we republicans, for the three debates in 2000 when george w. bush was behind the microphone. >> got even close. >> al gore managed to lose all three debates. >> think about that. okay. also with us, deputy managing editor at politico, sam stein, who sam [ speaking in a global language ] -- >> oui. >> you were doing a great job with the french names in the nba

draft in "way to early." >> i appreciate that. also with us, nbc news john heilemann. he's a columnist at "puck," and also author of the book "how the right lost its mind," charlie sykes. oh my god. >> president joe biden and former president donald trump are going to go face-to-face tonight in atlanta. sources familiar with biden's plans tell nbc news the president's going to travel directly from camp david to georgia later today after a week of intense preparation at his maryland retreat. that prep will reportedly include both dress rehearsal-style mock debates and informal huddles with advisers. he's been doing that today. though, mika, most likely he's going to rest and watch "morning joe" on a loop. >> contrary to biden's team, the trump team says he has

maintained his schedule. for the former president, the biden campaign believes trump is preparing more for tonight's debate than he has been letting on publicly. they are bracing for trump to arrive in atlanta, quote, more disciplined than on past occasions. >> oh yeah. this guy's going to be great. >> but has been strat eyesing ways to get under the former president's skin to remind americans of his more uncontrollable side. >> how do you get under donald trump's skin? come on. this guy's -- he's been doing this forever. he spent his entire life on television. he spent his entire life debating. i mean, he would really, really have to screw things up tonight when it's going away tonight. >> he said he didn't really need to prepare for the debate because his life has prepared him. he's so well versed in these issues. >> of course. >> he gets right to the point. he stays on message. he doesn't meander so we'll be

expecting more of that tonight. biden's campaign also said the president likely will bring up trump's felony convictions during the debate. the campaign putting out a statement yesterday that reads, donald trump is a twice-impeached, 34-time convicted felon whose record of attempting to overthrow democracy, promising to enact revenge against his enemies, and inciting political violence at every opportunity makes it clear he belongs nowhere near the white house. he'll have to answer for his priors in front of tens of millions of american voters. we will be watching. his priors. that's the way he talked about it. convicted felon, so john, you have been reporting this deeply on both sides. what do you expect to see in that room tonight? >> i mean, it is going to be a contentious debate this evening. certainly, president biden as outlined there is going to be assertive and aggressive going after donald trump for a number of things including who won the 2020 election. put him on the spot.

make him say again, the big lie. to talk about january 6th, defensive democracy at home and abroad. we'll hear from him about abortion rights, and indeed, he will talk about the need -- people talk about donald trump's convicted felon, and he'll try to make that argument that the conviction is just another sign of trump doing whatever it takes to look out for himself while ignoring the american people. i have been talking to those involved in the biden debate prep at camp david. there is the possibility that donald trump will come out more disciplined, but they think that won't last. they think president biden is going to aim to provoke him they're on the defensive as well. they know trump will come at him swinging on immigration, on inflation, potentially hunter biden's conviction. they say to president biden that hey. it would be okay to flash a little be the of anger at that. that's a human response, and so many americans can relate to a loved one battling addiction, but let's just be clear about this. the stakes here are really high, and both sides know it.

this has been a static race within a few points throughout. that's partially why the biden team wanted this debate so early, to get americans to pay attention, to kind of drag donald trump into their living rooms and say, look. this is the choice. biden versus trump. you may not be thrilled with that choice, and polls suggest a lot of americans aren't, but you're going to have to make a decision here. this is the race, and they think this is a moment where the president cannot only quiet the doubters much like he did at the state of the union, that he's still up for the job, but he can once again paint donald trump as fundamentally unfit and dangerous to hold that office again. >> jonathan is right that americans and you know this, talking to people all the time, are kind of looking away from this campaign. they go, ugh. these two guys again? this is a moment when the country is really going to tune in, even if just for one night and perhaps form lasting impressions and as john says, both of the campaigns are very aware of that. so you're going to be down there tonight in atlanta.

what do you expect to see? >> well, i guess first -- one thing to say about this is, you know, we're going to -- there's -- joe's right in saying this. it is, you know, given the two candidates, there's, you know, the possibility that something will happen outside the bounds of what anyone expects in any direction is reasonable. >> yeah. >> so the main predictions about what's going to happen in the debate, the likeliest thing is joe biden will essentially now that the expectations have been lowered for him by republicans for months, stupidly, that he'll overperform the expectations and do what he did in the state of the union. that's the most likely outcome. the most likely outcome on donald trump's side is he's going to be, you know, donald trump. it's not clear that donald trump has other mode than the trump that we've seen. one of the things about having this thing so early is that the biden campaign pushed for it to be early. they didn't push it to be early because they thought that what would kind of happen here was that with the 6% of undecided,

persua persuadable, available voters and the six states that are in play, six or seven maybe states that are battleground states, that people were going to have their mind changed tonight in that group. if you haven't decided between donald trump and joe biden at this point, an event that would change your mind tonight and would hold for the -- until november, this is a pretty unlikely thing. this is a moment like the state of the union for biden to calm nervous democrats, to frame the race going forward. we're going to have these big events coming forward. we have the nato summit in washington, d.c. you've got trump's vp pick. you've got the republican convention. those are the next two weeks after this debate, and i think the way the biden campaign thinks about this as is a -- kind of like the starting ballot away for the general election where they can get up in front of this big audience and say, this is what the choice is going to be about over the course of these next months, and we're going to fight this thing out, but for those undecided voters, their decisions are likely to come much later, and there are a lot of events that are going to occur between now and november.

so we're not -- i don't think you're going to see -- when we see a lot of the instant polling and the numbers that people look at, that's the thing to really talk about in the next few days. we realize this is a really early debate and a lot of stuff is still going to happen between now and november that are going to actually make up the minds of the people who count. coming up, we're going to continue the conversation in just a moment, and we're going to ask charlie sykes about the timing of tonight's debate and what it could mean for undecided voters. "morning joe" is back in 90 seconds. "morning joe" is back in 90 seconds - so this is pickleball? - pickle! ah, these guys are intense. with e*trade from morgan stanley, we're ready for whatever gets served up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. that's a pretty good burn, right?

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this really is, charlie sykes, a lot like a preseason game. it's june. the election's in november. there are, you know, the famous -- i think it was -- maybe it was harold wilson or mcmillan who said in politics, a week is a lifetime. we still have 5, 5 1/2 months until this. this is really, really early, isn't it? >> you know, i'm only glad you're giving us this reality check because this debate is pivotal. it's incredibly important, but we live in an era of just constant amnesia. i mean, you do this every day, right? sometimes at the end of the week, you look back and say,

what actually happened this week? >> exactly. >> something that happened two weeks ago feels like it happened in a completely different era. i think that's important, and as for undecided voters, there was a survey in wisconsin yesterday of registered voters that found the race tied 50/50 which was amazing because that means there's no undecided voters out there. so again, there's a lot of things that are going to happen, and, you know, as john heilemann pointed out, you're going to have this post-debate spin. there's going to be as significant as anything that happened, but i am fascinated by all the discussion about, you know, expectations, you know, who's going to show up, what's going to happen? we don't know, but we do know one thing. donald trump is going to be donald trump. donald trump is either going to be the unhinged howler monkey, or and i've heard a lot of speculation about this, maybe we'll get the more low-energy joe biden -- i mean, donald trump. maybe we'll get the more disciplined and presidential donald trump. that donald trump doesn't exist,

and keep in mind that if you have a 90-minute debate in which the temperature is low, one thing we're going to discover or be reminded about donald trump is that he doesn't really know anything about anything. now i don't think that this debate is going to turn on policy or substance, but if it does, just think about it. how much does donald trump know about substance and policy? how many questions can he answer about substance and policy? >> right. >> at his rallies and his interviews, think about what he actually talks about. i mean, he's -- he's doing this nonprep where he's doing softball interviews and doing the rallies. listen to what he says when he is unscripted. listen to what he says when he's, you know, off the hook. so, you know, i'm going to be fascinated by seeing, you know, how does donald trump react to not having an audience? how does donald trump react to actually having hostile interviewers? how does donald trump have to react when he is trying to

pretend or be the reality star who wants people to think that he's presidential? >> yeah. >> it's going to be -- the one thing we know about tonight is it's not going to be boring. >> well, this is one of the things, mika, you really educated me on early on in 2016. donald trump had a meeting with the editorial board. >> yeah. >> with "the washington post," and i was reading it to you and i couldn't believe it. he talked about his hands and the size of his hands for half the interview. i said, this guy's crazy. he's not crazy. if he's talking about his hands, he country have to talk about his foreign policy plans. he doesn't have to expose how little he knows about economics, how little he knows about what he's really going to do on the deficit or the debt, and we still have the same thing here. there's a reason he talks about sharks and he talks about -- >> battebatteries. >> he doesn't -- this guy doesn't know. he hasn't studied american history. he doesn't know.

he hasn't studied constitutional law. he doesn't understand constitutional framework. the guy doesn't know policy. he hasn't spent his life studying policy, working through it. so yeah. it is going to be interesting when the studio's quiet, when there's no cheering section to cheer on some really stupid things he says where baically everything he throws up there is a strike because the audience -- >> he doesn't study policy or history. it's worse. he doesn't care. he doesn't give a damn about public service. he thinks public service is for losers. he thinks the people who are buried al arlington national cemetery are losers, who didn't understand what was in it for them. you have to look at his core values. his core values are the problem. i mean, it's not even that he can't answer a question, and then to charlie's point, hostile

interviewers, i don't think that -- i don't think that jake tapper and dana bash are planning to be hostile. i think they want a fair debate. >> well, they'll be tough to both sides. >> i think they will be tough to both sides, and i think the hostility from what we're seeing already from the trump campaign is coming from trump toward them to try to create hostility, and i'm sure that they will be elegant and fair and try their best to ask donald trump -- and this is his worst nightmare -- basic questions. basic questions to charlie's point. >> willie, it's not the basic questions that have always been the problems. when donald trump gets on stage and he mauls somebody who's interviewing him, it's always the inability to ask the follow-up. you said the election was rigged. yeah, the election was rigged. >> wait a minute. >> well, hold on a second. what about the 63 federal judges that said -- well, blah blah

blah. then he goes on. about the supreme court? >> wasting time. stay on it. >> and you just stay on it. you just hammer it. we've seen one or two people -- my favorite is -- wait a second. it says here ethat -- >> jonathan swanson. >> the best because he's, like, wait. it's the worst australian accent ever, and we have people in australia who watch us. >> the best interview. >> they email. good day, mate. i can't even say that right, but there are very few people like swanny who know how to continue and stay after it. i think jake, dana -- i think those two tonight are going to have the ability to not only ask the tough, fair question, but more importantly, the follow-up that has to be asked. >> or to call out lie. >> yeah, to call out lies on both sides.

>> i'm glad you didn't do your crocodile dundee which is a classic in your arsenal. >> i'm so good at it. >> that's a knife. you got a whole thing you can do. i mean, listen. jake tapper and dana bash are two of the best we have in our business and they will be able to ask, especially i think in this format, sam stein. we can't underline this enough because we haven't really seen it before. it's the debate we see, and i say this as a compliment, on a low level on your local news affiliate where the candidates come into the studio, they sit there with no crowd. it's not a rally. it's not a rah-rah event, and they have to answer the questions. if they don't answer it, and then the moderators have a question to ask the question again. then you get a challenge and a rebut, and you get the answers on the issues. it's fascinating to watch the mechanics of how this plays out

tonight. >> i'll try to do this without offending an entire continent. yeah, i agree with you. i think the moderators will play a major role tonight. we've already sort of gotten some hints of frustration from the biden camp that cnn has said it's not going to be realtime fact checking. i'm with you guys. i think it's, you know, follow-ups are important, right? i mean, if we can get some good follow-ups, and pressing the camps, both frankly, on issues, that's valuable. this is a compressed debate. it's 90 minutes. you have a commercial break. you can go down rabbit holes potentially, and that's what mika was saying, like, one thing trump might want to do is actually take you down weird rabbit holes just to kill some time, right? you have to be cognizant of that. i don't envy the task. it's a high-stakes, high-profile task for jake and dana. i think ultimately, biden is going to have to do something on his side that maybe the moderators won't, which is either press trump for follows which biden could potentially do, or press him on specific

issues, and jonathan and i were talking about this. and one thing biden wants to do is he wants to get trump on the record about the 2020 election results. do you believe that they were valid? and i think if the debate moderators don't ask that, i would not be surprised if biden himself doesn't come out and presses trump specifically on that very basic question. coming up, we'll get a demonstration on how the microphones will be able to prevent the candidates from interrupting each other during tonight's debate. "morning joe" is back in a moment. t's debate "morning joe" is back in a moment this summer. snacking. just. got. serious. introducing new $3 footlong dippers. the world might not be ready for them... ...but at $3 a pop? your wallet definitely is. smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis

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if we go behind the podiums, you can see two green lights. when they're on, they signal to the candidate his microphone is on. when the green lights are off, they signal to the candidate his microphone is off. now i want to give you a sense

of what it will look like for viewers at home if a candidate whose microphone is off interrupts a candidate whose microphone is on. i'm standing at one podium, and i'll ask phil to come in and take the other podium. let's say i'm answering a question. my light is green and i'm speaking. phil's microphone is off and his green lights are not illuminated. he's going to interrupt me as i'm speaking, and this is what it will sound like. my volume remains constant while phil's interruption can be difficult to understand. >> let's try the opposite. my microphone is on, and victor's is off. he's going to interrupt me. my volume remains constant while victor's interruption can be difficult to understand. >> the demonstration on cnn yesterday on how the microphones will work at tonight's presidential debate between president biden and donald trump. you can hear what your light's not on, it is really tough to hear. hopefully cutting down on crosstalk. let's put some frame around this debate and some context. we seem to get another poll every day.

what it shows, basically is that we're within the margin of error. donald trump in one poll yesterday had a little bit of the lead outside the margin of error, but previous polls have shown president biden taking the lead back. swing states are where we're focused and those are all within the margin of error at this point, but what is the expectation from your reporting from the white house about where this race may head after tonight's debate? >> well, first a quick follow-up on what we just saw there in terms of the setting for tonight's debate. what you are seeing behind me in atlanta, this is deceptive. this is not where the debate is going to be tonight. this is the spin room across the street here at georgia tech's campus, home of the yellowjackets. i can see the numbers retired just above me. this is where -- tonight, this will be filled with journalists and it'll be campaign officials. this will be a spin room. campaign surrogates, elected officials will be here trying to talk about what they just saw in the debate. this will be a frenzied hub of activity tonight, but this is not where the debate is. the debate is across the street in a small tv studio.

no audience, just two men, the two moderators, and indeed the mics that mute. that is what americans will see in a format the biden campaign wanted. in terms of where we go from here, both sides acknowledge -- i was speaking to some biden officials about this yesterday, that even if one of the men has a great night. let's say joe biden hits a home run tonight and donald trump has a terrible night, even then, these two men are so well known and this race is so static that probably only moves the polls a couple of points. they don't think there's anything in this election short of a health crisis that could move this polling by eight, ten points or more. that's just not going to happen. these men are too well known. this race is too frozen. that is where we are. but if somebody tonight has a good night and the polls move just two or three points, and to your point earlier, we're in the debate cycle, nato summits, both conventions, the second debate in september.

there are things -- there are many times and opportunities for the numbers to change again, but even the best possible night moves two or three points, but in a race this close, that does matter. it matters at least somewhat. >> yeah, and whether that evaporates in a week or two based on what happens in courthouses or on the campaign trail or somewhere else, who knows? john heilemann, i'm curious if you think the biden campaign the starting to coalesce around this message. donald trump cares about himself. joe biden cares about you. is that the message that they're trying to bring into focus and a message we're probably going to hear biden go after time and time again tonight? >> yeah. i mean, i think, joe, we discussed this the other day on the show, and we had that encapsulation. it went on a little bit, but there was a tight bit at the top of the answer when i asked what the campaign's message was.

she said, joe biden is fighting for you and donald trump is only fighting for himself, and i think that -- if you look at that, you look at the advertising they've done, the messaging out of the campaign since then. that does seem to be the formulation they're settling on now, you know, that is a message that has a familiarity to it. it's not -- we've seen -- that's a democratic message that sounds a lot like what barack obama said about mitt romney for instance, a typical, narcissistic, rich republican caring about himself, and not caring about you. i'm fighting for up. one of the questions i have about that message is how well it gets to another thing that biden wants to talk about, and that the biden campaign wants to talk about which is that trump is not only about himself, but that trump is -- creates a degree, a high degree of chaos that he's -- that kind of rolls in the notion of norm-breaking, wall-breaking, creating this kind of un-american lack of

respect for -- for what -- for the things that make the country great in some sense for our laws, traditions, democratic norms. >> yeah. >> i don't think that fits under that rubric quite clearly, but they'll try to slide that underneath what seems to be as i said, the message they've settled on. coming up, former acting solicitor general, neil katial who has argued before the supreme court is our fwes. following the reports, the justices may rule in favor of emergency abortions. "morning joe" is coming right back. abortions. "morning joe" is coming right back name is david. i've been a pharmacist for 44 years. when i have customers come in and ask for something for memory, i recommend prevagen. number one, because it's effective. does not require a prescription. and i've been taking it quite a while myself and i know it works. and i love it when the customers come back in and tell me, "david, that really works so good for me." makes my day. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription.

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the supreme court appears set to rule in favor of emergency abortions after a document surrounding a high-profile case in idaho was accidentally posted to the court's website. nbc news senior legal correspondent, laura jarrett has details. >> reporter: a mistake of epic proportions rocking the u.s.

supreme court. a closely watched decision on abortion set to come down any day now, mistakenly and briefly posted to the court's website this morning, indicating the high court is likely on the verge of allowing emergency abortions in idaho. the document obtained by bloomberg law before it was quickly removed from the website. the court's spokeswoman explaining the court's publications unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the court's website, adding that the court's official opinion will be issued in due course. nbc news has not verified whether the document is the final version of the opinion or a draft, but the media's rare, advanced access in this case -- [ chanting ] -- harkening back to an unprecedented leak in another abortion case just two years ago in dobbs. politico published the draft decision overturning roe v. wade. the current battle over idaho's law which criminalizes nearly all abortions except to save the mother's life. the biden administration sued

the state arguing that abortion ban directly conflicts with a federal law requiring hospitals that receive federal funding provide abortions to women facing health emergencies, even if not on the brink of death. that conflict, doctors say, puts them in a dangerous bind. >> it's a really heavy burden to carry, to have the five years of potential incarceration to take care of your patients. >> reporter: the document published by bloomberg in full, includes an unsigned opinion punting the ultimate dispute for now, sending it back to the lower court which means women in idaho will be able to obtain emergency abortions while the lawsuit continues to play out, but it also highlights deep divisions on the high court. the justices trading barbs in the document. justice jackson saying, today's decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in idaho. while this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a

precarious position while justice alito calls the court's decision baffling, saying the court has simply lost the will to decide the easy, but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents. >> nbc's laura jarrett reporting for us. sara joining us now, a former litigator, lisa rubin, and barbara mcquaide. i'll start with you, lisa. we can get to the supreme court's baffling i.t. problems over the last couple of careers in a moment, but i think we should start with what this idaho law says, which is when you step back and you go, oh my gosh. you're talking about the law provides for the life of the mother, but that's a determination the doctor has to make. in other words, if there's organ failure that the woman could survive, they can't perform the abortion. if her long-term fertility is threatened, they can't perform the abortion. what are we talking about here? >> that's generally true. the idaho law forbids it unless

to prevent the woman's death. it's not framed in terms of her life. it's only necessary to prevent her death. it's since been amended to allow for an abortion for example, in the cases of sepsis or an ectopic pregnancy. the law says that a doctor has to be certain and reasonably so that the abortion care is necessary to prevent a woman's death, and as we heard in the package that laura put together, doctors in idaho are constrained. they feel like they can't do anything to stabilize their patients' health, and that's why we're in this situation where this case has come to the court now. >> and the doctors have to make that decision in a moment's notice. is this woman going to live or die, and if i perform an abortion and it was determined she wasn't going to die, i can go to jail for five years because i thought i was saving her life. >> that's right. >> let's talk about what you saw this those documents briefly

uploaded to the supreme court's site before being taken down, but captured by bloomberg law. what did you see in that argument? >> what i saw is first of all, the decision of the court in this document whether it's a draft or a final document, we still don't know, but if this is real, it is a single-sentence decision for six justices and an unsigned one. meaning no one justice is taking credit for it simply saying, we made a mistake to agree to hear this case, and the stay of the district court's injunction of idaho's law is vacated, meaning the district court's block of idaho's law insofar as it conflicts with the law, the stabilizing the patient's health, that can't happen. idaho's law must give way to that federal law, but as laura also noted, willie, this is a temporary reprieve. this is not a victory. all this does is send the case back to the lower court for further appellate proceedings, and that means either idaho's

law or one of the other six states that have a very similarly drafted law is likely to come back before the court at a later point in time. this is a proverbial kicking the can down the road, and potentially kicking the can down the road to a point in time where the department of justice is not controlled by the biden administration, but by a president who doesn't believe that the case should have ever been brought in the first place. count on a trump department of justice if there is one, to walk away from the litigation in this case, and not continue to insist that the federal law is supreme over idaho and other states' laws. >> unless, lisa, americans take this case and this issue to the voting booth. what we're learning about abortion, we're learning in realtime in vicious, violent, realtime. what these extreme bans are doing to women. people proclaim to be pro-life, they are pro-death. look at infant mortality in

texas since these extreme bans were put in. infant mortality is up, as in more babies are dying. we know that women are put in life and death situations because abortion is health care, and they're not allowed to get the health care that they need in their time of need. so the pro-death party may lose at the ballot box as more and more cases like this come up and we see exactly how important abortion is to women's health care. barbara mcquaide, to lisa's point, justice jackson said this is just a delay. in a way, the supreme court punted on this. >> yeah. sludly, and as you point out, it does say for another day on the court's merits. we've got other states, not just idaho, but other states where this is an issue, and doctors have to worry about the uncertainty in the law. in fact, you mentioned texas. in texas, there was a similar

challenge, and the fifth circuit court of appeals ruled the other way, in favor of texas, and so that means in texas, if there is a conflict between the need for emergency stabilization and the texas law, the texas law prevails. so the doctors in texas are not able to perform that stabilizing treatment, and so that case remains alive while the court in the words of justice jackson, dawdles in idaho to figure out what the law of the land is, and in these six other states, the doctors will face this chilling effect of not knowing where the law lands, and so justice jackson would have said, let's just decide the case. stop kicking this around because in the meantime, people are going to die. >> barbara, this is sam stein. moving from one legal quagmire to another one, the court still has to issue an opinion on the topic of presidential immunity with respect to the case

involving donald trump. what can we read into the fact that this continues to be pushed down further in the docket? possibly it could come today. it may not come together, and is there anything we can read into the fact about the cadence of the cases that are coming public? as in, is this going to be sort of the grand finale that the court issues here? >> yes, it could be. you know, there's still something like nine opinions yet to be decided. >> yeah. >> we've got so far on the public docket at least, two days left to issue those. i suppose it's possible the court may even go into july, but with regard to the immunity opinion, i think what it shows is, some level of disagreement. if the court were unanimous in its decision, it would have been issued long ago, but, you know, what takes a long time is when the justices are sending drafts back and forth to each other and trying to get other people to sign on to concurrences or to

dissents or to majorities. perhaps it's the chief trying to reach some sort of majority or unanimous opinion of 9-0 by softening some of the language, but clearly this is an issue of great importance, of great controversy. i imagine we will see it if not this week, early next week, but this flurry of opinions and so many say for the end is really unusual. really there's a couple of high-profile cases that come down this late, but for there to be this many, i think it says the court is selecting cases that are designed to change the law of the land, and so in that way, chief justice roberts who claims to be one who calls just roberts who claims to be the one calling balls and strikes is also choosing his pitcher. >> any others that you're particularly waiting for in this court? >> we have 12 opinions left and

two decision days left. we don't know if friday is the last decision day. traditionally the chief justice takes the bench and the day before the last day of decisions will announce that it is so. so today at 10:00 we'll see if justice roberts announces the last day. if he doesn't, we'll see decisions next week. i'm also waiting for a decision in a case called fisher. that's a case brought by a january 6th defendant who argues that the federal government has wrongly construed a criminal statute that's been charged against hundreds of january 6th defendants, including the former president, who is facing conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. the argument the defendant is making is that it essentially only applies to things like

paperwork and not physically blocking congress from carrying on with its business. if the defendant is right about that, that will affect a large wave of january 6th-related cases and potentially the former president's case as well, depending on how the immunity case goes. loper bright deals with whether or not federal agencies are entitled to deference for their decisions. count on agencies to have a lot less power to do what they have traditionally done, which is issue regulations. coming up, the economy and inflation are expected to be big topics during tonight's debate. andrew ross sorkin joins us ahead for that. debate andrew ross sorkin joins us ahead for that

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coming up, the trump campaign hosted black business owners for an event in atlanta yesterday, and the former president once again claimed black voters relate to him because of his criminal convictions. >> you cannot make it up. >> reverend al sharpton joins us. >> this is a monty python show. this is reality tv. we'll see what reverend al thinks when "morning joe" returns. reverend al thinks when "morning joe" returns. with so many choices on booking.com there are so many tina feys i could be. so i hired body doubles. 30,000 followers tina in a boutique hotel. or 30,000 steps tina in a mountain cabin. ooh! booking.com booking.yeah experian helped me save over $1,400 a year on car insurance. though prices keep going up, experian is here to help you save on personal loans, credit cards, or car insurance. start saving now. free.

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will exist half slave or half free. >> these are the kind of elements of a national health insurance important to the american people. governor reagan, again, typically is against such a proposal. >> governor? >> there you go again. >> if kitty dukakis were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer? >> no, i won't. i've opposed the death penalty all my life. >> we have a question right here. >> how has national debt personally affected each of your lives? >> the question in this campaign is not only what's your philosophy and your position on issues, but can you get things done? and i believe i can. >> i went to a women's group and they brought us binders full of

women. >> i agree. premiums have gotten too high. >> i'm not going to answer the question -- >> why wouldn't you answer the question -- >> the question is -- would you shut up, man? >> presidential debate moments through the years. will you shut up, man? i've got to use that one, willie. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. president biden and former president trump will come face to face tonight in atlanta. gabe gutierrez has the latest. >> reporter: today in atlanta, a debate rematch with the stage now set between president biden and former president trump, their first face-off in four years since they clashed in a pair of defense debates. >> the radical left -- >> would you shut up, man?

>> reporter: president biden at camp david out of the public eye for nearly a week, huddling with advisors and holding mock debates. mr. trump calling into a roundtable of african-american business leaders saying he's picked up support since his felony conviction. >> the black support has gone through the roof. i guess they equate it to problems that they've had. >> reporter: mr. trump is expected to focus on the economy and the border, while president biden will likely zero in on abortion rights and democracy. the mics will be muted when the other candidate is talking. >> my volume remains constant, while phil's interruption can be difficult to understand. >> reporter: there will be no life studio audience. the former president is now complaining it's a sterile, dead

room and you have no audience to read. four years earlier, mr. trump and his rival hillary clinton, also declined a handshake. for both, tonight is a contest to appeal to skeptical voters. recent polls signal a competitive race. >> jonathan lemire is with us, mike barnicle as well. jennifer palmieri, the reverend al sharpton and george conway and symone sanders townsend.

jen, you worked alongside hillary clinton in 2016. i'm curious what you make of this format of debate, a format that you all did not have in 2016, which is to say no crowd hollering when donald trump says something or when president biden says something either, muted mics and just a small studio setting where the moderators may be able to control things. >> first of all, can we just pause to revel in how hillary was able to hold it together and talk about medicare part d with a lot of composure while trump is just looming over her. the woman has unbelievable stamina and focus. i think this will be more watchable than that first debate for 2020 with president biden

and trump. that's where we heard the will you shut up man because it was so out of control. if i were prepping the president for the biden team, the thing i'd be most worried about is a disciplined trump and the fact that there's no audience for him to feed off of, that your mics are muted. he can be buttoned up. he can keep it together. he can keep on message. we've seen him do that. it's better for biden to not have the audience that trump can feed off of, but it's not a zero sum game. it could end up that trump ends up being a little more disciplined. that's what you have to prepare for in how you prep president biden and also in how you're characterizing the debate going forward. i'm always thinking what's next, what comes after thursday night, and how is the biden team going to pick up those arguments and drive them for the rest of the

campaign? >> donald trump will be graded on a conserve if he's, quote, disciplined, meaning, he doesn't go on a long rant about, say, sharks and electric boat batteries. you're in atlanta in the press area across the street from where the debate will be held. >> reporter: this setting is a bit deceptive. this is the basketball arena on the georgia tech campus. tonight this will be crawling with reporters, with surrogates, with elected officials making their case, the spin room, if you will, for biden and trump. the two men will be across the street in small, quiet studios, the two men and two moderators. they both agree on something. tonight matters more than the usual presidential debate. this is historically early.

this is the earliest general election debate we've ever had. it's a very tight, close race, but most polls show donald trump up just barely in the key battleground states. also it was for the president's team to wake up america and say this is your choice. donald trump is not going to drop out. a lot of americans are not enthusiastic about this particular campaign. you're going to have to make a decision. the biden team is betting they're going to look at donald trump and say we don't want four more years of that. president biden is going to hit on democracy and abortion and other issues. we should expect donald trump to talk about inflation and immigration. there's such a thin sliver of undecideds here. when i spoke to some senior

biden officials yesterday who said even if biden had the best night, probably moves the polls a couple of points. but in a race this tight, a couple of points, still important. if it were to be disastrous tonight, that could potentially being a bigger game changer. >> i think the officials are reading it correctly. while there may be a small sliver of undecideds, there are base democratic voters. i was just in virginia two days ago. i was doing an event. at the end of this event i of course had to ask a political question. i asked folks how they felt the leadup to november. a number of people on the stage answered the question. there was a black woman on the stage who answered the question and said, look, i'm struggling with what i'm going to do deciding between the two candidates.

she is not a registered republican. it is not a foregone conclusion that folks who have reliably voted for democrats, black women, young people, latino voters are going to come out and vote for joe biden. this debate, lots of people will be watching, not just those undecideds. >> that poll gabe mentioned in his report also revealed vulnerabilities for trump because of his hush-money trial conviction, especially among independent voters. when asked if trump's conviction would affect their support, twice as many independents said it made them more likely to oppose the former president than support him. the poll found a majority thought trump received a fair and impartial trial. so, george conway, your thoughts

politically on the joe biden should even go there on his conviction in the criminal hush-money trial or, in my opinion, the best to go would be in an area where donald trump has completely admitted to do what he's accused of, which is steal classified documents and store them in his public club at mar-a-lago. your thoughts on how joe biden should play this tonight if you think it could have a counter reaction in any way? >> all of the above. i think he has to go after trump on everything in a restrained but very sharp way. he's running against a convicted criminal and adjudicated rapist. he should not be afraid of saying that. it's a fact. if you don't say that, you're basically condoning it. not only does the american public have to be continually reminded, but also because it gets under trump's skin.

we're talking here about whether or not donald trump can hold it together for the a lotted period of time and he might be able to. he's less able to the you keep hitting him on these things he's most sensitive about. that's really important, i think. one of the advantages trump had before he was convicted on 34 felony counts was that he was off everyone's radar screen. people didn't see much of him. he was deplatformed in 2021. this is important. i think the biden campaign made the correct move to get trump out there early so that people can see him. he is considerably less effective, trump is. he's considerably less coherent than he was even two or four years ago and he's in a much more fragile state. he's a narcissistic sociopath

who is unraveling, and we need to help him unravel. >> there's going to be donald trump going this is biden's justice department that came after me, it's a witch hunt, it's a witch hunt. it's like dealing with a child. liable for sexual assault and fraud and convicted on 34 felony counts. that's not me, sir. that's you. it's putting it back on, well, the guy who was convicted. >> perhaps the moderators will follow up on those points as well. rev, you have the distinction among us of having participated in a presidential debate in 2004. obviously this one-on-one setting with a candidate like donald trump is unlike anything you had to deal with in 2004. but if you were joe biden, what would be your approach to donald trump tonight? >> no matter what the first

question would be, i would define who he is and who i am. i'd say i'm president of the united states. he was president four years. under him, he mismanaged the century catastrophe of a pandemic that caused employment to go sky high, that caused economic bedlam. i was vice president with barack obama when we recovered a failing economy and i recovered from this guy the covid-19 crisis he helped to in many ways increase the impact on us. and i'd bring up unemployment is lower than it's been in 50 years. this guy is convicted of 34 felonies, had to ask his parole officer could he come to atlanta tonight. i was a senator, vice president of the united states and served as president.

i would not let him define himself. if he comes cold, mild-mannered and gentleman-like tonight, he's a cold, mind-mannered felon, who has to get his sentencing on the 11th and has three more trials. as far as appealing to black voters, he tries to act like because of a mugshot he appeals to black voters. it was a black d.a. that indicted him in new york. it was a black d.a. that indicted him in georgia. >> donald trump claims and some polls show he's received more support from black and hispanic communities, but he says he's enjoyed that support because of the mugshot taken last summer when he was charged in the georgia election interference case. trump's remarks came at a black business owners roundtable.

he spoke by phone saying black americans can relate to him being a felon. >> since this has happened, like the mugshot, the mugshot is the best, it beat elvis presley and frank sinatra by a lot, by the way, by a lot, the number one mugshot of all time. it's really an amazing thing. since it happened, the support among the black community and the hispanic community has skyrocketed. it's been amazing, really been amazing. it's been actually very nice to see. >> rev, could you think of anything more patronizing than saying black voters like me because i've been arrested, because i have a mugshot, because i am a felon and just saying it explicitly the way he's saying it? >> and really insulting them in their face and saying because i

have a mugshot, blacks like me. that is not criminalizing blacks. if any president had said that to any other ethnic group, it would be outrage. it is insulting. it shows what he thinks of us. he does think of us that way. i come from new york like he does. every chance he got, including the central park five, he supported the criminalizing of blacks. he called for the death penalty of five innocent black men. why wouldn't you tell black businessmen how black businesses benefitted under your four years in office? he couldn't say that, because it didn't happen. >> you look at that scene, a barbershop set up and donald trump calling in by speakerphone. what do you see in that? >> what i would like to say is

not appropriate for national television. what i see there is folks really love to throw the term pandering around when it comes to democrats and black voters, but what donald trump is doing is a level of insult and pandering. i'm unsure who he is pandering to. folks like byron donalds and ben carson, who know better, sit there and allow this gentleman who says he wants the votes of block voters to call into a black business owners roundtable to talk about his mugshots and felonies is the epitome of spitting in the face of black people. i have to wonder about the black elected officials, the black leaders in their respective communities who are propping up donald trump and letting him spit in their faces. when i talk about there are

black voters that are like i don't really know what i'm going to do in this election, it's like am i going to vote for joe biden or am i fighting the couch. i hope donald trump is asked about that on the debate stage tonight. >> we shouldn't be surprised, but at times we are surprised or at least i'm surprised about how everything, no matter what it is about donald trump makes it about himself. the number one mugshot of all time, that's the quote he had about his mugshot. it's the number one mugshot of all time, bigger than elvis', bigger than frank sinatra's. what about the idea that while all elections are about the

future, it seems now in this cultural weird time that we're living in that nobody remembers things that happened two months ago or certainly three or four years ago. there's very little recollection or real feeling about what happened on january 6th in the capitol, the covid and shutting down schools. that seems to be a distant memory to a lot of people. but what about the idea of the president of the united states standing on a stage and reminding people that while he is president, how would you like to wake up the morning after election realizing that the united states is represented in the oval office by a convicted felon? things like that, just going right at it right away. what would your advice be? >> i mean, who's your audience, right? there's trump's base. you can't worry about them. part of this debate needs to --

there's a lot about joe biden we don't know in terms of what he's accomplished. he needs to spend -- you've got to come out of this with a sense of, oh, he's actually accomplished a lot that's making a difference in my life. you can't lose sight of that, but there's the nikki haley voters concerned about the conviction that need to hear a grounded, sober assessment of what that would be like.

he will not live by the rules of democracy, and he can never be in the oval office again. >> so in atlanta yesterday, two republican critics of donald trump came together in support of joe biden and called on others in the party to do the same. former illinois congressman adam kinzinger and former georgia lieutenant governor geoff duncan held a press conference at the georgia state capitol yesterday. kinzinger was a member of the january 6th committee before leaving congress last year. duncan was president of the georgia state senate when trump and rudy giuliani attempted to overturn the state's 2020 election results. here's some of what they had to say.

>> i'm not looking at this election through the lens of being a republican. i'm looking through the lens of being an american, an american that cares more about the future of my country than the moral bankrupt nominee of my party. there are political ramifications to this decision, but they pale in comparison to four more years of donald trump, both home and abroad. i have an ask. my ask is this. it is your time to do the right thing. don't give donald trump four more years to continue to destroy this country. >> in november there is one man running for reelection of two men running for reelection that cares about the future of this country and cares about democracy, and that's joe biden. if we have things we disagree on, that's fine. we have things we care about for the next 100 years that we might

not even be able to solve, but if we don't have our democracy, we won't have the luxury to disagree on those things. >> georgia republican governor brian kemp is revealing who he did not vote for in his state's primary back in march. >> speaking of the georgia primary, who did you vote for? >> in the georgia primary, i didn't vote for anybody. i voted, but i didn't vote for anybody. the race was already over when the primary got here. >> but you didn't vote for donald trump? >> no. >> why not? >> because the race is over with. >> wow. that's pretty interesting. >> i mean, i wanted to go vote. but at that point it didn't really matter. i said for a long time, as you know, i'm going to support the ticket. that's what i'm doing now. we have a lot of races in georgia, not just the presidential race. we have my friends and partners

in the general assembly and i'm focused on holding our majorities. >> there are a lot of republicans who voted for donald trump. i think it would be pretty interesting for them to hear why you didn't feel the need to vote for him or didn't want to. >> personally, politically, it would be interesting if i didn't vote for him or i did or didn't vote at all. it didn't really matter. he was the presumptive nominee before voting ever got here. all along for the most part i said i would support the ticket, and that's what i've always done and that's what i'm doing this november. >> george conway, what do you make of what governor kemp had to say as well as duncan and kinzinger. >> i have nothing but praise for

duncan and kinzinger. as for the governor, i think that speaks volumes. it just amazes me -- and i will carry this to my grave -- how difficult it seems to be for so many republicans who know better, like kemp, who clearly knows better, to basically call out donald trump for what he is. to even say you're going to endorse the tickets, to me, is just appalling. it's leading to the destruction of the republican party, i believe. i will never get over that. i don't know what else to say about it. it's depressing. >> yeah. yeah. george conway, thank you so much. symone sanders townsend, thank you as well. we're going to be watching "the weekend" saturday and sunday mornings beginning at 8:00 a.m.

eastern. coming up, the supreme court is expected to release a number of decisions in key cases this morning as its session comes to a close. will donald trump's bid for immunity be among them? we'll have a preview. ai overtakes aspen at this year's ideas festival, where one ceo believes the innovation could double the world's gdp. andrew ross sorkin joins us next with that. we'll be right back. ns us next with that. we'll be right back.

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according to one report, you speculated artificial general intelligence could accrue as much wealth as $100 trillion. that's wealth you said you would then redistribute. is that an accurate quote? >> i think the point i was trying to make is i thought it could like double the world's gdp, which feels reasonable to me and certainly would be in

line with other technological revolutions. >> i don't think it's goggles or a chatbot. i think a chatbot is very cumbersome for things that rnts chat. if you want to check the weather, do you want to chat the weather? no. if you want to have a calculator, do you want to input through a sentence? you want to touch the numbers. every application goes on a different interface. i think ai interface will be three dimensional. >> at the aspen ideas festival, they describe how they think the technology will change the world. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin. he also is a columnist for the "new york times." fascinating conversations there, andrew. what seems to be the consensus there. sam altman putting out a huge

number that ai could double the world's economic output. what are some of the other conversations you're having there? >> i'm going to be talking to larry summers a little bit later, who just joined the board of open ai where sam altman founded that company. if you're going to increase gdp at that kind of level and you think that's a good thing, you are also going to have to have remarkable productivity gains. it means less jobs & that has been the fundamental debate here about what this technology is really going to bring to society, the idea of the dignity of work and what it's going to mean to be a human and what our role is all this is going to be if we get to these very sci fi like universes where ai can do so much. it could bring great prosperity, but there are questions about

the inequality and how we're going to pay people and where the wealth in terms of that gdp is going to ultimately accrue. >> it's thorny and complicated and going to be a long road to get there. so far the greatest deployment of ai nbc olympics is going to use al michaels voice with his approval and his consent to voice the highlights of everything online. >> i can't wait. >> you can't get enough al michaels. let me ask you about tonight's debate and how that's playing out there in aspen. the economy is obviously going to be front and center, the inflation, what the fed may or may not do. >> i think the bingo card is going to be the word inflation. there's a real question about china and tariffs and tax policy. and then there's the sort of ultimate overriding question

about uncertainty. ceos hate the idea of uncertainty. there's two types of uncertainty. there's the macro uncertainty that potentially former president trump can bring in terms of what could come given the sort of polarized uncertainty that he creates. then there's potentially the more tangible uncertainty that i think a lot of ceos look at, which is what does tax policy look like in this country since 2025. what about the tariffs former president trump is proposing? is he going to go through with those tariffs, or is this a political cudgel? that's a lot of what people are trying to understand. hopefully we'll get some type of clarity tonight from it. >> andrew, back to the artificial intelligence community universe, i think you aptly described it as a sci fi universe. all of the people you've

interviewed and people we see here today and others are clearly brilliant human beings. if ai comes as quickly as people are talking about, there's going to be hundreds of thousands of people well before retirement age who work for banks and factories and automotive places, you name it, thousands of people who could well be displaced almost immediately at the age of 45 or 50. what happens to them? are people thinking about them? >> i think there is some thought about it, but i'm not sure we have given it enough thought. i think this is going to be like a hockey stick. it's going to happen all at once. it's going to take longer than we think about how quickly this technology is going to evolve, but then it's going to evolve super quick. from a governmental perspective,

are we prepared for that transition period and whether we're going to be talking about universal basic income and other types of compensation scheme. if you believe sam altman, there should be a lot more money to go around. the question is how is it going to go around? and given the debates between democrats and republicans about redistribution and taxes and wealth taxes and everything else, whether that money will get distributed to folks who don't necessarily have a job and get pushed out as part of this ai transition. for years people talked about the leisure class. somehow we're going to get down to a four-day workweek. now we're talking about maybe a zero-day workweek. but we're going to have to pay people. we're going to have to find ways to compensate them. but there's other issues of the dignity of work and what it

means to be a human and contribute to our society if you are not part of the labor movement, if you're not part of industry to some degree. >> deep, deep thought and big questions ahead. andrew ross sorkin at the aspen ideas festival, which he's showcasing an impressive array of sweaters, vests and coats. very nice, andrew. >> the fashion show continues. thank you very much, willie. still ahead, we'll get a live report from outside the supreme court as the justices are expected to release more major rulings in just a few moments now. will donald trump's claim of total immunity be among them? it's the one everyone's waiting for. "morning joe" is coming right back. ing for. "morning joe" is coming right back

at the top of the hour, the supreme court is expected to release more decisions as we await word on two major cases,

one involving donald trump's bid for total immunity, the other on abortion health care in idaho. regarding that idaho case, the supreme court appears poised to allow doctors to perform abortions in medical emergencies in the state. that is according to a leaked document briefly posted on the court's website yesterday. doesn't really seem like a leak. it seems like they posted it on the website. if accurate, the decision would reinstate a lower court order that had ensured hospitals in idaho could perform emergency abortions to protect the health of the mother. idaho currently has a strict abortion health care ban in place. it's important to note nbc news could not independently verify the document, and it's not known whether it was a draft decision, the actual decision or neither. the court did acknowledge the document yesterday in a statement to nbc news, confirming it was inadvertently

posted, but the court's opinion on the case had not yet been released. the white house declined to comment on the matter. joining us is josh gerstein outside the supreme court and neal katyal. he has argued more than 50 cases before the supreme court. josh, stand by. i want to get to idaho in just a moment. neal, are you expecting to hear a decision on immunity today? and if not, why would they wait until the very end on that one? any tea leaves to read here? >> so no tea leaves really. it could come down today or tomorrow, or there may even be a day added next week. my gut is it will come down tomorrow and it will be the last day of the term. why? because some of the most controversial cases,

particularly the ones argued late in the supreme court term, as this one was, do often go to the very last day. the hard part to understand here is this is not a difficult case. this is a case that many different judges have looked at, including quite conservative judges. they've looked at donald trump's claims, and they think the idea that a president can do whatever he wants and the criminal laws have nothing to do is ridiculous. there will be some nuance and so on, and that should take some time for the court. it's taken way too long and it's effectively given donald trump what he wants, which is delay, delay, delay. >> that's exactly what he got, what he wanted. let's go to idaho. let's go to the computer. i need to understand this so-called leaked document. it really seems they posted it. i don't understand how a mistake

like this is made, especially in the light of the mistakes that have been made in the past year. what's going on? does it appear to you this is the decision? >> i suspect it will end up being very close to the decision, just as in the case with the story we had at politico two years ago when we obtained a draft opinion under other circumstances. turned out to be very close to what they ended up producing. i was just in the supreme court press room a few minutes ago, and that's what everyone is discussing, how could something like this happen, especially when you consider that the court in the last few years has spent millions of dollars on cyber security. it's a little surprising that if this opinion was not supposed to come out yesterday, that it was anywhere near a server that would cause it to appear on the court's website. i'm sure there's a lot of efforts being made internally to

look into how that possibly could have happened. >> assuming this is somewhat of an indication of what the ruling is, josh, the implications of that, it seems like they just pushed it back, as judge jackson is quoted as saying, it's just a delay. and then finally, the social media ruling. >> what was interesting, i thought, with the abortion ruling was that the supreme court, the conservatives on the supreme court had stepped in to basically allow that idaho abortion ban law to be applied over federal law in terms of emergency abortions in emergency rooms at hospitals. essentially they reversed themselves in this decision if it turns out to be the final decision. it's pretty uncommon for the court to issue an emergency stay and not back that up in the underlying case. it seems justice amy coney barrett and the chief justice

may have gotten cold feet here, justice kavanaugh as well perhaps, thinking they didn't make the right decision or the facts have changed a little bit. but you're right, it just kind of punts the issue down the road, and we know where almost all the justices stand on it. >> the intrigue about how or why the document was uploaded, but bloomberg law did capture it and post it last night. what did you see and read in the document that was up there? we talked with lisa rubin a couple of hours ago. the idaho rule is incredibly restrictive. it allows abortions only if the mother is effectively about to die. what did we learn from that document yesterday? >> i have two thoughts. one is just on the leak and the claims about the court being incompetent now and things like that. i have a different take. look, these technological

mistakes happen in every big institution. i don't think it actually goes to what the proper criticism of the court is. the court is being criticized here for being incompetent, for not knowing what it's doing. i think the real issue with the supreme court is several justices are out of the mainstream. they know exactly what they're doing. they are restricting abortion in ways not seen in our lifetimes. we need to keep our eye own on the ball, which is what they're actually doing. with respect to the opinion yesterday, i do think it was a welcome step to see barrett, ka and the chief justice say, hey, we're not so sure about this challenge and throw it out. it is a reflection of the primacy of federal law over state law, but there were three justices who were poised and

ready, as you said, to basically say idaho law can trump federal law. idaho law can say virtually no abortions, even in emergency situations, and the federal government can't do anything about it. that stands our constitution on its head, so i'm glad to see a majority of the court looks like, if this draft opinion is the real opinion, rejecting that philosophy. >> former acting u.s. solicitor general neal katyal and senior legal affairs reporter at "politico," josh gersten. thanks so much for your coverage. we'll be awaiting these rulings. coming back, we'll be headed back to atlanta where jonathan lemire has more reporting on what to expect in tonight's presidential debate. "morning joe" will be right back. ential debate. "morning joe" will be right back 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,

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welcome back. that's a live look at the site of tonight's presidential debate. much-awaited, long-awaited presidential debate, and time now for quick final thoughts in terms of what we're looking for tonight. jonathan, i'm hoping that the american people, it seems like a lot of people plan to watch it, see a real like unvarnished contrast between these two candidates instead of sort of a foxified or a news maxed one, and if that's the case, that will be good for the republic. jonathan lemire, your thoughts. >> yeah. that will be good for the democracy indeed. no audience. mute buttons. what should be a substantive discussion. i think we will expect president biden to use from the very first moments, to draw a real contrast with his opponent donald trump, to remind those watching at home what the four years of trump was like. the difference in their approaches and visions for the

future. expect him to be aggressive. both sides here know the stakes are high, but we should look tat this way. polls are likely not going to change a lot coming out of this, and we should view tonight as a significant moment, but the real kickoff of the general election sprint. both men hit the campaign trail tomorrow. trump to virginia and biden to north carolina. >> jen, you've been there and done this, helped prepare candidates for debates and been there on the evening and stage of the debates. what is the feeling like in both camps? >> if you're the staff you want to vomit all day. i mean, i woke up feeling sick on behalf of the biden staff because your -- i realize. hillary's first debate against trump, i had a pounding headache. 15 minutes if i realized hi not taken a breath in 15 minutes and i realized oh, this is actually fine because you can't -- it's just like you -- you just do not know which donald trump you're going to get so it's so hard. it's like you just play your

game. you have three things you know you want to get out. i really think that it's so important for biden that he nails abortion and trump owning the trump abortion bans as the vice president calls them, that people understand that he's responsible. that's like the one critical thing that i would want to make sure that gets out. >> yeah. i bet at the start of the debate people might be surprised at how semi-disciplined and calm donald trump appears, but as the debate rolls on and the president of the united states nails him on a couple of things, on many things actually, we'll see what happens to donald. >> all right. so vomit emojis will rule the day in political teams, newsrooms and on both sides, the staffs, all day long today. that does it for us this morning of course, we're awaiting rules from the supreme court. a lot of news straight ahead on msnbc. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in two minutes. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in two minutes. (inaudible sounds)

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