we have months to go. there are a lot of events between now and election day that could change this race again. >> yeah. >> one in a few hours potentially with the supreme court ruling on presidential immunity. >> yeah. look, the supreme court, you know, they're so partisan. they're remaking the federal government in this heritage foundation image. i think that they're hoping it won't hurt trump in this election because there are two extreme maga justices who really want to retire under donald trump. i think those are important data points as we look at this last immunity decision, which they have punted so far that it is not even in the month of june. >> likely means no matter what they decide, a trial seems unlikely, shall we say, before the election. msnbc political analyst molly jong-fast, thank you. we'll talk later on "morning joe." thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this monday morning. "morning joe" does start right now. ♪♪

good morning. welcome to "morning joe" on this monday, july 1st. this morning, we are waking up to a sea of headlines and opinion pieces from major news organizations, former party leaders, and very loud whispers, mostly behind the scenes, from present leading democrats who say it is over. here's a taste of the global call for president joe biden to get out of the race. "the new york times" editorial board says biden is not the man he was four years ago, calling his candidacy, quote, a reckless gamble. editors at georgia's largest newspaper, "the atlanta journal constitution," echoed that take, demanding the president pass the torch. quote, biden deserves a better exit from public life than the one he endured when he shuffled off the stage on thursday night. then there were the headlines,

sneering, mocking, jeering all at once. this was the performance that has gotten us to this point. >> we had a thousand trillionaires in america. i mean billionaires. what's happening? they're in a situation where they pay 2.8% in taxes. if they paid 24%, 25%, either one of the numbers, they raised $100 million, billion, i should say, in a ten-year period. we'd be able to wipe out the debt. we can help make sure all those things we need to do, child care, elder care, making sure we continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what i've been able to do with the -- with the covid -- excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with -- look, if we finally beat medicare.

>> it was bad. he said we, quote, "we beat medicare." he couldn't seem to land a thought. it was an unmiigated disaster by any measure. more than three days after that debate, it is still hard to comprehend what we saw from the president. the weak, raspy voice, the inability to complete basic thoughts. most importantly, the failure to call out donald trump on his endless lies. where was that? and, yet, the very next day in north carolina, there was joe biden back to form, finding his voice, his winning smile, the vintage sparkle back in his eyes. two appearances that were as different as, well, night and day. >> i don't debate as well as i used to, but i know what i do know. i know how to tell the truth!

[ applause ] i know, i know, i know right from wrong. and i know how to do this job. i know how to get things done. and i know, like millions of americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up! >> so what was different? a little more sleep? perhaps it was an event during the day rather at night. on debate night, 90 minutes starting at 9:00 p.m., joe biden was fresh off back-to-back trips to europe. first to normandy for the 80th anniversary of d-day and a state dinner with president macron, and then to italy for the g7, followed by a flight across 12 time zones to l.a. for a fundraiser with former president barack obama. just 33 hours later, he was headed back to the east coast. the debate was also two weeks

after his son, hunter, was convicted on three felony gun charges and faces prison time. president biden painfully told america he would not pardon his son. i really question his schedule. it makes me angry that he was moving across the world on four different time zones. it seems to me this is a lack of discipline. these were important events that he was going to, but the stakes in this election could not be any higher. like many, i want to know, was this a one-off episode or a sign of what's to come? can his team and the president himself move forward with more discipline and also manage the fact that he is 81? and while we're at it, let's talk about his age. age is wisdom and experience. in the case of joe biden, it leads to more bipartisan

legislation passed than any president over the past few generations and the largest expansion of nato's alliance in history. under joe biden and his age, america is stronger economically and militarily than any time in half a century. while facts may not matter to donald trump and his friends in the far-right media, those are the objective facts. that is the undeniable truth. here's another truth. age also needs to be managed. on my 50 over 50 lists, i celebrate women who are reaching their highest power while over 50, 60, 70, 80, even 90, and, yet, every one of those women are managing their fabulous age. i -- i don't think it's over. this moment in the race fits the entire narrative of joe biden's

life. in his personal and professional life, biden has repeatedly risen up from rock bottom. it's what we love about him. so many draw hope from his empathy and his ability to have perspective, even right now, and to persevere when he is completely counted out. his list of losses and failures is long and would be unbearable for most. in 1972, his wife and baby daughter were killed in a car accident. he had been elected to the senate and took the oath of office in his surviving son's hospital room to bedsides. in 1987, his campaign came to an end, and nearly his life, when a few months later he suffered a brain aneurysm. his doctor told his chance of survival was less than half just

to survive the surgery. even if he lived, a long list of physical and mental limitations were likely. at his bedside before the surgery, he told his sons he was proud of them. and then joe biden survived the surgery, rehabilitated, and didn't look back. in 2008, his second bid for the presidency came to another early, painful end, after a poor showing in iowa. he finished near the bottom with less than 1% of the vote. his campaign bottoming out after another low blow. and, yet, the following summer, biden would be back on the democratic ticket as barack obama's running mate. five years later, a year into his second term as vice president, joe biden's son, beau, was diagnosed with brain cancer, believed to have been caused by exposure to burn pits while his son was serving in

iraq as a captain in the army national guard. beau would die two years later. the second child joe biden would have to bury. that is the lowest of lows in joe biden's life. in 2015, another political failure. barack obama chose to support hillary clinton as his heir apparent and not even his own vice president. after numerous political and personal setbacks, joe biden may have questioned whether he would ever return to presidential politics again. and then came charlottesville and the vile, racist march by white supremacists and neo-nazis across the uva campus. as a direct response to what he saw as a threat to our nation's core values, biden announced his third try for the white house. and just like his first two

presidential campaigns, he was staring at an early exit in the race, stumbling in the first democratic debate after a broadside by kamala harris. he finished a distant fourth in iowa and an even worse fifth in new hampshire. all experts, just like right now, said it was over for the man from scranton. >> no one has gone this far finishing fourth and fifth and vastly under expectations. when you make an argument that you are the most electable democrat in the field and you can't back that up, it is a serious problem. >> there's a tremendous amount of goodwill for the former vice president. very, very well-liked in the democratic party. but you have to give a reason why you're running. >> biden's plummet has been something to watch. >> it was quite an awkward interview on the set of "morning joe" in new hampshire. awkward for everyone on the set, except joe biden, as his political obituary was being

written. biden was joyful and ready to keep fighting. >> i still feel good. this is, you know, a long haul. any democratic candidate who has beat an incumbent has been someone who, so far, has been able to get a significant support from the african american community. donald trump demonstrated the last man he wants to run against is me. >> he's kind of obsessed with you. >> mildly. i've been coming up with great affection. >> our joe scarborough wrote a piece for "the washington post" at the time entitled, "no matter how this race ends, i'm proud of joe biden," which ended, quote, "whether his campaign can survive, the body blows delivered by iowa and new hampshire remains to be seen, but joe biden has endured worse." yet, once again, biden found a way up from rock bottom. south carolina gave his campaign new life, and he secured the democratic nomination.

and the rest is historic. literally. as president, his legislative wins are unmatched this century. the american rescue plan to help the recovery from covid, the bipartisan infrastructure law to rebuild the country, the bipartisan safer communities act, to first legislative action on guns in decades, and the chips and science act. he expanded health care for veterans through the pact act. he signed marriage equality into law, and he got the inflation reduction act passed to address the rising costs of living and deliver historic action on the climate. he appointed and got confirmation of the first black woman to the supreme court. he protected the affordable care act and provided billions in student debt relief. he negotiated the toughest, most conservative border control bill in decades. only to see it get torpedoed by donald trump, who cynically

didn't want a solution to the problem, only an issue to demagogue and campaign on. all the while, biden solidified key, international alliances, expanded nato, and rallied the world in support of ukraine in the face of russian aggression. right now, he is managing not one but two hot wars. days after the october 7th massacre in israel, biden got on air force one to attend an israeli war cabinet meeting in person. this after going to kyiv, ukraine, by train via poland. despite the tremendous risk and difficult conditions. and through all of this, he delivered the lowest unemployment in 40 years, the strongest dollar in 50 years, and the most successful stock market of all time. so now, after thursday's abysmal debate performance, president biden finds himself at rock

bottom again. it was bad. and, again, a chorus of biden doubters. my family and i, as you know, have known this man for decades, and his family, as well. yes, i know them personally. and i still believe in joe biden. i've learned that counting him out is always a mistake, and doing that now could be catastrophic for our country. do there need to be changes? yes. managing him, management to his schedule. changes maybe even to those around him. i'll also say america needs an explanation from joe biden and reassurance that the other night was a one-time event and not part of a larger problem. by the way, biden likes to tell people, don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. let's take a quick moment to look at the current alternative.

not a hypothetical imagined new democratic candidate, the actual current alternative who was across from joe biden at thursday's debate. donald trump. the man who incited a political coup against our government and who indicates he will not accept the results of the 2024 election if he loses again. the convicted felon who faces three more indictments, the man who was found liable for sexual assault, the man found liable for massive fraud, the man who brags about having ended a woman's right to abortion health care, a decision that is killing women and babies and causing immeasurable and preventable agony for women across the country. the man whose tax proposals could cripple the economy according to over a dozen know pearl prize economists. the man who would end key global

alliances. the man who has promised retribution against his perceived political enemies. the man, who on a regular basis, makes no sense at all. when he sounds crazy and slurs his words and talks about batteries and sharks, why aren't there calls for trump to drop out? where are they? in "the philadelphia inquirer," their editorial board did take a stand. quote, "to serve his country, donald trump should leave the race." there's one, but there are the other editorial heads, leaders who were so rocked the other night, who see trump as so unfit that he should leave the race, where are they? desensitized? disinformed? the firehose of falsehoods has

bliepd ed blinded you to what is right in front of you every day. come on. now, joe, our joe, is off this morning on a planned vacation. on friday's show, i should clarify, joe said it may be time for biden to consider stepping aside. he also said we should wait a few days to see how he responds. we're shoulder to shoulder on that. i do agree, joe biden has work to do. he has to do better. his team has to do a lot better. i'm just not ready, though, to count joe biden out, not even close. just as joe and i were stunned by the president's poor performance on the debate stage, we've also been surprised by the level of animosity toward donald trump from people who once supported him. the debate acted as a wake-up call that was a loss for joe biden, no question, but not a win for trump.

the choice is one terribly bad night versus a decade of destruction to our core beliefs, our democratic values, and, yes, our constitution. someone who stumbled over his words for 90 minutes versus someone who lied to the american people over and over again. a man slowed down by a cold versus a man with a cold, vile, and merciless heart. i think in the days and weeks ahead as we move away from this debate, clarity will hopefully set in. for me, joe biden is still the man for this moment. we're going to be right back with jonathan lemire's new reporting on what's next for president biden. we also have mara gay, a member of "the new york times" editorial board which is calling for biden to bow out.

reverend al sharpton who was plugged into biden world all over the weekend. and john heilemann, who is taking a look at the odds of an unprecedented pivot. we're back in 90 seconds. heartburn makes you queasy? get fast relief with new tums+ upset stomach & nausea support, and love food back. (♪♪) the all new godaddy airo helps you get your business online in minutes with the power of ai... ...with a perfect name, a great logo, and a beautiful website. just start with a domain, a few clicks, and you're in business. make now the future at godaddy.com/airo ouples can it keep me warm sleewhen i'm cold? bed? and you're in business. wait, no, i'm always hot.

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so the moment we're in right now is a comeback moment. >> i'm saying to you that i support the biden/harris ticket. i'm not abandoning joe biden right now for any speculation. biden/harris, both of them, i'm enthusiastically supporting them, as are many of our grassroots people. >> i've spent time around three different presidents, margaret, and the president's job is enormously hard and involves all kinds of things, none of which are standing and doing a debate for 90 minutes on tv. i'm not so cynical as to believe that the american people are going to choose a president based on a 90-minute debate rather than a four-year record of startling legislative achievements. >> there is that same kind of a freakout after my debate. in fact, i might even say that i had a more difficult evening than the president did. here i am right now having this conversation. i'd really like to remind everybody watching that, right now, biden is one and trump is

still zero. he's the only person that's ever beaten trump. >> congressional democrats largely rallying behind president biden this weekend, at least in public. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton. member of "the new york times" editorial board, mara gay is with us. nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann, he's a partner and chief political columnist at puck. good to have you all with us this morning. jonathan lemire, tell us what your reporting indicates. i know the family was meeting. what do you got? >> yeah, it's been a consequential few days for president biden in his re-election night after the poor debate. he had a showing at a rally in north carolina, followed up by fundraisers, the hamptons and new jersey. raised a lot of money. the biden campaign had their best grassroots fundraising days

of the campaign thursday/friday. we should note, the president's much stronger outing came with the help of a telteleprompter. he didn't have that at the debate thursday. he met with the family at camp david, and they were unanimous. they want him to stay in. the loudest voices belong to the first lady, his son hunter, sister valerie. unanimous, they want him to stay in this. to not go out with the showing on thursday, but they recognize he didn't do well. there has been some finger pointing here at staff. they think there's some questions about how debate prep went. they think he was too focused on statistics and not enough on performance. by the president's own admission, he said so, that he knows he didn't do well. they know they have work to do. right now, they're trying to reassure democrats to get them to stay with him in this. reverend al, we're waiting now. fundraising numbers good so far. democrats in public staying with him. we're waiting for polls.

we haven't seen any real polling yet in the battleground states since the debate. we did have one from cbs over the weekend. eye-popping 70 odd percent of americans don't think the president is up for continuing this job. but we don't know yet if there will be polls in the battlegrounds that reflect that, as well. internal polls, we'll see if there's movement. what are you hearing about what should be next? >> i'm hearing a lot. i preached yesterday in winston-salem, north carolina. people on the ground are saying that the problem we have is donald trump. no one is dealing with the fact that the strategy must take into consideration that we have a man that is adamantly opposed to women's rights, voting rights, that talks about black jobs, like migrants' jobs which are considered to be menial jobs, are what blacks are supposed to

be doing and they're taking them from them. in a debate. i'm very concerned that on a couple occasions in the debate, joe biden couldn't finish his sentence, but i'm more concerned with the sentences donald trump did finish. so the question is, what are we going to do? what is the best strategy there? i was in charleston, south carolina, when joe biden was endorsed by the congressman, clyburn, there. they came to a national action network breakfast for ministers that morning. a guy coming in behind four in iowa, five in new hampshire, considered dead on arrival politically, he came back. i can't count him out. he had a bad night. he had a terrible night. but do we not say, wait a minute, he helped to preserve and maintain affordable care, he fought for police reform given

the executive order on george floyd, brought unemployment numbers down after a catastrophe that donald trumphanded us. record low black unemployment numbers. really all the things -- infrastructure bill, inflation bill. we're not going to give him the weekend to see if he can recover? >> right. >> i think that we cannot -- we have to stop whining and start winning. the whiners and the winners are the ones that have to make a choice in this case. the other part, and i'll finish, is that what happens if he steps out? we going to have a riotous convention, this crowd against this crowd against this crowd? all donald trump has to do is sit back, get a big mac, and watch the democrats destroy themselves. because how do you come out of a late august convention of people questioning whether they're going to kamala harris or the other one or the other one and unite that party in two months to beat donald trump? that's your options.

so do you want to whine, or do you want to win? >> so the questions that you posed, i think, are perfect for mara gay. mara, i'd love for you to respond and ask if "the new york times" editorial board considered the hundreds of times, hundreds, easily, that donald trump has seemed unfit, and perhaps would be deserving of a call to drop out or resign? >> yeah. so we have over the course of -- ever since donald trump has been in the public eye, we have made clear that this is not a president, a former president, who we supported. actually, in our editorial over the past few days, we also made clear that were the election held today, our choice would be obvious, which would be joe biden. you know, i understand why that, you know, may have gotten missed. i certainly understand that. but we do believe that the

stakes are existential, which joe biden himself has made clear. it is, in fact, the stakes are so high that the board feels it is so important to have the best chance for democracy with the strongest candidate possible. the hope is that would be president joe biden. he is still, at this point, the presumptive nominee. again, you know, if that's the way it stays, then i know who i'm voting for. that's an easy decision. i believe the american people, i hope, would coalesce around that. but we also have to be clear and honest with ourselves about what we saw the other night. it is not the same joe biden we saw four years ago. i think reasonable people can say we saw this with our eyes. you know, one of the things that has been most inspiring for me about joe biden, about the president, his life story is

remarkable. mika, you got into it a moment ago. he has come from behind again and again. when he's fallen, he's gotten up. his family story, personal story, that's all inspiring to me. the thing that is the most inspirational, though, is that he has always known how and when to put country before himself. and we believe that, in this moment, that public service he needs to do right now, the best thing he could do would be to step down and to allow a very deep bench of younger talent in the party waiting in the wings to emerge. and i think reasonable people can disagree on this. it was not an easy decision. it was not an easy conversation to have, but that's where we netted out. we're waiting for the american public to tell us where they are on this. i've been traveling the country six months talking to voters. and, yes, they do dislike donald

trump more, but they are -- they have said again and again, democrats have said that they wanted new talent, that they do believe the president was too old. i also have to say, some of this conversation has been over the course of the past year or so. frustrating, i find some to be ageist but not everyone ages the same way. there is no shame in being 81 years old. it is actually remarkable. he has been a wonderful president, hugely effective. it does not appear he is the same as he was four years ago, and that is undeniable. >> but that -- at the same time, i think of all the different opportunities editorial boards across the board could have told donald trump to resign or drop out and take that bold step. and, yes, he is 81. he is definitely not the man he was four years ago or ten years ago. people age. age is not the end of the world. age actually, in some ways, can

be valued. we can look at what joe biden has done in this presidency, and we can thank his age, his knowledge, not only from the work he's done but from his failures in life, from his setbacks in life. you become strong. you become wise. you have perspective. but age, jonathan lemire, i would argue, needs to be managed, and it needs to be dealt with in a way that is accepting of this process. i celebrate age. i do. i want to hear from joe biden about his age. i don't want to hear from editorial boards who have missed the massive story on the other side or just seem so enored to it. i see another version of the end of the world, and it is what they're calling for. >> biden aides acknowledge that age is an issue. they point to the president's

undeniably impressive track record of success during the first four years. legislative record speaks for itself. they can see the polls that americans are anxious about how old this president is. democrats really like joe biden, weren't sure they wanted him to run again. john heilemann, the debate thursday last week was a moment where president biden could have silenced a lot of the doubts about whether he was up for the job. instead, he put them front and center of the campaign again. donald trump did not have a good night, let's be clear. he lied throughout. that was all overshadowed by biden's halting performance. so what does he need to do now, president biden, to try to keep democrats in line, to tamp down the calls for him to step aside, to try to reassure voters? this is a very, very important week ahead for him. what are your thoughts? >> so many things to say. to your point, the reason the

biden campaign wanted a debate this early is because it is a competitive race before this debate, but no one thinks they're winning right now. it is a margin of error race where they've had small but consistent deficits in the battleground states. they wanted to come into the debate, and they know in the polling and everything else, the questions about the president's age and fitness are in the foremost minds of, not mika, rev, other people, but of the small sliver of people out there who are persuadable voters who will decide the election. democratic partisans will be with joe biden. people who are anti-trump and not even democratic partisans but just think that anyone that bernie from "weekend at bernie's" will be better than donald trump, they'll vote for him, too. there are still a bunch of people, the 6%, 7% in states, have seen joe biden's performance and trump's audacity and still are undecided.

they want to rest the notion of biden's age and fitness. as you said, they did exactly the opposite. then the structural sense, every unpopular incumbent, and that's what joe biden is, 38% approval rating, unpopular incumbent, you have to make the race a choice, not a referendum. what happened, joe biden put the spotlight on himself and his performance. that's just the reality going forward. he's going to be under the microscope now on this question for as long as he stays in the race, whether it's all the way to november or sometime shy of that. that is a fundamental strategic failure of the debate. that's the cost of this, right? they didn't get to litigate all the things, all the lies of trump, all the things he did. joe biden wasn't able to do it that night successfully, and the race is now even more than before a referendum on joe biden. these questions of how he's going to proceed going forward. i got to defend, not because i have a dog in the fight with "the new york times," just the thing with the editorial page. the idea "the new york times" editorial page and others have not been outspoken in attacking donald trump for years is -- i

mean, mika, to your point, it's not like anybody thinks the problem here is that "the times" editorial board has not attacked donald trump enough. they should look at the record. i think they've done plenty of that. i think "the times" editorial board, also, is focused on beating donald trump. the concern they have along with, in private, for now, a ton of donors and a ton of democratic elected officials who say different things in private than in public. they're worried joe biden can't beat donald trump. it's not personal. this is not like they don't think joe biden has been a great president, successful president. they're worried now maybe he doesn't have what it takes to fight this race in the fall. i'm not advocating this position, but it is what the weekend was. electeds, lobbyists, donors, importantly, because they're going to fund the campaign if it goes forward, saying, does our guy who we've loved and who we'd love to see win, does

what it takes to win and govern all the way to 86? another term would give him four more years in office. whatever degree of slippage that he has suffered is going to not get better, he's going to age further. so there are people who are on joe biden's side who are worried about this. that's the thing that the campaign has tried to manage now, is how to reassure people who are not fundamentally hostile to joe biden but are just concerned about the stakes and the election the biden campaign talking about, the existential stakes. that's what's going on here. it's why this discussion is so do ifrlt. >> difficult. >> no doubt it is different what people are saying in private and public. the candidate being talked about the most is losing. that's the issue with biden and trump. >> yeah. >> mara, a final word here. >> yeah. >> we should note, the biden campaign is mulling, trying to take the age issue more head on,

perhaps a town hall, lengthy interviews, stuff he hasn't done of late. they know they need to reassure american voters. >> you know what? that may help. if he stays on the ballot, he's got to do more of that. the thing i really want to draw attention to is that this has to be larger than joe biden. joe biden has been a great president. he's been a great leader in many way. he would absolutely, undoubtedly, be a better president than donald trump. we have said as much over and over again. but this is actually not about joe biden. this is not really even about donald trump. this is about american democracy. this is about millions of americans who deserve to live in a democracy. this has to be bigger than joe biden. i just hope that in an act of public service, whether he stays in or steps down, he's thinking not about his own career and own legacy but about the country he has served for so long, so well.

coming up, we're going to take a closer look at the lies donald trump told during the first presidential debate in atlanta. our steve rattner will fact check the candidates when he. >> j: joins us. that's next on "morning joe." g . kids love summer break, but parents? well... care.com makes it easy to find background checked childcare that fits your summer schedule. from long term to short notice. give yourself a break this summer. go to care.com now. ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com.

why does donald trump like third party candidates? cornel west, he's one of my favorite candidates. jill stein. i like her very much. you know why? she takes 100% from them. how do you view rfk? i think he's probably going to hurt biden. i don't see him hurting me. he knows that if you vote for them, it helps him. that's why trump's maga allies are elevating third party candidates. a vote for stein, west, or rfk jr, is a vote for trump. he knows it. you should know it too. i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

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suckers and losers.

january 6th, we were respected all over the world. they're taking black jobs. three great supreme court justices on the court, and they happened to vote in favor of killing roe v. wade. it's been a great thing. my retribution is going to be a success. >> president biden's campaign was up with that new digital ad on social media one day after the debate, after biden largely failed to fact check trump in real time on thursday night. joining us now to take up that mantle is former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner and his famous charts. let's start, steve, with donald trump's claim about joe biden's record on jobs. take a look. >> the only jobs he created are for illegal immigrants and bounceback jobs, a bounceback from the covid. he has not done a good job, done a poor job, and inflation is

killing our country. it is absolutely killing us. >> steve rattner, what's the reality? >> yeah, mika, look. to set the stage, donald trump committed more than 30 lies during the campaign fact check. i don't know how to fact check "i didn't sleep with a porn star," so we picked other things. >> okay. >> this is a good place to start, jobs. the notion that the only jobs joe biden created were so-called bounceback jobs is ridiculous. let me show you as clearly as i know how to do. here are the job numbers before the pandemic. we had over 150 million jobs. the pandemic hit, obviously we lost a lot of jobs. we started coming back. you can see that in june of 2022, so a year and a half into president biden's term, we basically got back to the pre-pandemic level. these are -- you want to call these bounceback jobs, you can call these bounceback jobs. here's what happened after june of 2022.

we added 6.2 million jobs to this economy, and so these are jobs that were created unambiguously under joe biden's watch. here's something even more interesting, which is the job creation of both president biden and donald trump, making the right adjustments for covid. if you take out the impact of covid, donald trump created 182,000 jobs a month, on average. if you do the same thing for biden, take out covid, he created 276,000 jobs per month, so way more jobs per month than donald trump created. by the way, more than were created under president clinton, president obama, and so forth. it's one of the strongest job creation records in history. >> wow. so there's also trump's claim about the largest tax cut in history. take a look at what he said. >> what we did was incredible. we rebuilt the military. we got the largest tax cut in history, the largest regulation cut in history.

the reason he's got jobs is because i cut the regulations that gave jobs, but he's putting a lot of those regulations back on. >> steve, what are the actual facts? >> the actual facts is that joe biden -- i mean, donald trump's -- sorry, keep confusing them -- donald trump's tax cut is nowhere near the largest in history. you can see here some of the -- the largest tax cuts in history. the famous ronald reagan tax cut of 1981. president obama had two tax cuts during his watch. this tax cut which actually was passed in '64, we call it the kennedy tax cut because he was trying for it. here's president trump all the way down here. donald trump all the way down here with the tcja measures against gdp, the proper way to measure tax cuts. then he talks about how he was ready to start paying down the debt. this is completely laughable. the deficit was actually going up even before covid hit because

of donald trump's tax cut. when you put it all together, donald trump added $4.8 trillion of non-covid -- again, we're trying to adjust for covid -- $4.8 trillion of non-covid debt to the national debt. joe biden added $2.2 trillion of non-covid debt to the national debt in roughly the same period of time. the deficit and debt record between these two guys is, again, not even close. >> one more thing. there were many but we'll just do these. donald trump also had this to say about crime connected to immigration. take a listen. >> he's the one that kill people with the bad water, including hundreds of thousands of people dying and also killing our citizens when they come in. we are living right now in a rat's nest. they're killing our people in new york, in california, in every state in the union, because we don't have borders anymore. every state is now a border.

because of his ridiculous, insane, and very stupid policies, people are coming in and they're killing our citizens at a level we've never seen. we call it migrant crime. i call it biden migrant crime. they're killing our citizens at a level we've never seen before. >> steve, what's the reality about the rat's nest we are living in? >> you know, trump's ability to lie with a completely straight face and to say things that just are absolutely factually inaccurate without even blinking is quite amazing. let's talk about overall crime first. first of all, i'm using violent crime here as a proxy, but you'd see similar things with other kinds of crime. first of all, crime didn't even go down much under president trump. it went down a little bit, went up. you can say it was covid but basically no change in crime. under president biden, violent crime has gone from 398 per 100,000 people, down 26%, 294.

this is an extrapolation of what the year will look like if present trends continue, huge drop. overall between these two guys, it isn't even close. he's talking about migrant crime. this is something most people don't appreciate. the rate of crime committed by both legal immigrants and undocumented immigrants is lower than u.s.-born citizens. violent crime, a bit over 200. u.s. foreign citizens, it drops down for legal immigrants. if you're an undocumented immigrant, you have one of the lowest crime rates. the reason for that is not that surprising, in a way. if you're an unindicted immigrant, you don't want to be deported. you're pretty unlikely to commit a crime because it is not going to lead to a great outcome for you. in any event, you have the trends in property crime and drug violations. immigrants who come here,

whether documented or undocumented commit crimes at a lower rate than native born americans. that's been studied many times. this is a texas study. you can find it anywhere else in the data. those are the facts. >> "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner, thank you for taking us through some of the lies told during the debate on thursday night. still ahead, hours from now, the supreme court will issue a ruling on donald trump's presidential immunity claim. this is a big one. we're going to break down this pivotal moment and the final cases the justices are set to weigh in on. plus, biden campaign co-chair, democratic senator chris coons will join us to discuss what the campaign is doing to quell calls for biden to step aside. also ahead, just what is a black job? that's what congressman jim clyburn wants to know after trump continues to double down on his remarks that migrants are taking away jobs from

minorities. the south carolina democrat joins us with his take. "morning joe" will be right back.

in 2000, the democrats challenged. it came down to broward county in florida. hillary clinton conceded, but

what is still going on is a smear campaign about whether the 2016 results were legitimate. as a country, if you want to move forward, we have to have elections both parties agree to. >> therein lies the difference. everyone has a right to challenge the elections. donald trump challenged the results, had a right to do that, yet hillary clinton and al gore conceded. donald trump has yet to concede. is that not undemocratic, particularly for someone running to be the leader of the country and the free world again? >> donald trump on january 20th had a smooth transmission. >> january 6th wasn't a smooth transition, governor. >> i think we have to say that there was a smooth transition, and everybody in both parties is going to challenge elections if they don't think they're fair. >> republican north dakota governor doug burgum, a top contender to be selected as donald trump's running mate,

claiming there was a smooth transition of power at the end of donald trump's presidency. john heilemann, he said, "i think we have to say there was a smooth transition." yes, if you want to be donald trump's vice president, you have to say that. because you have to say what he wants you to say. but if you could, john heilemann, please, define smooth. >> well, i would say it's easy to define smooth by what it isn't as what it was, mika, in this case. >> it was a riot. >> unlike every other transition of power in the history of the united states, this one had a riot at the capitol where people died. so not that smooth. and, you know, indeed, not only that, we have a president who is now -- a republican nominee who not only continues to say the election was stolen, continues to contest it, but continues to talk about how these people that

we're showing on screen right now are patriots, warriors for truth, that they were set up by the federal government. he promises now to pardon them if he gets back, including the ones who have been convict and had are currently serving time. so, i mean, the lack of smoothness to the transition continues to this day, nearly four years later. i will say about doug burgum, a man who was once critical of donald trump, a man who was -- said a lot of negative things about him when he ran for president that seemed sensible and tethered to the reality of the community, he is now a man who is openly pining for a job whose previous occupant, under the same boss, was nearly hung on the south lawn of the capitol. now, if that's not -- it's almost like kind of the definition of, if the only real thing you need to be vice president is to be ready from day one to be president, anybody who wants this job is kind of

inherently disqualified from having this job. anybody who wants the job where the previous occupant was thrown to the wolves by the boss is someone who should be on a psychiatrist couch and potentially medicated, not considered ready from day one to the president of the united states, in my opinion. >> certainly his judgment could be questioned. [ laughter ] another example of a republican debasing him or herself for donald trump. we have more to get to from the fallout from the debate later in the show, but we have a significant day today at the supreme court. joining us now to talk about it, former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor chuck rosenberg. state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg. national reporter for "the new york times," jeremy peters. thank you, all, for being with us. chuck, let's start with you. long last, today is july 1st. we're finally, we believe, going to get a decision from the supreme court about presidential immunity. remind the viewers what's at stake here, and what are some of the outcomes? >> right. the question, jonathan, is

whether a president can be immune from criminal prosecution for acts he committed while in office. it seems, from the oral arguments in this case which was held in april, that the court is looking at perhaps splitting the baby, right? finding that in the main, presidents are like the rest of us, they have to stand trial if they've committed crimes, but there may be some small number of cases in which presidents commit official acts which would grant them immunity. that seems like the right outcome to me, so i think the hard question is what is an official act? does it apply here? who decides that? in other words, does the supreme court simply say, there were no official acts here. there may be official act immunity, but it didn't happen here, and the trial can proceed? does the supreme court say, there is a small class of official acts which may grant immunity, and we want to trial judge to make that determination which would entail more hearings? very interesting case.

a number of different ways that the supreme court could decide it. and the question that will linger, when will it be resolved finally so a trial could proceed? >> that's what i wanted to follow up on, the idea of timing. many have suggested that they've already made the decision. the decision is in the delay. this point, by waiting until the last day of the term, they've made it, especially if they do kick it back to the lower court, nearly impossible for jack smith to bring the federal january 6th trial, to make that happen before the election. >> nearly impossible is right. the odds of a trial before the election is a non-zero number, but it is pretty damn close to zero. >> so on friday, the court ruled in favor of former police officer joseph fisher, seeking to throw out an obstruction charge after he joined the january 6th capitol attack. in a 6-3 vote, the justices ruled he did not obstruct an official proceeding, sending the case back to the lower courts. dave aronberg, let's talk about how that decision could impact

the dozens upon dozens of other cases relating to january 6th, and do you think it could also impact donald trump's? >> good to be with you, jonathan. with the law firm of rosenberg and aronberg. i can quickly say about governor burgum, not only was he wrong about a smooth transition, but he was wrong that the hanging chads were in broward county. they were here in palm beach county. it's like the difference between north dakota and south dakota. come on! as far as the ruling by the supreme court, i don't think it'll affect donald trump's case because donald trump was involved with the alteration of documents. remember, the false elector scheme that involves documents. jack smith has supreme court proof his case in d.c., despite delaying the matters. he couldn't control that. whether the supreme court case will affect other cases, we're talking 6% of cases it could affect. though it was a disappointing

rule, i think it is a ruling that will not have a big effect on the rioters and holding donald trump accountable for january 6th. >> in another ruling that came down friday, the supreme court significantly weakened the power of federal agencies by overturning a 40-year-old decision that made it easier for the government to regulate the environment, public health, workplace safety, and more. the 1984 chevron case gave federal agencies wide powers to interpret laws and decide the best ways to apply them. the idea was that if congress passed a law where something was unclear, it'd be left up to agency experts to fill in the details. jeremy, friday morning, the political world was consumed with the fallout of the debate. this case came out and perhaps didn't get as much attention as it should. tell us why it is consequential on its merits. secondly, why this has been on conservatives 'wish list a long time. >> often when we heard about what their goals were for

packing the courts with as many right-leaning judges and justices as they could, you heard about abortion as the litmus test. well, there was this kind of overlooked but just as vitally important litmus test that conservatives would describe as dismantling the administrative state. you heard about the deep state, the administrative state during donald trump's term. what that basically was for conservatives is an effort to try to dismantle the accumulation of power that these federal agencies have had over the last few decades since the chevron decision. that decision on friday really put that whole system, you know, these agencies from, you know, the epa, there's regulations that govern everything from workplace safety, the social safety net we have, pollution, and now what the court has effectively said in granting, you know, this big win to the

conservative legal movement, is these regulations that have been interpreted by government personnel over the years in the executive branch might well just be tossed out the window. >> yeah, certainly, chuck, it's a huge win for conservatives. let's get your analysis of the case and how it was decided. >> yeah. so i agree with jeremy's analysis. by the way, ironically, in 1984, when chevron became the law of the land, it was something that the reagan administration embraced because it enabled a reagan administration epa to pass certain regulations and interpret certain regulations that made it easier for business and for polluters, arguably. >> justice, the lion for much of his career, was supportive of chevron. >> it was the law of the land for four decades, until a week ago. fascinating case. if a republican wins or democrat wins, this is now the law of the

land. these administrative agencies upon whom we've typically relied have less authority under either administration. >> all right. five minutes past the top of the hour. hours from now, former trump adviser steve bannon must report to prison. he's saying he has no regrets. this after the supreme court rejected his last-minute appeal to stave off his four-month sentence for defying subpoenas from the house january 6th committee. his release date will be just days before the november election. bannon was convicted on two counts of concept of congress and sentenced to four months in prison in 2022. a u.s. district judge put his sentence on hold as he pursued an appeal of his conviction, which was rejected in may. the judge then ordered bannon to report to prison by july 1st, that's today, saying there was no basis to continue to delay

the sentence. bannon will become the second former trump aide to serve prison time for disregarding a subpoena from the house panel. peter navarro is nearing the end of his own four-month sentence in a federal prison in miami. dave aaronberg, real quick, assuming bannon will show up, how long must he serve? what exactly does it look like in terms of what he is doing time for? can he then go back on and work for the campaign? how long will he be behind bars? >> four months, mika. he'll be right in the heart of the campaign. he only has himself to blame. he could have served his time early on, but he appealed and got lucky because he had judge nichols, a trump appointee, who let him stay out of prison pending the appeal. peter navarro got an obama appointee, who sent navarro

straight to prison. at trial and appeal, bannon tried to use the advice of counsel defense, but that was never going to work. it is a garbage argument because of a few reasons. first, when it comes to executive privilege, which he said his lawyer, robert costello, remember him from the election interference case, said, yeah, you'll have privilege. bannon didn't qualify because he only worked in the white house a few months. he had been in the white house for years by the time it happened. trump's attorney told costello in writing that that defense wasn't going to work because trump was not going to invoke executive privilege for bannon. third, the courts ruled the advice of counsel doesn't work in cases like this. bannon would have been better going straight to jail instead of dancing around the monopoly board. he and his podcast, as a result, will be on hiatus the next four months, and he only has himself to blame for it. >> all right. jeremy peters, i'm curious,

before you go, bannon has been so defiant every step of the way, and also the key communicator of donald trump's threats of retribution. your thoughts on this moment? >> well, you're exactly right. key communicators is the best way to describe his role in the conservative movement. after rush limbaugh died, no one really stepped into the void in talk radio, which is an important medium of communication for conservatives and trump's movement. bannon, arguably, more than anyone else in a.m. radio or the podcast world has filled limbaugh's role. he remains the chief messenger of donald trump's vitriol, all of his grievance, all of these conspiracies about, you know, a deep state coming to get you. that's what bannon voices. he does it very effectively. >> mika? >> yeah?

yes, heilemann. >> jeremy and i were thinking we'll do a little field trip up to see bannon when he's up in connecticut over the course of the next four months, see how he is doing without the podcast. joerks i i enjoyed one of the reasons he shouldn't be sent to prison, because of the lost of the podcast and the millions of people who relied on it, would be a harm to american democracy. i thought that was great. the podcast defense. if they throw me in jail, i'll be like, wait, i have a podcast. millions of americans rely on my crucial, you know -- but that was rejected, among other arguments. >> there ya go. all right. national reporter for "the new york times," jeremy peters, former u.s. attorney chuck rosenberg, and state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg, thank you, all. the biden family is urging president joe biden to stay in the race following last week's debate. the president gathered with his closest family members at camp david over the weekend for a

pre-planned trip where they discussed the future of his re-election campaign after his troubling performance last thursday. the message from the biden family was to keep fighting, with the president's son, hunter biden, as one of the strongest voices, urging his father to stay in the race. let's bring in nbc news and msnbc political analyst, former u.s. senator claire mccaskill. columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," here we go, david ignatius joins us. yes, we'll talk, david. distinguished senior fellow for the center for american progress -- former u.s. senator from alabama doug jones. and nbc news white house correspondent mike memoli. good to have you on board. mike memoli, let's start with the reporting you have. >> i spoke with a prominent democrat who spent time with the

president and his senior advisors this weekend. in their words, the tenor and tone around biden and his team is that they're powering through in this moment. we've seen the show of force that the campaign has put out, especially on the sunday shows, of democrats saying that they stand behind president biden and his continued candidacy. we have also seen the ways in which the campaign privately is working to reassure donors, really to quell some of the fires that have been burning since thursday. we're reporting this morning that julie chavez rodriguez, the campaign manager, spoke with a group of some of the president's top financial supporters and said he is staying in this race. when asked about various, as one person put it, west wing type scenarios where biden might be replaced from the ticket, chavez said there is no way in which that is going to happen without it being messy and impractical. and noted that it'd be vice president kamala harris who would ultimately inherit most of the infrastructure and money were biden to step aside. we're also, of course, seeing the family involved here. as many democrats across the country are asking the question

about whether president biden should stay in this race, some of those asking that question are people who frankly haven't been with biden. they weren't with him in 2020. they weren't with him running again in 2024. but there are those who are doing this out of concern for the president and concern for what would happen if president biden were to lose and what that might mean for his legacy. we know it is not "the new york times" editorial board that's going to convince the president to step aside. it is not a bedwetting donor, to use the term the campaign has been using this weekend. the voices that matter the most are his family. that's why it was so significant that he did have this, yes, long-planned gathering ahead of the fourth of july holiday with his family this weekend. what we're hearing from camp david is that they are urging the president to keep fighting. it is worth noting, mika, it's not just the first lady we're hearing from again in an interview with "vogue" magazine she did from camp david, saying we're not going to let 90 minutes overshadow four years, but hunter biden is among those

who are going to be most fervently pushing for and fighting for the president to stay in the race. >> mike memoli, thank you very much. let's turn now to david ignatius. you wrote a piece months ago about joe biden's age. i think you and i disagreed vehemently, and i think we'll disagree again. having said that, what is your reporting on what you're hearing about this situation with the president? do you agree the president needs to reassure americans whether or not this was an episode versus a sign of things to come? >> mika, what i'm hearing, what we're all seeing is that the biden family, the inner circle around the president, are, to use the usual phrase, circling the wagons. they're resisting what they see as ill-considered advice that he

withdraw from the race. i always remind myself, mika, that the president's inner circle feels that he is always underestimated. that people have never given him the credit he deserves. they've often been in situations where they're seen as behind, the battle is hopeless, and they end up usually coming through and prevailing. so that psychology is at work here, i think. they remind themselves that in the past, people told us we couldn't do it, and we proved them wrong. there's a chip on their shoulder as they approach this. i think they're behaving very much according to script. this is the way they behaved last september when i wrote the article that caused a flap, saying it was time for the president to think about stepping back. i think the one concern that i

find people outside that inner circle have, that people who -- some prominent politicians who have been calling president biden personally, is a feeling that he needs to be protective of the longer-term issues. he has a legacy that he wants to protect. if he decides to step back and allow a succession process, it's argued that he will be seen as a president who had a great first term and knew when the time was up and will open the way for a new generation of democrats to really change the party and connect the country in a different way. the final point i'd make, mika, when i wrote about this almost a year ago, i was starting with what the public thought. it wasn't what david thought. i was noting that a poll by "the

associated press" in august of last year said 77% of americans and 69% of democrats thought that joe biden was too old to complete a second term. that was something that was out there. the american people had already formed their judgement. biden was resisting it then. my column said, hey, you really need to pay attention to what the public thinks. ask yourself, is this the year for you to try again? he made his decision. he decided, i'm the only one who can beat donald trump. this is my mission. he's still in that position. i just -- i do think it is time for him to ask the question again. there's two months left. we're running out of time. are you sure, mr. president, that you can beat donald trump after this first debate

performance and other liabilities? if not, to protect your own legacy, the country, the things you care most about, shouldn't you think about stepping back, letting a process take place and others to step forward and, in a way, to have rebirth in the democratic party, which it needs? >> claire mccaskill, to david's point, i'll just tweak a little. i think if biden was only thinking about his legacy, the safest thing would be to drop out now. he's had a historic presidency. again, something he doesn't get credit for and everything is distracted because donald trump is saying, look at the bird. look at the bird. let me see if i can use nukes. let's pardon the j-6 hostages. crazy, crazy comments come out of his mouth every day, and it feels like people don't notice it anymore. maybe that's just me. but if biden was only thinking

of his legacy, stepping down now would certainly preserve that. i think this is a question about the country, which david also mentioned. i guess, now, let's consider the risks in stepping down. say joe biden would do that. what would be the risks? i think there would be many risks. >> well, i will say this, i think no matter who the nominee is, the democratic party will be united. it won't make any difference who it is. because this is the truth that looms over this entire discussion. donald trump is a real danger to our country, unlike any other danger we have faced, i would argue, in history. he is dangerous to our country, what we are and what we stand for. so the democrats will unite around that principle, period. now, here's the thing, our

candidate has everything, mika. our candidate has the facts, the truth, the accomplishments, integrity. the only thing he doesn't have is youth. age has been an issue from the very beginning moments of this campaign. what i said thursday and friday was simple. with his performance on thursday night, he turned that issue, the volume up to blast. it is now dominant as opposed to what it was before that debate. here's what he has to do. i never called for him to step down. like joe, i tried to give my honest assessment of what i saw because that's my job. thank god i'm on a network where we can do that. thank god i'm in a party where we can ask questions. you know, in the republican party, they coalesce around this malignant, narcissist liar and gaslight the country. fox news gaslights the country. we don't do that.

but here's what has to happen. i am fine with joe biden. if i weren't working for the network, i would campaign for joe biden. but he has to now immediately perform. immediately perform in situations that are just as stressful and just as high pressure as the presidency. he has to get out -- >> so -- >> -- and do interviews that are tough. he has to go out and show. he has to overcome this problem -- >> yes. >> -- and repair this real damage. if he does that -- >> absolutely. >> -- go, man, go. >> yeah. >> go, man, go. >> you mentioned the one thing he doesn't have, claire, is youth. independent voters, republicans who maybe don't want to vote for trump, that voting block is pretty important in this election. besides the president's lack of youth, what is their complaint about biden? what is their main complaint? what keeps them from doing it? >> you look at states where

sherrod brown and jon tester and bob casey are running four, five, six points ahead of donald trump. those independent voters are voting for those democrats with those policies. they wouldn't be -- there's no way jon tester would be ahead in his race in polling right now without both independents and republicans. the only difference between those senate candidates and joe biden is age. it's not their policies. so that's why this has become, i think, more than bedwetting and hand wringing. i think this really is an issue joe biden has to confront in every single way. if he does that, of course, his accomplishments speak volumes. of course he is an amazing president. mika, this is painful for people who care about him. you know, it was incredibly heartbreaking to watch thursday night for most of americans. you know what? right now, he has to perform flawlessly. you know what? america is going to hold her

breath all the way from now until the first tuesday of november. we're going to hold our breath. >> yeah. i want to bring reverend al into the conversation. rev al, we talked over the weekend. i want to know what you've been hearing. i'm also going to ask you the same question i asked claire. that is, independents and republicans who maybe don't want to vote for trump but are holding back from joe biden, besides his age, which i don't think bothers all of them, what is it that keeps them from voting for joe biden? what's the issue? >> i think that the issue that is most clear is that they have to be convinced that we are moving in the right direction in an affirmative way and see that in contrast to the opposition, donald trump, who is a real threat, anti-women's right to choose, anti-voting rights, anti-affirmative action, all of the things independents and many

others believe in. i think the messaging by the democrats must be what we have done to restore that in the biden years and what biden will continue to do. you know, i think that i hear my friend claire, and i think that the others that wanted to challenge president biden's age, they had every opportunity to enter the primaries and do that. if you look at '08, barack obama took on hillary clinton and joe biden and established a new generation democrat. so if you were that convinced that joe biden should step aside and that you were the new guy, you should have done what obama did and run. but don't wait for a bad debate night to now use that as an entree into your entering into national politics. i say that as a guy that's older than them. i'm a decade or so younger than biden or trump, though i might

have been on the news marching the night mara was born. it doesn't excuse the fact that none of these people stepped up. they're waiting to get a nomination by default. let me ask the senator, gov jones this. the other thing is, i don't see any clear way that if, for whatever reasons, joe biden stepped aside, and i don't think he will or should, but in a clear way, that would not break out into a huge fight in the democratic party. i do not think you'd have a united party. i think you'd have a convention. many of us would say kamala harris should have it. if people that would fight her would have backlash from women and blacks, then you'd have others. how do you even imagine the possibility of having a united party transition if, for whatever reason, joe biden might just decide to turn on all of the counsel he's getting on? >> rev, that's the question i don't think people really are

asking enough. what would this look like if joe biden actually stepped aside? i think it would be chaos, at least for a while. i think claire is right, that, ultimately, you would unite around a nominee, whoever that might be. whether it was vice president harris or someone else. you would unite around that nominee, but that's going to take a while. yeah, i remember the summer of 2021 when there was such fractions with the democratic party over legislation and the infrastructure bill and the build back better bill. that pales in comparison to what we'd see in the next couple months. the other thing i'd like to add, too, and i really think this is important, folks, because there's so much to unpack with all this. i don't think people are giving the biden family enough credit. we keep hearing they're circling wagons. we keep hearing they've immediately said, oh, you've got to stay. we won't go. i don't believe we're giving the first lady and his family enough credit.

to understand and know, they saw the debate, as well. he is a husband. he is a father. he is a grandfather. he is a brother. those discussions are very serious going on. ultimately, they may rally to the point where they are saying, you need to stay and fight. but to think this was a knee-jerk reaction. publicly, the staff and family are going to say things publicly. they've got to do that until a final decision is made. but i think we need to give this family a little bit of credit. they've gone through a lot, and they weathered a lot. the biden family, just like joe biden has said, he gets back up. you know, you get knocked down, you get back up. that's their mantra. that's their history. i think we're going to see, the one thing i think is the most important thing that was said here so far, and i think everybody is saying this, the president is going to have to make this decision. he's going to need to get out there. he is going to have to prove, there's not a lot of room for error at this point on the issue of his age and his ability. he needs to get out there.

once this decision is made, if he stays in, he needs to get out there and demonstrate to the american people what he has been demonstrating for the last 3 1/2 years. that is that he has the confidence in himself to do this job, to win this race, and to save democracy from donald trump. that's what his decisions have been the last few years. i think the democratic party has enough confidence in joe biden, they've been with him long enough to know that his decision is going to be made on what is in the best interest of this country and not about him personally. >> the next data point will be the first wave of real battleground state polls after the debate, and then if any of these private democratic concerns burst public. if the president can hang on, we start talking about other events in the campaign. next up, july 11th, donald trump's criminal sentencing. mara, i wanted to talk further about a name evoked, vice president harris, who implicitly, the biden case for continuing this campaign now,

frankly, the biden case for running at all this second time was because some democrats and some members of the west wing don't think she could win a race against donald trump. >> you know, the one through line here is that the biden inner circle has spent the past two years on a pressure campaign to eliminate competition outside the white house. that includes sidelining vice president kamala harris the past couple years. i've seen her on the campaign trail for the past six months. i think she's a much better campaigner than she was four years ago. i would even say 180 degrees. she's obviously become more dynamic. she's drawing crowds. you know, i think she is but one of a deep bench of democrats who, frankly, at this point, i believe would probably be better positioned to beat donald trump. that is the question here. you know, i have tremendous

running mate for the president -- respect for the president who stepped up in 2020 and, thank god, along with the voters, helped rescue this country from a major threat of democracy. we need it again. the question is who can beat donald trump. this is not a comeback story. i have respect for joe biden. enormous respect for the president. but this cannot be about him. this has to be about americans who are going to suffer enormously if donald trump retakes the presidency and wins re-election. i'm thinking not just about joe biden. i'm thinking about women who are going to continue to lose their health care. i'm thinking about people on medicaid, medicare. i'm thinking about minorities, immigrants, and about the future of this democracy. i hope joe biden is, as well. >> mara gay, thank you. former senators doug jones and claire mccaskill, thank you, as well. david ignatius, we want to ask you about a major story playing

out in france. the far-right national rally party secured a major victory. we'll talk about the global implications of that. also ahead, on the heels of last week's debate, one of our next guests, a former republican political consultant says democrats need to stop panicking. we'll get to that. first, democratic senator chris coons, a biden campaign co-chair, joins us next. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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did you see trump last night? most lies told in a single debate. he lied about the great economy he created. he lied about the pandemic he botched. then, his biggest lie, he lied about how he had nothing to do with the insurrection on january 6th. we all saw it with our own eyes. >> we're going to walk down to the capitol, and i'll be there with you. >> we saw police being attacked, the capitol being ransacked. he did not a single thing to stop it, nothing. folks, i know i'm not a young man. but i know how to do this job! i know right from wrong. i know how to tell the truth. and i know, like millions of americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up!

i'm joe biden, and i approve this message. >> that's the new ad the biden campaign is out with just moments ago. joining us now, one of the co-chairs of the biden/harris campaign, democratic senator chris coons of delaware. he is a member of the foreign relations and judiciary committees. good to have you on the show. do you believe the president needs to reassure americans he is okay, and does the president intend to do that? do you have any idea? >> look, mika, i think the campaign rally speech that was just cited in that ad in raleigh, north carolina, was the beginning of that process, showing him forceful, engaged, energetic. going through the arguments that i wish, frankly, he'd made as forcibly on the debate stage thursday night. but i know he is fully capable of making. the stakes couldn't be higher, and as steve bannon reports to prison, it's important for us to also focus on the unmitigated stream of lies and hate and ve

vengeance that came out of donald trump's mouth on the debate stage and campaign rallies since then. and focus on how when joe biden has been counted out before on the primaries, even on the day of his inauguration when he called on americans to come together and work him to pass big, bipartisan legislation, lots of folks didn't think joe biden could dig us out of the deep hole that donald trump left him. a pandemic, an economy from free fall, and an assault on our democracy. he's done all three with incredible strength, fortitude, and vision. i'm optimistic that he will, in fact, reassure, not just the average american voter, but the editorial writers and commentators in the weeks ahead. >> good morning. jonathan lemire here. we have been reporting the president's family joined him at camp david over the urged him to stay in the race. doug jones was on air, and he spoke tentatively, if the

president decides to stay in, you know, he obviously would support him and think he'd do a good job. no one is closer in the senate to the president than you. what is your understanding? has a decision been made? has the president decided to continue his campaign? >> yes. and doug, senator jones also said we should give the president's family some credit. jill, his beloved and trusted wife of many years, his sister val, who has been his closest adviser since his first campaign, his children and grandchildren, they want what's best for our country, as well. look, all of us who are close to president biden recognize that his legacy as the most consequential president certainly of my lifetime is on the line here. it's important that he win in november. so, of course, there are going to be conversations about what makes certain that we are most likely to win? he has shown, i think, remarkable skill and strength and agility as president, pulling together big, bipartisan

legislation, and i've gotten lots of calls and texts from journalists and editorial writers over the last two days. what i haven't gotten is calls from state party leaders, from governors, from senators, saying that they're convinced he needs to drop out. i, frankly, think at the end of the day, what i heard around pennsylvania as i was campaigning for joe biden and bob casey and mary scanlon and others, is confidence in joe biden. when knocked down, he's gotten back up before. he understands what it means to connect with the average pennsylvanian. i'll close with this. the most important newspaper in that key swing state is "the philadelphia inquirer." after the debate, they wrote an editorial saying the political party whose leadership should be going to their candidate and saying, "s in interest of our nation and our party, you should drop out," is the republican party urging donald trump to get out. >> senator coons, al sharpton

here. >> hey, al. >> the fact we're looking at an election in a very tumultuous time, when we have women's right to choose, affirmative action, voting rights, all have been severely damaged by this court. internationally, what's going on in ukraine, gaza, sudan, haiti. do you think enough emphasis has been put on the one who has a stable leadership in trying to protect the right of people here and dealing with peace abroad, with the support of nato, has been president biden? and to have people just think about, if trump who, by his own saying, has a love relationship with the head of north korea and is friendly with putin, what that will do to destabilize us on the world stage, and what would happen to the fight to try to restore the rights of women, blacks, and others, voting rights and others? i mean, do you think enough

emphasis has been put by the democrats on the instability that would happen to us on the world scene and the national scene if we were to have joe biden not be re-elected and donald trump come back in a convicted felon who is going to spend some time in court, no matter what the supreme court does today? he is convicted of hush money, of things he did before he was president. how do we deal with getting that message out? >> thank you for that question. thank you for bringing up some of the crises that really don't get the attention they deserve. from sudan to haiti. look, one of the most memorable lines former president trump had on the debate stage was, "i did not have sex with a porn star." think about it. a candidate who is a convicted felon, felons aren't welcome in the u.s. armed forces. why would we want one as our commander in chief? to your point, reverend al, his dalliance, not just with stormy daniels but his exchange of love letters with dictator kim

jong-un of north korea are equally alarming about the possibility of former president trump returning. this month, we celebrate the 75th anniversary of nato. it is donald trump who said he would let russia do whatever the hell they want to our nato allies who haven't paid their dues, as if nato is some kind of protection racket. i'll remind you, under joe biden, there are double as many of our nato alies meeting their funding commitments, that joe biden rallied 50 countries from around the world to contribute more to the defense of ukraine than the united states has. that's a record that is worth our repeating, as well as his having put 200 federal judges on our courts. joe biden is the bulwark for our freedoms and democracy. that's why i'm committed to fighting hard to re-elect joe biden and kamala harris this fall. >> democratic senator chris coons of delaware, thank you very much for coming on the show

this morning. we appreciate it. >> thanks, mika. >> thanks. all right. coming up, we'll get a live report from paris after the far-right in france secures a major election victory. "morning joe" will be right back. i'm andrea, founder of a boutique handbag brand - andi - and this is why i switched to shopify. it's the challenges that we don't expect, like a site going down or the checkout wouldn't work. what's nice about shopify is when i'm with my family, when i'm taking time off, knowing that i have a site up and running and our business is moving forward because we have a platform that we can rely on. that is gold to us. start your free trial at shopify today.

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48 past the hour. france's far-right national rally party came out ahead in the first round of voting for the france national assembly. official results from the interior ministry show the party and its allies garnered about 33% of the vote ahead of president macron's centrist renaissance party, which took about 20%. the new popular front, a coalition of left-wing parties, captured around 28%. voter turnout was high, pointing to the election's significance. over 70 candidates were elected outright with the remaining seats to be decided in a runoff on july 7th. joining us now live from paris is nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons covering this. also with us is "the new york times" paris bureau chief, roger cohen. keir, we'll start with you and your latest reporting, and if you could explain why these elections were being held. also, we know that you spoke

with the mayor of paris. what did you learn? >> reporter: well, that's right, mika. why were these elections held is a question that many are asking president macron right now. frankly, we're learning how to say humiliation in many different languages as these headlines come out across the european continent. the national rally has won this first round of this election, and now they are led by a charismatic and good looking 28-year-old, jordan bardela. and by marine le pen, who has worked very hard to get beyond her party's fascist roots, her father's fascist roots. but that is the kind of kind of are being thrown with this 33% of the vote. historic vote. we heard bape the captain of france's soccer team in the

european championships saying that the extremists are at the gate just before this vote. mika, politicians in the left and in the center openly talking about this as something that has not happened since world war ii, openly referring to the visrhi government in world war ii. we had the opportunity to speak to the paris mayor last week. >> le pen is a bigger risk for the country because it's extreme right. extreme right people say in france that we didn't have the experience with these people. no. no. we had the experience. we had the experience during the second world war. we had the experience with vishi. with these people. we had the experience. we know that when these people

came to the power and the bigger power in the countries it's a very, very big risk for everyone. for jim -- liberty, for minorities, for women. we know that. we know that. because we have the experience also in italy, we had the ce in hungary. we had the experience. we don't need to have this experience in france and we have to fight. >> reporter: now, the mayor, she is from the socialist party, but within of the challenges for the second round, mika, is that the left and the center is very much divided. john melecon on the extreme left has called for candidates to step aside where his party or left parties may win. macron has said the same thing but will they be able to do that

in the second round? we are going to find out in the coming days whether it is possible to have a unified anti-far right coalition. accused of anti-semitism something that he has denied so it is very difficult for other politicians to feel like they are prepared to unify with him. that is one of the challenges. it doesn't mean necessarily that the far right will win outright in the second round. it could be something like a hung parliament, if you like, but if he does -- if they do, then we will see a -- potentially a far right prime minister welcoming people for the olympics here in paris and it will have potentially -- even though macron is in charge of foreign policy, real implications for europe and for france, for the attitude towards ukraine, for the attitude towards russia, for the attitude towards europe itself. you know, whoever is elected there later this year and is president in 2025, they may be looking at a very different europe to do business with.

>> absolutely. nbc's keir simmons reporting live from paris. thank you very much. roger cohen, we will take it to you for some analysis now. your thoughts on these elections so far and the implications of the results so far? >> well, mika, lo and behold the result in the european parliament election at the beginning of june when the national rally won a big victory have been reproduced three weeks later in the first round of the election here and you do, indeed, have the far right national rally with its anti-immigrant positions, no longer the fascist party of marine le pen's father, but still a far right party that is opposed to europe and will discriminate against immigrants at the gates of power, in a major power, which is france, because the european union depends essentially on france and germany as its motor. so it's a situation that is

worrying. we don't know yet whether the national rally will get an absolute majority of 289 seats in the assembly, but it will be by far the biggest party. and it is hard not to conclude that president macron has shot himself in the foot because his party will probably end up with about a third of the seats that the party currently has. so either you have a far right government headed by the 28-year-old jordan bardella in the case of an absolute majority or you have unpredictable chaos with two large parties to the right and left and macron squeezed in the middle. >> roger, this is david ignatius in washington. i have a basic question for you, which is why on earth did macron decide to go for these early snap elections? they were unnecessary.

they've completely blown up in his face. why did he do it? well, hello, david. nice to see you. as you know, it was an entirely discretionary decision. he had no obligation to do it. the elise will tell you that come october we were going to have to dissolve the national assembly and call elections anyway because our deficit cutting proposed budget would have been rejected. of course, that's hypothetical, there is no way to prove it or prove the contrary, but at least then macron could have said we've tried to pass a reasonable budget that the country needs, it was -- it was rejected and so i have no alternative but to call an election. i think many french people would have understood that. they do not understand a decision taken more or less in isolation without consultation with his own prime minister three weeks ahead of the olympics that has now produced this result.

the only theory that you do hear is of the order of, well, three years from now when macron's term as president ends, the house was going to burn down anyway in the form of marine le pen becoming president. so let's burn it down right now instead, and then the national rally will no longer be railing from the outside, which is easy, it will have to govern. so in essence the president said, okay, let's burn the house down now because it's coming anyway and maybe this offers a chance that i will not be succeeded by marine le pen. >> paris bureau chief for "the new york times," roger cohen. thank you very much. and the "washington post" david ignatius, thank you as well for being on this morning. and up next, we will speak with the atlantic's david from about his new piece "trump should never have had this platform" in which david argues the debate treated a failed coup

leader as a legitimate candidate for the presidency. also ahead in our fourth hour emmy nominated actor paul riser and grammy award winning singer michael mcdonald will join us to discuss their new book "what a fool believes." they will explain how their collaboration came to be. "morning joe" will be right back. ning joe" will be ght back with so many choices on booking.com there are so many tina feys i could be. so i hired body doubles. mountain climbing tina at a cabin. or tree climbing tina at a beach resort. nice! booking.com booking.yeah. liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. with all the money i saved i thought i'd buy stilts. hi honey. ahhh...ooh. look, no line at the hot dog stand. yes! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty.♪ every day, more dog people are deciding it's time for a fresh approach to pet food.

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still ahead, in two hours the supreme court will issue a ruling on donald trump's presidential immunity claim. we will be joined by legal experts neal katyal and andrew wiseman with their analysis and how they think the court is poised to rule. we're back in 90 seconds. s poised to rule we're back in 90ec sonds

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he was four years ago, calling his candidacy, quote, a reckless gamble. editors at georgia's largest newspaper "the "atlanta journal constitution"" eeked that take demanding the president pass the torch. quote, biden deserves a better exit from public life than the one he endured when he shuffled off the stage on thursday night. then there were the headlines, sneering, mocking, jeering, all at once, this was the performance that has gotten us to this point. >> we have 1,000 trillion aires in america, i mean, billionaires in america. they pay 8.2% in taxes, if they paid 24%, 25%, either one of those numbers they would raise $500 million, billion dollars i should say in a ten-year period. we would be able to wipe out his debt, we would be able to make sure all the things we'd like to

do, child care, elder care, making sure we can continue to strengthen our health care system, making sure we can make every single solitary person eligible for what i've been able to do with the covid -- excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with -- look, if -- we finally beat medicare. >> it was bad. he said we, quote, we beat medicare. he couldn't seem to land a thought. it was an unmitigated disaster by any measure. more than three days after that debate it is still hard to comprehend what we saw from the president. the weak raspy voice, the inability to complete basic thoughts. most importantly, the failure to call out donald trump on his endless lies. where was that? and yet, the very next day in

north carolina there was joe biden, back to form, finding his voice, his winning smile, the vintage sparkle back in his eyes. two appearances that were as different as, well, night and day. >> i don't debate as well as i used to, but i know what i do know. i know how to tell the truth. i know -- i know -- i know right from wrong. and i know how to do this job. i know how to get things done. i know like millions of americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up. >> so what was different? a little more sleep? perhaps it was an event during the day rather than at night. on debate night 90 minutes

starting at 9:00 p.m. joe biden was fresh off back to back trips to europe, first to normandy for the 80th anniversary of d-day, and a state dinner with president macron and then to italy for the g7 followed by a flight across 12 time zones to l.a. for a fundraiser with former president barack obama. just 33 hours later he was headed back to the east coast. the debate was also two weeks after his son hunter was convicted on three felony gun charges and faces prison time. president biden painfully told america he would not pardon his son. i really question his schedule. it makes me angry that he was moving across the world on four different time zones. it seems to me this is a lack of discipline. these were important events that he was going to, but the stakes in this election could not be any higher. like many, i want to know, was

this a one off episode or a sign of what's to come? can his team and the president himself move forward with more discipline and also manage the fact that he's 81? and while we are at it, let's talk about his age. age is wisdom and experience that in the case of joe biden leads to more bipartisan legislation passed than any president over the past few generations and the largest expansion of nato's alliance in history. under joe biden and his age, america is stronger economically and militarily than anytime in half a century. and while facts may not matter to donald trump and his friends in the far right media, those are the objective facts and that is the undeniable truth. here is another truth, age also

needs to be managed. on my 50 over 50 lists i celebrate women who are reaching their highest power well over 50, 60, 70, 80, even 90, and yet every one of those women are managing their fabulous age. i -- i don't think it's over. this moment in the race fits the entire narrative of joe biden's life. in his personal and professional life biden has repeatedly risen up from rock bottom. it's what we love about him. so many draw hope from his empathy and his ability to have perspective, even right now, and to persevere when he is completely counted out. his list of losses and failures is long and would be unbearable for most. in 1972 his wife and baby

daughter were killed in a car accident. he had been elected to the senate and took the oath of office in his survivor son's hospital room to remain by their bed sides. in 1987 his first campaign for president came to an end and so nearly did his life when a few months later he suffered a brain aneurysm. it was so severe that his doctor told him his chance of survival was less than half, just to survive the surgery. and even if he lived, a long list of physical and mental limitations were likely. at his bedside before the surgery he told his sons he was proud of them. and then joe biden survived the surgery, rehabilitated and didn't look back. in 2008 his second bid for the presidency came to another early painful end after a poor showing in iowa. he finished near the bottom with less than 1% of the vote.

his campaign bottoming out after another low blow. and yet the following summer biden would be back on the democratic ticket as barack obama's running mate. five years later, a year into his second term as vice president, joe biden's son beau was diagnosed with brain cancer, believed to have been caused by exposure to burn pits while his son was serving in iraq as a captain in the army national guard. beau would die two years later. the second child, joe biden would have to bury. that is the lowest of lows in joe biden's life. in 2015 another political failure, barack obama chose to support hillary clinton as his heir apparent and not even his own vice president. after numerous political and personal setbacks joe biden may

have questioned whether he would ever return to presidential politics again. and then came charlottesville and the vial racist march by neo-nazis and white supremacists across the uva campus. as a direct threat of what he saw to our nation's core values biden announced his third try for the white house. just like his first two presidential campaigns, he was staring at an early exit in the race, stumbling in the first democratic debate after a broadside by kamala harris. he finished a distant fourth in iowa and an even worse fifth in new hampshire. all experts just like right now said it was over for the man from scranton. >> no one has gone this far finishing fourth and fifth and vastly under expectations. when you make an argument that you are the most electable

democrat in the field and you can't back that up that's a serious problem. >> there's a tremendous amount of good will for the former vice president, very well liked in the party but you have to give a reason why you're running. >> biden's plummet has been something to watch. >> it was quite an awkward interview on the set of "morning joe" in new hampshire. awkward for everyone on the set, except joe biden, as his political obituary was being written, biden was joyful and ready to keep fighting. >> i still feel good. it's a long haul. any democratic candidate who has been an incumbent has been someone who so far has been able to get significant support from the african american community. i think donald trump has demonstrated the last guy he wants to run against is me. >> he's kind of obsessed with you. >> mildly. i've become the object of his great affection. >> our joe scarborough wrote a piece for the "washington post" at the time entitled "no matter how this race ends, i'm proud of

joe biden." which ended, quote, whether his campaign can survive, the body blows delivered by iowa and new hampshire remains to be seen, but as joe biden has endured worse. and yet once again biden found a way up from rock bottom. south carolina gave his campaign new life and he secured the democratic nomination and the rest is historic, literally. as president his legislative wins are unmatched this century. the american rescue plan to help the recovery from covid, the bipartisan infrastructure law to rebuild the country, the bipartisan safer communities act, the first legislative action on guns in decades, and the chips and science act. he expanded health care for veterans through the pact act, he signed marriage equality into law and he got the inflation reduction act passed to address the rising costs of living and

deliver historic action on the climate. he appointed and got confirmation of the first black woman to the supreme court. he protected the affordable care act and provided billions in student debt relief. he negotiated the toughest, most conservative border control bill in decades, only to see it get torpedoed by donald trump, who cynically didn't want a solution to the problem, only an issue to demagogue and campaign on. all the while biden solidified key international alliances, expanded nato and rallied the world in support of ukraine in the face of russian aggression. right now he's managing not one, but two hot wars. days after the october 7th massacre in israel, biden got on air force one to attend an israeli war cabinet meeting in-person. this after going to kyiv,

ukraine, by train, via poland. despite the tremendous risk and difficult conditions. and through all of this he delivered the lowest unemployment in 40 years, the strongest dollar in 50 years and the most successful stock market of all time. so now after thursday's abysmal debate performance president biden finds himself at rock bottom again. it was bad. and again, a chorus of biden doubters. my family and i, as you know, have known this man for decades and his family as well, and, yes, i know them personally and i still believe in joe biden. i've learned that counting him out is always a mistake and doing that now could be catastrophic for our country. do there need to be changes? yes. managing him. management.

to his schedule. changes maybe even to those around him. i will also say america needs an explanation from joe biden and reassurance that the other night was a one-time event and not part of a larger problem. by the way, biden likes to tell people don't compare me to the almighty, compare me to the alternative. so let's take a quick moment to look at the current alternative. not a hypothetical imagined new democratic candidate, the actual current alternative who was across from joe biden at thursday's debate, donald trump. the man who incited a political coup against our government and who indicates he will not accept the results of the 2024 election if he loses again. the convicted felon who faces three more indictments. the man who was found liable for sexual assault. the man who was found liable for massive fraud.

the man who brags about having ended a woman's right to abortion health care, a decision that is killing women and babies and causing immeasurable and preventable agony for women across the country. the man whose tax proposals could cripple the economy according to over a dozen nobel prize economists. the man who would end key global alliances. the man who has promised retribution against his perceived political enemies. the man who on a regular basis makes no sense at all. when he sounds crazy and slurs his words and talks about batteries and sharks, why aren't there calls for trump to drop out? where are they? in the philadelphia enquirer their editorial board did take a stand writing, quote, to serve

his country donald trump should leave the race. well, there's one. but where are the other editorial heads, leaders who were so rocked the other night, who see trump as so unfit that he should leave the race, where are they? desensitized? disinformed? inured? the firehouse of falsehoods has blinded you to what is right in front of you every day? come on. now joe, our joe, is off this morning on a planned vacation. on friday's show, i should clarify, joe said it may be time for biden to consider stepping aside. he also said we should wait a few days to see how he responds. we're shoulder to shoulder on that. i do agree. joe biden has work to do. he has to do better. his team has to do a lot better. i'm just not ready, though, to count joe biden out.

not even close. just as joe and i were stunned by the president's poor performance on the debate stage, we've also been surprised by the level of animosity toward donald trump from people who once supported him. the debate acted as a wake-up call that was a loss for joe biden, no question, but not a win for trump. the choice is one terribly bad night versus a decade of destruction to our core beliefs, our democratic values and, yes, our constitution. someone who stumbled over his words for 90 minutes versus someone who lied to the american people over and over again. a man slowed down by a cold versus a man with a cold, vile, and merciless heart.

i think in the days and weeks ahead as we move away from this debate clarity will hopefully set in. for me joe biden is still the man for this moment. we're going to be right back with jonathan lemire's new reporting on what's next for biden. we also have mara gay, a member of the "new york times" editorial board which is calling for biden to bow out. reverend al sharpton who was plugged into biden world all over the weekend and john heilemann who is taking a look at the odds of an unprecedented pivot. we're back in 90 seconds. with so many choices on booking.com there are so many tina feys i could be. so i hired body doubles. indoorsy tina loves a deluxe suite. ooh! booking.com booking.yeah i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi.

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i believe a setback is nothing more than a setup for a comeback and the reality is joe biden has confronted and had to come back from tragedy, from trials, from tribulations throughout his entire life. so the moment that we're in right now is a comeback moment. >> i'm saying to you that i support the biden/harris ticket. i'm not abandoning joe biden right now for any speculation. biden/harris, both of them. i'm enthusiastically supporting them as are many of our grassroots people. >> i've spent time around three different presidents, margaret, and i will tell you that the president's job is enormously

hard and involves all kinds of things, none of which are standing and doing a debate for 90 minutes on tv. i'm not so cynical as to believe that the american people are going to choose a people based on a 90-minute debate rather than a four-year record of startling legislative achievements. >> there was that same kind of a freak out after my debate and, in fact, i might even say that i had a more difficulty than the president did and here i am right now having this conversation. and i really would like to remind to everybody watching that right now biden is one and trump is still zero and he is the only person that's ever beaten trump. >> congressional democrats largely rallying behind president biden this weekend, at least in public. with us we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico" jonathan lemire. president of the action network and host of "politics nation" reverend al sharpton. member of the "new york times" editorial board mara gay is with

us, nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann, he is a partner and chief political columnist at puck. good to have you all with us this morning. jonathan lemire, tell us what your reporting indicates. i know the family was meeting. what do you got? >> it's been a consequential few days for president biden in his reelection bid after that thursday night poor showing in that debate. he did have a stronger outing on friday at a rally in north carolina and then followed it up with some fundraisers at the hamptons and new jersey, raised a lot of money. the biden campaign had their best grassroots fundraising days of the campaign thursday, friday. we should note the president's stronger outing came with the help of a teleprompter. he did not have that in the debate on thursday. yes, yesterday he met with the family at camp david and they were unanimous, they want him to stay in. we know the loudest voices in the president's orbit belong to the first lady, his son hunter, his sister valerie. they are unanimous, they want him to stay in this, to not go out with that showing on

thursday standing across from a man they all despise. they recognize he didn't do well. there is finger pointing here at staff, they think there are some questions about how debate prep went, they think he was perhaps too focused on statistics, not enough on performance. by the president's own admission he said so, that he knows he didn't do well and they know they have work to do, and right now they're trying to reassure democrats to get them to stay with him in this. reverend al, we're waiting now, fundraising numbers good so far, democrats in public staying with him, we're waiting for polls. we haven't seen any real polling yet in the battleground states since the debate. we did have one from cbs over the weekend. eye popping 70 odd percent of americans don't think the president is up for continuing this job. but we don't know yet if there will be polls in the battle grounds that reflect that as well. internal polls suggest not much movement so far. we will see. what are you hearing? you are plugged in between democrats and activists what are you hearing about what should be

next? >> i am hearing a lot and i've listened to a lot. i preached yesterday in winston-salem, north carolina. people on the ground are saying that the problem we have is donald trump. no one is dealing with the fact that the strategy must take into consideration that we have a man that is adamantly opposed to women's rights, voting rights, that talks about black jobs like migrants jobs, which are considered to be very menial jobs, are what blacks are supposed to be doing and they're taking them from them. in a debate. i'm very concerned on a couple of occasions in the debate joe biden couldn't finish his sentence, but i'm more concerned with the sentences donald trump did finish. so the question is what are we going to do? what is the best strategy there? i was in charleston, south carolina, when donald -- when joe biden was endorsed by the

congressman clyburn there. in fact, they had come to the national network action breakfast i had that morning. here is a man who had come behind i think number four in iowa, number five in new hampshire and was considered dead on arrival politically and he came back. so i can't count him out. he had a bad night. he had a terrible night. but do we not say, wait a minute, he helped to preserve and maintain affordable care act, he fought for police reform giving the executive order on george floyd, he brought unemployment numbers down after the catastrophe that donald trump handed us, record low black and brown unemployment numbers. i mean really all of the things that was on the infrastructure bill, all of this, we're not going to give him the weekend to see if he can recover? i think that we cannot -- we have to stop whining and start winning. the whiners and the winners are

the ones that have to make a choice in this case. the other part -- and i will finish here -- is what happens if he steps out? we're going to have a riotous convention, we're going to have this crowd against this crowd against this crowd. all donald trump has to do is sit back, get a big mac and watch the democrats destroy themselves. how do you come out of a late august convention, people questioning whether they're going with kamala harris or not or the other one or the other one or the other one and unite that party in two months to beat donald trump? that's your options. so do you want to whine or do you want to win? >> and so the questions that you posed i think are perfect for mara gay. mara, i'd love for you to respond and ask if "the new york times" editorial board considered the hundreds of times, hundreds easily, that donald trump has seemed unfit and perhaps would be deserving of a call to drop out or resign? >> yeah, so we have over the

course of -- ever since donald trump has been in the public eye we have made clear that this is not a president, a former president, who we supported, and actually in our editorial over the past few days we also made clear that were the election held today our choice would be obvious which would be joe biden. you know, i understand why that, you know, may have gotten missed. i certainly understand that. but we do believe that the stakes are existential, which joe biden himself has made clear, and it is, in fact, because the stakes are so high that the board feels it's so important to have the best chance for democracy with the strongest candidate possible. the hope was that that would be president joe biden, and he is still at this point the presumptive nominee and, again, you know, if that's the way it

stays, then i know who i'm voting for. that's an easy decision and i believe that the american people, i hope, would coalesce around that, but we also have to be clear and honest with ourselves about what we saw the other night. it is not the same joe biden that we saw four years ago. i think reasonable people can say we saw this with our eyes. you know, one of the things that has been most inspiring for me about joe biden, about the president, his life story is remarkable, mika, you got into it a moment ago. he has come from behind again and again when he's fallen, he's gotten up. his family story, his personal story, that's all inspiring to me. the thing that is the most inspirational, though, is that he has always known how and when to put country before himself, and we believe that in this moment that public service that he needs to do right now, the

best thing he could do, would be to step down and to allow a very deep bench of younger talent in the party waiting in the wings to emerge. >> all right. we're going to sneak in a quick break. when we come back john heilemann will weigh in on thursday's debate and what it means for this next phase of the presidential race. that's straight ahead on "morning joe." d on "morning joe." at care.com, it's easy to get a break, even if you're not on summer vacation. join millions of families who've trusted us

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john heilemann, the event -- the debate on thursday last week was a moment where president biden could have silenced a throughout of the doubts about whether he was up for the job, instead he put them front and center of this campaign again. donald trump did not have a good night, he lied throughout, but that was all overshadowed by biden's halting performance. so what does he need to do now, president biden, to try to keep democrats in line, to kind of

tamp down the calls for him to step aside, to try to reassure voters, this is a very, very important week ahead for him. what are your thoughts? >> so many things to say. to your point, the reason that the biden campaign wanted to have a debate this early was because they are in a competitive race for this debate, but no one thinks they're winning right now. it's a margin of error race where they have had small but consistent deficits in the battleground states, they wanted to go into this debate and they know in their polling and everything else that the questions about the president's age and fitness are in the foremost not minds of mika or rev or other people, but of the very small sliver of people who are still out there who are persuadable voters who are going to decide the election. democrat partisans are going to be with joe biden. people who are anti-trump, just think that anyone that bernie from "weekend at bernie's" would be better than donald trump

they're going to vote for him, too. there's still a bunch of people out there, 6% maybe in the six or seven states, who have seen all of donald trump's -- have seen joe biden's performance and are still undecided. those are the people -- that's the ball game, right? they wanted to go to this debate and put, to your point, jonathan, they want to put to rest the notion of biden's age and fitness and as you said, did exactly the opposite. in the structural sense every unpopular incumbent, that's what joe biden is, a guy with a 38% approval rating, you have to try to make the race into a choice not a referendum. what happened was that joe biden put the spotlight on himself, in his performance. that's the reality going forward. 's he going to be under the microscope now on this question for as long as he stays in the race, whether that's all the way to november or sometime shy of that. that is a fundamental strategic failure of that debate. that's the cost of this. they didn't get to litigate, all the lies of trump, all the things he did, joe biden wasn't able to do that that night successfully and the race is now

even more than before a referendum on joe biden and these questions of how he's going to proceed going forward. i've got to defend just not because i have a dog in the fight with the "new york times," just the thing about the editorial page. the idea that the "new york times" editorial page and others have not been outspoken attacking donald trump, for years, is -- i mean, mika, just to your point, it's not like anybody thinks that the problem here is that the "times" editorial board has not attacked donald trump enough. they should take a look at the record. i think they've done plenty of that. i think that the "times" editorial board, also i think is focused on beating donald trump and the concern that they have along with in private for now a ton of donors and a ton of democratic elected officials who say very different things in private than they do in public which is they're worried that joe biden can't beat donald trump. it's not personal. it's not like they don't think joe biden has been a great president, not that they don't think he's been a successful president. they're worried now that maybe

he doesn't have what it takes to fight this race in the fall. i'm not advocating this position, but it's what the weekend was was electeds, lobbyists, donors importantly because they're going to fund this campaign if it goes forward saying does our guy who we've loved and who we would love to see win, does he have what it takes to win? and does he have what it takes to govern to four years all the way to age 86 which is what the president is asking for, which is another term that will give him four more years in office where whatever degree of slippage that he has suffered is going to not get better, he's going -- he's going to age further. so there are people who are on joe biden's side who are worried about this. and that's the thing that the campaign -- the campaign is trying to manage now is how to reassure people who are not fundamentally hostile to joe biden or his elections, but the stakes of the campaign, existential stakes. why this decision is so difficult.

>> coming up, we will take a closer look at the lies donald trump told during the first presidential debate in atlanta. our steve radner will fact check the candidates when he joins us. that's next on "morning joe." u. that's next on "morning joe. oh no!

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suckers and losers. on january 6 we were respected all over the world. >> they're taking black jobs. we have three great supreme court justices on the court and they happened to vote in favor of killing roe v. wade. it's been a great thing. >> my retribution is going to be success. >> president biden's campaign was up with that new digital ad on social media one day after the debate. after biden largely failed to

fact check trump in realtime on thursday night. joining us now to take up that mantel is former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner and his famous charts. let's start, steve, with donald trump's claim about joe biden's record on jobs. take a look. >> the only jobs he created are for illegal immigrants and bounce-back jobs, the bounce back from the covid. he has not done a good job, he's done a poor job and inflation is killing our country. it is absolutely killing us. >> steve rattner, what's the reality? >> yeah, mika, look, just to set the stage, joe biden -- donald trump, rather, committed more than 30 lies during the campaign fact check. i don't know how to fact check, i didn't sleep with a porn star so we picked some other things to talk about and this is a good place to start -- >> okay. >> this is a good place to start, which is jobs. so this notion that the only jobs joe biden created were so-called bounce back jobs is ridiculous. let me show it to you as clearly as i know how to do.

so here are the job numbers before the pandemic, we had over 150 million jobs, the pandemic hit, obviously we lost a lot of jobs, we started coming back, and you can see that in june of 2022, so a year and a half into president biden's term, we basically got back to the pre-pandemic levels. so these are -- you want to call these bounce back jobs, you can call these bounce back jobs, but here is what happened after june of 2022, we added 6.2 million jobs to this economy. so these are jobs that were created unambiguously under joe biden's watch. here is something even more interesting which is the job creation of both president biden and donald trump making the right adjustments for covid. if you take out the impact of covid, donald trump created 182,000 jobs a month on average, if you do the same thing for biden, take out covid, he created 276,000 jobs per month,

so way more jobs per month than donald trump created. by the way, more that were created under president clinton, president obama and so forth. one of the strongest job creation records in history. >> wow. so there's also trump's claim about the largest tax cut in history. take a look at what he said. >> what we did was incredible. we rebuilt the military, we got the largest tax cut in history, the largest regulation cut in history. the reason he's got jobs is because i cut the regulations that gave jobs, but he's putting a lot of those regulations back on. >> and, steve, what are the actual facts? >> the actual facts is that joe biden -- i mean donald trump's tax cut -- confusing -- donald trump's tax cut is nowhere near as large, the largest in history. you can see here some of the largest tax cuts in history, the famous ronald reagan tax cut of 1981, president obama had two tax cuts during his watch, this

tax cut which actually was passed in '64, we call it the kennedy tax cut because he was trying for t and here is president trump, all the way down here. donald trump all the way down here with the tcja at 0.6% measured against gdp which is the proper way to measure tax cuts. then he talks about how he was ready to start paying down the debt. this is completely laughable. the deficit was actually going up even before covid hit because of donald trump's tax cut and so when you put it all together donald trump added $4.8 trillion of non-covid, again, trying to adjust for covid, $4.8 trillion of non-covid debt to our national debt. joe biden has added $2.2 trillion of non-covid debt to our national debt in roughly the same period of time. and so the deficit and debt record between these two guys is, again, not even close. >> and one more thing, there

were many, but we will just do these. donald trump also had this to say about crime connected to immigration. take a listen. >> he's the one that killed people with the bad border, including hundreds of thousands of people dying, and also killing our citizens when they come in. we are living right now in a rat's nest. they're killing our people in new york, in california, and every state in the union because we don't have borders anymore. every state is now a border. and because of his ridiculous, insane and very stupid policies, people are coming in and they're killing our citizens at a level we've never seen. we call it migrant crime. i call it biden migrant crime. they're killing our citizens at a level that we've never seen before. >> steve, what's the reality about the rat's nest that we are living in? >> you know, trump's ability to lie with a completely straight face and to say things that just are absolutely factually inaccurate without even blinking

is quite amazing. let's talk about overall crime first. first of all, i'm using violent crime here as a proxy, but you would see similar things in other kinds of crime. first of all, crime didn't even really go down much under president trump, it went down a little bit, it went up, you do say this was covid, but basically no change in crime. under president biden here is what's happened to violent crime, it's gone from 398 per 100,000 people the rate of crime down to 26%, 294, this is an extrapolation of what this year will look like if present trends continue, a huge drop in crime this year and so the record on crime overall between these two guys, again, isn't even close. so he's talking also about migrant crime. let's talk about migrant crime because this is something most people don't appreciate, which is that the rate of crime committed by both legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants is actually lower than that of u.s.-born citizens. here is the crime rate for violent crime, a bit over 200,

for u.s. born citizens it drops down, for legal immigrants and if you are an undocumented immigrant you actually have one of the lowest crime rates. the reason for that is not that surprising in a way, if you are an undocumented immigrant you don't want to get deported, you are pretty unlikely to commit a crime because that's not going to lead to a great outcome for you. you see the same trends in property crime and in drug violations, immigrants who come here whether documented or undocumented commit crimes at a lower rate than native born americans. that has been studied many times. this is a texas study, you can find it anywhere else in the data. those are the facts. still ahead, just moments from now the supreme court is set to decide whether donald trump has immunity from the most serious criminal charges against him. we'll have a full preview straight ahead on "morning joe." " and doug. (bell ringing) limu, someone needs to customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual.

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i know joe.

we know joe. but most importantly, joe knows us. coming up, congressman james clyburn helps save joe biden's candidacy once before. can he and will he do it again? the south carolina democrat is one of the party's most respected voices and he joins the conversation straight ahead on "morning joe." e. sleep number smart bed? can it keep me warm when i'm cold? wait, no, i'm always hot. sleep number does that. shop our lowest prices of the season with free home delivery when you add a base. sleep number smart beds starting at $999. learn more at sleepnumber.com

welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. and in one hour the supreme court will rule on donald trump's presidential immunity case. that's a big moment. during oral arguments the justices hinted they may send

the case back to a lower court to hold hearings over whether trump's actions fall under official acts. in a few moments we will bring in legal analyst neal katyal and andrew weissmann to talk about this as we await this incredible piece of news on his claim for immunity. but first we're joined by democratic congressman jim clyburn of south carolina. he is national co-chair for the biden campaign. congressman clyburn, thank you so much for being on this morning. i'm just curious, let's go in chronological order here. what was your reaction to president biden's debate, your first thoughts in your gut? >> well, thank you very much for having me, mika. well, as i watched the debate alone in my condo i decided not to go to any watch parties, i felt from the very beginning that joe biden was going to have

a tough night because i thought it was preparation overload. i just saw it. i've been around these debates for a long time, i have been a part of the debate prep in a couple of instances. as i considered, joe biden was trying not to stray from the preparation and he was grappling for numbers, grappling for platform positions, rather than reacting to the question directly from his own personal feelings, personal experiences. and i think that you always do much better on the television when people can feel your response as well as hear. >> and since the debate you've actually been on the campaign trail, spending the day yesterday in madison, wisconsin,

i think you might still be there now. what are you hearing from people? were they concerned about the debate? are you hearing a lot of questions about the debate? >> yes, i am. i'm here in milwaukee, i was in madison yet. the might before i was in georgia. everywhere i go grassroots people are tuned into this effort. i believe i saw numbers saying pretty close -- $33 million were raised immediately after the debate, two-thirds of it coming from grassroots people. i talked to people who told me they were going online to give their $5 or $10 or $15. these are not big donors, but these are big voters and they are close to the ground. they are in tune with this president and what he is trying to do to keep this country

moving toward perfection. that's what we are all about, to create a more perfect union. we are not a perfect country, but we ought to always be in pursuit of perfection and that's what the grassroots people want to see, and they see that in joe biden and they see just the opposite in donald trump, always trying to divide people in one way or another, creating chaos so that he can look like a problem-solver, but what he is doing is destroying the fabric that has kept this country together all of these years. and not always in my favor. i remember when my parents first voted in south carolina because of the white-only democratic primary and i've been saying to young people these experiences tend to temper how you deal with politics. and so we just cannot have an

all or nothing approach. all of us must pitch in to save this country and i think that's what the grassroots people are doing and they are asking the big donors not to walk away from this effort. they are asking the inside the beltway people to keep them in mind when they make their decisions and they are in line with joe biden and i think he should stay in this race and all of us come together and get him reelected. >> so to "the new york times," to the atlantic, "atlanta journal constitution" to others who are saying joe biden should step down, should get out of the race, you say what? >> i say come with me. come to those two churches i visited in madison, wisconsin, yesterday. come to the working men and women that i met with last night

and i suspect i'm going to find the same thing here in milwaukee today because what i found when i was in atlanta, georgia, 8,400 african american men had registered for that conference. i know we are not set up to speak, i didn't say 8,000 people, but i saw at least 5,000 in that auditorium and they were all for joe biden. so let's not think about all of the stuff that we may read about, what we may think about, what we may speculate about. listen to the american people. come out here among them. feel them. and to have the benefit of their emotions when you sit down to write your editorials. >> so, congressman clyburn, you are definitely still with joe biden and plan to stay there? >> absolutely. you know, joe biden has a record that he can build upon. he had a bad night last thursday

night. as i said, these things happen. i saw it happen to ronald reagan. i saw it happen to barack obama. and both of them came back from those bad performances because they had the ability to connect to the american people, and joe biden has that ability, as good if not better than anybody that i have ever been around. yes, i'm sticking with him and i do believe that the american people, the vast majority of the american people, will stick with him as well. >> i want to ask you about donald trump who is doubling down on his remarks that migrants are coming to the u.s. to take away what he calls black jobs. take a listen. >> the millions of people pouring into our country, they're taking their jobs and they're taking the black jobs, people that have had their jobs for a long time, are losing their jobs, and hispanic jobs,

people that have had them for a long time, they're losing their jobs. >> that was at a rally in virginia on friday. trump said the same thing during thursday night's debates. what's a black job and what do you say to that? >> i say that's a classic donald trump. whatever he can do to drive a wedge, whatever he can do to send a signal, a dog whistle to those people who themselves may hold these notions about there is a black job versus a white job, to divide people. then he wants to say to blacks and latinas that the jobs that they're coming for, are coming after you. there are no black jobs or white jobs in this country. we have a country made up of people of different backgrounds, different experiences, but all of us have the ability to make

contributions to growing this country's economy and to making this country a better place for our children and grandchildren and we are not compartmentalized as to a black job or a white job, but american jobs, creating a greater economy that has become the envy of the world and we will have to keep working together to do that. that's what joe biden is all about. donald trump, if i can divide you, i will conquer you. and that's what he's trying to do. divide americans so he can become an autocrat running this country. >> let me jump back to joe biden to end this. i'm curious. i would say this if it was a republican who had a night like joe biden's or a democrat who was 81 years old and had a night like that. i think it would make sense that he does like a live town hall, no prompter, and, you know, at a timing of what works for him, but no holds barred, questions

coming from all sides and really show that he still has got it and he still not only is interested in doing the job, loves the job, wants the job, but can do the job. do you think he should do something like that? >> absolutely. and that is exactly what i said to all the people i talked to on friday morning, where do we go from here they would ask. put joe out among the people so people can see him and feel him and he can see and feel them. that is what we need to do. have what i call town hall style operations, let him stand on the stage, let him have freewheeling discussions, let them ask the questions and let him respond to the questions and have the media looking in on the discussions rather than driving the discussions. that's what's happening here. when media people drive the conversation, it may or may not reach the american people, but

if joe biden is on a stage, walking around, in a group at a town hall of circumstance, he will connect and they will connect to him, and let the media look in on it as a bystander to the conversation. >> may i suggest live on "morning joe" in a church in south carolina. we would be happy to do that. >> joining the conversation we have nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard host of the on brand with donny deutsch, donny deutsch, special correspondent at vanity fair molly jong fast,

former strategist of the mitt romney presidential campaign stuart stevens he is now a senior advisor for the lincoln project and staff writer for "the atlantic" david from. good to have all of you with us. stuart, you have an op-ed titled "democrats stop panicking." why don't we start right there. a lot of democrats are panicking and i think what they saw on thursday night, yeah, there's a lot -- we have a lot of questions, stuart. i mean, i've already said what i think, but i can understand the worry. >> all the presidential campaigns i did people were constantly worried, sometimes for good reason, sometimes not. you look at it as everything is going great, keep it up. you know, there's something here

that's sort of i think lost in this conversation. millions and millions and millions of people voted to nominate joe biden as the democratic nominee. so the major -- one of the overarching arguments against donald trump is -- doesn't want to acknowledge the will of the people. he's proven that. january 6th. so somehow now democrats are going to say, okay, we're going to throw out these millions of votes and have a small group of people who are going to know best who are going to select a nominee. how does that work? what's our message going to be? our autocrat is better than your autocrat? you know, this is one debate. the proof that joe biden can do president is is he a successful president? this isn't theoretical. he is one of the most successful presidents in the modern era. so i think everybody should just let the campaign go forward, they're going to have better days, they're going to have bad days. donald trump is out there talking about black jobs for heavens sakes. don't day trade politics.

>> don't day trade politics. that's hard when you are on cable news. but, okay, we will work on that. donny deutsch, no day trading. okay? i love that term. so it is one debate, donny, but i want to be realistic here and i've stated that i think that joe biden should continue, i've stated the imbalance i think in the media coverage and the media reaction compared to donald trump's treasonous rampage across this country, trying to escape jail, and worried more about himself than anything, but joe biden proposed the debate. joe biden prepared for the debate. so it's more than just one debate and one bad night. i think that this has raised some legitimate questions and i

definitely think everybody needs to wait and see what happens next, but what do we need to see from the campaign? what do we need to see from the president? >> look, there's -- i will answer that question, let me first start, there's only one question that matters right now, i'm going to approach it as a businessman, is joe biden as right now he's been a little wounded a better path to beat donald trump, there's only one goal here, save democracy, beat donald trump, or is the chaos and unknown and all that happens on this side, which is a better solution? the only way joe biden continues to be the better solution, this is answering your question, is he has to immediately get out there and, as you talked about earlier, not in a staged, you know, way with the teleprompter, in a free form, where he gets tough questions, where he has to disprove the thesis that he's not ready for it. if he can't do that, or they're not willing to do that, they continue to keep his up wraps then the other path might be a better solution. i still believe if joe biden can dispel those things, but he has

to -- you can no longer say to the american public trust us. you can no longer say to the american people what you see didn't happen there and it was not a bad night. people are not stupid. you can't insult people. if the answer is to stick with joe biden he has to get out there and in a very tough format answer tough questions. if he can't do that or if the campaign is not willing to have him do that that tells you something right there and then we have a real problem on our hands, but there's only one solution, it's crisis management and in a crisis you hit it head-on, you walk right into it. if for some reason they're not comfortable with him walking right into it, then the other path might be the answer. >> all right. david, your latest piece is entitled "trump should never have had this platform" and you write in part, quote, everything about the event was designed to blur the choice before americans. both candidates, the serving president and the convicted felon, were addressed as president. the questions treated an attempted coup d'etat as one

issue out of many. i do agree with that. it will be important to keep in mind that this election is not about biden, it's about you and your commitments and your values. biden is just the instrument. like any instrument, he's imperfect, but better an imperfect instrument than a would be autocrat who demands a cult of personality. this most recent debate has taught the danger of spectatorship, the job of saving democracy from trump will be done not by an old man on a gaudy stage, but by those who care that their democracy be saved. biden's evident frailty -- evident frailties have aggravate that had job and made it more difficult, but they have also clarified whose job it is, not his, yours. and what are we -- you're talking to all of us -- supposed to do at this point, david?

>> [ inaudible ] -- i wrote back in april saying i thought the debate was a mistake. i don't think that presidents of the united states should do joint media performances with convicted criminals. now it has happened, can't be unseen. [ inaudible ] -- contrasted a liberal and a conservative. a conservative is one who is -- wants to stick with existing evils as opposed to a liberal who wants to try new evils. call me a serve tip on this one. i remain a registered republican, i'm emotionally and intellectually and temperamentally a republican, i don't trust the democratic convention to make good choices. they've made a choice, the project now, we have to think realistically about what is being proposed, that in four days some 2,000 democrats or the number that makes up a majority will unite on a ticket that is bester than biden/harris, will agree that that ticket is better than biden/harris, not tear themselves apart, not have recriminations afterwards, no

the have hard feelings and one of the things i notice when we talk about who that ticket will be is the person who i think is the best democratic choice for the future, roy cooper, the governor of north carolina is never mentioned because he is too bland. the activists want the exciting people, people who align with their values, whitmer and warnock and newsom and the exciting democrats, not the ones who have successfully governed a purple state for two terms and won cities like charlotte. i don't know that democrats have good judgment about how to do these things. one last data point to keep in mind, the reason joe biden is president and hillary clinton never became president is that joe biden won double digit points better among white men than hillary clinton did, he did better among white men than any democrat since bill clinton. so what's the plan to hold on to that important group while the democrats chase all the other groups that are more

overrepresented among the delegates in the base? how do you not tear yourself apart at a convention? so evils are evils, but stick to the ones you know before chasing the ones you don't know. >> staff writer for the alt tim david frum and stuart stevens, thank you both. molly, i have to say david's point is so good because this is so easy to talk about, there are great democrats out there who have the ability to become president, josh shapiro, gretchen whitmer, the list goes on, wes moore. we have people who have incredible futures ahead of them and who right now are doing incredible jobs as governors and also as supporters of president joe biden, but david says -- and i agree -- just letting the convention decide this, throwing it out there, that is so much easier said than done and the

outcome could be unexpectedly terrible versus what we know. and what we know can be argued. let me put it this way, i don't know what the next week holds for joe biden, i think he has to obviously get out there and show that he's okay. i think he will. but we also know what his record is. we know what he's done has been historic. we know that he's beaten trump. i don't know anybody else who can bring that to the table. so these conversations that we have, you know, oh, my gosh, this person could do it, let's have this person do it, let's have joe biden step down. i think it's so much riskier than it sounds when you're just chatting off the cuff about the future of our democracy. >> yeah, no, i mean, there is a reason that republicans desperately want joe biden out of this race and it's because what happened the last time democrats had a brokered

convention is that they elected richard nixon. right? i mean, this is not -- there is no modern successful precedent for this, and this is a democratic party that you will remember in 2016 they really lost because they were not divided -- they were not -- they were divided. you know, you had a bernie coalition and a hillary coalition and those two groups did not seem to mostly mesh. they didn't. in 2020 what happened was there really was an agreement but it was sort of miraculous and was not nothing. so, yeah, i think that's totally true. i also think like if the president doesn't run, the vice president takes over. that's how this works. and the way that the money works is the money goes to her, right? the biden money goes to her. so you would have to make a case for why this woman who is a historic woman in every way, who has been, you know, an ag, who has been a senator, who has been a history maker, who has been, you know, really a great or

ator, that she is somehow not capable of doing a job that she has been practicing doing for the last four years because you want to swap in someone else because you consider them to be more electable. and i don't see a world where that scenario makes any sense to anyone. >> let's go to vaughn hillyard. vaughan, i'm curious what your reporting shows, how people felt about the debate. i mean, there was joe biden and there were the clear issues that we've been talking about all mornings, but then there was donald trump who had an endless narcissistic, delusional rant of lies every time he opened his mouth. i'm not even exaggerating, that's what happened, he lied all night like a rug. so what are you hearing about how people are responding to the debate, how they felt about it, their reaction to biden versus trump, fundraising and any other

signs of where this is going. >> right. i think the issue here, mika, is that americans largely over the last eight or nine years have come to expect donald trump's lies and falsehoods and his tangentialramblings. there is a population that becomes immune to the donald trump they saw on stage on thursday night. for donald trump this is somebody who likes to emote strength. that is a core tenet of him as a political candidate and somebody going back to i alone can fix it, to being dictator for a day, this is a line where he has an opponent now that he wants to face in joe biden. after leaving the debate he had a rally just south in norfolk, virginia, on friday evening in which he said this is a race between strength versus weakness. now, i will let others determine the -- determine that actual debate, but for donald trump this plays into the messaging of

him as a strong leader, right, a strong executive. you could say an authoritarian to some degree. somebody that is able to, you know, convince a swath of americans that he in the executive branch could be an effective leader on that front. >> yeah, it's so interesting. there is the presentation of strength that trump likes to put out there with his fist and then -- and a lot of people know donald trump, his name recognition is global. a lot of people have known joe biden for a long time, for decades they have supported this politician, this 81-year-old with a lifelong stutter, and i think what they saw is something they're used to as well. he's not perfect, but he gets the job done. so it will be very interesting to see if they go with the vision of donald trump and what he put out there, versus the content that joe biden brings to the table. vaughan, stay with us, we want to get to your interview with

former trump adviser steve bannon as he reports to federal prison this morning following his contempt conviction. also ahead, at the top of the hour the supreme court is expected to issue its long anticipated ruling on whether donald trump can claim immunity from prosecution for at least some of his actions in seeking to overturn the 2020 election. it's been a long wait for this. neal katyal and andrew weissmann join us next on "morning joe." dn join us next on "morning joe." right now across the u.s., people are trying to ban books from public schools and public libraries. yes, libraries. we all have a first amendment right to read and learn different viewpoints. that's why every book belongs on the shelf.

yet book banning in the u.s. is worse than i've ever seen. it's people in power who want to control everything. well, i say no to censorship. and i say yes to freedom of speech and expression. if you do too, please join us in supporting the american civil liberties union today. for over 100 years, the aclu has fought for your rights and mine. including the right to read all manner of books. so please call or go online to myaclu.org. for just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day. you can become a guardian of liberty and help protect all the rights promised to us by the u.s. constitution. make no mistake, this move to ban books is a coordinated attack on students right to learn. this is a clear violation of free speech. that's why the aclu is working to fight against censorship in all its forms.

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half past the hour and at the top of the hour the supreme court will at last hand down its decision on donald trump's claims he should have total immunity for anything he did as president. joining us now former acting u.s. solicitor general and msnbc legal analyst neal katyal, he

has argued more than 50 cases before the supreme court, and nbc news legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, andrew weissmann. neal, let's start with you. there are those who are saying it's too late, this doesn't matter because they got what they wanted, time. >> yeah, i think that that's largely right. i mean, the supreme court has been sitting on this case since february 12th, mika, four and a half months ago they agreed to hear the case and it has been slow-walked unfortunately ever since. i do suspect the justices today will rule against trump or largely against trump, but as you say, the question is does that really matter? i mean, it matters if donald trump doesn't become president, it means he's going to be tried for january 6th and will face justice, but if trump wins, then he can nullify this prosecution before the trial begins. the judge on the face, judge chutkan has said in the past that she wanted to give trump

around 81 days from the time the immunity decision is resolved to the start of trial. that creates some possibility of a trial before the election, but not much of one, and it's pretty significant here because the january 6th committee didn't have all the evidence that jack smith has in this case. liz cheney, the vice president of that commission, said that in a "new york times" piece. that the american public has never seen the evidence against donald trump that the prosecution here has and they very well may not now because of the supreme court's delay in resolving this matter. >> andrew, a lot of legal scholars seem to think it's going to be a little bit of the split the baby sideways where he will not get immunity but only in certain official capacities. how is that going to play out, though? who determines that and how does that play out in a reality world? >> well, that might be a little bit of a silver lining here. there is highly unlikely to be

time for a trial and so as neal correctly said, the full scope of the evidence and a jury verdict is just so unlikely to happen before the election, however, if there is this sort of split the baby and that's something that i think people should really sort of look for, is whether the court says, do you know what, i'm letting the district court essentially have a pretrial hearing to decide sort of what's immune and what isn't immune. whether there's certain types of official action for which he cannot be tried and certain types of official action for which he can be tried. that allows the district court to have an evidentiary hearing with witnesses and to neal's point and to liz cheney's point, that would mean that witnesses like vice president pence who has testified in the grand jury here, could be called as a witness. white house counsel could be called as a witness. in other words, there could be a way for the public to hear

additional evidence that they never heard in the january 6 case where the judge essentially has this kind of pretrial hearing. a notable thing about a pretrial hearing, the judge wouldn't have to wait the 81 days. that's something that the judge could have in a month. >> neal, i'm not a supreme court expert by any stretch of the imagination, but in my mind this seems like they're in the tank for trump. can you explain to me is that true? and if not, how not? >> well, yeah, i think that's -- that's an overstatement, molly. i mean, if you go back to, for example, the 2020 election, they were repeatedly asked to rule for trump. they always said no. last year in a big election case moore versus harper which would have given republican control to presidential elections they ruled against trump's position and the republican position in a 6-3 decision. so sometimes they do act in a

very different way than i think your question indicates. and here i think at the oral argument they were pretty good indicia from justice barrett, from justice kavanaugh, from the chief justice that they weren't buying trump's position hook, line and sinker. we will have to wait and see but it i think it would be a bit of an overstatement to say what you said. >> so in just under two hours former trump adviser steve bannon will enter a federal prison in connecticut. this after the supreme court rejected his last-minute appeal to stave off his four-month sentence for defying subpoenas from the house january 6th committee. vaughan, you spoke with steve bannon on saturday. what did he have to say? >> mika, i think steve bannon is important for two reasons, number one, he's going to prison because he defied the january 6th select committee. he did not, therefore, answer questions under oath about his two phone calls with donald

trump on january 5th, his two phone calls with donald trump on january 6th, he did not have to turn over any evidence. that is why steve bannon is going to prison for the next four months. number two, steve bannon has -- his microphone has only grown ever since leaving the white house as chief strategist. he is essentially a modern day rush limbaugh, he has a daily podcast simulcast online and on tv, it's called "war room." there are a major subsecretary of the american population, fervent trump loyalists that watch steve bannon on a daily basis and i think he is a real sill nl as to where the maga movement goes even beyond donald trump's presidency or potential presidency. take a listen to part of our conversation. >> just this month in detroit up on a stage you said that there is no chance that the democrats are going to win this. >> no chance. >> if they declare that they do -- >> they're stealing it, 100%. >> you know that elections in the united states are close.

you know that there is a very reasonable chance that the democrats win the white house again. to go -- >> hold on. vaughn hillyard -- >> why sow that distrust -- >> because vaughn hillyard i knew that thursday night was going to happen. how can you sit there unrelated to the facts. we know and we follow every day that joe biden is feeble, that joe biden is feeble, and msnbc -- >> that doesn't mean that the american public may not vote for him again. >> are you kidding me? have you seen the polls? have you seen "the new york times," have you seen -- >> that is not evidence of voter fraud. >> i didn't say that. there is zero chance that democrats can win -- >> zero chance, that's not how elections vote, voters go work, there is not zero percent chance. >> what does the maga movement look like after donald trump? five, ten years from now? >> i think the maga movement i think you see it right now, on the spectrum of maga i believe that president trump who is is very kind hearted and big hearted guy, i would say

president trump is a moderate in our movement and i think the maga movement is shifting day by day farther right. >> donald trump is a moderate in the maga movement? >> definitely president trump is an moderate. >> that's why steve bannon is an important voice we have to keep coming back to. regardless of how november turns out for president trump there's people like steve bannon whose microphone will continue to reign. based off of the results in france yesterday we know that the maga movement will continue to exist in some form and steve bannon will be right there. he is a major source of disinformation in this country. we have the full interview with steve bannon online, but he is somebody who continues to propagate information like the fact that there is no way that joe biden is going to win in knife. he is the one who suggests that the january 6 was a federal government setup. in our interview he could not name a single individual or accuse a single individual who was a federal agent there at the capitol on january 6, but steve bannon will be at about noon hour here this morning going to prison for the next four months.

he will be released the week before this 2024 election. >> so the entire interview available online, vaughan. that was incredible. >> yeah. the entire interview online. >> all right. nbc's vaughn hillyard, thank you so much for that. former acting solicitor general neal katyal and former federal prosecutor andrew weissmann will both be watching the supreme court as it hands down its decision on immunity claims. i'm curious, andrew weissmann, if you think there is any chance donald trump loses that or is it a big one? >> i think i actually think he will lose this. i'm sort of interested in whether there are dissents by people like justice alito and justice thomas here because this is kind of a no-brainer. the idea that we're having a supreme court argument on whether a president or former president can shoot somebody and get away with it is -- to say it

is to refute it. >> right. >> so the thing that i'm sort of interested in is are there going to be dissents here and if there are, that should be -- if the dobbs decision was not a wake-up call for this country that the supreme court is on the ballot, those dissents and what they say about whether there should be immunity for a president or former president should be a second wake-up call. so that's a second thing i'm going to look for, but i don't think he is going to be accorded immunity that in an area that would sort of wipe away the current indictment. i think the way the current indictment is being wiped away is, mika, as you said by the timing of the decision. >> and, neal, same analysis question to you. what should people be looking for in this decision? >> well, i think that one thing to look for in addition to what andrew said is is the chief justice able to craft a

unanimous opinion here. there's no doubt that that's what john roberts' goal is. he cares so much about the -- his court speaking with one voice and big controversial cases. he hasn't been able to pull that off in very many cases, despite his considerable talents. there's a question as to whether the roberts court is not the roberts court anymore, is it the thomas court, is it the alito court and the like? i think andrew is absolutely right to say this court has been acting out of step with the mainstream of american society, dobbs is, i think, exhibit number 1 but the decision last friday to overturn the chevron doctrine which sounds technical but is perhaps going to impact americans more than any other decision of the supreme court in recent years because it's going to basically force deregulation in all sorts of areas from environmental law to consumer protection, you know, to everything, that's a massive change in the way the law is

done, it's a 6-3 decision along effectively party lines, and i think, you know, biden or the democrats should be raising these questions before the american people and saying is this really the supreme court that we want or must we do something and the way to do something is to win presidential elections. >> all right. gentlemen, thank you both very much. up next, a look at some of the stories making front page headlines across the country. plus, panda express. we will show you the two giant pandas back here in the u.s. and where you can see them. "morning joe" will be right back. 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

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i know you love your dada. of course he loves you, he just doesn't show it on his face. or with his body language. [ cooing ] ♪ sweet child of mine ♪ pop! [ screams ] two giant pandas have completed their journey from china to the san diego zoo, they will spend the next couple of weeks in a private habitat to acclimate to their new

surroundings, the pandas are part of the panda diplomacy program between washington and beijing. this is the first pair of pandas to enter the u.s. in 21 years but the panda party doesn't stop there. two other adult pandas will return to washington, d.c.'s national zoo at the end of the year after the nation's capital bid an emotional farewell to three pandas last november. time now for a look at some of the morning papers, in michigan the grand rapids press leads with a new warning from the environmental protection agency that water utilities are not prepared to handle cybersecurity attacks. according to the epa, about 70% of water authorities inspected last year did not meet the standards meant to prevent cyber breaches. "the tennesseean" is highlighting a state law that protects musicians against the misuse of artificial intelligence. the so-called elvis act goes into effect today, it builds

upon an existing law that protects the unauthorized use of someone's name, image and likeness by adding one's voice to the list. two major record labels are currently suing ai startups for allegedly using their music to create generative models. and in new york "the post standard" reports residence ds. a new app called new york mobil id, users can upload a digital version of their license, permit or state-issued id. the mobile id can be used at participating vendors to purchase tobacco and alcohol, it can also be shown at the tsa check points at laguardia and jfk airports. that's pretty good. coming up, rock & roll hall of famer michael mcdonald joins us with his new memoire "what a

fool believes" along with his co-writer, actor paul riser. when "morning joe" comes right back. paul riser. when "morning joe" comesig rht back ♪♪ why won't scout play with us anymore? he has something called osteoarthritis pain. it's joint pain that hurts him all the time. come on, scout. now, there's librela. the first and only once-monthly injection to control your dog's oa pain. veterinary professionals administering librela who are pregnant, trying to conceive, or breast feeding, should take extreme care to avoid self-injection, which could cause allergic reactions like anaphylaxis. this is the best day of my life!

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♪♪ that is the doobie brothers performance of "what a fool believes" winner of the grammy awards for both song and record of the year in 1979. it was written by rock & roll hall of famer michael mcdonald alongside kenny loggins, also

the title of his new memoir co-written with actor and comedian paul riser. "what a fool believes" tells michael's story of being a high school dropout in ferguson, missouri to musical stardom, both with the doobie brothers and also as a solo artist. michael mcdonald and paul riser join us now. it's great to have you both with us. michael, i'll start with you. tell us how the title reflects your story and how and why you and paul decided to get together to write this together. >> well, first of all, i'm still pinching myself, the remarkable luck of, you go to write a book for the first time and somebody with paul's skill set says, well, i'll help you. we've known each other for 20

years. paul has always been interested in what makes people tick, being an actor and have his background as a writer and author and actor. i thought to myself, god, i can't pass this up. this is the opportunity of a lifetime. something i probably never would have gotten around to doing, i think only exists today because of paul's help and effort on the project. but it was fun the whole way. i think "what a fool believes" is an apt title. i didn't at first. i thought it was a little obvious and wanted something more abstract and weird. but paul talked me in to keeping it. as we wrote the book, as the book kind of came to life in our own eyes, the story kind of developed as we wrote it. it seemed more apropos with each

chapter we wrote. i think in the end the title really fits what the story is about. >> paul, donny deutsch. couple hood sat in my bathroom for years. i kept going back to it. that's a compliment, by the way. that didn't come out the right way. >> thank you. >> obviously a different muscle used writing about a friend and writing about somebody else. talk to me about the difference in the process there. >> this was the first time i ever wrote something or helped write something that was not for my personal use. it was mike's story. to be honest, it was very selfish. i wanted to read mike's story. i've been a friend of mike's for years and a fan even longer. i never really knew and i think a lot of people don't know mike's actual history. i said write a book. he said, well, i'm not sure how i would do that.

i say, well, we'll help. it's all mike's writing, mike's story. he lived it. my contribution was sort of, i would push him and say, that's funny -- i was sort of the eyes and ears. mike was strikingly honest and forthcoming about his life and where he would have done things differently and sort of the through line on the book became life happens despite some of the choices we make. when it was done, i was really gratified that, oh, i get it now. i know who this guy is, and i have even more respect for him and admiration for him after that and knowing his real story. >> paul, molly here.

i'm curious, to write a book with another person is a completely different experience. was there anything where you guys got stuck and you couldn't resolve it or any sort of -- did it change the friendship at all. just speak to me about that experience. >> well, you know what? it was more fun than writing alone, because i had somebody else to complain to. what are we doing here? we never got stuck. we started this a couple years back just when lockdown started. and it was very convenient because we had no jobs. nobody was going anywhere. so it became sort of this fun thing. at the start, there was no publisher, no deal. we said, let's do this, and if it's fun, we'll do it. if at any point it's not fun or not making you happy, mike, we'll pull the plug. it was really done -- it was very easy. we zoomed. we did this. i would ask questions and mike would tell stories, and i would

just type it up. there was no shortage of great stories, and not only mike's history, but really a great view of rock and roll history. mike's career spans this wide breadth of american music and the music business. so it's a fascinating read i feel on a couple of levels. hopefully mike is happy and happy that he said yes. >> "the new york times" beflt seller "what a fool believes: a memoir" is on sale now. co-authors michael mcdonald and paul reiser, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. we needed that. okay. any moment now the supreme court will issue a ruling on donald trump's immunity claim. katy tur picks up the coverage in one minute. katy tur picks up the coverage in one minute.

good to be with you. it is 10:00 a.m. in new