transactional way, saying that taiwan essentially has an insurance policy with the u.s. and needs to pay more. he, of course, expressed a reversal of sentiment toward tiktok, as well, and he was cool toward sanctions on russia. >> yeah, certainly comments about taiwan set off alarms in the foreign policy circles. important interview. take a read. we should always view everything donald trump says with healthy skepticism, that includes his acceptance speech tonight in milwaukee. white house and politics team leader for bloomberg, mario parker, live for us at the rnc. thank you. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. if you can be convinced that you cannot defeat donald trump, will you stand down? >> well, it depends if the lord almighty tells me that, i might do that. >> you earlier explained confidence in your vice president. >> yes. >> if your team came back and

showed you data that she would fair better against former president donald trump, would you reconsider your decision to stay in the race? >> no, unless they came back and said, there's no way you can win. me. no one is saying that. no poll says that. >> 1,000%, in your words, see you on the ballot this november? >> unless i get hit by a train, yeah. >> let's hope that doesn't happen for your safety's concern. >> is there anything that you would look to, you personally, not anybody else, not other pundits, not even perhaps family members, that you would look to to say, if i see that, i will reevaluate? >> if i had some medical condition that emerged, if doctors came and said, "you got this problem, that problem." >> since the debate, president biden has given a number of responses as to what could drive him from the race. the last response came in an

interview taped on tuesday. now, his covid diagnosis is adding to the growing concerns about his chances of defeating donald trump in november. all of that comes as there's new reporting the president is becoming more receptive to conversations about stepping aside. we'll go through all of that in just a moment. plus, from never trumper to running mate, senator jd vance accepted the nomination for vice president last night at the republican national convention, giving the keynote address. we'll bring you some of the big moments from his speech. and we're learning more about the timeline of the assassination attempt on donald trump, as well as new details about the gunman. >> the news keeps getting worse for the secret service. >> it does. we'll be covering that. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it's thursday, july 18th. along with joe, willie, and me, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire.

msnbc contributor mike barnicle. nbc news national affairs analyst and chief political columnist at puck, john heilemann. and co-founder of "axios," mike allen. great team this morning. >> yeah. >> your thoughts on this, what we're seeing, potentially an evolution of thought on the part of president biden on whether to stay in? >> we've had so many momentous days over the last couple weeks. i can't believe there won't be history books that just detail what's happened, maybe over the last three weeks, the last 21 days. it's really dizzying. it feels like when you see documentaries of 1968. the chaos that went on, just one event after another after another. but yesterday, willie, was just a day in and of itself that may

be determinative, that may lead to that march 1969 moment when lbj announced that he wasn't going to seek the democratic nomination again. i mean, you think about yesterday morning, we're on the show, and i brought up a series of polls that showed very little movement post debate and very little movement even post the tragedy that occurred on saturday. also, just one democratic pollster after another saying it wasn't the debate that caused damage to joe biden. it was probably all the democratic infighting afterwards. so there was a belief in biden world that he could survive. then we get off the air, and one thing after another happens. of course, we heard that senator schumer, the democratic majority leader in the united states senate, called on joe biden to,

in so many words, to step down. hakeem jeffries basically the same thing, real concern. perhaps still one of the most powerful people among grassroots and democratic donors, nancy pelosi. >> yeah. >> still out there. >> that's the one. >> what i keep hearing is speaker emeritus pelosi, so brilliant, she's not getting on phone calls saying, "joe biden must go." she's conducting a listening tour, and she's calling one democratic house member after another that are in vulnerable seats. all she's getting back, bad news. so she's letting them know just enough, based on reporting, that she understands their concerns. she's very concerned, too, that they cannot lose the house. you have that, so that sounds like elites. on top of that, of course, "the associated press" poll tharks

that two-thirds of democrats want joe biden out of the race. that's not the elites. that's the heart and soul of the democratic party. there's no way a candidate can win a general election if two-thirds of his own people say he needs to withdraw. i think those are backwards. >> yeah. >> two-thirds actually want him out. so you add all this up. finally, he gets the word from jeffrey katzenberg in las vegas, who, before, had been the hero of fundraising, who had raised all this money for joe biden, just telling the president, the spigot has run dry. donors are not giving money anymore, mr. president. we can't get donors to give money. you then hear about, not infighting inside the biden campaign, but just a sadness. >> yeah. >> an understanding that they

cannot win with a man that they respect and love. they're basically waiting for orders. who are they going to help beat donald trump? so all of that, all of that happened yesterday, along with so much more. >> yeah. the end of the day, we learn that the president of the united states has tested positive for covid, which felt like a cota to the day you laid out, where democrats just went, ugh, how much more of this can we take? i think what we saw yesterday was everything we'd been hearing in private, not just, frankly, for the last three weeks, but for a long time, spilled out publicly. which is that the polling now shows, private polling and now public polling that we're seeing, internal polling and public polling, that this is an uphill climb, not just for the president but for everybody down ballot. that's why you heard adam schiff, who is likely to be a senator from the state of california coming up here in a few months, starting the day with a public statement saying

that joe biden should step aside, that he is going to take down with him others who hope to become senators, hope to hold on to their seats in the house, for example. then this sort of -- the dam broke, and we heard reports of chuck schumer, as you said, the nancy pelosi, hakeem jeffries, and it went on like this all day, saying, "we've looked at the data. yes, we've seen the national polls, but the election is not a national referendum. we're looking at our district polls. we're looking at state polls. including one this morning from emerson showing donald trump leading in the state of virginia by three points." that's a snapshot of where this race is right now. that's why you're seeing more vocally democrats saying it is time to get out. i wonder, mike barnicle, what you think about the president's state of mind right now. obviously, we saw him after the covid diagnosis looking frail, getting onto air force one last night. he respects nancy pelosi. he respects chuck schumer. we know that.

what will this weekend of isolation at home in delaware be like for biden and his family? >> i think it'll be a reflective weekend for the family. taking a look at the reality of the landscape. i think the sadness of it will finally penetrate the entire biden family. and the sadness of it, but sadness, i mean when you have elected officials, many of them unnamed in these newspaper stories about democrats indicating that they don't want joe biden to be on the ballot this fall, running for re-election as president, the sadness of it is you keep hearing the word bitter. they are bitter. and the idea that joseph r. biden, who is a magnetic personality with people, loves to grab people, slap them on the shoulder, "how are ya, buddy? how have you been," that he'd be referred to as bitter is really something. it's really something. that, jonathan, is, i think,

epidemic now within the house candidates and some of the senate candidates. >> yeah. we're seeing another real push by democrats to try to adjust the top of the ticket. the biden campaign, since the debate, has been out there, trying to fend this off. he's done a number of interviews, number of campaign events, some very well received. he has been out there publicly saying, i'm staying in this. stop asking me. the questions have only grown. the biden team's efforts to push this aside simply haven't worked. as joe just ran through, yesterday felt like a really significant day. we should note, the schumer meeting was over the weekend. pelosi was several days ago. jeffries was several days ago. but what was not coincidental, they all lead to yesterday. this is the time, democrats see this as the final moment, a contrast of what we're seeing at the rnc, where, like it or not, republicans are totally unified around donald trump. they've embraced his running mate. we'll hear from trump tonight. the confidence there. they're also expected to put up

a record fundraising total in the wake of the assassination attempt. you contrast that with the democrats, their own fundraising drying up and this sense of doom that's permeated the party. maybe it's not fair to president biden, but that's where the party is right now. it does feel like as the president heads home to rehoboth, off the campaign trail, in what would be a crucial moment to provide counterprogramming to the rnc, that if this is going to happen, it'll happen in this next stretch. again, publicly, the president is saying he is staying on. we'll have to see if that changes. >> joe and mika, joe, you pointed to this ap poll, the argument from the campaign has been it's elites. it's the media trying to push joe biden out. well, we've said all along, over the last three weeks, that's just not the case. all you have to do is go to the grocery store, the dry cleaner, gas station, and people are talking about his age. frankly, a lot of people were rooting for joe biden, waiting for the interviews, watching the performances, and clearly not assured when you see that 65% of

democrats, not just americans, of democrats believe it is time for him to step out of the race. >> right. and you can look at all the polling. listen, here's the deal, there's 110 days left. we've said this time and time again. we've seen polls. anybody that remembers 1980 remembers that on wednesday, thursday, friday before the election, the race was too close to call. suddenly, there was a massive break toward ronald reagan the final weekend. reagan wins a massive landslide in 1980 over jimmy carter. go to 1988. there is michael dukakis, up by 15, 16, 17 points in the summer. george h.w. bush mocked, ridiculed, this race is over. democrats were saying completely confident. bush wins in a landslide. 2016, mocked and ridiculed for even saying in late october/early november that donald trump had a pathway to 270 electoral votes.

everybody likes to say, oh, we knew. no, they didn't. nobody was saying it. the very few people saying it were being mocked and ridiculed. that was in 2016. so, yes, a week in politics, i think mcmillen may have said it, maybe harold wilson, one of those british prime ministers from the 1960s said it, that in politics, a week is a lifetime. you have 110 days. so many things can happen. so many things will happen. that said, show me any candidate from any year running for any position where he gets to the general election and two-thirds of his own party do not want him to run. i don't care if it's joe biden in 2024, if it is joe scarborough in, like, 1996, if it's a mayor running in 2014, that candidate is going to lose.

those are numbers you just can't get past, mika. >> given what you've just said, joe, this goes back to the point that you made a week ago, perhaps more, that the dems need to get it together. they really need to get whatever they've got going going. whatever it is, the problem should not be our candidate. the focus should be on donald trump. um, you know, it may or may not be joe biden. i trust joe biden's abilities. i also trust nancy pelosi's political acumen. nobody knows politics more than her, and nobody more than nancy pelosi. she does not get out there without information to back it up. she doesn't take risks, and she knows her politics. she knows her numbers. >> she doesn't lose votes. you remember, whenever nancy pelosi -- well, is this vote going to pass or not? we'd always say, when nancy was speaker, well, if she puts it on the floor, it'll pass because

she knows where the votes are better than anybody i've ever seen. >> if there is a change, it's got to be a change that gets barack obama behind the candidate, michelle obama behind the candidate, george w. bush behind the candidate. former presidents and world leaders and people who understand the importance of democracy. it's going to take citizens who care about this country to bring this back together, or trump will win. trump right now is on the path to winning. >> yes, he is. let's go to nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles. ryan, what a day yesterday on the hill. i'd ask, what did you hear? i guess i'll ask, how much did you hear of what we just talked about? >> where to begin. >> where to begin. >> joe and mika, you've crystallized it very well. the issue here is rank and file democrats have just not felt comfortable about president biden at the top of the ticket since that debate took place. i think part of the reason that you saw the calls and the angst

subside a little bit was because of that assassination attempt on former president trump. it just kind of pushed the story to the back burner. but i can tell you from my own reporting that the conversations were still ongoing and that people were still very nervous. in fact, you know, right before the assassination attempt was this phone call that president biden had with the new dem coalition, and more than 100 rank and file democrats, mostly moderate to left democrats, which was a very uncomfortable phone call. it was supposed to last an hour. it only lasted 35 minutes. president biden could not be heard very well by people on the call. he got defensive at one point during an interaction with congressman jason crow of colorado. i know many of the democrats got off the call feeling worse about the situation than they had going in, and they already didn't feel good about it. i think that is kind of the foundation of what you see in this maybe third or fourth round of angst and concern from

democratic leaders about president biden's role in this campaign. what is interesting is that hakeem jeffries, nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, they had been very quiet about their own personal feelings about the situation. to be clear, they're still being very quiet. but what they're allowing to let happen right now are the rumors and the speculation about what went on in these closed door conversations between schumer, pelosi, and jeffries, and the president, and they're not going to great pains at all to deny the conversation and the tone of those conversations. what i was told is that the conversation between schumer and biden on saturday was blunt, that schumer laid out for president biden in detail the polling that he is showing about these races, not just at the national level but in individual states and in individual districts, and that it was a conversation just between joe biden and chuck schumer.

what is interesting about this conversation is that there has been a concern among many rank and file democrats, that perhaps the message wasn't getting directly to joe biden. that he was being insulated by some of the closest -- some of his closest associates and family members, and that he wasn't getting a real reality check has to how his party was feeling and average voters were feeling. now, we know he's had direct conversations. we know he talked directly with hakeem jeffries. jeffries has said on the record that he conveyed the feelings of his caucus. we know that his caucus is upset. the still lingering question that hangs above all of this is that there's only one person who can decide that joe biden is no longer going to be in this race, and that is joe biden himself. there are now reports that he's at least open to that idea, something that was not even leaked out early on after the debate. that was something that he wasn't even considering. so if that door is open even a crack, my guess is that at least

congressional democrats are eager to bust it wide open and try to convince him to find a path to exit this race gracefully. then the conversation can be who comes next, which i think is still a very open conversation within the democratic party. >> obviously, nancy pelosi coming out yesterday -- not coming out, but the leaked information that she suggested he get out of the race because of what's going to happen down ballot now gives permission, because of the respect she demands in the party, for other members to make their voices heard. you walked down the path to my next question, ryan, which is, do all the people calling for joe biden to get out, do they have a plan? i think that's the concern among democrats. okay, 65% of us say we want joe biden to step aside. we respect his service. we like the job he did in his first term, but we need to know what comes next. is it definitely vice president kamala harris? do they open it up at the convention? what's the thinking there? >> well, i think that has been the biggest problem that democrats have dealt with as

they've fought through this process. in the early days after the debate, the conversation i had over and over with congressional democrats in particular was, we're not comfortable with joe biden at the top of the ticket, but we're even more concerned about the mess that could be created if he were to leave and there was a fight for who would take over the top slot. that conversation seemed to cool a little bit, you seem to see a growing, almost kind of a group of democrats being more and more convinced that the easiest path would be to nominate kamala harris. that would allow them to keep the party infrastructure in place. it'd allow them the opportunity to move with a degree of ease that may not be afforded if they were to try to open the process up. and we've already seen many of these congressional democrats, even some who have been defenders of president biden, the most prominent being jim clyburn of south carolina, specifically saying that if joe

biden is to step down, it better be kamala harris. obviously, she has strong support within the congressional black caucus. she obviously has a lot of support with the women in congress, as well. i think it would be a very difficult proposition for congressional democrats to bypass her, unless there was a clear alternative. i don't think they want to get into a situation where they are fighting over this nomination. you know, i know james carville suggested town halls around the country. i don't hear too many democrats thinking that's a good idea. the short answer, willie, there isn't a plan right now, which is part of the problem, and i don't think that conversation begins in earnest until we know president biden is willing to step aside. >> all right. nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles. >> thank you, ryan. >> thank you so much. good luck out there today. john heilemann, this three-part political drama for the bidens' tragedy, this

three-part drama, it seems that democrats keep moving to different possible options if he does leave. i know during the second act, we'll call it the clooney years, which was, like, six or seven days ago, there was the suggestion, not only in the op-ed, but from other democratic leaders, that they were going to have an open convention. this would make kamala harris stronger if she ran against three or four other people. all the better if she won. she would win with the wind at her back going into the fall. my reporting at least suggests that's changed dramatically over the past 24 to 48 hours. they are coalescing more around kamala harris. but i'm curious, what is your reporting there, and what is your reporting on the general state of the biden campaign? >> well, so to start with that,

joe, i think what ryan just said is the truest thing, which is there really has been an attitude among everyone in the democratic political class, elected, strategists, and donors, that they've kicked ideas around. the two obvious ways to think of this are the coronation or competition. the coronation wouldn't be legal. it's not like -- joe biden can't just transfer those delegates over to kamala harris, but he could lay hands on her. if the party wanted to circle around her, they could do that. then she could be effectively coronated. there's been another school of thought, let's figure out some competition, whether it is mini primaries or these town halls, and have an open competition at the convention. i think you're right, has people confront the likelier reality that joe biden will step aside, not 100% guaranteed, but the

increasingly likely scenario, just the riskiness of that which everyone acknowledges, that this is a wild thing to do, to take a sitting president, switch them out in the summer before a general election, that they have to kind of try to get a grip on the risk factor of who they'll put at the top of the ticket. whatever else you want to say about vice president harris, she's a known quantity. the rest of the governors, many of them, attractive, compelling figures, they have not been vetted nationally. they have not run for president before. >> correct. >> they are not known in the way she is. so there is a gathering feeling you're talking about, but it's still a large question mark. what ryan said is right, most people have been like, we don't need to engage the question of what comes less unless the guy in the big chair in the oval office decides he's going to step aside. the last thing i'll say, you talked earlier, joe, about how much news there was yesterday and how fast things were moving. that was definitely true. but i will just say that yesterday was not -- this is not an accident or a chaotic day.

it was a day in which a series of carefully orchestrated, sequenced things took place. i said a couple weeks ago on the show that there are a handful of democrats joe biden might listen to on this topic. nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, hakeem jeffries, the clintons and obamas, but only secondarily, and jim clyburn. they were the only ones biden would take this argument seriously from. what we learned yesterday, at the end of last week, nancy pelosi, hakeem jeffries, and chuck schumer all had similar conversations directly with joe biden, saying, "you need to seriously consider stepping aside. the polling is so bad, it could doom democrats in the house and senate." nothing happened after that. we had the assassination attempt. this all went quiet. it's not a coincidence that adam schiff, one of the closest allies of nancy pelosi, went public with his call on biden to

step aside. >> right. >> then the sequence of leaks of the jeffries leak, the schumer leak, and then the pelosi leak, in the space of 12 hours, that is not an accident. it's not coincidence. that is former speaker pelosi and those other leaders sending a very public signal to joe biden. that they are not going to keep their concerns quiet anymore. they are going to make them public. they made them public yesterday, and i think the pressure publicly will ratchet up on joe biden over the coming days from those people if he does not decide to bow out. >> yeah. as bill clinton once said, if you see a turtle sitting on a fence post, it didn't get there by accident. and you didn't have one leak after another leak after another leak and adam schiff all coming out the same day saying joe biden should get out of the race by accident. it was planned.

let's go right now to milwaukee. i don't know if you know this or not, but there is a political event going on there. you know, mike, speaking of -- >> the mood is quite joyous. >> "the national review" said going into '22, if you're talking about -- if people are talking about donald trump, democrats are winning. if people are talking about joe biden, republicans are winning. here we are 26 minutes after the top of the hour, and we've all been talking about problems inside the democratic party, for good reason. because that's the news. i mean, it is news, what's going on. so get us up to date, though, with what's happening in milwaukee. also, what you're hearing from the biden campaign. >> yeah, we'll start with the biden campaign, joe. exactly right about the sequencing. so on your air, i talked about the fact, three weeks ago, that

there was an effort among top democrats to give president biden the chance to walk off the stage. they said he is proud. he is stubborn. we love him, appreciate him. we want to give him the chance to walk off the stage. president biden in the view of the top democrats did not take the hint. the way that one top democrat, someone very close to the west wing, put it to me sunday as i sat here on the floor of this hall with my laptop doing reporting at the republican convention about what was happening in the democratic party, they said, "we don't want to humiliate him." that was the effort. then we saw this sequence yesterday, and as my brilliant colleague puts it at the top of "axios" this morning, president biden is now self-isolating, both medically and politically. with covid now, given the

sequences, he said, what could get him out of the race? the president said the lord almighty. then he said data, polling that showed i couldn't win. then he said health. then privately, there's reporting saying he is being told that vice president harris can win. so all his boxes now are checked. one more thing about vice president harris, a very specific plan for her to run. democrats are going to be able to start fast -- would be able to start fast with her if they go that way. one, she instantly makes roe the center of the race. very important to democrats. the fall of roe, dobbs versus democracy, as they've put it. second, the way democrats cleverly put it, now, age and fitness would be the republicans' problem, the republicans' issue if she were the nominee. third, they would frame it as prosecutor, as she was in my

home state of california, elected d.a. of san francisco, former attorney general versus convicted felon. but, as ryan nobles was saying, the president has to choose this. he has the delegates. the statements yesterday from both the campaign and will the white house, he is the nominee or soon will be. they can't take it from him. he has to make that choice. >> joe and mika, if you watch this convention over the last three days coming spot former president's speech tonight, this is not an endorsement of the policy or the rhetoric that's being put forward there, but it has been party unity. if a convention is a campaign rally, this has been a good one for donald trump as he walks spot hall to a standing ovation every night and sees all those candidates that he's vanquished over the years come before him and endorse him. it was a very powerful moment last night that we'll show later on, where the families of the 13 marines killed in the exit from afghanistan came forward and talked about their daughters and their sons and about what happened that day and endorsed

donald trump. so it's been a rally and a convention where two-thirds now, according to an nbc poll, of republicans believe in their candidate. two-thirds of republicans say, okay, here we are now. donald trump is our guy. contrast that with what we've been saying this morning, where 65% of democrats say their candidate, the sitting president of the united states, should step aside for someone else. >> yeah, it really is something. as jonathan martin said, donald trump used to divide republicans and unite democrats. >> yeah. >> right now, we're in a stage where donald is uniting republicans and dividing democrats. how to best beat him? >> we'll see. ahead on "morning joe," the kremlin is supporting jd vance as trump's running mate. what russia's foreign minister is saying about the republican senator. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

here's to getting better with age. here's to beating these two every thursday. help fuel today with boost high protein, complete nutrition you need... ...without the stuff you don't. so, here's to now. boost. why do couples choose a sleep number smart bed? can it keep me warm when i'm cold? so, here's to now. wait, no, i'm always hot. sleep number does that. can i make my side softer?

i like my side firmer. sleep number does that. can it help us sleep better and better? please? sleep number does that. 94 percent of smart sleepers report better sleep. and now, free home delivery on select smart beds when you add adjustable base. sleep number smart beds starting at $999. shop now at sleepnumber.com together, we will make sure our allies share in the burden of securing world peace. no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the american taxpayer. together, we will put the citizens of america first, whatever the color of their

skin. we will, in short, make america great again. people will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home. if this movement of ours is going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that america is a nation and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interest first. >> president vice presidential nominee jd vance with an america first message in his acceptance speech last night at the rnc. this while russia's foreign diplomat appears to approve of jd vance as donald trump's running mate. >> wow. >> that's my point. >> yeah. >> at the u.n., russian foreign minister sergey lavrov held a press conference. when asked about vance's position toward ukraine, lavrov said vance is, quote, in favor

of peace, in favor of ending the assistance that has been provided, and we can only welcome that. lavrov said ukraine needs to stop being pumped full of weapons, then the war will end. of course it will. here's what he told steve bannon in february of 2022 when russia was about to launch the full-scale invasion of ukraine, and he was a candidate. >> when i graduated high school in 2003, a kid on our block, we both served in the marine corps. we didn't enlist to fight vladimir putin because he didn't believe in transgender rights, which is what the u.s. state department is saying is a major problem with russia. at the end of the day, we serve to defend our own country. i think it is ridiculous we're focused on this border in

ukraine. i have to be honest with ya, i don't really care what happens to ukraine one way or another. >> joining us now, president emeritus of the council on [ speaking in a non-english language ] foreign relations, richard haass. and former state department's elise jordan. >> he is certainly lined up where donald trump was, heaping scorn on allies and doing the bidding of our enemies, at least appearing to do the bidding of our enemies. you know, donald trump would always attack democratically elected governments and talk about how great putin was and xi and kim jong-un. well, look at jd vance. yes, he said that, which, of course, makes the kremlin thrilled. he also has recently said that britain is the first islamist country to have a nuclear weapon

because he doesn't like the fact that keir starmer has a diverse government. fascinating. of course, i guess, i don't know, maybe it wasn't in the history books when he was growing up, that pakistan already has a nuclear weapon. but be that as it may, here we have again somebody whose words who live aid to russia, attacking a western government who is one of our strongest allies. >> lots to say, joe. just to begin with where he began, he basically talks about his experience with iraq and says that's why he doesn't support helping ukraine. but iraq in 2003 was a war of choice for the united states. what ukraine is doing is a war of necessity. they have been invaded. russia's goal is to essentially eliminate it as a sovereign place. second of all, the united states and, you know, thousands and

thousands of troops were sent to iraq. we're not sending one troop to ukraine. we're helping ukraine indirectly. over the last 2 1/2 years, in part thanks to our help, it's been a success. who controls what after 2 1/2 years of fighting, ukraine, because of its own efforts and with american and european help, fought russia to a standstill. this has actually been, i think, a remarkable success for western, for american foreign policy. if we allow russia to win there, then jd vance's nightmare would happen because russia would not necessarily be content. they'd then challenge nato. then what? then we would have the challenge about sending american troops. >> richard -- yes, then american troops are put in a position to defend other countries in europe, and american troops die. it costs us more money. this is, bluntly, this is like us getting out of iraq overnight and creating a vacuum.

into that vacuum came isis. that's something trump talks about all the time. this morning also, on the "wall street journal" editorial page, they rightly question donald trump's abandonment of taiwan, saying basically, we're not going to do anything for taiwan. there's a "wall street journal" editorial page that says, this position will end up causing american lives. they're talking about 10% tariffs, massive taxes on the american people. stupid policies that may sound good in a sound bite, but if you think through it, as "the wall street journal" editorial page, it ends up costing americans more money, more lives, more hardship. whether it's the abandonment of the centerpiece of our asia policy in taiwan or turning over central europe to russia. >> yeah, if you read the full

bloomberg interview, it is quite stunning. essentially, the president dismisses our ability -- president trump, let me make it clear -- to defend taiwan. talks about the impossibility of it. basically sees taiwan as an economic competitor or adversary. what this tells you then is two things. it is so emblematic, joe, and where these two issues go together. one the trump/vance team sees the world through this narrow economic prism. it's as if geopolitics and history never happened. everybody is an economic competitor. all that matters is, you know, trade. if they are producing things, it's bad for us. anything other than american manufacturing is unacceptable. secondly, they seem not to care about geopolitics. what do they think would happen if china moves against taiwan and we weren't there to help? what would they think ultimately it'd mean for the security and stability of what's the most importantcentury, which is the asia pacific? that's where the wealth, the money is. what do they think the japans

and koreas would do. a world where everyone gets nuclear weapons of their own, is that stable? what happens to american influence? it's as if the last 75 years didn't happen. people are ignoring all the benefits we've accrued from this post world war ii world, and they seem ready to essentially deconstruct it without putting anything in its place. i just think this is short termism of a really, really dangerous variety. >> well, mike barnicle, let's talk about the consequences of america in retreat. what happens when america is in retreat? chaos is unleashed on the world. we are the indispensable power. let me say it again, america is the indispensable power. so you don't have to go back long. i talked about iraq. we got out of iraq overnight. what happened? sounded good. everybody cheered it. then isis goes in, fills that void. we have to send american troops

back, and we have to fight with our allies there and go door by door by door in mosul, in bloody urban warfare, to try to wipe out isis. you can also talk about syria. you can go back and look at this show with us asking during the syrian civil war, how long is america going to stand by? 10,000 dead. 20,000 dead. 50,000 dead. 75,000 dead. 100,000 dead. 200,000, 400,000, 500,000 syrians dead, and we did nothing because people were concerned that, well, we don't want to be like bush and cheney. what happened there? not only did half a million syrians die, arabs die, muslims die, it also unleashed the greatest humanitarian crisis across europe since world war ii. so there are two recent examples of america going, you know what?

it's just better that we just retreat, lead from behind, put up a fortress, and do nothing. but we always have to go in and clean up the mess, whether it's isis or whether it's a massive humanitarian crisis, because it always ends up back on our doorstep if we try to retreat. >> the interesting element of what you were just saying is there is a touch of pre-world war ii isolationism, oddly enough, in today's republican party. oddly enough, they think the two oceans we're surrounded by separate us from the world, separate us from the globe, and give us a false safety of what isn't there. you worked in a republican administration. the fact that we are assisting ukraine against putin, and the idea that we ought not to care about ukraine, as jd vance has said, is shocking.

no? >> what would be the second and third order effect on the economy if we just abandoned our aid to ukraine immediately? the ripple effects within europe especially. i am, though, concerned by germany's announcement that they're going to have their aid to ukraine by 2025. i think this is the gradual direction that so many allies are going in after, i guess, it's been 2 1/2 years now that ukraine has been at war. the spigot is going to end eventually, and so you have allies signaling that they're going to start reducing their aid. i think that what you hear from trump and jd vance is what republican voters want right now, and some democratic voters, too. i've been struck doing, you know, focus groups in wisconsin and michigan, by the tenor of foreign policy in this time of economic hardship. voters simply do not want to be spending money abroad, even though it is a very small

portion of our budget, when they feel that inflation and other problems at home aren't being addressed. >> what it means is that people who care about these issues won't have to show why it matters, why what happens there affects here. also for ukraine, it's a conversation we've had on the show, we have to define success in a way that is achievable at a reasonable cost. the definition of success in ukraine cannot be, we fail until ukraine is able to liberate all the land it's lost in 2014. not going to happen. we've got to choose a definition of success where people can say, we're going to put in this amount of aid. this is an achievable goal. we can protect core ukraine. russia will not get what it wants. that would become the basis for diplomacy. putin realizes that, i think then he will essentially will potentially willing to compromise himself. i do think we have to adjust our policy toward ukraine. it can't be whatever zelenskyy wants, zelenskyy gets. that is an unsustainable policy. it is not going to succeed. but you're right, the european position is this kind of

wavering, it's worrisome. again, we have to have realistic goals and stand behind them. >> if you don't have public support -- because you brought up pre-world war ii. look how long it took fdr to convince the american public that, yes, we had to go in. it took after pearl harbor. >> it feels like a lifetime ago, but the nato summit in washington was just last week. mike allen, not only did president biden -- >> wow. >> -- deliver a strong defense of alliances there, but mitch mcconnell, senate minority leader, said that protecting ukraine, protecting nato, he wanted that to be the final legacy here in his time in office, centerpiece going forward. yet, now in milwaukee, and as you well know, they're standing out placards last night to delicates that read, "trump will end the ukraine war." we know what that means. he's said that what means. that means he will push ukraine to accepting the current battlefield positions and give russia a win, allow them to achieve the new territory. talk to us about the tension

within the republican party. it sure seems like the trump/vance side of it is winning and winning big. >> well, no question. and the naming of jd vance was so consequential, both on economic policy, national security policy. the three finalists, these were not three eggs in a basket to mix up expressions. picking jd vance sent a real message. the trumpism, as it has been defined, will be the republican party going into the future. if jd vance wins twice, becomes vice president and president twice, trumpism would be in the white house until january 2037. the flip side, you saw behind the scenes, until the very final day on monday, we're told rupert murdoch, senator lindsey graham of south carolina, calling

president trump to -- former president trump to lobby against jd vance. you saw the pictures last night of rupert murdoch and senator graham in a box, watching jd vance's speech. both with pretty grim looks on their faces, even though now, they're going to say they support him. they fought against him, and ukraine was a big reason why. jd vance has made a very strong argument against, against continuing continuing aid to ukraine. that's part of jd vance's superpower, part of why he was chosen, was the ability to make the argument at length, including on what they call adversarial media. >> all right. mike allen, thank you very much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," we are learning new details about the investigation into the attempted assassination

of donald trump, including what secret service agents knew about the gunman before the former president even took the stage. >> which raises the question, why they allowed donald trump to even take the stage. >> yeah. >> nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley will join us with her new reporting. "morning joe" is coming right back. hi, i'm gina. i've tried so many things to lose weight. none of it worked. i would quit after a few days

or a week at the most. golo is not like any of those. with golo and release i not only met my goal i've surpassed it. and i'm keeping it off.

[ put a little love in your heart by david ruffin begins to play ] my bad, my bad. good race. - you too. you were tough out there. thank you. i'm getting you next time though. oh i got you, i got you. down goes jewett. jewett and amos are down. what a lovely sign of sportsmanship. you okay? yeah. ♪ ♪

the more we're learning about what led up to the assassination attempt, the worse it looks for the secret service. >> yeah. >> it's just -- the unspeakable errors they made, one after another after another. i don't know how anybody can justify the head of the secret service staying in her job. >> well, we're learning new details this morning about the investigation into the attempted assassination of former president trump. nbc news correspondent stephanie gosk has details of the disturbing timeline. >> reporter: in an fbi and secret service briefing with members of the senate, troubling revelations about the hour before a 20-year-old gunman opened fire on former president donald trump. >> there he is right there. >> reporter: senators learned he was identified as being suspicious and photographed more than an hour before the shooting. according to multiple sources familiar with the briefing, a detailed timeline was shared with senators. at 5:51 p.m., pennsylvania state

police notified secret service of the suspicious person with a range finder. 5:53, the secret service notified its snipers. at 6:02, trump takes the stage. >> he's on the roof! >> reporter: at 6:09, people in the crowd saw thomas crooks on the rooftop and shouted to law enforcement. >> right there! >> reporter: two minutes later, shots are fired. [ gunshots ] >> reporter: senator ron johnson reacting to the briefing at the republican convention in wisconsin. >> congress has got to do detailed and intensive oversight. leave no stone unturned. no question unasked or unanswered. >> reporter: senators also learned the shooter visited the rally site several days in advance of trump's appearance to scope it out. >> it was a cover your ass briefing by the secret service. the director of the secret service needs to go. >> reporter: a secret service spokesman said a local s.w.a.t. team was in the complex where crooks fired the shots but not

in the same building. would one of the goals of a team securing that area be to keep people off the roof? >> for sure. the plan, whatever it was, failed, and we need to understand why. >> reporter: pressure is mounting on the secret service in the wake of these revelations. trump was allowed to take the stage even though a suspicious individual was spotted in the area. >> maybe he's carrying a range finder but not a report of a weapon. you would not necessarily be considering moving your protectee or delaying his entrance onto the stage. >> reporter: senior law enforcement officials say crooks was also found with this device, a fireworks detonator. federal agencies said suspected improvised explosive devices were in his car. the department of homeland security inspector general now opening an investigation into the agency's handling of saturday's rally. among the many unanswered questions, when did law enforcement first see the gun? >> joining us now, nbc news

homeland security correspondent julia ainsley. you've been following this story so closely. we should note, director cheatle was at the republican convention. a number of senators tried to confront her in milwaukee to demand more answers as to what happened. what is the secret service offering in the ways of explanation or defense as to how things could have done so wrong? >> well, jonathan, you know, one of the actual downsides of so many investigations from congress, independent review panel that has been launched by dhs and the white house, and now we have two separate dhs ig investigations, the second being opened yesterday spot counter sniper team preparedness, means that secret service in many ways can tell the media, "we can't comment because of ongoing investigations." that's why the briefing yesterday to congress, both the house and senate, was so important, because we were able to get more detail of the timeline. also, more details about how crooks planned for this. we understand that he scouted

the scene days prior. there's been reporting from "the new york times" that say he looked into -- he had images, had done research on biden and trump, looking at their schedules, looking at the dnc. there still doesn't appear to be a very clear motive about why he targeted this event and trump, or perhaps he was politically motivated across both parties to carry out some kind of attack. a lot of answers they're still searching for. as far as secret service director cheatle, she's to testify next week and likely to come under a lot of fire. not only are we hearing from republicans, you mentioned those at the convention, but also police unions. this was a lot of people, including the fraternal order of police, coming back against cheatle, saying she mischaracterized the way the local police acted. when she said there was a local sniper team in the building, they later had to say, oh, they were actually in another building in the same complex. that's in part because of the

heat she's getting from police unions. the initial word from secret service right after this incident, we heard it over the weekend, we heard it earlier this week, they're starting to shift their tone, was that this building was outside of the secret service perimeter and fell to local law enforcement. there were a number of different agencies from the state, the county, and the township who were around that area. but it's not clear at all when you speak to former secret service agents and officers why they wouldn't have included this rooftop in their perimeter when there was such a clear shot. also, why they allowed trump to take the stage, the other big question. at 6:02, he takes the stage. we know that secret service notified the snipers about this person at 5:53. an hour before he took the stage, the police had already identified him as a suspicious person. they later shared that information with the secret service. he had a range finder and a backpack. again, there was no indication he was armed at that point, but

a lot of questions about why secret service didn't act sooner and why they didn't secure the rooftop, jonathan. >> julia, what do we know about the elements of the secret service apparently within the complex where the shooter was hiding on top of the roof. what was that all about? what were they doing there? how many were there? what aspects were there? >> surprisingly, none of those people were part of the secret service at all. they had snipers positioned at other places around the event. inside that complex, that was made up of what they call an emergency security unit, which is taken from different counties around this area. butler county, beaver county, these are rural areas where they could maybe each chip in one officer to be part of this sniper team. they were in another building within that same complex. as we just learned yesterday, when the secret service had to back off their initial reporting about how they staffed that,

there was no one on the roof or inside the building that the shooter chose to take his position. they were in another building inside the complex. it's not clear why that decision was made or if the secret service was part of that, but we do know that, based on planning meetings and documents in the days ahead of this rally, the secret service and local law enforcement identified that roof as a vulnerability. >> all right. nbc news homeland security correspondent julia ainsley, thank you very much. usually, situations like this, it's easy to question and you sort of have to wait, but the questions just keep getting worse. it keeps getting worse. >> well, really, it was obvious, all the questions that we and i think so many other americans were voicing when it happened. >> what is going on? >> how did it happen? how was there that clear shot? you can go on and on. how was the president allowed to be exposed for nine, ten seconds as he was walking off the stage? so many questions. john heilemann, we're at the top of the hour now.

if we could, for people that are just tuning in, we talked a good bit last hour about the number of democrats that came out yesterday, at least leaks that came out, whether it was from majority leader schumer or whether it was from leader hakeem jeffries, whether it was from people around nancy pelosi. we could do on and on. we also, though, and it is something you've been focusing on, we need to talk about the president and his trouble raising money from big donors. jeffrey katzenberg had a meeting with the president in las vegas before the announcement of covid where he said the money is dried up. we don't have the money. that information also leaked to the press. >> right. yeah, look, joe, i mean, so yesterday, as you said, all those people, you know, ducks in a row.

adam schiff, a close pelosi ally, certainly with her blessing. first, we heard a leaked thing about how at a fundraiser over the weekend, he said he thought biden would lose. yesterday with "the l.a. times," announced, probably the most prominent democrat so far, almost certainly a senator for california, said he wanted biden to step aside. rapid succession, word coming out that hakeem jeffries had a tough meeting with biden last friday, that schumer had meeting on saturday. last night, not coincidentally, almost the moment jd vance finished speaking, abby philips of cnn broke the news that nancy pelosi had had the same conversation with biden. i believe it is possible she's had that conversation with biden more than once, in fact, since last thursday. up in of this is a coincidence. this is what it looks like when the democratic leadership, still

trying to get joe biden to do what they believe is the right thing for the party, which is to step aside, still trying to only go public in a kind of oblique way, not calling a press conference, not issuing anything formal. their patience is now exhausted. they have looked at these numbers. to come back to the money, joe, jeffrey katzenberg devoted a lot of his professional life to try to get joe biden into the white house. joe biden in 2020. raised money in 2020, more than any other person. he's raised more money for joe biden collectively, pulling the people together, hollywood fundraisers, and he is a campaign co-chair. he went to biden yesterday and said, the big dollar donors are done, effectively. i'm paraphrasing. we can still raise money at the grassroots, but that means about half of the money we were expecting for the fall, we are not going to have. joe biden has had a significant

financial advantage over donald trump for the first half of this year, as we all know. this goes a little to the discussion we've been having about polling. they have spent hundreds of millions of dollars already in the battleground states. one of the things that worries, again, democrats and some of the president's people, is that they've spent a lot of money in those battleground states and have not moved his numbers very much. while the trump campaign has not had very much money the first half of this year. so they look at a place like pennsylvania where they've spent the most money in any given state, and his numbers have gotten a little worse than rather than a little better. donald trump has not been on television, other than the trump super pac, and jeffrey katzenberg is saying to joe biden, our time of being in a financial advantage over donald trump is over. big donors are going to give their money to down ticket democrats to try to save the house and senate. that's the reality of the picture we're facing, mr. president. that was the message to him yesterday from jeffrey katzenberg. if you take that message and

combine it with the orchestrated message, really collectively, of the leadership of the congressional democrats, that is as dark a day as there has been for joe biden since the debate. it is now sort of clear that, collectively, leadership of the party in the senate and house and the donors who support joe biden and the democratic party are basically sending a very clear message to joe biden about what they think is in the best interest of the party. now, joe biden, with covid, god bless him and hoping for a speedy recovery, gets to go back to delaware and think it over. it's going to be a very -- it is a very sober time for him. the message -- the wrywriting in the wall. whether he reads it or not, it's up to him, but the message is on the wall clearly for him from the party. >> john heilemann, as always, thank you so much. mika, the sobering message he got yesterday from congressional leaders and his biggest fundraiser was simple.

we're losing. you're losing. you're going to run out of money because the donors have left. i don't know what the two or three in his inner circle are going to say to that. the fact is they don't know more than nancy pelosi about polling. >> right. >> they don't know more about contributors than jeffrey katzenberg, who dedicated a good chunk of the last decade to helping elect joe biden. when you hear from congressional, we're losing, the donors have abandoned you, it doesn't matter what people are saying on the inside. >> like i said last hour, i believe deeply in president joe biden's ability to run this country. >> yeah. >> i also trust, more than anybody i've ever met in politics, nancy pelosi's political acumen. when she speaks, i listen. i think a lot of other people

do, as well. >> democrats certainly do on the hill. >> let's bring in nbc news and msnbc political analyst and former u.s. senator claire mccaskill. claire, your thoughts this morning as the president works to recover from covid and the rnc is confidently under way? >> yeah. this is a tough, tough time for the democratic party. for a lot of reasons. but if you look at the narrative of what's happened, i think -- and i look at this, folks, from a perspective of somebody who might be running for senate in a tough state. because that's what chuck schumer is focused on. hakeem jeffries is focused on congressional candidates running in swing districts. that's what delivers majorities for the policies we care about, for the values we all share. they watched the debate, realized that the age issue has

now become -- had now become something that was very, very big. immediately afterwards, those candidates and those elected leaders of our party thought, well, let's give joe biden space and grace. because, you know, this was a horrible night for him, and everyone felt for him personally, about how difficult that night had to have been for him and his family. and the other thing that happened is everyone waited a week to ten days to poll. i think you can assume that every single battleground state where we have a senate election waited seven to ten days, then went in the field. they asked questions like, "would it impact your vote if the u.s. senate candidate refused to acknowledge that there might be difficulty with joe biden serving another four

years?" they asked questions like, "do you believe joe biden is the strongest candidate for the democrats to, in fact, field?" those polls all came back. and as time went on, it appeared the circle around joe biden got closer and closer. then it came time for the leaders of those groups, hakeem jeffries and chuck schumer, to take data to the president and say, "this is what we're facing. this is really a problem." not that anyone, i think, took joy in that. not that anyone is trying to push joe biden off a cliff. i think everyone is feeling a lot of mixed emotions about this. everyone. because there is this thing looming, and we watched it last night. people who ten minutes ago were calling donald trump a hitler

and unhinged are now going, rah-rah, you know, isn't he great? it is something that i think, when they tried to move up the roll call, i think that, frankly, turned a lot of people that were sympathetic to where joe biden was to being angry and mad. that not only were they not listening to the concerns of the other elected people in his party, but that they were hell bent on going forward even more quickly than they needed to, to try to, like, slam the door on honest concerns of a whole lot of -- and these aren't elite voters out there, guys. you know, i can just tell you from my time over the last week, most people who come up to me that are folks like, you know, my plumber who called me. >> yeah. >> these are people that are really worried about donald trump being president. >> deeply worried, mike. you know, it did seem like, to

claire's point, that the biden team had a window here. after the debate, we'll give you a chance. prove us wrong. show us you can still do this. he's been out there. he's had some good performances, decent interviews. he got through the press conference just fine. but it almost seemed like the performance ended up not mattering pause the perception had taken hold. he no longer could do it. the data backs that up. fundraising backs that up. it seems that these democrats, who really like joe biden, who are deeply grateful to him for his service, who think he's been a very good president, they no longer think he is a good presidential candidate. nothing that has happened, despite biden and his team's best efforts, has changed their mind. >> jonathan, age historically has gone undefeated. there is nothing you can do about it. you get old, you get old. there are certain elements of getting older that affect you physically and sometimes mentally. the problem here is the confusion about who joe biden is

today. joe biden remains today the decent, generous, honorable human being that he has always been all of his life. to read the reports as clear as is indicated, unnamed members of congress, unnamed members of the senate who are thinking of their down ballot success this fall, thinking about their own jobs, everybody understands that. but to be told that their bitter about joe biden or disappointed in joe biden is really, really sad. because the man has given his best to the country. >> yes. >> he's had a wonderful four year administration with more success, i'd argue, than barack obama had. joe and mika, i don't know about you -- i do know about you, actually, but the sadness about this is personal for me and people who know joe biden. >> yeah. >> you don't want to see him

pushed out, hurt or humiliated. you want to see him thrive to be a success, whether he walks away from the nomination or sticks it out for the nomination. >> right. >> you want to see him succeed. >> well, we do. we -- we have known him for a long time. mika and her family extraordinarily close to the bidens. have always felt a connection. the first brzezinski award named in your father's memory went to joe biden for good damn reason. and you are right. joe biden did more as far as bipartisan legislation than any president this century. nato expanded. what he's done in asia to strengthen our position in asia around china. also unprecedented, everybody has been talking about a pivot to asia for years. joe biden finally did it. these are the things that donald

trump is talking about taking apart. whether it is nato, whether it is taiwan, you can go down the list. so, yeah, joe biden has been -- at least by our count, joe biden has been an extremely successful president. i will say, though, when you're told by members of congress that they're losing, they're going to lose the house and the senate if he stays on the ticket, when you're told by members of congress who have seen the polls that you're losing swing states and that your numbers are going down in swing states, states like virginia, new hampshire, new mexico, minnesota are now in play, and when your top fundraiser over the past five, six, seven, eight years is telling you the money is gone, donors have all gone away, you

know, it's really incumbent on people that are around joe biden to step up at this point and help the president. help the man they love, and do the right thing. this is not going to end well if it continues to drag out. look at the events of yesterday. >> mm-hmm. >> the events of the last three weeks. at some point, you know, i can tell ya, mike, the anger that i hear is not at joe biden. the anger i hear are at the people that are keeping him in a bubble. >> or who have their own interests. >> or who may have their own interests, some financial, in keeping him in the race. that is the real anger. let me tell you, that's not just

the anger from inside congress. that is anger from inside the political, his own political camp. it is widespread. it is widespread. joe biden deserves better. he deserves better than he is getting from those closest to him. meanwhile, republicans are feeling extremely confident about donald trump's prospects to win the presidency again. senator jd vance of ohio introduced himself to a national audience last night at the republican national convention, accepting the nomination for vice president. the 39-year-old shared stories of his turbulent upbringing, which was chronicled in his bestselling memoir, "hillbilly

elegy." he pitched himself as fighting for the middle class. >> trying to restore, if what is lost may never be found again. a country where a working class boy born far from the halls of power can stand on this stage as the next vice president of the united states of america. [ applause ] joe biden has been a politician in washington for longer than i've been alive. 39 years old. kamala harris is not much further behind. for half a century, he has been the champion of every major polity initiative to make america weaker and poorer. we have a big tent in this party on everything from national security to economic policy. but my message to you, my fellow republicans, is we love this country, and we are united to win. [ applause ] my message to my fellow americans, those watching from

across the country is, shouldn't we be governed by a party that is unafraid to debate ideas and come to the best solution? [ applause ] that's the republican party of the next four years. united in our love for this country and committed to free speech and the open exchange of ideas. >> you know, very interesting, jonathan lemire. i'm finding that ivy league elite schools, whether it's -- >> here we go. >> -- yale -- >> it's true, though. >> you went to columbia. yale, harvard, or princeton, these elite institutions that would not even allow me to buy a t-shirt from their campus stores. [ laughter ] these elite institutions are producing some of the fiercest

populists in america. i mean, this populist stick that he is doing, i love the split screens of him in his little tech vest, you know? i love san francisco. san francisco is great. i love it. i love san francisco. and, you know -- >> there it is. >> -- i love san francisco so much. >> look at these folks. >> have a latte. >> the elites out here, they're so smart. yeah, we have josh hawley, man, he is a fierce populist. stanford, yale. ted, harvard. princeton. i mean, these are places, you know, they put apbs out. southern state school guy is coming, lock up the campus door. >> okay. >> no t-shirts for joe. >> you get to wear a couple t-shirts from ivy leagues. >> alabama. harvard of the south. damn straight, sister.

>> roll tide there, joe. >> i make him wear a dartmouth t-shirt. >> i have an ole miss t-shirt i'm allowed to wear. i love ole miss, too. anyway, this whole populist thing is crazy. this whole we love america, nobody else loves america. how do you love america if you're always saying that it's terrible? how do you love america when you deny that we have the strongest economy in the world? how do you love america when you deny that we still have the greatest entrepreneurial engine in the world? how do you love america when you continue to tear down the strength of america's military, when you call them weak and woke? in fact, they're stronger relative to the rest of the world any time since 1945. how do you love america when you keep talking about how terrible america is? that's the great enduring mystery i would love answered. that is the great enduing mystery that i wish democrats would actually ask republican candidates. >> i think for jd vance, his

effort to sort of symbolize his transformation from venture capitalist to this version of himself is when he grew the beard. no beard back then. now, he has the beard. that's trying to symbolize his new political viewpoint. but you make a good point about this dark vision of america that we've heard from republicans. all the data doesn't really back that up. yet, we know there is sort of a post covid malaise in the united states, other countries, too. inflation now cooling but had been too high. by the numbers, america is as prosperous as it's ever been. that stands in contrast to the vision painted not just by vance, but most notably, donald trump. that's why i do think maybe he'll stick to a script tonight and preach unity, we all know that won't last. his truth social suggests otherwise, that he will, indeed, go back to depicting america as apocalyptic, thinking it resonates with his votvoters. joining us from milwaukee,

national political correspondent from politico, meredith's book "trump in exile." you have reporting on how president trump and jd vance's relationship went from sour to now partners, sharing the ticket together. tell us about that. >> well, let's go back to 2016 when jd vance wrote "hillbilly elegy." that served as a kind of guide to the white working class grieved voters that donald trump appealed to. it really helped to translate to a lot of people the political base that donald trump was tapping into. but back then, jd vance wasn't so much a fan of donald trump. he called him a liar and was one of the faces of the never trump movement. but flash forward to the 2022 midterm elections, and jd vance

made appeals to donald trump. he ran for senate in ohio. it was a crowded primary field, and he was able to win donald trump over for a few reasons. one, he directly took on those criticisms he once had of donald trump, but he also had some really powerful allies behind him. people like donald trump jr. and peter thiel who made appeals to trump on his behalf. and i have some reporting in my book about some of the encounters that trump and vance had, whether it was at his golf course in palm beach or it was, you know, other instances where trump thought that vance was his guy and ultimately endorsed him. but it really is a remarkable arc for jd vance, to go from once a liberal darling to now the vice presidential nominee

for donald trump and somebody who is really seen as the maga heir apparent now. >> meredith, so many different reasons have been cited as the reason why donald trump decided to go with jd vance. that he was a true populist. he liked his foreign policy. he liked his defenses on television. but then there'sattractason of jd vance recanted and surrendered to donald trump. why do you think trump, at the end of the day, decided to go with him? >> i think trump has always loved to win over his former critics. we've seen that time and time again with people in the republican party who once denounced him and now have become some of his biggest cheer leaders. but i think with this pick, it really came down to a few things. one, i think they have a strong personal rapport. i think donald trump was looking at this moment, especially just

in what has transpired in the past few weeks, and is looking for somebody who is going to push his maga movement for the decades to come. jd vance is incredibly young, 39 years old. he is turning 40 in a few weeks. at a moment where the conversation, the national conversation swirls so much about age, questions of age, i do think that was a factor in it, too. going back, of course, to some of the people who have been supportive of jd vance, donald trump jr., trump's son, was incredibly supportive, as were other people, like tucker karl carlson and others who helped vance get his endorsement back in 2022. >> national politico correspondent for "politico," meredith mcgraw, thank you very much. meredith's new book, "trump in exile," is set to be released on august 6th.

jonathan lemire, you mentioned vance's beard. "the new york times" took a deep dive into that aspect of the vance candidacy. "the times" notes the ohio republican is the first major party nominee with facial hair in 75 years. the last bearded man elected president was benjamin harrison back in 1888. the last president with any facial hair whatsoever was william howard taft, elected in 1908. the last vice president with a mustache was charles curtis, who served alongside herbert hoover. and the last major party candidate to try to break that clean shaven streak was thomas, who had a dapper little caterpillar on the upper lip and ran unsuccessfully for the office in '44 and '48. at "the times" notes, these days, facial hair is often seen

as suspicious, particularly for someone seeking office. quote, it didn't help that politicians lost their races and appeared to be experiencing something of a long, dark night of the soul sometimes expressed by crises, disappearing and reappearing with beards. we have one more honorable beard mention. >> yeah. [ laughter ] >> i liked it, richard. i liked it. >> it may come back, mika. it may come back. >> no, i like your face. >> richard -- >> jonathan lemire. >> very, very handsome either way. i will note, there was some reporting about jd vance's beard, suggesting that, actually, harry s. truman had a beard. he was a light goatee. like he didn't shave for a weekend is all it was. we're not going to go there. >> play for the yankees. >> jd couldn't play for the yankees, but there was some reporting that donald trump

initially was leery of the beard. he didn't like it. he doesn't like beards. doesn't like facial hair. he is desperate for people to look the part, but he was convinced to look the other way here. even once compared jd vance's beard to one sported by, in his words, a young abraham lincoln. we have that to aspire to the next time you go for it. look there. [ laughter ] >> 19th century presidents have the best style. mike barnicle -- >> i'd take the hair. >> spectacular. >> okay. >> uncanny. >> richard haass, thank you, richard, very much. still ahead on "morning joe," one of our next guests says one generation of americans has had a stranglehold on the white house and won't let go. we'll talk about the impact of baby boomers on u.s. politics. that's next on "morning joe." we will be right back.

with the freestyle libre 3 system know your glucose levels. no fingersticks needed. all with the world's smallest and thinnest sensor. manage your diabetes with more confidence and lower your a1c. try it for free at freestylelibre.us hey, everybody. w. kamau bell here. they say that america is the land of the free. but right now, people in the u.s. are seeing their freedoms taken away at an alarming rate. freedoms some of us take for granted. the right to vote. equal access to health care. book banning and other forms of censorship that threaten our right to learn. and here's something truly shocking, right now in our country hundreds of thousands of people are incarcerated simply because they couldn't afford bail. that's not free and it's not fair. but there is hope for change. it lives in people like you and in a great organization called the american civil liberties union.

so please join me and other concerned americans in defending our civil liberties by joining the aclu as a guardian of liberty today. all it takes is just $19 a month, only $0.63 a day. when you're surrounded by oppressive laws you can't just sit back and be oppressed. you get up and fight and all of us at the aclu are fighting for you. whether it's criminal justice reform or protecting the lgbtq plus rights, abortion rights or voting rights. the aclu is in the courts fighting for your rights, and mine and i, for one, sleep better at night knowing they're working every day in all 50 states to protect our freedoms. but these freedoms are at risk. we have to fight for them tirelessly and with your help, we will continue to do so. so please go to myaclu.org and join the fight for just $19 a month. use your credit card and get this special we the people t-shirt, aclu magazine and more to show

you're helping ensure justice for all. as an individual, donating to the aclu is one of the most powerful things you can do to fight for justice. but the aclu can't do it alone. they need your support now to continue defending our democracy and the freedoms we hold dear. so please join us. call or go online to myaclu.org today. thank you.

dave's company just scored the comcast business 5-year price lock guarantee. high five! high five! -i'm in a call... it's 5 years of reliable, gig speed internet... five years of advanced security... five years of a great rate that won't change. yep, dave's feeling it. but it's only for a limited time. five years? -five years? introducing the comcast business 5-year price lock guarantee. powering 5 years of savings. powering possibilities. 34 past the hour. live look at milwaukee for you. joining us now, national correspondent at bloomberg business week, josh green. he and his colleague sat down with donald trump for a

wide-ranging interview on the former president's economic plans for america if he wins in november. josh, what were some of the big takeaways from this interview? >> well, we covered a lot. i mean, what we wanted to ask trump was, if you make it back to the white house, what should we expect, both for the u.s. economy and also for the global business community generally? in the interview, trump made a ton of news. he talked about what he would do with the federal reserve and its chairman, jerome powell. a lot of people on wall street are afraid that if trump got elected, he'd try to fire powell. he told "business week," no, in fact, he plans to let powell serve out his full term. he spanned the globe. he talked about his lack of nearness, i'd put it, to continue u.s. protection for taiwan against chinese aggression. was very clear that he intended to impose a steep new round of tariffs on europe and across the

globe. what really stood out to me, mika and joe, was that this time around, trump knows what he's doing. he said at one point in the interview, you know, in the first administration, he was new. he didn't know all the people around him. the quote that jumped out is trump said, this time, i know everybody. now i'm truly experienced. when you look at joe biden's numbers and democratic numbers, there's a real chance that trump not only could be elected in the fall but could also have a republican house and senate. that would allow him to implement a lot of the fairly radical policies that he talks about in this "business week" interview. >> josh, it is interesting. we always heard those stories. if it was foreign policy, you'd hear general mattis or other people trying to curb some of the more, what they consider to be extreme policy issues. we famously had gary cohn going

in, trying to take something, i believe, off donald trump's desk. always had pushback on tariffs, which fear the hell out of wall street, scare the hell out of editorial page for "the wall street journal." i think for most free traders, i mean, he is more than a mixed bag. what you're saying is there will be no gary cohn. there will be no people curbing some of the sharper edges of these economic policies. they play very well, i think, in middle america but not so well among business leaders. >> exactly right. the impression i personally took away was, this time, there are going to be no guardrails. he said in our interview, you know, i had some people serving me last time around who i didn't know and i wouldn't put in place again. well, if we know one thing about what trump and the republicans have done while he's been off in exile, it is to find a group of capable loyalists who can staff a second trump administration

and do what he wants done on business and everywhere else. i will say one thing that stood out to me about the interview, i just wanted to mention given the intro, we saw jd vance's speech last night which was pure anti-wall street economic populism. that was not the tenor that trump took in our interview. he was quite pro wall street in a lot of senses, suggested he'd be eager to stock his administration with ceos. people like doug burgum to glenn youngkin, former carlyle group ceo. singled out jamie dimon of jpmorgan chase, somebody he might want to serve as treasury secretary. also talked about slashing the corporate tax rate even lower than he already did the first time around. i think for viewers who might have been put off by vance's speech, the interview that trump gave to "business week" i think shows the other side of that coin. >> yeah, corporate tax rate 15%.

what'd he have to say about the personal tax rate that all of us pay, that most of us pay, anything there? >> i know trump wants to extend his 2017 tax cuts. we focused mainly as "business week" on the corporate side. but he wants to cut taxes. he believes, contrary i think to most mainstream economists, if he raises tariffs on imported goods, essentially, that is money that will go back into the u.s. economy. most economists would say, in fact, it'd raise prices on consumer products. but trump was certainly aligned with what vance said in the sense that he believes that a strong economic message, one that is critical of joe biden in the way that -- in his stewardship of the economy is really the republicans' best ticket when it comes to going up against biden or whoever the democratic nominee might wind up being in the fall. >> josh, going back to the revealing comment that trump

made about how this goaround, he's experienced, i think we've seen that play out in his campaign and how well orchestrated his convention has been in comparison to years past. >> yeah. >> did you get any sense of how he was approaching his bitterness and his sense of retribution towards those political enemies that he has so frequently decried in the past? >> it's a great question. it's something we asked about in the interview. trump had said, i think at cpac last year, you know, i am your retribution and implied he'd go after republican enemies. none of that was on display in our interview with trump down in mar-a-lago. was feeling very confident, magnanimous toward the business community, ceos. he did single out a couple of them for pretty severe criticism. one was amazon ceo jeff bezos. another was meta ceo mark zuckerberg. trump certainly still has his enemies or people he doesn't look fondly on in the business

community as elsewhere, but the general tenor that trump gave to us was this idea that trump nomics is going to be really good for business, even if trump's election makes a lot of ceos nervous. >> national correspondent at bloomberg "business week," josh green, thank you for your reporting and bringing it to us. we appreciate it. >> it is interesting, hearing jamie dimon's name put out there and other people on wall street that would certainly calm the waters a bit on wall street. interesting those names are even being floated as a possible treasury secretary. if either joe biden or donald trump are elected this november, it'd be the seventh time in the last nine elections americans will have chosen a president born in the 1940s. that would put the u.s. at odds with the rest of the world. both trump and biden, ages 78 and 81 respectively, are significantly older than most

current world leaders whose median age is 62. the advanced age of america's current leading presidential candidates is one of the topics discussed in "the economist's" but limited series podcast entitled "boom," which analyzes the waning yet still potent political power of baby boomers. >> let's bring in the host of "boom." john, one of the interesting stats or bits of information i've ever heard politically regarding age and presidents has to do with the fact that donald trump, bill clinton, and george w. bush were born within a month of each other in the summer of 1946. this tells you how long these boomers have been running america. >> yeah, that's right, joe.

i mean, i got into this because i've been covering america for "the economist" ten years. the question i kept getting in this cycle is why does america have these two, you know, rather elderly kand dacandidates at thf the ticket? why not somebody more youthful? you can explain that by looking what happened after the 2022 midterms. i think joe biden was convinced he was a strong candidate and should stay. or look at 2020 or further back boo into 2016 and donald trump's rise and, you know, how joe biden wins the primary in 2020 as the trump slayer. but the thing that was just really hard to explain is it's narrower from the baby boomers being in charge, which i think a lot has been written about, but baby boom generation, as you know, runs from '46 to '64. if you narrow that and look at americans born in the 1940s, then you have the three presidents who, as you mentioned, joe, were born in '46. you also have biden in '42. with the exception of barack

obama, and that's a big eight-year exception, of course, from 1993 until potentially january 2029, we could/are likely to have a white man in the white house born in the 1940s. that's a very long stretch. it is doubly strange given america is much younger than most other rich western democracies. the median age of americans is 38. to have guys knocking on 80 running is genuinely puzzling. it is also puzzling given ceos of american companies are generally younger, as well, 50s and early 60s. there is something very strange going on here that i thought needed explaining. the more you pull on threads, the more you have to look, you know, back into the era they were born into and when they came of age politically. rather than just explain what happened in 2022, when he thought we'd make this podcast, "boom, the generation that blew up american politics," starting

in '68 and goes to 2020, telling the political education of this generation so people hopefully have a sense, after listening to it, of kind of why we are where we are. >> john, claire mccaskill here. i'm curious if you're exploring what i see as a really kind of stark contrast between what has been accomplished by the boomer generation in terms of technology and strides in gender equality, all of those kinds of things, yet it feels like this election is a giant pothole. that all of a sudden, we are presenting the country with a choice that our country does not like. and are you going into that in the podcast? do you have a simple explanation of how the boomers, who have done so much, are now faced with this kind of calamity? >> to me, that's almost the most

fascinating question in american politics right now. i know there are lots more immediate ones. will joe biden step down? what will happen in november? but just as a sort of how strange american politics is at the moment, the disconnect between what you hear on the floor. i was on the floor yesterday for jd vance's speech, have been here all week, and what is actually going on in the country. there has, as you say, been the most extraordinary amount of progress in america the past two decades. racial progress, economic progress. i mean, one stat i like is that the black/white employment gap in america, which has been a thing for all of american history, as long as anyone has been counting, that's pretty much disappeared now. there are so many good things happening in this country. yet, you know, this election feels like a sort of existential -- i mean, you're saying it is a pothole. i feel like it is putting it nicely, right? it feels like the stakes are so high. the rhetoric around politics is, a, so incredibly heated for reasons that, you know, i understand perfectly, but, b,

kind of starts from the assumption that america is fundamentally broken and needs fixing. you get that, you know, on the left wing of the democratic party as well as in the mainstream as a republican party, as well. it doesn't track, i think, with what the data shows and the story of progress. >> right. so much of it also is, again, coming of age for all of these boomers, came of age in the 1960s. i mean, came of age in the most volatile decade. >> right. >> most of these around '67, '68, '69, i think it's shaped our politics in a great way. the new limited series is "boom," available now wherever you get your podcast. joe, thank you so much. >> thank you, john. >> i have to say, barack obama, people like to say, anybody born from 1946 to 2018 is a boomer. it's like the widest space.

barack obama, look at him. he is not a boomer. he is most definitely a post-boom, gen-x guy that was skeptical of boomers. it's very interesting. i think -- i actually think, and the numbers kind of move for what a boomer is and what a gen-xer is, i actually think barack obama was our first and only, right now, gen-x president. >> there you go. coming up on "morning joe" -- ♪♪ >> got her? >> i got her! >> stop! >> a look at the movie "twisters." >> wow. >> a new chapter in the "twister" franchise. we'll speak with the all-star cast ahead on "morning joe." ♪ my baby's feeling country ♪

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. we planned well for retirement, but i wish we had more cash. you think those two have any idea? that they can sell their life insurance policy for cash? so they're basically sitting on a goldmine? i don't think they have a clue. that's crazy! well, not everyone knows coventry's helped thousands of people sell their policies for cash. even term policies. i can't believe they're just sitting up there! sitting on all this cash. if you own a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more, you can sell all or part of it to coventry. even a term policy. for cash, or a combination of cash and coverage, with no future premiums. someone needs to

tell them, that they're sitting on a goldmine, and you have no idea! hey, guys! you're sitting on a goldmine! come on, guys! do you hear that? i don't hear anything anymore. find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com.

if i'm honest with you, the enthusiasm this time around is not the same as the last time you won. there is a certain disenchantment. detroit, philadelphia, atlanta, are going to be deciding factors

in that 270 you've got to get to. i would like you to take a moment and tell black america what you want them to know. why should they turn out for you? >> because they know where my heart is. they know where my head is, and by the way if you notice, whether it's young blacks or young whites or young hispanics or young asian americans, they've never focused until after labor day. i mean, the idea they're focusing intently on the election right now is -- it's not there. by the way, if you take a look at the presidents who have won at this stage of the game, the last seven or eight presidents, five of them were losing at this time by significant margins. the point is we're just getting down to game time now. >> president biden in an interview taped on tuesday with bet. joining us now is the former chair of the congressional black caucus, congresswoman joyce

beatty of ohio. she's a board member for the biden/harris campaign. jonathan lemire has the first question. >> congresswoman, thanks for joining us this morning. let me pose the question to you very similar to the one the president just received. we know at least polls suggest to this point in the race, black voters have not been there with the same kind of numbers or enthusiasm for joe biden as they were four years ago. what can be done? what concrete steps can be done to turn that around? >> well, first of all, let me just say thank you, and i think we're doing that right now. we're telling not just black america, but we're telling all of america the work that joe biden and kamala harris have done. you can pick a topic. you can talk about the economy, education, and health care, and they have been leading for black america. president biden kept his word on every promise he made. he told us we would have a black

woman on the supreme court. he told us that he would stand up for education, and he put the most money into hbcus than any other president. we could talk about our children or our seniors. more than 50% of our children are now out of poverty, and we're protecting our seniors. if you just look at what he did to cap insulin at $35 a month or to cap out-of-pocket expenses for medical supplies, prescriptions to $2,000. he meets with the congressional black caucus. we've done more when you talk about criminal justice and keeping our communities safe with this president. so i think we have to tell our stories, and you have to look at it. it's still early in some ways. voters start really coming out in september and october. we know how many black voters go to the polls on election day. so we're still all in, and i can tell you as a member and chair

of the congressional black caucus, i'm all in with joe biden. >> i don't think there's anybody who would quivel or quarrel about what you just said about the successes of the president politically or personally, on a personal basis. people do like him. >> yes. >> but with the constant drum beat over the last two to three weeks, it's been focused on his age, his ability to speak, his ability to converse in a manner of speaking that you would hear him, his voice. all things like that. all negatives. what has that done to his canvas? >> i think it's made his difficult. certainly we all watched the 90-minute debate, but let me also say, we also watched the uptick after the 90-minute debate. we knew his age when he got into this, and like he said, he might

be walking slower and mixing up names -- and he mixed up names far before this time, and i think that that's an inaccurate judgment of people saying he can't continue to serve. we watched him at nato, and on the things that were the most important to that, he did an outstanding job, but that's his decision, and it's those insiders that are making their comments. certainly they have their right just as many of us have our rights to say what we want to say, but i can tell you we can go back and look at history, whether it's based on those who were this close before and won or lost. joe biden is a fighter. we've seen him come through things much worse than this, and so i'm standing with joe until he tells me otherwise. >> all right. former chair of the congressional black caucus, democratic congresswoman and national advisory board member for the biden/harris campaign,

joyce beatty of ohio. thank you very much for coming on this morning. >> thank you. >> thanks a lot. >> take care. all right. still ahead, donald trump is set to speak at the republican national convention tonight as the party's official nominee. we'll get a live report from milwaukee about what the former president might say in the wake of the assassination attempt against him on saturday. we're back in just 90 seconds. n. s is strong enamel. nothing beats it. i recommend pronamel active shield because it actively shields the enamel to defend against erosion and cavities. i think that this product is a game changer for my patients. it really works.

the moment i met him i knew he was my soulmate. i think that this product is a game changer for my patients. "soulmates." soulmate! [giggles] why do you need me? [laughs sarcastically] but then we switched to t-mobile 5g home internet. and now his attention is spent elsewhere. but i'm thinking of her the whole time. that's so much worse. why is that thing in bed with you? this is where it gets the best signal from the cell tower! i've tried everywhere else in the house! there's always a new excuse. well if we got xfinity you wouldn't have to mess around with the connection. therapy's tough, huh? -mmm. it's like a lot about me. [laughs] a home router should never be a home wrecker. oo this is a good book title.

if you can be convinced that you cannot defeat donald trump, will you stand down? >> it depends -- if the lord almighty comes down and tells me that, i might do that. >> you earier explained confidence in her vice president. >> yes. >> if your team came back and showed you data that she would fare better against former president donald trump, would you reconsider your decision to stay in the race? >> no, unless they came back and said, there's to way you can win. me. no one's saying that. no poll says that. >> you were 1,000% in your words, see you on the ballot, this november? >> unless i get hit by a train, then yeah. >> let's hope that doesn't happen for your safety's concern. >> do you look to anybody else personally, not anybody else, pundits or family members, that

you would look to to say, if i see that, i will re-evaluate? >> if there is some medical condition, or doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem. >> since the debate, president biden has given a number of responses as to what could drive him from the race. the last response came in an interview taped on tuesday, and now his covid diagnosis is adding to the growing concerns about his chances of defeating donald trump in november. all of that comes as there's new reporting the president is becoming more receptive to conversations about stepping aside. we'll go through all of that in just a moment. plus, from never trumper to running mate. senator jd vance accepted the nomination for vice president last night at the republican national convention, giving the keynote address. we'll bring you some of the big moments from his speech, and we're learning more about the timeline of the assassination attempt on donald trump as well as new details about the gunman.

>> and the news keeps getting worse for the secret service. >> it does. we'll be covering that. good morning, and welcome to "morning joe." it's thursday, july 18th. along with joe, willie and me, we have jonathan lemire, msnbc contributor, mike barnicle, nbc news national affairs analyst, and partner and columnist, john heilemann, and cofounder of axios, mike allen. great team this morning. your thoughts on this? what we're seeing, is that an evolution of thought on the part of president biden as to whether or not to stay in? >> we have had so many moments of stays over the past few weeks. i can't believe there won't be history books that just detail what's happened maybe over the last three weeks, the last 21 days. it's -- it's really -- it's dizzying, and it feels like --

when you see documentaries of 1968, when -- the chaos that went on, just one event after another after another, but yesterday, willie, was just a day in and of itself that may be determinative -- that may lead to that march 1968 moment when lbj announced he wasn't going to seek the democratic nomination again. you think about it. yesterday morning we're on the show, and i brought up a series of polls that showed very little movement post-debate, and very little movement even post the tragedy that occurred on saturday. >> mm-hmm. >> and also just one democratic poll after another saying it wasn't the debate that caused damage to joe biden. it was probably all the

democratic infighting afterwards, and so there was a belief in biden world that he could survive. then we get off the air, and one thing after another happens, and of course, we heard that senator schumer -- the democratic majority leader in the united states senate, called on joe biden to in so many words, to step down. hakeem jeffries, basically the same thing, real concern. perhaps still one of the most powerful people among grassroots and democratic donors, nancy pelosi, still out there. >> yeah. that's the one. >> what i keep hearing is speaker pelosi, so brilliant. she's not getting on phone calls saying, joe biden must go. she's conducting a listing tour, and she's calling one democratic house member after another and all she's getting back, bad news.

and so she's letting them know just enough based on reporting that she understands their concerns and she's very concerned too, that they cannot lose the house. you have that, and so that sounds like elites, but then of course, "the associated press," two-thirds want joe biden out of the race. that's the heart and soul of the party. there's no way a party when a general electorate, two-thirds of the people say he needs to withdraw. you add all this up and finally he gets the word from jeffrey katzenberg from las vegas who had been the hero of fund-raising, who had raised all of this money for joe biden just telling the president, the spigot's run dry. donors are not giving money anymore, mr. president. we can't get donors to give money. you then hear about not

infighting inside the biden campaign, but just -- just a sadness. >> yeah. >> an understanding that they cannot win with a man that they respect and love, and basically waiting for orders. who are they going to help beat donald trump? and so all of that -- all of that happened yesterday along with so much more. >> yeah, and at the end of the day, we learned that the president of the united states has tested positive for covid which felt like a koda to the day you laid out where you just went, ugh. how much more of this can we take? yesterday was everything we have been hearing in private not just for the last three weeks, but for a long time spilled out publicly which is that the polling now shows -- private polling and now public polling that we're seeing, internal polling and public polling, that this is an uphill climb not just for the president, but for everybody downballot, and that's

why you heard adam schiff who's very likely to be a senator from the state of california coming up here in just a few months, starting the day with a public statement saying that joe biden should step aside, that he's going to take down with him others who hope to become senators, hope to hold onto the seats in the house. the dam broke, and we heard the reports of chuck schumer and nancy pelosi and hakeem jeffries and it went on like this. we've looked at the data. we've seen the national polls, but that's not a national referendum. we're looking at our district polls and state polls, including one this morning from emerson that shows donald trump now leading in the state of virginia by three points. in virginia. that's a snapshot of where this race is right now, and that's why you're hearing more vocally, democrats saying it is time to get out, and i wonder, mike barnicle, what you think about the president's state of mind right now. obviously we saw him after the

covid diagnosis looking frail getting onto air force one last night. he respects nancy pelosi. he respects chuck schumer. we know that. what will this weekend of isolation at home in delaware be like for biden and his family? >> i think it will be a reflective weekend for the family, taking a look at the reality of the landscape, and i think the sadness of it will finally penetrate the entire biden family, and the sadness of the, by sadness i mean, when you have elected officials, many of them unnamed in these newspapers, stories about democrats indicating that they don't want joe biden to be on the ballot this fall running for re-election as president, the sadness of it is you keep hearing the word bitter. they are bitter, and the idea that joseph biden, joseph r. biden who is a magnetic personality with people, loves to grab people, slap them on the shoulder, how are you, buddy?

how have you been? that he would be referred to as bitter is really something. it's really something, and that, jonathan, is i think, epidemic now within the house candidates and some of the senate candidates. >> we're seeing another real push by democrats to try to adjust the top of the ticket. the biden campaign since the debate has been out there. they have been trying to fend this off. he's done a number of interviews. he's done a number of campaign events. some of which are very well received and he's been out there saying, i'm saying this. stop asking me. the questions have only grown. the biden team's efforts to push this aside simply haven't worked and as joe just ran through, yesterday felt like a very significant day, and we should note the schumer meeting was over the weekend. pelosi was several days ago. jeffries was several days ago, but what's not coincidental is they all leaked yesterday, and there is a sense this is the time -- the democrats see this as their final moment as a contrast to what we're seeing at the rnc, like it or not, the

republicans are unified around donald trump. we'll hear from trump tonight. the confidence there, and they're expecting to put up a record fund-raising total in the wake of the assassination attempt. you contrast that, and maybe that's not fair to president biden, but that's where the party is right now, and it does feel like as the president heads home to delaware, that this is going to happen in the next stretch, and publicly the president is saying he's staying on. we'll have to see if that changes. >> joe and mika -- joe, you pointed to this ap poll. the argument from the campaign has been it's elites. it's the media. we've said all along that's just not the case. all you have to do is go to the grocery store, the gas station, and that's what people are talking about, his age after

that, and frankly there are a lot of people rooting for joe biden in these last three weeks, waiting for these interviews, watching the performances, and clearly not assured when you see that 65% of democrats -- not just americans, of democrats believe it's time for him to step out of the race. >> right. and you can look at all the polling -- listen. here's the deal. there's 110 days left. we've said this time and time again. we've seen polls. anybody that remembers 1980 remembers that on wednesday, thursday, friday before the election, the race was too close to call, and suddenly there was a massive break toward ronald reagan the final weekend. reagan wins a massive landslide in 1980 over jimmy carter. you can go to 1988. there's dukakis. he was up by 15, 16 points in the summer. george h.w. bush, mocked, ridiculed, and they were saying

confident. he wins in a landslide. we remember being mocked and ridiculed for saying late october, and early november that donald trump had a pathway to 270 electoral votes. everybody liked to say, no they didn't. nobody was saying it. the very few people who were saying it were being mocked and ridiculed. that was in 2016. so yes, a week in politics, i think mcmillan may have said it. maybe harold wilson. one of those british prime ministers from the 1960s said it, that in politics, a week is a lifetime and you got 110 days. so many things can happen. so many things will happen. that said, show me any candidate from any year running for any position where he gets to the general election and two-thirds of his own party do not want him to run. i don't care if it's joe biden in 2024.

i don't care if it's joe scarborough in, like, 1996, if it's a mayor running in 2014. that candidate is going to lose. those are numbers you just can't get past, mika. >> what you've just said, joe, this goes back to the point that you made a week ago, perhaps more in that the dems need to get it together. they really need to get whatever they've got going, going. whatever it is, the problem should not be our candidate. the focus should be on donald trump. you know, it may or may not be joe biden. i trust joe biden's abilities. i also trust nancy pelosi's political acumen. nobody knows politics more than her, and nobody more than nancy pelosi. she does not get out there without information to back it up. she doesn't take risks and she knows her politics. she knows her numbers. >> she doesn't lose votes. you remember whenever nancy

pelosi -- is this vote going to pass or not? we would always say, when nancy was speaker, if she puts it on the floor, it's going to pass because she knows where the votes are better than anybody i've ever seen. >> if there was a change, it's got to be a change that gets barack obama behind the candidate. michelle obama behind the candidate. george w. bush behind the candidate. former presidents and world leaders and people who understand the importance of democracy, because it's going to take citizens who care about this country to bring this back together or trump will win. trump right now is on the path to winning. >> yes, he is. let's go to nbc news, ryan nobles. ryan, what a day yesterday on the hill. ask what did you hear? i guess i should ask how much did you hear of what we just talked about? where to begin? >> reporter: yeah, you know, joe and mika, i think you have crystallized it really well. the issue here is that rank and file democrats have not felt

comfortable about president biden at the top of the ticket since that debate took place. i think part of the reason that you saw the calls and the angst subside a little bit was because of that assassination attempt on former president trump. it just kind of pushed this story to the back burner, but i can tell you from my own reporting that the conversations were still ongoing, and that people were still very nervous. in fact,, you know, right before the assassination attempt was this phone call that president biden had with the new dem coalition, more than 100 rank and file democrats, mostly moderate to left democrats which was a very uncomfortable phone call. it was supposed to last an hour. it only lasted 35 minutes. president biden could not be heard very well by people on the call. he got defensive at one time, during an interaction with the democrat of colorado. many democrats got off the call feeling a lot worse about the situation than they had going

in, and they already don't feel good about it. that's kind of the foundation of what you see in this maybe third or fourth round of angst and concern from democratic leaders about president biden's role in this campaign, and what is interesting is that hakeem jeffries, nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, they had been very quiet about their own personal feelings about this situation. to be clear, they're still being very quiet, but what they're allowing to let happen right now are the rumors and the speculation about what went on in these closed-door conversations between schumer, pelosi, and jeffries, and the president and they're not going to great pains at all to deny the conversation and the tone of those conversations, and what i was told is that the conversation between schumer and biden on saturday was blunt, that schumer laid out for president biden in detail the polling that he is showing about these races and not just at the

national level, but in individual states and in individual districts, and that it was a conversation just between joe biden and chuck schumer, and what is interesting about this conversation is there's been a concern among many rank and file democrats that the message wasn't getting directly to joe biden, that he was being insulated by some of the closest -- some of his closest associates and family members, and that he wasn't getting a real reality check as to how his party was feeling and how average voters were feeling. well, now we know that he has had these direct conversations. we know he talked directly with hakeem jeffries and jeffries has said on the record he conveyed the feelings of his caucus, and we know his caucus is upset. the lingering question that hangs above all of this is that this there's only one person who can decide that joe biden is no longer going to be in this race, and that is joe biden himself. there are now reports that he's at least open to that idea, something that was not even

leaked out early on after the debate. that was something that he wasn't even considering. so if that door is open even a crack, my guess is that at least congressional democrats are eager to bust it wide open and try to convince him to exit this race gracefully, and then the conversation can be who comes next, which i think is still a very open conversation within the democratic party. coming up, john heilemann says it's no coincidence that a bunch of democrats came out in tandem to voice concerns about president biden. what he calls the carefully orchestrated effort to end the incumbent's candidacy. that's next on "morning joe."

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.

so john heilemann, this sort of three-part political drama for the biden tragedy. this three-part drama, it seems that democrats keep moving to different possible options if he does leave. i mean, i know during the second act, we'll call it the clooney years which was, like, six or

seven days ago. there was a suggestion not only in that op-ed but from other democratic leaders this would be an open convention. it would make kamala harris if she ran against three or four other people, and even better if she won, and she would have the wind at her back going into the fall. my reporting at least suggests that's changed dramatically over the last 24 to 48 hours, and they are coalesing more around kamala harris, but i'm curious, what is your reporting there, and what is your reporting on the general state of the biden campaign? >> well, so just to start with that, joe, i think what ryan just said is the truest thing which is that there really has been an attitude among -- among everyone in the democratic political class, elected, strategists, and donors, that they kicked ideas around. the two obvious ways to think about this are the kind of coronation or competition, and the coronation wouldn't be

legal. it's not -- it's not like -- joe biden can't just transfer those delegates over to kamala harris, but he could lays hands on her and if the party wanted to circle around her, they could do, that and she could be effectively kor nated. the other school of thought is some kind of competition. whether that's mini primaries or town halls and have a competition at the convention. i think you're right. as people confront the likelier reality is that joe biden will step aside. it's the increasingly likelier scenario, and the riskiness of that, that everyone acknowledges that this is a wild thing to do, to take a sitting president, switch them out in the summer before a general election, that they have to -- they have to kind of try to get a grip on the risk factor of who they're going to put at the top of the ticket, and whatever else you want to say about vice president harris, she's a known quantity. the rest of these governors out

there, many of them, incredibly attractive, compelling figures, they have not been vetted nationally. they have not run for president before. they are not known the way she is. there is a gravity of the feeling, but it's a large question mark. what ryan said is right. most people say, we don't need to engage this on what comes next unless the guy in the oval office decides he's going to step aside. the last thing i'll say is you talked, joe, earlier about how much news there was, and how fast things seemed to be moving. that was definitely true, but i will just say that yesterday was not -- this is not an accident or a chaotic day. it was a day in which a series of carefully orchestrated sequenced things took place. i said a couple of weeks ago on the show that there were only a handful of democrats joe biden might listen to on the show. nancy pelosi, hakeem jeffries, chuck schumer, the obamas, but only secondarily, and jim

clyburn. those are the only ones that joe biden would take this argument seriously from. what we learned was at the end of last week, nancy pelosi, hakeem jeffries and chuck schumer all had similar conversations directly with joe biden saying, you need to seriously consider stepping aside. the polling is so bad that it could doom democrats in the house and senate, and then nothing happened after that other than we had the assassination attempt. this all went quiet, and it's not a coincidence that adam schiff, one of the closest allies of nancy pelosi, went public with his call on biden to step aside, and then the sequence of leaks of the jeffries leak, the schumer leak, and then the pelosi leak in the space of 12 hours, that is not an accident. it's not -- that's not a coincidence. that is former speaker pelosi, and those are the leaders send a very public signal to joe biden. coming up, we're going to bring in mike allen to the

conversation with the very latest from milwaukee. why he says president biden is self-isolating and not just because of covid. that's next on "morning joe."

announcer what if you could whiten your teeth by simply brushing your teeth? now you can with smileactives, the teeth whitening breakthrough that safely gets your teeth white and keeps them white every day just by brushing your teeth. christine i never thought that whitening my teeth could be so easy. i just put the gel on the brush, the toothpaste on it, brush and i can see my white teeth. announcer simply add smileactives

to any toothpaste, and our patented polyclean technology activates into a powerful micro foam that penetrates into the enamel surface to safely lift and remove stains. robert you need a simple way to withen your teeth without strips, without trays, without going to the dentist. and it was about time that a product was developed that you would be able to do that with just brushing. announcer and now smileactives is even better. with new pro whitening gel with 33% greater whitening power. clinically shown to whiten teeth faster up to eight shades. 100% of users saw whiter teeth on food stains, coffee and wine stains, even on veneers, crowns and dentures. paul i eat the blueberries, i drink the coffee and i know that smileactives will keep my teeth white every day. janell if you could do something so easy like smileactives to take yellow teeth to white teeth, why wouldn't you? announcer why spend hundreds of dollars for whitening treatments at the dentist, when now you can whiten your teeth with new smileactives pro whitening gel every time you brush your teeth.

call or go to smileactives.com and for a limited time get new pro whitening gel for just $24.95. order in the next 5 minutes and buy one get one absolutely free for just $24.95. that's two for one and save 58%. we■ll even include free shipping. get your teeth whiter, guaranteed, or return it within 60 days for your money back. i smile every day now. the difference is literally night and day. so now i'm always smiling or cheesing because now my teeth are much wither. announcer this offer is not available in stores, so call or click now before the special buy one, get one free offer goes away.

let's go right now to milwaukee. i don't know if you all know that this month, there's a political event going on there, and, you know, mike, speaking of sayings -- >> joyous. >> it was said going into '22 if you are talking about if people are talking about donald trump, democrats are winning. if people are talking about joe biden, republicans are winning. here we are and we've all been

talking about problems inside the democratic party for good reason, because that's the news. i mean, it is news, what's going on. so get us up to date with what's happening in milwaukee, also what you are hearing from the biden campaign. >> yeah. we'll start with the biden campaign, joe, and exactly right about the sequencing. so on your air, i talked about the fact three weeks ago that there was an effort among top democrats to give president biden the chance to walk off the stage. they said he is prouse. he's stubborn. we love him. we appreciate him. we want to give him the chance to walk off the stage. president biden in the view of these top democrats did not take the hint, and the way that one top democrat, someone very close to the west wing, you. -- put it to me sunday as i sat

here on the foot of this hall with my laptop doing reporting at the republican convention about what was happening in the democratic party, they said we don't want to humiliate him. that was the effort. then we saw the sequence yesterday, and as my brilliant colleague puts it at the top of axios this morning, president biden is now self-isolating both medically and politically. with covid now, he had given the sequences he had said what could get him out of the race? he said the lord almighty. then he said, data, polling that showed i couldn't win, and then he said health, and then privately he's reported saying he's being told that vice president harris can win. so all his boxes now are checked. one more thing about vice president harris, a very specific plan for her to run. democrats are going to be able to start fast, would be able to

start fast with her if they go that way. one, she instantly makes roe the center of the race. very important to democrats. the fall of roe, dobbs versus democracy as they put it. second, the way the democrats cleverly put it, now age and fitness would become the republicans' problem, the republicans' issue if she were the nominee, and third, they would frame it as she was prosecutor in my home state of california, elected d.a. of san francisco, former attorney general versus convicted felon, but as ryan nobles was saying, the president has to choose this. he has the delegates. the statement, he is the nominee or soon will be. they can't take it from him. he has to make that choice. >> and joe, and mika, if you watched this convention over the last three days coming to the former president's speech tonight, this is not an

endorsement of the policy or rhetoric being put forward, but the message has been party unity. this has been a good one for donald trump as he walks into the hall to a standing ovation, and he sees people come and endorse him. it was a powerful moment where the families of the 13 marines killed in the exit from afghanistan came forward and talked about their daughters and their sons, and about what happened that day, and endorsed donald trump. so it's been a rally and a convention where two-thirds now according to an nbc poll, of republicans believe in their candidate. two-thirds of republicans say, okay. here we are now. donald trump is our guy and contrast that with what we have been saying this morning, where 65% of democrats say their candidate, the sitting president of the united states should step aside for someone else. >> yeah. it really is something. as jonathan martin said, donald trump used to divide republicans

and unite democrats. >> yeah. >> right now, we're at a stage where donald trump is uniting republicans and dividing democrats. >> yeah. we'll see what happens. still ahead on "morning joe," the kremlin is voicing support for jd vance as donald trump's running mate. what russia's foreign minister is saying about the republican senator. "morning joe" will be right back. senator. "morning joe" will be right back

why do couples choose a sleep number smart bed? i need help with her snoring. sleep number does that. thank you. save 25% on our most popular sleep number smart bed. plus free home delivery on select smart beds when you add an adjustable base. shop now.

together, we will make sure our allies share in the burden of securing world peace. no more free rides for nations that betray the generosity of the american taxpayer.

together, we will put the citizens of america first, whatever the color of their skin. we will in short, make america great again. people will not fight for abstractions, but they will fight for their home, and if this movement of ours is going to succeed, and if this country is going to thrive, our leaders have to remember that america is a nation and its citizens deserve leaders who put its interests first. >> republican vice presidential nominee, jd vance with an america first message in his acceptance speech last night at the rnc. just which allies is he exactly talking about? meanwhile russia's top diplomat appears to approve of jd vance as donald trump's running mate. >> wow. >> that's my point. >> yeah. >> at the u.n. in new york yesterday, russia's foreign minister sergey lavrov held a press conference when asked

about vance's position toward ukraine, lavrov said, he is, quote, in favor of peace, in ending the resistance that's been provided and we can only welcome that. lavrov went on to say is what russia needs is ukraine to not being pumped full of weapons and then the war will end. of course, it will. vance has long been a critic of u.s. support for ukraine and here's what he told steve bannon in february of 2022 when russia was about to launch its full-scale invasion of ukraine, and he was still a candidate for senate in ohio. >> when i graduated from high school in 2003, two kids on my block graduated from high school in 2003. both of us enlisted in the u.s. marine corps. we did not serve in the marine corps to go and fight vladimir putin because he didn't believe in transgender rights which is what the u.s. is saying is a

major problem with russia. at the end of the day, we serve to defend our own country, and i think it's ridiculous that we're focused on this border in ukraine. i got to be honest with you. i don't really care what happens to ukraine one way or another. >> joining us now, president emeritus of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. >> it's hard to know where to begin. he certainly is lined up with where donald trump. keeping score on allies and doing the bidding of our enemies or appearing to do the bidding of our enemies, you know, donald trump would always attack democratically elected governments and talk about how great putin was and xi and kim jong-un. well, you look at jd vance, yes. he said -- he said that which, of course, makes the kremlin thrilled. he also has recently said that britain is the first islamist country to have a nuclear weapon because he doesn't like the fact

that keir starmer has a diverse government. fascinating, of course. i guess -- i don't know if maybe it wasn't in the history books when he was growing up, that pakistan already has a nuclear weapon, but be that as it may, here we have again somebody whose words provide aid and comfort to russia, who was attacking a democratically elected western government that is one of our strongest allies. >> lots to say, joe. just begin with where he began. he basically talks about his experience with iraq and says that's why he doesn't support. ing ukraine, but iraq in 2003 was a war of choice for the united states. what ukraine is doing is a war of necessity. they have been invaded. russia's goal is to essentially eliminate it as a sovereign place. second of all, the united states

and, you know, thousands and thousands of troops to iraq, we're not sending one troop to ukraine. we're helping ukraine indirectly, and over the last 2 1/2 years, in part, thanks to our help, it's been a remarkable success. if you looked at the territorial, you know, who controls what after two years of fighting, ukraine, because of its own efforts and with american and european help has fought russia to a standstill. this i think has been a remarkable success for western, for american foreign policy, and if we allow russia to win there, well, then jd vance's nightmare would not happen because russia would not be content. they would then challenge nato and then what? coming up, we've got a pair of live reports from milwaukee as former president trump is poised to accept his party's nomination for president. a preview of the fourth and final day of the republican national convention. that's next on "morning joe."

we planned well for retirement, but i wish we had more cash. you think those two have any idea? that they can sell their life insurance policy for cash? so they're basically sitting on a goldmine? i don't think they have a clue. that's crazy! well, not everyone knows coventry's helped thousands of people sell their policies for cash. even term policies. i can't believe they're just sitting up there! sitting on all this cash. if you own a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more, you can sell all or part of it to coventry. even a term policy. for cash, or a combination of cash and coverage, with no future premiums. someone needs to tell them, that they're sitting on a goldmine, and you have no idea! hey, guys! you're sitting on a goldmine! come on, guys! do you hear that? i don't hear anything anymore. find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com.

introducing togo's new barbecue beef sandwich. it's piled high with tender beef that's slow cooked and smothered in tangy memphis style barbecue sauce. it's no fuss, no muss. just tons of flavor. the best barbecue beef is only a togo's. introducing togo's new barbecue try one beef sandwich.

it's piled high with tender beef that's slow cooked and smothered in tangy memphis style barbecue sauce. it's no fuss, no muss. just tons of flavor. the best barbecue beef is only a togo's. try one today.

♪♪ triple-double, hardest tumbling pass in the world there. >> wow. that was gymnast simone biles on her electrifying floor routine set to taylor swift's song "ready for it" at the u.s. olympic trials late last month. the 27-year-old will be the oldest female american gymnast to compete at the olympics in 72 years, but that is not the only significant milestone we'll see for women at the paris games. for the first time, the summer olympics which start next week, will have gender parity.

half of the over 10,000 athletes participating will be women. to talk about the slow and steady build of female participation and why it matters is huma abedeen. and editor of "forbes" women, maggie mcgrath joins. the team is back together. "forbes" has taken a deep dive into the number of women athletes participating in the game since 1900 when paris first hosted the games, and what did you all find? >> well, mika, i'm so glad you started with those 1900 paris games because those were the first olympic games to include any female athletes. that year 22 women competing out of 997. they competed in just five events. over the years as the ioc has added more women's events, we

have seen female participation increasing. 124 years later, we have full numeric parity. 5,000 athletes identify as feel out of roughly 10,000 olympians. the ioc is signaling its commitment to gender equality in other ways. there will be equal coverage of men's and women's events during prime time. they have asked all in the opening ceremonies to bring a female and male flag bearer. this year the women's marathon will be the grand finale. it's going to be such a good race. >> h huma, why has the landscap

changed so much? why is it so important? >> it's three things. i remember when i was 9 years old watching the 1984 olympics and watching mary lou retton on that mat. that title 9 policy that required equal opportunity in sports for girls and boys, which led to a fivefold increase of girls in sports is something to inspire us, along with billie jean king, one of our honorees, and sort of leading to a generation of athletes in all

fields. so to see you have the ioc requiring that the flag bearers in the opening ceremonies be one man and one woman, these are small things, but they're not. they're huge. i can see it. it's representation. it's possible for me. the mongolian team, i think, has already won the award in the best dressed athletes. it's leading to the largest viewership this year, and i cannot wait until it starts. >> let's talk about the female star power on team usa. how many athletes do we have headed to the games, and how have american women fared versus men in terms of winning medals? >> we have 592 total athletes on team usa. 314 of those athletes are women, 53%.

over the last 15 years team usa's female athletes have out-medaled the male athletes. if the u.s. women had been their own nation in 2020, they would have come in fourth in the medal count behind the u.s., china and russia. all of these statistics are fun to boast about, but women's success is driving interest in women's sports, which is driving a tremendous amount of viewership and money. >> what storylines will have your eye on?

>> there are four. coco gauff, simone biles, katie ledecky. she has scale, versatility, staying power. i cannot wait to see what she does. >> huma abedin, maggie mcgrath, thank you very much. i look forward to talking about 50 over 50 with you. it's coming. but the olympic games begin friday, july 26th on nbc and peacock. coming up, we have an update on the health of president biden, who has been taken off

the campaign trail by a covid diagnosis. plus, the latest from the rnc in milwaukee, where donald trump is set to formally accept the party's nomination tonight. also ahead, the all star cast of the new movie "twisters" will be our guest. "twisters" will be our guest. what does a robot know about love? how to translate that leap inside the human heart into something we can see and hold. the fingerprints we leave behind show how determined we are to give the world a piece of ourselves. etsy.

speaking last night at the republican national convention nikki haley said, quote, there are some americans who don't agree with donald trump 100%, for example, all of the speakers of the rnc just a few months ago. >> jd vance gave his first speech as trump's running mate.

vance said, all that comparing trump to hitler stuff, full take backsies. >> the democrats' disastrous record has ruined the lives of minnesotans. >> our children are dying. >> woke indock nation. >> trampled underfoot by the radical left. >> biden and the democrats are doing everything they can to tear down this great country. >> america cannot stand four more years of a weekend at bernie's presidency. ♪ kumbaya, my lord ♪ >> bernie could pass as an alive

person. >> wow. way too much to say there. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. in the west, 9:00 a.m. in the east. president biden is in delaware this morning where he is self-isolating after testing positive for covid. it comes as key democrats are speaking directly with him about the future of his candidacy. gabe gutierrez has the latest. >> reporter: overnight, president biden landing in delaware after testing positive for covid, being helped into the suv before putting on a mask. earlier in nevada, the president not wearing a mask, saying i'm good and giving a thumbs up as he slowly boarded air force one. he said the only thing that

would make him doubt staying in the race -- >> if some medical condition were to emerge. >> reporter: according to multiple sources nancy pelosi said biden cannot defeat trump. a pelosi spokesperson would only confirm to nbc she has not spoken to president biden since friday. senate majority leader also shared recent polling data showing biden trailing trump in what two sources familiar with the meeting called a blunt conversation. just two days after that meeting with schumer, the president staying the course. >> 14 million people voted for me to be the nominee in the democratic party, okay?

i listen to them. >> while president biden is increasingly irritated with his critics, there's a sense among some aides that there could be, quote, a willingness to reassess if a major development shook up the race. former president trump's team says he's ready for anything. >> is joe biden your preferred opponent? >> we don't care if it's joe biden, kamala harris or another candidate. we are prepared to deliver donald trump a victory on november 5th. >> with us, jeff greenfield

symone sanders townsend. reaction from biden world? >> there is an extraordinary scene like we have not seen in modern american politics which is one party's convention on the verge of being totally eclipsed by the other party. the chatter was not around jd vance's speech. it was holy you know what, biden may be forced to drop out, how soon he could go and whether he annoints his vice president as his successor and what their convention in chicago looks like. that is the conversation here, at least with the political

pros. >> we have been quoting you. you say donald trump used to split republicans and unite democrats. now it's the opposite. he's uniting republicans and dividing democrats. talk about the second part of that equation, just how divided democrats are in your reporting, on nancy pelosi, what she's been doing and how much longer this can continue. >> i think there's going to be books written some day about the arc of nancy pelosi's career, and i think this will be at least a couple chapters. the former speaker of the house and she was going to retire, biden talked to her and suggested she not retire and she stay as speaker. now less than two years later

she is in some ways leading the plot against her friend and as biden calls her, his catholic sister, in trying to get him off the ballot. it's no distant that adam schiff came out with a statement yesterday fully calling for biden to drop out of the race. he's a full pelosi lieutenant. they are convinced there's no path for biden to win this fall. and he will take down other democrats on the ballot with him and are trying to get him off the ballot without publicly calling for him to drop out of the race, but doing everything just short of that. it's been a three-week campaign. obviously biden is dug in, but they're now turning to extreme measures. look at that flurry of leaks that came out yesterday, all designed to increase the pressure on biden to ensure that

he can't run out the clock, which has been his strategy for the last couple of weeks here. we're now in the critical hours of this private campaign to force biden off the ballot. i think between now and the first of august is going to be crunch time. >> i was on the show from atlanta the morning after the debate, and a couple democrats told me overnight that in the wake of that disastrous performance, president biden would stay in and fight. the one thing that would change his mind is if he would cost congressional seats. president biden and his team really tried to turn the page and he's delivered some successful performances, but it seems like democrats simply haven't bought it. how does this next week or so

play out? >> it occurs to me this is the 50th anniversary of the debut of rubik's cube. the democrats are facing a classic rubik's cube issue. whatever they try to do to adjust this, the other side says, wait a minute, what about that? if you put kamala harris in, a lot of democrats think she's going to run no better than biden. if you try to create another team, wait a minute, a black woman can't step up to the top? the only thing that's mildly encouraging for democrats is i think of herbert humphrey who came within a point of winning had nixon not played games, he

could have won. there are no power brokers who could say here's the ticket. if they try a mini primary competition like a talent show at the democratic convention, they are right now in an incredible pickle. the one saving grace for them is the country still doesn't want to put donald trump back in the white house. there is a road to victory, but trying to figure out how that works, frankly, i don't have a good answer to that either. >> it appears donald trump has a ceiling, which for democrats could be good news. a fresh team. a fresh team would be completely unknown.

a fresh team would be completely untested. a fresh team would not have the experience of how to beat donald trump. that leaves you with vice president kamala harris. she has her strengths. i would say on the debate stage she has tremendous strength. and she has perceived weaknesses. the question i have, is this the most seamless way to go and would she have the backing of former presidents and donors right away? what would be the most seamless? >> the most seamless would be if everybody backs up and joe biden stays on the ballot. i talked to a lot of delegates over the last 48 hours, and where the people are within the party is the delegates at the convention say they're still

backing joe biden. they're true blue delegates. they say why is our family business playing out on national television? it seems like the tide is flowing against president biden. he is resolute. the opposition to his candidacy is resolute. the standoff is who blinks first. in the event that president biden blinks -- and they are saying he is 1,000% in this -- in the event that joe biden is like i can't swim against this tide any more, i do think the vice president is the natural choice. there is concern from dnc members about the money and what could be raised. i have heard people say i don't think the vice president can

win. jeff made a point that i want to underscore. what does it say to the base of the democratic party apparatus that a black woman can be vice president of the united states of america but she can't have the top job. why not? we got into a tussle with france because of the submarines in australia, it was the vice president harris who the president asked to smooth things over with macron. she warned our european allies about what was to happen and how the united states was going to lead. i don't understand it, mika, this conversation about anybody other than the vice president. if joe biden can't swim against the tide anymore, it would behoove him to come out and say

strongly what he's been saying about the vice president, i think she can be president. joe biden should say, if you want me out, you need to show me a plan to make sure it's her. if it's not, i'm not going. >> jacob, immigration and the southern border were key themes at the republican national convention last night. what were republicans there saying? >> reporter: it sounded a lot like the donald trump presidency of 2016. you played those clips in all the comedy shows about how unity went out the window. i think no issue encapsulated a shift away from the unifying tone than the way immigration was talked about last night. i can give you many examples. the most startling and not

surprising is the fact that the campaign itself, the rnc, handed out signs to support the party platform saying mass deportations now. there was something about being in the audience and seeing thousands of people hold these signs that was disturbing and troubling, quite frankly. it's part of the platform here at the rnc to create the largest deportation in history. it calls back the program in the 1950s when the eisenhower deported a million mexicans. there are more than 10 million undocumented people living in this country that have been here for many, many years. the fact they were not just

celebrating this but holding these signs, with steven miller in power and other trump administration officials that proposal was adopted. he was called one of the founding fathers of the family separation policy. steven miller was up on the stage walking around with trump yesterday during the walk-through for his team he will give tonight. divisive and polarizing figures from the first trump term were on the ground and in the arena last night. >> the speech sounds dark and

gloomy. remind me of the carnage of his administration. i read someone said it was electric and everyone was so excited and there was a lot of energy, which is an important indicator of a campaign's success or failure. was there a sense of darkness, or was it energetic? >> reporter: it was both, actually. i think the reason the most rapturous ovations and applause for anybody showing up after president trump went to peter navarro because of the context and tone of his speech. i've been on the floor every night. it's been somewhat subdued over the course of the first couple nights. then last night, the place sort of blew up.

peter navarro was going off script. he brought up steve bannon off script, what he called the political prosecution of steve bannon. he said alejandro mayorkas had blood on his hands. people were literally on their feet for the speech of peter navarro, which was the biggest flame-throwing speech i've heard so far. while it was an electric atmosphere and vibe on the floor, the stuff that lit everyone up so much wasn't -- jd vance gave a speech, but it was quiet and subdued. it was the red meat issues that we're all so familiar with that deeply divided the nation under the first trump term that got people on their feet last night. >> jacob soboroff, thank you so

much. we won't bog people down with the details that the lowest border crossings in 50 years under barack obama. and the toughest border security deal was killed by donald trump. >> it gave them plenty to complain about by rejecting that deal. focusing on that deal they had would be dealing in reality, which again, we don't want to do. >> we do want to do that. >> we do. >> people last night did not. jeff, you say the most interesting speech at the

convention so far was teamster's shawn o'brien. >> i travel all across this country and meet with me members every week. you know what i see? an american worker being taken for granted, workers being sold out to big banks, big tech, corporates and the elite. in the past, the teamsters have endorsed gop candidates including nixon, reagan and george h.w. bush. but the republican party has pursued strong relationships with organized labor. there are some in the party who stand in active opposition to labor unions. this too must change. at the end of the day the teamsters are not interested if

you have a d, r or i next to your name. we want to know one thing. what are you doing to help american workers? >> jeff, that reminds me of my days in congress when i was speaking ill of unions because they were going after some of my fellow republican members. and a guy came to fix my telephone in my house. as he was leaving, he was like, congressman, hey, if you don't mind can i just tell you something? yes, sir. he said shut up about unions, we all vote for you. and that is a really good -- you know that's a good encapsulation of unions' relationship with republicans and democrats over the past 40 years. their leaders have been for the most part supporters of democrats with a lot of rank and file voting for republicans.

what did that speech last night tell you? >> what was interesting to me is that in jd vance's acceptance speech he gave a vanilla version of the shawn o'brien speech. he talked about the ruling class. the last to talk about the ruling class was probably teddy roosevelt. vance said we support workers, union and nonunion. within the base of the republican party there are still a lot of people, the chamber of commerce types, the club for growth types who clearly don't like unions. but donald trump has been saying i am on your side. in his first term as president with a republican congress, can you point to any policy decision that then-president trump made that actually aided the working class at the expense of the

corporate elite? if you can find one, please let me know, because i can't. >> that's one of the great enduring mysteries just on policy grounds. donald trump spoke the same populist message. he ran populist ads in 2016. he got into office the first week or two. he met with the steel workers union and some other unions. i thought, he may actually do what i thought republicans needed to do for a very long time. that is embrace unions and all of the people inside of unions that support them. and then he passed a tax cut that disproportionately aided billionaires and multinational corporations. he passed one regulation after another that actually undermined

unions. even during the auto workers strike, joe biden walked the picket lines. donald trump went to a nonunion shop. so, again, there's the rhetoric, and then there are the actions. and i don't really understand politically why he couldn't split the difference more in the way you're discussing. >> i do think that vance represents a part of the republican party, josh hawley is part of it, i think tom cotton, senator cotton is, that have been arguing for the republican party to break with the chamber of commerce, "wall street journal" editorial page folks and actually pursue a pro-worker agenda. when you get down to brass tacks what does that mean? trump just told a bunch of very rich people he's going to cut

their taxes more a couple of weeks ago. donald trump, rhetorically, he and vance are arguing for a different republican party. when it comes down to the kind of legislation he will ask for as president, i'd be very skeptical if that is going to happen. >> you look over the past 40 years, and you've had the greatest income redistribution in not only american history, but probably the history of the world that's gone from working class americans and middle class americans to the richest americans, the richest not even 1%, the richest .001%. it just continues. >> yes, it does. contributing writer at politico magazine jeff greenfield. >> what are you reporting on

today? >> as bill clinton would say, that's a false choice. you can do both. [ laughter ] >> i see him more as agenda guy. symone sanders townsend, thank you as well. coming up on "morning joe," jd vance is putting economic populism at the center of the campaign to put donald trump back in the white house. we'll show you some of his message on the economy at the rnc last night. and nbc's stephanie ruhle will join us for a fact check. s will join us for a fact check. ze and save hundreds with liberty mutual! (inaudible sounds) (elevator doors opening) wait, there's an elevator? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, ♪ ♪ liberty. ♪

our right to reproductive health care is being stolen from us. i can't believe this is the world we live in, where we're losing the freedom to control our own bodies. we need your support now more than ever. go online, call, or scan this code, with your $19 monthly gift. and we'll send you this "care. no matter what" t-shirt. it is your right to have safe health care. that's it. go online, call, or scan right now.

with absorbine pro, that's it. pain won't hold you back from your passions. it's the only solution with two max-strength anesthetics to deliver the strongest numbing pain relief available. so, do your thing like a pro, pain-free. absorbine pro.

the absurd cost of housing is the result of so many

failures, and it reveals so much about what's broken in washington. i could tell you exactly how it happened. wall street barons crashed the economy and american builders went out of business. as tradesmen scrambled for jobs, houses stopped being built. the lack of good jobs, of course, led to stagnant wages. and then the democrats flooded this country with millions of illegal aliens. so citizens had to compete with people who shouldn't even be here for precious housing. joe biden's inflation crisis, my friends, is really an afford ability crisis. many people can't afford to pay more for groceries, gas and rent. that's exactly what joe biden's economy has given us. president trump's vision is so simple and yet so powerful. we're done, ladies and gentlemen, catering to wall

street. we'll commit to the working man. >> that's fascinating. he blamed the housing crisis on illegal immigrants. also, later in the speech -- i don't know -- for those of you who didn't see it, in summary, he also blamed the detroit lions' second half collapse against the san francisco 49ers in the nfc championship game on illegal immigrants as well. and, finally, he blamed the sub par starspangled banner at the home run derby a few nights ago on illegal aliens. we're going to be fact checking those issues. >> joining us live from the rnc

in milwaukee is stephanie ruhle. also with us andrew ross sorkin. >> stephanie, we could quibble over the housing crisis and illegal immigrants, the detroit lions, star spangled banner going horribly wrong the other night. but i think really the bigger question here is raised by the "wall street journal" editorial page this morning when they talk about jd vance, donald trump's protectionism and what it means economically but also their america first policy, what it means internationally. the "wall street journal" editorial page has been concerned for some time over donald trump's protectionist trade policies. what do you expect to hear tonight from donald trump that will either allay the fears of

free traders and capitalists, or will it make them more fearful? >> it's not what they say. it's what they do. start with the housing crisis and jd vance talking about what wall street barons did and how that caused people to lose their homes and businesses. but there's no connection to donald trump's policies. because it was wall street predatory lending. but what happened when donald trump became president? he wanted to wipe out the consumer protection bureau. he loves payday lending. steve mnuchin became wealthy because he profited off of that wall street burst. i took a commercial flight out here and i sat next to john paulson who raised millions for

donald trump. you know why he's so rich? because he shorted sub prime. jd vance stood on that stage and he could have talked about things he believes in, like a national abortion ban. he believes in it. he believes we need to gut medicare to get back to financial sanity. he's all about project 2025. he could have talked about those things, but he didn't. he talked about things that are wholly untrue, like what donald trump's done for wages, how he's going to bring jobs back. under joe biden we're producing more oil than ever. my head scratcher, how on earth is this rhetoric matching the policies they put forward? it's simply not. >> andrew, it's been well discussed, jd vance's transformation from wall street guy to populist.

much of the country maybe knew him from his book, but this is their first look at jd vance, the man. what was your read? >> my read was to ask more questions than actually have any real answers. i think especially among the world of folks in business who are following all this, they're saying to themselves, there is a remarkable disconnect between former president trump and jd vance's view of the world as it relates to so many of these business issues. which one is going to ultimately win? is this window dressing when you hear jd vance talk? donald trump is historically not focused on the middle class. in this bloomberg business report this week, trump says he's going to take the corporate tax rate down to 15%. that would seem at odds from a

jd vance view of the world. there's been an expectation that the regulatory regime, which president trump has castigated over the years, if you listen to jd vance, he would tell you he likes kahn. which is it? if donald trump is the president, is he actually listening to jd vance, or is jd vance window dressing for some of the less comfortable things that trump may be supporting? >> jd vance and trump both support a weaker american dollar. can you talk about what a fundamental shift that would be in the american and world economy if they were to weaken the american dollar as the world's currency? >> okay. i'm going to give one example or one issue where this really matters, and then it connects to who jd vance's biggest backers

are and now donald trump's. many people are wondering why do you have peter thiel, elon musk? they're not pro-union. why are they backing jd vance and donald trump? one of the main reasons is cryptocurrencies. if suddenly the u.s. dollar is no longer strongest in the world, people are going to care more about crypto and bitcoin. they would love to see the sec revamped, regulation around crypto changing. that would make this universe around jd vance and donald trump even more wealthy. pay attention to it. suddenly these guys who are libertarians who are backing someone like a jd vance, this doesn't make sense. it is because they want to go from having ultimate wealth to ultimate power. deregulation is one of the ways they're going to do that and jd

vance might help them. >> i've always had questions about andreessen horowitz. they're the most powerful tech investors. i would think they would like what lena kahn is talking about doing, which is trying to take on monopolies. think about all the new companies that are being stifled, strangled, choked off, the competition that's being restrained because of these monopolies. we all know what the monopolies are. so why would they support donald trump and jd vance? >> i think there's a confusion or complication with the jd vance of it all as it relates to

regulation. you know, they do care about crypto. i think that's true. the dollar piece of it makes it more complicated. what they would very much love to do is be able to sell their businesses to the big monopolies. i don't think they necessarily care so much about having a hugely competitive market so much as they have a market to sell their businesses to. right now that's a very complicated thing for them to do. for them to exit their investments and sell to microsoft or apple or meta or google, almost impossible in this environment with alina kahn and the biden administration in charge. i also think, by the way, so much of this does relate to taxes. andreessen horowitz spoke to it specifically on the broadcast. when you think about the biden approach, at least in their platform, they do talk about

taxing unrealized gains, which are gains that you haven't actually sold the asset. that is anathema to silicon valley and wall street and elsewhere. >> steph, i'll have you pick up there again. i guess i'm just a simple country lawyer. i'm a simple small government guy. i believe in capitalism. i believe in competition. i believe in in entrepreneurs gg in their garage, getting a small loan from a bank, working on that idea, creating jobs, continuing to grow. i would think andreessen horowitz would also want that, because again, they're investing in companies. those companies can grow without

the monopoly stopping them. >> what these guys are getting is a completely transactional president and a potential vice president that was created by peter thiel. they want to be in a situation darth vader-style where they have a bat phone into the white house and they say here's the deal i need to get done. donald trump has no ideology, so he will say, yep, i will run that through for you. you're talking about the wealthiest people in the world now getting ultimate power. that seems like a good trade for them. >> stephanie ruhle and andrew ross sorkin, thank you both for being on this morning. coming up on "morning joe" -- ♪♪

>> what was that? >> i think i killed some chickens. >> thrilling, immersive and a worthy sequel. that's just some of the reviews for the new summer blockbuster "twisters." the amazing cast will join us live straight ahead on "morning joe." l join us live straight ahead on "morning joe. approach to pet food. they're quitting the kibble. and kicking the cans. and feeding their dogs dog food that's actually well, food. developed with vets. made from real meat and veggies. portioned for your dog. and delivered right to your door. it's smarter, healthier pet food. get 50% off your first box at thefarmersdog.com/realfood if you're looking for a medicare supplement insurance plan that's smart now... i'm 65. and really smart later i'm 70-ish. consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan from unitedhealthcare.

with this type of plan, you'll know upfront about how much your care costs. which makes planning your financial future easier. so call unitedhealthcare today to learn more about the only plans of their kind with the aarp name. and set yourself and your future self up with an aarp medicare supplement plan from unitedhealthcare. 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.

introducing togo's new barbecue beef sandwich. it's piled high with tender beef that's slow cooked and smothered in tangy memphis style barbecue sauce. it's no fuss, no muss. just tons of flavor. the best barbecue beef is only a togo's. introducing togo's new barbecue try one beef sandwich.

it's piled high with tender beef that's slow cooked and smothered in tangy memphis style barbecue sauce. it's no fuss, no muss. just tons of flavor. the best barbecue beef is only a togo's. try one today.

still ahead, it's been nearly 30 years since the film "twister" tore through theaters. >> it was a big one. >> now a new chapter is set to debut nationwide this week. the cast of "twisters." glenn powell, daisy edgar jones join us next on "morning joe." r join us next on "morning joe."

♪♪ imagine checking your own heart with medical precision from anywhere. introducing kardiamobile 6l, the fda-cleared ekg that provides six-times more heart data than any smartwatch. and it detects three of the most common arrhythmias in just 30 seconds, including atrial fibrillation, bradycardia and tachycardia. check your heart with the most advanced personal ekg outside the hospital. our prime day deals have been extended. get one now for just $99.

when we're young, we're told anything is possible... have been extended. ...but only a few of us go out and prove it.

witness the greatness of anna hall on a connection worthy of gold: xfinity mobile. only xfinity gives you the most powerful mobile wifi network, with speeds up to a gig in millions of locations. and right now, get up to $800 off the new galaxy z flip6 and z fold6 when you trade in your current phone. get the fastest connection to paris with xfinity.

tyler owens, calls himself the tornado wrangler. >> if you feel it! >> i said if you feel it! >> all right, here we go. >> oh, she's perfect. >> she's gorgeous. >> you thought you could destroy a tornado. >> we never had a chance. >> you want one? >> look out! >> you don't face your fears. you ride them. >> wow. >> that was a look at a new highly anticipated summer blockbuster, "twisters." the movie offers a fresh take on the 1996 hit "twister" but with

a new generation of storm chasers in the infamous tornado alley, who are working to increase their understanding about tornados as they risk their lives to save others. and joining us now, the movie's co-stars, glenn powell, daisy edgar jones, and director lee isaac chung. >> it feels like our politics right now. >> twisters. not just one. all over the place. so glen, i understand that, like you were a massive fan of the '96 original, as a kid, you and your cousins would watch it over is and over again. i'm wondering first of all, how did that impact your decision to do the film, and secondly, how did it shape the character? how did it shape how you approached the whole project? >> i mean, twister the original is just such an iconic movie.

growing up in texas, you know, tornado alley, obviously tornados are sort of the monster in your backyard. you did tornado drills in school and, yeah, my cousins and i we just -- i think we watched that vhs until it broke, and then it became the first dvd ever. it was really for me it repped the ultimate summer blockbuster, you know, one of those movies i always wanted to make, and thank god career-wise right now i'm getting to occupy worlds like twister that i've always wanted to occupy. it's cool. >> that is really cool. so daisy, glen says, pretty much says you've got a future as a meteorologist because you were the most well-studied when it comes to -- >> she went to boot camp. >> -- boot camp. you even went to a weather boot camp. tell us about that, and again, how it helped you understand what you're doing. >> yes, i mean, i'm from london, and i play someone from oklahoma who grew up chasing storms, so i

really was like gosh, i need to do my research. we remember so lucky. we filmed in oklahoma. we not to actually meet a lot of meteorologists who went to the national weather center. we had a storm, the whole cast went and i was like i'm going to be top of the class, so i did a lot of research. yes, i'm not sure -- i think i should stick to my day job. but maybe there's a future for me. >> i wouldn't think a lot of twisters in london. texas or where i grew up in mississippi, alabama, and georgia, where it's just a regular occurrence. it's crazy. >> yeah, let's take a look at a clip from the film where all three of your characters are together as you chase down a twister as it forms. >> already has a nice structure. moisture levels are just right and lots of cape. >> what else are you seeing? >> flow is clean, pulling tons of warm, moist air from the south. >> when that warm air or moisture busts through the cap, it explodes in the atmosphere

creating an anvil. the vertical wind shear begins to rotate the updraft forming them as a cyclone. >> here's the mystery. >> we don't know how a tornado forms. we see the hook on the radar. >> what are all the invisible factors coming together? every little detail that has to be perfect. >> and it's a mix of what we know and everything we can't understand. it's part science, part religion. come on, baby. come on. >> please, please, please. >> come on, come on, come on. >> there it is. yeah, baby! here we go. >> you see that? that's a tornado right there, baby get some photo os of that thing. >> birth of a tornado, nature's masterpiece. >> it seems like a really bad idea. anthony, you filmed this in the summer. it's oklahoma. there were tornados. did you see any? what was that experience like? >> i didn't see any tornados. isaac did, but i didn't, but we

had some scares. i mean, like the first night i had dinner with isaac, i was in oklahoma, and i had just flown in, and we were having dinner and all of a sudden i see the windows kind of rattling in the hotel and then the doors are kind of doing one of these, opening and closing. i'm like, hey, are we good? i was like are we safe? and the waiter's like we're used to this. okay, cool, all right, i'll have sparkling water then. i'm chilling. whatever. >> so isaac, you have a personal connection growing up around tornados, so tell us a little bit about that but also what drew you to this project. it's very different than some of your other films. >> absolutely. i grew up in arkansas, grew up around tornado alley, and when the first twister came out that just really felt like a film that was made for all of us back home. i didn't even know until i got

to college how big "twister" was. i felt like it was a special film for us, my family, my friends, and this film was really a chance for me to go back home and make another film and also to make an action movie. i've been dreaming and dying to have a chance of doing that, and not many people get that chance, just to be able to have that chance was also something i couldn't say no to. >> man, that is so cool. >> i got to ask you glen, let's see, "top gun," "twisters," what's next, dude? a remake of armageddon? you're doing all the huge ones, aren't you? >> i'm a huge fan of "armageddon," man, don't tempt me. again, that's the really amazing privilege about "twisters" is like i think, you know, again, career-wise where we all are to reoccupy those boots, that truck, a bunch of cowboy

scientists chasing the wind. there's just no better way to go to work. that's the dream of hollywood when you get to do it right. you get to kind of return to being a kid. >> yeah, daisy, i love seeing this. i love seeing a big movie like this because you know, last summer we of course had oppenheimer and barbie, people said where are the big summer blockbusters this year to get people back into theaters? >> this is it. >> this is the one. it really feels like a film to be shared, a film to be enjoyed on the big screen, you know. i think it's as close to chasing as you can get without getting rained on. >> absolutely. >> so anthony, tell us a little bit about the way that this movie tried to pay homage to the original. >> i mean, you know, we had these little nuggets from the original, like the dorothy, you know, in the beginning, you know, daisy's character kate is like -- we're all chasing in college, and we're trying to get dorothy to work, and you know, and we had james paxton in the

movie, bill's son, which was cool, he did a cameo, and you know, again, we shot in oklahoma. i think it's -- you know, we had all these kind of homages to the first film. sadly, i do miss -- i miss the cow, you know. i do. but you know, it's -- you know, i think that isaac did an amaze ing job of taking inspiration from the original film and taking it to another level. >> briefly how did that happen? you sort of nod to the original but also make it your own. >> yeah, we all loved that rim film, so it seemed like everybody was trying to bring stuff into this one, including the cow, that was a constant thing people were trying to put into this movie. we're just trying to show love to that first one. ultimately, this cast, these are incredible new actors who are up and coming and just doing incredible things and the story is new, the science experiment is new, and what ilam can do with the