brought in. maybe these are white voters, older white voters who aren't crazy about donald trump, but some of them may have questions on kamala harris. i think that is why we are basically, frankly, seeing a lot of white governors, one senator in the mix right now. >> yeah. there is a lot of white male energy on the vp stakes here. >> yes. >> politics managing editor for nbc news, the great amanda terkel. thank you so much for joining us. appreciate it. thank you for getting up "way too early" with us on this friday morning. "morning joe" starts right about now. biden spoke for 11 minutes about his decision to drop out. the only hiccup in the speech was a guy off camera yelling, "please get back in the race. please. i'm a reporter from -- never met me before. please." [ applause ] it was a very graceful speech. at the end, biden surprised everyone by announcing his

candidacy for 2028. you're like, no, stop. stop, please. >> late-night laughs to start us off. vice president harris is calling out donald trump after his campaign refused to commit to the upcoming presidential debate. meanwhile, her campaign also continues to highlight jd vance's comments about childless politicians. we'll show you how they trolled trump's running mate. and we'll bring you the latest on the hush money verdict appeal from trump's legal team. lisa rubin will join us with expert legal analysis. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, july 26th. i'm jonathan lemire. thanks for being with us. with us, we have a great, great group. pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," eugene robinson. managing editor at the bulwark, sam stein. and former white house director of communications to president obama, jennifer palmieri.

and "the weekend" is starting early, we have former chairman of the republican national committee, michael steele, as is former senior adviser to the kamala harris, symone sanders. joe and mika are on a planned vacation, but they'll pop back on if there is breaking news. judging by the events of the past couple weeks, it'll be any minute now. willie, lucky guy, is on assignment for the olympics in paris. he'll be joining us live from france later this hour, ahead, of course, of today's opening ceremony, the olympics kicking off. there is a developing story out of france breaking right now this morning. a series of coordinated, malicious acts have targeted part of the country's high-speed rail network, disrupting service for hundreds of thousands of passengers. this is developing. we'll bring you the latest.

again, we'll get an update from willie in paris just ahead. we'll begin this hour with a big development in the race for president here in the united states, where former president barack obama and former first lady michelle obama officially endorsed vice president kamala harris for president. here's a video released by the harris campaign showing the moment the obamas called the vice president to offer their full support. >> kamala. >> hello, hi! >> hey there. >> oh, hi. you're both together. oh, it's good to hear you both. >> i can't have this phone call without saying to my girl, kamala, i am proud of you. this is going to be historic. >> we called to say, michelle and i couldn't be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the oval office. >> oh, my goodness. michelle, barack, this means so much to me. i am looking forward to doing

this with the two of you, doug and i both, and getting out there, being on the road. but most of all, i just want to tell you that the words you have spoken and the friendship that you have given over all these years mean more than i can express. thank you, both. it means so much. and we're going to have some fun with this, too, aren't we? >> jen palmieri, no surprise here. this was, of course, part of a coordinated rollout of endorsements, though there had been some chatter on the right, nonsensical, that the obamas were having doubts about the vice president. that could not be further from the truth. so no surprise but still important. tell us what you think this means. >> well, i think, you know, one thing that's important about it is that mrs. obama was on the call, right? the president said they're both going to do everything they can. you know, politics is her husband's thing. she's been an phenomenally effective campaigner, but it

-- she doesn't necessarily look for opportunities to campaign. for her to be on the call, too, says how important it is to her and she wants to help, as well. the two of them are a major force, and they are longtime friends. president obama had stepped back from endorsing as other party leaders had to sort of give there room to be a process for somebody else to get in the race if they wanted to, but also to show that this was -- this is a real, you know, legitimate nominating process. now, you're at the point where both of the obamas are fully able to express being on board and wanting to campaign for her. that's going to be a huge help. >> yeah. sam stein, i think also the obamas wanted to give room to president joe biden. he, of course, a friend. yes, the obamas behind the scenes certainly had concerns about his ability to win, but after biden dropped out, they wanted to give him space. this is the nation's first black president endorsing the woman who could be the second. >> oh, yeah, completely.

i think that is getting a little bit lost amid what has been a dramatic, to put it bluntly, four-week process here. history is being made. this is going to be the first nomination of a black female candidate for president in our nation's history. i'm also struck by just, and, eugene, curious for your take on this, the convention in three weeks is going -- first months and months and months, we were expecting it would be a dreadful affair, potentially filled with protests. >> yes. >> shades of 1968. it's shaping up to be something quite different. i couldn't help but make the contrast. i was in milwaukee. the lineup was interesting. the leadup speakers included hulk hogan, dana white. thursday night of the democratic convention, you could potentially see the sitting president of the united states being the warm-up act for the vice president to take a historic victory lap as the

presidential candidate. talk about just what that convention will be like, how star-studded it'll be, and just the contrast between that convention and what was the milwaukee convention for republicans. >> yeah. well, i think the democratic convention this time is going to be the party of the year. i mean, can you imagine? they'll do a whole lot better than hulk hogan and kid rock. let me put it that way. [ laughter ] i can imagine the stars who will come out. i can imagine the production values. i can just -- i can just imagine. and the delegates, the general sense there is, as you know, as everybody knows, just subjectively, this incredible feeling of energy within the democratic party right now. that certainly wasn't there a week ago.

it is, you know, on a scale of 1 to 10, it's like a 12 right now. who knows where it will be when they get to the convention. i think this is going to be a dramatic contrast. given -- as republicans look back on their convention, you already have the kind of questions about jd vance and was he really the right guy? their candidate, donald trump, is clearly in a sour mood and kind of doesn't know exactly where to go and what to say, how to try to attack all of this. most important of all, the convention once again will keep trump out of the headlines, right? he has been doing whatever he could to get the spotlight, but

it's not on him. it's off of him. it's on kamala harris and the democrats. that has to be driving donald trump crazy. >> one note about the democratic convention, still should expect widespread protests about the situation in gaza based on what we just saw in washington this week. but you're right, certainly inside the arena, it'll be celebratory. the number of democrats the last couple days who have told me, imagine the thunderous ovation president biden going to get now after making that decision to step aside, that it'll be a remarkable homecoming for him. but let's talk about the race we do have now. harris versus trump. the latest "new york times"/siena college poll shows the vice president closing the gap on former president trump. trump leads harris by a single point among likely voters and two points among registered voters nationwide. that is within the poll's margin of error. in a previous "times"/siena

survey, led by 6 points among likely voters and 8 among registered voters. another poll now from "axios" and generation lab, vice president harris has opened up a wide lead among young voters. in this survey, harris leads trump by 20 points, 60% to 40% among 18 to 34-year-olds nationwide. for comparison, biden led trump by just 6 points when the same voters were asked who they'd support if biden were still the presumptive nominee. given the apparent momentum, vice president harris says she is ready and willing to debate former president trump on september 10th, which is the date previously scheduled with trump and biden. now, the trump team is not confirming if they'll still participate. in a statement released last night, trump communications

director steven cheung wrote this, "general election debate details cannot be finalized until democrats formally decide on their nominee." that'd likely push back talk of a debate schedule until after the dnc in chicago. trump previously debated biden without either of them being formally nominated. vice president harris who has already secured support from enough delegates to become the nominee once it becomes official called out the trump team yesterday for back pedaling. >> i'm ready to debate donald trump. i have agreed to the previously-agreed upon september 10th debate. he agreed to that previously. now, it appears he is back pedaling. but i'm ready. i think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage, and so i'm ready. let's go. >> symone, it doesn't feel like donald trump has some cold feet.

he obviously got the best of president biden in their debate in atlanta a few weeks ago, but it certainly seems like he is anxious about this time around with the vice president. >> yeah, he doesn't seem to be waiting with bated breath to debate the vice president. i mean, look, we know from donald trump's own statements that he does not like the enthusiasm that he is seeing around the vice president. he's talked about the crowds and how the media apparatus has been talking about her crowds. he has not actually figured out how to debate her, really. i mean, it seems as though the republicans, again, they continue to resort to racist and sexist, misogynistic stereotypes and tropes because they cannot talk about the issues. i don't know, michael, what the republicans are going to do and what donald trump is going to do here, because the clock is ticking, is it not? i mean --

>> couple of things at play here. first off, there is, among a lot of the washington republicans quietly in corners, where they tend to hang out when they don't have, you know, the backbone to actually come forward, to say that the pick of jd vance was a problem. there weren't -- there was not a lot of enthusiasm among a lot of the washington types around this pick. it was something that was brought to donald trump by his sons. that was their pick. here they are. the second part of this does play into how donald trump and his campaign narratively figure out the new terrain in front of them. i look at this race right now, and i don't see a world in which donald trump mans up and debates kamala harris. the felon is not going to debate the prosecutor. that's just not going to happen. when the question comes around about his 34 felony convictions, what do you think she's going to

do? i mean, really? you want to walk into that buzzsaw in the conversation? you can throw the border all day long, but you're mincemeat on everything else. that's what you're seeing now on the campaign, beginning to make tactical decisions around, a, introducing kamala, b, taking off the table some of the noise around the border, the borders are crazy and all of that. this is a nimble campaign in the early stages, and i think for a lot of folks, and, sam, you're out here covering this stuff, man, i know you see it and hear it up close and personal, that this feels different from a campaign style and function perspective that really has thrown republicans for a loop right now in terms of exactly how do you come at this. now, you want to debate, too? i just don't see this scenario

playing out. donald trump is already doing the backstroke, you know, like, i don't need to swim in that direction. i just don't see this debate coming off right now. >> let me marvel at your backstroke. it looked very elegant. got to sign you up for these olympics, michael. we have reporting coming out, actually, from marc caputo today at "the bulwark" about this. the trump campaign had prepared a campaign to run against joe biden. they did. that was what they were -- that's what they believed was going to happen. even in the midst of the post-debate despair among democrats, they thought that biden would probably survive. then it became clear he couldn't. now, they're scrambling. it doesn't mean that they never knew how to attack kamala harris. it doesn't mean they hadn't prepared attack lines for kamala harris, but it is a wholly different election now. all that slack in democratic enthusiasm that was there has quickly been made up. not only that, but we're seeing some potential to expand what had been a narrowed map.

joe biden's path was clearly the industrial midwest, michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin. the last two days, you saw polls from georgia that show almost a statistically tied race. this is going to revamp a lot of resources. now, the challenge, of course, is on both sides, right? like, kamala harris has been vice president for 3 1/2 years, but voter perceptions of her aren't as baked in as they were of joe biden, which means that in the next three windows, she can be easily defined or more easily defined, i should say, by her opponents. what we see now, i think, is telling, which is the future forward pac, the political action committee, is going up with a multi-million dollar ad to make sure that doesn't happen. long story short, it is a remarkably confined, compressed race, where a top of money is going to be spent and strategies are being thrown out the window and revamped. >> we've heard the trump team openly boast about this death star-esque campaign operation they built to take down joe biden.

now, of course, they have to adjust. we'll see if trump ends up debating or not. of course, if he ducks it, he'd have to deal with calls that he was being a coward and afraid to go head-to-head with the vice president. that's not something he traditionally enjoys being called. we'll have much more on that throughout the morning. next up here on "morning joe," we'll show you how the harris campaign used world ivf day to take on jd vance, with revamped clips of him criticizing people without children. also, kamala harris' meeting with benjamin netanyahu and calls for an end to the war in gaza. first, congressman pat ryan joins us at the table. we'll talk to him about the state of the race in his district. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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make now the future at godaddy.com/airo it is the weirdest thing to me. democrats say that it is racist to believe -- well, they say it is racist to do anything. i had a diet mountain dew yesterday. i'm sure they'll call that racist, too. but it's good. [ laughter ] i love you guys. >> what was weird was him joking about racism today and then talking about diet mountain dew. who drinks diet mountain dew? >> folks, i've been a person

that when sometimes i've gone over the line, i've wanted to make sure i set the record straight. so i do owe an apology to diet mountain dew. alate one is the soft drink of kentucky, but i don't believe the government should be making your decisions. so if you enjoy diet mountain dew, you be you. we want to support you. to diet mountain dew, very sorry. didn't mean to say negative things about you. >> perhaps not the best of our politics here, but that's kentucky governor andy beshear taking a jab at jd vance's take on diet mountain dew. on a more serious note, the harris campaign used world ivf day to go after donald trump's running mate. a press release went out yesterday afternoon that read, "happy world ivf day to

everyone, except jd vance." it comes as jd vance faces renewed criticism for comments he made in 2021 during his senate campaign. he talked about people who don't have children. >> we're effectively run in this country via the democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices they've made, so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. it's a basic fact. you look at kamala harris, pete buttigieg, aoc, the future of the democrats is controlled by people without children. how does it make sense we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it? >> here's another clip that's also from 2021 that's recently resurfaced. >> when you go to the polls in this country as a parent, you should have more power. you should have more of an ability to speak your voice in our democratic republic than people who don't have kids. let's face the consequences and

the reality. if you don't have as much of anne vestment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice. now, people will say, and i'm sure "the atlantic," "washington post," and usual suspects will criticize me about this in the coming days, well, doesn't this mean that non-parents don't have as much of a voice as parents? doesn't this mean that parents get a bigger say in how our democracy functions? yes, absolutely. [ applause ] >> jen palmieri, boy, i don't know. it seems a risky calculation to alienate a significant portion of the voting block, in addition to being deeply insensitive. people make their own choices about not having children, some can't have children. this feels like something that's going to resonate and perhaps a sign of just how rushed and poorly thought out trump's vetting selection of vance was. >> or just how, you know,

certain they are that they're going to win with a male vote. i mean, you know, one of the things that was surprising to me was thursday night at the republican convention when you had hulk hogan and dana white, who i did not know who that person was until that night. eric trump and donald trump. you thought at that time that they had the advantage, they'd make an effort to reach out to women, but they seem with the vance pick, with how they're programming at the republican convention, to not try to appeal to women but going out of their way to alienate them. you know, particularly, i mean, to make childless parents, you know, a political issue when you know it is a painful thing for so many people in america, and also alienating so many women. i think i saw a "morning joe" fan who recognized me in the grocery store yesterday, and she had a towering stack of cat food and threw it in her cart and gave me the biggest grin. so this is just -- it's just

igniting people, particularly women. i think, you know, one thing that has been interesting to me also in watching -- because, obviously, i worked for hillary clinton. i'm a big observer of how women are treated in the political arena. i want to go to symone on this, how there are memes that are starting on the republican side about the vice president, whether it's about her laugh or about her thing about falling out of a coconut tree, that they thought would mock the vice president, that would be a turnoff, and, instead, people are picking that up, picking these memes up and celebrating them and saying, you know, "we have your back." it's like, we know what you're trying to do to her. whatever you throw at her, we're going to embrace. we're always going to have her back. symone, what's your take on what's going on there? >> look, i think it shows a generational divide, right?

the attacks that have been lobbed against the vice president of late, frankly, are not new attacks. they've been lobbed against her since she exploded onto the national political scene when she became a senator, and definitely during the 2019/2020 campaign. her own campaign and then when she joined president biden's, then candidate biden's ticket, as his running mate. there has been this sustained attack to paint her as someone who is un-serious, who did not earn her position, where she is, and someone who just, you know, isn't -- there's just something not right about her. that's what the attacks are about. that's what the memes are, the original memes from the conservative right-wing media are about. but when young people got ahold of the clips thatcessantly on f, what they saw there was someone they connected with. they connected with what she was saying. they connected with the stories that she was telling. they found it, frankly, like a breath of fresh air. that is why there has been this

kamala harris effect. when it comes to the campaign, they have to figure out what tone they're going to take. you always have to strike the balance, i think, between what the candidate is saying and what the campaign is saying. i think this campaign is not even a week old yet, and there are folks there that have not worked -- you know, they've worked for the vice president as the person who was on the ticket, the biden/harris campaign. now that it's the harris campaign, they have to figure out her tone. while the press release, i thought it was very, very good, a little snarky, jabbing jd vance, i don't think it was something the vice president herself would do or say. how do you strike the tone, given the fact this is an election that is serious. it is an election, though, where the republicans, where donald trump has chosen a running mate that seems un-serious. it goes back to why vetting is important. hope the harris people are watching. maybe we need to check again some of the people we're looking at. but the tone here is going to be very, very important because the voters are looking at this and watching both of these

candidates as they make their decisions in less than 100 days. >> yeah, the tone is exactly right. it does seem like some of those young staffers in wilmington and their attitudes might align more closely with the vice president than president biden. we're seeing attacks and memes come out. michael steele, it's also an effort, it seems now, for the harris campaign to flip the script on what was president biden's biggest vulnerability, age. in fact, one of those snarky press releases that went out yesterday flat out said, you know, 78-year-old donald trump, statement on a 78-year-old criminal's fox news appearance, referring to donald trump appearing on his favorite cable network. they're trying to make the traction here that donald trump is old and also that trump and vance are just weird, in addition to being dangerous to democracy. [ laughter ] >> yeah, it's the weird part that's the most engaging side of all of this, i guess.

you know, look, i love the leaning into the age. i love the pivot in that regard right out of the gate. now, will it be sustainable down the lane? maybe, maybe not, depending on how the trump team handles some of that. but what all of this shows me at this point, jonathan, is flexibility. it was something that was not necessarily inherent any longer in the biden campaign. and there's a lot of reasons for that that have nothing to do with biden's age and everything to do with being the incumbent president and the trappings of the office and all the nervous nellys who want to protect that side of the equation, meaning the president. that goes to what symone was just saying. there is a difference in voice between the candidate and oftentimes not just their staff, their in-house staff, vice presidential staff, but the campaign staff, which tends to

be a little bit more aggressive, a little bit more edgy. finding that balance is something they'll do over the next couple of weeks. they'll have to layer into that, obviously, a vice presidential pick whose tone and the you nu nuance of that will also have to get factored in. i love the in your face, we're not going to lie down and curl up in the corner just because donald trump is rage tweeting at 2:00 a.m., which says a lot if he is doing that. which means this team has gotten under his skin. this team is going to be competitive. will there be stumbles? yes. because that's nature of the game. but how they recover from that and how they set that up, i think, becomes the next side of this conversation going into the convention and then whipsawing out of the convention into a full-throated campaign. one more thing about this process i love right now, joe

biden has been transformative on so many levels. i think joe biden may have unlocked for us a very important key in our electoral process. because what we're seeing now is the reason why we don't need two years of a presidential race. sorry, consultants. i know, i know. but we can do this in a very short timeframe. because kamala harris is doing it. she's standing -- >> michael, i'll have to advocate for every staffer in america for future presidential campaigns, they don't want it. >> they don't want it, but i'm not -- you don't need to do it in three weeks, but you can do it in six to eight months. you don't need three years to ramp up a campaign, trust me. i know that. but it does show flexibility, the ability to engage a conversation with the american people, and, you know, i think, jonathan, that is something to watch. i'm not saying the next cycle

we're going to do this in six months, but it shows it can be done. we don't need two years of tv commercials running for president. >> the future here in the united states, snap elections, per michael steele. certainly, it has only been a few days since kamala harris's campaign has come together. they are showing that nimbleness and a sense of taking it right to trump, but they're also focusing on some serious issues, they say, will define this year's election. one of them, of course, abortion health care. it has become one of the vice president's central pieces of her presidential campaign. our next guest is also highlighting the current threat to reproductive rights in his quest for re-election. joining us now, democratic congressman pat ryan. he represents new york's 18th district, one of the state's key swing districts. in 2022, ryan scored a narrow victory over his republican challenger in his congressional race. second win in less than three months after claiming a vacant

seat in a neighboring house district in a special election earlier that year. congressman, thank you so much for being with us this morning. you know, sometimes issues get siloed, and abortion health care sometimes is, all too often, seen as a woman's issue. it should be the province of a female candidate to talk about. you are making it clear that is not the case at all. >> this is an american issue. i mean, you saw the video that came out yesterday morning from the harris campaign. which was incredibly compelling. it's an issue of freedom. which is the most universally agreed upon value in the united states of america. you try to take away american's freedoms, they stand up, say no way. we saw that in 2022 in my race, as you mentioned, in all these special elections, and we're going to see it again. because people have not forgotten how extreme trump and vance and project 2025 and their desire to use this comstock act

as legislation from the 1800s that would allow them to put in place a nationwide abortion ban. so people are on the ground already aware of that, and vice president harris is marshalling that energy and putting it in this frame of we are the ones standing up for, fighting for, protecting your freedom. not just reproductive freedom, economic freedom,violence, freee clean air. i'm so excited she's centering this campaign on freedom. >> post dobbs, abortion rights undefeated at the ballot box, including some deep red states. tell us how you see in your race how it is playing out. >> exactly right. the vast majority of the american people want their reproductive rights protected, not just women. men, women, people, americans of all generations. in my special election, every pundit, every pollster, no offense, said we were not going to win this special election. this was august of 2022, the first house race after the dobbs

decision. we centered reproductive freedom against the consensus advice, and we won. we had such energy. i feel that same energy now. vice president harris knows that in her gut, in her heart, and to see her bring it forward, it is firing the country up. >> gene robinson, freedom, for so long, was a republican campaign buzzword, and it's been effectively taken by the harris team and democrats. >> yeah, i've thought for a long time that progressives and democrats should take back these words and these symbols of america. they belong to us as much as they belong to the right. yeah, take back the word freedom. take back the word liberty. take back the energy flag. it's ours. it's not just theirs. we can't allow them to own it. i do have a question for the

congressman. just stepping back for a second, in the democratic party's attempt to take pack the house of representatives, new york state is crucial. the democrats lost a bunch of seats in new york the last time around that they had won before and that perhaps they should have won in the recent midterm. are they going to win those seats back again now? what is your sort of gut feeling about how things are going in the new york house races? >> i think now, especially in the last few days at the top of the ticket, in critical house races in new york, across the country, we are on the offensive. your point is so right, that when we lean forward into freedom, into patriotism, into -- these are shared american values that transcend party. i'm telling you, in my district, this is what people want.

they want a future-looking, forward-looking, optimistic but tough american view of this. that's what we're doing in my race. that's what we're going to do in all these critical new york races. i am confident that we are going to take back the house, hold the senate, and we are going to have an historic president kamala harris. >> all right. we'll be watching all those races, and it'll certainly be a fierce fight for the house. democratic congressman pat ryan of new york, thank you very much for joining us this morning. >> thank you. coming up next here on "morning joe," manhattan's district attorney is urging the judge presiding over donald trump's criminal hush money case to keep the former president's conviction. we'll break down the arguments as trump's legal team looks to toss out the case entirely in light of the supreme court's recent immunity ruling. "morning joe" will be right back with that.

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welcome back to "morning joe." 6:40 a.m. here on the east coast. we had some of the morning's other headlines now. manhattan's district attorney is urging the judge in donald trump's hush money case to reject the former president's bid to toss out his conviction on immunity grounds.

d.a. alvin prag arg bragg argue filing made public yesterday that the decision on trump's immunity for official acts as president has no bearing on his conviction on charges of falsifying business records in new york. bragg contends that the charges exclusively stem from conduct for which trump is not immune. the former president's attorneys have argued the supreme court's presidential immunity ruling should lead to the case being tossed entirely. joining us now to help us sort it out, former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. good to see you again. let's talk about this case. do you think the trump team's arguments have any merit? because it is striking to most people watching this saying, wait a minute, this all happened. this is conduct that happened before he was president. >> yeah. it is important to take a step back and remind people the supreme court's immunity ruling isn't just immunity from liability. it is also about immunity from the use of evidence. that's what this fight is really

about. it's not them saying, hey, he should be immune from prosecution for things that he did largely in 2015, 2016, and then privately. it's more that they say there is a bunch of different pieces of evidence used at the trial during the time he was president and relate to official acts as president that should have been excluded, and without which, the jury could not have come to the verdict they reached. >> this would seem to put into question, whatever the next steps are, the sentencing date, mid-september, i believe. how confident are you that that will happen when it is scheduled? >> well, first of all, the judge has to make a determination about whether or not there is going to be a sentencing, but what's really important here, and i think this plays spot political calendar here, too, is that the judge has already committed he is going to make a decision about whether to set aside the verdict by september 6th. so when you hear the trump campaign sort of backing away from the anytime, anyplace,

we'll debate joe biden, which should have applied to kamala harris, as well, note part may be contingent on what is going to happen on september 6th. if this conviction is upheld as many suspect, you can understand why trump would be very eager to avoid a debate with the person we are all referring to now as the person who is prosecuting the case, the biggest case against donald trump. if he is still going to be a man convicted of 34 felony counts here in new york. >> sam stein, the legal and the political completely intertwined. >> yeah. it's wild. we could end in september with a presidential campaign coming to a debate, and one of the candidates facing sentening in his criminal trial. the sentencing itself, lisa, what is the likelihood that we do end up seeing some sort of action prior to the election? and i know you're in the legal punditry, not the political, but i'm sort of curious for your

take, how would you imagine the trump people are approaching this on a psychological level? the bragg indictment and conviction did help them, but that was in the context of a primary campaign. this would be in the context of a general election coming to a close. >> i agree with you. you know, again, my larger frame is always legal and not political, but as you noted, the legal and political have all but collapsed into one here. i do think they are eager to avoid a sentencing because a new york state sentencing is something that a future president trump can't wish away. he can't dismiss. there's no department of justice policy or executive power that could rescue him from this case. i do believe that the new york d.a. here willbetter of the arg. because even if all the evidence the trump folks say should be excluded is excluded, they make a great argument in the middle of their brief about all the other evidence that supports each and every element of the falsification of business records counts that were

sustained against donald trump. that means we are likely barrelling toward a september 18th sentencing. that's a firm date. we'll see if they can somehow persuade judge merchan to change that. but if as i suspect, on september 6th he says, i'll keep this conviction, then september 18th is the date for sentencing, sam, and there is nothing the former or future president could do about that. >> we'll be watching carefully as the date approaches. msnbc legal correspondent lisa ruben, thank you for being with us this morning. ahead, we'll bring the latest story lines from the summer olympics just hours before the opening ceremony. look at this guy. willie geist standing by live in new jersey. we'll check in with him next on "morning joe." with 4 powerful pain-fighting ingredients that start working on contact to target tough pain at the source. for up to 8 hours of powerful relief. new advil targeted relief.

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that's about as good as it gets right there. the opening ceremony for the paris olympic games is tonight, and our own willie geist joins us live from paris right now. willie, good to see you. as we mentioned earlier, part of france's high-speed rail network has been paralyzed by what officials are deeming a series of coordinated, malicious acts. this comes as fears of terror at a high-value target and highly-visible-target with the olympics. tell us how the trains are

affecting the beginning hours of the games. >> we're a few afternoons from an opening ceremony promising to be spectacular. seven years in the making. but as you say, a snag this morning, things complicated by a massive, coordinated attack on three separate train lines, serving the high-speed trains that come into paris from different parts of the country. the suspected activity was arson. they're calling it an act of vandalism, which seems a bit to understate the problem, given that trains have been canceled, diverted with hundreds of thousands of people coming in today for the opening ceremony and for the games over the next couple of weeks. we don't quite know who is responsible yet. authorities here are working on that. as i said, there are tens of thousands of officers. the security state here is extraordinary, especially here today for the opening ceremony. fires set inside some of the cables that serve the switchers, obviously crucial to the operation of the high-speed trains. even the eurostar train, the one

that comes from london, has been diverted. very difficult to get into a city that was already locked down. we'll keep an eye on that story. get more developments as they come through. as i say, we're hours away now from what promises to be, honestly, one of the most spectacular events. forget olympic events on the international stage, but unlike anything in the history of the olympics, for sure. it is an opening ceremony with athletes notstaidium but floati siene river, the famous river in paris. you'll have athletes, 10,000 on 85 boats with about 300,000 spectators lining the siene, cheering them on. we are expecting a little bit of weather. perhaps you might be able to see it is spitting this morning. we hope that pushes through and doesn't interrupt this event which has been planned now for about seven years. every detail. the boats going past the louvre,

ending up at the eiffel tower, passing the notre dame cathedral. it is going to be incredible. the flag bearers for the united states will be lebron james and tennis star coco gauff, who actually just won the doubles french open title a few weeks ago here. won the french open singles title a couple of years ago. some talk that lady gaga may be performing. some talk that celine dion may be performing. a lot kept under wraps, but it is going to be incredible with about a billion people watching around the world. there was some early action already. last night, the u.s. women's national soccer team defeating the african nation of zambia, 3-0. trinity rodman scoring the first goal of these olympics. she is the daughter of denis rodman, the former nba star. also, mallory swanson scoring twice in under two minutes for an easy 3-0 win for the american side. things get more difficult this weekend. they play on sunday, germany,

one of the best teams in the world. a lot going on already, john. as i said, the disruption of the trains is a problem. the source of the attack is something authorities are looking at. but by 7:30 paris time, 1:30 you can watch it live on nbc eastern time and again in primetime at 7:30, this is going to be a skeptical like no one has ever seen on the river behind me. >> i think, willie, there's real excitement for these games. the last couple, of course, impacted by the covid pandemic. there really couldn't even be fans there. athletes' families couldn't go to cheer on their sons and daughters, husbands, wives. now, here we are, though, a full-on games. it couldn't be a more spectacular setting. >> yeah, it's true. honestly, as you know, john, being here, you feel the history around you. the arc behind me will figure into the games, as well. in 1940, the nazis, when they occupied paris, walked under the

arc, and then americans rolled their troops under the arc when they came back and liberated the city. to pull off an event of this magnitude in an old european city, london did it in 2012, but the crowds are back. the enthusiasm is here. the city is fully locked down for security today. tonight at 7:30 eastern in primetime if you can't catch it live at 1:30 eastern time, do tune in. this is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen before. >> willie, i can't help but note it is nearly 1:00 p.m. local time where you are. advantages doing a morning show in the afternoon, a reasonable hour, more sleep. >> highly recommend. highly recommend. i think we should have an all-hands meeting after the olympics and talk about moving the show even to london would be fine, five hours ahead. the six hour ahead, morning tv

at noon, this is the way to do it, man. >> yeah, start scouting real estate for us, please. willie geist live in paris. enjoy today. thank you for joining us. of course, as willie said, you can watch the opening ceremony at 7:30 p.m. eastern on nbc as well as streaming on peacock. coming up next here on "morning joe," trump's allies are warning the former president not to underestimate the candidacy of vice president kamala harris. we're going to dig into brand-new reporting. and transportation secretary pete buttigieg is our guest in this next hour. "morning joe" will be right back. power e*trade's easy to-use tools make complex trading less complicated. custom scans help you find new trading opportunities, while an earnings tool helps you plan your trades

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i have to beat a curmudgeon, a skunk at the garden party. this is too trumpist. i'll get to coverage and it's great. if i had to write a play about what i think it's going to be like, it'd be entitled, "the ice pick cometh."

get ready. they're coming. it's good, everybody should feel good and liberated and everything else, but if we don't win the election, we haven't done anything. we haven't changed the temperature in america, haven't changed anything. i think the vice president, i hope that, you know, her campaign is getting ready. they're coming at us. they're going to keep coming. this kind of giddy elation is not going to be very helpful much longer because that's not what we're going to be faced with. i think the vice presidents put it in excellent terms, needs a really good cut man in a corner. she's getting ready to get cut. there is no doubt that the polling has gotten better. you know, it's kind of 45/45. there's no doubt it's gotten two, three, maybe, you know, some more in some places, but it's still the same country. might be a different mood. all i'm saying is, you know,

good to bang your helmets against the locker. that's fine. but you still, when you go out there, you're facing alabama. just get ready because these republicans, you're right, they got caught off guard, but they're going to get their sea legs. we're having to get a campaign, a whole campaign started and stuff. all i'm doing is saying, watch out, people. don't get too far out there. if we don't win this, all this good feeling is going to evaporate and be all for not. >> that, of course, is long-time democratic strategy james carville with strong warnings to democrats to temper their excitement about president biden dropping out of the race and vice president kamala harris surging forward as the clear frontrunner for the nomination. he says democrats should prepare for a bloody fight from republicans. welcome back to "morning joe." it is friday, july 26th. just after 7:00 a.m. here on the east coast. i'm jonathan lemire holding down

the fort for joe, mika, and willie, our man in paris. jennifer palmieri, michael steele, symone sanders townsend, and eugene robinson still with us. james carville saying, hey, there's enthusiasm but take it easy. there's a lot of work that needs to be done. >> i don't understand why james has to be a debbie downer. i don't know why we need to step on our enthusiasm, seriously. democrats are excited. they're excited to have an answer to the question about who is the best person to take on donald trump. i don't think anybody is unaware of how nasty the republicans can get and that it is a difficult race. you know, the vice president has seen a big jump in polling, right? that's sort of what is hard, is the last two, three percentage

points, right? that's what the whole game is about. we've had really great week. her numbers are improving. and i think it's true that the republicans are caught off guard. they don't quite know how to attack her or, you know, what her ticket is going to end up being. i think having only 100 days is, you know, i agree with michael steele, shorter campaigns can be better. it is particularly hard with a woman candidate to get elected in this country, right? we've seen that before. when it's happened other times, in other countries, it's happened in this sort of circumstance. the nominee has not gone through a big, long, brutal primary process like happens in the u.s. in a parliamentary system where a small -- where the person is presented as the leader of the party to the party -- to the country as a winner, right? that's what we have here. i think one of the reasons why

you see everyone uniting behind her, there's not second guessing about which candidate is best. she's our candidate. she is the most experienced person out there. she is the best prepared. she's way more prepared than donald trump or jd vance. we're going to go forward. sure, it's going to get ugly. we know what they do. but our team is energized and ready to fight. you have a really prepared candidate to take this on, as well. that's the best position the democrats can be in. so far, week into this, republicans have not figured out a way to go after her, but they will be prepared when they do. also, she's going to have millions and millions and millions of americans that are fired up to help her, have her pack when it comes to money, when it comes to voting, when it comes to gotv, and the campaign right now needs to lock in all of that support. there's so much enthusiasm. lock those people in. give them assignments. get them ready to go. tell them this is going to be hard. keep engaging them and communicating with them. then i think, yeah, you're ready

for the battle that is going to be coming, particularly once you get past the democratic convention. >> yeah, just one note, an example of that enthusiasm, the harris campaign held a women for harris zoom last night. set a record for largest zoom ever, about 150,000 people on one zoom call. michael steele, it is surprising how republicans do seem unprepared for kamala harris. i mean, this has been -- we knew president biden wanted to stay in the race, but there have been at least rumors of this eventuality since the day after the debate. sure, they'll have stronger attacks to come, and they are sharpening messages right now on immigration, but really, it seems like they're flailing and falling back on dei attacks, which are race igs and sexist. nothing is working, at least so far. >> well, okay, i agree with that broadly speaking, it's not working, but for the audience

that all that's trained towards, it is working. this dei conversation is not for mainstream voters. this is their base. because there is some, as i've noted in the last hour, there is some nervousness about jd vance and all the stuff that's coming up now and should have been vetted and considered, instead of listening to, you know, donald trump jr. and eric. they should have had a real vetting process, and they wouldn't have this achilles heel being exposed. so this is really kind of showing we have fight and we're going to go after kamala. look, i appreciate where james carville is coming from. the thing he said to me that is the most important note and takeaway, symone, is this is the same country, all right? this is the same country. you have to understand the landscape this is taking place.

donald trump is sitting at his ceiling, 48%, all right? the reality becomes for the vice president, how does she get to 50%? how does she get to 49%? how does she get the 2 to 3 extra points that jen just referred to, that will make the difference in the race. yes, that excitement is part of that, i think, but this is the same country, half of which says they like donald trump. they like, they like what he has been saying on a whole lot of things, including the dei stuff. so narratively spoking, we've got to keep it focused. let's have the fun now, get that energy, and push it out and push it up. but i think carville is right in the sobering reality that when you come back down to earth, you better have a game plan. i'll be straight up about this. democrats haven't shown much of a game plan up to this moment. now, they've got -- i know, you and i have had this debate. but i'm just looking at why we're here and how we got here.

>> so let me say this. >> yes? >> i'm just a baby. i don't know much. a did get a president elected. but, you know, i don't know a lot. >> i've gotten several but okay, go ahead. >> i haven't lived as long as mr. carville or you, mr. chairman, but i think that james carville, i just -- why are we trampling on the enthusiasm of the democratic party electorate? that's what i thought y'all people wanted. not you, michael, but the folks talking about, oh, apparently, they didn't feel the president was speaking directly -- the democratic voters didn't want the president. they wanted something new and exciting. they didn't want this matchup. that's what james carville said. two days ago, he said, 72% of the country wants something different. now that the 72% have gotten something a little different, now you're telling them don't be excited, you need to calm down? this doesn't matter? the this, what he is saying, is the nomination of the first

black woman, woman of south asian descent to be the democratic party nominee, the second woman to do that after secretary clinton. don't get too excited about that. i'm not here to trample on the excitement of the voters. you know why? excited electorate, they want to organize. those are people that want to get on the calls happening. they have the zoom tech employees feeling like, my goodness, please slow down, get to election day. those are the folks that knock doors, that give money, that organize their people, that go to the polls, that vote early, and encourage their friends to do so, as well. that is how you win elections. the campaign, they absolutely need to make sure that they are tethered into the reality of this race. my piece on msnbc daily this week today talks about that. i think this is a winnable race for the vice president. there's a lot to do within 100 days, but she can, in fact, do it. you need the electorate to be excited and the campaign to be grounded in the reality. i don't think we've seen the

campaign not be grounded in that reality. i have not heard the vice president once talk about the historic nature of what she is embarking on. i have heard her talk about the fact she took on the big banks, criminals, rapists and murderers, okay? i have heard her talk about the economy. i have heard her talk about child care. i have heard her talk about project 2025. all of the things that are going to turn out an electorate. so stop poo-pooing on the voters. don't be mad because they're saying what you wanted. not you, michael. the people, they know who i'm talking to. [ laughter ] >> eugene robinson, let's talk a little about the balancing act. there is no doubt, there is extraordinary enthusiasm right now. democrats have pent-up energy about the new race. but a handful of polls show momentum for the vice president, no doubt. we need more battleground states. >> exactly. >> the trump team is badly outspending democrats on the

airwaves, though the vice president is getting so much media attention, she doesn't need to be spending on ads. that'll change soon enough. give us your sense of where we are at this moment. >> look, i think optimism and joy are good things. i think that, you know, they're things that, frankly, the democratic party didn't have a week ago. it has tons now. i think optimism and joy are attractive to voters. i mean, look, as symone pointed out, there were -- every poll showed big majorities of americans were dissatisfied with the choice they had between former president trump and president biden. they didn't like that choice. they wanted a different choice. now, they have a different choice. i think, you know, why would --

why and how would democrats not celebrate, having been the party to take this step and to give voters that different look, that different option that they say they want? of course, i think democrats should consider -- should continue the enthusiasm, continue to break zoom with those calls and raise all that money. and, yes, the campaign needs to be working on its game plan and its game plan for electing vice president harris might be a bit different. they need to take a cold-eyed look at whether, for example, the electoral map actually changes. you know, is georgia back in play? is she realistically as strong

in the midwest blue wall states as biden was? how does she go about winning them? yeah, that's for the campaign to do. but, yeah, voters ought to be, i think, pretty happy. they seem to be. >> let's bring into the conversation rogers chair and the american presidency at vanderbilt university, historian jon meacham. he occasionally advises president biden on historical matters and major speeches. jon, great to see you this morning. let's start with some of the history here. we've talked about it briefly last hour, but it's easy to overlook the history-making candidacy here of the vice president. today, just this morning, a couple hours ago, the first black president of the united states, barack obama, endorsed the woman who could be the second. >> yeah. first of all, if i were you, i'd talk to hr about why willie is in paris ask you're not. >> i sent off a few sternly worded messages already this morning. it is -- >> emails, okay, good.

>> yeah. >> president biden passed the torch, but the track is in the same stadium, right? the opponent has not changed. i think that the case that's going to be made, just speculating, the case that's going to be consistently made, that we continue to face an existential question in this country. do we want someone who has proven they're willing to overthrow american democracy for their own purposes, or do we want someone who has faith and belief in the rule of law, even if you might not agree with all of the policy on that side? and so i think those factors are constant. i argue a lot, and there are a lot of folks who disagree with me, that presidential politic it is not a referendum as much as a

choice. nobody came to the country and said, "do you want donald trump to be president?" no, it was a choice. nobody came to the country and said, "do you want joe biden to be president?" no, it was a choice. so this will unfold in a remarkably compressed way, but i do think we're living in times that folks like us will be studying and writing about for a long time to come. >> the events of the last few weeks certainly will fill up a number of books going forward. as we try to sort out where we stand in this new race, we have new polling exclusively shared with "morning joe" that shares a competitive race for the white house but includes doubts from a key voting block about whether vice president kamala harris can win this november. according to the latest numbers from the non-profit newsroom the 19th and surveymonkey, donald trump leads harris by just one point, 39% to 38%, among u.s.

adults in a multi-candidate race. that's within the poll's margin of error. nearly all adults across the political spectrum also think president biden made the right decision in dropping out the race. but among independents, a group that was instrumental in biden's 2020 victory, nearly 60% say trump is most likely to win this fall. for more on this, let's bring in editor at large for the 19th, errin haines. good to see you this morning. tell us a little more about the numbers and what sort of snapshot they provide as to the state of the race. >> yeah. well, good morning, jonathan. so good to be with you. thank you for highlighting our findings. ask and you shall receive. you wanted more polls, we have one for you. 19th news.org finds americans overwhelmingly agree with the president's decision to drop out of the 2024 contest, and the majority agree with his decision to drop out and have the vice

president take his place. women had stronger support for the endorsement than men. there were also some other poll results that really stuck out to me in terms of the gender angles of it. americans also think that harris will have a better chance of winning with a white male running mate, while more think choosing a woman would hurt her chances. half of americans think having a white man as kamala harris's vice president as a running mate will have no particular impact on her chances this fall. 4 in 10 think a choice would improve her chances. the sentiment is nearly the opposite when it comes to choosing a woman, though, as a running mate. 1 in 6 of americans think having a female running mate will improve her chances of winning, compared to 42% who think it'd worsen her chances. another 40% think it'd have no impact. i've written a column this week arguing for at least a conversation about a two-woman ticket. the republicans just nominated an all-male ticket at their convention in milwaukee.

you know, i think when we're talking about electability, it's proof that, you know, electability is about who the electorate is willing to elect. some really interesting findings, especially also around, you know, how americans view harris's gender and whether they think that also will help or hurt her headed into the next 100 or so days. >> errin, it's symone. what are some of the issues that bubble to the top? obviously, this is the first survey you all have done post this new world order of this race. but what are some of the issues that bubble up to the top? you know, as i'm out there talking to voters, i find that it is the people but also some of the policies and what they're dealing with in their everyday lives. >> absolutely. this is really where you may be seeing some of that excitement and enthusiasm around vice president harris now looking like the de facto democratic party nominee. you know, for the past couple years, we've seen the vice president talking about an issue

that we, the 19th, have been saying, and that is that abortion is on the ballot, particularly for women who make up more than half the electorate and half the population. this is a central issue that, along with things like the economy, along with things like caregiving, gun violence, that women voters are motivated by these issues and not just the person who was at the top of the ticket, making the case for the america they want going forward. you know, abortion, certainly we predict, will be a galvanizing issue again for women headed to the polls in november and with really the most vocal defender of reproductive rights in the democratic party now looking to be the democratic party's nominee. i think that that kind of enthusiasm around that particular issue is going to continue. >> providing new polls at request. editor at large for the 19th non-profit, errin haines, thank you for joining us this morning.

after years of preparing for a race against president biden, donald trump's team is scrambling to shift the campaign's messaging now that kamala harris is the clear favorite to be the democratic nominee. according to a new piece out in "rolling stone," trump's allies are warning, do not underestimate the political momentum behind the vice president. joining us now is one of the reporters who wrote that piece, senior political reporter at "rolling stone." good to see you this morning. tell us more about what you found here and how the trump campaign is struggling to adjust. >> well, what struck us in our reporting as we've been pulling threads on this since biden dropped out, there have been a number of close allies to donald trump, including at least two maga lawmakers on capitol hill who we could identify, who have gone to him or spoken on the phone to him directly to urge him, look, we were all excited,

especially coming out of the republican convention, but do not underestimate kamala harris. the lieutenants have been telling you recently, and it's including some working on his campaign, saying kamala harris has vulnerabilities and she might be easy to topple come november. they've been stressing, we have indications in certain rings of republican internal polling that she might even be formidable in some of the battleground states you need to win. they've been saying the democratic voter enthusiasm and the renewed enthuiasm over the critical sectors of the black vote is something you can't underestimate. interestingly, they pointed out to him that a bunch of attacks they've been hearing from certain arenas of the pro-trump right both in politics and media that they believed were openly sexist against kamala harris was

counterproductive and this is something the republican party should not engage in. one of the individuals we spoke to is a guy named darrell scott, a pastor in ohio who has been a close trump ally and advised trump for years. still speaks to him fairly regularly via text message and over the phone. he told us the next conversation he wants to have with donald trump is that he will tell him, look, never, ever underestimate your opponent. the democrats are going to come out of this with a wellspring of energy and try to make kamala harris obama 2.0. this is a new playbook. this is a new ball game. the strategy needs to be completely adjusted. >> asawin, michael steele here. how is all of that landing? look, it is one thing to tell donald trump or anyone in his orbit, you know, you underestimate kamala harris at your peril. but what is the likelihood that they heed that warning?

what tactically, beyond what they're already doing, do you think they anticipate they need to do? you know, is it focusing on a policy issue like the border and using that narrative against her? because my sense is they -- trump especially just can't resist the rage tweeting and the name calling. so while there may be these warning signs about what the democrats are prepared to put up against him in this candidacy, how much of that, do you think, is actually going to be heeded? >> well, to your first question about how the campaign and trump advisors want to absorb this already, some you can see bubbling out into the public domain via his -- you mentioned rage tweeting. the technical term, i think, is rage truthing on his social media app. but there is clearly an anxiety that the campaign will try to

paint a brave face over trump's little fingers which seem to be betraying him from time to time. having said that, one sign you can see the campaign has been absorbing these internal warning signs is that their top pollster, tonyfabrizio, put out a memo stating that, okay, there is going to be something of a kamala harris polling sugar high and things are probably going to look good for her for the next few days, maybe more, but hopefully it recedes after that. we expect it to recede. that is what michael, i'm sure you know, in the communications game is known as kind of softening the ground in case if there is a new narrative, that there is a significant harris surge going on. but in terms of how trump is going to absorb some of these

warnings, including but not limited to you and other republicans need to be restrained in the way that you go after kamala harris in intensely personal facts because they'll backfire with women voters, suburban voters. my takeaway when talking about a guy like donald trump, good luck with him showing restraint for more than 18 seconds. >> senior political reporter at "rolling stone," asawin, thank you for joining us this morning. ahead on "morning joe," vice president kamala harris has a long list of potential vp picks. we're going to talk to one of them. pete buttigieg is standing by. he'll join the conversation next. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. smile! you found it. the feeling of finding psoriasis can't filter out the real you. so go ahead, live unfiltered with the one and only sotyktu, a once-daily pill for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, and the chance at clear or almost clear skin.

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he was attacking vice president harris. he said, quote, she is more liberal than bernie sanders. is that how you would put it? >> probably not. it's just possible for the 83,000th time trump is lying. no, i don't think that is the case. >> that is independent senator bernie sanders of vermont laughing off former president trump's claim that vice president kamala harris is more liberal than he is. now, tomorrow marks just 100 days until election day in november. 100 days. the vice president's campaign announced a major nationwide

push for this weekend. holding more than 2,000 events in battleground states and mobilizing 170,000 new volunteers. let's now bring in pete buttigieg. he is joining us in his personal capacity and not speaking on behalf of the bidn administration. mayor pete, good to see you. you have been banded around as a possible running mate choice for vice president harris. have you been contacted by the campaign, and would you be interested in serving in the role? >> i think anybody would be flattered to be mentioned in that context. i certainly am. there's not much more i can or should say about that process, other than that she's going to make that decision. she knows what she's doing. what i know is that i'm really excited in whatever capacity to be part of this campaign. i'm one of millions of democrats who are clearly energized and fired up. there's just a new energy, and it's been extraordinary to me how quickly she has gathered the

party around her with a sense of mission, a clear message, just in a matter of days. of course, i'm thrilled to be part of that. >> it seems as if that sense of mission and enthuiasm has rattled republicans, at least for the moment. and as we covered earlier in the show, donald trump and his campaign have suggested he may not follow through with the debate in september that had been scheduled to be with president biden. now, of course, would be the vice president, assuming she does wrap up the nomination as expected. what do you make of that? >> it's extraordinary. tough talk is this guy's calling card, and now there's this extraordinary show of weakness. he agreed to -- you know, he said anytime, anyplace. more than that, he agreed to this specific debate on this specific network on this specific date, and now he is pulling out. of course, it shows that he's afraid. it shows that he knows if the two of them are on a stage together, it's not going to end

well for him. so, you know, this is a campaign that really has struggled to be about anything but donald trump and joe biden. i think that's the bigger pattern that you're seeing here and part of why the trump campaign is having such a hard time adapting. think about it. just in a matter of two or three days, our campaign adapted to literally the biggest possible change, which is a change in the top of the ticket. yet, you know, within a couple of days, that support consolidated, and the message was clear. they, meanwhile, have been flailing in a way that shows they're unable to adapt. to me, it's not just that their entire strategic apparatus was built around tearing down joe biden. i think there's something deeper. which is, donald trump cannot conceive of a campaign that isn't about the candidate. you know, we're obviously very excited about our candidate, kamala harris.

she's a leader that everybody is pulling together around. also, she's articulating a message that isn't just about herself and certainly isn't just about donald trump, although she has that contrast down. it's about us. and that's the kind of campaign that wins. it's the right kind of campaign. it's also one that literally does not compute for somebody like donald trump. >> you, of course, just mentioned the huge change atop the ticket. a seismic change, dizzying week of change. for you yourself, on friday night, you appeared in real time with billmaher, talking about president biden, wanting him to stay in the race, and two days later, he announced he is bowing out. what has this week been like for you? >> obviously, it's been intense. it's been emotional. especially watching president biden's oval office address, watching him do what is so incredibly rare, which is for a load er lead we are that kind of

responsibility and lay it aside and focus on leading the country. again, the words that most spoke to me is when he said the sacred trust in our democracy, he said, it's not about me. it's about you and your families. it reminded me why i'm so proud to be part of that team. but the other thing i would say is, while the top of our ticket has changed, of course, the values have not. i'm especially excited to see the way she's leaning into freedom of value, a theme that, as you know, really for years and back to my own presidential campaign, it's frustrated me that conservatives tried to monopolize the language around freedom. i think they've more completely relinquished any claim to be able to talk about freedom when they got into banning books. she's spoken so powerfully, as she did yesterday when she was addressing america's teachers, to the fact that if you mean business when it comes to

protecting our kids, you shouldn't be protecting our kids from toni morrison, but protect our kids from assault weapons. >> jon meacham has the next question for you. >> mr. mayor, quick question. you are an anomaly in that you are a young person in politics, in public service, who seems to actually enjoy it. i'm wondering, given the course of the 21st century, given the fact that the public arena again and again has proven to not be commensurate to what people want. we began with the terrible attacks. we do through insurrection. what's the story now that you've been mayor, you've been in a big job, what's the story you tell about why politics, why public service matters? >> you know, it is a great point. generationally, i think anyone

my age and younger, especially in the first part of this century, witnessed a lot of policy failure. so part of my message, my anecdote to that is to look at what's been achieved these last few years. most importantly, what that could point to for the future. i think about my own trajectory. the fact that somebody like me being able to have a role like i do or run a campaign like we did would have been considered preposterous 10, 20 years ago. i think of the trajectory of south bend, indiana, where i served as mayor and where i grew up. a place that in less than a decade changed the narrative about that from being written up in national commentaries as a dying rust belt city to being a city growing and regarded as a place full of innovation and energy. of course, i think about serving in a biden/harris administration and watching what happened. i mean, take infrastructure,

right? there was this belief that you couldn't -- there was this thing that obviously needed to be done, and, yet, it just couldn't happen. no president could get it through, definitely not on a bipartisan basis, only to see the biden/harris administration do that. it highlights what's possible. in this week's moment, about the idea of enjoying this a little more. politics doesn't have to be a death match. you know, we have certainly seen and had cause for being extremely troubled and disturbed by what's coming out of the other side. i think we continue to be right to talk about the threat and the concern for our democracy if you have a guy like donald trump who inspired the january 6th riots and attempt against our democracy. somebody who talks about terminating the constitution. said a political opponent of his ought to be brought by a military tribunal. that's really dark.

but the other side of the coin is the joy of the right and better kind of politics. we've seen that throughout the week. again, it's something that i think is animating our side and that the other side literally can't conceive. that's why some of the attacks that have fallen flat reveal that there is a different energy, a different vibe over there. the fact that they, for example, clip and tweet images of kamala harris laughing, as if that is something that counts against her, shows that they literally are having trouble just getting the idea of there being joy in the struggle and in the challenge. but i think that's something that speaks more to the campaign than voters. i think there are a lot of independents and what i call future former republicans who would rather just sign up and be part of this project than continue to be part of this doom-filled, whatever we saw at

the rnc. >> pete buttigieg, thank you for joining us this morning, again, in his personal capacity. we appreciate it. >> thanks. coming up next, we'll be joined by democratic congressman jim himes of connecticut following his meeting with the fbi director on donald trump's assassination attempt. we'll ask him about that and the state of the newly reshaped 2024 presidential race. that's next on "morning joe." 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.

welcome back to "morning joe." live shot of the capitol. 7:45 on the east coast. let's bring in jim himes of connecticut, ranking member of the committee. it feels like ages ago, but ten days or so time, right after president biden delivered his news conference at the nato summit, you appeared on msnbc and you voiced your belief that he should step aside, that someone else should be atop the ticket. you said, as one of your biggest reasons why, that you felt the president was no longer able to effectively communicate all the good things the democrats have done, that his administration has done, that lawmakers have done during his time in office. now, vice president kamala harris appears poised to be the democratic nominee. what have you seen so far? is she effectively communicating what you wanted to see? >> yeah, good morning.

it's good to be with you. look, right out of the gate, things have been remarkable. after my speech at the conclusion of the nato thing, i think i had the support of the vast majority of my constituents and colleagues, frankly, but pushback was there is not time to organize a coherent campaign. holy smokes, that turns out to be exactly the opposite of what has occurred. literally in about 24 hours, the vice president had this sewn up. the former president and his wife endorsed this morning. more importantly than the big shot endorsements are, i'm seeing something i haven't seen since obama ran in '08, which is young people. i can't open my phone right now for all of the single cat lady memes and the couch memes associated with jd. i mean, i can't. young people have gone bananas. i'm seeing african-american women who was maybe nervous about the vice president while biden was president getting stuck holding the bag, all of a

sudden putting mission frames on. you know, i don't think we have an easy run of it to the election, but, oh, my god, i'll tell you, colleagues in washington this week, it was like everybody had a 100 pound weight lifted off their shoulders. >> congressman himes, it is symone sanders townsend. i'm wondering your take on your colleagues in the house of endiv representatives, the republican colleagues. the republican congressional campaign committee for the house had to literally send a memo to house republicans selling them not to use racist language when speaking about the vice president and to focus on the issues. what is your take on how republicans haven't seen how to figure out how to debate the issues, so they're resorting to these stereotypes and language? >> big picture, maga has never been about the issues, right? what did maga achieve when you had a four-year presidency? a whole bunch of things that are

not traditional right-wing republican things it. cracking down on immigration. massive government spending. tariffs. the right-wing never considered these. to some extent, the republicans understand in as much as they have positions, they're pretty unpopular. ask americans what they think of cutting taxes for the wealthiest corporations in the country. ask americans what they think of a national abortion ban. it is devastating, what americans think of their positions. so what do they do? they take these very cheap shots. as you pointed out, i said on twitter, when you don't know somebody well and call them a dei hire, there is a word for that, which is racism. even if you feel that way, which i think some of them do, what a stupid thing to do. i have to tell you, you know, it's been only a week or so, but african-american women and african-americans generally, i am starting to see that community absolutely catch fight. you know what? when a bunch of, you know, good old boys from the former confederacy call a black woman

who achieved the vice presidency a dei hire, man, you have just thrown radioactive garbage into our politics. they see that. >> michael steele here. i want to go back to what you just said about the -- you know, this campaign being organized and how it is organized. we were having a pretty fun conversation a little bit ago about words that james carville shared about sort of pumping the brakes on the enthusiasm. my take on that was not the enthusiasm that we see with the massive phone calls, money, and excitement among young voters. but it's the clarifying, sort of understanding by the campaign itself that they've got to organize a very different organize a very different campaign than the one they had planned for joe biden. how do you see that piece of this coming together? you have had to run these campaigns, running in a congressional district. clearly it's not the same as

running statewide or nationally, but there is still the organizing principles when you shift out and shift the way this campaign has shifted, getting those boots on the ground and having everybody aligned around a different message, a new messenger, and having that organization in place. how do you see that part of it coming together? >> sure. well, you know, on the republican side, you know, i think there's general acknowledgment that there's just incredible flailing going on. you mean, the first thing we heard from the republicans was that they were going to sue the democratic party because, you know, joe biden had won the primary which of course, is absolute nonsense. no one is the nominee until the delegates vote on it. we've heard about the attacks, the racial attacks, et cetera, on kamala, and of course, they have had to -- you don't turn an aircraft carrier quickly, and they have not yet turned the aircraft carrier. on our side, michael, i think carville's exactly right. in the exuberance of the alignment at the moment, we cannot get complacent, right? we need to keep that exuberance going, particularly among young people, but we can never forget

we don't win the presidency without probably pennsylvania, and you don't win pennsylvania without doing okay in western pennsylvania, and not to put too fine a point on it, but as we get younger people excited, folks on the coast excited, donors excited, you have to remember we also need to appeal to that guy who's a hunter in west pennsylvania who doesn't like donald trump and just be conscious of the fact that our job is to expand the coalition, not to do and say things which will turn off, you know, by and large, and i hate to be stereotypical about this, but, you know, your union-oriented blue collar folks in the midwest. we cannot alienate that population amid the exuberance here. >> you met with fbi director wray yesterday to get an update on the investigation into the assassination attempt of former president trump. there's been some controversy over what the director said. they said it was still unclear whether trump was struck by a bullet or fragment of something else as part of the shooting. can you give us a sense as to

where things stand now in the probe? >> yeah. yeah, you know, it's been so disturbing since the event, and to see the conspiracy theories and the confirmation bias, you know, too many of my republican friends right out of the box wanted this to be an antifa shooter, somebody joe biden sicked on the president, and that was profoundly dangerous, inflammatory, and a factually incorrect answer, statements that they made. who knows whether the president -- we'll know eventually whether he was hit by a bit of shrapnel, or a bullet, and at the end of the day, who cares? the man was almost killed, and it was a very dangerous moment. there was some concern, and as i understand this, this individual, andy meet with the director of the fbi yesterday, this individual seems -- the motive is completely unclear. no evident ideology, thank god or we might have violence in our politics today. no connections to foreign powers or terrorist powers. it feels like this guy who shot

up sandy hook elementary school, just a terrible loner who did something terrible without any discernible ideology or motive. >> we appreciate that update. from ranking member of the house and intelligence committee, jim himes. thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you. still ahead here, the harris campaign is not letting up on the jd vance. going after him for his past comments on women and childless politicians, we'll show you how they called him out. "morning joe" back in just a moment. d him out. "morning joe" back in just a moment (tony hawk) skating for over 45 years has taken a toll on my body. i take qunol turmeric because it helps with healthy joints and inflammation support. why qunol? it has superior absorption compared to regular turmeric. qunol. the brand i trust. sure, i'm a paid actor,

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still ahead, donald trump wants his hush money conviction thrown out. we'll take a look at the manhattan district attorney's argument against that. plus, kamala harris gets the endorsement she was waiting for. we're back in just two minutes with a packed third hour of "morning joe." hour of "morning joe." 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

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that's it. go online, call, or scan right now. oooh! this is our night! shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. only shingrix is proven over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. biden spoke for 11 minutes

about his decision to drop out. the only hiccup was a man yelling, please get back in the race. please. i'm a reporter from -- i've never been here before. please. it was a very graceful speech. then at the end, biden surprised everyone by announcing his candidacy for 2028. we're, like, no. stop. stop, please. >> some late-night laughs to start us off. vice president harris is calling out donald trump after his campaign refused to commit to the upcoming presidential debate. meanwhile, her campaign also continues to highlight jd vance's comments about childless politicians. we'll show you how they trolled trump's running mate. and we'll bring you the latest on the hush money verdict appeal from trump's legal team. former litigator lisa rubin will join us with expert legal analysis. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, july 26th. i'm jonathan lemire. thanks for being with us.

with us we have a great, great group. pulitzer prize-winning columnist, and associate ed dirt of "the washington post," ewe eugene robinson, sam stein, and jennifer palmieri, and the weekend is starting early as we have two-thirds of the hosts of msnbc's "the weekend," michael steele, and symone sanders townsend. joe and mika, we should note, are off this morning. they're starting a planned vacation, but they will pop back on if there's big breaking news, which judging by the events the last couple of weeks will be any minute now. we'll be hearing from them. willie, of course, lucky guy is on assignment for the paris olympics and he will be joining us live from france later this hour ahead, of course, of today's opening ceremony.

the olympics kicking off. and there is a developing story out of france breaking right now this morning where a series of coordinated, malicious acts have targeted part of the country's high-speed whale network, disrupting service for hundreds of thousands of passengers. we'll get an update from willie in paris just ahead. we'll begin this hour with a big development in the race for president here in the united states where former president barack obama and former first lady michelle obama have officially endorsed vice president kamala harris for president. here's a video released by the harris campaign showing the moment the obamas called the vice president to offer their full support. >> kamala. >> hello? hi. >> hey there. >> oh. hi, you're both together. oh, it's good to hear you both. >> i can't have this phone call without saying to my girl,

kamala, i am proud of you. this is going to be historic. >> we called to say michelle and i couldn't be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the oval office. >> oh my goodness. michelle, barack, this means so much to me. i'm looking forward to doing this with the two of you, doug and i both, and getting out there, being on the road, but most of all, i just want to tell you the words you have spoken and the friendship that you have given over all these years mean more than i can express. so thank you both. it means so much, and we're going to have some fun with this too. >> jen palmieri, no surprise here. this is of course, part of a coordinated rollout of endorsements. there may have been some chat on the right, nonsensical, that the obamas were having doubts about the vice president. that could not be further from the truth. so no surprise, but still important. tell us what you think this

means. >> well, i think, you know, one thing that's important about it is that mrs. obama was on the call, right? and the president said they're going to do everything they can because politics is her husband's thing and she's a phenomenally effective campaigner, but it doesn't always -- it doesn't necessarily always look for opportunities to spend a lot of time campaigning, but i think for her to be on the call too says how important it is to her, and that she wants to help as well, and, you know, the two of them are just such a major force and there is -- they are longtime friends, and i think the -- president obama had stepped back from endorsing as other party leaders had to sort of give their room to be a process for somebody else to get in the race if they wanted to, but also to show that this was -- this is a real, you know, legitimate nominating process, and now you're at the point where both of the obamas are fully able to express being on board and wanting to campaign for her, and that's going to be a huge help. >> yeah, and sam stein, i think also the obamas wanted to give

room to president joe biden. he, of course, a friend, and yes, the obamas behind the scenes certainly had concerns about his ability to win, but after biden dropped out, they wanted to give him a little bit space, and we also shouldn't lose sight of the history here, sam, where this is the nation's first black president endorsing the woman who could be the second. >> oh, yeah. completely. i think that is getting lost amid what has been a very dramatic -- to put it bluntly -- process here, is that history is being made. this is going to be the first nomination of a black female candidate for president in our nation's history. i'm also struck by just and eugene, i'm curious for your take on this. the convention in three weeks is going to -- for months and months and months, we were expecting it would be a dreadful affair, potentially filled with protests, shades of 1968. it's shaping up to be something quite different, and i couldn't help but make the -- i was in milwaukee.

the lineup was interesting. the speakers included hulk hogan and dana white. you could potentially see the sitting president of the united states being the one to back the vice president to take a historic victory lap as the presidential candidate. talk about just what that convention will be like, how star-studded it will be, and just the contrast between that convention and what was the milwaukee convention for republicans. >> well, i think the democratic convention this time, is going to be the party of the year. i mean, it just -- can you imagine? they'll do a whole lot better than hulk hogan and kid rock. i mean, i can -- i can imagine the stars who will come out. i can imagine the production values. i can just -- i can just imagine, and the delegates. just the general sense there is

as you know, as everybody knows, just objectively, this incredible feeling of energy within the democratic party right now that certainly wasn't there a week ago, and it is, you know, it's -- it's on a scale of one to ten, it's -- it's like a 12 right now, and who knows where it will be when it gets to the convention? so i think this is going to be a dramatic contrast. given and as republicans look back on their convention, you already have the kind of questions about jd vance and, is he really the right guy? their candidate, donald trump, is clearly in a sour mood and kind of doesn't know exactly where to go or what to say, how

to try to attack all of this, and most important of all, the convention, once again, will keep trump out of the headlines, right? he has been doing whatever he could to get the spotlight, but it's not on him. it's -- it's off of him. it's on kamala harris and the democrats, and that has to be driving donald trump crazy. >> one note about the democratic convention, you still should expect widespread protests about the situation in gaza based on what we just saw in washington this week, but you're right, certainly inside the arena, it'll be celebratory. democrats have told me, imagine the thunderous ovation joe biden is going to get now after making that decision to step aside. it will be a remarkable homecoming for him, but let's talk about the race we do have now. harris versus trump, and the latest "new york times"/cnn college poll shows the vice president closing the gap on

former president trump. according to the survey, trump leads harris by just a single point among likely voters and two points among registered voters nationwide. that is within the poll's margin of error. in a previous survey conducted immediately after last month's debate, trump led president joe biden by six points among likely voters and eight points among registered voters. those results were outside the margin of error, and another poll now according to a new one from axios and generation lab, vice president harris has opened up a wide lead among young voters. in this survey, harris leads trump by 20 points, 60% to 40% among 18 to 34-year-olds nationwide. for comparison, biden led trump by just six points when those same voters were asked who they would support if biden were still the presumptive nominee.

given that momentum, vice president harris says she is ready and willing to debate former president trump on september 10th which is the date previously scheduled with trump and biden, but now the trump team is not confirming if they will still participate. in a statement released last night, trump communications director steven cheung wrote in part, this. general election debate details cannot be finalized until democrats formally decide on their nominee. that would be after the dnc in chicago. trump, of course, previously debated biden without either of them being formally nominated. vice president harris who has already secured support from enough delegates to become the nominee once it becomes official, called out the trump team yesterday for back pedaling. >> i'm ready to debate donald trump. i have agreed to the previously agreed upon september 10th debate. he agreed to that previously.

now it appears he's back pedaling, but i'm ready, and i think the voters deserve to see the split screen that exists in this race on a debate stage, and so i'm ready. let's go. >> so simone, it does feel like donald trump's got some cold feet. he obviously got the best of president biden in their debate in atlanta a few weeks ago, but it certainly seems like he's anxious about this time around with the vice president. >> yeah. he doesn't seem to be waiting with bated breath. we know from donald trump's own statements that he does not like the enthusiasm that he is seeing around the vice president. he's talked about the crowds and how the media apparatus has been talking about her crowds and he has not actually figured out how to debate her really. i mean, it seems as though the republicans that continue to resort to racist and just sexist

and misogynistic stereotypes and tropes because they cannot talk about the issues. so i don't know, michael, what the republicans are going to do, and what donald trump is going to do here because the clock is ticking. is it not? i mean -- >> there are a couple of things at play here. first off, there is among a lot of the washington republicans quietly in corners where they tend to hang out when they don't have, you know, the backbone to actually come forward, to say that the pick of jd vance was a problem. there was not a lot of enthusiasm among a lot of the washington types around this pick. it was something that was brought to donald trump by his sons. that was their pick, and there they are. the second thing is how does this play into how donald trump and his campaign narratively figure out the new terrain in front of them?

i look at this race right now, and i don't see a world in which donald trump mans up and debates kamala harris. the felon is not going to debate the prosecutor. that's just not going to happen. when the question comes around about his 34 felony convictions, what do you think she's going to do? it's just -- i mean, really? you want to walk into that buzz saw in the conversation? so you can throw the border all day long, but you're mincemeat on everything else, and that's where you see now the campaign beginning to make tactical decisions around, introducing kamala, and b, taking off the table some of the noise around the border, the border czar crazy and all of that. so this is a nimble campaign in the early stages, and i think for a lot of folks, and sam, you're out here covering this stuff, man. i know you see it and hear it up

close and personal, that this feels different from a campaign style and function perspective that really has thrown republicans for a loop right now in terms of exactly how do you come at this, and now you want to debate too? i just don't see this scenario playing out and donald trump is already doing the backstroke, you know, he's, like, uh, i don't need to swim in that direction. i don't see this debate coming off. >> let me marvel at your backstroke. you got excited for these olympics, michael. we have reporting coming out actually from mark caputo today at the bullwork about this, which is, you know, the trump campaign have prepared a campaign to run against joe biden. they did. that was what they were -- that's what they believed was going to happen. even in sort of the midst of the post-debate despair among democrats, they thought that biden would probably survive and then it became clear that he couldn't, and now they're

scrambling. it doesn't mean they never knew how to attack kamala harris. it doesn't mean they hadn't prepared attack lines for kamala harris, but it's different now, and all that slack and democratic enthusiasm has been made up, and not only, that but we're seeing some potential to expand what had been a narrow map. joe biden's paths with very clearly the industrial midwest, michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin. in the last two days, you've shown polls in georgia that show a statistically tied race. this is going to revamp a lot of resources. the challenge, of course, is on both sides. kamala harris has been vice president for 3 1/2 years, but voter perceptions of her aren't as baked in as they were of joe biden, which means that in the next three windows, she can be easily defined or more easily defined i should say, by her opponents and what we see now i think is very telling which is that the future forward pact which is the political action committee going up with a

multimillion dollar biographical ad to make sure that doesn't happen. it's a remarkably confined, compressed race where a ton of money will be spent in strategy just thrown out the window and revamped. >> we've heard the trump team openly boast about this death star-esque operation they built to take down joe biden, but now, of course, they have to adjust, and we'll see if trump ends up debating or not. if he doesn't, he'll have to deal with calls he was being a coward can afraid to go head to head with the vice president. that's not something he traditionally enjoys being called. we'll have much more on that throughout the morning. next up here on "morning joe," we'll show you how the harris campaign used world ivf day to take on jd vance with clips of him criticizing people without children. plus, what the vice president saying about her meeting with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and her new calls for an end to the war in gaza. but first, democratic congressman pat ryan joins us at

the table. we'll talk to him about the state of the race in his district. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ing "mornin" we'll beig rht back. let's get started. bill, where's your mask? i really tried sleeping with it, everybody. but i'm done struggling. now i sleep with inspire. inspire? inspire is a sleep apnea treatment that works inside my body with just the click of this button. a button? no mask? no hose? just sleep. yeah but you need the hose, you need the air, you need the whoooooosh... inspire. sleep apnea innovation. learn more, and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com

why do couples choose a sleep number smart bed? i need help with her snoring. sleep number does that. thank you. and now, save 40% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus special financing. shop now at sleepnumber.com it is the weirdest thing to me. democrats say that it is racist to believe -- well, they say it's racist to do anything. i had a diet mountain dew yesterday, and i'm sure they're going to call that racist too, but it's good.

[ laughter ] i love you guys. >> what was weird was him joking about racism today, and then talking about diet mountain dew. who drinks diet mountain dew? >> folks, i have been a person that when, sometimes i've gone over the line. i've wanted to make sure that i set the record straight. so i do owe an apology to diet mountain dew. it is definitely the soft drink of kentucky, but i don't believe that governments should be making your decisions. so if you enjoy diet mountain dew, you be you. we want to support you, and to diet mountain dew, very sorry. didn't mean to say negative things about you. >> perhaps not the best of our politics here, but that's kentucky governor andy beshear

taking a jab at jd vance's take on diet mountain dew. meanwhile on a more serious note, the harris campaign used ivf day to go after donald trump's new running mate. a press release went out yesterday afternoon that read this way. happy world ivf day to everyone except jd vance. it comes as vance faces renewed criticism for comments he made in 2021 during his senate campaign. he talked about people who don't have children. >> we're effectively running in this country via the democrats, via our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and it's a basic fact. you look at kamala harris, pete buttigieg, aoc, the entire future of the democrats is controlled by people without children, and how does it make any sense that we've turned our country over to people who don't really have a direct stake in it? >> and here's another clip

that's also from 2021 that's really recently resurfaced. >> when you go to the polls in this country as a parent, should have more power. you should have more of an ability to speak your voice than people who don't have kids. let's face the consequences and the reality. if you don't have as much of an investment in the future of this country, maybe you shouldn't get nearly the same voice. now people will say, and i'm sure, "the atlantic" and "the washington post" and all those will criticize me in the coming days. doesn't this mean that nonparents don't have as much of a voice as parents? doesn't this mean that parents get a bigger say in how our democracy functions? yes. absolutely. >> jen palmieri, boy, i don't know. it seems a risky calculation to alienate a significant portion of the voting block in addition

to being deeply insensitive. people make their own choices about having children. some people can't have children. this feels like something that's going to resonate, and perhaps a sign of just how rushed and poorly thought out trump's vetting selection of vance was. >> or just how, you know, or just how certain they are that they're going to -- that they're going to win with a male vote, and it was -- one thing that was really surprising to me was thursday night at the republican convention when you had hulk hogan and dana white who, like, i did not know who that person was until that night. eric trump and donald trump. you thought at that time they had an advantage, that they would make an effort to reach out to women, but they seem with the vance pick, with how they're programming with the republican convention, to not just -- to not try to appeal to women, but going out of their way to ail -- alienate them, and make childless parents a political

issue, and it's a problem for so many people in america, and alienating so many people in america. i saw a "morning joe" fan who recognized me in the grocery store yesterday, and she had a towering stack of cat food and, like, threw it in her cart and just gave me the biggest grin, like, this is just -- it's just -- it's just igniting people, and particularly women, and i think, you know, one thing that's been interesting to me also in watching, because obviously i worked for hillary clinton. i'm a big observer of how women are treated in the political arena, and i want to go to simone on this, how there are memes that are starting on the republican side about the vice president, whether it's about her laugh or about her saying she fell out of a coconut tree, that they thought would mock, and instead, people are picking these memes up, and they're celebrating them and saying, you know, we have your back.

it's, like, whatever -- we know what you're trying to do to her, and whatever you -- whatever you throw at her, we're going to embrace and we're always going to have her back and, like, what's your take on what's going on there? >> well, look. i think it shows a generational divide, right? because of the attacks that have been lobbed against the vice president as of late, frankly are not mute attacks. they have been lobbed against her since she exploded onto the national political scene when she became a senator and then definitely during the 2019/2020 campaign, her own campaign and then when she joined joe biden's ticket as his running mate. there has been a sustained attack to paint her as someone who is somehow unserious, who did not earn her position, where she is, and someone who just, you know, isn't -- there's just something not right about her, and that's what the attacks are about. that's what the memes are -- the original memes from the conservative right-wing media are about, but when young people got a hold of the clips that had

been playing incessantly on fox news, what they saw was someone that they connected with. they connected with what she was saying. they connected with the stories that she was telling. they found it frankly like a breath of fresh air, and that is why there has been this virality if you will, that is the kamala harris effect. when it comes to the campaign, they have to figure out what tone they'll take. you have to strike the balance between what the candidate is saying and what the campaign is saying. this campaign is not even a week old yet, and there are folks there that have not worked, you know, that have worked for the vice president as the person who was on the ticket, the biden-harris campaign. now that it is the harris campaign, they have to figure out her tone, and while the press release was good, snarky, jabbing jd vance, i don't think it was something the vice president would do or say. how do you strike the tone given the effect this is an election

that is serious? it is an election where donald trump has chosen a running mate that seems unserious, and it goes back to why vetting is important. hopefully the harris people are checking and making sure these are people they're looking at. the voters are looking at this and watching both of these candidates as they make their decisions in less than 100 days. coming up, how the rise of the vice president to the top of the ticket might impact downballot democrats. we'll talk to one of them when congressman pat ryan joins the conversation. "morning joe" is back in a moment. k in a moment ♪ that colonoscopy for getting screened ♪ ♪ is why i'm delaying ♪ ♪ i heard i had a choice ♪ ♪ i know the name, that's what i'm saying ♪ -cologuard®? -cologuard. cologuard! -screen for colon cancer. -at home, like you want.

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abortion health care has become one of vice president kamala harris' main issues in her presidential campaign. our next guest is also

highlighting the current threat to reproductive rights in his quest for re-election. joining us now, democratic congressman pat ryan. he represents new york's 18th district, one of the state's key swing districts. back in 2022, ryan scored a narrow victory over his republican challenger in his congressional race. it was his second win in less than three months after claiming a vacant seat in a neighboring house district in a special election earlier that year. congressman, thank you so much for being with us this morning. you know, sometimes issues get siloed and abortion health care sometimes is all too often seen as a woman's issue, and it should be the providence of a female candidate to talk about. you're making it clear that is not the case at all. >> this is an american issue. i mean, you saw the video that came out yesterday morning from the harris campaign, which was incredibly compelling. it's an issue of freedom, which is the most universally agreed

upon value in the united states of america. you try to take away americans' freedoms, they stand up and say, no way. we saw that in 2022 in my race as you mentioned, in all the special elections, and we'll see it again because people have not forgotten how extreme trump and vance and project 2025 and their desire to use this comstock antiquated legislation from the 1800s that would allow them to put in place a nationwide abortion ban. people are on the ground, already aware of that, and vice president harris is marshaling that energy and putting in this frame of, we are the ones standing up for, fighting for, protecting your freedom. not just reproductive freedom, economic freedom, freedom from gun violence, clean air. this -- i'm so energized and excited she's entering this on freedom. >> post-dobbs abortion rights undefeated at the ballot box including in some pretty deep red states. tell us how you see in your race

how it's playing out. >> well, you're exactly right. the vast majority of the american people want their reproductive rights protected, not just women. men, women, people, americans of all generations in my special election. every pundit, every pollster said we are not going to win this special election. this was back in august of 2022, the first house race after the dobbs decision. we centered reproductive freedom against all the sort of consensus advice, and we won, and we had such energy, and i feel that same energy now, and vice president harris knows that in her gut, in her heart, and to see her bring that forward, it's firing the country up. >> and gene robinson, it's striking how the word freedom were so long was a republican campaign buzzword. it has been absolutely effectively taken by the harris team and democrats. >> yeah. i've thought for a long time that progressives and democrats

should take back these words and the symbols of america. they belong to us as much as they belong to the right, and so yeah. take back the word freedom. take back the word liberty. take back the american flag. it's -- it's ours. it's not just theirs, and we can't allow them to own it. i do have a question for the congressman. just stepping back for a second. in the democratic party's attempt to take back the house of representatives, new york state is crucial. the democrats lost a bunch of seats in new york the last time around, that they had won before and that perhaps they should have won in the recent midterm. are they going to win those seats back again now? what is your sort of gut feeling about how things are going in

this crisis? >> i think now especially in the last few days from the top of the ticket, certainly in critical house races in new york, across the country, we are on the offensive, and your point is so right, that when we lean forward into freedom, into patriotism, into -- these are shared american values that transcend party, and this is what people in my party want. they want a future-looking, forward-looking, optimistic, but tough american view of this. that's what we're doing in my race. that's what we're going to do in all these critical new york races. i am confident that we are going to take back the house, hold the senate, and we are going to have an historic president kamala harris. >> we'll be watching all those races and it will certainly be a fierce fight for the house. democratic congressman pat ryan of new york. thank you very much for joining us this morning. >> thank you. coming up next here on "morning joe," manhattan's

district attorney is urging the judge presiding over donald trump's criminal hush money case to keep the former president's conviction. we'll break down the arguments as trump's legal team looks to toss out the case entirely in light of the supreme court's recent immunity ruling. "morning joe" will be right back with that. y ruling "morning joe" will be right back with that. bombas makes absurdly comfortable underwear. made to move with you, not on you. because your basic things should be your best things. one purchased equals one donated. visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order. 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.

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we hit some of the other headlines now, and manhattan's district attorney is urging the judge in donald trump's hush money case to reject the former president's bid to toss out his conviction on immunity grounds. d.a. alvin bragg argued in a filing made public yesterday that the supreme court's recent decision on trump's immunity for official acts while president has no bearing on his conviction on charges of falsifying business records in new york. bragg contends that the charges exclusively stem from conduct for which trump is not immune. the former president's attorneys

have argued the supreme court's presidential immunity ruling should lead to the case being tossed entirely. joining us now to help us sort it out, msnbc legal correspondent, lisa rubin. good to see you again. let's talk about this case. do you think the trump team's argument has any merit? because it is striking, i think to most people watching this saying, well, wait a minute. this all happened -- this conduct happened before he was president. >> yeah, and it's important to sort of take a step back and remind people that the supreme court's immunity ruling isn't immunity from the use of evidence, and that's what this is about. hey, he should be immune from prosecution for things that he did largely in 2015, 2016, and then privately. it's more that they say there was a bunch of different pieces of evidence used at the trial, and they can relate to his

official access president that should have been excluded and without which, the jury couldn't have come to the conclusion they reached. >> they put into the next steps, the sentencing date which is mid-september i believe. how confident are you that that will happen had it's scheduled? >> well, i think first of all, the judge has to make a determination about whether or not there's going to be a sentencing, but what's really important here, and i think this plays into the political calendar here too, is that the judge has already committed he's going to make a decision about whether to set aside the verdict by september 6th. so when you hear the trump campaign sort of backing away from the any time, any place we'll debate joe biden which should have applied to kamala harris as well, note that part of that may be contingent on what's going to happen on september 6th. if this is upheld as many people suspect, you can understand why trump would be very eager to avoid a debate with the person we are all referring to now as the person who's prosecuting the case, the biggest case against donald trump if he is still

going to be a man convicted of 34 felony counts here in new york. >> sam stein, the legal and the political completely intertwined. >> yeah. it's wild. we could end in september with a presidential campaign coming to a crescendo, a potential debate, and one of the candidates facing a sentencing in his criminal trial. lisa, i just want to go back to what jonathan said. the sentencing itself, what is the likelihood that we do end up seeing some sort of action prior to the election, and i know you're in legal punditry, and not the political punditry, but i'm curious for your take. how would you imagine the trump people are approaching this on a psychological level? the bragg indictment and conviction did help them, but that was in the context of a primary campaign. this would be in the context of a general election coming to a close. >> i agree with you, you know, again, my larger frame is always legal and not political, but as

you noted, the legal and the political have all but collapsed into one here, and i do think that they are eager to avoid a sentencing because a new york state sentencing is something that a future president trump can't wish away. he can't dismiss. there's no department of justice policy or executive power that could rescue him from this case, and i believe the new york d.a. here will of the better of the argument because even if all the evidence that the trump folks say should be excluded is excluded, they make a great argument in the middle of their brief about all the other evidence that supports each and every element of the falsification of business records counts that were sustained against donald trump. that means we are likely barrelling toward a september 18th sentencing. that's a firm date. we'll see if they can somehow persuade judge merchan to change that, but if as i suspect on september 6th, he comes back and says i'm going to keep this conviction, then september 18th is the date for sentencing, sam, and there's nothing the former

or future president can do about that. >> we'll be watching carefully as that date approaches. msnbc legal correspondent, lisa rubin. thanks for being with us this morning. still ahead here, we'll bring you the latest story lines from the summer olympics just hours before the opening ceremony. look at this guy. willie geist standing by live in new jersey. we'll check in with him next on "morning joe." rsey we'll check in with him next on "morning joe." e for a fresh apph to pet 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. what does a robot know about love? it takes a human to translate that leap in our hearts into something we can see and hold. etsy.

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olympics. tell us how the trains are impacting these first hours of the games, willie. >> reporter: good afternoon from paris. we're just a few hours away from an opening ceremony that promises to be spectacular, seven years in the making. but as you say, a snag this morning, things complicated by what the prime minister is calling a massive coordinated attack on three different train lines that come into paris from different parts of the country. the suspected activity was arson. they're calling it an act of vandalism. trains have been cancelled and diverted with hundreds of thousands of people coming into these games here over the next couple of weeks. there are tens of thousands of officers. the security state here is set.

even the euro star train from london has been diverted. so very difficult to get into a city that was already locked down. we'll keep an eye on that story and get more developments as we come through. but as i say, we're hours away from what promises to be one of the most spectacular events in the history of the olympics, which is an opening ceremony with athletes not coming into a stadium, but floating down four miles of the seine, the famous river here in paris. you're going to have athletes on 85 boats with about 300,000 spectators lining the seine cheering them on. we are expecting a little bit of weather. it's spitting a little bit this

morning. we hope that pushes through and doesn't interrupt this event, which has been planned for about seven years. the boats going past the louvre, past the notre dame cathedral. some talk that lady gaga may be performing, some talk that celine dion may be performing. a lot kept under wraps, but it's going to be incredible with about a billion people watching around the world. last night the u.s. women's national soccer team defeating zambia 3-0. trinity rodman scoring, the daughter of dennis rodman.

things get much more difficult this weekend. they play on sunday germany, one of the best teams in the world. as i said, the disruption of the trains is a problem. the source of the attack is something authorities here are looking at. by this is going to be a spectacle like no one has ever seen on that river behind me. >> the last couple of games impacted by covid. families couldn't go to cheer on their husbands, daughters, sons and wives. now it couldn't be a more spectacular setting.

>> reporter: there's just so much here and to pull off a games, an event of this magnitude in an old european city. london did it years ago in 2012. the crowds are back. the enthusiasm is here. the city is fully locked down. 7:30 eastern time in prime time. do tune in because it's going to be like nothing we've ever seen before. >> you can watch the opening ceremony at 7:30 p.m. eastern on nbc as well as streaming on peacock. nbc as well as streamin peacock.

new reaction to the protests we saw in washington where demonstrators clashed with police and damaged public property. the anti-defamation league's jonathan greenblatt is our guest straight ahead on "morning joe." t straight ahead on "morning joe." ♪ and i am lost and i can't ♪ punch buggy red. ♪ even say why ♪ ♪ i am, i said ♪ ♪ ♪ at care.com, it's easy to get a break, even if you're not on summer vacation. join millions of families who've trusted us and find caregivers in your area for kids, seniors, pets, and homes. go to care.com now to find the care you need this summer.

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speaking of trump, today he announced he's releasing a new book called "save america." it's historic. trump's the only person who writes books and gets booked in the same year. boom! meanwhile, melania just announced she's releasing her own memoir called "melania." she went with melania because les miserables was already taken. her book and trump's book will be in the same store, but live in separate sections. >> kamala even wants to pass laws to outlaw red meat to stop

climate change. that means no more cows. you know, this is serious. no. this means no more cows. i guess eventually it's going to be no more people, right? no more people. [ laughter ] >> so if i understand him -- and i hope i don't -- cows only exist because we eat them, but people exist, so that means someone must be eating people. i mean, who could that be? >> the late great hannibal lecter. >> it's all coming together. there you go. >> jimmy fallon and then stephen colbert. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. here in the east. i'm jonathan lemire in for joe,

mika and willie. with us, the president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation" the reverend al sharpton. we want to congratulate you for the emmy nomination for "loudmouth." congratulations. >> i appreciate it. i had nothing to do with the editorial control. they said we want to project you the way we see it. they did the documentary with tribeca and went all over the country. now they have an emmy nomination. i congratulate them. of course if they win, i will accept the emmy. >> as you should. [ laughter ]. former president barack obama and former first lady

michelle obama have officially endorsed vice president harris' bid for the white house. >> reporter: new this morning, the candidate takes their call. >> kamala. >> hello. hi! >> hey there. >> reporter: in a moment made for social media, the obamas offering a cell phone endorsement. >> we called to say michelle and i couldn't be prouder to endorse you and to do everything we can to get you through this election and into the oval office. >> reporter: the former president and mrs. obama pledging to campaign for harris. >> i can't have this phone call without saying to my girl kamala, i am proud of you. this is going to be historic. >> oh my goodness, michelle, barack, this means so much to me. i am looking forward to doing this with the two of you. >> reporter: today, new attention on her role as vice president. >> welcome, mr. prime minister. >> reporter: and as a candidate, calling on former president trump to debate. >> i'm ready.

let's go. >> reporter: mr. trump's campaign says it would be inappropriate to schedule a harris debate until she is formally nominated, suggesting democrats could change again, though enough delegates have endorsed harris to make her the de facto nominee. harris posting overnight, what happened to "any time any place"? her campaign also rolled out its first video. running on freedom, set to the music of beyonce. also joining tiktok, where young voters live. and going to core democratic voters with an endorsement from the american federation of teachers. >> and we are fighting for the future. >> reporter: the trump campaign shifting its focus to the vice president. >> she's in a way a much worse candidate. >> reporter: the race appears competitive. a new poll showing trump with 48% support from likely voters

with harris at 47%, within the margin of error. after the trump/biden debate, the same poll showed trump ahead of biden by six points. >> eugene daniels, you have been covering vice president harris for years now. this is her moment. she has been a national figure for years, but never quite like this. her campaign, the people around her feeling pretty good about her reintroduction, if you will, to the nation. >> they are. i mean they're also very cognizant this is kind of a honeymoon period. the coalescing happened around her really fast. there's lots of money coming in.

they know this kind of honeymoon, especially in the media period, could pass at some point, especially as former president trump and his campaign really start to attack her both on the air waves and online. but they are feeling good. you saw the video our colleague kelly had there from her first campaign ad online. it was exciting for democrats. it's been a while in this campaign from both sides to have that much hope and energy packed into a minute and 25 seconds or whatever it was. so that's one thing. but i also feel like it kind of shuffles the race and opens up more pathways for democrats to win in november. they're looking at the polls and they know they're getting a bump from the excitement right now. so they're waiting for the polls that come in a week, two weeks, and most importantly after the

convention. they still have a lot of work to do. she has to pick a vice president. they have to continue to shore up what the campaign is going to look like, who she's going to bring in to be her key advisors from her old staff and team and maybe some core democrats who have been around for a long time. and they have to figure out what the convention is going to look like. how do you reintroduce this woman to the american people? when they look at the polls, they see a huge opportunity. 47% to 48% means there's a whole lot of america who haven't picked either of these two people. with vice president harris, the campaign feels like a lot of reintroduction and explaining to the american people why her and why now. >> a lot of work to do. as evidence of how things have

changed, here's a new piece of it. peggy noonan has a new piece in the "wall street journal" with this title "the kamala harris surprise." she writes in part, i have long thought kamala harris couldn't beat donald trump. that's wrong. she can. we're a 50/50 country. each side gets 40 going in. you fight for the rest. it can always go either way. mr. trump has a high floor, but a low ceiling. beyond that, something is happening. her rollout this week demonstrated talent and hinted she may be a real political athlete. among those who follow politics closely, views of miss harris hardened long ago. but to those of relaxed engagement, especially the young, she will be a new figure. they'll be seeing her for the first time. they'll be open to what they see. reverend al sharpton, what do you think of that?

>> i think that peggy noonan, who i don't always agree with, is right. i think vice president harris has shown real growth through the years and has expanded her ability to reach all americans. i think she can really win this, because she has the balance of being one that did law enforcement in terms of being a probability for years, but also questioned the criminal justice system. she understands gender bias, she understands racial bias. i think she embodies what the majority of americans are. if you piece these different segments together. i've known her fairly well for 30, 40 years. i think she can sew together the

patchwork to make the american blanket work much better than donald trump. donald trump is campaigning on grievance and us against them. i think she can weave a different narrative that will bring the country together, and i think she's able to rise to the occasion. >> her campaign calling donald trump out for potentially backing out of their debate. they've also fixed their eyes on jd vance, unearthing some of the statements he's made in the past and bringing them to the present. >> we're effectively run in this country via the democrats and our corporate oligarchs by a bunch of childless cat ladies that are miserable and they want to make the rest of the country too. you look at pete buttigieg, aoc. the entire future of the democrats is controlled by people without children. we've turned our country over to

people who don't really have a direct stake in it. >> that's when jd vance was an ohio senate candidate. childless cat ladies. this has really taken off in the last couple of days. >> it's really taken off, propelled by an instagram post by jennifer aniston, who's not someone who normally gets involved in politics. she's america's sweetheart. she's saying, mr. vance, i really hope your daughter doesn't get caught up in an ivf cycle, because you're trying to take that away from her too. she's good 50 million followers on instagram. everybody's watched "friends" and she is a friend to many americans, so it reaches out beyond the news cycle. people who aren't interested in news actually get touched by the campaign.

we're publishing a power list today of childless cat ladies. who's on the top of it? taylor swift. taylor swift with 100 million followers on x. so extraordinary impact. how crazy of him. he's the gift that keeps giving to comedians. we have a fabulous piece about him by samantha bee, saying that she started vomiting when she heard these comments. it's a comedy piece. so her cat had to take over the writing of it. we're also seeing real interest. traffic is through the roof on this. people are engaged. this is galvanizing women voters as well as men. >> just an extraordinary amount of enthusiasm right now. politics 101, don't anger taylor swift. let's bring in another voice to

the conversation. tara is the cofounder and ceo of the seneca project dedicated to mobilizing women voters in key swing states to defeat donald trump. let's look at your group's brand new ad. ♪♪ >> from the 6:00 a.m. practice to the away-game pickup, from her first goal to the state finals, from the big wins to the big lessons, we take care of all the little things. we do these little things so our daughters can achieve big things. we do all of this for their future. and this fall, that future is on the line. we have come so far, but we have one big thing left to do for our daughters. their rights are on the ballot,

and we won't go back, not now, not ever. this fall, we will go for the gold, and we must win for them. >> tara, certainly timely there with the olympics beginning today. talk to us about why you think these voters are going to matter so much. >> the ad encompasses what we're talking about here. it's about a future. it's about what kind of country do we want to leave to our children, particularly our girls? women's rights and freedoms are under attack in this country. the people leading that attack and that assault is maga. donald trump and jd vance and the conversation before i came on talking about jd vance's comments, the misogyny is so

obvious now. our tag line is galvanize women, save democracy. women are not miserable cat ladies. women are motivated. the women who we believe are going to make the difference in this election are in the key swing battleground states. it's just a matter of a couple of percentage points because of how close it was in 2020. this is a post-dobbs world now. women, regardless of political affiliation, are reexamining whether they feel comfortable leaving a future to their daughters run by people like jd vance and donald trump.

>> talk to us about the difference between 2016 and now. what your ad demonstrates is that they're not just attacking the candidate kamala harris personally like they did hillary clinton, whether there were some e-mails or something wrong. they're attacking women. when you have a candidate talking about childless women and when you have the dobbs decision, talk about that. this is bigger than standing up for kamala. i'm standing up for my two daughters. >> it transcends party lines and personalities. this time it's not about i'm with her. it's about us. it's about we the people versus donald trump. it's about women looking at -- whether you're a democrat or

republican doesn't matter. we don't care, because the threat is so much bigger than partisanship. if you're bleeding out in an emergency room because your state has criminalized health care, no one cares who you voted for before. we are all in this together. that is the key difference from 2016 to now, that it's not about certain personalities or ideology anymore. it's about basic freedom and whether you trust women to make decisions in their own lives. it's bigger than just reproductive freedom. they're coming for ivf, contraception, even no-fault divorce. suburban moms are looking at this. let's not forget the girl dads too. we're speaking to all of them, and we're welcoming everyone in coming from both left and right in solidarity. together, we can win. when you galvanize women,

there's nothing to stop us. we are motivated unlike anything we've seen before, because we won't go back. we're not trying to go back to those times when women were treated as second-class citizens. >> your thoughts on this mobilization we're seeing? >> one of the characters i'm most fascinated about is jd vance's wife usha, who's a yale-educated corporate lawyer, until she had to resign from her company to be essentially a trump tradwife. how is this playing out in their home life? there's a very good piece in the beast today. in some of his bloggings about his extreme catholicism, he talks about how the church

helped him manage his temper at home and with his kids. also he talks about the importance of family life above all and how he never wanted to let the prestige of a job get in the way of being a father. so we're now asking how is jd vance going to be able to be vice president if he's got three young kids at home? how is he going to manage that? i think we're going to be better off leaving the country to a childless lady who's able to do it. of course, kamala is not childless. she has two stepchildren. the other thing that's fascinating about this is the idea of republicans thinking it will be a winning strategy to take people back. 50% of marriages end in divorce. there are millions of blended families in america. "modern family" which is about

blended families was one of the most popular shows on television. the idea that we're all living in this nuclear family where the wife stays home to look after the kids is just not how preem -- people live anymore. we don't want to be tradwives. >> thank you so much. coming up here on "morning joe," we'll bring you an update on the train system attack in france that occurred just hours before the olympic opening ceremony. and andrew ross sorkin will join us live from paris to look at the new sponsor of the summer games. w sponsor of the summer games.

a live look at paris.

today, the opening ceremonies of the olympic games. but we're following a major disruption to france's high-speed rail system. france's national rail network has said that a series of coordinated arson attacks have interrupted service. at least 250,000 people will be impacted today and around 800,000 will be affected over the weekend. two senior law enforcement officials in the u.s. briefed on the matter tell nbc news that preliminary information from french law enforcement indicates that anarchists and extreme leftist groups are likely responsible for the coordinated sabotage attack. both officials stress the investigation is still very much ongoing. joining us from now, andrew ross sorkin. andrew, what's the latest you're hearing about these attacks? >> the attacks are being investigated as a criminal conspiracy, as you know.

they are going to be impacting things around the city. folks trying to get from london to paris, the eurostar has now been delayed. it's creating increased security concerns across the city. i don't know if you can see it behind me at the arc de triomphe, but we have a dozen snipers that have made their way to the top of that iconic building right now. virtually all of the streets of paris starting at 1:00 p.m. this afternoon, at least in the main parts of paris, have been shuttered. there are 45,000 police from france working these olympics over the next two weeks, in addition to 50,000 other contractors and 1900 other police officers coming in from some 40 countries. there is still a lot of excitement for what's taking place tonight when the opening games begin along the seine

river. >> to the business of these games and the first sponsorship deal of its kind lvmh, the company made up of luxury brands have made a $160 million in the olympics as the premium sponsor of these summer games. its brands are behind this year's medal designs and custom clothing for athletes. you spoke with the company's chairman and ceo. what did you learn? >> it was a rare interview. this is a man feted by business leaders around the world as creating the largest and most successful luxury campaign and perhaps campaign, frankly, in the entire world. this is their effort, if you will, to try and give back to the city where this company was born. they threw a party that was the gala of this event.

anna wintour and everybody from lebron james to jill biden were in attendance at that event. but it's really an effort to show off paris. bernard arnault was racing over to a lunch that president macron was holding with a number of big ceos. they're using this olympics as an opportunity to try to gain more investment. among the people at that lunch were folks like elon musk and brian chesky, steve schwartzman and others all descending here on paris for the olympics. >> you spoke to barry diller about the 2024 presidential race. what did he tell you about the

candidacy of vice president kamala harris? >> reporter: one of the conversation happening here among just about everybody is what's happening in the u.s. when it comes to politics. as i mentioned jill biden was here starting yesterday. i did speak with barry diller, who has been a long-time democrat who has been calling for joe biden to step down, in fact. here's what he had to say about the next step for vice president harris and her campaign. >> the next big test point is who does she choose. hopefully -- and i think she will -- she'll choose somebody absolutely, absolutely in the sphere of reasonability and certainly competence. if she does that, that next data point will, again, ensure her possibilities. >> reporter: the mood here

around who may become the president has clearly shifted. the expectation a week and a half ago would have been president trump. business leaders here saying they plan to support vice president harris for president and seemed to be very excited about it. they do hope she does move to the center. but a real shift in terms of, i think, the way the business community is even thinking about this election now. >> all right. cnbc's andrew ross sorkin live for us from paris. still ahead here, we have new reporting about the security for the israeli olympic athletes there in paris amid the rise of anti-semitism stemming from the israel/hamas war. plus, vice president kamala harris again calls for a cease-fire in gaza following her meeting yesterday with the israeli prime minister. we'll have more from that moment next on "morning joe." t moment next on "morning joe."

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welcome back. ahead of the olympics opening

ceremony tonight, multiple soccer matched have already been played. the match between israel and mali was overshadowed by booing and protests. it took place after a bomb scare prompted security to temporarily close off some areas near the stadium. according to israeli media, at least 15 members of israel's olympic team have received e-mails warning of a repeat of the massacre in 1972 when 11 israelis and coaches at the olympic games were killed by members of a palestinian group. for a closer look at the security measures in place for israel's olympic team, let's bring in raf sanchez. what have you learned? >> reporter: jonathan, israel's olympic committee tells us they have been absolutely inundated with threats going into the games, but they are not deterred. israel's athletes are going to be under 24-hour protection from the french security services, but israel is sending agents of

its own to provide that tight tightest, innermost security. the olympics have always been a pageant of sports and celebration held amid heavy security and inside consecutive rings of steel. this year, no national team is under closer guard than israel, with the war in gaza now in its ninth month inflaming passions around the world. israel is preparing for its athletes in paris to face protests and potentially worse. mickey zohar. >> we've done a lot in the security, because we understand there is a big difference between these olympics to other olympics before, because we have a lot of threats.

>> reporter: the 1972 games in munich, when athletes and coaches were taken hostage by the palestinian group black september. a stunned world watching in horror as the rescue failed, 11 olympians killed. the massacre depicted in steven spielberg's movie "munich." 2024 athletes have been threatened by texts and e-mails specifically warning of a repeat of 1972. a veteran who led the unit tasked with protecting foreign political leaders. for people responsible for protecting the athletes, the shadow of what happened at munich hangs over everything you

do? >> all the time, yeah. in the dignitary protection unit, you know, this is a legacy. we must understand the legacy and the past. nobody in israel lives in the present without knowing the past. >> reporter: israeli security was already tested this year at the eurovision song contest in sweden when large crowds turned out against the war in gaza. israel's contestant was inundated with threats. but the olympics is on a far larger scale with nearly 100 israeli competitors taking part in dozens of events. how do you protect these athletes, but also give them space to train and mental space, not frighten them? >> we are not pushing them. we are all the time around them. if they are looking for us, they will see us. but we are not jumping on them all the time. we are all the time around the

delegation, around the athletes. we're very quiet. no one has to see us. >> reporter: among those killed in munich, 27-year-old fencing coach andre fisher. half a century later, his widow continues to tell his story. >> after what happened in munich, after the murder of the 11 israeli athletes, the olympic village turned into like a military camp and especially the israelis, they never hang their flags outside like all the other countries did. >> reporter: despite saying she'd received threats herself, she'll proudly be in paris for the games. >> i'm not going to stay home because they are saying you're going to make a second munich, because when we give in to terror, that's when they'll continue. >> reporter: now, we've been tracking what the french government says is a series of

arson attacks on train lines earlier today. israel's foreign ministry is saying these attacks were planned and executed under the influence of iran. now, they haven't provided any evidence to support that claim and at this point french authorities are still investigating. jonathan. >> raf sanchez reporting this morning for us live from tel aviv. thank you, raf. joining us onset the ceo of the anti-defamation league jonathan greenblatt. your reaction to the security worry that shadows the athletes during the games? >> i think it's stunning to think that olympic athletes, who spend their whole lives training to compete to be the best in class at what they do, gymnastics, wrestling, whatever the sport, have to do this under the threat of violence. there's no other delegation going to paris that has 24/7

security like this. again, in the shadow of munich, where israeli athletes were held hostage and then butchered by the palestinian terror organization black september, it is sad that we're back right where we started. it just reminds us that anti-zionism and anti-semitism are persistent to jewish people everywhere. >> prime minister netanyahu was in washington this week, gave a speech on capitol hill. through a very partisan lens, that speech. certainly there's a right to peaceful protest, but what we saw outside the capitol were more violence and vandalism. talk to us about that. >> yeah. it was ugly. i was there in the capitol and watched the speech. there was something in the speech for republicans. there was something in the speech for democrats. i was pleased that the prime minister actually led out a vision of where this goes. free the hostages, free gaza

from hamas and the terror threat, and then a vision of two states basically living side by side. that's essentially what we said. but outside what you saw was -- to us, it's not astonishing at all. we've seen the escalating violence of these protests. there were national park service officers who were assaulted. they defaced the statue with the words "hamas is coming." i saw isis flags. there were hezbollah and hamas flags. we shouldn't even call these people peaceful protesters. how can you be called peaceful when your rhetoric and actions are so violent? >> jonathan, part of the tension has been that some of us have certainly stood with what happened october 7th was absolutely unthinkable and certainly deplorable and what's happening with innocent people dying in gaza is the same.

but you can be for israel and the palestinian state to operate and still be against netanyahu, which is a position that i have talked about. that's my position. being anti-netanyahu is not being anti-israel. but when we see this threat in paris around the olympics, which brings us back to '72 and some of the activities of some of the groups -- and it's not the groups that i think that have legitimately raised humanitarian concerns about gaza. when you see them overtake that, is that not really the concern? should there be boundaries we all have saying, wait a minute, we're for this, it may not be identical on both sides, but we're not going to allow violence and anarchists and anti-semites override our legitimate concerns? >> you're absolutely correct. if you want to see anti-war protests, go to israel.

the prime minister is not very popular there. there are ways to protest bibi netanyahu and not be anti-zionist. at union station they had the final solution for the zionists with a picture of a mushroom cloud. threatening to kill athletes is not normal. it is anti-semitic at its core. i want an end to the violence in gaza. i want no more civilians killed. i want palestinians to live in peace just like israelis. but hamas said they want to repeat 10/7 again and again. that's got to stop. any american who wants to stand up for peace should be standing up against hamas. >> let me follow that up. also, this puts a lot of work on some of the groups, adl, national action network, national urban league around

this country. do you fear that as we go forward with the international threats in paris, an important role of the second gentleman who may now be the first gentleman who was working with them may be able to play in? >> such a good point. the black community, the jewish community, asian american community, lgbtq, the muslim community, we have more in common than the things that keep us apart. there are folks who want to divide us saying get rid of the adl, push out the zionists. that is wrong. we should speak up against it every chance we get. >> prime minister netanyahu was at capitol hill yesterday. yesterday there were meetings at the white house with president biden and vice president harris.

you were in the pool for the meeting with the vice president, who then got a lot of attention for what she said afterwards. >> it was surprising when they came out and right before they started shaking hands and taking that picture, she said we have a lot to talk about. the way that she said it, all of us were like, oh. it felt like that was going to make clear how the meeting was going to go. we got taken out and put in kind of a hold room and brought back because harris wanted to come out straight to camera and have remarks. i was told by a harris aide the meeting was serious. she has unwavering commitment to israel's ability to defend itself, but how they do that matters. that has been her stance this entire time. then she kind of went into talking about the protesters,

who are worried about what they see happening to the palestinian people in gaza. she said, i see you. something that when you think about the way that president biden has talked about this issue for many reasons, it doesn't hit the same for people. i talked to a couple of folks last night who were even part of the uncommitted campaign in michigan and said that they felt cautious optimism that this might be a turning point and that vice president harris' nuanced way of talking about this might give them and folks that are really concerned about what's happening to palestinians more of an in with talking to her campaign and then eventually maybe a possible harris administration. it also was interesting to me that she was the only one of the two principals that came out and spoke afterwards. that doesn't happen all the time. so her team is clearly trying to reintroduce her to the american people as not just the person who's talking about reproductive freedom or young voters, but

that can also handle a foreign policy meeting and come out and say what happened and get that out there. that's clearly a part of the reintroducing of vice president harris in this critical time. >> politico's eugene daniels, thank you for your reporting. still ahead here, it's been 25 years since john f. kennedy jr. and his wife died in a small plane crash. now some of his closest friends are sharing never-before-told stories about the president's son. join us straight ahead on "morning joe." ahead on "morning joe." ona. i'm a flight nurse on a helicopter that specializes in trauma. i've been doing flight nursing for 24 years. i had a fear that i wouldn't be able to keep up. i wanted all the boost i could get! i heard about prevagen from a friend. i read the clinical study on it and it had good reviews.

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of the biggest names in streaming, all for just $15 a month. get the fastest connection to paris with xfinity. it's hard to tell what to make of it at this point. >> nbc news has learned that a small plane being piloted by john f. kennedy jr. has been reported missing. >> and that was the moment 25

years ago this month when nbc news viewers first learned of what would become the latest tragedy involving one of america's most famous families, the kennedys. while piloting a small plane off the coast of martha's vineyard, john f. kennedy jr. would lose control of the craft crashing into the atlantic, killing kennedy, his wife, carolyn bessette and his sister-in-law. >> joining us now is the chief executive who oversaw his public relations until his death, rosemarie ternezio, and liz mcneil, they're the co-authors of the new book which bears the title "jfk jr.: an intimate oral biography." rosemarie, tell us about this book, 5 years in the making and how hard it must be to still see footage like that and remember what you lost. >> yeah, you know, you still

miss him terribly and it was such a shock. he was so young. he was 38, and part of the reason for this book is if john knew he was going to be gone at 38, he'd want to be remembered. that's the goal of the book, to share memories of him. after 25 years i think people felt like it was more of a celebration of him than mourning him, and the people who participated in the book did so because they want him to be remembered. >> tell us a little bit about some of the people who are in the book and who share their memories of jfk jr. >> it's an incredible array of people, i think we did probably 200 interviews. we have bill clinton, we have mike tyson, somebody who john had visited him in prison. we have many people that worked with him at george. we have some of the celebrities that were on the cover. but we even have his favorite waitress from el teddies. it was really a wide array of

people, even his teachers from collegiate when he was a kid. >> rosemarie, you know i knew john, i called him john john. he would tell me stop and went to all of y'all's events at george. let me ask you something tricky. what do you think that john would think of the kennedy, robert kennedy jr. his cousin. >> john and bobby were very close. they were like siblings. i think he would be okay with him running as long as it was after john's second term as president. [ laughter ] >> knowing john the way you do and i knew him -- but i didn't -- both of us can agree that might have been -- i wasn't ready for that answer, but it's true. it's true john. >> so tell us what we all can still like learn and benefit from him and his experiences, you know, these 25 years later. >> you know, i think john represented a certain kind of

idealism. people attached a lot of hope to him. even in the course of writing our book and interviewing people, he made people feel hopeful. that was sort of a nice thing for us to learn and share. there was a lot that people didn't know about john because he was so protected by friends and all the people around him so he could have some privacy. now for the first time you're really getting a sense of who he was. >> rosemarie, a final few thoughts from you of what we should expect to learn here. >> i think what you learn which i learned and i didn't know as close as i was, that he -- there was constant searching for an emotional connection to his father. >> the new book, jfk jr.: an intimate oral biography, its authors, rosemarie terenzio and liz mcneil, we will see you again monday morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage here after a quick final break. coverage here after a quick final break. and who are anti-achr antibody positive, season to season, ultomiris is continuous symptom control,

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right now on "ana cabrera