just a little bit. that does it for me, i'm yasmin vossoughian. "morning joe" starts now. the reversing of some of the openings dampen your enthusiasm for the recovery? >> no, at least not yet. overwhelming evidence we're in v-shaped recovery. we're looking at it closely, scouring all the numbers. i would say so far, so good. >> so far, so good for -- that from white house economic adviser larry kudlow amid a national crisis that has claimed over 125,000 american lives. joe biden is set to deliver a major speech today about the president's handling of this pandemic and ahead of that we have an exclusive first look at his new campaign ad. we'll also talk more about the virus with a physician who's been fighting it from the start.

the curve is flying upwashrds wh thousands and thousands of new infections, while other parts of the world head in the opposite direction. also this morning yet another big surprise at the supreme court, with the chief justice siding with the liberal wing on an abortion ruling. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, june 30th, along with joe, willie and me, we have k a katty kay and navy admiral james stevred stevredus. news organizations continue to try to piece together what president trump knew and when he knew it about the reported russian bounty plot. multiple organizations independently reported over the weekend that the u.s. has

gathered intelligence that russian intelligence officers have offered to pay bounties to taliban fighters who kill americans. in the latest developments, two officials familiar with the matter tell the "new york times" that american officials provided a written briefing in late february to president trump laying out their conclusions on the russian bounty plot. the officials say that the investigation has focused, in part, on an april 2019 car bombing that killed three marines as one such potential attack. the times also notes that the intelligence assessment was deemed credible enough to be widely circulated by the cia's world intelligence review in a may 4th classified summary. meanwhile, the associated press reports that top officials in the white house were aware in early 2019 of the plot.

2019. a full year earlier than has been previously reported. according to u.s. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence. the ap reports that the assessment was included in at least one of trump's written daily intelligence briefings at the time. and also says that then national security advisor john bolton told colleagues he briefed trump on the intelligence assessment in march of 2019. all of this latest reporting from multiple news organizations along with recent statements by intelligence chiefs as well as several congressional republicans does not dove tail with president trump's sunday night tweet that the intel agencies, quote, did not find this information credible. the latest reporting clearly shows the u.s. received credible, tactical reports as the cia director has called them and is now trying to vet and corroborate that information. information that, as we told you

yesterday, was significant enough to pass along to the british government, which nbc news reports, finds convincing. the only disagreement within the u.s. intel community appears to be the strength of the intelligence and what it means. >> willie, the thing is again we've been through this. you look at all of the reporting, you piece it together, and there's some things that the white house is not denying. that the cia knew about this. the cia station chief knew about this. it was widely known that russia was putting bounties on the heads of young american troops. that was widely known. it was idwidely known in the ci they put out that may 4th briefing. they didn't say we're not sure if it's good information or not. when richard haass told us

yesterday the national security council had a meeting in april, as richard says the national security council they aren't referees for intel. by the time it gets to them, it's goods intel. when you put it on a presidential daily briefing, there's no question about the quality of the income. the white house is pushing two lies right now. the first lie is the president has not been briefed on this. that's a lie. and then of course you have donald trump's helsinki lie again that the intelligence agency is fake news, which is fascinating because you just wouldn't believe, willie, i'm so glad you 'he're here today. i'm going to give you shocking information. guess who else is saying that the intelligence community's information on russia to kill our troops is fake news? guess who's using the same language as donald trump. >> i think we just saw him in a

photograph, and i think his people called it b.s. in a more descriptive term, yes. >> b.s. and using the same language in tweets. donald trump is parroting vladimir putin. and vladimir putin's propaganda chiefs. so here we are again with donald trump taking the word of an ex-kgb officer who said the collapse of the soviet con sum was a tragedy. he's taking vladimir putin's words over the words of his own intel chiefs. willie, that's where we still are in late 2020, and it doesn't matter to him that young american troops have had bounties put on their heads and that the intelligence community has known about this now since 2019, and they were pushing the white house to do something in

march of 2020. >> yeah, it's bad enough the initial reports that say it was march of this year. now the ap is reporting last night in march of 2019 the president was briefed in the president's daily briefing about this attempt by the russian intelligence services to use taliban-linked militants to kill american troops. the president, the white house had nowhere to go from the corner they painted themselves in. they said pointedly and clearly and flatly that the president was not briefed on this. you can believe the president, the white house press secretary, take the body of evidence of what they told us over three and a half years or you can believe the intelligence people who are telling the associated press and the "new york times" and "the washington post" and nbc news about what actually happened and that the president was briefed. admiral, i would go to you on this, the director of national intelligence had a chance yesterday to shoot this down, the director of the cia had a

chance to shoot this down. but in their statements they went after the dangers of leaking and not on any actual news, did this happen, did these briefings take place and was the president aware of this since at least march of this year or perhaps as the associated press reports march of 2019, they did not dispute that. they talked about leeks. what's your assessment of all we've seen through media reports and statements we've seen from members of the intelligence community. >> willie, going back to the four years i was in charge of that mission in afghanistan, that's a nato mission, of course. 150,000 troops. we had many, many opportunities to see different groups come in and try and move the needle on violence. and during those years i would see the presidential daily brief. so i can tell you for a fact that a report like this would go up like a rocket to the very top, to the white house, there's

just no doubt in my mind that the president would have been made aware of this, whether it was in written form or briefed to him personally or pulled aside. there just can't be any question about it. and what's really shocking here is the lack of a response. which as you point on, may have come as long ago as 2019. but even if it was happening in 2020, it's unconscionable that this would not be front and center for the president that he would be talking to his team and looking at the military, economic, diplomatic, all of the options we would have to respond to the russian federation. this is really shocking to me. >> you know, it is so shocking -- and mika, let's forget about what the president has not done since may -- or since march of 2020. if the a.p. is right, let's move

to the side what the president has refused to do since 2019. >> yeah. >> think about this. that americans found out this weekend that vladimir putin is paying to put bounties on the heads of american troops. all the intel agencies have this information. the national security council had a briefing on this. and, of course, grenel and all these other stooges -- first of all they started by lying about it. saying nobody knew about that. that's a total lie. but we're not surprised that they're lying. think about this. i know when this came out, we were talking offline about what a terrible position this puts a man be holden to vladimir putin in. we were talking right after it broke, oh my god, he's going to

deny it, he's going to lie about it, but then he's going to refuse to do what any other president would do to vladimir putin. he won't -- so what has donald trump done? instead of criticizing putin, a man he's beholden to for reasons perhaps we'll find out one day, he has remained silent. instead of defending american troops and pushing back on russia and pushing back on putin, who has he pushed back on? the intelligence agencies. america's men and women who are gathering this information. so once again he chooses an ex-kgb chief over u.s. professionals in the intelligence agency who are working to try to get information to washington d.c. that will save american troops. >> and he says a good

relationship with russia is a good thing and he's supportive of putin. >> just think, again since this has come out no condemnations from donald trump towards vladimir putin and it's not a surprise because he's beholden, even when american lives are in danger. >> "the washington post" has new reporting and new questions this morning. in the latest column entitled "were trump's aides too afraid to tell him about the russian bounties?" he asks that question, can you imagine. through this january and february, as the cia and military surveillance gathered reports about a cash stock pile in northern afghanistan and other indicators of a possible russian operation u.s. military and intelligence officials became increasingly concerned several told me. by march they were pressing for a top level review by senior

trump administration officials of the still unconfirmed threat to u.s. soldiers. through this agonizing period, trump kept abuzz of happy talk about improving relations with putin. including the possibility of inviting him back into the group of seven. were trump's commanders too afraid to warn him of this folly? trump isn't the only one who knows too little about afghanistan. our forces there are so hunkered down, i'm told the military hasn't allowed any significant embeds by journalists. trump is an obstacle to good policy. either people don't tell him the truth or he doesn't want to hear it. whichever way, he's defaulting on his most basic responsibility as commander in chief. katty kay, we're still waiting to hear from more republicans in washington. we've heard from some.

there are some who have significant questions. but this level of inability to connect with our president is now seeping out onto the world stage and our international relations and our national security once again. >> yeah, we have had corey gardner, tillis, two senators in tough re-election campaigns come out and question the president over this and be tough on russia over this. i mean -- >> all right. >> we'll pick up with katty in a second. >> admiral, what should a commander in chief, if it weren't donald trump or if it weren't somebody beholden to vladimir putin, what would the other 44 predecessors to donald trump have said after getting information that russia was

paying islamic militants to kill american troops. what should be said? >> as you know, i was a combatant commander working at one time for president bush and then president obama, two different political actors, different world outlooks. i can tell you both of them would have immediately convened the national security council, the actual cabinet heads, and created a plan to go back and respond to this. and it would be military. for example, no, we're not going to withdraw our troops from germany, russia. we're going to operate our ships up in the black sea. we'll fly aircraft to show you how displeased we are, diplomat diplomatic. probably expel the current russian ambassador. probably his head of intelligence. take some diplomatic moves. public communication within the bounds of protecting sources and methods, it's time for the u.s.

government to say, this actually happened. and to publicize this and talk about it and get rid of this, as you call it, happy talk about russia rejoining the g7 that's ridiculous. and economically putting together tougher sanctions than we currently have. i think it's time to start looking at personal sanctions on vladimir putin and lavrov. we've sort of held back from doing that. it is time to be very blunt and very direct with the russian federation. this is simply unconscionable behavior. >> let's go to the white house. carol lee is standing by there. good morning, so what we heard yesterday from the white house press secretary is that this intelligence was there, the national security council was discussing it, but it didn't rise to the level of informing the president because it was not verified, is the way they put it. the admiral just laid out why

that information would have been shared with any other president of the united states. we have reports it was, in fact, included in the president's daily brief and he did see it. where do you expect the white house to go today with this reporting in the "new york times" and in the "associated press" that, in fact, in the written president's daily brief, president trump was briefed on this? >> reporter: look, the white house's central argument here is twofold. one the president didn't know about this, and that he -- you know, the intelligence hasn't been verified, as you said. that is not holding up as the time line emerges that we're seeing from news reports that the president may have known about this as far back as march 2019. and the fact that the white house is saying he wasn't briefed. they're playing a little semantics with what that means. and if the press secretary was pressed on this yesterday and didn't, in fact, say the president did not receive some sort of written briefing. she did not go that far.

and, you know, so the time line is not holding up. you have bipartisan calls from congress for answers to mounting questions. and the president briefed -- white house briefed some republicans yesterday, they're going to brief nine democrats at 8:00 this morning. and then try to contain the fallout, but look, they have more answers -- more questions than they have answers right now. and the problem they face is they've really boxed the president in on this idea he didn't know about this. and this is how he responded to crisis after crisis. now we're seeing him do it here. yet the facts are not lining up with that. then it also raises the question of if he didn't know about this, why didn't he know about this? and they have not answered this question yet. i can tell you these questions are not going away. the other thing i would note is the president has not had anything really on his schedule this week. the one thing he has on his schedule is a 3:30 intelligence

briefing, willie. >> carol lee at the white house. thank you so much. we appreciate it as always. katty kay, i think we have you back. the white house has been lying since this has come out. the president has been lying. grenell has been lying, but that's what he does for a living, what he's done for a living. but the most fascinating part of this is that this threat was so serious that the trump administration notified britain with a warning. but they want us to believe that while they were notifying britain, because this was so serious, they didn't notify their own president. it -- of course, it just -- it strains all credulity. it's ridiculous. >> we reached out to senior british government officials last night and asked if the they

had been given these briefings they couldn't confirm or deny it. it was a simple thing to deny if it hadn't happened so you can read your own reporting into their comments. i think we have to get back to david ignatius's question about whether people were trying to keep this from the president or didn't want to raise this to the president because of his long-standing, always perplexing relationship with russia and his desire to kind of please the strong man that he sees in vladimir putin. it really has been the remarkable fault line between the republican party, which has caved to president trump on so many issues, whether it's around economics and deficit spending and trade and tariffs, but russia has been the big question mark. why did the republican party give in to president putin on his cozy relationship with russia when they'd been so

hawkish prior to that on russia. i'm going to be very interested to see if this is the point you have other republicans -- we're watching for marco rubio, for example, to come around and say it's not okay to not hold russia to account over this. what is it, since march he's given humanitarian aid, called putin a friend and invited him to join the g7. if it's true it was in that presidential daily briefing in february, how many times since february has president trump made cozy with president putin? knowing that this was there. unless either he really does not read ever the presidential daily briefing or his aides decided to make sure that bit of the daily briefing was not elevated to him, put right in front of him, under his nose and pointed out to him because as david ignatius is suggesting they don't want to upset him by pointing out anything that's going to be

critical of russia. >> there is no good answer. this morning a group of eight democrats will head to the white house for a briefing on this matter. one of them, congresswoman elissa slotkin will join us before heading to the that 8:00 a.m. meeting. aside from russia we want the admiral's take about another major player testing the president, china. we'll talk about that. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. watching "" we'll be right back. taway drive. they're going to be paying for this for a long time. they will, but with accident forgiveness allstate won't raise your rates just because of an accident, even if it's your fault. cut! sonny. was that good? line! the desert never lies. isn't that what i said? no you were talking about allstate and insurance. i just... when i... let's try again. everybody back to one. accident forgiveness from allstate. click or call for a quote today.

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today joe biden will deliver a speech in his hometown of wilmington, delaware where he is expected to criticize president trump over his inability to handle the multiple crises facing the u.s., including the ongoing pandemic. ahead of that speech biden's campaign and the democratic national committee is releasing a new ad this morning critical

of president trump for his response to the coronavirus pandemic. here is an exclusive first look at the ad. >> coronavirus, exploding again across america. it didn't have to be this bad. but donald trump lied, saying it's going to disappear. even praising president xi's handling of the virus to protect his bad trade deal with china for his own re-election. what did we get? 125,000 dead, 25 million jobs lost. recession trump. he puts himself first and you last. >> i'm joe biden and i approve this message. >> the campaign says the ad buy is over six figures and the spot will air on television in washington d.c. targeting the white house as well a digitally battleground states it'll be on digital where covid-19 is spiking in those states so folks there will be able to get that

message. >> admiral, what -- curious what your take is on the president's scatter shot approach to china. goes one day talking about praise for xi, whether you're talking about his transparency in the pandemic, he said that he was transparent and was doing a wonderful job. i don't know if you remember but h when he consolidated power to become the strongest dictator in china, the president had glowing words for him there and admiration. and, of course, in john bolton's book, john bolton tells of the times that donald trump asked china to interfere and help him get re-elected. of course he also did that in front of television cameras twice during the ukraine scandal. what are your concerns over the next six months as the chinese

and other countries start to think that donald trump's headed for the exits? are they going to use this time of an erratic president, even more erratic than usual, use this time to take advantage of america's weakness? >> without question. and a pretty good example of that joe is what happened in hong kong. where china, beijing, just passed a sweeping new national security act that effectively crushes the opposition in hong kong. it walks back all of the rights that the hong kongers were guaranteed by the british when they left some 20 years ago. and it's an example of how china, in particular, is going to use this period of time to press on all of the pain points in the u.s./china relationship. so look for china to be very adventurous in the south china

sea operating military ships coming close to our ships, operating very aggressively. look for an increased level of cyber activity going after our industries. look for additional pressure on hong kong and also on taiwan. look for a continuation of trying to take advantage of this period of time as you correctly point out, you feel the administration just starting to slip and slip and slip, there's no central strategy. we need a strategy to deal with china. the u.s./chinese relationship is the absolute pivot point of the international system for the next 40 years. we have to bend that relationship without breaking it, and that is going to require diplomacy, a plan, some military deterrents. i don't see this administration capable of doing that. scatter shot is the right description. >> katty, as we saw in the ad

for the biden campaign we saw in ads from the dnc in battleground states, states like pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin. we've seen this china theme already in ads up there, which is how are you faring in donald trump's trade war with china? how is your economy looking? what does your town look like based on that? it may seem it's an under the radar issue given the coronavirus and everything else, but democrats and the biden campaign are clearly tying in china to the questions of economic collapse to a lot of people in america. >> one of the things that president trump had wanted to do was to try to paint biden as soft on china. now you see biden reversing that saying what's happening is president trump is being played by china. i think that's the power behind this ad is this notion that

somehow president trump is not savvy in his relations. america is not respected, is not feared. other countries are taking advantages of the president's weaknesses. they can play him because they know exactly what they want to do. i think that's why this ad is effective. president trump keeps responding to the ads so i imagine they are getting under his skin. to pick up on what the admiral was saying there, it's not just china taking advantage of america's weakness at the moment. right around the world everybody is noticing that this country, which is meant to be able to fight on two fronts, can't fight on one front when it comes to the coronavirus. this is not going unnoticed. america's weakness, distraction, inability to fight the coronavirus is something that other countries are taking notice of. you see the russians taking advantage of it. you see even in the middle east, we had a report on the bbc yesterday that the islamic state, isis is starting to

remerge because the soldiers can't be on the front lines. the world without america present strong, leading the world turns out to be a scary place when other people step into that vacuum and it's exactly what is happening right now. >> katty. admiral. thank you so much for being on the show this morning. coming up, our next guest says the white house is still not taking the coronavirus pandemic seriously. even as a growing number of states and cities are putting a pause on reopening. "morning joe" is back in a moment. "morning joe" is back ina moment you can't predict the future. but a resilient business can be ready for it. a digital foundation from vmware helps you redefine what's possible... now. from the hospital shifting to remote patient care in just 48 hours... to the university moving hundreds of apps

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we must have no stigma, none, about wearing masks when we leave our homes and come near other people. wearing simple face coverings is not about protecting ourselves, it is about protecting everyone we encounter. we need new routines, new rhythms and new strategies for this new middle ground in between. it's a task of each family, each small business, each employer and all levels of government to apply common sense and make this happen. >> senate majority leader mitch

mcconnell speaking on the senate floor yesterday with new cases in covid-19 surging nationwide, at least a dozen states and cities are now pulling back on reopening plans. in florida, where daily case counts soared to new records over the weekend, the city of jackson will will require face masks in any indoor place that social distancing is not possible. they're to hold the republican national convention in august. meanwhile, in south florida they've closed beaches for the fourth of july holiday weekend. in tennessee a state of emergency has been extended after a record number of cases yesterday. in georgia the governor is expected to extend the state's restrictions another two weeks. in kansas, the governor indicated she will sign an executive order requiring most

residents to wear masks beginning on friday. in new jersey, governor phil murphy says the state is putting off further reopening plans, indefinitely. meanwhile, new york governor, andrew cuomo said officials will make a decision on wednesday on when to proceed, how to proceed. >> l.a. county health officials warn conditions are deteriorating fastly as fears go there may not be enough hospital beds. this has cases in the county surge past 100,000 with more than 3,300 deaths reported. los angeles mayor eric garcetti says with the alarming spread in about a week l.a. could revert back to numbers reached at the height of the pandemic. this comes weeks after the state began to reopen. the new data also prompted officials to close los angeles county beaches this fourth of

july weekend. san diego county announcing bars that do not serve food will shutdown until august 1st at the very earliest. joining us is dr. vin gupta, he's a pulmonologist, treated coronavirus patients in washington state. good to see you as always. mika read through the states rolling back their plans, los angeles county is rolling back its plans, closing the beaches. you've been on the show for about three months warning of this possibility. if states reopen too quickly we may see exactly what we're seeing right now. >> morning, willie. 100% correct. it's great to see these positive news that's coming out of certain cities in florida coming out of -- i love what governor murphy is doing in new jersey when it comes to walking back

indoor dining because that's where we need ahead as a country. we need a state by state approach but we need a national approach. we have the vice president and kayleigh mcenany talking about federalism, talking about states being able to kind of carve their own way. what we need is a national strategy. we can't have jacksonville being the limelight or los angeles county or mayor garcetti taking the lead here. it's about mandating masks with fines if you aren't adhering to it. the time for incremental half leadership is well over because icus are filling up, that's the risk here. we're seeing it in houston, across florida, california now. we've seen it in eastern washington. there is no time here to be patient to see what happens. so that's the big issue here. i'm concerned about what the vice president did over the weekend, presiding over the worse type of super spreader

event one could imagine, a choir event where people are singing. we know singing is associated with more droplets from your mouth. why he continues to model bad behavior is beyond all of us. >> it's astounding tomorrow is july 1st and you're still pleading for a national strategy four months into the crisis. what would you like to see from the federal government? this may be a futle effort but we'll keep banging the drum. what would you like to see from the federal government as we see the spikes across the south, southwest and los angeles and san diego as well? >> there's three things right now i would love to see the government do -- i'll say four. i was going to mention the fourth last but i'll start with it. we need dr. birx and dr. fauci to not have to deal with distractions and talk about the rising evidence that's coming out that affects us all. it affects every single one of

us. there's new evidence suggesting that the virus lasts in certain individuals up to 24 days after infection. right now guidelines are saying 14 days and you're good. i want to know what dr. fauci has to say. my colleagues do. we want to talk about important evidence, not distractions. number two, we need contact tracing. there's new evidence suggesting that 2% of individuals account for 20% of transmissions in these so called super spreader events like the one the vice president presided over last weekend. how are we going to identify those without contact tracing. there's no national strategy unlike other countries that have handled it. number three we need -- i hate to say this, we need to walk back indoor dining. 19 times higher transmission rates indoor versus outdoor. i hate to say that but there's too much evidence that

restaurant dining indoors is dangerous. number four, if we can permanently ban indoor smoking we can ban the wearing -- or enforce the wearing of masks in public and we need to do that. >> i mean, you know, it -- it always seems a little difficult to look back and judge, but i have to ask, doctor, had we been very clear on the leadership here with clear daily briefings from doctors continuing over the past month, would these states be in this situation of having to shutdown again had people been clearly social distancing and clearly with leadership doing it as well, required to wear masks? >> mika, it's an important question and the answer to your question is no, we would not be. look at what the curves are in the eu, in spain, in italy. they did everything largely

right. and they acted in unison. we had 50 different approaches here in the united states because the vice president and his press secretary believe in federalism, that's what they're citing right now. we're going to have a surge on hospitals, people are dying in record numbers we need an approach. there's reams of efforts suggesting that strong mitigation efforts work. so if we had instituted that early on, yes, of course lives would have been saved. >> doctor, there's been some reports in the past few days that the virus might be pew at a time -- mutating and the mortality rates might be declining. what are you hearing on how the virus is changing and what will that mean in terms of trying to get a vaccine that lasts? >> what we're hearing is that while there is going to be

genetic drift, mutations are occurring and we're seeing evidence of different strains out there, that a vaccine candidate right now is likely to be broadly effective. so that is the hope. because the nature of the -- the way in which the vaccine is being developed it should be effective against changes in covid. just like the flu, there's sometimes changes but the vaccine in most good years is generally effective. i anticipate in the short term the mutations shouldn't be of significance. >> dr. gupta, there are a lot of parents watching this summer for indications of what the fall might look like for their kids going back to school. there's implications for the kids but child care and jobs and everything else. what do you see about what the fall may look like?

schools may try it go back, staggered days abshortened school week with distancing and masks and everything that comes with these times. i know it's late june but in a month or so people are going to think about what school looks like for their kids. how do you see it now? >> i know parents across the country are wrestling with this question. children of asthmatics, how do you protect my child is the question we often get asked. the key piece is testing. likely onsite testing to make sure we understand who is and is not positive with a weekly kay dance is what i'm hearing from school districts. l.a. county i heard they're talking about a broad weekly effort. that's not something we're doing nationwide, let alone school districts. so that's going to be the combination approach. but it's likely pop up clinics,

onsite testing to keep schools healthy and safe, half the school coming in on a monday, the other half on a tuesday. >> dr. vin gupta, thank you so much. pretty chilling what you said about the fact that we didn't conduct leadership about mitigation and lives could have been saved. once again we're still here. thank you very much for being on the show this morning and sending that message. still ahead congressional democrats are raising the alarm about reports of russian bounties on u.s. troops. congresswoman and former cia analyst elissa slotkin said something has been off about the relationship between president trump and vladimir putin and that americans are quite literally paying in blood for trump's pandering. congresswoman slotkin joins us ahead on "morning joe." we're back in just a moment. n j.

an update now on the advertising boycott on facebook that we've been following on the show. a boycott that has seen nearly 100 advertisers signed onto the protest of the site's handling of misinformation and hate speech. so far, over 40 major companies have pledged to pull advertising from facebook and instagram as part of the stop hate for profit campaign started by the anti-defamation league, naacp, and other civil rights organizations. some companies will be pulling the ads for the month of july but some have gone a step further and signed on to the end of the year. the boycott erased $60 billion worth of facebook's market value in two days. north face led the charge as the first company to drop

advertising from the site nearly two weeks ago. yesterday adidas joined the movement. ford will also be pausing advertising for the next 30 days and plans to reevaluate its presence on the platform. clorox announced that it will be shifting its advertising on the site elsewhere through december. pfizer, which spent over 54 million on advertising in the u.s. alone last year has always signed on and will pause advertising for the month of july. and microsoft actually halted advertising on facebook and instagram beginning in may before the organized boycott began. the company expects the pause to go through august. keep it coming. coming up we'll dig into the major ruling from the supreme court on abortion. and why chief justice john

roberts decided to side with the liberals. "morning joe" is back in a moment. ls "morning joe" is back in a moment when you shop with wayfair, you spend less and get way more. so you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. for small prices, you can build big dreams. spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair today. i discovered my great aunt ruth signed up as a nursing cadet for world war ii. she was only 17. find an honor your ancestors who served in world war ii. their stories live on at ancestry.

sprinting past every leak in our softest, smoothest fabric. she's confident, protected, her strength respected. depend. the only thing stronger than us, is you. shocking intelligence it is and it would be my hope that it isn't true, but it seems clear that the intelligence is real. the question is whether the president was briefed. if he was not briefed, why would he not be briefed? were they afraid to approach him

on the subject of russia and were they concerned if they did tell him that he would tell putin? >> house speaker nancy pelosi raising that theory on why trump may not have been briefed, if he wasn't, on the reports that russia offered bounties on american forces in afghanistan. welcome it's tuesday, june 30th. katty kay is still with us and joining the conversation we have analyst executive editor of "the recount" john heileman. associate editor for "the washington post" eugene robinson. and chief correspondent for "new york times" peter baker joins us. we continue to piece together what president trump knew, when he knew it about the reported russian bounty plot. multiple news organizations independently reported over the weekend that the u.s. has

gathered intelligence that russian intelligence officers have offered to pay bounties to taliban fighters who kill americans. in the latest developments, two officials familiar with the matter tell "new york times" that american officials provided a written briefing in late february to president trump laying out their conclusions on the russian bounty plot. the officials say that the investigation has focused, in part, on an april 2019 car bombing that killed three marines as one such potential attack. the times also notes that the intelligence assessment was deemed credible enough to be widely circulated by the cia's world intelligence review in a may 4th classified summary. meanwhile, the associated press reports the top officials in the white house were aware in early 2019 of the plot. a full year earlier than has been previously reported.

according to u.s. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence. the a.p. reports that the assessment was inincluded in at least one of trump's written daily intelligence briefings at the time. it also says that then national security advisor john bolton told colleagues he briefed trump on the intelligence assessment in march of 2019. all of this latest reporting from multiple news organizations along with recent statements by intelligence chiefs as well as several congressional republicans does not dove tail with president trump's sunday night tweet that the intel agencies, quote, did not find this information credible. >> that's a lie. >> that's a joke. the latest reporting clearly shows the u.s. received credible, tactical reports as the cia director has called them, and is now trying to vet and corroborate that information. information that, as we told you yesterday, was significant enough to pass along to the

british government which nbc news reports finds convincing. the only disagreement within the u.s. intel community appears to be the strength of the intelligence and what it means. >> but, of course, john heileman, it was considered important, important enough again for the national security council to talk about it in march, to go to the white house and try to push them to make some sort of decision. and now we find out the ap takes the time line back to 2019 that the information was there and nothing was done. and all we get is happy talk, wishful thinking. vladimir putin is our friend. isn't it great to have vladimir putin as our friend donald trump said in early may. let's bring him to the g8. and you have two things happening at the same time. you have this story on vladimir putin putting bounties on the heads of young american troops,

and donald trump pushing out russian propaganda instead of confronting russia. and then you have the coronavirus that is exploding now. even those that used to just foolishly follow donald trump's happy talk now find themselves in growing trouble in arizona, in florida, in texas, and mike pence suddenly wearing masks, mitch mcconnell suddenly saying, you have to wear a mask. liz cheney showing dick cheney wearing a mask saying wear a mask. marco rubio saying wear a damn mask. you have businesses shutting down because donald trump has been leading and his leading by example has not only caused extraordinary problems for this country, but just talk the

politics of it all. this is explodeing now in a state where he wants to hold his convention. things keep getting worse for this man because he won't face reality. he doesn't know reality. >> so right, joe. i think the big picture here politically is we are getting to pint. we're not at the point yet, i want to be not hyper boll ik about it, but we're getting to a point where we're going to get the answer to a question you've been asking me three and a half years, which is when are republicans going to abandon donald trump and stop following him down the path to political doom as they have done for three and a half years. i have said to you, joe, there will come a day when the math, the pure math of this, it's not about principle, policy, it's about the electoral math, the day will come when it'll be more costly politically to stick with donald trump than it will be to leave donald trump. when we get to that moment, republicans will abandon donald

trump. this is a matter of pure self-interest. i think all the things you just talked about now are warning signs for the white house that they are getting to that point, this russia story will be a factor, and is a factor right now. mitch mcconnell standing up and wearing a mask is a direct repudiation to donald trump. john thune the other day stood up and said the white house needed to change its message. you pointed to the others. mike pence is now effectively repudiating the president. he's on the phone with governors yesterday congratulating the governors who are shutting back down their states right now. that's not an explicit repudiation of donald trump but mike pence in a mask and not saying full speed ahead on the economy, you governors who are being careful are doing the right thing. is mike pence understanding his political interest and donald trump's interests are starting to die verge because the president has put them all in a position they could all be doomed. you look up at the senate and

republican senators, most of them did not mention donald trump yesterday but making statements on the russian story. these are the sounds of republicans starting to see the sign where the split has not yet come but it's on the horizon. and donald trump keeps propelling them down the path towards political doom he will see people abandon him in explicit ways. we are not that far-off from that as his numbers continue to nose dive. >> peter baker we heard from republican senators yesterday, i'm thinking ben sasse, who have been quiet the last few years, coming out and saying i'm hearing from people in my state they want to hear the truth about this russia story. but specifically on the russia story we saw the press secretary trying to split hairs on this saying the president was not personally briefed. he was asked -- kayleigh mcenany was asked if she had a response, if the president had a response

to russia, she says, no, because he hasn't been briefed. has he read the newspaper? heard the reports? heard the "new york times" reports? "the washington post" reports? the abc, nbc reports about what russia was up to. how will they respond now that there are people in the intelligence community coming out to your paper and others and saying not only did he know, it was in a written daily brief we can produce. >> we know from previous reporting the president is not into the intelligence briefings, he's not much of a reader. john bolton's book makes it clear that briefings were a waste of time because president trump did most of the talking, he wasn't absorbing information. he wasn't into input basically. he had his mindset on things, particularly on russia and vladimir putin. and he wasn't open to new information. so it may be he got a written

briefing and didn't read it, we don't know. that's not an answer the white house is going to be eager to provide because it doesn't look very good. yesterday the white house is more eager to attack the american media for exposing this than attacking russia for doing it, if, in fact, russia is doing it. to say there's no consensus among intelligence agencies is to remind us there are different levels of confidence among agencies. some have high, some have medium confidence. it's a matter of putting together threads of information, seeing patterns and drawing conclusions from it. you're never going to get, necessarily, 100% intelligence to make sure you have action. remember when barack obama authorized the mission that killed osama bin laden, he have told there was a 50/50 chance it was bin laden and he took action based on incomplete intelligence. the fact that the intelligence

may not be complete or 100% certain is not usually the definitive answer when a president has to take action to protect national security. >> joining us is one of the lawmakers who will be briefed on the bounty's intel today, a member of the armed services and homeland services committee, democratic congresswoman elissa slotkin of michigan. she served as a middle east analyst for the cia and served as acting assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs where she oversaw middle east policy amid other regions. this is your wheelhouse, what are you hoping to learn at the white house today? >> i'm looking for two things, first is the substance. what is the intel reporting say, what's the veracity of the reporting, how many sources, what do we know? how long have we known it? have we been able to verify it? we know the white house seems to have discussed this amongst themselves at the staff level.

they had a menu of options to think this through. did it go to the president? when did it go to the president? in particular i'm interested in, the president has had five phone calls with vladimir putin between march 30th and now. including where he invited them to, you know, suggested they be invited into the g7 what did the president know and not know as he's trying to warm up to vladimir putin and invite him in, were american forces targeted while he's trying to cozy up to vladimir putin? >> congresswoman, it's willie geist, you're the perfect guest to have on this morning because of your past work history. if this piece of intelligence, the intelligence service of russia was using taliban backed militants to attack american forces in afghanistan would that piece of information rise to the level of telling the president? >> sure. listen, you have to check this

stuff out and you have to like look at the body of intelligence but if they're having a debate about it and the nsc is getting a piece of finish intelligence, a report from the cia, that means the cia has done their own internal vetting, they've looked at this and they're putting it forward. i worked at the nsc under bush and then under obama. if we got a report like that, at a minimum you would have a memo slapped on top by the national security advisor saying mr. president we're looking into this, but i wanted to make you aware. here's what we're doing to follow-up and i'm going to get back to you on it. in the meantime let's think through our options with russia right now to confirm what we're looking at here. the fact that didn't happen, it wasn't flagged in that way just raises my eyebrows. i can't imagine a report like this isn't going to the white house without it being in the presidential daily brief. that's something i wrote as a cia analyst, i briefed to multiple presidents in the oval office. with something like this, if

there's a body of intelligence that would go directly to the president, even if his staff didn't feel like they needed to flag it. >> gene robinson has the next question. gene? >> congresswoman, some of your republican colleagues were -- have been briefed on this intelligence. apparently the president still has not been briefed, which is astounding. but have you heard anything? is there any buzz as to any sort of legitimate explanation for the president not knowing this, other than incompetence or, frankly, being compromised or corrupt in some way? is there any sort of legitimate reason why this wouldn't have risen to the president and stuck with him? >> well, i mean, i'm just reading the statements that are coming out from my peers who were briefed yesterday and now i'm going to be briefed this

morning and a lot of them have reflected on, we weren't sure the intelligence was good. and apparently one of the intelligence agencies decescent and didn't like the intelligence they were seeing. so that seems to be the new thing coming out. i can't make an independent jum judgment on that because i haven't heard the brief. because of intelligence problems in in the past, intelligence agencies have a way to make clear their decent. if there's a piece going to the president and the dia doesn't agree with it, they can write a decent at the bottom of the piece and say the defense intelligence agency doesn't support the top lines of this piece, we've had an internal debate and don't support it. that was after the failures in iraq, the wmd and saddam hussein. we made those changes so i'm glad to hear the director is going to be in the room today because there is procedure to

talk to the president when there is decenting views, but that's the new thing i hear coming from my colleagues. >> katty kay? >> congresswoman, we heard kayleigh mcenany yesterday saying that there were decenting views, there wasn't consensus and that was why this had not made it to the president. can you just totally clarify for us whether the fact that some people had a different view on this intelligence would mean that it wouldn't make it to the president's actual desk or be flagged up for him? how common is it there might be decenting views just to clarify that? >> i think it depends on the body of intelligence. if you have a single report, a few reports and there's one of the agencies is saying you know what, we don't think this is serious, i can see it being kept from the president. but the problem is from what i've been hearing and i want to wait until i get the brief, from what i've been hearing multiple

pieces of finished intelligence, so an analytic piece was written with multiple pieces of information. the cia can't just write something for the president that has a single weak source it's something they vet themselves internally. so if a piece like that was written and there is a decenting view there is a way we established for agencies to express that to the president. but the bottom line is this intelligence could be putting a bounty on american soldiers, when it's something that important, i worked under president bush and under president obama, that piece would have gone to the president if there was a decent it would have been flagged for him, there would have been a note and the national security advisor would help him work through it and flag it and say, mr. president, we're trying to understand what's happening here. so the idea he wasn't told or didn't know is really hard, either he got it and he's not remembering or saying, or the staff didn't provide it to him, and both feel like a problem.

>> all right, congresswoman elissa slotkin, thank you very very much for coming on the show this morning. we look toward to hearing what's today. now to the supreme court, striking down a louisiana law that would have restricted access to abortion in the state. chief justice john roberts sided with the liberal members in the 5-4 decision although the chief justice had previously voted to uphold a similar law in texas back in 2016. yesterday he said that respect for precedent meant that he was compelled to side with the court's four member liberal wing. the white house issued a statement calling the ruling unfortunate saying the supreme court devalued the lives of mothers and unborn children.

>> so peter baker, evangelicals, catholics, so many leaders in those communities have justified their support for a man who appears to be the antithesis of everything they have previously required in political candidates, the payoffs to the porn stars, breaching of constitutional norms, just abhorrent personal behavior their preachers have condemned from pulpit the likes of which for decades -- actually, centuries, all justified because donald trump would give them victories on the supreme court. this month, his first selection to the supreme court gave -- gave the lgbtq community their biggest victory at the court in history. and now roe v. wade upheld.

what's the political impact of this at the white house and on the fall elections? >> yeah, it's a great question. i think you might hear the president use this to his advantage to say, this is why you need to keep me here because you need more of my justices. obviously you're right, the gay rights ruling plays against that but president trump even as a candidate in 2016 attacked chief justice roberts as an insufficiently committed conservative specifically after the obamacare ruling. now you've seen chief justice in the last few days defy the trump administration on the gay rights ruling on daca, on, in fact, now the abortion ruling. even though he's still a conservative. chief justice roberts is still, in fact, a committed member of the conservative wing he just i think is an institutionalist who fines some of the things this administration is doing going

too far with the daca ruling he was saying, look, the president does have a lot of power but you have to exercise it properly. you have to go through due process. you can't wave your wand and decide institutions don't matter. to john roberts institutions matter. but it wouldn't surprise me to see the president turn on him and use justice roberts as a foil on the campaign trail. saying if you don't elect me you'll get joe biden and you'll get worse than john roberts. that's why you need to keep me on there. it was an argument in 2016 when the merrick nomination was stalled in the senate. the issue i think will be prominent in the campaign trail this fall. >> katty, though, as david french said yesterday, the only

justice that was talking about overturning roe and overturning kasie was clarence thomas. that eight of the justices were simply saying that there were adequate safeguards to allow a woman to have choice to have an abortion. so this seems like more of the same donald trump one more republican president who promises to deliver victories at the supreme court and then republicans find out that it never works quite that simply. >> yeah, you're starting to get conservative legal scholars complain about that in public. the senators from missouri writing a piece in conservative law reviews saying, look, we have always been told that if we just go with the establishment and with the president and we keep quiet about certain things we will get our conservative

judges and we will get our religious freedoms protected and yet again we're disappointed. i think that for the president it's going to be really interesting as he goes into the election campaign having felt that he can rely on this evangelical base because he gave them conservative judges. it was the pact they made back in the 2016 election campaign. we will overlook your transgressions. we will overlook your relationship with women, some of the things that you say if you will give us those conservative judges. well, now it's that base is starting to feel, as was suggested, that we're not satisfied with the judges you have given us, we're not satisfied with the supreme court you have given us do they have more reason perhaps to peel away from him in the november election. >> john heileman, what is the political impact to evangelicals who the numbers for evangelicals and catholics, white catholics

already softening a good bit over the past two, three months and now they read in the news that the president's first pick to the supreme court gave -- on the issue of gay rights gave the greatest advance yet on that court. on guns, this conservative court and justices that trump picked basically upheld all the bans across america that have been put in place by refusing to even hear the cases. and you talk about abortion, again going back to what david french said, eight of the nine justices in their reasoning in the abortion case, louisiana abortion case, didn't say overturn roe. didn't say overturn the reasoning of kasie, they were just engaged in a semantics battle on whether doctors needed

to have hospital privileges or not. eight out of the nine still supported upholding of roe and kasie. so doesn't this pose an existential threat to donald trump among evangelicals? >> well, i think there's a -- you know, joe, we've talked about there's a -- the pa jillty of trump's standing it's a funny thing. there's no group of supporters that have been more reliable for trump than evangelicals and yet you have always seen, you've pointed out that there was an inherent fragility to it, it was completely a pact made on self-interest and not on principle at all. you knew it wasn't based on any common alliance it was based on the notion that trump would do what they wanted. so the question was again like the thing we were talking about before, this voting group that gave its allegiance to trump

would he be able to deliver for him, if he didn't would they abandon him? this is questions for evangelicals, i don't want to assume that they're going to abandon donald trump in droves because i think there's going to be a fierce effort to try to portray joe biden as a tool of the secular left and a lot of evangelicals looking at the binary choice of what they see in the campaign, a botched joe biden portrayed that way by the trump campaign and they see the court in the next generation, the supreme court, the likelyiest resignations or departures from the court are on the liberal side, right. are justice briar and justice ginsburg. and so this gives a republican president the next term, even if a flawed one like donald trump he's likely to appoint supreme court justices that the right will like more than joe biden.

i will say one last thing, i commend everybody to read the story in the "new york times" today about john roberts and how much -- not whether he is a closet liberal or an institutionalist. but that he has put himself in a position as the swing vote and the chief justice as easily the most powerful chief justice in 100 years on the supreme court. it's an important piece and has incredible important for the role of the court in modern life and john robert's important for american life for the next 20 or 30 years. >> roberts is a fascinating character. you got to read that. and is an institutionalist. >> he is. >> he, again, as i always say, he decided he wasn't going to be the deciding vote to overturn the affordable care act and told voters you don't like it take care of it at the voting booth.

he's an institutionalist as well. it's like the reasoning in casey that they put on the paper but john roberts is not going to move towards overturning something that is a 50-year precedent that 75% of americans don't want -- 75% of americans recently said they don't want roe v. wade overturned. he's an institutionalist. and if people think that's not something that conservative, moderate and liberal justices look at they don't know how the supreme court works. they do keep a gauge on how americans feel. i don't think it's going to be an existential threat to donald trump's support among evangelicals. i think it's far more likely that it's going to be a quiet threat. there are going to be evangelicals, they're going to be conservative catholics that decide they're just going to

stay home. they cannot give this man another blank check for the next four years. >> all right. our thanks to peter baker for being on the show this morning. thank you, peter. still ahead on "morning joe" we heard from congressman elissa slotkin. coming up we'll talk to a pair of democrats who hope to join her on capitol hill while making history on the way. we'll explain that straight ahead on "morning joe." ain that ahead on "morning joe. it's pretty inspiring the way families

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what is liberty? that's quite a question. i suppose almost nobody really asks themselves that question. well, i can always quote the declaration.

we hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal. the moment i do that i'm in trouble again because obviously i'm not included in that pronouncement. that they are endowned by greater certain rights and among these rights are the right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. what is liberty? >> that was writer and activist james baldwin on what liberty personally meant from him from the 1985 film on the statue of liberty. baldwin is the inspiration behind and subject of the new book from professor at princeton university, eddie glaude jr. our friend. entitled "begin again, james d

baldwin's america". and it's out today officially. congratulations. obviously we had a bit of a conversation yesterday but to kick off today's discussion we want to read this passage from your book, quote, baldwin's understanding of the american condition cohered around a set of paractices that, taken together, constitute something i will refer to throughout this book as the lie. the idea of facing the lie was always at the heart of jimmy's witness, because he thought it, as opposed to our claim to the shining city on a hill, was what made america truly exceptional. the lie is more properly several sets of lies with a single purpose if what i have called the value gap is the idea that in america white lives have always mattered more than the lives of others then the lie is a broader and powerful architecture of false assumes by

which the value gap is maintained. these are the narrative assumptions that support the everyday order of american life, which means we breathe them like air, count them as truths, we absorb them into our character. one set of lies debases black people, another constituent part of the lie involves lies about american history and the trauma that america has visited throughout that history on people of color both at home and abroad. but the lie's most pernicious effect when it comes to our history is to ma alform events o fit the story when america's innocence is threatened by reality. that's powerful. i'd love for you to explain that more, how it's the basis for things we confront still today. >> well, mika, thank you for

reading that passage and thank you for the opportunity to talk about the book. you know, there's a moment in baldwin's corpus in 1964 he wrote a piece entitled "the white problem" he talked about slavery as being a central part of the founding of the country and he said, you know, we knew that the people we saw were men and women, but in order to justify chattel, the role of chattel in our lives we had to say they were not men and women. he says that that lie, that lie prevented us from understanding the crime but that lie is the basis of our trouble today. so it's the lie that has shaped how we understood black people and their role in this country. it is the lie that makes the declaration of independence a bitter irony for black people, the lie that is the serpent wrapped around the legs of the table that the constitution was signed. so the assumptions inform and

shape how white americans understand themselves and that's the frame for our ongoing challenge. what jimmy and i insist, if we're going to be a different america we have to challenge that white people matter more than others. and that's going to be hard work, mika, and it's not going to be easy. >> eddie, it's willie, congratulations on the book, i know how long you've been thinking on it, how hard you've been working on it, congratulations the day is here. i hope everybody picks up a copy of it, it's incredibly relevant at this moment. to listen to james baldwin, that was a quote from 1987 i believe the documentary came out where he was talking to ken burns about those ideals laid out in the constitution. those ideals laid out in those early documents, the founding documents of this country and saying effectively what we're hearing in the streets right now, that ideal, that vision for america has not included us.

so what do you see as the thread that takes us all the way from those earliest days of this country to james baldwin to the demonstrations we're seeing in the streets today? >> willie, that's a great question. we tell our story in such a way that black people in particular are late comers. we are invited to the table every now and then. as if we didn't help build the table. we tell the story of the country in such a way that it often assumes that certain people, because of the color of their skin are valued more than others. and we see that in ways in which the society is organized, even as we tinker around the edges. so what jimmy said in '64 and '65, what he was saying in '85 and what we're clamoring for in 2020 is this idea that america should be in reality a truly

multi-racial society where opportunities aren't horded by particular populations. where education is equally distributed across the country, where the color of your skin or your zip code doesn't determine opportunity, doesn't determine your life chances. where america can be, right, not so much a perfect union but a just place and it's that argument bound up with a commitment to democratic principles that has animated the black tradition as i understand it and as baldwin's voice amplified so i see him as an extension of emerson's reflections onto the united states but he takes emerson across the tracks and gets to sing the blues. >> gene robinson your latest piece in "the washington post" brings this conversation to today, it's entitled trump's only campaign promise is to make bigotry safe again. and you write in part, in his desperate campaign to win

re-election, trump has decided to position himself even more explicitly as the defender of whiteness and all its privileges. certainly in his ideological flexible career maintaining the primacy of whiteness is a rare constant with trump's hope of re-election fading, i fear this is the gambit he has chosen, using this moment to exacerbate racial animus rather thanlessen it as any responsible leader would try to do, by heightening white fear and loathing of the nation's growing diversity. gene, you can take it to eddie, but add your thoughts to that. the piece is pretty powerful. >> well, i just think that's self-evident from what we're seeing from president trump retweeting the white power video and on and on and on. i mean, he -- you know we're at

a moment when this idea of white supremacy is being questioned in a way that it hasn't in a long time. and he's all for shutting that discussion down. and for going back to what eddie would call the lie and accepting it as gospel. but my question for eddie, first of all, congratulations on the book, i can't wait to read it. whenever i want to feel really small and inadequate as a writer, i go to my bookshelf and pull down some jimmy baldwin and read him and i just, you know, am overwhelmed by his genius and his prophesy and the way he makes words flow with such power. i just wonder, what was it like for you to live with that work

and that mind for so long and to write about someone who wrote and thought so well? >> oh, eugene, i barely survived. you know, i joked with my friends that i retreated from the chaos of donald trump into the storminess of jimmy's life. it was a challenge to find jimmy baldwin who in some ways takes up the language of henry james, the eloquence of the king james bible and the eloquence and grace of black speech how he manipulated language. tony morris said she found language in jimmy's pros. but the important thing was not to lose my voice because i was writing about him but writing with him. i wanted baldwin to give me resources to think about the

current moment. there are two lines he wrote i'll never forget. one, he says he wants us to do something unprecedented and that is to create a self without the need for enemies, i love that line. in the second, even in the midst of his despair, his disallusionment that the nation has turned its back once again on the promise he says, hope is invented every day. so we have a chance as long as we step up, as long as we're present. over the years i worked with him and i have that hope even as i'm struggling with my own despair and disillusion. >> eddie's book, "begin again," and we will continue this important conversation tomorrow. eddie, thank you so much and still ahead, just as major league baseball is about to get under way, some players are opting out of the season. those details are next on "morning joe." those details are next on "morning joe." some companies still have hr stuck between employees and their data.

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in a few days major league players are scheduled to report for a second spring training ahead of a shortened baseball season expected to start july 23rd. now a small handful of players have opted out, most notably ryan zimmerman who said after a great deal of thought and family's circumstances, three young children including a n

newborn and a mother at high risk i decided not to participate in the 2020 season, zimmerman who would have made $750,000 in prorated pay, joins joe ross, mike leek and ian desmond in the decision to opt out. desmond wrote with a pregnant wife and four young children, home is where i need to be right now. home to help, guide, home to answer my older three boys' question about coronavirus, civil rights and life. home to be their dad. the outfielder was slated to earn about $5.5 million this season. according to the "new york times" based on the regulations agreed upon, any player is allowed to opt out of the 2020 season which is slated to last 60 games but only those at higher risk of severe illness due to coronavirus because of their medical history will

receive pay and service time after opting out. so so far a small handful of players in major league baseball saying they won't go. we're seeing some of it in the nba. they're scheduled to go to the orlando bubble to have a shortened season themselves. deondre jordan says he's not going because he has contracted coronavirus but other players say the risk just isn't worth it for the shortened season. >> right. and willie, who can blame them? we're both sports fans. we both are desperate for these leagues to get back. we've been waiting it seems like an intermable period to see if the mlb can figure it out, we want the nba to get in business, people are hopeful about the nfl. but who is going to be critical of the players when you hear the explanations we heard, people who feel it's more important to be with their kids, people who

feel the risk is too high. everyone knows everyone making those sam calculations every day throughout the pandemic. it's a testament to how fragile everything is right now. the stuff we most rely on and care about and are reflective of the larger economy and the larger situations of society. we want to get back going again and yet we see these signs of how much jeopardy there is and we recognize it's not easy to get this thing back in gear and get it back to where everyone hopes it will be soon, whether it's sports or anything else. >> you used the right word, fragile. everyone hopes the seasons are pulled off but it just takes a couple cases in either league for it to shutdown again. still to come,ry chrichard engel and kier simmons joins us. "morning joe" is coming right

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surging nationwide, at least a dozen states and cities are pulling back on reopening plans. in florida where daily case counts soared to new records over the weekend, the city of jacksonville will now require face masks in indoor public

place where social distancing is not possible. the city is scheduled to host the republican national convention in august. meanwhile, in south florida, counties have closed their beaches for the fourth of july holiday weekend. in tennessee, a state of emergency order has been extended after a record number of cases was recorded there yesterday. in georgia, the governor is expected to extend the pandemic's restrictions, another two weeks which are due to expire tomorrow. in kansas the governor has indicated she will sign an executive order requiring most residents to wear masks beginning friday. in new jersey, governor phil murphy says the state is putting off further reopening plans indefinitely. and new york governor andrew cuomo says officials will make a decision on wednesday on whether to proceed.

john heilemann, your final thoughts, especially. given such a boundless record of failed leadership on this pandemic. >> mika, we talked a little earlier in the show. it's obvious that the first wave never -- we're innocent a second wave. the second wave is continuing because it's washing across the united states right now. the red states and purple states that didn't feel the virus in the early part of the pandemic are now getting crushed. we have not started to see the death totals rise, but every public health expert we hear from suspects they will. you mention governor murphy and governor cuomo, the states first hard hit are now seeing what's with going on across the country, learning lefbs from it, learning how relentless this virus is and starting to think about even backing away from their tentative steps to reopening they undertook in the last month or so. i think the big message here, and you see mike pence and others in the white house

starting to change their tune at long last on some of these big questions, i think the lesson is we are so far from being out of the woods on the public health question and, therefore, on the political question. we're so far from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, this virus is a beast and we're going to be in a very, very long fight. i don't think anyone or close to enough people in the country recognize how long and relentless the struggle is going to be. >> well, we're far behind. other countries have shown that actual ll lly strict mitigation masking works. we haven't done it. >> yes. >> the leadership hasn't been clear. just because mitch mcconnell and others are wearing masks now, they're reading the polls rather than reading the science. as a result, people probably died that didn't have to. that's just clear. that's science and data telling us that and businesses are shutting down instead of staying open. it's pathetic. today joe biden is set to

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bbc world news america katty kay and former nato supreme ail lied commander, james stavridis. news organizations continue to try to piece together what president trump knew and when he knew it about the reported russian bounty plot. multiple organizations independently reported over the weekend that the u.s. has gathered intelligence that russian intelligence officers have offered to pay bounties to taliban fighters who kill americans. in the latest developments, two officials familiar with the matter tell "the new york times" that american officials provided a written briefing in late february to president trump laying out their conclusions on the russian bounty plot. the officials say that the investigation has focused, in part, on an april 2019 car

bombing that killed three marines as one such potential attack. "the times" also notes that the intelligence assessment was deemed credible enough to be widely circulated by the cia's world intelligence review in a may 4th classified summary. meanwhile, the associated press reports that top officials in the white house were aware in early 2019 of the plot. 2019. a full year earlier than has been previously reported. according to u.s. officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence. the ap reports that the assessment was included in at least one of trump's written daily intelligence briefings at the time. and also says that then-national security adviser john bolton told colleagues he briefed trump on the intelligence assessment in march of 2019. all of this latest reporting

from multiple news organizations, along with recent statements by intelligence chiefs as well as several congressional republicans does not dovetail with president trump's sunday night tweet that the intel agencies, quote, did not find this information credible. the latest reporting clearly shows the u.s. received credible, tactical reports as the cia director has called them, and is now trying to vet and corroborate that information. information that, as we told you yesterday, was significant enough to pass along to the british government, which nbc news reports, finds convincing. the only disagreement within the u.s. intel community appears to be the strength of the intelligence and what it means. >> willie, you know, the thing is, again, we've been through this. you look at all of the reporting, you piece it together, and there's some things the white house is not denying. that the cia knew about this,

the cia station chief knew about this, it was wildly known that russia was putting bounties on the heads of young american troops. that was widely known. it was widely known within the cia. it was widely known they put out that may 4th briefing. it didn't say, well, we're not sure whether this is good information or not. as richard haass told us yesterday, when the national security council had a meeting in late march to talk about this and talk about the different approaches they were taking, as richard says, the national security council, they aren't referees for intel. by the time it gets to them, it's good intel. when you put it on a presidential daily briefing, there's no question about the quality of the intel. so, the white house is pushing two lies right now. the first lie is that the president has not been briefed on this. that's a lie. and then, of course, you have donald trump's helsinki lie

again, that the intelligence agency is fake news, which is fascinating because you just wouldn't believe, willie, i'm so glad you're here today. i'm going to give you some shocking information. guess who else is saying that the intelligence community's information on russia trying to kill our troops is fake news? guess who's using the same language as donald trump? >> i think we just saw him in a photograph and i think his people called it bs, in a more descriptive term, yes. >> bs, and using the same language in tweets. donald trump is parroting vladimir putin, and vladimir putin's propaganda chiefs. so here we are again with donald trump taking the word of an ex-kgb officer, who said the

collapse of soviet communism was the greatest tragedy in the 20th century. he's taking vladimir putin's words over the words of his own intel chiefs. willie, that's where we still are in late 2020. and it doesn't matter to him that young american troops have had bounties put on their heads and that the intelligence community has known about this now since 2019, and they were pushing the white house to do something in march of 2020. >> it's bad enough the initial reports say it was march of this year. now the ap is reporting last night that in march of 2019 the president was briefed in the president's daily briefing about this attempt bit russian intelligence services to use taliban-linked militants to kill american troops. the president and the white house have nowhere to go from the corner they've painted themselves in. they've said pointedly and

clearly and flatly that the president wasn't briefed on this. you can believe the president, you can believe the white house press secretary, you can take the body of evidence of what they've told us over the last 3 1/2 years or you can believe the intelligence people who are telling the associated press and "the new york times" and "the washington post" and nbc news about what actually happened and that the president was briefed. admiral stavridis on this. the director of national intelligence had a chance to shoot this down, but in their statements they went after the dangers of leaking and not on actual news. did this happen? did these briefings take place? and was the president aware of this since at least march of this year or, perhaps as the associated press reports, march of 2019? they did not dispute that. they talked about leaks. what is your assessment of all we've seen through media reports and these statements from members of the intelligence community? >> well, willie, going back to

the four years i was in charge of that mission in afghanistan, that's a nato mission, of course, 150,000 troops, we had many, many opportunities to see different groups come in and try and move the needle on violence. during those years i would see the daily presidential briefs. i can tell you, in fact, a report like this would go up like a rocket to the very top, to the white house. there's just no doubt in my mind that the president would have been made aware of this, whether it was in written form or briefed to him personally or pulled aside. there just can't be any question about it. and what's really shocking here is the lack of a response, which as you point out may can have come as long ago as 2019, but

it's unconscionable that this wouldn't be front and center for the president and talking to his team and looking at the military, economic, diplomatic, all of the options we would have to respond to the russian federation. this is really shocking to me. >> you know, it is so shocking. mika, let's forget about what the president has not done since may -- or since march of 2020. if the ap's right, just let's move to the side what the president has refused to do since 2019. think about this, that americans found out this weekend that vladimir putin is paying to put bounties on the heads of american troops. all the intel agencies have this information, the national security council had a briefing

on this. and, of course, grinell and all these other stooges started saying, no, we didn't know about it. that's a total lie. we're not surprised they're lying. think about this, i know when we came out, we were talking offline about what a terrible position this puts a man who is beholden to vladimir putin in. we were talking about right after it broke, oh, my god, he's going to deny it, he's going to lie about it, but then he's going to do what any other president would do to vladimir putin. what has donald trump done? instead of criticizing putin, a man he is beholden to for reasons, perhaps, we will find out one day, he has remained silent. instead of defending american troops and pushing back on russia and pushing back on

putin, who has he pushed back on? the intelligence agencies. america's men and women who are gathering this information. once again he chooses an ex-kgb chief over u.s. professionals in the intelligence agency who were working to try to get information to washington, d.c., that will save american troops. >> and he says a good relationship with russia is a good thing. and has been supportive. >> and says he's his friends. again, just think about it, since this has come out, no condemnations from donald trump. >> nothing. >> and it's not even a surprise because he's beholden. even when american lives are in danger. still, president trump watches plenty of tv while at the white house, which is why the biden campaign is rolling on you the a new ad in washington, d.c. we'll show it to you next on "morning joe." t on "morning joe." from prom dresses...

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today joe biden will deliver a speech in his hometown of wilmington, delaware, where he is expected to criticize president trump over his inability to handle the multiple crises facing the u.s., including the ongoing pandemic. ahead of that speech biden's campaign and the democratic national committee is releasing a new ad this morning critical of president trump for his response to the coronavirus pandemic. here is an exclusive first look at the ad. >> coronavirus exploding again across america. it didn't have to be this bad, but donald trump lied, saying it's going to disappear. even praising president xi's handling of the virus to protect

his bad trade deal with china for his own re-election. and what did we get? 125,000 dead, 20 million jobs lost, recession. trump, he puts himself first. and you last. >> i'm joe biden and i approve this message. >> the campaign says the ad buy is over six figures and the spot will air on television in washington, d.c., targeting the white house as well as digitally background states, it will appear digitally in states where coronavirus is spiking there. >> admiral, i'm curious what your take is on the president's scattershot approach to china. he goes one day talking about praise for xi, whether you're talking about his transparency in the pandemic. he said that he was transparent

and was doing a wonderful job. i don't know if you remember, but when he consolidated power to become the strongest dictator in china since chairman mao, the president had glowing words for him there and admiration. and, of course, in john bolton's book, john bolton talks of the time he asked china to interfere and get him re-elected. he also did that in front of television cameras twice in the ukraine scandal. what are your concerns over the next six months as the chinese and others think donald trump is headed for the exits. are they going to use this time of an erratic president, even more erratic than usual to take advantage of america's weakness? >> without question. and a pretty good example of

that, joe, is what just happened in hong kong, where china, beijing just passed a sweeping new national security act that effectively crushes the opposition in hong kong. it walks back all of the rights that the hong kongers were guaranteed by the british when they left some 20 years ago. and it's an example of how china, in particular, is going to use this period of time to press on all of the pain points in the u.s./china relationship. so look for china to be very adventurous in the south china sea, operating military ships, coming very close to our ships, operating very aggressively. look for an increased level of cyber activity, going after our industries. look for additional pressure on hong kong and also on taiwan. look for a continuation of trying to take advantage of this

period of time, as you correctly point out. you feel the administration just starting to slip and slip and slip. there's no central strategy. we need a strategy to deal with china. the u.s./chinese relationship is the absolute pivot point of the international system for the next 40 years. we've got to bend that relationship without breaking it. and that is going to require diplomacy, a plan, some military deterrence. i don't see this administration capable of doing that. scattershot is the right description. >> katty, as we just saw in that ad from the biden campaign, we've seen in ads from dnc in battleground states like pennsylvania, michigan, states democrats need to flip to kick donald trump out of the white house, we've seen this china theme already in ads up there, which is how are you faring in donald trump's trade war with china right now? how's your job looking? how's your economy around you

looking. what does your town look like based on that? it may seem like it's an under the radar issue given coronavirus and everything else, but democrats and the biden campaign are clearly tying in china to these questions of economic collapse around a lot of people in america. >> yeah. one of the things that president trump had wanted to do was try to paint biden as soft on china. now you see biden kind of reversing that and saying, look, what's happening is president trump is being played by china. i think that's the power behind this ad, is this notion that somehow president trump is not savvy in his relations. america is not respected, not feared. other countries are taking advantage of the president's weaknesses. they can play him because they know exactly what they want to do. i think that's why this ad is effective. and president trump keeps responding to these ads, so i imagine they are starting to get

under his skin. to pick up on what general -- admiral stavridis was saying, it's not just china taking advantage of america's weakness. everybody around the world, this country that is supposed to be able to fight on two fronts, can't fight on one front when it comes to the coronavirus. america's weakness, the distraction, the inability to fight the coronavirus is something other countries are taking notice of. you see the russians taking advantage of it. you see even in the middle east, we had a report on the bbc yesterday that the islamic state, isis, is starting to re-emerge in that nation because western soldiers are distracted and they can't be there on the front lines at the moment so isis it taking advantage of that. the world without america presence strong, leading the world, turns out to be a pretty scary place when other people step into that vacuum. it's exactly what is happening

right now. coming up, we'll stick with foreign policy with two of our top overseas correspondents. nbc's keir simmons has new details on the russian reaction to the bounty story while richard engel is digging into the future of the afghanistan mission. "morning joe" is back in a moment. "morning joe" is back in a moment

it would be the honor of my life to represent this borough. it's my home. and i would not be here today if

it were not for my mother and the south bronx is full of mothers like mine, who have suffered and struggled and sacrificed so that her baby boy can have a better life than she did. and the opportunity to represent the essential workers of this borough, to represent the powerful mothers of this borough. it's the culmination of a dream. >> of course, the historic nature of this campaign is not lost on me. growing up poor, black and gay, i never imagined someone like me could run for congress, let alone be the leading contender for the nomination in the great new york 17th congressional district. had i been able to look to someone quite like myself, it would be have been direct evidence of the fact that things really do get better later in life. >> history could be made this november. joining us now, two candidates who may soon become the first

openly gay black men elected to congress. ritchie torres is running in new york's 15th congressional district and mondaire jones is vying for new york's 17th. both join us now. ritchie, those were extremely powerful words about your mother. and it seems that you've been serving since you were 25, elected to the city council back in 2013. how much does she drive your desire to serve? and given the fact that you've served in government now for most of your adult life, what do you love about it? what do you hate about it? >> well, before i was a city councilmember and before, hopefully, i become a congress member, i was the great son of my mother, who worked on a minimum wage which in the '90s was $4.25. i would not be where i am today without her. my mother is the motivation for

my desire to represent the south bronx. you know, the south bronx is known to be the poorest congressional district in america but covid-19 has shown the south bronx to be the essential congressional district. it's the home of the essential workers who sustain our city and our country. as i said on primary night, the thought of representing the mothers and the essential workers and the incredible people of the south bronx, in my home the bronx, that's the realization of a personal dream for me. >> mondaire, what would you hope to accomplish if you get to serve in congress? >> my gosh, you know, i've set forth an ambitious array of proposals. not least of which is the fact that i think that everyone in this country should have quality health care. and the richest nation of the history of the world, i think everyone should be entitled to that. in the meantime, we have to be providing immediate cash assistance. the thought of this one-time $1,200 check is a slap in the

face for the folks in my district where it's extremely expensive to live. it has to be a top proo iiority >> eddie glaude has a question. >> congratulations on what could be an historic moment in america's politics. let me ask you about policing. what is your position around policing reform or defunding the police and the like. give a sense of the policy. folks are excited about the identity politics but what singles each of you out as a representative of your relative districts, and particularly with regard to the question of policing. >> for me the central value of a fair and justiand correct justi system is accountability. if officers are never held accountable for misconduct, there will never be an end to

pris brutality. there's no incentive for de-escalation, there's no incentive for restraint. police departments across the country cannot be trusted to police themselves. there has to be an independent system for investigating, punishing and, if necessary, prosecuting police misconduct. i also think we have to rethink the notion that the police that are calling 911 is the answer to every problem. we should civilianize our responses to problems like homelessness, substance abuse, addiction, and even violence. there are community-based alternatives that have been effective at reducing violence without overcriminalizing communities of color. >> we need national standards in policing. and if you are a local law enforcement agency receiving federal dollars, you should be required to identify yourself. you should be required to practice de-escalation tactics. of course, we also need to pass a law that eliminates qualified immunity. this is a doctrine created by

the supreme court of the united states that allows law enforcement officers to evade liability or responsibility, even when it is clear they have violated the constitutional rights of civilians. we must end with that. we have to think more broadly. we have to think of systemic racism, which does not have to be intentional, is extending well beyond interactions with police officers but ending mass incarceration as we know it. >> thank you both. good luck to you both. thanks very much for being on the show this morning. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." re "morning .

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if russia was paying money to reward members of the taliban for the killing of american soldiers, would you consider that to be an act of aggression by russia? would you see that as serious as that? >> i wouldn't -- i don't think the situation is possible ever. so, this is -- this is really ridiculous. this is really ridiculous to spread this kind of information. >> you don't think that -- well, if it did happen, do you

believe -- >> well, maybe i sound a little bit rude, but this is 100% bull [ bleep ]. it's nondiplomatic thing but it's bull [ bleep ]. >> that's strong, mr. peskov. >> as simple as that. >> that was vladimir putin's press secretary reacting to reports that the u.s. gathered intelligence that russian intelligence officers have offered to pay bounties to taliban fighters who kill americans. joining us now, nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons with more of his interview with putin's press secretary. also with us, nbc news foreign correspondent richard engel reporting on the afghanistan mission. keir, we'll begin with you. they are flatly denying it. >> yeah. i mean, it's the kind of, mika, bluster and bravado that is classic kremlin, but at the same time we did learn some important

details. we learned that as far as the kremlin claims, there has been no complaint from the white house to them over this issue, recently or in the months gone by. and also we got more of that interview to play you. and listen closely because what you can hear dmitry paskov do is use president trump's own tweet to underscore russia's position. he also follows that same playbook of blaming the media. i asked him about that. take a listen. >> so, one of the news organization reporting this is my news organization, nbc news, based on what we're told by multiple u.s. intelligent sources. are you saying that u.s. intelligence has got it wrong or that those officials are lying to us? >> i don't know who those officials are. and also we've heard some statements coming from the white house, particularly from the president of the united states.

and those statements indicate -- indicate those reports actually aren't -- were not so valuable and not so trustful. so, that's why we let it speak to those taken by the president of the united states. i repeat, we officially reject this possibility and we consider it to be -- to be false information. >> there is pressure now for a response. lawmakers in the u.s., republicans, who are calling for a response. how would russia respond if america chooses to bring sanctions or, at the least, a complaint to russia over these claims? >> well, listen, in general america is introducing so-called sanctions once in a while to

different countries. it's a very favorite way of doing things in washington. and that's actually the great majority of the countries in the world, they are getting used to this habit of america, introducing sanctions. well, of course, this is a joke. this is a joke. and i repeat, i think i've said enough on this issue. >> reporter: so, russia pretends 2 doesn't care about things like sanctions. i think it's worth bringing some skepticism to that, and also to the idea that they have these elite secretive forces. the gru, for example, does seem to leave evidence frequently. so hacking democrats in 2016, the gru was indicted. 12 officers were indicted over that. the attempted poisoning here in the uk, the british government accused gru officers.

so, perhaps, their operations are not as smooth as they would like. once again, here in afghanistan, willie, you've got the gru accused of an operation that you would think they might want to keep secret. willie, one other point, this week the russians are voting on whether president putin should have 12 more years where he could be elected, meaning 36 years. so, how america responds to this will have long-term consequences potentially. >> and how telling in your extraordinary interview that the press secretary said, listen to the statements of president trump when he denies that he was briefed and ignored everything else you're hearing. keir simmons from london, thanks so much for bringing us that interview. richard engel, i want to go to you to the larger meaning for the afghanistan mission. "new york times" are reporting special forces, officers in the field reported as far back as january that there was this russian bounty program against

coalition forces there. what does the explosion of this story mean to the american mission in afghanistan? >> so, i've spoken to sources who are both convinced that this bounty program existed and others who say that they're not entirely sure that the evidence is 100% solid. those who are convinced that it happened say that this was a program that russia was using to incentivize the taliban to attack americans, attack other coalition troops in order to drive the americans out. that would be russia paying back the united states for driving the soviet union out of afghanistan. particularly at a time when president trump seems to want to pull american troops out. and a lot of the evidence that they're pointing out, a lot of the evidence that afghan officials are pointing at, specifically are taliban interrogations. these would be the debriefs of prisoners when they said that they were involved in or

motivated by these bounty schemes, this incentive program. but, the skeptics will say that you can really get detainees to say anything you want, particularly if they're not treated well, particularly if they've been in detention a long time or trying to tell their integrators what they want. so, there is some disagreement about how strong this intelligence is. in terms of the larger mission, there are currently about 8,000 u.s. troops there, as of the latest reduction. there are indications, it hasn't be been announced yet, but there are some press reports that people aren't denying that the number over the next six months could go down to 4,000, 4,500. and the troops who have been told to optimize their troop levels, which means to look to your left and right and see who you can afford to be without, they think if that happens, the mission in afghanistan would have to change. it would have to be less of a

trained support fund mission with some fighting, some kinetic, some military component, to one that is strictly a counterterrorism fight where they look for al qaeda, they look for isis, they look for taliban in certain circumstances and attack them. but, by the way, that was the biden plan in 2009. so, i've been told that there are those in the trump administration who, although they want to do this, don't want to say that this is exactly what biden was calling for so many years ago. >> richard, you've also been doing some reporting on the united states being excluded from the european union's safe list of countries it deems acceptable for nonessential travel as the world continues to reopen from the coronavirus. this was a shock when first reported a couple of days ago. diplomats now saying, and i think you're confirming, that the eu is not comfortable with americans traveling to the eu.

>> reporter: so, we're waiting for a vote right now. and there have already been drafts that have been leaked out by the media, but the very strong indications that when europe reopens up starting on the 1st of july, europe is loosening its nonessential travel restrictions. so, people can go back to italy, spain, et cetera, for tourism, for business conferences. so, they are not only making it easier for people to travel within the eu bloc of countries, they are trying to come up with a list of safe countries that can be allowed to come in from the outside. these are countries that, based on their performance at home, the eu feels comfortable enough to let into the bloc. and the draft list, and we're still waiting for the final one, does not include the united states, which i think is very revealing about how the rest of the world sees the u.s. right

now. and if you listen to the list, and i'll very quickly run through it, these are the 14 countries approved, these are all countries that are deemed less risky than the united states. and they are algeria, australia, canada, georgia, the country not the state, japan, morocco, new zealand, rwanda, serbia, south thailand, uruguay. the u.s. being lumped in with russia and brazil. it's been described as embarrassing and it should be probably a wake-up call for the u.s. and its performance on covid-19. >> yeah, a function of how our government has handled this. nbc's richard engel reporting on a lot of different topics for us. we appreciate it, as always. katty, if you look at a graph of deaths and mortalities and all the other indicators we look at for coronavirus, it's clear why the eu is considering not allowing american travelers to

enter the eu when they do, in fact, open up again. >> yeah, i mean, i'm watching this really closely. my parents live in cypress. i live here in the united states. at the moment it's very difficult for me to get there, partly because a lot of eu countries won't even let people who live in the united states transit through them to get to other destinations. i have a sister who lives in moroc morocco. she looks like she'll get there before i am because morocco is safer than the united states, which tells you something, doesn't it, about the situation here? my understanding is the europeans were nervous about doing this, were nervous about excluding the united states. they didn't want to make it look like a political thing. they didn't want to escalate tensions with the trump administration. of course, there are already a lot of tensions between the europeans and washington at the moment. they would have liked to got around it, but when they looked at the numbers and they were going to do it on a science

basis, it was totally data driven, there was no way they could do that. when we look at the headlines in this country, it's getting worse, not better. we can all see that. the europeans almost reluctantly, because partly they'd like to have americans come and spend american dollars and tourist money there, but also they didn't want to get into another fight with the trump administration. there was just no way, it looks like -- we'll have to wait for the vote but it looks like there's no way they could include america. it's just not safe. >> katty, thank you very much. up next, yesterday it was the supreme court. now congresswoman pramila jayapal says congress must act to protect women's reproductive freedom. the washington state democrat joins us next on "morning joe." you can't predict the future.

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now to the decision yesterday from the supreme court striking down a louisiana law that would have severely

restricted access to abortion in the state. it was the first abortion case decided with president trump appointees on the court. chief justice john roberts sided with the liberal members in the 5-4 decision. although the chief justice had previously voted to uphold a similar texas law back in 2016, yesterday he said that respect for precedent meant he was compelled to side with the court's four-member liberal wing. joining us now, democratic congresswoman pramila jayapal of washington. she's the author of the new book "use the power you have: a brown woman's guide to politics and political change." we'll get to that in a moment. congratulations on the book. but first, your reaction to the supreme court's decision yesterday. >> well, it was an incredibly important decision, mika, because it does, of course, strike down this absolutely

unfair louisiana law that would have put barriers in place for so many women across the state but across the country. it would have led to a barrage of similar kinds of laws. now the thing about it, though, is congress has to act because the ruling was fairly narrow in the sense that chief justice roberts, i think, felt bound to go by precedent as the chief justice but he actually said he thought the texas law was not correctly decided. and i think it still opens up the possibility for any number of challenges to a woman's constitutionally protected right to make choices about her own body. we in congress need to make sure that we are continuing to congressionally authorize that right and just ensure that we're not going to have a supreme court that takes away those rights or puts undue burdens in place for women to not be able

to make those choices. >> and, obviously, that was a huge step especially for louisiana yesterday. talk about what you're hearing from your constituents in your state in terms of women's reproductive rights and health and where you think major policy improvements could be made. >> well, you know, my state luckily protects the right for women to make these choices and so we worked very hard, and we've had government that is sympathetic to this constitutional protection. so we are one of the lucky states. but that is not true across the country. there are five states that only have one clinic that performs abortion. and if these burdens are put on those states, the reality is you're going to force women to travel across state boundaries, you're going to make abortion once again incredibly difficult, and so we need to repeal the

hyde amendment. we need to ensure that we are providing funding. we need to repeal the gag rule. there are many things that we can do, and we have bills introduced to do that. we just need to make sure we actually move forward. i think that for democrats, we have to understand that the judicial system is extremely important in terms of electoral politics. frankly, mika, we haven't been as good at turning out voters based on what is happening, not just at the supreme court, by the way, but up and down the judicial system. and i think that is one of the things that we need to make sure that we're really helping people to understand how much influence the courts have over everything from abortion to collective bargaining rights. >> congresswoman, it's willie geist. good to have you on the show. on a different topic, "the new york times" is reporting that president trump received a written intelligence in the president's daily brief as far

back as late february that russian intelligence was carrying out attacks leading to taliban-linked militants to attack american and coalition soldiers fighting in afghanistan. what is your reaction to that news, and if that intelligence is true, what should america be doing about that? >> it is unconsioniable that first of all, this is the first we're hearing about it that there's been no briefings. if we take the reporting to be true and there's no reason to believe it's not at this point, the reality is this is a president who is not in any way protecting our troops. he says he's for national security, but he clearly isn't. he is allowing people to die in the field because he's not paying attention to this intelligence. he's not willing to call out russia. congress has time and time again on the democratic side, but even with some republicans from time

to time passed various pieces of legislation saying that the president needs to take on russia. russia and putin are not friendly allies in many of these circumstances. and the president has been unwilling. and so it leads to the question of, what is the president hiding about his relationship with putin and putin's influence over him that he'd allow american troops to die in the field. that's unconscionable. we've called for a full briefing. speaker pelosi has and leader schumer have called for a full briefing in both the house and the senate so we can understand. there's meetings going on at the white house right now about this topic. but i think that americans have to understand, this is not a president who puts the national interest of the united states and our military first. and that is absolutely outrageous. >> katty kay has the next question. >> yeah, congresswoman, i wanted to ask you about your book and

the experience of running for office as a woman of color in the united states. we know it's harder for women to run in political parties here anyway, which is why there are fewer women in congress than we would all like. how much harder is it to run as a woman of color in american politics? >> it's just a lot harder because on every level, you're not necessarily seen as part of the democratic establishment. there really haven't been, until fairly recently, attempts to reach out to communities of color and develop a leadership pipeline there. and so what happens is, you know, a lot of women of color look at politics and say, it's not for me. i, you know, i'm not going to be accepted there or i don't have a future there or i can't go there. for me, you know, i think just being able to say to people, you can see a different future for yourself because i'm here as the first south asian american woman in the house, one of only 14 immigrants naturalized citizens

to serve in the united states congress. that's very important. but also all of the things that go along with needing to run for office including money. fundraising is much, much harder. you need to be connected to wealthy people. some of that has changed as we've gone to small dollar donations. but there's a host of barriers in the way for women of color to run and to win. and so i think we're seeing a change to that and hopefully we'll see much more of that. >> the new book is "use the power you have: a brown woman's guide to politics and political change." congresswoman pramila jayapal, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. that does it for us this morning. peter alexander picks up the coverage right now. >> good day to you. i'm peter alexander in today for stephanie ruhle. it's tuesday, june 30th. here are the facts at this hour.

at least 16 states are putting the brakes on reopening amid a surge in cases of coronavirus. in arizona, it's gotten so bad that the governor decided bars, movie theaters and gyms will have to shut down for the next month. new jersey is postponing its plans to restart indoor dining and governors in oregon and kansas will face -- will mandate face masks by the end of the week. all of this comes after another 41,000 u.s. cases of the virus were reported monday pushing the total nationwide to more than 2.6 million. in all, nearly 127,000 americans have died, although fewer than 400 new deaths were reported just yesterday. at the same time, hospitalizations are on the rise. in some cases they are breaking records. nearly 6,000 people were hospitalized in texas on monday alone. more than triple what they saw on memorial day. according to "the washington post,"