stress, depression, sadness. >> reporter: for this family, there's also gratitude. >> i'm very fortunate to be alive and breathing. i'll take this gladly. >> reporter: as they seek answers one step at a time. >> going to have a long road ahead of us on that. our thanks to nbc's ann thompson for her report and our thanks to you for getting up way too early with us on this wednesday morning. don't go anywhere, "morning joe" starts right now. i commend the exceptional bravery of officer eric talley. i send my deepest condolence to his family. his close, close, family, seven children. every time an officer walks out of his or her home and pins that badge on a family member they just said good-bye to wonders whether will they get that call subconsciously, the call that his wife got he thought he would

come home to his wife and zen children. he did not hesitate in his duty, making the ultimate sacrifice in his effort to save lives. that's a definition of an american hero. >> president biden speaking yesterday about police officer eric talley, who was killed in monday's mass shooting at a grocery store in boulder, colorado. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, march 24th. with us we have white house reporter for the associate press, jonathan lemire. former chairman of the republican national committee now msnbc political analyst michael steele and professor at the university of texas, msnbc contributor, victoria defrancesco soto. we're learning new details this morning about the mass shooting that took place inside a boulder, colorado, grocery store. the suspected gunman has been

charged with ten counts of murder. so far investigators have not commented on a possible motive, though law enforcement sources say at this point there is no evidence to suggest the shooting was an act of terror or a hate crime. several law enforcement sources also say he may have had a history of mental health issues. records show this wasn't the suspect's first brush with the law. in 2017 he was charged with misdemeanor assault after attacking a high school classmate who said had called him racial names. an arrest affidavit shows the suspect purchased an assault weapon on march 16th, just six days before the attack at the supermarket. a makeshift memorial is taking shape outside the grocery store where the attack happened. the ten victims range in age from 20 to 65 years old. they included three grocery store workers, several people

who just happened to be shopping that afternoon and a police officer who rushed to the scene. the boulder police chief remembered the slain officer eric talley yesterday for his unwavering dedication to his job, family and community. >> this offer had seven children, ages 5 to 18. i just had that officer's whole family in my office two weeks ago to give him an award. tell you that he's a very kind man. and he didn't have to go into policing. he had a profession before this, but he felt a higher calling. and he loved this community. and he's everything that policing deserves and needs. he was willing to die to protect others. >> joining us now live from boulder, nbc news correspondent

katie beck. katie, what more can you tell us about the investigation so far? >> reporter: good morning, mika. yeah what we can tell you is that this investigation is going around the clock, focussing in on the one thing everyone is talking about, the one thing everyone wants to know, what was the motive? what was the reason that this happened? that answer still remains at this hour unknown. we have not heard from police on what they have gathered in the past 12 hours or so. we're hoping to get more on that today. what we do know is that suspected gunman they have been searching his car, searching his home, and searching his social media accounts to try to glean any information about what he may have been thinking in the days leading up to that shooting. we do know that as you mentioned he had purchased a high-powered firearm just a week beforehand. and we know that at 2:30 on monday he entered that grocery store indiscriminately firing on innocent people. witnesses calling police, telling them horrifying accounts

of being inside, trying to protect themselves and others from the gunfire. in an exchange with police, that suspect was wounded and surrendered into custody, now charged with ten counts of first degree murder. but as that investigation persists and a motive is sought, the ground here in boulder is filled with grieving community members. another colorado community absolutely changed forever as they remember these victims. these were real people in their community. it's hard not to become sad when you hear about the soon to be grandfather who was inside. you hear about the clerk who had worked there for 30 years and known so many people that have come through the doors of that store. and then you hear about the 25-year-old who was just getting started in life. all of these people were in different phases of life and different chapters, but all of them had hopes and dreams and real families here that are grieving. colorado has a long history with mass shootings from columbine to

aurora and now boulder. this is something that colorado has experience before. i think moving the conversation forward now, how do we prevent the next one. mika? >> nbc's catie beck, thank you very much for your report this morning. here is more of what president biden said yesterday from the white house. >> jill and i are devastated, and the feeling i just can't imagine how the families are feeling, the victims whose futures were stolen from them. from their families, from their loved ones. who now have to struggle to go on and try to make sense of what's happened. while we're still waiting for more information regarding the shooter, his motive, the weapons he used the guns, the magazines the weapons, the modifications that apparently have taken place to those weapons that are involved here, i don't need to wait another minute let alone an hour to take common sense steps

that will save the lives in the future and to urge my colleagues in the house and senate to act. we can ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines in this country once again. i got that done when i was a senator. it passed. it was a law for the longest time. it brought down these mass shootings. we should do it again. close the loopholes in our background check system, including the charleston loophole. that's one of the best tools we have right now to prevent gun violence. the senate should immediately pass, let me say it again, the united states senate, i hope some are listening, should immediately pass the two house pass bills to close loopholes in the background check system. >> the background check system loophole, those sort of bills have overwhelmingly popular support when you talk about military style weapons, those

numbers go down a bit. it seems to me the easiest thing for them to pass -- i say easy, no gun legislation getting passed is easy, but more expanded background checks, at least over the past several years, have been -- jonathan lemire, so you wrote an article for the a.p. and you talked about how disciplined the biden white house has been over the first 50, 60 days or so. how have these unplanned real world events first atlanta, then the border crisis growing when democrats started going there taking pictures and reporting back. and then boulder. how is that impacting the biden white house? >> joe, for so many white houses, even the most carefully laid plans can be overwhelmed by

sudden breaking news and crises. that's what happened here to this administration. the white house is just now only ten days or so from passing -- signing into law that $1.9 trillion covid relief bill, signature accomplishment, a big deal no doubt. they wanted to spend the next weeks out thing that before moving on to the next piece of his agenda. instead two of his three first stops heading out on the road to talk about this bill have been drowned out by these mass shootings. last week he was heading to atlanta. that day was completely repurposed because of the bias crimes -- possible bias crimed that happened there against asian-americans and yesterday his trip to ohio was completely overwhelmed by his having to address this tragedy in boulder. >> democrats, of course, expressed concerns about the border situation. and we're going to have one of those democrats on today. also, senator murphy, almost brought to tears by what he saw

there. jonathan, how are the democrats holding together? gun control, answer to border crisis or talking about what's probably next on their issue, infrastructure? how is that democratic caucus holding together? >> democrats pride themselves, joe, on being such a big tent party and a lot of competing interests there, different groups who want different things to be prioritized next. the biden campaign in the general election and in its first 50, 60 days deserves credit for kind of keeping all those ores rowing in the same direction, unified around a common purpose. around the campaign it was defeating donald trump. here it was about getting the covid relief bill pass and signed into law. but now, now comes the hard part where you're having different groups push different things, whether it be about gun control or immigration or voting rights

acts. the biden administration, they want all of that to happen. they said they will -- want all of that plus infrastructure and jobs. but it will get harder now particularly because it's likely going to require some sort of filibuster reform to make that happen. this will test party unity these next few weeks. >> so here we go. there was a hearing yesterday in the senate judiciary committee on how to address gun violence in america. scheduled before monday's shooting in boulder in which democrats and republicans had very different takes on the issue. >> america woke today to another nightmare, stunning, shocking, savage, but unsurprising. in action has made this horror completely predictable. inaction by this congress makes us complicit. >> these victims and their loved ones are worthy of our thoughts

and our prayers. but there's more that's required. we face a pandemic of coronavirus. we have another epidemic in america called guns. >> senator from connecticut just said it's time for us to do something. i agree. it is time for us to do something. every time there's a shooting we play this ridiculous theater where this committee gets together and proposes a bunch of laws that would do nothing to stop these murders. what happens in this committee after every mass shooting is democrats propose taking away guns from law-abiding citizens because that's their political objective. not only does it not reduce crime, it makes it worse. >> what has happened the last few days, what's happened in the last years is, of course, tragic.

and i'm not trying to perfectly equate these two, but we have a lot of drunk drivers in america that have killed a lot of people. we ought to try to combat that, too. but i think what many folks on my side of the aisle are saying is that the answer is not to get rid of all sober drivers. the answer to concentrate on the problem. >> it is to concentrate on the problem and of course over the past 20, 30 years groups like mothers against drunk driving have done exactly that and have changed entirely changed the culture around drunk driving and have made a great difference, have saved so many lives, untold number of lives. yes, michael steele, that is exactly -- i don't think he meant to do it, but senator kennedy actually pointed to what

we need to do as a nation. we need to get serious about this. does this mean taking away law-abiding citizen's guns? no. the heller decision said we can't do that. and i know conservatives like you and me are glad when heller came down and actually the second amendment was determined to say exactly what the second amendment said which is americans have a right to keep and bear arms and protect themselves inside their house. that's what it said. but how any senator on the extreme right could take expanded background checks and somehow lie to their constituents, lie. because if you look at the second amendment and you look at the supreme court's interpretation of the second amendment, they're lying if they say that expanded background checks is somehow infringing on

anybody's second amendment right. it's just not. >> no, you're absolutely right, joe. and it has been a lie that's been promulgated, perpetuated and just rolled out at moments like this for the last 20 years or so. and the reality is exactly in the space that you've described. the supreme court has given us the clarity that we need on the second amendment and what it means and what it doesn't mean with respect to individual liberties. but also, what government, what the state level and states like florida and ohio and elsewhere or at the federal level can do to begin to address some of the growing concerns communities have around these issues. what you heard yesterday is what we've heard before. thoughts and prayers but we ain't doing crap. and the american people are tired of that. as you noted, this is a 70 to 80% issue with the american

people. there aren't a whole lot of issues on that list. just go through it. for democrats, just move to that space where you can have the conversation for republicans, since you're so hot about all they're going to take our guns, put a proposal on the table that you think will address the issues as ted cruz and others have noted. so, we're going to do this dance. we've done it before. we're going to hear it before. in columbine, aurora, you name it. after all of these horrific events, our legislatures get in the room and they say exactly what they just said. you could have taken tape, joe, from -- after columbine, after aurora, any of these events. just play it. put it on a loop. >> yeah. >> it's true. it's true. >> by the way, you bring up the columbine, aurora, boulder,

colorado has been through so much through the years. >> yes. >> with these mass shootings. but we also showed a picture of senator blumenthal. he's the senator who represents newtown. we showed a picture of senator durbin. he's the senator who represents the city of chicago. there's so much, there's so much killing from guns. and there is, there is, if people of good faith on both sides decide they want to work together, and i've seen absolutely no evidence of that. especially from people on the far right. but, if people of good faith decide to work together, there's a way to get an expanded background check in place that makes sure that people who buy guns can actually handle those guns. again, we do the same with cars. thank you so much for bringing that up, senator kennedy.

>> as he thought he was deflecting. >> we make sure that people actually know how to use the guns, have an expanded background check. i mean, i know gun shop owners, they don't want people buying guns that don't know how to use guns. certainly not the people i bought guns from before. they want to make sure you know the gun. >> they don't want them in the wrong hands. >> they don't want them in the wrong hands. that's the other thing, the overwhelming majority of crimes, maybe not this one, but the overwhelming majority of crimes and law enforcement officers have told me this for years, those crimes are committed by people who didn't legally purchase the guns themselves. perhaps not this case. but it certainly is in the majority of crimes committed with guns. so, we have to be -- there are ways for people of good faith to come together and actually save

lives. the same way, thank you, senator kennedy, we did when mothers against drunk drivers and other people started to get aggressive about drunk driving. but we're not doing that with guns. >> it's an epidemic, by the way. everyday. we're dealing with a pandemic, can't we deal with an epidemic of gun violence? >> yeah. unfortunately as we see the good news of the pandemic starting to fade, we're now starting to see shootings coming back. >> because we didn't deal with the epidemic. let's move now -- and we'll revisit this -- to the crisis on the southern border. the biden administration still refuses to allow journalists inside the migrant facilities under pressure to provide more transparency, the federal government has now released its own video of the crowded conditions where migrants are being housed. nbc's gabe gutierrez has more on those images and a realtime look at migrants crossing the border.

>> reporter: the newly-released images shot last week by the government at border facilities in donna and el paso, texas, depict crowded but orderly conditions. migrant children en masse having their temperatures taken. others exercising outside. small children on laps waiting to be processed. others sleeping on mats with mylar blankets. striking contrast, makeshift playpens in a place so far from home. the images were released a day after democratic texas congressman leaked photos inside the donna facility. some say it's not their fault. >> we're border patrol agents. we're not day care, so that's not what we're designed for. >> reporter: we rode along with the texas department of public safety who helps federal agents patrol the border, by air. this is the epicenter of the migrant surge here in the rio grande valley, the texas dps says it's encountering nearly

9,000 migrants in just the last two weeks. >> reporter: it took just a few minutes for us to start seeing migrant after migrant crossing. >> i think there's another raft across. >> and here is another one. that's 31 right here. >> 31 in that group alone. >> just in this group right here. >> some of them young children. >> there's three children and the rest are adults. >> you're seeing this all day. >> all day long. >> you can see the coyotes returning to the mexican side right now. >> just a few minutes we've been up here, we have seen more than 60 migrants cross the boarder? >> that's correct. and there's 12 there. >> eight, nine minutes time. >> these troopers are also on the lookout for smugglers by boat. the battle at the border being fought on multiple fronts. here along the rio grande, local and state authorities say they're having to fill the gaps as the border patrol diverts resources to handle the migrant's surge. >> meanwhile, mexico's president blames president biden's policies for the surge in migrants. yesterday, the mexican president

told reporters, quote, expectations were created that with the government of president biden there would be a better treatment of migrants. and this has caused central american migrants and also from our country wanting to cross the border thinking that it is easier to do so. the biden administration has said it is developing a, quote, effective and humane plan to manage the migrant surge. >> well, and of course, migrants should be treated humanely. and so, but you can treat people humanely and still enforce laws. >> there's a couple of questions here. >> there are a couple questions. jonathan lemire, want to get to victoria in a second. jonathan, i'm curious, what does the white house press corp. think about that the biden administration is still blocking access to all reporters down there? it sounds like something that -- i don't know. i'm very surprised. >> what's going on? >> that the only photos we have gotten out of here in the past,

jonathan, have come from a congressman and i believe we got one from connecticut senator, senator murphy. >> the white house press corp., of course, is always pushing for as much access and transparency from the white house from any level of government and certainly we have done so in this case too. we've been asking the white house press secretary jen psaki about this for quite some time. the white house is saying they're working on a plan to increase access. they say that is under way. they have to be careful of covid protocols and want to respect the privacy of the minors, the migrant children who are there. and but they recognize they need to be able to show the press corp. and therefore the public what is going on. the trump administration did from time to time allow media access to their facilities and at times revealed obviously terrible, heart wrenching conditions. the biden white house is saying, look, we're trying to improve the situation there. we will allow the press to get a

look, but they haven't said when yet. they say soon but haven't pinned themselves down to an exact timetable. obviously the media will keep pressing for that to happen as soon as possible. >> victoria, obviously the biden administration is pushing back on saying there's a crisis at the border. most democratic legislatures believe there is a crisis at the border. what can you tell us? what are you hearing? and what are your thoughts? >> joe, i would claim there's been a crisis at the border for close to two decades now. what we're seeing right now at the unaccompanied minors is a different type of crisis. i mean, take, for example, the beginning of the george w. bush years, the early 2000s we saw a huge surge of folks coming over. numbers that dwarf what we see today. but it was different demographic. it was males coming over or adults coming over for economic purposes.

what we're seeing now is a whole different ball game. we're talking about families. we're talking about minors. so, the crisis is not having that rapid policy response to adapt to this change in migratory flow. the migratory flow has been there for a long time because we haven't had a comprehensive immigration reform in a long time and the challenge is how do you deal with this very vulnerable population, this population that is coming over as a result very intense push factors. just recently we saw the hurricanes in central america batter honduras, guatemala, nicaragua, these folks crops, livelihoods were completely taken out let alone their shelters. they're sitting there thinking, what do i have to lose in coming over and seeking asylum, we need to understand those push factors. so in those policy levers, it's not just what do we do at the processes at the border, the north side of the border, what

do we do in the home countries that push these folks out? >> we saw illegal immigration from mexico go down when mexico's economy actually strengthened. what sort of foreign aid do we need to provide these countries where we're getting most of these central american migrants coming up? >> joe, if i had a magic wand, i would institute a marshal plan for central america, we need economic aid, just targeted economic aid just as it was in europe after the war. it's not throwing cash at a problem. it's working with these governments. it's working with the non-profits and the other nongovernmental institutions to stabilize. it also has to do with climate change. that's a long-term issue, but we know that in guatemala in particular, the droughts of the last several years have pushed out the coffee farmers, the peasant farmers and quite frankly food insecurity is one of the big reasons. if it were up to me, joe, a

marshal plan, we invest our money instead of throwing money at the border. >> much better. >> okay. >> there will be some people on the far right that don't want to provide that aid, and yet you know, we can spend the money on the border. we can spend the money on enforcement. we can spend the money trying to track down illegal immigrants in the united states. or we can spend the money actually at the source, helping these countries and taking away that sort of food insecurity. so, we're investing our money. i think more wisely and more humanely. >> it's a return on investment, right? i think this is something that the republican party has always been very quick to point out, right? what's the return on investment, both in business but also in public policy. so, it is in going down to the source of the problem because immigration, whether it was from the 1700s, the 1800s, the 1900s

it's about push/pull factors. why did we see the first large wave of irish immigrants come over to the united states in the mid 1800s, because there was a potato famine. people could not feed themselves. they didn't want to come over because they wanted a change of scenery. they came over because there was food insecurity. why are we seeing folks from central america, same reason and layer on top of that horrible gang violence, corrupt government, problems that just compound themselves. so let's deal with the core issues that are pushing people out. it might take a little bit of time, but in the end, this is where the return on investment is going to be. >> victoria defrancesco soto, thank you very, very much for being on this morning. we will see you again soon. and still ahead on "morning joe," north korea conducts its first weapons test since president biden took office. david ignatius joins us with his analysis. plus, the european union is considering tougher vaccine

export rules, including blocking shipments to areas with higher vaccination rates like the uk. we'll talk about that escalating fight over seas. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪♪

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colorado paper on some of the stories. they were quoting a pew poll from 2019. 88% of americans support background checks for private gun sales and sales at gun shows. 88% of americans support that. that's what the house bill does. >> right. >> but i guarantee you most republicans oppose that. >> how many issues will be on the wrong side. >> many republicans oppose that

because their base opposes that because most republican voters oppose that. no, no they don't. the same pew poll showed 82% of republicans support expanded background checks for private gun sales and for gun sales at gun shows. >> yeah. >> background checks. listen, i own guns, guns, plural. i have no problem with people doing all the background checks they want to do on me. there's no problem. and by the way, if my neighbor if he or she get a gun, i want to know they've had a background check, too. we have some background checks, but you know, law-abiding citizens can go through background checks and they can do the sort of things that i do. and if you purchased guns that you can do. but what good does that do if somebody can walk into a gun

show and purchase all the guns they want. i don't know if you all remember it was about a decade ago we started talking about a terrorist, islamic terrorest sent a message out to members of al qaeda. he was on fbi's most wanted list. he said, hey, listen, if you really want to cause damage in america, just go to the gun shows. buy guns and use them there. because there are no safeguards. this insanity has been going on for a long time. i want to underline this fact, 82% of republicans support this kind of expanded background checks. it's been this way since newtown. republicans are not screaming and yelling for their constituents. they're not screaming and

yelling to support the people that i went to church with growing up who would go hunting with their parents from an early age, from when they were 6 or 7 or 8 and grew up, grew up with guns, knowing how to use guns safely. right? those people don't understand why people can go meet somebody in a parking lot and have them open up the back of a car and buy a gun. legally, without any background checks. it makes no sense, mika. the numbers are on the side of the house bill when it comes to these expanded background checks for gun sales and private sales, most police officers want this to happen. if you want to support your officers in blue, if blue lives matter to you.

talk to your police chief. guarantee you your police chief will support expanded background checks to make sure the good guys get the guns and the bad guys don't. >> joe, you mentioned newtown, senator chris murphy will join us later on in the show to talk about just this. and the point you just made here. for the first time since president biden took office, north korea has fired a missile. two u.s. officials tell nbc news north korea fired at least one missile over the weekend but declined to specify what type was used. south korea has yet to comment on the launch and the white house seems to be trying to down play the severity. one senior administration official called the launch normal military activities, quote. north korea has a familiar menu of provocations when it wants to send a message to u.s. administration, ballistic missiles of various range, mobile and submarine launch platforms, nuclear and thermal

nuclear test. experts rightly recognized what took place last weekend as falling on the low end of that spectrum. when asked, president biden had this to say. >> do you consider that to be a real provocation by north korea? >> no. according to the defense part, it's business as usual. there's no new -- there's no new wring until what they did. >> let's bring in david ignatius. david, of course, we all remember four and a half years ago, barack obama tells donald trump the incoming president, you can worry about obamacare all you want then it's donald trump north korea that keeps you up at night. donald trump sent love letters back and forth. here we find ourselves four years later in the same position or in a worse position. i'm curious what your thoughts were about joe biden's response

to the test? >> joe, this is a reminder that the north korea problem is a real one. it is as president obama warned something is dangerous, carries the risk of war. i think it's right to say this is at the low end of things north korea could do. they haven't had a long range missile test or nuclear test since 2018. in a sense, north korea is coming off the sugar high of intense, personal diplomacy with donald trump that that was most unusual relationship. trump spoke about his messages to kim jong-un, his love letters, they were flattered by all the attention. in comes a new administration. the biden administration has not yet decided what approach it wants to take in diplomacy with north korea. they're still working on it. they know they want to go back to diplomatic negotiations but

they're not sure how to set the table yet, directly, face to face with the north koreans v a larger group of allies. so-called six-party talks. those are the issues they've been debating right up until these tests were announced. i think one important change from four years ago, president trump knowing that he had serious stand off with north korea worked very hard in the beginning of his presidency to get china's xi jinping as an ally and china was cooperative in those early months in trying to push kim jong-un to the table. the biden administration started off on a quite sharp and sour note with the chinese, the meetings in anchorage, alaska, that were not what you would call friendly, certainly they don't set the table for joint action against north korea.

so, we'll see. i think there's more to come from kim jong-un. i would be surprised if these low-level tests were the only ones we see. there are already reports they may be restarting some of their nuclear test -- potential test facilities. so there's more ahead on the north korea front for sure. >> you know, michael steele, we have been hearing over the past several months and heard from the trump administration the need to take a really harsh tone towards china. i understand it, like you and me and i think most americans most policymakers were concerned what we see with the uyghur and hong kong and concerned what we see about unfair competition, currency manipulation. we can go down the list. but when we take that tough line, which maybe that's the only thing we can take, we have

to understand, we don't have a working partner on north korea. we don't have a working partner on the environment, we don't have a working partner on human rights. we don't have a working partner on climate change. again, the chinese, yes. the chinese have not been as helpful as they've needed to be. and yes, we're shocked our consciences are shocked by much of what we see there, but we share the world stage with china. it is a bipolar world again. if anything is going to happen, it's going to happen when we figure out how to work together. if we don't work with him, read "the new york times" business section yesterday. the germans will. the french will. the russians will. a lot of tough choices for the biden administration to make. >> there are a lot of tough

choices. and off myrrh rad of examples, joe, the chinese repositioned themselves globally to be taken seriously by not just those who align themselves with china but with a lot of our al lice as well as you just referenced. when you look at how the chinese have repositioned themselves on the african content, if you look at how they repositioned themselves in europe. it presents a very interesting and i think dynamic challenge for the u.s. as opposed to the posture of the previous administration which was one that was purely set against the chinese, anti-china, that's our enemy. the biden administration is trying to figure out the ways which they can reset that global table so that they can pull their chair, the u.s. chair, back up to that table and re-engage with the chinese given the dynamic relationships that

they have developed globally that positions them to be a thought leader on some of these big policy decisions which has not been their position in the past. people need to understand i'm sure a lot of folks in the intelligence community can tell you the chinese play the long game. they do not play the short order game that the u.s. and other nations tend to play. looking at what's right in front of them. the chinese for some time now have positioned themselves with just moments like this and they know the card they're going to play. we need to know what we have in our hand before we play it ourt. >> the relationship between president trump and kim jong-un was highly unusual. i was part of the president's dmz trip, i would say that's an understatement. two related questions for you. one is i know north korea is such a black hole. is there any sense there of what the toll the pandemic has ravaged upon that country? think sort of vaccines that north korea has their hands on? and who is stepping into that goal, into that void, with aid?

is that perhaps china? that's my other question. is the u.s. relationship with china, biden relationship with china you said got off to a rocky start at the beginning of the week. you just written about the subject. where do you think the biden administration needs to go in terms of dealing with beijing? well, first jonathan, north korea is so murky, it's very difficult to get a sense of how severe the pandemic's toll has been. every report i've seen suggests that it's been significant. china has been distributing its vaccine to many of its friends and allies. is that the case in north korea? i can't say. we don't have enough transparency. in terms of where our diplomacy with china should go, i think the point that the administration wanted to make in the anchorage meetings was first they want to be clearer than trump was about the range of our

differences with china to be straight forward, to make those part of the dialogue. but they want to have areas of cooperation, afghanistan, now north korea, iran, climate change as areas where the two country's interest can verge and they will seek to work together. i think one striking fact about the round of meetings in anchorage is it was proceeded very deliberately by visits from secretary of state blinken and secretary of defense lloyd austin to our key allies in the region, japan and south korea. the chinese didn't like that. they didn't like having our two top officials in their backyard, reminding them of an important fact about asia which is that the united states has reliable partners and china doesn't. china is not popular with its neighbors. so looking forward, i would say that's really the strongest card the u.s. has to play.

we have in japan, in south korea, increasingly in india. key nations, strong economies that surround china, that share u.s. views. so on the basis of those relationships, i think, the administration hopes to build its china policy going forward. >> okay. we have a lot to talk to you, david, about around the world, but let's move to this now. the european union in the final stages of passing legislation that will drastically cut exports for the next six weeks of coronavirus vaccines produced in its territory. the move comes as supply shortages have plagued the eu amid a third wave of the virus. one of the countries likely feel the biggest brunt of a temporary ban is the united kingdom. yesterday prime minister boris johnson touted his own country's successful vaccine rollout. according to the guardian,

johnson told mps on a private call, quote, the reason we have the vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed, my friends. the prime minister reportedly attempted to walk back the comments during the call. >> good god. >> and spoke about not engaging in a tit for tat export ban. >> we'll continue to work with european partners to deliver the vaccine rollout. i can say that we in this country don't believe in blockades of any kind of vaccines or vaccine material. not something this country would dream of engaging in. >> well, well, well, gordon gekko, if gordon gekko had a british accent, rode a bike and didn't comb his hair.

let's bring in "morning joe" economic analyst steve ratner, also u.s. national editor at the financial times ed loose and washington anchor for bbc katty kay. ed loose, you can talk about boris johnson if you like and those bizarre statements yesterday. but i'm curious what your thoughts are about the eu so mishandling, so botching the roll out, the vaccine roll out that now they're trying to make the british pay. >> let me take up your invitation to talk about boris johnson, first of all. i promise not to go on for too long. the irony of his comments about greed and capitalism is that astrazeneca is one of the only companies, if not the only, vaccine maker to pledged to do it nonprofit. of course it was developed at oxford university with public funding. so, his comments were misdirected if he was talking

about greed having motivated them. the european problem is huge and growing. we're now into a third wave. there are lockdowns being reimposed across the continent. the much cherished for very good reasons european summer again looking to be in jeopardy at a time when, you know, most europeans were led to expect we'll have reached herd immunity by then and now they're discovering that the procurement deals that brussels painstakingly but taking a very long time to have struck leading to vaccination rates about the quarter of the level in britain, only about 10% of europeans have been vaccinated. about a third the level that we're seeing in the united states. and it looks likely to remain that way for some time to come. then we have sort of the added complication of astrazeneca's

supply problems and europe complaining it isn't delivering enough vaccines. but at the same time, europe putting temporary bans on astrazeneca over heres of blood clots. there's a lot of confusion and fueling all this is growing public frustration across europe at the prospect of another ruined summer. >> and katy, brexiteers have to celebrate their position because the eu could not look any more hapless right now in the midst of this terrible public crisis than they are. add insult to injury last night we heard the breaking news that, of course, the eu was going to try to stop pharmaceutical companies from exporting vaccines to britain. >> yeah. this does play into a notion that britain is better off alone and brexiteers are seizing on

that. in fact, technically britain could have had its own vaccine supply negotiations any way, whether or not it was in the european union, it does look good for britain and not good for the european union. there's a stockpile of vaccines that both the european union and the uk think they have the rights to. uk had an excellent vaccine rollout program, even better than the united states, but it's facing a short fall for the next three months. remember, it made this kind of decision to just give people lots of people a first dose. now it's looking at a three-month period where it could have a shortfall of vaccines and really wants those vaccines that are sitting in that astrazeneca plant in the netherlands. and those are the vaccines that the eu is saying, hold on a second, we thought we were going to get more vaccines early on from some of those astrazeneca plants that were in the uk and you didn't give them to us. now we'll look at the vaccines in the netherlands and turning

into this incredible squabble. as one epidemiologist described to me last week, vaccine is like making a cake. you need bits from all over the place. and if you start cutting -- stopping borders and having bans on bits moving backwards and forwards, the whole system starts unraveling pretty quickly. >> yeah. and steve, you have charts looking at how europe is faired during the pandemic, but before we get to that, can you just speak generally to the bureaucratic snafus, the bureaucratic bungling that led to the eu to this position, to this position? >> sure. and my charts are designed to illustrate some of that but the eu has been a very difficult organization to operate really for the entirety of the existence. you have 27-member countries who all have their own points of view. and if you move it to the vaccine, they have 27 different health departments that all have to be reconciled in terms of product liability to give you an

example. which is of concern to the drug companies. and so all of this took time. and that is part of why the eu was so far behind the curve in terms of its ability to make decisions quickly. it didn't want to pay as much as the u.s. was willing to pay. and britain were willing to pay for their vaccines. so they went to astrazeneca, which is the lowest cost vaccine and tried to negotiate lower deals. and because it was slow and because they were trying to take lower deals it simply put them toward the back of the line and so it's not entirely surprising in the context of how the eu operates to see what kind of decision making they make. and so just to put some flesh on the bones of what ed and katty went through so well, you can see here how far behind the eu is in vaccinating. the top blue line is the united kingdom, which as ed said has done even better than the united states with 45% of its population having at least one dose, 45% having a vaccines put

into arms, excuse me, and 42% having at least one dose. the united states put vaccines into arms at least 38 per 100 people, 25% fully vaccinated. then you see at the bottom, france, germany and italy representative of the largest countries in the eu sitting at less than 10% for all the reasons we talked about it. they were very risk averse. they wouldn't take a risk on the pfizer and moderna vaccines based on messenger rna technology and they wanted a more conventional technology, they wanted lower prices. they moved slowly and this is what they got. but to your point, joe, you have to put this in a broader context of how the eu functions. i'm showing you in effect the bottom line as we say of the economic performance of the eu versus the u.s. and the uk over the 20-year since the introduction of the euro, the euro being a particular problem for the countries that went into it, britain never, of course,

did go into it, but what you can see over those 20 years the u.s. grew its gdp at an average annual rate of 2.17%. may not sound like a huge amount but compounds over 20 years and see the eu at 1.62%. you can see the uk in between at 1.87 and again the three largest economies much slower and of course poor italy down at the bottom. and another way to look at this in terms of unemployment and so if you look at the unemployment record over that same 20-year period, since the introduction of the euro, you can see the eu at 6.5%. you can see the u.s. down at 3.6%. next to the uk at 3.8%. so again, substantially lower unemployment in the uk and the u.s. and even as we said, these are figures from just before the pandemic hit to make them look even, but even today as we sit here, most of the european

countries still have unemployment higher than ours. so whether i would or wouldn't have voted for brexit i think about it a lot. but it's hard looking at all of this and looking backwards not to say that britain had a point in leaving the eu and certainly had a major point in not entering the common currency when it was put in place in 1999. they seem to be very clearly at least economically far better off for that. joe? >> steve ratner, thank you so much. and thank you for the chart that shows the united states towering over all other countries with their gdp at 2.17. we are like the tallest building in schenectady. thank you so much, steve ratner. ed, i'm curious your thoughts on steve's charts and steve's conclusion that eu has been anything but this sterling example of bureaucratic efficiency. >> yeah.

i think steve's chart said a point very well. what i would say about britain's outperformance of the european union is that that's i think to do as steve said britain not having joined the euro. what britain did on january 31st this year was leave the european single market, which is enormously benefit to britain, britain helped shape. margaret thatcher partly gave birth to it if you like in the 1980s. and almost half of britain's exports, including presumably some vaccines at some point go to the european union. so, this brexit i think was a deep blow against britain. but this is undoubtedly a crisis of legitimacy for brussels. it's a crisis of reputation across europe. and it's going to be a real

no-pun intended shot in the arm to euro skeptics in other countries across europe to watch just how badly they've bungled these very basic procurement negotiations and continue to do so. it's very bad news for europe's reputation. >> and katty kay, let's follow up with this summer. it's interesting what ed said before about many britain, many in britain going to be disappointed across europe. they're not going to be able to get away on a summer vacation. i'm curious, are we going to find ourselves in a very strange position of having the united states, if not almost fully vaccinated, moving towards herd immunity and being able to travel to europe while europeans from certain countries may not be able to travel here? >> yeah. the moment europeans can't travel to the u.s. unless you're a resident or have a family member living here or have a

compelling reason to come here. you're not allowed to get into the united states. one thing we learned during the course of the virus it's pretty humbling, right? every time we think we're ahead another country might get ahead and we fall behind and we get a spike. europe is right in that position. it was looking so much better. and now they're in a big spike. but, the vaccine is the game changer. and we are so far ahead in the united states in terms of vaccinations that we may with stand any future spikes because we're getting so many people having immunity through the vaccine. and that's europe's problem. they haven't got the immunity from the vaccine, so they're just open. it's open season for more surges and spikes of the coronavirus. and so long as that is happening, everybody is going to be nervous about going there. the one thing they're really concerned about is how widespread this south african variant is in europe. that's the variant that, of course, with stands to some extent we think the vaccines that we have. so, they probably aren't going to europe. there's a big tradition for

brit's to go on holiday in europe. i would love to go see friends and family. probably isn't going to happen. americans i suspect might be allowed to go because europeans will want them to go because they want those tourist dollars, but i think americans will have to think carefully about going to a continent there is this south african variant and potentially bringing it back to the u.s. just when we got into such a good position here. so, i think international travel, the message of this is until we vaccinate everybody, we don't have travel in the way that we're used to it. sorry. no summer holiday in south of france, guys. >> no. but i will tell you the good news for me is i'll be able to summer in the south of alabama bbc's katty kay and financial times ed loose. you both have very busy days ahead of you. we appreciate you starting it with us this morning. thank you so much. david, i want to get back to you and been wanting to talk to you about a couple of issues

right now that we talked long and hard about during the trump administration. and i certainly expressed some concerns about it. i'm just curious, we just passed the ten-year anniversary, the horrific ten-year anniversary of the start of syrian civil war and we have talked in the past how the united states, how donald trump made the decision to abandon the kurds. is there any chance that the united states may be able to move back into a position where we are protecting the kurds, where we are pushing back on iranian militia, where we're pushing back on some of the other -- some of the other nightmarish scenarios that were unfolding in syria? >> joe, i hear no talk at the pentagon among my contacts of increasing the u.s. mission in northeast syria. we're continuing it. we still have something under

1,000 u.s. special operations forces in eastern syria working with the syrian kurdish so called syrian democratic forces. i think the idea is to help them stabilize that region of syria in anticipation that at some point there will be international negotiations to rebuild syrian state, geneva negotiations with substantial russian input. if anything, i think the trend is toward reduction, continued reduction, of the u.s. forces both in iraq and in syria. my sense, joe, is for the biden administration in most of these foreign issues we talked earlier about north korea but also syria and iraq, it's steady as she goes. their focus is on domestic policy. they think the united states' biggest national security issue

is our weakness at home. solve the pandemic. get the economic roaring again, which it's on its way to roaring. we were looking at steve's charts a moment ago. 2.17%. we're heading towards 6.5% growth this year. i mean, crazy number that we haven't seen in many years. so, an american economy that's growing at that rate, that's solving its pandemic problem suddenly looks like a different figure on the world stage. that's the biden administration's hope. and i think from that will come new levers to deal with all these problems, like the dealing with china. the best thing we can do to have a strong china policy is to have a stronger u.s. i've heard that from a number of administration officials. but in terms of restarting the syria mission as you and i were talking about, i don't think so. >> and afghanistan yesterday the times reported that isis was moving and expanding in

afghanistan, waiting for a void, waiting for the united states to leave. many believe waiting for that time to expand operations there. do you believe the biden administration is going to -- as you said, continue a steady as it goes policy? or do you think their ultimate goal is removing all of those troops from afghanistan and creating that void that isis took advantage of when we did the same thing in iraq a decade ago? >> i think joe biden in his gut, in his heart wants to get those troops out. he has been a skeptic about afghanistan from the beginning. but i think he's come to realize in the last several weeks that it's simply isn't possible to meet the withdrawal deadline of may 1. no way you can get the troops and equipment out of kabul or

afghanistan. those troops will stay a while longer. the question is whether you can negotiate a framework for stabilization of the country that would allow an orderly withdrawal. if you think about what the images of a quick withdrawal under fire would look like, it would be like saigon in 1975 but in some ways worse. you would have black flags flying, taliban celebrating, guns shooting in the air and a sense of a country coming apart. the biden administration very much doesn't want that. they've got aggressive, creative diplomacy. i credit secretary of state blinken draw the russians in, the chinese, the pakistanis, even the iranians into some plan for an orderly withdrawal of u.s. forces from afghanistan. good on him. so far, we have not seen much progress. peace in afghanistan is the kind

of thing everybody supports in principle but nobody wants to give up their small bit of leverage. that's been the problem for 20 years. it still is. >> david ignatius from "the washington post," thank you very much for being on this morning and for your insight this morning. all right. it is just past the top of the hour. we're learning new details about the mass shooting that took place inside a boulder, colorado, grocery store. this suspected gunman has been charged with ten counts of murder. so far investigators have not commented on a possible motive, though law enforcement sources say at this point there is no evidence to suggest the shooting was an act of terror or a hate crime. several law enforcement sources also say he may have had a history of mental health issues. records show that this wasn't the suspect's first brush with the law. in 2017 he was charged with misdemeanor assault after attacking a high school classmate who he said had called

him racial names. an arrest affidavit shows the suspect purchased an assault weapon on march 16th, just six days before the attack at the supermarket. a makeshift memorial is taking shape outside of the grocery store where the attack happened. the ten victims range in age from 20 to 65 years old. they included three grocery store workers, several people who just happened to be shopping that afternoon, and a police officer who rushed to the scene. that slain offer eric talley was remembered yesterday by the boulder police chief. >> this officer had seven children. ages 5 to 18. i just had that officer's whole family in my office two weeks ago to give him an award. tell you that he's a very kind man. and he didn't have to go into policing.

he had a profession before this, but he felt a higher calling. and he loved this community. and he's everything that policing deserves and needs. he was willing to die to protect others. here is president biden yesterday speaking from the white house. >> joe and i devastated and the feeling i just can't imagine how the families are feeling. the victims whose futures were stolen from them, from their families, from their loved ones. who now have to struggle to go on and try to make sense of what's happened. we're still waiting for more information regarding the shooter, his motive, the weapons he used the guns, the magazines the weapons, the modifications that apparently have taken place to those weapons that are involved here, i don't need to wait another minute let alone an

hour to take common sense steps that will save the lives in future and to urge my colleagues in the house and senate to act. we can ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines in this country once again. i got that done when i was a senator. it passed. it was a law for the longest time. and it brought down these mass killings. we should do it again. we can close the loopholes on our background check system, including the charleston loophole. that's one of the best tools we have right now to prevent gun violence. the senate should immediately pass, let me say it again, the united states senate, i hope some are listening, should immediately pass the two house pass bills that close loopholes in the background check system. >> and of course, as we said last hour, what the president is talking about is the loophole that would have private gun

sales, you would have to have background checks for that also when you purchase weapons at gun shows. that is something that 88% of americans support the closing of those loopholes, 82% of republicans support the closing of those loopholes. just one quick question, one quick clarification on language. and we had it in our script twice now. just to correct, they were not -- whatever the gunman used, it is highly unlikely that he used an assault weapon. he certainly did not purchase an assault weapon from a gun shop. assault weapons have been banned for decades now. what as "the new york times" has said and the way we define it here, military-style semiautomatic weapons. i think a lot of times you say assault weapons in shorthand, but they are not, in fact, assault weapons. military-style semiautomatic weapons. >> joining the conversation we

have former u.s. senator now an nbc news and msnbc political analyst claire mccaskill. nbc contributor mike barnicle joins us and politics and journalism professor at morgan state university, politics editor at the agree owe and msnbc political contributor jason johnson. and the a.p.'s jonathan lemire is still with us as well. good to have you all with us. >> all right. so claire, we've been talking about there was a hearing yesterday on the hill, some back and forth between republicans and democrats. there was a hearing that was actually set up before the shooting. so the timing it had already been there. i just want to circle back to something because you and i both represented conservative areas. you represented a conservative state. i represented a conservative congressional district. had a lot of hunters. in fact, most of my friends growing up in baptist churches were hunters.

and, none of them that i've ever talked to have had a problem -- i can't think of one that i've talked to growing up people i grew up in mississippi, alabama, georgia, northwest florida, up state new york, none of them have ever had a problem with expanded background checks, with background checks at gun shows. so a terrorist can't just walk into a gun show like, you know, islamic terrorist on the fbi most wanted list ten years ago, go to a gun show, it's so lax, you can cause mayhem across the country. all of my friends that have grown up in a gun culture, they like background checks. they want to make sure that the people that have guns should be people who have the guns. 88% of americans support that. 82% of republicans support that. and yet here we find ourselves in a position that you've been in time and time again, too many

republicans in the senate just don't give a damn what 9 out of 10 americans want, just don't give a damn what 8 out of 10 republicans want which is expanded background checks. >> we have the majority in the senate. now, it is a very raiser thin majority brought to us by a senator from a state where donald trump won by 40 points and he did better in 2020 than hi did in 2016. so, but we do have the majority. so we can make this vote happen. and by the way, joe, we can make it happen over and over again. repetition is the best friend of political success. if chuck schumer decides to put these bills on the floor and make republicans vote for them not once but several times to drive home the point how out of step senator kennedy and all the rest are.

and by the way, you know, the folksy thing that senator kennedy does, i know some people think it's adorable. >> yeah. >> but let me just say this, please give us the same restrictions on guns as we have on driving. please. i mean, let's just do that. let's just do that. let's make what you got to do to own a gun the same as what you got to do to get a driver's license. if we are willing to take that baby step, at least that signals to america that we are uncomfortable being such an outlier in the world that embraces this kind of mayhem and murder of innocent citizens doing everyday tasks. >> yeah. claire, you bring up a great point. actually i want to show that sound bite with senator kennedy where he has this folksy deflecting attitude, but take a look at what he's saying. listen. w. what's happened the last few days, what's happened in the last years, is of course,

tragic. and i'm not trying to perfectly equate these two, but we have a lot of drunk drivers in america that have killed a lot of people. we ought to try to combat that, too. but i think what many folks on my side of the aisle are saying is that the answer is not to get rid of all sober drivers. the answer to concentrate on the problem. >> exactly, jason johnson. what we want to do. is we want to focus on the problem drivers. we want to focus on the people who are problematic who would purchase guns. we want to focus on the people who may be able to purchase these guns at gun shows without any restrictions. why is it -- why is it if i go buy a gun at a gun shop in my hometown, i go there, i look at the gun, i fill out the

paperwork. they do the check. it comes back eventually and i get approved for that. but somebody else could just walk into a gun show buy an ar-15 and wouk out with no background check. that is insane. conservative law enforcement officers think that is insane. law enforcement officers who voted for donald trump think that is insane. 82% of republicans according to a 2019 pew poll think that is insane. and i think most would agree with senator kennedy. yes, let's focus on the problem. and let's put more safeguards in place just like mother's against drunk driving did decades ago because it made a real difference in keeping drunk drivers off the road. maybe this would make a real difference in stopping people with mental challenges from getting their hands on guns.

>> joe, here is the problem, though. the commitment by not just senator kennedy but also like, remember, ted cruz a year ago after el paso, texas, el paso, the commitment to guns on the part of a lot of these public officials, a lot of senators it's not about policy. it's not about safety. they just have a religious commitment to guns. that's it. because you're right. the numbers have not been on their side for years. the death numbers. the violence numbers have said that we need to do something. the fact that republicans, gun owners, democrats, regular people have all said, hey look, we're not anti-gun. we just think somebody should be forced to prove they're remotely responsible before they have them. you should be able to make sure the person buying the gun isn't crazy. but here is the thing, joe, this is ultimately where i sort of differ even from the people who just say background check. at the end of the day, from what we know so far, right, with the individual who just committed this shooting in boulder and what we know about the

individual who committed the violence in atlanta, what we know about so many of the individuals who comment these acts of violence, they don't necessarily have egregious criminal records. there's no indication he was a terrorist. a background check wouldn't necessarily have stopped this guy. all he has is one sort of assault thing. so we need to think about the larger issue of what kind of weaponry people can get access to. because what we have seen over and over again is the men, primarily men, who are engaging in these acts don't have some long, obvious history that says i'm a terrorist or i'm going to go shoot up a grocery store. they're loner. living below the radar. going from job to job, may or may not be living at their mother's house. it's not just identifying and tracking those people. it's limiting what they could get access to. big difference being able to use a semiautomatic weapon to shoot up a store versus something you have to reload and reload and reload. >> jonathan lemire. >> public polling, joe, as we

have been discussing this morning is in favor of a lot of these measures. mike barnicle, great to see you. i want to talk about his appetite for this, his drive for gun control. you know the president well. you know his staff. we know his record on guns. he stood next to president obama the day of the sandy hook shooting and how emotional that was for both men. what can he do now? what's the appetite now? we have been talking how ambitious his agenda is. there's going to be a lot of republican pushback. how big do you think biden can go on guns? >> jonathan, that's an interesting question because president biden is when you strip away the title and everything he is normal human being. and i think he is tired of the makeshift memorials. i think he is tired of crying about over 26 or 27 children being killed at sandy hook. i think he's tired of people, young people, who instead of

going to graduation at parkland high school, you know, went to funerals. i think he's tired of all of that, the same as many americans are tired of that. and i think he is specifically tired of the fact that his former colleagues, as he calls them, don't have the courage, the courage, to stand up to whatever, the gun lobby is no longer the power it used to be. to stand up and enact at a minimum background checks that encompass a period of time or as jason pointed out, you can't filter everyone out. someone who appears to be normal, three, seven days waiting period. they're going to get a gun. but maybe the gun that they get will be as jason just pointed out, a revolver and not a semiautomatic weapon. he's tired of all that. the country is tired of all that. they're tired of hearing people like ted cruz stand up on the floor of the senate and lie just

patently lie to the american public about gun legislation and specifically tired of people like senator kennedy, these folksy manner of his who just twists and turns the truth of this. and the truth of this is that the united states senate does not have the courage to do something that the vast majority of americans want done. i think president biden is right in line with that. get it done. >> all right. everyone stand by because we've got a lot more ahead on this important topic. if we can't do something, something, a background checks law, a mental health bill, more resources for law enforcement, if we can't do anything to try to stop this soul-crushing, life-extinguishing violence, then we might as well just go home. >> that could be yesterday, but

that was senator chris murphy back in 2015 calling for the senate to take action on gun violence. something he's been demanding ever since newtown. the senator joins us next on "morning joe." we'll be right back. joe." we'll be right back. customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? just get a quote at libertymutual.com. really? i'll check that out. oh yeah. i think i might get a quote. not again! aah, come on rice. do your thing. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ ♪ over 10 years ago, we made a promise to redefine everything a truck can be. ♪ and while we've made good on that promise

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what happens in this committee after every mass shooting is democrats propose taking away guns from law-abiding citizens because their political objective. but what they propose, not only does it not reduce crime, it makes it worse. >> senator ted cruz and yesterday's judiciary committee hearing on gun legislation. joining us now senator chris murphy of connecticut. and senator murphy, thank you very much for being on this morning. it's unbelievable that the sound bite we played before the last break was you back in 2015. your thoughts this morning as we engage in this debate yet again.

>> well, listen, first of all, this is heart breaking. obviously i'm thinking about the families in colorado, but i'm also thinking about my families in connecticut every time one of these mass shootings happen it retraumatizes every family that's gone through it before. so these are tough days for everybody who has been a victim of gun violence. i have come to the conclusion that congress has become complicit in these crimes. when congress doesn't act it intends unintentional but very real sign of endorsement to these would be killers. it looks like we're approving the way in which they are managing their grievances because we don't do anything year after year. i will say that things have changed. you know, in 2013 we lost a background checks vote on the floor of the senate because the nra was really powerful and the anti-gun violence movement wasn't. well, you know, 2021 we control the house, we control the senate, we control the

presidency. we have a movement that's stronger than the gun lobby. so, let's see what happens. we're going to work over the course of the next two weeks to try to bring a bill to the floor of the senate to expand universal background check. i know a lot of people count us out, think the politics are still the same as they were a decade ago. i don't think they are. i've talked to a lot of republicans that i don't think want to stay on the outside of this issue for the next ten years. so, we're going to work this thing really hard. >> claire mccaskill. >> good morning, chris. thank you so much. >> hey, claire. >> for your dedication. >> hey. thanks for your dedication to this issue. let's talk about the control of the united states senate and what that means for issues like gun safety. you know, you now can force votes. we've gone many, many, many moons since the democrats could force votes. do you believe there is a plan in the works to force repetitive votes on very, very popular

things, like gun safety legislation? or is this going to be one of those we don't have 60, let's move on to the next thing? i really think it is a huge mistake to not emphasize this. i get it. you have to take two weeks to try to round up the votes and find the compromises that could get you to 60. but, how -- are the senators willing to change the play book and vote a lot instead of never voting at all? >> well, claire, i think it's a really good point because there's a host of interventions that have 90% public support. we focus on background checks because it's the most popular and the most impactful. but, there are all sorts of other things that you could do strengthening laws on gun trafficking. you could close the so-called boyfriend loophole that allows for domestic abusers who have restraining orders to get their hands on gun. there's a number of measures you can bring up on the floor that 90% of americans are supportive

of it but the gun lobby stands on the other side and make it really uncomfortable for republicans. as you know, mitch mcconnell, you know, refused to bring any of these bills before the floor for the last five years. and there was a reason for that. he knew that the gun industry and their lobbying arm was fading in strength and the anti-gun violence movement was increasing in strength and he didn't want to put his members in position of having to choose between the two. in 2019 after el paso and dayton, i got a bunch of phone calls from some folks you know on the republican side of the aisle who said, yeah, i voted against it in 2013, but man, if you could bring a new background checks bill before the senate that looks a little different than manchin/toomey, i may find my way to yes. let's make it uncomfortable for them, agreed. but let's also not throw out the possibility that if we make this vote attractive for republicans, they may not want to continue to go up against the growing strength of the anti-gun violence movement. >> senator murphy, jonathan

lemire. the other big story you're currently grappling with which is of course the border. you made a trip there in recent days. i was hoping you could describe what you saw. whether you believe the media should have some sort of access so we can also document what is there for the american people. but also, biggest picture, what can be done about it right now? what should the administration policy be done to deal with this influx of migrants and particularly migrant children at the southern border. >> well, first of all, it's important to get sort of the facts level set here. "the washington post" did a really interesting analysis of the data last night. the conclusion they came to was that, you know, none of this was driven by joe biden's policies that this was in part a pretty predictable seasonal increase in migrants at the border, but it is also the result of a whole bunch of people who couldn't come in in 2020 now sort of making a push to the border during the time of the year in

which you traditionally have a lot of people showing up. so, i think that we're making some real important improvements on the border. we're very quickly standing up new facilities to make sure we have less kids per square foot in these detention facilities. but what i saw at the border was really clearly a result of a crisis in central america and mexico. we have to remember there's not a lot of evidence that anything other than conditions on the ground in the countries from which these people come to drives migration to the border. so one of the things that we need to do is to take joe biden's plan, to invest money in guatemala and el salvador, honduras to try to improve the security and economic situation there. i hope that we'll take that up very, very quickly. i think conditions will continue to improve as the weather heats up. you'll likely see the numbers go down. republicans, though, you know, aren't trying to solve this problem. they are just trying to use it as a political wedge to try to batter a very popular president.

and i think we have to take their criticism and their outrage with a grain of salt right now. >> so, senator, i read last night a piece by karen in the washington post also that suggested otherwise from the conclusions you said and other post article said that this just happened. it would have happened no matter what. you don't -- you don't think any policies have encouraged an uptick in migration flow to the united states, any -- because we've heard and i've heard from democrats as well that certain things that the biden administration have said actually have encouraged an increase in the migrant flow. you don't believe that's the case? >> well, to the extent that there's a policy that led to this increase, you know, joe biden did allow for unaccompanied minors to come into the united states to apply for asylum. but it was just a matter of time

before biden was going to have to lift what is called the title 42 restriction imposed during the pandemic on individuals coming and applying for asylum. that was a temporary block on immigrants coming to the united states. he lifted it for kids because it was becoming so dangerous to send them back to mexico into the hands of smugglers. but, that sort of block that existed for all of 2020 at the border was just temporary. and whether joe biden lifted it or a court lifted it, again, it was just going to be a matter of time before people had to be allowed under law to come to the united states and apply for asylum again. >> last hour i talked about the need about what you're talking about now and that is sending aid to these regions, to countries like guatemala because, of course, mexico one of the reasons why illegal immigration from mexico decline

oefrd the past several years because the mexican economy improved. so here is the challenge. i know you want to be a good steward of american tax dollars, i don't want to propose something that's going to waste american tax dollars on cable news show, not that that matters, of course. but how do we make sure that the money, that our foreign aid, is targeted to make sure it gets into the hands of those people who need it the most? because obviously in some of these countries there's graft, there's corruption and we don't want to actually have american dollars go into the hands of some of the very people who were pressing the migrants who we want to help. >> listen, i think that's a really legitimate concern. and in many of these countries, as you mentioned, their leadership, if you give them the money, is not going to spend it efficiently. so that's why you invest in international aid organizations who have big presence on the ground in these countries. you invest in non-profits so

that you're not funneling the money through the government. and frankly, the good news is we have a track record of success here. when obama administration was investing in these kind of programs in what we call the northern triangle and central america you did see a fairly precipitous decline in both violence in that region and migration to the united states. remember, the ten-year high in apprehensions at the border was not during the obama administration, nor is it right now, it was in 2019 when donald trump had in place what he called the toughest policies at the border ever, when he had cut off much of the funding to the northern triangle. so we have experience in spending money well in these countries. and we have data that tells us it works. >> i've said for five years, the lowest apprehension level at the border in the past 50 years came in barack obama's last year in the white house.

so, he was doing something right. so, two quick questions. we'll go off of policy and we'll -- i just wanted to ask you this question about the state i love very much, connecticut. >> uh-huh. >> tell me something good about connecticut right now. what's going on there? >> well, kamala harris is coming to connecticut, new haven, which is good news. so, she's going to be us to talk about the impact of the american rescue plan on kids. as you know, joe, fairfield county gets a lot of attention in connecticut, the suburbs of new york, but we have some of the poorest cities in the nation. she's going to be coming to new haven. we're just incredibly excited about the implementation of the rescue plan the fact that it's going to lift half of kids living in poverty in connecticut out of poverty and we're excited to welcome her on friday to be able to show how the funds coming to connecticut schools, to connecticut families is according to economists going to

rev up this economy, going to increase growth by about twice the expected rate had we not passed it. that's exciting. there will be a big debate about what pizza joint we show the vice president in new haven on friday. but -- >> oh. >> i think it's going to be a really exciting visit. >> well, that could be tough actually. i've been to both of them and i know the ones you're talking about. and that's like major competition in new haven. >> yeah. so -- >> i was the new haven bureau chief for new haven eyewitness news. i know all the pizza joints there. senator chris murphy, thank you very much for being on this morning. >> thank you, guys. and coming up, our next guests argue if there's just one issue that justifies getting rid of the senate filibuster it's voting rights. former house majority leader joins us for that conversation.

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live look at new york city this morning at 44 past the hour. welcome back to "morning joe." joining us now, former house majority leader, dick gephardt who represented missouri from 1977 to 2005. and long-time media executive editor at large at newsweek and cnbc founder and contributor, tom rogers. together, along with former senator tim worth, they are coauthors of an op-ed out this morning for newsweek, entitled "the big lie exception to the filibuster rule" which reads in part, there is one overwhelming rational that provides this small narrow path for an exception to filibuster cloture.

that rational is the big lie. the great untruth that there was substantial voter fraud that resulted in trump losing the election. thereby enabling the election to be stolen out from under him. the big lie and its consequences have not been answered by congress in any way. yes, there are hearings and investigations about the capitol riots. but the big lie continues to be spread by some republican politicians and some social and right wing media while prosecutors are going after individual capitol hill insurrectionists. there must be a showing of real pushback with strength by all defenders of our democracy against this total falsehood. there is nothing more deserving of an exception to the filibuster rule than putting in place federal policy to overcome the malevolent intent of the big

lie. i couldn't agree more. joe, i mean, the thing that i think is a little frightening is that there are sitting members of congress right now who are sitting -- who are pom ul gae ing it and are in office right now with no accountability. >> they continue -- congressman dick gephardt, great to see you again. it's been a little while, but always great to see you. talk about why you felt like this issue was important enough to lend your voice to. what do you hope will come of your efforts? >> well, joe, as you know, nothing is more important in a democracy than the right to vote. the ability to vote. and we've seen this many times in our past history. let's just remember that it was the democratic party after the civil war that put restrictions on voting for african-americans. and it took over 100 years to

get rid of many of those restrictions. our old friend and the person we were privileged to serve with, john lewis, led the reenactment of the voting rights act. there was originally done in the 1960s. so, this is a critical issue. nothing else matters in a democracy other than that you have the free and fair elections and the right for everybody to vote. so, we're hoping that there can be an exception to the filibuster rule for this narrow exception, for these rights, and that we can get democrats and republicans to come in behind this effort and get this done in the next weeks and months. >> all right. let's bring in claire mccaskill for the next question. claire? >> first, good morning, dick. it's so good to see you.

such a dear old friend. and we don't get to see each other in person very often these days. let me talk to you about the filibuster and the problem that is presented by the slim majorities we have. you're somebody who spent a lot of time counting votes and trying to knit together a caucus that had people from very conservative places that had conservative views and very, very liberal views. our problem in the senate is we hold a majority by virtue of one guy who is probably the only democrat alive that could ever win west virginia. how do you get around the issue of a bear majority especially when we have big elections in pennsylvania and wisconsin and north carolina that could build our majority in two short years? how do you reconcile these two with this important exception that you're advocating?

>> well, our hope is that people in both parties, not just joe manchin and others in the democratic party will see this as a fundamental fairness issue that goes to the heart of our democracy and that enough votes can be put together, maybe even 60 votes can be put together. but if it can't, then we advocate just narrowing in this one case the filibuster rule to get it back to 50. so that this bill can go through with all democratic votes if that's what it comes to. and on the larger question, i just keep thinking why can't the senate go back to the way the filibuster used to work when i was there and probably some of when you were there. and that is to make people really filibuster. i mean, all you have to do to invoke the filibuster is to say, hey, i'm going to filibuster this and it's dead.

if we're going to have filibusters, let's have filibusters. let's keep everybody on the floor day and night and really go through it. that's what i think. >> so, jason johnson, yesterday jonathanyesterday, jonathan wrote a great article at new york magazine talking about the racial background behind the filibuster. this morning, kevin cruz has boiled it down. this might take a minute, but i know you'll want to hear this list. from kevin cruz, this when the filibuster was used. the filibuster against the civil rights bill in 1874. against the civil rights bill in '75. filibuster against black official in 1909, against antilynching bill, 1921. against antilynching bill, 1922, against antilynching bill 1925. against monument to black world war i veterans, 1926.

filibuster against antilynching bill, 1935. against an this lynching bill, 1938. filibuster against bill targeting racial discrimination. against truman civil rights proposals 1948. 1949. against trummen civil rights proposal 1950. against measures to fight housing discrimination, 1954. filibuster against rights, 1960. 1962, against civil rights bill, 1963. against civil rights bill, 1964. civil rights bill 1966. against civil rights bill 1968. against bill targeting employment discrimination 1972. against civil rights bill 1976. against extension of voting rights bill, 1982. against creation of mlk day 1983. against civil rights bill 1984. i can go on.

>> fantastic. yes, you can. >> so this really does -- for those who say that the filibuster does not have an anti-civil rights overtone to it, it's just not true. >> oh, joe, it's not just not true, and kevin cruz, i have read his thread. it was fantastic. michael harriet also did. it's clear the filibuster is primary used to stop black people from being able to enjoy all that this country supposedly has to offer. that's clear, that's obvious. whether it's civil rights or pensions. the mlk holiday seems archaic now, but someone was trying to filibuster given martin luther king a holiday. the issue is not there's a racial component to the filibuster. there's a racial component to anything everything in this country. what galls me, actually, joe, what i find surprising, whether it's manchin or sinema or the

current president of the united states, i don't understand how their support for the filibuster comes against self-interest, because at the end of the day, if the democrats can't pass anything, even though they have the majority in the senate, they will lose in 2022, and then they'll lose in 2024. so regardless of whatever kind of school house rock myth logical affection you have for the filibuster, the practical reality is if some of these laws don't get passed, if the democrats can't do something about voting rights, if the democrats can't pass the john lewis civil rights act, first off, some of them are not going to have their jobs in 2022, but they also won't be able to pass policy. >> and that's the thing that shocks me most. self-interest, i need to be able to pass something to keep my job, should be a motivator. it does not make any sense to me why they're fighting it. again, i'll say this quickly, it's also why i think at the end of the day joe manchin will flip.

>> jason, glad you said that because i was going to ask you if you agreed with me, from the very beginning of this, i said let's just do some reverse engineering here. there is no way joe manchin can stand in the way -- no way kyrsten sinema can stand in the way of hr-1 or the john lewis voting rights act unless i'm completely stunned. let's do reverse engineering. they're going to have to figure out a way to pass john lewis' voting rights bill and they're going to have to figure out a way to pass at least a modified version of hr-1, aren't they? >> yeah. joe, i completely agree with you. and i have said this before. i say this in the most affectionate way possible, no insult to claire or any of the

members, the senate is full of a lot of divas. if they're not going to be present, they certainly want to go down in history. nothing would serve their ego more than to be the critical swing votes to make sure the john lewis voting rights bill gets passed. they'll go down in every history book or history pad in the future as wiig being the one who made this happen. in this particular issue, they're going to pretend they have issues. he's going to grumble, i don't like this, i don't like the font, et cetera, but they'll end up flipping. does that mean they're going to abolish the filibuster? no, but does it mean they would be open to refors where you have to stand there, where you have to have the minority come up with the votes? i think the reform will happen because there's too much of a carrot out there, too much of an opportunity to put yourself at the center of american history for manchin or sinema to pass up on. >> listening to this discussion and the litany of racist

filibusters that joe just read off, in assembling this piece, do you think the united states senate is just so broken today that it is incompetent and just can't handle today's issues? >> well, that's a very point of this column. getting manchin, getting sinema to be able to support a narrow path to get the most important piece of hr-1 for the people act through. and we know all the consternation about abolishing the filibuster, but putting it on this premise of countering the big lie is that there is no countervailing policy issue there. they may be two sides to gun rights, may be two sides to infrastructure spending, there may be two sides to immigration. there are not two sides to the big lie. we actually think they ought to retitle this bill the big lie repudiation and voting rights

act. because the democrats need to push back on the big lie. there are 253 bills introduced in 43 states that are intended to suppress voting rights, particularly the voting rights of black americans, and this is the most important civil rights struggle of the decade, and if they can't get this through, the democrats will not be able ever to get anything else done. and so having this narrow rationale that the big lie needs to be repudiated, it is the underlying rationale for these 253 bills, and giving manchin, giving sinema the rationale here that you don't have to support total filibuster reform. it's not about changing the use of it so peek talk for hours and hours and hours. it's about repudiating the big lie, which nobody thinks should be a rationale for anything, and the democrats have yet to push back. and on this rationale and this rationale alone, we think the

senate can be constructive enough to get this done. >> and as you say, for the most important civil rights bill of the last decade. tom rogers, thank you so much for once again bringing us a great column. and also assembling a powerhouse group of writers with you. and dick gephardt, as always, it is great to see you, man. we hope to see you again some time very soon. >> absolutely. come back. >> you bet. >> all right, up next, we've already spoken with four of president biden's cabinet secretaries. our next guest makes five. from the commerce department, gina raimondo joins us straight ahead. this afternoon, i'm so excited to be teaming up with the biden institute for a great event at the university of delaware. students are taking part in the annual women's history month luncheon for a virtual opportunity to network with

women in leadership. it's a great panel, including valerie biden owens. it's going to be so much fun. >> that's going to be fantastic. >> i'm so excited. we're back in one minute. allergies don't have to be scary. spraying flonase daily stops your body from overreacting to allergens all season long. psst psst you're good hi sabrina! >>hi jen! so this aveeno® moisturizer goes beyond just soothing sensitive skin? exactly jen! calm + restore oat gel is formulated with prebiotic oat. and strengthens skin's moisture barrier. uh! i love it! aveeno® healthy. it's our nature.™ so you're a small business, or a big one. you were thriving, but then... oh. ah. okay. plan, pivot. how do you bounce back? you don't, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. powered by the largest gig speed network in america.

but is it secure? sure it's secure. and even if the power goes down, your connection doesn't. so how do i do this? you don't do this. we do this, together. bounce forward, with comcast business. bravery of of eric talley and i send my deepest condolences to his family, his close, close family. seven children. every time an officer walks out

of his or her home and puts that badge on, the family member that they just said good-bye to wondered whether subconsciously, will they get that call, the call his wife got. he thought he would be coming home to his family and his seven children. in the moment the act came, officer talley didn't hesitate in his duty, making the ultimate sacrifice in his effort to save lives. that's the definition of an american hero. >> president biden speaking yesterday about police officer eric talley who was killed in monday's mass shooting at a grocery store in boulder, colorado. good morning. and welcome to "morning joe." it's wednesday, march 24th. with us, we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. and former chairman of the republican national committee, now an msnbc political analyst, michael steele. we are learning new details this

morning about the mass shooting that took place inside of boulder, colorado, grocery store. the suspected gunman has been charged with ten counts of murder. so far, investigators have not commented on a possible motive, though law enforcement sources say at this point, there is no evidence to suggest the shooting was an act of terror or a hate crime. several law enforcement sources also say he may have had a history of mental health issues. records show this wasn't the suspect's first brush with the law. in 2017, he was charged with misdemeanor assault after attacking a high school class mate who said had called him racial names. a makeshift memorial is taking shape outside the grocery store where the attack happened. the ten victims range in age from 20 to 65 years old. they included three grocery store workers, several people who just happened to be shopping

that afternoon, and a police officer who rushed to the scene. the boulder police chief remembered the slain officer, eric talley, yesterday for his unwavering dedication to his job, family, and community. >> this officer had seven children. ages 5 to 18. i just had that officer's whole family in my office two weeks ago to give him an award. tell you he's a very kind man, and he didn't have to go into policing. he had a profession before this. but he felt a higher calling. and he loved this community. and he's everything that policing deserves and needs. he was willing to die to protect others. >> joining us now live from boulder, nbc news correspondent

catie beck. what more can you tell us about the investigation so far? >> reporter: good morning, mika. yeah, what we can tell you is this investigation is going around the clock, focusing in on the one thing everyone is talking about, the one think everyone wants to know, what was the motive, what was the reason that this happened. that answer still remains at this hour unknown. we have not heard from police on what they have gathered in the past 12 hours or so. we're hoping to get more on that today. what we do know is that suspected gunman, they have been searching his car, searching his home, and searching his social media accounts to try to glean any information about what he may have been thinking in the days leading up to that shooting. we do know that as you mentioned, he had purchased a high-powered firearm just a week beforehand, and we know that at 2:30 on monday, he entered that grocery store, indiscriminately firing on innocent people. witnessing calling police,

telling them horrifying accounts of being inside, trying to protect themselves and others from the gunfire. in an exchange with police, that suspect was wounded and surrendered into custody, now charged with ten counts of first degree murder. as the investigation persists and a motive is sought, the ground here in boulder is filled with grieving community members. another colorado community absolutely changed forever, as they remember these victims. these were real people in their community. it's hard not to become sad when you hear about the soon-to-be grandfather who was inside, you hear about the clerk who had worked there for 30 years and known so many people that had come through the doors of that store. and then you hear about the 25-year-old who was just getting started in life. all of these people were in different phases of life and different chapters, but all of them had hopes and dreams and real families here that are grieving. colorado has a long and deserving history with mass shootings, everywhere from columbine to aurora now boulder.

this is something colorado has experienced before. moving the conversation forward now, how do we prevent the next one. >> catie beck, thank you very much for your report this morning. >> here's more of what president biden said yesterday from the white house. >> jill and i are devastated, and the feeling, i just can't imagine how the families are feeling. the victims whose futures were stolen from them, from their families, from their loved ones who now have to struggle to go on and try to make sense of what's happened. while we're still waiting for more information regarding the shooting, his motive, the weapons he used, the guns, the magazines, the modifications that apparently have taken place to those weapons that are involved here, i don't need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take commonsense steps to save the lives in the

future and to urge my colleagues in the house and senate to act. we can ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in this country once again. can got that done when i was a senator. it passed. it was a law for the longest time. and it brought down these mass killings. we should do it again. we can close loopholes in our background check system, including the charleston loophole. that's one of the best tools we have right now to prevent gun violence. the senate should immediately pass, let me say it again, the u.s. senate, i hope someone is listening, should immediately pass the two house passed bills that close loopholes in the background check system. >> the background check system loophole, those sort of ills have overwhelming popular support when you talk about military style weapons, those numbers go down a bit.

it seems to me the easiest thing for them to pass, i say easy, no gun legislation getting passed is easy, but more expanded background checks, at least over the past several years, have been a 90/10 issue. jonathan lemire, so you wrote an article for the "a.p." and talked about how disciplined the biden white house has been over the first 50, 60 days or so. how have these unplanned real-world events, first atlanta, then the border crisis growing when democrats started going there, taking pictures, and reporting back. and then boulder. how is that impacting the biden white house right now? and how are they adjusting to those realtime changes? >> joe, for so many white houses, even the most carefully laid plans can be overwhelmed by real-world events, by sudden breaking news and crises.

that's what's has happened here to this administration. the white house is just now only ten days or so from passing, signing into law that $1.9 trillion covid relief bill, and they wanted to spex the next couple weeks touting that, and instead, two of his three first stops heading out on the road to talk about this bill have been drowned out by these mass shootings. last week, he was heading to atlanta. that day was completely repurposed because of the bias crimes that have led -- possible bias crimes there against asian-americans and then yesterday, his trip to ohio was completely overwhelmed by having to address this tragedy in boulder. >> and democrats, of course, have expressed some concerns about the border situation, and we're going to have one of those democrats on today. also, senator murphy almost brought to tears by what he saw there. jonathan, how are the democrats holding together?

does the biden white house feel like whether it's on possible gun legislation or whether we're talking about an answer to the border crisis, or of course, talking about what's probably next on their issue, infrastructure. how is that democratic caucus holding together? >> the democrats pride themselves on being such a big tent party. there's a lot of competing interests there, different groups who want different things to be prioritized next. the biden campaign in the general election and in its first 56, 60 days deserves credit for keeping all of those oars rolling in the same direction, unified around a common purpose. in the campaign, it was defeating donald trump. here, it was about getting the covid relief bill passed and signed into law. now, now comes the hard part where you're having different groups push different things. all it be about gun control, whether it be about immigration, whether it be about voting rights acts. and the biden administration,

they want all of that to happen. they have said they want all of that plus infrastructure and jobs, but it will get harder now, particularly because it's likely going to require some filibuster reform to make it happen. this is really going to test party unity the next few weeks. >> still ahead, in the words of ted cruz, a push for gun safety reform is, quote, ridiculous theater. why then does 90% of americans support those commonsense policies? you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. has you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

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there was a hearing yesterday in the senate judiciary committee on how to address gun violence in america. scheduled before monday's shooting in boulder. in which democrats and republicans had very different takes on the issue.

>> america awoke today to another nightmare, stunning, shocking, savage. but unsurprising. inaction has made this horror completely predictable. inaction by this congress makes us complicit. >> these victims and their loved ones are worthy of our thoughts and our prayers. but there's more that's required. we face a pandemic of coronavirus, we have another epidemic in america called guns. >> senator from connecticut just said it's time for us to do something. i agree. it is time for us to do something. and every time there's a shooting, we play this ridiculous theater where this committee gets together and proposes a bunch of laws that would do nothing to stop these

murders. what happens in this committee after every mass shooting is dmentds propose taking away guns from law abiding citizens because that's their political objective, but not only does it not reduce crime, it makes it worse. >> what has happened in the last few days, what's happened in the last years, is of course, tragic. and i'm not trying to perfectly equate these two, but we have a lot of drunk drivers in america that kill a lot of people. we ought to try to combat that, too. but i think what many folks on my side of the aisle are saying is that the answer is not to get rid of all sober drivers. the answer is to concentrate on the problem. >> it is to concentrate on the problem, and of course, over the

past 20, 30 years groups like mothers against drunk driving have done exactly that. and have changed, entirely changed the culture around drunk driving and have made a great difference, have saved so many lives. untold number of lives. yes, michael steele, that is exactly, i don't think he meant to do it, but senator kennedy actually pointed to what we need to do as a nation. we need to get serious about this. does this mean taking away law-aboiding citizens' guns? no, the heller decision said we can't do that, and conservatives like you and me were glad when heller came down and actually the second amendment was determined to say exactly what the second amendment said, which is americans have a right to keep and bear arms and protect themselves inside their house. that's what it said. but how any senator on the

extreme right could take expanded background checks and somehow lie to their constituents, lie, because if you look at the second amendment and you look at the supreme court's interpretation of the second amendment, they're lying if they say that expanded background checks is somehow infringing on anybody's second amendment right. it's just not. >> no, you're absolutely right, joe, and it's been a lie that's been promulgated, perpetuated and just rolled out at moments like this for the last 20 years or so. and the reality is exactly in the space that you have described. the supreme court has given us the clarity that we need on the second amendment and what it means and what it doesn't mean with respect to individual liberties, but also, what government, what the state level and states like florida and ohio

and elsewhere, or at the federal level, can do to begin to address some of the growing concerns communities have around this issue. what you heard yesterday is what we have heard before. thoughts and prayers, but we ain't doing crap. and the american people are tired of that. as you noted, this is a 70% to 80% issue with the american people. there aren't a whole lot of issues on that list. just go through it. for democrats, move to that space where you can have the conversation. for republicans, since you're so hot about oh, they're going to take our guns, put a proposal on the table that you think will address the issues as ted cruz and others have noted. so we're going to do this dance. we have done it before. we're going to hear it before, in columbine, aurora, you name it, after all of these horrific

events, our legislators get in a room and they say exactly what they just said. you could have taken tape, joe, from after columbine. you could have taken tape after aurora. any of these events, and just play it. put it on a loop. >> yeah. >> coming up, congressman henry cuellar says people need to know what's happening at immigration facilities in texas. he released photos from inside a crowded u.s. customs and border protection overflow tent and joins us next to talk about it. ♪ and a little bit of chicken fried ♪ ♪ cold beer on a friday night ♪ ♪ a pair of jeans that fit just right ♪ ♪ and the radio up ♪

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waiting to be processed. others sleeping on mats with mylar blankets. a stark contrast, makeshift playpens in a place so far from home. the images were released a day after democratic congressman henny cuellar leaked photos. some rank and file border patrol

agents who have been inside this facility they it's not their fault. >> we're not day care. that's not what we're designed for. >> we rode along with the texas department of public safety who helps federal agents patrol the border, by air. >> this is the epicenter of the migrant surge in the rio grande valley. the texas dps says it's encountered nearly 9,000 migrants in just the last two weeks. it took just a few minutes for us to start seeing migrant after migrant crossing. >> another raft across, and here's another one. >> 31 right here. >> 31 in that group alone. >> just in that group right here. >> some of them young children. >> there's three children and the rest are adults. >> you're seeing this all day? >> all day long. >> you can see the coyotes returning to the mexican side right now. >> in just a few minutes we have been up here, we have seen more than 60 migrants cross the border? >> that's correct, and there's 12 there. >> eight, nine minutes time. >> these troopers are also on the lookout for smugglers by

boat, the battle at the border being fought on multiple fronts. here along the rio grande, local and state authorities say they're having to fill the gaps as the border patrol diverts resources to handle the migrant surge. >> all right, and democratic congressman henry cuellar of texas joins us now. sir, thank you very much for being with us. i know you have been sharing video of what's been going on inside some of the facilities where the press cannot get access. why do you think that is? >> well, first of all, i think it's important that the public know what's happening. i did this in 2014. i'm doing it again because people need to know how the kids are being treated. no fault of the border patrol, because they're not assigned to do that. that's health and human services. that's others, but i think they should allow the media in. i think they release some videos, cdp did.

i think the next step is they probably will let y'all in some time in the future. i hope so. >> congressman, what is the cause of the latest crisis, the latest surge? and more importantly, what's the solution? what do you want to see done to alleviate the suffering on the border? >> well, several things. you have to address the pull factor and push factors. republicans talk about only the pull factors, democrats talk about only the push factors. you have to deal with both of them. the messaging is going to be important. i was in cariceo springs, the shelter where they have kids. i tested the three messages heard down there in central america. the president's message, asked about 2016, 17-year-old kids, nobody heard that. i asked what about neighbors, friends, family members who got across, hey, maria, i got across. come over.

almost everybody raised their hand. they say we see tv, we see images on tv, and then the third message is the very aggressive messaging promoting by the drug cartels, criminal organizations, because every time they bring somebody, they make $6,000 average. so imagine we had about 100,000 people in february. that's $600 million for one month. that's a lot of money, and that's the profit. finally, let me just say this. we have to show images of people being returned. i'm not talking about the kids. but you know, most of the people that are coming in, we return them under title 42. we under the obama administration, i worked with jeh johnson. we returned families safely, safely to honduras, and we had safe centers where they would be returned. if you don't show a message that people are going to face consequence, of course, they're going to come over. you and i, if all three of us were down there, we would take

this risk also if we knew we were going to get across and it was only a speed bump to come across the border. >> why is it so important to send that message, to show the images of people being returned? as you said, returned safely, returned in a humane way. >> it's important because people need to understand that there will be a consequence. if they feel that they're going to pay, let's say, $6,000, and they're going to come across and nothing is going to happen, of course, they're going to come in. when they see people coming in, being let in, people over the weekend, they were given no notice to appear, which is unprecedented, unbelievable that they would do that, but again, border patrol had no choice but to do that. they had to use that discretion. that just incites them to come over. i'm glad my friend roberta jacobson and her team are in mexico. i'll get a readout, first from the mexicans because it's hard

to get information from our own government. and i sit on the homeland appropriations. i get more information from across the river than i get from our own government, which is just amazing. i'm glad they're going to do that because if we don't play defense, using football as an example, if we play defense on the 1 yard line, we're going to keep losing. we're seeing this right now. if we play defense on their 20-yard line, work with mexico, guatemala, and central america, to work with them to keep people from coming over here, we are going to stem this -- stem the people coming over here. >> i want to pick up on the point you made about needing more information from your own government. can you elaborate on that, what more you would like to hear, and secondly, the biden administration, we're talking about messaging. they talked about how they had radio ad campaigns in the northern triangle companies and social media advertisements to encourage them to stay home, look, now is not the time. do you think they have done enough in terms of getting that

message across? the president has try today have a more humane policy. he's undone some of president trump's policies. but are they clear in saying, hey, wait, don't come now? >> well, the message is much better. you know, the first one was, don't come now. come later. it's like saying don't break the law now, break it later. i'm glad that message is gone. they need to be direct and say don't come. and then they have to show images, images of people being returned. i'm not talking about the kids. once the kids are in our custody, we take care of the kids like they're our own kids. but again, we have to stem the tide of people coming in. and we have to do that. we have done it before. we have done it. when people act so surprised, we have seen this, and with all due respect, we have seen this before, with all due respect, for people, to just come to the border and visit for a couple hours. that's no substitute for a lifetime of experience.

we got mayors, we got sheriffs, we have ngos, we have other people on the border. we have seen this. and in fact, i think it was within a week of inauguration, i called my white house contact and i said, i want y'all to look at what's happening on the ground. i'm talking to the men and women on the ground, i'm talking to ngos. had numbers are increasing. you have to pay attention to this. and i tried several times. and here we are. we don't get a handle on this, this is going to become a political problem. i'm a democrat. i supported biden, but this will become a political problem, as we can see our republican colleagues already turning this into a political weapon. >> congressman, i think many people don't realize how complicated it is in terms of taking care of these children. we now have thousands of children that are being held for longer than the law allows along the border. and i know we have got to take care of them. talk about hhs and their legal

responsibility to take over the managing of these children and the important and challenging job they have of vetting sponsors and making sure these children don't go places where they're going to be abused or even worse, put into agricultural work conditions where no child should ever be placed. >> absolutely, senator. you know, what we have to look at is that there's a process when people come in. when people come in, border patrol will hold folks technically 72 hours. as you know, if they don't go to health and human services, they will stay longer like we saw in donna, we're seeing in donna right now. so border patrol will do three things. one, they will separate the kids go into the health and human service offices. the orr, the office of refugee resettlement.

then, if you're a single adult, more likely not under title 42, you would be returned. they need to show images of people being returned on that aspect, too, because 83% of people coming in are single adults right now. that could change. and then, family units are dropped off at ngos or border patrol stations. and remember, border patrol doesn't do any testing of any of those individuals. ngos do, but border patrol doesn't do testing. there are people, some people they put in bus stations without even being tested for covid. then let's go back to the kids. if health and human services is not fast enough to hold those kids, they're going to be backlogged. let's assume health and human services gets them, they're going to hold them. i have seen the numbers. there's four categories how they divide the kids. who has an immediate mom and dad, immediate family, brother or sister. there's different categories. there's one that no sponsors, and some of those kids are

returned back or put in foster homes. so they're going to be kept there longer, you know, the 72 hours is only for border patrol. over here, they could stay 27, 100 days until they find the right person, the right sponsor, because as you said, you don't want to put them back in the hands of a coyote and this is why it's got to be done very carefully, and as i have said, you take care of those kids like they're our own kids. >> democratic congressman henry cuellar of texas, thank you so much for coming on the show, and for everything that you're doing. up next, today is equal pay day. and this year, it's not only the wage gap that's top of mind. it's also how the pandemic is disproportionately affecting women. u.s. secretary of commerce, gina raimondo, is our guest next on "morning joe."

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i'm confident that people will reach the other side of this pandemic. i believe they will be met there by a growing economy. in fact, i think we may see a return to full employment next year. >> the receivery is far from complete. the path of the economy continues to depend on the course of the virus. >> federal reserve chair jerome powell and treasury secretary janet yellen speaking before the house financial services committee yesterday. overall, economic recovery may be in sight, but we know the pandemic has had a disproportionate economic impact on women. that makes today's equal pay day all the more relevant. the day signifies how far into the new year the average woman has to work to be paid the same amount a white man earned the year before. joining us now, u.s. secretary of commerce, gina raimondo. i'm so enjoying interviewing

members of the administration, so many of them women. it's great to see you again. thanks for being on the show. in terms of the way women are paid disproportionately to men, it's 82% for women on average. but the wage gap widens based on race and parental status. you know this. mothers are paid 70 cents for every dollar paid to fathers. black women, 63 cents. native american women, 63 cents. latinx women, 55 cents. this is a big disparity. i would love for you to address the reasons behind it, but even more, how do we fix this? >> good morning, mika. great to be back with you. thank you for having me. and thanks for drawing attention to this. you know, we cannot have a full economic recovery unless women and women of color are included in that recovery. the fact of the matter is, during covid, almost 2.5 million

women have fallen out of the workforce, and covid has only further exacerbated the trends you're talking about. you know, women are clustered in low-wage service industries, and have really been hardest hit. i think what we need to do is, first of all, recognize it for the crisis it is, and it is that. and second of all, be there for women. you know, in the rescue package, there is extra money for child care, extra money for schools to reopen, extra money for job training. you know, so much of this is recognizing this economy is changing. it was already changing. covid really accelerated that. so we have to be there for women, not only by providing support, such as child care support and tax credits, but actually apprenticeships, job training so they can get the skills they need to be successful in higher wage,

higher growth industries. >> but at the rate we're going, it's going to take 250 years to close the wage gap. according to the world economic forum's global gender gap report. you talk about being there for women. and i understand creating opportunities is really important. creating support, child care, coverage, things like that, incredibly important. but what policies or legislation can be put in place to make sure that women are paid equally to their male counterparts? doesn't that seem like something we should be addressing straight on? >> absolutely. it is -- it is on its face, unfair and discriminatory, and we have to keep talking about it. we have to keep requiring more disclosure of companies to highlight the discrepancy. but you know, one of the things that i so admire about president biden is he wants us to be big.

he wants us to go bold. so you just said, 250 years. women can't wait 250 years. they're the backbone of our economy. >> no way. >> so what the president is doing and what we're charged to do as his team is go big. it's no one thing, mika. it's massive investments in infrastructure, massive investments in job training. massive investments in reshoring jobs to america. manufacturing jobs. let's get women trained up and in those jobs. let's make things again in america. let's, you know, make sure that women have the support they need for their kids. you know, it's devastating statistic, what you say, that mothers are disproportionately harmed. why is that? because women and mothers are the ones to whom a lot of the child care falls. let's lean into that and provide what the president is saying, which is higher quality education, higher quality and more benefits for child care. so i think this is our moment.

and i'm excited to be on the team and in this senior level and working with the vice president who has said this is a national crisis. i agree with her. let's, if we're going to build back better, that means more equally. that means including women. and as you say, particularly women of color, where the wage gap is unacceptable and immoral. and by the way, bad for business. it's bad for business. every business knows, every executive knows that they will be a better, more profitable company if they have equal representation on their board, in their ceo and c-level suites, in their workforce. >> yeah, but you know what, this is the problem, though. you are right. they do know that. a diverse workforce up to the top especially where you have diverse thoughts and instincts at play is better for a company

long term. but yet, it still is happening. we're like, you have companies that have men and women in the same jobs and the women are paid less. i don't know how we get to some transparency now about that because it is happening now. >> yeah, so listen. i think that covid has shone a big light on the inequity throughout our economy in racial disparities and in gender disparities, so shame on us all if we don't take this occasion to look at that and really commit ourselves to finally addressing these inequities. because we cannot build back better and stronger and more equally unless we really do that. >> so madam secretary, you just mentioned it's bad for business, which it clearly is bad for business. the inequity in the pay scales, women as opposed to men. but are we talking about something that's not necessarily

an economic issue at the bottom rung of the ladder but more or less a cultural issue that envelopes the whole inequitable pay scale? >> it's an excellent question, and i think it is both. you know, look, i think if you look at who is in lower-wage jobs, it is disproportionately women and women of color. you know, nearly two thirds of minimum wage earners are women. if you look at who's in lower-wage service industries, it is women and women of color. so some of that is on us to create more higher wage jobs, to pay more. i strongly support the move to $15 an hour. but also, to provide equal access to college, job training, apprenticeships, for women and women of color, so they have the skills necessary to achieve the

higher wage jobs. having said all of that, it is still the case that, you know, a lot of the child care falls to women and moms. and so we have to continue to push against that and make sure that that is more equally shared. >> u.s. secretary of commerce, gina raimondo, thank you very much for being on. come back soon. we really appreciate it. and we have more now on the fight to close the gender wage gap. as the battle continues, there is a key demographic at the very forefront leading the way, women past the age of 50. know your value has teamed up with forbes for a special 50 over 50 powerful list to celebrate women who have achieved significant success after that age and showcase the women who are shattering misconceptions about gender and age well into their 70s and 80s. let's bring in chief content officer of forbes media and

editor of forbes, randall lane. also with us for this conversation, "morning joe" producer, know your value's daniella, she'scoauthor of "earn it" and we were on clubhouse last nightclubhouse l about know your value and some of these issues, but today we're talking about the people who paved the way, daniella, for equal pay, and i love this list because i was there when president obama signed the lily leadbetter act and she is on the top of our list. >> and lily is the perfect example of how one person's fight for equal pay can impact society on such a bigger level. so the lily leadbetter act of 2019 helps protect and strengthen workers' rights against unfair pay. it starts when she worked at goodyear. she'd worked there for 20 years and someone had tipped her off that she was being paid

significantly less than her male counterparts with less seniority than her. long story short, she took her fight all of the way to washington. a lawsuit that made its way up to the supreme court. it failed and i got a chance to interview her, and asked her what kept her going? she was a regular woman who was trying to get equal pay on her job and she'd had setback after setback and the late justice ruth bader ginsburg had a lot to do with it and she kept her going and they developed a special rirp. this is not just her own story, it's not just her own fight, but the fight of so many other people. >> you know you're a legend when you have a bill named after you and her life, she represents millions of women and if it sounds like a movie it is,

they'll make a movie about her life and patricia clarkson will play her and to see her make that difference is just so inspiring. and looking at the second name on our list. i know everybody on this list today, know and respect them well. representative rosa de lauro. i was a local reporter in connecticut in my 20s and she has been a champion for women, daniella, for decades. >> yeah. she introduced the paycheck fairness act two decades ago and it would help strengthen the equal pay act of 1963. it still has not yet passed and when you think of women now a days and white women as you mentioned earlier 80 cents to a man's dollar. for hispanic women, 55 cents to a white man's dollar. it's abysmal and it's horrific and randall, this is no sense

legislative action that needs to be done and that the congresswoman is at the forefront of. >> her bill that she introduces every congress and she's done it every year since 1997 is about transparency and representative de lauro is emblematic for 50 after 50 and she wasn't elected to congress and she's been at it for almost 30 years and she's been introducing this bill year after year after year and maybe she's got a shot. >> maybe. third on our list, great friend of mine, tina chen. she headed up the white house counsel of women and gross under the obama administration which the trump administration got rid of on day one. say no more on that front, but it really did open a lot of doors for women, that counsel, and it showed a real focus on the importance and value of women and joe biden definitely is continuing in that direction, but tina chen is now the chief

executive report of "time's up," daniella. >> yeah. she's been a leading voice in the me too movement and co-founding the time's up signature legal defense fund which provides women who have experienced sexual harassment at work who have the financial support to fight back and i think of the women inning a culture and have families to feed who have so much on the line for speaking up and she's a great example of someone who has been in the trenches and has access where solutions are being drafted and executed. >> you mentioned being in the trenches and doing this year after year. i do want to call out someone. every week, we try to highlight an unsung hero as part of the 50 over 50 initiative and we get all of these nominations and get all of these amazing people who do it under the radar and do it

under the long term and you know, for those who aren't there, you have a thousand people, mostly women and mostly young and they are hanging on every word you're saying, you are giving great mentorship and literally, you obviously wrote the book, know your value and what was amazing to me is you did it all while making meatloaf for the family and joe was enjoying his meatloaf. that's a rock star. >> yes! >> super impressive, so we talked among the forbes crew and the msnbc family and we decided that on this topic, mika, you are the unsung hero this week for everything you've done for well over a decade, two decades to make issue for the forefront. >> will add that joe will be cooking dinner tonight. >> i just have to add. >> i mean, way more than a

mentor and i've worked with mika and i've witnessed how much heart and passion she has for coaching women and helping advocate more effectively for how to say it and what to say and i've seen her grow this incredible platform of "know your value" for all women and all demographics and i can't tell you how many people i've seen people go up to her saying i got a raise and that's the power of mika and it's incredible how much she's been thrown at -- >> i totally lost control of this segment and did not see that coming. thank you so much. >> daniella, thank you both so much. go to value.com and forbes.com and click on 50 over 50 to learn more. final thoughts for the morning, claire mccaskill? >> you know, first of all, well deserved, mika.

yay, mika! >> thank you. >> i think one thing you all did not mention this segment is we all have to fight and push and pull for the core value of equality when it comes to women in the workplace and minimum wage is an important part of that, but so are corporate boardrooms. we still in this country have a predominance of men in corporate boardrooms even with companies that their main customer are women are dominated by men. so on this equal payday i would like to see us close with a final thought about doing more to put women on corporate boards. >> i love that. and i want to point out. i'll be speaking to students at the university of delaware at the biden institute and my main piece of advice is pace yourself. we're fixing this problem and we'll fight until it's fixed and look at the runway we have.

let's not hide our age and tina chen, 65, rosa de lauro, 78, nancy pelosi, 80, and my advice is pace yourself, enjoy the ride and fight for equal pay. that does it for us this morning. jeff bennett picks up the coverage in two minutes. up the coverage in two minutes.

hmmm... where to go today? la? vegas? no, the desert. let's listen to this. louder. take these guys? i mean, there's room. maybe next time, fellas. now we're talking. alright. let's. go.

good morning. i'm jeff bennett in for my friend stephanie ruhle. we start with breaking news out of colorado. a memorial is now in place outside a boulder grocery store where ten people have been killed. all ten have been identified and the motive for monday's deadly attack is still unknown. police have identified the suspect as a 21-year-old man who lived in the area. they say that he appears to have been suffering mental problems and do not have any evidence that this was a terrorist attack or a hate crime. the suspect was shot during a standoff with police, but has been released from the h