weekend. i'll be having a mint julep and be watching the kentucky derby, the run for the roses. hope you can get out and enjoy some time with your families as well. thank you so much for getting up way too early. >> this is exciting this morning. new york city mayor bill de blasio made a big announcement. take a look at this. >> our plan is to fully reopen new york city on july 1st. we are ready for stores to open, for businesses to open, offices, theaters, full strength. >> yeah! >> whoa! >> on july 1st, even your grandma is going to be like, i'm off to the club. most people were thrilled, while new yorkers who love working from home were like, freaking de blasio. >> mayor de blasio making that announcement on "morning joe." jimmy's back doing his monologue, there's an audience in there, the jets have a new

quarterback. it's all happening. good morning, welcome to "morning joe." it's friday, april 30th. i'm willie geist, joe and mika have the morning off. we have, we have katty kay. white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. professor at the lyndon b. johnson school of public affairs at the university of texas, victoria defrancesco soto. white house correspondent for politico, and co-author of "the playbook," eugene daniels, and cofounder and ceo of axios, jim vandehei. we'll be talking a little nfl draft, jonathan lemire, bill belichick got a quarterback. what's going on with jim rogers. and katty kay, many people don't realize, the mel kuiper jr. of the uk, so we'll be going to her with full draft analysis, right, katty? >> yeah. maybe later in the program when we're in break, we'll do that, right, willie?

when no one's watching. >> we'll circle back you. let's begin with rudy giuliani's role in the trump administration's role in the ousting of an ambassador has landed him in the middle of a federal investigation. people familiar with the matter tell "the new york times" that investigators are looking into whether giuliani broke lobbying laws surrounding the firing of former ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch. fbi agents seized telephones and computers from giuliani's office in manhattan this week. according to sources, at least one of the warrants sought evidence related to yovanovitch and her role as ambassador. the warrant also reportedly sought giuliani's communications with ukrainian officials, who had butted heads with the former ambassador. according to the sources, that includes some of the same people who also were helping giuliani seek damaging information about joe biden and his family. namely his son, hunter biden. "the times" notes, quote, at issue for investigators is a key question. did giuliani go after

yovanovitch solely on behalf of trump, who was his client at the time, or was he also doing so on behalf of ukrainian officials who wanted her removed for their own reasons. last night on fox news, giuliani spoke about the federal investigation surrounding him. >> what have they said to you about what they're looking into? >> they haven't said anything to me. they won't explain to me what they're looking into for two years. we've called them five, six occasions and said, tell us what you're investigating, we'll address it. no, just come in and talk to us, tell us about your whole life. that's ridiculous. so i have to go as a lawyer on the search warrant. the search warrant is purportedly based on one single failure to file for representing a ukrainian national or official. i never, ever represented a foreign national. in fact, i have in my contracts a refusal to do it, because from

the time i got out of being mayor, i didn't want to lobby. never did it to bush, never did it to obama, never did it with trump. and i can prove it. just give me an opportunity. but instead, they had to break down -- i wouldn't say break down, but smash on my doors in a frightening way. lucky i don't get frightened very easily. i handled them very professionally and they handled me very professionally. >> katty kay, rudy giuliani reeling a little bit in that interview last night, trying to explain his role in this whole episode with ukraine. let's take a step back, because so much has happened since then about what exactly is being investigated here. and rudy giuliani efforts, reportedly, to get marie yovanovitch, the ambassador to ukraine fired, because she would not help in his effort to get dirt on joe biden and his family. >> it's such a throwback, just listening to that rudy interview and reading back over these charges again is such a reminder of the amount of kind of churn

and sleaze, really, that was surrounding this episode. so what the fbi want to know is whether marie yovanovitch, who was the ambassador to ukraine, was recalled from ukraine, purely because donald trump wanted her recalled, because she wasn't helping giuliani's efforts to get dirt on joe biden, or was there a more insidious quid pro quo with the ukrainian government, potentially a more illegal quid pro quo with the ukrainian government saying, listen, this woman, this ambassador who's well known for her anti-corruption efforts, she's been a real pain to us. she's trying to get involved in issues stopping us doing the kinds of maybe corrupt things that we would like to be doing. can you get rid of her? and if you get rid of her, maybe then we can help you with announcing this investigation into joe biden. that's what's at the root of this latest revelation. and it's why giuliani is looking distinctly uncomfortable,

because that would put him in the position of having done the dirty work of a foreign government, in recalling the ambassador. this wasn't for his client, necessarily. this was for ukrainian government. >> and in fact, jonathan lemire, this was the basis of donald trump's first impeachment. all of this in ukraine was rudy giuliani working on behalf, the question is, of the sitting president of the united states, to get an ambassador fired because she wouldn't dig up dirt on a political opponent? >> yeah, it's a throwback to donald trump's first impeachment, that seems so long ago. that is the central question here. is why was the ambassador removed and at whose best was giuliani working, as katty said. if this is simply what the president wanted and giuliani in his role as the president's personal attorney was working on his behest, that's one thing, but if he was doing it because the ukrainians wanted her out, that's another thing. but let's take one step back further, the fall, the change in

rudy giuliani's stature here, first of all, not just from america's mayor to this, but even in the trump orbit, where he was hailed as somewhat of a hero in the trump land, because he helped with his attacks on the special counsel and the muddying of the water and throwing up smoke screens. you know, it was seen as he helped confuse things enough that not only that allowed president trump to escape more serious charges or conclusions, i should say, from special counsel mueller, but also the american public largely stayed with him. there wasn't a break -- in terms of republicans. there wasn't a break in terms of his own party going away from him. but he basically, after escaping the mueller probe, got president trump impeached, giuliani, with his actions in the ukraine. and of course, he played a central role in the nonsensical stop the steal movement and fed into president trump's baseless claims of election fraud. and we should also note, as a final point, that in the final weeks of the trump administration, giuliani was one of those who was talking to the president and the people around

him about a possible pardon. a preemptive pardon. some sort of blanket pardon that he could get on before trump went out the door. that, of course, did not happen. but now one wonders if perhaps this is why it was raed. we know there's been an investigation for quite some time into giuliani's ties with certain ukrainian interests, shady elements over there, and now it appears without any protection from trump or bill barr's doj, giuliani's caught exposed. >> and the reflexive response from rudy giuliani and supporters of president trump is that this is joe biden and his administration seeking retribution against donald trump and rudy giuliani. but in an interview yesterday at the white house with our colleague craig melvin, craig asked president biden about the federal raid on giuliani's apartment and office. >> were you aware of that raid before it happened? >> i give you my word, i was not. i made a pledge i would not interfere in any way, order, or try to stop any investigation

the justice department had underway. i learned about that last night when the rest of the world learned about it. that's not the role of the president. the justice department is the people's lawyer, not the president's lawyer. >> meanwhile, "the washington post" is reporting the fbi warned rudy giuliani back in 2019 that he was the target of a russian influence operation. people familiar with the matter telling "the post" the disinformation campaign was intended to damage then candidate biden politically before the election. several current and former u.s. officials said the warning was part of an extensive effort by the fbi to alert members of congress and the conservative media outlet one america news that they risk being used to further russia's attempt to influence the outcome of the election. last summer, the fbi also gave what is known as a defensive briefing to republican senator ron johnson of wisconsin. johnson confirmed the bureau warned him that he was, quote, a target of russian

disinformation, but he disagreed with the reporting on the nature of the briefing. so, a lot to sift through there, jim vandehei, but this is not necessarily new information that the fbi, and in fact, others, were warning the trump administration that the russians were pushing this information about hunter biden and ukrainian connections on them. but they seemed receptive to it, nevertheless. >> yeah, and i think that's the concern for giuliani and potentially for donald trump and others, that this is just one small piece of a much larger puzzle. remember, there's lots of relationships that giuliani had over the years with people in russia and ukraine, so that would obviously come up as part of any investigation. and this investigation, by the way, started a while ago and only intensifying now with these raids. so he's going to go out there and defend himself, go through the process and we'll figure out how much he really knows. but i do think we have a tendency as the public to move on from these different scandals

or these policies, and often, it does require the justice department or the folks to go in and dig in and figure out what really happens. so you can't allow other foreign entities to get involved in elections or other countries to sort of go around the process to try to get friends and politicians to do things for them. so this is probably the beginning of a much larger story. i know a lot of people would love for it to end with donald trump. we don't know what the justice department will do. and joe biden is probably being accurate. it is politically radioactive. you never want to be seen using the presidency to go after a political rival and there's a lot of sensitivity inside the white house to that point. and that's kind of why you have to have defer to the justice department. >> all right. we're going to circle back to the story with some new reporting in just a few minutes, but following his first address to congress, president biden moved on and paid a visit to georgia yesterday to begin to sell those economic plans he

laid out. >> if you ever wondered if elections make a difference, just remember what you did here in georgia when you elected ossoff and warnock, you began to change the environment. and because of you, we passed one of the most consequential rescue bills in american history. so what did you do? what did you do with your vote here in georgia? well, you changed america. you began to change america. and you're helping us prove that democracy, democracy can still deliver for the people. >> the president in duluth, georgia, yesterday. biden also briefly mentioned the new controversial voting rights law in the state, saying, instead of celebrating record voter turnout in 2020, it is, quote, being attacked. the president visits philadelphia today to promote that ambitious agenda and to celebrate the 50th anniversary

of his beloved amtrak. also yesterday, police reform advocates including family members of george floyd and andrew brown, two prominent victims of police killings, met with lawmakers in washington to advance legislation against police brutality ahead of the one-year anniversary of floyd's death. the group met with senate majority leader chuck schumer, susan rice, and other white house officials. senator lindsey graham and senator tim scott, who is leading the republican effort of the legislation also met with the families in what was described as an emotional meeting. >> so this was about them understanding that this is very real to all of us, but it means more to these families than anybody else. because that legislation will literally have the bloodstain of their loved ones. and that was the tone and the tenor of the meeting. >> reporter: you can see eric garner's mother standing to mr.

krome's right, as well. so eugene daniels, there was a lot of talk about tim scott's republican response to the address the other night. he is leading this republican effort, though, to get some kind of reform on policing, bipartisan effort, they would like it to be. is that a real -- are they really anticipating getting something done together. are there enough concessions in the middle with democrats that they can work with tim scott on this? >> yeah, i think i might be in the minority of people who aren't as cynical on this issue as i was maybe two weeks ago. it seems with tim scott leading this, he has had a lot of relationships on the republican side, so i think they trust him to do this negotiation and whatever he decides, they're going to be willing to go with. but it's also key to think about the things that they are fighting about, the democrats and republicans, are debating about. there's the qualified immunity, whether you can sue a police officer, or as republicans are

probably more likely to have a palette for, sue a police department, after one of these things. there's the militarization of the police, which is a huge sticking point for democrats. there's also other issues, the bans on choke holds, all of these types of things. and it seems like when you have the president saying in this joint session, i want this done within a month, he has told democrats that he is willing to make some decisions here. he is willing to do some compromise on this issue. and i think there's a lot of pressure. you see, you know, the families going there. that is something that doesn't happen that often, right? these families don't go to capitol hill and lobby like this so publicly. and after the last year we've had and talking about racial justice in this country, it feels like there's even more pressure on congress than there has been before. if there's a time it's going to happen, he talked to advocates and activists who work in this space and they say now and especially after president biden putting a month deadline on it

for everyone, is the time for that to happen. so i think people are feeling hopeful, but there are fits and starts of this happening on capitol hill quite a bit, but it feels like the group that met on thursday, they're very serious about these negotiations. this was some house and senate members. and also, republicans and democrats are taking it pretty seriously to get something done as soon as possible. >> i think you're right, eugene. you're not the only one who's necessarily cynical about this one place anyway that there might be some bipartisanship breaking out. we'll see. victoria, you look at joe biden hitting the road after that joint session of congress the other night, in pennsylvania, going to georgia today, really selling the plan, really popular if you look at polling. i think he understands sort of implicitly, that while he's going to roach out to republicans and try to maybe work some back channels on

infrastructure and get piece of it to have republican support, that he knows he's going to have to sell this to the people first and maybe just get it again like he did with covid relief on democratic party lines. >> this is so important, willie. we have seen the mistakes made when administrations think that people will automatically embrace things that enhance their lives, mainly the aca and biden was front and center with that. and biden has learned that. he is hitting the road and going to connect the dots for the people. i think when we look at his approval ratings, earlier this week, we saw the slate of approval ratings. it's above 50% for president biden. but when you start breaking it down for individual programs, you see a lot of popularity here. and the argument on the republican side that these are progressive, socialist policies really doesn't stick when you see 60 plus percent approval.

these are really mainstream policies. so with this momentum, the president needs to go and clench the deal. at the end of the day, it's citizens, it's voters who have the final say. and if he can get the voters mobilized to put the pressure on their elected officials in congress, it's a trickle-up support that he desperately need to get this bipartisan support. >> jonathan, you cover this president and this administration every day. you do get the sense that he knows that he's got the public on his side. not all the public, of course, but a majority of the public on his side in this legislation, despite the price tag that concerns a lot of people up into the $6 trillion range with some of these proposals. but he knows that they're broadly popular and that's why he's on the road, making that case. >> yeah, it is undeniably a lot of money, but the white house and democrats feel like this is the moment for that. that it's a confluence of crises this nation is facing. there's an appetite here coming, what we now believe is the waning days of this pandemic, to

go big, to reinvent what the government can do. we heard from the president's speech last night that this is a test of democracy, he believes, to prove that it can be successful, it can be competent, it can accomplish big things. like the vaccine distribution program and now this. this infrastructure and jobs bill which will transform how the government's relationship with its citizens. and his audience here is so interesting. he's trying to make this a bipartisan bill. and he'll continue to have republican lawmakers to the white house. we know that minority leader mcconnell and gop house leader mccarthy will be at the white house next week. but he recognizes that his true audience is republican voters, trying to sell them like, look, these are things you want. these are concrete things. your representatives in washington, they're trying to defend corporate tax rates. they don't care what you want, the people. of course, it's not a coincidence that the first states we're seeing him roll out are virginia and pennsylvania, two key battleground state. and as much as this bipartisan

messaging is about to try to, you know, convince republican voters, perhaps you pick off one or two republican lawmakers. and there was some progress yesterday as the senate passed a bill to fix leaky water pipes across the country, separate from the biden infrastructure plan. but it's also about reassuring some of those motor democrats who might be leery of the price tag, senators manchin and singh ma, in particular, who want to see a good faith effort from the white house in terms of reaching out from the other side. and even if the republicans end up not coming onboard, they believe that the white house believe that if they do this, they can keep manchin and sinema in line and do this by reconciliation and get this done by the end of the summer. >> with that thin 50/50 margin, it's not republicans he necessarily has to worry about. he has to get joe manchin and kerstin sinema. president trump once again criticizing former majority leader, mitch mcconnell. we'll show you that. but first, bill karins has look

at the weekend forecast including how it's going to look down at the derby this weekend. >> it's going to be fantastic for derby. some years, too hot. some years rainy and the muddy track. this year looks perfect. let's first get to the kentucky oaks. the phillies run today, fantastic, a little windy, but 68 and sunny. sounds good to me. post time, 5:51 p.m. for the big race. and tomorrow is the derby itself. 73 and sunny, a perfect forecast. that is going to be an ideal weather conditions. so let's now talk about what we're going to deal with on the weekend forecast. so today is a very windy day. but that cool and breezy weather will continue into the northeast as we go into your saturday. we have some strong storms to deal with in texas on saturday. and by the time we get to sunday, a gorgeous sunday on the eastern seaboard. in problems whatsoever. let's talk about the issues we

have in the northeast. these wind gusts will be no joke. high wind warnings that are up for areas like philadelphia, baltimore, new york and boston are under wind advisories. expect airport delays. we will see possible power outages, and we have the wind damage threat for 62 million people as we go throughout the day today. so yes, the rain is over with in the northeast, but it's going to be a very windy day and we will see the possibility of wind damage and isolated power outages. get those trash cans and anything else that could blow around and bring them indoors while you can. looks like a beautiful sunny day, but those wind are going to crank in washington, d.c. this afternoon. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. not everybody wants the same thing. that's why i go with liberty mutual — they customize my car insurance so i only pay for what i need. 'cause i do things a little differently. hey, i'll take one, please! wait, this isn't a hot-dog stand?

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with the first pick in the 2021 nfl draft, the jacksonville

jaguars select trevor lawrence, quarterback, clemson. >> and so the inevitable has finally become reality. family, friends, dog, they're all happy. >> the pick we knew was coming for about two years, the jacksonville jaguars select clemson's star quarterback, trevor lawrence, with the number one overall pick in last night's nfl draft. in three seasons at clemson, lawrence went 34-2 as a starter, played in two national championships, winning one of them and two ncc quarterbacks. zack wilson going to the new york jets at number two, going from provo, utah, to new york city. he was followed by north dakota state's tray lance, landing with the san francisco 49ers at the third pick. that matched 1971 and 1999 as the only drafts with quarterbacks taking the top three picks. in all, five quarterbacks were selected in the top 15.

big night for joe's alabama crimson tide. the tide had a record-tying six players selected in the first round, including three in the top ten alone. the draft continues tonight with rounds two and three in cleveland. so jonathan lemire, one of those alabama players at number 15, the quarterback, mac jones, bill belichick couldn't believe his luck that jones fell all the way to 15. he's got his guy under center. >> roll, pats, willie, roll, pats. the mac jones pick is, i think is what a lot of fans were hoping would happen. he was rumored to be going number three to the 49ers, but they went tray lance instead. and jones slipped down the board. the patriots didn't have to trade up to get him. and now you believe, that's the qb of the future, even if perhaps kam newton still starts this year, at least for a few games. jones, 41 touchdowns, four interceptions at alabama. seen as smart, making good

decisions back there. sort of standing tall in the pocket, big guy, sort of handsome. reminds us of a previous quarterback, but i can't remember whatever happened to him. >> i like that you drop in that he was handsome, jonathan. a nice bit of editorializing there. meanwhile, jim vandehei, reigning mvp quarterback aaron jones has told members of the green bay packers -- aaron rodgers. the 37-year-old rogers has reportedly been unhappy with the team's decision to draft a quarterback in the first round last year and has expressed reservations throughout the off-season about his future with the team. rogers, who spent his entire career in green bay, won his third league mvp last season, which saw him throw a league-leading 48 touchdowns and lead the packers to a 13-3 record for the second straight season. so, jim vandehei, what's going on here? is aaron rodgers done in green bay? >> one thing, i've got to get a life. i care way too much about this.

two things can be true at once, right? i think he's the second-best regular season quarterback in the history of facebook. i think he's, even as celebrated as he is, if you look at the throws that he makes from difficult positions and situations, i've never seen anyone do it like him. at the same time, i think he's a clinical narcissist. if you look at his relationship with his family, his need to be needed, his need to be the talk of the town on draft day, his inability to take personal accountability for things that he could take some accountability for, those two things are true at once. and despite all of that, i desperate want him to be our quarterback for the next three or four years, because he's really, really, really good at it and there aren't that many really good quarterbacks. i pray they figure this thing out, but i fear they might not. >> you'll take the narcissism as long as he keeps throwing the way he throws. let's go back to politics now. we bring in data journalist for the economist, eliot morris. this morning, the economist is launching a new interactive poll tracker, entitled, what america

thinks, which will monitor and analyze president joe biden's progress. eliot, good morning. tell us about this new tracker and how exactly it works. >> good morning, thanks for having me. the economist has a long-running partnership with an american polling firm. they give us 1,500 interviews with american adults every week. and this goes back to the first week of joe biden's -- excuse me, barack obama's protest in 2009. so it's really rich historical data that no other media organization really can parallel. and so we just wanted to make the best of it. we've put together this interactive web page where users or readers can visit and explore joe biden, donald trump, and barack obama's approval rating over time over key demographic groups to see how the president is doing with groups that are disproportionate to the

electorate or your personal group. and this is part of our attempts to try to get our political polling coverage away from the horse race and closer to what we think is more important, which is what americans want their government to be doing for them. and on those marks, we find that joe biden is doing rather well. >> yeah, there are good historical comparisons in here. a snapshot of how the country has changed. let's dig into the numbers. 50% approve of president biden's job performance. 39% disapprove in your poll. breaking it down by party, 89% of democrats approve of the president while 78% of republicans disapprove. no big surprise there, i guess, eliot. >> these polarized numbers aren't surprising. something to note is that the polarization might be a little bit worse under joe biden's presidency. there's a larger gap between democrats and republicans. but donald trump was so unpopular that joe biden's numbers with republicans are actually better than donald

trump's numbers with democrats. so for all of the talk in washington about there being a lack of bipartisanship, you know, we know that joe biden's spending plans are pretty popular, for example, but we also know his approval rating is almost -- or we know that almost one fifth of republicans approve of hi presidency. in our polarized time, i think one fifth is actually pretty good for a president. you can't compare it to nixon or lbj, who had high marks among basically everyone at some point. but 20%, when you've got 5% of republicans to vote for him last time around is a pretty decent -- it's not great, but you have to give him some credit, i think. >> yeah, victoria, 50% approval rating, a little bit lower than we've seen in some other polls, including or nbc/"wall street journal" poll. but you look at the side-by-side comparisons here. donald trump, 50%, and barack obama, 55%. >> right, willie, historically,

we have just been seeing that presidential approval ratings have gone down over the last 50, 60 years of the modern presidency. and what we've seen starting with president obama's presidency is just this hyperpolarization, where you don't see that many folks crossing over. but that being said, i think it is interesting to compare the snapshot of where biden is right now to where trump was this time into his 100 days. i think that this is really key to understand, even within the era of the last decade of hyperpartisanship, that joe biden is outperforming his predecessor. >> katty kay? >> yeah, eliot, i think one of the things that has been surprising, given how much we've seen approval ratings high for much of joe biden's legislative agenda, the stimulus, the original stimulus package, the infrastructure package gets pretty high approval ratings.

and yet his overall approval rating is still only around 50%. is it really the situation on the border that seems to be dragging that overall number down? or is there something else that's dragging it down? beyond the normal partisanship? is there anything in particular? >> well, it's hard to know what joe biden's approval rating would be under different political circumstances, just because there are so many variables, to use the term. i would say that immigration, gun control, and crime and criminal justice seem to be joe biden's weakest issues, and that's true of many democrats. it's not exclusive to joe biden. voters just trust republicans on these issues more than they trust the democrats. so wherever these issues become more salient or on the front of voters' minds when they're evaluating the president, it could drag down joe biden's approval. and i think this is something to watch with our tracker over the next couple of weeks. joe biden has had extremely

popular policies proposed so far in congress. 65% approved of his covid relief and economic stimulus bill. 60%, roughly, according to the latest nbc news poll. and we'll have our own u.gov numbers out next week that approve of the american jobs plan, the infrastructure bill he's proposing. and i imagine you'll find a similar number of them approve of him spending billions more dollars or trillions more dollars on child care in his latest families plan. these spending priorities are always more popular than divisive, more politically polarized or salient issues, like immigration. i wouldn't go as far as to say he's suffering from the crisis at the border, just because i don't have the data yet, but i am relatively confident that if voters are seeing immigration coverage splashed on their tv over all day instead of, you know, here's the president giving you 14 -- $2,000, then

they would be more likely to disapprove of him. that's something to keep your eye on. >> so the top issues according to the poll, subpoena% health care, 15% say the economy. 12%, climate change. 11% civil rights. those are the four areas from the beginning that this administration have described as crises. eliot morris, really interesting information. thanks so much. we'll be talking to you again soon. coming up soon, the white house has said it has started the process of pulling all u.s. troops out of afghanistan. plus, the first pictures of jailed putin critic alexei navalny after ending his hunger strike. we'll tell you what came of his appearance inside a russian courtroom yesterday. russian courtroom yesterday. we made usaa insurance for members like kate. a former army medic, made of the flexibility to handle whatever monday has in store and tackle four things at once. so when her car got hit, she didn't worry. she simply filed a claim on her usaa app and said... i got this. usaa insurance is made the way kate needs it - easy.

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the biden administration says it has started the process of pulling all u.s. troops out of afghanistan. principle deputy press secretary kareen jean pierre made the

announcement yesterday. and she also revealed that an army ranger task force will be temporarily deployed to ensure pa safe and responsible withdraw. jean-pierre said, potential adversaries should know if they attack us in our withdrawal, we will defend ourselves and our partners with all the tools at our disposal. these deployments represent some of those tools. president biden announced plans earlier in the month to remove all u.s. troops from afghanistan by september 11th. katty kay, we've heard warnings from people, including former secretary of state hillary clinton about this withdrawal from afghanistan. the administration says it's time to come home after 20 years, there are an awful lot of people in this country, including the families of the troops who agree with that, but there are some red flags being put up by prominent americans in the foreign policy circles about this decision. >> yeah. and condi rice has added her voice to this, too, the former secretary of state under george bush. the concern is that america

pulls out and has to go back in again, as it did in iraq, right, when barack obama pulled out of iraq and then we saw islamic state sweeping to northern iraq and set up that caliphate there with, you know, terrible consequences for the region and for america, as well. and that's the concern here. we know that al qaeda has been operating in afghanistan already and we know that the taliban is gaining ground. the question is, the taliban seems completely unremorseful about its activities. in a bbc interview, they sounded like the taliban have evolved. they said, the taliban of yesterday is the taliban of today. the question is, if the taliban do manage to take large areas of the country, potentially even take kabul, do they give once again more of a safe haven to al qaida? and if american forces aren't there in some capacity, even the 2,500 that are there, training the afghan government, does that become a more likely situation? and then americans find themselves having to go back in

again, which seems to be the concern of secretary clinton and secretary rice, as well. the counterargument, of course, is if we don't do it now, when do we do it? america is not going to change afghanistan. it's not going to make it a peaceful, democratic society. it hasn't achieved very much over 20 years. stay another five years, stay another ten years, what's the difference? and that's the argument in the end that those around joe biden made that persuaded him the most that there was no real benefit to staying another year or two. >> so, jim vandehei, you have an item actually in axios about the house foreign affairs committee. some reporting out of there. they spoke to hillary clinton and they spoke to condi rice, as we mentioned, who effectively said, we're going to have to keep some counterterrorism force, perhaps outside the country, which by the way is exactly what the biden administration has proposed. it would be outside the borders of afghanistan and have the ability to go back. and condi rice reportedly just saying, flatly, we're going to have to go to back to afghanistan at some point.

>> for all the reasons that katty kay just talked about. listen, it is a brutal land, it's a brutal country. the taliban has been resurgent for some time. okay, it is there, can have a foothold and can metastasize. most people think that those two things will happen and it will expedite once we leave. katty kay is also right that's been true for a while and it will be true forever. and that has always been what has perplexed administrations. i think it's why donald trump said, he's going to go. why joe biden said, we're going to get you have to there and get out of there quick. because we have done what we can do. once you put those forces outside of afghanistan and start to see the taliban take over and see a surge in al qaeda or a surge in activity, then biden will have the real gut check, right? do you, does the administration authorize u.s. military forces to go back in and to do, whether it's special operations or whether it's a heavier

footprint, to go back in and try to tamp down on it. and that could lead us in a cycle where you're doing that almost forever. and it's just unfortunate. it's like the middle east. there are these that i think so that are soplex, they're almost impossible to solve. there's no real good solution. i think what joe biden is saying, because of that, let's get people out, let's have them nearby. if we have to go back in, we'll make that decision on a case by case basis, but our works is done. and my guess is it will continue to bedevil administrations for decades to come, was it certainly has for the totality of my lifetime. >> whether those troops remain in afghanistan or just outside of afghanistan, i think there's consensus that american troops will be on the ground at some point and going back in squashing the taliban case by case. in russia, the opposition leader alexei navalny was seen on camera yesterday for the first time since ending a three-week hunger strike in prison. the top critic of vladimir putin was noticeably thinner, of

course, but reportedly energetic during a court hearing to appeal his sentence. that appeal was ultimately denied. navalny's political network was also dealt a legal blow this week. a moscow city court ordered the group to suspend all activities pending a ruling on whether to label the network an extremist organization. as a result, navalny's top strategist says the group officially is dismantling that network. still ahead on "morning joe," florida is now the latest state to pass new measures that could make it more difficult to vote. we'll get into those new restrictions ahead on "morning joe." ions ahead on "morning joe.

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florida's legislature passed an election bill yesterday that includes restrictions on drop boxes and voting by mail. the bill focuses on drop boxes with limits on who can drop off voters' ballots there. a ban on moving drop boxes

within 30 days of election. it restricts where drop boxes can be placed and requires them to be monitored by election officials wherever they're open. voters must request to vote by mail more regularly. private funds cannot be used to pay election officials and new powers have been added for partisan observers. the law also will give governor ron desantis the leeway to appoint replacements to fill certain local political positions vacated by people running for higher office. governor desantis is expected to sign the bill. so, eugene daniels, as we sift through the details of this, republicans are defending it, saying it actually gives more access, but it's predicated on the idea again, as was georgia, that there is rampant fraud in our voting, which was proven again and again not to be true, most recently in 2020. >> no, 100%. and that's the issue with all of these bills, because this isn't the only one. obviously, this isn't the only

one. there are hundreds of these bills that have been introduced around the country according to the brennan center for justice, by republicans. and the issue that is going to be -- that is always going to come out is, like you said, it's predicated on this idea, this falsehood that the 2020 election had massive voter fraud, which we know is not true. the then president trump's intel community said as much at the time, and one was fired because he said that. so i think that's the i think that they're going to keep saying, you know, this is ant solution looking for a problem, as some people have put it, because republicans are talking and have been wanting to change the way that people in this country are able to vote spop and 2020 provided exactly what they needed. so what you'll keep hearing is this idea around election security. it sounds really good. the problem is and what will continue to be that we have always had secure elections.

we haven't had massive voter fraud in this country and republicans aren't going to be able to divorce the two. the problem they have with democrats or people who want to expand voting is that it doesn't really matter if they are running the state legislatures, if they have governorships. they're going to be able to pass these laws and sign them into legislation. and that's why you have in congress, democrats wanting to pass hr-1, which is this overhauling of democracy bill. but more importantly and the one that i think people haven't talked enough about, if you're thinking about this issue, is hr-4, which would add in some kind of specific language that was taken out of the voting rights act. and that's the john lewis voting rights act, named after the civil rights icon who passed away. and so i think that is the one that has less, i guess, less politics around it. that it's specifically about voting and the way if you want to change voting, you have to provide the why before you do so. and i think people should watch out for hr-4.

that conversation is going to be happening soon. it hasn't happened in the house or the senate. >> victoria, as you listen to state representatives talk about this new bill in florida, the argument is, we're cutting out fraud. again, there was no fraud in the 2020 election. it's based on that lie. but what is the practical impact of this law and others like the one in georgia, on the ability of people to vote, on access to the vote? >> well, willie, let me zoom out and remind everyone that the united states continues to rank towards the bottom of the barrel in terms of our voter turnout during presidential elections, when we have our high point in turnout, we're at about 60 plus president. that's relatively low when you look across countries, when we get into state and local elections, we're talking 20 to 30% turnout. this is really low. this is not good for a democratic nation. so i think that we need to always keep that big picture in

mind when we're talking about these voting bills. because what they do, in effect, is lower the ability of folks to take part in elections. we see here in texas, my home state, a very similar bill to the one in florida, taking shape and gaining some steam. for example, what we see in texas very similar to florida is restriction on early voting drop-off boxes. this is worrisome, but also worrisome within the context of the fact that section 5 of the voting rights act no longer exists. there's no longer that stopgap that we had previously and the piece that really worries me, in the texas bill and in others is how nonpartisan observer -- i'm sorry, partisan observers are given more leeway. what does that translate into? you're at the polling place, you're getting ready to vote, and you basically have carte blanche to get harassed. that is very worrisome.

so these bills -- i know they're tagged as being about election security, but they make me very nervous that we're backtracking towards the days before the 1965 voting rights act, which was supposed to really transform our country and make democracy really accessible. security, again, as we've all talked about here, we're not seeing these instances of voter fraud. we need to expand rather than restrict our democratic practices. >> we're going to talk about this and much more just ahead with the chairman of the democratic national committee, jamie harrison. he will be our guest next. plus, some new reporting that the justice department is now seeking an indictment against derek chauvin, the former minneapolis police officer charged in connection with the death of george floyd. "morning joe" is coming back in just a moment. "morning joe" is coming back in just a moment. cell phone repair. did you know liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need? just get a quote at libertymutual.com.

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counting is president biden's 100th day in office. and even his opponents, if they're honest, have to admit that he's accomplished a lot in those 100 days. 43% of the population is at least partially vaccinated now. the economy is up over 6% and our national level of malarkey has dropped to nearly historic lows. and in trump's first 100 days, he accomplished a lot, too. he tweeted that snoop dogg's career was failing, that nordstrom's was mean to ivanka, and that he was a better host of "the apprentice" than arnold schwarzenegger. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it is friday, april 30th, the last day of april. i'm willie geist. the bbc's katty kay, the ap's jonathan lemire are still with us, and joining the conversation, nbc contributor and so much more, mike barnicle, pulitzer prize winning author and presidential historian, dorris kearns goodwin, economic and policy analyst, heather mcgee and the great donny deutsch is with us as well.

joe and mika have the morning off. let's dive into some new polling giving president biden a positive approval rating, strong marks of the four crises that these identified under his presidency. the coronavirus, climate change, racial injustice, and the economic downturn. in the latest reuters/ipsos poll, 55% of americans approve of the president's job in office. 40% disapprove. on his handling of the issues, 55% approve of biden's handling of coronavirus, 29 disaprove. on the environment, 54% approve, 33 disapprove. on racial inequality, 51% approve, 37% disapprove. on the economy, 52% approve, 39% disapprove. on gun violence, 46% of americans approve of the president's performance, 48% disapprove. and on immigration, 42% approve while 48% disapprove. dorris, i want to start with you. that's a lot of numbers to

absorb, but on this 100-day mark of joe biden's presidency, there have been some comparisons to fdr and the new deal. obviously, not perfect comparisons, just in terms of the ambition, in terms of the money being sent out the door by the federal government. is there something there, as you look at those two administrations? >> yeah, i think the good reason why fdr has come into the conversation is that fdr made government a central figure in the discussion. he came in and said, i'll take action and responsibility and you'll see the government in a new role and the country loved that. there were headlines in the newspaper. the government still lives. we have a leader. and i think what happened is, that consensus about the importance of government lasted until ronald reagan in 1981, when he won before a joint session of congress, just as biden did the other night. and he said government is the problem, not the solution, and called for massive tax cuts and massive cuts in federal spending. and you had his consensus going

on really for another four decades. and conservatives became -- he became a transformational leader. and now you've got mr. biden back again, calling for government as a central player to make the economy move from the ground up, rather than trickle-down theory from the top down. so i think going back to what fdr was doing, we have cycles in american history, and those figures that you see, those popularity figures are not simply for president biden, but for the action of government. so if you can get trust in government again and move it along, then that will be an important power source for him to move forward on what he wants to do. >> yeah, mike barnicle, joe has been talking about that a lot this week, that really that speech the other night, the address to the joint session of congress by president biden marked the end of the 40-year reagan era, where in his first inaugural in 1981, he said that government is not the solution, government is the problem. joe biden making just the opposite case the other night. >> yes, he did, willie.

and he did it in a normal way. i mean, it wasn't a big, rhetorical flourish. it was an ordinary human being who happens to be president of the united states, addressing the nation. and doris, in the address the other evening, throughout the address, the language, the body movements, the emotion that he showed, it struck me that already similarities, that there might be a similarity. you're much more in tune, obviously, with franklin delano roosevelt than any of us are. but that there might be a similarity between joe biden and franklin delano roosevelt in the sense that both were underrated, i think, coming into office. and both were looked at by the political powers that be, both in the late 20s and early 30s, and in joe biden's case, for the last maybe 30 or 40 years, as you know, oh, that's just joe being joe. you know, he always wants to be

president. but now he is president of the united states. and i sense from looking at him that he's always in a well-tailored suit. the suits look great on him, but the suits don't hide the chip that he might still have on his shoulder, for the way he was treated when he was in the united states senate. people snickering behind his back. and the way he felt, actually. yeah, he didn't go to harvard or yale, he would say that to people. so now today, fast forward to the fact that he's president of the united states. and at the end of the day today, as a matter of fact, when he's in philadelphia, celebrating hopefully the renewal of amtrak and the rebuilding of amtrak, he goes to wilmington for the weekend, his home. he goes home quite often as president of the united states. and it strikes me that when he goes home, he goes home to be grounded. he goes home to continue the sense of normalcy that he values. and he views what we're going through as a country as 14 months of pain, misery,

dislocation, all of it, fracturing the economy and fracturing some families as well. and his idea isn't liberal or progressive. i don't think he's thinking of it that way. i think he might be thinking of it, what he wants to do, what he plans to do, as a common sense application of government to help people, much the way franklin delano roosevelt did in 1933 or '34. do you agree? >> i agree completely, mike. you said a whole bunch of things i agree with. to a certain extent, i think his conversational style of speaking resembles the fireside chats. he's talking intimately to the people. he's telling them how these laws will ask their daily lives. that's where coming from scranton and remembering what happened to his mom and his dad really becomes important. i think on a temperamental base, what he shares is the humility and the empathy that came in roosevelt's case from polio and the need to combat the idea that he had become paralyzed from the

waist down in one day and had to build his body back up. and he suddenly became more connected to other people to whom fate had dealt an unkind hand. how true for president biden, because of what he suffered in his life, and the resilience it takes come through those experiences i think they both shared. but i love what you said about that chip on the shoulder, because lyndon johnson's father used to tell him, if you brush up against the grindstone of life, you'll get more polish than any polish you'll get from having gone to harvard or yale. and what matters is what's in your head, in your heart, you know, your intuition, your empathy, humility, these other leadership qualities are more important than the label you get from going to one of those schools. >> heather, i've talked to a number of progressives over the last 100 days, especially in the last month or so, and they'll tell you privately and now many on the record will tell you publicly that they frankly are

surprised how much they've worked with joe biden and how much they've gotten of their agenda from this president who wasn't so along ago, he was branded as the moderate democrat in that field of presidential contenders and there were concerns that he wasn't bernie sanders or elizabeth warren and that he couldn't perhaps carry the mantle of progressive and that he was maybe a generation too old to understand it. but my goodness, when you look at the legislation that he's passed, the legislation that he's proposing, almost all of it's in there for progressives. >> yeah, it really is. and i think there's a sense of being able to breathe a little bit easier for people who -- you know, i don't think of it so much as left or right, but people who want to use the powers we have as a society together to solve the problems that we have as a society together. and that takes government. it takes collective bargaining to solve the problems on the job and it takes collective action through government to make sure that the united states of america no longer stands alone near the bottom of our peer countries in investing in the

things we have together. our roads, our bridges, our rural and urban broadband. the idea that we don't stand alone anymore in not offering our families the most precious asset we have. some breathing room through paid family leave and universal health care for doing what modern countries do, which is send two parents into the workforce. these are things we have been behind on. it is about progress. it's no so much about left or right, but about going forward. and in my book, "the sum of us," i make the link between our unwillingness over the past 50 years to give americans the things we need to have a decent standard of living. the way we turned our backs on the formula that created the greatest middle class that the world had ever seen, largely because of this racial resentment politics. and this is where president

biden has been able to square the circle. he has been able to speak directly as he has a number of times to the issue of race and racism in a way that doesn't feed the trolls, right? that doesn't give the right wing fodder for what they love to do, which is the simple playbook of trying to pass policies for the wealthy, but convincing the majority of white americans that it's somehow immigrants and struggling black and brown families' fault that their jobs are being shipped overseas and that their, you know, property taxes are going up while the wealthy's taxes keep going down. it's that idea that joe biden has been able to say, hey, this is common sense. racism isn't good for anyone. he actually said explicitly some of the things in my book which i was bowled over by. he said, it's not a zero sum, it's not about us versus them. racial equity is in everyone's interests. it's in the national interests. we can do this. >> and part of that, jonathan lemire, is why you're seeing republicans finding joe biden a

hard target, frankly, in talking about mr. potato head and dr. seuss, because of everything that heather just said, and also the policies he's putting forth are broadly popular with the american people. >> and even senator tim scott's rebuttal the other night was about joe biden's alleged divisiveness, which is just not a comfortable fit for this president, much like last year, all the attacks from donald trump claiming that biden was a socialist. those didn't work either. and willie, we obviously talked about last hour about how the president is about to hit the road here, he's selling the new plan, this sweeping infrastructure plan, but more than that, he's selling the idea of democracy itself that it can still work as a former of government. and donny deutsch, i'm told you know a thing or two about advertising and i want to get your take about what we heard from the president on wednesday. but this twin mission here, the nuts and bolts of the plan itself. the big road and bridges, but

also family leave, but also we need to prove that the government can still do something this big, it can still work. how effective has he been so far? >> he's been incredibly effective. if i work back from a marketing plan. in a marketing plan, you have three things. you have an objective, a strategy, and a tone and matter. and obviously, his objective and simple objective is to help people. and his meat and poets is infrastructure, is health care, is education, is these kitchen table issues to make your lives better. and then the tone and manner. and this goes back to what mike and doris were talking about, which is so critical here. is, when you want to do something dramatic, when you want to do something that really is pushing the ball way down the field, the way to do it is not screaming from the rooftops, but to kind of low key it. that kind of makes it go down easier. it's very interesting in a recent poll, who is the more liberal? joe biden or barack obama?

barack obama i think beat him by 12 or 15 points, which when you look at their legislation, there's no comparison at this point. if you landed on earth and said, who is the more progressive of the two, if you look at what they've done in the first hundred days is joe biden. when you look at objective strategy, tone and manner, that's why he's getting it done. when you want to get something dramatic done, you don't scream, you whisper. and i think his tone has been so pitch perfect. >> joe biden held a drive-in rally yesterday in duluth, georgia. joining us now, the chairman of the democratic national committee, jamie harrison who was with the president yesterday. good to see you this morning. let's get your snapshot of these first 100 days from president biden. what he's done, what he's proposing to do, and the ambitious agenda that he's laid out. >> well, thank you so much for having me, willie. listen. it is so refreshing to be able to go to bed at night and wake up in the morning and not have to look at your phone and worrying that the president of

the united states is going to say something or do something to endanger the american people. and for the first time in four years, many of us across this country are breathing a sigh of relief because we have a president in the white house who cares about the american people, who is working on behalf of the american people, and his focus is doing the very best that he can for the great people of this nation. these 100 days have been successful. and that's almost an understatement. think about where we were on inauguration day. i remember hearing an interview with dr. fauci who said that we wouldn't be, until the fall or the winter or even the spring of 2022, where we are right now. and that is because of the leadership we had at the white house. joe biden got into that white house and rolled up his sleeves and focused on addressing the

covid crisis. he made sure we passed the american rescue plan, where we got shots in arms and money in their pockets and people in jobs and kids back if school. so i'm extremely proud to be working with this president of the united states, because his focus has been on the american people. >> jamie, katty kay is here with a question for you. katty? >> jamie, part of the reason that republicans painted joe biden as a progressive is because of all the big things he's doing. but actually, when you look at what he's promising, it's what he said he was going to do in the campaign. it's just that he look moderate in the campaign because there were so many people running against him who were further to the left, who were more progressive than he is. where are those voices now and how does the party leadership satisfy the more progressive wing of the party? the people that joe biden was running against in the primaries, who may look at what he's doing and say, hey, what he's doing is not enough.

particularly on issues of voting rights and justice. >> the president talked about voting rights and those issues. and on a personal level, that is something that is so personal to me. and i've talked with the white house about the need and the necessity to really double down and focus on this. and i can tell you, joe biden's passionate about it. he understands what is at stake. and he understands that you have a whole swaths of communities who understand what voter suppression looks like. you know, people like my grandma, who growing up in south carolina, she didn't get to always get the opportunity to vote. she wasn't always considered a whole person. but now she has that opportunity. and we're not going back. and so this white house is committed, just like our democrats in the house and the senate to do something that should not be a partisan issue. every american in this country that is eligible to vote should have the opportunity to do so. and the republicans, what they're doing right now is downright shameful and the

democratic party under the leadership of joe biden is going to do all that we can to make sure that the most sacred right we have as american citizens is protected and that everybody can do it, utilize their right, unencumbered. >> jamie, heather mcgee has a question for you. heather? >> chairman harrison, the democratic party's agenda and the biden/harris agenda is really from all vantage points pretty popular with the american public, well over 50%, from some of the core issues from $15 to the pro act, the act that would make it easier for workers who want to join a union to organize and be recognized on the job. and yet there's something standing in the way of us moving many of those issues beyond the budget reconciliation. and so, for those of us who feel that this is a once in a generation opportunity to refill the pool of public goods for everyone, right? to really address inequality, what do you say to some in your

caucus or maybe in your donor base who want to preserve the jim crow-era relic of the filibuster exactly as it is and leave the minority veto in place, so we can't do what the majority of the american people seem to want? >> heather, thank you for your question. i know it's just important, and i tell this to democrats all the time. if we make promises, let's keep our promises. and that's what you see with joe biden, he's made promises on the campaign trail and we'll do everything we can to keep it. as it relates to the issue of the filibuster, at the very least, if folks want to filibuster the john lewis voting rights act, let them stand up in the well of the floor, put some on some depends, let their feet bleed or whatever and let the american people see that they are filibustering. they are touching base with strom thurmond and they are going to stand there and filibuster the voting rights act.

let them filibuster and stand on the floor and go against the equality act. why -- they love to talk about the founders. thomas jefferson and the declaration of independence, he said all men -- i say all people are created equal. if that is the case, why can't we pass a bill that is called the equality act where we codify to make sure that all people are treated that way. if lindsey graham or anybody wants to go and filibuster that, stand up in the well and let the american people see you for who you are. and at the very least, i believe that we need to do that. and so i believe, heather, that these issues are going to be brought up. you know, senator schumer has a lot of skills and he knows how the senate operates and he knows his caucus. i'll leave it to him to figure out how we get to that point, but i know we have to get there. >> chairman harrison, i'm curious on your take for some comments made this week by james carville who won a couple of presidential elections with bill

clinton, where he talked about the sort of elite view from democratic politics. he said, wokeness is a problem and everybody knows it, they just won't say it out loud. the crux of his argument is that he wants to grow the majority. he wants more than 50/50 in the senate, as you do, i know. it's your job. he wants to grow the majority in the house so you can get all of this legislation through, but really the heart of his argument was that the democratic party is viewed out in the country by many people as sort of a coastal, elite, arrogant party, and that the language and the voice of activists and elitist is not representative of how people live their lives. what the you make of his take, if you were able to read through it? >> listen, i love carville, and there's some truth to what he said. i went to law school and one of the things after coming back from law school, my grandfather told me, you know, you can speak plain english, right? and ultimately, working people just want somebody and their leaders to speak plain english.

to speak to them in the way that they operate, in the space that they operate in. and sometimes i get frustrated, as well, with some of the terms and the phraseology that's out there, but what we have to do is this, willie. ultimately, we have to see people where they are. we have to see them, hear them, value them, and ultimately for us as leaders, we have to fight for them. and those are the tenants that i believe that if our candidates and our party does, then we will continue to put our finger on the pulse of where the american people are and continue to build upon our majorities. so again, to all of our candidates, speak plain english. let's focus on the bread and butter issues that are important to all of the american people, from our dirt roads in rural communities to the blocks in urban communities. and if we can do that, we will be the majority party in this great nation. >> speak plain english.

that's a good bumper sticker. dnc chairman jamie harrison, always good to see you, sir. thanks for your time this morning. now to the latest developments with rudy giuliani, whose role in the trump administration's ousting of an ambassador reportedly has landed him in the middle of a federal investigation. people familiar with the matter tell "the new york times" that investigators are looking into whether giuliani broke lobbying laws surrounding the firing of former ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch. fbi agents seized computers from giuliani's home in manhattan. at least one of the warrants sought evidence related to yovanovitch and her role as ambassador. they also sought giuliani's communications with ukrainian officials who had butted heads with the former ambassador. according to the sources, that includes some of the same people who also were helping giuliani seek damaging information about joe biden and his family. meanwhile, "the washington post" is reporting that the fbi warned

rudy giuliani back in 2019 that he was the target of a russian influence operation. people familiar with the matter tell "the post" that the disinformation campaign was intended to damage then candidate biden politically before the election. several current and u.s. officials say that the effort was part of an extensive effort to alert members of congress and the conservative media outlet one america news that they risked being used toll further russia's attempt to influence the election outcome. last summer, the fbi also gave what is known as a defensive briefing to republican senator ron johnson. this brings us to pulitzer prize winning historian and rogers chair in the american presidency at the vanderbilt university, jon meacham. great to see you. you just launched a new limited run podcast titled "fact of fact ", which you say examines how and why conservative americans,

many of them, have become prone to disinformation and to anti-democratic narrators. so dive into that a little, jon, and how it might relate to rudy giuliani. >> yeah, we're in this flight from fact. the world for the last five years on the right, in particular, has been a reality show that, of course, the tragedy was that it actually was all of our reality. and i think what we're seeing is not a five-year drama, but more like a 60 or 70-year drama. that many folks on the right, and these are the people that probably would not have signed up with donald trump on the day of the escalator, but who have made their peace and are now very much with him. you have a sense that -- you see the sense of grievance, of

victimhood that on the right, they believe that the culture politics, everything's a raid against them. so the drama is, the motivating story is to take america. well, that presupposes, right, that it has been taken away from them. and so one of the things that has fascinated me now for five years is why have so many seemingly rational folks stepped into a wilderness of mirrors, to borrow a phrase from the cold war. stepped into, as giuliani promulgated, the big lie of the stolen election. stepped into a universe that's disassociated from the self-evident reality around us. and you can disagree with what the left wants to do. you can disagree with what the democratic party wants to do. that's fine. that's america. but it's not true that there's a

parallel disassociation on the left. this is an ambient reality on the right. and my sense is this goes back really to the end of world war ii. you have a sense, a lot of conservatives believe that fdr stabbed us in the back at yalta. that he sold out to stalin. you have, from eisenhower through george w. bush, you had a series of republican presidents who ran talking one way, but then ultimately governed more or less from the center right. and so, the warren court, the brown versus the board of education, the miranda decision, the school prayer decision in the 50s and early '60s. that was a court whose chief justice was appointed by the first republican president in 20 years. eisenhower. richard nixon ran one way, right?

and yet creates the epa, proposes a guaranteed income, you know, proposes a health care plan to the left of where obama was. and goes to china. and so -- and then president reagan, whom we've been talking about, federal spending rose under ronald reagan. so did deficits. he never made a serious effort to pass a pro-life amendment to the constitution, to pass a school prayer amendment to the constitution. and if you asked george w. bush, he would tell you that there's a line between t.a.r.p., the bailing out of wall street in 2008 and trump. so i want to take a step back and look at why is it that so many folks who would have been reagan, romney, mccain republicans, why are they taken this turn into disinformation? and i think part of it is, they feel that even the establishment, at some level,

did not deliver for them. and we've got to fix that. >> yeah. i mean, as you say, jon, there's always been suspicion of government, suspicion of media, suspicion of elites. we've all lived that and experienced that, but there was something else that happened with donald trump, which you get at in this podcast. we've talked about this. we've got friends, who are smart people, who were sending me stories about an italian internet company that changed votes and voting machines. and they wanted to believe so much of this. so what is your sense of why rationale people so went along for the ride on the big lie? >> i think that you always seek out information that affirms what you already believe, right? that's kind of a natural human impulse. one of the great things about america and one of the great things about the enlightenment, actually, was that we were supposed to have the capacity to

resist that. we were supposed to actually follow reason, even if we didn't agree with it. i think that there's something appealing about narratives that suggest -- and this is a point real made best by richard hofstetter at columbia in the fall of 1964. it's comforting to believe that there is a conspiracy out there. it's comforting to think that there are unseen forces against you, because it lifts your own role in the world, right? you're not just losing an election. you are a victim of ukrainian machines and all of that stuff that giuliani and all of those folks were out there telling us in the parking lot of the store. there's something -- i can't even remember what it was -- the four seasons. that's right. >> four seasons landscaping. how could we forget? >> that's it. that's it. so the four seasons landscaping, to some extent is a modern-day

yalta. it's this place where something happened, right? or what was it, dominion in the ukrainians and everybody's changing everything. and so it's this inherently interesting and evaluating story. because suddenly you're battling for your very existence against these powerful forces. you're not just losing an election. and there's something -- you spent 15 minutes in conservative media, either online or on television and it's urgent, right? it's armageddon. it's unfolding. you know. it's -- the president's dog is not really a great dog, you know. that's a betrayal of america. it's everything comes at you at the same rate, and inherently

dramatic. and one of the issues we have in this country is we have a machinery of perpetual partisan conflict that has to run all the time. and it doesn't matter what the quality of the fuel is. so some days it's dr. seuss, some days it's something real. the lie of the stolen election is high grade fuel. and i think that what we have to do and what i would urge friends on the right to do is go back to the american insight that we can use reason and not simply follow our ambitions. >> mike barnicle, mark down the date. it was the 30th day of april, 2021, the year of our lord, that jon meacham compared the four seasons landscaping next to the crematorium and porn job to yalta. >> yeah. a modern-day yalta. that was worth getting up for early this morning in itself.

four seasons landscaping is a modern-day yalta. wow! with two acclaimed historians here on the program this morning, dorris kearns goodwin is with us as well as jon meacham, dorris, i want to start with you off of what we just heard mr. meacham say, not the modern-day yalta, but this fire hose of division that the country has experienced and still experiences this day, its origins are up for argument. it could be newt gingrich who decided it wasn't enough to defeat on thes, you had to destroy them, you had to demonize them, and that carried on through the '90s. but for the last four years, america has experienced an expert in using division, an expert in using language and his physical presence in dividing and rate baiting people.

and maybe there is a theory out there held by a lot of people today that what we are experiencing today is not that much different than what we have experienced over the past four years, it's just that the temperature has been turned down and we have someone now with common sense and a demeanor that can be identified by ordinary people speaking to us as president of the united states. but how long and how difficult would it be for an acclaimed historian such as yourself or meacham as to how we got here and the impact of these last four years of language and behavior out of the oval office, the damage that it has done to this country and to institutions of government in our country? do you think anyone, any historian would be up to that task? >> it's going to take a little while to figure it all out in

terms of what his presidency was about. but i think it can be understood right now what happened between the election and january 20th, it's hard to imagine that any historian is not going to look at that with great disfavor. to not accept the results of the election, no president has ever done that before. to not go to the inauguration, to not have a graceful transition of power. and to keep talking about the fact that the election was lost. i mean, we were talking before about president biden's ability to have a conversational style with the people. what that meant, it was by using simple language. he, too, didn't want to have big words. somebody wrote a draft for him, which said, i want a more inclusive society, and he rewrote, no, i want a society in which no one feels left out. president trump said before he got in, i will be so boring as a president, i'll be so presidential, that i will be boring. i mean, the thought of that is just incomprehensible now. but there's one other aspect i think we have to add into this flight against fact. and that is the nature of the media right now.

the partisan nature of the media. it happened in the 19th century. you could have a wig newspaper or a republican newspaper, a democratic newspaper get completely different facts. not just opinions, but facts, if lincoln was in a debate with steven douglas in the democratic newspaper, they would say he was so terrible, he fell on the floor and he had to carry him out. if you're listening to the republican newspaper, he was so triumphant, they carried him out on their arms. and that's the problem. you get a leader in there who is not telling the facts. you get a media machine. one person is telling the other, the other is -- and people don't know what is grounding them. and it's very hard in a democracy to lead if you don't have a sense of where the facts are. we can argue about opinions, but when facts are at issue, it's a really difficult time. and that's where we are now. but things are moving. things are moving. we're not thinking about mr. trump every day. we're not waking up in the morning thinking, oh, my god, as he was saying before, what did he say? and that means we're leading our

lives, our daily lives have a greater importance than what political people are saying at every moment in time. >> there's more oxygen in the room for sure. great conversation with two great historians. dorris kearns goodwin, thank you very much. jon meacham, thank you, as well. i want you to go to your room and think about what you said here today about yalta and four seasons landscaping. the new podcast is from jon's podcast studio, shining city audio, which is producing a number of new series and documentaries centered around history. and if jon's involved, you can bet it's going to be good. guys, thank you very much. heather, it's interesting to think about this disinformation we've been talking about here. we were talking earlier about the new law in florida, the voting law in florida. we've talked for many weeks about what's happening in georgia and the fact that they are predicated on this disinformation, on the idea that there was voter fraud in the 2020 election. the defense you hear from members of the state legislature in the last couple of days in florida, they say, well, you know, we've got to do something about the fraud and this will

tighten up our elections. again, the foundation is built on the lie that there's rampant fraud in our voting. >> that's right, let's be very clear, it's a racist lie that has its common sense from two core ideas. one, that the man who won the majority of the white vote, donald trump, as has ever person running against a democrat since lyndon johnson signed the civil rights act, is the legitimate president, right? and someone who was elected by a multi-racial majority cannot possibly be the legitimate president, right? there's a sense of disbelief among trump supporters, often because they live in very segregated places, where there's only trump signs on the lawn. the sense that something nefarious happened in big cities, like detroit and atlanta, and of course, read that in the context of america's pervasive racial stereotypes. and the association between what black and brown people do and something criminal or illegal

and illicit. so you have those two ideas. is sort of inherent legitimacy of the white vote and the inherent criminality or illegitimacy of what black and brown people do to exercise their citizenship. and you get the fuel for this lie. the problem is that this lie is hurting all americans. and this is the idea that's so core, that so often, what is happening in -- when elites try to convince struggling americans that their greatest enemy is a brown or black family down the road that we are in fact taking our eye off the ball. we have foreign nations using our racial divisions and mistrust in order to weaken our own government, in order to fracture our country. that should show us, as the president said in his joint address, that white supremacist terrorism is the most persistent

and legal threat in the homeland. and that this core fear of diversity, this sense of a zero sum racial hierarchy that progress or even the presence of people of color has to come at white people's expense is our achilles heel as a nation. and only through coming together across lines of race and rejecting the easy scapegoating answers, can we actually heal and move forward for the benefit of all of us. >> reporter: heather mcgee, always great to have your perspective on the show. good to see you this morning. heather's latest book is "the sum of us," what racism costs everyone and how we can prosper together. still ahead on "morning joe," our next guest is a psychologist and best-selling author who's managed to diagnose what he says is the dominant emotion after a year of covid. we'll explain that. and as we head to break, we are leading up to the launch of the nbc news special event, inspiring america, highlighting

extraordinary people making a positive impact in their communities. the inspiring america 2021 inspiration list airs tomorrow, may 1st on nbc at 8:00 p.m. and right here on msnbc on sunday, may 2nd, at 10:00 p.m. eastern. you're watching "morning joe," we're back if just two minutes. " 'rwee back if just two minutes , all welders, and roofers. engineers and electricians. calling all brick masons and boiler makers. steel workers and steam fitters your country is calling you to rebuild america. to create a cleaner, safer, more prosperous future for all. tackling climate change, this is the job of our lifetime. it's time to build back better. let's get to work. when it comes to autism, finding the right words can be tough. finding understanding doesn't have to be.

together, we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org we know how much you count on us... ...and that's why we're here 24/7... ...and on the road maintaining a fast and reliable network. we're always working to ensure the internet meets your needs... ...by making access easier for all... ...with comcast lift zones and our internet essentials program. we're invested in making our apps easy... ...to give you personalized assistance around the clock. and we're committed to keeping our team and customers safe by working from home... ...and using precautions in store. see what we're up to at xfinity.com/commitment

on iran and north korea, nuclear programs that present serious threats to american security and the security of the world. we're going to be working closely with our allies to address the threats posed by both of these countries through diplomacy as well as stern deterrence. >> that was president biden on wednesday night during his first address before congress, promising to confront iran and north korea over their nuclear threats. joining us now from london, nbc news senior international correspondent keir simmons with

much more on this >> the reality is, it isn't just diplomacy in vienna where the nuclear talks with iran are taking place or diplomacy with tehran, it's diplomacy in washington, where it wasn't just republicans, but some democrats saying they don't want to go back to obama-era agreements with iran. we have been looking closely at how president obama may only have a short window to make this crucial piece of his foreign policy work. >> reporter: at the height of president trump's standoff with iran, then candidate joe biden didn't mince his words. >> his constant mistakes and poor decision making have left us the united states with a severely limited slate of options for how to move forward. and most of those options are now bad. >> reporter: and now, over a

year later, america's return to diplomacy with iran is getting an icy reception. nuclear negotiations in vienna on a knife edge with the iranian delegation refusing to meet with american negotiators. do you believe that the biden administration is prepared to walk away if what iran wants is not what's good for the u.s. and its allies? >> i do. i don't believe that the biden administration is going to allow itself to be bullied by the supreme leader or anybody else. >> reporter: the clock started ticking when president trump pulled out of the first nuclear deal in 2018. >> the iran deal is defective at its core. if we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen. >> reporter: and in the wake of trump's withdrawal, a dramatic mix of diplomacy and espionage have upped the stakes. last year, the u.s. assassinated iranian commander qasem soleimani in a drone strike in

iraq, while the abraham accords have thawed relations between israel and the persian gulf states, iran's enemies. in november, the head of iran's nuclear program was assassinated. israel was accused in the killing and of masterminding an explosion at iran's uranium enrichment plant, allegations it neither confirms or denies. in response, iran increased its uranium enrichment to 60%, its highest level ever. and just last week, sa-5 surface-to-air missile fired from syria landed near an iranian nuclear react. amid this escalating shadow war, both democrats and republicans demanding a different deal, while president biden has offered an easing of some sanctions. >> look, you know, we understand trying to stop iran's pathway to a nuclear weapon. that's the key issue. and we support efforts to

achieve that, but we also believe that questions of ballistic missiles and their refinement in terms of capabilities, that their destabilization of the region, that they're continuing being the number one export of terrorism. those things have to be dealt with. >> reporter: if negotiators were to return to what has been called a longer and stronger deal, he says, then more concrete measures could be taken to legally preserve it. >> if somehow there is a more significant proposal, where iran is actually going to amend some of its nefarious activities for far more significant sanctions relief, maybe we should even consider a treaty process, so all sides would understand that a disruption in an administration or a change in an administration from one to the other won't end the obligations on all sides. >> reporter: but there is a massive gulf between that and what tehran says. ali arouzi is nbc's tehran bureau chief. >> is what we're hearing from

tehran really what they think or just what they say they think? >> well, look, they're being pretty open about it. they want a return to the jcpoa by the u.s. >> but under certain conditions. under the same terms? >> yeah, basically, under the same terms they signed in 2015. they don't want to discuss anything beyond the nuclear file. if the u.s. wants the strengthen and lengthen the jcpoa, as they've put it, that's a deal breaker for iran. >> reporter: back in tehran, ali took senator menendez' comments to an exclusive interview with iran's foreign minister spokesman. >> it's important for washington to understand that the vienna talk is no for a new round of give and take or bargaining or negotiation. all the give and take and bargaining was concluded in july 2015. they broke the deal. they have to fix it. this is the main logic that we

think that everybody understands. anything less than a wholesale singular step removal of all sanctions is not acceptable by tehran. >> he said they should maybe consider a treaty, that would be ratified by the senate. wouldn't a treat write be better for iran? wouldn't you want something more concrete, that can't be unraveled? >> washington has showed to everybody that it's capable of violating even treaties. the government, when make a commitment, they have full obligation to commit. and we think that the united states showed that even treaty cannot make them to respect their words. >> reporter: the clock is ticking in iran, too. president rouhani, who secured the original deal, is leaving office. and iran is weeks from an election that could potential see a hard liner elected president. but there is another huge factor. the iranian people are

suffering. inflation on some goods is over 68%, up to 60 million iranians now living below the poverty line. after president trump imposed the most extensive sanctions in history. history. [ speaking foreign language ] >> it's a complex picture with high stakes. without a deal, the shadow war rick risks becoming a real war and the specter of a nuclear arms race sits in the balance. >> keir, we heard joe biden in the state of his address to congress saying that there was little trust around the world that america would stick to what it is saying to its allies. and it seems here, on the nuclear issue in iran, we have a

real live very hot, potentially very dangerous example of that lack of trust. how does the u.s., how does this administration persuade the iranians, look, you can take this one to the bank, there's not going to be another reversal. that's what all of america's allies are saying on almost every issue at the moment. >> yeah. it's a really, really good question. it goes to the heart of it. i do think though right now we're at the question of how does america even do a deal. blinken talking to the israelis just this week being told quite clearly that they are concerned. meanwhile, the iranians have been saying that these talks have been making real progress, maybe even 60% or 70% progress. so i guess another question is president biden prepared to take the heat in washington for going back to the 2015 deal and, as you say, will the iranians trust that deal? i think the iranians want a

deal. clearly they want sanctions lifted. and they are a fairley sanguine about the idea that things may change in american politics. now adam grant, author of the book "think again," the power of knowing what you don't know. we want to pick up on a conversation we started with adam a couple of weeks ago stemming from his much discussed piece in the "new york times" explaining there's a name of the blah you're feeling, it's called languishing. it wasn't depression. we didn't feel hopeless. we just felt somewhat joyless and aimless. it turns out there's a name for that. languishing. it's great to see you again. let's pick up where we left off with this idea of languishing. it's been so long now.

we've sort of fallen into this feeling that i think most of us couldn't quite identify over the last year or so. but you've given it a name. what are the symptoms? what is it exactly? >> languishing is basically a sense of stagnation and emptiness. it's the feeling that you're in a void, that you're a little bit joyless and aimless. it almost feels like you're looking at life through a foggy windshield. and i think a lot of people have noticed that when they feel like they're languishing, it's hard to focus. even though there's an end to the pandemic at some point somewhere on the horizon. the unpredictability and uncertainness of this experience means we don't know when it's going to end and we feel like we're stuck. >> it's been so interesting to talk to people, even in my friends and family. we all have this assumption that we cannot wait for this to end, which is, of course, true, and we've gotten some green chutes

of hopeful with people being vaccinated. new york will be open again for business on july 1st, but there are people now who are saying, wait, i'm not sure i'm ready to step back into my previous life. >> yeah. i think the big fact of 2020 is it forced us to rethink a lot of assumptions and behaviors and habits that we had taken for granted. and my hope in 2020 and beyond is that we choose to do our thinking a little more deliberately and proactively. what too many of us have done is we've gone to escapism. we've said, okay, i'm going to get lost in a movie or binging or a tv show. the problem with that is it's passive. obviously, we would love to change our broader circumstances. when you can't with do that, the best thing you can do is change your actions. that total state of absorption and immersion where your sense

of time and place and feeling disappears because you're so imbed in the activity. for some people, that comes with making music. for others, it's dancing or cooking or reading a great novel. and i think once we notice where we can find flow, we can seek it out more often and that gives us a sense of moving forward progress. >> all right. donnie deutsch has a question for you. >> i see the opposite side of stagnation right now, you have people that have been on the sideline for the last year in every way, shape or form and we're going to head into the roaring 20s. my mother-in-law, research, feeling people out, people are ready to go and it's been a slumber. and i kind of am very bullish on the american psyche right now. >> donnie, i hope you're right. i think it's represented well in

a piece austin clingon wrote the other day. he said i'm not languishing, i'm dormant, like a volcano waiting to be activated. and i think a lot of people are languishing because they're waiting to be activated and they don't feel like the world is in a place yet where they can flourish, where they can connect with people and pursue their goals. and i hope when the world starts to open up, we can move in that direction. >> mike, you can see that almost immediately. it helped that it was beautiful in new york city this week, but people were outside taking the mask off, living, running, biking, sitting in the park. there is that pent up happiness as donnie says. >> yeah. and add amend, that pent up happiness exhibited by many people around us, especially over the last few weeks, let me ask you, the roots of

languishing, you think the roots of languishing may be the largest and ever growing root was the lack of socialization that many people felt because they were entombed in their homes, they were doing everything remotely and they weren't getting an opportunity to bump into people they saw every day who they may not like or dislike. but that lack of socialize, the impact it must have had on a lot of people. >> yeah. this is even true for introverts. the data shows extroverts and introverts are equally socialized by interactions. introverts are more easily stimulated. i know of invoe veterans came into this pandemic thinking this is my time to thrive, independence and alone time and

a lot of introverts have been struggling as much as extroverts because we all crave that human connection. >> thank you, adam. so great to see you. have a good weekend. we'll see you again soon. coming up next, we have a special "morning joe" report on president biden's first 100 days in office. the early accomplishments, the unexpected crises and the ambitious agenda he's still trying to get through. a special hour of "morning joe" is coming up next. and coming up on sunday on nbc, i will have as my guest dwayne "the rock" johnson on sunday today talking about his rise from professional wrestling to become the most bankable movie star in the world and, yes, we get into the talk around him possibly running for president. what does he think about all that? we get into it on sunday. in our divided country, there aren't that many people we all agree on any more.

is that something that still interests you, dwayne? >> so i do have that goal to unite our country. and i also feel that if this is what the people want, then i will do that. i am passionate about making sure that our country is united. because a united country, as we know, is strong and i want to see that for our country. and i see that for our country (shaq) magenta? i hate cartridges. not magenta, not magenta. i'm not going back to the store. magenta! cartridges are so... (buzzer) (vo) the epson ecotank. no more cartridges! it comes with an incredible amount of ink that can save you a lot of frustration. ♪♪ the epson ecotank. just fill and chill.

welcome to our special coverage marking joe biden's 100 days since election. the past three months have shown the biden white house inherited a country reeling from the pandemic and the challenge of getting millions of vaccines to every corner of america. there was the economic fallout from that virus and the no holds barred fight on capitol hill to fund the nation's badly needed recovery. overseas, china and russia continue to test the american experiment for weak spots, raising the stakes on the world stage. we've got all of this covered

this morning, but first, what makes the 100 day benchmark so significant? to tackle that question, let's bring in author and nbc news presidential historian michael beschlash. thank you. >> as joe biden is going into office, there are always people trying to draw parallels. a lot of people were talking about fdr. i was talking about harry truman. but, actually, when you talk about the first 100 days, doesn't that go back to fdr? >> it does. it really was almost public relations. at the beginning of the presidency, 1933, the banks were closed, we were in a terrible depression, the country seemed to be coming to its knees. and fdr did things like reopening the banks, you know, establishing institutions, restoring confidence that made people feel better within the first 90 or 100 days.

so roosevelt's aid said why don't we sort of say the first 100 days is a real important benchmark for everyone president and look at how roosevelt has passed the test, which he sure did. probably every president since then has rued the day that roosevelt did that because, oftentimes, a president does not show his duff during that first period. >> michael, the new deal was unique historically in its scope. but president biden has drawn comparisons to fdr in his ambitions, his legislative ambitions. if you look at the sheer numbers that we're talking about, up into the trillions on a couple of different packages. how do you compare in that way legislatively what joe biden has done so far, what he hopes to do in the next few weeks compared to fdr? >> this is what they call a transforming president, meaning a president who is not just trying to fix problems he's dealing with, but also change the system so that those

problems are less likely to happen again. and that is why we honor fdr. he said we're going to have the government more involved in helping people directly from washington than has ever been the case before because in a modern economy, there are too many dangers. and lbj in 1965 said federal government has to move in to make sure there are civil rights and booty wipes and help in education and people who are poor get direct help and all sorts of other things like medicare. all these things changed the face of the american political system in a way that affects us to this day. so biden has used the force of the presidency to fight the pandemic in a way that sure didn't happen under donald trump. no talk about injecting bleach or disinfectant or ultraviolet rays. you see the federal government moving in and if biden had not

fought the pandemic effectively, we certainly would be hearing about it. the economy is better in all sorts of ways and also the threats of democracy which we saw on the 6th of january at the of that insurrection, i gausht you that if joe biden had not done well during these first 100 days, you would see people saying we have to take power in our own hands against the federal government against the president. >> we have seen a return to constitutional norms to basic political norms that often were skirted over the past four years during the trump presidency. we also saw a difference in how covid was tackled. there was a lot of disinformation coming out of donald trump's press conferences. even if you compare them to what he said privately so journalist bob woodward, is that perhaps the biggest difference? >> it is the biggest difference.

that is the most basic job a president has, as you well know, joe, is to help americans protect themselves when their lives are at stake. donald trump was shamefully negligent. he never did that. one my say over half a million americans, many of those people died needlessly would not have died had you had a more competent president. now we've got one. >> michael, i want to show a picture that you actually tweeted earlier this week. i've put it at the top of my twitter -- of my twitter page. because i think it defines not only the can do american character of 1945, but also i still see a lot of this in american entrepreneurs, in american health care workers, in americans across this country.

people who believe anything is possible. >> a great president who certainly had flaws, but a great president said we americans help to build -- can help to build a mighty war effort that can topple adolf hitler and did so in about three years. and this time in 1945, not only we, but our allied partners were not only rushing on berlin to conquer berlin, hitler was in the bunker and you had a wonderful picture of this guy who was a paratrooper, as you know, who is there enjoying hitler's cognac in his alpine retreat. what better symbol of the fact that not only did america and its partners win the war in europe, but we did it with citizen soldiers.

he was not a professional. >> michael beschlash, thank you so much for coming on with us. now to the major debates unfolding in washington over the president's ambitious agenda. he kicked off if term with a rush of executive actions, including a reversal of donald trump's hard line immigration policies. this as congress started its term by impeaching and ultimately acquitting the former president for instigating the riot on capitol hill. early last month, president biden signed into law one of the largest stimulus measures in u.s. history, a $1.9 trillion relief package. now it's on to infrastructure where the democrats' $2.2 trillion blueprint to improve roads, bridges, airports, and much, much more. let's bring in white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lamere, kasie

hunt and eddie law jr. can infrastructure be done on a bipartisan basis? >> the white house hopes so and is trying, but there are certainly doubts ever present about this. let's push back to the $1.9 trillion covid relief bill that president biden had republican lawmakers over to the white house. there were dozens of calls made from the west wing to the various republican lawmakers trying to get them on board. the only koernt offer was woefully insignificant in the president's eyes. there were some republican

mayors who supported it and broad support from republican voters, therefore, it's bipartisan. the infrastructure jobs plan, even bigger than the covid relief, it's the same idea. it polls well with republican voters. and, therefore, they're hoping there will be pressure made on republican lawmakers to get them on board. they're also giving themselves more time. this isn't the urgent need like the covid vaccine was and to get those checks into americans' wallets. the white house knows if needed they can do it on a party line vote just with democrats. >> eddie, when you look at the first 100 days, there was the immediate unwinding of president trump's legacy, rejoining the paris accords, rejoining the

w.h.o., rekrinding the transgender ban in the military. then there are these big legislative bands thomas was just talking about. looking at the first 100 days, what is your impression of the job president biden has done? >> i've been quite impressed and surprised on a number of levels. it's as if covid-19 was a blue dye shot into the social body of american life generally. and what we saw were where all of the illnesses were located. it was systemic. in some ways, over the last 40 years, we have failed to invest in so many ways in american public live. so covid looked at the scale of the problem. but i also want to say there's some stuff less glamorous. over the last four years, one of the ames of the administration was to deconstruct the administrative state. what happened at state?

what happened at d.o.j.? what was happening in the department of the interior? so one of the things that biden has done over the last hundred days is to, in some ways, insist on competency. and that's not a glamorous effort in the news, but what he's been trying to do is rebuild government. so that we can actually address the problems we face, willie. >> that is such an important point. because too often we look at the bigger issues. look at justice and look at thou professionals who had dedicated their lives working at the justice department have been attacked, felt so marginalized during the trump era. same thing with state.

the same thing with the men and women who work in our government. so many good people were run out of american government. this certainly hopefully guarantees that more people want to come back in the coming years. >> absolutely. the value placed on competency in the midst of the crisis we face as a country is unmeasurable in some ways. so it seems to me so important as we assess these first 100 days, joe, that we understand the importance of the major legislative effort from the rescue plan to infrastructure to american families to the way in which he has to address policing reform but the way in which the biden administration is trying to retool government, we cannot lose sight of that as we think about the efforts of this administration in the first 100 days, joe. >> kasie hunt, we've talked so much over the first 100 days about republicans, what are they willing to do, how are they willing to compromise. let's talk about democrats for a minute because republicans have,

over the first 100 days, for the most part, decide they were just going to say no to, for instance, the infrastructure plan. so let's talk about the democrats. what is the state of the democratic caucus, especially in the senate, with joe manchon and kierston sinema on holding their own on the issues important to them? >> it's a very delicate balance, joe. 50/50 senate. the margin even in the house is so incredibly narrow, we have point where we're talking about will nancy pelosi be able to hold it together. and that's really the needle that president biden has successfully been able to thread in his first 1 hin days. but the reality is it doesn't necessarily get easier from

here. and what they've done at the outset is pull progressives from the fold. they have made significant outreach efforts, put policies, projects into the covid relief bill or the infrastructure package, but they are not necessarily able to do that at every turn. and that i think is going to be the ultimate question as to the success ultimately of president biden and his term as well as democratic rule in washington. can they hang together? republicans couldn't do it. and it led to donald trump. so that is going to be the key test for him. >> kasie, h.r. 1 and h.r. 4, h.r. 4 being john lewis's voting rights bill, those are so important for the democratic party moving forward. i had been assuming all along that joe manchon would figure out a way to reverse engineer the position where he's from now against the filibuster to find

the exception of voting rights. no evidence of that yet as joe goes out of his way to basically ask reporters, what don't you get? i'm not going to change my position on the filibuster. >> i think we can leave that door open a crack, but over and over again, he said no, no way. even on something like that. and i think that's going on be the challenge for chuck schumer who is also trying to balance this same set of issues. he has potentially a primary from alexandria ocasio-cortez. manchon is really enjoying his time in the spotlight as really the most important senator in many ways.

it's become almost a joke. kamala harris showed up in west virginia and joe manchon was not pleased about that and they haven't made those mistakes up since. up next, republicans didn't seem to mind spending like drunken socialists when donald trump was president, using your words, so why all the pushback now when american infrastructure is the topic? that conversation is just ahead on morning joe. with liberty mutual — they customize my car insurance so i only pay for what i need. 'cause i do things a little differently. hey, i'll take one, please! wait, this isn't a hot-dog stand? no, can't you see the sign? wet. teddy. bears. get ya' wet teddy bears! one-hundred percent wet, guaranteed! or the next one is on me! only pay for what you need.

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go online to transfer your services in about a minute. get started today. president biden has spent many of his first 100 days in office pushing for ways to get the nation back to work. flashback to just over one year ago when the number of lost jobs in america was literally off the charts. that is where massive government

relief, a plan came into play. things have stabilized since then, but one thing is clear. the pandemic has changed the american economy in real and lasting ways. let's bring in cnbc's senior congressional correspondent elon my. very good to have you on the show. let's talk about how the economy has changed in a way that will last beyond the pandemic. >> yeah, mika, there's no question that right now the economy is, overall, coming back. when you look at the last official measure that we had of gdp at the end of last year, it was something like 4% economic growth that we were seeing. now the latest projections are that the economy is growing at a rate of 8%. when you look at the number of people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time that is a critical measure of the health of the labor market. that is at an all-time low during the pandemic. so we are seeing the economy start to bounce back.

there is pretty much widespread agreement that president biden deserves some of that credit. the american rescue plan, that covid relief package, $1.9 trillion in spending that was passed earlier this year, that was starting to drive part of that momentum. but the real question i think that is going to give this administration some heartburn and that is going to help shape the size and scope of legislation down the road is whether we needed to spend that much money to get this level of growth. did we get the most bang for our buck? because the flip side of that is that we are now seeing a record level of the deficit. it's the highest level it's ever been for this point of the fiscal year and we are expecting to see a historic level of national debt by the end of this decade. so is that tradeoff going the be worth it, especially as many economists believe that that level of debt burden is going to act as a damper of economic growth when you start looking five or ten years down the road.

>> if those economists thought the $1.9 trillion might have been too much, there's more coming down the pike with another $2.5 trillion infrastructure package which the white house is framing as a jobs bill. what is your sense of what that might mean to the economy if it is, indeed, passed? >> yeah, so certainly that would be an economic stimulus for the country. the administration is projecting or point to go estimates showing that it would create something like 2 million additional jobs by the year of 2024. those are real people going back to work, earning a living and that is not to be discounted. however, the costs of this is programs is something the party is trying to grapple with. that is why as they look towards the infrastructure package, as they look towards a human capital package focused on individual families and working americans, they want to find a way to pay for it.

and that's politically problematic because it means you're going to have to swallow higher taxes and get democrats to coalesce around a way to raise revenue, not just now, but in the future, as well. and it could be a macroeconomic problem, as well, because higher taxes in the short run are going to dampen economic growth, too. so you could see a situation, president biden's own analysis that he points to shows that growth is going to be lower in 2022 because of those higher taxes, because those investments in infrastructure won't have started to pay off until 2024, which happens to be a presidential election year, guys. >> cnbc's elon moy, thank you very much. and timing is everything, as they say. thinking back to 1992, bill clinton defeated george h.w. bush in part because of a sagging economy. by the time bill clinton had been sworn in, the fourth quarter of 1992 actually had picked up. so the economy was start to go

pick up again. here, there are a lot of economists predicting 2021 was going to be a good year regardless as we were getting out of a year of lockdown. so you look at that and look at the fact that we were going to be moving into the share plus, you have one relief bill after another and an oversized stimulus plan, an oversized infrastructure plan, according to a lot of economists. and there's no doubt that if we see 6%, 7% growth over this year, we shouldn't be surprised. >> yeah. timing is everything, you're right. and, in fact, joe biden came into a situation where vaccinations, whenever they arrive, were going to make the covid situation better and where the economy was so low that illustrate was going to get better, too. but, obviously, president trump, were he re-elected, would not have gone as big and as bold with some of these packages. covid looms over everything

we're talking about. before taking office, here is what joe biden was pledging to accomplish if he were elected president. >> this can be fixed. if it is, if it does, my team will get at least 100 million vaccinations done in my first 100 days. >> president biden doubled that goal, but the challenges remain, including vaccine hesitancy and those deadly mutations reeking havoc worldwide. let's bring in dr. vin gupta. you're the perfect man to have on for this segment. we've been talking to you since the very beginning of this public health crisis in our country. here we sit more than a year later from a medical point of view, from someone who has treated patients in the emergency where you work and has seen what covid does to lives, how have the first 100 days played out in terms of getting the country vaccinated, in terms of bringing hospitalizations and deaths down? >> look at what has happened across the rest on the world

right now. all of our major allies are in a crisis. that easily could have been us if we had the same leadership that we did throughout 2020. so that is number one. we're just in a federally different spot than most of the rest of the world. that's because of the leadership president biden and his team. 200 shots in the first 100 days. land bodies now more accessible to where people obviously evidence-based messages from actual science leaders has been vital. willie, you saw this, the effective handling of the johnson and johnson side effect issue. now we're talking about cdc potentially issuing guidance on outdoor masking, travel, you name it. we are now leading, we're able to be on the front edge of leading what science and effective messaging, that just wasn't the case in 2020. how many lives could have been saved if we had this leadership. i'll also say we're seeing a forward thinking approach about addressing the next pandemic. in addition to the end of this pandemic. at least for the u.s.

investments in sequencing, willie, investments in local and state health departments so that we can do contact tracing. we can provide vaccines in arms and more sites across the country. of course, investments in the w.h.o. and their covax facility and especially with what is happening in india, leadership is not just local, it's global. >> is and we're getting proof, are we not, vaccines work. 80% of our seniors in this country have been vaccinated and their hospitalizations have absolutely plunged in this country. >> absolutely. and there's signs that are being seen which are because they're

not vaccinated, they're not protected. that is part of key here. >> dr. vin gupta, always great to see you. thanks so much for being with us. we appreciate it. mika. up next, it's something president biden called a crisis. the surge of migrants at the southern border, how that troubling issue has shaped his first 100 days in office. if you wanna be a winner then get a turkey footlong from subway®. that's oven roasted turkey. piled high with crisp veggies. on freshly baked bread! so, let's get out there and get those footlongs. now at subway®, buy one footlong in the app, and get one 50% off. subway®. eat fresh.

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welcome back. the poll numbers tell the story. president biden seeing strong support for his handling of the country's most pressing issues. the situation at the southern border continues to take a poll on the president's immigration ratings. 59% disapprove of how he's handling immigration, according to the new nbc poll as the administration grapples with a surge of migrants, including over 170,000 people in march alone, the largest single month total in well over a decade.

let's bring in jacob soberov and professor at the linden b. johnson school of public affairs and victoria de-francesca soto. >> victoria, it's harder, we've learned, and we continue to learn it's harder putting these poll numbers when it comes to border crossings, what's happening at the southern border, also hispanic voters and hispanic issues in general, donald trump picked up 9 points over four years with hispanics. you look at the voting in texas, along the border. i'm curious when you see these numbers, joe biden's low numbers when it comes to handling the southern border, what are your thoughts? what are your takeaways? >> my take away is that the border is capturing all the attention. 33% approval rating. but the other thing i see, joe,

is the fact that the biden administration has had a time of accomplishments, what many of us term under the radar accomplishments regarding immigration. so in joe biden's first 100 days, he has put forward over 90 executive actions to undo all of the things that the trump administration did in terms of restrictions for immigration. for example, the muslim ban. and he's putting forward things to push forward the lives of folks who want to become americans. for example, doing away with temporary visa bans. he is also doing away with prosecutorial discretion. what this means is i.c.e. officers no longer have cart blanch in being able to deport anybody who is undocumented. we're going back to the obama era when we were prioritizing who we were going to deport based on if they were a national security threat, if they had been a gang member, but folks

who have been living here, law-abiding citizens living in the shadows are no longer targets. these are all really big things pu put them together. but regrettably, because there is so much of a problem at the border in terms of infrastructure, numbers, this is getting hidden. >> jacob, you've been covering children separated from their families extensively and, in fact, you've written a book about it. how is the biden administration doing on this front? >> they have a lot of work to do, candidly. and i think they came into office with very lofty rhetoric of a fair and safe humane immigration system. the president himself called the policy criminal. he told jeff bennet, our colleague, that he was going to do a thorough, thorough investigation of potential

criminality of what was called torture and government sanctioned child abuse and we haven't seen that yet. granted, it has only been a hundred days. there is a massive increase of unaccompanied children and families showing up at the southern border. but that just raises another issue, why weren't they prepared? you can blame the trump administration in certain respects, but now here we are a hundred days in and they're just starting to untangle this. this is the united states government. it's capable of doing a lot of things at the same time. so i think that there's a lot of activists and advocates looking at the still separated families over 400 parents of children who were separated who have yet to be reached and asking why isn't this moving faster given the rhetoric from the president himself. >> yeah. we inherited a mess over the course of 100 days.

in some ways they did. how do you line it up as someone would so closely covered the crisis at the border under president trump to what we're seeing today under president biden? >> we have seen so-called influxes of children before at the u.s. southern border. in fact, almost every two years starting with president obama, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2019 was as high as it's been in recent memory before this year and that was under president trump. it's not usual given so-called push factors, climate change, food insecurity, poverty and malnutrition, corruption, violence in central america to see people come and see people come even in sometimes in response to things american politicians say. but if we've learned anything over the years, it is that deterrents, stern language from politicians, whether it was barack obama saying don't come or now president biden saying

don't come yet or president trump separating families, it doesn't work. what is this reimagined immigration system going to look like? i think the simple answer is we don't know yet and it is up to the biden administration to lay that out and lay it out soon. >> jacob and victoria, thank you both very much for being on. and up next, what the first 100 days says about president biden's approach to foreign policy. richard haas joins us for that discussion when we come back. d t discussion when we come back

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when it comes to the kremlin, meanwhile, biden slapped sanctions on russia this month for its interference in the 2020 election. all that as president biden accomplished something in his first 100 days that three of his predecessors didn't in their entire terms. ending america's troop presence in afghanistan. let's bring in the president of the coalition on foreign relations. >> americans are going to agree with joe biden getting americans out of a war zone they've been in for 20 years. at the same time, a lot of generals, a lot of foreign policy advisers, a lot of people like you and me are very concerned that we didn't at least leave some small force there to try to prevent the hell that broke loose in iraq when we left overnight. >> you're exactly right.

it's understandable why it's popular. people always like the idea of troops leaving difficult war zones. the question is what happens the day after and the day after that and it won't be so popular if and i think when we see terrible images of what the taliban do, women and girls throughout the country and it won't look so good if and when terrorists set up shop in afghanistan. >> jauven than lamere. >> i wanted to shift the conversation, indeed, to china. which is sort of a defining relationship and get your read on president biden's first steps there, managing that

relationship both in terms of combatting the pandemic but clearly we will be an economic rivalry for decades and decades to come. >> you're exactly right. this is the defining relationship of this century. there is lots of continuity. the rhetoric is quite robust. the first meeting between american and chinese officials was, shall we say, undiplomatic. but the united states has no influence on china, as i can see it on their human rights situation. they're doing what they're doing in hong kong. they're doing what they're doing with the uighurs. plus this administration is inconsistent. it wants to be tough on china, yet what is missing in any trade policy. one of the best ways we have to compete with china is to work with our allies in asia and the pacific setting up a united front. but because of divisions in the democratic party and because republicans and democrats, we simply don't have a trade

policy. i think the real question will be will we take steps to increase our capability to defend taiwan to help taiwan defend itself. right now, there's an enormous gap between our rhetoric on taiwan and our capabilities. >> yeah, richard, joe biden can't do anything about the yankee bats right now, so we'll put that aside and talk about russia. there's talk of a summit between president biden and vladimir putin. there's is the doubling up of the navalny issue in russia. how different is this relationship than the one we saw over the previous four years under president trump? >> it's somewhat different. you don't have all the personal stuff. you don't have a president looking the other way. but, actually, trump administration policy towards russia as opposed to trump policy was actually fairley consistent with what we're seeing the biden administration do. again, we don't have an awful lot of influence over the human rights situation or the

political situation there. we don't have a lot we can do to help ukraine. the most significant thing we may have done with russia is in the other direction by signing the nuclear arms control extension agreement that was quietly done in the early days of the administration. but i think you've got to assume that, given the human rights and democracy emphasis of this administration, this is going to be a terrible, difficult relationship for as long as both of these gentlemen are in power. >> richard haas, thank you very, very much for coming on with us today. and still ahead, we have focused on the presidency, but our next guest says that first ladies need to be a part of the 100 days conversation. the role of dr. jill biden, next on "morning joe." ack in black) ♪ ♪ ♪ the bowls are back. applebee's irresist-a-bowls all just $8.99.

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biden today because you think this role in terms of the first 100 days should be looked at as well. why? >> i do. i have been struck by the books i have been talking about on the show with nancy reagan and rady bird johnson and the books about nancy reagan, these books were so impactful because i realized we're so quick to overlook the legacies of the first ladies and we tend not to take them seriously in their own time. they do play an extraordinary role, not just as the closest and arguably most important adviser to their spouse, the president, but they also in their own right wield extraordinary soft power if they choose to do it. i think we've seen now obviously throughout the history of the united states that we delay our attention and delay history's place that these women deserve.

and when we talk about the legacy of joe biden in the first 100 days, we can't leave her out. >> it's interesting because if you look at past first ladies, many of them have played pivotal roles, some say too much 6 a role, in helping their husbands. but they've also taken on issues, and really tried to help society better itself in one way or another. joe biden is somewhat transformational. she's coming to the white house as a first lady who's going to have her own job and her own identity, who is holding on to her career and bringing it forward into the white house. she's had a bit of practice with this because she's an educator, she teaches english at northern virginia community college and she has for years. in fact, she taught all eight years while serving as second lady. and much 69 time those students didn't even know she was married to the vice president until one student came up to her and said, i saw you in a picture with michelle obama, what was that

about? she's like oh, don't worry about it. so some of the them knew the secret but she really took pride in having her own identity and being able to live out her role as an educator and i do think having your own identity as first lady and your own career is something very new. >> it's totally new but it's also extraordinary. look, she's -- it's not that she decided to continue teaching despite the criticism, in which she really cast aside and good for her because it's ridiculous. the idea somehow she's supposed to give up on her identity the thing that makes her whole. she always describes herself as being a teacher, it's who she is. why should she give up who she is in order to be first lady? that's such a profound statement. she's also built up the east wing staff with very serious policymakers. she's committed to three key areas, cancer research, military families and education and these are all really important to her and she plans to work on policy and substance. it's really an extraordinary

symbol but it's more than a symbol, it has real value and impact. you know, this piece i wrote for "usa today," i wrote it with presidential historian mark upgrove, president of the historian library. and we need these historians to fully recognize the role first ladies play. the fact we are so quick in many ways to discard them, cast aside their role as just a spouse. i think that's a mistake. so i agree with you. she's breaking the mold in some extraordinary ways that lays the groundwork not just for future first ladies but women everywhere. >> lauren, it's willie and great to see you today. it was fascinating to me to see the way dr. biden has been deployed, too, not just what we view as her typical first lady missions but also to go out and

advocate the covid relief bill and to places maybe joe biden is not so popular to make the case. >> absolutely. she went to deep red alabama that went for donald trump by 64%, voted for donald trump in deep road, alabama, but she was deployed to talk to families about a mom, educator, about the impact of the covid relief bill. it's soft diplomacy, but, boy, is it powerful. there is a way in which the first ladies can connect with people across lines of difference that it's meaningful. jill biden knew exactly what he was doing in sending her there. she's able to show up in places that you can say are hostile to democratic politics, just connect with people. that is enormous power. talk about an ambassador for the administration's agenda. i think we will see a lot more of that. she went to him to texas after the crisis there last month. we're going to see her going to places and spaces where she has an ability to make

transformational difference and really bring people together across lines of political difference. >> and as we close, i just want to say what i really respect about joe and jill biden is that they've been in washington serving for decades and so jill biden, dr. jill biden, brings to her role as first lady and to the three issues she's taken on, a lot of experience so she can hit the ground running. what i respect about both of them is that they chose to come back. a lot of people after being in the presidency or in the senate for decades, they're out of there. they've done their time but they keep coming back to serve. and i appreciate, lauren, you're taking some time to look at the first lady in this first 100 days. thank you very much. the piece for "usa today" is titled "the podium: if she cares to use it." and that does it for us this morning. stick with msnbc for continuing coverage of president biden's first 100 days in office and the day's breaking news and

developing stories. i'm stephanie ruhle live from washington, d.c. it is friday, april 30th. let's get smarter. this morning, rudy giuliani, former personal attorney of donald trump and two-term mayor of new york city, is lashing out at the fbi, the justice department and biden family as he faces a federal investigation that appears to be taking a significant step forward. a day after federal agents raided his manhattan office and apartment, giuliani, no surprise, went on fox news and claimed the whole thing was a setup. >> the reality is that that warrant is completely illegal. the only way you can get a search warrant is if you can show there's some evidence that the person is going