don't go anywhere. "morning joe" starts right now. >> here it is, biggest moment of a legendary career. phil defeats father time. >> phil mickelson wins this year's pga championship, an historic victory for the hall of fame golfer, and the crowds were there to celebrate. >> were they ever. >> my god! look at this! >> the cowboy and their kin, like the sea came pouring in. >> galleries we quite haven't seen for some time since the start of the pandemic. >> and phil, i mean, my goodness, first guy to win, over 50. >> pretty cool. >> put him on the know your value 50 over 50 list. zblus one problem there. >> get the forbes photo session ready to go. >> front to back, what a

performance for phil mickelson. we'll talk about that in a little bit. >> good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, may 24th. with us to kick things off, we have white house reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire and u.s. national editor at the "financial times," ed luce joins us early this morning. so guess what, everybody. the pandemic outlook is improving nationwide as new coronavirus cases drop to rates not seen in nearly a year. death rates are also as low as they've been since last summer, according to the cdc, 60% of people over 18 have received at least one shot and are almost half almost half are fully vaccinated, contributing to the sharp decline in covid-19 cases. the vaccine makes a huge difference. health experts do caution that the virus remains dangerous in communities with low vaccination

rates. and that's -- that not enough americans have vaccinated to completely extinguish the virus, leaving the potential for new variants that could extend the outbreak. so there are warnings that come along with this good news, but the message is to get vaccinated. i mean, the communities where people are reticent to take the vaccine -- >> it's great news. >> it's not helpful, though, if you don't get it. >> it's great news. those numbers are falling, hospitalizations are falling, covid deaths are falling, the lowest in over a year. you saw yesterday, that mob of people in south carolina, following phil mickelson up the 18th fairway. and i think a lot of people watching were excited to actually see that there's a sporting event, a huge sporting event where things were returning to normal. and i'm not so sure phil was excited about it. for a moment, the crowds kind of got out of control. but it's south carolina.

south carolina people are hearty people. they are -- they wear their emotions on their sleeves. in very, very good ways and a couple bad ways. but jonathan lemire, it was -- i mean, you were seeing a lot of these -- not only sporting events, but going out and seeing people getting back to living again a normal life. and it sure is joyous for an awful lot of people. and not us, of course, because we kind of stay in our cave. we don't get out much. but it's joyful for most people. and also inside the white house, you know, i always look at my wwd, what's in, what's out app. and it appears inside the white house, hugs in, masks out. >> hugs in, masks, mostly, out, joe. and i would say, there at the

pga, it seems like they lost contain of that crowd a little bit. they were right on top of phil. >> whoo! >> yeah, glad everybody's okay. but that was spectacular sight, which i know we'll get back to in a moment. but in terms of the white house, they've been so mindful of trying to broadcast to the nation how they should be, the people of america should be responding to this pandemic. we know, of course, that president trump, when he was in office, he and his staff were cavalier about the virus. they didn't wear masks or practice social distancing and we saw several covid outbreaks right there in the white house, the symbol of the government. the most powerful and fortified place in the nation, hot spot, time after time. super spreader events linked to events at the white house. when biden and his team came in, the first image americans saw of joe biden as president in the white house, he was sitting in the oval office behind the resolute desk wearing a mask. and they have kept that sort of cautious tone and plan up until the cdc guidelines came down

last week, and we have seen now, last week, we had the leader of south korea was at the white house, full pomp and circumstance. hugs, kisses, vice president harris hugged a 95-year-old medal of honor winner. they are now trying to send the signal to the nation, look, if you've been vaccinated, you can go back to your normal lives. you don't need the masks anymore. you can do the things we've all missed, including charging phil mickelson at a major golf tournament. >> to the point where security had to go around him. looked like bear bryant after the iron bowl with all of those state troopers around him. things were getting a little harry for a second. >> let's talk about brenton and the rest of the world. india still a tragedy. other countries still having some problems. but great britain and the eu, is that still a tale of two stories. great britain still doing better than the eu? >> less and less. the eu has been catching up quite rapidly in the last few

weeks. and you've seen some of the scenes we have in new york and here in d.c. of normalization, you're seeing in paris and berlin. so the europeans are catching up. there's been some good news from britain, which has had the double mutant indian variant, alarmingly. they've done test on whether the pfizer vaccine is effective against the double mutant, and it turns out that it is effective against it. there is some concern that it wouldn't be, which would force us all back to the drawing board. that's good news. i think the big issue remains, the west is the rest of the world. only 2% of the shots that have been administered have gone to the 50% of the poorest in the world. and that's got to change. and that's a conversation biden's going to be having. he's going to make his first foreign trip in a couple of

weeks. it will be to britain, to the g-7 summit. and that's a conversation he's going to be having with his european counterparts. >> we'll be following this with further conversations throughout the show. but we want to turn to politics now, fulton county, georgia, which will undergo another audit of 2020 absentee ballots following claims of fraud. the friday ruling by a judge allows the ballots to be unsealed claiming that fulton county election workers counted fraudulent ballots. it will be done under a the supervision of a special master appointed by the court. the state of georgia conducted three audits soon after the election, all of which reaffirmed the original outcome of the race. meanwhile, republican congressman liz cheney continues

to speak out, sitting down with jonathan swann for axios on hbo. >> you're trying to chart a new course for the party, away from donald trump, away from the lie, and it just seems like there aren't people willing to buy what you're selling. where do you get the hope for this, that this is going to work? >> because i love this country. >> right. >> because i believe in our democracy and i believe in our constitutional process and system. and because i look at it from the perspective of what's right. i think the future of our party has to be built around ideas and substance. i think we have to be able to make a substantiative case for limited government, for low taxes, for a strong national defense, for securing our borders. the ideas and the substance and the policy are on our side. but we have to get back to a place where we're making those arguments. >> how much culpability do

republican elites have for fertilizing the soil for the big lie? >> that's not at all how i think about it, you won't be surprised to hear. >> why? >> i think when you look at things like voter fraud, it certainly exists. i will never understand the resistance, for example, to voter i.d. i think you ought to have to show i.d. to go vote. there's a big difference between that and a president of the united states who loses an election, after he tried to steal the election, and refuses to concede, and continues to say the election was stolen, suggesting that our democratic process is insufficient of conveying the will of the people. >> you don't see any linkage between donald trump saying the election is stolen and then republicans in all of these state legislatures rushing to put in place these restrictive voter laws? >> i think you have to look at the specific was of each one of those efforts. i think if you look at the georgia laws, for example, there's been a lot that's been said nationally about the georgia voter laws that turns

out not to be true. >> but even though the republican lieutenant governor of georgia, geoff duncan said that when this bill started to pick up momentum was when rudy giuliani was testifying that the georgia election was a sham. i don't think anyone doubts that the reason 400-some voting bills have been introduced, 90% by republicans, supported by the republican national committee, i don't think it's a coincidence after the election that this has happened. >> look, i think everybody should want a situation and a system where people who ought to be able to vote and have the right to vote can vote. and people who, you know, don't, shouldn't. and again, i come back to things like voter i.d. -- >> but what are they involving for? it's like, what are all of these states doing? >> well, each state is different. >> what was the big problem in georgia that needed to be solved by a new law? what was the big problem in texas? what was the big problem in florida? these laws are coming all around the states, and like, what are

they solving for? >> i think you've got to look at each individual state law, but i think what we can all agree on -- >> but you can't divorce them from the context? >> yeah, but what we can agree on is what is happening right now is very dangerous. when i think about the inauguration, sitting on the inaugural platform in january of 2001, watching al gore. of course, we had won. i'm sure he didn't think that he had lost. we had fought this politically very, very intense battle and he conceded. he did the right thing for this nation. and that is one of the big differences between that and what we're dealing with now. and the danger of donald trump today. >> and jonathan joins us now. and joe, i want to go back to jonathan's first question for liz cheney, which is, you know, where are you going to get the support? i found one person in florida yesterday at a birthday party, die-hard republican, worked in

the financial industry his whole life, turned independent, only because of trump. but if someone like liz cheney were to come along, he would become a real, true republican. again, the conversation was much like the ones we have, where the republicans are turning the party into something it's not. it is the insurrectionist party. then there are real republicans and the question is, how many will coalesce in that group? and the democrats. and we need a real republican party. what we don't need in this country is an insurrectionist party. and there is no conversation to be had with an insurrectionist -- with a party that doesn't even want to believe in basic truths. >> well, a party that believes that democracy, american democracy is okay only when their side wins. you bring up a great point. we have three parties in america now. we have the republican party. we have the democratic party, and we have the insurrectionist party. and i think it's really important for people in the media to recognize that.

and to listen to what liz cheney is saying. and when she says something like, she still supporters voter i.d. laws, instead of saying, oh, she's just as bad as -- no, she's not. and you might want to look into the fact that 80% of americans according to a gallup poll support voter i.d. for people to vote. and that's a debate. you want to have that debate? that's a debate that we can have between the guardrails of american democracy. for people to say, if you support that, you might as well-being supporting storming the capitol on 1/6, it's overly simplistic and confuses the issues. there's three party in america we have to recognize. a republican party with people like liz cheney in there, ben sasse, mitt romney, others. there's a democratic party. and there's an insurrectionist party for people who didn't recognize the 1/6 election, when are trying everything they can do the change the subject from 1/6 and don't want face those

facts. jonathan, thanks so much for being there. a great interview with liz cheney, as always. congratulations on that. i always -- it's very funny. i remember, about a year ago, six months ago on twitter, someone said, write the thing that will most surprise people about you. and gary casper, off the great -- the russian chess master, who was harshly critical of donald trump and became something of a hero to many on the left said, you all will be so surprised and so disappointed after trump is gone by how conservative i actually am, to which i re-tweeted and said, amen. and liz cheney is there. she's being heralded by people who have attacked her her entire life, and when we get beyond this, they'll start attacking her again. but you hear that interview, listen, news flash, liz cheney is a conservative. >> she's not only a

conservative, she's probably on the right of the party. a very staunch conservative. and she was a partisan warrior during the obama years. she's now this anathema to the republican base. but that's where her heart is, she's just decided to take a stand on january 6th and the big lie and donald trump. but the problem with all of this conversation is you talk about there being three parties, she really is a fringe figure in the republican party. it's not that there's this huge group of people who support her and ben sasse and mitt romney. empirically, there aren't, in terms of republican voters. 70% of republican voters consider joe biden illegitimate. there's polling to show that. 70%. that's extraordinary. that's where the party has gone. and the party actually has left liz cheney. and the real challenge she has,

if she's going to chart this new course for the party, she has to bring these voters back to the party. many of them have left the party. and it's not clear that the people who consider themselves republican voters are going to be amenable to what liz cheney is selling. >> so what's her next move? >> well, it's unclear to me, actually. her primary election in 2022 is going to become a proxy battle for the future and in her view, the sole of the republican party. donald trump and his political operation are desperately trying to find one person to run against her. they haven't figured out who yet. and the problem for them right now is there's a number of people who have declared themselves. one of them had impregnated a 14-year-old and described it as a romeo and juliette situation. he seems to be out of the picture or at least receding from view. but the problem for them is if

the field remains divided, they have a decent chance. if they settle on one, she's in real trouble. you have to remember with liz cheney, this is the other point that's hard to understand. you look at empirical. she is three times more popular among democratic vorts than republican voters. when you talk about the parties, you need to remember where the republican electorate is at. they're not at where liz cheney is at right now. >> and obviously, she would like those ratios reversed. and so much of this may depend on the passage of time, the understanding that donald trump is not going to run for re-election. if he doesn't. >> sure. >> i heard somebody shout my name? >> he said "sure." >> passage of time. also, the possibility that donald trump doesn't run again,

and republicans start doing what they haven't done in some time and start focusing on who can get elected president of the united states in 2024. >> and where they're at at the moment, it's a very fragmented party, because you have the house republican conference who their theory of the case is basically, double down on trump. and you know, we need to evaluate trump and run into the midterms on trump. mitch mcconnell, his view is, ignore trump, hope that he recedes into the background. it's a strategy based on hope. liz cheney is in a third camp. she believes that the mitch mcconnell approach is dangerous and you actually need to confront donald trump and talk about it right now and excise him from the party. it's a real muddled mess, and i don't know how they resolve it, frankly. >> you never know in politics. the saying in politics, a week is a lifetime. liz cheney has a year or so to sort this out before

re-election, and even more time between 2024, when you talk about her sitting at 15%, maybe 20%. yeah, that's not enough to win a congressional primary. but maybe a presidential race in 2024, where 16 people jump in and they're all hugging donald trump. maybe that 15 or 20% gets you through a few early states and she gains momentum. jonathan swann, as always, great job. we love having you on the show. ed luce, i wanted to ask you, youb see what's happening in the united states. people like anne applebaum have come on for some time talking about what's happening in the center right in britain, in poland, in spain, in france, in hungary, all across the western world with western democracies. do you see any parallels with britain right now? >> not as close a parallel as i would have seen in 2016. the brexit happened. trump became the nominee.

won the election. all since. i think britain's got a populist leader, but he's the one that's benefited from the vaccine. and of course, the vaccine rollout in america occurred after trump was defeated. the left in britain is destroyed, really. largely, it's self-destruction, whereas the democrats have regrouped under biden. they got out probably the one guy who could have easily defeated trump and they did defeat trump. and they therefore have a second chance at reestablishing themselves as competent in government in american eyes. that's an opportunity the left isn't getting in too many other parts of the democratic world. so, i think the parallels with britain are less salient than they normally would be and there's really nothing in the western world to compare with one of two major parties rejecting the rules of the game,

embracing, essentially, an authoritarian cult like the republicans are doing, and getting more into it as the defeat of their cult leader gets -- goes into the rearview mirror. so it's becoming more cultish, more jonestown-esque, as time goes on. it's hard to find a parallel really anywhere in the democratic world with the republican party right now. >> yeah, it really is strange, mika. the more republicans lose, the more of a personality cult donald trump seems to develop. you can look at his losses in '17 and '18. historic losses. i mean, republicans losing like they've never lost before in the house of representatives, just as far as a pure, pure vote totals. 19, they started losing governorships in the south and then in '20, they lost the big race, lost the race for their

presidency. lost georgia, lost the senate, lost the house. it's -- and so, rational parties, parties that actually want to rule. parties that want their policies to change, instead of just these -- putting forth these hypergestures, they self-adjust and start electing candidates that can get elected. donald trump is not that guy. he's just not that guy. and we've seen time and again that he puts, in many cases, people in a difficult position to win general elections. so, we'll see what happens. >> it has all the evidence of a serious cult. i'm not saying that as a joke. i'm not saying that as a -- not even an exaggeration at this point. >> no. and jonathan lemire, i just want to clear one thing up. because i've had some family members and friends ask me,

well, if donald trump was so bad and this wasn't rigged, why did the republicans win and do so well in the house? republicans overperformed expectations, based on the terrible polling that was out there. but it is important to remember that the house still remained democratic. and remained democratic by, you know, i think they're plus 9, plus 10. that's about the same. biden did about the same that bill clinton did in '92. did about the same, bill clinton did in '96. did much better than jfk, if you just look at the house side. biden did much better than either party when you came to the senate. he was a net plus five in picking up senate seats. he picked up five senate seats in 2020. donald trump lost two in 2016. and you can go all the way back 40, 50 years, and biden did much better than most.

so this idea -- and it's become urban legend that democrats just got completely romped, because the polling was so bad. and the expectations were so high. but this was not an historic anomaly. if republicans were going, hey, we did a great job! we only lost by ten seats, it's kind of the way losers think. you either win or you lose. and they lost. >> right. joe, this is a moment where two things could be true at once. the republicans did outperform expectations in terms of the house. they had a relatively strong cycle, but not nearly as strong as the democrats did. it didn't change the fact that under donald trump's leadership in the party, as he was in office, republicans lost control of the house. lost control of the senate and eventually, of course, lost control of the white house. now, the margins are small. we're at 50/50 in the senate. the democrats' margin in the house is certainly not large.

and as '22 approaches, there are reasons for republicans to feel somewhat confident. the historical trend are that the party in power, the party who has the white house, tends to lose seats in the midterms. and it wouldn't take much of a swing to put that back in the republican column. and that's why they're doubling down on trying to put january 6th behind them. that's why they're trying to. they have made the calculation that at least in the certainly, embracing trumpism, even if mcconnell doesn't like trump personally, they still believe, though, this is largely the way to go. it's a way to energize their voters to get them to turn out in '22. we'll see in 2018, that off year election, that didn't go so well for republicans, when trump's name himself was not on the ballot. we also, the white house and democrats believe that they'll have a shot to rebuke the historical trend. that if the nation has put the pandemic behind it. if the economy has roared back to life.

and there are certainly concerns about inflation and so on, but that could be a moment that they point to and be able to hold on to some seats. the house will be tougher than the senate, but they feel like they have a shot to maintain power in 2022. and that would further damage republicans who are trying to stay cozied up to the former president. >> all right. we want to turn now to a story about the front page of the "new york times" yesterday, that has important implications. it's fascinating, about research showing the global population rate is slowing down at a concerning rate. reading from "the times" report, quote, like an avalanche, the demographic forces pushing toward more deaths than births seems to be expanding and accelerating. though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else. demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century

or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time. let's bring in the lead author on this story, "new york times" australian bureau chief, damian cave. good to have you with us this morning. >> damian, thank you so much. there were two articles that jumped out at me this past weekend in "the new york times." one was the one that talked about how remarkable it is that life expectancy in the world has doubled in over a century. the first time that, obviously, has ever happened in the history of mankind. but yours was the second. a troubling one, talking about this population bust. what are the implications of that for the world as we move forward? >> well, the combination of these two factors, the implications are huge. on the economic side, it means that you're going to have countries that have as many 85-year-olds as 18-year-olds. so the system that we've developed in a lot of countries where there's enough young

people to support help for the hold and just support the economy is suddenly being tipped on its head. so there are enormous economic implications, but there are a whole bunch of just cultural implications, too. the more i talked to demographers, the more i heard imagining situations where instead of having a birthday party with a bunch of 8-year-olds and, you know, one grandparent, you're going to have a birthday party for an 85-year-old or a lot of 85-year-olds and just one or two kids at the party. so it's trying to get our heads around something that's just so dramatically different from the way population demographics have worked in the 20th century. >> so in the united states, the birthrate is dropping for the sixth straight year. what's behind these numbers, in the u.s.? >> you know, it's really a mix of good news and bad news. in the united states and all over the world. one of the things that's happened is that education has spread more widely, women are in

the workforce, there's more access to contraception all over the world. that's on the positive side. people are making choices that maybe in the past they didn't have freedom to make. on the downside, you have how hard it is to have a family. where there's not that much support for family leave, not that much support for women who want to work and have children. and the cost of living have been driven up in a lot of cities. what you have in the united states is this kind of bifurcated existence, where regional areas are shrinking, because young people are moving out of them into cities, which makes it harder for people to justify having children. so there's a cycle of kind of reinforcing dynamics that make it really hard. >> and ed luce, with an aging population, also, there are political changes. people -- somebody took numbers from the 2020 election, looked at the demographic breakdown by

age group and applied it to earlier elections and the result was, i think somebody said, reagan would have lost in 1980 because of the demographics. certainly, there would have been a lot of changes. what's happening now is americans are getting older, living longer. we're more conservative, more pro-trump. and it does -- it really does change politics in that way. might make the voting population more conservative. but something else that i've talked about for 30, 40 years, instead of having 15 people working for every one person on social security or medicare, pretty soon it will be an even split. you'll have one person working for every person on social security and medicare. and those numbers in the long run do not add up. >> no, they don't. you know, there is an overall pattern here with those global

numbers where if we are going to get into flattening and declining global population in the second half of this century, we should see the good side of that. you know, the era of ever-rising human numbers is over. and there's a good reason. there's a positive reason for that, which damien was setting out very well. that life expectancy has increased, child mortality has pretty much vanished. you don't need to have so many children. and the strain on global resources is going to ease off. so we should see the positive side of this. but if you're looking at america's decline in population growth, the last decade was the second slowest in american history. since 1790. the only slower decade for population growth was the 1930s. so you can see that if you're a young american, if you're a

millennial or older generation "z," you're not starting a family right now, or it's rare -- you're doing so at a much less, and slower rate than previous generations. because you're afraid about your own economic security, you're aware that the cost of having a child, the cost of education, you know, is massive and rising and that that is thing that's got to be postponed until you're more economically secure. america is a nation of immigrants. and often, population growth comes from immigration. but right now, politically, there's no real consensus to open the immigration floodgates again. there's no new ellis island for the 21st century. so it's hard to see in the near-term how america is going to address its population growth issue. >> damien, a final thought to you? >> yeah, one of the things i think that's important to

recognize is that these projections and numbers are all dependent on people's actions. there was a period of time where no one ever imagined that population growth would come to an end. so what we're seeing now is the result of different policies and different reactions. so a lot of demographers i talked to said, listen, the destiny, it's not a given. how this plays out is up to us. the countries that are likely to succeed are the ones that are frankly friendlier to immigrants, because at some appoint, there will be competition to immigrants. and friendlier to young families. to some degree, the 21st century will probably be defined by the countries that do best with those two issues. >> "the new york times'" damien cave. thank you very much for being on this morning. and still ahead on "morning joe," after weeks of back and forth about infrastructure, the white house drops the price tag for president biden's plan, but republicans still not budging. plus, world leaders are reacting after a european

airliner was forced to land in belarus -- >> this is just shocking. >> -- and an opposition journalist onboard was arrested. also this morning, donald trump's new website is up, but online chatter about the former president is down. in fact, it's at a five-year low. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. re watching" we'll be right back. br 25% of your mouth. listerine® cleans virtually 100%. helping to prevent gum disease and bad breath. never settle for 25%. always go for 100. bring out the bold™

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in our view, this is the act, the art, i should say, of seeking common ground. this proposal exhibits a willingness to come down if size, giving on some areas that are important to the president, otherwise they wouldn't have been in the proposal, while also staying firm in most areas that are vital to rebuilding our

infrastructure. >> the biden administration has proposed a somewhat slimmed down version of its massive infrastructure package, but republicans still don't appear to be getting onboard at all. joining us now, white house correspondent for politico and co-author of "the playbook," eugene daniels, he's also an msnbc contributor. so what areas did the white house give on and why didn't the republicans take? >> well, on the white house's part, there was this focus and continues to be this focus on making sure that they get a bipartisan deal on the hard infrastructure aspects of things. so there's about $500 billion, i think, missing the from -- missing -- from the original offer that they had, given senate republicans. so that includes roads and bridges. and they want to make sure there's some broadband in there. that money is still in there. still a lot more money than

republicans wanted to spend. republicans say, they won, they are very uninterested in the pay-for, which joe biden does not want to raise taxes on people making less than $400,000, and republicans don't want them to touch the tax cuts that were ready for businesses in 2017. there's some friction. and there's friction on them having this fight about what's infrastructure and there's the price tag. republicans have found their religion again. memorial day was the deadline they gave themselves to have a deal and it's starting to look a little bleak. and people are starting to feel a little bit more pessimistic. so has this been enough for the joe manchins of the world, when they said they wanted these negotiations to be bipartisan?

did they -- is it time to move on and go ahead and just go with democrats on this one? and i think that's what we're going to be watching this week. >> and hey, jonathan lemire, let's look at the numbers. the white house's original infrastructure plan was about $2.25 trillion. they've cut it down to about 1.7. they're down about 500 billion. republicans are sitting tight. they're sitting at -- well, 568 and they're count welcome and i think joe manchin is counting the 320 billion they're already set to spend this year. they're up closer to 800 billion, $900 billion. let's take it from here. you have a difference of $1.7 trillion with the biden white house after they came down $5 $500 billion. can they end up around $1.2, $1.3 and have a deal? >> it's a pretty significant

gap, joe. they're not ruling it out. and we should certainly not say that talks are done, but they certainly are stalled. there's a sense of pessimism on both sides about whether or not this can get done. that memorial day soft deadline looms now. it's one week away. that can push a little bit. but what's happening right now, both parties are disappointed in the other. republicans feel like they didn't up their offer at all. republicans say, hey, look, $500 billion, you cut out of your package, we'll move most of that into other legislation. there's another piece that the senate is taking up later this week, where a lot of that money just got reallocated. so therefore, that's not really a drop in the overall price tag. that's their argument. and it's also intersection that the statement the republican senators put out on friday made a point of saying, we made progress with the president. and now in this meeting with the white house staff, we feel less

optimistic, trying to drive a subtle wedge between biden and some of the others who work for him who are less inclined but that pressure is now mounting on the white house from fellow democrats who say, the clock is ticking. we know the window to actually come up with a bipartisan deal is shrinking. how much more time can we give this? you know, at what point do we just throw in the towel in these talks and try to go in, democrats alone? but the question is this. have they done enough to satisfy the joe manchins of the world, those moderate democrats who don't really want to do this by reconciliation. have they been satisfied that a good faith effort at bipartisan was made. >> you know, ed luce, you look at the bills that are laid before us right now. and you look at the 1/6 commission. obviously, we need a 1/6 commission. republicans have made a good point. i don't remember a whole lot of commissions that had all republican staffs or all democratic staffs. if you're trying to have a

bipartisan look. there's something that can be negotiated on. and i understand those negotiations moving forward. there are other bills, the non-traditional infrastructure part of this, also, i mean, within the guardrails, that seems to be something where i would expect republicans and democrats to have the debate on this infrastructure bill, though, you look and see how of dilapidated america's infrastructure is, roads, bridges, airports, railroads, broadband. it's a joke. it's a joke. i remember even five years ago, flying around and flying from new york to l.a. and going on trains -- trains, planes, automobiles. and i just turned to mika and i said, you know -- well, i won't say what i actually said. i get out of l.a.x. and i say, you know, stuff don't work. things just don't work. we have gone from a first rate world power to a third rate

world power when it comes to infrastructure. i mean, you compare -- you compare a lot of -- broadband especially. it's just a joke. so it seems to me, this is the one bill republicans should be a little more aggressive on, meeting in the middle. if that's at 1.2 or 8 or 8.5, where they are now. this is one bill where it's not exorbitant when you look at how long we've ignored america's infrastructure needs. >> yeah, i think that this is an area, of course, that trump had infrastructure week as the great joke, wherever he tried that infrastructure week, he would employee it up himself by changing the subject. it's a bipartisan issue, that was popular when trump ran. it was popular with republican voters. it's popular with democratic voters. everybody can see the desperate

need for modernizing america's roads and infrastructure and getting a 5g system in. the bill that biden proposed, this $2.25 trillion is an eight-year bill. so that's about 1% of gdp. it's not radical. it's not even enough if you ask the u.s. society for civil engineers to maintain existing infrastructure. they're saying you need $5.6 trillion over the next decade to maintain existing infrastructure. so i get a little bit puzzled when i hear people describing biden's plan here as radical and gigantic and sweeping. it's not. it's a pretty modest plan. and i'm concerned that he's getting into an obama situation here, where he's trying to find a middle ground, led by joe

manchin, who believes, i think, without any evidence that there are ten good republicans and true who are there to be negotiated. that obama is being led like obama was on many bills, into negotiating with himself, in the elusive hope of getting a bipartisan compromise, with a republican party that has made it absolutely clear that they're not going to support anything biden proposes. so i think that these are fruitless negotiations, to be honest. >> yeah. and eugene, you look at following up on what ed has said, when you just look at the numbers per year, $300 billion per year in additional infrastructure is not radical. especially when you consider -- and my gosh, this was one of the pet peeves during the height of the iraq war, $2 trillion a year not on iraq, on afghanistan. year after year after year.

on afghanistan! and here we're trying to spend 1.7, $300 billion less on america's own infrastructure over several years and that's being called radical? there's a lot of spending that's radical in washington, d.c. this infrastructure, rebuilding, reinvesting in america, that's not radical. >> i think you're right. and i think the thing in the democratic party, if you want -- when you're talking radical, right? there are members of the left who want to spend a lot more money. they're saying, even the original plan that president biden put forth was nowhere near the amount of money. you're exactly right. this isn't as much that people who really concentrate on infrastructure, how much they say is needed. and something interesting that the democrats have done and the who is have done in trying to get republicans come to see how important the infrastructure and this deal is, they've been

talking to local and state and republican officials, talking to them and say, look outside. look at the potholes that your neighbor called about. and talk to your republicans on capitol hill about how important this is. that's one of the creative ways this white house is trying to do that. because every local official, every state official, and really, anyone who lives in washington, d.c. can look outside and see that the infrastructure around us is, i guess, as -- as then president trump would say, is crumbling around us. that is happening. and the fact that republicans aren't getting onboard with this at some point, they're going to have to talk to their voters about why the potholes aren't filled and all of those things. and that's what the white house has been trying to push as they've been talking to these local officials and getting them onboard with them. >> politico's eugene daniels,

thank you very much. we turn now to a brazen act of authoritarianism in the skies. a civilian flight forced mid-air to turn around so a journalist can be arrested. european leaders as well as some u.s. lawmakers are calling what happened in belarus, quote, state-sponsored hijacking. the flight left athens, greece, sunday, traveling to lithuania. it's just about a three-hour flight. but just as the airliner was about to exit belarus air space, it was diverted to minsk, the capital. air traffic control in belarus essentially called in a bomb threat to the flight crew, then they had a fighter jet escort the plane carrying 123 people to minsk, despite it being closer to its destination. the target of all of this was row manhattan protosevic, a

journalist and activist opposed the belarus president. he runs a social media channel that reported repeated police brutality during anti-government protests last year, following the re-election of lukashenko, after which protosvic was charged with terrorism. immediately after the flight, he was detained and immediately told reporters he was, quote, facing the death penalty. as for ryanair, the company put out a statement that there was a potential security threat. the plane was searched and nothing untoward was found. the company apologized to passengers, saying the delay was outside its control. >> and ed luce, lukashenko just becomes more authoritarian by

the day, if possible. this is just brazen. what can europe do? what can the united states do in response? >> clearly, an incidence like this, a hijacking, clearly an act of piracy by belarusa would not have happened without the okay by putin. you saw the applause happening after lukashenko pulled off this breathtaking defiance of international law, for a 26-year-old blogger. let's remember, that's how scared they are of dissent. this was a guy who was, you know, exiled, i guess, left the country after the rigged election last year, when the protests against lukashenko's rigging of the election led to a great outpouring. he brazened it out, partly with

putin's support. and hays now using more and more putin-esque methods. he's really defying the european union and international law and the united states by saying, you can just pluck somebody from the air. they sent out a mink to accompany this ryanair flight down. and had some fake story about there being a bomb onboard. if you can get away with this, you are basically not afraid of the consequences. though more sanctions, a demand for constant access to this 26-year-old journalist. i don't know what is really going to make much of a difference if they feel that emboldened to behave like pirate s internationally. >> well, we'll certainly be following this. ed luce, thank you very much. coming up on "morning joe," from the american revolution to world war ii, huge fails from the far right, trying to make

historical parallels to the pandemic. we'll explain, next on "morning joe." rning joe. ♪ when i was young ♪ no-no-no-no-no please please no. ♪ i never needed anyone. ♪ front desk. yes, hello... i'm so... please hold. ♪ those days are done. ♪ i got you. ♪ all by yourself. ♪ go with us and find millions of flexible options. all in our app. expedia. it matters who you travel with. expedia. there's interest you accrue, and interests you pursue. plans for the long term, and plans for a long weekend. assets you allocate, and ones you hold tight. at thrivent, we believe money is a tool, not a goal.

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it is our last weekend update, and i have to say, i think that the country is in a better place than when we started this season. i think. in september, there were headlines like, will the president destroy democracy? and now i'm seeing headlines like, will this be the most turnt-ass summer ever? >> i hosted the first episode this season and that feels like six years ago. here's how messed up the world was when i hosted, okay? i wanted kanye west to be the musical guest. and he couldn't do it because he was running for president. remember that? also, the week i was here, the sitting president who said covid

would disappear got covid. that was this season, okay? >> thank you for staying with us through an election, an insurrection, and an objection that there was an insurrection. and as someone who played rudy giuliani and experienced the year through his eyes, i can tell you, it was one wild ride, baby. >> and live from new york, it's saturday night! >> part of "saturday night live's" season 46 finale. >> you really enjoyed that. >> i thought it was nice. >> not a lot of people in times square. >> speaking of being live from new york, the city's mayor bill de blasio is standing by. he joins us straight ahead with an announcement that millions of parents will need to hear. that is coming up in just a few minutes.

first, the news. the pandemic outlook is improving nationwide as new coronavirus cases dropped to rates not seen in nearly a year. >> remember a year ago! we were looking at those numbers just exploding up. >> and i don't think we had any idea how bad it would get. we couldn't comprehend it. it got terrible. >> you look at our leaders and leaders across the country, they were all guessing, maybe it would be 100,000. at one point, president trump was excited it was going to be 70,000, thought it was slowing down, 100,000. but it ended up getting up well over 500,000, which actually those that the study out of england that a lot of people were mocking when they said 1 to 2 million wasn't so out of range. but take a look at these numbers. what a -- what great, great news. >> leadership matters. >> well, the -- i mean, the

vaccines matter. >> yeah. >> so much. and it's remarkable what we as a country have been able to do. republicans, democrats, independents, scientists, doctors, research labs have been able to do over the past year. it's been extraordinary. >> also, as the cease-fire between israel and hamas enters its fourth day, the focus shifts to rebuilding gaza. over a dozen homes and five apartment buildings were brought down during the 11 days of israeli air strikes. more than a dozen hospitals and schools were also damaged. a top u.n. official toured the destruction yesterday. he said, this month's attacks only worsened a quote already dire humanitarian situation. gaza had already been dealing with a covid-19 outbreak before its only coronavirus testing lab was destroyed in the air strikes. in the u.s., secretary of state

anthony blinken says the white house is focused on delivering aid to gaza and a shift toward, quote, long-term peace. >> there has to be a shift towards long-term peace, which is going to require the united states to have an intermediary, a good faith intermediary in the palestinian territories. obviously, when hamas is firing 3,000, 4,000 rockets into israel, israel is going to respond. whether you like it or not, and at that point, we have to be able to talk to israel, and our good faith intermediary, maybe it's the egyptians, have to be able to provide security inside of gaza. stop the rockets. we can stop the bombing on the israeli side if they know that we're working with a good faith partner on the other side. and stop this cycle of violence that continues. >> and as donald trump fights to keep his grip on the republican party, "the washington post" has found that online talk about the

former president -- >> all-time high? >> it's plunged to a five-year low. they're not talking about him. >> trump's aides have said his new website, which includes a blog, fund-raising page, and online storefront would redefine the game. but in reality, the site is seeing few visitors. a "washington post" review of data from four online analytics found that social engagement around trump, a measure of likes, reactions, comments, or shares of content about him across facebook, twitter, reddit and pinterest, have nose-dived 95% since january -- >> well, i mean -- >> lowest level since -- >> if he gets banned from every site, it's going to nosedive. >> then there's this. republican congresswoman

marjorie taylor greene is comparing the house mask rules to the holocaust. the georgia congresswoman said, quote, we can look back at a time in history with people were wear a gold star and they were definitely treated like second klass citizen, so much so they were taken to trains and taken to gas chambers in nazi germany and this is exactly the type of abuse that nancy pelosi is talking about. a day later, republican congressman, madison cawthorn had a comparison of his own, implying the british would not have surrendered at yorktown if george washington had been wearing a mask. and said americans are, quote, descended from people of valor. >> yes, we are. >> who stood up for their own personal liberties. >> the only difference is some of us still believe we are a people of valor. we descended from people of

valor, we are still a people of valor. we have had greatness in the past, we have been an exceptional country in the past. we are still an exceptional country. american exceptionalism, my god, look at happened over the past year. and i will say it again. with republican administrations developing the vaccine, democratic administrations distributing the vaccines. doctors and scientists who really didn't care about politics. they cared about doing something that had never been done before in the history of mankind. move as quickly towards a vaccine as they were able to do in nine, ten, eleven months. my god, you look at our numbers collapsing. yeah, i'm sorry. i know there are a lot of people in the insurrectionist party who don't believe this, but america is still great. there still is exceptionalism. we still have a great nation. and you can try to make us weak, you can try to claim our army is weaker than russia's, you can do whatever you want to do. you're wrong. i'll say what i've said to liberals my whole life and i'm

saying now to you and the insurrectionist party. bet against the united states of america and you lose every time. >> and there are republicans and there are insurrectionists. >> there are three parties. i think that's so important for people in the media to understand. don't lump all republicans in with the insurrectionists. >> they're not republicans. >> you have a republican party, you have a democratic party and an insurrectionist party. let's start identifying these three different parties as such. it's in the best interest of the country to have a strong republican party. it's in the best interest of the party to actually have a party that once again becomes conservative. they haven't become conservative in a very long time. they have spent for 20 years like drunken socialists. it's time for them to find their bearings. it's good for us to have a republican and a democratic party. this insurrectionist party has got to work itself out.

but we don't help that process along if we blur the line between republicans and insurrectionists. >> joining us now, senior columnist for the daily beast, matt lewis. plus, contributing writer at the atlantic,blainer joins us. you write, at what point is the approach of danger to be expected, the 28-year-old lincoln asked. i answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. if destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. as a nation of freemen, we must live through all time or die by suicide. for those of us who have spent much of our political life in the republican party, who knew it was hardly flawless, but did believe in its promise and core

principles, it's painful to acknowledge that the party of lincoln helped -- that the party lincoln helped build now embodies the very dangers that lincoln warned about. but how did that happen, pete? i guess the first question is. >> well, it's a long and complicated story, mika. but i think what happened is the republican party became grifted by grievances, victimization mentality, and then conspiracy theories. it moved away from a philosophy, as joe, was alluding to, where any interest in ideas became performtive. these trends started before trump. trump became president and he accelerated all the worst tendencies. and i agree with joe. i think it's important to disaggregate the republican party, the same party from the insurrectionist party. my concern is that the base of the party identifies with the

base party. marjorie taylor greene is flat-out insane. but joe is quite right. this is a struggle that is essential, because even if you're a liberal, and right now we don't have that in the republican party, i really do think as a lifelong republican, that it is the main political menace to the republican. and republicans have to recognize it and do something about it. >> and matt, in your new piece entitled trump's gop, a party of snowflakes and beta males, you write in part, quote, today's gop is full of patient careerists who amazingly are too tolerant. they believe that swallowing their pride and sublimating their anger, opinions, and even familial loyalties is the way to inthe long game. the big question is, why do they

tolerate trump? why doesn't their primal desire for pride and honor and dignity ever kick in? the only john wayne they have left is donald trump. he's the alpha male and the betas all cower before him. what we're left with is a gop full of neutered opportunists -- snowflakes paying their dues, biting their tongues, and hoping to retire with a gold watch. >> matt, i don't understand it. >> ouch! >> i've never understood it. i've looked over the past five years. we've had conversations -- i've had conversations with leaders, people i've known, paul ryan -- i'm not saying that paul ryan is the all the things you said, but i remember sitting down with paul and saying, here's the thing you have to understand about donald, he never respects anybody that doesn't push back. you can't just sit there and take it constantly from him. you can't take the insults, you have to push back hard. none of them ever got it. they let him run over him.

and i called these group of people back when i was in congress fat white pink boys. they would sit there in their suss suspenders. >> winston churchill had some line about countries who go down without a fight don't tend to rise up again, but countries who go down fighting, although they go down, they have a future, i think there's some truth to that, at least at the individual level. i'm not saying you should fly off the handle. that's how sunny corleone got killed in that tollbooth, right? we need to be smart. but i think when you look at the story of what happened at the republican party, as people was saying, there's a lot to it, but one of the pieces is cowardice.

it's that at some point, republican elites, republican leaders decided to sublimate their opinions, their anger, and their pride and basically bow to donald trump. and i think there have been multiple times where there have been off-ramps. where republican leaders could have stood up and fought him. and every time they have shown to really be wimps. and so i think, the interesting thing to me, joe, is, you know, i'm from a rural area. and the kind of country cowboy conservatism i grew up with. people -- if you insulted someone's family. if you insulted their family. if you insulted their dignity and their honor, man, they'd come out fighting. but these republicans today, they don't have that same

mentality. >> they really don't. i must say, i don't get it. i don't get so much on so many fronts, but the wimp factor, i really don't get. that they allow themselves to be insulted and they don't push back. they don't fight back. they let themselves get run over by this guy, and they don't make him pay, too. you've got to make somebody pay politically, if they come after you. it's that simple. and none of them do. none of them have. and that's why he continues to run over them. you know, pete wehner, the thing i actually loved about the republican party back when i was a member, and you and i are a perfect example. we've been good friends, we worked together on projects, but we also fought pretty tough when you were in the bush white house. i was a deficit hawk, some that worked with me would say a deficit freak, but we would have really tough back and forths. they were always thoughtful,

usually they were respectful, sometimes i would have been a little too harsh on my side of it, but we got through it and all came together at the end saying, this is how we're going to make a better party. this is how we're going to win the next election. there is just no -- i mean, for the party that had jack kemp and other people in the early 1980s and newt in 1994, who had thousands of ideas and as bob dole said, even one or who of them were pretty good, we were the party of ideas. that's for now, at least, over. how disheartening is that for you, an ideas guy? >> that's one of the things i really lament, joe, you're exactly right. you were children of the reagan revolution. if you go back to the 1980s, there was a real confidence in the intellectual power of conservatism. antony scalia, james t. wilson,

a social scientist, welfare reform. helen bloom, closing the american minds. there was a real pride in the thought that went into conservatism. that began to wane. i think it began in the '90s. gingrich is an interesting example. he combines two elements. he was creative intellectually, although sometimes he really went off the rails. but i think it was the temperamental danger that newt embo embodied. i was a little concerned about at the time. but then you've got sarah palin, who was a very significant figure in that. and the republican party jettisoned being the party of ideas, so now it's dr. seuss and mr. potato head and culture wars. and there is just no engagement with ideas or no interest in policy and governing, so this is all -- all of these things are tangled together in the republican party. and has to be pulled apart. it is not a conservative party right now, it's a populist party.

it's an ethnic nationalist party. sometimes it's incidentally conservative, but in many ways, it's antithetical to conservatism, including one of the core tenants of conservatisms, which is the dangers of mob mentality and the passions of the people. and right now it is enflamed in dangerous passions. it is a violent party as we saw on january 6th and it will get more violent unless people stand up to it. >> hey, matt, it's jonathan lemire, a few moments we were talking about "the washington post" reporting. it draws fewer visitors that the pet adoption site petfinder and the recipe side delish. we can all agree on the need for a good chicken cacciatore and a beagle, perhaps, but it shows you how hard donald trump is having right now getting his new message out there. but he still has the conservative media and so much of the republican party in his thrall. you also wrote about kevin mccarthy, who after brief break

if the president after january 6th, has sidled up to him again. give us your analysis here. is there any sense at all that mccarthy will do anything other than march in lockstep with trump as he tries to become the majority house speaker in 2022? >> i don't think so. and this goes back to the other column i wrote at the daily beast. i think that kevin mccarthy is one of those republicans who could have stood up and certainly, if there was ever an opportunity, that off-ramp would have been after january 6th. he did criticize trump briefly, and then they evolved pretty quickly into, you know, it's almost like, let's count to ten and go back to our abuser, is basically what they do. i think kevin mccarthy is not a leader, he's a follower. and republicans by all counts really ought to win the midterm. they should take back the house,

just for historical reasons, the wind is at their back. but they're looking a few things. and one of them is really a message. kevin mccarthy can't lead his caucus. they can't talk about joe biden. they can't talk about the looming inflation, the rising crime rate. you name it, all the things that you could talk about if you had a coherent, conservative message. really, instead, kevin mccarthy is at the mercy of the whims of donald trump. luckily, donald trump's online game ain't what it used to be. but still, in all, kevin mccarthy doesn't have any control over his caucus, over who -- what the message is going to be. and so, you know, look, i think the republicans probably still got lucky, just because of all of these external factors, but if you're counting on kevin mccarthy to help put you over the top and for him to become

speaker, you know, think again. >> matt lewis and pete wehner, thank you very much, appreciate you being on. kevin mccarthy can't even talk about the assault on the capitol with his colleagues, many of them getting traumaized and people getting hurt. he can't even talk about that. >> the funny thing is, he actually did talk about it to them and he talked about it to anyone that would lesson on january the 6th. >> right, on that day. yes, he was very scared, actually. >> he was harshly critical of donald trump, which was appropriate. and now he's lost his voice. it's so sad. >> joining us now, we have washington bureau chief for washington today, susan page, and positivity national action network, reverend al sharpton. god to have you both onboard this morning. >> rev, a couple things going on right now. we're coming up -- it's the one-year anniversary of the

murder of george floyd. also this past weekend, and i've seen you with the head of adl repeatedly over the last several years, rise of anti-semitic attacks from new york city to los angeles. deeply, deeply disturbing and they just continue. >> well, yes, i'm in minneapolis, where yesterday we had a rally with the george floyd family foundation. bridgette floyd and other members of the family. and the momentum is going washington to meet with the president tomorrow on the actual anniversary, where many of us around the country will have a nine-minute, 29-second stand ing at the house of justice and around the country, to try to push for the george floyd policing act, justice and policing act. and we hope the president will meet with civil rights leaders to play a part in making sure that happens. but at the same time, you can't

fight against racism or bigotry just in your silo. and the attacks that we're seeing around the country that are based on anti-semitic attacks must be just as deapplauded and denounced as we see anti-black attacks. we've made oppositions clear about a two-state solution. but for people based on the fact that people are jewish, just go on your own and commit crimes that are based on that must be denounced unequivocally. when i was a younger activist and met to meet with abraham hashel, who marched with martin luther king, that whole idea of bringing black and jews together is something people have worked on for decades, even when we disagreed about some of the

lines on the west blank and some of the policies may be. but to stand by and watch people just attack, being attacked in times square and other places because they're jewish, we must race our voices against that, as we also ask jjews and arabs to raise their voices with us on george floyd and other cases. you can't have it any other way. you must fight against any wrong, or you don't have the moral authority to fight when you are wronged. >> and how do those challenges play into president biden's next 100 days? you're writing about that and aub talking about how the next 100 days will be a lot tougher. it's where reality meets the road and reality can often bite. >> he was able to get through that big covid package. we've seen the happy results with the decline in covid deaths

and covid hospitalizations. that was very encouraging. but he had hoped to sign that george floyd criminal justice act tomorrow on the one-year anniversary of george floyd's murder. that's not going to happen. it's possible that the criminal justice bill will be able to get through the senate, but not on time. infrastructure talks stalled. and you saw him pulled into the conflict in the middle east because it is not an issue that an american president can avoid, but probably also not one that an american president can solve anytime soon. these are some of the challenges. exactly, it's really, quite precisely the lesson that his predecessors in the white house have learned, which is, you don't always get to pick your priorities, but your ability to avoid being overwhelmed by things that happened around you is really a test of whether you'll be successful or not. >> so susan, what is the strategy right now as far as coming to a deal with the

republicans or deciding to cut them loose? are they still working close to show joe and senator sinema they're doing absolutely everything they can to work in good faith, to get a bill with republicans before passing it on their own? >> those two democratic senators are the silent partners in these talks, these bipartisan talks between republicans in the white house. because if those talks don't result in a bipartisan deal and it is increasingly unlikely that they will, those are the -- manchin and sinema are the two that the white house needs to convince to stand with them if they move to reconciliation. i think that is increasingly the likelihood that we're going to see. i think it is increasingly likely that we'll see democrats turn to a party line vote, and with those very narrow majorities, you have to make sure they can hold every democrat if that's the route

they're going to take. >> reverend sharpton, a year later, "the new york times" yesterday had a lot of postmortems and lookbacks over the past year. where are we a year later of george floyd? well, we are still needing to see federal law. we're at the same place we were a year ago when it comes to federal law. we're taking some steps forward on the other levels. we saw the conviction of derek chauvin here in minneapolis. something we've never seen before. it was the first time in the history of this state of minnesota that a white policeman was convicted for killing a black. but then right after the conviction, there was a black young man killed ten miles from here in bedford center, minnesota. so we see steps forward, but we see that we must do a lot more. and that is federal legislation. until we can legislate it from a

federal level, we'll keep going from incident to incident. this is winning around with the chauvin verdict, but we haven't won the fight. >> reverend al, thank you. the "usa today's" susan page, thank you very much for being on this morning. let's get now to mayor bill de blasio, who is joining us now. he has a bill announcement to make exclusively with us about new york city public schools. mr. mayor, thank you. what's the news. >> mika, it's good news. new york city public schools, 1 million kids will be back in their classroom in september, all in person, no remote. >> wow. >> that's the news. parents, kids, everyone's been waiting for to know, we're going to be back strong, ready, safe, covid is plummeting in this city. i'm happy to say. we're almost to 8 million vaccination doses since day one and it's just amazing to see the

forward motion right now, the recovery that's happening in new york city, but you can haven't a full recovery without full-strength schools, everyone back sitting in those classrooms, kids learning again. that's what we're going to have in september. >> that's going to make a big difference for a lot of struggling parents, too. what's the model for other cities to make this possible. what has it taken to make it possible to get kids back in the classrooms? >> mika, we set a gold standard, really, from the very beginning. getting health and safety measures from around the world that we saw worked in schools. kids had masks on in all of our schools for the whole time. lots of cleaning, lots of ventilation. we layered all of these approaches and it worked really powerfully. we've had much, much lower levels of covid in our schools for months and months. much safer than any other place

in the city. and the city has been getting better now for quite a while. we have had the lowest covid positivity for seven months now in new york city. we'll be doing a version of that, but we'll do that again in september and look, we know, especially now, more and more kids and staff will get vaccinated. we've made vaccination available everywhere. it's time. it's really time to go full strength now. >> so this is great news for so many new york city parents. none more than jonathan lemire, who can go back to watching soap operas in the afternoon and start his online betting habits. >> it's who he is. it's who he is. he needs it for his reporting. it's like his hemingway moment is the soapoperas. you get to watch your stories again. >> "days of our lives "has been a staple for me for a long time

and i'm glad i'll be able to reengage with this after this news. currently, now in september, there will be no remote option. right now, fully 60% of cities students are doing it remote. how do you overcome the hesitancy of their parents to convince them to go -- to send their children back to school? and how do you physically do it if there are still social distancing requirements that could lead to crowded classrooms. hesitancy and social distancing? >> a lot of communication is the answer to the first. we'll welcome parents to come into schools, starting in june, see how much has been done to keep them safe. get reacclimated. we'll do that throughout the summer, coming into september. anyone who has a question or concern, come into your child's school. see what's going on and get the answers. in terms of the overall approach, look, we have proven that we can beat back covid all over this country. and school oppose four months

from now. so i absolutely believe covid will continue to go down, vaccinations will go up, recovery will be strong. i think the cdc will be changing those rules quite a bit between now and september. but right now, new york city public schools, we could have every child 3 feet apart, if we have to. but i fundamentally believe by august, the cdc will relax those rules further to recognize the progress we've made in this country. >> fantastic. tell me, mr. mayor, there's a race going on many new york city. just curious what your thoughts are about the participants. is there anybody that you support or anybody who concerns you? >> joe, i'm only going to say this. we have a recovery going on right now in new york city and it has to be a recovery for all of us. it really has to be inclusive, it has to be a recovery that does not just replace the previous status quo before the

pandemic, but takes us somewhere better. on december 31st, i'm handing the baton to someone. i'm not going to comment yet on this race, but i'll say this much. it's very close. voters have not yet paid a lot of attention. i think you'll see in the last week or two before june 22nd, they'll finally consolidate. we also have rank choice voting for the first time in new york city. i think it will be a much tighter election than most that we're used to. >> are you concerned about the candidacy of andrew yang? >> i'm not going to talk about any individual candidate. i only know andrew yang a little bit. i find him a very likable person. but here's what i would say about all the candidates. that is a really tough moment. new york city is coming out of arguably the biggest crisis in our history. and we've got a lot of things that we have to get right at this point. so the next mayor better be ready to hit the ground running.

i think that's something the voters are going to weigh heavily. unlike a non-crisis environment, i think this time, voters will weigh experience, understanding of the city, a sense of how to actually get things done and i think that will weigh heavily in their minds. >> new york city mayor bill de blasio. by the way, "morning joe's" dr. dave campbell enjoyed spending time with you and your wife last week when he was up interviewing you. >> we love dr. dave! and he said joe can have as many hamburgers in the morning as he wants. that it's actually a new diet trend, that it's okay. >> no, it's just so gross. bill de blasio, thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," could u.s. officials be under silent attack? the havana syndrome first affected diplomats in cuba and now the biden administration is being pressed to act.

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37 past the hour. the biden administration is facing pressure to investigate a growing number of mysterious attacks on u.s. diplomats, spies and military personnel. intelligence officers are working to confirm if microwave radiation is being used as a weapon to affect the health of u.s. officials in what has become known as havana syndrome. people believed to have been affected have reported headaches, dizziness, and in some cases, a loud noise before the sudden onset of symptoms.

joining us now, staff writer at "the new yorker," adam entous. his latest report is entitled "stealth mode: how the havana syndrome spread to the white house." and he writes in part this, top officials in both the trump and biden administrations privately suspect that russia is responsible for the havana syndrome. their working hypothesis is that agents of the gru, the russian military intelligence service, have been aiming microwave radiation devices at u.s. officials to collect intelligence from their computers and cell phones. and that these devices can cause serious harm to the people they target. yet during the past four years, u.s. intelligence agencies have been unable to find any evidence to back up this theory, let alone sufficient proof to publicly accuse russia.

intelligence is an imperfect science, a u.s. intelligence official told me. it's what you know and it can change in the blink of an eye. there is still agreement about how to refer to the incidents. privately, officials characterize them as attacks. publicly, they refer to them as anomalous health incidents. and adam, you are detailing for the first time what happened to three white house staffers, including a senior national security council official, what became ill on the grounds of the heavily fortified white house itself. tell us about that. >> so, this staff -- this member of the nsc staff was finishing his day at work. and he walked from the old executive office building and made his way down to old -- to west executive avenue, which is right across from the west wing. and it was on those steps, as he's getting to, you know, right

across from the oval office, when he began to have a very intense headache and felt and heard wringing in his ears. and at this point, he starts to lose control of his motor skills, particularly in his limbs and fingers. and he has about a 600-yard walk to his car. and on his way there, he falls, because he cannot control his legs. he thinks he's going to die at this point. he makes his way to a nearby street and he manages to get his lyft app open on his phone and makes his way to the hospital. >> my god. >> it's remarkable, adam. and we've been hearing about these stories since 2016, i guess, through the obama administration, the trump administration, now the biden administration and it seems that every story is met with or at least in the past has been met with a bit of skepticism by

others in the agencies. is that skepticism starting to lift? are people starting to realize that there is something more significant to this? >> frankly, this is an incredible mystery in that the cia, the nsa, the national security agency, had not been able to find any intelligence. and after a period of time like this that goes by, where there isn't the intelligence, naturally, within any intelligence agency, there start to be the question, is there a misunderstanding, is this a collection of other ailments that could explain what's happening. you know, not much has changed on the intelligence side since that first incident in december of 2016. the intelligence community still doesn't have anything. there was an assessment that was done by the fbi's behavioral

analysis unit, where they concluded that this was psychogenic illness in those initial incidents in havana. they reached this conclusion without actually interviewing any of the victims. so this skepticism has sort of seeped into the bureaucracy and it's been really kind of these cases where top policy makers actually know the victims. so in the case of these two white house victims, the nsc victim, top policy makers knew them and trusted them, and because of that, they sort of put aside the concept schism they were hearing from the cia, the concept schism they were hearing from the fbi, and demanded a reopening of this cold case. and really what happens is, they basically ask all the agencies, tell us your cases. and it just kind of opened a floodgate when all of these additional reports started pouring in. obviously, we don't know the extent to which all of them are

the same thing. it's very much a moving target at this stage. >> you do have one incident, though, where you talk about an officer pulling his car into a busy intersection in russia. suddenly, he felt as though his head was going to explode, which sounds very consistent. a cia officer in the same city reported a very similar episode. one of the reasons we ask you today is because i've got a good friend, lifelong friend who's in the agency who has a friend, who went to official trip to moscow, who had to retire because he got attacked, as well. but you say here in this one incident, later, geolocation data indicated that vehicles affiliated with russia's military intelligence facility had been in the vicinity of both people at the time of their separate incidents. is that perhaps one of the only pieces of evidence that they have that russia may be directly connected with this?

>> yeah, so there are approximately more than 130 instances around the world, right. of the 130, in about a handful of those cases, including the two you just mentioned, they identified gru vehicles in the vicinity of the americans that they got sick at the moment that they got sick. this is obviously something that the cia analysts have to look at closely and they are looking at it closely, but this data is, you know, shouldn't be viewed as necessarily like a smoking gun, because in a lot of these countries, where this is happening, every time a senior american spy or a senior american military officer leaves the embassy or leaves his home or his or her home, there is a gru vehicle following him or her around the city. so why does it only happen in

this handful of cases? i think you mentioned, which is right, there's a lot of pressure right now on the biden administration. and there was pressure at the end of the trump administration to basically say, this is russia. line up the perpetrator and shoot them, right? and the reality is, is that the intelligence is just not there. they have this circumstantial case and they have a gut feeling, based on a history of knowing what the russians are willing to do in other cases, but really, there isn't -- there really isn't the intelligence at this point to point to the russians or to retaliate in any way. that could change, as we say, you know, very quickly. >> but adam, there is also great skepticism that russia would be so brazen, and let me just say, so stupid, to launch an attack in the united states.

and again, to think that russia would be asinine enough to attack a white house staffer as they're walking from the old executive office building to the white house? my god! the floodgates. i mean, it was -- it was heinous enough and shocking enough and caused enough damage to russia when we found out they were poisoning people in great britain. but to do it on white house grounds, that would open so many floodgates. would that be worth it for any intel they gained? >> yeah, no, i share your view that, you know, and frankly, the victim in that case, the nsc official completely agrees with you. and frankly, after it happened to him, he was convinced that it must be something else. there must be some other explanation for what happened. it was when he heard details from one of his colleagues about some of the other more extreme cases, that he thought, well,

maybe this is what happened to me. and he reported it. you know, which was then added to this running list of 130 plus possible cases. you know, that particular individual had just gotten back from a trip overseas. so, you know, he has -- basically, we just don't know really, you know, it is possible something happened to him, you know, there's a case that's cited in the article about a cia officer, a senior cia officer who goes in august 2017 down to havana, that night, she feels the pressure, hears the noise, calls a colleague to come check on her room. she goes back to sleep in the same room, goes back to langley a few days later, and a few days after that, she's beset by these

symptoms. so we're not exactly sure what happened or frankly, the doctors may have been right when they said it was a migraine with aura. the doctor that he saw at the hospital after he became ill. so we just don't know. >> we don't know. and jonathan lemire, i'm not suggesting that these people haven't been attacked. it certainly sounds like there is a consistency to these stories and they may be attacked. and my only comment regarding russia was, they would have to be mind bogglingly stupid to launch an attack on the white house grounds. i don't think they are that stupid. but that doesn't discount a terror state having this technology and deciding that they had -- i'm not saying it's north korea, but what would north korea have to lose if they decided to launch that sort of attack? in fact, it would actually probably strengthen them in the

eyes of other terrorist state. i'm just throwing a bit of skepticism on the russian attacks on american soil. that doesn't seem to make as much sense to me. >> russia, certainly, joe, has been extraordinarily brazen in other parties, interfering with leches. and we know behind or at least putin nodding and winking behind cyber attacks that took place in the united states and elsewhere. but dahmer, this is my question to you. let's make it a two-parter. if russia is the leading theory and there's even not enough for the u.s. to retaliate, in your reporting, have there been any back-channel whispers to moscow like, hey, knock this off? and if it's not russia, what are the other possibilities? could it be north korea, iran, some sort of other rogue state? or something else entirely? what other things are being looked at? >> well, at this point, you know, i don't think they've whispered to the russians, knock it off, because genuinely, they

really have no idea if it's the russians that are doing it. so i don't think those whispers have happened. that might change in a few months, but at this point, i think the cia's investigation is really kind of cranking up. they're making this a higher priority. so we might see intelligence al messaging to occur. as far as other potential actors, you know, frankly, very little has changed since the first incidents in cuba in that it's the usual suspects. right? in the absence of intelligence, you go to the usual suspects. they thought, all right, cuba is a police state. it must be that the cubans are involved. that was the initial assessment of the trump administration during that 2017 period when mcmaster was the national security advisor. they concluded that we don't really have any intelligence to show anybody -- we can't see who the perpetrator is. the cubans control their

territory. therefore, they must be complicit in some way or aware in some way. so it's up to them to stop it. when the deputy national security advisor at the end of the trump administration learns about this in 2017 when he is a china and asia advisor, he thinks it must be north korea. he calls one of his friends within the government who is an expert who says, no, this is russian mo. frankly, the intelligence picture hasn't changed very much. it remains very much a cold care and a mystery. the only thing that's changed is the number of people who have come forward to say they had incidents or experiences that are somewhat similar to what we have seen in these havana syndrome situations. >> adam, thank you so much for coming on the show this morning. coming up, what is next for the white house infrastructure proposal after republicans rejected the latest

counteroffer? we will talk to up with of president biden's top economic advisers. plus, martin beshire apologizes for deceitful tactics for the interview with princess diana. "morning joe" is back in two minutes. ome burritos! oh, nice. burritos?! get a freshly made footlong from subway® instead. with crisp veggies on freshly baked bread. just order in the app! ditch the burgers! choose better, be better. subway®. eat fresh. so then i said to him, you oughta customize your car insurance with liberty mutual, choose better, be better. so you only pay for what you need. hot dog or... chicken? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ there's interest you accrue, and interests you pursue. plans for the long term, and plans for a long weekend. at thrivent, we believe money is a tool, not a goal. to learn more, text thrive to 444555,

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it is time, my friends. it is time. it's a euphoric time. let's bring roger bennett. he is the author of "reborn in the usa, an englishman's love letter to his chosen home." my lord, we have so much to talk about. we were in front of computers watching all of the nbc sports and peacock programming. it was like nasa mission

control. i said, i'm going to watch liverpool. tell me how chelsea is doing. keep an eye on leister. the most remarkable thing, liverpool who had been considered long gone and out of europe for months, roger, they just came charging into the -- like john wayne at the end of a 1950s western. >> more like jon snow. i'm so happy for you. i really am. you are talking about the final day of the pandemic defying premiere league season. enough drama. this is judgment day. three teams vying for third and fourth place that bring with them money-filled buckets. liverpool, defending champions. five straight wins to close the season. the goal, the first of two. not a beauty, but it's

important. crystal palace lock up third place. they are dogged mentality monsters. chelsea, resurrection appeared to be teetering at the last. they lost. it felt like their campaign had gone. all eyes turn. 40 minutes to go. would they hold on? no. it's darkest just before the light. punched the ball into his own net. die a hero or live long enough score your own goal. it's like watching bambi's mother be shot by hunters.

it's like cryptocurrency collapse but wearing polyester shorts. manchester city, i can hardly watch. they are your title winners. they were worse than ted cruz in this one. farewell double for the parting player. city had been fast and lightning. they win the title for the third time in four years. fifth time in a decade. more money than jeff bezos. they face chelsea next weekend. >> i wanted to ask, i'm not sure about the ted cruz reference there. i wanted to ask you about man city. you talked to other teams. i know you talk to them all the time. since man city has spent way too much money, have busted through

all the caps, have not been punished for fair play like they were supposed to, a lot of owners think they just can't keep up with city. what do you think? >> it's a geopolitical power play. in england they call it sports washing. abu nation has -- abu dhabi has invested. they have created a marketing giant for the nation. it's a public relations soft power as you call it in america. on one hand, there's an emotional dissident with sports. we love the goal, the passes, glory. with we lift up the rock -- it's not just in abu dhabi. russian oligarchs owning teams for the same purpose with chelsea. the american sports owners have

invested, for all the wealth, they can't compete. it's an imbalance. i should say, if we are talking about america before i go, because it's a historic moment, 26-year-old zach stephen, the first american to win a premiere medal. may many follow in his footsteps. lovely moment. america is becoming a normal football nation. >> #usa. >> roger bennett, thank you, very much. >> thank you. >> good-bye, roger. >> thank you for being with us. >> you just pretend not to like this. we know you are football mad, obsessed for this. >> stop. stop. >> she loves all of this. one correction. city was able to buy the second best manager in the world. the first best still resides at

anfield every weekend. >> love you. up next, sticking to sports, phil mickelson makes history at the pga championship. there were plenty of people there to witness it. that is where we kick off our next hour of "morning joe." get it in the hole! >> here it is. biggest moment of a legendary career, phil defeats father time. >> phil mickelson wins this year's pga championship. a historic victory for the hall of fame golfer. the crowds were there to celebrate. >> were they ever. >> my god! look at this. >> they came pouring in. >> galleries we haven't seen for some time since the start of the

pandemic. >> phil, i mean, my goodness, first guy to win over 50. >> that's pretty cool. >> put him on the over 50 list. >> one problem there. >> front to park, what a great performance from phil mickelson. we will talk about that in a little bit. >> good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it's monday, may 24th. with us to kick things off we have white house reporter for the associated john than lemire and u.s. national editor at "the financial times," ed luce joins us this morning. guess what? the pandemic outlook is improving nationwide as new coronavirus cases drop to rates not seen in nearly a year. death rates are also as low as they have been since last summer. according to the cdc, 60% of people over 18 have received at

least one shot and are almost -- and almost half are fully vaccinated, contributing to the sharp decline in covid-19 cases. the vaccine makes a huge difference. health experts do caution that the virus remains dangerous and communities with low vaccination rates -- not enough americans have vaccinated to extinguish the virus, leaving the potential for new variants that could extend the outbreak. there are warnings that come along with this good news. the message is to get vaccinated. the communities where people are hesitant to take the vaccine -- >> it's great news. >> it's not helpful if you don't get it. >> it's great news. look at those numbers. they are falling. hospitalizations are falling. covid deaths falling, the lowest in over a year. you saw yesterday that mob of people in south carolina following phil mickelson up the

18th fairway. i think a lot of people watching were excited to actually see that there's a sporting event -- a huge sporting event where things were returning to normal. i'm not so sure phil was excited about it. for a moment there, the crowds kind of got out of control. it's south carolina. it's south carolina. they are hardy people. they wear their emotions on their sleeves in very, very good ways and a couple bad days. jonathan lemire, it was -- you are seeing a lot of not only sporting events but going out and seeing people getting back to living again a normal life. it sure is joyous for an awful lot of people. not as -- we stay in our cave. we don't get out much. but it's joyful for most people. inside the white house, i mean,

you know, i look at my wwd, what's in, what's out app. inside the white house, hugs in, masks out. >> hugs in, masks mostly out, joe. first of all, there at the pga, it seems like they lost control of the crowd a little bit. they were right on top of phil. >> exactly. >> that was spectacular, which i know we will get back to. in terms of the white house, they have been so mindful, the biden administration of trying to broadcast to the nation how they should be the people -- the people of america should respond to the pandemic. we know president trump when he was in office, he and his staff were cavalier about the virus. they didn't wear masks. they didn't practice social distancing. we saw several covid outbreaks in the white house. the symbol of the government. the most powerful and fortified place in the nation, hot spot

time after time. superspreader events linked to events at the white house. when biden and his team came in, the first image they saw of joe biden, he was in the oval office wearing a mask. they have kept that cautious tone and plan up until the cdc guidelines came down last week. we have seen now the last week we had the leader of south korea at white house, full pomp and circumstance. hugs, kisses, vice president harris hugged a 95-year-old medal of honor winner. they are sending a signal to the nation, if you have been vaccinated, go back to your normal life. you don't need the mask. you can do the things we have missed, including charging phil mickelson at a major golf tournament. >> i guess so. >> security had to get around him. things were getting a little hairy for a second.

let's talk about britain and the rest of the world. india a tragedy. other countries having problems. great britain and the eu, is that still a tale of two stories? great britain doing better than the eu? >> eu has been catching up quite rapidly in the last few weeks. you have seen some of the scenes we have in new york and here in d.c. of normalization. you see in paris, in berlin. europeans are catching up. there's been good news from britain which has had the double mutant indian variant alarmingly. they have done tests on whether the pfizer vaccine is effective against the double mutant. it turns out that it is effective against it. there was some concern that it wouldn't be, which would force us all back to the drawing board. so that's good news. i think the big issue remains

the west versus the rest of the world. only 2% of the shots that have been administered have gone to the 50% poorest in the world. that's got to change. that's a conversation biden is going to be having. he's going to make his first foreign trip in a couple of weeks. it will be to britain, to the g7 summit. that's a conversation he is going to be having with his european counterparts. >> fulton county georgia now. it will undergo another audit of 2020 absentee ballots following claims of fraud. the ruling by a judge allows for the ballots to be unsealed and reviewed by a group of electors claiming fulton county election workers counted fraudulent ballots. the review will be done under the guidance and supervision of a special master appointed by the court. it comes after the group filed a lawsuit in december.

the state of georgia conducted three audits soon after the election, all of which reaffirmed the original outcome of the race. meanwhile, republican congresswoman liz cheney continues to speak out. sitting down with jonathan swann. >> you are trying to chart a new course for the party away from donald trump, away from the lie. it just seems like there aren't people willing to buy what you are selling. where do you get the hope for this, that this is going to work? >> because i love this country. because i believe in our democracy and i believe in our constitutional process and system. because i look at it from the perspective of what's right. i think the future of our party has to be built around ideas. it has to be built around substance. >> which ideas? >> i think we have to be able to make a substantive case for limited government, for low

taxes, for a strong national defense. the idea and substance and policy are on our side. we have to get back to a place where we are making those arguments. >> how much culpability to republican elites have for fertilizing the soil for the big lie? >> that's not at all how i think about it. you won't be surprised to hear. >> why? >> i think when you look at voter fraud, it certainly exists. i resistance to voter i.d. you ought to show i.d. to vote. there's a big difference between that and a president of the united states who loses an election after he tried to steal the election and refuses to concede and then continues to say the election was stolen, suggesting that our democratic process is insufficient of conveying the will of the people. >> you don't see any linkage between donald trump saying the election is stolen and then republicans in all these state

legislatures rushing to put in place the restrictive voter laws? >> you have to look at the specifics. if you look at the georgia laws, there has been a lot said nationally about the georgia voter laws that turns out not to be true. >> even the republican lieutenant governor of georgia said that there was -- when this bill started to pick up momentum was when rudy giuliani was testifying the georgia election was a sham. i don't think anyone doubts the reason 400 some voting bills have been introduced, supported by the republican national committee, i don't think it's a coincidence after the election that this has happened. >> i think everybody should want a situation and a system where people who ought to have the right to vote can vote and people who don't shouldn't. i come back to things like -- >> what are they solving for?

what are all these states doing? >> well, each state is different. >> what was the big problem in georgia that needed to be solved by a new law? what was the big problem in texas? what was the big problem in florida? these laws are coming all arndt states. what are they solving for? >> i think you have to look at each individual state law. i think what we can all agree -- >> you can't divorce them from the context. come on. >> i think what we can agree on is that what is happening right now is really dangerous. >> jonathan swann joins us next with more of the sitdown with liz cheney and what she calls the danger of donald trump. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. [sfx: kids laughing] [sfx: bikes passing] [sfx: fire truck siren] onstar, we see them.

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when i think about 2000, i

think about sitting on the inaugural platform in january of 2001 watching al gore. we had won. i'm sure he didn't think he had lost. we had fought this politically very, very intense battle. he conceded. he did the right thing for this nation. that is one of the big differences between that and what we are dealing with now. and the danger of donald trump today. >> jonathan, thanks for being here. a great interview, as always. congratulations on that. it's very funny. i remember about a year ago -- it must have been a year ago, somebody said write the thing that will most surprise people about you. gary casper, who was harshly critical of donald trump and was something of a hero to many on left said, you all will be so surprised and so disappointed after trump is gone by how conservative i actually am to

which i retweeted and said, amen. liz cheney is there. she's being heralded by people who have attacked her her entire life. they will start attacking her again. you hear that interview, guess what? news flash. liz cheney is a conservative. >> she's not only a conservative, she's probably on the right of the party. she's a very staunch conservative. people forget, she was a warrior during the obama years. she's now this anathema to the republican base. but that's where her heart is. she decided to take a stand on january 6th and the big lie and donald trump. the problem with all of this conversation is, you know, you talk about there being three parties, she really is a fringe figure in the republican party. it's not that there's this huge group of people who support her

and mitt romney. there aren't, in terms of republican voters -- 70% of republican voters consider joe biden illegitimate. there's polling to show that. 70%. that's extraordinary. that's where the party has gone. the party actually has left liz cheney. the real challenge she has if she's going to chart the new course for the party is she has to bring these voters back to the party. many of them have left the party. it's not clear that the people who consider themselves republican voters are going to be amenable to what liz cheney is selling. >> what's her next move? >> well, it's unclear to me, actually. her primarily election in 2022 is going to become a proxy battle for the future and in her view the soul of the republican party. donald trump and his political operation are desperately trying

to find one person to run against her. they haven't figured out who yet. the problem for them right now is there's a number of people who have declared themselves. one of them had impression nanlt -- impregnated a 14-year-old and described it as a romeo and juliette scenario. if the field remains divided, she's got a decent chance. if they settle on one, she's in trouble. you have to remember with liz cheney, this is important to understand, look at the empirical. she's three times more popular among democratic voters than among republican voters. when you talk about the parties, you really need to just remember where the republican electorate is at. they are not where liz cheney is right now. >> jonathan swan, thank you very much. coming up, our next guest compares the economic recovery to coming out of a coma. you don't just get up and run a marathon the next day.

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♪♪ ed luce, you see what's happening in the united states, people have come on for some time talking about what's happened at the center right not only in britain but poland and spain, in france and hungary, all across the western world with western democracies. do you see any parallels with britain right now? >> not as close a parallel as i would have seen in 2016, the brexit happened, trump became the nominee, won the election, or since. i think britain has a populist leader, but he is the one who has benefitted from the vaccine.

of course, the vaccine rollout in america occurred after trump was defeated. the left in britain is destroyed, really. largely it's self-destruction. the democrats have regrouped under biden. they put up probably the one guy who could have defeated trump, and he did. they, therefore, have a second chance at re-establishing themselves as competent in government in american eyes. that's an opportunity the left isn't getting in too many other parts of the democratic world. i think the parallels with brilliant are less salient than they would normally be. there's nothing in the western world to compare with one of two major parties rejecting the rules of the game, embracing essentially an authoritarian cult like the republicans are doing and getting more into it as the defeat of their cult

leader gets -- goes into the rearview mirror. it's becoming more cultish, more jonestownesque. >> it is strange. the more republicans lose, the more of a personality cult donald trump seems to develop. you can look at his losses in '17 and '18, historic losses. republicans lost like they have never lost before in the house of representatives just as far as the pure vote totals. they started losing in '19, governorships in the south. in '20, they lost the big race, lost the race for their presidency, lost georgia, lost the senate, lost the house.

rational parties, parties that want to rule, parties that want their policies to change instead of just these -- putting forth these hyper gestures, they self-adjust and elect can'ts -- candidates they can get elected. donald trump is not that guy. he puts in many cases people in a difficult position to win general elections. >> it has the evidence of a serious cult. i'm not saying it as a joke. i'm not saying it -- not even an exaggeration at this point. >> jonathan lemire, i want to clear one thing up. i have had some family members and friends ask me, if donald trump was so bad and this wasn't rigged, why did the republicans win and do so well in the house?

republicans over performed expectations. but it's important to remember that the house still remained democratic and remained democratic by, you know -- i think they are plus nine, plus ten. that's about the same -- biden did about the same that bill clinton did in '92 and '96. much better than jfk if you look at the house side. biden did much better than either party when it came to the senate. he was a net plus five in picking up senate seats. he picked up through senate seats in 2020. donald trump lost two. you can go all the way back 40, 50 years and biden did much better than most. it's become urban legend that democrats got romped because the

polling was so bad and the expectations were so high. this was not a historical anomaly. if republicans are running on, we did a great job, we only lost by ten seats, it's kind of the way losers think. you either win or you lose. and they lost. >> right. this is where two things can be true at once. the republicans did out perform expectations. they had a strong cycle. but not as strong as the democrats. it doesn't change the fact that under donald trump's leadership in the party, republicans lost control of the house, lost control of the senate and then eventually, of course, lost control of the white house. the margins are small. 50/50 in the senate. democrats in the house is not large. as '22 approaches there are reasons for republicans to feel confident. historical trends are that the

party in power tends to lose seats in the midterms. it wouldn't take much of a swing to put that back in the republican column. that's why they are doubling down on trying to put january 6th behind them. that's why they are trying to. they have made the calculation in the short-term, embracing trumpism, the republican leadership, mccarthy and mcconnell, even if mcconnell doesn't like trump personally and mccarthy is cozying up to him, they believe this is the way to go. we will see. in 2018, that off year election, that didn't go so well for republicans when trump's name itself was not on the ballot. we also -- the white house and democrats believe that they will have a shot to rebuke that historical trend. if the nation has put the pandemic behind it, if the economy has roared back to life -- there are concerns about inflation and so on. that could be a moment that they point to and be able to hold on to seats. the house will be tougher than the senate. they feel like they have a shot

to maintain power in 2022. that would further damage republicans who are trying to stay cozied up to the former president. bob dylan 101. we will talk about how the american icon who turns 80 is just as relevant as ever. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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a follow-up to a story we told you about friday. martin bashir came forward over the weekend to apologize about his disgraced 1995 interview with princess diana. denied it harmed her. quote, everything we did in terms of the interview was as she wanted from when she wanted

to alert the palace to when it was broadcast to its content. an independent inquiry into the former bbc reporter revealed bashir had forged documented to secure an introduction to princess diana. on having showed her brother earl spencer four bank statements, he said, obviously, i regret it. it was wrong. it had no bearing on anything. it had no bearing on diana. it had no bearing on the interview. according to the 127-page inquiry report, bashir hired a graphic designer to forge bank statements to make it seem as though diana was being spied on by her own staff. during the sit-down, diana confirmed prince charles' relationship with camila parker

boles had damaged her relationship and made her bulimic. they called the tactics deceitful. in 1996, the bbc exonerated bashir. the recent investigation alleged they covered up the truth. the organization has written letters apologizing. >> that was a non-apology apology, because it did have a massive impact on the interview. the interview would have never happened without the forged documents, it would have never happened without the lies, it would have never happened if they hadn't gone to her brother to show the documents that then gave her an introduction, that then put her on the defensive where she felt like her own staff was spying on her, which of course started a chain of events that led very quickly --

>> making her feel isolated and embattled and putting context around her that was untrue. i watched the interview again after this report became public. it's kind of chilling, actually. to watch it knowing what really happened. >> it is chilling. you also look at the family members. look at what the sons have said. look what william said, look what harry said. they have no doubt -- and diana's brother who helped secure the interview, all of them have no doubt this interview would have never happened, this dark chapter in their family's history would have never happened if he hadn't have lied, if he hadn't have forged documents. it is hard to trace the causation from that to paris, but certainly it is not a stretch to suggest that things started falling apart far more quickly because of those forged documents, because of the lies, because of the deceit that was used to secure that bbc

interview. we turn back now to politics. as president biden battles republican leaders to pass his trillion dollar infrastructure plan, the white house is touting its economic success. in a memo, the president's top economic advisors wrote, overall, we see a picture of substantial progress, bolstered by an all of government effort to change the course of covid-19 and provide families and communities with economic support. we are poised for a year of strong growth and job gains. as the economy heals and interest rates remain low, the president believes it is the right moment to address longer term economic challenges. so we are laying the groundwork for strong, durable growth for decades to come. the president's goal is not to build back to 2019 but to build back better.

joining us now, one of the authors of the memo, chair of the white house council of economic advisers, dr. is a celia rouse. a lot of issues surrounding the economy. somehow these payments are leading to some problems in terms of the amount of jobs that are available, the amount of jobs that are being filled. i have seen it on the ground. i have seen restaurants and different places not able to find workers to fill the jobs. and yet, is there an argument that these payments are fulfilling a bigger need? >> absolutely. thank you for having me. the american rescue plan was designed to help the american people get to the other side of the pandemic. it was -- first of all,

remember, the american rescue plan has been funding the very effective rollout of the vaccinations, which is why we are all feeling that we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and that we can see the end is in sight. it also was funding extended unemployment insurance benefits to help people pay rent, put food on the table and additional assistance to businesses and other employers as well. the idea -- if we go back to when the american rescue plan was passed, i was watching you earlier and you have been showing the graphic of the number of cases. if we go back to january and february, we were in a very different place. we had no understanding of how long it would take for us to get to the other side. the vaccinations have turned out to be far more effective than at least i understood. we know that the vaccine rollout has been extremely effective. the american rescue plan was designed to get us to the other side. that is what it is doing. players may be --

>> i'm sorry. we had a little delay. go ahead. finish your thought. >> yes, employers are posting signs. let's remember that it was only five weeks ago vaccinations were opened up for all americans over the age of 18. for the two-dose regimen, it's two weeks until they are fully vaccinated. it's going to take time. we have a nearly $23 trillion economy. it's going to take time to put together employers and workers. workers have to look for jobs. they have childcare arrangements they have to put in place. it's going to take time for us to put this economy back together. i don't know about you, but i'm seeing signs that that is starting to happen. >> we have heard from many people anecdotally, of course, but also have gotten letters, emails, calls from democrats and republicans in the service

industry, the restaurant business saying they just can't get people back to work right now. in part because they would be making more money not working than by working. is that a concern inside the biden administration? if so, what's being done to address it as we move into the summer months? >> well, look, the president has emphasized that if for all workers receiving unemployment insurance benefits that if they are offered a suitable job, they need to take it. we certainly want workers to go back and enjoy -- get back to the fruits of the economy. but they need to be fully vaccinated. it needs to be safe. what we are seeing is a market system working. workers have supply issues. they have childcare arrangements. they are coming out of a pandemic. they need to find suitable work. employers are just starting to open up and search for workers. in a market economy, prices are the signal, wages are the prices in the labor market.

employers, if they pay the competitive wage, have safe working conditions, because we are still in this pandemic, we are getting to the other side, cases are way down. we know that it's only about half of working age adults are fully vaccinated. we are still seeing cases. workers -- if employers provide a safe working environment and provide a fair wage, they are able to find workers. this will work itself out. that's how a market system works. >> let's talk a little bit about women. i absolutely hear you on the fact that -- especially the women who have been hurt during the pandemic and any gains they may have made in their professional lives have been completely thrown off course. some of them are completely back into taking care of the kids. it's not so easy just to snap your fingers and grab a job. you have a house to run, a whole life that you have been holding up on a shoestring. what has been put into place or

what are you proposing to help specifically this population of women, which i think is in higher numbers than men in terms of being really impacted by this pandemic? >> you are absolutely right. this pandemic, which has affected every aspect of our society, including the shuttering of childcare centers and schools, has been a real struggle for caretakers and as you point out has been a disproportionate burden on women. as part of the american rescue plan, there is funding to get schools back open. there's good research that suggests that as schools have reopened, employment has increased across states. it's really by getting the money to the states so states are opening up, we hope to see summer camps open. there's funding in the american rescue plan for schools to provide that extra supplemental time over the summer so that

children can be catching up from some of the delays they have had over the past year. we are very optimistic that as schools reopen, as day cares reopen, that especially women, but all caretakers of young children can get back to work. it will take a little bit of time. we know that will happen. it's for that reason that i, myself, have my eye on the fall when schools open and many school systems are saying they will open fully because the school that's open half day is not helpful to somebody looking for full-time work. when schools fully reopen, i have full confidence that women will be able to rejoin the labor market. let's be clear, many people have been out of work for over a year. it will take some time. it's something we call scarring. skills atrophy. people are out of the workforce. some jobs have disappeared. people may have to do retraining or they will have to look in different places. it's going to take time to get them back to work. that's why the american rescue

plan has been so important. that's what we are doing to try to help people get back to work. >> dr. rouse, it's jonathan lemire. good to see you. we know there's infrastructure talks. according to those involved on both sides, they have stalled. to a broader point, i wanted to ask you about this. senate minority leader mcconnell has said the policies are causing inflation and hurting job growth. why does the biden white house think there is a possibility of working in a bipartisan fashion if the people you are working with, those republicans, say what you are trying to do is hurting the economy? >> well, president biden is committed to building back better. again, i was watching earlier and i heard joe say that -- don't bet against americans. don't bet against the american country, that we are innovators, we are feisty, we know how to

innovate. that's exactly what the american jobs plan is about. it's about investing in research and development. it's about investing in infrastructure. it really says, look, the public sector has a role to play in this. we know that's true with the vaccine development and rollout and getting through this pandemic. president biden understands that this -- how important these investments are for us retaining that global leadership. he said, look, inaction is not an option. we don't want to raise revenue by taxing people who make less than $400,000 a year. aside from that, he is open for business. he understands how very important these investments are. he remains committed to trying to work on a bipartisan basis. we have -- the administration put a counteroffer on the table. they look forward to what the republicans have to say about it. >> dr. rouse, thank you for coming on the show. see you soon. up next, our tribute to the

iconic bob dylan on this his 80th birthday. we are back with that in 90 seconds. we've got 'em on the ropes. the billionaires buying elections. the corporate special interests poisoning campaigns with dark money, frantic to preserve big-money politics as usual. because the for the people act is on the verge of becoming law. reining in corporate lobbyists, finally banning dark money, and protecting our freedom to vote. billionaires and special interests, your day is nearly done. because it's time for the people to win.

the idea was to put a tour up, combination of different acts on the same stage for a variety of physical styles. i would say it's a traditional

review, but it wasn't the traditional form of a review. that sounds [ bleep ], you know. i'm trying to get to the core of what this "rolling thunder" thing is all about, and i don't have a clue. because it's about nothing. it's just something ha happened 40 years ago. that's the truth of it. >> why don't we go down that road? >> why don't we? >> let's go. >> my don't remember a thing about "rolling thunder." it happened so long ago, i wasn't even borne. >> that was the scene from martin scorsese's netflix doubtry "rolling thunder: bob dylan's story." today is bob dylan's birthday, one of the most influential musicians of all time. modern day troubadour. inspired artists.

robert zimmerman remains a leading voice in our national conversation and around the world through his music. the man who has sold over 125 million albums yet never had a number one single who plugged in at newport in 1965, who shocked the world, who once famously penned the lyric, "i was so much older then. i'm younger than that now." turns 80 years old today. celebrating dylan's life and legacy, writer for "esquire" charles pierce and richard thomas, he teaches a wildly popular seminar at harvard, affectionately dubbed dylan 101 on the legendary musician and author of the book "why bob dylan matters." >> charlie, we went to the

metrics. 100 million records sold, i think more than anybody in the rock pantheon, popular music, nobody measures his influence on not just american music but the culture of this world. can you help our viewers understand that a little better? >> i think on his latest album, "which came out of the blue" last summer, right when we needed it, i will point out, he used a line from walt whitman and most of us that were evolved from his career said, okay, we knew that. the guy's had about seven careers in one. >> yeah. i think about the terrific movie

"i'm no there," where they had all of these different people playing bob throughout his career. it's really the only way to do a biography of the guy. he's been so many people. it's an extraordinary -- it's an extraordinary american life, let's put it that way. a life of american reinvention. >> time and time again. richard, of course, most famously when he went electric at the newport folk festival in '65, was booed on stage. and just as people started to figure him out, he in '79 "the slow train coming," he got booed in the opening shows there when he started doing christian music. talk about bob dylan, and i might say along with charlie the fact he continues to put out

great music. i was shocked by what came out last summer just when we needed it the most. >> exactly, yeah. that album is like no other album of dylan's, something new happening here. age 79, an album musically, lyrically, in all sorts of ways is just amazing. "i made up my mind to give myself to you," is a song of pure love and commitment and just the lines he picks, "no one ever told me. it's just something i knew, i made up my mind to give myself to you." and old but now clear voice. dylan's voice, like the personas that todd haynes picked up, dylan manipulated those voices and it's marvelous to have this new album. which has a lot of nice stuff on it, greeks and romans, and dylan

put himself into that tradition. becoming adisous in the album "tell tift" in 2012. >> for those who may be younger and never dove into dylan or followed dylan, can you explain how important his albums were in '65 and '66, not just rock music but to popular music? highway 61 revisited and "blonde on blonde." >> he did break it all back home. "highway 61" revisited it and "blonde on blonde," and incredible burst of productivity. fueled by god knows what, of course. i always kid people and call that the great trilogy. but that was the first mold that he broke.

that was the first time -- he changed popular music so radically. bruce springsteen said what elvis did for your body, dylan does for your mind. he kicked in the door with those three records, in terms of what you can do as a songwriter and i think the best witness to that is that he affected both john lennon and paul mccartney, and drove the beatles to develop their own voices. it's impossible to overstate the insew lens he had on the beatles, just like the beatles had on all popular music. then he has the motorcycle accident and goes away and then he comes back with national skyliner, completely different singing voice. and a real gentler side. then he tends to go away.

in 1974 he unleashes one of the best album i maybe ever heard. when you listen to the songs, with "buckets of rain," it's an incredibly painful record. he had "tangled up in blue," it took me six months to write that song and three years to live it. >> "blood on the tracks," obviously, one of his greatest -- one of the greatest. tell me, richard, do you have a favorite dylan album? is there any way for you to boil it down to that? or one dylan album that mattered more to music for you? >> i was 24 when that album that charlie mentions came out. to me, i brought "blonde on

blonde" was the only album "songs of leonard cohen" is the only albums i brought with me in '74. leonard cohen started singing after bob dylan. he wrote but didn't sing his poems. song like "simple twist of fate" and "shouted from the storm" and his ability to paint images. he started painting at that point but to paint the images of the scenes with the changes of pronouns, he, she, i, which sort of brings us into the towns and we can be the he, we can be the i, we can be the she. just the lear cal poetry of a situation love that isn't working out. we all feel it but we can't put it into words in the way dylan did for us. so once we have that possession,

we can apply it to our own lives and that's what dylan is about, he's singing our songs for us. >> bob dylan turns 80 years old today. charles pierce and richard thomas, thank you both very much for joining us this morning. and that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. ♪♪ hi, there i, i'm stephanie ruhle live at msnbc headquarters here in new york city. it is monday, may 24th. there's a lot going on. let's get a little smarter. this morning as we get closer to the official start of summer, covid cases are at their lowest level in almost a year, with nearly half of all u.s. adults fully vaccinated. excellent news. just a few moments ago, we learn learned new york city school district, the largest in the nation will be