on, you got this. nailed it! the good news is, the corona's on the ropes. even macho men are wearing masks like stone cold steve austin, floyd may weather, and the belogridiron, o.j. simpson. don't forget your gloves. and with covid consuming the nation, it's the perfect time to have a rally. >> your rally is set for june 1 19th. >> i think about it as a celebration. >> but his "fox & friends" are flummoxed. >> how would these rallies work? right now there are social distancing guidelines all across the country. >> i think they'll be full rallies. >> two, four, six, eight, what do we contaminate? how about the second wave. >> i spoke to our health experts at some length last night. they said there is no second spike. >> there is not going to be a second wave in america. >> where is the second wave the left has been warning us about. >> well, it's right there, you

silly goose stepper. breaking, joe biden makes a big statement in his house. nope, nope, nope, down, down. there he is! >> this president is going to try to steal this election. this is a guy who said that all mail-in ballots are fraudulent. >> by golly, he's lost his marbles. >> he's your friendly neighborhood conspiracy theorists. >> leave it to democrats to go out there and level these conspiracy theories. >> that's joe biden right now with this conspiracy theory. >> we'll con-spear-a-see about that. >> he says you'll steal the election. >> joe's not there, we all know it. certainly, if i don't win, i don't win. i'll move on and do other things. >> yes, other things. >> we'll walk down to the capitol. you'll never take back our country with weakness. >> freedom! >> dumb is right! this has been this week in covid

history. >> what an exhausting week! what an exhausting time! what an exhausting year. what an exhausting five years! wow, willie. a lot packed into that week, a year ago. >> there was! there was, but for all the horrors that were laid out there, the one that gets former president trump the most is the ramp at west point. he will never let that go, never stop explaining what really happened that day. covid, eh. the ramp at west point, that's the one that really gets him, in that litany of awful moments last year. >> there were a lot. and what about joe biden's prescription that donald trump is going to try to steal the election. and then the shocked outrage, oh, my god, how dare he. he's lost his marbles, and that's exactly what happened. >> he predicted that, president biden did back in june, as the

soon-to-be nominee of the democratic party. and unfortunately, that all came to pass, as we saw in the last clip, from january 6th. >> yeah. okay, i won't have anymore halting questions to you, willie. why don't we just bring in the bbc's katty kay. mika has the morning off. lucky her. and we're going to be starting, willie, with this new report on just how far the trump justice department went and, my god, seems like they crossed some real boundaries here, right? >> yeah, this is an extraordinary story. looking into the leaks connected to the russia investigation from attorney general barr and the justice department. according to "the new york times," the justice department first under jeff sessions, subpoenaed apple in 2017 and early 2018 for the data of at least a dozen people tied to the house intelligence committee, including the top democrat, adam schiff. democratic congressman eric swalwell also confirms to nbc news his records were seized.

"the times" reports the records of aides and family members of those connected to the committee also were collected, including those of a minor. no evidence was ever found tying the committee to the leaks. but that did not stop trump's next attorney general, william barr, from reviving the investigation a year later. "the times" citing three sources reports barr recruited about a half a dozen investigators to work on that case. after years of nothing to show for that investigation, "the times" reports some inspect department began to see it as politically motivated. you think? barr declined to comment as to the biden justice department, congressman adam schiff now is calling on the agency's inspector general to investigate. >> that is, i think, a terrible abuse of power. it violates, i think, the separation of powers. but it also makes the department of justice just a fully owned subsidiary of the president's personal legal interests and

political interests. and that does such damage to the department. so it's extraordinary. maybe unprecedented, for the department to see records like this of a member of congress or staff of a member of congress, or staff of a committee, to do so in a partisan way, to do so when they're investigate him. to do so, openly calling on this department. it's hard to express just how shocking an abuse of power this really is. >> so, joe, what you have here, and we'll talk to michael schmidt in just a moment, one of the reporters from "the new york times" on this, is the former attorney general, jeff sessions and william barr basically assembling a cavalry to go and look inside the intelligence committee to see who they thought might be leaking stories to outlets like theems awfully extraordinary, this news that we're waking up to this morning

and perhaps it's happened before and maybe those examples just aren't coming to mind. but here, you have an administration, and there's really a parallel with the clip that we played, that you had people shocked and stunned when joe biden suggested that donald trump was going to try to steal the election if things didn't go his way. of course, that's exactly what happened. here, you have donald trump and everyone around trump, all of his defenders, screaming and howling about how the quote, deep state had been spying on them during the transition. at the same time, they're literally spying on members of the press. they're spying on partisan political opponents. and this is what -- this is what seems new to me. spying on political rivals in another branch of government. there's a reason why we have

three separate branches of government. and there are checks and balanceshouse, donald trump's justice department, spying on a separate branch of government that's conduct its oversight role and investigating the executive branch. and like i said, maybe this has happened before. i don't remember this ever happening. if it has happened, it's -- we don't want to, you know, engage in being too melodramatic here, but my god, it just seems to me that this is an extraordinary breach. it is constitutionally challenging event, again, when an executive branch spies on a legislative branch committee

that's doing investigations and oversight on that president. let's bring in one of the reporters of this story, "new york times" reporter and msnbc national security analyst, michael schmidt. he's the author of the great book, "donald trump versus the united states: inside the struggle to stop a president." and we should note that michael is one of the several "new york times" reporters who had his own records subpoenaed by. the trump justice department. so, michael, we obviously, last week expressed concerns about you and other members of the press. having their records sifted through by government agencies on leak investigations. that had happened before. it's happened before. it happened also during the obama administration. they were very aggressive. i'm trying to remember, though whether we've ever had a president and his administration spy on members -- i'm sure, if nixon didn't do it, he certainly

thought about it, but actually spy and seize the records of opponents from another branch that was investigating that president and his administration. this seems like extraordinarily dangerous and new. again, i'm sort of stammering around this morning, because i just think this is new territory. >> i think you're right. and as we found in our reporting, we could not find a similar example of this in recent memory. now, this could have happened in a leak case that we don't know about. there are lots of leaks that are investigated. and there are lots of tactics that are used in them. so, in another matter, sure, maybe this did happen but we certainly didn't find out about it. so that sets this apart.

you're right. it is different than the subpoenas that we've seen over the years for reporters' phone records. by the way, a tactic now that the biden justice department says they will not follow, even though they were following it up until about a week ago. the thing i think that also sets this apart, certainly in terms of congress, is that this is exactly what trump wanted. and this is exactly why presidents are counseled not to talk about ongoing investigations or about how the powers of the justice department should be used. because if something like this were to come out, the first instinct of everyone is to say, well, that's exactly what donald trump, who was the president, who was the person who could put whoever he wanted at the justice department, who at the time was putting all of his pressure on

that justice department. you have to remember, this is 2017, 2018. trump is very angry about the mueller investigation. sessions and rosenstein are afraid they're going to get fired at any turn, because they're trying, you know, rosenstein is saying that he's trying to protect mueller and the mueller investigation. and it is in that atmosphere that this happens. that the justice department takes this extraordinary action to pull the -- you know, go to apple and get the records, the data and the icloud information for one of the president's chief rivals. the staff of that rival, and a child for one of the staff members. >> it's really unbelievable. and willie, this is also the same time when donald trump kept telling anybody who would listen to him, that is my justice

department, that is the trump justice department. i can do whatever he wanted to do. and obviously, he chose to use that justice department to spy on political opponents in another branch of government. >> and time and again, the justice department was all too willing to play that role for president trump. and michael, i'm interested, if we can take a step back, in what the justice department was looking for, specifically. okay, you go to apple, you say, give us these records, give us the metadata. what did they think they were going to find, number one. and there's another compelling piece part of the story where you say that apple had a gag order from the j why we're learning from a lot of media outlets about what exactly happened. and also, a couple of months ago is the first time that these members of congress themselves learned that they had their records subpoenaed, because the gag order finally expired on apple.

>> so for the justice department to have received the gag order in this matter, they almost very likely had to have a federal judge sign off on that. and that's part of why this has received less attention. which is the judicial branch had some role here. and the justice department was obviously the one going out and doing this, but that the judicial branch allowed the justice department to keep this secret. that's why we didn't know about it until the past few weeks, where these subpoenas and this action has trickled out. and in that case, certainly in the attempts to get my and my colleagues' information from our email, it was only our general counsel who knew about it for the first several weeks, because the court would not allow him to tell anyone. and eventually, he received the permission to tell a few people at "the times," but he could not even tell the editor of "the new

york times," dean baquet. he only found out about this a week ago, as this was all becoming public. so the justice department was allowed the operate in secrecy in this, which they say was necessary to protect these ongoing investigations, because people could try to destroy evidence, if they knew that the feds were moving. but also, when things operate in secret, there's a lot less scrutiny. there's a lot -- it's a lot easier to hide from the media and others who will question why are you doing this? and what is truly behind that? and it looks like that tactic, that approach was used in regards to schiff and the others on the hill. >> you know, katty kay, we've talked over the past five years about how republicans in the senate and the house have just sort of bowed down to donald

trump. have forgotten that they actually have power themselves. that article i is a powerful branch of government and they didn't have to defer to donald trump at all points. but boy, things have kangd so radically. and this is a story that really shows that. if this had happened when i was a member of congress, i guarantee you, and if it were a republican president that did this, every republican chairman and chairwoman would stand united and howl and raise hell and make that republican president pay. they just would. because they actually understood that they were the article i branch of government. and the united states constitution laid out those madisonian checks and balances. here, i cannot believe that there are not republicans in the united states senate and in the

united states house who were the everyday by this precedent and what it now means about democratic presidents being able to subpoena their phone records, when the democratic president doesn't like an investigation that perhaps they're looking into. it's a horrible precedent for republicans and democrats. >> every now and again during the trump presidency, we had a moment where we thought, what if barack obama had done this. what would be the reaction from the other side. imagine this story coming out and it was barack obama who had been trying to silence journalists, subpoena members of congress to get their phone records, including a minor. all hell would have broken loose in the republican party. it's clear that that's the case. but it's the degree to which donald trump seems to feel that the justice department was his justice department, and the care

with which they went to muzzle the journalists and muzzle their ability to expose this story in realtime, by setting up these gag orders within the news organizations. and michael schmidt, i was just looking at what eric swalwell, who is one of those who had his records subpoenaed said. and you know, it feels like a donald trump-driven investigation. and i don't think i have a lot of faith in his ability to fairly interpret the law. that's eric swalwell saying, this was not the justice department, this was donald trump. but from everything what we know of what donald trump said, even in public, there's little doubt, is there, that this was coming from the white house? >> well, we don't know everything that went into these requests and this action. we do know that at certain points, federal judges should have been involved in it. and certainly, if the justice department was following its

guidelines, they would not pursue matters like this, without evidence or some strong suspicion to get them there. put at the heart of the problem here is the fact that the person in charge of all of these people, the head of the executive branch, was standing on the highest point in the country with a megaphone, saying, this is what i want. trump did not hide this. it'snd out about that trump, you know, quietly said this summer. trump was publicly going after these people. he was using his position as the president of the united states to try and push the justice department to go after the people he did not like. and he complained and complained and complained about it. so now that we find out that his justice department that was controlled by his political appointees did this, we have to question why is it that it

happened. we know that jeff sessions and rod rosenstein were terrified that they were going to get fired in this period of time. now, that puts an enormous pressure on a day-to-day basis on the department. what i'm interested to see is that how did the justice department get there? how did they make these decisions? we do not have full visibility into that today. >> all right. michael schmidt, thank you so much for your reporting. my god, what a story. and willie, it bears repeating that these weren't just people that donald trump didn't like. these weren't just political rivals of donald trump. these were people who were investigating donald trump. they were in the middle of an investigation. he was trying to do whatever he could to stop the investigation. and now we find out he even went to the extraordinary lengths, his justice department went to the extraordinary length to seize their records.

it's shocking. >> yeah. >> shocking. >> even as michael reports in the piece, even as justice department officials came back to attorney general barr and said, it doesn't look like there's anything here, we're not going to have enough to bring charges, attorney general barr insisted that they continue their investigation, going back to your larger point about the justice department doing the bidding of president trump. let's turn to a potential, underline, potential breakthrough in the infrastructure negotiations on capitol hill. a bipartisan group of senators working on a deal says it now has made some progress. >> the ten of us have reached a tentative understanding, and so we're not looking for adjustments. what we're looking for is to see whether our colleagues are open to it and we'll finally get out a piece of paper, which lays it all out, and see if we can get some people to sign on and have enough support to think it has merit. >> let's turn to nbc news capitol hill correspondent, garrett haake, who's been

reporting on this story. garrett, good morning. good to see you. so tentative understanding, not exactly a resounding conclusion to these negotiations, but what are they talking about here? what is this framework? and as always with this negotiation, how are they going to pay for it? >> well, willie, i spoke to susan collins about this late yesterday, and she made a point of warning me not to overstate where they are on this. i appreciate the caveat at the top here. they still -- this group of ten senators, five republicans, five democrats, know they have to sell what they've come up with, not just to their respective caucuses, but also to the white house if they're going to get anywhere. and i think that's some of the hesitation here. what i can tell you is in this plan is it gets up above $1 trillion in total spending, particularly when you stretch it out over the eight-year mark. that's kind of a deal that was worked out with the biden administration, whether it was going to be five years or eight years, this bill can be stretched out to eight. it deals with just physical infrastructure, so the elements

about the care economy that the white house had wanted to see in the jobs plan get all the way through congress is not included in this. and the way that the group tried to come up with to pay for it involves a mix of things like the unspent covid relief money that was talked about in the shelly moore capito plan. they also try to do some creative things with taxes, and i think this is where this may get hung up with the administration. for example, they index gas tax to inflation. they say, this is not a tax increase. well, if there is inflation and the gas tax goes up, the tax will go up, but these members can say, we didn't raise it, we simply indexed it to inflation. will that fly with the white house? i have no idea, but i can tell you that it's already not flying with progressive democrats. ron wyden, the chairman of the senate finance committee was panning this plan even before it was released. it still isn't released in its entirety. basically said, this isn't it. there are democrats itching to go forward with a much bigger plan here. but the fact that this is

bipartisan, that it has the buy-in of at least these five republican senators, gives, i think, hope to those who want a bipartisan deal, including the president of the united states, the white house said they're looking this over and they have questions, willie. so we'll see to what degree the bipartisan group can answer those questions and whether this continues and they continue to negotiate through next week, or if the white house or enough progressive democrats come forward and they say, this isn't going to cut the mustard, we've got to find something else. >> i'll tell you what, 1.2 trillion ain't nothing, and the fact that people suggest that it's too small of a sum for infrastructure, i guess that tells you exactly where we are right now, politically. garrett, let me also ask you about the police reform bill. we had been hearing that that might be moving toward a compromise, a bipartisan compromise, but it's hit a snag. what's that snag?

>> of all the bipartisan negotiations going on the hill, the police reform one is that i and most reporters have been the most bullish about, because they have kept the details locked down. the three lawmakers working on this closely, really going back to late last year, have been running a very tight ship. and we were told early this week that they actually started circulating text among themselves. that they thought they might be close enough to an agreement to actually start putting something down on paper in legislative text. that's a big deal in d.c. but what has come to the forefront as they started looking at this text, and this is coming from republican sources, including lindsey graham, working with tim scott, is that the negotiators largely agreed that they were going to leave something called section 242 out of this, this deals with u.s. code about how a government official could potentially be charged for depriving a person of their constitutional rights. republicans didn't want to touch this in the negotiations. and they thought they had convinced democrats that this was going to be left aside and

that they could move forward on the things on which they agreed. apparently not so. in the text that had been passed around, that -- >> garrett, excuse me, really quickly. >> yeah, joe? >> in plain english, that's bl an individual police officer would be held liable for something that happened while he was in his job. and i know that the democrats and republicans have been talking about actually making it the municipality that would be -- >> no, this is not -- this is not the same as -- no, this is not the same as qualified immunity. they actually think they got passed this. this deals with depriving a person of constitutional rights. it's almost never charged. this is one of the things that democrats wanted to beef up this provision as another way to potentially hold police officers accountable, by going through this kind of separate door. and republicans didn't want to touch that. they didn't want to change this provision. in fact, the qualified immunity portion, joe, that you were talking about, seems to have been settled. and i think that was part of the reason there was so much

optimism here, because for so long, we had thought that would be the most difficult part of these negotiations. >> nbc's garrett haake, this was the one place we thought there was some movement in congress, but seems to have slowed. we'll be keeping in touch with you on all of these stories. meanwhile, president biden continues his overseas trip as the g-7 summit kicks off today in cornwall, england. yesterday, president biden and british prime minister boris johnson met and reaffirmed a world war ii-era charter aimed at strengthening ties between the longtime allies. >> it's wonderful to listen to the biden administration and to joe biden, because on -- there's so much they want to do together with us, from security and nato to climate change. and it's fantastic. it's a breath of fresh air. >> prime minister johnson and i had a very productive meeting. we affirmed the special relationship, and as i said

lately, the special relationship between our people. and we renewed our commitment to defending the enduring democratic values that both of our nations share. >> let's bring in two reporters traveling with the president, jonathan lemire and nbc news white house correspondent, mike memoli. good morning to you both. mike, i'll start with you. what are we hearing from the white house? what are we hearing from president biden himself about the focus and the plans for the g-7 that starts very shortly today? >> reporter: well, willie, so much of the buildup to this trip, the first trip abroad, by president biden since taking office has been about the final stop, of course, which is that meeting in geneva with russian president vladimir putin. but what we are going to see today when the president meets with the fellow g-7 leaders and what we saw a bit of yesterday, as well, when he met with boris johnson, the prime minister here in the uk, was a really important reestablishment of the u.s. relationship with our western allies.

now, you remember the president when he arrived here, reiterated something we've heard a lot, which is, america is back. and one of the big questions our key allies are asking is, yes, but for how long. so as i've been talking to white house officials and those close to biden, they talk so much about how his mantra that all politics is personal really does apply as well to foreign policy. and in some ways, while that could pay dividends in the relationships he's built with chinese -- with china's president xi jinping and also the difficult interactions he's had in the past with vladimir putin, it's more critical today for president biden to be able to react to and assure our allies that the united states, the commitment to the democratic principles is one that they can commit to themselves in the long-term. now, the agenda is quite full. they are going to be focused on the pandemic. the announcement from the u.s. yesterday. president biden announing 500 million doses of the pfizer vaccine will be shipped out, especially to poor and

developing nations. climate will be a big focus, especially font, when we see the leaders dine with members of the royal family, including the queen. she will be a late edition to that party, as well. >> but focus on what the president has been talking about, the economy, the president seeking to bring western allies onboard with a global minimum tax. that would be regardless of where a company is headquartered to ensure that they're paying at least a 15% tax to the countries in which they do business. it's part of what the president has tried to assure our allies are in our interest, to build a strong middle class, which is the foundation of a strong democracy. >> katty kay? >> mike, you know, it's tempting to look at these global conferences and think nothing really ever comes out of them, right? and after four years of donald trump, the world was sort of put on pause. is this going to be different this time around? do you think we're going to come out of this g-7 meeting in

cornwall with actual real changes on issues like climate change, on issues like how to deal with russia, china, and cybersecurity. and particularly, on the pandemic? in a sense, after the sort of disruption of donald trump, is the world now really ready and waiting to take action again, to make things better? >> this has been a critical focus from the u.s. side ahead of the summit here, which is you need to be able to provide tangible results. you need to be able to show that democracies can still get things done and that's why the u.s. commitment, 500 million doses of the covid vaccine is being matched. in fact, there's going to be an announcement of 1 billion doses overall by the g-7 countries being shared. they want to see even further steps towards a strengthening of the paris climate agreement. that's going to be part of the

discussion here. that's been the way the president has focused here. but i think it was interesting, as we saw in the meeting with prime minister johnson yesterday, i thought back to what president biden, then candidate biden said during the campaign when johnson won the parliamentary victory, which was, he called johnson an emotional clone of donald trump. and he warned that if his own party, democrats moved too far to the left, they would suffer the same fate as the labor party had in the elections here. you see biden trying to walk that middle ground in domestic politics and he's trying to do the same in this diplomatic context to make sure our allies are doing just as much as he's trying to do back home and focusing on the nuts and bolts and getting real results in order to prevent the rise of populist figures and even authoritarian figures as we've seen in the past, as well. >> all right, nbc's mike memoli, thank you so much. we greatly appreciate your reporting. let's turn to jonathan lemire.

we'll get to the good people's cornwall's reaction to the red sox comeback against the astros last night. but first, you look at these pictures, at joe biden, boris johnson, the response, what a marked contrast between donald trump and theresa may. just the sort of seething resentment. of course, g-7, there's -- there's that wonderful moment if you're a complete thug of the american president pushing the president of, i believe it was montenegro, out of the way, at the summit. a bit different this year, isn't it? >> yes, joe, i would say so. i traveled with president trump on a few of his journeys to the g-7 when he was in office. and it was sort of a right of passage that he would start bashing theresa may when air force one was about to descend until he would meet with the

british prime minister. he obviously had better relationship with borisshadowed. we know that president biden was very critical of johnson in the past. there was certainly some tension and that still exists, a difference of opinion on how the northern ireland issue should be handled here. but that was set aside yesterday. it was real warmth between the two men. both expressing common ground. we had president biden gift boris johnson a bike and a helmet, since the two men share an enthusiasm for cycling. but they renewed this atlantic charter. we talked -- as mike mentioned, who, by the way has a much better backdrop than i do, their commitments to the vaccine for the poor parts of the world. this was yesterday, obviously one of the united states' closest, most enduring alliances, and we know how much joe biden believes in that and needing to show that the u.s./uk alliance is strong, as a linchpin, as he tries to get the

west moving together to show it can compete around the world. >> jonathan lemire, stay with us. we'll get to the red sox, also. of course, we love your great reporting as well as willie, those curtains behind jonathan, we still haven't figured out the patterns there. some sort of -- a geometry problem or something. it's very confusing to me. >> i think he's probably at the continental breakfast bar at the courtyard by marriott in plymouth, england, in i'm reading the background correctly, jonathan. >> i think so so. >> willie, i'll have you know that it's actually a painted wall. even though it looks curtainish and it's nautically themed, which is the best that we could do at the crown plaza here in plymouth. just a few hundred kilometers or so from the summit site. as you might imagine, summits like this are usually held in small resort towns that are completely locked down with security because of all the world leaders coming in. so the travels press is kind of

scattered throughout the countryside. but we're talking with american officials and doing our very best to bring you the latest information, willie. >> we'll add in the seagull sounds that mike memoli has. we'll had that in" we're follow developments from the covid vaccine, from a global pledge to help struggling nations to a new move to save millions of doses from expiring. you're watch "morning joe." we'll be right back. ing. you're watch "morning joe. we'll be right back. hooh. that spin class was brutal. well you can try using the buick's massaging seat. oohh yeah, that's nice. can i use apple carplay to put some music on? sure, it's wireless. pick something we all like. ok. hold on. what's your buick's wi-fi password? “buickenvision2021.” oh, you should pick something stronger. that's really predictable. that's a really tight spot. don't worry. i used to hate parallel parking. [all together] me too. - hey. - you really outdid yourself. yes, we did. the all-new buick envision. an suv built around you... all of you.

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a chamber of commerce stay in the nation's capitol of washington, d.c. if you're listening on the radio, actually, it's miserable. absolutely miserable there. but thanks so much for being with us. let's bring in right now staff writer at "the atlantic" magazine, anne applebaum.

she's the author of the book, "twilight of democracy: the seductive lore of authoritarianism." also with us, professor at columbia university, economist dr. jeffrey sachs. his recent book is entitled "the ages of globalization: geography, technology, and institutions." anne, let's start with you. of course, another fascinating piece, you talk about the rise of oligarchies and the chipping away of democracy. and there's a part -- i love that this party is so instructive. you talk about how these oligarchs become rich, not by breaking the law. they become rich because the state is dolling out favors. the early tycoons drew their sustenance from entirely one thing, the state. they never organized anything or built anything, instead, they were simply in the right place at the right time when things

were being divided up. and that reminds me so much of the story you told about orban's hungary, about how he didn't take people to the wall and shoot them against the wall if they had a media outlet he didn't like. his regulators just destroyed their lives until they finally got bought out and left the country. and now you say it's happening in poland? >> yes, look, this is -- these are the tactics of modern, would-be autocrats. we're all used to the idea that an autocracy starts with a coup d'etat and there are protests in the streets. actually, the way most democracies die now in stages and steps. think of a frog being boiled. people who are living in societies that are slowly losing their rights or separations between the state and the courts or between states and private companies, where that's slowly

deteriorating, they might not even notice it, or if it they do, it's too late. or some people notice and others don't mind. and one of the most important tactics is the deliberate creation of kleptocratic state-dependent companies that can be used as a source of cash and, you know, jobs for friends and so on. and we see the russians really invented the modern version of this. there are much older versions, as well. we see poland, hungary, and other states, turkey and hungary imitating them. >> and we saw this in the early stages of putin's presidency. suddenly, there were billionaires left and right. and if someone ever crossed vladimir putin, that billionaire suddenly was broke and thrown in jail. >> and you're seeing it

increasingly in other european countries, but i wonder if it's encroaching into western european countries, as well. service interesting that in 2016 it was, america's democracy was downgraded to a flawed democracy. and that's not just because of donald trump being elected, it was done before that. because the system doesn't work. and when the system doesn't work, as we saw under donald trump, somebody with autocratic tendencies can take advantage of it, as the story we were talking about earlier. they can take advantage by getting elements of that system to work in their favor, not in the favor of democracy. and i was wondering, it's not just as easy to look at countries like russia and to look at countries like turkey, nominally democracies where autocrats are increasingly taking power, but you're also looking at countries where you might not expect that to happen. countries that are democratic, but where the systems are being chipped away at or undermined in a way that means those democracies are not as free and

fair as they might be or we would like them to be. >> well, this is certainly the case. i mean, it can be the case in any democracy. no democracy is immune. and by the way, miranda had a very strong democracy. it's not as if it was particularly weak, you know, five or ten years ago. this is, of course, something that we need to be concerned about in the united states, which is the most powerful and most important democracy in the world. you know, are we maintaining the rules on nepotism, the rules on the divisions between the state and the private sector that we used to have? some of those were the norms surrounding those rules were undermined during the trump administration. are there companies that have become overdependent on the state and on state largess, and are therefore serving to help re-elect the politicians that they prefer? i mean, that's been a part of american democracy for a long time. is it getting worse? all of these kinds of issues can be part of a democratic decline.

and of course, we're also watching an assault on the voting system, which is, as far as i can tell, completely unprecedented. i've asked around a number of scholars of democracy and historians of democracy and nobody can remember a losing candidate assaulting the system in a way to claim that he didn't really lose. i'm looking for pregnants and not seeing them. so watching how that evolves and looking at whether trump is able to underline american citizens' faith in their own electoral system is something we should pay close attention to in the future. >> and jeffrey, we have varying degrees of how this wealth is transferred to oligarchs. perhaps it is more crude and direct in russia. maybe a little more subtle in

hungary, where regulations eventually grinds down people. the the government oversight eventually grids down people nail finally give up. in the united states, we we've created a tax system that -- the richest people, the billionaires got 54% wealtier during the pandemic. $10.2 trillion richer during the pandemic. much of it, not by work, but just by moving paper around. >> you know what anne is writing about is, of course, really about the united states, not about russia. we're in a pretty advanced state of democratic crisis. democratic collapse or decline. we had our insurrection, we have voter suppression laws being written across the entire united states and

mcconnell determined to do everything to wreck the administration. and as we were watching president biden at the g-7 summit, the difference that's stunning right now is that all his counterparts know, he can't deliver anything right now. is the united states back? well, they passed some legislation. but the whole point of the opposition is to try to destroy the administration. that's what mitch mcconnell said absolutely explicitly. and the odd part about being the republican positions on infrastructure and all the rest, their entire clear, explicit transparent position is, don't make the rich pay one penny, not a penny, not a penny more of corporate tax. not closing the tax loopholes. when they negotiated a minimum

tax, so they're transferring money to tax havens in the caribbean, the republicans said, that's crazy. that's un-american. maybe it is un-american, the way americans run right now. then we had the propublica release of the taxes of america's gra zil zil yairs in the last few days. where is a single voice right now in the republican party saying, oh, jeffrey bezos now that $191 billion of wealth and paid no taxes, essentially, along the way. because we have a tax code that is -- it's a joke, it's a tragedy. and if americans are wondering why all infrastructure is breaking down, because we can't get any legislation passed, it's because we are living in a system that is designed for the richest people, not that have to do anything anymore in this

country. it's absolutely shocking. and annei, we were watching together what was happening in russia and eastern europe, >> you know, what jeffrey brings up is, again, talking about this massive -- and make no mistake, it is a massive transfer of wealth. you'll often hear conservatives talking about how they don't want the government to transfer wealth from one group of people to another. we have seen a massive transfer of wealth from middle class americans to the richest americans. over the past 30, 40 years and i'm sorry, but this is what -- this isn't a republican or democratic issue if you're talking about the rank and file, not in washington, d.c. but if you go out on the campaign trail, anne, and talk to republicans and say, do you

think that amazon should pay zero in taxes? do you think that the richest americans should pay less of a tax rate than those who work for them, doing clerical work. they'll have the same reaction that ronald reagan had when don regan came to him to try to get tax reform going when he said, do you know a ceo pays less taxes than their secretary. and regan was enraged, and said, let's do tax reform. it's gotten so much worse since then. >> i would insert a little caveat. our major multi-national companies in the united states are not branchs of the u.s. government the way major russian companies are. so i don't think it's an exact comparison. i wouldn't say it's the same. but i think, joe ysh point about

the intrinsic sense of fairness very important. i think americans are willing to tolerate there are some differences, some people earn more than other people and some people are talented and that should be rewarded. but they will not accept the idea that the very wealthy don't pay any taxes. that the system isn't fair for all. and very, very wide gaps in inequality will also give people the feeling that democracy itself is not fair. how can it be the case that these extremely wealthy people are able to negotiate tax breaks for themselves with the government. why can't i do that too? and i think that is one of the factors that undermines american faith in the political system, as well as the economic system. >> there has to be a fairness in the tax system, there has to be social mobility that the united states, that we're now slowing

down. it's something we need to work at. i don't know any republicans that i talked to that go, oh, yeah, it's great that amazon pays zero in taxes. it's great that the wealthiest americans, you know, the billionaires, you know, pocketed $10.2 trillion during the pandemic. while middle class americans were suffering so it does come to the question of fairness. we want people to invent things and create jobs. we want them to get rich. yay! we celebrate that in the united states of america. let people invent, create things, create jobs, become wealthy, that's fine. but they have to play by the same rules as everybody else. and jonathan lemire, that's something, i know you have a question, but that's something, obviously, that we're seeing

fray right now, a basically system of belief in this country that all people are equal under the law. you look at these numbers and the super wealthy and how they're not paying taxes and how amazon and these companies paid zero in taxes last year and, as anne said, it's just not fair. and that undermines faith in american capitalism. >> deeply unfair, and now becoming baked into our political system, system, and the idea of global inequality is something that's a central focus here at the g-7, which launches today. both on vaccines, when few things are highlighted. the idea between rich nations and poor nations than access to covid-19 vaccines. we are seeing the g-7 nations say they'll donate 1 billion doses to the developing world. we're also seeing joe biden

right to rally the west with their own economic development programs, to rival what china is doing with the belt and road. i want to get your assessment as to where you see that happening right now. that rivalry between china and these autocracy countries versus the west and their outreach to the developing world and what more needs to be done. >> i think the basic point is we are collapsing on our own, our running the world or leading the world doesn't make sense if we can't vote a basic infrastructure bill or close the tax loopholes. one of the notable things that the g-7 will agree on today, which was the important agreement that janet yellen, our treasuy secretary reached last week was this minimum tax. but i would like to just say a word about it. the united states and the uk created the system of tax havens. these don't just appear. we have 1 trillion of corporate assets in bermuda, in the little

island of bermuda. we have another $1 trillion of corporate assets in the british virgin islands, the caymans, and other tiny little dots where the businesses don't do anything, except they book their profits by artificially putting their assets there. that's a game that the u.s. and the uk created together. and that's what is called un-american, to close that gap. this is incredible! the republican party is completely committed on the face to making sure that rich people pay nothing. and one other thing that makes all of this so incredible. the treasury has shown, in recent days, that we have pure tax evasion of about $600 billion a year. $600 billion. that could buy a lot of infrastructure. most -- the incredible proportion of that, more than a third is the top 1% of earners, but the republicans say, don't

audit anybody. don't check in. so it's been a game to allow the richest people to get as rich as possible, and right now, that's where our politics is. so all of this talk about saving the rest of the world, we have to save ourselves from oligarchy. that's the bottom line. that's why none of the g-7 means anything until we get our own system normalized again. that rich people pay something for this country. >> all right. jeffrey sachs, as always, thank you so much for being with us. and anne applebaum, we're always so grateful to have you on. we appreciate it. hope you all have a great weekend. jonathan lemire, thank you, as well. and jonathan, just really quickly, obviously, all of cornwall up in the middle of the night last night, as your boston red sox came back and just put a thumping on the houston astros. can you -- give us the sights,

the sounds, sort of the smells of plymouth and all the way to cornwall. it had to be like fourth of july in america? >> the english coast, joas, has been singing "sweet caroline" since that rally last night. and people here can't get enough of that victory of the astros against the sox. and prepared with chapman blowing the game for the yankees. a win for the red sox, a win for america, a win for the british, a win for democracy frankly last night. >> well, you know, here, willie geist, we red sox, we have a really great comeback against a team that has been thumping us time and time again, but willie, if you want to know, just the level of contempt that jonathan lemire has for the new york yankees -- he can't even enjoy

the present under his christmas tree. he has to laugh and mock his friend next door who didn't get the same sort of big wheel set and whatever. it's hateful, purely hateful, willie. >> it is. and you hate to see people like jonathan punching down. wra of course, the scrappy team in the al east haven't won a world series since 2009. so we're just happy to be in that wonderful division with teams like tampa bay and boston, you know, our guys pack their lunches, lunch pails, hard hats, hop on the "d" train, go up to the bronx every day and hope to be in the game. we're honored to play with you guys and i think it's instructive about jonathan lemire and his character that he would punch down at these beloved little new york yankees. >> lunch pails, jonathan lemire. >> willie, i'll ask about the spin rate next. >> yeah, exactly. what about the spin rate?

coming up, a new poll shows the perception of the world has rebounded since the trump years. plus, more on the reporting that the trump justice department spied on house democrats. yes, another branch of government, while that other branch of government was doing oversight investigations. "morning joe" coming right back. s "morning joe" coming right back. shingles? camera man: yeah, 1 out of 3 people get shingles in their lifetime. well that leaves 2 out of 3 people who don't. i don't know anybody who's had it. your uncle had shingles. you mean that nasty red rash? and donna next door had it for weeks. yeah, but there's nothing you can do about it. camera man: actually, shingles can be prevented. shingles can be whaaaat? camera man: prevented. you can get vaccinated. baby, call the doctor. camera man: hey! you can also get it from your pharmacist! 50 years or older? get vaccinated for shingles now.

you can help us get the win against covid by getting vaccinated. these vaccines are safe, effective, and free. i got mine. it only takes a few minutes. and let me tell you, it's worth it. the vaccines have slowed the rate of hospitalization and death down dramatically and we want to keep it that way. so whether you're in a city or a small town, getting the vaccine is the best way to keep everyone

safe. >> that is republican senator tommy tubberville of alabama, encouraging his constituents to get the covid vaccine. alabama's several other states in the south are lagging far behind the rest of the country in vaccination rates. joe, we've been critical of senator tubberville for a litany of reasons over the last several months, but that is a critically important message for a guy who is so respected in his state and frankly across the south. >> well, i've got to tell you, i've been very critical of tommy tubberville for a very long time, well before you were critical of tommy tubberville. perhaps the worst thing he did was beat alabama six years in a row. i think i may have called him a frustrated middle-aged man on alabama talk show. it ended up he was in the car, driving, so.

my friend gave me a call, he was in the car, but, anyway, i can't overstate how important that is. it was a great thing for him to do. he is so respected in the state of alabama, you beat six years in a row, you get a free pass. kurt shilling attacked me once on twitter and i went back and said, mr. shilling, i want to thank you for what you did if 2004, i will always be grateful. but he gets that free pass, tommy tubberville does, i think from any auburn fan. so that's an important message he's sending out there. alabama is lagging behind in vaccine rates, and they need to get those numbers up to protect

the protecting senior citizens, diabetics, people who may not have a great immune system. important, what he did there, that wasn't an easy political thing to do. it just wasn't. i know it's the truth, but you look at the vaccine hesitancy in the state of alabama and that was important, because that wasn't the safe thing to do politically. >> but it was a very important message he was delivering yesterday. >> i need some milk of magnesia or pepto bismol. >> let's get you a little rest and see you in a few minutes. another drugmaker is moving closer to vaccinating teenagers while another is reassuring authorities after warnings that millions of doses soon would expire. miguel almaguer has details. >> reporter: we now know the u.s. telling a vaccinemaker no

more doses. authorities reportedly suspending new johnson & johnson shipments, just after the fda extended the shelf life for surplus vials from three to four and a half months, as potentially millions of doses were getting close to their expiration dates. it comes as moderna is likely days away from becoming the second drugmaker to offer its vaccine to children 12 to 17 years old, seeking emergency use authorization, authorities hope the vaccine can help bolster low inoculation rates for kids. vaccine supply isn't the problem. at indiana university, a small but symbolic protest. >> i think we're moving into a medical dictatorship. >> reporter: across the nation, more are fighting mandatory vaccinations. >> it's backing us into a corner. and many don't want to have to make that choice. >> reporter: at iu health in

indianapolis, some employees are rejecting vaccination requirements. at houston methodist, 178 health care workers were suspended for refusing vaccines. our morgan chesky is there. >> reporter: you're willing to lose your job over this? >> yes. >> tell me why. >> because i am not going to take that vaccine. >> one survey finds nearly 20% of health care workers don't plan to get vaccinated. the reasons variy. >> it's inexcusably, that you would put your own desire to have a choice or have liberty ahead of what's best for your patients. >> that's miguel almaguer reporting for us there. we'll come back to covid in just a bit. but we want to turn to the reporting now on how far the trump justice department went to look into leaks connected with the russia investigation. according to a new piece in "the new york times" this morning, the justice department under jeff sessions subpoenaed apple

work on the case, after years of nothing to show for the investigation, "the times" reports some in the department began to see it as politically motivated. barr declined to comment, as did the biden justice department. joining our conversation, mike barnicle, nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of "way too early," kasie hunt. host of the podcast "on brand with donny deutsch," donny

deutsch, and with fordham university, christina grier. the bbc's katty kay still with us, as well. so we've been talking about this bombshell story in "the new york times" this morning, joe, about the justice department under donald trump and what it did, the lengths to which it went to secure these records. apple was under a gag order until just recently, which is why these members of congress and their families have now been told that their records, were, in fact, subpoenaed by the justice department. >> kasie hunt, i've got to believe. i was talking about this last hour. i've got to believe even some republicans on the hill, who actually have read the constitution and understand what article i of the institution means and understand madisonian checks and balances and how important those are and see themselves set apart as a separate and equal branch from the executive branch find it hard to believe that republicans

aren't just as concerned and disturbed by this as a lot of democrats. i can tell you, when i was up there, oh, my god, if something he chairman, the chairwoman, the leaders would have torn to shreds a president in their own party if there had been an investigation against that president and then the president decided to use his justice department to start seizing records and to spy on. it sounds -- i mean, it sounds beyond nixonian to me. >> you're absolutely right, joe. and one of the ways in which congress has changed, you know, in my view, for the worst, just because it has really changed the way our separation of powers is supposed to work, congress has said, we don't want to make tough political decisions, we'll give thal power to the white

house, they can do that, boths on issues like syria and things like that, they decided they want to deal with it. i don't know you'll see any republicans in this case come out and criticize the former president in any way, even though, i am sure that they actually do feel that way. this is unbelievable. and it goes back to the creation of the senate select intelligence committee and the house intelligence committee and the church committee investigation into how nixon was using the federal government against american citizens. and the idea that the justice department would be getting records from these members while they were actually conducting an investigation is beyond the pale. i've already heard from a number of members in the last 12 hours or so, since this story first came out, saying, i'm sorry, what?! and to go unknown for so many years, quite frankly, because of what they did with apple. it's just incredibly remarkable.

but the reality is, i'll be surprised if the investigation into this is significantly bipartisan if you start to see substantial criticism. we'll see, maybe they'll surprise us, but i've said that before and never been surprised, joe. >> mike barnicle, draw parallels with watergate? this sounds like something that john mitchell would have tried to do. i'm not so sure that even he would have been allowed to get what it. but again, let's just -- the article i branch is investigating the article ii branch. the article ii branch spice on the article i branch. and not just generally, but explicitly the very people who are investigating the president. are there any precedents there? >> joe, i had an interesting conversation yesterday with the members of the united states senate and the first question raised was, it makes you wonder. this particular action makes you wonder what else is there that

we don't know about. the second point, this member of the senate raised is, why has not the bar association begun some sort of action against bill barr. not just for his involvement in this action, but also what he did in trying to distort the mueller report. and the third point raised was clearly, the former president, who is either in mar-a-lago or in new jersey today, we don't know. and i don't care, the former president clearly, his admiration for vladimir putin and putin's behavior extended itself into what he wanted the justice department to do, which is basically helping to create a police state. >> so, let me ask you, christina grier, what do do, as a country now, when we continue to see these stories, barack obama, obviously, aggressively went

after reporters in leak investigations. the associated press and other outlets. donald trump did the same thing, and now donald trump going after, again, a separate but equal branch. i understand the importance of leak investigations, but so many lines continue to be crossed. and we can either talk about checks and balances or we can talk about the first amendment possibly being violated by these investigations. what's our way forward, to make sure that this administration and the next don't feel like they have carte blanche to do this. >> right, well, joe, you know, you keep saying that you're hoping these members read the constitution, but you have to remember, we had a president for four years who bragged about the fact that he did not read. and sadly, far too many republicans followed that lead and they refused to read about history, they refused to read the federalist papers, federalist 51 that walks us through separations of power and checks and balances, there was a disdain and lack of respect for

the rule of law and to mike's point, i'm extending the biden administration just a small element of grace, largely because they don't know exactly what they're walking into. each day, they discover something new about the previous administration and how they worked to erode or erase our democratic principles. moving forward, i'm hoping that merrick garland and his department of justice, will do a full audit of what happened under the tenure, not just of jeff sessions, who many democrats thought was the worst thing of the 21st century, but bill barr, who then came in. each person who replaced the last was just even worse. so i'm hoping that joe biden and merrick garland will come up with some sort of plan and put some stopgaps in place so we never see this again. we cannot have a u.s. president that sides with our adversaries.

we cannot have a justice department who feels like they should work for the president and not the american people. we cannot have a full wing of our democratic republic, a full party that only works for the president. and we haven't even touched the supreme court and the courts throughout the country. so, sadly, we're in a point where we're excavating all of the things that donald trump did over the past four years and all of the people he was able to corrupt and how they so quickly fell in line. i'm hoping that joe biden is really taking stock as he finds out more and more each week about his predecessor. >> katty kay is with us and has a question for donny deutsch. katty? >> okay, donny, you study people and trends and how people respond to things. we've had so many incidents kurg the trump presidency where the world was kind of shocked by what donald trump was doing. and i just wonder whether you think people are going to look at this story, which is clearly,

you know, gets at the very heart of what the democratic experience is, an independent judiciary and the rule of the law, and the freedom of the press, as well. and whether people will say, this is a reminder of how terrible this was, we must always protect our constitutions. or whether people will look at this and say, donald trump, he's down in mar-a-lago, we don't want to think about him anymore, and we know he did crazy things. >> the answer is january 6th. if you've got republicans who are willing to overlook january 6th, a literal, physical attack on our country. and the majority of republicans who think the election was not a legitimate election, this is something they can overlook very, very easily. this is a media story. obviously, it's bigger than that. it's a story about another attack on democracy. but we have questioned on this show many times, what is the line? what is the line that will push people to say, you know what, we will not consider donald trump

as an option anymore zps time for the republican party to move on? and we've never crossed that line. we keep going back to, could donald trump kill somebody on fifth avenue? the answer is yes. what will be the breaking point? certainly not this story. not january 6th. is there a breaking point? i don't know. my mind doesn't go to a place where republicans would finally say, i keep coming back to, within the next year, trump will be indicted and that's not going to change anything. the answer is "no" in the eyes of the republican party and what is an atrocity that we can no longer deal with? >> nothing so far has change hair view of him. let's talk about the current president. yesterday, president biden met with prime minister boris johnson where the two leaders met and reaffirmed a world war ii era charter aimed at strengthening ties between the allies. >> it's wonderful to listen to the biden administration and joe biden, because there's so much they want to do together with

us, from security to nato, to climate change and it's fantastic. it's a breath of fresh air. >> prime minister johnson and i had a very productive meeting. we affirmed the special relationship. and as i have said lately, the special relationship between our people, and renewed our commitment to defending the values that both of our nation share. >> reporter: meanwhile, new polling shows opinion of the united states around the world has rebounded from historic lows under former president donald trump. according to a new pew research center poll, the u.s. is now viewed favorably by 62% of the world. that is compared to 34% at the end of the trump administration. the poll surveyed residents from 12 countries. the same study also found 75% of the world now has confidence in the u.s. president to do the right thing, regarding world affairs. that's up 58% from the end of donald trump's term. so, katty kay, why are those

numbers significant? there's some people in america who would say, who cares what the rest of the world this is about us. we need to focus on what's happening here at home. why is that an important number? >> the jump is making he smile, willie, because it's so enormous to go from 17% to 83%. i don't think i've ever seen a poll anywhere about anything where you have had such an overnight change in public opinion. look, it matters because of the reasons that they're all meeting there in cornwall, right? you want to get things done. and you don't want to get things done just to help other countries, you want to get things done because it helps the united states. we have to tackle climate change, we have to have a coordinated response to china. donald trump tried to do it alone. it didn't work very well. if joe biden wants to get the rest of the world onboard to protect american workers and international property, he'll have a much better job of that if the other people that he's meeting down there in cornwall decide, yeah, actually, we believe in you and we have faith in you. but i'll add a caveat. this is something that joe was

talking about yesterday. when you dig down into that pew poll, there are some worrying signs. if you look at how much the world says america is a reliable partner, only 11% of people in the world say that america is a very reliable partner. only 6% say that the u.s. political system works very well and it's not a good example to other countries. what you were saying yesterday is very interesting about this. this predates donald trump. america has been virtually ungovernable since, what, 2011, after barack obama's first midterm elections, when the system fell apart and mitch mcconnell decided he was not going to let barack obama get anything done. and the world watches that. they see the american system. and the system not being able to get things done in congress. not being able to make big changes, not being able to big

climate change initiatives. that's a problem in the rest of the world >> i think you can go back to the start of this century and go back to george w. bush, obviously, 9/11 started this century off in such a terrible way and then the iraq war in afghanistan. for a decade, we were dealing with the blowback from that. across the world, barack obama became president, very popular across the globe. but i heard complaints from ambassadors. he had no theory of the case, america was leading from behind. it was back on its heels. donald trump came along and of course, that was america alone and so -- if you look over the past 20 years, katty, it's hard to imagine why the world would look to the united states right now, until we have a theory of the case, which was, for the

most part, blown up after we won the cold war. that had guided our foreign policy. it was ver clean, very clear what our were, it was democracy versus communism, and we did fairly wel eight years with transition under globally. look at the successes in the balkan wars, look at the successes in eastern and central european looking more democratic at the time, but over the past 20 years, it's been one misstep after another, hasn't it? >> it's that glue. in a sense, the cold war kept americans working for a common purpose and the cold war ended and we had that period of honeymoon with bill clinton, peace and prosperity. but it's really noticeable a degree to which america is unable, incapable of meeting

long-term challenges. it's got significantly worse in the last decade. mitch mcconnell is not helping. he's acting like a parliamentary system where the job of the opposition is just to say no, no, no, and stop things getting done. and america was built on and for cooperation. and that's not happening. and i think the question for this country now is when that doesn't happen, how do you get things done? >> mike barnicle, when i look at these polls about what the rest of the world thinks of us, it doesn't keep me up at night. i think i may have even said in the past, i don't fret if the leader of luxembourg says nasty things about the united states of america. i guess the older i've gotten, the more i've realized, it doesn't matter what side of the political aisle you're on, if you're a democrat and climate

change means a lot to you, well, the united states has got to figure out how to deal with its friends, and yes, even its rivals like china, or nothing is going to happen on climate and you want to make sure that countries like iran are held in check, well, you better have good alliances that don't go behind your back and do side deals with iran. so regardless of your ideology, it matters what the rest of the world thinks about us. it matters what foreign leaders think about us. and we can't be america alone if we want to get anything done. and that's whether we're conservative, whether we're moderate, or whether we're liberal. >> it's all true, joe. but identify got to tell you, if we lose luxembourg, we've lost everything. >> good point. but, you know, listening to this conversation, i mean, we have been sitting here on this

program for 14, nearly 15 years, talking about the american political system talking about our alliances around the globe, talking about executive decisions that one president made, that were perhaps a mistake in terms of history in our present status. and yet one of the strong routes of what we're talking about, the distortion of american politics began, i believe, in the mid-1980s, when newt gingrich, then running hard to become speaker of the house, which he eventually succeeded in doing, twisted and turned american politics into an electoral machine, where it wasn't enough to defeat your opponent, you had to destroy your opponent. you had to diminish your opponent. you fast forward through all the years since then. and we have today on the scene, one individual leading a parade of destruction in terms of the

democratic process. and that man's name is mitch mcconnell, who in 2009, swore that the policy of his party in the united states senate, the priority was to destroy the presidency of barack obama. he is saying the same thing today, basically, about the presidency of joe biden. there can be no progress made when the united states senate, supposedly the world's greatest deliberative body has been so twisted and turned against the needs of the american public. none. there can be no progress made. and we could be talking about this, you know, for the rest of our lives, but we've been talking about the process for 14 or 15 years and the process has only begun to slide down hill even further. christina, i don't know whether you agree with me or not, but that's the view from this corner. >> yeah, i do agree. you know, as someone who considers herself a global

citizen, and i think about how the world sees us and think about how the world sees our troops, i fundamentally agree with you. we cannot have the minority leader of the senate actively working against the president of the united states. i understand that we don't see eye-to-eye. i'm obviously to the left of you, joe. i'm probably to the right of some people, you know, who i interact with. i get it. but we can't have someone who's the minority leader of one of the most powerful bodies in offer nation and possibly the world actively working against a president and refusing to come to the table in good faith to hear ideas. the north star of all things in washington, d.c. should be the american people. and the -- my biggest concern from the previous administration, i've said this all the time, there are the three branches of government. the fourth branch is the media. when donald trump eroded our trust in the media and

essentially called facts into question and his opinions became facts, and so many people in his party completely fell in line, and that has just eroded a party and so many parts of our nation, i think that's what we're trying to dig our way out of. and mitch mcconnell is probably the primary blocker in that process, as we try to heal and move forward in the country in good faith. and i generally believe that president biden is trying to do that, but eckns unning is that american people still are not getting it. the republican party, we've seen many times on the show, it'sf "" and it's the party of "no" when it comes to things that -- every single person in in country wants, better infrastructure, better health care, better education, better care for children. and yet they still line up with "no" to those things. this is not climate control or social issues. this is just kitchen table

issues to make people's lives better. the republicans and mcconnell, they come right out and say it, our job is to say "no," and the voters still line up behind them, that's a problem. so until the american public wakes up, we can't expect politicians to wake up. >> but kasie, i just got to interject here. as you know, the american people had a. they thought the democrats were way out of the mainstream. that's why a party led by kevin mccarthy in the house outperform ed anybody's wildest expectations. they picked up ten seats. that's why they have the chance to take over the majority in the house of representatives next year. i know a lot of progressives and a lot of my friend don't like to hear this.

but they had a choice and there are a lot of americans who would rather elect somebody who would say "no" to what they consider to be a radical agenda. and we can go through it. we had david shore on. a pretty brilliant progressive on to say, hey, yeah, we progressives, we went too far left, even for a lot of hispanics. that's why we were minus nine with hispanics against a guy who said racist things about hispanics, like called them breeders and attacked them for four years. so, yes, mitch mcconnell is majority leader in a 50/50 senate, but it's not as if democrats can't figure out a way start winning more elections in middle america. they may just choose not to elect the kind of candidates that could challenge the republican party, that could challenge mitch mcconnell.

>> yeah, that's right, joe. and you know, it's why we saw president biden walk into the white house at the end of this, while democrats in congress didn't have the kind of gains that they were expecting to make in congressional elections in that same year, for this very reason, it seems, that that's been the postmortem that you've identified here. that there are ways, you know, joe biden was very careful about making sure to include those middle of the road voters and to stick to the middle of the road, where he felt comforta candidat in telling the rest of his party, yeah, i am progressive, but i'm not going to go where these other folks are going. and i'm confident that's going to lead me to victory, and it did. but here's the thing, joe. and i think what's changed, as i was listening to you and katty talk about this, it used to be that that imperative of coming into the middle was what ultimately won you your elections. and it gave the people in the middle of the congress, in the middle of the senate, in

particular, the power to make these big decisions, so that it was possible to actually come up with big legislation that met the moment that also didn't go too far in either direction. when i first started covering congress, we were talking about thesis gangs. they often involved john mccain, they were working on big issues. it's been such a long time that we've had a situation like that that would put the immigration bill under george w. bush as part of this, as one of the warning signs about our heading in this direction. and it's because the extremes in both parties are now dictating what everyone else is doing. mitch mcconnell is farther to the center than a lot of members of his conference, but if he wants to remain the leader, he's got to make sure josh hawley is still happy with him. that's where we've gotten to. it's pretty remarkable. and you pull in what's going on overseas, the russians are actively encouraging this by

using social media to try to divide us even further. and the goal, of course, is to separate us from our european allies and weaken democracy around the world and you can really argue that they've been incredibly successful. >> you sure can. and unfortunately, too many people have played right into vladimir putin's hands by spreading a lot of lies that come straight out of russia's firehood of falsehoods. all of that being said, willie. let's end on a positive note. you look at the news, at the paper this morning, and you have a group of bipartisan senators trying to come together on a deal. you've got joe manchin and gene shaheen who's up for re-election in new hampshire, kris tan sinema, a democrat from west virginia, susan collins, a republican from maine and mitt romney, a republican from utah and five others. that's a great starting point. let's hope we can have some bipartisan agreement here and

the only thing i'll say about it as far as mitch mcconnell impose, yes, he's a majority leader. he's following the will of the people that make him majority leader. so if you've got a problem with mitch mcconnell, you figure out a way to go around mitch thesee they're starting to do it and may pass a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. so hope springs eternal here on "morning joe," willie. >> there is a sliver of hope, though kasie might have something to say about whether or not they'll actually get to the finish line of all of this. and for all the reasons you just laid out, this is why democrats, particularly progressives are telling the white house, forget the republicans, put your head down, plow forward on infrastructure with reconciliation. we'll see where they end up. still ahead on "morning joe," everybody, stay put, much more to talk about. we will speak with a top member

of the president's national security team about the rising threat of cyber attacks against the united states. plus, one of our next guests says new york is back and now ha the city's recovery from coronavirus address decades of division? that conversation just ahead on "morning joe." n just ahead on "morning joe." oh! don't burn down the duplex. terminix. shingles? oh... you mean bill. he's been a real pain. don't burn down the duplex. again with the bill... what? it looks like a face. ...hearing about it 24/7 is painful enough... i don't want to catch it. well, you can't catch shingles, but the virus that causes it may already be inside you. does that mean bill might have company? - stop. you know shingles can be prevented. shingles can be whaaaaat? yeah prevented. you can get vaccinated. oh, so... i guess it's just you, me and bill then. i'm making my appointment. bill's all yours...

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let me tell you what never, ever, ever should be voted more if this is ridiculous, okay? pineapple doesn't belong on pizza. we're not in california, okay? this is sacrilegious in italy put pineapple on a pizza. so i'm just totally, no way, never going to rank that. vegan cheese, respect, okay? respect vegan cheese. not ready myself for it yet. really honor what the vegan cheesemakers are doing. clams. we're not new haven, okay. >> that is new york mayor bill

de blasio explaining rank choice voting via pizza. he's right about pineapple pizza, and if you want the clam pizza, you have to go up to connecticut. he also announced that macy's july 4th fireworks will be back in full this year. last year, the fireworks were almost exclusively pre-taped with no live crowds. and as you know, broadway will be back this fall. the most successful american play in broadway history, "to kill a mockingbird," announced it will resume performances on october 5th with jeff daniels back as atticus finch. joining us now, jonathan mallard. he spent the last six months traveling around new york city, talking to people who were trying to shape its post-pandemic future. his latest piece is titled, "new york is back. now it has a second chance." good morning it's great to have you with us. as you point out in the pees, these last few weeks in

particular, this just been joyful. the weather is good. the cdc relaxed its mask mandates, the parks are full. people are happy to step back into real life. but now the question is, what does that future look like? what did you find as you travel around? >> i think that's where we are at right now, just ready to return to normal. but we did just come through this experience which revealed a lot of deep structural problems in the city. and i think people around the city are starting to think about what -- you know, how we might be able -- how we might go about addressing those problems, you know, in the months and years ahead. so rather than just leaping back into the reopening of the city and forget t about how disproportionate the suffering was and all of the structural problems that caused all of the

suffering to be so disproportionate, that the concern is that we're going to leap back in and return to normal and not address these issues. so people are thinking about different ways to address them. what that means, reconsidering how development works in the city, to ensure that big development projects coming out of the pandemic benefit communities and neighborhoods and not just developers and the wealthy, or whether that means trying really trying to tackle the segregation inside the city's school system. new york city has one of the most segregated school systems in the country, which is remarkable when you think about the great kind of diversity of the city and the kind of progressive values of the city. so, you know, people, i think, are starting to think about how we might try to tackle some of these things, you know, even as we kind of, you know, slaunch

into our reopening. >> and this reopening, of course, jonathan, is taking place in the middle of a mayor's race. there's going to be somebody new in city hall after bill de blasio's two terms. how will that impact the way this city looks in the years to come, given that we're coming out of a pandemic with new leadership? >> it obviously will be huge. it will be probably, obviously, not quite fair to say the single most defining fact, because i do think that the people will have a role to play in what happens with the city. but this is a big deal. if you think about new york city coming out of the rough '70s. and you think about ed koch and what a huge factor he was in rebirth and reimagining of the city or think about michael bloomberg coming out of 9/11 and

lifting the city out of that crisis. so certainly the mayor coming out of a crisis like this is a larger figure. not only in terms of the decisions that he or she makes, but in terms of the kind of image they project for the city. you know, the mayor is also kind of a mascot in some ways. >> yeah, new yorkers are so grateful, especially now more than ever, for some of the things we took for granted. happy life is returning, but also anxious to see what that life looks like. fascinating piece in "the new york times," everyone should read it. jonathan maller, thanks so much. >> it is so interesting. a great, great piece to there different eras of new york city. my gosh, in the '70s, it was like a scene out of a mad max movie and a lot of places, the '80s were tough, especially the late '80s, early '90s.

i think there are a lot of people who have grown up in new york city with falling crime numbers over the past two decades that have experienced something very new over the past year or so, with crime rates going up and new york being not only on the tip of the spear, but a year, year and a half into it, new york took the brunt of that crisis of any american city. christina, tell me, first of all, you're a new yorker. tell me how new york is coming along and where would you like new york to go? >> first things first, joe. firstly, go, mets. secondly, new york, we're struggling. we're in the middle of a very contentious, narrow race. we had eight serious candidates and quite a few others we have two-thirds of our city council

that will turn over. we have manhattan d.a.'s races. the controller. so we have a lot on the ballot on june 22nd for the new yorkers out there who are watching. don't forget to vote on june 22nd. early voting starts tomorrow. we know small businesses have shuttered. there's economic desperation for particular communities. sadly, that's led to increases in petty crime and violent crime and everything in between. the next mayor has his or her work cut out for them quite extensively. i hope we don't go back to normal. we've paid a lot of money delivering these cities. but the inequity in new york was astounding and it was getting worse. not just in education, but all across board. home ownership renting, you name

it. so i'm hoping when we come back and our next series of leaders who are building this city back with our assistance of almost 9 million people, we'll realize that certain systems just weren't working and reimagine have&have a more creative vision of what this city can look like in medicine more inclusive way. >> and housing, too. and you touched on it. it really got to a point where it was hard for young americans who wanted to come to new york city to begin their career. the housing was so expensive. food, so expensive. so much so expensive. and just out of reach for most americans. donny deutsch, you know what's interesting, after the 2008 collapse, warren buffett decided

he was going to reinvest in a lot of things. throw a lot of money down, go long when everybody else was scared to death and buffett said something like, you know, you've got to be a fool to bet against the united states of america. and anytime you do, you lose. i picked that up, anytime people are running us down, saying, this is the end of the innocence, this is the end of american democracy as we know it, i always go back to that. you've got to be a fool to bet against the united states of america. i believe we will find a way. and i can say the same about new york city. the prospects were bleak for new york in the winter. i was thinking it wasn't going to return. i hear people saying that new york will never return. you know what? like there's only one america, there's only one new york city. you can love it, you can hate it, but there's only one new york. and you can just bet on it. >> joe, you nailed it.

don't ever bet against new york. it was interesting. only eight months ago, everybody was like, new york, they're moving to florida, businesses are going down there, residential commercial prices are dropping, that's all turned around. new york is back. if you live here, you feel it. the one thing that will be an interesting question to look at is commercial real estate in that still today, if you go around the perimeter of new york, upper east side, upper west side, it's popping. midtown, not so much, because people still aren't back in offices. and as companies wrestle with how much do we make people go back and leave it up to people, if people aren't back in offices, that is going to affect a lot of new york. we still have a six-month tbd, because new york need that real estate foundation to work from a business point of view. and businesses are still struggling with that. >> i will say one thing and

obviously, i feel bad for a lot of business owners who have lost money over the past year in this crisis. that said, the fact that real estate prices have developed, that homeowner prices have dropped actually makes new york city more accessible to more americans and that's a good thing, i think. donnie, thank you so much for being with us. hope you have a great weekend. christina grier, as always, we love having you on. and yes, go mets. we appreciate you being here. and coming up next, a possible step forward on infrastructure, but now it's police reform talks that have stalled. before we go to break, willie, you know what i do every sunday morning. i dress the kids, we're all in our seersucker, we're ready to go to church, but before we do, i sit down. i said sit down with pappy because we have to watch uncle willie. what does uncle willie have in

store this weekend? >> and i appreciate pushing it to late service so you can watch. .old pappy is what your kids call you. we have a guy potentially talking about running to be the next governor of the great state of texas. that man right there, matthew mcconaughey. he wrote "green lights." the stories are absolutely wild if you haven't heard it from his childhood, from his career. it explains the origins of his famous catch phrase, all right, all right, all right. and a lot more. a great guy to sit down and chop it up with. matthew mcconaughey weekend on sunday tt on nbc. sunday tt on nc

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hey, mike, let's talk really quickly here about the factor of gaylord perry arises over every mlb stadium, we're seeing no hitters left and right, sticky stuff, spin rate. i want kids to love baseball as much as i love baseball. it's pretty hard when everybody is striking out and nobody is hitting. talk about mlb cracking down on pitchers who cheat. >> good luck to mlb trying to do that. the biggest problem major league baseball has in terms of the fans is time of game. last night, there was a four hour and 10-minute game in boston. that's way too long. they don't have the attention span and the time to sit there. so if you're going to attack and go after pitchers who might be putting sunscreen on their hands to create what they call a spin rate, you're going to go out there and have the umpire go out there and heck his fingers,

check his hair, his hat, how many times a gym? and if you suspect it's happening, you're going to tell the manager he has to remove the pitcher from the game? that's not going to happen. i think it's overrated. if you sit there and you're managing the red sox and you're playing the yankees, and you know that the yankees guy is loading up his fingers with sunscreen, you know your guy does the same thing. so you're not going to complain. it's been going on for years. >> well, except for the fact, willie, again, batting averages are plummeting. so many more strikeouts. you've seen it with the yankees. it's frustrating. and pitchers are getting this amazing advantage. you talk about the spin rate. so when you throw the curve, the thing, it just drops out of sight. makes it so much harder for the batters. why wouldn't they fix it? >> first of all, i appreciate mike barnacle's taking garrett cole's side in spiter attack

gate. i didn't realize spider attack is used by strong men in those competitions you see on espn 2 at 3:00 in the morning to put on their hands and hold these big stones that weigh 500 pounds. so the alleged and the question he was asked was does he use that sticky tack on the bridge of his cap to make the ball spin a little harder. and he sort of stumbled and fumbled around that question. but, i don't know, garrett cole is a great pitcher just the way tom brady is a great quarterback with or without a couple one or two pounds per square inch in the football. so i think we can great garrett cole is great. >> i bet you if the three of us went out and talked to say the 20 best hitters in major league baseball, they would tell you they all know most pitchers do use something on their fingers to maintain control of the ball for that nano second longer and create a spin rate, but they would rather have guys who throw 98 and 100 miles per hour using

that stuff for control of the ball rather than standing there with happy feet in the batter's box wondering if they're going to get an out of control 100-mile-per-hour pitch coming at them. >> mike, we pressure, as yankee fans, your support of garrett cole. >> i'm there for you. turns out the trump justice department did not just seize the -- of reporters last week. we will have the new reporting of how democrats who were also spied on. of how democrats who were also spied on aine medicine. it's ubrelvy. for anytime, anywhere migraine strikes, without worrying if it's too late, or where i am. one dose can quickly stop my migraine in its tracks within two hours. unlike older medicines, ubrelvy is a pill that directly blocks cgrp protein, believed to be a cause of migraine. do not take with strong cyp3a4 inhibitors. most common side effects were nausea and tiredness. ask about ubrelvy. the anytime, anywhere migraine medicine.

this week in covid history, it's june 2020 and america is moving at the speed of -- come on, you got this. yes, nailed it. the good news is, that coronavirus is on the ropes. even macho men are wearing mask like steve austin, floyd mayweather and beloved of the gridiron, o.j. simpson. it's the perfect time to have a rally. >> your rally is set for june 19th. >> think about it as a celebration. my rally is a celebration. >> but his fox & friends are flummoxed. >> how would these work? >> i think they'll be full rallies. >> 2, 4, 6, 8, who do we contaminate? and what about the second wave experts are yammering on about?

>> i spoke to our health experts last evening. they said there is no second spike. >> where is the second wave let me tell i have thes have the warning us about? >> why, it's right there, you silly goose stepper. joe biden makes a big statement at his house. nope, nope, down, down. there he is. >> this president is going to try to steal this election. this is a guy who said all mail-in ballots are fraudulent. >> by golly, he's lost his marbles. >> leave it to democrats to go out there and level these conspiracy theories. >> this conspiracy theory -- >> conspiracy about that. >> he believes that you will steal the election. >> joe is not all there. everybody knows it. certainly if i don't win, i don't win. you know, go on and do other ng to walk down to the capitol.

you'll never take back our country with weakness. >> freedom! >> dumb is right. this has been this week in covid history. >> oh, what an exhausting week. what an exhausting time, what an exhausting year. what an exhausting five years. wow, willie, a lot packed into that week a year ago. geez. >> there was. there was, but for all the horrors that were laid out there, the one that gets former president trump the most is the ramp at west point. he will never let that go. he will never stop explaining what really happened that day. covid, eh. the ramp at west point. that's the one that really gets him in that litany of awful you moments last year. >> and what about joe biden's prediction that donald trump is going to try to steal the election and the shocked

outrage. oh, my god, how dare he. he has and that's exactly what happened. >> unfortunately, that all came to pass as we saw in the last clip from january 6th. >> yeah. okay. i won't have any more haltding questions to you. mika has the morning off. we're going to be starting with this new report on just how far the trump juflt just department went. my god, seems like they crossed some real boundaries here, right? >> yeah. this is an extraordinary story. looking at the leaks connected to the russia investigation. according to the "new york times," the justice department first under jeff sessions subpoenaed apple in 2017 and early 2018 for the data of at

least a dozen people tied to the house intelligence committee, including the top democrat adam schiff. democratic congressman eric swalwell confirms his records were seized. the times reports the records of aides and family members of those connected to the committee also were collected, including those of a minor. no evidence was ever found tieing the committee to the leaks. but that did not stop trump's next attorney general, william barr, from reviving the investigation a year later. the times citing three sources reports barr recruited about a half dozen investigators to work on that case. after years of nothing to show for that investigation, the times reports some in the department began to see it as politically motivated. you think? barr declined to comment as did the biden justice department. congressman adam schiff is now calling on the agency's inspector general to investigate. >> that is, i think, a terrible abuse of power.

it violates i think the separation of powers. but it also makes the department of justice just a fully owned subsidiary of the president's personal legal interest and political interests. and that a does such damage to the department. so it's extraordinary. maybe unprecedented for the department to seek records like this of a member of congress or staff of a member of congress or staff of a committee to do so in a partisan way, to do so when they're investigating him, to do so openly department. it's hard to express just michael schmidt about this in just a moment is the former attorneys general, both jeff sessions and william barr basically assembling a cavalry to go and look inside the intelligence committee to see who they thought might be

leaking stories and using subpoena power to do so. >> this seems awfully extraordinary, this news that we're waking up to this morning. and perhaps it's happened before and maybe those examples just aren't coming to mind. but here, you have an administration and there's a parallel with that clip that we played coming in where you had people shocked and stunned that joe biden suggested that donald trump is going to try to steal the election if things didn't go his way. of course, that's exactly what happened. here you actually had donald trump and everybody around trump, all of his defenders, screaming and howling about how the, quote, deep state had been spying on them during the transition. at the same time, they're literally spying on members of the press, they're spying on partisan political opponents. and this is what -- this is what

seems new to me. spying on political rivals in another branch of government. i mean, there's a reason why we have three separate branches of government. and there are checks and balances and so you actually have donald trump's white house, donald trump's justice department spying on a separate branch of government that is conducting its oversight role in a -- in investigating the executive branch. like i said, maybe this has happened before. i don't remember this ever happening. if it has happened, it's -- we don't want to, you know, engage in being too melodramatic here. but, my god, it just seems to me

this is an extraordinary breach. it is a constitutionally challenging event. again whb an executive branch spy owes a legislative branch committee that is doing investigations and oversight on that president. let's bring in one of the reporters of this story, analys michael schmidt. he's the author of the book "donald trump the united states inside the struggle to stop a president." michael was one of the several "new york times" reporters who had his records subpoenaed by the justice department. michael, we obviously last week expressed concerns about you and other members of the press having their records sifted through by government agencies on leak investigations. that had happened before. it's happened before. it happened also during the obama administration. they were very aggressive. i'm trying to remember he,

though, whether we've ever had a president and his administration spy on members -- i'm sure if nixon didn't do it, he certainly thought about it, but actually spy and seize the records of opponents from another branch that was investigating that president and his administration. this seems like extraordinarily dangerous and new. i'm sort of stammering around this morning because it's new territory. >> i think you're right. and as we found in our reporting, we could not find a similar example of this in recent memory. now, this could have happened in a leak case that we don't know about. there are lots of leaks that are investigated and there are lots

of tactics that are used in them. so in another matter, sure, maybe this did happen. but we certainly didn't find out about it. so that sets this apart. you're right. it is different than the subpoenas that we've seen over the years for tax records. the thing i think that also sets this apart, certainly in terms of congress, is that this is exactly what trump wanted. and this is exactly why presidents are counseled not to talk about ongoing investigations or about how the powers of the justice department should be used. because if something like this were to come out, the first

instincts to come out is that is exactly why the president who can put anyone he wants in the justice department, you have to remember, this is 2017. 2018 trump is very angry about the mueller investigation. sessions and rosenstein are afraid they're going to get fired at any turn because they're trying -- rosenstein is saying he's trying to product mueller in the mueller investigation. and it is in that atmosphere that this happens, that the justice department takes this extraordinary action to pull the -- you know, go to apple and get the records, the data and information, icloud information for one of the president's chief rivals.

>> you can read michael's full plan. coming up, "morning joe" back in a moment. ♪ ♪ the light. it comes from within. it drives you. and it guides you. to shine your brightest. as you charge ahead. illuminating the way forward. a light maker. recognizing that the impact you make, comes from the energy you create. introducing the all-electric lyriq. lighting the way. ♪ ♪ what's the #1 retinol brand used most by dermatologists?

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let's turn to a potential underline potential break through in the infrastructure negotiations on capitol hill. a bipartisan group of senators working on a deal says it now has made some progress. >> the ten of us have reached a tentative understanding and so we're not looking for adjustments. what we're looking for is to see whether our colleagues are open

to it and we'll find lit get out a piece of paper which lays it all out and see if we can get some people to sign on and have enough support to think it has merit. >> let's turn to garrett haake who has been reporting on this story. tentative understanding, not exactly a resounding conclusion to these negotiations, but what are they talking about here? what is this framework and can, as always with negotiations, how are they going to pay for it? >> well, willie, i talked to susan collins about this ready and she made a point to me of not overstating where they are on this. they still -- this group of ten senators, five republicans, five democrats, know they have to sell what they've come up with not just to their respective caucuses, but also to the white house if they're going to get anywhere. and i think that's some of the hesitation here. what i can tell su in this plan is it gets up above $1 trillion in total spending, particularly when you stretch it out over the

eight-year mark. that's kind of a deal that was worked out with the biden administration, whether it would be five years or eight years. this bill can be stretched out to eight. it deals with just physical infrastructure, so the elements about the c.a.r.e. economy that the white house wanted to see in the jobs plan get through congress is not included in this. and the way that the group tried to come up with the pay for it involves a mix of things like the unspent covid relief money that was talked about in the shelly moore capito plan, they try to do some creative things with taxes and i think this is where this may get hung up with the administration. for example, they index the gas tax to inflation. they say this is not a tax increase. well, if there is inflation and the gas tax goes up, the tax will go up, but these members can say we didn't raise it. we simply indexed it to inflation. will that fly with the white house? i have no idea. but i can tell you it's already not flying with progressive democrats. rob widen, the chairman of the

senate finance committee was panning this plan before it was even released. it still isn't released in its entirety. so there are democrats still itching to go forward with a much bigger plan here. but the fact that this is bipartisan, that it does have the buyin of at least these five republican senators gives, i think, hope to those who want a bipartisan deal including the president of the united states. the white house said they're looking this over and they have questions, willie. so we'll see to what degree the bipartisan group can answer those questions and whether this moment in the sun for them continues and they continue to negotiate through next week or if the white house or enough progressive democrats come forward and say this isn't going to cut the mustard. we've got to find something else. >> well, i'll tell you what, $1.2 trillion ain't nothing and the fact that people suggest that it's too small of a sum for infrastructure, i guess that tells you exactly where we are right now. politically. garrett, let me ask you about the police reform bill. we had been hearing that that

might be moving toward a compromise, a bipartisan compromise. but it's hit a snag. what is that snag? >> yeah, of all the bipartisan negotiations going on the hill, the police reform one is the one that i and a number of reporters up there have been the most bullish about. in part because they have kept the details locked down. the three lawmakers who have been working on this closely going back to late last year have been run ago very tight ship. and we were told early this week that they had started circulating texts among themselves, that they thought they might be close enough to an agreement to start putting something done on paper in legislative text. that's a big deal in d.c. but what has come up to the forefront here as they've started looking at this text is -- and this is coming from republican sources, including lindsey graham who has been involved in this working with tim scott saying that the negotiators largely agreed, they thought, the republicans thought they were going to leave something called section 242 out of this. this deals with u.s. code about

how a government official could potentially be charged for depriving a person of their constitutional rights. republicans didn't want to touch this in the negotiations and they thought they had convinced democrats that this was going to be left aside and that they could move forward on the things on which they agreed. apparently not so. >> so excuse me, really quickly -- >> yeah, joe? >> in plain english, that's whether an individual police officer would be held liable for something that happened while he was in his job. i know the democrats and republicans have been talking about making it the municipality that would be liable. >> no, this is not the same as -- no, this is not the same as qualified immunity. they actually think they got past this. this deals with depriving a personal of constitutional rights. it's almost never charged. this is one of the things where democrats had wanted to beef up this provision as another way to potentially hold police officers

accountable by going through this kind of separate door. and republicans didn't want to touch that. they didn't want to change this immunity portion, joe, that you were talking about seems to have been settled. and i think that is part of the reason there was so much optimism here. because for so long, we thought that would be the most difficult part of these negotiations. >> nbc's garrett haake, thanks so much. coming up, we will go overseas for a preview of president biden's meeting with leaders at the gg7. let's go. ♪ ♪ woah. obsession has many names. this is ours.

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the g7 summit kicks off today in cornwall, england. yesterday, president biden and british prime minister boris johnson met and reaffirmed a world war ii era charter aimed at strengthening ties between the long time allies. >> it's wonderful to liten to

the biden administration and joe biden. there's so much they want to do together with us from security to nato to climate change. it's fantastic. it's a breath of fresh air. >> prime minister johnson and i had a very productive meeting. we affirmed the special relationship, and it's not said lightly, the special relationship twoen our people. and we renewed our commitment to defending the enduring democratic values to both of on our nations share. >> let's bring in mike mimwood. what are we hearing from the white house? what are we hearing from president biden himself about the focus and the plans for the g7 summit that starts shortly today? >> so much of the build up to this trip, the first trip abroad by president biden since taking office has been about the final stop which is that meeting in geneva with president putin.

but what we are going to see, it was a really important reestablishment of the u.s. relationship with our western allies. now, you remember the with the when he arrived here reiterated something we've heard a lot, which is america is back. and one of the big questions our key allies are asking is, yes, but for how long? so as i've been talking to white house officials and those close to biden, they talk so much about how his mantra that all politics is personal really does apply as well to foreign policy. and in some ways, while that could pay dividends in the relationship he's built with china's president xi jinping and the difficult interactions he's had in the past with vladimir putin, it's more critical today for president biden to be able to react to and assure our allies that the united states, the commitment to the democratic principals is one that they can commit to themselves in the long-term.

now, the agenda is quite full. they are going to be focused on the pandemic. the announcement from the u.s. president, president biden announcing 500 million of the vaccine would be shipped out especially to poor and developing nations. climate will be a big focus, especially tonight when we see the leaders dining with members of the royal family, including the queen. she will be a late addition to that party, as well. punish the president has been talking about foreign policy, the economy, bringing western allies on board with a global minimum tax regardless of where a company is headquartered to ensure they're paying at least a 15% tax to the countries in which they do business. it's part of what the president has tried to assure our allies is in their interests, which is to build a strong middle class which is the foundation of a strong democracy. >> katty kay. >> it's attempt to go look at these global conferences and

think nothing really ever comes out of them, right? and after four years of donald trump, the world was put on pause. is that going to be different this time around? do you think we're going to come out of this g7 meeting in cornwall with actual real changes on issues like climate change, on issues like house to deal with russia, china, and cyber security, on -- and particularly on the pandemic? in a sense, after the sort of disruption of donald trump, is the world now really ready and waiting to take action again to make things better? >> this has been a critical focus from the u.s. side ahead of the summit here, which is you need to be able to provide tangible results. you need to be able to show that democracies can still get things done. and that's why the u.s. commitment of $500 million doses of the covid vaccine is being matched. in fact, there's going to be the

announcement of a billion doses overall by the g7 countries being shared. they want to see even further steps towards a strengthening of the paris climate agreement. that's going on be part of the discussion here. that's been -- the way the president has focused here. but i think it was interesting, as we saw the meeting with prime minister johnson yesterday, i thought back to what president biden then candidate biden said dug the campaign when johnson won the parliamentary victory. he called johnson an emotional clone of donald trump and he warned that if his own party, democrats, moved too far to the left, they would suffer the same fate as the labor party had in the elections here. so you see biden trying to walk that middle ground in domestic politics and he's trying to do the same in this diplomatic context to make sure our allies are doing just as much as he's trying to do back home in focussing on the nuts and bolts and getting the real results in order to prevent the rise of populist figures and authoritarian figures as we've

seen in the past, as well. >> nbc's mike menley, thank you so much. coming up, a cia veteran was serving in moscow when he suddenly experienced dizziness and headaches followed by long-term neurological issues. was it one of those direct energy attacks we've been hearing about? ♪ ♪ ♪

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welcome back to "morning joe." this morning, the biden administration has confirmed chancellor angela merkel will meet with the president on june 15th. they will discuss covid, the economy and international security according to the white house. the g7 has kicked off now in cornwall, england, and joining us from cornwall is deputy national security adviser delip

singh. it's good to have you with us this morning. from your point of view, what is the major objective for president biden over these next couple of days at the g7 and looking forward to the nato summit? we heard two days ago when he spoke to american troops stationed in the uk talk about preserving democracy, how do you view his role today and going forward? >> yeah, thanks, willie. and good morning. so the main message from president biden this week is to show that our alliances are back. the g7 is back in person for the first time in two years. and more fundamentally, we're back in terms of being unified in our resolve. and the resolve is to show that democracies can still deliver for our people and take on the biggest challenges in the world. >> let me ask you, mr. singh, thanks so much for being with us. we had earlier in the day today jeffrey sacks on talking about how multi national corporations, american corporations hide

hundreds of billions of assets, whether it's in the cayman islands or bermuda, we're looking at this global minimum tax. how important is that to pass and what will that do to make sure that american corporations pay american taxes? >> yeah, joe, this is not just a wonky finance issue. this is an issue that leaders are discussing because what this is about fundamentally is ending a very destructive race to the bottom on corporate tax rates. that race to the bottom has meant that we've relied more and more on workers to generate tax revenues. it's meant we don't have as many resources to invest domestically and we can't grow the middle class as fast as we would like. so we're coming together this week at a leader's level to endorse a global minimum tax to end the race to the bottom and help us fund our domestic renewal agenda. >> katty kay is with us and has a question for you. >> mr. singh, thank you. the messages of renewed

alliances are very powerful. europeans are clearly happy to have joe biden on the scenes. but that doesn't mitigate the fact that there are real substantive issues on which european countries and the united states do not agree. and that's some of the key issues, how close to get to china, how to deal with the threat of russia. what is joe biden going to do, particularly when it comes to france and germany, to trym to themselves a bit more from china and from russia and to throw their lot in with a european -- with an american-led approach? >> that's a great question, katty. the president likes to talk about this being a historical moment, a moment of choice. there are some who believe the top down autocracies generate the best path generating results and there others, like us, who believes democracies and our shared democratic values,

freedom, opportunity, rule of law, the dignity of all people, that that's the single best path to delivering results. that is what unifies us. we're going to come together and show, not just in words, words are important, but also in actions. what we're for and what we don't tolerate. simply you hear this week in terms of what we're for, there is going to be an infrastructure initiative that we'll come together on that develops a positive alternative to china's belt and road initiative, one that is much more transparent, one that is driven by our values, one that has high standards. in terms of what we don't tolerate, the use of forced labor. and our consumers should be free of products that are made in that way. i think we'll have unity and purpose in those ways. >> mr. singh, we have seen cyber criminals shut down a pop line here in the united states. we know our water systems and our electric grids are at can't

peril from cyber criminals. next week, president biden is meeting with president putin in russia. and russia seems to tolerate criminals operating within their midst in terms of cyber crime. what are we doing about increased cyber security? >> yeah. you're right. cyber ransom ware and cyber attacks, they're an urgent, escalating attack. this is another area in which g7 nations agree. what can we do about it? we can agree to hold to account any criminal ransom ware network operating in our border. we can all work to modernize our cyber defenses. that is an area that is going to be on the agenda at the g7 and i'm sure it will be a discussion with russia later in the week. >> deleep singh, thank you for

your time this morning. we appreciate it. >> more now on that issue of cyber security that mike just mentioned. hackers targeting major companies with increased frequency. this week, we learned the world's largest beef supplier paid millions to ransom ware hackers joining networks of a growing list of businesses, cities, and even schools under attack. tom costello has more. >> meat packer jbs, just the latest big company to pay a ransom. $11 million in bitcoin. after cyber criminals knocked out plants that process 20% of america's meat supply. to pay or not to pay is the dilemma all ransom ware targets face. the small new hall school district in california with a attacked last fall. teachers lesson plans, grades all locked up before hackers required big money. >> we don't operate the flush

funds sitting around. >> can school systems strapped for cash and little money for cyber security, students' personal information can be vulnerable. ibm security xforce calculates 1700 schools and colleges were hit by ransom ware last year, even more this year. >> they don't have the expertise to respond. but still, they're getting targeted again and again. >> the company recently awarded six school districts $500,000 each to beef up their cyber security defenses. 7,800 applied. meanwhile, cities large and small are under daily attack. >> here in new orleans, it took nine months for the city to recover from a cyber attack. >> fortunately, the mayor says critical financial data was protected in the cloud. >> did you consider paying the ransom? >> no, we did not consider paying the ransom because we were able to stop it in its tracks and we were able to beat

back the compromise. >> but in many states, businesses, hospitals and school districts have paid. superintendent pell zell can't say what his school district did to regain control of their computers can and lesson plans. >> you're talking about 5 to 12-year-olds and shutting down their learning. >> change all of your passwords regularly, use multi step authentication. back up your computers off line or to the cloud, never skip a security update. hire a cyber security staff if you can and remind employees and family members never click on suspect emails or links. >> nbc's tom costello reporting there. as we just said, president biden is expected to bring up the issue of these cyber attacks with president putin next week in geneva. coming up next, our next guest was one of the cia's most decorated agents. then he was hit with a mysterious weapon that he says changed his life forever. he joins us next to tell his

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they're working to confirm whether microwave radiation is being used to affect the weapon of the health of american officials in what has become known as havana syndrome. those affected have symptoms of headaches, and hearing a loud noise. it could be an unintentional byproduct from foreign efforts to collect intelligence from officials technology devices. one officer says he was the latest to suffer from that attack. mark joins us now, he is a 26 year veteran of the cia. he is one of the agencies most decorated feel officers. he is also the author of the new book "clarity in crisis." leadership lessons from the cia. what a fascinating story.

take us back to the early morning hours of december 5th, 2017 when you wake up in moscow in a hotel feeling what? >> sure, it's good to be with you this morning. december 2017 i made a trip to the embassy in moscow. it was in essence to visit our ambassador there to get familiarization with russia and to meet with the officials. i woke up in the middle of the night the room was spinning, i had a splitting headache, i had ringing in my ears, i could not stand up. i spent years in afghanistan and iraq, but this was by far the worst experience of my life. >> what did you suspect at the time. was there a possibility that you had been attacked in some way? >> the first thing i thought was

something like food poisoning. i have been sick in every continent, but my suspicions broaden when the symptoms did not abide. when i got back to the united states i developed symptoms like brain fog, i lost my long distance vision. it was clear to me that something very unusual had happened. and that was kind of the beginning of my medical journey where to this day i still have splitting headaches, it has lasted for three years. >> mark, something i don't understand about this story, we had three administrations that had to deal with it, the tail end of the obama administration. and when i read these deeply troubling reports, it seems there is a reluctance from administrations, a reluctance from government officials, even when some of the attacks are

reported in northern virginia. why do you think there is a reluctance to talk about this? >> i put this in two bins, one is a reluctance to place became, on the first end why we were not given health care, this is a classic leadership fail. when i joined the cia and i was asked to do a lot of unusual things, there was always a notion that if i was jammed up they would have my back. so they even even provided health care. i want to give the current cia director a lot of credit. we are getting the health care we deserve, but on the culpability piece, this is a big deal. these are attacks, this is an active war, so i understand that the intelligence community wants to get it right, but there seems

to be a reluctance for many years to even go down that road. i'm hoping that things are changing right now in the current administration. >> i have one more question for you as i read these stories it seems like can communist governments, whether it is happening in cuba or china or russia, there seems to be inconsistencies. and then you hear about attacks in northern virginia. the russians, are they really going to launch an attack in northern virginia knowing the consequences of that? all hell broke loose after the attacks in england against a former spy. what do you think about that when you hear that story. does that sound like something any foreign country would dare do? >> i think we have to look at russia in a different light now.

you know vladimir putin and the current security forces seem reluctant to do anything. i would not put it past them to do something like this. in terms of the attacks and the energy attacks on officials in washington, all i will say is that having spoken sometimes indirectly or receiving accounts of what happened it's very similar to the symptoms that myself and others at the agency have encountered. i would not dismiss then. if you have instances of brain fog, aches, and vertigo, some of them were working on russian issues. i think we have to be open minded. it is a mystery, but we have to get to the bottom of it because troops are being affected.

>> i love what you're delving into here. you see management books about how you handle things when things are going swimmingly well or a slight dip. i love this because it talks about having a clear mind in crisis. being able to keep your perspective when everything around you is going to held. talk about that. you obviously dealt with it when life and death issues were on the line. talk about people that are dealing with crisis. what is the first thing you look for? >> althoughly after two-and-a-half decades in the third world, i came up with principals that are letting me be comfortable. this is the place where you want to be where you can deal with a lack of situational awareness. i came up with nine principals

to build on each other. they're very basic and easy to follow. this is not for the type a personality. it's for everybody. it including key principals. what i call the blue guy or the blue gal. the critical member of the team behind the scenes. if you're in the seals or the intelligence committee, there's a door kicker but a support officer in the back that is integral. in your unit, in your business, who is that critical behind the scenes member. so asking you all today, who is the glue guy or the glue gal that doesn't get all of the credit. i go over these because when times are tough you can look back and rely on the team you built and find success. >> mark in terms of the book, clarity in crisis you're one of the few people that we have on that has been shot at.

in war, iraq and afghanistan. so clarity. how did you prepare yourself or is there a way to prepare yourself for that moment of crisis when it is essential? >> that is a great question. we talk about winning an oscar.o have a face when others have confidence. i talk about an incident in the book. we were attacked by al qaeda. while i was trying to hand out weapons and my heart rate was calm. officers were saying you looked calm, and i wasn't, but as i looked back and thought about it it is that outward face that i

portrayed that was really important. people have to understand that the people under you or your peers will look to you when times are tough and it's how you react that is critical in getting through difficult situations. >> the new book is clarity in crisis, leadership lessons from the cia. thank you for being with us and thank you for all you have given to the country over the years. continued health to you, that is an extraordinary story. our remaining moments, the g 7 will gip in earnest in about an hour from now, what will you be looking for in the next couple days? >> i'm going to look to see if the newfound enthuiasm for joe biden can lead to results on some of the big things that we all have to tackle together. no one country can fix climb change alone, it has to be a joint effort. let's see if they can work

better together now than they did in the last four or five years. >>. >> that does it for us today. we'll see you back here on monday morning, have a great weekend, stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> hi there, i'm stephanie ruhle and we start this morning with breaking news from the u.k. right now at this very moment president biden leaving for the g 7. he and the first lady will be greeted by the british prime minister who is hosting the summit and met with president biden yesterday. so much going on. i want to bring in the chief white house correspondent. and host of "washington week.