>> mike allen, thank you. >> thank you for your coverage. thank you for getting up "way too early" with us today and all week long. have a great weekend, everybody. "morning joe" starts right now. >> good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is friday, may 20th. we begin with live pictures from south korea. right now, president biden is touring a samsung plant with the korean president. he arrived in the country this morning. the first stop of his six-day tour of asia. this plant makes computer chips and is a model for a facility being built in texas. the president is expected to make remarks, and we'll be watching that. we'll dip in live and discuss the message the president hopes this trip overall sends to china. plus, new reporting on the midterms. donald trump leaves pennsylvania republicans fuming, while in georgia, the former president

reportedly abandons his struggling pick for governor. just left him in the dust. >> never would have seen that coming. >> i know. no loyalty. >> things go back, and he throws him under the bus. who has ever seen that? >> that's shocking. >> other than anyone he's ever dealt with. the latest on the war in ukraine. british intelligence reports russia has been firing high-level commanders over the military's poor performance in ukraine. we'll talk a lot more about that. along with joe, willie, and me on this friday morning, we have u.s. special correspondent for bbc news katty kay. editor for the "washington post," david ignatius. the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire. he is white house bureau chief at "politico." >> willie, we're going to get a lot of news here, but i must say, jonathan and i just shocked. a storied night in major league baseball last night, as the little engine that could just went a half notch up the hill

and said, "i think i can." jonathan, give us a quick rundown. >> trevor story, the expensive offseason acquisition, is off to a slow start, hearing the boos at fenway. last night, not one, not two, but three home runs for mr. story. 7 rbi. red sox roll over the mariners. don't look now, playing a little better. they won two out of three against texas. won two out of three against the astros, despite the astros installing a drum at fenway park to beat any time they threw a pitch, so they knew what was coming, and they won last night. joe, it should be noted, though, though this plucky band of underdogs are capturing the nation's hearts and minds, there is still approximately 187 games behind the new york yankees. >> again, we know the yankees are going to win. you pay that money much, willie, you deserve to win, i guess.

that's the way people think about it when you're yankee fans. but, you know, we may get just a notch ahead of the orioles this year. that's what jonathan and i are excited about. >> i respect you guys for still making that argument, despite the fact that you joined the dark side many, many years ago, for overpaying for overrated stars. listen, the yankees lost a game last night, a shocking development. >> that is a smock. >> wow. >> we'll have quiet prayer, some reflection probably, and just think about whether or not we want to play for this ball team before we host the white sox this weekend. one loss for the yankees. luckily, still a dozen games ahead of those red sox. >> oh, my god, that's exhausting. >> it is exhausting. >> we'll talk about it more, obviously. let's get to the news. there's still no winner in the pennsylvania republican senate primary this morning, with state officials confirming to nbc news there are nearly 9,000 votes left to count.

but the effects -- >> trump says it's over. >> yeah. >> trump is saying to disregard all the republican votes that haven't been counted yet. throw them away. >> he is saying, come on, oz. be like me. call it now. the effects of former president trump's handling of this race and other primaries in the state could hurt his political capital in the future. nbc news reports, quote, exasperated republicans in the state say the end result of promoting candidates with far-right views with such intensive media coverage could boomerang in ways that damage both the party and trump's own chances, should he run for president in 2024. ya think? ya think? some state republicans also told nbc they were upset with trump's suggestion that his backed candidate, dr. mehmet oz, just declare victory, calling it, quote, shock for trump to call for cancelling republican

ballots. >> shocking? he wants to cancel democratic ballots and ballots from predominantly black areas in 2020, but they find it shocking, i guess, that he wants to cancel republican ballots now. >> interesting. >> shocking only if you haven't spent five minutes around donald trump. meanwhile, days away from georgia's gubernatorial primary. david perdue may have lost donald trump as his biggest supporter. the former president is disappointed in the lackluster campaign effort and will not be making any more personal appearances in georgia on behalf of perdue. a fox week poll had the incumbent, brian kemp, holding a 32-point lead over perdue. von hilliard spoke to perdue about the numbers yesterday. >> your campaign has gone off theairwaves, the former president hasn't come in for another rally, and you're down

in the polls. what happened? >> where'd you get the 30 points? >> fox news poll. >> where did you get it from? >> are you not down 30 points? >> hell no. remind me of that tuesday. we may win tuesday, but we're not down 30 points. >> with us now, the author of those reports, pennsylvania and the georgia races, political reporter for nbc news, mark. you know, some people may be spectacle of the number, then going to georgia and talking to the trump-endorsed candidate that's getting pounded. these pennsylvania republicans reading your story and hearing other things out of pennsylvania, they're sounding a lot like georgia republicans did in 2020. >> right. >> after trump cost them not only those two senate seats but also cost them the majority in the senate. it seems that republicans do not forget. they haven't forgotten in

georgia. brushed him aside in the most dramatic way. looks like pennsylvania may be next. >> yeah, you're hearing this not only in these states but a few other states. trump has trained a lot of his fire in georgia, and that's where you started hearing this weariness. something that struck us writing this piece in pennsylvania was the similar tone, the similar sense of weariness republicans have. an interesting example of how all politics aren't just local but they're also national, one of the georgia republicans we spoke to said, look, we just want trump to kind of stay in his lane, back off a bit. she's a chair of jasper county's gop. she said that a lot of people in georgia were upset that trump endorsed oz in pennsylvania. it gives you an idea that conservatives are paying attention to the races not only in their own states but nationwide. again, there's this little sense of frustration. i don't want to misrepresent that trump is unpopular in the gop. he is not, he is very popular. again, you're seeing a little of

the internal, like, give us a little minute. let us make our own decisions and discuss our own primaries without all this outside pressure and heat. >> yeah. you know, willie, every time a trump candidate wins, i think the media makes such a huge deal about it. he picked a crazy gubernatorial candidate in pennsylvania which was on his way to winning anyway, which is why trump jumped on the bandwagon there. alabama, he selected mo brooks, a guy there on january 6th, a guy helping spread the lies of elections. mo brooks didn't take off. voters are like, we don't care whether you like mo brooks or not. he's not our candidate. his candidacy starts to fail, trump abandons him. alabama, where he's supposedly the strongest if you listen to him. georgia, a huge race for governor. kemp was enemy number one for donald trump. we have all the clips saying he

might vote for stacey abrams over kemp because he thought kemp was a loser. kemp is crushing former u.s. senator david perdue, who was popular as a senator. there's another example of it. i'll go to pennsylvania. yeah, oz is tied right now with mccormick. he trashed mccormick. he said barnett wasn't ready to be a senator. two-thirds of republicans in pennsylvania voted against donald trump. two-thirds. this is going down to the very end. nebraska, we talked about how the governor there, the ricketts operation, ran over donald trump, destroyed his candidate. then you go to idaho, the crazy lieutenant governor there. i will say crazy lieutenant governor there that donald trump supported, what happened? she lost in idaho, one of the reddest states in america. so, again, i'm not saying donald trump doesn't have sway in the republican party, but i'll tell ya what, it's nothing like it was in 2020. i think the media needs to focus

more on those massive losses instead of having the headlines about that his endorsement really means something significant. i'm not so sure it does this year. >> let's be clear about doug mastriano, the republican nominee for governor now in the state of pennsylvania. donald trump endorsed him on saturday, this past saturday. >> yeah. >> four days before election day. it's not like he propelled him to victory. mastriano was going to win anyway, and donald trump hopped on the band wagon, the way he is hopping off the perdue bandwagon when he sees it's not going his way. jd vance in ohio, most people believe he won because donald trump came in and endorsed him and pushed him over the finish line. so it depends on the race. it depends on the state. marc caputo, in the state of pennsylvania, the gop official you quote says, basically, by asking mehmet oz to declare victory. donald trump is cancelling the two-thirds of the votes that joe talked about, republican votes. so what is the posture?

again, it is different in every race and every state, but what is the posture broadly of these state parties toward donald trump, as you look at pennsylvania and you look at georgia? >> if you look at pennsylvania state party, the person i quoted is gleeson, former chair of the party, there is a lot of disappointment, soul-searching, hand-wringing. should we have gotten involved, the gop is saying, and try to coalesce behind another candidate than mastriano? they don't believe that mastriano can win in the general election. in georgia, it is a different story. it's a very trumpy chair of the gop there. there's been a bit of a georgia civil war within the republican party and kind of within the republican establishment ever since 2020. certainly since the 2020 elections. the chair there is just well-known as wanting to do whatever trump wants to do. trump has endorsed and supported kind of an entire slate of statewide candidates in georgia. trump is going to walk away as a

winner from georgia, at least he'll fashion himself as one, because of herschel walker. he is expected to have a big blowout win for u.s. senate there. football star. trump recruited him to run for senate in georgia. you'll hear a lot about that out of donald trump's mouth. you're not going to hear a lot about perdue. an adviser said donald trump did more to elect david perdue than david perdue. trump believes that perdue's work ethic has been shotty. republicans in other races when we discuss perdue with them, they said the problem is perdue. he doesn't really like campaigning, voters, raising money and talking to donors, and he doesn't like giving campaign speeches. that's a problem if you're running a statewide campaign. part of the result of what we're seeing in the polls so far with kemp dominating him is just that fact. perdue probably wasn't the right candidate, or this wasn't the right time to take on a republican candidate like

governor kemp in this year when he is running for re-election. >> well, of course, as alex points out, donald trump criticizing somebody's work ethic? that's laughable considering the man had too much executive time on his hands so he could watch cable news all day. >> lots of tv watching and tweeting. >> while president. >> as long as he could. nbc's marc caputo, thank you so much for your reporting this morning. we appreciate it. now to ukraine. the senate has overwhelmingly approved $40 billion in aid for ukraine, making it the largest foreign aid package passed by congress in at least two decades. the 86-11 vote with all the nays coming from republicans reflects the overwhelming bipartisan support for the massive assistance. the package, which includes money for advanced weapon systems and general economic aid, brings the total u.s. investment in ukraine to around $54 billion. president biden applauded the

passage of the bill, saying it sends a, quote, clear bipartisan message to the world, that the people of the united states stand together with the brave people of ukraine. he's expected to quickly sign it into law. ahead of the vote, senate minority leader mcconnell made another strong push for the passage. saying, quote, anyone concerned about the cost should consider the larger cost should ukraine lose. >> david ignatius, yesterday, "the new york times" lead editorial suggested this war was about to get more complicated and americans weren't ready for it. i'm curious, what are your thoughts about where this $40 billion package puts us and where the united states increased commitment puts america? >> joe, i think the "times" is right, that the end of the war is complicated. it is hard to see how this war will end. russia remains all in, at least in eastern ukraine. ukrainians are more convinced than ever that they can drive russian forces out of their

country. the interest that ukrainian president zelenskyy had in a negotiated settlement two months ago after the first month of the war seems much less. i think the end game is hard to understand. what's clear is that the united states is fully behind ukraine in this bipartisan show of support. president biden can go abroad, as he is on his trip this week to asia, and say with confidence the united states, both parties, stand together in supporting our ally. can talk about america's reliability more convincingly than he sometimes is able to, given our political divisions at home. but i think the simple point, joe, is that we are pumping weapons into ukraine in an unprecedented way. the russians do not seem to be pulling back in the areas they decided they're going to try to dominate. they're coming at the donbas, at the southeast, as hard as ever. the big fight, if it happens, is

going to be on the black seacoast for odesa. we don't know yet whether the russians think they're strong enough to go after that. a lot of very heavy fighting ahead. >> the fighting continues inside ukraine, and nato is only getting stronger. finland and sweden's push to join nato has president biden's full support. he backed the two countries strongly yesterday after meeting with the finnish president and the swedish prime minister at the white house. >> let no one make a mistake, the meaning of this historic day. in the face of aggression, nato has not grown weaker or more divided. it has dproun stronger, more united, with finland and sweden's decision to request membership in nato. it'll be enhanced for all time. standing together today, we reject the bloody creed that might makes right. we declare more powerful creed.

all for one and one for all. >> finland and sweden have near unanimous support for nato membership from western allies. turkey is the only country that rejected. the turkish government accused finland and sweden to support a group it considers kurdish terrorists. at the white house yesterday, finland's president says his country condemns terrorism in all forms and is open to discussing the concerns turkey may have. turkey exercising a little leverage there, perhaps, but we were on the air yesterday talking about this when finland and sweden, the leaders of the countries, visited with president biden. i think general mccaffrey called it monumental, to see the two nations joining nato, something that perhaps two, three months ago was something vladimir putin certainly didn't imagine. >> vladimir putin wanted to make history with this invasion, and he has, but just not the kind that he wanted. i was in the rose garden yesterday when the president made the remarks. it was a show of force and of

support. the president lending every image and tool to say, this is ha we want. sweden and finland should be in. u.s. officials told me repeatedly, yes, there's some sort of deal to be struck with turkey, but they anticipate turkey will eventually let go of their objections, potentially in time for the next nato summit which is scheduled in late june in madrid. katty kay, it is indeed monumental, and it is reshaping europe. we have seen -- i know there are some questions and concerns about whether the alliance can stay so closely knit if this war extends for months or years, which some think it could. just talk to us right now, if you will, about the state of play in europe and how it's rallied together to support kyiv against moscow. >> yeah, sweden and finland joining nato is the most -- i think it's the most profound indication that europe has gone through a radical shift through the invasion of ukraine. you had germany deciding to drop

the nord stream 2 pipeline. you had germany deciding to up its defense budget by 2% to 2% of gdp. both very good steps. but sweden and finland joining nato fundamentally reshapes alliance and reshapes european security, and a sense of the west being very firm in opposition to russia's invasion of ukraine. but in opposition also to russia's -- nato's border with russia overnight. finland had an 800-mile odd border with russia. it makes nato right up against russia. they are very close to the areas of russia where there are nuclear submarines. sweden has a very effective navy. finland has very good military. now, when i've spoken to fins about this, they said this is not because we feel anxious about russia, it is because we want to prevent further

aggression. this is the idea that nato is a defensive organization. make no mistake about it, russia will see this as an aggressive move. it is. it is europe flexing its muscle and uniting even further in the face of russian aggression. >> well, and, david ignatius, put it into context for us. we've talked, of course, for a month now about germany, talking about the biggest expansion of the military budget since 1945. we talked about the fact that that i going to have a military now, a military budget larger than russia's when they follow through on those commitments. we've talked about switzerland, who was neutral during world war ii, even in the face of nazi horrors. now, picking sides. but this latest development, finland and sweden, as admiral stavridis says, it turns the baltic sea into a nato lake. you just look at the map, look at estonia, latvia, lithuania on the southern side of the baltic,

then you look at finland and sweden, it really is extraordinary. it rewrites, it reframes the entire map strategically. like very few things we've seen, other than the massive changes in 1989. >> joe, i think it's fair to say that there has been a fundamental shift in the balance of power in europe. by extension, globally. russia, with the blunder historians will study for decades, has walked into a war that it cannot win. how it ends, we don't know, but we can be pretty certain russia won't achieve its goals. it has produced a degree of unity that several years ago would have been a fantasy. if i had told you that nato would be roaring ahead and germans would be committed to ever greater defense spending

and that these nordic countries would be joining, you would have laughed at me. you would have said, much as french president macron did years ago, nato is brain dead. it is not brain dead anymore. it is a powerful alliance, and it is resonating around the world. talking to people in asia the last several days as they prepared for president biden's visit, i was struck by the way in which they, too, are influenced, both by russia's aggression, by china's willingness to condone russia's aggression, and by the shift in the balance of power. the united states always wants to say the u.s. and its partnerships are the strongest force for order in the world. sometimes that just isn't believable. right now, in the aftermath of ukraine, with this extraordinary unity, new members joining nato, it is credible. people are listening. >> it is credible because it is lasting. several years ago, foreign affairs had on its cover, mika,

the rise of autocrats. i said, you know -- and i joked with richard haass, i said, this is like a "sports illustrated" jinx. you put these autocrats on the cover and talk about this is the future of world politics, you have just jinxed autocrats. i didn't know how long it'd take, but i want to follow up on what david and katty just said. russia is as bankrupt as they could be as far as politically bankrupt across the globe. you have china who has kept themselves in a terrible position, who is weaker now than they've been in some time, who has a disastrous covid policy, who has disastrous internal policies. then you look at europe. katty said something we really should focus on. a continent that has lived in the shadow of two world wars in the 20th century, lived in the shadow of over 100 million people dying in those two world wars, lived in the shadow of the holocaust, lived in the shadow

of the horrors of stalin, of hitler. this is a continent now, for the first time since world war ii, they are flexing their muscle. as we've said here on this show for quite some time, we worry all the time about the rise of the autocrats, the rise of china, russia. combine america's gdp and the eu's gdp and great britain's gdp, and you've got a gdp of $40 trillion a year compared to about $1.4 trillion a year with russia. half of that in china. >> well, the strength of these partnerships and these alliances is paramount, and that has been proven. but another aspect of this, which we'll get to, i'm sure, is how this war is going to have an impact on the u.s. economy, the global economy, and that's going to pose problems, i would predict, for democrats and for president biden politically. because it is going to be very hard to explain to the american voter why all of this investment

abroad and investment in these alliances is that important when they can't get through the week. that's going to be the other challenge. >> well, and, yet, you look at republicans and democrats alike. i think they've wisely made the decision that they cannot allow vladimir putin to win. >> for sure. >> the cost of that will be greater. >> over time, the challenge comes. coming up, russia renewed its offensive in ukraine's eastern donbas region. retired army general david petraeus joins us with his expert military analysis. plus, the head of the fda gets pressed on the question millions of parents want to know the answer to. when? when will baby formula be back on store shelves? what he had to say to lawmakers on capitol hill yesterday. also, a republican congressman acknowledges letting people into the capitol complex the day before the january 6th attack. >> now, didn't he deny that before?

>> he denied it. he lied. >> didn't he lie about that. >> that's correct. >> why would he lie about letting people in the capitol the day before? i don't understand. >> the house select committee has some questions aout that, as well. >> why would he lie about that? >> i think they have your question. former mayor bill de blasio has an announcement. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. bipolar depression. it made me feel trapped in a fog. this is art inspired by real stories of bipolar depression. i just couldn't find my way out of it. the lows of bipolar depression can take you to a dark place. latuda could make a real difference in your symptoms. latuda was proven to significantly reduce bipolar depression symptoms and in clinical studies, had no substantial impact on weight. this is where i want to be. call your doctor about sudden behavior changes or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. elderly dementia patients have increased risk

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♪♪ 6:30 in the morning. you'll have to take my word for it, but that is a shot of new york city from the top of our building at 30 rockefeller plaza. some dense fog. a little cool today. then this weekend going to be close to 95 degrees tomorrow in

new york city. the cdc is recommending children age 5 to 11 receive a third dose of the pfizer covid vaccine to boost their immunity. cdc director dr. rochelle walensky green lit the recommendation yesterday and encouraged parents of children of that age who have not yet been vaccinated to get their first shot. the recommendation comes amid an uptick in covid cases and hospitalizations across the country. the fda says the supply of baby formula should begin to improve now in a matter of days. the first flights of formula from overseas will begin this weekend. a plane from switzerland carrying 1.5 million bottles of hypoallergenic formula is expected to land in indiana. the supply will be distributed across the country. meanwhile, president biden soon will sign a bill to expand formula access to families using wic. the senate passed that legislation yesterday. also yesterday, fda commissioner

robert caliph was grilled by lawmakers about the formula shortage and the agency's response. >> you can't hide behind an investigation. we need answers and need them now. who received this report? what did they do with it? who was heading the fda at that time? my understanding is that the acting commissioner was janet woodcock. what did she know about this? so who was handling all of this when this report went to the fda? investigating all this? >> well, as i've said, you've got the timeline down and you've got the key issues. i know we have an oversight hearing next week, and we'll be prepared to go into much more detail at that point. and, you know, as i've said, we

could do better than we did and -- >> you have an oversight committee next week. you're before the committee that funds what you do. >> yeah. >> so these -- this information is relevant to this subcommittee of appropriations. >> well, i appreciate what you're saying. the investigation is not completed yet, so i'm not in a position to answer specifics like that. >> katty kay, wow, there are so many questions at this point. first of all, i'm going to want to know how exactly they're going to distribute the formula that is coming from abroad. how quickly they can make that happen. is that going to get caught up in red tape and drag out for weeks? because for some parents, they don't have weeks. the demand is so immediate and so desperate, which leads to a lot of other questions. i was talking to my brother about the millions of refugees at the border that are being coordinated and organized

through different organizations. the u.s. military and poland, they don't have a baby formula shortage. why? people foresaw the need and acted accordingly, and it was organic. that was his answer to me. right here in america, we had a situation that could have been predicted. the shortage was predictable, but, yet, there's no organic and no real leadership on this that is strong enough to move the meter. >> you know, take a step back. the idea that the united states of america is having to import baby formula from switzerland because mothers are running down to one can or even less to try to feed their babies, they literally cannot feed their babies, and this is in 2022. the world's biggest military. the world's biggest economy can't get baby formula to people? it, frankly, seems unbelievable. if somebody told this to me a

couple months ago, i would have never believed this was going to happen. if headline cropped up two, three weeks ago. two, three weeks ago, there wasn't much attention being paid to this. the first stories i saw, i thought, i hope the white house is on this because this has the potential to blow up if their faces politically in a very big way. much more importantly, it is causing huge amounts of stress to parents. this flight comes in from zurich. it'll land in indiana, we understand, and be distributed around the country. one flight load, even if it does have millions of doses of formula, something like 19 million bottles of formula on it, that's not going to be enough. they have to speed up production. we're having to rely on the defense production act? i mean, this is what you do when you're trying to fund a war effort or trying to fight covid, the defense production act. it shouldn't have to be that we are relying on that to increase supplies of baby formula to people, and it is interesting, what you say about the border. the u.s. military on the border

managed to sort this out. bureaucratic red tape in this country and supply systems and trade is not working out. this is toxic for the white house. >> we're going to be talking, willie, later to senator debbie stabanow, who passed a bill and we'll be asking her a lot of questions. >> we could have seen this coming. the fda, we had the surgeon general yesterday, and they sound flat-footed about this. let's remember that that abbott plant closed in february. this wasn't just a couple of weeks in the making. >> correct. >> it closed in february, and there were warning signs, actually, last fall that it was probably going to close based on all the problems they were having there. so this is not something -- katty is right, it jumped into the headlines a few weeks ago, but government officials should have seen this coming a long time ago. for the biden administration, respectfully, to say, you know,

we moved quickly on this, frankly, it isn't true. >> i think what they're saying is we are moving quickly now, which is a difference. the problem is politically but also legitimately for babies across america, this is something that is going to stay with any parent that has to deal with any type of shortage in feeding their baby the most basic thing. the hope for the white house, and quite frankly for democrats, is they can turn this around. because this will be on them. this will be a terrible, terrible message about the non-functionality of america, if we can't even foresee a crisis of a plant shutting down, one of the only makers of baby formula, which is a problem within itself, and not address that dire need that was right there, right straight down the road, they were lookingdiscouraging, least, about the state of affairs in america, and the

ability to get things done. let's turn now to a reunion that happened this week in los angeles that was more than 70 years in the making. >> oh, my gosh. >> nice to see you. nice meeting you. >> the same. >> 96-year-old frank shotts and 101-year-old george percy are holocaust survivors whose paths very likely passed at a slave labor camp in hungary in 1944. >> you have to look at the people and never forget. those who don't learn from history, they are repeating it. it is the main reason both of us are doing it. not for publicity. i don't get anything out of it.

he doesn't. but we are the ones who are the last living witnesses. >> we are fortunate that we remember these historical sites, historical events, and we can draw some conclusion. we can draw attention to the present people who are around us, what's happened, and what should we do that this should never, ever occur again? >> the meeting came about because frank's niece, erica fabian, saw this article in the "los angeles times" about berci, who still goes into work several days a week at cedars-sinai medical center in los angeles. she read about his experience as a holocaust survivor, and the journey matched that of her uncle's. >> i sent it to my uncle thinking they might know each

other. obviously, it was important enough for me to take the time to cut the article out, copy it, send it to him, and say, "do you know this man"? so i am amazed that my uncle immediately contacted dr. berci, and here they are sitting together. it's, to me, it's a miracle. >> the two men are going to take a couple of days to catch up and get acquainted. they say they hope their meeting will remind people about the horrors that took place. but that you can go through hell and still live to tell about it. witnesses to history. listen to them. coming up, we have new reporting on who the accused buffalo shooter was communicating with moments before the hate-based attack. plus, oklahoma takes abortion legislation to the next level, passing what is now the country's most restrictive ban

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wall street is going to end as turbulently as it began. major retailers are signaling concern over more inflation, warning rising costs will continue hurting profits. meanwhile, gas prices hit another record high for the

tenth day in a row yesterday. this is not getting any better with a war going on. the national average for a gallon of regular is now $4.59. let's bring in former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. also with us, co-founder of axios, mike allen. steve, so there are a lot of people who made a ton of money off of the stock market during covid. we told those stories for a year and a half. but it seems now that a lot of those gains are being given back. the stock market off to the worst start since 1940. what are some of the headwinds it's facing? >> joe, it's facing probably at least three different headwinds. inflation, as you pointed out, is affecting the economy, but inflation is also forcing the fed to raise interest rates. higher interest rats are tenmy

the enemy of the stock market. a wobby consumer is feeling the effects in terms of how much they spend. lastly, the stock market had an amazing run, that creates a headwind in and of itself. i can show you a bit of how all those look, if you'd like. >> i'd love it. >> so what you can see here is the red line is interest rates. you can see that as interest rates have been declining since well before the pandemic, stocks were going up. that's not a coincidence. it is not a day-to-day exact relationship, but directionally, that's what happened. the vertical line on the right is when the stock market peaked, coincidentially which was january 3rd. interest rates suddenly shot up. the two are not unrelated. interest rates, as i said, are the enemy of the stock market.

to the other point, you can see the horizontal black line simply takes us back to where we were a year ago, basically. in a sense, the stock market has given up its gains from a year ago. that's where we sit at the moment. >> well, let's talk about the specific stocks. i mean, this isn't across the entire stock market equally. i remember last year during the pandemic, i talked to somebody who invested in the stock market all the time and said, "what are you doing"? they said, "i'm buying the tech monopolies. they'll keep going up." they did keep going up until they started going down. now, steve, it's a lot of these tech stocks. it's a lot of the stocks that did so well during the pandemic that are getting hit the hardest. >> yeah, joe, exactly right. you can break the tech stocks down into a couple buckets, as i can show you on the next chart. in the upper left, you have some stocks that had benefitted enormously from the pandemic. things, as you would imagine,

like wayfair, the home furnishing company. people were buying furnishings for their homes. netflix, who had a series of issues but people were increasingly streaming. of course, zoom, which barely existed before the pandemic. it zoomed up, no pun intended. now you can see it's come down. stocks are 50% to 75%. on the next group on the right, you can see tech stocks a bit less related to the pandemic but had their wings clipped, including paypal, down 58%. uber down 47%. so forth. in the lower left, the most recent group that has come under a lot of pressure, and you talked about this yesterday with brian sullivan, are the retailers. consumers are feeling eh febffef inflation, and it is showing up in how much stuff they're buying, to the extent they're pulling in their horns. you can see even amazon down substantially this year because of a soft first quarter earnings

report, because of soft sales. target, best buy, walmart, all those kind of companies. who are the winners out there? not surprisingly, they're the energy companies. the big energy companies are up anywhere from 50% to 80%. again, because of rising energy prices. >> okay. steve, let's finally talk about whether it is time to jump back into the market or not. of course, you give no advice, but we've seen -- again, during the pandemic, a lot of people have jumped into the market for the first time. these sort of civilian day traders have jumped in when it goes down, trying to buy it low. you're saying, based on everything that you're hearing from the street, stocks may still be expensive. yes, they've dropped, but they're still at historic highs. >> yeah. so this chart, joe, measures stocks against their earnings. it gives you a sense of how expensive or how inexpensive

they are. as you can see, it has been an accurate indicator of some significant market turns. black tuesday, 1929, stock market crash. you see how expensive they were then. in the late '60s, when the stock market rolled over for a fairly long period of time, i'm showing a market top there. you can see what happened in the early '80s when stocks really began their climb back. you can see the dot-com bubble. the next dip down, which i didn't mark, is 2009 when stocks also took a turn way back up. so you can see on the right that we were, before this downturn, at the second highest -- second most expensive stock market in over 100 years. this decline that we've had only brings us a little way down. as you say, i'm not predicting stock markets. i'm not in that business. no good investor really tries to predict stock markets. stocks still look awfully expensive from this measure and from a lot of other perspectives, as well. >> steve, before you go, just

looking down the road, it's hard to prognosticate with this economy because there's so many conflicting factors across the globe. we've got housing demand. we have gas prices. we have major companies reporting very poor earnings yesterday. the stock market, the incoming potential food crisis. what's the potential in your mind that rates will have to be raised to, like, 7% or 8% to sort of put the brakes on the economy and impose a recession? >> economists obviously are divided about this. it is a very unusual period. we've not really come out of a pandemic. we've not had as much excess savings as we do have on consumer balance sheets at a time when we've also had this much inflation. the bounce you see in the stocks today is because china actually had a good night lastfinally, i getting their act together. the question is whether we have our act together.

inflation is taking a toll on consumers, as i said. mortgage rates are well over 5%. gasoline prices, you've just reported on, are at a recent record high. so i am on the more pessimistic end of the spectrum in terms of how i think the economy is going to perform. i think inflation is going to force the fed to raise interest rates, certainly to 5%, 6%, maybe higher, mika, in order to get inflation back to 2%. that is a trick the fed never accomplished without there being a recession. as you said, you're starting to see consumers pull back. you're starting to see somewhat weaker earnings. i'm not predicting the end of the world or an immediate recession, but the road ahead does not look great. >> steve rattner, live from his 1950th heaven, he gets into a time machine to do this, problem

procter & gamble ceo chamber. >> thank you, steve. very handsome. >> he is. i love the room. >> erudite. >> steve rattner, thank you so much, as always. kids love -- steve, go ahead. >> i was just going to say, you know, the suit is supposed to fit the man, the man fits the suit. i'm acting out my -- or putting the backdrop to me that i deserve, one way or another. >> know your value. >> as bill shakespeare would say -- >> there you go, know your value. >> thank you, steve. >> all the world is a stage. >> i feel like steve's last point there is kind of really, a little bit foreshadowing of potentially really tough times ahead for the economy. >> listen -- >> it is hard not to deny this. >> well, inflation continues to explode. it doesn't look like it is going to slow down. the fed is going to have to do what the fed doesn't want to do, and they're going to have to jack interest rates up a lot more than they've even talked about now.

>> who does that create a political pressure for? >> it creates an economic crisis for all americans, working class americans, middle class americans, and creates a crisis for whoever is running the country right now. that is joe biden and the biden administration. we have mike allen. he'll be on the other side on a happy friday note. he is going to be talking about the economy, going to be talking about politics, and rough waters ahead forincumbents. also ahead, merrick garland will meet with the president of the naacp today to discuss the dangers of white supremacy in the wake of the mass shooting in western new york. including how it's being spread on social media. plus, the reverend al sharpton joins us from buffalo after meeting with grieving families of victims. also ahead, another warning about the ill use of social media and how it is fueling a black market. >> that's really killing america's youth. we'll be right back.

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just about the top of the hour, a live look at the white house on a beautiful friday morning. we continue to follow developing news from south korea. president biden just wrapped up remarks at a samsung plant that makes computer chips. he spoke about the importance of countries working together. and about the computer chip shortage. we'll have more from this trip coming up. we'll also discuss what this trip to asia means for u.s. relations with china. that's the question looming over this visit. plus, the latest on the baby formula crisis. the biden administration says the first batch of formula from overseas is expected to arrive in days. we'll tell you where the first shipments will land, and how do

they plan to distribute these? investigators zero in on social media and the buffalo mass shooting suspect. one of the big questions this morning, did the accused shooter have help from his online followers? in our fourth hour of "morning joe," former cia director, retired general david petraeus will join us to discuss the latest developments with the war in ukraine. along with joe, willie, and me, we have david ignatius, jonathan lemire, katty kay, and mike allen all still with us this hour. >> david ignatius, i may have made a mistake in the last segment with talking about a 1957 set. i think the theme we're in now is more of a '70s theme with high inflation, with increased violence on the streets, with a new cold war. >> gas prices. >> maybe i should have said rattner was in a '75 eastman

kodak office. but it is seeming so much like the '70s right now. i need a leisure suit, a pet rock, and a mood ring. but let's talk about how the parallels -- a lot of politicians alive today, working today, don't remember the combination of high inflation, high crime, a cold war. man, it was devastating on a lot of politicians. gerald ford lost, of course, in '76. jimmy carter lost in 1980. very turbulent times then. very turbulent times politically now. >> i'm like you, joe, i remember buying my first house with a 12% interest rate. it was a terrifying period. but i think that there's some significant differences that are worth noting. the first is that the federal reserve under jay powell finally seems to get it. the determination when inflation

is at 7%, 8%, to stop it and bring it back before it gets in the double digits is really important. there's going to be some pain in the short run, but the thing that would be frightening and would remind me of the '70s is this kind of continuing, seemingly unstoppable wage push inflation. that's one difference. the second thing is that back in the '70s, the united states, for part of that time, was stuck in a quagmire overseas in the vietnam war. it is now our principal adversary, russia, in the quagmire, and the united states in a very different position. so i just would offer that caution. watching my friend, steve rattner, dr. doom, talking about all these necessary indexes was chilling, but i think there are some differences that mean that the recovery from this process ought to be a little bit easier than back in the leisure suit

days. >> katty kay, boy, i sure do miss those days. you could just wad it up in a suitcase, take it out, shake it, and it was good to go. and baby blue, the best of colors. katty kay, i know boris johnson has had one scandal after another. drinking arnold palmers or whatever outside during covid on the rooftop. let's push that aside and look instead at the issues we're talking about here. inflation, gas prices going up, a war in ukraine. are we seeing the sort of unrest for the incumbent party in the uk that we're seeing here in america? >> i mean, inflation is high in the uk, and there are stories about people having to feed their children things that are unhealthy for kids because they can't afford to do otherwise. kids falling behind in nutrition. it's not just -- i mean, it is worth it for americans to remember, because the white house was always going to get the blame for inflation. whoever is in government is always getting the blame for

inflation. but this is a western phenomenon. it is happening in europe, too, and it is certainly happening in the uk, as well. it is what is hurting the government's fortunes. boris johnson seems to have survived his arnold palmers. remember, joe, this is london and britain and people drink a lot, so it probably wasn't arnold palmers they were drinking. he seems to have survived the scandal. harder for him is the cost of living. what was it that dominated the french election? the cost of living. that, unfortunately, in the short term isn't going to be fixed in europe because of the war in ukraine which is driving up not just energy prices but particularly when we come to the fall is going to drive up food prices, as well, when the grain supplies we should be getting out of ukraine don't materialize. so this is a western-wide phenomenon. though i saw the alarming headline in "the new york times" yesterday, that economists think the u.s. is heading into a full-blown recession. i hope david is right, the fed has a handle on this now.

they were probably late. they should have addressed inflation earlier, shouldn't have been pumping so much money into the company, and should have raised rates earlier. but this isn't just the united states handling this. part of this is because of what is happening in ukraine, and that's not going to end any time particularly soon. >> well, you know, mike allen, the biggest problem for joe biden and the democrats right now is it is too late for them to do much of anything. of course, jay powell can slam on the brakes and do something. but you look at -- and you and i have talked about this for two decades. reckless runaway deficit spending by the bush administration, by the obama administration, and record-breaking deficits, record-breaking debt by the trump administration and republicans, even before covid. then they really threw gas on the fire with one covid relief bill after another. so what do the democrats do between now and november on an

issue they really have very little control over? >> exactly right, joe. we're paying the check for a lot of those decisions. let's look at the short-term pain that david was talking about. so i'm an optimist. i've started two companies. but there's very little to be optimistic about if you're trying to feed your family or if you're a west wing strategist trying to feed your family. let's look at a couple data points. so those fed decisions have very uncertain outcomes, and, of course, are not precision instruments. even if everything is right, look at that short term. look at double digits, 10% or more, increases in food cost. my barbecue place in arlington, virginia, the pitmaster there, told me brisket for him is twice what it was last year. he said you can't have a barbecue restaurant without

brisket. >> yeah. >> we saw photos this week of gas stations that were changing their pumps, recalibrating their pumps so they can have $10 or more show up on the pumps. 40% or more changes in the cost of flights or hotels. joe, a lot of the people i'm talking to are worried that people have paid for their vacations, people are going to take their vacations, but then the fall, suddenly, is very tough. >> what i heard from my dad in the '70s over and over again, and, mike, i'm sure you heard it from your dad, what i heard from my dad over and over again, whenever he'd come back from the gas station, it was how much the cost of a gallon of gas went up, how much bread and milk cost. those were the things. we can sit here and we can talk about whatever issues we're talking about that may be extraordinarily important domestically, maybe

extraordinarily important on the international stage, but, mike, you know it and david knows it, as well. man, when you go and you're paying 25%, 30%, 40% more for a gallon of gas, it doesn't matter if it's because of energy policy or if it is because of a war in ukraine, working class americans, middle class americans, they remember that when they go to the polls. >> exactly right. and republicans feel like they've gotten a real gift. i texted a top strategist and asked him his message on abortion. this republican strategist wrote back, inflation. they want to talk about the three "is," inflation, immigration, and now infant formula. now all of those are the top of mind because, you're right, joe, pocketbook issues, kitchen table issues, have been abstract for a long time. suddenly, they're very real. a democrat texted me who i asked him how much of a lifeline the

roe v. wade decision was because it does energize a lot of democratic voters, has galvanized democratic officials. this person texted back and said, it's the economy, stupid, forever and ever, amen. that's the democratic view. >> i'll tell you what, if you're a republican, i can't imagine that you ever are taken off from inflation, crime, and the southern border. the crisis that continues at the southern border, that democrats never want to talk about, but that has been going on now since donald trump has been president. it continues and keeps getting worse down there. willie, we also have another problem with inflation, and that, of course, is what has been happening in china, what's been happening in asia, what has been happening with the supply chain. we have joe biden in asia today.

finally, we had our transportation week a year ago. now, we finally have the dreaded pivot to asia. >> yeah, it's here. i want to circle back quickly. when katty was talking about the arnold palmer maybe spiked, we call that in the u.s. a john daley. it is an arnold palmer with a little bit of magic in it. >> let her know. >> glad you know that, willie. >> also, there was magic at the pga yesterday. just drop something in there, and you'll be happy with the john daley. jonathan lemire, you're writing about the pivot to asia, which the president wanted to make a year ago. he talked about it on the campaign trail. he walked out of the samsung plant in south korea. on his way to seoul. he'll spend a couple days in south korea, couple days in japan. a show of strength. you talked to jake sullivan and others, the national security adviser, about democracy standing together, not just in europe but also in asia, as a

wall to china. >> yeah. u.s. officials, the biden administration believes the relationship with china remains the defining one, not just for his term, but for this century. they simply haven't been able to get there yet. this trip, which began a few hours ago, is hoping to accomplish a lot. certainly on the economic and supply chain issues, that's what the president is focusing on today. in the samsung plant, he is unveiling a new economic plan for the region. it is short on specifics, but that is goal number one. there's obviously a few other things shadowing this trip. of course, the war in ukraine. the president there to thank japan and korea for their support in the effort. there is, of course, growing concern about the escalation from north korea. they ruled out a trip to the dmz. the president isn't doing that this time around. officials worry north korea will do a detonation test while the

president is in the country. that'd be a provocative act from a country admitting now they're in the grip of a covid crisis. all of this is aimed at beijing. the president is trying to stand with korea and japan both, who have real concerns about china's presence in the region. they're eyeing taiwan, economic power, and they're trying to show solidarity here, to say this, and they'll also meet with the leaders of india and australia before the visit is out to say, look, the democracies in the region will stand up to the growing power of the autocracy in china, a nation that, right now, has had a tough year with covid and its mistake in support, at least to some degree, russia's invasion. that's what u.s. officials believe. the president has a lot he wants to accomplish this week. >> he does. let's move to buffalo. the alleged shooter appeared in yesterday with relatives looking

on. the 18-year-old pleaded not guilty to killing ten people and wounding three others during saturday's shooting. prosecutors say a grand jury already voted to indict the accused gunman, but a formal announcement won't be made until after their investigation is complete. the suspect is also facing a hate crimes probe from the justice department which could result in federal charges being filed. if found guilty there, he could receive the death penalty. >> let's go to buffalo, new york. we have the host of msnbc's "politics nation" and our good friend, the president of the national action network, reverend al sharpton. before we talk about buffalo, i want to follow up on this economic discussion we've had. we had a focus group that was played yesterday. elise jordan played a focus group. you're tell me about it, we're hearing more and more about it as democrats move to the fall, that we're finding, and i know you're finding, too, with a lot of black voters, you have

republicans hostile to joe biden. a lot of black voters, what we're finding in focus groups and what you found, are, at time, ambivalence toward joe biden, what is he doing, and we're just reporting what we're hearing, an awful lot of frustration. this was in georgia. tell us what you're hear, and why is there the disconnect now between black voters and joe biden? >> well, i think the economic issues go across racial lines. as you move around the country, as i do, you're hearing a lot of ambivalence around the president of president biden in the black communities. because of, one, the cost of living. when you are disproportionately economically disadvantaged, it hits you even harder. so, for example, here in buffalo where we're dealing with this issue, the only supermarket within a 4-mile radius was the

supermarket where the shooting was. so the economic implications of that is you have to drive out of the neighborhood to even shop. well, the price of gas is a real problem for you when it goes up, up, and up. you have to do a lot of external to your immediate community traveling. gas prices go up even beforeyou get to the social issues. i think the economic issues are a real problem for the administration, even though i don't think they caused them. the one that is sitting at the wheel is the one that has to deal with where the car is headed and who is driving. these are real, real difficult problems. interest rates on homes, rents going up. the economic conditions, when you look at the black community, we're still almost doubly unemployed, so it takes on an even more acute sense of pain in our communities, which causes ambivalence at best.

>> i'll validate that, reverend al, with even more. because if you're a black woman in america or a woman in america, you're worried about feeding your family, inflation. you're worried about feeding your baby. no baby formula at this point. you're worried about abortion rights being taken away. that looking extremely possible. then, of course, if that's possible, what's next in terms of your rights? if you're a woman, you're feeling very deeply about that right now. and if you are a woman in america, you are recovering still from bearing the brunt of the covid crisis. i think the white house has a lot of challenges in terms of messaing to the very voters it needs. >> i agree. when you're a black woman, and i was raised by a single mother so i know firsthand of what you refer to. when you are a black woman, you're dealing with racism and misogyny, and you're being

devalued, not only by the broader white community, but, in some cases, in your own community. now, you get slapped in the face with your right to choose, at the same time you're dealing with racial attacks like we're here in buffalo dealing with. i mean, it is compounded. at the same time, you hear people talk about the black woman is the one that is the bedrock vote of the democratic party. when it seems like no one is hearing your pain, feeling your pain, or hearing your calls. >> rev, i want to ask you about your visit with some of the families of the victims in the buffalo shooting, the ten people killed just buying groceries. we talked a couple days ago on this show about ruth whitfield, 86-year-old mother, grandmother, who had just visited her husband in the nursing home and went through to buy some dinner and was killed in the aisles of that supermarket. how do you begin to bring some peace? how do you begin to bring some

justice eventually to these families? >> you know, i came yesterday and met with four of the families. we had a big rally last night at a local church, me and others. i keynoted it. as long as i've been in this work, talking to the whitfield family and the 12-year-old son of deacon patterson touched me beyond words i can express, beyond going to the site where it happened. mrs. whitfield, 86 years old, used to go every day to the nursing home to see her husband who is ill and barely knew anyone. all of a sudden, she's gone. patterson, a dacon in the church. these people weren't activists. they were bedrock pillars of the community, killed for going to the grocery store. headed to get groceries.

explain to a 12-year-old kid why his daddy won't be there anymore, or talk to grown children of the whitfields whose mother was exemplary and wouldn'ty going to see their father in the nursing home. some funerals will be private today, others throughout the week. i'll be back for it. but all you can do is say that we must put in place what needs to happen to stop these hate crimes in the black community, where we've seen it from charleston now to buffalo, in the jewish community from pittsburgh to san diego, and the asian community in atlanta, and native americans and the latino community exemplified by el paso. i talked to the attorney general on the phone. there is a meeting today. some of us will be joining, having representatives joining naacp. this needs to stop. these are real human beings whose lives have been taken from

them, and their families will never be the same. >> rev, before we let you go, you say you've talked to the attorney general. do you feel a need? do you need to get in and talk to the president in the oval office about this, the continued hate crimes, about the challenges that are being faced in the black community? do you think maybe it is time for a face-to-face meeting? >> i think it is time for a face-to-face meeting. i think, and i've talked and did get a response from senior white house officials about the summit that we're talking about across racial lines. i think a preliminary, face-to-face, so he can understand firsthand, not the palace guard around him briefing him, but from people that are on the ground, telling him what's really going on and the urgency of the moment. he has to rise to this occasion. we are in an era of hate, and the president has to rise to the occasion like lyndon johnson did, and others, and he will not get that secondhand. he needs to have that firsthand

with those on the front lines of that struggle. >> reverend al, a piece of reporting that crossed yesterday really caught our attention. the "washington post" headline reads, "just before the buffalo shooting, 15 users signed into suspect's chatroom, says person familiar with the review." joining us now is the author of that report, consumer electronic reporter for the "washington post". take us through your reporting and what the users were able to access and how. >> yes, so the suspect here was on a chat app called discord. discord is not a social media company like you think of like facebook or twitter. it is really a service that offers chat and other service like collaboration, video conferencing, things like that. it is divided into these larger groups that they call servers,

then smaller groups that they call channels. the suspect here was compiling this whole manifesto, his plans, you know, his racist beliefs, in one of these channels. it was private. because this is not a social media company, discord, they do scan for content like this. charlottesville, you know, the attackers in charlottesville, for instance, organized on discord. they actually employ -- this company has about 15% of their staff just working on this one problem, trying to stamp out extremism. but this person was in one of these private channels where they don't scan until someone reports something. you know, he didn't report himself, apparently. then right before the shooting, he sent out an invite. what we know, what we've learned, is 15 users actually clicked on an invite and entered this channel just before the shooting. that's significant because what

it allows law enforcement to do, or investigators, is to use those 15 accounts now to try and follow these digital breadcrumbs and figure out where they came from. you know, while they don't know exactly who those people are, they can use the metadata, which, again, are breadcrumbs you can piece together to figure out who these people are. i imagine investigators right now are trying to, you know, locate these people, learn everything they can about them, and kind of light up some of these dark digital corners of the internet where this hate, this racism is kind of festering. >> congrats on the story, reed. it's jonathan lemire. new york attorney general james said her office will be probing discord, twitch, the site the suspect used to livestream the shooting, in the coming days. what more -- you talked about really well right now how

shadowy the rooms are and how difficult it is to figure out what will be in there. if they can pinpoint who these people are, what would be the next steps? what cause would investigators have in order to try to disrupt these networks? secondly, what are the odds someone could be charged with any sort of crime here, as i know investigators are also looking at the suspect, federal hate crimes for him which could result in the death penalty. >> suspect said he acted alone. the big question here is, you know, what did people in these chat rooms know, and when did they know it? they were in on the planning, or if they were just witness to the planning of this attack, could they be charged as accomplices? that's a big question. i'm not a prosecutor here, so i don't know what they're thinking along these lines. what i do know is, you know, the investigators would likely want to find out who these people are, knock on their doors, and

bring them in for questioning to see if the investigation can lead from there. i think this is an opportunity here to find, again, find out what is going on on the chat platforms. it does seem to me like there is something much bigger than just one person deciding to go and do this heinous crime. this planning went on for a long time. it was done on the internet in this semi kind of social media format. >> chilling. thank you very much for your reporting. we appreciate it. >> thanks so much, reed. david ignatius, the president of the united states, as we reported, is in asia right now. it is interesting, been a lot of cleanup over the past year or so. first of all, with our european allies, strengthening nato again. we saw this past week a lot of u.s. diplomats and the vice president and other cabinet members went to the uae, trying

to patch up that rockery relationship. now, as you write in the "washington post," "biden seeks a new opening in a rattled asia." it seems to me, what's the old saying? i don't know if it is true or not, but no need to check it, but in mandarin, what is it? crisis and opportunity are the same word? well, if that's the case, joe biden is in the right place. >> he is wise to go to asia. as i said earlier in the show, joe, this is a period where there is a fundamental shift in the balance of power. the russians have made a catastrophic, tragic blunder in ukraine. the chinese have been making mistakes, too. president xi jinping had a very ambitious push last year to go after what he thought were the high-flying tycoons in the

chinese economy, the property sector that he thought was overinflated. chinese economy has really fallen sharply. growth estimates are well below 5% for china. xi is back pedaling and having to change his tune. at the same time that covid is hitting china so hard, that there are lockdowns across ajor cities. it's a picture of a society that live on this image of competence. we may be authoritarians, but we get things done. that's the xi line. suddenly, that's hard to sell to the chinese. president biden has gone out to asia, and asia, i think, is rattled. they're rattled by ukraine. they're rattled by china's difficulties, china's overbearing style in the region. they're saying in asia, as they say in europe, we're looking for partnerships. we're looking for good friends. we're lucky in asia, as in europe, to have good partners.

south korea, japan, increasingly india, australia. these are the kinds of countries that help the united states project power, sensibly, carefully. that's what the next few days are going to be about. the u.s. is finally going to come to asia with an economic plan after the transpacific partnership that was crafted by obama went south because democrats were scared of being in favor of trade. the biden administration came back with, not a trade propoe sl proposal, but common digital standards. it's the thing we need to compete with china. it'll be a trip of some consequence, and it is seizing the moments of opportunity when our adversaries seem to be slipping. >> katty, when our adversaries, when people who consider themselves enemies of the united states, are overreaching, of course, we've been talking about

russia over the past several months, but you look at china. them overreaching in asia and, suddenly, you have the united states and australia coming together with an extraordinarily important submarine deal that, of course, ruffled feathers in france. the end of the day, it speaks to a larger point. we have allies willing to step up and push back against chi chinese pressure. >> south korea has a new president who is in favor of closer ties with the united states. it is a shift. they're shifting their focus of attention toward washington. you know, at a time when china hasn't done that well out of the war in ukraine, its relationship with russia has been under scrutiny. tethered itself to a country hit hard with sanctions, where the military

hasn't performed well. remember the conversations at the beginning of the invasion, joe, well, does this mean the chinese will try to move on tee wan taiwan, as well? that looks more remote given russia's struggles in ukraine. the weakness hasn't gone unnoticed among asian countries, as well. this is the pivot to asia that barack obama wanted to start. it's the pivot that keeps getting derailed, first by the middle east and then russia and the war on ukraine. fundamentally, when you speak to european diplomats and american officials, what are the two biggest challenges facing the world this centurycentury? they are climate change and china. we have to deal with russia and ukraine, but everybody is saying we cannot afford to take our eyes off those problems. >> katty kay and david ignatius, thank you both very much for being on with us. mike allen, thank you, as well. >> happy friday, mike. >> mike gave us the most

important piece of advice this friday morning. he says you cannot have a barbecue place without brisket. >> all the people said, amen. >> thank you, mike, for that. we appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," is vladimir putin loing faith in some of his top commanders? >> he has top commanders? >> not sure. we're digging into the new reporting of senior-level officers being fired, as russian troops struggle to advance in ukraine. we'll get military analysis from former cia director and retired army general david petraeus, when we joins us. plus, more from elise jordan's focus groups with georgia voters. what they had to say about the gop primary race for governor, and whether or not donald trump has influenced their vote. one of the "morning joe" originals, screenwriter john ridley joins the conversation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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there is no business in the world that asks you to stab your friends in the back like politics. i absolutely refuse to do it to marjorie taylor glean. -- green. she is my friend. she did nothing wrong. i'm not going to throw her under the bus. >> it is satan controlling the church. >> it's odd, there is never evidence shown for a plane in the pentagon. anyway, i'm not going to dive into the 9/11 conspiracy. how do you get avid gun owners and people that support the second amendment to give up their guns? maybe you accomplish that by performing a mass shooting into a crowd. yes, i could dive into kennedy getting killed in the plane crash, because isn't it interesting that he announced he was going to run for senate just before he died in a mysterious plane crash? is the type of corruption coming

out satanic worship, that possibly all these people are involved in? >> she said nothing wrong. >> all right. first of all, i don't even -- what do you make of those sound bites? that was a new ad from democratic ohio senate candidate tim ryan, comparing his republican opponent, jd vance, to congresswoman marjorie taylor greene. i'm so stuck on her comments. >> by the way, if you weren't keeping score at home, willie, she talked about -- or lemire, a 9/11 conspiracy. she's a truther. jfk jr. conspiracy. let's see, what was the other conspiracy? oh, shooting, that the government did a mass shooting to push gun control. >> proposed one, yeah. >> this is just absolute instan

-- it's insanity. it's going back to what i've been saying all along. democrats shouldn't over think this. it is a republican party who is too dangerous, too crazy, too radical to run either the house or the senate. and you can't say these are back-benchers because these are the very people that kevin mccarthy says he is going to make even more powerful when republicans take control. now you have a senator from -- a candidate from the state of ohio saying, she's said nothing wrong. she's done nothing wrong. jd vance saying, she said nothing wrong. jd vance, by extension -- >> stands by all that. >> well, he does actually stand by the fact that 9/11 was an inside job. it was a conspiracy theory. that these mass shootings are done by the government to push gun control. jfk jr.'s plane crash was also, like -- that he was murdered

because he was going to run for the senate. he said she's done nothing wrong and said nothing wrong. there's about 1,000 other things out there that would be even more offensive to ohio voters. it just shows you, again, this is not just contained in the back bench of the house. this is infecting the entire party. >> yeah. we've all had a little bit of a laugh at marjorie taylor greene's, like, jewish space laser conspiracy theories, but the stuff she spouted there, that's dangerous. >> yes. >> saying the government is conducting a false flag operation, killing its own citizens in a mass shooting, or pretending they're crisis actors, depending which way you take the conspiracy theory, in order to seize people's guns. that's not true. saying that the son of a u.s. president was murdered to prevent him from running for office, that's not true either. although, we should note that the other part of the qanon conspiracy theory is jfk jr. is actually still alive and, oddly, now a trumpist republican. what we're seeing here is this

ad from tim ryan may be a preview of what we hear from democrats in the months ahead. elevating the republican voices who, as you say, are not back benchers. they're people of prominent. they're fundraising machines. they're people who donald trump supports. they're folks that kevin mccarthy said, hey, they'll have loud, important, key voices in the republican house if i'm made speaker. so i think we should expect to hear a lot from democrats making this same argument, saying, hey, you want to vote republican? these are the republicans yur you're getting, the party of the crazy people. what may happen this fall in the midterm elections? we bring in elise jordan. your focus groups we showed yesterday out of the state of georgia started discussion around the table and online afterwards. you have more for us. we've been talking about the governors race between david perdue and the incumbent brian kemp. brian kemp at least in the fox poll has a 32-point lead. what did the voters tell ya?

>> yeah, willie, i'm so excited that you and joe and mika wanted to do this and go forward. right now, we're so well-timed. we get to hear from georgia primary republican voters right on the eve of the georgia election. and i want to point out that, you know, when joe and mika and i first discussed this, we talked about doing a group of mainstream republicans. these are mainstream republican voters. they aren't the most supportive of marjorie taylor greene. they aren't getting their news from info wars. i want to point that out for context as we watch. and so you'll see what kind of grade they give brian kemp, then how they respond to an ad from david perdue. rather, a comment from david perdue that proved influential. this group was mixed coming into the group. some were supporters of brian kemp, and some were supporters of david pur ber perdue.

>> we know who has a strong feeling about david perdue. donald trump. he made getting perdue over the finish line in this primary his goal. he calls him the worst election integrity governor in the country. what do you make of donald trump's statement? does that influence who you are going to vote for in the primary? >> i think he got his feelings hurt, that people didn't respond. kemp didn't respond to his desk banging to check out the votes. brian kemp, i know trump doesn't like him. he has a big problem with him, but he's done a fine job. you know, trump -- i mean, kemp/perdue, is there a difference? except trump likes one and doesn't like the other. i -- >> all because he got his feelings hurt. >> exactly. >> i agree with that. >> show of hands, who is going to probably vote in the primary? >> oh, yeah.

>> everyone is going to vote in the upcoming primary. who is going to vote for brian kemp? >> i'm undecided. >> yeah. i'm not sure. >> i'm undecided, too. >> is anyone definitely going to vote for david perdue? >> i'm more leaning that way. >> why are you leaning that way? >> perdue is a true businessman, and we need somebody who knows how to run a business. i think if you have that ability, you can run a state. a state is a business. >> i think whoever it is needs to be -- they need to act quickly. they don't need to sit back and wait, like waiting for him to drop the gas taxes for the state of georgia. that should have happened a lot sooner than it did. >> yes. >> we need to be more active. >> he's trying to be -- it seems he is trying to be a little more moderate so he can, you know -- he doesn't get all those far -- you know, maybe some of the left will kind of scoop in with him.

i just don't think he is, like, strong enough. >> i thought brian kemp was a strong conservative. do you not agree? >> he is definitely conservative, but i feel like he's just trying to not make waves. what we -- i mean, what we need is someone to make waves, make change. >> let's hear from david perdue now. >> when that ruling comes down, if i were governor, i would call in the legislature under special session and ask them to ban abortions in georgia. >> does that make you more likely to support david perdue for governor in the primary? >> no. >> less. >> less. >> yeah, less. >> why does it make you less likely? >> my body, my choice. not the government's. >> marty, you're very pro-life, so why does that make you less likely? >> it's like i tell every lady i speak with about this topic. women get this much of a voice on the topic. men should have this much voice on the topic. and i think reasonable limits make sense.

viable outside the womb at 20 weeks, i think you can answer to the guy upstairs if it happens after that. a hard no abortions at all is not a position i would take. >> so would anyone vote for stacey abrams over david perdue? >> goodness, no. >> never. >> never in a million years. >> no. >> if you have hollywood coming back down and going door-to-door like they did last time, that was shameful. anyway. >> all right. >> wow. >> elise, i have to say -- >> these are great. >> -- what we heard after yesterday were a lot of democrats who were so shocked. their hair fell out. they were like, oh, my god, these people are ultra maga and proud of it. what we heard today i thought was remarkable, especially on the abortion issue. i talked to somebody after i

heard that herschel walker said no exception. if a 13-year-old girl is raped by a member of her family, no exception for rape or incest. we hear that out of, like, some of the most powerful governors in america. we're seeing this no abortion effort fertilization in louisiana. yet, that was the one moment where everything just kind of stopped. >> everything changed. >> it reminds me of the heilemann, halperin focus group in 2016. >> new hampshire. >> somebody said, he's one of us. >> he's our guy. >> talking about trump. >> he's one of us. he understands us. oh, my god. this was a similar moment. everything just stops when you have pro-life people, you have women who, again, consider themselves, quote, ultra maga, saying, my body, my choice. and the man wisely saying, you know what, why don't we step out

of the way and let the women take care of it. >> answer upstairs. >> answer upstairs if it is after 20 weeks. i'm sure that's shocking to a lot of maga republican politicians. >> well, that's the thing, joe. you've spoken about this a lot. how the country pretty much is in the same place on abortion. it is reflected in the polling. they do not want third trimester abortions. but there's more nuance. on the right, you hear from people who describe themselves as pro-life, yet they want a rape exception, an incest exception. there are certain exceptions that they're okay with, and they don't want the government interfering. then on the left, you have politicians who say that anything other than total abortion freedom and any abortion, any time, at any point during the birth process is okay. that's just not really where the majority of the country is. >> it's really not, elise. i mean, you look at polling on

abortion. it is all over the place. people may identify themselves as pro-life but still support roe. consider themselves pro-choice but still want a ban after 20 weeks. you look at most polls, and most polls show, just like you said, overwhelming support for abortion rights through 20 weeks. republicans, ultra maga republicans, these governors, they may not want to admit that, but democrats don't want to admit, as well, most democrats elected don't want to admit, as well, that after 20 weeks, most americans are going, no. no, no, that is sort of the stopping point. and we actually heard that among some very, again, people that are proud to be called ultra maga republicans. let's now quickly look at the senate race and what we learned from your focus group. >> herschel walker is going up against raphael warnock, how you

going to vote? >> wow, that's tough. what he's come out lately saying with, you know, what is it, playing russian roulette or something and holding -- knowingly putting a gun to his head because of his mental stability. swallow. i don't know, that's a tricky one. it really is. >> i have no problem with him. just about any conservative is better than just about any communist democrat. >> i feel that way, too. >> herschel walker is up against raphael warnock. would anyone consider voting for herschel walker? >> why, because he's herschel walker, a football player? >> tell me what you think about him. >> i know nothing about him. he's a famous football player. >> he doesn't go to debates. they say he's a bad speaker. so what's his agenda? we know nothing. >> he fits in because i haven't heard any policy driven -- i

haven't heard him advocating any positions of policy. >> raphael warnock, how do you gauge his performance? >> what has he done? i haven't heard anything he's diminished. >> now he's on tv spouting off stuff and i don't know what he's done. >> i say false preacher. >> what is a false preacher? >> well, he's a preacher at martin luther king's church, but he's also -- he has a history of battery against his wife, he has a lot of other things in his closet that have come out in the past, you know, two to four years. >> herschel walker has battery charges as well -- i think it was battery, right? it was his first wife. >> he had some allegations. >> allegations. i understand what you're saying, i agree. to me, when you said false preacher, to me it's almost like, okay, i'm legally able to steal because i don't have to pay state taxes because i'm now

part of a church. it's all about money. >> right. >> he also wants to use martin luther king and i'm so sick and -- nothing against martin luther king, but it's always just -- it feels like race-baiting. it's like i'm going to say martin king and the black folks are going to listen to me now. >> right, right. >> it's an authentication stamp. >> i mean, he's a seismic figure in american history. republicans talk about ronald reagan a lot. >> and i didn't agree with everything ronald reagan did either. >> i feel like his commercials, he's trying to make him seem trustable, when he keeps saying i'm a preacher, and i think that he's trying to get people to believe that he's honest, and that's enough to get him through. he's using that preacher title.

>> why do you have to be reverend? just say i'm raphael warnock, running for u.s. senate. >> correct, that's what he's doing, selling himself. >> how about raphael warnock, your senator? >> i mean, he's not been senator long. you know, his focus is on medicare, getting costs down for insulin and so forth, affordable drugs, which that's another big thing. you know, it's crazy that you go over to canada and insulin is $12 and you come over here and it's 100 bucks. it's insane. making medicine affordable to those on fixed incomes. i think he's a grassroots person, he comes from, i believe, savannah, georgia, meager beginnings. so he understands. so he's really focusing on the community that a lot of us don't, our elderly.

they're important. we need to keep them healthy, we need to keep them going and that seems to be what a lot of his focus is. >> where to begin there, elise? there is a lot in there. first of all, we should say that senator warnock is the senior pastor at ebenezer baptist church, where martin luther king preached. and the allegation of his wife was not born out that he drove over her foot with a car. so to parallel that with what herschel walker has been accused of and has admitted is a false equivalency. >> and he also has a ph.d. from the seminary, so he's, indeed, a real preacher. this one is going to be fascinating to watch unfold because you heard from the republicans and the democrats that they have concern over herschel walker's mental fitness. and those allegations against herschel walker from his ex-wife

are incredibly intense and tied into what herschel walker has called his dissociative multiple personalities, and she accused him of holding a razor and gun to her. so those are pretty heavy, dark allegations that the voters aren't that aware of, but it's looming in the corridors, and they weren't feeling that content with his answers so far on his mental fitness. >> you know, reverend al, i thought it was fascinating, again -- something we talked about before we saw this focus group, republicans, they have an opinion on senator warnock, and it's not a positive opinion. then you go to the democrats and they're like, ah, he hasn't been in there too long. and, again, it's just what we were talking about before, the ultra maga republicans know exactly what they want to do.

democrats, especially black democrats, still ambivalent. >> i think that, again -- i keep saying you have to turn people on to turn them out. the key in georgia and elsewhere is going to be turnout. and as i look at the focus group, i think she did a good job, and the turnout thing is bothering me about the democrats. i'm hearing some defense and in some cases, at least one case, some substance in terms of defense of senator warnock, but i'm not hearing the enthusiasm, i'm not hearing i'm ready to go out and fight. and the maga crowd is ready to go out and fight. they're very definitive. and i think that is the problem. rather than get angry about it, rather than tweet about it, we need to understand unless you go to the ground and give them an argument on why the election

means something for them, not you. too many people that are running now on the democratic side, in my view, and i've challenged them on that as one that's among them, is you're running selling your career rather than the voters' life. they're interested in their life, not your career. >> reverend al, thank you very much. elise jordan, well done. we're going to have more from you from the voters on monday, on donald trump, on january 6th attack on the capitol, and some comments from the democrats about vice president kamala harris. >> some surprising comments. coming up this morning, a republican congressman from georgia admits he let people into the capitol a day before the insurrection, and now the january 6th committee wants to know if there was another purpose for that visit. >> and the story is he's changing his story. >> that's a question right there. also ahead, three months into the war in ukraine, there are

signs that vladimir putin might be reassessing his plans. national security expert and contributing writer at "the atlantic," tom nichols, joins us with more straight ahead. and some kids can now get their covid booster shots, while others haven't had a single dose. what the fda is saying about the delay on vaccines for children under 5. we're back in two minutes. th is l take forev—or not. do i just focus on when things don't work, and not appreciate when they do? i love it when work actually works! i just booked this parking spot... this desk... and this conference room! i am filing status reports on an app that i made! i'm not even a coder! and it works!... i like your bag! when your digital solutions work, the world works. that's why the world works with servicenow. (johnny cash) ♪ i've traveled every road in this here land! ♪ ♪ i've been everywhere, that's whyman. ♪orld works

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the covid-19 pandemic exposed the fragility of just-in-time supply chains, the global semiconductor shortage has caused a shortfall on consumer goods, especially automobiles and is contributing to higher prices around the world. and now putin's brutal and unprovoked war in ukraine has further spotlighted the need to change our supply chain so that our economy, our economic and national security are not dependent on countries that

don't share our values. >> that was president biden speaking from a samsung plant in south korea in the last hour. the plant makes computer chips, which like many items, are in high demand and short supply. the shortage driving up consumer prices. we're also following the latest with the baby formula crisis. the u.s. is now importing formula from switzerland. the first batch is expected to arrive in days, but is there a plan to get it onto store shelves quickly? >> that's incredible, isn't it? >> it is. and i wonder if there should be a quicker way to get it to the mouths of babies than having them sold on store shelves. and is vladimir putin now reassessing his plan in ukraine? we'll have that reporting in our next hour. retired general david petraeus will be our guest. we begin with the baby formula shortage and the help that may be on the way. nbc news business and tech

correspondent, jolene kent, has more. >> reporter: operation fly formula could start moving imports of foreign formula into the united states in the next few days. the white house announcing the first flight carrying around 246 pallets of formula from switzerland to indiana has been approved. it can't come soon enough for worried parents, and on capitol hill yesterday lawmakers on both sides grilled the fda commissioner on where the nation's formula shortage goes from here. >> we should see improvement within days. >> so i can tell my constituents within a matter of days they'll be able to find formula on the shelves? >> within days it will get better. but it will be a few weeks before we're back to normal. >> reporter: the fda telling nbc news it is concerned not having certain formulas available on shelves could pose life-threatening risks for infants. like these 3 month-old triplets.

their mom has been grappling with the shortage for two months after their formula was recalled. >> how are you doing? >> i'm taking it day by day. >> reporter: unable to find her formula on shelves, she had no choice but to suddenly switch brands. >> they weren't tolerating it very well at first, actually. they had a lot of reflux. >> reporter: desperate, she's now turning to the mother's milk bank in austin. they usually reserve this milk for medically fragile babies like those in hospitals. but for formula-fed babies in crisis, they're giving away 39 ounces of donor milk per baby, ramping up processing to meet the growing needs. >> if they don't fill this gap, families will attempt to fill the gap themselves by choosing to dilute their available formula, or choosing to feed their infants something not made for infants. that cannot happen. >> reporter: texas has been hit particularly hard.

the formula out of stock rate here is now 50%. parents are thankful as milk banks step up to fill the void, now shipping life-saving milk to 26 states. >> i'm so glad that they could give us a little bit. >> all right, that was jolene kent reporting. now, the senate passed a bipartisan bill, the access to baby formula act, by unanimous consent last night. it passed in the house on wednesday by a 414-9 vote and now heads to the president's desk. but here are the republicans who voted against the access to baby formula act. andy biggs, arizona, lauren boebert, matt gates, louie gohmert, marjorie taylor greene, clay higgins, thomas massie, chip roy. joining us, chair of the committee on agriculture, nutrition and forestry,

democratic senator debbie stabenow of michigan. how will this work to get formula into the mouths of babies that desperately need it? >> first of all, it's great to be with you and i really appreciate all the focus you've put on this. this is horrible that's what happened. it's an all-hands-on-deck moment here and i think as a mom, if this was my son or daughter when they were little or my grandkids, you know, i would be absolutely horrified and angry and people should be. what we do in our committee is oversee what is about half of the baby formula that is available to moms and babies, and that is the wic program, which is for low income moms and babies. really, really important. and so what this does is guarantee that going forward the usda has the power to do whatever is necessary to help moms get whatever is on the shelf for them, whether it's under a wic contract or not.

whatever formula is available, they can get it. which may sound like that's not much. it's a big deal right now in terms of making sure they can get whatever is available, whatever size. so all hands on deck to make sure they can get this. secondly, i would just say, secondly, anybody with a wic contract, any company is going to have to have a complete plan on what they do in a shutdown. and thirdly, which i think is important, is that the fda is going to have to communicate better with the u.s. department of agriculture if something like this is going to happen. usda was given about two weeks heads-up before the plant closed, which was a whole nother question here in my deep concerns about the usda and the plant. i mean, abbott is still not accepting responsibility for this. >> well, there's a million questions there, especially about that being the only place that america has to go for baby formula practically, which is an issue. these solutions are very

practical, but they're long-term. and so the question is how to solve the crisis right now because there are babies that are suffering and some are going to the hospital. what would you suggest the white house consider in terms of how to get that baby formula that's on the way on military jets into the mouths of babies? should they go to store shelves and be sold? >> well, they're going to have to move as fast as possible. i know that through the wic program the usda knows where there's a need for formula and where there isn't. some parts of the country it's not as much as others. so the information is there, the fda should have it and it should be going directly to communities in the fastest way possible. and i do think when we look at right now, because this is today, moms are saying, okay, today, what do i do? i can't stress the sense of

urgency. but bringing in imports of safe baby formula, this is critical and why it's so important we're working with countries that have high safety standards like the united states does, doing that, we're seeing more companies ramp up, other companies are ramping up their volume, which is very important. and then you're right long-term, this is for later, we've got to deal with concentration. there's only four major formula manufacturers, and so we've got a lot of things to deal with down the road. right now it's how do you get formula as fast as possible. >> and that's the big question, willie geist, because i'm concerned when it gets to store shelves across america, the formula that's coming in from abroad, do they jack up the prices, is there a run on the stores, and then you end up with the same problem. i just wonder if this is like covid tests, that it needs to be handed out to families that need it initially, at least. >> yeah, there's already been some price gouging. obviously this influx from switzerland is welcome, just to

get this process moving. but, senator, you have sort of a unique view of this because the abbott factory, that plant that has become the center of this conversation is in your state in sturgis, michigan. let's go back a little bit as they talk about how we got here. there were inspections back last fall, a whistleblower report out of that facility in october that there were some problems there, and then ultimately, as you say, it was closed in february. should there have been some guidance, some notice much earlier in the process, say last fall, where the white house and the government could have anticipated some of this and said this place may shut down, what is our contingency plan? >> yes, willie, there were a lot of mistakes made here. there was a whistleblower in october who i understand was subsequently fired. the fda was too slow. they kept going into the plant but didn't actually find anything until the end of january, and then, again, didn't tell other parts of the

government, like usda, who is responsible for half the baby formula distribution in the country, until two weeks before the plant was shut down. and there's a combination, though. i mean, this is a huge plant that one out of five cans of baby food in the country are manufactured at this plant. so this is huge. and there needed to be a greater sense of urgency. what we're unwinding is it appears that fda thought it was going to be a short shutdown and then the plant itself, abbott, has been resistant, really, in my judgment, to really quickly doing what they need to do. they're now saying that it really wasn't their fault. so there's the resistance, even though they are going through inspections now, and once the inspections are done and the safety protocols are in place, they still expect it will be eight to ten weeks before this

plant will be up and running. so i have a lot of questions, serious concerns, about fda response and the plant who needs to be held accountable. abbott needs to be held accountable for what happened. >> and the timeline is important because contrary to what we've heard, this didn't just sneak up on people. this has been many months in the making. senator debbie stab now of michigan, it is the access to baby formula now on the desk of the president of the united states. thank you so much for being with us. let's turn to the latest in ukraine where russia's unchecked aggression is being countered by the ukrainian will to fight, and lots of american munition. nbc news correspondent erin mclaughlin has the latest from kharkiv. >> reporter: ukrainians fighting back any way they can. even showing how they blew up a bridge in donbas to stop the russian advance. in his nightly address to the nation, ukraine's president

zelenskyy saying donbas is fully destroyed, it's hell there, and it's not an exaggeration. this as we learn more about the horrors that have unfolded inside the russian-controlled city of mariupol. a ukrainian medic now in russian custody, smuggled this disturbing body camera footage to the "associated press." it shows her and her team treating two siblings injured in a shooting that killed both of their parents. she begs him to stay with her, but his wounds are too severe. i hate this, she says. ukrainians now also fighting to hold russians accountable in court, after pleading guilty, a 21-year-old russian sergeant apologized to the widow of the unarmed man he killed, saying he was ordered to do it. and outside the northeastern city of kharkiv, prosecutors collect evidence of potential

war crimes, after the russians dropped more than seven bombs onto this once tranquil village. they're measuring the distance between where the bombs actually fell and what they believe the intended target to be, the local school where some border guard were hiding. as you can see, the russians missed. the investigators found what they believe to be missile fragments in this back yard. her 31-year-old son was one of three civilians killed in the attack. through tears, she tells me had he survived, he would have helped her rebuild. >> do you think there will be justice for you and your son? i hope they will be punished by god and by the whole world, she says. how can it be that there's no force stronger than putin? >> erin mclaughlin reporting. joining us, national security expert and contributing writer at "the atlantic," tom nichols and ukraine chief for the "washington post," very good to have you both on this morning. >> tom, i want to talk about

your piece and also talk about the war in its larger context. i must say, the video we're seeing of eight ukrainian men just being taken across the street to be gunned down, one story, one war crime after another war crime. i must say i can't believe -- i guess it shouldn't be surprising, but it is still so shocking how barbaric these russian troops under the guidance of vladimir putin are. just barbaric. >> there's no serious command or control. a lot of these guys are out pretty much free-lancing it, and even if they were under stricter russian control, the orders have been to pacify these areas and the russians only know one way to do that, which is to go in and kill people who resist them and kill people who don't resist them as examples to others.

this is really -- you know, this is world war ii kind of stuff that they're putting into effect here, and there's a certain amount of rage as well that somehow these people did not greet them as liberators and that, therefore, they are somehow traders or people who need to be singled out for punishment, including some of the russian speakers, who have been s because, of course, they were supposed to be more -- they were supposed to be happier than anyone to see the russians. but this is the russian pattern and there's no reason to think it's going to stop. >> no, it's what they did in chechnya. it's what they did in syria, obviously, and aleppo. it's what vladimir putin does. so it is seen that putin has been oblivious to reason, logic, to outside information, to truth. but you believe that putin may be reassessing his situation.

tell us why. >> i'm not sure if putin is reassessing or if someone is reassessing inside the kremlin. there are three things that made me wonder what's going on inside moscow and inside a very small part of moscow behind those kremlin walls. one of them was this kind of somber and downbeat victory day speech where a lot of folks, including me, have real concerns that he was going -- that putin was going to step forward and say, okay, now it's all-out war. russia still has unexpended capacity. believe it or not, they could be more brutal than they are and apply more force here, but, instead, putin sort of whined that he had no choice and he had to act against nato and kind of gave some of these laugh-out-loud explanations that even he doesn't believe.

the second is that we now have high-level military contacts opening up again, which kind of surprises me. the defense minister and the chief of the russian general staff have been allowed to pick up the phone and talk to their american counterparts, which there's been silence on those lines despite repeated american efforts now for months. for some reason in the past week, both the defense minister and the chief of the russian general staff have both picked up the phone and had perfunctory, but nonetheless reestablishment of communications kind of discussions with their opposite numbers, with lloyd austin and mark milley. and the third thing is the appearance on russian television of a retired russian staff colonel who, he is a very somber critic of the war.

he is not young, he's not an anti-war protester. he's this kind of stoic and solid presence who warned russian in february that they could lose this war, who now says here is why we're losing, the whole world is against us, we have made a mistake here. he doesn't criticize putin, but he talks about how -- >> let me ask you this. >> -- this wasn't going to go better than it is. >> let me ask you, why did that happen? i was trying to figure out why they allowed him on television. somebody made the decision to let him on television. hard to believe it would be putin, but it reminded me of the old may day parades where we were looking up at the bureau waving from the platform, trying to figure out who was in power and kremlinologists were trying to sort out who they were seeing. what's your best guess of why he was allowed to go on television and pick this invasion apart

piece by piece? >> i was one of those kremlinologists and i have the same question. whose idea was this and who allowed him there? when he first appeared, a lot of folks on social media kept asking me, is he going to get thrown out of a window, drink poison tea? no, if he was on tv, it's because someone meant him to be there, and the least encouraging explanation is that he was put there so that the public could kind of vent with him to say, see, there are responsible people looking at this and our voices are being heard, this kind of managed dissent. i'm not sure that's the case. i think it may well be that either the kremlin or the defense establishment in russia, they may be trying to lower expectations about how this war is going to come out. they may be saying, you know, that this was -- the odds were just so against us that this march to kyiv that we had talked

about isn't going to happen. it's also possible that somebody put him on there as a shot over putin's bow to say, look, we tried it your way and here is why it went bad and we need to think about something else. which of those explanations is true? i wish i could tell you i knew, joe, but i don't. >> it's hard to say. and mika will tell you this, putin doesn't do managed dissent very well. >> no. >> so i'm not sure if it is managed dissent, but that is one explanation, one possible explanation. >> isabelle, i really appreciate your latest piece, because it drills down and focuses in on the suffering of ukrainians and a type of story that's happening thousands of times over in ukraine. it's called "in ukraine: a per lis journey to bury a 13-year-old girl". you write a story of how the 13-year-old's remains wound up here, near battles with russia and northeastern ukraine and

separated from my relative, is the story of a war that can reach any ukrainian. sophia and her family had fled bombardment, but where they thought would be a safe place was soon occupied by russian soldiers, when they tried to leave on may 4th, russians fired on their vehicle. ukrainian investigators say sophia was dead at the scene. her mother and 6 month old sister were taken to a hospital back in the occupied territory, with no way to get sophia. the only relatives who would give sophia a proper burial were more than 125 miles away along a different part of the front line. now, kholodov, an ambulance driver, had volunteered to help her finish the journey. there are so many stories like this, he said, too many. isabelle, give us a sense of sort of the overload of the suffering that is happening right now in ukraine.

i think sometimes we look at the military moves, but the ukrainians daily are taking the brunt of this war. >> yeah, absolutely. it's a war that, you know, even if you live in a peaceful city, even if you live in western ukraine, because you tried to get away from the fighting, or fled there as an evacuee, a russian missile strike can still hit you there. you're still within reach. this family lived kind of close to the front line in the donbas region for the past eight years, where there was a conflict. they thought they went somewhere safe. that's the place that ended up under russian occupation. when it got noisy there again, and they couldn't stand being under russian occupation anymore and wanted to run again, you know, their vehicle gets fired on by russians as they're trying to get out of the occupied area. and, you know, after all of that, the funeral happens back along the other part of the

front line, less than a mile away from kind of where russian positions are, and kind of at the end of the funeral there was shelling again. their village was being targeted. it's just split families, this war. it's people being displaced. obviously people losing family members. the volunteers who transported this body said this is a pretty common situation where there's just no one to even claim the dead and they have to help people grieve, that that's such a big part of this, is it's so hard for just ukrainians to move on with their lives when they haven't even been able to grieve their loved ones because of just how much this war touches every one of them in so many ways. >> isabelle, it's jonathan lemire. this is a powerful and important piece. i was hoping you could expand on that thought a little bit. russian forces, when they started to withdraw from some of the areas around kyiv, we know

the atrocities discovered there. these are towns that are trying to return to some sense of normalcy. when you're reporting, you and your colleagues, what is it like for the people there? what sort of healing do they have to do to try to resume their lives amidst such devastation and grief? >> my colleague just had a really powerful piece from bucha where there was a psychologist there working with people through emotional healing. i spent time in kharkiv, a city that has been being bombarded from day one and still is, but even as it's going on, people are starting to clean up the debris, starting to plant flowers in front of the destroyed regional administration building that's like their city hall, and i would ask them, why are you doing this? it could be hit all over again tomorrow. and they would just say, you know, it's cathartic. we don't want to live in the ruins of this. we want to start to kind of show

that we're going to win and we're going to rebuild and we're going to heal this way. so i think it's a process taking place and it's not -- we've talked about how much the rebuilding effort might cost. i think zelenskyy has quoted a number of $600 billion. but ukrainians on their own are doing it piece by piece because they don't want to look at these broken glass windows and broken buildings and all of it over and over. >> "washington post" ukraine bureau chief, isabelle, thank you so much for your reporting. and "the atlantic's" tom nichols, thank you as well. mika, it's time for us to bring in a founding father of "morning joe." >> he kind of is. >> if you go, actually, to the "morning joe" constitutional museum in new york, the

archives, he is the one that has the kite and the key, because he created electricity on this show every time he was on. unfortunately, he told us straight up, after about two weeks, man, i can't afford to hang out here, i've got an academy award to win. and that's exactly what he did, won an academy award. he's the author of "the other history of the dc universe". but you know him from his spectacular days on "morning joe." >> filmmaker john ridley joins us. >> we're coming up on the 15-year anniversary. you need to be there. can you fit us in your schedule? >> "morning joe" now, apparently nobody actually needs to be here, because you guys are spread around the world, which i love it. this is like the metaverse in action. we're here but we're not necessarily here. can i say real quickly, thank you very much, that was a very kind introduction, and in all

seriousness, i enjoyed my time working with you. but seeing you all doing literally god's work in the world that we live in, bringing truth and fact to people, it's deeply appreciated and i mean that very seriously. >> well, i'll tell you what, we hear so many people who from the beginning until now are huge fans of yours and i think it's great that you won an academy award or whatever you get. but they're waiting for you to come back on "morning joe," okay? but i will say, you are doing even more important work than you did on "morning joe." tomorrow in milwaukee, i just want everybody to know, because you're so special to us, community members are going to be gathering for an annual social justice submit that's designed to amplify the voices of marginalized communities. tell us all about that, john. >> well, you know, honestly, joe, you talk about winning the academy award and right after that my older sister lisa came

to me and said this is a nice moment, but it goes away a year later. this is an opportunity to do something larger than yourself. so we started an organization called no studios and it's really dedicated to bringing people together around communal experiences, art, music, dance, theatre, film, but we've dedicated ourselves once a year to bringing people together around difficult subject matter, things that are challenging, things that are uncomfortable. but things that are urgent. and when we started planning this year's social justice summit a year ago, we really didn't realize how urgent conversations around immigration would be. your previous guest talked about the displacement that's going on in the ukraine. you have to remember that being an immigrant, that it's not a descriptor, it's a facet of life, and that, yes, there are people who immigrate because there's a job opportunity, because there's family. the majority of people don't immigrate through desire, it's

through displacement. it's war, climate change, it's crime, it's violence, and if we don't look at these individuals through their lived experience, not just facts, not just figures, but allow these folks to speak about their experience, then really we're just leaving space, and i mean this very sincerely, when other people demonize, when other people use really the language of dictators and oppressors and talk about replacement, and we see the result of that, and that, to me, is -- you know, it's interesting, you had -- you were talking about the race in georgia and sort of the lack of enthusiasm on the democratic side. i don't know what it's going to take for people to be more enthusiastic to vote for all of us rather than our individual interests. i'm concerned about inflation, i'm concerned about what's going on in my life, but when we see things like displacement and people having to immigrate, it means there's a bigger problem out there. if we're not solving the bigger problem rather than demonizing

individuals, we're just buying time with the devil and the devil likes to take his time. >> i couldn't agree with you more. so how will current events of the past few months shape the conversations, what can we expect at this next summit? >> well, one of the things -- two of the things that we want to do, first of all, as i said, is really allow people to speak to their experiences with their own voices. facts and figures matter, but for me, as someone who works in the art space, it's hitting people below the head, above the gut, and that's right in the heart. also really trying to come together with experts, we're working together this year with american family insurance, their institute for corporate and social impact. so for us, it's really working in all spaces. people who are experts, people who have worked before, but most importantly, people who are enduring. people who are living through these experiences. for me, there's no substitute for lived experiences. i've been through a lot in my life, i like to think i'm a

progressive individual. we're a progressive country. i wouldn't be sitting here if we were not a progressive country. but my lived experience is my own. and if i don't close my mouth, open my heart and really listen, then none of us are learning and every one of us, myself included, probably at the top of the list, i need to learn as well. >> john ridley, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing with us. nice to see you again. >> come back very soon. still ahead on "morning joe," we're going to get more expert insight on the moves by the russian military from retired army general david petraeus. plus, the latest headlines in the primary elections former president trump is bailing on a candidate he endorsed. meanwhile, some republicans in a swing state fear his picks could leave the party vulnerable. we're back in just a moment. bipolar depression. it made me feel trapped in a fog.

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the pennsylvania republican senate primary this morning, with state officials confirming to nbc news there are nearly 9,000 votes left to count. but the effects -- >> trump says it's over. trump is saying disregard all the republican votes that haven't been counted yet, throw them away. >> he's saying, come on, oz, be like me, call it now. the effects of former president trump's handling of this race and other primaries in the state could hurt his political capital in the future. nbc news reports, quote, exasperated republicans in the state say the end result of promoting candidates with far right views with such intensive media coverage could boomerang in ways that damage both the party and trump's own chances should he run for president in

2024. you think? some state republicans also told nbc they were upset with trump's suggestion that his backed candidate, dr. mehmet oz, just declared victory, calling it, quote, shocking for trump to call for canceling republican ballots. >> shocking? he wants to cancel democratic ballots in 2020, but they find it shocking, i guess, that he wants to cancel republican ballots now. >> interesting. >> and shocking, only if you haven't spent five minutes around donald trump. meanwhile, we're just days away from georgia's republican gubernatorial primary and former senator david perdue may have lost donald trump as his biggest supporter. three republicans tell nbc news they're disappointed in his lackluster campaign effort and will not be making any personal appearances in georgia.

they had incumbent brian kemp holding a 32 point lead over perdue. nbc's vaughn hillyard spoke to perdue about those numbers yesterday. >> your campaign has gone off the tv airwaves, the former president has not come in for a final rally and you are down by 30 percentage points in the polls. what's happened to your campaign? >> first of all, where did you get the 30 points? >> fox news poll. >> where did they get it from? >> are you not down 30 points. >> hell, no, i'm not down 30 points. come back and remind me of that tuesday. i guarantee you we're not down 30 points. >> with us now, the author of those reports, senior national political reporter for nbc news. mark caputo, it's so interesting, i love the juxtaposition between pennsylvania republicans and that story which some people may be skeptical of and then going down to georgia and talking to the trump-endorsed candidate that's getting pounded. the pennsylvania republicans reading your story and hearing

other things out of pennsylvania, they're sounding a lot like georgia republicans did in 2020 after trump cost them not only two senate seats, but also cost them the majority in the senate. it seems that republicans do not forget. they haven't forgotten in georgia and have brushed him aside in a most dramatic way. and it looks like pennsylvania may be next. >> yeah, you're hearing this not only in these states and a few other states, but trump, you started to hear weariness. one of the things that struck us was the similar tone and sense of weariness that republicans have. an interesting example of how all politics are just local, but they're also national, one of the georgia republicans we spoke to said, look, we just want trump to kind of stay in his lane, just back off a bit. she's a chair of jasper county's gop. and she said that a lot of

people in georgia were upset that trump endorsed oz in pennsylvania. it gives you an idea that conservatives are paying attention to these races, not only in their own states, but sort of nationwide. there's a sense of frustration. i don't want to misrepresent that trump is unpopular. he's very popular. but you're seeing a sort of internal like, oh, give us a minute, let us make our own decisions and kind of discuss our own primaries without all of this outside pressure and heat. >> yeah, but, you know, willie, every time a trump candidate wins, i think the media makes such a huge deal about it. he picked a crazy governor, gubernatorial candidate in pennsylvania, that was on his way to winning anyway, which is why trump jumped on the bandwagon there. let's go back quickly, in alabama he selected mo brooks, a guy that was there on january 6th, that was helping spread the lies about stolen elections. mo brooks didn't take off. the voters are like, we don't

care whether you like mo brooks or not. so his candidacy starts to drop and trump abandons him. you go to georgia, a huge race, kemp was number one enemy for donald trump. he said he might vote for stacey abrams over kemp because kemp was such a loser. kemp is crushing david perdue, who was very popular as a senator. there's another example of it. i'm going to go to pennsylvania. yeah, oz is tied right now with mccormick. he trashed mccormick. he said kathy barnette wasn't ready to be a united states senator and yet two-thirds of republicans in pennsylvania voted against donald trump. two-thirds. and this is going down to the very end. nebraska, we talked about how the governor there ran over donald trump, destroyed his candidate, and then you go to idaho, the crazy lieutenant

governor there, and i will say crazy lieutenant governor there that donald trump supported, what happened? she lost in idaho, one of the reddest states in america. so, again, i'm not saying donald trump doesn't have sway in the republican party, but i'll tell you what, it's nothing like it was in 2020, and i think the media needs to focus more on those massive losses instead of having the headlines about that his endorsement really means something significant. because i'm not so sure it does this year. >> let's be clear about doug mastriano, the republican nominee for governor now in the state of pennsylvania. donald trump endorsed him on saturday, this past saturday, so four days before election day. it's not like he propelled him to victory. mastriano was going to win anyway and donald trump hopped on the bandwagon, the way he's hopping off the perdue bandwagon. j.d. vance on the other hand in ohio, most people believe he won because donald trump came in and endorsed him and pushed him over the finish line.

so it depends on the race, it depends on the state. and mark caputo, in the state of pennsylvania, the gop official that you quote says basically by asking mehmet oz to declare victory, donald trump is effectively canceling the two-thirds of the votes that joe talked about, republican votes. so what is the posture? again, it is different in every race and every state, but what is the posture broadly of these state parties toward donald trump as you look at pennsylvania and you look at georgia? >> well, if you look at pennsylvania state party, the person i quoted is a former chair of the party. there is a lot of disappointment and soul searching and hand ringing like should we have gotten involved and tried to coalesce because they don't believe mastriano can win in the general election. in georgia it's a different

story. there's been a bit of a georgia civil war within the republican party and kind of within the republican establishment ever since 2020, certainly since the 2020 elections. the chair there is just well known as just wanting to do whatever trump wants to do and trump has endorsed and supported kind of an entire slate of statewide candidates in georgia. trump is going to walk away as a winner from georgia, or he'll fashion himself as one because of herschel walker. he's expected to have a big blowout win. trump recruited him to run for senate in georgia, and you're going to hear a lot about that out of donald trump's mouth and you're not going to hear a lot about perdue. in fact, there's one of the trump advisers that we spoke to said donald trump has done more to elect david perdue than david perdue. trump apparently believes that perdue's work ethic has been kind of shoddy and some of the republicans in other races when we've discussed perdue with them, one consultant told me the problem with perdue is perdue. he doesn't really like campaigning, he doesn't really like voters, he doesn't really like raising money and talking

to donors and he doesn't really like giving campaign speeches. that's kind of a problem if you're going to run a statewide campaign and part of the result of what we're seeing in the poll so far with kemp dominating is just the fact that perdue probably just wasn't the right candidate or this just wasn't the right time to take on a republican candidate like governor kemp in this year when he's running for re-election. >> mark caputo, thank you so much for your reporting this morning. coming up, retired four-star general david petraeus joins the conversation. we'll talk about the u.s. effort to aid ukraine and what a strong nato means for america's own defense. "morning joe" is coming right back. (johnny cash) ♪ i've traveled every road in this here land! ♪ ♪ i've been everywhere, man. ♪ ♪ i've been everywhere, man. ♪ ♪ crossed the desert's bare, man. ♪ ♪ i've breathed the mountain air, man. ♪ ♪ of travel i've had my share, man. ♪ ♪ i've been everywhere. ♪

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the cdc is signing off on the first covid booster shots for children age 5 to 11. the move comes as new cases are rising sharply in many parts of

the country. nbc news national correspondent gabe gutierrez has details. >> reporter: overnight the cdc director signing off on pfizer's covid booster shot for kids 5 to 11, after the advisory panel voted to recommend it. the smaller booster doses are now available to children, five months after they receive their first two shots. welcome news to this mom in iowa. >> i feel like this gives kids a step up on it, like then your immune system knows what it's looking for and the chances of them getting really sick is much lower. >> reporter: still, less than one-third of kids in that age group have received their first two shots. >> the kids have a good immune system. i don't understand why they need a booster. >> reporter: vaccines for children under 5 are not available yet, but the fda commissioner says a review of moderna's application for that age group is imminent. >> one of the major lessons is children are not just small

adults, so you have to do specific studies for the biology and the size. >> reporter: all of this coming as covid cases among children are on the rise, up 76% from just two weeks ago. overall the u.s. has seen 100,000 new daily covid infections for the first time in months. over the past two weeks cases nationwide are up 55%, but deaths are down almost 20%, thanks in large part to effective vaccines. in new york, covid hospitalizations are at a three-month high. in los angeles county, public health experts say rising case numbers just triggered a higher risk level, but no renewed mask mandates yet. >> i do not think the country will be as responsive as they might have been a year or even two years ago, because we now have approached probably about 70% of all adults in the united states infected with omicron, even just in the last six to nine months. >> nbc's gabe gutierrez

reporting. coming up, retired general david petraeus joins our conversation. we will discuss the war in ukraine and america's place on the world stage. but, first -- >> do you think it paves the way for other sports to step up? >> yeah, i mean, we wanted to lead on this. this will hopefully lead to meaningful change and progress here in the u.s. and not only in soccer but around the world and in other sports as well as in society. >> that was the president of u.s. soccer cindy parlow cone yesterday on "morning joe" following a milestone agreement for equal pay among men an women. we'll talk to tim howard about that. and a series of big matches this sunday in the premier league. "morning joe" is coming right back. faces get all the love what about the body? new dove shower collection is infused with hyaluronic and peptide serums to make your skin feel smoother and more radiant.

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manchester city is coming into our house for the final match but preparation wise, we're going to treat it just like any other game. >> it is my family's team. they just left my a box of [ bleep ] in her will. >> coach, do you know what is happening in america. >> so what happens with the teams at the end of the season. >> they play out the rest of the schedule, going through the motion and meaningless games and everyone is fine with that. that sound all right, coach? >> yeah, it's dumb. >> everything is on the line this weekend in the premier league. and i mean everything. for what has been known as championship sunday, there are two teams fighting it out for the title and two teams battle to avoid relegation. there there is plenty to watch on nbc. platforms in the jam-packed day of competition. nothing like it. with us now, nbc sports premier

league analyst and former goalkeeper for the u.s. men's national team, tim howard. tim, i have to start by saying, congratulations on everton. i thought my good friend roger bennett was going to have a nervous breakdown but you pulled it out in the most extraordinary of ways. you avoided relegation. >> rogers slept well last night if he slept at all. but for many of us, that club is so big that we saw the raw emotion and passion and all of the people on the field after the game. that meant a lot. that is what the premier league does to you. >> i didn't understand how extraordinary it was until i started following premier league football right after the 2006 world cup. but i must say, this year's is crazy as ever. i'm of course a liverpool fan. so i'm praying something

happens. that stevie gee could come through for liverpool. but what are you looking at at the top of the table and also at the bottom of the table this weekend? >> it is all to play for. which is what you want. this is excitement of it. oftentimes some of the things are done by the last day. but not this week. not this year. it is all to play for the top and the bottom and the championship and relegation. look, manchester city are slightly in the driver's seat but with the scenarios you're showing there, liverpool could very much take the title. and we're going to be for the first time ever taking our studio show on the road to the u.k. for championship sunday. and we'll be at liverpool at the field and our commentary team will be at the etad. so we'll see a trophy. >> well we're huge fans. mika is a huge fan of rebecca lowe. said she is just the best in the business. >> she is. >> and explain this to me if you can. this man city team, as you know

better than anybody, they're extraordinary top to bottom. and yet you have liverpool chasing history, the possible of winning four titles in the same year. what is happening there between those two teams? >> well, they pulled themselves away from the rest. they are just, they have the two best coaches in the world, they have the best players in the world. it is nearly impossible to catch those two, that is how good they are. they play a little bit different style which is brilliant when you talk about match-ups. they just match-up so welch and liverpool could do the unthinkable and win four trophies in a year which would blow us all away. it would be so sensational. but that talks about how well and good city have played this year that think may just go ahead and win the title. >> tim, everybody is watching this sunday. across all of nbc platforms. i want to ask you about the big news out of u.s. women's national soccer about the equal pay with men. many of the women that we've had on the show, many that have spoken out publicly are quick to

say the men deserve some credit for this too. they came to the table. and they sacrificed and gave up something. >> that is right. >> so as someone who has been on the inside of this conversation for years now and seen some of that disparity and i know a lot of these women are your good friends from playing soccer and in the same organization for so long. what do you make of this big change, this historic moment and why did it take so long to get there? >> well, it is monumental. i'm delighted that women have now gotten their just due in regards to equal pay. i'm also delighted to see that they've started to bridge that gap with the men off the field as well. because there was some tension there for a long time. so the fact that they've given the men some credit, that is a good thing. that togetherness, all pulling in the same direction is important. it is great for this generation but great for generations to come. my 14, 15-year-old daughter, she called me and spoke about how cool it was because this would

lead into her generation and give her opportunities that weren't there. >> obviously in situations like this. when men step up, it makes it all the better. i really appreciate it. you could catch all of the action by the way from the final day of the premier league season, this sunday on nbc and streaming on peacock. >> a lost yelling going on at our house at 10:00 a.m. >> the walls rattling. nbc sport premier league analyst, tim howard, great to see you. thank you. we're going to roll right into the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 9:00 a.m. on the east coast, 6:00 a.m. out west. as we begin with president biden overseas right now for his first visit to asia as commander-in-chief. the president touched down in south korea today and will spend the night in seoul. a major goal of the trip is to re-establish the biden administration's focus on