complete coverage here on msnbc and "way too early." thank you for the great reporting this morning. we'll talk to you again soon. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" on this wednesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. people are hurting. families are. parents are. look, as divided as our country is, this gun responsibility issue is one that we agree on more than we don't. it really is. uvalde, texas, native and actor matthew mcconaughey adds some star power and passion to the push for new gun restrictions in an emotional plea from the white house. we're going to hear much more from the actor. and we'll tell you where bipartisan talks stand this morning. plus, the latest on the investigation into january 6th. another witness is announced for

tomorrow's primetime hearing. and new reporting on how donald trump had the secret service scrambling on the day of the capitol attack. also this morning, the top headlines from last night's midterm election primaries that may serve as a warning to democrats. >> yeah. some democrats. willy, you know this better than anybody, when brilliant minds visit our show, who do they quote? churchill, lincoln, aristotle, jesus christ. >> okay. >> of course more dorchester the british governor of quebec if it's jon meacham. willie, that's another story for another day. today we want to open the vault of deep thoughts in service to our progressive friends on the occasion of yet another setback on the issue of permissive law law enforcement. the san francisco d.a. got recalled last night perhaps the most progressive city in

america. as we said last year, you said it time and again, democrats one of the most liberal cities in the east coast, one of the most liberal cities in new york elected an ex-cop said he would take a tougher, no nonsense stand against crime. he swept to victory by winning the bronx, queens, brooklyn and staten island. and the message, willie, i think from most liberal voters in america, from san francisco to new york city, keep us safe. your utopian vision of criminal justice reform, well, it's making our streets more dangerous. so that -- with that, i thought about the great thought to share this morning with our progressive warriors on crime and let's go to the deep thoughts vault of george w. bush who famously said, and i quote, there's an old saying in tennessee, i know it's in texas, probably in tennessee, that says fool me once, shame on you.

fool me, fool me -- you can't get fooled again. as it was written, willie, so it shall be. and we have a second example of a progressive city saying, you know what, let's experiment on crime later. let's keep our streets safe now. >> great quote from the who in george w. bush we won't get fooled again. yeah, that was an extraordinary result yesterday, a recall of the d.a. in san francisco. wasn't close either. by 60 percentage points boudin the d.a. was recalled. as we talked about yesterday, it is basic quality of life stuff. the reason eric adams was elected in new york city. the number one issue for people above covid, above the economy even. public safety in new york city was the number one issue among voters who chose eric adams, 24-year-old veteran of the new york city police force. and now what people are seeing out their window in san

francisco is rampant homelessness, drug use out in public, and other crimes where the d.a. was happy to look the other way and the voters in san francisco yesterday, last night, saying we need to change course. so, a pretty extraordinary result in, as you said, arguably the most progressive city in america. >> and in new york city, of course, we had a d.a. who had already gotten way, way to the left of where not only eric adams was but way, way to the left of where new york city voters are. already backed off a bit from that. eric adams right now, his approval rating much lower than he like it to be. much lower in large part because new yorkers still don't feel safe. instead of eric adams fighting crime on the streets, eric adams is fighting a lot of people who, again, are much closer in their vision how to keep new york city streets safe, much closer vision of the san francisco d.a. that

was voted out than the mayor of new york. >> sometimes the bottom line. it's safety. we're going to go live to san francisco a little later in the show. but first, senators in washington had hoped to reach a bipartisan deal on gun safety by the end of this week. but nbc news has learned that talks may slip into next week. senators have hit a snag on how to expand background checks. two people close to the talks tell nbc news at issue is whether to add waiting periods for 18 to 21-year-olds and to enable the fbi to conduct background checks on their juvenile records. a spokesman for republican senator john cornyn of texas said he's not considering waiting periods but does support the provision on juvenile records. democrats, however, want to go bigger. republican pat toomey of pennsylvania says he doesn't believe the compromise on background checks that he

reached with joe manchin after sandy hook will make the current deal. that 2013 proposal would expand background checks for gun shows and online sales. sort of makes sense. senator toomey was asked about it yesterday. >> why has it been so hard to get republicans on board behind this? >> you should ask republicans who are not on board behind it. >> you've been working on this issue for a decade. you know. >> frustrating. >> very frustrating not only for pat toomey but for millions of americans who support universal background checks. you said it makes sense. it only makes sense if you put lives over your political concerns. and focussing on a really small group of americans and a really small but powerful lobbying group. >> yes. but online sales and gun shows, you can walk into a gun show and fill your car trunk with guns

and drive away. you have to have a background check. >> they do. >> they do. other provisions not being discussed a ban on assault weapons, raising the buying age for assault weapons from 18 to 21. these are the things that would have perhaps impacted uvalde or adding restrictions on high capacity magazines. republican senator tom till es of north carolina says the mental health portion of the bill has already been drafted and yesterday senator chris murphy of connecticut met with president biden at the white house to update him on the negotiations. willie? >> you know, willie, the thing is there are some good nings that are coming out of this. maybe a seven to ten billion dollar price tag on mental health programs. and that is a lot of money. i understand. but long before uvalde disconnected from shootings because the shooting issues -- you got to deal with guns first and foremost. but we have a mental health

crisis in america and had a mental health crisis in america for quite some time. yes, it's really great news that they're talking about actually expanding mental health coverage in america. but man, a lot of compromises right now. you want to wait until the final bill is finished. but a lot of basic compromises that 90% of americans don't support that aren't being considered around that table. >> yeah, you look at that graphic that mika just showed of things not being discussed makes you wonder what is being discussed when it comes to guns. mental health is important. school safety i understand they'll put more money into that. if you look at the list of the items not being discussed, everything that ought to be on the table at least and has widespread support among the american public. expanded background checks, universal background checks, assaults weapon ban potentially that wouldn't pass we know that. what about raising the buying age to 21 semiautomatic weapons. these are the provisions not being discussed.

one interesting potential twist, though about raising that age comes from mitch mcconnell. sources telling nbc news mitch mcconnell privately expressed openness to the idea of raising that age to 21. many republican senators will not say if they support it. so far senator susan collins of maine and mitt romney of utah the only senators who have said they would support that. several republican lawmakers recently have been defending the current accessibility of assault style weapons. senator john thune of south dakota asked why someone would need an ar-15. here is what he had to say followed by other republicans who weighed in on that question. >> they are a sporting rifle. and it's something that a lot of people for purposes of going out target shooting, in my state they use them to shoot prairie dogs and other types of

varmentes. >> i'm representing my constituents. in rural colorado an ar-15 is a gun of choice for killing raccoons before they get to our chickens. it is a gun of choice for killing a fox. >> do you think that there is any room to ban assault weapons in this country? why does someone need an ar-15. >> if you talk to the people who own it, killing ferrell pigs in whatever the middle of louisiana, they wonder why would you take it away from me. i'm law-abiding. never done anything. use it to kill ferrell pigs. the action of a criminal deprives me of my right. >> oh my god. >> prairie dogs, raccoons, foxes are the justification given. ron johnson of wisconsin was asked yesterday about passing gun laws, new gun laws. he said let's enforce the laws that are on the books beginning with hunter biden. he somehow made that connection to hunter biden.

so this is not a serious conversation among at least many republicans. >> not serious at all. prairie dogs? ar-15s on -- weapons -- >> you like to blow them up? >> weapons of war against prairie dog. raccoons, foxes. >> maybe they need land mines in south dakota as well. purchase those and watch the prairie dogs blow up. wouldn't that be fun. what are you talking about -- >> it's absolutely -- again, it's ridiculous and unjustifiable. it's all they have. they sound so stupid when they talk that way. and you have the senator from louisiana gotten a lot of things right but in this case he said wait a second, i want a gun of war, a weapon of war, to shoot pigs. and i've got to take it away because somebody did something illegal. hey, wake up. that's how the world operates. you know what, like we all have to go through tsa. we all have to get checked as

we're going on to our planes. we all have to take off our shoes. we all have to take out our computers, our laptops not because we've done anything wrong but because somebody has done something wrong. >> if you go the army at the age of 18, you go through a long process before you're out there using your weapon. why not the same. >> jonathan lemire, the thing that seems really just absolutely outrageous is you have these people, first of all, justifying the use of a weapon of war against varments. little kids are slaughtered in sandy hook. little children are slaughtered in uvalde. shoppers are slaughtered in el paso, texas. go buffalo, new york, grocers are slaughtered again with these same weapon of choice over and

over again, these mass shootings. high profile mass shootings. they use the same weapon of choice. and they're saying yeah, well, we have a constitutional right to have these guns to kill varmints and ferrell pigs. who could be against raising the age for a kid getting a weapon of war from 18 to 21 when we don't let americans rent cars from avis or hertz or national until they're 25. we don't let them get a beer. they can't get a pbr in texas until they're 21.

but a deranged killer can walk in to a gun store when he's 18 and buy a weapon of war more powerful than the guns we gave our marines in vietnam? who could be -- i've just got to say, this is such madness. historians are going to look back and say, what infected the minds of politicians on capitol hill in 2022 and years before that from sandy hook forward. they can't extend it from 18 to 21 when buffalo -- oh, no gun legislation would have done anything for this killing. no gun legislation would have done -- oh, well, let's just talk about buffalo and uvalde. and raising the age that children can get weapons of war from 18 to 21. what a huge difference that would have made. so the question is, jonathan

lemire, what republican could be against even allowing the senate to debate that? >> to underscore your point about the power of these weapons, these weapons needed to shoot varmint and other small animals matthew mcconaughey described how one of the victims hit by, shot by this ar-15 could only be identified because of the shoes she was wearing. that speaks to the power of these weapons yet apparently needed to shoot small animals. we heard yesterday we got reporting that mitch mcconnell has said that he would quietly support the change from 18 to 21 to buy these guns. i think there are some democrats i spoke to last night who wondered where that was a couple weeks ago, mitch. maybe that could have changed the tide here. mcconnell read the room. republican sources told me there's not support in the caucus. we heard some of the excuses put forward by fellow republicans. that part, that nsh raising the age from 18 to 21 will not be

part of this despite having such support, actually this would have prevented perhaps these shootings at the very at least the ability for the suspects to get the guns. and i think there is some still belief this deal wt as each day that goes past that doesn't, more pessimism weighs. democrats i spoke to last night say they do still thing there will be mental health component, they do still think measures on background checks. they do still think measures on red flags although largely the red flag laws guidance to the states rather than federal rules. but pessimism starts to creep in because we have been down this road so many times without a deal and democrats really hope to get this done if not by week's end by early next week. they are afraid momentum will dissipate. >> you always hear people telling stories of how those from other countries just don't understand why we would allow an

18-year-old to have a weapon of war, go in and gun down, mow down little children when we have seen this same weapon of war used time and time and time again in mass shootings. seen it in schools, seen it in movie theaters, seen it in high schools, seen it in elementary schools, we've seep it in walmarts, seen it in grocery stores in buffalo. so, yes. people across the world, our closest allies, they just don't understand this. why do american lawmakers allow americans to continue to be gunned down especially when majority of americans want sensible gun safety laws passed. they don't understand it. but not only would they not understand it, there are a lot of members of nra today that don't understand it. certainly there are -- there certainly would have been republicans from 20 years ago that wouldn't understand it. one mass murder after another

mass murder. our founding fathers really was the second amendment about an 18-year-old insane kid going in to buy a gun and shoot up little children? no. not even close. okay? we're going to have supreme court interpretations and maybe we're going to move a little bit forward on heller where how heller was decided coming up. but nothing of the second amendment. nothing in case law suggests an 18-year-old kid should be able to go in and buy a weapon just like that that's more dangerous and more lethal than the weapons we use in vietnam. >> i know a lot of hunters. i come from a family of hunters that shoot varmint, deer, turkey. they don't need ar-15s. they wouldn't even think of getting an ar-15 for their hunting days. they would be fine with any type of background check because responsible gun owners pass them. >> they want the background

checks. one other thing, too, as far as protecting your house, i don't really want to get into a gun safety course here or a course on defending people's homes. anybody -- unless you live in like a massive mansion or something like that, even then ar-15s aren't as good shotguns defending a house. nothing is better in close quarters inside a home than a shotgun. a basic shotgun. so people who say, i need my ar-15 to defend my house, anybody that knows anything about guns will tell you, that's just not accurate w. so to the senators who say, oh, all those guns are already out there, wouldn't what to do about them? there is something that can be done. we'll talk about that. and to the senators that say that it's important to have the need to blow up prairie dogs and pigs and little varmints. >> raccoons. >> coming up, we'll play matthew

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and don't miss jurassic world:dominion in theaters june 10th. ♪♪ welcome back to "morning joe." it is 24 past the hour. >> some negotiations going on inside of there today. let's hope that republicans and democrats alike can come to some deal and chris murphy knows it's not going to be everything he wants. it's not going to be most of what he wants. >> not even going to be addresses what happened over the past month. >> yeah. but he just does want to get some things done here. but you know, willie, we'll play matthew mcconaughey in a second. but you know, we see things on this show sometimes. you know, you read it in the paper, but then you see it. and it's just really sort of stark to see republican members of congress a week or so after little children are blown to

pieces with a gun that is so violent, that is so lethal, that a lot of those little children couldn't be recognized. we heard the same thing in sandy hook. parents had trouble recognizing their first graders when they went in at the bloody scene because it was a war zone. and you have a senator going, well, people in my state, they like to shoot ferrell pigs with an ar-15, so just because somebody guns down 19 people, kills 19 little kids basically what he's saying, why shouldn't my constituents still be able to use that gun to shoot a pig or varmints, i guess, varmints, prairie dogs give me a break. prairie dog would disintegrate. and raccoons in colorado. these are not serious people.

these are not serious arguments. we have children who are still being buried. we know there's going to be another mass shooting coming up. we know that because we've had, what, 240 mass shootings so far this year and we're not even half way through the year. and they're talking about ferrell pigs and prairie dogs? it's disgraceful. as i said before f we took a step back and just said, how does this look? to people that disconnected from the political system. how is this going to look 10, 15, 20 years from now that we had members of the united states senate that allowed little children to continue to be gunned down with military weapons because they wanted to protect their constituent's rights to shoot prairie dogs and varmints. >> yeah. you can shoot a prairie dog with a shotgun. you don't need an ar-15 to

vaporize prairie dogs. something about the term prairie dogs contrasted with those little kids and the names and faces of the kids who were inside that school in uvalde, i have to protect the right to vaporize prairie dogs over the right of a fourth grader to survive the day at school. you're right. history will frown on this. by the way, the american public again we're going to sound like a broken record, the american public frowns on it. american public wants something done about this. the truth as you know very well, joe, it's all smoke screen. those senators you saw don't believe any of that. but the argument they hear from their constituents and maybe only two, it's a slippery slope. if you start making gun laws, well pretty soon we raise the age to 21, they're going to take away the ar-15 all together. once they've done that they're going to start to look how much gun violence is carried out for

handguns and they're coming in the handguns. that's always the argument. the slippery slope argument they're coming for your guns. if you give an inch, show any weakness, they'll take a mile and come to your home and take away your guns. it's not true, of course. but that's the argument and that's why you hear things like prairie dogs and ferrell pigs when we're talking about a school shooting. yesterday at the white house, matthew mcconaughey was talking about that shoot shooting in his hometown of uvalde. he met with president biden and joined the white house press briefing where he shared powerful stories about victims killed just over two weeks ago now. >> just a week prior, ryan got full-time line job stringing power lines from pole to pole. every day he reminded his daughter alethia, girl, daddy going to spoil you now. told her every single night. he said, daddy is going to take

you to sea world one day. but he didn't get to spoil his daughter. alethia, she did not get to go to sea world. 9-year-old rodriguez, wanted to be a marine biologist. she was already in contact with corpus christi university of a & m for future college enrollment, 9 years old. she cared for the environment so strongly that when the city skz asked her mother to release some balloons into the sky in her memory, oh no. she wouldn't want to litter. she wore green high top converse with a heart she had hand drawn on the right toe because they represented her love of nature. camilla has these shoes.

can you show these shoes, please. wore these everyday. green converse with a heart on the right toe. these are the same green converse on her feet that turned out to be the only clear evidence that could identify her after the shooting. how about that. there was garcia, a 10-year-old and her parents steven and jennifer. elle loved to dance and she loved church. she even knew how to drive tractors and working with her dad and uncle mowing yards. the week prior to her passing she had been preparing to read a verse from the bible for the next wednesday night church service. the verse was from deuteronomy 6:5. shall love the lord your god with all your heart, with all the soul and with all the might. that's who elle was becoming.

but she never got to read it. service was on wednesday night. we also met a cosmetologist. she was well versed in mortuary makeup, that's the task of making the victims appear as peaceful and natural as possible for their open casket viewings. these bodies were very different. they needed much more than makeup to be presentable. they needed extensive restoration. why? due to the exceptionally large exit wounds of an ar-15 rifle. most of the bodies so mutilated that only dna test or green converse could identify them. many children were left not only dead but hallow.

we need responsible gun ownership. responsible gun ownership. we need background checks. we need to raise the minimum age to purchase an ar-15 rifle to 21. we need a waiting period for those rifles. we need red flag laws and consequences for those who abuse them. these are reasonable, practical, tactical regulations to our nation, states, communities, schools and homes. responsible gun owners are fed up with the second amendment being abused and hijacked by some deranged individuals. these regulations are not a step back. they're a step forward for a civil society and and the second amendment. >> i'm interested to hear what you think about mcconaughey's speech yesterday. he is a good vessel for the message. people will sit up and listen. he's well known.

he's famous. he's from uvalde, specifically. he met with the families. he told all those stories that are difficult to hear. and there he was pounding the desk saying, guys, there are things we can do to protect the second amendment, but also to protect our kids in the schools. he ticked off all the things we just said that group of senators is not discussing. raising the age to 21 to buy a ar-15. expanding red flag laws to make them national. he is a very interesting guy to deliver this message. he's not a screaming hollywood lefty, a texas guy through and through. >> you know, those green converse shoes hit me to the core, cut me to the core as a mother. and i guess i just would like to make a small suggestion to republican senators, many of them who bravely walked the streets of kyiv, the highly secured streets of kyiv to meet with volodymyr zelenskyy and to hear about the atrocities in

ukraine and lend their symbolic support, go to uvalde. meet with the detectives who are gathering the evidence, taking pictures. maybe sit with aiate's parents. hold her shoes and look at the pictures of this shattered child's body who was unrecognizable because of the result of an ar-15 held by 18-year-old who bought it on his birthday. sit with her parents. and look at the evidence. go to the front lines here in america and actually show that you have some bravery. i have another word but i won't use it. >> yeah. >> because you don't. you think those guns need to be used for prairie dogs and varmints? i need you to go to you value uvalde and look at the video and evidence and bodies of the children. show that you actually care but also take it in.

and then develop your decisions on the basis of what you've seen on the front lines in america. >> look at the reality, like you said. look at the pictures. look at what your foot dragging, what your just insanity on this maximalist position on gun ownership has nothing to do with the second amendment, look at the hell that it brought on little children from sandy hook to parkland to uvalde. and you know, it's interesting, willie, that you always heard pro life advocates saying, oh, they should show the images of

the impact of abortions and let people see what that would look like because that would end the debate immediately. that's of course for those unborn. but you'll see at times, i have throughout my life, you'll see people driving trucks that will have pictures of aborted fetuses and the whole idea is, are you afraid to look at the truth? let me turn this on the so-called party of life, which just such nonsense. it's such a lie. republicans are the antithesis of what a party of life looks like. the antithesis from cradle to grave, in schoolyards, in churches, in synagogues, in country music halls, the death of more children every year, more children every year die from guns, every year than cops

die in the line of duty or our troops die in the line of duty. you could turn that argument on these republican's heads. okay, well, should this also mean if you want us to see what happens inside of a womb during an abortion, we shouldn't see what happens in public. do you want the public to see what the reality is of what happened inside these classrooms to children who were living and breathing and dreaming of a better life, or going to sea world or being a marine biologist and mowed down to such a degree as matthew mcconaughey said and i heard the same thing and you heard the same thing after sandy hook, children who could only be identified because they were so mangled by these weapons of war, so obliterated by these weapons of war that

john thune says need to be used on prairie dogs. >> please look at the pictures. >> ferrell pigs. they could only be identified by their dna because they were unrecognizable. let them go to uvalde. let them look at the pictures. let them look at the hell they have rot by filibuster any meaningful gun safety legislation. >> you know what the hell of it is, joe, they go down and meet with the families. they might look at some of those photographs as horrific as they are. and then they would hear a whisper in their ear from some of their voters, whisper in the ear people who give them money for their campaign and turn and say, but we need them for prairie dogs. but we need them for prairie pigs. we need to focus on hunter biden the arguments we heard yesterday. that's how sick the culture is

on that side of the aisle around guns. so look at those faces and not be compelled to do something. can you imagine? can you imagine? >> i can't. look at those faces. >> i just can't, willie. you know, i drive mika crazy when i'm talking about, hey, you have to compromise. we have to figure out how the other side thinks. i thought it as a republican. i think it now as an independent. how do both sides think. you look at those pictures and you look at one mass slaughter after another mass slaughter and i must say, i do not have the capacity. i am not pragmatic enough to figure out how a united states senator would watch these children continue to get slaughtered, watch 18-year-olds continue to slaughter grandmothers in supermarkets, continue to slaughter parishioners in church or in synagogues. >> in concerts. >> in concerts where they are

gunned down like ferrell pigs in a convert in las vegas, a country music convert, in movie theaters in aurora. again, i just -- -- i have no words for these people. they are utterly without shame and they are on the wrong side not just of history, willie, they're on the wrong side of the american voters right now. >> that's a point made by our friend the publisher of the ipg newspaper, author of the book "winners take all." good morning. i want to read one of your tweets from a couple days ago. you wrote when we speak of democracy ending, we tend to picture that moment as a bang, a stolen election, a coup. but maybe the end of democracy is a whimper. all of us getting used to the reality that even things that 90% of people want will not happen. there you're talking about all

these proposed gun laws we have been discussing this morning. >> yeah. i was listening to the footage you were showing of republican senators talking about the sacred right to kill varmint and ferrell pigs and matthew mcconaughey telling the stories of those beautiful children whose photos we were just looking at. it occurred to me children are varmint for much of the political right. icht to say that very clearly, children are varmint for a lot of extreme right. what i mean by that is if children are still in the womb, they enjoy the full faith and protection of the extreme right in this country. anything should be done to protect them. but once children leave that womb, they are on their own in america in 2022. if it will not be school, school shooting that gets them, it will be a lack of covid protection

that gets them. a healthcare system that gets them, an economy that has no space for them to rise and grow. so, yeah, the january 6th story is really important and all of us who care about democracy which is a fancy greek word for the people watching this show getting to realize the kind of society they want to live in. january 6th is about the coups, terrorism, insurrection, violence and that's really important. but there's another kind of evidence that we don't need subpoenas to illicit. evidence all around us that our democracy is suffocating because when 90% of people, as you showed in that poll, want children not to be murdered in their school by guns, it doesn't happen. most of us, overwhelming number of us would prefer our grandchildren and great grandchildren be able to live on a habitable planet that doesn't get done.

vetoed by the powerful, the wealthy, the well connected. when most people want the security of knowing if they get sick, they get taken care of. that doesn't get done. when most people in the pandemic wanted a little bit of help for what was beyond their power to control, that happened a little bit not enough and ran out. and so we have to really ask ourselves, there is an organized anti-democracy movement that represents a minority faction in this country that is successfully blocking things 90% of us want. we don't have a public opinion problem. we have problem pro-democracy movement, democrats in congress, the president, the white house, not having the political fortitude to translate olympic opinion into results, how to use power, how to create moments out of tragedy the way lbj did. how to provoke the way the right does but for good. how to build power, amass power and wield power, name villains

make things clear. >> so let's talk about a couple of things because, you know, we've talked about -- had some debates on whether this system would hold. we had a great debate after trump got elected. i think we were both right in some ways. it was actually much worse than i expected in some ways. much better than you expected in other ways. but let's just pull back. because right now let's look at the fact. let's go to your argument. mika and i love madeleine albright. mika was at the funeral. i was watching on tv. i'm glad i was because there was a moment before the funeral where i saw bill clinton, hillary clinton, al gore, joe biden sitting in the front row. and it occurred to me that of

all those people sitting on the front row, half of them, they all won the popular vote. half of them didn't get there. so democrats won the popular vote in 1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2020. yet you had 12 years of republican rule during that time where those who didn't get the majority vote actually appointed a majority of the supreme court. so, again, you've got minority views on the supreme court. so when i start asking how could they overturn roe, which 70% of americans have supported for a very long time, 50-year precedent, a 50-year constitutional right, well, that's one way. the other thing has to do with the senate, the united states senate. democrats will keep winning the majority of votes for united

states senate races and they'll continue to lose more seats because the way the system is set up. even when they're in the majority like they are now, the filibuster is suffocating any legislation being passed. i mean, my feeling is, and it hasn't always been this way, but you know, just like those senators in 1975 that said, wait a second, '67, it doesn't make sense anymore. nothing is getting done here. the chamber is paralyzed. let's move it from 67 to 60. we're now in a position n a hyperpolitical atmosphere where 60 doesn't work anymore. i mean, you get rid of the filibuster or move it down to 55, make an adjustment like senators made in 1975, at least majorities would have a shot at getting things done. instead right now, the senate is the chamber that's used to kill the will of 90% of americans.

of 73% of americans. of an overwhelming majority of americans so nothing gets done in washington, d.c. is reduced to a forum of meaningless gestures. >> you know, they say there's that saying generals are always fighting the last war. i think democrats are always looking for the the last tyranny on guard for the last tyranny. and i think a lot of americans are looking at the fear of democracy's erosion and looking for things from other countries and other times and places and that may not be what it looks like here. the end of democracy may or may not be a stolen election in 2024 or something like that. it may just be permanent minority rule. it might just be a faction that represents 10, 20, 30% of american public opinion on extreme issues controlling through a senate filibuster, through a mie mother tear yan supreme court where someone like brett kavanaugh declares a

sovereign right over woman's wombs. it may be just that things that most people want because they love their children are things that society keeps telling them, no, your children can't have. that is enough to qualify as a suffocation of democracy. and i think we need those of us who believe in democracy not just to say we believe in it, we need the president not just to give sober speeches about preserving it, we need a real war for democracy because make no mistake, there is a war against it that is clear and unmistakable and powerful and well funded. but i think those of us who believe in it have been complacent about it, have been passive about it. and if we want things that 90% of us want because we love our children, we're going to have to fight like hell in defense of the idea of getting them. >> well, again, the way we do it, jonathan lemire, i say it on the show all the time, we do it politically. we do it peacefully. we do it whether you're a sane republican, whether you're an

independent, whether you're a democrat, you do it by registering to vote. you get it by getting your neighbors to register to vote. you get it by voting. you get it by driving people to the ballot box. that is how it gets done. i agree so much that democrats have just got to get better at pointing out what's before us. the challenges before us. campaigns are about alternatives. a versus b. nixon versus kennedy. >> started the show talking about the safety. >> yeah. nixon versus kennedy. trump versus clinton. it's about choices. it's about distinctions. this should be very easy for democrats. you've got a party that is standing in the way of what 90% -- 88% of americans want according to our latest poll, want universal background checks. republicans won't even talk about it. by the way, we're not talking

about republicans won't even vote on it. because of the filibuster, let's be very clear, republicans are killing the ability to even take that vote, to have that debate because they know they're in th to have that debate. because they know they're in the minority. they know they would lose. and i bet they also know, if that bill got to the floor, they would have to vote for it. because 90% of their constituents support it. so what do they do? they hide behind a filibuster. and for the life of me, i can't figure out why people who love democracy aren't saying sclerosis has completely overtaken our political system in washington. it's time to get rid of the filibuster or at least push it down to 55 votes. >> so democrats in 2020 did make it a choice. the joe biden campaign was very much like, we're the alternative to what donald trump has wrought.

but the white house has struggled with since they've taken office. i wrote this week about this confluence of crises that has hammered at this white house, whether it's inflation, rising gas prices, the war in europe, the intending supreme court decision. the inability to get stuff through congress, including guns, and a sense of powerlessness has set in. so joe mentioned the filibuster. the democrats can't even get that done, because members of their own party, senates manchin and sinema, publicly, and maybe a few others privately have also said that they won't change the filibuster, even for carveouts on things like voting rights, on things like guns, which has added to the sense of helplessness and inflation among many democrats here. in this perilous moment. so, we're seeing similar forces around the globe. what can they do, considering the political realities of this, of a deadlocked senate, a house with just a handful of seats, margins that may polyp to margins in november. what can democrats who are trying to defend democracy, what

can they do. >> you may have been there also. the lbj museum in austin, texas, went there in march for the first time. and it was very depressing about the present. because it was full of examples of someone who actually understood how you don't treat political facts as permanent realities. if someone isblocking you, you figure out how to unblock them. and lbj understood how to make moments, he understood how to leverage power. and so i'm not sure that we've seen joe biden, first of all, fully fight for an end to the filibuster. so why is manchin expected to do what has not even been fully demanded by the people who supposedly would benefit from his doing it. has the president flown to west virginia and had a rally, asking west virginians if they want to send a message to their senator about things that 90% of them want getting done. has the president flown to arizona? we have to make the case, the

other side, that the people who don't want liberal democracy in this country are well funded, they're smart, they're strategic. they unfortunately want to destroy this country. but tactically, they're very good. and i think those of us who believe in democracy have been complacent, because we just feel like we're doing the right thing, we believe in the right thing. it's not enough. i would love to see this president understand his power. cajole, lean over people, physically and otherwise. and actually show the ability to marshal the full force of public opinion, of the power of his office to say, this can't stand. go camp out in uvalde for a week if you need to. the white house could move to uvalde for a week anddo business from there and say, i am not leaving this town until we pass something. a little bit understanding of the provocation of commanding attention. all the things that the bad guys in american politics understand very well. and that the good people who want to do good things are

frankly too anemic politically to do anything about. >> annan, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. we appreciate it. we appreciate the conversation. and still ahead on "morning joe," gas prices continue to move higher and it seems there's not much washington can do to stem the rising tide. what that could mean for democrats in november. plus, house oversight committee chairwoman carolyn maloney will be our guest ahead of her panel's hearing on gun violence. it will feature testimony from a fourth grader who survived the uvalde shooting. also ahead, a stunning new report about former president trump's efforts to pressure secret service agents into letting him take part in the january 6th march to the capitol. and why it ultimately did not happen. "morning joe" is coming right back. happen "morning joe" is coming right back

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two minutes before the top of the hour. ahead of tomorrow's prime-time hearing for the house select committee investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol, we're learning new information about former president trump's actions that day. according to the "washington post," for two weeks before his january 6th rally at the ellipse, trump pressured the secret service to devise a plan for him to join his supporters on a march to the capitol. the agency rebuffed that request, but then scrambled to accommodate him on the day of the rally, when agents heard him suggest to his supporters that he would join them on the march. according to the post, witnesses have told the january 6th committee that immediately after trump made that remark, secret service reached out to d.c.

police about blocking intersections to set up a motorcade route. police officials declined, because they were already stretched thin monitoring numerous protests amid the growing mob at the capitol. willie? >> meanwhile, the january 6th select committee is confirming a new witness it will call to testify during tomorrow's prime-time hearing. u.s. capitol police officer caroline edwards will testify in person at the hearing. she's believed to be the first law enforcement officer injured during the capitol attack. officer edwards suffered a traumatic brain injury during that riot. listen as she recalls her experience to nbc's garrett haake. >> i could sense immediately something was off. you know, then they approached our line. they injured me and a couple of officers by tearing down, you know, our barricade, and then the fight on the west front began. >> what is it for you that sticks in your head?

>> the screaming. i, um -- when somebody shows me footage of the 6th, i have to have them turn off the sound. because that sound, that screaming, that just constant -- i can't hear it. it takes me back to a very bad place. >> that's u.s. capitol police officer caroline edwards. documentary film maker nick quested was confirmed to testify earlier this week. he and his crew were at the capitol on the 6th and recorded the riot from its beginning and he will testify tomorrow night as well. joining us now, congressional reporter for "the guardian," hugo loil, and former u.s. senator and now an nbc news and nbc political analyst, our friend, claire mccaskill. good morning to you both. hugo, let me begin with you, just to set the scene of what tomorrow will look like when people tune in in prime-time tomorrow night. how will this hearing play out?

>> the way this is going to work, there's going to be a first hour where chairman bennie thompson and cheney will make opening arguments and provide a road map for the hearings ahead. and in the second hour, they'll get to the live witness testimony. nick quested, the live documentary filmmaker will sit in the middle of the room, and next to him will be capitol police officer, caroline edwards. and it's basically going to track the footage that nick quested had shot on january 6th. they're not going to discuss or get into the video that he shot of the proud boys and the oathkeepers, militia groups twhal stormed the capitol and coordinated their movement in advance at an underground parking garage on january 5th, but they are going to go into the material that shows how the proud boys marched from the save america rally at the ellipse all the way to the peace monument at the base of capitol hill. they're going focus on key moments like, when the proud boys joseph biggs had an

exchange, a brief exchange and an altercation with another man in the crowd, this man called ryan samsol, and people following the capitol attack believe that's the moment when the capitol attack started. that's where the barricades got knocked over and caroline edwards got hit with a bare kid and knocked backwards. it will illustrate the moments immediately before the capitol attack. and that will be the focus of the first hearing. >> claire, there's sort of this narrative that's set in that people have made up their minds, whether you're on the right or the left, whether you like donald trump or don't like donald trump. they've made up their minds about what happened on january 6th and how important it is, and whether or not we ought to move on from it. but this committee has promised new witnesses, new information, new video, a new look, new details about the lead up to the attack on the capitol, what happened that day, what the president was doing. what do you believe is the potential impact of a prime-time hearing and all the hearings that are going to follow? >> well, this hearing is going to be covered by network -- major networks in addition, of

course, to our special coverage here. there will be a lot of people that watch tomorrow night that frankly are not rib-rocked republicans or rib-rocked democrats. they are going to be folks in the suburbs that have voted for people in both parties. and i think they have a moment here -- the key will be, willie, can they resist the temptation to make this like other hearings, where every member is trying to ground their sound bite. every member is trying to one up the other members to be the one that leads the news that evening. can they really tell a story? i liken this to a jury trial. and the american public is the jury and they have to pregnant an opening statement that is compelling and it's got to tell a story that pulls back the curtain on how the white house was enjoying what was going on. and i think that's one of liz cheney's focuses.

and. >> you like, claire, at the fact again that they've had testimony from trump, staff members said that donald trump not only liked it, he was gleefully watching and he would rewind, go back, and watch the most violent parts, while thfts going on, while republicans were begging him to stop the riot, while kevin mccarthy was saying, call them off. donald trump would go back into his dining room, reverse it, watch cops get beaten up, watch the most violent parts, and take great delight in it. that's something ben sasse after january 6th. so i'm wondering, you know, great prosecutors like you understand that it is about telling a story. what would you focus on understanding that it will be like talking to a jury. it will be trying to pull people in who may be disinterested, who may actually be predisposed to

not believe the truth. how do you get the truth in front of them? >> i think, first of all, the visuals that they have are very, very powerful. pictures speak much louder than words. i think we all understand that. we certainly understand it in jury trials. that's why, you know, pictures are so important in jury trials. and i think the words coming out of someone's mouth, i think the fact that they have these depositions on tape and they can play portions of these depositions and actually see this information coming out of the mouths of people who worked in the trump white house, that will be important. but most important is they've got to have a goal at the end of this. if the goal is to harden our democracy against this ever happening again, i think they need to sprinkle through this that we do need electoral college reform. so there can't be this silly loophole that somebody can think that they can put up fake electors and steal an election. we need to shut that down right now. they have a chance to do that with this hearing. i don't think they're going to get to the point that most of america thinks that donald trump

should be prosecuted, but i do think that they'll get to the point that might have an impact on the midterms, and more importantly, on reform, to harden these democratic institutions. >> what if we just had an impact on one or two republican senators. what if we just had an impact on people that you worked with. that's what i want to get to. we showed pictures of quotes from people who have been friends of mine for 25 years saying, absolutely, egregious things about why ar-15s are needed to kill varmints and prairie dogs and feral pigs and raccoons. and, you know, two things can be true at once, i guess. you can know them, you can like them, you can still be shocked by the things they say and the decisions they make. but i'm wondering as you now see january 6th and we've had quite some time to take it on board

and try to process it, what do you think about somebody like marco rubio, who -- or somebody like lindsey graham or people that you have worked with -- i'm sure you had kind words with and could tell us nice things about them. but, you know, marco rubio, when children are blown away in a second grade, third grade class, he uses that as an excuse to attack the nba and their position on china. he doesn't talk about guns. when january 6th comes up, he tries to undermine this, by talking about an ex-tv producer for abc who may be affiliated with this. and claire, i'm just sitting here thinking, when i was up there, this -- this is a pretty open and closed case. republicans would gather together and democrats could gather together. and they would say, this is bs, except, they wouldn't say bs. and we're going to chase down

these clowns. we're going to throw them in jail. and we're going to make sure that never happens again. so just, on a personal level, claire, tell us, how could your friends, how could your former colleagues be standing in the way of this and actually trying to actively undermine the pursuit of truth to figure out who tried to overturn a presidential election. >> the moment this thing turned, joe, was the moment that the republicans came out against a bipartisan commission, that was negotiated by a republican, the purview of it, the ability to subpoena, all of it. it was going to have to be bipartisan. when they decided that they didn't want anything that really had that kind of credibility, that's the moment they all folded. and they folded to the political pressure and power of donald trump and his followers. now, last night wasn't the best of nights for donald trump.

he didn't actually win very many places last night. institutional republicans won over his whack-a-doodle candidates. so maybe that might have more impact on my former colleagues than anything we can say or do. and that is, can donald trump's grip, iron-fisted grip on the republican party finally begin to loosen somewhat? i don't know. >> yeah, you know, jonathan la mire, we of course saw what happened in georgia. donald trump absolutely shamed and humiliated in georgia. in pennsylvania, two out of three republicans in the primary voted against his candidate of choice. dr. oz, democrats are thinking, thank god dr. oz got through, because now republicans are likely going to lose that state as well. but last night, claire's right, there's someone who voted to impeach donald trump who in california last night survived a

primary challenge from two republicans. so, yes, you can stand up to donald trump, you can live to tell about it politically. you can stand up to the crazies in the nra and live to tell about it. i'm just going to say, i've done this before. i really have. i just think we have a lot of cowardice on the republican side. there's so many things that they could do, but they're such cowards. they're so weak and feckless and they just don't have the courage of their convictions, and for the sake of this republic, i pray that some day soon they will. >> the congressman voted to impeach the former president. and yes, trump's endorsement record this primary season, mixed bag at best. he's got some winners. he's had some clear losers as well. that were humbling that we saw in georgia. and the whispers out of

mar-a-lago that the former president is considering accelerating his timetable to announce a 2024 bid is being perceived by many as anxiety there, nervousness over his hold on the republican party. that he's on the sidelines, and perhaps he does not yield the influence he used to. but claire mentioned the idea that originally this was supposed to be a bipartisan, 9/11-style commission and the republicans in the senate killed that, including mitch mcconnell. and we have seen now, though, this is bipartisan only in name because of congressman kinzinger and congresswoman cheney, republicans who are willing to defy their party to be part of this committee. but, we were told that republicans were going to have a response. that they were going to have a counterattack, have their own report put out at some point this year, as well as some counterprogram. some kind of message to try to rebut what we're going to hear over the next few days from these hearings. have you got any sense as to a preview as to what that could look like? >> as far as i'm aware, al of it

is attacking the committee as being illegitimate and about it being another partisan witch hunt. and i don't know if this is really going to cut through. the fact of the matter is, multiple federal courts, the d.c. district court, the appellate court, they have all ruled that the select committee is legitimate, has a legitimate function, and has -- it is properly constituted. as republicans like to say, it's a partisan witch hunt and they'll go after the members on the committee and the work that they have done, it's going to be an interesting spectacle to see whether any of this cuts through. i think, you know, a lot of the messaging from the rnc, a lot of the messaging on the house republican leadership side will be directed towards undercutting the legitimacy of the inquiry. but what's really interesting, they never go after the work product. they never say that the committee is wrong or that the intersection didn't happen, or that trump didn't enjoy the --

watching the violence unfold on tv. and i think the american public can have a very stark decision to make when they watch these hearings on tv and to see whether or not they want to believe one side, that is all about spin, and undercutting an inquiry, or whether they want to believe the facts that are laid out in front of them. and that's the challenge that republicans are going to face. >> it's incredible. congressional reporter for "the guardian," hugo lowell, thank you. and it's hard not to be shocked, even though it continues. but the grip that trump has on these republicans, it is, and i say it calmly, just by definition, it is cult-like. >> it's not surprising, but shocking at the same time. >> very sad. >> and willie, we really do. i guess, you know, we've been overwhelmed, obviously, by the horrid news still out of uvalde. what we're learning out of

uvalde. i will say, the elections that were held last night again, donald trump once again, mixed bag at best. and of course, what grates on him the most is the fact, again, a republican who voted to impeach him is ahead and looks like he's going to beat two fellow republicans that were running against him for being insufficiently loyal to donald trump. so his record, i know they're steel reeling in georgia, and it doesn't make sense, what jonathan lemire said, if he's going to speed up his effort to run, it's because his money has slowed down, number one, and number two, he's just being made a fool of in one primary after another, so i'm sure he's feeling, i've got to get out on the campaign trail, and telling the same speeches i've been

telling for seven years now and see if i put people to sleep or not. i've been wrong about him just about every time over the last six years. >> there certainly is an exhaustion and not just among democrats, but among republicans, with the backward-looking approach that donald trump has taken. they're saying, are we going to have a 2024 presidential campaign where we talk about the 2020 election. is that the party we want to be? and it's been fascinating to watch some of these republicans put their toe in the water, step out on the ledge a little bit and say, it's time to move on. as you say, a mixed bag. his candidate got absolutely wiped out in the state of georgia in that governor's race. j.d. vance may win in ohio. we'll see. he's got a tough opponent in tim ryan. the results are mixed, but there's no question that there are republicans now trying to at least look past donald trump and many of them are surviving while they do it. >> yeah. let's move to what's going on on capitol hill today. not unrelated.

a girl who survived the shooting at robb elementary in uvalde, texas, will share her story with the house oversight committee. mia sarillos smeared herself with her best friend's blood and played dead to survive. the girl's family says she's struggling with the trauma and continues to have nightmares. also today, the house is set to vote on the protecting our kids act, a major piece of legislation that addresses gun violence. last week, the house judiciary committee advanced the bill in a contentious hearing, where not a single republican joined democrats in supporting the package. >> they claim that we should support ensuring that people that are an imminent danger to themselves and others, such that they might commit mass murder, have a constitutional right to access a firearm. you know who department didn't

have their constitutional right to life respected? the kids at parkland and sandy hook and uvalde and buffalo, and the list goes on and on. so spare me the bull [ bleep ] about constitutional rights. >> that was democratic congressman david cicilline of rhode island, who joins us now. he's a member of both the house judiciary and foreign affairs committees. and we appreciate your coming on this morning >> you know, it is really crazy, and it's one of the frustrating things that you debate people who went to ivy league law schools, who understand constitutional law, who actually won, who actually clerked on the court when heller was drafted. they will get on tv and lie through their teeth, and claim that the second amendment says things it doesn't say, they will lie through their teeth and say universal background checks

infringes on the second amendment. they will lie through their safety and say any small gun safety piece of legislation will, again, impede americans' second amendment rights. it is an abject total lie. and if you don't believescalia' heller. and yet they just keep lying. you used another word, which actually may be more appropriate. >> there's no question about it. part of it is, they can't explain their irrational opposition to common sense gun safety legislation that the vast majority of americans support. and we passed a bill that will raise the age at which you can buy an assault rifle, ban ghost guns, provide for safe storage of firearms and trafficking, so you can't buy guns for third parties that can't buy them. and a number of other really important provisions. and they oppose that. they also have blocked passage of strengthening background

checks and we're fighting for common sense gun safety legislation that will help reduce gun skprinls the republican party is standing in opposition to all of it. and look, we have a gun violence epidemic in america. guns are the leading cause of death for america's kids. let that sink in. the leading cause of death are guns. 27 school shootings this year alone. over 200 mass shootings and we have a huge public health crisis as a result of it. and our republican colleagues are unwilling in any way to be part of the solution. and a lot of people say, it's the power of the gun lobby. this town is filled with powerful lobbyists who are advocating for whatever positions they have. it's up to the elected officials to stand up, do what's right for your constituents, show the courage to do what's right to protect people you represent, and there's nothing more basic than our responsibility to keep people alive, as representatives

in congress. >> we're at a point, congressman, i don't know if you can speak directly to your republican colleagues, but isn't the math against them? isn't a mass shooting coming to a district near them? and i'm not -- i'm not trying to be exaggerating on this issue, but look at the number of mass shootings, they are daily and they don't discriminate. they're across the country. so these lawmakers are walking past or passing up the opportunity of legislation that ultimately could stop wlas coming to a district near them, mass shootings. >> and the lives that they save could be the lives of their own constituents. >> yeah, you're absolutely right. there's a mass shooting every day in this country or nearly every day in this country. there are shootings of individuals with firearms every day. 110 people a day die at the hands of a gun. this is, by the way, a very peculiar problem in america. it doesn't economist in any

other developed country in the world. and part of that reason is because it's so easy for dangerous people, people with serious mental illness to access firearms. and the arguments my republican colleagues are making is, oh, just get more guns. have school teachers have weapons and principals. if that were the answer, we would be the safest country in the world. there are over 400 million guns in america. more guns than people. 110 guns for every 100 people. so that has not worked. and we know things that do work, the assault weapons ban is the thing that worked. you know, when that was in place, mass shootings declined substantially. when it was allowed to expire, they have tripled. these are weapons of war that don't belong in the communities that we serve. so we have real answers. we're going to pass a great bill today, another bill tomorrow to make sure guns don't get into the hands of people with serious mental. and our republican colleagues should join us in this effort to help keep our community safe. >> congressman, good morning. we've been talking a lot later to senator chris murphy, who's

in the senate negotiation, as you know well, about how to get something done here. and he said he believes that republicans, many of them, are negotiating in good faith, that he sees more willingness to get something done than he's ever seen before, perhaps just trying to protect a little public confidence, anyway, and keep the negotiation moving. but take us inside the room on the house side. do you believe that you've got republicans who are willing to work with you. you've got a handful of votes. anybody who might be willing to move forward on these larger issues that we're talking about? let's say, raising the age to 21 to buy an ar-15? >> well, i hope so. it's hard to explain why legislation, which is supported by 90% of the american people is controversial or somehow you have to have courage to do it. it's about respecting what your constituents expect you to do. i hope we will get some republican support, we didn't get any in the committee. we saw one republican who came out in support of the assault weapons ban, and he was

essentially driven from running for re-election again. i hope we'll get some republicans, but i think our responsibility is to get these bills to the senate, because they'll save lives, make a difference, and it's then on them to explain to the american people why they haven't moved these bills forward and why the republicans continue to pose every single common sense measure we send to them. i hope they won't, but if they do, the voters in d.c. have to decide, do you want to elect folks who are serious about ending gun violence in america, or do you want to elect republicans who are going to stand in the way of anything and we'll continue to have this carnage all across the country, when you listen to the stories of these children in some of the most recent shootings, it is so heartbreaking, so horrifying, and the answer cannot be, we're going to do nothing. >> yep, democratic congressman david cicilline of rhode island, thank you very much for being on this morning. now to another major issue. ahead of the midterms, the price

of gas, which is now closing in on $5 a gallon. miguel almaguer has the details. >> reporter: with the u.s. in overdrive and likely just days away from topping a national average of $5 a gallon, gas prices in some states are spiking upwards of 10 cents a day. >> i just think we're getting ripped off. >> reporter: with the west coast by far paying the most, the pinch at the pump is hitting families like hector alvarez's hard. >> it's starting to affect the budget. >> reporter: in los angeles where many are dishing out $7 a gallon, alvarez, who supports a family of seven, is juggling skyrocketing housing prices, staggering inflation, and now record fuel costs. >> we have to, you know, really think about how far we can travel or where we can go. >> reporter: with a recent poll showing americans cutting back on eating out, making impulse purchases and driving, the u.s. is poised to officially hit $5 a

gallon as early as thursday. according to aaa, 75% of commuters say that's the benchmark where they'll put the brakes on driving. that's what happened in 2008, when the national average hit $4.11 or roughly $5.40 a gallon today with inflation. >> the consumer is in a different position than they were in 2008. as we get around that $5.20, $5.30 national average, we might see some change in consumer behavior. >> reporter: but as pent-up pandemic demand pumps up prices for now, there's also been a surge for electric vehicles. take a $310 mile road trip from l.a. to the bay area, a gas-guzzling sedan will set you back nearly $250. the same trip in an ev, just 43 bucks after three supercharges. >> i feel badly for people who are not able to get an electric car right now and are stuck paying those prices. >> reporter: for most americans, though, electric is still out of reach. and soon, the price at the pump

may also be. >> boy, grim news. >> oh, my god. >> wake up the kids, because we've got steve rattner here. >> so excited. >> he's, of course, former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analysis. nothing goes better with your cheerios, kids, than news about charts showing a massive rise in oil prices, gas prices across america. so, steve, let's, first of all, let's just talk about the problem. show us the chart on gas prices shooting up. where are we right now? >> sure. as your correspondent said, gas prices have been going up pretty relentlessly. and you can see some of the specific numbers around what they were saying. in california, gas prices are already $6.37 and well above $5 in other places. and you can hear anecdotally, of people paying as much as $10 a gallon for it. but it's important to note, this is not just because of the war. this is not just because of what

your correspondent called pent-up demand, pandemic demand. it is part of a long process that's been going on for a while. and you can see in the chart on the left, if you look at the red line of gas prices, that well before the war started, gas prices had begun climbing very, very substantially. and it had exceeded the sort of $2.75 or so level that had persisted before the pandemic. and now, of course, they've gone parabolic. and what you can also see to the question of are we being ripped off or not being ripped off, you can see in the light blue line, crude oil prices. and crude oil prices gasoline p. the real source of the gas price inflation is coming from crude oil. as i said, president biden would like to blame russia for all of this, but it is not all russia, it is not all the pandemic, it is the fact that we have fundamentally short of oil around the world. >> steve, explain why we're fundamentally short of oil around the world, because republicans and editorial page

of conservative newspapers would like to blame joe biden, but it's actually because of what they love, markets! markets! the fact is, oil companies didn't want to spend a lot of money exploring during covid, when demand was lower, when prices were lower. it made absolutely no sense. and investors didn't want to pour money into more exploration or more production at that time. right? >> that is actually exactly right. that after oil prices went down four or five years ago, companies cut back. wall street put some discipline in place. and so there was a lot less drilling. and you can see that on the next chart, in a sense, where oil prices, global oil production really didn't come back post the pandemic. there's a light turquoise line there, it might be a little bit hard to see, but that's the production line. and it's well below the consumption line, all through these last couple of years.

people went back to driving, as you know, went back to using oil and gasoline very quickly. and production wasn't able to keep up. part of it has to do with refinery capacity. there's a lot of reasons. but the fact is that we have been underinvesting in the oil industry for several years, and those chickens are coming home to roost. and we can talk about that also on a worldwide basis. >> well, what i want to talk to you about now is the fact that the united states has been the top oil-producing nation since 2013. so here we are, nine years later. canada, i think, is the fourth. and so, if we want to move towards oil independence, how do we do that? obviously, we can talk about alternative energy sources, we need to do that. but let's say we take barack obama's approach, which, as you know, was an all of the above approach. we're going to do wind, we're going to do solar, we're going to do oil exploration, we're

going to do nuclear. if we had started doing what barack obama was asking for, let's say, ten years ago, where would we be right now? and where would we be if we can somehow turn the political will in that direction over the next five years? can we move towards oil independence? energy independence? >> actually, the united states itself is oil independent. we're actually a net exporter of oil products, when you combine refined products and crude oil, and that wasn't necessarily because of any governmental policy. it was simply because oil prices encouraged at a time drilling and production. where we have fallen short is things like nuclear, which has become almost a dirty word and should be a major source of power in this country. we're doing reasonably well on wind and solar, but they have their limitations. but energy in a way is a worldwide product. every country imports or exports energy in one form or another from somewhere else. so we are independent on the rest of the world doing a good

job, as well. and when you look at europe, they've done an appalling job. german shut down 14 out of their 17 nuclear reactors. the netherlands shut down the biggest gas field. >> oh, good god. >> yeah, yeah. >> steve, the thing is, peoplep years. the regulatory process obviously needs to be stringent to build nuclear plants in america, but if you're talking about a powerful energy source without a coor bon footprint, if you're talking about getting to where we want to go as a nation, people have been talking about this for well over a decade. and yet, we're not -- we still aren't moving forward in that direction. and we're paying for it. >> we send men and women down in nuclear-powered submarines every day. closer to a nuclear reactor than i am to jonathan lemire at this

moment. and we deem that to be safe, and it has been safe. we have nuclear carriers out there with 5,000 carriers on them. we deem that to be safe. so the idea that we can't build a nuclear reactor on land in a way that is safe is a real failure of our policy makers. there's no question about it. and the problem, joe, is that there is not that much world oil capacity left out there. i can show you my last chart if you want and demonstrate to you why -- this is why oil prices gas prices are not going to come down that quickly. what the chart on the left shows you is that opec has been regularly underproducing the amount of oil they're supposed to produce. some of that are countries like angola and nigeria that simply can't produce it. that bright red bar in the middle is russia, but russia has only cut its exports back by a little over a million barrels a day. the bar that's sticking up is the million barrels a day we're

taking out of a petroleum reserve. so all we've done so far is try to offset most of with we've lost from russia. if russia loses another four to five barrels a day, that will be enormous. if you look at the chart on the right, what that shows you is that the world con assumes about 100 million barrels a day, 40 million of them from opec. spare capacity in opec, what opec could produce tomorrow if it was so motivated is a few million barrels a day in saudi arabia, in the united arab -- excuse me, in the united arab emirates. and then you go to places like iran and russia and obviously, we're not taking oil from there. the point is that, to your point, joe, we have to be doing something else here. because putting aside pandemics, putting aside invasions of ukraine, the world is simply short of energy in a form that it's willing to use it, ie, oil and gas at the moment. >> and claire mccaskill, for all of those reasons, the solutions are long-term. even what the white house put out last week, that three-point

plan, we've got to end the war in ukraine and all the things that have to be done are long-term solutions. as you know better than most, having your name on the ballot, we can talk about guns and we will. we can talk about january 6th and we will. but at the end of the day, if somebody is paying six bucks a gallon and can't afford to buy all the groceries they usually buy, they will hold the people in power accountable and that's bad news for the president and democrats this fall. >> it's going to be very tough. people always have a tendency to vote on issues that feel closest to them and nothing feels closer than the price going up and up and up at the pump, as they stop to get the gas they absolutely need to work and support their children and all of the things that are about gas in this country. so it is a big problem for biden. but i've just got to say, this nuclear thing is something that i think more democrats ought to begin talking about. we have the technology to keep

nuclear safe right now. and it is a no carbon footprint. by the way, germany may have shut down all of those nuclear plants, steve, but they're buying nuclear power from france right now, because they have to have more power. so it's not like the german people are saying, we don't want nuclear power, because they're buying it. they're just buying it from another country. so we really need to be a leader on saying, if we don't have enough oil in the world to get us where we need to go, we have got to be wind, solar, nuclear, all of it. all of the above. and the more democrats start talking about that, instead of just, you know, railing against the oil companies, which i get, they're making record profits, and it's very frustrating, but i think they've got to really open this up and make people understand, there's more involved here than just trying to punish the oil companies. >> and steve, on that point, the political conundrum that the white house has been put in right now, the president, you mentioned saudi arabia, president biden, his aides

considering a trip there, a nation he has deemed a pariah in the past. he didn't want to deal with the crowned prince there. yet, it looks like the trip is not in the books. it's been not solidified yet, likely will happen this summer. will it even be worth it? will he go there and ask for increased oil production? what will he get out of that? >> first of all, if you're talking about the summer, we're going to have a problem here. it's going to be late for the midterm elections for him to get anything out of russia, sorry, out of saudi arabia, that's really going to make a difference. secondly, there are these significant questions in the oil community about how much more saudi arabia can actually pump. they claim they can pump another half a million barrels a day. we'll have to see about that. in terms of what they're willing to do, i think they would probably be willing to help him, because this is a very love/hate relationship between us and the saudis a to the moment, but the

saudis do need us. we sell them an enormous amount of military equipment. we are in a sense, their ultimate protector, not because we care about the saudis, but because we care about the oil fields. i think they do want to have a good relationship. it's been really tough since the khashoggi incident. >> steve rattner, thank you so much for coming on this morning. we appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," the son of a buffalo shooting victim pleads with congress to take action on white supremacy and domestic terrorism. >> our lives are forever changed, forever damaged by an act of profound hate and evil. and nothing will ever take away the hurt, the pain or the hole in our hearts. if for her to be murdered, taken away from us by someone so full of hate is impossible to understand and even harder to live with. >> we're going to have more of

his emotional testimony just ahead. plus, "the washington post's" jonathan capehart joins us with his new piece about the fear in many black communities following the buffalo attack. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. "morning j." we'll be right back. find a new way. but birthdays still happen. fridays still call for s'mores. you have to make magic, and you're figuring out how to do that. what you don't have to figure out is where to shop. because while you're getting creative, walmart is doing what we always do. keeping prices low for you every day. so you can save money and live better. ♪ there's a monster problem and our hero needs solutions.

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i ask every one of you to imagine the faces of your mothers as you look at mine and ask yourself, is there nothing that we can do? is there nothing that you personally are willing to do to stop the cancer of white supremacy and the domestic terrorism it inspires? because if there is nothing then, respectfully, senators, you should yield your positions of authority and influence to others that are willing to lead on this issue. the urgency of the moment commands no less. my mother's life mattered.

my mother's life mattered. and your actions here today will tell us how much it matters to you. >> that was the son of ruth whitfield, who was killed at the topps supermarket in buffalo last month. he testified before the senate judiciary committee on the effects of white supremacy and domestic terrorism. and joining us now, the host of the sunday show here on msnbc, associate editor at "the washington post," jonathan capehart. and jonathan, your latest op-ed for the post is provocatively entitled, why black people are afraid of crazy white people. and you write in part this. i'm going to let you in on a little secret. black people are not afraid of white people. we're afraid of crazy white people. let me try to explain. things felt so dicey during the trump years, i half-joked that my husband and i might have to reenact that scene from "the sound of music" and flee the

country. the right to self-protection, let alone the right to bear arms doesn't exactly apply to black people. right now, i'm defining crazy as who believes any aspect of the racist great replacement conspiracy. this is the noxious idea that liberals are deliberately replacing white people with non-whites and immigrants. it's what allegedly drove an 18-year-old man to target black people in buffalo, killing 10 and wounding 3. and it's all because of the number of crazy white people in america, fearing replacement appears to be growing. and they seem ready to do whatever it takes to stay at the pinnacle of american life. and to that point, jonathan, here's a new poll. that finds that 58% of republicans believe in the so-called replacement theory. the yougov poll asked

explicitly, do you agree or disagree that white people in this country are being replaced by non-white people. 25% of republicans strongly agreed. 33% somewhat agreed. overall, 42% of white americans polled believe they are being replaced. so jonathan capehart, when we look at mass shootings in america and we look at the race of a lot of mass shooters, your point can be broadened. >> yeah, and i want to add one more data point to the conversation that comes from the southern poverty law center, which was the basis of my op-ed piece. nearly half of the people surveyed in that splc survey agreed demographic changes were part of, quote, a purposeful plan to replace white voters.

overall, nearly half the people, nearly half of the americans surveyed by the southern poverty law center agreed with that statement, echoing what you just showed there from the yougov poll. i've gotten a lot of reaction, particularly from the far right about this, particularly hurling back in my face, well, you have a better chance of being killed by a black person than a white supremacist. that's not the point. the point is there are people, white people in this country who are motivated by the great replacement theory and are weaponizing it as we saw by the alleged buffalo shooter. that's why that is so concerning. and that is why i have also heard from lots of people, african-americans, but also other people of color, lbtq americans, who were sending me messages about their active plans to look for other places

to go, because things in this country are feeling dangerous. look at the antilbgtq laws that are sprouting up all over the country. the buffalo shooting. where it doesn't feel safe to a lot of people. >> so, this is not the first time i've heard of this conversation, from people close to me. so tell me about that conversation you had with your husband. were you just joking or what were the thoughts behind it? what are your feelings about your experience as an american citizen today? >> this started during the trump years. started during his campaign. took off immediately after charlottesville, when i started having these conversations, because the president of the united states succeeded the moral authority. and it got worse from there.

once you take that lid off that roiling pot, that's been part of american history since before the founding of the republic, it is hard to put it back on, especially when the person who took the lid off was the president of the united states. so the forces unleashed by donald trump, they're not going back in the pot. so i half joked and said, you know, we need to have a plan "b." we need -- we might have to von trapp out of the country. i was half joking. right now, i'm still half joking, but i will tell you this. if i leave this country, that will be your signal that things have really run off the rails. because i'll be damned any let white supremacists or anybody else run me out of my country. i'm not replacing anybody. my folks were here before a lot of those folks who want to replace people arrived on these shores. america was built on an idea of

freedom, on an item, that if you've got the gumption, you've got the drive, you've got the determination, that this is a land for you to seek your opportunity and seek the american dream, however you define it. again, i am not letting anybody run define it. so, again, i am not letting anybody run me out of this country. but i am not going to put myself or my family in harm's way because folks don't like the fact that i'm here, that folks don't like the fact that people who are like me are here. >> jonathan, thank you for writing the piece. actually, stay with us. we would love for you to join for the next segment. coming up, we'll speak with congresswoman carolyn maroney, on the urgent need to address the gun violence epidemic. plus, primary elections held in seven states yesterday, including california. we'll get a live report from san

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i d d soit was the best call eouout hii could've made. call the barnes firm and find out what your case all could be worth.uld've made. ♪ call one eight hundred, eight million ♪ movement that changed america. we are now learning more about the criminal court case that followed and turned a young, unknown preacher named dr. martin luther king, jr., into an icon joining us now, dan abrams. he's out with his latest about t history's forgotten trials. this one, co-authored with civil rights legend fred gray, and g

it's entitled "alabama v. king, martin luther king, jr., and the criminal trial to launched the civil rights movement." tell us about the trial. >> this is the case that put martin luther king on the map.th everyone knows about rosa parks about refusing to give up her seat. then the busboy cot in montgomery, 40,000 african americanme residents refusing t get on the buses. but what so few people know about, is when they couldn't get people back on the buses, the local establishment, the prosecutors, decided let's try and use the law to force them to get back on the buses. so they indict 89 people, one trial. that is ale, relatively unknow local minister named martin luther king, jr., who was appointed to be the spokesperson for this d movement.th as a result of that criminal case, that has somehow been

forgotten to history, which we uncovered a transcript up.sc martin luther king testified in the trial and as a result of this case, he's in the national media, people are talking about him across theple country. and according to my co-author, fred gray, who was martin luther king's lawyer in this case, he believes it was this case that launched the civil rights movement, in the sense that local movements from around the country coalesced around this one, as a result of all the attention this case got. prosecutors thought they were going to make an example out of martin luther king. as we were talking about before we went on the air, they sure did make an example out of him and turned him into an icon because of this trial. an >> so question, was he convicted? >> he was convicted. the answer is, of course he was convicted. everyone knew he would be

convicted. he was charged with this sort of arcain, anti-boycott law. he was charged for leading a boycott illegally. their defense was, we had a reason to do wit, because the residents were being treated so badly on the buses. one of the things that's most moving in this book is the accounts of the ordinary or montgomery citizens two talk s about how horribly they were treated day after day after day. they had to put their money into the bus to pay for it. they then had to get out of the bus, walk to the back. sometimes the drivers would leave, hit them with the bus, call them names. and reading the transcript, it's hard to forget. >> so were the others that were indicted -- >> they were never tried. everyone recognized -- everyone else they said let's see what happens in this one case.s king gets convicted. but once he gets convicted, at this point this is the beginning

of the end for segregation. fred gray and others led the ot movement to argue in federal court that segregation should be unconstitutional. so hand in hand with the conviction here was this broader movement. and by the time the appeals wene through, the segregated -- the laws of segregation in alabama had already been declared unconstitutional. so martin luther king was the only one n luthtried. we have a picture in the book right after he was convicted, he is celebrating with his wife, because they know that even though he's been convicted, the movement has started. >> right. >> dan, you mentioned fred gray your co-author on this book.is if people don't know his name, they ought to. he's still alive and well. he was 25 years old back at thel time of this trial. and one of nine black attorneys in the entire state ofe blac ala how significant a figure was he in the civil rights movement? >> he was rosa parks' lawyer.

he was martin luther king's g' lawyer. he argued in front of the u.s. supreme court court. i think he's one of the most unheralded civil rights icons in america. you talk about the fact that i've written other books about s forgotten trials to history.ls i never had the opportunity to talk to history before in connection to writing a book. in all these other books, we hae to look for articles, try and cl figure out what might have happened. in this book, i can ask the guy who was there in the courtroom, and say, fred, do you remember by chance exactly sort of who so was sitting where?si do you remember if there was a e reaction in the audience when this particular witness la testified? i mean, what a treat to be able to, a, work with a legend like fred agree.ke but b, in terms of working on this book, to be able to talk ta him about the details of exactly what happened. you know, it's so amazing.o he talks about martin this, martin that. i'm thinking wow, i really am

talking to history here. >> so we have "the washington post" jonathan kapart with us. >> dan, in montgomery, alabama, there's the legacy museum where one of the dismays is one of the most powerful things i've seen. it is a wall filled with the mugshots of the people arrested with their peopnumbers.le like the one you just showed of martin luther king. the thing that is so powerful about it is those were faces of not famous people, not historic figures with the exception of martin luther king. but they also looked like a lotd of my relatives. they looked like everyday people who were out there protesting for their own rights. i learned that they were also using it as a badge of courage. are you going to get arrested today? i'm goingrres tomorrow. in listening to you talk about the transcript from the trial, i thought of that wall. i'm just wondering if there was

a particular vignette in any of the transcripts that blew you away that really fits with you. >> first of all, the reason i was smiling, they were celebrating being arrested.in in fact, some of the folks who weren't arrested were questioning well, am i not a big enough deal to have been arrested here? and when people were coming to take their mugshots, et cetera,m they were celebrating. because they had this sense that this was, you know, the beginning of the movement. i have to say, jonathan, when you ask me about the transcripts, the most chilling accounts to me are the most ordinary ones, right? how repetitive the same accounts were again and again. of people who were just trying too go to work every day. being called the "n" word on the bus on a regular basis.

for me, the most chilling vignette was to hear again and again that the same thing was happening to all of these people. and remember, part of the defense here was just cause, right? there was this boycott law, but there was an exception. if you had just cause. and that's why witness after witness testified in this trial to say, we had just cause. we were being treated terribly in connection with these buses. and so that's really what stuck with me in terms of reading all these accounts from the transcripts. >> the new book is "alabama v. king, martin luther king, jr., and the criminal trial that t launched the civil rights s movement." dan abrams, thank you very much for being on.k >> it's so important listening to dan. we have debates about what de should and shouldn't be taught in school. history should be taught in school. we need to knowht what i our hiy is. i'm so proud of this country. i believe in american

exceptionalism. i'm proud of the government that was set up. but i also at the same time, it's important that we know the flaws, the flaws that were inherent, even in the drafting of the constitution. and how we moved through that. here, you look at this, this was happening, right? while i was alive. some of this was happening while you were alive. it was happening while dan was alive. things have changed dramatically. they have changed for the better in manyange ways. but still, we look at some of thee challenges that are befor us right now and realize we still have a long way to go. when we stop and say oh, my god, this is the worst that it's ever been.er oh, my god, we are just in a place we may not survive as a country. be a black person in 1955 in rural alabama, and tell me thatt this is the worst it's ever e been. you know, it's been worse.

we have moved in the right direction, but there is no doubt over the past several years, we havel taken a serious, serious u-turn. we just have to get back on the right path. >> we have to. it is three minutes past the top of the third hour of "morning joe." to capitoling hill now where senators hoped to reach a bipartisan deal on gun safety by the end of the week. but nbc news learned that talks may slip into next week. joining us now from capitol hill, nbc news correspondent garrett haake. what is the latest with the negotiations? >> reporter: i think the deadline slipping is less significant than the progress that appears to being made here. i'm a realist on these things. i've covered lots of talks around gun safety legislation that have gone nowhere. but this particular group does seem to have gotten farther on the specifics than any other group i have covered. in talking to senators involved in these conversations last night, the contour of what they areonto negotiating are startin

come into focus. on background checks, there is a specific focus on making sure that younger people, 18 to 21, that their juvenile records are looked at when they apply to purchase a firearm. senator john cornyn believes ny that's the gap that the shooter in uvalde fell into. that if his juvenile records hae been available to authorities when they were conducting the background check, he would have never been sold a weapon. so they are trying to deal with that and make sure younger buyers of weapons have their backgrounds looked at. they are incentivizing states to put red flags into state. it's unclear how much buy-in there would be in that. there are 19 states with red flag laws set up. how many more might participate in a program like that? there's also a pilot program that would expand mental health access in the state that's important to republicans who have viewed the problem of

school shootings, mass shootinga as a mental health problem, not a guns problem. and then there's an unspecified school safety, school hardening component. that's probably the most squishy in terms of details that we have heard so far. but the contours are coming rs together. everyone involved in these negotiations is saying the right thing about progress. they're asking for space from their leadership and from the white house. so far, they're getting it. >> and senator murphy has been clear from the beginning of this saying i'm not going to get everything i want out of this.ou i want to go much further than republicans will go, but let's get something.ur is it fair to say items like universal background checks, and raising the age to buy a semiautomatic rifle being raiseu from 18 to 21 are off the table? >> reporter: i think the broad expansion of background checks is definitely off the table. i don't think you'll see background checks expanded pa

broadly to all commercial sales. there's something about that word "expansion" that rubs some of these republican senators the wrong way, even in the way they talk about the background checks that they're changing here. they talk about strengthening them, not expanding them. that appears to be off the table. the thing about raising the age limit is interesting. on the one hand, that is another thing some of the pro second amendment offends them. but we heard from mitt romney, susan collins, and heard that mitch mcconnell indicated that's the kind of thing he might be on board with. i have a hard time seeing that getting 60 plus votes in this s senate. so hiit's possible that is stil on the table. but i would be very surprised if it ends up in the final package. >> i saw your interview, trying to nail down a member of congress on why an 18-year-old needs a weapon of war. we have seen just one

embarrassing reply after another to similar questions. john thune talking about the ut need to have a weapon of war to shoot var mints and prairie dogs. senator cassidy, i believe it was, talking about the need to shoot feral pigs with a weapon of war. it's crazy. you might as well say you need land mines that you want to throw down to shoot. and then raccoons in colorado, we had another member in congress talk about that. it seems to me republicans have absolutely no good justification for putting weapons of war into 18-year-old hands. and so the question is, it's -- i'm sorry, it's a political loser if you want to talk about the majority of voters. the majority of voters, the majority of gun owners don't want 18-year-olds to be able to walk in and buy weapons of war. so the question is, why is there such a separation on background

checks and on 18-year-olds being able to buy weapons of war and then go in and gun down children, why is there such a disconnect from where the voters are and where the republicans are in the whersenate?an >> reporter: that's a great te question. this is one of t those where we see that enormous gap between what people -- what the polling tells us the american people want and what joe, i'm sure your conversations with people, my m conversations with folks when i was down inons uvalde, people e telling me they thought that the 21 limit, each at the nra convention, people thought a 21-year-old age limit for ar-15 seemed reasonable. this feels to me like one of those lik things that has becom muscle memory within the republican party. the influence of the nra has waned over time. but the language and instruction around second amendment absolutism is built in now. it's muscle memory. the idea is, if you start slipping on something like expanded background checks,

which has become kind of a linguistic boogeyman since 2013 with the manchin/toomey negotiations, you're going to , get a primary.ge we heard this from the congressman up in buffalo who talked about expanding the restrictions on buying assault-style weapons and dropped out of his race a week later. there is a huge reactionary element in the republican party, the vokes who vote in primaries and run-offs, who represent that 10%, that's the hard base of thb republican party that votes in primaries. i think it'svotes going to be extremely difficult to chip away at that, and i -- i struggle to see how it gets done in a senate that looks the way this one does. >> nbc's garrett haake. i'm just, umm, did any republican congressman from texas or senator ted cruz, did

anybody -- did they visit uvalde? i might be wrong. i'm just checking. >> reporter: well, tony gonzalez, who represents that district. ted cruz was down there briefly. john cornyn was down there, as well inwas the immediate afterh it is, by the way, a fascinating study in contrast to see how s cruz and cornyn are handling this issue differently. the two texas senators.s cornyn is all-in, leading these negotiations, and is not going to givego democratstiat everyth they want, but feels like there has to be a solution to be negotiated here.ne one of the first people that will vote against this package when it comes out will probably be ted cruz. >> there you go. thank you very much. we roll into the top headlines of the third hour of "morning joe."in >> i want to go to claire mccaskill. let's just get something out of the way right now.e this idea that you cannot standu up to the nra, which has become

considerably weaker with all the investigations and finding out they had three or four people in d.c., lobbyists that just made themselves rich. but this idea that you can't y stand up against these whack-a-doodle extreme, radical, freakish positions is just ju nonsense. we have one example after another. this buffalo guy, this buffalo h republican who came out and said he was, you know, wanted some gun safety measures implemented, and then said he was driven from office and he had to quit, that's just -- we have example after example.r just look in florida, one of the most right wing legislatures in america, after parkland, what happened? they actuallyand, passed gun sa laws. there's a congressman in a very trump district, a guy named brian mast.

after parkland, he came out aggressively for a series of gun safety laws, including, i believe, a gun -- a military-style weapons ban. he was re-elected in a breeze. wasn't even a problem. your friend, my friend, joe manchin, in west virginia, after sandy hook, he was like leading gun control efforts along with pat toomey. got re-elected easily in a state that donald trump i think had 69%. so this whole idea, they're like john thune has to talk about prairie dogs and has to talk about feral pigs and all these other members of congress have to talk about just raccoons and other nonsense, while little babies are slaughtered in s school, in schools. that's just nonsense. it's cowardice, and it's so

survivable politically to do with 90% of the people want you to do. 9 >> yeah. i'm trying to figure out where is the sport in using a high capacity magazine with an ar-15 to shoot at varmentes? my father who hunted, would havu laughed at someone doing that. that's not sport. that's ridiculous. here's the thing we haven't said enough about. the reason that cornyn is running these negotiations is es because he's acting for mitch mcconnell. i truly believe that. he is closest to mitch mcconnell. he's mitch mcconnell's lieutenant.closes m i think mitch mcconnell thinks if he gets something across the finish line, as meaningless as it might turn out to be, that is better for the republicans to take this issue off the table for the fall. so i don't think they're going to touch a lot of the stuff that matters. i'm not saying that chris murphy is not right.

we need to get something. and background checks, including juvenile records, for people wh are buying guns at a young age, is, in fact, an accomplishment. but make no mistake about it, mitch mcconnell wants something to that we're not talking about this front and center all the way to november. he knows what the polling says. and i think he's afraid of that polling in some of these states like wisconsin, ohio, florida, pennsylvania, nevada, arizona. i think he knows that he's on really shaky ground if they don't get something across the finish line. >> well, it's such a great point, claire. i'm sorry, willie. i was just going to say, it's really a great point. you look what mitch mcconnell has been saying. he's been saying dr. oz, a guy who voted in turkey the last election, i'm not sure. i think he's registered to vote in jersey. he's going to be running in the fall in pennsylvania.lv lots of luck on that one.

j.d. vance, he's tommy bennett, singing "i left my heart in san francisco" a couple of years ago. everything that he now claims to hate, there's video saying he loved it, right? he's unside down right now in the polls there. you look at herschel walker. i'm still trying to figure out what he says when he starts talking. he's going around in circles. so mitch mcconnell's horrified by donald trump's candidates. he knows he's in trouble. you add abortion and what's coming this summer with the supreme court, you look at how numbers have changed on abortion, that's a huge challenge for mitch mcconnell when it comes to women voting and moderate men. then you look at the issue of guns. they're only 12% of an 88-12 issue when it comes to background checks.

they're on the 14% side when it comes to an 86-14 issue on red flag laws. they are on the 33% side, just i like with abortion, when it comes to assault weapons. like, so, yeah, this is -- this is not good for mitch. this is not good for the republican party. this is not good for independent voters and swing voters as we say all the time. democrats have set themselves up to get absolutely wiped out this fall, but republicans are keeping them in the game. >> and there's new polling, even this morning from "usa today" m that shows republicans want to do something about guns. gun owners want to do something about guns. they believe many of those items that you justhose kicked off ar reasonable. and yet the senate doesn't seem to be willing to discuss that. just want to make one more point about crossing the nra and t sometimes your own voters. john thune, senator thune yesterday said we have to have ar-15s so ranchers can shoot

prairie dogs. he may have been concerned because he was one the ballot last night. joe, he won his primary by 52 points. so concern shouldn't have been winning his primary.in he's going to win his general election as well over a democrat. he won last time by 45 points six years ago. so number one, are you that insecure in your job that you have to talk about prairie dogs. and number two, if it's a close call, is the job that important to you that you're willing to talk about prairie dogs instead of kids in schools? you're a smart guy. if you lose the election, maybe you go become a lawyer, or you can be like the great claire mccaskill and go out and enjoy your life a little bit. there is life after the election. if you stand and do the right nd thing and say the right thing, you might lose a few votes but you might also be able to look k yourself in the mirror. >> adding to the backdrop of

this discussion on guns, and the worries that talks have stalled some, there's evidence that some progress has been made, but it's all about momentum and timing. but also could come as soon as today. supreme court decision on the new york case about concealed carry. we have heard from mayor adams, we have heard from people across the spectrum deeply worried what this may bring, that it may allow more weapons into our ea society, those hidden, they feed big cities in particular, worried about the ramifications of this. we expect a ruling on that in a matter of days.tt this one in particular would come as soon as today, adding on more awareness and more necessity, many people to get something done on guns asap. >> every issue we discuss this morning shows how divided americans are, on certain issues, or at least republicanss and democrats in washington.

so just how politically divided is the united states?st our next guests say that question is very complicated. but quantifiable. join us now, professor of political science at vanderbilt university john gear, and ph.d. candidate from vanderbilt's department of political science, mary katherine sullivan. good to have you both. our colleagues recently launched a new way to measure unity in the united states. >> you know, john, i always -- back precovid when we would go out and talk to universities and civic groups, people would always ask how divided america was. i said idwell, if you watch cab news, if you look at -- if you're online, if you go on facebook, it's very divided. but mika and i, you know, , probably talked to hundreds of groups through the years, and we say the same thing in alabama as

we say on the upper west side of new york, and people agree on the most part. they agree on like 80% of the things we talk about. we don't see that massive division. what did you find? t >> well, we found very consistent with what you just reported. the country first of all has always had some division. democracy is about adjudicating those disagreements. we've never been fully unified. and when you take a look at theh data, there's some reason for optimism. that's partly of what we're trying to do at vanderbilt is inject evidence into the e conversation about all these matters rather than relying on idealology and hyperbole. you peel back the layers, and it's a better story than you think. it's not a great story, there's been decline in the amount of unity in the last 40 years. but there are some reasons for optimism. that's what myself and mary katherine set out to figure out.

>> so mary katherine, explain how you gauged this. >> so our goal is really not to quantify the level of policy disagreement. that's kind ofcy inherent in politics. but rather speak to the extent americans have, you know, a kn shared trust and belief in our american institutions. so to do this, we aggregated data, with americans who disprove of the president, the share of americans to identify with the extremes, the level of civil unrest in that protest, the level of congressional polarization, and then the extent americans kind of report trusting one another. we can look at this data to contextualize what political unity looks like today compared to historically. >> jonathan? >> so i'm looking at that list there. i'm just looking at thatt list

and then, you know, having what joe said in the leadup to this segment ringing in my ears, if the american people, no matter the party, no matter their idealogical bend agree on 80% of things, how do we get elected te officials to reflect the -- the -- to reflect what the t people who elected them want? >> well, so this is, you know, as you were saying earlier today, part of the problem that the country faces right now is our institutions are not as representative as we might likei them to be. we know that the u.s. senate is -- tilts to the right side of the spectrum, even though the public itself is supporting more democrats. so there is arting representat problem going on. but it's also true that this country was set up for slow change. madison had a plan, and the plan was to make sure that there were lots of hurdles before anything was passed.ed

and that's going on. if you want single majority rule, the united states is not d going to be your set of institutions. but there are ways to get things done, and slowly but surely it happens. it's right now harder than it has been in the past, but we st want to be optimistic about it. and the data gives us some reasons. at the end of the day, the key thing is both paies have to see it in their electoral interest, and that's just not the case, sadly. >> claire, there's such a massive divide between where america is, if you look at this economically, if you look at us militarily, if you look at our t impact across the world culturally. if you look atd our impact technologically, if you look at what happens from silicon valley to wall street business wise, there's -- we're still a very vital nation. and yet politically, as i've been saying, sclerosis has set

in, and it's really not that complicated. in the house, you have gerrymandering. they started getting computers i to take all the republicans out of democratic districts, all the democrats out of republican districts.ri suddenly you don't have to talk to anybody. when i got there, you still had republicans and democrats moving back and forth. in the senate, you have a filibuster. 67 was too much in 1975. they said we're getting nothing done. they changed it to in60. i just got to believe if they change it to 55 perhaps, we make a couple of procedural changes, suddenly republicans and democrats have to talk to each other a lot more in washington. >> yeah, the middle has really atropied in congress, and the middle is a dominant voice in america. the problem is, it's very quiet. the extreme elements of both em parties are the loudest.

they're the ones that are the most active. they're the ones chasing algorithms online and getting fed the same information over and over again. so i would really ask the folks at vanderbilt this question -- q have you guys tried to track unity versus the gathering of information by americans? i mean, one of the things that i'm really concerned about is we can't agree on what the facts are, and everyone is in their own calcified bubble of what they're being told over and over again, the people that are the loudest in our system. have you made any effort to talk about unity in context of whether or not there's even a he set of facts that we can agree on? >> yeah, so our measure doesn't explicitly incorporate the degree to which we all share the same set of facts.f i think it's certainly true that we do see political unity declining after 1995. corresponding with the rise in cable news, and continues to

decline as social media picks up. so those -- in the lack of a shared fact is likely contributing to the really strong level of strong disapproval against the president of people identifying with the peopl political extrem. so while we don't directly measure it, i think it's there operating in the background. and certainly if we don't all agree on facts, it's going to bt hard for us to kind of come together and rely on our political system to kind of mediate our policy difference between us if we can't even agree on what the shared paths even are. >> professor of political science at vanderbilt university john gear, and ph.d. candidate from vanderbilt's department of political science, mary katherine sullivan, thank you both very much for being on this morning. claire and jonathan, thank you both, as well. great to have you on.to still ahead on "morning in joe," gas prices are one reason why some americans may not travel as much this summer.

another reason -- a shortage of airline pilots. we've got updates on both of these pressure points. plus, live reporting from capitol hill.m and the white house. ahead of tomorrow's hearings on the january 6th attack on the capitol. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. for people who are a little intense about hydration. neutrogena® hydro boost lightweight. fragrance-free. 48 hour hydration. for that healthy skin glow. neutrogena®. for people with skin. while wayfair is installing your new refrigerator and hauling away your old one. for that healthy skin glow. you're binging the latest true crime drama. while the new double oven you financed

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welcome back. gas prices are soaring, and closing in on $5 a gallon nationwide. it's not just families feeling the pinch, but also those truckers out there who keep the country running. nbc's sam brock has more. >> reporter: record gas prices are being felt across the country. but california's pace setting $6.59 an average could soon

become america's reality, with prices creeping up. john ba nia makes engineering house calls for a living. you don't have a corporate credit card, how destructive would these prices be? >> i wouldn't be able to work every day. >> reporter: the economic jolt is not felt equally. a new bank of america report found household credit card spending for fuel surged to 7.8% by the end of may, but 9.5% for families making under $50,000. >> they call it inflation, but we're the ones hurting down here, the working class. >> i work a minimum wage job, so most of my paycheck goes to gas. >> reporter: americans rocked by a double whammy. higher prices at the pump and in stores. companies like walmart and target reporting disappointing

earnings. and diesel fuel has outpaced regular gas by a wide margin. >> it always comes out of the owner/operator's pocket. fuel, maintenance, everything else. >> reporter: he owns three 18-wheelers, and transports frozen food and produce. he says he's spending $700 or $800 a week more on gas, and like many smaller truck operations has seen employees flee. >> because i can't afford to pay them what i used to pay, you know, in the past. >> that was nbc's sam brock reporting. up next, we turn from the roads to the skies. airlines are facing a number of challenges right now, including a shortage of pilots. how it could impact summer travel. next on "morning joe." can dove stop 98%

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more flights are being scrubbed these days, and it's not because of the weather. major airlines are blaming what they call a pilot shortage. nbc's tom costello reports. >> reporter: the great escape of 2022 is out of the gate. but even if you booked your summer travel months ago, beware, the airlines are struggling with staffing and scheduling. american airlines grounded 100 jets because it doesn't have the pilots to fly them. >> we're hire 2g,000 pilots this year. getting them through training is a real task. >> reporter: virtually every airline has grounded some planes or cut schedules. >> i'm deeply sorry. >> reporter: the ceo of alaska airlines saying it all came down to pilot staffing. >> simply put, we had 63 fewer

pilots than what we planned for when we built our schedule. >> reporter: the most affected airports, smaller cities, serviced by the regional airlines that have lost pilots to the big carriers. >> there's just not enough pilots. it's not a quick fix. >> reporter: what happened? during the pandemic, many pilots took early retirement and the airlines did not expect passengers to come surging back so quickly. compicaing the problem, pie rots are required to retire when they're 65, regardless of health. >> i think 65 is the new 50. >> reporter: rich has been flying for 40 years. first with the navy, then delta. he had to retire earlier this year when he turned 65. even though he felt he could keep flying. >> we are trained, we are evaluated constantly. we should be able to come back in and do the job until we physically or mentally can't do it. >> reporter: now congress may consider raising the retirement age. while republic airways wants to lower the night hour and

training requirements for new pilots. the big airlines and the unions are opposed. in the meantime, fewer pilots, fewer planes and fewer seats could be a problem that lasts through christmas, and for years to come. >> it's not going to get fixed in the next 12 months. some ceos at united are saying it's three to five years of these issues. coming up next, a full preview of tomorrow's public hearing on the investigation into the january 6th riots. the key moments that may shape the conversation, next on "morning joe." so, who's it going to be? tom?

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ahead of tomorrow's primetime hearing for the house select committee investigating the january 6th riots, we're learning new information about former president trump's actions that day. according to "the washington

post," for two weeks before his january 6th rally, trump pressured the secret service to devise a plan for him to join his supporters on a march to the capitol. the agency rebuffed that request. but then scrambled to accommodate him on the day of the rally when agents heard him suggest to supporters he would join them on the march. according to "the post," witnesses have told the january 6th committee that immediately after trump made that remark, secret service reached out to d.c. police about blocking intersections to set up a motorcade route. police officials declined because they were already stretched thin monitoring numerous protests amid the growing mob at the capitol. willie? >> meanwhile, the january 6th select committee is confirming a new witness it will call to testify during tomorrow's primetime hearing. u.s. capitol police officer car line edwards will testify in

person. she's believed to be the first law enforcement officer injured during the capitol attack. officer edwards suffered a traumatic brain injury during that riot. listen as she recalls her experience to nbc's garrett haake. >> i could sense immediately something was off. and, you know, then they approached our line. they injured me and a couple of officers by tearing down, you know, our barricade. and then the fight on the west front began. >> what sit for you that sticks in your head? >> the skroeming. -- the screaming. when somebody shows me foot an of the 6th, i have to have them turn off the sound. that sound, that screaming, that just constant -- i can't hear it. it takes me back to a very bad place. >> that's u.s. capitol police officer caroline edwards. documentary filmmaker nick quest

was confirmed to testify this week. he and his crew recorded the riot from the beginning. joining us now, congressional reporter for the guardian, hugo lowell, and former u.s. senator, now nbc news and msnbc political analyst, our friend, claire mccaskill. hugo, let me begin with you just to set the scene of what tomorrow is going to look like when people tune in, in primetime on thursday night. how will this hearing roll out? >> yeah, so according to my reporting from late last night, the way this is going to work is there's going to be a first hour where chairman bennie thompson and the vice chair liz cheney are going to make opening arguments, and then provide a road map for these hearings ahead. the second hour, they're going to get to the live witness testimony. the documentary filmmaker is going to be in the middle of the room. next to him is going to be capitol police officer caroline edwards. it's basically going to track

the footage from january 6th. they're not going to discuss or get into the video that is shot of the proud boys and the oath keepers, groups that stormed the capitol and coordinated their movements on january 5th. but they are going to go into the material that shows how the proud boys marched from the save america rally all the way to the peace monument at the base of capitol hill. they're going to focus on key moments, like when the proud boys member, joseph biggs, had a brief exchange and then altercation with another man in the crowd. and people following the capitol attack believe that is the moment that the capitol attack kind of started. that is when the bike rack barricades got pushed over and when caroline edwards got hit and knocked backwards. so it will illustrate the moments before the capitol attack. and that's the focus of the

first hearing. >> claire, there's this narrative that people have made up their mind, what you're on the right, left, whether you like donald trump or not, they've made up their minds, but the committee promised new or don't like donald trump. this committee has promised new witnesses, new information, new video, new details about the leadup to the attack on the capitol, what happened that day, what the president was doing. what do you believe is the potential impact of a part-time time hearing? >> this hearing is going to be covered by major networks in addition of course to our special coverage here. there are going to be a lot of people that watch tomorrow night that frankly are not rib rocked republicans or democrats. they're going to be folks in the suburbs who have voted for folks in both parties. can they resist the temptation

to make this like other hearings where every member is trying to grab their sound bite and lead the news that evening. i liken this to a jury trial. the american public is the jury. they have to present an opening statement that is compelling. it's got to be interesting, fast paced and tell a story that really pulls back the curtain on how the white house was enjoying what was going on. i think that's one of liz cheney's focuses. >> coming up, steve kornacki is back to break down the primary races. to break down the primary races.

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welcome back. our next guest has been praised for writing about historical stories from the world of espionage that read like thrillers. howard bloom has a new book out titled "the spy who knew too much" an excia officer's legacy of betrayal. he comes out of retirement to solve a murder and ends with a solution to one of the last great mysteries on the cold war. good morning, howard. congratulations on the book. >> thank you for having me. >> you read through this book and it's all true. you begin the book in brussels. you wrote two deaths, each with its own perplexing mysteries

wrench pete bagley from the complacency of his pleasant exile. it would be, he fully recognized, his final mission, his last chance to set straight the betrayals that had scarred not just the agency but also his own family of spies. like every old man who musters the courage to confront unfinished business, he could only hope that it was not too late. >> pete bagley was a well known cia officer. he had come under suspicion by his own agency for being a mole. he was exonerated, sent off to brussels to be the station chief, but his reputation was tarnished and he retired when the time came and he thought he

could leave the spy business. however, an event occurs which pulls him back in. on october 1978, a sailboat goes aground on the chesapeake bay. the coast guard investigates. they found bullets scattered around the deck. they go into the galley and find documents stamped "top secret." they find an electronic device which is used for communicating with satellites. ten days later, a body wrapped in 36 pounds of chains manages to surface to the chesapeake bay. the body is unrecognizable. they find the body and have it

cremated. pete bagley comes out of retirement on his own quest to put the pieces together of this mystery. >> this is all true. so where, howard, does the kgb come in and where are the threads through the cold war? >> the threats of the soviet union are the same threats happening today. the soviet union was involved in aggressive counter intelligence against the united states during the cold war and they are today. operation after operation was falling apart and the cia couldn't understand it. bagley decides this is a mole which is causing this disruption within the agency. the russians knew what cards we're holding and were able to beat us in getting things done. pete bagley goes on this quest

to come to a solution to what he recalls what caused paisley's death and whether or not was he killed or had he been working as a mole in the cia. >> it sort of is a snapshot of what was going on during the cold war. the book is called "the spy who knew too much." you've got to read the book. howard bloom, congratulations. thanks for being here. >> thank you for having me. it's the top now of the fourth hour of "morning joe." as calls grow louder for lawmakers to take action on gun safety, we are just one hour