differentiates them and him, it is going to be hard to see how this actually matters in a republican primary at this point. >> white house correspondent for "politico and co-author of "the play book" which will be in your inbox within minutes, eugene daniels, thank you, my friend. thank you for getting up "way too early" on this tuesday morning. a jam-packed "morning joe" starts right now. we were talking about it, he said, we wanted to attack iraq and so on. >> you did. >> this was done by the military and given to me. uh, i think we can probably. >> we'll have to try to -- >> declassify it. >> figure it out. >> as president, i could declassify it, but now i can't. isn't that interesting? >> that is a recording by cnn of donald trump showing off u.s.

war plans against iran, with people who were at his golf club in new jersey two years ago. we're going to have expert legal analysis on this seemingly damning piece of evidence in just a moment. it comes as the justice department will meet this week with someone who stood up against trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. trump's lawyers are also busy in new york trying to get the ex-president's hush money case moved to federal court. we'll have the latest on that. we'll also get a live report from moscow for an update on that revolt against russian president vladimir putin. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, june 27th. joe is on assignment, but willie is back. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. former press secretary and now msnbc host, jen psaki. founder of the conservative website the bulwark, charlie

sykes. a lot going on in politics, willie, but this audio tape, of course, the talk of the town so to speak. it'll be interesting to see if lawyers can put together that tape, what he's referring to, and match it with the document, the doj. >> you said it before, mika, donald trump on tape in a legal case against him. this one is pretty stunning. just weeks after donald trump pleaded not guilty to 37 felony counts related to his mishandling of classified documents, a damning audio recording appears to be the clearest evidence yet of his wrongdoing. in a leaked tape obtained by cnn, the former president seems to show off what he admits is secret information regarding america's potential plans to attack iran. according to a source, the conversation, which nbc news reported on earlier this month, took place at trump's new jersey golf club in august of 2021. there, the former president reportedly was meeting with writers who were helping his former white house chief of

staff mark meadows to write a memoir. it is unclear who the other voices are on the recording, but "the new york times" previously reported margot martin routinely taped interviews trump gave for books. here now is that recording. >> these are bad, sick people. >> that was, that was your coup, you know, against you. >> well, it started at the -- >> like, milley's talking about, oh, you were trying to do a coup. no, they were trying to do that before you were sworn in. >> that's right. >> overthrow your election. >> milley, i have to give an example, he said i wanted to attack iran. isn't it amazing? i have a big pile of papers. this thing just came up. look. this was him. they presented me this. this is off the record, but they presented me this. this was him. this was the defense department and him. >> wow. >> we looked at some.

this was him. this wasn't done by me, this was him. all sorts of stuff. pages long, look. wait a minute, let's see here. >> oh my gosh. >> yeah. >> isn't that amazing? this totally wins my case, you know. except it is, like, highly confidential. >> yeah. [ laughter ] >> this is secret information. look at this. you attack and -- >> hillary would print that out all the time, you know. private emails. >> send it to anthony weiner. >> yeah. >> the pervert. >> yeah. >> by the way, isn't that incredible? >> yeah. >> i was just saying, because we were talking about it, and he said, "he wanted to attack iran." >> you did. >> this was done by the military and given to me. uh, i think we can probably -- right? >> i don't know. we'll have to see. yeah, we'll have to try to figure out a -- >> declassify it. >> yeah. >> as president, i could have

declassified it but now i can't. >> now we have a problem. >> isn't that interesting? >> yeah. >> it's so cool. i mean, it's so -- look, her and i have -- and you probably almost didn't believe me. but now you believe me. >> no, i believed you. >> incredible, right? >> that extraordinary recording, mika, was turned over to special counsel jack smith's office before the indictment of trump earlier this month. it's not been independently obtained or verified by nbc news yet. reacting to the leak on social media last night, trump attacked the justice department, as you'd expect, claiming the tape somehow exonerates him from wrong wrongdoing. nbc news reached out to the team for comment but haven't heard back. on the tape he says, quote, it's highly confidential, then goes on to concede he no longer as a former president can declassify things. we'll talk to chuck rosenberg in a second. boy, when he talks, he talks, and it's all on tape. >> well, and we've seen him do

that in real time. joe and i especially, he loves to show off stuff and go on long tangents. >> right. >> in this case, it appears he is showing a document, and the key will be if that document perhaps can be matched up with that conversation. just overall, let's back up for a second. these people seem so -- to use the "succession" star -- there's someone serious. these people are not serious. i mean, former president trump is talking about a potential, you know, attack on iran as if it is a joke. joking with people about hillary clinton. i mean, it's painful, and we've heard this many times over, this former president in action, watching him just treat our american values, our democracy as if it was a joke. now, it's not a joke anymore for him because this could have him in very hot water. let's bring in former u.s.

attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. chuck, i just want to know overall what you make of this tape. is it damning? is it as bad as it sounds to a layman? what do you think the defense could be of this? >> it is damning, mika. let me add another factor, there's context around the document. his words in and of themselves are damning. they presented this to me. you know, it was from the military essentially. i could have declassified it when i was president. i can't now. but there's also context to it. there were people in the room. at one point, mr. trump claimed that he wasn't waving around a classified document. he said that what he was showing at that meeting were newspaper clippings or magazine articles, but people in the room saw what was in his hand. if there are classified document markings on the thing he was waving around, they can testify to it. so, yes, the words are damning, but there's more to the story

than just the words. the witnesses will put that flesh on the bone. people should understand that these documents don't live in isolation. they live in a world with other people who are seeing and talking and understanding precisely what it is he is doing. >> so, chuck, i'm just -- everybody knows trump and the way his attorneys work is, often, they don't have much of a defense, so they tangle things up and push things off, create legal delays. is there any argument to be made that our national security is at risk and that this actually needs to be accelerated? >> well, i think it will be accelerated as best they can, given that they have to work -- they, both sides in this criminal case -- have to work through a number of classified document issues, mika. but to your point, there are shifting sands here. remember right after the fbi executed a search warrant at mar-a-lago, the defense was

those documents were planted. then the defense became, i'm still reviewing those documents. they belong to me. i don't have to turn them over. then the defense was i declassify or can declassify documents in my brain. all of those things are true. >> right. >> the more stories you tell, the easier it becomes for the government at trial to prove your intent. if there was one story that was true, mika, you would tell it. when you continue to tell various stories and they change over time, i think that evinces intent. >> chuck, i don't want to put you in the position of being on donald trump's defense team, but if you could imagine it for a moment, this tape is out there to go along with everything else we know and don't know, frankly, that jack smith, the special counsel, still has in terms of evidence. how do you prepare a defense when it is right there on tape? >> you know, it's a great question, and i'm glad you didn't actually put me on -- >> i wouldn't. >> -- mr. trump's -- i appreciate that. how do you prepare a defense?

well, i think there are factual defenses that he can try at trial. some of them, however, might require him to take the stand, and that could be an uncomfortable position for mr. trump. there are legal defenses he can take a swing at. for instance, he might challenge the decision of a district court judge in the district of columbia who pierced the attorney/client privilege and permitted his own attorney to testify against him. take another swing at that. he may argue he had the authority to declassify the documents or, in fact, he did declassify these documents while he was still president. i don't think that goes anywhere. by the way, it is obviously undercut by what he says on the tape you played earlier. the fact that he lost the authority to declassify when he ceased being president. look, defense attorneys will take a swing at this factually and legally, but so far, from what i'm seeing and hearing and in the indictment i read, the government seems to have a

compelling case. >> john, the political lesson that donald trump has learned here again, has learned over the years in a short time in politics, is put your head down, call it a witch hunt, and your support will not only hold but he'll gain ground on ron desantis in this case, as we saw in the nbc news poll. so there's no indication he would seek a plea deal, would agree to anything like that. he's just going to say it was a witch hunt. i've been exonerated, and plow forward. that may catch up this time, though. >> lawyers would advise him to take the deal, but he's shown no inclination to do so. his poll numbers are only going up in a republican primary which may be a different story come a general election, were he to be the gop nominee. we should note in his truth social post last night, he didn't challenge the validity or authenticity of the tape. he took a different interpretation of it but didn't say it was fake. charlie sykes, let's turn to the politics of this. i mean, if you're, let's say, ron desantis, appearing in new hampshire today, just like trump

is, or one of the other candidates, to this point, your message has been to defend this issue. chris christie has been on the attack, but the rest have criticized jack smith instead. on tape, you have, more or less, donald trump waving papers around saying, "i'm committing a crime right now." isn't that the moment where it could be an opening for some of the republicans to change their tune? >> well, you would think so, right, but, i mean, how many potential off-ramps have they had that they passed by? you are hearing voices like chris christie and asa hutchinson and will hurd who are calling out donald trump and talking about this indictment, but the other candidates apparently have settled on the strategy of, you know, hoping that, somehow, donald trump will implode or that jack smith will take care of him. look, this will be an interesting moment. if ron desantis actually wants to win this nomination, he is going to have to eventually go at donald trump, but he's going to have to talk about donald trump's unfitness for office.

so far, he has been unwilling to do that, even though he sort of tiptoed toward it. i think this is the interesting question. does this make a difference at all? my sense is probably not, even though this tape is extraordinary. i mean, not only do you have a former president of the united states admitting maybe multiple felonies on tape, but he is laughing in a cavalier manner about sharing war plans. you would think on earth 2.0, where we have a rational political system, that this would be the definitive breaking point, but we've seen this show before. until republicans actually decide, wait, you know, this former president actually, you know, was laughing while he was giving away war plans that might have cost or might cost american lives, you have to assume it is going to be same old, same old. >> jen psaki, i'm curious, because if you look at right-wing websites or watch certain tv channels, you will hear all about hunter at the

state dinner. i mean, you will hear jim jordan going on and on and on about conspiracy theories, and you won't hear as much about this. i'm just curious, the white house obviously not going to chime in on these audio tapes or anything like that. at the same time, how does the biden white house make a distinction that cuts through to people that are being, honestly, misled? >> such a good question, mika. i don't spend too much time on right-wing websites, but i can concur with what you are saying about what's out there and the challenge the white house has right now. for them, if you're sitting in a white house right now, you're putting your head down around all of these investigations. they are not going to comment, or that is their strategy, on the specifics of any of trump's legal woes. the same thing on hunter. i think, you know, what we saw with hunter appearing at the state dinner was, in my

suspicion, was the president, his son wanted to come, so his son is going to come to the dinner. was that optically easier for the white house and the white house communications team? absolutely not. but i suspect that was more in the family circumstance of him wanting to come and the president wanting to show he loves his son and is standing by him. what i suspect, mika, as we watch this over the next couple of months is they will be very quiet for the time being, but once it gets into the middle of the campaign, they're going to have to find a way, to your point, to draw that contrast. not by commenting on the specifics of a criminal investigation or the specific ups and downs of every legal development, but by drawing the morals contrast, right? there is one president who values our national security and protects our secrets, and there's another former president candidate who doesn't. there's one who stands up for democracy and our democracy values, and there's one who doesn't. there's ways to draw the

contrast without getting into the specifics, but i think we're not going to see that for a little while. meanwhile, in the documents trial, judge aileen cannon scheduled a pretrial hearing for july 14th in the trump documents case. the hearing comes at the request of special counsel jack smith's office, which filed a motion on friday to discuss what classified information will be used in court and how. at the same time, judge cannon denied a separate request filed by smith's office. she ruled that a list of 84 potential witnesses in the prosecution of former president trump would not be kept secret. smith's office wanted the list of witnesses with whom trump is not allowed to communicate with about the case to be under seal. judge cannon stated in her order that prosecutors failed to explain why it was necessary to keep the names under wraps. chuck, what problems do you see here? also, what do you

aileen cannon's scheduling? she seems to be working at a pretty fast clip but, again, the complications come when you're dealing with classified documents and how to address those in court, but potentially keep them out of the public realm. could that slow things down? or back to my very first question, could that actually trigger an escalation because they're so serious? >> yeah, lots of good questions, mika. as to the scheduling, some of that seems to me to be aspirational, but you have to set a date and get things going. that july 14th hearing extensibly will be to begin to discuss how you can apply the classified information procedures act, a statute that permits the government and the defense to redact or substitute certain phrases in classified documents so that they can properly and sort of acceptably be made public.

but these are aspirational dates, and i expect some of it will slide. remember, the judge set an early trial date, i believe, in august, and i think there's about zero chance that that happens. there now seems to be a new trial date in december. i think there's a very small chance that that happens. i've worked with the classified information procedures act. i can assure you the government reviewed within the intelligence committee those documents it wanted to charge, so the 31 documents you see in the indictment were very likely all discussed in advance with the intelligence community. nevertheless, the classified information procedures act can be a bit cumbersome. it is not complex but it is cumbersome, and it'll take some time to work through it. you might expect, mika, to see the trial dates slide a bit. i hope the judge holds both sides to a very tight schedule. that's what this case needs. whether or not that happens remains to be seen. >> charlie sykes, we have so

much trump legal news this morning that we've only touched the tip of the iceberg. we have secret service agents testifying in the january 6th investigation. we have news out of the state of georgia. we have news in the stormy daniels case, and on and on it goes. back to the point you were making about the exit ramps republicans have had, they've had every chance, including a president taking war plans and nuclear secrets and waving them around at his beach club. those off-ramps have not been taken by most republicans, by those who believe in donald trump. should we just operate under the assumption that, in fact, all of this, all of this legal trouble makes him stronger within the primary, not in the general election? should we just assume, and it used to be a running joke, well, he can win the nomination from jail or with an ankle bracelet, is that still true? >> probably so. what we have to look for is the cumulative weight of all of this. we're also discovering that it is possible to get new information and new evidence.

jack smith has -- we don't know the full extent of jack smith's investigation. we don't know what the secret service agents have testified. we don't know what dazzling details might come out. remember how shocked everyone was when cassidy hutchinson testified? you have to assume this won't change anything, but it is one indictment after another, one drip after another, one tape after another. the testimony, is it going to break people away? will there come a moment where republicans go, do we really, really want to do this? are we going to put him in the general election ballot? we don't know at this point. to use a phrase we use way too often, this is unchartered territory. a former president who behaves this way, looking to get power back again and, yet, is facing multiple indictments, on issues that are not trivial. this mar-a-lago document case, i think a lot of people thought,

well, what is it going to be? is it going to be trivial documents, things not consequential? now, we're finding out that we're talking about actual war plans. you know, it's one thing to say that donald trump becomes stronger with every indictment, but we don't know what's coming down the pike. >> charlie sykes, thank you very much. chuck rosenberg, thank you, as well. we'll be following all of this. still ahead, as willie mentioned, we have much more on the legal trouble mounting against donald trump, including developments in the grand jury investigation out of georgia surrounding the january 6th insurrection. also, the trump hush money case in new york. it comes as the former president is expected to return to the campaign trail in new hampshire today. we'll get a live report from concord ahead of the event today. plus, the latest out of eastern europe following the short-lived rebellion in russia

over the weekend. nbc's keir simmons joins us live from moscow with a look at how russian citizens are responding. and tomorrow morning, secretary of state antony blinken will be our guest right here on "morning joe." you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

beautiful live picture of the sunrise over new york city. 6:26 here in new york as we follow the latest news out of russia following the major developments over the weekend. we're joined now live from moscow by nbc news chief international correspondent keir

simmons. keir, what's the latest there? >> reporter: willie, after those dramatic days, the kremlin clearly now trying to reestablish more traditional pop ti optics of presidential power. the russian media reporting that president putin, as we speak now, standing in front of 250,000 russian forces who helped push back the rebellion over the weekend, saying, president putin, "you helped to avert a civil war." last night, putin meeting with senior security officials, including the head of the national guard, the head of the fsb, and defense minister shoigu. shoigu, of course, yevgeny prigozhin was trying to unseat. a message there in those optics of putin showing that he still

has the same team around him, including the defense minister. then that stunning 10:00 p.m. speech last night by president putin in which he didn't once mention yevgeny prigozhin, the head of the wagner group, by name, but furiously railed against what he described as a mutiny, an attempt at bloodshed, as a crime. that very angry optical, you know, statement from president putin late last night. then i think some more kind of traditional putin politics, if you like, while he made that angry statement. at the same time this morning, we're hearing the russian government announcing that members of the wagner group will not be prosecuted. they will not be prosecuted. you know, that kind of slightly hard to read combination of trying to show strength and also some flexibility from the kremlin as they try to reassert

their control over this country. of course, willie, one of the important reasons to be here in moscow is to have the opportunity to get below that and just talk to ordinary russians. i won't try to characterize what they had to say, but let's just play for you a few examples of some of the comments we got out on the streets of moscow. how do you feel about what happened over the weekend? >> awful. >> awful? >> yeah. for me, yes. >> why? >> because i want to live in a country without this problem. my son and my family, it's abnormal, i think. >> were you worried that you would see russians fighting russians? >> yeah. worry about it. >> i think a lot of russians, they don't want the war, but, you know what? we also -- i think people should know the truth.

people on the russian side, they are also dying. >> what happens now, do you think? >> i don't know. i have no idea, actually. >> reporter: meanwhile, mika, just hearing this morning from president lukashenko of belarus who, of course, brokered that deal between the russian government, the kremlin, president putin, and prigozhin, saying if russia falls, we all die. saying that he put his forces on high alert. that was a sign of how dramatic he considered the events of the weekend to be. finally, mika, on yevgeny prigozhin, the 11-minute rant where he appeared to double down on the accusations he made, claiming that he was not trying to topple president putin but that he was trying to help, if you'd like, to demonstrate the security flaws in russia. we don't know where prigozhin is now, but i think one of the

questions will be, where are his fighters? president putin saying that they can join the russian army or they can go home to their families or they can go to belarus. many questions, i think, this morning over what happens next with prigozhin. >> absolutely. nbc's keir simmons, thank you very much. back with us now is columnist and social editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. and you can hear the trepidation in the voices of those russian citizens, kind of confused, kind of scared, not knowing really what to say. i'm still -- technically, are wagner troops being offered to stay with the russian army or leave to belarus? how in the world does that work? and what did putin's speech reveal to you? it seemed a lot shorter and a little less focused than expected. >> the speech, to me, mika, revealed that putin is angry, that he is determined now to

root out the conspiracy against him that exploded on saturday. you had troops marching on moscow, 200 kilometers from the outskirts of the city. it is also clear to me from prigozhin's statements yesterday that he believed that he had allies in the russian military, perhaps in the security services, who would allow him to move all the way to moscow. if you read his statement carefully, he says, about 200 kilometers away, suddenly, we did reconnaissance and realized there would be a bloodbath. in other words, the calvary was not coming for him. he was not going to be greeted by friends. that's what putin is going to try to figure out in the coming days. who was against me? who was plotting? who was working with prigozhin? you know, how deep did this conspiracy go? it's a way, i think, for putin, who has appeared to be weakness and more vulnerable than any of

us could have realized, to reassert some of that strength, by chasing down the conspirators. i think he will be generous to some of the wagner fighters, but i think there will be no generosity -- he may allow prigozhin himself to stay in belarus, but he's obviously looking at him furious. >> david, there's a report this morning that a plane linked to the wagner group landed in belarus. there is a sense that, unconfirmed, that prigozhin may have landed itals wanted to let this mess play out, didn't want to get in the way. now that things are calming down, at least a little bit, how is kyiv trying to take advantage of this moment with their counteroffensive? >> jonathan, you're right first, that the message from the administration over the weekend when they were really worried about command and control of nuclear weapons in russia, other

very sensitive issues like that, the message to ukraine and nato was, cool it, exercise caution. now that the crisis has passed, i think ukraine will want to exploit every opportunity to advance against a somewhat demoralized russian force. how well this force can be coordinated by its leadership, by defense minister shoigu who has been directly attacked, humiliated in prigozhin's statements by the chief of staff, similarly attacked by prigozhin. that we're going to have to wait and see. will putin need to have new commanders in the field? he'll have more credibility with his own troops. those are all questions going forward. this is a moment now that ukraine can push its counteroffensive. their basic idea has been to probe, probe, probe, then look for the areas of weakness when they find them. they have lots of troops in reserve. hit those hard. go as far as they can. i think that's what we'll see in

the next couple weeks. we'll see they'll find an opening, then they'll try to go as hard and as fast as they can. >> david, i was talking to one prominent former ambassador who expressed some suspicion about this deal that happened so quickly as it appeared the wagner group was rolling its way to moscow, was within a day of it, and suddenly stopped, agreed to a deal very quickly, sudenly brokered by the president of belarus. vladimir putin publicly forgave him, bygones will be bygones. how did this play out over the extraordinary 48 hours? do you have any suspicions of your own that maybe this was a deal that was sort of maked baked before this happened? >> i don't think it was baked before it happened. i should stress that i'm still largely guessing. the information is still so poultry, but i do think that by prigozhin's own statements, he

believed until mid-day saturday that his army could roll north. he called it the march of justice. something happened. that something was that putin had found out and organized a force of resistance that stopped him cold about 200 kilometers from moscow. and at that point, the floor fell out from under prigozhin. he had no alternative, really, but to seek the deal that his friend, aleksandr lukashenko, the head of belarus, was offering. i think putin had an interest at that point of diffusing the crisis. i wouldn't want to be writing a life insurance policy for yevgeny prigozhin today. i don't think that man is long for the world. >> i don't think so either. david, thanks for coming back on this morning. before you go, you have a new summer novella this morning debuting called "the tao of

deception." it's the first of four installments, and it is described as a fast-paced fictionalized thriller, recounting how chinese intelligence services could have shattered the cia's network of spies in china almost a decade ago. the site's paywall has been lifted so everyone can enjoy it. tell us more and any reflections on reality here. >> mika, we decided to have some fun with this. a century ago, newspapers and magazines published fiction as a regular part of their offering. we all remember reading about charles dickens' serialized novels. in this case, there is a story that's haunted me for years about how the chinese rolled up the cia's networks in china, their agents and informants, just over a decade ago in an especially brutal way. i've wanted to get to the bottom

of it. i've written a little bit of journalism about it, but i just couldn't take it any further. my editor at "the post," david shipley, suggested, why don't we see if we can explore this, tell the story in a different way through fiction, just imagining what was in the minds of the characters? i've done this. i've written 11 novels now, so this is not unfamiliar to me. but i think if readings go to the site and read this short novel, they'll see a lot that isn't written or known about how chinese intelligence works. we know everything about russian intelligence. we've all read the novels. we know carla and moscow center. we know very little about china. that's the veil i've tried to open in this short novella, "the tao of deception. ". >> i love it. "the washington post"'s david ignatius, thank you for being on again this morning. >> thanks, mika. >> a lot going on.

coming up, we're looking at attempts to rewrite history by trump's allies in congress, which our next guest, pulitzer prize winning columnist eugene robinson writes, "it would be laughable if it wasn't so serious." "morning joe" is coming right back. (vo) no matter who you are... ...being yourself can be tough when you have severe asthma. triggers can pop up out of nowhere, causing inflammation that can lead to asthma attacks. but no matter what type of severe asthma you have... ...tezspire can help. tezspire is an add-on treatment for people 12 and over... ...that proactively reduces inflammation... ...which means you could have fewer attacks, breathe better, and relieve your asthma symptoms. so you can be you, whoever you are.

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i've partnered with our gop's elise stefanik from new york, and we are going to expunge the impeachments of president trump. and i'm very glad to let you know that the speaker of the house kevin mccarthy came out in support. >> i think it is appropriate. you should expunge it. >> georgia congresswoman marjorie taylor greene and house speaker kevin mccarthy discussing new efforts to erase the two impeachments of former

president donald trump from the congressional record. joining us now, pulitzer prize winning columnist and associate editor of "the washington post," eugene robinson. gene, your latest piece is entitled, "moves to expunge trump impeachments would be laughable if not so dangerous." in it, you write in part, quote, the right-wing media echo chamber will treat the expungement as legitimate, which would make the impeachment somehow illegitimate? the nation's information gap already a canyon will further widen. for the record, expunging a presidential impeachment is not a thing. it has never been attempted because it makes no sense. both of trump's house impeachments led to trials in the senate as the constitution instructs. is the senate supposed to pretend that those trials, which ended in acquittals, never happened? what about the pages in the

congressional record that chronicled the impreachment proceedings? would they be ripped out and destroyed? sent to mar-a-lago for trump to hoard in one of his cardboard boxes with his golf shirts and newspaper clippings? i guess you can't help but to joke. because it is so ridiculous. >> yeah. >> but i have to tell you, every day, as we look at national security secrets, nuclear information, potentially stolen by a former president, and evidence of that coming up, you do have right-wing media and others claiming to be news networks, websites, all covering what they believe the equivalent is, which would be hunter biden going to the state dinner or something like that. >> yeah. >> we see legitimate, important news that is potentially critical to our country's national security being thrown

away at will by those who just don't want to consider it real. >> exactly. this is -- one of the biggest and most serious problems facing this country today and facing our democracy, in my opinion, is the information gap, is the fact that that the right-wing media ecosystem -- echo system, hunter biden is the only story worth telling, and president trump's impeachments, well, you know, they go, "maybe they happened." now, it'll be that they, in fact, never happened. it'll be an alternative universe timeline. how can we have a democracy if we can't agree on basic facts, if we can't agree on what happened, what we saw with our own eyes, on what is written in the congressional record?

it is laughable on one hand, but it threatens to widen this gap that keeps us from talking across the divide, that keeps us from moving forward as a nation. i think this just makes it that much worse. look, this has the support of the speaker of the house. it's just amazing, amazing. >> jen, when you look at just the kevin mccarthy, the speaker, given another chance to be adult in the room and say, "stop with the nonsense, let's move forward and get some legislation passed, let's do things for the people who voted us," taking a pass on that and, again, fanning the flames of this stuff that comes from the extremes of his party. i mean, we're talking about looking to the past again just as a political question. let's look back to 2020. look back at hunter biden. let's look back at all this stuff, rather than looking ahead, as the man you once

worked for, president biden, is attempting to do, even with this congress he has to deal with. >> that's right. i mean, willie, i think it is pretty clear that kevin mccarthy is motivated right now by fear. fear of losing the speakership. fear of angering the base of republicans. marjorie taylor greene, lauren boebert, whatever the collection of people from the circus wing of the party is. he is fearful of angering them and angering the trump base because he wants to hold on to the speakership. now, we don't know whether or not kevin mccarthy thinks truthfully this is the right strategy as speaker or the right thing he should be doing as speaker, because he is so motivated by that fear. it is, as eugene just said, it is startling and it is alarming. this is not what congress is elected to do. this is not what the speaker is supposed to be doing. we also know that the contrast is quite stark between kind of leading the house of representatives down a rabbit

hole of trying to expunge impeachments versus actually trying to get something done. i think what a lot of democrats are betting on, and i spoke with speaker pelosi and she is betting on this over the weekend, is that the american public is smart. they will look and think, that is chaotic and crazy, and i don't know what they're trying to do over there. i would like the people representing me to do something. we won't know until the election, but i think that's what a lot of democrats in leadership and democrats running the democratic campaign committee and certainly the biden campaign is betting on. >> "the washington post"'s eugene robinson, thank you very much for sharing your piece with us this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll look at the legal trouble for the trump aide who is accused of helping the former president hide classified documents at mar-a-lago. plus, the 2024 republican candidate for president that is seeing a solid jump in poll numbers in early voting primary states. that's all straight ahead on "morning joe."

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beautiful shot of new york city. welcome back to "morning joe." it's a few minutes before the top of the hour. time now for a quick look at some of the morning papers. we begin in florida. "the pensacola news journal" reports activists are pushing for an amendment to protect abortion access in the state. yesterday, more than $230,000 were raised during an event to support a ballot initiative for the 2024 election. the initiative aims to strike down any florida laws that delay or restrict abortion access. willie? >> "the portland press herald" has a feature on lawmakers advancing a bill to require background checks for private gun sales. the legislation passed the statehouse yesterday, but its fate in the senate remains uncertain. supporters say it'd help to

reduce gun violence and make it more difficult for criminals to get weapons. maine already requires background checks for commercial sales from licensed dealers, mika. >> in new jersey, "the record" leads with a bill to create a state office of community schools. the agency would focus on addressing student needs through community-based educational services, as well as provide family and health support. similar programs already exist in other states. >> "the dayton daily news" has a feature on the massive investment amazon web services is making in ohio. the company says it'll invest nearly $8 billion by the end of 2029 as part of an expansion of its data center operations. officials in ohio say this will lead to hundreds of new jobs in the state. amazon already is one of ohio's largest private sector employers. coming up here, new developments in the classified documents case against donald trump, including a damning, new

leaked audio recording in which the former president appears to show off secret information about u.s. war plans. plus, with trump facing another indictment in georgia potentially, nbc's julia ainsley joins us with new reporting on the grand jury investigation surrounding his role in the attack on the capitol. "morning joe" coming right back on a busy tuesday morning.

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according to the indictment, you're at bedminster in 2021 after you were no longer president, and you have a plan of attack on another country document prepared by the military when you were president. the iran attack plan, do you remember that? >> ready? it wasn't a document. >> you were recorded. >> i had lots of paper. copies of newspaper article. i had copies of magazines. >> this is specifically a quote. you're quoted on the recording saying the document was secret, adding that you could have

declassiied it while president. quote, now i can't. this is still secret, highly confidential. the indictment cites the recording and the testimony from people in the room saying you showed it to people there that day. you say tape -- >> it's just the opposite. >> -- that you can't declassify, so why have it, is my question. >> when i said i couldn't declassify it now, i wasn't president. i never made any bones about that. when i'm not president, i can't declassify. >> that's what you said. you did say that. >> i said i couldn't. >> i could have declassified it. >> there was no document. >> that was donald trump last week telling fox news that there was no classified documents mixed in with the papers he reportedly showed to people at his golf club in new jersey after he left the white house. but there is new audio that appears to undercut that claim. welcome back to "morning joe." it is tuesday, june 27th. jonathan lemire is still with

us. willie is here. joe is on assignment this morning. weeks after donald trump pleaded not guilty to 37 felony counts related to his mishandling of classified documents, a damning new audio recording appears to be the clearest evidence yet of his alleged wrongdoing. in the leaked tape which was obtained by cnn, the former president seems to show off what he admits is, quote, secret information regarding potential plans to attack iran. according to a source, the conversation, which nbc news reported on earlier this month, took place at trump's new jersey golf club in august of 2021. there, the former president was reportedly meeting with writers who were helping his former white house chief of staff mark meadows write a memoir. it is unclear who the other voices are on the recording. but "the new york times" previously reported that one aide, margot martin, routinely

taped interviews that trump gave for books. take a listen. >> these are bad, sick people. >> that was, that was your coup, you know, against you. >> well, it started right at the -- >> when milley's talking about, oh, you were trying to do a coup. no, they were trying to do that before you were even sworn in, trying to overthrow your election. >> with milley, let me see that, i'll show you an example, he said that i wanted to attack iran. isn't it amazing? i have a big pile of papers. this thing just came up. look. this was him. they presented me this -- this is off the record -- but they presented me this. this was him. this was the defense department and him. >> wow. >> we looked at some. this was him. this wasn't done by me, this was him. all sorts of stuff. pages long, look. wait a minute, let's see here.

>> oh my gosh. >> isn't that amazing? this totally wins my case, you know, except it is highly confidential, secret. [ laughter ] this is secret information. look at this, you attack -- >> hillary would print that out all the time, you know. private emails. >> she'd send it to anthony weiner. >> yeah. >> the pervert. by the way, isn't that incredible? >> yeah. >> i was just saying because we were talking about it. he said, he wanted to attack iran and what. >> you did. >> this was done by the military and given to me. uh, i think we can probably -- right? >> we'll have to see. we'll have to try to figure out a -- >> declassify it. >> yeah. >> as president, i can declassify it, but now i can't. >> now, we have a problem. >> isn't it interesting? so cool. >> yeah.

>> you probably almost didn't believe me, but now you believe me. >> i believed it. >> incredible, right? >> that recording was turned over to special counsel jack smith's office before the indictment of donald trump earlier this month. it's not been independently obtained or verified by nbc news yet. reacting on social media last night, trump attacked the justice department, claiming the tape somehow exonerates him of wrongdoing. nbc news has reached out to trump for further comment, has not heard back from his team. joining us in studio, former u.s. attorney and host of "the talking feds" podcast, harry litman. great to see you this morning. >> likewise. >> you sat and listened along with us there. what'd you hear as a prosecutor in there, beyond the obvious, is that it appears anyway, he is waving around a document that was classified, bragging about it, describing it, showing it to other people containing u.s. war plans with iran? >> he is at least waving it around. it is possible that as he says to bret baier, you know, it was just newspaper articles, but it

doesn't really matter. i heard two things. first, i heard a complete blowing out of the water of his serial claims that, you know, he couldn't -- he didn't know when he took things. it makes it clear that he knows there are rules here. his state of mind defense is really obliterated. the other thing i heard is just one more instance of his shifting defenses and his lies. that's going to mean that, to the jury, which will hear this no matter what, whether or not he testifies, and i don't think he will testify, will hear this defense -- i mean, will hear all the challenges. we knew before that this was pivotal in the doj's decision to go in for the search warrant, and now we can see why. whether true or not, he's there waving this and saying, "oh, here's a plan. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff gave me to attack iran." at that point, the naysayers and

doj were rolling and said, "yes, we've got to go in and get this stuff." >> we heard a second ago donald trump telling bret baier, quote, there was no document. well, it sounds like he is showing them a document. so we're listening to this stunning audio in a vacuum. it gets leaked out, we hear it, but, obviously, jack smith and his team are looking at it in the context of a broader case against donald trump. with that audio you heard, those two minutes, what else would you as a prosecutor, you want to hear from the people in the room, you want to interview the witnesses. as you pointed out a minute ago, whoever was going to get the cokes he asked for at the end was in the room, too. >> could be. >> where does this lead you now that you have the tape? >> first and foremost, you have this tape. the indictment already set out in 6a, the highlights of the tape, but for a prosecutor, man, there's nothing like an audio tape. so the first thing you have is is you push the button, and the jury is rapt with attention. that's number one.

obviously, what this is potentially getting at is dissemination. not only that he kept it improperly but he showed it to people. that's a more serious crime yet under the espionage act. that is robert hanson and rosenberg territory. seems to me they don't have that beyond a reasonable doubt or they would have charged it. they're using this to give the picture, which is vivid in the tape with this laughter and cavalier sense that this is a kind of guy who really doesn't care about the national security at all. it's just part of an overall picture, even though it's not the ground of a particular charge in the indictment right now. >> harry, is it interesting to you all that this happened in bedminster? i mean, is it possible that they need to check out what else is in bedminster and perhaps there is a jurisdiction in bedminster here for another indictment?

>> yeah, so it sure is. that's what everyone is speculating. i do think if they had it, they'd have brought it. my best guess, this is just a surmise as a prosecutor, is it is not quite beyond a reasonable doubt territory. they can't bring in margot martin and liz harrington and say, "oh, i saw it actually," because he just brandished it. they may be trying to develop it, you know. it's a little hard to do it with those witnesses but, yes, if they could bring a dissemination charged in new jersey, all the worries of the southern district of florida are automatically disappeared. my best sense is it's not there, at least not yet. >> there's been speculation that, you know, defense lawyers suggesting that donald trump should take a plea deal. others, no suggestion that he will. he is on truth social two minutes ago again railing against this, saying it is all nonsense. put yourself in jack smith's shoes. would you even want to offer a deal at this point? what would be the pros and cons

of some sort of agreement like that? >> it's a great question because jack smith now has responsibility for -- he is the custodian for the united states broader interest. for him, the same reason as always to have a plea deal, to just remove uncertainty and get even a lower charge here would be very serious in terms of the sentence. but the day that merrick garland appointed him was more or less the day that these broader considerations, that, for instance, were brought to bear in the nixon case, what's in the best interest of the country, and would it be just a good deal overall for him to just go away and not have to go to prison? that's not in a prosecutor's playbook. he brings charges. he's convicted of charges. the charges say ten years more unless a judge totally departs. we're now in a much more kind of inflexible, legal regime, even though if i'm joe biden, say,

who won't touch this with a 10-foot pole, you might think in those sort of broader policy-driven terms for a former president. i think now, though, it's the absolute highway of the law, no detour there. >> harry, stay with us because there is more. georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger will sit down with the doj's special counsel jack smith's team for a long-awaited interview tomorrow. the meeting was convinced to nbc news by raffensperger's office. it'll take place in atlanta and will reportedly focus on former president trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. you'll remember, trump infamously called raffensperger and asked him to, quote, find him the number of votes necessary to win georgia. >> i only need 11,000 votes. fellas, i need 11,000 votes. give me a break. so, look, all i want to do is

this. i just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state. there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, that you've recalculated. >> joining us now, "washington post"'s devlin barrett, covering national security and law enforcement, and he has new reporting on the justice department's investigation of efforts by donald trump and his advisers to overturn the 2020 election results. devlin, share with us your reporting this morning. >> well, one of the things we try to explain in this new story is how the -- what people sometimes refer to as jack smith's january 6th investigation, is actually, you know, half dozen different prongs of various things they're looking into, including the georgia piece, including things like, you know, fundraising

emails, and the reporting today shows they're also asking a lot of questions about ads that the trump campaign and other republican groups ran after the election, trying to argue that there was, you know, this massive voter fraud. what they're really digging into is the fact that a lot of the people involved in putting those ads out knew they were not true. >> devlin, where is the special counsel in this investigation? there's so much for our viewers and, frankly, for all of us to sort through at this point. we're focused on the mar-a-lago documents because of that tape this morning. but there is this parallel investigation of the events around and leading up to january 6th and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. what is your sense of where that investigation is? >> so i think a couple things. one, there's no indication that the january 6th investigation is as far along as the -- as the

mar-a-lago documents case. i also think, realistically, there are so many prongs of it that it's going to take more time to wrap those up. the other thing to keep in mind about a special counsel, the last two special counsels we've had both produced lengthy reports, not just about the things they charged but the things they didn't charge. so when you talk about a special counsel investigation, you always have to keep in mind that there is a report coming at the end of this that may deal with some of the non-criminal parts of it. >> all right. "the washington post"'s devlin barrett, thanks so much for bringing us your reporting. much, much more to come on this in the weeks and months ahead. the grand jury weighing potential charges against former president trump for his alleged role in the january 6th insurrection has met with a half dozen secret service agents. this is according to two sources familiar with their testimony. the agents appeared before the jury after receiving subpoenas. nbc news reports, while the exact content of their subpoenas and appearances is not known,

secret service agents who were close to trump on january 6th may be able to confirm, deny or provide more detail on a story first told by former aide cassidy hutchinson to the now defunct committee in congress. hutchinson told the committee she heard secondhand trump wanted secret service agents to drive to the capitol to join rioters, then attempted to grab the steering wheel and reached for the clavicles of the driver, secret service agent bobby engle. trump denied this account. spokesperson for the secret service denied to comment on this. julia ainsley who has been reporting this news now. the cassidy hutchinson report of what happened in the presidential limousine that day stands out, but what else do prosecutors want to hear from these secret service agents? >> well, they're going to want the secret service agents to tell the grand jury as much as they can about the president's

mindset that day. no one was closer to former president trump as, of course, they were in the car or the secret service agents who heard him say that he didn't want the mags. remember the security detection coming to the ellipse? anyone who could give the mindset about trump as he made decisions about what to do with former president mike pence. people close to pence as they were trying to move him out of the capitol. there is so much about that day still unknown, even after all this investigative journalism, the commitcommittees, and now w the grand jury trying to get to answers. the grand jury isn't just looking at january 6th, they're looking at a number of ways trump might have tried to interfere with the election results. in this particular instance around january 6th, the secret service knows so much. as we understand it, prosecutors actually talk to a larger group, they just chose about five or six to subpoena, to appear before the grand jury, because they thought this particular

group had the most information to give the grand jury, to get into the mindset of the former president on that day. the other thing that we still don't know, willie s a lot about the communication inside the agency leading up to january 6th. >> right. >> because, as you remember last summer we started reporting on the missing text messages. perhaps some of these agents can piece together some of those missing pieces we still don't know, both in terms of what happens happening inside the agency and within trump's inner circle that day. >> john, as julia points out, the department of homeland security inspector general announced last year all the text messages between secret agents between january 5th and january 6th were lost on those two days. the agency said it was a planned software upgrade, but obviously this will be a focus of the investigation, as well. >> no doubt. it is a reminder of how sprawling the probe is. there's all these threads we lose track of because it's so massive. julia, provide an update, if

any, about efforts to recover those messages. also, secret service, i've always been curious when the secret service agents not around donald trump that day but around mike pence, who was, of course, the vice president at the capitol, getting pressure from trump and his allies to overtrn the election. he didn't. instead, ran for his life because of the rioters breaking into the capitol. are they also going to be part of this probe? >> well, first in terms of the text messages, that investigation in itself has fallen into somewhat of a black hole because the inspector general hasn't provided updates on what he might be able to find. we know he told secret service to stop their own internal investigations while he started a criminal probe. no updates there so far. you're right, the circle around mike pence and what agents were told then will be critical. as we know, there was a critical time where pence had to decide whether or not to leave the capitol. he didn't want to leave. we're told he might have been encouraged to leave the capitol. where was that coming from? all of this will be what

prosecutors want these secret service agents to tell the grand jury. exactly who they've had testify, whether it includes bobby engle, we don't know that yet. we don't know which secret service agents have gone before the grand jury. we know those are the topics they would be interested in having the agents appear before the grand jury and share that information. i think the mike pence piece of this is critical. we've seen pence recently really have a sharp edge when he talks about what happened on january 6th and how much trump is at fault for that insurrection. to be able to get into his detail and what was going on in the room then and what those agents were told about when and how to move the vice president as things got really scary, i think that'll all be part of what they're trying to map out. it is a different task than what we saw when witnesses were called before congress where they're trying to point at how scary this day was. they want the information that could potentially lead to an indictment. >> nbc news homeland security

correspondent julia ainsley, thank you, as well, for being on this morning. then there's more. later this afternoon, attorneys for former president trump are expected to ask for his new york hush money case to be moved to federal court. trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records regarding a $130,000 payment to adult film actress stormy daniels before the 2016 election. trump's attorneys are expected to argue the charges involve things he did while he was president, making the move to federal court necessary. if the case is moved, trump's attorneys could push to have the case dismissed, arguing federal officials can't be prosecuted over actions taken in their official job capacity. harry litman, does this have legs? i mean, is this possible? >> the short answer is no, it is

unlikely. it is a little like what we saw with the stormy daniels case where he was trying to say, i was acting as president here. of course, that doesn't even coincide with his presidency. i don't think it will happen. but we're going to see this also in georgia where it is a little bit more plausible, i think, and that will, at a minimum, you always have to think about it when you think about trump, delay. that's one thing it could well achieve there. >> right. former u.s. attorney harry litman, thank you very much. we'll be listening to the latest episode of your podcast, "talking feds." we appreciate your being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," in his first public comments about the short-lived rebellion in russia over the weekend, president biden insists the u.s. and its allies had no involvement in the wagner group's mutiny attempt. we'll have the latest dwom

developments on that. plus, a new point of tension between the u.s. and china over taiwan surrounding tech manufacturing. nbc's richard engel joins us live from taipei with his reporting. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. how can you sleep on such a firm setting? gab, mine is almost the same as yours. almost is just another word for not as good as mine. the queen sleep number 360 c2 smart bed is now only $899. plus, free home delivery when you add an adjustable base. shop now only at sleep number.

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♪ ♪ cargurus. shop.buy.sell.online. situation began to develop. as it did, i directed my national security team to report to me hour by hour. i instructed them to prepare for a range of scenarios. i also convened our key allies on a zoom call to make sure we were all on the same page. it gave putin no excuse to blame this on the west or on nato. we made clear that we were not involved. we had nothing to do with it. this was part of a struggle within the russian system. no matter what happened in russia, we, the united states, will continue to support ukraine's defense and its sovereignty and its territorial

integrity. >> in his first public comments about the mutiny in russia, president biden yesterday reiterating the united states government's support and its commitment to ukraine. meanwhile, wagner head, yevgeny prigozhin, spoke yesterday for the first time since the attempted mutiny in a long audio message. prigozhin called the march of his soldiers toward moscow a protest rather than a rebellion. prigozhin says his wagner mercenary group did not have the goal of toppling the regime, and it turned around in order to avoid bloodshed. joining us live from taipei, taiwan, nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel. richard, want to get to your new reporting on the ground there. big developments in east asia. first, you've covered this war so closely. you know russia so well. what do you make of the fallout from the wagner group's short-lived rebellion, how aggressive it was, how quickly it ended, and the comments from both prigozhin and now, this

morning, from vladimir putin? >> reporter: so it's not entirely clear that it has ended. what we're seeing now are the two sides trying to write history, trying to shape the narrative. you mentioned that long statement from yevgeny prigozhin. he was outlining why he took this action. he said that his fighters, the roughly 25,000 or so wagner troops who have been fighting inside ukraine, many of them convicts who have been given a deal, fight on the front line and if you survive, you get a pardon. he said that they had no choice but to rebel because they were being used as cannon fodder. they were being mistreated by the ministry of defense. ultimately, they were given an order to disband and be forced to be absorbed by the ministry of defense. he said, why should we disband and join an incompetent force

unable to conquer ukraine? we were having success. if we had been in charge, we would have won the war. he said that they were marching to moscow to prove a point, that russia has no security, that russia is being led by a bunch of ineffective generals, and that -- he said once he proved the point and got close to moscow, he stopped. putin, even a short while ago, is saying something totally different. he is saying it was a criminal insurrection, that it was no big deal, that he didn't have to bring any of his forces out of ukraine to stop this insurrection, and the security services were able to quickly brush this off and, now, peace, security and law and order have been restored. putin's air of invincibility has been punctured, and this is a pivotal moment for the future of putin's regime. if you are a dictator, you have one responsibility, and that is

to provide stability for the elites around you. the elites who depend on you to keep their power, to keep their money, to keep their privileges. it seems like many of those elites now are having doubts, which is why putin is going to great lengths to say that he is still in charge, that this was no big deal, even though prigozhin is continuing to try to paint a different narrative. so this is not a -- i don't think this is quite over yet. >> it was the ease with which the wagner group strolled into some of the key, strategic cities of russia that surprised so many people, and probably putin himself. richard, what is your sense of how this impacts the war in ukraine, if it does at all? we just heard president biden yesterday saying that the united states remains committed to ukraine, that it had nothing to do with the wagner group's operation inside of russia. how does this touch the war in ukraine? what does it mean there? >> reporter: well, a very senior

ukrainian official told me as this was happening that it was too good to be true. now, you have 25,000 of the most battle hardened forces removed from the battlefield. you have confusion within the ranks of the military establishment. you have doubts about vladimir putin. so this is an enormous shot in the arm, an enormous advantage for this new offensive which is being launched right now. an offensive that has been having a difficult start. i spoke not long ago with the president of ukraine. president zelenskyy, in the interview, was clearly discouraged about how the offensive, which is only two weeks old right now, was going. to have this offensive under way and have your enemy fighting among themselves is a perfect scenario for ukraine. >> richard, stay with us. we want to get to your reporting on taiwan where you are this morning. but joining us now,

correspondent for yahoo! news, michael weiss, also a contributing editor at "new lines magazine." his piece is titled, "what the hell just happened in russia?" getting to the point. interviewed a senior analyst tracking russia's military affairs. what'd you learn, michael? >> thanks for having me on. this analyst we called carl, because he asked for anonymity for various reasons, is as confused as i am. he's not buying this idea that prigozhin and others are floating, that this was simply a mutiny to make a point, a protest if you like. one of the things that happened in the course of this 24 to 48-hour period was wagner shut down six aircraft. five were helicopters, including elite helicopters and another transport plane, killing probably over two dozen pilots and crew. the russian air force has taken

significant losses in this demonstration of political protest. the other thing that carl mentioned is why come within 120 miles of moscow only to turn around and go home? if you wanted to make a real point through mutiny, taking the entire city of rostov-on-don, which is the headquarters of the southern military district, the military command for russia's war as it is prosecuted in the quote, unquote, five territories it's claimed, including crimea, doing that would have been sufficient. there's a lot here we simply do not know, including, by the way, the fate of wagner. the government says they're disbanding them, but reporting i've seen shows they have plenty of weapons and they're still recruiting mercenaries. >> michael, it's jonathan. let's talk about how ukraine might be able to take advantage. you're so plugged in with what's happening over there in kyiv. as richard noted, the

counteroffensive off to a sluggish start by zelenskyy's admission, but it's early stages. they said this would be slower than what we saw last year. what's the sense as to how they think they can press their advantage with, frankly, russia in disarray? >> if wagner is taken off the chess board completely, as richard said, this is the shot in the arm. this is the elite. the head of military intelligence in ukraine says, these are the only real combat experienced fighters we face. the rest of the russian military he holds in as much disdain and contempt as wagner does, right? if that's the best-case scenario for ukraine, i'd expect to see better gains in the counteroffensive going forward. let's assume they're not completely taken off the chess board. if some of the guys are incorporated into the conventional or regular russian military units, you're still having this fifth column of people who are fanatically loyal

to prigozhin. i've seen evidence they refer to him as dad or father. it is almost operating like a cult. if wagner is going to be blended into the larger war effort, russia faces a threat from its enemy in ukraine, the ukrainian army, but also from within. i'm still very, very curious to see how putin tries to put a lid on this situation. which, by the way, only eruped because of his own stupidity. he created or allowed this mercenary core to be created. they're gone in ukraine, syria, all over africa, committing atrocities. now, he'll face this as an insurgency at home? good luck to him. >> framing it somehow as a victory for his troops in the speech a few minutes ago. senior correspondent for yahoo! news, michael weiss, thank you for putting this into richard, taipei. surging semiconductor chip industry, what it could mean for the relationship between china

and the united states. what are you finding there? >> reporter: so we were here reporting on the semiconductor industry and how important it is to the world, how important it is to national security, to a.i., when, suddenly, events overtook the news cycle in russia. but it does not mean that this story is any less important. when you come here and you speak to tech officials in this country, you realize how central taiwan is to our daily lives. they dominate the semiconductor industry in a massive way, in a way that probably most americans don't realize. they make about 60% of the world's semiconductors and 93% of the most advanced semiconductors that are important for medical devices, gps, artificial intelligence. 93% is near total dominance of

this essential sector. they are so far ahead, according to several industry experts we spoke to, even though the united states is investing heavily to build factories and to catch up, it appears they are about ten years behind. that is why people here in taiwan, industry experts, are nervous about tensions between the united states and beijing. because beijing considers taiwan part of china, a part of china that will one day be returned to mainland china. this industry feels threatened. it does not want to be caught in a tug-of-war between china and the united states when it has this world-dominating capacity being produced on this island. >> the hope is, because we, china and the world rely on so much of what taiwan produce, it doesn't want to disrupt things there. see if it plays out that way. richard engel covering a lot of

ground today in taipei, taiwan, thanks, as always. up next, an update on the extreme, dangerous heat hitting parts of the south. plus, a lingering impact of the pandemic. test scores for some students now are at 50 year lows. we'll look at how this happened and what can be done to reverse that troubling trend. that's ahead on "morning joe." power e*trade's award-winning trading app makes trading easier. with its customizable options chain, easy-to-use tools and paper trading to help sharpen your skills, you can stay on top of the market from wherever you are. e*trade from morgan stanley. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools make complex trading less complicated. custom scans help you find new trading opportunities, while an earnings tool helps you plan your trades and stay on top of the market.

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it's hot in dallas. live look there as a record breaking heat wave is entering its third week in texas. temperatures hitting triple digits across the south. this as the northeast faces severe storms.

nbc news correspondent sam brock has more. >> reporter: this morning, a stretch of destructive storms slamming the east coast, from the carolinas to the northeast. >> holy [ bleep ]. branches are falling off the trees right now. >> reporter: in pennsylvania, heavy rain prompting flash flood alerts. while hail reaching over an inch in diameter rattling towns, including this neighborhood in virginia. down south, the problem is the sweltering heat, a dangerous heat dome now stretching across the region. excessive heat alerts are impacting some 49 million people across 13 states. at the center of the dome, texas, where many cities are sweating through their third straight week of unrelenting and, in some cases, record-breaking heat. >> i've been here for, what, since i was in elementary school, and it's never been this bad. >> reporter: ercot, the power grid operator, forecasting

uncharted territory again today, but saying grid conditions are expected to be normal. officials urging residents to cut back on power usage and to go outside during the coolest hours of the day. >> we expect heat and humidity to continue in the triple digits throughout this week. >> reporter: meanwhile, six tornadoes have been reported in wyoming, while this scary looking rope tornado touching down in rural nebraska. this trifecta of brutal conditions, rain, wind and heat, causing misery coast to coast. >> nbc's sam brock reporting. up next, a conversation on the pandemic's impact on education. what can be done to recover the time that students lost in the classroom? we'll be joined by a reporter for pro publica, who detailed a virginia school's approach to the learning loss debate. "morning joe" will be right back.

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a new report is showing that test scores for 13-year-olds in reading and math are plummeting nationwide. according to the report, the average math score for that age group is down 9 points from 2019, while reading scores are down 4 points, as well. this comes as students, teachers and educators continue to grapple with the fallout of how covid-19 severely impacted classrooms all over the world. joining us now, senior reporter for "pro publica," alec mcgillis. his reporting sheds light on one virginia community that is grappling with this. you're looking at richmond. i'm curious if you could give us the lay of the land there. first of all, how severe is the learning loss? can you characterize that more for us?

what are the options they're looking at? >> their learning loss there was especially severe, in fact. they were closed the entirety of the 2021 school year, so the longest closure in the entire state of virginia. one of the longest in the entire country. the kids there did not get back for 18 months. they and not surprisingly even more there than other cities around the country. there's a pretty strong correlation between the length of school building closures in that 2020-2021 school year and the losses. they're aware of this. what they did was add instructional time to the year to make up that lost time, which a lot of researchers say is the best possible solution, to add back more time, whether a longer school day, which is tricky because teachers get

understandably burned out at the end of the day, or into the calendar, somehow shrinking the summer vacation, adding days for at least some student who is need it most. that was the big debate they were having in the last two years. >> so, school would continue year-round? have they made a decision? is the debate slowing things down? >> what happened there, it was a really drawn out debate, and the very ambitious plan to have the entire city switch to a full-year calendar was blocked. it ran aground. what they now are left with are two schools starting early, late july, 20 days early, two schools, 1,000 kids will be getting these added 20 days. it will be very interesting to see what they can do with it. the principals at those schools are very gung ho to make this work, to rally the school community, the deeper who is will get paid extra, and the

students' families around this plan. and it's really one of the most ambitious things happening in the country right now. >> alex, good morning. so we're talking about some solutions to a big problem here. as you report this story out, you go back to the sources of the problem. is there an acknowledgment among teachers that schools were closed way too long, much longer than they needed to be, much longer than the science told us they needed to be and that that caused a lot of what we're seeing now? >> there definitely a growing acknowledgment now. you're seeing more and more people talking about this. but i do believe there's some left to be confronted directly, and i believe that's one reason we're seeing a lack of urgency around the country in dealing with a tremendous learning loss. one cannot overstate this.

this will affect students' lives forever. this will affect the students and the communities in which they live for decades. the fact there's not more of an all hands on deck just all-out attempt to try to deal with this nationwide is worrisome. there's a complacency that has set in. i believe one reason for that is there's still a reluctance to confront and reckon with the initial decisions that led us to this point. even if there's still, you know, some debate over that, the fact is we're now facing this tremendous problem and we need to be doing more for it. >> talk to us about those who have been hardest hit. whether it be genders or income levels or races, which xhuptds have really suffered the biggest toll from this learning loss? >> the numbers are so clear. the effect is so racially disproportionate.

we have been closing the achievement gap over thedecades. we've been making progress. this was not a lost cause. in the last couple years, that gap has just exploded. it's gotten so much wider. the researchers looked at the gap and are stunned on how big it's gotten. it's students like those in richmond, which is a heavily african american district that -- and students like the ones at the school that i focused on, which is entirely basically black school that are really suffering the most. it's heartbreaking to see the gains we've made over the years just fade away. i heard one to rchblger talking about her own son, who was hop hoping to be an engineer, to school closed for a year and a half, when he got to college he

felt completely overwhelmed by math and dropped out of engineering. we're going to see those effects all around the country, millions of kids. >> it is a tragedy. as you point out in your report, it's the disanged students who can least afford to lose all this time. can you speak to the trend we had in this country for generations of upward progress and why this learning loss that we're see now, why is it is so stunning and staggering to so many people, because it remits such a change from the direction we old been going in? >> it does represent change. another important factor is there had been one interesting shift in our political debate even before the pandemic where there'd always been emphasis on equity and closing that gap, and that was all around test scores, of course, standard iced test scores were the basis of the discussion of that gap. even before the pandemic, there

had been a growing hesitancy around using test scores and sort of upholding certain standards for all students. there had been somewhat of a shift especially on the left of sort of ambivalence about the testing, about our emphasis on the numbers. and so now as we move into this post-pandemic movement, that whole ambivalence is growing stronger. one of the things you hear from people downplaying these terrible numbers is well, you know, to standardized tests aren't the greatest measurements of achievement anyway, they're biased, there are other ways for kids to learn, we shouldn't be too worried about these numbers. that's a pretty striking shift, especially among democrats, among, you know, sort of american liberals who cared a whole lot about equity in schools. you're know now seeing not as much of a worry about this to

these incredible new gaps as one might expect. there's much more talk about culture war issues and what not. this issue is the one with the real consequences. >> senior reporter for propublica, alec mcgillis. thank you for your reporting this morning. really important. we appreciate it. still ahead on "morning joe," much more on our top story of the morning. a new audio recording has surfaced in which former president trump appears to discuss classified documents with people who did not have security clearance. we'll get legal analysis and discuss what it could mean for special counsel jack smift's case. moderate to severe eczema

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we moved out of the city so our little sophie whose resumes on indeed could appreciate nature. but then he got us t-mobile home internet. i was just trying to improve our signal, so some of the trees had to go. i might've taken it a step too far. (chainsaw revs) (tree crashes) (chainsaw continues) (daughter screams) let's pretend for a second that you

didn't let down your entire family. what would that reality look like? well i guess i would've gotten us xfinity... and we'd have a better view. do you need mulch? what, we have a ton of mulch. that is part of a recording obtained by cnn of donald trump reportedly showing off u.s. war plans against iran with people who were at his golf club in new jersey two years ago.

we're going to have expert legal analysis on this seemingly damning piece of evidence in just a moment. it comes as the justice department will meet this week with someone who stood up against trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. trump's lawyers are also busy in new york, trying to get the ex-president's hush-money case moved to federal court. we'll have the latest on that. we'll also get a live report from moscow for an update on that revolt against russian president vladimir putin. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is tuesday, june 27th. joe is on assignment, but willie is back. with us, we have the host of "way too early," jonathan lemire. former white house press secretary now msnbc host, jen psaki, and founder of the conservative website the bulwark, charlie sikes. a lot going on, willie.

this tape is the talk of the town. it will be interesting to see if lawyers can put together that tape, what he's referring to, and match it with a document, the doj. >> we've cede it before, mika, donald trump on tape in a legal case against him. this one is pretty stunning. just weeks after he pled not guilty to 37 felony counts related to his mishandling of classified documents, this damning audio recording appears to be the latest yet. in a leak obtained by cnn, the former president seems to show off what he admits is, quote, secret information regarding america's potential plans to attack iran. according to a source, the conversation, which nbc news reported on earlier this month, took place at trump's new jersey golf club in august of 2021. there the former president reportedly was meeting with writers who were helping his former white house chief of staff mark meadows to write a memoir. it's unclear who the other

voices are on this recording, but "the new york times" previously reported one aide, margo martin, repeat lid trumped interviews trump gave for books. here is that recording.

>> so, that extraordinary recording, mika, was turned over to special counsel jack smith's office before the indictment of trump earlier this month. it has not been independently obtained by msnbc news yet. he attacked the justice department claiming the tape somehow exonerating him from wrongdoing. >> okay. >> nbc news has reached out to the trump team for further comment, but we have not heard back. he says on the tape, quote, it's highly confidential, then goes on to concede he no longer as a former president can declassify things. we'll talk to chose rosenberg in a second, but boy, when he talk, he talks, and it's all on tame. >> we've seen him do that in real time. joe and i especially. he loves to show off stuff and kind of go on long tangents.

and in this case, i want appears he's showing a document, and the key will be if that document perhaps can be matched up with that conversation. but just overall, let's back up for a second, these people seem so -- to use succession star -- there's so unserious. these people are not serious. former president trump is talking about a potential, you know, attack on iran as if it's a joke, joking with people about hillary clinton. i mean, it's painful, and we've heard this many times over, this former president in action watching him just treat our american values, our democracy, as if it was a joke. and now it's not a joke anymore for him because this could have him in very hot water. let's bring in former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. chuck, i just want to know overall what you make of this

tame. is it damning? is it as bad as it sounds to a layman? and what do you think the defense could be of this? >> it is damning, mika. and let me add another factor. there's context around the document. his words in and of themselves are damning. they presented this to me, you know, it feels from the military, essentially. i could have declassified it when i was president, i can't now. but there's also context to it. there were people in the room. at one point mr. trump claimed that he wasn't waving around a classified document. he said what he was showing at that meeting were newspaper clippings or magazine articles. but people in the room saw what was in his hand, and if there are classified document markings on the thing he was waving around, they can testify to it. so, yes, the words are damning. but there's more to the story than just the words to, and the witnesses will put that flesh on the bone.

people should understand that these documents don't live in isolation, they live in a world with other people who are seeing and talking and understanding precisely what it is he's doing. >> so, chuck, i'm just -- everyone who knows trump and the way his attorneys work is often they don't have much of a defense so they tangle things up and push things off, create legal delays. is there any argument to be made that our national security is at risk and that this actually needs to be accelerated? >> well, i think it will be accelerated as best they can given that they have to work, they, both sides in this criminal case, have to work through a number of classified document issues, but to your point, there are shifting sands here. right after the fbi executed a search warrant at lak, the defense was those documents were planted.

then the defense became i'm still reviewing those documents, they belong to me, i don't have to turn them over, then the defense was i can declassify documents in my brain. >> right. >> all those things are true. and the more stories you tell, the easier it becomes for the government at trial to prove your intent. if there was one story that was true, mika, you would tell it. when you continue to tell various stories and they change over time, i think that evinces intent. >> so, chuck, i don't want to put you in the position of being on donald trump's defense team, but if you can imagine it for a moment, this tape is out there to go along with everything else we know and we don't know, jack smith, the special counsel, still has in terms of evidence. how do you prepare a defense when it's right there on tape? >> it's a great question. i'm glad you didn't actually put me on mr. trump's -- i appreciate that. how do you prepare a defense? i think there are fact chum defenses that he can try at trial. some of them, however, might

require him to take the stand, and that could be an uncomfortable position for mr. trump. then there are legal defenses that he can take a swing at. for instance, he might challenge the decision of a district court judge in the district of columbia who pierced the attorney/client privilege and permitted his own attorney to testify against him. you take another swing at that. he may argue he had the authority to declassify these documents whether or not he did, in fact, declassify these documents while he was still president. i don't think that goals anywhere. by the way, it is obviously undercut by what he says on the tape you played earlier. the fact he lost the authority to declassify it when he seelsed being president. so, look, defense attorneys will take a swing at this factually and legally, but from what i'm seeing and hearing in the indictment i read, the government seems to have a compelling case. >> the political lesson donald trump has learned again over the

years is just put your head down, call it a witch-hunt, and your support will not only hold, but he'll gain ground on ron desantis in this case as we saw in that nbc news poll. so there's no indication he would seek a plea deal, he would agree to anything like that. he's just going to say it was a witch-hunt, i've been exonerated, and blow forward. that may catch up to him this time though. >> a lot of lawyers advised him to take that deal. he's shown no inclination to do so -- so. his poll numbers are still going up. in his truth social post last night, he didn't challenge the validity or authenticity of the tape. he took a different interation of it but didn't say it was fake. charlie sikes, if you're ron desantis, who's appearing in new hampshire today, just like trump is, or one of the other candidates, to this point your message has been basically defend trump on this issue.

set aside chris christie. the rest have largely defended trump and criticized jack smith. but here you have on trump more or less donald trump waving papers around saying i'm committing a crime right now. isn't that the moment where it could be an opening for some of these republicans to change their tune? >> well, you would think so, right, but how many potential off-ramps have they had that they passed by. you were hearing voices like chris christie and asa hutchinson and will heard, who are calling out donald trump and talking about this indictment. but the other candidates have set on a strategy that hopefully donald trump will implode or jack smith will take care of him. if december dels-- ron desantis wants to win, he'll have to go after donald trump and talk about his unfitness for office. so far he's been unwilling to do that, even though he's sort of

tiptoed toward it. does this make a difference at all? my sense is probably not, although this tape is extraordinary. not only do you have a former president of the united states revealing multiple felonies on tape but he's laughing about sharing war plans. you would think on earth 2.0 that this would be the definitive breaking point. but we've seen this show before. so until republicans actually decide wait, this former president actually was laughing while he was giving away war plans that might have cost or might cost american lives, you have to assume it's going to be same old same old. >> jen psaki, i'm curious, because if you look at right-wing websites or watch certain tv channels, you will hear all about hunter at the state dinner. >> mm-hmm. >> you'll hear jim jordan going

on and on about conspiracy sheerries, and you won't hear as much about this. i'm curious, the white house obviously not going to chime in on these audiotapes or anything like that, but at the same time, how does -- how does the biden white house make a distinction that cuts through to people that are being honestly misled? >> such a good question, mika. i don't spend too much time on right-wing websites, but i completely concur with what you're saying about what's out there and the challenge the white house has right now. for them, if you're sitting in the white house right now, you're putting your held down against all of these investigations. they're not going to xhoent, orb that is their strategy, on the specifics of any of trump's legal woes. and the same thing on hunter. what we saw with hunter appearing at the state dinner was, in my suspicion, was the president, his son wanted to come so his son is coming to the

dinner. was that optically easier for the white house and the communications team? absolutely not. but i suspect that was more in the family circumstance of him wanting to come and wanting to just -- the president wanting to show that he loves his son and he's standing by him. what i suspect, mika, as we watch this over the next couple of months, is there v they will be very quieter for the time being, but once it gets into the middle of the campaign, they're going to have to find a way, to your point, to draw that contrast, not by commenting on the specifics of a criminal investigation or the specific ups and downings of every legal development but by drawing the morals and the values contrast, right, of there's one president who values our national security and protects our secrets and another former president who doesn't. there's one who stands up for democracy and our democratic values, and there's one who doesn't. there's ways to draw the contrast without getting into the specifics. but i think we're not going to she that for a little while.

>> meanwhile, in the documents trial, judge aileen cannon has scheduled a new pretrial hearing for july 14th in the trump documents case. the hearing comes at the request of special counsel jack smith's office, which filed the motion on friday to discuss what classified information will be used in court and how. at the same time, judge cannon denied a separate request filed by smith's office. she ruled that a list of to 84 potential witnesses in the prosecution of former president trump would not be kept secret. smith's office wanted the list of witnesses with whom trump is not allowed to communicate about with the case, to be kept under seal. judge cannon stated in her order that prosecutors failed to explain why it was necessary to keep the names under wraps. chuck, what problems do you see here? and also what do you make of judge aileen cannon's scheduling? she seems to be working at a

pretty fast clip. but, again, the complications come when you're dealing with classified documents and how to ctually address those in court but potentially keep them out of the public realm. could that slow thing downs? or back to my first question -- could that actually treger an escalation because they're so serious? >> lots of good questions, mika. as to the scheduling, some seems to be to be aspirational, but you have to set a date and get things going. that july 14th hearing ostensibly will be to begin to discuss how you can apply the classified information procedures act, a statute that permits the government and the defendant to redact or substitute certain phrases and classified documents so that they can properly and soft of acceptably be made public. but these are aspirational dates, and i expect some of it's going to slide.

remember, the judge set an early trial date, i believe in august, and i think there's about zero chance that happens. there seems to be a new trial date in december, and i think there's a very small chance that that happens. i've worked with the classified information procedures act. i can assure you the government in this case reviewed within the intelligence community, those documents in the indictment, with discussed with the intelligence community. nevertheless, the classified procedures act can be cumbersome. it's not complex but cumbersome. it will take some time to work through it. you might expect to see those trial dates slide a bit. i hope the judge holds both sides to a tight schedule. that's what this case needs. whether or not that happens remains to be seen. >> charlie, we have so much trump legal news this morning that we've only touched the tip of the iceberg.

we have secret service agents testifying in the january 6th case, news in the stormy daniels case, and on and on. back to the point you made about the exit ramps republicans have had, they've had every chance including a president taking war plans and nuclear secrets and waving them around at his beach club. andoff-ramps have not been taken. should we operate under the assumption that in fact all of this legal trouble makes him stronger within the primary, not in the general election? should we assume he can win nomination from prison with a bracelet around his ankle, that that's probably true? >> probably so. what we have to look for is the consumer la tich weight of all this. we're also discovering it is possible to get new information and new evidence. jack smith, we don't know the

full extent of his investigation. we don't know to what the secret service agents have testified. remember how shocked everybody was when cassidy hutchinson testified? so, you have to assume that this is not to going to the change anything, but, you know, it is one indictment after another, one drip after another, one tame after another. the testimony, will there come a moment where republican voters go, do we really want to do this? are we going to put him on the general election ballot? this is really uncharted territory. we are dealing every day with something that is absolutely unprecedented. a former president who's behaved this way who's looking to get power back again and yet is facing multiple indictments on issues that are not trivial. this mar-a-lago document case, a lot of people thought what is it

going to be, trivial documents, things that are not consequential? now they're finding out we're talking about actual war plans. it's one thing to say that donald trump becomes strong with every indictment, but we don't know what's coming down the pike. coming up, the latest on the fallout after the short-lived rebellion in russia. keir simmons joins us from moscow.

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as we continue to the follow the latest news out of russia following those major developments over the weekend, we're joined now live from moscow by nbc news chief international correspondent keir simmons. keir, what's the latest there? >> reporter: willie, one of those dramatic days, the kremlin clearly trying to re-establish more traditional optics of

presidential power, so to russian media reporting president putin as we speak standing in front of 2,500 russian security forces who helped to push back on that rebellion over the weekend and telling them that -- saying to them, president putin, you helped to avert a civil war. late into the night last night president putin meeting with senior security officials including the head of the national guard, the head of the fsb, and defense minister shoigu, who, of course, yevgeny prigozhin was trying to unseat, so a peszmessage in those optic putin showing he still has the same team around him, including the defense minister, and then that stunning 10:00 p.m. speech last night by president putin, in which he didn't once mention

yevgeny prigozhin, the held of the wagner group, by name. but furiously railed against what he described as a mutiny attempt at bloodshed, as crime. so that big opt cal statement from president putin late last night. then i think some more kind of traditional putin politics, if you like, while he made the angry statement, at the same time this morning we're hearing the russian government announcing that members of the wagner group will not be prosecuted, they will not be prosecuted. so that kind of slightly hard to read combination of trying to show strength and also some flexibility from the kremlin as they try and reassert their control over this country. and of course, willie, one of the important reasons to be here in mos to ku is to have the opportunity to get below that, and to ordinary russians.

i won't try to characterize what they had to say, but let also play a few examples of some of the comments we got out in the streets in moscow. how do you feel about what happened over the weekend? >> awful. >> reporter: awful? >> awful, for me, yes. >> reporter: why? >> because i want to live in a country without this problem. my son and my family. it's not normal. >> reporter: were you worried that you would see russians fighting russians? >> yeah. i worry. i worry about this. >> i think people should know the truth. people on russian side, they also dying. >> reporter: what happens now, do you think? >> i don't know. i have no idea, actually. >> reporter: meanwhile, mika, just hearing this morning from president lukashenko of belarus, who of course brokered that deal between the russian government,

the kremlin, president putin and prigozhin, saying that if russia falls, we all die, saying that he put his forces on high alert. that was a sign of how dramatic he considered the events of the weekend to be. and then just finally, mika, yevgeny prigozhin, that extraordinary 11-minute rant yesterday in which he appeared to double down on some of the accusations he had made, claiming he was not trying to topple president putin but that he was trying to help, if you like, to demonstrate the security flaws in russia. well, we don't know where prigozhin is now, but i think one of the questions will be where are his fighters. president putin saying that they can join the russian army or they can go with their families or they can go to belarus. many questions i think this morning over what happens next with prigozhin. >> absolutely. nbc's keir simmons, thank you very much.

back with us now is columnist and associate editor for the washington post, david ignatius. and you could hear the trepidation in the voice ls of those russian citizen, kind of confused, kind of scared, not knowing really what to say. i'm still -- technically are wagner troops being offered to stay with the russian army or leave to belarus? how in the world does that work? and what did putin's speech reveal to you? it seemed a lot shorter and a little less focussed than expected. >> the speech to me, mika, revealed that putin is angry and is determined to root out the conspiracy against him that exploded. on saturday, you had troops marching on moscow, 200 kilometers from the outskirts of the city. it's also clear to me from prigozhin's statements yesterday that he believed that he had

allies in the russian military, perhaps in the security services, who would allow him to move all the l way to moscow. if you read his statement carefully, he says about 200 kilometers away, suddenly we did reconnaissance and realized there would be a bloodbath. in other words, the cavalry was not coming for him. he was not going to be greeted by friends. that's what putin is going to try to figure out in the coming days. who was against me, who was plot toing, who was working with prigozhin, you know, how deep did this conspiracy go. it's a way i think, for putin, who has appeared to be weaker and more vulnerable than any of us could have realized, to reassert some of that strength by chasing down the conspirators. i think he will be generous to some of the wagner fighters, but i think there will be no generosity. they allow prigozhin himself to stay in bell arules, but he's obviously looking furious.

>> a claim that he may have made that trip. over the weekend, as this was unfolding, washington held its tongue, and european capitals wanting to let this mess play out without getting in the way. things are seemingly calming down there. what's your reporting telling you as to how kyiv is trying to take advantage of this moment with this counteroffensive? >> jonathan, you're right, the message from the president over the weekend, the message to nato and to ukraine was, cool it. be careful. exercise caution. now that the crisis has passed, i think ukraine is going to want to exploit every opportunity to advance against a somewhat demoralized russian force. how well this force can be coordinated by its leadership,

by defense minister shoigu, who's been directly attacked, humiliated, really, in prigozhin's statements, by the chief of staff, similarly attacked by prigozhin. that we'll have to wait and see. will putin need to have new commanders in the field? he'll have more credibility with his own troops. those are all questions going forward. this is a moment now that ukraine can push its counteroffensive. their basic idea has been to probe, probe, probe, then look for the areas of weakness. when they find them, they have lots of troops in reserve. hit those hard. go as far as they can. i think that's what we'll see in the next couple weeks. v they'll find an opening and they'll try to go as hard and fast as they can. >> david, i was talking to one prominent former ambassador who expressed some suspicion about this deal that happened so quickly, as it appeared the wagner group was rolling its way to moscow, was within a day of

it, suddenly stopped, agreed to a deal brokered by belarus, vladimir putin publicly forgave him. what are you hearing about how this all played out over those extraordinary 48 hours? and do you have any suspicions of your own that maybe this was a deal that sort of baked before all this happened? >> i don't think it was baked before it happened. i should stress that i'm still largely guessing the information is still so paltry, but i do think that by prigozhin's own statements, he believed until saturday that his army could roll north. he called it the march of justice. and something happened. and that something was that putin had found out and organized a force of resistance that stopped him cold about 200 kilometers from moscow. and at that point, the floor

fell out from prigozhin. he had no alternative, really, to seek the deal that his friend, alexander lukashenko, the head of belarus, was offering. i think putin had an interest at that point in defusing the crisis. but i would not want to be writing a life insurance for yevgeny prigozhin today. >> oh, no. >> i just don't think that man is long for the world. >> no, i don't think so either. david, before you go, and thanks for coming back on this morning, you have a new summer novella debuting this morning on the "washington post" we can site called "the tao of deception." it's the first of four, and it recounts how chinese intelligence services could have shattered the cia's network of spies in china almost a decade ago. everyone can enjoy it.

any reflections on reality here? >> so, mika, we decided to have some fun with this. a century ago, newspapers and magazines published fiction as a regular part of their offering. we all remember reading about charles dickens' serial itzed novels. in this case, there is a story that has haunted me for years about how the chinese rolled up the cia's networks in china, their agents, informants, just over decade ago in an especially brutal way. and i've wanted to get to the bottom of it. i've written a little bit of journalism about it, but i just couldn't take it any further. and my editor at the post organization david shipley, suggested, why don't we see if we can tell this story in a different way, through fiction, just imagining what was in the minds of the characters. i've done this -- i've written 11 novels now, so this is not

unfamiliar to me. but i think if readers go to the site and read this sort novel, they'll see a lot that isn't written or known about how chinese intelligence, which we know everything about russian intelligence. we've all read moscow center. we know very little about china. that's the veil i've tried to open in this short novella, "the tao of deception." coming up, one of our next guests asks the question -- is the gop tiptoeing toward normality?

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i partnered with our gop chairwoman, elise stefanik from new york, and we are going to expunge the impeachments of president trump. and i'm very glad to let you know the speaker of the house, kevin mccarthy, came out in support. >> we should expunge them. >> georgia congresswoman marjorie taylor greene and house speaker kevin mccarthy discussing new efforts to erase the two impeachments of former president donald trump from the congressional record. joining us now, pulitzer prize-winning columnist and associate editor of the "washington post," eugene robinson, and your latest piece is "moves to expunge trump

impeachments would be laughable if not so dangerous." and in it, you write in part, "the right-wing media echo chamber will treat the expungement as legitimate, which would make the impeachments somehow illegitimate. the nation's information gap, already a canyon, will further widen. for the record, expunging a presidential impeachment is not a thing. it has never been attempted because it makes no sense. both of trump's house impeachments led to trials in the senate, as the constitution instructs. is the senate supposed to pretend that those trials, which ended in acquittals, never happened? what about the pages in the congressional record that chronicle the impeachment proceedings? would they be ripped out and destroyed? sent to mar-a-lago for trump to hoard in one of his cardboard boxes with his golf shirts and newspaper clippings?" i guess you can't help but to

joke, because it is so ridiculous, but i have to tell you every day, as we look at national security secrets, nuclear information potentially stolen by a former president and evidence of that coming up, you do have right-wing media and other -- claim to be news networks and websites and -- all covering what they believe the equivalent is, which would be hunter biden going to the state dinner or something like that. >> yeah. >> we see legitimate, important news that is potentially critical to our country's national security being thrown away at will by those who just don't want to consider it real. >> exactly. this is -- one of the biggest and most serious problems facing this country today and facing our democracy in my opinion is

the information gap, is the fact that in the right-wing media echo system, hunter biden is the only story worth telling and president trump's impeachments, well, you know, yeah, maybe they happened, now it's going to be that in fact they did never happen. it's like an alternative universe time line. and how can we have a democracy if we can't agree on basic facts, if we can't agree on what happened, on what we saw with our own eyes, on what is written in the congressional record? it is laughable on one hand, but it threatens to widen this gap that keeps us from talking across the divide, that keeps us

from moving forward as a nation. and i think this just makes it that much worse. and, look, this has the support of the speaker of the house. it's just -- it's amazing. amazing. >> jen, when you look at just kevin mccarthy, the speaker, given another chance here to be the adult in the room and to say stop with the nonsense, let's move forward, let's get legislation passed, do things for the people who voted for us, taking a pass on that and fanning the flames of this stuff that comes from the extremes of his party. we're talking about looking to the past again as a political question. let's look back to 2020, let's look back at hunter biden and all this stuff rather than looking ahead as the man you once worked for, president biden, is attempting to do, even with this congress that he has to deal with. >> that's right. i mean, willie, i think it's pretty clear that kevin mccarthy is motivated right now by fear, fear of losing the speakership, fear of angering the bayles of

republicans, marjorie taylor greene, lauren boebert, whatever the collection of people of the party is, he's fearful of angering them and angering the trump base because he wants to hold on to speakership. we don't know whether or not kevin mccarthy thinks truthfully this is the right strategy as speaker or the right thing he should be doing as speaker because he's so motivated by that fear. it is, as eugene just said, it is startling and it is alarming, because this is not what congress was elected to do. this is not what the speaker is supposed to be doing. but we also know that the contrast is quite stark between kind of leading the house of representatives down a rabbit hole of trying to expunge impeachments versus actually trying to get something done. and i think what a lot of democrats are betting on, and i spoke with speaker pelosi, and she's betting on this over the weekend, is that the american public is smart and they will look at this and think, look,

that is chaotic and crazy, and i don't even know what they're trying to do over there. i would like the people who are represent megato do something. we won't know until the election, but i think that's what a lot of democrats in leadership and democrats running the democratic congressional campaign committee and certainly the biden campaign is betting on. coming up, a live report from new hampshire, where donald trump and ron desantis are set to hold dueling campaign events today.

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time for a quick look at some of the morning papers. we begin in florida, where the pensacola news journal reports activists are pushing for an amendment to protect abortion access in the state. yesterday more than $230,000 were raised during an event to

support a ballot initiative for the 2024 election. the initiative aims to strike down any florida laws that delay or restrict abortion access. >> the portland press herald is advancing a bill to require background checks for private gun sales. supporters say it would help to reduce gun violence and make it more difficult for criminals to get weapons. maine already required background checks for commercial sales from licensed dealers. in new jersey, the record leads with a bill to create a state office of community schools. the agency would focus on addressing student needs through community-based educational services as well as provide family and health support. similar programs already exist in other states. >> and the dayton daily news has a front page feature on amazon

web services in ohio. the company says it will invest nearly $8 billion by 2029 as part of an expansion of its data center operations. officials say this will lead to hundreds of new jobs in the state. coming up, actors mark due plos and sterling k. brown join us for a look at their new movie biosphere. it tells the story of who lifelong friends who also happen to be the last two men on earth. to be the last two men on earth.

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from prom dresses to workouts and new adventures you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b.

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welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. we have a lot to get to this hour, including the audio recording that appears to be donald trump showing off a classified defense plan to people at his new jersey golf club long after he left the white house. it comes as trump and his top rival for the republican nomination are both campaigning in the same state today. also ahead, how tim scott's presidential run is making life easier for democrats in the senate. and the latest from russia following the failed revolt from a mercenary group. president vladimir putin just gave his public comments on the situation. let's begin with that major development in the federal case against former president trump. an audio recording in which the former president appears to discuss classified documents

with people who did not have security clearance. garrett haake has the latest. >> these are the papers. >> you did. >> this was done by the military given to me. >> reporter: in his own words, former president trump in a newly surfaced audio recording that's expected to be used as evidence in his case involving classified documents. he appears to acknowledge he knowingly held onto a classified pentagon document about a potential attack on iran. the audiotape shows trump discussing what he called the "quote" highly considerable documents. >> i'll show you an example. he said that i wanted to attack iran. isn't it amazing? i have a big pile of papers. this thing just came up. look. this was him. they presented me this. this is off the record, but they presented me this. >> reporter: that conversation

took place during a meeting at mr. trump's new jersey golf club in july 2021 with two staffers, a publisher and a writer who is working on a memoir of mark meadows, his former chief of staff. trump jokes about the document being highly confidential. >> it is highly confidential. [ laughter ] >> reporter: in a fox news interview last week, the former president claiming there were no documents shown in that meeting. >> that was a massive amount of papers and everything else talking about iran and other things. it may have been held up or may not, but that was not a document. i didn't have a document per se. there was nothing to declassify. these were newspaper stories and articles. >> reporter: but the recording appears to tell a different story. >> as president i could have declassified it. now i can't. >> reporter: the former president, who plead not guilty

to a 37-count indictment accusing his of taking national security documents with him when he left the white house, lashing out overnight on social media, accusing the special counsel of having, quote, spun the tape as well as saying without evidence that he illegally leaked it and calling it an exoneration. >> garrett haake reporting there. joining us in studio is andrew weissman. it's good to see you. as a prosecutor, what do you take away from those 2 1/2 minutes of donald trump on tape? >> the best possible evidence when you're a prosecutor is the defendant on tape admitting the crime. that's what you have here. this really is about when is the trial going to happen. you have a person who's charged with the illegal retention of documents that are national

defense information, classified information. he's on tape where he talks about being given by the department of defense a document he says is classified. that's the crime. this, to me, is not about a discussion of the facts anymore. this is just about getting to trial and will people follow their oaths. >> he admits on that tape he's not the president anymore, he can't declassify it. how does this fit into the larger case that jack smith is building around this? how does this plug into that story? >> there is an interesting issue, because if you are the defense, you have to do something about this. that's their job. one of the things they can do is say this tape should not be admitted at this trial, because this is a discussion happening in bedminster, and there's a

description of this tape in the indictment, but it's not actually charged in the indictment. in other words, it's not one of the 31 counts. there are ways it could be admissible. here's the chess game. if donald trump's team moves to say this should be excluded from the florida trial, that just goads jack smith to bring it in bedminster, where it can be charged. i can see why he didn't do it yet, because it looks like overkill to charge somebody in two different locations. but if he does that, if he says that shouldn't come into the florida trial, that's just going to be an invitation for jack smith to charge it in bedminster. >> there could be another venue for all this, in addition to, not instead of florida, which is new jersey. >> right. i was wondering about that. that's the crime on the audiotape, you say. obviously we've heard donald

trump say, no, i wasn't holding up a classified document. i was just holding up newspaper clippings. isn't there more corroborating witnesses and evidence needed to prove a crime here? >> so the answer to that is yes, except even the tape itself, you can look at the reaction of people. to sit there and say this is classified, he can't be holding up the "new york times." also, there's a part of the tape where donald trump is saying to a staffer, let me see that. it's clear he's being given that by somebody. you can be sure that jack smith has interviewed all of those people. you do not put something like this into an indictment without having a complete record of exactly what happened. so there is more to come. remember, an indictment you only put in certain things. there's evidence you get from witnesses and witness

interviewed. it would be very rare to include that in an indictment. this is an incredibly strong piece of evidence. >> i want to get your reaction to a couple over developments in this case. one would simply be that judge aileen cannon has ruled a list of 84 potential witnesses would not be kept secret, which is something the special counsel asked for. the trial is not set to start until december. >> let's talk about the trial date. that's really the most important. the government asked for a firm trial date of december. there had been what i would call a control date in august. this isn't really jack smith saying we want to put the trial off. this is really saying we'd like an actual firm date given the reality of discovery and motion practice, et cetera. the judge has said to the defense, you need to respond next week to how this is going to work. we need to hear from you.

then i will make a decision about the trial date. i think that is one of the most important decisions in this case, is will there be a trial before the republican nomination or the general election. that remains to be seen what she rules on that. the 84 witnesses is kind of interesting. the judge, although she was kind of snarky in the way she ruled on this, she basically said, why don't you just give the other side the list of the 84 witnesses? i do not need to see it. the magistrate judge's order, which is you cannot speak to these people, is still in place. she didn't say she's overruling that. this is more an issue of what's going to get filed on the public record. the media said, if it's filed, we want to see it. she could have just said no to the media. instead she said, why are you filing this with me? i don't need to see it. >> the special counsel wants to keep it secret to protect those witnesses. >> we did the same thing when i

worked for special counsel mueller because of the intense scrutiny. people who are lay citizens with the amount of crazies out there, if their names get out and their addresses, you want to protect them. >> andrew weissman, thanks so much. we appreciate it. mika. governor ron desantis and former president trump will both be in new hampshire today. the republican rivals are hosting duelling events about 40 miles apart with desantis hosting his about two hours ahead of trump's. last week the new hampshire federation of republican women, which is hosting trump, released a statement saying it was disappointed with the desantis campaign for trying to pull focus from its event by scheduling a town hall around the same time as its luncheon. joining us from concord new hampshire is nbc news

correspondent vaughn hillyard. this happens all the time in new hampshire, doesn't it? >> reporter: right. if you think that donald trump is just going to go quietly away, this man over the last eight years has done anything but that. we have every expectation he's going to address the release of this audiotape. he has been posting on his social media account overnight about it. i think this is the part. there's a difference, right? in the courtroom the defense team tries to actually build a defense. but in the case of this defendant they have somebody who is playing political offense and trying to spin the narrative. that is the hard part, because you can only spin so much a jury. but what donald trump has done over the last year is continue to mount different defenses around the classified documents that he had in his possession at mar-a-lago and in bedminster. what you expect him to deliver to this crowd today is he's

being unfairly targeted. 40 miles down the road, ron desantis will be here. he did meet the gripe of many of the republican women hosting this annual luncheon in concord by holding a rivaling town hall just 40 miles from here. but for ron desantis, he has a poll gap that he is going to have to close. there are serious question marks about whether he is actually going to invest the time and the resources into this state. so far, the super pac despite spending $13 million on campaign advertising on his behalf at this point, they've only spent about $75,000 here in new hampshire. there is a reckoning that we're just about six months away from the new hampshire primary. right now donald trump is looking very strong in the polling here in the state. >> nbc's vaughn hillyard live from concord, new hampshire. thank you very much. although recent polls have shown donald trump tightening his grip around republican voters, the former president has

faced some pushback from usual supporters since he was indicted for a second time. >> this idea of presenting trump as a victim here, a victim of a witch hunt is ridiculous. >> he's unwilling to take responsibility for any of the mistakes that were made, any of the faults that he has. >> you want to talk about consciousness of guilty, you want to talk about knowledge and intent, i mean, those are the darlings of a prosecutor's nursery. that came from donald trump's own mouth. >> donald trump has a lot to worry about. this indictment is much stronger. >> if what it says is actually the case, president trump was incredibly reckless with our national security. >> many of the people you heard there worked with and for donald trump. joining us is mona sharon from the bulwark. you ask the question, is the gop tiptoeing toward normality? she writes in part, something is

stirring in the republican party after eight years of rot and decay made no less alarming by the often buffoonish character, the gop seems to be taking some tentative steps toward normality. andrew mir, a republican state representative who led the committee investigating paxton said the committee found bribery, misappropriation of public resources, obstruction of justice and more. not only did the republicans draw an ethical line and apply it to one of their own, they did it in the face of vigorous lob bying by donald trump. will it last? who knows. these are tremors that suggest something may be changing in the republican party. so, mona, i think a lot of people hear that and agree with

you on those moments where the party has turned a bit against donald trump. i think what we've learned over these last eight years or so is that it does seem to fall back to the default setting of supporting donald trump and if he becomes the nominee, everyone will fall in line. do you think these small fault lines in the party, do they portend something larger in the party, or is it still donald trump's to lose? >> sure. look, as i said in the piece, history does mock the optimist. so we have to bear in mind that big chunks of the republican party remain cult-like in their devotion to trump and their unwillingness to criticize him. what i've pointed out is that even in maga world, we are now getting for the first time some pushback, some voices who are willing to step out and criticize him. and that is significant. we even have members of the freedom caucus like ken buck being willing to say, well, i

cannot support someone who is convicted of a felony. and so all of this time when we've been watching the dissent of the republican party into this cult, we have been looking for voices within the party to give some lifeline to the republicans who are uncomfortable with trump or who want an excuse to leave him aside. we've been looking for some leadership, and it hasn't been there. their ecosystem has been united in like a phalanx they form defending him, doing whataboutism about every crime and outrage. now we're starting to see something different. i noticed this even before the indictment by jack smith. as i mentioned, they were willing to criticize him, for example, for congratulating kim

jong-un. there were other examples. but since the indictment, there have been larger and larger numbers, including bill barr, and even in the clips you just played, one of those came from fox news. the voices of dissent, the voices of honesty to actually tell the truth about trump are showing up in the feeds of people who until now have been getting nothing but propaganda. >> no question that there are some prominent voices who are willing to criticize trump here. at the same time, we have the house gop trying to expunge his two impeachments from the record, showing just how much they are still very much in his thrall. is there a tipping point that

could change that so it wouldn't just be lonely voices, but rather more of a groundswell of opposition? would that be a conviction? >> it's a little too early to talk about a conviction, especially since these trials can be stretched out forever, and we don't know the timing on that. but we are within reason to expect more indictments. and something that you heard among focus groups six months ago was, well, he has too much baggage. this was at the time when people were feeling very good about ron desantis and there was an alternative. a lot of the focus groups of hard core maga republicans were saying, yes, i love him, but he has too much baggage. if there's another indictment and he is dealing with all of that, it might be enough for people to say i still love him but he really has too much

baggage and we need to think about winning. i'm not ruling it out. on the other hand, there are so many people in the republican party who long ago gave up their fondness for jell-o and we can confidently expect them to do what they've always done, which is to fold. >> thank you so much for coming on this morning. despite rolling toward the bottom of the republican presidential field, the latest survey shows major gains for south carolina senator tim scott as voters' second choice. in the main poll, just 3% of republicans say tim scott is their top choice to lead the ticket in 2024. but when asked about a second option, 12% say scott is their candidate. that's up nine points from april and puts the senator in a tie for second place with former

president trump, florida governor ron desantis is still the preferred second choice of most reasons at 31%. but as you see, scott gaining. as senator scott campaigns for the republican nomination, his absence on capitol hill could be making it easier for democrats to confirm judges. for more on that, let's bring in political reporter for axios alexi mccammon. tell us more. >> in the one month since senator tim scott has launched his presidential campaign, he's missed four judicial votes in the senate. while he wasn't the deciding vote for any of those, he's certainly giving a gift to democrats who have come up with an entire strategy in conjunction with the white house to get these judicial nominees through and to spare vice president harris from having to cast a tie-breaking vote. it has happened on at least one occasion that he was the only

senator missing for the confirmation vote for gale ho who will be a federal judge in new york's southern district. that would have led to a tie and giving democrats a little bit more of a headache. instead his absence has made it easier for them to move through the nominations and at least catch up with the record former president trump set with all the judicial nominees and appointments he made. >> tim scott is very popular among his senate colleagues, not just republicans, but democrats like him too. but he is the only republican from the senate running for president. is there a growing or potential sense of annoyance on the republican side that he's missing some of these key votes? >> unlike in 2016 when we had four senators running, this will be an ongoing issue for senator scott because he's the only one running as of now, and that

scrutiny on what he's doing or not doing in washington will be there as long as that's the case. of course, as you mentioned, he is admired and loved by many across the chamber. but what is interesting is that so far he's only been endorsed by two of his senate colleagues, both from south dakota. and that's not a huge vote of confidence in the first month of his campaign. while a lot of his colleagues might like him, they're still afraid of donald trump or stepping on his toes or going against him. >> thank you very much for that reporting this morning. coming up on "morning joe," russian president vladimir putin is praising his military this morning for stopping a civil war over the weekend. we'll have the latest in the fallout from the short-lived rebellion led by the wagner mercenary group.

meanwhile, in ukraine, parts of the country still underwater following a major dam collapse earlier this month. we'll be joined by the head of a nonprofit working in the region to provide relief. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. watching "" we'll be right back.

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26 past the hour. earlier today in moscow, russian president vladimir putin delivered an address to uniformed members of the russian military. he described saturday's events as a, quote, difficult hour for the country, end quote. in his speech, he also praised the military for their actions over the weekend, telling them they, quote, effectively stopped a civil war. it is the latest in a string of announcements by the russian leader since saturday's unrest. nbc news chief internal correspondent keir simmons in moscow with the latest.

>> reporter: late into the night president putin met with the heads of his security services. and this morning, another dramatic announcement. charges against this weekend's mutineers have been dropped. vladimir putin's address to the nation focused on one man while never mentioning yevgeny prigozhin by name slamming what he called a militarized mutiny. prigozhin's aborted rebellion rocked russia. but he insisted that he did not try to topple president putin, rather he said it was a protest to how his wagner group was being treated, saying he stopped the bloodshed when he was offered exile in belarus. the belarusian president, an ally of putin, saying the

rebellion was painful to watch. if russia collapses, we will all die, he said. this morning president zelenskyy traveling to the front lines, taking pictures with ukrainian soldiers. amid the fallout from the weekend's events, his counteroffensive is advancing, he says, giving few details but calling monday a happy day. president biden with his own message to russia. >> he gave putin no excuse to blame this on the west or nato. we made clear that we were not involved. we had nothing to do with it. >> reporter: while here on the streets of moscow, ordinary russians sharing their reaction to these uncertain times. >> people on the russian side, they're also dying. >> reporter: what happens now, do you think?

>> i don't know. >> keir simmons reporting from moscow this morning. in ukraine, the country is dealing with the aftermath of the explosion from the dam in kherson with thousands forced from their homes. our next guest and his organization travelled to ukraine to help deliver supplies and evacuate people from the area. project dynamo is a veteran-led search rescue and assistance nonprofit working to help people in disaster areas and conflict zones throughout the world. the cofounder brian stern joins us. it's great to have you with us here. so i want to get into the efforts that you're making in kherson, but also your view of what we've seen in the last three or four days inside of russia. what do you make of it as somebody who's been to these

places, fought in some of these places? what did we just see? >> i think it's a little premature to come to any kind of conclusion or using deductive reasoning. the russians invented misinformation, so there's a lot of reason and data to suggest this is much more than what it seems or more organized than what it seems . the negotiation that happened in belarus was, you know, from a military coup perspective happened in rapid timing. you can't get an airline ticket that quick. the question is, why and what's the benefit and what's the game. there's a number of things it could be. it could be simply reorganization in the military forces. but to suggest that prigozhin thought he could take moscow with 25,000 men is pretty funny, seeing as how the nypd has 44,000 sworn officers and that's a city. the numbers don't add up so much and the fact pattern is a little

suspicious. >> what is the view from ukraine of this? good news for them? are they also suspicious of what they're watching, or how does this play there? >> any kind of drama, real or perceived or manufactured, is good news for ukraine. a fractured russia is good news for everybody and for america too, not just ukraine. this is a good news story. but i do think it remains to be seen. they have a window where they can exploit this breach, so to speak. they do have an opportunity with the counteroffensive to take advantage of it. but i do think that window will close. if this is not what it portends to be, why and what's coming? >> let's talk about kherson. the dam explosion, the belief is

the russians did it. it had led to a real disaster and put a lot of people's lives in jeopardy. >> project dynamo have been on the ground about a month before the war started and we've been doing operations pretty much daily since. the situation on the ground in kherson, we've spent a lot of time there doing rescues. it's a truly devastated area, be it occupied now with the flood, with environmental concerns, the crops with all washed away, the water's high, homes are destroyed. ukrainians who had left for the war have come back and now their houses are gone. they've suffered twice, so to speak and it's hard to rebuild. it's catastrophic. >> how do you at project dynamo pull off the rescues?

you've rescued more than 6,000 people and animals from harm's way. let's take kherson as the latest example. you're donor funded. you're not a government entity. how do you do it? >> people donate money. projectdynamo.org is our website. that's where people go to donate. we're not a seal team, we're not tactical. we're on the ground, on the streets in the occupied area and we have a real deep understanding of the problems and the threat, unlike most people do, that allows us to see the terrain in ways that they don't and walk between the rain drops. we did the same in afghanistan. we expanded into ukraine, we've expanded into sudan and we've also done the first operation inside russia to rescue americans.

we've become prolific in understanding how to understand the problems. >> project dino, cofounder bryan stern, thanks for being here today. still ahead, the supreme court has a number of significant cases to decide before the end of the current term. the major rulings expected as early as this morning. s expecte early as this morning.

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jackie: community schools are so important to us. this is truly what students need. cecily: no two community schools are alike because it goes by what is happening in the community. rafael: we want this to be a one-stop shop for our families that puts parents and students first.

kenny: the health and wellness center is a part of our holistic approach. terry: medical, dental, vision, and mental health services. we're addressing the students' everyday needs. kenny: what we do allows them to be the best version of themselves. narrator: california's community schools: reimagining public education. 38 past the hour. the supreme court is expected to release its next opinions at the top of the hour with several landmark cases still to be handed down with just days left until the summer recess. one of those could be a decision on affirmative action as colleges and universities grapple with the possibility that race might no longer be a

factor in admissions. nbc news senior legal correspondent laura jarrett has the latest. >> reporter: for many elite schools, the writing from the nation's high court is on the wall. danielle hawley is the incoming president of holyoke college in western massachusetts. this peaceful campus belies an anxious reality. the supreme court will answer the most anticipated question this term. can colleges and universities look at race in admissions decisions? >> everyone is talking about this case all the time, people from departments that are not in the law school are asking me, what day will we hear. >> reporter: for decades, the court recognized the educational benefits of a diverse student body and says schools can look at someone's race as one plus factor among many. but the court's current conservative majority may ban it nationwide this time. what will that do to a place

like mt. holyoke? >> it will send a strong message to black and latino students that they are not welcome. >> reporter: not so, say the lawyers who sued harvard over its admissions plan. it's accused of being obsessed with race. along with the university of north carolina, of discriminating against asian students, which the schools deny but was emphasized during oral arguments. >> asians should be getting into harvard more than whites, but they don't because harvard gives them significant lower personal ratings. >> reporter: if the court agrees using race violates the law, schools may look at an applicants finances, zip code. >> universities cannot consider race itself. >> reporter: colleges tell nbc news they are prepared to adapt if required, expanding financial aid, scrapping s.a.t. scores or

getting rid of legacy admissions all potentially on the table. she points to california, one of nine states that outlawed affirmative action more than 20 years ago, causing a 50% dropoff in minority admissions, numbers that have never bounced back. >> i have struggled to move the black number here at berkeley. again, that's not from a lack of trying. >> reporter: berkeley's dean of undergrad admissions says affirmative action was never perfect, just a bandaid. >> the fact that there are high schools in this country that have manicured lawns and golf courses and there are high schools in this country that have bars on the windows and yet we are asking both students to show up in our application process the same doesn't make any sense. >> reporter: schools are making the task of equalizing the

playing field not impossible, but significantly harder. coming up on "morning joe," actors mark duplass and sterling k. brown are the stars of a new comedy about post apocalyptic survival. they join us with a preview of "biosphere" next on "morning joe." "biosphere" next on "morning joe. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do.

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>> that is a clip from "biosphere." in the not-too-distant future lifelong friends and the last two men on earth must adapt and evolve to safe humanity. the survival isthanks largely due to ray. how is that for a premise? joining us now are the two stars of biosphere sterling k. brown and mark duplass. guys, it is so great to have you on the show. it's good to see you again. sterling, let me start with you. just walk us through the world we are stepping into in this movie. where are we and how did we get here? >> let's see. there is an unexplained sort of nuclear fallout that we find

ourselves in at the beginning of the film. so they've already been living there for quite some time. it's a sort of sealed atmosphere that nothing bad from the outside can get in. as far as we know, we're the only two people left on the planet. there may be some other people who are smart enough to build their own biospheres, but i have no idea if that's true or not. >> mark, you co-wrote this and executive produced it. the hollywood reporter in addition to the glowing review where it says it's hilarious says, it is sure to make some viewers very uncomfortable. i'm not quite sure what they mean by that. what was this idea born out of for you as one of the creative minds behind it? >> well, i was really looking for an excuse to hermetically seal myself in a small space with sterling k. brown for a long time. >> can't blame you. >> his odors and my own odors

and how those would mix together. i don't know. i come up with these ideas and i'm just like i think this would be a fun way to spend a few weeks filming. this seems like a good way, i would say, to examine fallout, the end of the world, toxic masculinity. i wanted some of that dumb and dumber fun energy with it. >> let's see a little bit more of it. the relationship between these two characters billy and ray are central to the film's story line. besides the need for food and water in their biosphere, there are also a few creature comforts like books. >> could you have stocked this place with more laid back reads. >> i built it. i fill it. >> you didn't literally build

this place, right? >> but i did literally save your [ bleep ]. >> i'm just saying throw in a couple of beach reads. normal people beach reads. >> aren't beach no, they're not. they're easy entertainment. that's why they call them beach reads. you're on vacation. you don't have to work that hard. >> would you call this a vacation, billy? >> i love that. >> so, sterling doomsday comedy, indeed, how many have we seen? let's talk about inherent challenges. you're trying to keep the species alive. two men in there. walk us through some of the obstacles that this movie, you're confronted with. >> keeping the species alive. you nailed it. two men. how does that work? two of us, it is going to go distinct eventually. that's all i can really say about that.

it is such an interesting thing. you find yourself asking these questions, like what would i do if i actually found myself in the situation? i would probably try to entertain mark as much as i possibly could because i'm not anywhere close to being as smart as ray, so we pretty much would be doomed. that's it. we're going to be done. >> mark, in addition to creating an entire film to see how good sterling k. brown smells, i assume you achieved that objective, you also -- look, there he is, he knows -- he keeps it real, keeps it clean there. >> the bouquet. >> there it is. it is coming through the screen, yeah. >> it is relative, yeah, yeah. >> we're grading on a curve, aren't we? you also, mark, made yourself the president of the united states. so how does that play into this story? >> oh, well done. well, you know, there are many years where i felt like i'm probably not going to be able to actually be the president

because of some of the substances i imbibed in high school and what not. so that became reality. but in recent years i had proof that maybe a fallible human being can actually reach that zenith. so i was, like, all right, that's cool. i think if someone who came before me can do it, maybe it is credible. so let as go for it. >> some things that used to disqualify you from public office have really gone out the window in recent years, yeah. this movie is a blast, guys. called "biosphere," opens nationwide and on demand july 7th. the lovely smelling sterling k. brown and mark duplass, now qualified to be president of the united states these days. congrats on the film. thank you for being here this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you for having us. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back with more "morning joe." t back with more "morning joe."

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there it is! and for the first time since 2009 and seventh overall, the tigers can say we are champions. >> lsu is the men's college world series champion. the tigers staved off elimination three times back in bracket play to reach the finals. and one day after giving up a series record 24 runs to florida, they bounce back to beat the gators 18-4 in a decisive game three last night. lsu's seventh national title, the second most in division one baseball history behind only usc, which has 12. this was a crazy series. 24-4, florida wins game two, then lsu wins it all 18-4 in a

game packed with major league -- future major league players. >> they were both significant blowouts, but a lot of talent on the field. congrats to lsu. who a bounceback after getting blown out the night before, come back, crowned champs. >> they had the projected first three or four picks in the mlb draft on the field last night. fun to watch. as we wrap, let's turn back to politics and what you're looking at the white house today. >> we'll hear from president biden a lot this week about the economy. that is -- they're making that pitch heading into 2024, still they feel like they're not getting enough credit on it. it is an area where a lot of voters like republicans are on the issue and the president is saying look at the stewardship we have done to this point. >> he'll be on the road making that sale. i'll see you tomorrow morning. we'll see all of you again tomorrow morning when secretary of state antony blinken joins us. for now, yasmin vossoughian picks up the coverage. n vossoug picks up the coverage. built with rotisserie-style chicken and double cheese. i love what i'm seeing here.

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