high. but if you embrace the economy, and people don't feel good about it, then you really run a huge risk of not having a good re-election. >> the poll number is so stunning, that more americans feel worse on the economy now versus then. inflation remains high, of course, but it is better than it was. president biden sits down with our colleague nicolle wallace for an exclusive, live interview today at 4:00. i believe his first live televised interview since taking office. alex thompson, we really appreciate it. thank you for being here. thanks so all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. grounder to third. donaldson has it. there it is! perfection for domingo german! >> delivering a perfect game

late last night for the new york yankees out in oakland, marking the 24th perfect game in the history of major league baseball and the first in more than a decade. getting it done. jonathan lemire, domingo german, you're a fan, you've called him the don larson of his time, now becoming the fourth new york yankee to throw a perfect game, beginning in 1956, david wells, another in the late '90s. now, herman, who has been let's say up and down this season, was just unbelievable last night. only went to a three ball count with two hitters. he was basically untouchable, throwing a perfect game. yankees win, 11-0. can you, even a red sox fan, muster any excitement for this moment in history? >> domingo german, the fourth yankee to throw a perfect game, the first in the same season in which he was suspended for ten

games, forced to having sticky stuck on his glove, busted for cheating. >> i knew that was coming. >> but he is an unlikely candidate to do this. never beat the a's in his career. he is available on the fantasy wire in my baseball league. anybody can have him because he hasn't been good. but this is brilliant. it is baseball history. setting aside my feelings about the yankees, this is something that only happened a couple dozen times in the history of the sport. sadly, it happened in front of only 12,000 fans there in oakland, a franchise that's been treated so shabby by the league. but it's always history. congratulations to mr. german. >> from the sound of it, mostly yankee fans. 72 of his 99 pitches were thrown for strikes. mika, a very exciting moment. a busy news day, but this just happened overnight. again, only the 24th perfect game. 27 up, 27 down, in order, in the

history of major league baseball. >> jonathan lemire's analysis is great, except for the fact where he didn't say that this would never, ever happen for the red sox. sorry, jonathan. it's true. >> thank you, mika. >> don't have them, no. good morning, everyone. welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, june 29th. with us, we have, as you saw, the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay is with us. former white house director of communications to president obama, jen palmieri. and the president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton joins us this morning. so get this, a memoir from donald trump's own former white house chief of staff appears to undercut the former president's latest and many defenses for his willful mishandling of classified documents.

earlier this week, you'll remember this leaked audio from a 2021 meeting, seemingly capturing former president trump showing off what he admitted was a classified document. this is at his club in bedminster. about a potential plan to attack iran from while he was president. >> well, 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. wait a minute, let's see here. [ laughter ] >> yup. >> isn't that amazing? this totally wins my case, you know. >> mm-hmm. >> except it is highly

confidential, secret. this is secret information. this was done by the military, given to me. i think we can probably -- right? >> i don't know. we'll have to see. yeah, we'll have to try to -- >> declassify it. >> yeah. >> as president, i could have declassified it, and now i can't, you know? >> now, we have a problem. >> isn't that interesting? >> yeah. >> you got to love the staff going, ah-ha-ha, i think we have a problem. that recorded conversation took place during a meeting with ghostwriters who were interviewing trump for a memoir being published by his former chief of staff mark meadows. in the days since that audio leaked, the former president has claimed all sorts of things, like he was not showing off military plans, no, of course not. not on that tape. what you heard was him waving around plans for new buildings and golf courses and newspaper clippings. according to a message, a

passage from meadows memoir, trump did discuss iran attack plans while being interviewed for the book. in it, meadows wrote, quote, the president recalls a four-page report typed up by mark milley himself. it contained the general's own plan to attack iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged president trump to do more than once during his presidency. willie, this is so painful. i mean, you could see when trump was trying to explain this away with an interview to fox, i believe, that he was like, ah, ah, it was golf plans. it was my pants. it was my shirts. you could hear the papes rustling. i mean, that was literally him trying to buy time to think of an excuse. this is in the book. remember, if this is in the indictment, chances are, the people who were in that room,

including the sycophants who couldn't say, "mr. president, please put away classified documents, and why are they here," all of those people potentially interviewed. >> yeah, in this memoir, this memoir for mark meadows provides corroboration, one would think, for jack smith and the special counsel's office, where he says in the memoir explicitly, "this is a four-page attack plan prepared by general milley and presented to donald trump," exactly like the one he appears to be describing on the audio tape. rev, when you listen to these explanations from donald trump, he's sort of painting himself as a martyr. i'm getting indicted for you, he's saying to his crowds. just hoping they buy the explanation, that this is part of a greater witch hunt, they don't want him in the white house again. they being the white house, the fbi, the special counsel. it remains to be seen if that passes outsid of his group of close followers who seem to buy

anything he presents them. >> inside that small group, they want to buy it. i mean, he plays into something that's already in them. but i think in terms of the expanded people he is shooting for, it becomes more and more difficult when his own chief of staff's memoirs say he does do what this tape says he did. they caught him on tape. i mean, it doesn't even really make sense. why would you have building plans in your hand while you're talking about milley saying we ought to give more troops to iran? it's totally inconceivable, unless you want to make that something. mika makes a good point. people that gave tape are going to likely testify at donald trump's trial. they will say, "this is what he said. this is what he showed. we've never talked about golf carts or buildings." who is going to refute that? is donald trump going to take

the stand? the only one that could get on the stand and contradict that is donald trump. if he does that, then they need to get the handcuffs ready because they will kill him in a cross-examination. >> if he ever got on the stand, seems unlikely but perhaps he'll want to defend himself. jen palmieri, perhaps the obvious explanation for these increasingly absurd explanations from donald trump of what was in his hand is because there's no good argument. there's no defense for it, so you have to throw stuff out there, hope it gets caught up in the fog machine of misinformation, and then enough people buy what you're saying to not see the truth, that he explicitly describes on the tape a defense department document in his hand. >> he says, "i just happen to have it here in the pile of papers." there's a few things -- i think there's a few notable things going on with this particular situation. one, i am surprised that he got so defensive and felt the need to try to explain away what he said, as opposed to having

bravado in his response, as well as what he said he did on the tape. to say, you know, as he has said before, like, "it's my right. i had these things." to be so defensive and changing his story, and obviously, obviously, formulating his response in real time as he is speaking, settling on plans, then moving -- you know, talking about plans, maybe it's the golf plans or house plans. the second thing i think is worth noting, this is the second time we have heard audio of him talking about a mark milley memo, right? so imagine, we just happen to have learned about these audio tapes. imagine how many more the prosecutor could have. this could be the tip of the iceberg. it is interesting to think about, why are we hearing these audio tapes? who is releasing them? it could be mark meadows, could

be meadows' staff. it could be the prosecutors, thinking it is good for people to see we have a strong case. there's a lot of people who have access to this tape, so no one is going to think maybe it was the prosecutors. it's also worth considering why these tapes are getting out to the public. >> yeah, and how they're getting out there. again, this was a group of ghostwriters for mark meadows' memoir, "sitting in the room." that's who you're hearing on the tape, along with donald trump and a staff member. now the politics of all this. what does it mean for donald trump? it appears to be helping him. again, donald trump's grip over the republican base only tightening recently. this as support stalls for the person once viewed as the party's best chance to move on from donald trump in 2014. that is florida governor ron desantis. in a new analysis of the republican primary race, "the washington post" writes, quote, donald trump is delivering a combative message to republican primary voters that is resonating with many of them. he has adopted policy positions

and rhetoric that have grown more confrontational and extreme and continues to make false claims, including about his 2021 election defeat. trump responded to his indictments with relentless attacks on the justice system. allies and advisers to trump, rivals say there is plenty of time to reshape the race with debates, intensive field organizing and early state moment, but few deny trump has only grown more formidable in the first half of the year while the race to displace him is more unsettled than ever. case in point, new polling out of pennsylvania, a critical spring state, of course, in the election. according to the quinnipiac university poll, former president trump is now leading a crowded republican field with 49% support among registered republican voters. that nearly doubles florida governor ron desantis, who gets 25% support. chris christie, mike pence, nick nicki haley, mike pence in single digits, in a hypothetical

matchup between trump and biden. in this poll, the race is a virtual dead heat. 47% support trump. 46% support biden. still, the leading candidates, biden, trump and desantis, are underwater when it comes to their favorable numbers. not good for any of the three right there. katty kay, take all that in. we have to now confront and accept the fact that this stuff is only, for now, making donald trump stronger within the republican party. we'll see if a pile of indictments from georgia, january 6th, new york, if it hurts him. in the short term, he's painted himself as a martyr, a victim, and it is working within the primary. >> there is a poll coming out of wisconsin that shows the opposite, that shows biden's lead over trump growing. there are some good numbers, too, for the white house. i wrote a piece about this for the bbc, and this counterintuitive effect all of this is having on donald trump's standing in the primaries.

what he is being able to do, in a way, it's almost like the more indictments there are, the more legal problems there are, he is managing to flip that to his supporters, to the base of the republican party, and beyond his base, and say, "look, you see? this is all proof that i'm the victim of a witch hunt from the democratic administration and from the department of justice. because if there was one case, well, maybe that's one thing. but the fact there are now so many cases against me shows, it must show, all of these cases must show that this is a deliberate effort be by them to bring me down because they fear me as a political candidate." that message is resonating. the other message that seems to be resonating with republican voters and not just his base, but beyond his base, is they're coming after me to come after you. when they slap me with another lawsuit, whether it's about mar-a-lago or whether it's about e. jean carroll, business documents, they're coming after you. one strategist said, "just

watch, when the georgia indictment comes down, poll numbers will go up again. his fundraising will go up again in the light of that, as well." that doesn't mean this won't be flipped on its head and have the inverse effect with swing voters who say, actually, you you know what, we don't want to vote for somebody who has been criminally charged. in an interview on cnn last night, former new jersey governor and 2024 hopeful chris christie criticized donald trump in the wake of the leaked audio tape and offered his theories on why the former president kept classified documents after leaving office. >> i mean, the thing that struck me the most is that's what donald trump is like most of the time. constantly rationalizing his own bad behavior, justifying what he is doing at the very moment that he is doing it, everyone when he knows it's wrong, and showing off. he's the consummate showoff, and

i think that's what the tape was, him showing off. people ask me back to the time of the raid at mar-a-lago last year, why would he keep these documents? is he giving them to a foreign government, blackmail people, sell them? i'm like, you don't understand donald trump, it's just to show off. we want to continue to act like he is president. he can't live with the fact that he is not. so that's why he kept those documents. it seems childish and stupid, and it is, but that's the reason why, in my view, he's always kept them. >> why do you think his excuses keep changing for why he had these documents? >> because he is getting cornered. he is getting cornered, and he'll lie about anything. the latest lie is the one that he said just yesterday, right, where he said, "i wasn't really showing it. it was just bravado." he was essentially saying he was lying to the people he was sitting with. he was cornered by the bret baier interview. the bret baier interview put him in a horrible box that i don't think he'll get out of. >> he said it wasn't a document, per se.

>> that. the bigger problem he has is he admitted he had the documents. he knew about the grand jury subpoena. he was too busy to go through the boxes, to see what was classified and what wasn't. he didn't want to turn the boxes over because he had golf pants and golf shirts in there. come on, nobody in america believes that story. >> chris christie, like a lot of us, has had direct time, closely working with donald trump, and brings us into his mindset. i'd like to add, having watched him closely as well at times, and having known him, the possibility that he and his team released the audio. there is always that, and i'll tell you why. jonathan lemire, it is part of his process of desensitizing the public to something that is shocking. this is something donald trump does well. then festers on the anger of it, to play in the court of public

opinion, which, of course, is important because he is running for president. when you're running for the presidency and you have indictments coming at you, the only way you can get out of jail is to be president. in a way, he is running for his get out of jail free card. you see him, as chris christie said, constantly rationalizing things, lying about them. he does show off. he's right, there's a lot of bravado there. i remember early on in his presidency, in the first weeks, we were in the oval office. we kept saying, "have you been in the oval office before? have you ever seen the oval office before? look at this. look at this, look at this, look at look. look at this." he loves to show off. in the court of law, they don't care what people think. they're uing facts to build a

case. >> yeah, his only hope there is simply the idea of jury nullification, that one juror will be a secret trump holdout and wouldn't vote to convict. it is a different game once you're inside the courtroom, versus what you're used to in the political sphere. i told this story before. i was in the oval office for an interview a couple years into his presidency. he suddenly whipped out -- kind of like the off the record thing -- putted out a classified document about kim jong-un. he wants to impress whoever he is with, whoever it might be. jen palmieri, we heard chris christie straight talking there, calling it like he sees it in terms of trump and his excuses, nonsensical excuses about the classified documents. christie is pretty much a lone voice among the republican field right now. to mika's point, he's been

drowned out by how trump is shaping the story. his painting it further as a witch hunt made to bring him down. do you see any scenario where donald trump doesn't win that competition against the likes of chris christie in shaping the narrative for republican voters? >> well, i'm surprised, honestly, at how -- i mean, chris christie is at 5%. that is not very high, but i'm pretty sure that's higher than he ever was in '16, and he is, you know, in that class of people that's in single digits. he's doing better than others. that's a low bar, but that is striking to me. you know, there is a population of republican primary voters that feel the same way christie does, that do want donald trump to be accountable, they do want to move on from him. so it is striking to me that christie is getting as much attention as he is and that he is -- that his support is growing. he is not going to be the republican nominee or anything close to it. i suspect people like desantis are thinking, great, let chris

christie beat up on donald trump so i don't have him. let him make all these arguments about why donald trump is vulnerable as a general election candidate so i don't have to. i think that's a really risky strategy, as you see -- and katty was going over all the ways these indictments -- you know, every indictment that comes down, the less any individual one might matter, right? the pileup may not hurt him as, you know, we expected it could. so i think that people like desantis are taking a big risk by not pointing out in real time trump's vulnerabilities as it is related to the indictments, because he could just get a head of steam that is insurmountable. >> rev, i don't know about you, but trump never waved any classified documents around in front of me. i'm feeling left out here. just showed me signed footballs from doug flutie and stuff like

that. rev, as we were watching chris christie make a very obvious case of what's going on here, because he knows donald trump and he's speaking truth, but he is a lonely man in this race. he is a very lonely man. are we foolish every time one of these indictments come down, every time there is bad news for donald trump, somebody will say, "maybe this is the moment. this is the exit ramp. this is a chance for people to break with donald trump." after eight years of observing him as a presidential candidate and as president, is shouldn't we know, it's not changing the trajectory of his assent to become the presidential nominee? >> we should know it is not going to change his hard core following. we can hope and pray that some of the more reasonable republicans would change, but it seems like they're going along with it. you know, i've known donald trump 35 years, mostly fighting him, but at times he would try

to be a democrat and try to prove himself to be liberal. he's never showed me any papers. i refused to meet with him though he called me twice as president. i never met with him. if you meet with him in trump towers, he is always showing something to validate himself. >> oh yeah. >> you're dealing with a man with deep insecurities, that surrounds himself with phony cover stories of himself in his own office. who does that? >> true. >> he makes up phony front covers. if you need that kind of validation, of course you'll need to validate to somebody. i really have power. i really was president. look at these classified documents. you've got to psychoanalyze a man who is deeply insecure, that overplays it, and he plays into other people's insecurities, that they no longer matter. america is getting away from us, so we are going to make america great again. i'm going to save it. they're after us.

when they're after me, they're after you. that's what is keeping his core in. he is playing on the insecurity of americans that have been wrongfully feeling displaced. that is a sad commentary, but that's where we are. >> all right. much more politics ahead. what's going on with ron desantis' campaign? first, a look at other stories making headlines this morning. the supreme court will likely land down major decisions on landmark cases later this morning. the high court has cases open concerning affirmative action, lgbtq+ rights, student loan forgiveness and religious rights. in recent decisions, some conservative justices have sided with the liberal wing of the bench on things like election law and minority voting rights. but those decisions were not conclusive. that means they could end up back at the court with different rulings later on. experts of the court expect the remaining cases to be ruled in

the conservative justices' nay favor, willie. >> those coming down in a few hours, we believe. crews have recovered debris and presumed human remains from the "titanic" submersible that imploded two weeks ago. now, the marine board of investigation will examine the debris to try to analyze why the titan imploded. coast guard says the investigation could also provide evidence for possible civil or criminal legal action. five people were on board the submersible titan when it imploded on june 18th while descending to the wreck of the "titanic." debris was found 1600 feet from the wreck of the "titanic," mika. madonna postponed her world tour after being admitted to a hospital's intensive care unit with a bacterial infection. in an instagram post, madonna's

manager said the 64-year-old pop icon developed the serious infection on saturday. according to "the post," madonna remains under medical supervision but is expected, doctors say, to make a full recovery. the music legend aimed to celebrate the 40th anniversary of her breakout single "holiday" by embarking on her first ever greatest hits tour. it was scheduled to begin next month in vancouver. a new start date has not been announced. we wish her the best. still ahead on "morning joe," what president biden had to say about his plans for the economy yesterday in chicago. also ahead, new signs russian president vladimir putin is planning a crackdown among the ranks of his own military following the short-lived rebellion over the weekend. we'll have that new reporting. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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my predecessor -- if my mom was here, god rest her soul -- tax cuts for the wealthy. it wasn't paid for, and the estimated cost of the tax cut was $2 trillion. $2 trillion. now, republicans are at it again, pushing tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthy and adding trillions of dollars to the deficit. trillions. folks, let me say this as clearly as i can, the trickle-down approach failed the middle class. it failed america. >> all right. president biden in chicago yesterday touting his economic agenda while also criticizing

republicans. he's calling out republican senator tommy tuberville for celebrating the infrastructure law, the bipartisan bill, which tuberville opposed. >> we announce add plan to bring affordable high-speed internet to end a decade of unaffordable and inaccessible internet to every home in america, every small business in america. to no one's surprise -- [ applause ] to no one's surprise, it's bring along converts. people strenuously opposed, voting against it when we had going on. this was going to bankrupt america. well, there's a guy named tuberville, senator from alabama, who announced he strongly opposed the legislation. now, he is hailing its passage. here's what he said. quote, it's great to see alabama receive critical funds to boost ongoing broadband efforts.

[ laughter ] >> this is the tweet that the president referenced. tuberville posted support for the broadband access on tuesday. twitter users added context, that the senator did not vote for the bill, but bragging on it, really? last night, the president's twitter account trolled that tweet, writing, "see you at the groundbreaking." tuberville replied, for space command in huntsville? which is a reference to the ongoing delay of the plan that would move the space command's headquarters from colorado to alabama. the biden administration is considering ditching those plans because of alabama's strict, new anti-abortion laws. okay, so here we go. jen, for the general, i've got to tell you, president biden has a lot to brag on. you have republican senators bragging on his wins, trying to

take credit for them, and then branch out. branch out, will you, to abortion, to guns, to major issues, where voters are just not with the republicans. >> it's smart, what they're doing. it's not just the president calling out tommy tuberville. the cabinet is going to a lot of red states. secretary granholm was touting things from the infrastructure bill and also some climate provisions from the inflation reduction act. it's smart because, you know, it's hard for accomplishments to breck through. when you're able to pair the accomplishments with hypocrisy, that is a more interesting story. people in south carolina, alabama are going to hear more about what the biden administration is doing. i think the administration is also trying to protect against future republican efforts to repeal parts of either the inflation reduction act or the

infrastructure bill. you know, i thought the speech yesterday in chicago was really smart. the messages, the plan is working, right? polling may show people are still worried about the economy. certainly it does. polling may show people don't necessarily give the president high marks on his managing of the economy. what they're trying to show is there's a plan we put in place when we came out of covid for g7 nations, america leads in economic growth. we have the lowest inflation among our colleagues in the g7. also, that they've put a new foundation in with the infrastructure bill, with the chips bill and semiconductors, with the inflation reduction act, so that going forward, the u.s. is going to be able to be more competitive. it's a message they're going to have to deliver from now until election day. it's a good start. >> with these strong economic numbers and all the problems for donald trump, house republicans and some media outlets trying to

change the subject to the president's son hunter. nbc news has reporting on how the president is approaching the issues surrounding his son. three people familiar with the situation tell nbc news, the president has made it clear to his top aides in no uncertain terms, he not only will reject political advice that he tried to limit hunter's public visibility, but he doesn't want to hear any such suggestions. the blunt director from the president may help explain why the father and son's public appearances only increased as scrutiny has intensified around hunter biden's legal problems. people close to the president tell nbc news, keeping his son near also means keeping him safe. because hunter is a recovering drug addict. biden said he is not distancing from his son, all due to outrageous republican attacks.

all told to nbc news. jonathan, the president raised eyebrows by bringing hunter biden to the state dinner, making him a visible part of the evening. this as the house oversight committee and other organizations within the house republican leadership go after this issue, hunter, and try to make it the centerpiece, really, of this campaign. >> yeah, this is a story where many things could be true at once, willie. you're right, some democrats and close biden advisers were a little surprised that just two days after hunter biden pleaded guilty to various tax crimes, that he then appeared at the state dinner when prime minister of india was in washington. in fact, attorney general garland was also at the dinner. of course, doj was in charge of the case. he told people he didn't realize hunter biden was going to be there and wouldn't have appeared himself had he known. hunter's profile has picked up. he was at his father's side throughout their trip to ireland back in the spring.

he has been spotted at more white house events lately, as well. look, it has been long known in biden's orbit, including among white house staffers, that you simply don't talk about hunter biden with the president. it is something he, of course, feels deeply about. it is his one surviving son, someone who lived a very tough life, and someone who has been very open about the tragedy this he's faced and also the drug addiction he continues to battle. it's a subject the president doesn't want to speak about. he says he has unconditional love for his son, and we have seen that on display a number of times. but it does remain, fair or not, a political issue. the republicans, willie, in the house are still camping up their investigations, pointing to whistleblower testimony that suggests the doj probe was not as fair as it should have been. suggesting that there is still business dealings to probe. i think we can -- it's safe to say that hunter biden will remain a story line heading into the next election, and hunter's father, the president of the united states, is saying, i'm

keeping him as close to me as i can. >> a question was shouted yesterday as the president was going to marine one about hunter, and he said he wasn't involved but he barked at the reporter a bit. coming up, ukraine's counteroffensive and the fallout from the failed revolt in russia. "morning joe" is coming right back.

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to what extent has vladimir putin been weakened by recent events? >> it's hard to tell, but he was clearly losing the war in iraq and at home. he has become a bit of a pariah around the world. it's not just nato and the european union, you know. >> that was the president commenting on the war in ukraine and the short-lived rebellion in russia. he misspoke there.

thomas friedman has an opinion in "the new york times" asking the question, "what happens to putin now?" tom writes in part this, we should be worried as much by the prospect of putin's defeat as by any victory. what if he is toppled? this is not like the last days of the soviet union. there is no, nice, decent yeltsin-like or gorbachev figure to immediately take over. if putin is ousted, we could end up with someone worse. how would you feel if prigozhin had been in the kremlin commanding russia's nuclear arsenal? you could also get disorder or civil war and the crack up of russia into warlord/oligarch fiefs. when a big state cracks apart, it is very hard to put it back together. the nuclear weapons and criminality that could spill out of a disintegrated russia would

change the world. this is not a defense of putin. it is an expression of rage at what he did to his country, making it into a ticking time bomb spread across 11 time zones. putin haas taken the whole world hostage. if he wins, the russian people lose, but if he loses and his successor is disorder, the whole world loses. let's talk more about this with the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. richard, thomas friedman brings up a lot of good points here. at the same time, the reality of putin as it stands right now is not so good. >> you're right, mika. tom is right. look, we have a problem with a strong putin and a weak putin. going to ukraine, he brought back war in a way we thought was

in the past. the strength was false militarily, but, still, he is doing real damage. the question is, how do we continue to help ukraine so it can frustrate russia? on the other hand, tom points to a real scenario, which is, you know, even if what happened the other day is the beginning of the end, we don't know if it is a six-month or six-year or whatever process. we don't know ultimately how messy it is and what it leads to. the idea of a disintegrating russia has to be on the short list of anyone's nightmares. think of what's going on in pakistan now. that's a country, again, with, what, 40, 50 nuclear weapons? russia has, what, over 4,000, 5,000 nuclear weapons? there's all sorts of splits within its society. only 140 million people. the country is failing, mika. if you're about a 15 or 20-year-old russian boy or man, you have the same life expectancy as somebody in haiti. this is a country that is just failing in every way.

i think, you know, if ultimately putin can hand over power and the country stays in tact, the day will come when he is excoriated, where putin will be seen as having driven this country over the cliff and that he will basically be a pariah in russian history. the real question is, what more damage does he do while in power, and how messy or not is the succession process? he is illegitimate, and the hallmark of a illegitimate political system is there is no orderly, legitimate process of political authority transfer. that is the danger in russia right now. >> katty kay, to richard's point and to what thomas friedman wrote, it's not just about winning the war in ukraine. it's about creating order in the world. that's much more complicated. >> yeah. and creating a russia that the rest of the world feels they can deal with, because there is no conversation really that is taking place at the moment about

how russia gets brought back into the international community, particularly into the western community. obviously, has relations with some non-aligned countries, china and india, but doesn't have those with europe at moment. richard, i watched the events unfold last weekend. a little optimism bias was creeping into the analysis, perhaps, particularly here. you know, you don't have to look too far back, look what happened to yugoslavia or egypt, we didn't get a whole lot better. now that we've had a few days, and i think there is a more sober assessment of what might happen to putin, who may well double down to try to prove he is still in power, and we've seen the pictures of him wandering around with his minister of defense, what does this mean, do you think, now that we've had a few days for the ukraine effort? do you see any impact at all on this counteroffensive that the ukrainians have launched and are

on the trajectory for the war more broadly? >> first off, your point is really spot on. what you call optimism bias, i think a lot of the russian experts are so anti-putin, for understandable reasons, are so supportive of ukraine, that the analysis has been, shall we say, flavored by that. i have been roundly criticized by a lot of them for saying that putin, from what i can tell, has not lost his nerve, still seems to have control of the security forces, is conducting a purge. it's premature to write his political obituary and think that, somehow, he is on his way out. i think in terms of the war, we haven't seen clear indications. he's done more indiscriminate bombing of ukraine, the weapons against civilian areas. it is his version of station identification. the forces still remain in heavily, dug in defensive

positions. i think the question for the next couple weeks is whether now the purges at the upper ranks of the military, katty, i don't know how disruptive that is and whether it just distracts, undermines morale. i think we'll probably learn that over the next couple of weeks. you know, these things could have a momentum, and it is possible those who think this is the beginning of the end and it comes quickly right be right. if this almost pulls a thread on the sweater of russian troop morale and solidarity. i haven't seen any evidence of that yet. things like crimea, pretty broad support in russia for holding on to it. so my own guess, again, is ukraine may pick up a little bit here, but collapse, which is what a lot of people are expecting. i'm not ruling it out. i just don't see the telltale signs of it. putin does have a dilemma, let me say. to fight a war at the time you're purging is very hard. you have to fight the war with some of the people you're purging.

i think that's his moment to moment, day-to-day dilemma, which is how to deal with internal security at the same time he created this external security challenge for himself. >> in many ways, the wagner group he is trying to purge has been his strongest fighting force in the war against ukraine. >> absolutely. >> richard, as you sit here this morning, you are the president of the council of foreign relations. the next time, you'll be the president emeritus on the council of foreign relations. congratulations on an extraordinary 20-year run at the top of cfr. >> wow. >> when you reflect on it, what do you think? you have two days left of the job. >> besides cleaning up my office? you know, i have more books than i know what to do with. i feel really good. this is an organization that stayed true to itself in a polarized country, to be non-partisan, in a society of tweets, to still turn out books and serious stuff, i feel good about it. we published the leading magazine in the world about the world foreign affairs. the biggest change we made the last 20 years is rather than

just being an elite establishment, we're the leading institution in america, teaching in middle schools and high schools. we teamed up for civics around the world, calling it global literacy. i feel better about that than anything. we've taken on an extra mission. at a time the world matters, for better and worse, so fundamentally, to basically take on this larger teaching mission. >> we're looking at photographs while you're speaking of the most important leaders in the world over the last 20 years, all who have come to new york and sit down with richard haass and want to talk with you. rev, to richard's point, even in his next chapter, his best selling book "bill of obligations" now will be an important piece of civics in our school. it'll team with pbs, do videos. richard will get out and speak and continue his work domestically. >> richard, one of the things that impresses me about your next chapter is that you're going into schools and giving a more global view to young

americans of all backgrounds, that the world is not just what they see in their immediate neighborhood. i think you've done that in your leadership of the council. how important was it to you, for you to really give a global view to those corporate as well as other leaders that had a very narrow view, in many ways, before you kept pounding into the american psyche that, you know, the world is a lot bigger than your neighborhood? >> yeah, my mantra became the world isn't las vegas. what happens there doesn't stay there. >> right. >> we learned that the hard way with covid. we learned it the hard way on 9/11. you mentioned corporate leaders. in the corporate world, besides looking at their steve rattner charts, corporate leaders understand with supply chains, with covid, the u.s./china relationship, they have to redo their models. to run a fortune 500 firm now, it is not just the narrow, traditional balance sheet. they are in no way insulated

from what happens globally. they've also become players. think about it. if you were going to have a conference about what to do about the next pandemic or what to do about a.i. or what to do about climate change, you'd have to have corporate leaders sitting at the table. this model where states are the only pieces on the chess board, that's over. i keep telling corporate leaders, they need a foreign policy. they've got to become players. we have got to find ways of bringing them into the conversation. no way we can think about how we want to structure or regulate the emergence of a.i., accentuate the good, push back against the bad, how are you going to do that without people from google and the rest? we have to rethink our notion of diplomacy. we had the secretary of state at the council yesterday, tony and blinken and i had a conversation. secretary of state has a major role, but we have to rethink the chess board. you have to get different pieces on the board, different issues. >> congratulations on 20 years. we've been so lucky to have you

in our family for almost the entirety of the show. i'm sure we'll see you next monday. can't wait to see your next chapter. before we let you go, do you have more time to watch yankee games, like german throwing a perfect game in oakland. >> i was thinking about that, perfection. you can bowl a 300. you can pitch a perfect game. unless you're the leader of north korea, you can't have a perfect day on the golf course. he's the only one i know. >> shot an 18, yeah. >> 18 holes in one. the whole idea of perfection is so -- 24 times in history? >> yeah, that's it. >> 24. i haven't done the math. have you? how many games have been played in major league baseball? tens, hundreds of thousands? >> hundreds of thousands, yeah. >> 24 moments of perfection. that's cool. i don't see the lemires and mike barnicles and scarboroughs this morning. >> lemire is here. he gave grudging -- >> really? >> how many perfect games do the

red sox have? >> just enjoy the moment. why make it ugly? >> never gonna happen. >> richard, great to see you. >> richard, congratulations. >> congratulations. >> i'm thinking you can focus more on being the golf correspondent for "morning joe." i know that means a lot to you. and you need to brush up on it, got to say. now you can focus on it. that's good. >> i have a goal for the summer, to lower my handicap. i'll report on how well i do. just so you know, i know you're at the edge of your seat. >> terrific, i am. richard haass, thank you so much and congratulations. >> thank you. still ahead, donald trump's republican challengers are embracing one of his unfulfilled promises. we'll tell you which ones straight ahead on "morning joe."

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we are going to build a border wall. walls work. when you have the walls in place, it diverts traffic away from that, and it makes it so that the border patrol and ice are able to do their job appropriately. >> this is the wall of the last administration, and you can see it got bigger and it got taller and kept more out. this is the biden fence. it's not a border at all. we need to finish what we started, whether it's this or this, we need something. >> look, at this point, i think we started to build it. let's finish it. i mean, i probably wouldn't have done that at the start, and i said that at the time. now, we spent this money on building some of it. you might as well finish it now. >> wow. donald trump's republican challengers in the 2024 race embracing his policy while trying to distance themselves from him. it comes as a new poll shows the former president is taking a slight hit following his federal

indictment. meanwhile, a book from donald trump's former chief of staff seems to dispute trump's latest denial that he did not show off u.s. attack plans to people at his new jersey golf club, waving his classified documents. also ahead, president joe biden is trying to make bidenomics a thing, and he is hitting the road to highlight how it is helping everyday americans. plus, another major ruling is expected from the supreme court this morning, a decision that could end 40 years of precedent. we'll explain that case. welcome back to "morning joe." it is thursday, june 29th. jonathan lemire, katty kay and reverend al sharpton are still with us this morning. joining the conversation, we have nbc news national affairs analyst john heilemann. he is host and executive producer of showtime's "the circus." and the host of the podcast "on brand with donny deutsch," donny

deutsch is with us. okay. i think trump, team trump is going, uh-oh, it's in the book. i don't know if they saw this coming. a memoir from donald trump's own former white house chief of staff appears to undercut the former president's latest defense for his willful mishandling of classified documents. earlier this week, the leaked audio from a 2021 meeting seemingly captured trump showing off the crime. what he admitted was a classified document about a potential plan to attack iran from while he was president. >> well, 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. wait a minute, let's see here. [ laughter ] >> yup. >> isn't that amazing? this totally wins my case, you know. >> mm-hmm. >> except it is highly confidential, secret. this is secret information. this was done by the military, given to me. i think we can probably -- right? >> i don't know. we'll have to see. yeah, we'll have to try to -- >> declassify it. >> yeah. >> as president, i could have declassified it, and now i can't, you know? >> now, we have a problem. >> isn't that interesting? >> yeah. >> yes, it is interesting. the recorded conversation took place during a meeting with ghostwriters who were interviewing trump for a memoir being published by his former chief of staff, mark meadows. in the days since it leaked, the

former president has claimed he was not showing off military plans on that tape but, instead, was waving around new plans for buildings and golf courses that he intended to build. but according to a passage from meadows' memoir, trump did discuss iran attack plans while being interviewed for the book. in his, meadows wrote, quote, the president recalls a four-page report typed up by mark milley himself. it contained the general's own plan to attack iran. deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged president trump to do more than once during his presidency. john heilemann, your thought on this? i mean, donald trump will use any bad news about him to generate anger, but it seems to me, of the evidence we've seen, this isn't good. >> well, yes, mika, good morning.

i think that's an understatement. you know, trump will point out that, in the passage from the book, it says that trump recalls this thing. he clearly recalled in what we heard on the audio, and trump will cling to the one thing he clings to. he tries to find, what is the one angle i have to play here? there's no video. people forget when the "access hollywood" tape back out in the fall of 2016, there's been a lot of reporting on this subsequently in various books, that trump was trying to say to people, his initial inclination was to say, well, let's claim it was not my voice. somehow, they doctored it. if there is no video, if it is audio, trump will claim it didn't happen because you can't see it happen. i don't think you need the passage in the book to make the case, maybe not in a court of law, but to a normal human being, which is, listen to what he says there. milley sent it to me. this is classified, by the way. but i'll show an example.

shuffling the papers. he says three or four times, this is, of course, top secret. this is classified material. he is asking us to believe that what happened is while he was saying those things to his friends, he was showing them a copy of the daily news. i was just waving this around when i was saying classified and confidential over and over again. he obviously did this thing. i think that, because of the audio and because of the other evidence that jack smith has educed, and there will be more like this is my guess, it is all devast devastating, frankly, and trump will go to the grave claiming that, unless you saw it on video, and even if we had video, he could claim a.i. was involved or there was a body double. he'll go to the grave claiming that he didn't do it because, well, trump lies. >> donald trump ask going to -- is going to spin, spin, saying it was building plans for the golf course. part of the population will go

after him, saying he was a martyr, and biden sticked them on him, which he didn't, of course. then in the court of law, none of that matters. he can tweet, whatever his truth thing is. he can send it out all day, every day, and it won't matter, except to implicate him. the court will have its day, and it doesn't look good for donald trump. >> the question becomes, well, what happens when the day comes? does anything change? you went over polls in the earlier hour. as i was in my papajamas, i was like, this cannot be. the polls are early, but he is ahead of biden, desantis, doubling. if and when he is indicted and convicted, does it change anything? does it change? it's just -- and the backdrop against this is, what is trump's position now on anything, other

than, "i didn't do it or they're out to get me"? that is his entire platform that he is doubling down the entire republican field. ahead of biden in some swing states, his entire platform is nothing to do with anything i'm going to do for you, america. it's, "i didn't do it. they're out to get me. they're coming for you." that's your presidential leading candidate, republican platform, 2024. >> i'm a victim. i'm a martyr. i understand you, voters, who support me also are victims. i'm falling on my sword for you, effectively. >> that's what he has been able to project, and that's why he is leading in the polls with the republicans. but the difference is, while donny is in his pajamas eating fritos, i'm working out on the elliptical. >> frosty-o's. fritos for breakfast is not -- >> you don't know donny like i do. anyway, i'm on the elliptical

smiling because the best thing that could happen for democrats is that donald trump be the nominee of the republican party. so i would not in any way be disturbed by the polling of the republicans. because if donald trump is the republican nominee, then i think the biden/harris ticket has a much easier road to travel. the thing that is most appalling to people that are trying to get the republican party in a competitive state for the election is that they can't seem to move that voting electorate away from trump. christie is doing this kamikaze mission that i don't think is moving the dial. >> jen palmieri pointed to an interesting point. he is only at 5%, christie, but that's from zero to five in no time. >> right. >> i know we may be whistling in the dark a little bit, but every time that goes up a point, another two, three points, those are people that are buying into the message of just, we can't do trump anymore. we just can't do it.

>> he is speaking for some people, just not enough, it seems, within the republican primary. speaking of being at home in your pajamas eating cereal, mike barnicle joined us. he was up late watching domingo german dealing last night, throwing a perfect game for the yankees. mike, what's your sense of what the white house is thinking, to rev's point, as it watches all this play out? obviously, president biden is trying to separate himself from what's going on legally, to show he has nothing to do with what the justice department is pursuing here against donald trump. but in terms of donald trump the potential general election opponent, that makes them pleased, compared to the other candidates? >> well, yeah. i would think so, willie. first of all, let's deal with domingo german, okay? >> oh good. >> my pitching staff and my fantasy team has been slaughtered. i've lost so many pitchers this year. yesterday was the waiver wire day for our fantasy league, and at noontime yesterday, for the price of $3, i picked up domingo

german. >> wow. >> i must have won the week because he threw a perfect game. thank you very much. >> helping the red sox as a consultant, which you are informally anyway. >> this discussion we're having right now, it's a discussion we've had before many, many times. let's simplify it. what we have here is a confederacy of fools, incompetents and liars. that's the trump campaign. the other thing is, what publisher in his or her right mind would give mark meadows a book contract? i mean, that's ridiculous, too. anyway, trump is what it is. the problem with the white house, with the democrats, with anybody running against donald trump, we have to figure out what is it that holds, apart from the cult that will follow him across the -- right over the cliff, what is it about his hold on a specific number of americans that seemingly is uncrackable? it is not entirely uncrackable. as you pointed out, chris

christie, up in new hampshire, he has done from zero to 5%. he has a message. he's also got talent at delivering it, which some of the other republican candidates seem not to have. christie is delivering the message. it's clearly a slight impact, but it is early. that's what has to happen. you have to go after him in the republican party. they have to go after him. the white house is later. right now, the country's problem, the republican party's problem, is donald j. trump. >> all the other candidates in the field sort of dipped their toe in criticism and then run back and support donald trump when they need to. ron desantis chief among them, the one man a lot of republicans had hoped maybe could unseat donald trump. doesn't look that way at the moment, but he was out talking yesterday, saying he will eliminate several federal agencies if he is elected president. the florida governor made comments on fox news yesterday, saying the irs, education, commerce, energy departments all

are on the chopping block if he is elected. meanwhile, he issued a surprise veto in florida. the governor rejected a republican-sponsored justice reform bill that will allow adults to expunge their criminal records if they were arrested and found not guilty or if the charges against them were dropped. the veto is seen as an attempt by desantis to push further to the right of donald trump, to be perceived as tougher on crime. in may, desantis signed legislation that extended the florida death penalty to child predators. last month, desantis told a conservative pundit, if elected to the white house, he'd repeal former president trump's first step act, the bipartisan federal measure passed in 2018 that gives judges more discretion in sentencing certain drug offenders. it aims to give prisoners more access to the resources needed more life after incarceration. governor desantis voted for an early version of the first step act as a member of congress but

changed his stance since running for president. katty, this is implicit criticism in some ways from ron desantis of donald trump, trying to get to the right of him a little bit. he's made similar comments on the issue of abortion, suggesting that his six-week ban in the state of florida is where the party should be, not the way donald trump has approached that issue. >> yeah. he seems to have two messages at the moment. one, i'll get things done, an implicit criticism of trump, but i'll go further than trump and finish the job in a way that donald trump didn't manage to do. the other issue he is running on, of course, is all of the so-called woke stuff. that does seem to be resonating with some section of the republican conservative base. they feel that desantis gets that and cares about that more than donald trump does, according to the reporting that we have. but it's not enough. it's just not getting in the numbers. one of the reasons trump is still doing better than he was even in the spring, according to

the latest nbc poll, is because desantis isn't catching on. he's taken this lane. he could have taken the lane of competence, covid management. i mean, that would have been the obvious lane for him to try to reach people in the middle, perhaps, of the republican party who don't like trump's drama. but he's gone to the right of trump and the lane seems to be narrow. his poll numbers are not moving in the direction he needs them to move if he is going to make any damage. just getting above trump's 49%, that's going to be so hard for ron desantis now. he's been out a while. he's been out on the campaign trail now. people have had a chance to see him. seems the more they see him, the less they like him. >> there certainly have been questions about his retail political skills all along. he's still raising plenty of money, and he has a well-staffed campaign organization, but the desantis campaign, yeah, hasn't lifted off yet. nowhere near like people anticipated. as one republican said recently, i mean, because he is trying to move to the right of trump on so many issues, he is almost like a trump tribute band.

fans still want the real thing. trump is still out on the road night after night. donny, let's talk about the trump alternatives. if it's not desantis -- we see chris christie, he's a truth teller, but he won't be the guy. mike pence hasn't gained traction. tim scott, he has a positive message, compelling story, but there's not much there. glenn youngkin may be a late entry to the race. what is your take? who could be the trump alternative? >> i was going to bring up youngkin. the cast of characters now, i think it's already backed in. they're not going to all of a sudden jump up dramatically. it almost has to continue that more comes out against trump, and there's a little fraying. all of a sudden, the white knight -- i hate that expression -- a hero comes in, and basically out of nowhere,

starts to garnish attention. ten points turns to 11 points, turns to 15 points, 20 points. that kind of just, all of a sudden, there's a gush that starts to happen. i see, for some reason, that youngkin thing. he's got that kind of unknown quality, but there's something very appealing. he can pull to the mainstream. he can pull to the independents. he can pull the swing voters. i kind of see a late entry. i don't see any of the current entries ever just, boom, coming forward. >> john, you're on the campaign trail with "the circus." isn't it wish casting at the end of the day? what is the moment? what is the thing that will knock donald trump out of a republican primary or put someone else on top? maybe you see something i don't. >> willie, there is almost nothing i see that you don't

with your eagle eyes and your perception and your enormous wisdom. i hate to ever say anything about donny deutsch is right about anything, but i want to go back to something he said earlier, though he was saying nit a critical way. the thing about trump is that, you know, donald trump's only platform here is they're coming to get me and they'll get you next. that's true. it is his only platform. it's the source of enormous power, right? the argument around, you know, desantis is trying to run to his right, ron desantis has smart people around him on his campaign. if they think the way you beat donald trump is by running an idealogical campaign or a policy campaign or a competence campaign, in the republican party, they're just badly mistaken. what donald trump's grip on the republican party is about is about the cultive personality. he has a connection with the republican base that believes that he, in some way, represents them. he has been their champion. he has been for something like half the republican party,

really about a third that is never going to move away from him. it's not about any of this other stuff. it's about, they don't look and see a champion, someone whether understands their struggles and fights for them. again, you can make fun of that and say they're diluted and wrong, but that is the connection. it is a visceral connection he's built up. that is what the power of a cult of personality is. they identify with trump. the problem for the challengers to trump right now is not that someone is to the right or the left, who has 5%? doesn't matter. someone would go from 2% and take trump down if they had that, right? some way into that, to crack trump's hold on the party in that sense. the party is the trump party, the maga party. it's not a conservative, far-right or populous party or anything else. it's his. you can't crack the connectionv you'll not be able to beat donald trump in the primary. so far, there's not anybody who looks like they have that

formula. again, they could have 1% today. if you could see that, you could see how it might happen. right now, it is not going to be chris christie for that reason. could be a great candidate in new hampshire. is christie is guy who the maga faithful says, oh, he fights for us? it is implausible. what were you going to say, donny? >> do you believe the only theory is someone comes out of nowhere? >> you know, i raise tim scott not because i think i'm predicting anything, but there are a lot of people who are unknown largely to republicans in the country. most don't know who he is. over the next few months, they'll have chances in debates and they can get national exposure. people like tim scott who have appeal, can he suddenly find his way in with the core of the republican nominating

eelectorate? i don't know. but most of the dwarves are that. most republican voters know pence because he was trump's guy and trump, because he is trump. everybody else is a blurry figure on their screen. desantis a little more because he is advertising a bunch. everyone else is, they're going to wait and see. >> in that vain, i think a tim scott who is mostly unknown and maybe one or two more could break through with the argument that, yes, they are after us. the reason they are doing trump is because they're really after us, but i'm better positioned to protect y'all. >> win with that. >> i want to salvage what they're doing to our leader, donald trump. he is wounded. i can do this. i don't agree with anything tim scott says, including his name is tim scott. but i'm just saying, there is a possibility that someone could take on this kind of mantle, that he is wounded. let me save us because they're after us.

>> takes a lot of political kill. it'll be tricky. >> i think it's -- i think it's wishful, katty kay, unless republican leaders, not just the candidates out there, need to speak the truth beyond chris christie. the truth needs to be told to the people who are under the grip of donald trump. we're talk about the grip of someone who has cult-like tendencies. that's putting it lightly. fascist tendencies is putting it slightly, many would say. these are people who stood with him through trying to steal an election, who believe the election was stolen from donald trump. these are people who overlook january 6th as just, you know, whatever. they don't even want to talk about it. january 6th. an insurrection in america. who are overlooking stealing nuclear secrets. until leaders in congress, kevin mccarthy gets a backbone and thinks about the country and his

commitment to it and the oath he took, and others in the republican field actually speak to this, i don't know where they're going to -- how far they're going to get against trump. >> yeah, look, we've been waiting for years for republican leaders in what would have been called the establishment part of the republican party to stand up to donald trump. it didn't happen all throughout his presidency, and it hasn't happened. the case in point of mccarthy this week, who said the mildest of criticisms, that maybe trump is -- he doesn't know if trump is the strongest republican candidate, and then had to scurry back, you know, as fast as he could into his hole, say, "no, no, of course, trump is stronger than ever." reportedly calling donald trump personally. i think that incident this week showed us everything you need to know about donald trump's continuing grip on certainly the republican party's leadership, many of whom would prefer one of these other candidates to break through because they think they are stronger. tim scott, i was speaking to

somebody, to republican strategists this week, who said, you know, tim scott is trying to sell himself as the new reagan and morning in america and the optimistic republican, but this is a republican party that wants confrontation over conservatism. confrontation, as john was saying, this is the badge of honor, is how hard will you fight? whatever the fight is about, how hard are you going to fight? the fight kind of shifts from subject to subject, but it's all about the fight. i don't think tim scott is the fighter they want. still ahead on "morning joe," simply heartbreaking. a look at ukraine's stolen children, forced away from their families by russia. we'll have exclusive reporting on what the international criminal court is calling a war crime. plus, the latest in the fighting in ukraine. our next guest is a former cia officer who says we should forget about those faulty timelines for ukraine's success. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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it's half past the hour. president zelenskyy says 200,000 ukraiian children have been forcibly deforce eddeported to its occupied territory since the start of the war. a report russia denied. foreign correspondent molly hunter speaks to one mother about her daring trip to russia to rescue her son. >> reporter: in a video posted by pro-russian media, a ukrainian mother is seen getting off the train in southwestern russia. the russian reporter narrates that her son was taken from the

ukrainian village to a safe place by the russian military, he says. now, he's being handed back to his mother. but what the reporter doesn't say is the 12-year-old was kept for eight months at a school in russian-occupied areas in luhansk without her knowledge. "they took our children," she said days after the reunion. "they have no right to keep them there. the russian narrative is as the savior. we save the children. the commissioner for child rights. her and putin were accused of

war crimes, of the unlawful deportation and transfer of ukrainian children. president zelenskyy says 200,000 ukrainians kids have been deported to russia and russian-occupied territory. the ukrainian government says at least 370 have been brought back, including nakita. the ngo, save ukraine, organized the mother's daring trip. 3,000 miles all the way into russia to bring home her son. >> they're not giving them back. we're taking them back. >> reporter: since the icc arrest warrant, he says, russia is making it harder. >> russians understand now that each case is valued for icc, for ukrainian, for future court. >> each case could be evidence. >> each case, it is evidence of war crime. >> reporter: on september 8th, nakita says, russian troops took him and 12 classmates from their boarding school outside of kharkiv, just two days before

ukrainian troops liberated the area. they were sent to the special correctional school in russian-occupied luhansk. this picture was seen on the school's website. he says they sang the russian national anthem. his classmates in uniforms with russian zs. >> they're ukrainian kids? >> no, he says. >> these kids aren't ukrainian anymore? >> reporter: he says they're not ukrainian anymore because they were grabbed. ukrainian officials describing what they say is putin's plan to erase ukrainian identity. >> you never were ukrainians because ukrainian nation never exists like a nation. you are russians. >> reporter: were you scared to go to russia? she says it was terrifying going into russia, "i was shaking at every border crossing." "but it wasn't a question," she says. "unless you're a mother, you can't understand." in a statement to nbc news, the

commissioner said russia helps families be reunited. the mother makes it clear, no one from the school ever got in touch. "i cried at night," she says. "the pillow was covered in tears. i had no idea how to get him back." >> nbc's molly hunter with that exclusive report. joining us now, former senior operations officer with the cia, marc polymeropoulos. he has a new piece in "the messenger," entitled, "forget about the faulty timelines for ukraine's success." yeah, timelines are hard to draw. we had a secretary of state on yesterday, and he wouldn't really give a sense of how long this is going to go. but it's also, what is success? especially with the unrest and the new questions in terms of putin's power that we're seeing

in russia. >> right, mika. so i wrote the piece because i wanted to challenge kind of the notion that there were timelines. you see in the past several weeks, before the coup, to be fair, we saw u.s. officials kind of talking anonymously, saying that the counteroffensive was so important for ukraine and the u.s. would perhaps reassess support, that the west might get wobbly. this is predicated on the notion that putin was, you know, the strongman, putin had a firm grip on power. one of the things i think the events starting on saturday, it, in fact, shattered that notion. perhaps, you know, western resolve is significant and perhaps putin is not as strong as we think. one of the things i put in my piece is, number one, i don't think it is fair, of course, to put all our marbles on this counteroffensive when we haven't given the ukrainians everything they needed. the f-16s will not get there in

time. i've talked about this on the show before, the other part is i think there is significant support within the u.s. congress, including on the republican side, for, lengthy, extended support for ukraine. you have the mikes of the national security. mike mccall, mike turner, mike carpenter. we have to go with lloyd austin, secretary of defense said, that this is a marathon, not a sprint. perhaps we, in fact, both nato and ukraine, can outlast putin, who is looking shaky right now. >> marc, the biden white house is subtly suggesting it is, in fact, the strong support for ukraine, led by washington but throughout the west, that put russia in this situation. prigozhin mutiny came because there were complaints about the russia war effort, things were going poorly. they're using the argument to say, look, we need to do more. that'll be the subject in the nato meeting in lithuania in two

weeks' time. as you talk to counterparts across europe, there have been wobbles in european capitals about how much longer they can support the ukraine effort, particularly if the counteroffensive proceedsaugust sluggishly. do you think it could convince the european leaders to say, hey, we have to stay with us, it's working? >> i do. the wobbliness was predicated on the fact that putin can outlast us. look what happened inside russia. we saw reporting of a potential purge. senior russian general, apparently, has been arrested. putin is going to be worried, what's happening under his own roof. number two, of course, the wagner group, as you had a guest yesterday talk about, elliott ackerman, you know, really was something really significant on the battlefield. the russians have lost that capability. this was their vanguard. this was kind of their shock

troops. they don't have the 30,000 forces. they were brutal and horrific, but the ukrainians said they were the most effect i have fighting force. ultimately, we will, we haven't seen it yet, but we'll see an effect on the battlefield. i think you'll see a stronger sense of ukrainian resolve in two weeks. i would look also for, you know, things such as attack 'ems to be on the table, to increase support. ultimately, while putin is still in power, he is weakened, but this is good for ukraine in the end. i think we'll see the theme at the nato summit in two weeks. >> marc, the world has been getting a refresher course for the last year and a half in the russian way of waging war, going after civilian targets, brutalizing territory, destroying cities, kidnapping children. you've been in iraq. you've been in afghanistan in your career. let me ask you this question. off the piece we just showed of the mother and child being reunited, is it possible that

we're looking at, in ukraine, an entire nation with ptsd? >> mike, what a great question. of course, i've had quite a lot of experience from spending almost three years in conflict zones with my friends and colleagues from the intelligence services and from the military, as well. ukraine, you know, will be a damaged country. it is not just, you know, those who have been killed or wounded in action. it's not just rebuilding. it's also kind of a grand psyche of everyone. the trauma that's gone on there is incredible. there's also a whole bunch of ngos and private organizations that are dedicated to this. but, you know, it's not -- again, it's something that the country itself is going to have to deal with, even if they end up prevailing in the conflict. one thing i'll note, you know, i noticed earlier today you were talking about thomas friedman's piece about what happens post putin, but i would challenge that a bit. putin is pretty damn awful. this is a war criminal. he has been indicted. the war crimes have been

horrific. i know there's always concerns about instability in the future in russia, but, you know, it's pretty damn bad now. i worry when we hear that notion, because it almost sounds like we would want him to stay in power. i think we have to be careful about seeing putin as kind of this element of stability in the world. he is a pretty awful character. and an indicted war criminal. >> marc polymeropoulos, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. coming up on "morning joe," a look at the severe weather hitting much of the country, including that smoky haze from the canadian wildfires. that is enveloping so many skylines. we'll be right back. 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

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as you can see, muddling the new york city skyline, that smoky haze from canada. as some parts of the country face dry conditions and extreme heat, other cities, stretching from chicago to new york, are dealing with poor air quality due to smoke from those canadian wildfires. nbc news correspondent sam brock has the details. >> reporter: right now, it's a split screen of severe weather straddling the country. more than 100 million are breathing in smoky wildfire-fueled air. >> i can't get a breath of fresh air. >> reporter: while intense heat is making life miserable in places like dallas and new orleans. a chunk of people will face triple digits today and tomorrow. willie williams jr. called the seventh ward in louisiana home for decades. doesn't feel normal? >> it doesn't. >> this is an aberration?

>> unusual. >> reporter: he has power, but in the middle of the heat wave, no safe drinking water. new orleans looks to address a broken water main issue impacting his area. in a neighborhood with plenty of older residents trying to cope with the heat. >> some people, as i said before, are going to be more affected than others, financially, emotionally. >> reporter: the miery making headlines in cleveland, ohio, too. >> i can't see anything, like, 5 feet past me. >> reporter: as thick haze plays whack-a-mole between cities, with chicago getting its fair share. >> we want to walk around and enjoy the city, but we're not able to. >> reporter: the combination of suffocating smoke and blazing heat managing to touch more than half the u.s. everyone coast to coast now battling to break through a severe streak of miserable summer weather. >> sam brock reporting there. the supreme court likely will hand down decisions on several landmark cases in a few hours from right now. the high court still has open cases concerning affirmative

action, lgbtq+ rights, student loan forgiveness, and religious rights. rev, there are two cases on affirmative action in colleges. one regarding harvard and one for the university of north carolina in chapel hill. the six conserative justices, based on their line of questioning and responses, seem to be leaning against overturning some of the stuff that has been in place. >> i think that we could not overestimate how critical this will be. because we already have seen the court watered down race as a factor in terms of admissions to higher education institutions. if they bring it down even further or erase it, the implications are far reaching. because let's say they say, well, race shouldn't be a factor. we no longer consider race. we're going to keep legacy in place. we'll keep other things, but race shouldn't even be a

consideration. well, then that could be used in the private sector that say, well, you know, we can't use race for diversity on boards or employment or diverse thety in contracts or diversity in who we do our work with. it could be devastating. with the trends that we're seeing in some polls, that some black men are going to trump and to the right, this would knock that from under them. because you will, in effect, say, we're going to leave the inequality the way it is, all the unfulfilled promises after george floyd stay in tact as unfulfilled, because race is eradicated, which gives the fallacy that we are equal and being treated fair. so this is a very important ruling that comes today. >> in one of the cases, it's asian-american students who say they've been discriminated against because of affirmative action. the two cases very different. we'll find out how the court is going to rule in a couple of hours. coming up next here, the

documentary inside the iranian uprising tells the story of the massive protests sparked by the death of a young woman who had been in police custody. we'll be joined by that film's producer next on "morning joe." imagine you're doing something you love. rsv could cut it short.

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unprecedented protests across iran. >> eyewitness accounts and footage from inside the historic protests. the women defying the regime, and the violent crackdown. >> that's the trailer for the compelling new documentary "inside the iranian uprising" taking viewers inside the protests that have rocked

iran since the death of mahsa amini last september. she was the young woman who died while in police custody after she was accused of not following the islamic regime's strict dress code. joining us now is the producer of the documentary, and i'm curious as to what we will be seeing in this documentary, especially about not just taking us inside these protests, but the changing attitudes of young people and what they're willing to live with. >> yeah. so the extraordinary thing about what happened when the protests began was that as you know, foreign media and independent journalists, it's very hard for them to operate inside iran, and so when the protests started, iranian citizens began filming the uprising themselves and

filming the violence that was taking place on the streets, and the director of the film, the iranian filmmaker from the very beginning was spending every night downloading this footage that was being uploaded by citizens on various different social media platforms despite, you know, internet blackouts and -- and what is extraordinary was that these protests were led by women first and foremost, and they were led by a younger generation of women and men by gen z, and we witnessed, you know, teenage girls going on these front lines confronting police, you know, lineups, knowing full well that they would probably be beaten down and arrested, and yet they were willing to literally sacrifice their lives for -- to fight for their freedom. >> we've seen since those

protests, a clampdown on the people who were protesting. there's been a big uptick in the number of people who have been hanged or executed who took part in those protests. how much of a sense do you get of where those protests are today and what future they may have? >> so the street protests have died down, but they -- but iranians continue to defy the regime by posting videos, especially women, of themselves on social media. iranian women continue to go out without their hijabs and they continue to try and stand up for what they believe in, and there's, you know, many women i've spoken to say that things can never go back to how they were before mahsa amini died, and so all though the street protests have died down, the

violence has died down, they will continue fighting and people are still facing death row. we've had, you know, in june another seven people that have been sentenced to death, and there are many more that are facing the potential similar fate. >> sasha, did the young people in the streets protesting what is going on, what has been going on for quite sometime in tehran and the rest of iran, they're largely young demographic, and the ruling elite is largely very old. >> they are saying that they're not going to leave. they're going to stay in iran. they're not going to follow the previous generation who tried to make a life for themselves. so they will not give up. they will not give up, and they will continue to fight for their freedom and for what they want,

and, you know, all we can hope is that they will succeed somehow, but yeah. >> "inside the iranian uprising" premieres this evening on the pbs app. producer sasha joelle achille, thank you so much. how mark meadows' book is undercutting former president trump's latest denials about his handling of classified documents. plus, president biden trolls a republican senator who touted new federal funding for his state coming from a bill that he voted against. "morning joe" is coming right back. ainst. "morning joe" is coming right back

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grounded to third. donaldson has it. there he is.

perfection for domingo. >> domingo herman delivering a perfect game late last night for the new york yankees. that was out in oakland, marking only the 24th game in the history of major league baseball and the first in more than a decade. getting it done, domingo german, you're a big fan. he became the fourth new york yankee to throw a perfect game since 1966, and the late '90s. german who has been up and down, gave up ten runs in three innings in his last start, but he was just unbelievable last night. only went to a three-ball count with two hitters. he was basically untouchable, throwing a perfect game. yankees win 11-0. can you even a red sox fan muster any excitement for this moment in history? >> domingo german, the fourth

yankee to throw a perfect game, and the first to do so after being suspended for ten games for having sticky stuff on his glove. he has been up and down this year, and he is available. anybody can have him because he has not been very good, but this was brilliant last night. it is baseball history, setting aside my own feeling about the yankees, this is something that's only happened a couple of dozen of times in the history of the sport. sadly it happened in front of only about 12,000 fans there in oakland. the franchise has been treated so shabbily by the league, but it's always history. congratulations to mr. german. >> and from the sound of it, mostly yankee fans, 72 of his 99 pitches were thrown for strikes. mika, a very exciting moment. busy news day, but this just happened overnight. again, only the 24th perfect

game. 27 up, 27 down in order in the history of major league baseball. >> yeah, and the analysis is great except for the part where he didn't say this would never, ever happen to the red sox. >> oh. >> perfect game for the yankees. sorry. it's true. >> thank you, mika. good morning, everyone, and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, june 29th, and with us we have as you saw, the host of "way too early." u.s. special correspondent for bbc news is with us. the former white house communications director, jenn palmeri, and the host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton joins us this morning. so get this. a memoir for donald trump's own former white house chief of staff appears to undercut the former president's latest and

many defenses for his willful miss handling of classified documents. you remember this leaked audio from a 2021 meeting seemingly capturing former president trump showing off what he admitted was a classified document. this is at his club in bedminster, about a potential plan to attack iran from while he was president. >> well, 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 all off the record, but they presented me this. this was him. this was the defense pept -- department and him. let's see here. >> oh my gosh. >> i just found -- isn't that

amazing? this totally wins my case, you know, except it is, like, highly confidential. >> yeah. >> this is secret information. by the military, given to me. i think we can probably -- >> i don't know. we'll have to see. yeah, we'll have to try to -- >> as president, i could have declassified, but now i can't. >> now we have a problem. >> isn't that interesting? >> you've got to love the staff going, ha ha ha. i think we have a problem. that recorded conversation took place during a meeting with ghostwriters who were interviewing trump for a memoir being published by his former chief of staff, mark meadows. in the days since that audio leaked, the former president has claimed all sorts of things like he was not showing off military plans, no. of course not. not on that tape. what you heard was him waving around plans for new buildings

and golf courses and newspaper clippings, but according to a message -- a passage from meadows' memoir, trump did discuss iran attack plans while being interviewed for the book, and in it, meadows wrote, quote, the president recalls a four-page report typed up by mark milley himself. it contained the general's own plan to attack iran, deploying massive numbers of troops, something he urged president trump to do more than once during his presidency. willie, this is so painful. i mean, you could see when trump was trying to explain this away with an interview to fox i believe that he was, like, uh. it was golf plans. it was my pants, and my shirts. you could hear the papers rustling. i mean, that was literally him trying to buy time to think of an excuse.

this is in the book, and remember, if this is in the indictment, chances are the people who were in that room including the fans who couldn't say, mr. president, please put away classified documents, and why are they here? all of those people potentially interviewed. >> yeah, and this memoir, this memoir from mark meadows provides corroboration one would think for jack smith and the special counsel's office. this is a four-page attack plan prepared by general milley and presented to donald trump, exactly like the one he appears to be describing on that audio tape. when you listen to these explanations from donald trump, he's -- he's sort of painting himself as a martyr. i'm getting indicted for you, he's saying to his crowds, and just hoping that they'll buy the explanation that this is all part of a greater witch hunt, that this is all because they don't want him to be in the white house, they being the justice department, they being the fbi, they being the special

counsel. it remains to be seen if that passes outside of his group of close followers who seem to buy anything he presents them. >> well, inside that small group, they want to buy it. i mean, he plays into something that's already in them, but i think in terms of the expanded body of people that he's shooting for, it becomes more and more difficult when his own chief of staff's memoirs say he does do what this tape says he did, and they caught him on tape. i mean, it doesn't even really make sense. why would you have building plans in your hand while you're talking about milley saying that we ought to give more troops to iran? it just doesn't -- it's totally inconceivable unless you want to make that something, and mika makes a good point. people that gave the tape are going to likely testify at donald trump's trial. they will say, this is what he said. this is what he showed.

we've never talked about golf carts or buildings, and who's going to refute that? is donald trump going to take a stand? because the only one that can get on the stand and contradict that is donald trump, and if he does that, then they need to get the handcuffs ready because they will kill him in a cross examination. >> if he ever gets on the stand. he might want to defend himself. jen, perhaps the explanation for these increasingly absurd explanations of what was in donald trump's hand, there's no good argument or defense for it. you have to just throw stuff out there, and hope it gets caught up in the fog machine of misinformation, and that enough people buy what you are saying to not see the truth that he explicitly describes on the tape a defense department document in his hands. >> yeah, and he says, i just happen to have it here in the pile of papers, and there's a few things -- i think there's a few notable things going on with this particular situation. one, i am surprised that he got

so defensive and felt the need to try to explain away what he said as opposed to being -- as opposed to having bravado in his response as well as what he said on the tape to say, you know, just to say as he has said before, like, it's my right. i have these things, but to be so defensive and changing his story, and obviously, obviously formulating his response in realtime as he's speaking. he's talking about plans and moving from, you know, talking about plans that maybe are about golf plans or his house plans. the second thing that i think is worth noting, this is the second time we have heard audio of him talking about a mark milley memo, right? so imagine -- we just happen to have learned about these audio tapes. imagine how many more the prosecutor may have, right? this could just be the tip of the iceberg, and also it's interesting to think about, why

are we hearing these audio tapes? who -- who's releasing them? it could be -- it could be mark meadows. it could be meadows' staff. it could be the prosecutors thinking it's good for people to see we have a strong case, and there's a lot of people who have access to this tape so no one's going to think maybe it was the prosecutors, but it's also worth considering why these tapes are getting out into the public. >> yeah, and how they're getting out there, and again, this was a group of them. this is trump's grip over the base recently. this stalls as the best chance to move on from donald trump for 2024. that is florida governor ron desantis. in a new analysis of the

republican primary race, "the washington post" writes, quote, trump is delivering a combative message to republican primary voters that is resonating with many of them. he has adopted policy positions and rhetoric that have grown more confrontational and extreme, and continues to make false claims including about his 2020 election defeat. trump has responded to his indictments with relentless attacks on the justice system. allies say there is plenty of time to reshape the race with debates and tons of field organizing and momentum, but few deny trump has only grown more formidable in the first half of the year while the race to displace him is more unsettled than ever. case in point, new polling out of pennsylvania, critical swing state of course, in the election. according to the quinnipiac university poll, former president trump is now leading a crowded republican field with 49% support among registered republican voters. that nearly doubles florida governor ron desantis who gets

25% support. chris christie, mike pence, nikki haley, senator tim scott down in single digits in a hypothetical 2024 general election matchup between biden and trump in the state of pennsylvania, and this poll. this race is a virtual dead heat. support biden.ump and the three leading candidates, biden, trump, and desantis are all underwater when it comes to their favorable numbers. not good for any of those three right there. take all that in, and we just have to now confront and accept the fact that this stuff is only for now, making donald trump stronger within the republican party. we'll see if a pile of indictments coming out of georgia, coming out of january 6th, more from new york, if that does hurt him, but in the short-term he has painted himself again as a martyr and a victim and is working inside the primary. >> yeah. there is a poll that has come out of the wisconsin that shows the opposite that shows biden's lead over trump growing.

there are good numbers too for the white house. i wrote a piece about this for the bbc, and this counterintuitive effect this is having. all of this is having on donald trump's standing in the primaries and what he's being able to do is in a way, it's almost like the more indictments there are, the more legal problems there are, he is managing to flip that to his supporters to the base of the republican party, and clearly even beyond his base and say, look. you see, this is all proof that i'm the victim of a witch hunt from the democratic administration and from the department of justice because if there was one case, well, maybe that's one thing, but the fact that there are now so many cases against me shows -- it must show -- all of these cases must show that this is a deliberate effort by them to bring me down because they fear me as a political candidate, and that message is resonating. the other message that seems to be resonating with republican voters and not just his base, but beyond his base is they're coming after me to come after you. so when they -- when they slap me with another lawsuit, whether it's about mar-a-lago or whether

it's about e. jeanne carroll or potentially even georgia, then they're actually coming after you, and one republican strategist i spoke to said, just watch. when the georgia indictment comes down, his poll numbers will go up again. his fund-raising will go up again in the light of that as well. now that doesn't mean that when we get to the general election all of this won't get flipped on its head and have the inverse effect with swing voters who say, actually, you know what? we don't want to vote for somebody who's being criminally charged. >> you know, in an interview on cnn last night, former new jersey governor and 2024 hopeful chris christie criticized donald trump in the wake of this week's leaked audio tape, and offered his own theories about why the former president kept classified documents after leaving office. >> i mean, the thing that struck me the most is that that is what donald trump is like most of the time, constantly rationalizing his own bad behavior, justifying

what he's doing at the very moment, that he's doing it even when he knows it's wrong, and showing off. he's the consummate show-off, and i think that's what that tape was, him showing off. people ask me going all the way back to the time of the raid last year of mar-a-lago, like, why would he keep these documents? people are, like, is he going to give them to a foreign government or blackmail people? you don't understand donald trump. it's just to show off. he wants to continue to act like he's president. he can't live with the fact that he's not, and so that's why he kept those documents. it seems childish and stupid, and it is, but that's the reason why in my view he's always kept them. >> why do you think his excuses keep changing for why he had those documents? >> because he's getting cornered. he's getting cornered and he'll lie about anything. i think the latest lie is the one that he said just yesterday, right? where he said, i wasn't really showing them anything.

it was bravado. say he was lying to the people he was sitting with. the brett baer interview. >> that -- >> that, and he admitted he had the documents. he knew about the grand jury subpoena, but he was too busy to go through the boxes to see what was classified and what wasn't, and he didn't want to just turn the boxes over because he had golf shirts and golf pants in there. i mean, come on. there's nobody in america who believes that story. >> so chris christie, like a lot of us has had direct time closely working with donald trump, and brings us into his mindset there. i would like to add having watched him closely as well at times, and having had known him, the possibility that he and his team released the audio. there's always that, and i'll tell you why.

to something that is shocking, this is something donald trump does well, and then festers on the anger of it to play in the court of public opinion which of course, is important because he's running for president, and when you're running for the presidency, and you have indictments coming at you, the only way you can get out of jail is to be president. so in a way, he's running for his get out of jail free card, and you see him as chris christie said, constantly rationalizing things, lying about them. he does show off. he's right. there's a lot of bravado there. i remember early on in his presidency in the first weeks, we were in the oval office, and he kept saying, have you been in the oval office before? have you ever seen the oval office before? look at this. look at this. look at this. look at this. look at this. loves to show off, obsesses over his power. so in many ways while he plays in the court of public opinion, what i don't think he understands is that in the court

of law, they don't really care what people think. they're using these facts to build a case. >> yeah. his only hope there would be simply the idea of the juror that will be a secret trump holdout and wouldn't vote to convict. it's a very different game once you're inside that courtroom versus what he's used to which is in the political sphere, and i had a similar experience. i was in the oval office in an interview a couple of years into his presidency and he whipped out, using the same idea, of this is off the record. don't tell anybody, and pulled out a classified document, a letter he received from kim jong-un. he loves to show off how important he is, and wants to impress whoever he's with, whoever that might be. we heard from chris christie there, being sharply critical, and doing straight talk, and calling it like he sees it in terms of trump and his excuses, nonsensical excuses about these classified documents. christie is pretty much a lone voice right now among the republican field, and to mika's

point, he's been utterly drowned out by how trump is shaping this issue, and whether trump was behind the audio leak or not, he's gotten ahead of the story, and he's talking about it and painting it further as this witch hunt that was made to bring him down. do you see a scenario where donald trump doesn't win that competition against chris christie and shaping the narrative for republican voters? >> i'm surprised how -- chris christie is at 5%. that is not very high, but i'm pretty sure that's higher than he ever was in '16, and he is, you know, in that class of people that's in single digits. he's doing better than others. i mean, that's a low bar, but it is -- that is striking to me that -- because, you know, there is a population of republican primary voters that feel the same way christie does, that do want donald trump to be held accountable. they want to move on from him. so it is striking to me that christie's getting as much attention as he is, and that his support is growing.

he is not going to be the republican nominee or anything close to it. i suspect people like desantis are thinking, great. let chris christie beat up on donald trump so i don't have to. let him make all these arguments about why trump is vulnerable as a general election candidate so i don't have to, but i think that's a really risky strategy as you see, you know, when we were going over the ways that these indictments -- every indictment that comes down, the less any individual one might matter, right? the pileup may not hurt him as, you know, as we expected it could, and so i think that people like desantis are taking a big risk by not pointing out in realtime, trump's vulnerabilities as it's related to the indictments because he could just get a head of steam that is insurmountable. >> rev, i don't know about you,

but trump's never waved any classified documents in front of me. i'm feeling left out here. just like footballs from doug flutie and things like that. he makes a case, and he knows donald trump and he's speaking truth, but he's a lonely man in this race. he's a very lonely man. are we foolish every indictment comes down and every time there's bad news if donald trump, and somebody will come out and say, maybe this is the moment. this is the exit ramp for people to break with donald trump. after eight years of observing him as a presidential candidate and as president, should we know it's not going to change the trajectory of his ascent to become the nominee? >> we should know by now it's not going to change his hard core following. we can hope and pray that some of the more reasonable republicans would change, but it seems like they're going along

with it, and, you know, i've known donald trump 35 years, mostly fighting him, but at times he would try to be a democrat and prove himself to be liberal, and he's never shown me any papers. i refused to meet with him even though he called me twice while he was president. i've met with him many times before, and if you meet with him at trump towers, he's always showing something to validate himself. >> oh yeah. >> you're dealing with a man with deep insecurities that surrounds himself with phony cover stories of himself in his own office. >> true. >> who does that? he makes up phony front covers. so if you need that kind of validation, of course, you'll need to validate to somebody, i really have power. i really was president. look at these classified documents. you've got to psychoanalyze a man who was deeply insecure that overplays it and plays into other people's insecurity that is they no longer matter,

america is getting away from us, so we're going to make america great again and we're going to save us. they're after us. they're after us. when they're after me, they're after you. that's what's keeping his core in. he's playing on the insecurity of americans that have been wrongfully feeling displaced, and that is a sad commentary, but that's where we are. coming up, president biden touts his economic plans in chicago and calls out one republican lawmaker for celebrating federal funding that he voted against. we'll show you that moment next on "morning joe." i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up ♪ ♪ i've got symptom relief ♪

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you guys have no idea how good you've got it. how old are you? like, 80? back in my day, it was scary stories and flashlights. we don't get scared. oh, really? mom can see your search history. that's what i thought. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity. we moved out of the city so our little sophie 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.

my predecessor enacted the latest iteration of a fail that failed theory. tax cuts for the wealthy. it wasn't paid for and the estimated cost of his tax cut was $2 trillion. $2 trillion. now republicans are at it again pushing tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthy and adding trillions of dollars to the deficit. trillions. folks, let me say this clearly as i can. the trickle down approach failed the middle class. it failed america. >> all right. president biden in chicago yesterday touting his economic agenda while also criticizing republicans. he's calling out republican senator tommy tuberville of alabama for celebrating the benefits of the infrastructure law, a bipartisan bill, which tuberville opposed. >> just last week we announced our plan to bring affordable

high-speed internet to end a decade of unaffordable and inaccessible internet to every home in america, every small business in america. to no one's surprise -- [ applause ] to no one's surprise, it's bring along some controversy. people strongly opposed this when it was going on. this is going to bankrupt america. well, there's a guy named tuberville from -- a senator from alabama who announced he strongly opposed the legislation. now he's hailing its passage. here's what he said. quote, it's great to see alabama receive critical funds to boost ongoing broadband efforts. [ laughter ] >> this is the tweet that the president referenced. tuberville opposed its support for the broadband access on tuesday. twitter users added context that the senator did not vote for the

bill, but bragging on it? really? last night, the president's twitter account trolled that tweet writing, see you at the groundbreaking -- tuberville replied at the groundbreaking in huntsville? which is a reference to the ongoing delay of the plan that would move the headquarters from colorado to alabama. the biden administration is considering ditching those plans because of alabama's strict new anti-abortion laws. okay. so here we go. jen, for the general, i got to tell you, president biden has a lot to brag on, and you have republican senators bragging on his wins, trying to take credit for them, and then branch out. branch out, will you to abortion, to guns, to major issues where voters are just not with the republicans. >> the -- it's smart what they're doing because it's not just the president calling out

tommy tuberville. the cabinet is going to a lot of red states. secretary grant holm was in south carolina yesterday touting things in the infrastructure bill, but also some climate provisions from the inflation reduction act, and it's smart because, you know, it's hard for accomplishments to break through, but when you pair them with hypocrisy, it's an interesting story. people in alabama and south carolina are going to hear more about what the biden administration is doing, and i think the administration is also trying to protect against future republican efforts to repeal parts of the inflation reduction act or the infrastructure bill, and, you know, i thought the speech yesterday in chicago was really smart. the messages, the plan is working, right? people -- polling may show people are worrying about the economy. certainly it does. polling may show that people

don't necessarily give the president high marks on his managing of the economy, but what they're trying to show is there's a plan that we put in place for when we came out of covid for g7 nations. america leads in both economic growth, and we have the lowest inflation among our colleagues in the g7, and also that they've put a new foundation in with the infrastructure bill, with the chips bill on semiconductors, with the inflation reduction act so that going forward, the u.s. is going to be able to be more competitive. it's a message they're going to have to deliver from now until election day, but it's a good start. >> with the strong economic numbers and all the problems for donald trump, house republicans and some media outlets trying to change the subject to the president's son, hunter. nbc news has new reporting on how the president is approaching those issues surrounding his son. three people familiar with the situation tell nbc news the president has made it clear to his top aides in no uncertain

terms he not only will reject any political advice that he tried to limit hunter's public visibility, but he does not want to hear any such suggestions. the blunt directive from the president may explain why the father and son's public appearances have only increased recently as scrutiny has intensified around hunter biden's legal problems. people close to the president tell nbc news, keeping his son near also means keeping him safe because hunter's a recovering drug addict. as he wrestles with the issue, sources say he resents anyone would suggest he distanced himself as his son because of what he views as unfair and outrageous republican attacks. all that told to nbc news. the president raised some eyebrows by bringing hunter biden to the state dinner last week, and it made him a visible part of that evening. this as the house oversight committee and other organizations within the house republican leadership go after this issue.

hunter is trying to be made the centerpiece of this campaign. >> this is a story where many things can be true at once, willie, and you're right. some democrats and close biden advisers were a little surprised that just two days after hunter biden pleaded guilty to various tax crimes, that he then appeared at the state dinner when the prime minister of india was in washington. attorney general garland was there, and doj was in charge of the case, and he wasn't told hunter biden would be there, and he wouldn't appeared had he known. this hunter profile has picked up in recent weeks. he was at his father's side throughout here trip to ireland back in the spring. he's been spotted at more white house events lately as well, and look. it has been long known in biden's orbit, and including among white house staffers that you don't talk about hunter bind with the president. it's his one surviving son, one

that has lived a very tough life, and somebody who has been very open about the tragedy he's faced, but also the drug addiction that he continues to battle, and it's a subject the president just doesn't want to speak about. he says he has unconditional love for his son and we have seen that on display a number of times, but it does remain, fair or not, a political issue. the republicans, willie, in the house are still ramping up their investigations pointing to new whistle-blower testimony that suggests that the doj probe was not as fair as it should have been, suggesting that there is still business dealings to probe, and i think we can -- it's safe to say that hunter biden will remain a story line heading into the next election, and hunter's father, the president of the united states, i'm keeping this as close as i can. coming up, what happens to putin now? we'll lead from "the new york times" and get expert analysis from richard haas following that rebellion in russia. "morning joe" is coming right back. russia. "morning joe" is coming right back nt when you realize that a good day... is about to become a bad one.

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absolutely. >> to what extent has vladimir putin has been moved by recent events? >> it's hard to tell. he's losing the war at home. he's come to fly around the world, and it's not just nato. it's japan and, you know, it's 40 nations. >> that was the president commenting on the war in ukraine and the short-lived rebellion in russia. he misspoke there. thomas friedman has a column in the "new york times" opinion section asking the question, what happens to putin now, and tom writes in part, this. we should be worried as much by the prospect of putin's defeat as by any victory. what if he is toppled? this is not like the last days of the soviet union. there is no nice, decent

yeltzen-line takeover. if putin is ousted, we could well end up with someone worse. how would you feel if prigozhin had been in the kremlin this morning commanding russia's nuclear arsenal? you could also get disorder or civil war, and the crackup of russia into war lord oligarch thieves. when a big state cracks apart, it's very hard to put it back together. the nuclear weapons and criminality that could spill out of a disintegrated russia would change the world. this is not a defense of putin. it's an expression of rage at what he did to his country, making it into a ticking time bomb, spread across 11 time zones. putin has taken the whole world hostage. if he wins, the russian people lose, but if he loses, and his successor is disorder, the whole world loses. let's talk more about this with

the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haas. thomas friedman brings up a lot of good points here. at the same time, the reality of putin as it stands right now is not so good. >> no, you're right, mika, and tom is right. look. we've got a problem with a strong putin a weak putin. the putin who went into ukraine has brought war back to europe in ways that we thought were simply part of the past. it turns out his strength in some ways was false militarily, but still he's doing real damage, and the question is how do we continue to help ukraine so it can frustrate russia? on the other hand, tom points to a real scenario which is, you know, even if what happened the other day is the beginning of the end, we don't know if it's a six-month or six-year process, and we don't know how messy it is, and what it leads to, and the idea of a disintegrating russia has got to be on the

short list of anyone's nightmares. think about what's going on in pakistan now. that's a, you know, a country again with what? 40, 50 nuclear weapons. well, russia has what? over 4,000 or 5,000 nuclear weapons. it has splits within its society. only 140 million people. the country is failing, mika. if you are about a 15 or 20-year-old russian boy or man, you have the same life expectancy as somebody in haiti. this is a country that is just failing in every way. i think that, you know, if ultimately putin can hand over power and the country stays intact, the day will come when he is excoriated when putin will be seen as having driven this country over the cliff, and that he'll basically be a pariah in russian history. the real question is, what damage -- what more damage does he do while in power, and how messy or not is the succession process? he's illegitimate, and the hallmark of an illegitimate

political system is there's no orderly legitimate process of political property. that is the danger in russia right now. >> and to richard point, and to what thomas friedman wrote, it's not just about winning the war in ukraine. it's about creating order in the world, and that's much more complicated. >> yeah, and creating a russia that the rest of the world feels they can deal with because there is no conversation really that is taking place at the moment about how russia gets brought back into the international community, particularly into the western community. obviously has relations with some non-aligned countries, china and india, but doesn't have those with europe at the moment. richard, i was conscious last weekend as i watched the events unfold that, you know, a little bit of optimism bias was creeping into the analysis here particularly here, and, you know, you don't have look very far back and look at what happened to yugoslavia after the

breakup, or even egypt. we didn't get a whole lot better in cece. so now that we have had a few days and now that there's a more sober assessment of what might happen to putin who may well double down to try to prove that he's still in power, and we've seen those pictures of him wandering around with his minister of defense. what does this mean do you think now that we have had a few days for the ukraine effort? do you see any -- any impact at all on this counteroffensive that the ukrainians have launched and are on the trajectory for the war more broadly? >> first off, i think your point's really spot on, what you call optimism bias. i think a lot of the russian experts are so anti-putin for understandable reasons, and are so supportive of ukraine that the analysis has been shall we say flavored by that, and i, you know, i have been roundly criticized by a lot of them for saying that putin, from what i can tell has not lost his nerve. he still seems to have control of the security forces, is

conducting a purge. it's just premature to write his political obituary, and to think somehow he's on his way out, and i think in terms of the wars, we haven't seen any clear indications. he's done some more indiscriminate bombing of ukraine, which are the terror weapons and that continues. it's almost his version of station identification. the forces still remain in very dug-in and offensive positions. i think the question for the next couple of weeks is whether now the purges at the upper ranks of the military -- i don't know how disruptive that is, and whether that just distracts, whether it undermines morale. i think we'll probably learn that over the next couple of weeks because, you know, these things could have a momentum, and it's possible, those who think this is the beginning of the end and it comes quickly, might be right, and if this almost pulls a thread on the sweater of russian troop morale, and solidarity. i just haven't seen any evidence

of that yet. things like crimea, pretty broad support in russia for holding onto it. so my own guess again is ukraine may pick up a little bit here, but collapse which is what a lot of people are expecting. i just don't yet see -- i'm not ruling it out. i don't see the telltale signs of it, but putin does have a dilemma. let me just say, to fight a war at the same time you're purging is very hard because the question is you've got to fight the war with some of the people you're purging and i think that's his moment to moment day-to-day dilemma which is how to deal with internal security at the same time he's created this external security challenge for himself. >> in many ways the wagner group he's been trying to purge has been his strongest fighting force in the fight against ukraine. >> absolutely. >> as you sit here, you are the president on the council of foreign relations and next week you'll be the president

ameritus. you have got two days left of job. what are you thinking about? >> besides cleaning up my office? i got more books than i know what to do with. this is an organization that stayed true to itself in a polarized country to be nonpartisan, in a country or society of tweets. to still turn out books and serious stuff, i feel good about it. we published a magazine about the world of foreign affairs and the biggest change we've made over the last 20 years is rather than just being an elite establishment organization, we've now become the leading educational institution in america, teaching americans in high schools, middle schools. we've teamed up with colleges and universities about the world, and we call it global literacy, and i feel better about that than anything. we've taken on an extra mission. at a time the world matters for better and worse to take on this larger mission. coming up, we're taking a look at some of the major

rulings the supreme court could hand down as early as this morning. "morning joe" is coming right back. t back how are folks 60 and older having fun these days? family cookouts! [blowing] [dice roll] ♪ playing games! [party chatter] dancin in the par—!

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reimagining public education. time for a look at some other stories making headlines. the supreme court will likely hand down major decisions on landmark cases this morning. the nation's highest court has open cases concerning affirmative action, lgbtq plus rights, student loan forgiveness and religious rights. some conservative justices have sided with the liberal side of the bench on things like election law and minority voting rights, but those decisions were not conclusive. that means they could end up

back at the court with different ruings later on. experts expect the remaining cases to be ruled in the conservative justices' favor. crews have recovered debris and preserved human remains from the titanic submersible that imploded two weeks ago. they will try to examine the debris to try to analyze why the titan imploded. the investigation could also provide evidence for possible civil or criminal legal action. five people were on board the titan when it imploded june 18th when descending to the wreck of the titanic. it was found more than 12,000 feet down on the sea floor, just 1600 feet from the wreck of the titanic. and madonna has postponed her upcoming world tour after being admitted to a hospital's intensive care unit with a bacterial infection.

in an instagram post, madonna's manager said the 64-year-old pop icon developed a serious infection on saturday. according to the post, madonna remains under medical supervision but is expected to make a full recovery. the music legend aimed to embark on her first-ever greatest hits tour, scheduled to begin next month in vancouver. a new start date has not been announced. we wish her the best. coming up, a look at a new one-man broadway show about confronting anti-semitism. t confronting anti-semitism. my active psoriatic arthritis

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we talked about draining the swamp in 2016. that didn't happen. i think the better analogy is breaking the swamp. you can drain it a little bit. the next guy can fill it back

in. >> didn't build the wall. mexico didn't pay for it. didn't repeal and replace obamacare. said he was going to balance the budget. he didn't. >> two republican presidential candidates taking swipes at donald trump's presidency. new polling shows the challengers are not having success in breaking through to republican voters. we'll go through those numbers and how the gop feels about trump's federal indictment. president joe biden is trying to fight the public's perception on the economy by highlighting what his administration is calling bidenomics. plus, the big issues that could disrupt your travel plans as we move into a very busy holiday weekend. 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. jonathan lemire and donny deutsch are back with us for the

hour. we have new polling showing donald trump is holding a major lead over his republican primary rivals. but a lesser-known candidate faring better than some of the more familiar names in the race. in this latest fox news survey, trump leads florida governor ron desantis by 34 points, 56% to 22%. in third place at 5% is sbre entrepreneur vivek ram swam my. 70% of republicans say it is extremely important to nominate a candidate who can defeat president joe biden in a general election. that is 15 points higher than the number who say it's extremely important that a candidate shares their views. new polling shows most americans

think donald trump broke the law with his mishandling of classified documents. in the latest poll, 53% of all adults say the former president's actions were illegal, while another 16% say they were unethical but not a crime. among republicans, though, more than a quarter believe donald trump did nothing wrong at all. 60% of republicans also still view the former president favorably. while overall that figure sits at 33%. jonathan lemire, it seems like in many ways donald trump has done a great job at desensitizing the public to something that is extremely serious. >> yeah. in terms of the republican primary field, right now he's done a masterful job at this. it's the same playbook he used

as a presidential candidate back in 2016, he used as our most controversial president. it's all smokescreen. it's all distraction. it's all trying to change the subject. it's all trying to change the conversation and rallying his people to defend him, claiming this is all a witch hunt, suggesting he is a stand-in for them and their interest and the deep state is trying to bring them all down. because he has conditioned his supporters with one lie after another after another, including of course the big lie about election fraud, many of them simply believe him. he has whipped republicans into a frenzy to have his back in this field. he is trouncing, more than doubing ron desantis. this could be a very different story next year in a general election when he's competing for

independent swing voters, those suburban women in swing states, those voters who actually decide elections. it's simply hard to see any of them suddenly saying, i'm going to cast my ballot for donald trump when i ignored him in 2020 because of all that's going on, including all these federal indictments. >> this race isn't close right now. for all the hopes that have been placed on ron desantis, for people looking for a path away from donald trump, it's a 34-point spread. we see it in state polling as well. these indictments may indeed help him in these polls. it may deepen his support among his strongest supporters who do buy into the narrative that he is a victim of a witch hunt. you've got to win a general election. as that second poll shows, they want somebody who can beat joe biden, 77% of republicans do.

those suburban voters who turned on donald trump in 2020 even if they voted for him in 2016, polling tells us aren't going to suddenly flip back to him. >> one of the things to talk about of why trump is still dominating the field, it also is an indictment on ron desantis, who's just a very unappealing guy. he was the guy that was supposed to come forward and he was going to be kind of the next answer. he's just so unlikable. the thing that donald trump has going for him -- i mean, i can't stand him, but he does have a charisma about him where you lean in. when desantis comes on, you lean back. he's not stepping up to the moment. as far as trump in a general election, in pennsylvania he's

beating biden by a point. i don't see those voters that have left coming back. i don't say after possibly three indictments, after the insurrection as we get closer to a general election those tapes of those people scaling the walls at the capitol will start playing again and again and again. i don't see that voter that left him in 2020 coming back holding their nose in 2024, especially against a good economy. i don't see them coming back in a general election either, but who the heck knows. >> there's a lot more coming. georgia secretary of state brad raffensperger was interviewed by the special counsel's office yesterday as part of the investigation into the 2020 election interference. special counsel jack smith was not present at that interview in atlanta. raffensperger was central in denying the trump team's attempts to overturn president

biden's win in georgia. raffensperger's office said, quote, failed candidates and their enablers have peddled false narratives about our election for personal gain for a long time and the voters of georgia are not buying it. that's the republican secretary of state in georgia, who stood in the way of donald trump trying to flip the election there. meanwhile, an election worker in arizona has quit citing a failure from her department to defend her in intimidation and attacks, accusing the department of bending to a, quote, faction of the republican party, adding the department lacks impartiality and common sense. her resignation is the latest in a string of departures within the county. according to an april survey, 30% of local election officials surveyed say they have been personally harassed, abused or threatened for their work as an

election official. there's two separate stories there, obviously. that harassment continues in arizona. you have one election official, a republican, suing kari lake for defamation. let's go back to georgia. brad raffensperger, the secretary of state there obviously a key player in what they're looking at. >> we've all sort of shorthanded what jack smith is doing as the january 6th investigation. it's not just about the riot and the violence at the capitol, but rather the election interference probe. he's looking into that too, which we know is also happening in georgia. raffensperger, we've all heard that perfect phone call, as donald trump put it, where trump was trying to push raffensperger to find the exact number of votes he needed to overcome joe

biden's win. it is also a reminder here. this is a week where the supreme court delivered a victory for voting rights, tossing out a fringe right-wing theory that led to the idea of a state legislature putting a set of fake electors forward to try to overturn the will of the public, one of the schemes trump and his team looked at in 2020. that's a win. that's a good thing. but these people who are protecting the safety of our elections in this country, not just brad raffensperger, but also poll workers, a lot of them volunteers. these people stood in the breach in 2020 and stood firm and held the line and prevented trump and his team from trying to overturn the election. there are also people who are still very much the target of harassment and threats right now. i've talked to state officials who say they're having trouble to recruit people to work at the polls to work in election

security roles ahead of 2024 because they're so fearful those threats may return. >> that's the culture of all these conspiracy theories coming from donald trump all the way down through the party have created across the country. we've been listening to this tape around the mar-a-lago documents case this week. there's a tape in georgia, the infamous january 2nd, 2021 call where donald trump asked the secretary of state to go find the number of votes he needs to win. >> you keep saying, okay, this is the domino that's going to take trump down. this last one, almost the tape in a weird way helps him. he's just being an idiot, he's just showing off. even though we know it's different, a lot of people say well pence did it and biden did

it. the third one is coming where we play that raffensperger tape where he's literally saying find me votes, get me votes. is that the line and that's what led to january 6th? that one feels different, feels like it's going to be the one. that's tbd, because we see the line keeps moving with donald trump. if you said to me, compare the third versus the first two, i would go that one feels different. but then i step back and go, but he had nuclear secrets that he's waving around. that should have felt different. >> except his supporters have bought the lie that the election was stolen from him, so they hear that tape and say he's just trying to get what's rightfully his. >> it's very hard to make sense of. president biden, meanwhile, was in chicago yesterday touting his economic agenda and his accomplishments. the president made the case that

his bidenomics policies are responsible for a flourishing u.s. economy. >> guess what? bidenomics is working. when i took office, the pandemic was raging and our economy was reeling. supply chains were broken. millions of people unemployed, hundreds of thousands of small businesses on the verge of closing after so many had already closed. today, the u.s. has the highest economic growth rate leading the world economy since the pandemic, the highest in the world. >> joining us now, white house correspondent for politico eugene daniels. explain the white house strategy to put the message of bidenomics out there, and what of the risks that the economy could change in some way as we lead up to 2024?

>> reporter: the message is give us four more years because it's working. that is what you heard from president biden yesterday. that's what we heard from him a couple of weeks ago in pennsylvania. that's what we're going to hear throughout this entire campaign. also, they feel like it's an easy contrast. just talk about the things they've done. focus on that. try to stay out of the muck and the drama and have a chaotic republican primary that at this point feels like donald trump may be victorious and then they'll have an even better message to go out. this white house are being much more repetitive than they have been in the past. them and their allies have stayed very focused on this economic message talking about bidenomics because they know and they feel deeply they have not gotten the credit they feel like they deserve on some of the

economic wins joe biden has had in the last 2 1/2 years. you're talking about the computer chip manufacturing, the infrastructure act where people are starting to see and hear about actual infrastructure projects happening in their community. he talks about wanting to raise taxes on the wealthy. all of these things are quiet popular with the american public, more popular than the president at this point. they admitted they have not done a good job selling those wins to the american public and they're changing that. they're using bidenomics a lot. once you name, it becomes yours. yes, we see inflation going down. what happens if there's a turn? we've seen that over and over, gas prices going up, inflation

issues in this country and how that affects middle class families. so they're also going to have to deal with that. another issue when you talk to democrats especially is when you look at polling, voters see republicans as better at dealing with the economy even when the evidence is to the contrary. that's because for decades republicans have had that. ever since reaganomics. the republican party has changed. that's something that folks are going to have to contend with, but we're going to continue to hear this exact same message. i was talking to one of the democrats yesterday. i said the message seems the same. yeah, because finally we're getting the point that it's time to repeat to these voters because they're not hearing the message. >> the white house frustrated ha

it has historically low unemployment and other good economic message to share and yet the president is still in the 30s on his polling on his handling of the economy. white house officials now have come out publicly and said president biden is using a cpap machine. the president has had several nasal and sinus surgeries to ease symptoms over the years. nearly 8 million people use cpap machines. based off these photographs, the white house felt compelled to make this disclosure. >> he disclosed in health

documents he has sleep apnea. like you said, a lot of people use cpap machines. i don't know that every single american is going to think this is weird. i do think -- and they know this they know this also goes to his age. even though my dad who's in his 50s wears a cpap machine, anything that deals with his health, him falling, walking slower, sneezing, anything, they know that republicans are going to use that as a cudgel to talk about his age. also we've seen president biden embracing his age and joking about it. will that work? will voters care? hard to say.

>> eugene daniels, thank you very much. as the fourth of july weekend approaches, thousands of flights have already been delayed or cancelled due to severe weather and faa staffing issues. correspondent tom costello has the latest. >> reporter: well into the holiday rush now and the nation's airports are filled with stranded passengers, many frustrated, aggravated and sleep deprived. >> we just want to go home. >> reporter: the tsa expects to screen more than 2.8 million travelers tomorrow, the most since thanksgiving 2019. transportation secretary pete buttigieg says while they're adding 1500 new air traffic controllers this year, it'll take time to balance a staffing shortage that's been an issue for years pre-pandemic. >> we need to keep our foot on the acceleraors to get more controllers into the workforce. >> reporter: and then there's the weather. where storms are heading is

complicating matters even more since new york's big three airports serve as hubs for all the major airlines. >> it might be sunny where you are, but you don't know where that aircraft has been or is going. >> reporter: at some airports, this has been the scene, passengers sleeping on cots, chairs, even the floor. the fourth of july holiday limiting options for some. >> we called hotels 20 miles out. everything was booked. >> reporter: frightening moments in the air at charlotte international airport yesterday as passengers brace for landing on a delta flight from atlanta without its nose gear. >> we're going to have to declare an emergency. >> reporter: after realizing the front gear would not deploy, the pilot successfully landed on the back gear, then slowed the plane down. passengers erupted in applause. the runway shut down as passengers evacuated down the

emergency slides. >> after we exited the plane and looked back at the plane, we realized the front tire didn't even come out. >> reporter: with no injuries, delta called it a rare occurrence and said crews train extensively to manage emergencies just like this one. coming up, secretary of state antony blinken said right here yesterday that the president speaks for all of us when we asked him about biden's comments calling china's leader a dictator. up next, we'll speak with a member of the house committee on china. plus, what do patriotic brands and silver haired movie stars have in common? they're all part of brand up, brand down. e all part of brand brand down

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hazy morning in washington, d.c. secretary of state antony blinken was on yesterday where we asked about president biden's recent comments where he called chinese president xi jinping a dictator. >> you obviously met with president xi under two weeks ago, had a meeting that you called productive. a couple of days later president biden referred to president xi as a dictator. do you share that view of president xi? is he a dictator? >> you know, one of the reasons i went to china at the president's behest was to make sure we had clear, sustained lines of communication to make sure we can work through our differences to try to prevent the competition we're in from veering into conflict and also to see if we can find areas where it makes sense to cooperate. one thing i said to our chinese counterparts is we are going to say and do things you don't

like. you do and say a lot of things we don't like. we have to work through that. that's what we're doing. >> joining us now, ranking member of the select committee on strategic competition between the united states and the chinese communist party, congressman raja krish that moore think. what are the areas of potential cooperation, especially in light of the word that the president used? >> well, i think there are a couple areas for potential cooperation, including, you know, we have to make sure that we don't verge into a conflict or any kind of open hostilities in the indo-pacific region. whatever we can do to lower

tensions and make sure that doesn't happen, i think, is something that's in our best interest. secondly, we don't want to see a global recession. we don't want to see countries that might be laden with debt from different institutions in the world, whether it's the chinese communist party or other lending institutions, unable to succeed economically and there are hurting all of our economies. that might be some areas where we can work together. >> so congressman, we were talking to secretary blinken yesterday deeply and specifically about china and some of his concerns obviously over taiwan and the implications of any military action there, not just on taiwan but on the world, the ripple effects that go out from there, his concern about china's support for russia and on and on the list goes. from where you sit trying to create trade relations and have

a productive relationship with china, how do you view that country? how should people watching the show look at them? are they an enemy, are they a partner? how do you look at china? >> probably all of the above. the title of our committee probably encapsulates one common way of viewing them, which is, they are a global competitor at this point. i think that what we have to do and what our committee is required to do under the legislation creating it is to assess the challenges the ccp poses and formulate ways to address those challenges. so we're trying to do so in a bipartisan manner. you're absolutely right, in some places we're going to cooperate with them and engage, such as on trade. but in other areas, we have to deter aggression. the chinese, unfortunately, are

engaging in aggressive maneuvers and moves with regard to our friends, partners and allies in the indo-pacific region and we want to lower the possibility that there's actual open conflict. >> we want to turn to the supreme court. there's been a series of high-profile decisions in recent days. the biggest still remain, including one that could determine the fate of affirmative action across the country. i want to get your sense of what you're looking for from the highest court in the land and what your fears might be of how they rule. >> i think that with regard to affirmative action, i think that everybody is watching for that decision very closely, because it could really upset the way in which diversity is brought about in a lot of universities. i think we want to see a situation where the supreme

court obviously rules based on precedent, but also at the same time does what i believe the american people want it to do, which is to rule fairly and predictably. if it goes down the road of the dobbs decision, which really came as a huge surprise to the vast majority of americans and my constituents, i think it will end up further kind of undermining the views of it being a fair and impartial institution. >> we're awaiting those supreme court decisions in under 30 minutes from now. coming up, brand up brand down with donny deutsch. it includes a big brand down for an iconic treat. that is next on "morning joe." . that is next on "morning joe." to workouts and new adventures

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♪♪ beautiful shot of the statue of liberty at 9:35 in the morning ahead of this fourth of july weekend. just in time for the fourth of july, there is a new ranking out of the country's most patriotic brands. that kicks off the latest edition of "brand up brand down." everything for the last three hours and 35 minutes has been prelude to this. >> the most patriotic brand is jeep. they're not even american owned anymore, but they are the most patriotic brand. the second one is disney. a little message to mr. desantis, if you're going to go after a corporation, maybe don't go after one that people perceive as so americana. it's still hurting him. followed by ford, coke, levi and amazon. >> people aren't buying the

argument that disney is an anti-child grooming group. >> pick on something else. >> also love jeep. fantastic. brand down, to middle school learning. >> this is a really bad precursor for where we're going as a country. middle school reading and math scores are the lowest they've been in 50 years. this is across all demos. if you look at the overall health of a country and look where education is going, we're going in the wrong direction. that is not good news as we compete with china. >> the pandemic didn't help. >> pregnant workers. >> the pregnancy workers fairness act, basically there are 2.8 million pregnant workers in this country. this is if you need extra

bathroom breaks. this is a long time coming but good news for those many pregnant workers in the country. >> lemire. >> youthfulness in america. what have we got, brand up or brand down? >> we are an aging populace. if i asked you to guess what is the average age of the average american, median age, 38.9. in 1980, it was 30 years. that's really incredible that we've aged almost a decade. a lot of this has to do with the aging boomers and their offspring. really the implications for this is the job market is going to continue to be tight. as people get older, there's less in the workforce. i think you're starting to see early signs of that with a very tight workforce. >> on the flip side, silver haired movie stars, brand up.

>> when you look at harrison ford, age 80, coming out with the fifth indiana jones franchise. you have denzel washington, tom cruise. schwarzenegger has a new netflix series where he's a cia agent at 75. we did a survey and asked moviegoers who would put you in the seats. 19 of the top 20 were over 40. they invented blockbusters. it's really interesting. i don't know if baby boomers are keeping these people alive, but silver hair is in. >> you look like a silver-haired movie star. >> you are kind. >> sexy styles for men. down? >> i don't know if you're down, but here are some of the facts.

i come out of the wrong side about all of these. only 22% said that men over 50 should wear sneakers. 3% of respondents said the man's sexiest part is ankles. men's jewelry, only 41% say it's sexy. i'm on the wrong side of everything. >> okay. >> we have a shot of a cuffed jean and the bare ankle. >> i am on the wrong side of just about everything. >> we can't wear sneakers over 50? >> i know you want to chime in here. any thoughts on any of these things? >> i can't tell if those are women's shoes or not. >> that only happens for me after midnight. that's another brand up, brand down.

>> guys, are you with me, willie and lemire? >> unclear what those are. i'm just glad i'm safely in washington. >> i've talked many times about my midlife crisis that started at 40 and is chugging along a 65. >> it's a nice hamptons loafer. >> i would wear those. >> we've been trying to ignore this next story, the would-be elon musk/mark zuckerberg cage fight. i'm learning you've got it as brand up. >> i have it as a potential moneymaker. this has been talked about a lot. zuckerberg said bring it on. dana white has talked to both of them. it would bring in over a billion dollars watching two nerds beat on each other. i don't know who you want to see get smacked down more.

neither one of those guys' ego could ever handle being a loser to another nerd, but it would be fun. i want to put this on record now. i'll take either one of them on. >> finally, good humor, the toasted almond bar, a staple of our childhood. what's going on? >> they're discontinuing the toasted almond. what's next, the strawberry short cake. i want to know in that meeting where people are sitting around going, yeah, let's get rid of the toasted almond. there's something wrong in this country. i'm crestfallen. >> there's something rotten in america. it's the demise of the toasted almond. maybe we're just nostalgic and don't buy it anymore.

boy, we learned so much. this is fascinating. stay with us. we've got more ahead including alex edelman with a new one-man show on broadway. a new one-man show on broadway (wheezing) asthma isn't pretty. it's the moment when you realize that a good day... is about to become a bad one. but then, i remembered that the world is so much bigger than that, with trelegy. because one dose a day helps keep my asthma symptoms under control. and with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy helps improve lung function so i can breathe easier for a full 24 hours. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. trelegy contains a medicine that increases risk

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on thanksgiving i came out to my family. no, no, i'm not gay. i just thought it would be hilarious. i have an uncle who doesn't like gay people. because of that, i have come out of the closet on thanksgiving every thanksgiving. for the last six years. they say that coming out is the hardest thing that a young person can do, and it is, but it gets easier every single year. this is how i do it. i stand up with a glass of water and a knife like i'm giving a toast at a wedding. i go, i have an announcement to

make. my uncle will go, again? then i release the doves. i do my musical number and i throw the glitter and i sit down. it's part of the meal now. it's part of thanksgiving. people expect it. it's part of the ritual of thanksgiving. the turkey comes out, the potatoes come out, i come out. >> that is standup comedian alex edelman. six years later, alex is hitting a stage where few comics get to go, the broadway stage. alex's one-man show "just for us" opened at manhattan's hudson theater. the show features more stories about growing up in a jewish family near boston and his

infiltration of a white nationalist meeting in queens. alex edle monojoins us now. it's great to meet you. >> nice to meet you. i'm so excited. we had no idea what that clip was going to be. >> we had no idea. they were just like the clip from australia in 2015. i don't remember. >> let's talk about the origins of the new show. i mentioned part of it is from a meeting of white nationalists you attended in queens. tell me about that and how it inspired this show. >> i have this list on twitter of people who tweet anti-semitic stuff at me. the list is called jewish national fund contributors because it so annoys them when they're added to it. i get a lot of tweets saying take me off your list, i never contributed to the jewish national fund. there's still time. someone tweeted if you have

questions about your whiteness, come to this address at this time. i thought it was going to be more of a salon, if i'm being honest. in deep queens, there might be a thoughtful exchange of ideas. i guess there was an exchange of one idea back and forth. i sat there and listened. eventually someone was like, sorry but this guy's a jew. i'm like, yeah, i'm a jew. that's what the show is. >> tell me about the argument. how long did you make it >> i was a there for a little more -- about an hour and 15 minutes. >> okay. >> i think a pretty decent amount of time. and i actually was involved in the conversation. at some point someone was like, sorry, but like this guy's jewish, and i'm like, yeah, i'm jewish, and then there was a brief conversation about whether or not i should stay, and then they decided that, in fact, i should not stay. although one guy was like, i do have questions. and i was like, you know, tweet at me. there's a list i can add you to.

but it was interesting and it was -- it's become like is not to be too like academic about it, but it's become a really -- besides being funny with lots of, you know, jokes and tension, which is the center of comedy, tension. it has been a really interesting discussion about the sort of vicissitudes of whiteness, especially jews, the intersection between judaism and whiteness and how we speak to each other right now. it's been an interesting experience. >> john, you've seen the show. >> i've seen the show. >> your review. >> the show is brilliant, and alex is really like a generational talent. everybody sees him and goes, oh, my god, this is -- i'm seeing a young jerry seinfeld or something. >> no pressure. >> it's that level of thing. i saw that show back 18 months ago and watched it grow from that thing into now this kind of phenomenon, and kind of what i

want ed to ask you about, i remember when jerry came to the show, you're not a standup comedian really anymore. this show is something else. i want you just to kind of talk about it in the context of -- so people understand that it's more in the vein -- it's a monologue, plus other things. how do you think about what you're doing here? it's not just telling jokes. >> it's definitely got its roots in standup comedy. for people who don't like theater, it's comedy, for people who don't like comedy, it's theater. but that genuinely is like b i wanted to make the show something fun for people. coming out of covid people wanted something that was enjoyable and a really good time, entertaining and filled with jokes. i did try to make something that was accessible to as many folks as possible. every comedian who came, like when billy crystal came and steve martin and seinfeld, like i asked them all for notes, and some of them had like pretty granular notes. seinfeld offered a perspective

on something he bumped on. steve martin gave me this joke, it's actually one of my favorite jokes. steve martin co-wrote the show basically. but billy crystal said you should use one of these instead of one of these, and i was like i don't want to do that. i'm a comedian. he's like you're not, it will open up the show. don't think of it as a dirty thing. there's still plenty of standup in the show, but he's like one of these microphones, one of the headset microphones it will help you inhabit the characters. i didn't want it to be better and it was unmistakably better. it was so much better. so billy crystal does know something about comedy and solo shows. john saw it with the hand-held mic and the headset mic. it is unmistakably something that's more like brobiglia's show or whoopi goldberg's early

stuff. it's become a solo show. >> how do you feel when a seinfeld is in the audience or steve martin, these legends are coming to sit and witness you. that's just got to blow you away. >> tell the truth. >> well, first of all, it's terrifying. but i remember thinking like how did anyone ever shoot abe lincoln because the whole audience is watching the most important person in the room, and it's not me. so during our american cousin, wasn't everyone like is lincoln enjoying the play? like the whole -- the whole audience is looking at lincoln, but i watched the show with seinfeld, like when i'm looking out at the audience, i would look over at him, but then i heard his laugh, and i was like oh, my god, he's actually, you know, enjoying the show. and afterwards, they told me he wasn't going to say hi, and afterwards when he did say hi, it was like -- >> it's like carson calling you over to the desk, right? >> genuinely it does feel like that, the reason to do the show, it's so much fun for me and i do want audiences to enjoy it.

as a fan of comedy, you do it for your peers and your betters. and you want, you know, norman lear face timed me yesterday. >> come on, really? >> 100 years old, he face timed me and he's like i'm reading these reviews, you must be so happy. and i was like this is better than any review. >> this is the review. >> he is the nicest, but i'm such a huge comedy fan, so to be able to do this, like nickels and seinfeld and robin williams, and whoopie goldberg and billy crystal, this list of comedians that do broadway shows, it's not a very long list, it's the most gorgeous wonderful thing. >> those guys don't give away those compliments. if they didn't love so, they wouldn't say so. you're doing something really good. >> donny and i are coming. >> it's brilliant and everybody who sees it walks out going i've heard great things. it's greater than i thought.

>> put it on the marquee. just for us is playing now through august 19th at the hudson theater here in new york city. alex, so great to see you. son gratlations on the success. >> thank you so much. thanks for having me. >> come back anytime. >> it's no norman lear face time. we do our best. >> that does it for us this morning, we will be right back here tomorrow morning. president biden joins nicolle wallace at 4:00 p.m. live on "deadline white house." you're not going to want to miss that live interview. ana cabrera picks up the coverage after a final quick break. eak. i suffer with psoriatic arthritis and psoriasis. i was on a journey for a really long time to find some relief. cosentyx works for me. cosentyx helps real people get real relief from the symptoms of psoriatic arthritis or psoriasis. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or lowered ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to or if ibd symptoms develop or worsen.

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it is 10:00 eastern, great to have you with us today. i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. let's get right to the breaking news at the supreme court. at any moment, we will get new decisions and because