december 18th or 19th meeting in the oval office that was described as unhinged by some of the former counsel white tells lawyers who were there to block the outside fringe lawyers who were pushing this. sort of involved in blocking this plan that was being pushed by the outside team and what we have been hearing is this one piece of the puzzle that smith is looking at but a very important one, nonetheless. >> the washington post, thank you and thanks to all of you for getting up way too early with us on this wednesday morning. the morning joe starts right now. good morning as you look at a beautiful live picture of our

building. the rockefeller center in new york, it is wednesday, july 26. this morning, indictment watch for donald trump continues. we will get some expert legal analysis and could we see something later this week. on capitol hill, kevin mccarthy caught between the far right and reality as the house speaker appears to clarify his impeachment comments about the president we will tell you what he said. >> a significant ruling on the by demonstrations new border policy. plus we are following a developing story out of eastern europe where the marine veteran was released by russia in a prison swap and is recovering this morning after he was injured fighting for ukrainian forces. good morning, again. we have the host of way too early and white house political

chief, jonathan mir. susan paige and danny ceballos. good morning to you all and we will start with those new comments from kevin mccarthy who continues to adjust his party is close to launching an impeachment inquiry into president biden. in an interview on monday night, mccarthy said it stems from the republican investigations into the biden family's business deals. here is what he said on fox news followed by his remarks to reporters yesterday up on capitol hill. >> we have only fallen where the information has taken us. rising to the level of impeachment inquiry which provides congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and the inspiration notion -- inspiration -- information needed we have not seen the weaponization of

government to benefit his family and deny congress the ability to have the oversight. i believe we will follow this all the way to the end and this is going to rise to an impeachment inquiry the way the constitution tells us to do this and we have to get the answers to these questions. >> do you understand when impeachment inquiry is? it is not an impeachment. it allows the congress to investigate by giving congress the full power to get the information they need. it is the way people should go about and investigate. >> speaker mccarthy yesterday saying they are not specifically about getting all the way to impeachment but they want to open impeachment inquiries so they can get the evidence into these alleged crimes that they see. so how serious are republicans? and i am not just talking about the freedom caucus or the jim

jordan's of the world about impeaching the president of the united states and how far can they actually get with this? >> i am not exactly sure what they would be impeaching him for and i don't think republicans know that either. there have been a slew of unverified allegations against biden, specifically from when he was vice president. you saw james, and grassley take a hail mary last week with in releasing this totality form of a confidential source that was relayed to the fbi several years ago that, again, alleged unverified allegations. there was some sort of bribery scheme in relation to ukraine. we have previously reported at the washington post that the fbi did look into these allegations, they did not check it out. that was closed under attorney general bill barr. you will see republicans

continuing to try to throw spaghetti at the wall to sort of muddy the waters but the veracity of a lot of these allegations does not yet quite match the explosiveness of a lot of the rhetoric and the claims that we are seeing. this is not going to deter republicans from stopping these sorts of claims especially heading into august recess. i think there is a desire to kind of get as much out there to appease for president trump especially as we are waiting for this third indictment to land. >> jackie makes the important point that this was raised to the fbi, to the justice department under the trump administration, under bill barr by people appointed by donald trump and they don't see any wrongdoing but that doesn't mean that republicans and this oversight committee are not going to plow forward with this. this could cause some problems and you saw mccarthy trying to walk the line on the question of impeachment. will moderate republicans be

willing to step out and take an impeachment vote when they need to be reelected themselves. i will put the question to you, how far could they actually get ? could the house vote to impeach president biden? >> we should underscore what you just did. they have not proven wrongdoing from the president. that is not the case, here. first of all, the white house is pushing back strongly against all of this thing there is another political stunt. this is what they care about that what actually matters to the american people and they feel confident, the white house does, that if they were to go down this path, it would back fire on them dramatically. republican senators were asked about this yesterday and were pretty dismissive. this is another monument where the gop in the senate are acting as the grown-ups to the impetuous children. they are in the republican controlled house and there is a sense that mccarthy is talking about the impeachment inquiry and that might be as far as it

goes. this is an olive branch, if you will, outreach to those far right members of the house who do want to push biden out of office, who want to go through with a full-fledged impeachment hearing. mccarthy in the sense that the office of inquiry, maybe they will be satisfied and he doesn't need to bring this to a vote to put those moderate republicans in a difficult decision. it is not going to pass and it would lose the senate anyway and it could really backfire for republicans coming next fall . >> susan, you have been covering politics for quite some time. what is the degree of difficulty for you and other reporters covering the present- day status of the republican party and the house of representatives? you have speaker mccarthy, you have the freedom caucus, you have people like matt gaetz and something called the 20. how many elements are there and how do you cover this?

>> well, it has been a challenge, this new republican party. used to be able to cover leaders of the republican party like mitch mcconnell and i think that was a very serious way to cover the party. that is no longer the case. there are other factions who exercise considerable -- i don't know if president biden will ever be impeached but i feel confident that talk of impeachment will be a factor for him for the rest of his tenure. talking about politics, and i started covering politics and talk of impeachment was considered an incredibly momentous discussion, talk of impeachment is like demanding a roll call vote on the house floor. it has become a political tool that has undercut some of these areas impeachment inquiries we have seen into january 6th and someone said earlier, but at the waters, just muddied the waters as we consider this impending indictment of former

president trump. >> as is so often the case, it is all about retribution for president trump as if there is some equivalency. he was impeached twice and what they are looking for president biden for this morning. meanwhile, hunter biden is scheduled for court and expected to plead guilty to two federal counts of failing to pay his taxes, a deal that would allow him to avoid prosecution on a gun charge if he meets certain conditions. mariella will consider whether to accept that plea agreement. danny, let's walk our viewers through because there is so much swirling around. talking about his business dealings overseas and possible connections to the president which have not been shown so far, what are we talking about here? >> these are two tax crimes to

which he will plead guilty to misdemeanors and he will enter into a diversionary program for gun charges and what that means is kind of a one free bite of the apple. you enter into a program and typically, you are monitored by probation. you have to behave, you go to work and you do everything you are supposed to do. you come back in six months or however long the judge will dismiss the case. it is ordinarily as good as a not guilty. there is the rare situation where i will not rush to accept an offer of pretrial diversion in any case. the reason it is controversial in this case is this: pretrial diversion happens all the time, you see it in dui cases, low- level drug cases. in federal court, it happens virtually never. i am not aware personally of any cases where pretrial diversion has ever been offered in the federal this. no matter how you cut it, pretrial diversion as an offer

is very rare in federal court. >> does the judge have the option, today? >> technically, yes. she can reject the plea agreement but i doubt that is going to happen. the punishment is ultimately up to the judge but when the government makes a recommendation which it is expected to do here which is no jail time, what i will say, if you are charged with misdemeanors, you have a pretty good chance of getting probation only sentence but the reality is this: i am aware of virtually no cases in the federal cases. they are a rare animal in court. they are usually accompanied by several felonies which will lend you and is in prison. >> which we have heard is that

hunter biden got off easy, it is the bottom justice department. again, this is a trump-appointed will judge. from your point, was this a fair deal? was it a tough deal? did he get off easy? >> it was an amazing deal. if the government is going to start handing out pretrial judgment like this, i am going to get in line because it is an amazing deal. it is just as good as not guilty. you can get your record expunged . so if the government is in the business of handing out pretrial diversion, consider my hand raised. i do understand the argument to be made in a tax case, this is something that might've been worked out. i understand that. there is even an argument made and i disagree with this, under this particular subsection, one is, for example, are you i fell in and do you have a gun? that is something you can look

at very easily. there is the person with a gun, we know that. is he a felon? he is disqualified. the next section says are you and habitual user of drugs? marijuana? any illicit drug? if so, that is a lot harder to prove. reluctantly, you can go to amsterdam as a gun owner is technically under a reading of the statute, you may have violated it under your return to the united states. that is a ridiculous example but it is true that the subsection is less harder to prove but pretrial diversion for a gun case in federal court is an amazing deal. i don't care how you slice it and if you disagree with me, show me the statistics of people charged under that particular statute of people who get pretrial for gun cases. >> is hunter biden the only one that could have got this amazing deal? >> i don't know about that.

i want say it is some kind of a political influence. it is amazing lawyering. maybe subconsciously or consciously into the government's mount, they have to consider whether they can get a conviction. factoring in that conviction, this is a very well-known defendant and if we try to see the jury, we may have a hard time with this particular defendant and i do agree that the statute is harder to prove but if you need to prove that hunter biden was an abuser of drugs, i think there is a video and photographic evidence that that was going on including a book. your burden of proof might be a lot easier than it would be with an unknown defendant but i understand the argument. this kind of tax case may or may not have been brought but i cannot back down from the idea that it federal court, gun charges under this particular statute pretrial diversion is a gift from heaven. >> danny, how far do viewers

understand what happened to last night? there was a strange moment where one side is accusing the other of impersonating someone else and a phone call to the court to introduce new evidence. what exactly happened there? is it significant to the hearing today at all? >> the house gop filed what is called an amicus brief, a friend of the court brief. when that happens, it included a lot of stuff that was not great about hunter biden so by's attorneys located and said, an amicus brief is a friend of the court but what is is is this of yours, anyway what you are late, this is coming in the night before the hearing and it is not really appropriate so they emailed back and forth and instagrams as lawyers do from there, it gets a little confusing. the phone call ends and the communication ends and apparently someone from latham and waltham's office which is a top light law firm, this is not

a fly-by-night law firm operating out of a strip mall, this is what you fancy law firm , very confident lawyers. someone from their law firm calls and says according to her, what do we do about this? there was a document that contains sensitive information. you are not supposed to file things like social security and tax numbers on the record so she calls and says, what do we do? should we file a motion to seal it? should we do something else? and according to latham, that is all they did. according to the court, but he did was much more than various. apparently they called in and said we are the gop from the gop's law firm. we accidentally filed this document. we need to pull it. we need to taken off the system. that is at least what the court clerks are saying. it is going to come down to who

does the judge believed? if the judge believes someone from latham called up and they were, that will be a big problem for latham. >> you would be shocked if a firm like that impersonates because of the potential consequences of the case? >> i love a good controversy but when you think about it, this is what i focus on. if i am a partner of high- ranking lawyer latham and even if i was going to do that and i am not saying any of them would but if i was going to call up a quart and pretend to be someone else, i don't think i would find that out to a veteran staff member because is going to create a paper trail. it seems to me that this may have been just a misunderstanding. what a juicy controversy it would be if someone called up and pretended to be someone that they weren't but i don't know if we will ever get to the bottom of this. sometimes you are never going to find out the truth.

i think we had someone from the court's office saying i believe they represented themselves as someone they weren't and you have latham saying on a second bibles that i did not do this and the judge will have to ask decide. unless i have pretty clear evidence that sanctions are appropriate, this may end up being a controversy and i would not be surprised if the judge says this is very serious but i cannot find that anyone did anything intentionally. that is my prediction and i am often running. >> danny ceballos walking us through step-by-step. great job, as always. the grand jury convened into the january 6 insurrection and donald trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results are scheduled to reconvene tomorrow. that is likely the earliest. meanwhile, we are getting new details about one potential key witness who spoke to special counsel jack smith's team. the former director of the cyber security agency confirmed to nbc news that he was interviewed by investigators who characterized what exactly

was discussed or when that interview took place. crabs was at odds with trump in the aftermath of the 2020 election because he insisted voting systems were protected and the election was secure. as the agency directed, focusing on infrastructure nationwide and any efforts to stop foreign government interference or hacking of the voting system. the agency released a rumor controlled website that the bones some of the election conspiracies that trump spread after losing the 2020 election. notably on november 12th, 2020, the agency issued a joint statement with other election security groups calling the election, quote, the most secure in american history. five days later, trump fired chris krebs by tweet. a frequent guest on the show, a guy who was adamant in real time in november of 2020 and thereafter saying this election was secure, we have taken

extraordinary measures to make sure it was and that drew the ire of president trump who fired him by tweet. >> and let's remember that chris krebs agency he touted both before and after votes about the safeguards they had taken to secure the election. 2020 being the first presidential election that took place after russia's interference in 2016 so they are focused on a lot of these foreign groups and outside hacking attempts. but of course, they will look at domestic ones, as well. it seems like chris krebs will play a pretty significant role in the jack smith investigation as he pieces together this case. we should note that though we don't know whether it will come down to donald trump's team preparing it will come down tomorrow. that is when they believe it will happen and they are deeply worried about him possibly standing in front of a

washington dc jury but that timing is fluid. what we do know for certain is that the mountain of evidence that jack smith is compiling, how big a role do you think this will be? >> we were discussing it 10 minutes ago so this is really an exercise in reading the tea leaves not just for us but the witness is being called before the grand jury as well and their lawyers but if you look at smith's recent actions in the past month in the past few months, a lot of the people calling and have had a part of the push to seize voting machines which was presented to former president donald trump and was a key part of the explosive oval office meeting that happened in late december that featured debbie powell, rudy giuliani, former ceo, patrick byrne along with trump's white house counsel, cloning, hirschman and the battle of the crazies versus

the stable trump lawyers who were advocating implementing such a plan but rudy giuliani who recently appeared before the justice department for what we have determined was a proffer section told the washington post that a lot of the questions that had been asked during that conversation was about sidney powell and some of his plans to seize voting machines. prosecutors were particularly interested in that late december meeting. we know that chris krebs was someone who told the former president there was no election fraud and that the voting machines were not the issue, they were not culprits in giving joe biden more vote than president, the former president at the time who had very fairly lost to joe biden and we also know that the former commissioner who was working closely with rudy giuliani and at times sort of aligned with

sidney powell. if you ask a lot of these players, even sidney powell was too crazy for some of these outside lawyers. he is appearing next month and notably is handing over or handed over a privileged log amongst the documents in that log which was included a draft letter to seize evidence in interest of national security for 2020 elections. if there is one thing that is apparent if smith is interested in these plans that trump was waiting to seize voting machines but as you noted, that is just one small element in this broad universe of things that were swirling around at that time period. >> it is a sprawling case and we will see if that indictment comes down this week. chris krebs, to his credit, he told the truth and would not go along for the big lie still ahead on morning joe, new polling shows a majority of republicans believe donald

trump is the parties best bet to beat joe biden in the 2024 election, a vast majority plus a federal judge deals a blow to president biden's immigration policy. julia ensley joins us with her reporting on that. we will talk to susan paige about a valid in ohio. an update on the sign of lebron james after the 18-year- old suffered cardiac arrest during a workout on monday. you're watching morning joe. we will be right back. will be right back.

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in november, ohio voters will decide whether to enshrine abortion access. more than enough talent signatures were submitted yesterday to get it on the general ballot but now proponents, republican lawmakers are trying to make it difficult for opponents to amend the constitution and have added their own to next month special election which will raise the threshold to 60% support instead of a simple majority. early voting on that initiative already is underway. susan paige, you are writing about this and how this may very well be a bellwether for the rest of the country. take us through some of the numbers. this enjoys support, the abortion rights amendment enjoys popular support but will it make it through the statehouse in ohio? >> we have had overwhelming support by 26 percentage points. people in ohio support this

constitutional amendment that would basically enshrine the roe versus wade protections for abortion access to residents of ohio but as you said, the goalposts have been changed. on august 8, ohio will have a special election. imagine turning out voters for a special election in august that would raise the number of percentage votes you need to install a new constitutional amendment. it is now 50%. the support we got for this amendment, 58%. just short of that 60% mark we also ask about this measure and we found that by two to one, ohio voters oppose the idea so if they turn out to vote next month, that will go down and this measure will be the only abortion measure on the state ballot. >> this could be a bellwether.

the independent number in this pool is staggering. 85% of independent women support . when we talk about the presidential election coming down to places like columbus or atlanta, that 85% number tells a big story. >> is an amazing number. no group of voters has been more important that swing voters than independently minded women. and some history in ohio and in particular, to using a ballot measure to affect votes elsewhere on the ballot. you remember in 2004, a very contested presidential race, encouraging ohio republicans to put a marriage ban on the ballot and that was seen as crucial to defeating john kerry in ohio being a decisive state that help to reelect george bush

. >> we will learn if this passes and this may tell us a lot about the country. the department of homeland security secretary will testify before the house judicial secretary. several republicans have filed impeachment resolutions against mayorkas including mccarthy. yesterday, a federal judge blocked a key regulation tactic of president biden's immigration policies. specifically, the ability to acquire asylum-seekers scheduled for an appointment at a legal point of entry. asylum-seekers were denied asylum in another country while on their way to the united states. julia ensley. let's start with secretary mayorkas which will certainly be a contentious hearing up on

capitol hill. what do we expect to hear from him? >> this is not a hearing that i think the secretary is looking forward to but so far, he has been able to battle these impeachments where they tried to seek to impeach him over these border policies. in fact, we expect him to probably talk about what is going on in texas. we know that by demonstration sued texas over that string of border buoys that they have in the rio grande valley which they call inhumane. we will probably see a lot of questions from democrats on that and what they are doing to keep a humane and orderly system but the republicans will continue although they don't have the wind at their back like they used to because border numbers have come down, so far. we have seen a 42% decrease from may into june because of the asylum policies but that is why that ruling yesterday is so critical because when title 42 when away in mid-may, they put

in place as a silent policy just yesterday, a federal judge in san francisco said that those are illegal and put a 14 day stay on it but should that play out and they actually have to lift that policy, we could see those numbers rise again. given the state of the border, mayorkas should be in a good position to defend those policies but we know the closer we get to 2024 where you have states like texas, they need to take matters into their own hands. we know republicans will use that specifically to hammer home and try to show that mayorkas isn't doing his job. he usually stays pretty calm, cool and collected at these hearings. >> and we wish to remind our viewers about republicans threatening impeachment, so you started to walk us through a little bit but the decision by the judge yesterday significant how is a practical question.

what changes at the border? >> nothing in the immediate because the judge did not grant the by demonstration a 14 day stay and during that time, we expect the circuit appellate court to and they already appeal this decision to the ninth circuit yesterday. it is basically likely the ninth circuit will agree with the district court this should be lifted but they will also grant a stay. the state can keep the policy in place up until the supreme court ultimately weighs in. that is the big question of whether or not the supreme court will agree that the by demonstration has the authority to put this kind of rule in place. they did side with the by

demonstration on immigration and enforcement policies just last month but whether or not they will be able to keep this policy in place and whether or not the supreme court will be able to keep stay in place while they figure all of this out, that is all in question but it does seem unlikely that this policy would lift before this question gets before the supreme court. >> we will be watching that and watching closely. julia ensley, thank you so much . coming up next, an update on a marine veteran who has history with russia, injured while fighting ukrainian forces. we will explain how that situation could further complicate efforts to free americans in general jailed by the president. also, a meeting with president xi. g with president xi. sorry about the vase. - [announcer] save more on what they love with everyday great prices at chewy. mmm, popcorn. (alternate voice) denture disaster, darling! we need poligrip before crispy popcorn. (regular voice) let's fix this. (alternate voice) poligrip power hold + seal gives our strongest hold and 5x food seal.

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a beautiful live picture of new york city looking south from the top of our building at rockefeller center. the state department has confirmed the marine veteran, trevor reed, was injured fighting in ukraine.

he returned home last year in a prisoner swap. the state department spokesman stressed he was in ukraine fighting on his own volition. the state department reiterating the united states warning anyone who travels to ukraine intent on fighting russia raises the risk of being captured, serious injury or death. he is receiving medical treatment. the government is extremely concerned about the potential impact his actions could have on our ability to bring home wrongfully detained americans, paul whelan and evan dershowitz. rick stangl, he was just named cochair for care usa which works to combat global food insecurity. it is great to see you. >> situations like this are obviously sticky to put it mildly but when you have people

abroad detained like paul whelan and evan gershon rich and vladimir putin is the one detaining them, what is the posture of the state department trying to get them back? >> i tell you it is something that people take incredibly seriously. it is one of those things that the white house has its own special group that is working on hostages and i know people are on the phones all the time. i remember i had to call a couple of the families of people who were hostages, one in old russia. yeah, this situation is actually kind of an absolutely new thing, someone was held in russia and went to fight against russia, i don't blame them! >> plus the unknown quandary is vladimir putin. how does he react? how does he use this? in an american exchange, we gave him his freedom and he comes back and fights against us.

both are staying here. we are not going to do that. >> i am sure he is not happy about it. they capture people to use as someone to trade for someone that the united states has, they use them for bargaining chips and what reid has done is reverse the whole bargaining chip. he got out and they went back to fighting against russia but russia is using it strategically and that is something that we have to deal with. >> let's talk about care usa, congratulations. let's remind our viewers what care usa is and what it does after world war ii in 1945. >> was created at the end of world war ii in part because the u.s. had all of these meals, millions of meals that were for soldiers that they did not need to use because the war ended and a consortium of the anthropic groups got together to deliver those meals to europe.

the first one was in france. i think that is where that picture is. harry truman bought the first care package. people don't realize that the care package, the origin of it is care usa. >> is that right? i did not know that. >> it is even copyrighted but nobody seems to care about that. so what is it today? >> today, it is almost a $1 billion, 100 countries around the world are dealing with insecurity. we reached 175 million people over the last year. i went a couple of months ago to a care program in ghana where farmers are teaching them how to use kind of modern technology, looms, making fabrics. it is really fantastic and inspiring.

i also went early in the year because care for the first time since the 1950s is back in europe because of vladimir putin's invasion of ukraine. i went to poland where we are supporting refugees and there is a fantastic program of using ukrainian women to teach in schools. there are all of these ukrainian kids. >> let's talk about food insecurity also known as hunger. we have seen the reality which is shipments out of ukraine have been disrupted because of the war. many of those shipments are intended for the continent of africa where there is enormous food insecurity, as you know. the growing danger of food insecurity combined without close of immigrants from africa into europe, talk about that specific problem. >> food insecurity problem and there is a refugee problem.

as you mentioned, the so-called black sea deal in ukraine that vladimir putin has just blown up, ukraine traditionally was the bread basket of the union, so much of the wheat and grain that is grown in ukraine goes to sub-saharan africa to places like afghanistan. putin blows up a deal like that and that has a trigger effect on all of the food insecurity around the world. the three main drivers of hunger are climate, covid and conflict. and so, ukraine is a perfect example of that. 750 million people who are food insecure in the world now, that is 100 million more than in 2019. part of that came from the result of covid and the interruption of shipments. so it is really a pretty nasty situation. >> susan page has a question for you. congratulations on your new job. i would like to go back to americans. evan, arrested for

committing journalism. what is your sense of the prospects for any kind of deal that is going to free them in the foreseeable future or is this something that we are likely to see continue for months and for years ahead? what is your sense of that? >> thanks, susan. good to see you. i don't want to be pessimistic but i think it could continue for a long time. vladimir putin uses folks like that as bargaining chips. at the same time, he has made deals during the past year and a couple of times. he sees it as a tactical benefit and sometimes it is also hostage to what and russian relations are and they are not very good at the moment. >> we will stay on this story. great to see you, cochair for care usa state department official. rick, thank you so much. still ahead, an update on the condition of lebron james

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bronny james, the sun of nba superstar, lebron james, is out of the icu and recovering this morning after suffering card yak arrest on monday. just 18 years old, he was practicing on the court for his debut college season. nbc news correspondent kaylee hartung has the latest. >> bronny james to the basket! >> the son of a basketball superstar, facing a medical emergency. >> bronny james! bull's-eye! >> bronny james, rushed to the er during a practice monday at the university of southern california. a family spokesperson saying, while practicing, bronny james suffered a cardiac arrest. medical staff was able to treat bronny and take him to the hospital. he's now in stable condition and no longer in icu. the 18-year-old is the son of nba legend, lebron james, and

one of the most highly touted incoming college basketball players. he was preparing for his first season on the usc basketball team when the incident happened at 9:26 a.m.. >> engine to rescue 15, unconscious. 3400 south figaro. >> earlier this morning, bronny james starring in the mcdonald's all-american game. his dad cheering him on. >> he's just proud, my dad, you know? >> reporter: lebron not shy about his wish to one day share the court with his son. >> being with him, spending a full year with him in the same uniform, that would be -- that would be the icing on the cake. >> reporter: damar hamlin, who suffered cardiac arrest on the football field earlier this year tweeting, prayers to bronny and the james family as well. here for you guys, just like you have been for me my entire process. cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death for young athletes, and african-american college basketball players like james are the population at the highest risk, according to a study in the american heart association journal. >> what could have led to this? >> there are multiple factors that can cause cardiac arrest.

whether it's something that they've had, like a disease in the heart, so it's congenital or something that they developed after having an infection. >> reporter: doctors with this advice for parents of athletes of any age. >> any student that's going to do any sport should do a pre-participation physical, and that includes an evaluation of their medical history and also asks the appropriate questions. >> reporter: kaylee hartung reporting there. jonathan lemire, this is so scary. i think you sent me this headline as it broke yet. an 18-year-old, peak physical condition. but the truth of the matter is, this is more common than people realize. there's an organization called parent heart watch, that is trying to educate, this is a group of people whose children tragically have died while playing sports at a young age, trying to educate parents that there are tests you can do to get out ahead of this so you can know if your child is at risk.

but such a talented young guy and we're so happy to hear he's out of the icu, hoping for a full recovery for bronny. >> yeah, that's such an important point, willie. there are these tests available. we don't know the cause here with bronny james, but we do hear terrible stories about young athletes with heart issues, some of them prove to be fatal. it is great news that he is out of the icu. certainly, he'll likely be in the hospital for several days. the family has said that they would provide updates in the days ahead. it's a really remarkable story. it's always been fun to see lebron and his wife, and the rest of their family sitting courtside at bronny james side. and as the package notes, he's made it very clear that he wants to stick around in the nba, heading into his 20th season, he wants to play at least another year or two, because he wants to play alongside bronny james. and certainly, we don't know about bronny's basketball future. we hope he can get back there on the court, but certainly, his health comes first.

our best wishes to the james family. >> and such an exciting time in bronny james' life, starting this new chapter, about to getting going at usc. they were preparing for a new tour that the usc team was going to play. so much promise for him of maybe some day playing in the nba with his dad. >> that's all great stuff, but the important part of this story is to remove the name bronny james from the story, and think about all the other high school athletes out there. some down south where they start early in football practice for the fall, under soaring temperatures. you know, 17, 18-year-old children, and they are children, you know, and they have to pay attention to their health, and to their hearts. and the group that you mentioned, that's specifically involved in that, and we ought to pay more attention to all high school athletes, but certainly those who are in danger, potentially, of suffering where bronny james suffered yesterday.

>> that group again is called parent heart watch. they teach you what to look for. you can get an echogram to see if your child is at risk. we continue to send our thoughts to him and the james family this morning. coming up next, our next guest says that there are two republican primaries happening, only one is real. tim miller explains his new piece for the bulwark, straight ahead on "morning joe." e bulwar ahead on "morning joe. life, diabetes. each day is a unique blend of going, doing, and living. glucerna protein smart with 30 grams of protein to help keep you moving. uniquely designed with carbsteady

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i do think that an indictment is coming in short order, because jack smith issued a target letter to a former president of the united states. i think you only do that if you've got the goods, the case is buttoned up, and you're pretty much ready to go.

so whether it's thursday or monday, i'm not sure. i will tell you, i'll go out on a limb and predict that we will see an indictment of donald trump before "barbenheimer" leaves the movie theaters. >> bold prediction from former acting u.s. attorney general neal katia, and despite trump's legal growing trouble, polling continues to show that republican voters want a rematch of 2020, trump is their guy. we'll walk you through those new numbers. also ahead, the latest on the staff shake up inside the desantis campaign, another one, as the florida governor looks to improve his stagnant poll numbers. welcome back to "morning joe." it is wednesday, july 26th. mike barnicle, jonathan lemire, still with us. and joining the conversation, the host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton, special correspondent at "vanity fair," host of the fast politics podcast, molly james fast, and writer at large for the bulwark,

tim miller. he previously served as communications director for jeb bush. great group assembled for the hour. good morning to you all. despite losing to him in 2020, new polling shows an overwhelming majority of republicans think donald trump gives their party the best chance to defeat president biden in the next election. the latest monmouth university survey shows 69% of republican voters say trump is the strongest candidate to go up against the sitting president next year. 31% say another candidate would be stronger. of those running for the republican nomination, the poll shows trump leading with 54% support followed by ron desantis in a distant second at 22%. everyone else at 5% or lower in this poll. so, tim miller, let's look at that poll for just a moment. that's not a surprise. that's kind of where it's been for the last several weeks, months, perhaps even. ron desantis about 30 points to

donald trump. but what's interesting if you go back to the previous monmouth screen is that the voters are not buying the argument that donald trump is going to lose the general election pip mean, the republican primary voters think, yes, he is the guy, despite everything that's coming down on him, if you look at all the cross tabs and the other questions in this monmouth poll, they really aren't so worried about the fact that they may be indicted now for a third time, with perhaps another coming in georgia before he runs for re-election here. >> yeah, that's right, willie. and i think that's kind of related to what i wrote about, right? what maybe viewers might think is the alternate universe reality republican primary is actually the real one. these people may not be dealing with facts, but it's a majority of the party, overwhelming majority of the party thinks that joe biden's win in 2020 was illegitimate. thinks that he is suffering such severe mental decline that he can't even be president, that he would be very easy to beat.

you know, they think that there's a deep state conspiracy targeting former president trump. if you believe all of these things, it would be natural for a majority of the party to think that donald trump would be well placed to beat joe biden, because they think that he won last time and they think that joe biden is basically incapacitated. so in that world view, it would make no sense to try to change horses. now, you know, those of us in the fact-based community realize that's not true. but that is kind of the information universe that republican voters are swimming in, you know, if they're reading that maga media, listening to maga podcasts watching news max, watching some of these far-right media outlets. >> the fact-based community. i like that term. in your new piece in the bulwark, you write this, tainted polls, vile accusations,

vivekmentum, and undirectal trump/desantis slap fights. if some anticipated event upsets the apple cart, these voters still won't turn to the candidate in a half-zip sweater whom karl rove is trying to anoint at a confab in sun valley. there are honest, well-intentioned reasons to run for president without expecting to win. in 1996, steve forbes wants to raise the salience of the flat tax. it was a good faith effort. in 1994, jesse jackson wanted to show that he had a coalition. but once gop voters get serious in a few months, things will go back to normal. they'll keep on pretending that this is a normal party, having a normal primary, right up until the moment that they are forced to get in line behind the most abnormal, abdominal major party nominee in our nation's history. and because we've seen this movie before, tim, i think

that's exactly right, which is that this feels like token resistance to donald trump, by everyone other than chris christie. and that when the moment comes and they fall by the wayside, everyone rallies up and gets behind donald trump again. >> yeah, willie, and that's the frustrating part about this. you have these self-serious people in a lot of news outlets, over on fox, other places that are writing these memos, in the donor class, in the strategist class of the republican party, that are trying to convince themselves and trying to convince a minority of republican voters, you know, the 15% or so, that are with christie and mike pence and nikki haley, trying to convince them that something might change you know, later this year. that it matters, you know, whether big donor "x" is supporting tim scott or whether they're supporting nikki haley or whether glenn youngkin gets off the sidelines.

and none of that matters. all of them are just fooling themselves into thinking that one of these candidates might win this nomination. the republican party -- i just spent a month listening to the candace owens podcast, and those are the republican primary voters. they don't care about tim scott or glenn youngkin. those names don't even come up. they want donald trump. this is a maga party. if something happens to donald trump, they will turn to a maga imitator, whether that be vivek ramaswamy, they like rfk jr., that is what the party is right now. and, you know, having these conferences of donors trying to pretend like it's something that it's not is only serving to muddy the waters and make people not recognize the reality of where the gop is and what's happening in this primary. >> so rev, there is, as tim said, this wish casting by

republicans who don't like donald trump, hoping something might happen that these indictments will weigh heavily on him, the fact that he's sitting on trial during a presidential campaign might cost him the nomination. but if you look at that monmouth poll, go inside another number, only 27% of republicans are either very concerned or even somewhat concerned about all of the legal peril he's in. again, we're talking about an attempted coup against the united states government, trying to overturn a 2020 election. we're talking about taking classified material to his beach club, about nuclear information, about war planning. 27% and 72% are either not concerned or not at all concerned about that. so in other words, it just doesn't matter. so the idea that this stuff is going to take him down, inside a primary, we're only talking about the primary, may hurt him in a general election, it's just not born out by what we're seeing. >> i think the reason that it's not born out is that we are misreading why they support

donald trump. donald trump has hit a nerve, a feeling that was always there, that others would not address. and i think that once they come to terms, they're no supporting him to be mr. clean. they know he wasn't mr. clean. he stood up and said, i could stand up and shoot somebody on fifth avenue and my voters wouldn't go anywhere. well, we shouldn't have believed him. because he hits a certain fear and a certain kind of emotion that they've been felt that america has been taken from them and this is yours and you're supposed to have it, and you're superior to everybody else. and as long as he does that, they will go in and out of those trials with him, not only during the primaries, they're ready for him as president of the united states to go through two or three trials. because he preserves this old notion they have of supremacy of blacks, of women, of gays. and that's more important to them than having him a literal crime boss.

you know, one of the tabloids in new york calls biden the crime boss. it was trump that had a crime attorney, roy cohen, who represented outright mafia chiefs. that was donald trump's lawyer. if anyone was a crime boss and is a crime boss, it would be donald trump. and if you think it's an overstatement, get the calendar of court dates he has coming up the rest of the year. >> and talking like one too, when he said, my people would be very upset if you indict me, if you put me on trial. kind of a veiled threat about a perhaps -- about january 6th. and ron desantis cutting more campaign staff as his team hopes a massive restruggling can right the struggling governor's primary bid. more than 38% of desantis' original staff has been fired since the campaign launched in may. the new move comes amid concerns that that campaign is spending too much, too fast. molly's new piece in "vanity

fair" is titled, rebooting ron desantis still leaves you with ron desantis. after weeks of dwindling polls, ron desantis is hitting the big old reset button. turns out donald trump without to personality is not delighting voters everywhere the way tech bros like elon musk thought it might. turns out, make america florida is not the winner of the desantis crew imagined. as governor of florida, he has been a wildly effective autoaccurate, using taxpayer dollars for campaign travel, attacking higher education, fostering a climate ripe for book banning and shutting out the mainstream media. trumpism without trump would be the next logical step forward authoritarianism, and a desantis presidency could accomplish any number of far-right initiatives that the 45th president did not have the attention span to complete. lucky for us, desantis is a terrible politician with negative charisma and the chances of him riding into the white house are looking less likely. no amount of donor dollars can make desantis a maga marionette,

traipsing across iowa and new hampshire, seem like a real human boy, rights molly jong fast. tell us how you really feel, molly. so ways the plan here, if there is one. there doesn't seem to have been one from the beginning, except that "i win." donald trump has lost a whole bunch of elections for us. i just won by 20 points in florida. i can do that on the national scale. but voters if you look at the polling have been less impressed. donors who thought he was the trump alternative are now saying, who else is out there fishing around. >> this is the earth 1 versus earth 2 paradigm. you have the republican base who believe that trump already won and will win again, which is what tim was talking about. and the donors who are like, we can't get the guy elected again. he's not growing the electorate. so the donors were like, what about this guy, ron desantis. he looks really good on paper. he beat charlie crist, who was a

republican until fairly recently by a lot of points. he grew the electorate in florida, maybe, maybe not. really, the democratic party in florida kind of fell apart. but there's -- you know, they thought, well, this guy looks great on paper. but the problem with these candidates that look great on paper, and i'm thinking of candidates in previous cycles, is that they don't necessarily -- we don't elect people in this country because they look great on paper. and that's what we've seen with ron desantis. >> so what does this reboot amount to for you, as you reported out this story. ways different? we know he's making some outreach to mainstream media outlets, sat down with jake tapper last week to try to suddenly extend that olive branch after making that a centerpiece of his campaign, attacking elites in the mainstream media and everything else. what changes now in this new look desantis campaign? >> i think he got pressure from donors to cut the spending, because he's had trouble now raising money in this quarter. but the problem with desantis is not his campaign. the problem with desantis is

desantis. he's a terrible retail politician. he goes on these interviews, he seems charmless and hostile. you watch these speeches, and it's like he's screaming at you. that -- american people don't elect that person. so luckily for us, the guy who's the biggest danger to democracy is also a terrible retail politician. >> so, tim miller, what's your assessment of desantis now? we've seen, when he came out of the gate, he was leading. it's hard to remember now, but he was actually leading donald trump for a while, and things have completely flipped since then. he's trailing by an average of 28 to 30 points in the polls. so is there any, if not desantis, viable alternative to donald trump in this primary. >> well, i'm not ready to completely throw dirt on the ron desantis campaign yet. there hasn't even been a debate. we've seen, things can change in these sorts of primaries. we've seen it before. to me, that number that you showed, 69% to 31% think that

donald trump is the most electable candidate. that's what desantis had going for him. when he was tied and as you pointed out, leading a couple of polls last weren't, it was after his big win, the candidates trump had anointed had just flamed out. republican voters thought, oh, man, this is a guy who can give us the stuff we like and actually win. but he's lost that. why has he lost that? one, he made a very strange decision, which is, instead of focusing his argument against trump on the fact that trump is literally going to be on trial next may in the middle of the campaign and it would insane for the republican party to nominate someone like that, regardless of what you think about the merits of that trial, as a self-preservation matter, republicans should be looking to nominate somebody younger, somebody who does not have many indictments against him, he's tried to attack donald trump on the right, saying that donald trump is too nice to gay people.

this was an insane strategy that appeals to basically no one, except for a very small percentage of far-right evangelicals t cruz in the last primary. that was not a path to victory. and so maybe if he can refind that footing and that messaging, the fact that he can offer the maga policies to be more of a winner, he can start to rebound. and as i said the first time, i think the only other person that fits this maga bill is vivek ramaswamy, who has some other issues. he's a first-time candidate, he's only 37. some of the desantis people have already opinion attacking him on social media over the fact that he's hindu, not christian, which was pretty gross. so he would have his own vulnerabilities. i think clearly trump is a big favorite. but that's the question. can one of these other maga candidates make the case that change that 69-31 number, flip that around and make the case that they're more electable. that's the key element right now

in the republican primary. >> it's a big mountain to climb. as you say, there is some time and who knows what comes next. everything that's thrown at donald trump so far doesn't seem to have hurt him, in fact, just the opposite. tim miller, thank you so much, tim. this morning, hunter biden is scheduled to appear in federal court in wilmington, delaware. he is expected to plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his taxes, a deal that would allow him to avoid prosecution on a gun charge if he meets certain conditions. let's bring in tom winter live outside that courthouse in wilmington. tom, good morning. what do we expect today? >> reporter: good morning, willie. this should be really a hearing without any sort of surprises. we know what the charges are. we know what the plea is going to be. and it's going to be focused on a couple of different things. one, a series of misdemeanor charges from 2017 and 2018, where hunter biden is expected to plead guilty that he earned over $1.5 million and did not pay taxes in excess of $100,000.

it's really kind of a bare bones criminal information, so the specifics of that, we don't have. we know from an irs agent who testified under oath before a congress that it was several hundred thousand of dollars that were not paid in those years, but we don't have that in the court documents. the other charge is really kind of unusual, it's a charge where he is in possession of a gun while using or addicted to drugs. that stems from october 2018. we're not even going to get a plea on that today. it's going to get pre-trial diversion. he has an agreement effectively with the government that if he meets all the obligations and those obligations we still haven't yet seen in court documents. if he meets all of those obligations, willie, he'll be able to have that charge possibly dismissed. it's basically a weigh of saying, look, before you get into court, we can resolve this prior to you having to go through the whole process. so that's the focus of today's guilty plea. we expect it to take based on experience an hour, hour and a half, two hours, to get through

all of that. biden will be processed and we expect him to make brief remarks early this morning or later this afternoon once these proceedings wrap up, willie. >> tom, it's jonathan. we heard from white house secretary karine jean-pierre yesterday, saying no members of the biden family, especially the hearing, would not be attending the hearing. the president has no public schedule, but it's possible to hear him at some point in a statement. we heard about some of your good reporting about the snafu there with the attorney for hunter biden talking to the court and accusations from republican congressmen that this attorney had misrepresented herself. give us the latest as to what could happen there. do we think we'll see any spillover from that in the proceedings today? >> so there was a filing late last night, the person who called the court, who's being accused by the republican congressman's attorney of effectively pretending to be somebody else, to try to get

that letter, and those associated documents that the congressman wanted to have entered into the record as part of a friend of the court filing, that they provided records, including phone records saying, look, i called, then they called me back, and said that they were going to take this down, and i represented who i was calling from. and by the way, when i called on the caller i.d., it said i was calling from latham. there was a lot of information in their affidavit last night. i think this is all going to get worked out ahead of time. the possibility exists for sanctions according to the judge, for the defense, for hunter biden's defense, but it appears based on all the filings that this may have just been a misunderstanding. the judge will obviously address it either through the court docket this morning or perhaps before the initial appearance and guilty plea is entered for hunter biden. i don't anticipate it impacting those proceedings at all. this is just something kind of outside of that guilty plea. >> we will see hunter biden about two and a half hours from now inside that courtroom.

nbc's tom winter live from wilmington, delaware. tom, thanks so much. molly, you've been writer about hunter biden as the bogeyman particularly for house republicans in the oversight committee, who are focused on not just this part of the story, he got a sweetheart deal, he got off easy, which danny cevallos tended to agree with last hour, they are more focused on his business dealings and a potential, underlying word, potential, because it has not been shown in any way so far connection to the president of the united states. >> yeah, this is -- hunter biden is the favorite of the "new york post" and the tabloid media. the idea here is to muddy the water. again, this is right out of the steve bannon playbook. flood the zone with a word we can't say on television and make it so that donald jr. seems the same as hunter and maybe trump is the same as biden. and we all know that trump is facing, you know, federal indictment, state indictments. this is not the same at all.

and, you know, again, i think a lot of democrats don't really care what happens to hunter biden. you know, i think they -- people wish him well, but i don't think he is the, you know, important figure that republicans are trying to build him up to be. >> you know, rev, you obviously live in new york city. you're a narrative new yorker. and molly just mentioned the "new york post" again today, front page of "the post," they're after hunter biden and the biden crime family. and given your relationship with the president of the united states, talk a bit about the toll, the burden that has taken on the president of the united states. >> the burden about hunter. i think that from my knowing of president biden for over 30 years and early when we disagreed and then in the last 20, where we basically worked together on a lot of things, i have not found anyone that was more committed to family, and

that's just a real centered person, but never losing focus of, he's a regular guy, loves his family. so i think this is a very difficult day for him. we have all had family members that have had problems, where they be habits or across the line in terms of crime. and it hurts, because you love them. you don't try to justify them, you love them. and i think the president is like an average american, who has someone in his family that may have crossed the line, may have bad turns that they took in life, but that's their son. and i think americans understand that. there is a difference between a father suffering because of some of the behavior of his sons, and a father who tried to corrupt his sons in doing deals that he is now facing two indictments and we're sitting here, in the waiting room, for the next indictment to come. so if they want to call

something a crime family, they need to look at georgia and look at washington and jack smith, and see where the political copo of the united states gets his next indictment. it is not in the biden household. >> and if they want to have a conversation about presidential children benefiting from their positions, look no further than the trump's. a quick correction for the "new york post," hunter is not on the cover today, not focused on president biden's son, today, it's his dog. >> and animal rights activists need to be heard -- >> commander has bitten seven secret service agents, it appears. and "the post" is on it this morning. special correspondent at "vanity fair," molly jong fast, always great to have you here. thanks. still ahead on "morning joe," u.p.s. has reached a tentative labor deal with the union representation of 340,000 of its workers. the agreement avoids a potential threat to package deliveries for millions of businesses and

households nationwide. meanwhile, hollywood's writers and actors remain at odds with studios. two-time emmy winner joseph gordon levitt is standing by to talk about one of the major issues driving those strikes and what to do about it. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. age is just a number, and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health versus 16 grams in ensure® high protein. boost® high protein. now available in cinnabon® bakery-inspired flavor. learn more at boost.com/tv

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♪ ♪ ♪♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. ♪♪ 7:29 in the morning here in new york city. the nation's largest package carrier, u.p.s., has reached a tentative agreement with hundreds of thousands of workers, avoiding a potentially monumental strike. it is the latest resolution to a soaring spike in labor activity this summer. nbc news correspondent steve paterson explains. >> reporter: in the dead heat of an emerging summer of strikes, u.p.s. reaching a tentative agreement with its 340,000-worker strong teamster

union, avoiding a potentially economy-rattling labor action. the union, whose moebs still need to ratify the deal, saying it secured a new five-year contract, boosting wages and solidifying safety issues. >> i think it's a great victory for the labor movement in general. we took on corporate america and won today. >> reporter: in a statement, u.p.s. said the deal provides industry-leading pay and benefits while retaining the flexibility we need to stay competitive. but in what's being dubbed a hot labor summer, so much remains on the line. in new york's times square, a day of action highlighting the nongoing actors and writers strike. >> we will not have you take away our right to work and earn a decent living. >> reporter: those picket lines with potentially to expand, 150,000 autoworkers began negotiations for a new contract with u.s. automakers this month. more than 26,000 american airlines flight attendants preparing to vote on strike authorization. and local actions, like an

ongoing los angeles hotel workers' strike drags on for weeks. >> the workers, whether they're in the hotel industry, whether they're in the logistics, whether they're in the entertainment industry, they are feeling economic pressure and economic insecurity. >> reporter: and while several of the disputes are fueled by traditional wage disagreements, there are huge fears over new technologies like ai. >> steve patterson reporting for us from los angeles. joining us now with more on the actors and writer's strike is actor, writer and director, joseph gordon levitt. so great to have you with us, especially with through new piece you where for "the washington post." it's entitled, if artificial intelligence takes your job, it should pate you, which gets at the core of this strike. so tech giants, entertainment giants and every other profit-hungry giant will soon claim that ai can do human-level work at an astonishingly small fraction of the cost. however, this claim will be hiding something, like "the wizard of oz" bellowing, pay no

attention to that man behind the curtain. what's behind the cost of ai, the generative ai cannot generate anything at all without first being trained on massive troves of data it then recombines. who produces that training data? people do. and those people deserve residuals. for example, let's say a new ai can generate a complete feature film at the click of a button. some industry insiders think this actually could happen pretty soon. building that ai would require a bazillion past movies to be used as training data. therefore, anytime this ai yielded a new movie, those people should get residuals. and everyone whose work the ai will be ingesting, mashing up, and mimicking. i think a lot of layman say, what are they striking about,

exactly? what's at the heart of all of this? i'll let you expand a little on it and explain to our viewers why you think this moment is so important in hollywood. >> absolutely. thanks for having me. i've been fascinating with ai for years. and as the technology is getting more and more powerful, i've grown really concerned about what it will mean for my industry. and honestly, not even so much just for my livelihood, but for the people i work with. like i mentioned in that piece, people are like family to me. we work really long hours, and i'm concerned what this technology will mean for them and their lives. but it also goes beyond hollywood. maybe the film and television industry is sort of a canary in the coal mine. so what i'm suggesting is that if an ai has used your work to be built, they call it train, and that ai makes money, you should get a piece of that

money. can in the entertainment industry, that's called residuals. >> joseph, in your piece in "the post" today, you raise an important issue. i think most people, most americans, when they're reading, if they are reading at all about the strike, consider the strike, writers, actors on strike, as, you know, everybody is tom cruise, everybody is making a million bucks. but there are people in the union who are going to lose their homes if this strike continues much. they'll lose health insurance with no financial backup. speak a bit about those people who really move the industry forward. >> it's absolutely true. so much of s.a.g. and the people strike rg in threat and are not the big high-profile people you talk about and it's important to talk about another labor union, which is not currently on strike, which did go on strike a year or maybe two ago, and that's the labor union of the crew members, of the people who

are, you know, operating the camera and the lights and setting up the set and doing the hair and makeup and wardrobe, tons of people who can't work right now because the studios won't give a fair deal to the actors and the writers. >> joseph, al sharpton. i was struck -- >> mr. sharpton, a pleasure. >> the pleasure's mine. i was struck by how you brought about the point that i think has been missing, and that is ai does not create the material that may be used, they are using things that human beings have created and bring together. talk more about that, because the human rights side of this is something that catches my attention, is that you're really using the labor, the creativity, and in some cases, genius of others that ai can put together and coordinate, but they didn't originate. >> that's exactly right. and it's not just in some cases, it's in every case.

that's how the technology works. and it can be tricky, because you know, you use a chat bot or something and it says, i am seeing you're frustrated or i came up with a list for that. but there is no "i," it's just imitating a ton of text it has ingested from human writers. and that's how this ai works. they feed it a huge set of training data and then it sort of finds the patterns in that data and recombines and spits it back out. so that data was all produced by humans. and it can be a bit of a magic trick to say like, well, the ai did it, the people didn't do it, but that's not true. it was all done by people and then kind of recombined by the ai. and that's what i'm saying, those people whose data was used to train those ais, those people deserve compensation. >> joseph, it's also worth underscoring, as you have noted,

some actors' images could be used in perpetuity. you also know what a time-sensitive and laborious process that would be, to sort of create a system where residuals could be coming from. give us an update, if you will, on the state of negotiations. is there anything at all, has there been any olive branch, any discussion, even through the front door with the studios, with the other sides of this on matters of ai? >> there's been grave concern expressed about ai, by both of the unions that are on strike. but honestly, i think this is an issue that goes beyond labor unions. and it's really more than we unions can properly negotiation for. and the op-ed in "the washington post," i'm saying that this needs to be a matter of legislation. because, again, this is way beyond hollywood. we can talk about how actors and writers are having, you know, their work reappropriated. we can say the same for doctors. when doctors sign over their

medical records, those medical records could get used to train an ai and now a doctor is losing their job to ai. you could go down the list of people who are going to be impacted this way, so this is something that i think that a single labor union in a single industry can't really address. it's got to be something that's addressed in washington, and encouragingly, there is some movement, it seems in congress and in the white house towards regulating ai. so what i would love to see is that when that legislation passes, that this is one of the issues that they're addressing. that people should not have their work used to train ais that are making all of this money without getting a piece of that money. >> joseph, i think people understand in the abstract what ai is, but what would an ai movie even like? in other words, i want to see you in "inception," i want to see you on "third rk from the sun," i don't want to watch some video game version of reality. how would an ai movie be

assembled? what would it look like? >> i think soon enough, it will be indistinguishable. the tech is just getting better and better, and it will be very hard to tell a movie that was made by ai versus a movie that was made by people. and again, that goes to all different industries. the tech is getting very, very good. and so that's what it's -- it's -- you're not going to be able to tell. >> wow. all right, joseph gordon levitt, doing a great job of explaining this. you can read more, his op-ed this morning just posted on "the washington post." so great to have you with us this morning. come back soon. we appreciate it. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." appreciate it we'll be right back with more "morning joe." and new adventures you hope the more you give the less they'll miss. but even if your teen was vaccinated against meningitis in the past they may be missing vaccination for meningitis b. although uncommon, up to 1 in 5 survivors of meningitis will have long term consequences. now as you're thinking about all the vaccines your teen might need

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on august 28th, 1955, emmett till, a 14-year-old black child was kidnapped and killed by white men in mississippi just weeks after his birthday. days later, till's mother, maymy till bradley opted to have an open casket funeral to allow the

press to see how her son has been brutalized. yesterday, president biden signed a proclamation to have national monuments depicting till and his mother erected in illinois and mississippi. before signing the measure, president biden offered personal remarks on the decision to approve those memorials. >> it's hard to believe i was 12 years old and i just, you know, i know no matter how much time has passed, how many birthdays, how many events, how many anniversaries, it's hard to relive this. it brings it all back, we were talking about, rev, as if it happened yesterday. insisting on an open casket for her murdered, and i might, maimed and mutilated son. 14 years old. 14 years old. she said, let the people see what i see.

let the people see what i have seen. my god. all of us have lost children in other ways. how hard it is even to close the casket or keep it open or what a debate it is. but to see the child that had been maimed. and the country and the world saw, not just heard the story of emmett till and his mother as a story of a family's promise and loss and a nation's reckoning with hate, violence, racism, overwhelming abuse of power and brutality. but today, on what we would have been emmett's 82nd birthday, we

add another story to the chapter of history and healing. >> rev, i took my kids a couple of months ago and you can see the casket. you go into its own special room and you have a photograph of emmett till's face lying where it lay that day, and it is -- it gets at your gut. it's devastating. it's moving at the same time, and you see how it sparked the civil rights movement. but at what a cost and what a moving ceremony that was yesterday. >> i was honored to know and meet on many occasions maimy till mobley. and one of the things i was heartened that president biden did yesterday, he named the monuments after elm meth and his mother. if it had not been for maimy till mobley's courage, we would have never known what happened to emmett till. emmett till was not the only black kid that was beaten and

killed in the south in that time period or even sense. it was her decision. she told me she came to national action network in the late 90s and several times after, she told me in private and in public, she would say, they advised her, you don't really want to open the casket, because his head was beat out of recognition, and he was maimed, and she said "no." and when she had that funeral in chicago, she said,pen up the casket. and as president biden raised yesterday, it was the black press, the jet magazine, chicago defender, not the "chicago tribune," that showed those pictures that shook up the world. and later, rosa parks told the story and i was among a group of ministers that heard her say this, she said, a year later when i sat on that bus in montgomery that sparked the

montgomery bus boycott and they called the police and they said, the colored woman won't move to the back, she said, all i could think of was emmett till and i couldn't move. that's what emmett till meant to the history of the civil rights movement. ironically, august 28th, the day he was captured and killed, august 28th, '63, is when they had the march on washington, when dr. king had his "i have a dream" speech. the anniversary of emmett till, as we get ready for a march 60 years later, now dealing with some of the same issues. but i think what president biden and vice president harris did yesterday with those monuments and bringing the monument also to include his mother is a challenge as all of us should have some maimy in us, not let them bury what has been done wrong in this country. >> the clip that we just showed about the president speaking yesterday was perhaps 45 seconds long and it's lost in the rush

of media that we do today. we propel ourselves from one to another. but that clip showed joseph r. biden, who he really is. he's an emotional guy. he is the president of the united states who is capable of tears over loss, not his loss, your loss, our loss. and i don't think he gets enough credit for being the decent human being that you know, that i know, that we all know. he doesn't get enough credit for it. >> and you don't have to agree with somebody to say, no, this is a decent guy who really has feelings. he and i may talk on the issues, and i see differently down through the years. we mostly in the last many years have agreed. but he's a decent guy with real feelings. and really wants to understand the story. and not only emmett till, george

floyd and others who have been dealt with in my time. i was only 11 months old when emmett till happens. but it puts in context that you need somebody with compassion and a desire to get something done about who he's compassionate about. so he not he signed the anti-lynching law, the same joe biden, and that's why i give him credit for that. >> we should not lose the fact that reverend parker, he was emmett till's best friend -- >> cousin. >> cousin. >> with a black woman vice president standing there, and all of that tells a long story. >> it sure does. it's the 75th anniversary of

harry truman's order ending racial discrimination in federal hiring, and here he is making the case for civil rights as he became the first president ever to address the naacp. >> it should rest on practical evidence that we have been able to put our own house in order. [ applause ] for these compelling reasons, we can no longer afford the luxury of a leisurely attack upon prejudice and diskreupl nation. but we cannot any longer await the growth of a will to action in the slowest state or the most

back ward community. our national government must show the way. >> let's bring in author and nbc news presidential historian, michael beshlosh. that was president truman speaking before the naacp. >> people are talking about history not being taught in various states, and this is a date that everybody should know and remember. remember the atmosphere, you know, truman was talking to the naacp in 1947, and roosevelt never dared to do that, and roosevelt would not support an anti-lynching bill of the kind you were just talking about. truman came out of the confederate family in missouri,

second largest state in terms of lynchings, many years before world war ii, and truman was disgusted by the fact that blacks that fought in world war ii were brought back to mississippi, and he heard of cases where they were thrown off army trucks and beaten by locals because they wouldn't think because they fought abroad would change the way they were treated. a year later -- why did it happen today? well, truman was a fair person. he was a decent person and wanted to do this, but also there was a political reason which often times underlies the best decisions. truman just came out of the democratic convention, and he was running the president for re-election 48, and there were

progressives led by wallace, and dixiecrats. it has a lot residents this year hearing about third parties, and truman said i will do it because it's right, we will desegregate the armed forces and bring the democrats to victory, which it did. >> talk about how truman stood up for political reasons, and he stood up and did things roosevelt didn't do, and i am not taking away anything from roosevelt and the new deal. the day we take for granted when a president or vice president speaks to any of naacp, and it

was a risky and bold move. >> it was a pro file on courage. you know, rev, the democratic party, which is different than what it is now up until the 1950s, the democratic party was largely southern, white supremacists, a throwback, racist, and certainly against integration. so for truman to speak to the naacp, and even more than that to desegregate the armed forces, he was saying to the democratic party we have to change. 1924, the democrats met at a convention owned by the ku klux klan in 1924, and truman thought

it would lead to the progressives, when in the 1960s they would fight for civil rights and make the party a lot more progressive. could i add one more thing? >> yes. >> we look at this as almost inevitable, but as late as the 1950s, you would be compelled to run -- in 1960, the state that went for john kennedy and the democrats by a larger margin by any other was georgia, and these were racist white voters in georgia that told kennedy we voted for you because we wanted to change back. it's all changed, thank god.

>> we should point out today in washington is the beginning of the truman civil rights symposium, a three-day event to commemorate this very anniversary. and then antony blinken landed in new zealand where the u.s. women's soccer team will have a game at 9:00 p.m. eastern time here in the u.s. that's a rematch, by the way, of the 2019 women's cup final. for more let's go live to wellington, new zealand, where we are joined by foreign news correspondent, molly hunter. >> reporter: that's right. it's wednesday night for you and thursday night for me in the netherlands. the soccer team met with antony

blinken this afternoon, and according to the press secretary, the secretary told them tonight i am a fan for each of you, and you are doing so much for soccer and also off the field for pay equity. the fact that my little girl gets to grow up watching you is such a wonderful thing. the national team is going through a transition. it's a different team that what faced off against the netherlands in 2019, 14 new players. we caught up with two of those that made their world cup debut. >> can you tell me just what it feels like to be here and who is supporting? do you have your family with you or a friend or two? >> yeah, i have been so happy to be here and it has been a dream

for me since i can remember, so being here and being on the team with a bunch of players that i always looked up to as been amazing. >> reporter: what is the biggest thing the veteran players said to look out for? >> as a defender, they are physical and will have threats from behind so make sure to be take care of anything that comes our way. >> reporter: they were both making their world cup debuts, and the coach was asked if this feels like a rematch or if it feels like the u.s. is defending a title, and he said this is match number two. >> by their own admission, the u.s. women's national team did not love the way they played in the win against vietnam. we will see if they turn it up tonight. enjoy the game, molly.

thanks. still ahead, house speaker, kevin mccarthy, tries to clarify remarks he made about an impeachment inquiry into president biden. that's in one minute. one minute

♪♪ this morning indictment watch for donald trump continues. special counsel, jack smith's grand jury did not meet yesterday. we will get expert legal analysis on what that could mean and could we see something later this week? meanwhile, kevin mccarthy

clarifies his impeachment comments about president biden. we will have a live report on that story. we are following a developing story out of eastern europe, where a marine veteran released by russia in a prisoner swap is recovering this morning after he was injured fighting for ukrainian forces. good morning again. with us we have msnbc contributor, mike barnicle, and jonathan lemire, and washington bureau chief, susan page, and here with us in the studio, msnbc legal analyst, danny cevallos. good morning to you all. we will start with the comments from house speaker, kevin mccarthy, who continues to suggest his party is close to launching an impeachment query into president biden. here's what he said on fox news

follows by remarks to reporters yesterday on capitol hill. >> we only followed where the information has taken us, but this is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed, because this president has also used something we have not seen since richard nixon, used the weaponization of government to benefit his family and deny congress to have the oversight. i believe we will follow this to the end and it will rise to an impeachment inquiry the way the constitution tells us to do this and we have to get the answers to these questions. >> you understand what impeachment inquiry is? it's not an impeachment. it allows congress to investigate, by giving congress the full power to get the information they need. it's the way we should go about

investigating. put yourselves in our place. >> it's a little tough to hear that. speaker mccarthy saying they are not specifically talking about getting to an impeachment, but they want to get to an impeachment inquiry so that allows to get to the crimes they see. how serious are the republicans, and i am not talking about just the freedom caucus or the jim jordans of the world, but the impeachment caucus? >> i am not sure what they would be impeaching him for just yet, and i don't think republicans know that either. there's a slew of unverified allegations against biden, specifically when he was vice president.

it's a form of a human confidential source that was relayed to the fbi several years ago that, again, alleged, unverified allegations that biden was involved in a bribery scheme in relation to ukraine. we previously reported at the "washington post" the fbi looked into the allegations and they didn't check out and it was closed. that happened under attorney general bill barr. you will see republicans continue to throw spaghetti at the wall here to muddy the waters, and the veracity of a lot of the allegations does not quite match the explosiveness of the rhetoric and claims we are seeing. this is not going to deter republicans from stopping these sorts of claims head into august recess. i think there's a desire here to kind of get as much out there in order to appease president trump as we are waiting for the third

indictment to land. >> this makes an important point that a lot of this was raised to the fbi, under bill barr and under people appointed by donald trump and they didn't see any wrong doing here, but that doesn't mean republicans, especially in the oversight committee will plow forward with this. this could cause problems was saw mccarthy try to walk the line there, and will moderates try to step out and make an impeachment inquiry when they are up for re-election. could the house vote to impeachment president biden? >> we should underscore what you just did. they have not proven wrong doing from the president. that's not the case here. first of all, the white house is pushing back strongly against all of this saying it's another political stunt and the house republicans are proving this is what they care about rather than

what matters to the american people, and if the house were to go down this path it would back fire on them dramatically. and we should note senate is in session and they were pretty dismissive, and the gop in the senate acting as the grown-ups in the house. mccarthy is talking about an impeachment inquiry, and this is an olive branch, if you will, reached out to the far right members of the house that want to push biden out of office. mccarthy, the offer is if they offer this it could satisfy them, and frankly it's not going to pass and it would lose in the senate anyway and could backfire for republicans coming next

fall. >> susan you have been covering politics for quite sometime, so let me ask you a question. what is the degree for you and other people, other reporters, covering the present day status of the republican party in the house of representatives? you have speaker mccarthy, and a freedom caucus, and people like matt gaetz and something called the 20, and how do you cover this? >> yeah, well, it has been a challenge this new republican party. you know, we used to be able to cover the leaders of the republican party like mitch mcconnell, and that's no longer the case. there are other factions that exercise considerable influence. i don't know that president biden will ever be impeached but i feel confident talk of impeachment will be a factor for him for the rest of his tenure in office. talking about covering politics for a while, and when i started

covering politics, talk of impeachment was a serious discussion, and now talk of impeachment is like calling to demand a vote on the house floor, and it's become a political tool that undercut some of the serious issues, and just muddied the waters as we consider the impending indictment of former president trump. >> and it's all about retribution for president trump as if there's equivalency in what he was impeached for twice than what they are looking at biden for. hunter biden is expected to plead guilty to two misdemeanor accounts of failing to pay his taxes, a deal that would allow him to avoid prosecution to a

gun charge if he meets certain conditions. a judge appointed by donald trump will decide if she will accept that agreement. what are we talking about here? >> he will plead guilty to two misdemeanors, and then enter into a pretrial diversion, and what that means, you enter into a program and you are typically monitored by probation, and you have to behave and go to work and do everything you are supposed to do, maybe counseling, and then you come back in six months or however long and the judge will dismiss the case. it's ordinarily as good as a not

guilty. the rare situation where i will not rush to accept a pretrial diversion in any case, and you see it for dui cases and in federal court it happens virtually never. i am not aware personally of my cases or colleagues' cases in federal court. >> does the judge have any options today? >> technically, yes, she could reject the plea agreement. it rarely happens. ultimately the punishment is up to the judge, but when the government makes a recommendation, which is expected here, which is no jail time for the misdemeanors. if the federal system, if you

are charged with misdemeanors, you have a good chance of getting probation-only sentencing. misdemeanors by themselves simply -- they are just a rare animal in federal court. they are usually accompanied by several felonies, all of which will land you in prison orderly, even if you are a first-time offender. >> when you heard about the plea deal from republicans, that biden got off easy, and this is a trump-appointed federal judge, we should remind our viewers. was this a fair deal or a tough deal or did he get off easy? >> it was an amazing deal. if the government is going to hand out pretrial diversion like this, because it's an amazing deal. it gets you just as good as not guilty. it will get you expunged.

it's as if you went to trial and won. if the government is now in the business of orderly handing out pretrial division, consider my hand raised. i do understand the argument to be made, hey, in a tax case, this is something that might have been worked out, and i understand that. under this particular subsection of the gun charges, there are several different gun charges in this section, and one is do you have a gun and are you a felon? there's the person with the gun. we look at the record, is he a felon? if so he's disqualified. but there's a part that says are you a habitual users of drugs, and if so that's a lot harder to prove. you can go from the weekend amsterdam as a gun owner and partake in marijuana and you may have violated the statute upon your return to the united

states, and i am giving a ridiculous example, but that subsection is less charged and harder to prove. look, pretrial diversion for a gun case in federal case is an amazing deal, i don't care how you slice it. if you disagree with me -- >> is hunter biden the only one that could have gotten this amazing deal? >> i don't know about that. i will not go so far to say as political influence, but it's amazing lawyering. i wrote a column about this, and maybe it factored subconsciously or consciously into the government's mind. they have to factor in if they can get a decision. factoring in that decision, it could be this is a well-known defendant and if we have to seat a jury we could have a hard time

proving this case, and i think there's evidence that the drug use was going on, including a book. i understand the argument that this kind of tax case might or might not have been brought, i get that, but i can't back down from the idea that in federal court gun charges under this statute, this decision was a gift from heaven. >> one side was accusing the other in impersonating themselves to introduce new evidence. what is significant in this hearing today? >> here is not what is disputed. the house gop filed a friend of the court brief. when that happened it included a lot of stuff that was not great

about hunter biden, and biden's attorney looked at it and said, what business is this of yours, anyway? you are late and it's the night before the hearing, and they got on the phone and disagreed and then emailed back and forth, and then from there it gets confusing. the communication ends, and then a top-flight law firm, somebody from this fancy law firm and very competent lawyers, but not a lawyer but a veteran member of the staff calls and says, according to her, what do we do about this, there's a document that contains sensitive information, and she says what do we do? should we file a motion to seal it? should we do something else?

according to latham, that's all they did. according to the court, apparently, the court clerk, what they did was much more nefarious. they called in and said we are the gop, we are from the gop's law firm and we accidentally filed this document and we need to pull it and take it off the system, and that's, at least, what the court clerks are saying. it will come down to who the judge believes. if the judge believes somebody from latham called and said they were somebody they were not, that will be a big problem. >> you would find it unlikely somebody from a firm like that would do that -- >> i love a good controversy. when you think about it -- here's what i focus on. if i am a partner and a high-ranking lawyer at latham, and even if i was going to do that, and i am not saying any of them would, but if i was going

to call somebody up and say i was somebody else, i would not farm that out to a veteran member. it's a misunderstanding. what a juicy controversy it would be if somebody called and said they were somebody they weren't, and sometimes you never find out the truth. you will have somebody from the clerk's office saying hey, i believed they were representing themselves to be somebody they were were not, and you will have somebody from the law firm swearing on a stack of bibles saying that did not happen. this may end up being a controversy for 24 hours. i would not be surprised if the judge says this is very serious but i can't find that anybody did anything intentionally. that's my prediction, and i am often wrong. >> danny, walking us through it step by step. great job.

thanks, danny. and then the grand jury for the january 6th indictment results are meeting on the 6th. former director of the cyber security and infrastructure security agency, chris krebs, said he was interviewed by investigators and would not characterize what was discussed or when that took place. krebs was at odds with donald trump because he insisted the election was secure. he focused on u.s. election infrastructure nationwide and any efforts to stop foreign government interference or hacking of the voting system, and under his leadership, he

debunked some of the conspiracy theories that trump spread after the election. the agency issued a joint statement with other election security groups calling the election, quote, the most secure in american history. five days later, trump fired krebs by tweet. jonathan, chris krebs a frequent guest on this show, and he said this election was secure and we have taken extraordinary measures to make sure it was, and that drew the ire of president trump that fired him by tweet. >> and remember, krebs, he touted before and after the votes were casts about the safeguards they had taken to secure the election, and that took place after russia's interference on 2016. their focus was on foreign groups and outside attempts and

looked at domestic ones as well. and looks like chris krebs will play a significant role in the jack smith investigation. we should note we don't know when an indictment will come down. donald trump's team is preparing as if it will come down tomorrow. they believe that's when it will happen and they are deeply worried about him standing in front of a washington, d.c. jury. that timing is fluid. what we do know for certain is the mountain of evidence that jack smith is come piling, and how big of a role do you think the krebs piece will be? >> yeah, we were discussing it ten minutes ago, and this is an exercise in reading the tea leaves, and not just for us but for the witnesses that have been called before the grand jury as well, and their lawyers. if you look at the past few months, a lot of the people he

has been calling in have had a part in the push to seize voting machines, and that was presented to former president trump and was a key part of the explosive oval office meeting that happened in late december that featured rudy giuliani and sidney powell, and patrick burn along with kirschman, and it was a battle of the crazies versus the stable trump lawyers who were advocating against implementing such a plan. rudy giuliani, who recently appeared before the justice department for what we determined was a proffer session told "the washington post" that said a lot of the questions asked during that questioning was about sidney powell and the seizing of the voting machines.

we know chris krebs was somebody that told the president there was no election fraud and the voting machines were not the issue, were not, you know, culprits in giving joe biden more votes than former -- than the former president at the time, who had fairly lost to joe biden. we know former new york commissioner baric who aligned with sidney powell, and if you ask a lot of the players, even sidney powell was too crazy for some of the outside fridge lawyers. he's appearing next month and is handing over or handed over a privilege log, and amongst things in that log, it was the

plans that trump was weighing to seize the voting machines, and that's one small element in the broad universe of things that were swirling around during that time period. coming up, mayorkas is scheduled to testify on a border crisis this morning. "morning joe" is back in a moment. to finally lose 80 pounds and keep it off with golo is amazing. i've been maintaining. the weight is gone and it's never coming back. with golo, i've not only kept off the weight but i'm happier, i'm healthier, and i have a new lease on life.

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decide whether to inshrine abortion access, and now proponents face another hurdle. republican lawmakers are trying to make it more difficult for voters to amend the state constitution, and they added

their own initiative to next month's special election which would raise the threshold to 60% instead of a simple majority. you are writing about how this may be an abortion test, a bellwether for the rest of the country. will it make its way through the statehouse there in ohio? >> we have had overwhelming support in the "usa today" poll, and people in ohio support this constitutional amendment that would inshrine the roe v. wade case, and imagine turning out voters for a special election in

august, a special election that would raise the number of votes you need to raise an amendment to 60%. we also ask about this measure on changing the threshold and we found by 2 to 1 ohioans said they oppose that idea, and if they turn out next month that will go down and this will be the only abortion measure on a state ballot in november, willie. >> the independent number in this poll is staggering. 85% of independent women support the inshrinement of abortion access. 85%. when we talk about the presidential election coming down to the women voting in the suburbs of places like detroit, atlanta -- go across the map and pick your city, but that 85%

tells the story. >> yeah, no other group has been more important than swing voters. this is an issue that clearly strikes a chord, and using a ballot measure to affect votes elsewhere on the ballot? you remember 2024, karl rove encouraged ohio republicans to put a gay marriage ban on the ballot, and that was seen as crucial in the close election on defeating john kerry being the decisive state helping to re-elect george bush. >> if this passes it could tell us where the country is on this. meanwhile, mayorkas will testify later today, as several republicans have filed an

impeachment resolution against him. a judge blocked a key immigration tactic, specifically the administration's ability to require asylum seekers schedule a hearing at a point of entry, and they would need to prove asylum was denied in another country they passed through on their way. julia ainsley, good to see you. what are we expecting to hear from mayorkas? >> this is not a hearing the secretary is looking forward to, but so far he has been able to imbattle these impeachments, and

we know the biden administration sued texas over the string of buoys in the rio river, and they don't have the wind at their back like they used to because we have seen a 42% decrease from may into june because of asylum policies. that's why that ruling yesterday is so critical, because when title 42 went away in mid may, they put in place asylum policies. yesterday a federal judge in san francisco said those are illegal, and he put a 14-day stay on it. should that play out, and they actually have to lift that policy, we could see those numbers rise again. right now given the state of the border, mayorkas should be in a good position to defend those policies, but the closer we get

into 2024 when you have states like texas saying they need to take matters into their own hands, we know republicans will use that to hammer home and try to show that mayorkas is not doing his job. he usually stays pretty calm, cool and collected in the hearings, willie. >> yeah, and we talked about this at the top of the show, republicans are looking at impeachment for president biden, and mayorkas is somebody they talked about that as well. what changes at the border? >> nothing in the immediate, because the judge did grant the biden administration a 14-day stay. during that time we expect the appellant court to weigh in. they already appealed this decision to the 9th circuit

yesterday, and it's very likely the 9th circuit will agree it should be lifted and will also grant a stay. they can keep the policy in place until the supreme court weighs in, and that's a big question of whether or not the supreme court will agree the biden administration and the executive branch have the opportunity to put this kind of rule in place. they did side with the biden administration on their immigration enforcement policies last month, but whether or not they will be able to keep this policy in place, and whether or not the biden administration -- whether or not the supreme court will be able to keep a stay in place while they figure all this out, that's all in question. it does seem unlikely this policy would lift before this question gets before the supreme court, willie. >> coming up, u.s. marine veteran, trevor reed was injured while fighting in ukraine.

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ukraine fighting on his own volition. and the united states warns anybody traveling to ukraine to fight against russia is in danger of being injured and even death. joining us now, former state

department official under president obama. rick, it's great to see you. >> great to see you, willie. >> as a former state department official, situations like this are sticky to put it mildly, but when you have people abroad detained by putin, what is the posture, generally speaking, of the state department trying to get them back? >> what i can tell you, it's something that people take incredibly seriously and work 24/7 on it. the white house has its own special group working on hostages. i know people are on the phones all the time. i had to call a couple of the families of people who were hostages and one was in the old russia. yeah, it's -- but this situation is kind of an absolutely new thing, somebody who was held in russia and then went to ukraine

to fight against russia, i don't blame them. >> plus, the unknown quandary here is vladimir putin. how does he react to this? how does he use this, an american to be exchanged and we gave him his freedom and he comes back and fights against us? you know, the other two are staying here and we will not do that again. that's the quandary? >> yeah, the russians capture people, and they use them as bargaining chips, and what reed has done is reversed the whole bargaining chip. he got out and went back to fight against russia. the russians use it strategically, and that's always something we have to deal with. >> let's talk about care usa, and congratulations on the new position you are holding. let's remind people what care

was? >> yeah, it was created at the end of world war ii, because they had meals for soldiers that they didn't need to use because the war ended and then a consortium of groups got together and delivered the meals to europe. the first one was in france, and that's where the picture was. harry truman bought the first care package. the origin of a care package is care usa. >> is that right? >> yes. >> i did not know that. >> it's even copy righted, but nobody seems to care about that. >> where is that today? what is the focus of care today? >> it's almost a billion-dollar organization, and we are in hundreds of country dealing with food insecurity and agriculture issues, and i just went a couple

months ago to a care program in ghana and dealing with women farmers and teaching them how to use modern technology. you know, looms and things making fabrics, so it was fantastic and inspiring. i also went earlier in the year, because care for the first time since the 1950s is back in europe because of putin's invasion of ukraine. i went to a program in poland where there were a couple hundred refugees, and there was a program where they used ukrainian women teaching in polish schools, and there are ukrainian kids in poland schools that don't speak polish. >> yeah, and now grain shipments out of ukraine were intended for

the continent of africa, where there is enormous food insecurity, as you know, and the combined danger of food insecurity combined with the outflows of the refugees? >> yeah. you talk about the black seed grain deal in ukraine that putin just blew up. ukraine was the breadbasket of the soviet union, and so much of that goes to afghanistan and places like that, and that has a trigger affect on all the food insecurity around the world. the three main drivers of hunger now are climate, covid and conflict. ukraine is a perfect example of that. there's 750 million people food

insecure in the world now, and that's 100 million more than in 2017. part of that came as a result of covid and the interruption of shipments and it's a nasty situation. >> susan page has a question. >> congratulations on your new position. i want to go back to any kind of deal that will free them or is this something that is likely to consider in the months and years ahead? what is your sense of that? >> good to see you. i don't want to be pessimistic, but it could continue for a long time because putin uses folks like that as bargaining chips, and he has made deals in the past few years, and he sees it as a tactical benefit. sometimes it's also a hostage to

what u.s. and russian relations are, and they are not very good anymore. and then coming up, one of the most overlooked chapters in the history of baseball. "morning joe" is coming right back. ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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bronny james, the son of lebron james, is out of the icu and recovering after suffering cardiac arrest on monday, just 18 years old. he was practicing on the court for his debut college season. >> reporter: the son of a basketball superstar, facing a medical emergency. >> bronny james. >> reporter: bronny james rushed

to the e.r. during a practice monday. a family spokesperson saying while practicing, bronny james suffered a cardiac arrest. medical staff was able to treat bronny and take him to the hospital. he is the son of lebron james and one of the most highly touted incoming basketball players. he was preparing for his first season on the usc basketball team. >> reporter: bronny starring in the mcdonald's all american game. his dad cheering him on. >> he is proud. >> reporter: lebron not shy about his wish to share the court him. >> that would be the icing on the cake. >> reporter: hamlin tweeting, prayers to bronny and the james family as well. here for you guys just like you

have been for me my entire process. cardiac arrest is the leading cause of death for young athletes. african american college basketball players like james are at the highest risk, according to a study in "the american heart association journal." what could have led to this? >> there are factors that can cause cardiac arrest, whether it's something that they have had, a disease on the heart, congenital, something that he developed after having an infection. >> reporter: doctors with this advice for parents of athletes of my age. >> any student going to start any sport should do a pre-participation physical. that includes an evaluation of their medical history and also asked the appropriate questions. >> jonathan lemire, this is so scary. you sent me this headline as it broke yesterday. an 18-year-old, peak physical condition. the truth of the matter is, this is more common than people realize. there's an organization called

parent heart watch trying to educate. a group of people whose children tragically have died while playing sports at a young age, trying to educate parents there are tests you can do and get out ahead of this so you can know if your child is at some risk. doesn't mean or she has to stop playing sports but to know the risks. a talented young guy. we are happy to hear he is out of the icu. hoping for a full recovery for bronny. >> that's an important point, that there are tests available. we don't know the cause here with bronny james. certainly, we do hear terrible stories about young athletes with heart issues, some proved to be fatal. it's great news that he is out of the icu. the family will provide updates in the days ahead. it's a remarkable story. it's fun to see lebron and his wife and the family sitting courtside, cheering him on. just like any other proud sports

parent. he made it very clear that he wants to stick around in the nba. he wants to play another year or two because he wants to play alongside bronny james. we don't know about bronny's basketball future. we hope he can get back on the court. certainly, his health comes first. best wishes to the james family. >> absolutely. an exciting time if bronny james' life, about to get going at usc. they were practicing to prepare for an overseas tour. so much promise for him, maybe some day playing in the nba with his dad. >> yeah. that's all great stuff. the important part of the story really is to remove the name bronny james from the story and think about the other high school athletes out there, some down south where they start early in football practice for the fall, under soaring temperatures. 17, 18-year-old children -- they

are children -- and they have to pay attention to their health and to their heart. the group you mentioned that's involved in that, we ought to pay more attention to all high school athletes, but certainly those in danger potentially of suffering what bronny james suffered from yesterday. a live report from outside of the federal courthouse in wilmington, delaware, ahead of hunter biden's expected guilty plea today to misdemeanor tax crimes. "morning joe" is back in a moment. moment my asthma felt anything but normal. ♪ ♪ it was time for a nunormal with nucala. nucala is a once-monthly add-on treatment for severe eosinophilic asthma that can mean less oral steroids. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of

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i'm not concerned. we have very corrupt people running our country. congress, if you will, please investigate the political witch hunts against me currently being brought by the corrupt doj and fbi who are totally out of control. >> he is not concerned, but then putting out a video insisting

congress look into the people investigating home, at the justice department. donald trump brushing off a looming second federal indictment. online, begging congress to intervene in the investigations against him. this morning, the former president not giving any firm indication of when a grand jury might vote on a indictment. kevin mccarthy is feeling the pressure from the far right to bring an impeachment inquiry against president biden. a live report on that from capitol hill. the federal reserve likely to raise interest rates today. that impending move has the markets in the red before the bell. we have insight in a moment. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 9:00 a.m. here on the east coast. less than one hour from now, hunter biden is scheduled to appear in federal court in wilmington, delaware, expected to plead guilty to two federal misdemeanor counts of failing to

pay his taxes, that would allow him to avoid prosecution on a gun charge if he meets certain conditions. let's bring in white house correspondent mike memoli live outside the courthouse in wilmington. good morning. what do we expect an hour from now? >> reporter: good morning. we saw hunter biden's lead attorney arrive here. the president's son should be arriving in short order. this is a historic moment. this is the first time in u.s. history that the justice department is bringing charges against the child of a sitting u.s. president. from the perspective of the president and of his son, they hope that this is really the beginning of the end of a very difficult chapter in hunter biden's life, struggling with substance abuse and addiction in the years following the death of his older brother in 2015. i spoke recently with a source close to the biden family to ask about this moment. they told me something surprising. they see this as a good step. this is all about hunter biden

taking responsibility for misdeeds in his past and hoping to close the chapter and continue on that road to recovery. from the perspective of the president's political opponents, this is, they hope, the end of the beginning. the beginning of a long, potential legal process. we have seen republicans in congress and republicans on the campaign trail seemingly doing everything they can to put hunter biden on the ballot in 2024 along with the president himself, drawing attention to his personal life but, of course, also to his business connections in which they are trying to draw a connection between the president and his son. we don't expect much in the way of surprises this morning. hunter biden going to be entering into the plea agreement, pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges for failure to pay taxes over a period of two years. there is some last-minute potential curveballs in the way of some back and forth with a republican member of congress who tried to filed a brief here. there was some potential miscommunication or in the view of republicans some

misidentification in an attempt to pull those documents from the proceeding. that's one of the few wild cards. as we see this continue, we may actually hear from hunter biden himself. this would be an important public opportunity to speak about this moment. as for the president, he has no public events on his schedule today. we did see a statement of support from the president and the first lady when this plea agreement was announced a few weeks ago. the first lady traveling in france with ashley biden, the president's daughter as well. >> mike memoli starting us off this hour in wilmington, delaware. thanks so much. on capitol hill, hour speaker kevin mccarthy continues to suggest his party is close to launching an impeachment inquiry into president biden stemming from the republican-led investigations into the biden family's business dealings, particularly hunter biden. let's bring in ali vitali. are they really going to try to impeach the president of the united states? >> reporter: this is another example of how speaker mccarthy

is in a constant battle with the ultra right flank of his group. mayorkas is a name we hear all the time. now, they are centering around joe biden himself, doing so in the way that mike was saying, frankly, trying to put hunter biden on the ballot alongside the president and making it so joe biden is a referendum -- or his son is a referendum on his father, the president of the united states, who is running for re-election in 2024. the fact that we saw speaker kevin mccarthy yesterday continue to almost ratchet up his rhetoric about how close his conference might be to actually moving forward on impeachment of biden is really notable. i think it is striking in the context of this might be what mccarthy needs to keep his right flank happy. it's also something that's going to play on the ballot in a way republicans may not anticipate. specifically, forcing moderate

members who are in biden districts to continuously take votes against him. i think, for example, of the way that when i talked to my republican campaign sources, they look at new york republicans as the majority makers and the majority breakers in 2024. these are folks who are going to continuously, if you move forward on impeachment of the president, be put in tough positions of going back home to their districts and defending not why they're not talking about crime, economy, inflation, the things that got them into the majority, instead, they are talking about impeaching the president. that might not play in their home districts. >> jonathan, the subtext of this is retribution for president trump being impeached twice. the ukraine deal, trying to get dirt on the bidens in exchange for funding, and then, of course, the events around the 2020 election you wrote about in your book, this is what they are

trying to create. the bidens do it, too. the problem so far is, no evidence has been presented, even by this committee, that president biden himself is linked to shady dealings with hunter biden and has benefitted from it. >> no evidence whatsoever, except for the proof that the republican house majority does donald trump's bidding more times than not. house speaker mccarthy, whose grip is so tenuous, that he has to kowtow to the far right. that includes donald trump. we will all remember this. it's retribution. there's some thought that this will stop with the impeachment inquiry phase, which does trigger some fact finding measures from the house. the white house has said clearly, that's not necessary. we will cooperate with what you need. there are some republicans in

the senate who have suggested this is an ill-advised path, don't take it. the thought is, mccarthy might be triggering the inquiry to see if that will be enough red meat to throw the far right in his conference. maybe that would satisfy them. certainly, no white house wants to go through a process like this. no white house wants to hear the word impeachment. as we have been talking about, the fact that they are throwing this around threatens to turn impeachment into another political tool. >> tit for tat, using the impeachment of the president of the united states. ali, president biden is threatening to veto the house spending bill if republicans include provisions on culture war items. what are some of the amendments they are pushing for? how are republicans responding to the white house? >> reporter: it's pretty likely those things are going to be included.

it's instructive to watch the ndaa. it's a bipartisan thing. it dictates how the military can spend money. we saw house republicans specifically put into that bill a lot of language that would govern around, for example, the pentagon policy on supporting logistical travel for abortion care, that's something, of course, we are watching nominations and promotions be held up in the senate for another month by senator tommy tuberville. that is really important. it portends the fact that september 30th is a government funding deadline. we could be heading to a shutdown. listen to some of the ultra right republicans here, they are saying that might not be a bad thing. watch what congressman good said. >> we should not fear a government shutdown. most of what we do up here is bad. most of what we do hurts the american people. when we do stuff to the american people by promising to do things for the american people, essential operations continue.

85%, as mr. biggs told me. >> reporter: i can tell you, i covered government shutdowns from the field before. i have talked to workers who absolutely feel it. they are furloughed, living paycheck to paycheck, they are looking at the government as you are the person who is supposed to keep the lights on. these are devastating impacts that happen to people when the government shuts down. i know we often talk about it as this false deadline that lawmakers typically avert. at the same time, look at the dynamics within this republican conference. politically, they don't see it as a bad thing to default. it could be a way for them to exact the spending cuts they want from leadership. it's important for us as we talk about this as a political chip that gets played, it's devastating for american familiars waiting to see what happens with the government shutdowns when they happen. they are out for august recess.

you come back in september and there's a lot to happen to get government funding over the finish line. privately, you talk to republican sources, they are skeptical. that's a big looming target that does have real-life implications. >> you are right. we are starting to hear shutdown looking ahead to the fall. let's hope we can avoid it. ali vitali at the capitol, thanks. joining us now, democratic senator stabenow. you talking about the ndaa on a more bipartisan basis. what is the view from where you sit as you watch how the house is proceeding? >> i mean, it's just one effort to create crisis after another. it's amazing. i think there are very -- there are members of the house that were disappointed our country didn't default for the first time ever. now there are people that want to have a government shutdown.

they want chaos. they want chaos. they take a normally bipartisan bill to authorize funding for our national defense and turn it into a series of cultural wars. in the senate, we're not doing that. we're not doing that. we are moving through on a bipartisan basis to fund the ndaa as we have done before. appropriations is moving through. the leaders in the senate here are doing a great job of step by step reporting individual bills out in regular order, to fund the government. i view us as the grown-ups in the room here. we are trying to get things done. at the same time, celebrate the things that we have done. people in michigan want to talk about manufacturing jobs. we are bringing jobs home. yesterday, i was with the president of the united states talking about how we're transforming community mental health services and funding

health care. that's what people really want to talk about. it's not this chaos. whatever is going on in the house, they are speaking to a very small slice of america. >> senator, you and the other adults in the room, as you referred to the united states senate, are you making progress with another supposed adult in the room, tommy tuberville? >> this is amazing and frustrating and appalling to see hundreds of promotions that are being held up at the highest levels in terms of the marines, in terms of the joint chiefs, all these people whose lives are being held up. so far, senator tuberville doesn't seem to phase him. we have people right now that are receiving -- are supposed to be receiving promotions that would take them to another

state. they have children. do they enroll their children in school in september or not? what do they do? their lives are on hold. it's upending the stability of the military having all these key positions on hold. we have offered him a vote. he can have an up or down vote on the policy he disagrees with. that's fine. the idea of literally holding up the capacity and stability of our department of defense and our armed forces is really irresponsible. i don't know what he is thinking at this point. it's causing havoc for real people. real people are being hurt as well as our broader security. >> senator, it's jonathan lemire. i was at the white house yesterday when you stood with president biden for an event on mental health. we heard from both of you

talking about how more americans need to have better access to it. it should be treated like any other part of health care. tell us more about that pitch and what you hope to get from insurance companies. >> well, i'm really excited about both things we talked about yesterday. first of all, way back in 2008 we passed a bill called a mental health charity, where they are supposed to cover mental health and addiction services like physical help. it has not happened in a uniform way. in the affordable care act, i made it a part of what we call essential services and made sure every definition in the affordable care act included behavioral health. still, we have insurance companies that require prior authorization or limit the number of visits. they don't limit your cancer treatment visits. but if this is something that involves a mental illness, they may do that.

the president is proposing a rule that would fix that. it would bring in all of the public insurance companies, those covering public employees into the program, about 200 more insurance programs, which is really exciting. it's about saying, we're going to fully fund mental health. we are doing nationally, this started with a pilot project that sen i did. this has been bipartisan to say rather than funding community mental health through grants that stop and start all the time, we are going to fund it as health care through medicaid. this is the largest investment in mental health and addiction services in the country, largest investment through medicaid. we have 500 start-up clinics

across the country. ten states getting full medicaid. another ten coming in. we are expanding this. we want to say that anybody can get care. it's health care. we will fund health care above the neck the same as below the neck. we will stop treating behavioral health differently than physical health. >> it's high time for that. senator, thank you for your time. we appreciate it. the federal reserve is expected to raise rates this afternoon to what would be a 22-year high. the central bank will announce it at 2:00 eastern time. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin. how is the fed going to go here? >> i think everyone thinks one more quarter point. is this the last pill in the container of antibiotics? we have long talked about the

idea that this is like a course of medicine. you might have felt better. the numbers have looked better over the last several months. we are still not totally out of it. there's still a couple more pills potentially in the bottle. how many more do you take? the current thinking is, this is the last one, at least for now. the fed has fought inflation. we are getting to a 3% range. powell wants to get to 2%. from a trajectory perspective, it looks like we are on that path. could we actually do this and have a, quote, soft landing? do we have to have a recession? increasingly the betting line in the marketplace is that we might have actually have that soft landing. >> we will find out about five hours from now. it looks like a quarter of a point. >> but do look for what he says about what's going to happen next. that's almost more important than the quarter point today.

>> right. we will watch for that. u.p.s. and the teamsters union, which represents about 340,000 u.p.s. workers, have reached a tentative deal. tell us more on that. >> this is a fabulous deal if you work at u.p.s. talk about wages going up. that has an inflationary affect we can talk about in terms of the way the fed thinks about the world. this is a very big deal for the teamsters. if you are a driver of one of the brown trucks, full-time driver, $49 an hour, if you are part-time, that's $21 an hour. this is a big increase from where they were before. from a policy perspective in terms of the country, the possible disruption that a strike would have had would have been breathtaking. i think we should all as a country probably breathe a sigh of relief and applaud the drivers who got in a great deal for themselves. of course, as i mentioned, this does get to the issue of inflation.

inflationary pressures, meaning, is it going to cost more when you buy your package from amazon in the future because the price that u.p.s. is going to charge is going to obviously likely get higher because they will charge -- going to be paying these drivers more? it feeds on itself. that's the conundrum of the economy we are living in. >> full-time and part-time workers at u.p.s. both getting a raise. good news for them. finally, twitter, the artist formerly known as twitter, now x we are calling it, cutting ad rates to get advertisers to come back. how is that going? >> have you come up with a line on what a post on twitter is since it's not a tweet? >> i don't know. >> i don't know. you had the formerly known as. have not come up with something good. >> mike says x-ray. we are still workshoping it. we will get back to you. >> they are offering 50% discount on advertising.

they have struggled to capture the advertising and advertisers they had before elon musk took over the platform. in part because of all sorts of worries about content on the platform and the way it was being operated. the question is, does this discount really incentivize advertisers to come back to the platform? the other piece of this is it's not just that they are offering a discount. in some cases they are saying, if you look on twitter or x, next to a company's name, it has a gold check mark. that's a really -- it's a way to say it's a verified company. now what twitter or x is saying is, look, if you don't advertise, if you don't have some kind of minimum advertising program with us, you will lose that check mark. there's a bit of carrot and stick approach they are approaching advertisers with. we will see whether it works or not. >> andrew ross sorkin, we will

work on the x tweet thing for you. we will have an answer today many. we are following breaking news out of new york city. a crane caught fire on the west side of manhattan. wow. what an image. the fire burned for some time before a portion of the crane broke off, hit an adjacent building and fell down to the street. wow. the new york city fire department says it started in the engine compartment of the crane. five people are injured, including one firefighter. three of the five have been transported to a local hospital. emergency personnel are on the scene. nypd is asking people to avoid that area on the west side of manhattan. it looks like they are controlling the fire, but not before the crane crashed down to the street below. we will have the latest on this as it becomes available to us. coming up, rudy giuliani is conceding he did make false

statements about two 2020 georgia election workers. what we are learning about that acknowledgement from donald trump's former attorney next on "morning joe."

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donald trump's former attorney rudy giuliani is conceding the made false statements about two women who worked the 2020 election in the state of georgia from a court filing related to a lawsuit filed by the women who allege they were harassed after giuliani claimed they committed election fraud. they did not. lawyers wrote, giuliani does not contest that to the extent the statements were statements of fact and otherwise actionable, such actionable and factual statements were false. i will translate that, he lied. the women said their lives were turned upside down when conspiracy theorists and donald trump and giuliani made the

false allegations. we know they testified before congress about what they went through when they were blindsided by this when giuliani went public, he went to the georgia state legislature and made these totally invented claims that they were passing usb sticks between each other, caught on video with voter information. when they said, no, i was handing her a mint. it's serious that people were showing up as their houses trying to push their way in. they were getting death threats. they quit their jobs. maybe it was a game to giuliani but it was real to the women. >> it was very real to these women. it was real to many of those that were the believers of donald trump and rudy giuliani. giuliani was a federal prosecutor and mayor of new york and became america's mayor after 9/11. someone with that stature, you would not think if you were some

objective american -- why would he fabricate these two women in georgia working at the board? he must have some basis for this. you are not talking about an average joe. this is a former federal prosecutor. when people reacted and responded, it really set these women on a course that was -- how do they stand up against someone with that stature, even though those of us in new york were told he was not all of that anyway. the sanitized bio open giuliani was never real to us. for him to say, yeah, i didn't say it in fact, but i didn't damage them, death threats and being harassed and having to worry about going to the corner store, that doesn't damage you? >> this is just one element of many statements that he and others made in the context of

the election was rigged after the election of 2020. it brings to mind a famous quote that has stood for a long time. a former secretary of labor in the united states government under a republican administration was tried and acquitted for specific crimes. he stood on the steps of the courthouse after his acquittal saying, where do i go now to get back my reputation? why do these women go now to get back their reputation? where do they go to get paid or whatever, compensated for the damage that's been done to them? >> where do they go back to get all of the stress they lived under on a daily basis wondering about the target they had become for people that felt they had robbed donald trump of this election? you really can't make it up to them. you can certainly say the damages are there. they should at least suffer some -- he should suffer damages

for what he did. >> jonathan lemire, this follows a pattern for people who would go on tv or other places and make these outlandish claims about the 2020 election. when the rubber meets the road and they have to go to court and make the case and argue, they back off. giuliani did this in a number of courtrooms. i know i said that on tv, but i don't have evidence the election was stolen, now he is faced with a lawsuit, yeah, truth be told, i made that up about the two women. >> giuliani and powell did that time and again in november, december, january of 2020 into 2021 where they would say one thing on air and something different in the courthouse. we know that there are others in trump's orbit who have done the same. we know the penalty paid by fox news. there's more litigation potentially to come. i mentioned -- i wrote about these women in my book. it came out one year ago today.

they were far from alone in their stories. they talked about how people would show up at their door and call in the middle of the night, harass them, use terrible racial slurs. they feared for their life. there are other poll workers across this country who did -- who had the same experience because of the harassment they faced by donald trump supporters who were adhering to the big lie. that's a real concern for people this time around, especially if trump is the ticket for republicans again. i have spoken to election workers in battleground states who say they will have a hard time staffing polling places, getting volunteers or the lowly paid workers who are doing it out of a sense of civic obligation, they will have a hard time getting them to man the polls because of the fear, the fear that they might be the next victims of harassment. >> they told the story of her grandmother calling her saying,

there's men here trying to push their way into the house to look for you and ruby, because of what they heard from giuliani. admitting he made it all up. the national urban league conference kicks off today in houston, running through saturday. the organization says the focus will be on the unprecedented politically weaponized backlash against racial justice, political representation and employment across the country. joining us from houston, the president and ceo of the national urban league. he will deliver his state of the urban league address tomorrow at the conference. it's great to have you on. reverend sharpton is excited to get down to houston. he asked if you could turn up the ac. i understand it's warm in houston. he is ready for it. tell us what you will be focused on this weekend. >> hydrate well, rev. we will be lonhonoring and recognizing reverend sharpton.

congratulations on 20 years of partnership we have had to work on behalf of people in this nation. we expect 10,000 plus people here. one highlight will be for the first time the mayors of four major cities, all african american, will be on stage together. i will moderate a panel discussion to discuss the challenges they face with violence, with economics, migrants, homelessness, schools in the case of sylvester turner, how you navigate in a statement where you have a hostile governor and state legislature. we will have a panel discussion, a fireside chat, if you will, on the civil rights issues and social justice issues facing the nation today. we have people from all generations who will be in

houston. we have a dynamic family and community day, backpacks, a job fair, a college fair. a lot of activations taking place. great honorees and discussions. here is the call to action. we will call on people to defend democracy, to demand diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of american life. we will call on people to renew their work to not only defeat poverty, but to defeat income inequality, the racial wealth cap and all of the economic challenges we face. this is going to be a very important conversation and discussion with thought leaders, political and celebrities. i want to thank publicallyhe mayor turner who will leave office at the end of the year. he has been an outstanding leader for this city. was dogged -- we planned to come here in 2020. the pandemic de-railed it.

the mayor said, i have to have you back in houston before i leave office. we are here. i expect the biggest, most robust gathering of urban leaguers in our history, some 20,000 people, i hope, will be here in terms of guests, participants, delegates as well as others. >> the urban league conference is always big. it takes on new meaning as you deal with the state of where we are in this country and particularly people of color and black people, because we are in the middle of seeing in florida such real overt moves to try and distort and change what is being taught in terms of black history. talk about how you and the urban league and those of us that work in civil rights leadership

together has to deal with what we stand for as an organization and the urban league has stood there, but also have to deal with the contemporary challenges that you have to administer both what you are doing but at the same time deal with things that come up that you could not predict would happen right before the conference. >> you are so right. there's a renewed backlash in this country. florida and texas are ground zero. we are here because i will send a strong message to governor abbott and the texas state legislature about their voter suppression, their book bans, their anti-lgbtq efforts, their efforts all throughout the last several years to really create a texas not that's diverse, but a texas based on nationalism and white supremacy in its governmental philosophy. we are going to push back against that. we find ourselves here 20 years

after joining the national urban league and becoming a leader of an iconic civil rights organization, confronting things that our fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers had to confront in the '50s and '60s. this challenge is overt. you think about what people like tommy tuberville and other members of congress are saying, you listen to the rhetoric of some cable news channels, we have to fight that while constructively working on how to educate, how to make sure our communities are housed, helping people build businesses. we have to stay the course. we have to be able to, if you will, walk and chew gum and balance a ball on our hands, because the times absolutely demand it. we are also encouraged with participation in the march you will lead with martin the third

in august. we want people to recognize now is the time to be a participant. now is the time not to be a spectator in this very important work. >> rev will help to lead that march coming up late next month. mark, congratulations to you personally on 20 yeas at the head of the national urban league. we appreciate you being here. rev will see you in a couple days. >> thank you. still ahead, we will take a closer look at the extreme heat impacting most of the country right now. in florida, water temperatures off the coast have soared past 100 degrees in the water. we are back there just a moment. my asthma felt anything but normal. ♪ ♪ it was time for a nunormal with nucala. nucala is a once-monthly add-on treatment for severe eosinophilic asthma that can mean less oral steroids. not for sudden breathing problems. allergic reactions can occur. get help right away for swelling of face, mouth, tongue, or trouble breathing.

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6:43 in the morning in los angeles. 9:43 here on the east coast. listen to the sounds of "satisfaction" by the rolling stones. there's never a bad day to play the stones. today is a good one because it's jagger's 80th birthday. if you are keeping score at home, he is four or five months older than keith richards, who will turn 80 in december. posting to instagram today saying, thanks so much for all your lovely comments for birthday wishes. look at him. 80 years old. >> you know, the thing about the stones is, it's so unusual, so unique, i can recall listening to the first rolling stones record on a car radio i think in 1964. 1964. here he is, they are still rocking. they still go on tour. >> they were on tour last

summer. >> i can barely get out of bed in the morning. look at this guy. look at him. >> he is still doing the same thing, sprinting all over the stage in a football stadium. 1962 is when they started playing together. more than 60 years. charlie watts died two years ago, the great drummer. ronny wood is a mere 76. your mentor james brown, a huge influence or jagger in terms of the performance on stage, the music that inspired him. he actually was the executive producer on "get on up," the movie about james brown. >> when i went to the premiere -- i advised some of the movie. i spent time talking to jagger. he would do all of these glorious stories about how he looked up to james brown and how james brown influenced him. james brown respected him. he said those guys on stage are on fire.

james brown didn't commit to many other artists. he did commend the stones. >> you can see the moves and everything mick jagger does looking up to james brown. happy birthday to one of the greatest front men. segregation stopped some of baseball's best players from playing in the big leagues. a new documentary is highlighting their time in the negro leads. we will be joined by the director of that film next on "morning joe." power e*trade's award-winning trading app makes trading easier. with its customizable options chain, easy-to-use tools and paper trading to help sharpen your skills, you can stay on top of the market from wherever you are. e*trade from morgan stanley. when migraine strikes, you're faced with a choice. ride it out with the tradeoffs of treating? or push through the pain and symptoms? with ubrelvy, there's another option. one dose works fast to eliminate migraine pain.

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featuring fresh artisan bread piled high with tender roast beef, smothered with melty provolone cheese, just enough chipotle mayo and served with hot au jus for dipping. try the roast beef or pastrami french dips today. only at togo's. african americans have been playing baseball for as long as white people have been playing baseball. as the sport began to take hold in popularity post-civil war, black people were there always. there were organized black teams, and they barnstormed, they played against other black teams. they played against white teams.

>> there were blacks who did play with whites on teams. the team was majority white, it may have one or two black players on it. and that seemed to be something that was more acceptable to the white paying public if they only had one or two black players as opposed to a team that might have majority black players and one or two white players. >> but as we moved forward through history, we see that segregation starts to tighten its hold. >> that's a clip from the new documentary entitled "the league," using previously unearthed archival footage and never before seen interviews. joining us now the film's director, emmy award winner sam pollard. sam, thank you so much for being with us this morning. i mean, you have us gripped. we're all baseball fans and history fans, so this checked both of those boxes, and it sheds new light on this area, on this topic, on these leagues that produced truly not just

some of the greatest black baseball players who ever lived but the greatest players who ever lived including josh gibson and satchel paige. >> about ten years ago, a gentleman named byron motley, they wrote a book together about his dad's adventures in the knew negro leagues and they wanted to make a film. we started that long journey of trying to raise the money, and it took about seven to eight years before we got all the money in place, and we started making the film. it was really a real pleasure to dig into this very complex and fascinating history. >> you know, sam, in watching this film, it's incredible the number of great athletes, baseball players, and they happen to be black, and that's why they couldn't play in the

major leagues. but the other thing that struck me in watching the film was the idea that when they eventually, some of them were coaxed into the major leagues, particularers like larry doby, and monte irvin, the teams they played for in the negro leagues were not reimbursed, were not paid for their contracts, so they got them for free, and they played in the major leagues and they were great players. but the idea of it, there's an element of tragedy in this film about all the players who could have been major league players much earlier and were prevented from playing in the major leagues only because of their color. >> one of the things that was a revelation for me as a filmmaker and as an african american male was realizing that people like branch rickey and others involved in the major leagues didn't want to compensate the negro league owners. manly who was a co-owner of the newark eagles was very vocal

about that. and when bill beck of the cleveland indians wanted to sign larry doby she said you should compensate me because other white owners hadn't. so he did, but that was a rarity, and it was a tragic thing that happened. that was a story that no one ever knew. we always knew that branch rickey was sort of like a savior in bringing jackie robinson to the major leagues. but he didn't want to pay the kansas city monarchs for jackie robinson. he didn't want to pay the newark eagles for don newcombe, he at no time -- he didn't want to pay for roy campanella. these phenomenal players never had an opportunity to play in the major leagues. >> talk also about how on the other side of the equation, we know a lot of the pain and the humiliation that the black players who played in the negro league had to go through, but it

also robbed the american public, the baseball public of seeing some of the greatest players that ever played because of the color line, and because of that, you had people going into the world series that may not have been there had we not had this rigid jim crow. so america suffered. the sport suffered. talk about that. >> well, it was fascinating, reverend sharpton. you have great players like cool papa bell, you have satchel paige, you have josh gibson, you have buck leonard, buck o'neal. these phenomenal players who had the athletic ability to make things happen on the paths and they weren't able to play against lou gehrig or babe ruth except for the barnstormer events. it was a tragedy. the positive thing i take away from this experience is within our black communities, they gave

a form of entertainment and excitement for our people to come out and see our players play, you know, and fortunately at some point they realized in the major leagues they needed to bring in some of these players not just to be, you know, to break the barrier of segregation, but from my perspective, from a profit motive because it was going to bring more people to the ballparks. >> sam, it's an extraordinary work, and i know you've got some -- you've unearthed some never before seen footage and interviews with some of the people who were there. tell us a little bit, give us a story or two about some of the big personalities, like a josh gibson or a satchel paige. >> there was a man named rube foster in 1920 who had been a manager and owner who basically started the negro national league in kansas city, missouri, and then you learn in the '30s there were other people like, you know, gus greenley and cum

posey who were great owners of teams like the grays and the pittsburgh crawfords, and there were players like josh gibson who's considered on par with babe ruth as a home run hitter, satchel paige who's probably one of the greatest pitchers of all time, you know. these are great, players, cool papa bell who was considered one of the fastest men on the base path. these stories are told to you in detail, and we were very fortunate to have the great archival producer who was able to unearth wonderful material that i hadn't even seen before. so it's really an extraordinary sort of deep dive into understanding another aspect of american history. i always want to make sure people understand that this history is american history that we all should know about. >> thinking about the line about cool papa bell, mike barnicle, which is that he could turn off the lights and the wall in his bedroom and be in bed before it got dark, he was that fast. sam makes a great point, and we talk about steroids and how do we judge players of that era and should we say well, that was

just a moment in time. you have to look at players who played in the major leagues, they didn't have to play against josh fwibson. some of the greatest players were not in the big leagues. >> you know who used to point that out, when you're talking about that era, ted williams. he would say i faced a lot of great pitchers or anything like that, but i always wanted to have the opportunity to play against someone like satchel paige. sam, one quick question for you before we get out of here. there are villains in this piece, judge landis, the former commissioner of baseball. talk about him briefly if you could. >> well, he became the commissioner of baseball after the 1919 black sox scandal, and he had a real tight firm hold on major league baseball, and he was adamant about refusing to see african american players play in the game. and one of the other revelations we came away learning about was

the fact that paul robeson, the great paul robeson in the early 1940s had a meeting with the white major league owners to try to persuade them to rethink this cd of not having african americans in the major leagues, but kennesaw mountain landis was still opposed to it, and you know, sadly he passed away in mid-1940s and happy chen became the baseball commissioner. that from my perspective opened the door to people like branch rickey saying now it's time to make these overtures to negro players, to bring them into the major leagues. >> the documentary "the league" is available to stream now and as i said, it's full of new interviews. just incredible archival footage. it's the story of baseball, but it's also the store of america. sam pollard, thanks so much for your hard work, as you said, seven to eight years to raise the money to get this done, and you have done something extraordinary. congratulations and thanks for being here this morning. >> my pleasure, willie, thank you very much.

>> thank you. jonathan lemire, before we go, very quickly what are you watching for in washington down there today? >> of course there will be eyes in wilmington for the hunter biden proceedings about to start, but also a sense of anticipation about the looming indictment for donald trump, could come as early as tomorrow. >> that does it for us this morning, we will be right back here tomorrow morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now. right now on "ana cabrera reports," hunter biden in federal court, where we expect the son of the president to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors. we are live outside the courthouse, and we have our legal experts standing by to break it all down. also ahead, new developments involving former president trump's legal troubles as a potential third indictment looms, new details on who the special counsel is talking to in the 2020 white house meeting that has his team's attention.