Joe Scarborough (3:33)

With all due respect, my friend Elon.

Steve Ratner (3:35)

Is terribly wrong about the one big beautiful bill.

Mark Caputo (3:38)

It's a very important first start.

Steve Ratner (3:40)

Elon is missing it, okay?

Joe Scarborough (3:42)

And it's not personal.

Steve Ratner (3:44)

I know that the EV mandate, very important to him that is going away because the government should not be subsidizing these things as part of the Green New Deal. And I know that has an effect on his business.

Joe Scarborough (3:54)

And I lament that we talked about.

Steve Ratner (3:56)

The ramp down period on that and how that should be duly considered by Congress. But for him to come out and.

Joe Scarborough (4:02)

Hand the whole bill is to me.

Steve Ratner (4:05)

Just very disappointing, very surprising in light.

Joe Scarborough (4:07)

Of the conversation I have with him.

Steve Ratner (4:08)

Joining us now, the co host of our fourth hour, Jonathan Lemire. He's a contributing writer at the Atlantic covering the White House and national politics. Also White House reporter for Axios, Mark Caputo and co founder of Punchbowl News, John Bresnahan. Great group assembled to talk through this. Mark, I want to start with you because you had the first reporting yesterday for Axios about where this came from, this outburst from Elon Musk about the so called big beautiful bill, which he said last week, a bill can be either big or beautiful, but not both. So what's driving his very public criticism of the bill?

Mark Caputo (4:42)

Well, we're told that there were basically four inflection points for Elon Musk. There was the EV tax credit that was just referenced by Speaker Johnson. Starlink, which is a company that he owns, a satellite company, wanted a bid or wanted to control, we're told, the FAA's new air traffic control system. He was a special government employee. Again, it appears that he wanted to stay in that role and the White House told him, no, you can't by statute. And then lastly, and most recently, and perhaps most importantly relative to when he came out and said this, Elon Musk's pick to be the NASA administrator, a friend of his or an acquaintance, Jared Isaacman, was summarily and unexpectedly canceled as Donald Trump's pick on Saturday night. And there was a lot of suspicion that various White House staffers conspired to have this done. As according to one person who I spoke to an F you to Elon Musk. And after that it seems, and I'm told, and we see Elon Musk got very sour on the bill. He waited until White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt was at the podium for maximum damage. And then he released his post and just sort of wrecked the White House's afternoon with what he said.

Steve Ratner (6:00)

Yeah. So here John Bresnahan is part of what he said. I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it. You know you did wrong. You know it. In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people. That's Elon Musk's post yesterday. So, Brez, I guess the question is, does this matter for the lawmakers on Capitol Hill? We heard Speaker Johnson saying, well, Elon, my dear friend just doesn't understand it. I've reached out to him, I'll explain it to him. Elon, based on those statements yesterday, doesn't seem terribly persuadable. Does this criticism from the world's wealthiest man, a close ally for a long time of President Trump, does it matter to the legislative process?

John Bresnahan (6:48)

I mean, yes and no. I mean, Republican senators, the Senate was in yesterday. Republican senators couldn't run away faster from this question. I mean, they were literally, I had one guy sprint. We had a Republican senator sprint away from me. Literally sprint away from me. What they were trying to say, oh, Musk is a private citizen. This is his own opinion. He's got, you know, as Mark in his excellent reporting talked about, you know, he's upset about the EV mandate and Mike Johnson, Speaker Johnson had raised this, but this is a big deal. You also saw Republicans who were have problems with this bill, like Ron Johnson of Wisconsin was told us reporters yesterday, he's like, you know, Musk is right. This bill doesn't cut enough. It's got to be redone. And that's a huge problem for the House leadership, for Johnson, if the Senate tries to overhaul the bill and it's a problem for Trump. And this is where we have an important meeting today. We have the Senate Finance Committee Republicans. These are the guys who do the tax portion of this bill and, and the Medicaid portion of this bill. They're going down to meet with Trump and Senate Majority Leader Thune will be with them. And they know that Trump is the only one who can get Musk off their back if there's a problem on this.

Steve Ratner (7:58)

So John Lemire, 2.3 to $5 trillion over the next decade, according to the CBO. This bill would add massive tax cuts and everything else that comes with it. How does the White House grapple? Does it care with the criticism from Elon Musk, a man who was standing in the Oval Office a few days ago?

Joe Scarborough (8:15)

Well, as noted, Musk's statement came as White House Secretary Karen Levitt was at the podium. She was asked about it in real time and said, well, you know, she downplayed it. Said the president's aware of Elon's feelings about this, but he still stands behind the one big beautiful bill in her words. And then they quickly tried to push past it. And we have not heard from Trump himself yet on this. I think every reporter in Washington, myself included, eyes glued to Truth Social to see if Trump would respond to Musk. He has not, at least not yet. But at some point he will. We do expect that he'll be in front of cameras today, which he has not been for the last couple days. So we may hear hear from him later today. I think this is already going to be a messy process. Yes, this got through the House just barely. There were some people who opposed to Congressman Massie who gave Musk an attaboy already yesterday, saying, yes, I share your concerns. And Musk is not wrong in terms of how it's going to increase spending. And that does fly in the face of what Doge was trying to do. And Mark, of course, also laid out some of the other behind the scenes reasons why Musk opposed this. The Senate was already had its real problems with it. This gives them more fuel. But I think, Mika, it also is just worth taking a second here just to go big picture at how remarkable this is. Elon Musk spent a record amount of money, tens upon hundreds of millions of dollars to help elect President Trump. He then on January 20, became the most, I'd argue, most powerful sort of government official we've had in a very long time. An unelected government official empowered by Trump to basically handed him the keys to the government. Do what you will. And here, just four, four and a half months later, not only is he out, but he's out there taking, you know, savaging the presiden signature piece of his agenda, like his entire legislative agenda is in this one bill. And the guy who a few days ago was still his most powerful aide has said it's a disgusting abomination, just.

Mika Brzezinski (10:05)

Remarkable that we're here now, the chainsaw still works. So meanwhile, as President Trump ramps up pressure on Senate Republicans now, to back his massive spending bill, he's calling out one vocal holdout. That's Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Trump posted on social media yesterday that the senator has very little understanding of the bill, later adding, the people of Kentucky can't stand him. Paul later responded to the president saying he will not support a bill that raises the debt ceiling by trillions of dollars. The senator has said he believes four Republicans are opposed to the package. As it stands, Republicans have a slim majority in the Senate and can Senate and can only afford to lose three votes on the bill. John Bresnahan, what, what do we know about how the Senate will respond to this, especially given the impact it will have on people who rely on things that are going to be cut if this passes?

John Bresnahan (11:08)

Yeah, right. Rand Paul is right. Right now, there's probably enough votes to stop this bill. If you take Rand Paul, you take Ron Johnson, who would not vote for this bill. As it is, you take some of the conservatives and then there's moderate senators like Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska or Susan Collins of Maine. They have problems. There's other senators have big problems with the Medicaid portions of this bill. So I think there's, you know, they're going to have to change this bill. The question is, and Mike Johnson was talking about it is like if you change this bill, this bill only passed by one vote in the House. If you change this bill in the Senate to get it through, somehow you lose that. If you tack to the middle in the Senate, you lose the right in the House. And that's a huge problem. That's where Trump have to be, you know, just knocking heads on it. But they have problems on it. I mean, they've got, they've got major work to be done in the next couple weeks, especially if they're thinking two things. One, they want to get done by July 4th and they got the debt limit at mid July. And that's a huge, that's the backstop of everything. That's the ticking time bomb on this legislation.

Steve Ratner (12:13)

Yeah. Mark Caputo, I'm going to channel Joe a little bit. Who would say these guys who've called themselves their entire lives small government conservatives who cast a vote in support of this bill, given what it does to the debt and the deficit, there's just no way you can call yourself a small government conservative and vote for this. And yet many of them are doing just that. So it does. Elon Musk, criticism as part of your reporting does give cover to people like Rand Paul and Ron Johnson. And others to maybe be a little more emboldened to come out and say, yeah, what Elon said is right, this is, we can't pass this. So do you think that perhaps Elon Musk's public criticism has helped to torpedo this thing?

Mark Caputo (12:50)

I think it's certainly given credit or cover to the critics that you said. But let's also be clear about the history of the Republican Party, certainly back to George Bush, the second George W. Bush. They've been massive deficit spenders and expanders of government at the same time as presenting themselves as these fiscal hawks. The difference with the Trump era Republican Party is that this is the first party that has said Medicaid. You know, it's pretty good. Medicare, pretty good. Social Security, pretty good, don't touch entitlements. And that's where you come to this very precarious position for Republicans when they're in charge of Congress because they basically got three issues at their weighing. They have tax cuts, which all Republicans essentially have to vote for as part of their dogma. You've got deficit reduction and you've got Medicaid that they want to continue. And in the end, the deficit reduction is the thing that's going to crater. And that is where Elon Musk is 100% right. This does cause higher deficits and bigger debt. And there's just no way for the White House to figure its way out of that. What Donald Trump is going to have to do is he's going to have to twist arms. He's going to have to do a little bit of subtle begging, promising, cajoling, the full bag of tricks. He's going to have to pull out in order to get this pass. In the end, it's still a Republican Congress. He's still the Republican leader. He's still popular in the party. It does look, judging by the past, that he'll probably get it done. But just how he does it is really hard to see right now.

Steve Ratner (14:22)

Yeah. So often in the Trump era, it comes down to the personal Donald Trump weighing and leaning on some of these guys to get their votes and them not willing to cross him. One of those members of Congress, Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, voted to pass the sweeping domestic policy bill last month, is now coming out against the legislation. In a social media post yesterday, Taylor Greene Greene appeared to admit she hadn't read the text carefully enough and that she missed parts of the bill that strips states of the right to regulate or make laws concerning artificial intelligence for the next 10 years. She says she is opposed to that. And will vote against the final version of the bill unless the Senate removes that provision. So important to read carefully, I guess, is the lesson here, John, really, the jokes write themselves.

Joe Scarborough (15:07)

I mean, this is typical of, well, maybe of Marjorie Taylor Greene, but it's reflective of just how hurried this process was. It was so rushed and some of it was done in the middle of the night. We heard Democrats complain about that. And now we're learning that some members of Congress didn't even read through the whole bill. They were their staff and missed important provisions. And now Marjorie Taylor Greene is suggesting that this is a real sticking point. So not only is it a poor reflection of how they got here, but it also, again, points to the challenges that lie ahead, that, like if the Senate's going to make real changes, Marjorie, Harry Green is saying, if you don't make this change, I won't vote for it. But we also know some other Republicans in the House speaker are saying that if they do make the Senate makes too many changes, we won't vote for it. So, yes, to Mark's point of a moment ago, President Trump remains very popular in the party. He has an iron grip, it seems, on both houses of Congress. It's hard to imagine too many Republicans will defy him. A few do. We see Thomas Massie, congressman of Kentucky, do it all the time, but very few do. So the odds are he'll get this through, but there's a lot of hurdles he's going to have to clear, particularly in that accelerated timetable, July 4th, one month from today.

Jonathan Lemire (16:17)

Wow.

Mika Brzezinski (16:18)

John Bresnahan, before we go, where do you see this going today?

John Bresnahan (16:22)

Well, I think, look, there's the two big meetings. There's the meeting with Trump at the White House with these, these Finance Committee Republicans, and then the Senate Republicans themselves are sitting down and going to talk. I think they've got a lot of work to do, as everybody's talked about. I mean, I do think they'll get this done at the end of the day because literally they've done nothing else in this Congress. If they don't pass this, they have nothing to run on in 2026. They've done nothing. So they get this done. I think at the end of the day, will they have to scale it back or. I don't know. But I do think these are, this is a big day for Republican Senate Republicans. They've got to get some forward momentum. The musk thing, the musk up yesterday really dented them. They've got problems on their right. They've got problems in their center. So, you know, I do think this isn't, you know, Trump is going to have to really get in there and tell guys that I want this. And we wrote about this morning, you already see Thune, Senator, majority leader going to Trump going to his trump card very early in this process. It's more like Mike Johnson than you would have ever seen Mitch McConnell do. So I think you'll see just Trump will just batter these guys. And I but I think this starts in earnest today. He's really going to have to get these guys if they want to pass something along this line.

Mika Brzezinski (17:35)

All right. Co founder of Punchbowl News, John Breznahan and White House reporter for Axios, Mark Caputo. Thank you both very much for coming on this morning and your reporting. Still ahead on MORNING joe, Steve Ratner is standing by with charts. He'll give us a deep dive at the cuts included in the Republican Party's sweeping tax and spending bill. Plus, a look at how President Trump's intense focus on immigration is reshaping federal law enforcement. NBC's Julia Ainslie joins us with that new reporting. And you can listen to every episode of MORNING Joe as a podcast for free. You're watching MORNING joe. We'll be right back.

Phillips Payson O'Brien (18:27)

Introducing the Weeknight on msnbc, join hosts Alicia Menendez, Michael Steele and Simone Sanders Townsend for a spirited conversation challenging each other and our leaders about the biggest issues of the day.

Mika Brzezinski (18:41)

It's about knowing what you are for.

Julia Ainslie (18:43)

Who you are for.

Steve Ratner (18:44)

That's what politics is about, is engagement.

Mika Brzezinski (18:46)

We are going to dive deeper into.

Steve Ratner (18:48)

The legal side of today's breaking news.

Phillips Payson O'Brien (18:50)

The weeknight, Monday through Friday at 7pm Eastern here on MSNBC.

Steve Ratner (18:58)

Beautiful live picture sun coming up over the White House at 6:19 in the morning. Let's bring in former treasury official Morning Joe economic analyst, our good friend Steve Ratner over at the Southwest Wall. Steve, good morning. Good to see you. Let's continue this conversation about the so called big beautiful bill and its impact on the national debt. What are you looking at there?

Jonathan Lemire (19:17)

Well, look, it's a really big bill. Whether it's beautiful or not, we can debate. But as you heard before, the challenge is that there are people who think it's too big. There are people who think there's other stuff that should be cut. And so it's a really tough situation for the president. But let's take a look at what the bill as it was written in the House would actually do. First of all, it's important to note that we're already As I think everybody knows, starting with a really large deficit, our deficit is almost $2 trillion right now. While it's projected to go down slightly, it would otherwise then keep climbing up to about between $2 and 2 and a half trillion dollars. That's if we do nothing. The big beautiful bill, you can look at two ways. As it is written, it would do this. So have the budget deficit still higher than we have. But there are a bunch of gimmicks in there in terms of making things expire that aren't really going to end up expiring. And so I think the real way to look at this big beautiful bill is it would take the deficit out to $3 trillion in 2035 and, and that becomes a huge amount. And then you see what it does to the debt. So right now we're sitting here with 37 trillion dollars of debt compared to a GDP, the whole size of our economy is only 30 trillion, meaning our debt is bigger than our economy. That's the only, the only other time this has happened was in World War II. So we're starting with a huge debt load. And then no matter really what you do, because the deficit stays high no matter what you do, the big beautiful bill makes it worse. You could end up out here with $55 trillion of debt. So the debt growing faster than the economy, this becomes unsustainable. And this is what the deficit hawks are really focused on.

Steve Ratner (20:55)

Steve, already bigger than the economy is the national debt. And this would just add to that. As you say, this is a large conversation. I know. But just briefly, what are the risks to a debt that is larger than the economy?

Jonathan Lemire (21:07)

Well, what you've seen happen in the last few weeks as this bill has been moving through Congress is periodic spurts of interest rates moving up. The federal government has to sell this debt periodically. It rolls over, it matures. They have to go out in the market and sell it. And the risk is that we pay higher and higher interest rates for our debt. And that in turn, as we'll look at in a few charts, squeezes out other kinds of spending and puts inordinate pressure on our debt and forces some really, really unpleasant things at some point. Reversing tax cuts when the market says it's enough. We're not going to keep financing these kinds of deficits. It's really a burden we're leaving to our children and our grandchildren. And that is an incredibly selfish act that we're doing.

Steve Ratner (21:47)

All right. Speaking of tax cuts, let's look to your second chart. These are in your words, absolutely. Massive tax cuts dwarfing anything we saw from the first Trump administration.

Jonathan Lemire (21:57)

Yeah. So this bill, again, there's a bunch of gimmicks in it. You can look at it as a $2.4 trillion bill. You can look at it as a $4 trillion increase to the deficit. But compare it to all the stuff we've done in the last few years. The bipartisan infrastructure law looks puny compared to this. The rescue plan, half the size of this, the CARES act, which was Trump's Covid rescue plan, 1.7 trillion. And here, Trump's signature tax bill from his first administration, the Tax Cut and Jobs Act, $1.5 trillion. So compared to his last tax cut, we're talking about something that is massively different. Why is it so big? He wants to extend all the tax cuts that were set to expire in the last bill. This was the gimmick in the last bill. They used these gimmicks to make these bills look smaller, because then they come back and extend the tax cut, increase the standard deduction, increase the child tax cut. And then these are a bunch of campaign promises that Trump made sort of out of nowhere in states and in places where it would politically advantageous. No tax on overtime, no tax on car loan interest, no tax on tips and so forth. They want to increase defense spending. He promised no taxes on Social Security for seniors. You can't do that through this process. But he came up with a workaround to basically provide the same thing. And then there are the cuts. And this is what Elon Musk is on about, rescinding the IRA climate funds. This is the EV tax credit in here. And these are the Medicaid cuts, $700 billion, which have not only gotten criticism from Democrats, but even Republicans like Josh Hawley, a very conservative Republican, has said this can't happen. And so, as we talked about in the last block, you've got people on both sides of this pushing in different directions, which is going to make this unbelievably difficult to get through the Senate. And then it has to go back to the House and be reconciled with the bill that they passed.

Steve Ratner (23:54)

As you say, that last line, Medicaid cuts is going to be a big problem. Let's go to your third chart. You say debt is difficult to tame. What are you looking at there?

Jonathan Lemire (24:03)

Well, why did Elon Musk fail so spectacularly? The President had talked during the campaign about cutting 2 trillion. Elon talked about cutting a trillion. The final number is probably less than 150 billion maybe 100 billion. And by the way, yes, people are dying because of that. That's been now well documented. But the reason it's so hard to cut is because so much of the budget is kind of off limits. Nobody wants to cut Medicare, nobody wants to cut Social Security. You can't cut interest. Obviously, people want to increase defense, veterans benefits, probably not food stamps, maybe a little bit something there. And then of course, you have the Medicaid piece down here. But everything else that's left out of a $7 trillion budget is only about a trillion dollars. You can't cut $2 trillion out of a trillion dollars. You can't cut a trillion dollars out of a trillion dollars. And so that's why when Doge got in there, they found there really wasn't very much to do. But let's just say a word of what could have been, because We've now had 25 years of basic fiscal irresponsibility going back to the Bush tax cuts in 2001. And so if we had not increased discretionary spending faster than the economy, we could have increased it just not as fast as we did. If we had not had all these tax bills, the Bush tax cuts and then the TCGA and so forth, the recession response, you could say we really had to do, but it costs a lot of money. But in any event, if we had not done this stuff, we still would have had a government that was growing and we would have ended up in 2021 with essentially no debt. This was the missed opportunity. Now, because so much of the spending is constrained now, because we're paying so much interest, it's impossible to do something like this.

Mika Brzezinski (25:49)

Morning, Joe. Economic analyst Steve Ratner, thank you very much. Thank you very much for being on this morning for those explanations. Moving on now, several family members of the man accused of using a makeshift flamethrower to attack a group of people in Colorado have been taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The White House made the announcement yesterday on social media, posting an image of the suspect, Mohamed Suleiman, an Egyptian national, stating that his family could be deported as early as last night. They include the 45 year old's wife and five children. Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted on social media that DHS is investigating if Solomon's family knew anything about the attack. Mohammed's despicable actions will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But we're also investigating to what extent his family knew about this horrific attack, if they had any knowledge of it or if they provided support to it. Solomon is facing several charges, including attempted first degree murder. He was in the US on an expired visa, but DHS said he had a pending asylum claim. Authorities say he threw Molotov cocktails at a group gathered in Boulder on Sunday. They were peacefully calling for the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza. At least 12 people were injured, eight of them ranging in age from 52 to 88. They were taken to hospital with Burns. Joining us now, NBC News senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainslie. Julia, what do we know this morning about the suspect's family?

Alina Habba (27:36)

Well, we know exactly what they said there, that the wife and children were taken into custody by ice. So six people now in custody, part of the family. When the White House said they could be expelled from the country, deported as early as last night, we don't yet know. I have not heard that they have actually been deported. But the process they're fast tracking them on, Mika, is called expedited removal. That means removal from the country without a court hearing. And they're going to argue that because of their connection to this case, they could be fast tracked for expedited removal. Now, someone in federal law enforcement may also argue, well, then what extent, you know, what good does that do if you're trying to get information from the family about this incident and trying to do a thorough investigation? So I think these are two things they're going to have to balance. But in this case, they really want to make a case example out of this family by arresting them. And some of them did have visas, as we understand. There was some reporting last night that those visas have been revoked. And that's something that we're still looking to confirm from dhs.

Joe Scarborough (28:34)

Yeah, making an example is understating it, Willie. You know, White House almost gloating at Victory Lane. A number of tweets last night about this suspect's family rushing them out. And I was told by a White House advisor late yesterday that this is sort of the plan here is that we know from covering Donald Trump for a long time, his reflex is always to come back to immigration. He believes that's a signature issue. He believes that's what got him elected and that Americans want to see things like this. Now in this case, obviously, obviously we don't know the family's involvement. The suspect is accused of a heinous crime. There are certainly plenty of Americans who would be glad to see him go, but might have questions about the family. But they're leaning into this sort of in your face imagery that didn't necessarily work per polling earlier this term with the deportations to the El Salvador prison and the like, but they're doubling down on that sort of public image now.

Steve Ratner (29:31)

Yeah, that White House tweet talking about six one way tickets for the man's wife and five kids and final boarding coming soon again as some of those victims still recover in the hospital this morning. Julia, let's turn to some of your new reporting on the Justice Department shifting resources in the second Trump administration to ramp up deportation efforts, sometimes at the expense of other priorities. What did you find?

Alina Habba (29:55)

Well, look, Willie, we know that the arrest numbers have been increasing. We've seen reports across the country. Now we're seeing the amount of manpower they're putting behind those efforts. There's a new operation called Operation at Large and the operation plan was described to us here and it includes 5,000 people from across DOJ. That's FBI, alcohol, tobacco, firearms, DEA, U.S. marshals. It includes 500 from CBP, pulling them off the border, 250 IRS agents. And they have a request in that has not yet been approved by the Pentagon or governors. But for 21,000 National Guard members to help in the support of this mission. This comes. This was planned just a week after the infamous, now infamous meeting where Stephen Miller called in the leaders of ICE and screamed @ them, yelled at them, threatened to start firing the bottom 10% of performers if they didn't get their arrest numbers to 3,000 a day. So we're seeing this nationwide effort, but all of those law enforcement agencies obviously had other jobs. And oftentimes if they were called into immigration, it would be because there was a real criminal element to them, as we understand from Miller's direction to ICE is that they shouldn't just be focusing on criminals. They need to spread the net more widely. And so there's some pushback. We're hearing from DOJ and other agencies about how much of their resources they're being asked to give to immigration. In fact, this has been coming for some time now where U.S. attorney's offices have said they feel like they are passing over US Citizens who have committed dangerous crimes, crimes and they're not prosecuting them as they would have because the first question that they're asked in any prosecution is, is this person an illegal immigrant? Because that seems to be the real cash prize here in terms of showing Trump that they're doing something worth his while.

Mika Brzezinski (31:47)

All right, NBC News senior Homeland Security correspondent Julia Ainslie. Thank you so much for that new reporting this morning. The mayor of Newark, New Jersey, is suing the state's interim U.S. attorney Alina Habba. Mayor Ras Baraka claims Haba violated his constitutional rights when he was arrested last month at an immigration detention facility in Newark. According to his lawsuit, Baraka says he was allowed into the detention facility by a security guard. He then claims to have left as soon as he was asked to and was only arrested after he had left the property. The misdemeanor trespassing charges against him were later dropped. But Baraka is alleging he was arrested.

John Bresnahan (32:33)

For political reasons, saying they've been victimized by the weaponization of law enforcement, the weaponization of government, of the courts. And they've gotten to office and did the exact same thing that they're claiming other people have done to them without any equivocation whatsoever. You know, just as deliberate and intentional as they want to be about doing this, telling people they're going to arrest judges, telling people they're going to arrest anybody, and they're going ahead and doing it, you know, bypassing the courts and doing whatever they want to do. And they should be held accountable for this.

Mika Brzezinski (33:11)

The departments of justice and Homeland Security did not respond to NBC News request for comment. We'll follow that. And coming up, we're going to be bring you the latest on the war in Ukraine. As one of our next guests argues Kiev's recent drone attacks on Russia serve as a warning to the world's other military forces. MORNING JOE will be right back.

Phillips Payson O'Brien (33:39)

It's conversation, it's perspective. It's the weekend on MSNBC with three new dynamic hosts, Jonathan Capehart, Eugene Daniels and Jackie Alemani. And in the evening, it's the weekend prime time with Eamonn Mohadin, Kathryn Rampel, Elise Jordan and Antonia Hilton join them as they offer analysis on the week's most important events and set the agenda for the week ahead. The weekend at 7:00am Eastern and the weekend prime time at 6:00pm Eastern Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC.

Mika Brzezinski (34:11)

Welcome back. 38 past the hour. A major bridge used by Russia to arm its forces in Ukraine has now reopened after Ukraine targeted support structures under the bridge in an attack yesterday. Ukraine's security service says that shortly before 5am local time, almost 2,500 pounds of TNT was detonated underwater, damaging Bridgethe Bridge that connects the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula to the Russian mainland. It marks Ukraine's third strike on the bridge since the start of Russia's full scale invasion. Meanwhile, new piece in the Atlantic is reflecting on this week's drone attack in Russia and how that stunning assault could reshape war strategy around the world now that expensive planes, tanks and ships can be destroyed on the cheap. Drones that cost just over $1,000 took out aircraft that cost many millions. The piece reads in part for the United States and other major Western militaries. Ukraine's use of trucks parked outside, secure near military sites will pose uncomfortable questions. How closely do they or can they monitor all the truck traffic that streams past their bases? Do they know what happens in every nearby property from which an adversary could hide drones swarms and then launch them with no warning? And then for many years now, for instance, Chinese interests have been buying large amounts of farmland right near important US Military bases. They could be growing soybeans, or they could also be staging grounds for drone swarms that would make the Ukrainian attacks look minuscule. Joining us now, the author of that piece, professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Phillips Payson o' Brien. Professor, it's good to have you. This is the beginning of an interesting new era of warfare with these drone swarms used in by the Ukrainians in such a stunning attack. Do you believe that it's changing the nature of warfare overall?

Julia Ainslie (36:30)

Well, it's actually been going on for a few years now. It's just that large militaries like the US Military and European militaries haven't wanted to fully adjust to the new world we've been seeing. But the drone, or we might say the cheaper, smaller defensive weapon has been far more effective effective in this war than the larger legacy large system like a tank. And that's become increasingly so. I mean, the Russians have lost 4,000 tanks. That's more tanks than all of the rest of Europe has together. And most of them have been lost to these small systems like drones. So that's just the reality of where we are. And as you said in your piece, it's an enormous cost differential. All the drones the Russian, the Ukrainians used against the Russians, Russians in Operation Spiderweb together would have cost less than a million dollars. They destroyed billions of dollars, billions of dollars of Russian equipment. If we don't understand this cost benefit calculation, we in the United States and in Europe are going to be in big trouble.

Steve Ratner (37:33)

Professor, good morning. It's great to have you with us. Can you shed some light for our viewers on how Ukraine pulled this off? It's really an extraordinary story, as you say, say relatively inexpensive, given the cost benefit that you factor in. How did they do this?

Julia Ainslie (37:47)

It was very high cost in brainpower and low cost in economics. They took 18 months to plan this. I Mean, it's really quite extraordinary. It's one of the reasons I always get so angry when people say Ukraine can't win the war. Russia has all the cards. Russia is so strong, the Ukrainian military is more adaptive. It's more, more creative. It actually has the ability to plan these kinds of operations that so far the Russians don't. Ukraine can win the war. But how did they do this? They started realizing that Russian bases, particularly a long way from Ukraine, were really still poorly defended. The Russians were sort of not thinking the Ukrainians could reach them. So they had to come up with some way to get these drones to these bases. What they realized was actually traffic was going on as normal around the base bases. The Russians weren't paying any kind of security concerns. So what they did is they found a way to put false bottom top. They're really quite extraordinary. False tops on pickup truck. Not pickup trucks, trailer trucks, which they stuffed full of drones, very cheap drones. I mean, you could make these things for $1,000. And then they were able to find a way to get them by the bases, maybe using actually drivers who didn't know what they were doing so that they could all be launched at one time. It really was extraordinary. But they had used some really impressive stuff to plan it. Like they had used AI to try and understand where the weak points were in the Russian aircraft. So they said, okay, well, we'll have a one shot to get these aircraft without any protection. We've got to make it count. So they were able to program these drones to not only fly out at the Russian aircraft, but hidden really, really damaging points. So overall, it was an intellectual and strategic campaign of great, great effect. It just didn't cost that much.

Joe Scarborough (39:39)

So, professor, let's now think about what lessons other countries, namely the United States, can learn from this. Yes, that's a way for attack. But let's talk about defense. How do you defend yourself against something like this? You write in your piece the Chinese, Chinese interests have bought farmland, a lot of farmland near US Military bases. That's already raised the eyebrows of some here in the United States. You know, what can the United do though, to defend aircraft? Because there's some companion reporting in the New York Times this morning about how in China, a lot of their aircraft, they've already got hardened shells. They keep most of military aircraft in hangars. That's not something we do here.

Julia Ainslie (40:14)

Well, right now, I mean, that is probably the most immediate thing to do is at least protect them by making it so that these drones can't reach them. These drones are not high explosive in the degree that they could take out a hardened shelter, but that's expensive and you got to build them now. But that would be the immediate thing you would do is provide some kind of protection to the aircraft so the drone can't reach them. The problem that we're going to face, though, is drone technology is going to get better and better and better. And so we're going to have to basically, I would say, push the drones as far away as possible from the base. You can't have them launch with no time to respond. And that's what the Ukrainians were able to do. They launched these things people were saying within four miles of the Russian bases. By the time they reached the base, the Russians had no idea what was happening. And if you're going to provide some coverage to these bases, you're going to have to have hardened shelters, defensive systems. And time and time can only be given if you can push the drones as far away as possible.

Mika Brzezinski (41:14)

Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Philippines, Phillips Payson o' Brien, thank you very much for your insights this morning. His piece for the Atlantic is available to read online right now. And still ahead on MORNING show, the Trump administration is asking Congress to codify Doge's massive cuts to foreign aid. But will lawmakers vote for it, given the unpopularity of those cuts with some of their constituents? Also ahead, we'll look at the impact of President Trump, Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs, which are in effect now. Plus a major shakeup for the New York Knicks after their first trip to the Eastern conference finals in 25 years. That's all straight ahead on Morning Joe.

Jonathan Lemire (42:21)

First pitch.

Steve Ratner (42:22)

Freeman lifts one.

Mark Caputo (42:24)

The other way.

Steve Ratner (42:24)

Back goes Nemo. Still back, still back. It is over.

Joe Scarborough (42:29)

Freddie Freeman drives in Tommy Edmond. The Dodgers come back and win it in 10.

Steve Ratner (42:35)

Freddy Freeman just keeps doing walks off the Dodgers walked off the Mets. For the Dodgers 6. 5 win over the Mets. Freeman doubling home the winning run in the 10th inning after Max Muncie's second home run of the night tied the game in the bottom of the ninth. The Dodgers earned their 20th comeback win of the season. 20th comeback win, improved to 2 and 3 against the Mets this year. Okay, their series continues tomorrow night in Los Angeles. Sorry, guys. In Boston, the struggles continue for the Red Sox last night, this time against the angels. Boston, committing three errors, lost by one run for the impossible 17th time this season as the Angels mark consecutive wins for the first time since last month with a 43 win let's check the Red Sox misery index with Mike Barnacle, who joins us on set right now. I mean, you're only, what, 60 games into the season. You have 17 one run losses. The odds of that are almost impossible.

J (43:31)

Not only that, but last night for me, me, just for me personally, was one of the most depressing losses of this Red Sox season because once you get past three or four players at the top of the lineup, you filled the rest of the lineup with career minor leaguers and there's no run production in that offense. There's none. You leave more men on base than any other team in the major leagues, I think. And it continues night after night after night. Lemire.

Joe Scarborough (43:57)

It is deeply frustrating. There are 29, so half of their losses have been won by one run. They lead the league by far in blown saves. They are. It's no, I'm officially declaring. I know it's early June. It's no longer early in the season. They are now. I mean, the division, they're 10 back, but even in the wild card now they're five back. They've lost. They're two and eight in their last 10, you know, and they have the best prospect in baseball, Roman Anthony, sitting in Triple A still. Home run last night in the ninth inning to tie the game. And to Mike's point of a moment ago, there's some real roster construction issues and some very impatient fans and so.

Steve Ratner (44:33)

Will they call him up? Are they going to.

Joe Scarborough (44:34)

Oh, he'll.

J (44:35)

Yeah, they'll call him up very quickly.

Joe Scarborough (44:38)

He should have been already.

J (44:39)

They're going to have to make some roster, you know, roster changes that are going to be hurtful to some fans, but they're going to have to do it. I mean, it is June. There's time still left, but there's. How many games are there left in the season? Like 95, 98 or something like that. So you're going to have to win about 60 games out of the rest of the games played in order to make the playoffs. And they have to make the playoffs this year, ladies and gentlemen, or else I'm out of there.

Steve Ratner (45:05)

You are not out of there. No, I know you're not going. Yeah. Ten games out and they come to the Bronx for three games this weekend. So that could swing things in Miami, the Colorado Rockies. How about the. This one consecutive games for just the second time this season. Beating the Marlins 32 last night secures the team's first series victory in 22 tries and ends a record losing streak dating back to last year. The Rockies now have 11 wins this season. All right, let's get to the NBA. The New York Knicks, as we mentioned at the top of the show, have fired their head coach, Tom Thibodeau. The decision coming three days after the Knicks were eliminated by the Indiana Pacers in game six of the Eastern Conference finals, the team's deepest playoff run in a full quarter of a century. In a statement, the team thanked Thibodeau for his contributions, but said the move was best for our organization moving forward. Hired to lead the team ahead of the 2020 season, Thibodeau has been the Knicks most successful head coach in more than two decades, now ranking fourth on the franchise list of victories after leading New York to back to back 50 win season for the first time since 1995. Let's check out the back page of the tabloids. Daily News saying just that. Thibodeau is out. And the New York Post with a little more creativity as always. Tibetico. So let's talk about this Jonathan Lemire. I'm a Knicks fan. You could make the case that if not for game one of that Eastern Conference finals, Pacers deserve credit for the comeback, that incredible bounce that Halliburton gets to send the game to overtime. The Knicks win this series and they're in Oklahoma City right now getting ready to play in the NBA Finals. In other words, he brought them to the doorstep of the NBA Finals. For a team that has not been there in 25, 26 years, a team that has not won a title since 1973, and yet it wasn't good enough. I think a lot of fans, and it looks like the ownership and the leadership didn't like the way he handled the roster, giving the starters so many minutes, grinding them down, not using his bench until late in the season. But. But to me, you at least give him another year to see if he can get over that hump.

Joe Scarborough (47:10)

Yeah, I mean, that's been the pervasive criticism on, on Tibbs and all of his stops coaching that he plays the starters too many minutes, he wears them out. And I guess there was a sense that he had reached his ceiling. But the numbers are very striking. Under Tom Thibodeau, The Knicks won four playoff series. The last couple years. They won four. Under the previous 13 Knicks coaches combined, they won one playoff series. So I know there is, There is this sense among sports that certain coaches, you know, they get, they hit their ceiling and then they get replaced and the new coach brings over the top. We saw with the Yankees, Buck Showalter. And Joe Torrey. We saw it with, you know, Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden in football, like, it does happen from time to time. Mike Barnacle. But, you know, and clearly some of the star players were okay with this. It wouldn't have happened otherwise. But, man, like, this is a tough beat for Tom Thibodeau. Two wins from the finals now out of a job.

J (47:58)

I agree with you both. You're both NBA files. Okay. I'm not a big NBA guy, but I want to ask you a question that's not just restricted to the NBA. Is this more a case of the players voting them out rather than management at the top voting them out?

Steve Ratner (48:13)

Well, they voiced support for him after that last game. I mean, Brunson. Brunson was asked and said, do you think Thibodeau should come back? And he got angry. Is that a serious question? Of course he should. I believe him. I think he's an honest guy, so. But I also don't think that you do this without talking to Jalen Brunson. You're a generationally great player, and maybe I don't know if he signed off on it or if he's just informed about it ahead of time, but I get that argument about some the next guy taking the team to the next level. But what's the evidence that the next guy with this group of players will be better than Tibbs has been at it? You know what I mean? It's a total gamble to say that doesn't happen.

Joe Scarborough (48:48)

Also, who's the next guy?

Steve Ratner (48:49)

Right?

Joe Scarborough (48:49)

We don't know. I mean, there's some college coaches are being bandied about Hurley, Connecticut, Jay Wright, formerly Villanova, the Villanova connection. There's an assistant and Cleveland, who's a hot name. We shall see. But I agree, this is a tough one. And I'd say I would leave Knicks fans with this concern anytime James Dolan, the owner, is in there making a big decision. Those tend to go poorly.

Steve Ratner (49:08)

Yeah. And everything comes from the top, particularly in the Knicks organization.

Phillips Payson O'Brien (49:13)

MSNBC presents a new original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week, she sits down with Jason Bateman and Rachel Maddow.

Mika Brzezinski (49:23)

We are in a really important moment, and we're an important place in it, and I'm glad that we're there together.

Phillips Payson O'Brien (49:30)

The Best People with Nicole Wallace. Episodes one and two are available now for early access, ad, free listening and bonus content. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.