Mika Brzezinski (2:24)

That was Bill Maher on Friday warning that President Trump is instituting what the late night host has been calling a slow moving coup of the federal government. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Monday, August 25th. With us we have the co host of our fourth hour and staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire. MSNBC contributor Mike Barnacle is here bright and early this morning. The president of the National Action Network, the host of MSNBC's Politics Nation, Reverend Al Sharpton is here and managing editor at the Bulwark, Sam Stein, along with co founder of Axios, Mike Allen. So it's good to have you all with us this morning.

Joe Scarborough (3:04)

And back from her summer. Where were you?

Mika Brzezinski (3:06)

Oh, come on.

Joe Scarborough (3:06)

South of France.

Mika Brzezinski (3:07)

This needs to stop.

Joe Scarborough (3:08)

Where was Mike?

Mika Brzezinski (3:10)

Where was she? I mean, 20 years south of France. I was off a little bit. I had a little bit of a health issue.

Joe Scarborough (3:16)

Oh, was it okay? What happened?

Mika Brzezinski (3:18)

I found out what it was, too.

Joe Scarborough (3:19)

What's that?

Mika Brzezinski (3:21)

I'm allergic to all makeup, all products and sleep medicine.

Joe Scarborough (3:24)

Oh, well, those things aren't important for morning shows.

Mike Allen (3:28)

Exactly.

Joe Scarborough (3:28)

For morning show, you don't need any of that.

Mika Brzezinski (3:30)

Yeah, I'm, Yeah, working through it. I'm going to write about it. So let's move on and get to the new kid. There's a lot of interesting things we're.

Joe Scarborough (3:38)

Going to write about that, too.

Mika Brzezinski (3:39)

Familiar value, know what's in your products. So there you go.

Joe Scarborough (3:43)

Know who's in your lineup. All right, let's go.

Mika Brzezinski (3:45)

All right. And know the news. National Guard troops patrolling the nation's capital are now carrying firearms. The majority will carry M17 pistols, their service issued weapons, according to a Defense Department official. While a small number of the troops will be armed with their service M4 rifles. National Guard troops were seen walking around the city with pistols holstered on their hips and MP patches designating their role as military police. They are authorized to use weapons for self protection only. Meanwhile, new reporting reveals the Pentagon has been planning a military deployment to Chicago for weeks. Officials familiar with the matter tell the Washington Post that the planning involves several options, including mobilizing at least a few thousand members of the National Guard to the city as soon as next month. President Trump mentioned the city on Friday while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office.

Joe Scarborough (4:46)

Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent.

Mike Barnacle (4:50)

And we'll straighten that one out probably next. That will be our next one after.

Joe Scarborough (4:54)

This and it won't even be tough. And the people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to come.

Mika Brzezinski (5:04)

In an interview yesterday, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said Trump's threats are unconstitutional and costly.

Joe Scarborough (5:12)

This president is not taking his role and his responsibility as serious as mayors like myself and across the country are, because we actually have to show up and deliver for people where he gets to show up and make A mockery.

Elbridge Colby (5:23)

Out of our democracy.

Joe Scarborough (5:24)

It's unconstitutional, it's illegal, it's costly, and it's not going to drive violence down in our city. The work that we're doing is working. If he's serious, he would work with us.

Mika Brzezinski (5:35)

Illinois Governor J.B. pritzker also weighed in, accusing the President of, quote, attempting to manufacture a crisis and abusing his power.

Joe Scarborough (5:45)

You know, the thing about this is, of course, we've Talked about Washington, D.C. it's the nation's capital. Federal government, Congress could get involved.

Rev. Al Sharpton (5:59)

Work.

Joe Scarborough (5:59)

With the president, and together, as we've been talking about Reverend Al for a long time, figure out how to partner with the city. And that hasn't happened. And now we're talking about Chicago, we're talking about New York City. Neither one of those cities are in the top 10 for most violent cities in America. And if you want to look per capita, they need to do no more than look to Mike Johnson's home state, the speaker of the House, and look at violence per capita. You have a much higher chance of dying in Monroe, Louisiana than you do Chicago, Illinois, a much higher chance of dying in Shreveport, Louisiana than you do in Monroe. A much higher chance of dying in New Orleans, Louisiana than you do in New York City. I mean, New York, that's fabulously crazy. New York City continues to rank as one of the safest large cities in America. And I don't know that there's a close second. So there are all of these cities and towns in red state America. You could look Little Rock, Arkansas. You could look at Monroe, Louisiana. You could look at Shreveport, Louisiana. You could look at New Orleans, Louisiana. You could look at Memphis, Tennessee. You could look at one Nashville, Tennessee. You could look at one red state after another, Bessemer, Alabama, and you will see violent crime rates much, much, much higher per capita than Chicago, Illinois, San Francisco. Yo, Gavin Newsom, yesterday. Look, okay, here we go. The chance of having violent acts committed upon you in Mike Johnson's Louisiana and red state Louisiana, red state that Donald Trump carried and every Republican has carried since Bill Clinton. The chances of being murdered in Louisiana, 400 times higher than in California. Let me say that again. Let me underline that again. You have a 400% higher chance of being murdered in red state Louisiana, Mike Johnson's home state, than you do on the left coast in Gavin Newsom's California. California, there is no emergency, there is no logic to Chicago, to San Francisco. If you're looking at the numbers, if you're looking at data, I don't even Think this Supreme Court can turn a blind eye to this? They just can't. Because data is data. Numbers are numbers and the numbers are clear. And the numbers don't justify no emergency. Send those troops to Shreveport, Louisiana. Send them to Mike Johnson's district. Send them to Little Rock, Arkansas. Send them, send them to Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee. Send them to red states where they need them.

Rev. Al Sharpton (9:06)

And the data would say that that's where they need it. I preached in Washington D.C. yesterday at Howard University. People feel they're under siege, they are being picked on. When you look at the cities the President has named, all of those cities have declining crime rates and all of them have black mayors. There's a racial element that he's, he's race dog whistling here. He will not.

Joe Scarborough (9:34)

And all of them have lower crime rates per capita than the red state cities I mentioned.

Rev. Al Sharpton (9:42)

And he would not dare do that to his red state senators. Why wouldn't he have sat with a Mayor Bowser and say how do we work this out if he really thought there was a problem? He didn't think there was a problem. He was trying to create a situation and create some kind of picture that these people cannot run their cities. And that is why this is bad for everyone. I rode around Washington after preaching and in the areas that there are crimes that have been worked on by Mayor Bowser and others you didn't even see National Guard, they're down in Georgetown. People are not coming out, going to restaurants because they feel intimidated. There's no winners in this and the President is going forward rather than saying let's retreat and see what we're doing here. Since it's a 30 day window in Washington unless Congress extends it. He says, I'm going to Chicago, I'm going to Oakland, I'm going anywhere there is a Democrat and a black mayor now is at risk and that's no way we run.

Joe Scarborough (10:46)

How about Memphis? How about Birmingham, Alabama? How about New Orleans, Louisiana? How about the red states? Again, if you're just looking at the hard data and again in Washington D.C. i'm the first to say let's have a partnership.

Mika Brzezinski (10:59)

Right?

Rev. Al Sharpton (10:59)

Right.

Joe Scarborough (10:59)

Let's get the federal government, let's get the state government or the local government, the D.C. government, let's get them working together with a partnership. Be positive, get things done, create partnerships. That would make a big difference.

Mika Brzezinski (11:14)

That's not exactly what's happening.

Joe Scarborough (11:16)

That is not what's, it's not happening at all.

Mika Brzezinski (11:18)

Monroe. Here's a local report from a news station in Monroe, Louisiana. Just this month, while crime levels there may have dropped from the pandemic era, cuts to government funding by lawmakers continue to put pressure on the community when it comes to crime.

Rev. Al Sharpton (11:36)

The NAACP president of the Monroe Ouachita.

Joe Scarborough (11:38)

Branch says based on his perspective, he.

Rev. Al Sharpton (11:40)

Agrees that there has been a decrease in crime since 2020. However, he believes there has been spikes from 2024 to 2025.

Joe Scarborough (11:48)

He contributes these recent spikes to changes.

Rev. Al Sharpton (11:51)

In government systems and added pressure to mental health.

Sam Stein (11:54)

How are we going to survive? We can't pay bills. We can't choose what we want for our kids.

Joe Scarborough (11:57)

What do we do?

Sam Stein (11:58)

You know, and so what do you do when your child is hungry, your wife is hungry, your family is hungry? You try to get into survival modes, but the young people have a real young, growing mind and they are receptive to understanding. Okay, tell me what you're talking about. Make it live for me. Come on. You know. And they will listen if you can convince young people how this is going to affect their very lives more so than us as seasoned people. So I think we can turn this thing around.

Joe Scarborough (12:22)

You know, John, whether you're talking about slashing funding for Louisiana or taking a billion dollars from Washington DC's budget. There was an emergency. I mean, there was an. There's an emergency. You take a billion dollars away. Yeah. Suddenly things get real. And that's what's happened in Washington, dc. And again, get them away from the Apple store in Georgetown. Right. Get them to Southeast. Get them to places where families want to be safe. But in a partnership with the mayor, with the D.C. city Council, with the very people that run that city day in and day out, and it's where.

Elbridge Colby (13:11)

These Guard members have been deployed, that gives up the game here. They haven't been sent to the high crime areas in Southeast, other places, or very least very glancing passes through. Instead, we're seeing them in Georgetown, as the Rev said, where there's very, very little crime. We're seeing them around the Mall, in the national monuments, deployed near the Lincoln Memorial, which is one of the safest places in the nation. It's pointless. And that's why it passed as prologue. There's such concern a city like Chicago, which first of all, we should note, according to city police statistics, murders, robbery, shootings, all down about 30% in Chicago this year. A city that, to be sure, in years past has had issues with violent crime confined to a handful of neighborhood. Well, if the model from DC is applied to Chicago, that's not where these National Guard troops would be sent. Instead, they'd be hanging out by the lake, the Magnificent Mile, the Sears Tower, whatever it is, for photo ops rather than actually helping. And again, if the play into Chicago, Joe, were it to happen, would be very different. It would resemble the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles when they're helping those ICE range, which by the way is.

Joe Scarborough (14:17)

Even members of the Marines and the National Guard were like, what are we doing out here?

Elbridge Colby (14:21)

And it was bad for morale, taking people away from their families to stand outside a federal building for a photo op when they made absolutely no difference on the ground. That'd be repeated in Chicago, except it would be just as it did in la, a chance, Mike, to raise tensions.

Joe Scarborough (14:35)

Yeah. And Mike, if you look the Washington Post as a story today, it's a low level crime and immigration raids and in again safe areas. It's all for show.

Mike Barnacle (14:51)

Well, the D.C. police Department has about 3,400 sworn officers on the streets. There are about 400 under where they should be, 3,800, 3,900. In terms of hiring, they can't hire in. They can't hire because they're out of money. They're not getting any money from the federal government because the federal government has now employed National Guards people. And to all of our points, especially your point the one that you raised, if you go down Wheeler Road in Southeast Washington, Anacostia, you're not gonna see the National Guard, right. And those high crime areas, they're not going to be there. And it's a sad case when you have National Guardsmen patrolling streets like in Georgetown or whatever or central Washington, D.C. which is quite active, quite thriving restaurants and everything, businesses, often those. And now they're strapped with pistols on leg holsters. These are largely weekend people who train maybe once a month. Many of them not from urban areas. Many of them would be frightened by what might happen on the streets. This is a disaster waiting to happen. And the idea of sending the National Guard to Baltimore or Chicago is beyond outrageous for similar reasons.

Mika Brzezinski (16:12)

Well, there's a lot going on. We've got other news to get to, including the story that broke during our show on Friday. Vice President President J.D. vance is denying claims that the search at the home and office of former National Security Adviser John Bolton was for political retribution. On Friday, federal agents were seen carrying boxes out of Bolton's home in Bethesda, Maryland. A source familiar with the matter tells NBC News the FBI is investigating Bolton for the mishandling of classified information. The source says CIA Director John Ratcliffe provided FBI Director Kash Patel with information that was the basis of Friday's search warrant. Bolton has been an outspoken critic of President Trump despite serving in his first administration. He was fired in 2019 and later published a scathing memoir about his time in the White House. The Wall Street Journal's editorial board is writing about Friday's search. The piece, entitled Trump's Vendetta campaign target's John Bolton reads in part, President Trump promised voters during his campaign for a second term that he had bigger things on his mind than retribution against opponents. But it is increasingly clear that vengeance is a large part, maybe the largest part, of how he will define success in his second term. His revenge campaign took an ominous turn Friday as the FBI agents raided the home and office of Mr. Trump's first term national security adviser, John Bolton. It's hard to see the raid as anything other than vindictive. Mr. Bolton fell out of Mr. Trump's favor in the first term and then wrote a book about his experience in the White House while Mr. Trump was still president. Mr. Trump tried and failed to block publication. The President then claimed Mr. Bolton had exposed classified information, though the book had gone through an extensive pre publication scrub at the White House for classified material. Whether Mr. Trump ordered the FBI probe or not doesn't matter. Mr. Patel knows what the president thinks about Mr. Bolton, and the president's minions in Trump too, don't serve as check on his worst impulses the way grownups did in the first term. The presidential ID is now unchained. Mr. Trump made clear that he was out for blood against Mr. Bolton when he pulled the former adviser's protective detail after his reelection. Mr. Bolton is widely known as a defense hawk, and in 2022 the Justice Department charged an Iranian national it said planned to murder him. Mr. Bolton has had to pay for his own personal security, though he had served at the behest of of the President. This is the kind of gratuitous viciousness that has increasingly defined Mr. Trump's return to office. Mr. Bolton has continued to speak candidly about Mr. Trump's second term decisions, pro and con, including in these pages this week. The president may also hope the FBI raid will cause Mr. Bolton to shut up, though knowing him, we can't imagine that working. The real offender here is a president who seems to think he can use the powers of his office to run vendettas. We said this was one of the risks of a second Trump term and it's turning out to be worse than we imagined. That's the Wall Street Journal. Also, it is what Trump said many times when he was running, he promised retribution. This is what he campaigned on. And everybody heard him say it. It. Everybody heard him say it and many still voted for him.

Joe Scarborough (20:11)

Well, and of course those who were saying it were mocked and ridiculed. But when you start your campaign by saying I'm your retribution and he talks about retribution, I mean, it's not hard to sort through that. Mike Allen and you look and see what's happened here. I mean, a lot of people who during the campaign were brushing this off are now very concerned by what's going on. The waltz, you know, and you look at this weekend, it has been especially challenging for conservatives who tried to justify their vote for Donald Trump last November. When you look at John Bolton, you see what the Wall Street Journal editorial page is saying here. Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal. You look at what, you look at what happened with the socialization of intel, the government nationalizing 10%. You have the National Review and Eric Erickson and other conservatives coming out talking about again just how dangerous and how precedent setting this is. It has been quite a weekend. Things have seemed to accelerate exponentially now.

Mike Allen (21:25)

Joe, that's a great point. And we forget in the day to day coverage these tectonic changes starting first with Bolton. I talked to people in MAGA world and these are not like Paul Ryan Republicans, these are Donald Trump Republicans who said that raid which unfolded live on your air on Friday made them uncomfortable, that this seemed like, even for President Trump, this seemed like new territory. Now, important to note that we don't yet know the reason for that search. We have not seen the documents that were behind it. Axios, Mark Caputo has reporting that part of what they are looking for here had to do with the sharing of classified information. And so there may be more to this than we know. There's reporting out there that it goes beyond the book. So we just don't know. But I can tell you that even MAGA Republicans uncomfortable about it. Second, the command economy, the involvement of the American government in business, such a change. And it's the deal making mindset of the president. And we've seen this time and again. We saw this in the US Getting a cut of Nvidia chips that are sold in China. We see the golden share that the US has that gives control as part of the steel deal. And then we see here 10% of intel. Such a change. We talk again and again about how the Republican Party has changed. And we talk about Russia, we talk about trade. This is, we talk about the deficit. This is a huge one.

Joe Scarborough (23:03)

Well, this is a huge one. And this is what started in Great Britain after World War II where they started nationalizing companies. That ended a disaster. It wasn't until Margaret Thatcher in 1979 that the economic rot that had taken over Great Britain over three decades finally got reversed. Sam Stein, I want to go back though to John Bolton and in the case of John Bolton, you had that happening on Friday and then yesterday you had the President threatening Chris Christie. I guess cuz he didn't like what Chris Christie said in an interview on ABC yesterday. And so here we go. For those saying, oh no, really. Cuz he's threatening, he's threatening Chris Christie now because he doesn't like what Chris says on this Week in. And you just sit and wonder, the people that are sitting in the administration right now making these moves, do they not understand that what goes around comes around? If they were so shocked and stunned and deeply saddened by what happened over the last four years, they're doing it this four years, what do they think is going to happen when Democrats get back into power? Like, dude, do we really want this cycle to continue?

Jonathan Lemire (24:21)

Well, do they think Democrats will get back into power? I mean that's the question, right? That's what Bill Maher was talking about.

Joe Scarborough (24:26)

Democrats, Democrats will let me just assure everybody right now they will get back into power. Our independents will get back into power and people that are doing this right now will leave office with a cloud overhead wondering what happens next. Now let's stop this madness.

Jonathan Lemire (24:46)

Well, I mean all this stuff ties together. You can even tie in the redistricting efforts done in Texas, right? This is all power play stuff. And yeah, the Chris Christie threats in this case, reopening an investigation into Bridgegate is part of this. The Bolton raid obviously is part of this. Even the intel story, I mean he went from threatening the company CEO to saying he's a great guy because he gave him 10% share. And then another story over the weekend involving Wes Morgan Moore saying, look, we might withhold the money that was passed, congressional authorized money passed for the Francisco Bridge reconstruction because Wes Moore had the audacity to tell the President, hey, come to Maryland and walk the streets with me so I can show you the progress we're making with respect to crime. All this is part of the same theme, which is Trump incredibly pushing the boundaries, flagrantly pushing them of the presidency to get his will and oftentimes in vindictive ways. And we're in incredibly uncharted territory here. You mentioned D.C. and the crime statistics. The reason that they're saying this is that they're not saying that we're fudging the crime statistics. They're saying the same thing about Chicago. So we're distorting realities. We're using that as justification for these federal troops to come into these cities. And it's all at the whims of the presidency. It's a bleak moment for us in the nation's capital. It could be even bleaker if we start sending the US Military into Chicago because at least with the nation's capital, there is D.C. home rule. So there is some veneer of legality here for at least 30 days. But the next steps, we get into uncharted territory.

Elbridge Colby (26:28)

And Sam mentioned Maryland Governor Westmore will have him on Morning Joe later this morning. And he's right. The idea of just rewriting history, we're seeing at the Smithsonian distorting statistics like at BLS and now claiming that crime stats are fudged. This raid on Ambassador Bolton's home is deeply dangerous. And it comes much like the threats with Chris Christie. It comes after President Trump was very critical of Bolton. Just last week, Bolton was out there criticizing the Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin. Trump hit back on Truth Social repeatedly. And whether an order was given from the White House or not, it's out there. He's not happy with Bolton. It's easy for federal officials to take their cues from that. And then on Friday, we see this race.

Joe Scarborough (27:08)

Well, that's what the Wall Street Journal editorial page said. Meek, it said, said they knew what the president wanted and so they did it.

Mika Brzezinski (27:15)

It certainly matches the pattern of his promises during the campaign. So still ahead on MORNING joe, Russia's foreign minister is casting doubt that a peace agreement can be reached quickly with Ukraine. We'll play for you his comments and show you Vice President J.D. vance's reaction. Plus, we'll bring you the latest on the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. The lawyers for the wrongly deported Maryland man say the Trump administration is threatening to send him to Uganda. And a reminder that the Morning Joe podcast is available each weekday, featuring our full conversations and analysis. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back.

Nicole Wallace (28:11)

Saturday, October 11th, from New York City, it's MSNBC Live 25. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts, Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Simone Sanders talent Michael Steele, Chris Hayes, jen Psaki, Lawrence O', Donnell, Stephanie Rule and more. Visit msnbc.comlive25. To buy your tickets today, start your day with the MSNBC Daily Newsletter. Sharp insights from voices you trust, standout moments from your favorite shows, and fresh perspectives from experts shaping the news. Sign up now@msnbc.com subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad free listening and bonus content to all of MSNBC's original podcasts, including the chart topping series the Best People with Nicole Wallace, why Is this Happening? Main justice and more. Plus new episodes of all your favorite MSNBC shows ad free and ad free listening to all of Rachel Maddows original series, Ultra Bagman and Deja News. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.

Mika Brzezinski (29:25)

Guests past the hour. Welcome back. Time now for a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. Lawyers for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year, say he was notified by immigration authorities that he may be deported again. Abrego Garcia was released from federal custody on Friday. In March, he was accidentally deported to a prison in El Salvador, then brought back to the US In June to face human smuggling charges. Now his lawyers believe he could be detained again today when he checks in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Baltimore. This as Abrego Garcia's lawyers say the Trump administration is threatening to send him to Uganda because he is considering rejecting rejecting a deal that would have him deported to Costa Rica in exchange for pleading guilty. Abrego Garcia's lawyers argue deportation to Uganda would be dangerous and unjust, citing language barriers and human rights concerns. We'll be following that today. SpaceX scrubbed another test launch for its massive rocket. The company stood down on the Starship's test 10th flight because of an issue with ground systems. Several other test flights have failed as well, including one in June that ended in an explosion. Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. SpaceX is hoping it can be used to take people to Mars. NASA is also looking to use it to send astronauts to the moon. SpaceX may try to launch the rocket again this evening if the issue is is fixed. And 50 mile per hour winds created an apocalyptic scene in Nevada yesterday on the eve of the Burning Man Festival.

Joe Scarborough (31:18)

I mean, doesn't something happen every year at this place? Every year I think you bring up a good like at some point just stop. Go home.

Mika Brzezinski (31:27)

Yeah. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that at least four people were injured and one prominent art installation was destroyed. The installation was an 8 ton inflatable thundercloud created by a Ukrainian led team meant to symbolize the specter of World War. And coming up, Mike Allen joins us to explain the new reporting for Axios on, quote, Trump's Identity Project. Morning Joe will be right back.

Nicole Wallace (31:59)

Saturday, October 11th. From New York City, it's MSNBC Live 25. Join your favorite MSNBC hosts, Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Mika Bruszynski, Nicole Wallace, Ari Melber, Alicia Menendez, Simone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, Chris Hayes, jen Psaki, Lawrence O', Donnell, Stephanie Rule and more. Visit msnbc.comlive25 to buy your tickets. Today.

Rev. Al Sharpton (32:31)

This racial profiling of mayors, I'm going after crime. Washington, D.C. chicago, L.A. oakland, New York, all black mayors. So white mayors don't have no crime. This is not about crime. This is about profiling us. And if we afraid to stand up, then we are not deserving of those that stood up and gave their, their lives so we could live a better life than they did. If Moses can stand up to Pharaoh, if David can stand up to Goliath, I could stand up to the racism and bigotry of Donald Trump.

Joe Scarborough (33:16)

Rev. Very receptive crowd yesterday, packed house, packed house at Howard University.

Rev. Al Sharpton (33:24)

And as I moved around the city, people are very concerned. The profiling on this is what is alarming because no one wants to support crime. When people hear about crime, everyone is concerned. You and I, Mika, have sat across this desk a lot talking about how I've condemned a lot of what was going on in Chicago back in the day and other points. It's not about crime, but when you have this consistent pattern that you only going after black males, now you're going to fight Westmore. I mean, the pattern here is clear, particularly when the data shows that crime is down in these cities. And you should be saying, why can't I work with the mayors? The wise political strategy is to start picking off some of these mayors that could say, Trump's not that bad. We're working together.

Joe Scarborough (34:16)

Right.

Rev. Al Sharpton (34:16)

He doesn't want that. And it's clear he's doing it at the expense of people.

Joe Scarborough (34:22)

And that's what's so strange, is that's what you do, you work with, if you're a Republican, you work with Democrats, say, let's bring crime down together. It helps you. You know, if you're a Democrat, you try to work with Republicans and say, you know, I will say, and you.

Mika Brzezinski (34:37)

Work with people on the ground and.

Joe Scarborough (34:38)

You work with people on the ground. And the very people who do well, who have done well, who do well in general elections are the people who do work.

Mika Brzezinski (34:48)

Right.

Joe Scarborough (34:48)

And with others. And we're coming into elections this fall, going to have off year elections next year where there are a lot of Republicans that are sitting in seats to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, 1 and they are setting themselves up to be part of a landslide loss because they're just completely silent. They don't hold town hall meetings. They're hiding in their offices. You look at Stefanik goes out, she can't even speak at a ceremony in her own district because again, they've taken positions that are so out of the mainstream for their district, for swing districts, it's a recipe for disaster for Republicans. So they sit here and they're hiding, Mika, and they think, oh, well, if we just hide and keep our head down, we'll be, no, no, that's never how it works in politics, ever. And so they're silent while all of the chaos is going on. And when the elections come, the voters remember.

Mika Brzezinski (35:54)

Well, Mike Allen Axios has new reporting on Trump's vision for America in a new piece entitled Trump's Identity Project. It reads in part, quote, the mega movement's obsession with American identity and Western civilization is shaping federal policy far more than in Trump's first term, fueling a reckoning over who belongs and what history should be remembered. Tell us more about that report.

Mike Allen (36:23)

Yeah, Mika and Joe, thank you for taking a personal interest in this important story. And what we're seeing is a much more rigid definition of what it means to be an American. This is being pollinated and enforced by the Trump administration and proudly so. They will tell you that they are doing this. So where in the past Americans would talk a lot about diversity being our strength in the second term, we're hearing much more about Western civilization, about American identity. And why this matters is that this is an operationalization of the vision that President Trump has been talking about as long as you've known him, as long as he's been running. Great reporting in this story by my colleagues Tao Axelrod and Zach Basu. This operationalization includes museums where we see the Smithsonian being scrubbed for alignment with American ideals. We see this in applications for visas where the applicants are being checked for anti American ideologies. And third, we see this in a new question for citizenship applications, an assessment of whether they're of good moral character. And what the White House says about this is people want to be proud of America. People want to have pride in America. And I can tell you that the MAGA folks in my inbox and in my conversation say, this is what we voted for.

Joe Scarborough (37:55)

Now, you know, the interesting Thing is, there's a talk about in the people, Samstein, about protecting Western civilization. Well, nowhere are the ideas of the west more endangered than they are in Ukraine. And here we have, of course, pictures of celebrations for Ukraine. But look at that top headline. Pentagon has quietly blocked Kiev's missile strikes on Russia. Donald Trump a few weeks ago talking about On Truth Social, or I think it was last week on Truth Social, saying, hey, you can't win a war if you can't fight it. That may be his position, but the Pentagon is selling Kyiv, you can't fight the war. And so how do you say you're going to defend Western civilization when you're actually not doing what's required? Or when a lot of these same people are openly hostile to the freedom fighters in Ukraine and openly adoring a Vladimir Putin, a dictator?

Mika Brzezinski (38:58)

Right.

Jonathan Lemire (38:59)

Well, two things here. One is, you know, when he says defending Western civilization, what he means is it's his version of Western civilization.

Rev. Al Sharpton (39:06)

Right.

Jonathan Lemire (39:06)

I mean, there's another version where you talk about inclusivity, where immigrants aren't, you know, reviled but welcomed, where there is openness to free speech and criticism and alternate views, and you don't suppress them. Right. That, that is a different version of Western civilization. That's not Trump's version of Western civilization. So, you know, this idea, I don't want to give Trump a monopoly on what Western civil is meant to symbolize, but it is his version that he's imposing on various institutions from academia to art to whatever. Now, on respect to Ukraine, look, you're absolutely right. The, the, the, the defensive civilization seems to end at our water's edge. And I think if you look at. Oh, sorry, did we lose me? Okay, what I was gonna say is.

Joe Scarborough (39:56)

What I was going to say is.

Jonathan Lemire (39:57)

The recent developments around these peace talks, which is the whole principle of what Trump and Vance and others are trying to do here, seem to be falling apart. I mean, Putin was supposed to be meeting with Zelensky in a matter of hours or days, and now we're a couple weeks in and there's no meeting. And so if you're not going to defend or allow Ukraine to defend itself with your missiles, then the peace talks have to work, but neither is happening. And so we're in this weird stasis that doesn't seem to be benefiting anybody.

Joe Scarborough (40:21)

Well, it seems to me that Sergei Lavrov yesterday, my grandmother from Dalton, Georgia, would say, rip the rag off the churn. And like, we now know what Russia's intentions are, and it is to slow walk Donald Trump. And so now it's going to be very interesting to see what the president's reaction to that is going to be. And also reaction again to this Wall Street Journal page, which is saying, basically, again saying the exact opposite of what he said, I think on Friday, in truth, social, which is Ukraine can't win a war with their arms tied behind their back. And right now the Pentagon is telling the Ukrainians, oh, yeah, they can strike deep inside of Ukraine and kill your citizens, but you're now not allowed to fire missiles inside of Russia.

Elbridge Colby (41:04)

Yeah, the Pentagon, quickly, it's Secretary of Defense Hegseth and Elbridge Colby, the director of policy planning. He's the one who authorized that pause in weapons to Ukraine a few months back. They're the ones who put the handcuffs, if you will, on what Kyiv can do out of the Pentagon. And as far as negotiations with Russia, I mean, this is what everyone thought. Like, we knew going into the Alaska summit. That was the consensus of Europe, the consensus of the US Intel Committee. Russia has not changed its war aims. They plan to win. That summit was an attempt to bide for time. And I reported in others, Kremlin's position here has not changed. They don't recognize Zelenskyy as the legitimate leader of Ukraine. Lavrov said it yesterday. So therefore Putin's not going to meet with him. There's not going to be a summit, certainly in the, not in the current status. The only way that could change would be if the president were to make the conditions harder for Russia, whether it's sanctions, whether it's weapons, whether it's funding, he has to force it. It was the secondary sanctions that got them to Alaska, even though it bought them nothing. It's going to take even more to get a real summit and a chance.

Joe Scarborough (42:05)

For peace, secondary sanctions on oil. And they need to go hard at that, cut off the funding sources. Needs to call his Pentagon up this morning and say, hey, guys, this isn't Vietnam.

Mike Barnacle (42:18)

Come.

Joe Scarborough (42:18)

We're not going to tell soldiers that they can be shot at, but they can't shoot back. I mean, that's exactly what they're saying in Kiev right now. I mean, Keith's turning, he's going, wait a second. Pentagon is allowing Russians to kill our people, our children, and yet the Pentagon is saying that we can't attack. That's the second thing to do. And the third is just to follow up and lean hard and, you know, approve a $90 billion aid package in military aid that we heard was a possibility. You do those three things, Vladimir Putin will start talking.

Mika Brzezinski (42:52)

I think so. Sam Stein and Mike Allen, thank you both very much for coming on this morning. And still ahead on Morning Joe, a lot to get to including the Yankees salvaged a game against the Red Sox in the Bronx last night. Pablo Torre joins us to break down the latest chapter in one of baseball's biggest rivalries. Plus, we'll show you last night's meltdown on the court at the US Open. Morning Joe will be right back.

Joe Scarborough (43:18)

Is that medved yet? You're looking New York City, home of the lowly New York Yankees last night though fortunately for them, they avoided his sweep and a four game set against the Red Sox with a 72 win. Boston outscored New York 19 to 4 in the first three games of the series and had beaten the Yankees in their previous eight meetings. New York now moves within half a game of Boston for the top AL wild card. With us now, the host of Pablo Torre finds out on Metal Arc Media MSNBC contributor Pablo Torre. He's sitting there with all the arrogance of a man who lost three out of four games. John Lemire to the Boston Red Sox.

Pablo Torre (44:15)

Gazing out the window.

Elbridge Colby (44:17)

Yeah, look at this, look at this.

Pablo Torre (44:18)

Yeah. New day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.

Elbridge Colby (44:22)

Three out of four for the Sox, Joe, three out of four. They looked, they would come. The nice taught win Friday night, one nothing victory Saturday, a complete route on Sunday with the Yankees fans turning on their own Yankees sloppy bunch, bunch of errors. Their shortstop gets benched. No one can hit, no one can pitch. They did salvage it last night. We gave them one. Dustin May. Yeah, sacrificial lamp. But no, I, this, this was a good weekend for the Sox who now have jumped the Yankees to top wall Cross.

Joe Scarborough (44:49)

Mike, what do you see over the series weekend? Over the weekend series, I saw Friday.

Mike Barnacle (44:52)

Night as being critical. A one to nothing game. The way they won that game with the Yankees having nothing to come back and win the game with in their own house. The setup is two weeks from this past weekend, Yankees at Red Sox at Fenway park for a three game series. That'll be huge. The Red Sox are rolling. The Yankees, the roster composition is a mystery. Yeah, but we are where we are in the great baseball season winding down toward its end. And I'm looking forward to the Red sox finally after 4 years absence being in the playoffs.

Elbridge Colby (45:24)

Let us hope.

Joe Scarborough (45:25)

Let us hope. Hey Pablo, talk about the Yankees looked shaky through the weekend. A lot of people questioning the makeup of this team. How, how are they? How are they Lined up now to go into September.

Pablo Torre (45:38)

Yeah, look, the, the Yankees, Joe, are a nice plucky underdog story and I appreciate you guys for recognizing that. It' hard to overcome so many adverse forces on you as a team. And so for the Yankees right now, what you look ahead to in a stock picking way, a buy low opportunity is the schedule. Lanier was taunting me about this over the weekend, but there is some accuracy there. The Yankees coming up have a nice, a nice Runway to just have a postseason run as we have long desired.

Joe Scarborough (46:08)

And you guys, Pablo, you know, that's actually, that's interesting because, because the Yankees and the Red Sox have, I think our toughest stretches are behind us. So if you just look where the teams are now, you look at their schedules, it looks like the Yankees and the Red Sox could have a pretty fun September independent race.

Pablo Torre (46:31)

Well, I would say the Yankees have the edge and I did some of the math here and I believe the Yankees, when it comes to like strength of schedule, so to speak, to go college basketball on you for a second, it's pretty weak. You guys, I believe have the number five strength of schedule. So look, all that is to say the Red Sox as presented and by the way, I am, if I can be very, very sincere about something for a second, this Roman Anthony kid. Joe, I laughed when you kept on mentioning Roman Anthony. The Roman Empire. The dude has the greatest quality that I look for when it comes to a player which is he walks into Yankee Stadium and intimidation dating place, the pressure is on and he is better. And when he does that bad flip, I'm like, I hate this kid. But this is exactly the kind of player that the Yankees back in the day would have lusted after. And so you got that kid and that lineup. Really, it should be, it should be a cakewalk for you guys. Now you guys should absolutely be in the postseason. If you don't, well, that's, that's, that'd be a horrifying thing.

Joe Scarborough (47:29)

Well, exactly. We'd like to be there even though you guys will end up beating us and we're the World Series in five games just because we want to see this historic New York Yankees run. I want to talk though about the difference between. And this is just, this is more of a, just sort of a management discussion right here for a second barnacle. You look at the Boston Red Sox, they get rid of Devers at the time you and I were talking said it might be a lot like when they get rid of no more in 2004 cleared out a big space in the locker room. And you look at who's replaced that space, and you have Bregman as the vet. You have Roman Anthony, who almost apologized for the bad flip, because I don't usually do that. Like, he's all business. He shows up, as you said, he showed up every day early in his uniform, studying. And you look at the examples that those guys set. It leads to people like Walker Bueller, guy who's been a superstar in the past, being relegated to the bullpen and just being all class, saying, hey, you know what? I've got nobody to blame but myself. And my only job now is to get better and to go into that bullpen and figure out how I can help this team win.

Mike Barnacle (48:48)

You know, to that point, I mean, what Walker Bueller had to say after being demoted to the bullpen, it should be posted on every Little League manual, every American Legion manual, every high school manual. Because he talked about he didn't want to go to the bullpen, but given his record, the way he's performed, he deserves to be in the bullpen. He said, it's going to be best for our team. Our team. So it happens. I mean, everybody's on a team in America, okay? Life is being on a team. You need other people. We need other people in the control room.

Joe Scarborough (49:22)

Room.

Mike Barnacle (49:22)

You need other people during life to help you up, prop you up, or help you along the way, right? The Red Sox. The key to the Red Sox this year was the clearance of Devers from the lineup. Rafi's a great hitter. He's not a bad human being. He's with the new San Francisco Giants.

Joe Scarborough (49:36)

He's not a good. He's not a good teammate. And San Francisco's learned that and pretty.

Mike Barnacle (49:41)

I don't know, probably. I don't know whether that's worst record.

Joe Scarborough (49:44)

In baseball since he went to San.

Mike Barnacle (49:45)

Francisco, but it freed the Red Sox. Look at Trevor Story, right? A shortstop who was on the edge of being designated for assignment.

Joe Scarborough (49:54)

I would have assigned him to Springfield for two cans of dog food in.

Mike Barnacle (49:57)

May, but they came together over, you know, a tough time. And now they're together.

Mika Brzezinski (50:02)

All right, before we get to the top of the hour, let's get to the US Open, which got underway yesterday at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens, N.Y. and American men got off to a strong start. Sixth seeded Ben Shelton needed just over two hours to kick off the tournament with a straight set victory in fourth seeded Taylor Fritz, last year's runner up, needed 10 fewer minutes to achieve the same result. Meanwhile, there was some Drama on the court last night surrounding Daniil Medvedev, whose match was delayed more than six minutes after a photographer entered the court. Unless match Point Medvedev, the 2021 U.S. open incited the crowd as he became enraged with the chair umpire's decision to award his opponent another first serve. Medvedev would fall in five sets and put his frustration on display after the match, sitting in his chair and repeatedly smashing his racket before eventually departing. Looking a lot like Joe when he has to wake up for the show.

Joe Scarborough (51:09)

Exactly. And when he did depart, he promptly went to a bar in flushing with John McEnroe.

Mika Brzezinski (51:16)

Yeah.

Joe Scarborough (51:16)

And they shared stories. Look at that. So, so Pablo, some fascinating information. I, I, because I was talking to Alex yesterday and, and asking who's. I've. I've heard it's a bit of a skilled tennis player himself, but I was asking Alex Gorson, our ep, I said when is the last time an American has won a Grand Slam event? 2003. American male Andy Roddick. 2003. And until last year, an American male had not even got to the vitals of an event. I mean to be from the land of Connors McEnroe, Ash Agassiz, Sampras, I mean to have a 22 year drought, it's just staggering.

Pablo Torre (52:16)

Oh yeah, and by the way, the setting of this is why this is the American tournament. Just to be very clear about what all of this is indicating. Right. So this is not Wimbledon. That video of Medvedev freaking out like the crowd, there's a bit of, you know, win the crowd, win your freedom energy going on in Queens with this tournament. And Joe, you're right, like tonight we'll get Francis Tiafo, big foe, who is from of course the Maryland area, who's a real crowd pleaser, who's incredible. My hope is with him, that's the guy I'd love to see win this in a setting like that. But the whole thing about what about the American men, it's gotten better in the last couple of years, but whole, the whole level they get to get through is what you just said. And so until then you have this scenario where the American women by contrast, by the way, look, we, the William sisters are now of course on the other side of this story. But the whole thing is that it's not, it's just not been a problem there. And the men, they wear the burden of that crowd saying when are you going to do this on your home soil in the anti Wimbledon environment.

Elbridge Colby (53:23)

Yeah, all of that true. And again, worth saying the US Open the best sporting event in New York all year, except for the Roman Anthony bat flip. Meanwhile, a new era of sports streaming will debut this week. ESPN and Fox rolling out to their direct to consumer services on Thursday. Both include all the sports rights currently available to their cable customers. As Axios reports, what makes both new streamers so groundbreaking is that each is built to serve as a broader content platform, rather than just a repository for their own programming and live rights. And despite the obvious rivalry between the two networks, consumers will be able to buy a bundle of both services for $40 a month starting in October. So, Pablo, tell us a little bit more about what this means. It does feel like we're at a tipping point as to how Americans are going to be able to watch sports.

Pablo Torre (54:17)

Yeah, look, the cable bundle. You guys know this, too. The cable bundle was an incredible business, remains in its last gaps, gasps this incredible business. And so for me, I am nostalgic for it. But the evolution of all of this, with sports in particular sports always being the biggest glue, the highest rates Americans had to pay in that cable bundle, whether they watch sports or not. ESPN has been loath to go in this direction until now. And so that's the history of it, is that you get the whole thing of, wait a minute, I don't need cable to watch all of my sports to the point where Fox and Disney are going to cooperate in some sort of bundle to give that to consumers. That's new ground. That is uncharted territory. And the question, Joe, is whether, of course, you'll get Americans who love sports more than they love pretty much anything else in American life at this point, in that monocultural way, will pay even more than they were paying for streaming, than they were for the cable bundle over linear. And that is the larger evolution that everybody, of course, on television in every form is also facing.

Joe Scarborough (55:19)

Mike, sports is king. It just is these days. You look. It is. It is the one thing that it is the one common denominator across all demographics.

Mike Barnacle (55:30)

Look at the numbers. The numbers are proof of exactly what you just said, what Pablo was just talking about.

Sam Stein (55:34)

About.

Mike Barnacle (55:35)

I mean, nobody's going to pay a bunch of money to watch news. Nobody's going to pay a bunch of money to watch Donald Trump, okay?

Joe Scarborough (55:43)

They're not going to do it. You're going to play football games.

Mika Brzezinski (55:45)

Okay, Pablo, Tori, very much. All right, three minutes, Pablo. Time to get to Pablo.

Elbridge Colby (55:53)

He's going to pay for news.

Pablo Torre (55:53)

Oh, for you guys specifically, there are.

Joe Scarborough (55:56)

A lot of people who pay for news and we thank you.

Pablo Torre (55:58)

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