Mika Brzezinski (2:58)

And not the one who's president now. The wait, like he's president back when. Yeah, that's a long time ago. 25 years ago. That's strange. But also a vaccine on this one, huh?

Willie Geist (3:14)

Speaking of, we'll give you context to Health Secretary RFK Jr. Cutting nearly $500 million of grants and contracts for developing MRNA vaccines. Okay. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Wednesday, August 6th, and Joe, you need to stop golfing. You're. You're red as a tomato. Yeah, you're.

Mika Brzezinski (3:40)

Well, I wouldn't say tomato, Willie. When you say red, I don't think a red is. It's kind of hot out there, though.

Willie Geist (3:47)

Too much out there. Yeah.

Mika Brzezinski (3:49)

Willie, I have. So, you know, you and I, Willie, we get around other people. They're talking golf. We don't golf a lot, you and I. I mean, from just based on what I understand, you're not telling me oh, guys week. I've never gone on a golf weekend and really haven't had time with four children and four hours a day. And I haven't really played golf since maybe high school or college, but Jack wants to play golf, so I'm like, wait a second. I get four hours out with my. So. So we're going out playing golf a good bit now, and it's. You need to stop it. No, I'm not going to stop. It's. It's, it's good bonding time. But it is that, Willie. It is. It's a fascinating game. I mean, it's good. It's kind of like, you know, skiing or riding. If you did it when you were young, it's pretty easy to get back into it after a while. But that doesn't mean it's an easy game.

Katty Kay (4:48)

Yeah, that's my problem, Joe. I did not grow up playing golf. My dad was not a golfer, so I didn't have that base. So I picked it up late. In fact, kind of like you. I just really started playing a little bit last year and have been playing a good bit more in the last couple of years. I find it sometimes meditative, more often maddening, but really, really hard. And that's what I like about it. Like, you think you've got to figure it out. Okay, I've got it. I had a good day today. And then you just completely blow up the next time you play. So I love it too. And George, who's 16 years old, he's getting into it, so he is learning it at a younger age so he can have it. You know what? It's like you, I found. It's. You're with your son or you're with a buddy. It's four hours. You're outside in the sun, you're hanging out, you're actually talking. Nobody's on their phone. So I've come to kind of fall in love with it in the last couple of years.

Mika Brzezinski (5:38)

Yeah, I know. And Mika, I have for the last couple of weeks. And, you know, you're trying to get me to stop doing it. Not gonna do. Is great, though. You have again, you have. You have four hours out there with your son or with your friends, and it's good. And I'm actually learning, you know, get older and wiser. I'm actually playing a different type of game. Willie. I'm not trying to like, be John Daly on every drive and I actually, I actually am going down a couple of club lengths and slowing my. Slowing my swing down a little. It's crazy what happens when you don't try to hit the ball as hard as you can every time. So we need to get Mika.

Katty Kay (6:26)

It's to be John Daly off the tee and it almost always ends up in the woods on a gorgeous place that just kind of leaves you and never to return.

Mika Brzezinski (6:35)

Never good. Never good, Mika.

Willie Geist (6:38)

No, it's not. So now we'll let you guys talk about hitting a ball into a hole. And I'm going to get to the news. Along with Joe Willey and me, we have us special correspondent for BBC News and the host of the Rest Is Politics podcast. Katty K. I know you're with me on Golf County. And we have co founder and CEO of Axios, Jim Vande Hei and MSNBC contributor and author of the book how the Right Lost its Mind, Charlie Sykes.

Mika Brzezinski (7:08)

Wait a second. No, no, hold on a second. I just got asked a question because Katty shook her head. Caddy ca may be like a three handicap. Do you play, caddy?

Jim Vande Hei (7:17)

No, I do not play golf. No, but I do. I did actually when you said I'm off my phone for four hours with my son. That's nice. You got me there. I mean the golf thing off the phone. That's nice. That's good. Anything that gets us off our phones for four hours. I'm in.

Mika Brzezinski (7:35)

Well, Vande Hei, you don't strike me as a golfer. Cause you're too busy taking over the media world. Do you have time to golf? I do.

Charlie Sykes (7:44)

I'm terrible at it. And I'm gonna give you. I'm gonna give viewers some movie advice. Happy Gilmore 2 is the dumbest movie ever produced. Do not watch it. I did watch it, which says a lot about me, but I like golfing. But I really do suck at it.

Mika Brzezinski (8:01)

Yeah, you gotta. You got to watch Happy Gilmore, too. Whether it's dumb or not. Nobody was expecting it to be Casablanca, right? Or Citizen Kane. So what about you, Charlie?

Charlie Sykes (8:14)

Expectations?

Mika Brzezinski (8:16)

No.

Greg Abbott (8:16)

I have dogs and I can't get them interested. They would just chase the ball.

Willie Geist (8:21)

Yeah, that's right. As they should. Very good, Charlie. Okay, let's get right to the escalating fight over Republican led redistricting efforts in Texas. Governor Greg Abbott filed an emergency petition yesterday with the Texas Supreme Court to remove State Representative Gene Wu, who is also the Texas House Democratic Caucus chair. The lawsuit claims Wu violated the state constit and that his absence amounts to abandoning his office. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he will try to expel several House Democrats if they do not return to Austin by Friday. But the AG has already acknowledged that would be a lengthy process requiring him to bring individual lawsuits in each member's district. Meanwhile, Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who will face Paxton in the Republican primary next year, has asked FBI Director Cash Patel to help Texas law enforcement locate or arrest the Democrats who have left the state. Senator Cornyn and Governor Abbott have both accused the lawmakers of accepting bribes to fund their trips out of Texas. So President Trump was asked yesterday about Senator Cornyn's request, and here's what he had to say.

Greg Abbott (9:45)

Do you want the federal government and.

Mika Brzezinski (9:47)

The FBI to help locate and arrest these Texas Democrats who have left the state? Well, I think they've abandoned the state. Nobody's seen anything like it, even though they've done it twice before. And in a certain way, it almost looks like they've abandoned the state. It looks very bad.

Donald Trump (10:02)

Yeah.

Mika Brzezinski (10:02)

Go ahead, please.

Greg Abbott (10:04)

Should the FBI get involved?

Mika Brzezinski (10:05)

Well, they may have to. They may have to. No, I know they want him back. Not only the attorney general, the governor wants him back. If you look, I mean, the. The governor of Texas is demanding they come back. So a lot of people are demanding they come back. You can't just sit it out. You have to go back. You have to fight it out. That's what elections are all about. Well, a lot of Republicans actually want them back, that want to rig the maps. But you get the FBI involved. I know John Cornyn's in a primary battle, but my God, talk about turning it up to 11 there, Johnny boy. You know, it's crazy. People, people in this party think, and this is the thing that always, always, Willie, I find so, so I'll just say humorous. There's some dark humor to it. These people that are in power now, right, they overreach and the overreaching is continuous crazy, like getting the FBI involved. They, they understand what happens when the shoe's on the other foot. Do they really not understand all, you know, breaking one Democratic norm after another after another after another? There may be a Democrat, there may be a progressive that is power hungry, that becomes president of the United States and then has everything that this administration and this Congress is doing. And they say, well, look, they did it, so I can do it. And then they turn it up a little bit more and then the other party gets in and they turn it up. It is so reckless and crazy. It's just, it's just sheer, sheer insanity. Willie.

Katty Kay (11:50)

Yeah. And you're seeing this debate now within the Republican Party about, excuse me, within the Democratic Party about how far they should push back. Should we now engage in this tit for tat? Well, if you're going to do it, we're going to do it. The Democrats have been accused recently of not having fight, of not standing up to Donald Trump and Republicans. And a lot of them see this as a moment. You got Senator Alyssa Slotkin of Michigan urging her fellow Democrats to take action to counter Republicans push to redraw those maps. In Texas, the first term senator telling NBC News Democrats have to fight fire with fire. Here's what she said.

Mika Brzezinski (12:28)

I'm going to urge and encourage blue.

Alyssa Slotkin (12:31)

States like a California or Chicago or.

Mika Brzezinski (12:34)

Illinois, excuse me, to do the same thing. I don't want to do that.

Alyssa Slotkin (12:37)

I want the country to have a completely nonpartisan drawing of the lines based on the census. But if they're going to do that.

Mika Brzezinski (12:44)

And go nuclear, so am I.

Katty Kay (12:47)

Senators comments came as California Democrats now move to counter the Republican redistricting effort in Texas with discussions on their own of a new political map that would help the party pick up as many as five of the state's Republican House seats next year, effectively doing what Republicans are doing in Texas. The state's Democratic members of Congress and the legislature have been briefed in recent days with lawmakers planning a vote on the proposal the week of August 18, California Governor Gavin Newsom says he hopes to put a new map in front of voters in a special election on November 4th. So, Charlie Sykes, this is the reaction, but let's talk about the action, which is what Republicans are doing in Texas. We'll point out again, as we always do, these maps usually redrawn at the end of a decade after the census, based on population, not based on political whimsical.

Mika Brzezinski (13:40)

Right.

Greg Abbott (13:41)

Well, and there's nothing subtle about it. I mean, Donald Trump said that out loud yesterday that we're entitled to five extra seats. But I mean, look at the vortex of escalation that we're in right now. The cycle. The whole point of mutual assured destruction was to deter extreme measures. But what happens if it doesn't detour? You know, then you get the nuclear option, then you get the destruction. And so Democrats, I think, have come to a consensus very, very quickly that they not simply going to stand aside and wring their hands and say, you know, we're going to take the moral high ground because quite frankly, the alternative is electoral annihilation. So what we have, and then the New York Times described this the other day, we are in a period of maximum political warfare. And the consequences, look, are going to be, you know, long, long, long lasting. But, but unfortunately, this is the kind of cycle that you get into when you have someone like Donald Trump asking that all the norms be trashed when asking that one rule after another be thrown away. So sooner or later you get this nuclear option. But what comes after the nuclear option? Nuclear winner. Not good for democracy, not good for the electoral system. But what alternative do they have at this point if in fact this is the way they're gonna go in Texas?

Mika Brzezinski (15:08)

You know, again, the stupidity of this. All you have to do is look at history. We've talked about this time and time again. Just look this century and see how it's bounced back and forth. I got to run through it again really quickly. 2004, George W. Bush wins. Karl Robes talking about a permanent Republican majority. 2006, Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House. 2008, Barack Obama wins a massive landslide, and everybody's talking about a new generation of politics. Republicans are going to be thrown out forever. Two years later, the Tea Party takes over. They come and say, people have spoken. We're in charge now forever. Two years later, Barack Obama wins. Two years later, in 14, Republicans have one of their biggest years later, Donald Trump wins in 2016, and people go, oh, this is changing the landscape forever. 2018, who's Speaker? One Nancy Pelosi becomes speaker as the Democrats have big off year elections and then Biden wins in 2020. And then we have Donald Trump again. But again they're turning it up to 11. They're going, by the way, Spinal Tap 2 coming out soon in theaters near you. They turn it up to 11 and so what happens? JIM VANDE hey, we've been through this so many times. The American people are between the 40 yard lines. They just are. And right wing freaks and left wing freaks can't change the fact that the American people are between the 40 yard lines. They care about affordability, they care about inflation, they care about. There's a Wall Street Journal page, Wall Street Journal story. Many are earning more but are in worse financial shape. I mean, the underlying economic ills are not being treated. And people, these Republicans are running around and what are they doing with their power? They're subpoening a president from, you know, who hasn't been in office for a quarter of a century. They're trying to play political gamesmanship in Texas and get the FBI involved. Like this turns off voters. It's why there are a lot of generic ballot polls that are showing Democrats moving far ahead of Republicans. It's like you and I were there when, you know, 25 years ago when Republicans still talked to Democrats. Yeah, we fought, but I always was very conservative, but always sit with Democrats, had friends on the other side. It's gotten crazy now. And to what end? There's not going to be total, total victory. There's not going to be an absolute, I mean, you look at, you look at this poll and who would you vote for today? The Economist? YouGov? Democrats are now 5 points up over Republicans and that's a jump of about three points. And in large part because Republicans are being so extreme. Why don't they govern to help people who are struggling?

Charlie Sykes (18:14)

I would take it a step further. I think that if you're using the football field analogy, I think most Americans are within the 25 yard lines. Like 70% of people are really normal. They're not that engaged in politics. The problem is the power in politics sits outside that 25%. You look at Trump and his base, it's not half of the country, it's about half of the Republican Party. And that is the dominant theology. And I think maximalist politics, maximalist power is a good way to describe it. Well, every action begets an opposite, equal and often overreaction in politics. So if you're a Democrat, you look like A chump. If you don't do onto them as they're doing onto you. If they're going to redistrict in Texas and you want to run for president, of course Gavin Newsom is going to say let's do the same in California. Of course you're going to say let's do the same thing in Illinois because you control the mechanics of politics there. Of course, if you're a Democratic Senator in Michigan with ambitions, you're going to say, listen, we've got to fight fire with fire. And the problem is with redistricting, which is at the root of this polarization. If you want to reverse engineer all of the problems in politics, it's because at the state level, that's how you control and write these different districts, you end up with these gerrymandered things to benefit the party in power. So you end up with a much more ideological political system than you would have if you just kind of dispersed it based on the general population. And so this is like, this is not surprising. This is like the messy ugliness of democracy in the federal system. But you're right now taking it from a 10 year period, moving it down to a five year period, playing politics in the middle of it. Cuz you're worried that you're going to lose the House. And I do think all of this is motivated by that poll that you put up there. There's almost no Republican I'm talking to that doesn't think that they probably will lose the House in the next election for all the reasons that Joe that you just talked about. It's just how politics works. Like add another stat to what you were saying. Every president going back to Clinton has had two years of full power in Washington, meaning you had the House, the Senate and the presidency. Think about the hubris to assume that's not going to happen and then think about the ignorance to think that they're not going to do it to you. Right. That is the sad part of all this.

Jim Vande Hei (20:26)

Yeah. And that's why, clearly that's why the President is doing this, because he wants to avoid that scenario next year in the midterms. The problem for America, as Jim was just pointing out, is that you end up with more extremism in the country, less ability to actually govern this country because people won't be able to agree up on Capitol Hill. It's just going to make Capitol Hill more divided and therefore the country more inefficient. I think the other problem is it, you know, what's happening in Texas and what would be happening in California as well is that you're not doing this in a census year. When you ride roughshod through the norms and customs mica of democracy. What are you left with after that? What are we left with after this period of maximalism? If you'll fight everywhere, all the time about everything. And if Democrats start doing that too, and they're gonna have to find a way to do it authentically, this doesn't come as naturally perhaps to Democrats as it does to some on the far right. They're gonna find a way to do it that convinces people that they have their heart in doing this. But. But what are you left with after that? If this process really has burned the house down on all of the customs and norms and just do things very strictly by the books when it comes.

Willie Geist (21:30)

To the democratic process, that is the question. We're going to pause now to take a look at some of the other stories making headlines this morning. President Trump has struck a deal with billionaire news corps owner Rupert Murdoch to postpone his deposition as part of the President's lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal. Trump's sued the paper over reporting that described lewd letter the president allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein for his birthday, which Trump has denied. The president's legal team had attempted to expedite the deposition as they were worried Murdoch would become sick or even pass away before the case went to trial. The National Weather Service is looking to hire 450 meteorologists, hydrologists and radar technicians just months after doge related cuts hit the agency. The rehiring comes amid record breaking heat waves and severe weather which have strained forecasting capacity nationwide. The staff cuts also have been scrutinized following last month's deadly floods in Texas. And a new report from the US Coast Guard determines the Titan submersible implosion that killed five people while traveling to the Titanic's wreckage site was a preventable disaster. The 335 page report details how Oceangate Expeditions, the company who operated the fatal 2023 tour, failed to meet safety and engineering standards while disregarding assessments for the deep sea submersible. And Joe, that was a terrible tragedy that had a lot of questions from the get go about, oh, why they did it under those conditions. Yeah, yeah.

Mika Brzezinski (23:24)

I mean, it was just so absolutely reckless. When we come back, we're going to be talking to Jim Vande Hei. He's got an excellent piece up this morning about AI and Willie on a similarly weighty topic. I have been told that Happy Gilmore 2 actually has none other than John Daly in it. And he is a big, big star. And didn't you tell me that you once ran into John Daly?

Katty Kay (23:57)

Oh, yeah.

Mika Brzezinski (23:59)

In a diner off of some side road in Augusta.

Katty Kay (24:05)

Well, in my days as a sports producer when we'd go cover the Masters, John Daly was not playing in the tournament, but he showed up every year in his big rv, parked it in the parking lot of a strip mall across the street from Augusta national, and would smoke cigarettes and just sell John Daly merch. And he was a hitch. There was a line, a line all the way around the strip mall to shake his hand. And he would just sit in a lawn chair and talk with you and rip butts and sell you T shirts. He was the best.

Mika Brzezinski (24:36)

Yeah. And let me ask you, Jim Vande Hei, as you, as you look at. As you look at the performance of John Daly and Happy Gilmore, too, is it more akin to Olivier in King Lear or is it, I don't know, is it more like Harrison Ford and Raiders of the Lost Ark? Where. Where is he on that scale?

Charlie Sykes (24:58)

He basically plays the character that Willie just talked about there. He's pretty good compared to Adam Sandler. You just gotta watch the first half hour, and then you'll understand.

Mika Brzezinski (25:08)

Wow.

Charlie Sykes (25:09)

I also think this is your future foretold, Joe. I could see you one day sitting out there in your RV telling tales about the set of Morning Joe.

Mika Brzezinski (25:17)

Exactly.

Willie Geist (25:17)

Morning Joe swag.

Mika Brzezinski (25:20)

I'll do it.

Greg Abbott (25:23)

Right?

Mika Brzezinski (25:23)

Yeah, but by then, sweetie, it's gonna be paper cup, so I'll just be selling. Yeah, I was on TV once. There you go. I like that RV thing. That's a good idea.

Willie Geist (25:31)

Okay.

Mika Brzezinski (25:32)

All right.

Willie Geist (25:32)

Let's don't give him any ideas. Still ahead on Morning Joe, Democratic Senator Micha Bennett of Colorado is criticizing his party, saying he's angry the left lost to Donald Trump again. We'll play for you some of his comments and his message to his colleagues. Plus, we'll go through the new reporting from the Atlantic on why the White House backed down from its first big education cuts. 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.

Alyssa Slotkin (26:19)

The bottom line is, even as the Trump administration tries to end abortion access.

Mika Brzezinski (26:24)

Funding and shut down health centers, Planned Parenthood continues its vital work without flinching. The assault on reproductive health is strategic and persistent. And who gets hurt the most?

Alyssa Slotkin (26:35)

Women, People of color, rural communities, folks with low incomes.

Mika Brzezinski (26:39)

The people who already face the biggest barriers to care. If you believe everyone deserves to control.

Alyssa Slotkin (26:44)

Their own body and future, donate now@plannedparenthood.org.

Joe Scarborough (26:49)

Defend MSNBC Films presents season two of Leguizamo does America, an NBC News Studios production on the final episode. John Leguizamo travels to San antonio Sunday at 9pm Eastern on MSNBC and streaming on Peacock. 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.

Mika Brzezinski (27:26)

Hey, welcome back to Morning Joe. Shot at the White House in August. Washington is so cool and comfortable in August. I'm sure. This summer, no different. I just want to say Adam Sandler's name was brought up in a negative way in the last block, and that's not allowed on this show. Heard this great Williams, great Adam Sandler story, and it was Brad Pitt who was telling it. Adam Sandler was taking an acting class in college, and his professor had told him, he said, hey, I want to take you out to the bar and we're going to, I need to talk to you about something. So they go out, buys him a beer, and he said, you're just a terrible actor. You're never going to, you're never going to succeed at this. You just. Nothing personal, kid. You need to do something else. And as Brad Pitt's talking to Adam Sandler because this story had gotten all around Hollywood, he tells the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would say. And he says, he says, but then like 10 years later, 15 years later, you're the biggest star in the world. You take your friends in your hometown back to the bar, and who's there but your professor who had told you to get out. So he comes up and he's about to apologize. Adam Sandler cuts him off and he says, guys, guys, you know who this guy is? This is a guy who is my best professor. He was such a great professor that after class he would take me out and buy me a beer when I couldn't even afford it. And Adam Sandler went in to hug him. And all the friends were like, you're the coolest guy in the world. And Brad Pitt said, that speaks volumes about your character. Because Brad Pitt said, I would have said something completely different to him. But he said, that's like, when people talk about Adam Sandler, that's the guy they know. Which I thought was a really cool story.

Katty Kay (29:30)

Yeah, I objectively love Adam Sandler. Have since his early days on snl. Look, not everybody has to be Daniel Day Lewis in terms of being an actor. Sometimes you just create joy and happiness. And that's all Adam Sandler does. It's all he's ever done. And I hope there's a big place in the world for that, including with Happy Gilmore, too, which I confess I have not seen yet, but I hear is just stuffed with great cameos. I can't wait to watch it. So I heard, actually, I heard Conan talking on his podcast the other day about Sandler and saying when he worked at SNL in the early days, and you hear about the 70s and the 80s, it was all about cutthroat competition. And we stay up all night and you're kind of miserable and you're sick to your stomach all the time. And Conan says it was actually Sandler who changed the way he and everyone looked at the job because he was so loose and relaxed. He said, can you believe we get to work at Saturday Night Live? How cool is this? Like, relax, guys, let's have fun. And that was sort of the Sandler ethos right up through Happy Gilmore, too.

Mika Brzezinski (30:29)

Yeah, it's fantastic. And, you know, despite the fact that Jim Vande Hei is kicking Adam Sandler, we're not gonna stand for it here on Morning Joe, especially because I hear there's a hilarious Scotty Scheffler cameo at the very end. So every golfer wanted to be in this. So anyway, but Jim, let's talk about something else that you actually know something about, because you obviously will never be a movie critic. In your latest behind the curtain piece for Axios, you write about what AI owes you, which is obviously fascinating. And you talk about arguments for AI models to compensate all of us for helping create those models. Talk about it.

Charlie Sykes (31:16)

Yeah, this is a big deal now and very much in the future. So basically, I could exist without us, or we could exist without AI, but it can't exist without us because it was created by eating the totality of the Internet. So anybody who's made blog posts, written, written a story, created content that's been in the public domain, it was ingested to create these companies. And this has led to a big legal fight. There's more than 50 cases right now pending about whether or not that was copyright infringement by taking that content without permission. And so that's the short term issue. Should people be compensated for that? The president weighed in last week on the all in event that he attended and basically said that if we got, if we ended up compensating, everybody for every piece, we'd get tied in knots and China would beat us to AI. So I think that is kind of the Washington view of it. More interesting is in the future. So when you talk to these AI companies, they think, hey, look at what's happening with the big seven. They're all getting so much bigger, so much richer. They're essentially propping up the entire US economy right now with their investment in energy and chips and data. And at some point are these companies going to have to basically pay back workers either through better jobs or direct payments? There's a lot of talk, especially with the optimists in the AI world, that this is going to be such an economic engine that maybe you have to have sort of this guaranteed minimum income for every American essentially financed by these companies. And so I think it's really important for people to understand the mechanics of how AI was created, how it's trained today, the legal ramifications for media companies, for content creators, for filmmakers, for musicians, but also for the individual. And what obligation will those companies have in the future? Because they're not going to voluntarily cut everybody a check. And so that ultimately will be a governmental decision.

Mika Brzezinski (33:04)

Yeah. And Caddy, speaking of a front page of the Wall Street Journal today, Philander is now not only a power player in Washington D.C. it has exploded and is now the most expensive stock on the S and P. Another a power player who's going to be one of those massive six, seven companies that really determine the direction of the stock market and in a large sense, America's economy.

Jim Vande Hei (33:34)

Yeah. And to what extent, I mean, you're right, Joe, on these stocks exploding. And I guess the question in the White House to Louis, to what extent are they thinking that this has given them a lucky break?

Mika Brzezinski (33:45)

Right.

Jim Vande Hei (33:45)

That the policies which were expected and many forecasters and economists thought were going to have a detrimental effect on the US Economy. The economy is just as is so resilient in part because of this AI funded boom and the investments that people are having to make in AI, the data centers, the electricity, etc. Is there a feeling in the, in the White House that was that deliberate and calibrated, or is there a feeling that they got lucky maybe here?

J (34:11)

Well, they definitely feel fortunate. I mean, you look at the job numbers that came out on Friday, they have a lot of concern about the status of the economy and so the fact that they're our jobs being created, that the stock market is doing well in part because of how these AI companies are performing so excellently in terms of their stock price that is helping the White House be able to make this argument. The president wants to be the crypto president. He wants to be the AI President. He wants to be able to say that I am leading the country into the next generation of technology. And it helps, especially when his tariffs seem to be from the 20th century or the 19th century, it helps that he can say I'm leading the country further into the 21st century on the technology.

Willie Geist (34:50)

All right. With us, you see is Toluse Olorunipa, and he's joining us to talk about a piece he's written in the Atlantic. President Trump, of course, made a promise on the campaign trail to dismantle the Department of Education. But as a new piece in the Atlantic details, the administration's push to defund education programs led to a surprising alliance against those efforts and forced the White House to back down from its first big cuts. So, Toluse, if you could talk about what's really going on here.

J (35:28)

Well, as you said, the president said on the campaign trail, we're going to send education back to the states. We're going to close down the Department of Education. It sounded very good on the campaign trail. He got a lot of applause from the MAGA faithful. But when you actually try to do that in the reality of governance, you realize that a lot of the rural and red districts that, that rely on federal education dollars, they don't like having after school programs cut. They don't like having summer school abruptly cut. And so when they tried to freeze this money, they got a lot of backlash from places like West Virginia and Alabama, from senators saying we need this money for our states because our parents in our state need their children to be educated. They need their children in after school and summer school programs. And so eventually the White House and the federal government decided to back down on this funding freeze, send out all of this money. And it makes it clear that it's going to be very difficult for President Trump to actually shut down the department because in reality, a lot of rural and red districts rely on this money from the federal government and rely on the Education Department to do its job.

Willie Geist (36:26)

Does this perhaps point to other areas where major cuts have been made, maybe not just by Doge, but the big, the so called big beautiful bill. Could there be a rollback if senators and members of Congress realize this is going to cost them in their district bricks?

J (36:46)

Absolutely. We've already seen Senator Hawley try to roll back some of the Medicaid cuts, some of the rural hospitals that are going to be dealing with these cuts and potentially closing down as a result of them are starting to push back. And so you are seeing red state Republicans, senators saying maybe some of the things we're doing with the big beautiful bill and all of the other Doge efforts is taking things too far. And when people start to actually feel this, as we are starting to see from town halls, when people start to feel this and, and realize what this means for their real lives, it's not going to be very popular. And you are going to see some of these lawmakers have to consider their own political futures. And that could lead them to backtrack or try to take a different tack from where they have been in supporting President Trump's cuts. And a lot of programs that may sound good to cut and Doge may sound good in terms of a line, in terms of making the government more efficient. When you actually start cutting people's programs that they rely on, especially in rural America, especially in some of these places that have high rates of poverty, people are going to be really uncomfortable and unhappy. And that's going to lead them to reach out and speak to their lawmakers. And in some cases, those lawmakers are going to lobby the White House to reverse course.

Mika Brzezinski (37:52)

You know, and Charlie, I, you know, in my days as a white hot Republican in Congress, you know, it's like abolish the Department of Education, take all the money back to the states, back to the classrooms, et cetera, et cetera, and go down the list of, you know, Defund Corporation, public broadcasting, you know, make them raise more of their, all of this stuff. And you know, after about a year there, I found out, like Jim Vande Hei said that we were like on the 25% extreme. The base was with us. I could hold town hall meetings across Northwest Florida, people would cheer, whatever. But found out pretty quickly, you know, and I said about six months in I go, guys, you know, Contract with America thing works pretty well. But when we start talking about cutting school lunch programs or just looking at what's going on, you know, I, you know, one of the things I voted against in Contract for America was Medicaid cuts because I said we're, we don't have a deficit because poor people are taking advantage of the federal government. And, and you know, you find out very quickly up there, or you would think these Republicans would, you know, when they have the richest billionaire on the face of the earth taking food out of the mouths of the poorest children of God's creation, when they're taking, cutting SNAP funding, when they're cutting cancer research, when they're cutting research for Alzheimer's, when they're cutting research for all of these other diseases, when they're cutting R and D, the very thing that has allowed the United States to prosper since World War II, when they're cutting all of these things that make us better, safer, healthier, stronger, so they can give billionaires and multinational corporations and monopolist tax cuts. That's not going to work with independents especially, but also a good chunk of Republicans.

Greg Abbott (40:10)

Yeah, the optics are not pretty, are they? But, you know, pull the lens back a little bit to, you know, the conversation you've been having. You know, we actually have an education crisis in this country. You know, by, by any measure, our competitiveness, we are not keeping up with the rest of the world in terms of, you know, science and math reading scores are absolutely abysmal. And AI, you know, may be doing well in the stock market, but it is about to hit the economy as this huge tsunami, wiping out millions of jobs. The question is, is our educational system up for that? Are we willing to make the kinds of reforms that are going to be desperately necessary? And, you know, I don't see any will or any interest in actually improving the quality of our educational system to move into the next century is, you know, as either political party doing anything. And what exactly is the Trump administration, the Republican, other than to cut here and there and to emphasize the culture war? But I think we'll look back at this particular period and ask ourselves, what was America thinking at this particular time when we're facing international competition and this massive new technological era about to hit us? Were we prepared for it? Did our schools adjust to it? Did the government actually have a plan? And the answer to all of that is no.

Willie Geist (41:30)

All right, staff writer at the Atlantic, Tolu Oloneripa, thank you so much. His new piece for the magazine is online now. And Jim, Vande Hei and Charlie Sykes, thank you both for being with us as well. We appreciate it.

Mika Brzezinski (41:43)

You're really thinking Vandei. Are you really thinking Vandei is Cisco and Ebert of Morning Joe? I don't think so. Vande. Hey, you apologize. There's Adam Sandler right now.

Charlie Sykes (41:56)

I love Adam Sandler. This a terrible movie. I'm not making a moral judgment on him. Like, how are you making me the bad Watch the movie and tell me that I'm wrong.

Mika Brzezinski (42:06)

I will say it's a great movie.

Charlie Sykes (42:08)

Because you like the guy.

Mika Brzezinski (42:09)

You're wrong. Yeah. Come on. Strongly about this, by the way. Again, I just want to remind everybody as far as great movies go, Micah, I know you'll be watching it the second it comes out. Spinal Tap 2 coming up this fall, it goes to 11.

Willie Geist (42:28)

Okay.

Mika Brzezinski (42:29)

Oh, sweet Jesus. Coming up, President Trump's threatening to order the federal I got to take over. This is. I cannot believe you just asked that question. President Trump is threatening to take take order to the federal government to take over Washington, D.C. and Mika's viewing habits. We'll dig into that ahead on morning Judge.

Joe Scarborough (42:54)

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 Townsend, Michael Steele, Chris Hayes, jen so, Lawrence O', Donnell, Stephanie Rule and more. Visit msnbc.comlive25 to buy your tickets today.

Mika Brzezinski (43:24)

Hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why Is this Happening? Journalist and author E. Jean Carroll.

Donald Trump (43:29)

I came to love the process of the judicial system and I found it very exonerating. I got to tell my story in court. I got to tell my story when and thousands of millions of people called me a liar. So it was very satisfying.

Mika Brzezinski (43:46)

That's this week on why Is this Happening? Search for why is this Happening? Wherever you're listening right now and follow.

Joe Scarborough (43:51)

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 (44:26)

Welcome back to Morning Joe. Residents of war torn Sudan are facing an escalating hunger crisis and of course, that's been only made made worse by the gutting of usaid. Our next guest reported from the country in crisis, writing in a new cover story for the Atlantic. Statistics are sometimes used to express the scale of destruction in Sudan. About 14 million people have been displaced by years of fighting, more than in Ukraine and Gaza combined. At least 150,000 people have died in the conflict. Half the population, nearly 25 million people are expected to go hungry this year. But no statistics can express the sense of pointlessness, of meaninglessness that this war has left behind alongside the physical destruction. The end of the liberal world order is a phrase that gets thrown around a lot in conference rooms and university lecture Halls in places like Washington and Brussels. But this theoretical idea has become reality. The liberal world order has already ended in Sudan, and there is not anything to replace it with us now the author of that piece, staff writer at the Atlantic, Anne Applebaum, along with Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Lindsey Addario, who captured the images in the article. Ann, the senselessness of the civil war in Sudan, the endlessness of this. It's just astounding. Talking earlier about how things were back, you know, 25 years ago while I was still in Washington. Sudan was an issue I focused on because 2 million people had already been killed in that Civil War war 25 years ago. And here we are a quarter century later, and it's just as devastating. It may even be worse. Talk about what you saw.

Donald Trump (46:37)

Well, there have been different phases. The situation did improve. There was a brief period in Sudan where there was a civilian government and a very idealistic it was a kind of democracy movement, a movement for open society that had a lot of traction in Sudan. We actually met a lot of the people who had been part of that while we were there. Many of them are now working in aid organizations that they've built themselves. But what you see now, I think, is you have a kind of vacuum. You have a war between there's two main protagonists, but there's some others fighting too. But what makes the war worse is the number of outside powers who now have an interest in intervening. The Saudis are there, the Emiratis are there in a very big way. The Turks, the Egyptians, the Russians, the Ukrainians, Ukrainians are actually there just to mostly look for Russians, but Iranians are there. And you have a sense that this outside weaponry and outside money, people are looking for gold, people are looking for influence. All of that is making the situation much worse, worse than it should be. And you at the same time, you have a weakening of international institutions. You have the withdrawal of the United States. I mean, America's role was always kind of in and out of Sudan anyway. But now it' syou know, now there's really almost nothing. And people there would ask us, you know, can anyone come? Will anyone do anything? You know, is anyone interested in us anymore? And people there feel very much that they've been left to become a kind of, you know, a proxy war for other places. And it's a kind of end game. We've seen the deterioration of institutions and systems and norms and laws in lots of other parts of the world, but in Sudan, it's reached a kind of nadir.

Willie Geist (48:29)

Lindsey Addario we were so inspired to honor you with the Torch of Freedom Award at the annual 3050 summit in Abu Dhabi. You have a long career of capturing images of humanity amidst war, crisis, famine. How did this experience, shooting the images for this piece compare?

Alyssa Slotkin (48:53)

Well, I mean, ironically, I covered Darfur, and I covered the war 20 years ago in some of the exact same locations. And so to be back there and to cover millions of displaced once again, people going hungry, there's been a famine declared in al Fasher, places we cannot access. As journalists, you know, it's pretty devastating to see civilians once again paying the price. Being injured in mortar attacks, being injured in airstrikes. You know, it's extraordinary that this is happening all over again 20 years later.

Willie Geist (49:30)

Yeah.

Katty Kay (49:31)

So, Ann Applebaum, if you look at foreign aid from the United States, and this is one place to look at it, but you could make the case hotspots around the world. What is the impact of the United States and in some ways of the west pulling back from being the leader, as you say, of that liberal world order?

Donald Trump (49:51)

So it's interesting. We were there. I was there in February and March, which was really just the beginning, when people were just beginning to feel what the cut in USAID would do. And I think people were initially expecting that it wouldn't matter that much because the US Government was saying, no, we're going to continue humanitarian aid in places like Sudan. But actually, what people were already seeing, you know, the US was giving something like 40% of the world's humanitarian aid, but was also the main source of logistics, of statistics, of record keeping. And as those things were already beginning to disappear, remember Elon Musk destroyed USAID overnight, people would suddenly discover their trucking company didn't work anymore or they didn't have access to the website that they'd been using to get information. And you could feel people, almost everybody we met was talking about the ways in which the aid system was starting not to work. And there were a few really upsetting, concrete examples. We were in a children's hospital in Omdurman, outside of Khartoum. And I talked to a young doctor who was in charge of malnourished children. And I saw some of the children, and these are very tiny, very weak children. Their mothers are very weak as well. There's a way you can save them, and you need to give them a special nutritional supplement. And this doctor, young doctor, very, very, you know, well educated, very good English, was saying to me, he'd heard, of course, that U.S. americans were thinking of cutting aid. And he was, you know, he heard that it was because of waste. And he was trying to explain to me, look, we don't waste it. We. We use it. I'm very careful how I use it. We, you know, we have some in the storeroom, and we bring it out carefully. And I thought, you know, I was ashamed that somebody should feel they had to say that to me, that, you know, we're not wasting the aid. I mean, of course they're not wasting it. I mean, they. They're desperate for it. And the other example was we saw a lot of these mutual aid groups. They're called the emergency response rooms, who. These are ordinary Sudanese people, many of whom were activists in the past, who build soup kitchens and they feed people, again, very simple food. We're talking about bean soup once a day. And we met in a couple of places, we met people who said, yeah, well, we used to serve people, you know, every day, and now we can only do it a few times a week. You know, we've had cuts in food deliveries because of. And this was, again, because of usaid. So these are pennies. You know, this is a tiny amount of money that is not getting to these very, very local organizations that are feeding people just subsistence food. So the idea that USAID was some kind of grotesque, wasteful project, and that wasn't helping anybody. I mean, this was just raw. And in Sudan, you see it and feel it in a very graphic and upsetting way.

Jim Vande Hei (52:41)

Lindsey, why do you think the images of people starving in Sudan and particularly related to the cuts in USAID haven't broken through into the American consciousness? It's one of the things that has surprised many of us, I think, ever since USAID was shut down. I mean, look at the president's response to children in Gaza. Seems to be that now America looks like it might be taking over the aid mission in Gaza, because he doesn't like those images. I had thought when USAID was shut down that a lot of Americans would see the pictures of children not getting USAID food or of children starving and they would respond, but they don't seem to. And I think it's because the images haven't come through. Why do you. Why do some images from some war zones cut through and some don't?

Alyssa Slotkin (53:32)

Well, I think the easy answer is the access. I think journalists, much like in Gaza, have not had easy access to many of the places where there is famine. No journalists have been able to get into Al Fasher, one of the places that was officially declared a famine in Darfur. Access across Sudan has been extremely difficult in order to do this story. It took us months and months of logistics and arranging and arranging permits. And, you know, most journalists don't have the resources to be able to spend months just trying to access a place. So I think the images, A, are not easy to get and B, are just not out there. We don't see them. And so in order for there to be a movement, people have to see images repeatedly. They have to see strong images, and they're just not easy to access in a place like Sudan.

Willie Geist (54:25)

Staff writer for the Atlantic, Anne Applebaum, thank you so much. Her new cover story is available online now and her book, Autocracy Inc. Will be released in paperback on August 26th. We'll have Ann back to talk about that. And Pulitzer Prize winning photojournalist Lindsey Addario, thank you as well. Thank you both for this piece, for your work.

Joe Scarborough (54:50)

On this MSNBC presents the chart topping original podcast, the Best People with Nicole Wallace. This week she sits down with MSNBC reporter Jacob Soborov.

Mika Brzezinski (55:01)

It's about the connection that you and.

J (55:03)

I have and our colleagues have, but.

Mika Brzezinski (55:04)

It'S also about the connection and the trust that people place in us at a time when trust in media, I think is at all time lows.

Joe Scarborough (55:11)

The Best People with Nicole Wallace listen now. For early access ad, free listening and bonus content, subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts.