Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20170622

Lies, and we will go through each and every one of them for you. Good morning, everyone. Its thursday, june 22nd. Welcome to morning joe. With us we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle, senior Political Editor and White House Correspondent for the huffington post, sam stein, former aide to the george w. Bush white house and state department, solis jordan, jon meacham, and capitol hill correspondent kasie hunt. And joe will be back tomorrow. Were going to get to the fact check of the president s rally in a moment. Theres a lot of work to do to get all of those facts checked, willie. Yes. There were quite a few doozies in there. Its kind of uncomfortable. Well its so uncomfortable to see a president i mean, can you remember having to go through lies after lies after lies from the president of the United States . Well, i know were going to talk about this in a second, but the one interesting thing is the one piece of legislation he can tout, which is the Health Care Bill that passed through the house and he held the rose garden ceremony for hes now turned on. He says its too mean and he doesnt like it. All of those people clapping in the rose garden, what are they doing now . Theyre panicking, because they have no idea what this president will actually put his force behind. He has no idea, i think, what he wants and expects from a Health Care Bill himself. So, the president is 100 correct, we have never seen this before, ever. But first, lets get right to health care. Were just hours away from seeing the Senate Republicans draft Health Care Bill. Many of those who will be voting on it are still waiting for details themselves, and yet, Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell will seek a vote before the end of the week. A discussion draft of the bill is reported to include deep cuts to federal medicaid funding, a repeal of all aca taxes, except on highcost cadillac plans, and it eliminates all federal funding for planned parenthood. It is believed to differ from the house bill in that it ties federal insurance subsidies to income, not age, provides more gradual cuts to the states expanded medicaid funding than the house bill, while offering deeper longterm medicaid cuts. And unlike the house, it will let federally Subsidized Health plans cover abortions. Last night at a rally packed with thousands of people in cedar rapids, iowa, President Trump said he had urged senators to craft a more expansive bill than the one passed by the house. I think and i hope cant guarantee anything but i hope were going to surprise you with a really good plan. You know, ive been talking about a plan with heart. I said, add some money to it a plan with heart. But obamacare is dead. Cant guarantee anything. Im going to put that in the category of truth. Well fact check the lies, but that is true. As of tuesday, the white house could not say how much the president knew about the contents of the Health Care Bill. According to the Washington Post, a discussion draft circulated yesterday amongst aides and lobbyists. Republicans will receive the legislation in a meeting this morning at 9 30 a. M. , which Lindsey Graham commented on yesterday. Senator graham, do you have any insight into the Health Care Bill right now . No, ill see it, well know if its a boy or a girl tomorrow about 9 30. Okay. Kasie hunt, this is your beat. What the heck is going on on capitol hill . What are people saying . Well, its actually, honestly, a lot tougher to answer those questions because of the way this process has been going explain the process. Reporter you walk through a long list of policy issues, i think. You know, you can boil this down to the tension between conservatives. They want this to spend less money. They want to lower premiums more dramatically. What that means is cutting benefits, essentially letting Insurance Companies offer less. But thats balanced against senators who are really worried about particularly premiums for older americans. The house bill said, look, if youre not yet covered by medicaid but youre in your 50s, youre going to pay many times more for insurance. So there are some fixes in this. I think, like the reality is, covering this bill on capitol hill has been a bit of a bizarre experience, because normally, any of us have a sense, you know, you can talk to Lindsey Graham in the hallway, you say, hey, where are you on this right now, and they actually have some semblance of an answer for you. Right. Reporter and were not going to be able to get senators to answer that direct question until 9 30, i think, this morning. K street has seen a lot more of this, the lobbyists who have been working on it, than a lot of these senators. I think were going to know probably by the end of the weekend whether this is a vote thats potentially going to be successful, that actually has a chance, or if its going to fall flat on its face. Sam. So, the process has been a mess, i think, objectively, very secretive. Its odd, considering the criticisms that happened in 2009, obviously, and hypocritical. But if you step back and you look at the broad out lines of this, i think you can safely say and should say that in the end, this is a bill that will fundamentally take away Health Care Coverage from millions of americans. Right. It will have sweeping cuts to medicaid, much larger in the long term than the house bill, it will weaken protections by giving states flexibility. You will end up with millions of more people uninsured. And i just worry that were getting bogged down in a process here, that were talking about process too much to the detriment of saying, look, we have a Health Care System right now thats problematic but fundamentally has expanded Health Care Insurance coverage for a lot of people. Lets not compare the senate bill against the house bill. Lets compare the senate bill against whats currently reality. What we have, got it. And what youre going to end up with is something along the lines of potentially 20 Million People more uninsured. And i find it unbelievable that were talking about this in an age where were also talking about a National Opioid epidemic. I mean, this is happening across the country. Millions of people are suffering from this Opioid Epidemic, and what were about to see is the senate vote on something that will crush the most fundamental way to deal with the Opioid Epidemic, which is the expansion of medicaid. The New York Times, frontpage story, opioid more people died last year than were killed in vietnam. More people were killed by opioids than died in vietnam. That will give you some perspective. Thats for starters. Other thing about the Health Care Bill, the bigger truth is, the harsh truth is that this is the end of the obsession with obamacare. Thats all this Health Care Bill is, giving them the right to go home for july 4th recess and say i voted to kill obamacare. They dont care whats in it. They dont care about the impact its going to have on millions of americans. They just want to be able to say we killed obamacare. Yeah. So, with all of that in mind, lets now go back to the president s rally, okay, and really listen to him. The president made a lot of claims last night and told a lot of lies in the process. When im signing for the xl pipe li pipeline and the dakota, i said who made the pipe . But i put close, handwritten, it said, anybody builds a pipeline in the United States will use American Steel and fabricate in america. No more taking it over on boats. 54 muslim nations coming together. I said, for me to go, im only going we had to negotiate if you spend billions of dollars, billions, on having things manufactured in our country with our jobs and our workers for your country. And hundreds of billions of dollars was spent and given to American Companies who are going to make American Products and send those products over to the wealthy countries of the middle east. I mean, hundreds of billions of dollars. Last week, a brandnew coal mine just opened in the state of pennsylvania. First time in decades decades. Weve reversed it. But they built these studios cnn. [ booing ] whoop hey, the camera just went off. I cant imagine. Its covered live. Their camera just went off. I cant imagine why. They love what were doing. You see what were doing. You see what weve already done. Homebuilders are starting to build again. The time has come for new immigration rules, which say that those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themselves financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years. [ cheers and applause ] and well be putting in legislation to that effect very shortly. Now, the Paris Agreement, i could tell you stories, i could give you stats, i could go on all day. Its a catastrophe if we would have agreed. And they all say its nonbinding. Like hell its nonbinding. Mm. Where do we begin, willie geist, on those facts that he claims to spew out to the audience thats just screaming at him because its his base . Well, lets tick through some of those that we saw there. The president says he signed hundreds of billions of dollars worth of agreements with middle eastern countries, but some of those deals were put into place, youll remember, under president obama, and many are preliminary and require further negotiation. The president said a coal mine just opened in pennsylvania for the first time in decades. Last year the states Crescent Mine was being put back to work following weaker Coal Production in asia. The president suggests cnn shut off its cameras when they didnt like what he was saying. Its a line hes used in the past at rallies, including a month before the election. Last night fox was the only network to take the president s comments in full. President trump said homebuilders are starting to build again. As reuters reported last week u. S. Housing starts hit eightmonth low. The president pointed to stricter guidelines for how immigrants can receive welfare. As nbc says, those requirements, or something similar to them, do already exist. The president attacked the paris climate deal saying like hell its nonbinding. The New York Times q a from last month reads the deal is nonbinding. And daniel dale of the toronto star pointed out many of the falsehoods. He said the level of lies rivaled some of the president s 2016 campaign speeches. So, jon meacham, im curious what this is reminiscent of, what could this be reminiscent of if you had to make a parallel, a president telling networks to turn off their cameras, a president telling untruths, lies to an audience of supporters that basically treat those lies as applause lines. The best example is at a loss. Yeah, well, the best example is president nixon, and even that is a little tricky no dork pun intended. There was a sense during, really starting in the spring of 73, forward into the summer of 74, when president nixon it was unclear at some point whether he was lying to us, lying to himself as well as to us. Right, but can i broaden the question . Sure. What is this reminiscent to even outside of the United States . Well, youre alluding to fabled and terrible totalitarian regimes in europe in the 1930s, i think, and the idea that and also even now regimes like north korea, where the dear Leader Speaks and were all supposed to salute. What are the parallels . That what the dear leader says has to be followed, whether its associated with reality or not, whether its grounded in reality or not. Its a cult of the state. Its a cult not of religion and neighborhoods and civic life and an obligation to facts as we perceive them and through common sense, which was a huge part of really the american experiment in the beginning. We werent supposed to just listen to kings and clerics who for 1,000 years had had a monopoly on dictating the terms of reality. The point of the United States was that we all had the ability to look at reality, make our own decisions and participate in a collective enterprise to govern ourselves. Im going to go to elise now. It seems it was easier for you to make a parallel outside of the United States than one inside, which to me is extremely disturbing and potentially catastrophic. Am i ahead of my skis . Am i overstating this . No, i think its factually correct to say that this is a president who lies constantly. The empirical evidence is there. The difference is that i believe that a lot of Trump Supporters, his most diehard supporters see these as little lies. They see them as lies that dont matter, whereas, you know, they put up with the Political Class for so many years that has been lying about big things. You know, president obama saying you can keep your insurance. Now they see it as president obama was spying on the incoming president s team. But this is how Trump Supporters perceive it. Yeah, but its pernicious, right . You have a series of falsehoods pebbled at these rallies and then you combine it with what is objectively a crackdown on the press corps, whats happening at the white house right now, where you dont have life briefings, you dont have audio or video coming from the briefings. Sean and sarah dont talk to the press as much as their predecessors. Trump hasnt done an interview in weeks. And what you end up is with an incredibly altered set of realities theyre not really realities being broadcast to voters with little bit of ability to actually question it and probe it, and i think thats a really pernicious development for the american discourse. Do you think the people there in iowa sgathgathered last nigh iowa, the crowd handpicked, really selected just for the president s amusement and entertainment, do you think they view him as the president of the United States or as an element of theater that theyre used to . Well, it depends. I mean when you talk to some of these people and you do ask them about what are i would say objectively are conspiracy theories or mistruths, you will find out that a lot of them fundamentally do believe it, that theyre told it, they think its true. Its hard to dissuade them of mistruths, and that may be because of partisan biases, but some of it is because hes altered the way we consume information. Its very difficult this day in age to say this is an objective fact when someone is challenging the press corps, limiting their access, bashing the press corps constantly. It creates what i just said is a pernicious development. We downplay it because its weird and funny and theatrical its not. But its not. Its weird and its disturbing. But i think we need to consider that this is not going away and that this is the new normal. Thats right. Its not. I totally agree. And you look at georgia six and what that was. An incredible amount of money, turnout out the wazoo, and a weak republican candidate still won. Granted, jon ossoff was engaging, but he was a weak candidate. Youre reminded watching that how comfortable he is in those settings, too. Well, thats his cabinet meeting, willie. Everybodys saying youre great, youre great, no matter what he says. Thats where hes comfortable. You get the sense that the past six months have been more difficult he said that out loud, that this job is a lot harder than i thought it would be. And for him to stand out there in Campaign Mode reminds him that people support him and people love him and hes emboldened by, as elise said, going 50, 40 in the special elections. He said maybe all this noise is media noise. The voters are on my side is what he believes after that. Disturbing condition, but thats just so, President Trump last night was accompanied by his Economic Team whose wealth, he said, was a requirement for the job. What . What . We have the legendary wall street genius, wilbur ross here. Hes our secretary of commerce. We have gary cohn, who is the president of goldman sachs. In fact, somebody hes the president of goldman sachs. He had to pay over 200 million in taxes to take the job, right . So, somebody said, why did you appoint a rich person to be in charge of the economy . [ laughter ] i said no, its true. And wilburs a very rich person in charge of commerce. I said, because thats the kind of thinking we want. You know, really, because theyre representing the country. And i love all people, rich or poor, but in those particular positions, i just dont want a poor person. Does that make sense . Does that make sense . If you insist, ill do it, but i like it better this way, right . So, i mean, that could have been 2015. That could have been two summers ago, donald trump in his element, soaking up the crowd, talking about how rich his buddies are. 2017, blessed are the poor. Its amazing. Any other person in politics who would Say Something like that would have their career crushed, and Donald Trumps just going to, like, skate by it. Wow. Oh, my god. Are you speechless . I am. Okay. I am. Lets just theres just something a little bit twisted about that, thats twisted in a way thats hard to dissect. Look at the Health Care Bill. Look at the Health Care Bill. Who are the victims in the Health Care Bill . And here we are. The elderly, the poor. There are a lot of us, a lot of leaders on capitol hill that, i mean, we have to look within as to why were here. Democrats are not doing so well. Correct. Its a massive failure. Massive failure on both sides. Still ahead this morning, the top two senators on Homeland Security committee, chairman ron johnson and the Ranking Member, Claire Mccaskill from the Intel Committee, congressman eric schwall well and congresswoman kathleen rice, who is calling for a new democratic leader in the house, and congressman tim ryan, who challenged nanci pelosi for that role. And tonight, joe and his band are going to be playing at the cutting room here in new york city. Thats exciting. The special permissiformance is mark the release of his ep mystified. Doors open around 7 30 p. M. Its going to be fun first, lets go to bill karins with a look at the severe weather. We have the heat wave, mika, severe storms, and Tropical Storm cindy, which made landfall overnight. There are some impressive bands of thunderstorms well away from the center of the storm, over biloxi, mississippi, panhandle of florida, also montgomery, alabama. The storms now moving onshore and its inland. Then its going to track towards arkansas during the day today and tonight into tomorrow into areas of tennessee. The flooding is going to be the issue. We have 13 Million People at risk of flash flooding, including all of the state of mississippi now. These red boxes show you where we have flash flood warnings taking place from those impressive feeder bands i showed you earlier. So, the rainfall forecast, once you get into the pinks and reds, thats 4 to 5 inches of rain in the next few days. That follows the center of the storm through shreveport, southern arkansas, watch out around memphis, also nashville tonight into tomorrow. And then with that feeder band coming up here through central alabama, we also have the threat of getting some isolated flash flooding and even tornadoes this afternoon. And as we look into friday to saturday, watch out around kentucky and even southern portions of ohio. You could get some flooding. As far as severe storms go, areas of the south with potential tornadoes, chicago, straightline winds and thunderstorms for you. I might as well say, there is some good weather out there today, through the great lakes and the northeast, beautiful, summerlike day with temperatures in the 70s and the 80s. So, new orleans so far has missed a lot of those big feeder bands. Doesnt look that bad at all, but you could still see a stray, strong thunderstorm this afternoon with an isolated tornado threat. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Excuse me, are you aware of whats happening right now . Were facing 20 billion security events every day. Ddos campaigns, ransomware, malware attacks. Actually, we just handled all the priority threats. You did that . We did that. Really. We analyzed millions of articles and reports. We can identify threats 50 faster. You can do that . We can do that. Then do that. Can we do that . We can do that. Can we do that . 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There are some areas that i wont get into that i think are very definitely that he cant interfere with, probably some hell tell us that theres some that we cant interfere with. Obstruction area, possibly the president obstructing justice . I think that everythings on the table. That was Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley talking about how he and special Counsel Robert Mueller will try to keep from bumping into each others russia investigations. Both the house and Senate Intelligence committees are pressing ahead with their investigation into russias meddling in the 2016 election. Former Homeland Security secretary jeh johnson was on capitol hill yesterday to testify in front of the house Intel Committee. He told members there is no doubt that russia was behind the efforts to interfere in the election. In 2016, the russian government at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself orchestrated Cyber Attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election. That is a fact, plain and simple. My question for you, sir, just to be abundantly clear, will the russians be back . I think we have to assume, for all the reasons that have been discussed here, that the russians will be back and possibly other state actors and possibly other bad cyber actors. Its incredible the president doesnt address this and even admit or accept that its happening. Jeh johnson will be our guest on morning joe tomorrow. On the senate side, Intel Committee members heard from Security Experts, who said a number of states were the target of russian Cyber Attacks. As of right now, we have evidence of 21 states, or electionrelated systems in 21 states that were targeted. But in no case were actual vote tallies altered in any way, shape or form . That is correct. Experts there would not say which states were targeted, but that is absolutely chilling. You know kacie hold on, and then sam. But kacie, theres nothing going on on capitol hill, nothing to cover. Youre covering so many different stories there. Reporter yeah. What is the sentiment around these hearings as sort of the drip, drip, drip of how big and how potentially bad the russia connections to our election system may be . Reporter well, look, i think that some of the facts of this are occasionally lost in the politics of it. Right. Reporter and weve gotten to the point where republicans on capitol hill democrats are obviously more vocal about it, but the president s sort of refusal to engage in the conversation at all because he keeps bringing it back to the Election Results in 2016 i thinks frustrating for everybody in both parties, because you know, these hearings were some of the lower on the blockbuster list than others, but they still contained and you just showed these explosive revelations. So i think theres pressure ramping up. You saw this in the sanctions bill as well. I think theres a real sense in congress that something needs to be done. And frustration with the president for not being on board. Yeah, i talked to a former fbi agent about this, and what surprised him was that when trump met with comey in those muchdiscussed meetings that were part of investigations and hearings, trump never actually asked him about this, that the conversation quickly moved to the Flynn Investigation and to other matters when the sort of existential threat thats confronting the president is the vulnerability of our democratic system of governance our country. And the fbi is looking into that, and trump didnt seem all that interested in discussing it with comey. And it is an existential threat. Yes, there is no evidence of votes altered directly by the russians, but that doesnt mean that they couldnt have altered votes. There is immense vulnerability to our electoral system right now. And from everyone who talks about it, we do not have the infrastructure or the investments or the modern system to guard against that, and i dont think were sufficiently addressing it as a nation. I was talking with someone about why he might not want to address this, and it seems that it could be, if one were to believe that this president had narcissistic tendencies, that he is so concerned, jon meacham, that this will make people think that his Election Results are not, you know, not accurate, and so he doesnt want to talk about russia because it makes him feel like people are undermining his win. And yet, hes overlooking, hes overlooking the threat to this country. Can you talk about the magnitude of how potentially catastrophic it would be if our elections were hacked, were tampered with, if they were successful next time . Youre exactly right. And i think there really seems to be two explanations, possibly, for his refusal to fully engage the question, and one and to continue to say, well, were not really sure. One is he allegedly knew something about it, which is what the investigation is largely about. The other is what you just put very well, which is this narcissistic question that any question about the election undermines his legitimacy, which drives him totally bonkers. Yep. Thats a technical historical term. Gibbon used it a lot back in the day. But the thing about and i think this goes to our question about facts and truth and why we cant agree on things. People, particularly on the right right now who want to say that all this, the russia stuff is exaggerated. All right, 21 states. So, they got in. They were in the house. They didnt take anything. But how would you feel if you came home tonight and you knew that a burglar had been wandering around your house . Right, thats exactly it. And a lot of these states didnt even know that this was happening. Of course, yeah, exactly. Reporter thats another thing we learned yesterday. Some states were aware, but others were learning for the first time that, hey, you know, our Election Results were potentially tampered with. I mean, thats stunning. This is so deeply disturbing that i think a normal president would have probably made a statement, the white house would have put out a statement saying these revelations are deeply disturbing, we intend to look into this with the full resources of our Intelligence Community. And instead, this president goes to iowa, where he won, to talk to people who voted for him about things that arent true. And nothing im saying is trying to be extreme or crazy. Thats just the facts. But he makes life so much more difficult for himself because it would be politically xee expedient just to show one little iota of concern about this and say, wow, we need to protect the integrity of our election. And you could put something in there, if it is about insecurity, that is a nod to the legitimacy of your election. You could say im deeply disturbed about this. Right. This is the core of our democracy. Im glad no votes are changed and they didnt actually have an impact on the outcome of the election, but this is something that must be investigated. The true oddity here is that if he had won the popular vote and lost the electoral college, hed be a far happier man today. He likes to be popular. But this is really this is serious. Coming up, congressman tim ryan came up short in his challenge to Nancy Pelosis leadership last year. Is he about to get another shot . The ohio democrat joins us next on morning joe. Buried just under the surface, the answer to it all. We want to need each other. At crowne plaza we know Business Travel isnt just business. Theres this. a bit of this. Why not . Your hotel should make it easy to do all the things you do. Which is what we do. Crowne plaza. Were all business, mostly. Whuuuuuat . Rtgage offer from the bank today. You never just get one offer. Go to lendingtree. Com and shop multiple loan offers for free free . Yeah. Could save thousands. You should probably buy me dinner. Pappas eatin steak tonight. No. At lendingtree, shop and compare loan offers from top lenders and in just 5 minutes, you could save thousands. Lendingtree, when banks compete, you win. I love date night. Somebodys ruining it. Yeah. Well you could leave if you wanted to . Hillary took almost all negative ads. The problem was, when people went to vote, they didnt know what she stood for, other than she was saying bad things about me. So, from the time i announced, ive been hit, hit, hit. Then from the time i got in, i thought, oh, this is going to be great, finally, were going to come together. They hit me harder, harder, harder. Theyve now learned, i think, that that doesnt work. 50. 50. Okay . It doesnt work. Thats President Trump last night in iowa saying republicans are 50 in special elections. The truth is theyre 40, but it still doesnt bode well for democrats. Joining us now from capitol hill, democratic congressman tim ryan of ohio. Youll remember, he mounted an unsuccessful challenge last year to Nancy Pelosis leadership in the house. Congressman, good to see you. Details, details, willie, whatever, you know . Oh, yeah. So, you wrote a post to medium yesterday thats getting a lot of attention. I want to read part of it. After the Democratic Party losses, you wrote Archie Parnell and jon ossoff were good candidates who ran solid campaigns. In the end, they were brought down by the national Democratic Party brand. Im tired of the excuses. Im tired of being told that weve exceeded expectations. I dont believe in moral victories. The only measure of success in political campaigns is victory. I dont believe everyone should get a trophy. Here is the truth the Democratic Party has a toxic brand, one that is worse than Donald Trumps in many parts of the country. It makes me sick to my stomach that my party that historically has done so much good is seen as disconnected and out of touch with workingclass families. We are heading into july, and i cant believe im saying this, but our party does not have a clear economic message. Are you kidding me . So, congressman, thats what you posted last night. Let me just ask you, if youve been in leadership, if youd won that election in november against nancy pelosi, what would you have done differently in georgia, for example, to get that candidate to victory . Well, you know, one of the strategies there was not to make it a national campaign, which we didnt, but in the end, i think a stealth ground game, a stealth get out the vote effort. We have a strong africanamerican population in that congressional district, and we came in very late in that district to try to get the turnout. And i think if we would have put a few more resources, not even that many, but a few more, we would have been able to get the 3,000 votes. We had a great candidate down there in Archie Parnell. He was a wonderful candidate. I went down to South Carolina and campaigned with him. But a little bit of money on the ground towards the end would have definitely got us home. And you know, we spent 20 millionplus in georgia and only a couple hundred thousand in South Carolina could have made the difference. So, what is the problem with the Democratic Partys brand . This is something youve been talking about as long as weve known you, for a couple of years now. What is the problem exactly and how do you go about fixing it . Well, we dont have a strong economic message. You know, when i was growing up, and youd ask my grandfather, my grandmother, you know, why are we democrats, and it was the democrats are for workingclass people. And weve lost that message. We are for so many people and we are for so many very, very important issues, willie, that im for. But the thing that ties, you know, africanamericans and latinos and the Lgbt Community and women all together is that we all want Economic Opportunity for our families, we all want an opportunity to grab the next rung in the economic ladder and people dont look at the democrats for this, small businesspeople dont look at the democrats for this, and we need to make sure that we have that message thats going to grow the economy and get people back to work, not this were going to train you for some job that may or may not come down the pike. Its, no, we need to rebuild the country, youre going to work now and well train you while youre hired as an apprentice to get you back to work. Those are the kinds of very simple, straightforward things we need to do. So, is there too much focus, congressman, on social issues in the Democratic Party and not enough on economic . Well, those issues are very important, and i dont think we should yield any ground at all on those issues because theyre vital to our society when youre talking about refugees, youre talking about a womans right to choose, when youre talking about voting rights. These are immigration reform. These are really important, but when youre going to be a national party, you need to have a national message. And whats the thing that binds all those groups together . Its an economic message. So, weve got to stand for those issues, weve got to fight for those issues, but the thrust of our message needs to be an economic one, because no matter whos hearing you, and you may be with them on the other issues, they know that youre talking about what theyre thinking about every day at their own kitchen table. So, congressman, lets talk a bit about part of the disappearing base of the Democratic Party, unions. Yeah. Every Election Year and every off Election Year, you have the heads of unions showed up with guys like you, people like you saying, yeah, were with the Democratic Party. The membership flees, large portions of the membership flees when it comes to actually voting for a democrat. How did you lose them . Well, i think just in general weve got a lot of challenges. Globalization was a huge challenge. Automation is even a bigger challenge coming down the pike. So, i feel like its those rank and file Democratic Union members that voted democrat for a generation all of a sudden said you guys arent really fixing my issue for me, you know, youre not making my life necessarily easier, youre not making things better. These factories in places like youngstown, ohio, or warren, ohio, used to have 16,000 people, now they have three. What have the democrats done . Thats why trump didnt really run as a republican. Thats why he pulled so many democrats. He ran as almost antiestablishment, anti both parties. So, mike, i just think we need a real economic message thats going to say, okay, how are we going to put these folks to work and how are we going to put them to work in real jobs that are needed and jobs that cant be outsourced to china. I talked a lot on this program about redoing our energy grid. Those jobs cant be outsourced. Laying google fiber and highend fiber lines around the country. Those jobs cant be outsourced. How do we get jobs outside from washington, d. C. , to smaller communities around the country, good, federal jobs . How do we get these people back to work . And lets come up with some creative ways to say, youre hired, youre going to get paid, lets rebuild the country. Congressman sam stein here. Lets just cut to the center of it. Republicans are crawling a bit after the Georgia Election that nancy pelosi is a burden on House Democrats. You see it with the campaign committees, you see it with kellyanne conway, talking about their glee with her being the minority leader of your party. Youve been a critic of pelosi. I mean, youre a fan, but youve criticized her as being at the top of the ticket. Can the democrats win back the house with nancy pelosi scheduled to be speaker, yes or no . I think it will be very hard, sam. I just you know, we can do it because its donald trump, but i mean, you think, what if it was john kasich or marco rubio . We would be in real trouble right now as a party, and we cant forget that fact. But i think its going to be more challenging, certainly. You see these commercials that tie these candidates to leader pelosi week in and week out in the last several months. That still moves the needle, you know . And so, were asking candidates in these deep, red districts to battle the Republican Party. Weve got a lot of energy in our base, which is very xooiting for a lot of us to see that on the ground, but youve got to beat the republican and youve got to carry this very toxic democratic brand on your back, too. Thats a tough thing to ask a candidate running for congress. Yeah. And so, weve got to figure that out. Kasie hunt . Congressman, the conventional wisdom here, if democrats were going to take back the house, has been essentially run to the center. I mean, thats what jon ossoff did in georgia. He tried to be kind of inoffensive to potential republican crossover voters, but your excitement, as you just pointed out, its on the left and people who are starting to say, i mean, people im even surprised by, saying look, we should be running on, say, medicare for all to energize those people. What is the answer if you guys want to take back the house next election cycle . Well, im a medicare for all guy, too, and i think making sure that, you know, if you could just buy into the Medicare Program, boy, that would simplify things. At least get medicare down to 55 or 50 so a lot of those workingclass people that mike was just mentioning that have left the Democratic Party would say, wait a minute, youre telling me i can buy into the Medicare Program with a meanstested fee that i need to pay . Thats a big issue that i think could help pull some of those people back. But i think its got to be very districtspecific. You know, when i came here in 2003 and we took the house back in 2006 and then had gains in 2008, we had a lot of prolife, pro Second Amendment members from the deep south. I mean, we had three members in mississippi, i think, we had two or three members in alabama, we had members in southern indiana, southern ohio. Weve lost all of those members. So in some sense, youve got to be economically progressive, youve got to be tolerant, but then, you know, you may disagree with the national Democratic Party on a few issues, and we cant just say to them, youre not welcome in the party. So, its got to be very districtspecific on some issues, but i think on the economic issues, on being economically progressive and being tolerant and inclusive, those are the two key pillars for me. Congressman tim ryan, always good to have you on the show. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you, mika. Thanks for having me. Still ahead, were going to talk to congressman Eric Swalwell, who is a pelosi ally, and congresswoman kathleen rice, who says the minority leaders time is come. Morning joe is coming right back. Whoooo. Looking for a hotel that fits. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over 200 sites to find you the hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazie, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. To find smarter solutions. To offer more precise and less invasive Treatment Options than before. Like advanced Genomic Testing and immunotherapy. See how were fighting to outsmart cancer at cancercenter. Com outsmart for her compassion and care. He spent decades fighting to give families a second chance. But to help others, they first had to protect themselves. I have afib. Even for a nurse, its complicated. And it puts me at higher risk of stroke. That would be devastating. I had to learn all i could to help protect myself. Once i got the facts, my doctor and i chose xarelto®. Xarelto®. 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Meanwhile congressman Steve Scalise is now listed in fair condition as he remains in the hospital following the attack. He even received well wishes from bono on capitol hill yesterday signing get well soon cards. Bono also paused his tuesday night concert to honor the injured congressman. Casey, you played in the game. How did you do . We won, 21. 21 . It was great to have the opportunity to stay thank you to crystal griner. I think this is a nice cap after this difficult long week, and to have her there was pretty special, i think. But we are going to get them again next year. I would like to thank senator cloveshar for the comments on the head ban i wore. Well see you next year. Great. Final thoughts from john . You have two hugely important stories unholding. You have the Health Care Bill which affects so many millions of americans, a huge part of the economy. People feel disenfranchised from that process. Dont know whats in it. People are going to be voting on it with a very quick turn around time. And you also have the cover of Time Magazine is bob mueller. Im pretty sure the president who keeps stacks of magazines when hes on it wont be handing them out. These things will be unfolding through a hot summer. Yeah. Were going to be having the editor of time on next hour. John, thank you. Casey hunt, thank you as well. Still ahead, republican senator ron johnson and Claire Mccaskill join us as the Health Care Bill is set to be unveiled for everybody to see. Maybe not. And ahead well talk act why some centrist republicans still have pause. Just moments away. Take the zantac it challenge pill works fast . Zantac works in as little as 30 minutes. Nexium can take 24 hours. When heartburn strikes, take zantac for faster relief than nexium or your money back. Take the zantac it challenge. Depend silhouette active fit briefs, feature a thin design for complete comfort. 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If you have a sudden decrease or loss of hearing or vision, or an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. Ask your doctor about cialis. It is great to be back in the incredible, beautiful, great state of iowa. Its always terrific to be able to leave that washington swamp and spend time with the truly hardworking people we call them american patriots. The truth is people love us, all of us. They love us. They dont get it. They havent figured it out yet. You know, theyre still trying to figure where all the voters came from. Those voters came out of the hills. These are hardworking. We have the hardest working, the smartest people, the toughest people. Theyre very lucky that our people dont protest. Believe me. Believe me. Theyre very lucky. That was President Trump last night back on the campaign trail enjoying every moment of rallying with thousands of people who support him and voted for him in cedar rapids, iowa. With a speech that stretched over an hour. Welcome back to morning joe. It is thursday, june 22nd. Joe should be back with us tomorrow. Still with us, mike barnicle, sam stein, elise jordan, and joining the conversation in washington, jake sherman. Good to have you on board, jake. Were hours away from seeing the draft Health Care Bill. Many of those voting on it are still waiting to read it. They want the details. And yet, Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell will seek a vote before the end of the week. End of next week. A discussion draft of the bill is reported to include deep cuts to federal medicaid funding, a repeal of all aca taxes except on highcost cadillac plans and it eliminates all federal funding for planned parenthood. It is believed to differ from the house bill in that it ties federal insurance subsidies to income, not age, provides more gradual cuts to the states expanded medicaid funding than the house bill while offering deeper longterm medicate cuts. Unlike the house, it will let federally Subsidized Health care plans cover abortions. Last night in iowa President Trump told his supporters he urged senators to craft a more expensive bill than the one passed by the house. I think, and i hope, cant guarantee anything, but i hope were going to surprise you with a really good plan. Ive been talking about a plan with heart. I said add some money to it. A plan with heart. But obamacare is dead. As of tuesday, the white house could not say how much the president knew about the contents of the Health Care Bill. According to the Washington Post, a discussion draft circulated yesterday among aides and lobbyists. Republican senators will receive the legislation at a meeting at 9 30 this morning. Jake sherman, is it physically possible to read a bill that covers a huge chunk of the economy in the amount of time thats going to be allowed . Well, senators are lucky they have a lot of staff. They have large shafs to go through this. This is going to be tricky. Once this lets put aside the senate for a second. The bill was crafted in secret. Its going to go over to the house in a couple weeks, and the political temperature could get hot for House Republicans who are going to be voting on a bill that was crafted in secret after years of decrying bills that were crafted in secret. I think that Mitch Mcconnell is trying to minimize the time this thing lays out there because he knows it will get smacked around by every outside group and senator. I think if you listen to mitch mechanic come publicly, he says it this bill will pass or wont. It doesnt sound like hes terribly whetted to the idea of jamming this through his chamber if it cant get through. Lets count votes. Republicans have 52 in the senate. They can afford to lose three. If they get to 50, mike pence comes in and it passes. You have several not happy with what we laid out. Conservatives who think like rand paul it doesnt go far enough. This is not the repeal he promised to his voters. And on the other side people worried about the roll back of medicaid expansion. It covers many people in states. How does Mitch Mcconnell cobble those people together . Our reports tells us its difficult. I just dont want to discount Mitch Mcconnell who typically only crafts bills that have the exact ingredients to get it through the chamber. I always think hes up to something. Hes always working behind the scenes to assuage concerns. I think the more perilous situation if it gets through the senate is going to be in the house where its just conservatives are going to be angry that its withbeen watere down. Moderate members will be upset about cuts to entitlement programs. I think this is a very long way from getting to the president s desk, and i think i was up on the hill yesterday during votes and house and Senate Republicans were telling us they dont really want to walk the plank for a president who behind the scenes calls their legislation mean and doubts what they do. So i just think that political dynamics are tough for President Trump right now. And this is of his own making. This is not because of some resistance or anything of that nature. This is of his own making. Yeah. Its funny. I was talking to a democratic lawmaker about this too. Trump calling this legislation mean is sort of an overlook political element of all this. Its an attack on the rights itself. If they pass this bill, trumpcare, they will run an ad saying even the president himself has called this legislation mean. Imagine how effective that is in a district where this bill already is pulling in the 20s. Polling in the 20s. It seems even with all that, and jay, correct me if im wrong, it seems like this thing is going to pass because of inertia. No one wants to be the one to stop the repeal and replace. They want to pass the buck. The house passed it to the senate. The senate probably wants to get it out of its chamber. Is it possible it passes because no one wants to be the lawmaker to stand in the way of repeal and replace . Thats what theyre betting on. I want to go youre never wrong, sam, so i wouldnt correct you. The smartest thing youve said this morning, jake. Thanks. I think what you mention second down right about the mean element. And i think this is going to put aside health care for a second. As the president tries to pass the agenda, infrastructure, tax cuts, republicans will think remember when we took a Political Risk for this guy and then he dumped all over us in private. Why would we do that again . Thats what i hear all over the hill all the time. The president misplayed his card on that element. Its just its beyond me. I dont understand why the president would whip a bill, hold a celebration and dump all over it to a republicans in a larm meeting. I think youre right. This is going to be a defining point of getting his agenda through the hill. Well, i think its hard to explain a lot of what he does, and its true to form from what weve seen. Saying this you know, just because it happens to be true. I dont think theres a lot this president has done that has made any sense to the average american. Well, and as the president says, health care is very complicated. Who had any idea how complicated health care was going to be, and he hasnt shown since coming into office he wants to throw himself into the issue. My question for jake is can you tell me what is the time line were expecting on the Congressional Budget Office to score this bill . Because a lot of senators rightfully so, want to know whats in the bill, and they want to know what theyre voting for and how theyre reordering one sixth of the nations economy. They say tomorrow. The Congressional Budget Office score is the wild card. They are the nonpartisan Agent Organization that judges these things. We reported a couple weeks ago that mcconnell was sending pieces of the legislation to the cbo, the Congressional Budget Office to try to understand the totality of the bill before he put it out. They have an idea what the score will look like when it comes tomorrow. This is a quick turn around. A cbo score friday and a vote next week. Remember, this thing is going to hang out over the july recess. Member of congress are going to go home and hear about it. A bad cbo score plus a bunch of noise from conservative and moderate senators could create a toxic environment for this bill. I think issue and also i want to mention one other thing. The narrative that democrats were secretive in their process and republicans are being better than them is completely off. I was there in 09. My weekends were ruined. There were a lot of hearings. Republicans are doing something completely antithetical to everything theyve preached for the last decade. I think its important to keep that in mind amid all the noise. And both the house and Senate Intelligence committees are pressing ahead with their investigations into russias mettling in the 2016 election. Former Homeland Security secretary jeh johnson was on capitol hill yesterday to testify in front of the house Intel Committee. He told members there is no doubt that russia was behind the efforts to interfere in the election. In 2016 the russian government at the direction of Vladimir Putin himself orchestrated Cyber Attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election. That is a fact plain and simple. My question for you, sir, just to be abundantly clear, will the russians be back . I think we have to assume for all the reasons that have been discussed here that the russians will be back and possibly other state actors and possibly other bad cyber actors. Mr. Secretary, was our democracy attack third down past election . Yes. By who this. The russian government. And would you agree the first step to solving a problem, have you heard of this quote or idea, is to acknowledge that a problem exists . Sure, yes. Why do you think that President Trump will not state that russia mettled in our elections . Youd have to ask him, sir. Joining us now, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on intelligence, Eric Swalwell of california. You just saw him questioning jeh johnson. I am at a loss that the president has no reaction, no acceptance of this, no acknowledgment of this, and hes out campaigning among his base in iowa. Am i way off here . Whats going on . Good morning, mika. Leadership in our country starts at the top. And as we approach the next election, if we dont want to have a hearing in 2019 or after the president ial election in 2020 because another country mettled in our elections, we need our president to put in place reforms to protect us from ever being in this position again. If he wont acknowledge we were attacked or who was responsible, its going to be hard for us to do that. The investigation is going on in multiple pertaining to russia. If the president does not acknowledge that russia is involved and the president cozies up to russia, and confirms that he wants to relieve tension, et cetera, et cetera, by firing the fbi director, and if the president s campaigning among his base, its kind of hard not to think that he might be in on some sort of scheme. Wouldnt one have to ask that question in ones mind . Thats one of the questions were per suing, whether any u. S. Persons worked with russia. Theres differing views. We want to be able to run an honest investigation to answer that question for the American People. But ill also suggest this. We know what the russians have gotten out of helping donald trump in their interference. They have gotten unfettered access to the white house where theyve been Given National security secrets. They have a president who diminished the role of nato and entertains the idea of reducing sanctions. What have we gotten from russia . Theyre talking about shooting down american planes . Theyre continuing to mess around in syria in a way that is violating human rights and theyve done nothing to come out of ukraine. Right. So isnt the concern even if hes not if if the administration in some way or the campaign was not colluding, that they were at least staying out of the way . At the very best for the president and his team, its bad judgment to draw our country and his advisors so close to a foreign adversary thats not our friend. The real question we have to answer through this investigation is whether anyone on his team as the fbi is pursuing was working with the russians. Congressman, its good to see you this morning. Theres so much focus on President Trump and what he and his campaign may or may not have done. But sometimes we forget about the core issue were talking about which is a Foreign Government attacking the way we elect our representatives. Attempting to change the country. Now that you know so much as a member of this Intel Committee about what happened, how concerned are you that this is going to happen again . In other words, have we done anything since november to secure ourselves better from being attacked again . Weve done nothing and made ourselves more vulnerable because were divided. Because were divided, its not only russia sharpening their knives. Its other countries with similar capabilities as well as your run of the mill cyber criminal who will see this as an opportunity to involve themselves in 2018. I thought the most striking thing that jeh johnson said yesterday, he was the first witness to tell us this in our investigation, was that the cost of russias interference is it prevented us from doing the business of the American People, and he referenced health care. Were not able to do our jobs fully for the people who sent us here because weve mired in the russian mess. If we all, other than the president , recognize that something happened here, there was an attack. There was other testimony that 21 states were attacked though no votes were changed, why arent alarm wells going off . Why hasnt anything been done . Leadership starts at the top. If the president isnt allowing his agencies to give the resources states are going to need and if the states hear from the president that the real issue is three to five million illegal votes that occurred, it creates confusion. You think the president is preventing further defense against foreign attacks on our Electoral Systems . I believe the president s tone and the president s disbelief of the evidence is keeping us from unifying. After september 11th, we sought to understand through an independent commission what our as a ruler inabilities were and what we could do to close them. Those were put into place. Thats the kind of unity our country needs from our nations leaders now. Congressman, we understand and respect your commitment to this investigation and to getting to the truth of what happened last fall publicly so all americans know about it publicly. But why not focus all of these investigations into one . Into the Mueller Investigation which seems to be more independent, less reliant on politics, more focussed. Why not do that . We want mueller to have all the resources he needs. His job is a criminal probe. As a former prosecutor, i want to stay out of the way of what he has to do so he can have an investigation thats not compromised. Our job is to report back in a broader sense to the American People how we were so vulnerable, whether any u. S. Persons were involved. But most importantly, as i said, so make the structural changes that are needed so were never in a position like this again, or to make the American People more aware of about what these social media trolls and the dissemination of fake news and how states can use their own intention services to really put out and peddle fake news to try to influence our vote. Thats our job. Thats not bob muellers job. I want to ask you about the sentiment about the concern that leader pelosi should not head up the party. You stand with her. Tell us why. I do. I hate losing. And losing earlier this week didnt feel too good. However, theres a fight to be waged in washington right now, its not with ourselves. Its against the republicans mean Health Care Plan as described by President Trump. We took a district that seven months ago we lost by 23 points. We came within a couple points this past tuesday. That tells me that the battle field should be expanded as we go into 2018. If we stand up for people for their jobs and kids and health, that we can take back the house in 2018. Okay. Congressman, thank you. Lets turn now to a democratic congresswoman, kathleen rice. She may have a different view. Good morning. Thank you for having me. What do you think needs to be done from the top down with the Democratic Party for success in the future . Well, ive been very clear we need leadership change. Theres no question about it. I sat in a meeting the other day, and i listened to a rationale as to how we should be happy as a caucus because we didnt lose as badly this past two days ago as we did a year ago. But were still losing. And thats my concern. We need to find a different path. We need to have a vision. Where do we want to go, and we need too much message which is how are we going to get there . And he just in the last couple of months, weve seen democratic losses in five different special elections. When are we going to wake up . Jake sherman has a question. Jake . Congresswoman, who would you put at the top of your party . A lot of people talk about pelosis fund raising prowess, her allies oftentimes say shes criticized because shes a strong woman. What do you make of the attacks and who do you think should be the top House Democrat . Well, thats not going to be for me to decide, but we have to as a caucus, have this conversation. And im not going to pretend this is an easy conversation to have. Its not easy speaking truth to power. Nancy pelosi was a great speaker. She is a great leader. Her time as come and gone. Shes a great fundraiser, but if the money were raising through her leadership is not helping us win election, we have to have this difficult conversation now. Congresswoman, do you think thats unfair to nancy pelosi . What youre adopting is the framework of the conservatives that criticize her . Shes out of touch from San Francisco. Do you agree and whats your rationale . Weve been losing since 2010. Thats it. Hold on. You said you need new leadership at the top. Presumably you mean someone else to lead the party other than speaker pelosi. The question is do you believe shes an out of touch San Francisco liberal, and if not, why are you adopting the republicans framework for her . I do not believe shes an out of touch frisk liberal. I believe she is not the leader of the Democratic Party. Do i think its fair . Do i think its fair that the republican play book over the last four election cycles has been attacking nancy pelosi and demonizing her . No. Thats not fair. For is it accurate, but guess what. It works. Theyre winning. So we have to address that reality. And to address it, you think the best thing to do is just cut the cord . There comes a time in every leaders life when they have to know its time to leave and usher in the next generation of leaders. And i personally believe that that time is now. I thought the time was last november. And i was very vocal about it. This is not personal. I have enormous respect for nancy pelosi, enormous respect, but i want to win. It is not fun being in washington when youre in the minority. I think that were about to see the senate unveil a Health Care Plan that is going to take 24 Million People its going to leave 24 Million People without health care. Its going to decimate the drug treatment for for addicts in the middle of the biggest heroin, Opioid Epidemic weve ever seen. Its going to increase five fold costs for seniors when their costs should be shrinking. I can complain about the Health Care Bill theyre going to release today, and i will, but it would be much better and we would be more effective as a party if we actually had a seat at the table, and right now we dont. The way we get a seat at the is to take back the majority and speak to the American People and protect middle class voters. And people all across this country who need to be represented. Congresswoman kathleen rice, thank you for being on the show. Thank you. God to have you joe tweeted about it yesterday. Setting pelosi up as a scapegoat does democrats no good. Get a candidate that matches the district and you win. Jake, thank you so much. And still ahead on morning joe, republican senator ron johnson and Claire Mccaskill join us. They dont often agree on policy, but both think the gop needs to slow down on the health care vote. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. I realize that ah, that 100k is not exactly a fortune. Well, a 103 yeah, 103. Well, let me ask you guys. How long did it take you two to save that . A long time. Then its a fortune. Well, im sure you talk to people all the time who think 100k is just pocket change. Right now were just talking to you. I told you we had a fortune. Yes, you did. Getting closer to your investment goals starts with a conversation. Schedule a complimentary goal Planning Session today. Lwhos the lucky lady . Im going to the bank, to discuss a mortgage. Ugh, see, you need a loan, you put on a suit, you go crawling to the bank. This is how i dress to get a mortgage. I just go to lendingtree. I calculate how much home i can afford. I get multiple offers to compare side by side. And the best part is. The banks come crawling to me. 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Com myaccount i think recently you gave the chan that President Trump would be reelected 55 . Incumbents always havage advantage an the Democratic Party is going to be torn apart by the left and the centralists. Now, the Republican Party is also being torn apart between the centralists and the hard right, but they have rented a candidate. The candidate rented a party, and they will probably without much of a fuss get behind donald trump, i would assume, assuming he runs for reelection. Michael bloomberg on why he thinks the odds are good for trump to win a second term. I agree. I think right now hes on the glide path going toward it. I think 20118 is looking good for republicans. Democrats are going to be divided. They arent going to be focusing their attention just on one district like with georgia six. I think if the democrats dont get it together, theyre setting up trump for more success. Thats a dose of reality right there. Speaking of campaigns, sam, your podcast candidate confessional is back. Finally time for my plug. This is good. Its really good. Great idea. Tell us more about it. What can we expect . Its an oscar winning podcast. They do with that podcasts . I think so. The concept is simple. In every campaign there is a winner but theres also a loser. Oftentimes we hear from the winners but the losers from v the best stories. We sit down with the person who lost to go over the obstacles they had, the toll it took on their family, the emotional undertones of politics. This season were doing things differently. In addition to candidates, yes talk to people who pushed legislation an lost. We sat down with senator chris murphy to go through what it was like to push for gun control and come up short . It was an emotional episode. We talk to barney frank over the controversy that ended up being dont ask dont tell. We have great episodes this season. Im proud of the work we did, and i encourage everyone to go to i tunes and subscribe. Coming up, majority leader says theres plenty of time to review the Health Care Bill. Ron johnson isnt sure about that. He joins the conversation next on morning joe. Whats the story behind Green Mountain coffee and fair trade . Lets take a flight to colombia. This is boris calvo. Boris grows mindblowing coffee. And because we pay him a fair price, he improves his farm and invest in his community to make even better coffee. All for a smoother tasting cup. Green mountain coffee. Finding the best hotel price is now a safe bet. Because tripadvisor searches over 200 booking sites so you save up to 30 on the hotel you want. Lock it in. Tripadvisor. Tech when you schedule with safelite autoglass, you get a text when were on our way. You can see exactly when well arrive. Im micah with safelite. Customer thanks for coming, its right over here. Tech giving you a few more minutes for what matters most. 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Why are my constituents not allowed to see the details of whats about to happen to hair lives . Thats bring destruction. I think its one of the most terrifying things thats about to happen. And only one man knows its f mysteries. Mitch mcconnell and the chamber of secrets coming to america much too soon. Yikes. Support among the Republican Caucus on the Health Care Bill appears to be wavering. Tthe wall street journal find oppositions by those who feel left in the dark by the process. After hearing details senator rand paul said i promised voters i would vote to repeal obamacare. Everything sound like obamacare light. Shes joined by mike lee, tom cotton and ted cruz. Meanwhile the senators from West Virginia and ohio both from states that expanded health care under obamacare, along can w Susan Collins from maine have expressed concerns about the roll back. Portman and cop toe have been pushing far treatment for opioid addiction which was not in the draft circulating yesterday. It seems stunning given the numbers in this country. Joining us from capitol hill, another senator with his own concerns. Chairman of the Homeland Security committee, ron johnson of wisconsin, what are your concerns . Well, let me read you a quote. Youve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care, and then the people out there busting it sometimes 60 hours a week wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half. Thats what were dealing with, a system that did not work where premiums on the individual market have doubled in some cases tripled. Were 20 trillion in debt. Cbo says over the next 30 years another 129 trillion of debt. Its not easy to deal with the system. The Broad Spectrum within the republican conference in terms of getting it under control is difficult. From my standpoint, what ive been saying, we should be repairing the damage done by obamacare and working with our democratic colleagues to transition to a system that does work. The restrains, the growth in health care costs, brings down the premiums driven higher and works for the American People. Id love to do that in a bipartisan fashion. Hopefully once we get past this phase and we do, by the way, need to stabilize the collapsing Insurance Markets collapsing because of obamacare. Ive been suggesting to do that the last two months. Im going to need enough time to find out whats in the bill and find out if its continue use improvement from today. I think a lot of democrats agree obamacare needs improvements for sure, but the reality now with this process, what is possible . Well, were probably going to have to go through this process first. I didnt agree that we should automatically do this reconciliation. I think we should reach out to our democratic colleagues and point out the reality and say this is broken. President clinton said its a crazy system. Lets fix it. For the benefit of the American Public, that wasnt the decision made. We did reconciliation by ourselves. Here we are. Were going to have to go through the process. Whatever we pass is not going to solve the entire problem. It might be better. Hopefully it will be better. Its the only way ill vote yes. Then well reach out to democratic colleagues and hopefully fix it long term. I have a a few simple questions. Have you seen the bill . No. But ive been in the room, and i understand the issues being discussed. Somebody has to write the bill and put down the baseline legislative text. Thats whats going to happen, and now were going to show people. What ive been insisting, i need enough time, my constituents need enough time to provide input before i provide a yes vote. You havent seen it and other senators havent read it because you havent seen it until account this morning. What do you say this weekend or any weekend when youre Walking Around wisconsin and someone comes up to you and says have you seen the bill j ron . And you say no, i havent seen the bill, and then they say, well, arent you supposed to see the bill . Youre a United States senator. How come you havent seen it . Because its just been written, and its going to be released today. Now well have a chance to review it. Ill insist we have enough time to satisfy myself and get the input from my constituents that in the end i believe this is improvement with the craziest system in the world as president clinton was talking about. Because its the craziest system in the world, dont you think in terms of Due Diligence that you, you are allowed, you should have received the opportunity to study it and have comments on it all the way through the process rather than have a clock now put on the vote that youre going to cast . Well, i dont agree with the clock. Well see how the process unfields under this point. But i will not vote yes until im satisfied this puts us in a better place tomorrow than we are today. Senator johnson, good to see you this morning. Youve been open about the Opioid Crisis affecting your family. You lost a member of your family to an overdose. There are a lot of people including republicans concerned that the rollback of medicaid will prevent funding for opioid coverage. That places halve vravaged by t epidemic will no longer get their care. What can you tell those people . This is an unbelievable crisis were in. Ive been up front. We have to address the demand side through a concerted longterm pr effort, education effort like we have with tobacco. This is going to span decades. I keep hearing about cuts in medicaid. I dont have the numbers yet, but what ive seen, again, i probably define cuts differently. Cuts to me is actually reduction in spending from year to year. I dont think anybody is proposing any cuts. I dont believe anybody is proposing taking anybody off medicaid. Were talking about capping enrollment at some point in time in the future. I think theres been a lot of rhetoric, but lets get the information. Lets get the numbers. I come from a manufacturing background. Generally a problem solving process comes with defining the problem. It seems like thats the last step here. I dont think thats a good process. Im going to demand the information before i make my decision. Senator, there are people like Governor John Kasich who said they cant afford the lose the medicaid roll back. Do you believe if it passes with the rollback all the people covered now will somehow get coverage inbetween, the people including people in your family who require opioid coverage . Well, willie, i come from the private sector. Ive been here six years. I have yet to see a problem where we have a hearing and a solution from a government witness isnt more spending. That isnt always a solution. There are other things to do. I dont believe were going to be cutting spending. We may be restraining the growth in spending so we dont continue to mortgage our childrens future. Unsustainable spending. Were trying to do a little bit j just a little bit of entitlement controlling so we make medicaid sustainable in the future. If you think the Great Recession was bad when the housing bubble bursts, wait until the debt bubble bursts. Thats an anvil that hangs over my head. Were mortgaging our childrens future. Were talking about existing spending with medicaid. They enjoy under the Affordable Care act. Can you guarantee under the proposed plan that those people will be taken care of immedia immediate immediately . From what ive seen, i dont see any cut in spending where theres a reduction year over year. You are talking about obamacare which is basically medicaid in the hostage the individual markets are collapsing because of the social costs put on a very small population. Weve got to analyze it and do the root cause. I am concerned about the forgotten men and women, people in wisconsin who always has Health Care Coverage but they work hard. They make money. They dont qualify for subsidies. Now theyre without insurance because they cant afford it because of obamacare. Those are the forgotten men and women im concerned about, and im concerned the senate bill didnt do enough to bring down the premiums that were artificially increased because of the market distortions caused by obamacare. I feel like were playing a game of semantics. The cbo states the house bill would see an 800 billion reduction in medicaid spending over the course of a decade. You could call it a cut or a recounting change, but it is what it is. Its not my question. My question is from what you understand of the senate bill, and i know your understanding is preliminary and what youve seen about the house bill which legislative language is produced, can you point to one thing in either of the legislations that would actually help us fight this Opioid Epidemic . Let me point out what we did in wisconsin. We did not do medicaid expansion. Instead the governor went for a waiver. We covered every wisconsin person under the poverty line. We went from according to Wisconsin Department of health services, we went from about 94 of wisconsin people up to 96 . Wisconsin we had ourselves pretty well covered. We have ourselves pretty well covered now without the medicaid expansion. Every republican senator that im aware of vowed and told their constituents and got elected on the basis they were going to repeal this monstrosity of obamacare, the craziest system in the world. What about the question about opioids . What about my question about anything specific in either of the legislations, the house bill or the preliminary draft of the senate bill, can you point to anything specific to help address the Opioid Epidemic. We passed a bill that provides funding for different types of projects. Different types of pilot programs to try to address this program. But just spending money does not necessarily solve the problem. I think in temples of the opioid process, we need a longterm pr and education effort. This goes into our schools, and we spend a lot of money on schools as well. Senator, before you go, your Homeland Security, but Homeland Security secretary testified before another committee yesterday clearly accepting, addressing, and certain that russia tried to hack the election, russia tried to do a lot of Different Things to impact the election. Whats your response to that and do you think the president should address and accept that this has happened. Russia has been doing this around the world. Take a look just watch the trial in this didnt surprise me at all. I was one of the senators briefed prior to the election by the Obama Administration including jeh johnson and james comey, and they told us, and the American Public knew because it was reported that russia hacked into the dnc. Basically the result, enim not going to say what was said in the secure brief other than to tell you the administration was asking us to convey they had it covered. They were aware of it. Controls were in place. And the election would carry forward. So if youre not surprised by this go ahead. Then you certainly must understand how deeply concerning this is . Yes. Do you think the president should accept and address the fact that this is happening . We all must. And we held a hearing just ahead in our Homeland Security committee about Cyber Security. Why dont you think he does . Youll have to ask the president. I take it seriously. We held our sixth hearing on Cyber Security trying to figure out the overregulation in terms of government trying to help businesses protect their cyber assets. 40 of their time is spent complying with federal regulations. Were trying to reduce that regulatory burdenen so businesses and government can spend most their time securing their cyber assets. Thank you for being on the show this morning. Thank you. And still ahead, senator Claire Mccaskill joining us. And Time Magazine says someone is not telling the truth. Well reveal the new cover story on President Trump, jim comey and the federal investigation at the foot of white house steps. Morning joe is coming right back. We are making progress like nobody can believe. These people are being driven crazy. Crazy. I mean, they have phony witch hunts going against me. They have everything going. And you know what . All we do is win, win, win. We won last night. I cant believe it. Theyre saying what is going on. Hey dad, come meet the new guy. The new guy . What new guy . I hired some help. He really knows his wine. This is the new guy . Hello, my name is watson. You know wine, huh . I know that you should check vineyard block 12. Block 12 . My analysis of satellite imagery shows it would benefit from decreased irrigation. I was wondering about that. Easy boy. Nice doggy. What do you think . Not bad. You on a perfect car,rch what do you think . Then smash it into a tree. Your Insurance Company raises your rates. 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Its in response to sanctions imposed by the Treasury Department earlier on 38 russians and first related to the invasion and annexation of crimea t. Planned talks by the Deputy Foreign minister and u. S. Under state tom shannon were to paik take place in st. Petersburg, they were meant to put a band aid on u. S. Relations, joining us, clint lawson, editorinchief of Time Magazine nancy gibs. Robert mueller with the title the lie detector someone is not telling the truth. Good morning to you both. So, nancy, talk a little about the peels. What do we learn about bob mueller here . Well, could there possibly be an an tag nis more designed to draw the president more crazy, you have a bronze star and purple heart, whose career is a Public Servant up against the private sector guy who tries to find out how the corridors power works, which mueller understands completely. The idea of these two men kind of faced off against each other with such wildly different views of government and how institutions function. That is what i think is important here. Is were starting to hear these attacks already about mueller, this representative of the deep state. When he was fame, he was universally acclaimed for his intelligence and integrity. I think it raises the question of whether we think its possible for there to be an honest broker who can conduct an independent inquiry at all. That much more important in a way than the truth about contacts with russia or why james comey was fired. It was about inpuning the integrity or the integrity of Public Servants, of the Intelligence Community the Justice Department of kind of bake institutions of democracy. That feels like where we are right now as we are watching whether or not this investigation is seen as being a legitimate inquiry to get to the bottom of something important or whether it is, as the president has said, a witch hunt. What is that line of being an agent of the deep state from newt gingrich. A few weeks ago after he praised the choice initially. Beyond that comment, mustth it aside, republicans, democrats, when the choice was made, this is a guy that can do this. You worked under him at a time, how do you think she approaching this investigation . Hes going to do what he has done and he will brock olock ou d. C. Noise and stick to the investigation. I find it odd if d. C. Right now, everyone has to be a team player. You cant have independence, which is very strange. It used to be democrats an republicans would see mueller as an independent force thats good for the country. Somehow a deep state is Public Servants that have given their career of their life to the country have some other agenda other than to support the American People. I dont like that connotation put forth. I think it will ultimately hurt them in the end. It definitely hurts our country. So President Trumps former National Security adviser mike flynn had the shortest tenure ever and has emerged as a Central Point of focus in this investigation. How do you think that mike flynn factors into the Ongoing Investigation . I think if theres anything we should remember is general flynn did serve this country with great distinction for several years, many decades. So it seems as if hes made some mistakes or potentially made some mistakes or compromised himself in relationships, if there is anybody that can ultimately come around and help the investigation understand whats going on with the russian angle and what those connections are, i would hope it would be him. I think it would. I have much more faith in him than say man a for the. I want to ask about this point. Its valid and scary in a way, there is no faith in institutions that Something Like this can be so politicized and people can entrench, go to their respective bases so quickly on mueller on any investigation. And you probably dont have the answer to this but how do you end up restoring the semblance of trust in the system of institutional norms, how do you get back to a place where someone like mueller can say thats incredible. I think you are asking exactly the central question. I want you to solve our existential crisis. You have 15 seconds. How mueller conducts this investigation, i share a faith his record suggests it will be conducted with you know tremendous integrity and he will be very clear about what he finds and doesnt find when the time is appropriate. So he is in a position to go along in a way of restoring that trust. I have no doubt millions voted for this president at the frustration and the dysfunction of what they seen in washington and wanting to see it disrupted. I think what we are wanting to find out in the month ahead, is this the disruption they were voting for and looking for . Is it the kind we are seeing now and again these basic institutions are being challenged as not being legitimate in the way they conduct their roles and so i dont know whether there is a top down in the sense of someone like mueller in how he performs if a bottom up. But this is the territory we will be exploring in the next months. It could not be more important. There are reports that President Trump was trying to shoot down mueller. Nancy gibbs, thank you very much. Clint watts as well. We will be looking at the next issue of Time Magazine with bob mueller on the cover. The Paris Agreement its amazing how the people of this country get it because the press covers it so unfairly. The Paris Agreement would have cost americans millions of lost jobs and billions and billions of lost dollars and put us as a permanent economic disadvantage. China doesnt kick in until 2030. President trump says the climate deal doesnt kick in for common until the year 2030. That is not true, like some of the claims he made last night in iowa. We got a fact check ahead on morning joe. David. Whats going on . Oh hey thats it . Yeah. Everybody two seconds dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance. Through the Tuition Assistance program, every day mcdonalds helps more people go to college. Its part of our commitment to being americas best first job. Rumor confirmed. Theyre playing. What . We gotta go. Where . San francisco. When . Friday. We gotta go. [ tires screech ] any airline. Any hotel. Any time. Go where you want, when you want with no blackout dates. 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So few president s, few, just have to be a little careful, because theyll say headline, donald trump lies to the people of iowa. I dont want it. But very few have done what weve done. Thats true. Thats true. He is right about one thing the headline this morning is that President Donald Trump lied to the people of iowa. The president was back where he seemingly feels most comfortable, on the road. The fifth Campaign Style event hes held since becoming president all in states that he won. Last night, he derided washington culture, relived his november victory, tout what happened he says are his achievements in office, all with a heavy dose of exaggeration and outright lies and we will go through each and every one of them for you, good morning, everyone, its thursday, june 22nd. Welcome to morning joe. With us we have columnist and contributor mike barnical, White House Correspondent for the huffington post, sam stein, former aide to the george w. Bush white house and state department, and historian president john meachham, capitol hill spoernt kasie hunt. Joe will be back tomorrow. We will get to the fact check of the president s rally in a moment. There is a lot of work to do to get those facts checked, willie. There were quite a few doozies in there. Its so uncomfortable to see a president , can you remember, having to go through lies after lies after lies from the president of the United States . I know we will talk about this in just a second t. One piece of legislation he cant tout which is the Health Care Bill that passed through the house, hes now turned on. He says its too mean, he doesnt like it. Under all those people clapping in the rose garden, what are they doing now . Theyre panicking. Because they have no idea what this president actually will put his force behind. He has no idea i think what he wants and expects from a Health Care Bill, himself. So the president is 100 correct, we have never seen this before, ever. But first, lets get right to health care, where just hours away from the Senate Republicans draft Health Care Bill. Many of those who will be voting on it are still wait fogger details, themself, yet, Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell will seek a vote before the end of the week. A discussion draft is reported to report deep cuts to federal medicaid funding a. Repeal of all aca taxes except on high cost cadillac plans and it eliminates all federal funding for planned parenthood. It is believed to differ from the house bill in that it ties federal insurance subsidies to income, not age, provides more gradual cuts to the states expanded medicaid funding in the house bill while offering deeper longterm medicaid cuts and unlike the house, it will let federally Subsidized Health plans cover abortions. Last night at a rally packed with thousands of people in cedar rapids, iowa, President Trump said he had urged senators to craft a more expansive bill than the one passed be i the house. I think and i hope they i cant guarantee anything, i hope we can surprise you with a plan. I have been talking about a plan with heart. I said, add some money to it. A plan with heart. But obamacare is dead. I cant guarn tee anything. I can put that as truth. The president couldnt say how much he knew about the contents of the Health Care Bill. According to Washington Post a discussion circulated among aides and lobbyists, republican senators will receive the legislation in a meeting at 30 this morning, which Lindsey Graham commented on yesterday. Mr. Graham, are you reviewing the Health Care Bill now . No, ill see it tomorrow about 9 30. Okay. Casey hunt, this is your beat. What the heck is going on, on capitol hill, what are people saying . Well its honestly a lot tougher to answer those questions because of the way the process is going. Explain the process. You walk through a long list of policy issues i think. You can boil this down to the tension between conservatives. They want us to spend less money. They want to lower premiums more dramatically. What that means is cutting benefits, essentially letting Insurance Companies offer less. But thats blends against senators who are worried about particularly premiums for older americans. The house bill said, look, if you are not yet covered by medicaid but you are in your 50, you will pay many more times for insurance. There are some fixes in this, the reality is covering capitol hill has been a bit of a bizarre experience, normally, any of us have a sense, you can talk to Lindsey Graham in the hallway, they actually have some sell balance of an answer semblance of an answer for you. K street has seen a lot more of this the lobbyists working on it than a lot of these senators. I think we will know by the end of the weekend whether this is a vote that will be successful, whether it has a chance or it will fall flat on its face. Sam. So the process has been a mess, very secretive, its odd following the criticism in 2009 and hip clihypocritical. I think you can safely say and should say that in the end this is a bill that will fundamentally take away Health Care Coverage from millions of americans. It will have sweeping cuts to medicaid, much larger in the long term than the house bill. It will weaken states with flexibility. You will end up with millions of more people uninsured. And i just worry that were getting bogged down in a process question here, were talking process too much to the detriment of saying, look we have a Health Care System right now thats problematic, has expanded Insurance Coverage for lots of people. Lets not compare the senate bill against the house bill. Lets compare it against current reality. What you will end up with is along the lines of potentially 20 million more uninsured. I find it unbelievable that we are talking about this in an age where we are talking about a national opoid epidemic. Opioid epidemic. They will crush the most fundamental way to do the upgrade to the Opioid Epidemic, which is medicaid. The last point, more people died, were killed vietnam. More people were killed by opoids than died in vietnam. Thats for starters. The bitter truth is, the harsh truth is this is the end of the obsession with obamacare. Thats all this Health Care Bill is. Giving them the right to go home for july 4th recess and say i voted to kill obamacare. They dont care whats in it. They dont care about the impact lit have on millions of americans. They want to say we killed obamacare. So, with all of that in mind, lets now go back to the president s rally. Okay. And really listen to him. The president made a lot of claims last night and told a lot of lies in the process. When im signing for the xl pipeline and the dakota. I said, by the way, who made a pipe . I put a little clause handwritten, it said, anybody builds a pipeline in the United States, will use American Steel and fabricate in america. No more taking it over on boats. 54 muslim nations coming together, i said, for me to go, im only going, we had to negotiate, if you spend billions of dollars, billions on having things manufactured in our country with our jobs and our workers for your country and hundreds of becomes of dollars was spent and given to American Companies who are going to make American Products and send those products over to the wealthy countries of the middle east. I mean hundreds of billions of dollars. Last week, a brandnew coal mine just opened in the state of pennsylvania. The first time in decades, decades. Weve reversed it. But they built these studios, cnn whoop, hey the camera just went off, i cant imagine. Its covered live. Their camera went off, i cant imagine why. They love what were doing. You see what were doing. You see what weve already done, Home Builders are starting to build again t. Time has come for new immigration rules, which say that those seeking admission into our country must be able to support themself financially and should not use welfare for a period of at least five years. And well be putting in legislation to that effect very shortly. Now the Paris Agreement i could tell you stories, i could give you stats. I could go on all day. Its a catastrophe if we would have agreed. They all say its nonbinding. Like [ bleep ] its nonbinding. Where do we begin, willie geist on those facts that he claims to spew out to the audience, thats just screaming at him in his face. Well, lets tick through some of those we saw there. The president said he signed quote hundreds of billions of agreements with middle east countries. Some of those were put into place under president obama. Many are preliminary and require further negotiation t. President said a coal mine just opened in pennsylvania for the first time in decades. Last year the states Crescent Mine was being put back to work following weaker Coal Production in asia. The president suggested cnn shut off its cameras when they didnt like what he was saying, its a line he said in the past. Last night fox was the only network to take the president s comments in full. President trump says Home Builders are starting to build again, reuters reported, quote, us u u. S. Housing starts hit eight month low t. President pointed to new, stricker guidelines for how immigrants can receive welfare as nbc says, quote, those requirements or something similar to them do exist t. President attacked the paris climate adeal saying, quote, like [ bleep ] its nonbinding. The accord says it is nonbinding. Daniel dale said the level of lies rivalled some of the president s 2016 campaign speech. John meachham, im curious what this is reminiscent of if you had to make a parallel. A president telling networks to turn off their cameras, a president telling untruths, lies to an audience of supporters that basically treat those lies as applause lines. Yeah the best example is the president nixon and even that is a little tricky, nor pun intended. There was a sense during really this starting in the spring of 73 forward into the summer of 74, when president nixon, it was unclear at some point whether he was lying to us as, leading to himself as well as to us. Right. Can i broaden the question . What is this reminisce september to even outside of the United States . Well, we are alluding to fabled and terrible totalitarian regimes in europe in the 1930s i think. And the idea that and also even now, regimes like north korea where the dear Leader Speaks and were all supposed to what about the parallels . That what the dear leader says is, has to be followed, whether its associated with reality or not. Whether its grounded in reality or not. Its a cult of the state. Its a cult not of relinlen and neighborhoods and civic life and an obligation to facts as we perceive them and through common sense, which is a huge part of really the american experiment in the beginning. We werent supposed to just listen to kings and clerics who, for a thousand years, had had a monopoly on dictating the terms of reality t. Point of the United States was that we all had the ability to look at reality, make our own decisions and participate in a collective enterprise to govern ourselves. Still ahead on morning joe senator Claire Mccaskill joins the conversation. And next, testifying on xishlg unlike President Trump, he has no doubt the russians hacked the election. Well play that for you. Former secretary jay johnson joins us tomorrow, by the way. And tonight, joes band will be playing here in new york city. The special performance to morocco joes new mp released. Titled mystified. Well be right back. [ music playing ] i was having a good round, and then my friend, sheila, right as i was stepping into the tee box mentioned a tip a pro gave her. No. Yep. Did it help . It completely ruined my game. Well, the truth is, that advice was never meant for you. I like you. You want to show me your swing . Its too soon. Get advice thats right for you. Investment Management Services from td ameritrade. Todays Senior Living communities have never been better, with amazing amenities like movie theaters, exercise rooms and swimming pools, public cafes, bars and bistros even pet care services. And theres never been an easier way to get great advice. A place for mom is a free service that pairs you with a local advisor to help you sort through your options and find a perfect place. A place for mom. You know your family we know Senior Living. Together well make the right choice. You and in this simple everyday act, we see. When we give, we receive. Theres some areas that i wont go into that i think are very definitely that he canter fear with, probably some hell tell us that theres some that we cant interfere with. Is obstruction one of those areas possibly is the president obstructing justice . I think that everythings on the table. That was Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley talking about how he and special Counsel Robert Mueller will try to keep from bumping into each others investigations. Both the house and senate gel jens committees are pressing ahead with the russian meddling in the 2016 election him former homeland secretary jay johnson was on capitol hill yesterday to testify in front of the house Intel Committee. He told members there is no doubt that russia was behind the efforts to interfere in the election. In 2016 the russian government at the direction of Vladimir Putin, himself, orchestrated Cyber Attacks on our nation for the purpose of influencing our election. That is a fact plain and simple. My question for you, sir, just to be abundantly clear, will the russian business back . I think we have to assume for all the reasons that have been discussed here that the russians will be back and possibly other state actors and possibly other bad cyber actors. Its incredible the president doesnt address this and even admit or accept that its happening. Jay johnson will be our guest on morning joe tomorrow. On the senate side, Intel Committee members we heard from Security Experts who said a number of states were the target of russian Cyber Attacks. As of right now, we have evidence of 21 states electionrelated systems in 21 states that were targeted. But in no case were actual vote tallies altered in any, way, shape or form . That is correct. Experts there would not say which states were targeted but that is absolutely chilling. Casey, hold on, then sam, but casey, theres nothing going on, on capitol hill, nothing to cover, you are covering so many different stories there. What is the sentiment around these hearings as sort of the drip, drip, drip, of how big and how potentially bad the russia connections to our elections system may be . Reporter well, look, i think that some of the facts of this are occasionally lost in the politics of it and you know weve gotten to the point where republicans on capitol hill, democrats are obviously more vocal about it. But the president s sort of refusal to engage in the conversation at all because he keeps bringing it back to the Election Results in 2016. Its frustrating for everybody in both parties. Because these hearings were some of the you know lower on the blockbuster list than others, but they still contained and you showed these explosive revelations. Look, i think there is pressure ramping up. You saw this in the sanctions bill as well. I think there is a real sense in Congress Something needs done and frustration with the president for not being on board. I talked to a former fbiing a about this. What surprised him is that when trump met with comey in those much discussed meetings that were a part of the investigations and hearings, trump never actually asked him about this. That the conversation quickly moved to the flint investigation, to other members, when the sort of existential threat thats confronting the president is the vulnerability of our democratic system of government and the fbi is look nook that and didnt seem all that interested in discussing wit comey. It is an existential threat. Yes, there is no evidence of votes altered directly by the russians, but that doesnt mean they couldnt have altered those. There is an immense vulnerability to our electoral system and from everyone that talks about it. We do not have the infrastructure or investments or modern system to address that. I dont think we are sufficiently addressing it as a nation. When you say you are inviting us, i we heard you, mr. Ing is, say wed love your support, for what . We dont even know. We have no idea whats being proposed. Theres a group of guys in a back room somewhere that are making these decisions. That was senator Claire Mccaskill two weeks ago in the republicans effort to rewrite health care. She joins the conversation straight ahead on morning joe. We, the device loving people want more than just unlimited data. We want unlimited entertainment. So we can stream unlimited action. Watch unlimited robots. Watch unlimited romance. If you are into that. But we also want more like. Unlimited hbo. Can i stop dying now mark . No cant do mi amigo. Its unlimited. Besides you are really good at it james. Dont settle for any unlimited data plan. Only the at t unlimited plus plan comes with hbo included at no extra charge. How to win at business. Step one point decisively with the arm of your glasses. Abracadabra. The stage is yours. Step two choose la quinta. The only hotel where you can redeem loyalty points for a free nightinstantly and win at business. Isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves to amaze his audience. Great show. Here you go. Now hes added a new routine. Making depositing a check seem so effortless. Easy to use chase technology, for whatever youre trying to master. Isaac, are you ready . Yeah. Chase. So you can. Deartheres no other way to say this. Its over. Ive found a permanent escape from monotony. Together, we are perfectly balanced. Our senses awake. Our hearts racing as one. I know this is sudden, but they say. If you love something set it free. See you around, giulia with el come back to morning joe senator Claire Mccaskill joins us. First, bill karins is tracking several weather. I want to show you lake charles louisiana, right at the center of scindy is over the to of. Water is up, you see the marina, too. So here is where lake charles is educated. You see the storm overtop of them. We are under a tornado watch. That is the concern through the day today is what happens with the tornadoes. Yesterday we had waterspouts off the shore. They looked like this, theyre weak tornadoes. They spin up quickly. You can see they tend to do damage. Thats the concern today, weak tornadoes throughout the southeast, these bands as they move on shore. Back to the maps. We take it through saturday morning the biggest concern flash flooding. Isolated total, the most concerned, northern louisiana and along the mississippi river. I mentioned the tornadoes. Thats why we have the slight risk of storms here. Its a cold front for you. How about 27 Million People still under that heat warning. Areas of the west, 113 in phoenix. There is great weather in the northeast. D. C. Is probably harder at 93 degrees. Hopefully, we will get through today. That Tropical Storm cindy is through the deep south. One of the best weather days of the year. Low humidity, 80 degrees, you are watching morning joe. Senator Claire Mccaskill joins the rounds table up next. Have you seen the newly republican Health Care Bill . I have not. Have you . I have not. Why are you asking him . Hes a tv pundit. Youre a senator. Whats that spot on my xray . I dont know, do you . Oh my gosh, joining us, Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Committee Democratic senator Claire Mccaskill. Good to see you. Good morning. Heres President Trump yesterday in iowa. He said democrats will never support any Health Care Bill. I want to hear your response, first, listen to him. If we went and got the single greatest Health Care Plan in the history of the world, we would fought get one democrat vote because theyre obstructionists. Theyre obstructionists. The we came to you and said, heres your plan, you are going to have the greatest plan in history, and youre going to pay nothing, theyd vote against it, folk folks. I mean im not sure how to formulate a question out of that. But your response . Thats dumb. This is dumb. Of course, we want to fix health care. Many of us have been trying for several years to put fixes in place that would stabilize the individual market. But our colleagues were interested in using obamacare or aca as a political 2 x 4, they wanted to win elections with it. A health care card, obviously, we made mistakes and things do need to be fixed . Sure. But this notion that we dont want to work with them, i think i have, you know, hes every cabinet person he puts up, many of us have voted for several of them, i think i voted for more of his cabinet nominees than i voted no we want to work with him on infrastructure. Theres not obstructionism going on here, there is a failure of this administration to forward enough nominees to keep us busy and there is also a failure of the republicans who want to work with us on either health care or tax reform. So a draft of the senate Health Care Bill will be released online at 11 00. You guys get to see it for the first time, i guess republicans do at 9 30. When will you be able to get your eyes on it . Whats your plan in your office to try and fet your head around this thing . Well be all hands on deck trying to digest what we get some time before noon today. I know the democrats are going to gather on the floor at about the time that well finally get a look at what theyre proposing. We remain very concerned, as the amendment process is going to be limited because of the rules of reconciliation that theyre using. Trz very worrisome we will have such limited debate. Its very upsetting were not having hearings, were not able to change the bill in committee as the republicans did on the Affordable Care act. So we will be looking at it. One thing we know for sure, its going to be similar to the house bill. This is a tax cut for the very wealthy, paid for by cuts for Health Care Money in the United States of america. Sam stein. Senator, hi. It looks like a 5050 proposition at this point that the senate will pass their Health Care Bill with strictly republican votes. You can quibble with the percentages here. About a couple months ago, there was some talk, led primarily by for bill cassidy about putting together some sort of compromised legislation that obviously wouldnt give democrats what they want and wouldnt be in places like obamacare. Democrats made the conscious decision no not partake in those talks. You have to take it fully off the table before we join the table. Was that a mistake . You might end up with a strictly republican off bill. You could have had something far more moderate but you chose not to do it. Im not sure we would have had something far more moderate. There were not more republicans interested in avoiding the repeal and replace reality. So im not sure that was a viable alternative. What is a viable alternative if this bill fails, if they make changes in the senate and pass it and its not acceptable to the house, because remember, they have no ma gmargin for errr in the house either. This is a razor thin effort they are trying to put together. They dont object it to be a bipartisan or a excise. Then i think if it fails, wooer in a really good place to come in and fix, my bill, idahof to see us get a vote on is allowing people to have the option. If they dont have an Insurance Company in their county, let them buy on the same exchange with their subsidies members of congress use. Our stats are all over the country. These are national plans. What an elegant fix that people could come and use the same process that members of conand their staff use to get health insurance. I think that would be a very difficult bill for people to vote no on. Billy geist, good to see you as always, you acknowledged that obamacare is not perfect. takes have been made in the development and implementation of it. As you know, blue cross, blue shield, of kansas city pulled out costs going up in of the counties you owe in the state of missouri, where are the imperfection of obamacare you think can be changed without whole sale repeal . I think we can think of having even a lower plan that is truly for catastrophic care. That would bring in i think even more people because it would be even less expensive. I think we could change some of the rules about how many employees have you in terms of requirement. Obviously, this is the challenge and its the individual Market Challenge that were trying to get enough people in the pool to bring down insurance for everyone. And really, the thing that people need to remember is, were going to continue to give care to people in america if they dont have insurance. Were going to continue to pay for it. Its just everybody is going to continue to have higher and higher premiums because of ininsures showing up in the hospital. Those costs get passed on to everybody with insurance. We pay for those costs. So this is really the dilemma of how do we get more people in the pool and i actually think the individual market is not as bad as people say, because the vast majority of people on the individual market are getting subsidies. In my state its only. 5 of people on the individual market are fought get, subsidies so the price increases are fought significant. You are talking senator about modifications to the existing Affordable Care act. What republicans are talking about is repeal, its what they promise to voters in november. Do you think with that thin margin . You know the Senate Better than any of us. 52 republicans, they can only afford to lose a couple of them. Do you think this will get through the senate right now . I who you would kind of agree with sam. I think its a coin flip. I think its 5050. It depends. I think the talking point is going to be, oh, this is better. Well, its not georgetown to be better. Heres the thing thats driving me crazy, why do we need to give rich people a tax break to take Health Care Away from americans . What is the deal there . Why does the 1 percent the 1 percent in this country is doing great. My family doesnt need a tax cut. What we need is to make sure people can get medicaid. 64 of the people in Nursing Homes in this country depend on medicaid dollars. Rural hospitals depend on medicaid dollars. So why are we giving money back to the rich in order to take Health Care Dollars out of the system . It makes no sense to me. R. Senator mccaskill speeching gears a bit, an area where are you in support of the Trump Administration is their proposed arms deal to saudi arabia. Can you explain why you support more arms for saudi arabia at this point with their civil war with yemen . I will tell you that the reason i supported that is the same reason i supported arm sales under president obama. Nothing would be more partisan or more hypocritical than we saying when barack obama proposed arms sales to saudi arabia they were fine but when President Trump proposed sales to saudi arabia theyre wrong. It was that reality that caused me to cast my vote for the armed sales to saudi arabia. So you just to follow up on that, you do think that the United States should be picking sides in this proxy war and pick the sides of saudi arabia . Obviously, there is more to our relationship in terms of our National Security with saudi arabia than just whats going on in yemen and i dont approve of what the saudi government is doing in yemen, just like i dont approve what qatar is doing as it relates to extremists. But we have thousands of american soldiers in qatar, we sell aircraft to qatar also. Theres lots of examples where we need to maintain relationships and allies in a larger context tan just whats going on in yemen. I think its disgusting the people that have lost their lives in yemen. But there is a larger strategy to selling arms to saudis than just whats going on with the Houthi Rebels in yemen. Mike barnacle. Senator, lets stipulate that the Health Care Bill is critically important to this countrys future and lets stipulate that everyone ought to be concerned about the potential collusion with regard to russia in the past election. But what is your level of cardinals, theyre 33 and 37, theyre four games under 500, youre approaching the all star break, you need a power you are killing me barnical. You are killing me. Thats what im here for. I know, i thought maybe since joe was off preparing for his big rock n roll stardom that maybe id get through this without a reality check on the shortcomings of our bullpen, we are struggling in the 8th and 9th innings. We are having way too many runs scored in the 8th and 9th innings. We won last night. It aint over until its over, barnacle. If i know my cardinals, well come back after the all star break. I hope so for your sake. Thank you very much. All right, lets go to the New York Stock Exchange and cnbc sarah eisen, more problems with ubers Management Team a day after its ceo stepped down. Reporter yes, more fallout for them battled company. The latest is that bill gurley who is a venture capitalist has stepped down from the board of directors at uber. He actually is said to have been very active in pushing for the ressic nation of travis kalanick, the ceo of uber who did step down yesterday under pressure from investors. Obviously, this is a rocky time. One thing ill mention that gurley firm will keep a director on the board of directors. Not uncommon to have gotten what he wants and step aside. This company will go through a completely new chapter. Not only does it have to find a new ceo, a new coo, cmo, cfo. Theyve got a lot of positions to fill t. Chatter. Its not a public company. So its hard for us to track it without a stock price t. Chatter is the valuation has gone down t. Exceptor list is making inroads with market share and raising money off ubers problems. I want to bring you some good news, especially if you got a roadtrip coming up this summer, gas prices are going down fast. In fact, the National Average is now 2. 28 a gallon. Thats less than the start of the month. Its the lowest of the start of sumner years. Its coming off the back of Falling Oil Prices in the market. Oil is back down to the low 42 a beryl range. There is just a lot of oil on the market. The u. S. Is ramping up production. Even tow saudi arabia and middle eastern players are cutting. There is a absolute of oil keeping prices low, also keeping your gas prices low as well, especially if you live in the south, guys. The lowest gas prices for states are actually South Carolina and oklahoma. 1. 94 a gallon. They are continuing to fall. Sarah eisen. Thank you very much. Thank you. A michigan airport officer is recovering this morning after being stabbed in the neck by a man in what officials are calling a possible terrorist attack. According to authorities, ampr ftouhi stabbed jeff neville outside the tsa area at Bishop International airport in flint. They say before the attack ftouli shouted god is great in arabic and blamed the deaths in syria, iraq and afghanistan. Multiple senior Law Enforcement Officials Say he was not on any fbi databases prior to the incident. Officials said they believe the attack was an isolated incident. The suspect is charged with violence at an International Airport and other charges could follow. Coming up on morning joe. We will never be intimidated by the Dishonest Media corporations who will say anything and do anything to get people to watch their screens or to get people to buy their failing papers. It wouldnt be a donald trump rally without an attack on the media. Well talk to the director of a new Netflix Documentary about the threats posed to a free press. Thats next on morning joe. [ music playing ] people would ask me in Different Countries that we traveled, what is your nationality and i would always answer hispanic. So when i got my ancestry dna results it was a shocker. Im everything. Im from all nations. I would look at forms now and wonder what do i mark . Because im everything. And i marked other. Discover the story only your dna can tell. Order your kit now at ancestrydna. Com. To err is human. To anticipate is lexus. Experience the lexus rx with advanced safety standard. Experience amazing. For her compassion and care. He spent decades fighting to give families a second chance. But to help others, they first had to protect themselves. I have afib. Even for a nurse, its complicated. And it puts me at higher risk of stroke. That would be devastating. I had to learn all i could to help protect myself. 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Get help right away for unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling. If youve had spinal anesthesia, watch for back pain or any nerve or musclerelated signs or symptoms. Do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. Tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures. And before starting xarelto®about any conditions, such as kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. Its important to learn all you can. To help protect yourself from a stroke. Talk to your doctor about xarelto®. Theres more to know™. Without a meaningful application of the First Amendment you have a true risk of living in a suppressive state, of living in a country in which a president thinks hes doing the right things they always do who thinks that his critics are harming the country they always do can limit the ability of the press, p willingness of the press to expose, to criticize, and the like. There is enough chance that the president will be upset enough, angry enough, vengeful enough to try to take whatever actions he thinks he can to punish those who have offended him. That was a clip from the new Netflix Original documentary, nobody speak trials of the free press, which looks at the growing influence that both billionaires and politicians are having on todays media. Joining us is the films director, brian nappenberger. Thanks for coming on the show. This seems so important. It feels like trumps President Trumps sort of fight with the press often is sort of joked away. I am beginning to feel like everything that he does that people end up sort of joking about, because its just him, is far more serious than we could ever imagine. What do you feel about this fight with the press . Yeah. I think it is serious. What does this show . Very, very serious. The in the film we kind of look at the chronology of what weve seen. If you look at candidate trump and the way he treated the press, the press were scum, i think even this show got some heat at times from him, but the press were scum, you know, he blacklisted them from attending their rallies and speeches, giving press credentials in the usual way, eventually of course called them the enemy of the people and then, you know, we saw the an tibs when he was president president elect trump and even now, i think as late as yesterday he was sort of still this is a part of his of every speech that he makes and it has been a part of his rise, this kind of anger of the press. A lot of what you talk about in the film, though, predates donald trump and focuses on big, rich guys who can buy out media and control the nary theyve way. Shelly adelson, las vegas, that secret deal, and peter thiel, behind the gawker versus the hulk hogan deal. What is the danger of that big money being able to control the message a newspaper or organization puts out. The film starts looking at the hulk hogan gawker case which i thought was fascinating by itself. The first time a sex tape case like this had ever gone to trial. And as salacious and tabloidy as that sounded there was clearly some big picture First Amendment versus privacy issues at stake. It was complex, on the fringes of acceptability. But it was the verdict that was really kind of shocking but 140 million verdict paired with a 50 million requirement that gawker had to put up the money right away. That was a death sentence for gawker. Then it was revealed that peter thiel was funding hulk hogans lawsuit. So there was an element of almost theater actually in the trial because you didnt understand what was really happening here was there was a very wealthy individual trying to come silence this critical voice. You mentioned peter thiel. Heres another clip from nobody speak. I think the media is among the most dishonest groups of people ive ever met. Donald trump, peter thiel and other billionaires have been trying to undercut the press, undercut the First Amendment, undercut freedom of speech. I think the Common Thread among the peter thiel story, the adelson story, and the trump story is billionaires who are proclaiming we are not vulnerable to truth. We are invulnerable to the facts. And it simply doesnt matter what you say, what the press does, we are more powerful than the truth. There you have sort of the nut, the core of the problem. You have resources married to intent. You have rich people with the specific intent of damaging the free press. Now, its not going to work with the times or the Washington Post or nbc, but there are a host of mediumsized papers and websites around this country that could be ended with this. Yeah, and thats i was very concerned about that. Local communities across the United States used to have a very healthy kind of competitive multiple newspapers. And so this adelson story where he buys the los angeles journal, an important local newspaper in the west, he does that in secret so you dont know what his intentions are, you dont know what his motivation is. That was a big part of that. But if you look at the bigger picture, i do think were facing a wave of hostility towards the press. If you think about what weve seen in the last couple of months, you know, had a reporter arrested for asking tom price a question, health and Human Services director. You had a reporter pinned i guess against the wall of the fcc for asking a question of the director there. Of course you had this awful incident with greg gianforte, body slamming a reporter for asking a question, doing what he should be doing, asking a question about health care of then congressional candidate, now a member of congress. Im curious how you would react to my theory, which is that part of the problem rests with the press corps itself. The press has a collective action issue. As a member of an outlet barred from covering the trump campaign, i experienced this first hand, which is when people, outlets are barred from covering the campaign, the rest of the press corps could take two treks, one is just to sort of go on with their business and cover the campaign as they see fit, and the other is to stand in solidarity with other outlets that are being barred. And this is happening now with the white house briefings where theyre increasingly off camera, no audio, no video, and what challenge the White House Correspondents organization has is what do you do . Go on with business as usual or try to do collective action . No longer broadcast executive signing statements, no longer attend the background briefings you cant show video or have awe owe files for. Is that the solution . Is it collective action . I think so. In history theres been some great examples of that where somebodys been, you know, shut down a question and someone else has just deferred their question to the person who was just shut down. Those are pretty moving statements by themselves. And i think that can easily be something important. You know, the small sort of ray of hope that i have in this and the sort of early days of the Trump Administration is that the press is kind of getting reminded about what theyre there for in the first place. I think theres a lot of legitimate criticism of the press, that maybe its gotten too cosy to power, become too corporatized over time or trading softball stories and twitter hasnt helped. You have the whole concept of objectivity i think is in peril. And theres a transformation taking place from objective reporters to transparent reporters. Which i think is a good thing, but i think it runs into some potholes along the way, especially at times like this. Yeah. We could have a much bigger conversation on this. Brian nappenberger, thank you so much. The documentary is called nobody speak trials of the free press. And its out on netflix tomorrow so get it. Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Well all be watching. That does it for thus morning. Stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. Thanks, mika. Good morning. Im stephanie ruhle. Weve got a lot to talk about starting with the big reveal happening this hour, Senate Republicans finally releasing their Health Care Plan. New details on what exactly is in it. As the president rallies his base overnight, his favorite thing to do, but then he says this about his rich cabinet. In those particular positions i just dont want a poor person. Im sorry. What . Everything is on the table. What one key republican says about how far the investigation into President Trump may go, how about obstruction . Everythings on the table. Plus