Transcripts For MSNBCW Morning Joe 20180628

Saying he loved the good old days when you would take people out on the stretchers, if you get in trouble for beating somebody up, im going to pay the legal fees. Can you imagine it . I dont agree with the way maxine phrased all that thats a whole different conversation about civil discourse. What a precious giant mammoth snowflake you must be if you sit there cheering frosty the snowflake. While donald trump is talking about beating people up and he loves it, thats the good old days, take em out on a stretcher and Maxine Waters says what she says and suddenly hes like, oh, my god. Maxine waters a i peeled to precedent. Saying well, donald trump said this as well. And am i to be condemned . We dont want to play that game. With us we have White House Reporter for the associated press, jonathan lemire. Jonathan and i would like everybody to know that the red sox are back in first place. Yup. It was a little hairy last night. No matter what happens tonight, well have at least a share of first place going into the series with the yankees this weekend. Associate editor commentary magazine noah rothman is with us, former trishlry official and morning joe economic analyst, steven rattner. Come on matts im a red sox fan, too. Theres 162 games. I love that field. Im in. Steve has harley charts and of course next to him is the soul of America Pulitzer prizewinning historian jon meachum. The soul of america battle for our better angels. The soul of america and the bard of belle meade. Do they have belle meade whiskey in. They do. I drink iced tea its a beautiful bottle. Ill put it by my side with my paisley smoking jacket. Ive got some cigares if you want those, too. Handrolled in belle meade, the country club. Lets move on to justice in america. Democracy in action. Also with us, Nbc News National Political reporter Heidi Przybilla and nbc Supreme Court contributor and cofounder of scotusblog tom goldstein. Why do we have him on . Hey, tom, i hope you brought your sudoku charts. Keep your mind sharp while we talk about baseball. There might be a reason hes in we have a lot to get to, President Trump and Vladimir Putin preparing to meet next month in person. What could go wrong . Plus the president triples down on his attacks against harleydavidson. What he said yesterday about the iconic company. But we start with the political battle lines already being drawn over the replacement for Supreme Court Justice Anthony kennedy. Who has announced he is retiring. Justice kennedy made that announcement yesterday saying he will step down at the end of the month. His decision paving the way for the most significant change in the high courts makeup in a half century. The move will allow President Trump the chance to shape the court into a solidly conservative one for years, if not generations to come. Despite his refusal to consider president obamas nomination of judge merritt garland to replayed the justice antenen scalia. Senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell said he expects the process to Begin Replacing Justice Kennedy as soon as possible. We will vote to confirm Justice Kennedys successor this fall. Its imperative that the president s nominee be considered fairly and not subjected to personal attacks. All right. So jon meachum, yesterday there were several people who were shocked at this news. And quite a few people actually with blue check marks by their name. Saying this was the bleakest moment in their lives and they didnt know how they were going to move forward with it. There are many things that donald trump does that we criticize and talk about cause concern. Cause great concern. And violations of constitutional norms. Just for our friends that are suggesting the same here. When you elect president s, this is what happens. And when Hillary Clinton didnt visit wisconsin and didnt visit michigan enough and when we saw a young woman yesterday with a Campaign Message that was more inspiring in three minutes than what Hillary Clinton gave us in two years, they can complain about internet this and that and the press did this and they should have done that. The fact is hillary never had a message. She ran a horrible campaign. And this is just, this is a consequence of it. Is it not . I mean what donald trump did yesterday is what president s do. And by the way, if Mitch Mcconnell subverted what should be senates constitutional, the norms of checks and balances, well then damn it, democrats can try to do the same thing. Yesterday was delivery day for a lot of republicans. And the republicans i talked to who voted for trump unhappily, because they were for jeb intellectually maybe they were for rubio, by the end they were for kasich. But when it came down to it, they voted for donald trump and he is president , not least because, not only because, but not least because people, those people wanted fewer taxes and more justices. Thats what this was about. And i will say it was, as someone, noah, that was very critical of george w. Bush, when george w. Bush left, i was bitterly disappointed the way he spent money. The way he ran up deficits, the way he ran up the debt, the 7 trillion medicare expansion that he didnt pay for. Reckless wars. But at the end, i would always have to say, but he gave conservatives two justices. And he gave america a big tax cut. And i would say that about george w. Bush, a lot of people that voted for donald trump now were probably saying the same thing about him. Yeah, to jons point who voted for justices, youre very happy with how this term went for conservative causes, conservative intellectual philosophies, legal philosophies, it was a good term. And the extent to which they have another opportunity to put another conservative justice on the court will only solidify that. Democrats appear to know that the left is very outraged over this. Theyre in an existential crisis. They say we need to do everything we can. Ejdionne has a piece in the Washington Post do everything we possibly can. Missing from that is what were supposed to do. Ominously says civility might be an obstacle to that imperative. But to the extent that theres any governmental institution, any mechanism that they can appeal to to stop this it doesnt exist, democrats made their bed in 2013, it was completed in 2017, end of story. It seems to me if theyre going to do anything, theyre going to have to look at a few of the republicans, jonathan, who will be very uncomfortable casting their vote to support a nominee that will end roe v. Wade with Susan Collins, with Lisa Murkowsky, you have two republicans right there how do you hold joe manchin, how do you hold Heidi Heitkamp. If roe v. Wade does become the lit us test for this justice. The i cover the Trump Campaign and night after night you talk to people who were suggesting they were almost holding their nose to vote for the president , they hoped they would get a justice delivered in return. This is the culmination of a longterm republican strategy to focus on the courts. You know they obviously elevated such importance, theyre always important. We saw in the case in 2000 that delivered george w. Bush to the white house, it was crystallized for a lot of people what the courts matter and youve seen Mitch Mcconnell, the decision he made in 2016 to not bring merritt garland for a vote. Decided this is a moment where this could give republicans a chance to reshape the court for decades. And give it a conservative bu bulwark against rising democratic changes that would seem to favor democrats. The country is becoming more urban and less white this is a moment where republicans are going to install through donald trump, an imperfect message for a lot of republican values, at least two justices. You can cut the perhaps. Jon, i was reading a new yorker article called mcpolitics. And in it, the journalist started with a story of boss in West Virginia, asking the kennedys asking how much money do you need to help swing, to help swing West Virginia for kennedy. He said i was looking at about 35. Thinking 3500. Thats a heck of a payday. The kennedys come with a briefcase of 35,000, hand it to him and he opens it up and says okay, im good. Im not saying thats how politics should be. The point was, yous used to be able to go to party bosses and say how do we win these states . Now its not won locally, whether by that way or knocking on doors. Now its, its always a National Referendum on something. And courts are probably the, one of the biggest ways conservatives, especially, have turned it from all politics is local, to a mcpolitics enterprise. A franchise politics. There were two moments that really made that happen in the postwar era. Obviously brown, which radicalized the white right in the south. And the other was the 62 School Prayer decision. Im sure you had people in pensacola, that would tell you it that the beginning of the end of america fluoride. Was 1962. Okay, okay, prayer in school. But fluoride was a close second. It was on those posters. By the way, theres some people that dont know that. That used to be the great john birch conspiracy, they were putting fluoride in your water and it was going to mess up your brain. The Anthony Kennedy era began with partisan hysteria. Because ted kennedy went to the floor of the senate gave a speech that in robert borks america there were segregated lunch counters and backalley abortions. If you ask conservatives where did the hyperpartisan era begin, they would say it was ted kennedy. And democrats say it was newt gingrich. I still remember where i was when i heard ted kennedys speech. And it was an offensive speech. It was so over the top. It was so hateful. And it did. It elevated Supreme Court picks on to a level they had never been elevated to before. And democrats followed up, then going after Clarence Thomas. And then we were off to the races. So kennedy of course was a deciding swing vote on the court when he voted with the four conservative justices, the court upheld the trump travel ban, gutted the Voting Rights act and allowed corporate money in politics. And he voted with progressives, also his 2015 decision striking down state bans against samesex marriage. So, tom, what are the areas that we should expect to see the biggest shift . I read there were 50 51 decisions where kennedy went with a liberal majority where you had the chief justice writing a dissent. Talk about those cases. Also tell me, is it just my imagination, or over the past three terms has Anthony Kennedy not become a more reliably conservative vote . So you know morning joe on the Supreme Court is where all hope goes to zi when it comes to the future of the Supreme Court. Die. The big issues that Americans Care about, abortion, Justice Kennedy being the fifth vote to uphold the core of roe versus wade. Affirmative action is probably on the chopping block right now. We have areas of Campaign Finance law, where the conservatives could go still further in limiting, eliminating restrictions on contributions. Justice kennedy being a critical vote when it comes to samesex marriage for example. So even though this term he voted in 14 Different Cases with the conservatives to provide a fifth vote, and zero cases with the liberals, he still over the course of years, was essential on a number of these issues. And you could really expect all of those to head in the opposite direction. Steve rattner . So, tom, Steve Rattner, on issues like samesex marriage and roe v. Wade which have become so kind of institutionalized in the fabric of our society at this point, do you really imagine that even if trump picks what at least some of us fear he might do, that it would literally overturn roe v. Wade or overturn same sex marriage, or more chipping away the rights that gays and women got under those decisions. When it comes to gay rights, i would say samesex is institutionali institutionalized. I but when it comes to employment discrimination, a conservative majority would head back in the opposite direction, in expanding rights for gay americans or samesex couples. When it comes it abortion, i think that judicial conservatives have been relatively savvy in saying we dont need to see roe versus wade overruled. But they can still cut it back a lot and send a signal to the states they can adopt longer waiting periods, more restrictions on the kind of facilities that can offer Abortion Services so as a practical matter, i would say the abortion right is going to get narrowed probably a lot. Tom, lets talk about the chief justice john roberts, who shocked a lot of people when he, when he sided with the white house on the Affordable Care act, on obamacare, he did so, i think most observers believe, because he believed in this institution, he saw himself not only as a conservative jurist, but also as the protector of institutions. Unlike Justice Thomas, who believes that you look at every case anew. You have john roberts looking at the institution. Do you suspect that we will see a different Justice Roberts . Not a more liberal Justice Roberts, not even a more moderate Justice Roberts, but a Justice Roberts that will slow the court down if for some reason hes staring at a 54 decision that would overturn roe v. Wade . I would think when it comes to something as significant as roe, he is as exactly as you describe kind of an institutionalist. On the other hand, there are a lot of things that remain on the agenda of judicial conservatives that he is willing to take significant steps on, so yesterday we got the Union Fees Decision in which he was part of a fivemember majority overturning a decadeslong precedent saying Public Employees union can collect fees from nonmembers to engage in collective bargaining on their behalf. Thats one of a dozen areas of the law where the chief just sis part of this movement. Hes a Reagan Administration, grew up in that context, is a believer that the court has been too far to the left. And so he still has a way to take the court, i think. Heidi, lets talk about whoever donald trump nominates. Obviously roe is going to be at the center of this. Because you can go back 30, 40 years and it was either Sandra Day Oconnor or Justice Kennedy that was continuing to protect roe, as a legal precedent. Im wondering, what have you heard . What do you expect from Lisa Murkowsky, from Susan Collins . From any other republicans that may hold up a nomination, that could overturn roe . And then what do we expect from joe manchin on the other side, and Heidi Heitkamp and senator donly from indiana. Are they going to, because they want to get reelected, are they going to blindly follow wherever trumps nominee takes them . Well that is where all of the focus is going to be, joe. If you look at the democratic messaging that came out last night, they made it very clear the two things that theyre going to focus on with any nominee are the two things that trump quite frankly said would be litmus tests which are the overturning of roe and also the aca. Hes actually said that. He would choose, he said that in the past he would choose justice who is support these things. In the confirmation hearings, they will nail whoever the nominee is, on these points. Now the two women republicans, yes, theres going to be a lot of focus on them. A lot of focus on the democrats. But i think Lisa Murkowsky and Susan Collins are going to come under so much pressure by Womens Health advocates and they have shown in the past, now i know you know, john mccain got all of the attention for torpedoing the repeal of the skinny repeal obamacare repeal. But who else voted against it . Lisa murkowsky and Susan Collins. And they did it in part on concern about Womens Health issues. So there will be a lot of attention paid to those two. Once we know who the nominee is. And then secondly, even before that, i think were going to look at heitkamp, donnelly and manchin to see if there are any early cracks. Last night you could see how trump is starting to gin this up, going to north dakota and saying Heidi Heitkamp saying she wont vote for anybody i nominate. Even though she voted for gorsuch. What a tough decision for her, for manchin and for donnelly. As theyre staring at an election. I know democrats will try to push, push the vote beyond november. Lots of luck with that. Yeah, i mean we risk looking at the court as though its an extension of congress and it was just a political institution, and its not necessarily. I mean were talking about the extent to which the next nominee is going to be a doctrinaire republican, down the line pushing Donald Trumps agenda. Just this term we had Justice Gorsuch reaching across the aisle i grew up with republicans picking socalled conservatives and then seeing those socalled conservatives turning into moderates. Or, justice souter. They always we never figured out, growing up, jon meachum, why justices would always grow left, but never grow right. But they would always grow, they would always become more moderate or liberal. To combine what nick nixon in 41, it was left wing mission creep. I mean its Justice Gorsuch joined the liberals on the court in a deportation case for example, turning against donald trump. This term you noted that the chief justice essentially rewrote the statute from the bench in order to preserve the aca and we had this cake baking case, a prominent case for liberals, a values case that was a 72 decision because it was narrowly defined and there were legal principles at play there that had nothing to do with politics that led to a very consensus decision on the extent to which this individuals religious freedom had been violated. There are sometimes religious principles that i think supersede political impulses. And so were essentially now prejudging a confirmation case from a nominee who has not been named. Prejudging arguments that have not been made. I think were probably getting ahead of the issue. And the extent to which by the way one of these individuals, judge amy barrett became a household name among social conservatives when she was interrogated by Diane Feinstein and was told the dogma lives within you to the extent regarding abortion, because she was a catholic, might have been a problem for her from the bench. She had brought concerns about death penalty, too. The extent to which we litigate these litmus tests might backfire. At the same time we know, we knew the type of justices barack obama was going to select. And we know that donald trump is going to Federalist Society to find nominees. Theyre not going 0 give us you know, the, theyre not going to give us the successor to ruth bader ginsberg. Most likely not. They might also give you a kennedy. What trump did was so unorthodox, but savvy during the campaign, was to put out the list ahead of time. He mentioned it yesterday, suggesting that this would offset concerns that he was an unconventional candidate and unorthodox position, would he pick some sort of wacky justice. He put out a list saying these are conservatives, these are people that republicans can support. I have a question for tom. When he said yesterday there are 25 names on this list, is there any suggestion that he would go off that list for this next pick . Or are there any names on the list that you think would find particular resistance in the senate . No. I think that the list is kind of framework within which hes going to operate. But in reality, theyre railroad down to about four or five different names. That they already begun to focus on. Both with respect to leonard leo, who is coming into the white house, don mcgann, the white house counsel. So i dont think theyre going to have to go through the entire list of 25. Theyve got no need to go anywhere else. Tom goldstein thank you so much for coming in this morning. A lot going on. Still ahead on morning joe more on the Supreme Court battle with two members of the Judiciary Committee, senators dick durbin and Richard Blumenthal. Plus President Trump urged republicans in all caps to pass Immigration Reform yesterday. Quite intense. Hours later, it failed overwhelmingly thanks to the president s own party. I dont understand. Youre watching morning joe. Directv gives you more for your thing. If youve been waiting for a sign to quit cable, then heres some signs. It came from the toaster. Now you can quit cable. Switch to directv and now get a 100 reward card. More for your quitting cable thing. Thats our thing. Call 1 800 directv. You always get the lowest price on our rooms, guaranteed . Lets say it in a really low voice. Carl . Lowest price, guaranteed. Just stick with badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com if yor crohns symptoms are holding you back, and your Current Treatment hasnt worked well enough, it may be time for a change. Ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohns. Entyvio works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom relief and remission. Infusion and serious allergic reactions can happen during or after treatment. Entyvio may increase risk of infection, which can be serious. Pml, a rare, serious, potentially fatal brain infection caused by a virus may be possible. This condition has not been reported with entyvio. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, experience frequent infections or have flulike symptoms or sores. Liver problems can occur with entyvio. If your uc or crohns treatment isnt working for you, ask your gastroenterologist about entyvio. Entyvio. Relief and remission within reach. Are you worried your tariffs are backfiring . No, theyre doing great. The tariffs are incredible and our country is doing great, youre seeing the results, were doing really good. Were not actually doing really well. Its causing some real problems, hes trying to destroy harleydavidson. Promised to destroy them with taxes. You know who else didnt have a good day yesterday . Who . Everyone was screaming. Germany. Mika has some neighbor who is are germans and she heard collective screams. Thought there was a problem. Germany, i thought many people thought would win the tournament. Theyre top in fifa. In all the world. And they get get defeated soundly. By south korea. And jon meachum. You point out this is not the first time there have been headlines like this. Its a headline that could have run on several lines in the 20th century. Try to apply as much Historical Perspective as possible in our leisure lives. Jonathan lemeyer points out this is not the first time it happened to the athletes in germany. This time they made it to moscow. It was just really sloppy play. And are you following this at all . I am. Now that germany is out, who do you think, do you have a favorite . Well i have sentimental feelings, i like messi a lot and would like to see him and argentina break through, thats not going to happen. I think belgium has looked incredibly impressive to this point. They would be my pick. Not a sentence you hear much. Belgium. In historical context, not. Croatia has looked very good. And so and of course i always cheer for england. I dont think thats going to end up well. But at least its been an exciting story. You really care about this. Dont you . You have a look at how the president s trade policies specifically with china are affecting American Workers and consumers. Weve got to look at the sports section. I just moved on. So we can talk about how trumps tariffs have had an effect on the u. S. And its not a particularly good one. Lets start with steel. So as we all know, trump put tariffs on steel and look what happened. Steel prices went up 28 since the beginning wait, wait, steve. Who could have ever seen that coming . You know it was a surprise to all of us. Wait. I think everybody warned him, didnt they . A surprise to all of us, equally a surprise to all of us that steel in europe is now 50 of the cost of steel here. So thats good for Steel Workers here. The problem is, there arent so many Steel Workers here. There are only about 80,000 Steel Workers here. Its good for 80,000 people. How many does it hurt . The 900,000 people who work in industries that actually use steel and who are not going to be able to make it here. There was an interesting story it hurts the people in the red and helps the people, the tiny amount of people in the blue. That is the fact. Even the people in blue, dont they buy items made of steel . So isnt it hurting their paycheck also . And theyre going to pay more for all of them. Everything. Theyll pay more for everything. Everything that has steel in it. Everybody pays more. So in effect everybody is a loser. Well theres probably a few of those a few thousand Steel Workers who are going to do okay. But yes maybe the people that own the Steel Companies might do well. But workingclass americans or working class americans are losers when they go to the store, because of Donald Trumps tariff tax. That is true. But now lets look at the other side of the equation. Who could have predicted that. Well see some more losers. Of course not surprisingly are competitors have retaliated on us. And you can take a look at whats happened to soybean prices, china put a 25 tariff as did other countries on soybean prices, you can see what has happened to soybean prices. Again, who could have predicted this . Wait, wait, people have been predicting this, soybean farmers were going to be absolutely crushed by this. Seabeans are the number one agriculture commodity. Soybeans are the major feedstock for animals and our biggest agricultural export. As dan said in my ear, most importantly, whiskey and most importantly for jon meachum. You think those soy lattes are expensive . Now theyre really expensive, right. If you move from the soy latte to the jack daniels in the course of a morning, youre getting hit twice. Speaking of jack daniels thats called the meachum tax. Both in the morning. Its not a coincidence that the chinese put tariffs on soybeans, because our biggest soybean producing states are iowa and also places like north dakota, like missouri, like indiana. The midwest. Where there are democrats running for election in red states and now theyre going to be able to blame trump for whats happened to soybean prices. You mentioned whiskey. Lets take a look at whats happened to whiskey. The best way to look at whats happened to whiskey is a Company Called brown foreman. Brown foreman makes jack daniels as mr. Meachum well knows. That number also goes down to be fair to donald trump. That number also goes down as far as whiskey purchases during lent when meachum decides to stay off of it. But brown foreman has its headquarters in louisville, kentucky. Who is from louisville, kentucky . Mitch mcconnell, the majority leader of the senate. So the chinese and the europeans and the mexican who is put these tariffs on whiskey are not stupid and you can see here that brown foremans stock price, a proxy for whats happening to our business in whiskey is down 18 . Youre saying Mitch Mcconnell coddling donald trump when it comes to tariffs actually is hurting people in Mitch Mcconnells own district . Very deliberate retaliation by our trading partners to stick it to donald trump and to stick it to republicans. All right. And of course Harley Davidson in wisconsin, right . Harleydavidson is fascinating. Because harleydavidson was his poster boy for american jobs. And another retaliatory tariff was to tax harleydavidson. Now theyre going to make them outside the u. S. To ship them to europe. There are only so many not so many, i dont mean it that way. But these are iconic american brands. Jack daniels, harleydavidson. A fascinating way to see how those brands get hit first. Still ahead. President trump rallies in north dakota and feeds the crowd political red meat. Including several unrestrained on congressional democrats. Straight ahead on morning joe. So, i have this recurring dream. Im 85 years old in a job where i have to wear a giant hot dog suit. What . Wheres that coming from . I dont know. I started my 401k early, i diversified. Im not a big spender. Sounds like youre doing a lot. But i still feel like im not gonna have enough for retirement. Like theres Something Else i should be doing. With the right conversation, you might find youre doing okay. So, no hot dog suit . Not unless you want to. No. Schedule a complimentary goal Planning Session today with Td Ameritrade®. 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Now they say, you will admit, a thing comes out, a big poll, a couple of polls, a number of polls, that hes the most powerful, most popular republican in the history of the party. And a little while ago i was an interloper. Im going to say there are sometimes you can learn things by listening to donald trump. Things thaw never knew before. Like for instance its really impressive he said right there that Dwight Eisenhower was the last republican to win wisconsin. 1952. Can you believe that . Donald trump was the first can you believe that . Because if you can, you, like me, unlike me, you dont remember 1984, when Ronald Reagan won wisconsin. In 49 states. Or 1972 there you go again. 1972 if nixon wins 49 states, chances are good hes either losing wisconsin or maryland. He said it with such selfassurance. Forget it that a bakers dozen have won since then. The most colorful republican, beats out lincoln, who suspended habeas corpus, virtually a dictator in wartime. Then youre teddy roosevelt. He just brushes aside teddy roosevelt. There you go, very impressive. Chief National Correspondent for the New York Times magazine Mark Leibovich is here. You know what he was known as in college . Mark the bird leibovich. I was up late last night. It was 1976 that mark the bird fidrych exploded onto the scene. It was an iconic Sports Illustrated cover. I listened, i was thinking about mark the bird fidrych as i drifted to sleep last night because i was reading twitter and there was joes tweet. That is creepy, but randy jones it is very rare that a sports figure so fully capture as moment in time as that, mark the bird fidrych did during a little sliver of the late 70s and sort of faded away, had a lot of arm troubles after that. It was just a moment in time. 18 Million People summer of 76. Summer of 76, right before the bicentennial. A week before the bicentennial, 18 million americans stopped on a monday night, to watch mark the bird fidrych pitch against the new york yankees. Howard cosell talking about monday night baseball and talking about mark the Fire Department fidrych and when Sports Illustrated would define what everyone you know, was talking about. At least in a certain sector. I say threat to win 30. Would you say randy jones. Despite the fact that it was 40 years ago. And despite the fact that he probably didnt win 20 games. He went over 20 and his arm went south. Off the rail as little bit. You want to hold my hand . All right. So lets talk about the trump rally in north dakota. You dont, do you . Okay, tables have turned. I dont want people, i think the daily caller said i was creepy for trying to hold my fiancees hand. It is creepy. They justify donald trump dating porn stars, i guess its in the eye of the beholder. Literally. What about last night, though . Donald trump is donald trump. Hes spewing alternative history, alternative reality. But, hey, the kids love it. What is interesting is that this was a moment when you could make an argument he is at the height of his powers, this has been a momentous week for president ial power, for his power, for the imprint he can make on the country. Yet he does obviously the crowd loves it. Its the same sort of rehashing of i won here, i did this, isnt it amazing. Even if its not 100 true. The neediness of it is incredible to watch. Day after day as if its part of the shtick. What did emily fox call it . A Bottomless Pit of need. Was in one of the pieces. Even maureen was it maureen . On her book, born trump. It was, she interviewed Emily Jane Fox for a column this week. Charles krauthammer says this is beyond narcissism. This is man who is in constant need of affirmation, he is a Bottomless Pit of need. Its become part of the message for him. And they sort of and his supporters like it. I mean thats become in many ways the narrative of the trump era. Its like kiss going out every night and playing you know, detroit rock city. They know whats coming. They want to hear the hits. You know, you know, they call me dr. Love. Seriously, mika, im not joking. This is not about politics. This is not about policy. This is about donald trump going out, playing the hits. But it does tie back to washington. In the very inconvenient and uncomfortable position a lot of republicans are in right now, heidi. In terms of the president s rallies, going out on this isnt going to put them in any more uncomfortable position than theyve already been in. Even if hes standing up there talking about himself the entire time, hes going where they tell him to go. Hes going into Heidi Heitkamps back yard and interspersed in those comments, the long, kind of comments that hes giving about himself. Hes also hitting on these red state democrats. And i think part of the calculation here, back in washington, is going to be how long do they want to actually drag out this confirmation process so that he can continue to do that . Make these democrats uncomfortable. The president feeds off of these rallies. He needs to have them every so often. For that sort of jolt of energy to be in front of his supporters to get the affirmation, to address the neediness that you just talked about here. My question for mark is do we think that theres going to be more of a, a strategy to this Going Forward . To this point, so much of these have been like, Donald Trump Tells his supporters that im ready for a rally. And they plan one somewhere. He was in South Carolina the other day. His candidate for governor won. Do we think that hes going to use, theyre going to deploy him more strategically and hes going to be able to influence say the theyll hold the senate in the fall . I think what theyll do is theyll, theyll just sort of ramp this up as we get closer to the election. I think that the Supreme Court opening gives them a sense of focus. I think it is something, it will allow him to sort of just focus on something that i think that can absolutely unify conservatives, even the splintering of the party, in so much as there is any, that can bring them back and it gives them a seriousness to sort of anchor everything back. Speaking of greatest hits, freebird has to be, were going to build the wall and mexico going to pay for it this week we had the third time that theres been a bill to build the wall, that has failed. And it has failed as a result of conservatives arguably if you talk to moderates, moving the goal posts or being, if you talk to them, unsatisfied to which Border Security is being addressed. You get the sense that they like the message more than the resolution of it. You also get the sense if you go to a trump rally now, a lot of those supporters would become so much more animated over the wall. Than they would, give us brett cavanaugh, this is not the red meat they know the wall is not going to be built. It is symbolic. The van zandt brothers saying, what yall want to hear . Free bird. Its a fake Lynyrd Skynyrd band but they still cheer. They still cheer for the wall that they know is not going to be built. It is an emotional flashpoint, the wall is, right . And it is sort of part of the proxy for a larger message about immigration, about where they think the country is about elite condescension. Thats i was going to say it can all be wrapped up into that. Were going to say things that are going to offend people on tv. Were going to say things that are going to offend nancy pelosi. Were going to say things that are going to offend the editorial pages of the New York Times. Were going to say things that offend all of Steve Rattners friends, thats whats going through their minds in north dakota. But you know that right . Not you specifically, but at the end of the day, you can strip it all down, it is, it is about offending the politically correct elite northeast establishment. Thats the bottom line, it is the anti antitrump movement. I get that but i think the question i would have the people that go to the rallies are true believers, its a great show, they love going there. But they are 8,000, 20,000 in those stadiums, theres millions of people out in the country who are going to vote in this election. The question is whether this works with the rest of the people he needs to keep republicans in congress. Theyre not believers that the wall is going to be built. Theyre believers that hes sticking it in Hillary Clinton, and nancy pelosi, and the New York Times New York Times and msnbcs eyes. Mark leibovich, thank you very much. Hold that thought. Hold on really quickly. Fact check, randy jones, 1976 won 22 games. Oh, really. Oh, my god. I apologize to the memory of randy jones. He did not win 30, though. He was a threat in early april to win 30. Still ahead, kasie hunt sits down with mitt romney. Hes weighing in on 2020 and leaves open the possibility of voting for a challenger to President Trump. I like the cut of this guys jib, as Montgomery Burns would say. Well be right back. Here comes the rain. [ horn honking ] [ engine revving ] whats that, girl . [ engine revving ] flo needs help . [ engine revving ] take me to her coming, flo why arent we taking roads . flo. [ horn honking ] oh. You made it. Do you have change for a dollar . This was the emergency . [ engine revving ] yes, i was busy 24hour roadside assistance. From americas numberone motorcycle insurer. You know, i think youre my best friend. You dont have to say im your best friend. Thats okay. But prevagen helps your brain iwith an ingredientd. Originally discovered. In jellyfish. In clinical trials, prevagen has been shown to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. The name to remember. Will you vote for President Trump in 2020. You said you think hes going get reelected . Its too early to say who i will support. I did say i think he will get reelected. Thats not an endorsement. I think gavin newsom will get elected in california. Thats not something i want to see. Its probably just going to happen. Do you want somebody to run against him . Its not a question i want. I think the president s support among republicans, what is it, now, 90 approval, suggests he will be able to become the nominee relatively easily. And i think the democrats, if any indication comes from new york last night, democrats are going to go further left. Theyre likely to nominate someone further from the mainstream of american thought and in a setting like that i think the president gets reelected. But youre not willing to say youll vote for him. Im not willing to say who ill support at this stage. Thats early for that. Mitt romney, straight shooter. Ive been impressed with what ive seen and i know a lot of people have been impressed by what theyve seen in a campaign where the guy calls out the president when he deserves to be called out and supports his policies when they are conservative. So heidi, i was reminded of a column written in the Washington Post by miguels strat Miguel Estrada, somebody who had his nomination killed because he was a conservative hispanic and the democrats didnt want a conservative hispanic in the federal court system at that time. I think it was for the d. C. Circuit but they wrote a column that unfortunately seems to be what we need to go back and reread, that is when it comes to any selections, there are no rules anymore. There should be rules, there should be a process and Mitch Mcconnell proved that last year. Theres a lot of blame and finger pointing and if you saw the message coming out of the democrats yesterday, they say this is happening because of the mcconnell rule and the republicans take you back to joe biden. And the conditions that he set down about votes in an Election Year. The bottom line is this is likely to happen quick according to my sources. I talked to leadership sources on both sides and they said it could be done by labor day because if you remember Mitch Mcconnell canceled the august recess, whoever the nominee is is likely to glide through the Judiciary Committee and get a vote on the floor, may even get a number of democrats. Jon meacham, if there were any justice in the world, the next two justices nominated would be Miguel Estrada and Merrick Garland, two people who were whose nominations were killed for completely improper purposes. Theres very little justice in the world as weve learned. There you go, children vrmgts if you just spit out your cereal you can blame uncle john for that. Heidi, thank you so much for being with us and look forward to getting updates from you tomorrow on whats happening over Justice Kennedys successor. Its bubbling up, republicans are powing to move forward with confirmation as soon as possible. Theyre saying democrats should wait until after the midterms. We have dick durbin and Richard Blumenthal straight ahead on morning joe. Lets do an ad of a man eating free waffles at comfort inn. They taste like victory because he always gets the lowest price on our rooms, guaranteed, when he books direct at choicehotels. Com. Or just say badda book, badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com. Or just say badda book, badda boom. The first survivor of ais out there. Sease and the Alzheimers Association is going to make it happen. But we wont get there without you. Visit alz. Org to join the fight. It doesnt matter to me who the president is. The president under the constitution has the authority to put forward Supreme Court nominees and then we have our job to do in considering them. I felt that it was a mistake that judge garland was not given the a hearing and full consideration by the senate and i think it would be a mistake if the democrats repeated that error and tried to block us from considering as the senate whomever is put forth by President Trump. Are you going play hard ball and say youre not going to rush this through. Based on every conversation with my colleagues, everybody is prepared to play hard ball. Political battle lines are being drawn as washington braces for a fight over the replacement of Justice Anthony kennedy. Welcome back to morning joe, thursday, june 28. Still with us, we have jonathan lemire, noah rothman, former treasury official and morning joe economic analyst Steve Rattner. Kids youve missed the chart, well show them again. Pulitzer prize winning historian jon meacham who told children all is lost and the author of how the right lost its mind charlie sykes. Nina totenberg and editorinchief and msnbc legal analyst benjamin wittus. A lot of people say, joe, how long does it take you to prepare for your slow show . Ben wittes texted me an article he wrote with Miguel Estrada and i said you should be on the show some time. Hed be happy to, of course, he was polite enough to me to not say, hey, moron, im sitting in a washington studio to right now, i am on your show. Joe, i dont think you should tell the viewers all the secrets of how this comes together. I just want to say, i wasnt being polite. I assumed you wanted me tomorrow in addition. I do. I do, thank you so much. Were getting reports from mike lupica, mark fitterich, he was out of the bigs by 1980. So there you go. Nina, lets go to you. I will not say i grew up listening to you on npr but what i will say is when i was in law school i was listening to you on npr talking about this. There seems to be that there are no rules when it comes to this. We can talk about bourque, thomas, Miguel Estrada, Merrick Garland. But it has devolved over time into such an ugly, ugly procedural mess that were left at a point where there are no rule rules. Joe, if, like me, youve covered these things for decades, you can say there are no rules but so far at least this administration, their nominees dont answer questions. Im used to having people up for saying i cant answer that where ive been at hearings where a nominee said she couldnt say her opinion of brown v. Board of education. Thats the place where we are now and so there are no rules but you dont find out anything and it almost invites investigative reportering about a Supreme Court nominee because theyre so unforthcoming of their views and that was true of democratic nominees in the Obama Administration to the Supreme Court and neil gorsuch who said even less. Usually if you can mix charm with it it helps defuse the situation but at rock bottom, these hearings are theyre i hate to say theyre a charade but theyre a shade shah raid. Theyre a charade. You and jon meacham, all is lost and its bread and circuses. Benjamin wittes, anybody whos watched this over the past 45 years would have to agree with nina. If youre as charming as john roberts you can get through the process without a scratch but senators learn little, viewers learn less but its a point we get to the process and how that you wrote that february, 2016, column for the Washington Post saying its basically no holds barred. So look everybody talks about this in the language of principle when a republican is nominated judges, democrats are for the Important Institution of the filibuster about republicans think its outrageous and when democrats are nominating judges, republicans are for these great, Important Institutions like giving home state senators vetoes over nominees and democrats think its outrageous. Anybody who speaks in the language of principle about this issue is lying to you. And the only law there used to be a set of norms that governed these nominations and they have all broken down one by one and i think part of what causes the problem that nina is describing where nominees have no incentive to give any information is that they know that there is nothing like a fair process. They are in front of an inquisitor yall body that is up for and interested in, at least half of it, in destroying them so they behave in a selfprotective fashion in which they communicate as little as possible and serve behaving rationally. In a world with no rules people use raw power politics and nothing else and nominees will protect themselves from that and thats perfectly rational on everybodys part. The only thing i would say is dont believe anybody when they talk in the language of principl principle. But in the language of politics, the democrats dont any power to block anybodys nomination or have a hearing. As i understand it, there may be wiggle room about needing a quorum for a vote in the senate Judiciary Committee, but there is no filibuster left. Obama and democrats abolished the filibuster for lower Court Nominees and then when Mitch Mcconnell and his band of merry folks abolished it when they needed to get neil gorsuch through so and the democrats dont control the senate. If they did, it would be a different story but they are pretty powerless. Charlie sykes, lets try to as Ronald Reagan would say, lets try to dig through the horse manure and find a pony in there somewhere. Is it safe to say that at least in federal judges what weve seen in the past several years about whether you have judges who are inspired by the work of a Federalist Society and judges who are left of center that universally most have been offended by Donald Trumps attacks on the rule of law, have been offended by his attacks on constitutional norms and have been offended when for instance he attacked the bush appointee in washington because he didnt like how he ruled on his travel ban. I think thats a factor that there are a lot of judges who might be considered conservative judges who have been deeply offended but take a step back and think about the moment were in, its almost like were living in a bizarre simulation. How dwielded cou edivided could be . What would ramp up the passions more than, i dont know, lets have a civil war over roe v. Wade now. Lets have a debate about abortion. But i also think the fundamental question that people have to ask right now is how are the system of checks and balances actually working . Which institution now provides a check to donald trump . He has complete control over the executive branch, congress is clearly not willing to take him on and a trump majority u. S. Supreme court creates a situation when n which President Trump will have more leeway on a variety of issues than any president im trying to think what the historical precedent would be that weve been counting on our elites and institutions to provide checks and balances and i hope that thats a question that senators of both parties think about deeply. So jon meacham, just so we dont pretend all of this begin in 1988 as it pertains to Supreme Court justices, Richard Nixon had trouble getting some of his Supreme Court nominees through, correct . There were two southerners that led the great senator from nebraska to say one of them might have been mediocre but the mediocre deserves reputation, too. And nixon got four appointees and the court ruled against him in july of 74 on the issue of the white house tapes and that really led to his resignation. The other thing i think that not to say its been this way before so everything is fine. But before everybody sets their hair on fire, Franklin Roosevelt was so upset about the Supreme Court that he tried to pack it, tried to create new justices for everyone over 70 because he had this Harding Coolidge hoover court that was against the new deal. Theres huge debate about how much how much highs power believed earl warrant he appointed in 53 was out of sync with republican orthodoxy. What he believed was he didnt want him to run against him in 1956. Thats what ike believed . And theres another great thing. Warren had been can you imagine this . Warren had been the Vice President ial nominee in 48 so it was a different era. I just i think one of the things we have to remember is the court has always been political. If you dont believe my, read a biography of john marshall. So the idea that somehow or another like miranda in the tempest the Supreme Court has become political and oh brave new world, what are we going to do . Well, weve been dealing with this since the 1790s. We have. The question, though, right now for democrats and it is going to be a question, forget about john marshall, lets talk about whats happening today inside the democratic party, candidates that want to be president of the United States, senators, are going to be judged on how tough of a fight they take to Donald Trumps nominee. It could be ugly. Democrats also make these calculations in the past, barack obama wanted to vote for john roberts, were told, but David Axelrod told him he couldnt because every choice that jobtds made on the court would be hung around his neck on the campaign trail. And thats where i would slightly respectfully disagree in that the last few Supreme Court justices have been divided along party lines. The days of getting the justices approved of the bipartisan majorities seems to be behind us. The problem democrats have a couple problems now, one is that republicans are holding four aces and theyre holding the two of clubs. Give than mcconnell can basically force this vote, they dont have a lot of cards to play. We have a couple guests coming later that maybe have a better idea. Not sure i see it. The left wing of the party is going to expect a hard fight. I dont know what that means but then they have the problem of the red state democrats who will be under enormous pressure to vote for this nominee in order to get reelected and three of them, Heidi Heitkamp, joe donnelly and i think manchin, voted for gorsuch even before they were up for reelection so i think its going to be a struggle for the democrats. I dont see, jonathan lemire, how any three of those democrats in running in the reddest of states vote against Donald Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court. Donald trump is still very popular in those states, it would be an extraordinarily risky move to do that. Certainly youre right, though eyeing 2020 are going to feel like they have to vote against this candidate but those facing reelection now will have a problem and another subplot here. Theres so many here, theres so much at stake with this justice, for the decades ahead, but in the short term you mentioned nixon. There is a scenario where whatever Robert Mueller finds will find its way to the Supreme Court and that is going to be another factor here for whatever justice has put in. Benjamin, it seems to me democrats have two options here as far as a political strategy goes, one is cynical and the other is risky. The cynical strategy is to say were powerless, republicans robbed us of if filibuster independent of anything we did, republicans took our power away, this is going to happen, you have to accept it. The second is to say were going to fight. Were going to storm the beaches and run it into the hills and be partisans and this will go on as long as we can make it happen. They cant deliver on that but they seem inclined toward that option. They are saying things like were going to fight, telling the base that what they want to hear is that were going to fight and when they cant deliver there will be a lot of senses of betrayal and failure around anger at democrats. Arent they better served by saying we cant do anything . I think it very much depends who the nominees is to be honest. The optics of the situation politically are very different if you have a nominee who is looks like a respectable jurist of the sort who will gain public sympathy, who will perform well in a hearing then if you have somebody whos got a record that is highly provocative that you can build a lot of campaign ads off of and you can make speeches based truthfully on who they are and what theyve done and those are very different situations and i think its hard to sort of imagine what the strategy what the successful strategy is likely to be in the absence of a nominee. I agree with you that this is a very bad hand the democrats have been democrat and there is a risk here that they get a certain amount of base mobilization out of it but they also trigger a significant base mobilization on the part of trumps supporters that is what they dont want in the runup to these midterms. Where there is a real Enthusiasm Gap in their favor and so i think its a very complicated question that you cant quite answer until theres a nominee to talk about. Jon meacham . Curious what youre hearing about how gorsuch has fit in if the past the prolong and theres one of these Federalist Society judges, wondering what kind of impact hes had. The short answer is its early days. Hes a little awkward, a little preachy, hes gotten a lot of hits in academia, a lot of them just sort of kindergarten stuff you would not expect from grownups taking pot shots at him but one thing about the politics of this, for years ti would say the Supreme Court is going to be very important in this years election and then i was never right. And then when it finally was, where it is important is it does mobilize conservatives, particularly social conservatives and even business conservatives who have a great deal money, poured a huge amount of money into shoring up mcconnell when he didnt want to consider garland and shoring up i think there were oemp 2 over 20 million spent by the Judicial Crisis Network for gorsuch. In the last analysis, conservatives at the polls have cared more about judges than democrats at the polls. Its their Biggest Issue and it now works for them. Charlie sykes, a lot of conservatives like yourself and me have been very disappointed by what donald trump has done from day one since getting into the office but a lot of conservatives like you and me who have voiced these concerns are what is in first corinthians . Clanging dongs. Nobody is listening to us in part because donald trump is going to put the second conservative on the United States Supreme Court. How much will them power donald trump within the republican p t party in the next two years . Tremendously. No question about it. For the last year weve been hearing the but gorsuch to every outrage from the president. Now its going to be but gorsuch and this. And it will be interesting to see what nevertrump conservatives say because people forget that third word, that they are still conservatives, so from a conservative point of view to be intellectually honest you have to ask would you have the same reaction to this nominee if it would have been president rubio, president bush . Because you would have gotten these judges from any republican president. But the pressure on conservatives and republicans to get in line has been intensify i ing. Youre looking at 90 of republicans saying they support the president which translate into republicans in congress who have been reluctant to speak out against him and you will see tremendous pressure on republicans and conservatives to support this nominee. Lets look at the decision that came down yesterday regarding unions. We have wondered why nonunion members were compelled i think you have. I have and most conservatives i have known have wondered for years why nonunion members were compelled to Pay Union Dues to unions they werent members of and wanted no part of and wanted no part of their politics. So you have a decision yesterday where the United States Supreme Court with the help of a trump appointee pushes it aside. I thought there was a fundamental principle of compelled speech, that no one should be forced to join an organization that they disagreed with or to support in any way speech with which they disagreed but theres no question about it but as george will made the case, these are all tradeoffs and the federal courts are immensely important and they will be important Going Forward. I know this is going to be about roe v. Wade but the kind of conservative judge that gets on that Court Matters a great deal. Matters a great deal and actually if you look at what mitt romney wrote, that might be a good guide for never trumpers. Support him when he does things you agree with but when he says things that are racist, bigoted, misogynistic, hateful, when he launches a policy that rips babies from their mothers arms, compares neonazis to those protesting neonazis in charlottesville, when he tweets out neonazi videos from the Neonazi Party of the united kingdom, when he undermines americas alliances that theyve had since 1945, these are times you can support a Supreme Court nominee while still calling out abhorrent behavior that violates constitutional norms and basic norms of decency. Charlie sykes, thank you so much, nina thank you for being with us. And benjamin wittes, today, tomorrow, this is going to be speci special. See you tomorrow on morning joe as well. Looking forward to it. Still ahead on morning joe, Richard Blumenthal discuss what is democrats might do to keep the senate from voting on kennedys replacement before the midterms. Were watching morning joe fuelled by the memory of mark the bird fidrych. 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Noijhing u joining us now, blumenthal of connecticut. Also with us, former assistant United States attorney. Shes a criminal justice instructor at pace school of law and an msnbc legal analyst. Senator blumenthal, you called the kennedy announcement earthshaking and gut wrenching. Moving forward, whats the game plan for democrats . Whats the topic . The American People should have a voice. This vote should take place after the election when a new congress is seated. A decision of this historic magnitude requires a lot of deliberate consideration, it requires more than the few months we have before this election. And the republicans ought to adhere to the mcconnell rule that these votes should not take place in an Election Year so well take this case to the American People. Mika, i was a law clerk to Justice Blackman on the United States Supreme Court. Ive argued cases before the United States Supreme Court. I have deep respect from the United States Supreme Court. Ive never seen it so polarized and politicized and ive never seen such an allout assault on the rule of law. The Supreme Court is going to be a bulwark in protecting our fundment fun fundamental rights and liberties, not just roe v. Wade, but gay rights, civil rights likes affirmative action, all rights that we take for granted. Thats the case well make to the American People and to our republican colleagues. We only need one vote. Its a razor thin majority they have. Steve rattner . Recognizing everything youve said and agreeing with it, i have trouble in seeing what the democrats path is to success on th this. They have eliminated the cloture vote on Supreme Court nominees, thats how gorsuch got confirmed. Its hard to see as a practical matter, put aside appealing to the country and making the moral case, but when you get down to parliamentary tactics, its hard to see what cards the democrats hold . Well use every tool available in terms of parliamentary rules but this Republican Leadership demonstrated nothing but contempt for the normal rules. They made the rules for neil gorsuch eliminating the 60 vote threshold and they may change the other rules that require Judiciary Committee approval for a nominee. Keep in mind, we still have the American People on our side if frump chooses from that list of right wing fringe ideologues who are committed to overturn roe v. Wade. Thats the reason they are on that list. And i think the more people will be repulsed and all we need is one regular colleague, whether its jeff flake or Susan Collins or Lisa Murkowski to say enough is enough, the Supreme Court is too sacrosanct. Do you believe chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, justice alito, Justice Gorsuch, are dangerous for the country . They are potentially dangerous if they allow donald trump to fulfill his potentially tyrannical and overreaching power of our fundamental rights. If they refuse to make the court that bulwark for our liberties, the check on the executive branch, that it must be now more than ever. They will be irresponsible and reprehensible in abandoning that role they have under our constitutio constitution. And are there points at which you could point and say Justice Kennedy was the catcher in the rye . He was the person standing between us and chaos . Clearly not on the travel ban decision because he sided with the majority as he did on a number of other decisions like Citizens United or gore. Have bush but he was open minded and fair. And thats what people deserve. Someone in the kennedy mold who will approach case by listening to his colleagues and the American People. Noah . So mimi, i have a tweet for you here that is very important. You say Merrick Garland was nominated on march 16, 2016, 237 days before the election. Mcconnell said it was too close for election day to obama to pick and voters should decide. That was not exactly what Mitch Mcconnells argument was, it was that barack obama was a lame duck president and therefore voters should decide who gets the nomination, who the next president is going to be. Whether they regret it remains to be seen but democrats are attempting to establish a new precedent which is that proximity to an election day wherever one third of the senate is up is going to be the new established precedent. Can you foresee a condition in which democrats may regret the precedent they are seeking to establish . Yes, that could happen but were in a different world now. And we have to deal with the circumstances we have. And mcconnell did you can read his precedent narrowly or you can read it broadly and the narrow way to read it is only in a president ial election. The broadway to read it is when were this close to something an election, any election that will be so determinative in how the country what path were on in this country which this Congressional Election clearly is then we should wait. You cant predict two years from now and will this haunt the democrats but we here in this situation now. We have to deal with this now. How often does the Supreme Court nominee come up . So i think one question that i would have for the senator if hes Still Available is whether a nominee should be asked if they could agree to recuse themselves from any decisions that come before the court coming out of the Mueller Investigation, for example, if the president needs to be subpoenaed or Something Like that. I dont think the justices would be a nominee would be required to recuse themselves but im wondering whether you plan to ask them if they would agree to that . Thats a great question and ive thought about it, yes, i will ask that question. It is a supremely important question. Justice in the tapes case were appointed by president nixon but they were appointed before that kind of litigation was produced. Here we know a subpoena case is very likely involving donald trump to go to the United States Supreme Court and i will ask a nominee to commit him or herself that they will recuse themselves from sitting on that decision. Okay. Senator Richard Blumenthal, thank you very much. Mimi rocah, thank you as well. Coming up, well be joined by two congressmen from different sides of the aisle who are calling for Immigration Reform after visiting the border over the weekend. Morning joe will be right back. Oh, and theres the closing bell. sighs i hate missing out missing out after hours. Not anymore, Td Ameritrade lets you trade select securities 24 hours a day, five days a week. Thats amazing. Its a pretty big deal. So i can trade all night long . All night long. Is that Lionel Richie . Lets reopen the market. 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Well, that was senate Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell at a forum with reporters where he was asked about the administrations claim it could easily locate and reunify Migrant Children with their families. Joining us now, two congressmen who recently visited the southern border, Pennsylvania Republican Brian Fitzpatrick and new york democrat to thomas swazi. Congressman swazi, i understand youve visited a facility in your District Housing ten children. What did they say . These are tragic circumstances. The one we visited are doing a professional job in difficult circumstances. This is a school that had a woodworking shop and recreational programs with great counselors and professionals that work on Child Welfare issues. Its interesting, congressman, weve been hearing the administration was working and they were going to get the Families Together and yet you say in the one facility you were able to go into, the numbers are going up. What are the ages of the children inside that facility. The one i went to in my district, there was a fouryearold, a fiveyearold, a sixyearold, a sevenyearold all the way up to 17 years of age. And where did these young where did the fouryearold and fiveyearold come from . The border . Yeah, they were separated from their parents at the border. They were originally from guatemala or honduras or el salvador. Do you know how they got up to new york from the border . There have been facilities in place for unaccompanied minors for several years now and these are professionals, not for profit that runs the facility im at is run by the sisters of mercy and has been there for over 100 years so theyre professional people. Im asking if like this fouryearold, was the fouryearold put on the bus at the border and driven to new york . How did they get up there . I asked the question, they were brought up by plane, often accompanied by someone from one of the federal agencies. These agencies are run by health and Human Services office of refugee resettlement. Its a very tragic issue, were opposed to this policy of separating children from families but these facilities were run as well as they could be. I talked to my colleagues who visited mothers at the border and the mothers are crying and distraught and everybody is worried about whether there will be contact made by the families. Congressman fitzpatrick. You represent bucks county, a district known for being a swing district. Tell me what are your constituents thinking of this policyover separating children from their parents and sending them 2000 miles. Its a ridiculous policy and one of the reasons why tom and myself we had a bipartisan group, six of us, three democrats, three republicans, went down to the border to find the facts. We dont like the base policy ones here or news reports. We r we want to hear from our own ears the people down and and we had the same takeaways, the Border Patrol agents, officers have a tough job. Then we went to one of the facilities housing these minors and this policy should not be in pla place. We wanted to make sure we were able to identify the unaccompanied minors that separate children, make sure that hhs, the ones running this program have a system in place to make sure the children are reunified and were waiting for that. Congressman fitzpatrick, you say youre opposed to the policy of the children being separated but what comes now . These children need to be reunited. The administration suggested they iraq working towards that but there are reports some of these children may never find their way home. What can congress do . What can you both you represent both parties here. What can you do to reunite these children with their families . Tom and i were just talking about that before we got on set here and were prepared to go back down there. Theres different theres a lot of different links to this chain. Theres a Border Patrol piece, a cbp piece, an hhs piece. Theres cis, citizenship and immigration services, ero, a subset of dhs. One of the things we found is a lot arent communicating with each other. We need to get them into the room together so they know what theyre doing but to answer what we can do, we can keep the pressure on. I will do whatever it takes, we have no higher duty as Public Officials and citizens to protect our kids. There is very it will that will separates the two of us on most of these issues. Our backgrounds are similar. Hes a republican, im a democrat but we want to do the right thing here. We want stronger Border Security and we want to help these people not being treated like human beings and the bottom line is parents are being held through Homeland Security agencies and children are being held through hhs agencies and the two are not necessarily communicating as well as they should be so we need to keep the pressure on to make sure that happens. And then once they are communicating with each other, because of the facts kids dont necessarily have passports or birther is kif cats and making sure the steps are followed and in some cases being deported because their parents are already deported. Congressman fitzpatrick, this is for you, noah rothman with commentary magazine. We had an a vote on an Immigration Reform bill in the house, it failed spectacularly. A lot of conservatives who were in on the drafting of that bill turned on it despite Donald Trumps endorsement. Im curious to say how you would characterize why that bill failed . You have to ask the people that came to the table originally. A lot of the people that i believe are causing the problem. The people are caucus in advancing the ball but the bottom line is i think the only way forward is through a bipartisan solution. Tom and i are members of the problem solvers caucus. We came up with a package that we all agreed on. Jimmy panetta, our freshman colleague from california was instrumental in advancing that. Thats the way forward. We wont solve this problem unless we get democrats and republicans together. As tom and i are exhibit a. We both saw the same things, heard the same things and i was mentioning to him we were driving back to the airport and i heard tom give an interview and i agree with everything he said. So were saying lets get down what we can and what unifies us about Border Security and protecting these kids. I think it sounds like what unifies everybody is trying to get they are t kids back to their parents and how the how is whats missing so we really appreciate you coming together on this and talking to us this morning. Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick and congressman thomas suossi, thank you both. Thank you so much. Keep up the great work. Feel free to congratulate each other. Great job. I didnt know we were still on. Coming up next from the democratic leadership, senator dick durbin will be joining us. Hell weigh in on the president s planned meeting with Vladimir Putin. Oh, good lord. Well be right back. The first survivor of alzheimers disease is out there. And the Alzheimers Association is going to make it happen. But we wont get there without you. Visit alz. Org to join the fight. With my bladder leakage, the products ive tried just didnt fit right. They were very saggy. Its getting in the way of our camping trips. But with new sizes, depend fitflex is made for me. 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Face it, they are stone cold losers, the elite. Did he go out into the crowd and check out the type of yachts they had . Donald trump told me, you need to buy a plane, joe. I said donald, i dont have the money to buy a plane. He said you need a big plane. He really does think that people have, their daddys gave them 200 million and everybody has money to buy boats. Its thats what happens when you do wake up and are born on third base and think you have hit a triple. Steve rattner, elites. The elites, Donald Trumps friends at maralago, the billionaires he sat around the table with after he passed the massive tax cuts and helped the billionaires. He sat around the table with the billionaires, i just made you all a lot of money. The tariffs. The tariffs dont hurt the elite, the tariffs hurt the working class. When they go to walmart, when they go to target. When they go out and when they go out and try to purchase goods, when they do it on amazon. The elites are not the ones that are being hurt by these policies, its people that work at harleydavidson plants and a lot of people in that crowd last night. First of all, its ironic that donald trump is trying to become a member of the elite and be a member of the club is going to places like this, pretending like hes a working class guy from nowhere. A guy, as you fly into Laguardia Airport has had his massive 757 on the tarmac with the words trump em blazened there. This guy is, what is he trying to pass them off as . Secondly, is this idea, what you said. If you look at his policies and what he has actually done, they benefit the elites and do little or nothing to the people he was speaking to, for those who elected him for the working class. Tariffs are not good for them. Tax cults for the rich is not good for him. Its good for the elites. Still ahead, President Trump gets ready for the planned summit with Vladimir Putin by reminding twitter followers that russia denies meddling in our election. Despite the fact that every single intel chief that donald trump appointed has, including mike pompeo who moved to the state Department Said russia tried to meddle in 2016. All of trumps people are still saying they are trying to meddle in 2018. Its divorced from reality and nobody seems to care. We have bigger boats than, better boats. Bigger boats. Its the John Mitchell principle. One of my favorite lines from watergate, all that crap you are putting in the paper, its all been denied. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Oh, my god. Nbcs Andrea Mitchell joins us to discuss the plans for the summit, plus top senate democrat, dick durbin on the battle to pick Justice Kennedys successor. Morning joe is coming right back. Carl . Lowest price guaranteed. What about the worlds lowest limbo stick . How low can you go . Nice one, carl. 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If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you . I will pay for the legal fees, i promise. Maybe he should have been roughed up. I would like to punch him in the face. Can you imagine if i said that or somebody else said that . Right. Not that difficult to imagine because he did. Not that difficult. Thats all he did. Good morning, everyone. Saying he loved the good ole days when you take people out on the stretchers and if you get in trouble for beating somebody up, im going to pay the legal fees. Can you imagine it . I dont agree with the way maxine phrased that. Thats a different conversation about civil discourse. No. No, but again, what a precious, giant, mammoth snow flake he must be. A snow flake. Fros fi the snow flake. Donald trump is talking of beating people up. The good ole days, take them out on a stretcher and Maxine Waters says what she says and oh, my god. What a snow flake. She appealed to precedent saying donald trump said this as well. So, am i to be condemned . We dont want to play that game. With us, we have White House Reporter for the associated press, jonathan la mere. By the way, jonathan and i would like everybody to know the red sox are back in first place. Yep. It was a little hairy. Tough. No matter what happens tonight, well have a share of first place going into the series with the yankees this weekend. As you sea, noah is with us. Morning joe economic analyst, Steve Rattner is with us. Come on mets. Were past that already. Come on now. Im a red sox fan, too. I know. Theres 162 games. Who goes to see the mets play. Im serious, i love that field. Steve horowitz and his torn jon meacham. We are very worried. Best selling book the soul of america. And the bard of bell mead. Also with us do they have bell mead whiskey . They do. Can you bring some sometime . I drink iced tea, but ill put it by my side with my paisley smoking jacket. I have cigars if you want those. Hand rolled . The country club . Lets move on to justice in america. Why dont we . And democracy in action. Also with us, Nbc News National Political reporter, heidi and nbc news Supreme Court contributor tom goldstein. Why do we have him on . Tom is on tom, i hope you brought your sodoku charts. Keep your mind sharp. There might be a reason he is in this morning. We have a lot to get to including President Trump and Vladimir Putin preparing to meet next month in person. What could go wrong . The president triples down on attacks against harleydavidson. Well tell you what he said about the iconic company. We start with the battle lines drawn for the replacement for Anthony Kennedy, who announced he is retiring. He made the announcement saying he will step down at the end of the month. The decision paving the way for the most significant change in the high courts make up in a half century. It will allow President Trump to shape the court into a solidly conservative one for years, if not generations to come. Despite the refusal to consider president obamas nomination to replace the late justice, scalia, Mitch Mcconnell made it clear, he expects to begin the process of replacing Justice Kennedy as soon as possible. We will vote to confirm Justice Kennedys successor this fall. Its imperative that the president s nominee be considered fairly and not subjected to personal attacks. All right. So, john mn meacham, a lot of pe had blue check marks saying this is the bleakest moment of their lives and they didnt know how they were going to move forward with it. There are many things donald trump does that we criticize and talk about cause concern. Cause great concern. They are violations of constitutional norms. Just for our friends that are suggesting the same here, when you elect president s, this is what happens and when Hillary Clinton didnt visit wisconsin and didnt visit michigan enough and when we saw a young woman yesterday with a Campaign Message that was more inspiring in three minutes than what Hillary Clinton gave us in two years, they can complain about internet this and that and the press did this and they should have done that. The fact is, hillary never had a message. She ran a horrible campaign. This is just this is the consequence of it. Is it not . I mean, what donald trump did yesterday is what president s do. By the way, if Mitch Mcconnell said what should be constitutional norms of checks and balances, then democrats can try to do the same thing. Well, yesterday was delivery day for a lot of republicans and a lot of the republicans i have talked to who voted for trump, unhappily, because they were for jeb or rubio. By the end for kasich. But, when it came down to it, they voted for donald trump and he is president , not least because, not only because, but not least because people, those people wanted fewer taxes and more justices. Thats what this was about. I will say, as someone that was very critical of george w. Bush, when george w. Bush left, i was bitterly disappointed in the way he spent money, the way he ran up deficits, the debt, the 7 trillion medicare expansion he didnt pay for, reckless wars. But, at the end, i would always say, but, he gave conservatives two justices and he gave america a big tax cut. I was saying that about george w. Bush, a lot of people that voted for donald trump now are probably saying the same thing about him. Yeah, to jons point, if you are a republican that voted for justices, you are very happy with how this term went for conservative causes, conservative intellectual philosophies. It was a good term. The extent to which they have the opportunity to put another conservative justice in the court solidifies that. Democrats know that. The left is very outraged over this. They are in a crisis. They say we need to do everything we can. E. J. Young has something in the Washington Post, do everything you can. Missing from that is what they are supposed to do. He ominously says civility might be an obstacle to that. To the extend theres a governmental institution, it doesnt exist. Democrats made their bed in 2013 and completed in 2017, end of story. It seems to me, if they are going to do anything, they are going to have to look at a few republicans, jonathan, who will be very uncomfortable casting their vote to support a nominee that will end roe v. Wade. With Susan Collins and murkowski, you have two republicans right there. The trick is, how do you hold joe manchin . You hit two if roev. Wade is the litmus test. I cover the Trump Campaign. Night after night, you talk to people suggesting they are holding their nose to vote for the president because they knew, they hoped they would get a justice delivered in return. And, this is the cull monmonati focus on the courts. They are always important. In 2000, the white house was crystallized for the white house what the courts matter. You have seen Mitch Mcconnell, the decision he made in 2016 to not bring mayor garland for a vote. They decided this is a moment where it could give republicans a chance to reshape the court for decades and give it a conservative bull work against rising democratic changes that seem to favor democrats. The country is becoming more urban and less white. This is a moment where republicans are going to install, through donald trump, an imperfect messenger perhaps, at least two and maybe more justices. You can cut the perhaps. John, john, really quickly, i was actually reading a new york article called mcpolitics. In it, the journalist started with a story of the boss in West Virginia, can kennedys asking how much money do you need to help swing West Virginia for kennedy. Yeah. He said, i was looking at 35. Thinking 3500. The kennedys come to the briefcase with 35,000, hand it to him, he opens it and says im good. Ime not saying thats how politics should be. The point was, you used to be able to go to party bosses and say, how do we win these states. Now its not won locally by that way or knocking on doors. Now, its always a National Referendum on something and courts are probably the, one of the biggest ways conservatives, especially, turned it from all politics is local to a mcpolitics enterprise. A franchise politics. Yeah. There were two moments that made that happen. Obviously brown, which radicalized the white right in the south and the other was the 62 School Prayer decision. Right. Im sure you had people in pensacola who would tell you the beginning of the end of america was fluoride. Was 1962. Okay, prayer in school, but fluoride was a close second. It was on the posters. There are people that dont know that. That used to be the great conspiracy, they were putting fluoride in your water. Go ahead. This era began. The Anthony Kennedy era began with partisan hysteria because ted kennedy went to the floor of the senate saying there were segregated lunch counters and back alley aborters. If you ask republicans where the hyperpartisan area began, they say kennedy. Others say newt gingrich. Its ending with the same kind of partisan vote. By the way, i still remember where i was when i heard ted kennedys speech. Yeah. It was an offensive speech. It was so over the top. It was so hateful. And it did, it elevated Supreme Court picks on to a level they have never been elevated to before and democrats followed up then going after Clarence Thomas and then we were off to the races. Still ahead on morning joe, more on the kennedy decision and swing voters have to make up their mind. Plus, the second rating democrat dick durbin is going to be with us and his wait to confirm kennedys successor. First, here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. A huge heat wave is going to grip the country. Rain that will cause travel delays. Its pouring in connecticut and massachusetts. New york city, in the last bit of rain, then you are done. We have a Flash Flood Watch in effect. 4 Million People. Mostly, its massachusetts, boston to New Hampshire and maine. Thats the next four to five hours. Lets talk about the heat. 39 Million People, already under a heat advisory or warning. This is going to increase or spread throughout the next couple days. Today, the worst of the heat arriving around kansas city. This afternoon, in the shade, kansas city will feel like 110 degrees. That is hot stuff. Denver, at 101 for the actual temperature. The hottest temperature ever recorded at denver was 105. Thats extreme stuff. Its typically this hot in dallas, 101 today. Friday, we go to 92. Chicago, heat index of 102. Saturday, it arrives on the east coast with d. C. At 99. New york city, you are up to 102 heat index. A taste of summer for everyone from the four corner region to the east coast with the first heat wave of the summer season. New york city included. Today, we are getting rid of the rain drops. We have minor delays. Theres a picture of the wet roads. You are watching morning joe. Well be right back. Directv gives you more for your thing. If youve been waiting for a sign to quit cable, then heres some signs. It came from the toaster. Now you can quit cable. Switch to directv and now get a 100 reward card. More for your quitting cable thing. Thats our thing. Call 1 800 directv. Only tylenol® rapid release gels have laser drilled holes. They release medicine fast, for fast pain relief. Tylenol® these are the specialists were proud to call our own. Experts from all over the world, working closely together to deliver truly personalized cancer care. Expert medicine works here. Learn more at cancercenter. Com so, kennedy, of course, was a deciding swing court when he voted with four conservative justices to uphold the trump travel ban and corporate money in politics. When he voted with the four liberals, they cut back on death penalty, Guantanamo Bay and also his 2015 decision striking down samesex marriage. Tom, what are the areas we should expect to see the biggest shift . I read there were 5051 decisions where kennedy went with the liberal minority and chief justice decent. Talk about those cases. Also, tell me, is it just my imagination or over the past three terms, has Anthony Kennedy not become more reliably conservative vote . So, morning joe on the Supreme Court is where all hope goes to die when it comes to the future of the Supreme Court. The big issues that Americans Care about, things like abortion, kennedy being the fifth vote to uphold roe v. Wade. Affirmative action is probably on the chopping block. Finance law where conservatives could go further in eliminating restrictions on restrictions. Kennedy being a critical vote on samesex marriage. This term, he voted in 14 cases with the conservatives to provide a fifth vote and zero with the liberals, over the course of years, he was essential on a number of issues. You could expect all of those toed in the opposite direction. Steve rattner . Tom, Steve Rattner. On issues like samesex marriage and roe v. Wade which is so institutionalized, do you imagine even if trump picks what some of us fear he might do, it would overturn roe v. Wade or more a chipping away of rights women and gays got under those decisions . When it comes to gay rights, samesex marriage is institutionalized in the country. You have outstanding issues like employment and they would head back in the opposite direction of expanding rights for gay americans or samesex couples. When it comes to abortion, i think conservatives have been savvy saying we dont need to see roe v. Wade overruled, but they can still cut it back a lot and send a signal to the states to adopt longer waiting periods, more restrictions on the facilities that offer abortion facilities. Its a practical matter. The abortion right is going to get narrowed a lot. Lets talk about john roberts who shocked a lot of people when he sided with the white house on the Affordable Care act, on obamacare. He did so, i think most observers believe because he believed in his institution but also as the protector of institutions. Unlike Justice Thomas who believes you look at every case a new. You have john roberts looking at the institution. Do you suspect that we will see a different justice, not a more liberal Justice Roberts or more moderate, but a Justice Robert that is will slow the court down if hes staring at a 54 decision to overturn roe v. Wade . I would think when it comes to something as significant as roe, he is as you describe, an institutionalist. On the other hand, there are a lot of thing that is remain on the agenda of judicial conservatives he is willing to take significant steps on. Yesterday, we got the Union Fees Decision in which he was part of a fivemember majority overturning a decades long precedent that says unions can collect fees from nonmembers to engage in collective bargaining. Thats one of a dozen areas of the law where the chief justice is part of the movement. Hes a Reagan Administration that grew up in that context and is a believer that the court has been too far to the left. He still has a way to take the court, i think. Up next, more from the president s rally last night. Apparently they say he is the most popular republican in party history. But who are they . Mark joins the table next. I am all about living joyfully. Hello. The new united explorer card hooks me up. Getting more for getting away. Rewarded going new places and tasting new flavors. Rewarded traveling lighter. Rewarded haha getting settled. Rewarded learn more at theexplorercard. Com and get. Rewarded you shouldnt be rushed into booking a hotel. With expedias addon advantage, booking a flight unlocks discounts on select hotels until the day you leave for your trip. Addon advantage. Only when you book with expedia. With pg e in the sierras. And im an arborist since the onset of the drought, more than 129 Million Trees have died in california. Pg e prunes and removes over a Million Trees every year to ensure that hazardous trees cant impact power lines. And since the onset of the drought weve doubled our efforts. I grew up in the forests out in this area and honestly its heartbreaking to see all these trees dying. What guides me is ensuring that the public is going to be safer and that these forests can be sustained and enjoyed by the community in the future. You know, they say trump, i never believe i was taking over the republican party. They say that to cause problems. We went to places that havent been done. I think wisconsin was 1952. Dwight eisenhower and we won wisconsin. Now, they say, you will admit, a thing comes out, a poll, a couple polls, a number of polls that hes the most powerful, most popular republican in the history of the party. A while ago, i was an interloper. Im going to say, there are sometimes you can learn things by listening to donald trump, things you never knew before. For instance, thats impressive he said Dwight Eisenhower was the last republican to win wisconsin, 1952. Can you believe that . Donald trump is the first can you believe that . Because if you can, you, like me unlike me, you dont remember 1984 when Ronald Reagan won wisconsin in 49 states. 1972. Oh. There you go, again. 1972. If nixon wins 49 states hes doing good. He said it with such arrogance, forget a bakers dozen. What about last night though, donald trump is donald trump. Of course hes spewing alternative history, alternative reality but, hey, the kids love it. Ha is interesting is this was a moment when you could make an argument he is at the height of his powers. This has been a moe mentous week for president ial power and the impact he can make on the country. Obviously the crowd loves it. Its the same sort of rehashing of i won here. I did this. Isnt it amazing . Even if its not 100 true. The neediness of it is incredible to watch day after day. What did emily fox call it, a bottles pit of meat . I believe that was in one of the pieces. Was it maureen . On her book born trump. She interviewed Emily Jane Fox for the column this week. Charles krauthammer said, this is beyond narcissism. This is a man who is in constant need of affirmation. He is a bottles whats amazing is its become part of the message for him. His supporters like it. Thats become, in many ways, the narrative of trump. Do you know what it is like . It is like kiss going out every night and playing, you know, detroit rock city. They know whats coming. They want to hear the hits. You know, you know. Heidi they call me dr. Love. Thats what this is. No, mika, im not joking. This is not about politics. This is not about policy. This is about donald trump going out playing the hits. But it does tie back to washington and the very inconvenient and uncomfortable position a lot of republicans are in right now, heidi. In terms of the president s rallies, going out, i mean, this isnt going to put them in anymore uncomfortable position than they have been in. Even if hes standing up there talking about himself the entire time, he is going where they tell him to go. Hes going into heidis backyard and interspersed in those comments, the long, kind of comments that hes giving about himself. Hes also hitting on these red state democrats. I think part of the calculation here in washington is going to be how long do they want to actually drag out this confirmation process so he can continue to do that and make these democrats uncomfortable. Coming up on morning joe, former senate and secretary of state, john kerry says Justice Kennedys decision to retire is devastating. We are going to have Andrea Mitchell with us. She is going to sit down with us and talk about her sitdown interview with john kerry next on morning joe. indistinguishable muttering that was awful. Why are you so good at this . Had a coach in high school. Really helped me up my game. I had a coach. Math. Ooh. So, why dont traders have coaches . Who says they dont . 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Moments ago, the kremlin and white house announced President Trump and russias Vladimir Putin will have a bilateral meeting on july 16th in finland. The summit comes as the Mueller Investigation continues to probe russian interference in the 2016 president ial election and possible collusion between russia and the Trump Campaign. It will also occur roughly four months before the midterm elections, which u. S. Intelligence agencies warn is another prime target for the kremlin. Every conversation that has been had, that im aware of between the United States government and counter pars with mr. Lavrov, i am confident when the president meets with Vladimir Putin, he will make clear that meddling in our elections is completely unacceptable. Noted that clarification pompeo put in there. Every communication that im aware of. Joining us from aspen, colorado, chief Foreign Affairs correspondent, Andrea Mitchell. Yesterday, you sat down with former secretary of state, john kerry at the aspen ideas festival. Secretary kerry addressed the upcoming summit with the russian leader. What are the risks of a oneonone with Vladimir Putin . Is it good for them to be talking . It depends on how prepared he is, what his agenda is, what he hopes to get out of it, whether he knows what he wants out of it, whether or not he can explain to people why it is he praises Vladimir Putin while attacking our allies. In principle, im in favor of meeting with president putin. I met with him more than anybody in the Obama Administration. What makes it different is the g7 meeting that took place, the rancor within our allies and suspicions. That is not the way to approach a summit with president putin. The way you approach a summit is to have done your homework with those nations, build up an agenda they support and understand and go in united. A loaded answer. He raised a lot of questions and i think we can i think we can deduce this is going to be a meeting that could cause a lot of concern about exactly what President Trumps real connection is with russia and putin. Exactly. Secretary kerry was senator for 30 years and chairman of the Foreign Relations committee. This is the first time he has spoken out. Mika, you know him so well. You know he has a lot to say about the way this president is conducting foreign policy. He has reversed every one of the significant achievements of the Obama Administration that secretary kerry and before him, of course secretary clinton were working on. So, he has a lot of rancor. He has a book coming out in september that hes been working on. That said, this summit, he believes, is absolutely the wrong preparation for the summit was the g7 where the president goes in saying that putin should be invited back in and where the president then goes and criticizes trudeau and macron, trashes merkel, sends an ambassador to germany that supports a right wing all terntive to merkel, which is not what ambassadors are supposed to do. They are most likely in the past would be disciplined for doing that. In this case, he is praised or it is excused. This is not the way. Our allies, especially poland and the newest members of nato are very worried. The track record for any type of meeting this president has with world leaders, some would argue has not been productive. Might be destructive. They might be. They are infomercial television values, which is what he is responding to. Yeah. It doesnt surprise me this came up so quickly after the north korean one. He likes the images and pageantry. I want to ask andrea two questions. We found out andrea drinks 16 expressos a day. What number are we on . I have only had two today. Im not as wired as i should be. Its only 6 40. What is your reporting on pompeo, bolton, kelly. The world between the secretary of staf, chief of staff and the president. Who is making policy here . The president is making policy, clearly. The president , and this is another point that kerry was making in our conversation. The president was freelancing with kim jongun in granting a summit, something no republican or democratic president granted to a north korean leader. He actually, you know, offered and carried out the suspension of military exercises with south korea without prior notification to president moon of south korea or secretary of defense mattis as our correspondents were reporting exclusively last week. So, you know, its that that is so worrisome about this upcoming putin summit. What is he going to offer about ukraine or crimea or suspending sanctions to putin without coordination of the allies especially since he is going to nato before the putin meeting. That is another opportunity for him to be criticizing americas closest allies in the whole Atlantic Alliance is at stake n. Terms of your direct question, john, there is a lot of evidence that pompeo, at this point, pompeo and the president are pretty much in sync and pompeo is careful not to get on the wrong side or too for out front defending tariffs and the trade war. Economists who knew him in congress are surprised, to say the least, that pompeo is not arguing against some of the actions that have been taken. So, he is staying in a lane and very well trusted by the president. Kelly is no longer a factor on foreign policy. Mattis, much less than he should be and used to be. John, you know where you are going to be on july 16th, in finland. I will be on that trip. I want to sort of note the timing of it. Yeah. Now, on backtoback days, Vladimir Putin will have the global stage. The day before is the World Cup Final in moscow, which he will preside over. The next day, hell have the audience with the president of the United States. My question for andrea, because you started to go there, the president will have just come from the uk and prior to that, the nato meeting. Remember what happened there last year. He said they didnt spend enough on defense. A few weeks ago, he ended the g7 summit in person and late ner a series of tweets from air force one, how concerned are the longtime allies they are going to have face time with the president and then have a oneonone meeting with Vladimir Putin . Thats what is sort of reached whatever. It is really, really tough for these nato allies to anticipate he goes from them to putin. Especially after the way he behaved in canada, with our closest allies and the way hes behaved toward mexico. The mexican election is july 1st. Thats already baked in the cake, the anger and hostility in mexico after 20 years of efforts after nafta, bipartisan efforts to build a better relationship with our southern neighbor. So, thats really bad. Especially coming after this after this nato meeting to go to putin and as you point out, i hadnt thought of that. Its a smart observation that putin is going to be on a huge high. Then, there is the real concern about what is going to happen in london because the president is not going to be welcome. There are a lot of protests. You know how angry they are. It was downgraded from a state visit. Concern about how the royals are going to react as well as him not getting the parade he wants that he had on july 14th on bastille day in paris. He wants that kind of fanfare. He is going to get exactly the opposite. Andrea, i want to get noah in here. The president tweeted a short time ago, russia continues to say they had nothing to do with meddling in our election. Where is the dnc server and why didnt shady james comy and the disgraced fbi agents take and closely examine it . Why isnt hillary being looked at . So many questions and corruption. This is the president of the United States speaking this way. Thats relatively incoherent, but it goes to the political anxiety he feels. I wanted to touch on a threat you mepgsed. The president is making policy visavis, russia and there we see the impulse to excuse russian meddling in 2016. We talked about insulting allies and saying what a burden nato is. These are the things that dont really appear to be reflected in policy, however. The president s policy, toward russia, if he is making it is hard sanctions on members of the putin inner circle, introducing weapons, offensive weapons into ukraine, liquid gas to poland. Hes had a hard policy on russia. If the president is making that policy is his demeanor all an act . He is slow to act on those sanctions. Remember they are legislated by congress. Different sanctions. The sanctions that had to do with the election interference were also slow walked. But, the other piece of this is the president , by praising putin, when he came out of the g20, he denied it. Then that extraordinary 45minute oneonone conversation right, you know, in germany when merkel was the host, stiffing her and sitting down next to putin without a note taker. He has leaned over backwards to accept putins denials. That really undercuts any kind of credibility for the investigation. This tweet just now, again, bringing up hillary and the server when there is an Ongoing Investigation and a completely credible intelligence assessment from all of the agencies that russia meddled. There has not been a sustained interagency process to protect our election from the 2018 election. You know, from being attacked by russia. So, he is not directed a real, american response to the meddling. So, i would argue that he has been tough on russia. Andrea mitchell, thank you very much. See you at noon on your show, here on msnbc. Number three expresso. Huge article on her. Bad ass. I didnt want to say that, but thats what they say. Shes on the top 50 bad ass women in style. Willie and i were not included. Next. Dick durbin joins the conversation. Keep it here on morning joe. Doesnt have to be. Molly thats why i choose a Nurse Practitioner for my familys primary care. David my np is accessible and takes the time to listen. I love my np. Molly our np orders tests, makes the correct diagnoses and prescribes the medications we need. David my name is david and i choose an np. Molly my name is molly and we choose nps. Np consider an np. Visit we choose nps. Org to learn more. My secret visitors. Appearing next to me in plain sight. Hallucinations and delusions. These are the unknown parts of living with parkinsons disease. What stories they tell. But for my ears only. What plots they unfold. But only in my mind. 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The president under the constitution has the authority to put forth Supreme Court nominees and then we have our job to do in considering them. I felt that it was a mistake that justice that judge garland was not given a hearing and full consideration by the senate and i think it would be a mistake if the democrats repeated that error and tried to block us from considering as the senate whomever is put forth by President Trump. You guys going to play hard ball this time and say were not going to let you pass this . Youre not going to rush us before election day . Based on every conversation ive had with my colleagues, everybodys prepared to play hard ball. Joining us now from capitol hill, a member of the Judiciary Committee, Senate Democratic whip dick durbin of illinois. Do you concur with what senator harris was saying about playing hard ball . What about repeating the process that garland went through . Does it just actually not end up being productive in terms of our democracy moving forward . Senator mcconnell changed the tradition and approach of the senate. A vacancy was left open until after the president ial election. Senator mcconnell was hoping for a republican president. It happened. So garland, a well qualified man, was not allowed to be on the Supreme Court. Mr. Goresuch, now justice goresuch, was. Now to Mitch Mcconnell, do you stand by the same reasoning . You said let the American People speak. Already, hes told us hes not going to be consistent at all on this. If it helps his party, hes going to move forward. I would say to senator harris, there are limited options here. Under the rules of the Judiciary Committee and the rules of the senate, the majority basically does rule. And although we have an opportunity to ask questions and we should of whoever the nominee may be, the notion that we can stop them with 49 votes is just not in the cards. I guess it depends on exactly whos being considered here because there may be some republicans that could be swayed to you never know. But what then is the game plan . And you are saying you dont think you should play hard ball the way the republicans did . Well, we dont have the power. I mean, if we had the power and the authority to make those decisions, its one thing. But under the rules, under the rules with Justice Gorsuch, in a matter of three months or so, he went from being nominated by the white house to approved by the United States senate. In the meantime, there was vetting, investigation, hearing, questions, votes and committee, consideration on the floor. But it was on a path where a majority controlled the outcome and at this point we dont have the majority. Senator, i know you cant reveal trade craft, have you hypothetically, have you talked with any republican senators about possibly voting their conscience and voting the Democratic Caucus on this . Not at this point. This is just from yesterday afternoon until this morning, very limited time. I think there are some republican senators who are very conscientious when it comes to these decisions. If the nominee is extreme, they will speak up. Its an historic decision. Jonathan. Senator, the power of the Supreme Court was on display this week, even before Justice Kennedy announced his retirement, with the ruling on the travel ban, with the ruling on unions. I wanted to sort of get, first, your take on those issues and, also, how concerned are you that roe versus wade could become the central issue with a new justice appointed by President Trump . I can tell you i thought the decision on the travel ban was awful. And i believe that justice so sotomayor was correct. Where we interned thousands of japaneseamericans during world war ii. The court has now said as much. I dont believe the muslim travel ban was consistent either. I thought the decision by the conservative majority of the court was wrong and one well come to regret. The other decision before the court, certainly roe versus wade comes to mind. This has been an issue that has divided america for decades and will continue to. I thought that we were near some sort of a balance in terms of our approach to this. If theres an upset, all bets are off. Theres no telling what will come with it in a very conservative court in the issue of reproductive rights. Senator, would it be prudent at this stage for Senate Democrats to start conditioning their supporters to understood that a Trump Nominee is most likely to be confirmed and not to show them a notion that some sort of option can be miracled into existence and they can stop trump from supporting a Supreme Court nominee . We have to be honest with all voters. We have to concede what the constitution may see about the advice and consent. But equally important in this situation, the procedures and rules of the senate. And it boils down to very basic calculation. 49 democrats. 51 republicans. If john mccain is not here, 4950. But one votes enough. All right. I want to well, kind of closing out the show here. I want to kind of get off topic but stay right on topic and ask you about the democratic primary win that happened for a congressional seat here in new york. Senator alexandria orcsaio cortez, shes, what, 40 years younger than a lot of people serving right now, so that would be considered a fresh face. Having said that, she beat a longtime democrat, who did an amazing concession speech and, you know, we appreciate his service. But whats the message of her win and do other democrats need to take a look at what her message is and see how connected it is to who she is and where she came from and how easily it rolls off the tongue . Because she seems to me like a great example of what were looking for. Joe crowley said in the press this morning three weeks before the election he had a 36point lead in the polls. We also know the turnout when it came to that particular election was not a big turnout but clearly it was decisive for cortez. I think in our democratic primary, were going to have a lot of women who are making powerful statements who need to be taken very seriously. In my state of illinois, such is the case in a lot of our congressional races, its a year where people are looking for clear definition and if youre fuzzy on some of the important issues, it can cost you. Senator dick durbin, thank you. As we close out the show, if you could queue up that video. Take a look at the video of this 28yearold woman winning the election and getting results on new york 1. Her mom was a cleaning lady. Her father died when she was 18. She put herself through school. And shes 28 years old. And this right here, right now, is the American Dream happening. And its also right now the political story of the moment. Given what were seeing happening at our border, given whats happening in puerto rico right now, where 5,000 people died and the president promised to help the island find its way back, this part of america, and americans find their way back to having light, water, a healthy environment, they dont. So many more are still sick. So many more will die. And so many have died. Thats puerto rico. Is apparently the example of trump serving the american