Be and what it will be. Person president pawned for putin. Promotes soviet strategy on nato, because thats exactly whats going on. Good morning. And welcome to morning joe. Its tuesday, july 24th. Mika has the morning off but along with willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle. President of the council on Foreign Relations and author of a world in disarray Richard Haass. Nbc news political reporter Heidi Przybyla and columnist and associate editor for the Washington Post david ignatius, and the cofounder and ceo of axios, jim vandehei. You know, willie, there are so many ways that donald trump and his team always try to distract, but there can be no mistake about what this weeks, this months, this years most shocking headline really is politically and that is that donald trump went to helsinki and he adapted, he adopted and dont believe your Public Servants on morning joe. Listen to commentators on Russian State Television and they will say that donald trump has adopted the soviet unions position on nato. And that hes what he did in helsinki was nothing short of disregard u. S. National intelligence, and also drive a wedge between our allies in europe that, well, helped us win a cold war. Well, helsinki was a disaster and the white house knows. The week that followed helsinki a disaster, white house knows it. The president of the United States forced to say yes i agree with the intelligence communities assessment, yes, russia meddled and erasing that going back to a tweet saying the Russian Investigation was a hoax. We know how he truly feels and putting out another shiny object. Talking about way taking away the security clearances of former security heads. There are questions of monetizing which is preposter s preposterous, fair to say, talking about monetizing security clearances, but i think the other thing to throw in the mix, too, joe, is as you did, this idea that the white house and the president is offended by baseless accusations when donald trump, of course, was the ringleader of the Birther Movement beginning about six, seven years ago. Yeah. And mon tidesing Public Service. Mike barnicle, you can talk about the trump hotel. You can talk about all of the Foreign Countries and everybody else that are trying to curry favor with donald trump by making money, by handing him money. You can talk about how i mean, well go to the list soon, but every time that theres a moment between china and the United States, it seems that ivanka gets three or more clearances for patents for her products in china. I mean, this is you could write a book on this and im sure somebody is writing a book on this, on how much donald trump is monetizing the presidency and how much his entire family is monetizing the presidency and most importantly, how much the corrupt Republican Party in washington, d. C. Is helping them monetize the presidency. Yeah, joe. This is the First White House in the histories of this republic largely filled with grifters. People grabbing what they can while they can grab it, but the largest story, the one that you raised at the top of the program, the removal, a threatened removal of security clearances from people like Michael Hayden, and john brennan and others is so small, so petty and so predictable, and it is the behavior of a man, mr. Trump, who knows that the cops are at the door, and he continues he continues and he did it within the past few days, to stick his thumb in the eye of the American Intelligence Community preferring to go with the russian theory rather than with what the American Intelligence Community has told him and warned him repeatedly. You mow, willie, these headlines are ripped straight from the fages, as they would say, fox news. Certain hosts on fox news that when there is damning news about donald trump, something that should really concern americans now, theyll do Hillary Clinton email stories. And, of course, were we joking about this six months in. Were now 18 months in. Theyre still doing it. This whole smoke screen yesterday about taking security clearances away from from former cia directors and other intel giants. I mean, that came off of a fox news segment with rand paul who then, again, as we said yesterday morning, shamelessly says he was going to go over to the white house and what was he going to talk about . Not about Vladimir Putin influencing u. S. Policy, not about helsinki or the destruction of our 55, 60year alliance with nato. Instead, rand paul said that he was going over to the white house to try to strip john brennan and others of their security clearance. Again, smoke screen, distract, try to get peoples attention off of whats right in front of them and i really im quite confident that there arent that many people out there that are still so stupid as to not know that theyre being manipulated. Well talk about why some of these people have security clearances after theyve left their positions in the administration in a moment, but lets get into one of these real stories, joe. Iran is reacting to President Trumps twitter threat of total destruction of their country taking to the same media platform, javad zarif tweeted this color us unimpressed. He tweets, be cautious. And yesterday President Trump stood by his tweeted threat. Mr. President with javad . Not at all. This president put iran on notice and as he made clear last night, we will no longer tolerate iran sowing terror across the world. The president s responding to iran and hes not going to allow them to continue to make threats against america. If anybody is inciting anything, look no further than to iran. What would it take to have direct negotiations between the president and president zarif that is a determination the president would make. When the president pulled out of the jcpoa he did not reveal an alternate plan to address v. He planned to get them back to the table. Is that still his plan b. . As we have said, our goal, make sure iran doesnt get a nuclear weapon. When we have specifics well let you know. Doesnt President Trump plan to move u. S. Carriers to the i dont have specific announcements on that at this point. Richard haass with the council on Foreign Relations. Yesterday was irans lucky day. They look back in history, as they mentioned, donald trump threatened north korea, then donald trump gave north korea everything they wanted. Donald trump made his secretary of state fly half way around the world to try to resolve the dispute with kim jongun. Clean things up in the press, and kim jongun basically spit in our general direction and went out picking potatoes with potato farmers. So the iranians must be, like, getting the brinks trucks ready to back them up and get money from donald trump, because whenever he starts talking like this, hes the sucker in the end. What should the rest of the world think of Donald Trumps opening round of bluster which always ends in weakness and groveling on his part . Well, joe i dont think its thought through, because we dont have much of an iran policy other than economic pressure. Were not willing to counter them around the region, be it syria or anywhere else. The short run, its actually good for the regime. The currency is plummeting, didnt get the benefits they wanted from the nuclear agreement, but this strengthens them for rouhani, for the foreign minister. This makes them look tough. People are rallying around them. Its actually strengthening the regime hold on, richard. What youre saying is that another rogue regime is strengthened by Donald Trumps bluster and missteps . I mean, the North Koreans have been waiting for what they got this past week for 45 years. And now youre saying the iranians were on the ropes. Donald trump attacking the iranians with bluster again just strengthens them at home . I think it does. Hurting them economically, helping them politically. A real disconnect. Secretary of state gives a speech and sunday calling for regime change in iran. The leadership corrupt. Cites chapter and verse. Suddenly the administration is discovered the value of human rights and democracy, at least in one country which is iran. So thats a real shot across their bow and then the president is tweeting in a manner that again makes it, i think, much more difficult for the opposition in iran to attack their government lest they look like theyre doing the work of america. A real disconnect between what the secretary of state is doing and what the president is tweeting. And david ignatius, of course, the president being, going on twitter and, you know, just being bellicose and blustery with his words, again, has a negative impact for u. S. Interests in iran, because it strengthens that regime, makes them look tough standing up against the United States, but in europe, more more heads shaking. More questions raised. More reasons to believe that they have got to find their own way forward without the United States. Well, i think there is a real u. S. Europe split coming as the u. S. Begins to impose unilateral sanctions august 4 and another round coming november 4. I think, joe, were looking at the north korea playbook as you suggested initially. This is fire and fury 2. We have very belligerent rhetoric, theres no way to read the president s allcaps tweet other than as a reference to possible use of Nuclear Weapons against iran. On what grounds is not made clear in the tweet. As with north korea. Theres a hope that the u. S. Is going to have a key regional partner with north korea. It was china. I think the administration increasingly feels after helsinki, maybe we can work with russia to try to squeeze iran both at home and in syria, and then theres this idea that crippling economic sanctions will weaken the regime so much that it will be pliable and then well be ready to come to the negotiating table, as north korea did, or maybe well veer towards some kind of regime change. I think the problem with this policy is that its long on rhetoric speech by pompeo, tweets by trump, and very short on on the ground systematic planning. If theres one thing we need learn in this part of the world is do not start a fight that you do not know how youre going to finish. Were seeing a classic example of that right now. Just like, again, with north korea. We started a fight on twitter, and obviously, a lot of pressing issues when donald trump became president of the United States, but it ended in a summit, and right now there seems to be very little followup to it, and just the president of the United States and the secretary of state being embarrassed on the world stage. Hey, willie, lets take a sharp tomorrow domestic politics a second. I saw a poll out last night from nbc news that certainly casts, well, just reflects, on the debate thats coming up on kavanaugh. When he goes before the before the United States senate. Roe v. Wade. This nbc poll, had support for roe v. Wade at 71 . A majority of republicans now even say they dont believe that roe v. Wade should be overturned. Should roe be overturned . No. 71 . Yes. 23 . Willie, i know that thats been the dream of conservatives for years, to get five judges on the court that will overturn roe v. Wade, but thats a 45year precedent. Thats a 71 approval number, and its going to be a heavy, heavy lift for any judge going under the court, and a heavy lift for anybody that wants to go into the court with those sort of numbers. You mentioned inside the numbers. Republicans, among republicans, 52 support the Supreme Court ruling in roe v. Wade. 76 independent and 88 you might expect under democrats. Heidi, as you look at the whip count traveling around dlocapit hill and who will vote for kavanaugh and who wouldnt, wiggle votes, Susan Collins, a couple of others, is this in peril for President Trump . Any chance kavanaugh is not seated here . Weve been looking to Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and known the answer to that at least a week or two ago expected them to come out in stronger opposition to whoever the candidate is going to be to signal that this may be in peril. The one vote that chug lactualls in question is rand paul based on privacy concerns but i dont think that in the end will pose any danger. I think he is trying to draw attention to what has been a longstanding issue. I do think roe will be a huge issue during the confirmation hearing. I dont expect kavanaugh to answer the question, but we can go ahead and look at his previous writings about kind of executive power. We can look at his previous writings about referring to abortion, and a recent case he ruled on as quote unquote abortion on demand which is the language used by a lot of the antiabortion crowd, but i think at the end of the day, willie, a lot of democrats know that the real risk to roe is not necessarily a direct overturning of roe but it is the upholding of the flurry of restrictions that are being passed at the state level, which would essentially, if allowed to stay in place, render roe irrelevant in a lot of states. So you could just see big disparities in terms of statelevel access to abortion. Yeah. And you know, when we look at the senators who may or may not support kavanaugh, jim vandehei, lets just not even put rand paul on this list. He does this every time. Im going to vote against that. Im going to vote against this. And always ends up supporting donald trump blindly. Hes going to vote for kavanaugh. Its a joke for him any reporter that thinks hes not seriously should look into another profession. Hes going to vote for kavanaugh. The question, though, is, jim, youve got two republicans and two democrats who are still trying to figure this thing out. Of course, weve talked about Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins but also Heidi Heitkamp and joe manchin. You get a feeling they will as a block one way or the other. All either vote against kavanaugh or for kavanaugh and provide each other a little cover. Yeah. If you listen to what they had to say and their pasts, much more likely they vote for him than against him. More likely that he picks up democratic votes than he loses republican votes. And, again, once you get into the hearings on this and hes getting grilled, he obviously knows the abortion question is coming and obviously knows how to hand that in a public setting. I dont think theyll be enough out there to convince republicans even moderate republicans to turn against him and you have these democrats sitting in these states, not just the two you mentioned. You have basically ten seats occupied by democrats. Look at trumps numbers in the states, theyre basically what they were on election day. He emains relatively pop la in those states, and an asset in those states. A lot of pressure to put on those members and they have to have a real justification going against someone they think is a real person for the court. And also talk about Susan Collins in maine, and you now have the question whether obamacare is, if reviewed again, would be deemed constitutional . Now theyve stripped away that tax that john roberts what john roberts called a tax. So the issue of preexisting conditions suddenly comes up. For a guy lie jke joe manchin. Hard for joe manchin to vote for a judge to rule roe v. Wade not roe v. Wade, rule obamacare unconstitutional. A lot of issues affect a lot of voters that this fifth vote is going to determine, a lot more than just abortion. Yeah. I mean, this story has a couple different tracks to it, joe. Heidi accurately pointed out, whats going on in various state legislators around the country will do more to diminish access and make it more difficult to get access to a Womans Health than anything that happens in the next few months with the hearings. The other aspect, the other track that is really interesting is, look, to be realistic about it. To just follow the barometer that is going on in washington right now. Judge kavanaugh is going to be confirmed. He is going to sit on the Supreme Court, which raises the larger question what are the democrats going to do in pursuit of rewinning the house, winning the house in 2018, and winning the presidency in 2020 . Where are they going . What direction is the Democratic Party headed in . Hey, jim before we send you off on your day what are you looking at looking at the verizon of axios . Bad news for trump, putting aside the tweet stuff, the house is looking worse. Handicapping races, study districts putting way more republican seats in play. Now you have the ingredients it would take to have a wave that would put democrats in control. 60plus seats in play, almost all republican. You have democrats outraising republicans in many of the seats which should never happen when republicans are the party in power and you have democrats showing in race after race sthe have record turnout. In terms of things democrats can be hopeful about, the house is looking better and better. The senate, still difficult as can be for democrats. Jim, thanks so much. And still ahead on morning joe, back to the administrations accusations against former servants. Well compare how that contrasts with money makers from Current White House officials. From ivanka trumps clothing line to Jared KushnersFamily Business. Youre watchi