favorably to the prosecution. the longer we go, that should be an indication to most people observing that this could end up in a mistrial in favor of donald trump. >> let's take a step back as a final note. this, of course, is just one of the four criminal cases facing donald trump. is it your estimation, and we're waiting to hear from the supreme court, is this the only trial between now and the election? >> i've said this is likely the most ever we're going to see around donald trump facing accountability in a criminal court of law. at least before november. depending on what happens in the fate of the federal trials. certainly as it pertains to anything taking place before november, i think this is it. >> msnbc legal analyst charles coleman, thank you for being with us here on set. we appreciate it. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this thursday morning. "morning joe" starts right now.

president biden challenged former president trump to two debates, and trump accepted. >> oh. >> yeah. trump agreed. he said, "i'll be there, assuming it's okay with my parole officer." the first debate will be next month, which is the earliest a presidential debate has ever been. if we're being honest, an early bird debate feels right for these guys. >> boom, just like that, head-to-head, toe to toe, mano and mango. trump posted, "just tell me when. i'll be there. let's get ready to rumble!" rumble? i've seen your rallies. i think you mean, let's get ready to ramble. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, may 16th. i just have to ask, the question alex asks, why is it not friday? how is it not friday, guys?

it's thursday. >> we're grateful that god has given us another day to come in and be together. >> i'm very grateful. >> we're close to friday. >> we're not at friday. >> 24 hours, it'll be friday. >> a lot to talk about. >> we have white house bureau chief for politico, jonathan lemire. we have john heilemann. mara gay is with us. former treasury official and "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner is up bright and early this morning. did he bring charts on this thursday? >> i don't know. maybe he did. i told him, i want him around the table. he comes in, goes to the fenway wall. >> southwest wall. >> southwest wall. >> he has charts. >> he leaves, and i take it personally after a while. >> why is it not friday? >> i take it personally i'm not invited to the big boy's table. i'm off in the kitty corner. >> what did i do this morning, steve? >> i appreciate it.

>> i said i wanted you here. let's get through a couple things. >> we have a lot to get to. the debates, my god, it's happening. just saying. >> so excited. [ laughter ] >> let's talk about real things. >> okay. >> mike lupica says this might be the most exciting knicks team. debate. >> they won two titles in the '70s with frazier and walt reid. knicks fans, this is a team they've loved the most in a long time. patrick ewing teams made it to the finals in 1999. brunson has taken the city by storm. they could have a game seven at home. it is difficult to imagine the crowd letting them down. >> i'm cheering for the knicks because it is so exciting, but it'll end up being the nuggets

and the celtics. >> let's hope. >> here's the thing, what lupica says is jalen brunson is a great playoff performer. it's clearly true. i would be like, not since the days of walt clyde frazier. >> please don't. >> there is an electricity in the garden that there hasn't been in a long time. i've never said this before, never said it before, but i'll say it -- >> are we on set with -- >> thank you, jimmy dolan. he gave us all those years of disappointment. >> right. >> abuse. >> yeah. >> it's just made this moment that much sweeter. >> there ya go. >> everybody has been so longing. it's been -- knicks fans have been in the desert for so long, being crapped on by jimmy dolan. they can now see the light. >> through the dolan crap. thank you for that. >> yeah. >> mara. >> it is a good 6:03 a.m. image. >> proving my "new york times"/sienna poll -- >> he has a conspiracy theory behind it.

>> that every one of those polls skew press coverage for weeks to come. >> right. >> the newspaper of record, "new york post," collapsing polls. i hold up the paper of record for "morning joe" for a good reason. fox news has their own polls out which show deadlock. "the new york times" had an ipsos poll that showed biden ahead by four. again, am i saying biden is ahead by four? no. it is a deadlock. again, this ipsos poll, here's the new fox news poll that shows donald trump up by 1 percentage point. joe biden is -- >> still pretty incredible. >> biden has picked up three. >> right. >> mara, i'm always saying the day after a sienna poll, and it's been for six months. okay, you have a lot to live for. you have four children. polls change. the trends, this cycle. >> you and a lot of people who

like democracy. >> sure enough, the next day, we will be hit by not one, by two, by four, five polls the next week that show we're in a deadlock, right? but my point, it does skew press coverage for weeks to come. i'm not asking you to defend "the times." you don't do the polling. >> this is awkward. >> i'm just saying, it is a draw. >> also, polls are but one data point. i think we tend to -- >> right. >> -- think of them as the only measure. >> yeah. >> for what's happening. they're often out of context. we're polling actual human beings here. that's imperfect. you saw in nevada, which is a notoriously difficult state to poll, that biden was down the most. that may be the actual trend, but the real shape of it is really hard to know. you're just getting a snapshot in time. >> right. >> the other thing here is it is hard to know when you have two people, two candidates for president, who really are quite

unpopular overall, both of them, with the american public. how much of this is people who are being polled right now who are not super political, they're not politics junkies, they may not like either of them. it's still may. they're not thinking about this necessarily as a contest between two candidates. they're thinking, i don't like either of them. talk to me in five months. >> i'll take the last guy. >> right. >> the whole idea it's going to be 13 points in nevada. seriously, i will take any bets, it is going to be close. democrats almost always win close races in nevada. unbelievable. now, finally to you before we get moving. inflation. >> inflation eases. >> yeah. stocks hit highs. most importantly, from at least the numbers i saw yesterday, grocery prices going down a bit. i'm telling you, between three things, really, especially for younger voters, grocery prices, it's gas, and, of course, it's buying a home. or being able to have a nice

place to rent out. those are the three -- well, we're not even talking about a car. i mean, cars are crazy. we basically trade in all of our cars. we have a gray kia mini van. >> i love it. >> it's reliable, and it is ten years, 100,000 miles. you don't have to go to -- do you have this part? yeah, we'll have this part in about eight months. no, you know, i get up in the gray kia mini van and drive down the road like a boss. >> you should see us. >> it's the problem that steve has with his -- >> the rolls, you can't even use it. >> yeah. >> away for the parts forever. >> forget about the gray cooler. >> it's crazy. >> not even fighting us anymore. >> i'm not going to get into the middle of that with you guys. thank you, john, for attacking my lifestyle. >> that wasn't an attack. it was a show of envy. i'm jealous.

>> if you want, i'll give you a ride in the bentley around the block. >> let's do it. >> wow. >> steve rattner makes populists of us all. >> you're teasing my appearance at the southwest wall in a few minutes, but we do have good news on inflation. >> right. >> we have good news on food, energy, a lot of the prices are actually moderating. they're going up by reasonable amounts. i'll show you stuff about how consumer sentiment is closely tied to inflation. we know that's going to drive the election. just to where you were a second ago, you know the real, clear average of polls shows it is a dead heat. >> it is a dead heat. >> i find that surprising. >> again, my reaction is not so much to "the times." i'm dead serious. it is people who freak out disproportionately on "the times" and then "the times" doing 15 stories on their poll. fox won't do 15 stories on their fox poll. morning consult won't. it's become this cottage industry for people on the other

side of the chinese wall that mara is not on. she has nothing to do with this. please, do not direct any comments or tweets to her. >> definitely not involved in the polls. >> just for people at home, and it's important for them to kind of see what's behind the scenes, for six months, since people have been freaking out about biden's team, i'm telling you every time i go in and talk to anybody that's running the campaign, the big part of the campaign, i don't know what they're telling you and what they're telling other people, they act like people that are holding four aces. what about this? yeah, it's pretty bad. >> what about this? yeah, yeah, well, that looks really tough. yeah, boy, trump. they really -- >> is this a criticism or -- >> no. i'm telling you, they know something that i think a lot of us don't know.

they look at numbers and see where things are going. they've had a theory of the case, when people realize donald trump is getting into the race, things are going to start gelling better for him. they understand you win politics by raising money and organizing on the ground. they understand donald trump's numbers are way down in every way, fundraising. they're not going to -- they're never going to catch joe biden. as far as organization goes, we all know, anybody who has been involved in the political campaign, if you're tearing up, like, stakes in april and may, you're not putting them back down in july and august. donald trump will be pounded on the ground. the blocking and tackling the biden people feel great about. they have a thousand clips of donald trump that, every day, they're like, which one are we going to use today? boop. it makes him look horrible. >> the biden campaign -- >> they're supremely confident. >> yes. >> makes me nervous. >> they'll confident it will be

close. they know it is going to be tight. an aide told me in the last week or so that -- this person was saying, i feel good about where we are. we are going to win decisively, by less than a point. that's how the race is going to be, tight. they like where they are. in part, the fundamentals. they have a better organization, far more state offices and money on hand, and that advantage is probably only going to grow. they feel like once americans pay attention, and to mara's point, most are not. there is skepticism whether tis will be the race. it's important for the debates to happen so early. first, there isn't an understanding now that so many americans vote early. it was going to be mid-october, and that's too late. too many ballots have been cast. >> i'm still having intelligent people with advanced degrees telling me, who is the republican nominee really going to be? >> yeah. they think biden is too old.

trump will be in prison. he can't do it. there are people still skeptical. a biden person was telling me june is so important. what the june debate will do, it'll grab donald trump, who has been turned into white noise, and he'll be put in american's living rooms. here's the guy, the nominee. do you really want this again? they think it'll change this. >> i don't know if i'm suffering from campaign post-traumatic stress, but don't go robby mook on me. >> i'm not talking about algorithms. talking about algorithms. >> there is a long way go. >> anything could happen. >> here's a theory of the case for the biden campaign, and i think they're dead right, it'll be a close race. in close races, it is the blocking, the tackling that wins it for you. we saw this in 2004. we thought that 2004 with bush against kerry was going to be just like 2000. you had ken melman who was

blocking and tackling from january on, just phone calls every day, going around. now, you have jen o'malley dylan doing it. >> she's amazing. >> that adds up in close races. if you know it is going to be a close race, that stuff adds up. again, maybe they're wrong. i will tell you, the difference between this campaign and '16 is, there was arrogance in the '16 campaign. they made fun of donald trump. they said no way donald trump can win. they went on "saturday night live" and mocked and ridiculed donald trump as the republican nominee. this is the one good thing about "the new york times" polls, it scares the crap out of all the supporters who will say to fundraisers, "please, may we give you more?" i guess after the election is over, trump will probably say it was a conspiracy, "the new york

times"/sienna poll always overplayed how bad things were for biden to juice his fundraising. that's working, too. let's get caught up on the news that broke on our show yesterday. president biden and donald trump agreeing to presidential debates. things escalated pretty rapidly throughout yesterday afternoon, with both candidates announcing they have accepted two invitations to debate. once on cnn on june 27th and again on abc news on september 10th. the rules will differ from past election cycles. the candidates agreed to bypass the commission on presidential debates, which had organized these face-offs every four years since 1988. biden also requested these guidelines, which trump begrudgingly accepted, or at least we think he accepted it. never know. there be no audience in the room. that no third party candidates be allowed to participate. that only a select group of news

outlets can host. a candidate's microphone be shut off if they go over their allotted speaking time. >> john heilemann, i'm skeptical that trump will ever put himself in that position where he's not saved by a roaring crowd. >> have one outside, whatever. >> i think there's a lot of evidence to suggest that donald trump is not as good as his word and that he won't necessarily make good on this. the i'll be anywhere at anytime pledge. the thing that trump has been -- the kind of core paradigm for the campaign, the trump campaign's point of view is, donald trump is strong. joe biden is weak. he's weak, failing, flailing, old, fumbling. >> they don't want the contrast. donald trump is weak, failing, miserable. >> that's not what they think. >> you don't think suzy wiles,

chris, and the smart people on his campaign don't understand how often this guy loses his train of thought? >> i think they do. >> forgets who he is running against. thinks jimmy connors, the tennis pro from '74 to '77 also brokered the camp david accords? they know. >> they know. i think they also have a darker -- they have a more critical view of joe biden's errors and missteps in this area than you do. we're just talking here about, not what the right point of view is, but are they going to let donald trump go debate. >> yeah. >> it would be, i think, a very tricky thing for donald trump, whose main point of view is, i am the tough guy. i roll over everything. i'm rolling over the legal system right now. joe biden is weak and flailing. i'm strong and tough. i'm unstoppable. for him to have said, i'll beat you anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances, and then back out. he has painted himself into a corner because i think trump did not necessarily believe, trump himself did not believe biden

would eventually ever say he'd take these debates. now, he is kind of in a corner. joe, i think donald trump always tries to leave himself wiggle room. he's not left himself much here. if you ask me, you know, with a gun to my head, whether i think the debates are going to happen, i wouldn't say nothing close to 100%, but a lit more likely than not that trump feels he has no choice but to do the two. >> what about his campaign? he is going in not with knowledge, not with experience on the world stage that was productive, but he is going to go in there with insults, with a firehose of falsehoods, with personal stuff about joe biden, and he is going to come at him hard. that's going to be the challenge. >> yeah. >> you laugh, but sometimes that throws people off. you never know. jonathan lemire -- >> worked in 2016. >> mika, i'm not laughing. >> okay. >> i'm smiling at the fact that when donald trump tries all of those things that he does in front of his fat elvis '77 crowd where they roar and say, "please throw a sweaty scarf in my

direction," it is going to be met with dead silence. the cameramen and women are going to be going -- >> i don't underestimate it. nasty behavior is so shocking that it can be offputting. >> but it's so past that. >> what about rfk jr.? >> he is not included in the debates, which his campaign put together vociferous opposition saying, look, we're factoring in the polls here. we should be part of the race. some americans may agree with him. the biden and trump campaigns have cut him out. he is not going to be part of these debates. trump, we should note, is calling for more than just these two, and said he's gotten an agreement with fox news to host a third. the biden campaign says, no, this will be it, the presidential campaigns, plus a vice presidential debate. kamala harris and whoever trump picks for his running mate. that'll be in july. there is a sense the biden campaign wants to box trump in. they know he was ahead of this,

saying, i'll debate you in any way. the biden campaign said, okay, we'll do it like this. trump can't now be perceived as walking away from that. if he did, it'd be a perception of weakness. >> right. you know, mara, willie always says, "i strongly recommend that our viewers watch a donald trump rally from the beginning to the end." to understand how disconnected this man is from reality. >> yeah. >> again, i'm just saying, 90 minutes in a deadly silent studio audience with nothing but laughter coming from cameramen and camerawomen and stagehands from the really stupid things that he says, i think it is a huge mistake for him. >> well, there's a few things working in joe biden's favor in that sense. one of them is that donald trump has really enjoyed going on the

platform of his choosing to communicate with the public for the past three, four years. that is going to be -- that's just going to end with this. the other thing is that i think the more national events you have where all eyes are in one place, the better for joe biden. >> yes. >> this is not going to be something that donald trump can introduce in his own way on his own platform. americans are going to see from a traditional media organization exactly what donald trump looks like and sounds like. there is going to be one source for this information, and i think it is going to work in joe biden's favor. you know, the other element that i'm just depressed about here is the second debate is on my birthday. >> yeah! >> sweetie, we'll have a party for you. >> sounds like a -- >> we're going to have a birthday party right here. >> wait a minute. >> the birthday party. >> september 10th. >> 25 years old.

>> great birthday. >> so cute. >> fantastic. >> jonathan? >> let's remember that despite trump's bravado about the debates, joe biden got the better of him in 2020. >> i know. >> he won those debates. trump was incoherent and infected with covid, at least in the first one. republicans are setting expectations so low for biden. if he puts sentences together, he'll win. we saw what he did in the state of the union. >> by the way, they never learn. they never learn, these republicans. they never learn. they constantly underestimate joe biden. they constantly say he is an old man and can't speak. as you know, if you're debating somebody, even if you're better than them, you go, i hope i'm able to walk off the stage. my hounddog will still talk to me afterwards because he is a great debater. i'll make a fool of my -- you constantly talk yourself down. these republicans keep saying, "oh, we just hope he gets through the state of the union.

he's so old and addled." >> that was amazing. >> think about it. >> that was a triumph. >> all you can do is judge somebody by their toughest challenges. joe biden, the democratic primary, he was back against the wall. he went south carolina. he destroys all the people politically that had been mocking him before that. you think about the first state of the union. he's too old, too infirmed, blew them out of the water. this last state of the union, not only was it prepared remarks, it was off the cuff remarks. he just mocked and ridiculed them and made them look like children. >> wow. >> yet, why should we be surprised? they still don't get it. they're still mocking him, which plays right into his hand. >> yeah. to paraphrase george bush, it is nice to go into a debate with the soft bigotry of low

expectations working in your favor. >> true. >> they made him out to be a guy who can barely put a sentence together, so he'll go in there and it's his chance. >> true. >> i was reading doris kearns goodwin's new book about the '60s. 1960, nixon and kennedy debate, the whole idea was kennedy needed to show people he was a grown-up. the narrative was he was a kid, too young, too inexperienced, and couldn't command the stage. that's all kennedy had to do against low expectations. i think biden is in very much the same situation. as jonathan pointed out, we did win the last two debates. i think everything they've agreed to so far, and this could break down over these debates, plays to biden's strength. no studio audience, set times, moderator cuts off the microphone and give biden a chance to talk without trump hovering over him and waving his arms. >> throwing covid his way. >> by the way, mika -- >> it was so gross. >> it was. >> -- if trump agrees to this

with everything working against him, it reveals how desperate they are for this debate. >> yeah. >> they know things aren't as great -- >> i'm more careful in my thoughts about this. anything could happen. ahead on "morning joe," steve rattner will head to the southwest wall and tell us why it is not friday and only thursday. also, to break down yesterday's welcome inflation numbers. as we go to break, a quick refresher of how donald trump conducted himself in the 2020 debates with then candidate joe biden. we're back in 90 seconds. they will, under my proposal. >> not what you said, and it is not what your party said. >> we have to be engaged. >> that's not what they're talking about. >> we have the highest trade deficit with mexico. >> china ate your lunch, joe. >> maybe you were drop a nuclear weapon on them. >> i never said that. >> antifa is an idea, not an organization. >> oh, you have to be kidding. >> listen, stay out of the way. >> oh, really? >> this guy -- >> i want to see honest ballot coverage. >> he's afraid of counting the

votes because -- >> you're wrong. >> i want to continue with you on this, vice president biden. >> he is wrong when he makes a statement like that. >> you want me to ban -- >> mr. president -- >> you would have been later, joe. >> sir. >> chris, that was the worst part of obama -- >> let me ask the question. >> i'll ask joe. >> no, no! mr. president, mr. president -- >> anybody who testified -- >> no. >> go ahead. >> no, no. mr. president -- >> 3.5 million, joe. >> stop. >> wait a minute. mr. president, no. mr. president. >> no! >> can i be honest, it is a very important question. >> no. >> he stood up -- >> the answer to the question is no. ♪♪ [paper flips] ♪♪ there's nothing better than a subway series footlong. except when you add on an all new footlong sidekick. we're talking a $2 footlong churro. $3 footlong pretzel

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it's not wet food. it's just real food. it's an idea whose time has come. welcome back. pretty shot of reagan national airport in a sunny washington, d.c. >> sunny. it is beautiful. when we've been talking over the past several months about younger voters seeming to breakaway from joe biden more, we've been -- they've been looking at it through sort of the wrong lens, talking about gaza. obviously, their concerns of college campuses, younger voters about gaza. it is inflation when you really dig into the numbers. it is inflation and younger americans having trouble buying gasoline, having trouble buying groceries, and, most importantly, trouble getting their first home. it is inflation that is driving them away from the biden

administration. the inflation data yesterday released revealed some good news for cash-strapped shoppers. grocery prices dropped for the first time in a year. food prices fell by 0.2% in april, according to the labor department's consumer price report. >> it is the first drop in a year. eggs led the decline. >> thank god. >> prices dropping more than 7%. steve rattner is over at the wall with charts to break it down. steve, what do you got, and can this continue? it's going to take a while for people to really feel the effects of this. >> yeah. look, as you guys have said, and joe just said, the inflation data is critical to the election. it has not gone well so far. this may be the beginning of a better trend. let's take a look at what happened yesterday, which was that bureau of labor statistics announced the latest data. inflation is now -- this is

headline, all the goods, up 3.4% year-over-year. we take out food and energy because they move around a lot. 3.6%. you can see what was happening. we'd gotten inflation down, it shall stalled out, increased a bit, and now we have somewhat better news. i'll show you both in the financial markets and public opinion, consumer sentiment, how it's effected. a bunch of stuff is still going on. car insurance is a small part, 6% of the index. not something people buy every day. when you look at what people buy every day, you see food up 2.6%. sorry, 2.2% year-over-year. get these lined up. food up 2.2% year-over-year. energy, gasoline, home heating, all that stuff up 2.6% year-over-year. goods, anything you buy, you know, a piece of merchandise, actually down 1.3% year-over-year, led by furniture, appliances, and so

forth. it is a picture of inflation that perhaps the average american doesn't fully appreciate, how much prices have moderated, especially for the things they buy every day. >> yeah. steve, let's look at housing up there. we were talking about housing. you look at, again, young voters. if you look at housing, if you look at the cost of cars, we were just talking about offset, how automobiles, used automobiles still. >> can't get one. >> i was out last night at an event, and people were talking about how hard it is to still get a decent car. >> well -- >> decent car, i'm not talking about one of your rolls-royces. >> yeah, just cars. >> i'm talking about a ford fusion, if they even make one of those anymore. >> well, look, first on housing, yes, housing is still going up. the big problem on housing, as you know, is simply the affordability of a new house.

house prices are still high, but mortgages are also high. it means the affordability, the ability of someone to afford a mortgage literally has gone down so much, that for many young people, an 8% mortgage makes a house unaffordable. that's a huge problem. one of the good things about the cpi numbers is it may give the federal reserve some leeway to cut interest rates a bit, which would bring down mortgage rates a bit. it's not going to be dramatic between now and november, but maybe a little help. >> why is car rental and insurance so expensive? >> it is a longer conversation. >> very specific. >> it is 11.5%. >> he's complaining. >> it's not that i'm complaining. it's just like, if you're working and your work makes you fly from city to city, and let's say you're insurance or finance, you know, people every week i see on planes. that's what they do. so they get off the plane, and then they have to go and they're dealing with still 11%, 12%

increase in what car rentals cost. man, that's -- it cuts into their salary. >> it does. this is only 6% of the index. let's start with that. secondly, a lot of this is driven by insurance. this is a longer discussion probably for cnbc. insurance rates are going up across -- >> maybe not. >> tell us about it. >> i'm happy to talk about it. >> we'd love it. >> it's over your heads, guys. >> tell me when to stop. >> for the money people. >> keep going. >> i like purple. go to the next chart. >> all right. the next chart. you want to ask me something, or should i plunge in? >> please, i don't think there is anything i could ask you that could rise to the level of your expertise. >> steve, we're not cnbc anchors, so i don't have the lingo. >> what do you got, steve, wages? this is the key point yesterday, as somebody was complaining to me about inflation. i said, well, the real key is whether wage increase is keeping up with the inflation increase. you don't want deflation.

>> that's right. >> now, you're going to tell me whether i was correct in saying that wages are keeping up. >> you are very correct. >> huh. >> fantastic. >> back to 2020 -- >> almost like i'm a host on cnbc. >> the cnbc crack was not aimed at you, joe. if you go back to the -- or you, mika. >> that was definitely aimed at mika. >> what about mara, me, and lemire? financial idiots over here. >> he's right. >> it was aimed at heilemann. >> easy target. >> fair enough. >> all right. if you go back to what inflation was in 2022, it absolutely did not -- wages absolutely did not keep up. since inflation has moderated, inflation has moderated faster than wages have come down, have also moderated. you have had, joe, to your point, from well more than a year now, wage increases running

above inflation increases. 4% on average for wages, 3.4% for inflation. not a huge difference but positive purchasing power. the bottom quarter of americans, they have done materially better than the 4%. for the bottom group of americans, their purchasing power has actually increased by more than this. >> steve, can i ask you this question? >> sure. >> as alex goes crazy because i'm blowing past every break here. >> you have no discipline. >> post-covid, because you're talking about the bottom third of americans doing better here, the history of this country, from the early 1980s onward were the rich were getting richer, poor were getting poorer. post covid, the lower third, lower half of americans actually were getting ahead for the first time and doing better for the first time. are we still there? are some of those safety net measures, post covid measures, are they now running out and are we turning to the old model of

the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer? >> no. income inequality is still narrow narrowing. the post covid programs happened a while. they are phasing out. but what really helps is the fact that we're running economy with low unemployment rate. what that means is that employers have to pay more to get their workers. you couple that with a lot of the minimum wage increases that were imposed during covid, things like that. there is actually more demand for lower-end workers than higher-end workers. they pay more at the lower end. that is really what is driving this significant increase in wages. americans don't appreciate it, but their purchasing power is going up at this moment, especially for those near the bottom. let me show you one other interesting side of this chart, then we can move on. if you start to look at it by state, and these numbers are not as precise, start to look at it by state, you see interesting things. there are some states, louisiana, west virginia, where

consumers have been losing ground. real wages have not kept up. but there are other states, including a couple of key swing states where, in fact, it is going the other way. wisconsin it looks like real wages adjusted for inflation is up 7%. i'll leave it to heilemann to say whether or not it is a coincidence, perhaps why biden performed better in the poll in wisconsin than any other states. you have positive real wages in michigan. pennsylvania is down a little bit. nevada is effectively flat. arizona is actually up 1.8%. georgia, which we can argue about whether it is even a swing state anymore, down two. >> all right. >> can i do the last one or -- >> real quick, please. >> this is an interesting chart. i don't think we've ever looked at. it is so dramatic, joe, i did want to show it. it is the relationship to your earlier point, between inflation

and consumer sentiment. in 2020, you had high consumer sentiment, low inflation. inflation shoots up. consumer sentiment falls off a cliff. inflation starts to come down, consumer sentiment goes right back up again. >> wow. >> this very last month, because inflation had stalled out and actually reversed and gone the wrong way for a month or two, consumer sentiment fell again. the tie between these two is just incredibly dramatic, and it needs to penetrate people, that we are bringing down inflation. lastly, the stock market has voted on the biden policies and on inflation. up 43% since the president took office. it is up about 18% this year. it had a huge day yesterday because of these good consumer price numbers which raised the prospect of the fed hopefully being able to cut interest rates at some point. >> interesting. >> another week like that, heilemann, and he will buy a rolls-royce. >> "morning joe" economic analyst steve rattner. >> for me?

>> no. >> a rolls of my very own? >> no. morgan radford did a piece on inflation relocation, where states are offering incentives to people to move to more rural parts of the country where prices are lower. isn't that interesting? >> it's happening. >> that's the offshoot. like west virginia. >> a lot of people. coming up, the boston celtics book a third straight trip to the eastern conference finals. >> thank you, steve. >> you're the best, steve, even though you know i'd never make it on cnbc. >> harsh. >> espn's pablo torre joins us for the latest out of the nba playoffs, as well as the major league baseball player who pablo says deserves a zillion dollar paycheck. who is that? "morning joe" will be right back.

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neither team has a time-out. to chiles and that's it. for the third straight season, new york has eliminated miami in a deciding game. >> told me i can wear this as a head thing. >> it's so you. >> i've had it for a long time.

got it as a gift. i think it looks cute. >> i'm doing my best to channel gen-z. >> it is welbert, most important person on earth. i don't know what to do with it. >> rattner's rolls-royce. >> i don't understand. >> she explained it to you. >> for my hair? i'll do it. >> it looks great. >> this is really cute. >> love that. >> cue it and hang down the back. thank you. >> exactly. >> thank you. >> mara. >> we can get to sports now. >> the clip of jeff van gundy to this. >> he couldn't pull that off. >> could not do it. >> no. >> if you're watching at home and wondering what's happening, whenever we do sports segments, mika cleans out her purse. >> it is bad this time. >> she is digging in there. there's old gum and -- >> this is what you do. >> alex, keep the shot off of me as much as possible, we can go around the table. >> i have the dogs, for hobson,

once a month. fleas and ticks, you have to shove it down his throat without getting bitten. >> the new york knicks, last time they advanced to the conference finals in 2000. if you could make little noise, that'd be awesome. >> i have some gum in here. >> one game away from reaching those heights and once again sending new york city fans into a sports frenzy, burning down buildings, making it generally unsafe for children and their loved ones to walk down city streets. speaking of, let's bring in host of "pablo torre finds out" on meadowlark media, pablo torre. >> there's so much on this desk now. >> sorry, the gum. >> i'm monitoring all the elements here. >> do we want to cut through all the noise and just say, hey, we're getting ready for a celtics/nuggets final? are we jumping ahead too quickly? do the knicks have a great shot of pulling this out?

>> this is the greatest time to be a knicks fan in the last 50 years. >> are you a knicks fan? >> 50 years? >> i have a complicated relationship. >> 50? >> since 1970. all due apologies to the title team. since the first title was won in 1970, i think knicks fans have been starving for a feeling like what they get, is what is it, a thrill up the leg watching jalen brunson. he is the most popular athlete in new york since derek jeter. all due apologies to eli manning, winning two super bowl rings, the acc basketball dad on the sideline of the games. brunson may not make the nba finals, as you eluded to, but what he is, which is the star on a cinderella style team, embodies with one foot all the principles of their coach, tom tibido, who wears ligaments to the bone, deserves a parade on

seventh avenue, which he gets after the games. they may not make the finals. delusion and enthusiasm are overlapsing in the venn diagram of the 6 foot point guard. >> do the celtics play the knicks? >> the celtics win. >> have you given up on the timberwolves? >> i went hard on anthony edwards being a michael jordan figure. >> he's had a breakout season. >> he's been great. nikola jokic, three mvps in three years. >> best player in the game. >> i mean, he had the best quarter of his life. this is the best player in the game. the third quarter on the last one. they look like they are spanking a very young team, to be mild about it. >> any comments from over here? >> yeah. the celtics won last night, took care of the cavaliers.

they've taken advantage of a soft path to the playoffs. haven't been tested. >> i always hear the same about the celtics, though. they don't have the killer instinct. >> that's what i've been saying. i have questions about the coach. you know this. i've been saying this a couple years now. >> you have. >> they're missing porzingis. they hope he is back next round. he is a difference. they have not really been tested, but they struggle the end of tight games which they'll have either at a ruckus madison square garden or in the final against the nuggets or whoever. >> they made six of eight finals. >> zero titles. >> as much as i'm laughing at the knicks, i look forward to laughing at joe. >> yeah. >> i'm a knicks fan and hate the celtics. regardless of my feelings, this is going to be the marquee matchup, right? >> the dream for the nba. >> these are teams with national followers. think about a seven-game series in boston garden, madison square garden, it'll be electrifying. i'm a western conference guy by heart.

the west doesn't -- great teams but the nuggets do not electrify the media, sports media, in particular, the way this one is going to. we'll be obsessed. >> that's right. >> this doesn't involve s.e.c. football or premier league soccer, so i'm ready to move on. 15 seconds, what's happening in the nhl? >> 15 seconds? >> should we throw the parade for the bruins extending the series, winning 2-1? >> down three games to two. the story is rangers who people think might be the best in the league. had a 3-0 league in the series, lost two. a little anxiety among new york sports fans. >> are the rangers the best in the league? >> i think so. jim dolan, responsible for my complicated feelings about the knicks and the rangers. >> you have a complicated life. go ahead. >> i have a lot of neurosis, guys. >> this fear. >> if jim dolan could pay attention to the sphere, he'd be

better off. knicks can live up to a reputation that is deserved. that is the most fun building. >> most famous arena. >> we could have, it could happen, the trifecta, knicks, rangers. >> say it. >> billy joel. >> there it is. >> i love billy joel. >> i was thinking the yankees. billy joel also, all-time great. >> pablo, this is your category, but yankees didn't play in madison square garden. >> they are first in the a.l. east if anyone is asking. >> let's talk about juan soto. >> there it is. >> juan is an extraordinary presence. he's been extraordinary since -- remember when he was a rookie, world series? >> soto shuffle. >> he was pissing off verlander, who was going to get the best of him. threw a high fastball and sew foe buried it. >> pissing off verlander the way my extension of this segment

pisses off mika. soto has more walks -- >> now i know what to do with this. >> yeah. >> what about the premier league, joe? >> it's ugly. >> i want to make this clear. i don't have to pay anything to afford juan soto. i just want the yankees to give him a billion dollars. he is a one-year contract, $31 million. he'll deserve a half a billion, juan soto there. he deserves it. >> now, he is negotiating salaries. >> seriously. >> >> red sox update, we lost last night. >> yeah. >> caitlin clark, tell us about her. >> a funny thing is happening. the veterans of the wnba said she's going to struggle. diana taurasi said this. she did. 20 points is great. 10 turnovers is the most for a debut. this is not just any debut. this is the most exciting, greatest player in the history of college women's basketball. her team is not good, joe.

her team isn't very good. they got her because, in fact, they won the draft lottery. let's grade on a curve. 2.3 million people watched this game, which is a record. >> i love that. >> an adjustment for her, too. >> it is. >> she'll be fine. >> who is going to win the pga tournament? >> championship. >> oh. >> golf, geez. >> scheffler? >> sure. >> scottie scheffler. boring but reasonable choice is scottie scheffler. >> got any other names? >> i mean -- >> i don't think he does. >> rory. >> i like rory. >> he is great when it is not a major. he dominated last weekend. now, we have a major. >> you passed. >> do we have a -- >> wait. >> the peakness this weekend? >> yeah. >> the premier league's last -- >> talk about the premier league for five minutes. >> it is the last of the season. joe cares. i don't know if you do. do you care about soccer?

>> eh. >> not really because i'm a real american. >> should i care about -- >> the preakness? >> do you not care about the premier league? >> i do but i'm no roger bennet. >> you know your value. >> i do. >> as long as i'm not getting choked out by the scarf. >> liverpool collapsed. >> liverpool, man city, arsenal. >> congratulations to manchester city. >> do you know anything about horse racing? >> i know they're not aware of how much they matter to humans, the horses, when they're racing. >> really? >> yeah. someone should tell them a lot is riding on this. >> pablo, we're pitching this. you may want to be a part of this. >> okay. >> i don't know. >> "shark tank?" . >> if it is close to your birthday, please come up. >> mara. >> the belmont will be in sarasota springs for the first time. >> saratoga springs.

>> yeah, it is early. >> first time. extraordinary setting. i think we need to do a "morning joe" show from there that friday before the belmont. >> very fun. >> i'll wear my fascinator. i'll get my own, like, head gear. we can make it into a real thing. >> you can come and wear a hat. >> love to wear a hat. >> fancy hats. >> we're good at hats. >> yeah. >> espn's pablo torre, this has been a mess. >> so good to see you guys. >> oh, the assassination in slovakia. >> so horrible. we'll update that. >> opera is the most overrated art form in world history. hot enough take? >> okay. >> was that not the lead of the story, the music? >> unbelievably horrific attack. >> horrible. >> espn's -- >> thanks for trying to make light of it, pablo. >> seriously. let's make a joke out of an assassination. >> sorry, guys. >> it's all right. ahead on "morning joe" -- >> you should leave, yeah. >> i think president biden made an enormous error.

he should have fought like cray vi to keep this prosecution from going forward. when the justice department brought indictments, i would have immediate by pardoned him. >> senator mitt romney siding with prominent republicans who say donald trump should have been pardoned. stephanie ruhle will join us with more of her sit-down interview with mitt romney. plus, america has a loneliness problem. >> darn right i do. >> not you. >> i'm joking, sweetie. >> and a republican governor and democratic senator are joining forces to try and fix it. we'll dig into the cause behind this growing epidemic. also ahead, we'll dive into the origin of an urban legend surrounding the death of the mamas and the papas singer, cass elliott. her daughter is addressing the rumor that is overshadowing her incredible legacy. >> it started from inside her

own camp because they didn't want people to think she died from a drug overdose. >> "morning joe" will be right back.

house speaker johnson, north carolina governor doug burgum, and congressman donalds and mills attended donald trump's criminal trial and wore matching

navy blue suits and red ties. look at these dorks. they look like a duop group called the four treasons. like the men's warehouse softball team. they look like a singing group, magapella. they put mitt romney in a cloning machine, but something went a little more wrong with each copy. >> i'll be there. the four treasons. it is thursday, may 16th. jonathan lemire is still with us. >> hold on, stop. we're in the middle of may. >> yeah, may 16th. >> okay. this is flying. we're in the middle of may. >> yeah. >> it's still kind of spring. >> in new york, sure. mike barnicle is here. >> it's spring. you wouldn't know it in new york city. it's rainy and 43 every day. >> of course. >> very dreary. >> mike, you're staying straight through 10:00, don't mess around. >> huh? no! >> yeah.

>> his car is already warming up. >> you handed me the contact. >> i'll talk to them. >> former white house director of communications, jennifer palmieri is with us. >> she's the best. >> co-host of "how to win 2024." professor at princeton university and best-selling author eddie glaude jr. author of "we are the leaders we have been looking for." >> eddie, how is it going? >> going well. i'll be down in miami, the miami book festival. >> that's a good one. >> also with us, staff writer at "the atlantic," tom nichols. we have a lot to talk with him about, russia. he has an incredible piece about his cat. >> tom, i think the next james bond movie -- >> keep things moving. >> we had "the spy who loved me." ian fleming's family is going to look at your "atlantic" article

with "the cat who saved me." >> so beautiful. that's carla. >> this is a beautiful story. we don't usually do cat stories here, i'm not going to lie. >> we should do more. >> i read it in "the atlantic," tom, and it was moving on so many fronts. tell us about the cat who literally saved your life. >> um, well, twice, really. i first met her 15, almost 15 years ago, and i was pretty down in the dumps, as i say in the story. i was divorced. i was broke. i was, you know, living in a kind of walk-up down by the waterfront. she was in the window of the local veterinary office. >> i'm going to start crying. >> tom, come on. we have to do the full -- >> don't stop. >> you were drinking too much. >> oh, my gosh. >> you were out of control. >> oh, yeah. >> you were a wreck. >> i was drinking too much, just totally in my cups. it was a bad time in my life. i was drinking a lot.

depressed. you know, just come out of both a marriage and a relationship after with some very nice people but it hadn't worked out. i was like, you know, you get to the point where you say, you know, you sort of want to give up and kind of trudge through the day. here was this cat as i walked by every day, and she sort of stared at me. i stared at her. i thought, i can't take care of a cat, can't even take care of myself. how am i going to take care of this cat? i was walking with a friend, and he said, enough of this. get the cat. i went in there, and i picked her up. she kind of looked at me and was like, what took you so long? >> aw. >> she was kind with this expectant look. duffus, you walked by 50 times. >> look at her. >> i took her home. she started to kind of add structure to my life. she'd get me up in the morning. at night, you know, i'd be trying to work, and she'd flop over my key board and say, no

more pity parties. we're going to go watch tv now. over time, i kind of got -- she was really important to me, kind of getting out of that terrible situation i was in. she'd tell you if she was here, it was all her. she's that kind of cat. >> well, it was. >> well, and i met my next wife and started, you know, to get on with life, and the cat was always there. she had a real presence. this was a cat who had command of a room when she walked in. then came many years later when my house caught on fire. like a dog, carla had dog-like characteristics. she'd be upset to hear that, but she was running upstairs, saying, wake up, and got us out of bed. >> oh, my god. >> stayed right there. cats usually die in fires because they hide. this cat just came upstairs and said, let's go. out of bed. something is wrong. the fire department told us that

that probably, the extra 15 minutes probably saved the house and maybe saved our lives because the fire had been trapped below a floor and hadn't tripped the fire alarms. the cat knew it before anybody else. you know, we got her out and went to a hotel. she thought that was awesome, living in a hotel. that was her favorite thing. you know, she just was -- she became my little co-author and colleague, kind of sitting on my desk every night. became my wife's best pal. when we lost her, it was hard. even as i was coming into my office to do this segment, i thought i caught her out of the corner of my eye. i looked to where she usually sleeps, and still not used to her not being there. >> i'm not going to make it through the show. i can't. >> mika is weeping. >> i love this. what a beautiful piece. what a great story. i'm happy for you, but i miss carla for you. >> yeah. >> incredible, tom. >> it's been hard, you know,

she's a part of your life every day. suddenly, you know, she's gone. i mean, in a way, it is harder, in some ways, than losing a person because you don't see other people every day. our life is very different now that she's gone. we really miss her. >> well, you can catch tom's piece in "the atlantic." "the cat who saved me," it's incredible. thank you for sharing that with us and showing us a whole side of you that perhaps our viewers haven't seen. we're now going to tap into your knowledge. >> tom, if you ever need any other cats to fill the void -- >> my cats are not for you, tom. >> mika has 47. >> can i show your pictures? there's meatball. fabulous. he is fabulous. a little like carla. there is also blue. >> meatball is a dog. >> there's gray. >> meatball is proud of being a dog. >> yeah. meatball is our buddy. >> we'll have more cats in our life. there will be other cats one day, but we're not ready yet. >> me, too. >> you know, though, as patrick

moynihan said, yes, we will have other cats in our life again, but we will never be young again. isn't that what he said? >> almost, yeah. >> tom, you're the best. >> yes. we're going to tap into your knowledge about russia. russia is using disinformation videos to smear president biden ahead of the november election. "the new york times" highlights one video circulating on social media claiming to tell the story of an internet troll farm in kyiv targeting the american election. a woman, quote, offers a first-person account of how she and her colleagues initially worked in support of president volodymyr zelenskyy of ukraine, then, she says, after a visit by mysterious americans who were, quote, probably cia, the group began sending messages to american audiences in support of president biden. we were told our new target was the united states of america, especially the upcoming

elections, the woman in the video says. "long story short, we were asked to do everything to prevent donald trump from winning the elections." "the times" notes the video is fake, part of an effort to cloud the political debate ahead of the u.s. elections. u.s. officials tell the paper the video is consistent with russian disinformation operations as internet warriors aligned with russia appear to be honing their strategy. such videos were one of the most immediate threats. according to "the times," russian operatives are leaning into videos, many of them that falsely purport to be made by independent journalists or whistleblowers. the videos posted to social media or blog posts are most likely to spread beyond the conspiracies of america and become mainstream discourse.

>> tom, one of the maddening things out there, people talking about the russian hoax. they keep talking about the russian hoax. the russians never tried to influence our elections. it's all, you know, this, that, or the other. you actually have the chairman of the house gop armed services committee, intel committee, and foreign affairs committee all saying that russian disinformation is being spread on the house floor by republican members. here we have more reporting of what has never really stopped. that is, vladimir putin and russia trying to help donald trump get elected again. i mean, hoax? there is no hoax. the propaganda is going not only on media sources now, putin has now figured out a way to use house gop members to spread russia's lies.

>> and, in part, you know, the americans -- the american public is a willing accomplice here. when this shows up on the internet or, you know, facebook or youtube, wherever people get it, you know, i'm asked, what can they do about this? i say, stop getting your news there. it's kind of like eating junk food all day. there's a really simple answer to that. stop having milk shakes for breakfast. people don't want to do that. one thing the russians really understand about us is that americans are easily bored and we love a good story. we love this stuff. we eat it up. the republicans in congress, i think, know exactly what they're doing because it is convenient to them and gives them a good narrative to say, you know, the classic, "well, i'm just asking questions," kind of pose. it is ready-made, convenient

propaganda for them. in the end, the problem with the russian attack on america is how much the americans really do welcome it and because we have an open system of government, because we have a free press, we're defenseless against stopping any of it. it has to be on each one of us to decide we're not getting our information there. i don't have a lot of hope that's going to happen. >> jen, you sadly know a thing or two about the impact of russian disinformation campaigns. in 2016. we had senator warner from virginia saying he is more worried about election interference this time around even than 2020. he thinks we're less prepared. it could be russia, china, other places, as well. what would the advice be to the biden campaign? how can they learn from this, combat this? >> the hardest thing to combat in 2016 was no one believed us. even after there had been reporting on what russia was doing in the post, we'd go to the press and say, you know, we think a lot of this is coming from russia.

it was just so fantastic for everyone, that they couldn't really -- you know, they couldn't appreciate that that's what was really happening. now, people do know that. >> jen, can i -- >> it is easier to -- >> can i read this for you and then you continue? >> yeah. >> it's not just "the washington post." the gop senate intel report that was run by marco rubio, they wrote this in 2017. the trump campaign chairman manafort was, quote, a grave counterintelligence threat that made the campaign susceptible to malign russia influence. marco rubio's committee said russia presented a grave counterintelligence threat. that was marco rubio and the republicans. yet, people still want to write op-eds on "the wall street

journal" editorial page talking about russia hoax. marco rubio talked about russia presented, by this disinformation -- let me say it again -- quote, a grave counterintelligence threat. >> they had -- in '16, "the post" did a good story in june of '16 to say, you know, where they thought a lot of this was coming from. u.s. administration officials on background. of course, on october 7th, 2016, we had the declaration from the obama administration that russia was behind the hacks. we later had an intelligence estimate that it was not just the russians behind this but trying to help donald trump win. that was all during the obama administration. it was too fantastic for people to appreciate. now, we've had eight years of this, and it is -- and i think at least even though it is more widespread, when you say you can't trust that, you know, it

could be from the russians, it leaves people to understand now that's something they have to look out for. you have to call out lies immediately and right away and point them out to people. people have to be better judges of what they're reading. >> that's a lot to ask for. >> it is. >> eddie, people have to be aware of this. we listened to jen, which is factual. it happened. it impacted a presidential election. it is not just russia now. there's a tsunami of misinformation out there. russia, china, various other countries, all aimed at our increasingly fragile democracy. >> right. >> part of what you do for a liing is teach, and teach of the culture of the country today. this is a potential legal threat to our country. >> absolutely. you know, in so many ways, people are kind of post fact in some ways. they want to affirm their

opinions. in some ways, this is also echoing something tom said, right? america's appetite for this drives it. stop drinking milk shakes for breakfast, show some of us like it. >> smoothies. >> what makes it successful, it is actually tapping into a set of positions and beliefs that many americans hold. then they're exploiting it and amplifying it. one of the questions we have to ask ourselves is not only, are they hacking and doing the kind of concrete work, but why is it so effective? >> eddie, they don't have to anymore. all they have to do is get the information on the chinese communist party's app. which, of course, is tiktok. the chinese communist party runs that app. they make sure the algorithms are run in a way to spread disinformation into america. if you don't believe it, talk about the uighurs. talk about human suffering in hong kong. talk about human rights abuses

in china. see how much of a pickup that gets on tiktok. they kill it. but if you spread disinformation about joe biden, oh, russian disinformation, oh, you've got the russians and the communist chinese running rough shot across america. everybody is against it, except donald trump. who now supports tiktok. >> right. for his own interests, right? i think that all makes sense to me, joe. part of what i'm trying to wrap my mind around is the way in why it is effective. it is effective, of course, for all the reasons you've just laid out. but it is also exploiting divisions, right? there is a kind of dispositional orientation to the misinformation that allows it to take root. i think, how do we address both ends of it? that's what the russians and the chinese are doing and what we are susceptible to, if that makes sense. >> you know, there's so much

stupidity out there that is pedaled by people. there are two great examples. there is a guy that used to be in mumford and sons, who debated at oxford union. debated nancy pelosi. when he was pushed into a corner, he just talked about joe biden's severe dementia. such severe dementia, he can hardly operate. it's a lie. it is a complete, total lie. yet, that's pushed, and it is pushed by these third parties. i mean, you have other lies about how great russia is. tucker carlson running around saying, oh, my god, look at the grocery -- it is a worker's paradise. he sounded like a guy who defected to the soviet union in '62. he pushes that. he pedals that russian disinformation actively. >> yeah, and giving it a large

platform. not as large as he had on cable but still does. aaron rodgers drafted to the mission this week. we should note, there is vladimir putin today? he's in beijing, meeting with xi jinping. >> wow. >> this is the alliance against democracies. we don't know if this is a topic of conversation, but certainly, their greater interests are making the united states as weak as possible. >> mike, couple quick things. >> if you think about it, at least me, if you think about it, the massive amount of disinformation that's out there is not surprising. what's more upsetting than that, at least to me, and i'm wondering about you, jen, having been through it firsthand, is the appetite for it that's out there in this country. >> well, it is an appetite for it and the appetite in the press to, you know, latch onto it, right? that is the -- and everyone is going to have to take responsibility for pushing back on it. the press, i mean, i would rather take more with an aware press than what we had in '16,

where everyone accepted what they saw on twitter as coming from a real person. >> tom nichols, really quickly before we leave, that meeting in beijing between vladimir putin and president xi, there's a reason for both of those men to be scared of, despite the lies, the constant lies, there's reason for both of those men is that strategically to be scared of joe biden's re-election. joe biden has pushed through the ukraine aid. despite the delays of mike johnson and donald trump causing the ukrainians a lot of problem, the money finally got through because of joe biden's insistence. when you look at china, look at "the new york times" piece earlier this week, we've been talking about it an awful lot, but you look at the fact that joe biden is hemming china in. when it comes to chinese aggression in the south sea, the south china sea, when it comes from just an arc, from guam, the

philippines, down to australia, all around, the chinese are not able to expand because of joe biden's strategic moves. so xi and vladimir putin, damn straight they want to spread disinformation on tiktok through xi because they don't want joe biden to get re-elected again. donald trump is an easy mark, and they know it. >> yeah. i mean, this is going to sound strange, you and i both being former republicans, but i will say that in foreign policy, i think in a lot of ways, but in foreign policy, biden's first term has been as consequential as reagan's first term. >> agreed. >> there is a reagan almost successful foreign policy going here. i know some folks will think that is probably a bad thing, but i mean in the sense of rallying allies, containing the russians, warning off the chinese. >> yeah.

>> it has been done with this quiet and methodical approach to diplomacy that i think has been really effective. it should tell people something, that the two countries who wish us the most ill, our biggest competitor and biggest dedicated enemy would love to see donald trump return to the white house. i mean, that should give people pause, i think. >> it should. staff writer for "the atlantic," tom nichols. thank you for your piece on carla the cat. cheers to carla for saving tom, and now we have him as part of the "morning joe" family, thanks to carla. >> there we go. >> tom has two other must-reads, up now for the magazine. one on how autocracies are winning the information war. another entitled, "a failure of imagination about trump." be sure to check those out, as well. thank you, tom. still ahead on "morning joe," michael cohen will be back on the stand this morning as part of donald trump's criminal hush money trial.

we'll go live to the courthouse for a preview of what to expect. first, a democratic senator and republican governor are teaming up to tackle what they call our nation's happiness deficit. nbc's julie tsirkin spoke with the bipartisan duo and joins us next with that interview. you're watching morning joe. we'll be right back. if you have this... consider adding this. an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan from unitedhealthcare. medicare supplement plans help by paying some of what medicare doesn't... and let you see any doctor. any specialist. anywhere in the u.s. who accepts medicare patients. so if you have this... consider adding this. call unitedhealthcare today for your free decision guide. ♪

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28 past the hour. surprising alliance is tackling an issue that transcends politics and touches at the core of the human experience. loneliness. nbc news congressional correspondent julie tsirkin joins us from washington with more. julie, tell us about who is teaming up on this. >> mika, especially in a divisive and bitter point in our politics, when do we ever talk about happiness when it comes to elected officials and congress, legislating to really make people happy and figure out the loneliness epidemic that these two officials, governor spencer cox, republican of utah, and democrat senator chris murphy say is plaguing american society. watch this part of my interview with them. >> what drew a republican governor of utah to a democratic senator from connecticut? >> i see how children, our entire society is withdrawing from each other. i reached out to governor cox about a year ago to just

understand the steps he had been taking in utah to try to build a more connected community, to try to figure out why utah is a place with really high social capital, with people who feel maybe a little more connected into the community than in other parts of the country. to see if there was work we could do together. >> why should lawmakers, governors, elected officials, put happiness first and foremost when they're thinking about policy? >> well, it is right there in the declaration of independence. human beings, americans, have a right to pursue happiness. you know, government can't deliver the last mile of happiness, right? that's up to everybody individually to figure out. but i think we are in charge of trying to set rules and laws and norms that give people a better shot at happiness. if you get beyond the fights over abortion or immigration or guns even, you might be able to find a lot more common agreement between the right and the left

on the things that are actually most directly relevant to how people find happiness, connection, connection into neighbors, into family, into the common good. >> look, i agree that it's not government's job to make people's happy, but it is government's job to protect those rights that we've been given from on high, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. sometimes, government actually can make people less happy or can make it more difficult for them to pursue happiness. >> what motivated you to put legislation in place, to basically force social media companies to bar children under the age of 18 from accessing their app? >> we now have several studies of schools that have banned cell phones and saw reductions in problems with bullying, self-harm, anxiety, raising test scores. all of the science and data is showing us that this is a major cause of that. so this is one area where

government, i think, can appropriately intervene. >> why do you think loneiness plays a factor in people who engage in self-harm, harm to others, gun violence? >> listen, for anyone to carry out an act of epic level violence, you have to be fundamentally disconnected from your community. and we are just seeing more and more young people who feel like they don't belong. like they are outsiders. some of those then choose to take that frustration, that anxiety into their own hands and engage in these absolutely terrible and despicable acts of violence. >> can you share your experiences quickly here with self-isolation, with loneliness yourselves? >> my parents got divorced when i was 10, and that was a really hard and dark time for me. i went through a period of time where i thought the world would be a better place if i wasn't in

it. i'm so grateful that i had institutions and community and people around me that cared about me in that dark time. so that's something i felt very personally that has kind of driven me to this work from the very beginning. >> there's no doubt that as a parent, i have often felt very alone, right? almost every parent out there has had a real sense of aloneness in a world that is changing very fast, with kids that are dealing with challenges, whether it be the risk of violence at school, whether it be social media, whether it be bullying online, that are things very unfamiliar to us, having not had to have gone through those. >> mika, these are powerful people, elected officials, who really can relate with so many americans in their personal experiences of self-isolation, of loneliness. you heard them talk about different factors, from social media, later in the interview they talked about lack of

housing, affordable housing, the economy. so many different factors that is impacting why americans are feeling more alone than ever, according to studies. the one thing that the two officials agree on is government has a role here to play in legislating around this issue. they did say that this is not a problem where they already have a solution prescribed. they're sitting down, having roundtables, listening to experts, everyday americans, before they decide what role exactly government should play here. certainly, a very interesting topic and adventure these two are partnering on. >> it is a huge issue. i'm so glad they're doing this. nbc news congressional correspondent julie tsirkin, thank you for bringing it to us. appreciate it. coming up on "morning joe," our next guest is setting the record straight, reporting on the real story of how musician rasz cass elliot died. it was not the ham sandwich. we'll have more on the mamas and

the papas singer when "morning joe" returns. ♪ you've got to make your own kind of music ♪ ♪ sing your own special song make your own kind of music ♪ ♪ even if nobody else sings along ♪ [ applause ] >> oh, baby, baby, baby. cut and print. you nailed that take, mama cass. >> you really think so, mitch? >> mitch lester knows a hit when he hears one, baby. you agree, record label people? >> we're anticipating major air play. >> the deejays are already calling. >> so are the late night shows. >> oh, this song is going to be everywhere, mama. and everybody is going to forget about it for a long, long time. >> oh. oh, no, really? >> oh, yeah, yeah, baby.

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50 years since the singer cass elliot of the mamas and the papas died sudden lie of a heart attack at the age of 32. pop critic at "the new york

times," lindsey zoll adds, she still has her job for now. >> that's good. >> after a negative taylor swift review. >> thank god, lindsey. >> in her latest piece, she reflects on the career of elliot and a painful rumor that persisted after her death. "cass elliot's death spawned a horrible myth. she deserves better." >> she does. >> i learned a lot from your piece, especially about who started the rumor, which is the most fascinating part of all. i'll start with taylor swift, though. listen, i'm a rock guy. i have my pantheon. >> we all know. >> chuck berry. >> yeah. >> buddy holly. little richard, the beatles, the beach boys, whatever. you go all the way through nirvana. elvis costello. but taylor swift is in that pantheon. >> wow. >> she's extraordinary. >> wow. >> listen, she is extraordinary,

next level as a singer/songwriter/performer. that said, i will say -- >> "tortured poets department." >> you'll get in trouble. >> six songs in, i was like, okay, what's next? >> what are you doing? >> she's done this before. >> yeah. >> you know, when you are this big and this powerful and this billionaire, you're so massive, it's kind of hard to still be doing five albums in, songs about boyfriends that dropped you and made you sad. >> i think more the issue is a lot of the songs just sound similar to me. again, it's terrifying to speak critically of taylor swift. i know, controversial. >> they're going to come for you. >> i'm just going to move over here. >> i know. >> outside of the studio, they'll come for you. >> she is an extraordinary lyricist. >> absolutely. >> extraordinary songwriter.

extraordinary as far as sense of melody. >> is it bad? >> no, it's not that it's bad. it's a lot. i always thought about sinatra singing, what made him different from dean martin and everybody else is they do 60 minutes, 58 minutes, he went out and would do his 38 best minutes and got off stage. always leaving them wanting more. >> yes. >> taylor released even more music since then. i just think it is a lot. part of it just may be, and i mean this, she's so gifted, she's so talented and has so many songs, she wants the world to hear. we get that. but, again, you said it might be because maybe she's still using the same producer, and maybe she needs a new break. >> yeah, i would love to see her switch it up a bit. i love that frank sinatra bit you said. i think that's, you know, something we could all learn from. >> me especially, no question. >> what about beyonce's country album, want to go on the record

about that? >> that record, first of all, i was glad i didn't have to review it the day of. >> oh, my gosh. >> you know, the swifties are enough for one critic. >> yes. >> i really -- that's another really sprawling, big album. >> exactly. >> i appreciate the variety on the record. that one is really -- >> very tactful, it is very sprawling. >> it is. >> not what i expected. it was not ray charles' country album. >> no, but it is growing on me. >> how much time did you have to do the taylor review? >> few days. >> right. the craziest thing to me was the rush of critics to try to, like, absorb the record, the size of it, and spit stuff out. it's like, we don't turn to music criticism as if it is breaking news, like everyone has a hot take on this. how about giving the critics a chance to listen. it's a big record. there are a lot of love tracks to listen to. give everybody time to absorb it before we make them write about it. >> taylor swift still in the

rock pantheon as far as i'm concerned. you don't -- you know, the beatles put out -- we'll talk about it in a second -- "let it be." it wasn't abbey road, but i'm still listening to it 800 years later because it is the fricken beatles and they're better than everybody, even when. >> narrator: yes, please. >> they're not at the best. mama cass. >> yes. >> extraordinary singer. >> yeah. >> a great actress. she knew how to -- unfortunately, she was fat shamed, written into her jokes. yet, the talent, this woman was a beautiful voice, beautiful talent. she left this beautiful music. when you talk about mama cass, immediately, the lie about her choking on a ham sandwich is the first thing that people always talk about. you went into that lie and explained what really happened. >> yeah. i mean, i wanted to do two

things. one was figure out the source of this rumor and what actually happened. i also wanted to celebrate her life and her work, which i think gets overshadowed by this very tawdry joke about her. >> mean. >> it is mean. it is cruel. you know, it is what we would call today fat phobic, but we didn't have that language when she, you know, when famous. she dealt with a lot. the true story is less salacious. in some sense, it's just that her heart gave out. she had a heart attack at age 32. she had battled substance abuse issues. she was on all sorts of crash diets since she was a young teenager. >> she was tortured. >> yeah. >> tortured. >> the lie about the ham sandwich came from within, didn't it? >> it was her manager is a friend of hers who, the friend, sue cameron, i got to speak with

for my piece, and she was a journalist who was also a friend of cass. she said that they wanted to protect her because they didn't want this sense of that she had had a drug problem or something like that. they thought that was more salacious than -- >> choking on a ham sandwich. >> -- the cartoonish rumor. over time, it's come to eclipse a lot of lovely things about her life. >> what was the relationship with john philips in that group? was it a contentious relationship, as much as everyone thought? >> i think it was, yes. he was very reluctant to even let her join the group in the beginning because of the way she looked, which was so cruel. >> even after hearing her sing? >> he couldn't get past that until he was forced. everyone else in the band and around the group was like, come

on. he envisioned them as a trio initially, which, you know, is hard to imagine now. her voice really is the linchpin of the sound. it's so sound and distinct. >> incredible. >> yeah. >> john heilemann, let's do a quick -- for people that may not be aware of her work, of course, "monday monday" and "california dreaming," i absolutely love. i saw her again last night, two or three others that are just classics, "go where you want to go. " you hear her voice. from where you are from, it is california pop 1967/'67. >> i was thinking about, you know, she was not only an incredible artist but an amazing social connector. lindsey, you can talk about this. she was the heart in a lot of ways of the scene. i remember when david crosby

said that you couldn't find anybody who didn't like her. she was the -- she put people together. a lot of other groups were put together because she introduced people. including crosby and nash. >> i found out that she was the first person to sort of say, you know, david crosby and stephen sills were thinking of forming a group. she knew a new guy, graham nash, and she linked them up. she invited them over to her house the same day and sort of said, you guys need this high voice to sing with you. graham nash has said that she heard the sound of crosby, soules, and nash before anyone else did. remarkable thing. she was right. >> the voice, the lyrics, just the few songs that joe mentioned, is it outrageous to say that she, mamas and papas, but cass elliot, specifically, because of her voice, was one of the stamps of the decade of the

1960s? something you just remember. >> i think so. >> the imprint. >> certainly. >> for sure. >> certainly in california pop, along with the beach boys and doors, no doubt about it. i want to move now to something that we've been reading articles about. john heilemann, something that fascinates me is, of course, the re-release on disney of "let it be." beatles recorded 1969. "let it be" came out in 1970. it was seen as a grim, grim death march toward the beatles' breakup. it also showed a band really at the end of their row, loathing each other in every way, sneering through takes. then peter jackson came out with "getback," and a remarkable thing happened. found out that john was a protective older brother to george saying to paul when nobody was listening except for

the hidden microphone, come on, man, we beat him down every day, we got to help him out, for me what was so remarkable. see those images, lennon and the beatles went to see "let it be," and they left thinking, oh, we must -- then rio and paul talked about get back in '19. and they said, oh, my god, we loved each other. paul would be singing. he would be playing, staring at paul like, looking for affirmation and they locked eyes and you saw a love there that we didn't -- i think even paul mccartney forgot how much they loved each other during the breakup. >> yeah, and it's such a strange thing the way that the release of these records and the movie kind of messed with everyone's head.

"let it be" wasn't the last thing they recorded. "abbey road" was the last thing the beatles recorded. all this stuff from "let it be" before they recorded abbey road. if you thought about the proper context it would change your whole view the way this band has gone out. >> for beatles fans, they thought this sad breakup, "let it be" was the last album, what they don't know, paul called george and said we want to do one more album. he said, oh, are you going to let me do my job or fighting all the time. they said, we want to go out strong. they produced the greatest

album. >> peter jackson, again, you know, i haven't seen this one. >> this is "let it be". this is sort of reinvigorated "let it be." i'll say, it's still grim. it's still depressing. when you look at what peter jackson did, okay, this was a brilliant idea by paul. >> yes, totally. and i get this. even despite, even despite the grim mood around the studio what's captured in this movie, these songs are still the best and this movie is still as great as they ever be. >> it's pretty extraordinary. still worth a watch.

any beatles takes? >> you reminded me of our radio show. >> can we get her off the show? >> the stones are touring right now. >> the stones ripped off the beatles for like ten years, the beatles were doing something and the stones ripped it off. >> what do you think the odds of anyone at this table moving the way mick jagger moves at his age. >> we had a radio show and asked anything about the beatles and he answered everything correctly for two hours. >> mika walked off when a guy called up and you're touring the philippines, ringo -- i cut him off. jimmy nichols played for ringo. >> too much. >> we have to talk, before we go

on this sprawling segment, more sprawling then the taylor swift album -- we have to talk about a guy -- if you talked to musicians, especially indie musicians over the past 10, 15, 20 years said who got the best drum sound? who got the ethos of what they were trying to do. they would say steve albini, who passed away last week. >> the guy was brilliant. complicated. uncompromising. said a lot of really offensive things over the course of his career that he repented for. but made some incredible records. in '88 with thepixies. anywhere van ya hears it.

kurt cobain said let's get albini come in. the letter he wrote to the band what he wanted in their relationship, i want to be paid like a plumber, he never took a producer credit, never took points on a record. he was still working at the age of 61. he's an incredibly uncompromising spirit and he was a mechanic and saw himself as that electric records still a working studio up until the day he died. >> he's very democratic. if you had a band and pay his rent, he wasn't a snob, he'd take you in, he'd do his best. pretty incredible. i thought without knowing producing or engineering, i said, this is the stripped down, this is -- whoever did this, they really get it. but steve albini a real force.

>> yeah, and i think a death that's hitting the music community pretty hard and people, you know, are having sort of this personal resonance with this and to your point i think he was someone who really walked the walk of the indie and punk ethos. he did not want to take points, like producing royalties on the follow-up to never mind. imagine. >> he said the letters, if this album sells 3 million copies you can figure out. just fierce, uncompromising, such a great writer, funny ard smart. >> there's a phenomenal podcast on the anniversary of the album with steve, conan o'brien, chris. >> oh, my gosh. really great.

>> thank you so much for coming on. >> thank you. >> come back. okay, still ahead, we'll go live to lower manhattan for donald trump's criminal hush money trial ahead of more testimony from trump's former fixer and attorney michael cohen. r and attorney michael cohen that would mean over a hundred million americans will lose protections for preexisting conditions president biden has protected the affordable care act and lowered health care costs for millions by $800 a year. now, he'll make those savings permanent. health care should be a basic right. folks, he's coming for your health care and we're not going to let it happen. [applause] i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

still ahead, 11th hour host

stephanie ruhle joins us with her takeaways from her interview with republican senator mitt romney. we're back in one minute. we're back in one minute - [narrator] we just shipped our millionth monthly coffee subscription box so we're sending custom thank you gifts to our team.

our custom ink rep is just as excited as we are and knows what great quality products to get. celebrate your milestones with custom gear. get started today at customink.com. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can i make my side softer? i like my side firmer. sleep number does that. now, save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, 0% interest for 36 months. shop now at sleepnumber.com president biden challenged former president trump to two debates, and trump accepted. yeah. trump agreed to the debate. he said i'll be okay assuming it's okay with my parole

officer. the first debate will be next month the earliest the presidential debate has ever been, and if we're being honest an early bird debate feels right for these guys. >> toe to toe. manno on mango. let's get ready to rumble. rumble, i've seen your rallies. i think you mean let's get ready to ramble. >> good morning, and welcome to morning joe, it's thursday, may 16th, and i just have to ask, question that alex asked, how is it not friday, guys? it's thursday i'm very grateful. i'm very grateful. >> we're close to friday. it's almost friday. >> no, no, we're not at friday. >> 24 hours it will be friday. >> lot to talk about today.

>> we have the host of way too early, jonathan lemire. john heilmann. member of the new york times, steve ratner is up bright and early this morning. did he bring charts on this thursday? >> maybe he did, he comes in and he goes to the fenway -- >> the southwest wall. >> the southwest wall and he leaves and i take it personally after a while. >> i take it personally that i'm not invited to the big boys table. >> we have a lot to get to. the debates, my god, it's happening. >> i'm so excited. let's talk about real things,

the daily news mike lupica, the most exciting knicks team debate. >> they did win two titles. knicks fans, the team they loved the most. fond of a couple of patrick ewing teams that made a run. jalen brunson has taken the city by storm. >> i'm cheering for the knicks, just because it's so exciting. you know what, it's going to end up being the nuggets and the celtics. >> here's thing, i'd say, lupica said that brunson a great playoff player. that's true. if i could do a good howard cosell, not since the day of

walt "clyde" frazier. there's an electricity in the garden. i have never said it before, thank you, jimmy dolan, he gave all those years of disappointment, abuse, it's just made this moment that much sweeter. >> there you go. >> everybody has been so longing. the knicks fans have been in the desert so long, they're now, they can see the light. very exciting. >> through the dolan crap -- thank you so much for that. >> mara proving the poll of yesterday -- that every one of those polls skew press coverage for weeks to come of the newspaper of record, with collapsing polls, one siena poll. i hold the paper of record.

fox news has their own poll out that shows deadlock. ipsos, biden ahead by four. am i saying biden is ahead by four? no, it's a deadlock, again this ipsos poll -- here's the new fox news polls, donald trump still ahead by one. joe biden picks up three. i'm always saying, the day after a siena poll, for six months, you have a lot to live for, four children, you know polls change, this trend -- >> lot of people who like democracy. >> sure enough the next day we'll be hit not by one, four, five polls that show that we're at deadlock. my point is, it skews press coverage for weeks to come.

i'm not asking you to defend "the times chl" i'm saying it's draw. it's a draw right now. >> polls are but one data point. we think of them as the only measure of what's happening and they're often out of context. we're polling actually human beings here, that's imperfect. you saw in nevada, a notoriously difficult state to poll that biden was down the most and that may be the actual trend but the real shape of it is really hard to know because you're just getting a snapshot in time. the other thing here is it's hard to know when you have two people, two candidates for president who are really quite unpopular overall with the american public, how much of this people being polled right now, not super political. they may not like either of them but it's still may, they're not thinking about this necessarily

a contest between two candidates. they're thinking, i don't like either of them. talk to me in five months. >> the whole idea it's going to and 13 points in nevada, i'll take any bet that it's close in nevada. before we get moving, inflation eases. stocks hit highs. most importantly, from at least the numbers i saw yesterday, grocery prices going down a bit and i'm telling you, three things really, especially for younger voters, grocery prices, gas and it's buying a home are being able to have a nice place to rent out, those are the three -- well, we're not even talking about a car. i mean, cars are crazy, we basically traded in all of our cars, we have a gray kia minivan and we got it because it's reliable and it's ten years,

100,000 miles and you don't have to go, do you have this part? yeah, we'll have this part in about eight months. i get in my gray minivan and i drive down the road like a boss. >> steve with his bentley. >> the rolls, he can't even use it. >> forget about the grey poupon cooler. it's crazy. >> crazy. >> not even fighting this anymore. >> thank you, john, for attacking my lifestyle. i like my bentley. >> that wasn't an attack. i'm jealous. >> i'll give you a ride in the bentley around the corner. >> go ahead, steve. >> you're teasing my appearance, we have good news on inflation and all the things you

mentioned, food, energy, a lot of those prices are moderating. i'll show you some stuff about how consumer sentiment is closely tied to inflation and we know that's going to drive the election. you know, the realclear poll shows it's dead heat. >> again, my reaction is not too much to the times it's to the people who freak out disproportionately on the times and the times doing 15 stories on their polls. fox won't do 15 stories on their fox poll. morning consult. it's become this cottage industry for people on the other side of the chinese wall that maura is not on. she has nothing to do with this. don't direct any tweets to her. for people at home and it's important for them to kind of see what's behind the scenes, i

have for six months, since people have been freaking out about biden's team, i'm telling you every time i go in and talk to anybody who's running the campaign, the big part of the campaign, i don't know what they're telling you and what they're telling other people. they're like, they act like people holding four aces. what about this, yeah, yeah. that looks really tough, yeah, boy, trump. they really -- >> is this a criticism in. >> no, they know something that i think a lot of us don't know and they look at numbers and they see where things are going, they have a theory when people realize that donald trump is going to be getting into the race things are going to start gelling better for him. they understand donald trump's numbers are way down in every way in fund-raising and they'll

say -- no they're not. they're never going to catch joe biden. and as far as organization goes, anybody involved in a political campaign, if you're tearing up stakes in april and may, you're not going to put them back down in july and august, donald trump is going to be pounded on the ground. the bietden people feel great about it. they have about a thousand clips of donald trump that every day they're like, which one are we going to use today? it makes him look horrible. >> the biden campaign -- >> they're supremely confident. >> yes, they're confident it will be close. an aide told me the last week or so this person was saying, i feel very good of where we are. we're going to win decisively by a less a point. far better organization, far

more state offices. that advantage is only going to grow. most still think there's some skepticism whether this is going to be the race. i'm told yesterday that's part of why these debates are important and why they're happening so early. there's an understanding now so many americans vote early. >> your second point, i'm still having intelligent people with advanced degrees telling me who's a republican nominee really going to be. >> people still wonder, they think joe biden is too old. donald trump will be prison, he can't do it. here's the guy, he's the

nominee, do you really want this again? >> i don't know if i'm suffering from campaign post-traumatic stress. don't go all robbie muck on us. >> anything can happen. >> here's's a theory, the biden campaign, i think they're right, it's going to be a close race and in close races it's the blocking, it's the tackling that wins it for you. we saw this in 2004, we thought with 2004 with bush against kerry just like 2000, but you had kimmel vin who was blocking and tackling from january on, phone calls every day, going around, and that stuff adds up in close races. if you know it's going to be a

close, that stuff adds up. maybe they're wrong, but i will tell you, the difference between this campaign and '16 is, there was arrogance in the '16 campaign, they made fun of donald trump. they said no way can donald trump win. this is the one good thing about these "the new york times" polls, it scares the crap of fund-raisers who will say, can we give you more? i guess after the election is over, donald trump will say it was a conspiracy the "the new york times." >> president biden and donald trump agreeing to presidential debates. things escalated pretty rapidly throughout yesterday afternoon

with both candidates announcing they have accepted two invitations to debate, once on cnn on june 27th. and again on abc, on september 10th. the rules will differ from past election cycles. the candidates agreed to bypass the commission on presidential debates. biden also requested these guidelines, which trump begrudgingly accepted. at least we think he accepted it. we'll never know. no audience in the room. no third-party candidates be able to participate. select news outlets can host. candidate's microphone be shut off if they go over their allot ed speaking spot. >> you know, i think there's a

lot of ed to suggest that donald trump is not -- he won't necessary make good on this. there's, though, the thing that trump has been, the kind of core the paradigm for the trump campaign, donald trump is strong, joe biden is weak. he's weak, failing, flailing. >> they don't want that contrast, because donald trump is weak and flailing and miserable. >> that's not what they think. >> you don't think that suzy and chris the smart people on his campaign don't understand how often this guy loses his train of thought. >> i think they do. >> they know.

>> so they know. i think they have a darker -- they have a more critical view of joe biden's errors and missteps in this area than you do. we're talking about the point of the view, will they let donald trump go and debate? it will be a very tricky thing for donald trump, whose main point of view, i'm a tough guy, joe biden is weak and flailing. i'm strong and tough. i'm unstoppable. i think he has painted himself in a corner because trump didn't necessarily believe that biden would stand up and say he would take these debates and now he's kind of in a corner, donald trump likes to leave himself wiggle room. if you ask me whether i think these debates are going to happen, not close to 100 pkts.

more likely than not that trump will feel he has no choice than to do these debate and what about his campaign, he'll go in there not with knowledge, not with experience on the world stage that was productive. he'll go with insults, with personal stuff about joe biden and he's going to come out at him hard and that's going to be the challenge and sometimes that throws people off. >> mika, i'm not laughing. i'm smiling at the fact that when donald trump tries all of those things, that he does in front of his fat alvis crowd, please throw a sweaty scarf in my direction it's going to be met with dead silence. >> i don't underestimate it. nasty dehafr is so shocking. it can be off-put zblg what

about robert f. kennedy. >> he's not going to be included in these debates. his campaign put together some opposition to that yesterday. we're factoring into this poll, some americans may agree with him. but the trump and biden campaigns have cut him out. trump we should also note is calling for more than just these two, he has an agreement with fox news to host a third. but the biden campaign said this will be it. the vice presidential debate will be held in july. a sense that the biden campaign wants to box trump in, they know he was out ahead of this thing. we'll debate you and trump can't be perceived as walking away from that. if he did it would be a perception of weakness. the new republican's june

edition with the threat of american fascism. that conversation is just ahead on "morning joe." on "morning joe.

. you know, when we have been talking over the past several months about younger voters, seeing to break away from joe biden more, we've -- they've been looking at it through sort of the wrong lens talking about

gaza, obviously there are concerns on campus about gaza. it's inflation, and younger americans having trouble buying gasoline, having trouble buying groceries and most importantly trouble getting their first home, inflation is driving them away from the biden administration, the inflation data yesterday released revealed some good news for cash-strapped shoppers. grocery prices dropped for the first time in a year, food prices fell by two-at the points of a percent in april. >> it's the first drop in a year, eggs led the decline with pricing dropping more than 7%. steve is over at the wall with charts to break it all down. steve, what do you got and can this continue? because, it's going to take a while for people to really feel

the effects of this. >> as you guys have said, the inflation data is critical to the election and it has not gone well so far, but this may be the beginning of a better trend, what happened yesterday was the bureau of labor statistics announced their latest data, the headline, all the goods, up 3.4% year over year. we take out food and energy because they move around a lot, 3.6%. we got inflation down, stalled out, increased a little bit and now we have somewhat better news. i'll show you both in financial markets and in public opinion consumer sentiment has affected. what's important to note, bunch of stuff is still going up, insurance is 6% of the index. when you start to look at what people buy every day, food up

2.6% -- 2.2% year over year. energy, gasoline, home heating, all that stuff, up 2.6% year over year. and then goods, anything you buy, you know a piece of merchandise actually down 1.3% year over year, led by furniture, appliances and so forth and so it's -- it's a picture of inflation that perhaps the average american doesn't fully appreciate how much prices have moderated especially for the things they buy every day. >> housing up there, we're talking about housing and young voters, if you look at housing, if you look at the cost of cars, we talked about how automobiles, used automobiles -- >> can't get one. >> i was out last night at an event and people were talking

about how hard it is to still get a decent car. by a decent car, i'm not talking about one of your rolls-royce. i'm talking about a ford fusion -- >> first on housing, housing is still going up, the big problem on housing is the affordability of a new house, house prices are still high, but mortgages are also high, the affordability, the ability for someone to afford a mortgage has gone down so much. 8% mortgage makes a house unaffordable. that's a huge problem. one thing about the cpi numbers it may give the federal reserve some new way to cut interest rates. bring down interest rates a bit. >> steve, car rental and insurance so expensive? >> 11.5%.

i'm not complaining, if you're working and your work makes you fly from city to city, if you're in insurance, finance, people every week i see on planes that's what they do and so they get off the plane and then they have to go and they're dealing with still 11%, 12% increase in car rentals cost, man, that cuts into their salary. >> it does. this is only 6% of the index let's start with that. secondly, a lot of this is driven by insurance and this is a discussion for cnbc but insurance rates are going up across -- i'm happy to talk about it. >> we love it. >> go to the next chart.

>> talk about -- >> please, i don't think there's anything i could ask you that will rise to your level of expertise. wages, this is a key point yesterday, as somebody who was complaining to me about inflation, the real key is whether wage increase is keeping up with the inflation increase, you don't want deflation, so now, you're going to tell me whether i was correct saying that wages are keeping up. >> you're correct. >> like i'm a host on cnbc. >> the cnbc crack wasn't aimed at you, joe, or you, mika. >> that was definitely -- >> that was for me. >> that was aimed at heilmann. >> easy target. >> fair enough. >> if you go back to when

inflation was high in 2022 it did absolutely not keep up. inflation has moderated faster than wages have come down, you have had, joe, to your point, from well for than a year now, wage increase above inflation increase. if you look at the bottom quarter of americans they have done the early better than this 4% and so for the bottom group of americans their purchasing power has actually increased by more than that. coming up, the boston celtics book a third straight trip to the eastern conference finals. you're the best, steve, even though you'd think i'd never make it on cnbc. >> seriously.

>> the latest out of the nba playoffs as well as the major league baseball player who pablo said deserves a zillion dollar paycheck, who's that? "morning joe" will be right back. " will be right back (vo) in two seconds, eric will realize they're gonna need more space... (man) gotta sell the house. (vo) oh...open houses. or, skip the hassles and sell directly to opendoor. (man) wow. (vo) when life's doors open, we'll handle the house.

neither team has a time-out. ward to childs. that's it. >> for the third straight season new york has eliminated miami in a deciding game. >> i could wear this as a head thing. i didn't know.

>> what is going on? >> i'm just doing my best to channel gen-z. >> it's wilbert. not just anybody. i don't know what to do -- i don't understand. >> oh yeah. >> i don't understand. >> he just explained it to you. >> for my hair. this is really cute. and let it hang down the back. >> right. >> thank you. >> the woman of many talents. >> all right, so, if you're watching at home and you're wondering what's happening when we do sports segments, mika she cleans out her purse. >> she's digging in there. >> alex, if you can keep the shot off of me as much as possible we'll go around the

table. >> this is for hopson once a month. for ticks. the knicks, the conference finals in 2000, if you can make a little noise that would be awesome. now they're one game away from sending new york city fans into a sports frenzy, burning down buildings making it generally unsafe for children and their loved ones to walk down city streets. let's bring in pablo, so much to talk about it. >> so much on this desk right now. >> sorry, the gum. >> i'm moderating all the elements. >> cut through all the noise and just say, hey, we're getting ready for the celtics/nuggets final. >> i feel -- >> do the knicks have a great shot of pulling this out? >> this is the greatest time to

be a knick fan. >> are you a knicks fan? >> i have a complicated relationship. since the 1970s. since that first title was won in 1970 i think knicks fans have been starving for a feeling like what they get -- what is it -- a thrill up their leg watching jalen brunson. jalen brunson, joe, is the most popular athlete in new york since derek jeter and apologies to eli manning who won two super bowl rings. to john stark, aau basketball dad on the baseline at these games. jalen brunson may not make the nba finals but what he is the star on a cinderella-style team with one foot, all the principles of their coach is something that has deserved a parade on 7th avenue which he

gets after games, even though they may not make the finals. delusion and optimism are overlapping in a venn diagram in a point guard. >> who do you think wins if the celtics play the knicks? >> the celtics. >> of course you do. the nuggets, have you finally given up on the timberwolves? >> he's been great. jokic, three mvps in four years, the best quarter of his life. the best player in the game. they look like they are spanking a very young team, to be mild about it. >> any comments from over here? >> well, the celtics, day won last night, took care of

cavaliers, a pretty soft path at this point to the playoffs. >> the celtics, though, they just don't have the killer instinct. >> that's true. i still have questions about the coach. you know this, i've been saying this for a couple years now, they're still missing porzingis. they haven't been tested. they struggle at the end of tight games which they'll have at madison square garden or in the finals. >> as much as i'm laughing at the knicks i look forward to laughing at -- >> i'm a knicks fans and i hate the celtics, regardless of my personal feelings this is going to be the marquee -- this is the marquee matchup. >> it's the dream for the nba. >> teams with national following, a seven -- a potential seven-game series, it will be electrifying and i'm a western conference guy in my

heart. western conference, great teams. but the nuggets don't electrify the sports media like the one this does. >> pablo, this doesn't involve s.e.c. football or premier league soccer, 15 seconds, tell me what's happening in the nhl. >> the boston bruins, throw the parade for the boston bruins extending the series. >> still down three games to two. i would say the story is the rangers lot of people think they be the best in the league. a little bit of anxiety here. >> are the rangers the best team in the league in. >> i think so. i think so. jim dolan -- i have a lot of neurosis -- the fair of jim dolan pay more atex to the sphere his sports teams will be better off. the knicks and rangers look

they're responsible for madison square garden to live up to the reputation they're l it's the most fun building. >> it could happen. you could have the trifecta. knicks, rangers, billy joel. >> there it is. >> i love billy joel. >> i'd put the yankees there, but billy joel, an all-time great. >> the yankees didn't play in madison square garden. >> but they're first in a.l. east. >> let's talk about juan soto, extraordinary presence, remember he was a rookie at the world series. >> the soto shuffle. >> he was pissing off ver lander. and soto -- juan soto has more

walks than any player. >> now i know what to do with this. >> how about the premier league, joe? >> it's ugly. >> joe, i don't -- i don't have to pay anything to afford justin -- to afford juan soto, i just want them to give him half a billion, juan soto, and he deserves it. >> now he's negotiating salaries. >> seriously. >> for a red sox update, we lost last night. caitlin clark, game two. >> amazing. >> so, funny is happening here, lot of the veterans on of the wnba said she's going to struggle, diana taurasi said she's going the struggle, she did. ten turnovers is the most for a debut, her team is not very

good, joe, her team isn't very good. they got her because in fact they won the draft lottery, let's grade on a bit of curve, 2.3 million people watched this game. which is a record. >> i love that. coming up, november is still six months away, but voters will start casting ballots a lot sooner than that, seimone sanders-townsend explains the importance of the early vote when morning joe comes right back. joe comes right back if advanced lung cancer has you searching for possibilities, discover a different first treatment. immunotherapies work with your immune system to attack cancer. but opdivo plus yervoy is the first combination of 2 immunotherapies for adults

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coming up, donald trump is back in court today in new york city, we'll go live to lower manhattan for a preview when "morning joe" comes right back. k

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♪♪ the entire world is seeing the the entire world is seeing th no one's going to be left behind, including their pets. >> that was a look at the new documentary "nature, saving the animals of ukraine." it is the latest installment in the emmy-award-winning series on pbs. joining us now is the film's director. thank you for coming on and thank you for telling this story. talk about overall the animals of ukraine, what their plight is and what some are trying to do to bring them to new homes.

>> i mean, like a lot of people, they are literally risking their lives in order to save the animals. we were so moved by that story, so we decided to make this documentary. it's been a lot of stories. we're saving not only pets, but big cats like lions, for example. because it's really dangerous. a lot of vets refuse to go to the front lines. i didn't know that in order to transport the lion, you have to tranquilize him. >> yeah. you can't put him on a leash. >> yeah. >> there is the story of saving a cat that was stranded on the seventh floor of a building for 60 days. >> it's a miracle, actually.

still nobody can tell me how did that happen, because without food, without water this poor cat survived. >> how is that possible? >> we don't know. he's like 13 years old. he was between the seventh and eighth floor, because this particular building was completely destroyed. this poor cat became like a celebrity. volunteered succeeded to build animal shelter in kyiv. >> give us a sense of the numbers in terms of animals who need help because their owners were killed or their homes were destroyed or the owner can't care for them anymore. how many people are doing this work? >> hundreds of volunteers, actually. we have this motto that when you think that you rescue animals, actually animals rescue us. they help us to cope with the

stress and not only like volunteers, also for the soldiers. i went to the front lines many times and i saw soldiers heavily geared with cats and stray dogs. >> we just had one of our contributors talking about how his cat saved his life for a mental health issue. not just soldiers, but children of war for sure. the film also reveals how some animals are helping with war recovery efforts. here's a clip from the documentary about a bomb sniffing dog named patrone which means bullet in ukrainian. [ speaking in a global language ]

>> he passed with flying colors. within a short period, he had traded in fetching sticks and slippers for sleuthing out explosive objects, even explosives hidden deep in the ground. >> that's incredible. i mean, these animals provide a service. some might say it's fruitless, worry about the people. i think what we're showing here is animals are sort of intrinsic in the human experience, especially in the middle of a war. >> for sure. this is a question of humanity. this whole documentary is only about humanity. it's not only about pets or animals. patron was awarded the good will

ambassador dog. >> my brother has an instagram with his dog teddy. we are big dog people in this family. you can stream "nature, save the animals of ukraine" at pbs.org/nature. thank you so much for your work and thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. up next on "morning joe," we're going to go live to the courthouse in lower manhattan where donald trump's criminal trial resumes in just a moment with michael cohen taking the stand. plus, a world leader is in very serious condition this morning after a brazen assassination attempt in broad daylight. we'll have the latest straight ahead. and also, andrew ross sorkin joins us with more details on yesterday's inflation numbers as grocery prices fell for the first time in a full year. we're back in a moment with a

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president biden and former president trump are set to face off in two presidential debates. biden is look forward to laying out his 2024 agenda, while trump is just happy to go somewhere where nobody will draw him while he sleeps. >> i'm calling on crooked joe to debate any time, any place. we'll do it anywhere you want, joe. >> i've invited biden to debate. we can do it any time he wants. >> it's quite something to challenge someone to a debate while you're at your criminal trial. >> welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. in just about a half hour, former president trump will be back in a manhattan courtroom for his criminal hush-money

trial. today could be the last day of testimony as the defense continues its cross examination of michael cohen. an nbc news source with direct knowledge of what to expect says the cross will focus on cohen's past lies, including, under oath in an attempt to discredit his testimony. cohen is the prosecutor's final witness. trump's team said earlier this week it may not call any witnesses. trump's attorney todd blanch told the judge he was unsure if the former president would testify in his own defense. trump has said previously he wants to testify. blanch started his cross examination of cohen on tuesday where he's focusing on cohen's motives for working with prosecutors. i was looking for a reduction in the home confinement portion not just in this, but in the work i was doing, cohen said. i did want to be released, yes.

>> we're going to be here. >> for the duration. it is not friday. it's only thursday. >> how could it not be friday? >> i don't know. >> you saw this. i walk in. i don't have a chair here. >> it was right there. >> it was like a coup. >> they're trying to rename the show "morning mika." >> and there's nothing wrong with that. >> it has a ring, guys. >> meanwhile, donald trump yesterday agreed to president biden's terms to debate. >> i don't believe it. >> peter alexander has the details. >> reporter: in an already unprecedented campaign, another unpredictable turn this morning. president biden and former president trump agreeing to two

one-on-one debates. president biden on wednesday delivering this surprise offer to debate twice. >> donald trump lost two debates to me in 2020. since then, he hasn't shown up for a debate. now he's acting like he wants to debate me again. well, make my day, pal. >> reporter: the president even taunting president trump. mr. trump, who refused to take part in a single republican primary debate quickly signing on and pushing for more. >> i think they should be more than two and i think they should be in large venues. it's just more exciting. >> reporter: the first matchup set to take place june 27th, the earliest in modern history. the second debate slated for september 10th before early voting begins. the biden campaign has requested a number of parameters, including that the candidates'

microphones be cut off when it's not their time to speak. all of it comes after months of public pressure from the former president, even bringing out an empty lectern on the trial. most americans hope the rematch isn't a replay of their first debate in 2020 that turned ugly. >> would you shut up, man. >> reporter: mitt romney says biden should have pressured federal prosecutors not to indict the former president and for the good of the country should have pardoned him. >> had i been president biden when the justice department brought an indictment, i would have immediately pardoned him, because it makes me the big guy and the person i pardon the little guy. >> i can't keep up with this.

>> stephanie is right here. >> i can't keep up with this guy. you know, mitch mcconnell says, oh, we can't impeach him here. we've got to try him. now mitt romney is saying, we can't try him. i mean, come on. >> that's kind of what was so stunning about it to me. for mitt romney to say joe biden should have stepped in and pressured prosecutes. doesn't mitt romney support separate but equal branches of government? i read his book where he talked about being afraid for his family when he voted to impeach drip. he was afraid of presidential overreach, what trump could do. yet, when the tables are told, he's saying joe biden shouldn't let this happen. what's stunning is we actually have a longer clip, but he says, listen, everyone in the country knows donald trump, there was

election interference, he did pay off a porn star and he did illegally hold documents. none of that is going to change. let's show a little bit. >> leaders in the republican party went up to that trial, stood outside the courthouse and attacked our legal system. how did that make you feel about republicans right now? >> yeah. i think it's a terrible thing for our country to see people attacking our legal system. that's an enormous mistake. i think it's also demeaning for people to try and run for vice president by donning a red tie and standing outside the courthouse. it felt awkward. i can also say i think president biden made an enormous error. he should have fought like crazy to keep this prosecution from going forward. it was a win-win for donald trump. if donald trump is exonerated -- >> is that joe biden's job? >> i've been around for a while.

if lbj had been president and he didn't want something like this to happen, he'd have been all over that prosecutor saying you better not bring that forward or i'm going to drive you out of office. >> i'm sure you support having separate but equal branches of office. >> i do. but had i been president biden when the justice department brought indictments, i would have immediately pardoned president trump. why? because it makes me, president biden, the big guy, and the person i pardoned the little guy. >> i'm so confused for a lot of reasons. >> donald trump hasn't admitted guilt. >> first of all, it's not 1965. lbj pressuring people to prosecute or not prosecute is exactly what scares us about donald trump. >> exactly. >> i would have pressured prosecutors. there's also the possibility that you pressure a prosecutor to drop a case and the

prosecutor says screw you, making that prosecutor even more powerful. he's feeding into the lie, the fox news lie that this all was concocted by joe biden and could all be ended by joe biden. that's number one. number two, i'd love to have you talk about how mitt romney thinks that a guy who's a former president, who stole nuclear secrets, who stole our secret invasion plans to iran, which we may still have to do at some point, who stole some of the most damning secrets about the united states regarding our defense weaknesses, and then lied about it to the fbi. the fbi tries to get it back, the justice department tries to get it back. lies. when that doesn't work, he goes to his i.t. person, pressures him to destroy the information.

the i.t. person refuses to. then he goes to his groundskeeper, says, can you flood out those rooms, drain the pool? all of this massive coverups, obstruction of justice on top secret security issues including nuclear secrets. >> senator romney agrees with everything you just said. >> but mitt romney just said we should have given him am free pass on all of that. >> he's saying we should move on. he's made clear he's not going to vote for donald trump. but it is strange to see a former senator who deeply respects our government simply saying we should ignore the rule of law because all of this circus is good for donald trump politically. >> jonathan lemire, do you have a question, or would you like to

scratch your head in utter befuddlement like the rest of us? >> it is so interesting for senator romney, who has stood up to trump in so many ways -- maybe he's trying to be above partisanship to suggest we should move on as a nation. that seems strikingly naive. we're talking about a president trump who made clear what he will do if he's in office again. the things romney said he would pardon and forget. >> there's that unserious thing. the other unserious thing is mitt romney still doesn't want to say who he's going to vote for. in the last two elections he wrote in his wife's name. that's not a serious thing to do. he laid out in our 25-minute

conversation all the serious risks our country faces, yet he doesn't want to say what he's going to do. he says he doesn't want to publicly say because he doesn't want to lose the influence he has in his party, which begs the question, what is it you're going to do next? >> anan giridharadas and symone sanders townsend. >> michael, i don't want to say is this how fascism wins. >> maybe you just ask. >> when you have people saying,

oh, we can't impeach him, and then they go, oh, we can't prosecute him for the stealing of nuclear secrets, then the covering up of the stealing of nuclear secrets and then the lying to the fbi about the stealing of nuclear secrets and then the attempt to destroy cameras that show you stole nuclear secrets, then the attempt to flood the facilities to hide the fact you stole nuclear secrets. and you have mitt romney, who's supposed to be the paragon of virtue of the republican party saying, eh, let it go. >> that is how fascism wins. you pair all of the past actions with what he is plainly telling us he's going to do if he gets power again. you know, he hasn't made any

secret of this. project 2025 spells it very clearly. there have been many leaks to the "new york times" and other publications from his people saying what they're going to do in terms of, for example, rounding up undocumented immigrants and so on. then there's his own recent "time magazine" article where he said what he was going to do. when he says the threat is internal and these people are vermin polluting our country, that's fascist rhetoric. there's no way around it. what we've done, we have eight essays in our new issue by some of the great historians of fascism in our country. brian stelter did a chilling piece on what might happen to the media. just eight different articles

looking at what this country might be like if he reassumes power and has his way and does the things he's telling people he's going to do. >> everything that they write about, donald trump has already promised to do. >> a lot of the reaction to trump is not about ideology. it's about personality type. i think since 2015 he came down the elevator, there have been two dominant personalities we've seen processing him, one of clarity and one that has this emotional need to pursue balance at any price. you see it in the media and you see it in leaders. i look at someone like romney there, and it's this deep constitutional need to be balanced no matter what. so, yes, he's a criminal, but he should be pardoned. anything time you say anything that acknowledges the reality of the danger, there are these people in our media -- >> the constitutional ballots -- >> no, no.

i don't mean constitution. i mean inner constitution. it actually has nothing to do with what's happening. >> you're saying mitt romney is thinking this is better to balance my constitution than to protect the constitution. >> he almost has a need -- and a lot of people do. i think it's been one of the biggest problems in the media also processing trumpism, where you have newspapers that are very used to covering normal two sides, but when it is do we do democracy anymore or not, there's this kind of both sidesing impulse. it's the wrong personality for this very different historical moment with fascism. >> we talked about what would a

second term look like for president biden or donald trump? the country is polarized and divided. joe biden has gotten a ton done on a bipartisan basis. what would he need to do in the next term to bring people together? and i said what would trump do? he said trump is obviously not looking to unite the country. he says joe biden is a good guy. i like joe biden. he didn't say that about donald trump. so i asked him about it. he said, he's a laugh riot. he's really funny. he had to create an equivalency. >> mussolini played the catskills in the teens. >> a lot of people don't know that. >> this is always this equivalency. i saw it for the first time in the national review where somebody said, yes, january 6th

was bad, but did you see what joe biden did with student loans? and they continue that argument, because he tried to use his presidential authority to forgive student loans, which by the way, provided a check. the supreme court came back and said, no, too much. you're going to have to figure out a moreored way to do that. top republicans will still say, oh, you're talking about january 6th. did you see what joe biden tried to do on student loans. they're dead serious. we don't have to even talk about this. people didn't die because of the student loans. there was a check on power, because joe biden plays within

the guardrails, the constitutional guardrails. >> on student loans, because mitt romney really went off on student loans, how terrible it was and that's buying votes. let's assume it is. great. what do you think the carried interest loophole is? buying votes. what do you think former president trump needing oil executives at mar-a-lago last week and trying to get a billion dollars out of them and saying i'll make you a deal. what do you think that deal is? buying votes. >> why doesn't mitt romney talk about the fact that after he passed the largest tax cut in world history for billionaires and multinational corporations. donald trump flew from washington, d.c. to mar-a-lago. he sat around a table with billionaires and said, i just made all of you a lot richer

today. >> buying votes. >> and mitt romney looks at student loans. that is so sad and pathetic, i weep for the country. i weep for him that's all he has. >> having said that, mitt romney is going to be one of many disappointments and situations in which we hear people like michael tomasky and his reporters saying this is how it happens and mitt romney is not alone. two days ago, it was the guys in the red ties showing up at court, including the speaker of the house for donald trump. it's disappointment after disappointment where people decide to let things go. that's how we let our country go. what do you make of the situation with the debates, if agreed to? do you think joe biden should have proposed this? is this a good position for the

president to put himself in? it seemed like donald trump jumped at the opportunity. >> this is not a normal election. as many folks have said, this could very well be the last election that we know of in this way if donald trump is reelected. because this isn't a normal election, you cannot go about things as business as usual. there's an argument to be made that the commission on presidential debate since the late 1980s, they have administered the debates. why not let them do it? the systems have not demonstrated they are up to the task of holding donald trump accountable. i think the commission on presidential debates is one of those. it was the biden campaign that

really brought him into a corner. now they're in a situation where they're have to debate under the rules that joe biden and his team have laid out or look like a coward and pull out. this is what the american people need to see, a head-to-head matchup so they can see the stark contrast. not only is joe biden a good, decent man, but he has policy. and donald trump, who does not know policy, is obviously not a good and decent man, and we'll detail what he plans to do in a second term, which is, again, be a dictator on day one. i guess my last point would be, to the conversation you all were having about the student loans, what joe biden did on student loans was make good on the promise that he made on the campaign traitrail.

that didn't work out well for him. i don't think this is buying votes per se. this is people making promises to their bases and people they want their votes about what they will do. the difference is donald trump has promised the billionaires and millionaires that he is going to literally undo all of the environmental regulations and give them everything that they want. do we need to call vice president al gore to talk about the climate crisis? i think there is a stark difference in what is happening here. the student loans were about people pilling themselves out of a rut by erasing some debt that could help them buy a home and other things. >> again, it was a campaign promise. it was done within the boundaries of constitutional

norms. the supreme court said no, you're going to have to go back and taylor it more specifically than the way you've done it. that's the way our constitutional system works. i doesn't mean go to the capitol and -- >> defecate all over the place. >> yeah, [ bleep ] all over the plate. a little different. >> what is going on? >> i'm so sorry, but you do understand it. it's a really sad, cynical take. jonathan lemire as we segue from that, let's talk about the debate for a second. you usually have challengers who are in mid season form by the time the president stumbles out. if it was reagan in '84, you had mondale who had to go through

this process. you had joe biden four years ago having to debate 16 people before he debated donald trump. it's usually the challenger who's in mid-season form, the president who is flat-footed. in this case, it's kind of the opposite. you have joe biden out talking to people a lot more than trump. >> usually presidents don't go through a primary process again. they don't have to go through debates. they're not used to be being challenged, frankly. usually the contender comes in shark. in 2012 president obama was really bad in that debate. he was out of shape for it. romney was excellent. obama got back on track in his last two. donald trump also is rusty because he has dodged all of the

republican primary debates. when was the last time he sat for anything remotely resembling a tough interview? i also think when the expectation is that low, president biden tends to clear them. look at the state of the union. >> he does. look at the two debates from 2020, biden won the most. the first one was like 59-37 where viewers thought biden did better than trump. this is just trump camp maga bluster. i don't know where they're coming from with it. trump was terrible in the debates. you showed some clips earlier of the constant interruptions. maybe he won't be able to do that as much with his microphone

turned off. that will be a positive. but no, trump has never been a particularly good debater. he's trying to get the advanced spin out there. he knows policy and his accomplishments and he does this a lot. >> over the past four months donald trump has confused joe biden with barack obama about 12 times. he thought we were about to get into world war ii. a couple of days ago he confused jimmy connors, who was a hell of a tenniye '70s, but confused him with jimmy carter. when he realized he confused i jimmy connors with jimmy carter, he went, jimmy, jimmy, oh both of them. he couldn't remember a president's name just like when he kept confusing nancy pelosi for nikki haley.

he kind of gets stuck in that glitch just like he did with obama. i've heard this time and again that suzy and chris running the trump campaign are consummate professionals. they saw trump jump out front saying, hey, i want to do this. they think less is more with trump for good reason. he is off his game. >> you forgot to mention the hannibal lecter moment. >> have you seen the refurbishing of "let it be"? >> no. it's on my list for this weekend. i'd love to do a trivia contest with you some time. >> it's on. the new special issue of "the new republic" is out now. thank you for that.

thanks for coming on this morning. stephanie ruhle, how to you do it? we love it. coming up, we go live to the courthouse in lower manhattan where donald trump's criminal trial resumed moments ago. michael cohen will be retaking the stand shortly. plus, the latest in a slew of recent streaming deals as media companies continue to search for ways to survive. that's next on "morning joe." >> we're going to evict this man, the worst president by far, jimmy connors -- jimmy connors. he's also happy. jimmy is a very happy man, both of them, because you know what? they want him out. of them, because you know what they want him out. ahhh! with flonase, allergies don't have to be scary.

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welcome back at 34 past the hour. sexism is the biggest hurdle facing women in politics. that's according to a yearlong project out this week from cosmopolitan and pivotal venn venn ventures. we talk about the expense of holding elected office, the so-called motherhood penalty, inadequate training women face and more. check out our interview at knowyourvalue.com. it's time now for business with andrew ross sorkin. >> we talked about many things last block about people who are sort of cozying up to trump.

"new york times" business talked about wall street warms up to trump. you open up the article and it talks about -- you interviewed jamie dimon. this "new york times" article suggests that jamie dimon provided cover for people on wall street to support donald trump. >> look, i still think those comments that jamie made have been misconstrued, but i think there's clearly a sea change among historically republican business leaders who had tried to walk away from trump, said they were effectively walking away and have now returned to the scene, if you will. >> i don't usually follow the dow, but they're richer than ever. >> the dow is 92 points away from the historical height.

>> it just keeps breaking records. it's about to go over 40,000. these people who keep whining about biden's a socialist, if this is socialism, i know a lot of hedge fund managers who would say give me more, because people keep getting richer and richer on wall street. >> republican business leaders who are returning to trump and then there's this other view that somehow doesn't like biden, also doesn't like trump, but thinks in a fever dream like way that there's going to be an a unicorn who's going to emerge and replace biden. so they're going to slam biden over and over again. >> how calculated is this? how many people just want to be the next treasury secretary.

>> there's the group that always wants power. >> they got the money now, because joe biden's stock market is more powerful than donald trump's was. >> the thing we were talking about during the commercial break is there's a value in the business world and in life to stability. just think about the volatility that is going i allergy if former president trump becomes the president. if there's anything you can count on, it's volatility. >> let's give the perfect example. wap r -- let me tell you what the world will look like if donald trump is president of the united states. i went to alabama, but even i know this. donald trump is going to take

control anyway he can of every lever of power possible. he's not going to like interest rates high, so he's going to lower them. he's talked about taking control of the fed. he'll do it. the inflation, seriously? all i can say is go to home depot and buy some wheelbarrows. if he takes control of the fed, you know what he's going to do. even when it's going to be the worst thing for the economy, he is going to lower interest rates. >> the business community knows he will find his own way to try to juice the economy. the problem is it's going to be a sugar high. we saw this movie before and in everything he's done there is a sugar high. they want the sugar. but the question is what happens after the sugar? that is the real conundrum.

9% interest rates after sugar. >> if he gets in there and says i'm going to control the sec, the ftc, the fed, i mean, we know where this leads. it's bad. >> in 2019 jamie dimon put out a historic statement on behalf of all american big enterprise, reversing a decades-old policy that said the purpose of business is only to certain shareholders' interest. 2019, jamie dimon goes out front and says, no, no, society matters, all of our stakeholders matter. corporations are no longer just about the bottom line, we care about these issues. do you know a single ceo with a

real moral core by which they would sacrifice shareholder value. >> i will make it worse for you. i was at a dinner and everybody went around the table and if you would sign that pledge about society over profits again in this environment today. i think three or four hands went up. >> why? >> i think there was a view that the push towards esg environmental social governance type of issues -- i mean i think you're seeing some of the dei things that happen on campus and other things, that it became too complicated for them. it goes back to desantis, frankly. they got scared.

>> we should let them be them, but treat them accordingly. if they are, in fact, operating with no moral core and only for the purpose of our investors. >> we've got to do that. >> andrew ross sorkin, thank you very much for being on this morning. that was very depressing. donald trump's hush-money trial resumed moments ago. we have a live picture of the courthouse. michael cohen is about to retake the stand. we'll get a live report from the courthouse and expert legal analysis, next. l analysis, next -remember when i said we need to screen for colon cancer?

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46 past the hour. we're going to go right to the courthouse where donald trump has brought more friends with him to court. of course, we're expecting more

testimony from michael cohen. let's bring in dasha burns live outside the courthouse in lower manhattan. what's happening inside the courtroom right now? >> reporter: you said it there, a big entourage today, no less than nine lawmakers showing up for former president trump this morning. you have representatives matt gaetz, lauren boebert, andy biggs, michael cloud among others. boebert and gaetz are sitting in the front row next to eric trump. we've been watching a side-bar happening at the start of the day this morning. we do have george conway in the room as well. we're told from our folks inside the courthouse that gaetz and boebert have been staring down conway as we prepare for part two of the cross examination of michael cohen. the last go-round that todd blanch had it michael cohen

didn't exactly go as folks expected. a lot of legal experts thought it was a little bit of a scattershot cross examination, not a lot of direct angles and story lines being told there, but trying to undercut cohen's credibility. we're being told by sources that todd blanch today will focus on cohen's past lies, his lies to congress, his lies under oath in the past, his lies in 2016 and 2017. of course, that's something the jury has been primed for. the prosecution and cohen himself have already admitted that he has lied in the past. cohen says it's in order to protect former president trump. he lied in the service of his former boss. that is what we expect will be the focus of the defense today. this is the prosecution's last witness. that's it for them. whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing, i'll let your legal panel chime in on that. but this could be the last

moment as the prosecution redirects to make sure that the jury for the prosecution believes michael cohen, because he is the linchpin here directing all of this, tying the dots back to former president trump, mika. >> dasha burns, thank you so much. i've got to say, jonathan, really for george conway's sake, thank god that lauren boebert only stared him down. because, you know, you get her in a closed sort of seating area, things can go sideways really quickly. you don't want her in the audience with you. so i'm glad she was only staring this time. george, that could have caused some complications. >> there's also security in the courtroom, thankfully.

>> they could step in. >> let's get serious. we have chuck here. chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney, joyce vance, and dave aronberg. >> dasha was giving the summary that is somewhat, long and unwinding, unfocused cross yesterday of michael cohen. was that your take? >> it was. >> isn't that interesting? because this is a guy that trump wants to debone. >> yeah. i think there's a way to do it, but it's surgical and it's short. what are the points you would p make if you were cross examining michael cohen? he's biased, he's inconsistent, and he's a convicted perjurer. >> right. >> that's it. all the other stuff kind of

doesn't matter. he's not going to admit on the stand that he's a liar. it doesn't matter how long you cross examine him. you can deduce that he's biased, that he's inconsistent, and that he's a convicted perjurer, and then at summation, when you argue the case to the jury, you hit those three points over and over again. it's a lot easier to do a cross examination in a tv studio than a courtroom. >> exactly. >> i give him that, but unfocused and long i think is never good. >> joyce vance, what are you looking for today? how much damage could the defense do in cross? >> so i think chuck is dead on the money here, and the important issue is whether todd blanche is able to recalibrate and to do this sort of strategic cross examination because in essence, the prosecution has corroborated a lot of cohen's testimony, but they're still asking the jury to take a couple of leaps of faith when cohen relates the substance of his conversations with donald trump. if they can successfully paint

him as someone who has this prior perjury conviction and a real axe to grind with trump, then it will all come down to creating reasonable doubt during closing arguments. >> so dave aronberg, there's a chance that the cohen cross examination will end today. my question for you is what's next? because the defense has suggested they may not call any witnesses. there has been some talk of maybe a campaign finance expert. they seem to be leaning away from that now. if that's the case, we're going to head to closing arguments, when might we even see a verdict? >> oh, i think you could see a verdict in a couple weeks. i think they will have closing arguments next week, and i think an actual verdict comes at the end of the week or the following week, and i think the problem for the defense is that todd blanche's opening statement is quickly becoming the most consequential part of this trial, and not in a good way for his client. you know, blanche made two important declarations. he said that the $35,000 a month

payment that went to michael cohen was not a payback for cohen's payment to stormy daniels. that's a problem. also, he said that daniels did not have sex with trump. that opened the door for all the salacious details, but it really is important that he said this was not a reimbursement because the documents, which really are the star of this case, they show otherwise. they show in trump's own words that it was a reimbursement. so i don't know why blanch went ahead of himself and said this is not a reimbursement. now all you need in my mind is circumstantial evidence that we have, which we've already seen it's a reimbursement but the falsification of the business records existed. if you're going to reimburse cohen, then you must have falsified it as legal fees. so i think todd blanche undermined his own case. >> so, chuck, i love your insights on mr. blanche and you do explain why he may not have been as effective on cross examination before.

we always talk to our kids about reps, reps, reps, reps. he's more like you in that what he's done in the past, he hasn't had the reps of cross examining witnesses, and it's a true art form. >> it is, and you're right. so mr. blanche like me was a long-time federal prosecutor. federal prosecutors don't get reps, joe, at cross examination. in my 40 or 50 trials, there was a handful of times that i did multiple cross examinations in the trial, and rarely if ever did i cross examine a defendant. why is this? >> you said it's fun, but -- >> it's a lot of fun. >> you just don't get to do it. >> as prosecutors we are putting on the case in chief. we are calling witnesses that the defense cross examines. often the defense puts on no case at all, or if they do, it's a meager one. and that's their right, but we don't have the practice that defense attorneys have at cross examining witnesses. what i used to do as a new

prosecutor is go down to the fbi academy at quantico, virginia, where the new agents would do a mock trial as part of their training, and i would play defense attorney for practice. >> yeah. >> so they're off tomorrow because of barron's graduation. they may have court next wednesday? >> correct. >> usually they don't, and he's asked the jury to let them know if it that creates any undue hardship. joyce vance, what's that saying to you, if anything? >> well, it's important because it means that the judge will let the jury once they start deliberations continue to move forward. you know, as a prosecutor -- and probably as a defense lawyer too, you really hate it when the jury's deliberations are interrupted, even by a weekend, certainly by a three-day weekend like what we're going to see this weekend. so the prosecution will want closing arguments to take place on monday, and then let the jury go straight through to a verdict. >> okay.

former u.s. attorneys chuck rosenberg and joyce vance and state attorney for palm beach county, dave aronberg. thank you all. of course we'll see you all again very soon. that does it for us for now. ana cabrera and josé diaz-balart pick up the coverage after a short break. pick up the coverage after a short break. nice to meet ya. my name is david. i've been a pharmacist for 44 years. when i have customers come in and ask for something for memory, i recommend prevagen. number one, because it's effective. does not require a prescription. and i've been taking it quite a while myself and i know it works. and i love it when the customers come back in and tell me, "david, that really works so good for me." makes my day. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription.

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with four stars and rising stars, northern california's premier casino resort is the perfect place... ...to do as much -or as little- as you want. make your get away now and cache in at cache creek casino resort. good morning, and thank you for joining us. it is 10:00 eastern, i'm ana cabrera bringing you special coverage this morning alongside my friend and colleague, josé diaz-balart. and right now in a manhattan courtroom, michael cohen is back on the stand for a second day of cross examination as donald trump's hush money trial new year's an end. >> a source with direct knowledge told nbc news today's focus for defense will be what they call cohen's r