weekend taking the stage in iowa to the lyrics of a country song about the potential of going to prison. we'll go through the latest developments in the classified documents case, as one of trump's employees is supposed to appear in federal court later today. also ahead, we're hearing from the georgia prosecutor who is likely to bring charges against the former president there for interference in the 2020 election. plus, we've got brand-new reporting on the massive amount of money that trump's political group is spending on his legal costs. and new polling out this morning has more bad news for the desantis campaign, with the florida governor failing to build substantial support from republican voters. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, july 31st. i'm jonathan lemire in for joe, mika and willie. with us, we have member of "the new york times" editorial board,

mara gay. white house editor for "politico," sam stein. you saw him on "way too early." and the founder of the conservative website, the bulwark, charlie sykes. it is a great group. thank you for being with us this morning. we'll begin the week with the latest on those new charges against former president donald trump in the classified documents case. today, a newly introduced third defendant, the property manager at former president's florida home, is scheduled to be arraigned in miami federal court. carlos de oliveira was named in a superseding indictment last week and charged in four counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements to the fbi. according to prosecutors, trump directed both de oliveira and his valet, walt nauta, to destroy security camera footage last year from the room monitoring where boxes of

classified documents were being stored at mar-a-lago. that alleged order came just days after the fbi issued a subpoena for that same footage. it's unclear, though, if de oliveira's arraignment will go on as planned today. because, as of last night, we're told he still did not have a florida-based lawyer. maybe the same stall tactic that nauta used earlier in the case. let's bring in nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian right now with the very latest. ken, what to we think we will see, if anything, today? >> reporter: good morning, jonathan. well, it all depends on whether he can find local counsel. for somebody like carlos de oliveira, that's a big deal. he has to find a competent lawyer in florida on very short notice. assuming he didn't know he was about to be named in an indictment, someone to represent him. one thing is clear, these new charges add a really important, new dimension to the obstruction

of justice angle to this classified documents case. and it really separates what happened here with the situation with president biden and former vice president mike pence, who both had classified documents found in their rresidence. what was laid out on friday in the superseding indictment was a scheme, something out of a mob movie, where donald trump instructed lower level employees to delete footage. it's clear to regular americans what that's about, and it undercuts what had been mr. trump's defense in the classified documents case. if the documents were declassified, if he had a right to them, which is what he had been saying, why would he needs to destroy evidence, surveillance footage showing the boxes of classified documents being moved? this is a very important development in the case. it remains to be seen whether

this third defendant is arraigned. at some point, he will be, jonathan. >> of course, this came sort of out of nowhere at the end of last week while the eyes were n washington, thinking the january 6th election interference indictment could come down. we should note, we still anticipate that coming. could be in a matter of days. ken, on this case, we heard from trump on truth social, over the weekend at his rally, insisting, insisting, "hey, we never deleted anything. we never deleted the server." that wasn't the point, right? it was that he gave the order to. >> reporter: that's right. he is charged with a conspiracy to obstruct justice in this matter, and it doesn't matter if you've succeeded in a criminal conspiracy if the prosecution can prove you engaged in one. now, i will say, reading this superseding indictment carefully, it doesn't give any hint that prosecutors have direct witnesses who can put the words in donald trump's mouth, "delete the footage." what they laid out in the

superseding indictment, it's between de oliveira and a fourth employee who appears to be cooperating, where he says, "the boss wants the footage deleted." obviously, what they would like to do is flip mr. de oliveira and have him testify about his conversations with donald trump and if those, in fact, were the conversations, that becomes a devastating witness. but there's reporting that, you know, they brought him in and talked to him under what is known as a proffer, a queen for a day proffer. according to "the washington post," they didn't like what he said, and they believe he lied to them, which is why they've charged him with false statements. he is represented by an attorney who is paid for by donald trump's supe pac. thus far, he is standing firm. it raises a bit of a question about how strong the evidence is here in terms of pinning on mr. trump the conspiracy to delete the footage. we'll have to see if this is all the prosecutors have, jonathan. >> a conspiracy complete with references to the boss and hush emojis in text messages.

ken dilanian, thank you so very much. ken mentioned a report in "the washington post" that reveals trump's group spent $40 million on legal costs in the fist half of this year to defend trump, his advisers and some others. what's more, trump's save america pac is financing legal work that is now raising questions from prosecutors about potential conflicts of interest. that's according to people familiar with the matter. trump advisers told "the post" that the pac, which raises most of its money from small dollar contributions, is footing the legal bills for almost anyone drawn into the numerous trump investigations who requests help from the former president and his advisers. joining us now to talk about it is one of the co-authors of this brand-new piece of reporting, "the washington post"'s devlin barrett. he covers security for the paper. great to see you.

explain the potential issue with the representation of the two who have been charged in the documents case. we mentioned that, valet walt ngata and the property manager, de oliveira, and the i.t. worker who looks to have provided information to prosecutors. >> right. so it is not unusual for an employer to pay for the legal costs of an employee who getting involved in an investigation. what is so interesting and, frankly, potentially important about the trump situation is when you look at these witnesses, when you look at these trump employees, which are seen as a high-stakes game of chicken, where when prosecutors come to suspect that a person is being more loyal to trump than the truth, then they start pressing them. in some cases, they can essentially bring them over to being a witness. that's what you see happening, why there is a superseding indictment with carlos de

oliveira, walt nauta, they engaged in a high stakes game of chicken with prosecutors, and ultimately they were charged. >> slightly off topic but on the same general thrust, the story about the $40 million that the pac spent on legal fees, one of the questions that i've had, which, you know, i guess i would love for your insights into, is why did they do it through the pac as opposed to setting up an entirely separate legal entity, which "the times" is reporting they're now doing, a legal defense fund to cover this? why do through a political entity, the pac raising money that should be for political purposes or an election, as opposed to doing something that was strictly for legal purposes, like legal defense fund? >> sure. so it's long been the case that political entities are allowed to pay the legal costs of the candidate or the campaign. that's been true for decades, and people have made this -- raised this question and had this concern for a long time.

but i think the simplest answer to your question is that it's just easier. if you know your campaign is raising a lot of money, if you know that that campaign or pac is allowed to spend money on legal costs, for a lot of campaign and a lot of politics, the answer is, why not do it? it's a simpler way to both raise money and spend it. >> "the washington post"'s devlin barrett, more terrific reporting. thank you for joining us this morning to share it with us. now, over the weekend, some of trump's challengers in the 2024 presidential race highlighted the issues with his current campaign. >> i think we've got to move forward. we can't have a general election where we are handing it over to kamala harris because we're dealing with indictments and court cases and legal issues of president trump. >> so it would help you get your message out and republicans get their message out if he drops out, is that what you're saying? >> well, none of us want to be talking about indictments. i don't know if it is the third, fourth or fifth indictment right now. what i can tell you is, it is a

distraction and, frankly, the media is talking about it nonstop. but when i do these town halls, the american public is not talking to me about that. >> i think what our voters need to begin to think about is, we have a front-runner right now who, when he gets on the stage for the fox news debate on august 23rd, will be out on bail in at least two different jurisdictions, if not three between now and then. how are we going to beat the democrats with a candidate who is going to be out on bail facing numerous, numerous self-inflicted wounds in courtrooms across this country? >> donald trump is not running for president to make america great again. donald trump is running to stay out of prison. if we elect -- [ crowd booing ] i know, i know, i know, i know. listen, i know the truth, the truth is hard.

but if we elect donald trump, we are willingly giving joe biden four more years in the white house, and america can't handle that. >> as you can hear, that audience at friday's iowa lincoln dinner wasn't buying that critique of trump delivered by former congressman will hurd. yesterday on "meet the press," hurd was asked about his comments and the hostile response from the crowd. >> i knew there were going to be people that didn't like it, but what i didn't expect was there were a lot of people that actually clapped. and more, there were more people that sat there politely and probably understand and knew what i was saying was the truth. >> new polling showed most republican primary voters simply don't want to hear the voice. in the latest survey from "the new york times" and sienna college, trump leads florida governor ron desantis by 37 points. 54% to just 17% among likely gop primary voters. all other candidates earned less than 5% of support in the poll,

which, we should note, was conducted before new charges were announced against trump in the classified documents case, that superseding indictment. if you take out all candidates other than trump and desantis, the survey still shows the former president leading big by a margin of 62% to 31%. the poll also suggests that 56% of republicans say trump did nothing wrong in the classified documents case, though it remains to be seen if last week's superseding indictment changes the support. my guess would be no. and after the 2020 vote, 75% of republicans say he was exercising his right to contest the election. 19% say his actions threatened american democracy. charlie sykes, charlie sykes, charlie sykes. this is yet another poll that shows that this is donald trump's party no matter what sort of legal peril he faces

himself in. we have spent the first bit of this show detailing the new allegations, and it sure doesn't seem like it matters. that same dinner where we played that sound from will hurd, all the republicans were there. it won't surprise you to learn who had the biggest crowd and the biggest reception, and that's donald trump. >> yeah. i would say that these polls are unambiguous. what happened in iowa was pretty clear. he wanted to know what the nature of the republican party was right now. i mean, he still dominates the party. he goes into iowa, insults the governor there, and he's the only candidate that gets the standing ovation. one of the candidates that actually calls him out is booed. so the poll makes it very, very clear that, at this point -- i mean, here's the reality check, jonathan. i think you'd have to be naive to the point of being delusional to think that donald trump is not going to be the republican nominee for president, despite

all of this. you have to be naive to the point of being delusional to think any of these indictments are going to change all of that. because what you have is this alternative reality of the republican base, that sees january 6th as somehow quasi legitimate, that is willing to overlook all of donald trump's lies, all of the crimes, all of the things that he has done. you know, when you add up everything we know about donald trump and everything that all of the republican insiders and members of his own administration have said, and then you look at those polls, and you have to ask yourself, what would it take to actually loosen his hold on the republican party at this point, jonathan? i can't think of anything. i can't think of anything. you saw that on display over the weekend, and you see that in those numbers. >> yeah. mara, certainly, a general election might be a different story. these are things that you can't imagine the indictments help him with undecided or swing voters

next year. right now in the republican party, we are at two indictments, likely a third maybe this week, and nothing changes. >> well, you know, it really speaks to the extent to which donald trump has gotten a large portion of the republican base to identify with him. and so the more under attack he becomes, almost like a bunker mentality has developed among the republican base. they just dig in even deeper with him. you know, one of the questions that i had, and i was wondering if maybe charlie might be able to shed some light on this is, charlie, you know, more and more, especially as candidates like ron desantis has risen, who while not a populist himself necessarily, certainly is far to the right of most voters in the country, do you think that this is an overall realignment that we're seeing among republican voters with right-wing populism? or is this really just more cultlike behavior about donald trump himself and trumpism? >> that is a fascinating

question. i think both things can be true at the same time. ron desantis seemed to be under the illusion that he could run a kind of "i am donald trump without the baggage," and he's gone for the social issues. but as i think is becoming increasingly apparent, this is not an election about issues. it's not an -- it's not one where you'll have a referendum on wokism. it is about donald trump. it is about donald trump's personality. at the same time, you are seeing this hard realignment on the right that was a convention of young conservatives recently in washington, d.c. the reports out of there suggested they're not interested in traditional conservative values or even fiscal issues. they like the social red meat issues. so i think the hangover of this is going to take -- is going to linger for a very, very long time. i think decades from now, we'll look back on this as very much a realignment, even after donald trump leaves the stage.

>> yeah, trump had the big crowd in iowa and another one at a rally in the battleground state of pennsylvania over the weekend. he's continuing to suggest, trump is, that the bidens were involved in a bribery scheme with burisma, the ukraine energy company where hunter biden once served on the board. at the pennsylvania rally, trump demanded further military aid to ukraine be withheld until the biden administration turns over everything related to the biden family's business dealings. >> joe biden is compromised. he is dragging us into a global conflict on behalf of the very same country, ukraine, that apparently paid his family all of these millions of dollars. in light of this information, the u.s. congress should refuse to authorize a single additional payment of our depleted stockpiles. but the weapon stockpiles to ukraine until the fbi, doj and

irs hand over every scrap of evidence they have on the biden crime family's corrupt business dealings. we have to know, and the public deserves to know. in addition, congress should immediately vote to block joe biden's recent call up of reserve forces. we're sending troops over to europe to fight. we're sending ships to fuel this escalating conflict. not a single american life should be put at risk because crooked joe biden has been illegally paid off. he's been paid off. this is a corrupt president. >> hang on. so donald trump is suggesting the u.s. withhold military aid unless ukraine turns over information about the bidens. doesn't that sound extraordinarily familiar? you'll recall that trump was impeached the first time for his attempts to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, including, wait for it, withholding aid to ukraine

for exchange of information on joe biden. sam stein, we have traveled back in time, apparently, and we should note, first of all, one bit of fact-checking, there are not american soldiers being sent to fight in europe. that's not -- what trump said there is not correct. but here he is doing -- calling for exactly what got him impeached the first time. sam, does anything matter anymore? >> jonathan, time is a flat circle, clearly. we are in the loop here. i'm not surprised that trump was not changed by his first impeachment. this will be branded as a perfect speech, and that's how he rolls. he says the quiet part out loud. in this case, he also, as a policy matter, has been more deferential to the russian side of this calculus, and has waxed

on a lot about his disagreements with the biden administration over its support for ukraine. of course, tying the investigations into biden to ukraine aid is not surprising in the slightest. as you noted, he did this several years ago. he is going to do this now. the question, i suppose, is when the administration, the current administration does come around to congress saying, "hey, we need more funding for ukraine," what happens in the house? do trump's allies in the house actually take this call over the weekend seriously and condition any aid on some sort of investigative finding? i don't think it is unreasonable to see a future in which that actually is the case. the biden administration really does have, you know, a tricky issue on its hands here. >> to this point, the house republicans have suggested they'll impeach president biden about, well, whatever, and they're working towards expunging donald trump's

impeachments for the record. odds are, they'll take their cues from the former president. all right. everyone is going to stay with us. great group here. still ahead on "morning joe," amid his mounting legal troubles, well, donald trump calls on republicans to rally around him or get out. we'll show you his new comments. plus, we'll bring you a live report from outside the fulton county courthouse as we await yet another possible indictment. this one relating to trump's efforts to overturn georgia's 2020 election results. also ahead, what we're learning this morning about reports of an american woman and her child being kidnapped in haiti. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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♪♪ the radical lunatic democrats, they impeach me, indict me, rig our elections, and the republicans just don't fight the way they're -- they're good people, but they don't fight the way they're supposed to fight. the others are dirty, sick players, and the republicans are very high class. they've got to be a little bit lower class, i suspect. any republican that doesn't act on democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out, out. >> that's former president trump at a rally in pennsylvania saturday night, lashing out at republicans who he sees as not depending him adequately throughout his multiple investigations. and given those comments, trump might not be too pleased with republican congresswoman nancy

mace of south carolina, who is warning her gop colleagues that impeaching president biden could lead to consequences in next year else election. >> what about this issue of impeachment? is the party divided? >> well, i do believe we are at this point. an inquiry is different from an impeachment vote and is another tool in the toolbox. i will tell you, every time we walk the plank, we are putting moderate members, those in biden districts, we're putting those seats at risk in 2024, the majority at risk. impeachment, abortion, other issues do that, putting republicans on the plank. we ought to follow the facts, and we have to be better than nancy pelosi. pelosi really politicized the impeachment process. we do not want to do that here. we have to show overwhelming, undeniable evidence in order to move this forward. if we can't, then we should not. >> charlie sykes, let's start

with president trump, former president trump's comment there, calling for my republican he deems not adequately defending him to be primaried. we spend a lot of time on this show noting his influence on the gop. >> right. >> do we think this is something that could come to be, will people jump in the race, or will this motivate other republicans to take up his cause and investigate biden and the democrats? >> well, i don't think it is an empty threat. i was thinking over the weekend that one of the consequences of the looming indictments of donald trump is it becomes -- there will be more pressure to impeach joe biden. look, there's kind of a two-step strategy here. expunging trump's impeachments and then moving ahead with an impeachment of joe biden, all of which has the effect of throwing lots of smoke and dust into the air. also, downplaying the significance of impeachments. you and i are old enough to remember when impeaching a

president was a very big deal. we've come to a moment where everybody has been impeached, what if impeachment is same old, same old? this is in donald trump's interest to say, "look, i'm facing indictment, but look what's happening to joe biden." for the trump world, it's really important for them to convince the american public that, yes, he may have been involved in questionable activity, but everybody is corrupt. if everybody is corrupt, then really what does it matter? i think you're seeing that two-step with impeachment, wiping out his impeachments, watering down the significance of an impeachment by going after joe biden, and then creating the alternative narrative. so i imagine there's going to be tremendous pressure on republicans. nancy mace may be talking about, you know, her reluctance, but we've seen before how when the squeeze is really on, and it is on right now, republicans tend to fall in line. i wouldn't be surprised if they did this time, as well.

>> yeah, congresswoman -- when mace warned against impeachment there, she's also at the very front of these biden crime family talks. >> yeah. >> she's certainly trying to have it both ways. but, mara, she may not be wrong, in that, you know, it seems like most americans don't want the gop to go down this path. we saw speaker mccarthy try to tap the brakes last week about the impeachment inquiry. if donald trump is going call for it, pressure will be on. >> you can see the republican train derailing as we speak. because we know that trump has been a loser in elections at this point. yet, there's really nothing, it seems, that the rest of his party can do to stop him from losing seats for republicans, which is what nancy mace is warning of. but this one lonely voice, i mean, there's no way you can stop this trump train like that. also, it shows you the extent to which the party is really -- i

mean, donald trump is about protecting himself. he's not about winning republican seats. so, you know, most americans don't want to hear about this. this is a giant distraction among other things. hey, look over here, everybody, they're persecuting me, prosecuting me. when, really, this is -- there's a really serious process under way across the country in which he is being held to account for potential crimes he may have committed. so i think this is a political disaster in the making for republicans. we'll see how it plays out. >> sam stein, let's get your take on this, as well. you know, the white house is -- they understand this might be coming. they're certainly not welcoming an impeachment inquiry. no white house would. they'd think it would be a political winner for them, but it'd be a painful process all the way. >> right. >> we've seen mccarthy struggle at times, really struggle at times, to keep the far-right fang factions of his conference at bay. chart this out for us.

trump is going to put on this pressure. what do you think mccarthy does? >> that's a great question. the history is clear on this stuff. look at the clinton era, where impeachment obviously backfired on republicans. i think there's people within the house gop conference who know this, who are worried about it. obviously, nancy mace expressing her concerns there. but if you're mccarthy there's a lot of different pressures you have to consider here, right? i mean, i thought ken buck, the congressman, had really interesting commentary last week, which is that he thought it was just a distraction tactic by mccarthy to try to alleviate some of the pressure from conservatives that he is facing right now over, among other things, the debt limit and the forthcoming fight over government funding. at the same time, you know, mccarthy does have trump to consider. trump wants the expungement of his impeachments. to charlie's point, he wants to dirty the waters so it looks like, you know, joe biden and myself are all the same.

if you're mccarthy, you have to sort of just make it through the day at some point, so i think that's why he's floated it. i don't see it happening immediately. i think there's a reason he kind of dialed it back a little bit. part of the reason i don't think it happens immediately is, frankly, i don't think they made the case yet. you have to consider the substance here. hunter biden's foreign business dealers are obviously unseemly and problematic, but by their own admission, republicans have not tied the president, joe biden, to profiteering from them. if you actually dig into the sort of story lines here, they become a little tricky to follow. they've gone down weird paths. there's romania, ukraine, different quirky characters, irs whistleblowers. you lose the plot a little bit. i think republicans are trying to make sure the narrative actually makes sense to viewers, to the public, before they proceed with this. because they will quickly lose

the public if they don't. >> yeah, and mccarthy admitted as much last week in a closed door meeting. they didn't have the evidence yet. also, house is gone now, out for more than a month on recess. i think there's some hope there that some of this pressure dissipates. we shall see. charlie sykes, great analysis, as always. thank you for joining us this morning. still ahead here on "morning joe," the latest country to express an interest in settling the war in ukraine. it might surprise you. we'll tell you which nation is looking to step in. plus, it's been about two weeks since travis king, the american soldier who crossed the border into north korea, and he is still detained. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. er the pain? cancelled plans? the worry? that was then. and look at me now. you'll never truly forget migraine. but qulipta® reduces attacks, making zero-migraine days possible. it's the only pill of its kind that blocks cgrp - and is approved

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welcome back. 6:38 a.m. here on the east coast. an american woman and her child have reportedly been kidnapped in haiti, as that country struggles with ongoing violence

and downright anarchy. nbc news correspondent aly rafa has more on the kidnapping and the travel warning the united states government has issued. >> reporter: an american nurse and her child missing after being reportedly kidnapped, as violence sweeps across the island nation. >> i'm a nurse from new hampshire, but now i live in haiti. >> reporter: 31-year-old alix d alix dorsainvil and her daughter were taken. the organization that her husband founded detailed they were taken, but details are unclear. the state department ordering evacuations from haiti's u.s. embassy and issuing its highest level travel warning the same day the pair was kidnapped. since the assassination of its president in july of 2021 and an earthquake one month later, haiti has collapsed into

anarchy. with armed gangs now controlling an estimated 80% of its capital. >> we have very deep concern for the situation there. we are also very focused on working together with partners to try to help the haitians restore security, restore stability. >> reporter: efforts by the international community to form a multinational police force had made little progress until saturday, when kenya volunteered to take the lead. alix and her child, apparent victims to the country's chaos, as the search for them continues. >> that's nbc's allie raffa with that report. elsewhere overseas, saudi arabia is the latest country to express an interest in trying to settle the war in europe. it will host a peace summit next month to begin talks on a way to end the conflict. now, russia is not invited, but

that south africa, brazil, india, ukraine and several other countries are. a representative from the biden administration is expected to attend the event. on the front lines of the fight, meanwhile, ukrainian president volodymyr zelenskyy called it, quote, a powerful day, as ukraine says it retook some ground that it lost last may, specifically in the area surrounding bakhmut which, of course, has seen some of the war's fiercest fighting. ukraine's deputy defense minister telling a national broadcaster that 77 square miles have been recaptured by ukraine's forces in the south, while adding progress so far has been limited amid entrenched russian positions and many, many land mines. it's been nearly two weeks now since u.s. army private travis king crossed into north korea wearing civilian clothes.

after serving time in a south korean prison for assault, king was scheduled to return to the u.s. for a disciplinary hearing when he joined a private group touring the demilitarized zone, the dmz, and then ran across the border into north korea. it is unclear whether king purposefully defected when he entered the country. north korean government has not provided any updates. now, our next guest is taking a look at the historical significance of defectors from the former soviet union. author eric r. scott joins us now. he is out with a new book with the title, "defectors," how the elicit flight of soviet citizens built the borders of the cold war world. thank you for joining us this morning. tell us more about the premise about these defectors who fled the soviet union before the iron curtain came down and what it means for our world today. >> thank you very much. so defection is an unusual

thing. we typically think about migrants fleeing, we think of the way that people are prevented from entering countries by borders. but defectors were people who fled illegally, and their exit was criminalize. another thing about defection during the cold war, their flight was encouraged by the u.s. and its allies. defection was jointly produced by this criminalization of exit and this encouragement of escape. the book looks at defection around the world, not only in border zones along states but also on the high seas, around embassies, aboard airplanes. what i really look at is how cold war borders were constructed by efforts to rein in and control these defectors. these defectors are often unpredictable people. they did things for a variety of reasons. the book looks at their history from the end of world war ii until the present.

>> yeah. erik, mara gay from "the new york times". we know little about what happened in this case, but what do you think of the border with north korea? the cold war ended years ago, but help us contextualize what may have happened here and what the incentives are with the governments involved here. >> first of all, north korea is interesting because this is one of the last countries that prevents the exit of its citizens. when we think about defection, most of the people are fleeing north korea. but there are a few cases of people fleeing the other way. the dmz is really the cease-fire zone of the armistice of the korean war 70 years ago. it is highly militarized. there have been a few cases of people fleeing into north korea. several u.s. soldiers, a handful, really, since 1953 who have fled for a variety of reasons. some were disenchanted with

their military service. some had a disciplinary issue, as travis king appeared to have. one appears to have been drunk at the time of his flight. so i think this is -- there's probably a lot of different motivations at play here, and i would suspect the north koreans are as surprised as we are, in terms of his flight and trying to make sense of why he did what he did. >> and what will happen next. the new book titled "defectors," how the elicit flight of soviet citizens built the cold war world. erik, congratulations on the book. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. ahead, new polling showing donald trump still with a demanding lead in the 2024 republican race. and one of our next guests asks republican donors who are looking for an alternative to the former president, "what are you waiting for?"

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back in, a big bang to right into the reds' bullpen. >> joey votto extending the lead over the dodgers yesterday with the two-run bomb in the third inning. cincinnati beat l.a., 9-0, and moved a half game ahead of the milwaukee brewers and moved back atop the national league central. to baltimore now, as we do a baseball roundup. the yankees were sunk by the end of the first inning of last night's rubber match against the

orioles. the orioles tagged severino for seven runs in the opening frame. tacked on two more in the fourth. easy 9-3 victory over the bronx bombers. orioles remain, as you can see, 1 1/2 games ahead of the tampa bay rays, atop the a.l. east. bluejays 5 1/2 back. red sox, lost two of three over the weekend, eight back. yankees, nine. the los angeles angels are buyers ahead of the deadline. the team announced it won't deal its two-way superstar shohei ohtani. the angels added outfielder brichuk and c.j. cron for a pair of pitching prospects. here's the big move. the texas rangers added more arms for a potential championship run. acquiring left-handed starter jordan montgomery and righty reliever chris stratton. that comes after the rangers

finalized a deal for max scherzer, set to make his debut on thursday. max to the rangers. the mets, meanwhile, have hours now to decide what to do with their other highly paid, three-time cy young award winner on the roster. there are reports the dodgers could be interested in the 40-year-old righty, justin verlander, who earned the 250th win of his career on the mound yesterday in a 5-2 victory over the washington nationals. sam stein, let's do deadline talk. mets are one of the most disappointing teams in the sport. by far the biggest payroll, by $90 million, more than any other team. they have long since fallen out of the playoff contention. they've traded scherzer. verlander might be next, probably the biggest prize on the market with ohtani staying put in l.a. what do you think happens the next day or so before we hit the trade deadline?

>> it raises an interesting question, philosophical. can you be the most disappointing team in the history of the sport if your fan base is conditioned to disappointment, right? this was the expectation for the mets fans, they'd faceplant, and they've lived up to it. arguably, not the most disappointing team, just playing to type. as for the trade market, it's weird. little activity, as you're aware. apparently, the asking price is, you know, for middle of the rotation arms, astronomical. doesn't mean as we get closer to the deadline things won't go crazy. sure you'd love to see the red sox get a front of the rotation pitcher with a little salary control that they could bank on and give up little more. the type of deal, maybe shohei ohtani for nick york, something like that. not going to happen, but i'd like the sox to make a little

splash in what has been a pleasantly surprising season so far. >> lost two out of three over the week end, but they've been the best team in baseball for the month of july. i hope they're buyers more than sellers at the market, though my hopes are modest. mara, before the top of the hour, we want to turn to your recent op-ed for "the new york times." the piece is called, "when it comes to swimming, why have americans been left on their own." you write, in part, this. the united states doesn't have to accept these deaths. nor does it have to retreat from the water to save lives. america can build more public pools. it can transform natural bodies of water into safer places to swim. it can subsidize swimming lessons and raise pay for life guards, making the job more attractive. the united states can build a culture of swimming instead of one of drowning. of course, as you write this, there has been a series of drownings here in the new york city region and elsewhere. tell us what led you to write

this piece and why. tell us why on so many levels, learning to swim is so important. >> i'm a swimmer, not just a political junkie. i've always wondered, why is it that so many americans can't swim? why do we accept these drownings? i got a chance this summer to really look into it. i spent months interviewing family members of those who have drowned. it was pretty devastating, a hard piece to write in that accepts. what i found is that we have a public health crisis on our hands. the country has largely ignored it. we have 4,000 people who drown every year in the united states. it's an average of 11 a day. the reason, according to my reporting, is really that too many americans don't have a safe place to learn how to swim. so we have 10 million private swimming pools in this country, and fewer than 309,000 public ones. that's a figure that actually includes condo associations, hotel pools. the number of truly municipal

pools open to the public is much smaller. as a result, americans don't have a chance to learn how to swim. you know, in addition, this is a missed opportunity. because this would be a great investment for every community across the country. rural communities have this problem. suburban ones, inner cities. this is across the board, americans are drowning. we don't have to have this be this crisis. of course, the rates are even higher among minority communities, and there is a history there. >> yes. >> so i think overall, this would be a great investment for the united states. swimming brings joy. there's a lot of health benefits. it'd bring people together. it would be, i think, the best bang for your buck that this country could get. i hope every community across the country can look into it. there's also things i laid out that the white house can do and congress can take a look at. build a public surveillance system around drowning especially. >> especially at a time when more people seek refuge in the water during the sweltering temperatures. >> extreme heat. >> important piece. find it in "the new york times."

coming up here on "morning joe," we'll have more on the new charges for donald trump in the mar-a-lago classified documents case. we'll have live reporting from florida on that matter. as well as reports from washington, d.c. and georgia, where the former president also faces potential trouble. maybe two more indictments on the horizon. "morning joe" will be right back. more shopping? you should watch your spending honey. i'm saving with liberty mutual, mom. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. check it out, you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, i'll look into that. let me put a reminder on my phone. save $700 dollars. pick up dad from airport?

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these are top of the line people at the top of their game. president xi is a brilliant man. this is genius. putin declares a big portion of the ukraine, of ukraine, putin declares it as independent. oh, that's wonderful. how smart is that? he is going to go in and be a peacekeeper. that's the strongest peace force. we could use that on the southern border. my relationship with president

xi is an extraordinary one. he's for china. i'm for the u.s. other than that, we love each other. putin, very smart. we wrote me beautiful letters, and they're great letters. we fell in love. i know these leaders of these countries. they're very street smart. they're very smart people. they know what they're doing. they're at the top of their game. we have somebody that's not at the top of his game. never was at the top of a game. never was. we have a guy who is a dumb son of a [ bleep ]. >> there you have it. a reminder of the times when donald trump praised authoritarian leaders in contrast to the last clip, which was saturday night when he use and expletive to describe the united states president, joe biden. welcome back to "morning joe." it is monday, july 31st. i'm jonathan lemire. joe, mika and willie are off today. mara gay and sam stein are still with us. and let's bring into the conversation professor at princeton university, our friend

eddie glaude jr. eddie, let's get your reaction to that. we heard trump, in office and out, praising the likes of putin, xi, kim jong-un, and then the derogatory comment about the current commander in chief, joe biden. >> we don't need any more evidence for the character of donald trump, right? we don't need any more evidence for what he is inclined to celebrate, who he is inclined to model himself after. he likes mobsters. he likes the strongman figure. he likes the anti-democratic folk who can exert their will on populations. this is just the latest example of that. the striking thing, though, is that he is actually viewed by a large number of americans as someone who can actually lead the country, someone who could actually represent, supposedly, the beacon of democracy to the world. when, in fact, he doesn't seem to have a democratic bone in his body. >> he is facing more and more legal peril. we are following new developments with the new charges against trump in the classified documents case. today, a newly introduced third

defendant, the property manager at trump's florida home, is scheduled to be arraigned in miami federal court. carlos de oliveira was named in a superseding indictment last week and was charged with four counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice as well as making false statements to the fbi. according to prosecutors, trump directed de oliveira and his valet, walt nauta, to destroy security camera footage from the room the camera was monitoring where boxes of classified documents were being stored at mar-a-lago. that alleged order came just days after the fbi issued a subpoena for that exact same footage. it is unclear, though, if de oliveira's arraignment will go on as planned today. as of last night, we're told he still did not have a florida-based lawyer, and you need that for this proceeding. as for trump, he spent the weekend railing against the three new charges against him. while attacking special counsel

jack smith, president joe biden, and, of course, randomly, former secretary of state hillary clinton. meanwhile, some of trump's challengers in the 2024 gop presidential race are highlighting the issues with his current campaign. >> i think we've got to move forward. we can't have a general election where we are handing it over to kamala harris because we're dealing with indictments and court cases and legal issues of president trump. >> so it would help you get your message out and republicans get their message out if he drops out. is that what you're saying? >> well, none of us want to be talking about indictments. i don't know if it is the third, fourth or fifth indictment right now, but what i can tell you is it is a distraction. frankly, the media is talking about it nonstop, but when i do the town halls, the american public is not talking to me about that. >> i think what our voters need to begin to think about is, we have a front runner who, when he gets on the stage for the fox news debate on august 23rd, will be out on bail in at least two

different jurisdictions, if not three between now and then. how are we going to beat the democrats with a candidate who is going to be out on bail facing numerous, numerous self-inflicted wounds in courtrooms across this country? >> donald trump is not running for president to make america great again. donald trump is running that stay out of prison. [ crowd booing ] if we elect -- i know. i know, i know, i know, i know. listen, i know the truth is hard. but if we elect donald trump, we are willingly giving joe biden four more years in the white house, and america can't handle that. >> but in the latest survey from "the new york times" and sienna college out this morning, trump leads florida governor ron desantis by 37 points. 54% to just 17%.

that's among likely gop primary voters. now, all other candidates earned less than 5% of support in the poll, which we should note, was conducted before new charges were announced against trump in the classified documents case. let's go deeper. if you take out all candidates other than trump and desantis, the survey still shows the former president leading big, 62% to 31%. doubling the support for the florida governor. 56% of republicans surveyed also say that trump did nothing wrong in the classified documents case. though it remains to be seen if last week's supersiding indictment has any impact on that support. i don't think we need a spoiler alert there. as it relates to trump's actions after the 2020 vote, 75% of republicans say he was simply exercising his right to contest the election. just 19% say his actions threatened american democracy. let's bring in senior writer for "the dispatch," david drucker,

as well as politics bureau chief and senior political columnist for "politico," jonathan martin. david drucker, you talk to republicans every day, and this is a poll that suggests that despite the legal tumult, political tumult surrounding donald trump, his grip on the party only grows tighter. does that match up with what you're hearing on the ground as you speak to both gop leaders and rank and file voters? >> listen, well, yes, and we know it matches up. we've seen it out there talking to voters. i think there's an undercurrent of more republican voters than we can tell from the polling, which i think is accurate. i think there's more of an undercurrent of a desire to find some fresh leadership than will show up in the polling. i still think that over the course of a long campaign, voting in iowa at the very

least, there could be more surprises in store for the former president than would be suggested. i don't think there is reason to believe the former president's position right now is anything other than what it is. part of the issue is you have challengers that, on the one hand, if he were incumbent, we'd look at all these challengers and we'd look at him at 54%, 55%, and we'd say, that's a weak position for an incumbent. because he's not actually an incumbent, he is in a very strong position. when you don't actually challenge the messaging from trump when it comes to indictments, and we've only seen a trickle -- the nikki haley clip was interesting -- why would voters think otherwise? unless desantis or some other top republicans starts to say, "listen, you've been indicted but i haven't," there are a lot of republican governors out there who haven't been indicted. there's house and senate

republican leadership who haven't been indicted, so maybe this is all about you. i don't think it'd work with republican voters because there's so much of trump's messaging on this that they're committed to and they believe, but at least it'd give them something to think about. one of the things missing from the race from candidates, besides chris christie and others on occasion, is a full-throated message opposing the former president on this ground and starting the debate. we'll see if, over time, they realize that the weight of the legal issues the former president is facing isn't actually crushing him, and maybe it is something they have to try to do themselves. >> david, republican voters per the polling, they seem to be all in on trump. big republican donors less so. your piece, "what are republican doe tornors waiting for?" tell us what you found. >> ironically, i spoke to three republican donors last week who jumped in early for nikki haley.

when i checked in on their colleagues, other wealthy republican donors, the kind that write big checks to super pacs and i said, where are they? it is different than donors were in 2016, the last open primary. the last open primary, you had donors picking their favorite candidate, knowing even if it wasn't their horse that won in the end, they were going to be able to get behind the eventual nominee and be happy about it. this time, the broad consensus among republican donors is that they want anybody other than trump, and a lot of them are going to wait to see if oneemer. they don't want to contribute to a split field, though there is a split field without them. they don't want to give anybody false hope and financial life in this race, keeping them around so the field continues to s split. what they're hoping is that over time, a consensus alternative emerges. again, they don't care whether they like the republican that

emerges in that position. they just want someone to emerge, then they'd get behind him and hope they can do some damage. i don't think donors are clueless about the state of the republican party and the fact they look at things differently than the republican base, the way they're often accused. i think they're clear-eyed and realistic about where the party is, where the race is, but they still want to have a part in steering the party where they think it should go, where they would like it to go. >> you have a column in "politico" with this title, "a 4-way race? the 2024 presidential contest is anything but settled." you write this, we are underestimating how turbulent next year's campaign will be and how likely, on the current trajectory, it is to become a three or even four person race. if voters are faced with a nearly 82-year-old incumbent who may not be able to serve a full second term, and a 78-year-old challenger who could be a felon

by election day, millions will seek a safe harbor. as long as trump appears on track to be the gop standard-bearer, i think biden will be insulated from any serious primary threat. yet there are two markers to watch this fall, by which time any other democrat would have to get in the race. the president's fitness for the job and his approval numbers. put less delicately, does biden have more spills, as he did at the air force academy, and does he finally get credit from voters for the improving economy? however, trump's resilience with republicans and the three dozen, and counting, federal counts against him suggest there will be an opening next year for a third-party option. it may seem quiet now, but i've never been a believer in the myth that nothing happens in august." it's a great piece. >> thank you. >> you hit on something, the concerns about the leading candidates right now, including even democrats think president

biden has done a good job but are reluctant to vote for him again. >> right. >> when you look at the field and you see potential spoilers, who could they be? >> well, i think that with -- let's start with democrats. i think with biden, for democrats and republicans who voted for him, the bargain was essentially, you know, he's an emergency, brake last candidate who gets trump out of office, ends covid, and mission accomplished. voters didn't think he'd run for a second term, by which time he was pushing into his mid 80s. that's the fundamental challenge for biden. the economy, by every metric, is improving, but, yet, you don't see a corresponding balance with his numbers. now, that may come later. it may be a sort of late developing metric. right now, it's not there. if you're democrats, that has to be concerning.

eventually, do you come to terms with the fact, john, that voters are judging biden separately than they're judging the health of the economy? because they've just moved on. so i think that raises the question of, if trump is the de facto nominee, and you put up those numbers on the screen. they're national number, not iowa numbers, grain of salt. but if trump wins the first three or four states in february of next year and he is the de facto nominee in february of '24, i think it is really difficult to see a scenario where there is not some kind of a moderate third party candidate who gets into the race. because there's going to be a lot of voters in the country who are effectively homeless. they're not going to want to vote for somebody facing federal trial or potentially convicted of felonies. th n'r going to vote for somebody they believe is too old to be prosecute. -- president. that's the risk for biden.

head-to-head, he'll probably beat trump. when he is facing the threat from the left in cornell west, taking points from his left, and facing potentially a center/center-right candidate, former republican senator governor, i think that's a much tougher scenario for biden to survive. >> david, that's an interesting question for you to address. you talked about the donor base with the populous wing of the republican party. would the donor base be interested in a third-party candidate if donald trump is the nominee of the party? >> well, i think it is a really good question. you know, in 2015/2016, a lot of republican donors talked about the idea that they're never going to support trump. he's not good for the party. they eventually came around. and i'm still not convinced, and i think donald trump looks at it like this, and he said this to people, that, "listen, you might as well jump on board now because i'm going to win and you know you're going to back me anyway. cut the cord and get it over with already." i think things would be

different this time. the one thing that's changed is that i think donors actually have come to understand how far their money can go, where it can be effective, where it isn't effective. this isn't true for all. as i reported for "the dispatch politics newsletter," they like to get in early. they got in early for nikki haley's superpac, and they're more entrepreneurial. for others, they'd be looking at how effective their investment could be. i think they'd listen to third-party appeals. they would like to think that they could have an outcome that would, you know, help the right and help block trump, but i don't think they'd pour money down the drain. i think you'd have to see a compelling third party candidate with a path for the broad community of donors who oppose trump to get on board with something like that. you know, jonathan did a good job with the column. i don't think we know yet how that looks. we have an electoral college

system, and you -- it's not just about chipping away at the popular vote numbers. it's about chipping away at numbers within states. if you pour money into a candidate who will take money away from president biden, let's say, or not put votes behind a candidate who can actually win electoral votes, then your money isn't doing anything other than affecting the outcome you're trying to avoid in the first place. >> jonathan, it's sam stein. i want to let everyone know you complimented me on my tie vis-a-vis text prior to coming on. >> it is very handsome. >> i think it is important to establish that up front. can we talk about the sort of problems that might arise with a third -- not a third-party candidate, but an alternative democratic candidate. in your column, you talked about dean phillips, but could be anyone. the calendar is a problem. at some point, you vote. at some point, you hold primaries. >> right. >> there is something unique about this cycle with democrats.

iowa, new hampshire may go ahead of south carolina. >> yeah. >> sanctioned fashion. can you talk about the landscape here and what a potential challenger to biden might have to face? >> yeah. we were talking about the general election a minute ago. let's talk about the democratic primary for now. yeah, congressman dean phillips, moderate, pro-democrat executive prior to congress will be in new york city this week meeting with democratic donors. who, like a lot of republican donors, are trying to find somebody who they find more appealing than their current frontrunner. i'm spectacle that phillips will do through with it, but what he is trying to do, sam, is break the ice. and break the ice now.

this summer. to your point, the window is closing for another democrat to get into the race. you have filing deadlines to get into the race. that's a challenge. that's coming up. it has to be this fall if you're going to have a real democratic challenge. it has to be this fall. real fast, though, the opportunity is in new hampshire because biden probably isn't going to be on the ballot there. it is still going to be covered. can some democrat, a challenger to biden, get on the ballot in new hampshire and get some kind of a bounce from that? it is very unlikely. if it is going to happen, if there is going to be a serious challenge to biden, it'll be this fall. >> the snafu in new hampshire with the change of the state going first, much to the dismay of the granit state. david and jonathan, thank you for being here. great reporting. ahead on "morning joe," why do somepl support donald trump also wind up believing conspiracy theories?

our next guest says there's a scientific explanation for that. plus, how barbenheimer faired at the box office in the second weekend of their matchup. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. let innovation refunds help with your erc tax refund so you can improve your business however you see fit. rosie used part of her refund to build an outdoor patio. clink! dr. marshall used part of his refund to give his practice a facelift. emily used part of her refund to buy... i run a wax museum. let innovation refunds help you get started on your erc tax refund. stop waiting. go to innovationrefunds.com you really got the brows.

viktor orban has done a tremendous job in so many different ways, highly respected. respected all over europe. probably like me, a little controversial, but that's okay. people came to me, dan coats came to me and some others, they said they think it's russia. i have president putin, he just

said it's not russia. i will say this, i don't see any reason why it would be. >> that's former president donald trump in 2019 heaping praise on hungary's far-right leader viktor orban. and the year before, defending russian president vladimir putin over his own intelligence officials in response to a question i asked him in helsinki. since entering politics, trump has challenged authoritarian leaders of the past and present time and time again. how effective has it been? joining us now is marcell daneski of linguistics and anthropology. and the author of "politics, lies and conspiracy theories, a" thank you for being with us, sir. tell us what you found and this draw. we know trump likes to channel these strongman leaders.

tell us why you think it's been effective here in the united states. >> there is a various -- there are various theories of how language affects the brain. one of these is that even a single word can shape thoughts and beliefs. i'll give you a simple anecdotal example and connect it to the larger frame of how language works. if i were to ask you or give you a biscuit, you tasted it and said, "ah, it tastes very good," so far, your taste is a gustatory reaction and the mental frame for the biscuit is positive. then i'd relieve, it's a dog biscuit. what would happen to that reaction and to that taste? it would change. what happened? was it the biscuit? no, it was the word which connected the concept of biscuit and dog to a larger frame of how we perceive and interpret the world. now, imagine having words like

"parasite" or "animal" or "dog," and then blame someone for being that way. for being a dog or what have you. why is it effective? because it is part of a conceptual metaphor that says people are animals. the great liar, as machiavelli once wrote, is able to take that substrate and twist it for whatever purpose, manipulative purpose they want. >> professor, mara gay here from "the new york times." what is it that makes some people susceptible and able to hear and resonate with this kind of language, while others don't respond to it or respond to it quite differently at the same time? >> that's a question that i wish i really could answer. what i found in looking at history and looking at how, you

know, experiments with malicious language, such as hitler's germany and statin's russia, is that they're able to tap into a historical formula that a lot of people respond to. simple example is the idea of a cabal behind the scenes. you can call it a deep state. call it whatever you like. if your belief that there is such a cabal, such a deep state is strong but dormant, all you need is a great manipulator of that theory, of that conspiracy theory bringing it out into the open, and then making you connect the dots. psychologists call it -- you have a large group of people. once it enters into groupthink, it can become a very dangerous movement. fascism, nazism andprofessor, t fascinating claim. so language is also social, right? it has a history. there's this reservoir meaning we all trade upon.

so it's not just simply the figure, donald trump, say, or orban, say, it's the stuff that's in the very way in which we describe our world. >> yes. >> so talk a little bit more about what the authoritarian figure is activating, these conceptual schemes they're activating in some ways for their own political and sometimes nefarious purposes. >> the system is below the surface.unconscious. it is below the threshold of understanding. so when someone like a donald trump refers to the deep state, there is something in the history of america, something in the history of other areas of the world that resonates. the ones that have been most attacked for being behind the scenes, of course, are the jews and anti-semitism reverberates when you bring up the idea that they are behind some pattern or some system that we see before

us, which has to be interpreted. the idea is that who controls meaning controls the mind. and if the mind is a part of a social system, then it becomes part of groupthink. then you have a serious problem. >> professor, sam stein here. i'm sure you've encountered this, too, but i have on a couple occasions, where you talk to people who have gone down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. so, for instance, people who are firm believers in qanon. you try reasoning with them about why their world view is based on a series of misconceptions or lies, and it doesn't work. i'm wondering, in your studies, what have you discovered about trying to pierce that conspiracy bubble? are there certain ways that you can do it to reach the people who have succumb to these conspiracy theories? are there methods that can be used for people who want to

reach this universe and tell them, "look, what you're believing is false, wrong, potentially harmful, is essentially false"? >> i'm not -- i'm not a psychologist. >> sure. >> i'm a linguist. however, i call it the de vinci code effect. i'm referring to the novel by dan brown in 2001, where he generates a huge conspiracy about, you know, the history of christ. how does he do it? he takes little bits and pieces of history, puts them together, cites texts, and all of a sudden, you're saying, "well, it's got to be true because we put it together." the reason is, our brain has a narrative structure. from childhood, we listen to stories, and stories become believable. we listen to them over and over. even if they're mythological stories, santa claus, for

example, and this happens all the time. we have a brain that is embedded in myths. when these myths -- and i don't mean myths in a negative sense. i mean stories which we ascribe to a larger system of meaning that's out there, that we tap into through our language. once that happens, it's that switch, the de vinci code switch is on, and it is so difficult to turn it off. history teaches us, though, that, eventually, the brain recalibrates itself. over time, truth does prevail. it's not a cliche. because the brain and the circuitry of the brain is made in such a way that it gleans from language what it needs for a while, then after a time, the dissonants that occurs, psychologists call cognitive dissonants, does dissipate, but it is so difficult.

so difficult to change someone's mind who is really hard-wired to believe a conspiracy. >> a fascinating conversation here. the new book is titled "politics, lies and conspiracy theories," a cognitive linguistic perspective. and professor of linguistics an anthropology, marcel. also, a column, "what donald trump and viktor orban understand about your brain." coming up, front pages across the country. including efforts in one state to hold cyber criminals accountable. it's costing millions. plus, the kremlin is blaming ukraine for bringing the war from the battlefield to the heart of russia, following a new drone attack in moscow. that new video and president zelenskyy's warning for president putin is straight ahead. "morning joe" will be right back.

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7:38 a.m. here on the east coast. a pretty shot of the white house. president biden, though, taking a well-deserved vacation in rehoboth beach, delaware. but the president on friday public aacknowledged for the first time his 4 this-year-old grandson, navy jones roberts, daughter of his son hunter. he and the first lady wanted the best for all their grandchildren, including navy. it follows criticism from republican white house hopefuls over the president not counting navy among his seven grandchildren in public remarks. hunter biden last month settled a paternity case over the child after previously denying that he was the father. time now for a look at the morning papers. we begin in south carolina, where "the beaufort gazette" is

reporting on a surge for the u.s. marines. marine leaders say they'll make their recruiting goal this year while the army, navy and air force all expect to fall short. officials say one key factor to their success is a focus on selecting top performing marines to fill recruiting jobs. in louisiana, "the advocate" is highlighting a government task force that has been responding to a growing number of cyberattacks across the state. according to officials, since the group's founding in 2019, it has responded to more than 130 attacks on local government and organizations operating critical infrastructure. it's become a cost for the state of louisiana, with the state spending near $21 million in the past fiscal year responding to such attacks. in georgia, "the atlanta journal constitution" is reporting on a new effort to install high-definition cameras at every gas pump in the city that runs

24 hours a day, 7 days a week. some residents say they're scared to utilize their community gas stations due to drugs, prostitution, carjacking and deadly violence near the pumps. legislation to add the cameras could be voted on as early as next monday. and in florida, "the tampa bay times" is looking at how schools are working to reduce transportation issues. local schools say students are frequently arriving to class late because there aren't enough bus drivers. officials are now looking to increase driver pay in several counties and work on better communication between parents and new bus tracking systems. the fifa women's world cup continues this morning in australia and new zealand, but one of the co-hosts will not be on the pitch for the round of 16. new zealand has been elimb gnat eliminated after a scoreless

draw yesterday. it's the first host nation to be eliminated in group play in tournament history. australia, meanwhile, must beat canada today to avoid its own early elimination. and the u.s. women's national team needs a win or draw in its group stage finale tomorrow morning against portugal. that match begins at 3:00 a.m. eastern. and barbenheimer continues its box office domination with "barbie" leading the way. the hit film starring margot robbie and ryan gosling brought in $93 million in its second weekend. that's a huge weekend for weekend two. it held on to the top spot. christopher nolan's "oppenheimer" stayed in second place, bringing in just over $46 million. "barbie" is on pace to easily break the $1 billion mark. the film has already grossed $775 million worldwide and has made at least $20 million every day since its opening. eddie glaude, earlier in the show when we teased this

segment, i said barbenheimer, and you looked like you'd never heard the phrase before, because you hadn't? where have you been? >> i -- ah -- all right. i was writing, jonathan. i was writing. that's barb -- what is it? the movies combined? >> "barbie" and "oppenheimer" opened on the same day. very different films, shall we say. many decided to see them back-to-back on the opening weekend, or at the least, because they're box office hits, they've been grouped together. >> $775 million worldwide? >> i think what it shows, right, is that americans still enjoy going to the movies. it's still fun. it's summer. the summer blockbuster. anyone over the age, i think, of 30, i hope, gosh, knows that it's still fun to go to the movies. i think, you know, the interesting thing here, too, is you hope that the studios see this and would take note, given the fact that the actors and writers are on strike right now. you know, there is still interest in great filmmaking.

i think it should be paid for. >> no problem there. sam stein, let's bring you into this. i'm told you have wanted to see "oppenheimer" but haven't yet. can you tell us why? >> eddie, where have you been, man? >> we're worried. >> i get you're working and everything, but this is basic cultural stuff right now. yes, i'd love to see "oppenheimer. ." it is three hours long. i have young kids, and the babysitting is astronomical. thinking of sneaking them into the movie, they're 6 and 3, is that appropriate for a movie about dropping the atomic bomb? perhaps not. you know, worse parenting decisions have been made. >> life lessons from sam stein here this morning. i did see "oppenheimer." three hours flies by. "barbie," a cultural question phenomenon we'll all have to see. maybe even eddie glaude.

coming up, prosecutors are wrapping up their investigation into donald trump. in the words of the d.a., quote, we're ready to go. trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election when "morning joe" comes right back. ck why didn't we do this last year? before you were preventing migraine with qulipta®? remember the pain? cancelled plans? the worry? that was then. and look at me now. you'll never truly forget migraine. but qulipta® reduces attacks, making zero-migraine days possible. it's the only pill of its kind that blocks cgrp - and is approved to prevent migraine of any frequency. to help give you that forget-you-get migraine feeling. don't take if allergic to qulipta®. most common side effects are nausea, constipation, and sleepiness. learn how abbvie could help you save. qulipta®. the forget-you-get migraine medicine™. he snores like an angry rhino. qulipta®. you've never heard an angry rhino. baby i hear one every night. every night. okay. i'll work on that. save up to $500 on the new sleep number® smart bed.

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welcome back. the russian defense ministry says three ukrainian drones were downed over moscow early sunday in an attack that briefly shut down an international airport. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel has the very latest. >> reporter: the drones exploded in the heart of moscow's financial district on sunday morning around 4:00 a.m. russian officials say at least three drones were involved and blamed ukraine. russians can no longer turn a blind eye to this war now that it's coming home.

although ukraine didn't take responsibility, president zelenskyy gave what seemed to be the most directed admission of cross-border attacks into russia yet and suggested a new chapter is beginning. ukraine is getting >> translator: ukraine is getting stronger. gradually, the war is returning to russian territory, its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair process. >> reporter: the war continues to be a disaster for russia. 523 days in, russia seems no closer to victory than when it first invaded. the russian army is so short of troops it had to raise the age limit for conscripts. but you wouldn't know it listening to president putin, busy celebrating navy day this weekend. >> translator: in the name of russia, our sailors are giving all their strength, showing true heroism and fighting valiantly

as our great ancestors did. >> reporter: small explosive drones have been central to the war from the start and are now exposing moscow's vulnerability. in may, the kremlin itself was attacked by a testosterone. ukraine denied involvement at the time. but attacks are becoming more frequent. this was the fourth drone attack in or around moscow this month. and ukraine no longer seems concerned about hiding it. >> nbc's rich engle reporting there. and the war in ukraine is the backdrop for the latest novel in author brad thor's acclaimed scott harvath series. it's an ex-navy s.e.a.l. turned counterterrorism operative. it's set in ukraine as a russian mercenary unit goes rogue, wreaking havoc from village to village. after multiple american aid

workers are killed, harvath looks to settle the score. brad thor joins us now. 22nd novel. that's extremely impressive. congrats. >> thank you. >> was it sort of an obvious thing for you in some ways to set this in the ukraine, which is obviously has dominated our headlines for so long? >> i think it was. i wrap my books in big geopolitical set pieces. this is supposed to be a toes in the sand knuckle ride for readers. but i loved "where eagles dare," ""saving private ryan,"" "band of brothers," and i wanted to do a modern take on that. that's why i chose to set it in ukraine. >> the wagner group is in the background, bad actors. give us a sense of the landscape of the novel and what is the

particular way in which the hero or the central character of these 22 novels is doing a work. >> there is an aid worker, they have not found the body. the u.s. can't commit troops. ukrainians are stretched to the limit. they can't get resources, so the u.s. government has their top spy, scott, go and look for her and bring her back and make everyone responsible for taking her or killing her pay for what they've done. history doesn't repeat but it does rhyme. things in ukraine are rhyming with world war ii, like hitler taking land like putin in the donbas, down to the warsaw uprising are hitler sent in one of his worst ss brigades to commit war crimes in warsaw in august, october of '44. i wanted to bring that into a great thriller where the bad guys were obvious, the good guys were obvious, and up a lot of

tension, a lot of excitement, but a great resolution at the end. >> i think everyone loves a spy thriller. i certainly do. but 22 books in, as you're looking at the state of the world and threats against democracy, have the themes changed? does it change the way you approach the book? >> it's a great question. one of the things about harvath is he always does the right thing, no matter how hard it is, no matter what the price is. i think as the books mirror a lot what happens in the real world, i think it's become harder for harvath to do its job, like the men and women at the fbi, the cia. it's tough when your fellow citizens lose faith in our institutions and government where we have hardworking, patriotic men and women doing their best every single day. >> when you're writing about things ripped from the headlines, what are the dangers you could be overtaken by current events? >> the hardest thing was to research the war crimes in ukraine and find a way to put them in the book that wouldn't freak people out too badly, keep

it entertaining. i was looking at the power plants, if we had a melttown in a reactor, would that overtake the book? it's like having a rabbit's foot in one hand. >> "dead fall" is available now. brad thor, thank you so much. >> thank you. still ahead on "morning joe," the latest on donald trump's legal troubles as one of his employees is due in federal court later today. and we'll get a live report from washington, where ooh indictment for the former president trump could come this week. this we

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♪ one could end up going to the prison ♪ ♪ one just might be president ♪

or it could be both. that was donald trump over the weekend taking the stage in iowa to the lyrics of a country song about the potential of going to prison. we'll go through the latest developments in the classified documents case as one of trump's employees is supposed to appear in federal court later today. also ahead, we're hearing from the georgia prosecutor who is likely to bring charges against the former president there for interference in the 2020 election. plus, we have brand-new reporting on the massive amount of money that trump's political group is spending on his legal costs. and new polling out this morning has more bad news for the desantis campaign with the florida governor failing to build substantial support from republican voters. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, july 31st. i'm jonathan lemire in for joe,

mika. we have a member of "the new york times" editorial board mara gay, white house editor for politico, sam stein, and the founder of the conservative website the bulbulwark, charlie sikes. we'll begin the week with the latest on those new charges against former president donald trump in the classified documents case. today a newly introduced third defendant, the property manager at the former president's florida home, is scheduled to be arraigned in miami federal court. carlos de oliveira, who was named in a superseding indictment last week and charged with four counts, including conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements to the fbi. according to prosecutors, trump directed both de oliveira and his valet, walt nauta, to destroy security camera footage last year from the room

monitoring where boxes of classified documents were being stored at mar-a-lago. that alleged order came just days after the fbi issued a subpoena for that same footage. it's unclear, though, if de oliveira's arraignment will go on as planned today because, as of last night, we're told he still did not have a florida-based lawyer. maybe the same stall tactic that nauta used earlier in the case. let's bring in nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian with the latest. ken, what do we think we will see, if anything, today? >> reporter: good morning, jonathan. well, it all depends on whether he can find local counsel. for somebody like carlos de oliveira, you know, that's a big deal. he has to find a competent lawyer in florida on very short notice assuming he didn't know he was about to be named in an indictment. we may not see the arraignment today, but one thing is clear, that these new charges add a

really important new dimension to the obstruction of justice angle to this classified documents case. and it really separates what happened here with the situation with president biden and former vice president mike pence, who both had classified documents found in their residences. what was laid out on friday in this superseding indictment was a scheme that was something out of a mob movie where donald trump allegedly instructed two lower-level employees to delete surveillance footage days after he got a grand jury subpoena. that is very clear to regular americans, what that's all about. and it also undercuts what had been mr. trump's defense in this classified documents case because, you know, if the documents were declassified, if he had a right to them, what he's been saying all along, then why would he need to destroy evidence, surveillance footage, showing those boxes of classified documents being moved? this is a very important development in the case.

it remains to be seen whether this third defendant is arraigned, but at some point he will be, jonathan. >> this came sort of out of nowhere the end of last week with eyes on washington thinking the january 6th election interference indictment could come down. we still anticipate that coming. could be a matter of days. on this case we've heard from trump on truth social, over the weekend at his rally, insisting we never deleted anything, didn't delete the server. that's not the point. it was that he gave the order to. >> that's right. he's charged with a conspiracy to obstruct justice in this matter, and it doesn't matter if you succeeded in a criminal conspiracy if the prosecution can prove you engaged in one. now, i will say reading this supersedening document carefully, it doesn't give any hint that prosecutors have direct witnesses who can put the words in donald trump's mouth, delete the footage. what they have is a third-hand

conversation, at least what they've laid out in the indictment, the superseding indictment, between de oliveira and a fourth employee who appears to be cooperating, where he says the boss wants the footage dleegted. obviously they would like to flip mr. de oliveira and have him testify against trump, and that would be a devastating witness. but there's reporting they brought him in and talked to him under what's known a proffer, a queen for a day proffer, according to "the washington post," and they didn't like what he said and they believe he lied to them, which is why they've charged him with false statements. he's represented by an attorney paid for by donald trump's superpac. he's standing firm. it raises the question of how strong the evidence is in terms of pinning on mr. trump the conspiracy to delete the footage. we'll have to see if this is all the prosecutors have, jonathan. >> conspiracy complete with references to the boss and hush

emojis in text messages. nbc's ken dilanian, thank you so very much. ken just mentioned this new report in "the washington post" that reveals that trump's political group spent more than $40 million on legal costs in the first half of this year to defend trump, his advisers and some others. what's more, trump's save america pac is financing legal work that is now raising questions from prosecutors about potential conflicts of interest. that's according to people familiar with the matter. trump advisers told "the post" that the pac, which raises most of its money from small-dollar contributions, is footing the legal bills for almost anyone drawn into the numerous trump investigations who request help from the former president and his advisers. joining us to talk about is one of the co-authors of this piece of reporting, "the washington post"'s devlin barrett. he covers national security and law enforcement for the paper. great to see you.

please explain the potential issue here with the representation of the two who have been charged in the documents case, we mpgsed them, valet walt nauta and the property manager, carlos de oliveira, and the i.t. worker who looks to have provided information to prosecutors. >> right. it's not unusual for an employer to pay for the legal costs of an employee who ends up getting involved in an investigation. but what's so interesting and frankly potentially important about the trump situation is when you look at these witnesses, when you look at these trump employees, what you're seeing is a kind of high-stakes game of chicken, where prosecutors come to suspect that a person is being more loyal to trump than the truth, then they start pressing them. and in some cases, they can essentially bring them over to being a witness. that's what you see happening in tavares' case, why you see a superseding indictment in the

case of deoliveira and walt nauta. they pressed them both and engaged in the game and ultimately they were charged. off topic but on the same general thrust, the story about the $40 million that the pac spent on legal fees, one of the questions that i've had, which, you know, i guess i would love for your insights into, is why did they throw v do it through the pac as opposed to setting a legal defense fund to cover this? why go through a political entity like the pac, raising money that should ostensibly be for political purposes or an election, as opposed to doing something strictly for legal purposes like a legal defense fund? >> sure. it's long been the case that political entities are allowed to pay the legal costs of the candidate or the campaign, and that's been true for decades.

and people have raised this question and had this concern for a long time. but i think the simplest answer to your question is that it's just easier if you know your campaigning is raising a lot of money, if you know that campaign or pac is allowed to spend money on legal costs, for a lot of campaigns and politicians, the answer is why not do it? it's a simpler way to both raise money and spend it. >> mm. dvlin barrett, thank you for joining us. over the weekend, some of trump's challengers in the 2024 presidential race highlighted the issues with his current campaign. >> i think we've got to move forward. we can't have a general election where we are handing it over to kamala harris because we're dealing with indictments and court cases and legal issues of president trump. >> so it would help you get your message out and republicans get their message out if he drops out. is that what you're saying? >> well, none of us want to be talking about indictments.

i don't even know if it's the third, fourth, or fifth indictment right now. but it's a distraction. frankly, the media is talking about it nonstop. but when i do these town halls, the american public is not talking to me about that. >> i think what our voters need to begin to think about is, we have a front-runner right now who, when he gets on the stage for the fox news debate on august 23rd, will be out on bail in at least two different jurisdictions, if not three between now and then. how are we going to beat the democrats with a candidate who's going to be out on bail facing numerous, numerous self-inflicted wounds in courtrooms across this country? >> donald trump is not running for president to make america great again. donald trump is running to stay out of prison. and if we elect -- i know. i know. i know. i know. i know. listen, i know the truth -- the

truth is hard. but if we elect donald trump, we are willingly giving joe biden four more years in the white house and america can't handle that. >> as you can hear, that audience at friday's iowa, lincoln, dinner, wasn't liking the critique of trump from the former congressman herd. he was asked about his comments and the hostile response from the crowd. >> i knew there were going to be people that didn't like it, but what i didn't expect, there were a lot of people that actually clapped, and there were more people that sat there politely and probably understood and knew what i was saying was the truth. >> new polling shows that most republican primary voters simply don't want to hear the truth. in the latest survey from "the new york times" and siena college, trump leads ron desantis by 37 points, 5 4ers to just 17% among likely gop primary voters.

all other candidates earned less than 5% of support in the poll, which, we should note, was conducted before new charges were announced against trump in the classified documents case, that superseding indictment. if you take out all candidates other than trump and desantis, the survey still shows the former president leading big, by a margin of 62% to 31%. the poll also suggests that 56% of republicans say trump did nothing wrong in the classified documents case, though it remains to be seen if late last week's superseding indictment has any impact on that support. my guess would be no. and as it relate ls to trump's actions after the 2020 vote, 75% of republicans say he was exercising his right to contest the election. 19% says his actions affected american democracy. charlie sikes, this is yet another poll showing this is

donald trump's party no matter what sort of legal peril he faces himself in. he spent the first bit of the show detailing the new allegations, and it sure doesn't seem like it matters. that same dinner we played that sound from will herd, all the republicans were there, it doesn't surprise you who had the biggest crowd and biggest reception, and that's donald trump. >> yeah. i would say that these polls are unambiguous, what happened in iowa was pretty clear if you wanted to know what the nature of the republican party was right now. he insults the governor there. he's the only candidate that gets the standing ovation. one of the candidates that calls him out is booed. so the poll makes it very, very clear that at this point, i think -- here's the reality check, jonathan. i think you'd have to be naive to the point of being delusional to think that donald trump is not going to be the republican

nominee for president despite all of this. and i think you have to be nigh yooech to the point of being delusional to think that any of these indictments are going to change all of that because what you have is this alternative reality of the republican base that sees january 6th as somehow quasi-legitimate, that is willing to overlook all of donald trump's lies, all of the crimes, all the things he has done. when you add up everything we know about donald trump and everything that all of the republican insidrs and members of his administration have said, and then you look at those polls, and you have to ask yourself what would it take to actually loosen his hold on the republican party, at this point, jonathan, i can't think of anything. i can't think of anything. you saw that on display over the weekend. you see that in the numbers. >> mara, a general election might be a different story. these are things that you can't

imagine these indictments help him with undecided or swing voters next year. right now in the republican primary, we are at two indictments, likely a third, maybe this week, and nothing changes. >> well, you know, it really speaks to the extent to which donald trump has gotten a large portion of a republican base to identify with him. and so the more under attack he becomes, almost like a bunker mentality has developed among the republican base, and they just dig in even deep we are him. one of the questions i had, and i was wondering if charlie might be able to shed some light on this, charlie, more and more, especially if candidates like ron desantis have risen, while not a populist himself else inially, certainly is far to the right of most voters in the country, do you think that this is an overall realignment that we're seeing among republican voters with right-wing populism? or is this just really more cult-like behavior about donald trump himself and trumpism?

>> that's a fascinating question. i think both things can be true at the same time. ron desantis seemed to be under the illusion that he could run on i'm donald trump without the baggage. he's gone through all the social issues. but as i think is becoming increasingly apparent, this is not an election about issues. it's not one where you're going to have a referendum even on wokism. it really is about donald trump, and it is about donald trump's personality. but at the same time, you are seeing this hard realignment on the right that was a convention of young conservatives recently in washington, d.c., and the reports out of that would suggest they're not interested in traditional conservative values or even fiscal issues. they like the social red meat issues. so i think the hangover of this is going to linger for a very long time. i think decades from now we'll look back on this as very much a

realignment, even after donald trump leaves the stage. >> yeah. trump had the big crowd in iowa and another one at a rally in the battleground state of pennsylvania over the weekend. and he's continuing to suggest, trump is, that the bidens were involved in a bribery scheme with the ukrainian energy company where hunter biden once served on the board. and on saturday at that erie, pennsylvania, rally, trump demanded that further military aid to ukraine be withheld until the biden administration turns over everything related to the biden family's business dealings. >> joe biden is compromised. he's dragging us into a global conflict on behalf of the very same country that apparently paid his family all of these millions of dollars. in light of this information, the u.s. congress should refuse to authorize a single additional payment of our depleted

stockpiles to ukraine until the fbi, doj, and irs hand over every scrap of evidence they have on the biden crime family's corrupt business dealings. we have to know, and the public deserves to know. in addition, congress should immediately vote to block joe biden's recent call-up of reserve forces. we're sending our troops to europe to fight. we're sending troops to fuel this escalating conflict. not a single american life should be put at risk because crooked joe biden has been illegally paid off. he'd been paid off. this is a corrupt president. >> so, donald trump is suggesting the u.s. withhold military aid unless ukraine turns over information about the bidens. doesn't that sound extraordinarily familiar? you recall that trump was impeached the first time to for his attempts to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, including, wait for

it, withholding of aid to ukraine in exchange for information on joe biden. sam stein, we have traveled back in time apparently, and we should note, first of all, one bit of fact checking, that there are not american soldiers being sent to fight in europe. what he said is not correct. but here he is doing -- calling for exactly what got him impeached. >> jonathan, time is a flat circle, clearly. we're in a loop here. i'm not surprised that trump was not chastened by his first impeachment. it was a perfect phone call. this would be a perfect speech. that's how he rolls, right? not only is it what he does, he says the quiet part out loud, but in this case, he also as a policy matter has been more deferential to the russian side

of this calculus and has waxed on a lot about his disagreements with the biden administration over its support for ukraine. and then of course tying the investigations into biden to ukraine aid is not surprising in the slightest. as you know, he did this several years ago. he's going to do it now. the question i suppose is when the administration, the current administration, does come around to congress saying, hey, we need more funding for ukraine, what happens in the house? do trump's allies in the house actually take this call over the weekend seriously and condition any aid on some sort of investigative finding? i don't think it's unreasonable to see a future in which that actually is the case. the biden administration really does have, you know, something on its hands here. >> to this point, they've suggested they'll impeach joe biden about, well, whatever, and

they're working towards expunging donald trump's impeachments for the record. so, odds are they'll take their cues from the former president. all right. everybody is going to stay with us. great group here. still ahead on "morning joe," amid his mountain of legal troubles, donald trump calls on republicans to rally around him or get out. we'll show you his new comments. plus, we'll bring you a live report from outside the fulton county courthouse as we await yet another possible indictment, this one relating to trump's efforts to overturn georgia's 2020 election results. also ahead, what we're learning this morning about reports of an american woman and her child being kid named in haiti. you founded your kayak company because you love the ocean-

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the radical lunatic democrats, they impeach me, they indict me, they rig our elections, and the republicans,

they're good people, but they don't fight the way they're supposed to fight. the others are dirty, sick players, and the republicans are very high class. we've got to be a little lower class, i suspect. any republican that doesn't act on democratic fraud should get out. >> that's former president trump at a rally in pennsylvania saturday night lashing out at republicans he sees not defending him adequately through his multiple investigations. given those comments, trump might not be too phillies pleased with republican congresswoman nancy mace of south carolina. >> the issue of impeachment, is the party divided? >> well, i believe we were. at this point, an inquiry for an

impeachment vote and is another tool in the toolbox, but every time we walk the plank, we are putting moderate members, we are putting those seats at risk for 2024. we are putting the majority at risk. it's not just impeachment that does that. other issues like abortion, et cetera, also put those numbers there. but the one thing is whatever the evidence shows us we ought to follow the facts, and we have to be better than nancy pelosi. pelosi really politicized the impeachment process. we do not want to do that here. we have to show overwhelming, undeniable evidence in order to move this thing forward. if we can't, then we should not. >> charlie, let's start with president trump, former president trump's comments there calling for any republican who he deems not adequately defending him to be primaried. we spend a lot of time on this show noting his influence on the gop. is this something that could come to be? are people going to jump in a

race against them? or will it motivate normal republicans to take up his cause and investigate biden and the democrats? >> i don't think it's an empty threat. i was thinking over the weekend that one of the consequences of the looming indictments of donald trump is there will be more pressure to impeach joe biden. there's a two-step strategy here. expunging trump's impeachments and moving ahead with an impeachment of joe biden, all of which has the effect of throw toing lots of smoke and dust into the air, and also downplaying the significance of impeachments. you and i are both old enough to remember when impeaching a president was a very big deal. we've come to a moment where everyone is impeached, impeachment is same old, same old. this is very much in donald trump's interest to basically say i'm facing indictment but look what's happening to joe biden. for the trump world, it really

is important for them to convince the american public that, yes, he may have been involved in questionable activity, but everybody is corrupt, because if everybody is corrupt, them really what does it matter. so i think you're seeing that two-step with impeachment, wyching out his impeachments, watering down the significance of an impeachment by going after joe biden, and creating the alternative narrative. i imagine there's going to be tremendous pressure on the republic. nancy mace may be talking about her reluctance, but we've seen before how, when the squeeze is really on, and it is on right now, republicans tend to fall in line. and i wouldn't be surprised if they did this time as well. >> congresswoman mace, you know, warned against impeachment there, but she's at front of the biden crime family talks. she's certainly trying to have it both ways. mara, she may not be wrong in it seems that most americans don't

want the gop to go down this path. we saw mccarthy trying to tap the brakes late last week about the impeachment inquiry, but if donald trump is going to call for it, the pressure will be on. >> it's pretty stunning because you can kind of see the republican train derailing as we speak, because we know that trump has been a loser in elections at this point. and yet there's really nothing it seems that the rest of his party can do to stop him from losing seats for republicans, which is what nancy mace is warning of. but this one lonely voice, there's no way you can stop this trump train like that. also it shows you the extent to which the party -- donald trump is really about protecting himself. he's not about winning republican seats. so, you know, most americans don't want to hear about this. this is a giant distraction among other things. look over here, they're persecuting me, prosecuting me, when really this is -- there's a really serious process in the way across the country in which

he is being held to account for potential crimes he may have committed. so i think this is a political disaster in the making for republicans. we'll see how it plays out. >> so, sam stein, let's get your take on this as well. the white house is -- they understand this might be coming. they're certainly not welcoming an impeachment inquiry. no white house would. they think it would probably be a political winner frp them, but it would be a painful process all the same. we've seen mccarthy really struggle at times to keep the far-right factions of his conference at bay. what do you think? how do you -- chart this out for us. trump's going to put on this pressure. what do you think mccarthy does? >> i mean, that's a great question. the history is pretty clear on this stuff. i mean, just look at the clinton era where impeachment obviously backfired on republicans. i think people within the house gop conference who know this, who are worried about it,

obviously nancy mace expressing her concerns there, but for mccarthy there's a lot of different pressures you have to consider here, right? i thought ken buck, the congressman, had really interesting commentary last week, which is that he thought it was just a distraction tactic by mccarthy to try to alleviate some of the pressure from conservatives that he's facing right now over to, among other things, the debt limit, and the forthcoming fight over government funding. at the same time, you know, karpt does have trump to consider, and trump wants the expungement of his impeachments. to charlie's point, he wants to dirty the waters so it looks like joe biden and myself are all the same. if you're mccarthy, you have to sort of just make it through the day at some point. so i think that's why he's floated it. i don't see it happening immediately. i think there's a reason he kind of dialed it back a little bit. part of the reason, frankly, i don't think they've made the

case yet. they have to consider the substance here. hunter biden's foreign business dealings are obviously unseemly and problematic. but by their own admission, republicans have not tied the president, joe biden, to profiteering from them. and if you actually dig into the sort of story lines here, they become a little tricky to follow because they've gone down weird paths. there's romania, ukraine, different characters, irs whistle-blowers. you start to lose the plot. so republicans are trying to make sure the narrative action makes sense to viewers, to the public, before they proceed with this, because they will quickly lose the public if they don't. >> yeah. mccarthy admitted as much last week in a closed-door meeting that they didn't have the evidence yet. also, the house is gone now, out for more than a month on recess. i think there's hope there some of the pressure dissipates. charlie sykes, thank you for

joining us this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," the latest country to express an interest in settling the war in ukraine. it might surprise you. we'll tell you which nation is looking to step in. plus, it's been about two weeks since travis cane, the american soldier who crossed the boarder into north korea, well, he's still detained.

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an american woman and her child have reportedly been kidnapped in haiti as that country struggles with an ongoing violence and down right anarchy. nbc news correspondent ali rafa has more on the kidnapping and the travel warning the united states government has issued. >> reporter: an american nurse and her child missing after being reportedly kidnapped as violence sweeps across the island nation. >> i'm a nurse from new

hampshire. now i live in haiti. >> reporter: they were taken thursday from the campus of a christian nonprofit near haiti's capital, port-au-prince. her husband founded the nonprovt and said they were taken while serving in the community ministry. the details are still unclear. the state department ordering evacuations from haiti's u.s. embassy and issuing its highest level travel warning in the same day the pair uz kidnapped. since the assassination of its president in july of 2021 and an earthquake one month later, haiti has collapsed into anarchy. armed gangs now control an estimated 80% of its capital. >> we have very deep concern for the situation there. we are also very focused on working together with partners to try to help the haitians

restore security, restore stability. >> reporter: efforts by the international community to form a multinational police force have made little progress until saturday, when kenya volunteered to take the lead. alex and her child apparent victims to the country's chaos, as the search for them continues. >> that's nbc's ali rafa with that report. elsewhere overseas, saudi arabia is the latest country to express an interest in trying to settle the war in europe. the saudi kingdom over the weekend said it would host a peace summit next month to begin talks on a way to end the conflict. now, russia is not invited, but the associated press reports that brazil, india, south africa, and several other countries are. the app cites a high-level u.s. official saying a representative from the biden administration is expected to attend the event. meanwhile, on the front lines of the fight, ukrainian president

volodymyr zelenskiy called yesterday a, quote, powerful day, as ukraine says it retook some ground that it lost last may, specifically in the area surrounding bakhmut, which of course has seen some of the war's fiercest fighting. ukraine's deputy defense minister tells a national broadcaster that 77 square miles have been recaptured by ukraine's forces in the south, while adding progress so far has been limited amid entrenched russian positions and many, many land mines. it's been nearly two weeks now since u.s. army private travis king crossed into north korea wearing civilian clothes. after serving time in a south korean prison for assault, king was scheduled to return to the u.s. for a disciplinary hearing when he joined a private group touring the dmz and ran across the border into north korea. it's unclear whether king

purposefully defected when he entered the country. the north korean government has not provided any updates. now, our next guest is taking a look at the historical significance of defectors from the former soviet union. author eric r. scott joins us now. he's out with a new book with the title "defectors: how the illicit flight of soviet citizens built the borders of the cold war." thanks for joining us this morning. tell us more about this premise about these defectors who fled the soviet union before the iron curtain came down and what it means for our world today. >> thank you very much. so, defection is an unusual thing. we typically think about migrants fleeing, we think of the way people are prevented from entering countries by borders. but defectors were people who fled illegally, who fled countries, essentially criminalizing their commit. and the other interesting thing

about defection during the cold war was their flight was actively encouraged by the u.s. and its allies, so defection was produced by this criminalization of exit and this encouragement of else cape. the book looks at defection around the world, not only border zones along the states but on the high seas, around embassies, aboard airplanes. and what i really look at is how cold war borders were constructed to rein in and control these defectors. they were often unpredictable people. they did things for a variety of reasons. the book looks at their history from really the end of world war ii until the present. >> erik, mara gay from "the new york times." we know very little about what happened in this case, but how do you think about this border with north korea? obviously, the cold war ended many years ago, but help us contextualize what may have happened here and what the different incentives are with

the governments involved here. >> well, first of all, north korea is very interesting because this is one of the last countries that still prevents the exit of its citizens. so when we think about defection, most of the people we look at are fleeing north korea, but there are a few cases of people fleeing the other way. the dmz is really the cease-fire zone of the armistice between a war 70 years ago. it is highly militarized. there have been a few cases of people fleeing into north korea, several u.s. soldiers since 1953 have fled for a variety of reasons. some were disenchanted with their military service. some had disciplinary issues as travis king appeared to have. one appears to have been drunk at the time of his -- so there's probably a lot of different motivations at play here. and i would suspect the north

koreans are probably as surprised as we are in terms of his flight and trying to make sense of why he did what he did. >> and what will happen next. the new book titled "defectors: how the ill liles sit flight of soviet citizens built the borders of a cold war world," author erik r. scott, thank you for joining us this morning. >> thank you. still ahead, what's driving down wall street? cnbc's andrew ross sorkin joins us. from prom dresses... ...to workouts... ...and new adventures. you hope the more you give the less they'll miss.

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look out! a big bang to right into the reds' bullpen. >> joey votto extending the reds' lead over the dodgers yesterday with that two-run bomb in the third inning. inning. cincinnati beat l.a. 9-0 and moved a half game ahead of the brewers. to baltimore now. the new york yankees were sunk by the end of the first inning of last night's rubber match against the a.l. east leading orioles. the orioles forced seven runs in the opening frame and then tacked on two more in the fourth on the way to an easy 9-3 victory over the bronx bombers. the orioles are 1 1/2 games ahead of the rays. blue jays 5 1/2 back. the los angeles angels continue

to be buyers ahead of tomorrow's trade deadline. in a second significant move after the team announced last week it won't deal shohei ohtani, they added a first baseman in exchange for a pair of pitching prospects. the rangers added more arms for a potential championship run, acquiring jordan montgomery and chris stratton from the st. louis cardinals. that comes after the rangers finalize a deal for max scherzer, set to make his starting debut in arlington on thursday. the mets have just hours now to decide what to do with their other highly paid three-time cy young award winner on the roster. the dodgers could be interested in justin verlander, who won

yesterday over the washington nationals. let's do a little baseball trade deadline talk. the new york mets are one of the most disappointing teams in the history of the sport. they have by far the biggest payroll the game has ever seen. they have long since fallen out of playoff contention. they traded scherzer. verlander might be next. he's probably the biggest prize out there on the market with ohtani staying put in l.a. what do you think happens before we hit the trade deadline? >> it raises a really interesting question. can you be the most disappointing team in the history of the sport if your entire fan base is basically conditioned to disappointment? this was the expectation for the mets' fans that they would face plant and they've lived up to it. arguably not the most disappointing team, just playing to type. as for the trade market, it's

weird, very little activity. apparently the asking prices for middle of the rotation arms is astronomical. doesn't mean as we get closer to the deadline that things won't go crazy. i would love to see the red sox get a really good front of the rotation pitcher with a little bit of salary control that they can bank on and maybe give very little for. like shohei ohtani for nick york, something like that. but not gonna happen. i would like to see the sox make a little bit of a splash in what has been a pleasantly surprising season so far. >> i hope they're buyers more than sellers of the market, although my hopes are relatively modest. coming up, a conversation with one of the democrats' top leaders in the house. congressman joe neguse joins the

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they broke it by indicting me with these ridiculous indictments. all they're doing is hoping for massive election interference. that's all they want to do. they want to damage the leading candidate, by the way leading by far, i have to say. >> that's donald trump in erie, pennsylvania, on saturday making false claims about why he's being indicted. he's not wrong about one thing, his poll numbers. a new survey shows his commanding lead over a large field of republicans is holding strong. meanwhile, one of trump's employees is supposed to make a court appearance today on charges tied to the classified documents case. we'll get a live report from

south florida. plus, most lawmakers have left washington for a long summer break, leaving the threat of a shutdown looming as there will be very little time to hammer out spending bills by the time they get back. and later this hour, willie's conversation with one of the greatest shooters in nba history, superstar steph curry. welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it is 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. here on the east. i'm jonathan lemire in for joe, mika and willie. with his legal problems seemingly getting worse by the week, donald trump took to the campaign trail over the weekend to rail against his growing list of perceived political enemies. for more, let's bring in nbc news senior capitol hill correspondent garrett haake. give us the latest. >> hey, jonathan. well, a campaign weekend but the start of another indictment

watch week with all eyes on the federal courthouse downtown, where grand jurors are expected back tomorrow and where another indictment could come as soon as this week. through it all we're seeing donald trump's legal woes grow, as is his lead in the republican primary. donald trump's legal battles in the spotlight and racking up costs. this morning, a court appearance from a new trump codefendant, mar-a-lago property manager carlos deolivier ra. >> mr. trump and his aide walt nauta pleaded not guilty to the original indictment last month. >> it's a great badge of honor because i'm being indicted for you. >> as the former president could face indictment this week over

another case, his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. it all comes at a price forump "washington post" reporting that his political group spent more than $40 million on legal costs in the first half of 2023 to defend trump, his advisors and others, according to people familiar with the matter. but he remains the republican frontrunner. mr. trump's fiercest republican critic, 2024 rival chris christie, invoking "the godfather" to mock the gop frontrunner over the classified documents case. >> it's pretty brazen. these guys were acting like the corleones with no experience. >> i would pardon him. >> the former president now threatening fellow republicans who don't share his appetite for revenge against president biden

and the justice department. >> any republican that doesn't act on democrat fraud should be immediately primaried and get out. >> some of the most interesting campaign reporting over the weekend that couldn't quite make it into that piece, my colleagues here at nbc news dotcom reached out to 44 different former trump cabinet officials over the weekend. of those 44, only four are publicly endorsing donald trump in 2024. among them is former chief of staff mark meadows. one that isn't endorsing him is former a.g. bill barr. >> bill barr with the taste for colorful language of late. we should note also former president trump received by far the loudest and biggest response at that iowa state event friday

night. we'll have a live report from miami and that courthouse in a moment about the classified documents case. last two weeks everyone there in washington has been on pins and needles waiting for the january 6th election interference indictments to come down. trump, of course, received a target letter a couple of weeks ago. grand jury has been meeting on tuesdays and thursdays. is that still the case this week? >> we're watching for the tuesday and thursday schedule to pick up again here. this is a secret process, so we we're always grasping at straws a little bit here. in the classified documents case, you saw a couple-week lag between the sending of the target letter and the filing of an indictment. a couple days passed between trump's attorneys meeting with doj and that indictment being filed. it got blown out in the wash last week after the superseding indictment came out thursday night. trump's attorneys were in

washington thursday of last week meeting with special counsel prosecutors about the 2020 election case earlier in the day. if that same timeline holds true, we could be looking at some movement here this week. the truth is we won't know until we know. >> we'll keep a careful eye on it. garrett haake, thank you, my friend. joining us now live from outside the courthouse in miami is msnbc legal contributor katie phang, also the host of the katie phang show right here on msnbc. describe for us what you're seeing there in south florida. and do we think there will be activity in that courtroom today? >> reporter: it's good to see you. right behind me is the james lawrence king federal courthouse. it's a different courthouse than the courthouse that donald trump actually was arraigned in about six weeks ago. but it is the same courthouse that his codefendant walt nauta was arraigned just a couple of

weeks ago. there's a very small crowd that's convened this morning for a 10:30 arraignment of the codefendant carlos de oliveira. the big question is whether carlos has retained an attorney who can practice law in the southern district of florida. walt nauta pulled that stunt on two separate occasions, putting off his arraignment for a couple of weeks. assuming something happens this morning, carlos de oliveira will have the charges red to him by the magistrate judge edwin torres. john irving is one of the attorneys who's been representing carlos de oliveira as he's been proceeding through the investigative process. it's critical how this upcoming arraignment impacts the trial schedule. judge aileen cannon set the

classified documents trial in may of 2024. there's a major hearing coming up on august 25th, just in a couple of weeks. it involves section three of the classified information procedures act. during that hearing, there's going to be some back and forth between the doj and lawyers for nauta and donald trump in terms of access and ability to share classified information being provided by the doj. whether or not that impacts the hearing on august 25th will be seen. we're just waiting for carlos de oliveira to be seen in court. >> talk to us about this super pac that's funding the lawyers for all of these people caught up in this trump mess. what does it raise for you in terms of coordination and doubting what's going on at the core of this?

that's not quite clear, but i hope you understand what i'm asking. >> reporter: i got you, eddie. one, whether or not there's anything criminal going on afoot by having the pac for save america pay for lawyers. in the superseding indictment in paragraph 82, it is very clear that trump is saying to de oliveira, i will get you a lawyer. it raises the question, is trump trying to buy the cooperation of de oliveira as the pac is also paying for walt nauta's attorney fees. the grand jury in d.c. is investigating the save america pac for whether or not there was fraud committed to get more than $25 million in donations and contributions to that particular pac. the idea that it was supposed to be raised, the money was going to be used to be able to pursue the challenges in court to this

big lie. as you know, it's just a lie. trump knew it was fraud when he was asking for his followers to give the money. the question is, is there something unethical for a lawyer to represent nauta, de oliveira, trump and everybody else and get their fees paid from the same fund? it's going to be money going out the door. whether or not the followers want to keep on paying for it, i guess, is left to be seen as well. >> katie phang, please keep us posted if anything happens there. thank you very much. meanwhile, the team for fulton county d.a. fani willis will begin a two-week stint working from home today, a move seen as preparation for filing potential charges against former

president trump there. willis's decision on whether she will charge the former president or his allies for a crime for alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results should be announced in the coming weeks. joining us live from the fulton county courthouse is nbc news correspondent blayne alexander. the fact they're going from miami to washington and now to fulton county shows just how much legal trouble donald trump is in. give us the latest there. we noted that fani willis and her staff are working from home. what's the anticipation on charges sooner than later? >> reporter: i think it's high. of all the time we've been watching this courthouse behind me for the better part of 2 1/2 years, i think we'll be watching it most closely for the next three weeks. let me tell you what we do know. we do know that this is the

beginning of a three-week period during which district attorney fani willis wrote a letter to law enforcement saying she's going to have 75% of her staff working from home. the only people in this building are those that are essential and need to be in the building. she also asked judges to refrain from holding in-person trials during this time period. of course, you see these orange barricades behind me lined up in front of the courthouse, signaling heightened security here. we also know there are two grand juries currently seated right now. there's one that meets on mondays and tuesdays, the other that meets on thursdays and fridays. one of those grand juries is going to be hearing a presentation from the d.a. on this investigation that she's been working on for the better part of two years. what we don't know, however, is what that is going to look like. we don't know what day she's going to be presenting to the

grand jury. but she was at a back to school event here in fulton county and she made it clear they are very ready. >> i made a commitment to the american people, but most importantly the citizens of fulton county, that we were going to be making some big decisions regarding the election investigation and that i would do that before september 1th of 2023. i'm going to hold true to that commitment. i've been working for 2 1/2 years and we're ready to go. >> reporter: when you hear her talk about we're ready to go, it's worth reminding what's at stake here. we're talking about an investigation into the former president on potential election meddling here in the state of georgia. it's not just an investigation into former president trump. we're talking about a number of his allies also being investigated. this is a sprawling investigation that called more than 70 witnesses. a special grand jury heard tons of testimony, put out their own

report as to who they believe should be charged. the foreperson told me the names of people they recommended for charges are certainly names that you and i and anybody else who follows the news would recognize. we're bracing for some possible charges coming in the next three weeks, all of this depending on what the grand jury decides. >> thank you very much. meanwhile, donald trump has been handed yet another loss after a federal judge dismissed his $475 million defamation lawsuit against cnn. trump claimed the network's use of the term "the big lie" was equivalent to comparing him to adolph hitler. the lawsuit also argued the references hurt his reputation and political career. but the judge, who was appointed by donald trump, ruled cnn's statements don't meet the standard of defamation, writing this. cnn's use of the phrase "the big

lie" in connection with trump's election challenges does not give rise to a plausible inference that trump advocated the persecution and genocide of jews or any other group of people. no reasonable viewer could or should plausibly make that reference. turning now to this morning's business before the bell headlines, we begin with "barbenheimer" continuing its box office domination. barbie brought in $93 million in its second weekend, holding onto the top spot. oppenheimer finished a strong second. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin. the movie industry after a kind of disappointing start to the summer sure needed this, particularly with these dueling strikes gripping hollywood. >> i think we're already past

success. barbie has become such a remarkable story, not just as a movie. of course, you have to remember that behind barbie is mattell. it's not just about selling movie tickets. it's about selling barbies. i was walking around new york city friday. i can't tell you how many kids i see with barbies. we'll find out more from mattell. they just had their last earnings report, but the next earnings report is where you're going to hear where all of this goes. now that they've built this franchise, not just in the toy business, but in the movie business, i imagine we'll start to see sequels of barbie, spinoffs of barbie, ken movies. this is already a blockbuster. "oppenheimer" is in some ways a more interesting phenomenon because it's a one-off.

a lot of folks in hollywood are trying to understand what created this moment in time and how did we get here. the other piece, of course, is the strike. this new disney movie that just came out over the weekend didn't do as well as people expected, only $24 million it brought in. part of the issue there is that actors right now aren't allowed to promote movies. you're not seeing them on the news programs. obviously late night is shut down. sony over the weekend just took a whole slate of pictures that were supposed to launch this fall and moved that into 2024 because of the strike both with the writers and the actors. this is becoming a larger and larger issue. in some ways it creates more opportunity for barbie and oppenheimer to continue the run of success they've had for the rest of the summer because of the great launch they had. >> and there's certainly no signs of progress in negotiations with either of those strikes.

let's turn to the u.s. trucking firm yellow. it always confused me their logo was orange. they filed for bankruptcy. >> it's a huge deal on a human level because there's something like 30,000 people impacted by this. of course, there's lots of need for truck drivers around the country. i can't say there's any silver lining in this except to say that it happened now as opposed to six months ago when you think about supply chains and where inflation is. i say that only because had this failure taken place six months ago i probably would have actually made things a lot harder. we've gotten to a place where things are getting a little bit better. it is a sad story. this is a company that effectively took on too much debt and couldn't service that debt. the company will go bankrupt. the parts will get sold. there was a battle with the

teamsters as well. this is a company that got something like $700 million during the pandemic in terms of bailouts. there will be some policy discussions, i'm sure, in washington as well. >> tell us about social security's next cost of living raise. >> well, if you're on social security, you're going to get a 3% bump. that's good news/bad news. if you got the bump last year, you were up in the 8% range, but that's because it follows inflation. the good news is that inflation has come down. but if you're a recipient you won't be getting as much as you did get last year in that regard. it's a bit of good news meets

bad news. >> thank you. coming up here on "morning joe," there is renewed concern about a potential default this fall as lawmakers break for august recess without a deal to fund the government. we'll speak with a leading democrat in the house, congressman joe neguse, about the looming spending battle. neg the looming spending battle.

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♪♪ that was donald trump over the weekend taking the stage in iowa to words of a country song about the potential of going to prison or becoming president. meanwhile, congressional

lawmakers will have just 12 days when they return from their august recess to pass multiple government funding bills. democrats and senate republicans are operating under an agreement made by president biden and kevin mccarthy during the debt ceiling negotiations back in may. but some house republicans have a different plan. they are proposing bills with far less spending than agreed to in that biden/mccarthy deal that also include poison pills for democrats on a wide range of social issues. joining us now, democratic congressman joe neguse of colorado, the chair of the democratic policy and communications committee. good morning. thanks you for joining us. walk us through, if you will, just what needs to get done. the house is out for quite some time. when they are back, give us a sense of how much needs to be done and how quickly. >> good morning, jonathan. i think you articulated the context well.

the context matters. republicans have had control of the house of representatives for seven months. it has been chaos and confusion every step of the way. that started, of course, with the unprecedented vote at the beginning of the congress when republicans were incapable of selecting a speaker for almost a week. it has continued throughout the last seven months. no bills to lower costs or grow the middle class or build safer communities, but instead bills on gas stoves and the long-eared bat, any issue that house republicans can literally conjure up to avoid addressing the fundamental challenges that face americans. you said it well. a deal was reached between house republicans. we passed a fiscal responsibility act back in june. more house democrats voted for it than house republicans, i might add. nonetheless, an agreement was reached, a compromise, and republicans immediately reneged on that compromise and have left the house in a position of having to find a way to fund the

government with only 12 days when we return from the 45-day recess house republicans announced when we left washington last week. it's deeply disappointing. i suspect the american people find this disheartening. i worry that the house and congress will be incapable of doing the most basic act of governing, which is funding the government. many house republicans would like to shut down the government. >> we heard one congressman last week say, well, that would be a good thing, because we don't do anything for the public good here in washington anyway. it would still be a significant deal, of course, if the government were to shut down. it would impact tens of thousands of americans. you kind of hinted at it there. it does seem like this speaker is really at the mercy of the far right of his conference. how are you seeing that dynamic

play out with your republican colleagues? >> it's clear that in washington, d.c. the extreme wing of the house republican caucus has taken power. they have taken control. yeah, they are unabashed about wanting to shut down the government, notwithstanding the disastrous consequences it would have. i was in congress in 2019 during what became the longest shutdown of the government in our history. it is terribly destructive for the many individuals who rely on any number of key governmental services. you think about the literally hundreds of thousands of air traffic controllers and federal employees who were out of work for over a month and a half, bringing our economy to a standstill. it very well could be cataclysmic. it's an outcome that we should avoid. as i said, many house republicans would like to shut down the government. they are making the affirmative case for doing so.

that's deeply problematic. unfortunately, there's no grownup in the room that one would expect typically from the speaker of the house or republican leadership to be able to tell their caucus that they have to do the right thing. that simply is not the case in this modern house republican caucus. >> you have a new book that has profiles of former representatives. the book is titled "courage in the people's house, nine trail blazing represents who shaped america." tell us how you selected these particular nine and what americans should learn from this. >> well, taking a step back more generally, to me, the book is about hope. it's trying to give americans a sense of hope about our country

and the ability for government to address big challenges. in this current political environment, which is bursting with empty noise, it is easy for folks to become cynical and perhaps jaded and develop skepticism about our federal government and the ability of our government as a whole to solve big challenges. i believe the best way to push back against that cynicism is to remind us of our best examples. these nine individuals, incredibly courageous, brave members of congress, ordinary people who did extraordinary things, who stepped forward to serve their country and the constitution in their time. some of them are people whom will be well familiar to most americans, particularly those who follow the workings of congress, people like shirley chisholm and barbara jordan. my goal was to provide the american public with these

stories in an effort to inspire them to perhaps become a participant in their democracy and particularly young folks to pursue a career in public service, to step forward and be a part of shaping and saving our republic. >> congressman, good morning. i'm looking forward to diving into the book. i can't help but place it in conversation with the earlier comments you made about the state of the congress. in some ways, you're giving us a description of profiles in courage. but you're also juxtaposing it against what we're currently experiencing in terms of leadership. it's almost as if you're trying to suggest there's an absence of statesmen and stateswomen in our current moment. talk about how the book intervenes in terms of the house that you're currently working in now. >> well, you've articulated that dichotomy well, professor. it's one that i think i and many

other members of congress and i suspect many americans struggle with every day. as one looks at the congress today, they would be forgiven if they came away with the impression that the courageous acts that are detailed in this book, like the only black member of congress in the 1930s who literally led the effort to desegregate the members' dining room. it's tough to find those examples in this current day and age. as i talked in the epilogue, although these acts of political courage are rare, they still very much exist. perhaps the most salient example for me in my own personal experience in the congress was during the impeachment trial of 2021. as we talk about the former president and the various legal headwinds that face him, as you know, there were many politicians who ultimately lost their careers because they chose country over party. the most prominent example is liz cheney, my colleague to the

north. we represent districts that are adjacent in north american colorado and wyoming. as we know, she supported impeachment and lost the third highest ranking position in the house republican caucus because of it. so i do think there are any myriad of examples today across the country. we may have to look a little bit deeper to find them, but they are out there. of course, my hope is that the greatest acts of political courage are to come, that there will be readers of this book thinking about how they want to contribute to the country. >> an extremely important message. the book out tomorrow is "courage in the people's house, nine trail blazing representatives who shaped america." congressman joe neguse of colorado, thank you for joining us this morning. still ahead here on "morning joe," the highest crossing illusionist in europe is bringing his show to broadway.

antonio diaz joins us in studio. up next, willie's conversation with nba superstar steph curry about his new documentary, his journey to four nba titles and his plans for life after basketball. a titles r life after basketball. i'm jayson. i'm living with hiv and i'm on cabenuva. it helps keep me undetectable. for adults who are undetectable, cabenuva is the only complete, long-acting hiv treatment you can get every other month. cabenuva is two injections, given by my healthcare provider, every other month. it's really nice not to have to rush home and take a daily hiv pill. don't receive cabenuva if you're allergic to its ingredients or if you taking certain medicines, which may interact with cabenuva. serious side effects include allergic reactions post-injection reactions, liver problems, and depression. if you have a rash and other allergic reaction symptoms, stop cabenuva and get medical help right away. tell your doctor if you have liver problems or mental health concerns,

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6:36 a.m. out there in san francisco, alcatraz in the distance. bay area fans can be proud of their giants, who lead the wildcard race and took 2 out of 3 from the red sox this weekend. also, there's their nba team, led by arguably the best shooter in the history of the game, steph curry. willie geist recently caught up with the four-time nba champion, whose talents extend far beyond the basketball court.

>> curry steps back. steph curry with the magic! >> a three-pointer! he did it again! >> steph curry is famous for draining shots from long distance. >> deep three. he made it! he's super human! >> but not usually this long. >> how about that! are you kidding me? ♪♪ >> what's your target, steph? >> i'm going to hit it at the bar. it's going to land on it. >> clearly you're playing a lot based on what i saw in tahoe. >> i want to thank the los angeles lakers for their contribution to me winning my golf tournaments this summer, because i got a four-week head start on golf training camp. >> got it!

how good is steph curry! >> in his day job with the golden state warriors, curry has won four championships and a pair of league mvp awards. >> steph, all the way in the lane to finish. >> how good is this dude? >> considered by most to be the greatest shooter in nba history, curry has revolutionized the game while calmly launching shots from previously preposterous spots on the floor. >> from half court. and it's good! >> do you have an appreciation for the fact that 14-year-old boys take two dribbles inside half court and jack up threes because of you, that you have truly changed the way basketball is played? >> it was never like an intention of that's what i'm here to do, but it's how i see the game and the irrational confidence i have to shoot all those types of shots. >> curry grew up a small, skinny kid in the shadow of his dad dell curry, another smooth

shooter who played most of his nba career with the charlotte hornets. >> i'm constantly trying to find a space just to be able to survey my life. >> steph's story is the subject of the new apple tv plus documentary "stephan curry, underrated". >> there's a shot of you at 9 years old sitting at the very end of the bench biting your fingernails. it freezes on you. i'm like, that kid is going to be steph curry? >> i just didn't fit the mold. that underrated mindset is always a part of my dna, no matter what's happened. i still carry that with me. >> when curry wasn't recruited by any of the colleges where he dreamed of playing, he accepted an offer from davidson college, not far from home. you credit the coach who believed in you, gave you a chance even though you struggled

in that first game as a freshman how much credit does he deserve for the man sitting here today? >> a lot. the message was i was good enough. he had some doubts creep in my first college game when i had 13 turnovers. the footage is actually worse than i remembered. if i'm a coach and watching that performance, i'm making a quick substitution and moving on. he stuck with me. >> curry became a national star while leading davidson on a magical run through the 2008 ncaa tournament, falling just two points shy of an improbable final four. he turned pro after his junior year. >> the golden state warriors select stephan curry.

♪♪ >> when did you feel like you had arrived in the nba, that you weren't proving yourself anymore? >> it was probably my fourth year. we had a game in new york at the garden. i scored 54 points, but we lost that night. that game specifically changed the narrative. okay, we've got to take this kid seriously because he's got game and he's fearless. >> i heard you say you still feel a little underrated. how can that be when people talk about you as maybe the greatest player who ever lived? >> for me, it's like that healthy insecurity of the way that i see the game of basketball and life from day one has not changed at all. i still have to prove to myself that i can still do it for as long as i can. you know, that's what drives me,

that underrated mindset. >> in recent years, curry has extended his range to include the film production company unanimous media. the underrated golf and basketball tours for disadvantaged kids and the eat, learn, play foundation he created with his wife. >> do you have moments now where you go, i can't believe the skinny kid biting his nails on the end of the bench got to where he got? >> all the time. i think that's a part of being able to stay in the moment and really enjoy what's in front of you. i have so much fun playing this game. ♪♪ >> step away from the ball just a little bit. it might feel like you're squatting. that right there. >> golf tips with steph curry.

okay. >> the first year of retirement i'm going to be an amateur swing coach. find me on any range. >> you have a couple years left in your contract. you're 35 right now. do you see the end any time soon? >> you do start thinking about it. the thoughts creep in of what that timeline looks like. you know the ball is going to stop bouncing at some point. i just don't think it's any time soon. >> that was willie's discussion with steph curry. the less said about willie's swing, the better. up next, a "morning joe" first. in the 16 years of the program, we've never had an illusionist on the show until right now. antonio diaz is bringing his renowned international act to broadway. he joins us, next. he joins us, next. broadway he joins us, next. power e*trade's easy-to-use tools,

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welcome back to "morning joe." our next guest is set to make broadway history. 37-year-old antonio diaz is bringing his show, which has been one of the biggest acts in europe, to broadway. when he does, he'll be the youngest illusionist to ever perform there. he will begin the run starting august 17th. antonio diaz joins us now. great to see you. my first question, can you make eddie disappear? [ laughter ] >> i can. >> secondly, tell us about the origins of the show and the opportunity to bring it to broadway. >> being on broadway is the best thing you can wish if you like theater. very few magicians in history have been there. i can't wait to be there. >> we should note that the show

has sold the most tickets for four consecutive years in europe, 2 million viewers. >> you've performed in over 150 countries. >> yes. >> what is the appeal of the illusionist? i've seen these videos where people are shocked and then they run away. what is the appeal to everyday ordinary people for what you do? >> i think we all want the impossible to happen, right? i dedicated my entire life to finding impossible things. i like it very much. i don't know the secret. i only do what i like the most. >> we know you've brought an illusion here for us. >> yes. >> why don't we see it now? >> after that, i want to show you this deck of cards. it's a normal deck of cards. i'm going to shuffle, i'm going

to cut. i know you are thinking i can do whatever with a deck of cards, because i've been practicing my entire life. you know what, i'm not so skillful. or maybe i am. if you want to find the joker, i only have to do this. i think that the joker and i th here. it's not impressive. i'm going to put the joker here because it's not impressive. i bring a deck for you. if i don't do it, you will think i'm very skillful, but as you can see all cards are different. it's very important. all cards are different, right? >> yes. >> i want you to take the deck. do like this, do like this, and stop wherever you want. touch a card. can i come to you? >> yes. >> you touched this card. are you sure. >> yes. >> this one? >> that's the one. >> let me show you. i don't want to change it.

i only want to show that all the cards are different, right? all cards are different. all cards are different, right? all cards are different. >> all cards are different. all cards are different. nothing is written in the cards, right? >> nothing i can see. >> but here is your card. >> should i take a look? jonathan, i knew you'd take this card. >> so that's very impressive. >> do you remember the joker? >> i remember the joker. >> look at the joker. >> that one there? >> yeah. i don't want to touch -- it's another 8 of hearts. i new it. pretty good. eddie, your reaction? >> that's pretty good. >> he did it. i didn't touch the cards. >> so here we are.

the two right here. >> they are in for a treat on broadway. >> this was extremely impressive. but this wasn't your only illusion at the day. last hour you performed this one out on the plaza on the "today" show. >> you picked a lot of people from our plaza, you're going to do a magic trick. all the people have been randomly selected. should they be nervous? >> yes. >> black is going. >> come with me and go with my assistant, please. we're going to do something unforgettable here. >> what's going to happen? >> you'll see. >> they're going to give you a blindfold. perfect. are you excited? >> yes. >> is it sturdy? he says it's sturdy. >> put your hands like this on the glass. now put on your blindfold to

keep the secret safe. here we go. come with me. fly from new york, from rockefeller plaza -- >> there's one over here that's empty. spinning in this one. >> one, two, three. now! >> what? >> that's insane. >> what? >> there you go. that's the "today" show. moving those four people from one glass container to another. he got me with the cards. you all can see antonio make his debut as the youngest illusionist to ever perform on broadway. that's beginning april 17 at the either bare more theater --

august 17th at theethal barrymore theater. thank you for being here. we'll be right back with more "morning joe." back with more "morning joe." ♪♪ when you have chronic kidney disease... there are places you'd like to be. like here. and here. not so much here. if you have chronic kidney disease, farxiga can help you keep living life. ♪ farxiga ♪ and farxiga reduces the risk of kidney failure, which can lead to dialysis. farxiga can cause serious side effects including dehydration, urinary tract or genital yeast infections in women and men, and low blood sugar. ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may lead to death. a rare life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur.

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in our show's final moments, let's talk about what just happened there. antonio diaz, the illusionist was here. what was that? >> i was watching. you were trying to see the sleight of hand. so was i. i don't understand that. did you catch that one? >> no. best i can tell, he didn't touch that card, he didn't touch the card i had afterwards. on the "today" show he made four poor tourists disappear.

>> no, i'm good. >> there are moments -- it does get crowded out there. really impressive stuff. that does it for us this morning. eddie glaude jr., thank you. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in one minute. we'll see you back here tomorrow. minute we'll see you back here tomorrow (fisher investments) it's easy to think that all money managers are pretty much the same, but at fisher investments we're clearly different. (other money manager) different how? you sell high commission investment products, right? (fisher investments) nope. fisher avoids them. (other money manager) well, you must earn commissions on trades. (fisher investments) never at fisher investments. (other money manager) ok, then you probably sneak in some hidden and layered fees. (fisher investments) no. we structure our fees so we do better when clients do better. that might be why most of our clients come from other money managers. at fisher investments, we're clearly different. ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪

bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ reports." the first court appearance for the new co-defendant in the classified documents case against dr. any moment now, carlos deolive era is set to appear before a judge in miami, accused of deleting surveillance video. from miami we'll head to georgia where the district attorney in fulton county is giving a clear sign that more legal trouble is looming for trump. >> we've been working for 2 1/2