Gloria Steinem dies at age 92

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2:01That's driven to right field by Soto and that's gone. One Soto with a bolt into the seats and right field. Deppin' it first. One over to the plate. The freeman cracks one in the air. Deep center field. Church is going back and there it goes. 33 minute rise. Fines the seats. First foam runs into fourth July. Through ball the refan. Fan caught it. This kid deserves a really good move. Because it's a dick kid. Kick hits a high five. The kick comes back. It says thanks man. Oh that's awesome. That's a nice moment. I'll look at some of the best moments around the big leagues, including that one. Out in Colorado, Johnny Clear anti-Morkey's bias. No Yankees or Red Sides. This show has been a challenge for that for years. I'll read you. Never talk Red Sox or Yankees here. We never showed our highlights. Frankly, I'm glad we skipped yesterday's Red Sox. Right, let's stay away from that for now. Alright, Johnny's now Pulitzer Prize winning host of Pobletory finds out. MSNOW contributor. Pobletory. Pobleto a lot to talk to you about right now.

3:02The NBA with a major move yesterday. Punishing the Los Angeles Clippers for violating salary caps, circumvention rules. The league suspended the team's owner, Steve Balmer, for a year. Find the team $30 million and force the Clippers to forfeit five first round draft picks. A sweeping punishment. Two-time NBA finals MVP, Kawaii Leonard, also hit with a $700,000 fine, which he makes in a day. The NBA began investigating the team last September over $28 million endorsement contract between Leonard and aspiration fund advisor LLC, a company that filed for bankruptcy last year. This came about after Pablo's investigation, his reporting, that the team may have been involved in under the table endorsement deals for Kawaii Leonard. The league said Balmer was suspended for quote, knowingly seeking to help Leonard obtain off court income opportunities, among other issues. The Clippers have said several times they've done nothing wrong. They expect to be exonerated. The team maintaining that stance yesterday.

4:03So Pablo, let's take a step back. We were saying when you came here with this last September, I think, a year ago today. Was it today? Okay. One year exactly. A year ago, you came and you were explaining this to us and we're sports guys and we were into it, but it felt kind of arcane and we weren't sure. My gosh, are you shocked even by the punishment the NBA handed down here? Yeah, I was not sure whether the reporting that we've done for a year, which continues, by the way, as Steve Balmer continues to attest to his own innocence. I wasn't sure if this was going to be reflected in anything resembling accountability because I've been trained as I observe politics, as I have as I have sported broadly, to be cynical around whether truth and evidence matters. And in this case, the scheme that has been now reported by Wauktael Lippt in the NBA's outside council, as well as our reporting certainly, it is vast. It is deeper than even I realized. It is more sweeping and therefore more undeniable. And so the NBA and Adam Silver had a question.

5:03What do we do with this? And the evidence left them unable to do anything, but Levy, the highest and most significant punishment that the NBA has ever seen. And perhaps American professional sports, certainly in the realm of cap circumvention. So, Pablo, can you just go back and kind of explain in basic terms what the Clippers did that was wrong? Because I think people say, well, I don't know, they facilitated some endorsement deals for Kauai. Why is that such an egregious thing to do? What was the time here? The cardinal rule in professional sports, the NBA, in which there's a salary cap, is you cannot pay players beyond what everybody has agreed. In the NBA, it super stars the most valuable asset, the most valuable part of your team. And everyone knows it. And so, what Steve Balmer, the richest owner in American sports, a man, depending on Microsoft's stock, who has $145 billion to play with, what he did, according to reporting and now, this investigation by the NBA, is he flagrantly funneled money through partners that the Clippers had business partners,

6:04largely in the building of the most expensive arena in the history of sports, the Intuitome, to get Kauai Leonard money with fake jobs, and fake sponsorship deals, consulting agreements with those companies themselves. And so, why does this matter? In sports, ostensibly, there are rules that prevent you from buying whatever it is you want, even if you have the money. It's an element of attempted meritocracy. And if you break that cardinal rule as Adam Silver has warned the Clippers previously in 2015 and 2019, when they were investigated previously, but cleared, he's warned them that this is something that we cannot abide by, because it speaks to what every other owner and every fam requires, which is something like a level playing field, something like the rules mattering. And if the rules don't matter in sports, then the game can't be trusted. And here they decided we need to make this matter. It sort of defies, credibly though, that the Clippers would be the only team to be doing this.

7:05And I know you have some other investigations to work, you don't need to divulge now, but I think that is going, there's a lot of speculation here that other franchises may have been doing similar maneuvers. We'll see if that is the case. But what's ice was struck by is that the Clippers, as you write, they were hammered here. This was a massive blow. Quite letter though, slap on the wrist. And it's interesting, he sort of said like, yeah, I made some mistakes, or people might, better yet, people in my inner circle made some mistakes. Because he's been traded at Toronto, and as Willy said, you know, pennies out of his pockets for a fine. I will say there's that moment in Christopher Nolan's Batman, when Bane says they expect one of us in the wreckage brother. And why kind of parachute it out of this? And what's fascinating, right, Ballmer, initially, when this report came out, said, we are going to go to arbitration. But what has become clear is that arbitration, this is very in the weeds, but bear with me. Arbitration is only activated by the player and the union. And when Kawai settled, via the union, and said, oh, a slap on the wrist, $700,000, I can go to Toronto, what the Clippers maybe didn't realize, even as of yesterday,

8:06was that that arbitration option evaporated. And so now all Steve Bomber has left to do is, if he wants, sue the NBA, sue Adam Silver, sue Wachtell Lipton for a wrath now of documentation. And so we will see if he does that. Well, when Kawai got the slap on the wrist, the thing the Clippers had been threatening the entire time, went away. And were they aware of that? And who decided to maybe parachute out first? And Gene Robinson to Steve Bomber want to sue and have all these documents out in the open at a trial. Yeah, really. We will see discovery as a powerful thing, isn't it? But you know, Pablo, I have a question. Adam Silver clearly knows how to read the room. What is your sense of what the other owners, who are not poor people there, but they're not as rich as Steve Bomber? What are they thinking about this? Have they had a sense that maybe the Clippers were playing it fast and loose with this gallery cap?

9:09And do you think they're applauding this? Yeah. Adam Silver is a guy who has proven with this punishment that he knows how to read the room. And the room, the NBA's Board of Governors, the most exclusive country club in basketball, the sense I've had from the entire beginning of this, is that other owners looked at this and said, whatever you think we're doing, this is beyond even that pale. This is beyond what we have been bold enough to attempt. We don't have the money of Steve Balmer. We don't have the cajonis, frankly, of Steve Balmer. And so when it comes to the politics of the sport, just to know that the NBA Commissioner does not do an unprecedented punishment like this, unless he has the co-signs of the other owners in the sport. And so what this says is that those other owners, they were along for what this punishment was going to do to the Clippers. Palmer mocked you, attacked you, did all of those things. And it turns out this morning you had the goods on them and the NBA really did it as well.

10:10MSNOT contributor, Pobletory, Poblet, great reporting, great investigation. I know you're into more of it. I also want to be back soon to talk about NFL players playing in college under Lane Kiffin. I was going to say that's a whole other conversation. Everybody's van Wilder again. Or Rodney Dangerfield and back to school. Perhaps, perhaps. Take your reference. Maybe I'm a little worried. They're looking for their respect. That's right. We'll talk about that later this week. Poblet, thanks so much. We are back at the top of the hour just after 7 o'clock here on the East Coast. And some breaking news we brought to you a little while ago. Pioneering activist Gloria Steinem died on Tuesday at the age of 92. She, of course, was a crusader for feminism during the 1960s. A leader of the movement advocating for social justice, reproductive freedom, domestic violence, prevention, gender equality. Emma Snau's Ariel Rechef has more on the legacy Steinem leaves behind. Gloria Steinem was a seminal figure in politics, culture, and the feminist movement, bursting into the 1960s mainstream with a bunny's tail,

11:13an expose of how women were treated in Hugh Hefner's Playboy clubs. Born in 1934 into Lido, Ohio, Steinem grew up caring for her mother, a former writer who suffered with mental illness. She was a pioneer newspaper reporter and even an editor, but she just couldn't make it all work together, you know, to be the perfect wife and mother, and to have a pioneering career at the same time. She had what was then called a nervous breakdown and was in a sanatorium for quite a while. After graduating from Smith College in 1956 and studying abroad in India, Steinem set out to forge her career in journalism, but became frustrated by limitations, often relegated to cover stereotypically female stories like fashion and relationship advice. In 1963, she made a seismic splash when she accepted an assignment to go undercover at the Playboy Club, applying under an assumed name.

12:14Steinem underwent weeks of training to become a cocktail waitress and hostess known as a bunny. The article exposed the grueling hours, low pay and rampant sexism women working at the club's face and brought a critical eye to Hugh Hefner's empire of sexual liberation. I mean, the Playboy clubs are closing, the customers are getting older and older. The readers of Playboy apparently aren't getting older and older. Yeah. And in any case, even if that weren't true, I personally would not want to go down in history as Hugh Hefner. In 1971, Steinem changed the media landscape once again with the launch of Miss Magazine, a women-led publication that focused on politics, business and cultural topics that had been traditionally reserved for men. As her profile and cultural cachet grew, so did her influence, joining with other prominent feminists to form the National Women's Political Caucus to support female candidates like Bella Abzug and Shirley Chisholm.

13:14In 1978, Steinem and others led a massive march on Washington in support of the Equal Rights Amendment. Crowds of more than 10,000 women swarmed the Capitol in support of the ERA, which aimed to abolish discrimination against women in politics, courts and workplaces. A staunchly independent woman, famous for saying a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, Steinem avoided marriage until her mid-60s, marrying entrepreneur and activist David Bale in 2000. Their marriage would be tragically short-lived. Bale passed away after a battle with brain cancer just three years later. Steinem's decades of advocacy were recognized with America's highest civilian honor. She was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. Because of her work across America and around the world, more women are afforded the respect and opportunities that they deserve, but she also changed how women thought about themselves.

14:20Through the rest of her life, she remained a steadfast champion for women's equality, fiercely defending a woman's right to have an abortion, joining with the 2017 Women's March to protest Donald Trump's first term, and speaking out in support of the Me Too movement against harassment and sexual assault in the workplace. Gloria Steinem remembered as a powerful leader and the defining voice for generations of women. And she's a reporter there. Let's bring in Washington Bureau Chief at USA Today Susan Page Susan. Thanks for hopping on with us this morning as this news broke in the last hour or so. Your reflections on the life of Gloria Steinem and the impact she left behind. I'm not sure younger generations perhaps appreciate how much change she brought. When your producer called me, it was the first time I'd heard she had passed away. She said, can you come in the air to talk about Gloria? And I said, Gloria Steinem died because there is only one Gloria.

15:21So I knew immediately who she was referring to. You know that you're the piece you just ran mentioned found her her her co-founding of Ms. magazine. And that was a journalism student at Northwestern when Ms. was founded and you can imagine here was a magazine founded by women edited by women that dealt with the most serious of topics. And that was revolutionary. That was a very powerful statement to women and girls like myself who were looking at a future and trying to figure out what it was we might be able to do. And I remember when Ms. was founded too, I was at the University of Michigan working at the student newspaper. And I remember how particularly women on the staff of the Michigan Daily were electrified by this fact, by this happening as we would have said back then. And Gloria Steinem had a knack for being at the center of of happenings of of the events that sort of surf the the the zeitgeist. What was that gift in her? What what gave her the ability to be sort of right there where the culture was going to be five minutes from now?

16:43You know, she was smart and she was interesting. She was never dull. I mean, I didn't know I knew her. She didn't know me, but you knew that when Gloria Steinem came on, she was going to have somebody to stay. And she was fearless. You know, one thing we I think that we lose perhaps is not fully realized now is how much ridicule she endured. And even when you know we're talking about Ms. magazine and and the reaction of student journalists to that. But the world was not all enamored with this idea. She put up with a lot a lot of abuse, but she did things. You know, she's she's activist and organizer. Political thought leader, but I remember her as a journalist and you think about that 1963 article about playboy bunnies. Barbara Walters did a feature about being a bunny about the same time. And it was a feature. It was kind of cute. Gloria Steinem did a piece about being a playboy bunny. And it was an expose. It was an expose that examined kind of the finances and the that that being a playboy bunny, the life, the really tough life, work lives that people had and so that generated all this money for you, have her.

18:02And it was a very different and bold kind of piece. And you know, she I in hearing her interviews in the in more recent years, you know, some there was a time I think when she was a little embarrassed that this was her breakthrough as a playboy bunny. But it really reflected her attitude about being willing to kind of go anywhere, explore anything and talk about it in an honest way. That had not been discussed before. Yes, there's an her mark her legacy obviously so remarkable, but just speak what do you think it means at this current moment at a time where, of course, so much progress for women has made in decades sense, but there've also been real setbacks in recent years, some women feel feel differently and they feel like they're have taken a step backwards after a road, be weighed after some presidential elections after some of the changes in the culture. The list goes on and on you, what do you think about as you think about that as the backdrop here? What are some thoughts to come to you about glorious time? Well, of course, lots of progress. My for women, lots of opportunities that women didn't used to have on the other hand, the equal rights amendment never passed.

19:10We've never elected a woman president and some women's rights are now under challenged something glorious time herself recognized when she spoke just recently, I mean, just in the last few years, about her concerns about the direction that President Trump was taking the country. Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today Susan Page helping us remember glorious Steinem who has died at the age of 92. Susan, thanks so much. We appreciate it. Coming up, we'll dig into reporting on how the White House is preparing for a democratic takeover should Republicans lose control of Congress this November. That's straight ahead on Morning Joe. She throws things, wander and started hoarding. Mums Alzheimer's was already so hard, but then we found out she had agitation that may happen with dementia due to Alzheimer's disease.

20:13And that was a different kind of difficult. So we asked her doctor for more help. Seeing symptoms like these in a loved one, it could be time to ask their doctor about Rex Ulti, Rex Pippers old two milligrams. The first FDA approved treatment for this condition. Rex Ulti is proven to reduce agitation symptoms. Rex Ulti should not be used as an as needed treatment. Elderly people with dementia-related psychosis have increased risk of death or stroke. Report fever, stiff muscles and confusion which can be life threatening or uncontrolled muscle movements which may be permanent. High blood sugar can lead to coma or death. Weight gain, increased cholesterol, unusual urges, dizziness on standing, falls, seizures, troubleswallowing or sleepiness may occur. Learn more about these and other side effects at rixulti.com. Tap ad for PI. I'm glad I asked for help. Ask your loved ones doctor about Rex Ulti. Hey, before your Q3 call, I've got the campaign brief ready. Built from last quarter's data and the competitive landscape. Great. Did you include the differentiation angle this CMO asked for? Already in there. Three angles, no competitors using right now. Just need your approval.

21:14Approved. Thanks. Oh, agents. Where would we be without you? Hmm, somewhere with a lot more tabs open. Create your first Monday agent in minutes at Monday.com. Can I just quickly say hello to you? For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics. Why are you holding this sign? You've ever been to a protest before? He's safe. People that we cover who allow us to enter their lives. How's everybody doing? Everybody doing okay? How long has been in line? I love human beings to spend time connecting with them is the biggest blessing that I could ask for. From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob Soberoff. We can set 10 a.m. Eastern on MS now. A new report reveals the White House is preparing for a potential barrage of democratic investigations. If Republicans, in fact, lose control of Congress in the November midterms.

22:17Political reports President Trump is family and officials close to him now are preparing for a democratic takeover next year. Specifically, they're looking for lawyers expanding the definition of executive privilege, briefing political appointees and reviewing oversight materials from Trump's last term to prepare for another onslaught from Democrats. Political reports, Trump aides inside the White House began to prepare for democratic investigations. As early as this spring, with the council's office holding private briefings for political appointees, that's according to two former administration officials familiar with those briefings. One of the former officials and another Trump ally told Politico, current and former administration officials are asking each other for recommendations about who could represent them in a personal capacity if they are subpoenaed in 2027. At the same time, the Washington Post reports the White House Council's office has encouraged staff to be careful about what they put in writing and offered guidance about how to respond to congressional inquiries.

23:17Let's bring in now MS now contributor Mike Barnacle, staff writer at the Atlantic Mark Liebovich, and MS now senior capital Hill reporter and host of Way Too Early Ali Vitale. So Liebow perhaps not surprising that there's at least preparations underway for what could be just a rash of democratic investigations, even if they just take the house, you're going to see a lot of that around so many issues. You can look at the Pentagon, you can look at immigration policy and on down the line. But are you surprised the level to which this administration, this White House appears to be preparing itself for next year? I mean, not at all surprised. I think what you probably have going on behind the scenes is the president I'm guessing looks above all to people who can be theatrical about this, people who can argue his case in the media. And I think that's probably going to be his primary strategy here because, I mean, as we saw in the first term, their MO after a while is just to blow off what Congress asked for to defy subpoenas as much as possible.

24:21But also to really put in the crosshairs the people who are doing the investigating to go on the offensive to ignore the pointed questions and basically treat this as another political campaign. So I'm guessing that he will be looking for people who are versed in that and who are willing to do the job that way. I also think like for me as I talk to Democrats on the Hill, the thing that they're going to have to strategize around is how do you deal with the fact that these subpoenas are going to be postponed and pushed and now they're going to be pushed? And as much as the White House and Republicans are preparing for what the legal fight might look like, getting personal attorneys and all of that, like Democrats are going to have to figure out, hey, what do they focus on and what are the most salient lines of attack on accountability? But then also, how do they actually get the answers so that these committees aren't just sitting there with empty chairs and unanswered subpoenas? And I think Lameer, that's going to be like the political strategy piece of this for Democrats who, yes, they have a slew of things as Libba was saying that they want to investigate.

25:21But which are the ones that are the most salient after an election cycle that is likely to hinge on affordability, anti-corruption systems that work for the wealthy and well connected but not Americans at home? And I think that's where we've got to kind of see the way that they prioritize these things both at the oversight committee with Robert Garcia, at Judiciary with Jamie Raskin, and of course the way that Lamekers attack it if Democrats take the House. Yeah, so much of this might depend on the margins this fall. Like if the Democrats are squeak out of wind in the House, there might be less of an appetite. They'll have to do some to be sure. Less of an appetite for sweeping investigations, but if it is a landslide, and if they're able to flip the Senate, that will change things dramatically. And also they'll have to confront where they want to go down the road of impeachment again. A lot of the base is going to demand that. But we can know that at least Trump's first impeachment, the Ukraine one, actually helped him in the polls briefly anyway. But I think there's going to be a sense of the for history they need to do that. But Mike Barnacle, way in on that, if you think that's a good avenue. But I also think it's possible we may be barreling towards a real confrontation moment where the Congress, if Democrats get some of it, are going to demand things to the White House.

26:26And the White House is simply going to say no. I mean, this White House has shown very little respect for the building on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. Even Republicans are in charge. If Democrats are there, they might just be saying, look, we don't even recognize your authority. Well, first of all, there's so much to investigate. And so a little time to finish the investigations. I mean, Trump family well-followed is topic A, I would think, among a lot of members of Congress, Democrats. But the idea that we don't have a functioning government is more important than all of this. I mean, on a day-to-day basis, we seem not to have a functioning government. Whether it's regard to what we ought to be doing more for Ukraine, whether we ought to be paying more attention to what's happening to the United States Armed Forces, not just a Navy, but the Army, the Marine Corps, the whole thing. It's a policy that we're at war now with Iran. When we have a president who can't really explain why we're there, can't explain how long we're going to be there. And certainly none of them have even touched upon the daily cost of this war.

27:29Or just the baseline constitutional responsibility of Congress would be nice. Vote on a war. Vote on tariffs. Well, they don't want to cross Donald Trump, obviously. Meanwhile, Dan Driscoll said yesterday, he was his last full day as US Army Secretary, Driscoll posted on social media, the role of the honor of a lifetime, praising soldiers and their families adding, we could not have made the progress we did without the support of Secretary Hegseth. He was interesting there. He offered no explanation for his exit, but it comes as we've been reporting Driscoll submitted his resignation amid tension with Hegseth, following firings by the Defense Secretary of several senior military officials overseeing the next generation of warfare and strategic projects amid the Iran War. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina is urging President Trump to fire Secretary Hegseth in the wake of Driscoll's exit. The long post on social media yesterday, Senator Tillis thanked Driscoll for his service before rebuking Hegseth for, quote, creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks. Tillis goes on to write, I served on Senate Armed Services for eight years in his chair or ranking member of the personnel and readiness committee.

28:40I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country. He is intimidated by competence right Senator Tillis and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well being of our fighting force. Tillis concludes writing, I urge the President to find a new leader at the Pentagon who will retain and empower our military talent rather than diminish it. But obviously, Lee Boz-Senator Tillis is on his way out of town. He's kind of liberated to say what he wants to say, what a lot of Republicans are thinking about Pete Hegseth. But President Trump still holds Hegseth tight. We just learned again this morning that he's quietly Secretary Hegseth extending troop deployments into next year signaling that this war could go on and on. Obviously readiness has been a problem. And also using frankly woke methods to go through the military and get rid of leaders of color. Leaders who are women talking a lot about masculinity and testosterone levels and things that don't have a whole hell of a lot to do with the war in Iran.

29:47I mean, look, I mean if Tom Tillis wanted to like ensure that Donald Trump is going to stand by Pete Hegseth, he could have said exactly what he just did. I mean, not only is he on the way out and you know, whether he feels liberated or not, the President has no use for him whatsoever. He's going to do whatever he can't probably do to fight a guy like this, especially when he speaks publicly. And Pete Hegseth has been under siege from day one. And the President loves people like that when he feels like they are fighting for him and they are sort of reading from his script, whether it's culture wars or whatever. I mean, Driscoll is an interesting guy though because he in addition to being one of the rare people who had some bipartisan support in the Pentagon in this regime, he also seemed to have the support of the President and I'll be really interested to see how the President does respond to what seems like a pretty candid conversation he had. And you know, an informative conversation he had with Driscoll on the way out. I mean, he probably will stand down, but who knows?

30:49I mean, Lamir has talked so much about the isolation of this President right now. And so now at least we have an understanding that Driscoll took his concerns about modernization and other efforts within the Pentagon. And other efforts within the Army to the President before resigning. I think that's notable. And certainly the reverberations on Capitol Hill have been there. There have been several Republican members who have said that they think that Hegseth has gone too far on these firings or forced resignations. There are concerns about the future modernization of the military because someone like Driscoll was so focused on that. And now obviously is no longer in that post. I also think that for someone like Tillis who has been clear that he regrets his vote to confirm Hegseth to the role, his statement only bears out that the concerns he had before voting yes on Hegseth are still the exact concerns that have been the reality of the Hegseth tenure atop the Pentagon. Managerial concerns, it is a massive bureaucracy and oversight of it has been slim to none from Capitol Hill. But that's also that Hegseth hasn't been giving them regular briefings on things that I think they expected they would continue to be briefed on.

31:56And so there is a real concern here, even though the Speaker of the other day said to me like, I can't, I'm not equipped to judge the firings, the resignations, the way that Hegseth is running that building. I mean, there's oversight that's the central role of Congress when it comes to the executive. But if you put that aside, there are Republicans who are concerned about this pattern at the Pentagon. At the end of the day, though, their opportunity to register those concerns was during the confirmation process and they voted to confirm this guy. And how many times have we seen that or senators have now decided to be unleashed and be critical of cabinet members, who they already voted for. The list is endless. But you're certainly right to bring up the isolation of Trump right now. He exists far more so in the first term in a real bubble and more so than any of his predecessors. In terms of his news, it's Fox News, it's a couple of the right wing channels. It's not even Twitter anymore. It's true social, which is just AI Slop and an echo chamber. He's very rarely out in the country. He's surrounded by billionaires or lackeys.

32:57It's all true believers. And that includes how he gets his news, which Mike, you know, I mean, AIDS have said to me on this very topic, like he gets it from like whatever Natalie Hart prints out for him as opposed to actually talking to the experts. He was surprised per reporting the one Driscoll came in and expressed his concerns about readiness at the Pentagon. Trump says he didn't know that. And he is still a hexath fan. He likes that's fight in his way he looks on TV, but there are real worries about the Pentagon in the present as we are still in a war with Iran, but absolutely in the future. Is it going to be ready for what comes next? Look, the president of the United States has sat there in the Oval Office doing his daily shenanigans. Press conferences, he calls them as Pete Hankseth has presided over the diminution of a generation of military leaders, General George fired General Donahue, one of the most capable offices anyone has seen in the last 10 to 15 years fired along with a number of others in all of the services.

33:57He has gutted the top of the house of the next future generation of leaders and he does so as a president of the United States sits there, you would know more about this than I do seemingly getting more and more withdrawn unto himself. It's always been about him. Everything is always about him, but it's seemingly more so today. And the bubble gets smaller by today. We're mind viewers that the Hegseth confirmation vote was 50, 50, three Republicans, dissented Collins, Morkowski, McConnell, JD Vance, the vice president had to come in to break the tie at 51, 50 MS now is Ali Vitale, the Atlantic's Mark Liebovich. Thank you both as always. Still ahead on morning Joe, our next guest argues, President Trump's attacks on elections, including calls for redistricting mail and voting are 250 years in the making. The author of the new book Stealing Elections American Style joins us next on morning Joe. You know that feeling too many updates too many meetings too many things falling through the cracks Monday dot com was built for that gap the AI work platform designed from the ground up for people and agents to work side with the

35:18agents to work side by side and deliver more together drafting the brief, flagging risks, running a competitive scan your agent can do it all in the best part anyone can build one. Even you try it. Create your first Monday agent today at Monday dot com. Listen to your favorite MS now shows anytime as a podcast. Enjoy new episodes of morning Joe deadline White House and the Rachel Matto show. Every small D democratic muscle that we have is flexing plus the last word with Lauren so Donald the beat with Ari Melper the weeknight and more on the go wherever you get your podcasts for ad free listening to all of your favorite shows subscribe to MS now premium on Apple podcasts. There are elections are the foundation of American democracy. They also a bit of a myth and happen for most of our nation's history the book is titled Stealing Elections American style in it author and attorney David Walbert puts today's headlines into some historical context.

36:30Saying they are alarming of course but not unprecedented asking readers. Will we learn from our history and build a stronger democracy based on fair honest elections or will we repeat the mistakes of the past David joins us now he's been an attorney for more than four decades arguing countless voting rights cases including. And so we're going to talk about the first one before the supreme court David thanks so much for being with us this morning I want to talk about the here and now a little bit but first some of the history that you see of elections being manipulated in this country. Yeah well the book makes the point that election skull dug a week goes way back and it is the first chapter in the book is a story about the 1876 presidential election. The famous statements that is in there is by one of the people on the state Louisiana canvassing board and that's the state board that will collect all the returns from all the pears is in the state and they report out what the final total for the state was for all statewide elections.

37:30And this one individual on the board said well they may have us in the vote but we got them in the count and until then when of 8000 votes in Louisiana which in a state where is 150,000 votes for cast statewide so it's pretty good pretty good margin and that's even with an awful lot of this cheating where Republicans had disenfranchised by 8000 registered Democrats right before the election where they didn't have a chance to contest it. So you've got that kind of stealing in a very flagrant way in our history and you've got things like the other Johnson famous 1948 Lyndon Johnson Senate election in Texas actually the 1941 one had the same problem in terms of a vote count and cheating in the South I look at the elections to the two different sides so elections one is controlling who votes. The other side is controlling the count and of course in the South and I practice my career has been in the South tried cases elsewhere but my voting careers folks on the South and we have of course a miserable history in terms of allowing African Americans to participate in politics during the 1900s and up until really 1965 when the voting rights act was first passed by Congress and some of the flagrant barriers that kept black people from the South.

38:57So voting a lot of people don't know the fact that black weren't even allowed to vote in the South until 1945 there was something called the white primary and black people were not allowed to vote in the Democratic primary by a rule and the Supreme Court said well that's fine that's constitutional. So we've got this pretty bad history. Yeah, yeah, no, your book opens with the flagrant fraud as you argue that had referred whether it be Hayes the presidency in 1876 so we certainly have a checkered history here. Talk to us though as you obviously have examined the past parallels you see with the future like with Donald Trump in particular who claimed without evidence that there was election fraud in 2020 but now many people fear might be trying to set up an effort to tamper with things whether that's in 2026 midterms or helping whatever comes next in 2028. Well, to a certainty after looking at all the history and the history and litigating this stuff for four and a half decades we're in a unique period never since never in history country as much as since the Civil War when the federal government got more involved in elections with the 14th, 13th, 15th amendments never has the federal government been opposed and to open voting and trying to liberalize voting and permit it.

40:14So we're in a unique situation here where the White House is leading the charge to restrict voting on the first side of the coin so we've seen everything possible to control who votes through gerrymandering trying to take away mail voting and then this nonsense about citizen noncitizens voting which is completely fabricated and you know I love the story in Louisiana state Mike Johnson does the party lines as noncitizens voting we got to have safe act. We got to have documented proof of citizenship because all this problem with noncitizen voting whether truth of the matter is in Louisiana for example secretary of state did a 40 a study going back 40 years of all the elections in Louisiana and out of 77 million votes cast in that time there was a possible 79 noncitizens might have voted out of 77 million that's one out of a million so we've got to pass the save act in order to require a vote of the state of the United States. We're more and more and more barriers to voting and more and more documentary proof so maybe you would catch 79 people who were noncitizens and in the process you're going to lose hundreds of thousands of legitimate citizen voters because you're making the system more and more complicated and cumbersome and that's the goal that's the purpose because those voters crystal clear that those voters are predominantly democratic because they are less likely to have past sports have a convenience burst

41:42to prove that citizenship and so on so the sole purpose of it is political and Donald Trump semi honest about that he says we want to have 50 years of Republican Germany Republican empire that's what we got to get rid of mail voting and and have the save act so okay so that let me ask you that. Let me ask you a question David is it harder or easier to bag an election today than it was in 1960. It's much harder the modern technology makes election cheating on the front end really hard I think that's why you're seeing so much about you know the gerrymander effort that Trump did during the summer this year is probably Democrats have to win 5 million more votes than then Republicans in order to break even in the house. That's a pretty big gap and that and mail in voting so you're trying to whack it on the front end you're trying to cheat on that side you know ball box stuffing like it happened in the old days that really doesn't happen and that really is pretty close impossible and even you know all the studies of voter fraud and that's been the standard Republican mantra for the last 20 years

42:52to justify making it hard every study shows a voter fraud and I think the Keta Institute very conservative group they said it is so slight as to be unmaterable you know you're talking about one and you know one and a hundred million votes may be fraudulent so again the every time you tighten up the rules you're just knocking out legit about citizen voters to read out you know one voter and so it's just an excuse it's a red herring and it's a fake excuse to try and justify making a voting harder harder David I suspect you know you were more in the in the months to come here this is a really important book especially it's this time in our history it's titled stealing elections American style it's available now author attorney David Walbert who's spent more than 40 years working on cases around elections we really appreciate your insight and hope to talk to you in soon thank you. Thank you coming up president Trump is promising to help incumbent Republicans locked in tight reelection races but he actually going to spend the massive campaign cash he is sitting on we'll dig into that ahead on morning Joe.

44:00Next Friday marks 25 years since the attacks of September 11th if you can believe it less than two weeks after that tragic day a quarter century ago Congress created an unprecedented victim compensation fund to support the families of those killed or injured that effort led to very difficult questions about how to place monetary value on lives lost injury suffered in futures forever change special master Kenneth Feinberg who oversaw the fund chronicle his experience in the 2005 book what is life worth now being re-released with new reflections on what that experience can teach a divided America and can find for joins us now can it's good to have you back we were just remarking it's just staggering to me that that was 25 years ago something that for a lot of us who are around at that time is so fresh in our mind it's been a quarter of a century and you write some new reflections in the new book about that one reason I wrote the new reflections and had the book

45:09republished is just what you've said Willie there are millions of Americans that don't know about 9 11 have no idea about the victim compensation fund and I thought it was important to reeducate America about how that fund was created how it was supported by the American people and how ultimately the victims of 9 11 voluntarily join that fund when they had an option of litigating if they wanted to but we basically got all but a handful to come into the fund voluntarily which was congress's objective in setting up the fun well that's the thing I mean we it's for people who are living in this political world and don't remember that time on September 12 how united the country was congress kind of gave you the check you needed to say go take care of these people and one of the things you write in these new reflections is you're not sure that would happen today I'm pretty sure it wouldn't don't forget congress created that fund with public taxpayer money

46:13all taxpayer money no roll call unanimous consent voted without objection through both houses signed immediately by president push and deputy and attorney general john ashcroft interviewed me and told me to get going on this fund you know can this was unique in American history and you were in charge of distributing funds millions and millions of dollars of funds to the survivors families of those who were lost 9 11 and through the this latest addition I was just reading it over the weekend they came a point in time when you were at a meeting of citizens relatives in Brooklyn and you describe the process that you were going through in terms of distributing the money and you said it's a tough business and a guy stood up in the back of the hall and said excuse me this is not a business we're talking about my wife

47:15in terms of victim what did that do to your view of your job at that point that's a great question I learned the hard way I made mistake after mistake in dealing with this very unique program and dealing directly with individuals who lost loved ones or burned and seriously injured I learned feel quickly my law degree wasn't much help better a divinity degree or a degree in psychiatry when you're dealing with very emotional people who are rightfully angry frustrated worry about the future and you learn the hard way because you make mistakes and you learn that empathy and sensitivity is a lot more important than your law degree and trying to calculate damages and one of the most important things we did in that fund which wasn't even in the statute we gave anybody who wanted to see me privately privately and over 33 months I must have held 900 hearings privately my colleague who you know of course Camille Byros she held a series of

48:29hearings that you'll overflow and the story you heard privately mr. Feinberg a woman 26 years old comes in never matter mr. Feinberg I lost my husband he was a fireman at the world for it's an and he left me with our three children six four and two now mr. Feinberg you're going to give me 1.8 million dollars tax free I want it in 30 days and I said to her Mrs. Jones why do you need the money in 30 days she said why I'll tell you why mr. Feinberg I have terminal cancer I have 10 weeks to live my husband was going to survive me and now my three little ones are going to be orphans I have got to get this money while I still have my faculties I gotta find a trust I have to find a trustee a guardian my kid's education their health care we ran down to the treasury we usher that check through

49:39got her the check in 30 days eight weeks later she died when you hear hundreds of stories like this it was the easily the most debilitating pot of this assignment and to this day remember these stories but it would the it would these private hearings with victims that would the difference between I'm not interested in fine works listening cameels listening let's um let's go into the fund I mean it's a heartbreaking heartbreaking story I sadly I agree that I don't know that the nation would rally in the same way we didn't when the pandemic happened we were very very polarized but speeches a little bit briefly it before you go about how the other part of legacy of 9.11 is that people are still dying people are still growing sick because of what happened that day 25 years ago there's been in 2015 see we couldn't pay in 2001 all of these late in cancer claims we didn't even know about them

50:40but around 2015 congress stepped up and filled that void by reopening the fund saying if you were a first responder or somebody injured on 9.11 and your cancer didn't develop for a decade and the doctors and the scientists say there is a link to this day congress has permitted those individual claimants to get paid for health related illnesses and I think there's a fund still in perpetuity till something like 20 90 to pay all the legacy claims of those victims and so it's a it's a marvelous um unique you put it best will a unique consensus that I don't think today I say reflect not going to get congress to unanimously ratify without a roll call just unanimous consent everybody's agree we're one community that was a singular moment in time and

51:44it'll be a lasting historical plus for the country I think you had a difficult job and you did it well in that trying moment the updated version of what is life worth available next Tuesday September 8th in the week of the commemorations of the 25th anniversary of 9.11 author special master of the September 11th victims compensation fund Ken Feinberg can thanks so much for being here thank you so much still had treasury secretary Scott bests and weighs in on rising US gas prices pointing the finger at Ukraine will show you his new comments plus several Republican candidates say they will skip president Trump's midterm convention in Dallas next week I'm in criticism over the 25,000 dollar price of a ticket will go through that and other issues with the event that much more more Joe comes right back you now you can watch alley velchy five nights a week and prime time on ms now as he takes command of the 11th hour breaking news in the last hour the 11th hour with alley velchy week

52:50nights at 11 p.m. Eastern on ms now