Alaska Senate Race and Midterm Outlook

You might not think about oil and natural gas, but it's a big part of your daily routine. From the soap you use to your toothpaste Even your bedsheets More than six thousand everyday products are made using oil and natural gas. Companies like Eergy Trfer work behind the scenes, safely transporting these resources across the country through a network of underground pipelines Learn more at ittakes ennergy. com For me, being a part of this place has always been about the people, not about the politics. From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob Soorov. Weekends at ten AM Eastern on MS now I do actually think there's a really big silver lining here. and that's the simple fact that a lot of legal experts expected this case to go the wrong direction by seven to two or even eight to one. The fact that this case was a five to four decision effectively means that the concept of birthright citizenship, which is an absurdity to the fourteenth Amendment That concept is hanging by a thread. And so what I take from that is, yes, we've got to fix the immigration system even more. We have to be even more aware of who's coming into our country to make sure that they're not benefiting from this atrocious Supreme Court ruling, But it also means that we have to keep fighting, Laura because we actually have an opportunity to reverse this decision just as we revered so many bad decisions throughout the generations That is Vice President JD Vance on Fox News last night reacting to the Supreme Court's decision to uphold Birthright citizenship. Well, much more from that ruling in just a moment plus Another big win for a Democratic socialist candidate this time in Colorado defefeating a fifteen term incumbent in the Denver area. We'll tell you how she did it and what she believes. Also ahead, we'll dig in a new reporting on the massive into the billions amount of money President Trump has made from cryptocurrency just since returning to the White House this year. The numbers are staggering. Good morning, welcome to morning, Joe. It is Wednesday july first. Yes, we've made it to July with us MS now contributor, Mike Barnacle and MS now senior legal reporter, Lisa Rubin. Good morning to vote Get to the Supreme Court in a minute, but just quickly, Mike The amount of money, this new reporting that we're getting from the filing of Donald Trump, the president of the United States has made just since he came back to office in January of last year up into two billion dollars plus a staggering amount of money that he has made personally. And that story was followed earlier this week By the story about his sons and the Secretary of Cerce's sons, Howard Lutniick's sons, making money off of deals that the United States government is involved with in foreign countries. It's incredible what is going on. The level of corruption that is going on in Washington. Remember the outcry when Hunter Biden was on the board of Barisma while his dad was vice president of the United States peeanuts compared to what we're seeing. We're going to get into the details of that in just a moment, but we will start with the Supreme Court ending its term yesterday By upholding birthright citizenship, that ruling comes in response to President Trump's executive order seeking to end automatic citizenship for babies born in the United States to people who are in the country either temporarily or illegally The ruling was six three with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority reaffirming the long settled understanding of the fourteenth Amendment that anyone born in the United States is a citizen with very limited exceptions Roberts wrote, citizenship then and now was the right to have rights to freely participate in our political community. The framers of the fourourteenth Amendment extended that promise to every freeborn person in this land. Roberts concluding, quote We keep that promise today Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Clarence Thomas dissented arguing President Trump's order was constitutional. In his own dissent, Alito called the case one of the most important decisions in the history of the court and that the court, quote has made a serious mistake. Alito, adding, The fourourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who at birth owe allegiance solely to this country. Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed the order is illegal but only under federal law, not the Constitution Pointee wrote Congress could enact new legislation to establish exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country. So Lisa, this is the big one we talked about yesterday when you previewed the final day that we'd be watching for Any surprises in either the decision or the vote here I think there are a bunch of surprises here. I mean there are one hundred and ninety four pages worth of some surprises here, Willie. Let's start with Justice Kavanaugh, who stakes out a ground here that I think was not well anticipated by the oral argument. He's essentially siding with majority, as you just noted, but not on constitutional grounds. I was explaining last night Justice Kavanaugh's reasoning to some of our colleagues in the elevator bunch of twenty s who work in the newsroom. And they looked at me so quizically and I said, that is the plainest I can explain it. And if it doesn't make sense to you right now, it doesn't make sense to me either. So let me try to explain to our viewers. Justice Kavanaugh saying the equal protection, I'm sorry, the citizenship clause of the equal prrotection Clause doesn't foreclose Trump's executive order forbidding birthright citizenship to certain people but a statute that uses almost identical wording does And you might be wondering, how is that possible? He says that's because the statute was enacted after the Supreme Court's last case on birthright citizenship, which carved out a number of sort of exceptions and admitted of no others. And he says because of that, we should interpret Congress to say there are only a few instances in which people born in this country aren't citizens. And if Congress wants to change it, that's up to Congress. How he can take though almost identical wording in the Constitution and a federal statute and interpret them differently might leave a lot of people scratching their heads, particularly when all but invites Congress to change the law if they feel differently. The other big th surprise here is Justice Alito, who does dissent from the decision, but also says birthright citizenship in the Constitution is a floor. It's not a ceiling. And we have humanitarian issues in this country presented by those people who are not yet citizens. So according to Justice Alito If you want to change the composition of who counts as a citizen in this country, that too is up to Congress. So on one hand, you've got Justice Kavanaugh saying, if you don't like who's a citizen, you can limit it. And on the other hand, you have Justice Alito, who also disagrees with the majority's ruling on the Constitution, saying, if Congress wants to confer citizenship on more people in this country It has the latitude to do so and maybe it should do so. And so in both respects, big surprises here. other big surprise big debate between Justices Thomas and Jackson about who is meant to benefit from the citizenship clause of the fourteenth Amendment, Justice Thomas believes that it was really intended always just to help the citizens of slaves. but says it was never meant to confer citizenship on people who are temporarily here or unlawfully here. Justice Jackson really taking a big issue with that and says, the fact that we have consensus about what the central motivation of the fourteenth Amendment was doesn't justify. and I'm going to read here her words. Justice Thomas's myopic treatment of it, that the whole point of the fourteenth Amendment was an anti caste, anti subordination reset, not a mere spot treatment for the dark stain of slavery. In other words, don't you dare use the experiences of black Americans to drive a wedge between us and other people in this country who want to be here and should be here by virtue of the Constitution. This obviously An obsession, perhaps of President Trump for some time now, getting rid of birthright citizenship. Now it becomes, I think, a political question, as the justiceices said, If you want to change this, go to the Congress, Speaker Johnson said, condemn the decision. You heard JD Vance, condemning the decision. Even some of the justices talking about birth tourism. But this just encourages people now to come here, have a baby and move along. Again, those are political questions. But I guess one of the big questions a lot of people have is this has been in the fourteenth Amendment for all these generations whyy now this sudden almost revelation by some people that, oh my God, this is a terrible thing Well, I think part of it is what they see on the ground, right? This Dcumentation, at least, according to the Conservative legal movement, of birth tourism, which came up at oral argument. And there was an exchange between John Suer, the Solicitor General and Chief Justice Roberts, where John Suer basically said, there are eight billion people in this country who are a plane ride away from being birth tourists and therefore giving citizenship to their country. And John Roberts's retort to that was, well, it's the same old constitution, mister Suer But I think the other thing in this is sort of like zooming out and looking at the Trump administration Writ large, This is an administration where what used to be fringy theories about how to interpret the Constitution suddenly fall into the mainstream. So we think about the unitary executive theory, which used to be something that nobody really talked about, has definitely been pushed to the forefront of their legal agenda. Similarly, some of the ideas that motivated january sixth and some of the legal strategies underpinning it things that people like Ken Chesbro and John Eastman were propounding. Those were things nobody talked about until they started talking about them. and now all of a sudden, they have major currency within the Republican Party and certain facets of the conservative legal project. What is the interior executive theory The un the unitary executive theory is essentially an all powerful executive that gets to consolidate all sorts of powers in the executive that we might have thought about and other times as more equally balanced between the three baranes. It's interesting that the lives of so many people peopleople not yet born, people who are here now. came into conflict in the court this week. You get temporary protected status rulings You have the fourteenth Amendment that we're talking about. It's just interesting all of these people, most of these people, I would assume A living right on a very thin line. I think that's absolutely true. And I think it also speaks to sort of the multifaceted approach of this administration to solving what they perceive as policy problems. So right if you're thinking about the policy problem being undocumented immigration to this country, they have attacked it in all sorts of ways through a birthright citizenship executive order that's now been found to be Unconstitutional, but also by cutting off temporary protected status to people from all sorts of countries, by starting these waves of crackdown on undocumented people in cities all throughout the country. It's not just that they choose one door to open. It's literally, as our colleague Chris Hayes once said to me in a similar context, it's like they go down the hallway of a hotel and they kick down open every single door that they can at a problem that they believe exists and should be eradicated. The presresident is saying yesterday in a post, the decision is too bad for the country, but that it will be, quote easily fixed ress it won't be so easy, but he certainly will try. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court also struck down longtime rules that place limits on just how much national political party committees can spend in coordination with candidates. There was a six to three decision there. The court ruled the Federal Election Campaign Act enacted in nineteen seventy four, violates the firstirst Amendment rights of political parties. Republicans, including Vice President Fance and the National Republican Senatorial Committee brought the challenge to court. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion, which reads in part, in short, constitutional text, history, and precedent, established that the political party coordinated expenditure limits violate the First Amendment This decision is expected to give Republicans a financial edge in the upcoming midterms because the party's committees have much more cash on hand than Democrats do and can deploy that money without being hindered by previous caps and limits. So twenty four hours ago, when you sat with us, Lisa, you were looking ahead to this and saying if this goes the way it looks like it might go and it did This will fundamentally change money in politics. and here we are. Absolutely. And it will be the death, I think of the Independent Super Pack And the rise again of party apparatuses. And if you're a major donor in this country or somebody who bundles and you're thinking about where to give your money in excess of sort of the individual contribution limits right now, all of a sudden the major parties became a much more attractive place to spend it. I will also say it's a huge advantage for the RNC. while the Senate committees and the House committees of the Republican partarty have a cash edge over the Equivalent on the Democratic side, the amount of cash on hand for the RNC Overall compared to the DNC is staggering. The DNC is in debt The Republican National Committee carrying over one hundred million dollars right now in cash on hand. So going into this next midterm election cycle with this decision in hand This is not a good place for the Democratic Party and its subordinate committees to be. How does it affect the flow of money the flow of contributions? Well, I think one of the concerns that the dissenters have, Mike, is that what it will do is basically allow people to circumvent individual limits by giving well in excess of what you could give to a candidate, by giving it to a committeeee. So right now, individuals can give hundred thousand dollars to a party committee, it may be that because that party committee can now coordinate with a candidate, if you really want to donate, donate, donate to Mike Barnacle, you may have incentives to do so through his party rather than through Sper PCs. I've heard people in the political sphere say that this maybe doesn't affect the overall sum of money in the political system, but rather Where people are giving it and who has control of it. Right now, the chair of the Republican National Committee, I understand, a man named Joe Grooters, and I apologize to him and our viewers, if I've mispronounced his last name. He's probably the happiest person in all of Washington right now. Yeah. And then you comp pare this with the twenty ten Citizens United decision as well, just one more step in the dismantling of campaign finance laws in the country. One more The Supreme Court also decided to uphold two state laws barring the participation of transgender female athletes from girls and women's sports teams. In another six three decision, the justices ruled against two transgender students challenge restrictive laws in West Virginia and Idaho. In his opinion, Justice Kavagh argued the laws do not violate either the fourourteenth Amendment or Title I but did express sympathy for transgender girls and women who want to play sports, writing their desire to compete warrants respect, adding they should not be ostracized or vilified Although the ruling directly concerns only West Virginia and Idaho, it is likely to affect twenty five other states ilar bs And isn't that one of the points here, Lisa, that this now will be used interpreted across the country as effective ban on transgender girls in sports? Absolutely. And that's particularly true, Willie, because one of the challenges or one of the questions that the two plainiffs presented here was not just that the bans were unconstitutional wr at large, but they said they're unconstitutional as applied to us because we could meet exceptions. There are reasons that Because we've experienced we didn't experience puberty associated with our biological sex, we took puberty blockers, that biologically, we didn't go through the sorts of advantages that you traditionally might think of as associated with being born biologically female. In fact, it's not clear that we have any competitive advantage whatsoever. These states should be forced to look at us as individuals. And the court denied that as well This is also a case where I think some cases you look at and you say, the justices don't have any personal experience with this, right? They're not bringing their full selves to bear on the court. This is one where it's unmistakable that Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote for the majority, is speaking of something that's deeply personal to him. He's the father of two daughters, both of whom are now college age, both of whom played high school athletics. And he talks about what the impact would be on women and girls in this country who play high school sports if the ruling had gone the other way. And he has this whole thing at the end about women and girls who play sports caring deeply about competition and making sure that every opportunity that they win is one that they get fairly. But he says every competitor who wins a race or competition deprives another athlete of that victory or medal or prize. Every team that wins because of an added player means that another team has lost because of that added player. So from his perspective, the impact on not only safety of the athletes but on competitive fairness is a huge one. And the last thing I'll say, Willie, is that When Brt Kavanaugh is expressing that the court and other people reading this should have respect Everybody who was involved in this litigation, that doesn't come out of nowhere. That is a direct response to Justice Thomas, who in dissent says some things that are not rooted in case law, They're not rooted in the text of the Constitution or its history. They seem to be rooted in a deep antipathy towards transgender people. And that is why you see the six Justice majority saying here that no student athlete, and again, I'm reading from the majority decision, on either side of the issue, whether a biological female or transgender deserves to be ostracized or vilified. They go out of their way to say that I think, specifically because of Justice Thomas. Fascinating dynamics internally there And with that, Lisa Rubin, your court term ends. Thank you for walking us through an incredibly consequential couple of days. Thank you so much. We always appreciate it Coming up next, we'll get into the politics of the Birthright citizenship decision. Also ahead, we are digging into those newly released financial disclosure forms showing just how much money President Trump has earned in just this first year in his second term of office. The numbers are staggering. And as we go to break a look at the Traveler forecast this morning from Acy Weeathers Bernie Ryo Bernie has' a looking out there Willy dangerous heat and humidity today from the midwest toward the Northeast. Notice mostly nineties, Au weather real field temperatures over one hundred degrees, spotty thunderstorm in Portland, Boston, perhaps New York City, from Texas toward the Carolinas. It's hot and humid here. There will be some thunderstorms across the Florida Peninsula and that canuse Some minor delays in Nrea with a travel forecast in Miami and Orlando other than that You should be A okay To help you make the best decisions and be more in the know, download the Acu Weather app today Simone Sanders Townsend and I have known each other for more than a decade tussling over politics and policy when she worked in the White House and I reported on it. And now we're friends and colleagues and on our podcast, Clocket, we are positioning ourselves at the intersection of culture and politics. Clocket is where we talk about what we see and hear in the news so you can start to clock it too lock it with Son and Eugene, all episodes available now clearly perfect exam citizenship and now it's being used to devalue citizenship. I think it's a good way to summarize that I'm aare Thomas with the As we know, House Speaker Mike Johnon yesterday criticizing the Supreme Court's decision on birthright citizenship. Let's bring in senior writer at the Dispatch, columnist at Bloomberg opinion, David Drucker, and publisher of the newsletter, The Ink Guns sububstack Een geared Atist. Guys, good morning to you both. on it. I'll start with you in reaction to the Supreme Court upholding birthright citizenship posted a personal essay he wrote for the Ink, in which you write this,Qote, For all of the dangerous things President Trump has proposed in his first days, the assault on birthright citizenship strikes me as so fundamental Because it's an attack not just on a policy question of how and when passports are given out. It's an attack on the idea that anyone can be part of this, that this is a nation of becoming So fundamental is this culture of becoming that even Trump cannot escape. I'll let you flesh that out a little more on it and just get your broader reaction to what we saw in the court yesterday It was an important ruling and a good day in this country, which is not something we can say all the time these days. know I am a birthright citizen I will say first of all I am a citizen. My parents were immigrants. They were legal immigrants at the time, but they were immigrants and My citizenship came from being born on American soil, specifically the soil of Cleveland and And the reason this ruling is so important is birthright citizenship is not just this legal principle, right? It is deeply connected to what It is a sort of cultural idea this is a nation of becoming that people can become of this And it's worth noting that there's a lot of other countries that have immigrants, France, Germany, many places in the world that don't have this principle And what it changes is there's no notion that what the country is Americanness, the way we accept that Americanness is altered, right? The people can become American and that Americanness can be altered by the blood of people who come here. You go to France, that's not The idea, The idea is Frenchness is this fixed thing. It's these cheeses. It's this blood. It's your grandparents having had to be here. can you can sit over here. And I know this because after my parents moved to America in the nineteen seventies, at the end of the eighties They had an idea of doing it again They were well established in Cleveland And they said with my sister and I let's let's let's immigrate again. Let's move to France And I remember watching them when I was seven years old, watching them arrive in France navigate France And watching it dawn on them that they weren't going to be able to do it again. They weren't allowed to live there But they would never be able to become of this And so this idea of the capacity in this country that we allow people to become American. It shapes the notion that we are a country of becoming, that we are a country of creation, that we are a country that welcomes new ideas. We're a country that is not so scared of Our culture, you know, evolving that we need to lock people out. And I will say, you know, Donald Trump, the part you quoted Donald Trump make claim that he wants to sort of seal us off from the world, but two thirds of his own wives. our imports two thirds of his own wives. and I just want to say To the president, even though I was born in this country and Melania Trump was not She is every bit As American as I am and I will never question David Drucker, we heard the reaction there from Speaker Johnson. we heard from JD Vance yesterday. We heard from the White House saying this is one of the most dangerous and destructive decisions in the history of the Supreme Court, President Trump saying, well, it's too bad, but now let's move this conversation to the Congress where we can change this. Obviously, that's an uphill climb. But can you speak to just how salient this issue of birthright citizenship has become under President Trump in conservative circles. Yeah, so I think a lot of this Willie just has to do in one part with the frustration about illegal immigration and the inability of the United States to get its immigration system functioning properly and under control. And off course, Republicans have been in a large part of that because that they resisted legislation to overhaul immigration law time and again, but I think For certain people on the right, it's become it sort of Lisa was talking about the Chris Hay's theory of going down the hotel corarter and kicking open every door looking for a way to deal with the problem This has been one of those And it's really counterproductive from a public policy standpoint in that there's very little birthright Uh, b tourism that goes on And if you want to just look at it from what these births add to the country in any event, we have declining birth rates It's going to make it harder for the government to pay the social safety net in coming decades if this isn't reversed And so that's something on the one hand that I think this comes from. There's obviously as well a nativist streak in certain corners of the right And they have an issue not so much with birth with sort of birth tourism and the birthright citizenship Um that that comes from it who it is exactly that's coming here and doing that Um, I thought one of the most important parts of the ruling, aside from the one that mattered the most was the fact that the president's executive authority was struck down. The president has tried to gather so much authority and his executive pen and just simply avoid going to Congress altogether And the fact that it wasn't just an unconstitutional thing that he wanted to affect, but the way he tried to affect it was also struck down I thoughtt really mattered And I wanted to say one thing on the campaign finance ruling For people that have lamented the rise of partisanship and extreme candidates and politicians on both sides of the aisle This ruling actually gives the parties more power while leaving untouched contribution limits, including to party committees including the aggregate limits for people who are wealthy, where you can only give so much a year no matter how which committees you parse it out to And the Democrats are very good at raising money, particularly with the congressional campaign committees. The RNC DNC difference is a consequence of who's in the White House right now in part. And so There's a lot to feel good about in that decision if you think our politics has become unwieldy and partisan and extreme And that money can now go straight through the parties. We'll see how that plays out. And back to the birthright citizenship quickly. It was a six three decision. Again, Chief Justice Roberts saying that keeps the promise today that every freeborn person in this land can be extended citizenship. Another big story this morning, newly released financial disclosure forms show President Trump made more than one point four billion dollars in cryptocurrency related income last year as president According to the nine hundred twenty seven page disclosure, President Trump earned six hundred thirty five million dollars from his meme coin. He also pulled in more than five hundred million dollars from token sales and sixty five million dollars from selling equity stake related to World Financial Liberty, a crypto company he co founded with his sons Trump also continued to make money from his real estate holdings, including one hundred twenty one million dollars from Trump National Doral, seventy seven million dollars from Mar a Lago, and thirty nine million dollars from Trump Tower Chicago for show another eighty million dollars coming in from various legal settlements with companies including Meta, ABC, CBS, and YouTube When asked for a statement, the White House responded that Trp quote, proudly made the United States the crypto capital of the world, adding the president never engaged in any conflicts of interest. Forgive me for chuckling through that, Hand. This is staggering these numbers and it's just out in the open. There used to be concerns you can go back to George W. Bush, when his dad was president, people were concerned that he sat on the board of an oil company, that there might be influence there. We mentioned Hunter Biden in Berezma. there was concern. his father was vice president of the United States. In this case though, you have Donald Trump, who's obviously has his hand on the scale, his thumb on the scale of cryptocurrency policy profiting to the tune of one point four billion dollars and we put it all together just in this year and a half of his second term More than two billion dollars coming into him It's staggering, it's corrupt And Wie, like the like the skilled and seasoned newsman you are, you seguade from the birthright citizenship story To this story But I would argue it's the same story. and here's why. This was the story about this corruption and self dealing is what is really going on in the United States, the fleecing of the United States by this president and his cronies and his oligarch friends. And what people do when they want to fleece a country in the way that he is. is Distract most people and try to get them to not look up at the very powerful people who are through our institutions and instead to look sideways at the guy next to them Look at that immigrant over there Look at that black person over there. lookook at that homeless person over there. The project of Dald Trump is to fleece this country and make money for himself through crypto, through sneakers, through whatever else. and to trick all of us into thinking that someone who came here from Mexico trying to work on a farm. in the hope of giving their children a better life is our problem It's really, really important to not be distracted and to look up at stories of like that corruption and not sideways David Drucker the New York Post Eeditorial Board this week before these filings even came out, published a piece with the headline Hunter Biden's style sleeze is just as slimy when the Trump boys do it, talking about the president's sons. It reads in part, insider deals, finders' fees and backdoor introductions to family members are business as usual in third world banana Republics But these slimy practices have now been normalized in the White House to the shame of the nation Trumps sons are part owners or investors and companies neck deep in a key defense contract in Central Asia It stinks to high heaven Democrats in Congress are pressing for an investigation into Trump's sweetheart deals If they take the House in the midterms, these hearings are surely coming It would behoove the Trump administration, writes the New York Post and the nation as a whole If the president gets ahead of the growing scandal, acts transparently and cleans up the whole mess forord swams his final two years in office and defines his legacy, Mike Bronnacle. So that's a bit about the Trump sons. You could bring Jared Kushner into this as well, the deals he's negotiated over the years while he's negotiating ostensively for peace in Iran and other places. Along with Witcooff's son with Steve Witcooff and his kids too But again, the numbers that we're talking about this morning in this new disclosure, particularly on cryptocurrency, which this administration has pumped up, has offered pardons to Chinese crypto executives are well over a billion dollars in a year and a half. Yeah, the numbers are staggering. The act itself, the way they're getting this money is. almost beyond belief. David Drucker, I don't Have you ever sensed or thought you would be covering a story of this magnitude All out in the open, all in public, whatever you want to call it, unarmed robbery, fleecing, whatever. It's incredible Yeah, I think what's what's very incredible about this, Mike, is that the Trump administration's defense, the president's defense is that they are being transparent about this. They're not trying to hide this. U they're not really just trying to distract voters at all. They're saying that what they're doing is AOK. and as proof We're acknowledging as much and we're continuing to do it I think the question here is, you know Is there going to be pushback by more than just, you know, Democrats, And And we clearly see independent voters rejecting this sort of thing And this continues to be a shirts and skins game. You know, this is what Congress in part exists for which is to scrutinize the executive and rein them in when they're coloring outside the lines put it mildly. And you're just not going to get that from this Republican Congress, but you know what we've seen over the years with lesser offenses is that Congress is unwilling to reign in a president when it's of their own party But you know the question here is how much P political baggage does this create for the next Republican nominee for president And how much baggage does this create for Republican candidates in midterm elections in competitive races. I'm very curious to see what happens with this because I think voters will tell us and they do tell us this that this corruption is unconscionable. and unseemly and it shouldn't go on And yet when they're making their decisions about who to vote for, they end up prioritizing things Um that are very different and then saying, listen, I wish I didn't have to vote for this unethical candidate or this candidate participating in illegal or unseemely behavior, but what choice do I have? And as long as they continue to do that I think this sort of behavior is going to continue Yeah, the shirts and skins, I mean, we can ask the question that answers itself What would Republicans on Capitol Hill be saying if Joe Biden or Barack Obama had shown in a filing that they'd made two billion dollars in their first year and a half. Historians this morning and every newspaper you can find right and left calling this an unprecedented amount of wealth for a president and an unprecedented conflict of interest. Coming up, we'll go through the primary election results from Colorado last night, Fascinating again here, includluding the upset of a long term Cgresswoman from the Denver area Buss will explain why Alaska's Senate race could become a toss up because of two candidates with the same name Morning Joe coming right back Hi everybody. I'm Anthony Scaramucci, former White House Director of communications and Wall Street financier. And I'm Katy Kay. I've spent more than thirty years covering American politics asking questions from the journalist side of the table. While I was sitting at that table from the Trump campaign trail to eleven wild days in the White House, o my God, never again. On our podcast, The Rest is Politics US, we bring you both sides of power inside the room and outside the spin. Listen to the Rest is Politics US wherever you get your podcast Big news out of Colorado last night where Democratic socialist Melot Kiros defeated longtim Cgresswoman Diana De Gette in the state's first district Democratic primary, ending Dette's nearly decades of service in the House of Representatives twenty nine year old Kuros ran on a platform supporting Medicare for All, a green New Deal, expanded affordable housing, stronger labor protections calling for an end to all American military aid to Israel. She will now advance into November as the favorite to retain that seat to get campaigned on her seniority and legislative experience In another upset, Colorado atttorney General, Phil Weiser won the primary for goovernor, defeating one of Colorado's most prominent Democrats Senator Michael Bennett. Weiser cast himself as the stronger opponent President Trump highlighting his record of suing the Trump administration sixty six times. Bennett unsuccessfully banked on his statewide name recognition. and nearly seventeen years in office. In the Senate, incumbent Senator John Hickenlooper won against his primary challenger, defeating progressive state Senator Julia Gonzalez. aking at least one setback for the state party's left wing. Joining us now, Senate and Governorss editor for the Cook pololitical Report. Jessica Taylor Jessica good morning. It's great to see you. So let's go back to that first race where you had Kiros unseating a fifteen term incumbent. on a very progressive platform And let's just say Congresswoman to get very progressive herself. you have to be to win in the Denver area of Colorado. certainly. it's not like her credentials were not Progressive, but not progressive enough perhaps for this moment. What do you make of that result? I think that you I think this is also people Democratic primary voters clamoring for a new generation. I mean, Dejette you know was someone that she probably is going to retire in a couple of years. She's retiring earlier than she expected now. but I think that you know this shows us that this clamoring within the Democratic Party is not limited just to New York City It's in Colorado. I'm watching in the next couple of weeks to see if it's happening in Michigan, if it's happening in the Senate race there with Abdul al Sayed in the Wisconsin Senate race where there's a Democratic socialist Francesca Hong. Now those are both much closer races that could really if you if you nominate the more progressive candidate, that could really put those races more into play for Republicans if you put this together in Colorado with what happened last week in New York City, what do you see? Are these just specific to these districts? notot terribly surprising that a very progressive candidate would win in some of the places that we've seen, O is this a bigger movement for the Democrats? Is it a problem for Democrats nationally because Republicans are going to use this some believe extreme views of some of these candidates against them nationally Well, willill, you're on a role with stringing these stories together. I mean, you were just we were just before the break talking about The president using the American presidency as a vehicle to profit from crypto and other things and making a billion plus dollars on it And then you have people saying, Why are Democratic socialists winning in different parts of the country? Well, it may be as a reaction. to the kind of oligarchic power that we see being exercised in Washington. And I think you know it's very important to understand in a country like this that is broad and diverse. And if you drive an hour, you can get to a whole new kind of religious worldview, as ideological worldview, relationship to land and space. This is a diverse, big country. So it's not going to be a uniform thing, but something is happening And and I think it is fresh Faces. It is people often in this wave who are of working class backgrounds, who have lived the struggles of most people and are not the kind of millionaires are typical in Congress. It is young people in addition to just the ideological aspect, But the ideological story is important. And I think what is happening above all is less that Americans are, you know becoming socialists. I think it is actually that this a new generation of people in this country didn't grow up with the baggage of the Cold War. D didnn't grow up with bomb shelter drills in the Cold War And so when they hear socialism, they're not thinking about You know, a red scare of a Soviet Union overlording the world, which if you were of a certain age, that was the fear you were that you were told. If you're twenty five in which a lot of these voters are electing these candidates in a lot of places What you understand, I think, rightly, is like social democracy, right? Democratic socialism is social democracy, which is essentially the left center left ideology in most European countries, which is basically we can have nice things Right? This is not Gulag socialism. This is not the Soviet Union socialism. This is like Buses should be free. Housing should be affordable. People shouldn't die of preventable illnesses because they don't have the right health care plan And I think it makes sense that in an age of the first trillionaire in this country and a billionaire president fleecing us through elected office, that you see people who present a different story winning David Drucker, let's stick with Colorado. Mike Bennett was one of the most respected senators serving in the United States Senate He's a moderate. He is a very articulate guy. He's been around a while And for him to lose in a primary, for the governor to run for goovernor of Colorado was to me kind of surprising. Was it surprising to you No, not when you see what's been going on in Democratic primaries now seven months into the year, just about. I think Jessica talked about this u very aptly We have seen for the last year and a half the polling for the Democratic Party's brand and Democrats in Washington to be in the tank And as a matter of what happens in midterm elections, it really doesn't matter because the Democratic voters that hate Democrats in Washington are going to show up in droves to vote against President Trump and vote against Republicans But what it does mean is they don't think much of their candidates who are in and of Washington. They don't think they're fighting hard enough. And they're a little bit, you know over the fact that they've been there for a long time and don't think that they've adequately addressed a lot of the quality of life issues that they're facing. And so what we've seen is that Democratic incumbents either running for reelection or seeking higher office are having a lot of trouble And that's what we saw in Colorado last night We saw it Two incumbents, right but one is in statewide office in Colorado One is in statewide office in Washington The Washington candidate losts. Now, obviously John Hicken Looper won his primary bit of an outlier there in those races, but this is where the energy is This is exactly what I saw covering the Tea Party upheaval in the Republican Party in beginning in two thousand eight, but then twenty ten, twenty twelve, twenty fourteen where you had voters who were just upset that they didn't think Republicans in Washington were fighting Barack Obama hard enough They wanted unrealistic results based on the Constitution and the votes that Republicans had and the power that they had even in the majority And that's now what we're seeing on the Democratic side. Now one thing I should say about that candidate that beat Congresswoman De Jette blames the U. S. for the nine eleven terrorist attacks, refused to call the anti Semitic attack on peaceful Jewish protesters in Colorado last year Um an actual case of anti Semitism. And so what you're going to see with some of these candidates is not just, let's say left wing or very aggressive social policy views and proposals But as the Tea Party Republicans brought in some extreme views on the right, we're going to see this wave of Democrats bring in some extreme views on the left and it's something that Democrats have not had to contend with the way Republicans have And now they're going to you can believe Republicans will be shining a light on those parts of their stories of the candidates in New York as well. In Alaska, an interesting story unfolding, the state Supreme Court has ruled candidate with the same name as incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan can stay on the state's August primary ballot. This reverses a previous ruling by Alaska's top elections official Determine the candidate, Dan J. Sullivan filed to run just with the purpose of confusing or misleading voters and then disqualified him from the ballot If the second Dan Sullivan advances to the general election alongside the incumbent There will be two Dan Sullivans on the final ballot, which could confuse enough voters to help tip the scale. toward Democratic candidate Mary Polola So Jessica, this is part of the reason that Kook Political Report now considers the race a toss up. It was kind of trending in that direction anyway. I'll let you explain why. But what kind of confusion does this throw into the race now Alaska has a top four rank choice primary system. So in the August primary, the top four candidates, regardless of party, all of the candidates appear on the primary ballot. They will advance to the general election and then rank choice is used to determine the winner And so if this Dan J. Sullivan, he's actually going to be listed on theall ballot as Daniel J. Sullivan junior. and without a party designation, he initially sought to be listed as a Republican. He will not have any party listed at all. And Dan S. Sullivan, the incumbent will be listed as the incumbent to sort the elections' office hopes to sort of mitigate this confusion But if voters are confused, if this is a close enough race that one to two points could really sway this race. The New York Times is out with new polling this morning that shows this is a two point race within the margin of error that tracks with other polling that we have seen. This is one of Democrats' best pickup opportunities and is a key This is how they get to the four seats that they need. Alaska is potentially that fourth seat, but everything has to go right for them. Mary Peltola, the former Cgresswoman. She has a history of overperforming. She lost in twenty twenty four when Trump carried the state easily, but she overperformed Kamala Harris by about eleven points She has a history as a moderate. This was one of Chuck Schumer's biggest recruiting coups. She could be on her way to being governor had she decided to seek that path, but instead she's running in a much more difficult Senate race here. So we are shifting this race into our toss up column this morning balance of the United States Senate could come down to the difference between a J and an S in Alaska. inccredible. Before I let you go, Jessica, just as you talked about those four seats in the Senate, Democrats remain hopeful that they can take back the House in November The Senate always has been a more difficult climb for them. What is your sense of things as the editor there on Senate matters of the realistic prospects for Democrats to take back the Senate to