though they have a very slim chance to actually become president, it does say something about people's concerns about his age, about his ability to win re-election next year, and that is certainly a concern to democrats. i think it's also resonating with voters. they're wondering why the president is receiving these challenges. i think there's also a big pocket of voters who don't want to see donald trump or president joe biden run again. that is a huge vulnerability for them. >> third-party challenges are rising. the president will head out west ahead of a pacific state summit with xi jinping tomorrow. we'll have complete coverage. akayla garner, one of our favorites, thank you. thanks for getting up "way too early" on this tuesday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. good morning. it's 6:00 on the east coast. welcome to "morning joe."

it's tuesday, november 14th. congress has until friday to pass a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown. speaker mike johnson might get support from house democrats on his two-step strategy to avoid that shutdown. we'll explain that plan. plus, special counsel jack smith responds to donald trump's push for cameras in the courtroom in his federal election interference case. meanwhile, the former president's eldest son takes the stand again in the civil fraud trial against the family business. we'll get legal analysis on that testimony. and we'll have the latest out of gaza on the efforts to evacuate patients at the largest hospital, which israel says sits above a hamas command post. >> you look at the papers today, and that's the headline on so much. it's about the fact that the israel forces in gaza reached

the hospital. this is in the "wall street journal." talks about, as conditions worsen. the lead in "the new york times," "hospital shakes in gaza as fights rage at the doorstep." it really does, willie, for both sides, it feeds into suggestions of what both sides are accusing the others of war crimes on. >> right. >> whether it's israel going after that hospital because they believe that hamas is actually committing war crimes by hiding behind civilians, having a vast network of tunnels right under these hospitals and other civilian targets that they are certain would not be bombed by israel. it makes, obviously, the situation there so much more complicated for, first of all, the israelis, who are trying to root out the terrorists, but also to try to figure out what's underneath there.

we're going to be covering that throughout the morning. also, david ignatius posting from israel that we've heard that deal between israel and hamas to free dozens of hostages, maybe up to 100 women and children, they are actually closing in on that deal. we may hear some good news on that in the next few days. >> let's hope that's true. back to the first part of what you were talking about, that is the central dilemma of the war. palestinians are saying to israel, militarily, stop attacking civilians. israel is saying, stop building your command centers, hamas, under hospitals and under schools. we're seeing that play out right now. we'll get to that in a bit. we do want to begin this morning with new revelations in the fulton county election interference case against donald trump and 15 other co-defendants. "the washington post" and abc news have made public excerpts of videos of former trump lawyers, jenna ellis and sidney powell. watch as ellis recounts a conversation with one

high-ranking trump adviser where he said, "the boss is not leaving the white house for any reason." >> i emphasized to him, i thought that the claims and the ability to challenge the election results was essentially over. he said in an excited tone, "we don't care, and we're not going to leave." i said, "what do you mean?" he said, "the boss isn't leaving under any circumstances. he's going to stay in power." i said, "it doesn't work that way, you realize." he said, "we don't care." >> ellis was required to lay out everything she knew that the prosecution could use in exchange for a plea deal. nbc news did not obtain the videos. they've not been independently verified. ellis is one of four co-defendants in the sprawling georgia rico case that accepted a lighter sentence in exchange for information. sidney powell discussed in her

proffer session a meeting with former president trump where he was told he lost in 2020. >> were you ever around when someone, anyone, told donald trump that he had lost the election? >> oh, yeah. >> who? >> pat hirschman, all thought he lost. >> was that in a separate meeting? >> yes. >> what was president trump's reaction when these advisors would say, "you lost"? >> it was like, ah, well, they would say that, then they'd walk out. he'd go, "see, this is what i deal with all the time." >> powell also discussed her scheme to seize voting machines from across the country. said she talked with the former president often while carrying out her plans. she and trump now claim she never represented him. "the washington post" also reported chesbro, a key figure

in the plan to use fake electors, told prosecutors he'd brief trump on the attempt to falsely certify his win in battleground states. chesbro's statement personally ties the former president to the elector plan. the fulton county district toey's office has refused nbc news requests for comment. the lead attorney in georgia said this about the report. quote, if this is the nonsense line of inquiry being pursued and this is the type of bogus, ridiculous evidence d.a. willis intends to rely upon, it is one more reason that this political travesty of a case must be discussed. that comes from an attorney for donald trump. let's bring in barbara mcquade, correspondent vaughn hillyard, and the host of "way too early," politico's jonathan lemire. vaughn, you've been covering this very closely. it is striking to see these two attorneys, these two women who were so brash during the 2020 election with their claims of a stolen election, being humbled now that the law caught up to them and they've cut a deal with

prosecutors. >> what is so striking is to see these two on video saying this. this is the part that i keep coming back to. i was at trump's counterrally to the debate last week down in miami there. folks to this day, i mean, one gentleman telling me that he's locked and loaded, ready to go, a hot civil war in his words. it's because of people like jenna ellis and sidney powell. sidney powell standing there after presser after presser, suggesting she was going to release a kraken. there was an international -- jenna ellis, in arizona, she was down there with rudy giuliani, making the case to speaker rusty bower to overturn and allow the legislature to give donald trump the win in arizona. to hear this to the extent that trump loyalists hear from these folks and see the proffer videos, i'm not sure, but it hits at the heart of the argument for the cameras being in the courtroom for the federal

election interference case. these are compelling and revealing. >> jonathan, you wrote the book on the big steal. tell us about these two players and the significance of them stepping forward now and saying it was all a lie, and specifically that donald trump was told by his lawyers -- >> many times. >> -- by his lawyers many times that he lost the election. >> that's the most important point, which we'll come back to. in terms of refreshing people's memories, sidney powell, the kraken, jenna ellis, and rudy giuliani made up the heart of trump's legal team after the 2020 election. they worked with eastman and chesbro on not just the fake ector scheme, which is central to the federal january 6th case, but also these other measures, whether it was voting machines or challenging the results or filing lawsuits, which they had a right to do. those were all, without exception, defeated in court. but they propagated the big lie. that is, to vaughn's point, what people are still believing three years later.

people still believe that the election was stolen from donald trump. polls suggest the majority of republicans don't think that joe biden was duly elected. that's the poison they injected into the american political bloodstream that is not going away. now, certainly, ellis and powell, you know, their testimony here that they were aware that the election was not, in fact, stolen, that they told donald trump, now, that may get into whether trump's mindset, whether he truly believed or not that he won or lost. i reported in my book, and others have, as well, that trump did at times privately concede that he lost, telling kellyanne conway at one moment "how can i lose to this bleeping guy," meaning joe biden. the trump team is downplaying the significance of these two lawyers' testimony, but there is a limit to what they can do. there is a sense that ellis and powell are part of a chain that could flip in georgia, as well, and endanger the former president further. >> let's take it to barbara mcquade.

how valuable is this testimony? is it to get others to flip? do you think some of the things we're hearing from these two individuals, how can it be used in the trial? how useful and valuable will it be? >> well, the purpose of recording their statements is just to lock them in so they can't change their story later. what we'll see at trial is their live testimony. they will discuss all of these things and more, and, of course, be subject to cross-examination. but they revealed important things just in the excerpts, and perhaps there's more. the fact that donald trump was aware of the fact that he lost the election, really important. they had meetings with him where they disclosed the plan, according to chesbro. and a statement that scavino, the deputy chief of staff, said, "she's not leave "he's not leaving under any circumstances." that rebuts the claim he legitimately thought he won the election.

another important dynamic is having people on the inside admit that it was all a con. to the extent that a jury presumes a defendant to be innocent, you know, hearing the evidence of a prosecution says one thing, but to hear people say," yes, i have pled guilty. i am accepting responsibility, and i was in on this. here's how it went down." that can be very valuable for a jury to hear. >> special counsel jack smith's office is arguing against having cameras in the courtroom during former president donald trump's upcoming federal election interference trial, saying the former president wants a, quote, carnival atmosphere. in a filing yesterday, smith's team wrote, there is a, quote, constitutionally sound broadcast prohibition that has governed federal criminal trials, no matter the defendant, for decades, and there is no reason to depart from common practice. media outlets, including msnbc's parent company nbc universal,

are arguing for the trial to be televised. initially, trump's attorney said they took no position on televising the trial. but over the weekend, the trump team changed course, asking for the trial to be broadcast while accusing the special counsel of wanting it to proceed in secret. at this point, the trial is unlikely to be televised given the federal criminal proceedings have never been aired on television. what's more, judge tanya chutkan repeatedly stated she will treat trump like any other criminal department. that broadcasting his trial would be a major departure from the norm. what do you think, joe? secondly, it's going to be really hard to treat him like any other criminal defendant, but i guess she can try. i mean, he gets special treatment the minute he walks in the door. he has secret service. people can't put him in jail necessarily without the secret service. how does this work? how is he treated like a normal person? >> donald trump wins when donald

trump is able to play the disruptor. >> right. >> when he is able to go outside of the courtroom and yell and wave his arms and tell america what just happened inside the courtroom. we've seen it. we saw it with robert mueller. i'm afraid we're seeing it now with jack smith. people are saying, just by the book, let's go by the book. head down. we're doing this like any other case. it's not any other case, and it's not any other defendant. >> no. >> the key, it seems to me, barbara mcquade, for transparency in this case, is paramount. i'm really surprised and really disappointed that jack smith is talking about head down, no transparency, let's just do the case like we do every other case. americans need to see this case. they need to see it because the rule of law is under attack, and they need to see what is happening when a former

president is being tried and possibly convicted for the crime of trying to steal an election. don't you think? >> well, what we'd like to see is different, i think, from what we can see. i'd love to see this televised. i think, otherwise, donald trump will misrepresent what is going on in the courtroom. however, jack smith is saying we don't want it to be televised. he is saying the judge lacks the authority. procedure 53 prohibits cameras in the courtroom. any advocacy on this issue has to be taken up at a different level with the judicial conference, the group of judges who make up the rules for what happens in court. her hands are ties, so i think -- >> can't he make a motion to do that? can't he move to get that done? >> the judge lacks the authority to do this. i think what the media companies are arguing is that she should strike down the rule as unconstitutional. if she makes that finding, then i suppose so. other courts already found that it is, so i think she lacks the power to do that.

the place to advocate is with the judicial conference to change the rule, and they have time to do that before this trial begins. >> so the trump campaign is trying to downplay alarming comments made by the 2024 republican frontrunner over the weekend, which echoed the words of 20th century fascists. on social media and then later at a rally on saturday, trump vowed to, quote, root out his perceived political enemies, who said, live like vermin. that's what he said, live like vermin within the confines of the country. that's his quote. in a statement to "the washington post" afterwards, a campaign spokesperson hit back at those drawing for le paralle between trump's words and the words of dictators by using extreme language. he told "the post," ot those who make that ridiculous assertion are clearly grasping for anything, and their entire existee will be crushed when

president trump rurns to the white house. >> just stop there. >> let's -- yeah. >> their entire existence will be crushed when president trump returns to the white house. >> that makes things better. >> later on, he said, sad existence, not entire existence. i mean, it's a distinction without a difference. i mean, how ridiculous, that a guy comes out, fat, white, pink boy who is trying to talk tough for a fake populist who is going around spreading hatred and trying to overturn american democracy, and his response to it, to trump grasping back at a nazi reference from the 1930s is to say, these people that are criticizing him are going to have their entire existence crushed. i mean, are these, you know --

where do you find people so vacant and so desperate and just lacking any center, any core, that they would talk about people's entire existences being crushed? >> well, it's a job requirement, as you know, to work for donald trump. all those things you laid out. echo exactly what he said. in this case, it's not a reach. it's exactly the thing that adolph hitler said, using the term "vermin." it's playbook 101 as an authoritarian, dehumanize your opponents so, to your supporters, it seems just in some way because they're not human. vaughan, it's been striking to see the lack of response from any republican on any of this. >> it is a given at this point. >> we've been down this road almost a decade now.

can you believe what donald trump said? oh, i don't want to talk about if campaign. we're focused on other things. can you believe he said general milley should be executed? oh, i didn't hear it. they won't talk about this either. >> it's what we've been living through, that donald trump could be in the white house four more years. you know, he's utterly vowed to destroy kim reynolds, the iowa governor. for the constituents back home in the state of iowa, when you see your governor threatened like that, you know it is a hostile environment to be. the one time i was invited to donald trump's plane this year was from waco, texas, back in march. i work with these campaign staffers, including the press secretary, on a daily basis. what is so striking this go-around is how keenly aware this campaign team is to have only loyalists on their staff. there are no alyssa farrahs this time around. there is nobody trying to do good from within. when he got back on the plane after the rally in waco, texas,

which there were remarkable remarks, everybody applauds, great job, boss. he put his hands up like that. that's what he wants to hear. when he has polling numbers like there is now, he can feel good about his position. >> we'll see if he is re-elected, his cabinet, the people he surrounds himself with. we heard from the white house on the vermin comments. >> the white house upped their rhetoric against trump, criticizing trump in the last week or two. >> good. >> we reported in the last week or so that they were mulling that shift and, well, they've done it. they have decided to draw the contrast as much as they can. they've been really sharply critical of trump on comments like this but also his stance on abortion, other political issues, as well, as a year out with a trump/biden rematch so likely. they're not wasting any time. some felt they should have made this move sooner. i know joe does. but they're doing it now, where their drawing contrasts. it'll be purely loyalists in the

next trump administration, were he to win again. we spent time yesterday talking about the 2025 project as they've deemed it and trump's immigration proposals, draconian to say the least, involving camps and un-american measures to rid the country of illegal immigrants. that is what is coming. it'll be rhetoric followed by policy. certainly, we have heard trump since 2015 use subhuman terms to describe his political foes. we're seeing that again here with the vermin over the weekend. there's no sign of it stopping. >> yesterday afternoon, he said in a post on social media he would institutionalize special counsel jack smith, the current deputy attorney general, as well as former doj prosecutors. >> the vermin comment wasn't an ad lib or slip. he posted it to his social media website. this is a story he wants to tell now. >> it's a choice. >> it is another line that's

crossed, another time that is shocking but not surprising. again, i'm glad the white house is doing what they're doing. it makes sense. when somebody apes adolph hitler and apes mussolini, when they lift words from 1930 fascist speeches focused at dehumanizing jews, when they talk about executing the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff because he would not go along with a military coup, when they talk about institutionalizing the second he is elected -- and this was just yesterday -- institutionalizing people at the justice department because they're pursuing investigations against him, when he talks about terminating the constitution of

the united states of america, then, yeah, yeah, i think, jonathan lemire, the white house is really doing what we're talking about yesterday. they're focusing on donald trump's words. each one of these cases, institutionalizing people in the justice department you don't like, and he makes that threat yesterday after lifting hitler and mussolini's words, what they used to describe jews and other enemies of their fascist regimes. when he's talking about terminating the constitution. when he's talking about doing all of these things. and when he has such extreme remarks on fallen soldiers, saying he doesn't respect them, doesn't understand why. he calls men and women who gave their lives to the united states losers. well, you know, it's a good thing he is bringing it out.

i just want to say, i want to underline, again, that i think it's donald trump's words that he is doing now. you know, he has an old act. this is like elvis '77. it is an old act. he's near the end. so what does he do? all he can do is keep reupping for the shock value. he wants to reup for the shock value, so we'll talk about him and other people will talk about him. what he doesn't understand is it is a double edge sword. those very words he's using are now being put together by a campaign that's going to beat him again. they're going to beat him with his own words. we talked about abortion yesterday. donald trump bragging, "i am the one who terminated roe v. wade. i am the one that killed a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body. i am the one that took freedom

away from your daughters, from your wives, from your loved ones." >> 50 years. >> "i am the one that crushed 50 years of freedom." i mean, those -- him bragging about doing all of that and leading 10-year-old girls being raped by illegal immigrants and having to flee the state of ohio because of what donald trump did, and he is bragging about that, whoo-wee, that's going to be a long fall for donald trump. >> trump, since 2015, had this political trick where he speaks in a way that's just ambiguous enough that people can read into it as they want, and he can dismiss it, "oh, i was exaggerating." we've seen his believers, his supporters take him as his word, and they believe him. we saw that is what fueled january 6th, their belief in his words about the big lie.

>> by the way, they're in jail, jonathan, aren't they? they believed him. do you think there is another group like that that's going to believe him, too, or do you think they'll be willing to sit in jail for a guy who sits fat, dumb, and happy at mar-a-lago, making money, while the working class americans are rotting in jail because they bought into his lie? >> there is a sense that when he is calling for protests in recent months, they've been sparsely attended. true believers are already locked up. to your point about his words being used against him, which seems to be the biden campaign playbook right now on things like abortion, on things like extremism, on things like threats to political violence, those words are being used against donald trump. we should note, of course, his words are also going to be the first used against him in the court of law. also, we'll see him on trial next year amid a campaign, potentially being held legally accountable for those same words. donald trump jr., his son,

testified again yesterday in the family's new york civil fraud trial, this time as a witness for the defense. the trial is mostly in place to determine what the punishment will be since the judge has already found donald trump and his adult sons guilty of fraud. during his testimony, don jr. praised his father as a visionary, an artist, and a genius. he described the former president as someone who, quote, creates things that oer would never envision. this is true. trump jr. attempted to paint a picture that the properties are extremely valuable and tt the company actually underrated them in statements. those are the statements the judge has already deemed fraudulent. trump's eldest son failed to provide any evidence to support his claims, while the prosecution has presented spreadsheets, financial statements, and more to the contrary. >> barbara, it just seemed, with

don jr.'s testimony, there wasn't a lot to take away from that, nor was there a lot to take away from the other kids. i think eric made one pretty significant admission, but other than that, did the prosecution get anything? did the state get anything out of the testimony of the children? >> i think they did. subtle points but i think they did. i think they got some evidence that lenders rely on these statements of financial worth. we heard that from ivanka trump and from eric trump. i think we heard some evidence about donald trump's involvement in the valuation of these properties as well as some of the children. that is important for this phase, where some of the other claims require proof of intent. but i think, largely, as we just heard, this case is all about the amounts. that's going to come down to what's on the documents as

opposed to whatever flowery description donald trump jr. gives of his various properties and shows gauzey images of beautiful ballrooms, what it's coming down to are the numbers. numbers don't lie. >> these numbers are nuts. >> willie, there is a massive spread. >> my lord. >> on the value -- >> briar cliff, what? >> a massive spread on what he valued them at and what the court and the witnesses have said the value of it is. i mean, this isn't really hard to get at. i mean, you look at donald trump. again, we're talking about something that's already taken place. he's already found him to be, you know -- to have committed fraud, but, you know, there are appraisers. there are property appraisers that will tell you how much a property is worth. donald trump and, well, nobody else can just add 400% because his name is on there. >> yeah. >> yeah, and it's almost comical

to watch them attack appraisers, the guys who have no political interest in this whatsoever, who are guys with calculators assessing property, saying that they are somehow corrupt. i mean, you had with a straight face, donald trump said this, too, but eric trump suggesting, by their math, that mar-a-lago, the beach club where donald trump lives, is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $1 billion to $2 billion. that's their assessment. >> my lord. >> the assessor had it $18 million. probably worth more than that but probably not $1 billion. that is trump math for ya. >> okay. >> wow. former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade and nbc's vaughn hillyard, thank you both. ahead on "morning joe," after initially criticizing speaker mike johnson's plan to fund the government, president biden and democrats now say they are open to it. we'll have the latest from capitol hill as the shutdown deadline looms. plus, tens of thousands of people are expected to participate in a march for israel today, a rally in

washington, including jewish groups from chicago flying out to attend the event on the national mall. we'll get a live report from o'hare international airport. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. in a crisis caused by a terrorist massacre. warning civilians to clear out, while hamas forces them back. allowing in food and water, which hamas steals.

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100,000 people to stand in solidarity. thousands of pro-palestinian protesters marched at the capitol two weeks ago to demand a cease-fire in the war. joining us from o'hare international airport in chicago is nbc news correspondent maggie vespa. maggie has been talking with synagogue groups heading to o'hare for today's rally. good morning. >> reporter: willie, good morning. yeah, that's a drop in the bucket as far as the mass migration that is taking place literally coast to coast today. as you said, up to 100,000 people expected in d.c., coming from across the country. i mean, we're here specifically in terminal 3 of the o'hare airport because we're waiting on a local rabbi, along with several members, adults from his congregation and high school seniors who are traveling to d.c. later today to show, and this is the message we've heard from sort of communities, jewish communities and congregations across the area that we talked to, they want to show they will

not be scared. they will not be silenced by the rise in anti-semitism across the country. our team, our network, has been sort of touching base with those communities, again, across the country. in columbus, ohio, for example, our local affiliate there reporting two busloads of students from ohio state university are traveling to d.c. early this morning. similar stories out of raleigh, up and down the east coast, and we have a lot of flighting coming from the midwest and the west coast. specifically, according to the jewish united fund, who are by the way, is subsidizing, aka paying for a lot of the trips for jewish-americans across the country, we have close to 1,000 people from the chicago area alone who are planning to travel to d.c. half of those, we're told, are adults and leaders, specifically, within the community, and then we're also told hundreds of them, to reiterate the earlier point, are students. a lot of high school and college students. as you know, we've covered the rise in anti-semitism specifically on college campuses across the country.

a lot of these people, the majority we've talked to, see today's march at the u.s. capitol as the chance to kind of deliver that mass message, that, again, they will not be cowed and will not hide behind the jarring rise in anti-semitism across the u.s. promises to be a huge showing. we'll speak to those boarding the flights to d.c. later on. >> people coming from across the country including there in chicago. maggie vespa, thank you, as well. tomorrow, we'll be joined by jonathan greenblatt, head of the adl, who organized what is going to be a massive rally today in washington. >> it's so important for that message to be sent across america, across the world. willie, i will say, i was heartened this morning in "the new york times," reading about a march in paris. 100,000 people marching in paris, a place that is fraught

with anti-semitism. in many cases, coming from islamic radicals. in france more so than the united states, where you have the extreme left and the extreme right showing signs of anti-semitism and pressuring jews in america, whether they be on college campuses or just trying to live in communities. or you look in detroit, and the head of a synagogue brutally stabbed to death after the october 7th attacks. but the people of paris stood up, 100,000 of them, and protested against anti-semitism in france. that is so important. when we see one european country after another european country forget the lessons of the holocaust. >> absolutely. >> yeah, we've seen it, so much ugliness in the last month or so in terms of anti-semitism, just out in the open on the streets of college campuses and european

capitals, as well. we will see, though, a show we believe, we hope, will be a massive and peaceful display today in washington. coming up, we're going to be joined by democratic congressman gregory meeks on the heels of a bipartisan delegation he led to israel over the weekend. also ahead, after eight seasons, "the circus" aired its series finale on sunday. we'll show you a clip from the final episode that reveals quite a lot about the current state of our politics. plus, one of our next guests says democrats shouldn't let up on abortion rights. molly jong-fast will be here with her new piece for "vanity fair." "morning joe" will be right back. the lungs and lower airways. but i'm protected with arexvy. arexvy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. rsv can be serious for those over 60, including those with asthma, diabetes, copd,

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the guy is a jerk and a badass and the world fears him but -- >> he complains about things. >> that's where we're looking. >> take on the administrative state. >> he's not talking about helping people's lives. he's talking about going after the people mean to him. he says, oh, i'm going to have the doj target bill barr because he was mean to me. i'll have the doj target john kelly because he turned on me. i'll have the doj target jack smith because -- >> that's not true. >> that's all he talks about. he doesn't talk about helping people. >> that's not true. >> that's not true. >> you know, a maga lawyer on your podcast, mike davis, here's what he suggested were the top priorities for the attorney general, one, fire the deep state executive branch, indict the biden family, deport 10 million people, kids in cages, glorious, four, detain people at gitmo, five, pardon every january 6th defendant. what do you think? >> we should do it.

we'll start the largest deportation effort in history. all 10 million must leave. >> part of an exchange with longtime adviser steve bannon from the final episode of "the circus." joining us now, one of the now former co-hosts of "the circus," political strategist mark mckinnon. plus, msnbc contributor mike barnicle. and special correspondent at "vanity fair," host of "the fast politics podcast," molly jong-fast. >> mark mckinnon, it used to be a bob and weave, where donald trump would say something extreme and then back off and go, "oh, no, no, i don't mean that. i don't mean that at all." now, they're all just coming straight. it used to be bannon would say something crazy, and trump and his people would say, "no, that's not the case." no, they're aligned now. bannon said seven years ago,

"i'm a lennonist. i want to tear down the state." now trump is. they say they want to arrest the entire biden family. they want to arrest people. even his former lawyers that turned on him. i mean, this is just full on fascism, and their proud of it. >> that's what's remarkable, joe. molly and i were talking about it. there's no secret to the secret plan. believe them when they tell you what they're going to do. i mean, bannon went on to say this movement is moving beyond trump. trump, in his view, is a moderate. you know, they're talk about the greatest deportation in history. it's pretty chilling. as you said, the remarkable thing about it is they're not hiding the ball on this. everybody should know, team democracy, it's time to suit up. >> yeah. willie, it is, again, they're admitting the quiet part out loud. now, trump has it to where he is

lifting words and phrases from hitler's speeches. >> yeah, the vermin term. remember, he said, "i am your retribution" to his supporters. now not saying it in a vague way, molly, but specific plans from people who presumably would be close advisors in the administration, about how they'd go out carrying out that retribution. you heard steve bannon, take it for what it is worth, he is a podcaster probably going to jail soon. >> negative on podcasters? >> no, no. >> yeah. >> obviously influential in the maga movement. the fact he is saying out loud, we should pardon all the people who attacked the capitol, who beat up cops on january 6th. trump said that, too, by the way. >> it's interesting. republicans and trumpists have these ideas that are not popular with the general electorate, right? they're not. we see this again and again. we saw it in the 2023 off-year election. these ideas are not popular. ballot initiatives by democrats overperform. we're seeing, you know -- you saw santorum say democrats get

to run on sexy ideas like legalizing marijuana and abortion. okay, but they're popular. that's what they are, popular. meanwhile, on the trump side, you have republicans running on trump's retribution, deporting people, deporting people in gitmo. these are not popular ideas. >> isn't one of the larger questions that the country confronts or has to confront is when will america stop sleepwalking towards the end of democracy? >> right. >> i mean, all of us here at this table -- >> that's a good question. >> -- recall the summer of 2015 when donald trump maligned john mccain, maligned his service, maligned his career. everybody i know said, well, that's it for trump. >> right. >> anybody who says that about john mccain, that's it for trump. well, it wasn't and it isn't up until this moment in time. >> yeah. >> he can be in claremont, new hampshire, over the weekend, on

veterans day, calling americans vermin. >> yeah. >> on veterans day, maligning democracy, outlining exactly what he intends to do. he says the truth out loud, his own truth. >> believe him. >> yeah. >> why, why do we sit here? why does "the new york times" and other major publications not start confronting this? you're right, it's time to suit up, but it is well past halftime. >> yeah. >> we're in the fourth quarter here. >> exactly right. time to get on the field. what's remarkable is, we know from 2015 how that story ends. we know how this one could end. so we've gotten the preview. let's go. >> molly, it seems to me, you're right,broadly popular ideas but they are popular with his base. independent swing voters seem to be unhappy with both choices. let's set motivations aside for a moment. what can democrats to to turn out their base?

we've seen reporting and polls in recent weeks that some of the usual democratic voters aren't that enthusiastic about this ticket. >> right. what is interesting about these polls, and, again, i think throw the polls out, but in these polls, there is good news for the generic dem, right? that number does really well. that's saying that the democrat democratic brand is actually not in bad shape, right? despite the fact that there's a lot of, you know, bun di punditg the democratic brand is tarnished. it's not. it's the only thing that's come out of this that is doing well, and we're seeing it again and again in the special elections. democrats have popular ideas. they're not too crazy. you know, republicans went too far, right? trumpists went too far. you know, mainstream voters don't like the abortion stuff. they don't like feeling the government is in their bedroom. they don't like it. it's too much. and so especially the trans panic, you know, that also did not work for republicans.

you know, the book bans. [ laughter ] the mainstream voters just want normal. the democrats are doing that. >> i love that. >> it's so true. >> the trans panic. >> they're snowflakes. >> in '22, i had republican strategists calling around, "hey, what are you doing?" oh, you're not going to believe it. people in this state, i won't say the state, it'd reveal the guy because he runs the republicans sort of operation in this one state. >> yeah. >> people in this state are going to get 20 different pieces of mail on trans athletes taking their daughters' position in track. went on and on. i sat there going to myself, wait a second, aren't these the guys that have been bitching and moaning about the fact that the democrats aren't talking about inflation, the democrats aren't talking about crime, the

democrats aren't talking about the southern border? they have this bizarre obsession, almost like the speaker has this really strange obsession on homosexuality. >> yeah. >> men doing what they want to do, consenting adults in their bedroom is going to be the collapse of western civilization. now, i don't know who obsesses about homosexuality so much that they -- >> there is an accountability system. >> yeah, they have this porn sharing service between him and this guy. it's all very -- it's all something. >> somebody helps convert people. >> then, yeah, you have all this stuff going on, molly. >> swirl of it. >> funny thing happened on the way to every election in '17, '18, '19, '20, '21, '22, '23. all of these hot button issues, whether it's the southern border, whether it's abortion, whether it's trans athletes, you name it, book burnings, whatever

republicans wanted to do, they all failed. >> yeah. >> because republicans always have lost, always underperformed. even the house where they barely squeaked by, a year before, kevin mccarthy said they would win 50 seats. they didn't. why? they obsess on these freakish things that a small percentage of their base obsess over. >> yeah. they made a person speaker of the house who is so out of the mainstream. they could have made someone who was more of a mainstream, you know, candidate for speaker. instead, they picked mike johnson, who has all of this religious writing, who is nowhere where a mainstream voter is. i think that they're going to pay for that. i mean, they cannot -- they just cannot temper the far right, so they cannot appeal to mainstream voters. this is one of the pron problemh trumpism. you can't keep control over this far right fraction.

>> go ahead, mark. >> i don't think voters are going to sleepwalk through this. they know what the nightmare is. they might be napping right now, but by the time we get to next year, the stakes are going to be so clear. people are going to be jumping out of windows. >> why aren't the democrats, more to the point on all of this, though, why are the democrats sleepwalking as this is always going on around us? >> i think they're napping. i think they'll be up in time for next year. >> the three points that -- >> well, can i answer that? sorry, go, mike, then i'll answer why it seems they're sleepwalking. go ahead, mike. >> the three points you mentioned, joe, you know, the trans panic, the book burning, abortion and everything like that, why don't the democrats say, hey, this party, a particular slice of this party, a dominant slice of this party, the republican party, they want to fool around with your family. they want to come into your house and tell you, "no, you can't do that with your child.

no, you can't do this with your kids in school." >> andy beshear did that. >> he did. >> he won by a much larger margin. >> and he won in the state of kentucky. >> where donald trump won by 25 points. >> yeah, so that's quite a lot. first of all, the white house has started calling it out. last year, i was talking about how these extremists should be called what they are, weird doe weirdos, insurrectionists and freaks. the white house talked about maga, and president biden started saying ultra maga. it tells you about the type of people over there. i bring up mike johnson, who he says, oh, my world view and

governing stance, read the bible. >> bible is my guide. >> david french said this, understand, there's going to be a pro life leader in the republican party. but they have a really extreme leader there. as david french said, who knows a thing or two about the bible, his rise to power in the house is the antithesis of everything jesus ever talked about. he came to power on the big lie. he chose the biggest lie ever told in political american culture since mccarthyism. he embraced it, and he took it on his shoulders in the house. trying to get other people to buy into the big lie. >> again, not god's will, a lie. >> you're not going to read about that on the sermon on the

mount. mike barnicle, one of the reasons why there might not be as much of a focus on what we're talking about right now is because joe biden, and reports show it, joe biden is deep li involved in israel and the middle east, and he's trying to stop that war from growing faster every day. that's a full-time job. we learned last week how involved he is in making sure ukraine doesn't go sideways. he's occupied with that, as will. he is also meeting with president xi because he is kind of having to worry too much right now about the possibility of china, president xi listening to people like tommy tuberville and president xi listening to other republicans and thinking that now is the time to go into taiwan. that is what chairman mccaul

said. what tommy tuberville and republicans are doing play right into president xi's hand. joe biden is right now trying to stop three regional wars. from china to russia to iran to hamas and hezbollah, they can be connected. suddenly, we're in the middle of world war iii. right now, he might not be quite as focused about the trans panic in the republican party. he may be more focused in trying to stop world war iii. >> he was elected to do a job. >> mike, what do you think? >> i'll tell you what i think. very few of us and very few in the media really pay enough attention to the weight this president carries each and every day. you mentioned most of it. he is carrying two twin towers of tyranny. one in donald trump here domestically and the other, bibi netanyahu in israel, perhaps the biggest obstacle to the

two-state solution that exists today. the president has a meeting tomorrow with president xi, premier xi in san francisco. he's got that on his plate. but he has every hour of every day something that comes across his desk. none of us can comprehend the weight of the presidency. every hour of every day. as he would tell you if he were here today, it's amazing how every country in the world looks to the united states for help, for solutions, for just almost anything you can think of. every single day. you read every newspaper in the country, read every newspaper in the country about president biden, and within the first two paragraphs, they'll paint out he's in his 80s. he knows how old he is. i couldn't do it. you couldn't do it. someone 45 years old couldn't do what he does every day, but he does it. >> mika and i talked to so many diplomats and world leaders the last two, three years, and they

all say the same thing. they all say the guy has a feel, has a grasp for geopolitics, strategists, all the angles, and he gets it. you know, i understand that doesn't sell well on some right-wing podcast. i understand people don't want to tell the truth on other news channels because it may hurt their ratings if they actually tell the truth about president biden. on foreign policy, talk to the foreign leaders, biden understands what's going on in their region better than -- >> he's brought nato together and the world together. the thing is, this is the most -- i'm going to literally lose it. like, they bring up his age. you bring up his age. he is 80 years old. he makes jokes about his age, yet he is working on every level, foreign and domestically. then are you making the argument -- is one making the argument that, oh, he is 80,

therefore, a voter is going to vote for donald trump? like, that's the choice? no. >> by the way, donald trump is 77. >> doesn't make any sense. >> even when he was in office, he had executive time where he just sat off the room in the oval office, and he'd watch cable news around the clock. where biden is working around the clock on foreign policy, and he is getting it -- >> biden is 80. donald trump says veterans are losers. biden is 80. donald trump steals nuclear documents. biden is 80. donald trump calls countries s-hole countries. biden is 80. trump is a racist. i mean, come on! >> you could even say biden is 80, and he oversaw and managed the largest expansion of nato in u.s. history and has managed an extraordinary, extraordinary effort in ukraine. i just have to say, finally,

mike brought up benjamin netanyahu. if that insults anybody, what mike said, the israel people people and trust joe biden a hell of a lot more than they trust benjamin netanyahu. okay. so we're going to draw a breath. there's so much to say here, willie. it's the insanity that you hear every day on other networks. the insanity you hear on right-wing podcasts. there's so much to sort through. it's insane. molly said something a while back. i just have to let people who are all lathered up and ka catastrophizing the polls. the election was great for democrats but not joe biden. molly, you were talking about the generic democratic brand. willie, what we found over time

is joe biden, he is the generic democrat. usually, you go generic republican or democrat versus whoever is on the ticket. with joe biden -- >> it's why he won last time. >> because there's not the drama there. because he is not in everybody's face all the time. because he actually doesn't make being president of the united states about himself. >> he promised to be boring. >> he is back there. they're not really thinking about him but the je ner ek democrat. we saw it in '20 and '22. we saw it a couple weeks ago in '23. these red waves supposed to crash down on biden never do or his party. i would be hard pressed, maybe there is a historian out there watching that can tell me, when you have a president that not only won his first off-year election but also won three years in a row, hardly ever happens. i can't think of a time that it's happened.

you always get elected, then there's always a counterbalance from the other party. biden won in '20, in '21, in '22, in '23. pretty good for a guy that the right says doesn't know politics. >> even as you hear democrats fishing around, panicking about those polls you referenced, maybe we should put gavin newsom in there real quick, someone young and vital, the white house and president would say, gavin newsom is great. i already beat donald trump. >> right. >> there is evidence i can beat donald trump. >> right. >> everything else is speculation and wish casting. they still believe that they have the upper hand, that they can bin. it's not going to be easy. it'll be close, as it was last time. mark mckinnon, as someone who ran successful presidential campaigns, look at this from the biden campaign's point of view. which is, you have good economic data that they're going to try to lean on, then you have this binary choice with a guy who has been telling us every day what he'd do to the country if he

were put back in the white house. >> well, it's so stark. i mean, what you want is a clear choice. could there be a clearer choice between these guys? the guy who has negotiated ukraine and israel and brought us through a time of international crisis the way he has? i don't think anybody else could have done it. he's the only one who had the history internationally to bring nato together the way it has. listen, elections are all about choices. we can talk about this, that, and the other, but at the end of the day, it looks increasingly like it'll be donald trump and joe biden. that choice is pretty god damn clear. >> absolutely. political strategist mark mckinnon, "vanity fair's" molly jong-fast, thank you, both, for coming on this morning. in a moment, we'll speak with two people who travelled from isrl to d.c. for today's rally on the national mall. their son was kidnapped by hamas terrorists on october 7th and is being held hostage in gaza.

they join us with his story. first, the latest in the fighting in gaza, where two of the territory's biggest hospitals are now at the center of israel's military operation. israeli defense forces believe hamas terrorists are taking cover in medical facilities and other civilian buildings. the intensified fighting has left hundreds of patients and employees trapped. now, president biden is calling for more protections, telling reporters yesterday it is his host there will be, quote, less intrusive action around the hospitals in gaza. joining us now, the ranking member of the house foreign affairs committee, democratic congressman gregory meeks of new york. he just returned to d.c. after leading a bipartisan congressional delegation to israel, where the lawmakers met with israel's leaders and got a private screening of the graphic videos of the october 7th hamas terror attack. thank you for coming to us this morning. tell us a little bit about your

trip, what you saw, and what your message is to especially republicans who are concerned about funding abroad. >> mika, good to be with you this morning. it was a trip that i think was very, very important. it was the first time members of the house have gotten to travel to israel since the october 7th terrorist attack. what i can tell you that i learned is, you know, it's heartbreaking on all sides. what i felt was, and looking at the horrific video that we did see, is, you know, the people of israel, people have forgotten or are not talking any longer about the slaughter of the israeli people and the evil of what hamas is. hamas is continuing to do certain things. they are utilizing individuals as shields, palestinians as shields. putting them in danger.

i've seen where, you know, you could see the tapes where hamas was shooting from and israel would shoot back where they were shooting from, but it happened to be under a school or a mosque or, you know, what has taken place with reference to these tunnels. also, the horrific part that you see, it breaks your heart when you see palestinians trying to find some safety. what folks aren't talking about, also, hamas, again, playing a role there, preventing many palestinians from trying to get out and to go to places, or shooting some of their own individuals where the hamas leaders have said that they don't really care about the lives of the palestinians. they utilize them as cover because that would make them martyrs. their mission is to destroy israel. you've got these folks that are caught. israel concerned about their existence because that's what they feel when they look at what is surrounding them. these individuals do not want

israel to exist, so, therefore, there is no negotiating of peace there. then you've got palestinians who do not like hamas, who just want to have hope and a chance of having opportunity, but they're now caught up in this struggle. it's a very heartbreaking and difficult situation, and i think that we've got to really talk about it. the hope is that the direction of which we were moving in, and that is when you saw saudi arabia had negotiations to be a part of abraham accords, which basically states israel has the right to exist, which is really important and something that has not see bahrain and uae countries saying that israel has the right to exist, that's important. you can get to negotiating peace then. i reference all the time the example, you know, if you go back, these wars were fought between israel and egypt or

israel and jordan until the 1970s, until egypt said israel has the right to exist. early '90s, jordan said israel has the right to exist. then the rockettets and fightin ceased, but a lot more has to be done. when other regions join, we can talk about finally having a situation resolved, so the palestinian people, not hamas -- we have to go after hamas, and that's what i felt in talking to many of the israeli people and leadership. they understand the difference between the palestinians and hamas. but people are not talking about hamas enough and the tragedies they have done and continue to do in continuing to shoot rockets. you know, that's where we have this tug, but it is heartbreaking for the people of israel who just want to exist and have the right to exist, that people acknowledge they have the right to exist, that want peace, and they can clearly see hamas does not want that. and the people of israel also told me they want to make sure

that we limit and eliminate the palestinians who are innocent, to eliminate the dangers that they're in, primarily caused by hamas. >> congressman, want to shift to matters here at home. we're obviously a few days away before the government funding runs out. government could shut down if a deal is not struck. the new speaker has put forward his approach, this lattered plan that has gained, it seems, support from a few democrats. do you support his plan? where do you think things are going before now in a deadline? >> look, the tngs that are important for democrats, i think, is that the deal we struck in regard to the debt ceiling as to spending, that deal has to remain. republicans have seen they're not able to get anything done. they refuse to work with

democrats to get our participation and make sure that the things that we want and we think are important, like wic, for example, which they're not including, women, infants, and children, we need the funding there. they refuse to deal with that regards. we'll see whether or not they have the votes to pass their own plan. if you're going to pass something on a bipartisan way, there should be dialogue and conversation and negotiations taking place. if you tell us that democrats, whatever you want, you're not going to get, you're going to have to show your hand by passing something that i don't think is good for the american people. we don't have the supplemental in there, talking about israel and ukraine and humanitarian aid, which is very important. so, look, we'll see what happens. i hear they're talking about trying that because they can't pass anything through the regular process, through the rules process, trying to put something on the floor through a suspension vote. do they have the votes to do

that? i think we'll find out today. >> ranking member of the house foreign affairs committee, democratic congressman gregory meeks of new york, thank you very much for being on this morning. >> thank you, congressman. >> thank you for having me. it's been more than a month since the hamas terror attack in israel, where more than 1,200 people were killed and hundreds were taken hostage. one of those taken was hersh goldberg-polin, a 23-year-old israeli-american who was attending that music festival in southern israel. hersh's parents haven't heard from him since the morning of october 7th, but they know he lost the lower half of his arm in an explosion at a bomb shelter near the festival. last month, hersh's mother spoke at the u.n., explaining what it is like not to know whether her son is alive or safe. she called on the international community to do more to bring the hostages home. >> here i live in a different

universe than all of you. you are right there. we seem like we live in the same place, but i, like all of the mothers and all of the fathers and wives and husbands and children and brothers and sisters and loved ones of the stolen, we all actually live on a different planet. and the verycruelest each of us is asked without intended malice is, "how are you?" picture your own mother, then picture her being told there are only two options. you are either dead, or you had your arm blown off and were kidnapped by gunpoint into gaza and no one knows where you are or if you bled to death in the pickup truck 18 days ago. or if you died yesterday. or if you died five minutes ago. picture your own mother and that those are her only two options, and that is my answer to you when you ask, "how are you?"

that is how all of us here on our planet feel, this planet of beyond pain. our planet of no sleep. our planet of despair. our planet of tears. there are over 200 hostages being held in gaza right now. over 100 of them are from 33 countries. where is the world? we, the families of the 200 hostages, are far away on our own planet of agony. but where are you? why is no one crying out for these people to be allowed access to the red cross? why is no one demanding just proof of life? this is a global humanitarian catastrophe. >> the parents of hersh, rachel goldberg and john polin, join us now. they have traveled from israel to washington, d.c., where rachel will be speaking at today's march for israel rally on the national mall. thank you, both, very much for

joining us this morning. about your son, he was born in berkeley, california. you all moved to jerusalem when he was 8 years old. he's a massive soccer fan. he loves music. that's why he was at the festival. he's also very connected, not just to israel, but to the u.s. following sports and culture. in the information you sent to us about him, you say, when he was 7 years old, he could recite every u.s. president. tell us at this point what you know or don't know about hersh's whereabouts and about your message today on the mall. rachel? >> well, hersh's whereabouts are really unknown because, as you mentioned, he was hiding with a group of these young music-lovers in a bomb shelter on october 7th when the massacre at that music festival began.

they ended up having 270 killed in the field where the music festival wasersh managed to be bomb shelter that then came under attack. there were hand grenades thrown into. an rpg was thrown into the window-less room with 29 young people in it. they sprayed machine gunfire. when hersh stood up, as you mentioned, a few eyewitnesss who managed to live, because most of those young people were killed, saw that the lower half of his left arm had been blown off. he was put on a pickup truck, a hamas pickup truck by gunpoint. we have a video of that. then his last phone cell signal was 10:25 in the morning on october 7th. we have heard nothing at all since that time. nothing. and neither have any of the other hostage families. the international red cross has not gone in to see any of the

hostages. doctors without borders, physicians for human rights, no one has gone to check on the hostages, so nobody knows how they are. >> which, of course -- >> and -- pardon? >> of course, under any other circumstances, any other country, any other group of hostages, there would be an international outcry. there would be demands that the red cross or the red crescent go in. it would be overwhelming from the united nations. the chorus of demands coming from the united nations would be deafening, and, yet, silence here. rachel, i was very moved by your press conference at the u.n., and i actually -- there was one line, i think we talked about on this show, there has been a lot of false equivalency about suffering. you had, i thought, a very strong and powerful line. you said something along the lines of, "when you get into a

competition of suffering, everybody loses." talk about that. >> right. well, in a competition of pain, there is never a winner. because we all suffer, especially in situations like this. there are always going to be innocent people hurt in conflict and in war, always, which is why war is so devastating by nature. and why we as human beings have to be more creative, insightful, and figure out ways of approaching conflict so that it doesn't come to that. but this particular catastrophe, you have to realize, there are people from almost 30 different countries being held there. they range in age from 9 months to 85 years old. they represent christians, jews, muslims, buddhists, and hindus. this is a very different situation than a regular, oh, there were two sides having a war, and we captured ten soldiers. this is a global humanitarian

crisis. >> no question about it. john, thank you for being with us. so sorry for what you and your family are going through, but we're also impressed by the strength you and rachel both have shown, to use your platform and your voices to continue to have this out front and center. i'm curious, the little information you are getting, where are you getting it? how are you getting it? does anyone have any insight? i'm thinking of myself as a parent, i would want everything done. can commandos safe my son? you have to believe he is alive there somewhere in gaza. how are you getting your information right now? >> we do have regular channels of communication with representatives from the united states as well as from israel. they are good about being in touch consistently with us. unfortunately, though, most of what we hear from them is, "we have no news." we're getting sympathy. we're getting regular channels of communication, but we don't know any details. we done know if hersh died on

that truck five minutes after the video we saw at 9:00 a.m. on october 7th. we don't know if he made it to a hospital and got the surgery that doctors have told us was critical for him to get in order to live. we don't know if, even if he got the surgery, if he is getting antibiotics. we don't know where he is, with whom. we know nothing since 9:00 a.m. on october 7th. you said it, you're a parent. it's something that is impossible to live with, but we have no choice but to continue to move forward and do everything we can, turn over every stone to get hersh and 239 others brought home to their families as quickly as we can. >> jon, can you tell us about hersh? i understand he was at the music festival celebrating his 23rd birthday. what kind of kid is he? i guess he's not a kid anymore, but to a parent, they're always a kid. >> that's right. i still say that the 29 people in that bomb shelter were kids.

hersh is a really curious guy. you mentioned in the opening that, as a kid, as a 7-year-old, he could recite every fact about every u.s. president. what years they served, vice presidents, et cetera. later, he moved to a different category, which was geography. he could name every world capital and population of every country, the language and the flag. he's always been a curious guy. as a kid, he was an avid reader of "national geographic," the adult version. a fun-loving guy. everybody around hersh likes hersh. our friends gravitate to him. little kids gravitate to him. but i say, he is not the kind of guy who walks in a room and is obviously a presence right away, but within 15 minutes of being in the room, he's gotten around and has gotten people in the room to know him and like him. the evidence is, we've been hearing from people literally around the world who hersh has met in his travels. he got to spend this past summer going from music festival to

music festival in six different countries. we hear from people in countries everywhere who met him at these festivals and are sending outpouring of support. he's a likable, good guy, and a pursuer of peace. >> rachel, i was struck by both the content and the composure of the remarks that we played, your remarks coming into this segment. i'm wondering how, as a mother, a parent, who belongs to a collection of people that no parent wants to belong to, knowing that your child is somewhere lost, living in pain, where do you find the strength to go on on an hourly basis, day by day? >> well, it's not easy, obviously. partially, it's because we are surrounded by an outstanding team of friends who have been

helping us from october 7th and have not left our side. we are determined. they treat it as if he is also their son. we are very busy trying to turn over every single stone on planet earth. we will go anywhere. we will try anything. we will talk to anyone. we do every single thing possible, even though we're exhausted, and even though we are heartbroken and living on another planet. the last thing that helps us is that we are people of faith. we do, you know, believe that, you know, god or whatever anyone's idea of god is can give us strength to keep walking through another day where we feel like there's no air left. >> yeah. jon, you mentioned what a believer, a supporter of peace

hersh was. that's one of the bitter ironies of this, cruel ironies of this hamas attack. i guess the further we get away from it, the more we realize, that for an organization that used to drag arabs, palestinians behind cars to their death, used to push palestinians off of buildings to their death if they talked about making peace with israel, it seems that it wasn't a mistake that hamas made tactically to attack the very people who were the greatest proponents of peace in a two-state solution in israel. your son being one of them. >> so i want to be clear that nobody of any political persuasion anywhere in the world should be taken hostage. it is a cruel, terrible thing for individuals to go through

and for their families to go through. but, yes, you touched on the irony. 50ish of the hostages, and we don't know the exact numbers, were taken from this music festival of peace and love. many of these people, the hostages, were taken from communities surrounding the gaza border that are known in israel and in the world to be the communities that are the most active pursuers of peace. there are so many stories of people from those communities who employ gazans and have for years. who are known to drive sick gazans to hospitals in israel for treatment. this community in general who was taken on the morning of the 7th is just that, a community that pursued peace, that was looking for a better, brighter future for everybody in the middle east. and there is this bitter irony you talked about.

it's a strange, strange, ironic incident of the people that were chosen to be stolen on that morning. >> rachel and jon, we will, my family will be praying for your family. by family, i mean the millions of people watching and who will see this, we are going to be praying and holding you all close in our hearts. we're especially going to be praying for hersh, and we hope to see you all again very soon under better, happier circumstances. please stay in touch with us and let us know what we can do, and we will do it. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> thanks for being on. >> we'll be right back. life, diabetes, there's no slowing down. each day is a unique blend of people to see and things to do. that's why you choose glucerna to help manage blood sugar response.

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code of ethics yesterday after multiple justices have been linked to questionable behavior over the past year. th 14-page document includes codes of conduct of the justice s should abide by followed by lower courts the court admits these rules and principles are not new. the absence of a code, hover, has led in recent years to be misunderstanding that the justic of this court, jurists i country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules. the new ethics code does not state how or when the rules will take effect or who will enforce them. those are important questions. donald trump's truth social media platform has lost $73 million in less than two years. an s.e.c. filing yesterday shows that since its launch in early

2022, truth social has taken in less than $4 million in net sales. the app is owned by trump media and technology group. the "hollywood reporter notes according to the fing, the company's financial condition raises substantial doubt as to its ability to continue. if theompany does not complete an expected merger, which has been mired in legal trouble, it may be forced to close up shop. and the older sister of former president donald trump, maryanne trump barry, has died. a person close to the family says the 86-year-old was found inside her manhattan home yesterday. a graduate of mount holy oak college, she earned her masters from columbia in 1962. after 13 years as a homemaker, barry enrolled in law school at hofstra university. in 1974, she became an assistant

federal prosecutor in new jersey. in 1983, she was appointed to the district court in new jersey by president ronald reagan. a decade later, president bill clinton elevated her to the court of appeals. she retired in 2019 amid an investigation into her family's tax practices. judge barry made news again in 2020 when nbc news and other outlets obtained secretly recorded audio of a conversation between her and the former president's niece, mary. in the conversation, which was recorded by the latter, trump's sister said her brother, quote, had no principles. she also called him a brat and claimed that he only got into college because he had someone else take exams for him. the former president has not commented on the death of his sister. still ahead on "morning joe," donald trump is making it

clear that a second term as president would focus on getting revenge on his critics. meanwhile, his grip on the republican party continues to result in election losses for the gop. we'll discuss all of that and more with best seller author jonathan karl, whose new book, "tired of winning," is out today. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. you'll recall that prior to the last election, kim kardashian was asking trump to free people serving unjust prison sentences. trump was willing to play ball if kardashian leveraged her connections to get football stars who were friends of hers to visit him at the white house. kim tried, but all the players she approached declined. let me just talk directly to the football players about that decision. it's good!

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we're going to win economically, with military, with health care, with veterans. we're going to win with every single facet. we're going to win so much, you may even get tired of winning. you'll say, please, please, it's too much winning. we can't take it anymore. mr. president, it's too much. i'll say, no, it isn't! we have to keep winning. we have to win more. we're going to win more. >> that's donald trump in april of 2016, promising republicans they would get tired of all the winning. joining us now is "new york times" best selling author and abc news washington correspondent jonathan karl. he uses that quote for the title of his book, "tired of winning, donald trump and the end of the

grand old party." john, great to have you. nice to steal you a day or two. >> nice to be here. >> you're at the table. congrats on the book. everybody is talking about this. let's go back to the quote in april of 2016, which is sort of launching us into this book, and what that winning has looked like in the seven years or so since. >> "tired of winning." donald trump certainly won. he won the presidency, almost total control over the republican party, but he has left wreckage in his wake. obviously, there are the election losses for republicans, midterms, special elections, runoffs. it's been almost every time voters have gone to the polls since 2016, republicans lost or haven't met expectations. more to the point is the wreckage he has left in his wake as he has gone about his winning. the people that opposed him have seen their careers destroyed, especially republicans. the people close to him, some have wound up in prison,

disgraced, left politics entirely, broke with lawyers' fees. everybody he comes in contact with seems to be the worse for it. but, throughout the process, he has managed, and you have to give him credit to a degree, it's amazing that after all of that, he's where he is now. which is the presumptive republican nominee for president. >> how do you explain, john, and this is a central question we've been discussing for years, the loyalty he's engendered, despite what you said, despite what happens to anyone who comes into contact with him? whether it is somebody who heeded his calls to storm the capitol and is now in a jail somewhere. or whether it is rudy giuliani who hitched himself to him and is now bankrupt and facing the potential for prison. yet, we were talking about it this morning, yesterday, the vermin comment over the weekend. you can't get a republican on the record to criticize donald

trump. how do you explain it? >> they've made a calculation, and i talk in the book about two, i think, very critical moments in all of this, where the republican party faced a choice. the first, famously, was when kevin mccarthy went to mar-a-lago eight days after trump left in disgrace. we know about that. the other one is when ronna mcdaniel faced a threat from donald trump in 2021, the day he leaves office, "i'm leaving the party. i'm going to start my own party." mcdaniel begs him not to go, "you're going to hurt the people who helped you the most. you won't win. we won't win. we'll all lose." he say, "you deserve to lose. you didn't fight hard enough for me. if you had, i still would have been president." then the threats, they're going to lose the ability to raise money, and he backs down. what if kevin mccarthy said,

"he's done, we're going in a different direction"? what if mac mcdaniel said, "sta your own party, go ahead." they were at a low point. they felt he'd take his sloa voters with him. maybe it wasn't the majority of the party, but they were really focused on the mid elections, the midterms. mcdaniel wanted to remain the rnc chair and she did. kevin mccarthy wanted to remain the speaker and remained the speaker. last i checked, mccarthy is no longer the speaker of the house. >> donald trump stands a real chance of winning. there's been reporting of what a second trump term would look like, and you have that in your book, as well, very, very timely. give us a sense as to what they plan to do and how they almost telegraphed it by the site of their first campaign rally this time around, waco, texas.

>> yeah. look, he had his first rally in waco, and almost exactly on the 30th anniversary of the siege of the davidian compound, the cult with the showdown with the federal marshals, that ended in the inferno that killed more than 50 people. one of the real kind of tragedies in recent american history. but it became a rallying cry mi. i wrote a book about the right-wing militias after one of the militia members, timothy mcveigh, bombed oklahoma city, the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in america at the time. you know, killing 168 people in oklahoma city. he goes to waco, texas, to hold the first rally. i called bannon, steve bannon, who is a far more -- i think people are figuring out that bannon, once again, is an incredibly influential force on trump right now.

i mean, i think maybe the kind of intellectual heart, if there is one, it's bannon. he said, what do you mean? we're the trump davidiandavidia. it is embracing this idea of, we will do anything to stand up against federal power. the federal government is really coming out to get us. the deep state. by the way, they often mean republicans when they talk about that. i think that set the tone for what this campaign will be, which is a campaign of retribution. >> there's so much in this book that it'd require us to read it, chapter by chapter, on air to really get to everything that you have through your reporting and writing. my question to you is, there is an anecdote in the book i'd like you to explain, and it has to do with trump's lawyers coming to see jack smith. >> oh, yeah. >> after explaining that anecdote to the audience, based

upon your reporting and your relationship with people around trump, as well as trump himself, do you think, finally, at the end of the day, he is frightened? >> i think the short answer to that is yes. but let me first get to the anecdote. so as jack smith has already indicted trump for the documents, there are lots of speculation that an environment on january 6th is coming. the trump team asks for a meeting with jack smith. they go down, and there's a lot of secrecy surrounding the meeting. they come in early in the morning, come down to washington. it's john larro, todd blanche. they meet with smith and his prosecutors. i had some insight into, like, a blow by blow after what happened in the meeting. jack smith comes in. they meet in the conference room. he offers them water.

invites them to sit down, then says nothing. then john larro takes an hour to say why trump shouldn't be prosecuted. he goes into this argument that trump believed he won the election and was using good faith to do something about it. he uses all the arguments they'd later make in court briefings. jack smith takes notes. doesn't ask a single question and bids them farewell at the end of the hour. a few hours later, jack smith does slam down an indictment. it's a superseding one on the documents, getting into the tunnels, the obstruction, the video tapes in mar-a-lago. it gives no hint that that's coming. the january 6th indictment comes a week later and anticipates all

the arguments they've just given him. it was a really interesting insight into how they operate. >> a lot of reporting bore out in the last week or so in what trump would do in another term and how dangerous his presidency could be, specifically to certain people and groups. you have an anecdote, a story in your book that also reflects on what a second trump presidency would portend. tell us about johnny mcatee. >> i think he is a central player to understand 2020 and what happened with donald trump. an even more central player in deciding what is coming next. he was the body guy, the guy that carried his bags. he started in 2015, starting as a junior desk at fox news and then volunteers for trump.

he carried his bags everywhere. he has a job in white house, then he is fired due to issues in the background check, fired by john kelly. he comes back in 2020, and he is given the job of the head of the president personnel office. maybe the most important hr department in the government. responsible for the hiring and firing of 4,000 plus federal political appointees. he goes about rooting out disloyalists. first, he hires a bunch of his friends to be in the office, kids in their early 20s, mcentee himself was 29 at the time. you know, they go about interrogating cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, senior officials throughout the federal government, the federal government trying to test for who is truly loyal, totally loyal to donald trump, so mcentee, after trump lost in 2020, becomes incredibly powerful as he orchestrates the

decapitation of the political leadership at the pentagon, esper is fired, three other top civilian leaders in the pentagon are fired, and mcentee, i describe a scene, about how he orchestrated this executive order, quote, executive order that calls for the complete withdrawal of troops immediately from afghanistan by january 15th, the withdrawal of troops from germany, the withdrawal of troops from the middle east, and then they added africa, and he arranged to have it done completely outside the national security council, and when this order hit the pentagon, you know, nobody knows what to do with it because it requires this massive movement of troops that a lame duck president who's only obsessed with trying to overturn an election. this was all mcentee, pentagon

leadership comes to the white house. robert o'brien didn't know about it, the white house counsel didn't know about it. mcentee had done it all himself. the point of this is that mcentee or somebody like him is not only there at the end of a trump presidency ensuring complete and total loyalty to donald trump at the very beginning. no more john kellys, no more pat cipollones, no more people that would stand up to trfrp. >> that's why that anecdote is so critical to understand. that national security adviser next time won't be robert o'brien, it will be mike flynn. >> or kash patel. >> all those names are viable, and they had sign right off on it. that's a preview of what's coming next. >> they would say yes, boss. >> that's right. let's talk -- you get into the book too about some of these few profiles in courage, liz cheney leaps to mind first.

she sacrificed her political career to stand up and say, actually, the 2020 election did go to joe biden and everything we're doing to try to overturn it is un-american, it violates the constitution everything else. adam kinzinger, same looevgs congress. who's left in the grand old party? who are those profiles in courage? or is it gone? >> first, there were some surprising profiles in courage that we saw at the end with trump, and i think it's worth noting that if you looked at the january 6th hearings, for instance, almost all the witnesses were republicans, and they testified truthfully and honestly about what trump did, about what really happened in the election. there was the entire leadership of the justice department, names that are not household names that all threatened to resign on january 2nd of 2021 when trump was talking about, you know, appointing a new attorney general who would carry out his orders. bill barr stood up for him. i mean, mike pence had that

incredibly important moment, maybe the only moment he ever stood up to trump in the white house, but he might have saved the republic. i mean, you don't know what would have happened if he had tried to do what trump said. but yeah, they're largely gone. you know, i talk -- i conclude in the book, it's almost like a tribute to those that stood up. romney, this is something, an interesting little piece of trump trivia. there is in the national archives in a box, one of the 15 boxes that were sent back, there is a napkin that is now an official white house record in the archives, i guess it will be released in whatever -- however many years they unseal this stuff, but it's a napkin that says in trump's sharpie, mitt romney is a total loser. >> just musings on an air force napkin. >> just musings on an air force napkin. he's right, romney was a loser, he lost in 2012, but unlike

donald trump, he graciously acknowledged that loss and moved on and became a profile in courage in the senate. voting twice to convict trump in impeachment trials, standing up to the, you know, to his party, but mitt romney is a total loser is maybe the most fitting piece of white house records of the trump presidents psy. >> and briefly lastly, so many republicans have bowed down to him. few have stood up to him, including those vying against him to be their nominee. until very recently, most republicans outside of chris christie weren't doing anything at all. how do you assess trump's chances? he emerges next year as largely undented heading into this? >> the polls a year ago were really stark. i mean, desantis was beating trump soundly. there was a wall street journal poll in the middle of december last year.

desantis well over 50%, trump in the 30s. i mean, there was a real sense that he was not going to make this. but they -- desantis and others made the calculation again if they were going to beat him, they were also going to need his supporters, it was an utter failure. desantis is now maybe third. i don't think it's over. i think trump can still lose the republican nomination. one of the issues is that people have not been focused on what he is doing right now, what he is thinking about, what he is preparing to do in a second trump presidency. there's been endless coverage of the criminal cases for sure, but there hasn't been much coverage of what trump has actually been doing and saying both in public and in private, and that's why i wrote this book. >> we're seeing those alarm bells go off now thanks in part to your book. it is entitled "tired of winning: donald trump and the end of the grand old party." it is out told, "new york times"

best selling author, jonathan karl. great to have you here. still ahead this morning, "the washington post" david ignatius has been on the ground in gaza, covering israel's operation to capture and kill hamas terrorists. david joins us with his latest reporting straight ahead on "morning joe." test reporting straight ahead on "morning joe." comfortable inter. is

. welcome to "morning joe," it's tuesday, november 14th, and congress has until friday to pass a funding bill to avoid a government shutdown. and speaker mike johnson might get some support from house democrats on his two-step strategy to avoid that shutdown. we'll explain that plan. plus, special counsel jack smith responds to donald trump's push for cameras in the courtroom in his federal election interference case. meanwhile, the former president's elder son takes the stand again in the civil fraud trial against the family business.

we'll get legal analysis on that testimony. and we'll have the latest out of gaza on the efforts to evacuate patients at the largest hospital, which israel says sits above a hamas command post. >> right, and you look at the papers today, that's the headline on so much. it's about the fact that the israel forces in gaza reach the hospital. this is in a wall street journal, talks about as conditions worsen, the lead in "the new york times" hospital shakes in gaza as fights rage at the doorstep, and it really does, willie, for both sides it feeds into suggestions of what both sides are accusing the others of war crimes on, whether it's israel going aft that hospital because they believe that hamas is actually

committing war crimes by hiding behind civilians, having a vast network of tunnels right under these hospitals and other civilian targets that they are certain would not be bombed by israel. it makes obviously the situation there so much more complicated for, first of all, the israelis who are trying to root out the terrorists but also to try to figure out what's underneath there. we're going to be covering that throughout the morning. also, david ignatius posting from israel that we've heard that deal between israel and hamas to free dozens of hostages, maybe up to 100 women and children. they are actually closing in on that deal. so we may hear some good news on that in the next few days. >> let's hope that true and to go back to the first part of what you're talking about, that is the central dilemma of the war where palestinians are saying to israel, militarily stop attacking civilians.

israel saying stop building you and under schools. we do want to begin with new revelations in the fulton county election interference case against donald trump and 15 other co-defendants. "the washington post" and abc news have made public excerpts of videos of former trump lawyers, jenna ellis and sidney powell. watch, now as ellis recounts a conversation with one high ranking trump adviser where he said the boss is not leaving the white house for any reason. >> i emphasized i thought that the claims and the ability to challenge the election results was essentially over. he said to me -- in a kind of excited tone -- well, we don't care and we're not going to leave. i said what do you mean? he said the boss is not going to leave under any circumstances. we are just going to stay in power. and i said it doesn't quite work

that way, you realize. and he said we don't care. >> ellis was required to lay out everything she knew that the prosecution could use in exchange for a plea deal. nbc news did not obtain the videos. they've not been independently verified. ellis accepted a lighter sentence in exchange for information. sidney powell, another lawyer who accepted a deal discussed a meeting with former president trump where he was told he lost in 2020. >> were you ever around when someone, anyone, told donald trump that he had lost the election? >> oh, yeah. >> who? >> pat cipollone eric hir issueman, derrick lions all thought he'd lost. >> was that in the september 18th meeting? >> yes. >> what was president trump's reaction when this cadre of advisers would say you lost?

>> it was like, well, they would say that, and then they'd walk out and he'd go, see, this is what i deal with all the time. >> powell also discussed her scheme to seize voting machines from across the country. said she talked with the former president often while carrying out her plans. both she and trump now claim she never represented him. "the washington post" also reported kenneth chesebro, a key figure in the plan to use fake electors told prosecutors he briefed trump on the attempt to falsely certify his win in battleground states. chesebro's statement personally ties the former president to the elector plan. the fulton county district attorney's office has refused nbc news' request for comment. trump's lead attorney said this about the report, quote, if this is the nonsense line of inquiry being pursued and this is the type of bogus, ridiculous evidence d.a. willis intends to rely upon, it is one more reason that this political travesty of

a case must be dismissed. let's bring in former u.s. attorney barbara mcquade. nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard and the host of "way too early" jonathan lemire. vaughn, you've been covering this very closely. it is striking to see these two attorneys, these two women who were so brash during the 2020 election with their claims of a stolen election being humbled now that the law has caught up to them and they've cut a deal with prosecutors. >> what is so striking is to see these two on video saying this and this is the part that i keep coming back to. i was at trump's counter rally to the debate last week down in miami there, and folks to this day -- i mean, one gentleman telling me that he's locked and loaded, ready to go, a real hot civil war in his words. you know why? it's because of people like jenna ellis and sidney powell, standing there presser after pressing suggesting she was going to release a crack and there was an international cabal at the heart of overturning the

election. jenna ellis, in arizona she was down there with rudy giuliani making the case to speaker rusty bower to overturn and allow the arizona legislature to give donald trump the win in arizona. to hear this to the extent that trump loyalists hear from these folks and see these proffered videos, i'm not sure, but it hits at the heart of the argument for the cameras being in the courtroom for the federal election interference case. these are compelling and they're revealing. >> jonathan, you wrote the book on the big steal. tell us about these two players and the significance of them stepping forward now and saying it was all a lie and specifically that donald trump was told by his lawyers -- >> many times. >> by his lawyers many times he lost the election? >> yeah, and that's the most important point, which we'll come back to in a second. in terms of refreshing people's memories on these two attorneys, sidney powell, jenna ellis and rudy giuliani made up the heart

of trump's legal team after the 2020 election. they worked with john eastman and kenneth chesebro on not just the fake electors scheme, which is central to the federal january 6th case but also these other measures, whether it was voting machines or challenging the results or filing lawsuits, which they had a right to do. those were all without exception, defeated in court. they propagated the big lie, and that is to vaughn's point what people are still believing three years later. people still believe that the election was stolen from donald trump. polls suggest the majority of republicans don't think that joe biden was duly elected, and that's the poison here that they injected into the american political bloodstream that is not going away. certainly ellis and powell, you know, their testimony here that they were aware that the election was not, in fact, stolen that they told donald trump. that may get into whether trump's mind-set, whether he truly believed or not that he won or lost, and i reported in my book and others have as well that trump did at times privately concede that he lost

telling kellyanne conway at one moment how could i lose to this bleeping guy, meaning joe biden. though the trump team is trying to down play the significance of these two lawyers' testimony, there's a limit to what they can do, and there's a sense that ellis and powell is part of a chain that could lead to others flipping. >> let's take that to barbara mcquade, how valuable is this testimony? is it to get others to flip? or do you think that some of the thing we're hearing from these two individuals, how can it be used in the trial? how useful and valuable will it be? >> well, i think the purpose of recording their statement ss is just to lock them in so they can't change their story later. what we'll see at trial is their live testimony. they'll discuss these things and more and of course be subjected to cross examination. they revealed some very important things already that we heard, just in these excerpts, and perhaps there's more. the fact that donald trump was

aware of the fact that he lost the election, really important. they had meetings with him where they disclose the plan according to kenneth chesebro and a statement that dan scavino, the deputy chief of staff, haven't you heard, he's not leaving under any circumstances. and i think that rebuts the claim that he thought that he had legitimately won the election. i think that's important. i think there's one other important dynamic here, and that is having people on the inside admit that it was all a con. to the extent that a jury presumes a defendant to be innocent, hearing the evidence of a prosecution says one thing, but to hear people say, yes, i have pled guilty. i am accepting responsibility, and i was in on this, and here's how it went down. that can be very valuable for a jury to hear. >> all right, special counsel jack smith's office is arguing against having cameras in the courtroom during former president donald trump's upcoming federal election interference trial saying the former president wants a, quote,

carnival atmosphere. in a filing yesterday, smith's team wrote, there's a, quote, constitutionally sound broadcast prohibition that has governed federal criminal trials no matter the defendant for decades. and that there is no reason to depart from common practice. media outlets including msnbc's parent company nbc universal are arguing for the trial to be televised, initially former president trump's attorney told the special counsel's office they took no position on televising the trial, but over the weekend the trump team changed course asking for the trial to be broadcast while accusing the special counsel of wanting it to proceed in secret. at this point the trial is unlikely to be televised given that federal criminal proceedings have never been aired on television. what's more, judge tanya chutkan has repeatedly stated she will treat trump like any other criminal defendant, and that broadcasting his trial would be

a major departure from the norm. what do you think, joe? and secondly, it's going to be really hard to treat him like any other criminal defendant, but i guess she can try. i mean, he gets special treatment the minute he walks in the door. he has secret service. people can't put him in jail necessarily without the secret service. i mean, how does this work? how is he treated like a normal person? >> donald trump wins when donald trump is able to play the disrupter. >> right. >> when he's able to go outside of the courtroom and yell and wave his arms and tell america what just happened inside the courtroom, and we've seen it. we saw it with robert mueller. i'm afraid we're seeing it now with jack smith. >> yeah. >> people are saying, just by the book. let's go by the book. head down, we're going to do this just like any other case. it is not any other case, and it is not any other defendant.

>> no. >> and the key it seems to me, barbara mcquade, for transparency in this case is paramount. i'm really surprised and really disappointing that jack smith is talking about head down, no transparency. let's just do the case like we do every other case. americans need to see this case. they need to see it because the rule of law is under attack, and they need to see what's happening when a former president is being tried and possibly convicted for the crime of trying to steal an election, don't you think? >> well, what we would like to see is different, i think, from what we can see. i'd love to see this televised because i think otherwise donald trump will misrepresent what's actually going on in the courtroom. however, what jack smith is saying isn't that we don't want it to be televised. he's saying the judge lacks the authority to televise it. federal rule of procedure 53 prohibits cameras in the courtroom. any advocacy on this issue has to be taken up at a different level with the judicial conference, the group of judges who make up the rules for what

happens in court. her hands are tied. >> but can't he make a motion to do that? can't he move to get that done? >> not -- the judge lacks the authority to do this. i think what the media companies are arguing is that she should strike down the rule as unconstitutional. so if she makes that finding, then i suppose so, but other courts have already found that it is, and so i think that she lacks the power to do that. the place to advocate is with the judicial conference to change the rule, and they have time to do that before this trial begins. >> so the trump campaign is trying to down play alarming comments made by the 2024 republican front runner over the weekend, which echoed the words of 20th century fascists on social media and then later a rally on saturday, trump ved to, quote, root out his perceived political enemies who said live like vermin within -- thathat he said, live like vermin within the confines of

the country. that's his quote. in a statement to "the washington post" afterwards, a campaign spokesperson hit back at those drawing parallels between trump's words and the words of dictators by using more extreme language. he told the post, quote, those who try to make that ridiculous assertion are clearly grasping for anything, and their entire existence will be crushed when president trum returns to the white house. >> so just stop there. >> let's -- yeah. >> their entire existence will be crushed when president trump returns to the white house. that makes things bet zbler -- better. >> willie said, i meant sad existence, not entire existence. it's a distinction without a difference. how ridiculous that a guy comes out, fat white pink boy who's trying to talk tough for a fake

populous who's going around spreading hatred and trying to overturn american democracy, and his response to it, to trump grasping back at a nazi reference from the 1930s is to say these people that are criticizing him are going to have their entire existence crushed. i mean, are these -- are these -- you know, where do you find people so vacant and so desperate and just lacking any center, any core that they would talk about people's entire existences being crushed? >> well, it's a job requirement, as you know, to work for donald trump. all those things you just laid out, be obsequious, echo exactly what he said. in this case it's not a reach. it's exactly the thing adolf

hitler said. he used the term vermin, that's a statement of fact. it's playbook 101 for a dictator and authoritarian to dehumanize your opponent so you can do things that seem at least to your supporters, fair and just in some way because they're not human. vaughn, it's been striking once again to see the lack of response from any republicans at all on any of this. >> i think it's almost a given here at this point. >> they've been asked -- we've been down this road for almost a decade now, can you believe what donald trump said? i don't want to talk about the campaign. i don't want to talk about donald trump. we're focused on other things. can you believe that he suggested general milley should be executed. i didn't hear the comment. we know this, but my god they won't talk about this either. >> because it's what we were living through all these last years is that donald trump could be in the white house for four more years. he's vowed to destroy kim reynolds, the iowa governor, you know, and for the constituent thes back home in the state of iowa, when you see your governor being threatened like that, you know, that's a hostile place and environment to be here. the one time that i was invited

on to donald trump's plane this year was from waco, texas, back in march, and you know, i work with these campaign staffers, including this press secretary on a daily basis, and what is so striking this go-around is just how keenly aware this campaign team is to have only loyalists on their staff. there are no alyssa faras this time around. there's nobody trying to do good from within. when he got back on that plane after that rally in waco, texas, he got back on the plane and everybody applauds, great job, boss, and he puts his hand up in the air like that. when he sees polling numbers like he does, he has every right to feel good about his position right now. >> he wants to be treated like the dear leader. that's a preview of what we'll see if he's reelected in his cabinet and the people who he surrounds himself with. we did hear from the white house on this yesterday, on these vermin comments. >> the white house has really upped their rhetoric against trump, criticizing trump in the last week or two. we reported in last week ago

they were mulling that shift, and well, they have done it. they have decided to draw the contrast as much as they can. they've been really sharply critical of trump on comments like this but also his stance on abortion. with a trump/biden rematch likely, they're not wasting time. some felt they should have made this move sooner, but they are doing it now. it is going to be purely loyalists in the next trump administration were he to win again. we spent a lot of time yesterday talking about the 2025 project as they have deemed it, and trump's immigration proposals, draconian, which are going to involve raids and camps and frankly un-american measures to try to rid the nation in their words of illegal immigrants, and that is what is coming here. it's not just rhetoric, it's going to be rhetoric followed by policy, and certainly we have heard trump since 2015 use subhuman terms to describe his political foes, and we're seeing that again here with the vermin over the weekend, and there's no

sign of it stopping. >> yesterday afternoon he said in a post on social media that he would institutionalize jack smith. >> and joe, just quickly, the vermin comments was not an ad lib, was not a slip. he posted that exact comment to his social media site as well. this is a story he wants to tell now. >> it's a choice. >> it is another line that's crossed, another time that it's shocking but not surprising, and again, i'm glad the white house is doing what they're doing. it makes -- it makes sense. when somebody apes adolf hitler, and mussolini, when they lift words from 1930 fascist speeches, focused at dehumanizing jews, when they talk about executing the chairman of the joint chiefs of

staff because he would not go along with a military coup, when they talk about institutionalizing the second he's elected -- and this was just yesterday -- institutionalizing people at the justice department because they're pursuing investigations against him, when he talks about terminating the constitution of the united states of america, then, yeah, yeah. i think -- i think jonathan lemire, the white house is really doing what we were talking about yesterday. they're focusing on donald trump's words. it's one of these cases, institutionalizing people in the justice department that you don't like and he makes that threat yesterday after lifting hitler and mussolini's words, what they used to describe jews

and other enemies of their fascist regimes. when he's talking about terminating the constitution. when he's talking about doing all of these things and when he has such extreme remarks on fallen soldiers saying he doesn't respect them. he doesn't understand why. he calls men and women who gave their lives to the united states losers. well, you know, it's a good thing he's bringing it out. i just want to say, i want to underline, again, that i think it's donald trump's words that he's doing now and, you know, he's got to know that. this is like elvis '77. it's an old act. he's near the end. so what does he do? all he can do is keep re-upping for the shock value, and he wants to re-up for the shock value, so we'll talk about him and other people will talk about him. what he doesn't understand is it's a double-edged sword.

those very words he's using are now being put together by a campaign that's going to beat him again, and they're going to beat him with his own words. and we talked about abortion yesterday. donald trump bragging, i am the one who terminated roe v. wade. i am the one that killed a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body. i am the one that took freedom away from your daughters, from your wives. i am the one that crushed 50 years of freedom. i mean, those -- him bragging about doing all of that and leaving little 10-year-old girls being raped by illegal immigrants and having to flee the state of ohio because of what donald trump did, and he's bragging about that?

that's going to be a long fall for donald trump. >> trump has had this political trick where he's speaking in a way that's just ambiguous enough people can read into it the way they want. i was joking or i was exaggerating, but we have seen his believers, his supporters take him at his word, and they believe him, and we saw that as what fueled january 6th. and what we're seeing here -- >> and by the way, they're in jail. they're in jail, jonathan, aren't they? they believed him, and do you think there's another group like that that's going to believe him too or do you think they're going to be willing to sit in jail for a guy who sits fat, dumb, and happy at mar-a-lago running for president making money while these working class americans are rotting in jail because they bought into his lie? >> well, there is a sense that his -- when he's calling for protests in recent months they've been sparsely attended because his true believers are already locked up.

to your point about his wordsing with used against him, which seems to be the biden campaign playbook right now on things like abortion, on things like extremism, on things like threats of political violence, those words are being used against donald trump, and we should also note his words are also going to be used against him in the court of law, that also we're going to see him on trial next year amid a campaign potentially being held legally accountable for those same words. coming up, we'll go live to the middle east where "the washington post" david ignatius has been inside gaza covering israel's advance. david joins us with his latest reporting from the front lines straight ahead on "morning joe." s straight ahead on "morning joe."

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donald trump jr. testified again yesterday in the family's new york fraud trial. this time as a witness for the

defense. the trial is mostly in place to determine what the punishment will be. since the judge has already found donald trump and his adult sons guilty of fraud. during his testimony don jr. praised his father as a visionary, an artist, and a genius. he described the former president as someone who, quote, creates things that otherwise would never envision. this is true. trump jr. attempted to paint a picture that the properties are extremely valuable, kpt company underrated them in statements. trump's eldest son failed to provide any evidence to support his claims, while the prosecution has presented spreadsheets, financial statements and more to the contrary. >> so barbara, it just seemed with don jr.'s testimony, there wasn't a lot to take away from

that. nor was there a lot to take away from the other kids. i think eric made one pretty significant admission, but other than that, did the prosecution get anything or did the state get anything out of the testimony of the children? >> i think they did subtle points, but i think they did. i think they got some evidence that lenders rely on these statements of financial worth. we heard that from ivanka trump, and we heard that from eric trump. i think we heard some evidence about donald trump's involvement in the valuation of these properties as well as some of the children, and that is important for this phase where some of the other claims require proof of intent, but i think largely, as we just heard, this case is all about the amounts, and so that's going to come down on what's on the documents as opposed to whatever flowery description donald trump jr. gives of these various properties and shows, you know,

images of beautiful ball rooms. what it's going to come down to is the numbers, and numbers don't lie. >> these numbers are nuts. >> willie, there's a massive spread on the value of -- >> briar cliff, what? >> yeah, just a massive spread on what he valued them at and what the court and the witnesses have said the value of it is. i mean, this isn't really hard to get at. you look at donald trump -- and again, we're talking about something that's already taken place. he's already found them to be fraud -- you know, to have committed fraud, but you know, there are appraisers, there are property appraisers that will tell you how much a property is worth, and you know, donald trump and, well, nobody else can just add 400% because his name's on there. >> it's almost comical to watch

them attack appraisers, these guys who have no political interest in this whatsoever, guys with calculators assessing property saying they are corrupt. donald trump has said this too but eric trump suggesting by their math that mar-a-lago, the beach club where donald trump lives, is worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 to $2 billion. that's their assessment. we see the assessor had it like 18 million, it's probably worth more than that. it's probably not worth a billion dollars, but that is trump math for you. coming up, did inflation rise or fall last month? we'll get the answer to that question this hour with another key reading on the economy. a live report from cnbc is straight ahead when "morning joe" comes right back. ht back. (vo) no matter who you are there are times it can be tough to be yourself when you have severe asthma. triggers can pop up out of nowhere and lead to an asthma attack. but no matter what type of severe asthma you have tezspire can help you be you.

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they respond to trump and they looked back at trump's presidency and said my wages were higher, inflation was

lower. maybe the guy's a jerk, but he's a bad ass and the world fears him. >> he's a bad ass? all he does is complain about people. >> a whiny, vengeful, back ward looking billionaire. >> he's forward looking. take on the administrative state that's driven this country into the ground. >> he's not talking about taking on the administrative strait to help people's lives, he's talking about going after the people who were mean to him. i'm going to have the doj target john kelly because he turned on me. i'm going to have the doj talk about jack smith. he doesn't talk about helping people. >> that's not true. >> here's my question, you're a maga lawyer, on your podcast, mike davis here's what he suggested were the top priority's for trump's attorney general, fire the deep state executive branch. indict the biden family, deport 10 million people, 5, pardon every january 6th defendant. what do you think about that five-step plan? >> i think it's fantastic.

>> all five? >> we're going to start the largest deportation program in history. all 10 million must leave. >> wow, part of an exchange with long-time trump adviser steve bannon from the final episode of the circus. joining us now, one of the now former co-hosts of the circus, political strategist mark mckinnon, plus msnbc contributor mike barnicle, and special correspondent at "vanity fair," host of the fast politics podcast, molly john fast. >> you know, mark mckinnon -- and we talked about this earlier. it used to be sort of a bob and weave where donald trump would say something extreme and then back off and go, oh, no, no, i don't mean that. i don't mean that at all. now they're all just coming straight -- it used to be bannon would say something crazy and trump and his people would say, no, that's not the case. no, they're aligned now. you know, bannon said four years -- seven years ago i'm a

lemonist. i want to tear down the state. well, trump's with him now. trump is a leninist. trump wants to appear down the state. they want to arrest people, even his former lawyers that turned on him. i mean, this is just full-on fascism, and they're proud of it. >> that's what's remarkable, joe, molly and i were just talking about it. there's no secret to the secret plan. believe them when they tell you what they're going to do. bannon went on to say this movement's moving beyond trump. trump in his view is a moderate. so, you know, they're talking about the greatest deportation in history. it's pretty chilling, and as you said, the remarkable thing about it is that they're not hiding the ball on this. everybody should know, team democracy, it's time to suit up. >> yeah, and willie, it is, again, they're admitting the quiet part out loud, and now trump's even got it to where

he's lifting -- he's lifting words and phrases from hitler's speeches. >> yeah, the vermin term. remember he said i am your retribution to his supporters not saying that in some vague way, molly, but now specific plans from people who presumably would be close advisers in the administration about how they would go out carrying out that retribution. you just heard steve bannon, take it for what it's worth, he's a podcaster who's probably going to jail soon -- >> don't talk negative on podcasters. >> no, no, i'm saying that obviously influential in the maga movement, but the fact that he's just saying out loud, we should just pardon all the people who attack the capitol, the people who beat up cops on january 6th, pardon them. trump has said that too. >> it's interesting, republicans and trumpists have these ideas, they are not popular with the general electorate, right? they're not. we see this again and again, we saw this in the 2023 off year election. these ideas are not popular. ballot initiatives by democrats overperform. we're seeing this -- you saw

santorum say democrats get to run on sexy ideas, like legalizing marijuana and abortion, okay, but they're popular. they're popular ideas. and meanwhile, on the trump side you have republicans running on trump's retribution, deporting people, putting people in git mow. these are not popular ideas. >> so isn't the -- one of the larger questions that the country confronts or has to confront is when will america stop sleep walking towards end of democracy. >> right. >> i mean, all of us here at this table can recall the summer of 2015 when donald trump maligned john mccain, maligned his service, maligned his career. everybody i know said, well, that's it for trump. you know, anybody who says that about john mccain, that's it for trump. well, it wasn't -- and it isn't up until this moment in time, he can be up in clermont, new

hampshire, over the weekend on veterans day calling americans vermin on veterans day, maligning democracy, outlining exactly what he intends to do. he says truth out loud. his own truth. >> believe him. >> why? >> why do we sit here? why does "the new york times" and other major publications not start confronting this? you're right, it's time to suit up. but it's well past halftime. >> yeah. >> we're in the fourth quarter here. >> exactly right. exactly right. time to get on the field. it's remarkable. we know from 2015 how that story ends. we know how this one could end. so we've gotten the preview. let's go. coming up, one of our next guests just sat down with israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu, congressman jared moskowitz brings up the details from those talks when "morning joe" comes right back. from those talks when "morning joe" comes right back.

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captain john a. robinson iii to be rear admiral lower half. >> is there an objection? >> mr. president. >> the senator from alabama? >> i object. >> objection is heard. >> 229 captain david e. lud jwa to be rear admiral lower half. >> is there an objection? >> mr. president. >> the senator from alabama. >> i object. >> the objection is heard. >> major general john b. richardson iv to be lieutenant general. >> is there an objection? >> mr. president. >> the senator from alabama. >> i object. >> the objection is heard. >> brigadier general mary f. kruger and brigadier general anthony l. mcqueen. is there an objection? >> mr. president. >> the senator from alabama. >> i object. >> objection is heard. >> can you believe senator tommy

tuberville? what's with him? does he think he's cool? that was democratic senator john fetterman you saw there holding back laughter while it was really despair at that point. last week while presiding over republican senator tommy tuberville's repeated objections to promotions of military appointees. senator tuberville has waged an predented campaign in an attempt, a lone attempt, to chan t pentagon's abortion policy, which gives tve expenses and time off to members who need abortion service and health care, like if they have pregnaie in trouble and they th dnc or something. kind of makes you not want to join the military if you're a woman. tuberville's latest objections came after last week's election, where supporters of abortion

rights saw significant wins, including in conservative ohio and kentucky. here to discuss this, huma abedin and vice chair of the forbes women maggie mcgrath. good to have you with us. what do you make of senator tuberville digging in his heels. there are hundreds of people waiting in the wings here even after last week's elections where voters signalled their support for abortion rights, which is women's health care, by the way? >> i think what he has determined is this is good politics for him and helps him with his base, and i think he is right. he represents the deep right state. there's lots of abortion activists there. even being a foil to president

biden's agenda makes him more popular with the maga base going into a 2024 election. when you think about it he's not going to pay a personal electoral price, so he has nothing to lose aside from elevating his own space as a republican right-wing leader. think about the candidates who won last year, mike dewine and desantis and kim reynolds in iowa and brian kemp in georgia. them being anti-abortion candidates did not affect them electorally. i think he's making this theater because it helps him with his base and i think it's something we have to watch very carefully because he's going to continue to do it. >> he also has military bases in his state. i'm not sure what he thinks he's doing to our military, but a lot of major figures in our defense

and foreign policy believe he is really impacting our military in a negative way, making it weaker. maggie, meanwhile, there's reports of women organizing to help protect reproductive freedom and women's health care. there are also dire stories of women scared to get pregnant or wondering where they should live to have safe pregnancies. what are you seeing on the rg ohhing front? >> we are seeing a continuation of efforts that began obviously before last week and even well before the dobbs decision. i spoke with folks at planned parenthood who said last week's results are wind in the sails of abortion access in state constitutions. there are as many as ten states that could be voting on these ballot measures next year. while some of these proposals are coming from state legislatures, there are other cases, like in florida and arizona, where advocates still

need signatures on petitions to get this issue on the ballot. the energy from last week is carrying through in terms of attention, signatures and donation dollars for these initiatives. on the corporate and entrepreneurial front, i talked to the women organizers of two coalitions galvanizing support of the business community, because they understand that employees by a 2-1 margin want to work in states where abortion is legal and accessible. so they're planning campaigns in 2024 to further galvanize support of the business community. >> we're seeing reverberations in the business world and also around the world. the political fallout from the overturning of roe, you see abortion laws changing in places like france and poland what happen's happening, and is there

a lesson for lawmakers in the u.s.? >> i think what's happening in france is a direct result of the overturning of roe in the united states last year. the fact that president macron is introducing this special legislation, putting it to a vote in versailles, that would, if successful, enshrine abortion as a constitutional right in france. it would be the first country in the world to do that. we're living in a time where, according to the center for reproductive rights, 60% of the billion women of reproductive age live in places where abortion is mostly legal, the tide is turning a certain direction. when you look at the opposite, there are four countries in the last decade that have pushed back abortion rights, poland, el salvador, nicaragua and the united states. the world is moving in a different direction from where we appear to be in the united

states right now. >> we've heard vice president kamala harris having a great voice on this issue. you've been in touch with the vice president's office on this, maggie. what did the team say? >> word from the white house is that the vice president plans to continue her leadership on this issue, but it is not a short-term issue. it took years to undo roe. it could take years bring abortion rights back. >> huma abedin, maggie mcgrath, thank you both. i appreciate it. coming up, we're going to get a live report from washington, d.c., where 100,000 people are expected to attend today's pro-israel rally. we'll take a look at the security measures being put in place when we come right back. we ck

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the senate jams the house right before the christmas holiday with a giant bill that's thousands of pages long that very few people have read and spends last year $1.7 trillion. that is no way to run a railroad. so this innovation, this laddered cr we're doing prevents that from happening. i think we'll have bipartisan agreement that is a better way to do that, to have the appropriations process. here we are on the eve of november 17th. we have a shutdown looming and we've got to prevent that, because that would do even more harm for the economy. >> house speaker mike johnson earlier this morning on cnbc, optimistic that his plan to fund the government will pass a vote, which could happen later today. but he did not give a firm number on where support stands from members of either party. welcome to the fourth hour of

"morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast, 9:00 a.m. in the east. we have claire mccaskill. claire, it's going to take democrats, i guess, to make this happen. what do you know about what's going on? >> yeah, it's going to take democrats. it's always going to take democrats, all the way until january of 2025. democrats control the senate, democrats control the white house. what's really dumb about this is knowing he has to be democrats to pass anything, why wouldn't he ride the honeymoon right now and extend this past next year's election? what does he gain by coming back to this again in january when

the shine is going to go off the newness of his speakership and people are going to begin to forget how ugly it was when they couldn't elect a speaker. he's doing a clean cr. of course the democrats should support it. it just keeps the government open. i don't understand why he's doing this dumb dance that he has to come back in january and put himself through this again. it makes no sense. >> kevin mccarthy went through this before where members of the freedom caucus would not go along with this and he had to rely on democrats to get something done. >> the house freedom caucus are the ones who came up with the laddered approach. moments ago they came out against this cr. it goes to show again this divide within the republican party where chaos doesn't begin

to cover it in terms of their dysfunction right now in leading the house of representatives. but they also scheduled a vote for about 4:30 this afternoon, so we'll know more then. >> these are the basics of funding the government and keeping it running. a hospital complex has been hammered by air strikes and is no longer functioning because it doesn't have fuel or electricity. keir simmons has the latest. >> reporter: overnight, israel's air strikes unrelenting. this was jabalia refugee camp in the north. our team in gaza documenting more children pulled from the rubble in the south. continued shelling and gunfire

making evacuating many hospitals impossible, officials say. in al shifa hospital, surrounded by fighting, 36 premature babies as they were fighting for life, doctors tell us. israel releasing pictures of incubators, saying it would send them, but without any details. the president urging the israelis. >> the hospital must be protected. >> reporter: but israel's military releasing this roughly edited video with claims unverifiable by nbc news that this is a hamas hideout and a place were hostages were hidden. >> this is hamas using hospitals as human shield, as terror machines. >> reporter: a 3-year-old american-israeli hostage, her parents murdered by hamas along with 1200 others. it's almost four weeks since hamas posted this video of 21 should hostage mia shem, her mom

fighting every day for her release. >> the only thing i know is what i saw in this video. in a few days, it will be a month. >> reporter: in the video, mia says she had three hours of surgery in gaza in a hospital. where she is now, her mom just wants her home. >> there are talks that may lead to some kind of deal. do you have a sense of what you want to see? >> i just want to see mia at home. i don't care how. i'm only a mother. i got up to crazy situation, this terrible situation, and all i want is to get her back. >> joining us is democratic congressman jared moskowitz of florida, now back in washington after taking part of a bipartisan trip to israel where he met with prime minister netanyahu and the families of

the hostages. we're talking here about the hostages. we had on parents of a 23-year-old young man earlier in the show, incredibly moving, but also so impressed by their strength to keep this issue front and center in front of the country, the world and the government to get these hostages out. what did you see on the ground there? >> regarding the hostages, there's all sorts of talks going on right now that i'm not going to comment on, but obviously meeting with these families is heartbreaking. kids taken in front of parents, parents taken in front of children by hamas, by the palestinian islamic jihad. you know, the hostages are all over the place. in fact, it's possible that some of the hostages have been stashed among civilians in certain places. as john kirby said the other day, you know, it's also possible that some of these

hostages have been killed or perhaps hamas even took dead bodies. it's just completely tragic. they're in the middle of this war. they're caught in the middle of it. it's just awful. >> congressman, you met with the prime minister. you talked to military officials in israel about this balancing act they have, which is trying to avoid civilian casualties, but bombing places like the hospital because hamas has set up a command center underneath. you're dealing with an enemy that uses hostages and uses civilians as human shields. how are they navigating that in israel? >> sure. right now, unfortunately, in this country on social media our kids and us are being manipulated by psyops in china and russia feeding us fake

propaganda on what's going on there. the situation is dire. israel has tried to set up a field hospital, tried to get the u.n. to work on it. that hasn't happened. israel has tried to get people out of that. hamas is making them stay at gunpoint to create human shields. hamas wants palestinians to be killed and then to feed that propaganda. hamas isn't interested in winning the day-to-day war. they're interested in winning the propaganda war. hamas is turning down incubators. they're turning down fuel to get to that hospital. one thing that's important here is that, listen, this is absolutely tragic. there are civilians absolutely getting killed. but the numbers that hamas is releasing under the guise of the gazan ministry of health

includes hamas terrorists that have been killed, thousands of them. we're even being manipulated by the numbers. there's no doubt that israel has to do what it can to try to remove hamas from the gaza strip and protect civilians. israel isn't just trying to liberate israel from hamas. they need to liberate the palestinians. one thing that i learned while i was there is that hamas doesn't just have israeli hostages. hamas has taken the palestinian people hostage. they're not even letting them leave. they're shooting them when they try to leave, and that's all on video. >> and putting their own civilians between them and those israeli rockets. we have to underline again there is no fuel or electricity at some of these hospitals. the scenes are gut wrenching. but hamas has fuel. hamas could give fuel to the hospital to work the geneators

that work the incubators and the life-saving machines that are there. hamas could do that. they just aren't. >> congressman, did you find out anything you could speak to as to where the location of the hostages might be? are they separated? are they underground? are they hidden in small groups, large groups? any information at all that you picked up? >> without going into specific detail, obviously they're not all in one place. they're spread out. israel and the united states are using whatever technology they have at their disposal to try to figure out where the hostages are. when you're talking about hundreds of people being taken, they're all over the place.

it's extremely difficult, obviously, to figure out how you can rescue 200-plus people if you have to rescue them one or two at a time. i hope the negotiations are fruitful, but i don't want to comment on those further. i'm hoping that we soon see the release of hostages. babies. they took children. they took a pregnant mother who gave birth in the gaza strip. i saw a video in the gaza strip that is going to show that hamas copycatted the nazis. they lined up families in a row. they shot the children in front of the parents. they burned people alive in pits. they're going to see a father jumping on a grenade while the children screamed their dad is dead. they're going to see things they

have never seen other than when they go to a holocaust museum. this is a war that hamas wanted. they wanted to fill the world with propaganda, which is happening. but, again, we have to liberate the palestinian people from hamas. this is not just about israel. if the palestinians are ever going to get a state -- and they need a state. i'm for a two-state solution. the only way that's going to happen is to get the palestinians away from hamas. >> later today there's a vote scheduled in the house of representatives on the continuing resolution to keep the government open. it does not include any aid for israel. do you plan to support that cr? and what are your thoughts about the house of representatives' ability or inability to aid our ally? >> let me make a couple of points on that. i'm for keeping the government open. i'm not for closing the government. so i do plan to support keeping

the government open. if this doesn't work, who knows what will come out of my republican house colleagues. they're so dysfunctional. what's unclear to me is whether there will be a motion to vacate the speaker after the democrats vote to keep the government open, because that's what happened with kevin mccarthy. on the issue of israel, let me be clear, nobody in congress right now is hurting the state of israel more than speaker johnson. by politicizing that aid bill, by putting cuts in there, by conditioning aid, something we have never done before, something that's going to set a terrible precedent when we need disaster supplementals in the future, by doing that, he played politics. rather than bringing democrats and republicans together, supporting their number one ally in their greatest time of need,

he decided to divide us. israel doesn't have that aid now. they don't have new iron dome projectiles they need. we need humanitarian aid for the palestinian people. speaker johnson has prevented that from happening also. to be clear, if speaker johnson doesn't figure out how to get israel aid, i don't suspect he'll be speaking much longer. >> congressman jared moskowitz, thank you very much for coming on the show this morning. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> let's bring in david ignatius. david is in tel aviv right now covering the war for the post and was recently in gaza city. david, i want to start by reading from your new piece entitled "a silent desperation on the slow march out of gaza city," where you discuss witnessing civilians using a humanitarian corridor to flee gaza. you write in part, t was dead

quiet as the line stopped and started. the only sound was occasional shell fire in the distance. every 50 feet or so you could see someone with a white flag. people trudged forward with sacks containing whatever they uld carry from their homes. this war has produced deeply horrifying images. israel children assaulted in barbaric waysy hamas terrorists, palestinian children left to die under israeli bombardment. it's a war in which we've all looked into the abyss. this conflict has raised excruciaing issues i c't begin to resolve. here's what it looked like on the groundn sunday. israeli soldiers said they were trying to protect refugees fleeing. observer could only hope the line was moving toward safety,

rather than more death and destruction. david, tell us more about what you have seen as you are reporting there. this line really stuck out to me. this conflict has raised excruciating issues that i can't begin to resolve. can you put them into words? >> mika, i went into gaza, as you said, on sunday, embedded with the idf, the israeli military. i was able to see this humanitarian corridor. i would guess more than a thousand palestinian civilians passed by the point at which i watched from behind an israeli bunker. i was able to see that finally these civilians and as you looked at them, you had a sense of the desperation. as i wrote, you can only imagine the suffering they've experienced over the last five

weeks. i should also note they were making their way to safety under the protection of the israelis. you're seeing israeli soldiers with guns. we were told by the soldiers those guns were not aimed at the civilians, but at possible hamas attacks. we were told by a radio report that 15 minutes after we left that area, there was a hamas mortar attack in the vicinity. the thing i want to share with viewers is that the level of destruction of violence in gaza is as horrific as you've seen. it's painful to see whole villages wiped out. i do think israel now is trying to open the way for humanitarian assistance to the palestinians who need it. i was witnessing that myself personally. i talked about the excruciating dilemmas. israel is fighting back from a

horror that we can barely realize. the images are just the worst imaginable. the violence that's been inflicted on the palestinian people who are among the hamas fighters that israel is trying to destroy is also horrific. it's one of those situations that brings to life the absolute horror and degradation of war. as a journalist, i wanted to see it as close up as i could. >> as you describe the horrors, it's kind of indescribable the magnitude of the horrors and on that day, october 7th. but the horrors continue for many israeli families because there are hostages being held, and the families have to live with the fact every day that these horrors could be being inflicted on their family members as they're being held,

which leads to the dilemma of asking israel to pause when they also see what hamas' dying wish for life is, to kill jews. and yet you have these civilians that are being crushed literally by the bombardment. this is the conflict that almost seems insolvable. >> so i think israel has set its course to destroy the military power of hamas, and they're not going to stop that. but i think there will be humanitarian pauses, corridors. i wrote a column last night that's in the paper this morning saying that israel and hamas, throughediation of qatar, are close to a deal to release most of the israeli women and children who have been held underground in these terrible tunnels for these last five

weeks. that will be accompanied by a pause in fighting of five days that will allow greater humanitarian assistance. it's something that the world should welcome that better care can be taken of palestinians who need medical care, who need hospital facilities. hopefully that can be done during this five-day pause period if the deal goes through. but i don't think the war is going to stop soon. every israeli i talk to expresses a determination to be done. they do not want to face this hamas threat again. despite the international outcry, they recognize that the world is appalled by the images we're seeing of palestinian suffering, but they want hamas out of gaza permanently. >> david, first on the political front, what is your sense from your sources in israel about what is the shelf life of netanyahu?

i know there have been a lot of calls for him to resign because of how polarizing he is in the country and other issues. and then, secondly, do you get a sense that the palestinian people understand how they're being used by hamas, that this is a giant effort to set back the ability of israel to normalize relations in the greater middle east and this is all about a war of propaganda to try to make israel look like they're the brutal ones in this equation? >> i'm not an israeli political analyst and i don't want to pretend i can judge what's going to happen in the future. i'll just say in nearly a week here, i have not found an israeli who expresses strong support for netanyahu. the widespread view among right-wing israelis or liberal

israelis that netanyahu through the polarizing policies he adopted in the year before this attack in a sense contributed to the weakness. do the palestinian civilians understand they're being used? they're suffering through a war. i think they try to flee places. i saw, as i say, thousands trying to get out of northern gaza to get away from areas where hamas fighters are among them and israel has been bombing. i wrote a column a few weeks ago that i'd urge viewers to take a look at called "whispered in gaza." it collects 25 gaza palestinians who really hate hamas and

explain why. they were very courageous. they found ways to get their testimony safely and disguise their voices. it's worth listening to. it reminds you that not every palestinian in gaza is a hamas supporter. i hope israel understands there are a lot of gaza palestinians who want to be safe and secure without hamas. >> the "washington post's" david ignatius with a rare look inside gaza. thank you so much excellent reporting. back here at home, tens of thousands of people arexpected to participate in a march for israel rally this afternoon in washington. organizers say they expect about 100,000 people to be there showing solidarity with israel and bringing awareness to the rise in anti-semitism around the world. joining us is jesse kirsch. what are you seeing there? >> reporter: we have hundreds of people already gathering here

before this rally is set to begin. people took buses overnight from the cleveland, ohio, area. the group left around 1:00 in the morning. that gives you a sense of the motivation for people to be a part of this, willing to make drive like that. there are some organizations from across the country that have even chartered planes to bring people here again. again, we're looking at hundreds of people just from one larger community in the cleveland, ohio, area. one woman i spoke to is the daughter of two holocaust survivors. she lost three of her four grandparents in the holocaust. she says her mother was amongst those among twins who were experimented on by the nazis at auschwitz, she says. i spoke to her about what has been going on. here's part of what she shared with me. >> my parents would be so proud

today. my older two sons are coming and my granddaughter is coming. we are here because this is essentially who we are. we are proud to be jews. we bring a lot to the world. the world brings a lot to us. this cannot happen again, not after what happened before. since this started, i have been crying every day. i cry that i'm thankful my parents aren't alive. because if they were, this could have killed them. they could never have imagined this is happening all over again. how can this be? how can people have such baseless hatred? >> reporter: i think this speaks to what is certainly not a universal opinion, but something we've heard from people here, the idea that israel and judaism are inextricably linked. i think that's something we'll see from others in this crowd as well today. this is a march for israel, but it's also being billed as a time

to stand up against anti-semitism. we know, of course, there have been numerous incidents of bias against jewish americans, and of course there's concern for islamic american communities as well as arab american communities as well in what is a charged time. again, this is just one community. we're expecting to see many more people in the nation's capital today. >> give the outburst of anti-semitism we've seen in the last month, what kind of security is in place there in washington today? >> reporter: we know that local officials are coordinating with the national guard. we know this has the watchful eye of federal authorities. typically jewish organizations have private security teams and often will not go into details around this to preserve those security measures. certainly you can imagine there will be a lot of focus on law

enforcement today. there will be security measures on site on the national mall as well. this is a time where we're seeing a rise in concerning incidents. according to the anti-defamation league in the month following hamas's attack on israel, over the same period compared to last year, the adl says we've seen a more than 300% spike in anti-semitic incidents. >> let's hope it stays safe. coming up on "morning joe," we'll go over this morning's new inflation data just out and how it might influence the fed's next move on interest rates. plus, there appears to be a discrepancy between reality and public perception when it comes to the health of the u.s. economy. morgan radford has new reporting on that when we come back. repog on that when we come back.

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breaking news on the economy, the consumer price index was unchanged in october from the previous month with inflation cooling to 3.2% from a year ago. let's bring in andrew ross sorkin and stephanie ruhle. what do you see in that number? flat means what to the economy and to the fed? >> the fed is where it's all at. this is a positive, because when the fed meets in december, what's the big thing they could do? raise rates. the fact that inflation is not getting worse is a signal that jay powell will not raise rates. of course if he raises rates, it makes it more expensive to

borrow for individuals and businesses. it's an overall net positive. >> wall street up at the moment. what do you think it means to the fed here? >> i think the fed is not going to do anything. it's very unlikely that they raise interest rates. that's the good news. some of the really positive signs are rent, which is a huge part of this number, is not going up in the material ways that we saw before. that's going to be a big relief for a lot of folks around the country. you're starting to see that inflation numbers are just not going up. that's a great thing. the political question becomes do you get credit for this? prices have gone up. it's not that prices are going to reverse. when people talk about inflation coming down, it's not prices coming down. it's just it's not that much

more expensive. how does the public look at that, especially when the white house communicates about inflation, when you see former president trump communicating about inflation? and how much does the public look at the numbers about what's the interest rate on a mortgage or their credit card? you'll see those numbers come down. does that matter in terms of how people think about this issue when they're voting? >> andrew makes a great point. will the administration get credit? because inflation isn't getting worse. however, prices aren't going down, and life is still expensive. you aired that painful clip of steve bannon when he was talking about what people care about. he's like, listen, people say my dollar went farther when trump was in office. he's not wrong, but he's forgetting the fact that we went through a brutal pandemic. we're now facing not one, but two wars. so life in general is expensive

if you talk to the average person. they need to dig in and think about the fact that gas prices are down. your housing costs are lowering. but we're all about to go into thanksgiving and people are going to say, man, it's really expensive at the grocery store, and it is. joe biden has a positive, but complicated story to tell. >> they expect to take a hit in the polls on thanksgiving, because prices are still high. connect this to the unemployment rate and the overall health of the economy right now. make sense of it for the viewers. >> part of the hard part about this conversation we're having is we're effectively trying to say inflation is coming down. guess what? if inflation is coming down in some ways, maybe the economy is not doing as well. that's the complicated part. we're trying to create a soft landing in a way for the fed, but also for us.

nobody wants to go into a recession. the question is, how much can inflation come down without hurting the economy, employment and wages? that's going to be the big question of 2024. all of this looks good now if things don't keep coming down at a dramatic rate. we don't know where that's going to be in two, three, four, five months from now. >> let's bring in correspondent morgan radford, who's been reporting on why americans don't feel good about the economy as a whole despite the positive pieces of economic data we're seeing. >> just take a look at this polling, for example. you can see 73% of americans think economic conditions are getting worse here. there's even a slight uptick in that pessimism from august to september. this survey was done before these new inflation numbers came out. it reflects a question we've heard over and over for the past

two years. why are voters so down on the economy when the numbers keep looking up? to answer that question, we went to the most median income county in the most median income state in the country, meaning, this is a place that most closely matches the national median income. we spoke to voters there and learned some pretty fascinating details about how the economy really looks. welcome to cass county, north dakota, home to fargo, farm life and the occasional hollywood movie scene. it's also the city that most closely matches the median income of $69,000 a year. we're speaking to three different voters. jocelyn, a mom of two, says she can see changes in the economy show up every time she goes to the grocery store. what grade would you give the economy right now? >> like a three or four out of

ten. >> she moved her just under two years ago after living in hawaii and california. >> i was promised moving to fargo that things were going to be a lot cheaper. >> what are you seeing? >> my mortgage is more than what i paid for in san diego. there are days when i would go in and be like why are eggs like $5 today? >> one problem katie says she doesn't have. >> we are at my dad's farm. >> this is where you get your eggs? >> correct. >> as a single mother of two, she's saving money anyway she can. how many jobs are you working to make ends meet? >> i have three jobs. >> is it easier to get a job these days? >> it's easier to find a job, but it doesn't pay me what i need to run my household. >> when you see headlines that say the economy is not so bad,

does it feel like that's trickling down to you? >> not at all. i feel like that's for other people. >> why not? >> because the economy is getting better, but my job is staying the same. >> it doesn't connect? >> no. >> it's a gap economists we spoke to say is understandable. >> we were seeing wage gains at a much faster clip, and all of a sudden that's coming down. you're not getting the same bang for your buck that you did a year ago when wages were accelerating quickly. that's also going to creep into that consumer psyche even though inflation is coming down. >> small business owner clayton says inflation is something he still sees day to day even as his gourmet snack company is growing. >> the price of every ingredient we use has gone up at least 15 to 20% in the last year. >> does that hurt your bottom line? >> it does a little bit, but we

found ways to kind of fill in the gaps. >> a lot of the polls and even some people we've spoken to describe a sort of pessimism when they look at the economy. do you feel that or do you see hope? >> i may be somewhat of an optimist, but i believe our economy is working as it should. >> an economy that looks very different depending on where you're coming from. >> mika, there's also a hidden factor that some economists are looking at. that's credit card debt, which just spiked by the largest amount in more than 20 years. if the fed increases interest rates to curb that inflation, that also affects the interest rates on your credit card. when we see this continued consumer spending that looks good on paper, privately there might be a lot of americans looking at their ballooning credit card bills and feeling anxious and worried about the future. >> morgan radford, thank you very much.

this is a job for the biden campaign and for president biden as he moves forward sort of trying to make sense of a strong economy, but with people who aren't feeling good. i think morgan's piece really crystallized it, especially the woman who moved to north dakota from san diego and hawaii, but her mortgage was higher in north dakota. that right there is not what you move to north dakota for. >> yeah. this is not an easy job for biden politically. we have done so much better than other nations in terms of our recovery, but this was such a distortion in our economy. the pandemic and the money that the federal government provided in so many ways to americans distorted their habits, distorted their spending. just look at rent. rent is one of the biggest issues in inflation. when landlords went for a long

period of time not being able to evict people who weren't paying, when landlords didn't have the ability to control who was in their properties because of the rules that were put in place, which is understandable during a pandemic, that all comes home to roost. those chickens may be providing eggs for that woman in north dakota, but those chickens have come home to roost now in terms of rent and other issues. it's a huge mistake for biden to try to tell everyone how great it is, because it's not great for americans. groceries are really high. he can talk about gas prices. he should talk about what he's done in terms of energy independence and gas prices. he should talk about jobs being created. by trying to tell everybody that bidenomics is great is not going to move those poll numbers.

>> so much of this boils down to inequality. people hear the economy is doing great and they hear about low unemployment. they're like, well, i don't feel it, my wages didn't go up. >> when you think about that woman in north dakota who said, wait a minute, my mortgage is higher, remember she used to live in hawaii and san diego when rates were lower. if she just moved to north dakota, rates are higher. wherever she's living rates are going to be higher. when rates were low, we were sitting at this table going nobody can afford to buy a house because houses were getting bid up. much of the facts and how we feel are two different things. what the biden administration has to do is figure out how do you get people at least feeling like we're moving in the right direction. remember where we came from in the pandemic. a year ago most economists would have said today we would be deep

in a recession, and we're not. we continue to be in an economic recovery, and that's a positive. >> andrew, put all of these economic data points into a blender. how are ceos and corporate entities and wall street feeling? >> they're very hopeful. we'll see how these headlines translate into how people feel. you're seeing the stock market go up today on the back of this news. if you see a real run in the stock market in 2024, if there's some kind of euphoria that the chance of recession have been diminished and we're coming out of it on the other side -- and i think some corporate leaders are hoping that is the case -- does that translate into the way the public feels? interestingly, when president trump was in office and the stock market was going full throttle, people called it the

trump bump. people felt good about the economy, even though i think you could make an argument it was a very divided benefit, meaning, those who owned stocks were benefitting and maybe not the rest of the country. it was positioned in a way where the american public thought maybe something good is happening here. oftentimes it gets twisted and sometimes gets twisted by democrats who look at the stock market and say the economy and the stock market are two different things. a lot of it is about that messaging and how people think about their lot in life. >> see how this plays out over the next year. thank you all. appreciate it. still ahead this morning, the supreme court is taking action after several allegations of misconduct by justices. we'll explain the move the high court just made, next 37 explain court just made, next 37

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the u.s. supreme court has just adopted a formal code of conduct following months of intense criticism about alleged ethics lapses ethics lapses involving multiple justices. nbc news senior legal correspondent laura jarrett has more. >> reporter: this morning, new ethics rules for the nation's highest court, a formal code of conduct now in place after a steady drip of stories on some

of the justices' undisclosed trips, private jet rides and other perks. this 14-page document signed by all nine justices now laying out how they should avoid the appearance of impropriety, when to recuse from a case, and reaffirming the existing rules around gifts, a move some members of the court had previewed was on the way. >> what we could do is just adapt the code of conduct that the other court systems have. i think it would be a good thing for the court to do that. >> reporter: public pressure to do something has been mounting in recent months after reporting about justice clarence thomas in particular, and years' worth of unreported luxury vacations, paid for by a top conservative megadonor, something thomas said he didn't believe he needed to report at the time but has now updated his closure forms. >> i think it is clear every member of the court has run into problems in the last few years. this is not just a problem

besetting conservatives. >> reporter: this new ethics code experts point out still leaving much up to the justices' own discretion and doesn't answer what happens if someone breaks the rules? >> it remains to be seen if they are going to take this seriously or just doing this to get everybody off their backs, but i think this is a really good first step. >> reporter: but, not enough, says a top senate democrat on capitol hill, still pushing for legislative reforms. >> it may fall short of the ethical standards other federal judges are held to and that's unacceptable. and if it falls short, the american people will ultimately have the last word and the integrity of the court is at issue. >> nbc's laura jarrett with that report. and coming up, the last musical completed by iconic broadway composer stephen sondheim before his death in 2021 is now playing off broadway. and the two stars of the show, actors david hyde pierce and

bob bobby canavale join us next to tell us what it is like to be part of this special project. t o tell us what it is like to be part of this special project [bell ringing] and doug says, “you can customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual.” he hits his mark —center stage— and is crushed by a baby grand piano. are you replacing me? with this guy? customize and save with liberty bibberty. he doesn't even have a mustache! oh, look! a bibu. [limu emu squawks.] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

are you still writing, by the way? >> yes, i am. >> you are? that's good. not everybody composes into their 90s. [ applause ] >> i've been working on a show for a couple of years with playwright named david ives. and it's called "square one." and we had a reading of it last week and we were encouraged, so we're going to go ahead with it and with any luck, we'll get it on next season. >> that is the legendary broadway composer stephen sondheim, just a couple of years ago, discussing his last musical, then called "square one," just two months before he died. his collaborators, david ives and joe mantello worked for another two years to bring it to the stage. they renamed it "here we are"

and now is playing at the shed in new york city. joining us now, two of the stars of the musical, david hyde pierce and bobby cannavale. great to see you. >> thank you for having us. >> what is it like, david, to see stephen? >> we were not prepared for that. it is incredible to see stephen talking about the show and seeing him again. even though he's passed, he's with us every day. >> people who love sondheim will be so anxious to see this show and fascinated by it. what is the story? it was his last musical. it was finished. what did he write? >> i would say the -- sort of the efficiently quick way to describe it would be, you know, a bunch of wealthy people go out for brunch and they can't find a place that has any food and it becomes completely chaotic and ridiculous and it is the music of, you know, i think one of our great cultural geniuses that we have had in the last 100 years certainly, and anybody who likes musicals or who likes david at

least, come and see it. >> anyone who knows who you are also. >> there you go. david, tell us more about what drew you to this, beyond the legend attached to it, and tell us about your character and what it is going to be like night after night. >> well, let me go backwards. night after night is amazing. it is very unusual ride, the comment we get most often is i've never seen anything like it. and at the same time you're getting steve's music and david ives' incredible storytelling. audiences are really kind of shaken by it. and also they go out -- i keep getting emails from friends who have seen it weeks later saying, it is sticking with me, it is living with me. i think it is part of it is because steve was in his 80s when he wrote it i don't know how old david ives is, but men of a certain age, people of a certain age creating this, so there is an awareness of the world around us of what is going on in the world around us that isn't spoken about in the show. but it is like an undertone in

the show and it is funny in all these other things, but it has weight. >> david, according to the notes you play a catholic bishop who likes martinis. bobby, who do you play and how does the tension work between the two of you? >> that's a good question. i play this sort of billionaire adventure capitalist who lives, you know, high and mighty. >> oh, a jerk. >> one of those. and he has endless wealth and all these people really care about pleasing themselves and getting as much as they can out of life, and which i think a lot of people can relate to. and once they have -- once they're forced to sort of realize what is going on around them, that's when the sort of walls begin to crumble and it certainly does feel like the audience is identifying with the characters in unexpected ways and the music, of course, is just -- it is just second to none. again, if you care about the theater at all, it is like going to see one of the -- one of --

one of our great american cultural icons in his last work and that's why i wanted to be involved in it and many people who come to see it, i think, are very touched by -- to get to see this genius' last work. >> how do you describe the magic of sondheim? we all know the name, we know he's an icon, we know the long resume. but what is it about sondheim that is so special and so different? >> i think he's firing upon all pistons, on all cylinders, excuse me, even on this last late piece, his music is extraordinary and very unique. his wordsmithing, he writes all the lyrics, it is brilliant, so funny. and you go, how did he come up with this. and then there is a heart and soul under every one of his pieces, no matter how weird or dark or unusual, his subject matter, that's the other thing, he did "sunday in the park with george" is about a painting. he did a musical about a painting. our show, he saw two stories by

bundwell, this musical director and he said, oh, yeah, it is a musical and now it is. it is all of that. i go back to this thing of it is stuff you haven't seen before told in a way that it hasn't been told before. >> from an original mind, that's not using some sort of source material or intellectual property to create something, it is what he's been thinking -- what he's thinking about, what he wants to explore and it usually has something to do with existentialism which i think whether we have the time to we can spend time thinking about and i think, again, it is a timely show for that reason. >> reading from "the new york times" review, it has a cast of can you top this broadway treasures. i think they're talking about you guys. you can see "here we are" now until january 21st at the shed here in new york city, getting great reviews. david hyde pierce, bobby cannavale, thank you for being here. that does it for us this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage right now.